#heywritersblock

“hey, how are ya? our car’s broken down and the mechanic can’t fix it until the morning so, uh, we’re looking for rooms?” grayson says, tapping an uncomfortable fist on the dusty reception desk of the only motel in a twenty mile radius.

the young man behind the desk slides his tired eyes up away from his magazine to glance at the man interrupting him, gives him the once over and then leans to the left to see you and ethan slumped in the rickety, wooden chairs shoved up against the wall. hardly a welcoming lobby, but you weren’t expecting anything else from the outside of the motel. the young man lowers his magazine when he sees you and perks up slightly in his chair, eyes still resting on you. noticing this, grayson protectively steps in front of his line of sight, blocking you from his view.

“so about those rooms, dude?” he reminds.

the young man looks at grayson with disdain but gray’s just glad his greasy gaze isn’t focused on you anymore. with a few taps on the ancient computer keyboard, he drawls in a monotone voice, “we’ve got a suite available for three hundred dollars.”

“three hundred? are you for real? nah dude, we’re literally getting out of this shit show at like, 5am when the mechanic opens. we just need a basic room,” ethan adds from where he’s sprawled in the chair.

“we’re booked apart from the suite.”

“we’re in the asscrack of nowhere, man. we just need your cheapest room,” grayson tries to reason.

“that’s the thing about the asscrack of nowhere – there’s only one motel, and that’s us. all we’ve got is the suite. take it or leave it,” the guy shrugs. “she could always stay with me,” he adds, winking at you.

ethan’s about to jump up out of his seat and teach this guy a lesson for being so disrespectful when you hold out a hand to calm him down and keep him from causing a scene, just as grayson gruffly says, “we’ll take the suite.”

grayson signs the unreasonable amount of paperwork and then places his hand at the small of your back to guide you to the room, purposely creating a makeshift wall between you and the creepy guy whose eyes are still lingering a little too long despite the protective twins either side of you.

you smile gratefully at grayson as you finally reach the room. you step through after ethan opens the door and a shocked laugh erupts as you see the ‘suite’ that the guy had forced you to select.

a small corridor from the room door covered in a beige pattered wallpaper that would be at home in a grandma’s house leads you down to the main room. a small twin bed takes up most of the space, with a small nightstand separating it from a single sofa bed with springs that you swore you could see poking through. a dresser with a portable tv is propped against the far wall opposite the bed and long, floral curtains are tightly closed next to a dusty, blue arm chair. you walked across the dark blue, patterned carpet to open the drapes, interested to see if you could see across the desert that you’d been driving through despite the late hour. another laugh sounds out of you when you saw that in fact, there was no window at all – the curtains had been put there simply to make it look like there was.

you spin back around to see ethan staring around the room with a shocked look on his face and grayson popping his head out of the tiny bathroom by the door. “it feels like we’ve gone back to the fucking seventies. i can pee with more force than that shower,” he remarks, coming back to join you and his brother in the main room.

“it feels like we’ve been fucking scammed out of three hundred dollars. i’d hate to see what a fucking basic room looks like,” ethan replies.

always one to try and remain positive, you place your purse on the sideboard next to you and say, “ok, it’s pretty shitty. but we’re only here for like, ten hours at the most. if we don’t get murdered in our sleep that is.”

at your comment, ethan immediately turns on his heel, walks up to the room door, slides on the deadbolt and checks that the door won’t open eight times – just to be sure.

after a little more time investigating (and then mocking) what the ‘suite’ has to offer, the three of you make the decision to make yourselves as comfortable as possible and try to get through the night.

you find a take out menu from the one restaurant in the surrounding area (it turns out to be a truck joined onto the gas station a couple of minutes down the road where you’ve left the car ready for the mechanic to fix) and spend a few minutes arguing over who’s going to collect it after the lady on the phone tells grayson that the take out doesn’t deliver.

you quickly volunteer to collect it after the twins bicker with each other for a few minutes and they simultaneously spin to look at you where you’re toeing off your shoes. you wriggle your toes into the blue carpet as they both look at you like you’ve grown an extra head.

“you’ve got to be kidding me-“ grayson begins, before he’s quickly interrupted.

“oh yeah, great idea y/n! let’s send the hot, young girl out on her own into the night in the fucking deep, dark desert with the fucking creepy guy downstairs ready to pounce on you at any-“ ethan rants.

you hold a hand up to stop him, “first of all, i can defend myself so fuck off thinking you’re my protector and secondly, thanks for calling me hot,” you tease.

ethan’s eyes quickly flash to his brother who’s sat perched on the end of the twin bed, almost as if he’s judging his reaction about what you’ve just said, before realising you’re looking at them both with a curious, confused expression. ethan notices just how obvious he was and quickly agrees to pick up the food order just to get out of a potentially awkward situation he’s just caused.

before you can give him the cash to pay for the order, he’s shouting a quick, “no worries, i got it,” before he’s unlocking the deadbolt and slamming the door shut behind him.

you and gray are left in a weird sort of shocked silence, both staring at the door after such a sudden exit when you comment, “dude, your brother’s pretty weird,” and the tension lessens slightly as you both laugh when gray heartily agrees.

still a little confused about the awkward moment, you tell grayson that you’re going to shower before ethan comes back with the food, not able to stand the hours old make up still on your face for any longer. you wander into the tiny bathroom, silently hoping that there’s some sort of cleanser that you can use, after leaving gray scrolling through his phone and guarding the door.

you finally figure out how to turn on the shower and huff out a laugh at grayson’s earlier comparison. you say a silent thank you as you locate the free crappy toiletries that are left on the counter top, strip free of your clothes and stand under the slow stream of surprisingly hot water. as you stand there under the hot spray, thoughts of how grateful you are to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with these two strikes you and you feel fondness warm your body.

after meeting the twins over a year ago through one of your other friends, they’ve gradually become constants in your life. you’ve visited each other’s families, hung out with each other’s friends and intertwined yourselves in each other’s lives. ethan’s like the older brother you’ve always wanted; playful, teasing but undoubtedly protective. grayson, however, grayson was always slightly different. you notice the way your heart starts to pick up pace as you think of him, and your hands travelling down your body cause you to shiver.

grayson’s managed to get himself under your skin; he’s intoxicating, he makes you breathless and he causes reactions like the one your’e experiencing currently when you think of him. secretly – so, so secretly – you’re so gone for him. he’s the one who creeps into your dreams nightly - whether innocently or not so – he’s the one who you imagine when you’re alone in your bed; his hands, his mouth, his huge, veined c-. you stop yourself suddenly as you think of him waiting on the other side of the paper thin wall. you pull your hand away from where your brain was subconsciously sending it down your body and quickly push those thoughts to the back of your mind. you’re going to be stuck in a tiny, shitty motel room in very close quarters with them for the next few hours so you’re going to have to shut those thoughts down pretty fast to make this bearable.

finishing up your shower, you make quick work of washing your face, drying off and putting your oversized t-shirt back on over the top of your underwear. your consider putting your jeans back on but decide against it when you see that your t-shirt is plenty long enough to cover what needs covering.

you step out of the bathroom with flushed, red skin and see that ethan’s returned with the food. they’re sat on either side of the twin bed, both of them with their backs propped against the headboard with a pizza box each on their laps. gray smiles when he hears you emerge from the bathroom and pats the space in between him and ethan where they’ve clearly left space for you. he finally refocuses his gaze from his pizza box to you when he feels you begin to clamber up the bed in between them. upon seeing what you’re wearing, grayson quickly relocates his gaze back down to the pizza in his lap praying you don’t notice the red flush that’s dramatically climbed up his neck and spread across his cheeks.

as you settle, you mumble, “shower’s not that bad after all,” and then, “thanks bub,” as he lifts up your pizza box so you can get more comfortable, before passing it back to you. he still doesn’t make eye contact, just nods and shoves more pizza into his mouth in response to your comments.

ethan’s ranting about how fucking ancient the tv is and yelling at gray to call their grandma and ask how to work the fucking thing when he finally settles on a rerun of an old dance moms episode. the three of you devour your pizzas, gray finishing off yours and ethan’s left over slices when you announce that you’re going to move into the single bed at the side to try and get some sleep before your early start tomorrow. as you collect the boys’ empty pizza boxes to throw next to the trash can, the boys start to protest.

“y/n, we can’t let you sleep in there!” ethan yells, much louder than necessary.

“why not? it’ll be fine. i’m just glad we’re in the same room - that guy in the lobby seriously creeped me out.”

“y/n, come on. your back will be crippled – it gives you enough trouble as it is,” grayson reasons, but you’re having none of it.

“look, one of us has to sleep in here. there’s not enough room for all of us in that,” you say as you point to the bed where both boys are still sat up, gesturing to the slither of space you’d been squeezed into.

“fair point,” ethan acknowledges, then, “rock, paper, scissors! first loser sleeps in the shitty sofa bed.”

with a sigh, you realise that this is the only way a decision will be made, and so you prepare your hand into a fist.

“ready? rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” grayson commands.

ethan looks frantically at yours and grayson’s hands, both in scissors shapes, and then back at his own shaped like paper.

“shit. two out of three?” he asks, smiling innocently.

“nope! now fuck off to your prison cell bed, bro,” grayson jokes, giving ethan a quick but strong shove on his way.

ethan’s mumbling under his breath about how he won’t let you two forget this and how he’s absolutely not driving at all tomorrow even though it’s his car you’er in and how you’re paying for a massage when you’re all back home in LA as he stomps into the bathroom to prepare for bed.

you and gray are left giggling in the bedroom as you fold up the pizza boxes into smaller sizes so they’ll fit in the trash can. you can feel grayson looking awkwardly at you as commercials play fuzzily in the background. you look up at him as you complete your task and raise and eyebrow as if to say what? as you watch him open his mouth to speak and then close it several times.

he finally mutters, “are you ok with sharing? i can totally sleep on the floor or-“

you shove the final box into the garbage and say, “gray. it’s cool. i’m good with it if you are?” as you head back towards the bed.

he nods his head shyly, a little too quickly to be playing it cool, and then mumbles, “yeah, of course. just want to make sure you’re comfortable.”

your heart starts the fluttering movement again and you force yourself to change the conversation as you hear the sink faucet turn off in the bathroom. when ethan re-enters the small bedroom clad only in his boxers, you and gray are chatting mindlessly about the commercials that are still playing before gray stands up to get ready for bed himself. ethan makes a show of covering himself up from your gaze purely to make you laugh, before also checking that you’re good sharing a bed with gray for the night.

