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The vast expanse of space stretched endlessly beyond the reinforced porthole of the Hail Mary, a silent ocean of inky black void punctuated only by the distant, unblinking eyes of stars cold, ancient, and utterly indifferent to the fragile life contained within the ship's humming shell.

Some already dead, some just born. It had been seven days since awakening, seven interminable cycles of artificial day and night dictated by the ship's chronometer, a digital heartbeat that mocked the natural rhythms Ryland Grace had once taken for granted on Earth.

The cabin, no larger than a modest studio apartment back home, felt like a coffin adrift in eternity. Walls of matte gray alloy etched with faint scuff marks from his restless floating, and stumbling. Control panels alive with the subdued glow of leds in shades of teal and amber, and the ever present scent of recycled air laced with the faint ozone tang of electronics and the sharper, synthetic bite of his unwashed flight suit tied around his lean waist.

He floated there, suspended in the zero gravity embrace that had long since lost its novelty and become just another layer of confinement. His body, slender from months of casual exercise but now softened by inactivity, drifted lazily as he maneuvered toward the galley nook.

The past week had been a descent into quiet desperation, a mental unraveling disguised as routine. Mission protocols had outlined every contingency except the soul crushing solitude, the kind that seeped into your bones like cosmic radiation, eroding resolve one silent hour at a time. He'd run diagnostics until the readouts blurred in his vision, plotted trajectories that looped back to the same grim calculus. Save the sun or die trying, alone.

The vodka, smuggled in a hidden compartment as a nod to one of his fallen comrades. He'd savored it earlier that evening (or what passed for evening in this timeless drift), the fiery liquid burning a path down his throat, warming his core against the perpetual chill that no amount of thermal regulation could fully banish. It had loosened the knot in his chest, if only for a moment, allowing him to confront the inevitable without the sharp edge of panic.

With the buzz fading into a dull throb behind his eyes, survival demanded pragmatism. He retrieved an unopened packet of ramen from the storage locker, its foil wrapper crinkling softly in the hush. The hot water dispenser hummed to life, dispensing a measured stream that he poured into the pouch, watching as steam bloomed in ethereal curls, twisting and dissipating in the weightless air like ghosts fleeing the light.

He sat himself at the fold down table with a his suit shifting around his waist and tore open the packet. The noodles, reconstituted into a steaming tangle, carried the artificial allure of beef and spice flavors engineered in a lab to evoke comfort, but tasting now like a pale echo of terrestrial meals.

He slurped them with deliberate care, broth dribbling onto his chin before he caught it with a swipe of his hand. Each bite was a ritual, a tether to humanity the salty warmth coating his tongue, the faint crunch of dehydrated vegetables yielding under his teeth, the way the steam fogged his glasses momentarily before he pushed them up the bridge of his nose.

The main console, dominating the forward bulkhead like a watchful oracle, bathed the space in its cool luminescence. Holographic projections flickered with real time data oxygen levels steady at 21%, hull integrity nominal, solar sails deploying in incremental whispers of efficiency.

The Eriduri system loomed in his mind's eye, a distant promise of purpose amid the stellar nursery of Rho Eridani, where alien worlds might hold the key to Earth's salvation. But here, in the interstitial black between stars, it was just him. The former middle school science teacher turned reluctant savior, his reflection in the screen a haggard ghost with unkept hair, stubble shadowing his jaw, and eyes shadowed by the weight of unspoken fears. His glasses reflecting hollowed light back to him.

He was midway through his meal, chopsticks poised for another awkward scoop, when the anomaly intruded. A subtle shift in the console's interface, a new window materializing in the lower right quadrant, unbidden and unauthorized.

A bioluminescent green cursor appeared, not the standard mission glyph but a simple, archaic underscore, blinking with rhythmic insistence.

On, off, on, off.

It was an anachronism in this high tech sanctum, evoking old Earth computers from his childhood stories, and it snagged his attention like a hook in still water.

He set the ramen aside, the pouch falling over with some uneaten weight, and propelled himself closer. His heart quickened, a staccato drum against his ribs, as the first message resolved letter by letter, each pixel igniting with deliberate slowness.

“Moonwalk”

The word materialized in crisp white sans serif font, hovering against the starry backdrop feed that served as the screen's default saver. Moonwalk. What cryptic nonsense was this? His mind cataloged possibilities in a flash. Solar flare interference scrambling the display? A subroutine glitch from the AI core? Or something more sinister: a breach in the firewall, an external ping from who knows where?

The Hail Mary was designed as a fortress of solitude, its comms array tuned to burst transmissions back to Earth, not casual chit chat. Yet here it was, in English no garbled code, no binary spew just a single, playful term that conjured images of Michael Jackson's iconic glide or Neil Armstrong's first lunar steps. Absurd, given his circumstances.

Wiping his hands on the frayed thighs of his pants the fabric worn soft from repeated use, carrying the faint imprint of his palms he leaned into the keyboard harness. His fingers, still greasy from the meal, hesitated over the keys, the plastic cool and unyielding. Protocols screamed caution. Isolate the terminal, run a scan. But curiosity, that old scientific vice, overrode them. He typed, the clack of keys echoing faintly in the cabin like Morse code tapped on metal.

“Never learned how”

He pressed enter, the message vanishing into the buffer with a soft chime that seemed louder than intended. Leaning back, the unused harness straps digging into his shoulders, he watched the cursor pulse. The cabin's atmosphere thickened, the air recyclers' whisper now a held breath, the distant creak of the hull expanding and contracting in the thermal flux outside amplifying his anticipation.

Seconds stretched into minutes; he could hear his own respiration, steady but laced with an undercurrent of adrenaline. The stars wheeled imperceptibly beyond the viewport, a cosmic ballet indifferent to his vigil. Then, a response.

“lol”

Three letters, lowercase and lighthearted, blooming on the screen like a shared secret. Laughter of the lines lowercase lol a digital chuckle that pierced the sterile void. Ryland's lips twitched, then parted in a genuine, dorky grin, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes.

Amusement bubbled up, unbidden and warm, chasing away the vodka's lingering fog. It was human, this flawed, informal, alive. In a ship built for precision and isolation, it felt like a breach of sunlight through armored plating. Intrigued, he felt a spark ignite in his chest, not fear but a tentative thrill, the first crack in the monotony's facade.

Emboldened, his fingers danced toward the keys again. Who are you? The thought appeared, glowing with curiosity, but doubt slithered in like coolant vapor from a vent. Who indeed? Mission control wouldn't toy like this. He backspaced furiously, the deletions a rapid fire retreat, leaving the cursor naked once more. Arms crossed over his chest, studying the interface as if it might betray its secrets through sheer willpower. The ramen cooled untouched, its aroma fading into the ambient staleness. The cursor stirred anew, as if sensing his impatience.

“Ryland Grace?”

His full name, precise and personal, etched in text that felt like a whisper directly into his ear. A jolt ran through him, electric and intimate, raising the fine hairs on his arms. How? The manifest was classified, the signal encrypted. His pulse thrummed in his temples, the cabin's confines pressing closer the overhead lights casting long shadows across the lockers stocked with freeze dried provisions, the emergency suit hanging like a sentinel in its alcove, the faint hum of the xenonite processors in the lab module aft, churning data on Erid's alien biology. Trust was a scarce resource out here, rationed like water. He didn't reply immediately, letting minutes accrue like interest on a debt. His mind raced through scenarios: a deep space probe with a rogue program? Intercepted comms from a rival nation? Or, improbably, a genuine connection to another soul, reaching across the light years?

The pit in his stomach twisted, a cold coil of uncertainty, but he couldn't ignore it. Finally, with a deep breath that fogged the console's edge, he typed.

“Depends on who's asking.”

Enter. The words launched into the unknown, and he unstrapped, pushing off toward the viewport to stare into the abyss. The wait gnawed at him, each second amplifying the ship's subtle symphony: the soft whoosh of air ducts, the occasional ping of micrometeorite deflection on the shields, the distant throb of the fusion drive idling in standby. His reflection overlaid the stars wide eyed, wary, yet undeniably drawn in.

“Interesting.”

The reply arrived like a gentle prod, enigmatic and laced with intrigue. No elaboration, just that single word, dangling like bait. He exhaled, a chuckle escaping despite himself callous, self deprecating, the kind that acknowledged the absurdity without surrendering to it. He returned to the console, but sleep called, or at least the pretense of it. Unstrapping fully, he navigated the narrow corridor to his bunk pod, a cocoon of padded netting and memory foam that molded to his form in the null g. The lights dimmed to a nocturnal red, simulating twilight over some imagined horizon, but rest proved elusive.

He turned in the restraints, the fabric sighing against his skin, his thoughts a tempest. What entity wielded such access? A hacker probing NASA's vaults? An alien intelligence mimicking human idiom? Or something benign, a forgotten subroutine awakened by his vodka fueled tinkering? The lol replayed in his mind, evoking a phantom smile, a bridge of humor spanning the unbridgeable. It humanized the unknown, stirring a longing he hadn't named: connection, however fleeting, in this engineered loneliness. The ship's log would note his vitals spiking, heart rate elevated, cortisol traces but he dismissed it, chasing fragments of dreams where voices echoed without screens.

Far below, on the blue marble of Earth, in a cramped dorm room at a university, the mysterious coder huddled over a laptop. The space was a chaotic haven of academia posters of nebulae and circuit diagrams peeling from cinderblock walls, a desk buried under textbooks on astrophysics and quantum computing, the glow of your screen the sole light against the midnight hush of the hallway outside.

You’d been debugging a simulation for your senior project, a virtual model of deep space comms when a stray line of code, born of late night impulse, had latched onto a public NASA feed.

What started as a glitch evolved into a handshake, your terminal bridging the gulf to the Hail Mary through some overlooked vulnerability in the pre launch software. Fingers hovering over her keyboard, you bit your lip, heart racing with a mix of terror and exhilaration. Ryland Grace the name from headlines, the man who'd gotten voluntold for the impossible.

Your accidental intrusion had unearthed greatness, a living legend adrift, and in that moment, two isolates astronaut and student touched across the void, the first thread of an unforeseen tapestry weaving through the stars.

The fluorescent hum of the lecture hall lights buzzed like a persistent insect against the edges of your frayed consciousness, a relentless drone that mirrored the chaos swirling in your skull.

It was mid morning on campus, the kind of crisp day where leaves skittered across the quad like errant thoughts, carried on a breeze that whispered promises of change you couldn't quite grasp. But inside this cavernous room rows of tiered seating scarred by years of restless students, the air thick with the mingled scents of stale coffee, fresh printer ink from syllabus handouts, and the faint, earthy undertone of rain dampened wool coats you were adrift, untethered.

The professor's voice washed over you in waves, a monotonous tide of jargon about astrophage propagation models and orbital decay rates, but the words dissolved before they could anchor. Your notebook lay open on the pull down desk, its lined pages a barren landscape marred only by a half hearted doodle of a spiraling galaxy, born from the night's insomnia.

You shifted in your seat, the vinyl cushion creaking softly under your weight, the chill seeping through your jeans a stark reminder of the draft snaking in from the half open window at the back.

Around you, classmates scribbled notes with the fervor of the damned, their pens scratching like tiny claws on paper, illuminated by the projector’s blue glow casting ethereal shadows across their faces.

One girl two rows ahead twisted her hair into a knot, her foot tapping a rhythmic Morse code of impatience; a guy to your left yawned wide enough to crack his jaw, the sound swallowed by the professor's droning explanation of simulation parameters. You envied their obliviousness, their ability to inhabit this mundane bubble while your world had cracked open like a fault line in the Earth's crust, spilling secrets from the stars.

Ryland Grace. The name alone conjured a constellation of memories you'd pieced together in the witching hours, fragments gleaned from flickering screens and breathless news clips. Everyone knew of him or at least, the myth of him. The unassuming science teacher from some sleepy town, plucked from obscurity to join the ranks of the great volunteers, those improbable heroes who'd stumbled into the astrophage crisis like characters in a cosmic thriller.

You'd seen the archival footage, the press conference where he'd cracked a smile lined with a lopsided grin, rubbing the back of his neck as if embarrassed by the weight of salvation on his shoulders. "Just doing my part." Voice steady but laced with that arid, self effacing humor that made the anchors chuckle.

Saving Earth hadn't been a grand quest for him; it was puzzle solving on a planetary scale, his mind a quiet engine turning the tide against the solar devouring plague. Interviews painted him as the everyman savior awkward pauses, thoughtful stares into the camera, a man who'd traded chalkboards for starships. But last night, those pixels had come alive, not as history but as a living echo, his words from old talks looping in your headphones until dawn crept in, painting your bedroom window with light.

Sleep had been a cruel tease, slipping through your fingers like comet dust. You'd collapsed onto your bed around four a.m., the mattress sagging under the pile of textbooks and hoodies that doubled as your pillow fort, but your eyes refused to close.

You'd propped yourself against the headboard, the wooden frame groaning in sympathy, and let the glow of your laptop pull you under. The room around you was a testament to controlled chaos string lights draped haphazardly over the bed's headboard, casting warm amber pools across the cluttered desk where your project files sprawled like a digital battlefield.

Empty energy drink cans formed a metallic skyline along the windowsill, their aluminum cool to the touch when you'd reached for one absentmindedly, the fizz long gone. Posters of pulsar arrays and exoplanet renderings peeled at the corners from the cinderblock walls, curling like invitations to elsewhere, while the faint scent of microwave popcorn lingered from a study session that had devolved into solitude.

A few miles down the road, campus stirred faintly the distant rumble of a maintenance truck, the muffled laughter of early risers heading to the dining hall but in here, isolation wrapped around you like a second skin, thick and unyielding.

The project had seemed innocuous at the start, just another hoop in the gauntlet of your senior year. Professor Hale, with his wire rimmed glasses perpetually fogged from his perpetual thermos of black tea, had leaned against the chalkboard that first day, sleeves rolled up to reveal faded tattoos of orbital paths inked in his wilder youth. "Optimize Earth based satellite observations of astrophage activity." he'd intoned, his voice gravelly from too many late nights grading.

"Simulate the feeds, patch the blind spots, think of it as giving our eyes in the sky a tune up." You'd nodded along, fingers flying over your keyboard to jot the specs of low Earth orbit trajectories, infrared spectral analysis, error correcting algorithms to filter the noise from the astrophage blooms that still haunted the solar system's fringes.

It was meant to be entirely theoretical, a sandbox of code and data drawn from public archives, honing your skills for the post grad job hunt in a field where wonder paid in spreadsheets.

But curiosity, that sly saboteur, had nudged you further. Late one evening, fueled by a cocktail of caffeine and quiet desperation, you'd tinkered with a backdoor subroutine, a harmless tweak to mimic real time pings, pulling from declassified NASA relays. What you'd expected was a simulated touch, a loop of dummy data echoing back your inputs.

However, the terminal had hiccuped, lines of code unraveling like frayed wiring, latching onto something distant, anomalous. Faulty engineering, you'd realize later, a pre launch oversight in the Hail Mary's comms firewall, a vulnerability born of rushed deadlines and the frantic scramble to launch the volunteer vessel light years toward Tau Ceti.

Your screen had bloomed with an unfamiliar interface, the cursor blinking like a beacon in the void, and then connection. Not to a satellite cluster orbiting Earth, but to him. The man orbiting, adrift in the interstellar black, his ship's systems whispering back through the ether.

The ethical storm had brewed from that first spark. You'd stared at the exchange of his cautious quips, your hapless lol that had made your chest ache with unexpected warmth feeling the weight of it settle like lead in your veins. Detrimental didn't begin to cover it.

This wasn't a prank or a glitch; it was a breach, a digital trespass into classified solitude. Reporting it meant scrutiny, investigations, questions about your code, the potential unraveling of your academic life in a university already rife with cutthroat competition.

Whispers in the halls about "that girl who hacked the stars" could turn admiration to suspicion, scholarships revoked, futures derailed.

A greedy part of you, the one curled in the shadows of your loneliness, wanted to hoard it. This secret bridge, this improbable thread linking your cramped dorm to the endless night it was yours, a private rebellion against the isolation that gnawed at you daily.

No roommates to share the burden (yours had transferred out last semester, leaving the space echoing with absence), no family calls that pierced the time zones without feeling performative. You were an island in a sea of faces, your nights spent chasing equations while the world outside paired off in laughter and light.

Yet the moral compass you'd inherited honed by ethics seminars and late night debates in the astrophysics lounge tugged insistently. Was this kindness or cruelty?

He was alone out there, somewhat alone. You wondered, if he had the rest of the crew to support him. In the quiet hours as your laptop fan whirred like a distant engine, if you were his only voice since departure. No mission control pings, no AI companions beyond cold protocols, just the hum of life support and the stars' indifferent gaze.

Communicating again risked everything his focus, the mission's integrity, your own fragile grip on normalcy. Sweep it under the rug, delete the logs, let the connection fade like a dream upon waking. But truth be told, the thought hollowed you out. You were just as marooned in your own way drifting through lectures and labs, the weight of unspoken dreams pressing like the dorm's thin walls against the wind.

Loneliness wasn't measured in light years; it was the echo in an empty room, the ache of reaching for something real across an unbridgeable gap.

As the professor wrapped up, dismissing the class with a wave toward the whiteboard's scrawled equations, you lingered, your fingers tracing the edge of your notebook.

The hall emptied in a rustle of backpacks and murmured plans for lunch, the air growing cooler in their wake. The voices beckoned with its deceptive normalcy students huddled over phones, leaves swirling in eddies but your mind was light years away, tangled in the what ifs.

Type another message? Or let the cursor's blink become a memory, fading into the cosmic static? The dilemma coiled in your chest, tender and raw, a slow burning fire fed by the shared solitude of two souls one in a metal ship slicing through the void, the other in a concrete tower under earthly skies.

For now, you rose, slinging your bag over your shoulder, the strap biting into your skin like a promise you weren't ready to keep. But the pull was there, insistent as gravity, drawing you back toward the screen that waited in your room.

The glow of your laptop screen bathed your bedroom in a soft, ethereal black and green, turning the cluttered space into a makeshift command center suspended between worlds.

It was well past midnight now, the campus outside your window hushed under a blanket of stars that felt mocking in their proximity close enough to touch if you stretched, yet infinitely distant compared to the man on the other end of this improbable line.

Your desk lamp flickered faintly, casting elongated shadows across the scattered notes from Professor Hale's class, their edges curling like whispers of forgotten equations. The air in the room hung heavy with the remnants of your all nighter the tangy bite of cooling ramen broth from a bowl pushed aside hours ago, the faint putrid whiff from your overheating processor, and the subtle, comforting musk of your oversized hoodie, pulled tight around you like armor against the chill seeping through the single pane window.

Your fingers, chilled from the draft, hovered over the keys, the plastic cool and unyielding beneath them, as if the keyboard itself sensed the gravity of what you were about to reveal.

You took a breath, the kind that rattled in your chest like loose change in a pocket, and began typing. The cursor blinked patiently, a steady heartbeat in the digital void separating you from the Hail Mary.

“Hey, it's me again. I'm a software engineering major, working on predictive models for harnessing the Sun's energy to speed up algae growth, think solar powered superfood for the apocalypse and real time tracking of astrophage blooms. Totally nerdy stuff. Anyway, while I was running some code to test signal relays and satellite algorithms, I guess my experimental tweaks intercepted your live comms? Your ship's out there observing and experimenting in real time, and boom accidental hack. Sorry not sorry?”

Hitting enter felt like launching a probe into uncharted space, your heart thudding in sync with the fan's low whirl. The seconds stretched, elastic and taut, until his response flooded the screen in a cascade of text that made your eyes widen.

He was taken aback, that much was clear from the rapid fire paragraphs waves of information surging over him like a solar flare. Relief? Terror? Or some cocktail of both that left him reeling at the thought of a college kid breaching his interstellar fortress.

You could almost picture it, him in that cramped cockpit, brawn frame tensed against the acceleration couch, his face those sharp features from the interviews, etched with the lines of too many sleepless missions paling under the console's amber glow as he processed the intrusion. Then, the punchline landed.

“You’re getting an A, for sure.”

A laugh bubbled up from your throat, unbidden and bright, cutting through the room's stale quiet like a comet's tail. You clapped a hand over your mouth, but it was too late the sound echoed off the cinderblock walls, startling you into a grin. Imagining the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, that signature quirk from the old press clips where he'd deflect heavy questions with a wry twist of his lips, made your cheeks warm. He was out there, cracking jokes amid the void, and somehow, it bridged the gap just a fraction.

Emboldened, you typed back, fingers dancing now with a lightness you hadn't felt all day.

“How’s space?”

His reply came slower, measured, sidestepping the shadows you sensed lurking in his subtext, the impending doom coiled in his chest like a spring, the ghosts of comrades he'd watched drift into the black. No, he wasn't ready for that confessional dive.

“Totally super cool.”

You chuckled again, softer this time, the sound muffled as you leaned back in your creaky desk chair, its springs protesting like an old friend ribbing you. Boring? Understatement of the century. But there was a intellectual wit in the brevity, a relatable deflection that screamed adulting in the apocalypse.

Picturing him out there, surrounded by blinking readouts and the endless starfield, boiling down cosmic isolation to a tourist brochure line, it was almost endearing.

“Seen any aliens yet?”

You fired off, curiosity laced with a playful nudge, testing the waters of this bizarre rapport. Quicker this time, his words zipped back.

“Dont joke about that. It's actually an irrational fear I have.”

Your fingers paused mid air, the keyboard's faint clicks falling silent as a flutter stirred in your chest not just intrigue, but something warmer, like sunlight filtering through storm clouds. His vulnerability peeked through the screen, raw and unexpected, making the distance feel less like a barrier and more like a shared secret.

You told yourself it was just the thrill of the connection, the absurdity of chatting with a space legend via glitchy code, but the warmth lingered, pooling low and insistent.

