“I think you’ve been watching too much of my content,” Etho says as Gem pauses by her storage, random chests opening and closing as she empties her inventory.

She snorts loudly, not turning to look at him.

“You think I’ve had time?” she asks. “I just got back from Seattle.”

Etho lets his fingers tap against his A and D keys, dancing his character from side to side.

“I mean in general,” he continues and she finally turns her camera to look at him.

“What makes you say that?” she asks, letting out a sigh. “What have I done now?”

Etho moves his character further out, punching to gesture around Gem’s base.

“You’re building like me now.”

Gem snorts, and he hears the creak of her adjusting her mic. “Which part?”

“This bit,” Etho explains, standing in the middle of her diorite floor. “You’ve built from the inside out.”

Etho likes her laugh, and likes even more that he’s the one who caused it, and he finds himself smiling, alone in his office with no one to see.

Though he thinks Gem can hear it in his voice, the same way he can hear hers when she says, “I guess I have, huh? It’s so obvious now you’ve said it.”

Etho’s smile widens, glad he doesn’t have to explain his thought process, that she just knows exactly what he’s talking about.

“Guess I’m lucky you haven’t patented it,” she jokes, running around him. “Or do I owe you royalties from my videos?”

“No, no,” Etho teases back. “Keep it. I like being able to help smaller channels.”

The laugh Gem lets out is louder than he expects, startling him, but he doesn’t complain.

“I’m catching up,” she insists, moving closer, the arm of her character swinging as though she plans to hit him, and Etho moves his own character back to try to avoid it, which unsurprisingly initiates a chase. “I almost have the same amount of subscribers as you!”

Etho laughs aloud, hopping and firing a rocket to be able to take off, quickly zooming over her head, and she takes the bait.

“Only need a couple hundred thousand,” he agrees. “Easy.”

Etho’s not surprised when he inevitably gets hit, Gem laughing again when he makes a sound as though it physically hurts him.

He lets his character drop back to the ground with a crack, Gem following soon after.

She lunges at him, swinging wildly again, and he switches to his sword, giving her a solid hit in retaliation.

“Down,” he warns, and when she backs off, he laughs. “Good girl.”

It’s a joke — a thoughtless joke, but the noise that escapes her is loud and makes him realize his mistake.

“What?” she asks, laughing high-pitched and tight. “What did you just say to me?”

“I — ” he starts. “You — ”

Her laugh changes, as though her head is tipped back, and Etho feels his face start to burn.

“You were like a dog,” he says and Gem’s laugh turns shrill.

“Worse!” she says. “That's so much worse!”

“That’s not — ” he tries, leaning back in his chair. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I would’ve preferred if you’d called me a good girl for building like you,” she tells him, and the heat on Etho’s cheeks worsens.

“I wouldn’t — Gem.”

She laughs again, like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and it feels unfair.

“Those words are gonna get you in trouble,” she warns. “You’re lucky it’s me.”

Etho inhales slowly and closes his eyes.

“Because you’ll forgive me?” he tries and Gem snorts.

“Worth a shot,” she tells him, and then lets out a breath. “There’s nothing to forgive. I don’t care.”

The relief floods through him more than he expects.

“I already know you’re fucking weird,” she says, which is a sharp turn he’s not expecting. Neither is the language.

“I — ” he starts, staring at how her character isn’t moving — like she’s taken her hands off her keyboard completely, is perhaps touching her face in exasperation — and he relents immediately. “Okay.”

She laughs, delighted.

“That can’t be a surprise,” she says. “You’re — ”

“I’m not that weird,” he mumbles. “Not as weird as — ”

“You’re up there,” she interrupts before he can namedrop, and maybe it’s for the best. “Maybe that’s why I like you so much.”

His stomach twists with a feeling he hasn’t felt in a long time.

“Even after that?” he asks, and it seems to catch Gem off guard, because her laugh sounds genuine.