“E, it’s fine, honestly.”

“are you sure? he can get a little clingy. if you feel uncomfortable, just shout and i’ll make him sleep on that chair in the corner.”

you laugh at how serious he looks before reassuring him, “E, it’s just gray. i can handle a little clinginess for one night if i need to.”

whilst gray’s in the bathroom, you’re cracking up with laughter as ethan rips apart his bed looking for any bugs or questionable stains that might be lurking there before he decides that although this place is pretty shitty, at least it’s sort of clean so he dives into the sofa bed, wincing as it creaks and groans under his weight.

the bathroom door opens and the light switches off as grayson appears from around the corner, making sure the room door is bolted and flicking off other lights as he makes his way around to the side of the bed by the wall he was sat on before. you purposely busy yourself with grabbing your phone charger from your purse and tossing ethan’s to him from his backpack when you notice that grayson, too, is only in his boxers. if you let it, your mind would be freaking out about the fact that you’re about to spend a night under the same covers as a near naked grayson.

ethan’s busy scrolling away on his phone as you pull back the covers and settle in as best you can when grayson says, “let me just grab my shirt.”

ethan pipes up, not looking away from his phone, “dude. you’ll fucking stink tomorrow if you wear that shirt to bed and then again tomorrow. as someone who’ll be stuck in a car with you for x amount of hours, i’m vetoing you wearing it to bed. y/n, i’m telling you – from previous experience – we’re all better off if he doesn’t wear it.”

grayson looks awkwardly at you and you smile, shrugging your shoulders and say, “i mean, it sounds like he’s had a horrific experience in the past. i don’t mind if you want to sleep without it.”

grayson carefully takes in your expression to ensure that you really mean what you’re saying and you desperately try to control your face, chanting play it cool, play it cool in your head. it seems to work as he sighs, nods minutely and then climbs under the covers beside you.

he sets his alarm on his phone and throws it onto the nightstand, turning off the light next to the bed that plunges the room into darkness save from the glow of the old tv and ethan’s phone light.

“get some sleep kids, it’s an early start tomorrow,” grayson comments as he pulls the covers up to his chin, facing the wall away from you.

ethan’s whining about how he’s not even that tired now whilst you switch off the tv using the remote and then settle down into the bed further, pulling the covers up and trying hard to not move too much so you’re not irritating your bed mate. you lay on your side, back to grayson’s with as much room between you both as possible. you can see the glow of ethan’s phone next to you as he waves it around in his rant.

after the fifth time ethan starts talking into the dark of the room about how grayson is absolutely not the boss of everyone and he doesn’t make the rules about when people go to sleep, gray flings his arm out of the covers to place into the gap between you on the bed, holding up his weight as he yells across the room to his brother, “fuck off, ethan! you’re not the only one in the room! go to fucking sleep and stop annoying the fuck out of us! grow the fuck up!”

ethan picks up quickly that his brother is not in the mood to be teased and for the first time in a while, ethan listens to him. he locks his phone, shoves his charger cable in and then throws it onto the nightstand between you and him. you can almost feel the look he’s throwing at his brother who’s shuffling around behind you which makes you giggle silently to yourself.

eventually, the room falls silent. your tiredness from the dramatic events of the day must catch up on you because before you know it, your eyes are fluttering closed and, before your mind can think too deeply about sharing a bed with the boy who makes your heart race, you fall to sleep.

it must be a few hours later when your eyes blink open slowly and then close again; the tired weight of them too much to fight against. your mind confusedly tries to piece together where you are and why you’re awake. ah, the motel. desperate to regain your much needed slumber, you try to snuggle further down into the slightly scratchy pillow when you realise that you’ve been laid on your arm. giving it a quick wiggle to try and get some feeling back, you turn onto your right side so you’re not laying on your fuzzy arm again. as soon as you turn and settle, eyes still resting shut, you feel the warmth of the body beside you much closer than it was when you drifted off to sleep.

curiosity gets the better of you and you can’t help but crack your left eye open to peek at the man beside you. your stomach feels like it’s about to drop when you take in the view directly in front of you. laying on his side, you realise that you’re both subconsciously mirroring each other’s positions; one arm under a pillow, the other resting lightly in the tiny gap between your bodies. if you moved your hand a whisper down, it would be holding his. 

before the temptation grows too much, you shamelessly cast your eyes upwards. the white of the scratchy sheets makes his skin look even more golden and tanned than usual, and you can see the texture to his usual glowing skin; that’s how close you are. long, fluttering eyelashes rest lightly on the tops of his sleep flushed cheeks. his perfect nose twitches slightly in his sleep and you smile to yourself, a bizarre sense of calm covering you despite your racing heart. 

his fluffy hair droops over his forehead and you force yourself to look away, just in case you reach in to push it back to where he prefers it to be when it’s styled. your eyes travel downwards this time and fall onto his plush, delectable lips that are parted slightly in his sleep. your mind swirls at being so, so close to those lips that you’ve dreamed about so often and if you focus, you can feel his breaths caressing your own lips. a rustle sounds from next to you and you feel the bed move slightly under his strong frame. shit. you slam your eyes closed and try your best to force your breathing to even out to convince him you’re sleeping and absolutely not being a fucking creeper watching him sleep. you feel his arm move from next to yours – probably to rub at his eyes – and then as it lands back on the covers, it’s touching yours. breathe, breathe, breathe.

“watchin’ me sleep?” he mumbles, no louder than a whisper and you consider your options: ignore him and continue with your pretence of being asleep, or admit it, teasing him and steadfastly ignore the wild beating of your heart.

“i know you’re ‘wake,” he whispers again with a small huff of laughter, placing his hand directly on top of yours and giving it a tiny shake. that’s your decision made for you then.

you slowly crack your left eye open again, then quickly close it and bury your head into the pillow when you see his sleepy, grinning face a whisper away from yours. “nope, m’fast asleep,” you retort, refusing to look at him.

“no fair,” he murmurs.

intrigued by what he means, hand still held in his, you slowly remove most of your face from the pillow, or at least enough that he can see you raise an eyebrow at him, and then you speak.

“why no fair?”

he swallows, playing delicately with the fingers on your hand and says, “you got to stare at me. i wanna join in.”

you huff out a laugh; teasing you can do. teasing is safe, familiar territory. the implications of what he just said – what you know he meant - is not. “you wanna join in lookin’ at you? narcissist.”

“nah, not nearly as interesting as lookin’ at you.”

your cheeks flush immediately and you feel your eyes close in order to retain some order of control over yourself in this situation. you swallow as you feel his rough, calloused fingers dance over your wrist, hovering over your pulse point and you feel weak at how exposed he’s got you emotionally.

a whisper of, “y/n,” makes your eyes flutter open and face him. the soft smile he sends you as he meets your eyes makes your pulse race even faster – something he is well aware of judging from his deep intake of breath as he still hovers over your pulse point.

you lay completely still on your side whilst the man in front of you leaves no stone of your face unturned. his eyes scatter wildly across some areas of you like he hasn’t got enough time in the world to look at all of the points of you he desires. other times, his gaze locks on one particular area, eyes slowly unblinking as he drinks you in.

his gaze eventually fixates on your mouth and his golden eyes turn dark, hand still around your wrist flexing slightly as if he wants to touch. your lips feel dry at the intense gaze on them and you push out your tongue to lick at them, releasing a sigh as grayson’s eyes drop closed and he subconsciously mirrors your movement his with his own mouth.

self control hanging on by a thread, you lift the hand he’s got you grasped by and bring it up to his mouth, lightly following the path of his tongue with your pointer finger. his eyes have fully closed and his breathing feels as though it’s almost come to a stop, but when you drag your hand lightly upwards to dance over his eyebrow and smooth out his furrowed brow, you feel the rush of air release from him. you lick your lips again without thinking and grayson sighs deeply, bringing up his hand this time to feel your lips with his fingertips. you grasp his forearm at the intensity that is cocooning the two of you, at the look of awe spread over his features.

you lick at your lips again but this time your tongue accidentally brushes against his fingertips and the silent groan from both of you is unmistakable. time stops for a second as you both stare at each other, frozen, until you kitten lick at his finger tip once more; the thread of self control snapped. eyes rolling back, and then forcing them to open again to witness this, grayson pushes two of his fingers even closer to your tongue, whimpering slightly as he feels you lap and suck at them.

eventually, when he can take no more, he withdraws his fingers, dragging down your swollen lower lip as he retreats and trails them down your shoulder and arm. when he reaches your waist, he pulls you towards him effortlessly, needing to be even closer to you. his hand roams delicately over your back, sides and stomach, leaving paths of goose bumps wherever he’s danced his fingers. your hand is resting on his chest, fingernails scratching lightly at his flushed skin. a fleeting thought crosses through your mind that this feels incredibly intimate.

you open your eyes that have closed through the feelings of pleasure he’s making swirl through your body and see that his eyes are still fixated on your lips. desperate to feel his lips on yours, you nudge your nose against his as a silent request. his lips brush against yours and you both pause again, breathing in the same air as each other, nerves standing on end at the feeling of electricity charging between you both.

you’re just about to move forward to connect your lips properly when a shuffling noise comes from the sofa bed next to you. you freeze immediately, eyes immediately blinking open in surprise until grayson places his pointer finger over your lips, imploring you not to speak, his eyes staring directly into yours. the shuffling continues but the both of you stay frozen, even when ethan mumbles sleepily:

“if you two are going to fuck then at least make sure you use protection,” and then flops onto his front, sleepy snuffles filling the room once again.

grayson slowly removes his finger from your lips, looking deeply into your eyes as if to ask, ok? and you nod minutely in response. he moves forward silently, head fully sharing your pillow now and leans in to brush his lips against yours again, leaving you in control to connect them fully. you listen again for any indications that ethan is still awake, and when you’re convinced that he’s fast asleep, you lose yourself in grayson once again.

the feather touch of his lips against yours slowly gives way into a deeper, more hungry kiss, tongues slowly intertwining, both desperately not making too much noise for fear this waited for moment will be over before it’s time. 

kissing grayson felt like levitating off the ground, floating carefree through the charged air; the soft, repeated motion of his lips and teeth and tongue hypnotising you into this delicious feeling of want. you plant your hand back onto his bare chest, needing to feel him more, and as you brush your nails over his nipple, he shifts forward, jolting the feeling of electricity in you to an even higher charge. the moan he makes is muffled by the sound of your mouth and the flick of his tongue against yours forces you to replicate it due to the euphoric feeling it gives you. you made this man moan; the same moan you hear in your dreams, in your fantasies but oh god, this was so much better.