Not sure if it was too soon, hell, you'd been at this for what, hours now? your mind wandered to the crew, those faceless figures from the mission briefings, sealed in their tin can hurtling through the dark.

“Has any of the crew made any interactions outside the ship?”

The pause that followed was interminable, the cursor's blink stretching into eternity, each flash a metronome counting the weight of unspoken truths. Your room seemed to hold its breath with you the string lights dimming slightly as your laptop battery dipped, the distant hum of a vending machine in the hall fading to white noise. When his response finally materialized, it was clipped, heavy.

“No it's been quiet.”

A beat, then.

“Too quiet.”

Your stomach tightened, a visceral twist that had nothing to do with the half eaten granola bar on your desk. Loneliness, typed out in stark pixels, sounded so achingly human, so tangible it clawed at your own isolation. Why you? Why this glitchy backdoor the only lifeline piercing his solitude? Fingers moving slowly, deliberate, you typed to bridge the chasm without prodding too deep.

“Sometimes quiet is good. Makes life feel slower.”

He stared at the words, the ship's hum a constant underscore to his thoughts. How was some college kid dispensing life advice like a pint sized therapist? He was double your age, probably scarred by lesson plans and lab explosions long before she'd aced her first midterm. But damn if it didn't land, a gentle nudge against the isolation gnawing at his edges. He liked the rhythm of it, the easy back and forth that felt less like interrogation and more like camaraderie. Entertaining it further couldn't hurt.

“It wasn’t much different on Earth.”

Your brows furrowed, creasing the space between them as you leaned closer to the screen, the glow reflecting in your eyes like distant nebulae.

“How so?”

“The loneliness."

The words hung there, simple and stark, pulling your thoughts back to the crew the team he'd launched with, packed into that pressurized pod like sardines in a survival suit. Confusion bubbled up, relatable in its everyday logic.

“But you're surrounded by the other astronauts in a tin can.”

A slight laugh escaped him, huffed through his nose in the confines of the cockpit, the sound swallowed by the recyclers' whir. He pushed his glasses up his nose. It would've been funny, pitch perfect cosmic irony, if the circumstances didn't carve it hollow. His fingers tapped out the truth, steady as a heartbeat monitor. His bottom lip tucked between his teeth, glancing at the keyboard and the screen.

“It’s just me.”

You froze, the cursor's blink the only movement on your screen as his words sank in, heavy as asteroid debris. No immediate reply from you, just the quiet digestion, the room's shadows deepening as empathy wrapped around you like a chill draft. Finally, soft and sincere.

“Im sorry.”

“Dont be.”

Your lips tightened, a thoughtful press as you racked your brain for a lifeline, something to haul the mood from the brink without dismissing the ache. The clock on your nightstand glowed 2:17 a.m., a reminder of how the hours had slipped away in this digital confessional. Funny, wasn't it? You, who stumbled over small talk at coffee lines and ghosted group chats, had poured out paragraphs to a stranger, an astronaut, no less via a hacked interface that probably violated a dozen treaties. Easier this way, pixels over people, no awkward eye contact or fumbling pauses.

“Im stuck on Earth, you’re stuck in space, friends?”

You hit send on the olive branch, hoping it landed light, not too forward though after spilling guts across the void, what was one more leap? His reply came swift, warm as a solar flare.

“Already are.”

A smile tugged at your lips, genuine and slow, chasing away the room's lingering chill. In that moment, the room's confines felt a little less like a cage, the stars outside a little less indifferent. Two loners, tethered by code and coincidence, trading quips in the quiet hours, it was the start of something improbably real, witty and warm against the cold expanse.

The Hail Mary drifted onward, a lone speck in the infinite black, its hull whispering secrets to the void with every faint creak of expanding metal under the sun's distant gaze. Two days had slipped by since that last flicker of words on the console. The silence had settled in like frost on a winter window, creeping into every corner of his world.

The ship's rhythm, once a monotonous hum of life support and engine purrs, now amplified the emptiness the soft whoosh of air recyclers, the occasional ping of telemetry data scrolling unread across screens, the weightless drift of a stray protein bar wrapper orbiting his bunk like a mocking satellite.

He sat there in the dim glow of the lab module, the lights casting long, ethereal shadows that danced across the grated floors and bulkheads, turning the cramped space into a cavern of solitude.

Isolation wasn't new; it was the mission's cruel companion but this felt sharper, like a blade honed by that brief spark of connection. He tugged at the elastic waistband of his boxers, the fabric worn thin from endless lounging, and let his body curl slightly in the work chair.

His mind wandered back to you, unbidden, piecing together fragments from the ether a software whiz, algae models and astrophage trackers, that easy laugh in text form.

What did you look like? He pictured hair tied back in a hasty ponytail, eyes bright with late night caffeine highs, maybe freckles dusting a nose buried in code. Or worse, the cynical voice in his head chimed some basement dwelling troll, all greasy bangs and conspiracy posters, typing from a lair of empty energy drink cans. He snorted softly, the sound echoing hollowly, a coarse chuckle that didn't quite reach his eyes. Rubbing a hand over his face, stubble rasping like sandpaper.

He wished you'd ping again, that green cursor blinking like a heartbeat in the dark. But reaching out? Nah, too clingy for a guy who'd just admitted his crew was ghosts. He drifted through questions in his mind, rehearsing them like a nervous kid prepping for a date. What's your favorite constellation? Ever wonder if algae dreams of the stars? Keep it light, don't scare you off with the void's weight.

The console hummed nearby, its green interface a siren call, tempting him to poke at the code, see if he could nudge the signal stronger. And then, like a comet streaking through fogged thoughts, the idea ignited video.

Why settle for pixels when he could bridge the gap with faces, voices? A simple upgrade to the relay tweaks the bandwidth, patching the vulnerability you'd exploited. See you for real, catch those eyes he'd imagined, maybe even share a real laugh that echoed beyond text. His pulse quickened at the notion, a warm flush creeping up his neck despite the ship's steady 20 degree chill.

As the fantasy sharpened, what if you had a smile that lit up like a supernova, soft curves under oversized hoodies, fingers nimble on keys and maybe elsewhere? his hand drifted lower, almost unconsciously. The thin cotton of his boxers tented slightly under the growing ache, and he palmed himself through the fabric, a slow, deliberate pressure that sent a shiver racing up his spine.

Space made everything feel amplified, his body responded with a lazy heat, blood rushing southward in the weightless drift. He bit back a groan, eyes fluttering shut as he imagined your voice, breathy and curious, asking about his day among the stars. God, he was pathetic forty something astronaut, science teacher turned savior, reduced to this by a hacker's hello.

Felt like a virgin fumbling in the dark, heart hammering over the first girl who'd tossed him a line. His strokes grew firmer, thumb circling the outline of his hardening length, the friction building a low burn that contrasted the cool air whispering over his skin.

Crazy over text from a stranger light years away might as well launch himself into a black hole, let the event horizon swallow the embarrassment. But the desire coiled tighter, tender and raw, mingling loneliness with a spark of something deeper, a yearning for connection that went beyond code. He slowed his hand, breathing ragged in the quiet, the ship's hum a distant lullaby as he floated there, suspended between isolation and impossible want.

The third day dawned or what passed for dawn in the eternal night of the Hail Mary's orbit with him hunched over the workbench in the engineering bay, the faint buzz of soldering iron filling the air like a persistent whisper.

His fingers, callused from years of jury rigging prototypes back on Earth, danced with delicate precision over the circuit board, tweaking the final relays for the video patch. The labs module's lights cast long shadows across the exposed wiring, glinting off the half assembled comms array that sprawled like a mechanical spider on the console.

Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the controlled chill, the recycled air carrying a sharp tang of flux and overheated silicon. He'd barely slept, mind replaying your last message. A lot like a loop of forbidden code, warm and insistent in the cold void.

Every solder joint felt like a step closer to bridging the impossible distance, to seeing the curve of your smile or the way your eyes might light up mid sentence. The ship hummed around him, a symphony of soft whirs and distant vents, but his world had narrowed to this the glow of the oscilloscope, the flicker of test signals bouncing back green. A weight pressing on his chest like unspent thrust, but you? You were the variable that disrupted the equations, turning isolation into something almost bearable.

The console chimed then, a sharp trill that cut through the haze, and his head snapped up so fast he nearly tangled in the tethers. His heart kicked like a thruster firing cold, a rush of adrenaline flooding his veins hot. The screen bloomed with your words.

“Sorry been busy with classes.”

A grin split his face, wide and unguarded, the kind that pulled at muscles he'd forgotten how to use. Happiness bloomed in his chest, fierce and unbidden, chasing away the shadows that had crept in during the wait.

Three days seventy two hours of staring at blank screens, replaying old logs, wondering if the connection had frayed like a worn tether. But here you were, slipping back into his digital orbit as if the gulf between worlds was just a skipped coffee break. He floated there for a beat, weightless in more ways than one, the soldering iron cooling forgotten in his grip. God, it felt good. Like the first breath after holding it too long, or the sun breaking through the milky ways hazy atmosphere in his wildest mission dreams.

He didn't type right away, letting the moment settle, his fingers drumming a silent rhythm on the console's edge. Jealousy flickered at the edges of that joy, a petty spark he shoved down quick classes? Professors droning on about algorithms while you hunched over notebooks, surrounded by chatter and the scent of chalk dust? It twisted something in him, imagining your attention pulled away, scattered among strangers who couldn't possibly understand the fire you'd accidentally ignited across the stars. Like I'm not the highlight reel here, he thought, the words bitter on his tongue even unspoken. What if those lectures swallowed you whole, left him adrift again in this tin can, just another blip on a forgotten feed?

But then the flip side hit, softening the edge those same classes, that relentless grind of sims and data dives, were the very glitch that had beamed you into his life. Your project, your midnight tweaks chasing astrophage hints through satellite streams, had cracked open his ship's firewalls like a serendipitous wormhole. Without it, he'd be alone with the ramen packets and the endless starfield, no witty barbs to pierce the quiet, no voice (text bound, sure, but alive) to remind him he wasn't erased from the universe. Gratitude tangled with the envy, turning it into something almost tender, a quiet acknowledgment that fate had a wry sense of humor.

Shaking off the tangle, he leaned forward, the prototype's final test light winking affirmatively beside him.

“No worries, classes sound like a solid alibi. Mine involved dodging cosmic rays and arguing with a finicky antenna. How'd yours go? Any breakthroughs that rival hacking a spaceship?”

He hit enter, the words laced with that dry lilt he hoped carried his relief, masking the way his pulse still thrummed from your return. The engineering bay felt less claustrophobic now, the air warmer against his skin, as if your message had nudged the life support up a notch.

Back in the bedroom, the afternoon sun slanted through half drawn blinds, dusting your desk in golden motes that danced over the scattered printouts and cooling mug of tea. The lecture hall's echo still lingered in your ears, the professor's voice droning on vector calculus, your mind half there, half wandering to the man soldering away in silence.

Guilt had nipped at you all morning, a persistent itch amid the rustle of notebooks and the faint hum of the overhead projector. You'd checked your phone a dozen times during breaks, thumb hovering over the app that bridged your worlds, but classes had chained you down group discussions on energy models, a pop quiz that demanded focus you could barely muster.

Now, free at last, the weight lifted as you watched his reply pop up, that familiar humor wrapping around the screen like a comforting arm. A soft laugh escaped you, easing the tension in your shoulders, the room's clutter textbooks piled like fallen stars, a forgotten hoodie draped over the chair fading into the background.

“Breakthroughs? Nah, just survived a debate on quantum entanglement without dozing off. Your antenna drama sounds way more exciting. Jealous of the stars yet?”

His chuckle rumbled low in the module, vibrating through the bulkhead as he read it, the prototype humming to life beside him with a series of affirming beeps. Jealous? Of the stars? He was jealous of the desk that got to feel your elbows propped on it, the air that carried your sighs. But he kept it light, fingers flying.

“Stars are overrated, cold and distant. I made something. A prototype. Video feed's primed. Hoping to bridge the faceless words, want to try?”

Your breath hitched, the sun warming your cheeks as you stared at the words, anticipation coiling slow and sweet in your belly. The room felt smaller, more alive, the distant murmur of campus life outside your window a faint underscore to the pull toward him.

“Show me the cosmos, Ryland.”

The feed flickered to life with a hesitant shimmer, the hue blooming across your laptop screen like the first tentative strokes of dawn on a frost kissed windowpane. Pixels danced and settled, resolving your image into crystalline clarity against the cluttered sanctuary of your room the walls a patchwork of faded posters constellations mapped in marker ink, band logos peeling at the corners from the relentless humidity of late nights and the soft, diffused glow of a desk lamp casting elongated shadows that played across the rumpled sheets of your unmade bed.

The air in your space hung heavy with the mingled scents of instant noodles cooling in a bowl nearby, the faint citrus tang of your shampoo lingering from an earlier shower, and the earthy scent of rain soaked soil drifting in through the cracked window, where the dying sun painted the horizon in strokes of molten orange and bruised violet. In this pocket of solitude, the world contracted to the intimate glow of the screen, your reflection staring back with wide eyes framed by tousled hair, catching the light like threads of spun copper.

He felt the ship's systems hum beneath him like a living entity, the steady vibration of the life support recyclers thrumming through the deck plating and into his bones, a constant reminder of the fragile bubble separating him from the indifferent vacuum beyond the reinforced viewports.

The console before him bathed his face in cool blue light, etching sharp contrasts along the rugged lines of his features. The faint stubble shadowing his jaw a little more darker, the creases at the corners of his eyes deepened by years of squinting into telescopes and troubleshooting engines under the relentless sun. He was older than you'd imagined, not the boyish hero of news reels, but a man weathered by time and trials, his frame solid and unyielding in the confines of the harness that kept him anchored amid the weightless drift. The white 'Horse Shoe Bend Auto Club' shirt, a relic from his pre mission days, stretched across his chest, the fabric softened by countless cycles through a washing machine, its faded lettering a testament to simpler times spent wrenching on carburetors and swapping stories over cold beers. It clung to him in the recycled air, hinting at the breadth of his shoulders, the subtle play of tendons in his neck as he swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing with the force of the moment.

You were taken aback, your breath hitching in your throat as his image sharpened the way his messy hair, threaded with silver at the temples, curled slightly at the ends from the humidity controls fighting a losing battle against his natural waves. He looked at you not with the polished detachment of a broadcast interview, but with raw, unguarded surprise, his blue eyes framed with gold from his glasses like distant stars widening as they traced the soft contours of your face, the gentle slope of your shoulders beneath the oversized hoodie that swallowed you whole.

You wondered, in that electric instant, if the age between you registered for him as a chasm or a curiosity if a man who'd stared down the apocalypse could find something stirring in the fresh bloom of your youth, the unscarred optimism that still clung to you like morning dew. The thought sent a flush creeping up your neck, warm and insistent, making you shift in your chair, the wooden legs scraping softly against the linoleum floor, a sound swallowed by the sudden roar of your pulse in your ears.

He, too, reeled from the impact, his hand tightening on the armrest until the synthetic leather creaked under his grip. The void outside the porthole seemed to press closer, the starfield a glittering abyss that paled against the warmth radiating from your pixelated form. He'd pictured you in fragments during the text exchanges, clever fingers flying over keys, a mind sharp as a laser probe but this? This was visceral, the way your lips parted slightly in surprise, the faint blush that ghosted your cheeks when you smiled tentatively, the subtle rise and fall of your chest mirroring his own quickened breaths. Desire flickered low in his gut, unbidden and fierce, tempered by the tenderness of seeing you real, human, alive in a way the sterile confines of his ship had begun to erode. The air recyclers whispered on, circulating the faint metallic tang of the cabin, but it couldn't dispel the heat building between you, a tension coiling like a spring in the ether.

“Oh. Wow.” He breathed, blinking rapidly, like each blink took a photo of you. The words escaping in a gravelly rush, roughened by disuse and the dry swallow of recycled oxygen, carrying across the universe with a vulnerability that made your skin prickle. “I didn’t expect you to be pretty.” His voice wrapped around the admission like smoke from a dying fire, warm and hazy, laced with that understated awe that made your heart clench.

The connection stuttered then, a cascade of digital interference fracturing the feed into a mosaic of static snow, your image dissolving into abstract bursts of color before reforming with a reluctant snap. The interruption amplified the intimacy, leaving his confession to reverberate in the suspended silence, the air in your room thickening as if the very atmosphere held its breath. Your fingers dug into the edge of the desk, nails biting into the scarred wood, as a laugh bubbled up nervously, disbelieving to bridge the gap.

“What?” you managed, the single word laced with a breathy edge, your eyes searching his through the renewed clarity, the flush deepening to a bloom across your cheeks and neck.

He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated through the speakers like distant thunder rolling over parched earth, his free hand rising to scrub at the back of his neck in a gesture so endearingly human it tugged at something deep within you. The motion pulled the shirt taut across his torso, outlining the steady strength beneath, and when his gaze returned to yours, it carried a spark of that wry humor, a deflection wrapped in genuine warmth that eased the raw edge without extinguishing the spark.

“You know,” His tone dipping into a conspiratorial murmur, as if sharing a secret in the hush of a crowded room, “You never told me your name.” The question hung there, simple yet profound, a thread pulling you closer across the cosmic divide.

You offered it up then, your name spilling from your lips in a soft cadence, the vowels rounding with the subtle inflection of your voice, carrying the everyday rhythm of late night confessions and half remembered dreams. It felt intimate, exposing, like baring the curve of your collarbone in the dim light.

He repeated it slowly, almost reverently, the syllables tumbling over his tongue as if testing their weight, savoring the shape of them like a rare melody plucked from the silence of space. His head tilted in a languid nod, the console lights catching the faint sheen of sweat at his hairline, and his eyes softened, crinkling at the edges with a smile that reached deep. “I like that name.” The words a gentle caress, evoking the imagined brush of callused fingers along your jaw, steady and unhurried.

“Thanks?” The confusion lifting at the end in a playful lilt, but your gaze betrayed the undercurrent the way it lingered on the faint laugh lines framing his mouth, the silver strands that only amplified his appeal, transforming him from a distant icon into a man of tangible depth, worlds removed from the tentative explorations of your past entanglements.

The sun outside your window surrendered fully now, its final rays bleeding into the deepening twilight, the sky shifting from fiery amber to a velvet indigo laced with the first hesitant stars. The room cooled gradually, the air carrying the crisp bite of evening, mingling with the faint vanilla from a forgotten candle on your shelf, as campus lights winked on like fireflies awakening in the gathering dusk. Your world funneled to him. The subtle shift of his harness as he leaned forward, the way his breath fogged the camera lens ever so slightly before the filters cleared it, syncing with your own in a rhythm that pulsed with unspoken invitation.

From that precipice, the conversation unfurled like a solar sail catching the wind effortless, expansive, delving into the marrow of your existences with a hunger born of isolation. You wove tales of Earth's chaotic tapestry. The symphony of rain pattering on awning metal during unexpected downpours, the electric buzz of a lecture hall alive with the scratch of pens and the mumble of half formed ideas, the quiet triumph of debugging code until the screen bloomed with success, lines of green text like verdant fields after drought.

He reciprocated with the stark poetry of the cosmos the silken whisper of astrophage samples swirling in zero g containment, the bitter edge of ramen chased with the synthetic tang of rationed fruit, the profound stillness broken only by the occasional ping of incoming data, a lifeline to a world he'd left behind. Laughter threaded through the exchange, dry and effervescent. Your anecdote about a professor whose monotone rivaled the ship's autopilot drawing a bark of genuine mirth from him, his recounting of a toolkit revolt in microgravity tools orbiting like mischievous satellites prompting your unrestrained peal that echoed in the empty module, warming the chill metal walls.

Tension simmered beneath the surface, a slow building heat that manifested in stolen glances held too long. The arc of your neck as you tilted your head in thought, exposed and inviting; the flex of his forearm as he adjusted a dial absentmindedly, veins standing in stark relief against skin.

Pauses stretched, laden with potential the brush of your fingertips near the keyboard, echoing the hover of his over the console, as if proximity could transmute into touch, dissolving the barriers of light speed lag and impenetrable hulls.

Chemistry crackled in the ether, electric and undeniable, each shared vulnerability a spark igniting the fuse. His quiet admission of doubting his heroism, your confession of nights spent staring at ceilings, wondering if ambition was just another form of running.

Midnight encroached on silken feet, the sun's embers long extinguished, leaving the sky outside a profound black pricked with constellations that seemed to lean in, eavesdropping on your unraveling. Your room transformed into a cocoon of shadows, the laptop's glow the sole beacon, illuminating the faint freckles across your nose, the way your eyelids grew heavy yet reluctant to close.

The air grew thicker, laced with the subtle musk of your skin warmed by the screen's radiation, the tick of the wall clock a metronome to your deepening bond. You'd peeled back layers in those stolen hours his boyhood dreams of racing across open deserts, soured by the weight of global salvation; your tangled fears of mediocrity in a field of giants, the ache of empty weekends in a city that pulsed without you.

It was as if you'd mapped each other's constellations, the scars of old heartbreaks, the north stars of unspoken hopes, etched into the digital stream with a precision that felt fated.

“I wish I would’ve met you sooner,” Your words emerging raw and unarmored, threading through the speakers like a fragile comet's tail, curling around him in the frigid expanse of his cabin. The confession bore the sting of regret, the moon's pallid light now slipping through your blinds in silvery ribbons, tracing cool paths along your arms and the curve of your exposed wrist.

His face shadowed subtly, the overhead lights carving hollows beneath his cheekbones, his expression a mosaic of longing and restraint. He shifted in his seat, drawing your eye to the steady rise of his chest.

