i loved you miss

Today, you had let boredom take the reins and found yourself influenced by a viral trend.

Your boyfriend was one of the most attentive men on the planet. In fact, you’d go as far as to say he was the most attentive. Which meant him forgetting about date night was simply impossible.

If Garrett made a commitment to you, he followed through. Every single time.

Sometimes, it was honestly a little annoying how attentive he could be, because he remembered everything.

The day you first kissed. The first time you said “I love you”. Even the exact moment you stole one of his hoodies and never gave it back.

You weren’t sure if he kept some secret list hidden somewhere or if an entire section of his brain had simply been taken over by thoughts of you, but one thing was certain: if there was a date night planned, Garrett Graham would remember it.

Which was exactly why it would be so funny to convince him he’d forgotten one.

You could already picture the confusion and disbelief on his face. The way he’d rack his brain trying to figure out how he could have possibly let something like that slip his mind.

A few minutes later, a knock sounded at your door.

You quickly adjusted the black dress you were wearing—far too formal for the quiet movie night you’d originally planned with Garrett—and crossed the room to answer it.

The second you opened the door, a smile tugged at your lips.

Your boyfriend stood there, bag slung over one shoulder, looking unfairly handsome for someone who had just spent hours getting checked into boards by grown men.

Almost immediately, his brows drew together as his gaze swept over your dress. But before he could ask any questions, you rose onto your toes and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.

The effect was immediate.

His bag slipped from his shoulder and hit the floor with a dull thud as one hand found the small of your back, pulling you closer. He kissed you back without hesitation, already melting into the familiar greeting.

When you finally pulled away, you tilted your head.

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

Garrett blinked, then he looked down at himself. Gray sweatpants and a black hoodie. Standard post-practice attire.

“Uh... yeah?” He said slowly. “Why?”

You arranged your features into the best combination of confusion and disappointment you could manage. “Did you forget?”

His frown deepened as he stepped inside, shutting the door behind him and shrugging off his hoodie. Beneath it was the black compression shirt he always wore after practice.

A criminal piece of clothing, in your humble opinion.

The fabric stretched across his shoulders and arms far too well, making it significantly harder to stay focused on your prank. For a brief moment, you considered abandoning the whole thing altogether in favour of admiring your boyfriend.

Unfortunately for Garrett, you were committed to the bit.

“Forget what, honey?”

His eyes drifted around your dorm room, taking in details automatically. From the makeup bag spread across your vanity, to the leather jacket draped over your desk chair that looked suspiciously similar to the one currently missing from his closet.

Then his attention returned to you.

“Our date?” You said, tilting your head as if he was the one being ridiculous. Which was especially unfair considering you had invented this entire situation purely for your own entertainment.

You watched him go completely still for a second. 

Then, very slowly, he repeated, “...Our date?”

“Yeah.” You smiled brightly. “I’m really excited. You picked a good spot.”

“I did?”

The uncertainty in his voice nearly made you break. He bent down to grab his phone from his bag before sitting on the edge of your bed.

“Yeah,” you said casually, settling onto your desk chair in front of your makeshift vanity. “You didn’t really forget, did you?”

“No. No...” He shook his head, already scrolling through his phone. “Just checking our reservation.”

You bit the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from laughing.

“I’m so glad you picked that restaurant. We haven’t been there in forever, and their food is amazing.”

Continuing your performance, you grabbed your mascara and began applying it as if this conversation were completely normal.

Across the room, Garrett was staring at his phone with the concentration of a man trying to defuse a bomb.

“What did you…” He lowered the phone and cleared his throat. “What did you order last time?”

“We ordered a bunch of things to share, remember?”

He hummed, the sound coming out noticeably higher-pitched than usual.

To be fair, it wasn’t an incredibly descriptive answer. Garrett’s appetite was enormous thanks to hockey, and you could never decide what looked best on a menu. Most date nights ended with the two of you ordering half the restaurant and splitting everything between yourselves.

Still, you could practically see him filing the information away, desperately trying to determine whether this was a real memory he’d somehow lost or one you were creating in real time. 

“You’ve been looking forward to this for a while, huh?”

“Mhm.”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“Do you remember the last time we went?”

“Not really, no.” You unscrewed your lip gloss and began applying it. “But it’s been a while.”

“Huh.” A few seconds passed, then he asked, “And I can’t wear what I’m wearing right now?”

“Garrett, you planned this date.” You turned in your chair to look at him. “You specifically told me to dress semi-formal.”

“Yeah, obviously. I know.” The immediate response was reassuring, but the lingering frown wasn’t. “Just checking,” he added quickly. “Keeping you on your toes and all that.”

You stared at him and he stared right back, attempting what was perhaps the worst act of confidence you'd ever seen.

“Sure…” you said slowly, fighting to keep a laugh from escaping.

Garrett nodded once, as if he’d successfully recovered the situation, immediately grabbing his phone again. Apparently, whatever fictional reservation he was searching for had yet to reveal itself.

“Are you excited?” You asked innocently. “Because from where I’m sitting, you don’t exactly look excited for our date night.”

His head snapped up. 

“What? I’m so excited.”

Before you could respond, he pushed himself off the bed and crossed the room, coming to stand behind your chair.

“Honey,” he said, resting his hands on your shoulders, “This is going to be the best date of your life.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” The answer came in the most ‘duh’ tone imaginable.

As if the very suggestion that he wouldn't be excited to take you on a date was completely absurd. As if he hadn’t spent the last ten minutes conducting a full-scale investigation into a restaurant that didn't exist.

You bit the inside of your cheek.

At that point, you decided it was probably best to abandon the prank before things escalated any further. Because now Garrett Graham had something to prove.

And knowing your boyfriend, that was a dangerous thing.

Another five minutes and he’d probably be making dinner reservations, buying flowers, and somehow chartering a helicopter just to demonstrate that he was, in fact, capable of pulling off the best date night of your life on a moment's notice.

“It's just…” You rose from your chair and turned to face him, leaving only a few inches between you. Tilting your head back, you met his gaze. “How can you be excited for a date that doesn't exist?”

For a second, Garrett simply stared at you, and then you watched the realization hit in real time. Confusion flashed across his face first, followed quickly by suspicion, before finally settling into understanding as all the pieces clicked into place and he realized exactly what you’d been doing.

His eyes narrowed at the burst of laughter that spilled from your lips.

“Baby, there’s no date,” you admitted, burying your face against his chest as you wrapped your arms around his waist. Looking up at him, you were immediately met with the most offended expression you’d ever seen on your boyfriend.

His mouth opened, then closed again as he searched for a response. For a moment, it looked like he was about to launch into an argument, but instead he simply shook his head, pulled you closer, and wrapped his arms around you.

“There can be, though.”

Another laugh escaped you.

“It’s okay. It was just a prank.”

“Yeah, but you’re already dressed up for that fake date, so…”

“So?” You prompted.

“I’m taking you out.”

You blinked. “Oh, really?”

“Yup.” 

The answer came without a second of hesitation. Still holding onto you with one arm, he reached over and grabbed the leather jacket hanging from your chair, along with his bag.

“Let’s go,” he said matter-of-factly. “We’ll stop by my place so I can change, and then we can go to that place you’ve been wanting to try.”

You huffed out a laugh.

“There is no place, Garrett.”

“Then make one up.” He slung his bag over his shoulder and pointed at you. “You’re the one who invented an entire date night. Surely you can invent a restaurant, too.”

You laughed again as he reached for your hand.

Somehow, despite being the one who’d gotten pranked, your boyfriend had still found a way to turn it into an actual date.

Which, admittedly, was a very Garrett Graham thing to do.

You grab your phone, your emergency kit from the trunk — thank god for your mother’s paranoia — and run toward the smoking vehicle. The smell hits you first: gasoline, burnt rubber, something metallic that might be blood.

“Hello?” Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. “Can anyone hear me?”

A groan from the driver’s side. You circle around, your boots crunching on broken glass and scattered debris. The driver’s door hangs open at an odd angle. A man in his fifties sits slumped against the steering wheel, a gash above his eyebrow bleeding sluggishly.

“Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

His eyes flutter open. Blue eyes. Dazed but focusing. “I—what happened? Where’s-” His head jerks toward the passenger side, and pure terror floods his face. “Beau! BEAU!”

He tries to unbuckle his seatbelt, but you put a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, please don’t move. You might be injured-”

“My son!” He shoves your hand away, stronger than he looks. “My son is in the passenger seat!”

Ice floods your veins. You circle to the other side of the vehicle, and that’s when you see him.

The passenger door is crumpled inward, the metal twisted like paper. The window is completely gone. And in the seat, surrounded by a spider web of cracks in what’s left of the windshield, is a young man about your age.

There’s so much blood.

“Oh god,” you whisper. Then louder, forcing yourself into action: “I’m calling 911 right now!”

Your fingers shake as you dial, but your voice comes out clear when the operator answers.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Motor vehicle collision, Route 2 westbound, approximately two miles past the Lexington exit. Two victims. Driver appears stable with minor head trauma, but passenger has severe injuries-” You’re moving as you talk, assessing with your eyes what you can’t yet touch. “Possible cervical spine injury, significant hemorrhaging from upper extremity, penetrating chest trauma. We need paramedics and ALS immediately.”

“Ma’am, are you a medical professional?”

“Second-year medical student. I have BLS and Stop the Bleed certification.”

“Paramedics are en route. ETA eight minutes. Can you provide care until they arrive?”

“Yes.” You set the phone down, speaker on, and force yourself to breathe. Eight minutes. You can do eight minutes.

You turn back to the passenger. The father is now standing beside you, swaying slightly.

“Sir, I need you to sit down-”

“That’s my son.” His voice breaks. “Please, you have to help him. Please.”

“I will. But I need you to sit down before you fall down. Can you do that for me?”

He nods shakily and lowers himself to the ground, never taking his eyes off his son.

You lean into the destroyed passenger compartment, and your medical training wars with your human instinct to panic. The young man — Beau, his father called him — is unconscious. His head lolls at an angle that makes your stomach drop. Not a natural angle. Not even close.

“Okay,” you mutter to yourself. “Okay, think. C-spine precautions. Don’t move him unless he’s in immediate danger.”

But he is in immediate danger. You can see it in the way his neck bends, the way his head threatens to fall further forward. If his cervical spine isn’t already severed, any more movement could do it.

You look around frantically. The car is stable. No fire. But you need to stabilize his neck now.

Your emergency kit. You dump it on the ground, hands moving fast, grabbing the rolled-up fleece blanket your mom insisted you carry. You carefully roll it into a tight cylinder and maneuver it around Beau’s neck, trying to provide support without moving him any more than absolutely necessary.

“Talk to me,” you call to the father. “What’s his name? Full name?”

“Beau. Beau Maxwell.” The man’s voice is thin with shock. “He’s twenty-two. He’s healthy, no medical conditions, no allergies. He’s—god, he’s the quarterback. He has a game next week. He has-”

“Okay, Mr. Maxwell, that’s good, that’s helpful.” You’re assessing as he talks. The makeshift cervical collar is in place. Now the bleeding. “I need you to keep talking to me. Tell me what happened.”

“A deer. There was a deer in the road, and I swerved, and-” His voice cracks again. “I felt the ice. I felt us sliding. I couldn’t stop it.”

You’re barely listening now, all your attention on Beau’s arm. There’s a shard of glass — thick, wickedly sharp — embedded in his right bicep. Blood pulses around it in rhythmic spurts. Arterial. Brachial artery, most likely.

“Fuck,” you breathe. “Dispatch, update — patient has arterial hemorrhage from upper extremity. I’m applying a tourniquet now.”

Your coat. You’re already shaking from the cold, but you strip off your heavy winter coat without hesitation. You need fabric, need pressure, need to stop the bleeding before he loses any more blood.

The glass shard is still embedded. Leave it or take it out? You run through your training in microseconds. In the field, with no surgical backup, no way to clamp the artery — leave it. But you need pressure above and below.

You wrap your coat around his upper arm, using the sleeves to tie it as tight as you can manage. Your fingers are already going numb, but you pull harder, watching the rhythmic spurting slow to a steady seep. Not perfect, but better.

You’re about to check his other injuries when you see it: a thick branch, maybe three inches in diameter, has punched through the windshield and embedded itself in Beau’s chest. Just left of center. Through the sternum, or maybe just missing it. Either way, it’s deep.

Your hands hover over it, trembling. Every instinct screams at you to pull it out, but you know that branch is the only thing preventing him from bleeding out right now. If it’s hit any major vessels, removing it without a surgical team standing by would kill him.

“Please,” Mr. Maxwell says from behind you. “Please tell me he’s going to be okay.”

You don’t answer. You can’t. Instead, you lean back slightly, taking in Beau’s face for the first time.

Even like this — pale, covered in blood, unconscious — he’s striking. Dark hair matted against his forehead, strong jaw, features that would be more at home on a movie screen than a car wreck. There’s a cut above his eyebrow, minor compared to everything else, and his lips are slightly parted, each breath shallow and labored.

You find yourself reaching out, your fingers — cold and blood-stained — brushing against his cheek.

“Hey,” you whisper. “Beau. I know you can’t hear me, but I need you to hold on, okay? Help is coming. Just hold on.”

His skin is cooling rapidly in the February air. You grab the emergency blanket from your kit with your free hand and drape it over as much of him as you can without disturbing the branch or the makeshift collar.

“Six minutes out,” the dispatcher says through your phone speaker.

Six minutes. Six minutes for his brain to be without adequate oxygen if his breathing gets any worse. Six minutes for that branch to shift. Six minutes for his neck to-

No. You push the thoughts away.

“Mr. Maxwell, is anyone else hurt? Was anyone else in the car?”

“No. Just us. We were coming back from dinner. In the city. His grandmother’s birthday.” The man is crying now, quietly. “I told him I’d drive so he could relax. Have a few drinks. I told him-”

“This wasn’t your fault,” you say firmly. “The deer, the ice — this wasn’t your fault.”

You check Beau’s pulse again. Thready. Too fast. Shock, almost certainly. Blood loss, head trauma, possible internal injuries — the list spirals in your mind.

“His pupils,” Mr. Maxwell says suddenly. “Shouldn’t you check his pupils?”

You should. You know you should. But part of you is terrified of what you’ll find. Unequal pupils would mean increased intracranial pressure, brain herniation, things you cannot fix on the side of a dark highway.

Still, you pull out your phone flashlight and gently lift one of Beau’s eyelids.

Blue. His eyes are the same startling blue as his father’s, even closed like this. You shine the light across. The pupil constricts. Sluggish, but it constricts. You check the other side. The same.

“Equal and reactive,” you report to dispatch, relief flooding through you. “Sluggish but responsive.”

“Paramedics are three minutes out,” the dispatcher responds.

Three minutes. You can see lights in the distance now, hear the wail of sirens cutting through the night.

You check the tourniquet again — still holding. Check his breathing — still shallow but present. Your hand finds its way back to his face, and you realize you’re talking to him, a steady stream of words you’ll never remember later.

“They’re almost here. You’re doing great. Just keep breathing, okay? Keep breathing.”

Behind you, Mr. Maxwell is on his own phone now, his voice breaking as he talks to someone. His wife, probably. Telling her something no parent should ever have to say.

The ambulance screams to a stop, and suddenly there are people everywhere. Paramedics in dark blue, moving with practiced efficiency.

“We’ve got him, ma’am. We’ve got him.”

But you don’t move. Not until one of them — a woman with kind eyes and gray-streaked hair — gently touches your shoulder.

“You did good,” she says. “Really good. But we need you to step back now so we can work.”

You stumble backward, and Mr. Maxwell is there, catching your elbow.

“What do we have?” the lead paramedic asks.

Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. “Twenty-two-year-old male, restrained passenger in head-on collision with tree. Patient found unconscious, significant cervical spine angulation — I’ve placed a soft collar for support. Penetrating trauma to chest, large foreign object still in situ. Arterial hemorrhage from right upper extremity, tourniquet applied. Pupils equal and reactive but sluggish. Respirations shallow, approximately 20 per minute. Pulse thready at approximately 120. Obvious signs of shock.”

The paramedic’s eyebrows raise slightly. “You a doctor?”

“Med student. Second year.”

“Well, med student, you probably saved his life.” She’s already moving, her team swarming around Beau with practiced precision. C-collar. Backboard. IV access. They work with a choreography born of countless traumas.

You watch as they carefully extract him from the vehicle, maintaining spinal precautions, keeping the branch stable. Watch as they load him onto the stretcher. Watch as they cut away his blood-soaked shirt, revealing more of the damage underneath.

“We’re taking him to Mass General,” one of the paramedics calls out. “Trauma one.”

“I’m riding with him,” Mr. Maxwell says, but he’s swaying again, and now that the adrenaline is fading, you can see he’s not as okay as he first appeared.

“Sir, you need to be evaluated too,” another paramedic says, approaching with a second gurney. “We’ll take you both.”

“But-”

“We’ve got him, sir. We’ve got your son.”

You watch as they load Mr. Maxwell into a second ambulance. Watch as both vehicles pull away, sirens wailing, lights painting the dark road in red and blue.

Then it’s just you, standing on the side of Route 2 in just your scrubs and thin long-sleeve shirt, shivering violently as the adrenaline finally crashes. A police officer is talking to you — when did the police arrive? — asking questions you answer automatically.

Your coat is gone. Still wrapped around Beau Maxwell’s arm, probably being cut off by the trauma team right now. Your emergency kit is scattered across the asphalt. Your hands are stained rusty brown with blood.

“Miss?” The officer touches your shoulder. “Miss, are you okay? Do you need medical attention?”

“I’m fine,” you hear yourself say. “I’m fine.”

But you’re not fine. You’re shaking so hard your teeth chatter. Your mind keeps replaying the angle of Beau’s neck, the branch in his chest, the feel of his cooling skin under your fingers.

The officer wraps a shock blanket around your shoulders and guides you to sit in your car, heater blasting. He’s still asking questions — your name, your address, what you saw. You answer them all, but part of you is still on that roadside, watching Beau’s chest rise and fall in shallow, struggling breaths.

“You’re a hero, you know,” the officer says after he’s finished taking your statement. “That young man — you probably saved his life.”

You nod numbly. All you can think is but what if it wasn’t enough?

The officer helps you collect your scattered supplies, guides you through the process of leaving the scene. Your car is fine. You’re fine. Everything is fine.

Except it’s not.

As you drive home, your hands won’t stop shaking on the wheel. You keep seeing Beau’s face, keep feeling the cold of his skin, keep hearing Mr. Maxwell’s broken voice. That’s my son. Please, you have to help him.

You make it to your apartment building, into your unit, into your bathroom before you finally break down. You sit on the cold tile floor, still in your blood-stained scrubs, and sob.

Because you’ve spent two years studying medicine, learning about trauma and emergency care, practicing on mannequins and in simulations. But nothing prepared you for the reality of holding someone’s life in your hands while their blood soaks into your coat and their father begs you to save them.

Nothing prepared you for looking into the face of a dying stranger and desperately, irrationally, needing him to survive.

You cry until you have no tears left, until the shaking finally subsides, until you can breathe without feeling like your chest is caving in. You peel off your ruined scrubs, scrub the blood from your hands, and sit on your couch in the dark.

Then you pull up Google on your phone, your hands steadier now, and type in a name. Beau Maxwell.

The results flood your screen. Articles about football, highlight reels, statistics. Briar University’s star quarterback. Twenty-two years old. Junior year. Dark hair, blue eyes, a smile that could sell toothpaste. Projected first-round NFL draft pick.

You scroll through image after image of him — in uniform, in interviews, at press conferences. Healthy. Whole. So full of life it seems impossible that just an hour ago you were watching him bleed out on a dark highway.

You close your phone and lean your head back against the couch, staring at your ceiling in the darkness.

“Please,” you whisper to no one, to everyone, to whatever forces govern life and death. “Please let him be okay.”

Outside your window, Boston sleeps on, unaware. Somewhere across the city, in Mass General’s trauma bay, a team of surgeons fights to save the life of a quarterback you’ve never met but will never forget.

All you can do is wait.

And hope.

And pray that your desperate, fumbling first aid was enough to give him a chance.

***

The weight room smells like sweat and rubber, the familiar clang of metal on metal providing a rhythm Dean has known since he was twelve. It’s barely seven in the morning, but he’s already on his third set of deadlifts, Garrett spotting him while Logan and Tucker argue about last night’s game on the bench press across the room.

“I’m just saying,” Tucker calls over, “if you’d passed to me in the third period instead of trying to be a hero-”

“If I’d passed to you, you would’ve whiffed it like you did in the second,” Logan fires back.

“Fuck off, I was screened-”

“You were too busy checking out that blonde in the third row-”

Dean tunes them out, focusing on his form. Up. Hold. Down. Controlled. His phone sits on the bench beside his water bottle, face down. It buzzes once — probably his mom checking if he’s coming home this weekend — but he ignores it.

He’s pulling the bar up for his fourth rep when the phone starts ringing. Properly ringing, not just buzzing. The specific ringtone that means it’s someone from his favorites list.

“Dude, your phone,” Garrett says.

Dean sets the bar down carefully and picks up the phone, expecting to see his mom’s contact photo. Instead, it’s Coach Jensen.

At seven in the morning.

On a Saturday.

“That’s weird,” Dean mutters, answering. “Coach? Everything okay?”

There’s a pause. Too long. Dean’s stomach does something uncomfortable.

“Di Laurentis.” Coach Jensen’s voice is careful in a way Dean has never heard before. Careful like he’s handling glass. “Where are you right now?”

“Weight room. With the guys. What’s going on?”

Another pause. Dean can hear something in the background — voices, maybe a TV.

“Is Garrett there? Logan? Tucker?”

“Yeah, they’re all here. Coach, what-”

“I need you to sit down, son.”

The weight room goes very quiet. Dean realizes his teammates have stopped talking and are now watching him. He doesn’t sit down.

“What happened?”

Coach Jensen takes a breath. Dean can hear it through the phone. “I got a call this morning from Coach Deluca. He called because he knows a lot of our guys are friends with players on his team.”

Dean’s hand tightens on the phone. “Okay?”

“It’s about Beau Maxwell.”

The world tilts slightly. “What about him?”

“There was an accident last night. A car accident. Dean, he’s-” Coach Jensen’s voice catches. “He’s in critical condition at Mass General. His father was driving them back from dinner in the city, and they hit ice, crashed into a tree. His dad’s okay, but Beau-”

Dean doesn’t hear the rest. The phone slips from his hand, clattering against the concrete floor. The sound echoes, distant and wrong, like it’s coming from underwater.

Beau.

Critical condition.

The words don’t make sense. They can’t make sense. Because Dean just saw Beau yesterday. They grabbed lunch between classes, argued about whether the Packers or the Patriots were going to make it to the playoffs, made plans to hit up a party tonight. Beau was fine. Beau was fine.

“Dean?” Garrett’s hand is on his shoulder. “Dean, what’s wrong?”

Dean opens his mouth but nothing comes out. His knees feel strange, like they might not hold him. The weight room spins slightly, or maybe he’s spinning, he can’t tell.

“Shit, he’s going down-” That’s Logan, suddenly on his other side, propping him up.

Tucker grabs the phone from the floor. Dean watches him lift it to his ear, watches his face go pale as he listens to whatever Coach Jensen is saying.

“Oh fuck,” Tucker whispers. “Oh fuck, oh fuck-”

“What?” Garrett demands. “What happened?”

“It’s Beau.” Tucker’s voice sounds hollow. “He’s—there was a car accident. He’s in critical condition.”

The words hit the room like a physical force. Garrett’s hand tightens on Dean’s shoulder. Logan makes a sound like he’s been punched.

Dean still can’t breathe right. Can’t think right. Critical condition. That means bad. That means really bad. That means-

No. No, he’s not going there.

“We need to go,” Dean hears himself say. His voice sounds far away. “We need to go to the hospital.”

“Dean, maybe we should-” Garrett starts.

“Now.” Dean pulls away from his friends, stumbling slightly. His legs feel like water. “We’re going now.”

“Okay,” Logan says quickly. “Okay, yeah. My car’s out front. Let’s go.”

Dean doesn’t remember the walk to the parking lot. Doesn’t remember climbing into Logan’s beat-up pickup. One minute he’s in the weight room, and the next he’s in the back seat, Tucker beside him, watching the familiar streets of Boston blur past the window.

Garrett is in the passenger seat, on his phone. “Yeah, Wellsy, it’s—yeah, it’s really bad. We’re going to Mass General now. Can you—yeah. Thanks, baby.”

The city passes in a haze. Dean stares out the window without seeing anything. His mind keeps trying to process the information and failing. Beau. Car accident. Critical condition.

They’re brothers. Not by blood, but by choice, which Dean has always thought means more. 

Beau is the guy who stayed up with Dean all night when his grandfather died, never saying much, just being there. The guy who taught Dean how to throw a spiral when some girl Dean was into invited him to throw a football around. The guy who knows Dean’s coffee order and brings him one without being asked when he’s had a rough day.

Beau is his brother.

And Dean doesn’t know what he’ll do if-

No. Stop. Don’t think it.

“We’re here,” Logan announces, pulling into the hospital parking garage with slightly too much speed.

They practically fall out of the truck, running for the entrance. The hospital is massive, gleaming glass and steel, and Dean has no idea where to go.

“Trauma wing,” Tucker pants, pulling out his phone. “Coach sent me directions. This way.”

They follow him through automatic doors, past a reception desk, down a hallway that smells like antiseptic and fear. Dean’s heart is pounding so hard he can hear it in his ears. His workout clothes are still damp with sweat. He should have changed. Why didn’t he change?