you break your lips away from his in a silent pant and he moves his lips along your neck, suckling and licking and biting his way down. eventually, he buries his head in the crook of your neck and breathes in deeply. you move your hand to cradle his head softly, caressing his head as if to say i know.

a decision is quickly made in your mind and you place your hand on his sharp jaw to bring his face back up to yours. keeping your eyes locked onto his, you drag your fingers sensually down his chest, over his belly button, through the dark hair dotted at the top of his underwear. when you reach there, you raise your eyebrow to ask for permission and the way his eyes roll into the back of his head and he nods his head in a deep sigh makes it clear your decision was the best you’d made in a long time.

keeping your fingers over the cotton of his boxers, you gracefully dance your fingers down over the prominent bulge resting impatiently there and you both let out a gasp at the touch. grayson leans forward to rest his forehead against yours as you cup him in your hand, quickly establishing a smooth rhythm and feeling him grow even harder in your hand. soft puffs escape his mouth and his hips begin to shift towards you, rocking into your rhythm whilst still being careful to remain as silent as possible so as not to wake his sleeping brother.

slowly, you drag your hand away, smiling to yourself at the almost inaudible displeased groan grayson gives you as you push him slowly onto his back. the bed creaks under his weight and you both wince at the noise, freezing again. when ethan’s sleepy breaths continue solidly, you fit yourself against grayson’s side; his arm resting under you, cradling your waist and hip; your head pressed into the crook of his neck and shoulder; your hand free to roam back down his chest to where he desires you most.

you waste no time in sliding your hand under the cotton underwear to feel the heady heat of him bare. you take a deep intake of breath as you wrap your hand around him and start to pump, pressing a sloppy kiss to his neck as you feel him throw his other arm over his eyes in pleasure, then slide his fist into his mouth to muffle any noises that threatened to escape.

the room still remained silent, save for the slick slide of your teasing hand grayson’s hard length and the movement of his restless legs against the scratchy sheets, unable to stay completely still at the feeling of euphoria you’re giving him. he desperately wants his mouth to be connected to yours but moans of pleasure threaten to overflow in you both so he frantically flits between capturing your lips between his own and covering his mouth with his hand or the edge of his pillow.

the intensity of the mixture of hard and soft, fast and slow, teasing and sure moments you’re giving him becomes too much for grayson to handle and his hips start to involuntarily thrust upwards into your clasped fist. the gasps that are escaping his mouth are growing louder as he gradually starts to come undone and you throw a leg over his to rest your body on his side, leaving your other hand free to slide two fingers into his opened mouth. this simple movement to mute his noises causes his hips to thrust up two, three times more and his jaw to slacken before he falls over the edge into euphoria. you can’t believe the sight you’ve just been able to watch and you daren’t blink, afraid that you’ll miss something that you’ll never get to see again.

eventually, he becomes too sensitive and winces, grabbing your hand off him and intertwining your fingers together. wiping quickly at his stomach with an edge of the sheet, he tugs at your waist so you fall back into his side, directly into his waiting lips that capture yours in a deep, slow kiss.

you feel his hand start to travel down your side, sliding under your oversized t-shirt and hovering just over your soaked panties. from behind you, shuffling occurs again and you grab hold of grayson’s hand to halt his motions. with a minute shake of your head, he retracts his hand, placing it onto your back instead and nods in understanding. he presses his forehead up against yours as if to telepathically communicate his thoughts – not now, not here. when we’re home.

he envelops your lips in another thorough kiss that leaves you breathless and secretly cursing that fact his twin brother is laid in the bed next to you both, rather than leaving you both alone. almost as if he can read your thoughts, grayson pulls away and smirks, whispering, “fuckin’ E,” before lightly shoving you over onto your other side and pulling you backwards so your back meets his bare chest. into your ear, he murmurs, “get some sleep, angel. sooner we’re awake, the sooner we can get back home and i can get you alone.”

the next morning, if ethan notices anything different between you and his twin brother, he’s subtle enough not to comment. although, the wink he throws you and the mouthed, finally! when grayson climbs out of ethan’s jeep at your apartment rather than at their house might tell at different story.

exasperated and with more force than absolutely necessary, you throw yourself down onto the couch at the side of grayson, huffing when he doesn’t move his leg from the seat you’ve landed on quick enough. grimacing over dramatically, you both manoeuvre with very little grace to free his leg and to get yourself comfortable. gray takes one look at your face from over the top of his phone, sits up a little straighter and tosses his phone onto the coffee table to give you his full attention.

“what’s up, mama?” he says after a minute of pointedly staring at you in silence, waiting for you to spill.

“nothin’,” you mumble, purposely avoiding his gaze.

he prods your thigh with one of his socked toes as a non verbal way of saying yeah right.

he notices your body language of arms folded over your chest, legs propped on the coffee table but not fully relaxed; not like his best friend at all.

“y/n, spill. c’mon.”

you huff again, tilting your body further towards the arm of the couch grayson isn’t leaning on to try and escape the interrogation. ethan relaxes at the side of on a huge beanbag that’s been added to the living room recently, munching the popcorn you prepared earlier and waiting for the movie marathon to begin.

“y/n,” grayson repeats again, with more force this time.

“for fucks sake, are we watchin’ this movie or not?” ethan says from the beanbag, missing his mouth with the popcorn as he does. he makes an effort to look for the rogue pieces that didn’t quite make it in, then shrugs when he doesn’t immediately see them. he shoves another handful of the treat in his mouth as he keeps his gaze on the two best friends since high school who are sitting on the couch.

you turn away from ethan, finally looking at gray’s unamused face for the first time since you sat down. “exactly, gray. put the fucking movie on. E’s nearly eaten all of the popcorn with all of your dawdling,” you say.

“nah, no movie’s going on ‘til you tell me what crawled up your ass,” he retorts.

“excuse me?” you ask, body still turned away from grayson. you catch ethan wince at your tone combined with how quick your head turned to glare at his brother.

he sits up further so he’s looking directly at you, shoving the remote down the back of the couch cushion he’s sat on when he sees you trying to reach for it. “somethin’s clearly got you pissed so spill! i’m not watchin’ a movie with you with you while you’ve got your bitch face on so come on, out with it,” he encourages.

ethan rolls his eyes and empties the last of the popcorn into his mouth while he waits. he knows how stubborn you are – about as stubborn as his brother – and he’s worried this stand off could take a while.

he’s about to pull his phone out to post a snap about you both when you sigh, pull your legs up from the coffee table and fold them under you and mumble, “fuckin’ jenna,” so quietly you’re unsure if gray heard you. luckily, he did.

“ok, now we’re getting somewhere!” he replies. “what’d she do?”

you turn your body to face him more now and he moves his legs out of the way so you can get comfortable. you still don’t quite meet his eyes but he knows he’s almost cracked you.

“she can just be such a bitch sometimes. always makin’ people feel bad about themselves. she really pisses me off, y’know?” you start to open up, glancing up at your best friend to glimpse his reaction.

“she made you feel bad? she is a bitch!” he agrees immediately with genuine annoyance spread across his features at the thought of someone upsetting you. you smile; he’s always got your back even if he doesn’t know the full story. “what’s she makin’ you feel bad about?”

“so, she’s tellin’ us all about her new boyfriend and how well he treats her and how she’s so lucky to have found someone just like him and it’s like – first of all, no one asked, jenna, and secondly, you’ve been dating him for two weeks – maybe three at the most – so like, keep your opinions to yourself until you know him better, y’know?” you begin. gray nods his head to show he’s listening.

you glance around to see E’s busying himself playing a pretty loud game on his phone while he waits for you two to sort this out before he can watch the movie. you turn back to grayson to continue your story.

“so we’re all nodding politely and giving it the whole wow, jenna, we’re so pleased for you – you deserve a good guy when like, no jenna; you cheated on your last boyfriend with your sister’s crush so no, you probably don’t deserve a good guy but whatever, that’s besides the point,” you rant.

grayson can’t help the soft smile that’s spread across his face as he listens to you. the corner of his smile tugs upwards as he sees ethan’s head lift upwards from the corner of his vision and look towards you both at the story you’re only just starting.

“so that’s bad enough, right? by this point i’m practically chugging these mocktails back and praying for some sort of miracle that’ll drop the drinking age to 18 immediately so i can make it through the rest of this fuckin’ nightmare of a brunch without losing it.”

grayson huffs out a laugh at that, then shoves his unstyled hair that’s falling onto his forehead back as you keep going.

“and then gray - and this is what really pissed me off – she starts telling us all oh god you guys, and let me tell you about him in the bedroom. like, jenna! there’s nothing in the whole fuckin’ world that i want to hear less about than your sex life so keep it to yourself, y’know? but obviously she carries on. seriously you guys, find yourself a guy that makes you come three times in five minutes.”

ethan’s head’s popped up fully now, clearly engaged in what he’s just heard and about to interject before grayson shakes his head at him.

“what happened then?” he asks. he can tell you’re getting to the part that’s really upset you because you’re gesticulating a lot more now, voice getting louder and really spitting the venom into your story.

“so, me being me and feeling like i’d do anything possible to end this freakin’ story as quickly as i can, i raise my glass and say ha! must be nice! then cheers everyone. cool, story’s over, right?”

“right?”

“wrong – she turns and looks right at me and says oh, poor baby in this fucking condescending voice with this look of pity on her face and i swear to god, gray if i hadn’t already downed it, my drink would’ve been all over her,” you hiss.

“great self control, bub. ‘m proud of you,” he mumbles.

“so then the next forty-five minutes of this fuckin’ brunch was everyone giving me the sad face that i’ve never orgasmed when i’m having sex with a guy. like, is that weird?” you ask openly.

you look directly at grayson and note his carefully composed face, then whip your head around to look at ethan who’s not keeping his face in check quite as well as his brother. E looks as though he’s been put on pause with his head held halfway up from his phone like he was just about to look at you but he’s suddenly stopped in his tracks. “well?” you ask him. “do you think it’s weird, E?”

“ummm - well – i think – i…” he stutters looking up at you from his beanbag.

you raise your eyebrow at him to prompt him to finish and he frantically looks at his brother.

“you got this, gray?” he asks, quickly standing up from the beanbag when gray smirks at how uncomfortable his brother is and nodding his head.

“ok, i’m so not used to these conversations. i’ll just leave you to it. shout when you’re ready for the movie. fuck, being best friends with a girl is hard, bro,” he says, and then makes a run for it.

you turn back to gray, still waiting for your answer. you sigh, “i’m gonna take your lack of an answer as yes, y/n, it’s fuckin’ weird you giant freak.”