Leaning closer, his gaze ensnared yours with an intensity that made the air between screens hum with latent energy, a magnetic pull defying the physics of distance. “No you don’t,” He countered, shaking his head, his voice a velvet rumble, firm yet laced with that self effacing wit that masked deeper truths. “I was a loser on Earth. Still am now, but a cool loser since not everyone goes to space.” The joke landed with feather light grace, a humorous veil over the vulnerability, but his eyes, those storm tossed seas reflecting the infinite black held fast, the chemistry between you igniting like a flare in the void, drawing you inexorably nearer.

The question rose unbidden, heavy as the gathering night, your voice fracturing on its edges like thin ice underfoot. “Are you ever coming back?” It lingered in the midnight hush, the laptop's fan whirring a frantic dirge, the battery icon pulsing crimson in accusation, the raw plea etched in the lines of your face, the parted lips, the wide eyed hope warring with dread.

Silence bloomed, profound and eloquent, his jaw clenching with a faint tic of muscle, the unspoken verdict settling like cosmic dust in the wake of a supernova, no, not in the way that mattered, the mission's inexorable tide pulling him further into the dark.

His hand ascended slowly, deliberately, palm pressing against the lab tables unyielding surface in a mirror to your own gesture, fingers splaying wide as if to bridge the gulf, to feel the phantom warmth of your skin. The yearning in that motion was palpable, a tender ache that twisted toward something fiercer, more primal the imagined press of bodies, breaths mingling in shared orbit.

Then the feed rebelled, pixels splintering into chaotic fractals, the audio distorting into a mournful keen as the power reserves faltered. “Wait!” Lunging forward, but darkness claimed the screen in an abrupt quench, the room plunging into inky repose broken only by the faint glow of your phone on the nightstand.

The laptop's chassis radiated a dying warmth against your thighs, the absence of his voice a visceral void, like the sudden chill of winter wind stripping away summer's embrace. You remained frozen, gaze fixed on the blank void, the echo of his timbre haunting the shadows, your chest tight with the bloom of an infatuation both foolish and fervent a crush on a specter glimpsed in fleeting frames, his rough hewn allure and quiet strength stirring yearnings you'd scarcely named.

Childish, the doubt whispered, curling in your gut like smoke; he'd never cross that threshold, never trace the lines of your form with hands that knew the spin of wrenches and the spin of fate. Did he harbor the same shadowed interest, that blend of carnal pull and soul deep affinity? The uncertainty gnawed, sharp as asteroid grit, yet beneath it flickered defiance. Miracles unfolded daily in this universe, worlds saved from invisible foes, signals piercing the black. Why not yours?

The night enveloped you, stars indifferent sentinels beyond the glass, but in the quiet aftermath, you savored the residue, the flavor of your name on his lips, the tether of connection enduring like a persistent signal in the cosmic noise.

Your eyelids fluttered open to the insistent trill of your alarm, a synthetic birdsong the faint scent of brewing coffee wafting under the door like a promise of normalcy. But normalcy felt fractured, your mind still adrift in the echo of his voice, that gravelly timbre wrapping around your name like a secret shared in the hush of predawn. The laptop sat dormant on your desk, its screen a blank mirror reflecting the disarray, scattered notes on astrophage trajectories, an empty mug ringed with the dregs of yesterday's tea, and the faint outline of your handprint on the edge where you'd gripped it too tightly during the feed's final sputter.

You pushed yourself up, the mattress creaking under your weight, sheets tangling around your legs like reluctant lovers. A glance at the clock confirmed the inevitable. Class in under an hour, and the gnawing realization hit like a rogue asteroid. Your project submission, the predictive model for satellite data integration, was due at the start of lecture.

Panic bloomed in your chest, sharp and cold, mingling with the stale air of the room, heavy with the remnants of unwashed laundry piled in the corner. You'd been so consumed by the digital tether to him, those hours dissolving into a haze of laughter and confessions, that the real world had blurred at the edges. No model rendered, no simulations run just the ghost of his smile lingering in your thoughts, the way his eyes had crinkled with that wry amusement, pulling you deeper into an orbit you couldn't escape.

The campus unfolded around you in a symphony of routine as you hurried across the groups, backpack slung over one shoulder, the crisp air nipping at your exposed skin and carrying the earthy perfume of fallen leaves crunching underfoot. Students clustered in animated knots, steam rising from paper cups clutched against the chill, their voices a babel of exam woes and weekend plans that felt worlds away from the cosmic intimacy you'd tasted. Your breath came in visible puffs, syncing with the quickened beat of your heart, each step a reminder of the secret humming beneath your surface like a hidden engine, propelling you forward while whispering of distances unbridgeable.

The lecture hall loomed at the end of the engineering building, its brutalist concrete facade softened by ivy creeping up the walls in defiant green tendrils. Inside, the air hummed with the low buzz of fluorescent lights and the shuffle of bodies settling into tiered seats, the scent of chalk dust and overheated electronics thickening the atmosphere.

You slipped into your usual spot near the front, the worn armrest cool against your palm, but before you could even unzip your bag, a shadow fell across your desk. Professor Hale was tall and angular, with wire rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and a perpetual furrow etched between his brows hovered there, his tweed jacket shedding faint motes of lint like stars from a disintegrating galaxy.

"A word?" His voice was measured, carrying the quiet authority of someone who'd mentored prodigies and watched them falter. He gestured toward the side aisle, away from the gathering crowd, and you rose on numb legs, the scrape of your chair echoing like an accusation in the relative quiet.

The hallway beyond the doors was a narrow vein of linoleum, fluorescent strips overhead casting a sterile glow that washed out the colors of your shirt, making the world feel two dimensional. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, the fabric of his sleeves whispering against the cinderblock as he fixed you with a gaze that probed without malice, curious, concerned, laced with the disappointment of unmet expectations.

"You've always been one of my sharpest," Tone even, like the steady drip of a faucet in an empty room. The words landed softly, but they stirred the knot in your stomach, twisting it tighter. The narrow window, a pigeon fluttered against the glass, its wings a frantic blur before it veered away into the gray sky.

"Your work on the energy harnessing algorithms last semester? Brilliant. Predictive models that anticipated variables the rest of the class hadn't even touched. So, when I didn't see your submission this morning well, it's unlike you. Everything alright? Personal issues? Overloaded schedule?"

Heat crept up your neck, not from shame but from the proximity of the truth you'd buried deep the nights blurred into one endless conversation, Ryland's dorky jokes cutting through your isolation like a laser through fog, his confessions drawing out your own in a vulnerable dance that left you breathless. You could picture him now, adrift in the Hail Mary's confines, perhaps staring at his own console, wondering if the silence meant you'd drifted away. The thought sent a pang through you, sharp as the chill seeping from the floor tiles, but admitting it? To spill the secret of a man light years distant, a hero whose solitude mirrored your own in ways that felt fated? No, that was a bridge too far, a vulnerability that could unravel everything.

You swallowed, forcing a smile that felt brittle at the edges, your fingers twisting the strap of your backpack until the nylon bit into your skin. "Just... got caught up in some tweaks," The lie slipping out smooth as recycled oxygen, laced with just enough technical jargon to ring true. “The satellite data feeds were glitchier than expected astrophage interference patterns throwing off the baselines. I was iterating on a workaround late into the night, and time slipped away."

Hale’s eyes narrowed slightly, the lines around them deepening like craters under scrutiny, but he nodded, the gesture slow and appraising. The hallway echoed with the distant murmur of the lecture beginning without you, voices rising in a crescendo of rustling papers and the professor's opening remarks filtering through the door like muffled thunder. "I get it, passion projects can eclipse deadlines. But talent like yours doesn't excuse sloppiness. Mock something up by the end of the day? A variant model, perhaps? Focus on the core outputs energy yield projections, tracking efficacy. No need for the full integration if you're still refining. Just show me you're still in the game."

Relief washed over you, cool and fleeting, as he clapped a hand on your shoulder firm, paternal, the warmth of his palm seeping through your hoodie like a brief anchor to the tangible world. "Don't let it slide again," his voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble, the faintest hint of a smile cracking his stern facade. "The field's cutthroat enough without self sabotage."

He turned then, the door swinging open with a hydraulic sigh, admitting a gust of warmer air scented with dry erase markers and the faint mechanical smell of projectors.

You lingered in the hallway a beat longer, the cool wall pressing against your back, grounding you as your mind raced ahead. A mock up simple enough. Pivot to a terrestrial simulation, repurpose public datasets on solar flares and algal blooms, fabricate the outputs to mirror the required details without dipping into the live feeds that had led you to him.

No risk of pinging Ryland's systems, no accidental breach that could sever the fragile thread between you. The harm in secrecy? None, you told yourself, the words a mantra against the flutter in your chest. It was yours a private constellation, unmarred by scrutiny or protocol. Professors pried into code, not hearts; they mapped algorithms, not the quiet ache of longing for a voice across the void.

Back in your seat, the lecture blurred into a haze of equations scrawled on the board, chalk dust swirling in the projector beam like nebulae birthing stars. Your notebook filled with sketches, but beneath it all simmered the undercurrent the memory of his laugh, low and rumbling, evoking the imagined brush of his fingers along your arm, steady and unhurried.

By afternoon, in the dim glow of the computer lab keyboards clacking, the air humming with the whir of cooling fans you pieced together the facade. Lines of code flowed under your fingertips, elegant and deceptive, yielding graphs of projected efficiencies that danced on the screen in vibrant blues and greens, echoing the real without invoking it.

As the sun dipped low, casting long shadows across the quad through the lab's windows, you hit submit, the confirmation chime a hollow victory. No mention of the man who'd stolen your focus, his image flickering in your mind's eye the silver at his temples catching the console light, the subtle strength in his jaw as he leaned into the camera, eyes holding yours with a gravity that defied energy. The secret nestled safe, a warm ember against the encroaching dusk, promising more stolen moments in the quiet hours when the world slept and the stars aligned just for you.

The door to your apartment clicked shut behind you with a soft, definitive thud, sealing out the clamor of the evening campus, the distant laughter of students spilling, the rustle of wind through skeletal oaks, and the faint, acrid tang of exhaust from the shuttle bus rumbling away.

Your backpack hit the floor with a muffled thump, keys jangling as they followed, and you exhaled, the tension of the day uncoiling like a spring finally released. The room enveloped you in its familiar hush the faint hum of the fridge in the corner, the subtle creak of floorboards settling under your weight, and the lingering scent of vanilla from the candle you'd burned last night, now a waxy stub on the windowsill.

Twilight bled into indigo, streetlamps flickering to life like hesitant stars, casting elongated shadows across the rumpled bed where your thoughts had wandered all day back to him, to the gravel in his voice, the way his presence filled the screen like a gravitational pull you couldn't resist.

You sank onto the edge of the mattress, the springs sighing in protest, and fired up the laptop with fingers that trembled just slightly from the anticipation. The screen bloomed to life, its glow warming your face in the dimming room, and you initiated the call without a second thought.

All day, through the drone of lectures and the frantic tap of keys in the lab, he'd been a constant undercurrent a stolen glance at your phone during break, imagining his wry smile; the brush of your thigh against the desk as you pictured his hand there instead, steady and warm.

The connection stabilized with a familiar chime, pixels resolving into the confines of the ship that stark, utilitarian cockpit bathed in the soft light of control panels, the hum a perpetual whisper in the background like the ship's own restless breath.

Ryland appeared, framed by the camera's unyielding eye, and your heart stuttered at the sight of him. He was slouched in his lab chair, a black I Had Potential shirt clinging to his frame in a way that spoke of too many hours in space, the fabric rumpled and faded, hugging the breadth of his shoulders and the subtle definition of his chest.

His hair was disarray, as if he'd run a hand through it one too many times, and dark stubble growing, giving him that rugged edge that made your pulse quicken. But there was something off his eyes, usually sharp with that calculated precision, darted sideways with a mix of exasperation and something almost like glee. The ship looked... different. Cluttered. Hoses and makeshift contraptions snaked across the console, and in the corner of the frame, a peculiar setup glinted under the lights a small, rocky outcrop secured in what looked like a hamster ball habitat, light reflecting against the glass panes.

“Hey.” His voice crackling through the speakers with that warm, lived in timbre that wrapped around you like a blanket fresh from the dryer. A grin tugged at his lips, but it was lopsided, edged with the absurdity of whatever chaos had unfolded. “You look like you survived the academic trenches. How's Earth treating its favorite hacker?”

You laughed, the sound bubbling up unbidden, easing the knot in your chest as you leaned closer to the screen, propping your chin on your hand. The room around you faded the glow of the laptop, the only anchor, pulling you into his world. “Barely. Classes were a blur. But you... you look like you've had one hell of a day. What's with the mad scientist vibe? And that shirt is a bold choice for a guy who's supposed to be saving the galaxy.”

He chuckled, low and rumbling, rubbing the back of his neck in that nervous way that made your stomach flip. The motion drew your eye to the flex of his forearm, veins tracing paths under skin, and you bit your lip against the warmth spreading through you. “Oh, this old thing? Figured it was fitting. Also my irrational fear happened.” He paused for effect, his gaze locking onto yours through the feed, that spark of shared mischief igniting something deeper, a quiet thrill that hummed between you like static electricity. “Turns out, I'm not alone up here anymore. Meet Rocky.”

He shifted the camera with a casual swivel, angling it toward the habitat. There, in the lab, was... a rock. Not just any rock an alien, Erid spawned entity, its surface etched with faint, iridescent patterns that caught the light like bioluminescent veins. If you squinted, you could almost swear it pulsed with a subtle rhythm, alive in its foreign simplicity.

Ryland's voice dropped to a mock serious tone, laced with that dry humor that always pulled a smile from you. “Rocky, this is... well, my friend from Earth. The one who's been keeping me from going crazy.”

A series of clicks and chirps emanated from the speakers of Rocky's communication, translated in real time by whatever kludged software Ryland had whipped up. The rock bobbed slightly, as if nodding, and the audio rendered it into a gravelly, synthesized voice that sounded suspiciously like a chain smoker who'd seen better days. “Friend? From Earth? Is girlfriend?”

Ryland froze, his face flushing a shade that clashed hilariously with the black shirt, eyes widening like he'd been caught with his hand in the astrophage jar. He coughed, straightening up abruptly, the chair creaking under him as he fumbled for words. “Whoa, hey, no Rocky, buddy, pump the brakes. She's a friend. A colleague, even. You know, the kind who hacks into spaceships and saves lonely astronauts from themselves.”

His gaze flicked back to you, apologetic but twinkling with embarrassment, and the awkwardness only amplified the charm the way his ears pinked at the tips, the quick rake of fingers through his hair. It was cute, so much so that pierced the cosmic divide, making your chest ache with affection.

You couldn't help the giggle that escaped, covering your mouth as heat bloomed in your cheeks, mirroring his. The compatibility hit you then, sharp and sweet. His fumbling honesty bouncing off your easy laughter, weaving a thread that felt unbreakable despite the void. “Girlfriend, huh? Rocky's got better intuition than NASA, apparently.” Your voice teased, light and playful, but underneath thrummed the truth the pull toward him growing with every shared absurdity, every glance that lingered a beat too long.

Ryland groaned, but it dissolved into a laugh, genuine and freeing, his shoulders shaking as he leaned back, the tension easing from his frame. “Ignore him. Rocky's new to Earth lingo thinks every conversation's a rom com plot. But seriously, today's been a trip. Woke up to him commandeering the ship, rerouting power like he owns the place. Took over the entire vessel before I could even eat my ramen.” He gestured vaguely at the habitat, where Rocky emitted a series of smug chirps. “Rocky efficient. Human slow.” Ryland shot it a mock glare. “See? Cocky little gravel pit. But he's brilliant figured out astrophage tweaks I hadn't even dreamed of. Saved my ass, really.”

The way he talked about it, animated and alive, eyes lighting up as he described the chaos, the sparks from overloaded circuits, the frantic rigging in the dim glow of emergency lights drew you in deeper. You could picture him in that shirt, brow furrowed in concentration, a bead of sweat tracing down his temple. The image stirred something tender and heated, a slow simmer of desire tempered by the genuine spark of his mind, so like yours in its relentless curiosity. “Sounds like you've got a companion now. I’m jealous, my day's highlight was faking a model to cover for forgetting my homework because someone kept me up too late last night.” Your words carried a flirtatious hint, testing the waters, and his responding grin slowly, knowing sent a shiver down your spine.

“Guilty as charged.” Voice dropping an octave, the awkwardness from moments ago forgotten in the warmth of your rhythm. Rocky chirped again, oblivious, but neither of you paid it mind. In that suspended moment, with the ship's hum syncing to the quiet rhythm of your breaths, the distance felt illusory.

The glitch in the feed was a fleeting hiccup, a momentary stutter in the digital tether that bound you across the cosmos, but it served only to heighten the reluctance threading through Ryland's voice. He reached out instinctively, his fingers brushing the console as if he could steady the connection with sheer will. “Come on, don't bail on us now.” The words half to the screen, half to the indifferent machinery. The image sharpened again, your face reappearing in the warm lamplight of your dorm, eyes bright with amusement at his plea.

You tilted your head, a playful smirk tugging at your lips, the loose strands of your hair catching the light like threads of starlight. “Us? Already a package deal with the rock? I feel honored.” The words carried a teasing jest, and Ryland's flush deepened, but he recovered with a grin, the kind that crinkled the fine lines around his eyes and made the isolation of his ship feel a touch less vast.

Rocky's enclosure hummed to life in the background, the bioluminescent glow intensifying as if the alien were leaning in, his translated voice rumbling through the speakers with that gravelly edge part curiosity, part mischief. “Package? Like cargo? Humans bundle everything. Girlfriend cargo?” The question landed like a well timed asteroid, blunt and unfiltered, and Ryland's head snapped toward the shelf, his expression a mix of exasperation and reluctant fondness.

“Rocky!“ He pinched the bridge of his nose, walking and putting a foot against the bulkhead. The motion pulled his shirt taut across his shoulders, a subtle reminder of the body beneath the fabric, honed by necessity in this confined world.

You couldn't help the bubble of laughter that escaped, covering your mouth with one hand as your shoulders shook. The sound echoed softly in your room, mingling with the distant patter of rain against the windowpane, grounding you even as your pulse quickened at the easy camaraderie unfolding. “Girlfriend cargo? That's a new one. Rocky, if I'm cargo, do I get hazard pay?” You leaned forward, elbows on the desk, the sweater's soft weave brushing your arms, drawing his eyes for a fraction longer than necessary.

The rock's lights pulsed in what you imagined was delight, a series of rapid chirps translating into a dry chuckle. “Hazard? Space full hazards. But you fix code valuable cargo. Grace needs fixing too. Always bumping walls.” Ryland let out a bark of laughter, genuine and unrestrained, the sound reverberating through the feed like a warm current, chasing away the chill of the recycled air on his end.

“Those bumps are character building!” he protested, gesturing animatedly, his hands cutting through the air in exaggerated arcs. “And for the record, Rocky's the one who turned the nav console into his personal scratching post earlier. Scratched right through a diagnostic panel. I spent hours patching it while he supervised from the corner.” He shot the enclosure a sideways glance, mock accusatory, but the affection in his tone was unmistakable the way it softened at the edges, revealing the bond forged in the fire of survival.

Rocky didn't miss a beat, his response a smug vibration that the translator rendered with impeccable sarcasm. “Supervise efficient. You patch slow. Like human glue sticky mess.” You watched Ryland's face light up with indignation, his lips parting in a feigned scoff, and the sight sent a flutter through your chest, the banter pulling you deeper into their world, making the stars between you feel negotiable.

“Oh, come on, that's rich coming from the guy who glued his own sensor to the wall trying to improve the humidity levels.” You chimed in, your voice laced with mischief, drawing from the snippets Ryland had shared in texts the chaotic domesticity of sharing a ship with an extraterrestrial engineer. “What was it you called it? Optimal moisture matrix?” The reference hit its mark; Ryland's eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in playful retaliation, a spark of delight flashing across his features.

“You been paying attention, huh?” He drifted closer to the camera, the console's glow casting shadows that accentuated the stubble along his jaw, the subtle tension in his frame as he held your gaze. “Yeah, optimal disaster is more like it. Woke up to the whole habitat smelling like a wet cave. Rocky's idea of romance, apparently.” The word romance hung for a beat, unintended weight in it, and Rocky's lights flickered curiously.

“Romance? Like human bundling? You two bundle across stars?” The rock's innocence or was it calculated? ignited another round of laughter from you, your cheeks warming under the screen's scrutiny. Ryland groaned theatrically, running a hand through his hair, tousling it further into that effortlessly disheveled state that made your fingers itch to smooth it back.

“Rocky, buddy, you're killing me here. No bundling. Just... good conversation. The kind that makes a long haul feel shorter.” His voice dipped, sincere beneath the deflection, eyes locking with yours in a way that bridged the delay, conveying the quiet truth this exchange, this trio of voices weaving through the void, was mending something in him, stitch by invisible stitch.

You nodded, the moment shifting from levity to something softer, your fingers tracing idle patterns on the desk, the wood cool and familiar under your touch. “I like the bundling theory, though. Makes the distance seem... collaborative. Like we're all in this asteroid field together.” The words carried a gentle invitation, and Ryland's expression eased, a small smile curving his mouth as he absorbed it.

Rocky, ever the opportunist, rumbled approvingly. “Collaborative good. Bundle fixes ship.” The bluntness sliced through the tenderness, eliciting a chorus of chuckles, yours bright and breathless, Ryland's low and rumbling, the harmony of it echoing in the speakers like a shared pulse.

“Alright, philosopher rock, let the humans breathe,” Ryland said, though his tone brimmed with warmth, reaching over to tap the enclosure lightly, eliciting a series of indignant clicks. “Breathing inefficient. Talking better.” But the lights dimmed slightly, Rocky retreating to his observations, leaving the space for the two of you once more.

