paperstarzzz

 “That’s a very relevant breakthrough for both science and history. I mean, the observation was performed by the English scientist Robert Hooke in 1665, when he observed plant cells in a dead piece of cork. Which was, quite frankly, revolutionary for the world of science. Even though many people argue that Antoine van Leeuwenhoek was technically the more important breakthrough since he was the one who discovered living cells.” He held up both hands in a shrugging motion before he turned back to his coffee. “But that was only nine years after Hooke, so, technically you could say both were important. Kids should definitely be learning about that in your class at some point, though, since cells literally make up every living thing.”

“Please. That’s all science stuff, buddy.” The history teacher scoffed, clearly offended. But Ryland didn’t bat an eye. No, he just turned with his coffee and walked right out, passing you while muttering something under his breath about uneducated adults.

You always had a thing for smart guys, but hearing him finally knock that history teacher down a peg? 

Oh, you were done for. 

So, naturally, pushing Ryland Grace into science explaining territory was slowly becoming one of your favorite pastimes.

Especially because he looked so cute when he started going off, listing every possible fact that he remembered on the topic. Ryland’s eyebrows would scrunch up before he’d straighten his glasses, roll his shoulders back, and start talking about how wrong you were. You knew he never meant it in a mean way, especially towards you, so it was attractive to see him go off.

His hands would get a mind of their own, gesturing as if you could physically see what he was talking about. His eyes would light up with that spark behind his glasses as he spouted scientific jargon about the fact that you were teasing him with.

“So like…y’know how some people think the Earth is flat? Get this,” You leaned across the break room table, a half eaten sandwich clutched in your hand as you spoke loudly enough for him to hear across the room. “It could be a square. How come every flat-earther thinks that the Earth is an oval? I mean, maps are square.” You gestured with the sandwich still in your hand, talking to one of your teacher friends. “I feel like I’m on the cusp of a scientific breakthrough right now.”

“Wait, what?” Ryland asked from across the room, and coughed on the water he was drinking. “The Earth is—the Earth is a sphere. There’s literal topographical data for this kind of thing.” He sputtered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Or so they say,” You turn to him, smiling as he straightens up and fixes his glasses. 

Right into your trap, straight into science nerd mode.

“It’s actually not a perfect circle, it’s an irregularly shaped ellipsoid. So it’s not flat, and it’s not a rectangle. It’s like a lopsided marble,” He gestured, creating a round shape with his hands. “The diameter bulges at the equator. It’s from the centrifugal forces, since our planet constantly rotates. Not to mention that sea levels are constantly changing too, which contributes to the lumpy shape.” He rambles out, his eyes flicking from his hands to your eyes, making sure you’re paying full attention to his explanation. You have to suppress a grin behind your sandwich.

“Ohhh, okay, okay.” You nod, taking another bite of the sandwich. You know that the Earth isn’t flat. “I gotcha.”

But you can’t help but poke at him again.

It happened in the hallway. You taught the classroom across from him, and in between classes, you couldn’t help but hover near your door, just to catch a glimpse of his focused face. When he finally came out to lean on the doorway, his arms crossed in that way that showed off his biceps, you had some trouble finding the right words.

“Dr. Grace? Quick thought…” You smoothed out your clothes, holding back a smile. 

He fixed you with the look. The one where he looked over his frames at you, both of his eyebrows raised in annoyed anticipation. The one where it made you feel like you were in a classroom all over again.

You felt a blush spread from your neck to your cheekbones at the intense look. With all of his focus on you, it made you feel like he was studying you under a microscope.

“Stop staring at me like that,” You said, waving your hand between you two like you could clear the air of nerves around you.

“I’m just listening. Go on, shoot,” Ryland nodded to you, his blue eyes still trained on your face.

“Pluto is still a planet.” You held back a smile as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Okay, you’re doing this on purpose,” He said, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was holding back a smile. 

“I’m not! I’m not, I’m serious,” You protested, holding your hands up in a look of fake surrender. “I just don’t know why we kicked it out. It’s very rude, if you ask me.”

“Pluto is still a planet, it’s just a dwarf planet now,” He stood up straighter, and you stifled a laugh behind your hand. 

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing! Nothing, go on,” You gestured to him, and he sighed.

“We didn’t kick it out of the solar system or anything, it’s simply too small to generate its own gravity. There are three rules that make a planet a planet.” Ryland held up three fingers, ticking them off as he talked. “It needs to be round, orbit the sun, and clear its neighborhood of objects. That basically means that it needs to use its own gravity...”

You sort of zoned out after that, nodding along to the conversation even though you weren’t really listening. You were too focused on the way his eyes stayed on yours, the way his voice took on that specific cadence when he went into teaching mode.

“So Pluto is still a planet,” He finished talking just as the bell rang, snapping you out of your blatant staring. “Don’t be so offended about its status, alright?”

You stood there for a second, blinking to ground yourself back to Earth. Your cheeks heated up again when he quirked his brows at you, like he knew exactly what you were thinking.

“Right…” You nodded, finally glancing away from his face. “Okay, yeah. That…that makes sense. Guess I should uh, go. Class, you know?” You laughed while awkwardly making your way back into your classroom.

“Class. Yeah.” Ryland nodded too, though he seemed a little confused at your reaction. “Have a good one!”

You darted into your classroom before you could make a bigger fool of yourself.

“It’s not that obvious, is it?” You asked one of your friends one day. She worked as the Computer Science teacher down the hall from you, and was currently sitting across from you in the teacher’s lounge. 

It was early in the morning, long before most of the other teachers arrived. 

“Well…” She said, and you groaned, covering your burning face with your hands. “You’re about as subtle as the kids I teach.” 

“Great, just great,” You said, peeking out from behind your fingers. “How bad is it?”

“You look like you’re about to make heart eyes every time he starts talking.” She grinned at your embarrassment. “Oh come on, he’s not bad looking.”

“He’s definitely not bad looking, and those glasses, ugh.” You complained, and you could feel your face heating up more. “And he’s one of the few guys that can make sweaters look good. It’s unfair.”

“Maybe you should ask him out?” She offers, and that stops you immediately.

“Are you insane?” You raise both of your brows at her.

“What? I’m just saying,” She shrugged as you collapsed onto the table dramatically. “You could do a lot worse than the science extraordinaire with great arms and cute hair. Plus, you can’t stop talking about him.”

“He does have cute hair, ugh. It’s just, I could listen to him explain science all day. He gets this—this look and—fine! I’ll give it a go,” You relented when she raised a brow at you. “After school today, I’ll ask him out. Okay? Fair?” You huffed as you ran a hand through your hair. 

True to your word, you delayed your usual hasty departure from your classroom. You gathered your things as the students filed out, patiently waiting for the perfect opportunity to get Dr. Grace alone.

Soon enough the hallway was empty of students, and you made your way across the hall into the 8th grade science classroom.

Ryland didn’t notice you right away, since his back was turned to you while he wiped down the whiteboard. You watched him for a minute, steeling your nerves before walking through the doorway.

“Dr. Grace?” You said, smiling convincingly and hoping your face didn’t show your nerves. 

He turned around with a smile you’d only seen a handful of times. Looks like he had a good day today.

“Oh, hello. Are you about to debate another scientific fact with me?” He chuckled, setting the whiteboard eraser down. You had to physically make yourself look away from the way his sleeves were rolled up. 

“Something like that,” You said as you fidgeted with your car keys. You already felt your cheeks heating up in the way they always did around him.

The silence stretched long and awkward as you both stared at each other. You were trying to find the right words, but you felt like you were back in middle school, working up the nerve to ask your crush out.

“You know,” He said, leaning his hip on his desk. “Blushing is just a physiological response to emotions. Your adrenaline starts running high…” He raises a hand, tapping a finger on your reddened cheeks. “That widens your capillaries, which allows blood to appear closer to the surface.” 

You were so stunned by the sudden touch that your mouth parted. 

“Really?” You said, though you could feel your palms beginning to sweat already.

“Oh yeah,” He nodded. “Yeah. So the question is…what’s got your adrenaline going?” He asks, tilting his head subtly at you. “Are you feeling alright?” A flash of concern crossed his face, and before you knew it, he pressed the back of his hand to your forehead.

“I’m feeling fine. I just…” You gaped for a minute, still searching your brain for the answer as he lowered his hand. Instead of your prepared question, you blurted out:

 “Go on a date with me?” 

You wanted to melt into the floorboards.

It was his turn to blush now. He huffed out a laugh and smiled, scratching the back of his neck. “Well that was uh…very straightforward.”

You nodded awkwardly, wiping your sweaty hands on your pants. 

“For an English teacher, you sure have a way with words,” He said, and you swore you would evaporate from how hot your face felt.

“Don’t be mean,” You mumbled.

“I’m not being mean, I think it’s cute.” He chuckled, reaching up and brushing a stray hair out of your face. 

“Is that a yes?” You asked, feeling your heart hammer against your chest so hard you swore he could hear it. 

“Yes, I’ll go on a date with you,” He said, and you thought you would start floating from the light feeling in your chest. “Took you long enough, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You huffed out another laugh. 

“It means that I’ve noticed you. It means…this.” He said right before he closed the gap between you. His lips were unexpectedly soft and warm against yours. You let out a small, startled sound before you returned it, your hands fisting in his sweater to tug him closer.

Both of his larger hands settled on your waist, turning you slowly to press your lower back against the edge of the desk. You tilted your head just enough to deepen the kiss, and you heard him make a gentle noise of surprise.

When you finally parted, you were both breathing shallower than before. His lips and face were flushed red, and you felt his heart pounding in his chest where it was pressed against yours.

“Definitely yes,” He breathed out, leaving you both smiling and feeling like teenagers again. “Although…I might’ve overheard that you have a thing for my sweaters?” Ryland teased. “Or was it my hair?”

“Oh my god, stop.” 

“No no, I’ve got it.” He grinned. “It was the look, wasn’t it?”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” You let out a nervous laugh as he gives you a disbelieving look.

“Oh really?” He said, right before he rolled his shoulders back, and looked over his frames at you with his eyebrows raised. “Are you sure?” He asked, the smile leaving his face for a minute as he gave you the look.

“You can’t—you can’t do that. That’s illegal.” You stammer out as he grins.

“Yeah, I knew it.” Ryland teased again, leaning close enough that you could feel his warm breath on your lips. “I just can’t believe you’ve been doing it on purpose. I’m almost offended.”

“Almost?” You whispered, and he nodded.

“Almost. Because I’d explain anything to you, honestly.” He shrugged, smiling down at you before he gave you another quick kiss. “Besides, I can’t be too offended at my date.”

“Right,” You agreed, grinning so hard your face hurt. “The date. Tonight? At the diner downtown?” 

“Sounds perfect to me,” He said, matching your smile as he finally stepped back. “Go on. I wouldn’t want to make you late.”

The journey to work was what could only be described as suboptimal; dark, moody clouds looming over-head — a wave of rainfall threatening to break at any second, damning your clothes and body temperature for the rest of the day. The universe seemed to acknowledge your silent pleas, kindly holding off on the rain until you were just about to turn the corner toward the school's grounds. 

However, even with the all-powerful universe on your side, it was simply no match for the antics of a certain blonde-haired science teacher. Ryland Grace. 'Jumped-straight-outta-the-pages-of-a-romance-novel Ryland Grace' as you liked to call him; a personal, private nickname you'd mustered up along the way.

He stood under the shelter of the canopy, rain cascading down the edge like a waterfall, his work clothes covered by an obnoxiously-yellow raincoat that only he could make look natural — like it wasn't even draped over his shoulders in the first place, gaze focused on the quickly puddling rain just in front of him. 

Why was he just standing outside in the cold? Even further, why was he almost guarding the entrance to— oh.

The realisation dawned on you at once, prompting you to take a few steps backwards, strategically retracing your previous steps to land yourself out-of-vision in case he looked up. A small squeak slipped from your lips, soft hands coming press against your face, a pleasantly daunting feeling swirling in your stomach. 

The rain only grew heavier the longer you hid, and as much as you wanted to steer clear of the man who'd positively plagued every fibre of your being since you got the job — it wasn't worth catching a cold over, especially when his mere presence seemed to ignite that warm, fuzzy feeling across your body, casting down on your skin like a summer's glow. 

"Okay." You whispered to yourself in defeat, hands dropping to your sides with purpose. "I can do this. I'm totally fine. Yep. Gonna' start walking any second now." You continued, reassuringly giving your limbs a quick wiggle in preparation, attempting to dust off the persistent awkwardness stretching throughout your body. Remarkably, you found the strength within you to continue.

Entering the grounds, you felt weirdly confident after the pep-talk, strutting round the corner with a sense of purpose. Too bad the unforeseen puddle ruined the moment, soaking your shoe in all its unpleasant glory; instantly dimming whatever spark you had going, setting the mood for the rest of the day.

The splash snapped Ryland from his trance, rearing his head upwards to find the source of the noise, baby blue eyes falling on you. He smiled for a moment, as if he'd been waiting hours to catch a glimpse of you, but the expression quickly turned sour — a pitiful look washing over his face, eyes trailing down to your right shoe, still firmly planted inside the puddle. 

"Bad morning, huh?" He joked in a light-hearted manner, watching with a tilted head as you removed your foot from the puddle; wiggling it momentarily in a pathetic attempt to dry it out, deciding to just continue on in your wake like nothing had even happened. Though, the light squelching proved a cruel reminder every step you took. 

"Yep." You muttered in response, letting out a large exhale once you finally stood in front of him — looking over the stubble peppered across his jaw and chin, glasses slipping down his nose; the lenses slightly steamed at the bottom, deriving from the warmth of his face fighting the winter weather, small droplets of rain spotted across the glass. 

He only hummed in response, nodding slowly before a faint smile begun tugging at the corners of his lips; those icy blue eyes peering down at you with mischief. Despite the body of cold water occupying your shoe, you grew significantly warmer, becoming acutely aware of your heart rate quickening with each thump. 

"First, you step in a puddle and then…you have to talk to me. Just awful, isn't it?" He teased, bringing a diner-style takeaway cup of coffee to his lips; never once breaking eye-contact while his lips gently pursed around the gap in the lid, tilting his head back in order to free the liquid from its confines. 

Panicked, you averted your gaze — resisting the urge to watch his adam's apple bob up and down in his throat as he swallowed, snapping your head downward in a lack of faith, eyes landing on his other hand cradled close to his chest; long fingers comfortably clasped around another coffee cup. 

You furrowed your brows, glancing back up at him. "Did you…have a bad night or something?" A breathy chuckle left your lips, quickly trying to steer the conversation away from whatever road he was planning to take it down.

"No. It's for you." He soothed with an extended hand, motioning the cup in your direction. "Admittedly, I was waiting you out. Figured I'd at least let you know that I come in peace." 

It fell silent after that, both your ears filled with the distant sound of the persistent rain fading away; swept up in a comfortable since whilst you processed his gesture, a slow and careful hand raising upward to feel the cup beneath your fingertips. The right words failed you, brain scrambling to pick up the pieces of your own awkwardness, the last fragments scattered along the concrete-floor like a puzzle piece waiting to be put together.

In a way it was a sort of bittersweet moment, realising that Ryland Grace was exactly who you thought he was; a sweet, attentive, caring soul just floating through his own life, not even realising the half of his true impact. Along the way, you figured the ideal picture of him that you'd engrained in your head couldn't be all true — chalking it up to just your own admiration, mind desperately clutching at straws of what he could be like. 

But, with the coffee cup in-hand. You realised he was exactly who you thought he was. 

"Uh oh, you have that look on your face." He declared like it was a national emergency. 

"What— what look?" The defensiveness came over you immediately, in a way that was far too obvious; thoughts of Ryland Grace swirling through your mind, quick to deflect whatever he thought he'd caught onto — paranoid that somehow he saw straight through your exterior.

"You have a look you get before you scurry away. Your face changes." 

Oh no.

Deciding to ignore his observation, you mustered up the last of your courage to thank him; the words of your gratitude coming out through an awkward laugh, mentally cursing yourself for your brain's abnormal functioning. The urgency to 'scurry' as he'd called it bubbled deep beneath your skin, every inch of your body itching to do exactly that — to run away.

"Well, thanks for the coffee." You breathed out urgently, the words coming out all too much like the end of the conversation; preparing to bid him a quick and short farewell.

The smirk on his face inevitably grew, reading you like a book as your body seemed to jitter; ready to take off sprinting at any second now, even with the puddle still settling in one of your shoes. In the moment, you hypothesized that you could beat any professional runner at their own sport, as long as Ryland was situated behind you somewhere — maybe you'd even break a world record running from him, running from your own admiration. 

