I Dare You – IH6 (part one)
summary: A girl, a boy, a slow burn, a bunch of F1 drivers, too many parties and just enough tension to ruin your week
word count: 5.6k
isack hadjar x reader
note: hello my lovelies! this is the first fic I'm posting on tumblr and I hope you'll like it!!! This is part 1 so please comment and repost to give me any motivation to write part 2 otherwise this will end up in the bins of my projects along with my draft masters thesis lmao
Paris, April 2025
Your breath feels so loud it almost drowns out the music pulsing in the background. You recognise Niagara Falls by The Weeknd. The bass notes are shaking your bones but not as much as his eyes do.
Isack is looking at you, not moving an inch. His lips are slightly parted and all you want is to crash into them, hard, not sweet.
You stand two meters apart, fists clenched, while he is leaning against a cluttered table like you’re not melting in front of him.
“I dare you,” he smiles.
Something twists inside you and your veins ache. You take a step. Then another.
4 months ago - London, January 2025
“HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Everyone around you screams while you snort out a huge laugh watching your friend miserably fall out of a handstand.
“Victor freaking Martins. You have to stop doing things like this or else you cannot complain about all the compromising videos I have on my phone,” you say as you lend him a helping hand.
You two keep dancing for a while, the music pounding in the crowded London apartment you somehow ended up in with a mix of friends and a bunch of strangers too. The lights are low and the air is buzzing with perfume, sweat and cheap champagne. It’s loud and chaotic and a little too hot but the energy feels good.
A little later, breathless, you slip away to get a drink, weaving through the crowd. You find a quieter corner with a table full of bottles and pour yourself an iced tea. Near the table, two guys are talking in French. You don’t mean to listen but you catch the words anyway.
The tall one, standing next to you, points to a girl in the crowd and smirks.
“C’est déjà Halloween?.” (Is it already Halloween?)
You follow his gaze and freeze. That’s your friend Marla, the same one you hyped up a few hours ago when she was choosing her outfit: orange overalls and a sheer green mesh long sleeve shirt. Sure, she looks a bit like a fashionable vegetable, but who cares? She loves it.
That is when you notice the other guy, shorter, half-hidden behind his friend. He has a boyish grin on his face and bursts of laughter when the tall one adds “En tout cas, c’est exactement comme ça que j’imaginais une citrouille danser” just as Marla throws herself into some heartfelt moves. (Anyway, that’s exactly how I imagined a pumpkin would dance)
He leaves but the other one lingers. He turns, catches you watching him.
“Hi,” he says, completely oblivious to your death stare. “Having a good night?”
His accent is thick and unmistakably French. You blow out a breath, like a bull in a kid’s cartoon.
“You Frenchies really like talking about people in front of them thinking no one can understand, huh?”
He blinks, confused. His smile fades. Now that you see him clearly, you clock the details of his vaguely familiar face: dark curls, Roman nose with a beauty mark, eyes the color of hot chocolate. But none of that matters.
“You think nobody here understands French?” you’re almost yelling now over the music.
“You can understand French?” he asks.
“Je suis à moitié française, bien sur que je comprends. Et surtout ce que tu dis sur mes amis,” you snap while pointing at Marla. (I am half French, of course I understand. And especially what you say about my friends)
He has recovered his composure now, and frowns.
“Eh, j’ai rien dit, perso.” (Hey, I didn’t say anything myself)
“Ouais enfin t’as bien rigolé.” (Yeah, well you sure had a good laugh)
He shrugs.
“Bah ouais. C’était drôle.” (Well yeah. It was funny)
Your eyes narrow and you give him a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes.
“I think it is funnier that two guys standing stiff as planks in a corner are commenting on a girl who’s just dancing and having fun.”
“Woaw, relax,” he says, holding his hands up. “You’re scary.”
“And you’re an idiot,” you say before you can think.
He raises an eyebrow and the space between you snaps tight. You’re about to say something else but your words catch behind your teeth. Maybe you overreacted. It was just a dumb comment. Marla had said she was going for chaotic sexy vegetable vibe, so why were you so angry?
