lululand

It was 1:32 AM.

You were tucked into your bed in Los Angeles, California with your laptop propped up on your stomach as you let the queued YouTube video play. Lately, most of your nights, and days, had been like this- lounging around and mindlessly watching videos. Call it lazy, but it was becoming a new routine.

“Today’s another review video. I picked up this, uhm, fruit punch flavored vape-“

You had been subscribed to kurtsworld96 for the past couple of months. There was something about him that kept pulling you back in. It was almost like you didn’t want to leave him lonely, after all, his videos rarely hit the triple digits. If you didn’t keep up with his content, who would? The idea of some guy you’ve never met essentially speaking into the void made you kind of sad, so you liked to keep him company in a way.

From what you had seen, Kurt didn’t seem to have much of a life outside of content creating. All of his videos featured him either working his Spree, giving review videos no one asked for, or cursing out a computer screen after his character died- again. His whole account screamed desperate loser, which was probably why you found it so comforting. It wasn’t only easing your conscience that you were giving his online presence the attention and validation he craved, but it also made you feel like even at your lowest, you would never be alone.

You let the video play out for its entirety, chuckling slightly to yourself every time Kurt started rambling on about nothing or how he spaced out whilst taking a hit of the vape. Your attention was half there, half not. However, your attention was recaptured towards the end of the video.

“So, Kurties, I know I’ve been uploading content pretty consistently for the past few years; that way you guys have access to some great, interesting videos…. and I just wanna say thank you.”

You turned the volume up on your laptop.

“We hit one hundred subs!”

Suddenly, confetti flew across your screen and party horns sounded in the background.

“Thank you guys for watching my videos! I love the community we’ve built here on Kurt’s World. And my way of saying thanks is gonna be a lot more great content- so make sure you stay tuned this next week for some awesome videos!”

One hundred subscribers?

Your mouth frowned a little once you saw his palpable excitement. Kurt was putting a lot of effort into his channel and you felt bad that he wasn’t getting the recognition that he craved.

Even you had more than one hundred followers on your Instagram, and you weren’t even trying to be an influencer!

Sure, Kurt wasn’t the most interesting or professional creator you watched, but he definitely deserved more than he was getting. So, you typed his username into your Instagram search on your phone and scrolled to his DM’s.

You paused as you watched your cursor blink in the little gray box. What could you say?

I’m sorry your channel is flopping? Never give up?

With a sigh you turned to your alarm clock and saw that it read 1:58 AM.

What are the chances he’ll see my message, it’s way too late.

1:59 AM @ coolcatgurl55 hi! i just wanted to tell you how much i <3 ur youtube vids!

sent.

Rubbing your eyes, you set your phone down on your nightstand, close your laptop, and scooch down into bed.

When you awoke the next morning, it was 9:47 AM. After wiping the sleep from your eyes you spring for your phone on the nightstand so you can scroll Instagram before you start your day. However, your finger freezes over the screen once you register the notifications you got overnight.

2:02 AM @ kurtsworld96 AYYY much appreciated

❗️kurtsworld96 started following you

2:02 AM @ kurtsworld96 Woah…. Just saw your profile…..

2:02 AM @ kurtsworld96 U R gorjus 😍😍

❗️ kurtsworld96 ❤️ your photo

❗️ kurtsworld96 ❤️ your photo

2:04 AM @ kurtsworld96 Cute dog btw

2:05 AM @ kurtsworld96 OMG NO WAY! UR from LA?

2:05 AM @ kurtsworld96 Maybe we could meet up? ⬆️ 🆙

2:07 AM @ kurtsworld96 HAHA… JK JK 😂😂🤣

2:08 AM @ kurtsworld96 …..unless….. 🙃

❗️ kurtsworld96 ❤️ your photo

❗️ kurtsworld96 commented “😍😍🔥” on your photo

2:33 AM @ kurtsworld96 Are you still awake?

2:35 AM @ kurtsworld96 Gunna head to bed soon 🔜 🛌

3:13 AM @ kurtsworld96 Goodnight! 😴💤🌙

You were completely stunned.

Sure, guys had reached out to you through your DMs before, but never so aggressively.

Just like his Youtube videos, you found his messages to be awkward and desperate. His way of texting reminded you of your younger brother, who was currently in middle school.

But still, your mind wandered back to why you continued to watch his videos in the first place.

His loneliness.

His irrelevance.

Him.

If you didn’t respond to his message you’d be doing the exact opposite of what your intentions considered.

The sudden cold wraps around your bare arms and shoulders instantly. A sharp shiver runs down your spine, leaving a heavy layer of goosebumps across your skin. It stings a little, but it’s a good kind of sting. 

It wakes you up. It clears the fog in your brain. 

You know the chill will pass in a minute once your body adjusts to the drop in temperature.

You raise the red plastic cup in your hand and take a slow sip of your drink. The liquid is sweet and harsh, burning its way down your throat and settling like a small lump of heat in your chest. You lean your back against the cool wall, letting the night quiet things down inside your head.

You look around. 

Out here, scattered across the yard and standing in small groups, are dozens of people. Some of them are total strangers — freshmen you’ve never seen before, or visitors from out of town who followed someone else to the house. 

Others are faces you recognize vaguely from across campus. You see a few people you share a massive lecture hall with, or faces you pass in the hallway on your way to morning classes.

There are friends of friends leaning over the grass, laughing loudly at something you can’t hear, and couples leaning against the dark tree trunks near the edge of the yard.

And then your eyes keep moving until they settle on one person. 

A person you know very well.

It’s completely impossible to stop the sudden, heavy knot that forms in the pit of your stomach. It’s an automatic reaction, something your body does every single time you catch sight of him around campus, in the library, or at one of these chaotic weekend parties. 

In a place like this, it’s practically impossible not to look at him. He doesn’t just occupy space; he controls it. His presence naturally pulls the focus of the entire party toward wherever he happens to be standing. 

It’s partly because he’s tall, relaxed, and effortlessly confident, but mostly because he’s the head of the fraternity hosting the party. 

In a setting like this, Steve is effectively at the center of the universe.

He’s leaning back near the other side of the house, surrounded by a tight circle of his frat brothers and a few girls leaning in close to hear whatever story he’s telling. 

He’s wearing a loose buttoned-up shirt, hands loosely tucked into his jeans pockets, nodding along as someone speaks before throwing his head back with a genuine, booming laugh that carries faintly over the ambient noise of the night.

And yet, as you stand there watching him from the shadows of the yard, the knot in your stomach tightens for a completely different reason.

Every time you look at him, your mind instantly betrays you. It rushes straight back to the dark, quiet sanctuary of his bedroom — or yours. It drags up vivid memories of his weight pressed against you, the heat of his skin, the rough grip of his fingers on your waist, and the sound of his low, heavy groans right against your ear as he whimpers your name into the middle of the night.

In private, away from the noise and the crowd, he isn’t this distant, untouchable leader of the house. In private, he’s intense, possessive, and completely undone by you. The contrast between who he’s to everyone else out here and who he’s when the bedroom door locks is enough to make your pulse pick up speed right now, despite the freezing air.

Before you can even pull your gaze away or try to look casually disinterested, his head turns slightly.

His eyes sweep across the yard and connect directly with yours.

There is a brief beat of total stillness between the two of you across the crowded place.

A slow, familiar smile spreads across Steve’s face at the distance. It’s that half-smirk, half-grin that always means trouble. He raises his red cup toward you in a silent, unspoken toast.

You lift your own cup in return, offering a faint, subtle nod.

You genuinely assume that’s where it will end. That’s usually how the unspoken rules work when you are surrounded by other people. You expect that simple salute to be the entire extent of your interaction for the night — a secret nod between two people who share a locked-door agreement, while he stays with his inner circle and you eventually slip away into the night.

But then you see him turn his head toward one of his best friends standing beside him. Steve leans in, murmurs a quick sentence into the guy’s ear, and gives him a light pat on the shoulder. His friends look over in your direction, nodding with knowing smirks, and Steve breaks away from the group.

He starts walking directly toward you.

Your breath hitches slightly. You watch him navigate through the crowd on the lawn, stepping around groups of people who try to catch his attention as he passes. He gives them quick, polite half-nod responses without slowing his pace down for a single second. 

His focus is entirely locked onto you as he walks the last steps until he’s next to you.

"I didn’t think I was going to see you tonight," he says as he reaches you.

Before you can formulate an answer, his hand reaches out and finds its place on your waist. His touch is warm and steady, instantly burning right through the thin fabric of your top. He steps into your personal space, pressing his shoulder comfortably against the cool wall right next to you, and leans down to plant a soft, quick kiss on your cheek. 

His lips linger against your skin just a fraction of a second longer than a friendly greeting requires, his cologne mixing with the cool night breeze.

"My friends convinced me," you say, lifting your cup slightly and pointing with your thumb back toward the loud, glowing interior of the house. "They practically dragged me out of my room. But I’m leaving in a little bit anyway."

Steve grunts softly, tilting his head to the side with a look of a disappointed puppy playing on his face.

"Why?" he asks. His free hand reaches up, his fingers brushing gently against your cheek as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. His warm skin feels incredible against your cold face. "Stay."

You smile, shaking your head softly as you look up into his eyes.

"I can’t," you say, keeping your voice low. "I actually have to go home and study for exams next week."

Steve rolls his eyes with a dramatic, affectionate sigh. 

"Exams are days away."

He drops his hand from your hair and slides his fingers into the back pocket of his dark jeans, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. With practiced, fluid skill, he taps a cigarette out of the top, catches it between his lips, and sparks the flame. 

The tiny burst of orange light briefly illuminates the sharp angles of his jaw, his cheekbones, and the dark glint in his eyes before he snaps the lighter shut.

He turns his head slightly to the side, inhaling deeply, and blows a thin stream of smoke up into the night sky, making sure the breeze carries it entirely away from your face.

"You’re always so applied," he says, turning his eyes back to yours with a small, fond smirk teasing the corners of his mouth. "Always the good student."

You bite the inside of your cheek, shifting your weight from one foot to the other as you glance away toward the yard, then bring your gaze back to his face.

"We all do what we can," you reply lightly.

Steve smiles, his dark eyes sparkling under the dim lights.

"You know..." he says, his voice dropping into a smoother tone, "you could always just stay here and study in my room."

He steps a fraction of an inch closer, his fingers reaching up to casually adjust the thin strap of your top where it has slipped slightly off your shoulder. His knuckles brush against your bare skin, sending another shiver through your spine that has nothing to do with the cold outside.

"You always say that," you counter, raising your eyebrows at him with a slight, knowing smirk. "Every single time. And we never actually study."

"Well," Steve says, his voice full of easy charm, "that’s because you distract me."

"Oh, really?" You tilt your head, playing along with the dynamic. "So now it’s my fault?"

He lets out a soft, low laugh that vibrates softly in his chest. He brings the cigarette back to his lips and takes another long drag. This time, as he exhales, a faint cloud of smoke drifts directly into the space between your faces. The warm smoke hits your face, making your eyes sting just a little bit, but you don’t step back. You don’t complain. You just stand your ground, watching him through the light hazy veil.

"It’s always your fault," he insists, his eyes fixed on yours.

You let out a dry, sarcastic little laugh, shaking your head in mock disbelief. 

"Right. Of course it is. My bad."

Steve moves closer. His free hand leaves your waist and glides up the side of your neck, his warm thumb resting along your jawline. He gently tilts your head to the side, leaning down to press a soft, lingering kiss against the corner of your lips.

"Steve..." you murmur softly.

You raise your free hand and place it gently against his chest, giving him a small, playful push to create an inch of space between you.

"What?" he asks, pulling back just enough to look at you, his eyes wide with mock surprise and an amused grin on his lips.

You swallow hard, your hand still resting against him, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart underneath. 

You have to admit it to yourself: it gives you a sudden wave of embarrassment to kiss him out here in the open.

It’s not because you don’t want to — God knows you want to. But standing out here, where anyone can clearly see the two of you, a heavy, familiar insecurity begins to twist inside your head. 

You know who Steve is. You know his reputation, you know his charm, and you know how many girls in that very house would jump at the chance to be standing where you are right now. 

The constant, quiet fear that you are ultimately just another girl in his endless lineup — just another casual weekend hookup he keeps around for convenience — is a dark thought that constantly hovers at the edge of your mind whenever you’re around him in public.

Steve seems to sense the subtle shift in your energy immediately. He doesn’t pull away completely. Instead, he steps right back into your space, leaning his head down until his breath feels like a warm brush against the shell of your ear.

"Are you going to get all shy on me now?" he whispers, his voice dropping into that quiet, gravelly register he usually reserves for when the two of you are completely alone behind a locked door.

You can feel the heat of his smile against your skin.

"We both know you’re not shy at all," he adds playfully, his tone dripping with teasing warmth. "Come on."

He shifts his head slightly, his lips finding the corner of your mouth again, pressing another soft, lingering kiss right against your skin. The touch is so effortless, so casually confident, that it completely melts the small barrier of resistance you were trying to hold up.

"What do I have to do to convince you to stay tonight?" he whispers directly against your lips, his breath smelling faintly of tobacco and alcohol.

You shake your head, trying your absolute best to keep a straight face, though a reluctant smile breaks through anyway.

"You’re not going to be able to convince me, Steve," you murmur back, looking right into his eyes. "Not tonight."

Steve lets out a quiet, velvety laugh, stepping back just a fraction of an inch to look down at you.

He doesn’t press the issue any further with words. Instead, he slowly raises the cigarette back to his lips and takes one final, exceptionally long drag. The tip glows a bright, burning red in the dark night. He holds the thick, dense smoke in his mouth and throat, his dark eyes never breaking contact with yours for a single second.

Before you can even process what he’s doing, his free hand reaches up and buries itself deeply into the hair at the back of your head. His fingers tangle firmly into your strands, gripping you with a gentle authority that instantly anchors you right in front of him.

He leans down, closing the remaining distance, and presses his mouth firmly against yours.

You gasp softly in surprise against his lips, and as you do, Steve slowly exhales the warm, thick smoke directly into your mouth.

The heat of the smoke fills your senses — a mix of warm air, rich tobacco, and the intoxicating taste of his lips.

You don’t pull back. Not even a single millimeter.

Every single bit of doubt or hesitation in your mind vanishes in an instant, burned away by the sheer physical heat of him. Your free hand shoots forward, your fingers hooking tightly through the front belt loop of his dark jeans, pulling him physically closer until there isn’t a single breath of air left between his chest and yours. 

You hold him there, drinking in the taste of him, completely surrendering to the moment.

When he finally pulls his mouth away, he breaks the seal of the kiss slowly, lingering just above your lips.

You take a small, quiet breath and slowly exhale the residual cloud of smoke straight back into his face.

Steve stands there for a beat, watching the smoke drift past his nose, a look of absolute satisfaction and quiet triumph spreading slowly across his features. His smile widens into a genuine, confident grin.

"I’ll see you on Monday then," he says softly, his thumb giving your hip one last, gentle squeeze through your clothes.

He slips the cigarette back between his lips, takes his hand out of your hair, and turns around without another word. You watch him walk back, his hands sliding back into his jean pocket as he rejoins his group of friends, laughing off a joke as if he hadn’t just completely stolen your breath away.

You stand there alone against the cold wall, your pulse hammering against your ribs, trying to steady your breathing in the crisp night air.

Maybe the study session can wait one more night.

⭑ a/n: clearly inspired by recent events. i couldn't help it. sorry. ⭑

⋆⭒˚.⋆ likes, reblogs and comments are appreciated !! thank you for reading. ⋆⭒˚.⋆

"Cut! Can we get some absolute silence on the other side of the set? Literally, everyone can hear you!"

The director’s voice booms through the megaphone, his italian accent sharp and irritated. He rubs his temples aggressively, looking like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown right there in his folding chair. 

Instantly, a heavy hush falls over the area, though the distant, muffled hum of the studio lot never truly stops.

Almost immediately, the heavy tension breaks as a small army of crew members floods the set. Two production assistants and your lead makeup artist run toward you eager to fix any imperfection before the next take.

You force a small, polite smile, trying to ease their frantic energy as she steps close, her touch incredibly gentle as she taps a soft paper tissue against your cheek, carefully soaking up the wet trails of your tears without ruining the base foundation.

"That was absolutely incredible," your assistant whispers softly next to you. She hands you a small bottle of water with a straw, her eyes wide with genuine admiration. "No, seriously. I had goosebumps the entire time. No one could have done that scene the way you did. Everyone behind the cameras was holding their breath."

"Thank you," you say, your voice sounding a little scratchy and tired even to your own ears. You take a small sip of water.

"Take fifteen, everyone!" the director suddenly yells, throwing his hands in the air. He climbs down from his high chair and immediately starts walking toward the outdoor exit, heading in the direction of the private trailers.

"Thanks, guys, I’ll be right back," you tell the makeup team, gently stepping away from the touch of their brushes. "I’m going to go talk to him. There are a few things about the next scene that I want to clarify. The emotional transition feels a bit abrupt."

Your assistant nods understandingly, pulling your script from her bag. 

"Of course. Do you want me to come with you? Or should I bring your jacket?"

"No, I’m fine," you reply, already taking a step back, wrapping your silk robe tightly around your body. "It’ll be a second."

You walk quickly, pulling the fabric of your robe together and tying the belt in a tight knot.

As you step outside the set, the blinding Italian sun hits you instantly. You squint against the brightness after spending hours under the dim, artificial lights. You walk past old, dusty props stacked against the studio walls and stacks of wooden crates.

You turn the corner of the director’s large trailer, expecting to find him sitting alone on the steps, perhaps reviewing his notes. Instead, your feet freeze mid-step. Your breath hitches sharply in your throat.

Standing in the small patch of shade next to the trailer are the two people you wanted to see least in the entire world.

Josephine’s standing incredibly close to the director. She has her hand casually wrapped around his arm, leaning her head in as she listens. She laughs — that high, melodic, utterly fake laugh that you have grown to absolutely despise.

But she’s just a minor annoyance. Your eyes immediately slide to the person standing right next to her, and your heart stops.

Sean is holding a large umbrella to block the sun, his other hand casually tucked into the pocket of his dark trousers. He looks effortlessly elegant, possessing that natural grace that always seems to draw everyone’s attention the moment he enters a room. He’s wearing a simple white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing his tanned forearms. He looks relaxed, confident, and incredibly handsome.

But because you know him — because you have spent hours memorizing the subtle shifts in his expression and the way he carries himself — you can see right through the act. You can tell he’s trying very hard to project an image of perfect, untouchable composure.

He chuckles softly at something the director says. But then, as if sensing your presence, his eyes lift. They lock onto yours.

In an instant, the easy, polite smile completely vanishes from his face. His lips press into a thin, tight line, and his posture stiffens. 

For a fraction of a second, you see a flash of something raw and vulnerable in his dark eyes — guilt, surprise, maybe even a trace of regret. 

But just as quickly, his professional mask slips back into place, cold and unreadable.

You take a deep breath, clenching your jaw. 

You clear your throat loudly and step forward into the shade, intentionally interrupting their little circle.

"I wanted to see if we could talk about the next scene before we start shooting again," you say, keeping your voice steady, professional, and cool. You direct your words entirely to the director, completely ignoring the other two.

The director blinks, surprised by your sudden appearance, but his stressed expression quickly turns into a warm, enthusiastic smile. "Oh! It’s so good that you are here! We were literally just talking about you!"

The words make your stomach twist in an unpleasant, tight knot. The thought of them discussing you behind your back makes you feel incredibly exposed and defensive.

"Is that so?" you say, forcing a polite, cold smile. "Then I guess I arrived just in time."

You finally let your eyes shift to Josephine. Her expression is a perfect picture of sweet, sugary malice. She looks at you like a predator that has just spotted its prey, her eyes scanning your face.

"Yes, indeed. How perfect," Josephine says, her voice dripping with artificial warmth. She slowly slides her hand away from the director’s arm. But instead of letting it drop to her side, she reaches out and wraps her arm snugly around Sean’s, pulling herself closer to his side.

You watch the movement. Your heart does a painful, sharp squeeze, but you don’t let a single muscle in your face twitch. You keep your expression perfectly blank.

Sean doesn’t pull away from her, but you notice the sudden, slight tension in his shoulder. His hand inside his pocket tightens, pushing against the fabric of his trousers. He still won’t look you in the eyes. Instead, he stares intently at a spot on the gravel ground between your feet.

"Sean and I were just taking a little walk after finishing our scenes for the afternoon," Josephine continues, her smile widening as she leans slightly closer to him, her voice carrying a triumphant edge. "We wanted to come over and say hello to our incredibly talented colleagues as it’s our last day on set. We heard you were doing some... highly emotional work today. It must be so exhausting to have to cry on command like that. I honestly don’t know how you do it."

The underlying insult is incredibly clear. She is trying to paint you as fragile, dramatic, and perhaps a bit pathetic, while showcasing her own easy, stress-free presence next to Sean.

"How nice of you to drop by," you reply, your tone as cold as ice. You keep your eyes fixed on Sean, refusing to give Josephine the satisfaction of your full attention. "And yes, it can be exhausting. But some of us actually prefer to do the hard work on set rather than just standing around looking pretty."

The director, completely oblivious to the thick, suffocating tension in the air, laughs heartily.

"Ah, that’s what I love about you! Always dedicated to the craft! But really, you were fantastic in that last take. The grief looked so real. It was absolutely beautiful."

"Thank you," you say softly. Then, you look directly at Sean, your voice dropping a fraction of an octave, becoming quieter, heavier. "I guess it’s easy to look heartbroken when you know exactly what it feels like to be left in the dark."

The comment hits its mark perfectly. Sean’s jaw clenches so hard you can see the muscle tick. He finally raises his head, his dark eyes meeting yours with an intense, burning gaze.

The silence between the two of you is deafening, drowning out the distant noise of the crew. In his eyes, you see a storm of conflicting emotions — defensiveness, frustration, and a strange, quiet plea. He wants you to drop it. He wants you to pretend, just like he’s pretending, that nothing happened between you in that hotel room. He wants to keep the boundary intact.

But you aren’t going to make this easy for him.

"Well," Josephine says, her voice sharp as she senses the sudden shift in energy. She tightens her grip on Sean’s arm, pulling him slightly closer as if physically marking her territory. "Acting is all about imagination, isn’t it? Though, I suppose some people have to rely on their real-life dramas to get any real emotion out."

You take a slow step closer, your hands curling into tight fists inside the pockets of your robe. 

"At least my emotions are real, Josephine. Some people in this industry seem to have trouble finding anything genuine inside themselves."

The director looks between the two of you. He clears his throat nervously, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he looks down at his notes. 

