꩜ Pomme ꩜

Jack looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head as his hands went to rest on his hips. When he looked back down, he found you walking toward the nurse and it suddenly made complete sense. 

He let out a sigh. “This has to be a joke.”

His eyes, as they did more often than was appropriate, caught on you, hair coming down loose from where you’d pinned it, the scrubs lopsided at one hip, riding lower than where they’d started at the beginning of the night. You turned to say something to the guy quickly, and the movement caught the slip, your scrub top moving up half an inch, and Jack’s eyes went there before his brain could tell him that was wrong, some groove in him that noticed you before it noticed anything useful. He had a second of pure, unhelpful distraction before his brain reminded him that he was an attending and had things to do. 

“I actually think it’s funny,” Lena said, shrugging.

Of course it had something to do with you. He should’ve figured it out the second he saw the guy standing there with his hands in the pouch of his scrubs, rocking heel to toe like the floor was just too exciting to be standing on. Nobody loitered around the ambulance bay at midnight for good reason. People came through those doors bleeding or they didn’t come through them at all, and this guy had shown up with nothing wrong with him, except maybe a case for some lovesickness. 

“I’m gonna make this stop,” Jack said, already pushing himself away from the nurse’s station.

Lena’s eyes widened slightly. “Don’t say anything that gets you sat down with HR.”

“She can goddamn try me,” he said, and went. Also because Jack was fairly sure you would never report him to HR. 

He crossed the floor and caught the tail-end of your conversation as he closed in.

“ — just tell me when you’re free, that’s all I’m asking,” the guy was saying.

You were already half-turned, already gone as you waved a hand loosely beside you. “I don’t know, I just don’t think we should try again.” 

Jack blew out a breath, standing a few feet short of you, your back facing him. Why was he not surprised? He’d been keeping tally without meaning to, and he knew that was embarrassing. There was the radiology fellow who’d started hand-delivering films that very well could’ve gone through the system; the travel nurse who’d washed through in six weeks and left the floor faintly weird in his wake; the anaesthesia resident who now took the long way around the department if he saw you at the end of it, as though he were a dog who’d learned the fence was electric. And now this one, apparently, Peds with his whole hopeful heart hanging out in Jack’s department. 

“You’re so sweet for coming down here,” you practically crooned at him, shifting on your heels, eyes flicking down to the form in your hand. “But I really do have a whole long night ahead of me, and I know my answer’s not gonna change, so I won’t make you wait around for it, okay?” 

Jack fought the urge to roll his eyes when you said the words with the upward lilt of a woman sending a toddler back to his mother. He wanted to laugh a little when he saw that the guy had taken it standing up like it was a gift. 

The hell of it was that Jack understood the man. He understood every last one of them because he stood next to you fifty hours a week, had been doing so for three years, and whatever the department thought of him after his consistent therapy, he was not carved out of stone. 

Jack was afraid that if he hadn’t been your attending these last four years and a little younger, wearing his heart on his sleeve, he’d have been eating out of the palm of your hand. 

You gave the guy a there-there pat, and it was only then did his eyes land on Jack, who he probably knew was your fucking attending. You turned then, and immediately said, “Oh, Dr. Abbot, I’ve got the guy in six’s labs back, the potassium —”

“Mhm.” Jack’s hands came up and landed on your shoulders before you’d finished the sentence, squaring you off the spot where you stood and turning you bodily back toward the floor like you were a gurney. 

“It is four-point-nine, but the EKG’s good, so I was gonna recheck in —” 

“Let’s recheck it now,” he said. He kept you moving, his palms broad through the cotton of your scrubs, steering you a few feet till your own feet caught onto the idea. 

You grumbled something under your breath, and once he’d stopped you right in front of six, you turned to face him with your brows raised.

“Say something?” he asked, tipping his chin down.

“You seem like you’re mad at me,” you said. 

“Huh. I do?” He let go of your shoulders — noticing, distantly, the exact second his hands came off and suddenly felt too empty — and reached past you to pluck six’s chart off the tray, more to have something to do with them than needing it. “You’re right. You should recheck in ten minutes.”

“You’re mad at me,” you said again, crossing your arms over your chest. 

He blew out a breath, and suddenly felt just a little silly at getting worked up over a nurse by the doors when there was a large, glowing board behind him full of names that needed his complete, undivided attention. 

You were a senior resident, after all, four years deep, one of his sharpest — you’d treated the guy in six, hadn’t you, you’d flagged it and called for the EKG and made the right call on the recheck before he’d even asked, all while dismantling some man’s hopes. Somehow, your mess and competence ran on the same current. You never let the first touch the second. He’d have loved, some nights, to have an excuse to be mad — a missed lab, a blown line, anything he could write up and point at — and you kept declining to hand him one. All of this meant he was left with this vague swampy irritation, and Jack wasn’t the sort of mentor who liked to hound upon that. 

“No, sweetheart, I just love it when you get random men hanging around the department,” he settled on saying, feeling his shoulders visibly loosen a fraction.

You winced, eyes darting over to the emptiness in front of the doors now. “Sorry.” 

“You’d say it won’t happen again, but we both know better.” He shrugged. Then, he reached out his hand — he wasn’t sure why, except that it just happened naturally — and patted you once on the shoulder, then on the second turned you to face the curtains leading to your patient. “Doctor up.”

And you did, the loose, embarrassed shape of you being replaced in the space of a single breath, being replaced by something Jack had watched grow into you over the years and still hadn’t quite gotten used to. 

Trauma called it in nine minutes later, an MVC, unrestrained driver, GCS dropping in the field. Jack was working on a laceration in four when he heard the crackled warning, and by the time he’d looked up out the curtains, you were already moving, gowned and at the head of the bay calling out assignments like you’d been doing this for a decade.

“I need two units O-neg before he rolls in,” you said, voice pitched high enough to carry without yelling, cutting clean through the perpetual noise of the department. “Somebody get me a second eighteen-gauge ready, and I want an ultrasound in here.”

Donnie and Mateo were already moving, and so were the people around you, falling into your orbit like the room had easily reorganized itself around your voice the second it went up. Jack stood by the curtain, gloves from the lac still on, and found he couldn’t make himself move just yet.

The doors banged open. EMS wheeled the stretcher through fast, calling out vitals over each other, and you were already on the patient’s side before the gurney had fully stopped moving, hands moving on his neck, chest, eyes scanning his pupils in a matter of ten seconds. He began walking over, catching your voice as you called out your reads as someone hung the blood and someone else prepped the ultrasound wand. “Page neuro now.”

“On it,” Mateo said, already moving.

You had both hands on the patient, running the primary survey quickly, confirming, checking, discarding possibilities out in short, clipped sentences Jack recognized as the sound of your brain running six steps ahead of your mouth. Sweat had started on your hairline. You called out for OR to be on standby, eyes flickering around the room and landing on Jack. “OR, please,” you said, aimed at him, brows going up. 

“On it,” Jack said, because there was no way he was going to let you be wrong about needing something and didn’t make sure you got it.

The next six minutes went by fast and loud, in bursts and then suddenly quiet, the room narrowing down on functionality. You stood at the center of it; you called it and ran it. You got the man upstairs stable enough that Walsh didn’t sound worried for one second, and that was a compliment from her. 

Jack watched the whole thing from four feet back, arms crossed, and chipping in when your brain had snagged. He was feeling a heat in his chest helplessly and entirely unprofessional, it was always present when he was able to see, in real-time, how far you’d come from your first day of residency when your hands were a second too slow on the central line and how your voice would pitch up at the end of every read, asking for permission every time instead of stating it like a fact, eyes finding him across the room each time, checking.

There was none of that left in you now, he realized, had done so a long time ago. He thought, watching you now, that this was the closest thing he’d let himself do to falling in years, standing uselessly riveted as he watched a woman he’d taught outgrow the need for him in real time, and finding that instead of the loss he’d expected to feel when the day finally came, all he felt was warm and terrifying and too much like pride. 

When the room had started clearing out, he watched your mouth drop open as you let out a heavy breath, eyes going over to him. The second he watched you realize he was still there, your face shifted, the relief turning into something sharper. 

“Why didn’t you jump in?” You crossed the floor toward him in four hard strides, gloves already peeled off and balled tight in one fist, snapping the second one free with a motion that looked terrifyingly like it wanted to be aimed at him. “His pressure tanked for thirty seconds and you just watched.”

“You had it.”

“You didn’t know that,” you said, voice going up an octave, adrenaline still thrumming through you, hands coming up the gesture at the blood-streaked floor. “I could’ve missed something. You’re the attending, Jack, you’re supposed to catch if I missed something —”

“I would’ve,” he interrupted, stepping in close enough that you had to tilt your head back to keep glaring at him properly. “The second you needed me, I would’ve stepped in. I wasn’t gonna take it from you before you did.” 

“You can’t gamble like that with a patient —” Your chest was rising and falling fast, gloves now crushed in your fist, and he could see the fear catching up now that everything around you had gone quiet enough to let it, something that looked more like fear of yourself than for the patient. “What if I’d frozen —?”

“I knew you wouldn’t.” He reached his hand out, thumb catching a smear of the blood at your jaw you’d accidentally smeared on yourself, wiping it off carefully with the pad of his thumb, and felt you go still under it. “You don’t trust my judgement?”

“You know I do. You just could’ve said something.”

“I could’ve. He dropped his hand from your jaw only to catch your wrist instead. “Didn’t wanna interrupt you being brilliant. Kinda liked watching it happen.”

Your mouth opened, surely to let out some unnecessary retort, and died there when he pressed one slow stroke of his thumb against your wrist, raising a brow. 

“Relax,” he said, voice going rough as he leaned in a little, forcing you to meet his eyes properly. “Just take the win. That’s an order.”

“Now you wanna give orders,” you mumbled.

He barked out a short laugh, letting go of your wrist. “Only when you’re being stubborn for no reason.”   

It was sometime during the second year of your residency when he’d started catching your drift. It had started with a random Friday shift. He’d seen you at the station, elbows on the counter, telling Lena something conspiratorially. Jack was meant to be reading a chart but couldn’t help how his ears had perked up. Anything to get through the shift, he supposed.

“ — no, but he was perfect on paper,” you were saying, “kept his house clean and everything. He told me he kept his plant alive for six years —”

“So, what happened?” Lena said flatly, like she already knew what you were going to say but wanted to hear anyway. 

“He wanted to take me bowling on the second date,” you said through a sigh. “I know how it sounds, but you’ve gotta hear me out —”

“I’m genuinely not going anywhere.”

“ — for the first date, bowling’s fun. But he took me to a nice dinner the first time, he set a standard, and then the second date he goes bowling, which means the effort’s already —” You created a little downward slope with your hand. “And if it’s already sliding on date two, where’s it at on date two hundred? I can already see my marriage with him and it’s bad.”

It seemed you had a criteria, Jack learned then. It was proven even more when he’d heard you talk about your other failed dates, seen them, and learned — without ever wanting to — what they were, to an extent. 

He knew you couldn’t stand a man who ordered for you without asking. He knew you’d written off a fellow for the way he talked about his mother, and another one — an accountant, a rare specimen who had no clue what an EKG was — over a text message you’d read aloud to Ellis in a voice of complete horror, though Jack had never caught what it actually said, only your face while you read it. He knew you gave people precisely three dates, that this was a rule you held if the first and second date went well, three apparently being the magic number at which a person could no longer hide the demon they were going to turn out to be (your words).

He knew, too, that you only allowed one kiss after the first date, if even that. It was never up for negotiation, no matter how beautifully the night had gone, for you never wanted to end up “emotionally overdrawn on an account you hadn’t even opened yet.”

He knew you a man lost real points if, over the three dates, if it involved drinks, he ordered the same one. He knew a man gained them, silently and instantly, for being able to sit in a lull without narrating his way out of it, and that you considered this the single rarest trait in modern dating.

He knew you were looking for something you had no name for and would recognize on sight, which struck him as a hell of a way to run a search.

He’d have told you, if you asked, that he tuned most of the station chatter out as a matter of survival, for while he enjoyed the occasional gossip, he couldn’t very well absorb everyone’s business. And that was true about everyone’s business but yours, apparently, because yours came in clear.

Your business he retained against his own better judgement, and he realized — once, during a slow shift — that he could’ve drawn you a better map of your taste than you seemed to carry yourself. He could’ve told you, if you asked, exactly the kind of man who’d finally clear your bar, and exactly why he had yet to show up. 

It was almost nice, some nights, watching you try anyway. The ER was a place where everyone was kept tethered to the world by a thread, and everyone who worked in it long enough to develop some version of the same calluses. Jack had grown his years ago, and he wore them invisible, occasionally aching, and had come to terms with it being permanent.

Love, for Jack, had stopped being a real noun before you’d shown up, somewhere between things he used to want and things he’d decided weren’t for him anymore.

You still believed in it. You’d watched this place take everything soft out of grown men twice your seniority and somehow walked through the same fire hopeful, still convinced, against every scrap of evidence, that somewhere there was a person worth all that hoping.

For that reason, he had decided to not interrupt your endeavors, not until now, when he noticed you during hand-off before your night shift with him started, in front of Robby, of all people. 

While Jack loved Robby like a brother, he had a documented, department-wide, actuarially reliable seven-week expiration date on every woman he charmed out of this building. He’d heard intra-departmental gossip about him. There was, Jack was fairly sure, a running joke about it that predated your residency by years. 

He knew you definitely were not finding love in his best friend. But Jack felt the buzzing in his mind go quiet and mean watching how you with him.

You laughed at something and Jack lost, for one humiliating second, the thread of what he’d walked over to say. It happened sometimes, more than he’d admit to anyone. Ordinary noises out of you hit him somewhere in his chest before the better part of him flagged it as a problem, and he had to physically clear his throat before finding his footing again. 

“ — Italian’s always good after pulling a double,” Robby was saying. “But I do love some microwave ramen, too, when I’m missing my med student days.” 

“Oh, so your standards have been raised being chief?” you said, and Jack could hear the smile and wariness in it. 

“For sure —”

Jack let out a huff, something resembling a laugh, as his feet planted him between the two of you. He was close enough that his shoulder nudged yours and you had to step back to keep your balance. He felt your weight land for a second against him with a satisfaction he had no, absolutely no business feeling for something so small. So childish.

He turned to Robby, spreading his hands wide, mock outrage. “My resident.”

Robby looked mildly amused, unbothered, so Jack added, before he could respond, “Go home before I report you to HR.”

“You’d do that to me?” 

“In a heartbeat. Have some shame.” Jack kept his shoulder where it was still angled half in front of you, an old, unexamined instinct keeping the line drawn even though Robby had already backed off.

He tipped his head toward the doors, toward the gold light coming up in them, the day shift draining out around you both. “There’s a whole rich life waitin’ for you out there.”

Robby just smiled and pushed off the counter, giving you a small wave before he left.

Jack turned to you then, brows furrowed. “Seriously?”

You let out a short laugh. “Work hard, play hard?” 

“Soundin’ a lot like a frat brother right now. Never have those words been said in an ER,” Jack said. 

“I wasn’t actually going to do it,” you said, rushing the words out with something more honest in them. “For the record. I know what — he’s got a reputation.” You picked at the counter. “I was just talking to him. He’s funny.”

Jack had to recalibrate for a second. “You were talkin’ sweet to him.” 

“I talk sweet to everyone.” You lifted a shoulder, completely unbothered. “You should try it sometime.”

He rolled his eyes at that. He reached over for your cup of coffee sitting between you — closer to his elbow than yours — and drank a sip, eyes going up to the ceiling at the sheer volume of syrup you’d decided you needed in your bloodstream today. “The hell?” he muttered, turning the cup slightly as if that would help. “Are you trying to embalm yourself?”

“Give it back.”

“In a minute.” He took a second sip, slower this time, and watched you over the rim of the cup. Then, he set it back a few degrees off how you’d had it, just to see your jaw tick.

You pulled the cup back in, thumbed it around until the lid faced you again, and drank from it without breaking your explanation. “I’m offended you think I’ll get wine and dined by the chief attending.” You tilted your head. “Give me some credit here. I won’t be his seven weeks.”

“Huh.” He rubbed the back of his neck, which was warm. “Well, good. Don’t think he’ll clear your bar anyway.”

“See, you get it,” you said, pointing a finger at him. “At least someone around here does.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, tipping his head slightly forward that even he hadn’t realized that he had shifted the distance just slightly. “Better than most.”

Your eyes widened slightly at that, and Jack took that as his cue to step back, clear his throat, as he jerked his chin toward the board.

“Alright, time to work. Stop the play,” he said, trying to get his voice the right level. “Go look at chest pain on three.”

“So bossy,” you said, but you were already turning around to go to three.

Well, that’s what he was, wasn’t he? For some reason, he had to remind himself that. 

It was what he had to remind himself as his hands hovered your trembling ones as you tried to pump air into Mrs. Foley’s lungs, knowing she was already gone — had been for a while now, if he was honest — longer than it took you to admit. He knew it, he’d grown the grim ability to recognize when a body stopped being a patient and being someone you were performing compressions on for the family’s sake, for your own need to have done everything. 

He’d let it run anyway, because you hadn’t accepted it yet, and he’d wanted to give you that extra minute to arrive at it on your own. 

Mateo had come up to Jack’s side, snapping his gloves off, the sound of it overshadowed by your own heaving. 

“She has to call it,” he murmured. “You want me to —”

“No.” Jack’s eyes, he felt, could not move away from your distress. “I’ve got her.” 

Mateo looked at him for a moment longer than the moment warranted, and then he stepped back and let Jack be. You were still going, your compressions had gone harder, faster, less like genuine medicine and more like you were pleading with Mrs. Foley herself now. Sweat had gone to the hair at your temple. Your jaw was set in a clench Jack recognized all too well, and for a moment, Jack wished that he didn’t have to be so acutely tuned into watching what the job did to others, the same way it did to him. 

He stepped in behind your shoulder, close, and brought his hand down over yours where they were locked on the old woman’s chest.

“Look at the clock,” he said quietly into your ear.

“One more round —” 

“You’ve done plenty.” He pressed, gently, until your hands stilled under his, and felt your entire body resist it. “You know she was gone before we could’ve even done anything —”

“She’s been my patient for years —” 

Jack knew then that while you may have been an excellent doctor, his senior resident that had bloomed under his mentorship but still could’ve gone without him and done just the same, it wasn’t a good feeling to wonder if the job would dim you the way it had him. 

“I know.” He kept his hands over yours with enough pressure so as to not let you drive them down again. “That’s why it’s yours to call. But you’ve gotta call it, Doctor.”

Your breath hitched as you turned your neck to face him, and there was a pool brimming on your lashline that you kept at bay, nodding. Your hands under his stopped straining upward, and he felt the exact second you accepted it, for it moved through your shoulders and down your spine and left you a little smaller standing there, the fight trickling into the moment after, which Jack always thought was worse. 

“Time of death,” you said, forcing your voice back into the procedural tone, “oh-three-forty-one.” You peeled your gloves off finger-by-finger.

His hand found the small of your back after taking the minute, leading you to the little family consult room with the boxed tissues and fake ficus with a couch that had absorbed more bad news since longer than you or he had worked there. He shut the door with the flat of his hand and let the floor’s noise cut to a hum through the drywall. 

You stood in the middle of the room with your arms crossed, holding yourself, and stayed silent. 

Jack propped himself against the table, arms folded, as he breathed out a small sigh through his nose. He knew you weren’t a talker after the bad ones. Some residents came out of a loss with their mouths running, narrating it into something survivable, and some went quiet and small and had to be waited out, and you were the second kind. So he waited.

You broke it eventually, like he always knew you would have. “I’ve got a butterscotch she gave me seven months ago in my locker still,” you murmured, craning your neck so you were looking at the ceiling. You wiped under your eyes with the heel of your hand roughly. 

“Think I’ve got one, too,” he murmured, wincing as he tried to shift his weight. 

It had been building up for the past few hours, a hot ring of wrong down below the knee where the socket had gone slick and furnace-warm because it was past hour fourteen, when he’d sweated the fit and never changed the liner because there’d been no window that wasn’t already accounted for. He shifted his weight off it, trying again, and reached down to thumb the release, breaking the seal. 

He let out a short, punched out sigh as he pulled himself down onto the chair behind him, one hand balancing himself on the table. “Sorry,” he gruffed out, jaw clenching. 

Your eyes flickered down to the prosthetic limb he was balancing against the pole of the table and you were already moving before he could finish apologizing. You never asked if he needed a hand. You’d learned sometime during your second year that asking him gave him a chance to say no, and you’d quit handing him that chance sometime during your second year, so now you just came. You went down on one knee at the pole of the table.

“Don’t say sorry,” you mumbled, eyes not meeting him.

His jaw stayed tight and he didn’t fight it, fight you. That was a formality and you both knew it, a thing he did with his shoulders and not his hands, but he watched the top of your head and thought — like he always did, each time, and never said out loud — there was no one else on god’s green earth he’d let do this in the way you did. Not the prosthetist, who did it clinically. Not the VA, who did it tired. You did it each time like it was nothing and everything at once, as though this something not worth remarking on. 

He very badly wanted to thank you, despite how small he always felt when you did this. He wanted to tell you that you were, without question, better at this than anyone who was paid to do it.

Your fingers found the socket and went for the liner because you knew the fit went bad and the sweat before it went bad anywhere a person could see, knew he’d have to run it slick and furnace-hot than spend the fourteen minutes off the floor. You rolled it back with the flat of your thumb, easing the trapped heat out of it, and he felt the pressure of the ring of raw below his knee and had to clench his jaw to not let the relief show on his face. You spared him anyway by keeping your eyes down where they’d been.

“You’ll strip your skin doing this,” you said conversationally, the roughness still present in your voice from the code. “You know that. You keep running it past twelve and one of these nights it’s cellulitis and I’m admitting you.” 

“If only I could be so lucky.”

He ducked his head slightly, a part of him wanting to catch the reaction, and he saw how one corner of your lip was barely turned up. 

You thumbed a line of red where the socket’s edge had bitten in, checking it, and your touch went careful around there. “This is new. The edge is catching higher than it was.”

“Went to a new liner last month,” he said, voice low. “Not broke in yet.” 

“Then you break it on your days off. Not on a fourteen hour.” You finally looked up at him, shaking your head with this flat, fond expression he’d come to realize was your favorite way to look at him. “You’d write me up for less.” 

“I’d write you up for a lot less,” he agreed, thinking back on the time you’d fought him tooth-and-nail over staying through a migraine, refusing, point-blank, to hand off a soft rule-out chest pain at eleven when the migraine had started very visibly began creeping up on you. 

He’d caught you before you’d said a word about it because you’d begun squinting at the numbers and pressed the heel of your hand against one eye for a moment too long between patients, thinking nobody was watching. He was, he realized, always watching you in some way.

“Go home,” he’d said quietly, catching you by the elbow outside the curtain. “That’s not a request.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve got a migraine.”

“I’ve got a job.” Your jaw had clenched, stubbornly, and Jack had thought that even if he’d put all his strength into it, he wouldn’t have been able to unclench it for you. “I’m not handing off a chest pain because my head hurts. This guy has waited long enough for a bed. I’m not the priority here.”

He’d wanted to tell you that you were, actually, that you were exactly the priority, and watching you white-knuckle forms with your pupils blown different sizes from pain scared him more than any board full of critical pains ever had. But he’d just pulled down the light two notches, told the nurses to shadow eleven’s discharge, and put a bottle of water and two Tylenol on your desk without a word. And thank god, you’d taken the Tylenol and finished the shift standing up because sitting made the room tilt worse, and only taken on non-critical cases. You’d refused until the end that you should’ve gone home three hours earlier.  

Now, you huffed something that was nearly a laugh, your first real once since the code, and went back to setting. And Jack sat there with his arms crossed in the dark with your hands on the worst-guarded part of him and the door shut against the whole floor, and thought about how he believed nobody deserved you. People were vile and sucked and cut in line and let doors swing shut behind them, and you handed out three dates to men who wrote sonnets in your voicemail and couldn’t clear a bar you’d never once lowered for anyone. He’d thought, more nights than he liked to admit, that these people had no idea what they were auditioning for. 

His eyes snagged on you because there was nothing else in this small room worth looking at. There was still salt dried in your lashline from the code. You were a wreck and you were fixing his leg anyway, still half-shaking from a woman you couldn’t save, and it hadn’t occurred to you to stop and put yourself back together first. It never did. Jack had seen the care run out of you before you ever decided to spend it. 

“I’m sorry about Mrs. Foley,” he said.

You shook your head, face still angled down, thumb pausing mid-motion. “I’ll be okay,” you murmured, lifting up one shoulder. “I just hate that she couldn’t get here sooner.”

“You did nothing wrong,” he said plainly. “Family said she’s been feeling off for two days now.”

“I know.” Your voice cracked, betraying the flatness you were trying to present. “Doesn’t make it easier.”

You lifted your head for a moment, then, looking at him with a sad smile he knew you were painting on to get him to stop talking.

He nodded stiffly, tipping his chin down. “Alright. Finish my leg and we’ll run this floor together.”

Up in radiology a few nights later, Jack had gone himself to sort out a reading that had been sitting long and he’d cornered a tech and got what he needed and was already halfway out the door, jacket sleeves still rolled from the last set of compressions, when he saw the guy standing off by the light boxes. 

Younger. A resident, he supposed, in scrubs a size too crisp for someone who’d actually been on the shift long enough to earn wrinkles in them. He’d been watching Jack the whole time — Jack could feel it, the itch of being observed — shifting his weight heel to toe against the linoleum floor. 

“Somethin’ on my face?” Jack said flatly because he really did have to get back to the floor.

“You’re — sorry, you’re Dr. Abbot, right?”

“Last I checked.” 

The guy’s hand came out of his jacket’s pocket, and there was a piece of folded paper in it. Jack looked at it like it was a spider, hoping — no, praying — it had something to do with work.

“Could you give this to her?” the guy asked, and Jack’s hope died, as he stepped closer. “The senior resident on your shift. She’ll — she’ll know who it’s from.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jack murmured, brows pulling in together. “You ever heard of texting, kid?” 

“I did,” he said, and Jack could practically feel the heat radiating off of him. “She stopped answering, so I figured, maybe on paper, she’d actually —”

“Take the hint,” Jack grumbled, snatching the paper out of his hand. Then, as he turned to the door, he said, “You know I work in the ER?” When the guy only nodded quickly, he added, “You know she works in the ER?” 

“I — yeah. Obviously.”

“Then you know she doesn’t need this.” He held up the paper between him and the guy. “She’s got enough on her plate without some guy too chicken to call her handing me a note like I’m her mailman.”

The guy opened his mouth, nose scrunching at Jack’s words, but nothing came out. 

“Yeah.” Jack was already walking, note tucked in his pocket, done with the conversation. “Try calling next time. Or don’t.” 

The guy looked at least a little sheepish, a little ashamed, and Jack thought good, he should feel ashamed. He wasn’t sure what the protocol in dating was now — he’d been just a little rusty and out of the stretch for a stretch of years he preferred not to count in single digits — but he was fairly certain that whatever the rules had curdled up to, this could not possibly be inside them.

He rode the elevator down with the note in his pockets, and he could feel the small stiff square of another man’s hope pressing over the outside of his thigh. 

He found you at your desk, hands running restlessly through your hair as you spoke into the microphone, charting. The words were coming out of you bluntly, mechanic and after saying the same variation a thousand times over. There was a pen behind your ear you’d forgotten about and the residue of a lab value gone blue across the back of your hand where you’d scrawled it hours ago and never washed off.

He stood there for a second before you noticed him, and thought — not for the first time and with the same low irritation he always felt about it — that he had no earthly business being the man this got routed to.

Jack leaned down so his head hovered beside yours, scanning your work on the screen, close enough that his shoulder nearly brushed yours, head tilted to read your screen at an angle that had nothing to do with actually needing to see it. 

“The man wants an espresso martini?” he asked, furrowing his brows as he read over your notes, right by your ear. 

You jumped just slightly and swivelled on your stool to face him, then back at the screen. “Shit — Jack. Announce yourself.” You scanned the words on your notes, shaking your head and already backspacing. “No, that was me talking to myself. Stupid mic picked it up.”

“Long as it’s just the one,” he drawled, staying there in your space a little longer, watching the side of your face instead of the screen now. “Those things sneak up on you.”

“Speaking from experience?” You turned on your stool to face him fully, chin tilting up to meet his eyes, something playful and a little challenging in it. 

“I’ve got a couple decades on you. Everything’s snuck up on me.” 

You held his gaze a little longer, then looked away first, tongue coming out over your lips for a second. He took a small satisfaction in not being the one who blinked first. 

He blew out a breath through his nose, remembering, with reluctance now, what he’d actually come here to do. “Speaking of sneaking up.” He pulled out the note from his pocket. “I got something to deliver to you —”

You furrowed your brows when he handed it to you. “Secret admirer?” you asked jokingly. 

He barked out a short laugh. “Nothin’ secret about it. You ignoring some radiology fellow?”

You grimaced, opening the note and scanning over the words quickly. He could’ve left, but stayed instead and watched you read it. The frown only pulled deeper, and he saw your eye twitch once as you scanned the words.

Against his better judgement, he murmured, “That bad?” 

“Uh — no, it’s okay.” You shrugged stiffly. 

“Huh,” he breathed out, studying you outright now. “Wonder what you’re doin’ to these guys to get them so wound up.”

You chuckled, mostly to yourself. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”  

His chest tightened at that. It was unfair how you could make anything to him sound like something he’d been waiting to hear. He swallowed. “Suppose I would.”

“That an offer, Dr. Abbot?” 

“Might be,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. 

You laughed — surprised, the tension in your shoulders breaking slightly — and shook your head, folding the note back up. “You’re ridiculous. Well, thank you for getting it to me. I’m sorry he bothered you with this —” You swivelled, placing the note on your desk before picking up your phone. “That’s really weird.” 

“That’s one word for it,” Jack said, and left it there, because you’d already turned and had your phone in one hand and the microphone in the other. The small furrow was back between your brows, and he’d learned there was a point past which pushing you got him a brighter, smaller version of whatever you were covering. 

He drifted toward the far end of the station where Mateo was crouched at the crash cart running his palm along the drawers, checking seals, restocking and checking the fact of it on slower nights like this. 

“She okay?” Mateo asked, snapping the drawer, seemingly having caught the interaction. 

“Oh, you know.” Jack leaned a shoulder into the wall, arms crossing. “The belle of our ball. Can’t clock in without collecting a proposal.”

Mateo huffed. “She loves love.”

“That she does.” Jack watched you across the station, the phone lit against your ear now. “Don’t know why she keeps doing that to herself, though.”

“She’s an optimist.” Mateo clicked a seal into place, then moved down the cart. “Thinks someone’s gonna turn out different.”

Jack hummed, then, because the question had been sitting low and unlovely for a couple hours, he asked, “You two give it a run ever?” 

Mateo turned his neck to look up at Jack. “Me and —” He jutted his thumb behind him to vaguely gesture at you. “Her?”

“Mhm.” Jack kept his eyes on you. “You’re close.”

“Nah.” Mateo went back to the cart, shaking his head as he chuckled softly. “I don’t think I’d pass a single one of her tests. Besides, I got my eye on someone.”

“Apparently I don’t make the list either, I guess,” Jack murmured.

Mateo laughed through his nose, eyeing Jack with something new now. “You want to?” 

Jack caught it, reaching his palm and smacking it against Mateo’s curls with no force. “No. Now, do your job.”

“I am —” He laughed through the words, eyes scanning over Jack’s stiffened posture now. “It’s good you don’t, then. Couldn’t handle her anyway.” 

“Sure, I could,” Jack said immediately. 

Mateo’s head turned again, lips curving upwards at Jack’s words, and he felt momentarily blindsided by his own mouth, entirely too honest for something that had started as a joke. 

“Sure, you could,” Mateo teased, drawing out the words.

“Shut it.” Jack grabbed a box of gloves off the cart and set it down two shelves lower than it needed to go, purely to do something with his hands that didn’t involve reaching for Mateo’s collar. “Wasn’t a real question.”

Couldn’t handle you? As if he didn’t know, without having to think about it, that you took the stairs two at a time instead of the elevator when you were annoyed and needed somewhere to put your extra energy, or that you’d started drinking your coffee black on nights a patient reminded you of someone, syrup and cream abandoned, like sweetness felt wrong to have that shift. As if he hadn’t noticed, months ago, that you hummed the same four off-key notes from a jingle neither you nor Jack could place when a chart was boring you to death, or that you double-checked every single IV line now, ever since one bad mistake in your first year. He could very well handle you, he simply hadn’t been given the chance to do so.

Most of the time, Jack was fine with watching your love life play out in 3D. More often than not, he knew they’d never work out. You were just too good for anyone who came sniffing, and there was a grim comfort in that, in knowing the fellows and the nurses would wash through and out and leave you exactly where he found you, three feet down the counter from him, close enough to keep.

Tonight the comfort wasn’t coming. Mateo’s accidental interrogation had rubbed Jack wrongly, somewhere he had yet to fully locate yet, and was sitting in his chest like a splinter he kept forgetting was there until he turned the corner over the night, saw you, and noticed it was there. He should’ve let it stay as nothing, but his brain had apparently decided three hours later was the correct time to relitigate the whole exchange, turning it over at odd intervals between patients like a tongue worrying a chipped tooth.

It was the bad sort of slow in the ER, the sort that let his brain fill up with things he’d have no time for on a real night. Ellis had wandered over to your desk with two energy drinks and placed her arms loosely beside your computer.

Jack was distantly aware he had misplaced labs to hand back to you because they’d gotten lost in the system, and he told himself that was the whole reason his body had started moving in your direction. 

“I got a rundown from Marge,” Ellis said, dropping into an empty stool beside you. “Apparently he wrote it out of the OR.”

“You’re joking,” you muttered. “I don’t understand it.” 

Jack stood there with the labs in his hand, close enough to hear it. 

“I’m still wondering if I should respond,” you were saying, half into your hands. “Is this romantic? This one’s never happened before.”

Ellis laughed slightly with you, and the two of you had built one of those small pockets that slow nights sometimes allowed, thirty seconds of being people instead of clinicians.

Jack set the labs down at the edge of your keyboard harder than he meant to, the papers slapping flat against the desk, and both of you looked up at him like he’d grown two heads. Fuck — had he? It sure felt like he was operating off of whatever chemical cocktail his brain had whipped up for nights like this, some ugly little compound of jealousy and exhaustion. He was fairly sure if you pulled his labs right now they’d look like a man in the middle of a bad reaction to something not yet figured out in the scientific world. 

“Labs on eight got lost.” His palm stayed on the sheet for a few seconds too long, some instinct telling him to keep his hand on something solid before the rest of him did something stupid. “You’ll want to recheck the trop.” 

His eyes cut, against every ounce of better judgement he had left, to the note still folded in your hand, the same one he’d carried down like it was radioactive, the same note that had clearly done something for you that four years of Jack standing next to you clearly hadn’t. An unreasonable, low feeling creeped up behind his ribs at the sight of it, hot and out of proportion to a piece of folded-fucking-paper. 

Ellis’s smile went uncertain as he felt her gaze snag on him. 

You blinked up at him, and whatever had been sitting easy in your face a second ago curdled itself away, the corners of your mouth retreating. He knew this same retreat, had watched you recalibrate your muscles, swiftly, built to be unreadable against anyone who hadn’t spent four years learning your face. 

His stomach dropped and heat climbed up the back of his neck, jaw tightening on its own. He hated that his body had learned to answer you the way it answered a motor alarm. He hated more that some raw, cornered part in him — still smarting about Mateo’s offhand comment and sore from that folded note — felt it wasn’t soothed.

You blinked up at him, and the laugh faded off your face, and you said, easily, warm, “Yeah — course. I’ll get right on that.”

He shrugged up one shoulder, lips pressing into a thin line. He turned, already walking away. “Whenever there’s a gap on your social calendar, I guess.”

He heard the small silence that opened behind him, and he could practically imagine you and Ellis looking at each other. Then, he heard you push back from the desk, the stool wheels catching, and your footsteps coming after him like he’d known they would, because you were the last person to let something like that go. 

“Hey.” You fell into step beside him, voice pitched low, still giving him more benefit than the doubt had earned in the last ten seconds. “What was that about?”

“Nothing.” He tilted his neck up slightly to do a quick scan of the board, some stubborn muscle in his neck refusing to let him meet your eyes. “Got a department to run.”

“And you’ve been running it great. You just became weird right now.” He could feel you working it over beside him, shifting on your feet as you toed the line between resident and the hard-won territory neither of you had ever named. “Jack.” 

“You want to laugh about your shitty dates, that’s your business,” he said instead of letting it go, sounding too far from the man who’d had his hands hovering over yours an hour ago, watching you put in a chest tube, telling you that you’d done well. “Do it a little quieter. This is an ER, not a lunch table.”

His words stopped you for half a step. Jack kept walking, an ugly, cowardly momentum carrying him three more steps before you caught back up.

He heard you recalibrate your voice in real time when you said, “I was charting on a slow shift,” carefully. “You’ve made worse jokes when it’s even more busy. What’s this about?”

“It’s about you treating this place like it’s your dating pool and not your place of work.” The words came out much uglier than he meant, and he didn’t have it in him to call them back. “It’s not professional. It reflects on the department. Reflects on me. Somebody’s gotta say it, and apparently that’s me, since you clearly enjoy it too much to stop.” 

You stopped walking altogether this time. He turned to face your stillness whole, then, and found your eyes narrowed at him, looking like you’d been hit from a direction you hadn’t been completely guarding against. 

He let out a breath, fingers going up to his forehead to wipe at sweat that wasn’t there. “I’m just saying what —”

“I’m sorry,” you said, voice going level and courteous, as you nodded quickly. “You’re right. You’re my attending, it reflects on you. I’ll keep my personal life out of work.” 

“That’s not —” he tried, but you were already turning away, shoulders squared and chin level, professional armor snapping into place just like he’d told you to. It should have made him feel better to watch you take it so cleanly, to not make a big deal out of it. All it made him feel was like something had been surgically removed from him. 

“Stop —” he tried again, to your back now, and the sentence died somewhere between his teeth and the air. That was okay. There was no end to the sentence that didn’t sound worse than the beginning anyway. 

He blew out a sharp breath through his nose, standing in the middle of the floor with his hand still half-raised toward you, fingers curling back into his palm when he realized you weren’t there to reach. Jack felt, distantly, uselessly, like the only thing standing still in the entire building. 

“Great going,” he heard Lena say, trailing past him, a tray tucked against her hip, not even breaking stride. “You got rid of the one entertainment we’ve got around here.”

His shoulders stiffened, and he caught up with her in three steps, jaw working around words that wanted to spill out defensively and came out simply tired. “It’s not entertainment if she keeps getting hurt,” he grumbled. “She’s not a show. Stop treating her like one.” 

“Didn’t look like she was the one getting hurt tonight,” she said, rounding a corner and leaving him standing there.

Jack let out a low groan, running a palm down the lower half of his face, and dropped his hand only when he’d scrubbed enough friction into his jaw to feel it sting a little, which was at least a sensation he’d chosen, at least tonight. He stood there a second longer, staring at nothing in particular. His hands found his hips on reflex. 

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, and dragged both hands back through his hair, gripping once at the roots before letting go. 

He rolled his neck, felt it pop unsatisfyingly, and pushed off the wall he hadn’t even realized he was leaning against. His leg fucking ached, the burn starting behind his knee. He ignored it like he always did and started walking anyway, jaw still held tight, hands shoved deep into his pockets like he could physically hold himself together with the seams of his own black scrubs.

It was by the lockers after hand-off that Jack saw you next. Both of you had conveniently managed to work over-time; he because there was nothing to get home to, and you — he’d heard through the grapevine — because one of your patient’s little sister was coming in toward close, and you simply wanted to talk with her instead of handing the situation off to one of the day residents.

Usually, nobody had asked you to stay when you did. Most times, there was no version of staying that showed up in your favor; he and Shen were gone, so there was no attending grading you on it; no hours that counted. It was just for a kid who was going to get bad news from a face she’d seen before, so you cost yourself hours of sleep you most definitely needed to be the soft spot for a stranger’s little sister, and hadn’t mentioned it to a soul, and he knew you would’ve been embarrassed if he brought it up. 

He found you using the little mirror inside your locker to apply some kind of pink-tubed gloss with one hand while the other ran its fingers through your hair. Jack pursed his lips, eyeing you from the doorway, because he was pretty sure you’d done something different to it in the last ten minutes. 

“Look nice,” he tried, biting the bullet and walking toward his own locker. “Goin’ somewhere?” 

You caught his eyes in the mirror instead of turning around. “Just breakfast,” you said, and there was none of the earlier lilt in it, the warmth that you’d always aimed at him gone functional. You capped the gloss with more force than it needed and dropped it into your bag. 

Jack stood there a second too long with his hand over his own locker without opening it. He’d expected — and he knew he was more optimistic than usual for doing so — your easy back-and-forth, his slip-up from earlier forgotten. He wasn’t sure what to do with the quiet or you not looking at him properly, hairbrush working through your hair in short strokes. 

He’d saved around thirty lives tonight, and that was what he was good at. He was not good, and had never claimed to be good, at the aftermath of hurting a person he’d have put his own body between a stretcher and wall for, without meaning to, over something that had never been about the radiology fellow at all. 

He opted out of opening his locker and chose instead to lean his bicep against the locker, eyeing you in front of him. “Mad at me?” he murmured. 

You let out a short breath, shaking your head, and he tracked all your micro-expressions through the mirror. “On the clock?” 

“Well, we’ve both been off it for a while now,” he said, watching the shape of your mouth in the mirror, waiting for it to give something away. It didn’t. “But no. Asking as your —” He stopped himself, because ‘friend’ seemed not to be the honest word though it was the first one that popped up. “Off the clock. Whatever I am to you right now.”

You set the hairbrush down on the little shelf with more care than the moment needed. “It’s okay, Jack,” you said, shaking your head.

“Don’t think it is. Try again.”

You watched him for a second in the mirror, then you turned. 

“It’s just embarrassing,” you said, and the words came out smaller than anything he’d heard out of you in years. You crossed your arms over your chest. “I respect you and I hate that you’d think for one second I don’t take this place seriously.” Your voice cracked on the last word, just barely, and you pressed your lips together. “So, yeah. It’s embarrassing to have my attending confirming I’m exactly what people think I am.”

He was shaking his head before you could even finish the sentence. “Nobody thinks —”

“You do,” you said, voice rising slightly. “So, off the clock, I’m embarrassed, and tonight, I’m going to be your resident. Because I agree with you. It’s been unprofessional of me to keep dating within the hospital —” You threw your arms up halfway by your side, and you let out a short laugh that came out dry and wrong. “And I hate that you’ve probably been thinking it for four years.”

“I haven’t,” he said too fast. God, he’d come here to make tonight better for you, not to make you re-evaluate all your years working with him. “Sure, I thought it was none of my business how you spend your good nights off. Didn’t stop me from thinking they didn’t deserve ‘em.” 

You rolled your eyes. “You’re just saying that now ‘cause you feel bad.”

“Wish it were that simple,” he said, and chose to leave it unelaborated because it wasn’t that simple and he had no intention of explaining exactly why. “Half the time, you know it’s not gonna work out. You’re breaking my heart by making me watch you break yours.” 

You blinked, and he watched the fight loosen out of you by inches. “It’s just a free breakfast, Jack. Nothing to get your heart broken over.” 

Jack let out a huff through his nose, mouth opening to say what, he didn’t know. “Is that all? ‘Cause I can get you free breakfast for the rest of your life.” 

You laughed, disbelieving, through your nose, some of the night’s weight finally cracking off of you. “You’ve got a weird way of apologizing.” 

“Just to my favorite resident.” He pointed his index finger at you, lazy, and pushed himself off the lockers. His shoulder blades left a faint dust-print on the metal where he’d been leaning. He thumbed in the combination without looking at the dial — muscle memory, years of the same locker — and the door swung open with a rusted squeak. He pulled out his bag. “So?” 

“So what?” 

“You ditch the fellow.” He slung the bag up over his shoulder, close enough now that he caught the tail-end of the perfume you’d lightly spritzed over yourself. “I buy.”

You looked at him for a second too long, lips pushing to one side, as though you were gauging whether this was a bit or not, another line he’d tossed and wanted to let die on its own. He stood there, jaw set and features relaxing to show you he did mean it, more than he wanted to admit, if he was being honest with himself. 

“You’re serious.” 

“Do I look like I’m not?” He nodded once at your locker, your bag sitting on the shelf. “Grab your stuff. We’re going.” 

“Fine,” you said finally, reaching over and zipping your backpack all the way before throwing it over one shoulder. “Can you drive? I’ve been taking the subway.”

“Why?” he asked drily. “You’ve got a car.”

Jack realized, as he watched you slide in across from him and folding both hands around the coffee before it was all the way poured, that he’d never once been on a date where the woman had no idea it was one. 

It wasn’t lost on him what that made him, a man old enough to know better, letting a thing be one thing on his side of the table and another thing entirely on yours, saying nothing to square the difference. But he’d meant what he’d said, and he was going to feed you. 

You ordered a short stack, eggs, hash brown, decaf on loop. She wrote it down, definitely having heard worse from better.

“Thanks for the treat, Jack,” you said when Dina left, bringing the rim of your cup to your lips. “Don’t think I could’ve done another breakfast to let him down gently.”

“We have to make some changes to your lifestyle,” Jack replied, voice rough, as he eyed you. 

“Oh, yeah?” you murmured. “We?” 

“Well, I did have to deliver a note to you today. In all my life working here, that’s never happened.” 

You laughed around the rim of your cup. “In my defense, I don’t think anyone’s wrote me a note out of an OR either. That’s a first for both of us.”

“Glad we share the experience.”

Dina came by with a pot and topped you off without being asked, and placed the food in front of you. Jack watched you reach for the salt before your fork had even touched the eggs, shaking it twice over the plate.

“You’re gonna give yourself a stroke by forty.”

“You’re gonna give me a stroke right now if you comment on my food.” But you set the shaker down after the third shake, which he noticed and had to bite back a smile.

Dina dropped his plate in front of him — bacon, eggs, no pancakes — and you were reaching for it with a piece of your fork before she’d even finished setting his fork down. He gave you a faux-frown, picking up his fork and, without looking, spreading a piece of your hashbrown off the opposite plate in trade. He wasn’t sure when the two of you had started stealing bites and sips off of each other’s stuff, only that it’d started somewhere and calcified into something neither of you mentioned. 

“Rude,” you said, mouth already full.

“Learned it from you,” he muttered, nudging his plate an inch closer to your side of the table, which you took full advantage of. 

Dina’s radio crackled through something twangy and close-to-familiar behind the counter, competing with the clatter of a skillet somewhere in the back, the whole place smelling like batter and grease soaked into decades of countertop, syrup that had dried a hundred small amber rings nobody had ever fully scrubbed off. 

“I’ve never been here before.” You absentmindedly cut the hashbrown in half as your eyes raked over the place. “This a regular spot for you?”

“Since before you joined,” he said easily, but his brows furrowed as he realized he’d been coming here alone for years. He was in the same booth when he could get it, ordered the same order, and it struck to him only now, watching you eat your hashbrowns, how much smaller and less lonely a booth felt with you taking up the other half of it. “Used to be the only quiet I got on some weeks.” 

You hummed. “And now?”

“Guess the quiet’s pretty negotiable.” He shrugged. “I can go without it.”

You smiled down at your plate, something easy working at the corner of your mouth. A thread of syrup had gathered at the seam of your lips — you hadn’t noticed, too busy considering his answer — and before he’d cleared the impulse with the rest of himself, his thumb was already moving, catching it at the corner quickly, no different than when he swiped under your lashline for salt after a bad night.

You stayed still, having gotten used to his hands somewhere during your residency.

“You’re a mess,” he said, wiping his thumb off on the paper napkin folded under his elbow. 

“You’ve got coffee on your scrub top,” you said, eyes flicking down to his chest. His brows furrowed and he looked down, and you were right. “Pot, kettle.”

He’d been about to say something else, he could’ve sworn it, but had lost every word of it watching you smile so unguarded, free enough to let him look at you. He had to reach for his coffee just to have something to do with his hands. 

When the check came, folded in its little plastic tray, you both reached for it at once. Your hand landed flat over his knuckles. Neither of you moved it for a second, for his hand stayed exactly where it was, broad and unmoving under yours, and something unspoken passed through the two inches of fornica between your faces as he raised a brow at you. He slid the tray out from under you slowly.

“Said I’m buying,” he said, shaking his head slightly.

The drive back had been quieter than the one there had been. It was nearing ten in the morning, and he knew both of you had stayed up longer than intended, especially for two people who had to clock back in in a shorter amount of time than he deemed plausible to reset completely.

He’d cracked the window down an inch, and the air coming through carried the smell of wet pavement and the sound of a garbage truck grinding its gears three streets over. Your neighborhood, he was learning, woke up slow; there was a paperboy on a bike, a guy in scrubs different from yours locking up his own car after a shift that wasn’t at the PTMC, and Jack drove through it with two fingers loose over the wheel. Neither of you had bothered with the radio.

You’d gone somewhere billowy around your third cup of decaf, all the sharp edges of the night replaced with something looser and sleepier, and you gave him directions in a voice gone thick from exhaustion as you were likely starting to feel it behind your eyes. 

He pulled his car along the curb and let it idle, one shoe braced against the floorboard, watching the numbers of your building.

“Gonna sleep?” he asked.

“Gonna try.” You were already working the bag strap over your shoulder, hair falling loose out of the knot you’d put it up in at some point at the diner, strands of it catching the early light. “I’ve got no idea how you do this then take SWAT calls.”

“You’d be able to do it, too, if I put you on the field.” 

You mumbled something, letting your head drop against the window for a second, before picking itself back up. “Stop threatening me, Jack.” 

He watched you fight your eyelids, his mouth pulling up at the corners at the sight. “C’mon. Get inside before I gotta carry you up.”

You snorted, half-hearted. “You can’t. You’d throw your hip out.”

“Try me.” He was already rounding the hood before you’d gathered your bearings, boots loud on the quiet street, and you let out another laugh and let him get there first, too tired to argue about who gets to open what.

He walked you up the cracked path, palm settling at the small of your back, and you leaned back into it, half your weight given over without you noticing it. 

At the door, you fumbled with your keys out from under a granola wrapper and a capless pen, missed the lock twice, and gave up trying on the third. You turned to face him instead with your back against the frame and your bag slowly sliding off one shoulder.

“Thank you,” you said, words coming out loose and filtered by the exhaustion even as you tried to meet his eyes head-on. “For the — everything. The explanation. And the breakfast.” 

Jack felt his lips curve up, fingers flexing at his sides. “Anytime.” 

“And for driving me there — thank you. And for the drive back.” 

“Uh-huh. You gonna go inside?” he said, voice going quieter as he looked down at the ground, at how the toes of your shoes were almost touching. “Or keep thanking me until you fall asleep standing up?” 

You cocked your head to the side, your lips moving upwards into a fuller smile. His own mouth curved as he shifted on his feet slightly, closing the barely-there inch between his shoes and yours. 

“Jack?” 