The banter had woven a new layer of ease between you, the call stretching onward as the rain outside your window intensified, drumming a rhythmic backdrop to your words. Ryland shared more tales of Rocky's antics the time the alien had reprogrammed the alarm to blare Erid hymns at dawn, or how he'd borrowed Ryland's last protein bar, mistaking it for a geological sample. You countered with cafeteria experiments that rivaled Rocky's culinary critiques.

Through it all, the undercurrent thrummed glances that lingered on the curve of a smile, the way his voice roughened when he spoke of quieter fears, your own admissions slipping out like confessions under starlight. Rocky's occasional interjections kept the levity alive, a gravitational pull keeping the conversation from tipping too far into the profound too soon.

As the hours waned, the feed's stability faltered again, the sun cresting on your horizon and painting your room in dawn's soft hues. Ryland's face, etched with the reluctance of parting, filled the screen one last time. “This... it's better than I imagined. Don't be a stranger.”

“I won't.” You promised, the words a vow etched in the quiet spaces between. The connection faded, but the echoes of laughter, the warmth of shared absurdity, lingered a constellation of its own, guiding you both through the dark.

The following day unfolded in a haze of ordinary tedium on your end of lectures droning through the haze of a too strong coffee, the relentless tap of keys on half finished assignments, and the quiet ache of absence that settled in your chest like uninvited fog. Your room felt smaller without the glow of the screen, the rain from the night before giving way to a crisp chill that seeped through the window cracks. You checked the connection sporadically, half expecting a ping, but the void remained silent, leaving you to wonder if the stars had swallowed the fragile thread between you.

When evening finally draped its shadows over campus, you initiated the call, the familiar hum of the prototype filling the room like a heartbeat. The feed crackled to life, Ryland's face materializing in the dim light of his habitat, the white fat cat shirt clinging to the subtle contours of his frame, shadows playing across the stubble that had grown a fraction thicker. His eyes, though, carried a weariness edged with that irrepressible spark, and behind him, Rocky's enclosure pulsed with a subdued rhythm, as if the alien sensed the shift in the air.

“Hey.” A low rumble that cut through the static, pulling a relieved smile from you despite the knot of anticipation in your stomach. He leaned forward, elbows on the console, the motion drawing your gaze to the way his fingers drummed idly a habit born of confinement, you suspected. “Missed this. Been a long one.”

You settled into your chair, the worn fabric sighing under you, the lamp's warm halo framing your face as you tucked a stray lock behind your ear. “Same here. Quiet day, but... yeah. How's the chaos holding up?” The words carried a lightness you forced, but his answering grin softened the edges, making the distance feel like a mere illusion.

Ryland exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck, the gesture exposing a sliver of skin at his collar that sent an unwelcome flutter through you as it always does. “Chaos is an understatement. I... I don't know if I can keep this up with Rocky. The rock's driving me up the wall.” He glanced sideways at the enclosure, where a faint glow stirred, as if eavesdropping. “Yesterday, he decides my quarters need inspection. Bounces around well, rolls, I guess poking into every corner. Asks if it's the garbage room because it's 'a little dirty.' A little! I've got limited supplies out here, and he's treating it like a biohazard zone.”

The image painted was absurdly vivid Ryland trailing after the pebbled intruder, exasperated pleas echoing in the confined space. You bit back a laugh, but it escaped in a soft huff, your fingers twisting the hem of your sweater. “Garbage room? That's... thorough. Did he reorganize your sock drawer too?”

“Worse.” Ryland groaned, but amusement laced the sound, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “He starts questioning the whole setup. Why the mess? Why the solitude? And then get this he hits me with, “don’t understand why she talks to you. Grace ugly. She's pretty. Incompatible.'' He mimicked the translator's gravelly tone with exaggerated bluntness, his face flushing a deep crimson that spread to his ears, the color stark against the pallor of recycled air life.

Your breath caught, heat blooming in your cheeks as the words sank in Rocky's unfiltered alien logic slicing through the banter like a comet's tail. Ryland's gaze locked onto yours through the screen, vulnerable and searching, the humor fading into something rawer, more exposed. He swallowed, the line of his throat working visibly, and leaned in closer, the console's edge pressing into his forearms. “So... do you? Think I'm ugly? I mean, out here, with the beard that's more scruff than style and the ramen weight starting to show, to be honest.”

The question hung, charged and intimate, the digital lag amplifying the tension until it thrummed like a live wire. Your heart stuttered, flustered warmth flooding you as you met his eyes, those expressive blue depths that held galaxies of doubt and hope. “Definitely not,” You blurted, the words tumbling out in a rush, your voice softer than intended, laced with a sincerity that made your pulse race. You shifted, the chair creaking faintly, aware of how your free hand clenched in your lap, the fabric of your jeans rough under your nails. “You’re... far from it, Ryland. The beard suits you. Makes you look... real. Approachable. Handsome, even.” The admission slipped free, hanging between you like a shared secret, your gaze dropping briefly to your hands before lifting again, emboldened by the way his expression softened, a slow smile curving his lips.

He let out a breathy chuckle, relief etching lines of ease across his features, and turned toward the enclosure with a triumphant tilt of his chin. “You hear that, Rocky? She says definitely not. Handsome, even. Take notes, buddy Earth compliments are a thing.”

The rock's lights flared in a cascade of blues and greens, the translator kicking in with a rumbling huff that bordered on indignant. “Heard. Humans blind? Or kind? Incompatible still. Pretty talks to ugly, mystery.” Rocky's response elicited a bark of laughter from Ryland, his head tipping back, the sound rich and unrestrained, vibrating through the speakers and wrapping around you like a warm embrace. You joined in, the shared absurdity easing the flush from your skin, though the undercurrent of his gaze lingered, heavy with unspoken layers.

As the laughter ebbed, Ryland's demeanor shifted, the playfulness giving way to a quieter intensity. He straightened, drifting slightly in the low gravity, his fingers tracing the edge of the console absentmindedly. “Speaking of mysteries... I've been turning this over in my head. Your hypothesis the pathlink tweaks, the algae models. Why haven't you handed it off to the government? They could run with it, get teams on it. You're onto something big here.” His tone was gentle, probing without pressure, eyes steady on yours, reflecting the soft glow of his instruments like distant stars.

You hesitated, the room's quiet amplifying the weight of the moment the distant hum of campus life outside your window a faint counterpoint to the vast silence of space. Leaning forward, you felt the cool air brush your skin, grounding you as you met his concern head on. “I don't trust them, Ryland. Not fully. They've got their agendas, their protocols, and... what if it gets buried? Or twisted? You've seen how they operate from up close.” The words carried the bitterness of late night doubts, your fingers interlacing on the desk, knuckles whitening briefly.

He nodded slowly, the motion thoughtful, his brow furrowing in that way that made you want to reach through the screen and smooth it away. “Yeah... I get that. More than you'd think. They sent me out here as the Hail Mary, literally. But even if you did give them the pathlink, it wouldn't change much for me. I'm still drifting, still the one who has to implement it. No one's on Earth gonna bridge this gap like I can no matter how many instructions I beam down. It's me or... nothing.” His voice dipped, laced with the quiet resignation of his reality, but there was a flicker of gratitude in his eyes, as if your reluctance mirrored his own isolation, binding you tighter.

The admission settled between you, tender and profound, the banter's levity yielding to this deeper accord. Rocky's enclosure hummed softly in the background, a silent witness, as Ryland's gaze held yours, the connection pulsing with a warmth that defied the cold void. “Thanks for... seeing it that way. Makes me feel less like a ghost out here.”

You smiled, small but genuine, the tension uncoiling into something softer, more enduring. “You’re not a ghost to me. Never were.” The words bridged the lag, a promise woven into the stars, as the call stretched on, the trio's voices human and alien intertwining in the quiet dance of shared truths before the connection cuts out.

The days had woven themselves into a tapestry of quiet longing since your last exchange, each hour on Earth pulling at the threads of your routine like the inexorable tug of gravity. Midterms loomed like distant storm clouds, your room a sanctuary of scattered notes and the faint scent of cooling rain seeping through the cracked window.

The prototype device hummed softly on your desk, its screen a dormant portal, but your thoughts drifted ceaselessly to the void beyond, to him adrift in the endless black, his voice a ghost that lingered in the spaces between your breaths. When the moment came to reconnect, your fingers moved with a deliberate grace over the keys, the connection blooming to life with a chime that resonated like a heartbeat, syncing yours to the rhythm of the stars.

The image sharpened into focus, revealing the cockpit's intimate confines the subtle glow of consoles casting shadows across metallic surfaces, the air recycler's whisper a constant undercurrent, carrying the faint, metallic tang that you imagined clung to his skin. Ryland filled the frame, and the sight of him stirred something deep and visceral within you a slow uncoiling of warmth that spread from your chest outward, tingling along your limbs. He wore that shirt, the one with that’s red and has Element of Surprise scripted in bold letters across his chest, the fabric a soft, worn cotton that molded to the contours of his torso, hinting at the lean strength beneath from months of solitary labor. Sleeves exposed the subtle flex of forearms etched with faint scars from tinkering, and his hair, in that effortlessly disheveled way, caught the light like burnished gold. lips that curved into a smile as his blue eyes met yours through the feed, holding there with an intensity that made the digital divide feel paper thin, charged with unspoken promises.

“Hey.” He greets as always he leaned forward slightly, the console's edge pressing into his palms, knuckles whitening just enough to draw your gaze, and the way his eyes traced your face lingering on the curve of your cheek built a tension that hummed in the air between you. “Missed that face. Space is not the same without my favorite hacker keeping me on my toes.”

You shifted in your chair, the fabric of your sweater whispering against your skin as you drew your knees up, the room's soft lamplight painting golden highlights across your collarbone. A flush crept up your neck, warm and insistent, under the weight of his regard, and you let your fingers toy with the hem of your sleeve, a small anchor against the pull of his presence. “Its been quiet without your chaos. Classes are devouring me, but... I've been counting the stars, wondering about you.” Your words carried a softness, laced with the vulnerability that had grown between you, and you watched the way his expression shifted eyes darkening with a shared ache, his breath catching just audibly over the line.

He nodded, the motion slow, deliberate, as if savoring the connection, his hand rising to rub the back of his neck in that habitual gesture that exposed the vulnerable line of his throat, the pulse there visible in the play of light. Behind him, Rocky's enclosure pulsed with faint iridescence, the alien's facets scattering prismatic glints like distant nebulae, but tonight, the rock's presence wove into the intimacy rather than intruding a silent witness to the deepening bond.

Ryland's fingers drummed a restless pattern on the armrest, the sound faint but rhythmic, betraying the undercurrent of nerves beneath his steady gaze. “Yeah, well... prepare for some chaos, because Rocky and I? We did it. Figured out the plan. Astrophage reroutes, drive optimizations, your tweaks were the key, by the way. I'm coming home.”

The words hung in the ether, a revelation that ignited a firestorm within you joy mingling with a poignant ache, the reality of his return both a balm and a torment to the longing that had taken root in your heart. You leaned in, elbows resting on the desk, the cool wood grounding you as your eyes searched his, tracing the flecks of green in the blue, the subtle crinkle at the corners that spoke of laughter held in check. “Home.” you echoed, the word tasting like hope on your tongue, your voice threading with emotion that made your throat tighten. “Ryland, that's... God, that's everything. Tell me more. When?”

A chuckle escaped him, vapid and warm, the sound curling through you like smoke, easing the edges of his tension even as his eyes held yours with a raw, unguarded intensity. He glanced briefly toward the viewport, where the starfield stretched infinite and indifferent, then back to you, his posture shifting closer, filling the screen until you could almost feel the heat of him, the imagined scent of his skin clean sweat and recycled air. “Rockys got this Eridian knack for efficiency. We bounced ideas off each other for what felt like eternities him chirping about quantum flows, me throwing in human gut instincts. It's nerve wracking, though. The re entry burn, the quarantine protocols, stepping back into a world that's moved on without me.” His voice dipped, husky with confession, vulnerability etching lines across his brow, but then his gaze softened, locking onto yours with a tenderness that sent a shiver racing down your spine. “But you... thinking about seeing you? Keeps the fear at bay, makes it all feel possible.”

Heat bloomed across your skin, a slow tide that pooled low in your belly, his words evoking visions of that meeting the brush of his hand against yours, the warmth of his breath on your neck and you bit your lip, savoring the anticipation that thrummed between you like a shared pulse. Rocky's lights flickered in the background, a playful ripple that drew a soft huff from Ryland, diffusing the intensity with a touch of humor. “See? Even Rocky's excited. Apparently he even has a mate, been together for eons. How do you say her name?” A long plethora of chimes come from Rocky and Ryland gives you a funny stare and nods. “Yeah, right, so that, we agreed upon to be Adrian.” The dry quip pulled a smile from you, lightening the air, but the tone remained desire tempered by the profound tenderness of souls reaching across the cosmos. “They’ve been separated for the past few years trying to figure out astrophage travel. But now since we figured it out… he gets to see her again.”

“That sounds incredible.” Your fingers drifting to trace the screen's edge, as if you could reach through and feel the texture of his shirt, the steady beat beneath. To feel Rocky’s dome. “Nervous for you and him, but... excited doesn't cover it. How long? I need to start marking calendars, dreaming up ways to make that year fly.”

He settled back, the shirt stretching taut across his chest for a heartbeat, drawing your eye to the rise and fall of his breathing, before his grin emerged crooked, inviting, laced with that comedic edge that made your heart stutter. “A year. Cosmic bureaucracy and all that. Long enough to build the suspense, short enough to keep me sane. Gives us time for more planning. Practice for when I can finally show you that surprise in person.” His wink was slow, deliberate, eyes gleaming with promise, the banter weaving seamlessly into the emotional tapestry, balancing the raw pull of want with the gentle anchor of their connection.

As the conversation unfolded into the night, the cockpit's hum and the rain's patter outside merged into a lullaby of possibility, their words a bridge spanning the void laughter punctuating tender admissions, glances lingering like caresses, the year ahead a canvas for the slow, inevitable convergence of hearts adrift no more.

The conversation meandered through the quiet hours, the ship's ambient hum blending with the distant patter of rain against your windowpane, each word a thread pulling you closer across the unyielding expanse. Ryland's presence on the screen felt more tangible with every shared glance, his eyes catching the console's glow like embers in twilight, and you found yourself mirroring his lean, the desk's edge cool against your forearms as you savored the subtle play of shadows along his jawline.

He shifted then, the fabric of his shirt whispering softly as he crossed his arms, the lettering twisting just enough to draw your eye to the steady rise of his chest. A thoughtful pause hung between you, broken only by Rocky's faint, rhythmic clicks from the background like pebbles tumbling in a gentle stream before Ryland's voice emerged, low and tentative, laced with that dry humor that always tugged at the corners of your mouth. “You know, when I do touch down whenever that cosmic red tape finally clears I've been thinking about our first real moment. What do you say to dinner? Or whatever passes for it after a year of freeze dried everything.”

The suggestion landed like a spark in dry tinder, igniting a warmth that bloomed slow and insistent in your core, visions flickering unbidden his hand brushing yours over a candlelit table, the brush of his knee under the cloth, the way his laugh might vibrate through the air between you. You tilted your head, letting a playful smile curve your lips as you traced the rim of your mug with a fingertip, the ceramic still warm from forgotten tea. “Dinner sounds perfect. Something simple, maybe? Italian? There's this little spot near campus cozy, with these twinkle lights that make everything feel like magic.”

He chuckled, the sound rich and rumbling, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he rubbed his chin, stubble rasping faintly against his palm. “Italian, huh? Bold choice for a guy who's been dreaming of a burger that doesn't taste like regret. But nah, let's go fancier steakhouse. Real meat, the kind that sizzles and leaves grease on your fingers. Earned it after all this.” The banter flowed easy, charged with an undercurrent of anticipation, his gaze holding yours with a lingering intensity that made your pulse quicken, as if he could already taste the evening unfolding.

You shook your head, laughter bubbling up soft and light, your hair falling forward to brush your cheek as you leaned closer to the screen. “Steakhouse? Too stuffy. We'd be those awkward people whispering over napkins. What about sushi? Fresh, light, something to celebrate without the heaviness.” The words danced between you, a playful push and pull that mirrored the deeper current of longing, his expression shifting from amusement to mock exasperation, brows furrowing in that endearing way that exposed the faint lines of fatigue around his eyes.

”Sushi? In the middle of... wherever we end up? I'd take one bite and start missing my ration packs.” He grinned, wide and unfiltered, the motion pulling at his features and sending a flutter through your chest, but before you could counter, Rocky's enclosure lit up with a sudden flurry of iridescent pulses, the alien's facets shimmering like a disco ball in distress. A burst of chirps erupted from the speakers, translated into that gravelly, synthesized drawl that always carried a hint of mischief. “No argue. Dinner at Earth home. Her place. Spaghetti. Simple. Efficient. No mess human style.”

Ryland's eyes widened, his mouth parting in a half laugh, half protest as he twisted in his seat to face the rock, the chair groaning under the abrupt motion. “Whoa, stay in your lane, buddy. This is human food. I’ve seen the way you eat, I want nothing to do with it.” But the alien's lights only flickered smugly, a series of affirmative beeps solidifying the decree, and Ryland turned back to you, shoulders rising in a helpless shrug, his cheeks tinged with a flush that deepened the warmth in his gaze. “Well, there you have it. Rocky's got opinions stronger than astrophage. Spaghetti at your apartment it is. Hope you've got a good sauce recipe, don't want him critiquing the quantum mechanics of your marinara.”

You couldn't help the burst of laughter that escaped, genuine and freeing, your hand pressing to your lips as the image settled in your mind Ryland in your space, stirring a pot. The thought wove tenderness into the desire, a domestic intimacy that made the year ahead feel both endless and achingly close. “Spaghetti it is, then. Your first Earth meal, courtesy of the galaxy's nosiest engineer. Just promise you'll save room for dessert, something sweet to make up for all the arguing.”

His smile softened, eyes tracing your face with a deliberate slowness that sent a shiver tracing your spine, the digital barrier thinning under the weight of shared possibility. “Deal. Can't wait to find out what that looks like, up close.” The words lingered, heavy with promise, as the night deepened around you both, the rain a soft symphony to the budding plans that bridged the stars.

The months blurred into a tapestry of pixels and promises, each video call a stolen breath across the light years, weaving your lives into something profoundly ordinary and extraordinarily intimate. What began as tentative banter evolved into a rhythm as familiar as your own heartbeat, Ryland's face filling your screen at odd hours, his voice a gravelly anchor amid the static of your room's fluorescent hum or the ship's ceaseless drone. Holidays became your anchors, virtual rituals that bridged the void with laughter and longing, turning isolation into shared secrets.

The first Thanksgiving arrived like a whisper in the dark, your screen aglow with the warm flicker of a candle you'd lit on your cluttered desk, textbooks shoved aside for a plate of makeshift turkey canned, but spirited. Ryland appeared disheveled, silver flecked hair messy from a nap, his shirt rumpled as he balanced a tray of rehydrated mash that looked more like glue than gravy. “Alright, hacker extraordinaire,” he drawled, eyes crinkling with that dry mischief, “Do we toast to overcooked birds or just pretend this isn't the saddest feast since the Mayflower's leftovers?” You laughed, the sound bubbling up as you raised your glass of cheap wine, the tart bite lingering on your tongue. “To survival. And to you not poisoning yourself with whatever that is.” His grin widened, fork pausing mid air, and for a moment, his gaze held yours with a heat that made the room feel smaller, the distance a tease rather than a barrier.

Rocky chirped from the corner of the frame, lights pulsing in rhythmic approval, as if joining the toast, and Ryland rolled his eyes. “See? Even the rock thinks you're the better cook. Next year, you're making the real stuff.” The words hung, laced with implication, your skin prickling at the thought of his presence, solid and warm, in your space.

Christmas unfurled in a cascade of lights strung haphazardly across posters of nebulae and code snippets, his rigged from console leds that bathed the cabin in a starry haze. You exchanged gifts through the ether a digital playlist of Earth anthems for him, crooners and rock that made him hum off key, his baritone vibrating through the speakers like a caress; for you, a hand sketched star map, annotated with silly notes “This one's where I first saw your message. Blinked like a heartbeat.”

The call stretched late, snow dusting your window while Tau Ceti's glow framed him, and conversation meandered from childhood memories to whispered what ifs. “Remember when Rocky tried caroling?” He chuckled, the alien's enclosure flickering to a discordant beep beep that had you both dissolving into giggles. But beneath the humor simmered something deeper; his eyes traced the curve of your neck as you adjusted your scarf, voice dropping. “Wish I could unwrap something real this year. Like... seeing that smile without the lag.” Heat bloomed low in your belly, your fingers twisting the fabric as you met his stare, the air between screens thickening with unspoken want.

New Year's Eve marked a turning point, the clock ticking toward midnight in disjointed time zones yours syncing to Earth's revelry, his to the ship's chronometer. Fireworks bloomed outside your window, bursts of color painting your face as you counted down together, Rocky adding a flurry of excited clicks like premature confetti. At the stroke, Ryland leaned close, breath fogging the camera lens, his whisper husky. “Happy New Year. To us whatever that looks like when I get back.” The kiss he blew was playful, lips puckering comically, but the linger in his eyes sent a shiver racing down your spine, your own lips parting on a soft exhale. “To not being alone anymore.” and in that charged silence, the flirtation edged toward fire, his hand flexing as if reaching through the void to trace your jaw.

As spring thawed into summer on Earth, your calls grew bolder, the banter laced with touches of skin glimpsed accidentally your tank top slipping during a stretch, his shirt riding up to reveal the taut plane of his abdomen, dusted with faint hair that caught the light.