Because he had that smug, boyish grin that made your stomach slightly twist and you didn’t like how that felt. Feeling a bit stupid and not ready to admit it got to you, you put your drink on the table a little too hard, and head back to the dancefloor as he watches you go.
When you come back to your friends, Victor wraps an arm around your shoulders.
“Why were you talking to Isack?”
“Who?”
He tilts your head toward the guy you just argued with.
“Him. He raced with me in F2, you don’t recognise him? Isack Hadjar. Really good, just made it to F1 with Racing Bulls.”
The rest of his words feel like they echo from underwater.
“You’re going to see him a lot this year actually, since you’re interning with McLaren.”
Your eyes lock with Isack’s across the room and for a second, you wonder if he is just as thrown off as you are.
March 2025, Melbourne GP - Wednesday evening
The restaurant is fancy in a subtle way but the wine still costs more than your rent. The McLaren team fills the space with warmth and noise: engineers and mechanics are trading jokes while Zak Brown at the head of the table is sitting like the godfather of the whole operation.
You are seated between Oscar Piastri and one of the data analysts who is obsessed with tire degradation. Someone raises a toast to the start of the season and you clink glasses even though you are still convinced someone will soon realise you are an imposter and revoke your badge.
You were not supposed to be here, not really. Not at a literal F1 team dinner. You were a final-year engineering student at MIT and your school had this partners program where the lucky nerd who topped the year in each discipline gets to do their final semester with a real-world placement. Most get stuck designing powertrains for scooters but somehow, you got McLaren. The email even said that Zak Brown himself, a fellow American, helped launch the programme years ago. You remember rereading the name like: wait, that Zak Brown?
When you called Victor after getting the internship, he hallucinated for ten whole seconds and then said something that sounded like:
“You made it to F1 before me. I hate you. I’m so proud. I still hate you.”
Despite growing up in the U.S., summers at your grandparents’ in France meant everything to you: the tiny village in Essonne just an hour from Paris, your grandma’s terrifying Peugeot and Victor Martins. You met him when you were kids, racing bikes down gravel alleys. He got into karting first, obviously. Then one day you tried it too, just for fun and… you were awful. But something still clicked in your brain, not on how to drive the damn thing but how it worked. This spark steered you early on, toward engineering and eventually one of the best schools in the world.
You smile at the memory while someone refills your glass.
Thursday evening
You are in the hotel gym which is small but well equipped. You usually prefer running outside, especially early in the morning when the city is quiet but today the heat is too brutal. The air conditioning of the gym is a relief. Cool and steady, it matches the rhythm of your breath as you run on the treadmill.
You like the treadmill for your interval sessions, the fact you can precisely control the speed. Your feet hit the belt in a steady pattern, sweat building on your skin. You are focused and in the zone when the door swings open.
Isack walks in with his trainer, chatting. Your heart skips a beat, not for him obviously, but out of surprise, and you pretend you didn’t notice him.
But of course, you notice. He is wearing a fitted black t-shirt and training shorts and as he moves through warmups, his sleeves ride up his biceps. Then he starts on the weights. You see him in the mirror, the way his arms flex naturally with each movement, controlled and easy. He is focused, jaw clenched and hair damp at the edges. Shit.
You catch yourself staring a little too long and suddenly your foot slips. A loud noise echoes as your shoe hits too hard and you try to regain your balance.
Isack’s eyes snap to you.
Your cheeks are heating and you feel mortified. He smirks, part amusement, part something you can’t quite place.
You return your eyes to the screen in front of you, pushing the speed up in some desperate attempt to outrun your embarrassment. The weight of his gaze lingers, itching the back of your neck. You focus on your breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
Later
You are down at the hotel lobby vending machine at 1am because jet lag is eating you alive and there is nothing in your room but cool air and silence. You punch the button for crisps and the machine does nothing. Of course.
You are about to kick it when you hear a voice behind you.
“Maybe try saying please.”