"I uh— I have to get going. I have some business to attend to in the… in my classroom." Your body was already moving as you spoke, with Ryland quickly jogging just behind you in order to catch up; his laughter booming just behind you.

"Oh, yeah? What business? We don't start for another 20 minutes." 

"You know— teacher things." You retorted, letting out a small whine at the feeling of the dampness quickly seeping into your foot the more steps you took; as if you were granted the mystical power of walking on water in the most unpleasant way imaginable. The squeak was embarrassing too. 

"Stupid shoe." You muttered quietly to yourself, though nothing seemed to slip past Ryland — especially when it came to you. 

"Hold on to me."

"What?" 

You squeaked as a pair of large, strong hands gripped you from behind; gently wrestling you into his grip, all of a sudden sweeping the floor from beneath your feet. In momentary panic, one of your hands flew to grab ahold of his arm — squeezing your fingers around the upper limb, conveniently finding yourself gripping his bicep through the material of his coat. 

Ryland made a noise of satisfaction, a noise you were sure would replay in your head for the rest of the day as he whisked you into the building. He ignored your quick and persistent protests, laughing to himself as he navigated his way toward the classroom. A couple of the teachers dotted around the corridors gave you a weird look, but neither of you really seemed to care. Too caught up in your own little world as he settled you back on solid ground, feet planting against the floor of your classroom. 

"If I were you, I'd hang up the shoe to dry. Should be fine by the end of first period." Ryland quickly dusted himself down, attempting to stretch over the creases of his clothing from the physical activity — and your wriggling against him. "Well. I'll let you take care of your business." 

"Okay." Was all you managed to say, still feeling the imprint of his hands on you; a funny feeling caught up in the back of your throat. "Thank you, Ryland. For the um…" You held your coffee cup up with a smile, the object luckily unscathed by the sudden encounter, "And the…drop-off?" 

He didn't say anything for a moment, standing there stationary in the middle of your classroom. The smile that always seemed to remain on his face shone brighter, a light pink blush creeping across his cheeks as he stared back at you — like he was waiting for you to realise something.

"What?" The image of him smiling back at you provoked your own smile, speaking lightly out-of-breath and in confusion. "Do I— Do I have something on my face?" You panicked, quickly bringing your sleeve up to rub uncomfortably against the skin of your cheeks.

"No, no. It's nothing. Just don't think I've heard you say my name before." 

Your panic intensified, now silently wishing that you really did have something on your face instead of what he'd just picked up on — a daunting feeling crawling around in your stomach. It was hard to stay still, constantly fidgeting as you walked your way toward the classroom door; pulling it open gently for him to exit as you cleared your throat. 

He caught up to you quickly, positioning himself on the other side of the door. His frame slightly sloped against the doorway, effectively blocking you from shutting it just yet. Clearly, he hadn't derived enough satisfaction from teasing you all morning — but in contrast, you were pretty sure you'd had enough of his teasing to last a lifetime. 

"I'll see you later?" He sung playfully, still not budging from the doorway.

"Yep. Yep. Shutting the door now." It came out like a warning, slowly closing the door as much as his body would allow; your lips pressed together in a firm line. 

"Ouch, so cold to me." He tutted, bringing a hand up to rest against his heart like you'd wounded him.

The smile found its way back onto your face, playfully rolling your eyes and shaking your head at him. "Bye Ryland." You mused, now pushing the door against his shoulder.

He let out a satisfied sigh, mirroring your own smile before turning on his heels and walking off in the other direction — leaving you all alone.

Alone with the coffee cup still lingering between your fingers, alone with the butterflies in your stomach, alone with your own mind that still craved his presence despite the persistent urge to avoid him. 

Ryland Grace had weaselled his way in. And he wasn't leaving any time soon.

Ryland Grace was becoming a problem.

His gloriously unruly hair, round-glasses that always sat so perfectly on his nose in the most unorthodox ways possible. His faded stubble struck a deep compulsion within you, all too tempted to scratch your fingers along his jaw just to see what it would feel like.

His well-fitted blazers, the under-shirts with the first few buttons undone, the collar folding over as if he’d spent hours perfecting its position. On the odd occasion, he’d shift his arm a little too quickly, accidentally allowing a brief glance at his torso that had your breath catching in your throat.

Ever since the first day you arrived, you knew that avoiding him was mandatory; for your dignity, sanity and usually immovable matter of professionalism.

A quick shake of his hand, a simple introduction, lead to your head being smushed firmly against your desk; screaming into the wood like a teenage girl with a crush, still feeling the linger of his touch despite his absence.

It was a complicated task to ignore Ryland, between sharing a staff room, sharing a malfunctioning coffee brewer, and just general teacher normalities, he was never far away. His presence constantly looming over you, sucking the air from your body.

To make matters worse, he was always so friendly, ready to talk to just about anyone who’d listen, but as soon as his eyes landed on you — you’d rush out of the room, knowing all too well that he was thinking over how to strike up an unrelated conversation.

Thankfully, grading papers provided a significant distraction. Especially after school hours, where the halls were empty, classrooms quiet. It was an ideal haven to process the day.

A soft knocking came at the door, before it clicked open; creaking slightly in its wake, revealing an all too familiar figure stood in the door when you looked upward in curiosity.

Ryland leant suavely against the doorway, propping the heavy door open with just his foot as he peered over at you through the top of his glasses.

Your feet screamed at you to run away, itching to relieve yourself of the situation, but this was your classroom. As much as you wanted to avoid him, running out of your own classroom would just be odd, and he was ever so conveniently blocking the exit.

“Guess I’m not the only one who stays late anymore, huh?”

‘Shit. Shit. Shit’ You repeated to yourself over and over again, brain working at a remarkable pace to try and magic a response out of thin air.

“I can go, if you want.”

If it wasn’t for his lingering presence in the room, you’d have smashed your head against the desk, rationalising the pain as punishment for being such an idiot.

“That’s not…what I meant.” He sounded confused, almost apprehensive as he entered the room; letting the door click softly behind him.

Your heart leapt into your throat as he neared, situating himself just at the end of your desk to just stare at you. His gaze was curious, head tilting ever so slightly, clearly lost in his own thoughts as his large hand planted firmly against the desk.

“Do you mind me using your photocopier? Mine’s broken.” He quizzed politely, gesturing to the machine at the back of the room with his free-hand, turning his body ever so slightly.

His arm shifted. That means— Oh god, don’t look.

“That’s fine.” You breathed out urgently, now snapping your head to focus on the pile of papers beneath you. Your eye had almost started to twitch, merely thinking about his presence in the room.

Something about it was unsettling, like he had another meaning to be shuffling around in your classroom. A very specific tension hung thick in the air, though you weren’t sure if it was just your imagination, with your gaze far too tempted to fall on his back.

“Oh, this is different from mine.” He let out an awkward laugh as you looked upwards, his head craning around to look at you. “Do you mind coming over here? I don’t wanna disturb you, I just— I don’t know how to work this thing.”

His words felt like a trap, one that you were currently walking towards, essentially welcoming it with open arms; feet still screaming at you to run in the other direction.

Now standing next to him, you fiddled with the photocopier, trying your best to push all the necessary buttons whilst you recollected your thoughts. Though Ryland didn’t make it easy, his gaze burning into the side of your head as you hunched over the machine.

“I thought you were some sort of scientist, Dr Grace.”

Your tone was teasing, successfully cramming your panic somewhere deep inside as you tried to mingle like your normal, functioning peers.

You weren’t really sure what came over you, chalking it up to a desire to prosper in an otherwise difficult situation. At least you were good under pressure.

Ryland noticed your switch, opening his mouth to speak before closing it again with a slow nod as he appeared to analyse every inch of your face.

“I’m a molecular biologist. Not a photocopier-ologist.” He fired back playfully, slotting his paper gently between the scanner, his long fingers lingering on the material longer than necessary.

Or, your brain was just picturing his every move in slow-motion, almost in compensation for how fast your brain was whirring.

“Is this not made of molecules?” You laughed quietly.

Ryland hummed in amusement.

“You’re good.” He praised in a way that almost had your knees buckling, the ground threatening to give way beneath you. His tone was sickeningly sweet, he even sounded a little proud at your remark, his hand now coming to rest against his hip.

You shrugged in response, offering a humble smile, fluttering your eyes closed for just a second.

When you opened them again, Ryland felt somewhat closer to you. Maybe he’d always been that close. No, no, he was definitely closer now.

“So, do you wanna tell me why you’ve been avoiding me?”

Oh.

Every possible response left you, your smile dropping instantly as you awkwardly glanced around the room.

“Avoiding you?” You managed to choke out a disgruntled laugh. “I haven’t been—“

He peered at you over his glasses again, cocking an eyebrow as if to say ‘Really?’. His expression set your skin on fire, deep in the eye of the storm. The storm being the most pleasant scrutiny of your life.

He should really take up a part-time role in interrogation, just the mischievous glint in his eye was nearly coaxing you into revealing your deepest secrets.

“You’re talking to me like I’m one of your students.” You tried to joke once more as your feet carried you back to your desk, but Ryland wasn’t falling for it — swiftly following behind you as you began cramming your belongings into your bag.

“No, I’m talking to you gently. There’s a difference.” He informed simply, watching as your hands struggled with the zipper of the bag; now panicked as you tried to rearrange the folders in your bag that were blocking the zipper.

“Well. Why are you talking to me so gently?” You were exasperated now, fingers tugging all too hard at the zipper that was now stuck half-way open.

“Just feels right.”

Your heart was hammering against your chest, giving one final push of adrenaline as you tugged the zipper, letting out a relieved sigh when it fully closed.

You weren’t even sure if he fully knew what his words implied, treating you as if you were a precious piece of porcelain that threatened to crack at any moment. But oddly, not in a condescending manner, in fact you suspected it was rather endearing.

“I have to get home now.” You slung your bag over your shoulder as Ryland watched you with knowing eyes, you were bolting, like usual.

However, this time, Ryland didn’t think too much of it. The whole interaction had given him all the information he needed to know, mentally storing it away for a later date.

“I’ll, uh… see you tomorrow!” You called out, waving a quick goodbye before practically sprinting out of the room. But, his voice stopped you.

“Will you?”

You turned to him reluctantly, feet frozen in place as he approached; his frame reaching to tower over you. He let out a quiet laugh, curiously awaiting your response to his remark.

“Probably, yes!” You spoke a little too quickly, a hand coming to awkwardly rub at the back of your neck, as if it was going to provide some sense of relief from the situation.

His silence made it hard to remain quiet.

“Maybe I’ll even start a conversation. Who knows really?” Your gaze was now fixed at your feet, not daring to look up at the expression on his face.

Ryland laughed again. “Well, I look forward to finding that out.”

You nodded once as confirmation, choosing to remain quiet now, since nothing good had come from you opening your mouth in the past 30 minutes. You span around on your heels, now rushing yourself out of the building.

“Get home safe.”

“Yep! You too!” You kept your head straight, turning the corner with an unfathomable urgency so that you were finally out-of-view.

That night, you flopped down onto your bed; letting out a far too normal, relentless squeal into your pillow, effectively muting the sound so as not to receive any noise complaints.

And with the impending threat of talking to Ryland significantly more looming over you…

You were pretty sure it wasn’t the last time you’d be in this position.

You’d been a middle school English teacher for about a year now, settling in down the hall from Mrs Martha James and Mr Scott Adams, who were both lovely. It was by chance that you bumped into Dr Ryland Grace. During your first week, Noah’s dad came in with his lunchbox, interrupting your little tea break in the staff room. “I’m so sorry, Miss (L/n), we were late to school as it is”, he said.

You gave him a reassuring smile and took it off him, “No problem, I’ll go give it to him now” Noah’s dad nodded and thanked you before walking back down the hallway and out past the office. You sighed to yourself. “Right, Noah, where are you?”

After searching through all your schedules and calendars, physical ones and the online ones, you couldn’t find Noah’s schedule anywhere. Hence, you poked your head into Mrs James' classes, “hi, sorry”, you said, ducking as you walked in. The kids were doing some silent reading, but all looked up at you with curious eyes. You leaned over Mrs James' desk “You don’t happen to know where Noah S. might be right now? Lunchbox delivery”

Mrs James was newly pregnant. You’d actually become good friends in the week you’d been here. She was about your age, but had a high school sweetheart, which was why she was married. She typed away on her laptop and then turned it to show you the screen. “He should be with Dr Grace. Do you know where his classroom is?” She pointed at the screen showing you. This new system confused you; your old school used something else entirely. You thought for a moment, Dr Grace? You’ve never come across him, not even in the staff room. Mrs James stood, “Kids”, she clapped. “Five more minutes of reading and then we can continue, Miss Taylor, watch them for me”, she nodded to her teaching assistant, who winked back. “Come”, she smiled.

You followed Mrs James down a few halls while she told you about Dr Grace, he’d been here a while, turns up early on a bike and leaves late, doesn’t really come to the staff room unless he’s out of sugar for his coffee, apparently the teachers think he’s either married or single, single because no ring but this is the behaviour of a married male teacher. But she gushed about him, “Oh, the kids love him! And apparently some of the ta’s, but I don’t see it? Maybe because I’m married”, she trailed off.

In the science wing, she stopped and pointed, “Second door on the left” She smiled and turned, heels clicking down the hallway. You stood still; it wasn’t like you to be nervous, but you could hear a male voice faintly through the walls. You looked over Noah’s lunchbox, stickers of Transformers littered on it. You took a deep breath and drifted towards the door; two knocks, and you opened it.

Some kids perked up, “Miss (L/n)!” They whispered. You shhh’ed them. Dr Grace was standing at the front of the class, showing a diagram of some plant cells, which was covered in projector lights, not doing you much justice.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt, Dr Grace. I have Noah’s lunchbox; his father brought it in” You smiled towards Noah, a sweet kid; he jumped up.

“Wait!”

A small green sack flew towards Noah, and he caught it surprisingly well. Dr Grace moved out from the projector lights, giving you a proper look at him. Oh, you see what these teaching assistants are on about. Dirty blonde, short stubble, glasses hanging from his ear, resting on his chin and beautiful blue eyes. He was wearing a grey suit, a duck egg blue shirt, and a red tie. He was leaning back on a table, looking right back at you.

“Noah, roughly how long does it take for the sun's light to reach Earth?”

“8 hours?” The kid said.

Dr Grace's head dropped. He chuckled, “No, toss it back, get your lunchbox” Noah tossed the sack back and left his chair with a squeak. He thanked you for his lunch box.

“Miss (L/n)”

You brought your attention back to Dr Grace, who was motioning to him, throwing you the sack. You opened your hands, and he gently tossed it to you. The kids were watching eagerly.

“Which Apollo moon mission was the first to carry a lunar rover?”

He smiled so endearingly. It’s been years since even the thought of being attracted to someone crossed your mind. You were so focused on school and teaching. Well, if you’re going to do this, may as well try to impress him. You secretly hope he is actually single and not secretly married.

“Uh, Apollo 15”, tossing back the sack, it hit in the square in the chest with an ‘oof’. With that, you winked at him and quickly waltzed out the door.

He stood there for a while, smiling to himself. He hadn’t met the new teacher, but he heard of her. Mrs James caught him in the hallway once when he was opening his classroom “Oh, Dr Grace, you really must say hello, she’s such a pretty thing” She was right.

“Wow, Miss (L/n) is smart”, whispered the kids.

Which brings you to now. You’re sitting in your car outside your apartment, double-checking that it is World Book Day. The weather is dreadful, you’ve never seen rain like this, it’s almost hailing. Your book, tucked neatly in your tote bag, is The Princess and the Pea. Dr Grace had kindly lent you his green sack as the pea. You are dressed in blue check pyjama pants, a pink princess dress with milkmaid sleeves and a tiara. You would’ve worn the dress on its own, but it’s a school. And what’s more fun than wearing pyjamas?

Oh, Dr Grace. He’s going to be soaking. You tap your steering wheel thoughtfully. You fish your phone out of your tote bag and find his contact. “Dr Grace 🧪”, he’d labelled himself as. The only message history was general questions about school days off and teachers' meetings.

“Fuck it”

You pressed call. You sat, listening to the pounding rain, as your phone rang. You wondered if this was a message from a higher-up. Don’t go to school as a princess, no other teachers will be dressed up! It whispered.

“Uh, hello?” A voice came through the phone, you jumped, and I put it to your ear.

“Oh, Dr Grace! It’s (Y/n) I was just wonde-“

“Ryland”, he said.

“I’m sorry?” God had you offended him? Was calling him like this a bit unprofessional? Did you scare him off?

“I asked you to call me Ryland, and you still call me Dr Grace”, he mused.