Rocky became the unwitting chaperone, his gravelly interjections punctuating the tension. “Humans hot? Air recycle fail?” During a particularly heated debate over quantum entanglement that doubled as metaphor for your pull. Ryland's laugh would rumble then, self conscious but inviting, drawing you deeper into the dance of words and glances.

Autumn brought the ache of impending change, leaves turning gold outside your window as Ryland's updates shifted repairs complete, trajectory locked for home.

The goodbye to Rocky unfolded in fragments across calls, emotional cries bubbling like champagne ready to overflow. One evening, the ship’s lights dimmed to simulate dusk, Ryland cradling the alien's enclosure like a cherished relic, facets glinting softly. “He’s packing up too, heading back to Erid with his people. Been the best friend I’ve ever had.” His voice cracked, blue eyes misting as Rocky bobbed in farewell, chirps translating to a gruff. “Good Earth friend. Keep Grace out trouble.” You watched, heart twisting, as Ryland pressed his forehead to the case, murmuring promises of safe travels. “You were the best co pilot a guy could ask for. Don't go eating any more control panels without me.” The humor masked the raw edge, but when he turned back, vulnerability etched in the lines of his face, you felt it echo in your chest. “Feels like losing a piece of the ship. But... progress.” His gaze locked on yours, steady and searing, the weight of you unspoken but palpable.

A few nights after Rocky's departure shuttle undocked, intimacy crested in a wave neither could deny. The call started light Ryland, hair damp from a sonic shower that left his skin glowing. Conversation drifted to dreams, then desires, voices lowering as the ship's hum faded to background. “Tell me what you'd do if I were there.” He prompted, tone playful yet edged with gravel, eyes darkening as you described the brush of fingers along your collarbone, the slow unbuttoning that would follow. Heat pooled in your core, breath quickening as his hand mirrored the motion on screen, tracing his own throat, then lower, the fabric tenting subtly. “Like this?” He rasped, voice thick, and you nodded, emboldened, your palm sliding beneath your waistband, the friction sending sparks through your veins.

The screen became a portal to shared surrender, his breaths syncing with yours in ragged harmony. He leaned back, chair creaking, shirt tugged up to expose the ripple of muscle as his hand worked with deliberate slowness, eyes never leaving yours fierce, adoring, a low groan escaping when you arched, whispering his name like a prayer. “God, the way you move...” Laughter threaded the tension, dry and breathless “Rockyd call this inefficient energy use.” A tender smile curving his lips as he reached out, as if to cup your cheek through the glass.

Through it all, the year etched itself in stolen moments flirty jokes over virtual coffee, funny mishaps with Rocky's translations, sensual explorations that blurred screens into skin. The distance, once a chasm, now a thread pulling you inexorably closer, anticipation building like a slow orbit toward collision.

The Hail Mary pierced Earth's atmosphere like a returning prodigal, its hull scarred by cosmic tempests but whole, a testament to ingenuity and unyielding will. You watched the live feed from your apartment, heart hammering against your ribs as the shuttle detached, gliding toward the landing pad under a sky bruised with dawn's first light. A year of pixels and promises had led to this, the man who'd become your anchor in the void, descending back to solid ground.

Your fingers trembled as you smoothed the simple tee with jeans you'd chosen, the fabric whispering against your skin like an echo of his voice in those confessions. The world outside buzzed with media frenzy, helicopters whirring like metallic insects, but you slipped through the chaos with a forged press badge, your instincts guiding you to the secure perimeter where the real reunion waited.

The air hangar smelled of scorched metal and hydraulic fluid, a stark contrast to the sterile recyclers of his ship. You lingered in the shadows of a maintenance bay, pulse syncing with the distant rumble of engines powering down. There he emerged from the hatch in a flight suit that clung to his frame, unzipped just enough to reveal the faded collar of his I Wear This Shirt Periodically tee beneath.

His hair, longer now and forever messy, caught the floodlights in silvered waves, and those blue eyes scanned the crowd with a mix of wariness and wonder. His beard now a shadow. He shaved. When his eyes landed on you, time fractured his face split into a grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes, boyish and unguarded, cutting through the months of separation like a laser. He broke from the official greetings, weaving through technicians and officials with purposeful strides, the dry humor in his posture evident even from afar the slight hunch of shoulders as if bracing for Earth's gravity to mock him.

“You didn’t die.” You joked as he closed the distance, his scent hitting you first a faint tang of hydraulic fluid and something uniquely him, warm and lived in, a natural musk. His musk. He’s no longer filtered through speakers. Up close, he was taller than the videos suggested, his presence filling the space between you with an electric hum. “Told you I'd try not to crash.” That rich baritone wrapping around you like a familiar embrace, laced with the self deprecating edge that had first hooked you. But his eyes betrayed the jest, darkening with a hunger that mirrored your own, tracing the line of your jaw as if memorizing it anew.

The crowd blurred into irrelevance; his hand found yours, calluses rough from years of tinkering, thumb brushing your knuckles in a slow circle that sent sparks skittering up your arm. “God, you're even more... you, in person.” The words hung, incomplete but weighted, his free hand hovering near your waist before dropping, he flexes his fingers as if testing the reality of touch. He feels lightheaded, unsure whether it was from earth's gravity or you.

The drive to your apartment was a haze of stolen glances and fragmented conversation, his knee brushing yours in the borrowed SUV, the contact igniting like a short circuit. He marveled at the mundane the way streetlights flickered over rain slicked roads, the hum of traffic that drowned out the silence of space, his blunt and observational commentary “Feels like I've landed in a alternate universe, where I’m famous.” You laughed, the sound lighter than it had been in months, directing him through the city's veins to your modest building, where the elevator ride amplified the tension, the confined space thick with unspoken anticipation. His shoulder pressed against yours, heat seeping through fabric, and when the doors dinged open, he followed you inside without a word, the click of the lock sealing you both away from the world.

Your apartment was a sanctuary of controlled chaos bookshelves groaning under astrophysics tomes and code printouts, fairy lights still draped twinkling softly against the late afternoon sun filtering through half drawn blinds. The air carried the faint scent of takeout remnants and your shampoo, grounding and intimate.

Ryland paused in the doorway, taking it in with a slow sweep, his duffel bag thudding to the floor. “So this is your cave.” Turning to you with a tilt of his head that caught the light on his glasses. He stepped nearer, the space between you shrinking to breaths, his fingers grazing your elbow a tentative anchor. “It’s a nice cave.” He whispered quietly. You turned into his touch, heart thudding, and guided him to the kitchen, needing the ritual of motion to steady the tremor in your limbs. “Hungry? I promised you a real meal, no rehydrated mush.”

Cooking became the slow unraveling of restraint, a dance of proximity in the narrow galley. You pulled ingredients from the fridge, fresh basil from a windowsill pot, tomatoes bursting with summer's end, ground beef simmering in a cast iron skillet that filled the air with savory warmth. Ryland hovered, his forearms corded with muscle, his attempts at chopping garlic clumsy but endearing, knife slipping as he stole glances at you.

“Admit it.” He teased, bumping your hip with his, the contact lingering a beat too long, sending a flush creeping up your neck, “You just want me for my questionable knife skills. Like Rocky with his appendages enthusiastic, zero precision.”

You swatted his arm lightly, the brush of skin electric, laughter bubbling as you stirred the sauce, the steam curling between you like a veil. He leaned over your shoulder to taste, his chest brushing your back, breath warm against your ear. “Needs more... heat.” The double entendre slipping out with a grin, his hand steadying on your waist as if to emphasize the point.

The sauce bubbled, mirroring the simmer in your veins, and when you plated the spaghetti, twirls of pasta glistening under olive oil he pulled out a chair for you with exaggerated chivalry, eyes twinkling. “Ladies first. Or human. Whatever you are.”

Dinner unfolded in a rhythm of shared stories and silences heavy with subtext, forks clinking against ceramic as the city lights began to wink on beyond the window. He devoured the meal with unfeigned gusto, moaning appreciatively around a mouthful “Never thought I’d admit that Rocky was right.” He chews, glancing down at his plate. Lips glossy from sauce. “Spaghetti was the only answer.”

His foot nudged yours under the table, a subtle press that escalated to his ankle hooking yours, drawing you closer in the invisible tether. Conversation meandered from Rocky's farewell antics (the alien's final gift a little astronaut he made) to the absurdities of reentry briefings, his jokes painting pictures. “They grilled me on protocols like I was smuggling contraband. As if astrophage samples weren't enough excitement.” His gaze lingering on the way your lips curved around a sip of wine, the glass stem cool between your fingers.

You feel his intense gaze as you eat. “What? Is there something on my face?” Your brows furrow as you scan his face for a reaction. His face turns almost into adoration with a hint of a mischievous smirk. “Oh, nothing.” He sighs dramatically with a shrug of his shoulders. Liking the way you fall into his web. He eats casually as you now stare at him in return. “What?” You say incredulously with a smile erupting on your face. His eyes flick up to you again. “You actually do have something on your face.” Before you can register his words he’s leaning over the small table. Taking your jaw into his large hand, cradling your cheek as his thumb sweeps across your bottom lip. Wiping away the missed sauce; he settles back into his seat. The pad of his thumb between his lips as he swallows the liquid off his digit. He twists noodles around his fork casually like he didn’t completely rewrite your nerves.

Clearing the table was pretext, dishes stacking in the sink as excuses to orbit each other, his body heat a constant pull. A few jokes here and there about how the cleanliness would make Rocky spiral. He trapped you against the counter when he reached for a plate, hips aligning in an accidental on purpose press that drew a gasp from your throat. “Sorry.” He lied, voice gravelly, not pulling away his hand splayed on the small of your back, thumb circling in slow, deliberate strokes that unraveled you.

The air thickened, charged with the scent of garlic and desire, and when you turned in his hold, faces inches apart, the world narrowed to the flecks of green in his eyes. “You can stay the night if you want.” His eyes flick to your lips before he answers. “I don’t know. They asked me to go teach tomorrow. It’s kinda funny how they do that,” He pauses, removing himself from you to put away a spice on the top of the shelf. The sliver of his taut hips coming into view. He notices your stare and he revels in the attention. “How you get sent to space and you come back and have work the next day.” He props himself up against the counter across from you, his gaze heavy. It’s quiet and there’s a silent exchange of words shared. “Are you sure?” You blink dumbly at him like the question was unfounded, his eyes are downcasted when you say “yes.”

He takes a long step towards you, hands planted beside your waist on the counter top. Your back pressing against the edge. “You know I was expecting someone way different looking.” His remark hits you funnily in your chest. Was he expecting someone prettier all those calls ago? “What do you mean?” He shrugs, smirking. “I was expecting a troll.” You laugh slightly at how silly the idea was. “Why’d you imagine me as a troll?” He shrugs again. “Every hacker movie ever is a dude in a basement who looks like a troll.” He leans down closer to you. “All I’m saying is that you’re prettier than a troll.” You laugh breathlessly at his somewhat compliment. “I’d hope so.”

His eyes draw down to your lips before he leans in and presses his against yours. You accept the warranted kiss. All those months of longing felt excused. His lips were surprisingly nourished and soft. The short hair on his cheeks scratching your face. Your hands hesitate over his chest unsure of where to touch him. You’ve dreamt of this for so long that you’re not sure how to execute your dreams. You’ve been with men before sure, but never someone of his stature. He notices your hesitation and lack of affection, he pauses, lips disconnecting. A single string of saliva connecting you together. As he pulls back his lips wet, “Is there something wrong? I know it’s been a while but I didn’t think I’d lose that much of my game.” You shake your head quickly. Cheeks warm from him thinking it’s his inadequacy. ”It’s not that.” His eyes level with you, brows furrowed. “Don’t tell me you’re a virgin.” He chuckles deep in his chest. “No! Not that either.” You laugh softly and your eyes fall to the floor bashfully. “I’m just nervous.” He laughs a little louder, shocked at your revelation. “What’s there to be nervous about?” He steps back and leans his hip on the counter across from you. He doesn’t speak, he just stares. From the time that you’ve known Ryland his gaze tells you a thousand things. But when he looks at you, you can’t ever tell what he’s thinking.

“Look at you.” You blush at his words, head fallen downwards. His warm hand cradles your cheek as he tilts your head up. “Wanna know a secret?” His kind eyes search your face as you nod. “When I first looked at you I thought I died and saw an angel.” You laugh shoving his shoulder. “Did not” “Did too! I swear!”

He pushes his forehead against yours, his breath fanning across your cheeks. “So, tell me, what’s there to be nervous about?” “Nothing.” “Exactly, so kiss me.”

You lean up on your toes and press your lips against his instead of him leading you. You rest your hands on his thick shoulders and he moans at your touch. The touch he’s first felt in years. To say he was touch starved was an understatement. The rumble sends shivers down your spine. You feel like you’re melting into the counter, He lifted you onto the counter with effortless strength, the cool granite a shock against your thighs as his body slotted between them.

Your hands roam from his shoulders to the sides of his damp flushed neck, to his messy hair. Your hands roaming, fingers threading through his hair, tilting his head for better access, then his hands trail down your sides to grip your hips.

He bites lightly onto your bottom lip, as you gasp his tongue invades your mouth. At the invasion you slightly arch into his chest. He pulls back heaving. “Not so nervous anymore are you?”

You shake your head before he smiles lopsidedly. Pulling you up to his chest and you squeal wrapping your legs around his torso. Arms around his neck as he carries you down the hall, his eyes trained on your face. "Where's your room?” Pointing to the door he follows and you open it for him.

He stumbles slightly and sets you down onto your bed. You roughly bounce a couple times laughing. He looks up from his stance on the floor, his glasses shifted on his face, the legs of the glasses on his jaw. He looks to the door and sees a stuffed animal he tripped over. “A monkey really?” His face wrenches in confusion as he fixes his skewed glasses on his broad nose. You smile, throwing your hands around to emphasize “It’s cute!” “It ruined my smoothness.” You roll your eyes.“Did you have any smoothness in the first place?” His mouth falls open in mock shock, his eyebrow quirks, and you wonder if this is how he scolds his students. “Oh, really?”

He lifts to his achy sore knees and presses down on the mattress to gain his standing again. “That’s not what I heard in the kitchen.” His voice lowers as he climbs upwards. “yeah?” You whisper, encouraging him. “You know what I heard?” “What?” Laying down as he towers over you, his hands start to pull up your shirt. The warmth of his hands spreads across your stomach and ribs as they travel. His knees hovering beside yours, his body mere centimeters from touching your center. His hands stop once they reach the end lace of your bra holding himself with his forearms on the sides of your head. Lips going to your ear. “I heard pretty little moans coming from that mouth of yours.” His body pushes down slightly and you can feel the girth of him in his jeans on your abdomen. It's heavy

“How did they sound?” He asks himself, shifting his lips to your jaw arching into him as his hand roams from the side of your neck over your shirt. Over your bra and he starts palming your chest. Feeling your nipple bud under the fabric. Mimicking your high pitched whine in your ear and cheeks burning. Your clit throbbing from his touch on your breast. “Ryland please.” Spent out eyes half closed and dumb. His head foggy as he looks at how desperate you look “Yes what?”

Your breath ragged almost begging him. He toys with your bra, eventually dipping his hand into the cup and feeling your soft skin on his palm. Playing with your tit, your bra strap straining against his wrist. “I want you to touch me.” Kissing your jaw chastely, the hair on his face scratching your cheek. “Where?” “Everywhere.” You whine and that does something to him. With a final kiss pressed to your temple he looks at your chest spilling out. Making a mental note of the sight. Pulling your shirt overhead along with your bra.

When you lay back down he’s on you in an instant. Kissing and lapping at your chest, moaning against your heart. It burns you alive. He hasn’t even taken off his clothes yet and you’re already soaked. Thighs pressing together, still clothed, your top half naked and bare as he eats you alive. He’s starved, his lips circling around your nipples. Nibbling them until they're sore and aching. You have to push him off from how sensitive they’ve gotten. His wet mouth coming off with a pop and slobber connecting him to you. He moves downwards on the bed, his puppy dog blues dilated behind glass.

“You want me to take care of you?” You nod incessantly. “Please.” He smiles like he already knows the answer. Unbuttoning your jeans tugging them down with your panties. Your lower half jiggled with how forceful he tugged them down. Going on his knees at the end of your bed, pulling your legs apart to hang on his shoulders at the edge. Watching the slickness of your pussy glistening for him. He has to palm himself to keep the throbbing in his jeans.

Warm and patient his hands glide up your thighs as yours cling to the silk bedding. He drags a knuckle down the front of your spread lips, feeling how warm you are. How soaked, you shiver at his digit you can’t make a note of it before his mouth attaches to your core. Writhing as his tongue laps heavy wide strokes through you. Each stroke of his tongue sends fire through you. Tits bouncing with every jolt. Those pathetic whines he loves is like music to his ears. He waited months for this, imagining you strung out from his tongue. Countless lonely nights in his shitty bed longing for your touch. Your caress and now that he’s had it he can't get enough.

Groaning as he tastes you. He’s grinding into your mattress straining in his jeans. He's surprised he hasn’t accidentally prematurely came. Face burying deeper and his scruffy cheeks get crushed by your thighs. Squeezing his head as you get closer and closer to that heavenly feeling. Your whimpers surely to wake your neighbors but you don’t care you’re so close. So sensitive.

Clamping your eyes shut, not daring to see his blue eyes steadily looking up at you from behind your mound. His nose rubbing your pubic area as he attacks your clit. A long finger pushes itself into you and instantly the fullness tears you to shreds. Crying out his name and whimpering body locking around his dirty blonde head you shake and cry. Trying to run from his mouth but his mouth follows you. Teeth softly biting your core. You can’t breathe as you come down. He just laps it up like a dog.

Wetness pooling on the sheets he sighs huskily at the sight. Mouth drenched in your fluids. In a singular motion he pulls his shirt overhead, you stare leaning up on your elbows ogling his body. You knew he was strong, but not jacked. “Holy shit.” Slurring your words. He laughs softly. “Like what you see?” You nod dumbly, mouth open. He steps on the backs of his converse. Unbuckling his jeans before he realizes you’re staring at him so intensely. Slows himself down, slowly unbuckling his belt like some stripper. “Don’t tease!” You whine and he smiles patting your thigh. “Since you were so good I’ll obey.”

For some reason the word obey spikes your blood and your thighs clench together. He notices and smiles again, before he pulls his jeans down with his boxers they pool around his ankles. His cock springing free angry and pink veins pumping red from tip to mid shaft with purple ones littering around the circumference. God he’s longer than he is girthy but your pussy already is sore from looking at it.

He motions you to sit higher up on your bed and you do but as he puts his knees on to the bed and starts crawling up the only thing you can focus on is the bobbing head of his cock. His hands rest on your knees slowly pushing your legs more apart. “My eyes are up here angel.” You quickly look into his eyes but it was just a diversion, he watches your face twist into pain as he pushes the mushroom head inside your tight entrance.

Your hands immediately go to his chest and pushing your nails into the sculpted muscle. “It's too much! I can’t!” Feeling every ridge and vein intruding inside. He can’t even reassure you as his eyes are locked on his cock splitting you open. “You already are.” One of his hands falls from your thigh to your mound. Thumb circling over your bruised clit. His forehead pushing against yours as he leans down further and pushes deeper. You start feeling longer curves in his shaft, the veins in his arms popping as he strains his body weight up. Curteous to not crush you he tries his hardest to resist not fucking you until your bimbo.

He feels your pretty soft gummy walls fluttering around him and he accidentally thrusts shallowly. Making you keen. “You're taking me so good.” He praises, kissing you gently. You can taste yourself mixed with spaghetti on his lips.

When he bottoms out and he doesn’t move. Letting you relax around him, his balls settled against your ass. His chest pressed against yours. He forgets about being inside you and focuses on kissing you hungrily. Melting into his kiss he slowly starts rutting against you.

Not pulling out just shallow little ruts. His thumb speeds up on your clit, feeling you tighten and your legs locking around his hips. You’re so full you can’t think anymore. His lips. His thumb. His cock. His weight. Him.

Then he actually starts pulling back the long stretch and burn until his tip is the only thing in. Staring at your face for a long while, you stare back. Admiring his features, the sweat forming around his face, his chest, the locks of hair stuck to his damp forehead. The way his glasses are slightly foggy. Before you nod and he pushes back in, his head is thrown back. The veins in his throat pulsing. Groaning with your whine you both are the loudest things in your complex.

You feel your body stretch to fit him, your fingers clinging to his wrists. Without hesitation his eyes flickering from your eyes, your lips to your chest to your center, the wet squelching smash of his hips returning to yours. His thighs already wet with your slick. Setting an unfathomable pace for his age and you can’t keep up. Eyes rolling into the back of your head. His thrusts picking up, sweat starts to fall onto you.

Sticking your tongue out to taste the sweaty droplets as they fall and comically so does his wire glasses. his hips stutter and he’s babbling apologies. A red blush rising on his neck and face from embarrassment. It’s quickly halted when you take his glasses and put them on. They're too big for your small face, something burns in him seeing you wear his glasses.

Thrusts grows sloppy and you’re pitiful knowing that your next orgasm is a couple thrusts away deeper now. Rougher. Every thrust rocks you higher up the bed and the headboard knocking against the wall gasping each time, fingers tracing over the veins in his forearms overwhelmed but craving more. You cry out softly when he hits that spot, and he rasps, “Yeah? Right there?”

You fall apart with a cry, clenching around him so hard he chokes on a groan and stills himself. Your walls are so clenched tight he can’t move. A couple shallow thrusts later he follows thrusting deep. Spilling into you three white hot sticky stripes. His whole body shudders, as he drops down onto you. Careful to not crush you but his body weight is smothering in a good way. He’s too hot and too sweaty.

Both of your breathing staggered as each of you trying to capture your breaths. His heart drumming against yours. He hugs your chest to his, before both of you agree it’s too hot so he rolls over. Staring blurrily at the ceiling.