You turn. Isack Hadjar, in sweatpants and a hoodie, with messy hair.
“Maybe try minding your business,” you mutter, not even looking at him.
He leans on the machine. You can feel him there like static electricity, right under your skin. He finally breaks the silence.
“You’re still mad about New Year’s?”
You roll your eyes and sigh.
“No, I don’t care. Why would I be mad? I don’t even know you.”
“Fair enough” he smiles, then adds: “I wasn’t trying to be a dick to your friend, you know that, right?”
“Fine,” you say, half to him, half to yourself. “Noted.”
You nod. He nods too. Not defensive, not smug, just… honest. There’s a beat. One too long. He looks exactly like the pictures you found online when you googled his name like a total idiot after that New Year’s argument. Same eyes. Same muscular silhouette. Same effortless charm that pisses you off just a little.
Except now he’s right in front of you. Real and warm and too close.
The crisps fall with a mechanical noise and break the spell. You snatch the bag and step back without another word, heart doing something stupid in your throat. You feel him looking at you the whole way to the elevator.
Race Day
You are in the McLaren garage, yawning. The first Grand Prix of the season is about to start but you are still half asleep, from jet lag and a few nights of tossing and turning in your bed. Friday practice and Saturday qualifying had gone well for the McLaren boys, which made you genuinely excited. Everyone knows it, this season, McLaren is onto something.
The crew slowly clears from the grid and the cars start their formation lap. You are looking at a detail on a spare piece of the car with one of the mechanics when a wave of noise breaks behind you. You turn toward the TV screen just in time to see the replay: Isack’s car is in the wall. Your stomach drops. How is that even possible?
“Shit, that’s embarrassing,” says an engineer in the background.
You follow his exit on the screens, and even though he does not take off his helmet, you can see he is devastated. On his way back to the garage, Anthony Hamilton stops him to give him some comfort. You lean back, fingers brushing your face. He must feel awful. You should feel something else, some sort of vengeful smugness, but you don’t. There is no satisfaction at all, just some uncomfortable feeling in your chest.
A few hours after the Grand Prix and celebrations at McLaren’s, you are walking in the paddock hallway. You don’t mean to run into him. Not really. You’re just cutting through the back hallway to bring data logs to your trackside lead when he is suddenly there, half leaning on a wall and phone in his hands.
Isack’s suit is rolled down to his waist. He looks pissed. He sees you before you can turn around. Too late. You force yourself toward him.
“How are you?” you ask.
He shrugs. You open your mouth but he cuts you before you can speak, looking exhausted.
“Look, I’m not in the mood for banter, honestly.”
“I don’t want to banter” you protest. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About the crash.”
He pushes himself off the wall like your words physically annoy him. He looks at you, trying to decide if you’re lying. You hold his gaze but he looks away first.
“C’est vraiment la honte putain. Je me suis affiché comme un con sur mon premier Grand Prix en F1,” he mutters as he kicks a rock with his shoe. (This is so fucking embarrassing. I made a fool of myself at my first F1 Grand Prix)
You look at him, surprised by the sudden confession.
“It was just a stupid mistake, you have plenty of time to prove everyone wrong. Actually, it’s a pretty cool redemption arc story, you know.”
Then you add, because you are apparently incapable of stopping and need to fill this unbearable silence:
“I’ve watched footage of your F2 races. You have talent.”
His head tilts and he shows his usual smirk.
“You’ve stalked me?”
You feel your entire face becoming red, realising your mistake.
“No, I mean, I watched Victor's. You just happened to be in them.”
“You said you looked at my races, though.”
“God, fuck off.”
He laughs and it settles somewhere low in your stomach. Someone calls his name from down the paddock so he gathers his gear and starts walking back.
You call out, trying to save face:
“I still think you’re an idiot! By the way.”
He glances over his shoulder, a wide smug grin on his face. You try to ignore the warm and irritatingly happy feeling that blooms through you.