They round a corner, and Dean sees them.

The waiting room is full of Maxwells.

Beau’s mom, Debbie, sits in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs, her face buried in her hands. Beau’s dad is standing by the window, a white bandage visible above his eyebrow. Beau’s grandmother is there too, being comforted by what looks like Beau’s aunt. There are others Dean recognizes from family gatherings and football games, all wearing the same expression of shock and grief.

They all look up as four hockey players in workout gear burst into the waiting room.

His moml’s eyes land on Dean, and her face crumbles.

“Dean,” she chokes out, and then she’s standing, crossing the room in three steps, pulling him into her arms.

She’s shaking. Or maybe he’s shaking. He can’t tell anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” she’s saying into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey, I know you two—I know-”

That’s what breaks him.

Dean Di Laurentis, who prides himself on being smooth, charming, always in control, shatters. His knees give out, and if Beau’s mom wasn’t holding him up, he’d be on the floor. A sob tears out of his throat, raw and ugly and completely beyond his control.

“I’ve got you,” she whispers, even though she’s the one who should be comforted, even though it’s her son in critical condition. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

Dean can feel his teammates behind him — Logan’s hand on his back, Garrett’s voice saying something he can’t make out. But mostly he feels the weight of grief trying to crush him, the terror of possibly losing the person who knows him better than anyone.

“What happened?” He manages to gasp out. “Coach said—but he didn’t—what happened?”

Debbie pulls back, her hands still on his shoulders. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen. “You should tell them.”

Beau’s dad turns from the window. He looks like he’s aged ten years overnight. The bandage above his eyebrow is stark white against his pale skin.

“We were driving back from dinner,” he says, his voice rough. “In the city. For my mother’s birthday. It was late, almost midnight. I was driving because Beau had a few drinks. We were just—we were talking about the game next week. About his classes. Normal stuff.”

He stops, his jaw working. Beau’s grandmother reaches over and takes his hand.

“There was a deer,” Beau’s dad continues. “It came out of nowhere. I swerved, and the road—there was black ice. I felt the car start to slide, and I couldn’t—I tried to correct, but we just kept sliding. We hit a tree. Driver’s side hit first, then passenger side slammed into it.”

Dean’s stomach churns. He can picture it too clearly.

“I woke up a few seconds later. I was okay, just disoriented. But Beau-” Beau’s father takes a moment to gather himself. “He wasn’t moving. There was blood everywhere. And then this young woman appeared. Out of nowhere. She’d seen the crash and stopped.”

“She called 911,” Beau’s mom picks up the story, her voice steadier than her husband’s. “She was a medical student. She—god, the paramedics said she saved his life. She stabilized his neck, stopped the worst of the bleeding, kept him alive until they could get there.”

“What are his injuries?” Garrett asks quietly. He’s moved to stand beside Dean, solid and steady.

Beau’s dad closes his eyes. “Cervical spine trauma. The paramedics said his neck was bent at an angle that should have killed him. Should have severed his spinal cord. But this girl, she somehow stabilized it. Kept it from snapping completely.”

Dean tastes bile. He swallows hard.

“He also had a penetrating chest wound,” Beau’s dqd continues. “A tree branch went through the windshield and-” He makes a gesture toward his own sternum. “She knew not to pull it out. Knew it was the only thing keeping him from bleeding out.”

“And his arm,” Beau’s mom adds, wiping her eyes. “Severe laceration from broken glass. She used her own coat as a tourniquet.”

The waiting room is silent except for the buzz of fluorescent lights and the distant beep of monitors.

“Is he going to be okay?” Tucker asks. His voice is small, younger than Dean has ever heard it.

“They’ve been in surgery for four hours,” Beau’s mom says. “We don’t know yet. They said-” Her voice wavers. “They said the next few days are critical. That even if he survives the surgery, there could be complications. Infection. Brain damage from oxygen deprivation. Paralysis.”

“No.” The word comes out sharp, definitive. Dean doesn’t realize he’s the one who said it until everyone looks at him. “No, that’s not—Beau’s going to be fine. He has to be fine. He’s-”

He can’t finish the sentence. Can’t articulate what Beau means, what a world without him would look like. Can’t.

“We’re praying, honey,” Beau’s mom says softly. “That’s all we can do right now.”

Dean wants to scream that prayer isn’t enough. That there has to be something, anything, they can do. But he just nods, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

More people arrive over the next hour. Beau’s teammates, guys from the football team who Dean knows from parties and the occasional shared class. They fill the waiting room with whispered conversations and shell-shocked expressions. A few of them break down crying. Most just sit in stunned silence.

Dean ends up in one of the plastic chairs, his head in his hands. Logan sits on one side, Garrett on the other. Tucker paces by the window, unable to sit still.

“He’s going to make it,” Logan says quietly. “You know Beau. Stubborn as hell. He’s not going anywhere.”

Dean wants to believe that. Wants to believe that sheer force of will can overcome arterial bleeding and spinal trauma. But he’s seen enough hockey injuries to know that sometimes will isn’t enough.

“Did you know,” Dean says suddenly, his voice hoarse, “that his first word was ‘ball’? He told me that freshman year. Not ‘mama’ or ‘dada.’ ‘Ball.’ His parents said he was obsessed with any kind of ball from the time he could sit up. They knew he’d be an athlete before he could walk.”

“Yeah?” Garrett’s voice is soft, encouraging.

“And he-” Dean’s throat closes up. He forces himself to continue. “He wants to go pro. Obviously. But after that, he wants to coach. High school kids, specifically. He says college and pro players already have all the resources. He wants to work with kids who might not have anyone believing in them.”

“That sounds like Beau,” Logan says.

“He’s going to do it, too,” Dean insists, looking up. “He’s going to play in the NFL and then coach high school ball and probably turn some underfunded program into a state championship team because that’s what he does. He sees potential in people and brings it out of them.”

“Dean-” Garrett starts.

“I mean it.” Dean’s voice cracks. “That’s who he is. So he can’t—he has to-”

The doors to the surgical wing swing open.

The waiting room falls silent immediately. Every head turns. A surgeon walks out, still in his scrubs, pulling off his surgical cap. He looks tired. So tired.

Beau’s parents are on their feet instantly, crossing to meet him. Dean stands too, his teammates flanking him. His heart pounds so hard he thinks it might break through his ribs.

“Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell,” the surgeon says. His voice is neutral, professional, impossible to read.

“How is he?” Beau’s mom asks in barely a whisper. “How’s my son?”

The surgeon takes a breath. Dean holds his own, feeling like the entire world is balanced on whatever words come next.

“The surgery was successful,” the surgeon says, and the relief that floods the room is almost tangible. “We’ve stabilized the spinal trauma, repaired the vascular damage to his arm, and removed the foreign object from his chest. The object missed his heart by less than two centimeters. Any further to the right, and-”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to.

“But he’s alive?” Beau’s dad asks. “He’s going to live?”

“He’s alive,” the surgeon confirms. “He’s in critical condition, and the next seventy-two hours will be crucial. There’s still risk of infection, of complications from the spinal trauma. But he made it through surgery, which given the extent of his injuries, is remarkable.”

“Can we see him?” Beau’s mom asks.

“He’s being moved to the ICU now. You can see him once he’s settled, but he’ll be sedated. We need to keep him as still as possible to let the spinal repair begin to heal.”

“His spine,” Beau’s dad says. “Will he—is there paralysis?”

The surgeon’s expression is carefully neutral. “We won’t know the full extent of any nerve damage until he wakes up and we can do a thorough neurological assessment. The spinal cord itself wasn’t severed, which is extraordinarily fortunate. Whoever stabilized his neck at the scene saved his life and likely saved him from permanent paralysis.”

“The girl,” Beau’s mom says. “The medical student. Do you know her name? We want to thank her.”

The surgeon shakes his head. “The paramedics didn’t get her information. Just that she was a Good Samaritan who stopped to help.”

“We have to find her,” Beau’s mom says, turning to her husband. “We have to-”

“We will,” Beau’s dad promises. “We will.”

The surgeon continues, “I need to be clear with you. Your son’s injuries were catastrophic. The fact that he’s alive is nothing short of miraculous. But the road ahead is going to be long. Months of recovery, likely. Multiple surgeries. Intensive physical therapy. And there are still no guarantees.”

“But he’s alive,” Beau’s mom repeats, like it’s a prayer. “He’s alive.”

“He’s alive,” the surgeon confirms. “You should be very proud of him. He’s a fighter.”

After the surgeon leaves, the waiting room erupts. Quiet at first — no one wants to celebrate when Beau is still critical — but there’s a shift. From hopeless to hopeful. From grief to cautious relief.

Dean sits down hard, his legs finally giving out completely. He drops his head into his hands, and this time when he cries, it’s different. Still scared, still shaken, but there’s something else mixed in.

Gratitude.

“He made it,” Logan says, his own voice thick. “Holy shit, he actually made it.”

“Seventy-two hours,” Tucker says. “That’s what the doctor said. Three days. He just has to make it three days.”

“He will,” Garrett says firmly. “You heard the doc. Beau’s a fighter.”

Dean lifts his head, scrubbing at his face. His eyes feel swollen, his throat raw. He probably looks like hell. He doesn’t care.

“I need to see him,” he says. “I need to see him.”

“Family only in the ICU, probably,” Logan says gently. “At least at first.”

“I don’t care. I need-” Dean’s voice breaks again. “I need to see him.”

Beau’s mom appears in front of him, crouching down so they’re at eye level. She takes his hands in hers.

“As soon as they let us bring visitors, you’ll be the first,” she promises. “I swear. But right now, I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to take care of yourself. Go home, shower, eat something. Because when Beau wakes up — and he will wake up — he’s going to need you strong. Can you do that?”

Dean wants to argue. Wants to plant himself in this waiting room and refuse to move until he can see his brother. But her eyes are pleading, and she’s asking so little when she’s going through so much.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, but you’ll call me? The second anything changes?”

“The absolute second,” she promises. “You’re family, Dean. You know that.”

Family. The word cracks something open in his chest. He pulls Beau’s mom into another hug, holding on tight.

“Thank you,” he says. “For calling me. For letting me know.”

“Oh honey,” she says, pulling back to look at him. “There was never a question. You’re his brother.”

Dean nods, not trusting himself to speak.

His teammates drive him back to campus in silence. The shock is starting to wear off, leaving exhaustion in its wake. Dean’s muscles ache from his workout, which feels like it happened years ago instead of hours.

They end up on the couch, the four of them, not talking. Just being there. At some point, Tucker orders pizza. At another point, Hannah and Allie show up with half the football team, bringing food and offering quiet support.

Dean’s phone buzzes constantly. Texts from teammates, from friends, from people he hasn’t talked to in months, all asking about Beau. He doesn’t answer any of them.

Instead, he pulls up his photos. Finds the album labeled “Best Bro.” Hundreds of pictures spanning three years. Beau throwing a touchdown. Beau at a party, arm slung around Dean’s shoulders. Beau asleep in the library during finals week, drooling on his American History textbook. Beau grinning at the camera, blue eyes bright, completely alive.

“He’s going to be okay,” Dean whispers to the photo. “You’re going to be okay.”

He has to believe it. Because the alternative — a world without Beau’s terrible jokes and unwavering loyalty and ability to light up any room he walks into — is unthinkable.

His phone buzzes again. They’ve settled him in the ICU. He looks peaceful. Still sedated. Doctors say next 12 hours are critical. Will update you in the morning. Try to get some sleep, honey. He needs you rested.

Dean stares at the message for a long time. Tell him I’m here. Tell him his brother is here and waiting for him to wake up.

Dean sets his phone down and leans back against the couch. Around him, his friends have settled into quiet conversation. Someone turned on a movie at some point, something mindless playing on low volume.

But Dean isn’t watching. He’s thinking about a girl he’s never met. A medical student who stopped on a dark highway and saved his brother’s life. Who thought quickly enough to stabilize Beau’s neck, to stop the bleeding, to give him a fighting chance.

Whoever she is, wherever she is, Dean owes her everything.

“We have to find her,” he says suddenly.

Garrett looks over. “Who?”

“The girl. The medical student. She saved him, and she just disappeared. Didn’t even leave her name.”

“Dude, Boston has like five medical schools,” Logan points out. “That’s thousands of students.”

“I don’t care,” Dean says. His voice is stronger now, steadier. “We’ll check every single one if we have to. But we’re going to find her.”

Because whoever she is, she gave Beau a second chance at life.

And Dean is going to make damn sure she knows how much that means.

***

The world comes back in pieces.

First, there’s sound — a steady beeping, rhythmic and insistent. Then sensation — something soft beneath him, something constricting around his neck. Then smell — antiseptic, that particular hospital smell that’s somehow both sterile and cloying at once.

Beau tries to open his eyes, but his eyelids feel like they weigh a thousand pounds.

“-vitals are stable, Mrs. Maxwell. We’re going to start decreasing the sedation now-”

That’s a voice he doesn’t recognize. Professional. Clinical.

“How long until he wakes up?” That voice he knows. Mom. She sounds exhausted.

“It varies. Could be a few hours. His body’s been through significant trauma, so we’re taking it slow.”

Beau wants to tell them he’s right here, that he can hear them, but his mouth won’t cooperate. The darkness pulls him back under.

***

The next time consciousness surfaces, it stays a little longer.

The beeping is still there. But now there are other sounds too — quiet conversation, the rustle of fabric, footsteps in the hallway.

“-told you, you can’t give him solid food yet-” Mom again, but this time she sounds amused.

“I’m not giving it to him. I’m just … having it ready. For when he can.” Dean. That’s definitely Dean.

“You brought Dunkin’ Donuts to a hospital ICU?”

“Munchkins. They’re small. It doesn’t count.”

Despite everything — the pain starting to register in various parts of his body, the confusion, the way his neck feels completely immobilized — Beau almost smiles.

“Beau?” A different voice. Dad. “Beau, can you hear me?”

He tries to respond. Manages something between a grunt and a groan.

“Oh my god.” Mom’s voice cracks. “Oh my god, he’s—get the nurse. Get the nurse!”

Footsteps. Fast.

Beau forces his eyes open. The light is too bright, everything blurry. He blinks, and slowly the world comes into focus.

White ceiling. Fluorescent lights. The edge of what looks like a massive amount of medical equipment.

“Beau?” Mom’s face appears above him, and she’s crying. “Oh, baby. You’re awake. You’re really awake.”

“Hey, Mom.” His voice comes out as barely a rasp, his throat raw and painful.

“Don’t try to move, sweetheart. Your neck—they had to stabilize your neck. You’re in a brace.”

That explains the constricting feeling. Beau tries to turn his head instinctively and immediately regrets it as pain shoots through him.

“Easy, easy.” That’s a new voice — a nurse, he realizes, as a woman in scrubs appears on his other side. “Welcome back, Mr. Maxwell. I’m Theresa. Can you tell me your name?”

“Beau Maxwell.” It hurts to talk, but he manages.

“Good. Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital.” Duh.

“Do you remember what happened?”

Beau tries to think. His memory is … foggy. Disjointed. “Car. We were in a car. Dad was driving.” He looks around, spotting his father standing near the foot of the bed, bandage still visible on his forehead. “Dad. You okay?”

His dad laughs, the sound wet and relieved. “I’m fine, son. I’m fine. You’re the one who-” His voice breaks. “You scared the hell out of us.”

“Language,” Mom chides, but she’s smiling through her tears.

The nurse runs through more questions — what year it is, who the president is, can he feel his fingers and toes. Everything checks out, apparently, because she smiles and says, “Looking good, Mr. Maxwell. The doctor will be by soon to do a full assessment.”

After she leaves, Beau takes stock. He can see Mom and Dad, both looking exhausted and relieved. And there, slouched in a chair by the window, is Dean, holding a Dunkin’ Donuts bag and grinning like an idiot.

“You look like shit,” Beau rasps.

Dean laughs, and it sounds a little hysterical. “Says the guy in the ICU. Welcome back, man.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two and a half days,” Mom says, stroking his hand gently. “They had you heavily sedated while you healed.”

Two and a half days. Beau processes this slowly. “What … what are my injuries?”

His parents exchange a look.

“Son,” Dad starts, “you had—it was pretty bad. Cervical spine trauma. They had to operate. And there was a branch, through your chest-”

“A branch?”

“Missed your heart by less than two inches,” Mom says quietly. “And your arm—there was a lot of glass. They had to repair the artery.”

Beau stares at the ceiling, trying to reconcile this information with the fact that he’s alive and apparently mostly functional. “How am I not dead?”

“Because someone saved you,” Dad says. “There was a woman, a medical student. She saw the crash happen and stopped to help. She stabilized your neck, stopped the bleeding, kept you alive until the paramedics arrived.”

A medical student. Random Good Samaritan. Beau tries to remember, but there’s nothing. Just darkness and then waking up here.

“The surgeon said if she hadn’t stabilized your neck, one more wrong movement and-” Mom can’t finish the sentence.

“We’ve been trying to find her,” Dean interjects, standing up and moving closer to the bed. “To thank her. But she didn’t leave her name, and the hospital doesn’t have her information. Just that she was a medical student who stopped to help.”

“I want to thank her too,” Beau says. His throat is killing him, but this seems important.

“The police have her contact information from the accident report,” Dad says. “We’re working on tracking her down. But for now, you need to focus on healing.”

A doctor arrives shortly after, running through a battery of neurological tests. Can Beau move his fingers? Yes. Toes? Yes. Feel pressure on his arms? Legs? Yes, yes. The doctor looks cautiously optimistic.

“The fact that you have full sensation and motor function is excellent news,” the doctor says. “But you’re not out of the woods yet. The next few weeks are critical. Any wrong movement could jeopardize the spinal repair.”

“So I’m stuck in this neck brace?”

“For at least eight weeks. And then extensive physical therapy.”

Eight weeks. Beau’s season is over. His entire junior year, gone. He closes his eyes against the wave of disappointment.

“Hey.” Dean’s hand lands on his shoulder. “One step at a time, yeah? You’re alive. That’s what matters.”

Beau nods minutely, the brace making even that small movement awkward.

The rest of the day passes in a blur of doctors, nurses, medications, and family. His grandmother comes by and cries all over him. His aunt brings flowers that the nurses say aren’t allowed in ICU but no one has the heart to remove. His uncle brings an embarrassing amount of Packers gear “for morale.”

Dean never leaves. He’s a permanent fixture in the chair by the window, occasionally trying to sneak Beau a munchkin when the nurses aren’t looking, even though Beau still can’t eat solid food.

“Dude, stop,” Beau finally says. “You’re going to get kicked out.”

“Worth it,” Dean says, but he puts the bag away.

It’s late afternoon on the third day post-accident — technically only a few hours since Beau woke up — when there’s a knock on the door.

“If that’s another neurologist, I swear to god-” Beau starts.

“Language,” Mom says automatically, but she’s already turning toward the door. “Come in!”

The door opens, and everyone looks up expecting another doctor or nurse.

Instead, a young woman steps in.

She’s around Beau’s age, maybe a year or two older, wearing jeans and a Harvard hoodie, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She looks nervous, clutching a worn messenger bag and hesitating in the doorway like she might bolt at any second.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I know you probably weren’t expecting visitors, but I—the reception desk said that—I asked how the patient from the accident was doing, and they said the medical student who helped at the scene was on the approved visitor list, so I thought-” She’s rambling, talking faster with each word. “I can leave. I should probably leave. I just wanted to check-”

“Oh my god.” Dad is on his feet. “You’re her. You’re the medical student.”

She nods, looking even more uncertain. “I’m—yes. I was the one who—I saw the accident, and I-”

She doesn’t get any further because Dad crosses the room in three strides and wraps her in a hug.

“Thank you,” he says, his voice thick. “Thank you for saving my son. Thank you, thank you-”

You stand frozen for a second, clearly startled, before awkwardly patting his back. “I—you’re welcome. I just did what anyone would-”

“No.” Mom is there now too, and as soon as Dad releases you, she pulls you into an equally tight embrace. “No, what you did — the surgeon said you saved his life. That if you hadn’t stabilized his neck, he wouldn’t have made it. You saved our boy.”

Beau watches from the bed, unable to turn his head much but able to see enough. The woman — the medical student who saved him — looks completely overwhelmed, her eyes suspiciously bright.

“I’m just glad he’s okay,” you manage. “I’ve been checking the news, looking for updates, but I couldn’t find anything, and I was worried-”

“He’s going to be okay,” Mom assures you, finally releasing you. “Thanks to you.”

Then Dean is there, and he pulls you into a hug that actually lifts you off your feet slightly.

“I don’t know who you are yet,” Dean says, “but you saved my brother’s life, so you’re stuck with me now. Fair warning, I’m a hugger.”

You laugh, the sound slightly watery. “I can tell.”

“What’s your name?” Mom asks, steering you gently toward the bed.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” you say. “I’m a second-year at Harvard Med.”

“Y/N,” Dad repeats. “That’s a beautiful name.”

You smile, still looking nervous, and then your eyes land on Beau.

Beau, who has been staring at you since you walked in.

Because holy shit.

You’re beautiful. Like, devastatingly beautiful. Even in casual clothes with no makeup and looking slightly anxious, you’re the most stunning person Beau has ever seen. There’s something about your eyes, warm and genuine, and the way you move, and-

Is this heaven? Did he actually die and this is some kind of afterlife? Because that would explain a lot.

“Hi,” you say softly, moving to his bedside. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by a tree,” Beau rasps, then immediately winces. “Sorry. That was—I’m apparently still working on the whole talking thing.”

You laugh, and the sound does something strange to his chest. “The tree definitely won that round. But I’m so glad to see you awake. When I left the scene, I-” You pause, taking a shaky breath. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it. Your injuries were severe.”

“Apparently you’re the reason I did make it,” Beau says. He wishes he could sit up properly, look at you without the weird angle the neck brace forces. “Thank you. I mean it. Thank you for stopping. For helping.”

“Of course.” You look genuinely confused by the gratitude. “I couldn’t just drive past.”

“Most people would have,” Dean interjects. He’s back in his chair but watching you with open fascination. “Most people would’ve called 911 and kept going.”

“I had training,” you say simply. “And someone needed help. It wasn’t—I mean, I just did what needed to be done.”

“You did a lot more than that,” Dad says. “The surgeon told us you stabilized his neck. That you thought quickly enough to prevent further damage. That you used your own coat to stop the bleeding.”

You duck your head, embarrassed. “I had an emergency kit in my car. My mom’s paranoid about me driving alone at night. The coat was just the closest thing I had.”

“Did you get it back?” Beau asks. “Your coat?”

“Oh.” You blink at him. “No, I—I assume they had to cut it off you. It’s fine, though. It was just a coat.”

“Just a coat that saved my life,” Beau says. “Along with you. So, not really just a coat.”

You smile at him, and Beau’s heart does something complicated in his chest. The monitors beside his bed beep slightly faster, and he desperately hopes no one notices.

“How are you really feeling?” You ask. “Pain levels? Range of motion? Are you experiencing any numbness or tingling?”

“Did you just go into doctor mode?” Dean asks, amused.

“Sorry.” You look sheepish. “Occupational hazard. I’ve been worried about—I mean, cervical spine injuries are serious, and I was so scared I’d made the wrong call at the scene-”

“You made exactly the right call,” Mom assures you. “Every doctor we’ve talked to has said so.”

You nod, but you still look anxious. Beau recognizes the expression — it’s the same one he wears after a bad game, replaying every mistake.

“Hey,” he says, waiting until you look at him. “I’m alive. I can move everything. The doctors say I’m going to make a full recovery. You did good. Better than good. You were amazing.”

You hold his gaze for a moment, and something passes between them. Something Beau can’t name but can definitely feel.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” you finally say, your voice soft.

“Me too,” Beau replies. “Though I’m pretty sure I have the worst concussion in history because there’s no way someone as beautiful as you is real.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Then Dean bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, did you just use a pickup line while in a neck brace in the ICU?”

“It’s not a pickup line if it’s true,” Beau says, not breaking eye contact with you.

You’re blushing now, a pink tinge spreading across your cheeks. “I think your brain is working just fine,” you manage.

“That’s what I said!” Dean crows. “The boy’s got game even half-dead.”

“Dean,” Mom says warningly, but she’s smiling.

You laugh again, shaking your head. “I should probably go. Let you rest. I just wanted to check—to make sure you were okay.”

“Wait,” Beau says quickly. Too quickly. The movement makes pain shoot through his neck, and he grimaces.

You step closer instinctively, your hand hovering near his shoulder. “Are you okay? Should I get a nurse?”

“No, I’m fine. I just-” Beau takes as deep a breath as the chest wound allows. “Can I get your number? To, uh, keep you updated on my recovery. Since you saved my life and all.”

Dean makes a noise that’s probably supposed to be a cough but sounds suspiciously like a laugh.

You’re definitely blushing now, but you’re smiling too. “Sure. That—yeah. Let me write it down.”

Mom, bless her, immediately produces a pen and paper.

You write quickly, your handwriting surprisingly neat, and hand the paper to Beau. “Text me anytime. I mean it. I want to know how you’re doing.”

“I will,” Beau promises. He wishes he could take the paper himself, but his arm is still heavily bandaged and moving it is a production. Dean takes it for him, setting it on the bedside table with a knowing smirk.

You linger for another moment, looking like you want to say something else. Finally, you speak. “You know, I have to tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m a Harvard fan,” you say, and there’s a hint of mischief in your eyes now. “Which means I’m technically rooting against Briar. So you need to make a full recovery so we can beat you fair and square next season.”

Beau stares at you. Then he laughs, the sound rough and painful but genuine. “You save my life and then threaten to destroy me on the field?”

