#(have)

The world outside your apartment is a smear of charcoal and silver. The heavy rain is relentless, a rhythmic drumming against the floor-to-ceiling glass that turns the city into a distant, underwater kingdom. But inside the bedroom, the air is stagnant and warm, heavy with the scent of Heeseung’s skin and the lingering sweetness of the vanilla candle that burned down to a nub overnight.

Heeseung is a fever-heat anchored against your back. He’s been awake for a while—you can tell by the steady, deliberate way his hand is moving. His long fingers are tracing the delicate topography of your hip, his touch light as a ghost until he dips his hand beneath the waistband of your silk shorts.

Every time he breathes, his chest expands against your shoulder blades, a solid, grounding pressure that makes you feel utterly possessed. You try to shift, a half-hearted attempt to find a cooler patch of sheets, but the moment you move, his arm tightens around your waist tightens.

"Don't," he mutters. His voice is a wreck—a low, bedroom rasp that vibrates through your spine and settles somewhere deep in your core. "The world doesn't start until I say it does."

You turn in his arms, your skin sliding against his with a friction that makes your breath catch. In the dim, watery light of the room, Heeseung looks like a masterpiece of shadows. His hair is a chaotic, dark mess against the white pillows, and his eyes—hooded and dark—are already fixed on you with a hunger that feels brand new every single morning.

"We were supposed to be productive today, Hee," you whisper, though your hands are already finding the familiar, soft touch of his hair.

"I am being productive," he counters, his voice dropping an octave. He shifts, hovering over you now, his weight a delicious burden that pins you to the mattress. He brushes a stray hair from your face, his touch reverent before his gaze drops to your lips. "I’m reminding you that you belong in this bed. With me."

He leans down, and for a moment, he just lingers. He breathes your air, his nose brushing against yours, his lips ghosting over yours without actually touching. It’s a specialized form of torture he’s perfected—the slow burn, the high-tension wire of anticipation.

"Loving you is so easy," he says softly, the words he says to make you fall asleep the previous night. "It’s strong. It’s loud. It makes it impossible to think about anything else."

Finally, he closes the distance. The kiss isn't soft. It’s deep and possessive, a release of all the professional distance you both had to maintain throughout the week. His tongue slides against yours with a rhythmic, demanding heat, mapping the inside of your mouth as if he’s searching for a secret only you can give him.

You whimper into his mouth, your back arching off the bed as his hand slides from your waist to your thigh, his palm hot and calloused against your skin. He pulls your leg up, hooking it over his hip to pull you flush against him. The feeling of his bare chest against yours, the silver chain he wears cold against your collarbone, creates a sensory overload that makes your head spin.

He breaks the kiss to trail his mouth down to your neck. Heeseung doesn't just kiss; he marks. He finds the sensitive cord of your throat and sucks the skin there, a slow, bruising pressure that you know will be a blooming violet mark by noon.

"Hee... stop, someone might see tomorrow," you gasp, even as you pull his head closer.

"Let them," he grunts against your skin, his teeth grazing your collarbone in a sharp nip that makes your toes curl. "Let them know exactly where my mouth was all weekend. I’m tired of sharing you with the rest of the world."

His hands slide under the hem of your shirt, his thumbs grazing the undersides of your breasts with an agonizing slowness. The air in the room feels like it’s being sucked out, replaced by the sheer, electric gravity of his presence. Heeseung is usually so composed, the calm center of every storm, but right now, he’s raw. He’s desperate. He’s reaching for you as if you’re the only thing keeping him from drowning.

He pulls your shirt over your head and tosses it somewhere into the shadows. When he looks back at you, his pupils are blown so wide his eyes are almost entirely black.

"You're so beautiful like this," he whispers, his voice trembling with a rare vulnerability. "All mine. Do you have any idea what it does to me? To spend all week watching you from across a room, knowing I can't touch you like this?"