He hummed, and you went up slightly onto your toes before he’d finished deciding what to do with you. Or maybe he’d moved in first, or maybe there was no real order to it at all. His mouth found yours somewhere in that uncertainty, slowly despite it, because he’d already worked out every version of this moment and this one had simply appeared in front of him.

His hand came up to cradle the side of your jaw, thumb settling into the soft hollow just beneath your ears. Your skin was warm despite the cold snap in the air, much softer than he’d let himself imagine, and he felt the exact second your breath caught against his mouth, a small stutter that made his fingers curve around your jaw, index resting against your cheekbone. 

He kept it slow, it was the only thing he had any real control over right now, the pace of it instead of the fact of it. He used what little he had left, dragging his mouth against yours, like he could somehow make up for four years of nothing by refusing to rush the first thirty seconds of something. His other hand found your waist, and his palm felt how your back curved into him, the hitch of your ribs on an inhale, and he pressed you back the last inch against the doorframe more to ground himself. 

Your fist found the front of his canvas jacket, dragging him in the last stubborn space he’d been too careful to close himself, and a sound came out of his chest that embarrassed him a little. He felt you smile against his mouth, and his entire body felt warm at having been caught enjoying this entirely as much as he was. 

He tilted his head so his forehead pressed against yours and pulled his mouth away. His lips jutted out slightly, feeling suddenly empty and unwilling to put the full distance back between the two of you.

Your eyes were still shut, and you were breathing unevenly. “Thank you,” you murmured. 

He huffed a short laugh, and in it, realized how breathless he, too, was. 

You tipped your chin back up, already chasing him.

Jack felt the want knot up inside him, greedy and unreasonably leaning back in to meet you halfway before the rest of him had caught up and made him stop. He made a small sound in his throat and pinched his eyes shut, letting you get right up to the edge of it, breath already tangling with his, wanting so badly to just let it happen, before his finger came up between you, pressed light against your bottom lip to stop you a hair short. It was more for his own sake than the words he remembered you telling someone years ago ringing in his head.

“Ah-ah.” His voice came out rough with want, entirely at odds with his actions. “Your rule. Only one kiss after the first date. I’m trying —” he exhaled hard, almost dramatically, “— trying real hard here to make it to the second.”

“Huh?” Your eyes peeled open. “This was a date?” 

“Best one you’ve had I’m guessing, with the way you’re breaking your rules.” His finger stayed right where it was, and he watched your eyes struggle to focus, still glassy from the kiss. He could feel the warm huff of breath breaking unsteady against his fingertip, could feel your mouth soft and parted underneath it, waiting on him. 

You pressed a peck against his finger instead, your mouth barely dragging against his skin as a shy smile formed behind it that he felt more than saw. “Maybe.”

“Well, good.” He smiled, despite himself, and pushed himself off your forehead, opting instead to press his lips there. “Get some sleep,” he murmured against your hairline, lips lingering a little longer there. “Might be able to get a full seven hours.” 

“Will you?” 

“Doubt it.” He pulled back enough to look at you properly, thumb tracing a line along your cheekbone — his touch feather-light, tracking the exact curve of it, memorizing the route — before he made himself drop his hand entirely, fingers curling loosely at his sides because suddenly he had no idea what to do with them without you under them. “Kinda got a lot on my mind now.”

“Yeah?” You bit back a smile, still not quite steady on your feet. “Anything you wanna share with the class?”

“Not a chance.” He bent a fraction and hooked two fingers under the strap of your bag where it’d slid down to your elbow, dragging it slowly back up to your shoulders, knuckles grazing your arms the whole way. “You’ll find out. Eventually.”

He forced himself to step off the mat — one step back, then the second, putting real distance between you now — forcing ease into his expression that he definitely wasn’t feeling. He stopped a few feet away from you anyway, unable to fully commit to walking away, watching you stunned and still in your doorway, mouth a little kiss-soft. He felt so completely helpless and pleased at the sight. “Text me when you’re up and I’ll get to planning date two.” 

You raised a hand into a wave, fingers curling in the air.

“Bye, Jack,” you said, and his name came out of your mouth softer than you probably meant it to, smooth and cushy the way it never sounded on shift.

Jack had finally found some respite. 

An unbroken hour of solitude after being surrounded by a pile of dog shit strapped to patriotism, one bullet graze to the shoulder and a cyber threat on the health network of Pittsburgh as a whole. If anybody asked, he’d meet it with a shrug and a simple: ‘It was a bog standard shift. For the Fourth of July.’ 

(You should see the PTMC on a full moon on Halloween weekend. Now that’s an explosive spectacle.)

He had found that thought enough incentive to shut his eyes after setting an alarm for an hour—and five minutes—time to haul himself and the tender muscles in his shoulder back to the PTMC to go old school with fax machines and white-boards. 

It took all of the three minutes out of the spare five he had added to his alarm, for his phone to light up and buzz against his chest. Thumb against the button on the side to preemptively end the call before it even started. Jack almost chose himself over whomever decided that 4PM was the sweet spot to catch a conversation with the physician. 

And then, in one sweep of realisation that thrashed its way to the forefront of his mind, Jack remembered that it might’ve been a perfect time for you to call. 

Shit. 

Without much deliberation, he flipped his phone over, eyes halfway to being peeled open, when he saw your Caller ID spread across the top of the screen with a photo of you and Jack smooshed together on your fourth date as the chosen background image. 

(You hated the photo. Which made Jack love it even more.) 

His thumb swiped to answer, phone pressed to his ear. “Hello?” 

“Jack-y Jack-y. Break my back-y.”

Wow. That was a crude—but not unwelcome—way of introductions over the phone. Jack could practically smell the Fourth of July bottomless brunch through the phone, not to mention that the slur of your words may have given away the level of intoxication you were experiencing from a couple of patriotic cocktail mixes of red, white, and blue and two stolen Mimosa’s from another table. 

That was yours and the empty Table 12’s little secret though.  Jack let a chuckle slip, “Hey, baby. What can I do you for?” 

“Just calling—” You hiccuped, “—To ask how your Fourth of July has been? Uneventful? Boring?” You teased, knowing fine well, a SWAT shift was far from those two adjectives. 

“Oh, you don’t even know half of it.” Jack pandered to your drunken taunt, his eyes fully shut now. “How are the girls?” 

“Well…” You took in your surroundings of a litter ridden street and a tired sun dropping below the horizon and let out a puff of air in response.

Jack opened his eyes at that. 

Suddenly, dosing off to the dulcet tones of your voice on the other end of a phone call seemed like a far fetched idea. Who needed sleep anyway? Especially when their—unlabelled—significant other blew out hot air in response to a simple question of how her impenetrable fortress of her friendship group made up of women from all walks of life were. 

Oh, Jack couldn’t wait to hear this one. 

He zeroed in on your hesitance. “You still with me?” When you hummed lazily, Jack narrowed his eyes at the wall across from him, “Is that a hard question to answer all of a sudden?” 

“Sheesh, Abbot.” You drawled, “Let me just…think for a minute.” 

(Absolutely not.) 

“Where are you right now?” Jack asked with the phone sandwiched between his ear and shoulder. Already tugging at his prosthetic leg. 

You frowned, “Why?” 

“Why—?” Jack let out an impatient laugh. Not at you. Never at you. But, at the conclusion you would eventually come to during the phone call. He stood to full height and added, “Because, I’m coming to get you. That’s why.” 

“Uh, correction. You’re not invited.” You held your forefinger up in the air to draw emphasis on the correction you were making. You spoke again with one eye closed, “Don’t style my cramp. Or, however that saying goes.” 

Jack fished his keys from the bowl at his front door, “Oh yeah? Let me talk to one of them.” 

OK. Part of you took a mental note to be more consistent in recalling the fact that Jack Abbot was incredibly intuitive. Perceptive to a fault. Which meant, before you could even string a coherent excuse together from the jumble of words sloshing about in your brain, Jack had already been two steps ahead in deciphering the lack of female presence in the background of your phone call. 

Because, if it was a bottomless brunch that stretched far beyond the definition of ‘brunch’, that meant Jack would’ve been met with more than just one voice. How could he possibly know that? Perhaps, you had just stepped outside. Jack Abbot knew because of two things: 1) You never just called. It was always FaceTime, regardless of your location. And, 2) Your friends took every opportunity to interfere in your phone calls with Jack, because he had made a good, lasting impression on all of them. 

Put two and two together. The equation was…you had been ditched. 

Your fists clenched as you mouthed a profanity at Jack’s request. No, it hadn’t been entirely intentional that you were the last woman standing at the get together. The rest of the group—besides one who was married and left well before the lines got blurry on it being brunch drinks, and just, all day drinks—were single, and heavily active on all dating apps. Thus meaning, a holiday celebration statewide, and eight drinks thrown back; all your girlfriends were out for some metaphorical fireworks with someone they’d never cross paths with again. 

So, they all were picked off, one by one. Completely innocent. You’d never get in between a woman and her sexual prowess. 

With that, and a short-lived chastising from Jack after you held your phone further away from your mouth, your voice raised two octaves higher to imitate the bubblier friend; Jack had your location and was already on his way before the call had officially ended. 

He found you sat on the sidewalk of East Carson Street. Knees drawn up to your chest with your chin propped up on the palm of your hand, you were a vision of tranquil inebriation. (You know, considering you had been abandoned like a dog after the novelty of owning one wore off.) 

You visibly brightened when you saw Jack round his truck, shoulders squared as he scoped the surrounding areas.

You could take the man out of the military. 

“Hey, sweet cheeks.” You announced when he reached you, admiring the way that he did his best to crouch to meet your half-lidded eye level. You scratched lovingly at the stubble on his chin, “Fancy a drink? Some guy gave me, like, $150 for the night.” 

Jack mulled it over. “Tempting. I think I’ll pass.” His eyes dropped to your purse, because he couldn’t help himself, “You didn’t use the money I gave you?” 

You blinked, “Some guy gave me, like $150 and I have $20 of it left.”

That had Jack’s smile grow wider. Just as he had intended. 

“How about…we save it for later, and I’ll even throw in some Tylenol, if you get in the car.” Jack tilted his head. 

“You drive a hard bargain, Jack Abbot.” 

Without much resistance, you allowed Jack the triumphant win of getting you off of the sidewalk infested with gum and other substances, and into the passenger seat of his car. If you hadn’t had a hard time knowing which way was up, you would’ve noticed the small act of kindness in which Jack had ensured that the passenger side of his car was flush against the curb; so you weren’t reduced to playing with the traffic whilst trying to get inside the vehicle. 

That was his problem. And the zero sleep under his belt. 

He strapped you in with the seatbelt, and when the metal clicked inside the mechanism, Jack planted a kiss to your cheek, amused by the way you melted into the seat from his affection.

The drive to his house was comfortably silent. Jack had brought bottled water and two sachets of Liquid IV to ensure the electrolytes were pumped back into your body to ease the foreboding hangover you would experience in a day or so. His hand would occasionally come to rest on the meatiest part of your thigh, or lovingly rub against the nape of your neck and you would lap it all up under hazy vision. 

And then you sobered up a little when you pulled up to his apartment. 

“I’m staying here?” You asked, a little surprised. 

Jack pulled at the handbrake, his voice low, “Is that okay?” 

“Yeah.” You blinked and mustered up a smile that wasn’t the average expression for you, “That’s absolutely fine.” 

It was fine. Even if your face painfully didn’t translate that. 

The thing about it was…you had never officially stayed over at Jack’s apartment. The two of you had reached a consensus that whatever affectionate adjacent companionship that had blossomed through the cracks like pretty delicate flowers, there was no reason to hasten to the end result. Let the flowers grow at their own pace, without unintentionally yanking at their stems to forcefully encourage them out. 

This meaning, the whole staying over thing was a month ahead of schedule. 

You had been in Jack’s apartment before, because, he wasn’t a brick wall. The apartment itself was pretty clean, everything had a place and if it didn’t…it would be organised neatly for a later day. He had a little fern that he took care of, and then you bought him an another house plant under the guise of keeping the fern company.

(Really, you just enjoyed the limited times that you were able to spend money on Jack.)

“Don’t panic.” Jack mumbled, leaning in between the two front seats to grab a plastic bag of goodies from the backseat of his car. A place you both had come nakedly accustomed to. He gave you a lopsided smile when he pulled himself back to the drivers seat, “I can see those thoughts. I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.” 

“No thoughts here, Abbot.” You tapped a finger against your temple, “Just alcohol.” 

“Uh-huh.” Jack mocked before exiting the car, quick to shut the passenger door after you had cracked it open to get out yourself. You let out a laugh at his stern glare through the tempered glass of the window, and when he re-opened the door for you, he said, “We had a deal on who opens doors.” 

You slid down until your feet met the ground, “Put that patriarchal tone away.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

And then, you let Jack open the doors anyway. There were three doors to get through, and each time he’d gesture for you to step through the threshold, not missing an opportunity to let his hand come into swift contact with your backside. Jack wasn’t the type of guy to take advantage of your drunken state, however, he wasn’t opposed to letting you know—physically—that he liked the way your ass looked in that outfit you had chosen for your night out in Pittsburgh.

When you entered his apartment, Jack flicked the lights on and guided you with a hand on your hip, through the corridor and to the room on the left; his bedroom. 

But, you already knew that. 

Hands planted behind you, you sat on the edge of Jack’s bed and watched him bend at the waist in order to solve the mystical contraption that were your heels. The last time you had worn them, Jack had gotten thus far in his attempt to strip you naked in record breaking time, and then had forgone the idea of seductively taking your shoes off when he couldn’t figure out how they came off. 

Albeit, a good anchor for him to hold onto at the time, Jack Abbot would conquer the removal of the heel this time round. 

You nudged his chest gently with your foot, a smile growing on your face when he pressed a kiss to your inner ankle. He mumbled against your skin, “Why did the girls leave you at the bar?” 

“Alcohol induced libido.” You muttered nonchalantly, “They’re all single and well—”

Jack eyed you carefully as he gently wrangled your foot free of your heel, watching as your brow furrowed. You were truthfully stumped in the piloting of your own thoughts through the definition of whatever you and Jack were. Not that slapping the sticker of approval on the whole boyfriend thing would have Jack running in the opposite direction. But, it was the principle of it all. 

You were intransigent in not being the one to leap over that hurdle. 

Jack nodded slowly, “And you’re with me.” (Call a spade, a spade, you guess.) When the skin of your nose wrinkled in a scrunch, Jack lifted himself to press a chaste kiss to your lips. “We can talk about it later. For now, take a look in the bag. Got you some stuff for tonight.”

Grateful for the diversion, you peered into the plastic bag tossed onto the bed. The contents had your heart warm. A toothbrush—in your favourite colour—makeup wipes for sensitive skin, the pot of (rather) expensive moisturiser that Jack knew you worshipped the ground of, and a pyjama set that was made for the scorcher of a July you were already having. 

When you gave him an all-knowing glance matched with the smirk on your face, Jack deadpanned and smacked your backside for the fifth time that night, to get you and your smart mouth moving into the bathroom to de-shed the bottomless brunch attire off of you. 

He helped where he could, respected the part where you told him to turn around whilst you changed—despite seeing you naked several times—and even let you apply a dollop of moisturiser onto his face, because he wasn’t getting any younger. (That part earned a pinch to your hip.) 

You sauntered out of the bathroom, feeling less weighted down by the buzz of alcohol, and more lighter on the aspect of being loved correctly. Jack close by as if he were a dog on a lead.

Where you’d go, he’d follow.

It was just a bonus that he got to appreciate the view whilst doing so.

You flipped his duvet sheet back as you spoke, “I don’t know, Abbot. Seems like you’re going soft on me.”

Jack rounded the bed to approach you as you nestled into his bed, pillows propped up with all intentions of watching some re-run of Love Island. A show Jack swore against, but still somehow managed to catch up on it intermittently. One hand came to your hip as he leant down and kissed you like he meant it. And then two more times for good measure.

He spoke quietly against your lips, “Well, you make it pretty easy to fall in love.”

Oh.

You were really doing this.

Jack stood at full height, gratified by rendering you speechless.

“Alright, honey.” He continued with his voice laced with amusement, “I gotta go. The PTMC waits for no man.”

You slapped a palm to your forehead. “Oh my god. I completely forgot you had a shift at the Pitt today. Jack! I should’ve just gotten an Uber, holy shit.” 

“I am your Uber. Don’t forget it.” Jack reminded you on the agreement that was made that, it didn’t matter what time of day it was. If you needed help—no matter how small—you call him first. He was also feeling a bit playful as you reeled in guilt, “Plus, the SWAT shift wasn’t exciting enough. I only got shot at once.” 

“You got shot?!” 

“Shot at.” Jack corrected, “I’m fine. You should see my buddy. Not good.” 

“And you didn’t think to say anything.” You gawked, but deep down, you weren’t surprised. You let out a hefty sigh, “Did you even manage to sleep?” 

“Nope.” 

Looks like you owed him a couple of homemade dinners, and an abundance of leg massages. 

You dragged your hand down your face, “Why not?” 

Jack looked at you, amongst the sheets of his bed, now fresh-faced and sobering by the minute, and it left him confused as to how it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world. Sleep, and everything in between, came second to you. 

You were like a goddamn Northern Star to someone like Jack Abbot. 

Yeah. You two were definitely having a conversation about labels and all that ooey-gooey relationship shit, when he got back from his shift in the morning. 

With his camo bag thrown over his good shoulder, the answer was readily available for you. 

He smiled softly, the flowers beginning to flourish between the cracks as he spoke the words that would come naturally for the rest of his life.

It didn’t take much to convince her. She’d been getting bored with you, anyway. You suppose you should just be happy that Deran got to you first, that you didn’t die with a needle in your arm like so many other girls before you who had “lost their touch.”

You never questioned why her rotation of women was so quick, why their employment was so short-lived. But you all knew. Smurf didn’t make mistakes; she didn’t leave behind messes, and she had no room in her life for other women. Especially not when it came to her sons. 

Her fragile hold over Deran is already tumultuous, though. She knows it's not you that poses a threat to that tether. It’s the fact that her emotionally fucking her sons’ heads when they were kids didn’t stick with him. His pendulum swings the other way. 

It always brings a little smile to your face in those rare moments you catch him and Adrian together. Just one instance where Smurf hadn’t gotten what she wanted. You’re sure that's why she never bothers coming by the bar. She doesn’t like the reminder of her failure. 

And you certainly appreciate having one aspect of your life free from that woman. 

Letting out a low sigh, you bend down and grab a rag to wipe down the bar. The little bell above the door chimes as someone walks in. “We’re closing,” you call out. Bootsteps still come closer, and you frown, glancing over your shoulder. “I said– oh.”

Pope pauses for a moment, surveying you. “Deran’s in the back,” you tell him, offering a strained smile. 

“Thanks,” he mutters, rounding the bar and making his way through the kitchen to the back office. You continue with your closing duties, gnawing your lip as you think. 

You’re not scared of Pope, not really. You know what he’s capable of, but it’s Smurf that calls the shots. It’s always her that you have to look out for. The old lady’s a lot smarter than people want to give her credit for. 

You never knew why she didn’t let you have Pope. You’re certain you would have enjoyed it. There’s something about that intense look in his eyes– emotions so shadowed over, his gaze is almost empty. 

But Smurf never offered you up, always kept you hidden away. She knows how easy it is for you to get attached; maybe that’s why. You always struggled separating the act and the paycheck. 

In the back of the bar, you can hear Deran and Pope’s voices growing louder. Your head shoots up as the kitchen door swings open, banging off the wall. Pope storms through, jaw clenched as he stalks past you, muttering something to himself. 

You tilt your head as you consider him. The broad line of his shoulders, the strength of his body you can make out even under his loose shirt. He lets out a short huff, storming out of the bar. Yeah, you could definitely see yourself getting attached to that one in all the wrong ways. 

Deran comes out of the kitchen, and you jump, ripping your eyes away from the door. “Don’t let any more of my family come through,” he barks out. 

“You guys fight?”

He shoots you a sharp look that has you biting back a smile. “What the fuck do you think?”

“You know I don’t like your family, anyway,” you defend, scrubbing at a stubborn stain on the counter. Deran goes quiet, and you roll your eyes, glancing back over at him. He’s giving you a knowing look that has you huffing. 

“I don’t like most of your family,” you amend. Throwing his hands up, he shakes his head, storming back to his office. You glance back at the door, almost wishing Pope would walk through again. He’s certainly more intriguing than the other Codys. 

Parties at Smurf’s place only have two directions they can go. High and low. High, of course, is when she brings out the good stuff, and everyone’s floating two feet above their bodies. Head lost somewhere in the clouds of smoke. Low is when some asshole, usually one of her sons, gets too drunk and starts a fight. 

It seems to be going high, this time, a good sign for you, considering you want nothing more than to relax tonight. Deran had been kind enough to get you a job at his bar. A handout, honestly, considering how much he already helps you out with. Turns out, the opening week of a new bar is hell on your back. 

You’re lounging back on one of Smurf’s pool chairs, lazily smoking a blunt Deran had handed you, as some girls flock around him. You’re certain they’re aware he doesn’t swing that way, but he's the tamer boy of the Codys. They probably just hope he might cut them a deal on whatever little baggies Smurf has him handing out. 

You don’t blame the girls. You’d rather take something from Deran than his brother Craig. You wouldn’t trust Craig as far as you can throw him. Especially not with that sleazy grin he always shoots you. 

A shadow falls over you, and the low tittering of the women goes quiet. You frown, lifting your sunglasses and glancing over at them. But the throng of women have scattered. Glancing up, you let out a little laugh, finding the reason standing over you. 

Pope has emerged from the house, arms crossed as he hovers at your side. You doubt he even realizes you’re beside him, or the effect he’s had on the partygoers. Honestly, you appreciate his presence for the quiet it provides. He’s got a good dampener effect on the rowdy parties that go on around here. 

“Having fun?” you try, not expecting much back from him. He glances down at you, brows raising. He probably just realized you’re there. 

“No,” he tells you bluntly, eyes narrowing on the blunt in your hand. You tap the tip of it, shaking some ash off by his feet. He lets out a little sigh that almost makes you feel bad for teasing him. 

“Really? You seem like the life of the party.” You shift higher up on the chair, back bowing slightly as you try to get comfortable. His gaze lingers on the top of your bikini before he looks away. His shoulders stiffen, arms tightening as he glares out at the rest of the party. 

“You’re too easy,” you mutter, flicking your glasses down and closing your eyes. 

The skin of his hand is rough, but his touch is barely there as he snatches the blunt from between your fingers. Your eyes shoot open as he gives you a sharp look. “Don’t fall asleep with this in your hand. You’ll burn the chair,” Pope quietly chides. 

You snort as he storms off, tossing the blunt into the trash as he goes. You wonder if he knows how often your stare lingers on him. How easy it is for you to seek him out in every room you walk into. You doubt it. And you really doubt he’d ever want used goods, as Craig so often calls you. 

You sink back into the chair, trying to get comfortable again. 

The universe seems to be flipping you one giant middle finger today. 

“Comfortable?” a rasping voice asks. 

You suck in a deep breath, mentally prepping yourself. “Yep,” you grit out, flicking your sunglasses up and offering a smile to Smurf. You’re certain it comes off more as a grimace than anything else. 

She offers something sickly sweet in return. It’s meant to come off as motherly or nurturing in some way. It does nothing more than set your nerves on edge. You don’t know why she tries any of her tricks with you. You know her intimately and have already seen past her many masks to the bitch below. 

She hums, laughing slightly to herself as she perches on the chair beside you. “Talking to Pope?”

“No,” you answer quickly. God forbid she think you’re trying to steal one of her precious boys out from under her. 

“Really?” She hums, sucking her teeth as she surveys the rest of the party. “Looked like you were the only girl who could stand being near him.”

You consider your response, wondering what constitutes her thinking you’re a threat. “He’s not so bad,” you finally settle on. 

Smurf says nothing for a while, and you begin to worry you’ve messed up. She knows that you're Deran’s friend. And, in no way, are you a threat to her already fragile claim over him. But Pope’s different than the others; she’s much more unpredictable when it comes to keeping her guard dog close. 

“Pope’s been having a hard time lately,” she finally tells you. “His mind isn’t where I need it to be.” 

Is it ever? You just nod, not voicing your skepticism aloud. 

“You know how it works with him. Usually, the girls I send in help soothe those fragile nerves.” Smurf lets out a low chuckle and shakes her head. 

You tense up, muscles locking as you suck in a fragile breath. Yeah, you know how it works with him. You know all about the girls she sends to him. But there’s no reason for her to be bringing any of this up to you. Not now. 

“Pope…” she lets out a low breath, shrugging. “Pope’s different, you know that.” Everyone knows that. “It doesn’t work for him when he knows the girls are being paid.”

You hum, lips pursed tight as you struggle to think of a way out of this. “Interesting,” you whisper. 

Smurf lets out a little laugh, shooting you a sharp smirk. “Interesting,” she mocks, her tone cruel in its intentions. “You know what I want, don’t you, kid?”

You suck your teeth, arms winding tight around your stomach. You feel too exposed now. Body on display just like she wants. “I don’t do that anymore,” you bite out, forcing some sort of strength into your voice. 

“Please,” Smurf barks out a laugh, sitting back up and leaning in toward you. You can’t find the strength to meet her eye. But her stare is branding into your skin. “I know women like you. You’ll do anything if the price is right. Besides… don’t forget what I know about you.”

For a moment, the world goes quiet. There’s no party, no throng of people getting high and drunk in front of you. It’s just you, small as you’ve ever been, and Smurf. With that god damn smirk on her face, always one step ahead of everyone else. 

“You said you were done with me,” you whisper, tears clawing at the edge of your voice. 

Smurf shakes her head. “No, I said I was done for now. And now, I need you again. I’ll even be nice and pay you, sweetheart. Four hundred a session, not hourly.”

Your eyes fall shut, nails digging into your arms as you realize you have no choice. You can keep fighting her, but all that’ll do is take away your pay. You’ll be forced to do what she wants, and you won’t even make anything off it. “What am I doing?”

“Just… entertainment.” She reaches forward, touch cold as she slides the falling strap of your top up. “And Pope doesn’t know about our little arrangement.”

It’s Smurf. You don’t have a choice. Not with the dirt she’s got on you. At the very least, it’s Pope, not someone like Craig or Baz she’s asking you to sell yourself out for. 

“Okay,” you whisper, eyes watering as you stare down at your lap. 

Smurf gets up and pats your head. “Good girl,” she mutters, laughing as she walks away. One day… She’ll be dead. Buried somewhere six feet deep, and you’ll be there. 

Dancing on her fucking grave. 

You let yourself in with the key Smurf had given you. Just like she used to, she sent you a time to show up. Normally, that was accompanied by a name and place. But you already knew who she wanted you to take care of. And since they’d sold his house, there was only one place for him to be. 

Heading into the kitchen, you drop your purse on one of the chairs. There’s a low murmur in the living room, something playing softly on the TV. Sucking in a sharp breath, you fix your shirt and adjust your hair. 

It’s not typical of you to be nervous before one of these appointments. But you haven’t done this in a long time. And you already know none of your old tricks are going to work here. Pope isn’t anything like the clients Smurf used to toss you to. 

They had been looking for something carnal. Something quick that they could wrench pleasure from and then toss aside. Pope’s already a hundred times different from them just for not wanting his girls to be paid to be with him. 

There’s another factor you’re worried about. At least, when Smurf pays the girls, Pope knows they’re coming. He knows what’s coming and how he’s expected to perform. He’s not been briefed for you, and you’re barely ready for him. You’re not sure you want to know what it would feel like to be rejected by him if this goes wrong. 

Rolling back your shoulders, you force yourself to move. Rounding the corner into the living room, you stop short. “Oh.” The plan was to feign surprise, pretend you had been looking for someone else. But you don’t really have to feign anything right now. Not with Pope sitting on the couch in nothing but his boxers, watching… a bird documentary?

Clearing your throat, you blink a few times, trying to recover from the sight of him being half-naked. He seems just as taken aback, clearly expecting to have the house to himself today. His brows furrow as he watches you, hand twitching on his lap. 

“Sorry. Is Deran here?”

“No,” his voice cracks slightly as he shifts against the cushions. You feel a little bad. You don’t think you’re making him nervous, but he certainly isn’t confident. “He’s at the bar,” he explains, jaw clenching. 

“Oh,” you wave your hand and step into the living room. “My mistake,” you dismiss airily, shrugging. “Mind if I wait for him here? He shouldn’t be long.” Pope doesn’t say much or invite you closer. But you move forward anyway, not like you have much choice here. He drags a pillow over his lap as you take a seat beside him.

You’re decent enough to give him a few inches of space between you both, though you doubt that helps much. 

You can’t confidently say that Pope is nervous. But he certainly seems affected right now. Your eyes narrow on the way his leg bounces slightly, the wrinkles at the hem of his boxers. Smurf left, the house is empty, and he’s been on edge lately. Maybe he’d been expecting one of Smurf’s girls. 

He was right, in a way. But he didn’t get to know that. 

Your skirt hitches as you tuck your legs under yourself. You shuffle for a moment, trying to get comfortable and “accidentally” slipping too close to Pope. He jerks away from your touch, not hastily, but carefully. You catch a sidelong look from him before he redirects his attention to the TV. 

It’s easy to tell, just from the tautness of his shoulders, that he’s not hearing a damn word Attenborough is saying. 

You settle back against the cushions and let out a little sigh, thighs flexing as you slip just a bit closer to him. It’s harder with Pope. You can’t get this started the way you would with old clients. They had been expecting you, and in turn, they’d been expecting a quick release. 

Smurf made it clear that Pope isn’t allowed to know a damn thing about this arrangement. You’re terrified of what she would do if you messed this up in the first session. 

You’ll have to ease him into this. 

Sadly, that means suffering through an hour of a documentary that has you biting your tongue to keep from passing out from boredom. You spend the time creeping ever closer to Pope. Letting your thigh accidentally brush against his and pulling back quickly. Watching the sharp intake of breath in his chest from the contact. 

Having your fingers graze the back of his hand as you stretch. You watch these little reactions flash across his face, making you wish you had a better understanding of his body language. You keep up this little game until he stops flinching from your touch and starts leaning into it instead. 

You move closer, thigh brushing his leg, arm nearly pressed to his. He doesn’t move, just sinks a little deeper into the sofa. Your arm stretches along the cushions as you let out a low sigh. 

“Pope?” you mutter, voice low as you lean in closer toward him. 

“What are you doing?” He tilts his head toward you, eyes narrowed, a little quirk to his lips as his gaze drops to your mouth. 

You’re slightly taken aback and resist the urge to pull away. “What do you mean?” you whisper, trying not to break the tentative bubble around you. He doesn’t answer, just watches you, eyes running along your form as you stretch closer. “I mean, I thought I was being kind of obvious.”

When he doesn’t say anything, you let out a breathy laugh. “I like you, Pope. But you know… I just can’t tell with you.”

He grabs the remote, turning off the documentary before tilting his body toward you. The pillow shifts slightly off his lap and you inch closer. “Can’t tell what?”

“Well…” the arm draped behind him shifts, and you let your fingers brush against the nape of his neck, teasing into his hair. “I’m usually much better at reading people. But I just don’t know with you. Do you like me, Pope?”

His voice is rough as he speaks, and you don’t miss the way his gaze drops to your lips. “Why do you care?”

You let out a little laugh, “I just said–”

His hand comes up, taking your wrist in his grasp. It’s not rough, but you can’t slip away. Your eyes widen slightly as you back up. “Did Smurf put you up to this?” His expression hardens; whatever reaction you might have been eliciting out of him is gone. 

“What?” Your lips part as you shake your head. You let your eyes go wide with surprise, faux hurt, leaving them open until a little bit of water builds at the edges of your lashes. “No, I just–” You cut yourself off, putting on a proper show as you try to move away from him. “I’m sorry, this was so stupid,” your voice cracks around the words. 

Maybe you’re laying it on a little thick. But Pope is sharp, sharper than you’re comfortable with. He couldn’t have caught onto you that quick… could he? 

Maybe you’ve lost your touch. 

“I’ll just leave.” You get on your knees, trying to pull away. His hand tightens imperceptibly around your wrist, and you lift your eyes, meeting his gaze once more. “Pope?” you whisper, leaning just a little closer to him. 

He lifts off the cushions slightly, and you almost smile. You’ve still got it.

Tilting your head, you let your lips brush against his. Just barely, at first, hesitant like you really are nervous. And maybe, you are, just a bit. He pulls back for a moment, eyes darting along your face, gauging your honesty. 

After a moment, he tilts his head, nose brushing yours as he presses his lips to yours. There’s more force behind the kiss than you’d like. His body is stiff beneath you as you slide your leg over his lap, straddling him. There’s too much teeth in the kiss; it’s aggressive in a way that reminds you of your old clients.

But there’s something else that’s off. It’s like he’s simply not used to this. To something that hasn’t been paid for and wasn’t premeditated. His hands hover over you, uncertain. 

You let your palms drag along his broad shoulders, cupping his neck as you pull back. He stares up at you, lips parted and expression vulnerable in a way that makes guilt itch in your throat. 

He’s used to fucking and being done with it. He doesn’t understand intimacy like a man his age should. That’s no fault of his own, not really. 

“Slow,” you whisper down at him, waiting until he nods to kiss him again. His hands drop to your hips, squeezing once before settling there. You do your best to guide him into something soft, slow in a way that lets him follow your lead. He’s a quick learner, pulling you closer to him as he finds his own footing. 

You get more comfortable, settling in his lap as you kiss him. Something begins to press up between your thighs, his boxers growing tight as you let your fingers tangle in his curls. His hips buck, and you let out a little gasp at the bold move. His tongue darts across the seam of your lips, and you tilt your head, letting him deepen the kiss. 

His arms shift, wrapping tighter around your back as he tugs you closer. Your knee slips along the cushions, bumping into the remote. You both jump apart as a loud infomercial suddenly comes alive on the TV. “Shit,” you mutter, laughing as your forehead falls against his. 

He lets out a rough sigh as your thumb lightly traces his bottom lip. Pulling back, he leans further into your touch, following you. He’s staring up at you, waiting for… something. 

“Maybe we should take this to the bedroom,” you suggest quietly. The magic words, apparently, as he gets up from the couch. His arms are thick, secure around you as he carries you over to his bedroom. 

You lean down, pressing soft kisses to his jaw, trailing down his neck as he walks. You’re easing him into the idea of you. But you’re also trying to placate yourself. It’s a poor attempt to calm the racing beast in your chest. 

Your heart has been pounding against your ribs for the past few minutes. You know, in his own way, he’s not really a client. Certainly not like any you’ve ever done business with before. But your last experience…

Well, it had been your last for a reason. 

It’s hard to forget the kind of pain you’ve gone through, shoved into similar situations like this before. Always at the hand of the same woman. But it doesn’t have to be like that again. Not with Pope. 

He kicks the door shut behind him, turning and pressing you up against it. Your nails bite into his shoulders as he presses his nose to the crook of your jaw. He rests there a moment before slowly making his way back to your lips, just waiting. His shallow breaths fan across your face as you move forward, just enough to finally connect with him. 

Rough hands flex around your thighs before he turns you around, walking you both back to the bed. Your legs slip from around his waist as he lays you down. Your hand trails up into his curls, tugging as his touch skates down your body. Pulling at the zipper of your skirt. You break apart, just long enough for you to peel your shirt off. 

His fingers drag up along your bare skin. Goosebumps break out at the soft touch as he pulls back enough to get a good look at you. You would laugh if it weren’t for that look in his eye, slightly panicked and overwhelmed. 

You’d made the choice to forgo a bra, knowing what you were getting up to today. His attention is unmoving on your breasts, and you let out a little huff. “I don’t bite,” you tease, taking his hands in yours and guiding them up to your chest. “Usually.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, barely even moves. His gaze drags back up to yours, and you give him a little nod. Slowly, he cups your breasts, cold hands making you shiver. It’s been a lot longer than you’d ever tell anyone since you’ve been intimate. 

But… you’re liking this with Pope. For once, you’re not at the mercy of someone else. If anything, it feels like you’re holding the power here. His pleasure is only given if you will it. It’s certainly a feeling you could get used to. 

Your hands drag up his arms, resisting the urge to squeeze those thick biceps, and you draw him back down into another kiss. He’s already learning, softer with his approach, less aggressive. His palms skate down your body until he’s squeezing your waist. You try to pull him closer, legs closing around his hips, and his hands fall to the sheets. 

They flex at your sides as his body tenses. Pulling back, he won’t meet your eye, and you frown at the way his jaw clenches. There’s something sharp in his gaze that has your breath stuttering. You’ve seen the look before. In exes who knew what you used to be. 

That niggling question of whether you were clean? If you were still seeing your ‘clients’? You can’t blame him for thinking it, especially knowing his inclination toward cleanliness. But the hurt never lessens. That slight edge of rejection never gets any smoother. 

“We don’t have to do anything,” you whisper, slowly releasing him. He says nothing, and you sit up on your elbows. “Pope,” you tell him, voice firm. “We don’t have to do this.”

“You want to,” he mutters, finally meeting your eye. Your lips purse as you fight back the ache in your chest. You know that look too. The sudden fear that if you don’t give this person what they want… they’ll leave too. 

You reach up, cupping his cheek, and he falls into the touch easily. “Come on,” you urge, moving up the bed and pulling the sheets back. 

He hesitates, hovering over you and still wondering if he should just do what you want. You pat the spot beside you, and he finally crawls under the sheets. You settle into the pillows, opening your arms to him. 

Pope watches you for a moment, eyes narrowed, before slowly sinking into your touch. Your hand settles in his curls as his head falls against your chest. It doesn’t take him much longer to melt completely against you, not as you play with his hair, nearly falling asleep yourself. 

It’s comforting, in an odd way. Being pressed into the sheets by someone’s weight– but, for the first time in a while, they’re not expecting anything else from you. It’s a man you actually want. Not one that’s paid to own you for a few hours. 

You lean back, drawing him closer as the sun sets through the window. 

Pope is long gone by the time the sun rises again. Letting out a low sigh, you get out of bed, pretending you don’t miss the warmth he’d provided. Your skin is more chilled than you care to admit as you get dressed. 

It’s not as if you’d expected him to stay. Smurf always has him out running errands for her or doing the odd jobs no one else will. For someone who wants her attack dog close, she sure hates having him in the house with her. 

As you slip out of his room, the rest of the house is quiet, save for some clinking coming from the kitchen. Walking in, you grab your purse off the counter. There’s an extra weight that hadn’t been there the night before. 

Smurf stands by the kitchen island, stirring her coffee with that smirk you’d love to carve off her face. “Fun night?”

Sucking your teeth, you straighten your skirt and nod. “It was nice,” you grit out. 

She shakes her head and nods at your purse. Looking inside, you see a thick wad of cash rolled up and tossed carelessly inside. “Good girl,” she mutters, brushing past you. She gives your ass a little pat as she heads toward the pool. 

You bite back something venomous, nails digging into the soft skin of your palms as you take in a fortifying breath. It’s not worth it. 

You storm toward the front door. The anger inside you begins to dull as you start heading back home. You feel dirty. It’s the first time you’ve left a job of hers without someone else's fluids drying between your thighs. Or new bruises on your body. 

Still, you feel cheaper than you have in a long time. 

You want to convince yourself that you needed to do this to survive. You can’t survive off the shitty tips you make at Deran’s bar. And she could ruin your life with the knowledge she holds over you. 

That doesn’t stop you from feeling like scum. 

You’ve gotten better at noticing him before he makes himself known. It’s his stare, you think. It’s so heavy, so intent, it’s almost impossible to miss the weight of it on your back. His gaze is still something predatory to you– not that you don’t enjoy it. But you know better than to think of it as something empty, or compare it to the blind hunger of a shark, like you used to. 

Lifting your head, you offer Pope a small smile as he stalks into the bar. There’s not really another word you can think of for that unique stride of his. 

He brushes brusquely past the customers who are leaving. It doesn’t take long for people to simply make room for him. It's incredibly impressive– and attractive– how he can take control of a room without ever saying anything. Maybe people are just scared of his general energy, but it works. 

He sits at the corner of the bar closest to you. “What can I get ya?” You toss your towel over your shoulder as you make your way toward him. 

Pope fishes out his wallet, tossing too much cash on the counter. “Just a beer,” he tells you, turning to survey the rest of the people here. 

He’s leaning against the bar, but his posture still remains stiff. His eyes never stop watching everyone around him, looking out for possible threats. It’s hard to tell if that’s a result of his time in prison or just a skill inherent to the Codys. 

His mannerisms make you think of a man who should hate eye contact. But talking to him is intense enough to make you short of breath, sometimes. He never takes his eyes off of you, as if he’s one slip up away from being stabbed in the back. You wonder who the last person he trusted was. His sister, probably. 

The longer you meet his eye, the more you see, the worse it gets. Those little flecks of emotion hidden among the hazel, it’s too much for a man who's meant to keep his cards close to his chest. You look away first, reaching for his cash and counting out his change. 

“Keep it,” he dismisses when you try to hand it back to him. 

Your eyes narrow, but you can’t afford to argue. Pocketing the cash, you nod, going to retrieve his beer. “Deran isn’t here,” you let him know, placing the bottle in front of him. 

He wipes at the condensation before fetching a napkin, slipping it under the bottle. “Did you want to leave a message for him?” you ask. 

Pope looks up from the beer and shakes his head. “No,” he tells you. “I didn’t come here to see Deran.”

A smile pulls at your lips despite yourself. “No?” you hum, pretending to wipe down the bar so he can’t catch that look in your eyes. The one that will give away too much, too soon. “Just came here for the shitty beer?”

“Exactly,” he mutters, taking a deep swig. Your eyes narrow as he plays along, a slight laugh huffing out of you. His idea of humor is so dry that it almost circles right back to not even being a joke anymore. 

Shaking your head, you move down the bar to top off some drinks. He lingers in that corner, nursing the beer. He owns that section of the bar, even as business picks up and more people shuffle in. They don’t take the stools on either side of him. 

There are these burdens, like shadows, ever present around him. It’s not something everyone can see, but they can feel the energy that radiates off him. That sort of ‘stay away’ warning that you’ve never been particularly good at following. 

It’s rare for you to get through a shift without at least one shitty pick-up line or a drunken slap on your ass. But, with Pope’s stare burning over your shoulder, you have a pretty good night. 

It’s interesting how quick he was to give in to your whims. How fast he now seeks out your company. You wonder: without Smurf’s prodding, would you have been able to lure him in like you had last night? Would he have given in to you the same way?

All this time you could have had him. But you’ve never been particularly good at taking what you want. 

Pope remains in his seat the rest of the night. It takes a herculean effort not to simply close the bar early, knowing what's waiting for you after your shift. His stare is heavy with intent. Still, you control yourself, letting the anticipation drag out for him too. 

“We’re closing,” you tell him, going around the bar and collecting the last of the beer bottles. Pope straighens up and slides from his stool. 

“I’ll wait,” he tells you simply. You linger by the kitchen door before shaking your head with a scoff. You carry the recycling to the back, and when you come back, he’s wiping down tables with the cleaning solution from behind the bar. You don’t object, getting your closing tasks done in half the time with him. 

“You know,” you start, as you count out the cash in the register. “If you wanted to spend time with me, you could have just asked.” He goes still where he’s standing. You offer him a wry grin. “I like being around you.”

He’s quiet for a moment before letting out a low huff. “Most people don’t.”

Your hands freeze as you shoot him a severe look. “Most people are idiots,” you tell him sharply. The corners of his lips twitch, and you sigh. Walking the envelope of cash to the back, you leave it in the safe under Deran’s desk. Out front, Pope waits for you by the door. 

Grabbing your purse from the bar, you catch up with him. He holds the door open for you as you step outside. “So,” you hum. “Your place or mine?”

Pope tenses up beside you as you lock up. “What?” he asks as you turn to face him. His eyes dart down to your lips and you grin. He’s not as subtle as he thinks. 

“Are we going to your place or mine?” you ask again, leaning against the door with your arms crossed. 

You almost expect him to back out or change his mind. He knows who you are, what you were. You haven’t forgotten that moment of hesitation from the other night. You’d be honestly surprised if he wanted anything to do with you. 

“Yours,” he tells you, voice so sure it takes you aback. 

“Alright,” you mutter, slipping past him with a surprised smile. 

Pope drives you to Deran’s place. You live in the apartment above his and Adrian’s home. A fact that you now realize you’ve never shared with Pope. But it’s not like you’ve ever had a reason to invite him over before. 

You lead him up the stairs, his hand in yours as you let him inside. He toes off his boots as you toss your purse on the entryway table. “Want a tour?” you ask, raising your brows. He nods, and you squeeze your hand around his, guiding him through the tiny apartment. 

It’s a decent enough place for somewhere that doesn’t charge rent. You’ve got your own little kitchenette and a depressingly small shower. It’s honestly not all that interesting. Lacking all of the personal touches that make a place home. You’ve learned to live small. 

You lead Pope past everything and take him straight to your bedroom. “Not much of a tour,” he tells you, rough voice teasing. 

You narrow your eyes at him. “Are you really complaining?” You step closer, pressing your chest to his as you wind your arms around his neck. He shakes his head and you push up, lips just brushing against his. “Are you sure you don’t want a better tour?”

He cuts off your teasing with a kiss. For a moment, it’s too harsh. But then he’s remembering what you’d shown him. He backs off, grip loosening around your waist, his touch softening. You take his hands in yours, dragging them down your body and directing him to the button of your pants. He makes quick work of it, helping you out of them.

You’re pushed up against the doorway, his rough palms squeezing your hips while you work on the buckles of his belt. The second you’ve got it undone, he’s kicking off his jeans, pulling away from you to rip off his jacket. Your hands drag down his torso, greedy as your fingers find the hem of his shirt. Lifting it, you eagerly palm the soft muscles of his stomach. 

Pope shudders beneath your touch, and you grin, leaning up to press a quick kiss to his lips. He searches for more, but you dart out of his reach, whipping off your shirt and flitting toward your bed. You beckon him forward with a small crook of your finger, and he follows obediently. 

You turn down your sheets, crawling onto your bed and waiting for him to do the same. He climbs over you, lips pressing against yours before drifting along your jaw, moving down your neck. He kneels before you, touch greedy as he palms your thighs. 

It feels like he’s teasing you as he moves lower between your legs. His eyes never leave yours. Your breath hitches at the intensity of his gaze. His fingers play with the band of your underwear before he slowly moves back up your body. 

You let out a soft breath, almost relieved he hadn’t traveled farther. You’re not sure how much of him you can handle at once. It’s been so long since you’ve let yourself be open with someone like this. And even now, you’re hiding things from him. 

You can only take so much at once. 

“Can we do what we did last night?” he whispers, tone hesitant. As if you would say no to that. 

You just nod, reaching up and letting your hand scratch through his curls. You sink back into the pillows, and he follows you. He seems more sure of himself as he sinks into your chest, arms winding around your torso as you both get settled. 

This seems to be becoming a tradition of sorts. You hold him until his breath settles and he falls asleep. Rolling over, you curl tighter around him, letting out a low, sated breath. 

The bed is cold when you wake up. There’s a dip where his body used to be, but he’s gone. Rolling over, you scrub a hand down your face, suddenly aware of how naked you are. Uncomfortable at the AC nipping at your bare skin, you tug the sheets up. 

Glancing over at your nightstand, you see a notification lighting up your phone. A part of you hopes it's Pope. But your heart sinks when you realize it’s a notification from Smurf. A wire transfer of $400 and a little ‘good girl’ memo, just so you don’t forget whose in charge. 

With a low huff, you sink back into your pillows, stomach twisting. How could Smurf possibly know what happened last night? Did Pope tell her? Had Smurf sent Pope to you?

You hadn’t gone home with him last night with a paycheck on your mind. You’d just wanted to be around him. 

Glancing back at your phone, you realize you finally have enough money to go grocery shopping for the first time in a while. 

No going back now. 

You have a tendency to follow Deran along wherever he leads you. Usually, you’re bored and looking for something interesting to occupy your time with. Most of the time, though, you have this feeling of obligation to him. For helping you more than he ever had to or even should have. 

Ultimately, that habit puts you right back at Smurf’s place. No matter how hard he tries–how hard any of them try–they always find their way back to her. There’s something magnetic about her that pulls the boys right into her orbit, even if they know they should have left years ago. 

Deran lounges by the pool while you get some water out of the fridge. You survey the area outside. The party is smaller this time. Likely thrown so Smurf could do business with someone, though you never have much clue what she gets up to. 

The sliding glass door opens, and you straighten up. The devil herself walks through, that familiar smirk on her face. “What’re you doing in here, baby?”

“Just getting something to drink,” you answer, moving out of her way as she gets some food she’d made out of the fridge. “I wanted to talk to you, actually.”

“Oh,” she hums, brows lifting as she motions you on. 

You lick your lips, swallowing roughly. It’s hard to string the right words together. To find that magical combination that will keep you looking like prey in her eyes, rather than another competitor. “You don’t–” Huffing, you start over, forcing yourself to meet her eyes.

“You don’t have to keep paying me.” 

She shakes her head, feigning cluelessness and your nails bite into the plastic of your water bottle. “For Pope. I don’t mind keeping him entertained for you, but I don’t want you to keep paying me.”

“Now,” she chuckles, leaning against the counter. “Why would I stop? It’s not like you’re dating him, sweetheart. You’re just doing me a favor.”

Because it's wrong. Because every goddamn person in his life is using him in some way. And you can’t let yourself be someone like that to him. 

“Right, well, I don’t need to be paid for it.”

Smurf smiles, tilting her head as she swaggers up to you. She drapes her arm around your waist, leading you outside. “C’mon, I want you to meet someone.” You want to dig your heels into the floor and stop her, but you don’t have a choice. 

She leads you over to a balding man in an ill-fitting Speedo. There are already three girls surrounding him, each in skimpy bikinis with eager smiles. But that doesn’t stop him from turning his lecherous gaze onto you when Smurf brings you over. 

“Honey, this is Robert. We’re working out some business right now. But I thought I’d introduce him to the girls.” She sets her chin on your shoulder, lips brushing your ear. “Do I need to introduce you to him, too?”

You jerk out of her grip, stomach turning as you take in the other man. “I’ll take the money,” you hiss out, meeting her eye with a sharp glare. 

“That’s what I thought,” she grins. “Go on, enjoy the party,” she urges you along, and you run off to find Deran. You can hear that man objecting behind you. His arms are already full of beautiful women, but he’s still a greedy pig. 

Your throat tightens with nausea as you throw yourself down on the pool chair beside Deran. Why would you have ever thought that would work?

If Smurf stopped paying you, that would be like admitting defeat. She’d be accepting that Pope actually has someone stable in his life. Someone who wants to be with him and around him. It would be admitting that she made a mistake. She had given you permission to enter his life and had given him access to the affection and care she weaponizes against him. 

It’d be like his leash was switching hands. And she couldn’t have you cutting him free; of course she couldn’t. 

You can’t believe you were stupid enough to think she’d conceded so easily. 

“Everything okay?” You jump, the sound of Deran’s voice catching you off guard. 

You force a smile onto your face, shoving down your discomfort. “Yeah, of course.” You motion toward Robert and redirect the conversation. “So, what’s she got planned this time?”

