Kelsey and you hadn’t been friends for much longer. But you still remembered what she said for years to come. 

It hadn’t been all that confidence inspiring, if you were being completely honest. Since then, you’ve been wondering if you’re just one of those people who are never going to ‘get it’.

There seems to be a lot of things that people get that you don’t.

It’s not been for lack of trying though. During your early twenties, there had been that awful three weeks where you had downloaded a dating app.

It had been tricky. It didn’t seem all that romantic either. How are you supposed to sum yourself up in a couple of photos? How are you supposed to read tone through a text?

Besides, no matter what you seemed to do, all the conversations led back to the discussion of sex. Which didn’t seem very fitting, considering it was called a dating app. Were hookups considered dates? A mystery to you.

But - and you remember this clearly - it had been the day you’d deleted the app, that you had run into Darren in the hall of your apartment complex.

By anyone else’s standards, Darren is the only boyfriend you’ve had.

Except for now — because now, you have Clark.

And yeah, like you said, it’s not like you haven’t had a boyfriend before. It’s just that somehow, with Clark now, you’re noticing things. 

New things. Different things.

You and Darren had dated for the better part of a year. The break-up had been amicable — at least you think so. 

Getting a read on Darren’s emotions was one of those things that never really clicked - though, ironically, you could tell that it was one of the things that annoyed him so.

It was one of quite a few things, apparently. 

According to your friends, you and Darren had a ‘fairy-tale’ meeting. Bumping into each other in the elevator, his coffee spilling down your sleeve, his apology and insistence at making it up to you. 

You’d agreed before you’d even really realised it was a date.

It was easy to get wrapped up in it, in him. Darren was certainly nice to look at. He had this swoopy blonde hair and nice green eyes that reminded you of seaweed. He didn’t seem to like it when you’d told him that though.

The first date had been at a dive-bar you’d never seen before, a grimey place called The Last Resort. 

It flaunted crimson lighting and sticky vinyl seats. You’d been too overwhelmed and tried to stem it with a margarita - overshooting it a bit with the booze. You hadn’t expected it when Darren tried to kiss you.

It had been awkward, his lips not quite meeting yours, combined with the squeak of surprise you’d let out. But Darren insisted it was cute.

He’d walked you home (but then again, he did live in your building) and asked you at your door, tall and nearly intimidating in the space of your doorway, if you’d like to do it again. You’d barely had a second to think it over, to analyse any emotion of the night, before an answer stumbled out.

It’s, like, love. You get it or you don’t get it. The only haunt from your old best friend - the only reason you really wondered if you were missing something.

Something that made you want to get it, even if you weren’t entirely sure what it was.

You’d told Darren yes.

After a couple of weeks together, you were confident. Kelsey had been right. You got it now.

Darren was sweet. He took you out — though, those nights frequently ended up at The Last Resort. Eventually, you learned to like it with time. 

He’d invite you over and cook you dinner — but sometimes he’d forget that he hadn’t been grocery shopping and would just order in. 

He’d kiss you like no else had - because no one else really had - and you’d let him convince you to be late to work. He’s peel off your clothes in a rush of frenzied passion, as though he couldn’t make himself wait. Darren made you feel special.

Love. You had been in love.

Correction: you think you had been in love. 

It must’ve been, you’ve since concluded. You can’t really think of any other reason that it lasted that long if it wasn’t love.

In fact, you hadn’t really questioned it until now. Hadn’t had any reason to.

Until Clark.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Clark’s apartment is fancier than yours. 

It’s all high-rise and sleek surfaces, with big windows that stretch from the roof to the ground. You like how fast the elevator goes and how it makes your stomach swoop.

Clutching the strap of your bag, you watch the numbers climb as it reaches his level. The path to his apartment is memorised, even though, technically, you and Clark have only officially been seeing each other for a couple of weeks. 

You have your prior friendship to thank for that. A friend of a friend, that’s how you two had met. 

Lois Lane is a fantastic reporter and a good friend. She could ask the right questions, make you uncomfortable for the sake of finding out the truth, but she was never mean. You liked that. It was rare in people.

You two had been friends — though you hadn’t been sure if she would use that word — back in your college days. 

It was an accidental reunion on the streets of Metropolis that had her dragging you along to some Daily Planet happy-hour drinks after work. There you’d met Ron, Steve, Cat, Jimmy, and Clark.

This is where people say the rest is history.

The elevator dings and rocks to a halt. You step out, counting the doors on the way to Clark’s apartment. His door, like all the others, is a lime-green you’re not fond of. Clark always smiles when he catches you wrinkling your nose at it.

It’s as you come to a pause before the familiar lime-green, do you realise you haven’t called ahead.

You hadn’t been thinking of that — just that you got off work early, had to run an errand on this side of town, and were right by Clark’s building entirely by accident. You’d only been thinking of seeing Clark.

Most people don’t like it when you show up unannounced, you’ve found.

You get it, you suppose. You get that way when someone comes into the kitchen when you’re cooking - or when you’re wearing your headphones and people won’t stop trying to talk to you. It makes you itch.

You don’t mind so much when people come by and visit you, mainly because it doesn’t happen all that often. 

It might be your apartment; a quaint shoebox, especially compared to Clark’s.

But Clark insists that he likes your apartment more, calls it homier. Which is nice, because Darren only ever called it tiny.

And Darren really didn’t like it when you called by without telling him in advance.

The first time you had, after getting a surprise bonus at work, had been the first time he’d ever raised his voice at you.

You’d stood in the hallway the whole time, because Darren never even undid the chain to let you in, and felt slimy with guilt and confusion for days after.

Just as you’re envisioning all the ways this unexpected visit might result in a similar disaster, the door swings inward. There stands your boyfriend.

He’s smiling - a good sign for your predicament - and it’s a good-surprised kind of smile. Like finding something you’d thought you’d lost kind of surprise.

Clark opens his mouth to speak, but you beat him to it.

“Hi. I- I’m sorry, I— wait, how did you…? I didn’t knock.”

“Hi,” Clark says back, still so smiley. He has one hand still on the door, the other against the doorframe. He looks very pretty. “What are you sorry for? I thought I heard you come down the hall, so I thought I’d just check.”

You wonder if he’s done that when it hasn’t been you — the thought of his head poking out, searching the hall for you, makes your stomach feel like it does when the elevator goes too fast. In a good way.

You shrug your shoulders in explanation for your apology. “I didn’t call ahead.”

To that, Clark grins a little wider. He steps back and opens the door further, to invite you in. “I’m glad you didn’t. I love surprises.”

Something preens within you at the idea of being a nice surprise.

He’s clearly back from work early — or he’s working from home, but still decided to put on his work clothes. No glasses today either.

He’s wearing his usual slacks and smart dress shoes. His white button-up, though, has been replaced with a tight-fitting ringer t-shirt. It hugs his arms well, snug across his biceps, and it's tight across his chest.

If he asked you what you thought of it, you’d probably sputter something stupid. And sinful.

He doesn’t ask thankfully, he just ushers you inside politely. You step through the door you’ve been through countless times, toe off your shoes, and stop at the edge of the kitchen. Clark closes the door behind you and you wonder what protocol for this is.

This is a new part you’re still getting used to.

Normally, you’d take yourself to the couch, the usual corner seat you’ve unofficially reserved. But, now that you think about it, you haven’t actually been here since Clark dropped the g-word.

(He hadn’t actually asked to be his girlfriend in that manner of words. It had been much more poetic, flowers bought, a nervous and murmured ‘Please be mine?’ that you still thought about before bed.) 

A hand touches your shoulder lightly and you turn towards it, to Clark, with a tentative smile. 

This is where you’re unsure. Are you just allowed to kiss him? Whenever you want? Darren hadn’t been like that.

Kisses to say hello? It feels preposterous. You’ll never stop if given the chance.

“Hi,” Clark says again, and all thoughts of Darren evaporate. His hand shifts, tracing the line of your shoulder slowly up to your face.

Then, he answers your endless unvoiced questions for you, his hand cradling your jaw tenderly. You can feel the callouses on his fingers, feel the goosebumps you get in response. 

Clark guides your chin up, you hold your breath, and he kisses you, soft.

You savour the moment by keeping your eyes closed a little longer, even when his lips have left yours.

Clark’s smiling again when your eyes flutter open, grinning enough to show teeth. You’re mirroring it without even realising, eyes creased and cheeks already aching.

You can’t believe it’s been a few weeks and it still feels like that when you kiss him.

It’s an effort not to get worried about when that will stop.

Clark removes his hand slowly, eyes still roaming your face, but eventually he relents. He takes a step further into the apartment.

You follow, wrapping one hand around your wrist to subtly feel for your pulse. It’s rocketing. No wonder you feel so lightheaded.

“How’d you end up on this side of town?” he asks, taking a seat on the couch.

You realise where his dress shirt is now, picked up between his fingers as he unwinds a spool of thread. There’s a button on the table, matching the others on the shirt.

You take a seat next to him. Close, but not so close to be clingy. Clingy isn’t good, you’ve learned.

You pull your legs up and rest your head on your knees, watching as he hunts for a needle on the table.

“Work let me leave early,” you say. Clark locates the needle with a quiet aha! “I had to return that book I got from the library. I don’t know if you remember, but they only had it at this particular branch.”

“I remember,” Clark says warmly, his eyes glancing up at you. “You finished that book already?”

He’s talking and trying to thread the needle at the same time. It’s not going well. The needle looks tiny in his hand. You take pity on him after the third try.

“Yeah, I — hey, let me have a go,” you cut yourself off, holding out your hand. Clark smiles guiltily, carefully passing over the needle and thread in your waiting hand.

In one quick motion, thread wet on your tongue, you push it through the needle. Instead of handing it back, you hold out your hand again - and Clark dutifully puts the button in your palm, handing over the shirt at the same time. You readjust, putting your knees to the side and folding your feet up beneath you.

“It was good, then?”

You hm, eyes fixed on the button as you prepare the thread, lining everything up. You glance up, meeting Clark’s eye, and realise he’s still asking about the book.

“Oh. It was okay, I guess,” you shrug a little.

You bite the needle between your teeth so you can align the button with both thumbs. “It had one of those three-day loans so, y’know, I had to read it in three days.”

It’s one of those little rules that make more sense to you than to anyone else. Darren hated them - and you hated that he called them senseless. It was the exact opposite!

“Well, of course,” is all Clark says. Another flash of your eyes up to his face tells you that, surprisingly, he’s not making fun of you. “I should get you to read some of my articles if you can read all that so quickly.”

For some reason, that makes your face burn. You focus on jabbing the needle through the fabric in precise motions to distract yourself.

“Why would you want me to do that?” 

“Why not?” Clark responds. “I trust your opinion.”

The burn in your face gets worse. You pull the needle through for the final time and tug the thread taut til it snaps.

Just to check - and to give yourself a moment - you run your fingers over the button to check. Secure and neat.

“Here you go.” You pass it back. The needle and thread go back on the table.

Clark takes the shirt, but doesn’t move to do anything else. You lift your eyes to his face and realise he’s waiting for your answer.

“I don’t think I’d be very good at it.” You admit. He shrugs, as if to say maybe. 

“We won’t know til you try,” he says. Then he kindly backs off, turning his attention to the shirt.

He does just as you had, running his fingers over the newly secured button, but with a much more enthusiastic reaction.

“Holy cow, this is—” He squints at it. “It’s so neat!”

Clark looks up at you, eyes somehow both wide and accusatory. “You didn’t tell me you could sew.”

Technically, you can’t. You can do little things like buttons and hems—but the way Clark’s smoothing his hands over the fabric, you’d think you’ve given him a brand new shirt, made from scratch.

You say sheepishly, “It’s just a button.”

Suddenly, the shirt is tossed to the side and Clark’s reaching for you - his large hands curl around your thighs, just above the knee, and he pulls you across the couch with a surprising strength. You slide forward, almost into his lap.

“Clark!” You laugh, hands on his collarbones to stop yourself from falling into his chest.

Your protest goes unnoticed - or ignored - as Clark’s hands move up, circling around your waist and pulling you even closer. You are in his lap now, with his big arms around you and his face so close. God, it’s a nice one, you can’t help but think.

He’s smiling at you and you have no idea what to do with your hands.

“Sorry,” Clark says, not sounding very apologetic at all. “It’s just, you’re so full of surprises. I love getting to learn new things about you.”

One hand on your back is tracing up and down lightly. You feel like you’ve accidentally swallowed a bag of pop rocks.

“A lot of people can sew.” You say. You shift a bit on his lap, hoping you aren’t making him uncomfortable and his hands loosen to let you do so - but the moment he realises you’re not moving off, he brings you in closer.

“I know,” he says, hand resuming its drift up and down your back. “A lot of people aren’t you though.”

His eyes roam your face, his mouth curled into a smile so sweet, it’s devastating.

Your hands at his collarbones finally unfurl as you let yourself relax a little more into him, pulse still racing. Your nerves never really leave around Clark.

“What are you thinking about?”

You’re not expecting the question - and answer more truthfully than usual. “How you still make me nervous.”

You expect Clark to laugh, but he doesn’t. His brows knit together, a sketch of concern on his face.

“In a good way?”

You weren’t before, but, abruptly, you’re concerned that Clark might think otherwise.

Darren certainly complained that all your annoyances came out of nowhere. History tells you you’re not the best communicator.

“Yes,” You nod severely. You’re clinging a little tighter to his neck now, worriedly. “It’s good. You’ve never made me bad-nervous.”

“Whew,” Clark says. “You’ve never made me bad-nervous either.”

You haven’t thought about that before. The idea of Clark being nervous is laughable.

Awkward? Yes. But he’s so sure in his ideas, in his motions. It’s why it surprised you that much more when he asked you on that first date.

Brow furrowed, you ask, “I don’t make you nervous, do I?”

In answer, Clark frees one of his hands and brings it between you. Gently, he places it atop one of your own, cradling it, and he drags it from his neck down to his chest.

He holds it over his heart. 

“Feel that?”

You can, just lightly. There’s a thumping, but you can’t quite tell if it’s faster than usual - not unless you sit still for 15 seconds and count the beats.

“It would be much more efficient to feel the pulse on your neck.” You inform him.

Clark chuckles, smiling somewhat shyly. “That’s-well, uh, I mean, where’s the romance in that?” 

Genuinely perplexed, your brow creases again. All of this is romantic to you - being in his lap, his hands on your back. 

It certainly feels more intimate than any kind of cuddling you did with Darren—though, he self-proclaimed himself ‘not a cuddler’. 

“Isn’t it?” You ask.

To test the theory, you slip your hand out from under Clark’s.

He lets you maneuver him, picking up his hand and moving his two front fingers together, up to your neck. You push them lightly against your jugular, knowing your rabbiting pulse must be thrumming against his fingers.

Clark looks at you, his eyes fixated on your hand still holding his, and swallows.

His ears have gotten redder. He lifts his gaze to your face, “I stand corrected.”

You release his hand with your own shy smile and before you can back out, you reach for his neck, two fingers out. He lets you, chin even shifting up to give you more space.

His skin is warm, with a little scratch from his shadow - he’ll be due for a shave soon. You haven’t gotten brave enough to tell him that you quite like stubble just yet.

Fingertips tracing, you find his pulse point. 

Staring at the hollow of his throat, you don’t even need to count to 15 to feel his pulse is faster than normal. He’s not lying. You do make him nervous.

You’re not quite sure why it seemed so impossible until right this moment.

Flicking your gaze up to meet his, you find Clark already watching you. Like his ears, a lovely pink colour has dusted across the tops of his cheeks - it takes a second to realise it’s a blush. He’s blushing. 

Clark clears his throat. His voice sounds raspier when he asks, “Believe me now?”

With his heartbeat against your fingers, you have no choice but to. Though the idea it’s just from two fingers is positivity delirious.

“I never said I didn’t.”

“No, you didn’t.” He agrees. 

He straightens up on the couch, his hand on your lower back keeping you steady as his face dips closer to yours. You hold your breath instinctively - and swear you see the ghost of a smile cross his lips - then, he’s kissing you.

It’s short. He doesn’t linger, though the look in his eyes tells you he might want to. 

Given you're on his lap, hand still pressed to his neck, you try to convince yourself it’s probably a good thing. 

Just one kiss is enough to inspire more. There’s no other word than ravenous—which is highly concerning since you had never felt that way with Darren.

You shelve the thought of sinking your teeth into Clark’s shoulder far, far away.

And then mentally make a note to check and see if you’ve had any bites from rabid animals recently. That would at least explain the strange urges.

Clark breaks the silence, “Thank you for mending my shirt.”

He reaches for it, tugging it between your bodies. He thumbs over the newly fixed button, almost as if he’s marvelling at it.

His sincerity mystifies you. It’s like nothing you’re used to.

Having read a dozen articles on new relationships (your best attempt at research, inspired after your first date with Clark), you know definitively that bringing up an ex is the worst thing you can do.

It’s the first thing on the lists: THE TOP TEN THINGS WOMEN DO WRONG, as Cosmopolitan had titled it. 

1: Bringing up their ex. Always bright red, meaning danger!

That’s how things work in nature at least, like poison dart-frogs. You know better than to lick a poison dart-frog and you apply the same knowledge here. 

No bringing up exes. You don’t want to bring up your ex.

Worse, you don’t want Clark to bring up any exes.

But you can’t drop it - the thought caught in your mind like a fly that can’t find the open window, going round and round, louder and louder.

You got it. The love thing. 

It had been an open and shut case with Darren, one that had left you mildly dissuaded from it in the future. Yeah, yeah, love, you’ve been in — but it had been like, sharing a sundae.

Except, you had a straw and Darren had a spoon - and the flavour was chocolate, which you didn’t like, and you only got some if it melted before Darren ate it all.

…Not your most astute metaphor, you’ll admit.

Point is, with Clark, you’re worried you were so focused on getting it, that you actually… didn’t.

Point is, if you were in love with Darren, then you have no idea what you’re doing with Clark.

Point is, that’s incredibly fucking scary.

You best start keeping notes.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

In your notebook, you write he thanked me for mending his shirt. 

You’re not sure exactly what the list is yet. 

Notes on the Clark Kent boyfriend experience? A step-by-step guide to the differences between boyfriends?

Neither of those seem right. You end up printing a ? at the top of the page and deem that sufficient. Then after a moment of consideration, you add the word love before it so it ends up reading: love ? 

You read the first line you’ve written again. It’s the most concise way to sum up what had stuck out to you about that day — not the mending, but the sincerity in his thank you. The excitement over just a button.

If you didn’t know Clark to be so earnest, you’d think it might be one of those sarcastic jokes.

Sometimes, people play them on you — an exaggerated reaction that you’re supposed to know actually means the opposite.

But only sometimes. You’re not particularly good at cottoning on in the moment.

Luckily for you, Clark isn’t the sarcastic type. You like that he’s honest.

The first line in your notebook doesn’t stay lonely for long. The next time you add to your notebook, it’s your eighth official date together, just a few days after.

Clark had secured some swanky museum tickets, a perk offered from his job, as he told you over the phone. He’d called while still at work, the telephone lines ringing and an office murmur in the background.

It made you think he got the tickets and called you right away. Your stomach had done the elevator thing again, all swoopy and good-nervous.

The shelved thought of biting his shoulder made a fierce reappearance and you had to fight to focus on Clark’s words, not just his voice.

 “They have a new butterfly exhibition, that’s what the tickets are for, and I thought of you. I thought we could, uh, go. My treat. I mean, obviously, I’ve already got the tickets…” He had trailed off awkwardly. It’s part of what makes you like him, his awkwardness. It’s so very Clark.

“What do you think?”

You answered candidly, “I love the museum.”

You hope the one he’s talking about has a mineral room.

“You do?” He’d sounded truly delighted to find that out. “That’s great, I—mean, me too. So we’ll go?”

You remember frowning at that, like he thought you might not want to - very much untrue. “Yes. I like going places with you.”

Following that had been a sharp inhale, then a stuttered cough, which made you pull the phone back with a cringe at the volume.

“Sorry, that was— something, my throat.” His voice had pitched up a bit. “So, tomorrow? Friday? It’ll be less busy, but we could do Saturday if you don’t want to go after work.”

“I like Friday.”

Then, far off, someone else’s voice had filtered through the phone. A coworker, jeering loudly enough for you to hear—“Clark, stop twirling the cord like you’re on the phone with your gir— oh my god, you are, aren’t you?” 

“I have to go now.” Clark had said hastily, voice suddenly louder, like his mouth was closer to the receiver. “I’ll come by your place, Friday, 6pm. It’s an evening exhibit. Have a good day!”

Then the phone had hung up. 

Then you were here, the next day, walking to the museum with Clark beside you.

This afternoon, you had been mulling over whether to call it a date or not.

Clark hadn’t actually said the words — it’s a date — not like how he had when he first asked you, over a month ago now. That had been clear.

This feels like murky ground. Do you still even call them dates after you start dating? Darren didn’t. 

As you two walk, hand in hand, you decide to ask, “Is this a date?” 

Clark jolts to a halt on the sidewalk and with your hands joined, you inadvertently come to a stop too. Perplexed, you look back at him, having to tilt your head up.

Fixed on you, his eyes are wide behind his glasses, something like concern pulling his brows together. It reminds you for all the world of a lost baby rabbit. His nose even twitches too.

You don’t like how upset he suddenly looks.

“What?” he says, sounding crushed. His fingers shift in yours. “I-I mean, I think so. I would- do you not think so?” 

You also don’t like how his hand is loosening in yours, so you grip it tighter and shrug your shoulders. “I don’t know if you still call them dates once you start dating. You didn’t call it one. That’s why I asked.” 

That makes Clark sigh loudly in relief. His shoulders, which have hiked up to his ears, sink down like a slowly deflating balloon. 

He doesn’t look upset anymore, which is good. In fact, he’s looking at you much more intensely, a smile gracing his mouth.

He grips your hand back with the same fervor as before and starts you both walking again. “Yes, this is a date.”

