unapologetically me frl🥰

The antiseptic sting of the facility was worse than the pain in his knee.

It smelled like bleach and finality, the kind of place where careers came to die — where men like Joe Burrow were stripped of their helmets and swagger and left with nothing but the hum of fluorescent lights. He limped through the automatic glass doors alone, hoodie up, expression unreadable. The marble floor didn’t echo — it absorbed sound, swallowed the rhythm of his limp like a secret.

The receptionist didn’t need to ask who he was. The eyes said it all — awe, pity, curiosity.

“Dr. Amani will see you now.”

He followed the corridor, sterile and endless, lined with frosted glass that reflected fragments of himself: the limp, the clenched jaw, the weight of a future uncertain.

Dr. Maya Amani was not what he expected.

No white coat. No fake smile. No overcompensation. She stood by the lightbox, analyzing the scan of his shredded knee with one hand in her pocket, the other resting lightly on the edge of the film. Her dark hair was pulled into a low knot, precise, clinical. The light caught on the thin scar along her jaw — old, faint, but sharp enough to betray a story she never told.

When she finally looked at him, it wasn’t admiration or sympathy in her eyes — it was assessment.

“You’re Joe Burrow to the world,” she said, without preamble, her tone smooth but unyielding. “But here, you’re just a body fighting a lost cause.”

His brow furrowed. He’d been through injuries before. He’d been talked to like a brand, an asset, a miracle waiting to happen. But never like this.

“Lost cause?”

“You have a complete ACL rupture, partial MCL tear, and cartilage damage. The kind that doesn’t care about your highlight reels.” She gestured toward the scan, her voice even. “You’re not invincible. Not here.”

He crossed his arms, weight shifting to his good leg. “You’re supposed to fix that.”

“I will—if you give me something worth fixing.”

It wasn’t arrogance. It was precision, sharpened by too many nights in operating rooms where egos bled out faster than patients.

Maya took a step closer. “You will make a sacrifice of your comfort, your privacy, and your ego. If you want a chance at coming back, you’ll live for this room. Fail to commit, and I fail you.”

Joe’s lips parted, a flicker of disbelief mingling with something deeper — the shock of being stripped bare. No cameras. No cheers. No control. “You talk to all your patients like that?”

“Only the ones who think they’re gods.” She answered.

For a moment, silence pressed between them — dense, electric.

Then, she turned back to the lightbox. “Take a seat. We’ll start your intake.”

He watched her work — the surgical efficiency, the steady hand that traced across his chart. She didn’t make small talk. She didn’t fill silence. She commanded it.

When she finally looked at him again, her eyes lingered not on his face, but his leg — the swollen, rigid knee beneath the brace. Her voice softened, almost imperceptibly. “You’re in more pain than you’re admitting.”

He smirked, bitter, an instinctive defense. “You a mind reader now?”

“Observation.” Her gaze met his, steady. “You’re clenching your fist every time you exhale.”

He released his hand without thinking.

It was the smallest surrender, but she saw it — and he knew she did.

The first week blurred into a haze of painkillers, swelling, and restless nights. The world outside still whispered his name — reporters, sponsors, fans — but inside this facility, there was only her.

Maya ran her schedule like a metronome. Sessions at 7 AM sharp. No entourage. No distractions. No phone.

“You need to understand,” she told him one morning as she adjusted his brace, “recovery isn’t punishment. It’s discipline.”

“You sound like my old coach.”

“Then he did something right.”

Her fingers brushed against his skin as she aligned his knee — not gently, but deliberately. The contact was brief, clinical, yet it burned longer than it should have.

He watched her when she wasn’t looking — the way she wrote in her notes, her focus absolute, her movements controlled. There was a quiet authority about her, the kind that came not from power, but precision.

And beneath it all, something in him began to shift.

One evening, the rain came down hard against the facility’s glass walls. Everyone else had gone home. He was still there, grimacing through his exercises, pushing further than he should.

Maya appeared in the doorway, arms crossed. “Rehab’s over. You should’ve stopped an hour ago.”

“I’ve got time.”

“No, you’ve got swelling,” she said flatly, walking toward him. “And if you tear the graft, we start from zero.”

He threw the resistance band aside, frustration boiling over. “You don’t get it. If I don’t push—”

“I do get it,” she cut in, eyes sharp. “You think pain is proof you still matter.”

The words hit too close.

For a moment, neither moved. The air felt charged, as if the storm outside had found its way in.

She stepped closer, taking the band from him. Close enough that he caught the faint scent of vanilla and rose from her perfume. “You are not your injury,” she said, quieter now. “But if you let it define you, you’ll never leave this room.”

He stared at her — at the composure, the certainty, the quiet challenge that lived in her eyes. And for the first time, he didn’t have an answer.

Later that night, after she’d gone, he found himself sitting in the darkened room, the hum of the MRI machine still faint in the background. His phone buzzed with messages — teammates, sponsors, reporters. He ignored them all.

He thought about her — not the surgeon, but the person who had looked at him like he was human first, myth second. He didn’t know her story, but he could tell she carried one — something buried beneath her precision, something that made her so unwilling to break her own rules.

And for reasons he couldn’t name, that made her all the more dangerous.

The following morning, he was back before sunrise. Not because he had to be, but because he couldn’t sleep.

The world outside was already dissecting his timeline—sports shows looping the same grainy clip of his collapse, headlines counting the days, the odds, the doubts. Inside, though, the only clock that mattered was the rhythmic click of Maya’s pen as she adjusted his plan.

“Early start,” she said without looking up.

“Couldn’t stay still.”

Her eyes flicked to him then, quick, unreadable. “You will have to. Recovery is patience disguised as punishment.”

He gave a small, humorless laugh. “You write that one down somewhere?”

“I lived it.”

That was the first personal thing she had ever said. It was out before she could stop it.

Joe caught the shift—the brief tightening of her mouth, as if she regretted letting the words slip.

He didn’t press. But something in him filed it away.

By the end of week two, their routine had become ritual. Same schedule. Same sterile playlist of instrumental focus tracks. Same tension that lived between their silences.

She worked with mechanical precision. Her touch was firm, never indulgent, always measured. But sometimes, when she adjusted his leg or aligned his knee brace, her fingers lingered a fraction too long—just long enough for both of them to feel it, neither acknowledging it.

“Flex,” she instructed.

He did.

“Hold.”

His breath trembled; pain shot through his thigh like wire tightening.

“Again.”

He met her eyes, sweat rolling down his temple. “You enjoy this?”

“If you’re asking whether I like seeing you in pain—no.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

She leaned closer, her expression unwavering. “You mistake necessity for cruelty.”

He wanted to answer, but she pressed her palm to his knee to stabilize it, and the thought vanished into the static between them.

By the third week, he’d begun noticing details about her that had nothing to do with medicine. The faint streak of graphite on her wrist from jotting notes. The small gold watch she always wore, turned inward, as if she didn’t want to see time moving.

The way she stared at his scar not with disgust, but focus—like it was a code she was determined to crack.

Once, during a rest interval, he asked, “Why ortho?”

She hesitated. “Because bones are honest.”

“Honest?”

“They don’t lie to make you feel better.”

He smiled faintly. “You could say that about yourself.”

Her glance was sharp, almost defensive. “That’s not a compliment.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

But he was smiling when he said it.

And she looked away first.

He started leaving his phone in the locker during sessions. Not because she told him to—because he wanted to. The outside noise felt irrelevant in her space. The cameras, the speculation, the social media chaos—it all died in the antiseptic quiet of the facility. Here, it was only breath and pain and discipline.

And her.

Maya never asked about his life, never pried. But she listened. When he cursed under his breath, she didn’t flinch. When he failed a rep, she didn’t console. She only said, “Again.” And for reasons he couldn’t articulate, that simple word was steadier than any pep talk he’d ever heard.

He started craving that voice. That steadiness. That absolute control she carried. Even when he hated her for it.

One evening, as the sky bled orange over the glass walls, he lingered long after the session ended. She was still there, disinfecting tools, in a room close by, her hair messier than usual, a loose strand falling across her cheek.

“You don’t go home?” he asked.

“Eventually

“Don’t tell me you live here.”

“I’ve spent more nights here than in my apartment.”

He let out a low whistle. “Sounds healthy.”

Her lips curved, the faintest ghost of a smile. “I’m not the one who tried to run routes three weeks post-op.”

He smirked, caught. “Touché.”

Then silence again—heavy, but not empty. He watched her finish cleaning up, her movements methodical, calm. When she finally looked up, she found him still standing there.

“Something else?”

He hesitated. Then: “You’re not what I expected.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And what did you expect?”

He thought for a moment. “Someone who’d treat me like I was made of glass. Or someone who wanted something from me.”

“And what do you think I want?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Her gaze held his for a beat too long. “You shouldn’t try to find out.”

He almost smiled. “Why not?”

“Curiosity slows recovery.”

Then she turned off the lights, leaving him standing in the dim hallway, pulse pounding harder than it had during any drill.

That night, in his apartment, sleep refused to come. He laid awake, replaying her voice, her precision, that almost-smile. He’d faced linebackers, coaches, reporters—everyone who tried to break him. But nothing unnerved him quite like her calm.

She didn’t need to raise her voice to command him. She didn’t need to flatter him to make him obey. And in that quiet, exacting authority, he found something dangerous—something magnetic. Because beneath all the order and rules, he could sense it: she was fighting something too.

The next morning, the facility was silent when he arrived early again. He expected to find her in the therapy room, but she was in her office instead, standing by the window, phone to her ear. Her voice was softer than he’d ever heard it. Not gentle—just human.

“Yes,” she murmured, “I understand. No, I can’t come tonight. I have a late case.”

A pause.

“Please tell him I’m sorry.”

The tone carried a weight he didn’t recognize.

She hung up quickly when she noticed him in the doorway, her professional mask snapping back into place.

“You’re early again,” she said, brisk.

“Couldn’t stay still.”

He waited, curious if she’d explain. She didn’t. Instead, she picked up the clipboard, her tone cool. “Then let’s make use of the restlessness.”

Her hand trembled when she adjusted his brace that morning. Barely—but enough for him to notice. And for the first time, he wondered what it would take to make her lose control.

By the end of the session, the air between them felt stretched thin. Every instruction carried an echo. Every silence had an aftertaste.

When he left that day, she watched him go through the glass door, her reflection merging with his in the pane—a surgeon and an athlete, both stitched together by things that refused to heal clean.

She told herself she was just doing her job.

He told himself it was just recovery.

Both knew they were lying. Joe’s house felt emptier than it had ever been, though the streets outside hummed with noise, with life that seemed both impossibly close and impossibly distant. He lay on the sofa, brace removed, and stared at the ceiling. Pain had become a kind of companion, nagging, persistent, reminding him he was mortal. But that wasn’t the only weight pressing on him. Her presence lingered in the room as though she had left a piece of herself behind, a shadow that whispered discipline, quiet authority, and something dangerous, something fragile.

He found himself replaying every small interaction: the brief tremor in her hand adjusting his brace, the way her voice softened when she thought no one was listening, the look in her eyes when she stared at his scar—not pity, not fear, just a measuring, calculating attention that made him feel both exposed and alive. He realized he was trying to read her in a way that was reckless, something more than professional curiosity. The thought unsettled him because it was entirely uncharted. He had read teammates, coaches, journalists, even opponents. But not her.

And then, in a fragment of memory he hadn’t expected, he remembered the way she had stiffened once on the phone, the flicker of human fatigue behind her perfect composure. He had caught it the same morning as the rainstorm, when she spoke softly to someone on the other end, then returned to him without a hint that she’d been momentarily human. He didn’t know why it had struck him—why it had mattered—but a quiet, insistent feeling lodged itself in his chest, the feeling that she carried a story she would never tell, and that story somehow shadowed her with him, here, now.

He tried not to think about it, tried to focus on pain and recovery, on measured steps and repetitions, but it was difficult. Everything about her pulled his attention, from the faint scent she carried—the sterility of antiseptic tempered with something colder, more private—to the cadence of her movements when she walked down the hallway. His own mind betrayed him, mapping her routines, anticipating her adjustments, feeling satisfaction in small victories when he followed her instructions perfectly. And with that satisfaction came a gnawing awareness that he was responding to her beyond the demands of rehabilitation.

By week four, he had begun arriving even earlier, forcing himself into the therapy room before she even unlocked the main doors. Sometimes she would already be there, moving silently between equipment and charts, and when she noticed him, her gaze sharpened into a scalpel-like focus. He started timing his arrival to see the subtle ways she read his posture before speaking. He didn’t know why. He only knew that the way she assessed him, so methodically, so unerringly, made him aware of himself in ways no locker room pep talk ever had.

“You’re early,” she said one morning, her tone clipped but not unkind. Her eyes, normally so impenetrable, had a flicker in them he couldn’t name. “You should’ve slept.”

“I wanted to make use of the quiet. Don’t give me another one of that Yoda quotes,” he said, trying to sound casual.

Her mouth twitched briefly, almost like she was holding a smile back. “Quiet is wasted on impatience,” she replied.

It became a game neither acknowledged. He watched her every morning, waiting for the smallest human crack. He wanted to catch it, to see her vulnerability. But she gave nothing, or at least nothing overt. Every twitch of her wrist, every faint crease at the edge of her eye, every subtle hesitation became a secret language he attempted to decode. He knew better than to name it; he knew it was dangerous to try, but the magnetic pull of her controlled presence was nearly irresistible.

Pain was no longer just a physical thing. It was tied to her. When she adjusted his knee, when she pressed on a sore tendon or guided him through an excruciating step, the brush of her fingers became layered, ambiguous, and for the first time, he began to feel a strange warmth under the sting. That heat was fleeting, always restrained by her professionalism, but it lingered long after she left the room, twisting in his chest like a secret he couldn’t admit aloud.

One night, after an especially grueling session, Joe lingered in the empty facility, leaning against a wall while she wiped down equipment. He had been pushing himself further than usual, testing the limits she had set. His breath came in short bursts, sweat rolling down his temples, and his knee throbbed, screaming at him for hubris. She came to him without a word, bracing his leg, guiding him to a seated position. Her hands were steady, but her proximity made him painfully aware of the space between control and surrender.

“You pushed too far,” she said, but the low timbre carried weight.

“I needed to,” he admitted, grit in his teeth. “I needed to know I can.”

“You don’t need to prove anything here,” she said, and for a moment, the air between them shifted. There was no professional barrier, no clinical distance—just something heavier, unspoken. She looked at him then, and he felt the faintest trace of something in her eyes: a shadow of pain, or fear, or memory. It lasted a heartbeat, then vanished. But it had been there, undeniable.

He swallowed hard. He didn’t speak, didn’t dare. He had felt athletes falter under pressure, seen coaches crumble, but he had never seen a professional carry so much authority while simultaneously hiding something that raw and intimate. The awareness that she had endured something he couldn’t imagine made her presence both terrifying and compelling. He wanted to ask her, wanted to reach across that distance, but he knew better. And yet, he also wanted it more than he had wanted anything in a long time.

By the fifth week, routine became ritual. He began to notice little patterns: the way she tapped her pen before giving instructions, the faint flick of her eyelid when she detected fatigue, the almost imperceptible tightening of her jaw when she forced herself to remain composed. These were cracks, yes—but she was fastidious in masking them, so fastidious that the rare glimpses of vulnerability burned into his memory. Each one was a secret he hoarded, savoring the tension it created, the impossible intimacy it suggested without ever being spoken.

One afternoon, he lingered longer than usual after she left the room. The empty space smelled faintly of her presence, the antiseptic tempered by a subtle undertone that was hers alone. He pressed his hand to his knee, rubbing the soreness, imagining her there, imagining that small, almost imperceptible tremor of a wrist that suggested she had once cared, once hurt, once been caught in something she had never named. He didn’t know what it was, but he wanted to.

He began to notice that his thoughts about her were no longer strictly professional. He caught himself imagining her at home, alone, maybe reading charts, maybe replaying conversations from years ago with someone he would never know—someone who had left a scar she carried like a secret code. A story she would never tell him, never anyone. He could feel it in the way she moved, the way she spoke, the precise, controlled lines she drew between herself and the world. And though he had no right to, though he understood the professional boundaries, he wanted to cross them.

It was addictive. The tension between them thickened with each session, with each controlled interaction. He became aware of the subtle ways she influenced him without speaking: the pacing of his steps, the force he put into every movement, the restraint he exercised simply because she expected it. He began arriving earlier, staying later, not to rebel but to be near her, to exist in the space she had claimed so thoroughly, and to feel the pull she exerted without even trying.

By week six, Joe understood he was no longer the one in control. His body was hers to shape, his mind to push, his attention to command. And he liked it. He liked it more than he would ever admit, even to himself.

The facility was quiet after dark. The hum of fluorescent lights and the faint whir of machinery filled the air, a sterile lull that seemed almost intimate in its insistence. Joe had stayed late, insisting on one more set of exercises, his knee screaming against every movement, his muscles trembling with exhaustion. Maya moved beside him, guiding his leg with that same measured authority, her hands firm yet just shy of overstepping boundaries, brushing against him in ways that left echoes long after they pulled away.

“Hold,” she said, her voice low and steady, almost too calm.

He did. He felt the strain rip through him, felt the pull of every tendon and ligament, and yet what lingered most was the heat of her hand, the subtle pressure on his knee, the exacting angle she held his renewed bone, tendons and ligaments at. He wanted to tell himself it was just rehab, but he could not.

“You’re pushing too hard,” she said, adjusting the resistance band. Her fingers lingered a fraction longer than necessary. He could feel it: the deliberate control, the silent warning not to take liberties, and yet the contact burned.

“I need to,” he admitted, exactly like he already had, voice tight, low. “I need to know I can.”

Her eyes flicked up briefly, sharp, assessing, and then she looked away. The faintest twitch in her jaw betrayed a flicker of something—memory, restraint, a ghost of a past she kept buried. He didn’t dare name it, but he felt it. It hummed in the spaces between her instructions, in the pause before she spoke, in the way her hand adjusted his brace with almost imperceptible care.

“Focus,” she said finally, her hand leaving his thigh, the cool air filling the space where it had been.

He nodded, swallowed hard, trying to chase away the heat that lingered under his skin. The room was silent for a moment, each of them breathing in tandem, aware of proximity, aware of tension, aware of the unsaid.

The minutes stretched. He moved, she guided, and a rhythm developed that had nothing to do with recovery and everything to do with this strange, magnetic hold she had over him. Every glance, every brush of skin against fabric, every precise instruction carried weight he hadn’t anticipated. The kind of weight that made his pulse stubbornly fast, made his body feel taut in ways unrelated to his knee.

She stepped back after the final set, removing her gloves and straightening her posture. He took a few tentative steps, his knee steady enough, but his mind caught on the way she watched him. Her gaze was clinical, yes, but it was also deliberate, lingering in ways that left him exposed, aware of himself beyond the physical. He caught a faint catch in her breath as he straightened fully, as though he had challenged her in ways he didn’t yet understand.

“I… think that’s enough for tonight,” she said, voice even but a touch rougher than usual.

“Yeah?” His words were soft, carrying an edge that belied curiosity and something deeper. “You sure you don’t want me to do one more?”

Her hand paused on the edge of the counter, tension coiled like a spring. Her eyes flicked to him, then to the floor, then back. There was a heartbeat where the air thickened, a single second of unspoken understanding.

“Go home,” she said finally. Her hand fell away, leaving him both relieved and wanting.

He lingered, catching the faint glow of a laptop on the desk. She hadn’t noticed him glance. On the screen, the pre-game show of the Chargers played quietly, almost hidden, the statistics and highlights flickering across the screen. He recognized the familiar number, the quarterback’s stance.

“You watch them often?” he asked, voice low, testing, barely audible.

Her eyes snapped to his. She froze for a heartbeat, lips pressed thin, then turned away sharply, returning to straightening the desk with exacting precision. “Not relevant,” she said, flat, clipped, a barrier rebuilt in milliseconds.

Joe felt the pull of her restraint, the heat of her denial, the weight of the things she would never tell him. The room was quiet again, machinery humming, the faint glow of the Chargers game in her laptop painting her silhouette, her body poised, controlled, untouchable yet burning with a tension he could almost taste.

He exhaled slowly, letting the unsaid sink into him. She had left the room now, sliding into the hall with measured steps, leaving behind the faint echo of movement and a trace of something he could not name. His pulse was racing, muscles still trembling—not just from exertion, but from the silent charge that lingered where her touch had been. He knew she had not invited it, and yet, it hung there, heavy in the air like a promise that neither of them could name.

He stayed a moment longer, eyes catching the flicker of the screen again. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. The tension had not broken, and he had no idea when or if it ever would.

Father’s Day started before the sun was even fully up for the day, and it wasn’t because Colston set a alarm, not because he had somewhere to be. And it was never because he wanted to wake up at six in the morning during one of the last stretches of freedom before training camp.

It started because a tiny human had decided it was time for him to get up, that tiny human was his daughter.

"Daddy."

Silence.

"Daddyyyy."

More silence, then came the face patting, and it was aggressive.

"DADDY."

Colston groaned into his pillow, and opened one eye slowly and slightly. And the first thing he saw was Dalia standing on the bed in pink pajamas with one curl sticking straight up on top of her head.

Looking completely awake and completely energized, ready to start today, "Dalia," he muttered, voice rough from sleep.

She was hyped that he was awake.

"Huh."

"Come on."

He blinked.

"Come on where."

"Downstairs."

"Dalia."

"Come on."

The little girl grabbed his hand with both of hers and started pulling, which was hilarious considering she weighed approximately nothing compared to him.

Yet somehow she was still trying to drag him.

"Daddy."

"I'm coming."

"Noooow." Colston laughed at her.

Then rolled out of bed, even though he was off football for a bit his body still couldn’t adjust to it.

He scooped Dalia up immediately, and she wrapped herself around him like a koala. The second she was in his arms she pointed dramatically toward the hallway.

"Kitchen."

"Yes ma'am."

"NOW."

"You are very bossy like always."

"No."

"That's a lie,” she giggled in his response.

The second he stepped into the kitchen he stopped, because it smelled incredible, downstairs smelled like breakfast. There was fresh fruit, eggs, turkey bacon, juice and pancakes, and the chef obviously being Y/N.

And honestly she was glowing, inside and out, the first trimester misery that had been kicking her butt for weeks had finally started easing up, the nausea was over and she wasn’t tired 24/7. 

She was standing at the stove wearing one of Colston's oversized shirts and biker shorts, curls pulled back loosely, humming softly to herself while cooking. The morning sun coming through the windows made everything feel cozy, and in that moment she looked up.

"Good morning."

Colston adjusted Dalia higher on his hip, "Good morning."

Then Y/N leaned over slightly, smiling at him as she put the eggs on low to scramble.

 "Happy Father's day."

He smiled back, a real smile for once in a long time, hearing that from her made him feel accomplished like he did something, which he did and without that, Dalia wouldn’t be here.

"Thank you."

Dalia gasped dramatically and Colston looked down at her confused, "Oh!"

Then pointed at him, hand on his chest, "Happy Father's Day daddy!"

She clearly remembered when her mother said it, so Y/N immediately burst out laughing.

"You almost forgot."

"I don’t forget."

"You definitely forgot."

"I remembered."

"After I said it Dalia."

Dalia crossed her arms irritated, then forgot what she was mad for because she saw fruit and started to reach for it.

"Fruit."