“Fuck if I know,” Deran scoffs. He takes a hit from the blunt in his hand. “She doesn’t tell me shit until she wants something,” he mutters, smoke billowing out of his mouth. 

You hum, but you’re barely paying attention now. Something else has begun to occupy your thoughts. Well, someone else. Glancing over your shoulder, you see him. 

Pope is lingering. That feels like an ill-fitting word for him. Lurking, brooding, stalking, those all fit him much better. Lingering seems so meek for him. Still, you can’t deny, that’s exactly what he’s doing. 

He’s standing just at the perimeter of your space. Not approaching, just quiet in the corner of your vision. As if you might wave him away if he gets too close or takes up too much space. 

It’s a silly worry, but you can see it clearly on his face as his gaze keeps darting back to you. He crosses his arms, pretending to be watching the rowdy partygoers. A smile pulls at your lips; you can’t judge him. You used to struggle keeping your eyes off of him, it’s easier now that you don’t have to pretend. 

Deran lets out a rough sigh, and you force your attention back to him. “What?” you chuckle at the aggrieved look on his face. 

He nods toward his brother. “What do you think? He’s weird but never this fucking weird.”

“Watch it,” you scold, shooting him a playful glare as you toss a sidelong glance at Pope. He’s only a few feet away; you’re sure he can hear his brother being a dick. It’s funny, though, how he acts like he hasn’t been waiting to talk to you since the moment you showed up. 

“Have you guys fucked yet?”

You jump, head whipping back toward your friend. “Jesus, Deran, you make me sound like some sort of whore.” He shoots you a look that makes you laugh. “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“Oh, are you a lady now?”

“Thin ice,” you warn, shaking your head at him. He holds up his hands, but that shit-eating grin doesn’t leave his face. 

It’s dark by the time Deran passes out on the pool chair. The party has grown louder, and more people have shown up after sunset. You groan as you stand, shooting Deran an amused look as you leave him. He lets out a particularly loud snore as you brush past. 

You glance around the pool for your shadow. He hasn’t gone far. Just retreated into a quieter corner, eyes never leaving you as you approach. “It’s getting pretty rowdy out here,” you whisper conspiratorially as you move to stand beside him. 

He nods, eyeing the party before his gaze inevitably drifts back to you. “Are you not cold in that thing?” He nods toward your bikini, and you scoff. 

You place your hands on his bicep and prop your chin on his shoulder. “Maybe. Do you wanna help warm me up?” 

He swallows thickly, jaw clenching as he watches you. For a moment, you think you’ve finally got him. Then he looks away, rolling out his shoulders so you’re forced to let go. The rejection stings as you back up. “Don’t you have business to attend?”

Your brows furrow as you frown. “What?”

Pope just nods over toward the man Smurf had threatened you with earlier. You let out a disbelieving sigh, a stiff smile on your face as you shake your head. “Seriously?” you demand. Pope says nothing. “I’m not fucking him if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Before he can say anything else, you continue. “And I don’t do your mother’s business anymore. But you can go ahead and say what you’re thinking, Pope. I’m just another whore, right?”

Shaking your head, you move away from him and back toward the house. Somewhere inside, you know that this is irrational. Smurf is paying you. Not just that, but Pope is now your business. He wouldn’t be, if you had one fucking iota of control over your own life. 

But you’re certainly not leading him on with this idea that you’re exclusive just to be fucking someone else behind his back. It hurts that he would think that lowly of you. That after the time you’ve spent together, you’re still nothing more than a prostitute looking for a quick buck. 

You hear footsteps rushing up behind you before someone’s taking your wrist in their hand. Whipping around, you see Pope. He says nothing, just starts pulling you through the party. People part for him; they always do. 

“What are you doing?” you hiss, not making much of an effort to break free. 

He leads you to his bedroom, letting the door close behind him. You can see it, as the sounds of the party fade, his shoulders lose that stressed hunch. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, staring down at the ground, unable to meet your eye. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Crossing your arms, you shrug. “Whatever. I can’t exactly blame you for not wanting to be with me.”

His head lifts, and he frowns. “That’s not what I meant. I just–” he cuts himself off with a sharp breath. His shoulders roll back as he takes a step closer to you. “I want to be with you. But I don’t share.” 

It took him a second to find the right word before settling on share. You doubt there’s a word succinct enough to say he doesn’t like his women sleeping with other men for cash. “I can’t stand it when you’re around other men. I just–” his eyes are wide with this slightly panicked look, as if he’s afraid of saying the wrong thing. Of pissing you off and having you run, again. 

You surge forward, dragging him down into a kiss. You like this more than you should. That little bit of insecurity in his voice. The slight possessiveness as his hands squeeze around your waist. It’s nice to be wanted rather than scorned for situations far out of your control. 

Your back is pushed gently against his door, and his hands cup your cheeks. Your hands drop to his wrists, flexing around them as he pushes you higher up the door. His thigh slots between your legs as you throw your arms around his shoulders, desperate for some leverage. His leg flexes, and your hips grind down, a soft gasp escaping you as his grip flexes around your waist. 

This is different. More rushed than what you’ve done with him before. There’s intent behind this kiss, especially behind the way his palms drift. He cups your ass, lifting you until your legs are wrapping around his hips. He shuffles you higher up his body, dragging you away from the door. 

Your hands find their way into his hair, grip tightening around his curls, trying to anchor yourself in whatever way you can manage. He lets out a low groan that makes nerves spark beneath your skin. “Pope, what’s gotten into you?” 

You let out a low sigh as he bends, placing you carefully on the bed. He surveys you for a moment, jaw flexing as he debates answering. He doesn’t say anything, just tugs his shirt off, arms and stomach flexing as he does. You reach for the string of your bikini top, tugging it loose. 

You let it sit on your chest, beckoning him closer and guiding one of his hands to the thin fabric. His lips drag down your neck, calloused palm eagerly ripping away your top. He tosses it somewhere behind him, and you sink back onto the bed, letting him take the lead. 

He hasn’t seemed confident in initiating much with you; you don’t want to discourage him now. 

His rough palms travel down your body, lingering at the band of your bottoms. When his wide eyes meet yours, you give him a little nod. He pulls, slowly, until the flimsy fabric dangles  from one ankle, then he settles back over you. 

His fingers skate across your stomach, touch barely there, but just enough to leave goosebumps in his wake. His lips marks a slow, intentional path down your body. He lingers at your chest, careful as he slowly mouths at your breast. 

His eyes dart between yours, like he’s waiting for you to scold him, push him away. You thread your fingers through his hair, nodding. You’re afraid of saying anything, of spooking him out of the moment. 

He sucks once and you tug at his hair, letting out a low whimper as his free hand tweaks your other nipple. “Pope,” you gasp out, spine arching into his touch. 

It’s so faint, so hesitant, you can’t stand how much of a tease he is. His eyes close as his hand wanders, searching. He wants to know how much you want him. Wants to feel it. 

Slowly, he parts from you; you have to stop yourself from reaching for him. His mouth descends until  he’s lingering  between your thighs. You spread your legs wider, making room for his broad shoulders. 

Just like everything else he’s done tonight, he’s tentative at first. A shallow dip of his tongue has you holding back a groan of frustration. You’re not trying to rush him; you want this to be good for him. To feel real. 

But it’s hard. You’ve wanted him for so long, and he’s right there, kneeling between your thighs, and there’s nothing you can do but be at his mercy. 

You tighten your grip around his hair, inching your hips ever closer to his mouth. His large arms wrap around your legs, keeping your back pressed flush to the bed. The corded muscles of his shoulders flex as he finally leans forward. You’re struck by the sight of his thick body pinning you down, the sudden urge to sink your teeth into him overwhelming. 

Instead, you tilt your head back, resisting the need. Your heart thumps fast, anticipation pushing you closer toward the steep edge of desperation. 

Something is flickering inside you, smoldering. A small flame sparked alive by the heat of his breath, catching like wildfire when you finally feel his mouth on you. He doesn’t hold back, ravenous as his hands flex around your thighs. 

A rumbling groan tears from deep within his chest, low and desperate with every swipe of his tongue. The vibrations leave you keening; your hips twitch, but his heavy arms keep you in place. He pulls away, ignoring your wanton mewl.  His hand pinches at your thigh and you look up. The second your hazy eyes meet his, he’s dipping back down. 

You could swear there’s a smile on his lips as his tongue thrusts into you, mouth greedy as he devours you. 

You wonder what he’s like with the women Smurf hires. 

You shouldn’t be thinking about her, not right now. 

But… does he take what he wants? Shove into them and take them until he finds release? Or is he tender with them, too? Reaching hopelessly for some sort of connection, one they’ll give him right up until the cash is in hand. 

You don’t want to be that; you want this. Want him. Want that desperate edge in his eye as he eats you like all he’s ever felt is hunger. Your hand tightens in his hair, a broken moan crawls up your throat as something inside you burns. The heat pools low, spreading to your every limb. Your muscles jump and contract as you squirm beneath his iron grip. 

The jerk of your hips, the sounds that splinter then shatter the moment they touch your lips, the closeness you demand with your fingers threaded through his curls— it all seems to spur him on. He buries his face deeper, tongue relentless as he burrows inside you, and the only thought your mind can conjure is Pope Cody. 

“F-Fuck— Oh, God,” you let out a sharp gasp. Losing all manner of control, you begin to writhe, grinding down on him until the fire burns so hot, it becomes cold. Pleasure crests over your body in waves, leaving you shivering. Your legs twitch, thighs practically closing around his head as his fingers dig into you, ten crescent moons carved into your skin. He doesn’t stop until you tug weakly at his hair. 

He’s panting slightly as he finally lets you go. When he pulls back, loosening his grip, your slick shimmers on his chin, though he doesn’t seem to care. His eyes are dark and dazed, but no less intense, as he watches you struggle to catch your breath. 

Following your gentle pull, he crawls up your body, letting his lips mark a trail as he goes. His rough hands knead and soothe your spasming muscles. 

You drag him into a lazy kiss, palms smoothing down his back as you wrap your legs around his waist. His length sits heavy in his boxers, you can feel it pressing against your hip, the wetness that grows as he flinches away from the pressure. 

Carefully, you push at his shoulders until he’s sitting on the bed. You follow once he’s settled, sliding into his lap.“You don’t have to,” he murmurs, hands hovering over your hips. Like he’s waiting for permission to touch you, despite the scent of you still on his breath or the messy sheen that’s drying on his chin.  

“I want to,” you promise, cupping his cheek and luring him into another soft kiss. Slowly, but surely, his palms find solace on your hips, and he nods into the affection. You rise on shaky legs and help him work his boxers down. 

He notices the slight quiver in your hands and guides them to rest on his shoulders as he lines himself up. You let out a shuddering sigh, lowering yourself onto him. Your breath catches as he fills you completely. He groans when you take a moment to adjust and it’s dizzying. All you want is to hear more. You want to know every pretty sound he can make, so you push him back, your hands sliding down to his chest as you lift your hips. 

It’s tentative and barely anything, you’re still slightly weak from before, but you can feel the anticipation tightening his grip into something almost painful. His fingers flex, like he’s trying to remind himself of control. 

“There we go,” you whisper, more to yourself as you find a steady rhythm. You peer down at him, noticing the clench of his jaw, the white knuckles of his hand. He won’t look at you. His gaze is far-out and set on the languid roll of your hips.

You let your nose trail along his flushed cheek as you wander lower,  pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his jaw. Your lips brush his ear, teeth just barely grazing. “You can touch me, Pope,” you promise. You settle back on his thighs, taking his heavy hands and dragging them to your breasts. “I’m all yours,” you whisper, enjoying the way his jaw loosens, wide eyes finding your own. “Only yours,” you swear.

That severe look softens as you slowly begin to circle your hips again, setting a steady pace. You let go of his hands, falling forward onto his chest as you brace yourself. Pleasure begins mounting again, the feeling of him inside you overwhelming as you pulse around him. 

Your body trembles as you begin to lose your rhythm, walls still fluttering from the feeling of his tongue. You’re too sensitive for this. It’s been so long since you’ve genuinely been with someone without performing that you’ve almost forgotten the right moves. 

Hesitantly, his hips buck, and you choke on your breath, sliding until your lips are pressed against his once more. Your hands drag up his chest, stroking his cheek as he winds his arms around your back. You set the pace, decide the rhythm, but his hips move in time, taking only as much control as you allow him. 

“There you go, just like that,” you pant, breathless as your stomach tightens. The encouragement seems to spur him on, his thrusts speeding up slightly. 

You pull back, biting your lip as you stare down at him. “God, that f-feels good.” His eyes light up, glimmering in a way you haven’t seen before. There’s a low, rumbling sound you quickly realize is coming from him, but it soon fractures into something softer, needier. “You’re doing so good,” you whisper, observing him intently. 

Your jaw drops open when you hear his voice, weak and wanton, stretching thin around a single word, over and over: “Yeah, y-yeah, yeah.” You gasp as he ruts up into you, reaching deeper than before. His movements are rushed, his brows furrowed; you can practically see his control fraying like old twine.  

He hits that spot inside you that has your vision going blurry and your nails biting into his chest as you cling to him. Your moans grow pitchy, drowning out his soft noises. Your attempt at keeping pace falls apart as you curl into him, your eyes shut so tight you begin to see spots whizzing around in the darkness. 

Despite the way you tighten and convulse around him, he keeps moving. Your spine arches, frozen and bowed in his unyielding grip. A drop of sweat rolls down his temple as his hips buck wildly. He’s speaking, you notice, muttering so quietly, your hazy mind can’t latch onto a single word. The only thing you can hear is the tide of raw desperation that rushes through and hollows out his tone. Then, his muscles pull taut; he holds you as close as he physically can, whining brokenly when he can’t drag you any closer. 

Chest-to-chest, you feel the heat of his breath rush over your face as his hips jerk, losing all coordination. Warmth. All you feel is his warmth as his head burrows into the crook of your neck and his length flexes helplessly inside you. 

With his heart thumping rapidly against yours, your fingers carding through his damp curls, you realize you broke your own rule. You hadn’t even thought about using a condom, let alone asking him to pull out. You wanted him. All of him. And now you have it. So you let him soften inside you as he carefully moves you under the sheets. 

You relish the ache in your body, succumb to the exhaustion in your bones. You’re pulled from a dreamless sleep when you feel the wet warmth of a washcloth between your thighs.

After a few moments, the bed dips beside you. Your hand wanders blindly, brow furrowing as you pat at the empty space. You don’t say a word as you grab his wrist, dragging him into your arms, closing the gap between you. He huffs softly—maybe a laugh, maybe a begrudging complaint, you’re not sure. It’s merely a rasp of breath, but it hitches, like it’s caught on something in his throat the second your fingers start to soothe the angry red marks on his freckled skin. Like a vow of surrender, he presses a kiss beneath your jaw, and you sigh. “Thank you,” he mutters, speaking the words into your skin, and you can only hum, pulling him closer. 

Your laughter wakes him up, echoing from the kitchen and just barely reaching his room. It’s a light sound, without the baggage that he’s grown so familiar with. Frowning, he scrubs his hand down his face and sits up. 

Sun spills in through the windows, marking the spot you’d been lying in the night before. His hand runs across the sheets. It’s cold enough that he knows you’ve been gone for a while. It’s an uncomfortable feeling that settles in his chest at the realization. 

It’s probably a sensation you’ve grown familiar with, considering how often he leaves you alone in bed. He hates that every time you’ve woken up and seen the indentation where his body was, he’s left you with this. But staying would be admitting to an attachment that’s dangerous for both of you. 

He throws the sheets back, getting up and dressing quickly. He’s interested in whatever's got you laughing so hard this early in the morning. When he steps out of his room, he shouldn’t be surprised to find his brother sitting with you. 

You and Deran are seated at the kitchen island, cereal shared between you as you laugh at something Deran’s said. His brother has that bored look on his face, unaware of how rare the sight of you smiling like that is. 

Pope’s never elicited a reaction like that from you. The thought makes something sharp and ugly curl in his gut. He grimaces, shaking his head. It’s not like he’s ever said anything worth laughing at. 

Humor’s never been his talent. Most people don’t recognize his attempts; they just stare at him with that look in their eyes. Like they’ve been waiting for him to leave since he walked up. 

You’ve never looked at him like that. 

Pope storms up to the kitchen, and your laughter slowly fades. Something in his chest tightens at that. Your eyes widen at the look on his face, and he sucks in a sharp breath. He snatches up the milk and shakes it at Deran. “Why don’t you learn how to put things back?” he snaps, glaring at his brother. 

Deran shoots him an offended look. The moment’s broken by your laughter. It’s the light kind of sound that usually only his brother earns. Your eyes narrow, and you give Pope a funny look. 

“Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” you tease. Pope lets out a huff, shaking his head as he puts the milk away. 

“Yeah, with you on the right side,” Deran mutters. Pope glances over his shoulder, whatever he was going to say gone as he realizes you’re dressed in nothing but his shirt. 

You kick Deran under the counter and scoff. “Fuck off,” laughter still lingers in your voice. Pope can appreciate the sight of you like this. Happy, uninhibited. Usually, when you’re over at the house, you always look like you’re one good scare away from running out the door. The work of Smurf, he’s sure. 

He wants to think he contributed to your mood in some way. But he’s never been good at improving moods, just learned not to make them worse. He likes the thought of one day being the reason you have a smile on your face, but he knows it’ll probably never happen. There’s a reason he’s got a poor track record with dating. 

You jump up from your seat, dropping your bowl in the sink. When Pope moves to put it in the dishwasher, you intercept. You throw your arms around his shoulders with a small smile. “Morning, you grump,” you tease, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

His hands hover over your waist, nearly returning the hug, but you’re already moving away. It’s so simple with you, isn’t it? Holding and knowing how to be held. It’s not such a foreign idea to you as it is to Pope. 

He wants to be comfortable with it, with you. But it’s hard to get rid of that feeling, like he’s ready to strip off his skin anytime you touch him so softly. Rougher is easier; it’s familiar. This just doesn’t make sense to him. That you’re around him willingly, that Smurf isn’t just paying you off to keep his head on straight. 

Pope’s still not sure how much he trusts this whole arrangement with you. He knows what you said, about not working, about only being with him. But he’d seen how Smurf had taken you aside last night, that terrified look in your eyes when you’d run off. 

A part of him is worried about what he’ll find if he digs much deeper than the surface. 

Deran lets out a disgusted sigh at the affection and moves outside. He leaves his bowl at the counter for someone else to clean. Pope glares at his brother’s back as you jump onto the kitchen counter beside him. You steal his attention easily. 

Pope could certainly get used to this feeling of someone being so eager to be the center of his attention. 

“What do you want to do today?” you ask, a lazy smile on your face. He knows he's greedy when he wishes he could keep that smile just for himself. To have you in a way no one else does, not even Deran. 

A part of him resents his brother for getting to you first. For being your friend first and making that unofficial claim on your time and presence. 

“You wanted to go to the boardwalk,” he reminds you, even though the idea sets his teeth on edge. He’d hate to be out in the sun surrounded by rowdy tourists and louder locals. But he knows you’ve been wanting to go, and you’ve been doing too many things he’s wanted to do.

Besides, he wants to hear you laugh again. Or get a real, genuine smile out of you. Not that teasing look that's ever-present on your face. 

“Seriously?” you scoff, tilting your head. “Don’t you hate that kind of thing?”

Yes. Pope just shrugs, focusing on cleaning up the mess Deran left behind, hoping you don’t notice the stiff posture of his shoulders or tight look on his face. “How about,” you slip off the counter and sidle up behind him, hand resting lightly on his back. 

“We catch a movie? It’s too hot to be outside, anyway.”

The weather’s perfect for a day out on the boardwalk. But he knows you’re lying for his sake. He should make the sacrifice to make you happy. But it’s surprising how easily you’ll switch your plans to accommodate him. It’s hard to say no to that. 

“Yeah, alright,” he agrees. You smile, turning off the sink and taking his hand in yours. You offer Deran an absentminded wave as you lead Pope outside. He relishes the eye roll his brother sends you. 

Maybe you’d had plans with Deran today. It didn’t really matter, though, because you’d chosen Pope. He’s almost tempted to gloat, but you’re still dragging him along behind you. 

Pope helps you up into his truck. Your phone lights up, and you glance down at it, the smile on your face fading. It looks like a notification that someone’s sent you money, but you’re closing the door before he can get a good look at it. 

He gets inside and watches you carefully. You bite at the skin around your thumb, leg bouncing as you type something out on your phone. His mind shouldn’t immediately go to the thought that it's a client paying you. 

You’d told him last night there wasn’t anyone else. And he knows Deran does his best to keep you away from all that, now. 

His knuckles go white around the steering wheel as he backs out of the driveway. 

Pope has no claim to you; he knows that. Even after all the time you’ve spent together, you still aren’t technically anything. But that doesn’t chase away the barbed feeling of possessiveness in his chest. He told you he doesn’t share, and he meant that. 

He can’t stand the idea of someone else being with you the way he had been last night. It makes something hot burn up in his stomach. The corners of his vision go dark as he glances over at you. 

“Everything alright?” you ask, frowning at him. 

He just nods, sucking in a sharp breath as he turns back to the road. You haven’t given him a reason not to trust you. 

The bell above the door rings out, and you already know who it is without looking. Pope takes his usual seat at the bar, and you grab him a beer. Just like he has the past few weeks, he’ll wait out the last hour of your shift with you and drive you home. You’ll turn on a movie, and Deran will still complain he can hear what you’re getting up to with his brother tomorrow morning. 

You smile at the thought, leaning against the bar as Pope watches you. “No plans tonight?”

He shrugs, taking a swig of his beer. “Smurf wanted me home for dinner.” He purses his lips, glaring down at the bar. “I don’t want to deal with that tonight,” he mutters, meeting your eye again. 

“I feel so special,” you tease, forcing the smile to stay on your face. 

But your heart is racing, adrenaline spiking in your blood. You do actually feel special that he would choose you over Smurf. But it’s worrying. You’ve never been a threat to her before, not really. 

All bets are off when it comes to Pope. She’s so terrified of what he could do if he stopped idealizing her in his head. If you begin posing a threat to her position with him, she won’t hesitate to take you out. 

Trying to distract yourself, you go back to topping off drinks and wiping down spills. You head into the kitchen to fetch a customer’s food. By the time you come back, there’s someone else waiting by the bar. 

It’s a tall man in a pressed suit with the posture of someone who holds themself in high esteem. Cop, you figure. Spend enough time with the Codys or working the jobs you used to, and you get good at sniffing them out. This one’s probably a detective based on that expensive watch he’s wearing. 

He’s eyeing Pope warily, probably well aware of his place in the Cody family. You’re sure they’re a hot topic at the station. “What can I get you?” you ask, walking back behind the bar.

A fool’s hope that he’s here for a shitty beer. He’s not even sitting down. Probably afraid to get a stain on his pants from Deran’s secondhand stools. The detective offers a smarmy grin and says your name. You hum, nodding. 

“I was wondering if you’ve seen this man?” He digs around in the inside of his blazer and pulls out a picture, sliding it across the bar. You bite your lip, innately aware of the stare burning into the side of your head. It takes all your self-control not to look over at Pope. 

Your stomach drops so violently that you worry you might throw up as you stare down at the picture. You recognize that face. Green eyes framed by wrinkles from a life filled with laughter. Blonde hair that had been going gray the last time you’d seen him. Tears line your eyes as you stare down at the image. 

You suck in a sharp breath, blinking a few times before looking back up at the detective. “Can’t say I have,” you tell him, plastering on a smile. “Should I be looking out for him? Did he do something?” You play the “concerned citizen” role well, but not well enough. 

He’d caught you off guard, sent you stumbling from that reminder of the past. 

The detective sucks his teeth, smile tightening at the edges as he shakes his head. “That won’t be necessary. His name is Joseph Barker. He was murdered three years ago. The case has been closed, but some new evidence recently came to light that has us reopening it.”

“Oh,” you hum, eyes wide with naivety. “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve never seen him before.”

The detective pulls out his wallet, takes out a business card, and places it down. “I want you to keep that,” he tells you, nodding to the picture. “And call me if anything… jogs your memory.” His eyes cut toward Pope before he swiftly leaves the bar. 

You let out a low breath and lean against the counter, head falling between your shoulders. “What was that?” Pope asks, breaking through the quiet. 

You lick your lips, picking up the card and picture. “Nothing,” you mutter, throwing them both in the trash. You turn around to Pope with a tight smile on your face. Shrugging haplessly, you just tell him, “I have no idea who that is. Ever heard of him?”

Pope stares at you for a long while. Long enough to make your skin crawl with the paranoia that he sees right through your long list of lies. Finally, he shakes his head. “No. I haven’t.”

“Weird,” you mutter, voice cracking around the word. You have to turn away from him. Scrubbing a hand down your face, you suck in a deep breath, willing yourself to get it together. His stare feels like a judgment weighing heavily on you for the rest of your shift. 

Pope’s mind is usually filled with a dozen different thoughts. What Smurf wants from him, worrying about his brother’s fucking something up, reminders of past failures. Lately, the new addition to that has been you. He normally likes his thoughts of you. They break through the rest of the noise and give him a chance to breathe. 

But his mind is jumbled up around how you’ve been acting. You’re barely ever looking away from your phone. Teeth always tearing through the skin of your nail beds until they bleed, uncaring as you frantically message someone on the other side of the screen. 

You’re jumpy and less touchy with him than you typically are. He has a hard enough time initiating with you, but you’ve been making it even worse by flinching at anything and everything. 

He was worried before; it’s only gotten worse since that detective stopped by the bar. You’ve withdrawn into yourself completely. You’re always quiet, with this look in your eyes that tells him you’re somewhere else completely. 

His worry is a poor excuse for what he’s doing right now. But there’s no one around to judge him but himself, and he’s never had particularly strong morals when it comes to protecting those he cares about.

Pope’s been following you all day. Trailing behind you in his truck, watching you run your errands and flit about town. You’ve never noticed him, not once. Which is worrying enough. He’s not been particularly subtle. Almost hoping that you’ll catch him so he can just confront you. 

He’s parked across the street from the gas station you’re at. Arm propped on his window as he watches you run inside. A sleek black car pulls up and parks beside yours. Pope frowns, shifting in his seat to get a better look as the detective from before gets out of the car. 

Detective Benson— he found out the name after he’d fished the man’s business card from the trash. He did a bit of digging into him. He typically handles the more Wall Street cases. Helps businessmen cover up their illicit affairs and bad investments. It makes sense that he’s got this Joseph guy's case. But Pope can’t figure out the connection back to you. 

He sits up as you come out of the gas station, reading your receipt and unaware of your surroundings. Benson walks up to you, cutting you off before you can get in your car. Pope can’t hear anything that’s being said, but he can see the shock on your face. How quickly it morphs into fear as you look around for an escape. 

You were lying to him. 

He knew that at the bar. You’d looked like you were on the verge of tears after the detective left. And he’s not blind. Pope knows you’d recognized the picture Benson had given you. But you weren’t willing to open up to him. 

You look flustered as Benson starts talking to you, holding up your hands and shaking your head. You try to escape back to your car, but he stops you, stepping in front of you and grabbing your shoulders. 

Pope shifts in his seat. He doesn’t appreciate just how comfortable this cop is getting with you. His hand is on the door handle, almost tempted to head out and help you. But you already look calmer, head hanging down as you nod. Benson backs off, pulling out his card again and handing it to you. 

You take it without objecting, lifting your head to watch as the detective drives off. Pope can see you thinking, your foot tapping as you stare down at the card. He’s willing you to turn around and throw it away. To just forget about the cop. 

Instead, you pinch your nose, shaking your head as you put the card in your purse and climb back into your car. 

Pope’s seen enough. He sucks in a sharp breath, white-knuckling the steering wheel as he pulls out and away. The information he needs, he isn’t going to get from you. 

He drives back to Smurf’s place. And he knows that he should have just come to her to begin with. But he’s cagey about you. She knows he’s spending his nights somewhere else now. Somewhere away from her. 

He hasn’t told her about you. Going to her, asking about this Joseph guy, he knows it’s going to point right back to you. But you’re not talking to him, and he doesn’t know what else to do. 

Pope lets out a rough sigh, scrubbing his hand down his face as he parks. He’s trying to think of anywhere else he could go. Anyone else he could talk to so he can figure out what your connection to a dead man is. But he knows what you used to do for his mother, who you were. She knows. He’s sure of it. 

He slams his truck door closed, storming up the front steps. He can hear her in the kitchen, making dinner. He’d forgotten she’d called a family dinner tonight. The last goddamn place he wants to be is surrounded by his family while he’s dealing with this shit with you. 

“Hey, baby,” she calls, glancing over her shoulder with a sharp smile. “Where you been?”

Pope leans against the counter, jaw flexing as he shakes his head. “Nowhere,” he mutters. She narrows her eyes but doesn’t question him further. “Do you know a Joseph Barker?”

Smurf frowns, tilting her head as she thinks. “Yeah,” she smiles at him and nods. “Yeah, I do.” She says your name, and the way her smile sharpens has his chest tightening. “He was her favorite. Something happened between them. Haven’t heard from him in years.”

Smurf shrugs with a helpless smile, but he knows she hasn’t been helpless a goddamn day in her life. “Not my business to tell, baby. Now, help me set the table.”

He takes the plates she hands him instinctively, going to arrange the table just like she asked. Her words ring through his head. Your favorite. He hadn’t realized escorts had favorite clients, but he guesses it makes sense. 

Doesn’t matter that the man’s been dead three years; something ugly and sharp still burns hot through his chest. He slams the plates down harder than necessary, thinking about you having a favorite anything. 

You’ve done everything she asked. 

And you did your job too damn well. That’s why she’s punishing you. It has to be. She wanted you to entertain Pope, keep him occupied, and stop him from spiraling. You did just what she asked. 

You entertained him, cared for him, provided him with the sort of affection she saves up until he’s desperate for any form of contact. Until he’s practically broken. You’ve done your best to stop him from breaking, and that’s exactly why she’s doing this now. 

Smurf is bringing ghosts back, sending the cops on your trail so you remember just why you’re so afraid of her. It’s what she has on you that has kept you so compliant for years. 

You were only meant to entertain Pope. Not become something to him that has him skipping family dinners and ignoring Smurf’s calls. You’ve created this gap between her and him that has her trying to scare you into submission now. You’re so certain she’s the reason “new evidence came to light” on Joseph’s case.

But you have no idea what you’re supposed to do. There’s nowhere you can run, not now. You’ve never been particularly good at covering your trail. She’s the one who’d taken care of everything. Sworn that it was over and done with. 

You pace your living room, biting at your lip and trying not to break down. What the fuck are you going to do now?

Someone knocks on your front door, and you nearly scream. Clutching your racing chest, you turn toward it, debating not answering. Maybe it’s that detective again. Coming by with more questions. 

He’d got you at the gas station today. Tricked you into admitting that you knew Joseph. He got in your head with all that soft bullshit about wanting to help you—– you just had to be honest with him. You’re fragile, and you’re fucking stupid, slipping up like that. 

“It’s me,” Pope calls from the other side. You can’t tell if it's relief or panic that has your stomach swooping. 

“One sec,” you call, voice cracking. Grimacing, you rush up to the door, opening it up for him. “Hey, thought you had a family dinner tonight?” Your smile is tight at the edges, crumbling under the weight of your panic. 

You know your eyes are wide, expression bordering on desperate. You just don’t know if you’re desperate for him to stay or leave. In some strange way, he terrifies you. He sees so easily through all your lies and defenses. He knows something is wrong with you, but he hasn’t probed. And that’s what's scary. 

Because if he hasn’t felt like digging deeper, then what does he already know?

“Left early,” he tells you, stepping inside. Your forehead falls to the door, and you suck in a trembling breath as you try to get your shit together. 

With a quiet exhale, you turn around. His back is to you as he takes in the mess of your living room. A result of your earlier breakdown this morning. “Did you need something—”

“Whose Joseph Barker?” His voice is rough, eyes sharp as he turns to face you. Your nails bite into your palms as your mouth opens. But nothing comes out. You flounder, back pressed to the door as you shake your head helplessly. 

Pope huffs, crossing his arms as he glares at you. He’s not easing up in the slightest. “I talked to Smurf. I know he used to be one of your clients. You lied to me.”

“I—” your voice cracks, and you feel your chest heave as you drag in a breath. “I had to,” you mutter, pinching your eyes shut as you fight back tears. “Please, Pope, I don’t want to do this right now.”

“Too bad,” he snaps, voice making you jump. 

Why is he here?

Did she send him?

“You lied to me. I want to know why.” He stalks closer, and you dart away from the door, trying to put as much space between you as you can. Your eyes flit over his body, the way he pauses as he watches you run. His hands— loose at his sides. 

You would be able to tell, wouldn’t you? If he was going to hurt you. You want to think you would know. But it’s Pope… As much as you think you mean something to him, you will never be Smurf. 

“I couldn’t tell you the truth, Pope, okay? I still can’t.” You want him to leave. But you’re too afraid to say that. Your hand shakes at your side as you watch the way he blocks your door. He’s probably not even doing it on purpose, but it feels like the goddamn walls are closing in on you. 

He looks away from you, lips pursing as he sucks in a sharp breath. “Smurf told me he was one of your clients. That something happened—”

“God,” you scoff, cutting him off. “Are you really gonna trust a goddamn thing that woman says?”

His eyes flit back to you, and he shakes his head. “How am I supposed to know what to believe?” There is something so painfully broken open on his face. The sort of pain that’s only caused when someone you care about lies to you. And you’d done that. Repeatedly, you’ve lied to him about everything in your relationship. 

Your head drops as you rub your hand down your face. You can’t look into those hurt eyes of his for another second, or he’s going to break you open completely. “Okay,” you whisper, voice breaking around the word. 

He takes a step closer, but you can’t handle the proximity. Not while it feels like your ribs are seizing around your lungs. You shake your head, backing up and pacing away from him. “I knew him, okay? He was my client, you’re right.”

Pope watches as you pace, brows drawn in. Something guarded falls over his face. “She said he was your favorite.”

You pause, eyes lifting back to his. He can’t seriously be jealous of a dead man. “Yeah,” you scoff. “He was my favorite. That doesn’t mean a whole lot in my line of work. He didn’t hurt me, alright?” Not at first, anyway. “And I appreciated that.” Something flickers in his eyes, anger on your behalf that you’re not interested in. 

You look away from him, throat tightening as you try to find the right words to explain what happened. How it all went wrong. He takes a step closer, and your eyes dart warily to him. “Tell me,” his voice is softer now, a pleading edge to it. 

Sighing, you take a seat on your couch. He hovers beside you, waiting until you motion him over. He leaves some space between you, eyes intent on your face. “He was the first client Smurf ever assigned me to.” 

Licking your lips, you shake your head. “And the reason I needed Deran to get me out. It was… good, at first. I was still new, still fresh to the game. It was harder for me to remember that being with him was a paycheck. He made me laugh, and he never made me feel bad about who— about what I was.”

You finally look up; Pope hasn’t taken his eyes off you. His arm is draped over the couch behind you, his hand placed in his lap. But he’s tilted toward you, resisting the urge to touch you like you know he wants to. To try to ground you the way you do for him. 

“I killed him, Pope. What do you want me to say?”

You wait for it. The flicker in his eyes, the shock, maybe a little fear—though, you doubt he’s afraid of you. Something that registers just how despicable a creature you are. He tilts his head, “Is that it?”

You let out a sharp scoff, staring at him in disbelief. “Is that it?” You jump off the couch, whirling around on him. He remains seated, staring up at you with pensive eyes that make you so angry for some reason. “Pope, I thought I loved him, and then I fucking killed him. What do you mean, is that it?”

“Why?” He prods. 

“Why?” You let out take in a deep breath and forcing yourself to calm down. “Does that even matter?”

“Yeah,” he shoots you a sharp look, finally getting to his feet. “It matters. Tell me why.”

You can’t quite meet his eyes, staring down at your hands. It’s jarring, thinking about that night. You’ve done your very best to forget as much of it as you can. He finally reaches out, taking your hands in his own and stopping you from picking at any more of your skin. A little bit of blood blooms around the edges of your nail, and you grimace. 

“He wanted to play a game. I said I didn’t like it, but he insisted. And… He wouldn’t stop when I told him to. I got scared, really scared for the first time since I’d been with him. I forgot that he was paying for my time, that I really didn’t deserve a say. I grabbed whatever I could reach, a fucking pillow of all things, and I hit him.”

You clench your eyes shut as you think of it. “It caught him off guard, and he fell over. Knocked his head on the edge of the nightstand. I just watched as he spasmed on the floor, as blood started pooling under him. I didn’t know what to do, so I…”

You suck in a sharp breath, your confession a whisper. “I ran.”

What you don’t tell him is how you called Smurf, told her what happened. She’d told you to leave the key to the room under the motel’s mat. That she’d take care of it. You never knew what she did with the body. But you’d been so panicked, you didn’t question why she wanted to deal with it herself. Why didn’t she just tell you to deal with it? 

You still don’t know what it is she has over you. An admission of where you were that night? Pictures of you and him together? Or maybe, just your DNA on the body. Whatever it is, it’s had you on a tight leash, tethered to her for the past three years. And if Pope knows about that, you’re afraid of how deep he’ll dig into your relationship with him. Of what he’ll find out if he goes looking. 

“Do you think someone can be forgiven?” You ask, looking up at him. “For hurting someone they love?”

To your surprise, his eyes water slightly as he stares down at your hands. “Pope?” you question, dipping down to try and catch his eye. He blinks a few times and sniffles, looking away from you. “What happened?” you ask softly. 

He shakes his head. “Nothing,” he tells you. 

Your eyes narrow as you glare at him. “You think I don’t know that look? What happened?”

He sucks in a shaky breath and purses his lips, finally meeting your eye. “I don’t think I can be forgiven,” his voice cracks around the words, and you tug him closer, dragging him down into a hug. 

He presses his cheek to your shoulder, arms tight around you as his shoulders shudder. “I killed Cath,” he mutters, voice muffled against your skin. Your eyes fly wide, and you struggle not to tense up beneath his touch. 

“Smurf had told me she was talking to the cops, and I— I killed her. I hurt her,” his voice is breaking down, and you can feel your heart pounding against your chest. You hold him tighter against you, a shield so he can’t pull back and see the terror in your eyes. 

You’ve always been afraid of what he’s capable of under Smurf’s command. But in some—ridiculously stupid—way, you’d thought there were exceptions to how far he would go for her. You should have known better. 

Pope never stood a chance against that woman. She’s had her nails dug in since he was a baby, promoting the idea that there was no room in his life for any other woman but her. You thought love, real love, would stop that, but you were wrong. 

He cries as you hold him, and you grimace. Would he do the same to you if she told him to?

This was a reach for normalcy, you’re sure. 

Things between you and Pope have been off ever since you told him about Joseph and he told you about Cath. The pair of you are practically perfect for each other: always hurting the people you love. 

Things with him feel more intense now. Like you’ve shared these secrets, and there’s no going back. You’re both stuck with each other. You wouldn’t mind it if you just didn’t know about Cath. More specifically, if you didn’t know that he had been in love with Cath when he killed her.

You don’t judge him for it, not in the way you should. You’ve seen how Smurf gets into her sons’ heads; you see how she used to hurt Deran with her expectations of him. 

But he knew how to break away from her, at least marginally. Pope never got that chance. At each and every opportunity for a positive influence in his life, she cut it off. Even if that meant being the reason her own daughter was dead. 

To try and settle yourselves from the tension and the perception shattering reveals… he’s taken you out to dinner. It’s a nice restaurant; you’ll give him that. Nicer than where you typically go. The menu isn’t cheap laminated plastic, and your elbows don’t stick to the table. 

You’re surrounded by happy couples. They’ve either got rings on their fingers, or that content look in their eye that they’ve found the right person to spend their life with. The place is perfect on paper. 

But you aren’t. 

You’re unsettled, scared, and incapable of sitting with your back to the door because you’re so afraid of who could come up behind you. Smurf has gotten into your head with all the investigation bullshit she’s been throwing at you. As much as you want to enjoy this with Pope, you can’t. 

You’re too busy thinking about whether or not she’s fuming that he’s not at home right now. Is tonight the night she turns you in? Or tells him to hurt you?

Sucking in a sharp breath, you force yourself to focus on the menu. You can feel Pope’s stare burning into you, but you can’t find the energy to meet his eye. 

“Do you like it?” He suddenly asks, probably about the restaurant. 

You force a stiff smile on your face and nod. “It’s nice,” you mutter, unable to come up with anything better. His expression tightens, and he narrows his eyes at you. “Really, Pope,” you let out a stiff laugh. “You did good.”

That’s not enough to make him feel better, but he accepts it, at least. The waitress comes up, and you don’t even know what you order, just blindly saying whatever Pope did. The table is quiet as you eat. You’re one of the only couples in the place not whispering to each other or getting lost in each other’s eyes. 

He doesn’t prod, which you appreciate. After dinner, you take his hand and lead him down from the restaurant to the beach outside. You sit down on the sand, enjoying the way the moon’s light reflects off the waves. 

He settles beside you, arm pressed to yours, and watches the water wash across the sand. “Can I ask you something?” You rest your chin on your knees, turning toward him. 

“What?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the water. 

You think of something Deran had once told you, about Pope being a nickname. “What’s your name?”

Pope lets out a little laugh, turning toward you. “You don’t know?”

You click your tongue with a disappointed sigh. “I thought it was Pope for a while, honestly.” 

He leans in close, tone almost teasing. “Why’re you asking now?”

“Because I want to know you, not…” Not the man Smurf made you into. “Humor me?”

The slight smile he’d had slips from his face as he turns back toward the waves. “Andrew,” he admits, his voice soft with what sounds like vulnerability. Something guarded falls over his face, and you look away. 

“Andrew,” you whisper, testing it out. He turns toward you, and you can tell he likes how it sounds on your tongue. “So… Where the hell did Pope come from?”

That earns a laugh from him. You grin, turning to catch his eye as he looks over at you. His smile fades slightly as his lips twitch, shoulders hunching up. “When I was younger, I started going to church. I didn’t really know what to do with myself, and I figured if anyone could help, it would be God.”

He sniffles and looks away from you, gaze distant as he stares out at the ocean. “I got close to one of the priests at the church. Smurf and Baz found out. They made me use that connection to rob the place.” His voice cracks slightly as he continues, but his expression remains guarded. He doesn’t want you to think it still affects him. 

“He tried to stop us, and I beat him with a fucking bible,” he scoffs and shakes his head. “They’d always called me Pope. For being… different. It just stuck after that.” 

Bile burns in your throat as you watch him, but he won’t look at you, not now. After everything he’s told you, does he really think that’s what's going to scare you off? It just makes you hate Smurf more. 

You wish you could have known him when he was younger. That you could have helped him in any way. But he never really stood a chance. 

“I like Andrew better,” you whisper, leaning your head on his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, just presses his head to yours, taking in a deep breath as his body goes lax under you. 

You can’t keep this up much longer. 

Pope wakes up to a message from you, asking to talk. His chest tightens as he takes in a short breath. He hasn’t had a lot of normal relationships, but even he knows that’s never a good sign. 

Pocketing his phone, he pinches his eyes shut, shaking off the feeling and heading into the kitchen. Smurf stands by the oven, flipping pancakes. “Breakfast is almost ready, baby,” his lip curls at the pet name. 

He’s not particularly interested in spending the morning with her. It’s been harder to stomach being around her after he learned about what you’d done to Joseph. There are these questions bursting at the seams of his lips. 

The type of questions that would only lead to trouble for you and him. 

Smurf turns from the stove and offers him a saccharine smile. She says your name, catching him off guard. He turns toward her with narrowed eyes, and that smile grows cruel. “Have you seen her around lately, baby?”

He clears his throat, shaking his head as he reaches out to straighten the plates she’d put out. “Why?”

Smurf lets out a little laugh and shrugs, plating some fruit and pancakes, passing it off to him like he’s a child incapable of getting himself his own food. There’s such a confusing divide between how she treats him and what she expects from him. Infantilizing him while demanding perfection. 

“I, uh, I got a business associate I’d like her to meet.” She offers a conspiratorial wink that makes his stomach sour. “He’d have some fun with her,” she mutters. She glances up through her lashes at him, just waiting for him to take the bait. 

Pope’s hands tighten around the edge of the counter as he glares down at his plate. “Is she still working for you?” he asks, voice strained. 

Smurf tilts her head with an obviously forced look of confusion. “Didn’t she tell you? I’m sorry, baby, I thought you knew.” 

Pope knows better, at this point, than to blindly believe her. Smurf does this with anyone he starts to get too close to. He’d like to believe he’s been subtle about you, good at keeping you behind closed doors. But she knows. She always knows. 

And she always finds a way to make him start to doubt. To make him start questioning what he thought was real. He doesn’t want that to happen with you. Not like it did with Cath. Not like…

Not like Julia. 

“I’m not hungry,” he tells her, voice strained with barely restrained anger as he storms out of the house. Her smirk bores into his back as he goes. 

You weren’t still working with her; you’d told him that. And after finding out what happened with Joseph, he doubts that you would ever willingly go back to that life. You don’t need to, either. You have him now; if you were struggling, he’d take care of it. Take care of you. 

He gets into his truck, knee bouncing as he stares out the windshield. After debating for a moment, he pulls out his phone. He swipes to the location app he’d installed, the same one he’d added to your phone when you’d been in the bathroom the other night. 

Your icon pops up… driving right toward some scummy motel off the highway. 

His chest seizes as he stares down at the address. Smurf’s words echo through his head. He knows she’s lying, that she’s just trying to get under his skin. But that doesn’t stop the images that start barraging his thoughts. 

Thinking of… someone else getting to touch you, to be with you. 

You choosing someone else… 

Something white-hot and furious floods him, has him peeling out of the driveway before he can really think about what he’s about to do. 

He follows the app’s directions toward you, not stopping until he’s parked at the far entrance of the motel. It doesn’t take him long to spot you. You’re still in your car, biting your nail as you stare down at your phone. 

Your eyes are frenzied in a way he’s never seen before on you. Everything about you seems off-kilter. This is a new low for you, he hasn’t ever seen you get to this point before. Not even when you were telling him about Joseph. You must be scared, then. You must know that this is wrong. 

And, still, he watches as you get out of the car, sucking in a deep breath before turning toward the stairs. Pope sits there. He should be getting out of the truck, dragging you back to your car, and demanding to know what you think you’re doing. 

But he doesn’t, because he’s willing you to turn back around. To change your mind and drive off. You don’t. 

He’s practically cucking himself as he watches you knock on one of the doors. A man opens it, close in age to you, and relatively good-looking. Not the type that should be in a scuzzy place like this. 

Pope opens up his glove compartment, pulls out the gun inside, and tucks it in the waistband of his jeans. He has no thoughts as he throws open the truck door, no plan for what he’s going to say to you to explain his presence. He’s not going to tell you he’s been tracking you. Clearly, you’re hiding things from him, too. 

Just as he gets out, the motel door closes. You move inside and stand in front of the open window. He waits a moment, but you take a seat at the table. The man sits across from you. Neither of you makes a move toward the bed. Instead, you seem to be talking amicably with him. 

Maybe this is another one of your “favorites.”

The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. 

The man you’re with slips something across the table to you. You grimace, glancing around. You seem to just be noticing the open curtains. Jumping up, you’re quick to pull them closed. Pope can just barely make out your silhouette behind them. 

He glances down at his watch with a sigh. You get two minutes, and then he’s coming in. Pope leans against his truck, eyes trained on the scummy door. The waiting is agonizing. Two minutes shouldn’t feel this long to him. 

You might not be meeting a client right now, but it’s clear that you’re still hiding something from him. He thought that after he’d told you about Cath, that would be it. You would realize you don’t have to hide anything from him anymore. He’d given you information that could end him if you wanted to. 

Checking his watch, he starts toward the stairs just as the door opens. “Shit,” he hisses, ducking back behind his truck. You walk out of the room with a little wave to the other man. You don’t look disheveled; your clothes don’t look like they’ve been put back in a rush. He lets out a sigh, but relief doesn’t lessen the pressure of his chest as he takes in the large yellow envelope in your hand.

Your head lifts, brows furrowing as you look around the parking lot. Pope ducks and moves behind his truck. He waits before popping his head back out. You’re already getting back into your car. 

He keeps his gaze intent on you as he pulls out his phone, dialing your number. He sees through your window as you jump, glancing down at your phone with a grimace. After too long hesitating, you answer. 

“Hey,” you offer awkwardly. He almost wants to smile at the way you shake your head at yourself. 

“Where are you?” He asks, getting into his truck as you start your car. 

He hears the way you swallow, fingers bouncing against your steering wheel as you sigh. “Grocery store, why?”

Why is it so easy for you to lie to him?

His jaw tenses as he works to control the tone of his voice. “You said you wanted to talk,” he grits out. 

“Uh, yeah. Not on the phone, it’s kind of a lot.” Your head falls back onto your seat as you let out a heavy breath. “Are you free tonight?”

“Yeah,” he mutters. “I’ll see you later.” He hangs up before you can respond, tossing his phone into the other seat. You frown down at your phone for a second before pulling out of the parking lot. He starts his truck, intent on following you when someone messages him. 

His fingers drum against the steering wheel, staring after you, before he finally picks his phone back up. Smurf’s name is the last thing he wants to see. 

Come home. 

Now. 

Of course, she doesn’t tell him why. She calls, he comes. That’s just how it works. That’s just how it always works. 

Pope throws his phone back and turns in the opposite direction you went. Right back to Smurf, ever the obedient son. 

“I was in the middle of something,” he calls out as he storms into the house. He’s expecting Smurf as he heads into the kitchen. But J standing beside her is disconcerting. Especially that look he’s got on his normally stoic face. 

J meets Pope’s eyes, and he swears there’s an apology in them. The oddity of it tames some of the anger broiling inside him. 

“You’re going to want to hear this,” Smurf tells him, lacking that normal saccharine tone she lays on too thick. 

Pope freezes, eyes darting between the pair before slowly nodding. Smurf lets out a low sigh, though he truly doubts this is hurting her as much as she’s pretending. Slowly, she slides a piece of paper over to him. He’s annoyed by the drama of it all and glares over at J before flipping it. 

His nails dig into the counter as he looks down at a picture of you. You’re standing in front of the police station, hand on Detective Benson’s arm as he stares down at you. It certainly looks damning. 

“Are you following her?” He grits out, eyes flitting up to meet Smurf’s. 

Her expression hardens as she scoffs. She glances over to J, but he looks less than enthused about involving himself. “You’ve had bad taste in women before, but this is a new low, baby.” Pope shakes his head, passing the picture back to her. 

“You know why they’re looking into her. That doesn’t mean anything.” It feels petulant to argue about this with her. He always feels so childish butting up against her because she is so good at making everything he says small. 

“Michael, one of my old associates and one of her former clients, was arrested today. Someone sent in an anonymous tip about his more illicit business practices. His warehouse got raided. And I’m supposed to think it’s a coincidence your girlfriend just happens to be talking to cops, right now?”

“It wasn’t—”

“I’ve been keeping an eye on her,” J interrupts. “She’s been around the cops, man. A lot for someone who seems so scared of them.”

Pope leans against the counter, letting out a low groan as his shoulders hunch over. He shakes his head. “No. It’s not like that.” But he doesn’t even know if that’s true. He doesn’t know if he can trust you not to hurt him. Not to hurt his family. 