You like that he answers your questions without poking fun at you for asking them. 

You twist his hand over and start counting the freckles on the back absentmindedly.

“When is it a date and when is it just hanging out?” 

You don’t look up, so you miss the affectionate glance Clark steals. He gives a hum in thought. He has 11 freckles on his left hand.

The museum peeks out, just up ahead. Something wilts in you. You wish you had another block to go, to keep walking with him. Then you could count the freckles on his other hand and see if they match.

“I think when you go out together, like this—” Clark finally answers, gesturing with your joined hands to the museum as you approach. “—it’s a date. Just you and I. I invited you out.”

“You invite me over,” you point out. 

“True.” Clark smiles at you. “Maybe dates are the special occasions then.” 

Your mouth twists. You don’t like that answer. Namely because it feels like a special occasion every time Clark calls, or invites you, or holds your hand, or kisses you.

“It’s always a special occasion,” you say pointedly, frowning a bit in your confusion. “You’re the special. Everything else is just an occasion.”

You’ve arrived at the doors to the museum. There’s a little line. Clark has the tickets in his pockets. 

You pause slightly further back to let him retrieve them — you know you hate having to get things out in a rush — but he doesn’t reach for his pocket.

You glance up at him, concerned. He’s turned that brilliant shade of red again. 

“Clark?” 

“Hm?” He clears his throat, long lashes batting wildly as he blinks rapidly. You wonder if you should tell him you can’t blink away a blush - you know because you’ve tried.

“Tickets?” You ask a bit more weakly. Maybe he’s experienced a sudden change of heart about the museum - or you.

“Yes!” He exclaims, banishing that last thought swiftly. He shoves one hand in his pocket and pulls them out, brandishing them like a winning lottery ticket. “They’re here, I have them.”

The sign carved into stone, above the entrance way, reads METROPOLIS OBSERVATORY & SCIENCE CENTRE. It explains why it would be open for the evening - star-gazing is trickier during the daytime, you’d imagine.

Clark lets go of your hand to hand over the tickets, which get punched, handed back, and pocketed again. You make a note to ask for the keepsake later — you like things people often call junk. 

He doesn’t reach for your hand again, instead resting his on the small of your back, ushering you through the doors.

The interior opens wide, with several paths splitting off from the entrance. There’s large, bright butterfly stickers on the ground leading to the right, accompanied by flourishing arrows. You can see into the beginning of the exhibit, people milling around already.

There’s also signs posted on a column, various arrows assigned to different paths. One reads Observatory, another Botanical Hall, and below it, Mineral Room, with a crystal decorated sign pointing to the left.

You perk up in interest and stop at the intersection of paths. “Can we see the mineral room, please?”

“The mineral…? You don’t want to see the butterflies?” Clark seems surprised. 

That makes you pause, worried. You didn’t think about this — will he be upset if you say you want to look at rocks more than the butterflies?

You feel for your wrist, fingers pressing to your pulse. An old habit. You’re relieved to find your heartbeat steady. 

Still, an old argument tickles at the back of your neck, Darren’s frustrated voice creeping in, and you force yourself not to physically bat the bad feeling away. 

Biting your cheek, you realise you should’ve said something on the phone to begin with.

Now you’ve made Clark believe one thing, when you meant another. He invited you to see the butterflies. He didn’t mention going to the mineral room. You’re probably being demanding.

“If you want to,” you say as evenly as you can.

You’re not very believable. Clark sees straight through it, and even so, you’re not even aware that your body language gives you away, feet pointed to the left.

Never mind the fact you’re also a terrible liar - or the fact he can hear the skip in your heartbeat.

You wait for his sigh.

His hand on your back slips forward and he holds it out, palm up. You frown at it, then look up at him. 

“I want to do what you want to do,” he says earnestly. “Let’s look at the minerals.”

He nudges his glasses up with his spare hand and his gaze holds such a softness that eye contact seems more unbearable than usual. The familiar burn in your face returns.

You look at your shoes—but not before you put your hand back in his.

You’re the only two in the mineral room, which is a treat all in itself. It’s quiet. You can keep Clark closer than usual. 

He listens dutifully when you rattle off about pleochroism and birefringence — still keeping that intense warmth in his stare that you can’t handle for long. He doesn’t stop smiling the whole time. Neither do you, given the ache in your face.

By the carbonates, he kisses you, slow and sweet.

His glasses fog up and his blush makes an appearance. You feel like you’re having your own chemical reaction in your chest, fondness crystallising in the valves of your heart.

And when you ask if he minds that you didn’t get to see the butterflies at all, you believe him when he says not in the slightest.

You add, he asked me questions about rocks, to the list after he walks you home.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

After one particular morning, you add three lines in one go.

It had started the night before technically, when Clark had offered to come over to yours for the night. Tame enough overall, but… surprising. 

Because, well, you were already at his apartment.

The thing is, you really like your own bed - though Clark’s is a close second.

And it’s just, you get finicky about these things —and last night, it had been the yoghurt you bought for tomorrow's breakfast, already in your fridge. 

It makes you itch when you mess up the flow you have planned. But it didn’t mean you didn’t want to spend the night with Clark either.

Darren used to say you were punishing him when you went home like this. He’d never really believed you when you said there was nothing wrong — if there’s nothing wrong, then why are you going home?

Darren also didn’t like it when you were truthful. He said he did. Just be honest with me. 

Yet, when you were — telling him his sheets were too scratchy, that his incense made your head too woozy, and his yoghurt brand was the one you hated — it always seemed to backfire. You told him anyway, because he asked.

One time, he’d called you a tease, spitting out the word. You didn’t get what you were teasing, but didn’t like how it felt either way.

To avoid this, you had made sure to set the precedent with Clark.

You stay over, but only with ample warning and a well-packed bag. You bring your own toothpaste, pillowcase, and a tiny Kermit that stays hidden in your bag - there for reassurance mainly. Clark never lights any smelly candles and his sheets are plenty soft enough for you.

Tonight, you find the precedent isn’t needed. Saturday night, a lazy afternoon spent together, and your boyfriend makes no protest beyond an adorable pout when you start to pack up to leave.

“I wish you could stay the night.” Clark murmurs. 

It doesn’t sound like a guilt trip - it sounds like i miss you, before you’ve even gone. 

He looks devastatingly comfy, relaxed beside you on the couch, lounging in his casual clothes. His hair is messier than usual.

You want to bury your hands in it, and let him kiss you over and over again, like he’s been prone to doing recently.

It’s becoming a serious hazard for your heart—so much, you’ve been thinking of informing your doctor. This much tachycardia can’t be healthy.

You remember it’s impolite to stare.

“I don’t have my things.” You remind him.

Clark twists his mouth, sighing a bit. “I know. I just like it when we sleep in the same bed.”

“I do too,” you say truthfully as you lace your shoes, moving slower than necessary. You glance back up. 

Something in Clark’s open expression pulls the explanation off your tongue. “I just, it’s- I have my yoghurt. I got it for tomorrow.”

It sounds silly when you say it aloud. You try not to cringe so visibly.

“Wait, you’re going home just to go home?” Clark perks up, as if this is good news. “Not because you’re sick of me?” 

Distress must show on your face because he hastily adds, “I’m kidding. I know you’re not.” Then, before you can worry about that too much, “Can I come with you? Spend the night?”

You haven’t even considered that he might want to. 

“You’re already home, though.” 

You realise that might sound like you don’t want him to and your hands clench up tightly.

Thankfully, Clark only shrugs and smiles, “Well, I was already going to walk you home.”

Relaxing, your hands unfurl. He’s being sincere. He wants to come over and spend the night - and he doesn’t mind if it’s at yours, instead of his.

Something in your chest aches tenderly and without thinking, you abandon your shoes and burst across the couch to Clark.

Surprised, he still catches you, arms cushioning your fall against him, but he isn’t prepared enough for your kiss. It catches him off guard and your teeth knock together from the force.

“Sorry,” you breathe, not that sorry at all. You’re gripping his shirt in your hands like you’re worried he might slip away — or worse, retract his offer to come over. “Yes, come over. I really want you to.”

Clark, still reeling from your kiss, looks a bit starry-eyed as he fixes his glasses that you’ve knocked askew.

But he’s smiling and he’s smiling at you. You can’t resist another kiss. You adore the little hum he makes in response.

It’s as though its set you off for the evening— Clark quickly packs a small bag, you kiss him; he grabs both your coats, you kiss him; he locks his door and you wrap yourself around his arm, pressing up on your tiptoes to kiss him.

He’s paying attention to locking the door and you can’t quite reach, so you kiss his jaw instead. Clark flushes hotly, but he’s still smiling. You still can’t believe he wants to come over.

It’s a highly uneffective way to travel, wrapped up in each other as you walk the blocks to your own apartment. 

It’s a warmer night. The heat worsens when the doorman at your building clears his throat obnoxiously, making it clear your lovey dovey behaviour has an unwilling audience. It makes Clark fluster wildly, sputtering out a polite apology. 

You drag him to the elevator in the midst of his, “My apologies, sir-!” so you can kiss him again, away from prying eyes.

Clark looks a little debauched against the elevator wall. You could probably roast marshmallows over his bright red face. His hands hover over your sides, flexing, but not touching. 

“You—” He starts, a little out of breath. “What’s- I mean, I really don’t mind, but you’re, uh, well, eager tonight.” 

“Bad?” Your voice dips into worry, fast.

“No!” Clark quickly amends. His hands finally find your waist, strong and sure, pulling you in before you even realise you’d been retracting. “It’s just a, uh, a bit of surprise.” 

It’s true. To begin with, you were very shy with affection - your first kiss so sweet, Clark remembers your lips trembling. 

Like how you hold your breath subconsciously every time he kisses you first. A tiny sharp inhale. Clark could write a full-length feature, worthy of the Daily Planet front page, on how much he adores it. 

You remind him, “You like surprises.” 

Clark softens at the memory you’re referring to, eyes shining in affection. “I do.”

“You like it when I surprise you?” You check.

“That I really like.” He’s grinning now, and he’s so handsome that you don’t know what to do with yourself. Kiss him? Bite him? Live in his dimples? He’s so nice to you in a way Darren never was.

The elevator dings, opening to your floor.

You tumble out together, with Clark still attempting to maintain a sense of manners. He straightens his rumpled coat with one hand, the other occupied by yours.

You lead him to your door, then through it.

Shoes toed off, you flip on the lights, then wince at their harshness. Clark slips off his shoes and gives your hand a squeeze before he drops it, moving past you. He knows the path to the myriad of lamps about your place.

As he turns them on, one by one, he has to duck to avoid the low-hanging living room light. It’s a relief to turn off the big overhead light.

“Let me put this in your room, alright?” he says, gesturing with his bag in hand, before disappearing into your bedroom.

Something compels you to follow and you watch as he turns on the lamp on your bedside too, coating the room in a soft amber. That now all-too familiar rabidness runs rampant beneath your skin.

“Clark?” Your soft voice catches his attention, and he turns, mid-way through shucking off his coat.

He told you once that you could ask him anything. 

“Can you kiss me again?”

Something crosses his face, his eyes a little wider. He swallows, hard, and his motions falter momentarily. Finally, he wrangles his coat off and tosses it onto his bag and then he reaches for you.

“Y-Yeah, c’mere,” he says. In the same motion, you’re in his arms and he’s sat back on your sheets, pulling you both onto the bed. “Anything you want, honey.”

Still, he doesn’t move to kiss you just yet. 

You’re adjusting yourself, getting comfortable in his lap, and you’re still wearing your coat. You move to shrug out of it and Clark helps, his hands guiding it off your shoulders.

It’s banished to sit with his coat. The whir of the air-conditioner unit permeates the air and you can feel the softness of your sheets where your knees meet the bed. 

A hint of Clark’s cologne makes your nose twitch. It smells nice, musky and warm. It might be your new favourite scent.

You’re suddenly too nervous to look him in the eye, so you study the rest of his face. You’ve reddened his lips with your kisses, which you feel quite guilty about. Further up, you follow the line of his brow. You can’t resist tracing along one with your finger softly. 

“You’ve got good eyebrows.” you say, closer to a whisper. 

Clark’s grip on your waist tightens, so gentle that you’re not sure if he’s aware he’s done it. He swallows thickly and you remove your hand, moving it to rest over his throat.

“You think so?” 

You can feel the timbre of his voice under your fingertips when he speaks and it makes you grin. You nod in response to his question too, finally brave enough to meet his gaze.

Blue eyes meet yours. 

Then, sweeping your hair back from your face, he kisses you.

The first kiss is slow, easy. Like the kiss he gives you when saying hello. Your hands find their place around his neck, jittery and twitching in your excitement.

Clark’s hands on your waist shift, his arms wrapping around you like a hug. His next kiss, you sink into. You’re helpless to do anything but.

He dedicates himself to the curve of your mouth, memorising it with kiss after kiss after kiss.

It makes you feel dizzy. You clutch the collar of his shirt, a soft, sweet noise slipping out your throat.

It breaks the kiss. Clark exhales hard, his nose drawing a line down your cheek, along your jaw. He kisses as he goes, delicate little presses of affection.

He hovers at your neck, “May I?” 

He sounds a bit wrecked, voice rougher and unlike himself. You nod, a minuscule motion, and clutch his collar tighter.

There's heat on your neck, a warning kiss bestowed. Then his lips begin to mouth softly at the warm skin of your neck, with what can only be described as a devoted reverence. 

You melt in his lap. 

Clark’s arms around you keep you close as your head tilts back, letting him in. His glasses nudge against your jaw as he teeth scrape your neck.

You’re so close to him—and yet not close enough. You want to crawl into his skin. You’re too worked up to know if that’s an appropriate thing to tell your boyfriend. 

It’s no mind; with Clark’s lips on your neck, you’re not capable of any words.

You’re not capable of anything beyond these cute hiccuping gasps that will follow Clark for weeks. He feels insatiable, like a livewire. He’s attuned to everything you.

It’s why he pulls back, one hand stroking up your spine.

“You’re shaking,” he says, voice low. 

You are—trembling slightly in his hold.

You hadn’t noticed, the same way you hadn’t clocked your own laboured breathing. It’s like you’re skipping a breath by accident, the way you do when you’re overwhelmed.

Unclenching your fingers from his crumpled collar, you put two fingers to your pulse point. It’s still warm from Clark’s mouth and beneath the skin, your pulse rabbits wildly. 

“I-” Your mouth is unbearably dry. “I promise I’m enjoying it.”

Even your voice is shaky, though your assurance isn’t. You are, you are. You’re not shaking because you’re scared of this, of him. It's just a lot.

“I know.” Clark says calmly, though his eyes scour your face with a tinge of worry. His hand hasn’t ceased its soothing up and down your back. “I know, I—”

“It’s not you,” you say, desperate to steal the worry from him. “Well, it is you, but it’s not, like, you—that sounds stupid. It’s, uh, me, it’s a me thing. I— you haven’t done anything wrong, please.”

“Okay,” he says, which makes you feel better, because it means he believes you. “Neither have you. Believe me, I know what it’s like to feel like everything’s dialled to eleven.” 

That is sort of what this feels like—like you’re a spring loaded too tightly. 

The rich smell of his cologne, the taut feel of his firm shoulders, the heat of his beautiful mouth - all of it urges on that fervent feeling that skitters under your skin. You can’t process it all at once.

You close your eyes. 

Despite how you really don’t want to, you draw back your hand from his neck, curling your nails so they bite into your palms. Clark’s hand against your spine pauses, pressed against your lower back. He holds it there, and waits, patient.

It doesn’t take long to ready yourself — only a few moments — and when you finger your pulse, it’s steadier. Eyes creasing open, you find Clark watching you closely.

The apology nearly falls off your tongue out of habit. Clark gets there first.

“Please don’t apologise,” He pleads. 

His eyes scan across your face, looking for any other sign to worry, but it’s needless. He can hear your heartbeat, can follow the now steady rhythm of it. 

He knows you - and more than that, he trusts you. He trusts you’ll tell him if something is wrong, even if sometimes you need a nudge. He doesn’t need any apologies for needing a moment.

Clark kisses the next apology out of your mouth and it dissolves on your tongue. 

It’s chaste, this kiss. While he’s still close, breath fanning across your face, he murmurs, “Tell me if you need another one,” like this wasn’t even a hiccup to him.

You kiss him so fiercely, you bite his lip. Clark barely registers the twinge of pain, only the enthusiasm. He aches.

Without breaking the kiss, he leans back on your sheets, and tugs you down with him. His big hands slide to hold your hips, grip still gentle. The buzzing under your skin gets louder. 

You pull back, hands still moving up, and you tentatively, carefully, slide his glasses from his face.

Clark lets you, hands unmoving from their place, his gaze still hopelessly fixed on you. His lashes are long, his eyes creased from his smile. He’s so handsome.

He looks in love, you think to yourself.

You bury the thought for later - and your hands in his hair, like you’ve been wanting to do all night. 

You only need one other breather that night. One break from the sensations—when his long, careful fingers sink into you and have you whimpering into his neck, grasping his shoulders tightly. His breath shudders, but he talks you through it, patient and unwavering.  

You fall asleep, sated, skin to skin, and dream of nothing.

In the morning, you’re roused by the smell of fresh coffee. The sheets beside you are empty and you follow suit.

Golden light paints the kitchen. Bathed in it, Clark looks sleep-rumpled and lovely.

You drink your coffee together, your ankles linked together beneath your table. It looks extra tiny with Clark’s large frame sitting at it. 

He does the dishes, no asking or prompting from you, so perfectly midwestern of him. He only nearly drops one of your mugs when you kiss his shoulder blade in thank you.

You watch him, in between getting yourself dressed, and Clark blushes scarlet when you pass him with no pants on to retrieve something from your bag - which makes no sense, considering you were wearing much less the night before.

It’s almost like those days before he had asked you out—quick glances that make you both smile, eyes dancing away. You have to remind yourself you’re allowed to look now.

It’s easy. So easy, it’s scary. 

The buried thought from last night rises to the surface. Whether you want it or not, Clark Kent is single-handedly rewriting every idea you ever had about love.

That old fear twinges in you— you get it or you don’t.

You decide you don’t mind if you were wrong with Darren, if it means you get it this time — get it and get to keep it.

When he’s gone, in your notebook, you write he came over to my place - which is almost too astute, but you know what it means. 

It’s not about the yoghurt, or the bed, or anything else. It’s the complete simpleness of how it had panned out. You can’t stay the night and he wants to see you, so he makes the effort.

Below it, you write he likes doing the dishes. 

Then, after a moment, you cross it out. Your brows knit together. No, it wasn’t that that was different to Darren. It takes another moment to put your finger on it. 

You write he likes to help. With more thought, you tack on another word, so it reads he likes to help me.

The last one makes your face burn so much you nearly get too shy to put it down on paper. You write it all the same; he takes his time with me. 

You really, really hope you get it this time.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The love list isn’t meant to be seen by anyone’s eyes but your own.

And to be clear, he didn’t mean to see it.

Clark is not a snoop. He believes strongly that privacy is a human right that everyone deserves to have respected. Even amongst relationships, not every thought needs to be shared. Not every secret.

He still has his big blue secret, after all. 

You have… this list.

He hadn’t meant to see it, truly. But given how you’d left your notebook open on your kitchen table, and how you knew he was here, it hadn’t clocked as something you might want to hide. 

You disappear after letting him into your apartment and Clark can trace you to your bedroom, his hearing tuned to your heartbeat. In the evening kitchen air, your perfume lingers. Your notebook is left on the table, open.

And Clark just… glances at it.

He doesn’t even know what it is.  

He’s not so presumptuous to think it’s about him to begin with — there are no names on the paper. But, given its title, if it’s about love, he quietly hopes it’s about him.

Though, there is a question mark attached. That feels less good. 

Especially as he reads the line about rocks and questions, which is as telling as it gets - Clark is pretty sure he’s the only one taking you to museums and kissing you in the mineral rooms. He really hopes he is.

It’s as he skims over the line he takes his time with me and realises what that means, he knows he should really stop reading.

Unable to help it, his cheeks bloom bright red. But beneath his slight embarrassment, something glows proudly.

These are good things. He’s making you happy.

But… then, why the list?

“—did I tell you about how when I was going by Fran’s the other day, there was this shirt in the window- you know the shop across from—”

You stop speaking and walking in the same second.

Clark’s head snaps up and he watches your eyes dart between him and the notebook in rapid succession, hears your pulse tick up in pace. The embarrassment from earlier flourishes up again.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- it was out.” He wasn’t sure before, but now he knows this wasn’t meant for his eyes. Gosh, he’s such a jerk. “I only glanced, I promise.” 

He pulls at his collar, which suddenly feels too tight. You won’t meet his eye and Clark can see the tell-tale sign of your nervousness—your fingers pressing to your wrist, taking your pulse.

Awfulness coats over him. But despite that, you only give a shrug and murmur, “It’s okay. It’s not, like, bad. I was just- it was just to help me.” 

Clark swallows. “Help you?”

You haven’t made a move to close the notebook or to approach him. He can still read the lines if he glances over - and he can’t ignore the itch to understand it. Help you with what?

You shrug again, now picking at your fingertips. You still won’t look at him.

“Just,” You exhale through your nose, a stressed sigh, and Clark wants to close the space between you. “When you… did something I didn’t get—or, just- like I know you’re not supposed to bring up exes, or- or compare, but it was only— Darren didn’t—”

You make a frustrated noise, hands clenching up tight, your sentence abandoned. Clark’s heart aches, more at your frustration than the mention of your last boyfriend, Darren.

He doesn’t know a lot. Has never met the guy. What he does know is that Lois wasn’t a huge fan, which meant he probably wasn’t the most stellar of partners. He trusts her judgement a lot.

Clark tries not to judge people he’s never met — but as your words sink in, when you did something I didn’t get, and he looks at the list again, something clicks.

he thanked me for mending his shirt, he came over to my place, he asked me questions about rocks.

They’re hardly impressive acts of love.