"Uh, right. Well, about the next scene—"

"Actually," you interrupt him, smiling politely. “I’ll go and refresh myself. See you inside.” you assure him as the director nods at you 

“I’ll walk you,” before you can turn in your trailer’s direction, Sean speaks up for the first time, and suddenly the shadow of the umbrella covers you from the heat; although now it’s impossible to escape the warmth of his body besides you. “The sun is a killer at this hour.”

You bite your lip, unable to say anything. You look over your shoulder, Josephine’s expression is indescribable, but you don’t let yourself hesitate in front of her.

“Sure.” You speak up coldly, starting to walk, quickly feeling his steps right behind you.

As you reach the metal steps of your own trailer at the end of the perimeters, you pull your robe tighter around yourself, as if trying to block out his presence. You grab the handle of the door, ready to pull it open and shut it in his face. But before you can, Sean steps up onto the first metal stair behind you. 

His chest is almost pressing against your back. The heat radiating off him is overwhelming.

"Let me in," he whispers. "Just for a minute. Please."

You turn your head slightly, your breath hitching. His dark eyes are filled with a desperate, heavy hunger that makes your knees go weak. You hate yourself for how much you still want him, even after what he did.

Without a word, you pull the door open and step inside the cool space of your trailer. 

Sean follows you immediately, pulling the door shut behind him with a sharp, metallic click. He turns the lock, sealing the two of you inside.

The sudden silence of the trailer is deafening.

The fan is humming softly in the corner, blowing cold air that makes the fabric of your thin robe cling to your skin. The trailer is small, filled with the usual clutter of a working actor — scripts scattered around, half-empty bottles of water, a rack of wardrobe clothes, and a large makeup mirror surrounded by bright, round light bulbs.

You walk over to the table, putting some distance between yourself and him. You lean against the edge of it, crossing your arms over your chest. 

"You have two minutes, Sean. Say what you came to say."

Sean stands near the door. He has set the umbrella down against the wall, and he’s just looking at you. 

The professional, untouchable actor is gone. 

In his place is the man who looked at you in the dark, his hair slightly messy, his shirt open at the collar, showing the smooth skin of his collarbones and the hair on his chest.

"I watched you," he says softly. His voice is thick, carrying an emotion that makes your heart skip a beat. "I stood in the back of the set while you were doing that last take."

You look away, staring at the floor. 

"I don’t care."

"You do," he says, taking a slow step toward you. "I know you do. Your scene... it was beautiful. It was so raw. When you started crying, when you looked at the camera like your whole world had just ended... it almost made me cry. I had to look away because I..." he stops himself. He sighs, looking away, like trying to find the words. His fingers travel up to the bridge of his nose and he closes his eyes for a second. “I just know I’m never going to be half as talented as you are.”

You click your tongue, shaking your head. Something inside you doesn’t buy his "poor me" act for a second; yet at the same time, you know it’s true — that he really is that insecure about himself.

You look at him, tilting your head.

“So… is it really your last day around here?

Sean avoids your eyes for a moment, his fingers nervously adjusting the cuffs of his shirt.

“Yeah.”

“And you’re going back to the United States?” you press on, your voice cutting sharply through the quiet hum of the place.

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck, looking completely exhausted. 

“I’m thinking about it. Josephine asked me to go back to Los Angeles with her. Her father is funding a big new project over there, and she wants me as the male lead. It’s a huge opportunity.”

You let out a short, sharp laugh, but there is no real humor in it. Only bitterness. 

“A huge opportunity. Right. So you’re just going to pack your bags and follow her across the ocean like a good little puppy.”

“Don’t do that,” he says, his voice dropping an octave, a warning clear in his tone. “This is my career we are talking about. I’ve worked for years to get to this point, to finally be a lead actor. I can’t just throw away a chance like this.”

“A chance like what? Being her puppet?” You step closer to him, the anger flaring up hot in your chest. “You look at me like I’m the one being unreasonable here, Sean. You are selling your soul to a girl who doesn’t even care about your talent, just to get a shortcut to Hollywood.”

“It’s not a shortcut, it’s survival!” Sean steps right into your personal space, his face flushed with frustration. “You don’t get it. You have the directors eating out of your hand. The studio already loves you. I don’t have that luxury. If I say no to her, her father drops my next movies. I disappear. Everything I’ve built goes away.”

“You’re already disappearing,” you whisper, your voice cracking with pure angst. You look at him, your eyes searching his face for any trace of the man from a few nights ago. “Every time you choose her over what’s real, there’s less of you left. You’re letting her buy you, and the worst part is you’re glad to let her do it.”

The silence stretches between you, heavy, painful, and suffocating. The anger in his dark eyes softens into something deeply miserable, but he stays frozen on his spot, too afraid to reach out, too afraid of what it would mean if he touched you again.

“Why did you leave?” you ask him suddenly. He looks at you as his jaw clenches. 

"I had to… it’s complicated."

"Complicated?" You let out a harsh mocking laugh. "It’s not complicated at all. You’re just a coward. You’re still her little lapdog, running around after her, holding her umbrella, letting her drag you around by a leash because you’re too afraid of trying to build something for yourself."

"That’s not true!" Sean snaps, his voice cracking with a sudden, rare display of anger. He steps right into your personal space, his eyes burning into yours. "Quit calling me that. You don’t know what you're talking about."

"I know exactly what I’m talking about!" you yell back, your chest heaving. "I see the way you look at her before making a move. I see the way you let her claim you like you’re some kind of prize. Just cause you think she’s the only one who can make you a star, you sell your soul to her and… what? You treat me like a secret shame, now?"

"She is my ticket to the top!" Sean shouts, his hands suddenly gripping your shoulders. His touch is firm, hot, and it sends a jolt of pure electricity straight down your spine. "If I offend her, if I leave her side, everything goes away. I can’t just throw it all away for... for..."

"For me?" you finish his sentence, your voice dropping to a painful, quiet whisper. "Say it, Sean. You can’t throw it away for me."

He stares at you, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. His hands are still on your shoulders, and you can feel them trembling. He looks at your lips, then back to your eyes, his expression a torture of desire and frustration.

"You think she’s the only one who can help you?" you ask, your voice turning low, dangerous, and confident. You slide your hands up his chest, feeling the hard muscle beneath his shirt. You grip his collar, pulling him down slightly so he has to look at you. "You are so blind, Sean. Josephine’s a parasite. She doesn’t care about your talent. She just wants a handsome man on her arm to make her look good. You still can’t see she will use you up and throw you away the moment you aren’t useful to her anymore."

"And you?" he whispers, his eyes darkening. "What do you want?"

"I already told you that night, dummy…" you say, your voice dripping with conviction. You step even closer, your bodies pressing together from chest to thigh. "I can make you a king," you claim softly, your eyes looking at his lips for a second. "I don’t need a powerful family like her to make things happen. I have the talent, I have the industry’s respect, and the studio is already talking about my next contract. At my side, you wouldn’t have to beg for crumbs from Josephine’s table. We could have everything. We could conquer this entire industry together, on our own terms. You don’t need her, Sean… " your breaths mix together. "You need me."

He stares at you, completely speechless. 

The truth of your words hits him like a physical force. You can see the realization dawning in his eyes, the heavy weight of his ambition shifting, aligning perfectly with the burning desire he has been trying so hard to suppress. He finally understands that everything you said that night… every word is true.

Sean steps forward, closing the small distance in a single, aggressive stride. 

He grabs your face in his hands, his fingers digging deeply into your skin, his palms hot and slightly rough against your cheeks. There is no hesitation, he pulls you toward him with a desperate, terrifying hunger, his upper body looming over yours as he forces your head back. His mouth slams onto yours with a raw, bruising release of all the anger, frustration, and passion that has been building up inside him.

It’s not a gentle kiss. There’s no romance in it, only a desperate need to possess and be possessed. 

He presses his weight against you, driving you backward a step until your hips hit the edge of the heavy wooden makeup table.

You let out a soft, muffled groan into his mouth, the sound a mix of surprise and sheer relief. 

Your arms fly up, wrapping tightly around his neck, your hands sliding up to tangle in the soft, thick strands of his hair. 

You pull him down closer, matching his intensity, your lips parting as you demand more from him. He tastes like the bitter, rich smoke of the tobacco he had smuggled between takes and the sweet, sharp mint he used to cover it up — an intoxicating, addictive combination that makes your head spin and your knees go weak.

Sean groans deep in his throat, a low, animalistic sound that vibrates against your lips. His tongue slides into your mouth, deep and commanding, filling you completely. 

He claims your mouth in a way that leaves absolutely no room for doubt, his tongue sweeping over yours with a firm, heavy pressure. He tastes you hungrily, his hands shifting from your face to grip the back of your head, his fingers twisting into your hair to hold you still as he drinks you in.

"We don’t have time," you gasp against his lips, desperately trying to find a shred of sanity as he pulls back for a fraction of a second to catch his breath. Your chest is heaving, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. "They’ll be calling me back to set in ten minutes."

"I don’t care," Sean growls, his voice incredibly rough and desperate. His eyes are dark, the pupils completely dilated as he stares down at you, his breath hot against your face.

He doesn’t wait for you to argue. He slides his large, warm hands down your neck, his thumbs tracing the line of your jaw before trailing down the sides of your throat, leaving a path of burning heat on your skin. 

He grabs the loose edges of your silk robe and pulls them apart with a sudden, forceful jerk. The fabric parts easily, revealing the thin, white cotton summer dress your character was wearing for the scene you were supposed to be shooting. 

"I don’t care about any of them. I need you. Right now." He says, his voice dropping to a harsh, fierce whisper as his eyes sweep over your exposed body.

Before you can even process the words, he pushes you back further against the table. The hard, sharp wooden edge digs straight into your lower back, a sudden bolt of discomfort, but you barely even feel it. The adrenaline rushing through your veins numbs everything else. 

Sean is already moving, stepping directly between your thighs, his heavy thighs locking you into place against the furniture. 

His hands move fast, pushing the silk robe off your shoulders. He drags the sleeves down your arms, letting the fabric slide down to pool around your elbows. For a brief second, your arms are trapped by the bunched-up material, leaving you completely helpless beneath him, before he yanks it off entirely and tosses it carelessly onto the floor.

He steps back just an inch, his chest rising and falling violently as he looks down at your body. You are wearing nothing but a pair of tiny, matching white lace panties underneath the thin dress. The light fabric of the dress does nothing to hide the frantic pace of your breathing or the way your nipples are already pushing against the cloth, reacting to his closeness.

Sean’s eyes are wide, filled with a wild hunger that makes a shiver run down your spine. 

He reaches out, his thumb slowly tracing the elegant curve of your collarbone, his skin rough against yours. He lets his hand slide down, his palm spreading flat against your chest before moving lower to grip one of your breasts right through the thin material of the dress. He squeezes it firmly, his large hand completely covering it. He uses his palm to rub in a slow, circular motion against your nipple, applying just enough pressure to make you gasp as the sensitive peak hardens into a tight, aching knot beneath the fabric.

"You are so beautiful," he mutters, his voice thick and heavy with lust, his gaze fixed on his hand on your breast. "So fucking beautiful. It’s been driving me crazy. Since I saw on the set today in this dress, I just wanted to rip it off you and take you in front of everyone."

"Do it," you whisper, your voice completely breathless, broken by a desperate need that matches his own. You arch your chest into his hand, your fingers clawing at the smooth surface of the table behind you. "Take me, Sean."

Instead of answering you with words, Sean’s expression hardens with pure intent. He drops to his knees right there on the floor of the trailer, disappearing from your direct line of sight.

You let out a sharp, sudden gasp as his large hands grip your bare thighs. His fingers sink into your soft flesh, his grip firm as he spreads your legs wide, forcing your knees apart until you are completely open to him. The cool, oscillating air from the plastic fan on the counter hits your wet, aching center, making you shiver from the contrast. But a second later, that coolness is completely wiped out, replaced by the intense, suffocating heat of his face moving close.

He doesn’t hesitate for a single second. He hooks his thumbs into the delicate waistband of your white lace panties and drags them down your legs with a rough, impatient tug. He pulls them over your knees, past your calves, and yanks them off your feet, tossing them somewhere into the corner of the small room.

"Sean—" your voice catches in your throat, a breathless warning, but it’s already too late.

His mouth slams against your wet, swollen heat. His head disappears completely between your spread thighs as his large hands reach up, grabbing the hem of your summer dress and rolling it up, bunching the fabric around your hips to get it out of the way.

Your head flies back, your spine arching off the table as your eyes snap shut. A massive, overwhelming wave of pure, intense pleasure crashes over your entire body, making you tremble from head to toe. 

He doesn’t start gently. 

He doesn’t ease you into it. 

He uses his tongue in long, deep, heavy strokes, licking you with a fierce hunger from the very bottom of your opening all the way up to your highly sensitive clitoris.

His tongue swirls around your sweet spot with a firm, relentless pressure, his movements fast and heavy. The wet, rhythmic sounds of his mouth against your skin fill the quiet trailer, mixing with the low hum of the fan. Every time his tongue flickers over your clitoris, your hips twitch uncontrollably, lifting off the hard table as your body tries to sink deeper into the pleasure.

"Oh my God," you moan out loud. Your hands scramble behind you, your fingers finding the thick strands of his hair, gripping it tightly to hold him firmly against you. The smooth wood of the table is slick beneath your sweating palms, and your breath is coming in short, ragged, loud gasps. "Sean, please... fuck, Sean..."

He ignores your pleas, only digging his fingers deeper into the undersides of your thighs to hold you wide open for his mouth. 

He sucks on your clitoris, pulling it into his lips with a firm, rhythmic suction that makes a white-hot spark of electricity shoot straight down to your toes. 

You’re completely at his mercy, your legs trembling against his broad shoulders as he continues to eat you out with a filthy, frantic energy.

He pauses for a split second, lifting his head just enough to look up at you. His chin is wet, glistening with your own juices in the harsh light, his eyes dark, wild, and completely consumed by lust. 

He doesn’t say a word, but the look on his face is entirely primal. He slides two long fingers deep inside you, testing your wetness, burying them into your tight, hot pussy. Your body gives in to him instantly, stretching open to accommodate his fingers, pouring more moisture over his hand.

He starts to slide his fingers in and out of you in a rapid, pumping motion. His thrusts are fast and shallow, creating a wet sound that makes your face flush with heat. At the same time, he presses the heavy meat of his thumb hard against your clitoris, rubbing it back and forth in a brutal, perfect rhythm that mimics the frantic motion of his tongue.

The double stimulation is entirely too much to handle. You let out a loud moan. Your toes curl tightly as the first powerful waves of an intense orgasm begin to build deep in your belly, a tight, heavy coil of tension that begs to snap.

"Look at you," Sean whispers, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that goes straight to your core. 

He doesn’t stop moving his hand, his fingers pushing deeper inside you, feeling the way the tight, wet walls of your pussy are already starting to clench and pulse around them in anticipation of the climax. 

"You’re so tight for me. So fucking wet. You act all confident out there on set, walking around like you don’t care, but I know exactly what you need. Tell me you want me."

"I—," you cry out, your voice breaking as your hips roll helplessly against his hand, desperately seeking that final friction that will push you over the edge. The orgasm is right there, just out of reach, torturing you. "Sean. Please... I need... I want you. Please, Sean!"

Just as you are about to break, he quickly pulls his fingers completely out of you with a sharp, wet sound.

You let out a pathetic whine of protest, your hips arching up into the empty air, your entire body aching for the loss of the friction and the heat. 

But Sean is already standing up, his large frame towering over you once again. 

His face is heavily flushed, his chest heaving as he frantically works on the buttons of his trousers. His fingers are shaking with a desperation that matches yours, his composure completely gone. He unbuttons them with a rough yank and pushes the fabric down past his hips, releasing his thick, fully erect cock.

It springs free, massive and throbbing, the skin a dark, flushed red and glistening with a heavy coat of pre-cum at the tip. 

He doesn’t waste a single second. He grabs you by the hips, his large hands locking onto your bones, and lifts your upper body easily, sliding you higher up on the makeup table to get you into a better position. As he shoves you back, his movements knock a thick stack of printed script pages and a heavy ceramic coffee mug slide right off the edge, crashing loudly onto the floor, but neither of you pays any attention to the mess.

He spreads your legs as wide as they can possibly go, making you lean back onto your elbows, your chest arched upward, leaving you completely exposed and vulnerable beneath him.

"Look at me," he commands. His voice is rough, completely dominant, leaving no room for argument.

You force your heavy, hooded eyes open, your vision slightly blurry from the sheer amount of arousal flooding your system. You stare up into his dark, intense eyes as he steps closer, guiding the heavy, burning head of his cock against your wet, swollen entrance. He rubs the tip against your clitoris once, twice, coating himself in your wetness, making you gasp and twitch beneath him.

Then, he thrusts forward.

He slides into you in one long, smooth, brutal motion, burying his entire length inside you to the very base.

You let out a high-pitched, desperate scream, the sound echoing sharply inside the small, metallic space of the trailer. The feeling of him filling you so completely, so deeply, is almost too much to bear. Your internal muscles react instantly clamping down tightly on his thick shaft, squeezing him with an intense, desperate grip as if your body is trying to trap him inside forever.

"Fuck," Sean groans, his eyes snapping shut as he freezes completely. His entire body is trembling, his muscles locking up from the sheer tightness of your warmth surrounding him. He grips the edges of the table so hard his knuckles turn white, holding himself deep inside you as he waits for the overwhelming sensation to pass.

"Move," you beg, your voice a whimper, your hands reaching out to grip his hips. Your fingers dig into his skin, trying to pull him closer, trying to force him to start the rhythm. "Sean, please."

He lets out a low growl and starts to move. His thrusts are slow and deliberate at first, agonizingly deep. He pulls almost all the way out, leaving only the very tip inside you before slamming back in with a heavy, forceful lunge. His pelvis crashes against yours with a wet, heavy slap. The sound of your bodies hitting is loud, raw, and completely obscene in the quiet trailer, filling the small room with the primal noises of desire.

You wrap your legs tightly around his thick waist, locking your ankles behind his back to pull him even deeper inside you, demanding every single inch he has to give.

"Faster," you whisper against his neck, your teeth biting down lightly on his skin as the pleasure begins to spiral out of control again. "Sean, they’re going to come looking for me. Any second. Faster."

The reminder of the ticking clock only seems to fuel his desperation. His movements lose all semblance of control. Whatever restraint he had left completely snaps.

He grabs you by the waist, his large fingers digging deep into your skin, leaving dark red marks that will surely need a heavy layer of makeup from the wardrobe department later. He begins to pump into you with a wild, relentless need, his hips slamming against yours in a frantic rhythm. His breath comes in loud, his chest pressed flat against yours, crushing you into the table.

He’s hitting your cervix with every single deep, violent thrust, driving you to the absolute edge of madness. Your hands scramble blindly across the table behind you, knocking over a plastic bottle of water that spills across the remaining papers. Your fingers claw at the hard wood, your nails scratching the surface as you try to find some kind of anchor in the middle of this storm of pure pleasure.

"You’re mine," he gasps out, burying his face into the crook of your neck. His breath against your skin, his teeth biting down firmly on your collarbone as he continues to drive himself into you without mercy. "Tell me you’re mine. Tell me we’re going to take everything we want."

"We are," you cry out, your head shaking back and forth, your hair a wild mess across your face. The world is reduced to nothing but the heat of his body, the sound of your skin slapping together, and the deep, stretching fullness inside you. "We are... oh God, Sean, I’m— I'm close! Sean!"

The sudden, frantic clenching of your internal walls around his cock is the final trigger he can’t resist. Sean lets out a loud, animalistic roar against your skin as his own climax hits him like a train. He thrusts deep one last time, driving himself into you as far as physically possible, holding himself pinned tightly against your body as his entire frame shakes with powerful, violent spasms. He groans loudly, his head buried in your hair as he pumps his hot, thick semen deep inside you, filling you.

At that exact same microsecond, your own body collapses into a blinding orgasm. The pleasure is so intense, so violent, that your vision goes completely dark for a short second. Your internal muscles go wild, milking his throbbing cock in tight, rhythmic, uncontrollable waves that seem to go on forever, squeezing every last drop out of him as you scream his name into the empty room.

You cling to each other desperately on the messy table, both of your bodies covered in a fine layer of sweat, your chests heaving violently as you pant for air. The only sound for a long moment is the frantic, ragged noise of your breathing and the quiet hum of the fan.

The heavy, suffocating silence of the aftermath is broken almost immediately by a sharp, loud, aggressive knock on the metal trailer door.

"Five minutes to places! We need the lead actress on set immediately!" your assistant’s loud voice calls out from the other side of the thin door, her footsteps pausing right outside.

You freeze instantly, your heart stopping dead in your chest, a sudden jolt of pure panic replacing the residual pleasure. Sean’s eyes snap open, the heavy haze of lust instantly vanishing, replaced by a sharp flash of fear. He’s still buried deep inside you, his heavy cock slowly softening but still holding your bodies locked together on the table.

"I... I’ll be right out!" you call back toward the door, forcing your voice to stay steady, trying desperately to keep it from trembling or sounding as breathless as you actually are. You swallow hard, your hand gripping Sean’s shoulder for support. "Just fixing my hair and makeup!"

"Okay! Please hurry, the director is getting really impatient." Her footsteps finally turn and fade away down the gravel path outside.

Sean slowly, carefully pulls out of you with a soft, wet sound that seems incredibly loud in the quiet room. The sudden emptiness makes you shiver. 

A thick stream of mixed fluids immediately leaks out of your open center, running down the inside of your thigh. You quickly reach over to the table, grabbing a handful of tissues to clean yourself up before it can ruin the dress. Your legs are shaking so violently that you can barely stand as you slide off the edge of the table, your feet hitting the cold floorboards.

Sean stands up, his breathing still heavy as he quickly pulls his trousers up and fastens the buttons, his hands still a little unsteady. 

He steps toward you, his fingers reaching out to gently touch your chin, lifting your face so you have to look at him. The intense, possessive heat is still lingering in his eyes, hidden just beneath the surface of his panic.

"I have to go," he says softly, his voice still rough from the climax. He gently wipes some lipstick from your lower lip. "But this isn’t over. Not by a long shot."

"I know," you say, forcing a small, confident smile as you tie your robe back together and head to the mirror to fix your makeup. "Now get out. I have a movie to finish."

Sean bites his lips, hiding a smile. He grabs the umbrella, opening the door.

“Sean…” you call him, your eyes finding his through the mirror. “I don’t want to see you with her anymore.”

You can tell he freezes for a second. The look in his eyes tells you everything. 

He nods and closes the door behind him.

You look at yourself in the mirror again and sigh. 

You know he’s lying.

But in a place like this, everyone is far too good at pretending. 