You’re desperate, and you’re feeling cornered. People have done worse for lower stakes than avoiding a murder charge. 

“Why wouldn’t you come to me?” He asks Smurf, eyes cutting over harshly to J. A warning to keep his mouth shut if he doesn’t want it shut for him. 

Smurf takes a step closer, and Pope backs up, watching her warily. She tilts her head with a sympathetic sigh. “Has she not told you, baby?”

He sucks his teeth, shaking his head. “Told me what?”

Smurf makes a disparaging noise that sets his teeth on edge. “I’ve been paying her to keep you company.” His chest tightens, and he jerks back, wishing J weren’t here right now. It’s bad enough Smurf is saying this to him; he doesn’t need a goddamn audience. 

He wants to object; he knows that's not true, and she just keeps going. “She’s not your girlfriend, baby. She’s just another whore who will do anything for the right price. And now, she’s someone we need to take care of. I’m worried about you, Pope. You knew she was talking to the cops, and you didn’t come to me?”

Pope has nothing to defend himself with. He doesn’t even want to. He just stands there, lungs tightening with pain as he tries to catch his breath. She was paying you to be with him. 

Was anything with you real?

“Are you still with us?” Smurf asks, tone biting. 

“What?” Pope croaks out, ignoring the way his eyes have begun to burn. 

“You knew that someone close to you— close to me was going to the cops. And you didn’t say anything. Are you going to let this girl, a nobody, hurt your family? You’re going to let her get away with this?” 

Smurf and J both stare at him with these expressions of betrayal. It’s muted in J. The kid holds everything so close to his chest; it’s the exact opposite of how Julia had been. And Smurf… she’ll say anything, do anything to make him hurt. Because for once, he’d been paying someone else more attention. Giving you more priority. 

But you’d just been another one of her girls. Playing the long game to keep him docile. 

“I’ll take care of it,” he whispers. 

Smurf glances over at J before leaning in close to Pope. “Just like Cath, baby,” she mutters, and something inside him snaps. 

He lets himself in with the copy he’d made of your key. It’s better if he doesn’t give you a chance to prepare. There’s a shuffling in your room, the sound of frantic footsteps as you rush from one side of the room to the next. 

Pope slowly makes his way through the apartment as he takes in the wreck you’ve made of it. Drawers opened and emptied. Random pieces of paper scattered throughout, sheets and blankets tossed around the living room. It looks like someone came through and raided everything. 

He walks into your room and watches you rip out all the clothes from your closet. You turn away from it and catch sight of him standing in front of your door. “Jesus!” You shout, jumping back, clothes falling to the floor. 

Letting out a laugh, your eyes widen and dart toward your bed. He follows your gaze, sees a suitcase open on the floor. That yellow envelope you’d gotten from the motel right on top. He looks back at you as you rush over and kick it to the side. 

“I thought you’d call first,” you deflect, giving him a flustered smile. It’s strained, shadowed by the panic in your eyes. When he doesn’t say anything, the smile falls. “Did I leave the door unlocked?”

Pope takes another step into the room, and you eye him warily, but you don’t back away as he expects. You move closer, face creased with concern. He doesn’t know if you’re worried for him or about him. He thought he knew you, thought he could read you. 

You loved proving him wrong, apparently. 

His hands flex at his sides, the gun in his waistband a heavy weight on his back. He doesn’t know why he brought it. Probably because Smurf was watching him, expecting it. Pope knows he could never look in your eyes and pull the trigger, even with how much you’ve lied to him. He’s too weak. 

Too pathetic. 

“Have you been talking to the cops?”

Your brows furrow, and you nod. Easy admittance makes him doubt you. Everything you’ve done up to this point makes him doubt you. “Yeah, I’ve been trying to get that detective off my ass.”

“Have you taken on other clients?” He demands, not letting you have a chance to tie your story together. 

“No,” you take a step forward, but the look on his face has you stopping short. “Andrew, why are you asking me that? You know you’re the only person I’m seeing.”

“Your only client,” he corrects, watching as your face falls, panic blanketing your features. “Smurf told me. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” He demands, stalking toward you. To your credit, you don’t back down. 

Your eyes crinkle like you want to cry, but you don’t run away. “You’re lying to me. Again!” He snaps, voice rough as he sucks in a shaky breath. 

You bite your lip, swallowing thickly as you shake your head. “Please, I am begging you to listen to me. I love you, Andrew,” he jerks away from you as you reach for him. But you don’t stop, rushing forward and taking his face in your hands. He could fight you, but he lets you redirect his gaze back to yours. 

“I didn’t have a choice,” your voice cracks as you grimace. “Smurf, she would have made me take on more clients if I didn’t take the money. She—” you bite your lip, and your voice softens into something painful. “She knows about Joseph, okay? She took care of the body. She’s the one sending the cops after me.”

His hands come up to cover yours, and you smile, but then he’s pulling away from you. Eyes narrowing as pain seizes his chest. “You lied about that, too?”

“No, I— Fuck,” you groan, dragging your hands down your face. 

“How am I supposed to trust anything you say? I’ve followed you,” Pope admits. There’s no shame in him as you look at him in surprise. “I saw you at the motel today. Who were you meeting with if that wasn’t a client?”

“I can explain that,” you rush out, breathless as you turn toward your suitcase. You grab the yellow envelope, your hands fumbling as you pour the contents out on your bed. There’s a stack of cash, some cards, and two passports that scatter across your comforter. You pick up two of the cards and turn back to him. 

“Smurf isn’t just idly threatening me with this Joseph thing, alright? So I’ve been meeting up with old friends and contacts. Trying to put together enough to get out of here.” He looks at you with hurt in his eyes. 

You were running… 

He shouldn’t be surprised. 

“But,” you hold the cards out to him. “I’ve been waiting for you.” Glancing down, he sees they’re new IDs; one of them has his picture on it. “I thought we could go together,” you rush out, a manic smile on your face as you nod. 

“You weren’t going to leave me?”

You suck in a sharp breath and shake your head. “No, I swear. I know I haven’t given you a good reason to trust me, but I wouldn’t do that to you. Andrew, please, just look at me.”

He grits his teeth, finally meeting your eyes. A few tears run down your cheeks as you wait for him to say something. But he doesn’t know what he could say to you. He remembers when Smurf sent him after Cath. 

She’d told him that she’d been talking to the cops. That she was putting the family in danger. And he had done what she’d wanted. He’d killed Cath, the woman he was in love with. He can’t—

It makes him sick to think of pushing you down on the bed, to put a pillow over your face as he’d done to her. His hands twitch at his sides as you reach up, cupping his cheek. “I love you, Andrew. And you don’t have to believe me, okay? But I wouldn’t leave you, not without telling you first.”

There have been a lot of women in his life who have said they’d loved him. He used to believe Smurf when she said it, until it started to feel empty. Until it became something that hurt him. He’d believed Julia, and then he’d left her. Cath had never meant it. 

But you do. 

“I can’t,” he mutters, pushing away from you and shaking his head, dragging his hands through his hair. “No, I can’t.”

“Andrew, please.” He wishes you wouldn’t call him that. It’s too soft, too good for what he deserves. “What’s wrong?” Pope looks back over at you, that glint in your eye. You can’t be scared, can you? He wouldn’t hurt you. 

You reach out to him, and he falls into you easily, cheek pressed to your shoulder as he tries to get his breath under control. “I need to tell you something,” you whisper. 

“Don’t,” he mutters, turning, pressing his head into the nape of your neck. His arms squeeze tight around you, trying to keep himself grounded in your touch. Your arms drape low around his back, and he feels your fingers graze the handle of the gun in his waistband. 

He can feel the way your body tenses under him, breath stalling in your throat. The gun isn’t for you. Why did he bring it?

“I’m pregnant.” 

It’s his turn to go still. You hold your breath as he slowly pulls away, eyes watery as he glares at you. “Are you lying?” he chokes out, unable to take any more deceit from you. 

You shake your head, pulling away and running off to your bathroom. He’s left right where he’s standing, stunned and in disbelief. You can’t be. Can you?

It’s not as though either of you has ever been particularly picky about using protection. And he hadn’t ever bothered asking if you were taking anything. His stomach twists itself into knots as you walk back toward him. You hold something out, and suddenly he’s staring down at a positive pregnancy test. 

“Oh,” Pope lets out a rough breath, doubling over as he tries to get his head under control. There’s too much racing through it. Too many different commands urging for his attention. He drops to his knees, unable to meet your eye. 

“Andrew,” you whisper, taking a step closer and running your hand over his hair. His head falls onto your stomach, hands finding their way to your hips as he shakes his head. 

He can feel you trembling beneath his touch, breath shaking as you cup the back of his head. “Please,” you beg, “don’t do what Smurf wants you to.”

His head shoots up, but you’re not looking at him. Your face is pointed toward the ceiling like you’re trying not to cry. Getting to his feet, he cups your cheeks, forcing you to look at him. 

He knows what Smurf wants, what’s expected of him. You’re a threat. A threat to her. To the family, just for knowing what they do. He has failed so many people he loves, but he’s never failed her. 

Pope can’t do to you what he did to Cath…

To Julia. 

His head drops, forehead pressing to yours. You let your weight rest on him, taking in shaking breaths while his eyes drop to the new IDs on the bed. “I won’t,” he swears. 

You’re on a hotel bed, expression bored as you watch Andrew. He’s sitting at the table, knee bouncing slightly as he reads through a magazine he picked up at the grocery store. It’s clearly marketed toward women with its swooping, pink font. But the pregnant woman on the front, the 50 tips for an easier pregnancy! has completely stolen his attention. 

There’s a bottle of prenatal vitamins by his elbow, and the dingy hotel fridge has been stocked with food for the past few weeks. He’s settling into this lifestyle a lot faster than you are. You miss your apartment above Deran’s place. You miss your shower and your bed. 

But Andrew had told you it was too risky to stay there. So he’d taken your suitcase and brought you to a decent hotel with “luxury” accommodations. You’re financing the stay for now. Just while he works on compiling savings in an account not attached to Smurf’s name. 

Your phone was trashed. A burner shoved in your hand instead. You hadn’t even gotten a chance to say anything to Deran. Andrew thought it was too much of a risk. 

“Are you feeling sick?” he suddenly asks, looking up from the magazine, brows pinched. 

“Huh?” you mutter, turning away from the crappy soap you’d put on TV. 

He gets up from the table and moves to sit beside you on the bed. He’s closer than he typically would be, eyes roving your face like it’ll give him the answers he’s looking for. “Do you feel sick at all?”

You glance down at the page of the magazine he’s on, catch the words “morning sickness blues,” and grin. “I’m fine.” You promise, taking his hand in yours. He squeezes your palm, moving closer. “I don’t think I’m far enough along yet to be worrying about that.”

You actually don’t know how far along you are, period. Amongst the worry of running from the cops, escaping Andrew’s mother, and the general hell your life has turned into… 

You haven’t made the time for a gyno appointment. You’re sure that if Andrew weren’t so worried about Smurf discovering you, he would have already dragged you to one. 

Letting go of his hand, you get up to go to the bathroom. You can feel his eyes on you the entire five feet it takes you to get there. You’re quick to push the door closed, back pressed against it as you suck in a deep breath. 

He’s doing his best, you know that. Every day, he tells you that this is all temporary. He just needs time. Time to make a plan for you both. Time to get the proper amount of funds for your escape. 

Time, time, time

There doesn’t seem to be enough of it lately. Each day grows shorter, the walls shrink around you, and it’s harder to catch your breath. He’s settling well, his toothbrush beside yours on the sink, spare clothes folded in the dresser. 

He’s adapted to this like he could live in this hotel forever with you. Always keeps your shoes by the door, complains when you move them, and he trips on them. Keeps food stocked in the room and bought sheets that are actually comfortable to sleep in. As if this is just the home you’re going to share with him now. 

But you’re cracking around the edges. Every day that you don’t have a deadline for when you get to leave pushes you one step closer to the edge. He says it’s temporary, but it’s getting harder to believe him. 

Scrubbing your hands down your face, you move toward the sink, splashing cold water over your cheeks. He’s been fussier since he learned you're pregnant. He always looks like he thinks you’re going to keel over. As if being pregnant makes you this new, breakable thing. It’s slightly aggravating, but you understand where he’s coming from. 

Stepping out of the bathroom, you find he’s right where you left him. Posture stiff as he continues flipping through that ridiculous magazine. You walk over, snatching it quickly from his lap and dropping it on the nightstand. “You know all of this is bullshit, right?” you tease. 

He only narrows his eyes at you, arms crossed as he huffs. “You should try reading some of it.”

You crawl into bed beside him, scoffing. “Are you calling me a bad pregnant lady?”

“No,” he mutters, immediately making room for you beside him. Even how he holds you at night is different, now. You’re not just you to him anymore. Suddenly, you’re carrying his child, too, even if you’re not showing. 

You settle with your back to his chest, his arms wrapping securely around your front. He sleeps on the side closest to the door. Always still slightly awake, just in case. 

Your hand drifts down, taking a hold of his and letting out a soft sigh. He shifts, pressing himself closer. “How much longer do you think we’ll be here?” you whisper, afraid to break the peaceful quiet. 

“Until I can get some things together.”

He’d said that last week, but you don’t have the energy to deal with that right now. Instead, you roll over, wrapping your arms around him as you let out a tired sigh. His arms tighten around you, cheek pressed to your head as you let the droning sounds of the TV put you to sleep. 

“What’s that?”

Andrew looks up from the groceries he’d been unloading. He shakes his head, and you point to the box on the table. “Cereal,” he tells you bluntly. 

“Yeah, some weird whole grain shit,” you sigh as you pick up the box. It proudly promotes whole grains, fiber in every bite, and absolutely no added sugar. Eating the box would taste better. 

Andrew stalks over with a sigh, taking the box from your hands. “It’s healthy. You need to eat more fiber.”

You shoot him an affronted glare. “You’re a doctor, now?”

He straightens up from the groceries with an aggrieved sigh. “Diet is important.” The stern look he shoots you goes unappreciated. 

“I resent that,” you pick up the cereal and shake it at him,  “and I resent this.” He shakes his head, undeterred by your complaints, as he continues to display all the healthy options he picked up today. You’re really starting to miss sugar. 

You wonder what he would think if he knew you went down to the hotel lobby and loaded up on soda and junk while he was out. 

Moving toward the dresser, you’re digging around for a pair of socks when you notice something plastic rattling around. “What…” Moving aside some of Andrew’s pants, you see a pacifier and baby bottle hidden beneath his clothes. 

Unable to stop yourself from smiling, you pull them both out and turn toward him. “A little early for this, isn’t it?”

He straightens up, glancing over at you. His jaw tenses as he lets out a rough sigh. “They were on sale.” He tells you bluntly, striding over and taking them from you. You can’t help but snort as he carefully places them back in the drawer. 

“Anything else you’re hiding in there?”

He pauses, and you don’t really expect him to answer. But then he opens the top drawer and moves aside some shirts. Beneath are three parenting books. Each with stupider names than the last. “Wow,” you whistle. “You’re making me look bad.”

He’s quiet for a moment before frowning. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

Your chest tightens as you look him over, that slightly unsure tilt to his lips. “You won’t,” you tell him, squeezing his arm and offering a soft smile. He just nods; you’re not sure he actually believes you. Clearing your throat, you try to break up the tense moment. “Besides, you’re definitely taking this a lot more seriously than I am.”

The look he gives you is tired. You’re just pointing out what he’s already been nagging you about. “You’re pregnant.” As if you need reminding. 

With nothing to do in this tiny room, you walk over to the bed, throwing yourself on it and grabbing the remote. The magazine from the other night is still on the nightstand. You glance over at it, thinking about the baby bottle and whatever else he’s bought in the dresser. 

“You know, that said not to start buying anything until after the first trimester,” you tell him, nodding toward the magazine. “When the risk of a miscar—”

“I know what it said,” he interrupts, glancing over at you. “It was just… It was on sale,” he mutters, not meeting your eye. His shoulders hunch as he reorganizes the pantry area he’d created. 

Guilt sours in your stomach, and you shift uncomfortably on the bed. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to…” the words won’t come. He looks too uncomfortable for you to keep prodding at what you’re sure is one of his biggest worries right now. That anything might happen to you or the baby.

Your hand rests over your stomach, lips curling as you glance down at your complete absence of a bump. “It doesn’t feel real,” you muse. “I guess that’s why I’m not taking it more seriously.”

Andrew pauses what he’s doing, glancing over his shoulder at you. “I just keep thinking about when we’re going to get out of here.” He looks down at that, and you sigh. “Soon,” you mutter, before he can feed you the same empty promise he has been. 

“Look,” he gets to his feet, but his phone starts ringing on the table. You can see his name from where you’re sitting. Deran lights up the screen, and your stomach sinks with guilt. You wonder if he’s worried about you or if he just thinks you’re another unfortunate soul who slipped through the cracks. Andrew glances between you and his phone before picking it up and walking out of the room. You can hear him answer just as the door closes. 

Grabbing the TV remote, you spend a few minutes channel surfing before settling on an old sitcom. By the time you’re done, he’s coming back. He lets out a short sigh, jaw flexing as he tosses his phone on the table. 

“What was that?” you ask, motioning him over. He follows obediently, settling beside you on the bed. His back is stiffer than normal, shoulders tense as he stares blankly ahead at the TV. “Andrew?” you murmur, reaching up to run your hand through his hair. 

Andrew sinks easily into the touch, finally looking over at you. “Deran says he and Craig have a job. One Smurf’s not involved in.” Your heart rate picks up, and you try not to let your excitement show too much. “Could be enough,” he mutters, looking down at his hands. He doesn’t seem convinced. 

“That’s good,” you remind him, keeping your voice soft. He just nods, not seeming like he’s truly present with you. With a sigh, you tug on his shoulder slightly. He moves easily, sinking further onto the bed as he lowers his head on your lap. His hand comes up to wrap around your thigh, more grounding than possessive in his intent. 

You let your hand smooth over his curls as you sink back into the pillows. “This is good,” you remind him, ignoring the worry that tightens your gut when he says nothing in return. He just settles closer to you, and you have to let yourself be content with what you have.  

Waking up alone has become foreign to you. Andrew doesn’t like leaving without you waking up first. Which, you’re sure bugs him on the days you’re particularly slow getting out of bed. Today, the spot beside you is cold; the shape of his body is still indented on the sheets. 

It takes you a moment to remember the job he’d told you about with his brothers. He didn’t have time to wait for you today. You throw back the sheets and let out a low groan, rubbing your back as pain shoots up your spine. 

God, you miss your bed. 

These hotel slabs were just making you stiffer every day. Glancing over at the table, you see he’s quite pointedly left out the fibrous cereal for you. Scoffing, you slip on your shoes and run down to the lobby. 

They have a little store full of grab-and-go snacks. With your warden out today, you grab all the junk you can carry and take it back up to the room. There’s really nothing you can do to pass the time besides turn on the TV and stuff your face with as much processed sugar as you can handle. 

You just have to make sure to hide the wrappers before he gets back. 

You make sure to keep an eye on the clock all day. There’s never a guarantee how long a job will take. That’s dependent on the materials they need, the plans they lay out, and whether or not the job requires patience rather than rushing in for a quick cash grab. 

Andrew hadn’t deigned to share any of the details with you, so you're left in the dark. 

You toss away the wrapper to a honey bun—that may have been expired—and feel your eyes begin to burn from staring at the same screen for so long. There's a sharp pain in your stomach, and you let out a groan, doubling over as you press down on the ache. 

Spitefully consuming a bunch of processed junk might have been really stupid. 

Grimacing, you get up and head to the bathroom. There’s another sharp pinch, and you let out a low gasp, grimacing as a cold pain shoots through your body. “Jesus,” you hiss out. 

Approaching the toilet, you pull your pants down and pause. It’s hard to tell; your underwear is a dark blue. But…

Yeah, just there is a little bit of blood. 

Your stomach swoops as you jerk your pants back up and rush toward the bed. You rip the magazine off the nightstand and flip through until you find the pregnancy section. 

It takes a few minutes of scanning, your foot tapping restlessly as you do, before you find what you’re looking for. “Spotting is completely normal in your first trimester!”

Letting out a low breath of relief, you almost laugh at yourself. You wish you could, but then you see that little asterisk next to the sentence, and your eyes drop to the bottom of the page. 

*You should always consult your doctor if spotting is accompanied by any sharp pain or abdominal discomfort. 

The magazine slips from your hands as you grab your phone off the bed. A million thoughts race through your head before everything just comes to a stop. All you can think about is that stupid superstition of not buying anything until the second trimester. Because what if… 

What if you lose it?

A cold panic spikes through your blood; it chills you down to your toes. And it’s not even for you; it’s hardly for this baby. Because this still doesn’t feel real to you. It’s not something you’ve gotten to know or love. But suddenly it's something you could lose. 

And it’s Andrew you’re thinking about. His face as you tell him you lost the baby. 

Shaking the thoughts away, you dial his number on the burner he gave you and wait. It rings for a minute before you hang up and try again. Your foot taps impatiently against the floor; another sharp pain digs its nails into your stomach and rips. 

Letting out a groan, you clutch your gut, kneeling on the floor while you dial him again. Halfway through, you finally remember that he’s not going to answer. Not while he’s on a job. 

That’s probably why he’d been acting so off last night. He can’t afford any distractions during a job. Meaning no phone and no you. You bet he was thinking of a situation just like this one. Where you need him, and he can’t get to you. 

“Fuck,” you hiss. You throw your phone on the bed and turn toward the hotel’s landline. You jam your fingers into the numberpad, calling the front desk. It doesn’t take long to connect, but you can barely get the words out through the pain you’re struggling to breathe through. 

You ask them to order you a cab and force yourself off the bed. It’s a herculean effort to get downstairs and in the lobby. From there, it’s kind of a blur. It’s not until you’re in the waiting room at the hospital that you realize you left your phone in the hotel. 

“Shit,” you hiss, head falling back against the wall. 

“How are we feeling today?” 

You look up from your hands and glare over at the doctor who walks in. It’s rude, the look on your face. But how the fuck does he think you’re feeling?

“Not great,” you snap, eyes narrowing. He offers a polite smile and sits down on his little chair. He picks up a clipboard one of the nurses had left behind and scans over it, muttering to himself. 

“Um,” you clear your throat, trying to catch his attention. “Am I… okay?” 

It’s hard to get yourself to say the word miscarriage out loud, as if you’re going to manifest it into being somehow. Pursing your lips, you wait for him to respond. He holds one finger up with an impatient huff, and you scoff. 

With a sigh, he places the clipboard down and offers you a placating smile. “Good news is, everything’s a-okay with the baby!” 

“Thank god,” you mutter, curling into yourself as you let out a shaky breath. There’s another sharp pinch of pain in your stomach, but you ignore it for now. You’re not sure you would have been able to look Andrew in the eye and tell him–

You don’t have to worry about that now. 

Rubbing your eyes, you shake your head and look over at the doctor. “What’s wrong with me, then?”

He rubs his chin and considers you. “Pregnancy is always stressful, but would you say there’s anything that’s been making things harder for you?” You don’t even get to answer before he barrels on. “Is the father in the picture?”

“Yes,” you tell him, more defensive than you should be. Maybe because Andrew seems to care more about this kid than you do. When you can get out of that damn hotel room, that’s when you’ll let yourself believe this is real. 

“And, yeah, I would say I’m more stressed than normal.” Having your former pimp and the cops after you really isn’t great for your blood pressure. 

He purses his lips, “Spotting is normal in the first trimester. And I think you might be suffering a bit of indigestion, hence the stomach pain. But I want to be careful. I’m going to have you stay here overnight so we can monitor you.”

Panic spikes through you. As much as you hate the hotel room, being out in the open after spending so many nights sequestered inside is worrying. There’s no reason for Smurf to ever show up here, but paranoia isn’t logical. 

“Is that absolutely necessary?”

“For the safety of you and your child, yes,” he tells you, that jovial tone leaving him as he gives you a stern stare. 

Letting out a rough sigh, you nod. “Alright. But is there a phone I could use? I need to call someone.”

He nods, getting up and holding the door for you. “There’s a payphone in the hall. I’ll have a nurse come and get you when a room opens up.”

You rush past him, heading toward the payphone. Rifling through your pockets, you manage to find enough change and push it into the slot. Picking up the phone, you bite your lip, trying to remember the number to Andrew’s burner. 

With a grimace, you type it in and pray you’re right. It rings for a while before you’re connected to his voicemail. “Hey, it’s me, um… I’m at the hospital, the baby–” the phone beeps before the line goes dead. 

“What the hell?” you mutter, trying to see if you have any more change. Fuck. You didn’t even get to tell him everything was fine. You let out a loud groan, leaning forward and letting your head thunk against the wall. 

He’s going to have a goddamn heart attack.  

Pope stands around a table with J and his brothers. There’s stacks and stacks of cash in front of them. More than J had even predicted. “Alright,” J has a smile on his face, relieved his plan actually worked out. It’s still odd to see the kid look anything but solemn. 

This newfound desire of his to start leading jobs, making plans, puts him on edge. There’s something off about it all. He’s been too busy with you to give that problem the attention it deserves. Something to be worried about later. 

“We’re taking a cut now,” J tells them, picking up a stack of cash and throwing it at Pope, then Deran and Craig. “I’m going to take the rest and…” he trails off, eyes cutting toward Craig. The one who could really screw this up for them all if he gets in the right mood. “I’ll take care of it,” he mutters. 

Pope counts through the cash quickly. A couple thousand, probably. It doesn’t feel like enough. Not if he wants to be able to find you both a place to stay, finance both of you completely starting new. And then he’ll need extra for the baby’s stuff in a few months. 

“I need more than this,” Pope tells J. 

Deran’s brows furrow as he shoots his brother a strange look. He says nothing, though. Instead, he nods, “I do too. I need to redo the kitchen at the bar.” He holds up the cash and shakes his head. “This isn’t going to cover it.”

J’s eyes narrow into slits, but he can’t object as his brothers start eagerly taking more money. When Pope’s satisfied with the amount, he nods at the kid. “Alright,” J snaps, stopping Craig from pocketing any more. “That’s enough.” he shoots Deran an aggrieved look. “Will that be enough?”

Deran cuts his eyes toward Pope before looking back at the kid. “Yeah, should be,” he tells him. J lets out a heavy sigh and starts bagging up the rest of the money. Pope takes his own cut and moves away from the table, pulling out his phone. He powers it back on as Deran moves toward him. 

“Hey,” Deran greets, eyeing him warily. Pope barely lifts his eyes to greet him. It’s only when Deran says your name that he catches Pope’s attention. He keeps his face carefully neutral. “I was wondering if you’ve seen her around? She just left the apartment a wreck a few weeks ago, and I haven’t seen her since.”

Pope’s about to answer that he cut you off once Smurf told him what you were doing for her. But his phone’s back on and the notifications he missed are popping up. His heart drops as he sees the missed calls from you. 

He walks away from Deran immediately, already heading toward his truck. Deran calls his name, but he isn’t listening. He tries dialing your number, but it just rings through until going to voicemail. Pick up, he thinks, gut twisting as he gets in his truck. 

He scrolls through the missed calls and sees an unknown number. Frowning, he clicks on the voicemail. “Hey, it’s me.”

His head falls against the steering wheel as he sucks in a deep breath. You sound fine, thank god. 

But then, you just have to keep talking. “Um… I’m at the hospital, the baby–”

Pope’s head whips up as the voicemail ends. His fingers are frantic as he replays the message. But there’s nothing more. Whatever you used to call him just cut out. His hands tighten around the steering wheel until he can hear the leather creak. 

He throws his phone in the seat and peels out of the driveway. It’s a blur as he drives to the hospital. There are so many thoughts swirling through his head, drowning out anything else, that he can barely breathe. 

He hadn’t wanted to go on the job today. He knew that he needed to. That this is more than enough for the two of you to get out of town and get somewhere safe. But he shouldn’t have left you alone. He knew that, and he still did it. 

He’s just incapable, isn’t he?

Incapable of becoming attached to anyone, of caring for anyone, without hurting them. 

He’d done everything right. He’d kept you safe and hidden. He found those prenatals at the store that the books all said were good for the baby. Smurf, for once, doesn’t know one of his secrets. And he still managed to fuck it up. 

Pope has to force himself to slow down as he pulls into the hospital parking lot. He doesn’t want to hear you finish your sentence when he sees you. Doesn’t want to know that superstition in the magazine is followed for a reason. 

At the very least, he can hold onto the fact that you sounded okay. You were still good. But he wouldn’t blame you if he was the last face you wanted to see right now. 

Striding into the hospital, he beelines straight for the front desk. The nurse behind the counter offers him a soft smile. “Can I help you?”

He gives her your name, “She called me from here earlier.” His nails bite into speckled linoleum as she types your name into the computer. “Is she okay?” he demands, unable to stop himself. 

Her eyes barely lift from her screen. “Give me a moment, sir.”

“I just need to know if she’s okay,” he repeats, trying to keep his voice steady. He’s been impatient before. When CPS first took Lena, he couldn’t cope. Had lost his shit at the office and had to rely on Smurf just to see her again. 

He can’t do that again. He can’t keep messing this up with you. 

The nurse offers a strained smile. “I understand, sir, but I don’t have that information right now. What’s your relationship to the patient?”

His mouth opens before he goes quiet. “Um,” he glares down at the floor. What are you? “She’s carrying my baby,” he settles on, nothing else fitting right next to the idea of you. 

The nurse nods, typing something before letting out a sigh. “Alright, looks like she should be okay for visitors. Just log in here, and you should be good to go back. It’ll be the third door on the left.”

Pope just scribbles on the paper she passes him, taking the visitor’s pass and racing off through the door to his left. He’s counting under his breath until he’s in front of the third door. It’s closed, and the blinds have been shut against any prying eyes. 

He sucks in a shaky breath, bracing himself for whatever he’s going to find on the other side. He’s never been lucky before. Baz always told him no one would ever want a baby with him. He had a point. Pope’s not… right. He’s not good for anyone, especially not for himself. Why would his luck suddenly change with you?

He has no other choice but to push the door open. 

Reruns of some old show are playing on the TV on the wall. And you—

You’re sitting on the bed with your legs folded, eagerly eating a pudding cup as you watch the show. Your head lifts as the door opens, a smile flitting across your face as you see him. It drops at whatever expression he’s wearing right now. 

“Hey,” you greet softly. “Stop lurking,” you tease, but it’s weak as your brows crease with worry. 

He takes one step inside, letting the door fall closed behind him. He can’t find the right words or the right questions. The magic words that will get you to tell him if everything’s okay. “Are you…” He trails off, coming to your side, hands flexing out toward you. He stops himself, checking over you, trying to find anything that’s visibly wrong. 

The possibilities of what could have happened to land you here are overwhelming in their intensity. Too many at once to possibly try and verbalize it. 

“I’m fine,” you tell him, reaching out and lacing your fingers through his. You tug his arm until he’s sitting on the bed beside you. You put the pudding on your nightstand and take his other hand, pressing it to your stomach. “Everything is fine.”

The relief is so staggering he feels ill. You let out a quiet laugh as his eyes fall shut; he feels like he can breathe for the first time since he left this morning. “C’mere,” you mutter, tugging him forward until his cheek is pressed to your shoulder and he’s squeezing his arms around you. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and he shakes his head, fingers flexing in the thin fabric of your hospital gown. “That stupid payphone cut me off. I wasn’t trying to scare you.”

“I wasn’t–”

“Whoops! Don’t mean to interrupt.” Pope jerks back as the door to your room opens. You let out an annoyed huff, keeping your hand in his as he turns to see a doctor walking in. “The father, I presume?”

“What happened?” He demands, something about the doctor’s tone rubbing him the wrong way. 

“Well, I think a lot of the pain was caused by indigestion.” Pope frowns, glancing over at you, but you won’t meet his eye. “However, in your blood work I noticed a high level of cortisol and your blood pressure isn’t where I’d like it to be.”

Pope just stares at the man, waiting for him to continue. The doctor lets out an aggrieved sigh, but it's you he gives a sharp look. “You’re too stressed. Especially this early in the pregnancy.” Your hand tightens around Pope as you shift uncomfortably in the bed. “Some lifestyle changes will need to be made.” His eyes dart to Pope before he shakes his head. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

The door closes behind him, and you take in a heavy breath. Pope can’t think of anything to say, eyes cast down at the blanket. It’s his fault that you’re so stressed, that you’re even here. He knows that. He promised to get you out of that hotel room weeks ago. But he’s been stalling, selfish as he enjoys this time with you just to himself. No outside interference, no one to take away your attention. 

He got you here. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. It’s not enough, but he doesn’t know what else he can say. 

He waits for it, for you to take his hand, to tell him it's okay. You’ve done it so many times before. You’re so indulgent, so forgiving; he doesn’t deserve to expect it. But, God, he wants you to just tell him it's not his fault. 

“I can’t live like this anymore,” you tell him, and he can’t find it in himself to turn around and face the truth. Not right now. “Andrew,” you call, “look at me.” 

His hands dig into the blanket as he looks up at you. There’s nothing soft on your face, now. You seem severe; the circles beneath your eyes are darker than ever. You’re worn down in a way he hasn’t seen before. 

“I can fix this,” he promises, and if you didn’t believe him, he wouldn’t blame you. He’s so good at fixing problems for his family. At being the one they call to clean up their messes. But he’s always been horrible at fixing his own. 

Your eyes flit down, and you nod. Silence permeates the air between you. He hates it, but he doesn’t know how to fill it.  

The door to your room opens, and you know who it is before he walks in. Andrew hasn’t really left your side tonight. Despite your many assurances that you really are okay and you’ll be able to leave tomorrow. 

Luck was on your side, though. He stepped out to use the bathroom, and you had enough time to call someone. He’ll probably be back before Deran has a chance to leave, but it’ll be too late by then. And the both of you need Deran’s help. 

“Good to know you’re alive,” Deran tells you, voice flat as his eyes narrow on you. 

You grimace, “I’m sorry, Deran, really.”

His eyes fall shut as he pinches at his nose. He stands at the end of your bed, refusing to come closer. Shrugging, he shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “It was Smurf, wasn’t it?”

Your eyes fall to your lap, and you nod. “Why didn’t you just come to me in the first place?” he asks, taking a step closer. 

“It wasn’t that simple,” you mutter, looking up at him. His brows are pinched in concern. Deran’s done a lot for you since you’ve known him. He’s certainly been more selfless than his family ever expected him to be. 

You know you’ve been shitty, hiding everything from him. But it already feels like you’re wrecking Andrew’s life. You didn’t feel like you could drag Deran down with you both. Not when he had worked so hard to help you clean your life up. But you don’t have any other choice now. 

“Alright,” he shakes his head with a scoff. “Then make it simple. You move out, I don’t hear from you for weeks, and suddenly you call me up to tell me you’re in the hospital. You gotta give me something, here.”

You let out a bitter laugh, “How’s this?” He shakes his head, waiting. You force the words out, “I’m pregnant.” 

Deran’s face falls; he takes a staggered step toward you as the door opens behind him. His head whips around as Andrew walks through. Andrew’s expression goes tight when he sees someone else standing next to you. 

“There’s the dad,” you offer weakly, trying for a joke and failing miserably.

Andrew closes the door behind him, eyes narrowed on his brother. “Why is he here?” He demands, looking at you. You can tell he’s holding his temper back. But it’s been on a short leash, already. You don’t want to risk making things worse. 

“He can help–”

“You knew where she was?” Deran demands, taking an angry step forward. Andrew doesn’t back down, expression twitching as he straightens up. “I asked you, man.”

Cody anger is volatile. It’s quick to spark and worse to quell. You can see it, swelling between them. Deran doesn’t take much to get going, he reaches out, shoving Andrew back. You grimace as Andrew grapples with him, trying to get him to stop before you’re all kicked out of the hospital. 

“Deran!” You snap, eyes darting toward the windows and praying no one looks inside. 

“You lied to me,” he shouts at Andrew, face growing red. 

“I couldn’t tell you,” Andrew barks back. 

Desperately glancing around the room for anything to stop them, your eyes land on the empty pudding cup. You snatch it up and throw it at the back of Deran’s head. He flinches at the impact, head whipping around to face you. 

“Enough! Jesus fuck, Deran, I’m in the hospital because I’m too stressed. This isn’t why I wanted you here!”

Andrew still has a hold on him. Deran glances between the pair of you, expression turning embarrassed. He shoves his brother’s arms off of him and reaches up, trying to smooth back the hair that's fallen in his eyes. 

“Then what the fuck do you want from me?” 

At the same time, Andrew asks, “Why is he here?”

They both shoot each other severe looks that have you grimacing. It would have worked out a hell of a lot better if Andrew had just stayed in the bathroom. You scrub your hands down your face and let out a rough exhale, shoulders hunching. 

“We’re staying in a hotel right now. But I can’t keep living like that,” Andrew says your name, but you stop him with a look. “Look where I’m at right now, Andrew. Can you honestly say that the way we’re living is healthy for me?”

You purse your lips. You know this is dirty; you’re using one of his deepest fears against him. And it’s awful; you’re a horrible person. But you’re human, and you physically cannot take another day living like a fugitive on the run. “Is it healthy for the baby?”

His hands go lax at his sides, eyes widening imperceptibly as he stares at you. Whatever argument he had ready is killed by your cutting words. You suck your teeth, shoving down the guilt burning in your throat. 

“So that’s what you want?” Deran asks, staring over at you with this strange look in his eyes. “Another place to stay?”

“I know that I shouldn’t ask you for anything–”

“No,” he cuts you off, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t.” You bite your lip, sucking in a sharp breath. He rolls his eyes, glaring up at the ceiling. “But…” he lets out a sardonic laugh as he turns toward you. “I actually have a place.”

“Smurf,” he continues, “gave us properties.” he motions between himself and Andrew. Your brows turn in as you turn to him. Because he’d never told you about any sort of property. 

He can’t meet your eye, hand balling into a fist as he glares at the floor. “I couldn’t use any of them for you. She would have looked,” he doesn’t seem very defensive. And you’re sure he believes that excuse. But you’re stupid if you think he wasn’t also attracted to the idea of being so close to you, of having you all to himself. 

“Yeah, well she won’t go looking through any of mine,” Deran tells him. He turns back to you, “There’s a house by the beach you can stay in.” You want to get up and thank him, to hug him for the first time in weeks. But his expression is reserved as he moves toward the door. “I gotta go. Call me tomorrow, and we’ll figure it out.”

The door slams behind him, blinds rattling from the force. He’s still angry, then. You suppose you can’t blame him. Not with the way you just disappeared. Sighing, you lean forward, head falling into your hands. 

Andrew comes up beside you. “I would have taken care of it.”

“Would you?” you scoff, glancing over at him. You don’t mean it maliciously, but it’s been weeks. And he’s apparently had ‘property’ this whole time. Andrew was working off his own schedule, and that just wasn’t good enough for you.  

The house is a slightly run-down bungalow by the beach. But it’s good. Anything is in comparison to that hotel room. It’s woefully empty of any furniture or anything to actually make a house a home. You can work on that, though. 

Slowly, over the course of a few monthss—long enough for your stomach to start to swell—you begin collecting everything for the place. The couch that Deran was going to get rid of makes its way to you. Your dining table is something you found at an estate sale, oddly enough. 

Bits and pieces make their way to you. Some old, some new. But it’s a start. A start to something that belongs solely to you and Andrew. Smurf had sold his house when he was arrested. It left him with nowhere to go but back to her. 

The bungalow is a few hours outside of Oceanside. Which makes it a commute for Andrew anytime she calls him back home to deal with family business. You know she must be growing suspicious by now. Especially because Deran stops by a lot. 

Where could both of her sons be disappearing to?

You don’t know what Andrew is telling her to keep her off his back, or if he’s even trying. You try not to think about it a lot. The pregnancy has begun to feel real to you. Your stomach is swelling with life; you’re outside of her control. Worries about her serve only to make you more stressed than you need to be. 

So, you linger in ignorant bliss. Andrew lets you, though you can see his worries about the future eating away at him. There’s only so much you can do for a man who refuses to cut the last tether to the most agonizing aspect of his life. 

His mother. 

“The appointment is at two, right?” 

Andrew nods; he’s busy putting together the bedframe you just bought while you go through the notes from your last visit with the gynecologist. He’d missed it, Smurf calling him home for some job. A bad time to miss it, too, considering the doctor said she was worried you were showing early signs of gestational hypertension. 

It’s not anything life-threatening, but you know he’d been bothered that he wasn’t there when you heard the news. He’s insisting on attending this one. You don’t mind the company, that’s for sure. When the doctor asks what prenatals you’re taking and what your diet looks like, a lot of that knowledge lies with Andrew. He’ll have a better time processing and planning around the information than you will. 

His phone rings, breaking up the quiet of the moment. You glance up from your computer with interest. His entire demeanor changes as he looks at the name. It doesn’t take much guessing to know who it is. 

The way his shoulders hunch up, his lips pursing as he lets out a heavy sigh. “Smurf?” you ask.

He just nods; he gets up, moving out toward the porch as he answers. You glance toward the window, trying to decide whether or not you want to listen in. You sigh before deciding against it. He’ll tell you about it if he needs to. 

You continue looking through the notes from your last visit, making sure you didn’t forget to tell Andrew anything. The door slams closed as he comes back in, making you jump. Your brows furrow as you look over at him. He’s glaring down at the floor, phone tucked back in his pocket. 

You hesitate on saying anything.  “That was fast,” you land on.

“She wants my help on a job,” he tells you. Letting out a rough sigh, his shoulders sink as he looks up. “Today.”

“Ah,” you click your tongue. She seems to have a psychic link to him. Always knowing the worst time to steal him away from you. Looking back at the computer, you bite back whatever venom you want to spew. Instead, you try to keep your voice calm as you ask, “Are you going?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and you don’t want to look over. You don’t want him to see the hurt on your face that you even have to ask that question. Guilt shouldn’t be what makes him stay. He should just want to. 

A soft touch lands on your shoulder and you sigh, sinking back into him. “I’m going with you,” he tells you, firm on the decision. 

“Thank you,” you mutter, reaching up to squeeze his hand as he goes back to putting the bed together. “Did she say what the job was?”

Andrew considers for a moment before shaking his head. “She said she’d be coming along on this one. Said it was important.”

Something gnawing stirs up in your stomach. You frown as you consider him. God, you can’t believe you’re about to ask this. “Are you sure you shouldn’t go?”

He pauses from where he was picking up his tools. You get a sidelong look as his voice quiets. “Do you not want me coming?”

Of course that’s how he took it; you feel like an idiot. “No, I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that. I just…” You have a bad feeling about Smurf. But you have no evidence and no reason to voice aloud your doubt. “Of course I want you there, Andrew.”

He looks over you, eyes narrowing as he stares into your eyes, checking for any dishonesty. Slowly, he nods and resumes his task. You try to do the same, but your focus is anywhere but on your notes. 

You’d had Andrew’s hand in a death grip your entire appointment. You couldn’t tell him why or even explain to the doctor this sudden panic that’s come over you. She’s worried about it, telling you it’s important you lessen the stress in your life as much as possible to avoid any complications. 

If only it were that easy. But you hardly understood your worries before you were pregnant. It only got that much harder after. 

Luckily, everything looked fine with the baby. She couldn’t get a good look at it through the ultrasound, and she forgot her “readers” at home. So, instead, you have to wait a while longer while she runs a blood test to determine the gender of the baby. 

You don’t really care either way. But you think Andrew would make a good dad to a little girl. 

“You don’t want to do the whole gender reveal thing, do you?” You ask on the drive home. 

Andrew glances over at you and shrugs, hand flexing around the steering wheel. “I don’t know. Might not be so bad.”

Your eyes narrow. “Really? You want one of those stupid confetti things staining our backyard pink or blue?”

He lets out a scoff, smiling slightly as he looks over at you. “How ‘bout a cake?” he offers, and you think he might just be messing with you. 

“Considering the strict diet you’ve got me on, I’ll take a cake.” He huffs a little at the dig but doesn’t seem to mind too much when you grin over at him. You stretch, hand resting on the center console. He reaches down, taking it in his own as he pulls onto your street. 

You frown, sitting up when you see another car in your driveway. “Who’s that?” you wonder aloud. 

Andrew’s hand tightens around your own as he slows down. He comes to a stop in front of the house, letting out a low breath of relief when you both see it’s just Deran. But he doesn’t look good. He’s pacing on the porch, hands shoved in his pockets, and his face is strangely red. 

“Wait here,” Andrew mutters, getting out of the truck and stalking up the driveway. You let out an irritated huff, watching as he approaches his brother. Deran’s head whips up as he gets closer, and he stops his pacing completely. 

That unsettled feeling from before returns tenfold as you shift uncomfortably in your seat. You can’t hear what's being said, but you can see the way Deran’s face shifts from that usually untouchable look to something scarily vulnerable. Andrew runs up the steps to the porch, and Deran stops him, grabbing his shoulder and taking in a deep breath. 

You tilt yourself closer to the window, as if you might be able to hear something. Deran finally says whatever news it is he had to be in person to deliver. Your brows furrow as you watch it all play out on Andrew’s face. 

He tilts his head before shaking it, saying something. You can’t make out what he says, but you can hear his voice rise, see him shove Deran back as he continues to shake his head. His hands come up to his head, cupping it. 

You can’t take watching this anymore. Getting out of the truck, you make your way up the driveway just as Andrew sinks onto the porch steps. His head falls between his knees, shoulders beginning to shake. You run up to him, falling beside him. Deran stands behind you both, gaze vacant as he watches his brother. 

“What’s going on?” you snap at Deran, hands cupping Andrew’s cheeks. You try to get him to look at you, but he collapses into you instead. You let out a sharp gasp as his head falls in your lap, hands gripping desperately at your dress. You can feel him shaking, the sharp breaths he’s struggling to get in. 

“Deran!” You snap, hands desperately running over Andrew, trying anything to get him to calm down. 

Deran finally looks at you, but he doesn’t see you. “Smurf is dead.”

The fridge is open again. 

It’s happened over the past week. You’ll walk through the house, and there will be these little things that are wrong. The fridge is open because he forgot he was going to make dinner. The light to the hallway has been on all day because he never remembered to turn it off. There are dirty plates put away in the cabinets because he’d zoned out, unloaded a dirty dishwasher without even blinking. 

You walk over and close the fridge, letting your head fall against the cool metal with a shaky exhale. This is getting bad. You knew he wouldn’t be well immediately following his mother’s death. Who would?

But this is different than being lost in grief. He’s losing chunks of the day, leaving the house and not knowing where he’s going. You caught him standing in front of the nursery with a drill in his hand. He stood there for about ten minutes before you asked what he was doing. 

He didn’t remember. 

Moving away from the kitchen, you check your watch. He’s been gone for two hours already. You hadn’t wanted to let him leave the house on his own. He was meant to take you grocery shopping with him. But you had to run to the bathroom, and he just left. 

You move into your bedroom, intent on putting away some clothes. You’re trying to tidy the place up a bit before he gets back, so he doesn’t have to worry about it. 

Picking up a pile of clothes, you trudge into the closet. It’s stuffed full right now and barely organized. With an annoyed huff, you drop the clothes on the ground and reach for some shirts on an overstuffed bar. You tug at them a bit, grunting until the hangers finally come off. 

Something tumbles from the shelf above; it pops you perfectly in the toe before tumbling off into the shadows of the closet. “Ow,” you grumble, forgetting the clothes as you get on your knees. Your hands swipe across the closet floor, blindly groping until you feel your fingers brush against what fell. 

Pulling it out, you pause. This is…

This is one of the baby bottles he bought. “What the hell?” you mutter, looking up at the shelf it fell from. Getting to your feet, you rush off and drag the stepstool into the closet. Climbing up, you get a good look at the shelf. 

The parenting books, pacifiers, everything he bought too early has been shoved up here. Pulling it all out, you lay it out on the bed. Why the hell would he hide all this?

Sure, you noticed there was less baby stuff around the house. But you thought that was because he was putting it all away in the nursery. You haven’t been there in a while. The scattered parts of the crib he never built are too much of a tripping hazard. 

You never would have thought he was hiding it all away. 

Rubbing your head, you let out a low groan. You rack your brain, but you can’t find a reason he would do this. And with the state he’s in, you doubt Andrew even understands what he’s doing. 

The front door opens, and you run out of the bedroom. Andrew stands in the doorway, his head lifts, eyes still carrying that sad look they’ve had the past few days. “Andrew,” you whisper. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, head lifting as he surveys you with narrowed eyes. But you’re not the problem here.

You purse your lips, struggling to maintain a kind smile. “Where are the groceries?”

His brows furrow as he shakes his head. “What?”

You let out a rough sigh, pinching your nose as you shake your head. “Never mind,” you tell him. Instead, you walk over to him, taking his hand in yours. He lets you lead him to the couch and sit him down. 

“What are you doing?” He asks, looking slightly dazed as he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. 

“Nothing, just, maybe rest for a little while, alright?” You want to help him; you do. But he’s mourning. And you can’t relate to that pain. Smurf made your life hell. The only good she ever did anyone was giving birth to Deran and Andrew. You wanted to fucking leap for joy when you heard she was dead. 

But Andrew’s steadily devolving into a state that you don’t know how to get him out of. You doubt he’ll be himself for a long time. But this is different. This is wrong. Pulling out your phone, you call the only person you can think of. 

Pope is sitting on one of the rocking chairs on the porch. You’d deposited him there, the burden that’s only serving to make your life more difficult. He wonders if you’re watching him through the window to make sure he’s not going to wander off. He feels like he’s falling apart. 

And maybe he is. Pope’s not sure anyone would call hearing their dead mother’s voice stable. But he does hear her. And he sees her everywhere too. A phantom that he just can’t let go of. 

He hears a car pull up the driveway and frowns, lifting his head. They park and throw the door open. Deran stands there a minute, just watching Pope, before slowly making his way up the porch steps. 

Deran lets out a low groan as he sits in the chair beside Pope. His chest heaves as he exhales and rubs his hands down his face. Pope watches him warily, wondering why he bothered coming. 

Deran looks over at him and laughs. It’s not genuine. It’s bitter and filled with the same sort of reluctant grief plaguing Pope. “You look like shit, man,” he tells him. 

Pope scoffs, but he can’t disagree. He’s hardly keeping his head on straight right now. “What do you want?” he asks, wishing for some quiet for once. Away from all the noise in his head. 

“What do you think?” Deran huffs. He motions inside. “She called me,” he says your name, and Pope grimaces. You must really think he’s just a mess. 

Deran goes quiet for a moment, picking at a thread on his jeans. “How have you been doing?” He asks, his tone losing its abrasive quality this time around. 

“How do you think?” Pope scoffs, looking over at him. And something inside him breaks, seeing his little brother who is holding it together so much better than he is. “I keep seeing her man,” his voice cracks around the confession, and he looks away. “I’m— I’m fucking hearing her in the back of my head. Reminding me—”

Pope shakes his head, dragging his hand down his face as he tries to take in a steady breath. “Reminding me of how much I fucked up. I wasn’t there,” he admits. “I wasn’t there, and she’s dead.”