“hey, hey, hey, hold on. no jumpin’ to conclusions. i’ve gotta get my thoughts in order,” he soothes.

you hide your head in your hands; you’re still pissed that jenna’s got you questioning yourself like this and it’s also a pretty embarrassing conversation to be having with your hot best friend of almost eight years.

“so, can i ask you a couple of questions before i tell you that is absolutely not weird so stop freaking out?”

your hands are still covering your face so when he hears a muffled reply and a nod of your head, he continues. “so i’m assuming from what you said earlier that you’ve come when you’re alone, yeah?”

you groan with embarrassment instead of replying and fling your head back to rest on the back of the couch and look up at the ceiling, questioning exactly why you thought this would be a good idea.

grayson’s not having any of it though. “hey, stop it. it’s only me – you don’t have to be embarrassed. everyone does it, it’s natural. so, you’re good when you’re alone?”

he waits for you to close your eyes and then nod your head minutely.

“ok then. that settles it,” he says.

you wait for him to continue but when nothing else comes from his mouth, you roll your head that’s still resting on the back of the couch to face him with a quizzical look on your face.

“settles what?” you ask.

“that it’s absolutely not weird that you’ve never come during sex with a guy. it’s clearly not you - you’re just pickin’ guys that haven’t got a fuckin’ clue what they’re doing,” he says with a grin and a shrug.

a loud laugh escapes you at his honesty, already feeling a little better after your best friend’s wise words.

“ok, so how do i know i’m picking someone who does know what they’re doing then? do i need to ask for reviews before i go on a date with them? i’m literally wasting weeks of my life with them and then i find out that they’re shitty in bed.” you whine.  

“hey, a review system sounds like a dope dating app idea,” he says, bursting into laughter as he dodges the pillow that you’ve thrown at him.

“if this really bothers you, have you thought about maybe skipping out on the dating part? can you not find someone just to hook up with? get the job done, y’know? then you can get this stupid idea that you’re weird out of your mind,” he explains.

“it doesn’t work for me like that,” you sigh. “i dunno, sex is a big deal for me. it’s like, the closest and most intimate you can be with a person. the idea of being like that with a stranger? it just doesn’t do it for me.”

“no, no. i totally respect that. so you need someone who you trust AND who knows what he’s doing,” he concludes.

“so you see my problem!” you laugh. you pick at a thread on your shorts and then look up at him and see he’s staring at you, eyes focused in thought.

he sees you glancing at him and he smiles, hiding a small laugh and picks up the cushion you threw at him earlier to cuddle. he’s still not breaking eye contact. 

his laugh seems to be infectious as you giggle, “what? what’s so funny?”

he shakes his head and then he smirks, “i bet i could make you come.”

he seems surprised that he’s actually said it out loud judging from the slight flush that blooms on his cheeks but he shrugs, fishing the remote control out from the back of the cushion he’s sat on.

you gape at him, eyes wide as a laugh huffs out of you. you’re speechless – for once – which is a fact that isn’t lost on grayson who’s still got that sinful smirk smudged across his mouth.

he spins the remote in his hand so it’s the right way up and points it at the TV that they’ve got shoved in the corner of the room, setting up the movie as confident and cool as anything.

you’re still looking directly at him, trying to work out what the fuck has just happened when he looks back to you.

he shrugs and says, “offer’s there,” before yelling for E to come and watch the movie with you.

“did you get the – er - problem sorted?” ethan asks awkwardly as he plonks himself back down in the beanbag for the second time today.

“not yet, but bear with us,” his brother mumbles, sending a wink in your direction.

it’s a couple of weeks after that conversation between you and your best friend and thankfully, life has carried on pretty much as normal. grayson hasn’t mentioned the offer since, enquiring about how your dates have been going as casually as usual. the only difference? one friday evening, you’ve joined the twins and a couple of your friends to hang out in their back yard. talk turns to your latest failing after you were set up on a blind date with a friend of a friend.

“he was a nice enough guy, just wouldn’t stop talking about how he’s trying to be ‘off grid’ whatever the fuck that means,” you recall as you sip your drink.

“oh dude, not one of those?” one of the guys sat opposite you says, clearly sharing in your disappointment.

“absolutely one of those, man! oh y/n, you don’t know how good it feels to just unplug, just be with yourself and nature. just living in the moment. like, dude, you live in LA – you’re about as on grid as you can possibly be!”

your group of friends laugh, imagining you trying to school your face into neutrality when you were listening to this dreamer.

“did you meet up with him again?” ethan asks as the laughter starts to die down.

“…yeah,” you sigh reluctantly.

“what?! no way did you meet up with him again! he sounds like such a douchebag!” ethan cries, throwing his arms in the air and leaning towards you for added dramatic flair.

you laugh, “what can i say, E? i’m fuckin’ desperate! he was my only hope!”

“hope? he was your only hope? fuck, i’d rather spend the rest of my days alone than spend them with a pretentious asshat of a man. you don’t need someone like that, y/n!” he stresses.

“what? no! E, i don’t mean he was my only hope of fuckin’ happiness and marriage and all of that – i mean i could see his package through his skin tight jeans and i thought that was exactly what i needed!”

ethan and the rest of the group are nearly crying with laughter at your statement and you glance up at gray who’s sat across from you, chuckling away at his best friend’s honesty. he shakes his head at you as he meets your eye contact.

your friends have just about calmed down from their laughter and just as you’re about to stand up and grab another drink, gray speaks.

“did he live up to your hopes then?”

your eyes glare at his as if to say don’t do this here but he doesn’t flinch. instead, he raises a single eyebrow and smirks, replying to your silent command with his own; answer the question.

the rest of the group is quiet now, looking between the two of you and trying their best not to acknowledge the intense atmosphere that’s just fallen over you.

“well, did he?” he asks again firmly.

you cough quietly to clear your throat, look him dead in the eyes and say a simple, “no,” before you grab your glass to refill.

the last thing you see before you turn around to head inside is grayson trying to hide his smug smile from the rest of the group by looking down at his converse.

you hear a muffled, “well that was weird,” from ethan, and then you slide the door shut with a slam.

night has fallen; it’s late and the group you’re hanging with decide it’s time to head home. hugs are offered and accepted as you all move towards the twins’ front door to say goodbye. you’re the last one there - E is telling you about this sick dance move he saw on twitter - when gray locks the front door and starts to head to the kitchen.

“um, hello? i was just about to leave,” you call. “what’d you lock the door for?”

grayson walks back around into the hallway with a confused look on his face and then ethan speaks for the both of them. “what’re you talkin’ about? just stay in the guest house like usual,” he says and then turns you in that direction with a brotherly shove.

“but-“ you begin.

“y/n, really? what’s the big deal? you always stop over. stop bein’ weird - you’re creeping ethan out,” gray calls across the hallway to you.

you sigh, shaking your shoulders a little because he’s right – why are you being so weird?

“yeah, sorry. guess i’m just more tired than i thought?” you lie. “i’ll see you both in the morning,” you reply, voice carrying through the house as you head towards the guest house.

a chorus of love you and sleep tight bub followed by their brotherly bickering echoes after you and you shut the door behind you with a soft click.

thirty minutes later, you’re showered, teeth brushed, face cleansed and laying in the comfortable bed trying to fall to sleep.

another thirty minutes pass and with a huff, you accept the fact that sleep isn’t very likely any time soon. with a tug on the light covers, you roll over and fumble for your phone that’s discarded on the night stand at the side of you.

after scrolling mindlessly for a while, you see that it’s not even that late – only around 11:30. you sit up and peak through the window of your bedroom facing the house and smile when you see gray’s bedroom is still lit up through his curtains. feeling calmer that you’re not the only one who likes their sleep to still be awake, you settle back onto the bed. you bring up your phone and tap out a quick text:

whatcha doin?????

an immediate reply flashes up on your phone:

sleeping

you smile, then reply:

liar your light’s still on why are you lying??? what are you possibly doing that you can’t tell your best friend?? oh are you…… busy??? wink wink

your phone flashes again:

first of all – stalker second of all… ;)

you’re surprised by the flood of heat that spreads quickly through your body upon reading his reply. is he joking with you or is he really less than twenty feet away from you jerking off? if he is, why is he texting you back whilst he’s…? why can you not get the image out of your mind when you close your eyes? what the fuck is going on?

during your mini crisis, your phone lights up again:

did i scare you off

running your hand through your hair, you swallow loudly to try and get rid of the dryness in your throat and then you reply:

little bit

you take in a deep breath when you see he’s replied again, and glance at the ceiling before looking at your phone:

didn’t mean to sorry :( was only joking

you shake your head and smile when you see his reply. this boy, honestly. the overwhelming feeling of fondness towards him floods through you which might be what encourages you to send a cheeky reply. just banter between friends, right?

that’s a shame was just about to ask if i could join

just as you press send, you wince inwardly and place your hand not holding your phone over your eyes. through your fingers, you see the tell tale notification.

??????? thinkin about that offer are you

the heat from before rages through you again and you can feel a twist deep down in your body. shit. he’s flirting with you – and it’s fucking working. you’re turned on. your best friend is turning you on. you start to type out a reply but then delete it quickly. attempt number two at replying is also deleted. how the fuck do you respond to that?

the tell tale ellipses that shows you’re typing then deleting has clearly shown grayson that you’re unsure of what to say. he takes control of this situation and replies:

come to my room x

your eyes open wide as you read, then re-read the text on screen, just to clarify that you haven’t made this up. shit. your heart beats fast in your chest and your skin feels a little clammy. shit.

he’s impatient now.

y/n stop freaking out come over

not allowing yourself to overthink this situation any further, you listen to your gut, throw your covers back and step out of the room. tip toeing your way across the living room and then down the hallway that leads to the twins’ bedrooms, you try your best not to make any noise so ethan isn’t alerted to what’s going on. whatever that is. as you make your way to gray’s familiar bedroom door, you pause. you can hear ethan yelling at his video game and you smile softly to yourself. you take a deep breath to steady your sudden nerves, and then raise your hand to tap lightly on the door.

within seconds, the door swings open revealing a worked up, sweatpant wearing grayson who’s hair has broken free from its product from running his hand through it. he meets your eyes immediately.