Clark likes to think he’s done a good job at wooing you, but none of what he’d consider the most romantic is on the list. None of the carefully crafted date ideas, none of the meticulously picked gifts.

It’s the little things. The quiet acts of love, of patience.

It’s evening, the sunset bleeding into the horizon, but Clark suddenly feels like he’s doused in yellow sun. Relief twines with his endearment, almost feverish with how it stirs up in his chest. 

The next thought bleeds into fact with ease; he’s in love with you. Irrevocably. Entirely. 

And with one final glimpse at your notebook, Clark knows exactly how to tell you.

For right now though, you’re still staring at the ground. Still picking at your fingertips in frustration, one ankle rolling to the side in a fidget. 

You’re not worried about the list, he realises, you’re worried about him.

That just won’t do.

He crosses the room in two quick strides. It forces your head up in surprise and it’s the perfect opportunity to cup your face. Clark cradles your jaw, hears the inhale and smiles, before he kisses you.

He kisses you sweet, short. Then kisses, again and again. He can only hope he’s kissing away the frustration, the doubt, the unease. 

There’s a brief moment where he worries he’s overwhelming you, your breath still stuttering between kisses — but your hands rise to hold his wrists, keeping him in place. He knows you well enough to know that means more, please.

He indulges you like it’s the easiest thing in the world. It is, to him.

You’re leaning into him and Clark takes the weight effortlessly. He’s messing up your lipstick undoubtedly, which he'll feel bad about later. 

“We’ll be late if we stay much longer,” he says, reluctantly breaking the kiss.

You’re both breathing heavy. Clark studies the plush of your lip, while your eyes stay closed - which only makes you all that more endearing to him.

You’re a stickler for being on time though, so it’s so unlike you to respond with, “S’fine. It’s—” 

You pivot mid-sentence, as if remembering what spurred his kisses on. “—the list. You didn’t think it was…?”

You don’t finish your sentence, trailing off stiltedly. Clark drops his next kiss to your hairline, his thumbs swatching along your cheeks with gentle ease. 

“Think it’s what?” He hums, his next kiss on your nose. “I’m not thinking anything about it, because I wasn’t meant to see it and-” A kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Huh, what do you know? Its completely left my mind. What are we talking about?”

There’s a furrow in your brow for a moment before you catch on. Then your mouth curls into a shy smile and Clark knows he’s convinced you. 

Your grip on his wrists tightens, an involuntary motion to get him closer. He complies, kissing you again. The pink of his cheeks might become permanent if he doesn’t calm down soon. 

“C’mon,” He relents the closeness to step back, slipping his hands from your face. “We can still make it on time.”

Clark Kent, notoriously late for most things, except for your dates. He’s learning from you. 

Fixing his glasses with a nudge, he gives you a moment to compose yourself, before he offers his hand. When you link it with his, he dotes you with a kiss upon it.

He figures that, to you, it’s the little things that really matter.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

When you return home and the notebook is where you left it, open to the love list, embarrassment wells within you.

You hadn’t meant for him to see it. It had been a mistake in your excitement, flustered just by him coming to meet you at your door. 

He’d been a sweetheart about it all the same, but it doesn’t mean you can shake the fumble so easily.

Yet, at the same time, there had been something… different about Clark on the date that followed.

He’d seemed surer, more settled. Like something had been decided finally, and he could see the way forward.

Your coat finds a home on the peg by the door, your shoes slipped off.

Soft footsteps take you to the table and it’s as you go to fold your notebook closed, does it catch your eye. 

There. Below the love list, there are two new lines, both in handwriting that isn’t your own. With a soft jolt, you recognise it as Clark’s.

Perplexed, you squint down at the paper.

He’s written, in his neat scrawl, he loves that you made this list. 

Your heart pounds, that familiar fervor you associate with your boyfriend begins to coarse through your bloodstream. You bite your lip so hard it nearly bleeds—but you can hardly feel it. You’re goddamn untouchable right now.

Whether you got it with Darren didn’t matter. You realise now it never mattered. It’s you and Clark—and that is all you need.

Because, below his first line, Clark has written—he loves you.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

the notebook :’) bcos i love a lil graphic

want to read more about the lovelist!reader & clark? -> why a sequel right this way :)

babysitters are temporary—girls in high school looking for money to pay for coffee and nail appointments, covering date-nights and overtime at the office.

nannies are permanent—it’s a career. you’re responsible for the kid pretty much twenty-four hours a day. kids with nannies are rich, mom and dad too busy at work to be at home. from the little you deduced, nannies buy groceries and make three meals. they go to doctor’s appointments and organize play-dates with other nannies. 

you do some of those things for lena. her uncle tries to take her and pick her up from school when he can, and when he calls to tell you that he won’t be able to make it every now and then, he sounds so sorry about it, you don’t know what you can do to reassure him that it’s okay. lena’s young, she doesn’t care about stuff like that so deeply. and she likes you, which helps matters a lot.

you had finished the last few classes you needed to graduate a couple months ago. before that, you’d have to tell mister cody no, i’m sorry occasionally, something that you really didn’t like doing. he seemed like he had enough going on without the babysitter cancelling.

and besides, after you had told him that your classes were done, you were supposed to tell him that you would be looking for a real job, something with your degree, that he should start looking for a real nanny for lena. you were supposed to politely, yet firmly allude to how you’d been scrambling with classes, finishing assignments in the car in between picking up his niece and after she’d fallen asleep at night. how you missed an important lecture because the pediatrician’s office was running behind an hour and lena’s grandmother wasn’t available to take her.

instead, the second you had met his eyes (which were terribly green and incredibly sad), you had folded, and told him you’d be available whenever he needed. and you thought maybe that would garner you a smile—and you’d been wrong. he had looked your way for about five seconds, muttered thank you, and walked away. 

and maybe if you could resist those terribly green and incredibly sad eyes, you wouldn’t have wound up as a full-time nanny. life could always be worse—that’s the motto you’ve grown up with. there are so many worse things in oceanside than spending every day in a pretty house by the beach and taking care of a quiet little girl. 

if not anything else, you could start making payments on your student loans, if you wanted. mister cody paid you in cash, and he paid you way too much, probably his way of apologizing for how much you had stepped up in the last couple months. but again, you didn’t really mind anymore. maybe if it was another family, you would care more about finding a real job.

but you like lena. you like her uncle, too, you think, as much as you can like a man who is virtually silent and stares at you like he’s boring into your soul when you’re making dinner. you like him because he’s good with her, you can always tell he’s trying his absolute best, his hardest with her. (it doesn’t help that he’s cute—cute in the way that strays are, like you wish you could fix everything wrong with him and reassure him that he’s doing enough, and tell him to stop staring and just come tell you what he’s thinking instead.) 

the first couple months were the hardest. lena wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping. she hated school, hated all the things she had still cared for when her dad was alive. you’d tried bribing her with trips to the beach, the playground, ice cream with extra fudge and sprinkles. all the things that kids liked. but she wasn’t just a normal kid—and it seemed that you and her uncle were the only ones who understood this. 

you didn’t realize you had such a maternal instinct inside of you. maybe it’s because the other kids you’d babysat in your life had been brats, sticky handed toddlers going through the terrible twos and making your life hell while you were trying to pass your classes. lena is the opposite. 

she’s the saddest child you’ve ever met, and you know nothing that you or her uncle do is going to fix it overnight.

but progress comes in stages. the first step had been getting her to want to eat again. you’d sat on the couch next to her, watching a nature documentary that her uncle had probably left playing on the tv.

(he is a whole other can of worms—he doesn’t sleep or eat that much either, and one time you had come in really early to get some work done before getting her to school. he’d been awake, watching something just like this, at five-thirty in the morning. and when you’d asked him when he’d gotten up, he had shrugged, and murmured something that sounded suspiciously close to i don’t sleep. that’s your next mission, because you can only focus on one at a time.)

“you hungry, sweetie?” you didn’t want to be pushy. she wouldn’t like that, would only retreat further into herself. you wanted her to come to you when she was ready to eat. lena shook her head and focused back on the television. “okay. well, if you get hungry later, i’ll eat with you.”

lena says okay in her quiet voice, holding onto a stuffed animal and staring ahead. you wait a couple of hours—there’s always something to do in the house. you clean up, wiping counters and sweeping while she stays on the couch. you check in every now and then to make sure she didn’t fall asleep. 

and then, thirty minutes before her new bedtime, she comes and sits on the chair by the dining table while you’re wiping it down.

“can we get pizza?” she asks, and you nod right away.

“of course we can. what kind do you want?”

another thirty minutes later, the pizza’s there, and you’re both eating slices of pepperoni and spinach. you’ve formulated your plan for the rest of the night—her uncle’s still not home, which means you can crash on the couch or stay awake. you decide to stay awake, since there’s no follow up text from him. if he wasn’t going to come home tonight, you’d expect the standard, concise message; won’t be back tonight. is lena okay? 

and you’re stupid, because you think it’s sweet that he always asks if she’s okay. like you wouldn’t call him the second something went wrong, like he doesn’t believe that you’d trust him with that information before anyone else. but there’s no texts tonight from the contact you’d saved as andrew cody (lena’s uncle). 

lena’s finishing her last slice and you’re cleaning up when you hear it—the rumble of his truck pulling up to the house. then a minute later, footsteps and the front door opening.

“what’s all this?” he asks, and you have to remember to find the words. 

you don’t know why that happens when he comes around—you’re usually great with dads. maybe it’s because he looks tired, more tired than usual, at least. his copper curls are messed up, like he’s been running a hand through his hair all night. lena’s uncle is always stiff, but it seems worse today, somehow.

(another thought seeps in, an uninvited guest in your mind, about how you’d really like to take care of him. he just needs some sleep, a little peace of mind. that’s it. you’re still trying to figure out the best way to give it to him.)

“we got pizza, uncle pope,” lena fills in, setting down the last piece of crust you knew she wouldn’t finish. 

“there should be enough for you,” you add, smiling at him. he doesn’t smile back, but you’re used to that at this point. and you can tell what’s about to come. “lena, can you go brush your teeth and get your pajamas on for me?” 

she nods and climbs off the chair, running into her room. 

“it’s past her bedtime,” he starts, taking a few steps closer to you. “and pizza for dinner-”

you interrupt him, even though you probably shouldn’t. you close up the box, setting it on the island and you go back to wipe the table.

“she’s not eating, mister cody,” you put the paper towel down, getting your bearings in order to face him, make the dreaded, never-ending eye-contact. “when kids don’t eat you have to meet them halfway. i thought this was better than her going to bed without eating at all.” 

he keeps looking at you. you think you should be a little nervous, but you don’t get like that anymore. flustered, sure, but not nervous—lena’s uncle is just kind of a starer, and you’ve gotten used to it by now. 

“i’m sorry. i’ll run it by you next time, i promise. i just wanted her to eat something.” he’s silent for a while, like he’s processing what you said. 

“yeah. okay. thanks.” 

you smile again, a small one. the kitchen’s clean now, or at least as clean as you can get it. you’re sure that when you’re back in the morning, it’ll be spotless, which you can only assume is one of mister cody’s nocturnal activities. you have a routine before leaving—you say goodnight to lena, make sure you didn’t leave anything behind, and tell her uncle you’ll see him in the morning.

he doesn’t normally say anything back, maybe a grunt of acknowledgement. so you’re surprised tonight, when you grab your bag and your keys and hear—

“have a good night.” 

“you too, mister cody.” 

+

it took time, but you’ve gotten her schedule better. she eats dinner with you now, whatever semi-healthy thing you can think of with the stuff in the pantry and the groceries you picked up while she’s at school. her uncle leaves money for that sort of thing—an envelope filled with hundred dollar bills. it’s labeled lena’s babysitter in stiff, neat handwriting and he told you to use it for copays and ice-cream and anything else that lena needs. but it feels wrong to use his money when he already overpays you, so you just use your own. 

you thought he might not have noticed that the envelope isn’t getting any thinner, until one morning when you arrive and see him counting the notes in it with his head down. now you’re the one staring—watching his arm flex and the muscles move as he flips through the bills. he wears the same kind of shirts every day, short sleeve button-ups, and every day, you are subject to watch his forearms while he does whatever he does. it’s a cruel and unusual punishment.

the worst had been when you needed a box down from the cabinet, the one with the muffin tins and cookie cutters. he had appeared behind you and taken it down for you in seconds, carrying it to the kitchen for you. you had been staring then too, uncomfortable and slack-jawed and wondering why his arms had your mouth dry. (you know the answer, it’s just better to live in denial, you think.)

“good morning, mister cody.” you set your bag down on the sofa, heading inside to get started on breakfast. you open the fridge, taking out a carton of eggs and orange juice and avoiding looking right at him. you don’t need to be flustered before seven-thirty am.

“you haven’t been using this money,” he states. you wish you could figure out what his tone means—there’s no inflections, no emotion simmering behind the words. it’s just cut and dry, stating a fact.

“well, i-” you turn back and look up from the stove and your words die on your tongue. he’s standing up, looking right at you, a fist full of cash like he’s going to make you use it one way or another. a single vein running through his arms tenses. your gaze flickers from it to his eyes quickly, looking at you like he wants you to start listening to him.

“i, um, i had enough.”

“you should use it.”

“but you already gave me a lot, so i-”

“i want you to use it.” the way he says it, it’s not a request. 

“right. i-i will. is lena awake?”

“she’s getting ready.”

“great. thank you.” you turn back to the eggs with a flushed face. and even though you’re not facing him anymore, you can tell he’s still staring at you. 

“i might not be back tonight.” you turn around and meet his eyes again. terribly green, incredibly sad. you’re too far now to see the brown, but you know it’s there. “i…i’ve got some work. it’ll be late, if i do.”

“thank you for the heads up. i, uh, i’ll crash on the couch then.” you think he might say something else, but you’re not sure. it’s silent for a moment, while you get the eggs onto a plate and hurry into the hallway to get lena.

she comes out first, carrying her backpack. you follow with her hairbrush for once she’s done eating, getting her already packed lunch out from the fridge to sort into her bag. there’s a whole routine that you had learned when you first started babysitting her, and now it’s just a way of life. filling up her water bottle, checking the calendar on the fridge to make sure there’s nothing you’re missing, pulling her jacket from the closet if it’s cold outside.

you get the bottle out, glancing back at her uncle. he’s leaning in while lena takes a bite of the eggs, probably telling her that he won’t be home, and to have a good day, and all the other things you’re sure he says to her. then they hug, and you feel like you’re intruding.

he picks up his keys, which rest in the small blue bowl by the door where yours sit too. and without thinking, you call out after him.

“have a good day at work.” he doesn’t say anything back, but he looks at you before he leaves. you don’t even know what he does for work.

“ready for school?” lena shakes her head no like always.

+

the days are long, but the weeks are short. you bring lena to school, but they have a half-day, so there’s no point in going home for the day if you need to be back in a couple of hours. so you head back to mister cody’s place, focusing your attention on cleaning the remnants from breakfast. you check the fridge, making note of how much fruit and milk you have left, scribbling onto a piece of paper for later. and for once, you listen to him, taking a single bill out of the envelope and putting it into your wallet. there’s other hundred dollar bills in there too, ones you need to deposit.

it hasn’t been making sense lately. a lot of nannies live with their families because it avoids the wastefulness of paying rent for an apartment you hardly ever visit. you pay internet and electric for a one-bedroom that’s empty the entire day. and now that you’re done with classes, you don’t even need to work on anything late at night or even at lena’s house. you carry around a book with you, and you think you’ve even left a couple on the coffee table, just for the future. 

you don’t know why you still have your apartment. well, you know why—mister cody has never mentioned you moving in. and he probably never will, because he doesn’t want you to. but it just doesn’t make sense the more you think about it. you show up between six and seven and sometimes you don’t go home until ten. sometimes you don’t go home at all.

after making your list, you rack your head of things you can do to occupy lena’s time today. the library has a weekly reading, and there’ll be other kids there. you like to pick things so she can get some company from kids her age, so she’s not only stuck with you and her uncle all the time. 

closer to when school gets out, you get in the car, bringing in your emergency bag with a change of clothes and your toothbrush since you’ll be staying the night. it’s not an entirely uncommon occurrence, which is why the bag, and a couple others like it, is always ready to go. you go to the bank first, depositing everything except the single hundred-dollar bill you took today. then you drive by the park, see if they’re having any of those pet-therapy sessions today. and then finally school to pick up lena.

the rest of the day goes how you planned. you forget how exhausting it is keeping a little kid entertained for hours on end, unsure of exactly what her uncle pope and his brothers do with her sometimes, when you struggle to fill up a couple of extra hours. the grocery store—where you splurge and buy ingredients to make stove-top smores because lena asks and you’ll take your wins where you can get them—then the library, where you take out a couple of books for lena to read at home and smile when she’s talking with some of the other girls there, then the playground for an hour, before home for dinner.

you make spaghetti while she finishes her homework, and review her homework while she changes into pajamas. and then it’s time for the routine she loves so much, just like her uncle, a nature documentary about penguins while you toast the marshmallows on a fork. 

an hour later, lena’s asleep in bed, and you’re scrubbing hardened chocolate off the counter next to the stove. you don’t want more work for her uncle when he’s back, and you’ve learned lena’s a heavy sleeper, so you get to cleaning. it’s not like, as pathetic as the thought is, you have anything better to do. 

and then about two hours after that, it’s eleven-thirty. it’s right around the latest that mister cody has ever come home, so you’re pretty sure he won’t be back tonight. 

the only thing you have to look forward to in your apartment is the shower you take after a long day. you’ll have to make do with the shower inside the room where mister cody sleeps, since lena’s is close to her room and filled with products for an eight year old, and at the very least, you need adult shampoo and soap. 

the room is bare—you would have guessed it’s a guest room if you didn’t know better. you’re not nosy, but you look around, trying to see if there’s anything there that makes the room her uncle’s. you know there’s still another bedroom, the one her parents used to share, since lena sometimes goes in there when she can’t sleep. so this was a guest room, and now it’s mister cody’s, and now you’re lurking in it.

besides for a closet full of clean-pressed button up shirts and organized shoes, you can’t discern anything that makes this room his. there’s not a single thing out of place, from the garden-variety decor that someone else had picked to the artwork to the sheets. the bathroom is more of the same, the entire place having that lemon-cleaner smell to it. 

you turn the water on and strip, trying to avoid thinking about how you’ll be sleeping on the couch after this. and even inside the shower, you stare at the two-in-one shampoo bottle and the old spice body wash—old spice. who would have thought?—like you can’t believe what you’re looking at. you inhale the scent for longer than you need to. wrap yourself in a clean towel that doesn’t belong to you. brush your teeth with his spearmint toothpaste. and then you open your overnight bag, and find nothing but sundresses and bathing suits.

it’s past midnight, and you’ve grabbed the wrong bag. you need to get up in about six and a half hours to get lena ready for school, and you’re not positive you have the correct bag in the back of your car. 

hesitantly, you open one of the dresser drawers. there’s black and white t-shirts folded precisely, tucked in evenly. one drawer up there’s folded socks and boxers. 

you chew on your cheek. he did say that he won’t be home tonight. there’s no way he would know you took anything if you ran a load of laundry as soon as you woke up and folded it after morning drop-off. he might not even be home until the afternoon or evening, for all you know.

your tiredness makes the decision for you. the couch isn’t that comfortable, and you refuse to sleep in the shirt and jean skirt you spent all day in. you take a white shirt and black boxers, and then sneak back in for a pair of black socks because the living room is cold at night. and then you set your alarm, turn on another documentary—this one about hummingbirds, wrap yourself in the throw blanket on the couch, and close your eyes. 

andrew comes home at quarter to three. it would have been a lot sooner—he doesn’t like leaving you alone here at night with lena if he can avoid it—but he doesn’t always have control over it. a bullet had grazed deran and he’d spent two hours cleaning up that mess, and then they had to organize their splits before leaving. he had to make sure to stay for that—he needs the cash to pay you, rent for baz’s place, money to put into lena’s savings account. 

but he hates leaving you alone in the apartment with lena. not because he doesn’t trust you, but because he knows now it’s not safe, not without him there. he likes to get you home early but it’s rarely the case, and then he feels like he should pay you extra since he’s making you drive home alone in the dark.

telling you to stay is a better option. you can sleep in his room—it’s not like he’s going to sleep in there anyways. but he doesn’t say that, doesn’t need the nanny thinking there’s something wrong with him too. so he settles for telling you to stay the night, and letting you decide where you’ll sleep. 

you always pick the couch. and sometimes, he’s not back early enough, sometimes you’re already up making breakfast or gone out for the day with lena by the time he’s back.

 but tonight, you’re asleep on the couch. he sets down the bag with the cash on the couch, hovering over you. the television is still on, stuck on a are you still watching? screen, covering up a photo of some birds. a breath leaves him when he realizes you’re watching what he always watches. you’re knocked out—he can tell since the front door opening didn’t wake you like it sometimes does. you’ve kicked away the blanket you usually use, and he thinks for a second he should just cover you up and let you sleep.

but he doesn’t. he stands over you, staring at your sleeping form. he doesn’t like it—how pretty you are when you sleep. it’s a distraction that he can’t escape, knows that the next time he closes his eyes, he’ll think of you. that the next time he sits on this couch, he’ll be able to smell your skin. you snore softly, chest rising and falling evenly. 

and then he notices it—the plain shirt, black socks with a familiar logo. are those his boxers? and now he definitely can’t look away. he puts the pieces together—your hair is wet, meaning you must have showered and then put on his clothes before coming back out here. if you were going to do all of that, why didn’t you just sleep in his room?

yes, pope decides, he needs you to sleep in his bed. he needs the couch anyways, since he won’t be sleeping, so he might as well bring you inside. 

he lifts you carefully, not wanting to stir you accidentally. his shirt is a little big on you, hanging off your shoulder. you stay sound asleep the entire short walk to his bedroom, not stirring even when he sets you down. you must have been really tired, but that makes sense, given the fact that you’ve been out all day with lena.

he thought about sticking a tracker on your car, but the first time he was taking care of lena, after baz, you had shared your phone’s location with him so he could keep track. you had offered it, voluntarily, saying something about how that’s common with babysitters now, and that you never go anywhere without your phone so he won’t have to worry about you leaving it at home.

you thought reassuring him that he would always have lena’s location in his phone would make him feel better. and maybe it had, but he’d never mentioned it again after that day, never brought up if he actually checked it or not.