Deran stays quiet, just watching Pope. There’s nothing he could say that would absolve him of this guilt. He doesn’t deserve it. Not when this is all he’s done his entire life. He was put on a leash for a reason. Because every time he ever tried to break out of that control, the only thing he’s ever done is hurt someone. 

Something about the quiet softens something in him. “I hid all the baby stuff,” he admits. 

Deran lets out a confused noise and looks up. “What?” he asks, shaking his head. “Why?

Pope shrugs, looking down at the chair and digging his nail into a scratch. He picks at it, watching the wood splinter. “I can’t mess this up,” he admits, voice rough as he blinks away the burning in his eyes. “I hear Smurf. I hear Baz. And they’re both just telling me how much I fucked up. And I can hear Baz telling me that no one would ever want a kid with me. Because he was right,” he lets out a bitter sound, taking in a shaky breath. 

“She doesn’t want a kid with me. She just got stuck with me.”

Deran takes in a sharp breath and shakes his head. He laughs, but it's hollow. “Baz was wrong about a lot of things,” he says. He reaches over and takes his shoulder. Pope grimaces, but he doesn’t move away, looking over at Deran. 

“But Baz was always wrong about you, man.” He squeezes Pope’s shoulder before letting go. “Smurf fucked us all up. But,” Deran whistles and shakes his head. “She really did a number on you. Still, if any of us could actually give a kid a chance of survivin’ all the shit we went through…”

Deran offers a strained smile, “It’d be you.”

Pope can’t honestly say he believes him. Believe this is anything other than an attempt to bring him back from the edge. But he wants to. He wants to so badly think that he’s capable of doing something good. 

Neither of them says anything else, sitting in the quiet with one another. 

A while later, Deran gets up. He doesn’t say much, just that he has to head home. Pope nods, watching as Deran walks down the porch. The door opens behind him, the swell of your stomach clear in his peripheral. You call out a goodbye to his brother, walking toward him. He reaches up, hands brushing against your stomach as his head falls against you. You reach up, nails dragging through his curls. 

You’re real. You’re here. Not a voice in his head reminding him that everything falls apart under his touch. 

You kneel, pressing your forehead to his. Your lips brush against the corner of his mouth before you pull away. He holds onto your hand until you’re walking back into the house, and his hand falls back by his side. Deran pulls out of the driveway; he stops at the end for a moment before driving off. 

Pope gets to his feet; he follows the only noise in the house until he’s standing in front of the nursery. You’re kneeling in front of the disassembled crib. Without looking up, you silently hold out the instruction booklet. He walks forward, taking it from you and kneeling at your side. 

Your eyes dart to him for a moment. “It’s a girl,” you tell him. 

His stomach swoops as he looks over at you. You offer a small smile. “The doctor called this morning. I thought you would want to know.”

You reach over and take his hand in your own, lacing your fingers together. He leans over, pressing his forehead to the side of your head. You turn, lips brushing against his as you pull him into your embrace. He sinks easily, the world going quiet around him as you hold him. His hand falls from your side to the swell of your stomach. 

For now, there’s only one voice. 

Baz was always wrong about you. 

The boy stammers, pales at the sight of the gigantic, tattooed man beside you, and takes maybe a full twenty seconds to stammer out his next words.

“I-I…are you her…”

“Oh yeah, I’m her husband. Fresh outta the psych ward and everything. Now beat it, before I smash your head against the table.”

The boy bolts like Craig set the booth on fire, and you glare up at him.

“I was on a date.”

Craig laughs, like you were genuinely joking. “Not exactly your type.”

“You don’t know what my type is.”

“Pretty sure I do. I shared a wall with your type for most of my life.”

You clench your jaw. “What do you want, Craig?”

He sits across from you, all friendly familiarity, and smiles. “I need your help.”

“I don’t do jobs anymore.”

He raises his eyebrow, and glances pointedly towards Ethan in the corner of the bar, trying to save face by ordering himself another drink.

“I told you, that was a date.”

“C’mon, don’t lie to me. You think I don’t know when you’re working an angle?”

You narrow your eyes a little. “Okay, fine. I don’t do jobs with the Codys anymore.”

Craig’s smile falls a little.

Burning rubber in your nose. Panic in your throat. The shriek of the tires drowned out by your own voice as you grab frantically at the wheel.

“Baz what the fuck are you doing? What are you doing? Turn around!”

Baz’s hand darts out, and he slams you back against the seat so hard your teeth knock together. “It’s too late.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? We can’t just leave him-“

“We have to. He was too late. You know the rules. It’s him or all of us.”

You’re frantic. Panicked. You even start to yank at your own car door, like you might jump out and run back to the bank on your own two feet, and Baz slams you backwards again.

When he makes it to the house, you punch him in the face before you even get out of the car. He takes it, head whipping to the side like he expected this reaction from you. When you get out, you punch him again. It takes both Craig and Deran to pull you away.

“He’s out of prison, you know.”

You take a sip of your drink. “Good for him.”

“He keeps asking about you.”

Yeah, bullshit. “I’ll bet he does.”

Craig sucks his teeth, and seems to decide to pick a different battle.

“So, it’s a good job. You barely have to do anything. We just need your help with-“

“I don’t do jobs with the Codys anymore, Craig. Also, I don’t know if you realize this, but using my ex as an incentive to help you isn’t really boosting my interest.” Ex. Your ex. It still feels so weird to think of him like that.

Because he’s just…Pope. Andrew Cody. The love of your life since you were a teenager. Even when you were together, ‘boyfriend’ felt like too simple of a word to describe what he was to you. It was too intense for such a lame title. Too full of a love so deep it bordered on obsession.

And then it was all over. Just like that.

Craig is making a face. You frown back at him. “What?”

“It’s my job, okay?” He runs a hand through his hair, flexes his fingers on his beer. “And it’s good. I’ve worked my ass off at planning it, and Baz is out, so I just…I need it to go well. And it will go well if you help.”

You grip your drink a little tighter. Fucking Craig. Fucking asshole with the terrible decision making skills and good heart. Fuck him for being your friend. For making you care about him. For giving you that look that’s making you feel like-

“Fuck. Fine.” God help you. “Fine. Fine. Okay. Fine.” He grins at you, and you glare back at him. “But I don’t want to see Pope.”

Now it’s Craig’s turn to give you a look. “About that…”

-

Your outfit is so fucking uncomfortable you want to die.

Okay, maybe it’s not the outfit. Maybe it’s the anxiety twisting in your stomach so intensely you think you might vomit in the driveway of the Cody house.

You’ve been here since he went to prison. Since you broke up. Not for long - you haven’t exactly been in the habit of hanging out by the pool or anything - but whether you’re here for a minute or an hour this damn driveway always whips the memory of that horrible day back into your mind more violently than a slap.

-

“Put me down. Put me the fuck down I’m gonna-“

“Jesus, relax!” Baz throws his hands up, angry and defensive and so very punchable right now. Deran’s got you locked against him, feet kicking in the air like you might be able to land a blow if you just try hard enough. “I had to go! He got held up or some shit, and if the cops caught us the whole family would have gone down.”

“You just fucking left him there! We could have-“

“We didn’t have a choice. I made a decision. I saved our asses. We knew this was a risk. It always is.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck me.” Baz runs a hand through his hair, and you know he’s heartbroken too but you couldn’t give less of a shit right now. His nose is still bleeding from where you clocked him a minute ago. “Fuck me for making the hard decisions for this family.”

Rage rises up in your throat again, threatening to choke you as you kick harder. “Boo fucking hoo. You left him! You fucking left him and-“

“Calm down.” It’s Deran’s voice now. Deran, who sounds choked up and is still holding you locked in a vice grip. The sound of it makes you look up at Craig, whose eyes are shining with tears, and…

Your feet drop back to the pavement, the sound and sight of the boys’ pain deflating you almost alarmingly quickly, and you pat the arm around you in both comfort and reassurance.

“Okay.” You breathe, shaky, and Baz’s shoulders drop.

“Okay.” He repeats, and the sound of his voice makes you grit your teeth. “Now that we’re all calm, we need to figure out what to do.”

-

He’s in the yard.

Three years later, and he’s just… in the yard. Standing there. Staring at you. And what did you expect? That he would drag himself out of a grave? Appear before you in an explosion of fire and blood?

He looks at you. You look at him. He doesn’t move an inch.

He looks good. Just as beautiful as the day you lost him. You hate him for it.

“Hi.” His voice sounds even lower than it used to. He looks bigger. Like he worked out a lot in prison.

You raise your eyebrows. Something curls deep in your core at the sight of him. Three years later, and you still can’t look at this man without feeling a physical reaction. “Hi.”

-

“You’re bleeding.”

You reach up, swiping the back of your hand over your lip and frowning at the smear of red across your skin, illuminated by the moonlight reflecting off the pool.

“You’re not the only one who can get into fights.”

Andrew Cody looks at you, with those dark eyes that always seems to see through whatever lie you try to  tell him or even yourself, but you meet his gaze with the defiance of a teenage girl who really doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Are you…staying here again?” He asks, standing still from his spot beside the pool. You’re on a chair. Your face hurts. Your body aches. You nod.

“Smurf says I can crash for a few days.” In exchange for help, of course. Help with jobs. Connections. Money. You don’t mind. It’s better than being home, or hiding out on the beach again.

He still hasn’t moved. “Are you…gonna stay in Craig’s room? With him?”

You almost laugh out loud. Craig, big and rowdy and often immature even for a teenager, is closest to you in age. He might be your best friend. He definitely has a crush on you, and you’re almost positive that Smurf is angling for the two of you to get together.

“Why? Would that bother you?”

“Yes.”

You look up at him. He looks down at you. Slowly, almost unaware that you’re doing it, scoot over on your chair to make room, and he takes the invitation. Your heart hammers in your chest.

His hand comes up. Fingers brushing over a bruise on your cheek and eyebrows twitching with…

“Stop looking at me like that.”

He doesn’t. “Like what?”

“Like you want to kill someone for me.”

“I do.”

“I know.”

He’s close. His thumb is still brushing over your cheek, and his eyes fall to your lips. You think he might kiss you. You don’t think you’ve ever wanted anything more.

But this…this house, as chaotic and dangerous as it may be, is the only somewhat stable thing you have right now. The only safe place to go when things get too fucked up at home. When your petty criminal of a father takes things too far, or debt collectors come banging on the door. Smurf lets you stay here, and Smurf is always working an angle. You’ve told yourself a thousand times that, in exchange for this, you’ll go along with whatever plan she has for you.

This is not that plan.

And yet, as his face ducks closer to yours, fingers curling in your hair, you wonder what it would be like. To feel Pope’s lips against your own. To feel his body against yours as he lies you down right here on this pool chair. You think, despite his violent tendencies and episodes of something your uneducated mind can only call insanity, that he would be gentle with you. Like he always is. You don’t have much experience with boys, but you think he would make sure that you felt comfortable. He’d probably kiss you through any nervousness, whisper reassurances into your skin as he peels off your clothing, make you feel safe the whole time and-

His lips brush over your own, and you pull back.

“I’ve gotta…go inside.”

He searches your face, and you know that his observant eyes see the want there. Still, he nods, and stays where he is as you pull yourself to your feet.

-

“We should talk.”

You laugh, humorless, and push past him into the house. You don’t get far before you feel his hand on your arm, turning you towards him.

“Let go of me.”

He does, but he tilts his head and furrows his brow in that intense way he has. The familiar sight makes you ache. “We should talk.”

“I think the time for talking passed somewhere around three years ago, Andrew.” You grumble, and he fixes you with an expression so filled with helplessness and pain that you almost crumble right then and there.

You ignore him, and push your way into the house. Craig whistles at the sight of your too-tight dress and heels, and Deran greets you with a familiar smile.

As you start to plan, to prepare for the day ahead, you don’t turn around. You don’t look at Pope. His eyes don’t leave you the entire time, and it’s almost physically impossible to keep yourself from leaning back against him like you have a million times, over the course of a million similar meetings.

But you don’t look at him, and when it’s time to leave, you storm out of the house before he has a chance to catch your arm again.

The job. Focus on the job.

You can do this.

-

You lost your virginity to Craig Cody two weeks after you and Pope nearly kissed by the pool.

You don’t know why you did it. Well, you do. It’s what Smurf wants. It’s what Craig wants. It’s what you should want. You and Craig are well matched. You love him in whatever way you do. He’s your best friend. You know how to keep him in check when he acts like an idiot, and he knows how to make you laugh when the weight of everything feels like it’s going to fucking crush you.

So you had a couple of beers at a party. You grabbed his hand before he could get too wasted. Even for a teenager, he’s already fucking huge. Handsome, too. You know the other girls stare at him. You should feel proud that he follows you like a lost puppy the moment you start tugging him towards his room.

It was awkward. And messy. And nothing like the movies say it’s supposed to be like. You know he tried to make it…special, or whatever. He was gentle. He asked if you were okay between kisses as he laid you back on his unmade bed and helped you out of your clothes. When he pushed in, you’d gasped and clawed at his back, and he’d mumbled apologies into your neck and waited until you nodded that you were okay, but he still moved just a little too fast. A little too clumsily. It didn’t hurt too badly, and it wasn’t exactly unpleasant the whole time, but you didn’t feel fireworks or any of the overwhelming pleasure you thought you were supposed to.

When it was over, he’d kissed you, and you’d smiled up at him, and then he’d rolled over and pulled you into his chest and laughed.

“That was awesome.” He breathed, and you nodded. “You’re awesome. Was it…did you?”

“Yeah.” You think you did. There was a minute, somewhere towards the end, when it had felt pretty good. Not the explosion of pleasure you’ve always heard about, but that’s fine.

“Awesome.” He kissed your forehead, and sat up a little. “Wanna beer?”

You’d smiled, heart swelling with affection that should definitely feel more…romantic than it does. But it’s still affection. You still care about him a lot. Maybe this is supposed to be right. “Yeah.”

~

Pope Cody hasn’t looked at you in a week.

Smurf seems more than happy with you sleeping in Craig’s room. With him wrapping an arm around you when you all sit on the couch together. He’s even developed a habit of ducking down and pressing a kiss to your cheek when you’re standing in the kitchen, or before he does a backflip into the pool. It’s fun. You think you can get used to it.

You haven’t had sex again. He’s asked, almost every night, but you’ve always come up with some kind of excuse and he’s always responded with nothing harsher than a disappointed smile. And yet, you both stay up almost all night every night, talking and laughing and playing video games like you always have since the day he first brought you to this house. This family.

But Pope won’t look at you, and you can’t ignore it anymore.

Because he came home from a job with a black eye and bruised knuckles, and now he’s standing in the yard and Smurf’s chastising him for being reckless is still ringing in the air. He didn’t talk. He didn’t argue. He just stared at the pool and refused to look at her. At you.

And now you’re alone with him, and everyone has left to go regroup or party or whatever, and he still. Won’t. Look. At. You.

“Andrew.” You rarely use his real name. He tenses, but he doesn’t turn around.

“Look at me.”

He doesn’t. You snap.

“Why won’t you look at me?” You grab his arm, and turn him toward you, and he pulls it away.

“Stop it.”

“No.” You grab him again, and this time he catches your arm, fingers around your wrist in a vice grip that is firm but nowhere close to painful. His eyes remain on the pavement.

“You haven’t talked to me since I got with Craig.” You say, and his jaw clenches at your words. You can see his cold expression, now, if not his eyes. He’s older than you, but his face still holds the smooth roundness of youth. He’s just as handsome as always. Your heart stutters a little, like it’s supposed to with Craig.

When he still doesn’t answer, you shove at his chest. The sudden movement makes him release your wrist, but he doesn’t budge. “Fucking look at me! Why won’t you at least look at me? Are you seriously this pissed off because I hooked up with him? Stop being an asshole and tell me why you’re acting like this!”

“Because it should have been me!” He finally snaps, finally looks at you, and the sharpness of his voice paired with the intensity behind his dark eyes is enough to nearly make you stumble backwards. “It should have been me. You know it should have.”

He looks almost crazed, now, shoulders hunched and fists clenched and feet moving towards you until you take an instinctive step backwards. The movement doesn’t stop him. He still comes closer.

“You…you let him touch you. And kiss you. And do all of the things I’ve…” he trails off, and your breath freezes in your lungs, “the things I’ve wanted to do since I met you.” His eyes drop to your mouth, back up to your eyes, and he’s close. So close. “It should have been me.”

You don’t move back again. You can feel the warmth of his proximity in the chilly night air. Your voice is too quiet to your own ears. “That’s…not the plan.”

He’s not breathing regularly. His hands are still clenched at his sides. He looks you over, like he’s trying to fight it, before something finally breaks.

“Fuck the plan.” His voice is almost a growl, and you don’t have time to respond before his hand is on the back of your head and his mouth is against yours.

The world explodes.

His lips are warm and rough, demanding and desperate and sending fire through every vein and pore in your body. You choke on a whimper, surprising yourself with the sound, and Pope groans in response as his tongue sweeps its way into your mouth. Your hands fly up, curling in the fabric of his shirt before moving up to his hair like you don’t know how to touch all of him at once. His own hands move down, lips only leaving yours long enough for him to grab the backs of your thighs to lift you against him before he’s kissing you again.

You don’t even register that you’re moving, too caught up in the desperation and the feeling of something hot burning in your core. He presses you against a wall, trails his lips down your throat until you’re gasping for air, before he kisses you again and moves deeper into the empty house.

And then he’s lowering you back onto his bed, crisp sheets smooth against your back, and you barely let him pull away enough to crawl over you before you’re kissing him again with so much need that it’s almost embarrassing.

His rough palms are sliding up beneath your shirt, breath turning shaky at the feeling of your skin against his, and it feels so good you think you might die.

“Is this okay?” He whispers, lips against your cheek, and you nod.

“Please.” You don’t know what you’re begging for, but the sound of it makes him moan as he pulls your t-shirt over your head and trails his mouth down over your collarbone.

His own shirt comes next. You roll on top of him, and kiss and bite down his chest until he’s tangling his fingers in your hair and pulling your mouth back up to his, rolling you both once more until you’re on your back and your hands are fumbling with his belt, unpracticed and clumsy, until he shushes you gently and reaches down to help you with a lingering kiss to your cheek.

“Tell me if it’s too much.” He rasps after a while, and you can barely breathe enough to tell him that you will. You settle for a nod, and his rough palm slides over your stomach, up over your body until he’s cradling your cheek.

“I’ve got you.” He whispers, and the soft words are almost comical with how hard he’s trembling with restraint. With how dark his eyes are, how intense his touch feels. “Breathe. I’ve got you.”

You nod, and when you smile he smiles back, shy and nervous behind that starved expression, and that one look alone makes you feel like you’re floating.

It’s nothing like Craig. It isn’t like Pope is a whole lot more practiced, or some kind of sex god or anything, but every movement feels so much more…right. He slides his hand beneath your thigh, guiding it around his waist and watching your face as your bodies join together for the first time, and the noise that pulls its way out of your throat barely sounds human.

His breath comes on a shaky exhale, eyes never leaving yours as he searches your face for signs of pain or discomfort, and when he finally starts to move you feel something coiling so tightly in your stomach it almost hurts.

Every slow thrust, every reverent touch, tightens that coil. Every kiss. Every whispered word against your skin as his fingers catch your own and he presses your joined hands into the pillow above your head.

You reach the edge so quickly it shocks you, free hand clawing at his back as you bite down on his shoulder and fireworks explode behind your vision.

The feeling is so intense that, for a moment, you forget where you even are. You forget your own name. All you know, all you feel, is Pope moving with you. Whispering praise and promises of adoration against your lips and throat. When he follows you into oblivion, it’s with a breathless moan of your name.

After, he holds you like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever touched. He traces his hands over your skin. He follows the caresses with his lips. And, when you finally remember how to breathe again, you giggle.

He pulls back from your throat with a raised eyebrow, a smile curling on his own lips, and nuzzles his nose into your cheek. “What?”

“I didn’t…” you didn’t know it could feel that good. You didn’t know anything could feel that good. “I…wow.”

He really does smile, now. He tucks you closer to him, barely letting you go as he pulls you beneath the blankets with him and curls his body around yours. Protective. Possessive, even. “Yeah.” He murmurs, pressing his lips to the side of your head. “Wow.”

-

The future Mr. and Mrs. Franklin need to be convincing. Happy. Overwhelmingly in love.

Your heels click against the dock. It takes years of practice and training from Smurf to keep yourself from fidgeting in your expensive dress. Pope’s eyes are on you, burning holes into your head from behind his sunglasses.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know like what.”

“You look nice.”

“Shut up.”

The door to the yacht opens, and you don’t have time to keep the argument going. Pope slides his arm around you, you grin wide, and he tugs you almost too-tightly into his side.

“Welcome!” The woman on the other side of the door is smiling in that fake and familiar way that people do when they’re trying to get a whole lotta money from rich people. “Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, right?”

“Soon to be.” Pope says, all confidence and practiced casualness. He catches your hand in his, the expensive ring glittering obnoxiously on your finger, and raises the back of your hand to his lips. You giggle like an airhead, tilt your head onto his shoulder, and grin up at him.

“Adorable.” The woman says, too emphatically, and you don’t miss the way her eyes rake over your ‘fiance’. You shouldn’t care. This isn’t real. He’s not… yours anymore. And yet, it’s hard to shake off the surge of possessiveness that nearly has you yanking him down and pressing your lips to his.

When she turns to lead you both into the yacht, you try to pull your hand out of Pope’s. He doesn’t let you go. You turn to glare, and he offers you a small smile and a squeeze of his fingers through your own.

Fine.

-

“I’m sorry. He refuses to see you.”

“I…” you blink, shake your head, and tell yourself you heard the guard wrong. “What?”

“Believe it or not, even prisoners have a right to refuse visitation. He said he doesn’t want to see you.”

You blink again. “That’s…that’s not true. That can’t be true.”

“You can try again next week, but in my experience you’ll probably have the same reaction.”

-

You try again the next week. And the next. You stop sleeping. You stop eating. You wait for a phone call. An explanation. You go to Smurf. You go back to the prison.

Six weeks later, he finally fucking agrees to see you.

You nearly rip the phone off of the wall. He doesn’t look right in a prison uniform. He doesn’t look like he’s been sleeping. “What the fuck, Andrew?”

At your use of his name, his real name, you swear you can see something like relief flicker in his eyes, like the sound of your voice is a drug he’s been deprived of for over a month. You’re about to keep talking, or even press your hand against the glass like some lame fucking cliche, the sight of his face lifting something heavy off of your soul.

“Stop calling.” He says simply, and your heart drops to your feet.

“What?”

“Stop calling. Stop showing up here. Stop.”

“I…” what? This isn’t happening. He wouldn’t do this. “What? Pope, Andrew, I didn’t leave you.” That’s almost, almost incriminating. You know that. But it could also mean anything. You’re his girlfriend, after all. He’s in prison. You’ve been trying to see him. You haven’t left him. The last thing they’ll probably assume is that you’re talking about leaving him to be arrested after robbing that fucking bank.

“I know.” He says simply, and meets your eyes. “I don’t care. Leave. Stop coming here. I’m not going to come see you again.”

You don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to breathe anymore. This is so fucking wrong and it doesn’t make sense and-

He places the phone on the receiver, stands up, and leaves.

That’s the last time you see Andrew Cody for three years.

-

“And here we have the reception deck. As you can see, the view will be absolutely spectacular, especially when you’re out on the water…”

Four exits. Three cameras. One, two…

“I’m so sorry. Is there a bathroom I can use?” You ask brightly, from where you’re hanging off of Pope’s arm. “Or I’m sorry, the head, right? Like they say on boats.” An airheaded giggle, a practiced bat of your eyes.

The moment you’re around the corner, you whip out your phone and start taking notes and pictures. Exits. Entrance points. Doors to the lower deck where Craig can-

“We need to talk.”

You actually yelp, whirling around and stumbling on your heels before Pope’s arm shoots out to curve around your middle and keep you from falling over.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You hiss, wide eyes shooting back towards the hall. “Now? Let me go.”

“You won’t talk to me. I have to-“

“So you’re gonna fuck up the job? They could be here any second. You’re supposed to be distracting them.” He’s lost his fucking mind. Clearly, prison has warped his brain and made him an irrational asshole who-

The click of heels against the hardwood floor. A familiar, professional voice calling out your fake names with too much curiosity and suspicion.

“Fuck.” You whisper, and start scrambling to pull away and hide your phone. “Fuck.”

In one swift movement, Pope snatches the device out of your hand, slides it into his back pocket, presses you against the wall and slams his mouth to yours.

Like always, even after all of this time, the feeling of his lips against your own sends a jolt of electricity through your entire body.

He kisses you like he hasn’t thought about anything else in the last three years. His lips move hungrily against yours, one large hand coming up to tangle in your perfectly-done hair as his body envelops yours until you can’t think of anything else.

His tongue traces over your lip, and you open for him instinctively until he groans and changes the angle so he can kiss you more deeply and it feels so fucking good you might-

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…interrupt.” A bright, awkward voice breaks you out of your trance, and you gasp as you wrench your mouth away from Pope’s. He doesn’t even turn to the woman, thumb pressing into your cheek as he traces it over your skin like he’s trying to re-memorize the feeling.

It takes a lot more effort than you want to admit to clear your throat and plaster a flustered and embarrassed look on your face. To fall back into the ditzy, wealthy fiance facade. To keep yourself from ignoring her completely and kissing Pope again to chase that euphoric fucking feeling for as long as you can.

“Oh geez. I’m so embarrassed.” You reach up, and pinch Pope’s cheek just a little too hard with one manicured hand, feigning bright affection. “I just can’t keep my hands off of him, you know?”

“It’s so nice to see a couple so…in love.” A tight lipped, professional smile. Another glance at Pope that has irritating possessiveness curling in your chest again. You don’t have a right to feel that way. Not anymore. Not even after…whatever that was. “Would you two like to continue the tour?”

-

When Craig found out, he punched Pope in the face.

Pope punched him back.

When you lurched forward, prepared to jump between them and stop the bullshit macho display, Smurf had stuck her arm out and pushed you back.

“Let them fight. They need it.” She said, voice even, and kept her eyes on her two sons as they wrestled each other near the pool.

“This is bullshit. They-“

“You know,” she interrupts, still not looking at you. “When I took you in off the street, I wasn’t expecting you to stir up so much trouble.”

You freeze, heart stilling in your chest. She could send you back to your family. Your father. Being thrown out on the street would be bad enough on its own, but Smurf doesn’t work that way. If she wanted to really hurt you, she would.

“I didn’t mean to…stir up anything.”

She looks at you now, assessing. “I believe you.” She hums, and pulls her arm back. “Go break them up now, baby. See if you can fix your mess.”

-

“What the fuck was that?”

“A distraction.” Pope’s hands are on the steering wheel. His eyes are on the road.

“And before that? Cornering me in the hallway when I’m trying to gather fucking intel?”

He frowns. His fingers flex on the steering wheel. “It’s been three years.”

“And whose fucking fault is that?”

His brow furrows like he genuinely doesn’t understand why you would ask that. “The…U.S. prison system.”

“You know exactly what I mean. Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m not being a dick.”

“Pull the truck over.”

He does look at you, now, and you can see surprise in his eyes from where they’re visible over his shades. “No. Why?”

“I’m walking. Pull the truck over.”

He turns back to the road. One hand drops off the steering wheel, like it might come to rest on your thigh the same way it has in almost every car ride for years, before he catches himself and returns it to its original spot. “You can barely stand in those shoes.”

“So I’ll take them off. Pull over.”

“Just let me talk to you. Please.”

“No.”

His head drops back against the seat, jaw clenching in frustration, and you feel a surge of pride that you still seem to be the only person who can break through his little bubble of stoicism. Yeah, take that asshole. Be as exasperated as you want.

You don’t speak to him for the rest of the car ride.

-

Craig’s nose is bleeding. His feet are in the pool. He’s holding an ice pack to his eye.

“Do you hate me?” You ask, feeling almost childish for the question.

He laughs. Actually laughs, like you just said something ridiculous.

“Nah. Couldn’t if I tried, I think.”

You frown. “Then why did you…”

He shrugs, takes a sip of his beer, and smiles at you. “I mean, he did fuck my girlfriend. I’d be a little bitch if I just let him get away with that.”

“I’m not your girlfriend.”

“Well, not anymore.”

“I was never-“

“C’mon. I’ve got a shiner and a broken nose. Don’t hit my ego, too.”

You laugh, and shake your head. “You’re an idiot.”

He holds up his beer in a silent cheers, and there’s nothing but affection in his eyes as he takes a swig. No pining. No longing. Not even hurt or betrayal. Just…affection.

You smile at him, and your heart swells in that way you once tried to convince yourself was romantic attraction.

“I thought Smurf was gonna throw me out.”

He frowns now, and shakes his head. “She won’t. And if she does, Pope and I’ll just come with you.”

You smile again. You know it doesn’t reach your eyes. Craig leans over, and bumps your shoulder with his own.

“No matter what, that asshole’s not gonna hurt you again. You’re gonna be okay.”

“And if Pope ever fucks up, I’ll be here. I know I’m the best sex you’ve ever had, anyway.”

You snort. “Craig-“

“Ego, remember? Lemme have this.”

You poke him in the bruised ribs, and he hisses in pain before he laughs again.

You believe him.

-

When you get back to the house, you lurch out of the car before he can even reach for you. You stumble on your heels, kick them off of your feet in the yard, and storm into the house.

“Woah, hey there Hurricane Lady.” Craig’s grin falls the second he sees your face. “Shit. What happened?”

“Nothing. Here’s the phone. It’s got the pictures. Exits. All of that shit.” You want to snap that maybe Craig could have just done this himself, having gotten himself a job there, but you know that he doesn’t get access to the same places you just did. “I’m off the job.”

“What?”

“She’s not off the job.” Pope’s voice, from the door, makes you prickle.

“You don’t get to decide whether I’m on or off the job.” You whirl, and glare. “You don’t get to decide shit about me. Not anymore.”

“Jesus.” Deran blows out a breath, eyes on Pope. “You didn’t tell her, man?”

“Tell me what?”

“She won’t let me tell her.” Pope looks frustrated. Pained, even. Like he has any fucking right to be.

“Tell me what?!”

“Just tell her.”

“I’ve been trying-“

“Tell. Me. What?”

“He cut you off in prison because the cops were coming after you.” Craig says, and the words shut you up. “They were investigating your involvement. He had to cut ties so you didn’t incriminate yourself.”

Oh. Oh.

‘Pope. Andrew. I didn’t leave you.’

“Can I talk to you now?” Pope’s voice is low, and he’s doing the head-tilt thing, and you swear your lips are still tingling from his kiss.

You stare. He stares back. You open your mouth. Close it.

And then you walk into his room.

You don’t even need to turn around to know he’s following you. You hear Craig whistle the wedding march behind you, and you flip him off over your shoulder.

Pope’s old room is empty. The bed is made like it always was before.

“Beautiful. So beautiful. All mine…”

He whispers the words into the flushed skin of your neck, reverent and laced with gravel as his body moves against yours like it was made to. You gasp his name, and he groans as he moves faster.

Some party rages down the hall. The sounds of it are distant and inconsequential. All you can hear is his shallow breathing. His whispered promises of love between presses of his lips to any part of your skin he can reach. You love him so much it hurts and you’re going to-

You shake the memory off. Clear your throat. When you turn to him, he’s looking at the bed like he’s remembering something similar. Well, there are a lot of memories like that in this house. In the house the two of you shared later. In his truck. By the pool. In the pool. On the beach. At the-

Fuck.

“Talk. You wanted to talk, so talk.”

He watches you. You watch back, tense.

“They were looking for a reason to arrest you. The cops thought they might have identified you on that job a few months before. The one at the dispensary.”

You just keep staring at him. He shifts on his feet. “I couldn’t tell you. They were listening to everything. I figured…it was the only way to keep you out of prison.”

“Three years.”

Guilt flickers across his expression. Something like desperation follows. His fingers flex by his side. “I didn’t know when they stopped investigating you. Just when they stopped asking me questions.”

“Three. Years.”

“I missed you every day.” He moves closer, hesitant, like he’s trying to make sure you don’t bolt. “Every fucking minute. I thought about you all the time. It…it killed me, to walk away like that. I still think about the look on your face. I…” his jaw clenches, and he reaches towards you.

You should pull back. You should slap him, maybe. You know he would let you.

“You risked the job.” You try. Try to find something to cling to your anger. Your hurt. You missed him so much and all of that pain doesn’t just go away with one explanation.

“Fuck the job.” He whispers, hand sliding up over your cheek. “It’s been three years.”

And then he’s kissing you. Rough. Hungry. Desperate in a way that makes your knees threaten to give out because holy shit nothing has ever felt as good as Pope Cody’s skin against yours.

For a moment, you forget. You forget to be angry and hurt and painfully confused in favor of tangling your fingers in his curls and dragging him closer to you. He groans, the sound rough and borderline desperate, and his hands drop to your waist, lifting you clean off your bare feet to spin you both until he has you pinned against the wall.

His chest is pressed against yours. His hand is moving down to the hem of your dress, and you think you can feel his fingers shaking as they skate up over your skin and a shiver falls down your spine.

But it isn’t enough. This isn’t enough. It feels so good that it kills you to pull away. But his fingers are sliding up the inside of your thigh and if they reach their intended destination there won’t be anything in the world that will be able to stop you. To stop him, either, if how hungrily he’s kissing you now is any indication.

Because his kiss doesn’t make up for the hours you spent alone, in the house you once shared, staring at a phone that wouldn’t ring. How humiliating it felt to cry yourself to sleep with your mind filled to the brim with questions that you would never have answers to.

His mouth is gliding over your jaw, down over your throat, and his grip on your waist is so wonderfully tight and his fingers are so close to where you need him so badly it hurts and-

You shove him away, breathless and flushed and almost shaking with hunger, and his dark eyes have never looked so predatory.

“You…you can’t do that.” You whisper, and he looks like he’s about to do exactly that again at any moment. You hold up a hand, warding him off, and force yourself to steady your breathing. “No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to just show up again and kiss me like that.”

“I’m sorry.” He starts, expression filled with a genuine pain.

“You made me think, for three years, that you didn’t love me anymore.”

“I’m sorry.” He moves closer like it’s instinct, and you back up a little more into the wall, and he looks like he’s about to drop to his knees before you. “I’m so fucking sorry. I did it to protect you. I promise. I couldn’t think of any other way.”

You push past him, and walk out the door.

For once, he doesn’t follow.

-

“Where is she?”

You’re not here. You haven’t come since he got out. 

“She doesn’t really come around anymore, man.” Craig shrugs, like it’s casual, like your absence isn’t digging a hole into Pope’s soul even as he sits here by the pool and you should be here but you’re not and he fucking hates it. He should have apologized to you ten times over by now. You should be here with him.

“She comes around every now and then. Watches Lena. Grabs a beer with me on Tuesdays and surfs with us if we ask nicely.” Craig leans back, and Pope fights the urge to lean forward and beg for more information. “She doesn’t talk to Baz, though. I think the most I’ve seen them interact is her flipping him off or some shit.”

Yeah, sounds like you.

“So, you gonna talk to her?”

Yes. Of fucking course he is. He’ll be on his knees begging the second you’re in the room.

But you don’t come. You don’t show up at the house anymore. You changed your number, and he can’t call you. Despite what Craig said, it’s almost like you’ve made yourself into some kind of ghost, too far away for him to reach anymore.

When he was in prison, he would fantasize about the day he got out. In most of those fantasies, you were waiting for him at the house. In a good few of them, you weren’t wearing much clothing, but that part can be easily attributed to how long he went without seeing you.

Nevertheless, you were there. And he would take you into his arms, and you would smile and tell him you understood why he had to do what he did, and everything would be perfect.

But now, he has to track down your new house. On the beach, and not too far from his new place, but he doubts you know that.

He watches through your window and doesn’t even register that it might be a little fucked up of him. He makes sure you get home safe. Waits until he sees you climb into bed and flick off your lights, and often spends a good long while imagining all of the times he would be right there with you. How he would tuck you into his chest, and the two of you would have whispered conversations like you were still teenagers living in Smurf’s house and trying not to be overheard.

He doesn’t go to the door. It’s not the right time. Not yet. It isn’t like it has to be perfect, but… but it’s been three years. Three years of torture and an isolation that almost killed him. That may have killed a part of him, somewhere deep down where even he can’t reach. As badly as he wants to stand on your porch and beg and plead for you to understand, to love him again, he isn’t sure he would be able to handle you slamming a door in his face. He’s not sure he would be able to let you, and that thought alone almost frightens him more than anything else.

Not yet. The job. When Craig brings you in on the job, that’s when he’ll see you. Talk to you. Make you forgive him.

Just…not yet.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t keep an eye on you, until then.

-

The effort it took to get Ethan the Finance Bro to talk with you after Craig ruined it the first time is almost making this particular job too much of a pain in the ass.

It’s a little tricky to balance the work you have to put into the boat job with your own plans, but your own jobs are a little less complex than the ones enacted by the Cody boys. Less reward, sure, but it’s safer and easier. Find out a few things about Finance Bro Ethan’s rich dad, get access to an account or two, make a couple of unnoticeable transfers, and bing bang boom. You can afford rent and to fix your car, and maybe even a nice pair of shoes while you’re at it.

He’s jumpy. You have to smile a little more brightly at him, hold his hand across the table and bat your eyelashes as you insist that your friend from before is just terrible at making jokes, and he’s finally relaxing enough to-

His eyes trail up over your shoulder, and stop.

“Leave.” And that’s Pope’s low, furious voice. It is dripping with danger.

Ethan looks at you. Back at Pope. You smile, wide and sweet, and refuse to turn around. “Ignore him.”

“Do that, and I’ll cut your ears off.”

Son of a bitch.

“He’s joking.”

“Three.”

Ethan starts to scoot out of the booth.

“Don’t.” You say, jaw clenching and smile still forcefully bright.

“Two.”

And he’s gone. Just like that. Out the door and ruining your plans completely.

“Fucking Codys. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get him to talk to me again?”

“Who was that?”

“I had to bend over backwards to keep him from being terrified after Craig’s bullshit. This bra is so uncomfortable. You fucking-“

His hand comes down on the back of your chair, and he leans closer to you with a deadly and dark expression. You don’t flinch. You don’t even come close. In all the time you’ve known him, in all of his scariest moments, he’s never come anywhere close to harming you. The possibility simply doesn’t register in your mind. “Who was that?”

You look at him, deadpan. “My boyfriend.” It couldn’t be farther from the truth, but you may as well piss him off a little.

It works. His jaw clenches, and he leans a little closer. “I’m serious.”

Fine. You give up. “He was a mark. I’m on a job.”

“You’re already on a job.” Pope’s frown deepens, angry eyes moving up to the door again. “That guy was staring down the front of your shirt.”

“That’s kind of the point.” You glance down at your low cut top, at the aforementioned uncomfortable bra, and when Pope does the same you can see something twitch in his jaw. Feel his hand tighten imperceptibly on the booth behind you before he looks back up at your face.

“We’re leaving.”

“No, you’re leaving.” You correct, irritated, and move to turn away from him.

He catches you, turning you back towards him with a look so intense it makes your heart drop. “Come home with me.”

You pause, knocked off-kilter by his proximity and the desperation in his gaze. He looks…dangerous. Like a man in a desert who has been deprived of water for too long, and is starting to lose it enough to follow that water to a bar and ruin her weeks of work.

And yet, it’s annoyingly difficult to care. Not when it would be so easy to bring your hand up, curl your fingers in the soft curls on the back of his neck, and pull his lips down to yours. So, so easy, and yet…

You start to move back, and his hand catches your chin, thumb sliding over your jaw in that familiar and devoted way that always makes your toes curl a little. He saw it. He saw the hesitation. The want in your expression matching his own, and he’s too far gone to let it go.

“Come home with me.” He repeats, soft and close enough that his nose nearly brushes your temple. “We can do jobs together. Like we used to. You don’t have to…do this.”

You spent so long being a team. Being with him. Every job, every move, it was all with Pope and the Codys and while you can do these smaller jobs alone perfectly fine, you want…

Him. God, you want him. Not just sex, either. Though after three years and the way he’s standing so close you can feel the warmth radiating from him, you’re having a hard time not jumping his bones in the middle of this bar. You want to wake up with him in the mornings again. You want to watch him wash the dishes in that particular and concentrated way he has. You want to sit on the beach with him at night, and talk about everything and nothing until the sun peeks over the horizon.

His nose skates down your cheek. The noise of the bar fades away. Your eyes flutter closed as if of their own accord, head tilting to the side, and he makes a low noise as his fingers leave your face to move down your arm.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, lips pressing against the line of your jaw, and your next breath comes as a shaky exhale. His hand slides around the curve of your waist, and the angle of his body above yours is intoxicatingly overwhelming. He kisses your jaw again, a little higher, a little closer to your ear, and you melt. “I’ll apologize a thousand fuckin’ times, okay? Just come home with me. Let me show you how sorry I am.”

Your body relaxes beneath his, and you feel his mouth trailing over your skin like he couldn’t give less of a shit about the rest of the world around you. It’s so familiar. So nice. So warm and-

Goddammit.

“Stop.” You push on his chest, and he moves back with a genuinely pained expression. “Stop it, Pope. You just fucked up a month of work for me. I’m not going home with you.”

The look on his face would break your heart, if there was anything left of it to break.

You don’t say another word.

You just leave.

-

The girl sleeping on the couch is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.

Craig brought you here a few hours ago. Said something about you taking on three guys by the beach who were trying to rough him up over weed money. You hit the biggest one with a baseball bat. They knocked you out before Craig could take them down.

Smurf hadn’t said much when Craig walked in, eyes bright with lingering adrenaline as he’d placed you on the couch, but she’d seemed impressed when Craig had explained what happened. She’d told him to leave you on the couch for now, and to make sure you didn’t get any blood on her furniture. Your face is bruised. Your sneakers are dirty. You’re wearing a flannel that’s way too big and has holes in it.

“I think she’s been sleepin’ on the beach.” Craig says, brow furrowing a little as he looks down at you. You’re so still you could be dead. Pope wonders what color your eyes are, and then wonders why he wondered that.

“Junkie?” He asks, and resists the urge to brush the hair out of your eyes. Like Julia, maybe. Maybe you know her, wherever she might be right now. Maybe you already have that connection to him. Maybe…

Craig shakes his head. “Nah. Not a junkie. I dunno if she’s homeless, either. I just kinda see her around sometimes. She pickpockets tourists. Seems good at figuring out which ones are the L.A. douchebags.”

Pope frowns. Your face twitches a little, but you don’t wake.

“She’s hot.” His younger brother observes, and Pope’s frown deepens. “And badass. You shoulda seen her, dude. She went at them like a fuckin’ demon. She doesn’t even know me.”

You look so angelic, curled in on yourself on the couch with sand in your hair and dirt under your fingernails, that he finds it hard to believe.

Hard, but not impossible. Because there’s something about you, and the bruises on your face that look so much like the ones that often adorn his own, that screams…fighter. Survivor. Protector.

And he hasn’t even spoken to you yet, but there’s something else there. Something deep down and warm and intrinsic that he can’t exactly pinpoint but certainly can’t ignore.

His.

-

When you wake up, he’s watching you. He knows he probably shouldn’t be. He probably looks creepy, or whatever everyone says, but he can’t seem to pull his eyes away from the rise and fall of your breathing. The way your face twitches every now and then in sleep. The way your hair spills over the couch cushion. He wants to brush it away, but he’s afraid to wake you.

Your eyes flutter open. They’re beautiful.

And those beautiful eyes move dazedly around the room before they land on him, and widen. You bolt up, and hiss in pain as whatever injuries you sustained in that fight no doubt scream in protest.

You look at him. Look around. Look back at him.

Carefully, he passes you the baseball bat from his room. Craig said you had one before. You’re in a strange new place. It might make you feel safe.

You close your fingers around the handle, and watch him like a hawk as you pull it over to you.

“Where am I?” He likes the sound of your voice. Even cracked with sleep and shaky with nerves, it sounds as pretty as the rest of you.

“My house.” He says simply, cocking his head to the side. “Craig brought you here.”

Craig is passed out in his room down the hall. You took a while to wake up. You frown, and rub your head a little.

“Why did you do it?” The question leaves him before he can think, curiosity lying heavy in his chest. People in Oceanside don’t just help other people like that. Not when it could put them in the same state you ended up in.

“Three to one didn’t seem like fair odds.”

Pope takes this information, and holds it close to his heart. Keeps it there like a flame he’ll never let go out.

You sit in silence for a minute before he speaks again.

“Do you want a sandwich?”

You look up, surprised, and your lips quirk upwards just the smallest bit.

“Sure.”

-

The knocking is loud. Very loud. Angry, even.

When Pope opens the door, there you are.

Fuck, it’s like you don’t even know how beautiful you are. He’s always been surprised by that. Sure, you use your looks and pretty smiles to work people on jobs, but when that persona is lowered and you’re just…you, the sight of you could make him drop to his fucking knees.

“You fixed my door.”

He’s shirtless. It’s early. Your eyes drop down to his chest before they fly back up to his face, and he is two seconds away from yanking you into the house and taking you right here in the front hall.

Shit. Three years. Three long, long years of nothing but his hand and memories of you. He’s devolved into a fucking animal. All he can think about is ripping that t-shirt off of you. Of lifting you onto the table right here and dropping to his knees, hearing the noises he can pull from you when he buries his face between your-

“You fixed my door.” You repeat, angrier now, and he furrows his brow as he forces himself out of the fantasy.

“Yeah.”

“Pope, you don’t know where I live.”

His brow furrows a little more.

“Fine, I haven’t told you where I live.” Oh, that’s what you mean. Right.

“It was creaking.”

“How many times have you broken into my house?”

Seven. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Andrew.”

You should know better than to say his name. His real name. The sound of it shoots something molten through his veins, and his hand tightens on the doorframe.

“We’re broken up. You can’t break into my house.”

“We’re not broken up.” The fact comes easily. Simply. There’s no plea behind it. No question at all.

“We’re broken up. You broke up with me.”

“No, I didn’t. I said stop coming around. I didn’t break up with you.”

“Whatever you did, it was three years ago.”

“And you’re not in prison.” He wants to ask why you’re not getting it, but he knows that you do. Even if most wouldn’t, you know how he thinks. You’re just being deliberately obtuse because you’re angry. But he’ll spend the rest of his life apologizing to you, if that’s what you need. “I’m out. We still love each other.”

“You don’t know that I still love you.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Tell me you don’t.”

You open your mouth, like you just might try it, before closing it again and trying another tactic. He’s always found it…cute. The way you try to deflect your feelings like this. And he’ll never try to pretend that he doesn’t love how easily he can call you on it. There are two things in this world that Andrew Cody is absolutely confident in: jobs, and you.

“You fucked up my job.”

“You hate those jobs. They bore you.”

Your eyes narrow, and you’re gorgeous when you’re angry. “I don’t have a backup plan anymore. I need the boat job to go well.”

You’re stalling. You don’t want to leave. “It will.” He raises an eyebrow again. Your eyes drop back down to his bare chest, and it sends a thrill through him. “Want some breakfast?”

“No.” You’re still standing here, and he knows you too well to let you leave just yet. The tension crackling through the air, emanating from you and directing itself at him, is so fucking obvious it almost makes him grin.

“Coffee?”

You hesitate. Frown. “Fine.”

And with that word, you cross the threshold, and kiss him.

-

Your first job with the Cody family went well. Really well.

Smurf shocked all of them by inviting you in, building up her tests of your skills and your loyalty to the family until she suddenly just…made you a part of it. Sat you down at the family meeting with them and told you what your part in the job would be.

Baz protested. Deran was quiet. Craig, however, was thrilled. Pope is pretty sure his brother likes you a little too much, and he hates the way it makes jealousy and possessiveness curl black and vile in his throat. He hates the way Smurf seems to assess this. The way she watches you keep Craig in line and encourages the two of you to spend time together.

But you did well. Really well.

And then, after dinner, you disappeared.

Pope found you up the street, sitting on a small curve of beach and watching the moon like you were greeting an old friend. He’d hesitated to join you, like he might be interrupting, but…

“Hi.”

Shit. “Hi.”

“Wanna sit down?”

Yes. So fucking badly. He’d do anything in the world to just be close to you. “Do you want me to?”

“Yeah.”

He hesitates. You look back at him, illuminated by moonlight and so gorgeous it stops the breath in his lungs, and pat the sand beside you.

He sits, and you rest your head against his shoulder. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Are you…okay?” Do you expect him to function correctly right now? Do you expect him to be able to string a thought together? You’re so warm. So soft. He doesn’t have experience with this kind of thing.

“Oh yeah.” You hum, fingers curling in the sand beneath you. “I mean, if you’re asking if I’m upset about you holding an unloaded gun to my head while I pretended to freak out, don’t worry. I’m fine.” You mean it. Smurf would be impressed.

He could cover your hand with his own, right now. You might even let him. You might let him curl his fingers around yours, and even flip your palm to rest it against his. Your soft skin against his rough callouses, pillowed by the sand beneath you…

“So what’s wrong?”

You hum, and he feels it vibrate through his shoulder. “I don’t know. Smurf, the job, everything just feels like it’s going too well.”

“Too well?”

“Things change. They hurt when they change. It’s too…good.” He starts to say something, though he isn’t sure what, before you continue. “That’s why I like coming out here, though. I like looking at the water. It’s why I slept on the beach when things got too shitty at home, you know?”

He turns his head, and it brings his face so close to yours that he almost chokes. You don’t even look up, just keep watching the waves crash on the beach as you continue.

“It sounds kinda cheesy, but the ocean is so…big. And no matter what’s going on with me, no matter how bad things seem, it makes it all feel smaller, you know? All that ocean, everything going on beneath the surface, and whatever bullshit’s happening to me just feels…inconsequential. More manageable, I guess.”

Oh God. Fuck. He loves you. He loves you so much.

His hand, knuckles still bruised from some fight he got into earlier this week and already so much bigger than your own, covers yours. You stop picking at the sand, but you don’t pull away.

“I’ll always be here.” He murmurs, some part of him terrified that you’ll jump away from him. He means it. He really does.

And you mean it too, when you turn your palm and slide your fingers through his, and murmur back. “Thank you.”

-

It’s a fucking whirlwind.

You don’t know what possessed you. What you were thinking. Just that you are magnetized to this man, and he’s standing there looking at you like he knows every thought in your head and like he loves you more than anything in the world and you can’t spend another second without his lips against your own.

He meets you just as hard, hand coming up to grip at the hair at the base of your skull as you walk him backwards into his house. You realize, vaguely, between the blur of lips and teeth and desperate hands, that you haven’t even seen the inside of it yet. Even now, it’s weird for there to be any aspect of Pope’s life that you don’t know about.

The tour, however, is going to have to wait. Because Pope has you pressed against the counter and you barely have time to gasp his name before he’s lifting you onto it, tugging your shirt up over your head and tossing it aside before ducking down to trail desperate kisses over your neck. You tangle your fingers in his hair, and pull his mouth back up to yours, biting down on his lip until he groans and reaches down to start tugging your pants over your hips.

“Bedroom.” You manage, somewhere between a choked moan and a drag of your nails down his muscled back that has him sinking his teeth into your throat.