“Right, sorry.” You tapped your foot on the accelerator pedal of your car, hearing her hum. “Look, it’s pouring down, and I’m just down the road from you. I was wondering if you wanted me to pick you up for work?” It was bold for sure.

“No, no! I wouldn’t want you to go out of your way,” he said.

Slightly deflated, you thought for a second. “Can I bribe you with coffee?”

“Deal.” He said quickly. You giggled, telling him you’d be there in 5.

Pulling up on what you think is the right road, you set your car into park and start moving your tote bag into the back seat. It was still hammering it down. Fuck. You just realised what you’d done. You were dressed as a princess, with a pea. See, when you asked Ryland for the green sack, you didn’t specify what for. You groaned and hit your forehead on the wheel. He’s so going to laugh at you.

The car door opening made you jump. And in slid Dr Grace. Who was dressed differently? He put his book bag in the footwell of your car, and you both stared at each other. He was wearing smart olive-green pants, a pale green shirt, a knitted olive jumper, and a green headband with eyes on it.

“You’re a princess?” He chuckled.

You blushed deeply and rolled your eyes. “Well, it’s better than… whatever you are!” You laughed.

He scoffed and pretended to look offended. “I’ll have you know I am a frog!”

You both laughed. “From what book?”

You watched as he reached into the footwell, rummaging through his bag for his book. He pulled it out and handed it to you. It was a book version of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. “See, I am the frog”, he said, pointing to it.

You blushed even deeper now, peering up at him through your eyelashes. He knotted his eyebrows together in confusion, and then you watched, seeing the cogs in his brain turning. A deep flush settled on his cheeks, and you think he got it.

You were the princess. And he is the frog.

The turnout at school was better than you expected. Kids in comic book character outfits, and most teachers were dressed up this year. Before the kids settled in, you rushed in to see Mrs James. She was dressed as a tiger, a very pregnant one. Her favourite book was The Tiger That Came To Tea.

“You set me up!” You whisper-yell. She was sitting at her desk, nibbling on some toast. She was nearly crying from laughing so much.

“You’ve seen him then”, she said once calmed down, wiping her eyes.

“Seen him! Martha, I gave him a ride to school!” She belted out laughing, and now you were holding your head in your hands.

She rubbed her belly as she took in some breaths to help her stop laughing. “Listen, it’s time you did something about those longing looks”, you tutted and rolled your eyes. “I’ve seen it! He never used to come to the staff room, but now there he is! Cuddled up next to you,” She wasn’t lying.

You two often shared a sandwich or some toast during morning break, and you felt comfortable with him. He was always close, knees touching or shoulders touching. You’d always told yourself it was because the staff room was small, he didn’t have anywhere else to sit! But then he started bringing you coffee, in front of everyone, asking how many sugars, making it right in the staff room in your favourite mug, and bringing it to you with a soft smile.

The rest of the day went quickly. Kids usually can’t settle on a day like this, so teachers do small, fun tasks instead of actual work. The bell rang for the end of the day, and the room turned into a tornado of young fairies and superheroes running out the door.

“Knock knock.” Ryland was leaning in the doorway of your classroom. Halfway through the day, you realised that since picking him up, he didn’t have his bike to get home. So you could only offer to take him home.

“Ribbit”, you playfully said back. You slung your tote bag over your shoulder and faced him. He looked different. There was a look in his eye. Mischievous. More sure of himself, almost.

The ride back was filled with general work talk, how Mrs James was getting along with her pregnancy, what kids are causing you grief, etc. The rain had cleared up, but because it was winter, the sun was slowly setting.

“Listen about today”, Ryland started. Oh no, he was going to have this dreadful talk with you about how you’ve gone too far and embarrassed him, he’s married, of course, and you shouldn’t have overstepped that boundary-

“I’m sorry, " you cut him off. Focusing on parking. After you parked, you unbuckled your seatbelt and looked at him. “I understand today may have crossed a professional boundary, I may have voiced a silly schoolgirl crush to Mrs James about you and totally embarrassed myself-“

“No, (Y/n)-”

“Mrs James played along and maybe pushed too far-“

“(Y/n) stop.” He took your hands in his, causing you to fall silent. You met his eyes, and he looked bashful. “I may have asked Mrs James to set this up.” Your jaw dropped, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “How could I not, you’re the prettiest woman I’ve ever met, and since working with you I’ve just….come to like you a lot more than friends.”

He whispered the last part. You were blushing deeply. This man, whom nearly every teacher’s assistant has had a crush on, has gravitated towards you. “Well”, you started. “I may or may not have a little crush on you” you blushed and looked away.

He chuckled. “Well, that’s good to know.” He squeezed your hand.

You both sat there a while. Holding hands and sharing looks. There was a slight patter of rain now, the sunset turning the sky completely orange, casting a golden light onto Ryland's face. “Can I ask you something?” He spoke.

You nodded. “Since I’m a frog”, he sat up now, pointing to himself. “And you’re a princess”, you nodded again. “I was wondering if you would be so kind as to turn me into a prince?”

You blinked. A prince? You studied his face to get any clues as to what he was talking about, and it was only when a deep flush settled on his face that it clicked. Of course. His book. In The Princess and the Frog, she has to kiss him for him to become a prince.

You leaned in towards him, your hand freeing from him and reaching towards his knitted jumper. Ryland watched with his mouth slightly open as your fingers curled around his jumper and pulled him closer.

Your lips ghosted his, and then you planted a soft kiss. It started softly at first. A small peck. Your eyes fluttered closed when you felt his hand settle on your jaw, deepening the kiss. Your hand reached up and settled on the back of his neck, feeling his soft hair. You tested the waters by opening your mouth a bit more, letting his tongue in. It was slow and sloppy. He made a noise, you barely caught it, and he pulled you away.

He was a vision. His eyes were blown, deep pink settled in his cheeks, and your lipstick smudged all around his mouth. His forearm was awkwardly pressed into his lap, and you realise what the noise was about. “I need to take you on a date.” He spoke. “I can’t be doing that before I date you, " he looked out the window now, shaking his head and laughing.

You giggled and started using your thumb to wipe off the lipstick around his face “Doing what?”

“You got me a bit excited there.” His voice was now gravely.

Your heart fluttered. You didn’t dare meet his eyes; you knew exactly what he meant. It was strange hearing it from him. This charming gentleman, who flirted with you through corny science jokes, had a hard-on. And you liked it. More than you expect. He leaned over and kissed your cheek. “Let me take you on a date. A proper one”

“Okay, handsome, when?” You met his blue orbs with a smile. And it was his turn to blush now.

“I’ll FaceTime you later, and we can set a date?” It was more of a question; he was rummaging around in the footwell now, grabbing his books and bag. You nodded, feeling excited but slightly sad he was going.

He stepped out of the car, and you watched him wave as he walked up the steps to his apartment. You sat there with your foot on the brake, feeling like a little girl again. Before you could pull off, you saw a blur of green running around the back of the car. Ryland was standing at your window, asking you to roll it down.

You slid down the window and spoke, “What are you do-“

Before you could finish, he cupped your face with his hands and brought his lips to yours. Sparkles flew as he sloppily kissed you, hands running through your hair. You savoured him as if you couldn’t get enough.

Colt is leaning against the bathroom frame now, a casual non-chalance as if he hadn’t thought his brother an intruder just minutes ago. “You look like you’re about to ask someone to marry you or, you know, explain why their insurance claim got denied.”

“Is it too much?”

Colt raises an eyebrow as his twin looks down to reassess what he’s wearing. Ryland’s never given a rat’s shit for his comments before. It’s almost endearing, reminds Colt of high school prom and helping his brother fix himself up.

“Depends what for.”

“Second date.”

That definitely paralyzes Colt, almost as if a deer in headlights. There’s a voice in his head trying to convince him he had misheard, but the way Ryland had mouthed the words had been so clear. He was going on a second date.

Despite hearing the boy, loud and clear in-fact, Colt asks him to repeat. “What?”

“Ilyukhina said she’d asked for a second date.” Ryland is grinning now, trying to adjust the collars of his dress shirt. “You impersonated me so well that you got me a second date.”

Oh, no no no. Fuck. No no no.

This is the subject of Colt’s worst nightmares.

Because Colt hadn’t been imitating. Because Colt, not even halfway through the date, had slipped past the pretense of being his brother and was simply being himself. And you had asked for a second date. You liked Colt enough that you wanted to see him again.

You thought he was the love of your life, too!

The words repeat like a broken record in Colt’s head.

Somehow, the consequences of his actions on that first date are only rolling in now, flooding him, and hitting him like a freight train with no warning bells.

Questions of jealousy are soaking in, waters reaching dangerous levels as he stares at his own twin brother—Do you even know the path to her home? Do you know she laughs so unabashedly that it makes your heart twitch in a wholesome way? Do you even know how many times she had to change outfits for the first date?

(Five, by the way.)

And despite everything he wanted to ask, Colt could only manage to let out a one-word question out of the paragraphs he had been thinking of.

“What?”

Ryland laughs, completely unaware of the mental scuffle in his brother’s mind. Though, Colt might have himself to blame for that. When Ryland had asked him how the first date went, he tried to answer as vaguely as he possibly could to not accidentally confess how completely and utterly fucked he was.

Now Colt is here, and still completely and utterly fucked.

(Maybe even more than he was that first date.)

“I know. I wasn’t expecting it either.”

“And you’re going?”

Ryland turns to him, then. His eyebrows are lifted in that amused manner he does when Colt asks something questionable. One time he’d asked about snot-flavored chips and elicited the same lift of eyebrows before it turned to one of disgust.

“I’m dressed up and fixing my hair, Colt.” Deadpan. “Yes I’m going.”

“But…”

Colt’s heart is beating so loudly that he’s convinced Ryland can hear it. And his mouth, clumsy and desperate, is pushing and pulling at words before his brain can process he’s even uttered them.

“You told me she was nice, and that the conversation was easy.”

You are nice, and the conversation did come easy. But, it was with Colt! You were nice and talked easily with him. You asked him to walk you home. Colt Seavers, not Ryland!

He hopes the distress he’s feeling isn’t written plainly on his face, because he’s pretty sure he currently looks constipated.

Ryland smiles to himself, smoothening out wrinkles that aren’t there so he’d have something to do with his hands. “I figured I’d be kind of stupid to not see where it goes. She has the stamp of approval from my brother.”

She has the stamp of approval because she’s the love of my life, Colt thinks but doesn’t say. He can’t, because his face is still constipated, and his heart is beating out of his chest, and his stomach is twisting.

Instead, he settles for something equally controversial. “You can’t go.”

It’s Ryland’s turn to ask what apparently is the most common question of the afternoon. “What?”

“I mean…” Colt curses himself, almost slapping a hand on his mouth for being so rash. He’s scrambling for something else to say, scrambles. “You… shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Because she’ll end up liking you, Goddamnit! Someone kind, and smart, and who definitely hasn’t committed identity theft.

Colt thinks it’s so obvious (as if being the love of his life wasn’t reason enough), but his brother is standing there completely puzzled. Until something cuts through Colt’s head and reminds him that his brother doesn’t know about his feelings, and it would be a great time to try and save yourself and your remaining dignity.

“I was kidding.” He blurts out with a painfully rehearsed laughter that he might’ve tried out a few times in his mind before committing to it, a dismissive hand waving to compensate. “Thought it’d be funny if you actually started doubting yourself for a second.”

“You’re being weird.”

“I’m not.”

“You just tried to convince me not to go on my own date.”

“I just told you it was a test!”

Ryland is squinting his eyes suspiciously at his twin, but he doesn’t choose to overthink it. With long strides to the living room, he grabs his wallet and slip it effortlessly into his back pocket. “I might be late, so just buy your own dinner.”

“You’re not gonna give me money?”

Ryland has to. If he was going to steal the love of Colt’s life, he might as well slip in a couple bucks and pay for the victim’s dinner.

“You have your own money. Bye, Colt!”

The front door clicks shut behind him, and Colt stands alone in their apartment like he had been earlier this afternoon. It was just that, then, he hadn’t known of the dooming fact of Ryland’s second date. Now, his mental scuffle are yelling over one another.

“Fuck.”

You choose the place this time.

It’s an unbusy diner you used to frequent a lot when you were still in college, tucked away between a laundromat and another old store. Its decor is as a usual diner would be, tiles of alternating black-and-white, and a whole lot of red—walls, couches, tables. Even the jukebox has hints of red, but that hasn’t been working properly for nearly a decade now.

You think you love it because it’s a place to feel human in. Inside here, you’re never in a hurry, even back in college. At-your-own pace and smiling in front of Ryland who sits across from you in your usual corner booth.

For a few minutes, neither of you says anything. It isn’t uncomfortable exactly, but it isn’t easy either. Ryland smooths a thumb along the condensation gathering on his water glass before glancing at you, looking as though he’s rehearsing three different opening lines in his head and quietly discarding every single one of them. Not a single one makes the cut, apparently seeing as he still hasn’t spoken a single word.

(Ryland, who usually blabbers anything and regrets it after saying it is also perplexed at how uncharacteristic he’s being.)

You offer him a small smile in encouragement, and he smiles back just as warmly, but the effortless rhythm you’d stumbled into on your first date seems to have been left somewhere outside the diner.

“This place is really nice.” He finally says, looking around, eyes darting from one piece of decor to another. Safe. It’s something safe to talk about.

And it’s endearing, his quiet curiosity, his want to be in a world you know, his attempt at making the moment less awkward.

“It is.” You smile, and there is a feeling almost proud in your heart. “I used to come here all the time.”

“Really? Tell me all about it. If you uh— if you want. If you feel comfortable with… sharing that with me. Yeah.”

Your smile grows even more at his innate curiosity to know you, and the way he stumbles over his words the way he hasn’t ever before. And he watches you go on and on about the place, really, and the memories you’d built on this booth all drunk, or crying over an exam, or with friends after a long day. Sometimes the owner would give you fries for free. And he listens, all with his chin in the palm of his hand and eyes fixated on you.

The great awkwardness dissipates from the air in record time, leaving only remnants of it behind.

“And they have the best pancakes.” You’re leaning forward, almost whisper-like, as if it was just a secret between the two of you.

“They serve pancakes this late?”

“They’re an all-day breakfast place.”

“That’s dangerous information for me.”

“I knew you’d like it. I guess it’s something about the teacher in you. I don’t know why I associate teachers with breakfast.”

This time, it’s Ryland who laughs. It’s different from when you’d been on your first date. He’s a little more reserved with his laughter, and there is something self-depracating about him that he hides behind sheepish smiles and dry humour.

“I’ll be sure to research the correlation between that and let you know if I find something. It’s kind of like when, uhhhh, shark attacks increase when ice cream sales go up.”

“Really?” The way you maintain eye-contact is intimidating, wide eyes full of mirroring curiosity swimming in them. Ryland doesn’t know how Colt had managed. Here you were, looking at him, listening genuinely, and smiling so beautifully.

“No, I’m sorry.” He laughs. “I mean, it’s honestly more just correlation. More people buy ice cream in the summer, more people swim in the summer, so there’s more shark attacks. But, correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation.”

Your mouth drops, eyes now squinted with a betrayed voice to pair. “You tricked me.”

“I technically didn’t. It’s called a spurious correlation. Okay, maybe partially tricked…”

“Still tricked me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Where first-date Ryland would’ve fought back, Ryland now just mutters an apology with a shut of his eyes in a sort of embarrassment.

“You know, Ry. I notice you’re using pretty big words now. It’s honestly a massive upgrade from telling me the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”

Oh my God, Colt. That idiot.

Ryland ducks his head into a laugh before he can stop it, the sound escaping him in little bursts. It catches him off guard just how vividly he can picture Colt saying exactly that, puffed up with misplaced confidence as though he’d personally discovered the fact himself.

“So, you’re back to science teacher mode. Does that explain the change in look?” You smile at him a little intrigued, a hand reaching out to press against his cheek. It’s hesitant, ghost-like.

You haven’t been in each other’s orbits long enough for prolonged moments that drift back and forth from the line of intimacy. “You shaved.”

Ryland is trying hard to pay attention to what you’re saying, which proves to be a difficult task when he can’t stop wondering what to do with the fact that he liked how your hand felt against his cheek. “And the glasses are cute.”

A faint flush creeps onto his cheeks, instinctively adjusting them at the mention even though he has a poor habit of peering over them which has only worsened the condition of his eyesight. (Colt had scolded him a few times.)

“Must’ve been wearing contacts on our first date. Are these uh, good changes?”

“It’s cute. You’re still cute, don’t worry.”

Colt never mentioned how forward you were. Maybe if he’d known, he would’ve practiced not getting flustered so easily.