"Good morning to you too," Colston muttered.

During breakfast his plate looked like something his nutritionist at the facility would approve, which Y/N made sure to make it like that, egg whites mixed with regular eggs, turkey bacon, fresh fruit, whole grain toast with pure honey, protein pancakes and even a smoothie to top it off.

Colston sat down and stared at the plate, then looked at her and back at the plate.

"Trying to keep me alive?"

"Someone has to."

"I could've had waffles," Colston scoffed.

"You'll survive."

"I could've had real bacon."

"No."

"Dalia gets real bacon though."

"Dalia isn't an NFL tight end whose funding someones college tuition and making sure shes set off in life."

Colston took a bite of bacon before swallowing it, “Thats unfair as hell.”

Y/N sat down beside him laughing.

Meanwhile Dalia had already stolen fruit from three different places.

Including his plate.

“Shes literally robbing me.”

“Shes your daughter, looks just like you, a female version atleast.” Y/N took a sip of her smoothie.

“I’m completely aware since day 1.”

At one point while eating Dalia climbed into Colston's lap while he was still eating and started feeding him blueberries one at a time. Most of them actually made it into his mouth while some didn’t. 

He accepted it, because that was his life now. Getting fed fruit by a two year old while his wife laughed at him.

After breakfast, the kitchen stayed warm and comfortable in that way it only could after a good meal and nowhere to be. The dishes were mostly pushed aside, for her 

The TV continued playing quietly in the background in the living room, and Colston had settled into the couch with Dalia standing beside him, one thing about Dalia is that shes terrible art keeping secrets. 

So the moment she knew something she blabbed off to everyone.

And to both of them, it meant something was definitely happening.

Colston narrowed his eyes slightly, "Dalia."

The little girl froze, immediately guilty.

"What."

"You got that look."

"No."

"You absolutely do."

"Noooo."

The little girl turned toward her mother instantly like a snitch, “Mama!!”

The tiny toddler looked back and forth between both parents like she was trapped in an interrogation room.

Then finally, she couldn't take it anymore.

"Present!"

And immediately took off running..well a toddler run. Which looked like she was falling half the time but somehow catching herself.

Colston laughed, “There it is.”

A few seconds later she came back dragging a gift bag nearly as large as her.

Y/N followed closely behind trying not to intervene unless absolutely necessary.

"Come on baby."

"I got it."

The bag got stuck once again.

"I got it."

Still stuck.

"I GOT IT."

And eventually it made it to Colston who was smiling, because she put effort into it, then she shoved the bag toward him proudly.

"For you."

"Yeah?"

She nodded aggressively.

"From me."

Then she pointed at Y/N.

"And mommy."

Y/N folded her arms.

"Mostly from me."

Dalia ignored her because this was her moment, Colston took the bag carefully and opened it and looked surprised because sat inside was a iced out cuban link chain. Not something crazy just simple he can wear daily.

His eyebrows rose up as he looked at Y/N then Dalia waiting nervously.

"I love it so much."

Dalia gasped then started bouncing up and down like she was on a sugar rush.

"You do?!"

"Yeah."

"You really do?!"

"I really do."

She immediately launched herself forward at his right shoulder, or more closely at his AC joint that he had surgery on when Y/N was pregnant with Dalia. So she accidentally yanked hard getting a sound out of Colston.

"OOH."

Y/N's eyes widened.

"Dalia."

The little girl froze instantly because she knew that hurt, and her eyes got huge.

"Oh."

Colston was already laughing through it, rubbing the shoulder automatically.

"It's okay."

But Dalia looked horrified, and her little bottom lip started sticking out, "I'm sorry Daddy."

Colston took her into a hug, “Baby you didn’t know, you didn’t hurt me I promise.”

She looked unconvinced, but she carefully put her head in the crevice of his neck hugging his neck with her tiny arms as he pressed a kiss to the top of her curls.

"It's okay."

"I love you."

The words came out muffled against his shirt., and Colston visibly folded.

"I love you too."

Y/N watched from the kitchen, trying not to cry because pregnancy hormones were making her soft, And seeing Dalia apologize and then immediately hug him tight was almost too much.

Then Dalia’s attention shifted fast, "Daddy."

"What."

"I wear it."

Colston blinked then looked at his chain, “Nope.” 

"Please."

"No."

"Pleaseeee."

Colston sat back, serious as hell.

"You got chain money?"

The little girl froze and Y/N immediately started laughing.

Dalia looked personally betrayed, then climbed into his lap anyway. Which apparently meant she had forgiven him.

Y/N retreated back into the kitchen to quickly finish the dishes then go upstairs to rest for a bit, and to enjoy the fact that she could finally make it through a morning without running to the bathroom, Colston sat in the living room with his Bible open.

Dalia occupied the spot beside him on the couch, every thirty seconds she moved.

One second she was sitting, the next she was upside down, then kneeling, followed by laying across the cushions, and finally somehow hanging halfway off the couch.

But she stayed near him.

Colston read aloud quietly, occasionally stopping to explain something in the simplest way possible whenever Dalia asked questions, which happened often.

"Daddy."

"Hm?"

"Who's that?"

He glanced down, "David."

"Oh."

Three seconds later.

"Daddy."

"Hm?"

"Where's Goliath?"

Colston smiled slightly, "Different page."

"Oh."

Then another pause.

"Daddy."

"Hm?"

"Jesus nice."

That made him laugh softly, "Yeah, he is VERY and I mean VERY nice.”

Dalia nodded seriously as if she'd personally verified this information, then settled down again for approximately six seconds before moving once more. Eventually Colston finished reading for the morning and closed the Bible carefully.

She sat up straight, “Toys now?”

“There she is.” 

The living room was soon covered in in toys, including her having a stuffed bear as one of the main characters, but what caught Colston’s attention was how she was so quiet.

"Daddy?"

"Hm?"

Her fingers fiddled with the doll.

Then she looked down, then back up.

And suddenly she seemed much smaller, "I heard mommy."

Colston paused.

"What'd you hear?"

Dalia shrugged.

"Mommy talking."

"About what?"

The little girl hesitated.

Long enough that Colston immediately knew this mattered to her.

And finally she admitted, "A baby."

The room got quiet, not uncomfortable though thankfully.

Because Colston immediately understood, Y/N and him had been careful. Or at least they thought they had been, but kids heard everything.

Especially Dalia.

The little girl looked down at her toys again picking at one of the doll's dresses.

And when she spoke again her voice sounded smaller.

"Baby will come soon?"

Colston's heart squeezed.

Because suddenly he wasn't talking to the loud girl he loved, he was talking to a two year old who was worried.

"Maybe," he said gently.

Dalia nodded slowly, then came the real question, "You still love me?"

And just like that his chest broke.

"Dalia."

The little girl looked up.

Eyes wide.

Tiny fingers still holding the doll.

"You'll always be my girl."

"Always?"

"Always."

She considered that then asked another question.

"What if baby comes?"

Colston reached over and pulled her into his lap immediately.

"Still my girl."

"What if the is baby a girl?"

That almost made him smile, because even in her worry and she was covering every possibility.

"Still my girl, especially the first one."

"What if the baby cries?"

"Still my girl."

"What if the baby is little?"

"Still my girl."

Dalia thought hard about that.

Very hard, then finally looked up at him and Colston brushed a curl away from her forehead.

"You know something?"

"What?"

"You'd be a really good big sister."

That made her pause.

Because now she had something new to think about.

"You think?"

"I know."

The little girl sat quietly for a second and without warning he grabbed her sides tickling them, "DADDY!" 

They both rolled around the floor laughing and within seconds the serious conversation was gone.

With that relief, Dalia cleaned up as told and went to go down for a nap so now it was time to bother Y/N, which had been laying down all morning and now staring at her tiny bump in the mirror. He was still large enough to move quietly when he wanted to.

Which should've been illegal, because a man his size should not have been capable of sneaking up on anyone.

Y/N didn't realize he was there until she felt his arms slide around her waist from behind.

"Oh my-”

"Sorry."

"No you're not."

His chin settled against the top of her shoulder, the bump.

"You know what Dalia told me earlier?"

Y/N immediately groaned, “Oh no..”

Colston smiled, "She heard us talking."

She slowly turned her head.

"What."

"She heard us talking about the baby."

The guilt hit before anything else, she already knew where this was going and pregnancy hormones weren't helping.

Not even a little.

"Oh my God."

"Baby-"

"No."

She looked down feeling horrible and in her head she'd somehow already convinced herself she'd failed.

The emotions hit so fast her eyes started watering before she could stop them.

"I knew she was hearing stuff."

"Hey."

"I don't want her thinking she's getting replaced."

"She's not."

"What if she thinks-"

"She's not, Dalia knows we love her.”

Y/N looked unconvinced.

"She was scared."

"Yeah."

Colston brushed a curl away from her face, "She's okay."

Y/N finally relaxed slightly, not completely but then Colston glanced down toward her stomach.

A small smile appearing.

And just like that, the mood shifted.

His hand moved gently against the curve of her belly.

And after a second he asked quietly, "So."

Y/N narrowed her eyes immediately.

"What."

"When is the world gonna find out about this little one here?"

She laughed.

Actually laughed.

Because of course he'd ask that.

Of course.

The entire internet had practically built a conspiracy board already.

The gossip pages were losing their minds.

And somehow nobody had officially confirmed anything.

Yet.

Y/N looked down toward her stomach.

Then back up, then at him.

"I'm still mad about the story I accidentally posted then deleted while in the Caymans."

Colston laughed.

"That's not an answer."

"It was up for 49 seconds."

"You counted."

"I'll never stop counting."

He smiled.

Then kissed her forehead softly.

"You know they're gonna figure it out eventually."

"I know."

"Probably soon."

"I know."

"You can't hide forever."

"I know."

Y/N sighed dramatically.

Then rested her head against his chest.

For a moment neither said anything going downstairs and getting on the couch to catch up on Love Island until they heard feet smacking against the ground.

"DADDYYYYY."

"There it is."

Colston pushed himself up laughing and headed upstairs.

When he opened her bedroom door, Dalia was sitting in the middle of her bed looking absolutely exhausted, her face a little puffy.

"Hey baby."

She reached for him immediately and Colston scooped her up without hesitation.

The second she was against his chest, she buried her face into his shoulder, snd for a minute he genuinely thought she might go back to sleep.

Then she spoke.

"Chicken nuggies."

Colston laughed immediately, "Chicken nuggets?"

She nodded still half asleep.

"Chicken nuggies."

"That's what we’re doing?"

Another nod.

"Okay."

Satisfied.

Dalia immediately fell silent again like she got what she want.

A little while later she was sitting at the kitchen island in pajamas eating air fried chicken nuggets that Colston had made for her and half asleep, one moment she was sleep and the next she was eating, and then came the bedtime routine.

And because Dalia was fully potty trained now, she insisted on doing everything herself.

So Y/N and Colston mostly just supervised while Dalia handled her own business, at one point she stood on her stool brushing her teeth that she has aggressively while staring into the mirror.

"I'm a big girl."

"Yes you are."

"I brush my teeth real good."

"You sure do."

"By myself."

"We know."

Dalia nodded.

By the time bedtime actually arrived, she was done for, the second Colston tucked her in she barely made it through half a story her eyes closed and now it was go time for their at home date night.

The smell of steak filled the kitchen with potatoes roasting and veggies cooking. Colston spent most of the evening leaning against the kitchen island pretending he wasn't there to bother her.

"Stop staring."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm appreciating you… especially the body."

Y/N rolled her eyes immediately, "Go sit down now."

"I'm helping."

"You haven't touched anything."

Because every time she turned around, he was already there. Every time she reached for something he found an excuse to stand nearby.

Eventually she pointed a spatula at him.

"You're being weird."

"I'm married though."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"It answers mine."

By now he was fully enjoying himself, because there was something funny about making his wife blush after all this time. 

Especially when she acted annoyed while secretly smiling. And for a little while they sat together at the dining table enjoying something that felt surprisingly rare lately, along with her getting full fast and him stealing the rest of her food. 

And every now and then Y/N would catch Colston staring again. Which always ended the same way with her shaking her head, because if there was one thing Colston had never gotten tired of, it was looking at his wife.

bonus post below 👇 (i had to do the song dont kill me)

ynloveland has posted 🎵 latto - business and personal

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@/ynloveland: moodboard lately of experiences also out of the country 🤍, baby #2 is coming soon could not be happier, we love you already little bean.

“arrr,” colston suddenly got up, making everyone in the room jump. his large, toned arms caught theo, who tried to run but was captured by his dad, who snuggled him in his chest and blew raspberries into his neck. 

“daddd! stop, it tickles,” theo said through a fit of giggles, isla squealing loudly, sitting up, flapping her arms in the air. he eventually let go, theo plopping next to him, hugging and wishing him a good morning. isla didn’t waste time, crawling to her destined spot, right between colston's legs.

“good morning, my beautiful wife,” he greeted, tilting his head up to meet your warm, soft kiss. theo frowned, shaking his head in disagreement, making both of you laugh. he began to start yapping about a big surprise dedicated to him, how he was excited to show what he had made. 

you reached for the tray, setting it down gently on his lap, being careful so isla didn’t burn herself with the hot coffee. “what’s all this?” colston asked with a huge grin, his brown eyes locking with yours. 

“breakfast in bed for the number one dad. happy father’s day, colston,” you said cheerfully, taking a seat on the corner of the bed. he pouted, looking down at his babies who hadn’t stopped smiling and squealing excitedly. 

isla reached for the cut-up watermelon, handing one to colston before eating one herself. “thank you so much, darlin’. this looks so delicious,” he thanked you, reaching to grab your hand, placing delicate kisses along your knuckles. 

“everyone helped, isn't that right, babies?” you asked, motioning for theo to sit on your lap, to which he did. colston reached for his coffee, blowing on it to ensure it wasn’t too hot before taking two large sips. 

“how is it?” you teased, colston, shaking his head, understanding what it meant. “honestly… it could use a dash bit more sugar,” he joked, accepting the strawberry isla offered. 

“seriously, thank you for all this,” he said warmly. “we wouldn’t be here celebrating if it weren’t for you. i’ll never stop saying it, but thank you for bringing me the three greatest gifts in life,” colston ushed, seeing your eyes well up with tears. “i love you, always,” you reminded him, kissing his dimpled cheek. 

despite already having breakfast, both theo and isla grabbed a few bites from colston’s plate. you spoke softly amongst yourself, taking the morning slow and casual like any other regular day. colston grabbed a baby wipe, wiping isla’s chubby cheeks that had gotten messy with the fruit. 

theo tapped your shoulder, making you lean down to hear his whisper, “can dada open his gifts now?” once he saw your approval, he moved quickly, reaching for the end of the bed where he passed each gift slowly and gently. colston gave you a look that spoke, “you didn’t have to do that.” 

“we agreed on no gifts,” he reminded, seeing your shrug, “i don’t know who ‘we’ is. this is just a little something,” you said with a teasing smile. colston accepted it, calling over theo so he could help him unwrap the gifts. 

the first one had been an expensive watch he had had his eye on for months. you repeatedly told him he didn’t need it, that only your cover story because you had gotten it a few weeks prior. the second one was a signed jersey from his all-time favorite player as a kid, growing lost for words as he re-read the small message dedicated to him on the corner. 

before you could hand him the third one, theo wanted to show colston his present. you and colston decided he was still too young for screen time. he had been slowly starting to learn how to write certain letters and shapes on notebooks you got for him. he spent most of his time doing that, helping around the house, or keeping himself entertained by playing. 

colston’s eyes glimmered in tears as he opened theo’s white paper, a small drawing of dinosaurs on a corner next to the sun, a doodle of him, his dad, you, and baby isla, and on top it said messily, some wrong letters, but it wasn’t the point, that wished him a happy father’s day. 

“you did this, bubs? i love it so much,” he asked, kissing the top of his head. “i did! mommy had to help me write this because i still don’t know how to read,” theo explained, shrugging happily, feeling proud of his work. colston wanted to frame it and keep it forever. 

the third gift was a rich leather louis vuitton backpack that he needed for traveling. the one he had before had been gifted to his older brother, who needed it for a work trip. it had his name engraved on the tag, with a small ‘xoxo, from wifey’. 

“you didn’t have to go all out-” 

“i wanted to. so wipe that look off your face,” you warned with a smile, knowing how guilty he felt when receiving expensive gifts. colston loved to give them as gifts, but to receive them? he just felt culpable. “you deserve them,” you continued, sitting closer to him. 

isla had moved to where her brother was, the two kids now engrossed with a toy theo brought in. colston moved you towards him. you settled between his legs, your back against his bare chest. you traced his tattoos, looking at the engraved details and wording, “do you plan to get more?” 

“more tattoos?” you nodded, tilting to look up at him. “i wanted to get something meaningful and dedicated for both theo and isla. i have a few ideas, and i'll wait to see. i also want one that will remind me of you,” he spoke with a shy tone. 

“and what could that be?” 

“it’s a surprise. i can’t say anything yet,” your eyes rolled playfully, looking back at your babies who now giggled at one another. 

colston held you tighter, still in awe at how his morning began. he felt eternally grateful for everything. for the beautiful life he was given, not many could have. he felt rich, not just in reality, but in life. thankful for having a woman like you by his side every step of the way. grateful for his kids, with whom he created new memories every day. the ones he would tell in stories later in life when they were grown-ups. 

“you’re thinking too loud,” you whispered, giggling at how he tensed up, knowing he was caught. “i’m just thinking… it’s crazy we have all this because of one single meeting,” he sighed, thinking back to when you first crossed paths. 

“i guess it’s true when people say one single risk can change everything,” you said, colston, agreeing. the memory of meeting him at the michigan game flashed through your eyes. remembering how nervous he was, black streaks of the face paint still sweating and covering his blushed, rosy cheeks, confessing how he built the courage to come over and introduce himself to you. 

“you’re the best dad to them. they love you so much. they wake up every day knowing their dad is their hero. from the smallest bruise, to reaching the high shelf to give them cookies i hide, to your words of encouragement. they will forever be grateful for you.” 

“sometimes i feel like i’m not doing enough… that i’ve missed so much of their lives because of football. i don’t want to feel that way, and i certainly don’t want them to feel it either,” he said sadly, feeling your hand reach under his jaw, brushing it softly. 

“don’t. don’t punish yourself like that. it’s never worth it, because you have daily proof of how much you’ve done and mean to them.” you and colston look back at your kids, who were still entertained, theo coloring on his book as isla messed with a toy that sang songs. 

“not only are you doing the most you can, but you’re also giving them a life they’ll always remember. even on your hardest days, you never let them see it; instead, you make their day better. don’t for a second think you’re missing out or that you’re not a great father,” you spoke. 

“i love you, you know that? i’m the luckiest guy in the world,” colston said, the weight being relieved with your words of reassurance. he often had a habit of keeping harsh feelings like that to himself, allowing them to overpower, causing damage. yet all he needed was you to make it feel better. 

“i know you do,” you said with a tiny smirk. 

“how?” 

“just my initiation. a woman’s intuition never lies,” you said, kissing his jaw, his stubble tickling against your lips. you spent half an hour there before getting up and began getting ready for the day. 

you quickly washed the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and began a load of laundry, as colston bathed and changed both kids. you spent the day doing colston’s favorite activities, which included a hike just outside chicago, grabbing his favorite bbq joint on the way back, and passing by his favorite store to get a few essentials. 

in the evening, a few friends and family came over to celebrate. both isla and theo slept, exhausted from the day that had been spent. colston helped grill a few steaks, chicken, and shrimp, as you prepared side dishes with the help of his mom and yours. 

by the time dinner had been served, isla and theo woke up and immediately joined the other kids who were playing with their toys. they kept themselves busy until you called them over so they could have something to eat as well. everyone gushed at how isla devoured her plate of food, in awe at how she loved to explore and taste new foods. 

everyone had moved outside to roast marshmallows, taking a seat on the new lounge chairs you’d gotten. it became a tradition years ago in your family after a camping trip got ruined and your dad heated an old grill, creating a new memory you’d always remember. 

by the time everyone began to leave, they helped tidy up by all pitching in and doing different chores. isla had fallen asleep in your hold, her pouty lips letting out small puffs. theo in colston’s arms, who slept exactly like him, hair tousled and covering his face, his mouth agape too. 

once everyone was gone and the kids were asleep, you and colston remained wide awake, looking at the stars through the sun window. your legs tangled with his, and he rested his head in the crook of your neck, wanting to be the small spoon for tonight. he secretly preferred this to being a big spoon. loving how you caressed his skin and hair. 

“can i tell you something?” he whispered, kissing your pulse point, which sent shivers everywhere.

“anything,” you mumbled. 

“whenever you’re ready, physically and mentally, i’m ready to try for our third baby…” 

He groans, “Fuck no. I might just throw some stuff in my suitcase and call it a day.”

Looking at yourself in the mirror one more time, you lift your phone and look him in the eyes. “You cannot show up to Thailand wearing bullshit. So pack carefully, fill up that suitcase. And lift with your legs, not your back, when you put it in the car. Pro tip, and I gave it to you for free. Most have to pay for my services.”

“You think you’re so funny,” he deadpans. “I’m hanging up. You have to go anyway. Enjoy your last stop.”

All of this started back in January after you responded to his DM. Honestly, you don’t even remember the exact words you said; all that really mattered was the conversation didn’t die down after that. It was every single day, random tidbits about your day, his gym adventures in LA, and his plans to stay there throughout the offseason. He was networking with celebrities, attending parties, then there was Super Bowl week.

In San Francisco, maybe 25 minutes from your house.

Life didn’t really make way for a romantic, post-vacation reunion like it does in the movies.

You came home from Greece and went back to work full-time. When Joe was in LA, you were at the office prepping for natural science conferences, awaiting private announcements of scientific advances that start-ups were wanting to showcase and get investors like your company to buy in to advance the field and drive innovation. When the Super Bowl came to town, you were in Boston for the RESI conference, Redefining Every Stage of Investment. Its focus this year was on early-stage life sciences, things like gene therapy and plant-based proteins. Joe called it “green thumb material” and swore your job was pretty cool.

One night, you spent five hours on the phone with him, recapping the day while he gave a thorough, very detailed, physiology-filled explanation of his latest Pilates workout. This accidental quality time made you feel less bad for missing out on what would’ve been a fun week spent with him.

“Something’s different with you. Your voice sounds different,” you told him over the phone a few weeks ago, a little after the draft.

He laughed a little. “I’m happy to be back at the facility, getting to meet the new guys.”

“And…Sexy Dexy?”

“Definitely helps things,” he admitted. “I don’t know. Things feel a lot different this year already. Body feels good. But there’s a new energy and I think—I think we have a real shot.”

There was genuine joy in him, actual excitement. You listened to him talk about workouts that were coming up and how the next few weeks would be busy for you both, but things would slow down in June.

“Football is great, but I’m thinking I need one more trip before training camp. Somewhere warm, probably, adding a stamp to my passport. It’s pretty empty.”

“Joe, what are you implying?”

“Our schedules haven’t worked out. Now they do. We should go somewhere.”

“You wanna go on another vacation, and you want me to come?”

“I want us to plan a trip together. Been long enough,” he clarifies with a shrug, like this isn’t a big deal.

Maybe it wasn’t to him. Maybe planning vacations was a thing he’d done before, but this was definitely a first for you. And yet, after four months of consistently trying to convince yourself that this was a one-day fluke meeting that meant nothing, that he’d get bored and move on, yet here he was going out of his way to see you again outside the country because it clearly wasn’t working when you’d been residing in the same state for the past few months.