(it’s not like you would know if he was using it, it doesn’t work like that. deran had explained it to him.) he did check it, pretty frequently, actually. he checked it after you’d leave when he got home, after lena was asleep. he’d watch your little circle drive home and pull into the parking lot of your apartment complex. it wasn’t as bad of an area as it could be, but it wasn’t that safe either. he liked to check it every now and then too, middle of the night, saturday evenings when he was home with lena and you got to leave early or had the day off.

he assumed, somehow, that you’d be in bars or parties at your college, maybe. but when he looks at your location late at night, you’re always at home. he checks other times too—but he’s just trying to keep you safe. (that’s what he tells himself—that finding another babysitter than lena liked and that he trusted would be a hassle. he needs to keep you safe.)

but it doesn’t seem like you like any of that stuff. he’s never seen you drink the beer in the fridge, though you offer one to him every now and then. you’ve met smurf and deran and craig before, like when you’d go to drop off lena before one of your classes, back before you had finished school.

you were smart—he knew that much. that was the kind of good example he needed around lena, someone who had gone through school and finished. he didn’t know what your degree was in, but it must’ve been something smart, something important. you were always typing on your computer and reading books. whatever it is that you studied, he wants someone in lena’s life that can help her with that stuff, stuff he doesn’t know much about, when it’s time.

you were smart enough to turn down every joint or bump that craig offered. you never accepted a drink from smurf that didn’t come from a can that you opened yourself. and baz used to tell him that you were just a local college kid, that you didn’t have any family nearby or anyone to occupy your time, really. 

it didn’t make sense—pretty girl like you. he would have thought you had a boyfriend, but if you do, you’ve never brought him around. and if he didn’t live with you or live at that coffee shop you liked that was down the street from your apartment, then he didn’t know if you even had one. maybe he shouldn’t spend any time thinking about your hypothetical boyfriend, but that’s just what comes up sometimes when he thinks about you for too long. like right now.

you look peaceful lying in his bed. your eyes flutter quickly like you’re having a dream, and he sits on the bed next to you, watching you sleep. your hair falls across your face, and his finger twitches. he almost moves his hand to brush the hair away, but he decides not to, settling for just watching you for another minute or two. 

the bed creaks slightly when he gets up. no one uses it much, so it’s a little weary. he doesn’t think the noise is anything, but your eyes blink open. the door’s open, light from the living room illuminating a sliver of the space.

he thinks he should get out before you can ask any questions, but he doesn’t, hovering over the bed while you look around. 

“andrew?” and god if it doesn’t sound different coming from your lips. you’re too tired to remember that you usually stick with mister cody, which is so formal it hurts. it sounds real, sincere, not filled with fear or anger or anything else. you haven’t even said anything and he thinks he’s losing his mind. 

it’s just the way you say it. there’s no question attached, no demand, no sacrifice. just you, making sure it’s him. 

“that couch is bad for your back,” he says. 

he knows it is, the couple times he tried to lay down and stare at the ceiling. he’s always sore, muscles screaming and joints aching but he knows how to ignore it. he doesn’t think you should start feeling like that. feels angry at the very idea that you would be sore after spending a night on the couch, taking care of his niece, looking after baz’s house. doing all the things that he’s too busy to do.

you take care of things. you do a good job too—figuring out how to get lena to eat and sleep again. making sure her routine doesn’t go awry just because he’s gone on a job all day. you remember things that he doesn’t even know about—activities with kids after school and how the school has soccer practice starting soon. you think a couple steps ahead when it comes to lena, and sometimes, he doesn’t think you see it as a job. 

like when you make enough breakfast for the three of you. leave dinner on a plate inside the microwave with a note on the counter. when you clean like it’s your house, make sure things stay in the place they’re supposed to, which is so much harder when there’s a kid around. he’s not stupid—it’s why he gives you so much money each week, shoves an envelope into your hand despite your protests. why the first thing he does after he gets his cut is make sure you get yours. 

and as hard as the thought is to swallow, he doesn’t think he could do all of this without you. 

“mmh-” you agree, making a soft noise. he wishes he could engrain it into his brain and replay it whenever he wants. “i thought you don’t sleep?” you ask, and he sees your lips turn up into a smile. he wishes the lights were on.

“i try,” he replies, realizing that he’s still hovering over you. he wonders why you weren’t scared the moment you woke up. “sometimes. i try.” 

“do you wanna try now?” you ask, whispering. and he goes silent—because what is he supposed to say that? 

you reach out in the dark for his hand, and he flinches, taking it back. but you don’t retreat, reaching out again until you’re grasping his fingers. 

“try for a couple hours. i set an alarm,” you say, and the way you say it, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. you have a way of convincing him, or maybe it’s just late and you’re tired, and your sleepy voice isn’t helping matters. nor does the fact that you don’t seem even remotely concerned that you’re inviting him to come sleep on the bed next to you.

you sit up a little, and he regrets even staying as long as he did. you need your sleep, unlike him. you’re still holding onto his hand, and your skin is warm on his. it couldn’t really be, but it feels like it’s burning his, where your palm rests against his, where your fingers twist with his. 

“hey,” you start, slow and soft. “don’t think about it. just sleep for a little.” 

“yeah,” he says. “okay. a little.”

you move over, and when he lays down—back straight against the mattress, staring up at the ceiling—it’s warm where your body was resting. you’re still holding onto his hand, not letting go. your grip is loose enough that he could free his hand easily, and even if it wasn’t, he could overpower you if he wanted.

but he doesn’t want to. and somewhere between your slow breaths and how you rub his knuckles, running your soft skin against dozens of old scars—because that’s his punching hand—andrew falls asleep.

you can hear it, his breaths getting steady, evening out. your hands stay together in the middle of the bed, between you, and you wonder for a split second how you’re going to deal with this in the morning, how you’ll make sense of this in daylight. the semblance of a professional relationship you had maintained this entire time might turn into dust in a couple hours. and then you breathe in andrew’s comforting scent, clean linen and saltwater, and fall back asleep.

the best thing about this house is the light and the waves. golden rays pour in through the half-way open blinds and you can hear the ocean crashing against the rocks in the distance. it’s the perfect way to wake up, even if it is six-thirty and your alarm is going off in the living room, where your phone must be.

you need to get up. you don’t want lena to wake up from the noise, even though you know she won’t—that girl can sleep through anything. it’s a problem for when she’s older, when she goes to college and there’s no one besides a roommate to make sure she doesn’t miss class. even half-asleep, you smile thinking about it.

and somehow, when you look on the other side of the bed, it hits you that it wasn’t a dream. andrew is asleep next to you, still in whatever clothes he was wearing throughout the day. a short sleeved button up and pants. you’re surprised that he didn’t fall asleep with his shoes on. 

he looks very calm when he sleeps. the lines of tension on his forehead and around his eyes are soft when he’s like this, his hair a mess and cheek smushed against the pillow, against your hand.

he’s still holding your hand. it makes a certain kind of warmth rain all over you, flooding you from inside out. he’s on top of the covers and you’re under the throw blanket, and you don’t remember doing that, which means that he did.

an exhausted, half-asleep andrew cody covered you up before he fell asleep on top of the covers. he fell asleep holding your hand and your chest hurts because he won’t wake up holding it still, since you need to go turn that stupid alarm off. 

he never sleeps, you know this. he’s never been asleep when you show up early, never heading to bed when you leave for the day. this bed is pretty much always made, sheets never rustled and not a pillow out of place because no one sleeps here. you hope you can start changing that.

you don’t want to pull your hand away from him. it’s so simple, so sweet that you can’t bring yourself to do it. that this whole time, andrew just needed someone to sleep beside him. you rest your head back on the pillow, continue staring, creepy as it is. you’ve never been able to study him like this before, have never been close enough. 

the hand holding onto yours is softer than you’d imagined. the veins running through his forearm are thick and tense, even when he’s like this. you think it might be from how tightly he’s holding onto your hand, like even in his sleep he’s worried he might lose you somehow. 

andrew cody has freckles—all across his arms and on his hands too. there’s a splatter of them across his nose and cheeks, places where he must have gotten burnt as a kid, maybe when he was lena’s age. the tips of his ears flush pink while he sleeps, and he snores. all things that make you smile, things that are so personal you feel your face getting warm, like you shouldn’t have access to that information. 

you need to turn that god-damn alarm off, before it wakes him up. you think you’d rather die than disrupt the few hours of peaceful sleep he’s getting right now. so you wriggle your hand, trying to find the best way to get it out of his grip and make sure you don’t wake him in the process. nothing’s working, even in his sleep he’s thrice as strong as you. the generic alarm tone keeps going in the background.

you lean in, pressing a chaste kiss to andrew’s cheek, whispering that you promise to be right back. and for a split second he moves around, and you regain control of your tingling hand.

the bed creaks a little when you get up, but you do it slowly so it’s not too loud. walk to the couch as fast as your bare feet will take you, looking down and realizing you’re still in andrew’s socks.

(his shirt and boxers too, but you’re choosing to ignore that for now. if someone walked in through the front door in this moment, it would look like you and him were something other than a guardian and babysitter. you think you’d actually enjoy trying to see him explain to his brothers why you’re in his clothes head to toe. you might like this more than you think you did.)

you can hear the ocean again once the alarm is turned off. it’s a beautiful thing to wake up too, you think, pulling open the curtains and looking outside on the street. people are on runs, doing yoga on the beach, watching the sunrise with their dogs.

and inside, andrew cody is sound asleep.

the first part of your day is waking up lena. she grumbles and takes five, sometimes ten, minutes to get up after you go in there. in that time, you set out clothes for her and then head back to the kitchen. you have a habit of making sure her backpack has everything—the colorful pens she’s always telling you about and yesterday’s homework. if she forgot something at home, the school would call andrew, and then andrew would call you, and you hate adding more work to his life. so, you make sure it’s all there before she leaves.

then breakfast—eggs and toast if you’re running late, pancakes if you got there early. it’s seeming like a pancake sort of day.

you make the batter and then pull out the bag of chocolate chips and head back to lena’s room. you use the semi-sweet morsels as an incentive to get her up, which works like a charm. while she’s changing and brushing her teeth, you make three pancakes. two for lena, and the first one you peeled that’s never quite as good is for you. 

lena comes to the table to eat her pancakes, and you tell her to stay just a little quieter than usual because her uncle pope is still sleeping.

“really?” she asks, and you feel something inside of you twist in discomfort. as if you had imagined before you met him, maybe he was sleeping, that maybe this was something recent. you smile at lena.

“yeah, sweetie, really.” 

you bring lena to school, come back home, and check on andrew—who is still sleeping. you cover him up with the blanket you’d slept under and then make three more pancakes and some scrambled eggs. there’s no bacon in the house or you would have made that too.

you scribble it on the grocery list and then head back inside the bedroom, carefully perching yourself on the edge of the bed and maybe a little too comfortable, too quick, run your fingers through his messy hair. he sighs against the pillow and it makes you smile immediately. you keep going, fingers not stopping until you see his eyes fluttering open. you don’t want to make him uncomfortable, though you don’t want to stop either. 

“i made breakfast,” you say quietly. andrew looks up at you, and then to your slept-in side of the bed. he moves, sitting up in the bed and you take back your hand tentatively. his hair is soft like you’d imagined.

 he wipes his face with his hands, rubbing at his eyes. and when he looks at you, you feel any prudence that once was inside you melt away. well-rested, sleepy andrew cody, waking up in the bed you shared last night, while you tell him about the pancakes you made for him. you couldn’t have imagined this, for some reason, which makes it feel all the more real. 

“what time is it?” he asks, in a gruff, sleepy voice.

“almost nine, i think.” he looks up at you quickly.

“lena?”

“i brought her to school already. you-you were sleeping. i didn’t want to wake you.” 

“when did you get up?” 

“six-thirty. my alarm. remember?” you do remember telling him about it before you fell asleep, one of the last things you had said in a conversation that feels like it was light-years ago. 

“yeah.” you know better than to expect anything right now. he’s always been quiet, sentences curt and expressions relatively blank. you’ve had a few hours to simmer in it—think about what’ll happen tomorrow and next week and what it means to sleep in the bed next to the man whose niece you babysit. he just woke up a few minutes ago.

“well, there’s pancakes. and eggs. there’s no bacon but i’ll go get some later-”

“did you eat?” you catch his eye. perched on the bed next to him, you can see more than just green. brown too, around his pupils. not nearly as sad as they had seemed yesterday. 

“yeah. i had one.” 

“just one?” you don’t have an answer for that, but unusually confident, you stand up. 

“i’ll have a bite of yours if you come eat with me.”

and though you couldn’t have imagined it last night, you end up leaning against the counter with andrew, splitting bites of chocolate-chip pancakes (yours drenched in syrup, his comparably dry as a bone), and luke-warm scrambled eggs. 

he washes the dishes, and you put them away. it’s incredibly domestic. 

“i’m sorry about your clothes,” you say, sliding a plate back into the cupboard. “um, i’ll wash everything today.” you had to bring it up at some point.

and then andrew turns to look at you. head to toe, he stares, gaze flicking up and down for what seems like eons. you don’t have a guess for why, maybe he’s trying to decide if he’ll accept your apology.

(he’s trying to memorize it, capture it like a picture in his brain, seal it up and hold onto it forever. how you look right now—his white shirt, with nothing underneath, which must be why he can see the outline of your breasts when you turn to put another dish away. his boxers, that you bunched up around your waist, his socks, one rolled up around your ankle and the other halfway up your calf. did you go to the school drop-off in his clothes, too?)

“and i can wash your jacket too, i’m sorry. it was kind of cold and i don’t know where my hoodie is. i-i’m sorry.”

he turns to look at you again. you seem worried, chewing on your cheek, waiting for his answer.

“don’t wash the jacket,” he says, and turns back to the sink. he doesn’t want it to stop smelling like you, but you don’t need to know that.

“yeah. sure. i won’t. sorry again, andrew.” 

his heart thuds in this chest at the realization that you might never go back to calling him mister cody. 

the two of you finish the dishes. he wipes up the counter while you put away lena’s things, and then he grabs his keys and puts on his shoes. you stand there watching, feeling awfully close to something like a wife watching her husband about to leave her for the day. and when you open your mouth, you can’t stop it from coming out.

“do you know when you’ll be back?”

“i’ll be here for dinner. can you pick up lena?” he doesn’t want to leave you, but there’s about ten texts and three missed calls on his phone that he needs to deal with. when he shrugs his jacket on, it does, in fact, smell like you. it might be enough to keep him calm the rest of the day.

“yeah, of course. well.. i’ll go start the laundry.” a vision of you peeling off your—his—clothes plagues his mind momentarily. “i’ll see you later?” you say, smiling hesitantly. 

and without thinking too much about it, andrew comes up close to you, leans in a little awkwardly, and kisses your forehead.

“i’ll see you later.” he leaves you there in his shirt and socks, blinking stupidly at the door. 

+

andrew does come back for dinner. you make an attempt at chicken parm at lena’s request, which really just turns out to be a sort of chicken parm-casserole situation, but lena likes it and the garlic bread tastes good, so you will call it a win for now.

while you’re simmering sauce and frying the cutlets, your mind flicks through everything you know about lena’s uncle. he’d never once been anything but nice to you—nice is one way to put it. polite is another. courteous, appropriate, reserved. 

one night you had been waiting for him so you could leave, and he’d come home with lena’s other uncles. you had introduced yourself and smiled nicely, and when you left and gotten into your car, it hadn’t turned on. you remember debating if you should go back inside or just call triple a and wait, but somehow, andrew had known something was wrong. he had come out a few minutes later, told you that he would drive you home while his brother stayed at home and that he’d be back in a minute. 

he’d dropped you off at home and told you he’d come get you in the morning. and you had slept anxiously that night, wondering what was wrong with your car and how much of a disturbance it would be to andrew to come get you. 

but after the two of you had dropped lena off at school—again, disturbingly domestic—he brought you back to the house. and without any words at all, he worked on your car while you sat and watched. you held a flashlight when he needed it, and he said it shouldn’t happen again when he was done. 

and you guess that’s the kind of man andrew cody is.

true to his word, andrew comes home in time to eat dinner with you and lena. after dinner, since it’s friday, you let her have a brownie and a half, the ones you’d made earlier that day. you have one too and you offer one to andrew, but he shakes his head, and you’re only mildly disappointed.

you haven’t been home, so you’re wearing one of the dresses from the wrong overnight bag you’d brought here. (your disappointment goes away when you notice that he hasn’t stopped staring at your exposed thighs since the minute he walked through the door.)

lena watches a cartoon before bed and you try to clean up the rest of the kitchen, but it’s hard, since andrew’s done most of the leg-work already. he tucks lena in and you gather your belongings—and true to your word, you did laundry and put his clothes back in the exact place you found them. 

(you did steal another pair of socks, but you hardly think he minds now. he kissed you goodbye this morning like he was actually your husband, or something, and every minute you spend in this house washing dishes and scrubbing counters next to him is not helping. he stares at the straps of your dress like he could slip them off your shoulder with his mind, like it’s the only thing he’s thinking about. you don’t mind.) 

“she’s out,” he says, coming back into the living room. you’re sitting on the couch, knees tucked to your chest while you change the channel to one of those documentaries you’ve been so fond of recently. you turn to smile at andrew and he comes and takes a seat next to you. 

“that’s good. i can go soon.” but you make no effort to move, staring at the screen in front of you. this one is about sea-life, shades of blue flooding ahead of you both. 

“you can stay,” andrew says, quiet like always. “if you want.” his voice is deep and gravelly, and the words he says scratch an itch somewhere deep inside of you, and the relief is visible on your body. you sink a little further into the sofa, knees falling next to andrew’s, thighs touching. 

“if that’s okay with you.” you whisper it, as if saying it too loudly might make the entire idea crack open and fall apart.

you two stay like that for a while. you don’t know when, but andrew swings an arm around your shoulder, and you rest your head against his chest, collapsing into his comfortable grip. you can hear his heart beating, can feel every breath he takes. his hand brushes the top of your shoulder every time you breath, and his other hand is clasped with yours. you watch schools of fish and pods of dolphins, and you think that any other night, you could fall asleep like this. 

“andrew?” you ask, still staring straight ahead. you brush your fingers over his knuckles like you had done last night, and you can feel his hand tense under your touch, until it finally relaxes. “do you want to go to bed?” 

“yeah, kid,” he says. “let’s go to bed.” 

and you’ll be damned if the domesticity doesn’t kick you in the stomach, sucker punch you in the chest and knock all the wind out of you. andrew turns the tv off, puts the remote back in the right place. and then he picks you up, and you make a quiet noise of surprise, underestimating him momentarily. you should know better.

one hand wraps around your legs and the other around your back, bridal-style (fitting, you think), and he sets you down on the creaky bed. you worry, how loud it’ll be and how you’ll have to be quiet but then andrew hovers over you, nothing but a tiny lamp brightening up the room, and you lose your train of thought.

“you sure you wanna do this?” he asks, that rough voice again. like you’ve thought about anything else for the last twenty-four hours. you nod quickly, bringing your hands to his chest, and then his arms, fingers tracing the sinewy veins and thrumming muscles up and down on both sides. his eyes shut while you do it, breaths getting heavy and deep. but you keep going—it’s only fair. you’ve only thought about it a million times. 

“does that feel good?” you whisper, and he lets out a quiet, almost painful groan.

“y-yes,” and you smile, fingers moving on their own while you lean in for the kiss you’ve been waiting for. 

andrew’s mouth is hot, and his kisses are like fire. as soon as your lips touch, he pins you all the way down, his body weight on top of yours. he kisses you the same way he had held your hand last night, the same way he held you on the couch, like you’ll slip away if he stops for even a second. your lips start to ache, but you moan quietly into his mouth, letting him swallow them while you still stroke his arms. one day, you’ll crawl into his lap and play with his hands until he’s sick of you, but today, you need to feel him. 

you can’t do much from your position, but you can wrap your legs around his waist, one hand going towards his chest to pull at his shirt. he takes it off in one motion, yanking the fabric at the back until it comes off, messing up his hair while he pulls it. your free hand goes there, running through his hair again. you use it to steady yourself, gaining leverage while he keeps kissing you like there’s nothing else for him to do. like his life depends on it. he thinks it just might.

“an-andrew,” you get out in gasps, moving your mouth away for a second. “i need to breathe,” you pant, but he doesn’t stop, kisses your cheek and your jaw and buries his face in your neck. you feel the skin there between his lips, then his teeth, and you grip hard on his arm while he keeps going. you want him to keep going, you want to see the marks he leaves tomorrow and every other day. you want everyone to look at you and know that he’s the one who left them. and you think your wish is about to come true.

your fingers let go of his arms and he groans against your skin—there’s no words but you know he didn’t want you to stop. instead you guide them to both sides of his face, staring up at him and then bringing him back in for another kiss. you think you’d be perfectly content to do this forever, that you could spend hours, days, weeks in bed kissing andrew cody. that you’d be stupid to ever leave this bed, leave this house, when there’s a man here who kisses you like each touch of your lips is a prayer, like he’s here to worship. 

he’s not hesitant anymore, not wondering if you’re going to pull away and walk out and ask to pretend this never happened. you keep your hands on his face, and then work down to his jaw and neck, clasping your arms around to keep him in place. 

and his mind is empty. he thinks he should know what to do with you, with your labile body flush against his, all the things he’s been thinking about for the last months, if not at least what he was thinking since this morning. you’re still in your little dress, one of the thin straps fallen over your shoulder and dangling on the skin of your upper arm. he pulls away and you whine, another noise he wishes he could capture somehow. it’s a melody, one he wants to keep hearing. 

you wish he hadn’t stopped the kiss, and you expect him to lean right back in after you both catch your breath, but he doesn’t. andrew’s hovering over you, eyes fixated on your shoulder, staring intently at the strap of your dress. 