A sort of silence falls between the two of you at the moment, but the background goes on to make their noises in complete disregard of the both of you. There’s silverware clattering from plates, a little kid asking if pancakes count as dinner, and the static of a jukebox that still insists on playing even though it’s been unsuccessful for a decade.

The waitress comes back balancing two mugs of coffee and a towering stack of pancakes a moment later. Ryland had ordered the same thing, courtesy of your suggestion.

Besides, he had a little sweet tooth anyway.

“That’s enormous.” Ryland says, mouth agape at the tower of pancakes staring back at him. You glance up at his sudden comment, and it makes a smile tip over your lips.

“I told you. I’ve never actually finished it before.”

“And yet it’s still your go-to order?”

“I’m committed now. It’d feel like cheating if I ordered something else.”

You’re really blowing into his life now, sweet and warm and comfortable, and unexpected but not unwelcome. You had an endearing charm, and your smile reminds him of flowers. His bones are a-chatter as you smile more to yourself.

“Even though I always regret it around pancake number four.”

“There are six.”

“I never really learn.”

He only smiles, albeit fond. But, he doesn’t bite back longer than he should. And there’s something else, something different about him, something you keep trying to ponder on as you both eat your pancakes.

You try to insert it between conversations, between each bite, thinking and pondering and staring as you shuffle through your few memories with him.

He’s talking less, but when he does say something, it’s straight from his head in a subtype of clumsy he didn’t have on your first date. He always looks like he regrets what he’s saying instead of laughing it off, noting a habit of closing his eyes or scrunching his nose a little when he does. He’s less teasing, too. His level of playfulness seemed to have dialed down a little. Like he’s picking apart things about himself before letting you have it.

“You know…” You start, and the immediate way you have Ryland’s attention makes you look down shyly at your plate, makes you fiddle absentmindedly at the sleeves of what you’re wearing. “You seem calmer.”

“Calmer?”

“Mhm. On our first date…” You smile at the memory. “Everything that came out of your mouth surprised even you.”

Ryland looks like he’s taking in the information, like he didn’t live through it himself. He looks at you curiously. A little worried.

“Can I ask you something? It’s kind of stupid, though.”

“Those are usually the best questions.”

You let out a small breath through your nose, your smile finding its back where they belong before you brave the courage to make eye contact. “You still like me, right?”

Ryland’s face softens at a ridiculous pace, and he almost wants to reach out and ask you what prompted you to ask him, but it looks like you want to say more. He keeps his patience, and leans forward to let you know he’s listening to you.

“Sorry.” You’re laughing awkwardly now. It’s compensation. “I know how that sounds. It’s just… you’re really different today.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know.” You shrug, suddenly finding your empty coffee mug more interesting. “Like I said, calmer. Quieter. It seemed like you had more fun on our first date. It isn’t bad, but when I have a point of comparison… I don’t know. I guess I just got in my own head.”

“Hey, no, no, that’s not it. I’m having a lot of fun right now.”

Ryland reaches out, and it’s hesitant. He’s reaching a hand out, just enough to touch your fingertips. He wants you to look at him, to look at the softness in his features. And when you look at him, he offers you a sheepish smile. Gentle.

“I think I might’ve maybe put a lot of pressure on myself tonight.” He explains.

“You did?”

“Yeah.” His tone is low, abating the tempestuous anxieties that had been swelling in the pit of your stomach. “I kept thinking the first date went so well that I didn’t want to accidentally ruin whatever that was.”

You lean in at that, fingers moving to touch just a little more of his hands until you’ve slotted just your fingertips between his own on the table. “So you were trying to impress me?”

“Maybe a little too hard.”

I had big shoes to fill in, Ryland thinks. And he thinks it with an embarrassed smile manifested physically on his face.

He cringes a little at his words, wants to drop his head on the table at how that might’ve come off, maybe even crawl under the diner booth. But he looks at you now, and you're looking at him with warmth, and a face that’s trying very hard not to smile. “I can’t take back what I just admitted to?”

You laugh, shaking your head. “No can do, Ryland.”

You’re staring at your semi-intertwined hands, at how your fingertips are holding onto each other. And Ryland can’t help but let his eyes travel around your face, studying your features, and how you might feel about him.

“We’re okay?” He chooses to ask, and from the smile that stretches on your face, he seems to already know your answer.

“We’re okay.”

“Good.”

You reach across the table and steal one of his fries with your free hand, trying to lighten the sudden shift in the air. Your other hand remains on the table with his. “I was worried for no reason, then.”

“Were you just distracting me so you could eat my fries?”

“Maybe.”

Your laughter rings out the moment he asks, and he barely feels the twinge of your fingers against his because he’s too busy relishing in your crinkled eyes and how they’re in sharp contrast to the anxious, uneasy way it had looked earlier.

And it’s all he can think about even after he’d paid the check, and was now walking you home.

You don’t seem to mind his sudden amnesia at the path towards where you lived. You did spend the entire night on your first date bumping shoulders and trying really hard not to kiss each other, so the memory lapse would be warranted.

There is a certain beauty of the streets being reflected by the warmth of the streetlights and the glow of the moon, and every few steps your shoulders brush together. No longer accidental.

“I had fun.” You tell him, playfully leaning towards him before fixing your eyes straight ahead.

“Even if I was a little different?” Hopeful. There’s a certain tone Ryland’s been giving, like he was making up for something.

“Different isn’t always bad. Just needs getting used to.”

He smiles at this, and he keeps smiling the walk back until you abruptly stop in your tracks. It isn’t something he notices right away, too in his head about the entire night, but footsteps started sounding like two instead of four. It finally warrants him to return to the real world in search of you.

You look like you’re in the middle of a decision. “You know, I’ve been trying very hard to behave myself.”

His brows knit together, tilting his head, but his smile never leaves. “Should I be worried?”

“Maybe. It’s just that I've wanted to do something. I really wanted to do it after our first date.”

“Yeah?”

Ryland thinks he knows where this is heading, and he can’t help the butterflies in his stomach. He feels like a schoolboy again, in front of his crush, waiting.

“And I’m usually good at behaving myself. But, it’s been really persistent.”

“I don’t think I’d mind if… if you misbehaved a little.” He whispers, and that’s all confirmation you need to reach up and catch his dress shirt with your hands, bunching it up between your fingers and pulling him down to kiss you. Soft, warm, and brief. And so fucking exhilirating.

When you pull away, you’re immediately smiling into the pavement, your ears burning, but Ryland has better ideas when he laces his fingers with yours, tugging you beside him.

“I’ve really wanted to do that since the first date.”

A smile slowly spreads across his face. “I’m really glad you did.”

“Did it feel nice, then?” You ask him, a little bashful as the two of you resume walking. You can see the way he’s smiling, and he’s already nodding his head before words can form in his mouth.

“Better than nice.”

Ryland doesn’t even make it past the front door before the apartment fills with him, though to a very unwilling participant.

“Coltcoltcoltcolt—-“

“I’m right here.”

Ryland barely acknowledges the response. He’s halfway out of one shoe, hopping awkwardly as he tries to kick the other off without using his hands.

There’s a smile threatening every corner of his face, one that keeps slipping back no matter how much he tries to bite it down.

He’s jittery and giddy, and it seems he’d implode if he wasn’t moving in some way. “It went well. Really well.”

“Yeah?”

A strange relief settles over Colt. Not for himself, because inside he is still bitter and irritated. But, you (the love of his life) deserve a good second date. And he’s happy his twin brother could do that for you. Happy, yet irritated.

“I don’t even know where to start.” He’s rushing to the spot next to Colt on the couch, fingers mindlessly unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt. He needs the room to breathe, especially after the exhilarating night he had.

“Usually the beginning would be a good start, but I don’t know. Maybe that’s just me.”

“Don’t be mean.” Ryland nudges him with his elbow, smile suddenly elated at the memory of your date. He really can’t stop thinking, can’t stop the way his mind and heart is buzzing.

“She took me to this diner she’d been going to since college. The owners knew her by name, it was really sweet. Apparently, she’s really committed to these pancakes that she’s never actually ever finished.”

Colt hums, trying very hard not to look like a bitter man. But it’s so hard when he’s stuck in a kerfuffle. Ryland, unaware, is trying to catch his breath as the words tumble out of him.

“But she keeps ordering them, anyway. And, we just talked a lot. She’s really easy to talk to.”

That’s what I told you, Colt thinks bitterly.

“Yeah, I mentioned.”

He wants to react more positively, but his mouth is dry. There’s so much he’s supposed to say as a supportive brother. He can’t, not when it feels like there are fingers being shoved down his throat.

Colt can picture it in his head, no matter how hard he tries not to. It’s burning in his memory, etching and bonding itself to every bone until it’s all he can think about—you, sitting in front of Ryland, elbows on the table and eating your Goddamn pancakes, and laughing over whatever the hell you were talking about.

Colt doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to taint the memory of your laughter that he thought was reserved for him, but was now apparently overused in Ryland’s hearing, too.

And the way his brother is looking at him, narrating all about your night? It feels like his heart is being stomped on, grinded to the ground, until it’s nothing but unidentifiable powder because what was Colt even expecting.

Of course Ryland would fall for you. It’s hard for anyone to spend an evening with you and not leave completely head over shoes.

“I really like her.”

Colt’s heart gives one slow, painful thud against his chest because the thought had just materialized. It had become realer than it was when it was just in his head.

“And…” Ryland’s ears turn pink at whatever thought he had conjured up. Colt doesn’t really want to listen anymore, his brother was probably gonna say something about how he had walked you home, how you’d giggled at his jokes, how you’d—

“She kissed me, and God, Colt. It was perfect.”

Colt jolts awake, his self-pity sobering up a little. Maybe it was the rush of grief that suddenly surged through his bloodstream or maybe it was simply his brain telling him ‘I told you so’, but with complete disregard for the moment, Colt stands up abruptly, and he’s running a hand through his face and saying stop-stop-stop, because his brain was already conjuring up the image and that was something he did not want to picture.

“Colt?”

He wants to vomit. There’s heat behind his eyes that are threatening to leak if he doesn’t run away. And while his face still has a smile plastered for his brother, he feels his facade cracking, and he tries to grin wider to mask it.

“That’s good, buddy. Sorry, I’m just… I feel… weirdly exhausted.”

It’s a terrible excuse, completely lame. Paper-thin. But he can’t think of anything else. Not when the love of his life has just kissed his brother. And said brother also apparently really likes her.

Ryland snorts. “It’s barely nine.”

“Long day.”

“You took a nap before I left…?”

“Weird how the body works, huh. But maaaaaan, if I stand here another minute, I might fall asleep on you.”

“You’re being really dramatic, Colt.”

“It’s one of my better qualities. Haha, but yeah, uh, your story deserves better than that. Tell me the rest tomorrow?”

“Okay. Goodnight!”

It’s only when Colt is in the comfort of his bedroom, lonely and empty, does he lean his forehead against his wooden door and sigh out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The smile he’d been sporting finally slips off.

It’s silent for a moment. A calm before the storm.

Until there’s a burn in his heart, just under his chest and it’s squeezing so tightly. When he closes his eyes, all he sees is you, and it sends ugly tears streaming down his cheeks.

The reality of the situation is dawning on him, and it is so, so painful.

A spell of dizziness sends him tumbling towards his bed, heart racing and palms sweating and tears flowing.

He curls onto his side, one arm thrown over his eyes, or somewhere that can try to block you out. But he falls asleep at the thought of you, anyway.

The transition happens without warning.

Colt stands behind a glass door, something blooming before his eyes. One step then another, and then it’s suddenly so fast-paced. It started with Ryland being on his phone a lot more than usual, and then he’d be gone some evenings.

The man ponders over waiting it out, but there is no place for him to want to be absent in his brother’s lovelife when he’s the only family member Colt has left.

It feels heavy, though. But Colt never allows himself the moment alone because he’s afraid he might think about it. Instead, he busies himself with work, with going to the gym, with teasing Ryland and apparently going over the top about it because he loves the pain he subjects himself to.

It does start small, though. He thinks he deserves at least some credit for that. Ryland would come home smiling at nothing, and Colt would tell him he looked insufferable.

And then it just escalates from there.

“Have fun kissing your girlfriend!”

“We’re not kissing, and she’s not my—”

Ryland never gets to finish his sentences.

“You know it’s getting really lonely in this apartment. My brother has replaced me with a pretty girl.”

“I haven’t replaced you with anyone!”

It gets to a point where it’s just blatantly ridiculous.

“Oh, we’re hiding messages now?”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“You never used to hide your phone from me. Come on, let me read. I need good stories if I’m gonna be your best man.”

It’s sadistic, honestly, the things that Colt does to himself. He thinks it’ll shield him from the pain, but every time Ryland goes out, he’s suffocated by the same bitter jealousy and the tears that always manage to spring to his eyes.

Mr. Number One Yearner over here.

And it might be ridiculous. You had only gone on one date, while you and Ryland were banking on four together. But, he really felt a genuine connection with you. He still thinks about how he’d walked you home, and how he almost kissed you. It’s still embedded in his memory the way you smiled at him, and walked just a little closer so your hands would brush against each other’s.

It exhausts Colt. He never has time to really think because he’s always rushing.

The watch on his wrist reads 00:04, and it’ll only be a few minutes before the noise of his own mental scuffle overwhelms him. They always do. He does the only thing he can, plugs in his earphones to try and drown it out while listening to Sad Boy Playlist on Spotify.

This is what living with a brother who’s dating the love of your life is like. He lives off of sadistically teasing his brother, jumping into stunts with a little less fear, and sleeping really late at night.

It’s been like this for a few weeks. The same routine, over and over. Colt thinks he messed up somewhere. If only he had told you that night—but it’ll be the same unsaid conversation in his head repeating. It always ended in you kissing him, and it would end there until his alarm would blare and he’s reminded of his bleak world.

He stares at the ceiling, as he does every night before falling asleep, and the only sounds that accompany him are the loud volume from his earphones and the echo of your laughter in the background.

Until, one day, he decides he’s been too cruel to himself. Apart from his heart breaking, he had lived on stale coffee on sets and the black coffee that Ryland makes.

A coffee shop would do him good.

The cafe is so busy that you almost miss him. Keyword: almost.

He’s just by the pickup counter, a baseball cap pulled lower over his forehead, and a black face mask covering the lower half of his face. One of his hands is shoved effortlessly in the pocket of his pants, while the other is mindlessly tapping against his takeout cup.

But you’d recognize him anywhere.

“Ryland!”

Colt freezes from where he’s sipping his coffee, his blood running cold at the familiar voice. He hasn’t exactly seen you since you’d gone on that first date together.

“What a coincidence.” There’s that smile on your face, the exact same one he had fallen for. The one that had rearranged his life, his routines.

You just move, and the whole world moves with you. Including him, who has suddenly forgotten he knew how to speak, his feelings overwhelming him before he can process vocabulary.

He has half a mind to tell you just how much the sight of you smiling makes him feel, his stomach twisting, his heart begging to be let out.

“Hi.” He chokes out a response after staying silent for too long, hoping it doesn’t come out awkward. You don’t seem to mind.

You stop in front of him, your own coffee balanced carefully between both hands.

“I didn’t know you came here.”

“Sometimes.”

Apparently, his feelings had also decided on one-word responses.

“I’m always here. It’s disappointing we haven’t bumped into each other sooner. Cool get up, by the way with the cap and the mask, and everything.”

He only laughs, throat stuttering over words he can’t say, so he chooses to just shift his cup to his other hand. The sleeve of his jacket rides up in consequence.

Your eyes immediately catch on something just beneath his wrist.

“Hey, is that new?”

Colt follows your gaze, eyes finding the familiar healing scrape from yesterday’s stunt rehearsal. He’s still forming another one-word response when you reach for his arm, settling feather-light against his wrist.

“That looks like it hurt.” You frown, looking up at him.

Your hand is warm, almost too warm against his. And he notices the same callouses he did that night of your date. He assumes they’re from hard work like his. There are questions at the tip of his tongue, a desire to know what kind of life put them there. It’s the same questions echoing in his head before he falls asleep.

“It didn’t.”

“Not even a little?”

“Maybe a little.”

You give him a look, but it’s playful more than upset. “Okay, brave boy. Just, uh, one second.”

Before he can ask what you’re doing, you’re already rummaging through your tote bag. There’s clatter of pens, lip balms, a few receipts are pulled out with an accompanying grumble, until—

“Got it!” You triumphantly lift a little packet, showing it to him proudly.

“You just carry around band-aids? Who are you, Dr. McStuffin?”