“Not a threat,” you say cheerfully. “A promise. We’re coming for that championship.”

“I love her,” Dean announces. “Beau, I love her. Can we keep her?”

“I’m working on it,” Beau mutters, which makes you laugh again.

“Okay, I really do need to go,” you say, backing toward the door. “But it was wonderful to meet you all. And Beau, heal up fast, okay? The rivalry isn’t fun if you’re not playing.”

“Yes ma’am,” Beau says, giving you a slight salute that his injuries allow.

You wave and slip out the door, closing it softly behind you.

The room is silent for exactly three seconds.

“Dude,” Dean says.

“Not now,” Beau replies.

“You just flirted with your guardian angel.”

“Dean-”

“In the ICU. While in a neck brace. While your parents were standing right there.”

“I was perfectly respectful-”

“You told her she was too beautiful to be real!” Dean is grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Your game is unreal, man. I’m actually impressed.”

“You asked for her number,” Mom says, and she sounds amused too. “That was certainly … forward of you, sweetheart.”

“I need to thank her properly,” Beau says defensively. “It’s only right.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean says. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“She’s a Harvard fan,” Beau continues, ignoring him. “Which means she’s smart but has terrible taste in football teams. Someone needs to educate her.”

“Someone being you?” Dad asks, his lips twitching.

“I mean, I feel like I owe her that much.”

Dean is full-on cackling now. “You’re going to date the girl who saved your life. That’s some romance novel shit right there.”

“I’m not—we just met. I’m just going to text her. To say thank you.”

“Sure,” Dean says, not even trying to hide his grin. “Just thank you. Nothing else.”

“Dean, I swear-”

“Boys,” Mom interrupts, but she’s smiling. “Beau needs to rest.”

“I’m fine,” Beau insists, even though he’s exhausted just from the conversation.

“You nearly died three days ago,” Mom says firmly. “You need rest. Dean, stop riling him up.”

“Yes, Mrs. Maxwell,” Dean says dutifully.

After his parents leave to grab dinner, it’s just Beau and Dean in the room. Dean is back in his chair, finally eating the munchkins he’s been carrying around.

“She was amazing,” Beau says quietly. “Not just—I mean, yeah, she’s gorgeous. But she saved my life, Dean. She stopped on a highway in the middle of the night and saved my life.”

“I know,” Dean says, and all the teasing is gone from his voice now. “I know, man. We owe her everything.”

“I was so close,” Beau continues. His throat is tight. “Dad said my neck … one more movement and that would’ve been it. And she fixed it. Some random medical student who happened to be driving by.”

“Not random,” Dean says. “Right place, right time. Some people would call that fate.”

“You believe in fate?”

“I believe in you,” Dean says simply. “And I believe you’re here for a reason. So yeah, maybe fate had something to do with putting her on that road at that exact moment.”

Beau thinks about you — your nervous smile, the way you brushed off the gratitude like it was nothing, the competitive spark in your eyes when you mentioned Harvard football.

“I think I was saved by an angel,” he says.

“Probably,” Dean agrees.

“And I think I’m in love.”

Dean nearly chokes on his munchkin. “What?”

“I’m in love,” Beau repeats. It sounds insane. It is insane. He just met you twenty minutes ago. But there’s something — a pull, a connection, something he can’t explain.

“Beau, buddy, I say this with love — you’re high as hell on pain meds right now.”

“I’m serious.”

“You just woke up from a medically induced coma like six hours ago.”

“I know what I feel.”

Dean studies him for a long moment. Then he sighs. “Well, shit. You really mean it.”

“I really mean it.”

“You’re going to marry the girl who saved your life, aren’t you?”

“If she’ll have me,” Beau says, completely serious.

Dean shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “This is either the most romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed or the pain meds talking. I’m not sure which.”

“Maybe both,” Beau admits. “But I don’t care. I’m going to thank her properly. And then I’m going to get to know her. And then-”

“Then you’re going to sweep her off her feet and ride off into the sunset?”

“Something like that.”

“She’s a Harvard fan,” Dean points out. “You know that’s going to be a problem.”

“I’ll convert her.”

“She literally told you she is waiting for Harvard to beat you.”

“She’s competitive. I like that.”

Dean laughs, shaking his head. “You’re insane. But okay. I’m here for it. Team Beau and his angel.”

“Her name is Y/N.”

“That doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

Beau doesn’t care. He’s already thinking about what to text you. How to thank you properly. How to convince you that stopping on that highway was the beginning of something, not just an isolated act of heroism.

His body is broken. His season is over. His recovery is going to be long and painful.

But for the first time since waking up, Beau feels hopeful.

Because somewhere out there is a girl who saved his life.

And he’s going to spend his recovery figuring out how to deserve her.

“Dean?” He says.

“Yeah?”

“Help me figure out what to text her.”

Dean grins. “Now we’re talking.”

They spend the next hour crafting the perfect message, with Dean offering increasingly ridiculous suggestions that Beau keeps vetoing. By the time visiting hours end and Dean is forced to leave, they’ve settled on something simple and genuine.

After Dean leaves, Beau stares at the piece of paper with your number, at your neat handwriting, and allows himself to smile.

Three days ago, his life nearly ended on a dark highway.

Today, looking at your number, it feels like it’s just beginning.

***

The physical therapy room smells like sweat and determination, which Beau has decided is just a nicer way of saying it smells like pain.

“Five more, Maxwell,” his PT says in that annoyingly cheerful voice that all physical therapists seem to possess. “You’ve got this.”

Beau grits his teeth and pulls himself up on the bar, his neck muscles screaming in protest. Four months ago, he couldn’t lift his head off the pillow. Three months ago, he couldn’t walk without assistance. Two months ago, he couldn’t turn his head more than thirty degrees.

Now, he’s doing pull-ups.

“One,” he grunts.

“Good. Keep that form.”

“Two.”

“Breathe through it.”

“Three.”

“Two more. You’ve got it.”

“Four.” His arms are shaking.

“Last one. Make it count.”

Beau pulls himself up one final time, holding at the top for a three-count before lowering himself down. His muscles feel like jelly, but he’s grinning.

“Hell yeah!” His PT claps him on the shoulder. “That’s what I’m talking about. Four months ago, you were in a neck brace wondering if you’d ever play again. Look at you now.”

“So I can play?” Beau asks hopefully.

“Nice try. That’s a question for your surgeon and your coach, not me. But I will say, physically you’re progressing faster than anyone expected.”

It’s not a yes, but Beau will take it.

After the session, he checks his phone. Seventeen texts in the group chat with the guys, mostly Dean sending increasingly absurd memes. Three texts from his mom checking in. One from Coach Deluca asking about his PT progress.

And one from you.

Y/N: How was PT? Did he make you cry today?

Beau smiles, typing back quickly.

Beau: Only a little. Mostly manly tears of triumph though.

Y/N: Sure. I believe you. Completely.

Beau: I did five pull-ups.

Y/N: FIVE? Beau, that’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!

Beau: Thanks. Couldn’t have done it without my guardian angel believing in me.

Y/N: Stop calling me that. I’m just a person who happened to be in the right place.

Beau: A person with a hero complex and really good instincts under pressure. AKA an angel.

Y/N: You’re impossible.

Beau: You love it.

There’s a pause.

Y/N: Maybe a little.

Beau’s grin widens. Over the past four months, texting you has become his favorite part of recovery. You check in daily, asking about his PT sessions, his pain levels, his progress. You send him terrible medical jokes. You quiz him on anatomy when you’re studying, claiming he’s helping you prepare for exams when really he’s just learning more about the exact ways his body almost failed him.

You’re funny and smart and competitive and kind, and Beau is more convinced every day that he’s in love with you.

The only problem? You’re still treating him like a patient. A friend, yes, but a friend you saved, which apparently puts him in some kind of off-limits category in your mind.

He’s been trying to change that. Slowly. Carefully.

Not carefully enough, according to Dean, who keeps telling him to “just ask her out already, you coward.”

But Beau wants to do this right. You saved his life. You deserve more than some half-assed attempt at romance from a guy who still can’t turn his head all the way without wincing.

His phone buzzes again.

Dean: Emergency. Get to the house ASAP.

Beau: What’s wrong?

Dean: Just get here. It’s important.

Beau’s heart kicks up. Dean doesn’t do “emergency” unless something is actually wrong. He grabs his bag and heads out, making the drive back to campus in record time.

He bursts through the door of the house he shares with Dean and half the hockey team, expecting — he doesn’t know what. Fire? Flood? Someone dying?

Instead, he finds Dean standing in the living room surrounded by streamers, balloons, and a banner that reads I LIVED, BITCH.

“Surprise!” Dean spreads his arms wide, grinning. “We’re throwing you a party.”

Beau stares. “You said it was an emergency.”

“It is an emergency. You’ve been back on campus for a week and we haven’t properly celebrated your return from the dead.”

“I wasn’t dead.”

“You were close enough that it counts.” Dean starts hanging more streamers. “Party’s tonight. Eight PM. Everyone’s invited.”

“Everyone?”

“The team. The guys. Some of the football players. Allie and her friends. That kid from your econ class who kept asking about you-”

“Dean-”

“And Y/N.”

Beau freezes. “What?”

Dean’s grin turns shit-eating. “I invited Y/N. She said yes, by the way. She’ll be here around nine.”

“You invited—without asking me-”

“You’ve been texting her for months and haven’t made a move. I’m helping.”

“By ambushing me?”

“By creating the perfect opportunity.” Dean hangs the last streamer and steps back to admire his work. “Come on, man. Party atmosphere, some drinks, you finally see her in person again — it’s romantic.”

“It’s manipulative.”

“It’s efficient.” Dean throws an arm around Beau’s shoulders. “Trust me. This is going to be great.”

***

The party is, objectively, insane.

By nine PM, the house is packed. Music thumps through the speakers. Someone has set up a beer pong table. Tucker is already three drinks in and teaching a group of freshmen the rules of some drinking game that definitely doesn’t have any rules.

Beau is nursing a beer and trying not to look at the door every five seconds.

“Dude, relax,” Logan says, appearing at his elbow. “She’ll be here.”

“I’m relaxed.”

“You look like you’re about to throw up.”

“That’s just my face.”

“That’s not your face. I know your face. This is your ’I’m freaking out’ face.”

Garrett joins them, holding two beers. “Is he doing the thing where he stares at the door?”

“He’s doing the thing,” Logan confirms.

“I hate both of you,” Beau mutters.

“You love us,” Garrett says cheerfully. “And you love Y/N, which is why you’re doing the door-staring thing.”

“I don’t—we’re friends.”

“Right,” Logan says. “Friends who text every day.”

“Friends who have inside jokes,” Garrett adds.

“Friends who he calls his guardian angel-”

“Okay, yes, fine, I like her.” Beau takes a long pull from his beer. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Dean says, materializing out of nowhere. “And you’re going to tell her tonight.”

“I’m not-”

“You are. Because life is short, Beau. You nearly died. You got a second chance. Are you really going to waste it being chicken about asking out the girl who saved you?”

Beau opens his mouth to argue. Then closes it. Because damn it, Dean has a point.

“What if she says no?” He asks quietly.

“Then she says no,” Dean says. “But what if she says yes?”

Before Beau can respond, the front door opens.

And there you are.

You’re wearing jeans and a simple black top, your hair down instead of in the ponytail you usually wear, and Beau forgets how to breathe.

“She’s here,” Logan whispers unnecessarily.

“I can see that,” Beau hisses back.

You spot them and wave, smiling as you make your way through the crowd. Allie intercepts you halfway, pulling you into a hug and saying something that makes you laugh.

“Go talk to her,” Dean says, giving Beau a shove.

“I am talking to her.”

“You’re standing here like a statue. Go.”

Beau takes a breath and crosses the room. You look up as he approaches, and your smile gets wider.

“Hey!” You say, and then you’re hugging him. It’s brief, casual, but Beau’s heart still does something stupid in his chest. “I can’t believe Dean threw you an I Lived, Bitch party.”

“I can,” Beau says. “Subtlety isn’t really his thing.”

“I brought you something.” You dig in your bag and pull out a small wrapped package. “I was going to give it to you later, but here.”

Beau takes it, curious. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Just open it.”

He unwraps it carefully. Inside is a keychain — a small football with the Briar University logo engraved on it and proof that miracles happen on the other side.

Beau stares at it, his throat tight. “Y/N-”

“I know it’s cheesy,” you say quickly. “But I saw it at this little shop near campus and thought of you. Because you are a miracle. You know that, right? The odds of you surviving what you survived, of recovering the way you have-”

“Hey.” Beau sets the keychain carefully on the nearest table and takes your hand. “Thank you. Really. This is—it’s perfect.”

You squeeze his hand, and for a moment, it’s just the two of you in the crowded room.

Then Dean’s voice booms over the music. “EVERYONE! CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?”

The music cuts off. Everyone turns to look at Dean, who’s standing on the coffee table with a beer raised.

“Oh no,” Beau mutters.

“Oh no,” you echo, but you’re smiling.

“Three months ago,” Dean announces, “my best friend nearly died. Car crash, black ice, the whole dramatic scene. And while I was sitting in a hospital waiting room having a complete breakdown, there was someone else on a dark highway saving his life.”

The crowd is silent, watching.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” Dean continues, finding you in the crowd. “Stand up. Come on, don’t be shy.”

You look mortified. “Dean-”

“Stand up!”

Reluctantly, you stand. The crowd turns to look at you.

“This woman,” Dean says, “stopped on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Could’ve driven past. Could’ve just called 911 and left. But she didn’t. She stopped. She used her medical training to stabilize Beau’s neck, to stop the bleeding, to keep him alive until the paramedics arrived. The surgeon told us that if she hadn’t done what she did, Beau would have died at the scene.”

Beau can see your eyes are shiny. His are probably the same.

“So this party isn’t just about Beau living, though that’s obviously the main event,” Dean continues. “It’s about Y/N. About the fact that there are still people in the world who stop to help strangers. Who run toward danger instead of away from it. Who save lives because it’s the right thing to do.”

He raises his beer higher. “To Y/N. Beau’s guardian angel. The reason we still have our quarterback. The reason I still have my brother.”

“TO Y/N!” The crowd roars.

You’re definitely crying now, wiping at your eyes with your free hand. Beau pulls you into a hug, and you bury your face in his shoulder.

“I hate your best friend,” you mumble into his shirt.

“I know,” Beau says, grinning. “Me too.”

Dean, having successfully made everyone emotional, declares that the situation requires shots. Multiple shots. A truly irresponsible number of shots.

“I don’t think this is medically advisable,” you protest as Dean lines up shot glasses on the kitchen counter.

“You’re not on duty,” Dean says. “And we’re celebrating. Celebrating requires shots.”

“That’s not-”

“Shots! Shots! Shots!” Tucker starts chanting. The crowd joins in.

You look at Beau helplessly. He shrugs. “When in Rome?”

“Rome didn’t have vodka.”

“Rome would’ve had vodka if they’d survived a near-death experience.”

You laugh and grab a shot glass. “Fine. But I’m blaming you when I regret this tomorrow.”

Dean passes out shots to everyone in the kitchen. “To Beau!” He shouts.

“To Beau!” Everyone echoes, and the shots go down.

One shot turns into two. Two turns into three. By shot four, you’re leaning against the counter, cheeks flushed, giggling at something Tucker is saying about his disastrous history midterm.

Beau stays close, not drinking as much because his tolerance is shot after months of not drinking, but enough that he feels warm and loose and brave.

“Having fun?” He asks, appearing at your side.

You beam up at him. “The most fun. Dean is insane. I love him.”

“Don’t tell him that. His ego can’t take it.”

“Too late!” Dean calls from across the room. “I heard! She loves me, Beau!”

“You’re the worst!” Beau calls back.

“You love me too!”

“Debatable!”

You laugh, the sound bright and unrestrained, and Beau wants to bottle it. Wants to keep it forever.

“Come on,” he says, taking your hand. “Let’s get some air.”

He leads you through the crowd, out the back door to the porch. The April night is cool but not cold, the first real hint of spring in the air. The noise from the party is muffled out here, just the bass line thumping through the walls.

“This is nice,” you say, leaning against the railing. “Quieter.”

“Yeah.” Beau stands beside you, close enough that your shoulders brush. “You okay? Dean didn’t overwhelm you too much?”

“Are you kidding? That toast was-” Your voice catches. “That was one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.”

“You saved my life. You deserve a lot more than a toast.”

“I was just doing what anyone would do.”

“No,” Beau says firmly. “You weren’t. You did something extraordinary. And I will spend the rest of my life being grateful for it.”

You turn to face him, leaning your hip against the railing. “The rest of your life, huh? That’s a long time.”

“Not long enough,” Beau says. His heart is pounding, but whether it’s from the alcohol or your proximity, he can’t tell. Probably both. “Y/N, I-”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been wanting to tell you something. For months, actually.”

You tilt your head, curious. “What is it?”

“I-” He stops. Starts again. “Do you remember what you said to me in the hospital? About Harvard beating Briar fair and square?”

“Of course. And I meant it. You guys are going down next season.”

“See, that’s the thing.” Beau takes a small step closer. “I’ve been thinking about that. About you being a Harvard fan and me playing for Briar. And I realized I don’t care.”

“You don’t care about football?” You sound skeptical.

“I don’t care that we’re rivals. I don’t care that you’re rooting against my team. I don’t care about any of it because-” He takes a breath. “Because I like you. A lot. Like, an embarrassing amount for someone who’s supposed to be playing it cool.”

Your eyes widen slightly. “Beau-”

“I know we’ve been friends,” he continues quickly. “And if that’s all you want, I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me. But I need you to know that I think about you constantly. I look forward to your texts more than anything else in my day. When I was in PT, struggling through the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, the thought of texting you after kept me going.”

“Really?” Your voice is soft.

“Really.” He reaches up, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture is gentle, tentative. “You saved my life, Y/N. And then you kept saving it, every day, just by being you. By making me laugh when I wanted to give up. By believing I could recover when I wasn’t sure I could.”

“I always believed in you,” you whisper.

“I know. I felt it. Every text, every terrible medical joke, every time you called me out for pushing too hard or not hard enough — I felt it.”

You’re staring at him now, your eyes bright in the porch light. “I like you too,” you say. “I have for months. But I didn’t—you were recovering, and I didn’t want to take advantage-”

“Take advantage?” Beau laughs. “Y/N, I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask you out since I woke up in that hospital bed and saw you for the first time.”

“You were on a lot of pain meds.”

“Doesn’t make it less true.”

You bite your lip, and Beau tracks the movement. “So what now?”

“Now,” Beau says, stepping even closer, “I’m going to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“Can I kiss you?”

Your breath catches. For a moment, you just stare at him. Then you smile — that brilliant, beautiful smile that he’s dreamed about for months.

“Yes,” you breathe. “God, yes.”

Beau cups your face in his hands, thumbs brushing against your cheeks, and leans in.

The first touch of your lips is electric. Soft and sweet and perfect. You make a small sound and melt into him, your hands coming up to grip his shirt.

Beau kisses you like he’s been wanting to for months, which he has. Kisses you like you’re precious, which you are. Kisses you like he’s afraid you might disappear, which part of him is.

You kiss him back just as intensely, your fingers curling into his hair, pulling him closer.

Someone starts whooping from inside. “YES! FINALLY! GET IT, MAXWELL!”

Beau flips him off behind your back without breaking the kiss, which makes you laugh against his mouth.

“Your friends are watching,” you mumble.

“Don’t care,” Beau says, kissing you again.

“They’re cat-calling.”

“Still don’t care.”

You pull back slightly, just enough to meet his eyes. Your lips are kiss-swollen, your cheeks flushed, and Beau has never seen anything more beautiful.

“This is really happening?” You ask. “We’re really doing this?”

“If you want to,” Beau says. “I mean, I know it’s complicated. The rivalry thing-”

“Is football,” you finish. “Just football. This is more important.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You smile. “Besides, it’ll make beating you next season even sweeter.”

Beau laughs and kisses you again. “You’re impossible.”

“You love it,” you say, echoing your earlier text.

“I do,” Beau agrees. “I really, really do.”

From inside, Dean is now leading a chant of “KISS! KISS! KISS!” that’s quickly spreading through the party.

“We should probably go back in,” you say, not moving.

“Probably,” Beau agrees, also not moving.

You stay like that for another moment, just looking at each other, before you finally step back and take his hand.

“Come on,” you say. “Before your best friend has an aneurysm.”

You walk back into the party together, hands linked, and the entire room erupts into cheers.

Dean tackles Beau in a hug, nearly knocking you both over. “FINALLY! Do you know how hard it’s been watching you pine for four months?”

“Get off me,” Beau laughs, shoving him away.

“I’m the best wingman ever. Admit it.”

“You’re the worst.”

“But I’m your worst,” Dean says, grinning. Then he turns to you. “Welcome to the family, Y/N. You’re stuck with us now.”

“I can think of worse fates,” you say, smiling.

Logan and Tucker appear, both looking entirely too pleased with themselves.

“So,” Logan says. “Are you guys like, official? Is this a thing?”

Beau looks at you. You look back.

“It’s a thing,” you say.

“It’s definitely a thing,” Beau confirms.

“Well fuck,” Garrett says, joining the group with Hannah. “Because Hannah bet me twenty bucks you’d get together before summer, and I bet after. So thanks for costing me money, Beau.”

“My pleasure,” Beau says dryly.

The party continues late into the night. Beau stays by your side, your fingers laced with his, and for the first time since the accident, everything feels right.

Better than right.

Perfect.

Later, when the crowd has thinned and it’s just the core group sitting around the living room, Dean raises his beer one more time.

“To second chances,” he says.

“To guardian angels,” Tucker adds.

“To love,” Hannah says, making everyone groan.

“To football rivalries,” you contribute, which makes everyone laugh.

“To all of it,” Beau says, looking at you. “To whatever brought you to that highway at that exact moment. To whatever made you stop. To whatever led us here.”

You lean your head on his shoulder. “To fate,” you say softly.

“To fate,” Beau agrees.

And as he sits there, surrounded by his friends, his arm around the girl who saved his life in more ways than one, Beau can’t help but think that Dean was right.

Life is short. Second chances are rare.

And he’s not going to waste a single moment of his.

***

The Briar University athletics facility smells like sweat and ambition at seven AM on a Saturday, which is exactly why Dean loves it. That, and the fact that most people are still asleep, leaving the weight room gloriously empty.

Well, mostly empty.

“Come on, Maxwell, one more set!” Dean calls from his spot on the bench press. “Or are you going to let your girlfriend out-lift you?”

Beau, currently doing bicep curls while watching you on the treadmill, flips him off without looking away from you. “She’s not trying to out-lift me. She’s doing cardio.”

“I can hear you both,” you call from the treadmill, your ponytail swinging as you run. “And I absolutely could out-lift Beau if I wanted to.”

“Oh, fighting words!” Dean sits up, grinning. “Beau, you gonna take that?”

“Yes,” Beau says immediately. “Have you seen her deadlift? It’s terrifying and hot.”

“It’s medical student grip strength,” you explain, not breaking stride. “Years of studying have given me callouses of steel.”

“And here I thought it was just natural perfection,” Beau says.

Dean makes gagging noises. “You two are disgusting. It’s been five months. The honeymoon phase should be over by now.”

“Never,” Beau says cheerfully, setting down his weights and grabbing his water bottle.

Dean watches as Beau wanders over to your treadmill, leans against it, and says something that makes you laugh mid-stride. You nearly trip, smacking his arm, but you’re grinning.

Five months. Nearly half a year since that party. Half a year of watching his best friend fall more in love every single day.

It’s been an adjustment, Dean will admit. Suddenly having to share Beau with someone else, having to accept that he’s no longer the most important person in Beau’s life. But watching Beau now — healthy, happy, whole — Dean can’t begrudge it.

Especially because you’re pretty fucking cool.

You finish your run and hop off the treadmill, breathing hard but not winded. “Okay, what’s next? Weights? Core? Please say core. I need to work off the stress of this week.”

“Rough rotation?” Beau asks, immediately concerned.

“Just long,” you say, stretching your arms over your head. “Twenty-hour shifts don’t leave a lot of time for self-care. Hence why I’m here at seven AM on my one day off instead of sleeping like a normal person.”

“It’s the endorphins,” Dean says knowingly. “You’re chasing that dopamine high.”

“Exactly,” you agree quickly. “Purely scientific. Nothing to do with-”

“With wanting to see Beau shirtless and sweaty?” Dean finishes, smirking.

You turn red. “I—that’s not—I mean-”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Beau says, already pulling his shirt over his head. “I am pretty great to look at.”

“Your ego is showing,” you mutter, but you’re definitely staring.

Dean laughs. “Okay, lovebirds, let’s actually work out. Beau, you’ve got full medical clearance now, right?”

“As of last week,” Beau confirms, and there’s an edge of excitement in his voice that Dean recognizes. It’s the same excitement that’s been building since the doctors finally, finally said he could return to full contact practice. “Coach wants me back in peak condition before the season starts.”

“Which is three weeks,” Dean adds. “So we’ve got to get you whipped into shape.”

The effect is immediate and bizarre.

Beau and you lock eyes across the weight room. Something passes between you — some kind of silent communication that Dean has seen before but never understood. It’s like you share a brain sometimes, which is both impressive and deeply unsettling.

Then, in perfect unison, you both gasp dramatically.

“Did you just say-” you start.

“Whipped into shape?” Beau finishes.

“Oh no,” Dean says, recognizing the gleam in both your eyes. “No. Whatever you’re thinking-”

But it’s too late.