“hi,” is what comes out of your mouth. you inwardly face palm at how awkward you’re acting.

he smirks, then, “hi yourself.”

he pulls the door open wider and jerks his head inside the room as a silent invitation when you appear to be stuck stood in the hallway.

you take one last look into his deep eyes, darker than you’ve ever seen them and step forward, taking the door handle from his hands and shoving it closed. the heated look he gives you as you reach behind yourself to twist the lock shut makes the decision for you.

“so… about that offer?”

he breathes out a stuttered fuck as he steps closer to you, looking you up and down and taking in your appearance.

his dark eyes rake over your bare legs; silky pyjama shorts that you keep in the guest bedroom covering the tops of your thighs but not much else. he pulls his gaze upwards across your shirt – or rather his shirt that you stole – and his jaw clenches and he swallows loudly. as his eyes move across your chest, you self-consciously cross your arm over yourself, moving your gaze to the floor nervously. at your movement, he forces himself to look at your face – that familiar face that he’d forced himself to think only neutral thoughts about; never allowing himself to imagine the things he was thinking right now.

he notices that you’re nervous; on edge for more reasons than one. the look in your eyes gives him some encouragement so he takes a step closer to you, feeling more relieved than he’d like to admit that you don’t flinch away from him. he lightly runs his large, calloused hand lightly down your neck, brushing over your shoulder until he reaches where your arms are still crossed. a soft smirk blossoms on his face as he looks up from where he was following the slow path of his hand to see your eyes have closed at his touch. with the slightest bit of pressure, he pushes down on your folded arms to get you to drop your arms back down to your sides.

“hey none of this. there’s nothin’ to be embarrassed or nervous about. we don’t have to do anythin’ you don’t want to,” he whispers reassuringly. the hand that pressed at your folded arms creeps forward and he slowly – surprisingly gently – intertwines his strong fingers with your smaller ones. eyes still closed, you take shuddering intake of breath, then open them slowly as you feel him step even closer. you look up to meet his eyes and notice that his forehead is almost touching yours. any doubt in what you were about to do starts to dissipate as you feel his breath brush across your cheek and then your lips as he shuffles closer still. you grip his hand you’re holding tighter as rational thought leaves your mind, leaving you only with one focus – him. you make the move he was waiting for and push your forehead against his lightly and mirror the grin that covers his face at your movement.

“hi again,” you whisper, pleased that you at least managed to speak.

“hi,” he replies still whispering, not wanting to break the intense atmosphere that is cocooning you both. “whatcha thinkin’?” he mumbles as he nuzzles his nose lightly against yours.

the constant tiny movements he’s making – nose rubbing against yours, breath tickling your cheek, stubble scratching at your soft skin – feels like he’s hypnotising you.

“thinkin’ i wanna kiss you.”

he breathes out a whispered shit and moves forward to finally – finally – press his lips to yours. lightly at first, so, so lightly to make sure you’re comfortable, in control and not freaking out. the pressure of his lips against yours, reacting effortlessly to your every movement drives that feeling of pure want in you and you use the hand not gripping his to slide up to the back of his neck and pull him forward. the feel of your nails at the base of his hair makes him groan almost silently – you feel more than hear it – and he pushes forward to meet you. he kisses you properly then – now he knows you really, truly want him to – and fuck, your mind empties at the pure bliss he’s causing you. his tongue kitten licks at your plump bottom lip and immediately, you grant him entrance. shit, if this is how he kisses, you’d grant him anything he wanted right now.

the hands that you’re holding untangle from each other for a second before both pairs relocate to grip each other’s bodies, trying to ground yourselves from this earth shattering kiss. your hand slides up grayson’s hard bicep to join your other hand on his neck, pulling him closer, closer, closer. his are both resting on your back; one cupping the back of your neck beneath your hair and the other low on your back, keeping you pressed close to him. you’re plastered against him now and he kisses you and kisses you and kisses you. the intensity between the two of you is on fire. you pull away with a gasp but effortlessly he tilts your head to the side and continues his attack onto your cheek, then straight down onto your neck. a breathy moan escapes your mouth as his tongue flicks on that spot right below your ear. his teeth scrape against your skin as a reply and then he sucks that same spot. fuck, you need more.

dragging your hands away from his neck and pulling them down to his chest, never once losing precious skin contact, you push gently and whisper, “gray.”

he replies to your statement of his name by trailing his lips back up to your ear, resting his temple against yours and nodding, not yet opening his eyes.

you feel his breath against your ear and you squirm in the best possible way, gripping your hands in his shirt just by his ribs as you try to arrange your thoughts enough to speak a full sentence.

all that comes out is, “shit, gray.”

you feel that familiar smirk against you and he turns his head to smash another open mouthed kiss against your burning cheek, his other hand holding you in place on your other cheek.

you try again, “gray. please. want you.”

you hear his groan this time and he swoops his lips down to capture yours intensely again. he kisses you so thoroughly you whimper as he retreats from you, placing one last kiss against your lips before finally opening his eyes to look at you.

he sees the burning red flush on your cheeks, your plump, red, swollen lips and the already fucked look in your eyes and wastes no time in tangling his fingers back up with yours and walking backwards into his room, pulling you along.

the coloured lights in his room glow a sensual red and as he stands in front of his bed still holding onto you, you glance behind him. the white sheets were still neatly made from this morning and show no signs of wear. you glance to your left to see the computer on his desk with the editing software loaded, clearly half way through a video.

you frown and look back to his face. you say simply, “you weren’t jerking off.”

he rubs the back of his head nervously. he’s been caught. “err… not at that moment.”

“why’d you say you were?”

“haven’t stopped thinking about that offer i made you since we talked about it,” he replies honestly. he rests his forehead against yours again, unable to not be touching you in some sort of way right now. “wanted to see if i could get you worked up after you talked about that douche earlier. thought i’d blown it to be honest with you. thought i’d scared you off. was so pissed at myself.”

you shake your head slightly and smile, “fuck, i’d convinced myself i didn’t want your offer to happen. as soon as i read your text, i couldn’t think straight.”

he untangles your fingers again, grasps the back of your head with one hand and caresses dangerously low on the bottom of your back with the other as your lips frantically meet again. you physically ache with want. barely moving your lips from his, you mumble, “bed,” authoritatively, the embers of lust bursting into the flames you had desperately tried to keep at bay since he made that ridiculous offer as he immediately followed your instruction.

almost flinging himself backwards in want, he bounces ungracefully on the bed as he shuffles his way further up towards the headboard. he reaches immediately for you and grins cheekily as he sees you trying to hide your giggles at his eagerness.

“keen, are we?” you tease.

“baby, you have no idea.”

his honesty and gruff voice makes you shiver – something that he definitely notices - and you give into the heat that’s flooding through your body and accept his awaiting hand. you plant your knees on either side of his legs at the bottom of the bed and crawl upwards until you’re positioned just above the zipper on his jeans. the heat in his gaze as you make your way slowly up his body makes you feel unbelievably sexy and makes the ache for him in between your legs pulse even more. you finally take a seat in his lap, legs straddling either side of him when he sits up suddenly, desperate to meet your mouth again. you can’t quite register where his hands are at this point – all you know is they’re all over your body and fuck, they feel good.

he moves his mouth across your cheek again and down your neck, making sure to give that secret spot he discovered a little attention. he moves around to the front of your neck and starts to suck a bruise into there. your hand is grasped in his hair, tugging lightly as you moan at the feeling he’s creating in you. needing more of him, you reach behind him and tug gently at the shirt he’s wearing. when he doesn’t immediately respond – he’s still busy marking you up – you groan and tug harder. he pulls back reluctantly, smirking when he sees the red mark that will soon blossom into a bruise and then planting a quick kiss on your chin.

“what’s up, baby?” he teases. “you want somethin’?”

this smug little shit knows exactly what you want right now and the fact he’s teasing you even in this situation works you up even more.

“shirt. off.” you command through gritted teeth.

he winks at you, removing one of his hands from your back and reaching to the back of his neck, quickly shucking his shirt off over his head and tossing it to land on his desk chair.

“if you want somethin’ baby, all you have to do is ask,” he mumbles into your ear and returns his hands to your body.

you breathe out a moan at his openness combined with the feeling of your hands meeting his bare back. your nails scratch slightly as you rake them across the newly exposed skin and his hands travel immediately down to cup your ass through your shorts in response. the material of them is so thin you can feel the callouses of his fingers through them and you immediately grasp his chin to bring your mouths back together.

the force of your kiss sends him backwards and he soon ends up laid flat on his back, you bearing down on top of him, tendrils of hair from your bun falling at each side of his face. he huffs a tiny laugh against your lips which causes you to pull back - only enough that his face isn’t blurred to you - and raise your eyebrow in question as if to say i’m kissing the hell out of you here, why the fuck are you laughing?

he giggles again, trying to school his face into neutrality when he responds, “tickles.”

you pull back even further as if some distance from him will allow your brain to catch up with what he’s talking about when he removes one of his broad hands from your ass to twist in the tendril of your hair that was touching his face.

laughter bursts out of you as you realise what he’s meaning and you fall forward again, this time landing your head in the crook of his neck. his hands pull you close, completely plastered against him as you both shake with laughter. when only short giggles are left between the both of you, you push against his chest to lift up your head and look at your best friend’s face. the offending locks of hair drop forward to tickle his cheek again so he reaches up, sweeping his hand through your hair until he finds your hair tie and then tugs. your hair cascades down over your shoulder and you sweep it to one side so your view of grayson isn’t obscured.

he smiles up at you, tucking a tiny bit of hair behind your ear.

“better?” you whisper to him.