You laugh. “Well, yeah. My friends are kind of clumsy. One time, someone in my office cut themselves over opening a bag of chips.”

Colt laughs, too, despite himself. It’s not so much the story, but the way you say it, the way your hands move. It reminds him of that night, that one fateful night, and the same animated way you’re telling him stories.

“A bag of chips?! That seems more your friend’s fault than the chips.”

“Hey! They’re surprisingly dangerous. I’m afraid I’ll have to file some sort of complaint. Needs more hazard warnings.”

You peel it open, staring down at his stubborn scab, before looking up at him. “May I?”

Colt nods hesitantly. He can’t not say yes, not when he’s hyperfixated on the way you hold his hand, resting it on the counter and working hard on applying the bandaid.

You’re so gentle, settling it on the scrape before smoothing the edges down with your thumb. The action makes his face flush an embarrassing color. You don’t seem to notice. You’re too preoccupied to look at him in the face.

It’s a small thing, barely lasting a minute, and yet it was a curiously intimate thing for you to attempt to take care of him through a band-aid. There’s that very identifiable feeling in his heart he doesn’t want to think about right now, and there’s a subtle change in the air that he needs to address.

(Not with himself, he’s had this conversation enough times already. He might just have to talk to his brother soon.)

“There.” You smile proudly at your work, smoothening over it one last time. “Good as new.”

Your fingers remain curled loosely around his wrist, your thumb resting against the inside of it, even after a whole minute has passed. You only seem to notice when your eyes flick up to his, and back at his hand that you’d apparently refused to let go of.

“Sorry.” You let go immediately after the realization, smiling sheepishly.

“No.” Colt says, soothing you at a similar immediate pace. “I don’t mind, really.”

“Okay then, Ryland.”

Colt should’ve thought of the thrill your giggles always send him, but right now, he seems to cling to how strange it still sounds, the name of his brother, coming from your mouth when talking to him. Even until now.

‘Colt’ would be so much more comfortable to say, and it’s one-syllable instead of Ryland’s two that’s a little more clumsy to fit in a sentence. With how he feels, sometimes he forgets he’s still ‘Ryland’ to you.

He can’t help but wonder if he’ll always be just ‘Ryland’ to you.

When he notices he’s been quiet for too long, he stands up a little straighter and finally tunes back into the present. The first thing he discerns is the little cartoon bear printed on the Band-Aid.

“Thanks, though. The bear is cute. Nice touch.”

“It was that or dinosaurs.”

“I would’ve liked the dinosaurs.”

“God, I knew I chose wrong. I spent like ten minutes mulling the decision over. Gee, thanks Ryland!”

He laughs. From being in his head a lot, he’d almost forgotten how easy this was—talking to you, and being around you. It feels like stepping back into a room he was forced out of too early.

The barista calls another name in the background, and someone gets up from a table by the window.

“Oh, quick, quick! A table opened.”

Colt should leave. He should leave if he wants to make this easier for him. Instead, he lets you take his hand and guide him to the empty table. And conversation follows, like it always seems to with you.

None of you notice the untouched coffee on the table that’s now cold, nor how forty full minutes have passed. You’re so engrossed in conversation that none of it matters. Everything is just background as you talk about your coworkers and how the pigeons keep harassing the woman who works by the window, or how he had accidentally set off a smoke detector in their apartment while he was doing a science demonstration.

(He was actually helping Ryland when it happened. But, he can’t mention that.)

And the both of you are laughing so hard that your ribs are starting to hurt, and your lungs are tired from the constant inhale and exhale of recovery right after.

“No family emergency to fake today?”

“Nope. I’m stuck here with you, sadly.”

Your jaw drops in disbelief. “Sadly? I’d have you know I’m quite good company. I won ‘Most Friendly’ all throughout kindergarten.”

“That’s a surprisingly low-stakes achievement to be bragging about.”

“It was actually very competitive. I had like three people I was competing against. God, what about you? You must’ve been a nerd.”

“I was actually pretty cool back in the day. You would’ve had a crush on me. I was as charming as I am now.”

“Charming? Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Worked on you.”

A blush creeps up on your cheeks, but you don’t let him win the moment. You can’t let him, not with that smug look on his face. “Suuuure, Mr. ‘Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell’.”

Colt groans, dropping his face briefly into his hands.

“I was hoping enough time passed for you to forget that one. That wasn’t very charming of me.”

“How could I?” You smile teasingly. “I laughed so hard when you said that. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.”

“Might have to send a personal thank you to the mitochondria then.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I’ve been told.”

“But I think…” Your smile is less teasing now. It’s softer. Fond. And a little nostalgic. “I missed ridiculous.”

The remnants of laughter settles warmly between the two of you, and you allow yourself the time while he’s chugging down his cold coffee to study him. He doesn’t tell you it’s an excuse to hide the way his ears are tinging pink from what you’d just said. If he’s drinking, his face wouldn’t smile so much. He wouldn’t have to think of how you said you missed ridiculous. Missed him.

“Can I say something?”

He nods.

“You’re really…” You smile to yourself at the thought that’s forming. “You today. I don’t know if that makes sense. You’re just…”

You’re searching for the words, similar to him when he’d seen you that first second in the coffee shop almost an hour ago.

“You’re a lot like our first date.”

His heartbeat quickens.

“I kept wondering if maybe our first date had just been… one really good night.” You toy with the sleeve around your coffee cup. “But today, well, I don’t know. You’re looking at me like that again, and making me smile, and making my stomach hurt so much from laughing. It just feels like I got you back.”

Your smile turns impossibly fond. “I guess you do still like me.”

“I really do.” Colt’s response comes out quicker than intended, without the executive decision of his brain. It seems, his heart just went ahead and answered what it’s been shouting for a few weeks now.

You grin so brightly that it almost splits your face. “Good. Cause I really like you too. Show me this side of you more often, please?”

“Okay.”

It’s in moments like these that have Colt reconsidering how forever would feel like, and how he wouldn’t mind having this moment last for a little bit longer than it should. Sitting here with you, a mere spectator amongst the warm glow of the cafe’s lighting, makes Colt feel hopeless.

It makes him wish he could freeze time, keep this moment untouched, something that you break by glancing at your watch. Couldn’t you have spared him a few more minutes?

“Oh, wow. I didn’t realize the time. I should really get going.”

Disappointment flashes across his face before he can hide it. “Right.”

You stand, gathering your bag and slinging the strap over your shoulder. “Don’t look so upset. I’ll see you later, Ryland!”

The name lands in his chest like a bruise that he doesn’t process what your parting statement had implied. And this time, it lingers a little longer.

He watches you disappear through the cafe doors. And only after you’re gone does he look down at the little bear band-aid on his wrist.

He doesn’t take it off. At least, not for the rest of the day.

You meet Ryland again later in the day for a fifth date. And you’d think after meeting a while that the nerves would be worn off, but it never completely washes away. Not completely, at least.

There are still moments where your heart forgets what it’s doing whenever Ryland smiles at you a little too long, or brushes your hand without meaning to, or makes you laugh like he did all that afternoon. The thought of its repeat makes you a little nervous tonight.

But the constant reminder that this was your Fifth date has softened down the nerves a little, comforted them and asked them to keep down for a moment.

Tonight, he meets you outside the little independent bookstore you’d been insisting on taking him to for almost two weeks now. He’d told you over text that from the number of times you’d talked about this place, it was about time that he actually saw it with his own two eyes.

So now he stands outside beneath the flickering storefront sign, hands buried in his coat pockets against the evening chill.

“You made it.”

“I’m just finding out there’s a little restaurant inside.”

“I was trying to save the best part as a surprise.”

“Good choice.”

You spend almost an hour wandering the aisles, going through book titles and synopsis, and on occasion, imitating the book covers. Ryland, on the other hand, picks up every science book he can find, reading blurbs aloud with the innocent enthusiasm of someone who genuinely forgets other people are around.

You have to physically steer him away from a shelf after he spends ten full minutes debating whether an author misunderstood a science concept you don’t even remember.

“I don’t think arguing with a book is a good look for you, Ryland.”

“If I told you I was winning, would that change your mind?”

“Not quite, but I was swayed a little.” You laugh, and he pockets it as a victory on his own part, finally putting down the children’s book he had been criticizing for the misinformation on the science aspects.

Ryland is very passionate about teaching children correct information early on, even if that means arguing with a book meant for a five-year-old to read.

By the time the two of you settle into the bookstore’s restaurant, there’s already two steaming mugs waiting for you at your table, and you’ve laughed enough that your cheeks are starting to feel a bit sore. Though, not as much as your ribs had stung earlier in the afternoon.

You watch him stir his hot chocolate, and he catches you looking. You’re never really subtle with the staring, you’ve noticed.

On the first date, you had told him he was really pretty.

“What?”

You smile, shaking your head. “Just that… there are so many versions to you, did you know? It’s always a surprise to know which Ryland I’m going to get.”

Tonight, Ryland had felt like a friend. You pondered over it over your own cup of hot chocolate. You’d been feeling weird for quite a while. The past few weeks, that was how Ryland felt to you. But meeting him this afternoon had sent a surge of romance through your bones that you almost forgot how giddy you had felt that first date.

Ryland’s spoon pauses halfway around the mug. ”I don’t think I get what you mean.”

“It’s not anything bad.” You say, elbows propped on the table and palms resting on your cheeks. “It’s kind of interesting. I mean, there’s first-date Ryland. And there was second-date Ryland. And really, who could forget Science-teacher Ryland who just argued with a bunch of children’s books.”

“I like that Ryland.” He mumbles, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose once he feels it start to slip.

“Of course you do.” You laugh, and then you think of the last Ryland, the one that had made your heart flutter earlier. “And then there’s coffee-shop Ryland.”

Ryland’s smile falters. He doesn’t have any memories with you in a coffee shop. And he’d consider his memory quite good, remembering pieces of information that he needs to as a teacher. There is always information locked behind his mind, and this, this was not one of them.

“Coffee shop?”

“The cafe this afternoon. He was cute. You looked like you never wanted the conversation to end. It was funny, really, because we already had plans tonight.” Your smile softens at the memory of sitting with him by the window and laughing at God-knows-what.

“You just kept finding new things to talk about. You even let me put that stupid bear band-aid on you. And, even after all that, you still looked disappointed when I had to leave.”

That… wasn’t him. He wasn’t in a coffee shop that afternoon. He had been in his classroom, teaching his kids. And—

Horror dawns on Ryland immediately when he realizes. His brother had come home wearing that bear band-aid. He remembers because he’d made fun of it. The same brother who had barely looked him in the eye when he’d asked how the afternoon went. Kept repeating the same words, “nothing interesting”.

That can’t be it. No, Colt would tell him.

Wouldn’t he?

Something flashes in Ryland’s mind, just in that split second of questioning—his brother persuading him not to go on the second date, the look on his face that morning, the redness in his eyes he said was from lack of sleep.

Ryland feels something cold settle in his stomach, freezing his bones, his lungs, his heart, until it seeps into every part of him. It spreads slowly, water seeping and searching for every crack, and by the time the realization reaches his head, he thinks he might actually be sick.

“Ryland? Are you alright?”

Your voice pulls him back. You’re looking at him with concerned eyes, but he can’t seem to brave eye contact.

“You’ve gone somewhere else.”

Every memory from that first date belongs to someone else. Every detail you mention always seemed to hold a semblance of his brother in there. There was always more fondness when you’d talked about your first date, and when you were talking about the coffee shop he’d never been to before.

That was all Colt. Colt who had been the one on your first date, who had walked you home that night, who you had thought about kissing, who stayed at that coffee shop because he couldn’t bear to leave you.

“Can I ask you something?”

You’ve asked that question so many times that it feels weird being redirected back at you. Odd, but not unwelcome. “Sure.”

“When you said…” He clears his throat, trying to find the right words to get his point across. “About coffee-shop Ryland. Did you like that version of me better?”

There is no mistaking the confusion that morphs into your face, trickling into every feature of yours that it almost isn’t necessary to say what you ask next. “What?”

“Were you happier with me then?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Now, there’s a hint of frustration in your voice you can’t hide. You’re confused, and a little frustrated because why is it that the question is necessary. Had you been conflicting with your feelings?

At the end of the day, he was all entirely one Ryland. Everything was him, so what did it matter which version of him you liked more?

“It doesn’t matter. I liked who you were on our first date, and the second, and even today when you’re arguing with books. I liked you this afternoon, too. I just like you.” You spread your hands helplessly. “All of those people are you.”

Ryland feels his chest tighten, averting his gaze elsewhere in the habit of being scolded. And, in a softer voice, he says, “Not entirely.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Just answer the question, please. Did you like me more then?”

You sigh, eyes shutting in that same frustration you’d been branding since he asked it in the first place. “You looked like you liked me more then. And I couldn’t stop smiling. So, maybe, yeah. I like when you’re that version of you. I never have to think about what’s in your mind, because in those moments, it feels like I already know.”

Ryland goes quiet.

His eyes drift somewhere just beyond you, unfocused, as though he’s trying to solve a problem that keeps changing every time he thinks he’s reached the answer. He never quite gets to the right answer.

His chest tightens with a dull, unfamiliar ache. It isn’t jealousy. It isn’t even heartbreak. It’s the sort of realization that all this time, he had been trying to compete with someone who he’d never be. You had always imagined that he was Colt.

“I see.”

Ryland rubs both hands over his face. He’s unsure of what to do, and you’re not sure how to perceive this conversation anymore. There are many things you understand with ease, but this is asking far and beyond for you.

Why was he reacting so greatly to this?

“Can you…” Ryland laughs, he actually laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “This is going to sound completely insane. I just…”

He looks at his phone on the table. There is only one thing to do.

“Can you give me five minutes?”

“You’re leaving? I don’t think we’ve finished our conversation.”

“Just five minutes. I just… I need to talk to someone.”

“Right now? It can’t wait til later?”

“Please.”

The laughter that leaves your lips is dry, almost incredulous. “I’ve been trying to understand your absurd questions and your vague responses for the past few minutes, and you suddenly want to make a phone call right now?”

“I promise it’ll make sense. I’m sorry. Please.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose, eyes shut for a moment as you try and breathe out the things you’re not understanding to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Okay.”

“Okay. Thank you. I just… I should’ve realized sooner. Will you please wait?” He tries to smile gratefully, and he hopes you saw it from how he’s already reaching for his phone and stumbling out the bookstore with Colt’s contact in hand.

The phone rings. Under his breath, Ryland mutters, “Pick up, you idiot.”

The apartment is loud now that Ryland has left and gone on another date with you.

Ever since Colt’s recent new heartbreak, he had invested in buying his own speakers. Sometimes, the plugs in his ears aren’t enough anymore. He needs the songs blasting and echoing around his walls. It’s not like Ryland’s home to complain anyway.

That’s how Justin Bieber ends up in his apartment.

If I was your boyfriend—

“No.” Colt points accusingly at his phone, rushing to pick it up and switch it to the song he’s intending. Because he wasn’t your boyfriend. It was an evil, sick joke his phone was playing on him to remind him exactly that. “Wrong song.”

Everybody’s laughing in my mind, rumours spreading ‘bout this other guy—

“There it is.”

He throws himself dramatically across the couch, laughing at his pathetic state as the tears keep streaming from his eyes down to his cheeks. He doesn’t even try to hide it anymore.

“This is a healthy way to cope.” He says into the air, voice congested from all the crying. He doesn’t know who he’s defending himself to, but he felt it necessary to be said out loud. As if Whoever The Fuck was judging him in this moment.

He buries his face into one of Ryland’s throw pillows, leaving behind wet patches of his tear strains. He’s sure they’ll dry by the time Ryland comes home. This is fine.

The song continues as he sobs pathetically.

That should be me… This is so sad…

“Exactly.” He points at the ceiling this time. “This really is so sad. That should be me feeling your kiss!”

His phone buzzes, but Justin Bieber’s making some pretty good points through the speakers. Ryland can wait.

He silences the call, letting Bieber preach his truth.

Ryland’s probably just calling to geek out over you anyway—how you’re so incredible, how another date is set for tomorrow, how beautiful you are. But that should be him! So for now, Colt has the right to ignore him.

The song ends, music switching to another Taylor Swift song, and Colt can only groan louder at the pillow.

“I am not the kind of girl who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion…”

“And you are not the type of girl who should be marrying the wrong boy!” Colt finishes for Taylor, purposely switching out the pronouns so he can feel his misery more. As if, in some way, he was directly talking to you.

Because it is You. You’re going to get married to Ryland, and he will be forced to watch. You’re probably planning your wedding dress right now, the type of cake you’ll want, the flowers, and Ryland’s going to make him best man, and oh God, he thinks he might vomit—

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

The phone keeps buzzing. Because who is Ryland if not persistent? (Despite Colt’s misery.)