“andrew?” you whisper, the hand on his neck rubbing the tense skin there, wondering if you could get your kiss back. “is something wrong?”

his lovely eyes flicker up to you, staring while you swallow and wait patiently. maybe you’d been too eager, maybe he was having regrets—after all, you’re the nanny and he’s the dad and maybe you’d been too presumptuous in assuming that he wanted you as badly as you wanted him—

“no. nothing’s wrong.” you sigh a tiny breath of relief, it comes out before you even notice. but andrew is nothing if not perceptive, and he wraps his hand around your back and lays you back on his bed. 

“why did you stop?” you question, flustered and embarrassed as the words come out, sounding like a spoiled child. but you suppose you had been spoiled these last few hours, getting everything you wanted—his hot touch, breathless kisses, the ability to finally see what the veins on his arms feel like under your palm. 

he doesn’t answer your question, just flicks his eyes back to your shoulder. and then he leans in, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the end of your collarbone, tracing more kisses down through the length of your shoulder, stopping when he reaches the skimpy cotton of your dress. you take deep breaths, watching it happen in front of you. he repeats the same with the other side, pulls the strap down like he’s unfolding a gift, kisses your skin like you’re his present. and you think you are.

there’s nothing between you two except your thin dress, and you pull on it eagerly, trying to get it off, when his hands come and stop on top of yours.

“you’ll rip it,” andrew says, fingers going towards the zipper in the back, undoing it slowly.

“i don’t care,” breathless, eager, unable to wait even another minute to get what you want. he pulls the zipper all the down, your dress falling off as your shrug out of it. 

and you want another kiss, you want his touch, you want something, anything—but all you get is andrew staring at your naked body. and you think somehow this is worse than anything else, anticipation burning in your belly painfully. your thighs feel sticky and sore and your underwear is soaked through. and all he’s done is kiss you. 

“you’re perfect,” he says quietly, and you feel your entire face burn hot. you don’t think you’ve ever felt like this before—and you know how andrew is. he doesn’t lie, he doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean. 

you tilt your head up, pressing your lips to his for a moment, a soft kiss in contrast to the ones from earlier.

“so are you,” and you kiss him again, smiling against his mouth. he feels it, though he doesn’t smile back. and when he pulls away, he looks down at you, naked and willing in his bed, smiling up at him and telling him he’s perfect, when you don’t even know half the monster he is. “you are,” you repeat, watching andrew’s eyes as he thinks a million thoughts in his head, carries a million burdens on his shoulders. “even if you don’t believe me. i think you’re perfect.” 

you feel cheesy saying it, though you know there isn’t another man in the world who needs to hear it more. you can hear him make a noise of protest, like he doesn’t think you mean it, and incredibly desperate for him to believe you, you sit up.

your hands go to sturdy shoulders while you try to get him to move, until he’s sitting back against the headboard and you can crawl onto his lap. he’s silent, watching you as you do it, exposed body flush against his skin, and yet, you don’t feel scared. you don’t feel embarrassed, or worried. you just want to make him feel good.

you start with a kiss to his jaw. andrew’s body tenses under yours, the slightest bit of contact making him groan and buck up, his hands tight on the soft skin of your waist to keep you both steady. you work your way down to his neck, pressing kisses everywhere in your path. 

“do you want to know what i’ve thought about you?” you ask, though you don’t wait for an answer. you kiss down his chest, stopping at the strong muscles of his chest and the old bruises and scars that cover some of them. “i thought that you’re so good at taking care of your family.” you move down to his abs, more kisses, hearing more noises from andrew that you never would have thought he would make for you. he takes shuddering breaths, not replying to you but grunting from pleasure while you keep going. “i thought that you’re so good to me. that i don’t have to worry since i know i can always come to you.” you think of your car and the money he gives you and how you woke up in bed despite falling asleep on the couch. 

finally you make your way to the waistband of his jeans, undoing the belt with surprisingly steady hands. he reaches down, his hands covering yours for a moment, but you stare up at him with your glassy eyes, not even pulling the entire belt off, just enough to get you what you need—what you want. and then you undo his zipper, tug down his boxers, and take his girthy length into your hand, stroking up and down while still staring up at him. 

“can i take care of you, andrew?” and you don’t realize how it must sound to him, his head thudding back onto the pillow. you press a gentle kiss to his leaking tip, both hands wrapped around his dick and stroking while you wait for your answer. 

“y-yes, yes-” and you don’t wait any longer, taking as much of andrew into your mouth as you can fit. you drive your mouth up and down, your hands twisting around the base, everything wet and warm and sticky from your spit. and you think you would do this forever, that you would do this everyday if you could hear the noises he makes and how his body takes the pleasure you give him. you gag around him, feeling his hand snake into your hair, pulling you off gently. you smile up at him, though you’re sure you look like a mess, hot tears running down your cheeks and lips shiny and wet. 

but you don’t stop—licking up and down until you bring him back into your mouth. you can feel how embarrassingly wet you are right now, can feel yourself leaking onto your thighs and the sheets, wanting friction as badly as you wanted to make andrew feel good right now. and then you hear it—andrew’s moan, louder than any of the other noises and full and from the chest. he bucks up into your mouth and you take it, ready to hear what he sounds like when he finishes, when he pulls you off of him. 

“andrew—” you whine, as though you were the one about to come. he pulls you up, naked bodies pushed against each other, and kisses you until you feel light-headed.

“not until you do,” he murmurs, and you feel dizzy all over again.

“but i’m not done,” still eager to kiss the rest of his body and tell him how good he is, until he starts to believe you. you wrangle out of his loose grip, knowing full well if he wanted to stop, he could have. he could pin you down and do whatever he wanted to you and you wouldn’t be able to fight him, a thought that makes you feel like you’re going to faint. but you resume quickly, starting at his shoulders—stopping to admire all the sunspots spattered there—and starting your journey again, working down his bicep and to his freckled forearm, the ones you stared at whenever the opportunity presented itself, the one you thought about all the time.

andrew doesn’t know about that, and you’re not sure you can bear to tell him. it feels too revealing, despite how you’re naked on top of him, your breasts pressed against him and wet pussy on top of his hard, leaking dick. but sure—that’s what you get nervous about. 

you stop and trace all the veins with your fingers, feeling him pulse underneath you, repeating on both sides. he’s got his head tilted back, soft groans filling the empty space between you as you keep going. if they’re this sensitive for him, you can only imagine what it would feel like for you, especially the one leading down to the middle of his wrist—and then the words slip out before you can realize you had said them out loud.

your face goes hot again. he looks up at you a little confused, and you have to stop yourself from collapsing and burying your face into the pillow next to you.

“andrew?” you ask, shy and embarrassed and yet not stopping yourself at all. 

“you… you like my arms?” he says, and you feel your face heat up.

but so many things have happened already that you couldn’t have even dreamt about twenty-four hours ago, so you think it’s worth a shot. (that’s a lie. you have dreamt about this, so many times that you’ve woken up in your bed covered in a cold sweat, that you’ve burned through a vibrator and ruined pillows imagining what it would be like to rub yourself against his veiny arms. you guess you’re about to find out). 

your fingers trace the length of them again.

“i like everything about you,” you say quietly, understanding just how silly you sound. “but we don’t have to do anything.” you try to cover your tracts, worried you’ve just messed up the incredible time you’ve been having so far littering his body with kisses and feeling butterflies in your cunt from the fact that andrew will be inside of you soon. 

“how would you-” andrew starts, and you watch him carefully as he gets out the next few words. “do it? how?” and it’s just cut and dry way he speaks, though it’s really going to your head (and other places) right now. 

“well, i-”

“show me.” oh. 

you feel yourself pulse and throb in response to his words. even below you, you can still feel how hard andrew is. you try to start positioning yourself, but you must be moving too slowly for him, and you feel his hand on your ass, grabbing you and pushing you up to his chest, face to face. he lays his arm next to you, watching your naked body as you try to balance yourself between it, his free arm on your hip, keeping you steady. 

when you lower yourself, just an inch or two, just until you feel the ridge of his forearm and you can decide what to do after realizing that you are, in fact, doing this, andrew curses under his breath.

“fuck, you’re so wet.” he can feel it. feel you, on his arm, leaking, for him. you take a deep breath, pressing your hands against his chest to keep your balance, moving your hips up and down slowly. and your eyes flutter shut because fuck, if it isn’t better than every fantasy you’ve ever had.

you hadn’t known that your pathetic attempts to recreate this at home would have never lived up to the real thing, and now you realize you’ll never be able to go back to anything else but andrew, that no one else could make you feel this way. months of pent-up desire leave your body as you rock yourself against him, finally getting the stimulation you’ve been craving.

when you open your eyes, just for a second, you see andrew, his eyes glued to where your pussy meets his arm, his breaths heavy and deep, like he wouldn’t look away from the sight before him for anything.

and then you feel the veins rub against your clit, and your eyes roll back into your head. you keep going, trying to muffle your moans and sighs, but you can’t get the image out of your head—andrew staring at you, like he wanted this as much as you’ve wanted it, like he needs to see you cum like this. you start going faster, the friction and the slide from your juices making it easier and the veins rubbing at you just the right way—

he leans in, putting one of your peaked nipples into his mouth, flicking his tongue against it, before letting go and repeating the same with the other one. but it’s really when andrew starts talking that you’re pulled over the edge, his hand hot on your back.

“please,” he says, and you feel yourself falling into it, hanging onto every raspy word, so much better than you could have ever dreamed, “-i-i need you to cum for me. i need to feel you, i need to see it, please-”

and you do. you always listen to andrew, all the white-hot tension wound up in your belly releasing, flooding your entire body with the relief you’ve been wanting all night. your body tightens up, stopping, but he moves you with the huge hand on your hip, makes you rub on him all through it, pulling your body like you’re a toy for him.

your mind is empty while your toes curl and uncurl, thighs aching and sore in this position. andrew ushers you towards him, and you collapse on his chest, heaving and sweaty and tired—and the realization hits you that he hasn’t even been inside of you yet.

he kisses you while he has you trapped in his arms, your eyes shut as you breathe him in, moan into his mouth and let him swallow it. 

“y-your arm,” you get out, realizing you’re not speaking in coherent sentences. “i’m sorry-”

“why?” he asks, and you shut up instantly. “didn’t know you liked them that much.” 

he laughs quietly, a sound you have only heard a few times. you laugh against his chest for a moment, before pulling him in for another kiss. this time, it deepens, and he gets you on your back in front of him before he pulls away. you stare up at him, mind empty and chest heaving, seeing how his eyes stay on your tits, and you reach up, putting your hands on his chest while he hovers over you.

“it might hurt,” he says, and you feel your entire body tighten, your walls clench at his words. there’s nothing but truth behind his statement—it’s not meant to be arrogant or boastful, he’s warning you. it’s going to hurt, you know it is—you could barely fit half of him in your mouth and it took you both hands to be able to comfortably stroke him.

but the way he says it elicits a fire in you, and suddenly you need him now, no matter how much it hurts. 

“i don’t care, andrew, please,” you beg, staring up at him. he still hovers, licking his lips and staring at your how tits bounce while you beg him to fuck you—a thought that he cannot process, even with you splayed out in front of him. he brings his arms out, fingers teasing your sensitive nipples until you’re covering your own mouth to avoid being too loud and you think you’re going to black out. (even in the dim light you can see the shine on his forearm from you, and the memory of it takes over your mind like a twister.) 

“i have to stretch you out first.” the words possess your body like a demon. andrew takes your knees and spreads them apart, and no matter how hard you try to close them, you can’t compete against him. when he slides in one huge finger, your eyes roll back. he slips in so easily, the noise is obscene. the second finger goes in just as quickly, but there’s more resistance. two of his fingers are at least three of yours (if not more, you think, and then you want to faint again). the stretch is delicious, your pulsing walls realizing that this has been what you’ve been craving all along. that no toys or pillows or fingers of your own could ever compare.

when he slips a third finger in, he doesn’t change the pace. just keeps pushing them in and out of you like you’re a toy he’s testing the limits with, seeing how much you can take before you break. there’s no instructions for you besides to sit back and take it—and your toes curl and your head spins at how good he feels. the stretch hurts, but you want it so badly, you hear yourself crying out and saying incoherent things. you think you see andrew smile from where he is, watching your cunt suck his fingers in, his entire hand coated in your juices.

and when he hovers over you, bringing his tip to your entrance and prodding against you for a moment, you think you’re in heaven. he’s so flushed, tips of ears and his cheeks pink, sweat coating his body, just like yours. you can only imagine how hard he is, how you’ll get to feel how hard he is soon enough. his eyes stay at your pussy, pushing in, just barely, but you need more. you bring your hands to his arms, holding onto him while he slides in, and when you feel him push all the way in—so much bigger than you could have imagined, three of his fingers is nothing compared to this, nothing, nothing, nothing—he’s on top of you and kissing you. 

whatever noises you make are tuned out—your ears are ringing and you can’t hear anything besides andrew’s grunts and moans as they come into your mouth. you keep kissing him, pulling on his lower lip and feeling his tongue on yours, but your entire body goes slack when he starts on a brutal pace, pulling all the way out and slamming into you. the bed is creaky, and the only noise besides it is the obscene one—the squelch of your soaking wet cunt taking andrew all the way, the repetitive slap of his skin meeting yours. you feel everything—the pressure of his hands while he holds you incredibly tightly, the fullness in your cunt that makes it feel like you can’t breathe.

and then andrew kisses your lips and makes a noise that makes you leak even more, and you know you’ll be just fine.

“i-i want-” he starts, and you feel him slow down the pace slightly.

“please, andrew,” you beg, and he resumes, fucking into you with an intensity that reminds you how badly he wants you, how long he’s wanted this. it reminds you of every time you caught him staring, every time you smiled at him wondering what he was thinking. and now you think you know—maybe he was thinking about something like this.

“i want another one,” he says into the skin of your neck, feeling him lick the sweat there and kiss the skin. “i want to feel it while i’m inside-” and god if you can’t comply. you want to do every single thing he tells you for the rest of your life, you don’t want to make another decision without andrew cody. 

he changes the position, pulling out of you for a second and making you whine again. (spoiled, you think, he’s spoiled me for anyone else forever.) he holds both of your knees up and spreads them wide and wraps your arms around them, keeping them in place. and then he slides back inside of you in one swift movement, making your eyelids flutter shut. he doesn’t get right on top of you, leaving space between you that makes it impossible to lean in for a kiss, and you keep whining, impossibly and irrationally angry that you can’t kiss him, wondering why he wants you like this, when you feel his fingers circle your clit slowly—then quickly.

your head falls back onto the pillow. andrew can feel you pulsing around him, walls clenching every time he rubs your sensitive clit, and that’s what he wants, that’s what he needs, wants to feel you cum around his dick and squeeze him even tighter than you are right now. wants to see how you look completely fucked out, wants to see if you can give him a third. (he’ll get it, he decides, later. he’ll give you a chance to breathe, get you water after this. all the things he would do to take care of you, just like how you deserve, how a husband would take care of his wife.) 

because at the end of the day, isn’t that what you two basically already are? you couldn’t be a girlfriend, because you have to get comfortable around a girlfriend. 

no, he thinks, watching your fucked-out, flushed body take him like you were made for it. you already know him, know what he likes and doesn’t like, know how to make him feel good like you had been inside of his head already. you have been inside. you’re all he thinks about. that’s a wife, that is something that is forever, what the two of you have. 

he doesn’t realize how hard he’s going, how fast, or how you’ve been squealing with your entire body tensing while he was stuck in his thoughts about you. this time when you finish, it explodes through you, the electric current staring from your core and spreading to every finger and toe. you jolt, legs shaking and head heavy, the after effect rolling through you while andrew keeps fucking you, keeps going even though he should probably stop. you’re incoherent, writhing and crying and feeling completely numb and like your entire body is burning all at once. 

and when you blink open your watery eyes at andrew, smile sweetly and reach out for a kiss, one that he happily gives you, you say it quietly.

“i love you, andrew.” and you feel his thrusts stutter, his body weight almost collapsing on you. you feel andrew cum, feel it filling you up while you listen to his quiet moans and run your hands over his tense muscles, saying sweet things that he can barely understand in this state. 

he rolls over minutes later, not pulling out until you were done kissing him. the room is filled with nothing but your heavy breaths. you need a shower, and you need to sleep.

you curl up on andrew’s chest like you had been on the couch what felt like a lifetime ago. you play with his fingers and he runs his other hand up and down the expanse of your arm. you can hear birds outside—and you know you need to get up soon, but you can’t find any words. 

“you think that was enough?” andrew asks, and you look up at him with a confused expression. he looks at you with so much sincerity you feel like crying. your andrew.

“what do you mean?” you ask quietly, still not sure what he’s even talking about. your head is spinning and your eyes are tired—every part of you is tired.

“we can go again after you get some sleep. it might take more than once.”

“andrew?”

“you don’t have to worry about it. i’ll figure it out. i won’t stop until i put a baby in you.”

A month was a long time.

For the first few weeks you mostly stayed home for your own sanity.

Robby left you to your own devices rather than dragging you through the halls and chaos of the emergency department. And you knew it was for the better this way. Away from temptation, from complicated feelings. You got to focus on him—your connection, and the rebuild.

When he'd come home exhausted and worn from a shift with new grayer hairs and deeper creases carved beside his eyes, you'd greet him with an eagerness that embarrassed you sometimes. He sought you out the same way you did him—needing to be close, needing to clear your minds and just touch and kiss and give. And take.

You felt a little like you were starting to go crazy from the lack of release. Dysregulated, maybe. Because it wasn’t like Robby had stopped touching you altogether. No, he still came home and made you feel wanted. Still kissed you until your thoughts went fuzzy, still got his hands on you whenever he could, still fucked you deep into the mattress just how you liked. But it was everything after that started to get to you—the being brought right up to that heightened edge only to be left there over and over, your body not understanding why it never got to finish.

Even your own thoughts began to betray you. You’d be standing at the sink with your hands in warm dishwater, staring down at a plate you’d already scrubbed clean, thinking about him coming up behind you and bending you over the counter. You’d be folding laundry and suddenly lose the thread of what you were doing, a pair of his boxers in your hands from the dryer, your mind filling in some awful, humiliating little fantasy about getting stuck in there and him finding you, taking advantage of the position. The kind of crazy shit that college boys usually searched on porn sites. And it only made the mess between your legs pulse worse, ache worse, until you were hot and flustered and taking cold showers halfway through the day just to reset yourself.

And still, the line was always in the same place. Every single time you thought Robby might finally give in, might finally give you the relief you begged for, he wouldn’t. Instead, he’d leave you twisted up with frustration, blinking back tears while he held you against his chest and brushed your hair out of your face, telling you it was for your own good.

And you had agreed—at least for the first week.

By the second, you were counting days.

By the third, you were becoming a genuine menace.

The second he walked through the front door, you were on him. You’d hear his keys hit the bowl by the entryway, the sound of his shoes being toed off, and you’d already be making your way across the house. Some evenings he barely got a chance to set down his bag before you were climbing all over him, hands in his hair, mouth on his, pressing yourself against him with no patience left in you at all. Other nights he’d drop onto the couch with an exhausted sigh and find you halfway onto your knees before he’d even gotten comfortable.

And Robby knew. He had to know how crazy it was making you. Some little devil on your shoulder told you he was enjoying it, enjoying you being so insatiable, so needy for him all the time, following him from room to room, touching him whenever he got close enough, getting short with him when he made you wait.

Because that had started happening too. The attitude.

The little huffs of annoyance you'd never made before when he spoke to you, the muttered comments under your breath, the way you’d roll your eyes before you could stop yourself and then freeze because you knew he’d seen it.

He'd taken you over his knee so many times in the past few weeks, your bum was almost always sore. And, of course, it only made you wetter too. His voice would drop into that low, hoarse place it got when he slipped into his natural place with you, telling you to count, telling you to take it, telling you that pretty girls still needed to use their manners. Your face would be buried in the couch cushion, holding back your moans as you did as he said. And even when he'd slide his fingers into your sopping folds when he was done, that part still felt like punishment too. How sensitive you'd become, how needy and desperate it all made you.

Sometimes you wondered if he'd keep the torture going past the one-month mark, if he'd decide he was having entirely too much fun watching you unravel. But you trusted him, and he never played games with that trust. You knew you'd get your release soon.

Because you missed everyone. And he knew you missed them. He'd sometimes be deep inside you, sawing his hips so that his swelling cock kissed your cervix, his lips on your ear, his arms wrapped tight around you and he'd ask who you missed most. Was it Park and his big dick down your throat? Did you miss Langdon's sweet kisses? He knew your favorite things about his residents—about the staff. So he'd pluck at them like strings, asking you questions that made your eyes roll back as he drove his cock in and out of you.

And yes. Yes, you missed all of it. How Frank's kissing alone would turn you into a puddle, his mouth so pillowy and tasting like Red Bull. And Brendon. How sweet he was, how somehow he managed to make you feel cared for and desired at the same time. How there seemed to ve a version of him only reserved for you, one that always knew exactly what you needed to shut your brain off and make the rest of the world disapear for a little while.

You missed Jack too. Though you often shoved that thought far, far away.

But other than the sex, you just missed them. The others, too. Mateo, Shen— who hadn't seen in a while. You missed your friends. Dana, Samira, Trinity and Mel.

Maybe that's what you needed. A night just with friends. A girl's night out.

So you texted them. A group chat made up of residents, interns and med students. Mel, Trinity, Joy, Victoria, Samira, Parker. Even Dana and Emma.

And that's how you ended up here at Space Bar, with a colorful cocktail in your hand and pink and green and purple back lights flooding the bar with music thrumming through the speakers.