China GP, March 2025
Sunday mornings in the paddock seem to always be a little chaotic but today it’s the good kind. You’re sitting on an overturned crate near the Red Bull hospitality area, sipping something over-caffeinated. Around you, a loose group of rookies and Lily, Alex Albon’s girlfriend, who somehow manages being surrounded by chaos and still look elegant.
Someone, probably Ollie, just sparked a heated debate about who would survive longest on a desert island.
“You’d be dead in two days,” Kimi says, pointing at him. “You got lost inside a shopping mall.”
“I was eleven!” Ollie squeaks.
Laughter breaks out. Liam is mid rant about survival tactics and the object he would bring with him “I’d hunt some fishes, with like, sticks. Or a sharp spoon”
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Isack smirk. You don’t look at him, you’re careful not to.
“Since you guys are asking, I would bring Liam and eat him for protein,” says Ollie out of the blue.
Liam smiles. “Kinky.”
You choke on your drink and Lily mutters “Oh my God”.
“What about you?” she turns to you. “How long are you lasting out there?”
You shrug. “I know how to boil water, I can tie knots and I don’t complain. Also I have watched all seasons of Survivor religiously.”
Lily whistles. “Damn. Attagirl.”
You try not to glance at Isack but you fail. He feels you staring and tilts his head toward you but you turn back to Lily a little too quickly, gulping your drink.
Then, salvation: Alex Albon appears from around the corner. He heads straight for Lily.
“There you are,” he says, smiling. “Come on, I’m saving you from this testosterone soup.”
Lily stands and kisses him on the cheek. “Please get me out.”
You hop off the crate too to follow them. Lily loops her arm through yours and you glance back, just briefly. Isack’s eyes are still on you, unreadable.
Sunday evening
Someone has the bright idea of heading up to the hotel rooftop. It’s one of those in-between evenings where the post-race buzz still lingers but there’s no party, just too much dopamine and nowhere to put it. Someone brings snacks, someone else pulls out their JBL and the music mixes with the honks of Shanghai in the distance.
The sky is dark but it’s a nice night. String lights are throwing a golden halo over everyone’s head. You pull a hoodie over your sundress and sit cross-legged on the ground, sipping a Coke zero.
Ollie points a finger at Kimi.
“Truth or dare.”
A wave of protests erupts until Ollie threatens to switch the music to his Bangers only playlist.
Kimi is challenged to serenade a picture of Toto Wolff with a Backstreet Boys song. He does, terribly, and Ollie discreetly films the moment for future blackmail. Liam makes Lily answer whether Alex has ever cried during sex. He hasn’t, but he has cried watching The Notebook, apparently. You don’t know who dared Arthur Leclerc to try pushups on the roof ledge, but you stopped watching after the second one.
Eventually, it lands on you.
“Truth or dare?” Isack asks through the laughter.
You hesitate. He is leaning back on his hands, casual, but he looks at you like he knows you won’t pick truth. And maybe it’s pride or the rush of your second Grand Prix, but you say:
“Dare.”
Isack sits up straighter. “Walk the ledge.”
You blink.
“Excuse me?”
He points to the low concrete ledge that lines the edge of the building, maybe half a meter wide.
“That’s so dumb,” you say. “What if I die?”
“I said walk, not fall. Are you scared?” he says and you catch the smile he is trying to hide. “Come on, I dare you.”
“Fine,” you concede, already standing. “Just to prove a point.”
Alex says your name like a warning but you wave him off. You climb onto the ledge, carefully, the night breeze making your sundress float up. Your feet balance quickly, muscle memory from years of martial arts and being stubborn. Halfway across, the wind picks up. You flinch. Your arms extend for balance but you wobble a bit.
And then he’s there. Quiet and sudden, next to the edge, reaching his hand out instinctively.
You don’t think. You grab it.
The second your palm touches his, a jolt goes through your fingers, sharp and electric. Like the spark of static from an old sweater. You let go immediately. He flinches too.
“What the hell was that?” you mutter.
“Static,” he says, staring at his hand like it betrayed him. But his voice is a little off.