Between SynBioBeta and AACR in San Diego and Chicago in April and May respectively, you planned a trip to Thailand like a lunatic.

And you couldn’t wait to go.

There were several outfits laid out on the bed. Swimsuits on one side, cover-ups, nighttime clothes, a few oversized shirts and sleep shorts, and other random walking-around-the-villa-with-no-set-plans outfits. You tossed in some cute island casual wear, cute sets that would work for dinners, and some stuff that would be perfect for sightseeing. And you may or may not have packed the Alo hat and the matching set he sent you a month ago.

Again, in the back of your mind, you told yourself that it was insane that he sent you a package from his biggest sponsor. It felt weirdly intimate, but you could not let yourself dwell on the little things. Not the fact that he booked a private villa and offered to pay for your flight. You declined the second part after a lengthy discussion but compromised on the villa. It felt weird letting him pay for things for you, especially on top of spending an entire week with him in a foreign country.

You literally hadn’t breathed the same air as this man since the offseason started, half a year ago. And when you were with him, that was one day—not even a full 24 hours either. Was it gonna be weird to go to sleep next to him? To wake up next to him? What if you two realized that you’d been hanging onto this really good day and that you actually weren’t compatible outside of a phone call?

Great thing you had a 20-hour flight to think about the million questions running through your mind.

The driver waiting to take you to the resort was kind, his smile bright, your name etched neatly on the crisp white piece of paper he held for all to see. He helped you with your bag as you settled into the back seat. Everything outside looked like the epitome of a perfect postcard. The trees, the sky, the water you could see from the street—the island’s landscape was one of the Earth’s most incredible creations as far as you were concerned. There was no way this was a real place.

Joe’s text had come through as soon as you stepped off the plane, letting you know that he was waiting in the villa for you. When you got to the resort, the staff was impeccable, offering water and what seemed to be freshly squeezed juice. The offer was appreciated, but your skin was literally buzzing with excitement at getting in the room and seeing him, so you declined. One of the staff members took you to your villa via buggy, giving you a quick tour as he drove by the different activities available right where you were staying.

He gave you a business card with a phone number on it and said that your stay included unlimited service. There was a QR code you could scan for a full menu, delivered right to your door for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Midnight snacking options and a full bar, right at your fingertips. You thanked him, and he smiled and said he hoped you’d enjoy your stay.

You took a deep breath and used your key to unlock the door and wheeled your suitcase inside.

This villa was by far the nicest place you’d stayed in. Not only was the constant service at your fingertips cool, but the view was unbelievable. You felt like you’d stepped into a season of White Lotus.

That thought—and any other—evaporated into thin air when you saw him.

He was barefoot, already comfortable in his home for the week in the most simple outfit: a plain white tee and black shorts that stopped above the knee. But you stared at him anyway. Like you couldn’t believe he was actually here, waiting for you. Some deep, dark, sinister part of you thought this whole thing was still an elaborate joke, that you’d pinch yourself and wake up from this fantasy you’d conjured up in your head.

But here he was, walking toward you, and you expected a hug. Not really knowing why, but him wrapping his arms around you wasn’t a surprise.

“Hi.”

He was warm and smelled great. The cologne was probably expensive, but you stopped thinking about that long enough to say hi back. Your hand tapped his chest, right at his collarbone, and you tore your eyes away from his collar and looked up at him.

Joe didn’t waste much time after that.

Once you locked eyes, everything shifted.

His lips were on yours in a hurry, lightly tugging at your bottom lip. It was a surprise, but a good one, and you parted your lips as the kiss grew in intensity. You felt his hands roaming down to your hips, giving them a gentle squeeze like he needed something to ground himself, almost as if he thought this was all in his head too.

Before you realized what you were doing, you had a fistful of his shirt, kissing him back with just as much urgency, more than making up for that almost kiss in Greece.

The kiss was more than a test in chemistry.

It was for that night he laid in bed after you left him in the street, thinking about how he should’ve asked for your number. Or on the plane when he felt like an idiot for taking an earlier flight. For the random times he’d thought about you since then. And the way he tried not to look toward the door every five minutes ever since he got to the villa.

It took every sliver of self-control he had left to come up for air.

“I’ve been waiting to do that for six months,” spilled out of his mouth before he could talk himself out of saying it.

“So have I,” you admitted with a breathless laugh, tugging him by his shirt and kissing him again.

He reciprocated, his composure slipping a little as he heard you sigh into the embrace. He had a speech planned, but he couldn’t remember a single thing he was going to say, not with you kissing him like that.

You rested your forehead on his sternum and took a deep breath before making eye contact.

Both of you just laughed.

“Glad you made it,” he said with a smirk. “Do you want a tour?”

Joe watched you nod, and you noticed him looking at your lips again, but you stepped away from him to grab your stuff that you’d forgotten about when you saw him.

Your shared place was still part of a larger resort. But there was complete privacy here. It almost felt secluded, like its own private island. This entire area—the pool, the terrace with outdoor seating, a TV in the bathroom, outside and in the main bedroom, two massive glass showers, and a floating stone double sink—all this open space was just for the two of you.

If you were to look up paradise in the dictionary, this would be pretty damn close.

“How’d you even find this place?”

Joe sighed, lips curled into a soft smile.

“I asked around. Knew some people that had been to Thailand before, and it was pretty easy from there. Pretty cool spot,” he said, looking out at the water.

“Pretty cool? Yeah, I’d say that’s the understatement of the century.”

A dry laugh escaped you in disbelief.

“I didn’t really notice how much I needed a break from…” You gestured aimlessly, unsure of how exactly to describe how exhausting being an adult with responsibilities and bills could be. “Needed a break from everything. And the company isn’t so bad, I guess.”

“You guess?”

He folded his arms over his chest, standing up straight. You knew he was trying to look intimidating, but his face gave him away. Every ounce of him was wordlessly screaming that he was thinking about kissing you again.

And Joe knew that you knew exactly what he was thinking, so he cleared his throat, adjusting his stance.

“You’ve been on a plane all day,” he said, changing the subject. “If you wanna get some rest before we explore, I don’t mind.”

“I’m not tired,” you told him quickly.

Truthfully, your entire body was still buzzing from seeing him and kissing him, and all the jet lag had practically jumped out the window.

“We should go see the sights.”

He turned and walked back to the living room and grabbed his shoes and his phone, texting someone.

“Car will be here in five. You sure you’re good?”

“Honestly? Never better.”

“Joe, look, there’s a 7/11 here.”

His eyes were bright, walking through the night market like this was Disney World. His phone was out immediately, no doubt taking a picture and sending it to Ja’Marr.

“Should we go in?”

“I think we kinda have to,” you nudged him, heading towards the gas station, dragging him along. Not that he seemed to have an issue with that.

This market had practically everything you could ever need—clothes, a British baked potato bar—but you guys were more interested in the street food. Joe was a little more apprehensive, understandably, with the whole athlete diet thing—but he honestly was less picky than you thought he would be. Probably because you started off with an easy, familiar option.

“These are the best dumplings I’ve ever had in my life,” he said between bites.

“Should we try the pad thai or the pad kee mao next?”

Joe continued staring intently at the menu.

“Let’s split both. And we can get the Chinese BBQ chicken skewers too, those look great.”

“They do.” You leaned over, seeing someone walk by with a full stack of them on a heavy-duty paper food tray. The food smelled so incredible it was almost hypnotizing. “And…mango sticky rice for dessert?”

“And mango sticky rice for dessert,” he affirmed with a slight chuckle.

Four plates sat between you as you dug in, sampling your finds without a care in the world.

“Do you remember our first phone call?” you asked, picking up a skewer. “I was so nervous, and then it felt almost weird seeing you again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’d seen pictures of you leaving Oscar after-parties, and in the morning I’m seeing you eating egg whites in your Airbnb like life is completely normal.”

Joe laughed, shaking his head. “I forgot about that.”

“I didn’t. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, we just do not live the same life.’ And then you went to the MET.”

He reached for another spoonful of dessert before answering.

“And now we’re sharing mango sticky rice at a night market in Thailand.”

You looked around at the crowded tables, neon signs glowing in the background as other people were engaged in their own conversations.

“We flew across the world just to hang out with each other. It sounds a lot more insane now that I’m saying it out loud.”

Joe smiled, innocently wrapping his foot around yours under the table.

“A little crazy, but it feels like a full-circle moment. And I wanted to see you again.” He turned his spoon in the rice a little before he spoke. “Turns out FaceTiming someone every day makes you miss them.”

“I missed you too.”

A smile formed, blooming over your entire face, and you were glad he didn’t look up.

“And I wanted to see you. Phones are great, but nothing beats the real thing.”

The silence was comfortable afterward, a mutual sense of relief that the feelings you’d developed since the day you met weren’t exaggerated. And when the food was gone, you walked side by side to see what they were selling.

Your first stop was a sunglass shop. There were endless options, but you and Joe bought matching pairs of frameless yellow lenses, and Joe bought a waterproof camera at a souvenir stand to document the trip. There was a bag store, a customized claw clip booth that almost had you, but mostly you just enjoyed walking around shoulder to shoulder with him.

“Are you getting tired? We can head back.”

You shook your head no, even though you’d just yawned. Joe gave you a pointed look and walked ahead toward the buggies.

“You know we don’t have to do everything today, right? We’ve got time.”

You lagged behind a little, like him saying the word “tired” made you want to look at the back of your eyelids for the next 20 hours, at least.

“Okay, fine. I just need a shower and I’ll get my second wind.”

“Sure.”

“I promise I’m not tired,” you said for what was probably the fourth time that evening.

Joe looked up from unpacking the last few things from his suitcase.

“You’ve been awake for like thirty hours.”

“I’m fine.”

He studied you for another second before shaking his head. “Okay.”

You disappeared into the bathroom to shower and change, emerging in sleep shorts and an oversized T-shirt, feeling extremely grateful to get rid of that long plane ride.

“Movie?” you suggested, climbing into bed and grabbing the remote. “Kinda wanna do a Spider-Man rewatch before the new one comes out.”

Joe glanced over from where he was gathering his toiletries.

“Sounds good.”

By the time he finished showering and changed into a different T-shirt and shorts, you were scrolling through Disney+.

He stood in the bathroom doorway, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth while washing his face.

“Are we starting with Homecoming?” he asked, opening the floss container.

No response.

Joe looked up.

You were curled up against the pillows, remote still loosely clutched in your hand, completely asleep.

He couldn’t help but laugh quietly to himself because five minutes ago you’d been insisting you weren’t tired. He moved carefully, as quiet as he could, taking the remote from your hand and switching the television off before climbing into bed next to you.

The mattress dipped beneath his weight, and you shifted over as he pulled the blanket over your sleeping form. Joe shut the light off and stared at the ceiling, thinking about how this was so much better than anything he envisioned over the last six months.

But it wasn’t this super nice villa or any one part of the vacation he’d been looking forward to.

It was this.

The little things. You sleeping next to him after trying to convince him you’d make it through an entire movie.

“Liar,” he murmured affectionately into the dark.

“Mmhm,” you mumbled sleepily, not even opening your eyes.

Joe smiled and said, “Goodnight,” knowing he wasn’t getting a response.

He stayed on his back, arm behind his head, until he fell asleep.

He only teased you about the movie twice, which was fine.

You slept in, took your time in the morning lounging around, ordered breakfast, and got in the pool for a bit while actually watching Spider-Man: Homecoming. Your activity for the day didn’t start until late afternoon, so you got to nap.

And kiss him a few more times.

The ride to the elephant sanctuary didn’t take long, and the introductory presentation about the elephants, their behavior, and other fun facts was educational and brief. You’d obviously grown up watching America’s Next Top Model, dreamed of coming here and riding an elephant, but after learning how dangerous it is for them and how they’re exploited, you started looking into elephant sanctuaries.

Joe wasn’t a zoo guy. He hated seeing animals in captivity, so this was an easy yes for him as well. Seeing animals in their natural habitats, getting to interact with them and observe them, would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that he was really looking forward to.

“We do have two new babies that’ll be excited for visitors,” your guide explained, walking you inside to get ready for your first activity. “They’ll be ready to eat in 45 minutes, so we’re going to cut this fresh fruit for them. They’ve been very into the watermelon lately. It’s very sweet this time of year, so we only give it to them once a week to avoid overwhelming them with sugar. Here’s everything you will need. You can fill up your rolling basket, and when you are finished, we can go out and see them.”

“There’s fruit and look.” You picked up the laminated instruction sheet. “You can make little rice balls for them.”

“Do you want to cut the fruit up first and then do the rice? Or we could split it? I can—”

You held up a finger.

“I think I should do the fruit. And before you say anything, yes, I know you know how to use a knife. You’re 29, not 4. But…the last thing I want on my conscience is you hurting your $40 million hand fighting with a watermelon.”

Joe made a face that almost looked like a wince.

“It’s $55 million actually.”

“Oh, even better. Yeah, you’re gonna make some life-changing rice balls today.”

You laughed, and he joined in, knowing you had a point.

Starting with the large fruit first, you cut large chunks of watermelon and placed them in your basket as Joe held the sticky rice in his hands with a level of concentration that you were sure he used at work.

And it made you feel warm inside that he considered wrapping these rice balls in banana leaves just as important as anything else. He really cared about doing everything right and making an effort, which made him even more attractive, and you placed your focus back on your portion of the task.

There was comfort in the quiet. Just you and him in the room doing your own things, not needing to fill it with small talk and meaningless noise. Just the sound of him wrapping his rice balls and you tossing fruit into your basket until both baskets were filled to the brim.

Your guide walked back in to check on you and walk you out to the open space where the elephants roamed free.

One by one, they slowly walked over to be fed. Your guide, Dara, carefully demonstrated the proper feeding method and allowed you and Joe to take over.

“What are their names?” Joe asked, running his hand gently down one of the elephant’s trunk.

Three of them had chosen to stay with you while others grazed from other guests partaking in the experience.

“This is Ziggy. He’s about 40. Malee is around the same age, and we’ve been calling this little one Sprout because she loves bean sprouts.”

“Sprout?” You placed a hand on your chest. “That’s absolutely adorable.”

“Do you have any bean sprouts we can give her?” Joe asked. “If not, don’t worry about it.”

Dara nodded. “I do have some. Let me grab them for you.”

“Thank you,” you both told her at the same time.

You handed out your watermelon pieces and watched the adults go to town while Sprout stayed close to her mom, nibbling on scraps here and there, not wanting to step too far until Dara handed Joe a bowl of bean sprouts.

He took some and held out his palm, and Sprout lifted up her trunk, placed it in his hand, and took all of the bean sprouts before shoving them into her mouth.

You watched him alternate between the sprouts and the fruit, mesmerized by her appetite and how she kept getting closer and closer to him.

Ziggy playfully threw pieces of banana in the air and walked in a circle while Sprout blatantly followed Joe around.

“I see you’ve made a friend,” Dara noted.

Her mom was still close by, but Sprout let Joe caress her face and feed her a few rice balls.

You walked around to the shaded area as the elephants went for a swim, observing them existing peacefully, learning that Ziggy used to work at a circus and now lived in a place where none of the elephants were forced to perform or do any kind of labor.

After a few hours watching and interacting with them, you were led to a restaurant. After thoroughly washing your hands, you got to enjoy a nice, quiet meal to close out a day in the sun.

By the third day, you felt like you’d known him and been with him for years.

“Did you put on sunscreen?”

He scoffed. “No, I didn’t, mom. Don’t need it.”

“I’m not putting aloe on your back when your skin starts peeling,” you warned him.

“The goggles are a great look.”

Joe raised the camera as you held your thumb up and smiled for the picture.

You held out your hand after adjusting your headgear.

“I’m gonna swim out and take some pictures, see what I can find.”

Thankfully, the water wasn’t very deep before you came across the coral. All of the colors blended together so harmoniously the sea plants resembled flower bouquets, and an octopus wiggled through the rocks, hiding from you and your camera. You just hoped if you clicked enough times you’d capture at least some of the legs.

There was a conch shell too, empty. You picked it up and held the bright pink and orange interior facing out, with the tan shell wrapping the outside, capturing the crystal-blue sea in the background.

Joe came up behind you, arms wrapped around your shoulders, examining your find.

“That’s pretty awesome. Where’d you get that?”

“Right over there,” you nodded towards the little cove.

“I went over there. I didn’t see anything like that. How do you find all the cool stuff?”

You handed him the shell, and he turned it over a few times, feeling like the star of one of those National Geographic specials.

Holding up the camera, you told him to smile as he held up the shell that doubled as your trophy for the day before you swam out, putting it back where you’d found it.

At the end of your snorkeling date, you sat on the speedboat and looked through all the pictures you’d taken so far.

Yesterday’s art explosion when you visited several temples and fulfilled the history part of your vacation. The Red Temple, Wat Ratchathammaram, had a dress code and was worth wearing pants for. The Buddhist temple was a visual masterpiece, and getting to see the gold sculpture again through the eyes of your market camera was still breathtaking.

“These pictures are so high quality,” you told him, remembering Joe trying to capture as much as he could as he walked. It was hard trying to be present in the moment, to read what the symbols meant, but also document the artistry.

Then the lengthy gallery of food pictures. So many meals had been shared it wasn’t even funny. You were kind of thankful you’d been swimming all day, getting a workout, because the rolled ice cream last night was going to be something you’d think about for a while.

Joe’s hand rested casually on your leg as you looked through underwater photos, deleting blurry ones and stopping at the one he took of himself holding your hand as you swam ahead. You hadn’t even realized he was holding the camera then.

“I can’t believe both times we’ve hung out you’ve gotten me on a boat.”

“What can I say? I like to keep you on your toes.”

You placed the camera back in the bag as the boat reached its next destination.

Joe stepped off first and immediately turned and offered you his hand. You happily took it and let him help you step off the boat.

The sand was delicate and bright, this baby-powder texture and smoky white color, the brightest sand you’d ever seen. You knew it was blinding and you weren’t just being dramatic because Joe actually put on his sunglasses when he looked down.

And in the water, right next to you, marched four legs ready for a swim.

This was a regular occurrence for them. They hadn’t paid any attention to you or Joe or the watercraft that had just stopped in their way. They just went around on both sides.

“Are those…pigs?”

“Welcome to Koh Madsum,” the boat driver announced excitedly. “Pig Island.”

You laughed, watching them trot in the turquoise water, pink snouts glistening in the sunlight.

“They love it here.”

“A local rescued them a few years ago. They have roamed free on this land ever since.”

Joe knelt down to touch one that was super close.

“Cool. Not as cute as Sprout, but I guess they’re alright.”

“Please don’t tell me you got attached to the baby elephant at the sanctuary,” you said flatly.

Although the look on his face made his feelings pretty clear.

“We had something good going. I don’t think she wanted me to leave. These guys aren’t as personable. Sprout welcomed me with an open trunk.”

You stared at him for a second, trying not to make a big deal about how cute it was that he actually missed the elephant he’d spent one afternoon with.

“And mouth,” you noted. “We did have food.”

Pig Island also had little gift shops. You gave the pigs walking around in the sun a drink of water. They were precious.

Giving them the rest of your water was fine because on your walk you got to try Thai tea from the source, trying the Hop Apple Jasmine tea, and Joe had the Lemon Berry.

He took maybe two sips of his drink before saying, “Switch,” and handing you his cup.

You hadn’t held hands in public. He hadn’t placed his hand on your shoulder or outwardly shown any interest in PDA, which was fine because you felt like swapping drinks was intimate in a different way.

Slowly but surely, there had been a level of trust built this time around. No nervousness or awkward what-ifs. He’d literally tied your swimsuit for you that morning before you left and kissed you behind your ear afterward, so gently it tickled. Neither of you had said anything about it. He’d just smiled when you swatted at his arm and told him to hurry up before you missed the boat. Joe then explained he was trying to get both ears, to keep the balance. You let him kiss you again before telling him you really, really did have to get going.

Joe pulled you out of your thoughts. “What are you thinking about?”

“Huh?”

“You look like you’re pondering something big.”

Your shoulders shook with laughter. “Pondering?”

He nodded, proud of himself. “Thinking very carefully before making a decision,” he explained, even though you knew what the word meant. “We’re almost back at the villa. You thinking about a nap?”

“A nap does sound good. But I was more thinking about how I can’t believe we’re leaving soon. And thinking about how I don’t really want to.”

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “This was a great decision.”

“It was yours,” you glanced over at him with a sideways expression.

“Hm. Was it?”

You stepped off the boat and thanked your driver, walking to your door and heading straight to bed “This vacation, a nap. You’re just full of good ideas. I might have to keep you around,” you joked, resting on his chest.

His eyes were already closed, but the smile on his face let you know he heard every word and just wasn’t going to respond. You pressed your lips lightly against his jaw anyway.

The entire trip so far had been filled with excursions, unique activities catered to seeing as much of the island as possible. No amount of naps was going to physically and mentally prepare you for the flight home. So you guys went for the next best thing.

Traditional Thai massages are closer to yoga, focusing on blood circulation, flexibility, and relieving muscular tension through mobility work. You didn’t want to ask, but it was probably Joe’s favorite part of the week. Both of you were fully clothed, resting on the padded mats on the floor rather than typical massage tables as the licensed therapists used their elbows, hands, knees, and feet to assist in the stretch.

The therapeutic experience was meant to balance internal energy, enhance circulation, and support overall health. At least that’s what the brochure said. They allowed you to completely shut your brain off, allow positive activity to flow through you in this almost meditative state with your body and mind at rest even though you knew you weren’t sleeping.

“I feel like I took a two-hour nap,” Joe said as you walked towards the next room.

He’d booked out the spa for a few hours, and you both got to choose which activities you wanted in a total relaxation package. A mud bath was next. You’d never done one, and it seemed harmless enough.

“Seriously, I didn’t think that would feel like that. It was so peaceful.” He nodded, and you looked down at his clothes. “Did you get me this workout set so we could match?”

Joe snorted, taking in your all-black Alo two-piece, essentially the women’s version of what he was wearing.

“Maybe.” He turned away quicker than normal, hiding his glee.

There were two steps to the mud bath. One larger area where you could put the mud on yourself, kind of just an excuse to touch each other, which you weren’t opposed to. So you would stay in that area while the staff filled two tubs full of mineral-rich clay for you to soak in for 10–15 minutes.

“What’s the point of this?”

“Mostly skin detox, exfoliating dead skin. And the soak helps your joints and inflammation, I think. So there’s health benefits. I know that’s what you wanna hear.”

You told him after you’d both gotten in your swimsuits and covered your hair. Clay and mud didn’t exactly sound like something you wanted to dig out of your head tonight. Your answer seemed to satisfy him enough that he dug his hand in the bowl and scooped up some of the mud, using his fingers to put it on your shoulders and back.

Once he was done and you turned to face him, you did the same, lathering it onto his forehead.

“You need this stuff to nourish your skin since you refuse to wear sunscreen. You’re gonna look 80 when you’re 40.”

“My skin is fine.”

“Yeah, it’s blemish-free, but it will wrinkle earlier than it should if you don’t introduce it to some SPF.” He rolled his eyes and kept applying the mud on you, meticulously, like he didn’t want to miss a spot.

“You know you don’t have to do everything perfectly, right?”