"What the hell kinda place have you dragged us to?" Ellis shouted over the music beside you at the bar as she pulled up a stool. When you looked over, her skin reflected the multicolored glow of lights, her pretty almond eyes on you. You watched as she tried to school her expression into something flat and deadpanned, but the twitch of her lips and the amusement in her gaze gave her away.

"Good to see you too, Parker," you teased, knocking your shoulder against hers. "And it's a cocktail lounge. V needs to get a taste for real drinks, not just the shit beers at Bob's on karaoke nights."

To your right, Victoria smiled, rolling those big brown doe eyes at you from beside Joy and Emma.

A handful of them had actually managed to get the night off, all of you packed shoulder to shoulder at the corner of the colorful bar. You listened while stories bounced back and forth about recent impossible patients, insane cases they saw, the attendings giving them shit. Whatever fresh disasters had happened in the weeks you were away from it all.

"Trinnnn—" you groaned when you spotted Santos coming from the door with someone trailing behind her, "I said it was a girl's night!"

She pouted back, throwing her head back onto her neck as she replied, "He's like a lost puppy—follows me everywhere, I swear."

Dennis came walking up, sheepishly standing away from the group, "I can…uh, go home."

"No, no, don't be silly," you said, smiling and grabbing his wrist to tug him closer, "How's Amy and the baby?"

He blushed, a deep red staining his cheeks, "She's good. Theo too."

You saw Trinity roll her eyes beside you as she flagged down the bartender and ordered them drinks.

"So, where's Yoyo tonight?" you asked.

She didn't answer, but shot a look at Dennis, who looked at you a little apologetically and said: "Touchy subject."

"No, no!" Trinity exclaimed, "It's cool! I actually like being her little squeeze toy on lonely nights!"

Her elbows hit the bar with a thunk, and she thanked the bartender for the drinks, handing one to Dennis, and then added when she saw the two of you grimacing at each other: "Please stop with that loooook. It's fine. Really."

It was a little quiet for a moment, awkward, uncertain. You wished you'd never asked.

"So when are you gonna tell us the reason you've been gone for a while?" Ellis asked beside you. You were grateful for a change in subject, but when every set of eyes flit up to your face, it made your skin burn hot.

"I've just been home, hanging out." you explained.

Ellis's brows shot up, a mock frown tugging her lips downwards, "No reason for the absence?"

"I just—I was taking a break."

"From…?"

"From the little reverse harem you got going on with Robby, right?" Trinity asked, the annoyed look long gone, now replaced with a shit eating smirk as she sipped her lime green drink.

You nearly choked on your own beverage, looking at her with wide eyes.

"Guys—" Mel cut in, two hands wrapped around her sprite, "I don't think it's really our business—"

"Wait, you and Robby…?" Emma asked shyly, her mouth open, the pieces of her hair that hung around her face swinging as she looked around the group.

"Duh," Joy said dryly, "Where have you been, Em?"

"Oh my god…" you groaned, your stomach flipping.

"What?" Trinity quipped, "we're all just wondering about your little Twilight love triangle—the Ddward Jacob of it all. Will she, won't she with Abbot…Spill, girl."

You agonized with a long sigh, "Trin…"

"So just guys?" Ellis asked beside you. Your eyes found hers again, a funny look in them as she sipped from her drink.

"So far…yeah…" you muttered, not even trying to discern what that look meant.

"So it's true about you and Langdon?" Mel asked, eyes wide behind her glasses. "I've learned to not listen to the rumor mill but—"

"Wait wait wait—so Robby shares you?" Dennis cut in, big blue farmer boy eyes widening. "With who?"

"I don't know really know if I'm feel comfortable telling you guys—"

"Mateo?" Victoria blurted. Several heads immediately turned toward her.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"V!" Joy laughed, the neon lights of the bar reflecting in her glasses as she shook her head in deep amusement and pity.

The heat in your face climbed straight into your ears, you could only stare into your drink, stirring it around. The bright pink color suddenly looked very unappetizing as your stomach churned.

But then Joy's head stopped shaking, and she was looking at you differently now, as if your silence was answer enough.

"Oh my God," she breathed, eyes widening.

"Okay, wow," Dennis laughed nervously.

"That's a yes." Trinity chuckled. "I mean, I'll admit Mateo does have great hair."

You refused to look any of them in the eyes, your throat tightening up as heat blazed across your face and down your neck.

"Woah, what happened here, Pittlings?" you heard a familiar voice from behind you, a set of hands steadying your shoulders. Dana. You let out a breath you were holding tight in your lungs.

She squeezed once before looking around the group, and when you looked up, you saw her eyebrows climbing higher with every face she passed over.

"Why's everybody look like they're waitin' for sentencing?" she asked. "I leave you's alone for five minutes and suddenly it looks like somebody confessed to a murder."

"Sorry, D. Just trying to get to the bottom of some very interesting dynamics," Trinity said with a smile.

"Oh, I'm sure they're very interesting. And also probably none of your business." she said, eyeing the others.

A few groans went up around the table.

"Mm-hmm." She pointed at them. "The amount of nosy packed into one corner of this bar oughta be studied."

"You'd wanna know too!"

"I absolutely do not," Dana snapped without missing a beat. "I know enough already, more than I need to about all of yous."

That earned a laugh from around the bar, everyone's tension easing a little.

"Now," she said, standing up straighter, "Benji's home with the kids and I get one night out a week. So who wants a shot?"

"I'll go…put some music on the juke box." you said, sliding from your chair in humiliation.

You walked across the bar to the touchscreen jukebox slowly. It wasn't a far walk, but it felt long. You counted every uneven step, the ground feeling like it might as well open up beneath you and let you fall into the earth. You wouldn't mind. You tried to collect yourself with deep breaths, reminding yourself that it wasn't really a secret—what you and Robby were. But still. You didn't expect the subject to be pounced on you like that with your friends, your sex life being mapped out like a differential.

 As you stood in front of the glowing screen, you scrolled aimlessly through the song list, though none of the names really processed as they passed beneath your fingertips. The music still thrummed through the speakers, vibrating up through your toes. You could still hear the group talking and laughing from across the bar, and your hands began to sweat a little, wondering if they were still talking about you or—

"Hey."

You startled, looking up to see Ellis. She leaned up against the bright neon jukebox, the violet and blue lights catching along her cheekbones, her pillowy lips, the heavy hood of her eyes. They looked softer than usual, blurred a little by alcohol, her mouth pulled into a small frown.

"Hi," you replied.

"I'm sorry about… that. I should've known better around Jealous little Javadi."

You shrugged, "It's fine."

"And Santos, too. Girl's got awful bedside manner."

"I said it's fine."

Ellis clicked her tongue and tilted her head, trying to catch your gaze when you looked back at the screen. "Look at me."

You did.

She studied your face for a long moment, and you found yourself doing the same. Her expression tightened slightly as she looked you over. Her big almond eyes moved across your face, lingering here and there before she stepped a little closer.

"I'm sorry." she said again, but with more earnestness. "Dana was right, I was being nosy. I should've minded my business, should've asked in a different way."

She was leaning close enough now that you could smell her perfume, her body wash, or maybe it was just her. Shea butter and coconut, something warm underneath that had you leaning toward her before you even realized you were doing it, trying to place it.

"You're a good girl, you know." she continued, and your stomach gave a strange little twist at the casual way she said the pet name. As if she knew.

"Thanks." you murmured, feeling the heat creep back up your neck. You meant to look away from her, to break whatever spell had pulled between you as she studied you closer, but you just… couldn't. Something was off, and it was making your belly flip a little as the two of you stared at one another.

"So how does it work?" she asked.

"How does what work?"

"You and Robby."

She turned a little so she was leaning in fully, as if creating a wall between you and the rest of the room.

You gnawed at your lip, your fingers absently scrolling through the songs. You tried to focus on the screen again, but your eyes kept drifting back to hers.

"You can tell me," she murmured, her lips parting slightly. "I can keep a secret."

"I know."

Your brain kept lagging a little on how close she'd gotten, on how open her features were as she looked at you. She didn't bother hiding anything, her hair pulled back, her eyes searching yours, her lips a little parted. It had your lungs struggling to catch a full breath.

"Usually, um, the…well, Robby will…"

What was wrong with you? Why couldn't you form a full sentence?

Her lips pulled into a little quirk of a smile, as if she knew why entirely. "What will Robby do, hm?"

You took in a deep breath, "Sometimes he lets me pick, sometimes it's more like… a reward system. For… whoever…"

"Oh?"

You nodded, "Like when…" god, your face was so hot, your thighs pushing together without realizing, "When Frank did the cervical reduction a couple months ago… he um, came to see me after."

Ellis's eyes had gone very heavy now, and you watched how they dropped from your eyes to your mouth. "And?"

"Well, he and I—" you swallowed thickly.

"Oi!" you heard from across the bar.

Both of you sprung back from one another.

Dana was calling from across the bar, both hands raised in the air.

"You two doin' shots or what!?"

The next day, you were fucking tired.

Not physically. Well, okay, maybe physically too. A little hungover and very dehydrated, but mostly tired in the particular way that came from having too many thoughts bouncing around your skull with nowhere to go.

Last night had turned out to be fun, eventually. Once everyone got the memo that you and their attending's sex life was not a topic for public discussion, thanks largely to Dana and Ellis glaring people into submission whenever the conversation started drifting back in that direction. You'd stayed out late, came home tipsier than you'd expected, and fell right into Robby's orbit when you'd returned. He'd been up waiting for you, reading over charts with his readers low on his nose, a mug of coffee gone cold beside him. One look at him and whatever resolve you'd had about going straight to bed had evaporated. It hadn't taken long before he was gathering your hair into his fist while you eagerly worked your lips down his cock.

But this morning, you were just exhausted. Robby had headed to the Pitt for his early start on his bike, the weather a beautiful late-summer cloudless sky. But you just couldn't take any more long days stuck in the house like this.

So you headed for the pool.

Robby didn't live in an HOA community because it was fancy or for the oversized houses. He lived in one for the sheer convenience of it. A clubhouse with a gym, lawnmowers that were on a regular schedule, snow shoveling taken care of. And the poolhouse was beautifully kept, just a short walk down the block past neatly trimmed hedges and identical mailboxes, and you headed there with nothing but a towel, a coverup, and a book tucked beneath your arm. Your sunglasses kept the glare from your eyes as you pushed through the gate and made your way across the concrete deck before dropping onto an empty lounger.

It was quiet for a weekend morning, and you were grateful. For a while, you did absolutely nothing. You stretched out beneath the sun, letting the warmth sink into your skin while you worked your way through a few chapters, occasionally looking up whenever someone splashed into the water or the gate clicked open. Eventually the heat became too much, and you wandered down the concrete steps into the shallow end, sighing as the cool water climbed your ankles, your calves, your thighs. You floated around for a bit without much purpose, letting your thoughts drift peacefully in and out of your head, the cold water soothing.

By the time you climbed back out, your hair damp around your shoulders, you felt marginally more human.

While you sat up and lathered on more sunscreen, you saw a family enjoying the pool on other side, a woman in the water with her children while a man lay stretched out on a lounger nearby.

Looking at you.

You stared back, recognizing him, your stomach doing a little excited jump.

You smiled to yourself, snapping the bottle of your lotion closed and standing up. You didn't bother with the cover up, or the towel.

"Good morning, John," you said as you approached, stepping beneath the shade of his umbrella.

He looked up at you over his sunglasses, dark eyes full of mirth.

"Hey, hot stuff."

You couldn't help the smile that spread across your face. John Shen and his family lived in the same community as Robby, just a few streets down. A friendly face you didn't get to see often, but it was always a treat when you did. Shen had a way about him that made people instantly comfortable. Cool without trying to be, calm to the point that some people thought he cared about absolutely nothing. Somehow, he never seemed stressed, even at work. While everyone else in the ED ran themselves ragged, Shen drifted through the day with an easy smile and a shrug. And an iced coffee.

Shen held out his hand, and you stepped in a little closer. His palm settled against the sensitive skin on back of your calf, the contact making your blood surge a little.

"Did you come from the hospital? Or did you have off?" you asked, hyper aware of how his fingers caressed your skin.

He nodded, "Came from work just a couple hours ago, figured I'd come down and enjoy the nice day while they last. Swear I can feel the chill of autumn creeping in."

"Don't tease me." you said, "I, for one, can't wait."

"Of course you can't, crazy woman." A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth while his hand ran up, cupping behind your knee. "You always say that, then spend all winter complaining you're cold."

You laughed, shaking your head. Your gaze landed on his wife and children in the pool.

"How's Gwen?" you asked.

 All three of them were splashing around together, their laughter carrying across the water. She glanced over, spotted you standing with her husband, and immediately smiled before lifting a hand. Shen and his wife had an interesting relationship, one that allowed both of them to have their cake and eat it too, so to speak. He told you the first time he'd come into the exam room that his wife didn't mind if he occasionally saw you while he worked, and he didn't mind if she had her own time with one of the other dermatologists at her practice.

You waved back. When you looked down again, Shen's hand had found its way to the back of your thigh.

"We're good," he said. "Kids look like they're trying to drown her, but she's good."

You smiled down at him wider.

"Where've you been?" he asked then, looking up at you.

"Home, mostly." you said, your teeth digging into your bottom lip.

"Mm." he hummed, thumb brushing against the top of your thigh, close to the crease of your leg. "Robby said you're taking a break."

The thought of Robby apparently discussing your month long restrictions with the rest of the residents and attendings sent a strange little flutter through your stomach. Despite how ridiculous, your thighs pressed together automatically.

A smile appeared on Shen's face almost immediately as he glanced down between your legs, noticing the shift. His hand slid up higher, until it just brushed the hem of your bathing suit. "Miss you, it's been a while."

Your hand suddenly shot out, having to grip his bare shoulder to hold yourself up as his hand slid up to cup your bum, the tips of his fingers sliding just under the damp fabric of your suit. He squeezed the sensitive flesh in his hand, making you gasp and your knees wobble.

"Do you miss me, hot stuff?"

You nodded, pressing your lips together firmly.

"Cat got your tongue, huh?" he teased, his fingers pressing a little firmer. He had such a nice smile, charming and coy as he felt you up. He barely reacted to how sensitive you were to his wandering hand, but when your eyes dropped to his lap, you saw exactly how he felt. His swim trunks had gone noticeably tighter, a bulge stretching the fabric that made your mouth water.

"Y-yes," you managed, trying very, very hard not to let out the moan that threatened to escape when he slid his prodding fingers along the seam of your lower lips. "Miss y-you too."

"I'm sure you do," he cooed. "Can feel just how bad."

Your fingers dug into his shoulder harder, your teeth latched into your bottom lip as you let your eyes close a little when his middle finger pushed just so at your entrance.

"Too bad you're grounded. I can think of so many fun things we could be doing right now, hot stuff."and then his smile brightened in wattage, and he was pulling his hand away. "S'just a shame, isn't it?"

"Johnnnnn," you whined, stamping your foot before playfully smacking his shoulder. "You tease—"

He chuckled at that, bringing his fingers to his mouth, sucking them clean as his shoulders shook, already glancing back down at the paperwork in his hands.

"As tempting as you are, hot stuff, I'm not trying to get my ass kicked by Robinavitch. Now go be a good girl and say hi to Gwen."

You rolled your eyes, smiling despite yourself as you turned and headed toward the pool. You heard his voice call out behind you:

"Hate to see you go, love to watch you—"

You crouched by the water, scooping up a handful and splashing it directly at him.

Robby: have to stay long. do you want to come in

The text from Robby had your stomach tightening immediately as you read it from your spot on the lounge chair a little while later, both of Shen's kids planted beside you and chatting your ear off about their summer holiday plans for Disney World. You nodded along dutifully as they argued over which park was best, but your attention snagged on the screen in your hand the second his name appeared.

You: im at the pool right now

A speech bubble appeared and disappeared while you waited, your toes curling against the warm plastic fabric stretched across the chair. You tried to focus on what Mia was telling you about Epcot, but your attention was already wandering. It always did when it came to Robby.

Then, another text from Robby: leave the suit on. come in.

"I'm sorry, you guys, I gotta go," you said, pushing yourself upright.

Both kids immediately started protesting while you laughed and bent down to hug them goodbye.

"Seriously, John, if you ever need a sitter." you said as you stretched your arms around him.

"Careful," Shen called after you as you turned to embrace his wife. "You keep saying that and we're actually gonna start taking you up on it."

Both he and his wife thanked you and hugged you goodbye, and a few minutes later you were gathering up your things and heading out.You didn’t even bother going back home or changing, knowing full well Robby loved you in your little skimpy swim suits and cover ups—sometimes more than a lacy lingerie set.

An hour later, you were walking into the ED, the AC blasting hard enough to raise goosebumps along your arms. You rubbed your hands over them as you crossed through the entrance, waving hello to Lupe at the desk. She buzzed you through without issue, and you tossed quick greetings toward Ahmad and Mike as you passed.

In the chaos of the emergency department, something felt off immediately. Though, it seemed to be dying down. Voices carried in as they shouted over one another, people burst in and out of doors while the phone rang. Monitors chirped, ranging from steady and level to chaotic fits of panic. You caught a glimpse of Samira disappearing into a trauma room with Langdon behind her with Mel and Whitaker on their heels.

Dana intercepted you before you made it halfway to the charge station.

"Hey, angel. I'm sorry. Did Robby call you in?" She hooked an arm around you and immediately started steering you toward the back hall. "As happy I am to see you, it's a bit of a mess right now."

"What happened? Is everyone okay?"

"Incident at Kennywood. Rollercoaster."

"Oh, god."

Dana grimaced while squeezing your shoulder. "Yeah."

As she turned you down a hall, she added: ""Listen, I'll stick you in a room for now. Things are settlin' down, but it could still be a while before he gets free."

"Yeah, yeah of course, D." you said.

You'd barely made it around the charge station before somebody called Dana's name from across the department.

"Shit."

"Go," you said immediately. "I'm good. I'll find my way."

"North five, angel." Dana said, pointing your way ahead. You nodded, and started walking.

Every room seem occupied the further back you went, stretchers lining the walls and IV poles clustered near doorways. It wasn't as bad as some disasters you'd heard of—Pitt Fest for one—but still. It looked rushed, blood still on the floor of an empty trauma bay. Every room seemed to hold a different injury. Teenagers with broken bones and lacerations. Parents hovering anxiously beside hospital beds. A little girl clutching a stuffed rabbit while a nurse wrapped gauze around her arm.

The emergency department always had a strange feeling to it. Grief and relief lived side by side here. In one room somebody cried. In the next, a family laughed so hard you could hear it through the curtain. It made your chest ache a little harder the further you got.

"Hey, you."

You turned at the breathless voice and found Langdon hurrying toward you, already tearing off the disposable surgical cover he'd thrown on for trauma.

"Hey. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah—" He ran a hand through his hair before letting out a tired breath. "Well, no, actually, not really. But it will be."

"That's good." you said, and you were surprised to see him still following you as you kept walking. "Frank, go check on your patients, I'm good—"

"You know, I missed seeing you around here, baby."

The words stopped you—the pet name specifically had your tummy twisting a little—and Langdon guided you toward an empty strip of wall tucked away from the main traffic of the department, just enough privacy to steal a conversation.

"Don't tell me you've been neglecting your patients over a withheld reward again, Frankie."

His dimple appeared first, deepening into one cheek before the rest of the smile caught up, still a little breathless, shaking his head down at you. "No, never."

You smiled back up at him. It felt almost normal again, like it hadn't been over three weeks of you being kept away.

"Robby said you uh…"

"Yeah." you murmured, your smile slipping.

"Takin' a break from all of us then?" he asked, something amused in his pretty blue eyes.

"Just for now." you said, a little teasing lilt in your voice. "Don't worry, I'll be back soon."

"You're back now." he said, tilting his head down at you. "Does that mean…?"

You shook your head.

"Okay," he said easily, with a sort of half nod, his eyes never leaving yours. "Okay, I'll back off then. Good to see you though, baby."

Something in your chest pinched. Maybe it was because you'd spent the last month mostly at home. Maybe it was because seeing everyone again had reminded you how much of your life existed inside these walls. Or maybe you just really had missed him. Whatever the reason, you didn't let him get far before you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around his middle.

"Miss you too, Frankie." you murmured into him, "always."

His arms settled around your shoulders almost immediately, pulling you in while his cheek pressed lightly against the top of your head. You felt the vibration of a chuckle thrum through him before he was gently pushing you away, "Careful, I'll start thinking you have favorites."

"Maybe I do." you grinned up at him, your eyes a little hazier than before, your skin warmer as you felt his long, lean body against yours. God, you really did miss him. The flirty, the easy affection. This was all familiar to slip back into with him.

"Don't make me want to kiss you," he murmured, squeezing you against him again. "I could get in big trouble."

A laugh threatened at the back of your throat. "Yes you could," you said softly.

You stood there with your neck craned back, looking up at him beneath hooded eyes while his blue gaze wandered across your face. His dimple deepened when he smiled. He looked exhausted. Hair slightly disheveled, scrubs wrinkled. There was dried blood on one sleeve he'd probably forgotten about hours ago. Still so pretty. So Frank.

For one second, you thought he might actually give in as his head bent down lower, his eyes dropping to your waiting mouth. But then—

"Langdon! We need you in trauma two!" Perlah shouted down the hall. Langdon glanced up, blinking back to reality, and slowly let you go.

 "I'll see you around, baby. Be good!" he called as he started backing away.

"Bye," you murmured. You lifted a hand in a lazy wave, watching him disappear down the hallway long after he'd stopped looking back.

You felt a little thrown off course from your run in with him, your blood taking a moment to run smoothly, your heart settling. The cool air that rushed into your chest made your chest squeeze, your nipples under the thin bathing suit harden. You inhaled deeply but found it hard to catch a full breath. Fuck, you were screwed if you didn't find an empty room.

Finally, you turned on your heel, north five back in your sights.