“Even after that,” she agrees. “It would take more than a social fumble to make me hate you.”

Her character finally moves, as though composed enough again to take control, and the tightness around Etho’s chest starts to loosen. He hasn’t messed it up completely.

But Etho has never been good at letting things lie, wanting to push, just to see what will happen.

“I could still say it about you building like me,” he says as blandly as he can, and Gem inhales sharply.

It’s Grian who talks him into it — into playing the new game he’s seen them all trying out. It’s some painting hide-and-seek game, and he’s not entirely sure it’s his kind of thing. But Gem is there.

She doesn’t yell when he joins their lobby, not the way everyone else does, but her character runs closer to his, a big smile drawn on its face.

“Hey, Etho,” she says, amongst the chaos, and Etho finds himself smiling.

“Hey, hey.”

Grian may have been the one to ask him to join, but it was Gem’s promised presence that had sealed the deal.

“We all have an advantage ‘cause we’ve played a lot of this,” Skizz tells him, “but you’ll pick it up quickly.”

“You can hide with me,” Gem offers. “I’ll show you what to do.”

She’s quiet when she says it, gets talked over the way they all have a habit of doing, which means when the round loads up, Grian immediately turns to Etho.

“Come with me,” he says. “I’ll help you.”

“Gem already — ” Etho starts, before Gem interrupts.

“I called dibs,” she says before her character runs off, not leaving room for anyone to argue, and Etho finds himself grinning as he follows after her.

Etho’s never played Backrooms — he thinks it’s some kind of horror game, which definitely isn’t his thing — but the map they’re on doesn’t seem too scary.

“Over here,” Gem tells him, the others having scattered elsewhere, where he can’t hear them, and Etho knows Gem’s streaming, but he likes to think it’s just the two of them.

“How good are you at drawing?” she asks, her character bouncing from one pose to another, and Etho finds himself copying.

“It’s been a few years,” he jokes, because he genuinely has no idea how bad he’ll be. He suspects his mouse sensitivity is set too high for him to be able to draw anything detailed.

“Okay,” she says, “curl up into a ball and we’ll be throw pillows on this chair.”

It takes more time than it should for Etho to settle in the right place.

“Get the eyedropper,” Gem tells him, “and then select part of the chair to get the right color.”

Etho does as he’s told, starting to color in his body with broad strokes.

“Aggressive coloring,” Gem says with a laugh. “I can hear your mouse.”

Etho’s well aware that Gem knows what his mouse and desk look like, and he wonders how she imagines him sitting, playing alongside her.

“I have to be completely covered,” he points out. “If there’s white showing, we’ll get caught.”

Gem laughs again.

“Okay, well, coverage is the last of your worries — what the heck is that color?”

Etho stares at his screen in bewilderment.

“The same color as the chair — same as you.”

“Are you colorblind?” she asks, voice pitched, and Etho’s heart begins to race because the timer is almost done and soon the hunter will be looking for them.

“It’s the same color,” he insists, but just in case, he pulls up Gem’s stream on his second monitor.

His color is maybe a tiny bit lighter, but then his gaze catches on Gem’s chat.

Didn’t know etho was capable of playing anything other than minecraft lol

maybe stick to minecraft LOL

Etho, get upppp

The more he reads, the less he understands, but Gem’s still laughing in his ear, and he just wants to keep hearing it.

He makes his color even lighter, something entirely mismatched when he repaints himself.

“This is better,” he insists as straight-faced as he can, enjoying the splutter of disbelief from Gem.

“That is not better, you — ”

She cuts herself off, and he can see in her stream when she tips her head back, a mix of frustration and amusement in her expression.

“You’re the worst, you know that?” she says with a wide smile, and Etho finally gives in and laughs.

“So you agree that my first color choice was good?”

“I’m not hiding with you,” she tries, unlocking her character and starting to move away.

“Gem,” he insists and on stream, Gem smirks, as though she knows what she’s doing.

“Change it,” she tells him, “or I’ll go.”