“If I’m gonna do something, I wanna do it right. If not, then what’s the point of doing it at all?”

You paused, taking your hands off him. “Are you talking about the mud right now? Or us?”

Joe stood still, wanting to run his fingers through his hair out of habit, but one, it was covered, and two, there was excess mud dripping from his wrist.

“Can’t help it. I’ve been thinking critically about… a lot of stuff. And I want to do this right. I want this to make sense in real life, not just foreign countries and sporadic phone calls.”

“I get that. We are professional overthinkers. That’s what drew me to you in the first place, but—” One of the staff members came in to let you know your baths were ready, and you thanked her, heading into the room.

“We can figure out all that stuff later, we've done it before. I didn’t think I’d ever talk to you again after you left Greece but you made that happen. So I’d say you’re doing pretty well so far. Don’t let yourself get so lost in your head that you don’t get to live in the moment.”

Gesturing towards the clay-filled tubs, you sighed and told him, “We have a lot to talk about when we get home. We know that. But for now, let’s just sit in it…literally.”

He shook his head with a short chuckle and stepped into the warmth. “This feels kinda gross.”

“It does. Now sit and stop thinking so hard for ten minutes.” Your eyes were closed as you leaned back, and he followed suit, trying to get back to total relaxation like he had in the massage room.

He didn’t want to sit in his feelings, or the bath, for that matter, for too long, but he had no other choice.

When the timer rang and the staff ushered you to the showers, giving you privacy, he honestly did feel a lot lighter.

“Why don’t we just shower together?” Joe asked, back to himself. “To conserve water.”

“Right, of course.” You stepped into the shower, and he closed the door behind you, letting the spray wash off the mud and clay and everything else that you’d just been fully submerged in.

When you hugged him, most of the mud was already gone, pooling at your feet in some strange gray-brown mixture flowing down the drain, but he wrapped his arms around you anyway.

Your bodies were pressed against each other so closely that his heart was beating out of his chest, and he hoped you couldn’t feel it through his skin.

Getting on the tips of your toes, you reached as much as you could and kissed him. You hoped that there would never come a day that you’d forget what kissing him felt like, his low laugh that he tried to bury in the back of his throat but couldn’t help, the bliss that consumed him while your mouth was on his. The water disappeared. The spa, everything. It didn’t even occur to you that you were still standing there for a full minute, fully immersed in this, with this person you couldn’t get enough of.

He cupped your face and placed a kiss on your lips again before grabbing the soap and remembering what you two were actually in there for.

You’d almost forgotten how early in the day it was, somewhat surprised by the sunlight on the walk back to your villa where you changed and got back into the water because it was scorching outside.

Joe turned the next movie on after he got new swim trunks on and waited for your food before getting in.

“Do you need help?” you asked wide-eyed, seeing him come down the small steps carrying a huge tray.

“I got it.” He carefully stepped in and walked the tray to the edge of the pool, closer to the TV.

“Are we supposed to eat all of this?”

Joe handed you a fork.“Guess so. Hope you’re hungry.”

“Hungry for one meal, not…” you looked at the platter and counted all the items you saw, “…six.”

“This is definitely not enough for six meals.”

You shrugged. “Maybe not for you. But I don’t play professional sports and get pantsed on national television. I eat normal-people meals and do not take flag football too seriously.”

“Okay, that was essentially an Olympic tryout, so yeah, I wanted the call,” he defended. “The pants weren’t super high on the list of priorities.”

“Oh, they weren’t high, period. That was the problem.”

He laughed, telling you about the time in college when it was his bare ass instead of compression shorts, so this time was a lot less revealing. “The fact that this has happened to you twice?”

“I know. Believe me,” he stressed. “I know.”

You poured a little of the coffee into your glass and tasted some of the bread, one of three grain options sitting in front of you.

“Would you want to play in the Olympics?”

“Yeah. Getting a gold medal would be pretty sick. And it’d be in LA, the world’s biggest stage. Sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve been missing that with football the last few years, but getting to play in that and then camp with the team, it’s been the most fun I’ve had in a while. I’m excited to get started, to win something meaningful.”

“Sounds like the Bengals are gonna make some noise this year. In a good way.”

“I think we will,” he said confidently.

Not in an arrogant way, but in a hopeful way.

“And maybe you can come watch in person? Our next vacation could be a staycation. In Cincinnati.”

“Joe, do you think I like you enough to spend an extended amount of time in Cincinnati, Ohio? On purpose?”

He looked at you and was actually beaming, his perfectly white teeth were definitely worth the investment.

“It’s not that bad of a place.”

“I don’t care,” you admitted. “Because at this point, I like you enough I’d visit you anywhere. Unfortunately.”

“Good.” Joe paused, leaning in to kiss your cheek.

The honeymoon had been its own little bubble. No schedules, or reporters, or football. Just sunburnt shoulders, late dinners that stretched past midnight, and the strange novelty of introducing each other as husband and wife. Even now, back in Cincinnati, the words still felt new whenever they crossed your mind.

Joe was your husband. and You as Mrs. Burrow.

Sometimes you'd catch Joe staring at his left hand absentmindedly, turning the gold band around his finger while watching football film. Other times he'd reach across the kitchen island and tap the ring against your own with a smile, as if he still couldn't believe it was real either.

You'd spent months picking them out together. Not because either of you cared about diamonds or price tags or matching aesthetics, but because the process itself had become important for a different reason. Every jewelry store appointment had forced two busy people to sit down and talk about the future in concrete terms.

Not contracts or football seasons or travel schedules. Marriage, home, children someday, the kinds of conversations that felt impossibly far away until suddenly...they weren't, they were finally around the corner.

The rings themselves had become symbols long before the wedding itself.

Joe's was simple. Solid gold, no engraving except the date hidden on the inside of the band. He'd insisted on something practical, something he could wear every day without thinking about it.

That was exactly why he noticed the second it was gone. The realization happened on an ordinary Tuesday morning.

Nothing dramatic, just Joe sitting in his car outside the practice facility, reaching for his coffee before heading inside.

His eyes dropped automatically toward the steering wheel.

Then froze.

The place where the ring should have been...was empty.

For a second he simply stared, then his hand turned over once. Then twice. His thumb rubbed against the bare skin where the band usually rested.

Nothing.

A strange cold sensation slid down his spine. Joe checked his right hand. Then his left again as though a wedding ring might somehow switch sides overnight.

Still nothing.

The coffee was forgotten entirely. He searched the cupholder first. Then the center console. Then every inch of the car.

The panic didn't arrive all at once. It crept in slowly, replacing confusion piece by piece until his chest felt tight. Because losing a wedding ring two weeks after getting married wasn't just losing a piece of jewelry.

It felt careless, irresponsible. Almost disrespectful.

The kind of mistake that shouldn't happen this early, the kind of mistake that definitely shouldn't happen to him. By the time he walked into the facility, he'd already begun mentally retracing the last twelve hours since he'd last seen it.

The gym, the house, the grocery store, the gas station, the shower, the kitchen, the bedroom.

Every place he'd been. Every place the ring could have slipped off. Every place it had to be.

Because there was no chance - absolutely no chance - he was going home that night and telling his brand-new wife that he'd somehow managed to lose the symbol of their marriage before they'd even finished opening wedding gifts.

No. He'd find it first. Then he'd tell you, and once he found it, the whole thing would become a funny story the two of you laughed about years later.

At least...that was the plan.

By the afternoon, Joe had become a problem. He'd grown strangely absent inside his own life, moving through the facility with a distracted intensity that made him seem as though he were constantly listening for something nobody else could hear.

During film review, his attention drifted every few minutes toward the floor beneath his chair. In the weight room, he paused between sets to inspect the rubber matting beneath the racks.

He lingered in hallways after conversations had ended, scanning corners and baseboards with narrowed eyes before finally forcing himself to move on.

The first few hours, nobody thought much of it.

Joe was crouched beside his locker for the third time that morning, one knee pressed against the carpet while he reached his arm into the narrow gap between the metal lockers and the wall. Dust coated his fingertips when he pulled them back - a forgotten wristband surfaced first and a protein bar wrapper, then nothing.

His jaw tightened. The ring had to be somewhere - objects didn't simply disappear. There had to be a moment he could identify - a place, a mistake.

The problem was that every time he convinced himself he'd found the answer, it dissolved into another dead end.

Maybe it had slipped off while changing after practice, or maybe it had fallen into his gym bag. Maybe he'd left it on the bathroom counter, or maybe he'd dropped it while unloading groceries last night.

Every possibility seemed plausible until he checked, until another took its place.

"What are you doing?"

The voice came from directly behind him.

Joe nearly slammed his head into the locker door.

When he looked up, he found one of the offensive linemen staring down at him with the expression people reserved for stray animals or malfunctioning electronics. Curious, but slightly concerned.

Joe straightened immediately. "Uh, nothing."

The response was automatic as the lineman looked at the pile of discarded items sitting on the floor.

"Looks like nothing."

Joe pushed the locker shut. "I'm looking for something."

The answer should have ended the conversation. Instead, it invited three more people over. Within moments, a small audience had gathered around him, drawn by the same instinct that made teammates stop and watch whenever someone looked even remotely embarrassed.

The attention only worsened his mood. He could feel the beginnings of a headache forming behind his eyes.

"What'd you lose?"

Joe rubbed the back of his neck.

For a moment he considered lying, then he realized there was absolutely no version of this story that sounded less pathetic than the truth.

"My...ring."

Silence followed. Three faces blinked at him. Then somebody laughed, the kind of surprised laugh that escaped before a person could stop it.

"Your brand new wedding ring?"

A second laugh joined the first, then a third. Joe's expression darkened, the reaction only seemed to encourage them.

"You've been crawling around the building all day because of a ring?"

"It wasn't all day."

"Joe."

"...it wasn't."

The grin spreading across their faces made him feel about twelve years old.

One of them leaned against a locker. "Dude, just tell your wife."

Joe stared at him.

The suggestion felt so absurd he almost laughed himself.

Tell you?

Walk into the house and casually announce that he'd somehow managed to lose the physical symbol of your marriage less than three weeks after standing at the altar?

Absolutely not.

He looked away first. That alone answered the question.

The laughter erupted all over again. "My god, you're terrified!"

"I'm not terrified."

"You are terrified."

Joe folded his arms.

The fact that he was currently calculating whether he could leave practice early to search his car again did not help his case.

The teasing continued long after the conversation ended, following him through the facility in the form of passing comments and smirks. Normally he would've given it right back, or he would've rolled his eyes and moved on.

Instead, every joke seemed to sharpen the knot already sitting in his stomach. Because to everyone else, it was a ring - replaceable and insured, a minor inconvenience.

To Joe, it felt different.

Every time his eyes landed on the pale band of skin circling his finger, he remembered standing beneath strings of warm lights with your hands folded in his, remembered your voice shaking during your vows and the way you'd smiled at him afterward as though neither of you quite believed you'd finally made it there.

The ring wasn't valuable because of what it was, it was valuable because of what it represented, and somehow he had lost it.

The thought followed him everywhere.

It followed him into the training room, where he spent ten unnecessary minutes inspecting the space beneath treatment tables while trainers stepped around him in confusion.

It followed him into the parking lot, where he emptied his car for the second time that day. Floor mats came out first. Then gym shoes, then loose papers from the center console. By the end, half the contents of the vehicle sat arranged across the asphalt while he searched every crack and seam with growing desperation.

It even followed him to the cafeteria, where he retraced his steps from breakfast before checking a trash can he knew, logically, could not contain the ring.

Still he searched.

By evening, the panic had settled into something quieter and far more dangerous.

Certainty.

Not certainty that the ring was gone forever, no, certainty that he would find it.

He had to.

Which was precisely why, when he pulled into the driveway and saw the warm glow of the kitchen lights waiting through the windows, he made the same decision he'd made the night before - he wasn't gonna tell you until he found it.

So he slipped his left hand into his pocket before opening the front door and stepped inside carrying a secret that had already begun to consume him.

The moment he walked in, you knew something was wrong.

The problem was that you knew your husband too well.

Marriage had not magically granted you that ability. It had existed long before the wedding, long before the engagement, before either of you had become comfortable enough to admit how thoroughly your lives had intertwined. Loving someone for years created a kind of familiarity that existed beneath language. You learned the shape of their silences, learned the difference between exhaustion and frustration, between distraction and sadness, between a bad day and a bad thought.

Joe was hiding something.

The certainty settled over you gradually throughout the evening, collecting evidence with every passing hour.

He kept his left hand tucked into his pocket.

It appeared in strange moments, brief enough that someone unfamiliar with him might never notice. Whenever he stood beside the kitchen island or whenever he thought you weren't looking.

The movement possessed an unnatural quality, as though he were consciously managing something that should have been instinctive.

Twice you caught him reaching for something before abruptly switching hands midway through the motion.

At dinner, he sat with his forearm angled strangely against the table.

When you handed him a glass of water, he accepted it with his right hand despite being perfectly capable of using either.

None of it made sense.

And because it didn't make sense, your imagination began doing what imagination always did when left unattended, it wandered.

The first possibility was injury. A strained tendon or a broken finger. Something football-related he hadn't wanted to mention.

You dismissed that theory almost immediately because Joe was terrible at hiding physical pain.

He could tolerate it better than almost anybody you had ever met, but concealing it was another matter entirely. Physical injuries irritated him, they made him restless and impatient. If he'd hurt his hand, you'd know.

The second possibility lingered longer. Something involving football - a contract issue, disagreement with coaches. Some problem he wasn't ready to discuss yet.

That explanation survived nearly an hour before collapsing beneath its own weight.

This wasn't professional anxiety, you had seen professional anxiety. Professional anxiety made Joe quiet. This was making him nervous. There was a difference.

The realization settled heavily in your chest.

By the time evening arrived, darker possibilities had begun creeping into the spaces logic had vacated.

The thought embarrassed you even as it occurred. You hated yourself for considering it, yet once the possibility existed, it became impossible to entirely ignore.

People hid things when they were afraid of being discovered, people avoided eye contact when they carried guilt, they became strange when they were protecting secrets.

You stood at the kitchen sink rinsing dishes while Joe hovered nearby, pretending to scroll through his phone.

Pretending being the operative word. His thumb hadn't moved in almost a minute, the screen remained unchanged.

Outside, twilight stretched across the backyard in shades of blue and gold. The house felt unusually quiet. The television wasn't on, no music drifted from another room. The only sounds came from running water and the occasional clink of dishes.

The silence made everything worse.

Your eyes drifted toward him, as his left hand immediately disappeared into his pocket.

Something inside your chest tightened. You dried your hands slowly.

Joe noticed.

The instant he looked up and found you watching him, some emotion flashed briefly across his face.

Fear, not guilt.

Fear.

The distinction should have reassured you. Instead it made your stomach drop - whatever was happening had clearly become serious enough that he was actively afraid of your reaction.

"Joe."

The sound of his name seemed to physically affect him.

His shoulders stiffened. "Yeah?"

You crossed your arms. "What is going on?"

The question hung between you, and for a moment neither of you moved. The kitchen lights cast soft shadows across the room. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. The refrigerator hummed quietly.

Joe looked down.

That, more than anything else, made your pulse quicken.

Joe Burrow rarely looked down from difficult conversations. He met problems head-on. Sometimes stubbornly, infuriatingly. But directly.

Watching him avoid your eyes felt profoundly wrong.

A dozen awful possibilities crowded your thoughts and you hated every one of them.

"Nothing's going on."

The answer arrived too quickly and rehearsed.

Suddenly you were angry. "Don't do that, Joe."

His gaze lifted immediately. "Do what?"

"Lie to me. I know you, I know when something's wrong.

The words landed harder than you'd intended.

You watched the color drain from his face and for several seconds, neither of you spoke. Then something changed. You simply watched whatever determination had been holding him together finally begin to crack.

The last twenty four hours had left visible marks.

There were shadows beneath his eyes, shoulders looked tight with exhaustion. The constant tension he'd been carrying suddenly seemed impossible to conceal.

When he finally exhaled, it sounded less like a breath and more like surrender. You expected an explanation -- a confession of some kind, maybe an argument.

But instead he sat down, as though his legs no longer trusted themselves.

The sight immediately extinguished your irritation because Joe looked genuinely miserable.

Not embarrassed or inconvenienced.

Miserable.

The knot in your stomach twisted tighter. You crossed the kitchen and sat beside him.

For a long moment, he simply stared at the hardwood floor.

The silence stretched. Then stretched further.

When he finally spoke, his voice sounded rough. "I've been trying to find it."

You frowned. "Find...what?"

His eyes closed. For a second, you genuinely thought he might be sick.

The reaction seemed entirely disproportionate to whatever conversation he was preparing to have.

His throat moved, and again. When he finally lifted his left hand from his pocket, your gaze immediately dropped toward it.

Toward the bare finger where his wedding band should have been.

The realization arrived instantly.

The ring, it was gone. For a moment you simply stared, not because you were upset but because your brain was trying to catch up.

Joe interpreted your silence in the worst possible way.

The words began spilling out before you could say anything. "I don't know where it is."

His eyes remained fixed on yours, anxiously.

"I thought I lost it this morning. I've checked my car three times. My locker, every room in the facility, every bag I own."

The confession seemed to gain momentum. Once it started, it refused to stop. "I checked trash cans."

You blinked. "What?"

"I checked trash cans."

The statement sounded so absurdly earnest that you almost laughed.

Joe looked horrified. "I checked six of them."

The fact that he knew the exact number somehow made it worse. For a moment you could only stare at him - the sheer level of panic required to search six separate trash cans was almost impressive.

His expression remained stricken. "I was going to tell you."

A strange realization settled over you. Joe genuinely believed you were angry, and that understanding transformed the entire situation.

Suddenly the nervousness made sense. The hiding, the secrecy. The exhaustion. He hadn't spent a whole day terrified because he'd lost a ring. He'd spent a day terrified because he thought losing the ring would hurt you.

The absurdity of that thought nearly brought tears to your eyes. For twenty four hours he'd been carrying this around by himself.

Searching parking lots, lockers, trash cans, convincing himself the world was ending.

Meanwhile, he looked moments away from throwing up in your kitchen.

Your heart broke because your husband looked absolutely miserable.

"Oh, Joe." Something in your voice finally made him look up.

You reached for his hand, the same hand he'd spent hours hiding from you. The same hand he'd been staring at with mounting panic.

His fingers tightened around yours immediately. Instinctively, almost desperately.

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

The question emerged softly, without accusation or anger.

Joe looked away as a humorless laugh escaped him. "Because we got married two weeks ago."

The answer sounded so obvious to him. So painfully obvious, as though it explained everything.

You squeezed his hand. "It was an accident."

"I know."

"It wasn't intentional."

"I know."

"So why are you acting like you committed a crime?"

The question finally pulled a reluctant smile from him. Only a small one, and only for a second before it vanished.

His gaze dropped toward his bare finger again.

When he spoke, his voice was quieter. "It...wasn't about the ring."

The words settled between you. You understood immediately.

Neither of you had ever cared much about jewelry. Neither of you had chosen those rings because of their material value. The gold itself meant nothing. The symbolism, however, meant everything.

Joe swallowed. "When I realized it was gone..." he paused, searching for something difficult to articulate. "It felt like I'd been careless with something important."

Your chest tightened.

The vulnerability in his voice was rare because he carried emotions privately and carefully. The thoughts he considered deepest often remained hidden until they had nowhere left to go.

He looked down at your intertwined hands. "I know it's stupid."

"It isn't."

"It is."

"It isn't."

His jaw flexed. "I stood there making promises to you. Then two weeks later I lose the thing that represents those promises."

You stared at him for several seconds, long enough that he finally looked back. Whatever expression he found on your face seemed to surprise him.

Because there was no anger there. Only affection and exasperation and love. "Joe," his name emerged almost as a sigh. "You think a piece of gold is carrying those promises?"

The question seemed to catch him off guard.

You leaned closer. "The ring isn't our marriage," his eyes remained fixed on yours. "The ring isn't why I married you. I married you because you're you."

Raw emotion flickered briefly across his face.

"You could lose ten wedding bands."

"Please don't say that."

Despite everything, a laugh escaped you.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

"You could lose ten wedding bands," you repeated, "and I'd still be married to the same idiot."

That finally earned a proper smile. Relief began easing some of the tension from his shoulders.

Not all of it, because the ring was still missing.

But enough. Enough that the room felt lighter, that he finally looked like he could breathe again.

You stood first. "Come on."

His brows furrowed. "Where are we going?"

"We're finding your ring."

The search began in the bedroom. Then the bathroom. Then the laundry room.

You checked every surface, every drawer, every pocket.

Joe followed with renewed determination, though significantly less panic than before.

The difference was noticeable. Now that the secret no longer existed, the problem itself seemed smaller. Manageable, almost ordinary.

An hour passed, then another.

Eventually the search migrated toward the mudroom where several bags had accumulated after practice. Joe's gym bag sat beside the wall, large and unzipped.

You eyed it. "Did you check this?"

"Three times."

The confidence in his voice made you suspicious immediately.

You knelt anyway.

The bag smelled faintly like detergent and football equipment. Inside sat the usual collection of necessities like extra shirts, athletic tape, headphones, a charger.

Joe watched. "It's not in there."

You ignored him. One compartment, then another and another.

Nothing.

Joe folded his arms. A look of vindication began creeping across his face, but you rolled your eyes.

Then reached toward a narrow zippered pocket hidden near the bottom seam. "What about this one?"

"I checked that."

"You checked all of them?"

"I did."

"Hm."

The zipper caught briefly before sliding open.

Your fingers disappeared inside. The compartment extended deeper than expected, almost to the bottom of the bag.

For several seconds, you felt nothing except fabric.

Then... Cold metal. Small, and circular.

Your entire body froze. Across from you, Joe immediately noticed. The room became impossibly still. Slowly, you withdrew your hand, the gold band rested against your palm.

For a moment neither of you moved.

The ring that had inspired twenty four hours of panic, the ring that had launched a facility-wide scavenger hunt, the ring that had nearly made your husband physically ill.

Then you looked up.

Joe's expression was indescribable. Relief arrived first, then disbelief.

"Oh my God." The words escaped him in a whisper.

You started laughing.

Joe dropped onto the floor beside you and pressed both hands over his face, the sound that emerged from him was half laugh, half groan.

"It was in the bag."

"It was."

"I checked the bag."

"You absolutely did not check the bag."

"I checked the bag."

The ring disappeared from your palm as Joe immediately snatched it back.

The motion was so quick it made you laugh harder. Without hesitation, he slid it onto his finger, exactly where it belonged.

For a moment he simply stared at it.

The gold gleamed beneath the overhead light - ordinary and unremarkable. A simple wedding band, yet the relief visible on his face made it seem priceless.

Eventually his gaze lifted toward yours.

You were still smiling, still sitting on the floor, still looking at him with enough affection to make his chest ache.

The next thing you knew, his arms were around you, pulling you close and holding you tightly, as though he were making absolutely certain he hadn't misplaced anything else important.

Sitting there on the floor beside a half-unpacked gym bag, with his wedding ring finally back where it belonged and your laughter still echoing through the room, Joe realized the thing he'd been terrified of losing had never actually been the ring at all - it was you.

The morning arrived with the peculiar lightness that follows a crisis once it has been resolved. Nothing about the house had changed. The same pale sunlight filtered through the kitchen windows, catching on the polished countertops and the vase of flowers somebody had sent after the wedding.