You climb down fast, cheeks flushed. Lily grins at you like she knows exactly what just happened.
Somewhere in the English countryside, April 2025
You don’t really know whose house this is, only that Ollie found the party and wherever Ollie goes, Isack follows. Victor is here too, sipping a beer next to you. You are sitting in a pair of lounging chairs in the back garden with a small group. You’ve had maybe three beers. Four? You’ve stopped counting. Enough to feel loose and light, stretched out with your legs over Victor’s.
It’s been a strange few weeks. Japan feels like a blur and Bahrain is coming soon, but right now you’re in this bubble back in Europe with everyone. You miss Liam. He hasn’t been around much since the news, the fact that he got demoted to Racing Bulls hit him hard. You hope the memes you send relentlessly and the appreciation messages you text him are cheering him up a little.
But everything else is going surprisingly well. You are three Grands Prix in, and you’re not just surviving, you’re actually doing something. You have caught a few people off guard with how quickly you’ve picked things up. Your work is helping engineers tweak things, even small things. You’re useful. You’re wanted. Sometimes you catch yourself smiling for no reason at all, like you have finally found your place.
You suddenly tune back into the conversation the boys are having. Someone brought up MMA and some dramatic fight from last week, and now all the hormonal late teenagers around you are losing their minds.
“Wasn’t Adesanya the first one to come in with that insane striking record?” Ollie asks around.
You take a sip of your beer before responding.
“Nope. Germaine de Randamie was undefeated in 46 kickboxing fights before she got into MMA. Try again, sunshine.”
The group turns to stare at you like you’ve grown a second head.
“Wait, you follow MMA?” Ollie says, clearly stunned.
Victor bursts out laughing.
“Of course she does. She did taekwondo for twelve years and boxing for five.”
Everyone laughs, quite impressed, before the conversation shifts. Amid the chatter and clinking bottles, Isack, who has barely looked at you all evening, tilts his beer slightly in your direction.
“You’ve been hiding this side of you.”
You reach for your beer, barely holding back a smug grin.
“You never asked.”
“Maybe we’ve been training in the same gym, do you know La frappe in Paris?”
“Sorry, I only train in tough cookie places,” you smile. Isack lets out a laugh.
“Putain,” he mutters, shaking his head. “You can be so cocky.”
You shrug, innocent.
“Just telling the truth.”
“What? You think you could take me?”
“I know I could take you,” you say before you can stop yourself.
He lifts a brow, his mouth twitching.
“You sure? You’re all talk.”
You lean back in your seat. You did not notice, but the garden has gone quieter as most people have drifted back inside because of the cold. It’s just you, Isack and Victor now. The air feels different somehow. You're both a little too competitive, a little too tipsy and neither of you knows when to back down.
Victor gets up and glances between you and Isack.
“I’m going for a wee, I do not want to see what this turns into,” he says, pointing between you two. “And I swear to God, if I come back and find you rolling in the bushes, I’m calling your mums.” You flip him off as he leaves.
Silence. Then, Isack stands and offers you a hand.
“Come on, let’s settle this.”
You give him a look.
“You’re not serious.”
“I dare you.”
Before either of you can think any better, you are both on your feet, half-fighting, half-laughing. He’s quick, but you’re quicker, dodging a grab and slipping around him. You aim for his ribs, gentle but cocky and he screams with exaggerated offense.
At some point, you throw a lazy leg kick that he somehow catches. You both lose your balance and roll into the grass, breathless. You manage to pin him for half a second before he flips you with way too much ease. He ends up above you, hands wrapped around your wrists, pressed into the grass. You stop giggling. His curls are a mess and he's panting a little.
His eyes flick down to your mouth and you suddenly realise how close your faces are. Now all you can think about is how your lips are almost brushing his. How they looked like when he laughed two seconds ago. How they might feel.
You can hear your own heart in your ears. Your skin is burning, in the places where he touches you, where he doesn’t. What the hell am I thinking? You’re drunk. That’s all it is. Just the beers and the grass and the way he’s looking at you like you’re some kind of mystery he wants to solve with his mouth.