Including yourself.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　

⭑ para val, te amo⭑

⋆⭒˚.⋆ likes, reblogs and comments are appreciated !! thank you for reading. ⋆⭒˚.⋆

“And that, my dear friend, was without a doubt the best ice cream you will ever taste,” Robin announces. She throws her hands up in the air before slumping back against the booth’s red vinyl seat, stretching her legs out so far under the table that her sneakers bump against yours.

You laugh softly, shaking your head as you scrape the very last drop of melted vanilla from the edge of your small paper cup. 

“I think you might be just a little bit biased,” you reply, raising an eyebrow at her.

Robin gasps loudly, clutching her hands to her chest.

“Biased? Me? Oh, okay. Wow. So what you’re actually saying is that you didn’t like it. Fine. My heart is completely broken.”

You can’t help the grin spreading across your face. Grabbing a crumpled, slightly sticky napkin from the center of the table, you toss it straight across at her and she just catches it mid-air, grinning like a kid who had just won a prize at a carnival booth.

“She’s actually right, you know,” Nancy speaks from across the table, setting down her paper cup. She takes a slow sip of her water through a straw before looking up with a sly, knowing smile. “You’re only saying that because you spent an entire year stuck behind that counter wearing a ridiculous sailor costume. You still have that desperate salesperson instinct trapped deep inside your brain.”

Beside Nancy, Jonathan drags Nancy’s half-eaten chocolate sundae an inch closer to his side of the table, and steals a massive spoonful.

Nancy catches him mid-bite. She gives him a look that is supposed to be stern and annoying, but the slight curve of her lips completely ruins the effect. She doesn’t even try to pull the bowl back. She just lets him eat it.

Robin rolls her eyes so hard you think they might get stuck in the back of her head, but she can’t hide the fond, playful smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. 

“You guys have zero appreciation for true culinary art. I worked hard in those trenches. I survived the endless loop of pop music and sticky floors. I earned the right to praise the cream!”

Listening to them bicker, you lean back against the backrest and let your gaze wander across the bright, buzzing floor of the place.

The mall feels like a universe entirely separate from the rest of the world. It’s drown in bright fluorescent lights, glowing neon pink and blue signs, and the constant hum of human activity. The air smells intensely of buttered popcorn, sweet cinnamon rolls, bleach, and expensive perfume. Kids run around in groups, their laughter echoing off the polished tile floors while their parents drag shopping bags from store to store, enjoying a quiet evening out. It’s vibrant, loud, and full of an overwhelming sense of life.

It’s completely, starkly different from the town waiting just outside those heavy glass doors.

It isn’t that you disliked Hawkins. It’s just that there’s a feeling you can’t quite put your finger on. Hawkins has an aura that manages to be strange and deeply unsettling, yet somehow strange and nostalgic all at the exact same time. It’s as if the town is holding its breath, keeping a massive secret that no outsider was ever supposed to learn.

But, isn’t it like that with every town? Even your own feels like that.

The thing is that, right now, the center of the mystery feels like it’s standing only fifty feet away from you.

You turn your head slightly, letting your eyes drift toward the ice cream counter.

There he is.

Steve’s leaning lazily against the high counter of the shop. His posture is effortless, one elbow propping up his weight while his other hand is shoved deep into the pocket of his denim jacket. 

He’s bent forward, whispering something directly into the ear of the girls working the register. Whatever he says makes her burst into a fit of giggles, her cheeks turning bright red as she buries her face behind her hands to hide her smile.

A sudden, sharp knot tightens right in the center of your chest. The sweet taste of the ice cream in your mouth turns sour in an instant. Your stomach flips nervously, forcing you to tear your eyes away and stare back down at your empty cardboard cup. 

You and Steve haven’t really talked. 

Not properly. 

Not since that day at the lake.

Ever since then, he has been acting strange. 

Sure, he still shows up whenever the group organizes a hangout. He has been there when the crew decides to show you around town, driving his car while pointing out local landmarks with a casual flick of his wrist. 

He has been there when Jonathan dragged everyone deep into the woods to help carry his heavy photography equipment for his project, leaning against a pine tree and tossing smart remarks into the cool forest air.

On the surface, he seemed like the same Steve everyone knows — funny, slightly arrogant, quick with a joke. But to you, his presence feels entirely different.

His presence is around you like a ghost. And frankly, it’s driving you crazy.

It frustrates you to your very core, because you have genuinely believed that coming to Hawkins would change things between you two. 

Back in the big city, there are always distractions, crowds, and the constant noise of a fast-paced life that seems to keep him guarded. You have thought that once he was back in his hometown, surrounded by his closest friends and familiar surroundings, something inside him would finally unlock. 

You thought the walls he keeps around himself would crumble, allowing you to finally see who he truly is.

Instead, being here seems to have made everything worse.

He feels more distant now than he ever has in the city. He feels absent, even when he’s sitting in the very same room as you. He’s like a shadow slipping through your fingers every time you try to reach out and grab him.

And yet, despite the distance, despite the growing wall of silence between you, your body stubbornly refuses to forget him.

Every time you close your eyes, you can still feel the heat of his hands gently but firmly over your curves. You can still feel the weight of his body pressed against yours, the rhythm of his breathing, and the warmth of his lips moving against yours in the dark. 

The memory of his touch burns you, making your skin burn with a sudden, frustrating wave of heat.

“Ready to go?”

Robin’s voice takes you out of your thoughts. You blink rapidly, pulling yourself out of the memory, and look up from your ruined paper cup. She’s already standing up from the booth, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

You swallow hard, clearing the tightness from your throat, and give a quick, reassuring nod.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.”

Before you can even fully pull yourself out of the booth, Robin turns toward the counter.

“Steve!” she shouts, her voice ringing out loud and clear.

Your heart instantly does a violent, terrifying flip in your chest. You grab your jacket off the back of the seat, slipping your arms through the sleeves and zipping it up to your chest as a desperate attempt to give your shaking hands something to do.

Steve turns his head toward the noise. Seeing Robin waving at him, he says a final word to the blushing girl at the counter, who gives him a small wave goodbye. He pushes himself off the counter and walks over to your table.

As he gets closer, you notice a red cherry lollipop tucked into the side of his mouth, the plastic stick poking out between his lips. He shifts it from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue, his dark eyes scanning the group before finally landing on you for a brief, fraction of a second.

“Hey,” Steve says, his voice smooth but lacking any real warmth. “You guys go ahead without me. I think I’m gonna hang around here for a bit longer, alright?”

You can’t help yourself — you glance past his shoulder. The girl from the counter is still watching him, leaning over the register and twisting a long strand of hair around her index finger.

The implication hits you like a bucket of ice water. A bitter feeling washes over you. You bite the inside of your cheek, forcing yourself to look anywhere else — at the floor, at the polished table, at the bright lights — anything to avoid looking him in the eye.

Robin, however, immediately crosses her arms and glares at him with complete disbelief.

“No, no, no,” Robin says, her tone leaving absolutely zero room for negotiation. “Absolutely not. Someone has to drive her home, Steve. I already told you, Nancy and Jonathan are dropping me off at Vickie’s place.” She pulls her denim jacket tighter around her shoulders, shaking her head firmly.

Steve stops sucking on his lollipop. His eyebrows pull together in a deep frown, and his tone instantly shifts, growing visibly annoyed. 

“Why can’t she just ride with you guys?”

“Because Vickie’s house is on the complete opposite side of town, Steve!” Robin shoots back, stepping closer to him and matching his frustrated energy.

“So what?” Steve argues, his voice rising as he tosses his head back in irritation. “It’s Hawkins, Robin! It’s not like it’s a three-hour cross-country road trip! It adds maybe ten minutes to their drive!”

“Steve! You literally promised me earlier today that you’d take care of it!”

“I didn’t promise anything!” Steve snaps back, taking the lollipop out of his mouth and pointing the plastic stick at her accusingly. “I said that if I was available, I would think about—!”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” your soft, quiet voice suddenly cuts straight through their loud, back-and-forth bickering. “It’s really not a big deal,” you continue softly, trying your absolute best to sound completely unaffected by the whole scene. “I can just figure something out. You guys don’t need to argue about it.”

“NO!”

The word burst out of both Steve and Robin at the exact same time, whipping their heads around to face you directly.

Steve lets out a heavy, dramatic groan that sounds like it comes from the very bottom of his lungs. He runs a hand through his hair, completely messing it up before dragging his palm down over his face.

“Fine,” Steve mutters through his fingers, his voice muffled and deeply annoyed. He drops his hand, glaring at Robin with pure irritation. “Fine. But you owe me big time for this.”

Robin doesn’t hesitate for a single second. She swings her arm and slaps him hard on the shoulder with the back of her hand. 

“You’re the one who owes me his entire life, you miserable grump.”

“You’re unbelievably exhausting, you know that?” Steve grumbles, putting the lollipop back into his mouth.

“And you’re an absolute idiot,” Robin replies with a sweet, fake smile.

“Okay! Okay, that’s definitely enough out of both of you,” Nancy interrupts, stepping smoothly between the two of them before the argument can escalate any further. She grabs Robin firmly by the forearm, gently tugging her toward the main corridor of the mall. She turns to look at you, her eyes softening with a warm, supportive look. “We’re heading out. We’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Call me if you need anything.”

“Yeah, see you guys tomorrow,” Jonathan adds, giving you a small, kind nod of understanding as he picks up his camera bag and follows Nancy.

Robin gives you a quick, reassuring wave over her shoulder as Nancy pulls her along down the hallway. 

“Bye! Don’t let him do stupid shit!” she calls out, her voice echoing off the tall ceilings until the three of them finally disappear around the corner toward the main exit doors.

The sudden silence that settles between you is deafening.

The bright neon lights of the mall suddenly felt far too harsh, casting long, sharp shadows across the floor. The distant sounds of pop music and laughs feel miles away, leaving only the sound of your own quiet, steady breathing.

Steve stands a few feet away from you, his body turned slightly to the side. He shoves his hands back deep into his jacket pockets, his posture stiff and rigid. He stares off toward the center fountain for a long, agonizing moment, the jawline of his face tight as he sucks absently on his lollipop.

Finally, he lets out a long, heavy breath through his nose. He shifts his weight, his hands remaining in his pockets as he gestures vaguely toward the glass exit doors down the hall with a quick tilt of his chin.

“After you,” he says softly. His voice lacks the sharpness it held during his argument with Robin, but it’s cold, flat, and completely devoid of emotion.

You don’t say a word.

You simply wrap your jacket tighter around your chest to shield yourself from the chill in the air, and begin walking toward the exit. Steve falls into step beside you, keeping a careful, agonizing distance of three feet between your shoulders as you walk side-by-side through the empty corridors.

As you push through the heavy glass doors and step out into the cool night air, a heavy weight settles deep inside your chest and realization settles inside your heart.

No matter what happened between you in the dark, no matter how real his touch felt on your skin, the reality is staring you right in the face: Steve is actively pushing you away, hiding behind walls you have no idea how to break down… again.

—

If it weren’t for the music coming out of the car radio, the silence between the two of you would be completely unbearable.

The speakers buzz with the beat of Would I Lie to You? by Eurythmics. The baseline fills the dark interior of the car, and the lyrics float through the air, sounding almost sarcastic right now.

"Would I lie to you?

Would I lie to you, honey?

Now would I say something that wasn’t true?"

You let out a long sigh, turning your head away from the passenger window to look at him.

The lights of the quiet town reflect on his face. They trace the sharp line of his jaw and highlight his profile in a way that honestly takes your breath away, even when you’re this furious with him. 

"You really didn’t need to give me a ride," you say. Your voice cuts through the music, sharp and cold. "I could have managed on my own."

Steve doesn’t look at you. His eyes remain glued to the dark road ahead, but you see his jaw tighten. His fingers flex on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white from how hard he is gripping it.

"Yeah, right," he mutters, his voice low and raspy. "Sure you could. Who were you gonna ask? You don’t know a single soul here."

You shrug your shoulders, leaning back against the cold seat and crossing your arms over your chest.

"People seem nice enough around here," you reply, keeping your tone casual just to get under his skin. "I’m sure someone would have given me a lift."

Steve lets out a small, sarcastic laugh that holds zero humor.

"Sure," he says. "Great plan."

You stare at the side of his face, feeling the frustration bubble up in your chest. It has been building for days, sitting heavy like a stone in your stomach, and you can’t keep it inside anymore.

"I don’t get it," you say softly, turning your body slightly toward him. "I really don’t understand why you brought me along if my presence bothers you so much."

"I never said it bothered me," he snaps back instantly.

"Well, you’re certainly acting like it!"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Steve frowns, his forehead creasing as he glances at you for half a second before returning his focus to the road.

"I don’t know, Steve! You tell me!" You throw your hands up slightly. "You haven’t said more than five words to me in days. Feels like you literally walk out of the room every time I walk in. You’re completely avoiding me, so maybe it’s ringing a bell?"

He rolls his eyes and laughs again, that same dry, bitter sound.

"What? Are you keeping score now? Counting the exact number of times we talk?" 

"No," you say, your voice dipping lower, hurt creeping into the edges of your words despite your best efforts to sound angry. "No, I’m not counting. I just... I expected you not to pretend I don’t exist after everything that happened between us."

Steve rolls his eyes again, letting out a loud sigh of annoyance.

You let out a harsh, sarcastic laugh of your own. 

"Yeah, classic. Keep doing that. Keep pretending it’s nothing. You know what your problem is, Steve? You act like you’re so mature, like you’re completely over everything and nothing touches you. But the second things get even a little bit serious, you’re the absolute first one to run away."

Steve immediately raises one hand off the wheel, holding it up in defense.

"Who ran away?" he asks, his voice rising. "I’m right here! I’m literally driving you right now!"

You roll your eyes, shaking your head in total disbelief.

"Being here physically doesn’t mean you’re actually here, Steve. Damn it. I really thought... I really believed that coming here was going to change something between us."

A sudden, sharp silence falls over the car. The radio music seems to fade into the background as the weight of your words settles in the air.

Steve slows down the car slightly, his voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet tone. 

"Change what?"

You sigh, turning your face back toward the window, watching the town slide by in the dark.

"Nothing, Steve. Forget it."

"No," he says, his tone firm, unyielding. "Tell me. Change what?"

"I don’t know, Steve! This!" You point a finger back and forth between him and yourself. "Whatever the hell is happening right here! I thought coming to your hometown would let me see a side of you that I hadn’t seen before. That it wouldn't just be whatever polished version you want to show me — or even the stuff you try to hide that leaks out anyway!"

Steve bites the inside of his cheek, his gaze locked firmly on the dark road ahead.

"Well," he says, his voice flat and distant. "Those are just ideas you made up in your head."

You stare at him, a nervous, disbelieving laugh escaping your lips.

"Oh, right. So I’m the crazy one now? I just made up the idea that maybe — just maybe — something real was happening between us?" You shake your head, feeling a sting behind your eyes that you refuse to let turn into tears. "Damn it. Forgive me, then. My mistake. But I guess you’re used to this, aren’t you? Used to girls having all these huge feelings for you, believing in something that isn’t actually there—"

Before you can finish your sentence, Steve yanks the steering wheel hard to the right.

The tires screech against the asphalt as the car makes a sharp, sudden turn onto a narrow, dark road. You gasped loudly, your body swaying with the momentum as you frantically grab onto the door handle and the edge of your seat to balance yourself.

"Steve! What the hell—!"

You look out the windshield, your heart hammering against your ribs. There are no streetlights here. The headlights of the BMW slice through total darkness, illuminating tall pine trees lining both sides of a rough, dirt road. The car begins to climb, engine straining as it pushes up a steep hill.

If it were anyone else driving — if you were in a car with a stranger on an unmarked, pitch-black dirt trail in the middle of nowhere — you would be terrified. Your instinct would be to scream or fight to get out.

But it’s Steve.

Despite your anger, despite the hurt burning in your chest, there is something deeply rooted inside you that trusts him. Even when he’s infuriating, even when he shuts you out behind invisible walls, you trust him with your safety. You trust him with your life.

The car bumps over gravel and exposed tree roots, climbing higher and higher until the trees begin to thin out.

Finally, Steve brings the car to a stop right near the edge of a high cliff. The headlamps shut off, plunging the car into ambient moonlight.

He lets out a massive, heavy sigh, dropping his hands off the steering wheel. But he doesn’t turn to look at you. He just stares straight ahead at the vast space beyond the hood of the car.

"There," he says, his voice sharp and blunt.

You blink, shifting in your seat, your tone caught somewhere between irritation and genuine curiosity. 

"There... what?"

"You wanted to see something more than what I let you see," he says, resting his arms on the wheel again, his head bowed slightly. "Well. Here it is."

You turn your head to look out the window, completely confused at first.

Outside, high pine trees frame a wide open view. From this spot, at the highest point above the town, you can look down and see the distant, tiny lights of Hawkins spread out below like a handful of glowing dust. Above you, the sky is completely open, dark blue and clear, dusted with thousands of bright stars.

And then, like a physical touch, it hits you.

A memory washes over you, leaving a deep, sudden warmth in its wake that you can’t even describe.

You remember that time coming back from the store where he told you about that place he used to go when he was younger, biking up with his friends on summer nights. He told you how he would stand right at the edge, looking down at the small lights of the town, feeling like he was completely untouchable. Like he was at the top of the universe.

The King of the world.

 King Steve.

You look back at him now. The anger in your chest begins to dissolve, replaced by a strange, aching tenderness.

Steve’s jaw is still clamped tight. He’s looking out his side window, giving you a full view of his sharp profile against the moonlight.

He reaches into his jacket pocket, his movements quick and tense. He pulls out another small lollipop, tears off the crinkly plastic wrapping with his teeth, and pops it into his mouth. 

You notice the nervous habit now — something to keep his hands busy, something to keep him from smoking or saying things he regrets.

You squeeze your hands tightly into fists in your lap. You have to fight with every ounce of willpower you possess to hold back the sudden, overwhelming urge to reach across the console and pull him close to you.

Instead, you just force yourself to look straight ahead out the windshield, trying to steady your heavy breathing.

The quiet inside the car stretches out, long and delicate. The sound of the wind rustling the pine trees outside is the only thing filling the space.

Then, Steve’s voice breaks the quiet.

"I’m not avoiding you," he says.

The words are quiet, almost lost in the dark space between you. You look down at your hands, tracing the seams of your jeans.

"It really doesn’t feel that way, Steve..." you answer, keeping your voice soft, but direct.

"It’s not that I want to," he says.

Slowly, Steve turns his head to look at you.

It’s completely impossible not to look back. His eyes catch the pale moonlight streaming through the windows. The sharpness in his face is gone, replaced by a raw, open vulnerability that makes your heart ache. He looks at you with those deep, heavy eyes — eyes that look like a sad, beaten-up puppy.

"It’s just that..." He pauses, running a hand over his face with a long, exhausted sigh. He throws his head back against the headrest, staring up at the dark roof of the car. "Everything she said is true. She was right. I’m just a stupid idiot, and I can’t keep dragging you along with me, even when I—"

You tilt your head, your eyebrows drawing together as you try to piece together his scattered words.

"Robin?" you ask, trying to figure out who he’s talking about. "Did Robin say something to you?"

Steve shakes his head quickly, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling.

"Nancy," he whispers.

Your heart feels like it stops dead in your chest. A cold shiver runs down your spine.

Suddenly, you remember the exact look on Nancy’s face when she ran into you and Steve near the lake the other day. She had looked at the two of you, then at Robin, with a look that was far too sharp, far too knowing.

She knew. She definitely knew there was something going on between you two.

"What... what did she say to you?" you ask quietly.

Steve lowers his head, shaking it slowly.

"Don’t worry," he says, trying to reassure you. "Robin doesn’t know anything. Nancy swore on it."

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, your shoulders dropping slightly.

"But," Steve continues, his voice tight, "Nancy told me that if we keep doing this — if we keep running around like this — she was definitely going to tell Robin. And she told me that I’m being selfish. That I get people hurt. That I drag people into my mess without thinking about what happens to them."

You sigh, turning your eyes up toward the car ceiling for a second before turning back to face him fully.

"I really... I just don’t get it, Steve," you say, your voice desperate for answers. "I don’t understand why us being together has to be this massive, dramatic problem. Why is it such a big deal that we—"

"You don’t have to understand it!" Steve cuts you off sharply.

He sits up straight, his hands gripping the steering wheel again, though his voice lacks any real anger now. It just sounds tired. Worn out.

"You don’t have to understand it," he repeats softly, looking at you. "You just... you just have to accept it."

A bitter, disbelieving laugh escapes your chest.

"Accept it?" you say, your tone instantly hardening. "Right. Accept it. Just like I’m supposed to accept it when you show up at my door in the middle of the night bruised, beaten up, and bleeding?"

Steve flinches slightly, but stays silent.

"Or just like I’m supposed to accept watching you beat the absolute hell out of some guy in an alleyway?" Your voice rises, sharp and heavy with all the unsaid fear you’ve been carrying for weeks. "Is that what you mean? Just accept the crazy, dangerous secrets you’re keeping from me without asking a single question?"

Steve’s eyes soften for a fraction of a second, filled with a sudden flash of pain. But then, right before your eyes, the wall goes back up. His posture stiffens, his jaw sets into a firm, stubborn line, and he turns his face away to stare back out into the dark night. He bites down hard on his lower lip, refusing to say another word.

You wait. You sit there in the dim light, watching him, waiting for him to defend himself, to give you an explanation, to say anything.

But nothing comes.

It’s a response you have grown far too accustomed to over the past few weeks: total, impenetrable silence.

Not just from him. But from everyone else.

Realizing that you aren’t going to get an answer — that he’s hiding behind his walls once again — you pull your gaze away from him. You turn back to your own window, staring out at the distant, cold lights of the town down below, biting the inside of your cheek so hard it hurts, wrapped in a silence that feels heavier than ever before.

"Who’s Dylan?" 

The question breaks the silence.

Your heart squishes violently in your chest for a second. The sudden change of topic is so abrupt that it catches you completely off guard. It’s so painfully obvious that Steve wants to steer the conversation away from him. 

But it isn’t just his sharp deflection that makes your breathing falter — it’s the simple mention of that specific name.

You turn your head slowly, staring out the passenger window at the dark silhouette of the tall pine trees lining the cliff edge.

"Why do you want to know?" you ask, keeping your voice as flat and neutral as possible.

"Because I’m your friend, and I want to know," Steve says curtly.

His tone is sharp, almost defensive. Hearing the word friend come out of his mouth in that tone makes a bitter, ironic laugh burst from your chest. 

You shake your head, incredulous.

"He’s my ex-boyfriend," you say, leaving it at that. You don’t offer any details.

Steve stays silent for a few agonizing seconds.

"Is he the one who left?" Steve asks suddenly.

You turn back toward him, your eyebrows pulling together in a sharp frown. 

"If you already know who he is, then why are you even asking me?"