You sprint to the corner of the gym where someone has left a pile of equipment. You emerge triumphantly holding two jump ropes.

“Where did you even—when did you-” Dean sputters.

“Shhh,” you say, tossing one rope to Beau, who catches it with a grin that can only be described as maniacal. “Let us have this.”

“Have what?” Dean asks, genuinely concerned now.

You and Beau exchange another look. Then you hold up one finger and suddenly you’re both jumping rope and singing.

“I WANT YOU WHIPPED INTO SHAPE!” You belt out, your voice surprisingly strong for someone who just ran three miles.

“WHEN I SAY JUMP, SAY ‘HOW HIGH?’” Beau joins in, jumping rope with enough enthusiasm to be concerning given that he had spinal surgery less than a year ago.

Dean stares. Just stares.

“YOU KNOW YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT,” you continue, now doing some kind of complicated jump rope move that involves crossing your arms.

“WHEN YOU START TO CRY!” Beau adds, attempting the same move and nearly tripping over the rope.

“IF YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE YOU SHOULD,” you both sing together now, jumping in sync, “YOU’VE GOT TO-”

“WHIP IT, WHIP IT, WHIP IT GOOD!”

You finish with a flourish, both of you breathing hard, jump ropes held high like you’ve just won Olympic gold.

There’s a moment of silence.

Then you and Beau collapse into laughter, dropping the ropes and leaning on each other for support.

“What,” Dean says slowly, “the actual fuck was that?”

“Legally Blonde: The Musical,” you gasp out between giggles. “Brooke Wyndham is an icon.”

“And when you said whipped into shape-”

“We just had to,” you finish together.

Dean continues to stare. “You two are insane.”

“Probably,” Beau agrees, still grinning.

“Definitely,” you add, not looking remotely apologetic.

Dean shakes his head, but he’s smiling now. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or concerned that you both knew all the words.”

“Be impressed,” Beau says. “We also know the choreography to ‘Omigod You Guys.’”

“We do NOT need to see that,” Dean says quickly.

“Your loss,” you say cheerfully. “It’s iconic.”

Beau wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close and pressing a kiss to your temple. You lean into him naturally, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Like you’ve been doing it for years instead of months.

And Dean …

Dean has a moment.

He’s been Beau’s best friend for years. Has seen him date casually, has seen him hook up at parties, has seen him in relationships that lasted a few months before fizzling out. But this thing with you … it’s different.

It’s in the way Beau looks at you, like you hung the moon and stars. It’s in the way you know what he’s thinking before he says it. It’s in the stupid inside jokes and the synchronized musical numbers and the fact that Beau drove to your apartment in Cambridge just to bring you coffee before a tough rotation.

It’s in the way you saved his life, yes, but also in the way you keep saving it, every day, just by existing.

And Dean realizes, standing in a weight room at seven AM on a Saturday, watching his best friend and his girlfriend be ridiculous together, that you’re soulmates.

The thought hits him with unexpected force. He’s never believed in soulmates before — always thought it was romantic nonsense, something people made up to explain compatibility. But looking at you and Beau now, he can’t think of another word for it.

Whatever happened that night last February — the deer, the ice, the crash, the fact that you were on that exact stretch of highway at that exact moment — it wasn’t just coincidence.

It was fate.

It had to be.

Because the odds of everything aligning the way it did? Of you having the exact training needed to save him? Of you stopping when most people wouldn’t? Of Beau surviving injuries that should have killed him?

The odds were astronomical.

And yet here you both are.

“Dean?” Your voice pulls him from his thoughts. “You okay? You look weird.”

“I’m fine,” Dean says. His voice comes out rougher than intended. “Just thinking.”

“Dangerous,” Beau jokes, but he’s looking at Dean with concern now. “Seriously, man, what’s up?”

Dean opens his mouth. Closes it. How does he even put this into words?

“I just-” He stops. Tries again. “You two are it for each other, aren’t you?”

The question hangs in the air.

You and Beau look at each other. Something passes between you again — that silent communication that Dean’s starting to understand is just how you two operate.

“Yeah,” Beau says finally, turning back to Dean. “Yeah, we are.”

“I love him,” you add simply. “Like, scary amount. Forever amount.”

“I’m going to marry her,” Beau says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Probably not today, because I think she’d kill me if I proposed in a gym-”

“I absolutely would,” you confirm.

“-but someday. Definitely someday.”

Dean feels his throat get tight. “Good,” he manages. “That’s good.”

“Are you crying?” You ask, peering at him.

“No,” Dean says. He’s definitely about to cry. “Shut up.”

“Oh my god, you are!” Beau looks delighted. “Dean Di Laurentis, notorious womanizer and emotionally unavailable hockey player, is crying over our relationship!”

“I’m not crying. It’s allergies.”

“That’s not-”

Dean crosses the gym and pulls both of you into a hug, one arm around each of them. “I’m really glad you didn’t die,” he tells Beau.

“Me too, man,” Beau says, returning the hug. “Me too.”

“And I’m really glad you stopped,” Dean says to you. “That night. I’m really glad you stopped and saved him. Because I don’t know what I would’ve done if-” His voice cracks.

You squeeze him tighter. “I’m glad I stopped too.”

“You’re stuck with us now,” Dean continues. “You know that, right?”

“I can live with that,” you say softly.

You stand there for a moment, the three of you, holding onto each other in an empty weight room while early morning sunlight streams through the high windows.

Finally, Beau pulls back, wiping at his eyes. “Okay, enough emotions. We’re supposed to be working out.”

“Right,” you agree, also suspiciously misty-eyed. “Working out. Building strength. Whipping into shape.”

“Don’t,” Dean warns.

“We’ve got to-”

“No-”

“WHIP IT, WHIP IT, WHIP IT GOOD!” You and Beau shout together, dissolving into laughter again.

“I hate you both,” Dean says, but he’s grinning.

“No you don’t,” Beau says, slinging an arm around Dean’s shoulders.

“You love us,” you add, linking your arm through Dean’s other arm.

“Unfortunately,” Dean admits. “Now come on. If you two are done with your Broadway moment, Beau actually does need to get whipped into shape before camp starts.”

“I’m in great shape,” Beau protests.

“You’re in good shape,” you correct. “Great shape requires more work. Doctor’s orders.”

“You’re not my doctor.”

“I could be. Want me to check your reflexes?”

“That sounds like innuendo.”

“It wasn’t, but I like where your head’s at.”

Dean makes a strangled sound. “I did NOT need that mental image.”

“Then stop listening to our conversations,” Beau says reasonably.

“You’re having them three feet away from me!”

“Sounds like a you problem,” you say cheerfully.

The workout continues, but the energy has shifted. There’s something lighter about it now, something that feels like the future rather than the past.

Dean watches as Beau spots you during squats, his hands hovering near your waist, ready to catch you if needed. Watches as you correct Beau’s form on shoulder presses with the clinical precision of someone who knows exactly how bodies work. Watches as you both take a water break and Beau pulls you in for a kiss that’s probably too long for a public gym but that no one’s around to complain about.

And someday — maybe years from now, maybe at that wedding Dean is already planning in his head — he’s going to tell this story.

He’s going to tell everyone about the night Beau almost died. About the medical student who stopped to save him. About the months of recovery and the I Lived, Bitch party and the first kiss and the musical numbers in the gym.

He’s going to tell them about soulmates, about fate, about second chances.

And he’s going to tell them that he knew.

He knew from that moment in the weight room, watching them be ridiculous together, that you were forever.

And Dean allows himself to feel grateful. Grateful for black ice and bad timing and good Samaritans. Grateful for medical training and quick thinking and jump ropes in gyms. Grateful for musicals and inside jokes and the way love can find you in the darkest moments.

Grateful for second chances.

Because in his current one he was experiencing a level of torture that he thought nobody was possible of inflicting on another person “you are going to get me killed.” Beau grumbled against your mouth as his hands rested on your waist. 

It made you grin “I’m just a girl chilling on her bed.” You played defensively as you gasped feeling his hips grind against you. 

The boy laughed “you say that like you aren’t in my shirt.” Beau pointed out as he looked down at the football training shirt. 

The grey fabric practically drowned you, reminding him out that day you were in his jersey “hey finders keepers losers weepers.” You stuck your tongue out at him earning an immediate laugh. 

Beau tucked your hair behind your ear “you’re lucky that it looks better on you anyways.” He murmured leaning in to kiss your neck.  

You shook your head as you let your hands cup his cheeks before you pulled his attentions back to your eyes “you know what looks better on me?” You batted your eyelashes at the boy who swore he melted into your bed at that moment. 

You had this way of looking at him like he was the only thing that mattered. Sure he looked at you like that too. 

It was funny how time had a way of stopping when you shut your bedroom door. The apartment had become your safe haven once the girls found out about you two, it became a place where you didn’t have to hide “what does baby?” Beau asked as he cocked his head. 

You ran your tongue along your teeth “if it’s off of me.” Your words were met with an immediate groan as his head fell onto your shoulder. 

It made you laugh which was only made louder when the door burst open “absolutely not!” Allie shook her head. 

She was stood with Hannah who grinned when you looked past the boy on top of you “you need to get ready.” Allie pointed her finger in your direction “and you need to go finish helping set up your stupid house for this.” She moved her attention to Beau. 

It made the boy groan “I hate your roommates.” He grumbled when he finally sat up. 

You mocked him with a pout “they’re my roommates.” You reminded him as you giggled “and we’re also the ones who keep your asses safe.” Hannah reminded you of remembering when Garrett had an impromptu drop in and Beau was left being forced into your room. 

In a way it was almost ironic that Beau dropped in on girls night, just for Garrett to do the same thing thirty minutes later. That’s how you ended up being forced to fake a cold for a week after you had to hide in your bedroom too. 

Beau sighed as he knew that the girls were right “what is it that you want from us?” He asked as he let his hand snake around your waist once more. 

Allie rolled her eyes “for you to go away so that we can get her dressed.” Beau looked down to what you were in. 

What was just his t-shirt “well I think she looks perfect.” He confessed making both girls pretend to gag “nice try.” Allie crossed her arms. 

Beau grinned “now go away.” She added making the boy frown. 

He reached for your hand “no don’t look at her she can’t help you.” Hannah stopped him making you laugh. 

The boy looked at you like you had just gone to the dark side “I will see you later.” He went to kiss you but your roommates remained strong “go!” 

You toyed with your necklace as you laughed seeing them shove him out “you know your boyfriend is obsessed with you right?” Allie shook her head and you couldn’t even argue. 

Because the feeling was right, and listening to people still calling him your boyfriend made your stomach feel funny. 

It came when the rain was pouring outside. 

Beau came over after he finished a late class and practically slipped into your bed with you the moment he got a chance as you had complained that you were too cold to practically do anything. 

That’s how the two of you ended up watching Mamma Mia on your laptop together “so just so we’re clear Sam’s the dad right?” His words made you pause your laptop, leaning up from his chest. 

You turned to Beau and let out the harshest sigh you possibly could have “it’s a good thing you’re pretty cause you my friend are wrong.” You shook your head as you felt his hand on your back. 

Beau cocked his head “it’s so clearly Bill!” You whined not realising that the boy in front of you had gone strangely quiet. 

His fingers brushed up your arm absentmindedly. His fingers were slower as if his mind had drifted somewhere else entirely “you’re staring.” Your voice was soft as it pulled him back to you. 

He smiled when his eyes flicked back to yours “no I’m not.” 

“Oh yes you are.” 

And then he paused as he let out a hard exhale “I’m just thinking.” He shrugged as he leaned on his arm “that’s dangerous.” You grinned as your eyes shone this glimmer of mischief. 

He rolled his eyes as he huffed out a laugh “do you ever think about how this started?” He asked quietly as his arm tightened around your waist. 

You blinked as you cocked your head “how you’re wrong about a piece of cultural history?” You spoke so simply that it almost made him laugh. 

Beau shook his head “I mean us.” You turned to be fully in his arms “I think about it all the time.” 

It made you smile “what about us?” You furrowed your brows. 

His thumb brushed against your waist, almost nervous in a way you weren’t really used to seeing him in “I don’t want to just be your friend.” His words made you grow confused. 

“I’m not tracking with you Maxwell.”

He frowned, trying to figure out how he was meant to say it “what are we?” His hand reached up to cup your cheek. 

You chewed at the inside of your lip “I mean.” You couldn’t find the words to articulate it “we’re serious.” You remembered that night when the girls found out about him when you confessed that. 

Beau nodded “they called me your boyfriend.” He reminded you as if it wasn’t something that you were already thinking about. 

You licked your lips “I liked it when they did that.” His confession made you melt as he sat up talk as if it was about to make what he said more proper than when he was laying down “I want you like that.” 

He ran his fingers through his hair “you do have me like that Beau.” You nodded as he shook his head “not officially.” 

That made you nervous “what about Dean-” his hands cupped your cheeks “I know I can’t have you in public.” 

It should have stung. It should have made your heart break “but I want you in all the ways that matter to us.” Beau forced his lips into a smile when you grinned “who would have thought I’d get Beau Maxwell getting all cute?” 

He pecked your lips “your boyfriend Beau Maxwell actually.” 

It lingered in your mind as you walked into the house “Dean might kill me in this.” You shook your head at the two girls who laughed “well then aren’t we glad that you dressed up for your boyfriend.” Allie took a cup one of the guys who smiled at her before she gave it to you. 

You downed it without thinking twice as you nodded “remember if you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Hannah patted your lower back when you guys finally spotted Beau. 

He was stood in some black shirt and a backwards hat that made him look dangerously good “I-I,” You cut yourself off as your throat felt dry. 

Now you were learning how the world felt as it was so unfair. 

And then he looked up and finally saw you.

Before he completely stopped moving.

It was almost funny how obvious he was when he wasn’t meant to. 

But somehow it felt like something only you guys were meant to know.

Like his body forgot how to function for a second every time you walked into a room “oh my god,” Allie whispered beside you, delighted “look at his face.”

Hannah snorted looking at the boy “he’s gone.” Beau really was, his drink lowered slowly in his hand as his eyes dragged down your body.

The dress.

Your legs.

The way the black fabric hugged you in all the places he already knew too well.

It was something that Allie found in her closet, and she knew the moment you put it on that it was practically made for you. 

And Beau knew it by the way his eyes looked back up at yours.

And the look on his face made heat crawl up your neck instantly.

Because that wasn’t secretive.

That wasn’t subtle.

That was him reminding you that he was yours.

You swallowed as Allie grinned wickedly, “mission accomplished.” Across the room, Garrett said something to Beau that clearly went unheard.

Beau forced himself to nod as you smiled “think your man is thinking the same thing.” You winked at Hannah, who turned the same colour of red you swore your cheeks were. 

Beau was the first one to make his way over “I’ll meet him there.” Hannah squeezed your hand as she walked to Garrett before he had the chance to unintentionally cockblock you. 

Allie squeezed your arm “oh that boy looks sick!” She giggled like a kid in a candy store “try keep him breathing after midnight.” She teased as she gave you one last twirl.

You barely got a chance to respond before he was stood right in front of you. The boy made sure that there was enough space for it not to be overwhelmingly noticable, but he was close enough that you could still smell his cologne.

His eyes dropped again, straight to the dress. Then your legs. 

And to round off the trip they went back to your eyes, and the look that he gave you was enough to make your stomach flip “hi there, handsome.” You smiled sweetly. 

Beau exhaled through his nose as his eyes sharpened “you are doing this on purpose.” His words were directed at Allie but his eyes never left you. 

He let out a low whistle “c’mon baby I mean.” He reached out to put his hands on your waist but he quickly stopped himself. 

It was the part that you hated, the fact that he couldn’t just reach out and touch you, it almost made you feel jealous of Hannah and Garrett behind you, who got to be real in front of everyone when Hannah was still crushing on Justin two weeks ago, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d say that she was still crushing on the singer. 

Sure you knew it was wrong to not be 100% happy for your friend, but you craved the publicity that her relationship got, “you look like trouble.” Beau finally found the words as he made you smile. 

Of course, he’d notice when his compliments made your heart soar, but you’d do everything in your power to hide the effect they had on you “that’s not very nice.” You lightly teased him as he shook his head. 

Beau decided to step forward again, this time allowing his mouth to drop to your ear “last time I checked, I wasn’t trying to be fucking nice.” He grumbled as he let his hand run along your waist. 

Honestly, that moment had done more to you than anything else. The thought of him peeling you out of your dress was something that seemed to be on both of your minds. 

Which was a dangerous look to have on a man in a room full of people “you are going to be the death of me.” He mumbled as he leaned back to take a look at you in full again. 

His jaw flexed as his eyes darkened. Beau was really weighing up the consequences of throwing you over his shoulder and bringing you upstairs

But then it happened, “Beau!” Dean’s voice called out, making your boyfriend step back. 

The boy groaned while you instead laughed “hey Deano.” You smiled seeing your very drunk and very oblivious brother sling his arm around Beau’s shoulders. 

Dean let his eyes linger over your body “you clean up nicely.” He announced as you tried your best not to look nervous. 

“Thanks?”

Your brother ignored you as he saw how Beau smiled at you “see this is why I have rules.” Dean slurred as he pointed his finger accusingly at his best friend. 

It made Beau’s eyes widen, “what rules?” He asked as he tried his hardest to act like you weren’t there and you tried the same thing with him. 

Dean continued, “you can’t hook up with any of my friends.” You had to force a laugh out of your lips “oh please, I’d never.” You scratched your arm nervously as if your brother knew everything. 

Thankfully he stumbled shortly after, making Beau practically catch him “you are drunk.” Dean shook his head “I am having a better time than the two of you it seems.” He corrected his friend as you smiled. 

It was nice seeing the boys together, you had to admit it “c’mon lets get you some water.” Beau’s suggestion fell onto deaf ears “we are doing shots.” 

Dean looked at you “without her.” That was what your brother was always like so you really weren’t annoyed. 

Beau frowned as he really didn’t want to leave you “have fun boys.” You sent Beau a salute as he got pulled back into the crowd, disappearing into the sea of people.

Before you knew it, the party had gotten louder. 

Hotter and somehow more crowded even. 

Allie disappeared outside to answer a call from Shawn while Hannah was talking to Justin in some corner as Garrett was in the bathroom. 

Which left you alone as you got a drink in the kitchen “you’re Dean’s sister right?” You looked up to see a guy that you vaugly remembered as one of the lowerclassmen on the football team. 

You nodded as you watched him smile too widely “that’s sick.” He reeked of alcohol, and it made your nose scrunch in disgust. 

The boy didn’t leave “you got a boyfriend?” He stepped closer to you instead.

Your heart skipped “why?” You knew you should have just said yes but you stopped yourself from having to explain this to Dean “because I think we should fix that.” 

He reached for your hand as you shook your head, “I’m good,” the boy didn’t stop “c’mon don’t shut me down that fast.” He made you cringe when you stepped back realising that you were now against the counter. 

Before you even had the chance to panic you heard him “pretty sure she’s good.” Beau clenched his fists as he stood behind you both. 

“Can’t you take a hint?” 

It made the other boy laugh “we are just taking.” You took the chance to wriggle out of his space. 

Opting to slot into Beau’s side instead “no she was trying to get away from you.” Beau wrapped his arm around your shoulder. 

He squeezed his arm making the other guy snarl, “why do you care?” Beau tensed against you “because she isn’t up for the taking.” 

Beau spoke so simply, unaware of the fact that you were just about ready to make out with your boyfriend in the middle of party, without caring who saw you “whatever.” The boy raised his hands in surrender as he walked off. 

The brunette turned his attention to you “you okay?” His expression softened as he made you smile. 

You softly laughed “a lot better now that you’re here.” Your words made him almost melt. 

His hand cupped your cheek as his eyes stared at your lips “fuck you’re gorgeous.” He murmured doing everything in his power to not kiss you. 

His words were sweet as you nodded “you’re not too bad yourself pretty boy.” You shook your head, as you leaned closer to him. Your lips mere inches away from him. 

And just like last time the moment was cut before it had a chance to begin “Beau c’mon someone is sick on our couch!” One of his roommates groaned making you sigh.

Beau was ready to stay with you and leave the mess for someone else to deal with “no talking to strange men.” Beau grumbled as it made you let out a low laugh “is that your takeaway from this?”

He wanted to plant his feet in the ground and never leave you “I’ll behave.” He didn’t believe that you would, but still he couldn’t stay.

Not when he was literally being pulled away “I’m serious!” Was the last thing that he said as he got pulled back into the crowd. 

Allie appeared beside you as you grinned “y’know he was ready to like actually fight that guy.” She squeezed your hand, making your cheeks turn red. 

You licked your lips “that guy was weird.” It sent a shiver down your spine. 

She gasped dramatically “no way, your secret boyfriend who is obsessed with you, got jealous?” She teased you as she let out a laugh when you rolled your eyes. 

The girl looped her arm into yours, leaning her head against your shoulder “I am literally living for this.” You snorted as you shook your head “you are enjoying this way too much.” 

Allie nodded as if it was the most honest thing that you could have said “because it took you two so damn long to let us in!”

She remembered how awkward you and Beau were when you first started sneaking around “y’know he used to look at you like a lost puppy.” Hannah reappeared next to you as you shook your head. “No he didn’t.”

Your defensiveness made them laugh “you love him.” Hannah elbowed your side as she slipped her arm into yours. 

You chewed at the inside of your cheek “yeah I do.” You nodded as you realised that you really meant it. 

Both girls squealed as they jumped up and down, seeing your eyes land on Beau’s. You did always managed to find him in the crowd. 

And like always, Beau was looking at you too. 

Allie stood in front of you as she grabbed your face “this is like the best day of my life.” Her words made you groan.

You shook your head “Allie!” You whined as you hated how well the girls could read you.

Hannah watched as you scrunched your nose “I hate you both.” You grumbled making her stick her tongue out at you.

Allie grinned as she let out a laugh “but we are still the ones helping you two sneak around.” She poked your nose as Hannah giggled.

And they were right.

Because when you couldn’t find Beau anymore. Rather than going home with the girls, you opted to slip up to his room to get some quiet and hopeful company “was wondering how long it would take you to come here.” Beau smiled as he toyed with his watch. 

The door shut behind you “I was waiting for you to come and get me.” You smirked as the boy stood up from his bed.

His steps towards you were painfully slow “was trying to do that most of the night.” His hand reached for yours as he smiled. 

His calloused fingers were rough against your skin “seemed like you didn’t do a very good job.” You let out a breathy laugh when he walked you back into the door. 

Beau licked his lips “you enjoy breaking the rules?” Your lips hovered over his as you smiled. 

He grinned “last I checked Dean said his friends couldn’t hook up with you.” He recounted the conversation as if you weren’t there when it happened. 

You finally scoffed as you sent him a confused look “and what are we doing?”

Beau brushed his nose against yours “I am dating you.” His lips engulfed yours when you started walking him backwards against his bed. 

The boy grunted when he pulled you down with him “do you enjoy wearing something trying to kill me?” Beau asked as his thigh drew these tiny circles against your inner thigh. 

You smiled sweetly, “you look pretty alive to me.” You batted your eyelashes, almost making the boy’s heart stop. 

Beau nodded “that’s cause I have been planning on getting you out of this from the moment you got here.” Your body squirmed as you clenched your thighs against him. 

“So what are we waiting for?”

“You signed your ‘OK’ with one K instead of two.” His voice is rugged and you can only imagine it’s from the drills and distress.

“Typo.”

“You didn’t add any emojis.”

You shrugged even if he couldn’t see you. “Not in the mood to.”

“Your ‘take’ started with a capital T.”

“Oh. Didn’t notice.”

“Baby.”

“John.”

“Don’t do that.”

“I’m obligated to ask: don’t do what?”

“Shut me out.” He sounds upset; you can only imagine him running a hand through his hair out of frustration. “Dance around the fact that you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” you murmur into the microphone, phone held up to your ear as you carefully eye yourself in the reflection of the mirror.

You had initially felt good in the outfit you came up with, but now you’re twisting and looking at yourself dubiously, head spiraling with all the negativity in the world.

“I’m… processing.”

While your wording is too diplomatic for his liking, he’ll take what he can get. “Okay. Walk me through it.”

You both had agreed in the past that no matter how stupid the other felt talking about their feelings, it was better than saying nothing at all and letting unspoken feelings build up to eventually burst.

Still, you couldn’t help how silly you felt sometimes when attempting to verbalize your emotions out of thin air instead of aggressively writing it on your journal as if it had done you wrong.

“I got dressed up. I got ready with you in mind,” it comes out quiet, but it’s enough to crack Logan’s heart in two. Your eyes trail away from the mirror and space out on one of the dozen photo booth strips you took with Logan on your wall. Your heart skips a beat at the sight.

The silence that he leaves open is an indicator for you to continue on.

“Not—not that I’m guilt tripping you, of course. I feel like we would’ve had a lot of fun… It’s been a while since our last night out. I also just felt and looked good and I thought you’d appreciate it, too. But c'est la vie, y’know?”

Logan sighs for the nth time during the duration of your call, clearly frustrated with himself and the circumstances. “I really would’ve loved to see you all dressed up and I agree we would have had fun, too. I’m sorry.”

You let out a noise that seems to be a light laugh. On the other end of the line, Logan straightens up at the sound to gauge what kind it was.

Out of nowhere and without any context aside from Logan’s composure, Dean skates by and yells out, “whipped!”

You vaguely hear the disembodied yell through the phone earpiece and laugh again. He discerns it as vulnerable.

“You know, me from eight months ago wouldn’t believe if I said all this.”

“Wouldn’t believe what?”