He breathes out, slowly and his lips almost touch yours when…
“OLLIE BROKE A TABLE!!” someone screams from inside.
You both get up within a second like you have been electrocuted, barely looking at each other.
“I.. I’m going to see what that was,” you mumble, already moving.
You don’t wait for him to respond and just run.
Essonne, France, April 2025
The sun is bright over your heads. You squint as you wipe sweat off your forehead with the bottom of your shirt. Victor misses his shot and groans.
“Sucker” you tease, snatching the ball.
“I’m not a sucker, I’m distracted,” he says, looking at you. “You’ve been in a mood all day. Spill the tea.”
You roll your eyes and dribble past him, taking a shot that bounces off the basketball rim. He takes the ball, still looking at you like he is not going to let this go.
“What’s going on with you and Isack?”
You freeze for a second too long.
“Nothing.”
“Oh come on. You were flirting with your eyes at that party like it was a full-time job.”
You try to dodge him, literally and figuratively but he runs into you lightly, grinning.
“I’m serious! You’ve been weird ever since. What happened?”
You press your lips together. Bounce the ball twice.
“Nothing happened, okay?”
Victor raises an eyebrow, smirking. You cave.
“Fine. We almost kissed.”
He blinks and his jaw drops.
“WHAT?”
“We were messing around on the grass. It got stupid. We were drunk. And then someone yelled about Ollie breaking something and I panicked and left. And I haven’t talked to him since.”
Victor makes a noise between disbelief and amusement.
“You ghosted him?”
“I didn’t ghost him.”
He just stares.
“I just… avoided him. For the rest of the party and at the Bahrain GP.”
He drops the ball and throws his hands up dramatically.
“You’re unbelievable!”
You throw your hands up as well.
“Hey, it’s not like it’s just my fault. He also hasn’t reached out.”
“But why don’t you reach out? You like him.”
“I don’t like him.”
He squints at you again.
“You look at him like you want to fuck him and kill him at the same time.”
“Shut up!” you throw the basketball at his chest. He dodges, laughing.
“You do! You’ve got the murder eyes and the horny eyes!”
You chase him across the court, swearing in French under the spring sun.
Paris, April 2025 (back to the beginning)
You don’t really want to be here but Marla begged and honestly, there wasn’t much to do tonight anyway. You are only in Paris for the night, crashing at her place since your early train to visit your family and Victor leaves from the Austerlitz station.
The party you found yourselves in is hosted by a Red Bull crew member, a celebration after the triple header. The apartment is full of people. A mix of F1 people, friends of friends and party crashers. There is French rap humming in the background and wine glasses everywhere.
You are sitting on the kitchen counter in a short skirt and large sun-faded Carhartt t-shirt, both stolen from Marla’s wardrobe an hour ago. Your hair is loose and your legs swing lazily as you sip a very bad rosé.
Marla stands beside you, arms crossed, the neck of a beer bottle tucked between two fingers like a cigarette.
“I get she is lonely after the divorce, but she could literally find anyone else. I always have to be the one going, ‘Mom, that man brought a coupon to your birthday…’”
Your attention slips and your eyes drift toward the living room. Paris + Red Bull party equals Isack Hadjar, prince of the evening. He has been laughing for half an hour now with two guys you vaguely recognise from the Racing Bulls garage and a girl with a backless dress and perfectly blown out hair. You haven’t seen him since England apart from a glance at the media pen at the Saudi GP, but now he’s here, on home turf, like the party belongs to him. Of course he’s magnetic. Did a magnificent season debut. Everyone knows his name here. You wish you didn’t.
“You’re not even listening to me,” Marla complains.
“I am!”
Marla tilts her head.
“You’ve looked at him like six times in two minutes.”
“No I didn’t,” you say too quickly.
The girl next to Isack says something and touches his arm. He doesn’t pull away. You grit your teeth and gulp your glass of wine in one go before reaching to pour another one. Marla watches, unimpressed.