“the best.”

he pulls you to him again, mouth meeting yours and gasping when your teeth nip into his bottom lip. he unconsciously pushes his hips upwards at the movement and you both simultaneously groan at the feeling. he wants – definitely wants you – as much as you want him. you both pause, waiting for the other to react. when he doesn’t make another move, you decide to take control, reaching your hands back to meet his that have travelled back to your ass. placing your hands on top of his, you squeeze and grind your hips down into his hardness.

this is the sign he wanted – needed – from you and the deep moan that echoes from his chest at your movement reminds you of the heat of want burning inside you after your joint moment of laughter. still rocking your hips in that delicious rhythm, grayson’s hands travel under your shirt, moaning into your mouth when he confirms his suspicions that you’re not wearing a bra and then cursing into the heated air when you sit up and pull the shirt straight over your head.

you hear him whisper, “fuck, you’re fuckin’ gorgeous,” before his sinful mouth attaches itself to your breasts. you can’t help the high pitched whine that escapes out of your mouth, quickly turning into a squeal of surprise as grayson flips you - arm securely around your waist - and lays you carefully back onto his bed. his mouth is still laving at your hard nipples as he settles his weight firmly between your legs. you buck up your hips as if to say move and you feel his rock hard bulge pressing through your whisper thin shorts up against where you desire him the most. you grab his face in order to pull his lips back to your mouth – firstly to keep the sounds threatening to keep spilling out of your lips in and secondly because you think you might be addicted to the feeling.

the intensity of his weight on top of you, bare skin on bare skin, desperate hips rocking together and his devilish tongue battling yours gets a little too much for you, forcing you to pull your mouth away from his to gasp out, “gray, gray. please, gray.”

he nods against your cheek, replying in a deep, breathless grumble, “i know, baby. i know. what do you want?”

you groan louder than you’d planned to as his hips continue their movements and his mouth relocates back to the mark he’d sucked into your neck earlier as he waits for your reply. you lift your legs and lock them around the back of his thighs, moaning out, “fuck. want you gray; want you now.”

he returns your groan, nodding eagerly which internally makes you smile, seeing how enthusiastic he is to please you, but physically you can do no more than tug and grind against him to get what you want. you can’t recall ever being this worked up when you’ve been intimate with others in the past.

he speaks, “yeah. ok. yeah, wanna taste you,” and begins to move downwards towards your pulsing centre but is quickly stopped by your hand behind his head, pulling him right back up to where he’d just come from. you look directly into his eyes, pulling your legs extra tight around his waist and you watch his eyes roll backwards at the pleasure you’re giving him. tugging on his hair lightly to get him to refocus on you, you say quietly, “gray, if you don’t get inside of me in the next 30 seconds, i’m going to fucking scream.”

he huffs out a laugh, smacking a fond kiss on your cheek at your directness that he’s grown to love over the years and whispering a cheeky, “yes ma’am,” before reaching over to his bedside table and fumbling around in there for a condom. once he finally locates one – taking far too long for your liking – he turns back to you, smiling sheepishly at your raised eyebrow and throwing it lightly to land on your chest. you grab hold of it as he reluctantly detangles himself from you and quickly stands to the side of the bed and strips out of his sweats and underwear, leaving them discarded in a messy pile. 

quickly, he moves back to you, kneeling between your still clothed legs and hooks his fingers into the waistband of your shorts. he looks up at you to gain permission and groans when he looks at your face; your bottom lip is pulled between your teeth as you look at him, gloriously naked and waiting to please you. you sit up on your elbows, condom still gripped in one hand as you take him in your other. the relief of your tight grip around him makes him almost fall forward but he catches himself by placing his hands tightly around your hips. his eyes flutter closed after watching your hand move up and down his length a few times and he breathes out a shuddering breath before swatting your hand away. before you can question why, he laughs out an embarrassed, “shit, if you don’t stop that the offer will be over before it’s even started.”

you join him in his laugh, feeling that familiar fondness bloom again in your chest as you look at his pink, blotchy cheeks flushed with embarrassment whilst he looks at you openly, waiting for permission to remove the only items of clothing that are still separating you both. you nod, leaning forward even further to brush your lips against his coloured cheek before laying back down on the bed, letting him take control as he gently tugs your shorts and underwear down your legs.

it’s your turn to blush now as he leaves you bare, throwing your clothes to join his in the pile, black eyes never once leaving your throbbing core. he reaches forward, finger running lightly through your folds as you keen loudly, rocking your hips up to follow his hand, desperate for more. he pulls his hand away, tacking his fingers together and looking mesmerized at your wetness on his fingers before he returns his hand to your clit, rubbing small circles until you’re moaning again.

ungraceful but desperate in your attempts to get him inside of you, you throw the condom you’ve been holding tightly onto at him, hitting him in the chest as it takes him by surprise.

he grabs the condom up from the top of your thigh beneath him where it finally landed and teases, “tryna tell me somethin’?” with a grin.

you nod your head, too worked up to reply using words and breathe in deeply at the sight of him rolling the condom down his length. as he positions himself at your entrance, he checks – just to be doubly sure – “are you sure? do you need anything? maybe my fingers first? shall i get some lube or-“ before he’s interrupted by you.

“fuck, gray. i’m sure – so, so sure. i’ve never wanted anything – anybody – as much as i do right now. i’m ready so please fucking move,” you plead.

he nods and rocks forward, his tip just pushing inside of your walls before he stops at the sound of your whine. “you good? just tell me to stop if –“

“keep going, oh god,” you moan in pleasure. he’s big and you know he’s going to feel incredible when he’s fully in you. you rock your hips forward to encourage him and rub your hand against his hip as he breathes out, “oh fuck.”

eventually, he’s in deep, pressed fully into you and you both pause breathlessly to take in this moment. he leans forward to press a soft kiss to your lips, placing his hands on either side of your head to hold his weight from crushing you. you rock your hips slightly upwards to encourage him to move and his kisses you once more and whispers, “fuck, y/n,” before he pulls out almost to the tip and then grinds back in. his pace isn’t fast and furious but holy shit – it’s intense. you throw your head back in silent ecstasy as gray positions himself just right and hits your spot continuously. his hands are still holding himself up as he sucks more marks into your neck and chest, never faltering in his delicious rhythm. your hands are gripped onto his ass, pushing and pulling with his thrusts, nails pressing in and dragging quiet, cut off groans out of him.

the noises he makes start to get louder and more frequent, echoing in your ear and driving you closer and closer to that sweet edge that you’ve never achieved with another person before.

“shit, y/n, you feel fucking incredible,” he whispers.

“like we’re made for each other, holy shit,” you breathe in return.

“fit me like a fuckin’ glove,” he grins, before slamming harder into you, covering your noise with his mouth so his oblivious twin brother remains that way.

he lowers his weight onto his elbows beside your head and suddenly he’s so close, surrounding you everywhere and in every way and you feel as though you’re drowning in him in the best possible way. he positions all of his weight onto one strong elbow and he reaches in between your two writhing bodies to press the tips of his calloused, broad fingers to your clit. your noises turn to almost silent breathes now, eyes tightly closed and hands and legs gripping to the boy making you feel this incredible.

gruffly into your ear, he whispers, “fuck. can feel you clamping down on me.”

you moan in response, gritting out, “feels so good, gray. so close,” to which he doubles his efforts, pounding into you harder, rubbing at you deftly in mind blowing figures of eight. you’re there - you’re right there - and you quickly slap a hand over your mouth, not only to muffle your sounds but to cover the elated grin that’s covering your face.

grayson notices – of course he notices – and he huffs out a laugh, combined with a simple, “what? what is it?” still not stopping his movements.

you look him directly in the eyes, remove your hand as there’s no point in hiding it now and you say, “you’re gonna make me come.”

he laughs again, the vibrations from both of your giggling making you both groan too, and he replies, “damn straight i am,” as you finally, finally snap, body convulsing in waves of pleasure as you hit your high. you’re only aware of two things right now: the intense pleasure that’s flowing through you and the boy who’s caused it, looking at you in disbelief and a few moments later, following you right over the edge.

seconds, maybe minutes pass, when grayson finally lifts his head from the crook of your sweat covered neck. he’s not looked at you yet as he pulls out of you, slips the used condom off and ties it, throwing it skilfully into the trash can beside his desk. then – then, he looks at you. you’re lying on his bed, marked up by his mouth and blissed out, lips swollen, cheeks flushed and hair wild on his pillow and shit – he’s never seen anything so beautiful. 

you smile softly at the look of wonder on his face and burst out into a laughing grin which he quickly mirrors. he reluctantly lifts himself off you and lays himself gently at the side of you, close enough to be sure that your arms can still touch – he can’t quite pull himself away from you fully yet.

“so,” you begin, both of you looking up at the ceiling. “that was pretty fuckin’ sensational.”

he guffaws out in the loud bark of a laugh that you’re so fond of and agrees, “it certainly fuckin’ was. wow.”

“you must be feeling pretty smug right now,” you prod.

he laughs again, more of a smirk this time, and turns his head to face you. “oh yeah? why’s that?”

“first boy to ever make me come - a pretty special feat, i’d say.”

“shit, that’s hot,” he replies honestly with an embarrassed little giggle, turning his head back to face the ceiling so he doesn’t have to see your reaction to his confession.

“damn straight it is!” you respond enthusiastically, making him laugh again. “i’m not sure any other boy will ever live up to you. don’t think i’ve ever been as turned on in my life,” you flirt, loving how your honesty is making him squirm at the side of you.

he throws an arm over his eyes at that, groaning out loud, “stop, you’re making me hard again and i literally only came like two minutes ago!”

laughing, you roll onto your side, planting your elbow into the mattress and propping your head up on your hand. “wow, what a terrible thing that would be to happen. i sure would hate a round 2,” you say sarcastically, rolling your eyes at your clueless best friend.

grayson quickly removes his hand from his eyes and surveys your face quickly, looking for any signs of you teasing him. his pupils dilate again and that sinful smirk grows on his face. “yeah, yeah. sure would be an awful thing to happen,” he plays along whilst turning on to his side to pull you back down flat to the bed. “what was that jenna said? her dude makes her come 3 times?”

“so she fuckin’ says,” you say, accompanied with an eye roll.

he nods, pressing a kiss to your cheek as he prepositions directly into your ear, “how about we go for 4?”

“you absolutely don’t need another pack of those. i feel like i’m a sheepdog trying to herd you to where you need to be. fucking hurry up,” you whisper shout, trying your best not to draw the attention of other people in the airport who are trying to mind their own business.

shawn’s stood in front of you in the little newsagent store he bounded into a couple of minutes previously, gathering more candy and snacks in his large arms than he’s ever going to need on a three hour flight.

he grins childishly at your clear annoyance and purposely picks up another pack of the cheetos you told him he didn’t need and balances it precariously on top of the pile in his arms.

“shawn, i’m serious. get a fucking move on - you’re becoming a security risk. we need to get to the gate. andrew’s texted three times already to ask if i’ve lost you.”

“text back and tell him yes - see what he says. do you think he’d want peanut m&ms or chocolate? can you ask him?”

“no! i can’t ask him! you’ve got enough snacks for three days, let alone three hours so let’s move it along,” you huff, frantically texting andrew back to tell him, no you haven’t lost shawn but it could be arranged and yes, you’ll be there in the next five minutes. you’re pulled out of your distraction by shawn’s voice. he’s speaking into his phone, setting off again to walk up the tiny aisle of the newsagent.