“Three years.” He replies, the words a starved growl, as he rips your pants and underwear down over your legs. All you can do is nod your understanding and drag his mouth back to yours, hands leaving his face to reach down and tug his sweatpants over his hips.

He pulls back, just enough to press his lips to your ear, and you can’t help but whimper when he murmurs his next words.

“Tell me you want this.”

You curl your fingers in his hair, pull him closer to you, and barely manage to gasp out a soft confirmation of “I want this, Andrew” before he’s pushing into you and it is everything you’ve missed for too long and it feels so good you might fucking die.

You gasp, and hold him tighter, and he breathes a shaky exhale into the hollow of your throat as he goes very very still.

You make a soft noise, needing more, and he understands immediately because he knows every inch of you better than he knows himself.

“Three years.” He murmurs again, hoarse and apologetic as his hands grip the counter on either side of you. You realize what he means through the haze of lust, and a bubble of laughter tears its way out of your throat. The sudden movement makes him hiss, cursing softly against your throat as his hands fly up to grip your hips. You clamp your lips together in an attempt to stop your giggling, and when he pulls back to look at you he starts laughing too.

And then, still smiling, he kisses you slow and deep, and begins to move. The moment he does, all humor flies out the window, and you gasp as you lock your legs around his hips and scramble for purchase against his back.

It’s fast and desperate, like he really and truly can’t help it, and it is absolutely perfect. Fuck, it’s everything you have ever needed in your entire life and more. You cling to him, wrapped in his arms and burying your face in his neck to try to muffle cries that might wake the entire Strand. He doesn’t stop, but his grip tightens as he adjusts his movements to grind deeper, fingers tangling in your hair to pull your head back from his shoulder until you can feel his ragged breaths against the shell of you ear.

“Yeah?” He whispers, hoarse and smiling and already wrecked as the force of his movements makes stars explode behind your vision. Then, closer, his nose against your temple and his grip almost bruising on your skin. “Yeah?”

You just nod, and hold on for dear life as you fall over the edge with a cry of his name, and he follows right after you with a choked moan of yours.

For a moment, you both just try to catch your breath, wrapped in each other’s arms with your legs shaking and Pope’s shoulder warm against your forehead. He kisses the side of your head, soft and loving, and huffs a laugh into your hair as he pulls back to press his lips to yours.

“I missed you.” He whispers, and you’re smiling too.

And then, without warning, he hoists you into his arms and starts walking.

“Where are we going?” You ask, still laughing, still smiling, still blissed out beyond words.

He kisses your forehead, your cheek, and kicks a door open. “Bedroom.”

-

Once the initial violent desperation has faded, Pope takes his time with you. He works you apart piece by piece, like he’s relearning every inch of your skin. He kisses every new scar. Every familiar freckle. He makes you forget every word that isn’t his name, tells you he loves you until he’s hoarse with it, and you do the same to him. In the confines of his room, in this new house on the beach, you forget about every morsel of pain you’ve felt in the past. Every tear you’ve shed. Every lonely moment.

At some point, when he’s trailing slow kisses up the inside of your thigh and your fingers are tangled in his curls, you manage to come back to yourself for half a second.

“We’re not back together.” You murmur, and he looks up long enough to raise a dark eyebrow at you.

“We’re not.” You repeat, and he gives you another look, this time with both eyebrows, before nudging your thigh further aside. He doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t need to, because in the next five seconds you completely forget how to form coherent thought.

-

The sun is setting by the time you’re both too exhausted to continue. A few minutes ago, you broke apart long enough to make your way to the shower, where you’d lasted about five minutes before he’d slipped in behind you. You managed to hold back long enough to shampoo each other’s hair before lathering off had turned into kissing beneath the stream, which had turned into…well, into you pressed up against the wall, his chest against your back and his teeth buried in your shoulder as your fingers clawed against the tile and your vision turned white for the umpteenth time today.

Now, his fingers card through your still-damp hair, and you wonder vaguely if you’ll ever walk again.

“Holy shit. We haven’t done that since…” you trail off, brain as mushy as your muscles seem to be, and you feel Pope’s proud smile against your forehead.

“Three years and forty nine days.” He supplies, and you can’t hold back your giggle. “Day after the jewelry store job.”

“Right.” Christ, it really is a miracle that you survived three years apart when you used to go at each other like coked out bunny rabbits. “Forgot about that.”

“I didn’t.”

You swat at his chest, and he tucks you closer to him, tilting your chin up to press his lips to yours.

-

For the first time in three years, you wake up in Andrew Cody’s arms.

And he’s asleep. He’s soundly, completely asleep. He’s always been a light sleeper, but despite that there are certain circumstances that have been known to knock him out like a log.

He’s completely out now, arms wrapped tightly around you and deep breaths tickling the top of your head.

There was always so much chaos in your lives. So many things that could go wrong at any moment, so many risks taken every single day. There was Smurf’s manipulations, Craig’s irresponsibility, Deran’s tendency to disappear and worry everyone, Julia being gone, and Baz…well, Baz being a raging douche most of the time. All of it was always so much, but right here, right like this…this was always where you felt safest. All of the insanity would always be a million miles away, blocked out by the circle of Andrew Cody’s arms.

Which is probably why it feels like a physical stab to your chest when you carefully wiggle out of them.

He grunts, one arm reaching out as if searching for you, but he doesn’t wake.

You allow yourself one moment to stare at him. One long, aching moment. He’s so beautiful in the moonlight that he almost hurts to look at.

And then you slip on one of his tshirts, wiggle into your jeans, and disappear out the door.

You don’t bother pulling your shoes back on, letting the sand cushion your feet as you wander down the beach, and listening to the waves crash against the shore.

He’ll wake up soon, and he’ll find you. And when he does, he’ll pull you back into his arms and the two of you will sit on this beach like you used to. Watch the waves and the stars like you used to. You’ll talk, and he’ll apologize, and he isn’t very good with words but you’ll understand him and you’ll forgive him. Just like that.

You’re not ready for that.

So you pull out your phone, and dial the only other number you have on speed dial. The only number besides Pope Cody’s.

“Where the hell have you been?” Craig shouts into the phone, mirth lacing his voice even through the tinny speaker.

You glance down at Pope’s t-shirt. Plain white. Too big for you. Soft and draped over your body like a flag with his name on it.

Oh well. “You’re gonna give me a whole lotta shit for it.”

He laughs, and you hear a bottle clink somewhere on the other side of the phone. “So why’re you callin’ me?”

“Cause I’m crazy, I guess. Or an idiot.”

“Or both.”

You hum, and bend down to scoop some sand into your palm, letting it trickle between your fingers as it falls back to the earth. You’re confused, and still hurting, and your heart aches heavy in your chest. In moments like this, you’ve always wondered what it would be like to have one of those girl best friends in rom-coms. The kind who would split a bottle of wine with you on the couch and talk for hours about boys with you. That must be nice. You wonder if they really exist, somewhere where life is normal.

Well, you don’t have that. You have Craig Cody.

“I’ve gotta go off grid for a minute.” You say, and trail your eyes back towards Pope’s darkened house. You have minutes before that light flicks on, and you cave. “Wanna get drunk?”

Craig blows out a long breath, and you can almost see him raising his eyebrows and resting his elbows on his knees.

“Sure. Where are you?”

-

Pope hasn’t seen you in three days.

Deran is the one who called him, frustrated and concerned and grouching about you not being able to handle your liquor.

“It’s weird, dude. The balance is gone. She’s not talking him out of shit anymore. They’re just kinda ramping each other up.” He hears the clink of bottles. Shouting in the background. Maybe, somewhere, your laughter. “Whatever you did, come fix it. Because your girlfriend is doing body shots on my bar and I’m not about to get shut down because those two are acting like fucking idiots.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He’s already grabbing his keys. You fell asleep in his arms, for fucks sake. You spent the entire day letting him whisper apologies and promises of love into your skin. He thought you were good. It felt like everything was back to normal, and then you were just…gone.

Sure, there was a moment where you insisted you weren’t back together, but when that sentence is quickly drowned out by “Oh God oh God Andrew please don’t stop” it’s a little hard to let the words sink in.

He’d searched the beach for hours. Called your phone even when it became blatantly obvious that you’d turned it off. He went to Craig’s house, and his brother wasn’t there. You didn’t take your car when you disappeared. He’s been worried sick about you and now you’ve been on some kind of bender?

“You did something.” Deran doesn’t seem to be grasping the gravity of this situation. Everything was fine. Why are you still upset? “They haven’t done this kind of shit since you dumped her in prison.”

“I didn’t fucking dump her.” He needs to focus on not breaking too many traffic laws, but he senses a few irritated comments coming his way. Annoyed as Deran may be right now, he fucking adores you almost as much as Craig does, and Pope can hear genuine worry in his tone.

“You should probably look up the definition of dumping, dude. Telling her to fuck off and not talking to her for three years is pretty-“

“Just tell me if she’s okay.” The words come out harsh. A snap of anger in the quiet car.

“Just get here.” The phone clicks off, and Pope almost throws it out the window.

-

Everything is nice and fuzzy, and you’re having a very fun time.

You don’t have anywhere near Craig’s tolerance, nor his penchant for anything stronger than alcohol and weed, so this ‘bender’ hasn’t exactly consisted of you partying straight through like he has. In fact, it took until tonight for him to pull you off of his couch and tell you to stop wallowing and have fun.

And you had listened. Oh boy, had you listened.

You started at Craig’s house, letting him amp you up and remind you to get angry between shots of tequila.

“Holy shit, just say it. Say it already!” Craig stands, waving the shot in front of your face before shoving it forward. “Are you mad? Sad? C’mon, quit bein’ such a closed book! Who the fuck is that helping?”

“I’m angry!” You take the shot, down it, and sputter.

And then you smash the glass against the wall.

“There she is!” Craig shouts, enveloping you in a drunken hug, and you let the rage build in the safety of your friend’s arms as you start to giggle like a fucking lunatic.

“Gimme another.”

He whoops, lets you go, and grabs the bottle.

And then you went to the Cove, and drank margaritas and let Craig convince you to get angrier. Angry because Pope left you. Because it hurt so bad it felt like a piece of you had broken off, and angry because he showed back up and brought all of that pain with him and just expected it all to be better.

And eventually, you ended up in Deran’s bar, hammered and laughing and trying to remember why you were mad in the first place.

That is, until Pope Cody shows up.

You’ve seen him look scary before, with that furrowed brow and those shark eyes, but now he looks downright murderous.

That’s okay. You can be angry too. You are angry.

“We’re leaving.” He says, simply, wrapping an arm around you before you shove him off.

“Nuh uh.” You step back, and his frown deepens.

“Dude, lay off. She’s just blowin’ off some steam-“

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Pope stands too close to Craig. Looks way too angry. He doesn’t get to be mad. He broke your heart. He left you alone.

“What’re you doing?” Craig, larger than Pope and already too drunk and coked out to think rationally, matches the furious energy. “You think you’re cool just walkin’ in here and making her go home?”

Something twinges in your drunken mind. Tells you to step in. To stop this.

But you’re too late.

“Maybe I’m sick and tired of pickin’ her up off the floor because you did some shit to make her bawl her fucking eyes out.” Craig shoves Pope. Hard. “Seriously man, what’s the fuckin’ matter with you? You think she deserves this shit?”

Pope punches him in the face.

You just stand there for a moment, drunk and shocked, and it takes a good moment of them brawling and shoving each other into the bar before you realize that you should get in the middle of this.

Someone, some guy who was flirting with you a while back, tries to grab you and pull you away. You slam your elbow into his face, and he releases you long enough for you to leap onto Craig’s back, yanking him away from Pope just in time to feel your back slam into the corner of the bar hard enough to make you lose your grip.

You fall back, feel something smash beneath you, and groan as a bolt of agony shoots through your body. Fuck. Fuck, that’s gonna leave a mark.

The fight stops. The bar goes quiet.

Hands pull you up, slurred apologies spilling past Craig’s lips in a panic as he sets you on your feet and looks down at you with a horrified expression. You’ve had worse, sure, but the bruise isn’t gonna be pretty and you know damn well he’s gonna feel guilty about it tomorrow.

You look up at him, reach up to pat his chest…

And puke on his shoes.

You hear him mumble a quiet “oh, fuck” before he’s shoved aside, and Pope is there. Pope, who is scooping you up into his arms without a word and carrying you out of the bar.

“Sorry.” You mumble, and he doesn’t respond, but he squeezes you a little more tightly to him and that feels like enough.

He places you down in the passenger seat of his truck, and presses his lips to your forehead before he moves to the drivers side.

You’re suddenly very, very exhausted. You thunk your head against the window, and close your eyes as the engine starts.

You feel Pope’s hand on your leg, warm and comforting and familiar.

It feels like home.

-

“Look who finally decided to come home.”

Your father’s voice is nails on a chalkboard. A skin-prickling, hatred inducing rasp that makes your entire body tense.

“This isn’t home.” You drop your keys on the counter. It’s not home. It never has been, but now that you have a real home the difference has never been more obvious to you.

You left your home tonight. Left the warmth of Andrew Cody’s arms. He hadn’t woken, as exhausted after the job as you were, but he’d hummed sleepily into your neck and tried to squeeze you closer as you’d wiggled your way out of his embrace.

Your father scoffs, and doesn’t look up from the TV. “You think that place is home? You whore yourself out to that psycho Cody and now you can’t give half a shit about the guy who raised ya?”

It’s your turn to scoff. You don’t answer. He keeps going.

“You think that crazy kid loves you? You think you’ll get to leave and run off into the sunset with him? The ticking time bomb ain’t gonna love you. None of ‘em are. I know Smurf. She’s keepin’ you around because that shithead prefers to fuck you over going berserk and killin’ everyone in the house. They don’t give a shit about you. They use you. S’all you’re good for, anyway.”

That hits you. Harder than it should.

No. No, he’s wrong. He’s an asshole, and he’s wrong. Andrew Cody loves you more than life itself. There’s no question there.

…Right? It’s not like you even know what love is, being raised by this of shit. And Pope’s love is…obsessive. You don’t mind it. You like it, actually. But-

No. Fucking no. You’re not letting him get in your head. You can’t.

Because there’s Craig. And Deran. And even Baz, sometimes. Smurf likes you, and she most certainly sees you as a pawn, but… but Craig is your best friend. Craig laughs at your jokes. Hugs you so tightly your ribs might crack sometimes. Stays up to talk to you for hours by the pool.

And Pope loves you so much that it consumes him. Even you can’t doubt that. The way he looks at you, the way he touches you, the way he kisses you like he’ll never be able to get enough. His shoulders relax when you enter the room. His smile is the brightest thing you’ve ever seen. You even wake up to him watching you sleep, sometimes, tracing his calloused fingers over your skin with his eyes half-open like he’s fighting sleep just so he can look at you a little longer.

And the last time your father took things too far, the last time you came back with bruises…

You’d spent an hour talking Pope down from coming over here. You’d spent longer convincing Craig and even Deran to stop fucking encouraging him to, to stop insisting that they’ll help him end this asshole.

That’s love.

And that gives you the strength, the courage, to move over to your father and lean one hand on the back of the couch, glaring daggers into his eyes.

“The only reason you’re still alive, is because of me.” It sounds like a fucking growl, so angry and unlike you. “Don’t forget that.”

Your father just smiles, like you’re wrong and he knows it. You want to punch him. You want to prove him wrong, and let Andrew kill him.

You walk out the door, instead.

-

He sits you on the edge of his bed, and it’s just like before. Like every time you’ve been drunk or even sick since you were kids. He kisses your cheek, asks if it’s okay, and when you nod he pulls your t-shirt up over your head, quickly replacing it with one of his own. Your pants go next, and then he tucks you beneath the blankets of his bed and brushes your hair from your face.

He hesitates to pull his own shirt off, wonders if you might be too drunk and upset to want him near you. You never have before, but he’s realizing pretty quickly that before is more removed from the present than he expected it to be. Three years in prison, daydreaming every day about coming home to you and explaining why he did that he did and having you forgive him right away was…well, a daydream. He may have been able to lose himself in the fantasy of your unconditional love and forgiveness for three years, but you were here. Alone. Wondering what you did wrong and missing him on a level completely separate from his. He didn’t experience any of the confusion. The lack of understanding. The pain that comes with that.

You reach out, and push the hem of his shirt up. He pulls it over his head, a slave to your needs and whims, and helps you unbuckle his pants until he’s sliding into bed beside you and pulling you into his arms.

“You’re mad at me.”

You tilt your head into his hand, and nod.

His heart breaks, eyes softening and hand smoothing over your cheek as he leans closer and presses his forehead against yours.

“Why?” He asks, a genuine desperate pain cracking the word as it leaves his throat. “I thought…I thought we were good.”

You make a soft noise, and lean against him a little more.

He whispers your name, presses a kiss to your cheek, and inhales deep, trying to memorize your scent.

“I’m not good at this. You always tell me.” Another kiss. Fingers curling in your hair. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make you stop hurting.”

You curl a little closer.

“You left me.” You finally whisper. “You promised you never would, and then you left. I worried about you for three years.”

He pulls you closer. Feels tears prickle in his eyes and guilt churn in his stomach.

“I went to the beach, and it didn’t feel better, because you weren’t there.” Your fingers curl against his chest, right over his breaking heart. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore. For three years.”

Fuck. “I’ll never stop loving you.” If he holds you any more tightly, it might hurt the bruise on your back. He’s gonna fucking kill Craig for that, accident or not. “Never.”

And then, quietly, almost a whisper as you drift off but just loud enough for him to hear it and almost die right there, “…I don’t know if I believe you, anymore…”

-

The boat job goes well. Really fucking well. Save for Marco cutting a woman’s fucking finger off, everything goes off without a hitch.

And you’re proud. Really fucking proud. Craig was always capable of this kind of thing if he just applied himself, and here you all are. Richer than before and still riding that all-too-familiar adrenaline high.

“Geez, Pope really did a number on you.” You reach up now, poking lightly at his black eye. He flinches, and huffs out a sheepish laugh. You saw this coming when you decided someone would have to beat Craig up, and Pope volunteered a little…emphatically. But still.

“Pretty sure he’s got some pent up anger.” He rubs the back of his neck, eyes scanning over you. “How’s your back?”

You cringe, and resist the urge to rub the still-bruised area. “It’s fine. The hangover was worse.”

Craig looks like he’s about to turn you around inspect the injury himself, but one glance over your shoulder to where Pope is no doubt glaring from across the bar is enough to make him cave with one last guilty look. He’s apologized maybe a hundred times for the mistake, and you’ve forgiven him every time. After all, he didn’t mean it, and you’ve definitely had worse. “Damn, how bad?”

Your head is pounding, and you just barely managed to make it into the bathroom before the rest of last night’s tequila expels itself from your stomach.

Not five seconds later, you feel a large hand curl in your hair, pulling it back into a makeshift ponytail while another palm rubs small circles on your back.

“Oh, the humanity.” You whimper, pulling back to lean against the wall. You flinch at the movement, and give Pope a miserable look. “Christ, did I get hit by a truck last night?”

“You broke up a bar fight.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

“It was…between me and Craig.”

You frown, and try to piece the fuzzy memories together. “Did you kill him?”

“No. He fell back against the bar with you on his back, so I’m going to.”

Ah, that’s where the pain is coming from. You look him over, shirtless and beautiful and achingly familiar, but…

“Have you slept?”

He frowns, and looks like he’s fighting the urge to reach for you. “No.”

Ugh. This is stupid. Bad idea. You should leave. You are not together anymore. You will not-

“Okay. My head hurts. You need to sleep. Back to bed, big guy.” You reach out, and make grabby hands at him, just like you’ve done a million times before. Every time you were hungover, every time you were sick, or even one time when you just twisted your ankle trying to dive into the pool.

His smile is so full of adoration and relief that it nearly makes you cry. He doesn’t hesitate, moving to scoop you into his arms with a soft grunt of “c’mere…”

He lays you down, and you pull him with you, tugging the covers around you both before tucking yourself into his chest and reaching up to scratch your nails lightly over his back in the way that’s always made him melt.

“I love you.” He murmurs, warm fingers brushing through your hair. “I’m sorry-“

“Shhh. Go to sleep.” You press your lips to his shoulder, and feel him shiver a little at the feeling. “Head hurts, and you need to sleep.”

He takes a moment to speak, but then he nuzzles his nose into your hair and drops his arms down to pull you closer to him. “Okay.”

“I’ve had worse.” You smile, and clink your beer against Craig’s. “Thanks, though. You did fucking amazing today.”

Your friend’s smile, despite the damage to his face, lights up the entire room. “Fuck yeah I did. You did, too.”

“Aw, shucks.” You grin, and it’s just like before. Just like when you were kids, riding the adrenaline high together and laughing your way through the car chases and the gunfights despite Pope and Baz and even Deran’s concern. You nudge him, and smile a little wider as you gesture towards the door. “Renn’s here.”

He turns, and the way his eyes light up makes your heart swell impossibly more. That, right there. That’s how you look at Pope. How he looks at you. That little spark behind his eyes is exactly what he’s always deserved.

“You two back together?”

“Nah. I mean, I dunno. Maybe. We’re…you know.”

You clink your beer against his, and meet his eyes. “Just don’t fuck it up again, okay? You’ll be fine. Don’t overthink.”

His eyes trail behind you, to where Pope is most certainly still watching you, and he raises a pointed eyebrow.

You scoff. “Shut up.”

-

That’s the problem with good things. They always end.

You’re at the bar, sitting beside Pope like you have after a thousand jobs, and despite your conviction to keep your heart safe you can’t help the way it melts when his hand covers yours, large fingers threading through your own.

“Do you wanna go home?”

You hum, and lean into his side despite yourself. It was a pretty big day, after all, and nothing sounds better than curling up in bed with him and sleeping until noon tomorrow.

You open your mouth to agree, feeling his thumb trace lightly over your knuckles, and-

Your phone dings. A specific ringtone. One that makes you feel like an anvil has been dropped into your stomach.

“I’ll be right back.” You murmur, and when Pope’s brow furrows you lean forward and press your lips to the corner of his mouth. Not quite a kiss, but close enough that his hand squeezes yours one last time. “Just gotta go to the bathroom, first.”

You leave before he can follow.

-

“You look like shit.” You greet the old man in the alley with a frown, crossing your arms and standing a good few feet back. He does. Your father, piece of shit that he is, has probably pissed off a debt collector or two again, judging by the bruises on his face and arms. You have no sympathy for the man who once left similar marks on you.

“Heard your psycho boyfriend is outta prison.” His retort makes you grit your teeth. “Still sluttin’ yourself out to the Codys?”

“What the fuck do you want this time?”

“Just an exchange. Heard about that boat robbery today.” Fuck. “Wouldn’t be too great for good ol’ Dope’s probation if someone were to put in an anonymous tip, would it?”

“Pope had nothing to do with that.”

Your father smiles, all stained teeth and greedy eyes. “Shouldn’t be a problem, then.”

“Fuck you.”

“How ‘bout we make a trade? I don’t gotta call nobody, and you help cover my debt.”

You want to kill him. You hate him so much it makes you feel sick. “Like I said, fuck you.”

You turn to walk inside, and the move is a mistake. Fingers close too-tightly on your wrist, and before you know it you’re being slammed against the alley wall with your arm twisted agonizingly tightly behind your back. You bite hard on the inside of your cheek to keep from crying out, and remind yourself to breathe through the pain.

“Thought I raised you better than that.” The fingers on your wrist feel like they’re going to snap it in half. You want to bite something back, preferably something poetically sarcastic, but you can’t let your voice betray the pain you’re in. All these years, and you hate that he can still hurt you. “You got three days, kid. Sure you can spend enough time on your knees to get the money out of the crazy one. Maybe the cokehead, too.”

He lets you go with a shove that makes your cheek scratch against the wall, and you turn to glare defiant daggers as he walks away.

-

“Where did you go?” Pope’s dark eyes are curious, almost innocent as he reaches up to pull you closer to him by your hips.

You move back a little, and his brow furrows with concern. “I need my cut.”

“Yeah. You’ll get it when we-“

“I need it now.”

He stands, and you step back when he looks you over, but you’re too late. He knows you too well.

His hands are on your waist, tugging you close to him, and his fingers fly up to the scrape on your cheek. Down to pull up your sleeve, exposing angry red marks in the shape of fingerprints.

“Where is he?” He asks, voice dripping with danger, and you try to pull away but he just grips you more firmly. His grip is gentle, and you know he would let you go in a second if you asked, but he’s not letting you run from this. “Is he here?”

“Not anymore.” His fingers are curling around your arm, pulling it up to inspect your wrist. His eyes are almost black, and his jaw is clenched so tightly you’re worried he might crack a damn tooth. “Hey, Andrew. Look at me.”

His eyes don’t leave the bruises on your arm. “I should have killed him.”

“Beating him half to death caused enough problems.” Piece of shit that he is, your father has one too many connections in Oceanside, and the damage control from when Pope snapped on him years ago nearly got all of you arrested or killed.

It’s been proven safer to just give him what he wants, and try to keep it as secretive as possible, lest Pope or even Craig try to pound him into the pavement again.

Speaking of which, Pope is still holding you too tightly. You reach up, and turn his face towards yours. “I’m fine. We’re fine. Let’s…” God, you’re supposed to keep up with this ‘not together anymore’ thing, but “can we just go home?”

He melts. His eyes soften, and his arms slide around you to pull you closer to him. You feel his cheek against the side of your head, his hand sliding gently up over your back, and you melt too.

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

-

Split lip. Black eye. Ringing ears.

God, everything hurts. That asshole really did a number on you this time.

Bruised if not cracked ribs. A slight limp from where your leg hit weird when you were tossed across the floor. An aching arm that was grabbed a little too hard.

“Holy shit.” Craig. Craig’s voice, as familiar as your own.

“I got hit.” You worked on this lie. Practiced it the whole limping walk down here. “…by a car.” As bad as it is this time, it might be the only thing that’s believable.

“You’re a shit liar.” Now you know that’s not true, but your friend is already by your side, holding you up and helping you walk into the house. “I’m gonna kill him.”

You’ve definitely got a black eye. Your lip is swollen and bleeding. It’s becoming more exhausting to take stock of your injuries than it would be to note what isn’t hurting.

“Don’t. Just…don’t.” You wince on a step, and when Craig huffs and tries to scoop you up you swat him off.

“Fuck that. You look like you’re about to keel the fuck over.” He frowns, concern lacing every one of his features. “You’re not going back there.”

“I hit him with a fuckin’ frying pan.” You mumble, knocking your head against his shoulder. “So I figure I’m not welcome back any time soon.”

“Smurf is gonna shit.” He mumbles, and leans you back against the kitchen counter to inspect your face. “Fuck, Pope is gonna blow a gasket, dude. How are you gonna explain this to him?”

“I don’t know.” You mumble, reaching up to push the hair out of your face. All you want to do right now is see him. To be held by him and to maybe even just lay down in his twin bed and feel him tuck you into his arms. You’ve been with him for a little over a year, now, and it still feels like you’ve been dating for a week. Like your relationship is just one never ending honeymoon phase. Even these last few days, helping your father out with his bullshit scam, you’ve missed him so much it’s almost concerning.

Fuck.

“Beer, please.” You mumble, and when Craig hands it to you you take a moment to rest the cool glass against your bruised cheek. “I don’t know. I’ll tell him I got in an accident.”

Craig’s answer is immediate, lifting your arm to show the bruises in the shape of fingerprints dented into your skin. “Yeah, real fuckin’ believable.”

You pull you arm back, panic rising in your throat. “Okay. I…give me a sweatshirt.”

“He’ll just take it off.”

“Fuck.” He’s right. You shouldn’t have come here. You should have hidden out on the beach for a few days like you used to, and waited for some of these injuries to fade. Fuck. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Fat fuckin’ chance.” Craig grabs you, more firmly than usual, and keeps you still against the counter. “You think I’m gonna let you walk outta this house while that asshole is still breathing? Look, I ain’t Pope, but I’m not gonna let you into a situation where you could-“

You sense him before you see him. You didn’t even hear the door open.

“Get. Away. From. Her.”

Shit.

“Shit.” Craig releases you, and takes three large steps back like he might be attacked by a mountain lion.

Pope is on you in a second, one large hand cradling your bruised face, and in a moment you can see in his eyes that he’s not entirely there. That line in him has snapped, like it has on those nights you’ve found him in the yard, distant and empty and staring at the moon. When you’ve pulled him from fights, and he took a minute to even remember your name. Took him longer to remember his own.

“Please.” You whisper, reaching up to slide your fingers through his hair and force him to look at you. “Please be okay about this.”

He doesn’t answer you. He just moves his hand over your face, looks at you with those murderous eyes, and presses his forehead against yours.

“Where is he?”

“Pope. Andrew. Please.” Your heart cracks on his name, and he grips you more tightly. “Please, just take me to bed.” You turn his face to yours, squeeze your eyes shut. “I just wanna go to bed.”

And he does.

One hour later, he leaves that bed. You don’t open your eyes. Keep your breathing slow and steady as you feel him kiss your forehead, then your cheek, sliding his fingers through your hair like pulling away from you is physically painful.

But he does, and you feel him stand. You hear him leave.

And you let him.

Two hours later, he walks through the door of Smurf’s house with blood on his knuckles and sweat on his brow.

You’re waiting for him in the hall.

You look down at his hand. Back up to his eyes.

“Is he dead?” Your voice is quiet. He doesn’t look guilty, but he doesn’t look away from you, either.

“No.”

You just nod, and move forward to slide your hand over his cheek. He leans helplessly closer to you.

“Next time you do that,” you murmur, guiding his lips down to your own as his swollen knuckles curl against the back of your borrowed shirt, tugging you closer to him, “take me with you.”

He releases a shuddering breath, and his kiss is so full of love and devotion that it buckles your knees.

-

A warehouse is a cheesy place to meet. The fact that the asshole brought backup makes it worse. Granted, you brought Pope, Craig, and Deran with you, but…well, they’re more here for emotional support. And because they wouldn’t let you come alone.

When you got home, you told Pope everything. The threats, the money you’ve sent him, the amount of time he’s still been able to keep you under his thumb despite how hard you’ve worked to break away…

To your surprise, he hadn’t snapped. He hadn’t stormed out of his house to find the old man. He’d…

He’d kissed you. He’d wrapped his arms around you, tilted your head back, and kissed you.

You make a muffled noise against his mouth, eyes flying open in surprise before fluttering shut as your body melts into the embrace before your mind can even catch up.

When you finally break for air, still confused but certainly unable to complain, you blink your eyes open again.

“What was that for?”

He just kisses you again. Slow. Warm. Wonderful. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” He whispers, lips moving down to your jaw. Your neck. “I’m sorry you had to be so fuckin’ brave on your own.”

“Andrew, I…” this is a much different reaction than you were expecting. You haven’t mentally prepared for it. Your mind is still on the defensive.

He shushes you. Pushes his hands up under your shirt to trace them over your skin. “I love you. You don’t wanna be together? That’s okay. We can do whatever you want.” He kisses the hollow of your throat, scrapes his teeth against the sensitive skin, and you make a soft noise in the back of your throat that has him tightening his grip on you. “I’m not going anywhere, and you’re not dealing with this alone.”

You’re not alone. He’s not going anywhere. Never again.

You believe him. You really, really believe him.

“Take off your clothes, please.”

He smiles against your collarbone, and trails his nose up your throat until his lips are hovering over your own. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” You’re already tugging at his shirt, already pulling him down to kiss you, and he meets you with a hunger that feels like a satisfied craving. “I love you. I trust you.” The words are murmured between kisses, “now please take off your clothes.”

“Christ, it’s like you think you’re Tony Soprano or some shit.” You grumble, feeling surprisingly petulant despite the intensity of the situation. Your father has connections, sure, but you grew up with Smurf Cody. The comparison between the way he operates and what you’re used to is absolutely insane.

Your father is a drunk, and an asshole, and he thinks he’s tough shit. You happen to know what it looks like to actually know what you’re doing. Shocker, that you’re the one who makes the actual fucking money. Even less shocking that he makes most of his income leeching off of you.

Well, not anymore.

“I told you to come alone. You brought your fuckin’ guard dog.”

“Yeah, you’re one to talk.” You gesture to the man beside him, the wall of muscle holding the gun and glaring at you like this is a gangster movie and he genuinely believes himself to be the most badass character. “Did you give your Steroid Humunculus his pay already, or is he gonna be banging on your door in a week looking for it?” You’re guessing the latter, if past experience is anything to go by.

“Enough.” Your father snaps, like he has any authority at all. It makes you furious. “Tell the psycho to leave.”

“Call him a psycho one more time, and this time it won’t be him who beats you to a fucking pulp.”

“Are you threatening me, you little shit?”

“Like father, like daughter.”

“I should teach you a fuckin’ lesson-“ he starts toward you, only to back up when Pope steps forward. His jaw ticks, fury flashing in his eyes, and you hear the click of something loading in the cavernous room.

It all happens so fast.

In all the times this kind of thing has happened, all of the times he’s made threats, it’s always been diffused. He’s always held up a gun, maybe loaded it, and said some bullshit until money was tossed his way.

This time, he brought the wrong backup. And that backup panics.

The man raises the gun, and aims it at Pope.

You move before you think, jerking instinctively in front of him and pushing him back, already beginning to move towards the money to end this bullshit. They always point the gun. Always shout a threat. Always shut up when they see the money and-

And then the gun goes off.

-

You wake to an empty bed.

Your first instinct is to reach out to the space Pope usually occupies, hand sliding over the cool sheets like you might be able to pull him out of thin air. It’s not morning, and the house is silent. If there was some kind of emergency, he would have woken you.

Huh.

The mystery doesn’t stay a mystery for long. You shuffle into the yard, and there he is.

Naked. Staring at the moon.

He seemed fine last night. Well, as fine as Pope Cody can be. A little more quiet, maybe. A little clingier than usual, and that would be saying something, but fine.

“Hey, handsome.” You hum, casual and sleepy, and move to stand beside him. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t break his eyes from the night sky. “What are we looking at?”

“Everything.” He murmurs, absent, and you can already tell that he isn’t here. Isn’t entirely inside his own head. That’s alright. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and it probably won’t be the last. At least he’s not smashing anything with a hammer.

“Sounds like a lot.” You move to stand in front of him, lifting your hand to brush your fingers through the soft curls on the back of his neck and turn his gaze down to yours. “How ‘bout you just look at me instead?”

When his eyes meet your own, still hazy and distant, his breath catches in his lungs. His hand moves up, guiding yours so he can press his cheek into your palm like the touch is some sort of coveted blessing. You smile, soft and gentle, and bring up your other hand to mirror the first and cradle his other cheek.

“You’re an angel.” The words come out as a reverent whisper. He’s not trying to flatter you, not trying for pretty compliments, but rather stating a fact. Like he often does, when he’s in this state.

“Not quite.” You press your lips to the underside of his jaw, and you feel a shiver travel through his entire body. “But I appreciate the compliment.”

Large hands hover over your waist, and his eyes don’t leave you. “Can I…touch you?”

You nod, and bring his forehead down to rest against yours as his arms slide around you, tugging you against him as calloused fingers trail up beneath your sleep shirt, the touch just as familiar as the rest of him.

“Will you come to bed with me?” You ask softly, moving your own hands down to smooth over the skin of his chest. “I’m not an overly jealous person, but I’d prefer to keep this view for myself. Don’t wanna share with the neighbors.”

“I’ll do anything for you.”

“Tell me that again in the morning when I remind you to take your meds, okay?”

He follows you back inside, and allows you to pull him back into bed with you. Allows you to pull the covers up around you both as he envelops you in his arms, and trails his lips along your hairline as he whispers soft words against your skin. You can’t make them out, but you wonder from his tone if they might be some kind of prayer.

“I love you.” You murmur, and his arms tighten around you. “Every part of you. You know that?”

“I don’t deserve it.” He whispers, and you pull back to look at him.

“You do.” You kiss his nose. His cheek. “You really, really do.”

-

For a moment, you think a car might have backfired somewhere nearby.

It’s not like you don’t know what a gun sounds like. Fuck, with your childhood, you could recognize the sound faster than your own voice. And yet, in this moment, your mind can’t seem to keep up. Can’t seem to process exactly what just happened.

You feel like you got punched in the stomach. There’s an intense, knock-the-wind-out-of-you pressure, and then…

Your hand comes up to the point of that pressure, to the dull burn, and comes away red.

“Fuck.” Your father breathes, and then he starts shouting. “Fuck! You idiot! What the fuck did you do?!”

You’ve heard that voice before. When he’s lost an exceptionally lucrative bet. When a deal has gone wrong. That’s the tone of a man who is losing his meal ticket, not even close to the tone of a concerned father.

You didn’t even get to do your little speech. Your whole ‘fuck you, I owe you less than nothing and this is the last time you’re getting a cent from me’ speech. You were kind of looking forward to it.

Your whole body feels a little numb. When your knees finally give out, warm arms wrap around you before you can collapse.

“No. No no no no no!”

Now that…that isn’t concern either. It’s worse. So much worse. It’s the realest and most raw fear you’ve ever heard.

There’s too much blood. Fuck. So much blood. It’s spilling out between your fingers faster than should be possible. Vaguely, you remember when you were small, and the faucet broke at whatever house you and your dad were squatting in at the time. You were so scared of his ire, of him blaming you for the burst, that you’d tried to hold it together with your small hands until your entire body was soaked.

Andrew Cody is gathering you into his arms, lowering you to the ground, and the pain is starting to slice it’s way through the shock and it is absolutely fucking overwhelming.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay. Look at me. C’mon, y-you’ve gotta look at me.”

Your father is still yelling at the guy who shot you. Screaming about the money. Not about you. The sound is loud, cutting through the ringing in your ears, and Andrew’s arms tighten around you.

“Close your eyes.” The words are murmured by your ear. Soft and warm and gentle despite the chaos. When he speaks again, his voice is shaking. “Close your eyes, sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay.” He rarely calls you that. This must be bad.

When you do, you hear a gun fire, and the shouting stops.

Your eyes fly open, and you try to turn towards the sound of two bodies hitting the floor, but Pope is there before you can move, dropping a gun to the pavement and cradling your face in his hands.

“Don’t look at that. Look at me. Look at me, okay? You’re gonna be okay.”

He shouts for Craig. For Deran. Everything is still in a sharp, dizzy sort of focus.

-

“Holy shit. What happened?”

Craig is hunched over the toilet. There’s a bottle of tequila on the floor.

He turns his face towards you, hair messy and cheek resting against his arm. “Go away.”

“Nah.” You’re already sitting beside him, tugging his hair into a ponytail and tying it off.

“M’a fuckup.” He mumbles. “Jus’ a…drunk idiot. Deran said.”

You hum, and rub a soothing hand over his back. “Definitely acting like one.”

“See?” He tilts his head miserably back into his arm. “Even you say it.”

“Shut up. You know that’s not what I’m saying.” You move over to the bottle, and take a swig before throwing the rest into the trash. “Hey, look at me.”

He does. He looks like he might have been crying.

“You’re one of the smartest people I know, you know that?”

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m not lying.”

He looks at you now. Really, really looks at you. “You gotta stop seein’ the best in me.”

“Too late. You done puking?”

He grunts, and you reach down to help him stand with a significant amount of effort and bitching that he weighs a million pounds.

And you get him into bed, and even tuck him in, and before you leave to go back to Pope’s room he catches your wrist.

“I love you.”

You stop, and furrow your brow.

“Not in like, a weird way. M’not tryna fuck you or anything. I don’t even know how…” he frowns, and releases you to rub a hand over his face. “I dunno how to say it.”

Your heart swells, in that familiar way, and you laugh a little as you move over and sit on the edge of his bed. “I think you’re telling me I’m you’re best friend.”

“Well, obviously. S’more than that, though. You don’t…you don’t think I’m a fuckup. You actually like me.”

You think back to that kid on the beach, surrounded by three angry assholes and fully prepared to stand his fucking ground. The kid who you were knocked out defending. Who didn’t think twice before he brought you back to his home. To the only safe space he knew. Who brought you into his family.

Who loved you like you loved him, and wasn’t sure what it meant. Who assumed, as teenagers do, that it might be romantic. Who didn’t think twice when he realized that it wasn’t romantic, and still pushed his pride aside and kept on loving you. And even now, budding your own ways into adulthood together, he’s drunk and still trying to put into words that he loves you platonically.

“You have the biggest heart.” You say, honest and raw, and his hazy blue eyes fill with tears again. “Even if you can be an idiot sometimes.”

He swipes his hand over his eyes, and tries to hide a sniffle. He looks young like this. He’s only in his early twenties, sure, but he looks younger than that. Vulnerable in a way only you ever really get to see.

“Promise you won’t go anywhere.” He mumbles, like he’s nervous to say it.

He smells like puke, and he’s sweaty, but fuck it. You hug him, making sure to flop down on top of him a little so he groans miserably before he wraps a large arm around you to pat your back.

“Can’t get rid of me if you tried, jackass.”

-

Craig is freaking out. He’s in the back of the car, where Pope is still holding you, and he’s freaking out.

Oh, no. That won’t do, will it? You take care of them. You always do. You keep Craig level-headed, and you keep Andrew from freaking out. Or…or is it the other way around? It’s concerningly difficult to think. You feel like you’re floating.

“Almost there. Almost there. Don’t leave me, okay?” God, Andrew Cody’s voice is the best thing you’ve ever heard. You want to sink into it, but he’s shaking and you can hear tears in his voice and you’re supposed to fix that.

“Drive fucking faster!” Craig is pushing on your stomach too hard. It hurts. You wheeze, and he doesn’t let up. “Deran, the IV isn’t working. It’s not working, she’s too fuckin’ pale.”

He’s covered in blood. You can’t see Pope, but you think he is too. Everything is tainted a horrible shade of red, and it’s getting really hard to think.

“M’here.” You try, scratchy and raw. “M’here. You’re okay. Don’t…be a dumbass.”

“Fuck. Fuck, don’t die. Please don’t die. Look at me, okay? Look at me.” You try, but Pope is whispering near-nonsense into your hair and trembling so hard it’s almost starting to hurt more than the pressure on your stomach. Still, Craig brushes the hair from your face, and you can see tears tracking their way down his cheeks. “They’re all dead, okay? All those assholes are dead. You’re not going with them, you hear me? You’re not going with them.”

There’s shouting. There’s panic. It’s all fading. Pope’s lips are warm against your skin, and the sound of his voice is soothing and…

-

“I love you.”

The words are whispered into your hair, so soft that you almost don’t hear them through the haze of sleep. But you’re awake, now. He doesn’t know it, but you’re awake.

You blink, and feel his fingers trace slow, warm patterns over the bare skin of your back.

“I love you.” He whispers again, just as low and just as quiet.

You shift, and he goes very, very still.

“Hi.” You whisper, pulling back, and he looks fucking terrified.

“…Hi.”

“You just said you loved me.”

“I…thought you were sleeping.”

You reach up, and turn his face to yours. Feel soft curls between your fingers.

“How long have you been telling me you love me when I’m asleep?”

He’s silent. He doesn’t look away.

“Andrew?”

“…a while.”

You smile, and the way his eyes spark at the sight makes your heart melt. “I love you, too.”

His hand flies up almost too fast, cradling your cheek and brushing his thumb over your cheekbone as he stares into your eyes with an intensity that makes your blood tingle in your veins. “You do?”

“Yeah.” How could you not? How could he not know? “Of course I do.”

-

A sharp sting brings you back, this time. You think someone might have hit you.

“Fuck, thank God. You looked like…shit, okay. Pope, let her go. You’ve gotta let her go, man.”

“Where were you?” He’s whispering against your cheek, and he’s out of his mind. Shit, he’s really out of his mind. His arms are still around you, and he’s speaking like he used to when things got really bad. When whatever was in his mind snapped, and it would take you hours to bring him back to you. “Where did you go? Don’t go. Take me with you.”

Every instinct, every cell in your body, tells you to fight. To stay here. To be here with him. To make this better.

But you’re losing time, and he’s not letting you go.

“Don’t touch her.” Lips on your temple. Your cheek. Arms tight around you. “Don’t touch her. Don’t take her away.”

You try to speak, but convulse instead. The sight of it seems to trigger something, and Craig starts to yank you out of Pope’s arms in such a panicked rush that you whimper as another bolt of agony fires through you.

Andrew holds you tighter. Your mouth tastes like copper. You feel blood trickling past your lips.

“Fuck it. Fuck it. Deran, hold him down.” Craig says, and he’s still crying and you should fix that, before he reaches forward and slams Pope’s head against the window. The arms around you go limp as he loses consciousness, and then you’re being lifted out of the car.

“I got you. It’s okay.” You choke out a soft noise, grab at his arm, and he just tucks you closer to him. “Pope’s okay, too. Everything’s gonna be fine, yeah? Just…just don’t die. Please, please don’t die.”

You’re so tired. You want Andrew. If you’re going to drift into oblivion, he should be here. But…

-

When you open your eyes, it’s to a cracked ceiling and a heavy, distant pain in your stomach.

You feel the drugs in your system. Blurred and heavy and warm. Tijuana. They managed to get you to Tijuana. And you’re alive. Bullet wound in the gut and all, and you’re alive.

Andrew Cody is beside you, head resting on his hands like he may have been living up to his nickname and praying. When you stir, he does too, red-rimmed eyes blinking open and looking at you like you’re the only other person in the world. There is so much relief in his gaze that the sight makes you feel dizzy.

“Hi.” You murmur, hoarse, and reach up to tap gently at the side of his head. “Are you here?” You remember his mumbled words against your skin. The way he needed to be knocked out before he would let you go. He can go so far away, sometimes. But he looks like he’s here now. He looks like he’s your Andrew.

He nods, and catches your hand to press his lips to your palm. His breath shudders on a silent sob.

“I thought…I thought you were-“

“I think we should get married on the beach.” You cut him off with a gentle squeeze to his hand. “S’that okay?”

He looks at you, at your stomach, and back at your face like he’s trying to judge how full of painkillers you are. “You wanna get married?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” There’s no hesitation. Not an ounce of it. “But you’re on-“

“I know. Still want to. I can ask you again when I’m off them, if you want.”

“I think you should.” He murmurs, but he’s smiling. It’s a small, hesitant thing. Like he was pretty sure, not too long ago, that he would never smile again. Like he’s already re-learning the expression.

“Mm.” You squeeze his hand, and lean your head back against the pillows. “You wanna marry me?”

“Since I first met you.”

“Softie.” You turn your head, and furrow your brow a little. “You never asked, though.”

“I planned it.” He admits, tracing his thumb over your knuckles. “Bought a ring.”

“When?”

“Five years ago.”

You raise your eyebrows, and say again, “you never asked.”

“Never found a perfect time.”

“Mm. Sorry for stealing your thunder then.”

He squeezes your hand, and brings it up to his lips so he can trail kisses over your knuckles. He looks back up at you after a moment, and his dark eyes are so beautiful. “I killed your father.”

Those four words should definitely make you feel something. Anything. Instead, you just feel a surge of love for the man before you. “Okay.”

“I’m glad I did it.”

“I know.”

And, like he just can’t help it anymore, he moves forward and presses his lips to yours. You kiss him back, and wrap your arms around his neck even as the movement makes you wince. Worth it.

“Can we get married now?” You ask, the words muffled by his lips, and he smiles down at you.

“When the drugs wear off.”

You frown, and shrug. “Okay. Can we go home?”

“When they say you can.”

Hm. “Can we have sex?”

He laughs. It’s a beautiful sound. “Go to sleep.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Promise I will be.” He kisses your cheek. “For the rest of your life.”

“I like where this is going.”

“I’ll never leave you again.”

“Keep talkin’, Cody.”

“When we get home, I’ll stock the fridge with that ice cream you like.”

“Take me now.”

The love in his eyes is so beautiful, so pure, so raw, that you know without a doubt that those eyes alone were worth living for. “Go to sleep.”

-

You and Pope rent a house in Tijuana for a while. There’s no need to go back to Oceanside. Not yet. Smurf doesn’t love it, but she doesn’t fight it. It wouldn’t be great optics, after all, for her son’s girlfriend to be recovering from a bullet wound while her father, whom Pope has nearly killed before, was recently found dead in a warehouse.

He fusses over you endlessly. He barely lets you stand on your own, even when you’re fully capable of doing so. You wake up to him watching you sleep more often than ever, and he barely spends more than a minute not touching you.

It’s nice. Really nice. Kind of like a honeymoon before the honeymoon. Just with less sex due to an annoying bullet wound, and a little more crankiness from you than usual due to both of the former issues.

But you stay up all night on the beach, talking until the sun rises and making out like teenagers. You try to make breakfast, burn it, and get to ogle him from your spot on the counter as he makes it for the both of you. You plan for the future, count down the days until your wound is healed, and just…enjoy being happy. No jobs, no strings, no stress.

A little over a month later, you wake him up by rolling on top of him, the familiar pain in your stomach reduced to much less than a dull ache.

His eyebrows raise before his eyes even open, a sleepy smile curling on his lips as his hand trails down your back and your lips move to press teasing kisses down his neck.

“Good morning.” You hum, and he seems more than happy to return the sentiment. “I officially think I’m healed enough for…strenuous activities.”

He makes a low noise, and kisses you slowly. Hungrily. You grin, triumphant and happy, and feel his hands come up to shift you on top of him, sitting himself up against the wall and-

And pulling back.

You actually whine, chasing his lips with your own, but he holds you firm with a smile so wide it’s almost silly.

“I have another idea.”

“It’s been over a month, Andrew. I challenge you to name one thing better than sex right now.”

His smile grows impossibly wider. He reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants, mischief sparking in his sleepy eyes like he was hoping you’d say something like that, and…

And pulls out a ring.

“Oh.” You breathe, eyes locked on the little diamond in his palm. It’s simple. Beautiful. Perfect.

“Bought a new one.” He says, hand coming up to brush your hair back from your face.

You grin. He grins back.

“You make a compelling argument.”

He kisses you, and you kiss him back.

You huffed a laugh as the two of them started bickering just as your phone buzzed in your pocket. You leant against the wall, only half listening as you pulled it out of your scrubs and saw a notification from Jack.

He must have just woken up from his pre-shift nap. The corner of your mouth lifted as you read his reply.

You: Are you coming in early today?

JA ❤️: Always.

You quickly typed out another message.

You: any chance u could bring in a protein bar for me? the ones at work are inedible

The reply came almost instantly.

JA ❤️: I know. I’ve told Robby they are a serious health hazard.

You smiled at that as you watched the three dots blink back at you.

JA ❤️: I’ll be in soon. I already have some in my bag for you.

You: are you psychic?

JA ❤️: Just good at pattern recognition.

Your smile widened as his reply came through.

You: thank u 🩷

JA ❤️: 👍

“What are you smiling at?”

You looked up to find McKay watching you over the fridge door.

“What?”

“That.” She pointed vaguely at your face. “Whatever that was.”

“Nothing.”

Santos and Whitaker paused their arguing to focus on you.

Santos studied you, her face contorting into a grimace. “Gross.”

“What?”

“I just can’t get over the fact that Abott reduces you to…” She trailed off, waving vaguely at you.

“That?” Whitaker supplied.

“Yeah.” Santos nodded gravely. “That.”

You rolled your eyes, sliding your phone back into your scrub pocket.