“Anyway,” you say, desperate to steer the conversation elsewhere, “please tell me more about your new step dad.”
“Fine,” she sighs. “He wears leather bracelets. Plural. And he plays the didgeridoo.”
Later in the evening, you are standing by a dying potted plant, pretending to check something on the wall. Your glass is still half full but your head is light from the wine.
You turn to head back to the kitchen and slam right into someone. Your wine nearly spills down your front. A hand reaches, steadying your arm.
“Careful,” he mutters.
You look up. Isack.
“Maybe look where you’re going,” he says, pulling his hand back like he regrets touching you.
“Are you mad at me?” you say abruptly, the wine talking through you.
His brow lifts, caught off-guard.
“What?”
“You’ve stayed a mile away from me all night, hovering around…” you glance at the girl with the backless dress across the room “... whoever,” you mumble.
He exhales.
“I’m being weird? You’re the one who’s been ignoring me for weeks. You barely hang out with the guys anymore. And you look right through me like I don’t exist.”
“I haven’t been…”
“Yes, you have,” he cuts in. “Just admit it.”
“It’s not that simple.”
He lets out a dry laugh.
“It is to me. You got scared,” he says like he’s daring you to deny it.
You cannot hold his gaze as you look away without replying.
“Then say it,” Isack says, calmer now. “Say there’s nothing between us. Say it and I’ll walk out that door. You’ll never have to deal with me again.”
You open your mouth but nothing comes out, because you don’t know how to lie right now. The silence stretches and his expression doesn’t change.
“Yeah,” he says, voice flat. “That’s what I thought.”
Then he turns and walks away.
You stay frozen for a second. Maybe two or three. And then the air rushes back into your lungs. Heart pounding, you push through the crowd. You shove your wine glass into Marla’s startled hands on the way.
He is already halfway down the corridor when you catch him just as he slips into the pantry to get his hoodie, all the guest’s jackets being oddly packed next to the food shelves.
You follow him inside and the door clicks shut behind you.
He turns around, clearly irritated.
“What now?”
You take a shaky breath, words tumbling out before you can stop them.
“I don’t know what I feel, okay? And it’s so unfair of you to ask that because I cannot think when you’re around, and… and I feel like an idiot. Like I’m drowning in something I don’t understand, and you’re just standing there like it’s nothing.”
His expression softens.
“You didn’t say anything either, after England,” you say through your breath.
“Because you acted like it was a mistake,” he replies while running a frustrated hand through his hair.
“I got scared,” you whisper.
He meets your gaze.
“So did I.”
You are way too aware of every detail right now, the cramped room, his eyes, the way his presence makes your chest tighten while he is in front of you, waiting for you to say something, anything.
Your breath feels so loud it almost drowns out the music pulsing in the background. You recognise Niagara Falls by The Weeknd. The bass notes are shaking your bones but not as much as his eyes do.
Isack is looking at you, not moving an inch. His lips are slightly parted and all you want is to crash into them, hard, not sweet.
You stand two meters apart, fists clenched, while he is leaning against a cluttered table like you’re not melting in front of him.
“I dare you,” he smiles.
Something twists inside you and your veins ache. You take a step. Then another.
You’re in front of him now. So close you can smell his cologne and feel his breath on your lips. His hand slides to your jaw, gentle but sure and then his mouth is on yours.
The kiss is nothing like you imagined. It’s worse. Rougher, hotter, messier. Your teeth bump. Your hands are in his hair. His fingers dig into your back like he doesn’t believe you’re real.
You grip the front of his shirt as Isack exhales into your mouth. There’s too much noise in your head and not enough space between you. He flips you around, lifts you onto the table and you pull him closer between your legs.
One of his hands slides up under your skirt and his fingers leave burning marks on your thigh. He kisses you like he wants you to feel every inch of it, like he’s daring you to pull away. His lips trace the shape of your jawline before returning to your mouth. You let out a moan.
It’s not soft, it’s not perfect. But it’s just right.