The same coffee maker sputtered and hissed on the counter. Outside, a neighbor's dog barked somewhere down the street before the sound disappeared into the quiet of suburban morning. Yet the atmosphere felt noticeably different, as though the walls themselves had finally relaxed after spending two days absorbing Joe's anxiety.

You found him standing barefoot in the kitchen wearing gray sweats and a faded LSU t-shirt he'd slept in, one hand wrapped around a mug of coffee while the other remained lifted directly in front of his face. The gold band had returned to its rightful place less than fifteen hours earlier, and already he seemed incapable of looking away from it for more than a few minutes at a time.

Every so often his thumb brushed against the metal in a movement so absentminded it was almost childlike, as though he needed repeated confirmation that it was still there.

The sight would have been endearing had it not been so ridiculous.

Not because he loved the ring. You understood that part completely. What remained ridiculous was the fact that he had spent twenty four hours tearing apart half of Cincinnati before discovering it exactly where any reasonable person would have checked first.

The gym bag he had apparently searched three separate times, the gym bag that had contained the ring the entire time. The gym bag you now suspected had become the source of at least three jokes circulating throughout the Bengals facility.

A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you crossed the kitchen and placed a small cardboard box beside his coffee.

Immediately his attention shifted as his eyebrows drew together.

"What is that?"

Rather than answering, you leaned against the counter and watched him pick it up. The box was small enough to fit comfortably in his palm, plain brown except for a shipping label and a company logo printed along one side. Nothing about it appeared particularly interesting until he opened it and discovered the contents waiting inside.

His expression changed almost instantly.

The silicone band rested in black foam packaging, simple and understated. Matte black, lightweight, flexible. The sort of ring designed specifically for athletes, construction workers, mechanics, and every other person likely to destroy expensive jewelry through sheer stubbornness.

For several seconds he simply stared at it, then he looked at you. Then back at the ring, then back at you again.

The realization dawned slowly. "You ordered this."

The accusation sounded almost offended.

You nodded. "I ordered it two days ago."

His face somehow managed to become even more offended. "You ordered a replacement before you even knew I lost it?"

A laugh escaped you. The fact that he genuinely sounded betrayed only made the situation funnier.

"It isn't a replacement, Joe."

"It looks like a replacement."

"It costs twenty dollars."

His gaze dropped toward the silicone band, then toward the wedding ring on his finger, then back toward the silicone band.

The comparison clearly wounded him. You could practically see the argument forming in his head.

"No." The refusal arrived immediately.

You hadn't even formally suggested anything yet. "No?"

"No."

The certainty in his voice carried all the stubbornness that had made him impossible to deal with throughout the entirety of your relationship. It was the same tone he used when refusing to ask for directions, refusing to admit he was sick, refusing to acknowledge that a piece of furniture required instructions rather than intuition.

"Nope," he repeated. "I'm not wearing that."

You studied him for a moment.

The crossed arms, defensive posture. The expression that suggested he believed himself entirely reasonable.

Your eyes drifted toward the gold band currently occupying his finger.

The gold band that had nearly caused a psychological breakdown - a psychological breakdown he somehow, seemed determined to repeat.

"You spent a whole day losing your mind."

"I still found it."

"You checked trash cans."

His jaw tightened, but you continued.

"You dismantled your car."

Silence.

"You made grown men watch you crawl around on the floor looking under lockers."

The silence lengthened.

A smile slowly appeared as Joe looked away. That was always how you knew you were winning.

Not because he admitted defeat (Joe almost never admitted defeat) but instead he developed a sudden fascination with nearby objects and refused to make eye contact until the conversation moved on.

You stepped closer, the silicone ring remained balanced in the center of his palm. "Nobody is taking the real one away."

His eyes lifted.

"The gold ring stays exactly where it belongs whenever you want it to."

His expression softened slightly.

"But if you're practicing, lifting, traveling, swimming, or doing anything that gives you an opportunity to accidentally launch your wedding band into another dimension...maybe wear the twenty-dollar ring."

The argument made sense. Annoyingly so. You watched him struggle with that reality.

Several seconds passed before he finally picked up the silicone band and examined it more carefully. It stretched easily between his fingers before returning to shape, lightweight enough that it barely seemed real compared to the solid weight of gold.

His mouth twitched. "It feels fake."

"You know what's worse than fake?"

He sighed as you smiled. "Losing the real one."

The look he gave you was deeply unimpressed. The fact that he slid the silicone ring onto his finger anyway felt like victory.

For the next several weeks, the arrangement worked surprisingly well, far better than either of you expected.

The gold band remained on his finger most days, especially whenever the two of you attended events together or spent quiet evenings at home. During practices, workouts, travel days, and training sessions, however, the black silicone ring gradually became part of his routine. The transition happened reluctantly at first. He complained about it often enough that you suspected he enjoyed complaining more than he disliked the ring itself.

Then something interesting happened - he stopped noticing it.

The silicone band became as natural as his watch, his headphones, or the countless other objects that followed him through daily life. Some mornings he slipped it on automatically while gathering his things for practice, other days he switched rings without consciously thinking about it at all. The dramatic resistance faded into habit, and habit eventually settled into comfort.

Life continued moving forward.

Football consumed its usual share of attention. Weekends disappeared into travel schedules and game preparation. Wedding gifts finally found permanent homes throughout the house. Thank-you notes were completed. Honeymoon photographs were framed. The strange newness of marriage softened into something steadier and more familiar.

The panic surrounding the ring slowly transformed into one of those stories couples tell at dinner parties years later. The sort of story that always earned laughter because enough time had passed to make it funny.

At least, until three weeks later.

One afternoon while emptying his pockets after practice, Joe stared down at his hand and felt something cold settle into his stomach. Then his eyes immediately moved toward the black silicone band still sitting securely on his finger.

A long silence followed. Slowly, very slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold wedding ring he had removed before practice.

The ring remained exactly where he had left it. Safe, secure, impossible to lose.

For a moment he simply stood there. Then he looked toward the kitchen where you were making dinner, then back toward the silicone band, then toward the gold ring.

A grin slowly spread across his face, because for the first time since getting married, he realized he had successfully managed not to lose his wedding ring.

Mostly because his wife apparently knew him better than he knew himself.

MY 7K CELEBRATION! | NEXT UP IS...VELCRO CHILD FOR PAIGE BUECKERS (MOM OF THE YEAR AU

↳ make sure to check out my navigation or masterlist if you enjoyed! any interaction is greatly appreciated !

The headlines are everywhere.

BAD BLOOD IN HOLLYWOOD! Michael and (Y/N)’s Secret Feud Exposed!

and

CAUGHT ON CAMERA! THE ICY-COLD MOMENTS BETWEEN THE MUSIC’S BIGGEST STARS

and

The Smiles Are Fake—Sources Say the Rivalry is Real

oh, and (Y/N)’s absolute favorite so far

EXCLUSIVE: (Y/N) (Y/L/N) TALKS ABOUT WHY SHE CAN’T STAND MICHAEL JACKSON

(She really wants to know who they spoke to, because it certainly was not her.)

It’s annoying, such an obvious sham, and of course everyone falls for it. The public loves it, the rumors, the whispers, the juicy gossip. There is something enticing about a battle of giants, she supposes, the taller they stand, the harder they fall.

If someone were to ask—not that anyone every would, if you don’t ask, you don’t get direct answer, and without direct answer you can make up just about anything without technically lying—(Y/N) would vigorously deny hating Michael Jackson. Hate is too much of a strong word, it carries too much weight, settles too heavy. Hate implies passion which requires effort and those are two things Michael Jackson does not evoke from her.

Heavily dislikes, now that’s more accurate, describes pretty accurately how she truly feels about Michael freaking Jackson. This, however, she would never admit. Her media training would never allow it—she’s almost certain some perfectly crafted response would fall out of her lips if she dared try—and Thomas Allen, her darling, sweet manager and publicist, would no doubt throttle her to death if she ever uttered the words ‘I don’t like Michael Jackson’ or anything of the sorts to anyone other than him. Oh, his nagging would be relentless. (Y/N) would rather avoid that.

But if she were to ever admit it, talk about the ugly feelings that fester at the bottom of her chest when she thinks too hard about Michael Jackson—not that she does that often or anything—she would be adamant on the fact that they have nothing to do with the phoney rivalry the tabloids have fabricated. No, (Y/N) does not care about Michael Jackson’s wins and awards and achievements, she does not care about the fact that their careers seem to constantly eclipse each other, following trajectories that are so similar it is almost eerie, she does not even mind the constant comparison—for all she dislikes him, (Y/N) cannot deny his talent, cannot deny he is one of the best to ever be, and she likes being in league with the best. (Y/N) (Y/L/N) heavily dislikes Michael Jackson because he, like almost every other man in the music industry, is an asshole.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

(Y/N) vividly remembers the day she met Michael Jackson.

Hands down the most disappointing day of her life.

(Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but she does recall deflating, just a little, after meeting him for the first time, nervousness quickly melting into something cold and paralyzing. Maybe not the most disappointing days of her life, but top ten for sure.)

The things is, (Y/N) had been a big fan of Michael prior to meeting him. She’d felt that they kind of grown up together, in an odd sort of way. After all, they’d lived these two bizarre parallel lives—two kids thrown to the wolves to be devoured whole, childhood memories filled with music and work and pressure, so much pressure. They’d orbited each other, even back then, moving close but never meeting, like the universe knew better than allowing them to collide. And yet, despite not knowing him, (Y/N) would hear Michael Jackson on the radio, his voice fading in after hers would fade out, songs overlapping for the briefest of moments, and she would see him on TV, dancing and singing with his brothers, and some sense of fondness would bloom in her chest, a kinship built on that innocence that only children can have. If he performed like she did and was managed by his father like she was and lived on the road like she did, then they already had so much in common. They could be friends! As a child, (Y/N) had dreamt of meeting him. She hadn’t had many friends back then, much less friends who understood what her life was truly like.

But they never met. Not really. They saw each other, of course. As children at local stage and regional theaters and later, as they got older and their careers began to really gain traction, at music events and industry parties. It was only logical, for them to catch brief glimpses of each other, they ran in the same social circles, worked with some of the same people, had a few acquaintances in common. So they knew of each other, sure, but had never been properly introduced, never exchanged a single word.

And then came that fateful day.

Their first interaction should have never happened. (Y/N) was not supposed to be anywhere near Quincy Jones’s studio that day, she was supposed to be recording the music video for her latest single. But her director had cancelled last minute, something about a family emergency, and when she tried to start working on the last song for her album—the one that’d been giving her a massive headache, stubbornly refusing to cooperate, apparently hell bent on tormenting her—she’d found out her music director had mistakenly left some of her demos at Q’s studio.

And that’s how she ended up there, awkwardly standing in a hallway covered with platinum records and framed photographs as she waited for Beth, Quincy Jones’s very nice executive assistant, to retrieve the demos for her.

When she’d heard footsteps coming down the hall, she’d expected to see Beth. (Y/N) had turned, mouth ready to express her gratitude for the thousandth time, and had stopped short when she’d seen him. Michael Jackson, in all his glory, standing right in front of her. (Y/N) had never felt awestruck the way she did at that moment, a weird fluttering creeping into her stomach.

Michael had frozen mid-step, too, when he’d caught sight of her.

For a second, they’d just stood there. Two teenagers staring dumbly at each other.

Then he’d spoken, and the first words Michael Jackson ever said to her had been, “What are you doing here?”

(Y/N) had flinched, caught off guard by the curtness of his tone. She’d stuttered, like an absolute fool, “Um— I— I am picking up some… stuff?”

Michael had looked at her, unblinking, for a long moment, his face twisted in some detached expression she couldn’t quite decipher.

“I am (Y/N) (Y/L/N),” she’d said, offering him her hand and trying to shake off the initial aloofness of their conversation. “It's so nice to finally meet you.”

“I know who you are,” had been his response. It’d come out very dismissive, and (Y/N) had felt her stomach tighten with unease.

She’d shifted a little, awkwardness slowly creeping in. She’d gone to pull her hand away, certain that he wouldn’t shake it, and it was at that moment that Michael seemed to pay it any mind. He’d looked at it, briefly, before hastily reaching for it, shaking it firmly before cringing away.

A few seconds of painful silence ticked by. (Y/N) had found herself praying that Beth would hurry and interrupt whatever this thing was, she could feel the awkwardness in every bone in her body.

“I should go,” Michael had mumbled, after it became evident neither of them was about to start speaking again. Looking everywhere but at her, he’d side-step her, and simply walked off.

“What the hell was that?” She’d whispered to herself, the remnants of the conversation enough to keep her feeling off-kilter.

Later that week, she’d found out that he’d been working on a new solo album with Quincy, Off the Wall, and so, she’d chalked off the weirdness of their interaction to stress.

But the weird interactions just kept happening.

Now that she’d met Michael, talked to him, (Y/N) couldn’t seem to escape him. It was as if the universe, which had fought very hard to keep them apart for so long, had suddenly decided it was no longer necessary to do so. It appeared to now be playing the ‘let’s throw them together at every given opportunity’ game, much to (Y/N)’s dismay.

Every interaction was painful. (Y/N) tried, she really did, but she was always met his terse words and clipped answers. Michael would look at her and go all stiff, like he would rather be anywhere else than around her. He was never cruel or mean, just cold and indifferent, like he was too good to spend time talking to her.

It took her a while to understand that his whole problem with her was her.

Because Michael seemed to have no issue talking to other people—executives, producers, actors and celebrities. He would easily make small talk, exchange stories, share a quick laugh. For whatever reason, he would only turn frosty with her.

It grew old very quickly. The way he dismissed her, so offhandedly, stopped being confusing and became annoying, really annoying.

(She spent years being cast aside—because she was a little, whiny girl, her voice too pitchy, too deep, too soft, because she was not pretty enough, not tall enough, not smart enough, not talented enough—and she worked hard, paid with blood, sweat and tears, to not be looked down upon. When Michael did this thing of his, of giving her a tense, polite nod and then immediately avoiding eye contact, like the mere idea of talking to her sickened him, (Y/N) felt small. And she’d worked hard to leave the pain and embarrassment of not feeling good enough in the past.)

And all that anger, once she rationalized it, mellowed into displeasure.

So now (Y/N) finds herself disliking Michael Jackson as much as he dislikes her, maybe even more.

She finds him to be absolutely insufferable.

And finding Michael Jackson to be insufferable is nothing if not an uphill battle. Because everyone—literally everyone— in the industry adores him. They have nothing but good things to say about the guy. They’ll insist that he’s sweet and shy and gentle, and every time (Y/N) hears it she isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or pull out her hair. Because yes, he is sweet and shy and gentle with everyone but her. Sometimes she wonders if it’s all in her head, if she’s going insane, if she’s meeting and entirely different Michael Jackson, but then she sees him again, at some award or dinner party, and she's met with short, stilted answers and that odd unreadable expression on his face.

It drives her mad.

On her lowest moments—of which, she must admit, she is ashamed about—, she wishes he was mediocre, talentless. That way she could dismiss him entirely, shake off whatever is wrong with him, roll her eyes and move on. But no, she can’t do that, because the universe hates her and God evidently has favorites and He decided to give Michael Jackson the ability to breathe magic into music. It is unbearable, his talent. (Y/N) would die before admitting this, but sometimes, just sometimes, she sits on the couch and plays his music and obsesses over his vocal arrangements. Then, she fumes, annoyed over the fact that the man is a genius.

A genius that is so utterly unimpressed with her.

(That, too, might be something that bothers her more than she’s willing to admit. Not because she wants his approval—although would it be too bad if she did? everyone considers that she is at his level, but does he agree? she hates that, in some way, that matters to her—but because she’s built her career to a point where everyone else gives it so freely. Not everyone might like her, but they respect her music. Michael doesn’t give the slightest indication of caring about either.)

(Y/N) wishes he would just come out and say it, that he finds her unremarkable, or doesn’t like her character, or whatever it is that he so evidently dislikes about her. It would certainly make things easier; it would pull her out of this eternal limbo of unease. (She’s always so sure about how to act and what to say. With him, it is impossible to guess—will she get a tight-lipped smile and a polite nod? will she be completely ignored, avoided even?—and it makes her feel unsteady. She hates unsteady.) Of course, that never happens. Michael, after all, has an image to maintain. The proper, gentlemanly image, a man who would never speak ill of a fellow musician. So (Y/N) is left to deal with this weird tension that follows them everywhere.

Whatever. So what if Michael Jackson ignores her at every public event? So what if he acts all strange and awkward when they’re in the same room? She doesn’t care. Really. She doesn't. Caring would require effort, and (Y/N) does not spend effort on just anyone, much less Michael Jackson.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

There are days when (Y/N) heavily dislikes her job. And it is odd, because even when she’s loathing it, when she would rather chew chalk than see one more music sheet, part of her, a big part of her, still loves what she does.

It’s the reason she’s still at the studio at half past three in the morning, even when she’s been unable to write for days.

The thing is, being a musician is fun, until it isn’t. Composing is great, until the beat and lyrics that have been bouncing around in your head relentlessly for weeks refuse to come out. It isn’t often that she suffers from this musical disease—a creative block, some may call it, but she likes to be dramatic—but whenever she does (Y/N) is plagued by headaches. She enters a never-ending loop of trying, and failing, to translate what’s going on in her head into the real world. It is frustrating and the more annoyed she gets the less she's able to create and the more her head pounds.

A true dilemma for someone who doesn’t know when to quit and likes to push through the pain.

(Y/N) sighs, laying on the ground and staring at the ceiling. With one hand she hold an ice pack to her head, just over her right eye. The other plays with a pencil, fingers twisting it around in circles.

She is tired. She also desperately needs to finish this song. She can hear it out perfectly in her head—the ad-libs, the baseline, the piano—but when she strums the guitar the melody doesn’t come out right. Self-control is the only reason she hasn't smashed her head against a wall. That and the fact that it already hurts enough.

Knowing that she will not get anything done if she lets herself keep cycling over the same thoughts, she drops the pencil and carelessly twists around on the floor, reaching upward to grab the remote control that she left by the mixer. It tumbles downward and, even in her sleep deprived mind, she manages to catch it before it slams against the ground. She huffs out in satisfaction, giving herself a mental pat in the back. At this moment she’ll take any small victory she can take, preventing the smashing of the remote control included. It’s pathetic. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Her sudden movement makes some of the papers she’d rested over her stomach fall to the ground beside her. She wishes they would disappear, stop haunting her. Better yet, she wishes the bridge of the song would write itself.

The TV that has been playing mutely in the background comes to life. (Y/N) allows the chatter of voices to fill the studio as she resumes her previous position and stares, hard, at the ceiling. Little droplets of water trail down her cheek, courtesy of the melting ice pack, and she wills herself to relax. Her thumb, as if having a mind of its own, presses the control's buttons, surfing through channels without any real purpose, as she tries to disengage from the world around her.

It’s a testament of the terrible state of her mind, and a probable indication that she is losing whatever sanity she has left, that she doesn’t recoil, doesn’t immediately switch to the next channel, when she hears a familiar voice. Michael’s voice is distinctive, soft and melodic. Usually, it fills her with dread and something akin to annoyance. She’s surprised when she reaches deep within herself and comes up empty. Against her better judgment—because, really, she knows better than to engage with any sort of celebrity media, especially Michael's— she sits up and watches the rerun of his interview.

(It's annoying, that despite not liking him she is not immune to the gravitational pull of him, his natural charisma. Michael is like the Sun and everyone around him, (Y/N) included, is Icarus, willing to burn for a flicker of warmth. She detests it and yet, she watches.)

“You and your brothers are about to set out on the 'Victory Tour',” the interviewers says and that's almost enough to make (Y/N) turn her TV off—because she knows the words that are going to come out of the interviewer’s mouth next, the inevitable comparison that follows them everywhere—, but she doesn’t, because she is curious. It was certainly a choice to decide to tour with his brothers after producing his biggest—and best, (Y/N) has to admit that 'Thriller' is really freaking good—album to date. “It is projected to be the highest-grossing tour, surpassing (Y/N)’s 'Recognition' tour'.” And there is it. “How do you feel about that?”

(Y/N) wonders, as she shifts the ice pack from her right eye to her left one and rests back against the couch, if Michael ever tires of it, the way everything they do always ties back to the other. Sometimes, she does. It is hard, having every single detail of your career inspected and dissected and compared to someone else’s.

She awaits his response, expecting the perfectly manicured PR words to fall from his lips—how she did a good job, how him and his brothers are trying to go for something different, bigger and unique, the subtle shift back to his own music—but it doesn’t come.

He looks genuinely confused, “What do you mean?”

“Well, with the rivalry thing going on between you guys, how do you feel about beating her in this?”

“Rivalry?” It sounds so demeaning that even the interviewer laughs in disbelief. Michael looked genuinely perplexed, like he cannot fathom the comparison between them.

What a dick.

Honestly, this is what (Y/N) gets for breaking her own unspoken rule of not consuming Michael Jackson media.

In the screen, Michael opens his mouth, but (Y/N) switches the channel before she can hear him utter another word.

That annoyance she hadn’t felt a couple of minutes before makes itself present. (Y/N) looks down to her rumbled music sheets, at the annotations in the corners. The dismissive words (what rivalry?) replay over and over in her mind. She lets the ice pack, now barely even cool, drop against the ground. The sound resonates around the studio and, out of nowhere, triggered by the loud thud and those damned words, something clicks in her brain.

“Oh my God,” she mumbles to herself, almost gleefully, as she lurches forward for her notepad.

She spends the rest of the early morning mixing, composing, trying out different beats.

And if Michael’s words act as somewhat of an inspiration, she keeps that to herself.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

TOUR WAR! by Jaime Vynn The Jacksons are preparing what insiders are calling the most ambitious concert tour in music history. There's only one problem: (Y/N) got there first. Last year's 'Recognition' Tour shattered attendance records, sold out stadiums across multiple continents and generated enough revenue to make industry executives dizzy. Now, Jackson appears ready to challenge those numbers. The question everyone is asking is, can he do it? (turn to page 3 to read more!)

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

(Y/N) has decided, as the mature adult that she is, that avoiding Michael is the only viable option left.

He very much does not care about her and she is tired of being filled with a terrible sense of dread and uneasiness whenever she's attending an event she knows he will be at. (She knows the root of those emotions, much as she likes to ignore it. She’d realized it late one night, as she’d furiously scribbled lyrics on a ketchup-stained napkin in the corner booth of her favorite diner. It’s not being disliked that bothers her or being in the receiving end of scorn and contempt, she is much too used to that. It is having the coldness come from a person she, begrudgingly, admires, a person that everyone else regards as warm.)

She is tired of trying to figure the whole thing out, of trying to figure him out, of overthinking every interaction and feeling unsteady—she really does hate feeling unsteady—, so she just starts mimicking his actions.

She’s subtle with it, too. Gracefully avoids any possible interaction, tries to stay as far away from him as societal, and music industry, norms allow.

Four months in, she’s going a great job, if she does say so herself.

Tonight, (Y/N) has managed to successfully avoid being anywhere near Michael a total of four times (a new record!). She’s about to move away from a conversation, having caught Michael in the periphery of her vision, when she catches Thomas glaring at her from across the room.

(Y/N) knows, immediately, that her attempts at having some peace of mind have not gone unnoticed are not being well-received.

She cringes to herself, smile faltering ever so slightly.