The Disappointment Club

The first time you saw Rhett Abbott, you were behind the counter of your sister’s bakery, piping lemon-thyme curd onto a fresh batch of muffins with the precision of someone who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a piping bag—or a convection oven; or anything sharp, really; anything inside of a bakery, possibly. 

“So, you’re the new hire?” The man said, all six feet, Wyoming drawl, and his Stetson pulled so low all you could see was his mouth. 

You were about to speak up when a glob of curd plopped onto your boot. 

“That’s my little sister, Rhett,” Maya warned, kicking open the swinging doors as she emerged from the kitchen, a batch of mint-green pastry boxes piled in her arms. “So you better not get any funny ideas.”

“Alright, I hear you.” He huffed a low laugh, rifling through his wallet before handing your sister a couple of bills. “I’ll make sure to keep my ideas void of humor.”

“Good, and keep them to yourself while you’re at it. Greet your mom for me!” Maya added with biting faux sweetness that had haunted you throughout your childhood. She handed him the pastry boxes, and the two of you watched in silence as he lumbered out of the bakery. The ding of the shop bell, the cuff of his boots on the tiles. He looked back once through the shop windows, the brim of his hat revealing a surprisingly tender face. The shape of it there, for a moment, in a soft bar of sunlight—before he disappeared from view. 

You lowered the piping bag and took a long breath. 

“Don’t even start.” Maya thwacked you with a dish towel. 

“Who the fuck was that?”

“Someone you will not get involved with.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cowboy McDreamy?”

“Stop. Don’t start with your funny ideas.”

“My ideas are famously hilarious.”

“Trust me. Rhett Abbott’s the type of guy who goes for buckle bunnies and tourists—"

"Buckle-what?"

"—and you are very much neither, so how about you make sure those blueberry muffins don’t look like someone assembled them with their eyes closed, hm?” She cocked a brow at your army of malformed swirls. You scoffed. 

“You know what?” Defiantly, you lifted the piping bag and proceeded to squirt the rest of the curd into your mouth, scrambling to the back, dodging your sister's ardent attempts at skinning your ass raw.

· · ❁ · ·

The second time you saw Rhett Abbott, you were on a date at the Longhorn. It was the only bar in town that had decent enough beer and a dancefloor that wasn’t slick with liquor and vomit past ten PM.

Your sister had set you up: He was the son of the game warden, Adam or Adrian (you’d long forgotten), awkward but polite, built like a shy greyhound, and stealing glances at your cleavage in intervals growing shorter and shorter the further he worked his way down a bottle of Budweiser. 

He wasn’t terrible company, patiently listening to you talk about the weather and how much you missed San Diego and your current hyperfixation on the baby goat that lived on the farm next door to your sister’s place. It has three legs, so they built her this tiny prosthetic, so she can walk properly. They named her Tres, as in Tres Leches, get it? Isn’t that the most adorable fucking thing you’ve ever heard in your whole entire fucking life?

You tried to ignore Adam-Adrian’s audible sigh of relief when you got up to grab another round of beers. Maybe you’d get yourself something stronger. Or maybe you’d find a good enough excuse to call it a night, and you would’ve, you really, really would’ve if you hadn’t bumped your shoulder into none other than Mr. Cowboy McDreamy himself. 

He’d swapped the Stetson for a washed-out baseball cap. Jaw hard and stubbled, nose a long slender slope in the lights reflecting off the dancefloor. 

“Hey there, Shortcake.” His quirk of a smile that aged him backwards.

Shortcake.

It wouldn’t have worked anywhere else, with anyone else, but you were a lightweight two beers in, and you liked the way the light hit his eyes, clear blue, like a drop of rain on a car window. 

You would’ve said something cheeky, something about having funny ideas—but he cut you off: “He sure seems like a good time.”

Tipping his chin towards Adam-Adrian slouched in the booth like a lonely sapling. 

You didn't like the way he'd said it. You knew men like Rhett Abbott, and you knew what happened when you let them into your life. “You know what,” you said, “he is, actually. Not that it’s any of your business.”

Rhett’s eyebrows lifted once, then smoothed out. “Okay.” He took a swig of his beer. “Got it.” Like something had been settled between you two.

· · ❁ · ·

The third time you saw Rhett Abbott, your sister’s husband, Jonah—Like the actor! Oh, and the book! Ha-ha! (which had gotten old the first time he’d said it)—took you out to the rodeo grounds. 

You and your sister had grown up in San Diego, amongst beaches and high-rises and palm trees lining manicured promenades. A place of juice cleanses and electric scooters. Men riding bulls in an arena had seemed unthinkable to you; something arcane, something forgotten. 

The rusty roofing of the grandstands shaded the crowd from the setting sun, its light disappearing behind the mountains, the endless sprawl of the valley. Everyone was buzzing, solo cups swishing beer, kids pressed up against the railing. A glossy nimbus of girls in cowboy boots and jean shorts chirped drunkenly one rung below. Every once in a while the PA crackled with the rumbling voice of the announcer, “Aaaaand here we go, folks! Big Joe out the gate, looking strong. Ah! Look at that spin, folks, right in the pocket—”

As a middle-school teacher, Jonah was forever sweet and excited about anything. Even bull riding, it seemed. He explained bull ropes and suicide grips, rattling down the names of the upcoming bulls in the pen. “—okay, so there’s Rotten Dynamite, rankest motherfucker you’ll ever see. Then there’s Terminator. Oh! And Iron Dome! We love Iron Dome. Blind in one eye, bucks like a whipcrack. Heard Rhett’s riding him tonight—”

Everyone knew Rhett Abbott rode bulls. The framed picture of him and his dad hung above the bar at the Longhorn, the two of them triumphantly holding up a big-buckled belt, the hard set of their twin jaws. People in Wabang rode bucking horses and lassoed cattle, wore their hats to the pharmacy and the supermarket, and hauled feed on their way to church. Old buildings still had hitching posts that cracked and blistered in the sun, like in a Western.

Rhett riding bulls wasn’t a surprise—but seeing it was. 

When the chute slammed open, you imagined something inside the crowd opened with it. Iron Dome, with its roiling beastly body, black as a hole in the floodlights, thundered into the arena. Dirt spraying. Crowd shouting. Rhett’s slender body meeting each jerk and heave and lunge, face hidden beneath the wide brim of his Stetson. The crowd surged forward all at once, a wild energy shuttling through it like a wave. Jonah hollered next to you, pumping a fist into the cool evening air. 

Five seconds, six seconds—

Seven point one. 

Rhett's body bending back, bow-tight, arm flung as high as the kick of the bull’s hind legs. Fused in perfect symmetry, their golden ratio like something painted. 

You flinched when Rhett’s arm snagged on the rope, and when Iron Dome finally lashed him off, and he went flying into the dirt—whatever had settled between you two, all at once, unsettled itself.

· · ❁ · ·

During the biggest fight you’d ever had with your sister, she’d called you a human hand grenade with the propensity for blowing up your life more than you could afford to. Which…okay, fair. 

People never expected you to be difficult or complicated or messy. You didn’t look it. Most of the time you didn’t even act like it. Until you slipped up, and slipped up some more, and then the slipping up turned into something big, and the big thing turned into something unstoppable.

Your mom had been the only one to describe it right, she’d understood, and in a moment of rare clarity that tore through the molasses of her medication, she’d whispered it to you like this: 

It comes in waves—until eventually the tide stops receding. 

You’d arrived in Wabang with a duffle bag, wearing a rumpled sundress and hiking boots.

Jonah had picked you up from the bus station with an excited grin and a too-tight hug. Maya had made you chicken and waffles, like when you were kids.

Back then, she'd made it whenever Mom was at her worst, when she was passed out for days, barricaded in her room like a pharaoh in a tomb. Chicken and waffles usually meant things were shitty and couldn't get much shittier. It also meant you'd skip school and spend the day at the mall down Fifth, where the sun slanted through the glass dome in the food court, made it all hot and damp like a terrarium, and the two of you would pretend to be salamanders lazing on the bench by the churros stand, T-shirts covered in cinnamon and sugar and delight. 

Wabang felt like those afternoons in the mall. Wabang was supposed to be the place where you got better.

You stuck to your routine, you made your bed, you ate enough and drank enough, you slept and woke on time, you went to work, you stuck to beers and cigarettes, you read and wrote and you fed the chickens in the garden, you always came back home. 

One afternoon, sitting on the porch staring out at the endless bowl of the valley, Maya handed you the keys to the bakery. “I want you to open up the shop. Four-thirty AM on the dot. You think you're up for it?”

“Are you kidding?”

Tomorrow was going to be a day so big, even Jonah was stopping by to help. They’d prepped the order for the wedding on Willow Ridge all week. Maya had even pulled an all-nighter the day before. It was a big deal, and she trusted you enough to be a part of that big deal. 

Trusted you enough to be a part of this life that she'd built so far away from the mall down Fifth, from mom—from you.

Smiling carefully, you reached for the keys. Maya snagged them away, narrowing her eyes. “Don't eat all the frosting, you little shit.”

“Not making any promises.” 

She tossed the keys and you caught them.

You felt like a saint anointed, like someone had tapped a sword to your shoulder, and you glowed with it, and your sister was so beautiful in the sun, and you’d said thank you, and you’d promised you’d do good. 

You’d be good. 

Maybe you deserved to celebrate being so good.

It was a Friday night after all, and you were bored and maybe a little sad, and maybe you were exhausted from following all these rules you were trying to build your life around. And so you rode the rusty bike Jonah had dug up from the bowels of their garage all the way to the Longhorn. And what started with a beer, ended with a bottle of whiskey and a joint on the back of someone’s pickup. Tame in comparison to what you'd once done on a Friday night, or on any night, really.

So it was fine, right? It was going to be fine. 

There was a girl with a shiny blonde mane and pink-chrome nails, her deep, lovely croon when she called you “—so fucking pretty, baby girl.” You missed feeling like this. You missed saying yes and yes and yes, bursting from it, unstoppable. You might’ve kissed her, but you weren’t sure, you might’ve wanted to marry her, which sounded about right, and you wanted to tell her this, to confess it to her and hold her soft pink-chrome-tipped hands...

The next thing you knew, you woke up next to your bike in the flatbed of a pickup, in a driveway you didn’t recognize, in a part of town you weren’t familiar with.

Head pounding, throat sore. Five missed calls from your sister. It was Saturday. It was noon. 

You were still drunk when you reached the green-and-pink awning of Sweet Pea’s, its buttery cream trim like frosting. Inside, the bakery was buzzing with a barrage of patrons on the sunniest Saturday Wabang had seen in weeks. At the counter, Maya didn’t speak to you. Instead she sent you straight to the back where you threw up once in the sink and once in front of the convection ovens. 

“Give me the keys,” Maya ordered, and you patted yourself down, before you remembered you’d stuffed them into your boot. She told you to go home, that she didn’t want to see you today. Jonah promised that everything would be fine, that Maya just needed a minute. Get cleaned up, he’d said. It’s gonna be okay, he’d said. But he hadn't looked so sure.

You hadn’t been good.

You hadn't been good at all—

Head throbbing more than it had before, you dragged your shitty bike through town. You rode until the sparse sprinkling of houses turned into open fields, pastures flat and endless. You struggled down a lonely dirt road, sweat spilling down your back, your chest, your face, stinging your eyes, you were hot, you were so hot, and your arms shook from the rattling of the uneven ground.

The road stopped abruptly at a rusty fence. You dropped your bike and climbed through the wide gaps between the bars. Marching through the field that stretched on forever, an ocean’s worth of it, green, dry, pricking at your bare legs, the afternoon sun battered you like judgment. You kept wading forward until you couldn’t get yourself to, until unceremoniously, with the theatrics of a very hungover and very disgraced saint, you collapsed into the shade of a lonesome tree. 

You were sure then that you’d reached the end of the world, that you were so far away from anything and anyone, and that here, like this, finally, no one would hear you.

When was the last time you cried?

Covered in sweat and dirt, possibly still drunk and possibly still high, key-less, wretched, useless, melodramatic, sobbing, gasping for breath. 

It comes in waves—  

“Look, I don’t mean to bother you, but this here’s private land.”

You’d heard it too late. 

The horse, the gentle pelt of its hooves in the field. It’s puffs of breath. A man’s low murmured, easy, girl. 

You refused to open your eyes, feeling like a child, as you flopped onto your side to turn away. 

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. 

“You doin’ alright?” His voice softer then. 

“I’m fine,” you murmured into the grass. The buzz of a bug on your cheek. You slapped it away. 

“Are you hurt?”

“No, just—” sunbathing? contemplating? “—having an existential crisis. I’m almost done.” 

A sound like a huff or a scoff, a swallowed-down laugh maybe. 

“Do you need me to call someone?” 

“Just give me a second.” Pressing your hands to your face, you took long breaths, waiting for that big bawling bone-pelting agonizing throb of exhaustion to settle down. “Okay,” you finally said. “I’m finished.” 

Turning towards him, there he sat, high upon his noble steed like a cowboy in a story. With his brows scrunched beneath his Stetson, he was a man fully unprepared to stumble upon some sobbing wildling on a Saturday morning.

You weren’t sure if he recognized you. You didn’t care. You’d lost your capacity for public shame a long time ago. 

“Right. I’ll leave. Uh—sorry.” You got up, wobbling there like a newborn calf, shaking out the damp hem of your dress, before heading down the path you’d trampled into the grass. 

“Wait,” he called out. “Do you want me to bring you back?”

The thought of getting on a horse made bile rise in your throat. You weren’t going to risk throwing up a third time. 

“No, thank you,“ you shouted.

He followed you all the way back to the fence, the steady trot of his horse in the distance. You felt his stare across the field, hot and strange on the back of your neck as you peeled your bike off the road and headed home. 

It was the fourth time you’d seen Rhett Abbott, and you’d prayed it was the last. 

· · ❁ · ·

“Hey there, Shortcake.”

God didn’t like you very much apparently.

You swallowed, hunching lower behind the display case where you were restocking the cardamom cinnamon rolls.

Rhett was tall enough to lean over it. “You feelin' better?”

So he had recognized you. 

Standing up straight, you cleared your throat. “All my demons have been temporarily exorcized, thank you.”

“Hm.” He huffed a laugh, that quick smile of his that made him all boyish. “Reckon I should try that sometime.”

“Well, I highly recommend hysterically crying on someone else’s property. It’s very cathartic—”

“That you, Rhett?” Maya shouted from the back.

“Yes, ma’am.” He straightened. 

“Just gimme a sec, I’ll grab your mom’s order.” 

You busied yourself with wiping down the countertop before your sister caught you fraternizing with the one person in Wabang that needed to be left un-fraternized with.

The two of you had only recently regained some common ground, and part of that truce was the unspoken rule that you please, please, please not obsess over the wrong people.

Rhett Abbott wasn't wrong per se; he just wasn't very right either.

Rhett’s shadow spread across the counter as he leaned over the display case again, close enough you caught the waft of his cologne, the unbearable blue of his gaze. You swallowed. His attention trailed down your throat. When he smiled again, it was soft, it stayed there for a while. His voice low then, “There’s a rodeo tonight. You should come. If none of us break any bones, we'll head to the Longhorn.”  

You stared at the spot where the worn collar of his denim jacket pressed into his neck.

“I’ll think about it.” You said it to that spot. 

“Good.” He said it to your mouth. 

Good. 

You’d found out long ago that there was one word that could make you do anything for anyone. 

Just one word—and you were piled in the truck bed of Rhett’s Chevy Silverado, squeezed against the cab with some of his old friends from high school, your legs slung over the lap of a woman who’d known Rhett since kindergarten and who had the sweetest gap-toothed grin you’d ever seen in your life. You told her so, and the gap between her teeth seemed to grow with pride. 

Driving down the winding roads of the valley, the cool air snapping your hair into your eyes, the hem of your dress fluttering, you tipped your head skyward. Before Wyoming, you’d never seen a sky so black. The nights here hit harder than anywhere else. 

You cackled when Gaptooth helped you press the hem of your dress down before you flashed the whole truck, laughing harder when she offered a pull off her cherry-red vape. With the smoke citrusy and sweet in your mouth, you turned towards the driver’s seat, your cheek mashed against the flaking metal edge of the truck bed. 

Rhett was driving. You watched his long tan arm lean out the window, fingers tinkering, playing with the wind. The soft swirl of hair. The faded bull skull tattoo on his forearm, flashing there in the beam of the headlights.

You wanted to reach out, mirror every turn of his wrist, trace the swell of a vein—

His arm went limp. You realized too late he was watching you in the side mirror.

That buzz in the back of your head, down your chest, places below.

You didn’t look away once. 

· · ❁ · ·

At the Longhorn, everyone scattered, some fighting their way to the bar, others pulling each other to the crowded dancefloor. 

“What’re you drinkin’, Shortcake?” The voice was too high to be Rhett’s. It was another rider from before. (Lloyd something-something; four point three seconds on a bull named Napoleon, which was fitting considering Lloyd was as tall as a water dispenser.)

“Uh.” You hastily checked the meager cash you’d stuffed into your boot. “Whatever five bucks will get me—”

“It’s on me.” The rough twang of that familiar voice as he leaned over you. You could still smell the dirt on him, the sweat. “Shortcake.” Rhett shot Lloyd a sharp smile, and you had to physically restrain yourself from rolling your eyes.  

(You bought yourself your own cider with your own five bucks.)

The rest of the night went on easy. Crowd thick enough you kept drifting away from familiar faces, before meeting them again in the line to the bathroom. Hopping from table to table, clinking bottles and shuffling cards, until Gaptooth pulled you to the dancefloor, where girls in boots and baby-tees taught you how to line dance. “Shake those hips, San Diego!” And so you did, and life was at its sweetest, and you didn’t have to think about the last couple of days or the last couple of years or how Maya had stopped asking where you went at night. And you spun and spun, spun wildly, and thought only about a blue pair of eyes watching you beneath the wide brim of a Stetson.

Oh God, how you’d missed this feeling. 

He found you much later; outside, at the back entrance, unlit cigarette between your lips, crouched on the ground with your back against the wall. You were in the process of yanking a boot off, tipping it upside down in the hopes it would produce your lighter. Had it fallen out on the dancefloor? 

“Need a light?”

Rhett leaned one hand against the wall, presumably still a little lopsided from facing off a two-thousand-pound bull a couple of hours ago. 

“One sec,” you said, yanking off your other boot, revealing a couple of coins and a tube of lipgloss. You looked up at him, his lighter already in hand. You smiled. “Yes, please.”

Rhett huffed a laugh. You wondered what his full laugh sounded like, big-bellied and unbridled. Did he tip his head back from so much delight? 

Leaning against the wall with a stifled groan, Rhett carefully slid to the gravel, knees popping. He landed on the ground with a thud. “Shit. Ow.”

“Careful”

“Think that’s too late for me.”

“That bad?” you asked.

“Surprisingly less terrible than last time.”

“Who would’ve thought a bull named Bonecrusher would go easy on you?”

“If by easy, you mean he made me see God a couple of times, sure.”

You snorted, before popping your cigarette in your mouth and waiting patiently for him to light it for you. He huff-laughed at that too. Apparently he was easily amused.

His hand, big and dry as a baseball mitt, came up to shield the flame from the wind, and for a moment all you smelled was him. The earth, the acrid sweetness of sweat slicked across skin for too long. Like you’d been tucked into him, an animal in his burrow. 

You couldn’t look at him like this. You hummed with this feeling. The brim of his hat bumping gently against your forehead. When the flame caught, you leaned away and took a long, long drag. “Thanks—” You cleared your throat. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

The two of you sat there for a moment, drenched in the red halogen glow of a neon sign. You, crosslegged, playing with your necklace, pressing the pendant to your mouth; him, with one long leg stretched out, the other hiked up for his forearm to lean against, fiddling with his Zippo. You stared at a couple making out against a car. He stared at the men smoking by the bins. 

You both spoke at once:

“Why do you—” 

“Why were you—”

“Oh. Sorry.” You blinked. 

Rhett pointed his Zippo at you. “By all means, ladies first.”

You snorted again, offering him your cigarette. He hesitated, like he hadn’t expected it, but you were still humming and the night was cool and life was still at its sweetest, and when he took a drag, stubbled jaw working, it felt like you could get away with more than you should. 

“Why does everyone say you choose the rankest bulls on purpose?” you asked. 

Rhett seemed to give it some serious thought, tugging his hat back to look at the sky. He handed you the cigarette. Then, “‘Cause I’m convinced I have something to prove. It’s either that or a real shit attempt at self-sabotage. Sometimes…it’s both.”

His honesty made something inside of you open. 

”Why were you crying the other day?” 

Taking a drag from the cigarette, you gave it some serious thought too. Then, “My sister’s giving me a second chance. I stopped getting those a long time ago, so I’m just trying really, really hard not to fuck it up. But I kind of suck at not fucking things up. I don’t know, it’s…” You took a breath, trailing off. 

“Complicated?” he said.

“Excruciating.”

“Sounds about right." Rhett hummed in agreement, looking at you from the corner of his eye. “You’re in luck. You’re speaking to the Abbott Family Letdown. So.” He gave a silly flourish with his hand. 

“Oh.” You sat up in mock-surprise. ”Why didn’t you say so? Always a pleasure to meet a fellow embarrassment.” You popped the cigarette back in your mouth and stretched your hand out. He shook it with a laugh. The squeeze of his thick fingers, warm and dry. 

“We could start a support group,” he said.  

Reaching your hands above your head, like you were hanging a banner: “The Disappointment Club,” you mumbled around the cigarette. 

When Rhett Abbott laughed, really laughed, when he shook with it and his shoulders did a little shimmy, he did indeed tip his head back from so much delight. 