Taylor barely has time to belt out her bridge when the buzzing was starting to kill the mood. Colt groans loudly into the pillow, kicking his legs around in a mini tantrum. Can’t he have this one moment to yell along the lyrics, to vicariously live through Taylor as she finally ‘speaks now’.

After his tantrum, and a few more frustrated tears, he finally picks up.

“What.” He sniffles right after, and he can only hope that wherever Ryland is is full of noise to mask the pathetic way he had sniffled.

“Where the hell are you?”

“Home? Where else would I be?”

“I’m sending you an address.” Ryland sounds extremely panicked. He only sounded like this when he was missing a deadline. “I need you here.”

Colt sits upright at that, Ryland’s throw pillow still clutched tightly in one of his arms. Another sniffle. “Why?”

“Why didn’t you just tell me, Colt?”

“I’m afraid you’re not really making sense right now, bro—“

Ryland’s voice climbs. “That you like her!”

Colt finds that multiple words are stuck at his throat, it dries and thickens, and it’s getting a little hot in this room, and is the airconditioning still on? It’s impossibly hot and sweaty right now.

“Buddy, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tries to deflect. A palm wipes at tears? sweat? whatever was gathering on his cheeks.

“Cut it, Colt. I know you’re in love with (Name). I, just, since when, Colt?”

He coughs as a response.

“Answer me, Colt.”

“Since the first date.”

“Jesus.” If Ryland didn’t sound stressed before, he definitely was now. Colt can almost picture him tugging at his hair, eyebrows furrowed in the way it does when he worries. “You didn’t think I’d want to know?”

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

“It mattered! It definitely mattered! If you’d told me—” Ryland almost shouts, but he’s quick to calm himself. It’s like a switch, really. Like he’d somehow remembered the years of teaching himself patience.

Instead, he starts speaking in a smaller voice. Quiet. Almost guilty. “I would’ve never gotten in the way. I wouldn’t have gone on that second date if you’d told me.”

“I’m sorry—“

“No time. Look, I’m outside of this bookstore trying very hard not to accidentally ruin her entire week. So, get your ass here, Colt. Or I swear to God.”

Panic suddenly settles in Colt. He stares at his phone for a second too long. His thoughts are suddenly everywhere at once, tripping over each other before any of them can fully form.

“What am I supposed to do when I get there?”

I’m sorry for pretending to be my brother? Sorry that I ended up falling for you? Sorry that I was just crying to Justin Bieber a few minutes ago?

“Just get over here and fix this.”

Ryland’s right, and Taylor’s right. He has to speak now. This is his last chance.

“I have to speak now or forever hold my peace.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Ryland stands outside the bookstore for a full minute after the phone call before he gathers up enough courage to go back in.

There are multiple things he’s going to say to you to stall for some time. It’s not like the bookstore was far from his apartment, so he’d only need to say the words he had practiced and are in his head at that moment. A few apologies, a heartbreaking parting line, anything.

Unfortunately, none of his rehearsed words ever survive long enough to reach your table because when he walks in, you’re already putting on your coat.

His heart drops at the sight.

You look up at the exact same moment, lips in trial of a smile. “I think I should go. I just suddenly feel a little embarrassed. I think I got a little ahead of myself tonight.”

“You didn’t.”

You sling your bag over your shoulder, and it makes Ryland even more frantic. He’s fumbling over getting you to stay, all while trying not to touch you disrespectfully. If it had been anyone else, he’d have just grabbed onto your arm, but he can’t do that to you. Anyone but you.

He glances toward the door, then back at you, and then at his phone like an answer would suddenly present itself. “Just a few more minutes, please.”

“Ryland.”

“(Name).”

He really is persistent, following you all the way to the front door all while pleading you to stay for another minute without exactly explaining why, just that “it’ll all make sense”.

The second the door opens, cold air slams into both of you. It’s raining, hard and nasty and harsh, sheets of water swallowing the street until it almost disappears behind the downpour. Wind rushes into the bookstore, tugging loose strands of your hair across your face and sending the little bell above the door into a frantic fit.

You instinctively step back.

Ryland, on the other hand, almost laughs.

Of course it starts raining now.

He’d finally worked up the courage to tell Colt to get over here, finally accepted that you were never his in the first place, your heart had always belonged to the boy on that first date with you. Of course, the universe had apparently decided to make getting here as difficult as humanly possible.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

A crack of thunder answers him.

Ryland tips his head back for half a second, eyes falling shut. At least it got you to stay a little bit, despite the sudden awkwardness growing.

Right when he’s about to give up, he spots movement in the corner of his eye. It looks a lot like someone running across the street, sprinting through the harsh heavy-hits of the rain.

Your eyes narrow at the figure that is very much running towards the direction of you and Ryland. It’s almost uncanny, a little bit creepy.

The man reaches where you’re sheltered, bent over with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath the moment he’s finally escaped the rain.

You’re about to step away from the stranger, trying not to get yourself wet, when he suddenly looks up. Your breath hitches at the sight. Absolutely fucking not. There is no way.

“Hi.”

You look at him, and back at the person beside you. And you start laughing. Actually laughing with a serene smile to the absolutely fuckery that was your life right now. Like you’re almost sorry for yourself for existing in this exact moment.

“I think I’m hallucinating.”

If one more thing fucks your head up today, you swear you’ll start crying.

You look between them again, still shaking your head in a bewildered laughter. Like you can’t quite believe it. This must be the peak of your satirical life.

“There are two of you. I’m gonna need someone to start talking or I’m actually going to pass out.”

Ryland—the dry one—lets out a sigh. “That would be my cue. Just know I’m really sorry, (Name). But uh, he’s got this one.”

He pats your back gently, and then he’s pulling at his exact replica, whispering a harsh, “Dude, were you crying before coming here?"

“Of course not, what am I? A fucking loser? Go, go. Go away.” The wet one is shooing him away, and you really are about to pass out. This must be a simulation, a mockery of your life for believing someone as attractive as Ryland could hold feelings for you.

He’s looking at you now, with eyes red and puffy, and easy to discern trembling lips. His hair is plastered to his forehead, rainwater rolling down the bridge of his nose and off the sleeves of his sweater.

And despite the tear strains that look like trembling contrite, you’d be able to make out that face in a crowd of thousands. It’s the same face you’d stared at for a long time that night—that first night you’d gone on a date with him—trying desperately to behave yourself and not kiss him.

He had the same stubble, the same scar just beneath his jaw from an injury that probably never healed.

“Ryland?”

The guilt on his face is immediate, and there is a lonely, melancholic chuckle that leaves his lips at the name. “No. That… would be the guy who just left. I’m Colt.”

You stare, with furrowed eyebrows, like you still don’t understand.

“We’re twins.”

“I don’t— I don’t understand. The first date, and a while ago, that was—“

“That was me.” His shoulders droop just a little.

“And tonight, that—“

“My brother.”

Rain drums loudly against the awning above you. Colt, you now know, is dipping his head, hand linked behind his back, and his expression schooled into a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He looks like he’s trying hard not to start crying again.

“Then that means— I don’t…” You’re stumbling over your words, stepping back a little from him. You don’t understand, even with the facts laid out. You don’t understand how this could’ve happened.

“Ryland was busy that first date, so he asked me to go for him.”

“Oh.”

“It was only meant to be for an hour.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better? Now, I just feel like a victim of some awful prank. I feel like I’ve been… played with.” You frown at the thought.

“No—“

“Was it fun, then? Switching between the two of you and laughing cause I never found out? Was this all some sort of sick joke you’re playing as twin brothers?”

There’s a strain in your voice now, and fuck, Colt doesn’t think he can bear the sight of your tear-strained eyes, doesn’t think he can handle the quiver in tour lips.

“No, no, no. You have us—me all wrong. It wasn’t like that at all.”

“What was it like then?” Your voice wavers, and he can see you sucking in a deep breath. Your eyes shine in a way they hadn’t before. It’s confused, and hurt, and betrayed enough that Colt almost has to look away. But it also breaks his heart that you’d ever imply that.

The accusation hits him harder than the rain had earlier. He would never play with your feelings like that.

“Everything was real.”

“I don’t think that’s fair to say.” Tears are slipping past your eyes, and you move to wipe them on instinct. “You introduced yourself as someone else.”

“I know.”

“And you kept pretending to be someone else, even this afternoon.”

“I know.”

“You should’ve told me.” Backed up by feeling like everything had been one-sided, your fingers tighten around the sleeves of the top you’re wearing, and you’re shaking your head at his mere audacity.

“I should’ve, and it was my mistake. I should’ve told you after that first date, at the coffee shop, at any point. I should’ve told you.” Colt drags a hand over his soaked face. “But I was afraid. I was afraid you liked my brother more, I was afraid I was only a placeholder, a hostel until a house in the form of Ryland came.”

“You don’t get to decide that for me.” The words taste bitter in your mouth.

“I wanted to tell you, I really did. But then you’d smile at me, and you’d talk, and you’d make me laugh, and you’d put that bear band-aid on my arm.” Colt’s having difficulty speaking, especially with the lump in his threat, and the tears that had been spilling for a while. His thumb brushes over the cartoon bear still stuck beneath his sleeve. “But I kept thinking of Ryland, too. What was I going to tell him? By the way, I met with the girl you were supposed to go on a date with, and now I’m in love with her.’”

The words leave him in one breath. They flow, through strings and untangled spools, and he says it straight that it makes you wonder how long they’ve been rehearsed in his head.

“I didn’t know what to do. I wanted the best for my brother, but I’m so in love with you. So, I didn’t— I couldn’t tell you. I’d rather my feelings hurt than his.”

He sounds ashamed, and the break in his voice does nothing to disguise his guilt.

It’s silent for a moment, like you’re thinking real hard about his words. There’s still a frown on your lips that slowly morphs into a sort of heartbreak he doesn’t know could manifest on the mouth. There is chewing of your bottom lip, trying hard to keep it from trembling, and there is the hesitation in your eyes as you look up at him after staring at the wet floor for a long time.

“Was any of it really real?”

He doesn’t allow a second to pass before he replies, “All of it.”

“The first date?”

“My favorite night I’ve had in years.”

“And the coffee shop?”

“You left me, and I spent way too much money on coffee that I let turn cold. I was basically heartbroken twice.”

Your lips twitch, barely.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You said you missed ridiculous.”

You look back down at the puddles collecting around your shoes, letting out a breath. “I do… I— I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. What about Ryland?”

There is softness in your voices now, a sort of gentle compared to the frustration it had held.

“He didn’t know until now that I like you. He’s a good person, he’d never do anything to intentionally hurt you. He’d never do anything to hurt me.”

You remember the look on Ryland’s face before he left, when you’d told him you liked the version of him in the coffee shop better, and every single time you referenced your first date. “And the dates?”

“They were real, too. He liked you. How could he not?”

But Ryland was never the one you kept asking about, now that you know Colt. You’d kept asking and asking him if he still liked you, but you didn’t know he didn’t have the answer for that. You’d been asking Colt, and he wasn’t Colt.

“But I just kept thinking he was you. I feel… God, I feel so guilty. I kept talking to him about you. I thought he was you.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I really should’ve just told you.” He sighs, and with a more tentative voice, a question follows. “Would it be wrong of me to ask if I totally fucked up my chances with you?”

You think about it, and Colt spends the entire silence of your thinking with the same constipated face, albeit a bit hopeful.

“You pretended to be someone else. And you lied to me. And you made me cry just now.”

“All fair points.” His voice is thick and heavy, looking at your eyes for a second before looking down on the pavement. Like he doesn’t deserve to look at you yet.

Colt looks dejected at the reminders, eyes still puffy, and there is a pathetic voice in him telling him to smile even though he feels like he’d just lost.

“I don’t know. But I…” Your eyes trail to the rest of him — wet hair, slumped shoulders, slightly trembling hands. “I’d still like to get to know Colt despite it all.”

He looks up at you suddenly, like he hadn’t heard you properly. “Really?”

Colt blinks, frozen in front of you. Suddenly, he feels lightheaded, like he didn’t think that answer could’ve been possible. He might even be on cloud nine, he can’t tell from the blood rushing to his ears and making it ring. You could’ve answered with anything, and he would’ve thanked you and apologized at the same time. He just didn’t expect that. That you’d say something about wanting to know him.

You nod your head. “This time, maybe you could… introduce yourself properly.”

“Okay. Yeah, of course.” The relief that washes over his face is almost comical, his shoulders straightening after being hunched the entire evening. And he’s offering his hand, outstretched and patient.

“Hi. I’m Colt.”

“A bit late.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He smiles sheepishly. A last sniffle. “But I figured I still owe the girl I’ve been in love with since our first date an honest introduction.”

Your heart melts, and you find yourself mirroring his smile.

“Hi, Colt.” You take his hand in yours, shaking it once. His name from your mouth could’ve made him faint, heartbeat thumping and thudding impossibly at finally hearing it. “I’ve known you for quite a while, but it’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Can I take you out of here, (Name)?”

“Depends, Colt. Will there be a family emergency to fake this time?”

“No.”

“I haven’t even asked yet!”

“Don’t care. I know that voice.” Colt points at his brother suspiciously with the empty carton. “That’s your ‘this is about to ruin my evening’ voice, and I don’t think I appreciate the sentiment.”

Ryland ignores him. “Listen. I have a blind date tonight, but apparently Ilyukhina is unaware of the blind aspect of a blind date so she showed her a picture of my face.” 

Colt’s mouth drops. And for a moment, he just stares at his brother. Until a few seconds pass and he starts to laugh. And he keeps laughing—in that mouth wide open, head tilted forward, hands clutching the stomach kind of laughter. “Oh, absolutely not.”

If murder wasn’t illegal, one would’ve already been committed in this very moment.

“We’re twins. It’s not like she’s going to kno— okay, will you stop laughing?”

“Ry, you have to understand how insane this sounds. Come on, that sounds like the plot of a really bad sitcom.” Colt’s shaking his head, trying to wipe away the remains of laughter in the corner of his eyes, but his mouth is still twitching a little from the aftermath of laughing a little too hard. “Besides, why can’t you just go yourself? Are you chickening out?”

“I am not chickening out. I got pulled into a meeting.” Ryland exhales sharply through his nose, voice deeper when he says 'not' and currently visibly trying not to strangle his brother with anything within reach, which is quite a number of things—the rag cloth, the strings of his hoodie, his own hands. 

Instead, he continues speaking, “Just pretend to be me for an hour. I’ll try to make it after the meeting.”

And with the gravity of the situation, he adds one last word, “...please.”

Well, that one definitely lands and Colt has to pause from gulping down the orange juice he’d stolen. And he thinks he should relish in this moment longer, his brother begging him. It doesn’t happen very often. He’s usually reprimanded by his twin, not pleaded with.

“Oh, you’re desperate.”

Ryland’s eye twitches, and he resists the urge to pinch his nose bridge. “All you really have to do is show up, smile, don’t flirt too much–”

“Impossible restriction.” Ryland drops his face into his hands, groaning loudly at his brother’s response, and before he can reply with a snide remark, Colt asks, “What if she asks a question I can’t answer?”

“Colt, you’ve known me all my life.” Ryland deadpans, heaving a stage-worthy sigh.

“Fair point.” Colt sighs. “You're really asking me to commit identity theft? You think this is going to work?”

“Yes. So, will you do it?”

Colt ponders on the question because technically, he did owe Ryland a favor, and he was only asking for an hour of his time. And, in all honesty, Colt thinks he can pull of a perfect Ryland Grace so it was a way to boost his own ego. And what was a date anyway? He’s been on multiple dates before. 

Even with an answer, he lets the silence stretch for a few seconds more, just to be annoying. Just so he can see the way Ryland anxiously taps on the kitchen counter with his fingers, or his feet on the ground. And when Colt has enough satisfaction, finally, he says, “Fine.”

Ryland visibly relaxes. “Thank you.”

“But if she falls in love with me, that’s on you.” 

The relaxed features on Ryland’s face contorts into a somewhat disgusted face. “You’re ridiculous.”

The air is cool in that early-evening way that denotes the slow tipping of autumn into winter. The city glows a warm orange, and there’s laughter spilling out from crowded restaurants whenever the doors open. 

Colt checks his phone again. Ryland had given you his number, claiming that he’d suddenly had to change numbers due to scammer calls and phishing schemes. And he all but stares at the same message reflecting, that you were on your way. 

It stares back at him.

He rubs the space between his eyes and sighs. This is a terrible idea, a terrible terrible idea. Still, Colt thanks Fuck for choosing the day he’s not masked in his own injuries or little scars from stunt work, picks a day where he actually looks like he has his shit together, and not a man about to commit identity fraud. 