Etho’s quick when he selects a color — something he thinks is exactly the same shade as the one before — but she settles her character back down nonetheless.

“Better?” he asks and Gem hums quietly, locking in place as the timer finally ticks down.

“You’re lucky I like you,” she says. “Mute up or they’ll be able to hear you.”

He mutes, nothing but silence from Gem, even as he starts to hear gunshots from deeper in the map.

There’s no doubt they’ll be found immediately, but he doesn’t care.

He stares at Gem’s stream, watching the way she bites at her bottom lip, clearly trying to hold back her smile, and briefly, he lets his gaze shift to her chat.

Is it just me or are these two really good together??

He wonders if Gem sees the same message and whether she agrees.

Gem’s heart is already beating too fast when Etho gets his hands on the hem of her shirt, tugging at it with the kind of insistence that gets Gem wet. He wants her. He agreed to meet up at a shady motel on the outskirts of Edmonton just to let her have this.

Flat on her back, she’s at his mercy as her shirt disappears over the side of the bed and his mouth quickly finds its way to her collarbone.

She’s almost certain he left a bruise at the hinge of her jaw earlier, and now he seems adamant about leaving one at the softest point of her throat, the divot where the two bones meet.

“Etho,” she tries, and one of his hands finds her ribs, thumb resting just below the lace of her bra.

He lifts his head, offering a smile she’s still learning, and she reaches for him, guiding him into a kiss that leaves her restless.

She arches up, trying not to think too hard about it when she gets her own hands back to unfasten her bra, wanting him to see more, wanting to see his reaction to the part of her that she’s most proud of.

Her bra disappears in the same direction as her shirt and Etho pulls away, leaning back as his gaze travels down her body, enough color on his face to hint he doesn’t get to see a lot of breasts in person.

“Like what you see?” she asks with a smile, trying to sound more confident than she feels.

She knows she’s probably just as flushed as him, not used to being stared at, and the hand he has on her side slides up to settle just under her left breast.

But then he hesitates, gaze shifting.

Belatedly, she realizes what he’s seen.

“You — ” he starts, shifting back a little more, palm brushing back down, across month-old ink. “You did it.”

She glances down at where his fingers rest against the tattoo she’d got at the beginning of the year and then back up at his expression.

He’s still staring at it, a dent between his brows as he frowns, and Gem remembers what he’d said before — how he respected his body too much to get a tattoo.

“Disrespectful?” she asks, waiting for the judgement, for the familiar side comment she’s come to expect from him. But he’s surprisingly quiet.

His fingers shift, following the dark outline of the dragon she’d had designed by a local artist back home, and he hums in thought.

“Hate it?” she asks, needing to fill the silence, and Etho’s gaze bounces back up as the corner of his mouth twitches.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Didn’t need to,” she grunts, half wondering if she can grab her shirt and put it back on.

But before Gem can move, Etho dips down, shifting enough to get his mouth on her skin, right on her tattoo.

She exhales roughly, hands clutching at Etho’s shoulders, and she stares down, watching the way he dots kisses across her skin. For just a brief second, she catches sight of his tongue, darting out to touch the lines of ink.

She knows there’s no difference in the texture of her skin, but she wonders if Etho thinks he can feel it regardless.

His gaze lifts, watching her watch him, and her breath stutters as he drags his teeth across her.

“It suits you,” he murmurs, not at all what she expects. “Guess I needed to see it in person to know.”

He presses his mouth to her again and Gem shifts below him, a noise slipping out that’s embarrassingly desperate

“Is now a good time to admit it’s not the only one I have?”

His gaze snaps up with clear interest and she feels pinned by his stare as he leans up a little, glancing across her body in search of more.

“Where is it?” he asks after a beat, when he realizes it’s not obvious, and Gem finds herself smiling.

“You’ll have to get the rest of my clothes off to find out.”

Etho’s brows go high for just a moment before he smiles in a way that promises good things in Gem’s near future.