“How much I care about a man’s opinion.” You share with a nearly teasing lilt in your voice. Half a beat passes before you add, “How much I care about a man at all. A hockey player at that.”

He chuckles, a comforting warmth spreading throughout his entire body. “Me from eight months ago wouldn’t have believed that I just disappointed you after pining over you for so long.”

The humor drops again, you shake your head forgetting he can’t see you, and whisper back to him as if it were a secret. “It’s not exactly your fault.”

“Logan from months ago would have definitely decked me if he could. I deserve it,” Your boyfriend smiles again when he hears you chuckle again.

“But, I’m still sorry. I mean it.”

“I know you do. Thank you.”

“You take any photos of yourself in the outfit?”

“‘Course I did. You know I love a good pre-outing photo shoot.” Somewhere along the call, you hadn't even realized the void of despair in your stomach had closed.

He groans, imagining what he missed out on. “I cannot believe I have to settle seeing photos instead of the actual thing.”

“Hockey’s important, my love.”

“But so are you.”

Heat sneaks up your to face unwillingly. Before you could respond teasingly, a different disembodied voice yells out to resume practice.

You take that as a sign to wrap up the call before he tangents to delay the inevitable. “Hey. It’s fine, we’re fine. Okay? This is just one of many days, we can always reschedule.”

You can hear him let a breath out, finding his patience in your comfort to get through a long evening of droning drills. He speedruns his goodbye with a rushed string of words.

“Yeah. Okay. Send the photos, I’ll make it up to you later. I promise, and I mean it this time. I love you.”

“I love you, too. See ya.”

When the call ends, Logan already has your direct messages between you both opened, anticipating your photos. However, you already beat him to it with a stack of three media: a shot of your reflection in the mirror, a video equivalent of it, and a cute selfie.

my no. 22 Oh my god Baby you look divine I hate myself, I hate it here The next two hours are going to be the longest hours of my fucking life I miss you already

angel dramatic much?

my no. 22 Only for you I love you

angel stop using your phonee... i love you too

Arriving, you spotted Hannah immediately, weaving between tables with three plates balanced on her arm. You passed her on your way to the staff locker room and gave her arm a quick squeeze. She grinned at you over her shoulder.

The lunch rush was the particular kind of brutal that didn't leave room for anything except moving, table to table, order to order, the focused blur of a busy service. By the time it slowed down your feet ached and your ponytail had developed a life of its own.

Hannah found you at the counter, mechanically polishing glasses.

"So busy we couldn't even talk today," she said, sliding in beside you and stealing a glass to polish.

"It was genuinely awful," you agreed. "My feet are going to file a formal complaint."

Hannah laughed. And then the door opened.

Logan, Garrett, Tucker, and Dean came in with the energy of people who had just finished practice and were extremely confident about their right to exist in any space they chose. Garrett made a beeline for Hannah with the focused intention of a man who had one priority. Behind him, Logan drifted toward the counter, casually, like he just happened to end up there, and leaned against it, watching you serve a customer with an expression that was doing nothing for your professional composure.

You almost dropped the bag the customer was reaching for.

"Hi, Logan." You kept your voice completely neutral. "Do you mind not staring at me? I'm working, you know."

He laughed, low and unhurried. "No, I don't think I can manage that."

"You could try."

"Not when you look this pretty."

"This pretty?" You gestured at yourself. "My hair is dirty and I didn't even have time to put on makeup."

"Still the prettiest," he said, and winked, and wandered back to the table where his friends had settled in like they owned the place.

You looked back at the counter. The glass you had been polishing was now somehow less clean than when you started.

Hannah had materialized at your elbow with the expression of someone watching something inevitable unfold.

"When," she said reverently, "are you two just going to date like normal people?" She sighed. "I hope it's soon. I kind of want to win that betting pool Tucker made."

You put the glass down. "What betting pool?"

Hannah's expression cycled through several things in rapid succession.

"No betting pool," she said. "I meant a real pool. Tucker said something about you guys and a real pool. Can't think of what it actually was. Because it was so long ago."

You looked at her.

"Hannah Marie Wells."

"That's not my middle name."

"Tell me the truth right now."

She looked left. She looked right. She found no exits. She exhaled.

"All right. Tucker organized a bet where everyone has to guess when you two will finally become a couple. I said three weeks from the day the bet was made, which is actually — tomorrow — so if you two could maybe just —"

"I cannot believe you guys would bet on something like that." You shook your head. "Actually, I can believe them. But you, Hannah. I expected better."

"Allie too," Hannah offered, as though this was helpful.

"What does the winner get?"

"Pride and glory. Also we each put in twenty dollars."

You set down the glass and made a direct line for the boys' table. Logan spotted you coming and started to smile, that smile, the one that was specifically for you.

"Logan," you said pleasantly, "can you help me with something? The door on one of the staff lockers is jammed. Do you mind taking a look? Your bill will be on the house if you fix it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, sure." He pushed back from the table, nodded to the others, and followed you toward the back.

Dean watched you go with an expression of mild suspicion. Tucker didn't look up from his menu.

The staff locker room smelled like industrial cleaner and someone's forgotten lunch, which was not exactly the atmosphere you would have chosen, but it would do.

"So where's the door?" Logan said, looking around.

"There's no door."

He turned. "What?"

"There's no door. I needed to get you alone." You crossed your arms. "Your friends are running a betting pool on us."

"What do you mean there's no door?" He looked genuinely betrayed by the architecture. Then: "And they're your friends too."

"Not when they're betting on us. There's no door, Logan, I made it up. Focus."

He laughed and crossed the small room toward you, his hands finding your waist and pulling you in with the unhurried ease of someone who had been doing it for a while, not long enough that it felt ordinary, long enough that it felt inevitable.

"It's not a big deal, you know," he said. "The bet. They're just nosy."

"I know." He was very close, which made it difficult to maintain the appropriate level of outrage. You found yourself pressing small kisses to his lips almost without deciding to, punctuating your words between them. "I just — don't want — to make it — a whole thing yet."

Logan pulled back far enough to look at you properly.

"Yeah?" he said. Not pushing. Just asking.

"It's ours," you said, which came out simpler and more honest than you had intended. "For a little while longer. I just want it to be ours."

Something in his expression settled, warm and unhurried, the specific look of someone who understood completely and wasn't going anywhere.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?"

"Yeah." He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. "Okay."

You pulled him in by the front of his shirt and kissed him properly this time, the locker room and the betting pool and Hannah's guilty face all receding into irrelevance.

Logan pulled back.

"Wait," he said. "So no bill on the house, then?"

one — tucker

The thing about Logan's shirts was that they were extremely comfortable.

This was not a controversial observation. They were soft and worn-in and smelled like him which was a feature rather than a bug on cold Sunday mornings when getting dressed felt like an unnecessary commitment.

You had not planned to be at the house on a Sunday morning. You had planned to be at your own place, in your own bed, wearing your own clothes, like a person who had their life together. What had actually happened was that Saturday night had turned into Sunday morning in the way that it sometimes did around Logan, and now it was nine-fifteen and you were in his kitchen in his grey shirt making coffee while he was still asleep upstairs.

Which was fine. Which was completely normal and fine.

The house was quiet. Tucker's door had been closed when you passed it. Dean and Garrett weren't home, Logan had said. You were alone with the coffee machine and a comfortable Sunday silence and absolutely no reason to think anyone was going to come downstairs for at least another hour.

You had just found the good mugs when you heard footsteps on the stairs.

Tucker appeared in the kitchen doorway in a hoodie and the expression of someone who had not yet fully committed to being awake. He was looking at his phone. He walked to the refrigerator. He opened it. He stared into it with the vacant focus of someone hoping food would appear through willpower alone.

Then he turned around and saw you.

The silence that followed had a very specific quality.

Tucker looked at you. He looked at the shirt. He looked at the coffee you were making, looked at the two mugs, and something moved across his face that went through approximately six stages before landing on stunned comprehension.

"Hey," you said, with the casual energy of someone who was not wearing their boyfriend's shirt in his kitchen on a Sunday morning. "Coffee?"

Tucker opened his mouth.

"I stayed over," you said pleasantly. "The couch is really comfortable actually."

Tucker looked at the shirt. He looked at the mugs. He looked at the shirt again.

"...Right," he said slowly.

"He let me borrow this because my top had a thing. A stain. From last night." You gestured vaguely. "Very embarrassing, actually. Pasta related."

Tucker was still looking at the mugs.

You picked up both mugs, tucked them against your chest in what you hoped was a casual gesture rather than an incriminating one, and smiled at him.

"I'm just going to bring this up," you said. "You should have some. There's plenty."

You walked past him and up the stairs before he could say anything else.

Logan was sitting up in bed when you came back, hair doing something architecturally ambitious, squinting at the light.

"Tucker's awake," you said, handing him his coffee and sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed.

Logan processed this. "And?"

"And I told him I slept on the couch because my shirt had a pasta stain."

Logan looked at you for a long moment.

"Did he believe you?"

"Absolutely not," you said cheerfully, and drank your coffee.

Downstairs, Tucker stood in the kitchen for another full minute. Then he took out his phone.

tucker: i just saw (Y/N) in the kitchen wearing logan's shirt

tucker: making TWO coffees

tucker: and she said she slept on the couch because of a pasta stain

dean: WHAT

garrett: what

tucker: I THINK I JUST WON THE BET

hannah: you didn't win the bet tucker. it was clearly just a pasta stain situation

tucker: HANNAH

allie: omg omg omg

tucker: do i win?? does the pasta stain story count as them getting together???

dean: i don't think pasta counts as confirmation tucker

tucker: I WILL NEVER FINANCIALLY RECOVER FROM THIS

two — hannah

The thing about Malone's on a Friday night was that it had exactly one staff bathroom and one customer bathroom, and the customer bathroom had been out of order since Wednesday, which meant that the staff bathroom had become public property by necessity, which meant the line for it snaked along the back wall and required a wait time that was genuinely unreasonable.

You had been waiting for four minutes when you remembered that you knew where the staff entrance was.

The staff hallway was quiet and dim, the sounds of the bar muffled behind the door. You had worked here long enough to know the code, and the bathroom was unlocked, and you were inside and washing your hands within ninety seconds, feeling extremely smug about the whole thing.

You were just reaching for a paper towel when the door opened.

Logan slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind him, and looked at you with the expression of someone who had just made the same efficient calculation.

"Oh," he said. "You had the same idea."

"Staff entrance," you confirmed.

"Smart."

"I know."

He crossed to the sink beside yours and turned on the tap, and for a moment you were just two people washing their hands in a small staff bathroom, which was either extremely romantic or extremely unromantic depending on how you looked at it. His shoulder was warm against yours in the small space. You handed him a paper towel.

"Tucker's texts have been unhinged this week," you said.

"The pasta shirt thing really broke him," Logan agreed, the corner of his mouth lifting.

"He texted me three times yesterday asking if I wanted to talk about my feelings."

Logan laughed. You loved the sound of it in small spaces, the way it filled them. You turned toward him and he turned toward you and you were very close, and he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear with the absent, habitual tenderness of someone who had been doing it long enough that he didn't think about it anymore, and you went up on your toes and kissed him quickly.

"Separate," you said against his mouth. "We should go back separately."

"Separate," he agreed, not moving.

You kissed him again, less quickly this time, his hands finding your waist, the paper towel entirely abandoned.

The door opened.

Hannah stood in the doorway.

The three of you looked at each other.

"The customer bathroom is out of order," Hannah said, very carefully, "so I used the staff code."

"Same," you said. You and Logan had separated with the practiced efficiency of people who had been interrupted before. "Just washing our hands."

"Both of you."

"It's a two sink bathroom," Logan said.

Hannah looked at the two of you. She looked at the very small bathroom. She looked at the single paper towel that was inexplicably on the floor.

"Right," she said. "Of course. I'll just —" she pointed at the toilet. "I'll just use this."

"We were just leaving," you said.

You and Logan filed past her. You did not look at each other in the hallway.

Behind you, you heard Hannah take out her phone.

hannah: ok so i just walked into the staff bathroom at malone's and (Y/N) and logan were BOTH in there

allie: WHAT

tucker: I TOLD YOU ABOUT THE PASTA SHIRT

hannah: they said they were just washing their hands

dean: both of them. in the staff bathroom. together.

hannah: there were two sinks

garrett: hannah

hannah: i mean it's a completely reasonable explanation!!

tucker: HANNAH YOU ARE LITERALLY DATING GARRETT YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS

hannah: i mean. yes. but also. two sinks.

allie: hannah i love you but two sinks is not an explanation

hannah: i just think we should give them the benefit of the doubt!!

tucker: hannah you literally have twenty dollars on this

hannah: ...i said three weeks

hannah: from a month ago

hannah: i may have already lost

three — allie

Allie considered herself an observant person.

This was not arrogance, it was simply a fact, documented over years of being the person in any given group who noticed things. Who left early. Who had argued with whom. Who liked whom. The small social architecture of any room was, to Allie, essentially readable at a glance.

Which was why she could not understand why no one else was seeing what she was seeing.

It was a random week night, the kind that had somehow evolved from a study session into a full group hangout without anyone formally announcing it, and now there were seven of them spread across the living room , Logan and Dean on the floor with Tucker's terrible taste in television providing background noise, Garrett and Hannah on the armchair that was technically too small for two people but they had been making work for months, and you and Allie on the big couch with your respective laptops.

Normal. Fine. A completely normal Tuesday.

Except.

Allie had been reaching for her water bottle when she saw it.

Logan had said something to Tucker, something quiet, barely audible over the television, and Tucker had responded, and then Logan had looked across the room at you. Just looked. For maybe two seconds.

And you had looked back.

It wasn't a loaded look, exactly. It wasn't the dramatic eye contact of a romantic comedy. It was quieter than that, it was the almost imperceptible look of two people who were sharing a private thought from across a room. Easy. Habitual. Like a conversation conducted entirely without words by people who had been having it for a long time.

Allie's water bottle missed the table entirely.

"You okay?" you asked, looking at her.

"Fine," Allie said. "Totally fine."

She looked at Logan. He had gone back to whatever Tucker was saying. Completely normal. Nothing to see.

Allie looked back at you. You were typing something on your laptop. Also completely normal.

I saw that, Allie thought. I absolutely saw that.

She leaned over to you. "Hey," she said, very casually. "What was that?"

You looked up from your laptop. "What was what?"

"That —" she gestured vaguely between you and Logan. "That look."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You and Logan just —" she did the gesture again, which in retrospect was not a very descriptive gesture.

"Allie," you said pleasantly, "I genuinely don't know what you're referring to."

You went back to your laptop. Allie stared at the side of your head.

I saw it, she thought. I definitely saw it.

She turned to the room. She needed a witness.

"Dean," she said.

Dean looked up from the floor. "What."

"Did you just see —" she started. But Dean had already looked back at the television. Tucker was saying something about the episode. Logan was responding. You were typing. Nothing was happening. The moment was completely gone, absorbed back into the ordinary texture of a Tuesday night, leaving absolutely no evidence.

Allie sat back on the couch.

I know what I saw, she thought.

Twenty minutes passed.

And then Logan got up to refill his water bottle in the kitchen, and on his way back he passed the couch, and his hand dropped briefly to your shoulder, barely a touch, a graze really, the kind that lasted less than a second and you didn't even look up from your laptop, just tilted your head toward it slightly, like a plant toward light, like the most natural thing in the world.

Allie's laptop slid off her knees.

"I SAW THAT," she said.

Everyone looked at her.

"Saw what?" Tucker said.

"Logan's hand — and her shoulder — they just —" she pointed. Logan was back on the floor. You were looking at Allie with an expression of polite confusion. "He touched her shoulder and she —"

"Are you okay?" Dean said.

"I'm fine, I just —" Allie looked around the room. Six faces looked back at her with varying degrees of concern. "Did anyone else see that?"

"See what?" Logan said.

"You touched her shoulder," Allie said, pointing at him.

"I was just walking past," Logan said.

"She leaned into it!"

"I have a stiff neck," you said.

"YOU HAVE A STIFF —" Allie stopped. Took a breath. "I know what I saw," she said, with dignity.

"Allie," Dean said carefully. "Have you had enough water today?"

"I've had plenty of water, Dean, I'm not —"

"Sometimes dehydration causes —"

"I am not dehydrated!" Allie said. "I know what I saw and what I saw was —" she looked at you. You were looking back at her with an expression of patient concern. She looked at Logan. He was also looking at her with patient concern. Both of you at the same time, with the same expression. "— you know what, never mind," she said. "Never mind. I'm fine."

She picked up her laptop.

Across the room, completely undetected, Logan looked at you.

You looked back.

The corner of your mouth moved. His did too.

Allie, who had her eyes fixed resolutely on her screen, did not see this.

She was choosing not to look anymore. For her own mental health.

allie: OKAY SO

allie: I JUST SAW SOMETHING

tucker: WHAT

allie: logan touched (Y/N)'s shoulder while walking past and she LEANED INTO IT

allie: and before that there was A LOOK

dean: allie we were all in the same room

allie: YOU WEREN'T PAYING ATTENTION DEAN

hannah: what kind of look

allie: the kind that MEANS SOMETHING

garrett: i mean they're friends

allie: garrett

garrett: what

allie: i love you but you have the observational skills of a golden retriever

garrett: ...fair

tucker: ALLIE YOU MIGHT HAVE JUST WON THE BET

allie: i can't win on a shoulder touch and a look tucker i need more evidence

tucker: THE PASTA SHIRT WAS EVIDENCE

allie: the pasta shirt was circumstantial

dean: none of us are going to win this bet are we

three and a half — garrett

It was a Wednesday afternoon, the house quiet in the way it got between practice and evening, and you had let yourself in with the key Logan had given you two weeks ago, casually, like it was nothing, tucked it into your palm and gone back to whatever he had been saying, and you had put it on your keychain without making a thing of it either.

You were in the kitchen making tea when Garrett came downstairs.

He was in sweats, hair still damp from the shower, moving with the unhurried ease of someone with nowhere to be. He went to the refrigerator, opened it, considered it, closed it. Then he leaned against the counter across from you and looked at the mug situation with the mild, unreadable expression that was, you had come to understand, just his face.

"Logan's still at the rink," he said. "Film session ran over."

"I know," you said. "He texted."

Garrett nodded. He picked up an apple from the fruit bowl. He looked at it. He looked at you.

"You should tell him about the Boston thing," he said.

You looked up. "What?"

"The conference. The one your professor forwarded you." He bit into the apple with the casual certainty of someone stating something obvious. "You've been sitting on it for two weeks. You should just tell him."

You stared at him.

The Boston conference was something you had mentioned exactly once, in passing, weeks ago, in the middle of a conversation about something else entirely. You had said three sentences about it and then moved on. You had not mentioned it since. You had not mentioned it to Logan because you hadn't figured out how yet because Boston was four days in February and it was a good opportunity and you didn't know what it meant for the thing that was still, technically, just yours.

"How did you —" you started.

Garrett shrugged. "You got quiet when someone mentioned February plans at dinner last week." He took another bite of the apple. "Logan noticed too. He just didn't want to push."

The kitchen was very quiet.

"He'll be fine with it," Garrett said, simply, like that was the part you needed to hear. "He's not going anywhere." He pushed off the counter and headed toward the living room. "Tell him about Boston."

He disappeared around the corner.

You stood in the kitchen holding your mug, looking at the space he had just occupied.

You had not told anyone about Boston. You had not told Hannah, who told you everything. You had not told Allie, who noticed everything. You had mentioned it once, in passing, and Garrett who had the observational skills of a golden retriever, according to Allie, according to everyone had filed it away and waited until you were alone to say the thing you needed to hear.

You looked down at your mug.

Then you took out your phone and texted Logan.

can we talk tonight? nothing bad. just something i've been sitting on.

His response came back in under a minute.

yeah. i'll bring food. what do you want?

You smiled at your phone in the empty kitchen.

surprise me.

four — dean

You weren't really supposed to be there.

You had come over earlier in the afternoon with the genuine intention of spending a couple of hours with Logan and then going home like a responsible person. What had actually happened was that Logan had been very convincing about the staying part convincing in the specific way that involved kissing you before you could finish your sentence and pulling you back against the mattress until leaving felt like a genuinely unreasonable idea.

So now it was late, and you were sprawled across his bed while he kissed your neck, his hands finding the hem of your shirt and pulling it over your head.

"I missed them," he said, with complete sincerity, cupping your chest in both hands, unclasping your bra with an easiness that frankly made you jealous.

You giggled and pushed his shoulders. "You idiot."

He kissed you again slow and soft, his tongue lazy against yours, the unhurried quality of someone with absolutely nowhere to be. You were certainly not going home now. You reached up and pulled his shirt over his head, and your fingers found a purple mark spreading across his stomach.

"What's this?" you said, tracing it gently.

"Practice got tough."

"Oh, my poor baby." You shifted, pressing a line of soft kisses across his stomach. You felt him shiver underneath you. "My poor, poor baby —"

The knock on the door made you both freeze.

"Logan?" Dean's voice, from the other side. Another knock. The sound of the handle being tried. "You in there, man?"

You and Logan looked at each other with the wide-eyed, frantic energy of two people who had absolutely no good explanation for the current state of the room.

Logan started moving toward the door.

"No," you whisper-screamed.

"Hide," he said, at the same volume.

"Where?"

You looked around the room in rapid, increasingly desperate assessment. The bathroom — no, what if Dean needed it. The wardrobe what if Logan opened it. The only viable option was under the bed, the duvet long enough to reach the floor and conceal the gap completely.

You rolled off the mattress and slid underneath it in one graceless motion. You heard Logan muffle a laugh by converting it unconvincingly into a cough. In your frantic scramble you had grabbed your shirt, clutched against your chest, but your bra was somewhere out there discarded, incriminating, absolutely in the middle of the room.

Fuck, you thought.

Logan opened the door.

Dean walked in. There was a brief silence of the kind that meant someone had immediately spotted something they were not expecting to see. From your position on the floor you had a very clear view of Dean's socks stopping in the middle of the room.

Then not moving.

You watched Dean's socks stand very still for approximately eight seconds.

"I need to borrow your charger," Dean said.

His voice was extremely, carefully normal. The voice of a man making a decision in real time.

Logan turned and retrieved the charger from the bedside table. "Here."

A pause. Dean's socks did not move.

"Leave, Dean," Logan said.

Another pause.

Dean's socks backed slowly toward the door.

He stood in the hallway for a moment, you could hear him through the door, just standing there, processing, and then his footsteps retreated down the hall. You waited until you heard his door close before sliding out from under the bed, pulling your shirt back on and looking at Logan, who was leaning against the wall with his hand over his mouth doing an extremely poor job of not laughing.

"Your bra," he managed.

"I know."

"It was just — right there —"

"I know, Logan."

He was fully laughing now, silent and shaking, and you threw a pillow at him, which did nothing to help.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand.

dean: dude…

logan: say nothing

You watched him type it, one eyebrow raised. His phone buzzed back almost immediately.

dean: i have twenty dollars on the line

logan: dean

dean: i'm just saying

logan: goodnight dean

dean: does tucker know

logan: GOODNIGHT DEAN

Logan put his phone down. You looked at him. He looked at you.

"He's not going to say anything," Logan said, with the confidence of a man who was not entirely sure of this.

His phone buzzed again.

dean: for what it's worth i called it from the beginning

Logan turned his phone face down.

You looked at him for a moment longer.

Then you retrieved your bra from the corner of the room where it had been sitting like evidence at a crime scene, and you got back into bed, and Logan pulled you against him with the easy, unhurried certainty of someone who had won the argument about staying a long time ago.

Down the hall, Dean lay on his bed staring at the ceiling, charger plugged in, feeling extremely vindicated about everything.

He did not tell Tucker.

He did not tell Garrett.

He did not tell Allie, who sent him three texts the following morning about the shoulder touch that he left on read.

He did not tell Hannah, which was the hardest one, because Hannah asked him directly at breakfast if he had noticed anything and Dean had looked her in the eye and said no.

He was, he decided, a good friend.

He was also, he decided, definitely going to win that bet.

five — garrett

The hit happened in the second period.

It wasn't malicious, just the particular physics of two large bodies in a confined space moving fast, the kind of collision that happened in every game, that everyone who had ever watched hockey understood to be part of it. Logan went into the boards hard and stayed down for a moment longer than usual, and the arena went quiet in a collective way that meant everyone was holding the same breath.

You were on your feet before you had decided to stand up.

"He's fine," Allie said, grabbing your arm. "He's moving, look, he's moving."

He was moving. He was getting up, slowly, with assistance from a teammate, skating to the bench under his own power. The arena exhaled. You sat back down.

Your heart was doing something extremely inconvenient.

"You okay?" Hannah said, from your other side.

"Fine," you said. "Totally fine."

She looked at you for a moment. You looked at the ice.

Logan was on the bench. The trainer was with him. He was talking, responding, doing all the things that meant he was okay, and you sat in the stands and watched with the stillness of someone who was doing a very good impression of a person who was just watching a hockey game and not mentally composing hospital directions.

He came back in the third period.

You exhaled properly for the first time in forty minutes.

After the game the group filtered down to the corridor outside the locker room the way they always did. You went because you always went, because it was a group thing, because it meant nothing in particular.

The players came out in ones and twos. Garrett first, immediately absorbed by Hannah. Tucker departing with a couple of the other guys. Dean getting into a conversation with someone near the exit.

Logan came out last.

He had a bruise forming along his jaw and he was walking with the slightly careful gait of someone who had taken a hit, and when he saw you he smiled, that specific smile, the one that was yours, and something in your chest did the thing it always did, except louder tonight, turned up by forty minutes of sitting in the stands holding your breath.