He leans down again, his mouth finding your chest, his tongue swirling in slow, punishing circles that leave you shivering. Every touch is a claim. Every mark is a promise. He moves lower, his hands sliding your shorts down your legs until there is nothing left between you but the humid air and the sound of the rain.

Heeseung moves between your knees, his hands anchoring your wrists above your head. He looks down at you, his chest heaving, his skin glowing with a faint sheen of sweat in the blue light.

"Tell me," he commands, his voice vibrating in his chest. "Tell me you're addicted to this. Tell me you want me to finish what we started."

"I'm addicted to you," you sob out, your head thrashing against the pillow. "Heeseung, please... I don't want to be anywhere else."

He lets out a low, guttural growl—a sound of pure, unadulterated satisfaction—and buries his face in the crook of your neck one last time before the world outside the bedroom finally, mercifully, ceases to exist.

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An hour later, the room is silent again, save for the muffled sound of the rain. The air is cooler now, but the heat between you hasn't fully dissipated. You’re tangled together in a messy knot of limbs and damp linen, your head resting on his chest, listening to the slow, steady deceleration of his heart.

Heeseung’s fingers are idly playing with your hair, his touch soft and protective. He kisses the top of your head, his lips lingering there for a long time.

"We missed the market," you murmur, your voice thick with exhaustion and content.

"The market was a lie anyway," he says, a small, tired smile in his voice. "This was the only thing on the schedule today."

He pulls the duvet up, tucking it around your shoulders and shielding you from the grey light of the window. In the dark sanctuary of the bed, with the frequency of his heart matching yours, the "not easy" parts of the world feel a million miles away.

"Go back to sleep, love," he whispers, his hand finding yours under the covers and interlacing your fingers. "I'm not going anywhere."

August 1991

You spend the best part of four weeks in hospital as infections rage through your system leaving you fevered and exhausted to the point that you can barely remember your own name. Twice you’re taken back into theatre to clean out your wounds and try to stabilise your blood pressure which has developed a nasty habit of tanking when you least expect it. To say you feel like shit is an understatement. Day blurs into night, Monday into Tuesday, one week into another, and you start to feel as though you might never experience normality again.

But slowly, you start to regain yourself. The infections pass and your fever drops. You’re able to eat, little and often, hold a conversation, watch some television. Little by little, you begin to feel stronger. Eventually, you’re able to start leaving your bed and make slow inroads to walking again. Initially, you shuffle like an old woman, almost bent double but, as time progresses, you straighten up, your confidence comes back and soon, it’s almost as though nothing has ever happened.

But it has.

When you close your eyes, you see the gunman beneath your lids, his wide eyes and heavy breathing, the glint of the sunlight on his gun, the flash of the muzzle, the heat, the pain. You wake at night, sweating, clawing at yourself, your breath stuck in your throat.

It’s panic and fear.

Your boss comes to visit you, reminds you what a good agent you are but tells you that you’ll need to pass a new physical, plus attend at least four mandatory counselling sessions before you can return back to active duty. You nod and agree, tell him that it won’t be a problem, that you’ll be back before he knows it. That he can count on you because, after all, the DEA is your life.

He’s not even back at his desk before you drag yourself to the nearest payphone and call to tell him you’re quitting.

“Well, I won’t say I’m not relieved,” you mom says when you tell her. “I’ve spent the past God only knows how many years worrying about you every day since you joined up, just waiting for the worst to happen and now…”

“I’m not dead, Mom.”

“No, but you very nearly were. You have no idea what it felt like getting that phone call from Javi. I could barely make out what he was saying at first, he was so distraught, but when he told us…”

“Distraught?” Your ears prick up at this. “Javi was distraught?”

Your mother’s eyes soften as she sinks down into the seat beside your bed. “He was. He still loves you, sweetheart, even if you don’t want to believe it. I could tell in the way that he looked at you when he visited.”