Etho never expected Gem to be so hot and wet inside. He hadn’t expected the sounds she made beneath him — sharp and desperate and nothing like the way she sounded online. None of the anger, none of the sarcasm and quips.

Just a lot of please please please, and Etho, I’m gonna —

She was so easy for him. Answering the hotel room door with a smile and a gentle exhale. Drawing him inside without even waiting for him to say hello. She hadn’t needed the confirmation — had apparently felt it in her bones that it was him.

Standing on the other side of the door with sweaty palms, Etho hadn’t known whether she’d want sex, or whether she’d just want to talk and pick him apart like a vulture would carrion.

But she hadn’t said much of anything once he was inside.

She’d pulled him close for a kiss — uncoordinated, stuttering — her fingers curled into his coat, like she didn’t even mind that it was wet from the rain outside.

She’d let him shove at her shirt and bra to reveal her soft breasts. Had let him ease down her skirt and get one hand into her panties.

She’d gone boneless with his fingers against her pussy and he’d never found the strength to ask what she wanted. But her wetness had said everything, guiding his fingertips down and into her like it was the obvious next step.

Etho hadn’t been with many women — any, actually — but Gem hadn’t seemed to care, or perhaps notice his inexperience.

Shaking, he’d shed his clothes and crowded over her on the bed, the way he’d seen men do in porn. She’d spread her legs just like the women in them, too. She’d invited him in using body language alone, and he’d obeyed.

He’d pushed inside her with barely any effort, had listened to her unsteady breaths as he’d filled her up, and when she’d first moaned his name, he’d had to reach up and cover her mouth with one palm, half afraid he’d come before he’d even started.

She’d realized it quickly. He’d seen it in her eyes — the brightness, the mischief. But when he’d started to move, to fuck her, she’d forgotten to tease him.

It had felt right tucking one hand up behind her left knee, pushing her leg up and out, and the change in depth had made them both moan.

Looking down, he’d watched her body take him, watched how wet she made his cock with every thrust inside.

He’d learned where her clit was by seeing her lick two of her own fingers before sneaking them down between their bodies to rub at herself. He’d learned the ways she enjoyed being touched, but he hadn’t tried to do it for her and she hadn’t complained.

Instead, she’d come for him, though she’d been halfway through by the time he’d realized. He’d expected her to be loud, to gasp and writhe and beg her way through it. But she’d just gone silent, her whole body tensed and focused before she’d started squeezing around his cock rhythmically.

He’d fucked her through it, staring at her face, at how pretty she looked falling apart, and when she’d opened her eyes and noticed, he’d never felt more alive.

He’d done that to her.

“Fuck,” he murmured, unable to ignore how much tighter she felt around him, and he’d fucked her harder after that.

She hadn’t complained about that either, but her hands had moved to his hips, pressing at him as though torn between wanting it and wanting to ask him to ease up.

“Sorry,” he said, just the once. But then it had started pouring from him unbidden.

“Sorry,” he said as he fucked her further up the bed, forcing her to reach up to stop herself from hitting the headboard.

“Sorry,” he said when she started saying his name like a plea.

“Sorry,” he whined when he finally came, fucking the mess into her to hide the evidence.

“Sorry,” he said when he pulled out, urging her onto her front, onto her knees, before shoving back into her, not yet done.

“Oh my god,” she said, but she’d gone willingly, had even started pushing back against him in encouragement.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmured against the skin of her shoulder, because he was still rock hard and he’d never had that happen to him before.

“Stop apologizing,” Gem grunted, and Etho was almost certain he came again, just from her voice, her light scolding.

His body locked up, though he wasn’t sure if anything had come out. There was no way to check — there was already too much of a mess between her legs to tell the difference.

“Oh my god,” Gem exhaled when they'd finally collapsed together, him half on top of her. “Is it always like this with you?”