“Ryland?,” a soft voice. 10 jars of honey in the way you speak, but Colt recognizes that this was about to be the start of an evening full of lies. And then he sees you, and Colt looks beyond amazed. 

Suddenly, he’s nearly convinced there is something significant standing behind him, because what is the connotation of the beauty he’s being subjected to, the same beauty who is looking up at him with a hesitant smile. 

Colt pauses, which if Ryland was here to see it would know that it was always a bad sign because it means he’s thinking, really thinking. And he is, he knows this is the exact moment he could stop everything. 

Instead, he says, “yeah.”

Your smile widens just a little, and there’s something endearing about the way you press a hand briefly against your chest. “Oh good. I was terrified I’d accidentally agreed to meet a serial killer.”

Colt snorts. “Well, disappointing start for you, then.”

“You joke,” you say, narrowing your eyes slightly as you step closer, “but statistically speaking, I was taking a real risk tonight."

You look up at him, looking up at his disheveled hair from the wind outside. It curls slightly near the ends, stubborn in a way Ryland’s is too. "Your hair's a little longer than in your photo."

“Ha, you know hair. Grows… grows at no specified rate." Woah, what the hell. He didn't even mean to perfectly imitate Ryland in that moment. "Sorry, could you remind me how long do blind dates usually take before one person decides to fake a family emergency?”

You laugh, and Colt feels something shift in the air. “Maybe around twenty minutes. Sorry, we’re still a little ahead of schedule. You’re still stuck with me for 17 minutes more.”

Colt can’t help but smile back at you because the thrill in your smile is too wholesome not to. “Shall we head inside then? Got to make those 17 minutes count.”

“Yeah. That would be ideal.”

The hostess leads you toward the patio seating, and it’s quaint, but incredibly breathtaking. The warm lighting does a great deal at creating an almost comfortable environment. And it’s the perfect spot that the blurred headlights and the city lights reflect just at the huge glass window behind you. Really, perfect for a first date. 

Colt pulls out the chair for you, something that’s just taught in the How To Be A Gentleman handbook, and tucks you into the table before he takes his own seat.

“I should tell you right now that I’m a little terrible at first dates.” You say the moment you're settled in.

“You seem fine.”

“That’s because you just met me. It’s only been like five minutes.”

He smiles despite himself. “It gets worse?”

“Dramatically worse.”

“Good. I’m excited to see that.”

The waiter assigned to you arrives with two menus and a bottle of service water, and you thank him politely as you take a copy, flipping through it without really reading.

And by the time you order your drinks and the food, a few conversations have already passed.

“Were you nervous to come here?” You ask more for yourself, but you’re still curious what his answer would be. 

“Maybe a little.” Nevermind the reason for his nervousness was the identity theft he was committing. He’s still trying to get used to you calling him Ryland without it surprising him each time.

“Good.” You mirror his response from a few minutes earlier, and he can’t help but huff out a laugh. Though, despite his laughter, he still notices the way your shoulders visibly loosen at his response, like you’d almost hoped that would be his response.

“Good?”

“Yeah cause I was nervous too. It makes me feel less stupid to know you were too, even if it was just a little.”

Colt watches the way you fidget lightly with your sleeve as you speak. Your fingers keep smoothing the fabric over your wrists before immediately letting go again. 

“You shouldn’t feel stupid.” He interjects, trying to ease your nerves. 

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t told you what I did yet.”

He smiles. There’s something about the way you say it, like you’re about to change his life, tell him the craziest story. “What did you do?”

“I changed outfits three times.”

“That’s normal.”

“Four times.” You glance at him, your cheeks pink, and he has half a mind to tell you just how strange the sight makes him feel.

“Still normal.”

“And I arrived way too early so I had to walk around the block twice. And then I almost cancelled.”

This time Colt’s smile softens around the edges. You’re so honest and so easy to talk to, and so quick with conversation. You’re someone who can make anyone feel at home, and you’re charming without intending to be, and that's exactly the problem. Colt has known you less than an hour and somehow you're already slipping through his walls.

"You know," he says, leaning back in his chair, "I don't think I've ever met anybody who admits that on a first date."

You groan immediately. "See? This is why I almost cancelled."

"No, I mean it." Colt shakes his head. "Most people would've taken that information to the grave."

Your smile tugs at the corner of your mouth. He watches it for a second before asking, "Why'd you almost cancel?"

“I don’t know,” you admit quietly, glancing down at the table. “I always think things will be awkward before they happen.”

“And does it feel awkward right now?”

You look back up at him then with your head tilted, and you can almost picture the glint of hopefulness in his eyes but you don’t want to assume. “Just a little.”

Colt leans further back in his chair like he’s relaxed. He isn’t, really. But he wants you to believe he is because a few minutes into the date, you’d already turned him into a sap. And relaxed is way cooler than sappy.

He really does not want to think about how sappy he feels right now. He doesn’t want to think about the feeble stutter in his heart whenever you laugh. He's already lying to you. Developing feelings on top of that feels like building a second bad idea on top of the first one.

“Oh, you’re a science teacher, right? What’s that like?”

Right. Jesus, he forgot he was still pretending to be Ryland. You really have to stop smiling at him like that. He’s starting to like you, and it’s not good on his conscience that he’s pretending to be his brother, and that you think he is his brother.

“It’s uh, good.” Colt says carefully.

You rest your chin against your hand. “What’s your favorite thing to teach?” You ask like you’re genuinely curious, and for a second Colt has the answer, but you’re looking at him so intently that his brain empties completely. 

Think, Colt. You attended your brother’s graduation, what the hell was it that he studied? Astronomy? No, it’s something with little things and life. 

“Molecular biology!”

Your eyes widen with immediate interest. “Really? For eighth graders?”

“Yeah,” Colt says, nodding like a man moments away from being exposed from a grave sin. “I love molecules. Tiny organisms. Cells. Little… science fellas.”

You stare at him for exactly one second before breaking into laughter, and Colt finds himself watching, drinking up your movements. You just, you laugh with your entire face, and your happiness just spills into everything and it’s so infectious. The way your eyes widen slightly, the way your shoulders fold inward, like you’re genuinely delighted instead of politely amused.

Fuck, he wants to keep making you laugh. He wants to keep hearing your laugh.

Something warm twists in his chest, and Colt has the deeply alarming realization that there is something blooming inside of him and it’s akin to romance. He certainly did not expect to meet someone like you tonight. And shit, his heartbeat is doing something genuinely humiliating inside his chest. 

“You don’t really talk like a teacher,” you say after a moment. “Come on, little science fellas?”

“That’s the official term.” 

“Stop lying to me!” He laughs at your being flabbergasted, eyes turning into crescents. 

“Okay, okay. Here, I’m gonna talk like a teacher.” Colt straightens immediately in his chair. 

Your smile turns teasing. “Oh yeah?”

“Here it goes.” He clears his throat dramatically. “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”

He delivers it with complete sincerity. Smug for exactly one second. Then your laugh breaks loose again and his expression softens helplessly. 

“Oh my god,” you say.

“Sorry. That’s all I got.”

“No, that was perfect.” You shake your head, grinning down into your drink. “You looked so proud of yourself too.”

And the scene of you smiling that greets him is so gentle, so soft, that it takes him a moment to catch up to what you’re saying. He knows you mean something else, that he should be proud of his stupid joke or for remembering something he learned in high school, but he looked proud for an entirely different reason.

He’d made you laugh again. He’d heard you laugh again. 

So, he replies, in a little white lie, “I really was.”

Colt realizes immediately after, with that same deep undertow of shame, that he is caught in the jaws of a trap entirely of his own making. And he can’t stop walking willingly deeper into it.

He thanks Fuck that not long after, the food arrives and for a moment, the sounds of the city accompany the pair of you as you eat—silverware clinking somewhere inside the restaurant, distant traffic below, the low hum of conversation from nearby tables. It allows him a moment to catch himself, to try and stabilize his heart.

But how can he really when you keep looking at him. Then quickly looking away. Then back again, before darting away again. Finally, you sigh. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I keep looking at you.”

A smile twitches on Colt’s lips. “I think that’s supposed to be my line.”

You laugh quietly, ducking your head in the palms of your hands. The sight of your smile makes him laugh a little too.

“Why are you looking at me?” He inquires, his grin lopsided as follows the lilt of your movement, the way you hide your face in your hands, and he can’t help but seek for your eyes. “Don’t hide from me.”

You lower your hands slowly, peeking at him through your fingers first before finally answering in such a clear, and almost sweet tone. “You just look really pretty, and you’re really good at paying attention to everything.”

Colt’s stomach twists as his ears registers your words and somewhere during it, he grows redder than before and his palms are suddenly becoming clammy and he’s rubbing the back of his neck. How do you always catch him off guard like this?

He blinks once. Then twice. And maybe ten times more.

That's genuinely the nicest thing anyone's said to him in a while. "Oh."

He’s still looking at you even after the silence that follows, amazed and flattered that someone could ever say that about him, that you could say that about him. And he’s trying so hard not to look like he’d just been called pretty.

“Sorry,” you say quickly. “Am I talking too much?”

“No.” He immediately interjects, coming back to look at your eyes. Something inside him is still stuttering as he tries to focus after you’d just complemented him.

“I usually do.” You glance away briefly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear and Colt personally has to fight down the urge to reach out and tug the slip of hair back down to your face. “I’m doing it right now.”

“Then keep doing it.”

You pause, and a smile slowly starts to creep back on your lips. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You know, I noticed it’s been more than an hour since our date started. Do you no longer have that family emergency you have to fake?”

Colt smiles at the repetition of the joke he’d said earlier in the evening, before realizing you’re waiting for him to say something. There’s still that same softness pulsing inside of him, slowly growing and growing and growing. “I’m invested now.”

“In what?”

He lets out a soft breath, shoulders hunching forward slightly as he bends over to be a little closer to you. His expression changes into something more serious. “You."

Your smile changes then—softer, crooked, almost shy. Your limbs are starting to feel loose, and your chest tightens and blooms with warmth.

“That’s a very nice thing to say, Ryland.”

The name lands wrong in his chest, but he doesn’t want to dwell on it. He can pretend much longer, especially after receiving a text from his brother earlier that the meeting would run later than expected. Colt had you for the night, and he intends on making it last.

“Well,” Colt says, “I like you.”

Your eyes widen slightly, and you flush at the sudden confession. Your lips part, wanting to say something, but all the vowels and consonants twist in your mouth, and all you can manage is a small “Oh.”

Shit.

You watch as the color rushes into his face, like spilling wine on a paper towel, and he’s covering his mouth with his hand, and he’s struggling to meet your eyes.

“That came out weirdly fast,” he says immediately, trying to catch himself. His eyes are wide and almost panicked, and it’s so endearing because he looks like he’s ashamed of the way he’s softening and coming unraveled and untangled in front of you.

“No, it’s okay.” You smile. “I just wasn’t expecting you to say it out loud.”

He pauses, and you see him filing through potential responses or excuses but give up midway.

“Yeah,” he chooses honestly instead. “Neither was I, honestly.”

“Most people wait until at least dessert.” You tease, glancing at him over the rim of your glass, and this time, when he looks at you, his face is full of nothing but fondness twinged with embarrassment. You don’t know how the two emotions are able to coexist on his face at the same time. 

“I feel embarrassed. Was that intense? It was, wasn’t it?”

“A little.” you say softly. 

“Just a little?”

“Okay, maybe a moderate amount. But it was nice.”

You smile at each other, and neither of you are able to keep the blush from your own cheeks.

By the time dinner ends, the city outside has morphed into a blue-black evening with stars littered randomly in the blanketing sky. The cold air rushes in as the two of you step out onto the sidewalk together, and Colt’s hand brushes lightly against the small of your back while guiding you around another couple exiting the restaurant.

The touch lingers half a second too long.

You notice.

“I’m glad I came,” you admit quietly.

“Yeah?” He asks, almost too quiet to catch, almost like he can’t believe it. 

“Yeah.”

“Even after changing outfits four times?” He nudges your shoulder with his, and you laugh.

“Five actually.”

“Five? I think you failed to mention that.” There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips, and he’s trying so hard to fight the grin that’s threatening to show, but you just have that effect on people. You’re just so earnest. “Which outfit won?”

You gesture down at yourself. “This one.” 

You say it with such happiness and enthusiasm that Colt can’t help but stare at you and the cold that catches pink along your cheeks, and your hair that’s shifting softly in the wind, and how bright your eyes look under the streetlights. God, he really thought he was doing his brother a favor by coming here, but Ryland might’ve accidentally done one for Colt instead.

His heart gives one hard, helpless thud against his ribs as his eyes travel up and down your outfit.

"I've been meaning to mention it all night, but you look really pretty."

The blood thumped so loudly in your ears that you almost didn’t hear him. “Thanks. You don't look so bad yourself."

A comfortable silence falls, like neither of you want to leave quite yet. And then, "Ryland?"

"Hm?"

"I'm really glad tonight wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be,” you admit.

Colt blinks. “So you still think it’s awkward?”

“Yeah,” you say thoughtfully. “But like… the good kind.”

“There’s a good kind?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s that?”

You look at him for a second. “When you’re nervous because you want someone to like you.”

Colt’s heart nearly stops. That was the final blow. Of all the things you could’ve said, this was not something Colt could’ve ever braced himself for. He looks away immediately, rubbing at the back of his neck again. It’s really not in his nature to falter, but then again, he really can’t help it with you, can he?

Not when this is what your heart is like. Like there’s no need to put pressure when it’s something as warm and easy as this.

“You’re blushing, Ryland.”

“I can’t really help it when you say things like that.”

He lets out a helpless laugh at the name. He has half a mind to tell you he actually goes by ‘Colt’ even though it couldn’t have been further away from ‘Ryland’.

Still, he swallows it to enjoy these last final moments with you. 

“Goodnight, Ryland.”

“Goodnight.”

A silence falls between you both before you take a few steps away. He mirrors your actions, albeit a little more tentatively.

“Ryland?” 

Colt immediately turns back at the interjection of your voice, looking at you with that same look from earlier. It’s almost fond, almost hopeful. And Colt hovers there, waiting. 

“Do you want to walk me home?”

You’re trying so hard to keep your voice monotone. He’s trying so hard not to smile, and in all honesty, he should absolutely say no, he should tell you the truth right now before this turns into something impossible because he knows that if he continues to know you, he won’t be able to stop falling for you. Instead, he answers almost immediately, “I’d want nothing more.”

And while walking home, he finds himself glancing down at your hand, wondering what it would be like if he could just reach over and intertwine his fingers with yours, or kiss your cheeks, or make you laugh again.

Just to be on the safe side, you yank the door open with a tight smile on your face and hiss out as neutrally as possible, "Can I help you?"

"... Oh." The smug smirk drops from the man's face.

You blink.

The man leaning against the doorframe, and was casually abusing your doorbell until a second ago is a carbon copy of your boyfriend.

".... No."

Shaking your head, you shut the door, the small chain locked into place, palm covering the peephole just in case.

From the split-second look you got, the resemblance is uncanny. The eyes, the jawline, down to the curl of their lips when they are sporting a lopsided smile. There are some differences such as the stranger having slightly coarser facial hair and a more rugged style — though even the silhouette of sporting a jacket is similar.

Scam calls of people imitating your elderly parents or your friends or partners are common. Likewise, accounts getting hacked and sending malicious links to people's inboxes pretending to be the owner are common.

Not whatever this— this Mandela Catalogue, this No I Am Not Human, this Among Us, Imposter situation—

"Uh, Ma'am..?" The Doppelganger awkwardly clears his throat, tapping on the door from the other side to get your attention, "Terribly sorry if it's wrong, but there's supposed to be a Ryland Grace living here..?"

... Okay. The fact that he knows Ryland's full name means good. ... Probably.

".......Ry..!" you yell as you approach the bathroom, and a muffled One sec! accompanies the sound of shuffling before Ryland opens the bathroom door, hair still sopping wet, the bathrobe barely halfway closed. "... There's a clone of you at the door."

"Clone..?" Ryland tilts his head, and it takes a fraction of a second before realisation dawns on him. "Oh! Can you let him in? I'll get dressed super quick!"

... Okay. So he knows the guy, great!

You slammed the door in the guy's face. .... Not-so-great.

Swallowing your nerves, you crack the door open, hesitantly peeking your head out to meekly offer, "... Come in, please. He'll be with you in a moment."

The Not-Ryland closes his eyes for a second before he gives you a thankful nod as he steps in, but the way his lips are pursed and his shoulders shaking slightly is proof enough of how hard he's trying to hold in his laughter.