“I think the two of you are starting to fuse into one brain cell.”

Santos’ expression went still. “….that was genuinely hurtful.”

You turned to Whitaker. “There’s your new button to press.”

Whitaker’s grin widened as he crossed his arms over his chest and turned to Santos. “Oh I cannot wait to bring this up multiple times a day.”

Santos glared at you. "You're a traitor."

You pushed off the wall, shaking your head as you made your way towards the door.

“Never give your triggers away Santos.”

“You’re still a traitor!” She called out.

You waved her off without looking back, escaping before she could start another argument.

You barely made it two steps before nearly colliding with Samira.

“Oh sorry.” She came to an abrupt halt, the usual frazzled expression etched onto her features as she looked up at you.

“You all good?”

“Yeah um- have you seen Joy?”

“Not for a little while.”

“No worries, if you see her can you tell her I need her in Room 3?”

“Sure.” You nodded, tilting your head slightly as you studied her. “Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yeah fine.” She brushed you off as she tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Haven’t had lunch so I’m a bit cranky.”

You nodded in understanding. “Word of warning, don’t eat the protein bars.”

Samira’s nose wrinkled as she stepped around you. “Why on earth would I do that?”

You threw your arms up dramatically. “Am I the only one who didn’t know they were inedible?”

“Apparently so.”

You huffed, pulling your hair out from under your collar as you made your way over to the status board which was currently glowing above the chaos that was the ED like a cruel little scoreboard.

Your hands settled on your stethoscope as you scanned the board. Less than an hour till your shift was over, at least officially. Which given your track record of overtime, meant close to nothing.

“Hey.”

You glanced over to see Perlah leaning against one of the desks.

“What?” You asked warily.

Her smirk widened. “Have you seen the hot visitor?”

“The what?”

Princess appeared beside her, equally delighted.

“Absolute smoke show.”

Princess nodded towards the far end of the station. “Follow the sounds of Joy giggling.”

Your brows knitted together.

“Joy? As in our intern, Joy? As in the complete antithesis of her name, Joy?” You queried.

“See for yourself.” Perlah grinned.

You followed their line of sight to the other end of the nurses station where a tall figure stood, leaning an arm on one of the benches.

At first, all you saw was the back of a leather jacket, familiar in a way that made your stomach drop before your brain had fully caught up. The man shifted slightly, turning just enough for a familiar profile to come into view. The same hair coifed to perfection, the same self-satisfied slant of his mouth.

And sure enough standing beside him, blushing furiously as she giggled, actually giggled, at whatever he had just said, was Joy.

“I didn’t even know she was capable of laughter.” Princess remarked.

You closed your eyes for one brief, pained second. “You have got to be kidding me.” You grumbled.

Before either Princess or Perlah could ask what was wrong, you were already moving, making a beeline towards them.

Princess and Perlah exchanged a look behind your back. “What just happened?” Princess asked in Tagalog.

“I don’t know." Perlah muttered. "But I think it’s going to be good.”

By the time you were close enough to hear the familiar deep drawl of his voice, Mark Sloan had inched in just enough to make Joy look like she might pass out.

“So, is that the only piercing you have or...?”

You rolled your eyes.

“Still shamelessly hitting on interns I see.”

Mark turned at the sound of your voice. For half a second, there was nothing but surprise. And then his eyes lit up in recognition.

“Well I’ll be.”

That familiar grin spread slowly across his face as his eyes travelled down your body with the same shameless appreciation he’d had years ago, like he was undressing you from memory.

“Cupid.” He said the nickname lowly, like he’d never stopped saying it. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

You shot him a fake smile. “Wish I could say the same.”

Joy looked between the two of you, blinking rapidly, as if she was trying to decipher a complex math problem. You turned your attention to her, offering her a polite smile.

“Dr Mohan's looking for you, something to do with your patient in room 3.”

“Oh right.” Joy nodded, adjusting her glasses as she glanced at Mark. “On it.”

“Bye Joy.” Mark called out lazily, watching her blush as she scurried away, nearly walking into a wall in the process.

He turned to you, looking pleased with himself as he leant forward. “Why do you always have to ruin my fun?” He pouted once she was out of earshot.

"Someone has to."

Meanwhile, McKay, Whitaker and Santos had exited the breakroom, not even bothering to conceal their ogling as they clustered around a monitor.

“Ok who on earth is that?” Santos queried.

"And why does he look like he just walked off a photoshoot?" McKay muttered.

“And how do they know eachother?” Whitaker added.

“He called her Cupid.” Joy casually commented as she walked past them.

Whitaker’s brow furrowed. "....Cupid?"

Santos froze. The faint amusement dropped away, replaced by the sharp, dawning horror of someone remembering a detail they were never supposed to need.

“Oh my god.”

“What?” McKay and Whitaker asked simultaneously.

"Do you guys remember that time at karaoke?"

"....the one where she sang No Scrubs at Abbot?"

"No. The one when she accidentally admitted she had an ex at Seattle Grace that used to call her Cupid."

McKay and Whitaker both slowly turned to stare at Mark, then at you, then back at Mark.

"No." McKay shook her head.

"Yes."

“You don’t seriously think….” Whitaker trailed off.

“Oh I do” Santos nodded. “I really do.”

Back at the nurses’ station, you folded your arms, ignoring Mark's attempts at getting under your skin.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh some conference.” He waived his hand dismissively. “Thought I’d take the opportunity to come see Robinavitch.”

You blinked. “You know Dr Robby.” You said slowly.

“Since med school.” He answered smoothly. “Why? Hoping I was here to see you?”

You snorted. “Please.”

“Oh c’mon Cupid don’t act like you don’t miss me.” He smirked as he stepped closer. “You wouldn’t have moved across the other side of the country to forget about me if you didn’t.”

You leant in slightly, shooting him a dry smile. “I wouldn’t touch you again even if my life depended on it Sloan.”

He let out a genuine chuckle. “I’ve missed this.” He gestured between the two of you. “Us."

He placed his chin in the palm of his hand, leaning even closer. "Why did it ever end?”

You pretended to think for a moment. "Maybe because you’re physiologically incapable of staying monogamous?”

“Oh yeah right that.” He nodded. “Speaking of monogamous..."

"No."

"... I’ve heard you’ve got a new boy toy right here at PTMC.”

Your eyes narrowed. “Jesus Christ Meredith needs to learn to keep her mouth shut.”

“Well in her defence she told Derek who then told me so….” Mark trailed off, turning his body around to survey the room. “Which one is he?”

"I'm not playing this game." You answered, folding your arms over your chest.

“Wait let me guess.”

Before you could stop him, Mark placed both hands on your shoulders and gently turned you so you were both facing the floor of the pitt.

His eyes landed on Frank first. “Too pretty boy.”

He guided your shoulders slightly towards Whitaker. “Too scrawny.”

From across the room, Whitaker stiffened. “…Why is he looking at me?”

Santos didn’t look away. “Don’t wave.” She murmured.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were thinking about it.”

Then the ambulance bay doors opened. Jack walked in with a thermos in one hand, his bicep bulging as he shifted the backpack slung over his other shoulder on full display under his dark fitted shirt.

Your stomach dropped as his eyes scanned the room, no doubt looking for you. It didn't take long for his eyes to find yours. You watched as they shifted to Mark, then dropped to Mark's hands resting on your shoulders.

For a moment, his expression barely changed, only the faintest tightening around his jaw gave him away. Then he kept walking.

Mark smiled slowly. “….bingo.”

Your body stiffened as Mark glanced sideways at you.

“I’m right."

You didn't answer.

"I am."

“I’m not talking about my love life with you of all people.”

“Cupid, don’t be like that.” He nudged your shoulder. "Come on, what’s he like?”

“Well for starters, he volunteers as a medic for the SWAT team.” You said sweetly. “So he’s got at least one gun on him at all times.”

Mark nodded slowly, dropping his hands from your shoulders. "Noted."

"He also has excellent aim."

"Message received." Mark held his hands up. "I'll behave."

And then, for the first time since he had appeared, the teasing faded.

"But seriously..." His face softened slightly as his eyes settled on your face properly, no longer performing for the room.

“You’re happy?”

You exhaled slowly, your defences lowering slightly by the unexpected tone of his voice.

“I am.”

“He good to you?"

You smiled softly despite yourself. “He is.”

Something flickered across Mark’s face then, softening the usual sharp lines of his smirk, scarily close to being something sincere. “Good.”

For a moment, the years between you settled there. It didn’t feel painful or bitter or even sad. In fact, it seemed absurd to think that you'd cried over him once upon a time. Now he was just a story you told after one too many drinks, something you reflected on and shook your head, chalking it up to the foolishness of youth.

You cleared your throat, looking away first. “How’s work?”

“Busy, chaotic, dramatic.” Mark shrugged.

"So the usual then?"

“The usual.”

He glanced around the emergency department, frowing slightly as he took in the noise, the movement, the organised disaster of it all. “How’s the ED?”

“Busy, chaotic.” You echoed. “Somehow still much less dramatic than Seattle Grace."

Mark barked out a laugh. “Yeah that checks out.”

“Sloan.”

The two of you turned to see Robby making his way towards you, Jack beside him.

Mark's grin returned instantly.

“Robinavitch.” He broke away from you and pulled Robby into a hug with the force of someone who had never respected personal space in his life.

"A lot less hair since I last saw you."

Robby snorted, clapping him on the back. "The Pitt will do that to you.”

Jack caught your eye over Robby’s shoulder, his expression running a fine line between faint amusement and annoyance.

Robby stepped back, shaking his head before gesturing to Jack.

“This is Jack Abbot, night attending.”

“Nice to meet you. Mark Sloan.” Mark stuck his hand out. “Head of Plastic Surgery at Seattle Grace.”

“Plastic surgery?” Jack's brow lifted slightly as he shook Mark’s hand. “Explains the soft hands.”

Mark laughed loudly enough that several people looked over.

“Oh my god.” Whitaker mumbled as he watched Jack and Mark shake hands. “It’s like I’m seeing double.”

Santos shook her head. “She’s got some serious issues.”

McKay folded her arms over her chest as she studied the two men. “Or just good taste.”

“I second the good taste thing.” Princess murmured as she appeared beside McKay.

Perlah took a sip of her drink and nodded. “I third that.”

The handshake lasted just a fraction longer than necessary as Mark glanced over at you. “I get it."

Robby’s eyes narrowed as he gestured between you and Mark.

“You two know eachother?”

“I was an intern at Seattle Grace." You supplied quickly.

“Oh yes, Cupid and I go wayyy back.” Mark smirked.

Robby's confusion only deepened. “Cupid…?”

You shot Mark a warning glare, which he very intentionally ignored.

“Yeah Cupid.” He answered smoothly. “'cause you know she’s got these little angel wings tattooed right above her-“

“Okayyy you know what.” Robby clapped his hands letting out a bark of awkward laughter. “I think a hospital tour sounds like a great idea right about now."

Mark's eyes gleamed as he shoved his hands into his pockets. "I was going to say shoulder blade."

“You are going to walk with me." Robby said, already steering him away, “And tell me absolutely none of the rest of that story.”

Mark let himself be guided down the hall, still grinning smugly as he glanced back over his shoulder at you and winked, making you roll your eyes once more.

You dragged your eyes away from him to look at Jack who was yet to move. He watched Mark disappear down the corridor, then looked back at you.

He slowly stepped forward, eyes scanning your figure as he placed his hands casually behind his back.

"Ex?"

You sighed. "...Ex."

Jack nodded curtly. “Got it.”

“Abbot.” You looked over to see Dana studying both of you. “Dr King needs an attending in Room 8.”

Jack's eyes never left you. You watched him intently, waiting to see if he would say anything further. Instead he simply reached into his pocket and produced a protein bar.

You swallowed as he slid it into the front pocket of your scrub top, his fingers lightly against your side subtly.

“Eat.” Was all he said, unable to hide the affection in his voice.

Your throat tightened around a smile as you nodded. He held your gaze for one more second, then turned and headed in the direction of Room 8.

You watched him go, your hand subconsciously brushing over the side that he’d just touched.

When you looked back, Dana was still standing there, one hand on her hip as she watched you over her glasses with an expression far too knowing for your liking.

“Don’t you dare say a word.”

She raised her hands up in mock surrender. “Wasn’t gonna.”

You huffed as you turned, suddenly desperate to busy yourself in order to keep your mind off the cluster fuck that was your two worlds colliding.

For the next twenty minutes, you threw yourself back into work. Every few minutes though, your gaze betrayed you, either drifting towards the corridor where Robby had taken Mark or towards Room 8, where Jack had disappeared. The protein bar sat heavily in your pocket, your appetite now completely non-existent.

By the time you ended up at a computer to finish off your charting, your shift was close enough to ending that you had started to believe you might actually survive it.

“Oh damn, the patient in room 7 died.”

You glanced up to see Whitaker staring at a chart from the workstation beside you.

“The old lady with the chest pain?”

“Yeah.” Whitaker sighed.

You frowned. "That sucks."

“She had a husband right?” Santos chimed in from across from you, not bothering to look up from her own computer.

“Yeah she did, married nearly fifty years."

Without missing a beat, Santos glanced up at you. “Abbot better watch out.”

Your eyes narrowed.

"Nice. Very respectful." Whitaker shook his head, although you could see he was trying not to laugh.

"What?" Santos shrugged. "Our girl clearly has a type."

"Silver foxes?" McKay suggested as she walked past grinning like a cheshire cat.

"I hate all of you."

Whitaker looked over at you like he was genuinely offended. "What did I do?!"

Across the hallway, Jack had just emerged from Room 8. Your eyes met his. He didn’t react beyond the faintest lift of one eyebrow, but you could tell he'd heard every word.

You tipped your head slightly towards the supply closet. Jack looked at you for half a beat, then gave the smallest nod.

You waited a couple minutes before moving.

The supply closet was narrow, overstocked, and smelled faintly of antiseptic and cardboard. You shut the door behind you and leaned against a shelf, exhaling slowly for what felt like the first time in an hour.

A few minutes later, the handle turned. Jack stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. He leaned back against the opposite shelf, folding his arms loosely across his chest as the two of you studied eachother.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“So… that’s your ex.”

“That’s my ex.”

He nodded. "You left out a few details."

"Such as?"

His gaze dropped briefly, then returned to your face.

“Well first of all I wasn’t expecting Mark Sloan.”

Your brows lifted in surprise. “You know who he is?”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“Of course you have.” You paused for a moment before your voice dropped slightly, unable to hide the insecurity in your tone. "Do you think less of me because I dated someone like him?"

Jack's brows knitted together. "Absolutely not." He said immediately. "It's just that I wasn't expecting your ex to be..."

Your brow furrowed. “Be what?”

“…old.” Was what Jack settled on.

You let out a disbelieving laugh. “He’s not old, he’s like your age.”

“Exactly.” Jack nodded. “I'm practically from the stone age compared to you.”

“You’re not.” You insisted.

Jack’s mouth twitched, but the smile didn’t quite hold as he looked down at the floor.

You studied him for a moment, admiring the lines etched deep into his face that you’d had memorised for as long as you’d known him. “Does it bother you that he’s older?”

“No it doesn’t bother me it’s just...” He sighed. “I thought I was the exception.” He confessed.

Your face softened instantly as you pushed off the wall and took a step towards him.

"Jack."

"I know it’s irrational.” He said, giving a small, self-deprecating shrug. “I just thought I was the first older doctor you’d made questionable life choices over.”

You huffed a small laugh as you closed the gap between the two of you, reaching up to cradle his jaw.

“Hey.” You said gently, guiding his eyes up to meet yours.

“When I met Mark I was young and overwhelmed and had just moved to a new city and he was…” You trailed off, glancing at the door like Mark might somehow materialise on cue.

“…well you’ve seen what he’s like.”

You brushed a thumb over his stubble that lined his jaw. “It barely even qualified as a relationship. And then it ended and we worked together for months. And then I moved.”

Jack leant into your touch slightly, his eyes never leaving your face as you spoke, attentive in the way that always made your heart ache a little.

“And then on my first day here I met a grumpy doctor up on the roof while I was mid meltdown.”

His brows drew together in feigned disbelief. “I don’t think he was grumpy.”

“He told me if I was thinking of jumping I shouldn’t because it’d be a shame to ruin a face like mine.”

The frown that had a hold on his face loosened just a fraction. “Why on earth would he think that line would work.”

“In his defence, I think he was a little out of practice.”

His hands settled at your waist, warm and steady through the thin fabric of your scrubs. “Or his brain short circuited when he saw you.”

Your smile widened as you slid your arms around the back of his neck, entwining your fingers absentmindedly around the silver curls at the nape of his neck.

“Well, lucky for him it worked.”

The reluctant smile finally reached his eyes. “Very lucky.” He corrected.

He glanced down, playing with the tie of your scrub pants.

“I just can’t believe you dated a plastic surgeon.”

You snorted softly. “Is that seriously what’s bothering you the most?”

“Yes.” He answered plainly.

You shook your head, a wry smile on your lips. “Not the stupid nickname?”

Jack glanced down at you, his grip on your hips tightening ever so slightly.

“If he calls you that again I may have no choice but to punch him.” He conceded casually as he brushed a strand of hair behind your ear.

His head tilted slightly as he studied you for a moment. “But at least he can fix his own nose up after.”

You let out a laugh, running a hand over his chest. “Don’t worry.” You soothed. “I already told him you volunteer with the SWAT team.”

Jack smirked down at you proudly. “Atta girl.”

Then he leant down and finally pressed his lips to yours in a slow, reverent kiss. When he pulled back, his eyes narrowed immediately.

“Did you eat?”

You winced slightly. “Not yet.” You patted the pocket that contained the protein bar. “I’ll eat this and then go.”

Jack frowned, clearly unsatisfied with your solution. “Go home and eat something more substantial.”

“I will.”

“There’s pasta in the fridge for you, all you have to do is chuck it in the microwave.”

Your interest piqued immediately. “The pesto one I love?”

“Of course.”

You grinned, pressing your forehead against his. “You’re very good to me Dr Abbot.”

His smile softened into something private, something reserved just for you. “Anything for my girl.”

You kissed him again, deeper this time, enjoying the feeling of his warmth seeping into you.

“Alright.” He muttered reluctantly against your lips as he pulled away. “Get going before I end up locking you in here.”

You smirked. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

He shot you a warning glare with absolutely no bite to it.

You huffed dramatically, “alright alright.”

You reached for the door, then paused, glancing back at him.

“And for the record, if you’re worried about feeling old…”

Jack raised a brow.

“You should meet my other ex, he checked into the nursing home down the road last week.”

“Very funny.” He muttered, trying but failing to look unamused.

“I know I am.”

“Go.” He urged as he tapped your backside affectionately.

You raised your hands in mock defeat, slipping back into the pitt without another word.

Jack shook his head as the door shut softly behind you, a lovesick smile spreading across his face.

The first time you met Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody he was a baby faced, curly haired teenager. Hadn’t quite grown into his muscles yet. Arms and legs lanky in a way that made him almost clumsy if it weren’t for his perfect posture and the way he carried himself upright. He was still quiet—still had the same intimidating stare. But something about him was a little softer back then, maybe a little more naive. Not yet fully exposed to the life of jobs and Smurf’s endless wrath and guilt tripping.

People at school still called him Andrew, only his family called him Pope. You never called him Pope. To you he was just Andrew, sweet and shy Andrew with the small crooked smile at the corner of his mouth. He’d still had that back then. Now it had become a rarer sight.

You’d been close friends with Deran, always getting into some sort of trouble. Surfing, skateboarding, sneaking beer at Smurf’s house and hanging out at the pier. He’d have you cut his hair when it needed it; a skill you learned from your mom at a young age. You were always together, especially on weekends. You trusted Deran with most of your secrets, and he trusted you with stuff going on at home with Smurf.

After high school you’d moved away from Oceanside for college, settling closer to LA. You’d lost touch with Deran after moving. Quickly settling in—you had earned some nurse training—but decided halfway through school that it wasn’t for you. When your mom died a few months ago, you moved back to Oceanside to be with your dad. You worked two jobs, a small library during the week and a few hours at a coffee shop some weekends. It helped pay the bills.

You lived ten minutes from the beach in a nice condo with your dad, spending any free time you could get on the sand. You’d reconnected with old friends, made some new ones, were closer to family now.

When your phone rang three months after you’d moved back, the last person’s name you expected to see was Deran Cody’s.

You furrowed your brow, debating whether or not to answer it before finally hitting accept.

“Hello?”

“Hey!”, Deran’s voice came from the other end, sounding a little worried; “Can I ask you a favor?”

You stilled. Almost wanting to laugh. You hadn’t spoken in years and now he’s calling asking for a favor?

“Deran”, You say, switching your phone to the other ear; “I haven’t heard from you since I moved and the first call I get from you I barely even get a hello?”

You hear him chuckle and sigh; “You’re right. Hello, how are you? Long time no talk. We should catch up…can I possibly bother you with a favor if it doesn’t bother you too much.”

He’s spent for a moment and then; “Better?”

It’s your turn to laugh; “Much, thank you.”

You hesitate for a moment; “What’s up?”

Turns out; Deran had gotten pretty beaten up on their latest job, and not being able to risk going to the hospital, called the only person he knew he could trust. Guess your nursing experience might come in handy after all.

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

The Cody house looked the same as you pulled into the driveway. The gate code was the same—the variety of cars in the driveway was the same. You however didn’t recognize the bright green car or the black Jeep parked alongside it. The garage door was open just the same. It only took you a few knocks for a voice to ring out from inside.

“It’s open!”

Typical Deran.

You let yourself in, the cool air conditioning wafting around you as you stepped inside. The house was quiet, which seemed almost eerie and out of the ordinary from what you remember of growing up. There were always parties going on by the pool or people over doing god knows what. The money from jobs supplying them.

You weren’t naive or blind to that side of their lives; rather too familiar almost like you were involved in them. In a way, you kind of were. You’d be there when the brothers patched one of the others up from a job gone sideways—hell you were even there during planning sometimes. But you never involved yourself in the actual execution of said jobs.

The interior of the house looked the same—maybe a few more decorations. Sunlight still streamed in through the windows the same way.

You found Deran on the couch, face a little swollen and bruised, dried blood under his nose.

“Hey”, He looked up when he heard you approaching.

“Jesus, you look like shit.”

He laughed; “Well hello to you too.”

He pushed himself off the couch with a grunt, crossing the room to pull you in for a brief hug. Even under the tough Cody exterior—Deran had always cared—always allowed himself some emotion and feelings with you; let himself be a little vulnerable.

Craig and Baz on the other hand, that was a different story you couldn’t even begin to touch.

“What the hell happened?”, You ask, letting him lead you to the couch.

“Ah you know, same old thing”, He says, running a hand through his long hair; “Job gone sideways, the usual.”

You scoff like it’s new, like you hadn’t heard the excuse before.

“Guessing your brothers ditched you?”

He almost laughs; “Course they did. Baz is off doing god knows what, Craig’s probably coked out somewhere and Pope disappeared like he usually does.”

Yeah, you think, that sounds like Pope.

Before you know it you’re sat in front of him, cleaning up his cuts and patching up what you can.

“There’s still two cars outside”, You say it without meaning, just kind of pointing it out.

Deran sighs; “Yeah, Pope walks a lot of places when he gets in his head like that…he’s not the same person he was last time you saw him.”

That was probably at the Cody’s graduation party years back.

“He went to prison”, Deran continues; “Baz basically left him behind on a job, got caught.”

“Fuck Baz”, You hiss, not holding your dislike for him back.

“Don’t let him hear you say that”, Deran smirks.

“I don’t care if he does.”

A beat of quiet goes by before Deran continues.

“I don’t know what happened to him in there but it really fucked him up. He’s quiet now, doesn’t say much. He just kind of…observes. He always did that, but it’s just kind of different now.”

You hum in response, putting a final stitch in one of the cuts on his face making him hiss.

“Sorry”, You mumble; “ How long was he in for?”

“Three years. Was supposed to be longer but they let him out early. He didn’t even tell us he was getting out, just showed up one day.”

If your heart wasn’t shattered before, it was now.

Deran’s playing with his hands now, you can see the quiet worry he has for his brother.

“He just…showed up?”, You ask.

Deran shrugs; “Says he didn’t want a big party. I think he just thought he didn’t deserve the fuss.”

The quiet teenager you had known was reserved like that, but still enjoyed being doted on for his birthday, even if it was mostly by friends and school mates and not Smurf. Whatever was left now seemed to be described as a hollow shell of the Andrew Cody you once knew.

“That’s awful”, You say softly.

“Yeah, it is…sometimes I wish we could all just up and leave this place”, Deran replies, staring at his hands and not looking you in the eye.

“Why don’t you?”, You ask.

“A lot of shit has happened since you left. Fucked up stuff. It wouldn’t be easy, too many loose ends.”

He tells you about Julia and how J came to live with them. He tells you about Pope coming home and being forced to sleep elsewhere. He tells you about Cath and the awful thing Smurf forced him to do—about how Lena is over now more than at her own house; Baz leaving her behind in favor of running off to Mexico more days than not. Your heart breaks for the family; but you can’t help the way your mind keeps wandering back to Pope.

“I’m sorry”, You say softly when he finishes.

A heavy silence falls over the room as you pack up your things, having finished patching him up.

Deran shrugs with a hum, not needing to comment or tell you it’s ok when it’s not. He smiles softly after a moment.

“Think you’d mind doing my hair while you’re here? It’s getting kinda long…”, He trails off as he picks up a strand in between his fingers.

You scoff; “Mind? I’ve been dying to cut it off since I walked in. You look like you’re about to do vocals for a 90s punk band.”

Deran scoffs; “Do not.”

But there’s no heat behind it; just two old friends finally reconnecting and falling back into their old banter and familiar ways together.

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

“Sit still”, You grumble as you bend down to check the length of the strands you’ve just cut.

Deran purposely moves below you.

“God, you’re worse than a kid.”

He huffs under the makeshift cape around his shoulders; “If you weren’t taking so long I’d stop moving as much.”

“I’m taking so long because you’re moving.”

“Liar”, He juts back.

“Were you this annoying in high school?”

Quiet laughter falls between you as footsteps approach, a sound that could almost be mistaken for a laugh fills the room. It’s quick and barely there, but you notice anyways.

“Yes”, A low voice answers, dripping with a dry sarcasm.

If you didn’t know the voice you would’ve taken the response as rude, but the second it hit your ears you felt like you were back in high school again.

You let your eyes flick away from Deran, drifting over the man in front of you. Dark shirt that was probably two sizes too small, hugging his torso tightly. Muscles pulled taught and strong underneath the fabric. A dark pair of shorts hanging loosely off his waist, legs strong and toned below them. Wrapped and bloody knuckles over his strong and veiny hands. His face all too familiar—older now, more defined and strong like the rest of him.

Bruises surround his eyes and nose that’s clearly broken. A butterfly strip sat on his cheek, closing a cut; he looked worse than Deran had. His eyes a wide and deep hazel, making him look like a sad and lost puppy. Dry lips sat in what looked like a permanent pout—the faintest hint of a smirk pulling at one corner; amused by his own answer. It could only be one person.

Andrew Cody.

You hadn’t heard him come in, but here he stood in front of you with a posture that looked forced; impossibly straight and accentuated by his broad shoulders and biceps that still pulled the fabric around them tightly. His arms not quite falling at his sides but hovering almost awkwardly—like he didn’t really know what to do with them or his hands. He shifted ever so slightly on his feet, redistributing his weight in a way that shouldn’t have been as attractive as you found it.

His dark auburn hair was tousled and longer than you ever remember seeing it. Sitting around his ears in a way that looked like he had tried to make it neater but had given up when it wouldn’t budge or sit the way he wanted it to.

“Andrew”, You breathe out, almost too quiet, not expecting to see him.

His eyes flick to you now, his intense stare trained on you as you move. He blinks slowly, you can see the wheels in his head turning before he speaks.

“You’re back”, Is all he says.

You nod carefully; “…Yeah.”

His gaze goes back to Deran.

“You called her?”, It’s more of a statement, like he’d told him not to.

“What was I supposed to do, man? You all fled as soon as we got home”, Deran grunts back.

Pope doesn’t answer—but you see the way his jaw ticks in annoyance—like he’s holding himself back. He stands there the rest of the time you’re cutting Deran’s hair; moving slowly around the kitchen to grab a drink and putting things that have been moved or jostled around carefully back into place.

When you stand fully again, his back is up against the counter—arms flexed as he grips the edge of the surface—just watching you with an unreadable expression on his face. He looks like he’s internally fighting with himself.

“There”, You say, pulling the makeshift cape off Deran and brushing the stray cut pieces of hair off of his shoulders; “You’re all done.”

“About damn time”, Deran grunts, pushing himself up from the chair.

Pope grunts across the room, making you both look towards him. His jaw tighter than before, as if that was even possible.

“Tell her thank you”, Pope deadpans, looking Deran up and down.

You can almost see Deran’s shoulders curve in on themselves a bit, like a child being scolded.

“I was getting there, man.”

Pope doesn’t answer—just stares—expectantly waiting for the words to leave his brother’s mouth. When they finally do, he licks his lips once, reaching for the beer sat next to him on the counter and taking a swig.

“Thank you”, Deran says softly, and you know he means it.

Pope’s expression changes to something almost like…satisfaction?

You only nod in response, going to sweep the rest of the stray hairs up off the floor. You know Pope has always hated mess.

“I can do that”, Pope says.

You look up; “You don’t have to…but, thank you, though.”

You throw him a quick smile, dumping the dustpan in the garbage and going to put away your tools when he speaks again.

“Do you…uh, could you do mine?”, He asks, finally giving up on the inner fight with himself.

You pause for a moment, not expecting it.

“Shitty prison haircuts…now it’s too long. Won’t stay out of my ears”, His voice comes low.

You can’t help but laugh softly at the last part.

“Yeah of course”, You say, patting the chair in front of you when he doesn’t move right away; “Come on.”

He moves carefully like he always does—his body too stiff and carrying all the tension in his shoulders with a heaviness that had become almost second nature to him the last few years.

His posture stays that way when he sits down, rigid and impossibly straight. His shoulders too tense, arms away from his body—still not knowing quite where to put them. His hands rest on his thighs—switching between tapping lightly and scratching at the skin there.

“Do you know what you want done?”, You ask.

If it’s possible—Pope straightens even more at that—stilling in a way that makes him look even more like a deer in headlights. It had never occurred to him that he could choose.

“I don’t-“, He lets out a breath; “Whatever you want.”

You chuckle softly; “It’s your hair, Andrew. What do you want?”

He’s silent for a moment, still scratching at his skin before he answers; “Just a trim, I guess. Whatever you think’ll look good.”

Not quite the answer you were looking for, but it’s enough.

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

So you find yourself wetting his hair, deep auburn curls sticking out all unruly; darker and damp. They look unfairly cute the way they stick out above and behind his ears; it almost hurts you to cut them.

Each beautiful little curl hitting the kitchen floor like an earthquake as you snip away at them. It seems silly to you, that you so badly want to protect them. Maybe you just want to protect him?

Thankfully, they’re still there after being trimmed—at least for the most part. Just a little shorter. His hair starts lightening up as it dries, your fingers running over his scalp as you style it. His eyes flutter shut, head falling heavy as you do so. Like he hasn’t been touched like this or taken care of in years. Which—you realize—is probably true.

Andrew thanks you softly when you’re done—pulling the makeshift cape off of him— causing his body to jolt back upright and stiff from where it had relaxed a bit. It’s nothing grand, just soft; quiet and so completely him.

He takes the broom gently from your grasp when you don’t move, insisting on cleaning up himself. You don’t argue this time—rather finding your way outside where Deran is sitting in one of the lounge chairs by the pool.

He looks up when he hears you approaching, beer in hand, his thumb pausing over his phone.

“Everything ok?”, He asks, eyes flicking over you.

“Yeah”, You say, “Just finished up.”

He pats for you to sit next to him—more like behind him—but he turns enough to make room for you, so you sit.

It’s quiet for a while, just the sound of the breeze drifting through leaves before he speaks up again.

“I’m sorry…about your mom”, Deran says.

You still just a little, surprised when Deran puts a hand on your arm.

“Thank you”, Your voice is quiet.

He lets another beat go by; “I really mean it. If you need to talk…I’m here.”

You smile softly; “Thank you, Deran.”

Another beat goes by; “He doesn’t know…I didn’t say anything to him. I figured if you wanted him to know, you’d tell him.”

You nod again after a moment, no words on your tongue. Andrew had always liked your mom; he’d helped her carry bags and unload groceries when he saw her—offered to help anytime he and Deran were at your house. Your mom had known how you felt about Andrew, she was the only one who knew; the only one who encouraged your feelings about him.

That’s why most of your hope about him died with her. But now? Seeing him again after all these years? A tiny bit of it sparked back to life in your chest; a flame that burned brighter each time his eyes met yours.

Beside you, Deran finally scoffs a laugh, breaking the silence as he nudges your arm; “Ok, now back to driving you crazy.”

You roll your eyes; “It’s what you’re best at, why quit now?”

He nudges your leg with his own, your laughter growing louder before it settles between you. Inside, Pope passes by the back door; hair almost dry and body still stiff.

“He always quiet like that?”, You ask.

Deran follows your gaze, before taking a deep breath in, eyes widening; “Yeah. Has been since I can remember. He’s always been…intense…creepy. Definitely got worse after prison.”

You frown; “I don’t think he’s creepy; just…intentional, observant.”

“That’s one way to put it”, Deran scoffs; “Pope’s just…Pope.”

Your frown deepens; “Why does everyone call him that?”

Deran shrugs; “Always have.”

“I don’t think he likes it very much.”

“He doesn’t like a lot of things.”

You blink once; “Maybe you should try listening to some of them.”

Deran’s smile changes a little, like he’s thinking; “Have you always been this perceptive?”

“Not always. Got better at it after we moved.”

There’s no pushback—just the laughter settling between reunited friends—before the sound of the back door opening again catches both of your attention. Heavy footsteps follow, Pope’s bare feet smacking against the concrete.

Deran looks up first, meeting his brother’s gaze.

“Adrian’s here”, Pope says, voice even.

Deran’s expression changes—something between excitement and nerves.

“Come inside in a bit, I want you to meet someone”, Deran tells you, touching your arm once before he stands and goes back in the house.

You feel Pope’s eyes on you almost immediately, heavy and steady. Jaw locked tight—was it because of Deran’s hand on you? Still, he doesn’t say anything. You think about leaving—you could leave—there’s nothing stopping you. The infamous driveway is in view from where you sit.

Eventually, you force yourself to stand, grabbing your phone and going to move past him—moving carefully so you don’t bump into him—when he reaches out for your arm. It’s not hard or painful; just steady and intentional, the way everything is with him.

You turn back to him, eyes softening when you see the look on his face. Not completely flat or neutral—something like worry hidden underneath it.

“I hate that”, He says, heavy and even.

You still.

“I hate the way you look at me”, He continues; “…It’s like you’re scared of me.”

You open your mouth to respond; “I don’t-“

“You do.” It’s final. Heavy between you.

You take a breath, but he speaks before you do; “You used to be the only one who wasn’t afraid to be alone with me.”

Something in your chest twists.

“I’m not scared of you, Andy.”

His face changes briefly at the old nickname passing through your lips.

“Then what is it?”, He asks, voice growing a little bit more frustrated, but not angry; “Why do you offer to help me and then run away? You left without a goodbye. You act like if you stay too long I’ll…Like i’ll hurt you.”

“You could never hurt me, Andrew. Not psychically.”

A flicker of something unreadable flashes across his face. It’s gone as quickly as it appeared.

“Why do you look at me like that? Like I’ll break you if you look too long. But I’d always catch you staring anyways, I still do”, He huffs once; “Why didn’t you say goodbye?”

There’s too much tension between you, emotions building beneath your skin. Too much pain and hurt on Pope’s face.

“Andrew I can’t-“

“Please”, He says softly; “Tell me, I can’t-“

“I can’t! Not when I love you that much!”, You blurt out, watching his face drop as your voice softens; “…Not when it’s you.”

His entire body stills for a fraction of a second that seems much longer—you watch his chest heave. Andrew’s hand slowly comes up to cup your cheek. You almost move back—but you will yourself not to—not when his skin feels so right against yours.

Your breath hitches as he moves closer, body almost flush against yours—but not quite touching.

“Andrew…”, You breathe.

You watch him freeze once—like he’s second guessing himself—fighting with something inside himself before he finally, finally leans forward and engulfs your lips in his.

It’s soft, tentative, warm. His lips are dry and plump, your chapstick smoothing them out. His body bent slightly to meet your height. His hands linger at his sides before he reaches forward to settle them on your hips; letting out a noise that’s somewhere between a sigh and a whimper—and that’s what undoes you.

Your hand flies to the back of his neck, cupping him gently and pulling him closer; your bodies pressed flush together. He stands at his full height as you run your fingers through his hair, slightly damp curls soft against your skin. The noise that left him repeats itself, his movements becoming more confident.

Andrew only pulls back when both of your lungs are burning, hands still on your waist as he rests his forehead against yours.

“Sorry if that wasn’t-“

“It was.”

You feel his shoulders drop a fraction before he speaks again.

“It killed me when you left”, He says quietly.

You bite back a smile, his words confirming everything you’ve dreamt about since high school.

“Me too.”

“How long?”, He asks, thinking back to the words that left your lips moments ago.

“Since the first time I met you.”

That’s what gets him to smile. Gets him to press his lips back against yours again; everything else around him fading to background noise.

Neither of you care who’s around—or the fact that Deran’s eyes are watching from inside—mouth ajar in a half expected shock that something he always kind of knew was there was finally being confirmed.

Outside? It’s just you, and Andrew—as it always should’ve been.

taglist: @barnes70stark @sunnlyfe @amnatreal @carthxorns @racingdino @congratsloserr @crossfandomslut @mrsjobarnes @nightpitt @robbyxabbot @your-local-dumpster-fire-007 @popequila @ilovefolklore @iramagnus @slytherclaw1978 @sarmar29 @loveisallyouneed1125 @elliott-calls @arigoldsblog @thestreetscallmebuggy @crossfandomslut @reblogging-all-i-read @snake-in-a-flower-crown @honimoon @angelbunny222 @ajeff855 @lifeofapittgirl @bizbat @laptimelewis @amnatreal @mumi800 @devilpeqch @boricuas-fic-recs @flawssy-227 @nerdygirl270

“Hi, Remus. How are you?” you ask, stumbling over your words, caught off guard by his presence.

“I—uh, I’m good, thanks. What are you... doing here?” His voice is hesitant, unsure if he has the right to ask.

“I’ve just m—” you begin, but then you’re interrupted by Sirius’ sudden arrival. The moment you spot him, the weight of avoidance hits you. You've been actively steering clear of all of them for so long. If there was ever a time for the earth to swallow you whole, it’s now.

“Hello, sunshine. Reg told me you’d moved in just around the corner.” He greets you with an easy smile, and you immediately notice that he’s not surprised in the slightest to see you here. A frown creases your brow as you try to process this—Regulus never mentioned either of them living nearby. But then, you suppose, if he had, you never would’ve come here.

“He did?” you ask, focusing on Sirius—he’s easier to look at than Remus, who still seems stunned.

“Oh yeah, he was more enthusiastic about it than I’ve ever heard him be, honestly.” Sirius pauses, then smirks. “But I suppose if you get any positive inflection out of him, you'd think that.”

You can’t help but chuckle at that—Sirius is right.

Your gaze flicks over to Remus, still frozen in shock, and something inside you flips. You can’t stand it. You need to leave, and you need to leave now.

“It was really nice to see you both, but I’ve got to go,” you say quickly, gathering your things, offering a strained smile in their direction. As soon as you stand, Sirius’s hand lands gently on your shoulder, anchoring you, ensuring you hear him out

“Listen, maybe you could think about not dodging everyones texts now and come to dinner at James and Lily’s?” there's a soft smile on his face, it looks like he really means it but you're almost confident he’s saying it to be polite. “Even Junior comes, weird bloke that one.” He huffs.

“I’ll think about it,” you reply, offering a tight smile. “I’ll see you guys around.”

You risk one last glance at Remus before turning to leave.

As soon as you’re out the door, Sirius lightly slaps the back of Remus’s head, snapping him out of the reverie he’s been in since the start of the conversation.

“What was that for?” Remus asks, rubbing the back of his head to soothe the sting.

“You’re a fucking idiot, mate” Sirius responds, shaking his head.

₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

“Regulus Arcturus Black,” you snap as you storm through the door to his flat. “I am going to kill you.”

On the walk over, the confusion you'd felt after running into Remus and Sirius quickly spiraled into something far darker—rage. You were almost certain the ‘chance’ encounter had been carefully orchestrated by the Black brothers. You’d been content living in a world where Remus didn’t really exist for you anymore. He’d become a distant echo, like a pleasant memory you occasionally revisited—until today.

“Oh, middle name too? You’re in trouble now, Reggie,” Barty drawls, feigning sympathy from his spot on the couch, sprawled out like he couldn’t care less.

You don’t even glance at him, your glare locked onto the culprit in front of you. “Care to explain why I just ran into your brother at the café?” you demand, arms crossed tight over your chest, radiating annoyance.

“Because he likes coffee, I’d assume,” Regulus replies with a casual shrug, as if the answer is self-evident.

“Remus was there,” you deadpan, unwilling to let this go.

“Oh, did I forget to mention that he lives nearby? Must’ve slipped my mind,” Regulus says, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, clearly enjoying your frustration.

You feel your fists clench at your sides, your teeth gritted. Regulus knows exactly what he's doing—pushing your buttons just because he can. The worst part is that it’s working.

“Reg, you didn’t forget to mention it,” you seethe, narrowing your eyes at him.

When he saw the anger radiating from you, Regulus’ smirk faltered slightly. For a fleeting moment, his usual aloofness cracked, and he softened. “Look, I’m sorry. But I didn’t know how else to handle this,” he said, his shoulders lifting slightly in a half-hearted shrug. “You’ve turned into a hermit, and I think you should talk to your friends. You can’t keep shutting them out.”

“I am talking to my friends,” you shot back, gesturing vaguely between the three of you. “Besides, I don’t even think they really want to be friends with me.”

Barty, who had been silently watching the exchange, groaned and pushed himself off the couch, his movements slow and deliberate as he approached you. Without warning, his hands found your shoulders, giving them a rough shake as if to snap you out of your stupor.

“Treasure, who the hell wouldn’t want to be friends with you?” His voice was half-mocking, half-sincere. His hands shook you harder, as though trying to force some sense into you. “Not that I particularly approve of any of them,” he added with a sharp glance at Regulus, but his touch remained on you, firm and insistent.

“Shut up, Barty. You loved it when we went for dinner —don’t pretend otherwise, you liar.” Regulus stands from his spot, stepping in between you and Barty with a look of mild exasperation. “Stop shaking her, you’re going to break her in half.” He tried to pry Barty’s hands off you, but his voice softened as he added, “He’s right, though, you know?

“No,” you said flatly, each word heavy with finality. “They were only friends with me because I was Remus’ girlfriend. And that’s all it was.”

“All I’m saying is, maybe you should just try speaking to them.” 

₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

Since your encounter with Remus and the conversation with Reg, you’ve done exactly the opposite of what he suggested. Instead of moving forward, you’ve retreated into your flat, alone with your thoughts. The memories swirl, the pain and the joy, the highs and the lows. But mostly, it’s Remus that lingers—his image impossible to shake.

You can’t stop replaying every moment with him: his smile, his words, the way he laughed so effortlessly even when life felt heavy. There was a quiet strength in him, hidden beneath his gentleness. And those eyes—warm, knowing, full of secrets and pain. It felt as if he understood you in ways no one else could, even without you speaking a word.

The moments you shared with him seem so distant now, like they belong to another lifetime. And more than once, you’ve found yourself wondering if he’s thinking of you too. Does he feel that same ache in his chest, that pull that refuses to fade? Remus has left his mark on you—one you can’t scrub away, one that’ll linger far longer than you're ready to admit. The fondness you feel for him is unshakable, no matter how much it hurts.

When you realize you’re stuck in an endless loop of thoughts, you stand up. Dressed in your coziest clothes, you step outside. The cold wind cuts through the streets, but the fresh air is oddly comforting. You walk, letting the rhythm of your steps clear your mind, until you reach the store. It feels like the right moment to restock, to do something, anything, other than be trapped in your head.

Halfway down the cereal aisle, surrounded by the hum of the fluorescent lights, you hear a gasp. You turn, and there she is: Lily Evans, fiery red hair unmistakable, a tired but loving smile on her face as she balances her baby on her hip. For the first time in days, a wide, genuine smile spreads across your face. She’s the person you were closest to all that time ago, your confidante, and here she is—storming down the aisle toward you, her eyes lighting up at the sight of you.

She's quick to wrap her free arm around you, and you do the same to her. “Hello lovely, I heard you were lurking somewhere near here.” she exclaims brightly, “can’t believe you didn't tell me.”

The guilt rises in your chest, and you hesitate, flushing at the unspoken question. Did she really care about you that much? “I’m sorry, Lils. I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me…” you murmur, sheepish.

She laughs, a sound that fills the space between you both, and brushes it off with the ease of someone who knows you better than you know yourself. “Don’t be silly. Of course, I do." She says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and for the first time in a long while, you begin to believe it. Maybe you really are friends, with or without Remus.

"Is this Harry?" you ask, nodding toward the little bundle in her arms. At the sound of his name, he perks up, offering you a shy wave, which you return with a warm smile.

“God, he looks just like James," you say, unable to hide the fondness in your voice.

“I know," Lily replies, a dreamy tone filling her voice. "Acts like him too.”

You laugh at that, teasing, "How do you deal with them? You must be a saint."

She shrugs, the exhaustion of motherhood evident in her smile, but there’s a playfulness in her eyes. “I have no idea. It’s a madhouse 24/7.”

“Well, what did you expect?" you reply, your tone lighthearted, and the two of you fall into easy conversation, catching up on the details of each other's lives. Time seems to slow in that moment. 

After a while, Lily grows quiet, her gaze softening as she looks at you with something like concern in her eyes. She hesitates for a moment before speaking again, her voice gentler now, almost like a secret is being shared between the two of you. "Listen, no pressure, but I really think you should come for dinner. You know, just for fun. I promise, it'll be a good time."

You look away, avoiding her gaze as a wave of doubt rushes over you. “I don’t want to intrude…” you say, your voice barely above a whisper. 

But Lily isn’t deterred. She places a firm hand on your upper arm, her touch warm and reassuring. “We’re your friends, Y/N. You wouldn’t be intruding.” Her words are simple, but there’s a weight to them.

Still, there’s something holding you back. "You were Remus’ friends first," you say, almost apologetically. "I don’t want to make it awkward or uncomfortable by being there. You should've seen him when we saw each other in the cafe.”

Lily lets out a soft chuckle, the sound light and knowing. “I did hear about that," she says, a mischievous smile tugging at her lips. "But he's a big boy, I'm sure he'll be alright." She winks at you, a playful glint in her eyes. 

Before you can respond, James Potter is walking down the aisle. 

“There you are! Been looking for you all over, angel.” His eyes focused on Lily, when his gaze shifts, to see who she’s been speaking to, his grin brightens even more. Genuinely happy to see you. 

"Y/N!" he exclaims, pulling you into a tight hug that lifts you off your feet for a moment. “It’s so lovely to see you.”

His enthusiasm is infectious, and you can’t help but smile up at him as he pulls away. “You too, James,” you reply, the weight in your chest easing just a little.

Lily hands Harry to James before turning to you with a sly smile. “I was just saying that she should come to dinner at ours, Jamie. What do you think?”

James’ grin widens even more, head nodding vigorously. "Oh, yes! Please do. I’ll get on my knees and beg if I have to."

 You laugh, the sound light and free, before shaking your head at his theatrics. "You really don’t have to go that far," you tease, though the warmth in your chest is undeniable. The genuine kindness in both of their eyes, the way they both seem to have picked up right where you left off, makes something inside you stir. You can’t remember the last time you felt like you belonged somewhere.

Lily’s gaze softens, her voice quieting as she adds, "We miss you, you know." Her words hang in the air for a moment, a subtle weight that makes your heart ache just a little.

James, noticing the shift, places a hand on your shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for, Y/N. But dinner’s on us, no pressure. Just... come, yeah? We could all use a little bit of good company.”

You open your mouth to respond, but the words feel heavy on your tongue, like they’ve been trapped inside you for so long. Your instincts scream at you to run, to retreat back into your shell, but the warmth, the offer of real, honest connection, tugs at something inside you. Maybe this is what you need. Maybe it’s what you’ve always needed.

"Alright," you say, surprising even yourself with the calmness in your voice. "I’ll come."

₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

“Why the fuck did I say yes?” you groan, your feet dragging as you approach Lily and James’ house, Regulus and Barty walking beside you, their fingers intertwined. A tight knot of anxiety is building inside you, one that feels like it might snap any second.

“Chill the fuck out, Tres. You’re gonna make me snap if you keep this up,” Barty whines, his voice heavy with exaggerated drama as he slouches beside you.

“What he said,” Regulus agrees, pressing a soft kiss to Barty’s cheek. He glances at you, brow furrowed. “I don’t get why you’re so worked up. It sounds like they actually want to be your friends, which is what I told you.”

“I know, but I feel like it’ll be different once everyone’s together. It’s just gonna be… weird,” you mutter, staring down at the ground, kicking aimlessly at the rocks scattered in your path. “I could always just bail—tell them I’m not feeling well.”

Barty’s enthusiastic "Yes, let’s do that" is drowned out by Regulus, who smirks and shakes his head. “No, if you do that, I’ll tell them you chickened out. Which is exactly what you’d be doing.”

You shoot him a glare, crossing your arms. “You’re a right sod, Black.”

Regulus smirks, unfazed. “Would you look at that, we’re here.”

You glance up and realize with a start that you've arrived at Lily and James’ house. The warm glow from the windows spills out onto the porch, and you can hear faint laughter from inside. Your nerves spike again, but you take a deep breath, steeling yourself.

Regulus watches you with an unreadable expression, but you catch the glint of concern in his eyes. “You’ll be fine,” he says quietly, his tone softer than usual. “Remember, they invited you because they want you there, not because they feel obligated.”

Before you can respond, the door swings open, and there stands Lily, her expression lighting up even more when she sees you. “You made it!” she exclaims, pulling you into a quick hug. "Come in, come in. Everyone’s just getting settled."

You step inside, immediately greeted by the warmth of the house and the smell of something delicious wafting from the kitchen. Harry’s running around with a toy in his hand playing with Sirius, and James is perched on the couch, looking absolutely delighted to see you.

Then your eyes flick over the rest of the room and settle on Remus, as if drawn to him like magnets. He offers you a small, friendly smile and a nod of his head which you return.

"Hey, hey!" James grins, raising his glass in a mock toast. "I’m glad you made it. We were starting to think you’d bail."

“Thanks for the warm welcome,” you reply dryly, but you can’t help the small laugh that slips out.

As you make your way toward the couch, you can’t stop your gaze from drifting back to where Remus is standing near the fireplace, quietly observing the room. When Remus catches your eye, his smile is faint, almost hesitant. His gaze flickers away for a moment before he meets yours again, his expression neutral but not unfriendly.