You laughed with him. You wanted to press two fingers down the Adam’s Apple that bobbed up and down his throat. You were so close the brim of his hat bumped against your head again. You told him everything then, told him about the keys and the girl and the back of that pickup. “—and so Maya had to cancel multiple orders and pay it out of her own pocket. Plus, it was, like, the pastor’s daughter’s wedding. So I’m assuming God was cataclysmically displeased.”

“God’ll forgive you for a couple of fuckin’ muffins.”

“A couple of muffins? Those were toasted pear-and-almond tartlets with a frangipane center and a cardamom crumb topping.”

“Frangi-what-now?”

“Exactly.”

“Trust me, it ain’t that bad. One time I got so drunk in the barn I forgot to latch the gate, and we lost forty head in a night. Took me days to herd them all back together, and my dad didn’t let me into the house until they were all accounted for.”

“If we turn this into a competition, we’ll be sitting out here all night.”

He turned then. His slow crooked smile. “Sounds like a good time to me.”

You didn’t know how long you sat there, talking. Your cigarette stub forgotten on the cool asphalt. The parking lot was empty now. Even the neon sign seemed to have dimmed.

Whatever had unsettled between you two, unsettled itself so completely you fell wide open. He could’ve reached right inside, he could’ve thrown something in—

Was it so wrong to look at him like this and hope, with a desperation that might’ve killed you, that he wouldn’t look away?

· · ❁ · ·

Friendship. 

Could you call it that?

It felt a lot sharper, had more blowback. 

Rhett liked to describe it as your little two-man support group. “Hottest club in town,” he’d say. Which wasn’t particularly funny, but it was stupid enough it made you snort every time. 

Time was no longer governed by phases—no more mornings, noons or nights, no more suns or moons—instead, you found yourself adhering to Rhett Abbott’s reliable rhythms.

Your days started when the tiny bell above the shop door rang, and the brim of a worn Stetson swung up to reveal that surprisingly tender face. Maya had her suspicions about Rhett stopping by the bakery almost every day like clockwork: “There’s only so many errands he can run…and do you really think Cecilia Abbott eats that many toffee-nut buttermilk muffins? Woman must be enormous by now—”

You felt like a puppy, Pavloved, scrambling to the counter every time the shop bell trilled in the quiet. On the days he didn’t come in early, you usually met him on your lunch break. You were notoriously terrible at making sure you ate properly, and so he’d bring you a sandwich, or take-out, and you’d eat on the back of his Chevy in the parking lot, legs dangling from the truck bed, kicking up every time he made you laugh. Rhett made you laugh the way you’d forgotten to, that startled smack of a cackle, like you still couldn’t believe that there was someone who made you topple over from so much fucking glee. 

Your favorite days were the ones he was off work early, and he’d come pick you up, toss your bike onto the truck bed—“Get in, Shortcake, we’re going on a trip!”—and he’d take you to the lakes or a town one valley over or the mountains, show you Wabang, show you Wyoming. He showed you the delicate difference between yarrow and hemlock when you trekked through the forests.

“Wow, dude, real Bear Grylls energy,” you’d said the first time he’d started a fire on a bed of pine needles. 

“That’s the most California thing I think you’ve ever said.” 

“Wait until I start talking about the way they stack vegetables at Erewhon.”

He grunted a laugh. 

“Do you miss it?”

“The vegetables at Erewohn?”

“Home.”

It took you a moment. 

The thought of your sister’s and Jonah’s sweet storybook house, with their porch covered in sun catchers shaped like honeycomb, their little brood of chickens in the garden, how the thought of it all moved through you on reflex. But Rhett hadn’t meant that house or those people or this place.

“I don't know, sometimes.”

Sometimes being here makes me forget to miss anything at all. 

You forgot to miss the most at night, when your days came to an end at the rodeo or the Longhorn. When Rhett sloppily swung you across the dancefloor, the smell of beer and sawdust and the distinct spice of his cologne. Rhett was fierce, he was momentum, he was unstoppable force in a place full of immovable objects. You wanted to hurtle away with him, wrap yourself around his body, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, chin to chin—take me places. 

Did he know he did this to you? 

Did he know how easy you were?  

That when you chose someone like this, you fell into them, and everything and everyone else fell away? 

You didn’t pay attention to Lloyd’s weird come-ons, didn’t care about the girls that crushed around Rhett after he tumbled off another bull, or the way he always seemed to sidle up to you whenever anyone tried to buy you a drink.

You were singular, soaking up his closeness until you felt thick and stupid with it, and all you could do was let him turn you on the dancefloor like a drunken spinning top, his gravelly laughter shaking uncontrollably in your ear. Those lean arms looped around your waist, and your hands slid up the skin of his neck, slick with sweat, to cradle his face.

How those eyes crinkled when he grinned, and how easy it was then to imagine him as a child. The defiant thing with bloodied knees getting into trouble at the edge of town. The Abbott Family Letdown, you thought with so much fondness you could’ve kissed his cheek.

Nights always ended like this: The two of you fused to each other, dancing, or squeezed into a booth, or smoking out in the lot, talking and talking about everything and anything, about the places you wanted to see, and the things you wanted to do, and the people you wanted be. The choices you wanted to make and the ones you really, really wished you could remake. 

Sometimes you didn’t speak at all, and you just sat there and stared at each other, as if to say: Out of all the places in the world, this is where I find you.

· · ❁ · ·

You loved the rainy season, loved those humid afternoons you’d sit on the back deck at Rhett’s place.

He’d fixed up the Abbott's old bunkhouse with Perry, a small cabin at the edge of the forest where ranch hands used to stay back in the day. The two of them had worked on it for a year, and you knew Rhett felt a sense of pride whenever he talked about it, running his hands along the smooth timber walls with a kind of care that felt personal. He and Perry had carved their names like kids into the bottom of the front door, and Rhett knocked the tip of his boot against it every time he left the cabin. “For luck,” he’d told you once, and he’d looked a little sad. 

His was a place of wide gridded windows and Navajo rugs. It was surprisingly sentimental, filled with keepsakes and old furniture from his parents or his grandparents, the kind of place that looked like it had been here from the start, as enduring as the soft in-line of a favorite coat.

You liked the traces of him here, the mundanity of them; aftershave and painkillers in the medicine cabinet, forgotten mugs of coffee left on window sills and counter tops, his belts, his toppled boots by the door, his packet of Camels by the sink, his dad’s old CD collection—The Black Crows, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan—a small army of Amy’s arts-and-crafts projects sprinkled atop shelves, family photos tacked to the refrigerator.  

Out on the back deck, your eyes trailed over the rocks set in a neat row on the railing. You sat in a wicker chair, listening to the rain pattering against the tin roof, the cradle of pine all around. 

You’d had a long day at the bakery, and Rhett had had an even longer day herding cattle out of the west pasture, which had started to flood from all the rain.

He sat on the deck with his legs stretched out and his back against the railing. In a T-shirt and jeans, head knocked back, his baseball cap pulled low.

He’d closed his eyes a long time ago. Had he fallen asleep?

“Stop starin’,” Rhett mumbled, eyes still closed. 

You snorted, caught. Ears going hot, you dug your cheek into the weave of the wicker, clenching your eyes closed like a child when he opened his. Your tell-tale grin. His low chuckle.

You felt young with him sometimes. Like you didn’t have to pretend the way you did with Maya, constantly trying to prove that you weren’t the useless little sister floundering through life.

It was easy with Rhett, you could be honest. And you had all these big feelings and these even bigger wants, and they were shameful, complicated, and they ached, and you knew this need all too well, had felt it with every crush you’d ever had, never knew what to call it or how to say it, or how to have it be done to you. You didn’t just like people; you disappeared into them.

And with Rhett…

You wanted to crawl after him on your hands and knees, feel his big, big hand grab you by the hair, pulling and pulling, your teeth sinking into the worn leather of his belt.

Open up, Shortcake.

You swallowed. You pulled your knees to your chest. You wanted to close yourself like a box. 

“You want the talking stick?” Rhett asked with one of his huff-laughs. 

The talking stick was silly.

You didn’t know when it had started; something to do with support groups and their strange rituals, and you’d said it as a joke once at the bar when Rhett had looked like he wanted to say something but was holding back. You’d handed him your soggy coaster and said, You want the talking stick? And he’d taken it with a smile loosened by relief. 

You shook your head. “No, thank you.”

“You sure?”

“Super.”

“Because if you ain’t taking it, I will—”

“Oh god, if you’re going to start talking about that bull rope paste again, I’ll suffocate myself in the mud.”

“First of all, it’s called rosin. Second of all, ouch.” He looked genuinely offended. “And you better make your mind up quick, ‘cause I’m gonna start listing my favorite ones. Also, did you know you have to heat it just right? Otherwise it’s like pulling taffy—”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had the kind of sex I really want to have,” you finally said. Blurted, really.

You thought of what your sister had called you once: a human hand grenade.  

The distinct click of Rhett snapping his mouth shut, teeth on teeth. The rain pattered on—and you knew you had to as well, you had to get it out quick before you stuffed it all back down.

“And I’m scared I’ll never have it because I’m too chickenshit to tell people about the kind of sex I want to have, and, it’s nothing crazy, it just—it’s…a feeling? And like, some people just aren’t into it, but I haven’t slept with enough people to really know if that’s true or if I’ve never bothered to get close enough to someone to actually tell them or to know if that really is the kind of sex that I actually want, because I’ve never had it, I just know that I want it, and what if I tell the next person that’s the kind of sex I want and then I don’t like it at all…what then?”

You’d closed your eyes again, vibrating, the blackness vibrating with you.

“What kind of sex do you wanna have?” Rhett’s voice was so low you barely heard him. 

Breath catching. You opened your eyes. You stared at his hands.

You pantomimed tossing the stick over your shoulder. “Lost it,” you mumbled.

I'm sorry, you wanted to say but you couldn't get yourself to.

Even though you weren’t looking at him, you knew Rhett was thinking, trying to figure out if he could push you or if he wanted to wait it out, if he should pave it over with conversation, or if he should stand up to grab a beer. Because in the end, you were friends. And you did know him, and he did know you. 

Rhett settled for something that broke your heart a little. “You know, you can talk to me. Right? About anything.”

You swallowed, nodded. 

“Want a beer?” The soft familiar crack of his knees as he stood. 

You were too scared of the things you’d say if you had one. Shaking your head, you said, “Water, please.”

· · ❁ · ·

Something shifted after that. It felt tectonic, structural. There was this muscle inside of you strung so tight. It waited. Agonized for relief, for a thumb to rub along its tendons and help it unravel itself.

It was different that morning, and you were curled in the tub, shower head pressed close—down there, right there—and you needed so much, and his name spiraled through you endlessly, oh god-oh god, eyes squeezed shut tight enough the whole world cracked open. You came so hard you felt helpless in it, loosened from yourself, your mouth finding your forearm, your teeth finding your skin—

You’d bitten down hard enough Rhett traced a finger over the swell when you met him later that day. “What happened?” His voice too low. Unfamiliar.

“Hurt myself at the bakery,” you lied. 

He huffed. No laugh. He didn’t believe you. 

Whatever had started to shift, didn’t stop its shifting. It infiltrated your conversations, or rather lack thereof, until both of you felt like you were fumbling through something that used to be easy.

Rhett stopped coming into the bakery, rather opting to drive you home whenever you had to close up shop on your own, even if it meant he had to leave the ranch early to drive all the way to town and back. There was an energy around him, especially at the bar when he was a couple of drinks in. 

You were used to Rhett Abbott quietly watching over people, making sure no rowdy tourists messed with the regulars, or that the Tillerson boys left Perry alone on the rare occasion that he did join you two at the bar, or looming over you whenever some guy slid up to ask for your number, his blunt: Can I help you, man? 

There was something about him, like maybe there was a muscle inside of him too, strung too tight for too long, waiting...

The first time Rhett got into a fight in front of you, something incomprehensible roiled in your stomach.

It had started innocently enough. You knew Lloyd liked calling you Shortcake, and you’d never paid it any mind; he was a touchy drunk the girls tolerated, each meeting his relatively tame come-ons with an eye-roll and a middle finger. But he’d had too much to drink that night, and his hands had sloppily snaked their way around your waist to pull you to the dancefloor. “—no, seriously, I’m good, Lloyd. Like, I’m running for evil mayor of that town in Footloose. I’m done—”

“Come on, Shortcake, for me?”

“I said I’m fucking good, Lloyd.” His arms tightened around you, breath bloated with liquors unknown. “You can let go now.” 

You saw Rhett too late, shoving his way through the crowd. You lifted your hands like you were trying to reprimand an incoming cyclone, “Rhett, don’t—” 

Leaning in close to slur something in your ear, Lloyd was oblivious to the fact that Rhett's shoulder was about to collide with the back of his head.

What proceeded was a burst of juvenile male posturing that consisted mostly of huffing and shoving, like two big pigeons clucking at each other over soggy bread on the sidewalk. But when Lloyd whacked Rhett’s hat off with an accidental swing, the next thing you knew, a fist met a cheek, and a knee met a groin—and you cursed God for ever making you this hopelessly attracted to dick. 

· · ❁ · ·

“Please don’t do that again,” you told Rhett much later, sitting next to him on his couch, pressing a bag of frozen peas to his head. “Not for me, okay?”

Rhett sat slouched beside you, the big bend of his back, as he stared at the scuffed knuckles of his right hand. 

“I’m a big girl. I can deal with Lloyd, for Christ’s sake. He’s, like, three feet. He’s a human step stool.”

“He was touching you—”

“People touch me all the time.”

“Not like that. I didn’t…I don’t want anyone else to fucking touch you like that.”

You tossed the peas into his lap. 

He looked at you then, face hazy in the dim lights of his living room. 

Anyone else…

It echoed in your body, over and over, traveled all the way through you.  

“Pretty sure that’s up to me,” you said. 

With a sigh, he pressed the bag of peas to his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m—sorry. Okay? Sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing it until…Yeah.” He took a breath. “I’m a shitty drunk.”

“That makes two of us.” Shifting, you grabbed his arm to help him up, catching him when he swayed with a groan. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed, Bazooka Man.” 

Rhett let you guide him to the bedroom, the same way he’d let you drive him home in his truck. It did things to you, knowing you could wrangle this big cowboy down the hallway and into his bed, without him putting up a fight.

You liked when he listened to you—and you knew full well there weren’t many people he listened to in the first place. 

“Gotta admit, I got him good though,” Rhett murmured when he stumbled into bed, that stupid little grin of his, the one that made his canines flash.

You snatched the peas to smack him with it. “Stop,” you warned. “You kneed him in the ballsack, you trigger-happy fuck. Are you proud of yourself?”

“I hope his sperm count plummets.”

You couldn’t help your laugh, and he couldn’t help his. 

This, you could handle. This was the Rhett with the crooked smile and the lopsided gait, his intense boyishness that made you wonder about how he got each scar on his body.

With this Rhett, things were easy, almost routine, and you felt lulled into the practiced rhythm of it, unthinking; helping him unbutton his shirt, before yanking off his boots, his jeans, the way you had countless of times after he’d been bucked off a bull hard enough he’d returned to the cabin in a tourniquet and his head foggy with medication. 

On the first night you’d driven him home from the hospital, he’d told you that he didn’t like letting anyone help him like this, and you’d reached over the stick shift to wipe the hair from his forehead, and something about the way he'd leaned into it had made you so unbearably sad.  

You didn’t know when you snapped out of it, crouched before him, about to grab his boots to bring them to the door—when you finally looked up.

His silhouette was black against the glow of the bedside lamp, eclipsed by it, he loomed above you in shadow. Your chest cramped up with a feeling you’d tried so hard to push away.

In your head, you were careless.

In your head, you let his boots fall to the hardwood floor. You crawled to him on hands and knees, and you nuzzled his bare knee, the soft hairs there, the lean muscle of his thigh, ran your nose to the spot where the checkered cotton of his boxers bunched just so. I need. I need and need and need—

“You can’t do that to me, Shortcake.” Rhett’s voice rumbled in the quiet. 

“Do what?”

“Look at me like that.” His voice felt like a finger below your chin, tapping it up.

“Like what?” All breath. 

Rhett didn’t answer. His head tipped to the side. You imagined yourself from where he sat, imagined his shadow was big enough it swallowed you whole.

This was a Rhett you didn’t know. 

The bed creaked as he leaned forward. You didn’t breathe, didn’t move a muscle, when his fingers ghosted along the edge of your jaw. Your breath hiccuped when you felt a gentle tug on the corner of your mouth, and you realized he’d loosened a single strand of hair from your lips. The heat humming there, humming through you.

“Are you ever going to tell me?” he said. 

Your confusion must’ve been obvious, because he spoke again: “Are you ever going to tell me what you want?” 

What I want? 

It was such a simple answer.

It shamed you how simple it was. 

In the dim light, you stared at the vein roped along his forearm. You wanted to trace it with your tongue, with soft grazing teeth, wanted to lap up the salt and tang of his skin, gather it all in your mouth, take the sweetest littlest bites.

You wanted to lean all the way in, kiss the inside of his palm, that starburst scar from when his glove had once ripped during a bull ride. You imagined then, taking the thick pad of his thumb into your mouth, letting it press into your tongue until you bit down, until it reached all the way in. Until you writhed from it. 

With a frustrated huff, you tipped forward. Your forehead bumped against his knee.

You didn’t know what to do with yourself anymore.

You could’ve wept when you felt strong fingers carefully run down the curve of your skull. The cuff of nails scraping along your skin. The sound it made.

He held you like this: your head cradled in his big, big hand.

You knew Rhett understood something about you in that moment. 

You felt young, skinless, unsure in your body. None of you felt grown. You were all baby teeth. You were a tiny stack of bones that shook.

“You’re okay, darlin’,” Rhett said it with so much tenderness you made a shameful sound low in your throat, and your nose pressed into the scar that ran up the center of his knee.

What you would’ve done to kiss it then, just once, to lave it in spit, with your eyes screwed shut and a hand between your legs, there, down there—

· · ❁ · ·

Your biggest secret was this: You’d let anything be done to you if it was just done sweetly enough. 

Your relationship with intimacy had always been complicated.

You knew what you looked like to men; you were the young desperate thing to be flung face-down and taken, filthy little whore, you asked for it, you want it like this, right? You want it like this— 

The few times you’d had sex, that assumption had left you shaking in the bathroom after, still drunk or high or both, wiping cum off your face or scraping it out of yourself, rubbing the tacky film of it between your fingers until it got grainy. 

The shame of it all, the shame of your body glaring back at you in the mirror like a creature unknown. Because you had wanted it like that, but not really, and you hadn’t known how to say it right, or maybe they hadn’t listened, and you hadn’t blamed them for it, except you had. Most of the time you blamed yourself, an archaic miserable reflex that seemed to define every aspect of you being a fucking woman. 

When you thought about what you wanted, sometimes all you were left with was a feeling.

You thought of big sure hands helping you out of your shoes, unlacing one, then the other. You thought of your hair being washed and your mouth being fed and your cheeks being kissed, one at a time.

It was so embarrassingly sexless.

All you wanted was to know with a kind of relief that you could let go now, that it was going to be okay, and that for a blissful fucking moment, you didn’t have to be yourself anymore. 

You could just want. 

You could be all of your wanting at once and nothing more.

· · ❁ · ·

“Mornin’.”

You didn’t open your eyes.

A low chuckle from above. “I know you ain’t asleep.”

With a tired groan, you cracked one eye open, then the other. Rhett had changed into a T-shirt and sweats. He’d showered, hair still damp and curling at his neck.

He was staring. You knew why. Your dress lay puddled on his living room floor. 

Still hazy from sleep, was it so terrible to let yourself be looked at like this? The worn cotton T-shirt you’d snatched from Rhett’s drawer riding up your stomach as you stretched.

You caught the bob in his slender throat. He was pretty like this, you thought. A patch of sunlight spilled across the side of his face, eyes a tremendous shock of blue. He smelled like his deodorant, his aftershave. His hand so close to your face all you’d have to do was open your mouth. 

“You feeling better?” you said, voice frayed with leftover sleep.

A night on Rhett’s couch always left you a little discombobulated. It was deep and wide, all buttery brown leather, the kind you sunk into as if lazing in a palm.

Your gaze climbed from his hand up to his bare arm, from his throat to his freshly shaven jaw. You were so tired you couldn’t hide from him.

You fell all the way open.

His hand twitched like maybe he’d reach out. 

But you two were good at this game. Especially sober, in the daylight. 

Rhett cleared his throat. “Making breakfast. You hungry?” His attention wavered on your mouth. 

You swallowed. He tracked it.  

“Starvin’,” you drawled in some faux-impression of him, in the hopes it was silly enough to lighten the mood.  

He chuckled. “Starvin’, huh? Okay, cowboy.” He grabbed a pillow and whacked your thigh, “Giddy-up,”  before heading to the kitchen, limping slightly.

Had he not taken his painkillers?

“How do scrambled eggs and pancakes sound?” he tossed over his shoulder.

“Uh—Heavenly?” 

“Okay, calm down, they’re more for me than for you.”

“Liar. If I weren’t here, you’d have a cigarette and a Bud Light.”

“If I didn’t make sure you ate properly, you’d be having orange juice Captain Crunch three times a day.”

“It’s delicious?”

“It’s deranged, is what it is.”

You laughed, more out of relief than anything else. This was normal. You could deal with normal. 

Not bothering with putting on your dress, you dragged yourself to the kitchen in nothing but his T-shirt and your underwear. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight—you’d weathered the occasional hangover on his couch wearing less—but something about this felt different. There was too much inside of you, and after last night, you didn’t know how to look at him without thinking about the way he’d called you darlin'.  

You managed to sit through a painfully normal breakfast—radio on, mundane small talk—and even though it wasn’t Captain Crunch with orange juice, it would do (a mumbled statement that earned you a balled-up paper towel to the head).