Steve rolls his eyes, adjusting his posture in the driver’s seat. 

"I don’t know who he is," he mutters, his fingers tapping against the steering wheel. "Robin just mentioned a few things to me. It’s not like I know his life story or anything."

You let out a heavy sigh, sinking lower into your seat. You wrap your arms tightly across your chest and turn your face back toward the dark window, watching the moonlight flicker across the glass. 

"Yeah," you say softly. "It’s him."

"And now he’s back."

"No," you correct him instantly, your tone rising in frustration. "He’s not back. He was just passing through town for a couple of days."

Steve clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, letting out a short, dry sound. 

"Right."

Your frown deepens. You turn around completely in your seat, fixing your eyes on his profile.

"What?"

"Nothing," he says quickly, staring straight ahead out the windshield.

"No, come on, Steve," you push, your voice challenging him. "You clearly want to say something. Just say it."

Steve shifts uncomfortably, resting his elbow on the car door and leaning his chin against his palm. 

"I’m just saying... he seemed pretty damn close to you at the party the other night."

You freeze for a fraction of a second as the realization hits you.

"Ah," you say, a cold smile touching your lips. "So you saw us."

"I just saw you talking to someone, alright?" Steve snaps back, his voice rising a fraction as he finally turns his head to glance at you. "I didn’t assume anything. It’s not like I was gonna sit there and get all worried about who you were talking to, or whether some guy was your ex or not."

"No, of course not," you reply, your tone dripping with sharp sarcasm as you turn your gaze back to the front windshield. "Because that night, you had far more important plans, didn’t you?"

The silence that follows your words is suffocating. It fills every corner of the car, heavy and thick with everything you aren’t saying out loud. You are explicitly hinting at what you saw later that very night.

Steve’s jaw flexes. He pulls the small lollipop out of his mouth, his face completely shadowed by the dim cabin light.

"Were you in love with him?" he asks.

His voice is lower now, raspy and rough around the edges, cutting straight through the heavy silence.

You stiffen. 

"Steve," you warn softly, looking at him.

"What?" he asks, his dark eyes meeting yours in the faint light. "Can’t I ask?"

You let out a heavy sigh, letting your head fall back against the leather headrest. You close your eyes for a brief moment, taking a deep, grounding breath, tryinh to settle the sudden storm inside your chest before opening your eyes again and looking out into the dark night.

The quiet inside the car stretches out for several long seconds. You trace the faint outline of your reflection in the glass, searching for the right words to describe a past that feels so distant now.

"I don’t know..." you finally answer, your voice barely above a whisper. "I think so... I don’t know."

Steve takes the lollipop out of his mouth completely, resting his wrist on the top of the steering wheel. 

"What do you mean, 'I don’t know'?"

"I don’t know, Steve! I really don’t know!" You throw your hands up in frustration, turning to face him. "I... I liked him. I was completely obsessed with him. I honestly believed he was the love of my life, that he was everything to me. Until I finally realized that the whole thing was just..."

"A lie," Steve finishes for you, his voice flat.

You sigh heavily, your shoulders slumping. 

"I don’t know if I’d call it a lie. It was all just my own illusions, okay? I made up a version of him in my head that didn’t exist."

"But he did lie to you," Steve insists, his brow furrowed as he stares at you.

You roll your eyes, tossing your head back. 

"If Robin already told you the entire story, why are we even having this conversation right now?"

"I told you," Steve says, his tone softening slightly. "Robin only told me the quick, surface-level version."

You bite the inside of your cheek, feeling a familiar sting of old humiliation. You look down at your lap, picking at a loose thread on your clothes.

"He cheated on me a couple of times," you admit quietly. "That’s all. But..." You raise a hand in a dismissive gesture. "It’s not like our relationship was even serious enough to truly call it cheating anyway. I don’t know."

Steve stays quiet, watching you carefully. The tension between you shifts, turning into something softer, heavier, and far more intimate.

"The other day..." Steve begins, his voice dropping an octave. You inevitably look up at him, caught by the tone of his voice. "When you jumped into Lover’s Lake," Steve continues, his eyes locking onto yours. "When you were talking about finding real love and all that stuff... were you thinking about him?"

Your brows pull together in genuine confusion. 

"What?"

"Were you thinking about him?" he repeats, searching your face for any sign of hesitation.

"No," you say firmly, shaking your head. "No, Steve. I wasn’t thinking about him. Honestly, I hadn’t thought about him in months until he randomly showed up in town. And these past few days, he hasn’t crossed my mind even once... until you just brought his name up."

Steve holds your gaze for a second longer before looking away, turning his head toward his side window. He pops the lollipop back into his mouth, shifts it to the other side, and then pulls it right back out, letting out a small, breathless sigh.

He turns back to you. 

"Robin is completely convinced that those hickeys on your neck came from him," he says casually. "She basically convinced the rest of the group, too."

You let out a groan of pure frustration, burying your face in your hands for a second. 

"Well, yeah! I had to tell her that!"

Your eyes shoot back up to meet Steve’s in the dim moonlight. The air in the car instantly freezes.

Slowly, without a word, Steve reaches his hand across the space between the seats. His warm fingers slide under the collar of your jacket, brushing gently against the sensitive skin of your neck. His thumb traces the faint, fading marks hidden beneath your clothes.

A sharp shiver runs down your spine at his touch. Your breath hitches in your throat, your skin burning everywhere his fingers make contact.

Steve holds his hand there for a fleeting second, his thumb caressing your skin with a devastating tenderness. Then, as if suddenly remembering himself, he pulls his hand back abruptly. He clears his throat, turning his face away to stare out his window again, his jaw working as he tries to regain control.

You sit there, your pulse racing against your ribs, the ghost of his touch still lingering on your skin like a physical burn. You pull your jacket collar up slightly, trying to steady your irregular breathing.

"What about you?" you ask softly, turning the question back on him. "Have you ever been in love?"

"What?" Steve asks, refusing to meet your eyes. He busies himself with adjusting the air vent on the dashboard.

You tilt your head, leaning slightly closer to catch his gaze. 

"Steve..."

Hearing the gentle, accusatory tone in your voice, a small, involuntary smile touches the corner of Steve’s lips. He lets out a quiet sigh, throwing his head back against the headrest.

"Once..." he murmurs to the ceiling of the car.

Your heart does a strange, violent flip in your chest. You didn’t expect the answer to sting quite like this. A sudden, uncomfortable pang of jealousy twists in your stomach at the thought of him hopelessly lost in someone else, giving another girl that intense, undivided attention that currently consumes you.

"Who?" you ask quietly.

"Nancy."

Hearing her name come off his lips makes a small, unexpected laugh bubble up in your chest. You know, of course, that they used to date back in high school. Everyone knows. But hearing it now feels so distant, so utterly bizarre and unreal, that you can barely process it. Your Steve and your Nancy feel like they belong to two completely different universes.

"Right," you say, shaking your head with a faint smile.

Steve turns his head, catching the smirk on your face. A genuine smile breaks across his face, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing."

"You’re laughing at me," Steve accuses softly. He takes the lollipop out of his mouth and brings it close to your lips, playfully poking your cheek with it just to annoy you.

You laugh, ducking your head and waving his hand away from your face. You rotate your entire body in the passenger seat, turning to face him fully. 

"I’m not laughing! It’s just..." You shrug your shoulders, searching for the right words. "I don’t know. It just sounds weird."

"Yeah, well," Steve says, his smile fading into a softer expression as he looks back up at the car ceiling. "It was real. Very real."

Your frown returns, a small shadow crossing your features. 

"Still...?"

"What? No!" Steve shoots up, turning to face you with wide eyes, denying it so fast and aggressively that it borders on ridiculous. "No, God, no!"

A loud, genuine laugh escapes your lips at his dramatic reaction. 

"I was just making sure."

Steve smiles again, his eyes softening as he watches you laugh.

"What about Gabriela?" The name slips out of your mouth before you can stop yourself.

Steve clicks his tongue, shaking his head immediately. 

"You already know I’m not..."

"I don’t know anything, Steve."

"Yes, you do..." Steve says, his voice dropping into a lower, darker register that sends a tremor straight down your spine.

You look down at your hands, your fingers nervously playing with the stitched seam of your denim jeans. 

"Well, sometimes it really doesn’t seem like you aren’t in love with her."

Steve looks at you for a long moment. Then, softly, almost under his breath, he asks:

"Would I lie to you?"

Your eyes snap up to meet his in the pale moonlight.

"Do you really want me to answer that question?" you ask, your tone a mix of vulnerability and deep suspicion.

Steve’s eyebrows pull together, a look of genuine hurt flashing across his features. 

"I never lied to you..."

"Steve..."

"I never lied to you," he repeats, his voice firm, shaking his head slowly. "Never."

"Right..." You let out a quiet, sarcastic laugh, shaking your head and turning your gaze back toward the side window.

Before you can look away completely, Steve moves.

He shifts his entire body toward you, leaning across the center console. His hand reaches out, his warm, strong fingers wrapping gently around your jawline, stopping you in your tracks. His touch is firm yet remarkably gentle, forcing you to turn back and look directly into his eyes.

"No, no," he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. "Look at me."

His arm slides behind your headrest, his body crowding yours in the tight space of the front seat. His thumb rests against your cheekbone, stroking the soft skin of your jaw with agonizing slowness.

"I never lied to you," he says again, his dark eyes dropping down to your lips for a fraction of a second before snapping back to meet your gaze.

You hold your breath, trapped by his proximity, by the warmth radiating from his body, by the raw intensity in his eyes.

"Okay," Steve continues, his voice barely louder than a whisper against your skin. "It’s true that I can’t tell you everything. It’s true that there are things happening... things where I haven’t been one hundred percent honest with you. But I have never lied to you. Never."

Your heart hammers frantically against your ribs. Your eyes lower to his lips, watching them move, watching the subtle rise and fall of his chest.

"And what if I ask you right now?" you whisper, your voice trembling slightly. "What if I ask you everything I want to ask?"

Steve leans in just a fraction closer, his face inches from yours.

"Try me," he whispers softly against your lips.

You swallow hard, gathering every ounce of courage left in your body. You look directly into his dark, beautiful eyes.

"Why did you show up beat up that night—?"

Before you can even finish the sentence, Steve leans forward and presses his lips against yours.

The kiss is soft, brief, and completely takes the air right out of your lungs.

When he pulls back just an inch, his breath warm against your mouth, you blink in confusion, your mind racing to catch up.

"Steve..." you whisper, your voice trembling.

"What?" he whispers back, his hand sliding slowly behind your neck, his fingers tangling into the hairs at the base of your head.

"That’s not fair," you mutter, trying to hold onto your anger, trying to maintain the wall you built between you.

Steve lets out a small, quiet breath that feels like a defeated laugh. 

"You’re right," he murmurs against your cheek. "I’m sorry." He clears his throat softly, pulling back just enough to look at you. "Go ahead. Continue."

You stare at him, your hands gripping the edges of your seat. 

"Why did you show up that night covered in—"

Steve cuts you off again.

This time, his mouth meets yours with an intensity that completely shatters your defenses. His hand pulls gently at your hair, tilting your head back at the perfect angle to deepen the kiss. His other hand comes up to rest against the side of your face, his thumb tracing your cheek as he pulls you closer against him, erasing every last bit of distance between the two of you.

And you give in.

Every rational thought in your brain tells you to push him away, to demand the answers you deserve, to demand the truth about the violence, the secrets, and the dangerous world he’s hiding from you. But your body completely betrays you.

You let yourself fall.

Your hands leave the seat and slide up his chest, wrapping around his neck, pulling him down into you. What you feel for him is so much stronger, so much more overwhelming than the anger burning in your chest. It’s stronger than the frustration of not being able to know him completely, stronger than the fear of not knowing which parts of him are real and which parts are built on secrets. Stronger than every warning signal there’s is around him.

You surrender completely to the feeling of his lips moving against yours, to the heat of his breath, to the familiar, comforting scent that completely surrounds him.

Because you know some truth. 

You know that moments like this are rare and fragile. You don’t know when you’ll ever get to be like this with him again. You don’t know when he’ll put his walls back up, or when the shadows of his life will pull him away from you once more.

So you let yourself get completely lost in his arms, forgetting the questions, forgetting the secrets, and letting the dark world outside the car disappear entirely.

But then he pulls back.

The loss of his warmth hits you instantly. The cold night air fills the small space between the two seats, snapping you back to reality. 

Steve slides back into the driver’s seat, resting his head back against his headrest. He stares up at the car ceiling for a moment, running both hands over his face to catch his breath.

When he looks over at you again, a soft, faint smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth — the familiar, charming look you know so well, though his eyes remain guarded.

"We should probably get going," Steve says softly, his voice still rough and raspy from the kiss. "Before Robin realizes you’re still not home yet."

Before you can answer, he gently presses the sweet candy against your lips.

You open your mouth slightly, taking the lollipop from him. The taste of sweet cherry settles on your tongue, completely replacing the lingering taste of his lips. Steve watches you for a second, his dark eyes lingering on your face with a tenderness he can no longer pretend isn’t there.

"Keep it," he whispers softly, a tiny, genuine smile touching his lips.

He pulls his hand back, gripping the key in the ignition. With a quick turn of his wrist, the car’s engine roars back to life, breaking the stillness of the mountain peak. The yellow headlights cut through the pitch-black night once more, illuminating the tall pine trees ahead.

Steve shifts the car out of park, turns the steering wheel sharply, and pulls the car away from the edge of the cliff.

As the car begins its slow descent down the rough dirt trail, back toward the sleeping, dark town of Hawkins, you lean your head back against the cold passenger window. You hold the stick of the lollipop tightly between your fingers, feeling the warmth of his kiss still humming across your skin.

—

Steve slows down near the edge of town, where the streetlights grow sparse again.

"You want anything?" Steve asks, breaking the silence. His voice is smooth, nothing like the sharp edge it held an hour ago.

You look out the window and notice the bright, flickering neon sign of the local gas station standing like an isolated island of light in the dark town.

"I need to make a quick stop before I drop you off at Robin’s." He adds, turning his head slightly toward you. "You sure you don’t want anything?"

You smile, shaking your head gently as you adjust the lollipop in your mouth. 

"No, I’m good."

Steve pulls the car into the empty concrete lot, stopping right under the harsh glare of the overhead lights. He shifts the car into park and gives you a small, genuine smile — a real one that reaches his eyes and makes your heart flutter.

"Be right back," he says softly.

You watch him get out of the car, stepping into the cool night air. He pulls his jacket tighter around his shoulders and walks through the double glass doors of the small convenience store, the little bell above the door ringing faintly across the quiet lot.

You let out a long, peaceful sigh, leaning your head back against the seat. You glance at your wrist, checking the faint glow of your watch. It’s almost midnight.

You feel a sudden wave of relief wash over you. Thank God Robin decided to stay over at Vickie’s house tonight, cause if she saw you pulling up at midnight in Steve’s car, it would be the last straw.

You laugh quietly to yourself at the thought, taking the lollipop out of your mouth for a second and looking at the glowing neon sign of the station. Everything feels quiet. Somehow, everything feels, for the first time in a very long time, completely okay.

But the peace doesn’t last. It never does.

A low, deep rumble cuts through the quiet of the night. It’s a heavy, powerful engine sound that doesn’t belong in a small, quiet town like Hawkins.

You turn your head toward the left side of the parking lot.

A dark, sleek luxury sedan pulls into the lot, gliding smoothly over the pavement like a ghost. It’s expensive, brand new, and polished so brightly that the flickering fluorescent lights of the gas station reflect off its dark paint like liquid metal. The windows are heavily tinted, completely hiding the interior from view.

It slowly comes to a stop right in the space directly next to Steve’s car.

An unexpected, sudden coldness creeps up your spine. You pull your jacket tighter around yourself, frowning as you stare at the dark vehicle. You can’t explain why, but every single instinct inside your body is screaming at you to look away, to hide, to get out of there.

Through the dark tint of the driver’s side window, you can barely make out the sharp silhouette of a man sitting behind the wheel. He doesn’t get out. He doesn’t turn off the engine. He just sits there in the car, motionless, staring straight ahead.

Your heart begins to beat a little faster against your ribs. You quickly turn your head back toward the glass front of the store, desperate for Steve to come back out.

Through the glass, you see him. Steve is standing at the checkout counter, holding a small brown paper bag. He pays the cashier, turns around, and pushes open the front door.

As he steps out onto the pavement, his posture is completely loose and relaxed. He looks up, his dark eyes instantly finding yours through the windshield, and that soft, affectionate smile returns to his face.

Then, his gaze shifts just a fraction to the left.

The second Steve’s eyes land on the dark luxury car parked next to his, his entire body freezes.

You watch the transformation happen in real time, and it terrifies you. 

The soft, gentle expression on his face vanishes instantly, erased as if it had never existed at all. His warm eyes harden into ice. His relaxed shoulders instantly square up, turning rigid and tense, and his jaw sets so tightly that you can see the muscle flexing from several feet away.

You frown, looking back and forth between the luxury car and Steve, your chest tightening with sudden confusion and dread.

Steve’s eyes snap back to yours for a split second through the glass windshield. The look in his eyes isn’t the soft, gentle gaze from the ridge, nor is it the playful smirk from a moment ago. It’s a look of absolute, icy distance. A warning.

He drops his chin, looking down at the ground, and changes his path. Instead of walking around to the driver’s side of his own car, he walks directly toward the dark sedan.

He stops right beside the driver’s window of the black car. Because of the angle and the dim light, you can no longer see Steve’s face clearly. 

You sit completely frozen in the passenger seat, your breath caught in your throat.

You can’t hear a single word being said. The heavy glass of the car and the hum of the engine drown out their voices entirely. But you don’t need to hear the words to understand what is happening. The body language speaks louder than any words ever could.

It’s a conversation wrapped in pure, suffocating tension. You see Steve’s head tilt slightly, his shoulders drawn up as if he’s bracing for a physical hit. The silhouette inside the black car doesn’t move much, but you can see the slight, sharp hand gestures of a man who is used to giving orders and expecting them to be followed without question.

Steve nods once, a stiff, forced movement of his head. He says something short, his jaw barely moving, before stepping back from the window.

The dark window of the luxury car rolls back up instantly, completely sealing the man inside.

Steve turns on his heel and marches back to his car.

His strides are long, hard, and furious. The gentle boy who had kissed you gently on the mountain top just minutes ago has completely vanished, replaced by a stranger radiating pure, dangerous anger.

He yanks the driver’s side door open and climbs inside. He slams the door shut behind him with such violent force that the entire car shakes, the heavy thud rattling the glass windows and making you jump in your seat.

Without saying a word, Steve blindly reaches back and tosses the paper bag from the gas station into the back seat, where it lands with a soft rustle against the leather upholstery.

"Steve...?" you ask softly, your voice trembling as you shrink back slightly against your door.

Steve doesn’t answer you. He doesn’t even look at you.

His hands grab the steering wheel with terrifying strength, his knuckles turning completely white. He forcefully slams the gear shift, stomps his foot down on the gas pedal, and turns the wheel sharply.

The tires screech violently against the smooth concrete of the gas station lot, leaving a sharp smell of burnt rubber hanging in the late-night air. The car shoots out onto the main road, accelerating much faster than necessary down the empty, dark streets of Hawkins.

You grab onto the door handle with one hand, your heart hammering wildly against your ribs. The dark luxury sedan remains parked under the gas station lights, shrinking away in the side mirror until it disappears into the night completely.

The silence inside the car is unbearable now, far worse than the silence at the beginning of the night. It feels heavy, cold, and suffocating, pressing down on your chest like a physical weight. Steve’s jaw is clenched so hard you worry his teeth might shatter, and his eyes are wide and fixed on the dark road ahead, completely unblinking. He bites his lower lip hard, his breath coming in short, harsh bursts through his nose.

You take a slow, careful breath, trying to steady your voice before you speak again. You keep your tone low, gentle, and cautious, as if you are trying not to startle a wounded, dangerous animal.

"Steve... who was that?"

Steve lets out a long, ragged exhale. He bites the inside of his lip again, a gesture of pure, overwhelming frustration. His grip on the leather wheel tightens even further until his hands are visibly shaking.

"My father," he says curtly.

The words drop like heavy stones into the quiet cabin.

You feel your heart sink straight into the pit of your stomach. A strange, sickening coldness spreads through your chest, and you suddenly lose the ability to speak.

You don’t need him to explain anything else. You know what those two words mean.

You turn your head to look at Steve’s profile, but his face is an unreadable mask of cold stone. 

The rest of the drive takes less than five minutes, but it feels like an eternity.

Steve drives too fast through the quiet residential neighborhoods, taking turns sharply, his entire body vibrating with a dark, furious energy. You don’t dare speak another word. You just sit there, clutching your seat, watching the dark houses blur past your window.

Finally, the car pulls up to the curb in front of Robin’s house.

The house is completely dark. The front porch light is turned off, and the windows on the second floor are pitch black. Robin’s parents are clearly fast asleep.

Steve stops but he leaves the engine running. The steady, low hum of the exhaust fills the dark street.

Neither of you moves. For a long, painful minute, absolute silence hangs between you.

Slowly, reluctantly, you turn your body in the seat to look at him.

The expression on Steve’s face is something you have truly never seen before. It’s darker and colder than his usual anger. The only time he has ever looked remotely like this was that night in the dark alleyway.

"Are you...?" you start to ask, your voice barely above a whisper, trying to reach out to him, trying to ask if he is okay.

"He invited you guys over for dinner tomorrow night," Steve interrupts sharply before you can even finish your sentence.

His voice is completely flat, devoid of any warmth or emotion. His eyes remain glued to the steering wheel in front of him, refusing to look at you.

You blink, stunned by the sudden statement. 

"Oh. Okay... Yeah..." you say, feeling completely dazed and overwhelmed by the rapid shifts in the night.

Steve finally turns his head to look at you. His eyes are cold, dark, and completely distant, looking right through you as if you were a stranger standing on a street corner.

"Pretend you’re sick," he says bluntly.

You frown, genuine confusion washing over you. 

"What?"

"You heard me," Steve says, his tone rising. "Just do it."

Before you can process what he’s saying, before you can ask why he wants you to lie, or why he’s suddenly pushing you away with such harsh aggression right after everything that happened between you, Steve reaches out to the dashboard.

With a swift, hard flick of his wrist, he cranks the volume knob on the radio all the way up.

The speakers instantly explode with loud, jarring music, filling the dark cabin with a wall of sound that completely drowns out any possibility of conversation. It’s a clear, brutal message. An absolute cue for you to get out of his car.

You sit there for a second, staring at him in complete disbelief. Your chest aches with a sharp, heavy pain, anger and hurt warring inside your mind.

You let out a long, bitter sigh. You don’t try to argue. You don’t try to fight through the loud music. You don’t even say goodbye.