Etho grunted — not answering either way — letting Gem come to her own conclusions. Though the noise of interest she made hinted she’d come to the wrong conclusion. But Etho hadn’t corrected her.

Instead, he'd tucked his face against her throat, thankful that she couldn’t see him, thankful that he’d made the choice to meet up in the first place.

Gem knows she’s caught the sun — she can see it across her nose and cheeks whenever she glances in the rearview mirror as she drives. Etho has too, and she wonders if he’ll let her smooth aloe across it later.

“Storm’s getting closer,” he murmurs, staring ahead at the dark clouds forming, which look as though they’re almost directly above her house.

“Got back just in time,” she agrees, but her windscreen wipers switch on automatically as the rain grows steadier.

They’re still a few miles away from home, and Gem gets the impression that they’re about to get soaked in the run from the driveway to the front door.

She steals a glance over at Etho, still learning how he looks in real life, watching the way he chews on his lip when he’s quiet and thinking. She kind of wants to bite it for him and see how he reacts.

He hasn’t made any kind of move since arriving — something she’s been curious about. She’s not sure she’d consider them close enough friends for him to come out of hiding just for her. So far as she knows, she’s the first, and she has a sneaking suspicion that he’s been lured by some kind of crush.

He looks over, as though sensing her stare, and Gem offers a tentative smile that he returns, and Gem can’t tell where his sunburn starts and his blush ends, but he glances away, caught.

The first of the lightning streaks across the sky when Gem turns onto her street, and the rain is so heavy her windscreen wipers are almost on their fastest settings.

“Is it usually like this?” Etho asks as she carefully pulls into her driveway and puts the car in park.

“Definitely not,” she says around a laugh. “Not this bad.”

Rain drums against the roof of the car and Gem reaches into the backseat for her bag, knowing everything is about to get wet.

“Ready to run?” she asks and Etho glances between her and the direction of the front door.

It’s barely visible through the rain, and Gem digs out her keys, knowing she’ll have to be as fast as possible.

“One,” Etho says, “two — ”

Gem throws open her door before Etho even finishes saying three, hopping out and closing it before sprinting for the house. She hears Etho behind, and she thinks it’s his long legs that have him catching up before she even makes it to the front steps.

“Hurry up,” he complains, even though she’s already halfway through turning the key in the lock, and she can hear the smile in his voice.

She hesitates, just for his noise of frustration, and she laughs as one of his own hands reaches up and settles over hers to force her to finish unlocking the door.

He gets it open, nudging her through the doorway before following after, and it slams behind them with enough force to sound like the thunder outside.

Gem’s still laughing when Etho reaches for her, dipping down enough to kiss her — and there it is. What she’s been waiting for.

She drops her bag and keys right there in the front hall, reaching for him as she returns it with a carefulness she’s never felt before.

She doesn’t want to ruin this. She wants to stoke this little ember of theirs and see what kind of flame ignites.

He’s gentle with her — his hands on her waist; the way he kisses her — and when a soft noise escapes her, he pulls away just as gently.

“Sorry,” he says, and Gem laughs again, lightly patting her hand against his chest.

“Don’t apologize,” she warns, pushing up onto her tiptoes to kiss him again, just once, before dropping back down and taking a half step backwards.

He stares at her, the shoulders of his t-shirt darker from the rain, and Gem’s chest feels tight from how much she enjoys the sight of him right there in her house.

“I’ll get some towels,” she says softly. “Unless you’d rather shower?”

Etho rakes his fingers through his wet hair, offering a tentative smile as he shakes his head.

“A towel is fine.”

She nods in agreement.

“I can make us coffee,” she adds. “I’m not sure how long the power will last if the storm stays like this.”

As though to make a point, there’s another crack of thunder overhead, and the sound of wind and rain against the windows gets worse.

“Sure,” Etho agrees, his smile growing more confident, clearly realizing he hasn't ruined anything.

“Though,” she says, starting to turn away before he can see her flush, “if the power goes, I have a few ideas for what we can do.”