Tom is an angel. He's been by her side for ages, as long as she can remember. There are few people who truly care about her— (Y/N) as a person, not as a celebrity or a symbol or a money-making machine—, and Tom is undoubtedly one of them. The man practically raised her, he is probably more of a dad than her father ever was, and (Y/N) loves him. Up until the point where he tries to speak reason into her and starts making sense. Then (Y/N) sort of wants to fire him. Why must he have her best intentions at heart? It's so annoying.

He gives her another pointed look, and tilts his head, subtly, toward one of the side exits. (Y/N) knows that look, knows that signal. He wants to have some words with her, in private.

Great.

Trying not to draw much attention to herself—something she's not really ever been successful at, especially not tonight, since her stylist decided to go all out and dressed her in a beautiful, deep emerald silk that hugs every curve and catches the light every time she moves—(Y/N) politely excuses herself from the conversation she was already planning on extracting herself from and begins to cross the room.

The room blurs into movement around her. Conversation, laughter, music. Famous people, powerful people, the type who shape careers with a single phone call, all around. It smells like flowers and money and (Y/N) really wants to go home. Everything to avoid being reprimanded by Tom. The man might be an angel, but he's also the tough-love kind of guy, somewhat intimidating when he wants to be. He says it like he sees it, no filters and absolutely no sugarcoating.

People stop her along the way, and she takes her sweet time with every interaction, smiling and exchanging pleasantries. (Y/N) can feel Tom’s stare burning a hole through the side of her face. Apparently, she’s not being subtle about wanting to delay this as much as possible and he’s not planning on relenting.

By the time she reaches him, he’s already moving, heading toward one of the side hallways without looking back.

Anxiety twists in her stomach. It’s not like she was doing a bad thing. She’ll be fine.

Tom stops near a tall window overlooking the city, Los Angeles stretching endlessly below them. He waits for her to join him before turning around.

Okay, maybe she will not be fine.

He doesn’t look angry. Irked, is a better word for it, and Tom has had enough years to master that look to make it deadly efficient. (Y/N) has been on the receiving end of what she calls his 'disappointed dad' look many times before and not once has it ever failed to make her feel guilty.

“You need to stop it,” he says, arms crossed over his chest.

(Y/N) squirms under his stare, just a little, before mirroring his position, “Stop what exactly?”

He arches his eyebrow, a very clear do not play with me, girl.

“Avoiding Michael,” he specifies, even though there is no real need for it. (Y/N) knows what he is talking about and Tom knows she is just being difficult for the sake of it. “The press is beginning to whisper about how it looks intentional.”

(Y/N) rolls her eyes. Well, duh, because it is.

“Why does it matter, anyway?” she asks, “Let them talk. God knows they’re already having a field day with the supposed rivalry thing we have going on.” A thing Michael had made very clear did not exist. He was too good for her.

Tom studies her for a second, and when he speaks again his tone is sterner, “Get out of your head, kid, and think. Do you really want to feed the beast? You always talk about how you feel like the press makes it seem as if you live in Michael’s shadow,” (Y/N) opens her mouth to interrupt him, because those words have never left her mouth, but Tom raises a hand, “I know you, (Y/N). I can see it. You don’t have to say it for me to know.” He knows her too well, it is an unfair fight. “This thing you’ve got going on will only make it worse. It will be all people will talk about. It will overshadow your music. Is that what you want?” This is what (Y/N) means when she says she hates when he starts talking sense. Why can’t he just let her be petty, for once?

She sighs, frustrated, “What do you want me to do? Go up to him and strike a conversation? It's impossible! The man hates me!”

“He does not hate you,” Tom says, placating, like she’s a child. She does feel like a child, complaining to her father about the most stupid thing ever.

“Pardon me if I disagree.”

“Where did you even get that silly idea from?” Tom asks and (Y/N) swears that there’s an amused glint in his eyes, one he’s trying very hard to hide, the one that always shows when he knows something she doesn’t. (Y/N) really wants to fire him. “You've spoken no more than six sentences to him!”

“And that was more than enough, trust me.” She breathes deeply, trying to get the simmering annoyance under control. Words keep spilling from her mouth, anyway. “He looks at me like I killed his pet monkey or something.”

Tom lets out a startled laugh.

“He does!” She exhales out and allows what she knows to be true to tumble out of her lips, spoken out loud for the first time. “And he has no respect for me, or my music, and he’s openly dismissive and always so short with me and it is unbelievably irritating. So, yeah, I know avoiding him is childish, but please, Thomas, do try to understand that I am doing this for my own mental health.”

She’s begging, but Tom is not looking at her anymore. He’s looking over her shoulder.

His face morphs and he allows the amusement to fill his eyes completely.

(Y/N)’s stomach drops.

Oh, no.

Tom finds her eyes again, smiles cheekily. The audacity of this old man.

“I am going to get a drink.” He goes to move away, and (Y/N), quite desperately, grabs the edges of his sleeve to prevent him from leaving her. It is pathetic and ineffective.

“Do. Not. Leave. Me.” She mouths, eyes pleading.

“Talk. To. Him.” He parrots back, using the same whisper-shouting tone, and leaves.

What a traitor.

With dread, (Y/N) turns around and, yeah, just like she guessed, Michael is standing there, looking somewhat awkward. He rubs the back of his neck, nods his head at Tom as he makes his way past him and then looks back at her.

Great.

For a second, she déjà vu hits her and she sees platinum records, framed photos, a marble hallway and a very painfully awkward conversation.

Oh, she hopes this one goes better than that one did.

(Y/N) opens her mouth, probably to blabber some nonsense, but he beats her to it.

“I needed some quiet,” he explains, words falling from his mouth in quick succession. “It gets too loud sometimes, you know? And I just... well, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

Any hope she had that he, by some sort of miracle, hadn’t heard them, immediately evaporates. God truly has favorites and she is, at the moment, apparently not on the list.

(Y/N) sighs, closing her eyes and rubbing her temple, where a headache is beginning to bloom. She feels like she's twelve again, caught doing something she shouldn't. It's embarrassing.

“I’m sorry,” is all she can say when she finds the willpower to meet his eyes again. “I shouldn’t be...” Talking about you? Complaining that you very evidently hate me? She's not sure what she’s going to say, but, once again, Michael beats her to it.

“I don’t hate you,” he blurts out.

She stills, eyebrows furrowing in confusion, because that’s not what she’d been expecting from him at all. She’s actually surprised he’s still here, talking to her.

Michael shifts, from one foot to another, and (Y/N) catches a glimpse of that person everyone talks about, the one she’s never been privvy to. Shy, gentle Michael.

“It’s okay if you do, you don’t have to lie,” she responds, somewhat hesitant and a bit uncertain, like she is unsure if she should be providing reassurance on whether it’s okay to dislike her after just complaining about that.

“I’m not lying.”

She lets out a soft laugh, not particularly amused, “Well, I mean, you did say that thing, so excuse me if I don’t particularly believe you.”

It's Michael’s turn to look confused. “What thing?”

(Y/N) blinks, “About the rivalry?”

He stares at her for a long second, eyes completely blank, and (Y/N) realizes, with a start, that he has no idea what she’s talking about, probably does not even remember the comment he made, the disdain that had coated his words.

(Y/N) shakes her head, “Forget about it.”

“No, no, wait. What rivalry thing?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She wants to extract herself from this conversation, have the earth swallow her whole, but Michael is looking at her intently and she caves, speaking fast to try to outrun the embarrassment that’s began to prickle her skin. “There was an interview. They were asking about the tour, wanted to know how you felt about beating me with the rivalry thing going on. You said something along the line of there being no rivalry.”

“Because there isn’t?”

And there it is, but he doesn’t sound arrogant or dismissive when he says it. Not this time. That odd blank look he always gives her is also gone. It’s like the confusion of this whole conversation has laid him bare for her.

“Because you don’t respect my music enough to consider me to be competition, right.” She's not sure why she says it. Maybe she wants to take a dig at him, pinch and hurt the way he’s done with her many times in the past, but the words come out too soft for that, somewhat vulnerable.

Apparently, confusion has laid her bare, too.

For a second, Michael only stares at her.

“What?”

And now it's her turn to stare at him, because what does he mean what?

He shakes his head and, as realization settles in, his eyes go wide, “Oh my God. No, no, no. That’s not—” He runs a hand through his curls, looking distressed.

(Y/N) cannot do anything but just keep staring, eyebrows raised.

“Why would you think that?” He seems genuinely appalled at the conclusion she has arrived to and (Y/N) cannot help the disbelieving, startled laugh that comes out of her lips.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes!” Exasperation bleeds into his tone and then shifts to something kinder, “How?” The question sounds almost pained.

(Y/N) blinks at him, parrots back his own question, “How?”

Michael nods, “How did you get that from what I said?”

(Y/N) stares at him and Michael stares right back. It’s the first time they've ever held eye contact for longer than a second. The longest conversation they’ve ever had. And (Y/N) is hit with the startling realization that they’re just not understanding each other. Maybe that's the issue, maybe they never have.

So, she relents, sighs, “It wasn’t what you said, it was the way you said it.” She sounds absolutely silly, like a brat throwing a tantrum, and Tom is to blame for all of this. She would be happy sipping champagne and making idle conversation if he hadn’t dragged her here. Why couldn’t he just let it be? She breathes deeply, forces herself to get this over with, “You made it sound like the mere idea of a rivalry was ridiculous, like I wasn’t good enough.”

(Y/N) does her best to talk matter-of-factly, objectively, but she can taste the hurt in her tongue. And the way Michael's face shifts, cracks a little, lets her know that he heard it too.

Embarrassing.

“No, no.” He shakes his head, as if trying to organize his thoughts. “I mean it more like— like, why would they even compare us?”

It comes out all wrong. Michael cringes and (Y/N) cocks her head at him, chuckling in disbelief. “That’s exactly what I meant, by the way, that tone.”

Michael groans, closes his eyes and turns his head to the ceiling, like he’s praying to the Lord for help. It’s a bit amusing, the most human he's ever been with her.

“I am not good with words.” He says it softly, like it’s an admission that he doesn’t make to most people. He looks shy, honest. And yet, (Y/N) doubts it— she doubts that Michael Jackson, the man capable of filling albums with melodies and stories and emotions that people carry with them, is truly bad with words. He must read it on her face, her disbelief, because he rushes to explain, “Songs are simple, the music helps. I don’t have to explain everything for people to get it.” He shrugs, helplessly. “Talking is much harder.”

She gets it, in a way. Journaling has always been easy for her, expressing her thoughts on pieces of paper is straightforward, trying to detangle said thoughts to properly articulate them is another thing entirely. It’s why she sometimes struggles when writing songs, everything becomes too convoluted.

(And wow, won’t you look at that. Not only is she having an actual conversation with Michael Jackson, but she’s also found they have something in common. (Y/N) from thirty minutes ago would’ve never believed it.)

“I did not mean it like that, at all.” Michael tries again and (Y/N) feels like she’s seeing him for the first time. His shoulders are tense, he’s fiddling with his fingers and there's this nervousness about him, one so at odd with the idea she has of him, one she hadn’t glimpsed before. She wonders if it’s been there all along, if she’d been too busy looking for other things in him that she’d just missed it.

“What I meant was— I don’t sit around planning how to outperform you, and I know you don’t spend your time thinking of ways to beat me, either. Everything you do comes from a love of music, I can sense it in the way you perform. You’re a professional.” She is listening, but she's mostly watching him. The softness and openness of his expression catch her off-guard. (Y/N) knows how to read people—an essential skill she’d developed as a child to try to survive the music industry—and Michael Jackson is being earnestly honest.

It dawns on her, with some sort of terrible, comical horror, that she might’ve possibly, just maybe, misinterpreted everything. Every awkward, tense smile, every strange look, every curt comment. Because the Michael standing in front of her, trying to desperately get her to understand him, does not seem to hate her. Not even dislike her, really.

Oh God, he might just be impartial to her, uninterested.

(This is exactly what Tom meant when he’d told her, many years ago, that she has the terrible habit of jumping into conclusions and then refusing to change her mind. Had she simply been reinforcing a narrative she’d created for herself?)

Throwing herself off the window suddenly sounds like an amazingly rational decision. It would be one hell of a way to ease the embarrassment that’s now taken over every fiber of her body.

She’d been such an idiot.

(Y/N) tries to apologize, to explain—because goddammit Tom had been right, Michael did not hate her, and she would've known if she’d spoken more than a total of six sentences to the man—, but Michael keeps talking.

“And I just think it’s silly, for the media to create this rivalry thing when in reality I just—”

“Look, Michael—”

“I just really admire you.”

Everything goes quiet.

Naturally, (Y/N) freezes, suddenly aware of the distant chatter in the ballroom around the corner, of the soft, velvety music, the clinking of glasses, the sound of laughter.

She’d just began to process the whole ‘hey! so maybe he doesn't hate me and i’ve been wrong all along’ thing. She was not, in any way, prepared for that admission.

What?

(Y/N) doesn't realize she’s spoken out loud until she catches the glimpse of confusion and amusement in Michael’s eyes.

“I admire you,” he repeats, slower this time. Hearing that isn’t any less shocking the second time around. “Truly. There are things that you do that I cannot begin to even dream about. When you perform, it’s like—” He struggles for a second. “It’s like watching somebody do what they were born to do.”

(Y/N)'s breath catches. That might be the most sincere thing anyone has ever told her, the best compliment she’s ever received.

“You’ve seen me perform.” She says, stunned, because of course that’s what her mind has decided to focus on.

“At The Forum, yeah.”

“You went to my tour?” Now she just sounds dazed.

Michael shrugs, like the answer is obvious, “There’s no way I would’ve missed it.”

She pinches herself, hard. Okay, good, not a dream.

“Okay. Wait. Hold on.” She has to get her bearings, process all the information she’s received. Michael had bought tickets for her concert. He’d seen her perform. How could she not know that? How had the tabloids missed that? “But… you’re always so dismissive.” That’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense, the part of the puzzle that doesn’t fit. Because the way he’d acted, that hadn’t been in her brain. He had been weird towards her—skittish, awkward, cold—and she’s having a hard time reconciling what she’s hearing and what she has experienced. “Every time I’ve ever tried to talk to you, you shrugged me off.”

He opens his mouth, closes it.

“Oh.”

The soft whisper bounces around in the hall.

“No, I—” A hand comes up to cover part of his face and when he lowers it (Y/N) can almost swear he is blushing. He bites his lip, annoyingly cute, before blurting out, “You intimidate me.”

Michael recoils immediately, like he hadn't really meant to admit that much.

(Y/N) can’t do much but blink at him.

“A little.” He adds, a bit softer.

“Me?” It comes out filled with disbelief. “Why?” She lets herself walk a bit closer to him, a bit amused at the way Michael's eyes follow her as she closes the distance between them. “You’re—” She gestures at him. “You're freaking Michael Jackson.”

Michael lets out an incredulous laugh, his shoulders untensing. “And you are freaking (Y/N) (Y/L/N)!” He mimics her own actions, gestures at her.

Huh.

Guess she never thought of it that way. (Y/N) always judges herself through the harshest of lenses, in the most brutal manner. It makes it hard to see herself from an outsider perspective, the way others do. She is just, well, (Y/N).

Fair enough, she supposes. Still, it’s hard, to wrap her mind around the fact that Michael Jackson had been too shy to speak to her. That everything she’d perceived as dismissal had been nervousness.

“So, just to be clear,” she finds herself saying, “You don’t hate me.”

It comes out more as a question than a statement.

“No!” He relaxes some more, like finally getting her to understand has settled something in him. “You really thought I did?”

“Yeah! For the last five years I’d been trying to figure out why.”

Michael sputters, aghast, “Five years?!”

“Yeah.”

“But we met five years ago.”

“I know.”

Michael stares at her, “So all this time you thought—”

“Right.” She nods, then amends, a tad bit playful, “Well, I didn’t think you hated me, just heavily disliked me, or, you know, something like that.”

Michael chuckles, “Oh God.” He shakes his head, “That doesn’t really make it much better. I feel terrible.”

It's bright, his laughter, sweet. And (Y/N) suddenly understands why people who know him—not Michael the popstar, but Michael the person, stripped from all headlines and myths and assumptions—talk about him the way they do.

Oh, she’d really been such an idiot. Tom is not going to let her live this one down. Ever.

They look at each other, lingering smiles on their faces. Neither of them looks away.

“Let's rewind, then. Take it from the top.” She extends her hand for him to take, “(Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

Michael’s smile widens. He takes her hand in his, “Michael Jackson. Pleased to meet you, Miss (Y/L/N).”

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FROM RIVALS TO FRIENDS? THE INDUSTRY'S MOST TALKED-ABOUT DUO SPOTTED TOGETHER AGAIN by Danielle Marks For the third time this month, Michael Jackson and (Y/N) (Y/L/N) have been photographed together. The two artists were seen leaving a charity gala on Thrusday evening after spending several hours speaking inside the venue. Witnesses report that the pair arrived separetly but remained together for most of the night (...)

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

“THEY'RE ALWAYS TALKING” PEOPLE MAGAZINE If you attend enough music industry events, you'll eventually notice a pattern: Michael Jackson and (Y/N) seem incapable of staying away from each other. At last week's benefit concert, the pair were seen backstage, deep in conversation. Three days later, they appeared together at a record industry luncheon. Now, insiders claim (Y/N) has visited Jackson's recording studio on multiple occasions. Whether friendship or something more is developing remains unclear (...)

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

SECRET ALLIANCE?!? by Carl Kesterson Fans are growing excited after a sudden increase in public appearances involving music icons (Y/N) (Y/L/N) and Michael Jackson. The pair have been spotted together at award shows, charity events, industry parties, recording studios and private dinners. One source claims the stars speak on the phone regularly, having become "nearly inseparable". Coincidence? We think not. Are they planning a musical collaboration? A surprise project? Stay tuned to find out more!

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

It's incredible, how easy they settle into a friendship.

(Y/N) had never had a friend who understood what it was like to carry the pressure and expectations of the world on your shoulders, who’d been raised similar to the way she’d been—constantly on the road, always performing, unable to make friends, permanently exhausted, chasing a dream that wasn’t hers, not completely. Michael gets it. He gets her.

They make space for each other in their lives so quickly, so easily, that (Y/N) often forget he hasn’t always been there.

The media eats it up. The blooming friendship between the King of Pop and the Princess of Soul becomes the hottest topic. They talk about a possible collaboration, about a secret relationship. It's all background noise for (Y/N), she just enjoys hanging out with Michael. Her social battery never seems to drain when it comes to him. Maybe, it’s because she doesn’t feel the need to pretend, put up an act, as she does for others. Maybe, he is just that person for her.

They spend whatever little free time they have with each other. Michael comes over and they watch movies, the old ones he likes, or they play board games, the ones (Y/N) never got the chance to play as a kid, too busy working. He gives her the keys to his house and sometimes, when everything gets too loud and her head starts to pound, she hides there, even if he’s not around.

They talk on the phone, all the time. (Y/N) feels like a teenager again, especially when Tom—who does not let her forget that their friendship exists thanks to him and that she should forever be grateful and maybe start listening to him more—gives her that amused, knowing look and she pokes her tongue out at him in response. He’s such a dad, honestly.

“Did I wake you?” Michael asks, sheepish. It is three in the morning and the only reason she picks up is because she knows it’s him.

“Well, Mike, it is the middle of the night.” She yawns, her voice thick with sleep. Michael’s soft chuckle manages to efficiently cut through the fogginess of her brain.

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding very apologetic at all.

The thing about Michael is that once the nerves leave him, once he gets comfortable and comes out of his little shell, he becomes surprisingly teasing and self-assured. (Y/N) finds it unbelievably endearing.

“No, you’re not.”

"I am!” Michael protests, laughing a bit. The sound is full, rich, (Y/N) loves it. “I didn’t mean to wake you, I promise. I thought you’d be awake, you usually are.” (Y/N) can’t see him, but she can hear the tentative smile in his voice.

“That I am,” she confirms. “What’s up?”

“I am working on something and I need you to hear it, let me know what you think.”

She smiles into the darkness, settles more comfortably in her bed. “Play it for me.”

Sometimes they stay on the phone just to keep each other company. The silence settles between them, gentle, easy, and (Y/N) loves it, the way she can just exist with him.

(Because she has spent her entire life surrounded by people—producers and fans and journalists—and still loneliness has been her fiercest, most loyal companion. It is the price of success, of fame, of growing up in an industry that would chew you up and spit you out for its own amusement. Michael understands it. He’s lived it too. She never feels alone when she’s with him, even if it’s a phone line what’s connecting them, even if they don’t talk at all.)

“I miss you,” he whispers sometimes, low over the phone, when life becomes hectic and they haven’t seen each other in weeks.

“I miss you, too.”

She’s never meant those words more. She’s found out, with some sort of startling surprise, that her heart has created a little gap in the shape of Michael, and she finds his prolonged absence painful. She doesn’t mention that.

(Y/N) realizes just how important Michael has become, how much she truly trusts him, when she finds herself giving him a duplicate of her keys to her personal studio. Three keys exist: Tom’s, hers and now Michael’s.

Music is the most intimate thing (Y/N) possesses. She does not let many people see past the perfectly curated version of herself, much less let them into the place where all the ugly, jagged, complicated pieces of herself end up, and that place is her studio.

Every version of herself exist, in some way, within those four walls. In pages of lyrics scattered across every available surface and half-filled notebooks that lie open on chairs and couches. In the yellow sticky notes plastered across the entire wall, connected by symbols and arrows sometimes even she struggles to understand. In voice memos labeled with cryptic letters and dates, perfectly stacked in a drawer, that will never see the light of day. In songs she hates but refuses to get rid of, songs she loves too much to share, songs that contain things that are too personal, that cut too deep.

It is a terrifying thing, letting someone into that space, allowing herself to be seen. It is the reason creating has always been a solitary thing for her—sacred, in a way—because it leaves her feeling raw. She writes alone, curled up on the floor of her living room at two in the morning, records rough melodies on cassette tapes nobody will ever hear, hides her jumbled thoughts in journals she keeps under lock and key.

Most people only ever see the polished versions of everything, the almost finished products. He is the first person—Tom excluded because, well, he is Tom—that she lets see the mess, lets see all of her.

And Michael seems to understand how much of herself she’s offering to him. He treats her studio with so much respect, as if it’s something holy. Never peaks or wanders without asking first. He is careful with her equipment, her instruments, her lyrics. (Her heart, he is so very careful with her heart.)

Somewhere along the way, she finds herself growing comfortable with scribbling down in her journal when he’s around. Next thing she knows, she’s letting him listen to songs before they're even close to being finished. Not many people have ever had such privilege.

Letting him in is easy. Dangerously easy.

(Y/N) should be scared, terrified really.

She finds out that she isn’t.

And just like, as quickly and easily as falling asleep, Michael Jackson—once her rival—becomes the safe places she falls back into.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

(Y/N) knows she’s a perfectionist, an overachiever. She’s intimately aware with the fact that she pushes herself too hard, that she suffers from the ailment of being viscerally brutal with herself, that she doesn’t allow herself any margin of error.

But she has no other choice. The music industry isn’t kind, much less to women. Talent is not enough, never enough. Every achievement is scrutinized, every mistake magnified. Male artists get some respite, messy performances are excused by personal difficulties, failures easily swept under the rug, forgiven. Experience has taught (Y/N) that women are not allowed the same grace.

She cannot be just good; good gets replaced, good is easily forgotten.