You helped clear the table after, before heading out to brush your teeth. When you returned the radio was off, and Rhett was stooped over the sudsy sink, placing a plate onto the drying rack. You hoisted yourself onto the kitchen table and watched as he washed his hands, slowly, methodically, staring out the window like he was thinking. 

“You want the talking stick?” you said. 

Rhett huffed a laugh, bracing his hands on the edge of the sink, looking down, looking up. His wide back expanded as he took a breath. You almost expected him to shake his head when he finally spoke: “Who bit your arm?”

You blinked. “What?”

“I know what a bite mark looks like.” Of course Rhett Abbott would know what a bite mark looked like. It almost made you laugh, the ridiculousness of it. “Are you getting into fights I don’t know about? Or is Maya—”

“Oh God,” you pitched forward, “no, of course not! Biting’s not her style. She prefers dish towels.” You were joking but Rhett wasn’t laughing.

This whole moment felt unreal. You hadn't thought about it in days. The bruise was already healing anyway, yellow and mottled and absolutely not worth being contemplated on.

You raked through yourself for another answer, something stupid enough, something unbelievable: Tres, the three-legged goat? The wonky convection oven at the bakery? A rabid child on the street—

“Are you ever going to tell me?” Rhett gripped into the sink so hard his hands paled from the pressure. 

The question surprised you.

You remembered how he’d asked you that the night before.  

It made the same frustrating weight sink onto your chest. You squeezed your eyes shut and opened them again, vision splotchy. Staring at the tender swirls of hair gathered at the nape of Rhett’s neck, you took a breath and you said, “It was me.” 

You watched as the color blotted back into his hands. 

“I was in the shower,” you said. Then, “I was...thinking of you.”

Remembering then how his finger had traced along the tender swell of the bruise just hours later, in the bar, in the red lights, and how you’d secretly hoped he’d press down to make it ache, make you remember how much you’d wanted him, in that moment, in the bathtub surrounded by the splotchy shower curtain, the tiles painted in dried suds, like Venus in her shell, shaking open, shaking apart. 

I was thinking of you.

You closed your eyes when Rhett finally turned. Sitting on the kitchen table, legs dangling over the edge, you kept yourself still. You listened to his breath ragged and strange in the quiet. A warble of birds outside. The creak of the floorboards as he came to you. 

His closeness was a cloud bank rolling in, suddenly all around, the smell of him, coffee and deodorant and soap. Your face lifted on instinct. Eyes still closed, you basked in the heat of his breath pouring across your forehead, your cheeks. 

I was thinking of you.

All of you sighed open. 

And you waited for him in that blackness, until you felt the distinct prickle of skin on skin, a knuckle maybe, a single finger running down the inside of your forearm, down, down, before it reached that tender spot. 

He pressed. 

Your eyes snapped open. Sunlight turned that blue stare into something startling, electric. 

As if moving through a trance, your hand settled atop his still on your arm, finding his thumb and digging it into the bruise even harder. That dull ache turned sharp, shot right through you.

Eyes twitching, mouth opening. The sound you made.

Rhett looked at you like he’d never seen you before. 

Letting go of his hand, you reached for him, digging your fingers into the hair bunched at the nape of his neck, and you pulled him close, pulled him all the way down. Your forehead rolled against his, your nose mashing into his skin, mouth open, waiting, wanting so fucking much. Pleasepleasepleaseplease—

Rhett stopped you with a thumb on your bottom lip. You couldn’t even feel ashamed for spewing out the most pathetic huff. Filthy little whore. Your jaw loosening, tongue darting out to taste him, to dig your teeth into him just a little. 

But Rhett slid his thumb away, pressed it like a gentle warning into your cheek.

“Do you want this?” His voice cracked right in the middle. 

You nodded, nose bumping against his a little too hard. 

“Speak up for me—”

“Yes.” 

“Good,” he said, he smiled small. You wanted to bite at it, make it bigger. “You say the word and we stop, okay?”

You nodded. He waited.

"Okay," you said.

“We’ll go slow. Yeah?”

You nodded again, numbed to everything except for him. “Yes, please.”

Rhett groaned, leaning into you so completely your mouths almost collided. “God, you kill me with all your please-and-thank-yous. You’re so good. You wanna be good for me?” He said it like he was testing something. And your chin nudged forward, body bending towards him, and whatever he was looking for, he found it in the way your legs fell open all the way.

Gripping into the back of your knees, he dragged you closer, his thighs sliding between yours, and you sputtered a breath when you felt the hot press of him against all of you.

“Yes,” you breathed. 

“You are, darlin’. "

Darlin'

"Fuck, you are. You don’t even know how damn good you are.” His hands sliding back up your side, your throat, gripping your jaw to tip your face towards him. Your fingers fumbling to hook into his forearms. You felt as though all you were doing was holding on.

Letting him lead. Letting him keep you like this.

He made you wait. Ran the tip of his nose almost soothingly along the bridge of yours. Lips taunting, that terrible shudder of closeness that escaped you every time your mouth tried desperately to meet his.  

You thought of the way he ran his hand along the flank of his horse, patted her once, twice. Easy, girl—

Maybe you hated him for it. How much he undid you. How he had you sitting there, soaking in it, vibrating inside all of your unbearable catastrophic fucking need like he had you leashed. 

“Please,” you finally mouthed into the heat of his breath. And his eyes flashed. And when you were ready to plead just one more time, without an ounce of shame left, his mouth collapsed against yours. 

It surged through you like a spinal tap.

Drawing out, deeper, digging all the way in, tongue and teeth, the smooth jut of his chin.

Your hands were everywhere, unsure of what they wanted to grab hold of first, like a woman drowning; in his hair, on his jaw, scraping down his wide shoulders, sliding up the heat of his neck—Here and here and here, let me touch you right here. 

Rhett’s hands stayed bolted to your jaw. You felt like he was the only thing keeping you upright, like you’d unspool if he ever let you go. 

You were a wanton thing, wincing into his open mouth. A constant drool of need. And you were hot. God, you were so hot. You couldn’t breathe with how hot you were. Yanking at your shirt, you just wanted it off, off. Rhett nipped at your bottom lip once, and then he was smiling. Was he laughing? Like he was catching on, like he took such pity on you. Your teeth clacked against his. You couldn't keep your shit together. You couldn't think, you couldn't think...

“I want—” You tugged at the shirt until his hands joined yours. “I want all of it off.” You sounded drunk, like you were listening to yourself from one room over.

“Okay. Okay, darlin’, I got you.” And he did. He helped you peel the shirt off, but it snagged on your elbow, and your face was stuck against threadbare cotton, and you laughed, because what the fuck? Here you were, going crazy on Rhett Abbott’s kitchen table. 

You were still laughing when the shirt finally came off, laughing harder when Rhett tossed it over his shoulder and it landed on the coffee maker.

He was smiling above you, the morning light painting him soft and perfect as he combed the hair out of your eyes.

You wanted to run your fingers over his face, read him like braille.

It was a foreign realization that, now, here, you could. You could do so much. You could have all the things that had piled inside of you, one on top of the other. All of your fucking wanting, it felt bigger than your body. You were so full. And it was just the two of you, and this was Rhett, and it was all going to be okay, it was okay to let go of him and to lean back, push the leftover coffee mugs to the edge of the table, to let Rhett huff a strangled laugh when one of them thunked to the floor, like he couldn’t believe that he was here like this, with you.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered, staring down at you 

A hand traced where your body met the table, like he was cutting along the shape of you, skin sliding against yours as he traveled up and up, past each dip of your ribs, your arms, shoulders, up the hollow of your throat to your collarbone, to that dip right in-between, where the pendant of your necklace rested.

He pushed it in just a bit, and the pressure made you arch, made you mad with it. “Fuck, look at you, baby."

Baby.

You were baby. 

“No one’s ever taken care of you, huh? You poor thing.” His lilting condescension left you gaping. “Remember what you told me? You’ll tell me what you want. You’ll tell me, yeah? How do you want it, baby? I’ll take such good fucking care of you.”

He leaned over you, ghosting his mouth over your jaw, kissing you there, so unhurried. “Where do you want me?”

Everywhere.

You swallowed, shaking your head, eyes screwed shut. 

Fucking everywhere, all at once, all the time.

You make me want so much it pushes out everything else. 

He chuckled into your neck. “Gotta tell me, baby.” Sucked at your skin with tongue and teeth. His T-shirt hung low enough it grazed over your nipples. You arched into him.

He hummed. “Here?” His thumb tenderly traveled up the swell of your breast and tapped against your nipple. Breath hitching, you shook your head.

“What about here?” His mouth pressed a wet kiss to your clavicle. No. Going lower, kissing a path to your other breast, breath gathering over it. You closed your eyes when he looked at you.

“And here?” His tongue like a small flame over your nipple, laving at it so softly, round and round, the wet sweep making you dizzy. Losing yourself in it. Chest bowing up into his mouth, arching so high it hurt. 

He bit down once. You whined. Shook your head again, not there. 

On and on it went:

Here? Mouth on your sternum. And what about here? Hands grabbing your waist. A soft scatter of kisses around your belly button. Biting into the soft flesh of your tummy until it kicked a laugh out of you. No, stop, stop. Okay, okay. Here? He fed your fingers into his mouth, the warm glide of his tongue, snag of teeth when they caught on your knuckles. And here? Baby, what about here? Spit on his chin as bent down to lave at each hipbone—No, no, no.

Here? Traveling lower and lower to kiss the top of a thigh, then inside of it with a drag of his tongue.

Your body hiccuped once and hard with need. 

Rhett moved around you with the same intensity he had waiting in the chute at the rodeo, holding something back, containing it. You wanted to slam it open, wanted him thrashing and sweating and tossed around, you wanted and you wanted, you wanted so much. 

Maybe he took mercy on you, or maybe he’d run out of patience, when he finally—finally—parted your legs. That pained sound of his. That sweet little oh. “Fuck. You’re so wet. You need it that bad, hm?"

You were nodding again. "Yes—" Could he tell how hard you were nodding?

You heard the distinct drag of a chair on the hardwood floor, and you could’ve laughed at the ridiculousness of seeing him sitting at the kitchen table, the very one you’d just had breakfast at, now covered in the sprawl of your naked body, soaked and aching, your thighs parted for him, right foot resting on the back of the chair. 

Rhett must’ve caught on because he laughed, tipping his head against your leg, kissing your calf. You hissed when he nipped at you there. “God, I could—” Groaning into your skin. “I could take a fucking bite out of you it's not even funny. Jesus.”

With his arms hooked around your legs, his kisses traveled up the inside of your thigh. You watched, open-mouthed, slack-jawed, as his dark swirl of hair traveled between your legs. 

You’d fucked yourself to the thought of this. 

“You want it here, baby?” He nosed at the elastic of your underwear, warm breath pouring over you. 

You nodded so hard your head knocked against the table. You were swimming in it. The whole world swimming with you. “Yes, please…” 

His murmured curse.

Your desperate whine.

Before finally, a kiss to your cotton-covered clit. 

It made your whole body still.

“How you do you want it?” he mumbled it against you. Right there. Down there.

You knew he wasn't expecting you to answer, but your needing felt vicious like this, burned in the back of your throat, and you thought:

Messy.

And with a shame that bloomed hot and red across your chest, you realized you'd pleaded for it out loud, voice like a frayed rope one pull away from snapping. 

Rhett's lashes were long and dark as he looked up at you. He huffed a laugh.

Something about it sounded very, very mean. 

He gave your clit another quick kiss. And then another and another, longer this time, until his mouth opened, tongue flattening against the center of you. You felt him gather spit, felt the hot gush of it. How he grabbed the elastic of your underwear to stretch it across you so tight it made your clit thrum, holding you there, strumming his thumb up and down, playing with it. “Look at this.” Before giving you a quick pat, once, twice—the peeling wetness of it in the quiet. “Fuck, baby—”

Before you had time to gather enough breath, Rhett buried his face into you, mouth mashing against you there, right there. Taking big bites. Spit and tongue and heat that drooled right through you. He groaned, pressing in deeper, the wide pad of his tongue nudging your clit, over and over, working you like this, until you were soaked enough a string of wetness followed when Rhett finally pulled off your underwear.

He flung it across the kitchen, uncaring, and you heard it land somewhere on the floor with a slop.

You were completely naked then, and he stared down at you like he wanted to be everywhere but he knew he had to make a choice. 

It made your brain light up. It made you writhe when his palm pressed a smooth circle over your aching core, before cupping it once and hard, holding you like this, holding all of you at once. “You’re so perfect, baby. Look at you being so perfect for me.” His endless reserve of nonsensical drivel, slow and honeyed and drawling, like he was pouring it into you. 

You wanted more, you waited for it, legs opening wider, wider.

A breath, then—he spit on your hole.

It felt fucking preposterous.

And then his mouth was on you again. Without that barrier of cotton from before, everything was raw, wetness wetter, pressure harder. His tongue, spongy and hot against you, teeth scraping across your clit. Pulling in a deep mouthful. You felt it everywhere when he moaned. His head shaking once like something gone rabid.

One of his hands dug into your stomach, the other crept up the front of your throat, digging for entrance when it reached your mouth. You let him in, his thick fingers pressing into your tongue. 

“Spit.” He said it right against your clit, before sucking. 

You’d caught the undertone: You want messy? I’ll give you fucking messy—

You grabbed his wrist, laved at his fingers, until you felt a dribble down your chin, and before you could get lost in the pressure of something thick and foreign in your mouth, he pulled his hand back, smearing the mess over your aching hole. Thumb flicking fast—before stopping. You punched out a pitiful cry. 

“You want my fingers, hm? You think this sweet pussy wants my fingers?”

You knocked your head into the table so hard your ears rung, yesyesyesyesyes. Nodding and nodding and nodding and nodding. 

You were so open and so wet, he easily breached you.

Full of him. You were full with him.

His fingers curled against that spongy rippling spot inside of you, that spot that gave way completely. He pressed down on your stomach, hard, and you keened, elbows digging into the table, your hands hovering, twitching in the air. 

Rhett was strong enough to keep you from moving too much. You blamed all those damn bulls. His body moved on instinct, meeting each buck and squirm of you. He’d told you once that it was never about anticipating the next move, it was about response, action-reaction, it was all reflex when he was on that saddle. 

You couldn’t keep still, hips jerking, lurching wildly beneath him. You were everywhere. You were fucking dynamite. But he pressed you down, fingers working inside of you with that steady unbreakable rhythm. His tongue on your clit. The filthy sounds of it dripping into the kitchen, all the lapping, the squelch of his fingers, your wet keening sobs. You let him fuck you and fuck you and fuck you and fuck you like this. Your hands finally tearing in his hair. Feet fumbling to find the back of the chair for leverage, trying to ride his face, his fingers.

Don’t stop, you thought so hard it charged through you like voltage. Please, “Don’t stop—” 

His hand on your stomach splayed wider, pressed down, gripping into you—and you realized he’d felt your body tense up faster than you had. 

Something about Rhett feeling you were about to come made your vision blurry. His body meeting yours at every turn. 

You said his name then. He groaned something into you, but you couldn’t hear it over the pulsing in your ears. Chest arching, legs buckling around his head. 

You came in complete and utter silence. 

Eyes screwed shut, dropping into blackness.

You thought you might've reached the bottom of something.

It was so perfect you wanted to cry.

The slow drag of his tongue coaxed you back slowly. His fingers had slipped out, now tracing soothing wet circles on the inside of your thigh. You couldn’t believe Rhett's head was still between your legs, mouth lazily lapping up the mess. You gently pushed him away, clit too sensitive for more. 

Rhett blinked, bleary-eyed. He looked wild. Hair a mess, face ruddy and wet. Covered in you. 

“Holy shit..” His voice was nothing but a low rasp.

Holy shit.

The chair jerked back as he stood again, roughly wiping his face on his T-shirt with such habitual boyishness you couldn’t help but reach for him. Delirious, gooey-warm. You were kissing him and kissing him, kissing him all over. You could taste yourself on him. 

"Did so well for me, baby." He murmured in between kisses, smiling slow. "So fucking good." His hands gripped your head, turning you this way and that like he was checking in.

You couldn't do anything but nod. Your legs felt gummy as you wrapped them around his hips to pull him close. His hardness ground right against you.

Rhett hissed. Eyes squeezing shut. Nodding his head almost absentmindedly when you hooked your fingers into the waistband of his sweats to pull them down. 

You felt hungry with it. Insatiable.

Rhett’s cock was heavy and full as it sprung free, the glossy-pink tip swollen with all his aching. Your mouth went numb, filling with spit, with how much you wanted to taste him, slide him all the way into you until you stopped breathing.

But Rhett was shaking his head, no. “I won’t last, baby—” Raw enough it almost felt like he was the one pleading with you now. 

You didn’t want him pleading.

You wanted him to feel good. All you wanted was for him to feel good.

Without a word, you wiped a hand through the wet mess between your legs, all his spit, all yours, all your cum, the terrible gush of you, and you spread it over him in a slow filthy pump. He was so big, you stacked one hand over the other.

Rhett tipped forward, his jaw slack, transfixed as he watched your hands move over him. “Hah—fuck me...” One wet deliberate slide after the other, his hips bucking forward.

Next time, you thought, you'd have him all the way inside of you. You could almost imagine it when Rhett leaned over you, caged you in with shaking arms. His mouth buried in your throat, licking a hot strip to your ear, slurring more of his sweet nonsense, so fucking good, baby, oh my god, baby just like that, fuck fuck fuck—

He was thrusting into your hands so hard the table kept jerking back, hitting the window sill. The little ceramics there rattling. One fell to the floor. The back of your head knocked against something hard enough it left you dazed, and Rhett's bumbling hands came up to cradle you there, soothe you through it. Fuck, you good, baby?

He was so perfect it killed you, he fucking killed you.

You kissed him, breathed straight out of his mouth. All you wanted was to make him come for you. Come for me. Please, please.

And when he finally did, when his hips met yours in a wet cuff, when he groaned into your mouth, broken, out of it—he spilled hot onto your stomach.

Forehead to forehead.

Breathing heavy.  

You felt the wet drag of his spent cock run from your stomach down to your pubis, where he patted it against your clit, once, like some nasty little parting gift, like a promise.

You kissed him one last time before you collapsed onto your back.

For a moment, neither of you said a word. You watched each other. Eyelids heavy. You realized you were breathing in time.

Out of all the places in the world, you thought.

Somewhere in the thick of it, you ran a finger through the puddle of cum on your stomach. Cool now. Spread it across your tongue—acidy, bitter. 

The taste of him.

You wanted to disappear into it. 

“You’ve gotta stop or you’ll actually kill me,” Rhett groaned, leaning in all the way. He gently grabbed you by the jaw, kissed you, wet and open-mouthed, the slip of his tongue going deep. “You’re so good,” he murmured against your lips. "You're so good..." Giving you one sweet peck, then another. 

And you were still stuck in your daze, sitting at the bottom of this thing that felt vast and everywhere. Sunlight poured through the windows, cradling you in the warmth of your afterglow.

Before you could feel ashamed for it, you let it slip: “thank you, daddy.”

And Rhett looked at you like he'd received an answer to a question he hadn’t known how to ask.

· · ❁ · ·

Afterward, Rhett piled you into his arms and carried you to the bathroom.

You thought distantly of all the other times you’d had to clean yourself up alone.

Rhett was dense and fumbling after “coming my damn brains out, Christ.” But he was trying his best to be slow with you, helping you into the shower.

The two of you swaying like drunkards in the hot spray of the shower head.

You were so tired.

You’d been holding on to something so deeply for so long, it was knocked loose now, it was open like a wound. You imagined the water rushing in, clearing it out until the blood ran clear.

While you both rinsed yourself off, Rhett’s mouth found you every once in a while. It felt like he was making sure you were still there. Pressing a kiss to your temple, the top of your head, a scatter of them on your shoulder. 

Once even, he lifted your hand and kissed the inside of your palm with such tenderness you wanted to die.

· · ❁ · ·

“What now?” Rhett murmured into your damp hair. 

You were on the back deck, curled in his lap on your favorite wicker chair. Sunlight splintered through the trees as it hit the floor. A patch of it warming your bare feet.

It had taken you a while to climb out of the daze, find your way back to your body. Slowly, slowly, mind un-blurring until you felt coherent.

Your voice was a dry rasp when you finally spoke. “Do you think people should be fucking members of their support group?”

“Okay.” Scoffing, Rhett jiggled you in his lap. “Fucking? Really?”

“Fine. Fraternizing.”

He shot you a withering look. It made you snort. 

You knew he was right.

Whatever you’d done on his kitchen table, it had left something big inside of you. It felt important. 

“Who would’ve thought Rhett Abbott was such a closet romantic,” you mumbled, delighting in the way he rolled his eyes. 

Leaving it at that, you curled back into his chest, lazily lifting a finger and tracing along the soft slope of his nose, down his Cupid’s Bow, each curve of each lip.

Look at you—so surprisingly tender.

He opened his mouth to nip at your finger.

“We’ll go slow,” you whispered, echoing the words he’d said to you before, with such reassurance it felt rooted deep.

“Alright,” he murmured, nodding, letting you press your finger to his jaw to make him look at you. “Slow. I can do slow.”

You couldn't help your grin, thinking about all the things he'd done to you in his kitchen just an hour ago. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

He quirked a mean smile, pinching your side until you laughed.

Like this, you didn’t feel difficult or complicated or messy.

Your laughter spiraled as you tipped your head back from so much delight. 

You let it shake through you.

You let it shake through the tin roof and the wicker chair and the rocks on the railing and the sun and the pine trees and the grass and the dirt and the valley that rolled all the way to your sister's house, the very place you'd started calling home the second your duffle bag hit the welcome mat.

And finally, you let it shake through him, sitting there, washed in shards of sunlight—looking at you like you were the easiest thing to love. 

· · ❁ · · Fin · · ❁ · ·