You crossed the corridor and hugged him, which was normal, everyone hugged after games, that was a completely normal thing to do.

Except then you pulled back and looked at him, at the bruise, at the careful way he was holding himself, and you said his name, quietly, in the way that was only for him, and he looked back at you in the way that was only for you, and the thing you had been keeping quietly for months was right there at the surface, obvious and warm and entirely done being kept.

You kissed him.

Not a quick kiss. Not an ambiguous one. A real one, his hand coming up to your jaw, yours finding the front of his jacket, the kind that had three months of ordinary Tuesday nights and Sunday mornings and staff bathroom detours in it.

The corridor went quiet.

You pulled back.

The group was looking at you.

Tucker's mouth was open.

Garrett had an expression cycling through several things very quickly , and then it landed on something that looked, more than anything, like quiet relief. Like someone who had been waiting for a particular thing to resolve and was glad it finally had.

Hannah was smiling in the particular way of someone who had known something for a while and was very glad to finally be allowed to show it.

Dean looked, more than anything, deeply smug.

"Wait," Tucker said. "Are you two — have you been —"

"Three months," Logan said, still looking at you, the corner of his mouth doing the thing.

"THREE MONTHS?"

"We forgot to mention it," you said.

"YOU FORGOT TO —"

"Tucker," Logan said.

"I HAD TWENTY DOLLARS ON THIS." Tucker pointed at you both. "I HAD — the pasta shirt! I KNEW about the pasta shirt! Does the pasta shirt count? When was the pasta shirt? If the pasta shirt counts then I —"

"Who won?" Allie said. "Technically who —"

Everyone looked at each other. A rapid, chaotic calculation passed through the group.

"Garrett," Hannah said slowly. "Garrett said —"

"After a game," Garrett said, with the equanimity of someone who had never been particularly worried about it. "I said after a game."

"You said after a game," Dean confirmed.

Tucker made a sound that had no letters in it.

"So Garrett wins?" Allie said.

"Garrett wins," Hannah confirmed, and immediately turned to Garrett with an expression of pure delight. "You won, baby."

Garrett looked at Logan. Logan looked back at him.

"You've been together for three months," Garrett said.

"About that," Logan confirmed.

"And you didn't tell anyone."

"We wanted to keep it for a while," you said, which was the simplest and most accurate version of it. "It was ours. We just wanted it to be ours for a bit."

Garrett looked at you for a moment. Something in his expression was entirely unsurprised. He nodded once, like a thing confirmed, and then looked at Logan with the small, easy smile of someone who had never doubted the outcome.

"Okay," he said. "Good."

Tucker pointed at both of you. "I want my twenty dollars back."

"You didn't win," Dean said.

"I KNEW ABOUT THE PASTA SHIRT."

"Tucker —"

"THE PASTA SHIRT WAS EVIDENCE AND NO ONE LISTENED TO ME —"

Logan looked at you. You looked back at him.

"Worth it?" he said quietly.

You looked at Tucker, who was now gesturing with both hands. You looked at Allie, who was consoling him with the resigned energy of someone who had expected this outcome. You looked at Hannah, who was collecting twenty dollars from Dean with the serene satisfaction of a person who had always known. You looked at Garrett, who was watching all of it with the calm, unhurried expression of a man who had called it months ago in a quiet kitchen on a Wednesday afternoon and had simply waited.

"Completely worth it," you said.

Logan kissed your temple.

Tucker made the sound with no letters in it again.

tucker: I WANT IT ON THE RECORD THAT I KNEW

tucker: THE PASTA SHIRT WAS REAL EVIDENCE

tucker: I CALLED IT FROM DAY ONE

dean: garrett won tucker

tucker: GARRETT WASNT EVEN PAYING ATTENTION

garrett: i was paying attention

tucker: YOU HAVE THE OBSERVATIONAL SKILLS OF A GOLDEN RETRIEVER

garrett: allie said that first

allie: it's true both times

allie: okay fine. garrett wins. i respect it.

tucker: I DO NOT RESPECT IT

tucker: TWENTY DOLLARS. GONE.

garrett: worth every penny honestly

allie: okay fine it was very cute

allie: i still saw the look though

allie: i want that acknowledged

dean: acknowledged allie

allie: thank you

The hockey house was always, somehow, loud. Loud in that pre-party way on a Friday night that made your head spin and bring a giddy smile to your face. The warm-up stage, if you will. Everyone half-distracted and talking over each other while deciding what the night was actually going to become.

Which was exactly why Dean had decided it was the perfect time to ruin your life.

“No seriously,” your brother insisted from across the kitchen island, pointing his beer bottle at you like he was presenting a business proposal to investors instead of actively setting his sister up on a date, “this guy is perfect for you.”

You stared at him flatly and leaned on your elbows, the stool you were sat on tipped dangerously.

“Every time you say that, I suffer.”

“That’s because you keep picking emotionally unavailable weirdos.”

Everyone partially ignored Dean, he was always doing this- offering to set you up with the next eligible bachelor that he had scouted in his classes, or mutual friends, one time he set you up with one of his ex-hookup’s hookup. That one didn’t go as well as the majority of your brother’s matchmaking pursuits.

From the couch, Logan’s ears perked up and he choked slightly on his drink; he glanced around hoping nobody noticed, and it didn’t seem like they did.

Except Garrett.

Garrett glanced up from his phone, eyes moving from Logan to you and then back to Logan again with the expression of somebody who had just noticed a bomb underneath the dining table.

Your eyes flicked to Logan, a secret twinkle in them before you steeled and ignored him. Dean, fortunately for you didn’t even notice and continued talking.

“He’s pre-law,” he said proudly.

Logan rolled his eyes and scoffed before he could stop himself. He didn’t even recognise the noise that he made, but he stilled when he felt the group’s eyes on him.

Allie frowned from where she sat cross-legged on the floor. “Why did you react like that?”

Logan shrugged quickly, leaning further back into the couch cushions beside Tucker. “I didn’t.”

“You literally scoffed.”

“I breathed.”

“That was a judgmental breath.”

“It’s pre-law,” Logan muttered, finger running along the rim of his beer bottle.

Dean narrowed his eyes immediately, “What’s wrong with pre-law?”

Logan took another sip of his drink like he hadn’t just entered the conversation voluntarily. “Sounds evil.”

Tucker barked out a laugh from beside him. “Bro, weren't you considering law for a bit?”

“We don’t about that dark time of my life,” Logan muttered, he nodded silently as the yeasty alcohol slipped down his throat- his eyes flicked to you but he refocussed on the conversation at hand.

You bit the inside of your cheek hard enough to stop yourself smiling.

The two of you had agreed on the secrecy together.

Mostly because your friends were all deeply nosy and incapable of minding their own business for longer than six consecutive minutes, but also because you and Logan had somehow slipped into dating without fully meaning to and then panicked slightly once you realised how serious it had become.

Now here you were.

Four months deep into a relationship that you couldn’t reveal, unless you wanted to bring about the next Dean-meltdown. The last one almost ended with him moving to Australia and making a life with the kangaroos. 

Which meant that every time somebody tried setting one of you up with another person, you both had to sit there pretending it was completely normal.

You liked to think that you had been handling it significantly better than Logan.

“All I’m saying,” Dean continued, oblivious to the psychological warfare occurring three feet away from him, “is that he’s smart, he’s tall, he cooks-”

“That’s manipulative,” Logan interrupted.

The room went quiet.

You looked at him.

Dean looked at him.

Even Hannah slowly lowered her phone.

“What?” Dean said eventually.

Logan blinked once like he had only just realised he’d spoken aloud.

“What?” he repeated.

“You think cooking is manipulative?”

Logan shifted slightly in his seat. “Sometimes.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Neither does pre-law.”

Allie turned fully toward him now, deeply suspicious. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, “You seem weirdly invested.”

“I’m not invested.” He quickly replied. 

Garrett spoke without looking up from his phone.

“You wanna explain why you’re reacting like a divorced father who just found out his ex-wife is dating again?”

Tucker physically folded over laughing.

Logan pointed at Garrett immediately. “See? This is why nobody likes you.”

“People love me.”

“Your own girlfriend looks tired.”

Hannah snorted into her can of coke and ran her hand through her boyfriend’s hair, who was staring daggers at Logan until he melted into her touch.

You looked away before you snorted at Logan’s antics, which probably in hindsight wasn’t the best idea, because the second your attention drifted away- you could feel him boring holes into the side of your face, like he was trying to telepathically communicate his annoyance across the room.

Your phone buzzed against the counter and you grabbed it quickly before someone noticed the way you grinned to yourself, biting down on your lip you checked the notifications; even though you already knew who it was.

Hockey boy 💗 stop smiling at dean about another guy before i lose my mind

Across the room, Logan stared at his own phone with the deeply concentrated expression of someone trying not to commit homicide.

You typed back carefully, intentionally slower so as not to alert your brother- who was now chattering with his girlfriend across the room. 

You: you are being unbelievably dramatic rn

Hockey boy 💗 he said the guy cooks

You: so…do you?

Hockey boy 💗 yeah but i do it sexier

You physically had to cough to disguise the laugh that escaped you.

Hannah looked over instantly.

“What?” she asked suspiciously.

“Nothing.”

“You just giggled at your phone.”

“I did not.”

“You literally did.”

Dean pointed at you accusingly. “Wait. Is there already another guy?”

You jumped so hard that your knee hit the island and you hissed. Logan had sat up straighter, fast enough that it alarmed Tucker, who was sunken into the couch next to him.

“No,” he said immediately.

The entire room turned toward him.

A beat passed.

Logan slowly leaned back again, cringing and half hoping the universe would grant him reprise in the deepest black hole it could create.

“I mean,” he added poorly, “how would I know?”

Garrett finally looked up fully now, staring directly at Logan with open fascination, his eyes widening as he properly studied the both of you. His mouth popped open in an O shape.

Your heart launched into your throat as you met the captain’s eyes, half pleading that he was as slow as his stereotype allowed him to be. But before Garrett could elaborate further, Dean steamrolled right over the moment.

“Whatever,” he said dismissively, already pulling out his phone again, “look at this guy and tell me I’m wrong.”

He shoved the screen in your direction, you squinted and slumped forward, hitting your older brother with a dead look.

You hated how attractive the man was.

Tall. Dark hair. Nice smile.

One of those annoyingly clean-looking corporate boys that somehow always smelled expensive.

Before you could stop yourself, your eyes flicked instinctively toward Logan. If there was a bigger mistake you could've made, it would be murder. Because he was already looking at you, his eyes inquisitively blinking between you and Dean.

Waiting.

You raised one eyebrow slightly, teasing him and Logan narrowed his eyes immediately. Then, because apparently self-preservation had abandoned him entirely tonight, he muttered,

“He looks like he moisturizes too much.”

Dean stared at him, baffled that this was coming from the same man who probably owned 500 different types of skincare. What Dean didn’t know is that each time a new product would pop up on his sink, it was actually yours. 

“All humans should moisturize.”

“Not that much.”

“John,” Hannah said slowly, “you own more hair products than me.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Logan opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“It just is.”

“You are such a fucking hater,” Tucker wheezed.

Logan looked genuinely offended, looking at the group, whipping around like a broken spinning top, “I’m not a hater.”

“You’re beefing with a man none of us have met.”

“I’m not beefing with him.”

“You called his face moisturized in a derogatory way.”

Logan rolled his eyes and slumped again, tapping at his phone. Yours buzzed against your thigh- it seems secrecy had flown out of the window tonight. Four months of perfect sneak-ins, disguised dates and unknown sleepovers flushed away.

Hockey boy 💗 if he touches you im transferring schools

You stared at the text for a full three seconds before looking up, Logan was already messing with his hair absently, jaw tight, eyes narrowed at absolutely nothing.

God.

He was unbelievable, you tried not to gape at him while tapping on your phone,

“He wants to meet tonight?” You ask Dean, feigning interest as you squinted at the phone over the lip of your cup. 

Dean perked up and texted this guy, Ethan, Evan? You didn’t care, “He says…” Dean held the room still with his hands outstretched, “He’ll be over in an hour!” Your brother jumped triumphantly into Beau, who had missed the entire debacle when he disappeared into the toilet.

That gave you the perfect window to meet Logan’s gaze, which had flared considerably. You shrugged and winked at him, biting your cheek when he blushed and huffed, turning away to down the rest of his drink. 

You managed to escape upstairs under the guise of getting ready for this date- far away from Tucker, who had gotten into the habit of critiquing your outfit choices like he was one planned ensemble away from Vogue.

You slipped into the bathroom, starting to wash your face with products that Logan had shamelessly claimed as his, just so you could keep more of your stuff over on his shelf. 

You towel dried your face when the door to the bathroom cracked open with a dull knock. You didn’t turn around immediately, mostly because you already knew who it was.

“Baby.”

There it was, you huffed, hands barely pausing their circular movements of rubbing moisturizer into your skin. You glanced over bemused with the puppy act that Logan was currently playing at the doorway. That tone is exactly the tone he used on you when he was not happy about what your secret relationship brought along with it- it was low, annoyed in a way that immediately made warmth crawl up your spine despite your best efforts

Adjusting one of your earrings in the mirror and pressing your lips together with a new layer of lipgloss, you watched him click the door behind him and lean against it- bashfully looking at you from below his eyelashes

“You know following me upstairs while I’m getting ready for another guy is objectively making this situation weirder.”

He crossed his arms over his chest as you adjusted your skirt.

“Another guy,” he repeated flatly.

You met his eyes through the mirror.

Your boyfriend looked deeply unimpressed by the entire concept of tonight, which was slightly ironic considering he’d spent the last few months allowing Allie to continuously set him up with girls under the assumption he was still hopelessly into Hannah.

“You’ve literally gone on three dates this month,” you reminded him.

“They barely count.”

You turned around fully then, eyebrows lifting. “One of them took you mini golfing.”

“She talked about her ex for forty minutes.”

“That’s still a date.”

“It was psychological warfare.”

You snorted and planted your hands on your hips, your resolve barely holding when his eyes softened slightly at the sound, that was part of the reason you both worked. No matter how irritated he got, no matter how jealous or grumpy or territorial he became, there was always this underlying tenderness to him around you that completely gave him away if you paid attention for long enough.

And you were always paying attention to him. 

His gaze dragged over you slowly now. Taking in the dress, your hair, the shimmer of your lipgloss that he interrupted the application of. Your eyes widened when his jaw tightened

“Oh my god,” you laughed quietly, shaking your head, “you’re actually jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“You compared his moisturizer usage to shooting puppies.”

“He looks slippery.”

“That is not a real critique.”

“It could be.”

You laughed again, properly this time- Logan’s expression immediately worsened, as if he couldn’t believe that you were going to look like that for a guy that wasn’t him.

“You look too pretty for this,” he muttered.

Your stomach flipped, your laugh settling to a soft smile. Logan always spoke like that, somehow injecting sincerity into everything he said even when he was irrationally possessive.

You tried very hard not to melt visibly.

“Well unfortunately,” you said lightly instead, stepping closer to him, “our friends are insane and think you’re still in love with Hannah.”

“I haven’t liked Hannah in like 6 months.” Your eyebrows lifted slightly with a grin

“6 months?”

Logan realised his mistake immediately.

“Don’t do that,” he warned.

You cheekily bit your tongue, “Do what?” 

“That thing where you look smug.”

“I’m not smug.”

“You’re literally smirking.”

You were doing the mental maths, because if Logan stopped liking Hannah almost 6 months ago.. Well. 

You’d started sleeping together six months ago and got together two months after that.

Interesting timeline.

Your boyfriend stepped closer before you could weaponize that information further, hands finding your waist automatically like muscle memory. Like he physically couldn’t stand within arm’s reach of you without touching you somehow.

“You better not actually like this guy,” he muttered.

You blinked once. Twice. Then brought your arms to his shoulders- comfortingly rubbing the soft flannel

“John Logan,” you said slowly, “are you trying to establish rules for a date I didn’t even want to go on?”

His hands tightened slightly against your waist.

“No.”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not.”

“You’re literally pouting.”

“I don’t pout.”

You reached up immediately and pressed your thumb against his lower lip, his eyes darkened. 

“There,” you whispered sweetly. “That. That’s pouting.”

Logan grabbed your wrist before you could pull away, dragging you flush against him in one smooth movement that made your breath catch embarrassingly fast.

“You think this is funny,” he said quietly.

“A little bit.”

“That’s concerning.”

“You’re being insane.”

“I’m being reasonable.”

“You called him slippery.”

“He is slippery.”

You dissolved into laughter again, forehead dropping briefly against his chest. Logan exhaled heavily above you, one hand sliding up your spine slowly - exposed from the cutout of your dress. His fingers curled at the back of your neck.

“Don’t let him kiss you,” he murmured.

You tilted your head back immediately and grinned at him- as if you would ever consider the ridiculous idea.

“Oh my god.”

“I’m serious.”

“You are unbelievable.”

“I mean it.”

Your amusement faded slightly then, into something gentler that settled underneath your expression, beneath all the jealousy and dramatics and weird comments about moisturizer, you knew what this actually was.

Logan wasn’t angry, he was scared. Not of you cheating- you’d threatened him enough that you’d need to be held at gun point for the thought to even breach your mind. He was worried that someone better would come along, someone more charming, someone who was a part of your world. The world that Dean and you shared along with the ultra elite trust-fund babies.

Your expression softened.

“You know I’m yours, right?” you asked quietly.

The change in Logan's face made your chest hurt ever so slightly- he sighed and dropped his forehead against yours,

“Yeah?” he asked softly.

You swallow away the knot in your throat and kiss his nose, “Yeah.”

Logan smiled at the feeling of your lips on his face, grinning at the triumphant look on your face. And for a second, neither of you moved, just basking in the feeling of each other's closeness. Then his hand slid properly into your hair and he kissed you, and just like every time this man kissed you, your knees felt weak and you leaned into him.

His mouth moved against yours slowly at first, careful and lingering and familiar enough to make your sigh slightly before he deepened it with the quiet sort of desperation that always seemed to sneak into him around you, you hum softly into his mouth, fingers curling into the front of his hoodie.

“John,” you whispered when he kissed down your jaw.

“Hm?”

“If you leave a mark on me before my date I’m actually going to kill you.”

Logan kissed your neck again deliberately then started nipping at the skin purposefully, you whacked his head, groaning when he soothed over the stinging skin with his tongue.

“You asshole.”

“You said no marks,” he murmured smugly against your skin, “these are just... friendly reminders.”

You were seconds away from shoving him when Dean’s voice suddenly echoed up the stairs.

“HEY!”

You gasped and jumped apart violently, his hands tightened on your waist and you could feel his heartbeat thumping wildly below your hand.

“IS MY SISTER READY YET OR IS SHE MAKING THIS GUY WAIT ON PURPOSE?”

Logan inhaled sharply, squeezing his eyes shut . You bit down on your smile and turned to fix your makeup, your lipgloss smudged to your chin and all over his mouth. You usher him towards the mirror to wipe it off.

Then Dean yelled again,

“AND LOGAN WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO?”

The two of you stared at each other, a short moment of silence passed, then you both had to stifle laughs against the other, your mouth pressed into his shoulder as he cradled your head and pressed a hand to his lips. 

Logan dragged one hand down his face. “I hate everyone in this house.”

“You live here.”

“Don’t remind me.”

You grinned and reached up, gently fixing the collar of his shirt where you’d wrinkled it. His eyes softened again immediately and he smoothed out your hair,

“Go on your stupid date,” he muttered, rubbing away the last of the lipgloss from your chin.

“You’re adorable when you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“You followed me upstairs.”

“I was stretching my legs.”

“Through my tonsils?”

Logan rolled his eyes and kissed your forehead

If you were to be objective about the situation your brother had put you in- you’d have to say that he did an annoyingly good job. You’d never tell him that of course, you’d prefer to use Logan’s pliers to rip your teeth out individually. 

But the guy sitting across from you was genuinely perfect on paper.

Ethan was funny in that easy, socially polished way corporate aspirants somehow always were, where every joke sounded rehearsed enough to land properly but natural enough that you couldn’t call him out on it. He opened doors without making a huge deal out of it, remembered details from previous conversations Dean had apparently told him about you, and somehow managed to make expensive restaurants feel casual instead of pretentious.

Worst of all. He was genuinely attractive. You could think of at least 5 of your girlfriends who would happily take the inconvenience out of your hands.

Dark hair slightly messy in that intentional way rich men cultivated, broad shoulders underneath a fitted black sweater, stupidly nice hands that looked like they belonged in a watch advertisement.

You hated how much Dean would enjoy being right about this.

“And then Di Laurentis told me,” Ethan laughed lightly, leaning back in his chair, “that if I hurt you he’d apparently feed my body to the hockey team.”

You snorted into your drink. “Yeah, that sounds like my brother.”

“He’s weirdly intimidating for a guy that owns that many tank tops.”

“He weaponizes confidence.”

Ethan grinned and held eye contact with you while he sipped from his whiskey glass. And you stumbled into the same feeling you had been experiencing the entire evening, everytime Evan smiled- your brain automatically compared it to Logan.

Ezra’s smile was clean, polished and pristine. You’d go as far as to say it was pretty under most lighting.

You couldn’t help the comparison. Logan’s smiles made your stomach flip and consciousness flutter in a way only he could manage. Split lips after hockey games- stretched into victorious laughter, crooked smirks when he was about to say something unbelievably annoying and your favourite, the devastatingly soft grin he got only around you, like his entire body was tuned to your reactions. 

Your throat dried and you worked hard to keep an uncomfortable grimace at bay.

“So,” Eli said, resting his chin against his hand slightly, “Dean says you practically live at the hockey house.”

You nearly choked on your drink.

The statement itself wasn’t inaccurate, you did spend a lot of time at the house. But if Elijah knew how much of that time you’d spent in John Logan’s bedroom, you’re pretty sure he would evaporate on the spot.  

“Yeah.. They’re my brother’s teammates, we all just ended up becoming friends,” you said carefully.

“You and Logan seem close.”

Your heart skipped once at the mention of his name and you fought against the natural instinct to bite back a smile, instead you kept your expression neutral with the kind of effort that deserved academic recognition.

“Logan?”

“Yeah.” Everett shrugged lightly. “He looked like he wanted to kill me earlier.”

You laughed too quickly, waving off the notion that Logan would be anything but jealous.

“He’s just weird.”

Eric nodded thoughtfully, studying your face in a way that made you send an impromptu prayer up to God that he wasn’t putting the badly veiled pieces together, then he grinned and shrugged.

“I figured.”

The waiter arrived then, setting down your desserts while Edward thanked him politely. You mentally facepalmed, again, this guy was objectively perfect. But you had to stop yourself from recoiling away when his hand brushed yours, gentle and hesitant across the table.

Your mind flashed back to the most recent date Logan took you on, a small, independent coffee shop outside of the Briar locality- away from prying, gossiping eyes. He had grimaced as he paid for your drink and stifled his love for it when you made him take a sip, your hands were intertwined the entire time, a carefree momentum settled in your conversation whilst he played with the rings on your fingers, openly, unabashedly. 

The memory hit you so suddenly you almost laughed. Dean had hit gold with this guy, you could read Erik like an open book, and the entire time he had been nothing but sweet, smart at points and attentive nearly the entire length of the date. Your friends would probably start planning a big, upper-east side wedding by next week.

But still your mind drifted back to the only man you could see yourself marrying, and how much he would absolutely hate this restaurant. The excess of cloth napkins would make him tense, the dim lighting irritating him enough to make his entire face scrunch up and the lack of fries would be considered diabolical. 

But you knew, with absolute certainty, that if you wanted to dine in a restaurant like this, he would suffer an eternity in these four walls if it meant he was with you.

Your phone buzzed against your lap, breaking your chain of thought. 

Hockey boy 💗: Are you home yet?

You stared at the carousel of messages prior to this, and the timestamps

9:14 PM. 9:26 PM. 9:41 PM. 9:57 PM.

Four separate messages.

Your lips twitched helplessly, all of them were as performatively nonchalant as the others.

Hockey boy 💗 If this Egbert guy touches you, I'm keying his daddy’s jeep. 

Hockey boy 💗 Don’t ask how i know this but his linkedin is not very impressive- not good enough to date my girl that’s for sure. 

Hockey boy 💗 I miss you.

Ethan noticed immediately, the way your eyes softened and a huff made your lips part in a ghost of a smile.

“Boyfriend?” he asked casually.

Your head snapped up.

“What?”

He smiled, cocking his head slightly, “You’ve checked your phone every five minutes since we got here.”

Heat crawled up your neck instantly and you furrowed your brows in apology,

“No,” The lie felt bitter on your tongue, but you silenced your phone and set it down face first on the table.  Eran hummed like he didn’t fully believe you, but thankfully let it go.

The rest of the date shifted slightly after that, not awkward since poor Edmund hadn’t let the clarifying moment put a dent in his enthusiasm. It just meant that his hand hadn’t touched yours since you replied to Logan.

You wanted to apologise to him, to say that it wasn’t working out for any reason that didn’t involve Logan. But you opted for polite, self-explanatory silence on the matter. Letting Edwin slip on your jacket for you and engaged in a cursory side hug that made you both cringe a little, but it was easier than explaining to him that instead of his simple affection, you wanted the idiot currently losing his mind back at the hockey house over a pre-law major named Elton.

Logan would honestly rather take a hundred slapshots straight to the ribs without pads than listen to Dean brag about what a 'good guy' he’d set his sister up with.