From the choked noise Etho makes, she knows without a doubt he knows what she’s implying.

“What was that?” Grian asks, voice pitched higher with his surprise. “What did you just call Gem?”

The rest of the voice group goes silent, but Etho makes a noise of confusion, like he has no idea what Grian’s talking about. Though it's not at all convincing and not even Gem buys it.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Gem tries, because in all honesty, she hadn’t been listening.

She’s not even playing near the rest of them on the server, deep in her strip-mine, just trying to gather resources without losing her mind. She’s barely paid attention to the conversation topics. It’s not like they ever talk about anything important.

“He called you Gemmy,” Grian retorts and Gem lets out a laugh.

“Everyone calls me that.”

“Etho doesn’t,” Grian insists. “He calls you Gem. He still calls Bdubs bdoubleo — he’s famously known for not doing nicknames, Gem.”

Gem’s gaze flicks over to her second monitor, where she has Discord open, and her DMs shift as a new message comes in from Etho.

sorry, is all it says, and Gem finds herself smiling, knowing he probably means it.

“Maybe he’s trying something new,” she says, muting herself just long enough to type out a reply.

It’s fine. Did you really call me that?

“Again,” Grian insists dryly, “not a man known for trying new things, are you, Etho?”

“New year, new me,” Etho deadpans, and Gem’s almost certain everyone in the call laughs — including Grian.

I slipped up, Etho DMs her almost immediately after and Gem finds herself smiling, pinching her tongue between her teeth as she types her reply.

Soft <3

She doesn’t get a response to that, unsurprisingly, and in her ears, Grian starts making noise as though about to keep pushing the issue.

Maybe we should tell them, she suggests.

Aloud, Etho says, “I don’t know.”

Gem laughs loudly, unable to mute herself beforehand, and she can almost hear the way Etho locks up.

“Okay, Grandpa,” she exhales, continuing to laugh. “Let’s get you back to the home.”

“What?” Grian asks, confusion clear in his voice, and Gem exhales loudly.

“He was meant to type that. He wasn’t supposed to say it out loud,” Gem tells the group, ignoring the half-hearted noise of protest Etho makes.

“Are you two DMing right now?” Grian asks, and she feels his attention switch to her, like he smells blood in the water.

“I was trying,” she jokes, and Grian starts to splutter.

“There is something going on,” he says. “Have you met him?”

“You think I’m the first person to meet Mr. Mysterious?” she deflects and Grian exhales.

“Oh my god, you have,” he says, and Gem tries her best to laugh, even as her face heats from the truth of it.

There’s more noise in Gem’s ears as the others seem to catch on to what Grian's suggesting.

“There’s no way,” Scar laughs, like he doesn’t believe it.

“You said you were visiting family,” Skizz complains, as though her telling a little white lie is the worst part about it.

“Gem? Is it true?” Impulse asks, scandalized, and Gem rests one hand over her eyes as she continues laughing.

Meanwhile, Etho says nothing, and she half expects him to log off from the server, just to avoid the chaos.

But when she looks up and checks the tab list, he’s still there, and still in the voice group, too.

“I didn’t say that, Grian” she tries, and Grian makes a strange kind of hissing noise.

“I’m not talking to you if you’re gonna lie,” he argues. “Etho, did you seriously agree to meet Gem?”

Gem lets out an offended sound at the way he says it — like Gem should be at the bottom of the list of people Etho would want to meet.

There’s a long silence, where Gem wonders what Etho’s planning to say, when their DM finally shifts with a new message.

OK, it says, and Gem finds herself bracing for impact as she hears Etho gently clear his throat.

There’s a large manila envelope in her mailbox a week before her birthday, and it sits on her kitchen table for two days before she thinks to look at it closer.

There’s no return address on it, but scrawled on the back in unfamiliar handwriting, it says:

Must be 30 years old to open.

She snorts in amusement, but ends up setting the envelope back down and forgetting about it.