To survive, she has to be constantly exceptional—any little mistake would result in a fall and she’s built herself to high, achieved so much, that the tumble would be catastrophic, undoubtedly deathly. And the only way she knows how to keep control over everything, to be perfectly consistent, is by running herself to the ground.

And (Y/N) doesn’t complain. After all, isn’t she lucky? She is passionate about what she does, completely in love with her job. Complaining is for those who have it hard, who really struggle. So what if it consumes her? So what if there are days the exhaustion threatens to drown her, swallow her whole?

Greatness demands payment—even as a young girl, nothing but a child, she’d understood this, that success meant sacrifice, it demanded blood, and she’d been willing to bleed herself dry to make it big, there’d seemed to be no other option—so (Y/N) pays the price.

And she’s been paying it for so long—in the shape of blooming headaches and absolutely no sense of privacy from the outside world, in the way her private and professional life have become so intertwined she can no longer distinguish them, threads so tightly woven she cannot pull them apart—that it has become instinct. She no longer feels the ache.

(It’s not a conscious choice, not anymore. Once upon a time, a young girl had wanted to be the best, to climb the ladder, and so she’d trained her body to withstand it all, to push past basic physiological needs, to function properly while running on nothing on fumes. (Y/N) reaps the consequences of the sacrifices of her younger self.)

(Y/N) knows it isn’t exactly healthy—she does not lack self-awareness, despite what Tom often suggests—, but she doesn’t know how to stop. She’s been operating like this for so long that everything else feels unnatural, wrong, like she’s not doing enough, like she’s somehow failing if she allows herself to breathe.

Tom does his best to get her to pace herself—brings food and won’t stop glaring until she pauses and eats, forcibly drags her out of the recording booth when she refuses to take a break—but they both know that she’s as stubborn as they come, that once she starts something she cannot physically stop until it’s done. (Y/N) finds it shameful, embarrassing, the way she sometimes lacks control of her own mind, her lack of regard for her own well-being, so she pretends it isn’t a thing. She doesn’t allow anyone to see how bad she gets, not even Michael, especially not Michael.

Most of the time she can manage it, but not during tours. (Y/N) sort of loses all grasp on reality when she’s touring. Meals are often forgotten, replaced by recording sessions that start late at night, after she’s performed, and bleed into the early mornings, because she cannot leave until every note feels perfect. The rehearsals feel endless, the interviews more so. Sleep becomes a foreign concept. It’s grueling. She keeps going. Takes another plane, lands in a new city, and repeats the cycle. Again and again.

The warning signs are there.

Explosive headaches that become migraines more and more often, pain spreading from the back of her eye to the base of her skull. Dizziness, nausea, shaking limbs after concerts.

Which is to say, she knew better and just went ahead and ignored the way her body was begging her to stop. She should’ve known it would end up the way it did. Maybe she thought herself untouchable, unbreakable. Maybe she just couldn’t find time in her schedule to worry.

By the time the final concert of the European leg of the tour arrives, (Y/N) is functioning entirely on adrenaline and muscle memory. Just one more, you just have to push for one more, is the mantra she repeats after every night. It’s true this time around. She gets a whole three-month break after this, a little space to breathe.

The Wembley is massive. She’s been here before and the sheer size of it never fails to impress her. Empty, it feels huge. Sold out, it feels gigantic. And when it’s filled with fans, with a crowd that screams her lyrics back at her so loudly she feels them reverberate through the floor, it feels like magic.

The music flows through her in that all familiar way and she feels that heavenly rush of excitement and elation. Lights flash so bright the world seems to blur together, sweat clings to her skin, her lungs burn every time she inhales, but she loves it. Lives for it really.

For three hours it’s just her and the music and the fans and everything else quiets down, fades into the background.

This is what she loves. This is why she bleeds herself dry. All of this makes up for the exhaustion clawing at her bones. It makes it worth it.

And when the final note rings through the stadium, when the crowd erupts and she lifts her hand in a sweet farewell, she lets herself relax. Just the tiniest bit.

She’s done it.

And then, as she makes to leave the stage, the world tilts.

Her sight becomes hazy, distorted, and she thinks it’s just another dizzy spell, until her legs refuse to cooperate.

Suddenly, everything is too loud and somehow strangely distant at the same time. The edges of her vision blacken.

Someone calls her name, she thinks, but she cannot focus on it.

The stage sways beneath her feet, like the floor itself is moving.

At least the concert’s over, a deluded part of herself ponders, somewhat amused.

(Y/N) is out before she hits the floor.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

COLLAPSE ON STAGE! MUSIC SUPERSTAR (Y/N) (Y/L/N) RUSHED TO HOSPITAL AFTER SHOCKING CONCERT INCIDENT Last night, thousands of fans watched in horror as global music sensation (Y/N) (Y/L/N) collapsed moments after finishing her final song at Wembley Stadium. The performance marked her third and final night of three sold-out shows at the iconic venue, as well as the final concert of the European leg of her 'Resonance' World tour. Fans have reported that (Y/L/N) appeared to be unsteady on her feet before suddenly collapsing. Medical personnel reportedly arrived within moments, and the singer was transported to a nearby hospital. Representatives for The Princess of Soul have yet to provide a detailed statement.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

When consciousness returns, it’s a slow, progressive thing.

She hears murmurs nearby, but can’t quite make out what they’re saying. She can feel someone’s touch, someone holding her hand, but cannot find the strength to return the gesture.

Everything hurts. There’s a dull ache behind her eyes. A throbbing in her head.

For a moment, (Y/N) doesn’t know where she is. Not even who she is, really.

Then the memories come back in waves, all at once.

Embarrassment hits harder than the pain. And the pain is bad.

“Oh God.” Talking feels unnatural. Her voice is raspy, her tongue feels heavy, the sound of it is odd.

A chair scrapes sharply beside her bed.

Suddenly, there’s a hand in hers, the hold steady.

Her head pounds, moving it to the side makes her ears ring. Slowly, she opens her eyes. She’s met with warm brown eyes, concern lingering in every corner.

“Mike?”

“Hey.” The relief that floods his features is overwhelming. There's a heaviness in his voice, some sort of strain, that (Y/N) pain-filled brain cannot comprehend.

“What—” She looks around. White walls, the pungent smell of antiseptic. Her hand, the one that isn’t entwined with Michael’s, is connected to an IV drip. There’s a low beeping in the background, her heartbeat resonating around the room. A hospital, okay, that makes sense. She knows where she is, she remembers flashes of what happened—her vision blackening, the stage tilting—, she does not understand why Michael is here. Thinking is too hard, it makes the dull ache of her head spread, so she asks, “What are you doing here?”

“You collapsed,” he says, as if that explains everything. It explains nothing at all, really, because she’d been in London and last she remembers Michael had been in New York, recording the music video for one of the songs of his newest album, 'Bad'.

“I know that.” She does, the memories are getting cleared by the minute. It’s enough to let her know it had been bad and most likely downright embarrassing. She hopes no one recorded it. Oh, God, the tabloids are going to have a field day with it. She can already see it; pregnancy rumors, drug rumors, whispers that will get traction, until they follow her everywhere. Great, just fucking great. Still, it does not explain why he’s here. Her mind’s confused, the pain lingers and she’s pretty sure they're giving her some sort of medicine through the drip, one that’s aggravating the fuzziness. “Are you— Michael, please tell me you did not fly across the Atlantic Ocean because I passed out?”

He opens his mouth, closes it, stares at her for a long minute, like he's unsure of what to say. “I saw the video.” Well, of course there is a video, that’s just her luck. Someone just bury her alive already. Truly, is she in God’s blacklist? “It didn’t look like you'd passed out. It looked like—” Michael stops, looks away. Whatever he meant to say, he keeps to himself, swallows it down. “Anyway, I managed to get in contact with Tom. He was frantic. He’s always so in control that the sound of him completely losing it scared me, (Y/N). He said they couldn’t wake you up and I thought—”

Michael’s voice falters, cracks a bit, and the alarm in his voice is enough to make something akin to fear clutch (Y/N)’s chest. It had been bad, then. Really bad.

She squeezes his hand, tries to reassure him that she’s here and she’s okay. Michael offers her a wobbly smile, but the worry in his eyes does not dim.

“So, I took the first flight. I had— I couldn’t—” Michael exhales, deeply. He squeezes her hand, mirroring her action, and pulls it to press the back of it against his lips. He murmurs against her skin, “I had to be here.”

She doesn’t know how she feels about it, the fact that Michael dropped everything to be here with her. Warmth floods throughout her, a knot forms on her throat; it’s affection and something more, something her hazy, muddled brain cannot identify. She suddenly hit with the striking realization that she would do the exact thing for him, cross every ocean and mountain to be there if he needs her. She doesn’t know what to do with that information, either.

“Thank you,” she says it so quietly, but the words still reverberate around the room. He’s here, with her. (Y/N) still can’t believe it. Her heart feels full in a way it never has before. “For being here.” His eyes soften when they meet hers and (Y/N) is surprised by how much of an open book Michael is. She sees so much when she looks into his eyes, raw vulnerability, glimpses of affection and some other emotion she can’t quite place. She wonders what Michael sees when he looks at her, sometimes (Y/N) thinks he sees too much.

“Always.” It sounds like a promise.

She’s still trying to process the information, when her brain catches up to everything he said. Tom was frantic. Where is Tom?

Tom has always been there, the one constant throughout (Y/N)’s life. He’s seen the good, the bad and the ugly, and not once left her side. Tom is the shoulder she leans on, the solid presence that grounds her, the person she looks for support. In between the pain and confusion and Michael’s presence, (Y/N) hadn’t noticed his absence. Now, it’s a palpable thing. He wouldn’t have left, (Y/N) knows him. Irrational panic grips at her. Tom would’ve never left her alone in an unfamiliar place.

(But he hadn’t left her alone, had he? Tom had left her with Michael. (Y/N) does not have the mental capacity at the moment to realize that, to understand the magnitude of that trust, what it signifies.)

(Y/N) tries to sit up, “Where’s Tom?” The movement makes dizziness crash through her in waves. She winces.

“Hey, hey,” Michael soothes, voice gentle. He must notice the twinge of alarm in her voice. “I convinced him to go back to the hotel to shower and have some breakfast. He hadn’t left your side since, well, the concert.” He hesitates a bit on the last two words, like he isn’t sure how to refer to what happened. “He’ll be here soon. Just try to get some rest in the meantime, yeah?”

It’s hard. She’s not sure if she knows how to rest anymore. Now that she’s awake her mind is going at a thousand miles per hour—she needs to talk to Tom, see him with her own eyes and apologize for making him worry, she needs to know what people are saying, what has been printed, how bad the situation is and what she needs to do to fix it.

Then she feels it, Michael’s thumb slowly caressing the back of her hand, almost an absentminded gesture. She’s not sure he even notices he’s doing it, but it helps. It grounds her, pulls her out of her mind and back into her body. To keep herself from spiraling away, she talks.

“How long was I out?”

“Almost four days.”

(Y/N) gapes at him, “You are kidding.” Michael just shakes his head, face somber. No shit Tom was losing his mind. Being unconscious for four days due to exhaustion and dehydration... Jesus. (Y/N) can’t believe she left herself get that bad.

“Well, you did hit your head pretty hard when you collapsed,” Michael offers as an explanation.

That explains the nauseating pain in her skull. It spreads everywhere, duller in some places and throbbing in others. It is only truly painful if she focuses on it, otherwise she can block it out pretty well, she has experience in managing headaches, after all.

(Y/N) allows her free hand to drift upwards, letting her fingers explore her scalp.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Michael states, face twisting in worry as she tries to find the source of the pain.

With practiced ease, (Y/N) ignores him. She has to know, has to feel the wounds.

Everything feels okay and for a second there she questions whether the impact looked worse than it actually was. And then the pad of her index finger rubs against one spot in the back of her head, close to her right ear, and pain flares up so viscously that her vision whitens.

“Fuck.” It comes out as a pained whimper. Michael’s hold tightens on her. When she looks at him, he's wincing, like her pain causes him pain, too. “You were right,” she tells him as she lets her hand fall back to her lap, “It was a terrible idea.”

It’s a testament to how distressed the whole situation must’ve been for him, how distraught he must’ve been—maybe still is—that Michael doesn’t say ‘Told you so!’ and instead just huffs out a small chuckle. He still looks so worried, every muscle on his face tense, and something in (Y/N)’s chest constricts.

Michael cares too deeply, worries too much. She is lucky to be someone who gets to see this side of him, she also feels unbearably guilty at the traces of concern that linger in his face. That’s her fault.

In search of soothing him, she says, “Don’t look so gloom, Mike. I’m okay, I promise.” She squeezes his hand, offers him a tentative smile. “I got too carried away. You know how hectic things get during tours.”

“No.” Michael’s voice tightens unexpectedly, something shifts in his demeanor. He’s never used that tone, not towards her. It renders her speechless, the sternness of it. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to play this down. Tours are hell, sure, but this—” Michael gestures around them, desperate. “—this isn’t that.”

He pins her down with his stare and there is so much raw emotion there that (Y/N) thinks she might burn with the intensity of it. She wants to look away, but can’t.

“You didn’t get too carried away, you are running yourself to the ground, (Y/N),” Michael says, and all she can think about it how weird it is, to hear those words from someone other than Tom. “And I knew how hard you were working and how relentless you become with yourself under high stress situations and I should’ve—” Michael’s voice breaks. He shakes his head, clearing his throat as looks away from her. He’s not fast enough. (Y/N) notices the glassiness of his eyes, the tears brimming at the corners.

Her chest tightens painfully, almost uncomfortably. She needs him to stop blaming himself, needs the distress in his tone to disappear. (Y/N) cannot bear being the one making Michael hurt.

“Michael, hey,” she tugs at his hand, “Look at me.” He does, a bit begrudgingly. There’s a tear trailing down his cheek and (Y/N)’s heart hurts. She hates herself for making him feel like she’s his responsibility. “It’s not on you, Mike. There’s nothing you could’ve done. I knew I was asking too much of my body, I just couldn’t—” Couldn’t stop, couldn’t allow myself to breathe or fail or be anything but perfect. “I let it get too far. Not enough sleep, too many skipped meals, but I am okay.”

Michael breathes out, heavy and deep. He presses the back of her hand to his forehead, closes his eyes and whispers, “It wasn’t just exhaustion, (Y/N).”

(Y/N) frowns, confused. What does that mean? She doesn’t have to ask because Michael elaborates, looking back at her, “I don’t really know the extent of it, the doctors couldn’t give me any information. I am not family, so—” He shakes his head. “But Tom did mentioned something about low potassium levels,” Okay, that does not sound that bad, so why is Michael looking at her like she might disappear any second? “He also said something about a cardiac event.”

Oh.

“Did my heart stop?” The question comes out clinical, detached. Her mind is spiraling. She’s suddenly very far away, trying to grapple with this information. She feels like a spectator in her own body. All she remembers is blackness and nothingness, her heart couldn’t have possibly stopped.

“I don’t know, Tom didn’t—” Michael’s voice falters and he clears his throat to get rid of the shakiness. It doesn’t work very well. “He wouldn’t tell me much.”

Everything around her becomes heightened. She’s suddenly acutely aware of the dimmed light of the room, the beeping of the machines, the sharp smell of antibacterial, the heaviness of Michael’s gaze.

Michael is getting good, too good, at reading her emotions. The instant she feels the flare of panic, he’s already soothing it. He moves closer, presses the back of her hand to his cheek. The closeness works, his skin against her reassures her, grounds her, acts as a tangible reminder that whatever happened she is okay and she is alive and she is not alone. She wonders, for a fleeting second, if Michael needs the touch as much as she does, if it settles something in him as well.

“I’m here,” he tells her, tone so sweet and soft and tender it sort of makes her want to cry.

“Will you stay?”

She regrets the words as soon as they leave her lips. It’s selfish, to ask so much of him. He already flew halfway across the world to get to her, to make sure she was okay. How can she ask him to stay longer, now that she’s awake? Michael—for all that he is her best friend— is still Michael Jackson. He’s busy and she shouldn’t even be asking. But she doesn’t take the words back, she doesn’t find it in herself to do so. Because some part of her knows that the only reason she isn’t wallowing in pits of self-deprecation and self-hatred, the only reason her mind isn’t punishing her, is because Michael is here.

(Y/N) doesn’t have time to panic, to overthink, because Michael is already answering. He gives her a soft smile, the corners of his lips barely tilting upwards, and presses a fleeting, almost tentative, kiss to the back of her hand, “For as long as you want me to.”

She’s smacked with the sudden realization that she might want him to stay forever.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

TOUR SHOCKER: (Y/N) (Y/L/N) POSTPONES ENTIRE AMERICAN LEG FOLLOWING MEDICAL EMERGENCY Fans across the United States were left stunned after representatives for global sensation, (Y/N) (Y/L/N), announced the postponement of all the North American and South American tour dates following what sources have described as a "serious and unexpected medical emergency." The singer, who has spent the last year dominating international charts and selling out arenas worldwide, was hospitalized earlier this week after collapsing on stage. While official statements have remained carefully worded, citing only a "health related incident requiring immediate medical attention", insiders have suggested the situation is more serious than initially thought. The announcement comes as a devastating blow to thousands of concertgoers who had anticipated the highly successful American leg of the 'Resonance' tour, which was projected to become one of the year's highest-grossing concert runs, competing only with Michael Jackson’s upcoming 'Bad' tour. Questions surrounding the severity of the incident intensified after reports emerged about several members of the singer's inner circle flying immediately to her bedside following her hospitalization. Perhaps most notably, superstar Michael Jackson was spotted arriving at the London medical facility only hours after news of the emergency leaked. Witnesses reported seeing Jackson enter and remain at the hospital for extended periods over multiple days. Neither Jackson nor his representatives have commented publicly. As speculation continues regarding the exact nature of (Y/L/N)'s condition, representatives of the artist have urged fans to respect her privacy (...)

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

Recovery is unbearable mostly because it forces her to stop and (Y/N) can’t remember the last time she did. Her body and mind aren’t wired for it, for long days doing nothing, for the lack of adrenaline. She is restless. She spends most of her time journaling, writing lyrics that don’t make much sense, pacing around the house while the speculations on the tabloids grow wilder.

The doctors order strict rest for at least three weeks, pending another medical evaluation, and it’s almost like everyone in her life conspires together to make sure she actually listens.

Tom confiscates her work schedule. After a long discussion with her, he decides to postpone the entire American leg of the tour, even though she should technically be okay by then.

(She doesn't fight him very hard on that decision, she knows just how badly she scared him, how worried he was. It turns out her heart had stopped, only for a few seconds, but enough to have Tom feeling like his own heart was going into cardiac arrest. It’d been a severe case of electrolyte imbalance what’d caused her to collapse. He’d seen it all from backstage, had been there when they’d used a defibrillator on her in the back of an ambulance, when she’d been rolled into the ICU. When he’d seen her awake for the first time after she’d collapsed, talking to Michael in hushed voices, he’d broken down completely. (Y/N) had never seen Tom cry before. It’d been enough to sober her up completely.)

Michael visits almost every other day, when he isn’t busy working on the last details for his upcoming tour.

He might be the only reason (Y/N) doesn’t lose all her sanity.

Sometimes they talk and Michael fills her in on the outside world, sometimes he brings board games, and they play until it’s late and Michael has to leave. Sometimes they just sit quietly, he works on his lyrics and she watches him, enthralled. There’s something magical in watching him create, in being allowed so close. Sometimes, and these are her favorite, Michael brings cassettes with unfinished versions of some songs and asks for her insight on the snares and basslines. Not only does she love being privy to the raw, unpolished, unguarded version of Michael’s artistry, but she loves pretending, for an hour or two, that nothing ever happened. They dissect songs together, piece by piece, and it is familiar territory, comfortable. It makes her feel less unsteady, like she has some semblance of control over her life.

Tom doesn’t say anything about Michael’s presence, but (Y/N) notices the way he relaxes a little when he’s around. Like he can rest for a while, knowing that Michael is there, knowing that she wouldn’t dare try anything crazy with Michael.

(Sometimes (Y/N) swears that Tom actually believes she’ll just rip out her IV drip—the one that she uses twice a day to ensure her electrolyte levels are balanced—and make a run for it. Which, in her defense, she only ever considered once, on the third day of this medical confinement, when she felt like she was going to lose her mind. And she didn’t even truly consider it. It was just a passing thought. She wouldn't do anything to worry him. Or Michael. She’s done enough of that. And yet, despite her being on her absolute best behavior, Tom still worries. She suspects that he would worry even if she sat quietly in a padded room doing absolutely nothing. He’s such a dad. (Y/N) is so grateful for him.)

She doesn’t understand it entirely, this sudden trust that Tom has in Michael. Not because of Michael—(Y/N) knows him, knows his character, she thinks he might be the person she trusts the most in the world—but because Thomas Allen simply does not trust anyone, ever. It’s not in his nature. But the tension in his shoulders loosens when Michael arrives and he seems to breathe easier and (Y/N) finds it so very interesting.

“You trust him,” she comments off-handedly, trying to catch Tom off-guard. Michael had just left, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and nodding at Tom, and (Y/N) had caught the way that stoic guardedness in Tom’s eyes had relented, just slightly, at the sight of Michael.

Tom doesn’t turn to look at her, busy going over some documents. (Y/N) tugs at the sleeves of her sweater—Michael’s sweater, one he’d accidentally left behind, and she’d stared wearing around the house when she was too lazy to think of what to wear—and studies him from her place on the couch. In response to her statement, he just hums.

“Is that a yes?”

Tom looks up, amusement in his eyes, “You didn’t ask a question, kid.”

She stares at him, a deadpan stare that has him chuckling.

“I do,” he confirms, adjusting his glasses to keep reading the pieces of paper in his manila folder.

“Why?” She can’t help but ask.

Tom raises his eyebrows at her, “Do you not trust him?”

(Y/N) scoffs, “You know that’s not what I meant. Of course I trust him, he’s my best friends.” She tugs at the sleeves of the sweater again, pulls her knees to her chest. “But you never trust any of my other friends.”

“Yeah, well—” Tom makes a sound, his tongue pressing against the back of his teeth, and shrugs, “Michael’s a good kid.”

But (Y/N) knows him too well, there’s something he isn’t telling her. Since Tom has made sure she has absolutely nothing better to do than spend her time annoying him, she presses, “There’s something else.”

“Is there?”

“Tom!” she pouts at him, using that petulant tone she knows drives him mad. “Come on, I want to know! What did Michael Jackson do to gain the unattainable trust of Thomas Allen?”

Tom looks up at her, rests his pen against the table. The shift in his semblance is sudden and (Y/N) straightens up immediately.

“What did he do?” she asks again, less playful this time around.

Tom breathes out, like he’s considering whether to tell her or simply walk out of the room. “It’s how he sounded, when he called that day.”

(Y/N) stills. Tom and her haven’t talked about the collapse, not since she was released from the hospital. It’s become this unspoken topic, a wound neither of them are willing to touch in fear of causing some infection.

“The panic in his voice—” Tom shakes his head. There’s a glint of dread in his eyes, like he is reliving it too. “He kept asking me if you were okay, if you were breathing.” (Y/N) had known, although neither had ever said it, that both him and Michael had thought she’d died. Hearing Tom confirm that is another thing entirely. She breathes out shakily, hugs her knees closer to her chest. “And then he was there, in London. I didn’t expect him to fly out. God, kid, you can’t even begin to understand how worried he was. He looked as terrible as I felt, and I care a whole lot for you, so I figure he must care a whole lot for you, too.”