It started with a passing comment, then a phone lighting up on the coffee table which led to Dean half-paying attention to the loud conversation being had in the living room while scrolling. This cumulative, slow motion train crash in front of Logan’s eyes, meant he had gone suspiciously quiet in the midst of the heated debate between Allie and Tucker and was now focussing on his friend who was grinning like a Cheshire cat at his phone.

Dean eventually spoke, stretching back into the couch like he owns it, a triumphant look spread across his face. The group quietens when they notice the smug expression, which either meant he was about to announce something gross or he was going to be an ass about being right. 

“She just got dessert,” he casually reports, looking around the room, like a king would look at his subjects- pompous and on the highest horse possible.

Logan does not respond immediately. He just leans forward slightly, fiddling with the loose thread fraying from the cuff of his sleeve, when he does decide to grace Dean with an answer- it takes everything in him to keep his voice steady and flat in a way that should come across as disinterested. 

“That’s nice.” His tone was clipped, a stark difference from his usual charismatic demeanor. The rest of the group makes up for his lack of enthusiasm, the girls giggled and congratulated Dean on finding such a catch, the guys laugh and speculate that in the dating world- getting dessert is equivalent to a perfectly timed, public, flash-mob proposal. 

Logan prayed for it to end there. It normally would’ve, Dean hadn’t said anything that would invite continuation. You had ordered dessert and that meant Logan would need to become a world class pastry chef as soon as possible. Case closed. Goodnight. 

“And he says she’s laughing a lot.” 

A badly stifled suffering sigh escapes Logan’s lips, his body briefly pauses, as if it had forgotten how to act normal and instead decided to shut down.

He recalibrated, ignoring the ugly, curling sensation that lurched in his stomach and instead, rather stiffly, managed to say,

“Good for her,” he says. Perfect. His voice was still intensely calm, still controlled and his answer invited no follow-up.

Across the room, Tucker glances up from his seat with the vague expression of someone who is only half following the conversation but is starting to sense that the topic was sprinting full speed down an unexplored path . Hannah leans toward Allie, lowering her voice.

“Why is he talking like that?” she asks.

Allie glances between them. “Like what?”

Hannah thinks for a second, “Remember the time he walked in on you and Dean?”

Allie sighs dreamily at the memory, obviously not remembering the avoidant, distasteful tone that Logan had adopted for the rest of that night.

“Ohhhh,” Allie nodded slowly, the specifics hazy in her mind, but she could clearly remember Logan looking like he would let Garrett shave off the outer layer of his eyeballs with his skates.

Dean hears this and instead of doing the smart thing for everyone in the vicinity, he contributes to the analysis,

“That’s what it is!,” he snaps his fingers and points at Logan, who glanced at the perky blonde out of his periphery and slapped his outstretched fingers with his palm. 

Garrett in the middle of the exchange has stopped pretending entirely that he is not listening. He doesn’t dare react, but his attention splits between Logan and Dean regularly, as if he was the first to picture something that everyone else had not yet realised. 

Dean’s phone vibrates in his hand, “Oh,” he says after a moment, like he is remembering another detail. “He also says she’s really pretty when she’s concentrating.”

Logan exhales through his nose, slow and controlled, and finally looks down at his hands as if the table in front of him has suddenly become more interesting than anything else in the room, focussing more on the worn out grain and the used fibres of the carpet beneath it. When he speaks again, his tone is still even, but it takes slightly longer to form the sentence.

“That’s… nice.”

Hannah slowly sits up a little straighter, her brows knitting together in mild confusion rather than concern.

“Am I crazy,” she mutters, “or does this feel weird?”

“You are always slightly crazy,” Tucker replies automatically but he shares the same, puzzled look.

“That is not helpful.”

Allie is also watching Logan, like she is trying to decide whether this is something she is allowed to comment on or whether it falls into the category of things that will resolve themselves without intervention.

Garrett still says nothing, opting to sit with his discovery in unparalleled superiority. 

The room continues as if it is trying to behave normally around something that it does not fully understand yet. Dean scrolls again, far too unaware of the pressure building in the man beside him.

“Oh,” he adds, like he has found another harmless detail. “She keeps fixing her hair when she laughs.”

Logan stills, properly this time. A eerie calm settles over his body, because he was internally cursing himself for being in this situation, damn his friends and their nosey tendencies and damn you for being the sister of his teammate.

He ruminates on the choices that brought him here today, coming to the conclusion, that he'd rather be trapped in an endless, no-whistle bag skate at five AM than endure these idle, cheerful updates. A bag skate ended eventually. This felt like it never would.

But Tucker leans slightly toward Hannah and whispers, “Is he doing okay?”

Hannah whispers back, “I think we are all missing something.”

Allie does not take her eyes off Logan, morbidly fascinated at the fact that the world’s most suave person, had his lips pressed against his hands and had managed to end up with a raincloud over his head in the middle of July. “Something is definitely happening.”

Garrett shifts against Hannah, still choosing to be an idle spectator in Logan’s ruin, but even he could muster up a sympathetic grimace when Dean chose to continue the narration. 

Logan finally cuts in.

“Can you stop reading that out loud.”

Dean looks up, “Why?”

A pause.

“Just tired. Honestly, I’d rather coach put us through a three-hour gauntlet drill right now than hear any more details about your sister’s love life. It’s weird, man.”

Dean’s eyes widened by a fraction, “Woah, is everything alright?” He looks genuinely concerned and that just makes Logan want to run into a wall at full speed. Because the whole room was staring at him, blinking like a flock of owls that were studying their latest choice of prey.

He scratches the back of his neck, hoping that nobody notices the nervous tick, “Sorry..” Logan grabs his hoodie as he takes his leave, “My coursework has been killer lately, must not be getting enough sleep. My bad man.” He pats Dean’s shoulder once and moves towards the staircase.

The entire house seemed to be suspended in awkward confusion- and Logan was prepared to add homicidal undertones as he reached the top step and Dean’s voice fluttered after him,

“Allie-cat what kind of girls have you been setting him up with? Maybe I should take over his matchmaking”

Logan groans and flops into his bed the minute the door creaks shut behind him, too dejected to glance up when his comforter vibrates beneath him.

The window is not the traditional avenue to enter a room, you realised that throughout the entirety of your senior year of highschool. It always requires a small negotiation with physics, a bit of careful balance, and the kind of confidence that suggests you have done this before and will probably do it again.

Which you admittedly have, given that you had memorised the best notches in the brick to wedge your foot into and where not to grab unless you wanted to end up face to face with a view directly into your brother's window.

When you finally reach your destination and fiddle with the window enough to coax it open, a soft creak permeates in the summer breeze- which you immediately curse because you had dedicated a solid 20 minutes to convince yourself that you were being quiet and the window very clearly disagrees.

You pause with your knee digging into the frame, listening as your heartbeat hammers in your ears. The night answered you, a dainty chirp of a cricket paired with the whirring of traffic further away in the city made you relax, continuing your journey into the room.

Inside, the lighting is low in a way that makes everything feel softer than it probably is in reality.

A desk lamp glows in the corner, throwing warm light across the room, and Logan is sitting on the edge of his bed like he has been doing exactly that for a while without moving very much at all.

Logan looks up when he hears your pants replace the faint buzz of the house, he doesn’t startle- just rushes over as silently as possible to grab your waist before you nosedive into his bedside table.

“Woah.” He steps back whilst keeping his hands firmly planted on your waist, watching you topple slightly on your heels, “What are you doing here?”

You look up at him, your lips downturning in a confused smile, “Hello to you too,” a peck to his lips interrupts your answer, “You said you missed me, so I'm here.”

The dress you had on stretches in tandem with your movements, stepping out of his loose hold to flop onto his bed- which protested slightly with a pained squeak, “You could say the feeling was mutual” You grinned up at him, leaning back onto your hands in the process.

He purses his lips, trying to hide a smile- which he does worryingly well. The neutrality in his eyes makes your spine rigid.

“You used the window,” he says, glancing at his curtains that now flitter along the wall.

You blink at him. “Yeah… Like I’ve done since we started hooking up”

Logan exhales through his nose, but it doesn’t fully commit to being a sigh.

“You could’ve used the door,” he clarifies.

“I didn’t want to wake anyone,” you reply, finally swinging your leg onto the duvet leaving your heel to topple uselessly to the floor with a dull thud. 

Logan stays where he is for a second longer, watching you like he is trying to decide whether to stay where he is or act like a normal person and come closer. You match his gaze cheekily, shrugging off your bag while taking the room in, “God I love your room baby, it's so you.”

He stands up from where he was leaning against his desk, and crosses over to you in that slightly controlled way he gets when he is pretending he is not emotional, while very obviously being emotional in a quiet, annoyed-at-himself kind of way.

“You were gone longer than you said,” he mutters.

You pause mid-unzip of your dress.

“I said I’d be out for a bit.”

“That is not a time.”

You finally look at him properly.

There it is, a signature Logan pout. You’d gotten used to every version of them, since he knew how to use his artillery- but this one wasn’t one that sat well with you, it buried its way into your chest and blossomed into a pang of anxiety.

“Oh my god,” you say mainly to yourself, pushing up so you could stand chest to chest with him, inspecting his face.

Logan barely tilts his head to meet your scrutiny, “What?” he asks, like he already knows he is about to lose this conversation.

You shake your head, “You’re pouting.”

“I’m not pouting.”

“You are absolutely pouting.”

“I’m not-”

He stops mid-sentence, watching your hands come up to his face and gently squish his cheeks just enough that his expression breaks in a way that is immediately unfair to him.

“There,” you say softly. “That one.”

His brows knit together.

“This is not-”

You lean in and press a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He pauses.

You do it again, slightly higher this time, like you are correcting the unhappy crease of his lips. His hands hover for a second like he is deciding whether to be annoyed or affectionate and then, predictably, choose neither and both at the same time as they settle lightly at your waist.

“I don’t like it,” he says finally.

You hum.

“What part?”

His eyes flick to yours properly now.

“The part where you go out with someone else and come back smiling like it’s normal.”

You blink once, then your expression softens in a way that is very deliberately not taking him seriously, even though you absolutely are.

“Logan,” you say, gently.

He looks at you like he is bracing for impact, the undeniable pain of defeat, of losing you to the suave guy who apparently was very focussed on your dessert choice. You lean your forehead against his chin. 

“I was thinking of you the whole time,” you say simply, biting the inside of your cheek when you feel his shoulder drop just a fraction. 

His voice, when he speaks again, is quieter.

“That’s not fair.”

You smile.

“Why?”

“Because I had to be normal about it in front of everyone,” he mutters.

You laugh softly at that, genuinely amused now, and he immediately looks offended by your amusement, which only makes it worse.

“You were not normal about it,” you say.

“I was.”

“You were sitting here brooding like a Victorian man in a tragic novel.”

“I was not brooding.”

“You were brooding.”

He opens his mouth to argue again, but you cut him off by pulling him closer by the front of his hoodie. His protests die unspoken on his lips, as they always do whenever you pull that move.

“There,” you say, softer now, kissing his cheek, then his jaw, deliberately unhurried. “Better?”

Logan exhales, arms coming up to wrap around your shoulders, pressing you tightly against him.

“You’re distracting,” he murmurs into your hair.

You snort against his neck, “That’s kind of the point.”

A short pause takes over the conversation, a lull in his displeasure as you dig your fingers into the plush material that stretched over his back.

Then, Logan sighs and very quietly, in the dark of his room admits, “I didn’t like imagining you laughing at someone else’s jokes.”

You pull back slightly just to look at him, hes looking down at nothing in particular, half of his face glowing a soft amber in the pool of light spilling out from his lamp, the other half hides in the shadows- he turns his head fully into the darkness when you cup his cheek and rub placating lines with your thumb against his stubble. 

“Oh,” you whisper. “You were jealous, jealous.”

“I was not-”

He stops, because you kiss him again a quick, gentle press of your lips against his- barely anything but enough to make him smile slightly and shake his head.

“You’re annoying,” he says again, but there is no heat in it.

You hum, watching how his caramel curls wrap around your fingers as you brush your hand through them. 

“You likeeeee me.” You tease, your voice barely a hushed whisper, “Baby, I don’t even have a way to contact that guy- he could tell I wasn’t into the date.”

Logan blinks at you, “Wait, what?”

“I mean- I made him swear not to tell Dean, but I think it was somewhere between me replying to you every five minutes and the fact I flinched when he tried to hold my hand” You bite your lip sheepishly, “Great guy though! I might have a friend for him.”

He finally smiles properly, small and unwilling, like it slipped out by accident, “Yeah? He can date all your friends,” His hands press against your spine, curving you into him at last. 

Logan ghosts his lips over yours, turning his head out of the shadows and back into the light. Your fingers hover over his jaw, studying the new look in his eye- a twinkle of affection that makes you melt completely into him as he whispers into your mouth, “as long as he doesn’t dare to look at you.”

𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

You woke up to the morning light personally burning your eyelids open, which probably serves you right for not bothering to shut the curtains last night. But you were slightly pre-occupied, which was evident at the string of clothes that littered the floor, you blinked sleepily whilst tracing the journey the different articles went on, leading up to the bed. 

Your bra and his shirt were intertwined by his desk while your dress lay pooled at the foot of the bed along with his sweatpants and boxers, the only thing you couldn’t account for were your underwear. 

Strange.

The birds chirped in a messy orchestra by the window, the sharp sound made you groan and stretch lazily, wincing at the delicious ache that licked down from your thighs to your toes and up through your arms. The perpetrator of these pains was still sound asleep, tucked into your shoulder with an arm flung over your bare middle, fingers twitching slightly as you rubbed your eyes and intertwined your legs with his beneath the covers. 

Logan mumbled into the pillow, or your hair, perhaps both since he was face first into the area that had been taken over by the thick fan of wispy strands, “g’morning baby,” His hands tightened on your waist, holding you still as you looped your arms around his neck. He pecked your shoulder, then the curve of your neck and ended up stifling a deep laugh against your jaw when you smacked his arm.

“I will literally snap in half if you start something mister.” You scolded softly, your words not matching your actions entirely, since your fingers had began to scratch his neck softly, grinning when he all but purred at your touch. 

“I didn’t hear you complaining last night.” He mumbled, play-biting your dewy skin. You had wiped up the obvious mess in a sleepy haze, but the dampness of sex still clung to your pores like a condensation on a can. 

You gasped theatrically and flipped the pair of you over, so you were now resting your face on his sternum, “I don’t think you would've heard much since you had me pressed into the pillow.” Your fingers traced the splattering of hair that tickled your face,

Logan smirked down at you, stroking your hair, “Once again I fail to hear a complaint.”

“You-”

“YO LOGAN!” The both of you jumped at the interruption.

“Shitshitshitshitshit” you began whispering hurriedly, your gaze whipping around the room for possible escape plans that involved leaving the premises immediately. 

It was not looking good to say the least, since Logan would probably prefer to get caught than for you to consider sneaking out of his window sans clothes. 

Dean pounded on the door, “HAVE YOU SEEN MY SISTER AROUND? I WANTED TO ASK HER ABOUT THE DATE.”

Logan groaned and was close to petulantly kicking his legs like a toddler reminded about their bedtime, “Dean I think I have more knowledge about bird sphincters than I have about your sister or her sex life.”

You gape incredulously at him and mouth, “Bird sphincters?”

Logan silently stutters and shrugs his shoulders, his hands settling on your bare hips,

You heard Dean thump his head against the door, jiggling the handle but the lock held well against his attempts, “WELL ADAM HASN’T SAID ANYTHING HAPPENED AFTER THE DATE, SO IT MUST'VE GONE BADLY.”

A beat passed where you and Logan stared at each other, “His name was Adam?”

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user1 CAN WE TALK ABT THE LAST SLIDE ??

↳ user2 that's what everyone is doing....

user3 no caption is crazy

user4 since when please please

gabbriette can we focus on me

↳ readerscamera that's what I'm doing don't worry baby

addisonraee an angel

↳ readerscamera I love you

user5 it's probably troye sivan guys don't worry

↳ troyesivan nope, it's not me.

↳ user5 OK WTF I didn't expect that

↳ user6 IM DYING

readerscamera

liked by djotime, oliviarodrigo and 708,564 others

readerscamera about last night.

user7 why is djotime in the likes ??

↳ user8 joe keery said in an interview that he was a big fan of reader's music.

user9 again the feet omg who is this guy

oliviarodrigo cunt

↳ readerscamera i take after you

rolemodel I know who that is....

↳ readerscamera tucker, if you don't stfu.

↳ user10 PLEASE TELL US

↳ rolemodel I can't she threatened me

user11 can we let her post without speculating about every guy she post ??

↳ user12 she's the one softlauching let us enjoy this....

readerscamera

liked by ayoedebiri, hunterschaefer and 791,127 others

readerscamera everywhere he goes he keeps a picture in his wallet

user13 oh so they're in LOVE love

user14 they are so cute but I'm dying to know who this man is

user15 guys I'm pretty sure this is joe keery i could recognise this man's hand everywhere

↳ user16 first of all you're crazy second of all why would that be him when we've never seen them together.

↳ user15 I just know guys trust me

↳ user17 you're crazy but I want to believe you really bad

ayoedebiri he could never love you like me

↳ readerscamera he's just my side piece don't worry

djotime I love espresso martini

↳ readerscamera me too

↳ user18 what is this interaction ?

↳user16 @user15 ok wtf

↳user15 @user16 I TOLD YOUU

readerscamera

liked by djotime, bellahadid and more

readerscamera let me introduce this sugar candy of mine

user18 SHE'S USING HIS LYRICS GUYS GUYS

user19 wait I know this guy....

user20 she think she's being slick

user21 we know who that is reader you can stop the soft launch now

bellahadid my wife

↳ readerscamera my baby

troyesivan I see you

↳ readerscamera :)))

user15 I KNOW THAT ITS HIM I KNOW IT

↳ user16 ok you were right im sorry but I still need the hard launch

↳ user15 I KNOW IM RIGHT

pearcheol ok I don't know what to say now.

djotime posted on his story

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readerscamera I wanted to post the hard launch first :/

↳ djotime couldn't help myself sorry baby

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readerscamera he beat me to it but here's my man.

user15 I'M SO HAPPY

user22 I never would have expected this duo

user23 we need a song now

↳ readerscamera maybe soon..

↳ user23 WHATTT OMG

ayoedebiri don't forget you loved me first

↳ readerscamera I could never

↳ djotime leave my girl alone

↳ user24 he calls her my girl omggg

oliviarodrigo my babies

↳ readerscamera love you bb

rolemodel I knew all this time

↳ readerscamera thank for keeping it a secret <3

gabbriette I'm so happy you finally hard launched I was getting tired

↳ readers HEY! let me live my secret love fantasy

djotime I love you so much

↳ readerscamera I love you more.

She’s a nursing student. She has clinical placement at seven on Monday morning and three half-finished flashcards on cardiac meds shoved into her bag and a lab partner who keeps texting her about their assessment. 

She understands symptoms. She understands pattern recognition. She understands that if a man who doesn’t do girlfriends makes you feel like a girlfriend for three to six hours a week, and then smiles at you after like he hasn’t just rearranged your entire nervous system, that’s not necessarily pathology. Sometimes that’s just Garrett.

His hand is warm around hers, and she’s a little drunk, and the game had been brutal, and he’d scored twice, and there are girls downstairs wearing Briar colours and looking at him like he’s something they could win if they stood in the right place long enough. And she’s the one he’s taking upstairs.

So. Normal. Definitely. Totally. 

Garrett pushes his bedroom door open with his shoulder, tugging her inside after him, and the noise of the party drops at once to a muffled, bass-heavy pulse through the floorboards.

His room smells like clean laundry, cold air from the cracked window, and him underneath it, that warm boyish mix of soap and deodorant and whatever he uses in his hair when he pretends he doesn’t use anything. 

There are textbooks stacked badly on the desk, a hoodie thrown over the chair, tape and a half-empty Gatorade bottle on the dresser. Evidence of a life being lived at full speed and cleaned only when Tucker threatens violence.

She gets half a second to take it in before Garrett closes the door behind her. Then he turns, catches her by the waist, and backs her against it.

The breath leaves her in a soft, embarrassing little rush. Garrett, for all his size and all the speed he carries on the ice, is annoyingly good at knowing exactly where someone’s body is in space.

He presses her back into the door with just enough weight, one hand braced near her head and the other sliding to her hip, his mouth already curving like he knows the sound she just made has ruined any chance of her acting composed.

“Hi,” he says, close enough that the word brushes her lips.

She looks up at him. “Hi.”

His grin deepens. “You’ve said that, like, six times tonight.”

“You keep appearing near me.”

“I live here.”

She tilts her head. “That’s probably part of the problem.”

He laughs under his breath, and then he kisses her before she can decide whether that was too honest to have been funny.

It starts the way it always starts, like he’s going to be patient just to prove he can. His mouth settles over hers slowly, warm and confident, one hand still at her waist, thumb slipping over the soft fabric of her dress.

She can taste beer on him, faint and bitter, and the peppermint gum he’d been chewing earlier because Dean had made some deeply unnecessary comment about post-game mouth and Garrett had thrown a bottle cap at his head. 

His lips are soft in a way that always feels vaguely unfair, especially against the rest of him, the broadness of his shoulders and the hard line of his body still wired from the game, and when she opens for him he makes a small sound in his throat that goes straight through her like heat.

Her fingers climb into his hair before she can pretend restraint was ever on the table. His curls are a little damp at the roots from the party, from the shower he must have taken after the game, from whatever warmth still clings to him after the crush of bodies downstairs. She tugs, just lightly, and Garrett’s hand tightens at her waist.

“There she is,” he murmurs against her mouth.

She would like to say something clever to that. Something dry and immune. Instead she sucks his bottom lip between hers and feels him go briefly still. Then he groans. It lands low and rough in the small space between them, and something in her stomach tips clean over.

Garrett’s hand slides from her waist to her back and pulls her in harder, until there’s very little room left between the door and him and her body has to make several immediate decisions about survival. Her hands stay in his hair. His mouth opens over hers, deeper now, less patient, and the kiss turns messy in that private familiar way it gets when they are both pretending this is simple.

His tongue against hers. His thumb at her jaw. The scrape of his teeth, quick and careful, when she nips at his lip again because he’s rewarded it once already and she likes the sounds he makes against her mouth.

He kisses down her jaw, and her head tips back into the door before she can help it. His mouth moves warm over the hinge of it, then lower, to the line of her throat where her pulse is doing something medically ridiculous. He finds it with the kind of precision that feels almost insulting. His lips press there once, then again, open-mouthed and slow enough that her fingers tighten in his hair.

“Garrett,” she breathes, and immediately hates herself a little for sounding like that.

He hums against her skin, smugness practically vibrating off him. “Yeah?”

“Don’t be annoying.”

His smile touches her throat. “Be patient.”

She laughs, which comes out unstable because he chooses that exact second to kiss back up her neck, along her jaw, to the corner of her mouth. He catches her there before she can fully get the breath back, and this kiss is less patient from the start. His hand moves up to her jaw, fingers gentle but sure, thumb resting near the corner of her mouth in a way that makes it very hard to remember that she has bones.

She thinks he likes her.

It arrives abruptly, in the middle of his mouth on hers and his hand spread over her back and his knee sliding between her thighs like he already knows where she’ll make that soft sound for him. She thinks it, and then the thought sits there glowing, horrible and warm.

Garrett Graham does not do girlfriends. Everybody knows that.

It’s practically public information. He has hockey, classes, training, games, and the kind of attention that follows him around campus like bad weather. He’s just been made captain, which means half his life now belongs to the team in a more official capacity than it already did. He spends mornings on the ice, afternoons in class, nights pretending he’s not exhausted while some girl in a mini dress lets him drag her upstairs by the hand and tries not to care when he looks at her like this.

And she’s busy too. She is. She has lectures and placement and exams that make her want to peel her own face off. She has care plans to write and competencies to get signed and older nurses who can destroy a person with one look if they prime an IV line too slowly. She’s not wandering around with free time and delusion looking for somewhere to put both.

But Garrett’s hand’s at her throat, careful and warm, and his mouth is on hers like he has nowhere else to be, and she likes him so much that for a second it’s genuinely inconvenient to breathe.

His knee shifts higher between her thighs. The feeling catches before she can stop it. A little drag of pressure through the thin fabric of her dress and the heat already sitting low in her body, and her hips move once, almost by accident, chasing it.

Garrett’s response is immediate. His breath breaks against her mouth, not quite a laugh and not quite a groan, his fingers flexing at her jaw. “Fuck.”

The word should make her feel powerful. And it does. Unfortunately, it also makes her stupid.

She does it again, on purpose this time, and Garrett kisses her harder, his free hand sliding down her side, over the curve of her hip, to pull her closer against his thigh. The door is cool at her back. His body is hot everywhere else.

The party downstairs has become a distant, irrelevant animal. She can feel the dull beat of music through the wood, the pressure of his hand at her waist, the soft roughness of his lips when he drags his mouth from hers just long enough to breathe and comes right back like leaving was a mistake.

He turns them without really breaking the kiss, one hand moving to her back, walking her backward across the room. It’s smooth for approximately three steps, and then her knees hit the edge of the bed. She drops onto it with a soft, inelegant oof.

Garrett pulls back just enough to look at her. For one second, neither of them says anything. She’s sitting on the edge of his bed with her dress riding higher than she left the house intending, boots planted on his carpet, hair probably already a mess from his hands. Garrett stands between her knees, flushed and grinning down at her like this night has gone exactly where he wanted it to.

God help her, she grins back.

“Smooth,” he says.

“You shoved me.”

“I guided you.”

She has just enough time to roll her eyes before he pulls his shirt over his head, and then the entire mood changes.