It makes laughter bubble up in your own stomach, honestly. The entire situation is ridiculous.

"So," you start, "Since Ryland is apparently wrestling his wardrobe and will take a while, I suppose introductions are in order," extending your hand for a handshake, you offer him your name, "... The girlfriend," you tack on the title.

"Colt Seavers," A calloused hand takes yours in a firm handshake, mimicking your format "...The twin brother."

"Ugh, figures!" you chuckle, running a hand through your messy hair, "I don't know my first thought was some kind of clone version of Ry, I really need to lay off sci-fi movies for a while—"

It dawns on you that you're still in your pajamas. Hell, you're standing in front of your boyfriend's unknown-until-now brother freshly rolled out of bed.

"I should get dressed!" you turn on your heel towards the bedroom, only to turn back around again at the thought of leaving a guest unattended in the arguably messy (you now realise) living room, without a beverage, no less. "Actually— can I get you anything? Coffee, tea—?"

"I'm good, sweetheart, no need to worry," He waves you off, moving to the kitchen himself. "Sorry for the scare. My dear little brother forgot to mention he has a girlfriend. I mean, I know our communication is a bit spotty sometimes, but sheesh!" He reaches for a mug from the cabinets, seemingly knowing his way around.

"Funny, he also forgot to mention he has a twin brother to me."

"Don't blame him too much. Things sometimes slip his mind — you know how he gets." Colt gives you a non-committal shrug as he waits on the coffee machine, "You can go change. Cute pajamas though." He points to your fluffy pajamas, decked in panda prints.

"Shut up," you half-heartedly swat at his direction, already halfway through the room before he finishes his sentence. "Cool jacket! I'll be back in a jiffy."

Whipping around suddenly, you support yourself on the doorframe, leaning in to whisper; "Do you have some embarrassing childhood stories to share?"

Colt barks out a short laugh, giving you a double thumbs up. "Thousands."

"Booyah!"

"I did not just hear the two of you plotting against me." Ryland comes up from behind you, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Of course you didn't!"

Colt gives you a nod and a half-smile, not bothering to remove his sunglasses indoors.

"You're early, you don't usually beat me here," you say. Every morning you substitute at Grover Cleveland Middle School, you come to this cafe. It doubles as a used bookshop, and it tends to have decent classics alongside newer novels. There's a room in the back to sit before you go to work, and it's one of your favorite places in the world. There are ceiling to floor shelves filled with books organized by color. The rainbow of books, while perhaps impractical for searching for specific literature, is beautiful and comforting.

You order your coffee after he does, something more sugar than actual coffee, and sit down in the rainbow book room.

"So... substituting again?" He asks, trying not to die inside of how awkward that sounded.

"Yeah, Mr. Letham is still in the hospital after his accident, but they said he's improving and he should be home next week and maybe teaching as early as the week after." You give a pained smile, hoping the best for the art teacher. "In the meantime, I'm having the kiddos make 'get well' cards and I'll take them over to the hospital after work today."

Colt nods along, having no idea who Mr. Letham is or what his accident was, but it makes him grimace a bit at the thought. "That's...nice. The cards. Very thoughtful." He gives a thumbs up and nods, internally banging his head against a mental wall. It's not his fault every time you're around his brain malfunctions completely. Your hair isn't completely dry from your morning shower and he can smell your shampoo. Is that weird? Should he be trying to figure out what scent your shampoo is?

You nod as well, pressing your lips together. "Yeah. Thanks." You exhale, feeling like the conversation should be put down, the way it's limping on. "Hey, listen...I was just wondering if you'd like to maybe carpool? Biking is cool, but if we go to the same coffee shop every morning anyway, maybe we should just go in together?" You can feel heat rushing to your face for even asking.

Is Ryland still biking? He doesn't have a car yet? Colt thinks to himself. He pinches the bridge of his nose, his sunglasses going up a little. "No, sorry. I can't. I have to go, actually. Right now."

"Oh, okay—" you freeze as he gets up abruptly. Ryland is always strange to you. One minute he's warm and kind, like in the halls at Grover Cleveland, and the next, he's bolting out the door while you sit there, stupefied.

Colt runs his hand through his hair, exhaling as he gets onto his motorcycle. He puts his glasses in his jacket and pulls on the helmet, feeling that pit of guilt. He should tell you. He should tell Ryland. But here he is, running away from his problems.

After you've recovered from that interaction, you decide it's time to go to school. Maybe he has a routine, maybe he enjoys biking and I was rude to ask, you think to yourself. Whatever. You have a job to do. You shake off the weird, insecure feelings and put on your smile. Today can still be a great day. You turn up the music in your car and everything brightens just a bit more.

You don't see Ryland until later. He's always wearing different clothes than at the coffee shop, but you attribute that to him changing into his teaching uniform— the tie and suit jacket you've come to expect— after his morning bike ride. Who would want to work all day in sweaty clothes?

During your free period, you take the chance to snag an ice cold Dr. Pepper from the faculty lounge and rest your feet. Blue paint smudges your cheek and your sleeves have not been spared the same fate despite rolling them up.

You had just sunken into your chair, your feet finally having the pressure relieved from them, when you hear a voice clear.

"So that's where they've been going." You open your eyes and Dr. Ryland Grace is standing there with a lopsided smile, and staring at your (his) soda.

"Oh, shucks. Sorry. I just opened it, you can have it—" you start, but he puts up his hands and shakes his head.

"No no no, it's okay! Really, I've had enough caffeine today," he says, an easy smile reaching his eyes as he sits in the chair across from you.

"I'll say," you mumble, thinking about your interaction with Ryland this morning. He really is like night and day.

"What was that?"

"Oh! Nothing! Sorry, I'm just a little tired. You'd think that 12-year-olds would have figured out not to eat paint," you say, exhaling a laugh.

Ryland tilts his head, his easy-going smile becoming slightly more confused. You're usually pretty open with him, so the muttering comes across as strange. The confusion melts away when he sees you relax and shut your eyes again. He can feel something in him relax, too, and decides that the Dr. Pepper was well sacrificed for this moment.

Your watch beeps, alerting you that your break is over, and Ryland snaps out of his staring spell right as your eyes open again. He pretends like he was truly looking anywhere else, like this poster about worker's rights on the wall to his left. When you stand, he stands too.

"You have something...here," he fishes out a handkerchief from his pocket and leans in to help wipe the smudge, but you lean back.

"Woah there, cowboy. I can get it," you say, letting out an awkward chuckle.

"You can use this, I promise it's clean," he says, offering you the cloth and giving you space. He seems truly bashful about this. You take the handkerchief.

"Thank you. Be my mirror? Right here?" You ask, wiping your face. He nods.

"Yeah, you look good. I mean— your face looks good. Wait, the—" you smile at him as he stumbles through, passing the cloth back to him.

"Thanks. I appreciate it. Your face doesn't look too bad either," you say with a wink, and mercifully leave before his ears turn completely red.

Ryland is just about to call after you, when his phone dings with a message:

Colt:

We need to talk.

You just stare at him. And stare. And stare. Finally, you drop your bag, and it hits the floor with an unceremonious thud. Something spills out of it. Whatever. “You bought. A hamster.”

“Yeah! I saw this ad that the pet store was doing a sale, and it really got me thinking—I mean, what better way for my students to get firsthand experience with animal biology? And it gives me some pretty serious cool points.” The hamster squeaks next to him, like it’s contributing to the conversation. “Exactly. He gets it. So I biked back here, and then I took an Uber to the pet store, and here we are. I’m still working on a name, maybe I should have my students vote—”

“Ryland.”

“What’s up?”

Deep breaths. “When did you see this ad?”

He’s still smiling, but it’s started to gain a panicked edge, like he’s realizing in real time that this, perhaps, was not the brilliant idea he thought it was a few seconds ago, and that you are not nearly as ecstatic as he is about this. “I might have. Seen it this morning.”

You close your eyes. “Yeah. I probably should have guessed that.” This is. Really not what you need right now. You rub your face before finally looking at him again. “How much did it cost?”

“…Not a lot? It was—the sale was.” He is starting to lose steam the longer you stare at him. “It said if you bought the cage and food and stuff, the hamster was free.” Ryland looks down at the cage, then, and picks up a little plastic sphere that must have been sitting behind it. “He came with his own ball?” He offers, as if this makes it all better.

What if you just screamed? Like, really loudly? No words, or anything, just a shriek. Maybe that would make you feel better. “And this wasn’t a thing that, I don’t know, we could have talked about beforehand? Or you could have at least shot me a message, like, ‘hey, I’m about to buy a small, living creature and bring it into our home,’ or something?”

The plastic ball is set down, gently, next to the cage. The hamster scurries over and looks at it curiously. “Okay, yes, I hear you, 100%. But the sale was ending today, and I didn’t want to bother you while you were at work. Also, like I said, he’s going in my classroom, so he’s really just here for the night.”

“Right. And where will he be over the weekend? Or during holidays?”

Ryland looks at you for a moment and then down at the hamster, clicking his tongue. “I. Didn’t think about that.”

You’re getting the distinct sense that, as per usual, not a lot of meaningful consideration was put into this at all. “And what if he needs to go to the vet? We’re supposed to be saving up for our wedding, not buying a fucking hamster.”

His eyes widen a little. “Woah, okay, so I know this might not have been my most well thought-out idea, but—”

“No, it really isn’t,” you interrupt him, flatly. “Neither was the telescope, considering that it’s collecting dust in our closet, because you can’t even use the thing in the city. Or the water purifier that didn’t fit our faucet. Or how about the grill utensil set that you bought last week, when we don’t even have a grill and you hate cooking?”

There are a thousand other things that you could probably list, but you feel like you’ve already proved your point, so you stop and look at him with exasperation. He shifts uncomfortably. The hamster seems unfazed by the tension building in the room. “Well. Alright. But I bought all of those things with my money.”

You can feel your throat start to clench, because you’re about five milliseconds away from completely losing it, and when you get frustrated, you start to cry, which is incredibly annoying and makes you cry even more. “That’s. Do you understand,” you say slowly, “why that was not the right thing to say right after I mentioned the wedding that we’re attempting to plan?”

He refuses to back down, because he hates losing. When you’re playing games at a bar or competing in trivia, it’s cute, but right now it is infuriating. “But I returned the purifier,” he points out. “And the grill set can be used for normal cooking.”

“Oh, my God, that is not the fucking point!” The five milliseconds have passed, and you can feel the tears welling up in your eyes. “I’m not doing this right now. I’ve just had the worst day ever, and now there’s a goddamn hamster in our kitchen. I’m taking a shower.”

“Hey—” He tries to cross the room, but you turn on your heel and walk into the bathroom, slamming the door behind you and locking it, which you never do, because sometimes he’ll come in and shower with you.

Right. Your bag is still in the hallway. You don’t even have your phone to play music. Ugh. You turn the shower on and strip, staring at the ring on your hand for a few moments before taking that off, too, because the water is absolutely scalding already, and you don’t want the metal to warp, and sometimes the prongs catch in your hair if you leave it on.

You go through the motions of washing up, and then you just—stand there, for a while, thinking, as the steam rises and fogs up the mirror. Well. There’s a hamster in your apartment now, apparently, and you feel pretty justified about being frustrated at that fact, but…you probably shouldn’t have yelled, especially because it was less about the hamster and more about the fact that your day had been terrible, and it wasn’t fair to take it out on him.

It’s just. He really couldn’t have at least texted you about it first?

You watch as a strand of hair slides across the shower floor and into the drain. The money really wasn’t an issue, if you were being honest. The wedding wasn’t happening for a while, because you were both determined to pay for it yourselves, which meant it would probably take years of saving. And he had returned the water purifier, because getting the wrong size had been an honest mistake. The telescope and the grill set—yeah, okay, those were a little harder for you to justify.

An indeterminate amount of time passes, without any music playing to help you gage how long you’ve been in there, until finally you sigh and shut the water off, stepping out to towel yourself off. You do feel a little bit better; there was something about having clean hair, or maybe the hot water had helped relax your aching feet a little. It meant that you were starting to feel a little worse about the yelling. Not about being mad about the hamster, though.

There’s a knock on the door. “I have your robe.”

“…Thanks.” You unlock the door, and then it opens a crack, and his hand sticks in to hand the fluffy fabric to you. You’re about to say something, the beginnings of an apology and an explanation, but Ryland closes the door softly and pads away.

Oh. Now you’re really feeling bad about the yelling.

You wrap yourself up in the robe and wipe the mirror off. Okay. You are going to go out there, and calmly explain, without crying, that you really had a truly horrendous day, but also that the hamster thing is still kind of crazy.

When you open the door, you’re immediately hit with the smell of your favorite takeout noodles. Aw. You cautiously walk into the living room, and the boxes are already set up on the table, and he’s poured you a glass of wine and lit some candles.

He’s standing in the middle of the room, looking a little nervous, like he doesn’t really know what to do with himself. You take a deep breath and start fiddling anxiously with the tie of your robe. “I’m sorry—”

“No, nope, absolutely not,” Ryland interrupts. “That’s not—you don’t have to be sorry, because you were right. I spent the last hour,” jeez, were you really in the bathroom that long, “imagining how you must have felt after having a crap day and then coming home to a very small rodent in the kitchen, and—not good, is the answer I arrived at.” He walks forward to you, then, smoothing his hands over your upper arms. “So. I am sorry. About the hamster. And the grill set. And the telescope. And—”

“Ryland.” You’re still a little peeved about the hamster. But you also love him, a lot, and it’s not like you’re perfect, either. “It’s okay. I’m sorry that I yelled. I mean—I am a bit mad about the hamster. But. I exploded a little bit, and it wasn’t even really about the rodent.” He quirks an eyebrow at that. “Well. Maybe a little. But the other stuff really wasn’t fair, because the telescope was from a long time ago, and you did return the water purifier. The grill set—I still don’t really know why you did that.”

He smiles, just a little, and it feels like a knot in your chest is starting to slowly uncoil. “I don’t know why I did that either. I think—I had this idea in my head, of trying to start cooking, so I could cook for you.” Your heart melts a bit at that, even though buying a grill set without a grill is a little like putting the cart in front of the horse, except you don’t have a horse and the cart is also, like, falling apart. You’re tired, okay? Analogies aren’t coming very easily to you at the moment. “But I really hate cooking. Like, so much.”

“Yeah.” You’re the corners of your mouth start to turn up. “And you’re pretty bad at it.”

“Hey now. I can make a mean quesadilla. As long as there’s only cheese in it.” Ryland pulls you into a hug, then, pressing a kiss to the top of your forehead. “And I shouldn’t have said the money thing. That was not cool.”

You hum, relaxing into his body. “I didn’t—I don’t want you to think that was me saying you can’t, like, buy things if you want them and can afford them.”

“I know,” he mumbles into your hair. “I know that. But I’m not just a ‘me’ anymore. There’s a ‘we’ now.” The grammar of the sentence kind of doesn’t make sense, but it’s still exactly the right thing for him to say, so you nod. Then he draws back, tenderly grasping your shoulders. “Okay. Now sit. Your noodles are getting cold.”

He guides you to the couch and hands you the takeout box before sitting beside you. Then, to top it all off, he pats your knee, brings both of your legs on top of his, and starts massaging your feet. It’s—it’s difficult for you to describe the feeling this gives you, because you know he’s not doing it because he doesn’t want you to be mad; Ryland is, quite simply, doing it because he knows that your feet hurt, and he doesn’t like it when you’re in pain, because he loves you.

At one point, he reaches forward for the remote, his other hand still kneading your aching muscles, and throws on an episode of your favorite show, lowering his glasses to hang off of his face so he can watch. He laughs when you start quoting it, because you’ve seen it a million times, and even he says one of the lines at the same time as the character, because he’s seen it right along with you for about half of that million.

There’s the sound of plastic scuffling against the floor, then, and a very slight thud against the couch. You peer down to see the hamster in his little ball, leaning up with two tiny arms against the inside of the plastic sphere and sniffing at your noodles. Oh, no. He’s really, really cute.

“Oh. Yeah. I thought—I wanted him to have a little freedom before I took him back to the store,” Ryland says apologetically.

God damn it. Well; you did offhandedly say to him a few months ago that a pet would be nice someday. It’s just—you were kind of thinking a cat, or something. You sigh. “Maybe we can. Let’s—okay. How about this: we do some research on hamsters, and then we can talk about it. Deal?”

“Deal.” He’s quiet for a beat, and then: “I kind of. Already did the research earlier. During my prep period.”

You look up from the hamster. You cannot help the smile that is already growing on your face. “Alright. Lay it on me.”