But then—

"Bunny?"

You looked to your right and found Brendon Park stepping off the elevator.

Tall was almost an inadequate word for him. Even from halfway across the hallway, he seemed to take up space effortlessly, broad shoulders filling the opening as the elevator doors slid open. The second he spotted you, his attention locked on completely. His gaze swept over you from head to toe, taking in the swimsuit cover-up, the sandals, the just dried hair, and whatever conclusion he reached made something tense in his face.

His long strides carried him toward you quickly.

"Hey—" you started, and he was bending down before you could say anything else, pressing a quick kiss to your lips.

"How are you? What're you doing here? Were you at the theme park?"

"What?" you asked, still trying to catch up with the speed of the interaction before glancing down at yourself. Right. You could almost look like you came from a theme park. "Oh. No, no— I'm okay. I just came from home."

The relief that crossed his face was immediate, his shoulders dropping slightly, some tension leaving him as he glanced around the department. He sent a glare to a passing doctor you didn't recognize before turning his attention right back to you.

He stepped forward into you.

You stepped back.

His brow furrowed slightly, concern still written all over his face as he looked you over again, checking for something you'd somehow forgotten to mention. The movement felt almost unconscious on both your parts. Brendon kept drifting closer, drawn in by equal parts worry and affection, and you kept retreating beneath the weight of that honed gaze, your brain already struggling to keep up.

He did it again, and again, until your hips pressed into the sharp edge of a table, a little gasp coming from your mouth as he loomed over you closer still.

“Brendon—” you said, and as he leaned down again to try to catch your lips again, you turned quickly so your back was to his chest instead. It didn’t help. If anything, it only made you more aware of how much space he took up, the broad width of him filling in behind you, his shoulders so expansive they cut off the hallway on either side. He'd always been big, big enough to overwhelm, but usually it was so easy to forget because he was so careful with you. His touch was gentle, his voice gentler. Today though—he felt too big for his own good. All that focus of his predatory stare had your heart in your throat. Maybe because you knew how easily you'd give in. It had been so long, after all.

With your back turned, hips pressing into the empty desk, you closed your eyes. The wood edge dug into your skin as he crowded closer. You shivered when you felt his strong nose brush through your hair as he bent his head, tracing slow along your neck and around the shell of your ear, inhaling.

"What's goin' on with you, bunny?" he murmured. "You're trembling."

You gasped when his lips pressed against the tender skin behind your ear, your back arching before you even realized it. Heat pooled hard, throbbing painfully between your legs, your thighs tightening together for some kind of relief while you gnawed at your bottom lip hard enough to hurt.

"N-nothing's wrong," you tried to say, but it came out thin and desperate. "I—we—I can't umm…"

It was too much, too overwhelming. Too many people touching you when you weren't allowed to do anything about it.

"Can't what, bunny?" he said softly, voice so low it sent heat down your spine, his nose tracing the shell of your ear now. "Can't just talk, hm?"

You shook your head a little. His mouth started trailing down your neck, making goosebumps rise over your skin, your nipples beneath your bathing suit top pebbling even harder and your knees wobbling.

"But I've missed you, bunny."

The words went straight in your stomach, heat coiling, core fluttering. You sighed shakily, and then he stepped even closer, and you felt him—hard beneath his cotton scrubs, pressing into the curve of your lower back.

"Oh, fuck," you whispered. "Brendon, I really can't—"

"You don't have to do anything, Bunny," he whispered back, though his kisses had already turned hungrier, firmer against your skin as they went down your neck onto your shoulder. "How've you been, hm?"

"Mmm... I've been... okay..." Your thoughts were starting to slide apart, softening so quickly you couldn't quite hold onto them.

"You smell so good," he muttered, completely ignoring your answer. "Smell a little like desperation. Robby been takin' care of you, sweet girl? Been so long since I've seen you."

Your breath stuttered. "I've been..." You forced yourself to inhale deep, trying to get oxygen back into your brain while he pressed his hips slowly against you from behind. The pressure made your core ache harder. You caught yourself trying to lean away from him just to think straight. "I've been grounded."

You felt the sharp burst of breath against your neck, almost a laugh.

"Grounded, huh?" His teeth scraped lightly against the crest of your shoulder. "What's that like?"

Your face burned. You wondered if Robby hadn't told him, or if he was just pushing all the right buttons. "No, um..." You swallowed hard. "I'm not allowed to… finish. Or be shared."

Brendon went still for half a second.

Then, finally understanding, he leaned harder into you with a low growl that sounded punched out of him.

"Is that right?" he said, and you could tell his teeth were bared, shark-like, before you even spared a glance over your shoulder. "Robby doesn't want his best girl feelin' good anymore?"

"No, it's not—not that—"

Your words broke apart when his hands slid around your hips. Big hands—warm and heavy. His fingers rubbed slowly into your skin just above the waistband of your shorts and it felt so good your stomach tightened painfully around it. You could already feel how wet you'd gotten, slick heat pooling fast between your thighs, you could've sworn you felt it starting to run down your leg.

His hands didn’t stay still for long, and fuck, they felt so good. Your mouth opened in a quiet gasp when they dragged up your front, over your stomach, beneath the loose fabric of your cover-up, his palms broad enough to make you feel held and handled at the same time. He slipped a hand of them under one the little flimsy triangles that covered your breasts, and your lungs caught. His own breath was heavy in your ear, hot and uneven against your skin, the outline of his cock pressing insistent against your back while his fingers wandered and squeezed at you.

You could hardly keep up with your mind or your body,

Your thoughts catching on how you were not supposed to be doing this, on the rules, on the fact that this was Brendon Park with his hands under your clothes, while your body arched back into him anyway, little gasps and whimpers slipping out before you could swallow them. Because it had been so long. Because it had been torturous, missing these big hands on you, missing the thick heat of him pressing into you, the way he touched you like he’d been thinking about it for weeks.

And then, his hands continued their wandering back down your stomach. And then, to your horror and complete and utter pleasure, one of his hands slipped beneath the elastic of your waistband.

"Brendon—"

"Let me check on you, bunny," he whispered, breath heavier now. "Just wanna make sure you're okay. I've missed you."

His palm slid lower beneath the lining of your bathing suit until it settled heavy against your pubic bone, and then his fingers, thick and rough with callouses, dipped carefully into the soaked seam between your legs.

"Fuckkkkk," he exhaled, like the word got dragged right out of his chest with a moan.

Your hands flew to the desk, palms flattening against scattered papers while your head dropped forward in defeat. You were grateful no one was passing by behind you, that the hallway somehow had been deserted the past few minutes. You didn't want to imagine what this looked like.

"Oh my god," you whimpered.

He was barely touching you. And yet, just the pads of two fingers circling slow through the slickness of your folds and the teasing around your clit was enough to make your brain turn to mush and your legs so weak so you could hardly stay standing.

"You're so wet I bet my cock would slide right in this pussy," he muttered, voice strained and wrecked despite the filth of his words, his hips dragging against your lower back harder in a grinding motion.

Park's fingers slid further, cupping your wet mound and prodding your entrance, his palm creating pressure for your clit, and the sharp pulse of pleasure nearly made you cry out. You had to bite into your lip hard to keep yourself from moaning at the contact, the constant ache you'd been left with cracked apart into sparks that shot all the way up your spine.

"Oh god, Brendon—"

You spread your legs obediently when his knee nudged between them.

"You don't have tell Robby, baby," he breathed against your neck. "Let me take care of you."

But hearing Robby's name again snapped through the haze hard enough to make your stomach twist.

 You stood upright so fast you felt dizzy from it. You grabbed Brendon's wrist and pulled his hand from your shorts, turning around to face him with your chest heaving. Despite how equally desperate he had seemed, he pulled away easily at your insistence.

"Brendon," you started, struggling to catch your breath, "I can't, I'm sorry."

He stared down at you, eyes blown dark with arousal, chest rising hard beneath the fabric stretched over his shoulders. You could still feel his thick length in the tent of his scrubs against your belly, could still see his mouth swollen from kissing at your skin. You held onto his thick hand for a moment in between the two of you to stop him. It glistened with arousal along his two fingers.

And just when you opened your mouth to explain, you heard a voice from the end of the hallway.

"Well, hello."

You turned, and your stomach nearly fell to the floor.

Black t-shirt stretched across heavy muscle. Graying curls mussed at the front. Narrowed hazel eyes fixed on Park, his jaw set so hard beneath the shadow of stubble his muscle twitched.

"Abbot." Brendon said curtly, not moving from where he stood with his chest up against yours, his eyes honed in like a predator's.

Jack walked forward, until he was only a couple paces from you. His gaze bounced around your face, then up to Brendon's. There was a faint curve to his mouth, something cheeky and almost amused, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"All okay, sweetheart?" Jack asked when his eyes found you again.

You nodded, suddenly very aware of how close Park was, of warm skin, his heart hammering in his chest up against yours. The way neither of your bodies hadn’t quite calmed down. You could only imagine what this looked like—your mouth parted and heaving, Park's chest pressed up against you.

 "I was gonna grab coffee from Dunkin'." Jack said, "You wanna come?'

You looked between him and Brendon then, uncertain.

"We were having a discussion, Abbot." Brendon then said sternly.

Jack smiled, a charming dimple creasing one of his cheeks, though there was still something in his gaze—something intense and sharp that you'd never seen before. "And I'm sure it was very enlightening."

There was a stiffness to the both of them now, even as Jack shifted his weight from foot to foot, his hands in his cargo pockets. The way Brendon wouldn't move, the way Jack's smile twitched when he looked between the two of you.

"C'mon, sweetheart," Jack offered, pulling one hand from his pocket and beckoning you.

Park's arm immediately slid around your middle, pulling you against him even harder. You looked up at him, suddenly the intensity of his nickname rang true— he looked scary, serious, his face darkening as he looked over at the attending.

"She's fine, Abbot, we were just talking."

When you glanced at Jack, all amusement fell from his face.

"Brendon," you murmured, sighing and looking back up at him.

You lifted your hands up into his chest, sliding them up until your fingers gently pressed into his face, turning it towards you. You saw him soften immediately as his eyes landed back on you.

You rose up onto your toes and kissed him softly on the mouth. You could feel his arm tighten even more against you as he breathed you in, his shoulders dropping. When you finally drew back, his mouth followed yours until you fell back onto your heels.

"Not today, okay?" you murmured, wiping some of the chap stick from his top lip, "I need to sort a few things out first. But I promise, you'll be the first to know when things are back to normal."

He sighed, and threw a mean glare at Jack once more before loosening his grip, though his hands stayed on you, guiding you down.

And finally, when he turned away, it was not without lingering his hands on you for as long as possible—his hands slid down your arms, holding the tips of your fingers as he said, "See you around, Bunny. Be good."

You smiled as you watched him go.

And then, turning around with a long exhale, you looked at Jack.

You'd never seen him look like that before.

There was no smile waiting for you or easy charm, no teasing remark halfway from his mouth. Instead, his brows were set low over his eyes, his jaw still tight like he was close to cracking a molar. He stared down the hall where Park had vanished, his gaze fixed on the empty stretch of tile and fluorescent light with an expression you'd never seen on his face. Mean. You didn't think you'd ever seen Jack Abbot look mean before.

"Jack?"

He shook his head and inhaled sharply, gnawing at the inside of his lip like he was trying to stop himself from saying something he knew he shouldn't. When his eyes landed on you, you watched them travel over your face, down your form, and back up again before he jerked his head toward the main ED.

"C'mon."

When you reached him, his hand settled lightly against your back, guiding you a few steps away from the flow of people moving through the department, toward the wall where a computer on wheels sat parked with its screen dimmed and a Esme was organizing a linen cart.

"I—um—I'm supposed to go meet Robby."

Jack paused. He looked down at you for a second, and suddenly you were far too aware of how close he was standing, of the heat of him even through scrubs, of how the space between you wasn’t really space at all. God. You hated this. You hated how seeing him still did this to you, how your heart immediately started acting up, how three weeks apparently hadn’t been enough time for your mind or your body to understand what you'd done was wrong. That you shouldn't want it again.

"Robby's in a trauma," he said.

"Yeah, I'm..." You swallowed. "I'm gonna go wait for him in North Five."

"Okay."

"Okay..."

You started to turn away.

The whole interaction felt wrong. Just wrong. Three weeks ago you'd been tangled up in each other in a way neither of you had planned for, and now it felt like neither of you knew what to say, how to say it. How to be in each other's presence and not think about it.

"Hey."

You’d only gotten an arm’s length away before it stopped you, and when you turned back, he was still standing exactly where you’d left him, his shoulders squared, his jaw set. He let out a slow breath through his nose and took a few steps closer, one hand settling on his hip while he looked you over.

"Are you okay?"

"Are you?" you asked, your voice maybe a little too defensive.

His head tipped back slightly, eyes never leaving your face. You worried for a moment that he'd give himself trismus with how much he was clenching the muscles of his jaw. He seemed to be weighing the answer, deciding how much of it he wanted to give you. "Been better."

"Yeah, same." you sighed.

Jack looked at you a little closer now, and it made your breath shorten. You wished he wasn't so handsome. You wished being this close didn't remind you of a month ago in the back of his truck, memories of your face in his chest with tears in your eyes, him kissing you, both of you crossing a line you even though you knew better. You wished you could forget how easy it felt with him too.

"You seem…" he began. "Was Park being—?"

“No,” you said quickly, shaking your head. “I’m just feeling really… I don’t know.” You sighed again, your hands coming up to your face, palms pressing against your cheeks, trying to steady yourself, but the overwhelm kept building anyway, tight in your throat and at the base of your neck, your heartbeat too fast and too loud. “It’s fine.”

“Some of us have been… a little restless, I guess,” he said, voice low, his head dipping as he looked at you, his gaze staying on your face in a way that felt careful instead of hungry. “Three weeks is a long time.”

"Yeah," you huffed sarcastically, "You're tellin' me."

He looked at you a little funny.

"I gotta go but… I'm fine. I guess. Yeah. Thanks…um… Jack. I'll see you."

"Okay, sweetheart. See you."

Luckily you didn't have to sit alone in your thoughts for long.

Robby found you in north five soon enough, and even though he looked exhausted—even though the crease between his brows was deep and feathered and his eyes had that look of a long, awful day full of cases he'd remember for life—he still smiled when he saw you.

"Hi, honey," he sighed, and opened his arms for you to fall into.

You went to him, your hands sliding up around the back of his neck, rising to your tiptoes so you could tuck your face into his chest, and he let out a breath that sounded like it had been stuck in him for hours. His arms wrapped around you and held you, swaying a little back and forth in place, his weight shifting in the muffled quiet of the exam room.

For some reason, some sixth sense, some thing that had been learned after all your time with him, you knew this was what he needed. He was particular about touch outside of this—he didn't accept hugs from most, or even a high five. He kept his praise quick and detached with his staff typically with a simple thumbs up or fist bump (though, you knew there was one person other than you who was the exception to that). But with you… it was like you were the only touch that was safe for him to fall into.

And though you craved touch, not even just from him but from everyone you knew—a hug with a friend, a hand on the small of the back, a bumping of shoulders in comradery, and the explicit kind too— there was something deeply sentimental about the touch from Robby's hands. When the two of you fell into each other, it formed a nucleus from the outside world. Nothing else existed now that he was here and holding you. The noise of the day outside the four walls of the exam room simply paused.

You felt his nose sink into your hair, inhaling, "How are you."

"M'okay," you murmured. "You?"

"Yeah." he said softly.

You squeezed him a little tighter.

After a moment, you said: "Robby?"

"Yeah, honey?" he asked.

"I feel like I'm going a little crazy."

He pulled away, only enough so he was still holding you in his arms but able to look down at you and study your face. His brows pulled together for a long moment while he did, assessing for anything really wrong. You felt his thumbs rubbing back and forth over the sheer fabric of your cover up.

"How so?"

You shut your eyes, breathing deeply, trying to collect yourself. You weren't sure why, but you felt almost like you wanted to cry. When you opened them again, Robby's eyes were still focused on you, his expression full of careful attention.

"I feel like I've barely been here an hour and I'm just so—" you shook your head, releasing your hands from his neck to cover your eyes, pressing your fingertips deeply into the sockets. Bright galaxies burst across your vision, and you inhaled again, steadying the whirring of your brain as you tried to think of the right words. "Everyone is being so sweet, trying to take care of me—"

"—take care of you?"

"—but I just feel so fucking overwhelmed, and I don't know how to tell them that I can't—"

"—they should already know to leave you alone—"

"I just want to go home, but I also really don't—because I miss everyone—but still—" you snapped, "I just want to stop feeling so fucking crazy."

"Okay, breathe, please—" he said, his hands sliding from your back to your shoulders, soothing up and down on your skin.

You opened your eyes again, letting your hands drop, sucking in a shaky breath and looking up at him.

"First of all," he said, his voice low and soothing, "I'm sorry I called you to come in on such a crazy day. I… I selfishly thought of having you here, wanting you after all this bullshit and I didn't think about the others seeing you."

"Well, they saw me." You shrugged. "I even ran into John at the pool with his family."

Robby tilted his head, "Did Shen—?"

You shook your head, "We just said hi, that's all. He said he didn't want to get in trouble. Langdon said so too."

Robby nodded, "Good, good."

"But I miss them." you murmured, your eyes wide and watery up at Robby.

"I know, honey."

"And…" you hesitated, but knew it was better to just tell him. "I feel like you're getting such a good fucking deal out of the past few weeks and I'm not. I feel fucking crazy, Michael."

He sighed, squeezing your arms a little tighter, his face with an expression of knowing that you don't want to hear. "Do you know why we've been doing this the past few weeks? Denying you?"

You let your head fall back on your neck with a little groan, "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I went behind your back, I crossed a boundary. And it's fine, I understand—I just didn't think my body would be so fucking wound tight like this—"

"Okay, I hear you, c'mere," Robby cooed immediately, gently guiding both of you to the hospital bed in the center of the room.

You went without thinking about it, shuffling across the mattress until he could pull you into him. It dipped beneath your combined weight as he settled you on his lap, one arm wrapping securely around your waist while the other came up to cradle the back of your head. You let yourself sink against him completely, legs falling open around the large breadth of his body—hips to hips, chest to chest, your face tucked into the side of his neck where his skin was warm from a long day. His fingers slipped into your hair automatically, fingertips scratching lightly against your scalp while the steady rise and fall of his breathing moved beneath your cheek.

"Okay," he murmured, pressing his mouth briefly to your temple. "Tell me more."

"No, because—" Your voice caught unexpectedly. The burn seared in your throat even worse than before, your eyes prickling, your chin wobbling in a way that only made you more frustrated.

"It's so stupid." You swallowed hard. "You're here saving fucking lives and actually doing something, and I'm sitting here complaining because people..." A humorless laugh escaped you. "People like me too much."

The laugh that left him was soft, so fond that it made you want to hide your face even further. "Oh, honey."

You pushed your lips together to keep yourself from really beginning to weep, croaking out: "Don't laugh at me."

"I'm not laughing at you."

"I know." you admitted, inhaling a deep, shaky breath.

His hand continued moving through your hair, smoothing it back from your face before trailing down your spine in slow strokes.

"I understand what you're saying," he said gently. "But let's not compare apples to oranges, okay? Somebody else's problems don't make yours disappear. If something's upsetting you, it's upsetting you. I want you to tell me these things."

You let out a long breath into his shoulder, your body settling a little heavier against him, his heartbeat steady under your cheek, something you could focus on. His fingers kept moving, combing through the strands at the nape of your neck. For a few minutes, it was just this. His arms around you, your tears drying, your breath coming back to you.

He felt you begin to relax against him and then, his voice gentle and a little raspy: "I have an idea. I know you've been a little pent up, huh? Feeling a little overwhelmed?"

He had a certain way to his voice, a lilt that could always lull you into feeling comforted and yet completely wrapped around his finger. There was a gentleness to him, a softness, a patience. So much so that even without the special set up— the shampoo and the body wash and perfume or even braid in your hair—it had a funny way of making your brain turn to mush when he sounded like that.

You nodded.

"Can you come up a little for me, honey?"

You could do just about anything when he spoke to you like that.

His hands slid beneath your thighs and guided you higher against him, pulling you closer so your chest was up against his clavicle, your nose brushing up into his hair. You breathed him in automatically, the familiar scent of his cologne mixed with hospital and the lingering traces of a shift that had gone on far too long. Beneath you, you felt him shifting, heard the quiet rustle of fabric and the metallic sound of a zipper being tugged down.

The realization of what he was doing sent a fresh wave of heat through you. You began to whine a little at the feeling of it. Of him, against your thigh, his member warm and throbbing.

God, you felt so fucking desperate.

"Think this'll help us both relax a little, hm?" he murmured against your arm.

You nodded feverishly, and his mouth brushed your shoulder with a soft kiss in answer while his hands worked patiently. He helped you out of your cover up and your shorts, untying your bathing suit bottoms since your coordination seemed to have abandoned you entirely. You lifted your hips when he needed you to, shifted your legs where he guided them, letting him take care of the details while your forehead rested against the pillow.

"Aw, honey," he cooed, "you're soaked."

You whined a little more, petulant and impatient for him.

"Okay, okay," he soothed, "I know." And as he brought you back down into his lap, inhaling with a hiss through his teeth, the blunt head of his length pressed at your entrance. "Nice deep breath for me, honey."

You did as bid, and then, on your long sighing exhale, he pushed into you completely. Robby let out a low, strained groan that dragged up from his chest, his head tipping back against the thin pillows as his grip tightened at you. Your mouth opened in a gasp around his neck, a mewling whine falling from your lips.

"Ohhh…" you sighed, wriggling your hips a little to get him even deeper.

"Sh, sh, no moving—" he croaked lazily, his hands going to your hips to still you. "Just stay like that."

Your mouth, opened and wanton, found the side of his neck again, kissing and dragging, wet and searching, your tongue pressing along the line of his carotid while your teeth caught lightly at the skin there. He tasted like sweat, like his aftershave, his skin sensitive and thin around his beard. He hummed appreciatively at the feeling.