“hey andrew, y/n was rude and wouldn’t ask you so do you want peanut or chocolate m&ms?” your nostrils flare in annoyance and you grasp your phone tightly in your hands. he’s the superstar – you would 100% be fired if you hurt him. he spins to walk towards you, reaching the m&ms next to you and saying into his phone, “hmm, let me see. yeah! they do have crispy ones!”

he turns to you, brown eyes wide and reminiscent of a puppy’s and says, “y/n, can you add crispy m&ms to my pile?”

your top lip curls and you take a deep breath. plastering a false grin on your face, you grab a packet of the candy and hurl them onto the top of the pile with a little more force than necessary. the slight oof noise that escapes shawn’s mouth gives you a small sense of victory.

“yeah, we’ve got them. i’ll just pay for these and then we’ll be at the gate.” he’s nodding into the phone, so large that he’s blocking the aisle so you can’t move past him. “yeah dude, she’s got that angry puppy look on her face. i’d better wrap this up before she bites,” he says, smirking as he sees you lick the front of your teeth, trying every trick in the book not to rise to his provoking. “alright man, see you soon.”

he pockets his phone into his tight black jeans and spins to move towards the cashier’s desk. flashing the young worker a devastating smile, he drops the pile of snacks onto the counter in front of him, apologising profusely for knocking one of them over the edge. the girl is clearly charmed by him - whether she recognises him as international superstar shawn mendes or just a boyishly handsome guy in her store – and she melts under his gaze.

she quickly begins ringing up his total, packing all of the snacks into plastic bags. he grins at you when she passes you rather than him one of the bags to hold while she continues packing. he’s waiting to see your reaction, wondering if this is the action that’s going to tip you over the edge but there’s no way you’re giving him the satisfaction. you send back a sweet but sarcastic smile and his grin widens, rolling his eyes dramatically with a sigh and taking the bag off you immediately. he might enjoy being an ass to you but he’s still a gentleman.

he quickly pays for his snacks – pointedly ignoring your eyeroll when you see the total – and generously poses for a quick selfie with the girl behind the counter. ah, international superstar shawn mendes it was. you send her a warm smile and hot foot it out of the store, pausing just outside the entrance for shawn to catch up.

“ok, so we’re looking for gate 42A. it should just be down here,” you say, mostly to yourself. your job is to be organised and talking to yourself is one strategy you use to get all of the shit you need to get done completed.

“hey, can you hold these for a sec? i need to pee,” shawn says from behind you. you hadn’t even noticed he’d stopped but you look up at the sign above his head that indicates there’s a bathroom. you sigh but hold your hands out to grab the bags from his hands. he mutters a quiet but grateful, “thanks,” and then dashes through the door to the men’s.

you squint further down the airport and you can just about make out a sign that indicates your gate and you instantly feel a little calmer. nearly there. one of the other crew members spots you and stands up to wave. you raise the lighter of the two bags in the air to signify i’ve seen you and i’ll be there soon and also can you believe this asshole? more of the team notice you and look your way and you can see clear signs of laughter despite them being right down the way. you spot the security team waving sheepishly at you and, with the bag still raised in the air, offer them a swift showing of your middle finger. you hear their laughter echo down to you.

you know they felt bad for you after they gave into shawn’s wishes for you to accompany him the store rather than them. he’d sweet talked them into it by telling them that they work so hard and he’s so grateful for them and the least he could was let them have a couple of minutes rest while he grabbed some snacks. they refused to let him go alone and just at that moment, you’d walked back up to the group from the information board to inform everyone of your gate number.

shawn had looked at you and announced, “y/n will come with me. right, y/n?”

“no, y/n will not go with you, wherever it is you’re wanting to go,” you stated, causing the other crew members to stifle laughs at your deadpan response. the dynamic between you and shawn never failed to entertain the other team members.

“i was just telling the guys that they deserve a little rest. i just want to grab a snack from the store down there. don’t you think they deserve a rest? please, y/n?” he whispered the last part, popping out his bottom lip as if he was pouting.

you looked around the group of people all looking in your direction and sighed, already having made your decision. “ok, fine, go rest!” you ordered the exhausted team before turning to shawn, pointing your finger at him so he knew you weren’t completely giving in to him. “you’ve got two minutes in this store, mendes,” you muttered, palming off your carry on bag to the security team and doing a quick head count to make sure everyone was there.

a hand grabs at the two bags you’re still holding outside of the bathroom and makes you jump at first before a familiar voice whispers, “woah, it’s only me,” before whipping the bags out of your hands. he holds them both in one hand and makes it look effortless.

“ready?” you ask him, setting off without waiting for his reply. he follows you without question, chattering in your ear about how dope the futuristic hand dryers were in the bathroom. you tune him out as you approach the rest of the team, shooting them telling looks of how your experience has been. you walk through them to plonk yourself on a seat on the outskirts of the group, grabbing your carry on from the floor on the way. you purposely leave the seat all the way in the centre of the group for shawn.

“we come in peace! we bring snacks!” shawn shouts, a little louder than he probably should have if he’s not wanting to draw attention to himself and he winces when most of the team shush him. “sorry. well, i bring snacks,” he says, showing off the two bags in his hand by holding them up by his head. “y/n was being a negative nancy and didn’t want to bring extra cheetos.” you roll your eyes at the dramatic gasps of the crew around you and pull your phone out to check the schedule of the day so far.

you could hear shawn doling out snacks like he was ellen degeneres offering up concert tickets so you used the time send off a quick email enquiring if the pyro technicians had fixed the fault from the night before, or if new strobes needed to be sourced before shawn’s next show in two nights. a body plonked down in the chair beside you, rustling a plastic bag that managed to distract you from your work. you huffed out a small sigh and placed your right arm on the arm rest between the chairs, resting your head on your hand to try and block out the incessant rustling noise.

“here,” shawn’s voice mutters at the side of you. from around the barrier of your arm, he launches a pack of candy at you. “they’re your favourite, right?” he asks, rooting in the bag again.

you nod silently at him before whispering, “yeah. thanks, shawn.”

“no worries. also got you this,” he adds, trailing an ice cold bottle of water up your arm to make you shriek with the freezing temperature before leaning it against his thigh on the chair. the crew around you howl with laughter and you can hear shawn’s giggles at the side of you. he screws the empty plastic bags up and pops them in his backpack, then settles back into the seat. you shove your arm onto the arm rest again before he can claim it for his own, and reassume your position of arm up, head resting on your hand, blocking out the little shit superstar at the side of you.

a crew member from in front of you asks how long it will be until you all board the flight and you answer, “should only be ten minutes now, bub,” quietly, just in case shawn gets any ideas about any other adventures he might want to go on.

without moving your head, you cast your gaze to your right and out of the corner of your eye, you see that shawn’s fully involved in a game on his phone. you mentally recheck your carry on packing list and breathe out a small sigh of relief when you remember packing your phone charger. you know for sure that shawn will have packed his in his checked luggage, and the last thing a stressed tour manager needs is a bored superstar who’s phone has died.

your phone vibrates in your hand to signify an email reply has come through, so you quickly open it up to read the reply. you feel shawn’s arm leaning against yours on the armrest and, focused more on the email rather than your incessant need to not let him win, you shuffle your arm closer to your body so you’ve both got room. you tap out a response with your left hand (your right hand is still occupied by holding up your head) and out of the corner of your eye again, you see that shawn’s in a mirror position to you on your right. head resting on his left hand that’s propped on the arm rest, phone grasped in his right hand.

you’re just finishing off your email when you notice whispered giggling around you. you glance your eyes up from your phone and frown when more than ten heads of the crew that were facing your way suddenly whip around to pretend they’re concentrating on the departure board. dismissing it as the crew just being their strange selves, you re-read the email thanking the pyro team for sorting the issue so promptly. you’re just about to hit send when a cold, metal feeling locks around your right wrist that’s propped on the arm rest. you jump a little in your seat, more than ready to give shawn a piece of your mind for messing with that water bottle again when you feel a tugging sensation.

guffaws of laughter echo out into the fairly quiet airport and you see crew members resting on each other to try and keep their cries of hilarity in. a very sheepish jake from security creeps back around from behind where you and shawn are sat and can’t quite hold in the giggles at the confused look on your face and the downright shocked look on shawn’s. you turn to him to find out what the fuck is going on but you see that his gaze is fixed onto your wrist. you follow the path of his eyeline and feel your own eyes almost bulge out of their sockets when you see silver handcuffs locked around your right wrist, connecting you to shawn’s left. you pull your arm away from the arm rest forcefully, wincing at shawn’s muffled ouch as his arm comes flying with it.

the tour manager, problem solving, how-do-i-get-us-out-of-this-shit part of your brain is in overdrive and the laughter around you seems to get louder as the crew who are so familiar with you know this. your eyes sprint around from your wrist, to shawn’s, to shawn’s frozen face, to the crew and then back.

you quickly consider who’s done this and why that might be, then formulate a plan. OK, play it cool. laugh it off, tell them how funny they are and then they’ll unlock you.

“ok, very funny, guys! i get it! attach me to this little shit for the day ha ha,” you joke, trying to keep your voice light hearted and ignoring the insulted hey from shawn at the name you called him. “truly, you’re all comedy geniuses. now unlock us so we can get on our flight in five minutes.”

“hmm, i’m not sure we can do that, y/n,” a crew member says, dissolving into laughter before his full sentence is even out.

“i agree with john,” a sound tech pipes up. “we’re nearly at the end of the american leg of this tour and we think it’s our duty to get you two to get along,” he explains.

“ahh yes, and the way to do that is to cuff us together,” mutters shawn from beside you. he keeps tugging on the cuffs as if he can jiggle them to unlock and it’s pulling on the bone that sticks out of your wrist.

“you see guys, we think that all of this bickering is a front,” andrew says calmly from a couple of seats across from you.

you blink at him a couple of times and you can feel shawn frozen next to you. you’re pretty sure the looks on your faces mirror each other judging from how hard the crew are trying to suppress their laughter.