(Y/N) suddenly feels like she can’t breathe.

She knows that Michael cares for her. Of course she does, it’s in every little thing he does—the late nights at her music studio, the random calls in the middle of the day, the way he appears to have memorized every part of her, how he accommodates her and prioritizes her—, but having Tom say it to her makes it more real, deeper, somehow.

She sniffs, rests her cheek against her knee. “He’s a good friend.”

Tom smiles at her, there’s kindness in his eyes and something that looks remarkably like pity.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he shakes his head, looks down at his papers, “Friends don’t worry to that extent.”

The words settle heavily between them.

Neither of them bring up the topic again.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

Michael leaves for tour three weeks later.

(It’d been a coincidence, the overlapping of their tours, something neither of them had realized would happen until (Y/N) was leaving for Europe and Michael was announcing tour dates. She was supposed to be closing up her tour, starting in South America and moving up all the way to Canada before doing the last show in New York, and Michael starting his in Japan.

They were going to be apart for a very long time, but (Y/N) had only been vaguely aware of that fact. She’d known the tour would demand too much of them, they would be too busy to notice each other’s absence. Now, with the American leg of her tour being pushed back and Tom advocating for her to take a break from music, placing her basically in house arrest until the doctor’s discharge her, (Y/N) is very aware of how long it’ll be before she sees Michael again.)

He comes to say goodbye, even though (Y/N) insists he doesn’t need to. She knows how chaotic the weeks leading up to a tour can be, she doesn’t want him to strain himself to much, least of all for her. Still, he shows up. (Michael always shows up.) He ignores the doorbell, as always, and bangs on the door in that particular way of his, always to the rhythm of one of her songs.

He stays too long—(Y/N) wonders if he, too, has suddenly become aware of the distance that’ll be between them, the time that’ll pass before they see each other again—until Bill starts honking the horn outside.

“You’ll miss your flight.” She has to physically drag him to the front door.

“Promise me that you’ll take care of yourself,” he says, offering little resistance as she moves down the hall, her hand wrapped around his wrist. “Good care of yourself.”

“I’ll do my best,” (Y/N) assures him. She isn’t sure how well she’ll do—she’s been managing these past few weeks, but he’s been here and that’s made it easier somehow, she doesn’t need to think about the fragility of her body, how unsteady she feels when she’s alone—but she will try, maybe more for Michael and Tom than for herself.

“And you’ll call, right?”

(Y/N) laughs, “Yes, Mike, all the time. You’ll get tired of hearing of me.”

Michael doesn’t skip a beat, “Impossible.”

She smiles, fondness spreading all over her chest. (Y/N) knows he means the words.

When they make it to the front door, he halts her, pulls at her hand, forcing him to turn around and meet his eyes

“If anything feels off, if the headaches come back, you’ll tell me?”

Her smile freezes as (Y/N) hesitates. It’s just a second, but Michael notices.

He raises his eyebrows, reaching for her hand and intertwining their fingers, “Promise me you’ll tell me.”

She sighs, pressing her lips together. She doesn’t want to make promises she might have to break. She’s never lied to Michael, she doesn’t want to start now.

“You’ll have much more important things to worry about.”

That’s the reason she’s so hesitant. Not because she wants to keep anything from him—they’ve gotten to a point where she’s not even sure she would be capable of deceiving Michael if she wanted, she’s certain he would be able to tell immediately, he knows her too well, has learned to read between the lines—but because he will need to be completely focused on his tour.

Michael opens his mouth, closes it. He sighs, running his free hand through his hair. He looks almost nervous, shy in a way he never is around her. Not anymore.

His admission is quiet, almost mumbled, “Nothing is more important than you.”

(Y/N)’s heart lurches. It’s gotten the tendency of doing that around Michael these days. She does her very best at keeping it under control. Instead, she pokes him on the cheek, her smile softening.

“Okay, a compromise, then,” she says. “If it gets bad, I will tell you.”

“How bad?”

“Need-to-go-to-the-hospital kind of bad.” She’s sure it won’t get to that point. She’s had some minor headaches and dizzy spells in the past few weeks, but nothing serious.

Michael doesn’t seem to like that answer. He looks over her shoulder, at Tom, and the older man must mouth something or do something because Michael relaxes. “Fine, deal.”

Once that’s settled, Michael breaks into a smile.

“C’mere.”

He opens his arms and (Y/N) happily walks into them. She closes her eyes and breathes him in, tries to commit the feeling of their hug to memory. She will miss him. (Y/N) has never had someone to miss before.

“Be safe,” she yells after him as he leaves her house. She watches his figure get smaller as he crosses the front yard to where Bill is waiting for him. He hasn't even left and (Y/N) already misses him. Oh, these upcoming months are going to be unbearable.

Michael turns around at the sound of her voice, walking backwards. He sends a dazzling grin her way and, there he is, that’s her Michael, sweet and handsome and all too mischievous.

(Y/N) squints her eyes, the playful look in his eyes too familiar. She isn’t surprised when he presses his index and middle finger to his lips and throws a kiss her way.

She rolls her eyes, good-naturedly, maybe a tad bit too fondly. Her grin widens. She plays along, catching the kiss and pressing it to her heart.

“Miss you already, pretty girl.”

Now that catches her by surprise.

The nickname hits her somewhere in the middle of her stomach. She’s glad that Michael’s not close enough to see the way heat crawls over her face.

“Miss you, too,” she sighs out, the words punched out of her.

From the corner of her eye she can see the way Tom is looking at her, all smug and amused and (Y/N) wishes she could fire him.

Instead, she turns around, pokes her tongue at him, and walks back to the house.

She does her very best to ignore the way her brain won’t stop replaying Michael’s words (pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl).

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

(Y/N) does a great job at recovery, if she does say so herself. Tom would undoubtedly disagree, because he likes teasing and arguing and just overall disagreeing with her. He would say that she’s a terrible patient, always forgetting when it’s time to take her pills—which is true, she is very bad at that—but (Y/N) has noticed the way he no longer looks skittish. He no longer looks at her like he’s judging whether she’s two seconds away from fleeing. He has relaxed, maybe just a fraction, but when it comes to Tom, that’s a whole lot.

The doctor discharges her, officially, on a Monday. He makes a point by telling her she needs to take it easy, that her heart has incurred in permanent tissue damage—minor but still evident—and another severe electrolyte imbalance could kill her. Tom gives her a pointed look and (Y/N) flinches under the intensity of it. There won’t be a repeat, she’ll do better. She promised Michael she would take good care of herself and she’s never broken a promise to him.

She calls Michael as soon as she gets to her studio. Tom had said she’d be able to go back, start easing herself into the normal, hectic rhythm of her life once the doctors gave the green light. He’s not looking very happy about it, but he lets her do her thing. He keeps the hovering at a minimum and (Y/N) doesn’t think she could ask for more.

“Guess where I am,” she says as soon as he picks up.

(Y/N) doesn’t have to guess to know where he is, she has the dates and places of his tour memorized. He’s in Melbourne, probably just got back to his hotel after his first night performing in Australia.

“Hello to you, too.” Is his teasing response. She can hear the smile on his face, can almost picture it. It makes her smile in return.

“Hi Mike,” she amends, teasingly, “C’mon, guess.”

“Home?” His answer comes out like a confused statement, before he’s suddenly taking a sharp intake of breath, “No, wait. You had the doctor’s appointment today, didn’t you?”

(Y/N)’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. She hadn’t thought he’d remember, she’d only ever mentioned it once, very briefly.

“I did.”

“And how did it go?”

“Very well.”

“Officially discharged?”

“Yep! Praise the Lord.”

“That’s good,” he sounds heartbreakingly relieved. “You’re at the studio, then?”

(Y/N) chuckles, “I’m that predictable, huh.”

Michael hums, the sound of it traveling all the way across the line and settling somewhere in between her ribs, “I just know you too well.”

“That you do.”

“Are you happy?” There’s ruffling on the other side, like he’s settling into bed, “You sound happy.”

“I am very happy,” she confirms, twisting the telephone cord around her finger. Michael gets it, (Y/N) doesn’t need to explain that being cut off from music had felt like losing a limb, such an integral part of her life ripped away from her. It’d been necessary, she knows that, but it’d still hurt. Being back in her studio feels like coming home. She relishes on the feeling. “I had so much time to write and now I finally get to turn all the jumbled mess in my brain into something tangible. I’m so happy I could burst.”

Michael laughs, soft and full and (Y/N) loves knowing there’s someone out there that gets joy from her happiness.

“Will you play the demos for me?”

“You know I will.” She thinks it’s sweet, that he still asks. “Anyway, how was the concert?”

Distance changes things.

Not between them—if anything, they seem to grow impossibly closer, Michael calls her whenever he’s free, from airports and hotel rooms and backstage corridors, and (Y/N) drops everything when he’s on the other side of the line. No, the change happens inside her.

Maybe it doesn’t change a thing, maybe it just sheds light to what was already there, something (Y/N) had spent a long time ignoring.

Without Michael physically beside her at all times, without his constant presence filling every aspect of her life, (Y/N) has time to think about him.

Thinking is a dangerous thing.

(She thinks of his eyes and his hands holding hers. She thinks of their late night calls, the way his voice is enough to ease her worries, settle her anxiety. She thinks of days spent together obsession over music, watching movies, playing games. She thinks of those damned words (pretty girl, pretty girl) and the way she’d sworn her heart was going to beat straight out of her chest.)

(Y/N) misses him terrible, with an intensity she’d never thought herself capable of. Not in the vague ‘oh, things are sort of quieter without you around’ way she’s used to missing people and more in the ‘there is a whole in my heart in the shape of you and i don’t really know what to do with it’ way she’s never experienced before.

Every interesting thing that happens becomes something she wants to tell Michael about. Every exhausting interview leaves her reaching for the phone, because his voice is the one thing capable of quieting everything down, making the world tolerable.

One night, after a particularly grueling press event—where the journalists kept digging and pushing and reaching for information on her health, trying to dissect her private life for public amusement—she calls him without thinking.

She doesn’t think he’ll pick up—it’s too late and he’s most likely sleeping and God, he must be tired and she shouldn’t be calling him at all—but Michael does. It only takes him two rings.

“Hey,” he says softly, voice sleepy.

Relief floods through her instantaneously at the sound of it. She doesn’t reply, just breathes deeply, closing her eyes when she feels tears brimming at the corner.

“You okay?” He asks not even second later, sounding much more awake.

She clears her throat, “I’m fine. Just tired.” Michael must know she’s not being completely truthful, he must also know it is not the time to press because he keeps quiet. The sound of his breathing anchors her, makes everything feel steady. “Just wanted to hear your voice.”

The admission startles her.

Michael hums softly. “Is that so?”

She huffs out a laugh, “Don’t tease.”

“M’not.” His voice is rough with traces of lingering sleepiness, deeper. “I like hearing your voice, too.”

Suddenly, the ache of missing him becomes almost unbearable.

No one has cared for her so gently before, so openly. There is transparency when it comes to Michael’s love. He doesn’t wish to possess her or control her or polish her raw edges into something easier to hold. He loves with clarity, with intent, proudly, loud in the small ways that matter and (Y/N) loves him.

The thought appears so suddenly she nearly drops the phone.

She goes completely still.

On the other end, Michael keeps talking softly, completely unaware that her entire world had just tilted off balance.

She loves him.

Oh.

Oh no.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

JACKSON FEVER HITS BRISBANE: KING OF POP SET FOR FINAL AUSTRALIAN BAD TOUR SPECTACULAR Australia's biggest music event of the year reaches its grand finale as international superstar Michael Jackson prepares to take the stage for the final concert of his Australian tour. Thousands of fans have descended on Brisbane Entertainment Centre ahead of what is expected to be one of the most electrifying performances ever staged in Queensland. Tickets sold out months ago, with devoted followers camping overnight and traveling from across the country for one last chance to witness the King of Pop in action (...)

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

Realizing she’s in love with Michael is the most consuming, terrifying thing (Y/N) has ever experienced. (And she almost died, so that’s saying a lot.)

Once the realization settles, once it sinks into her bones and becomes part of her essence, her truth, it threatens to overwhelm her, consume her entirely.

She loves him.

Entirely.

Completely.

Irrevocably.

How she never noticed before is beyond her, because now that she knows, she cannot turn it off. It’s like the wiring in her brain and her heart have been altered beyond repair and she simply cannot force herself back into the comfortable shape of friendship. Not now that she’s glimpsed beyond it.

(Y/N) realizes, as she tosses and turns around in bed, as she stares at the darkness of her ceiling, that maybe the realization of being in love with him isn’t what’s scary— loving Michael is easy, it feels right, like everything has suddenly slotted into place and things make sense once more— it’s losing him that has her paralyzed, frozen in terror.

Because Michael is not just anyone. He is her best friend, her safe place, the person she trusts the most, the one she would look for in a crowded room.

Losing Michael would destroy her.

And that’s what she fears, the complexity of her feelings, the confusion of wanting him so badly it hurts, of missing him so deeply his absence is like a phantom ache she cannot rid herself of, of knowing she could be a few words away of ruining the most important relationship of her life.

(Y/N) does not want to lose Michael. She wouldn’t survive it.

So she says nothing.

Tries her very best to bury her affection, even it makes her feel like she’s dying.

And then Michael calls one night.

He sounds exhausted, voice rough from a day spent rehearsing and performing, but happy— happy because the crowd’s energy had been surreal and most of all happy because it’ll only be a couple of days before he sees her again.

Her heart sort of skips a beat when he says that.

“I wish you were here,” he says softly over the phone, as he’s done retelling most of his night.

Something in (Y/N)’s chest aches so violently she has to close her eyes to keep it at bay.

“I miss you,” And they say that to each other a lot—all the time, really— but something about the way Michaels says it this time sounds different. It’s in the way he enunciates the words, the tenderness behind them, the way they travel all the way and settle somewhere deep inside her.

After they hang up, she sits alone in the darkness of her room for a long time, thinking.

About fear and love and rejection.

And suddenly another fear rises above the rest, the stifling panic of regret, of watching Michael fall in love with someone else while she stands beside him, smiling as if her heart isn’t breaking apart inside her, of looking back to these days and wishing she would’ve done things differently.

The thought alone is enough to make her feel sick.

She cannot do that to herself.

So, the very next day, she gets on a plane.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” she admits to Tom before she leaves the house, finger looping around the straps of her sweater in a desperate attempt to calm herself down. He’d arrived early in the morning and found her moving around the house in almost a manic state. He’d said nothing as she’d explained where she was going and what she was doing, hadn’t even teased her about it taking her so long to finally realize what was most likely obvious to him. Instead, he’d called the chauffer and helped her pack.

“You’ll be okay.”

“Oh God, but what if he—”

Tom grabs her face between his hands, like he’d done when she’d been a kid about to spiral into a panic attack.

“Breathe.” She does, lifting her hands to grab Tom’s wrist in an effort to keep herself anchored. “You will be okay, kid.” Tom repeats and this time the words do cut through the panic. He’s looking at her like he’s certain, his words firm, and (Y/N) has no choice but to trust him.

The flight feels endless. Too much time to think and think and overthink, way too much time to panic— and without Tom by her side it’s harder to keep herself from losing her mind.

(What if this is the biggest mistake of her life? What if she’s wrong and Tom is wrong and all Michael has ever felt is platonic affection, friendship? What if she confesses her feelings and he doesn’t reciprocate and they drift apart?)

She forces herself to keep going.

Love, no matter how brief, is never wasted. And she thinks she could die happy knowing she loved without restrain, without fear. She owes herself that much.

By the time she arrives backstage, her heart is pounding and her stomach is in knots.

She might actually throw up.

The arena is enormous.

(Y/N) can hear the crowd roaring beyond the walls while staff rush frantically through the corridors. Music shakes the floor beneath her feet.

A young girl with a headset recognizes her immediately and nearly drops the walkie-talkie she’s holding.

“Holy shit.”

That manages to bring out a small laugh from (Y/N). It’s the first time all day that she’s felt something other than life-altering dread.

“Michael doesn’t know I’m here,” she finds herself telling the girl, “I was hoping to surprise him.”

“So you guys are friends.” The girl muses before immediately realizing what she’s said. Her eyes widen comically, “I just meant— I mean, with the tabloids you can never know. Like the rivalry, you know, I always thought it was such bullshit the way they pitted you against each other and—”

Huh, so there were people who didn’t fall for it. It’s good to know.

(Y/N) interrupts her with another laugh, because the girl looks like she’s about to go on a tangent about the media, “It’s okay. I get what you mean.”

The girl nods, visibly relaxing a bit, “Uh— Do you— Do you want me to take you to his dressing you?”

“I was hoping to sneak a little glance at him, from the wings, if it’s not too much trouble?”

The girl, who she finds out is named Isla, leads her through backstage hallways. The closer they get to the stage, the clearer Michael’s voice becomes. The sound of it loosens some of the anxiety in her chest.

They arrive at the spot, sheltered from the public by the wings of the arena, and (Y/N) finally catches a glimpse of Michael. There he is. Drenched in sweat, looking like God’s favorite creation, every feature enhanced by the stage light.

God, she loves him.

He’s breathing hard as the song ends and the crowd’s scream become even more deafening.

He turns slightly, to say something to his drummer, and that’s when he sees her.

Everything stops. (Y/N) feels the breath catch in her throat. Michael, who she has never seen falter, freezes mid-step, for the briefest of seconds. His expression shifts so fast she can’t process every emotion, but she can pinpoint the softness in his eyes, the one that’s always present when he’s looking at her.

Calm settles over her, unexpectedly.

Michael recovers quickly. He winks at her and she smiles back and then he’s back to performing, but all she can thinking about are those eyes.

She can’t even remember why she was so worried. This is Michael. Her Michael. The person who feels most like home.

For a quick second, the fleeting thought crosses her mind.

Maybe he loves me, too.

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

Michael runs to her.

Once second, he’s waving goodbye to the crowd, sending kisses out to his fans. The next, he’s bolting.

He must be exhausted, about to be slammed in the face with that post-concert adrenaline crash, and yet, he’s still running to her.

There’s a bright smile on his face, his eyes are shinning, little crinkles around the edges. He’s moving like something is pulling him towards her, like finding his way to her is nothing more than muscle memory.

Michael pulls her into him so hard it knows the breath out of her lungs. His arms wrap around her waist, lifting her a bit so that only her toes touch the ground. Almost as if it’s second nature, her arms loop around his neck.

He’s covered in sweat, his skin sticky, curls damp against his forehead, and (Y/N) should be disgusted, but she isn’t. She feels nothing but an overwhelming amount of fondness, warmth. She pulls him closer, wishing she could sink into him.

For the first time since she realizes she loved him, (Y/N) feels like her heart and mind are at ease. The ache burning inside of her simmers down.

He’s here, and it’s almost as if her soul knows it.

“Oh my God,” he breathes against her hair, elated. “You’re here.”

(Y/N) laughs shakily against his shoulder.

Michael buries his head against the side of her neck, breathing heavy. His arms tighten around her waist, like he’s making sure she’s actually here and not a figment of his imagination.

And, God, (Y/N) wants to stay here forever.

She wants to pull him so close, until there is no space left between them, wants to crawl inside his heart, settle somewhere between his ribs. She wants to be consumed by him, by the love she has for him.

Somewhere nearby a camera clicks.

Neither of them pay it much mind.

(The picture, taken by one of Michael’s staff, will later become one of their most famous ones. (Y/N) doesn’t know it yet, but she will keep it neatly tucked in her wallet, carry it with her for the rest of her life.)

“I cannot believe it. You’re actually here,” he whispers to her. His breath is warm against her skin. “I missed you.” The words sound reverent somehow, like a prayer, like they’d sounded that night they’d been on the phone and (Y/N) had realized she couldn’t keep her feelings from him any longer.

Something inside her breaks open, “I missed you more.” And it is so true her voice cracks, filled with emotions she has not yet named, not out loud, and Michael, her sweet Michael, notices immediately.

He pulls away, only slightly, so that he can see her face. His arms stay wrapped around her, hands anchored firmly on her waist.

“What’s wrong?”

Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s wrong. (Y/N)’s not sure what to say or precisely what she’s feeling. It’s all too much and not enough at the same time.

She shakes her head, because she doesn’t know what else to do. Michael is looking at her with those eyes that see too much and God, she cannot hide a single thing from him. Tears gather at the corner of her eyes. She’s not quite sure if they’re happy tears or sad tears or I’m-scared-I’m-about-to-ruin-it-all tears.

“Hey, hey,” Michael murmurs softly, pulling her close against him once more. One of his hands slides gently to her hair, “It’s okay.”

And it is okay, she is in Michael’s arms and she is safe and she is alive and she is in love and she cannot help the way the words slip out of her mouth.

“I love you.”

Michael smiles, she feels it against her temple.

“I love you, too, pretty girl, you know that.”

Him and that stupidly endearing nickname.

She cannot pull away, does not want to see his face as she lays herself bare for him. Those eyes of his, (Y/N) would be able to see everything in them. She cannot bear it.

“No, I mean—” Her voice trembles. She presses her face harder against his shirt. “I am in love with you.”

And it’s an anguish-filled confession, one mumbled into his white, sweat-soaked shirt so quietly that (Y/N) would believe Michael didn’t catch it if it weren’t for the way he immediately freezes.

Slowly, carefully, he pulls back. Her arms untangle from his neck, hands settling on his chest. (Y/N) grabs the edges of his leather jacket to keep herself grounded, she doesn’t think she’s ever been more scared in her life.

They come face to face and there are so many emotions flashing though his eyes that (Y/N) cannot grasp them, she cannot read him.

“Say that again,” he says in a low voice, tentatively.

(Y/N) swallows, then breathes out, “I’m in love with you.”

A beat.

“Do you mean that?”

(Y/N) nods because she doesn’t know what else to do, doesn’t know what else to say.

Michael’s hands move to cup her face, thumbs brushing against her cheekbones. He’s looking at her so intently, like he’s searching for something. Whatever it is, he seems to find it.

“Do you really mean that?”

“Yes,” she whispers.

Michael’s eyes soften, face breaking into a devastating smile, “I am going to kiss you now.”

He does.

Hesitantly and oh so softly at first—like he’s testing the waters, like he doesn’t want to scare her away—then deeper, more intense.

Everything melts.

There is no arena, no people around them, every noise fades into the background; it’s just her and Michael and their hearts beating in sync and his thumb caressing her skin and his lips on hers.

He loves her too.

Somewhere, very far away, there’s another click.

(That photo never makes it to the public. Michael keeps it at their bedside table.)

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

POP ROYALTY CAUGHT IN MOONLIT EMBRACE?! by Carl Kesterson Los Angeles was rocked last night when pop icons Michael Jackson and (Y/N) (Y/L/N) were allegedly spotted sharing a passionate kiss outside an exclusive after-party following a charity concert. For months, rumors have swirled around the chart-topping duo, with fans pointing at lingering glances, matching jewelry and suspiciously affectionate comments as evidence that there might be more than friendship between the two superstars. Neither Michael nor (Y/N) has commented on the photographs, but insiders suggest the pair has been quietly dating for nearly a year. Are wedding bells next for music's newest power couple? Is this all an elaborate publicity scheme? (turn to page 4 for more!)

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