You look away, emotion already clawing at your throat. You don’t want to think about Javi, let alone what he might still feel for you. He’s made no attempt to contact you since he left the hospital that day – left that note that you have no idea what to do with. Telling you that you’re the love of his life, pleading with you never to forget it…what was his aim? To make you feel shit for being the one to press the button on the divorce? You don’t need his help with that. You’ve spent days, weeks, months even going over and over it in your mind, asking yourself if you made the right decision. Most of the time, you’re able to tell yourself that you have – that he’s not worthy of you. That you can and will do better. That he would never have done what he did if he truly loved you the way you had loved him.

Love him.

You push the thought away.

You need to look forwards, not back.

“Mom…I told you why we decided to get divorced.”

“I know, darling, and I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have stood for infidelity from your father either. It’s disrespectful and cruel. But I’d be lying if I said I understood why he did it. Any time we ever saw you together, it was as though you were the only person in the room – in the world. He could barely ever tear his eyes away from you.” She sighs. “If someone had told me then that you would be where you are now, I wouldn’t have believed them – wouldn’t have wanted to believe them.

“Yeah, well – things change. People change. I certainly wasn’t the only woman whose bed he was in and, as far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters.”

Your mom presses her lips together and you’re not sure if it’s disapproval over Javi’s actions or disapproval at you alluding to something sexual in her presence. She always has been a bit of a prude. She changes the conversation easily, starts talking about what she and your dad have been doing during the hours they haven’t been at your side, and how things are going at the store, currently being ably managed by your aunt in their absence.

“That’s really what I wanted to talk to you about,” you say, pleased at the divine way in which the conversation has flowed. “I want to come home.”

She blinks. “To Cedar Park?” You nod. “But I thought you said you were leaving the DEA altogether.”

“I am.”

“Then…”

“I want to work with you.”

“Doing what?”

“In the store, of course – what else?”

You know that you’re making it sound like she’s stupid, as though you couldn’t possibly be referring to anything else, and you know you’re being unfair. Your entire life you’ve railed against going into the family floristry business. You’ve always considered it boring, twee, provincial – certainly in comparison to working for the DEA, training at Quantico and then being dispatched to dangerous, exotic locations around the world, facing down hardened criminals. Narcos. You’ve made no secret of that fact. So, you can appreciate how she could be blindsided by this sudden desire to reinvent yourself as a small-town girl.

“You’ve never shown the slightest bit of interest in working in the store.”

“I know,” you reply, plucking at the duvet on the bed. “But things change. Maybe I need something a bit quieter, more stable. I’m not likely to get gunned down by a bunch of roses now, am I?”

“No, I suppose not.” She pauses and peers at you. “But are you sure that’s what you want? I’m not saying you shouldn’t come back home, but there must be other things that you could turn your hand to with your skill set.”

“Are you suggesting I wouldn’t be any good at selling flowers?” Your lips twist into a suggestive smile.

“No, of course not,” she laughs, “and we’d love to have you. I just want to make sure that you’re making this decision for the right reasons, that’s all.”

You think about her words for the remaining few days that you’re kept in the hospital before your consultant finally decides that you’re ready to be discharged. Why are you making this decision? Is it because you want to run away from Miami and all that’s happened? Is it because the lure of your home state is stronger now that you’ve stared death in the face? Is it because Cedar Park is a good four hours away from Laredo?

You wish you had an answer for yourself, but you don’t.

Because if he can fly all the way from Colombia, he can drive four hours – if he wants to.

Strangely, you feel emotional leaving the hospital, a lump forming in your throat as you say goodbye to the nurses who have been your constant over the last month, always ready with smiles, jokes, tender hands and tissues when you’ve needed them. For now, you’ll be back in your apartment – alone. Until that is, you can make the arrangements to return to Texas.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay with you for a few days,” your dad asks when they drop you off. “It’s not a problem. We can sleep on your couch – or even on the floor.”

“No Dad, I don’t need you to do that,” you reply, though grateful for the offer. “You’ve both done so much for me already over these last few weeks. What I need you to do is scope out some apartments for me back home. No offence, but I don’t really want to have to come live with you for any great length of time.”