"Okay, now tell me what's goin on," he finally said once the two of you settled in. He didn't move his hips, but you could feel the involuntary twitching of his cock inside you every now and then. You were wet enough that it spread everywhere, slick between your thighs, warm where it gathered and slipped down over his balls that fit snug against you and dampening the sheets beneath. It made you ache for movement, for more, your walls clenching around him in want, but you held still, your hands gripping at him instead.

You let out a gurgled sound, your lips swollen and tongue still laving at his neck.

"What, are you suddenly too cock drunk to have a conversation, honey?" he said, and you could hear the smile in his voice.

"Feels… sooo… mmm…" you hummed, the words trailing off as your legs tightened around his on the bed without thinking, the shift pressing you down on him, forcing him deeper. The reaction was immediate—both of you letting out a louder sound this time, your breath catching while his grip snapped tighter, his hands closing hard under your ass, fingers digging in deep enough to sting.

"No. Moving." he gritted out.

"Yes, Robby," you sighed obediently, the name slipping out soft against his skin.

He hummed pleasantly again.

"Tell me what…" you started, but your voice drifted, your mouth still pressed to his neck as your thoughts slipped, the feeling of him filling you pulling your focus under again, your body tightening around him in small, needy pulses you couldn’t quite control. "...What happened with your day."

You felt a little boneless on top of him, your kisses becoming slower, more gentle, until you were only pressing your lips into his beard. He let out a long breath, his hands easing their grip, sliding up your back, then back down in slow passes, smoothing over your skin.

"There was a bad incident at Kennywood."

"Dana told me," you murmured, your eyes blinking open a little, your voice quieter now as you listened, trying to stay with him.

He nodded against the pillow, his jaw shifting under your cheek. "It’s always… the worst when…" He paused, breath catching slightly, like he had to push the rest out. "When it’s kids."

You nodded, understanding.

"I don't wanna talk about my day," he suddenly said, though his voice was still low and gentle, "I wanna hear about yours."

You shook your head, closing your eyes again. You moved a little on the bed.

"Stop squirming so much, honey, I know what you're up to—"

You smiled into his neck. But then you heard his pager go off.

He groaned under you, his head tipping back as he reached blindly toward the bedside table, fingers fumbling for it before bringing it up to his ear. "Robinavitch, I'm busy—oh—hey."

You resumed your soft, leisurely kisses to his neck, praying he wasn't being called out into the fray again. He felt so warm, so good here. You felt so full and content, your mind still hazy and soft, lips swollen and warm against his skin.

"Yeah, hang on—" He pulled the pager away from his ear, turning his head so his mouth brushed against your hair. "Honey—"

"Mm?" you hummed, your lips still moving against his throat.

"It's Jack."

That snapped the rubberband of your brain back to yourself, eyes opening immediately, your head lifting back and your body going still on top of him.

"It's okay, it's okay—" Robby soothed quickly, one hand coming up to steady you where you’d pulled back. He shook his head a little, his expression holding. "He wants to know if he can come check on you. He said you had a hell of a day."

Your brows pulled together as you looked down at him, your hands planted on his chest, the feeling of him connected to you more heightened as you sat back on top of him.

"And… you’re…okay with that?"

His jaw tightened a little, the muscle jumping beneath his beard, but it didn’t settle into anything sharp this time. Something else passed through his face instead, quieter, held in check. "Yeah, it's okay."

You stared at him for another moment, unmoving.

"I promise," he added, his thumb brushing once along your hip. "But if you don’t want him to come in, it can just be me and you."

You worried your lip between your teeth, your gaze dropping briefly to the pager still in his hand, then back to him. There was a small, stretched pause before he lifted it again and brought it up to your ear instead.

You watched him the whole time, and he only nodded when it touched your skin. You didn't take the phone from him, only let him hold it up to you.

"Jack?" you murmured.

"Hi, sweetheart."

His voice was soothing through the device, rough and hoarse and sultry—Robby's lips twitched, not naive to the feeling of your body reacting to the sound of it. You pictured him just as you saw him a little while ago, though in your minds eye, his face had softened, his shoulders were dropped, that intense look long gone.

"Hi," you whispered, "Are you coming in to say hi?"

"Only if you want me to."

Your eyes flicked back to Robby, searching again, and he gave you another small nod, steady this time.

"Okay."

Robby took the pager back, bringing it to his ear again, his gaze not leaving your face. "North five," he said. "Don’t let anyone follow you in."

There was a beat, a quiet exchange on the other end you couldn’t hear, and then Robby lowered the pager, setting it back onto the bedside table without looking away from you.

"C'mere." he said, pulling you into him once again.

You went easily, folding into his chest, your arms tucking in between you where there was barely space, your cheek settling against him. A million questions ran through your head, but they felt quieted by Robby's arms around you, his lips at the top of your head. The way you couldn't help but notice his length swelling more inside of you.

Only a few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

Robby reached for the hospital blanket without moving you too much, dragging it up and over your back, tucking it around your hips with one hand while the other stayed firm around you.

"Yeah," he called.

The door opened, and with it came a brief rush of noise from the floor—voices, monitors beeping somewhere down the hall, the squeak of shoes—before it cut off again as the door clicked shut.

"Hey," came Jack’s voice from across the room.

You lifted your head slightly from where it had been tucked into Robby’s neck, turning just enough to look over your shoulder. Jack stood near the door in his the same clothes, black t-shirt pulled tight across his chest and arms, cargos sitting low on his hips, his stethoscope looped around his neck, badge clipped at his belt.

Robby looked at him without expression, merely acknowledging him, before his attention dropped back to you. "I’m gonna let him come say hi, okay?"

You nodded against him. You didn’t see it, but you felt the shift in Robby as he looked up, giving Jack a small nod, a subtle tilt of his head that brought him closer.

Jack’s steps weren’t loud, and you felt him before you saw him, the space beside the bed changing, his presence close enough that you didn’t have to turn to know he was there. His hand came to your back, so broad and warm, and calloused even through your sheer cover up, moving slowly over your shoulder blades, back and forth in an easy rhythm.

"You doing better now, sweetheart?" he murmured.

"Mhm," you hummed.

"D'you tell Robby about your day?"

You shook your head. There was a pause that hung for a second, quiet but noticeable as the two of them looked at each other over you.

"Do you want me to tell Robby?"

You hesitated, your fingers shifting where they rested against Robby's chest, and then you nodded again. You didn’t have it in you to say much—your mouth parted like you might, but the words didn’t come, your focus slipping instead. Your body stayed tuned to both of them, fully aware of Jack there now, of the shift he brought into the space, but you didn’t let the nerves of a changing dynamic pull you away from that soft space in your mind you'd found only moments before. Your eyes moved between them briefly, a little slower, a little softer, before dropping again, your lashes lowering as you settled against Robby.

"S’okay, honey," he said beneath you, his hand coming up to smooth your hair back, tucking a piece behind your ear. "We can talk about it in a little. I wanna show Jack how good of a girl you are first. Is that okay?"

You tightened your hold again. You felt quieted, pacified by Robby's comforting hold, your brain still a little fuzzy despite the other presence in the room.

"She okay?" Jack asked.

"Oh, yeah," Robby answered knowingly, his voice low, that same rough gentleness in it as his hand drifted down your back again. "She gets a little overwhelmed sometimes. This helps." He glanced up at Jack. "Go grab the stool, I’ll show you."

You heard Jack move, the roll of the stool’s wheels against the floor, the faint creak as he settled onto it somewhere beside the bed, though you couldn’t see exactly where. You glanced back anyway, just enough to catch him watching you, a small smile pulling at his mouth when he caught your gaze.

"I’m gonna talk to Jack now, okay, honey?" Robby murmured close to your ear, his lips brushing your hair as he spoke. "If you have anything to add, you can. Don’t worry about being shy."

Your thoughts felt even slower now as your focus narrowed down to the way your body sat on his, your legs still spread around his hips, the stretch of him inside you constant and full. When he pulled the blanket back, the air hit your skin, cool against the warmth you'd created, and it made everything feel heightened for a second before it settled back into that same hazy heat. Beneath you, you felt him react again, a slow swell, a small pulse that made your stomach draw tight.

Jack swore under his breath when the blanket dropped, and you watched him through heavy lids as his gaze lowered, fixed between you and Robby, on the place where you were joined.

"She's a good girl, brother." Robby said seriously.

"Yeah," Jack said, the edge in his voice gone quieter, more focused. "Yeah, she is."

"Jack." Robby’s tone shifted when he said it—flat, deliberate. There was a pause as he waited until Jack looked at him fully before continuing. "I want you to understand what you’re asking for."

Jack's jaw tightened a little at that, his expression a little more serious.

"This isn't just fucking around for fun." Robby said with a tightness to him, carefully stern. "It's a dynamic that only works because what’s underneath it is solid. Because at the end of the day, this what actually matters."

Jack didn't say anything.

"Her and I work because we want the same things," Robby went on. "Trust, for one. There’s no wondering where the line is, no second-guessing it. And when something crosses it—" his eyes flicked to you for half a second, then back, "—we deal with it."

Jack's lips pursed. You squirmed a little in Robby's hold, but he went on anyway.

"There are rules her and I both follow. She knows she can trust me, and, though it may look different to the outside, she has all the control here."

"Even if you give the okay?" Jack asked, more direct now.

Robby nodded, "The only way this works is with her okay. She is the one letting me make that call. She gives it all to me, and tells me when she wants things or doesn't. She's a good girl because she willingly hands me the responsibility to take care of her, to know her best, to understand and let her be exactly who she is without question."

You weren’t sure why, but again, your throat began to tighten. You closed your eyes, pressing your face into Robby’s neck, disappearing there. It was strange, hearing them talk about you like that, like you weren’t right there between them—but it didn’t feel bad. If anything, it settled somewhere deeper, somewhere steady and comforting. You'd never heard Robby explain your dynamic to anyone, it was just something that came to be between you, something that both of you understood and needed. Even through hours of conversation, of open talks of wants and needs and dreams and desires, you'd never heard it put like this before.

"Do you remember, a few years ago, when…"

"When you planned that ego-death trip to Head Smashed In?" Jack said, a quiet amused note to his answer.

Robby nodded slightly beneath you. You’d heard about that before, it was right before you knew him, before any of this.

"I don’t think…" he started, his hand moving slow up your back, then settling there firmly again. "I don’t think I could’ve come back from that and been where I am now without this. Without her."

Your grip on Robby tightened. His arms came around you a little tighter too.

"I’m telling you all this, Jack," he went on, his voice steady again, "because if you want in, you need to understand it’s not just about getting your rocks off—"

"—I never said that was—"

"I know. But you also need to understand its not about stealing her from me, either." Robby cut in, the words heavy, as if said through bared teeth. It made you squirm again in his hold, your body clenching down and him twitching inside of you, the place between you so wet and sensitive and swollen it made your hips begin to tingle.

But then Robby’s words finally clicked in your head, and you lifted your face from his neck, pulling back just enough to look between them. "Wait—"

"I’m not looking to steal anything," Jack went on, shaking his head, his voice rougher now, less smooth than usual. "I want— fuck…" He broke off, dragging a hand down his face, fingers pressing over his mouth before he dropped it and leaned forward, elbows braced on the bed, his head dipping for a second.

You shifted again, sitting up a little more, your chest pulling away from Robby’s as you reached for Jack, your hand sliding into his hair without thinking. He reacted right away, his hand coming up to hold yours there, pressing it lightly against his head, still not looking up, his grip steady like he didn’t want you to pull away.

But when he did, the look on his face almost made you cry in earnest. There was so much there—a yearning, a loss, a sadness. And yet, so much want it made your chest feel like it cracked in two.

"You're… joining us?" you asked softly.

He took the hand you had in his hair and brought it down, guiding it to his face until your palm cupped his cheek, the rough shadow of his beard dragging lightly against your skin.

"Is that something you’d like to try?" he asked, quieter now.

You nodded, your thumb moving along the edge of his cheekbone before you could stop yourself. And when you did, he turned his face fully into your hand and pressed a kiss to your palm, his lips warm, lingering as his eyes stayed on yours before they slid back to Robby.

"I saw Park cornering her today," he said, the words coming out a little tighter, "It made me feel insane. How do you… how does that part work?"

Robby let out a small breath through his nose, something almost amused under it, even as his hand stayed firm at your side.

"I mean, right now, it pisses me off," he said plainly. "Because he's supposed to know better. They're supposed to ask first." Robby said. There was a dry edge to it, an annoyance even as his cock jumped inside of you. Then his attention came back to you. "What did he do, honey?"

You gnawed on your lip, and Jack rolled the stool so you could see them both at once. He sat on Robby’s right, angled toward the bed, his forearms braced on his thighs as he looked up at you. And from that angle, being split over Robby's member that was pulsing and swelling, feeling both of their eyes on you, it had your stomach clenching.

"Oooh—" Robby choked slightly, his hands tightening at your hips to hold you still, his grip still firm as he felt the change in you. "What is it?"

You smiled a little, reaching forward now for Jack, your fingers carding through the top of his graying hair, pushing it back. "I like this view."

Both of them chuckled a bit at that. But Robby's hands tightened on your hips again, "Tell me about Dr. Park, honey. It's time we talk about it now."

You let your hand fall from Jack’s curls, both of your palms coming to rest flat against Robby’s chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing under your touch.

"He… um…" You glanced at Jack, then back to Robby, your fingers curling a little in Robby's shirt. "We ran into each other in the hall, and he was worried I was at Kennywood too. But then he—." Your face went warm. "He said he missed me, he starting touching me—" You swallowed, eyes dropping for a second. "I think I just got overwhelmed."

"Do you miss him too?"

You bit your lip hard enough it hurt, your eyes dropping for a second before you went on. "Yes. But... I don’t know if it’s just because it’s been so long."

Robby nodded once, not interrupting, just watching you.

Jack hadn’t moved, his gaze fixed on you.

"He… he tried to—um—finger me—"

The word caught on the way out of your mouth, your voice hitching as Robby’s hips jerked up under you sharply. The movement made you gasp, your body tightening, your hands pressing harder into his chest.

Jack’s eyes flicked between you both, trying to take it all in—the dynamic, the shift of the room moment by moment.

"I didn’t let him," you rushed on, your voice thinner now. "He touched me and I was—I was getting so close too fast, but I couldn’t—I knew you’d be mad. That I was grounded."

"Grounded?" Jack asked, his brow pulling slightly.

You nodded. He looked to Robby, and Robby answered without looking away from you.

"After your little run-in," he said, calm, measured, "we adjusted things for a few weeks. Other than the no sharing, she's not allowed to finish."

"Fuck." Jack whispered.

You didn’t even realize you were moving at first. It was small, almost unconscious—your hips shifting against him, a slow, shallow rock that dragged him deeper each time. It built gently, the light press of your clit against the thatch of hairs at the base of him creating a delicious friction. Your body leaned into it before your mind caught up, your breath starting to change as it settled into a rhythm. Robby didn't seem to want to stop you this time, he just let you gently rock back and forth.

"How did it feel, honey?" he croaked, his eyes changed to a narrowed, hungry gaze as he watched you. "Having Park's fingers on you after so long?"

"Felt so good," you whispered, "too good."

"Fuck." Jack said again, but this time, it was hoarse with a thick arousal. "When I saw…" he went on, swallowing thickly. Your eyes flickered to him.

"I only saw you after the fact, but his fingers were—they were wet and I didn't realize—" Jack's hand was on his lap, tightening around the inside of his thigh. You licked your lips, rocking your hips harder against Robby now.

"I kissed him too, Robby—I'm sorry—" you moaned out louder now, pressing down harder, chasing that friction now as Robby's hands pushed you down onto him further, his lip beginning to curl back.

"I wanted to punch him." Jack growled.

You gasped, mewling at the feeling now, Robby's cock punching deeper inside you as he dipped his hips and pushed back in.

"Seeing you up against Park like that, all pushed into him—fuck—" Jack groaned, tightening his hand on his cargo pants where you could see a little stain of precome through his pants. "Robby, brother—pull down her—"

He didn't even have to finish the sentence before Robby was reaching up and yanking the little triangles of your bathing suit aside, your breasts falling, nipples peaking at the cold air. The fabric cut into your skin around the globes, so they were more pressed together as your mouth hung open, watching both of them through heavy lids. Jack groaned in what almost sounded like pain as his hand tightened around his growing bulge.

"Take it out—" Robby commanded to the attending, "Do it—"

Jack didn't hesitate, He unzipped his cargos, pushed them down to just the mid thigh, and pulled his thick cock out.

"I see what you meant, honey—" Robby quipped with a breathless little smile as he punched up into you again. "When you said he felt big—"

Jack let his head fall back onto his neck a little, but his lips quirked into a breathless little smile, "You two—you two gossiping about me?"

You nodded, "I told him you felt so big inside me, Jack, how good it— your cock—oh god," you mewled.

Your features pinched together at the feeling of tightening in your spine, hips beginning to cramp.

"No, no, no—honey—don't you fucking dare—" Robby demanded, his teeth bared up at you.

"What?" Jack whimpered. You watched his wide grip wrap around his throbbing shaft, the glistening bead of arousal growing at the reddened tip. He used it, sliding the slick with his thumb over the head of his cock while he watched you bounce on Robby.

"She wants to come—" Robby said, though it was mean, a groan, a chastising.

"Fuck it, let her—"

"No—" Robby growled.

"Pleaseeeeeeeee…" you mewled, tears beginning to blur your eyes so you could hardly see Jack, how his jaw unhinged and his body slumping over as he fisted his cock faster.

"No." Robby barked, even as his thrusts became uneven. "Hold it."

Your face pulled into a wailing grimace, the pain in your belly, your spine, of holding it back.

"Breathe, sweetheart, just breathe—" Jack soothed, coming back to himself a little, his voice hoarse and desperate and yet soothing, "easier if you don't tighten up so much, just breathe through the feeling, it's just a wave—"

You did as he said, pulling in a deep breath, trying to force your hips to settle, to loosen, and Robby’s eyes widened as he watched you. Then he was groaning low, pushing you down onto himself with one last thrust. Oh, fuck, that’s so good— he moaned, his voice breaking as you felt him fill you with long ropes of thick, hot, spend, your thighs starting to shake from it.

You heaved in long, slow breaths as you whined from the denial, your eyes locked on Jack as he worked himself faster, his mouth parted, breath coming rougher. But instead of folding in on himself, he shifted, pushing his knees wider, leaning back in the chair just enough to hold himself there, his body straining. The noises he made were shallow, deep, a desperate string of curses, of your name.

"Come, Jack, please—please come for me—" you begged, your voice catching as your hips started to move again over Robby.

"God, doesn’t she beg so fucking pretty?" Robby said, breathless, his hands coming up to push your breasts together in his broad hands.

"Yes, God yes, oh fuck—oh fuck—look at me, sweetheart, that's it, look at me when I—" Jack moaned, but the words cut off into a long, strained groan, his brows pulling tight as he came, thick spurts hitting your thigh and his hand, his fist working himself through the overwhelming euphoria.

All three of you were full of breath for a long moment, your hips still tight with the loss of any relief. But you sighed dreamily still, drawing your finger through the milky come along your thigh. Both of them watched you in silence as you lifted it, your lips closing around your fingertip, sucking the salty spend clean. You pulled it out with a small pop, glancing between them with a faint, sheepish smile at the way they were staring.

"Jesus," Robby huffed.

"Yeah." Jack responded.

And then, like it caught up to them all at once, Jack pushed up from the stool, grabbing a few paper towels, wiping his hand off quickly before tucking himself back into his cargo pants. He zipped up, turned back, and stepped in closer again, holding out the towels just as you started to lift yourself from Robby’s lap.

"Thank you," you said softly, taking them.

He didn’t step away. If anything, he closed the space, his hand coming to your elbow, steadying you as you shifted, your legs still a little unsteady. Behind you, Robby moved too, rolling off the bed, one hand still at your side. For a second, both of them had their hands on you at once: close, warm, grounding as you settled back down onto the bed, the paper towels tucked beneath you.

As you sat there, feeling the slow, sticky release from between your legs, you looked up at them. They were looking at each other now, something silent passing between them. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"So…" you began.

Both of them looked at you from either side of the bed.

"Is this like… going to be normal? How is this going to work?"

Robby sighed, looking at his fellow attending. Both of them still were wordless as they watched each other, as if sizing the other up even after your shared moment.

"Oh, I know," you said, softer now. Your hands came up, one to each of them—Robby back in his black hoodie, the fabric worn and soft under your palm, and Jack’s bare arm, warm under your fingers. They both looked down at you then, both of them a little quieter, a little more open than you were used to seeing. You looked back at Jack.

"Why don't you come for dinner?" you said. "Maybe next week?" Your eyes flicked to Robby. "Would that be okay?"

Robby made a sort of frown, thinking.

But it was Jack who spoke first, "That sounds great, sweetheart."

"And for now, let’s just… go on as normal. Think about what we actually want. We can just… take it slow."

Jack tipped his head down a little, a small smile pulling at his mouth. "That sounds nice." He came closer to you, brushing a kiss to your temple, but you caught him before he could pull away, your hand coming up to his face, your fingers settling along his jaw, holding him there.

When you glanced back to Robby, you saw he was smirking now, watching the two of you with a renewed light ignited behind his eyes.

You looked back at Jack once again, and your focus dropped to his lips.

"I think I deserve a real kiss goodbye," you said softly. "Don’t you think, Robby?"

Robby let out a quiet laugh, folding his arms across his chest. "I think you do. She was such a good girl, after all, Abbot."

Jack huffed a breath of a laugh, his mouth twitching before he leaned in the rest of the way.

"Anything for our best girl." he said, before pressing his lips to yours.

end note (so not to have spoilers): so much love and adoration for my friend court (@pearlessance) !!!! thank you for letting me pluck the idea of split custody from your beautiful brain!

thank you so much for reading!!!

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