You grab the door handle, push the door open, and step out into the freezing night air.

You shut the heavy car door behind you with a firm click. But Steve doesn’t even wait for you to reach the front porch. He doesn’t wait to make sure you get inside safely. He doesn’t wait to see you pull the key out from under the flowerpot.

The very second the car door closes, Steve slams his foot onto the gas pedal.

The BMW roars violently, its tires kicking up loose gravel from the side of the road as it speeds away down the dark, empty street. You turn around just in time to watch the red lights shrink into the distance, disappearing around the corner, leaving behind nothing but the cold wind and absolute silence.

You stand alone on the dark wooden porch, the spare key cold against the palm of your hand, staring at the empty street where his car had been just seconds ago. The cherry flavor of the lollipop suddenly tastes bitter on your tongue.

You squeeze your eyes shut, taking a shaky breath of the cold night air as a single question echoes through your mind:

What the hell just happened?

—

“Good morning! Did you sleep well?”

Robin’s mother turns around from the stove, a wooden spatula in one hand and a warm, bright smile on her face. 

You force your lips into a smile, nodding as naturally as you could. 

“Good morning. Yes, I slept great.”

It was a lie bigger than the house itself, but you deliver it smoothly.

“I’m so glad to hear that, sweetie,” she says softly, turning back to flip a slice of bread in the frying pan. “Robin called a little bit ago. She said she’d be back in about an hour. Do you two have any big plans for today?”

You pull out one of the wooden chairs at the table. The legs scraped softly against the floor as you sat down.

“Uhm, no, not really,” you say, resting your hands on the cool table surface. “I think we’re just going to stay here and rest for the afternoon.”

“That sounds wonderful. You kids have been running around nonstop since you got here.” She brought a heavy ceramic mug filled with steaming black coffee over to the table and set it down right in front of you, along with a small glass jar of milk. “Here you go. Get some coffee in you.”

“Thank you,” you say, taking the mug into your hands. The heat seeped into your cold fingers, bringing a bit of comfort.

It’s funny, really. You have been staying under this roof for less than a week, yet somehow, you already feel like a regular part of the family. The Buckleys have taken you in without hesitation, giving you a warm bed, a seat at their table, and endless kindness.

For the next ten minutes, breakfast moves along in a quiet, predictable rhythm. Mrs. Buckley asks you small, gentle questions while she finishes breakfast. She asks about your classes, your major, your goals for next year, your parents back home, and what it was like growing up in your hometown.

None of her questions are hard. Simple, polite conversations that you have answered a hundred times before. You answer her smoothly, keeping your tone light, giving her just enough detail to be polite without having to dig into anything too real or deep. 

But underneath your calm responses, your mind keeps drifting back to Steve.

The back screen door opens and closes with a dull thud, announcing the entrance of Robin’s father. He walks into the kitchen and gives you a quick, friendly nod before pulling out the chair across from yours.

He sits down, unfolds the local newspaper, and spreads it out on the table. A fresh mug of black coffee is set down next to his hand by his wife.

For a few moments, the only sound in the kitchen is the faint rustle of newsprint, the soft hum of the refrigerator, and the distant chirping of birds outside the window.

Then, Mr. Buckley makes a sharp noise in the back of his throat. He lets out a dark, frustrated sigh and tosses the paper down onto the wood, pointing a thick finger at an article on the front page.

“This son of a bitch is going to put the entire town in debt,” he mutters angrily, picking up his coffee mug and taking a sip.

Mrs. Buckley stops wiping down the counter, turning her head instantly to give him a stern look. 

“Honey... language, please. We have a guest at the table.”

Mr. Buckley shakes his head, not looking embarrassed at all. 

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just... it makes my blood boil. People keep going to him, asking for money for every little thing, and he just keeps taking advantage of them. We’re never going to get anywhere like this.”

You lower your coffee cup, feeling a sudden change in the air. You look up, confused by the sudden outburst.

Mrs. Buckley catches your expression and gives you a gentle, apologetic smile. 

“He’s talking about Steve’s father,” she explains softly, wanting to make sure you aren’t left out of the loop.

At the sound of that name, your stomach pulls itself into a tight knot.

Your mind instantly flashes back to your very first night in this house. You remember how Robin’s father casually brought up a new store opening downtown that Steve’s father helped fund. You remember how Steve stiffened up instantly, his shoulders going tense, his jaw clenching tightly while he quickly changed the subject. 

“Is his dad a loan shark?” you ask, keeping your voice low and casual as you take another slow sip of your coffee, trying to hide the slight tremor in your fingers.

Mr. Buckley lets out a short, bitter laugh.

“Yeah, that’s a real polite way of putting it,” he says, leaning back in his chair and resting his arms on the table. “Or better yet, he lends money to people who are desperate, and then he comes back and threatens them until he gets every single cent back... with ridiculous interest tacked on top.”

Mrs. Buckley places a basket of fresh toast on the table, shaking her head gently at her husband. 

“Honey, don’t say things like that. You know those are mostly just town rumors.” She pours a little more hot coffee into his mug.

“Town rumors my foot!” Mr. Buckley snaps back, though his voice stays relatively quiet. “It might have been just simple loans years ago. But now? No way.” He shakes his head slowly, his face full of cold disapproval. “There are enough folks around here who have gotten mixed up in his mess to prove that his business is as dark and shady as it gets.”

He takes another sip of his coffee, resting his hand back on the table. He looks right at you, his eyes serious.

“And Steve is right in the middle of it, I’m telling you.”

Mrs. Buckley frowns, her voice rising slightly. 

“Honey... stop it. He’s a friend of the girls.”

The kitchen seems to grow completely quiet around you. The sound of the morning wind, the ticking clock on the wall, the smell of burnt toast — everything fades into the background.

Piece by piece, like a messy puzzle finally coming together, your memories begin to click into place.

Flashes of the past few weeks rush through your head, sharp and terrifyingly clear.

You had forced yourself to look away all this time. You had convinced yourself that you were misinterpreting things, that he was too good of a person to ever do something cruel.

But sitting here now, in the Buckley kitchen, the cold truth hit you like a wave of freezing water.

No. Please, no.

You don’t want to believe it. You desperately want to defend him, to say something that would clear his name, but the words get stuck in your throat. Your heart starts beating furiously against your ribs, sending a panic through your chest. Your mouth goes dry as dust.

You squeeze your coffee mug tighter, forcing your voice to sound quiet, soft, and completely unbothered.

“Why do you say Steve is involved?” you ask.

Mr. Buckley gives another soft, sad shake of his head.

“Because he’s been working for his old man ever since he finished high school,” he says simply. “Everybody in town knows it. It’s the family business. And look, I get it, he’s a friend of yours, and deep down, he’s not a bad kid. He’s got a good heart somewhere in there. But you also have to accept facts. The way he left Hawkins... it wasn’t just a regular move. It was practically an escape. A getaway.” He pauses, taking a breath before adding: “Especially after everything that went down with Eddie.”

There it is again. That name.

Eddie.

You remember hearing it at that party, when your classmate asked Robin about him.

You remember how Robin’s face had completely changed in an instant. 

Now, hearing the name come out of Mr. Buckley’s mouth, the curiosity and dread inside you become unbearable.

You lean forward slightly, resting your elbows on the table. You look straight at Robin’s father, your voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Who is Eddie?” you ask, asking the question for the second time in less than a week.

Mr. Buckley shifts in his seat, opening his mouth to answer, when a voice interrupts him.

“Hey.” Robin’s sharp voice filled the entire house before you can even comprehend she’s there. You didn’t even listen to the front door, but the look on her face tells you everything you need to know: she heard, and clearly there’s something she doesn’t want you to know. “Let’s go rent some movies, shall we?”

—

The afternoon dragged on slower than ever. The hands on the wall clock seemed to move in slow motion, ticking with a dull, heavy sound that made your head ache.

In fact, you would have actually preferred going with Jonathan to help him with his photography project.

Robin threw a striped shirt onto the floor with an annoyed huff. She picked up a denim jacket, looked at it for two seconds, and tossed it onto the growing pile of clothes on her desk.

You sat with your knees pulled up toward your chest, watching her back. You took a slow breath, trying to steady your nervous stomach, and decided to try one more time to get out of this.

"Seriously, Robin... I think I have a fever," you said, putting a hand against your forehead to make it look convincing. "My head is pounding, and I feel really warm. Maybe it’s better if I just stay tonight."

Robin froze instantly. She didn’t turn around right away. Her hands stayed resting on a blue button-down shirt still hanging in the closet. The sudden silence in the room felt sharper than any noise she could have made.

When she finally turned around, her face was totally devoid of her usual easygoing, playful expression. Her jaw was set, her eyes narrow and cold.

"Enough..." Robin said your name in a sharp, cutting tone.

She had been like this all day, honestly. Short-tempered, restless, and completely unwilling to let you out of her sight.

"You’re coming," Robin added, pointing a finger directly at you. Her voice left zero room for argument. "End of discussion."

You didn’t fight back. You just let out a heavy, tired sigh, falling backward onto the mattress. You lay there flat on your back, staring up at the textured white ceiling, listening to the sound of Robin angrily folding a pair of jeans.

Steve’s words immediately rushed back into your head, loud and clear.

“Pretend you’re sick."

Why? Why didn’t Steve want you at his house?

It made no sense. He had mentioned the gathering to everyone else in the group without a second thought. He had no problem with any of them coming over to his place, walking through his front door, sitting in his living room. Why were you the only exception? Was he ashamed of you? Was he still trying to keep you away from some part of his life that he didn’t want you to see?

And then there was Robin.

Why was Robin insisting so much that you go tonight? Robin was usually your buffer. She was the one who knew every single detail about Steve’s complicated life, and she was always the very first person to hide things from you whenever it involved him. If Steve was being an idiot, Robin usually shielded you from it. If Steve was keeping secrets, Robin was a vault.

So why was she acting like this today? Why was she practically dragging you by the hand to the one place Steve explicitly asked you not to go? Did she know what Steve had said to you? Or was she trying to force something into the open?

That doubt became a tiny, sharp insect that spent the rest of the afternoon slowly eating away at your mind. It followed you while Robin finally picked out her outfit. It followed you as you walked out to the car in silence. 

And it stays right beside you now as Nancy drives through the quiet, tree-lined streets of Hawkins, heading toward the wealthier side of town.

Before you know it, the car pulls up to the curb and stops shaking you away from all your thoughts.

You look out the passenger window, your stomach dropping into a cold, heavy knot. You’re standing in front of the Harrington house.

The house is massive, tall, and pristine, sitting behind a wide, manicured green lawn. The evening light is starting to fade, casting long, dark shadows across the driveway. It looks grand, impressive, and completely empty all at once.

You don’t know if this is exactly what you expected. To be honest, you don’t know if you expected anything in particular. You heard so much about this house over the past year. You heard stories about the huge parties King Steve used to throw here when his parents were out of town. You heard anecdotes about high school nights, swimming pool clear-outs, and late-night talks on the patio.

But up until now, all of those were just stories. Words in the air. Memories that belonged to other people.

"Let’s go," Robin says quietly. She doesn’t look at you as she opens her door and steps out into the cool evening air.

You take a slow, deep breath, forcing your feet to move. You get out of the car and follow everyone up the wide brick path toward the front porch. Each step feels heavy, as if your shoes were made of lead.

As Robin steps onto the porch and reaches out her hand toward the doorbell, a wave of cold panic washes over you.

You find yourself wondering if it is too late to turn back. You can literally just turn around, run down the driveway, and start walking down the street.

Because at this point, it isn’t even about Steve anymore. It isn’t just about the fact that he indirectly told you he doesn’t want you here.

It’s about you. It’s about your own fear.

You are terrified of facing reality. You are terrified of taking the Steve that lives in your mind — the Steve built on quiet jokes, gentle glances, and shared looks when no one else is paying attention — and placing him inside this reality.

In your head, Steve is vulnerable. He’s someone who cares, someone who is trying to figure out who he is away from the high school crown he used to wear. But what if that’s all a lie you built for yourself? What if coming here proves that the real Steve is just the rich, popular guy who lives in this big, lonely house? What if seeing this side of him destroys the image you held onto for so long?

You are scared. You are so deeply scared that seeing this part of his life can make you realize that you don’t actually know him at all.

Your train of thought cuts off instantly when a loud, sharp chiming sound echoes through the porch.

Robin pressed the doorbell.

You freeze in place, your pulse racing in your ears.

Robin stands beside you, her shoulders tense, her eyes fixed firmly on the heavy wooden front door. She doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t even look at you to check if you are okay. The silence between the group is thick, charged with an unsaid argument that has been building up all day long.

Inside the house, you hear the faint sound of footsteps coming down the main hallway. Soft, rhythmic thuds against hard flooring.

You hold your breath, every muscle in your body locking up.

The brass door handle clicks and turns.

The front door slowly pulls open inward.

Steve is standing on the other side.

He’s wearing a button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hair carefully styled. He has one hand resting easily on the edge of the open door frame, leaning against it with a relaxed, casual air.

"Hey guys, thanks for coming," Steve says smoothly.

He has a soft, easy smile on his face, his voice carrying that familiar, warm tone he always uses when he’s too careful. He’s looking straight at Robin, his posture casual and completely unworried.

But then, as he steps back to open the door wider, his eyes drift past Robin’s shoulder.

And his gaze met yours.

The change in his face is instant, shocking, and completely indescribable.

The soft, welcoming smile dies on his lips in a fraction of a second. His jaw goes slightly slack, his mouth staying parted as if the breath has just been knocked entirely out of his chest. The easy, relaxed posture he maintained vanishes, his shoulders instantly tensing up.

His eyes widen, flashing with a sudden, overwhelming storm of emotions—shock, deep panic, sharp guilt, and a strange, raw vulnerability that he usually works so hard to hide from the world.

You stand there, unable to speak, your heart hammering wildly against your ribs. The distance between the porch and the hallway suddenly felt like a massive chasm, filled with every unspoken word, every hidden truth, and every single doubt that had brought you to his door.

Steve takes a small, shaky breath, his fingers tightening against the wood of the door frame until his knuckles turned white. And then he turns around, walking through the hallway back inside.

Seriously, if he had screamed in your face, it would have been less painful.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ likes, reblogs and comments are appreciated !! thank you for reading. ⋆⭒˚.⋆

⭑ fic masterlist ⭑

⭑ taglist: @turtlamour @strangegirl26sff @bearwithegg @kurtsw7rld96 @solynoche @keepdrlving @scoopsahoydjo @pleasecallmeunhinged @ninaminaromina @daggersandbuttercups @keerygirlie98 @micheledawn1975 @prettykitty830 @willyoucry13 @spacelew @projections-mortal

"Cut! Can we get some absolute silence on the other side of the set? Literally, everyone can hear you!"

The director’s voice booms through the megaphone, his italian accent sharp and irritated. He rubs his temples aggressively, looking like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown right there in his folding chair. 

Instantly, a heavy hush falls over the area, though the distant, muffled hum of the studio lot never truly stops.

Almost immediately, the heavy tension breaks as a small army of crew members floods the set. Two production assistants and your lead makeup artist run toward you eager to fix any imperfection before the next take.

You force a small, polite smile, trying to ease their frantic energy as she steps close, her touch incredibly gentle as she taps a soft paper tissue against your cheek, carefully soaking up the wet trails of your tears without ruining the base foundation.

"That was absolutely incredible," your assistant whispers softly next to you. She hands you a small bottle of water with a straw, her eyes wide with genuine admiration. "No, seriously. I had goosebumps the entire time. No one could have done that scene the way you did. Everyone behind the cameras was holding their breath."

"Thank you," you say, your voice sounding a little scratchy and tired even to your own ears. You take a small sip of water.

"Take fifteen, everyone!" the director suddenly yells, throwing his hands in the air. He climbs down from his high chair and immediately starts walking toward the outdoor exit, heading in the direction of the private trailers.

"Thanks, guys, I’ll be right back," you tell the makeup team, gently stepping away from the touch of their brushes. "I’m going to go talk to him. There are a few things about the next scene that I want to clarify. The emotional transition feels a bit abrupt."

Your assistant nods understandingly, pulling your script from her bag. 

"Of course. Do you want me to come with you? Or should I bring your jacket?"

"No, I’m fine," you reply, already taking a step back, wrapping your silk robe tightly around your body. "It’ll be a second."

You walk quickly, pulling the fabric of your robe together and tying the belt in a tight knot.

As you step outside the set, the blinding Italian sun hits you instantly. You squint against the brightness after spending hours under the dim, artificial lights. You walk past old, dusty props stacked against the studio walls and stacks of wooden crates.

You turn the corner of the director’s large trailer, expecting to find him sitting alone on the steps, perhaps reviewing his notes. Instead, your feet freeze mid-step. Your breath hitches sharply in your throat.

Standing in the small patch of shade next to the trailer are the two people you wanted to see least in the entire world.

Josephine’s standing incredibly close to the director. She has her hand casually wrapped around his arm, leaning her head in as she listens. She laughs — that high, melodic, utterly fake laugh that you have grown to absolutely despise.

But she’s just a minor annoyance. Your eyes immediately slide to the person standing right next to her, and your heart stops.

Sean is holding a large umbrella to block the sun, his other hand casually tucked into the pocket of his dark trousers. He looks effortlessly elegant, possessing that natural grace that always seems to draw everyone’s attention the moment he enters a room. He’s wearing a simple white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing his tanned forearms. He looks relaxed, confident, and incredibly handsome.

But because you know him — because you have spent hours memorizing the subtle shifts in his expression and the way he carries himself — you can see right through the act. You can tell he’s trying very hard to project an image of perfect, untouchable composure.

He chuckles softly at something the director says. But then, as if sensing your presence, his eyes lift. They lock onto yours.

In an instant, the easy, polite smile completely vanishes from his face. His lips press into a thin, tight line, and his posture stiffens. 

For a fraction of a second, you see a flash of something raw and vulnerable in his dark eyes — guilt, surprise, maybe even a trace of regret. 

But just as quickly, his professional mask slips back into place, cold and unreadable.

You take a deep breath, clenching your jaw. 

You clear your throat loudly and step forward into the shade, intentionally interrupting their little circle.

"I wanted to see if we could talk about the next scene before we start shooting again," you say, keeping your voice steady, professional, and cool. You direct your words entirely to the director, completely ignoring the other two.

The director blinks, surprised by your sudden appearance, but his stressed expression quickly turns into a warm, enthusiastic smile. "Oh! It’s so good that you are here! We were literally just talking about you!"

The words make your stomach twist in an unpleasant, tight knot. The thought of them discussing you behind your back makes you feel incredibly exposed and defensive.

"Is that so?" you say, forcing a polite, cold smile. "Then I guess I arrived just in time."

You finally let your eyes shift to Josephine. Her expression is a perfect picture of sweet, sugary malice. She looks at you like a predator that has just spotted its prey, her eyes scanning your face.

"Yes, indeed. How perfect," Josephine says, her voice dripping with artificial warmth. She slowly slides her hand away from the director’s arm. But instead of letting it drop to her side, she reaches out and wraps her arm snugly around Sean’s, pulling herself closer to his side.

You watch the movement. Your heart does a painful, sharp squeeze, but you don’t let a single muscle in your face twitch. You keep your expression perfectly blank.

Sean doesn’t pull away from her, but you notice the sudden, slight tension in his shoulder. His hand inside his pocket tightens, pushing against the fabric of his trousers. He still won’t look you in the eyes. Instead, he stares intently at a spot on the gravel ground between your feet.

"Sean and I were just taking a little walk after finishing our scenes for the afternoon," Josephine continues, her smile widening as she leans slightly closer to him, her voice carrying a triumphant edge. "We wanted to come over and say hello to our incredibly talented colleagues as it’s our last day on set. We heard you were doing some... highly emotional work today. It must be so exhausting to have to cry on command like that. I honestly don’t know how you do it."

The underlying insult is incredibly clear. She is trying to paint you as fragile, dramatic, and perhaps a bit pathetic, while showcasing her own easy, stress-free presence next to Sean.

"How nice of you to drop by," you reply, your tone as cold as ice. You keep your eyes fixed on Sean, refusing to give Josephine the satisfaction of your full attention. "And yes, it can be exhausting. But some of us actually prefer to do the hard work on set rather than just standing around looking pretty."

The director, completely oblivious to the thick, suffocating tension in the air, laughs heartily.

"Ah, that’s what I love about you! Always dedicated to the craft! But really, you were fantastic in that last take. The grief looked so real. It was absolutely beautiful."

"Thank you," you say softly. Then, you look directly at Sean, your voice dropping a fraction of an octave, becoming quieter, heavier. "I guess it’s easy to look heartbroken when you know exactly what it feels like to be left in the dark."

The comment hits its mark perfectly. Sean’s jaw clenches so hard you can see the muscle tick. He finally raises his head, his dark eyes meeting yours with an intense, burning gaze.

The silence between the two of you is deafening, drowning out the distant noise of the crew. In his eyes, you see a storm of conflicting emotions — defensiveness, frustration, and a strange, quiet plea. He wants you to drop it. He wants you to pretend, just like he’s pretending, that nothing happened between you in that hotel room. He wants to keep the boundary intact.

But you aren’t going to make this easy for him.

"Well," Josephine says, her voice sharp as she senses the sudden shift in energy. She tightens her grip on Sean’s arm, pulling him slightly closer as if physically marking her territory. "Acting is all about imagination, isn’t it? Though, I suppose some people have to rely on their real-life dramas to get any real emotion out."

You take a slow step closer, your hands curling into tight fists inside the pockets of your robe. 

"At least my emotions are real, Josephine. Some people in this industry seem to have trouble finding anything genuine inside themselves."

The director looks between the two of you. He clears his throat nervously, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he looks down at his notes. 

"Uh, right. Well, about the next scene—"

"Actually," you interrupt him, smiling politely. “I’ll go and refresh myself. See you inside.” you assure him as the director nods at you 

“I’ll walk you,” before you can turn in your trailer’s direction, Sean speaks up for the first time, and suddenly the shadow of the umbrella covers you from the heat; although now it’s impossible to escape the warmth of his body besides you. “The sun is a killer at this hour.”

You bite your lip, unable to say anything. You look over your shoulder, Josephine’s expression is indescribable, but you don’t let yourself hesitate in front of her.

“Sure.” You speak up coldly, starting to walk, quickly feeling his steps right behind you.

As you reach the metal steps of your own trailer at the end of the perimeters, you pull your robe tighter around yourself, as if trying to block out his presence. You grab the handle of the door, ready to pull it open and shut it in his face. But before you can, Sean steps up onto the first metal stair behind you. 

His chest is almost pressing against your back. The heat radiating off him is overwhelming.

"Let me in," he whispers. "Just for a minute. Please."