The heat’s still there, because Garrett Graham shirtless is, objectively, not a situation a girl can be expected to process with clinical detachment.

His shoulders are broad and strong and his chest is exactly as unfair as she remembers from the other times she’s had the opportunity to lose her mind about it. There are abs. Obviously there are abs. Annoying, well-defined, deeply unnecessary abs that make some extremely unhelpful part of her brain go momentarily blank.

But over all of that, dark and yellowing and fresh and ugly, are bruises. A lot of them. Across his ribs. One spreading along his side in a purple smear that disappears toward his back. Another near his shoulder. Smaller marks scattered over his chest and stomach, some fading green at the edges, some new enough that the skin around them still looks angry. There’s a cut near his collarbone she hadn’t noticed downstairs and another thin scrape along his ribs, red, but not bleeding now.

She knew the game had been rough. Everyone had known. The hits had been loud enough from the stands that one of her friends had flinched into her shoulder and muttered, “Jesus, is that legal?” 

She had watched Garrett get slammed into the boards and get back up like irritation was the only possible consequence. She had seen him grin through blood on his lip after the second period and had thought, with equal parts lust and alarm, that hockey players were not right in the head. But seeing it like this, close enough to touch, is different.

“Whoa,” she says, before she can soften it. Her hands come up instinctively but stop short of his skin. “Garrett. Hey. Hold on a second.”

He glances down like he has forgotten his own torso exists, then gives a small frown. “Oh. That.” His gaze lifts back to her, careless in a way that would be more convincing if she hadn’t spent half her week learning exactly how many bad decisions people described as nothing right before they became triage paperwork. “Yeah, you get used to it.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Because that looks insane.”

“It’s fine.” He bends toward her, one hand already coming to her jaw, under the impression that his very stupid body can simply be kissed out of the conversation. “C’mere.”

He kisses her, and she lets him for about two seconds because she’s only human and his mouth is still his mouth. Then she makes a small, involuntary squeak of disapproval against his lips.

Garrett pulls back, forehead dropping to hers, jaw tight with the particular frustration of a man who can feel the night slipping out of his control and doesn’t appreciate the medical profession’s role in it. “What?”

She blinks up at him. “Can I at least look at them?”

His eyes narrow. “At what?”

“At your ribs, Garrett.”

“Jeez. They’re ribs. They’re still there.”

“Are we sure?”

That gets the corner of his mouth, barely. “Pretty sure.”

“Are you sure you didn’t break one or some shit?”

He lets out a groan and then, with all the theatrical suffering of a man denied his constitutional rights, flops backward onto the bed beside her. The mattress bounces under his weight. “We’re not gonna fuck, are we?”

She stares at him. Garrett looks over with the aggrieved expression of someone who believes he’s asked a very fair question.

She rolls her eyes so hard it almost hurts. “Can I just look? Please?”

“This feels like a trap.”

“You took your shirt off and revealed a fucking crime scene.”

He gives her a look so flat she nearly laughs at his stupidity. “It’s hockey.”

“It’s bruising over your ribs.”

He sighs, long and dramatic, then lifts one hand and gestures vaguely down at himself like a monarch granting access to disputed land. “Fine. Nurse me.”

“I’m not a nurse yet.”

“Great. So this is amateur hour.”

She shoots him a look, eyes narrowing. “Oh. Would you like me to stop touching you?”

“No,” he says too quickly, and then has the audacity to look slightly offended when she smiles.

She shifts onto the bed properly, one knee tucked under her, trying very hard to keep her attention on the task and not on the fact that Garrett is lying shirtless under her hands with his jeans still slung low on his hips and his hair a mess from her fingers. 

The bedside lamp is on, yellowing the room softly, catching over the bruises and the lines of his stomach. Downstairs, someone yells, followed by laughter and a dull thud that neither of them bothers to investigate.

She presses two fingers gently along his lower ribs first. “How’s this?”

“Fine.”

She moves slightly higher. “Here?”

“Fine.”

She pulls her hands back and looks at him. “Garrett.”

“What?”

“Use a word that isn’t fine.”

He looks at the ceiling like she’s placed an enormous burden on him. “Manageable.”

“Wow. Thank you for your courage.” She presses again, lighter this time, watching his face. “Here?”

His mouth tightens before he can stop it.

She catches it immediately. “That hurt.”

“No.”

“Your entire face just did a thing.”

“My face does a lot of things. Girls usually love it.”

“Garrett.”

He exhales through his nose, then gives in by about one inch. “It’s… tender.”

“Tender like sore, or tender like don’t touch me there again unless I’m dying?”

He rolls his eyes. 

“Answer.”

“Sore,” he says, then adds, because he’s incapable of letting her have anything cleanly, “but if you wanna touch me there again under different circumstances, I’m totally open-minded.”

She presses her lips together, trying not to laugh, and fails. “You’re actually the worst patient I’ve ever had.”

“I’m your hottest patient.”

She tilts her head. “Mm. Unfortunately.”

His grin flashes, quick and pleased, before she moves her hand higher and finds another spot that makes the muscles in his stomach tense under her fingertips.

Her brain, horribly unprofessional, registers the abs again. A full, useless, warm-body register of the hard give of him under her hand, the smooth heat of his skin, the fact that his stomach jumps a little when her fingers pass too close to the waistband of his jeans. 

She’s touched him plenty of times. In significantly less educational contexts. But this feels different because she’s trying to be careful, and careful, with Garrett, is its own kind of intimacy.

“You’re staring,” he says.

She looks up and finds him watching her with one brow raised. “I’m assessing.”

“You’re assessing my abs?”

“They’re in the way of the bruises.”

He grins, head pressing back into the mattress as he adjusts his hips. “Tragic for you.”

“Deeply.” She drags her gaze back to the bruising near his side because if she keeps looking at his face while touching his stomach, she’s going to become useless to both medicine and feminism. “This one’s ugly.”

“Yeah, that guy was huge.”

She glares at him, one eyebrow raising in disapproval.

Garrett huffs. “What? I didn’t just let him hit me.”

“Sorry. I forgot he was supposed to ask for approval first.”

He laughs, then winces, one hand coming toward his ribs before he stops himself. “Ow. Jesus. Don’t make me laugh.”

Her face changes at once. “See?”

“I’m fine.”

She clicks her tongue once in frustration. “You just winced.”

“Because you’re funny.”

“Because your ribs hurt when you laugh,” she runs her hand across his chest again, genuinely concentrating on the damage now.

“Could be both.”

She gives him a look and reaches up to brush his hair back from his forehead, more because she wants to than because it serves any medical purpose.

His curls slip through her fingers, soft and warm, and his eyes do something quieter for half a second. Eyelids dropping halfway. Then the usual Garrett comes back over it, but not quite fast enough.

Her hand lingers. “I’m gonna get you some meds, okay?” she says, voice lower now.

He groans. “Can I get head first, or…?”

She huffs and smacks him lightly on the chest before she thinks. Garrett winces.

“Oh shit.” She jerks her hand back immediately, horror punching through the laugh. “Sorry. Sorry, my bad. My bad.”

He turns his head on the pillow and gives her a look of grave betrayal. “Jesus. Some nurse you are.”

“I said I wasn’t a nurse yet!”

“Yeah, and thank God. Accreditation board dodged a bullet.”

“I hate you.” But she’s smiling when she says it, which rather ruins the effect. She climbs off the bed, tugging her dress down as she stands because it’s migrated during the assessment with absolutely no respect for her professionalism. “Stay here.”

Garrett lifts his head slightly. “Where else would I go?”

“Knowing you? Back onto the ice to get punched again for sport.”

He opens his mouth to object. She points at him from the doorway. “Stay.”

His grin turns slow and irritating. “Bossy.”

“You like it.”

His mouth opens again, probably to say something dirty, but she slips out before he can.

The hallway is louder than his room by several degrees, music and shouting rushing back in around her. She shuts his door behind her and stands there for a second with her hand on the knob, blinking herself back into the party version of the house. Two girls come up the stairs laughing into each other, one of them barefoot, both of them carrying cups. A guy she vaguely recognises from one of Garrett’s classes is sitting on the floor by the wall, looking solemnly into a bag of chips like it might answer something for him.

The bathroom is blessedly empty when she gets there. She flips on the light and starts opening cabinets.

Condoms. More condoms. A suspiciously ancient bottle of hair gel.

“Ew,” she mutters, pushing aside something at the back of the cabinet that may once have been a protein shaker lid and may now qualify as a biohazard. “Men should not be allowed storage.”

More condoms, because this house is prepared for everything except basic first aid. A packet of painkillers finally appears behind a half-used tube of toothpaste, and then antiseptic wipes in a box that looks like it has survived three tenants and a small war. She checks the date, then grabs them along with a clean washcloth from the stack under the sink.

When she gets back, Garrett is still on the bed, thank God, though he’s propped himself against the pillows now and is holding his phone above his face. He looks up when she comes in, and the expression on him changes in a way she wishes she hadn’t noticed. 

The grin comes first, of course. It always does. But underneath it, there’s something softer. Something almost pleased. “You robbed our bathroom?”

“You own, like, ninety-three condoms and one bottle of painkillers.”

“Sounds balanced.”

“One of the condoms was in the medicine cabinet stuck to expired hair gel.”

He frowns. “That’s probably Dean’s.”

“Everything disgusting in this house cannot be Dean’s.”

“It actually can.”

She shuts the door with her hip and comes back to the bed, setting the supplies on his nightstand. “Sit up.”

He obeys, but makes it look like he’s doing her a personal favour. She hands him two tablets and the Gatorade from his dresser because hydration is hydration, even if blue sports drink feels questionable as medicine. Garrett takes them, eyes on her the whole time, then swallows with a grimace.

“See?” she says. “So brave.”

“I’ve been through a lot tonight.”

“You almost got laid and instead got ibuprofen. Devastating.”

He presses his lips together in an attempt not to laugh. “Finally, someone understands.”

She sits beside him, half-turned toward him, and tears open an antiseptic wipe. “This might sting.”

“Baby, I play hockey.”

She presses the wipe lightly to the cut near his collarbone.

Garrett hisses. “Fuck.”

She pauses, looking at him. He stares back, offended.

She smiles sweetly. “Baby, you play hockey.”

“Yeah, well, hockey doesn’t usually come in… little wet napkin form.”

She laughs despite herself and keeps going, careful now, dabbing around the scrape rather than dragging across it. He watches her while she works. She can feel it. The weight of his attention moving over her face, the line of her mouth, the way her hair keeps falling forward no matter how many times she tucks it back. The room feels warmer than it did before she left. Smaller, too, with him propped against the pillows and her sitting close enough that her knee presses against his thigh.

For a while, the party fills the places where neither of them speaks. Bass downstairs. Footsteps in the hall. A sudden burst of Dean’s voice somewhere below them, unmistakable even through the floor, followed by what sounds like Logan yelling, No, absolutely not, in a tone suggesting absolutely yes.

Garrett’s fingers touch her hair before she realises he’s lifted his hand. He brushes it back from her cheek, slow and absent, tucking it behind her ear with more care than the gesture needs. His hand doesn’t leave right away. His thumb grazes once near her temple, barely there, and when she looks at him, the grin is gone.

“You’re so pretty,” he murmurs.

The words are quiet enough that the party almost swallows them. Almost.

Heat rises immediately under her skin, stupid and quick. She looks down at the antiseptic wipe in her hand like it’s become fascinating. “You’re concussed, I think.”

Garrett shakes his head. “Mm-mm.”

“Garrett.”

“Was thinkin’ it before the game too.”

That makes something in her chest go inconveniently soft. She tries very hard not to let it show. She really does. Unfortunately, her face has chosen this exact moment to resign from service. Her mouth wants to smile. Her skin is warm. Her hands, which were perfectly capable five seconds ago, are suddenly very interested in folding the used wipe into a tiny, useless square.

“That’s probably still, like, concussion-adjacent,” she says.

He laughs, softer this time so it doesn’t hurt as much. “Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make a joke when I say something nice.”

She looks up at him then. Her mouth opens, then closes.

Garrett’s expression shifts, not smug now. Curious, maybe. Careful in a way that sits strangely on him because he wears confidence so easily that it’s easy to forget he can be gentle without making a performance of it.

“I don’t know,” she says finally, because it’s the most honest answer she has and still only half of one.

His thumb moves once over the strand of hair between his fingers. “Okay.”

She huffs a small laugh. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” His mouth curves faintly. “I can work with I don’t know.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“I’m a generous guy.”

“You asked for head while actively bruised.”

The smile comes back properly then, and the room unclenches around them.

She reaches for another wipe, but Garrett catches her wrist before she can open it. “Hey.”

Her pulse gives a small, irritating kick. “What?”

He doesn’t say it immediately. That’s unlike him enough that she notices. His fingers stay around her wrist. “You looked good at the game. You were… you were wearing that little Briar sweatshirt.”

She narrows her eyes. “Are you making fun of my sweatshirt?”

“No.” His eyes flicker across her face. “I liked it.”

The warmth under her skin gets worse.

“You scored twice,” she says, because deflection is now a survival tool.

His grin tilts. “I know.”

“Cocky.”

“You brought it up.”

She rolls her eyes, but her smile gives her away again. 

His fingers slide from her wrist to her hand. “You looked pretty in my colours.”

Her heart does one of those hard, stupid beats that feels less like romance and more like a medical event.

She looks down at their hands because his are big and warm and bruised at the knuckles, and because looking at his face suddenly feels like stepping too close to the edge of something. “You can’t just say things like that when I’m trying to, like, provide healthcare.”

“Why not?”

“Um, boundary confusion.”

“You’re sitting on my bed in a tiny dress.”

“And administering antiseptic.”

“Mixed signals all around.”

She laughs, and Garrett smiles at her like he meant to make that happen, like getting laughter out of her is its own private stat he’s keeping somewhere in his head.

For a second, she lets herself stay there. Lets herself sit with the warmth of his hand around hers, the lamp light over his bruised chest, the ridiculous intimacy of painkillers and antiseptic wipes and his hair still messy from her fingers. 

The whole night has gone sideways. From heat to something softer without losing the heat completely. From his knee between her thighs to her thumb brushing lightly near a bruise on his ribs. From fuck me to don’t make me laugh, it hurts.

Maybe this is what makes her like him so much. Not the obvious things, though the obvious things are doing their best. It’s that Garrett, who has every reason to stay easy and shallow and wanted by everyone, keeps accidentally becoming specific with her. Specific in rooms. Specific with his hands. Specific in the way he remembers what she wore to his game and says she looked pretty like it’s been sitting in him all night, waiting for somewhere to go.

She clears her throat and reaches for the last wipe. “I still need to clean that cut.”

Garrett’s eyes flick down to her mouth, lifting onto his elbow. “Mhm. After?”

She pushes him back down. “No, before.”

“So strict.”

“Alive men get privileges.”

He sighs and leans his head back against the pillows, exposing the line of his throat like he’s submitting to the terrible injustice of being cared for by a girl in a mini dress. “Fine. Do your worst.”

She shifts closer, half in his lap now because it’s the only angle that makes sense and absolutely not because her body has been looking for excuses since the hallway.

His hand lands at her thigh automatically, warm over the hem of her dress. He doesn’t move it higher. He doesn’t make a joke. He just rests it there, thumb slow against her skin while she dabs antiseptic over the scrape near his collarbone.

This time he doesn’t hiss.

“Good boy,” she murmurs before she can stop herself.

Garrett’s eyes open. The air changes instantly. Her hand stills. His mouth curves slowly, and the bruises, the ibuprofen, the entire attempted medical intervention lose significant ground against the expression on his face.

“Oh yeah?” he says, positively beaming.

She points the wipe at him. “Do not.”

His hand tightens lightly on her thigh, amusement low in his voice. “You’re blushing.”

“I’m warm.”

“And you’re in my lap.”

“For medical purposes.”

“Right.”

She gives him a look, but it’s hard to make it stick when he’s smiling like that and when she is, in fact, half in his lap, one hand on his chest, the other holding antiseptic.

Garrett’s gaze softens again, almost unfairly fast. “C’mere.”

“I’m right here.”

“Closer.”

She should say no on principle. She doesn’t. She lets him pull her in carefully, mindful of his ribs even when he clearly isn’t, until her forehead rests against his. The party moves under them, distant and messy and young. Someone bangs on a door down the hall. Somebody else laughs too loudly. Garrett’s room stays dim and warm around them.

His thumb brushes once over her thigh.

“Are you gonna sleep here?” he asks, quiet enough to make it sound casual and not at all like the question has changed shape in his mouth.

She pulls back a little to look at him. “What?”

He shrugs, but it’s a bad shrug. Too careful. “I mean, you can. If you want. Since you’ve already ruined the original plan.”

She stares at him.

Garrett’s brows lift. “What?”

“The original plan being sex?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes narrow. “And now your backup plan is… a sleepover?”

“Don’t make it sound lame.”

“It’s incredibly lame.”

His eyes move over her face. “You wanna leave?”

She doesn’t. The answer is immediate and sits in her before she can make it sound prettier.

“No,” she says.

His face shifts again, the smallest flicker of satisfaction moving through it before he reins it in. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

For a moment, they just look at each other. She’s waiting for him to make a joke. He’s probably waiting for her to make one. Between them, the thing neither of them has named sits warm and too close, wearing all the shapes of what this is supposed to be and none of them fitting quite right.

Then Garrett leans in and kisses her. Softer this time. Still warm, still him, still enough to make the room narrow, but without the frantic press from the door, without the urgent slide of his knee between her thighs. 

His mouth moves over hers slowly, his hand rising to her jaw, thumb touching the corner of her face. The sweetness of it makes her chest ache in a way that’s frankly rude after everything else he’s already done to her tonight.

When he pulls back, he stays close. “You gonna keep nursing me,” he murmurs, “or am I cleared for kissing?”

She looks down at his bruised ribs, then back at his face. “Light kissing.”

He runs his thumb over her bottom lip. “Define light.”

“Um. No additional injuries.”

“So that rules out Dean joining.”

She laughs, louder now, and he smiles against her mouth before kissing her again, like the laugh is something he can catch if he moves fast enough.

Downstairs, the party gets louder. Upstairs, Garrett Graham lets her press one more cautious hand to his ribs and pretends not to notice when she leaves it there longer than she needs to.

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎

yourusername: posted 12 hours ago

♫: Marlboro Nights - Lonely God

yourusername: employment coming soon... eyuck...

liked by yoursister, yourbestfriend, friend7, sanjosesharks, yourfriend9 and 892 others

COMMENTS...

sanjosesharks: Welcome in! We are so excited to have you as the Team's official 2026 photographer!

yourusername: oh my gos i'm so sorry I forgot i gave you guys my personal instagram i didn't mean it in the caption i'm so sorry please

yourbestfriend: But when will we stalk my ex...

yourusername: i always have time for that?

friend1: hey (louder than everyone else)

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random8: sjs in her likes???

random3: I've lost hope for the education system if you can't read the comment that says she's the new photographer.

random5: omg ur my Pinterest feed personified?

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sanjosesharks posted 2 hours ago

Sanjosesharks: Our new photographer in a paragraph!

"Hi! I'm so excited to be working with San Jose, I've been a hockey fan for quite a few years, and i hope i do the team justice with my camera! i graduated from Rutgers University 2 years ago with a degree in journalism, and I've been writing and taking pictures since!"

Welcome In @/yourusername!

liked by yourusername, mackcelebrini, eklund_72, colin.graf, _willsmith2, alexanderwennberg, michaelmisa_, reavo7five, tofff73 and 109,876 others...

COMMENTS...

tofff73: Exciting things happening in SJ!

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reavo7five: 🔥🔥

yourusername: omg my goat

liked by reavo7five, sanjosesharks and others

yourusername: EEEEEEEKKKKKKKK so excited

_willsmith2: Already sick pictures 🙏

yourusername: easy canvases!

eklund_72: already making me look good! 👀

yourusername: i try!!!!

mackcelebrini: this IS tuff

liked by sanjosesharks, yourusername and others...

fan9: Why the team photographer BAD 👅

yourbestfriend: That's 😭 Oomf😭

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99+ new notifications

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You have 3139 new followers...

yourusername: posted 1 hour ago

♫: Backyard Boy - Claire Rosinkranz

yourusername: this is Brittany 12 hours before my shift!

liked by yourbestfriend, _willsmith2, cattoffoli, colin.graf, friend6, amberglennfigureskating and 1,689 others

COMMENTS...

youurbestfriend: 12 hours after my shift...

yourusername: you get me

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yourusername: PLEASE 😭 amber baby that's a dolphin?

friend7: winstons> marlboros mind u...

yourusername: get tf outta my comments 🫩

_willsmith2: nice shirt

liked by yourusername

random89: Hey lol

random1: Holy airball 🥹

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Sanjosesharks: posted 1 hour ago

Sanjosesharks: First Smitty selfie possibly ever!

Tagged: @/yourusername @_willsmith2

liked by yourusername, cattoffoli, tofff73, alexwennberg, eklund_72, mackcelebrini and 214,068 others

COMMENTS...

yourusername: already doing my job for me !!

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yourusername: he so small 😂 only need one popcorn 🍿

_willsmith2: 8 foot 9 by the way

_willsmith2: What a distinguished handsome young man

alexwennberg: 😂

tofff73: Great angle, man. @_willsmith2.

_willsmith2: Thanks gramps

fan9: He's so silly he's getting pregnant TONIGHT 😂

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mackcelebrini: What a face

fan849: trying so hard to grow facial hair 😕

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_Willsmith2: posted 14 hours ago

♫: Earrings - Malcom Todd

_willsmith2: Film and the film taker

Tagged: @/yourusername

liked by mackelebrini, tofff73, alexwennberg, michaelmisa_, yourusername, yourbestfriend and 188,597 others

yourusername: who is that beautiful lady slide 4!

_willsmith2: She's pretty cool isn't she

mackcelebrini: Just so obvious at this point..

_willsmith2: delete this

eklund_72: 😎

colin.graf: Aura 🥶

random382: No one gaf about Will post more pictures of that BEAUTIFUL woman?

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yourbestfriend: she's so dreamy

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yourusername: posted 4 hours ago

♫: Master of None - Beach House

yourusername: Type 2 in chat for lip combo ☺️

liked by _willsmith2, sjsharkie, yourbestfriend, mackcelebrini, reavo7five, friend3, yoursister and 5,720 others

PINNED COMMENT 📌 yourbestfriend: nips as hard as ur fit 👅

yoursister: fall off that balcony for me 👀

yourusername: YOU WERE A MISTAKE.

_willsmith2: What's a lip combo?

yourusername: i'll queen you out don't joke lad

mackcelebrini: Did you die slide 4 😕

yourusername: ya if u want to donate to funeral cost lmk

michaelmisa_: Sharkie!

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fan938: God you're so cool 😣

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random19: 2??? 2 PLEASE??? PLEASE I TYPED 2

yourusername: check ur dms 💋

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sanjosesharks: posted 7 hours ago

sanjosesharks: The boys on film!

liked by yourusername, colin.graf, mackcelebrini, tofff73, eklund_72, _willsmith2 and 191,728 others

COMMENTS...

yourusername: some real hot pics! wonder who took them..

mackcelebrini: you sound like a fratboy's comment section 😭 "PC?" ahh

yourusername: petition to take care of mack in my bio!

liked by _willsmith2, mackcelebrini and others...

colin.graf: @/yourusername always making us look cooler than we really are 🥶

yourusername: it was in the job description

_willsmith2: Cool pictures, cooler photographer

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random828: My son just confess 😭 im crine 😭 @_willsmith2

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yourusername: posted 15 hours ago

♫: Von Dutch - Charli XCX

yourusername: crazy things happen when ur drunk!

Tagged: @/yourbestfriend and @/friend7

liked by _willsmith2, mackcelebrini, yourbestfriend, friend7, eklund_72, reavo7five and 19,264 others

COMMENTS...

mackcelebrini: Holy hard launch

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yourbestfriend: pussy pool on slide 2 👅

yourusername: bend over smack it from the back

_willsmith2: No tag is crazy work

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yoursister: messiest drunk ever

yourusername: says the messiest drunk ever

friend7: 365 party girl 🪩

liked by yourbestfriend, yourusername and others ...

fan383: HOLY SHIT? IS THAT WILL???

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_willsmith2: posted 9 hours ago

_willsmith2: me recently + whatever she's got going on

Tagged: @/yourusername and @/mackcelebrini

liked by sanjosesharks, nhl, yourusername, mackcelebrini, yourbestfriend, yourfriend9, cattoffoli, tofff73, reavo7five, eklund_72 and 252,920 others

COMMENTS...

yourusername: you da real hard launch

_willsmith2: I'm hard nation stand UP! #hardnation

mackcelebrini: hard launching us 🥹❤️

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eklund_72: 🐐

yourbestfriend: mama y papa

yourusername: my child i gave birth to 3 minutes ago 🤍

random89: Told y'all bruh...

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yourusername: posted 9 hours ago

♫: American Boyfriend - Kevin Abstract

yourusername: boyfriend!! so unfortunate he's set to get euthanized tomorrow 😕

liked by _willsmith2, mackcelebrini, yourbestfriend, yoursister, friend7, tofff73, michaelmisa_ and 38,648 others

COMMENTS...

willsmith2: im what

yourusername: nothing sweetie 🤍

willsmith2: @/yourusername okay ❤️ yay

yourbestfriend: falls to the ground... IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME

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mackcelebrini: burn him at the stake 🥶

willsmith2_: do WHAT

yoursister: this is cute I have nothing hateful to say

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cattoffoli: Come on the podcast, girl!

yourusername: don't even joke lad I'm omw right now