Until she speaks to Etho on her birthday.

“Good morning,” he says over Discord, making Gem smile.

His microphone is worse, like maybe he’s just using the mic on his earbuds, like he’s sitting in his living room using his phone instead of his computer.

“Good afternoon,” she points out, and he grunts as though it’s beside the point.

“Happy birthday.”

It feels like a distraction, but it works.

“Thank you,” she says. “I went out for brunch. I might be drunk.”

The laugh he lets out is easy.

“Oh yeah?”

“Just some friends from college,” she admits, and Etho makes a noise of acknowledgement.

“Did you get nice gifts?”

“Yeah! Liz got me a giftcard for a spa in the city. Sarah got me an entire cake and a bottle of wine.”

Etho laughs softly. “So now you’re drunk?”

“No, we didn’t open that. We got cocktails.” She lets it sit for a beat before adding, “So hopefully no one will take advantage of that.”

“Hopefully,” Etho says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. “Have you checked your mail?”

Which is precisely when Gem remembers the envelope on her kitchen table.

“Oh my god,” she says. “That was you.”

She doesn’t even warn him that she’s walking away from her computer — she just goes — but he’s still there when she flops into her chair again, popping in her earbuds and pulling her mic closer.

She has the envelope in her hands, already halfway open.

“I can’t believe you actually sent me something.”

“I’ve sent you things,” he argues and Gem blows out a breath.

“You’ve ordered me things,” she says. “This is the first thing you’ve sent that you had to mail yourself.”

She now knows what his handwriting looks like.

He doesn’t have an argument for that and Gem finishes ripping the package open to see what’s inside.

The biggest thing is an art print — a beautiful landscape that’s exactly her taste — but there’s also a postcard from Alberta and another, much smaller envelope.

She turns over the postcard to read the back, her chest tightening in a way she’s not expecting.

The big 3-0 felt like a good time to repay the favor. Happy birthday. -E

She’s going to pin it to her fridge so she can look at it every day.

“Cute,” she says, voice soft so that he knows she actually means it, though he still grunts as though annoyed by the term.

Carefully, she sets it aside, picking up the smaller envelope instead.

She has no idea what to expect, but she thinks she stops breathing when the first Polaroid slips out.

“Etho,” she exhales, but there’s no response from him.

There are four photos in total — each worse than the last.

The first is of a man from the neck down, his flannel shirt unbuttoned, his chest partially visible. He has more hair than she’s expecting, but she has an unignorable urge to touch him. She wants to rest her palm right in the middle of his chest and feel the steady thudding of his heart.

In the next photo, he’s completely shirtless, but it’s not the focus. Instead, the photo shows that his belt is open and his pants are undone, a hint of happy trail leading down into shadows.

The third photo has Gem squeezing her thighs together.

His hand is inside his pants, his cock adjusted so that his thumb covers the tip, and now Gem wants to get her mouth on him instead.

In the fourth photo, his pants and underwear are pushed down, showing off a heavy line of public hair, and across his stomach is something wet — come.

They’re a thousand times more lewd than the photos Gem sent him, and her mouth is entirely dry.

“Etho,” she repeats, voice weak, and she makes a noise of pain when she glances into the envelope again and sees one more piece of paper.

She’s not sure she’d survive a fifth photo — especially not if he actually shows his face.

But it’s not a photo. It appears to be a receipt for a hotel in St. John’s.

“What is this?” she asks. “Did you book me a hotel room?”

Finally, there’s a noise on the other end of the call, proving that Etho is still there.

“It’s not for you,” he says, and Gem feels suddenly breathless again.

If it’s not for her, it stands to reason that it must be for him, and when she checks the paper again, it lists the dates booked as an entire week, starting from the day prior.

She swallows before taking a careful breath.

“Are you here, Etho?” she asks, shutting her eyes when she finally realizes why his mic is bad and he isn’t at his PC. He’s not at home.