You swallow hard, heart beating a little faster. The silence between you both is thick with tension, the remnants of a relationship that was once close—too close to ignore, too delicate to heal completely.

"Hey," you say, your voice steady, though you feel everything inside you twist.

"Hey," he replies, his voice quiet but warm. There's a slight tilt of his head, as if he's not entirely sure what to do with himself at this moment. He looks like he wants to say more, but the words don’t come, and for a long, uncomfortable beat, neither of you speaks.

Lily is talking about something with James, her voice fading in the background as you remain locked in this strange standoff with Remus. You tell yourself to just breathe, to focus on the room, the warmth of the fire crackling in the corner. But then, just as you're about to force yourself to look away, he shifts, taking a small step toward you.

"I—" Remus begins, but the words stop again, his hands running through his hair in a familiar gesture that makes your heart ache. "I’m glad you came tonight. I wasn’t sure if… well, if you’d want to be here with everything between us."

“I wanted to be here,” you say, your voice low, trying to keep the honesty in your words without letting the pain of it all seep through.

There’s a long pause, and then Remus looks at you, his eyes searching yours for something, anything. “Good… you – you look good by the way.” Before you can respond, hands are roughly placed on both your shoulders, Sirius, all energy and excitement. 

“Let's get you a drink, Sunshine,” with that, you’re whisked away towards the kitchen. 

As Sirius drags you toward the kitchen, you can’t help but chuckle. The whole thing feels a little surreal—this weird in-between space where the past and present collide, but you’re trying not to think too hard about it. If you do, you might spiral.

"Come on, you look like you need it." Sirius grins at you, and it’s one of those smiles that has the ability to make you forget your nerves for a second.

“Yeah, definitely,” you mutter, glancing back over your shoulder at Remus. He’s still standing by the fireplace, looking distant, his eyes trained on the conversation happening at the couch.

The laughter from the living room seeps into the kitchen as you look away, reminding you that you’re still expected to be a part of this—expected to be okay. You swallow hard. "I need a breath of fresh air," you blurt before you can stop yourself.

Sirius looks up from where he's poured the drink, his eyes softening with concern. “You sure? I mean, there’s a lot going on out there, but you don’t have to stay if it’s too much.” His voice drops to a more serious tone.

You nod quickly, unable to explain what’s suffocating you. “Yeah, I just need a minute.” You don’t wait for another word from him, slipping past him and through the kitchen door, stepping out into the cool evening air.

The back garden is quieter than the house, with only the sounds of bugs and the occasional rustle of leaves in the breeze. You lean against the porch railing, inhaling deeply as you try to clear the weight from your chest. The coolness of the night feels like a balm against the fire inside you, but it doesn’t take long for the tightness in your throat to return. The silence is comforting, but it doesn’t drown out the thoughts of Remus—his smile, the way his eyes lingered on you earlier.

You close your eyes, exhaling slowly, but the moment is fleeting. The knot in your stomach tightens again, and you feel like you're drowning in all of it. What am I doing here? you wonder, pressing your palms against your eyes.

The sound of the door opening behind you startles you, and you whirl around to see Remus standing there, fiddling nervously with the cigarette box in his hands. His posture is hesitant, shy, and beneath the dim light, he looks bone tired.

He glances up at you, his mouth opening and closing as he tries to find the words.

“I’m sorry,” he says, the words hanging awkwardly between you. Your brow furrows in confusion, and he must see it because he adds, “I didn’t think that when I broke up with you, you’d think that meant they wouldn’t want to be friends with you anymore.” He gestures vaguely toward the door he’d just come through.

“That’s not your fault, Remus,” you say quietly, shrugging and turning your gaze away from him, toward the garden. “It’s just how breakups go.”

He moves closer, but keeps his distance, leaning against the railing. “I should’ve made it clearer.”

You inhale sharply, your voice sharper than intended. “It wasn’t your job anymore. It’s fine.” The words taste bitter on your tongue.

He’s silent for a long moment, studying you—your words, your tone, the way you hold yourself. He sees the changes, but also the parts of you that are still the same, and something about it seems to weigh on him.

He shifts uncomfortably, then finally speaks again. “I wish you’d shout at me, y’know?” His voice is softer, almost pleading.

You turn to look at him, incredulous. “Why?” you ask, pausing. “So you can feel better? So you can say you left me because I was some raging bitch who’s impossible to deal with?” A weak chuckle escapes your lips, hollow and bitter.

“No,” he shakes his head quickly, his gaze softening. “Because I deserve it. I left because I was a coward.” His voice drops to a near whisper, vulnerable and raw, barely audible over the sound of the wind.

You both fall into a heavy silence, the air thick with everything left unsaid. Neither of you knows how to fill the space between you, unsure of whether you even want to. The quiet feels too loud now, and all the unspoken words hang like a weight between you both, heavy and unresolved.

“Why–” the words get stuck in your throat, “why did you break up with me?” your voice sounds weak even to your own ears.

Remus shifts slightly, his hands still nervously fidgeting with the cigarette box. He exhales a slow breath, and for a moment, you wonder if he’s going to turn away again—like he’s too scared to face the weight of your question. But he doesn’t. His eyes lock with yours, and you can see the storm of emotions behind them.

"I didn’t know how to be what you needed," he admits finally, his voice tinged with regret. "I—" He pauses, shaking his head, trying to find the right words, as if they're all tangled up in his chest. "I couldn’t give you what you deserved. I thought... maybe if I let you go, you’d be better off without me, because I couldn’t give you the kind of love you needed."

You feel the sting of his words, a dull ache that spreads through your ribs. You turn away slightly, trying to steady yourself, but your hands grip the railing tightly. “I didn’t need perfect, Remus,” you say quietly, almost to yourself. “I just needed you to be here, to try.”

He winces at that, and you can see the way his jaw clenches. "I know.” 

You're both standing there, pensive, the stillness of the moment heavy in the air. The garden before you stretches out in a quiet, almost forgotten beauty. The sun, low in the sky, casts long shadows across the path, while the fading light tints the flowers with a soft, golden glow.

You wrap your arms around yourself, pulling your body in as though trying to gather the pieces of yourself that feel scattered, lost. It's an instinctive action, one that’s meant to soothe, to offer a small measure of comfort. But it doesn’t quite work. The tightness in your chest remains, the ache of unsaid words, of things left unresolved. The warmth of your own touch feels distant, like a quiet echo that doesn't quite reach you.

Just as you're about to let yourself walk away, Remus speaks up again. “They all really missed you.” He turns to face you, offering a half-smile, half-grimace that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

"I missed them too... I missed my friends," you reply, but before you can stop yourself, the words slip out, "Did you miss me?" You immediately look away, wishing you could take them back. You feel vulnerable, uncertain. It’s a moment you immediately regret—and you can see the same hesitation reflected in Remus’s face.

His heart aches at your question, and he feels it crack in his chest.

“Of course I did,” he says, his voice wavering like he’s on the edge of tears. When you finally turn to meet his gaze, you notice the shimmer of it in his eyes.

"Maybe we could try being friends again?" you ask, the words tentative, fragile.

"Yeah... I’d like that," he nods, his voice soft but sincere. His answer feels like it came too quickly, like a reflex.

You give a small, uncertain smile, but hesitate before speaking again. “Do you really want to be friends?”

Remus glances upward, his posture stiffening. For a moment, there's an unbearable silence. Then, with a sigh, he looks back at you. “God, no.” He says it like it’s devastating, like the situation you're both in is causing him physical pain. He just looks at you for a second, “I don’t think I can be friends with you.”

Your heart skips a beat at his confession, the weight of his words hanging between you both. The air feels heavy, and the silence stretches for what feels like an eternity. You open your mouth, but no words come out. For a moment, you simply stare at him, your mind racing, trying to process what he’s just said.

Remus shifts uncomfortably, his fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides, like he’s battling with himself. “I didn’t mean for it to sound like that,” he adds, his voice softer now, more tentative. “I just... after everything, I don’t know if I can pretend it’s just nothing. You mean too much to me.”

“I—” you begin, but your voice falters. You swallow hard, the knot in your throat thick and tight again. It’s like everything you’ve been trying to suppress, to ignore, has come rushing back all at once. “I don’t know what to do with that,” you whisper, more to yourself than to him.

Remus shifts closer, but there’s still a careful distance between you, like he’s waiting for you to make the next move, for you to decide if this is something you both want to untangle. His eyes are wide, searching yours, as if waiting for a sign, some clue that this isn’t too much to bear.

“I don’t either,” he admits, his voice breaking slightly. “But I can’t keep pretending that I don’t still care about you. Not when it’s this obvious. Not when all I think about is you. Not when I’m standing here, hoping you’ll look at me and say that maybe we can try again.”

The air feels thick, and you take a shaky breath, wondering if you’ve made a mistake, if it would be easier to walk away now, before anything else is said. But the truth is, you’ve never been able to just walk away from Remus, no matter how hard you tried. Your heart knows it too well—maybe better than your mind ever could.

“You hurt me,” you say, the words raw and unfiltered. “And I’m scared. I don’t know if I can just forget that.”

“I know,” he says quickly, his voice trembling with an honesty that cuts deep. “I know I hurt you. And I’m not asking you to forget, not even for a second. I just want to... I don’t know... I just want to figure out if there’s something left between us. If we can try to fix this.”

The thought of trying again, of reopening those old wounds to see if they could heal, fills you with both hope and fear. You stare at him, searching for any hint of the person you used to love, and yet there’s something different now. Something older. Wiser, perhaps. But the weight of what he’s asking hangs in the balance, and it’s hard to imagine letting go of the hurt, of the walls you’ve built around yourself since everything ended.

“Maybe we can start over,” you say quietly, your voice shaky but steady. “Maybe we can take it slow. And see what happens.”

Remus nods, his face softening, though you can see the weight in his eyes. “Yeah. Slow. I’d like that. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

You look away for a moment, the thoughts swirling in your head. This isn’t an easy choice. It’s messy, and there are pieces of both of you scattered everywhere. But there’s also something raw, something real, in the space between you. It’s terrifying, but it’s also... maybe it’s worth it.

“Okay,” you whisper, meeting his gaze again. “We can try.”

The words hang in the air between you, tentative, like a promise you’re not sure you’re ready to keep. You swallow, trying to steady the tremble in your chest. The silence stretches again, but this time, it feels different. It feels like there’s something more, something unsaid, lingering.

Remus shifts just slightly closer, his eyes searching yours as if waiting for permission—permission to close the gap between you, to bridge the distance that’s always seemed too wide to cross. And then, without quite thinking, you step forward.

The movement is slow, hesitant, but the moment you’re within arm’s reach, he exhales, his body language softening. His hands, still nervously fumbling, stop, and he takes a breath like he’s steeling himself for something. The space between you is still charged, and yet, when he finally closes the gap with a cautious, but warm embrace, you freeze for a brief moment, before the weight of everything else settles in.

His arms wrap around you gently, carefully, like he’s worried you might break if he holds you too tightly. You stand there, unsure of everything, but something deep inside you tells you this feels right—his touch, the quiet connection between you both.

For a moment, you don’t speak. You don’t need to. It’s enough just to be there, together in this moment. You let out a shaky breath.

“I’m sorry,” Remus whispers into your hair, his voice barely audible.

You close your eyes, letting the warmth of his presence fill the spaces where doubt and fear once lingered. And despite the ache in your chest, despite the confusion and the fear of what this might mean, you find yourself clinging to the moment. It’s not perfect. Nothing ever is. 

“It’s okay,” you whisper back, your voice barely more than a breath. “It’s okay.”

₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

It was a normal July day in Santa Monica. The morning fog had just begun to lift and moisture still hung heavy in the air. You sat in the passenger seat of the department-issued green Ford Taurus. The window was down and you could smell the mixture of dew and cigarettes in the air. You were parked on the side of the street, outside a small hole-in-the-wall coffee shop that your partner claimed had the best mocha in the city. Sahabi walked out of the door holding two cups of coffee. She handed one to you through the open window and you murmured your thanks. As she popped open the driver’s side, you took a sip. You let out a noise of approval. It definitely was one of the better coffees you’d tried recently.

“Told you.” Sahabi grinned, turning over the ignition. The car rumbled to life under your feet. 

“It’s not bad.” you allowed. Sahabi leaned back in her seat and took a sip of her coffee. She let out a sigh of contentment and looked out the side of her window. The place where she parked overlooked the pier. Seagulls flapped around the posts, diving out of the thin fog and screeching at each other to stake their claim on the perfect landing spot. One pecked at half of a donut lying in the sand. It only got to tear a few chunks from the pastry before a larger bird chased it away. “Do you think that’s healthy? Like can seagulls eat donuts?” 

“How would I know?” Sahabi shrugged, rolling up your window. “I’m a detective, not an ornithologist. You’re the one who watches nature documentaries for fun."

“They calm me down,” You defended.

“Oh, yea, nothing more soothing than watching a deer getting ripped apart.”

“David Attenborough just has a talent of making everything sound peaceful.” Your phone began to ring. You shifted in your seat so you could reach into your pocket and pull it out. You clicked it open and listened to the dispatcher. “Alright, thank you.” You hung up and turned to your partner. “Missing person report.” You mumbled, typing the address into the GPS. Sahabi sighed. 

“‘Nother day in paradise. Tourists need help finding grandpa.” You scoffed at her words. It was harsh, but true. That’s what most of your days consisted of. Your precinct never really got gang or drug calls, and most of the dead bodies that were reported were from natural causes or stupid accidents influenced by alcohol. You really didn’t complain, though. It could be worse. A lot worse. You heard stories about what other divisions had to work on and it made you shudder. You’d seen your fair share of murder scenes before you became a detective, but nothing straight-up vile like the major crimes task force described. You never stumbled into a massacre. Once you got promoted to Detective I, the amount of genuine danger you encountered significantly declined. The promotion happened at the beginning of the year, and you were still learning a lot, but your supervisors and Sahabi had noted that you seemed suited for the position. You didn’t miss the adrenaline of being on the streets. 

You pulled up to the Promenade five minutes later. It was only nine in the morning, but there were already people milling about the mall, enjoying the outdoors before it got too unbearably hot. It took a moment of scanning, but you eventually found the uniform that was talking to a woman sitting on the edge of a fountain. You walked behind Sahabi, as you usually did, letting her take the lead. She approached the woman with a kind smile. One that you knew was fake. 

“Morning, ma’am,” she said smoothly, extending her hand. “My name is Detective Sahabi, this is my partner. I understand you’re looking for someone?” The woman looked up at the two of you with unfocused eyes, fingers absentmindedly rolling the pearls of her necklace. She was wearing a bright pink jumpsuit and her skin was the color of a poorly-baked rotisserie chicken. Too much self-tanner. She jumped up off the fountain, but didn’t shake Sahabi’s hand. 

“Thank god you’re here!” She yelped, clutching her hand to her chest. “Huxley is gone!” You pulled your notepad out of the pocket of your dress pants. You flipped it open and clicked your pen.

“When was the last time you saw Huxley?” You asked, diligently writing down the time and place. “Do you have a description?” The woman nodded gravely.

“He’s white. He’s wearing a blue Louis Vuitton puffer jacket and black booties. He just got his haircut the other day, too.” She closed her eyes as she imagined the description.

“Alright,” You mumbled. “Height and weight? And how old is he?” 

“About a foot tall and seven pounds. He’s turning nine next week.” Your pen stopped midway through the second word. 

“S-Sorry,” Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion and you lowered the pad. “On the phone, I thought you said your son was missing?” The woman nodded emphatically. 

“Yes! My son, Huxley.” 

“Is Huxley a…human child?” You asked softly, tilting your head and sparing a glance to Sahabi and the officer, who both looked equally confused. The woman scoffed and her head jerked back, offended that you would have the gall to ask such a question. 

“What a horrible idea!” She bit out. “Ugh, could you imagine? A child? As if.” She shook her head to reposition the hair that draped her shoulders. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “No, Huxley is my pomeranian. We stopped for some water and I took a call. When I looked back down, he was gone.” You took a deep breath and flipped your notebook closed.

“Right.” You folded your hands together in front of you. “Unfortunately, ma’am, we don’t work on missing pet cases. You can go down to the station and make a report, though.” The woman looked at you like you had grown a second head. 

“Um, excuse me, what?” She gave you a terse smile while she shook her head. “No. No, I don’t think so. You’re detectives, right? I need you to detect where my son went-” “We only work human cases.” Sahabi said. “Your dog is not your son.”

“How dare- you know I pay your salary, right? You work for me!” The officer stepped between Sahabi and the woman, who was frantically gesturing with her hands.

“Ma’am please,” the officer soothed. “I can take you down to the precinct. We can file a missing animal report there.” Sahabi and you gave nods to the officer and wished him luck. 

“This is bullshit! I want to talk to their supervisor!” You heard her yelp as you walked away. When you got back in your car, you let out a breath.

“Crazies are out early today,” Sahabi noted, returning to her coffee. You mumbled in agreement. She pulled out of her parking spot and began the drive back to the precinct to collect lab results from a suspected overdose case. But just as she turned onto the main road, her phone rang. Sahabi answered it with her professional voice, but surprise crept into her words as she talked. After she hung up, you gave her a curious look. She looked at you with a smile, excitement twinkling in her eye. “Double homicide!” She said enthusiastically, making a U-turn. You rolled your eyes and laughed a little at her enthusiasm. But it wasn’t unfounded. You were about to do real detective work.

Sahabi absolutely broke a few traffic laws to get you to the crime scene as quickly as possible. The entire time, she was rattling off potential ideas. Execution? Drug deal gone bad? Jilted lovers? So many possibilities! You had to remind her that, as detectives, you had to uphold some semblance of professionalism and that she should probably rein in the curiosity in case there were any next of kin there. She waved you off, assuring you it would be fine. When you got to the crime scene, flashing blue and red lights crowded the side of the road. There were three squad cars there. Two from Santa Monica PD, and one from LAPD. You thought it was a bit odd, but considering the two cities bordered each other, you didn’t pay much mind. What piqued your interest was the car without lights. A Ford Taurus, identical to yours, but in silver. You pursed your lips and kept your eyes on it while Sahabi parked. 

“Are there other detectives on the case?” You asked her, nodding to the car. She shook her head.

“Not that I’m aware of. Might belong to the victims?” You stepped out of the car and stretched a little. The sun was fully out, but a nice breeze snuck under your silk blouse and prevented the heat from settling against your skin. The crime scene was on the opposite side of the road. Not a major road, but popular enough that uniforms had shut it down before you had arrived. Palm trees swayed on one side and an open field sprawled to the other. You caught sight of two bodies lying next to a road sign, discolored and bloated. The heat had already started working on them. Sahabi began weaving through the barricade and you hurried along behind her, eyes and ears open and ready to learn. This was your first double homicide, actually your first homicide in general, something that you gathered was rare to see in your division by the way Sahabi talked about it. Especially the 'double' part. Something you might not see again during your time at SMPD.  When you made your way past the barricade of cop cars, you paused for a moment. There were two suited men already looking at the scene. One was talking to one of the patrolmen and the other looked down at one of the bodies from behind his sunglasses, hands in his pockets and tie gently fluttering in the breeze. They both had badges clipped to their belts. The man talking to the officer noticed you first and he nodded. Sahabi approached him.

“Hello,” the man said. He had a small smile on his face. “My name is Detective Nate Moretta. This is my partner Detective Sammy Bryant. We’re with the LAPD.” You and Sahabi introduced yourselves, but shared a quick look. LAPD detectives. You’d only interacted with a few LAPD detectives during your time on the force, but Sahabi had stories. Multiple incidents of LAPD stealing arrests. They thought they were so much better than the cities surrounding Los Angeles. They had funding. They had shows and movies made about them. And you were stuck getting calls about lost dogs. Most of the detectives had a complex. They were good cops and they knew it. But they believed that they were good because they worked for the LAPD, and no other department could compare. You mentally braced yourself for the condescension that was about to spill from the detectives’ mouths. But when you introduced yourselves, they held out their hands. They shook them with professionalism. Like you were equals. It surprised you a bit, but you assumed that the LAPD ‘quirks’ would soon shine through. 

“What do we have so far?” Sahabi asked, crossing the street to where the bodies were. 

“Looks like a good ol’ fashioned shootout!” Bryant answered as you walked. “Some real wild west shit.” He gestured between the two bodies. They weren’t covered with the tarps yet. They were lying with their feet facing each other, sprawled out on their backs with guns in hand. Each had a single bullet wound to the chest. You tried to pay attention to what Detective Bryant was saying, you really, truly did. But you found your eyes wandering. His hair was short, but you could see the curls that formed at the nape of his neck. The color was dark, but when he moved his head just right, the sunlight captured hints of auburn in the strands. His eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses and his face and neck were covered in constellations of freckles. His shoulders were wide and you were positive that if he took off his jacket, his biceps would fill out his sleeves nicely. You almost sighed when your eyes trailed down his torso and found the pudge of his stomach, slightly peeking out over his belt. Heat sparked in your belly, and you couldn’t blame it on the rising air temperature. You bit down on the inside of your bottom lip. Detective Sammy Bryant looked good. He had a rounded face that teetered perfectly on the line between handsome and adorable. And his hands…maybe it was weird to appreciate the thickness of his fingers as they pointed at corpses, but you didn’t care. It had been so long since a man caught your attention. You wanted to drink the sight of him in and burn it against the back of your retinas. You weren’t done ogling him, but the glint of his badge caught your attention. Wait.

“Hold on, why did the LAPD send detectives?” You asked from behind your partner after Bryant stopped talking. Moretta’s eyes flicked to yours, slightly startled like he had forgotten you were there. “Isn’t this Santa Monica jurisdiction?" You saw Bryant’s lips curl in a smile, showing off slightly crooked teeth. You wanted to feel them nipping at your skin. Okay, wow. You scolded yourself. Calm down. We’re working. 

“City limit.” He said simply, pointing at the street sign that parted the two bodies. You hadn’t read it before but, sure enough, it was the LA/Santa Monica city limit marker. One corpse on either side. It was actually impressive how perfectly equidistant they were. Sahabi let out an annoyed groan.

“Oh.” You looked at Sahabi for a clarifying answer. “So. Does that mean we’re…both on the case? How does that work?” You said it mainly to your partner, but Moretta answered for her.

“We’ll write up the initial report,” He explained “We’ll hand it in to our supervisor who will call yours. And they’ll figure out who has jurisdiction over it and appoint a lead. No matter who ends up taking it, I’m sure we’ll be in contact. Comparing notes and such.” To his credit, Moretta tried to remain vague. But the way he said it assumed that LAPD would be taking over. Why wouldn’t they? You sensed Sahabi bristling at his words. She was excited to finally have some good detective action. Of course the vultures at the LAPD would swoop in on this one, too. Her nose twitched in annoyance, but she was able to keep her composure. She nodded and thanked them. Moretta held out his business card, telling her to continue the initial canvas but to update him on any news. Your eyes flicked to Bryant and found him watching you. He looked away as soon as your gaze fell on him, cheeks a little pink. Probably from the sun and his fair complexion. You practically had to drag Sahabi away from the bodies. Once you were back in the car, she slammed the door shut, cursing under her breath.

“I don’t want to talk to fucking hitchhikers to see if they’ve got any information. I want to be there with CSU.” She still had Moretta’s card in her hand. She crinkled it in her fist and dropped it in the cupholder. “The one time we could actually do something interesting. Actually solve an important homicide instead of just returning some asshole’s fifth Ferrari. And of course, of fucking course it’s on the city line.” Her hands dug into the leather of the steering wheel. You looked at her with sympathy. Sahabi was ambitious. She had been forced to change departments and all she wanted was to solve high stakes cases again. Not because she wanted her fifteen minutes of fame, but because she wanted to help people. That’s why she had become a cop in the first place. But as the days went on and every call turned out to be nothing intense, she felt like she wasn’t really doing anything. She hadn’t seen a murder case come across her desk in years, well before you came along. And while it was nice reuniting parents and lost kids, it made her feel like a mall cop. So, yea, you felt bad for her. You didn’t really care if you got the case or not. You were never good at telling families they lost a loved one. Never knew what to say. If someone else had to deal with that, it was no skin off your nose. 

“You don’t know if they’re taking it yet,” You pointed out, offering her a placating smile. “We should treat it like it’s going to be our case. You know, like, manifest it by acting like it’s already ours.” Sahabi took a deep breath and closed her eyes. After a few moments, her thick lashes fluttered open again. 

“You’re right,” She said softly, turning the key and putting the car in reverse. “Let’s see what we can find.”

You didn’t find much. Sahabi had driven you around the nearest ten blocks, asking questions to anyone who didn’t slam a door in your face. You got tired fast, but Sahabi had a passionate fervor about her. So, you tagged along and wrote everything down until your hand was cramping. After a few hours, all you had to show for your efforts was confirmation that gunshots had been heard around the time of death (though, really, could the residents of this neighborhood distinguish between gunshots, fireworks, and a car backfiring?) and a report of a black sedan speeding away from the area the bodies were found in. A partial plate number, too. A Nevada plate ending in K59. It wasn’t amazing or concrete evidence, but it was something. By the time your shift was over, you felt dead on your feet. You dragged yourself home and plopped on your bed, face first. You woke up ten hours later in the same position.

The next few days continued the cycle: looking hard for any more information until you collapsed, even though the bodies hadn’t been identified yet. Apparently the LAPD had better things to do. Between Sahabi pushing to uncover a secret piece of evidence and continuing to work a case on a string of minor break ins, you were exhausted. 

You walked into the precinct with sleep still heavy in your eyes. You sunk down into your desk chair and rubbed at your face. You peered over the partition. Sahabi was sitting up straight, typing away at her computer with a determined expression.

“Genuinely how are you upright right now?” You groaned, slowly clicking the log-in button on your monitor. “I don’t think I’ve gotten any restful sleep in days.” Sahabi just shrugged. Her gaze was hardened and her jaw was clenched. Something was bothering her. You were about to ask if she was alright when you heard your supervisor’s door click open and her voice call you into her office. You gave a curious glance across the divider, but your partner’s eyes stayed glued to her screen, unblinking. You pushed yourself back and staggered to your feet. Your knees were killing you. You walked around the corner and into Detective Willis’ office, taking a moment to look out her window into the park across the street. There were dogs chasing each other in the early morning light. Detective Willis gestured for you to sit. As you did, your eyes scanned the room. You didn’t enter often. Plaques and framed newspaper clippings covered the walls, a testament to Willis’ impressive fifteen-year tenure. You settled into the chair on the opposite side of her desk, adjusting your top and smoothing your pants. You kept your hands folded in your lap. You really didn’t know what she wanted from you. You thought you had been doing well in your training so far, but maybe the Detective had other opinions. Her face was unreadable, as it always was, and nervous energy buzzed in your veins as you waited for her to speak. Willis adjusted her papers on her desk.

“Do you enjoy being a detective?” She said, almost casually, but you knew better than to assume that it was. You nodded with a genuine smile.

“I do.” You said, straightening your posture. “I like the fulfillment of it. It’s nice to be able to see a case til the end instead of having to pass it on to a different department.” When you were on patrol, you were often peeved by the fact that it wasn’t your job to investigate crimes. You’d meet these people, begging for you to help them get away from their abusive partners or to help them get sober, but all you could do was just write it down and send the complaint to its respective department. While you didn’t get all the sexy cases, being a detective allowed you to see each of them through. Give actual closure to families, and be the one to deliver the news. The relief on their face when you told them that you’d found their family heirlooms lost in a robbery was the reason you kept going, even if you didn’t make national news. Willis looked you over and pursed her lips.

“Good.” She said simply “That’s good. I think you have some real potential, kid.” Your cheeks burned with the praise and you forced down a smile. 

“Thank you, Detective.” “Of course,” Willis continued, “You still have a lot to learn before you become a DII.” She gestured out to where Sahabi was sitting. “You have a good mentor, but even she hasn’t seen everything. I’ll get to the point. The initial report on that double homicide on city lines came in last night. After reviewing it, both departments have agreed on making it a joint investigation.” Your eyes widened in surprise. You were not expecting the LAPD to share. Willis seemed to read your mind. “It doesn’t happen often,” She acknowledged. “But given the nature of the case, and the desperate need for good PR, we’re going to work together.”

“Oh, a-alright. Does Detective Sahabi know? When should we start?” You began to rise and Willis hesitated.

“Detective Sahabi is not working the case,” She said gingerly, like it was a sore subject. Your eyes snapped out the glass partition to look at your partner’s desk. She was watching you, but flicked her gaze down when she noticed you looking back. Right. That explained a lot.

“Can I ask why?” You turned your attention back to your supervisor. “I know she was looking forward to getting back into homicide.”

“Sahabi is an incredible detective and we need her excellence focused elsewhere.” Meaning they didn’t want to waste more resources than necessary. “There are only two detectives working this case, one from the LAPD and one from this department- you. You’ll have access to both departments’ resources, including Sahabi if you wish, but she will remain here. The case files and evidence will stay at LAPD while the case is open.” Of course it would.

“Who did the LAPD choose? Was it one of the detectives we met at the scene?” Your chest ached. You felt extremely bad for Sahabi. She was so excited to work on the case. All you wanted to do was talk to her. Willis flicked through the papers in the file in front of her.

“Detective Samuel Bryant is the lead on the case,” She said and your heart jumped for a moment. The hot one? The one who had caught you staring at his ass? Great. “Detective Bryant is a new DII, promoted around the same time you were and he needs some experience leading his own cases without his usual partner. The case should be pretty open and shut. Looks like a dueling type of situation, no outside suspects. All you’ll have to do is shadow him and see what it’s like to cover a homicide. Bryant’s worked plenty of ‘em. I trust his abilities. It’ll be a good experience.” You looked at her skeptically. She lowered the papers and took off her reading glasses, looking at you with warmth and lowering her voice a tinge. “I know you don’t want to stay here forever. It’ll be good to get some training on higher caliber cases before moving on to your next department.” You swallowed at her words and looked at your shoes. It was true. You didn’t think you wanted to work in minor crimes forever. But it was so early on in your detective career that you had no idea what you wanted to do with your life. Maybe broadening your horizons wasn’t such a bad idea. You could work the case, see if you enjoyed homicide, and go from there. 

You stood from the seat and shook Willis’ hand. “Thank you, Detective Willis. I appreciate that you considered me for the role. When does it start?”

“Oh, Bryant’s waiting for you outside. Grab your stuff. He’s going to drive you back to his precinct to get you caught up on what he has already.” She didn’t give you any time to process her words before pushing you out of her office and back into the main room. The moment you returned to your desk, your partner pushed back her chair and stood up.

“Have fun.” Sahabi said. Her words were strained and she had a death grip on her coffee mug. The mug you had bought her when you were first assigned as partners. It had a cartoon donkey wearing a party hat printed on the porcelain. She loved that mug, but she was holding it like it owed her money. She pressed her lips together in what you assumed was an attempt at a polite smile before turning and walking towards the break room. You followed her. 

“Sahabi,” you called gently. She didn’t turn around, just continued past the door of the small kitchen. Sahabi placed her mug under the coffee maker. “Maren,” you continued,  “I’m so sorry. I don’t want this. I don’t want to work this case. You should be the one on it. I get that you’re mad at me but-“ She scoffed and raised her hand for you to stop. 

“I’m not angry at you.” She said, back still turned to you. “I’m upset that they didn't even consider me for the job. They just went straight for the DI with no homicide experience and barely enough field training to do canvassing by herself, let alone catch a murderer.” The words stung, but you let them roll off your back. You knew she was exaggerating. And you knew this wasn't about you. You gave her the space to continue. Her shoulders slumped, anger giving way to the exhaustion mirrored in your own body. “I tried so hard,” she said softly, like the words were meant for only her ears and you just so happened to be there. “I pushed and pushed to get any sort of evidence. I tried to prove that I’m a good detective. That I can work a homicide again. But it doesn’t even matter. They said I’m ‘too important’ to shift my focus to outside cases. But it’s not an outside case. It’s our case. We were supposed to solve it together.” Sahabi took her refilled mug and brought it to her glossed lips. You swallowed and looked at your feet. You were about to say how they were right, that she really was invaluable to the department and you knew it would collapse without her. But you held your tongue. She needed to feel this and voice her frustrations without you trying to come in and solve her problems. 

“I really am sorry, Sahabi. They should’ve given it to you.” You said meekly. And you believed it. What could you offer the LAPD that she couldn’t? Sahabi sighed and turned to you, resting a hand on your bicep. 

“You’re a good detective,” she whispered. “This case will be good for you. Please, just keep me updated. Let me know if I can help in any way. I want to be part of this investigation as much as I can.” You let out an uneasy laugh at her words. 

“You don't have to worry, I think I’m pretty much useless without you. I’ll keep you in the loop.” Sahabi let out a giggle and let her head tilt to one side. She looked at you fondly. 

“Show those vultures at the LAPD how we do it in Santa Monica, okay? Go kick ass.”

Sammy leaned against his car. He was waiting by the front steps of the SMPD and he was getting bored. He tapped more M&Ms into the palm of his hand and began popping them in his mouth one by one. Nate had poked fun at his snacking habits, but Sammy got shot at for a living. If he wanted chocolate for breakfast, he felt like he was entitled to it. Besides, he needed a bit of a pick-me-up. The night before, the guys had taken him and Nate out to the strip club to celebrate Nate’s new baby. Watching naked women was a twisted way of celebrating your wife pushing out an entire human being, in Sammy’s personal opinion, but he tagged along anyway. It wasn’t until two am that he realized he needed to be in the front of SMPD by seven. He was still a little groggy, but the M&Ms were helping with morale. 

All tiredness was wiped from his mind when the main doors opened. A piece of candy fell from his palm, but he didn’t care. His eyes were locked on you. The quiet detective he had met at the crime scene. The one that he caught sizing him up with an absentminded smile. He had stood taller for the rest of the day, a shock of confidence flowing through him. It had been years since a woman looked at him like that. Usually Nate got all the attention. So when you looked right past him and set your sights on Sammy…yea, he noticed. Unfortunately he didn’t notice until after you left. He thought he was hallucinating. Maybe you were nervous. He got the impression, that was now confirmed, that you were new to the detective’s department. Maybe you were just trying to get a feel for the strangers who encroached on your turf. But when you and your partner had left and they had finished their work, Nate gave him a small smile. Sammy tilted his head. Nate just laughed and shook his head. 

“You really are blind, aren’t you?” he had said and it took several minutes of coaxing from Sammy to get him to elaborate. “That one detective was absolutely making eyes at you, man.” 

“No way,” Sammy scoffed. “That’s unprofessional. She was just…” He gestured vaguely around him. But words escaped him and he closed his mouth without finishing the thought. 

“Right.” Nate chuckled, pulling out onto the road. And at first, he really believed that you were just looking at him. Taking in the scene. But as they drove back in silence to the precinct, doubt began to bubble in his brain. He did catch you staring, and you looked away quickly like you were embarrassed. You held onto every word he said when he was giving you the briefing at the scene. He allowed Nate’s words to settle, and he carried himself taller for the rest of the day. But when he got out of the shower that night and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, the doubt returned. Nate was out of his mind. Sleep deprived from having a newborn, surely. There was no way you wanted him. Maybe five years ago when he was on patrol and before his muscles had softened. Definitely not now.

The feelings of inadequacy sparked up again when you saw him and gave a small wave, descending the stairs. He was grateful he was wearing sunglasses so you didn’t catch the way his eyes were locked on you the entire time. Sammy didn’t notice you a few days ago, but he sure as hell noticed you now. The top you wore complimented your eyes and your pants showed off your powerful legs. The light breeze ruffled your hair and he caught the faint scent of your perfume. The smell lodged itself in his brain, hitting a primal section of it that made his chest feel fuzzy. He found himself taking a deeper breath to try and catch more of it. You approached his car with your bag and dipped your head in greeting. You reintroduced yourself and held out a hand. He shook it with the one that didn’t hold candy in it.

“You’re Detective Bryant, right?” You asked before he could speak. 

“Just Sammy,” He smiled. “We're partners now. No need to be formal.” You grinned, running your palms down your thighs. He hoped it was just because you were nervous and not because the very act of touching him disgusted you. Sammy swallowed and held out his palm. “Would you like an M&M?” God what was wrong with him? Was he trying to flirt or scare you away? Maybe a bit of both.

“It’s seven in the morning.” You gave him a look, dismissing the offer. 

“So?” He shrugged and tossed the rest of them in his mouth. “Your loss.”

“Alright, Just Sammy,” You said with a smile, and the sound of his name leaving your lips made his heart flip. “I hear you’re taking me to your office.” He nodded and dusted off his palms from the slightly melted chocolate. Sammy opened the passenger door for you and stood aside. You gave him a small thank you and dipped into the seat. He closed the door and rounded the car. As he did so, he took a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks as he exhaled. It was going to be a long day.

The first few minutes of driving was a little awkward. Something about Sammy’s posture as he drove told you he didn’t really want to be there. You didn’t blame him. He was stuck leading his first case with some no-name from a different department. You kept your fingers interlocked while you watched the road ahead, looking for a way to break the silence.

“So how long have you been a detective?” 

“‘Bout three years total,” Sammy answered, shifting in his seat slightly. “First year as a DII, though.”

“Do you like it better than patrol?”

“It’s…different.” He said slowly, unsure if that was the proper word. “It’s a lot more psychological work than physical. I do a lot of gang cases so I have to know what’s going on in all the neighborhoods all the time. It can be a lot. But at least I don’t have to wear that stupid belt anymore.” Your eyes moved to him. He was wearing a pair of old jeans and a blue polo shirt, white tanktop poking out from beneath it. A LAPD windbreaker was draped around his shoulders.

“Do LAPD detectives always dress so casually?” You hadn’t meant it as an insult, but you saw him flinch slightly and let out a self-conscious laugh. 

“N-No,” he chuckled, giving you a wide smile. “No, I was doing surveillance yesterday and didn’t have time to change.” That sparked your interest and you shifted to look at him.

“Surveillance?” You said, fully allowing your intrigue to be apparent. “On what? Are you undercover for something?” 

“I can’t tell you.” He apologized, expression hardening. “Top secret. Classified.” He paused for a moment, taking in your disappointed look, before breaking out into a smile again. “M'Just kidding, it’s for gang stuff. Trying to get information on an old king pin.” You exhaled through your nose.

“Don’t do that,” You rolled your eyes. “You scared me. Thought you were gonna say you’d have to kill me if you told me.”

“I do. Get out of the car.” The two of you shared a laugh and the silence that followed was considerably less awkward than it had been. You both seemed more relaxed. Sammy swallowed before speaking again.

“S-so did you always want to do this?” He asked. By the way he said the words, you could tell he was trying to get to know you, not just make small talk.

“Work a murder investigation?”

“Just being a cop in general. Though I guess that’s a good question, too.”

“Hm,” you considered, tilting your head. “In a way, yes. I knew I wanted to help people ever since I was a kid. My dad was a big fan of detective shows and my mom loved medical dramas. I figured I’d either be a detective or a doctor. One was cheaper than the other.” You gave an ammused noise. “As for the murder stuff, I’m not sure. I’ll be honest I thought the LAPD would just take over the case. I’m a bit surprised that you even wanted our help specifically. We don’t have a homicide division at our precinct. We just got called because we were the closest unit there.” 

“Really?” Sammy sounded surprised. “That partner of yours looked like she’s worked a few cases. Had the questions lined up and everything.” 

“Sahabi used to work down in Central,” You shrugged. “She…she got hurt last year. A suspect roughed her up pretty badly during an arrest. So they sent her to “light” work and to train new detectives. We mainly do missing persons and small robberies. Tourists who get pickpocketed on the pier and things like that.” You weren’t sure why but, even though you had only met him once, you felt comfortable talking to Sammy. When he didn’t jump in, you continued. “It’s…not groundbreaking work. But it’s better than sitting around doing nothing, I suppose. I don’t know, sometimes it feels like I’m not doing anything important. Like I know I’m still learning and all, but I make stupid mistakes. Sometimes I question if I’ll ever get to the point where I can make a difference.” You looked out the window at the trees and telephone wires so you didn’t have to look at the detective driving. You could feel his eyes on you.

“I get it,” Sammy said softly. “It’s hard not to compare yourself to other departments. Hell, I don’t think I’m as good as some of the detectives in my own department sometimes. Working beside people who have medals ‘n shit. It can get to you, make you feel like you’re not good enough.” You don’t see how his eyes glaze over and his grip on the wheel tightens. “But you know what they call the lowest-ranking graduate from the academy?” You met his gaze and shook your head. “Officer. You got here for a reason. You’re doing fine.” He assured. And you do feel a bit better. “I looked at your file. You’re new. What you’re feeling is normal. I mean, look at me. I’m a DII and I never even wanted to be a cop.”

“Really?” “Hell no!” He scoffed, face scrunching. “I was a major stoner in high school. Hated cops- thought they were all full of themselves. My friends made me apply as a joke and…well, shit, I got in. It was the first time in my life I’d been accepted into something. I went through training and somehow I passed. You wanted to be here. You’ve got a lot more motivation than me. I think you’ll do great. Just, y’know, try not to get shot while we’re doing this.” That got a giggle out of you.

“I’ll try my best,” you promised. A moment passed before you added, softer, “Thank you, Detective Bryant. I didn’t mean to turn it into an emotional conversation, but I appreciate the advice.”

“Sammy.” He corrected. 

“Sammy.”

“No problem, kid. We’re partners now. Gotta know what makes you tick.” The car slowed to a stop at a red light and Sammy’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He flipped it open and nodded along to the voice on the other end. When he hung up he puffed out a breath and rubbed his thighs. “One of the bodies was identified.” He explained. “Have you broken the news before?” 

“Not for a homicide.” You reminded him and Sammy nodded, flicking on his blinker.

“Prepare yourself. It’s never easy.”

Sammy was right. It wasn’t easy. When you pulled up to the small house, there were two kids playing in the yard. The grass was yellow and overgrown, caged in by a link fence. The boys stopped tossing the ball when they saw you get out of the car. As you approached the fence gate, one of the boys ran inside. The other just stared at you. You waited by the gate until the door to the house opened and a woman stepped out. She took two steps before her hand crumpled the side of her night gown and her face dropped. After a deep breath, she walked down the porch steps and through the yard.

“Who are you?” She said, but her words seemed distant, like she knew the answer. You introduced yourself.

“We’re here about your son, Thomas.” You kept your voice neutral. You saw her swallow and she undid the latch of the fence.

“What did he do now?” 

“M-Maybe we should talk inside,” You offered. The mother looked around the street, noting a few nosy neighbors and nodded, ushering her kids inside and you followed. Once you were inside, you shared a look with Sammy and he nodded, a signal to go talk to the mother. He got down to the level of the kids. 

“What’re your names?” His tone was soft, reaching out his hand. “My name is Sammy.” One of the kids looked up at his mom and after she nodded, he shook his hand. You gestured for his mother to join you in the other room and she did. You heard Sammy talking to the boy and his brother.

“Michael.” 

“Gus.”

“Michael and Gus,” Sammy repeated, “It’s nice to meet you. Can I ask you some things?” You took a deep breath and turned to the mother. The woman was wringing her hands and her skin looked ashen and clammy. 

“Mrs. Green,” You started gently. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but your son was killed a few days ago. We identified his body this morning.” 

“Thomas is dead?” She asked, voice extremely fragile.

“I’m afraid so.” You nodded. You had expected her to scream, kick, pounce at you. Anything to show you her grief. But she didn’t. She just nodded and her eyes glazed over.

“Thomas didn’t come home.” Her voice cracked. “I knew something wasn’t right. But…I thought he got arrested or something. Not…not killed.” She took a shaky inhale and a tear slipped from her eye. She pressed her palm over her mouth to stifle a sob. You stood there, compassion filling your chest, and completely unable to help her. “H-How?” Your jaw clenched and your nails dug into your palm.

“He was murdered.” That caused a wail of horror to leave her lips. She staggered forward and you rushed to catch her. She fell into your arms with loud sobs. You held her tightly and her fingers gripped into your blouse, tears staining the fabric. “I’m so sorry.” You told her, but you knew your words didn’t have the weight they needed to. 

“Why?” She cried, sniffling and hiccupping. “My boy…my boy…” You guided her to the ground so she could sit against the kitchen cabinets. “How could this happen? Who could do something like this?” You kneeled and held her hand. She clutched it, looking up at you with wide, desperate eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Green.” You repeated. “It’s the worst news to receive. My…my aunt lost her son recently. I was there when the detectives told her. It’s cruel and no one should ever have to hear those words. We're going to find who hurt Thomas.” You used your free hand to pull one of your cards from inside your jacket. You handed it to her and she took it. “My partner’s going to ask you some questions while I take a look around. If you need anything, you just give me a call, okay?” She gave a weak nod and you stood up. You jumped a bit when you saw Sammy standing in the doorway of the kitchen. You gave him a nod and he stepped aside for you to go into the living room. 

After you had searched Thomas’ room for anything that might be helpful, you met Sammy back at the car. 

“Find anything?” He asked, popping the door open in tandem with you. You both settled into your seats.

“I found a picture on his dresser of him with a woman.” You handed the photo to him. “Her necklace says ‘Haylee.’ Could be a girlfriend.” Sammy nodded and handed the photo back to you. “What about you? Anything from mom?”

“Thomas left the house on Tuesday night. He said he was going to meet a friend at the Santa Monica pier. The coroner estimated the time of death either Wednesday night or Thursday morning. She said it wasn’t unusual for him to be gone for a few days, but he had a shift on Wednesday. We’ll reach out and see if he showed up.” You nodded as he listed the information. Each tidbit settled into your mind and you began to test out how things fit together. “Was that true?” Sammy pulled you from your musings. You blinked at him. “That thing about your aunt?” Your eyebrows pulled together with confusion.

“Why would I lie about that?” You asked incredulously and a bit offended.

“I dunno,” Sammy shrugged, cheeks heating up. “Sometimes detectives lie to make families feel better. To make them feel like they’re not alone.”

“No,” You scoffed. “I didn’t lie about my cousin dying, Sammy.”

“Sorry,” He apologized, scratching behind his ear and trying to hide his guilty expression. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

You sighed before you began to explain. “I try to make genuine connections with the victims and their families. It makes them trust us more. It shows them like we think of them as people and not just numbers.” Sammy smiled. That adorable crooked smile that made your heart flutter against your sternum and any anger you had toward him dissipate.

“Not a lot of detectives think that way. That’s good. You did good.” His praise sent a shot of heat down your legs. 

“Thank you.” You tried to keep your voice normal and you hid your smile as Sammy started the car.

The rest of the day was spent filling out paperwork. Thomas had, in fact, not shown up for his night shift on Wednesday, so that solidified the time of death window. The other body still hadn’t been identified. He was beaten pretty badly before he was shot point-blank in the face. They needed to use a combination of fingerprints and dental records in the process of identification and it was apparently not going well. The LAPD office was nice, but not exactly what you expected. Warm brown desks on short grey carpet. Boxes piled up against the wall with rolls of police tape resting on top. You were expecting something more…sleek. And to be fair, maybe the Hollywood division was, but this looked eerily similar to your own precinct. You were assigned a small desk perpendicular to Sammy and Detective Moretta’s. Sammy had mumbled when you first arrived, saying it was already supposed to be cleared, but it wasn’t. After setting everything to the side, Sammy gave you a tour. 

You emerged from the breakroom with two mugs in your hands. Even their coffee smelled better. You rested one mug on Sammy’s desk. He blinked at it in confusion, not entirely realizing that you had taken it in the first place.

“It was empty,” You explained, taking a sip from your own cup. “Figured you might want a refill.” 

“Thanks.” After swallowing a gulp, he nodded to the open file on your desk. “How’s your report going? Need help filling anything in? Any questions?” You shook your head.

“Mm, no, I think I’ve got it.” You sighed. “Just tedious.” Sammy chuckled at that, scooting his chair further into his desk and readying his pen.

“Welcome to being a detective.” You scoffed and stretched your back, leaning and raising your arms. Sammy’s breath caught in his throat when he saw a sliver of skin exposed from under your top. He swiftly looked away and resumed transcribing his notes. 

“Do you want dinner? I’m not super familiar with the area, so you can choose.” You asked, settling back into your chair and cracking your fingers. Sammy shook his head.

“No, I, uh, meal prep,” He said, a tiny hint of shame lacing the words. “I’m a chronic snacker. If I don’t plan my meals I’ll never eat real food. Just muffins and stuff.” 

“I like muffins.” You shrugged. “There’s a really good bakery down the road from my house. I’ll bring you some.” Sammy grinned down at his file. “So what’d you bring today?”

“Spaghetti.” 

“Nice.” You fell back into a silence as you worked, checking phone numbers and addresses, flipping through witness statements, and waiting for the phone to ring for a positive ID on your second victim. 

When your vision was about to go blurry from all the small text, you looked up. Your eyes found a white-board, the kind that they always showed in movies. There were printed out pictures of mug shots, blood splatter analyses, and names that had crossed out. You looked around the room to the countless white boxes, each filled with more case files than you could imagine. All about murder. “How do you stay sane with it all?” You asked Sammy softly. “Being surrounded by so much death and violence every day?” Sammy looked up and sighed, leaning back in his chair.

“You don’t.” He admitted. “But you have to try. You gotta find a hobby. Something to take your mind off it all once you get home. You can’t let yourself think about it all the time.”

“What do you do?”

“I like to read.” A small but sad smile crept up to his face. “This kid I knew made fun of me for not reading enough books. So I picked up a few after…well, I got some of his recommendations. I’m currently reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. You know, that guy who wrote No Country for Old Men?”

“Sure,” You nodded. “I’ve heard of it. I’ve wanted to get back into reading for a while. There’s this book my friend gave me for my birthday that I haven’t gotten around to yet.”

“What’s it called?”

“Oh,” You felt a spark of embarrassment light up your cheeks. He was genuinely curious, and you didn’t have the mind to make something up. “It’s, um,” You cleared your throat “It’s called Love’s Savage Secret.” You tried to make it sound dramatic and silly, like you weren’t actually serious about reading it. Even though you were. “It’s a spy romance novel. Stupid.” You waved your hand dismissively. Sammy was about to say something, but his phone interrupted his thoughts. It seemed to do that a lot.

“Okay, thank you.” Sammy hung up and shook his head, exhaling sharply. “That was the coroner. No ID on the body yet, but they found something. Or, rather they didn’t. Thomas had gunpowder residue on his hand. Our John Doe did not.” 

“So, even though the ballistics match and he was holding the gun, Doe didn’t actually shoot the gun that killed Thomas?” Pieces clicked in your mind. “That means there was a third person. Thomas shot Doe but someone else shot Thomas!” You gasped out the words. Sammy nodded solemnly. He scooted back his chair and flipped open his phone to make another call. But before he did, he gave you a look. A hesitant one, maybe, but there was something else there.

“You should go home. Get some rest.” Sammy told you “It’s not just a paperwork case anymore. You’re working a real double homicide. I’ll pick you up tomorrow.” With that, he walked to the window and dialed a number. Your throat went dry and you felt every pump of your heart in your chest. Shit. You should be horrified. Upset that there was a murderer on the loose and you were responsible for finding them. But you weren’t. Because it wasn’t just you. You and Sammy would be working together for longer than you thought. You should be pissed. So then why was your blood buzzing with excitement?