You turn your head slightly, your breath hitching. His dark eyes are filled with a desperate, heavy hunger that makes your knees go weak. You hate yourself for how much you still want him, even after what he did.

Without a word, you pull the door open and step inside the cool space of your trailer. 

Sean follows you immediately, pulling the door shut behind him with a sharp, metallic click. He turns the lock, sealing the two of you inside.

The sudden silence of the trailer is deafening.

The fan is humming softly in the corner, blowing cold air that makes the fabric of your thin robe cling to your skin. The trailer is small, filled with the usual clutter of a working actor — scripts scattered around, half-empty bottles of water, a rack of wardrobe clothes, and a large makeup mirror surrounded by bright, round light bulbs.

You walk over to the table, putting some distance between yourself and him. You lean against the edge of it, crossing your arms over your chest. 

"You have two minutes, Sean. Say what you came to say."

Sean stands near the door. He has set the umbrella down against the wall, and he’s just looking at you. 

The professional, untouchable actor is gone. 

In his place is the man who looked at you in the dark, his hair slightly messy, his shirt open at the collar, showing the smooth skin of his collarbones and the hair on his chest.

"I watched you," he says softly. His voice is thick, carrying an emotion that makes your heart skip a beat. "I stood in the back of the set while you were doing that last take."

You look away, staring at the floor. 

"I don’t care."

"You do," he says, taking a slow step toward you. "I know you do. Your scene... it was beautiful. It was so raw. When you started crying, when you looked at the camera like your whole world had just ended... it almost made me cry. I had to look away because I..." he stops himself. He sighs, looking away, like trying to find the words. His fingers travel up to the bridge of his nose and he closes his eyes for a second. “I just know I’m never going to be half as talented as you are.”

You click your tongue, shaking your head. Something inside you doesn’t buy his "poor me" act for a second; yet at the same time, you know it’s true — that he really is that insecure about himself.

You look at him, tilting your head.

“So… is it really your last day around here?

Sean avoids your eyes for a moment, his fingers nervously adjusting the cuffs of his shirt.

“Yeah.”

“And you’re going back to the United States?” you press on, your voice cutting sharply through the quiet hum of the place.

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck, looking completely exhausted. 

“I’m thinking about it. Josephine asked me to go back to Los Angeles with her. Her father is funding a big new project over there, and she wants me as the male lead. It’s a huge opportunity.”

You let out a short, sharp laugh, but there is no real humor in it. Only bitterness. 

“A huge opportunity. Right. So you’re just going to pack your bags and follow her across the ocean like a good little puppy.”

“Don’t do that,” he says, his voice dropping an octave, a warning clear in his tone. “This is my career we are talking about. I’ve worked for years to get to this point, to finally be a lead actor. I can’t just throw away a chance like this.”

“A chance like what? Being her puppet?” You step closer to him, the anger flaring up hot in your chest. “You look at me like I’m the one being unreasonable here, Sean. You are selling your soul to a girl who doesn’t even care about your talent, just to get a shortcut to Hollywood.”

“It’s not a shortcut, it’s survival!” Sean steps right into your personal space, his face flushed with frustration. “You don’t get it. You have the directors eating out of your hand. The studio already loves you. I don’t have that luxury. If I say no to her, her father drops my next movies. I disappear. Everything I’ve built goes away.”

“You’re already disappearing,” you whisper, your voice cracking with pure angst. You look at him, your eyes searching his face for any trace of the man from a few nights ago. “Every time you choose her over what’s real, there’s less of you left. You’re letting her buy you, and the worst part is you’re glad to let her do it.”

The silence stretches between you, heavy, painful, and suffocating. The anger in his dark eyes softens into something deeply miserable, but he stays frozen on his spot, too afraid to reach out, too afraid of what it would mean if he touched you again.

“Why did you leave?” you ask him suddenly. He looks at you as his jaw clenches. 

"I had to… it’s complicated."

"Complicated?" You let out a harsh mocking laugh. "It’s not complicated at all. You’re just a coward. You’re still her little lapdog, running around after her, holding her umbrella, letting her drag you around by a leash because you’re too afraid of trying to build something for yourself."

"That’s not true!" Sean snaps, his voice cracking with a sudden, rare display of anger. He steps right into your personal space, his eyes burning into yours. "Quit calling me that. You don’t know what you're talking about."

"I know exactly what I’m talking about!" you yell back, your chest heaving. "I see the way you look at her before making a move. I see the way you let her claim you like you’re some kind of prize. Just cause you think she’s the only one who can make you a star, you sell your soul to her and… what? You treat me like a secret shame, now?"

"She is my ticket to the top!" Sean shouts, his hands suddenly gripping your shoulders. His touch is firm, hot, and it sends a jolt of pure electricity straight down your spine. "If I offend her, if I leave her side, everything goes away. I can’t just throw it all away for... for..."

"For me?" you finish his sentence, your voice dropping to a painful, quiet whisper. "Say it, Sean. You can’t throw it away for me."

He stares at you, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. His hands are still on your shoulders, and you can feel them trembling. He looks at your lips, then back to your eyes, his expression a torture of desire and frustration.

"You think she’s the only one who can help you?" you ask, your voice turning low, dangerous, and confident. You slide your hands up his chest, feeling the hard muscle beneath his shirt. You grip his collar, pulling him down slightly so he has to look at you. "You are so blind, Sean. Josephine’s a parasite. She doesn’t care about your talent. She just wants a handsome man on her arm to make her look good. You still can’t see she will use you up and throw you away the moment you aren’t useful to her anymore."

"And you?" he whispers, his eyes darkening. "What do you want?"

"I already told you that night, dummy…" you say, your voice dripping with conviction. You step even closer, your bodies pressing together from chest to thigh. "I can make you a king," you claim softly, your eyes looking at his lips for a second. "I don’t need a powerful family like her to make things happen. I have the talent, I have the industry’s respect, and the studio is already talking about my next contract. At my side, you wouldn’t have to beg for crumbs from Josephine’s table. We could have everything. We could conquer this entire industry together, on our own terms. You don’t need her, Sean… " your breaths mix together. "You need me."

He stares at you, completely speechless. 

The truth of your words hits him like a physical force. You can see the realization dawning in his eyes, the heavy weight of his ambition shifting, aligning perfectly with the burning desire he has been trying so hard to suppress. He finally understands that everything you said that night… every word is true.

Sean steps forward, closing the small distance in a single, aggressive stride. 

He grabs your face in his hands, his fingers digging deeply into your skin, his palms hot and slightly rough against your cheeks. There is no hesitation, he pulls you toward him with a desperate, terrifying hunger, his upper body looming over yours as he forces your head back. His mouth slams onto yours with a raw, bruising release of all the anger, frustration, and passion that has been building up inside him.

It’s not a gentle kiss. There’s no romance in it, only a desperate need to possess and be possessed. 

He presses his weight against you, driving you backward a step until your hips hit the edge of the heavy wooden makeup table.

You let out a soft, muffled groan into his mouth, the sound a mix of surprise and sheer relief. 

Your arms fly up, wrapping tightly around his neck, your hands sliding up to tangle in the soft, thick strands of his hair. 

You pull him down closer, matching his intensity, your lips parting as you demand more from him. He tastes like the bitter, rich smoke of the tobacco he had smuggled between takes and the sweet, sharp mint he used to cover it up — an intoxicating, addictive combination that makes your head spin and your knees go weak.

Sean groans deep in his throat, a low, animalistic sound that vibrates against your lips. His tongue slides into your mouth, deep and commanding, filling you completely. 

He claims your mouth in a way that leaves absolutely no room for doubt, his tongue sweeping over yours with a firm, heavy pressure. He tastes you hungrily, his hands shifting from your face to grip the back of your head, his fingers twisting into your hair to hold you still as he drinks you in.

"We don’t have time," you gasp against his lips, desperately trying to find a shred of sanity as he pulls back for a fraction of a second to catch his breath. Your chest is heaving, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. "They’ll be calling me back to set in ten minutes."

"I don’t care," Sean growls, his voice incredibly rough and desperate. His eyes are dark, the pupils completely dilated as he stares down at you, his breath hot against your face.

He doesn’t wait for you to argue. He slides his large, warm hands down your neck, his thumbs tracing the line of your jaw before trailing down the sides of your throat, leaving a path of burning heat on your skin. 

He grabs the loose edges of your silk robe and pulls them apart with a sudden, forceful jerk. The fabric parts easily, revealing the thin, white cotton summer dress your character was wearing for the scene you were supposed to be shooting. 

"I don’t care about any of them. I need you. Right now." He says, his voice dropping to a harsh, fierce whisper as his eyes sweep over your exposed body.

Before you can even process the words, he pushes you back further against the table. The hard, sharp wooden edge digs straight into your lower back, a sudden bolt of discomfort, but you barely even feel it. The adrenaline rushing through your veins numbs everything else. 

Sean is already moving, stepping directly between your thighs, his heavy thighs locking you into place against the furniture. 

His hands move fast, pushing the silk robe off your shoulders. He drags the sleeves down your arms, letting the fabric slide down to pool around your elbows. For a brief second, your arms are trapped by the bunched-up material, leaving you completely helpless beneath him, before he yanks it off entirely and tosses it carelessly onto the floor.

He steps back just an inch, his chest rising and falling violently as he looks down at your body. You are wearing nothing but a pair of tiny, matching white lace panties underneath the thin dress. The light fabric of the dress does nothing to hide the frantic pace of your breathing or the way your nipples are already pushing against the cloth, reacting to his closeness.

Sean’s eyes are wide, filled with a wild hunger that makes a shiver run down your spine. 

He reaches out, his thumb slowly tracing the elegant curve of your collarbone, his skin rough against yours. He lets his hand slide down, his palm spreading flat against your chest before moving lower to grip one of your breasts right through the thin material of the dress. He squeezes it firmly, his large hand completely covering it. He uses his palm to rub in a slow, circular motion against your nipple, applying just enough pressure to make you gasp as the sensitive peak hardens into a tight, aching knot beneath the fabric.

"You are so beautiful," he mutters, his voice thick and heavy with lust, his gaze fixed on his hand on your breast. "So fucking beautiful. It’s been driving me crazy. Since I saw on the set today in this dress, I just wanted to rip it off you and take you in front of everyone."

"Do it," you whisper, your voice completely breathless, broken by a desperate need that matches his own. You arch your chest into his hand, your fingers clawing at the smooth surface of the table behind you. "Take me, Sean."

Instead of answering you with words, Sean’s expression hardens with pure intent. He drops to his knees right there on the floor of the trailer, disappearing from your direct line of sight.

You let out a sharp, sudden gasp as his large hands grip your bare thighs. His fingers sink into your soft flesh, his grip firm as he spreads your legs wide, forcing your knees apart until you are completely open to him. The cool, oscillating air from the plastic fan on the counter hits your wet, aching center, making you shiver from the contrast. But a second later, that coolness is completely wiped out, replaced by the intense, suffocating heat of his face moving close.

He doesn’t hesitate for a single second. He hooks his thumbs into the delicate waistband of your white lace panties and drags them down your legs with a rough, impatient tug. He pulls them over your knees, past your calves, and yanks them off your feet, tossing them somewhere into the corner of the small room.

"Sean—" your voice catches in your throat, a breathless warning, but it’s already too late.

His mouth slams against your wet, swollen heat. His head disappears completely between your spread thighs as his large hands reach up, grabbing the hem of your summer dress and rolling it up, bunching the fabric around your hips to get it out of the way.

Your head flies back, your spine arching off the table as your eyes snap shut. A massive, overwhelming wave of pure, intense pleasure crashes over your entire body, making you tremble from head to toe. 

He doesn’t start gently. 

He doesn’t ease you into it. 

He uses his tongue in long, deep, heavy strokes, licking you with a fierce hunger from the very bottom of your opening all the way up to your highly sensitive clitoris.

His tongue swirls around your sweet spot with a firm, relentless pressure, his movements fast and heavy. The wet, rhythmic sounds of his mouth against your skin fill the quiet trailer, mixing with the low hum of the fan. Every time his tongue flickers over your clitoris, your hips twitch uncontrollably, lifting off the hard table as your body tries to sink deeper into the pleasure.

"Oh my God," you moan out loud. Your hands scramble behind you, your fingers finding the thick strands of his hair, gripping it tightly to hold him firmly against you. The smooth wood of the table is slick beneath your sweating palms, and your breath is coming in short, ragged, loud gasps. "Sean, please... fuck, Sean..."

He ignores your pleas, only digging his fingers deeper into the undersides of your thighs to hold you wide open for his mouth. 

He sucks on your clitoris, pulling it into his lips with a firm, rhythmic suction that makes a white-hot spark of electricity shoot straight down to your toes. 

You’re completely at his mercy, your legs trembling against his broad shoulders as he continues to eat you out with a filthy, frantic energy.

He pauses for a split second, lifting his head just enough to look up at you. His chin is wet, glistening with your own juices in the harsh light, his eyes dark, wild, and completely consumed by lust. 

He doesn’t say a word, but the look on his face is entirely primal. He slides two long fingers deep inside you, testing your wetness, burying them into your tight, hot pussy. Your body gives in to him instantly, stretching open to accommodate his fingers, pouring more moisture over his hand.

He starts to slide his fingers in and out of you in a rapid, pumping motion. His thrusts are fast and shallow, creating a wet sound that makes your face flush with heat. At the same time, he presses the heavy meat of his thumb hard against your clitoris, rubbing it back and forth in a brutal, perfect rhythm that mimics the frantic motion of his tongue.

The double stimulation is entirely too much to handle. You let out a loud moan. Your toes curl tightly as the first powerful waves of an intense orgasm begin to build deep in your belly, a tight, heavy coil of tension that begs to snap.

"Look at you," Sean whispers, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that goes straight to your core. 

He doesn’t stop moving his hand, his fingers pushing deeper inside you, feeling the way the tight, wet walls of your pussy are already starting to clench and pulse around them in anticipation of the climax. 

"You’re so tight for me. So fucking wet. You act all confident out there on set, walking around like you don’t care, but I know exactly what you need. Tell me you want me."

"I—," you cry out, your voice breaking as your hips roll helplessly against his hand, desperately seeking that final friction that will push you over the edge. The orgasm is right there, just out of reach, torturing you. "Sean. Please... I need... I want you. Please, Sean!"

Just as you are about to break, he quickly pulls his fingers completely out of you with a sharp, wet sound.

You let out a pathetic whine of protest, your hips arching up into the empty air, your entire body aching for the loss of the friction and the heat. 

But Sean is already standing up, his large frame towering over you once again. 

His face is heavily flushed, his chest heaving as he frantically works on the buttons of his trousers. His fingers are shaking with a desperation that matches yours, his composure completely gone. He unbuttons them with a rough yank and pushes the fabric down past his hips, releasing his thick, fully erect cock.

It springs free, massive and throbbing, the skin a dark, flushed red and glistening with a heavy coat of pre-cum at the tip. 

He doesn’t waste a single second. He grabs you by the hips, his large hands locking onto your bones, and lifts your upper body easily, sliding you higher up on the makeup table to get you into a better position. As he shoves you back, his movements knock a thick stack of printed script pages and a heavy ceramic coffee mug slide right off the edge, crashing loudly onto the floor, but neither of you pays any attention to the mess.

He spreads your legs as wide as they can possibly go, making you lean back onto your elbows, your chest arched upward, leaving you completely exposed and vulnerable beneath him.

"Look at me," he commands. His voice is rough, completely dominant, leaving no room for argument.

You force your heavy, hooded eyes open, your vision slightly blurry from the sheer amount of arousal flooding your system. You stare up into his dark, intense eyes as he steps closer, guiding the heavy, burning head of his cock against your wet, swollen entrance. He rubs the tip against your clitoris once, twice, coating himself in your wetness, making you gasp and twitch beneath him.

Then, he thrusts forward.

He slides into you in one long, smooth, brutal motion, burying his entire length inside you to the very base.

You let out a high-pitched, desperate scream, the sound echoing sharply inside the small, metallic space of the trailer. The feeling of him filling you so completely, so deeply, is almost too much to bear. Your internal muscles react instantly clamping down tightly on his thick shaft, squeezing him with an intense, desperate grip as if your body is trying to trap him inside forever.

"Fuck," Sean groans, his eyes snapping shut as he freezes completely. His entire body is trembling, his muscles locking up from the sheer tightness of your warmth surrounding him. He grips the edges of the table so hard his knuckles turn white, holding himself deep inside you as he waits for the overwhelming sensation to pass.

"Move," you beg, your voice a whimper, your hands reaching out to grip his hips. Your fingers dig into his skin, trying to pull him closer, trying to force him to start the rhythm. "Sean, please."

He lets out a low growl and starts to move. His thrusts are slow and deliberate at first, agonizingly deep. He pulls almost all the way out, leaving only the very tip inside you before slamming back in with a heavy, forceful lunge. His pelvis crashes against yours with a wet, heavy slap. The sound of your bodies hitting is loud, raw, and completely obscene in the quiet trailer, filling the small room with the primal noises of desire.

You wrap your legs tightly around his thick waist, locking your ankles behind his back to pull him even deeper inside you, demanding every single inch he has to give.

"Faster," you whisper against his neck, your teeth biting down lightly on his skin as the pleasure begins to spiral out of control again. "Sean, they’re going to come looking for me. Any second. Faster."

The reminder of the ticking clock only seems to fuel his desperation. His movements lose all semblance of control. Whatever restraint he had left completely snaps.

He grabs you by the waist, his large fingers digging deep into your skin, leaving dark red marks that will surely need a heavy layer of makeup from the wardrobe department later. He begins to pump into you with a wild, relentless need, his hips slamming against yours in a frantic rhythm. His breath comes in loud, his chest pressed flat against yours, crushing you into the table.

He’s hitting your cervix with every single deep, violent thrust, driving you to the absolute edge of madness. Your hands scramble blindly across the table behind you, knocking over a plastic bottle of water that spills across the remaining papers. Your fingers claw at the hard wood, your nails scratching the surface as you try to find some kind of anchor in the middle of this storm of pure pleasure.

"You’re mine," he gasps out, burying his face into the crook of your neck. His breath against your skin, his teeth biting down firmly on your collarbone as he continues to drive himself into you without mercy. "Tell me you’re mine. Tell me we’re going to take everything we want."

"We are," you cry out, your head shaking back and forth, your hair a wild mess across your face. The world is reduced to nothing but the heat of his body, the sound of your skin slapping together, and the deep, stretching fullness inside you. "We are... oh God, Sean, I’m— I'm close! Sean!"

The sudden, frantic clenching of your internal walls around his cock is the final trigger he can’t resist. Sean lets out a loud, animalistic roar against your skin as his own climax hits him like a train. He thrusts deep one last time, driving himself into you as far as physically possible, holding himself pinned tightly against your body as his entire frame shakes with powerful, violent spasms. He groans loudly, his head buried in your hair as he pumps his hot, thick semen deep inside you, filling you.

At that exact same microsecond, your own body collapses into a blinding orgasm. The pleasure is so intense, so violent, that your vision goes completely dark for a short second. Your internal muscles go wild, milking his throbbing cock in tight, rhythmic, uncontrollable waves that seem to go on forever, squeezing every last drop out of him as you scream his name into the empty room.

You cling to each other desperately on the messy table, both of your bodies covered in a fine layer of sweat, your chests heaving violently as you pant for air. The only sound for a long moment is the frantic, ragged noise of your breathing and the quiet hum of the fan.

The heavy, suffocating silence of the aftermath is broken almost immediately by a sharp, loud, aggressive knock on the metal trailer door.

"Five minutes to places! We need the lead actress on set immediately!" your assistant’s loud voice calls out from the other side of the thin door, her footsteps pausing right outside.

You freeze instantly, your heart stopping dead in your chest, a sudden jolt of pure panic replacing the residual pleasure. Sean’s eyes snap open, the heavy haze of lust instantly vanishing, replaced by a sharp flash of fear. He’s still buried deep inside you, his heavy cock slowly softening but still holding your bodies locked together on the table.

"I... I’ll be right out!" you call back toward the door, forcing your voice to stay steady, trying desperately to keep it from trembling or sounding as breathless as you actually are. You swallow hard, your hand gripping Sean’s shoulder for support. "Just fixing my hair and makeup!"

"Okay! Please hurry, the director is getting really impatient." Her footsteps finally turn and fade away down the gravel path outside.

Sean slowly, carefully pulls out of you with a soft, wet sound that seems incredibly loud in the quiet room. The sudden emptiness makes you shiver. 

A thick stream of mixed fluids immediately leaks out of your open center, running down the inside of your thigh. You quickly reach over to the table, grabbing a handful of tissues to clean yourself up before it can ruin the dress. Your legs are shaking so violently that you can barely stand as you slide off the edge of the table, your feet hitting the cold floorboards.

Sean stands up, his breathing still heavy as he quickly pulls his trousers up and fastens the buttons, his hands still a little unsteady. 

He steps toward you, his fingers reaching out to gently touch your chin, lifting your face so you have to look at him. The intense, possessive heat is still lingering in his eyes, hidden just beneath the surface of his panic.

"I have to go," he says softly, his voice still rough from the climax. He gently wipes some lipstick from your lower lip. "But this isn’t over. Not by a long shot."

"I know," you say, forcing a small, confident smile as you tie your robe back together and head to the mirror to fix your makeup. "Now get out. I have a movie to finish."

Sean bites his lips, hiding a smile. He grabs the umbrella, opening the door.

“Sean…” you call him, your eyes finding his through the mirror. “I don’t want to see you with her anymore.”

You can tell he freezes for a second. The look in his eyes tells you everything. 

He nods and closes the door behind him.

You look at yourself in the mirror again and sigh. 

You know he’s lying.

But in a place like this, everyone is far too good at pretending. 

Including yourself.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　

⭑ para val, te amo⭑

⋆⭒˚.⋆ likes, reblogs and comments are appreciated !! thank you for reading. ⋆⭒˚.⋆

“Steve!” You snap at him one Thursday lunchtime in the dance studio for stepping on your shoes for the fifth time in the past fifteen minutes. “Look at where you’re going—”

“—you told me to stop looking down at my feet—”

“—yeah, well you need to make sure that your big clown feet don’t break a toe—”

“—clown feet?!”

It would have been comical, if arguing with Steve didn’t make you want to strangle him.

It was six weeks before the spring musical and four weeks into rehearsals and Steve Harrington had managed to steal every bit of patience that you possessed.

To his credit, he wasn’t that bad of a dancer. He just didn’t like to listen to you. Or maybe he just preferred you when you were pissed off at him for not taking the dance practices seriously. But who could blame you for getting pissed? To him—this was just a stupid little musical he didn’t really want to be in and to you? This musical could be the difference between whether or not you got into college.

So yeah, Steve’s clown feet and his inability to listen to you were a fucking problem.