“Because it all went so well when you were a kid,” he jokes, hugging you.

“Exactly. Go home – both of you.”

You cry as you wave them away, not full tears or sobs, but just light ones that sting your eyes before you blink them away and close the door. After the bustle of the hospital, the silence echoes around you in a way that you’ve never noticed before. Even when you first arrived, fresh off the plane from Bogotá, full of hope for your new life, you don’t remember the place feeling so empty.

Perhaps it’s because it’s not your home anymore.

Perhaps it’s because you’ve made the decision to go back to Cedar Park.

Perhaps it’s because the place you once thought of as home is so tainted for you now.

Your body is still adjusting, and you fall asleep on the couch, waking thirsty and hungry with the realisation that you have very little in the way of sustenance in your fridge. You should have asked your parents to go to the market for you but, as it is, you’re on your own again and you’ve long since realised that – even within the alleged protective confines of a marriage – the only person you can truly rely on in life is yourself.

Lifting your purse, you make for the door, only for someone to knock just as you reach for the handle and you hesitate – frozen, your mind racing over all the possibilities of who it might be.

Not your parents, they would have called.

Maybe it’s one of your neighbours, the ones you’ve never talked to, never interacted with beyond a tight smile as you entered and left every day for work. Maybe they’ve noticed that you haven’t been around lately and want to check to see whether you might be lying dead, half eaten by wild dogs.

Or maybe…

You don’t want to think about that – don’ t want to think about him. Besides, why would he turn up now? He hasn’t cared to make contact in the last four weeks. He’s probably lying in some whore's bed at this very moment, smoking a cigarette in a state of post-orgasmic chill.

When you pull the door open, and meet his dark-eyed gaze, it feels as though all the air has been sucked out into the blistering afternoon heat. He’s leaning against the doorframe, dressed in one of those ridiculously tight shirts he likes so much, the ones that accentuate every tight muscle, sunglasses perched low on the end of his nose.

“Hola hermosa.”

Your throat instantly goes dry.

“What are you doing here?”

“I went by the hospital, and they told me that you’d been discharged.” His gaze bores into yours. “I wanted to make sure that you were ok.”

“How did you get my address?”

He raises his eyebrows, and you feel a blush rush to your cheeks. “We work for the DEA, remember? It wasn’t difficult to find out.”

“Cunnilingus or a fuck?” He stares. “What did it take for you to get the information out of personnel?”

He looks you up and down in that way that used to thrill you, make you shiver with unspoken desire and which, you have to grudgingly admit, still does. It’s how he got you after all – that late night in the office.

“Which would you have preferred?”

You suck in a breath and shake your head, even as your core spasms with need. Why the fuck do you allow him to make you feel this way? You know he won’t answer your question – and he doesn’t – because you would have to answer his first, otherwise he’s going to accuse you of avoidance, and you’re not going to give him the satisfaction.

Besides, if he remembered anything about you, he’d know which one you’d prefer. The stain of your desire on his chin was one of the starkest things you recall about that last night together.

“Do I get to come in?”

Every sense of propriety within screams at you to tell him no, to tell him to go away, to close the door in his face. But propriety has never been your strong suit when it comes to Javi – you’ve always just been led by pure raw emotion – and he brushes past you, a little closer than you feel necessary, as he steps inside, his gaze casting around at the simple, beige décor.

“Hermosa casa – like its owner.” He drops his sunglasses onto the coffee table, gaze raking over you again. “You look good.”

“Liar.”

“Ok,” he shrugs, “you look like shit – better?”

“If I have to talk to you, I prefer you be honest, though I appreciate that’s a novel concept for you.”

A muscle in his jaw flicks and he lowers his gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Everythin'.” He looks at you again from beneath hooded lids. “For hurtin' you the way that I did.”

Your chest tightens. “I don’t want to hear this, Javi.”

“Fine.” He throws himself dramatically down into the couch, every inflection of his body vibing that he hadn’t meant a damn word of it anyway. He’s not sorry – you know he’s not. He’s only sorry that he got caught. That you found him, buried deep between that whore’s thighs. “So, what have they got you doin’ before you can get back to work? A physical and a psych eval?”