“Yeah, clown feet,” you retort irritability as you step away from him, needing space before you resorted to physical violence. “Let’s take it from the top and don’t fucking step on my toes again.”

Steve looked as though he wanted to argue with you but the borderline murderous look on your face stops him.

At least he had some sense about him.

Steve manages to do a complete run through of the dance without stepping on your toes once. He was getting better, even you could see that. But you certainly weren't going to kiss his ass like everyone else in Hawkins High did.

"Good," you say by way of a compliment as Steve can't help but look pleased with himself.

"Just good?" Steve asks, a little incredulous, almost offended that you weren't fawning over the fact he did possess an ability to listen to you. "C'mon, that deserved more than a 'good'."

You very nearly roll your eyes. God, you could not stand this guy and you had six more weeks of having to tolerate him.

You say nothing, glancing down at your watch to avoid looking at him.

"What's up with you today?" Steve asks you, nudging your arm and making you grit your teeth. "You're crankier than usual."

You click your tongue against the roof of your mouth, wishing more than anything that you were anywhere else in the world but here before you finally decide to look at him. "I'm fine. There's nothing up with me—"

"—is it because we're rehearsing the kiss is tomorrow?"

Your breath hitches. Everything seems to go very still, except your heart that starts trying to beat its way out of your chest. Traitorous thing.

You take perhaps five seconds to come to your senses, shaking your head before letting a loud laugh.

"Of course not," you say, despite the fact that your face had started feeling a little hot. "It's just a kiss, it's not that serious."

Steve quirks a brow, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he looks back at you. You can't help but notice the small step that he takes towards you.

"I think you're nervous," Steve murmurs, less than a foot away from you now as he looks at you with eyes that you find yourself being unable to look away from.

"Why would I nervous, exactly?" You ask him, trying to keep your voice even despite the way your heart was still pounding in your chest. “Are you that bad at kissing?”

Something in Steve’s expression shifts, looking amused instead of annoyed at your jabs like he usually would.

“No,” he says softly, his eyes flickering over your face as though he was studying every one of your features carefully. “I’ve been told I’m a great kisser.”

“Sure,” you say, unamused as you look anywhere but at his lips. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Harrington.”

Steve smiles and then, before you can even blink—he leans in. Until his mouth is directly next to your ear, until you can hear every breath that he takes, until you can smell his ridiculously expensive cologne he wears, one that you couldn’t help but breathe in, the warm, musky vanillary scent filling your lungs.

“You wanna know what I think?” Steve asks you, his hot breath hitting your ear and making a heat that you didn’t quite know what to do with spread through your body.

You swallow, you pray that doesn’t Steve hear it. “You can do that? Well, colour me surprised.”

Steve laughs and the sound travels through you—warm and leaving your body tingling. You were having to remind yourself of all the reasons you didn’t like him—he was arrogant, he didn’t take the thing you cared about seriously and he had been stepping on your toes for the past fucking hour.

“I think,” Steve begins, his voice low and making that heat burn a little hotter inside of you. “I think you’re nervous about kissing me.”

You blink. For a moment, you don’t say a damn word. Everything in your body feels too hot and you’re quite sure that you have even forgotten how to breathe entirely.

“I’m not,” you say flatly after a beat, ignoring the way your heart was still racing from the close proximity.

“I think you are,” Steve hums, one of his large hands planting itself on your waist and making your body feel as though you were on fire, as though flames were licking at your skin, devouring your flesh. “I think you’ve been thinking about kissing me for weeks. I think you’ve heard the rumours about me and you want a taste for yourself.”

And there it was—the arrogance. God, you wanted to slap him. You wanted to slap that smug look off his face and do it again for good measure. Because he was a prick, nothing more than a hot jock who didn’t care that you had worked your ass off to get a role lead, didn’t care that your dreams of being on stage relied on this musical, something that he thought was stupid.

“You’re so fucking full of yourself,” you snap back at him, ignoring your body’s reaction to him. You tell yourself it was just biology—a hot guy this close to you? Of course you were a little bit affected.

It was just biology.

“Yeah?” Steve asks you, the hand on your waist splaying across your back, pulling you an inch or so closer. “That so?”

He was so fucking smug and his hand on your body was making you feel things you didn’t want to. Not for him anyway.

“Yeah,” you say, moving your head slightly so that you could look right at him, reminding yourself once again who you were talking to.

Steve Harrington. King Steve. Whatever else people called him these days. The guy who had things so easy that he had landed a lead in a musical without even fucking trying.

“Because kissing you will mean nothing to me,” you tell him firmly. “And I’m gonna prove it to you.”

There was a moment, the briefest of seconds where Steve falters. You catch the way his lips part, brows furrow in confusion.

“Wait, what—”

You don’t give him any kind of explanation, nor do you give yourself even a second to question whether what you were about to do was incredibly stupid.

Your hands each up cup either side of his face, your fingers brushing against the slight stubble over his jaw before you lean in and press your lips firmly against his.

Steve seems to freeze against you, your lips moving against his and turning his insides to goo.

It was only when you began to lean back, starting to pull away from him that he finally came to his senses.

Steve pulls you toward him in by the hand that was splayed across your back, his other hand cupping the side of your neck as he presses his lips against yours. His mouth was warm, soft and insistent as his lips slide against yours, a subtle wetness there that had a syrupy warmth spreading through your gut.

It should have stopped there. You should have pulled away.

But instead, you felt your lips parting almost on instinct and Steve took the opportunity to slide his tongue into the wet heat of the mouth.

Neither of you could seem to help the noises you make at the first brush of tongues against each other. Steve groans in your mouth, his hand that was resting on the side of your neck moving to cup your jaw, titling your head back gently to deepen the kiss while you let out a small gasp, fingers trailing down to fist the front of his shirt, as if trying to pull him closer.

It wasn't sweet and it certainly wasn't pretty—it was needy. It was something akin to desperation. Both of your lips slick with spit and leaving your body thrumming for more.

It was just as Steve's hand moved to pull you closer, pull you flush against him that you finally—finally—forced yourself to pull away. And Steve Harrington—King Steve, Captain of the basketball team, the Keg Stand King—his lips chase yours, capturing them for another hungry, searing kiss. One that you feel in every nerve throughout your body, one that leaves your lips tingling. Steve dives right back in, sucking on your tongue and pulling a small whimper from you.

"Knew it," he murmurs against your mouth, "I fucking knew it."

He leans back in, ready for more but you place a hand on his chest, stopping him from doing so.

Your chest was heaving, your lips bee stung and wet with a mix of your spit but you refused to give him.

"See?" You say, a little breathless as you pull away from him fully, the distance doing little to help the warmth that had spread throughout your body. "Means nothing to me."

Steve looks back at you, his hazel eyes wide and staring at you as though seeing you in a whole new light. There was something, something there in his expression that you couldn't quite read. It made you swallow and you had to look away from him.

"Nothing?" Steve asks, trying to catch your eyes as you cross the dance studio to grab your bag. "Are you—"

"—I'm sure," you interrupt before he could finish his sentence. "That meant nothing to me."

Steve, for the first time, looks unsure of what to say. For a second, you wonder if you had hurt his feelings but then you remembered that this was Steve Harrington. He didn't need validation from a girl like you.

"I'll see you at rehearsals tomorrow," you say before Steve could even open his mouth to respond.

And then—you leave the studio with a second glance.

You miss the way Steve watches you as you leave. The way he lifts his hand to brush his fingers over his swollen lips, the way he can't bring himself to move from the spot where you had kissed him.

Because maybe, just maybe, Steve Harrington had just had the best kiss of his damn life.

And it had meant nothing to you.

Fuck, Steve thought as his stomach turned with something that felt too close to disappointment for his liking. He was fucked. He was truly and utterly fucked.

dividers and banner by me 🌸

please credit me if you wish to reuse

.✦ ݁˖ rec account: @moonstone-recommends .✦ ݁˖

“uh, yeah, why, are you almost home?” dustin’s voice comes in crackles, like something inside of steve’s suit had been damaged. or maybe his ears are just ringing.

“uh, yeah. yeah, i am, but… i think one of you two is gonna have to give me stitches.” steve states casually as his apartment building comes into view, still a distance away.

“stitches!?” robin’s panicked voice comes through a moment later. “steve, i can’t do stitches, i have very shaky hands, you know this! i mean, last time you even had me look at one of your injuries i made it worse!”

“just be ready, please?” steve groans, and not even a full minute later he’s crashing into the fire escape beside his living room window and forcing the glass up.

robin is by his side the moment he gets one leg through the window, and she helps him inside the apartment while very clearly panicking.

steve feels woozy, still keeping one of his gloved hands pressed to the wound on his torso as robin helps him stumble to the couch.

dustin’s scrambling around and gathering steve’s medical supplies; a bowl of water and the first aid kit you had given him. robin’s talking his ear off in what steve thinks is an attempt to comfort or distract him, but it’s not exactly working.

“shit, dude, how do you usually do this on your own?” dustin asks, setting the supplies down on the coffee table before he and robin help steve out of his suit.

“i don’t,” steve groans, throwing his head back against the sofa with a groan before he pauses. then he hears it, a clatter of dishes, a mumbled curse, and the sound of footsteps all coming from the apartment beneath him.

robin and dustin are arguing now, voices overlapping as they debate which way to treat steve would be best, meanwhile steve is focused entirely on you. you’re at home.

with a groan, a large amount of blood flowing from his wound as he does so, steve sits up.

“woah, woah, steve!” dustin is immediately grabbing his shoulders and trying to lie him back down on the couch.

“i need my phone, henderson.” steve groans, but lets dustin push him back because he’s in pain.

“why?” dustin questions him as robin hands the device over, and steve pulls his now blood-soaked hand away from his wound to type. “dude! don’t do that, you’ll bleed out!”

robin is immediately pressing her hands down on steve’s wound while shooting him a terrified look. “seriously, harrington? this is disgusting! you know i don’t like blood, and you look like you’re dying!”

steve is too busy texting you to notice.

r u busy? need help am bleeding pls

then he drops his phone onto the couch and listens while dustin replaces robin’s hands with a tea towel to try and soak up some more of the blood.

there’s fast, almost panicked, knocking at his apartment door within a minute, and steve just smiles while dustin and robin’s heads swivel toward the door with wide eyes like they’ve been caught doing something wrong.

“steve, are you in there?” your voice comes through and then steve’s friends are looking at him instead.

“don’t just stare at me, let her in!” he gestures to the door and robin jumps to her feet with shaky, bloody hands.

you barrel inside, brushing past robin and letting your eyes lock onto steve’s immediately. at the sight of him conscious and grinning, you seem relieved, but you still roll your eyes at him.

“you scared me, idiot, i thought you were up here bleeding and alone.” you shake your head, immediately kneeling down beside dustin and reaching for the first aid kit like it’s second nature.

dustin steps back, his eyes flitting between you and steve as you begin cleaning his wound with ease, and steve keeps this lazy smirk on his face the entire time.

dustin recognizes you, you’re the neighbor who brought steve him cookies, but dustin had no idea that you’re basically spider-man’s nurse.

robin, on the other hand, has no idea who you are, or where you came from, and has been staring at you with her mouth gaping open for the last few minutes as she watches you stitch up the cut on steve’s skin.

then she and dustin share a look when steve reaches for your hand and you let him take it, intertwining your fingers and squeezing, while leaving your other hand free to clean him up.

once steve is all cleaned up, the bloody gauze in the trash while the tea towel and steve’s suit are in a pile in the corner of the room, and he’s changed back into some more comfortable clothes, dustin and robin practically corner you in the kitchen as you wash your hands.

“so are you and steve, like, together?” dustin asks, pushing his hands together and interlocking his fingers, and you pause.

“no, not really,” you reply, and then glance over at steve as he holds a hand to his head and winces. robin and dustin watch as you carry a glass of water and some painkillers over to their friend like it’s nothing.

“they’re definitely sleeping together, right?” dustin asks and robin chuckles.

“oh, most definitely.”

–

likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated <3

teacake was about to get up and leave the bar when he saw you cross the threshold. he immediately sat straight after an hour of hunching over the table he was sitting at. his eyes followed you around the room, watching carefully the way your legs moved with decision toward what he inferred was your group of friends, the biggest smile plastered on your face.

“hey guys!” teacake heard you say as you took off the red scarf around your neck and took a seat.

it’s not nice to overhear. his own voice echoed in his mind, but he couldn’t help it.

“sorry i’m late” you apologized and pouted, pulling a string at teacake’s stomach who was now able to see you better from his seat right across yours. 

“what happened?” one of your friends questioned with a look on her face that told him they already knew what had been going on.

“jack– we– can we actually not talk about it?” you pleaded.

“what exactly?” the other girl continued, “the fact that you should’ve dumped his ass months ago or-”

“i said, can we not talk about it? in general, not just what happened tonight just, jack altogether, please.”

boyfriend.

travis’s shoulders slumped without him meaning to. he shouldn’t care, he didn’t know you so he had no business caring.

Still, his gaze drifted back to your table without him meaning to every couple of minutes, hearing in on the conversation and laughter that poured from your table, catching bits like: he keeps saying he’ll change… and then he has already said that, multiple times…

And as you laughed along, teacake could tell that it wasn’t completely genuine, that it was hiding truths you didn’t want your friends to guess. he was pretty sure he knew exactly what that truth was: your boyfriend’s a dick.

the clock ticked and he started to feel sorry for himself, with one last sip of his glass he had enough, reaching into his jacket for his wallet, leaving a few bills on the table as he pushed the chair back with a scrape against the wooden floor that was barely audible over the chatter and music.

But then, he caught another sentence in the sound of your voice “i’ll be right back” you told your friends and excused yourself from your table, walking over to the bar, to him, well… next to him. he saw how you, out of the corner of his eye, sit down on the stool right next to his, laying your elbows against the wood and rubbing your temples.

travis held his breath, suddenly not so eager to go.

the bartender asked you what you wanted to drink and you smiled apologetically “anything you’d recommend to someone who had a really shitty day.”

the bartender chuckled and turned around to prepare your drink and teacake didn’t move. he stared ahead, looking at his empty glass. there wasn’t really something stopping him from leaving. just like there wasn’t really something stopping him from speaking, “that’s a dangerous request,” he said, shifting his body so he saw the side of your face, “it can either be the best drink you’ve ever had or taste like downright gasoline.”

you glanced sideways and for the first time that night he got to see you up close. “so, it’s like fifty fifty?”

“basically yeah”

you laughed quietly, “well they’re not bad odds”

“no, they’re terrible odds,” he argued.

“yeah but probably not worse than what i’ve already had today,” the bartender placed a tall glass in front of you. teacake saw you eyeing it suspiciously before you took a careful sip, your face scrunched up “holy fucking fuck.” you gagged and he bit the inside of his cheek, “well, yeah it tastes just like gasoline”

a laugh escaped travis, it wasn’t loud, but it did surprise him.

“don’t laugh” you pointed at him.

he held his hands up, “i did warn you…”

a beat of silence followed, one where you extended your hand toward him, he took it “travis,” you answered with your own name and he repeated it, like testing it, seeing how it sounded coming from him.

“are you waiting for someone?” you asked.

“not really, but maybe… you,” he cringed at his flirting attempt but you smiled and lifted your brows.

“is that so?”

“i mean, i kinda overhead your conversation over there… boyfriend problems?” travis saw you tense up at his words.

“hopefully not for too much longer,” you drank again from your cup and decided that it was awful, pushing it aside.

he didn’t push further, letting the conversation settle into an easy rhythm over trivial topics neither of you two cared too much about, needing little effort to keep up. you made simple questions that required only short answers and no explanations. about work, and friends, and family, but never about your boyfriend.

you friends approached only once to check on you, looking at teacake with curiosity but not questioning it. they said they were leaving and asked if you were leaving with them and you shook your head, “i’ll stay for a bit” and of course he didn’t complain.

neither of you said anything when you found yourselves walking through the night the few blocks it took to get to teacake’s apartment. the city was quiet and very few cars passed you in the ten minutes you were walking; not that you were paying attention to them. in that moment you felt as if nobody else existed, the only other person being the charming hair-dyed guy next to you that didn’t stop talking, not even for a second… you loved it.

you noticed his step slowing down until they came to a halt in front of a not so tall building. “okay… this is me,” travis announced, walking to the door, opening it and stepping aside to let you in.

you smiled at him, ignoring the small knot in your stomach you were feeling as a consequence of your actions. but it dissipated once you remembered why you were doing what you were about to do, and the idea of breaking up with your boyfriend the next day crossed your mind for a moment. later, i’ll think about it later, choosing to focus on the man whose steps you were following down the hall.

teacake unlocked his apartment door and let you in. it was simple and surprisingly tidy, at least for what you were able to see given that the only light on was a tiny limp in the corner of his living room.

he didn’t waste time, encaging you against the wall, forearms on each side of your head and your mouths were so close that you smelt the alcohol on his breath and you were sure he could smell the remains of the awful drink you’d had moments ago.

“y’know… it’s not too late to back down if you want to,” he looked at your lips and licked his own.

you shook your head and a minute went by where you didn’t move. “y’know…” you copied him, “we could already be in your bed if you just kissed me”

travis smirked and answered by lowering his hands to your hair, sneaking behind your neck and pulling you against him, crashing your lips in a hungry, needy kiss; showing you how much he was thinking about taking you to his bed as well.

you let your hand travel upwards to his jaw, your thumb brushing across the stubble there and deepening the kiss by tilting your head. his reaction was immediate in the form of his tongue pressing your upper lip, asking for an opening, which you gave and felt him lick inside your mouth.

without breaking the kiss, travis started to walk backwards, stopping after a few steps when you almost fell and tapping the back of your thighs, signaling to jump up. you did and locked your legs around him as his hands found your ass and squeezed hard, making you grind against him and getting a moan out of you that got lost in between his lips.

he moved both of you to his room and dropped you, but his hands never left your body, finding a new home on your hips, were he sank his fingers through the fabric of your pants under your coat. you shimmied it off of you and let it fall to the floor. in a second and with no hesitation he pulled your top off and threw it behind you, he bit his lip at seeing you bare chested in front of him, cupping your breasts “god- look at you”

you wanted to see him too, of course you did; so, you tug at the hem of his white shirt seeking approval. “take it off, sweetheart” teacake agreed. you slowly pulled it up unhurriedly, lingering your gaze on each spot of skin you were revealing, especially on the line of hair that disappeared under the waistband of his visible boxers, and the patch of hair on his chest, where you ran your fingers through once the piece of clothing was out of your way completely.

“you’re gonna let me suck you off” your fingers hooked on his belt loops and pulled him closer, the mix of different types of alcohol from your kisses still lingering in your mouth. he looked even better up close as his tousled hair fell right in front of his eyes and you could see his moles clearer, too many to count but too pretty not to notice.

“do you want to?” teacake grabbed your waist. the tip of his nose grazed yours from the closeness between your bodies and you took the chance to get your lips on his jaw, drawing a trail of small kisses along it before moving over to his neck.

you spoke to his hot skin “yes i want it so bad,” your left hand went from his belt loops to the front of his pants where you could feel him already hard for you against the rough fabric. “and i think you want it too” you pressed slightly, getting a low moan out of him that immediately made you want to hear more.

travis just nodded his head enthusiastically, his mind already travelling a thousand miles per second, too fast to say anything coherent.

you got into your knees and started to undo his pants, working agonizingly slow just to tease him. you pulled the old pair of jeans down his legs and found yourself looking at the shape of his hard dick under the black cotton of his boxer briefs. you looked up at him and kissed it over the fabric, leaving a damp spot close to the one his precum had already left, “holy shit-” he cursed at the sight, “holy shit you look so pretty like that”

teacake furrowed his brows when he saw you get up, running your hands over his thighs, and along his torso on the way up to push at his shoulders. “lay on the bed,” you ordered, already enclosing him.

he let himself fall on his own mattress, sitting upright by resting his hands on the edge of the bed as he watched you kneel down in front of him. you looked into his eyes and travis nodded, signaling you to keep going before saying, “want to see how that pretty mouth of yours looks around my dick”. you didn’t take his underwear completely off, just lowering it enough for his dick to pop free from its restraint. it hit his low stomach and wet the happy trail that lead to its base and which you hadn’t been able to take your eyes off of since the moment you let his shirt fall to the floor. and you couldn’t help it but licking the strip, getting it clean from his own juice and wet with your spit.

travis let out a groan when he felt the warmth of your tongue on his skin and you wrapped your fingers around him, your hand hot from having been tangled on his hair while you were making out.

the slow twist of your wrist as you jerked him off at a slow pace sent his head back in an attempt to not let his mouth run free, but you wanted to hear him, all the sounds he made on how his rambled sounded when it was caused by pleasure. “don’t hold back, i love to hear you” you pleaded, your gaze locked on his adam’s apple until he forced himself to look into your eyes.

you got his dick closer to your face without breaking eye contact, something that drove him insane by the way you felt him twitch in your hand. your tongue met his flesh first, swirling around his tip and gathering his precum that you spread all over his length with the help of your thumb.

in that moment teacake realized he was not going to last too long. “jesus christ” he moaned and gripped the sheets under him hard, knuckles turning white “give me more- i need more, be a good girl f’ me”

you decided not to tease him any longer and let your mouth envelop his dick. your focus was on getting as much of him inside as you could, he was big and it wasn’t easy, but the moment his tip grazed the back of your throat teacake whimpered, the sound made you sigh and the vibration got him closer to the edge.

you bobbed your head, increasing the pace with each slide of your tongue along his undervein, never letting his cock get fully out before taking him in again. “fuck- just like that, you gonna choke on my dick,” teacake’s words send a rush of heat right to your core and you could feel yourself getting wet just from them.

the sound of your own spit mixing with his precum and travis’s continuous moans were the only sounds in the room, silencing any reminder of your boyfriend that didn’t have space in your mind at that moment, making the man inside of your mouth come was the only thing you could think about.

“yeah, keep going like that, fuck!” he encouraged you and grabbed a fistful of your hair, guiding your head up and down his dick in such a speed that had you holding onto his thighs so you wouldn’t lose balance. “i’m gonna cum, you gonna let me cum in your pretty mouth?”

“mhm” you hummed, your jaw was starting to get tired and a tear rolled down your cheek at the pressure, but it was brushed away by his thumb.

“shit- i’m close- i’m cumming” teacake warned, but you didn’t pull away. instead you hollowed your cheeks and instantly felt his salty and warm cum fill your mouth as he came hard. you kept him inside, waiting for him to come down. his grip on your hair let up and you stopped your movements, swallowing as much of his release as you could while still having his dick resting on your tongue. “let me see, show me your tongue” your lips slid off of him with a pop sound and you complied with his request, showing him how much of him was still on you before pressing your lips together to give tiny pecks along his length, stopping at his tip while you watched him try to catch his breath as he came down from his high.

when you got up you saw teacake breathing fast and straddled his lap, your still clothed but damp core against his semi-hard dick. “that was- wow” his hands had left you and were covering his face, rubbing harshly in sync with shaky exhales. you pulled him towards you by the nape of his neck and smashed your lips against his, instantly getting your tongue inside his own mouth, making him taste himself. “i’m gonna get you ready f’ me,” you barely had any time to register his words before he sneaked an arm around your torso, your back hitting the mattress before being dragged by your legs to the center of the bed where he took off your pants and underwear in one swift motion before he laid down in between your legs.

travis pulled your thighs apart, lifting them up and resting them on his shoulders as he made space for his head. you watched him carefully make his way up the inside of your thighs in a mindblowing pattern; he bit down on your flesh to then trace the skin with his tongue and ended up kissing it to soothe it.

you didn’t hesitate and let your fingers tangle in his dyed hair, twisting the longer strands. he found your center and immediately separated your lips with two fingers to press his tongue against your pussy. teacake didn’t waste any time torturing you as he sucked on your clit with rhythmic urgency, “fuck, your tongue feels so good i’m not used to it”.

he looked up at you and saw you already looking at him, “your boyfriend doesn't eat you out?” teacake knew the answer would be a negative one by the way you rocked your hips against his face as your body reacted to the movements of his tongue and his breath on your most sensitive part, looking for friction that’d help you satisfy yourself.

“never,” you confessed, followed by letting the sweetest sounds escape your throat and meet travis’s ears.

“not anymore,” he didn’t tear his gaze from you, no matter how hard you were pulling at his hair, and no matter how much he wanted to close his eyes from the mere pleasure of knowing he was making you feel better than the man who slept next to you every night ever could, “fucking asshole,” he whispered, more to himself than you; not like you would have been able to hear him over the beating of your own heart echoing in your ears. teacake decided to finish you off with his fingers teasing your entrance with two digits, “god you should see how perfect you look right now, all for me… “

he started pumping his fingers in and out of you in a relentless pace, your back arched and the heels of your feet buried down on his shoulders as a series of gasps and moans broke out of you, “please don’t stop,” you begged. your body twitched when he slid his fingers out of you, “look at how you’re dripping off of my fingers, you like that?” you saw your arousal coating his digits like never before. travis tapped them against your bottom lip, “open… that’s it” you took them in and sucked him clean.

he went back to your pussy, “cum on my mouth,” teacake pressed the pad of his thumb on your clit and started teasing it with circular motions that had you seeing stars. the tension finally snapped when he swirled his tongue in between your folds, making you hit your high all at once. from his place in between your legs he watched the way your breath hitched and your eyes rolled back, already getting hard again from the sight.

he worked you through your climax and drank you up completely as you came down, your body limp as it sunk down on the mattress. travis moved his mouth away from your cunt, and if you had been able to open your eyes for a second you’d seen the way he was tasting you. “such a pretty pussy,” he praised you “can’t wait to get my dick in it and see if you can take it”. he moved upward, sliding his naked body over yours slowly, taking you in as much as he could in the dark room.

when you finally came to your senses, you opened your eyes and saw him leaning on his side, propped up on his elbow, his face close to yours while he stared down and smirked at your disheveled state. “think you got one more in you f’ me?”

you didn’t answer, instead you reached up and pull him down, cupping his jaw to meet his lips in another desperate and even more needy kiss that tasted like both of you. it was all tongue and teeth, feeling him whimper into you when you bit his bottom lip and licked the spot after. teacake let his hands roam all over your body, trying to paint a picture on his mind of every curve of you to save it for later, when he knew he’d be alone and the only thing he’ll be able to think about will be this; you under him still wet from his mouth.

his dick was hard against your low stomach, and the sensation made you want him inside you, “fuck me.”

with a fast movement travis stopped kissing you and turned you around, your back on full display for him as he reached over to his nightstand and opened the drawer, pulling out a condom. he teared the wrapper with his teeth and instantly rolled the rubber down on his length.

over your shoulders you saw him positioning himself over you; his right hand around the base of his cock to press into your hole without pushing yet, your eyes caught his left hand right before it slammed on your ass, “shit!” you cursed at the heat it left on your skin.

“you’re still so wet,” teacake noticed by the way your own juice was already drowning him just from sliding against your core, without being inside you. he bit his lip at the sight; but that wasn’t enough to hide the moan that escaped it.

in one snap of his hips he buried himself to the hilt, “oh my god,” you cried out, feeling him everywhere. he waited a few seconds to start moving so you got used to his size and the pain from the stretch turned to pleasure, until you lifted your ass and pressed it against him, asking for more, “keep going”

he pulled out leaving only his tip in and started thrusting into you over and over again, “been thinking about fucking you since i saw you” travis told you, “you’re taking me so so well, fuck- so tight, bet he doesn’t even dick you down good enough huh?”

“no” you said breathlessly, unable to utter more words.

“i can feel you squeezing me,” he grabbed your ass to direct your own movements and make you meet him halfway, watching the spot where your bodies met, “tell me how’s it feel, tell me i’m better than him”

your vision got blurry and it took you a few tries in between moans to get any words out, “so- yes, right there-” you screamed when he hit your sweet spot.

teacake spanked you before getting his arms around your chest to squish your boobs, lifting you up and pulling you flush against him, the change in position had him reaching deep, “speak, is this how you like it?” he asked while slamming into your pussy.

“it feels so good- you feel so good, you’re better than him”

“you gonna cum f’ me again,” it wasn’t a question. one of his hands left your chest and made its way up to your neck, engulfing it but not choking. without thinking about it your fingers went to your cunt, feeling how swollen you were, although it did not stop you from rubbing them against your clit, “oh fuck- yeah, touch yourself” his movements were getting sloppy as seeing you play with your pussy while it clenched around him drove him close to his release. “you remember my name?”

you nodded.

“i want you to say it when you cum, loud” he bit down on your shoulder, kissing it after.

“i’m close, keep going,” teacake bucked once, twice before he heard you moan his name, “travis”

“i know baby, i know- just like that” the squeeze of your walls around him broke him as he thrusted into you one last time, he groaned right into your ear as he spilled inside the condom, “fuck-” he stilled, holding onto your shaking body for a moment.

he pushed himself off of you, flopping down beside you.

you looked down at him, his chest glistened with sweat and his hair was a mess, even more than before your fingers got lost in it. “‘m gonna go to the bathroom,” you announced and he just gave you a thumbs up.

—

you looked at yourself in the mirror, at the smudged mascara and messy, tangled hair and smiled, refraining from laughing at the situation you found yourself in. there was only silence inside and outside the tiny room, broken only by the sound of water falling from the tap as you gathered it in your hands and washed your face, trying to freshen up before coming back to bed.

you stopped in your tracks when you saw travis sprawled across the mattress, one arm over his stomach. what should you do? you weren’t staying over, not if he had fallen asleep. you would’ve considered it if he had asked you to, but he hadn’t.

so, you got into your clothes while you watched him. a strand of hair had fallen across his forehead and it gave you an idea, a childish one, but fun.

you searched the pockets of your coat and found the two things you were looking for, your lipstick that you sat on the nightstand and a hair tie that you slipped around your wrist. without putting too much weight close to him, as gently as you could so as not to wake him up, you gathered the loose section of his hair.

teacake sighed and you froze, waiting for him to settle again before you continued.

carefully, you divided the strand into smaller ones and weaved them together, one over the other with practised ease, making a tiny braid and securing it with the elastic.

you reached for the lipstick and went back to the bathroom, turning on the light so you could see what you were doing. you uncapped it and started to write in the mirror, your reflection looking back at you with a mischievous smile on your face.

you snore a bit, and under it, your number.

for a long moment you were just admiring your work. that was until your phone started vibrating in your pocket, pulling you out of your trance and making you hurry to the door, unable to catch another glimpse of travis sleeping.

—

the next morning teacake woke up in a confused daze, barely remembering where he was before he realized he was naked. the image of his bare body reminding him of what had happened the night before, of you.

“jesus…” he said to no one.

looking around he noticed how quiet his apartment was, the lack of clothes that weren’t his on the floor and thus, the fact that you had left at some point of the night.

he stood and stretched his back, stretching it while his feet took him to the bathroom. once he turned on the light he was hit with your little antic, “what the-” he leaned closer and reached for his forehead, his fingers catching the braid you’d so carefully done and he started laughing, not a small chuckle, but a laugh that his upstairs neighbor was probably hearing through the walls.

inside, the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, while the endless rows of corrugated metal doors stretched into the dim distance.

shift work here was mind-numbing at the best of times. tonight, with the storm raging outside and only the two of you on duty, it felt like the world had narrowed down to this one quiet corner of the office.

you leaned against the counter, orange t-shirt sticking slightly to your skin from the humidity. travis was a few feet away, fiddling with a clipboard even though nothing needed checking. his grey t-shirt stretched across his shoulders, the sleeves rode up every time he moved, revealing the edges of tattoos that snaked down his forearms.

you’d been here a couple of weeks, long enough to get used to him. at first, he came off a little awkward, but you got used to the constant yapping, and, if you were being honest, you found it kind of cute. he always had some dumb story ready whenever things got quiet, and somehow they never stopped making you laugh.

unfortunately, you’d spent more time than you’d like to admit ranting about your ex. travis would just sit there, listen, then hit you with, “dude sounds like a walking red flag,” like it explained everything. he never understood why you stayed with him when every story you told ended with your boyfriend doing something that annoyed you.

after sitting with it for a couple of days, you finally decided to end the relationship.

“i finally did it,” you said suddenly, voice cutting through the rain. “broke up with him a couple days ago.”

travis’s head snapped up so fast the clipboard nearly slipped from his hands. his eyes widened, that soft hazel color catching the light. “wait—seriously? like, done done?” he set the clipboard down, then immediately picked it back up, nerves making him fidget.

“i mean, that’s… shit, that’s good. not good like ‘haha your relationship exploded,’ but from what you told me-yeah, he was kind of an asshole. not that breakups aren’t rough. if you’re sad or whatever, i get it. i’ve been there. well, not exactly there, but close enough. you okay? you don’t look okay. or you look okay, but like, quiet -okay? fuck, i’m talking too much.”

you couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at your lips. “i’m not sad. i’m just… kinda numb, i don’t know. it feels like it should hurt more, but it doesn’t.”

he nodded a little too quickly, his hair falling into his face again. “numb makes sense. totally valid.”

you almost laughed. travis was always a little awkward, but you’d noticed how flustered he got whenever you stood too close or paid him a compliment. it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out he had a thing for you. and, if you were being honest, he was really attractive. maybe it was the conversation, or maybe it was just the way he was looking at you, but that night, something between you felt… different.

travis gave you a sideways look. “so… was there anything about him that was actually worth sticking around for?”

you opened your mouth to answer, but nothing came out. you thought about it for a second, then huffed a laugh.

“honestly?”

he raised an eyebrow.

then, almost without meaning to, you found yourself saying it.

“he wasn’t even good in bed. that was probably one of the biggest reasons. always felt like i was just… there.”

travis froze mid-reach for his water bottle. his ears went pink. he opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “damn. that’s— i mean, yeah, no wonder you were annoyed by him. you deserve way better than that. i mean you’re too—” he cut himself off, rubbing the back of his neck, tattoos flexing with the movement. “you’re too fucking sexy to be dealing with half-assed shit like that. someone should be making you feel it, you know?”

the words hung in the air, heavier than either of you expected. your pulse kicked up, heat rushed to your cheeks before you could stop it.

you met his eyes, a playful challenge slipping into your voice even as heat pooled low in your stomach. “you wanna fuck me, travis?”

you asked it teasingly, more as a joke than anything else. even as the words left your mouth, you couldn’t believe you’d been bold enough to say them.

he didn’t laugh. didn’t deflect with another nervous ramble. his gaze darkened, dropping to your mouth for a beat before coming back up.

“yea” he said, voice low and steady. the silence that followed crackled. you could hear your own heartbeat over the rain.

“i’m gonna go check the alarms downstairs,” he muttered after a moment, clearing his throat. it sounded more like an excuse than anything else, a way to escape the confession before he had to hear your answer. but he didn’t move right away, like he was giving you an out. or an invitation.

before you even realized it, you were following him.

the stairwell was colder, the metal steps echoing under your shoes. the lower level was all shadows and rows of locked units, the big roll-up doors gleaming dully under emergency lights.

travis stopped in front of one, pretending to check the panel, big hands hovering uselessly. you stepped close, close enough to smell the faint scent of his soap and the fabric of his green shirt.

he turned. you didn’t give either of you time to overthink it. you kissed him first, rising up on your toes and pressing your mouth to his. he made a surprised sound that melted into a low groan, and then his hands were on you, those big, warm palms sliding around your waist, pulling you flush against him.

the metal door was cool at your back as he walked you into it, the contrast making you shiver. his long hair brushed your cheek when he tilted his head, deepening the kiss, tongue teasing yours with a confidence that made your knees feel unsteady.

“fuck,” he breathed against your lips, voice rougher now. “you have no idea how long i’ve wanted this.”

his hands moved down, gripping your hips, then sliding under the hem of your t-shirt. his warm fingertips traced your skin like he was memorizing it.

you tugged at his shirt in return, feeling the hard lines of muscle. he was still talking, breathless compliments between kisses along your jaw and down your neck. “you’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmured, with his lips brushing your ear.

you arched into him as his hand slipped beneath your leggings, fingers finding you already wet. he groaned at the discovery, pressing two thick fingers inside with a slow, deliberate curl that made your breath hitch.

the metal door rattled faintly behind you with every shift of your bodies. rain pounded overhead like white noise, drowning out everything except the sounds you were making for each other.

travis dropped to his knees just long enough to yank your leggings and underwear down your thighs, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to your inner thigh before standing again. he freed himself from his orange work pants, hard and heavy in his hand, and lifted one of your legs around his hip.

the first push inside stretched you perfectly. slow enough to feel every inch, deep enough to make your head fall back against the cold metal with a quiet thud.

“shit—travis…” your fingers tangled in his blonde hair, gripping tight.

he rocked into you with steady, deep thrusts, one hand braced on the door beside your head, the other holding your thigh higher. his shirt was rucked up, skin hot and slightly damp against yours. every time he bottomed out, a low and satisfied sound escaped him.

“you feel so good,” he rasped, with his forehead pressed to yours. “so damn perfect. look at you—taking me like this. fucking gorgeous.”

the angle hit just right with every thrust, building that sharp, coiling pleasure fast. his free hand slipped between you, thumb circling your clit with surprising precision. the contrast was dizzying, this sweet, silly guy who rambled about everything suddenly fucking you like he’d been thinking about it for weeks, whispering filthy, sweet praise against your mouth.

when you came, it hit hard, legs shaking, nails digging into his shoulders through his shirt, a broken moan swallowed by another deep kiss.

he followed right after, burying himself deep and groaning your name like it was the only word he remembered, hips stuttering as he spilled inside you.

for a long moment, the only sounds were your ragged breathing and the relentless rain.

travis pressed a softer kiss to your temple, still inside you. his arms wrapped around your waist like he didn’t want to let you go yet. “you okay?” he asked quietly, that familiar nervous edge creeping back into his voice.

you smiled against his neck,“yeah. im ok.”

he tilted his head, listening for a moment. “it stopped raining.”

you let out a quiet hum, your fingers absentmindedly tracing his arm. “i don’t wanna leave now.”

he smiled, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead.

“it wasn’t an idea,” steve shot back, wiping his own sweaty palms on his jeans. “it was a suggestion.” his blue t-shirt was turning darker in patches, sticking to his chest. “and i said: maybe the car is colder because we parked it under a tree.”

“do you know what maybe means?” he added.

“yeah genius, but didn’t you think about something called sun that moves?” you replied.

“okay okay, eat your ice cream. i don’t want this baby getting sticky and covered with vanilla.” he gave up, knowing he’d never win an argument with you.

“it’s hot and we’re eating ice cream, steve. i can’t promise anything,” you shrugged.

his eyebrows stayed furrowed, eyes locked on every little movement you made. he thought you didn’t notice, but he was already clutching a wad of napkins, ready to wipe away any drip before it could touch the leather.

you loved pissing him off. two years of friendship and you still never got tired of it. he was funnier when he got grumpy, and he was used to it. he’d act annoyed for a minute, then be laughing at your dumb jokes three minutes later.

this summer you’d both decided to find jobs. you and robin teased him endlessly about not needing the money, but he insisted. he wanted to prove he could do it without leaning on his parents. robin had already landed something at the supermarket but steve hated the uniform and the pay, so the two of you kept applying to new places every monday like clockwork.

somehow you’d ended up at the ice cream shop, and now you had to deal with steve’s neat-freak ass and his obsession with keeping his car extremely clean.

“relax your annoying ass. it’s not my fault your big mouth devoured your cone a second after we got out of the mall.”

“i’m not gonna say anything else, but i swear if you mess it up, you’re cleaning it,” he said, running a hand through his damp hair. wet brown strands clung to his forehead.

“i’m not cleaning anything. especially not so you can keep showing off to your failed dates. it gives me secondhand embarrassment,” you laughed.

“one: those are not failed dates. and two, you only say that because you’re clearly jealous.”

“oh my god, you definitely have heatstroke. you’re literally talking nonsense now,” you said, bursting into laughter.

“i’m not making anything up. you only say that when you don’t have an argument against me and i’m just noticing a pattern.”

your smile faded a little. he had never gone there before, even when you teased him constantly. the words made your stomach flip with a nervousness you didn’t want to name.

of course he was your friend. that was the title you gave everyone else. but you spent every day together, crashed at each other’s houses, shared everything. nothing suspicious.

still, when he said it, your brain short-circuited. the silence that followed stretched on for a bit too long.

you cleared your throat and changed the subject, desperate to save your own sanity. you didn’t notice the way he was staring at you the whole time, waiting for a real answer.

“stop talking and listen,” you said after an awkward pause. “we have to check this new shop near the park. molly just told me they’re hiring. i don’t know what for but—” you kept talking, dragging the little plastic spoon through the softening ice cream and licking it slowly.

steve wasn’t listening anymore.

his mouth was still slightly open, shiny and pink from the flavor he’d finished earlier. you felt a cool shiver run down your spine despite the suffocating heat. you cleared your throat, forcing yourself to look away before your thoughts wandered somewhere they shouldn’t. he was staring straight at your lips.

you kept avoiding his eyes, trying to focus on talking, until the melted cream started running down your arm. “oh fuck,” drops of vanilla slid onto your thighs. you reacted fast, licking every streak from your skin, then opening your mouth to catch the falling scoop.

your tongue passed over your sticky fingers, cleaning them, before finally circling your cold, sweet lips.

when you glanced up, steve wasn’t complaining about the mess. his eyes were fixed on you.

he turned his head sharply, tapping the steering wheel, then shifted awkwardly and looked out the window.

the silence stretched too long, again.

“what are you getting weird for?” you asked, finishing the last bite of the cone.

“i don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, staring straight ahead.

“you know what i mean. why are you suddenly quiet and not yelling at me for almost ruining your car?”

“it doesn’t matter. can we go?” he reached for the keys, but you stopped him. your hand, still a little sticky, wrapped softly around his wrist. “why won’t you even look at me idiot? i’m serious.”

he wiped his hands, and your eyes followed unconsciously.

that’s when you saw it.

the obvious bulge straining against his jeans. heat flooded your cheeks, hotter than the sun outside. sweat slid down between your breasts, but this time it had nothing to do with the weather.

you gulped and looked at him. his t-shirt clung to every line of his chest like a second skin. the few inches between you suddenly felt impossibly small.

when he finally met your eyes, his pupils were blown wide.

people would call you a liar if you said you’d never noticed how attractive steve was. how broad his back looked when he stretched, how his biceps strained against those tight shirts. knowing you’d caused this reaction in him made your head spin.

“steve…” you breathed. you quickly glanced outside. the street was empty; it was the worst hour of a summer afternoon. no one was stupid enough to be out.

“fuck, i’m sorry, i don’t know why—” he started, hands moving nervously, but you weren’t listening anymore.

you bit your lip, then moved without thinking. you straddled him, settling on his lap. the sound that left steve’s mouth sent shivers through you. his body burned under yours, skin slick with sweat.

you slid your hands down his damp chest. he tensed, hips lifting instinctively to meet you.

“shit,” he moaned softly. his hands settled firm and sure on your lower back, holding you close like he’d been waiting years for permission.

“what are we doing?” he asked, eyes dropping to your lips before finding yours again. “i don’t know—” you struggled, because he kept moving, pressing his hard cock right against your core. “you’re the one who had a little problem down there,” you teased breathlessly. he smirked, and you laughed, the sound shaky with want. “says the one on top of me right now.” his hands slid down to grip your ass, pulling you tighter.

you couldn’t wait any longer, so you kissed him, one hand cupping the back of his neck while the other slipped into his hair. when he pulled back for air, looking around nervously, you rolled your hips slow and deliberate. “someone could walk by and se—fuck.”

“we’re the only idiots trying to get heatstroke in the middle of the street, steve.” you kissed him again, deeper. that was all it took. he opened his mouth, tongue sliding against yours, turning the kiss messy and desperate. the salt on his lips mixed with the lingering sweetness of ice cream. your hips ground together, pulling soft, needy sounds from both of you.

“god, you feel so fucking good.” he murmured against your mouth. one hand stayed on your hip guiding you, while the other cupped the back of your neck, pressing your foreheads together.

his other hand tugged at your soaked tank top; you helped him pull it off and did the same with his shirt. your palms slid over his bare biceps, squeezing the firm muscles as you moved faster.

your lips brushed with every shared breath, every gasp. you clenched around the hard press of him, desperate for more. he thrust up harder, chasing friction. the heat started pooling low in your belly, almost burning.

steve set a rhythm, steady and deep, like he never wanted it to end.

“i’m close,” he whispered into your mouth.

“me too,” you breathed, blood buzzing under your skin.

he gripped your ass again, helping you move exactly how you both needed. “just like that… oh god.” his head fell back against the seat, neck exposed and shining with sweat. you kissed along his throat until the pleasure crashed over you. “fuck,” you moaned, hips stuttering as waves rolled through you. steve kept going, chasing his own release until his body tensed and trembled beneath you, a soft whine pressed into your ear.

you stayed like that, foreheads together, breathing each other in while the car windows fogged from the heat of your bodies. the tension melted away, and suddenly you both burst into laughter, giddy and a little dazed.

you left a small, sweet peck on his lips.

he kissed you again, slower this time, cupping your jaw gently while his other hand rubbed soothing circles on your sticky back.

outside, the sun kept beating down, but for once the heat felt perfect.

——————————————————————————