“That’s what they want.”

“You’ll breeze it, no sweat. You’re tough. I should know.”

You move to the table and start idly flipping through the unopened mail stacked neatly in a pile. “I won’t need to – I quit.”

He pauses, looks at you and frowns, as though he hasn’t quite heard you right. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, I quit.”

“You quit?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“So…what? You’re moving agency? CIA? FBI?”

You shake your head. “I’m leaving law enforcement altogether.”

“What – why?” You gesture to your stomach, as if there needs to be any further explanation, as though it should be obvious and he shakes his head. “No, querida, listen…you can’t just quit on the back of this.”

“I can, and I have.”

“No, no, no…” he pushes himself to the edge of the couch, leaning into his expressiveness. “You got shot, ok? I get that, I know that. And it’s been hell for you, I get that too. But you’re a damn good agent and you can’t…you can’t let some lowlife take everything you’ve worked for away from you…por favor.”

“It’s not about that,” you reply, deliberately avoiding his gaze. “It’s about what I want and…and I don’t want this anymore.”

“Then come back to Bogotá.”

You snort out a laugh. “Javi…”

“I’m serious. Escobar might be in jail, but we all know it’s a sham. There’s more coke getting moved than ever before and we need everybody we can get to help catch him. You’re good at this and – besides – if you come back, I can keep an eye on you. Make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.”

You huff out a breath – if only it was that simple.

“No, I’m done.”

He gets to his feet again, “Hermosa…”

“No!” Your tone is sharp, decisive, to the point. It has to be. “You don’t get a say in this decision, ok? You lost the right to have any say in any of my decisions a long time ago, Javi. I’ve told you – I’m done. I’ve given years of my life to the agency, and I’ve got fuck all to show for it. And you want me to come back to Bogotá?” You shake your head. “Why the fuck would I want to go back there? You suggesting you’ll keep an eye on me is a fucking joke. Why would I want to watch you sneak around, move from whore to whore every night, acting as though you’re doing some great service to your country by screwing them for information whilst I sit at home waiting for you? Why would I want you to keep me in the dark like you always did? Why would I…?”

“It would be different this time,” he says, his voice quieter, steadier.

“No, it wouldn’t – and you know it wouldn’t.” You feel tears sting your eyes and you will them away. You don’t want him to see you like this – not again. “I should have been enough for you, and I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

You laugh bitterly and turn back to the door. “Get out, Javi.”

“You were enough, I just…just didn’t see it – couldn’t see it.” He crosses the room towards you, hands outstretched. “Hermosa…por favor…”

“Get. Out.”

He pauses, his eyes trailing over your face, and you know what he’s doing – can read him like a cheap novel. He’s trying to find an in, something that he can pounce on and use to quietly, stealthily, turn you onto his way of thinking. He’s a master at it.

“I meant what I said in my note – I love you.”

The words make you want to scream. You want to rush at him, claw at his face, rage and cry and yell – try to make him understand how he can’t say these things. Because he doesn’t know the meaning of love – not the way that you want him to, need him to.

You want to tell him that you hate him for it.

But you can’t.

Because you don't.

“No,” you say softly. “I love you, Javi, but you don’t love me – you never did. You’re not capable of it.”

And those words strike deeper than any other insult could. You see it – in the way his eyes flicker, his jaw tightens. Because he believes that he does love you – because this is the only way he knows how to love – and he thought you knew that.

“Goodbye Javi.”

You open the door, your gaze never faltering. If you look away now, then he’ll know you’re uncertain, unsure. That there’s a chance that if he just moves closer to you, touches you, that you’ll give in. And you can’t give in. Not now. You’ve come too far.

He slides his sunglasses back on, hiding now from your gaze and nods imperceptibly. “Adios querida.”

And then he’s gone.

Leaving your life as stealthily as he entered it.

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