“we think that you two are made for each other. we think that you’re complete asses to each other – and only each other – to avoid your true feelings. and as much as we enjoy watching it, we’re all a little tired of waiting for something to happen. the sweepstake on when you two will actually get together is coming to an end and i’ve already lost $100 because of you, so here’s an intervention. for the next 24 hours, you two will be cuffed together. you can bicker to your heart’s content, fight it out for all we care, but maybe in that time you’ll realise how fucking perfect you two are for each other. now pull your shit together and let’s get on this flight,” he commands and everyone stands immediately – the power of a manager, eh?

the crew are obnoxiously high fiving each other and patting each other on the back but you and shawn are stood in stunned silence. you automatically follow the rest of the group to the queue that’s formed to board the plane, picking up your carry on bag with your left hand.

you feel like your brain needs resetting to help you digest the honest words that andrew has just spoken to you both. made for each other? perfect? what the fuck are they seeing that you’re not?

andrew shouts your name from up front of the group and you realise you’ve got a job to do to get all of these people from one state to the next, so you pull your head out of your ass and remember to breathe again. you pull your carry on bag up to rest on the crook of your elbow after you’ve grabbed the group’s boarding passes from the front pocket.

you mutter a quiet yet stern, “stay here,” to shawn as you try to move your body past his to get to the front of the queue where andrew is standing. you can hear him shouting your name again so you shout, “here! coming!” and then the odd, “excuse me, sorry,” to the people who you’re having to move past. you can feel yourself getting frustrated that people aren’t moving out of the way quick enough and that must be why this process is taking far too long.

you can see the top of andrew’s head now and your entire focus is on getting there and handing over the crew’s boarding passes so you can get on this fucking plane. you feel a large body tumbling into your back as you finally reach the front and you spin around. shawn’s stood directly behind you, looking at you apologetically for accidentally stumbling into you. he’s always been a little clumsy.

“did i not tell you to stay there?” you hiss through your teeth. the last thing you need right now is him breathing down your neck as you try and do your job properly.

he raises his eyebrow at you in disbelief and then holds up your connected hands right in front of your face. your eyes widen and then shut in embarrassment.

“sorry, y/n, i must have forgotten to put on my super stretch arms today,” he replies sarcastically, jangling his wrist so yours moves too.

he sees that you’re getting a little overwhelmed – he knows how much this job means to you and how much of a perfectionist you are (it’s why they hired you for fuck’s sake) – so he pulls your connected hands down out of your face and whispers, “hey. it’s cool. just some stupid joke, right? come on, we’re up next,” before jostling your shoulder a little to turn you around to face the airline staff member.

as you deal with the twenty plus boarding passes that you’re responsible for, you can hear shawn and andrew whispering in hisses behind you. you’re too busy paying attention to the lady scanning all of your passes to hear exactly what they’re saying, but you catch shawn mutter, “too far, man. that was a private conversation and you’ve pushed it too far.”

the lady confirms you’re all ready to board and hands you back the passes. your heavy carry on bag drops from the crook of your left elbow down and you grab it with your left hand. you reach your right hand up to grab the awaiting passes but your hand is being tugged back on.

your turn around to look at shawn and see him locked in a glaring battle with his manager. the lady behind the desk is looking at you bizarrely, clearly wondering why you haven’t taken the passes from her yet, so you say shawn’s name, interrupting the unspoken disagreement that he and andrew are locked in on.

he’s a little startled when you speak, but he looks directly at you and says, “sorry. what’s up?”

“i need my hand,” you whisper awkwardly, tugging on it to finally reach and grab the passes.

“thanks,” you mutter to the lady, blatantly ignoring her locked gaze on the handcuffs joining you and shawn together.

he repeats, “thanks,” after you, offering her a flash of his smile before he gives you a gentle shove towards the jetway.

you’re both striding towards the plane when you hear him mumble, “jesus christ, i hope she doesn’t recognise me. she’s going to think i’m some sort of BDSM worshipper.”

for the first time that day, you feel an amused laugh bubble out of you. the following tug on your wrist as he trips against what appears to be only air wipes the smile clean off. only 23 hours and 30 minutes left.

you make shawn stand with you outside of the plane until you count every member of the crew you’re responsible for through the door. you lose count once but shawn helps you by reminding you what number you were on. you’re unsure whether to trust him immediately, but his small shrug when he notices that you’re looking at him unconvinced encourages you to believe him. when you’re happy that everyone is accounted for, you both step on board and make your way to your seats. he definitely eye rolls behind your back when you start to count everyone again on your way down the aisle, just to be sure.

you reach your seats and see one of the lighting technicians is stood in the aisle, looking pretty amused with the crew’s prank still. you plaster a smile on your face – don’t show them you’re bothered - and ask, “what’s up, pete?”

“uh, i need to swap seats with you, y/n.”

“what? why? what’s wrong with yours? let me go and find the –“

“um, no – nothing’s wrong. it’s just that you two have to sit together,” he smiles. no, no. that bastard is definitely smirking.

“oh.” you reply in defeat. why did that not occur to you? you’re meant to be running this shit. “yeah, ok. i’m in 15D,” you say and move into the side to let him pass. you definitely don’t almost trip him as he whispers, “have fun,” when he moves past you.

shawn crowds up against you to make you move into your seats – 19A and B – grabbing your carry on from you and shoving it into the over head compartment one handed. rationally, you know that shouldn’t irritate you but you definitely feel a spark of heat that you label as annoyance in your stomach. he pushes against your body with one of his gigantic legs to slot you both into the seats so you’re not blocking the aisle for any longer than you really need to.

he plonks himself down into the aisle seat and fiddles with the seatbelt buckle behind him that’s he’s managed to sit on.

when he sees that you’re still standing, he tugs gently at the cuffs to get your attention and says, “sit down,” with a puzzled look on his face.

“i have to sit on the aisle,” you say, voice monotone.

“ha! yeah, good luck with that!” he says, wiggling the cuff again. shit, he’s right. if you sit here, you’re stuck by the window because you’re on his left hand side.

“we need to switch with someone on the other side of the plane,” you say, just about to clamber over him and shout the name of the roadie who’s already fast asleep, despite sitting down on the plane a mere 5 minutes ago.

“y/n, sit down. please. it’s only a 3 hour flight. if you need to get up just let me know. it’s cool,” he says and strangely, you find yourself collapsing into your seat. it seems as though he’s a little taken aback as well, expecting you to put up much more of a fight.

you both buckle in and you stare resolutely out of the window, absolutely not making eye contact with any of this fucking crew. you know it’s totally ridiculous, but you feel tears pricking at your eyes as the plane begins to taxi backwards. you’re a control freak – you have to be in charge, you have to be able to do exactly what you want and you have to be able to plan every move. it’s how you battle your way through simple everyday life and it’s what makes you the fucking best at your job. in one simple prank, the team have completely removed that power from you. you feel as though all of your weaknesses are vulnerable and on show, and you turn your head further towards the window to subtly wipe away a stray tear.

your brain also takes this moment to acknowledge that you fucking hate flying, despite it being a massive part of this job. it also reminds you that one of the ways you cope with that fear is by sitting in the fucking aisle seat. you can feel your heart rate picking up and your breath becoming shallower as the plane pauses on the runway before take off. this and the landing is the worst part – the rest you can just about manage. that aisle seat makes you feel like you have the tiniest sense of control and that’s the opposite of how you feel right now. you feel the handcuff tugging on your wrist as you rest your right cuffed hand on your stomach to try and calm your breathing. you ignore it the first time, trying desperately to regain control of your breaths, but when it tugs again, you turn your head to face shawn and spit, “cut. it. out.” straight at him.

brown, doe eyes widen at your response – he was only trying to loosen his seatbelt a little – and he sees your eyes close as the plane sets off, picking up speed down the runway. he sits as still as he can, unsure what to do right now, but his eyes remain fixed on you. he sees your head lean back against the chair and your chest move up and down in fits of shallow breaths. when he sees a single tear escape your eye, he can’t sit back any longer.

as slowly as possible - trying his very best not to tug anymore on your wrist - he shuffles his body closer to the arm rest separating your seats. he leans his left arm over it, giving you enough slack on the cuffs to rest your hand against your stomach like you wanted to before. he sees your furrowed brow smooth slightly at the comforting contact of your own hand, but it quickly creases again as the plane lifts off the ground. your chest moves up and down even faster so he leans in – careful not to touch you – and rests his head on the seat near yours. he takes in a deep breath and exhales it loudly, making sure you can hear him over the noise of the plane’s engines. he repeats this – in, out, in, out – until he can see the rhythm of your chest mirror his breaths. you sniffle quietly after finally feeling like you can breathe a little more before opening your eyes slowly. you wince at the bright sunlight streaming through the window and turn your head away from it. you weren’t prepared for shawn to be quite so close to you, eyes locked on yours with concern written on his face.

“you good?” he whispers quietly, not wanting to make too loud of a noise to falter the rhythm of your breathing.

“think so,” you whisper back. “fucking hate take off,” you say, feeling like you have to offer some him sort of explanation.

“i didn’t know that. i’ve never seen you freak about it before,” he says honestly, still maintaining his quiet volume.

“i have my coping methods usually,” you shake your head, dropping it back onto the head rest and closing your eyes again. you can feel the plane levelling out and it makes you feel a little calmer instantly.

“aisle seat?” he questions after a few moments, your earlier conversation clearly coming back to him.

“hmm?”

“you like the aisle seat. it makes you feel more in control of the whole take off and landing shit,” he explains.

you open your eyes and look directly at him. his head is sideways to his body, looking right at you and waiting patiently for your response. his chin is almost resting on his shoulder and although it doesn’t look like the most comfortable of positions, he looks surprisingly relaxed. the golden rays of the sunlight gloss over him, making his porcelain skin glow with a filter instagrammers only wish they could replicate.

you nod slowly in response to what he analysed and respond, “exactly that. thanks for helping – y’know – get my shit back together.”

he smiles at that, “no problem. you help me get my shit together every minute on this tour. nice to return the favour once in a while,” he grins. he’s quiet for a few moments, before sensing your discomfort at how honest you’ve been with him for the first time since you started working with him. he hates knowing that you feel that way, so he asks suddenly, “hey, can i try one of those pieces of candy you like? connor said i’m eating it all wrong.”

you let out a surprised laugh at how random his question is and you roll your eyes before passing him the packet from your hoodie pocket. he tugs your wrist back over the arm rest as he attempts to open it with his teeth, mumbling a quick, “oops, sorry,” when he notices your glare, although he doesn’t comment on how it has much less intensity now.

with the rustling sound at the side of you that you never thought you would label as comforting, you allow your eyes to fall closed and sleep to encompass you. 23 hours left to go.

your eyes open slowly what feels like ten minutes later, but according to your phone when you pull it out of your pocket, it’s been a good hour and a half. you register that the plane is mostly quiet at your end, and you see pablo (one of the roadies) stood in the aisle, rummaging in the overhead locker for his carry on and throwing his headphones down onto his empty seat. he meets your eye as he moves to sit back down and he sends you a friendly wave. you lift your arm to return it but immediately feel an unfamiliar weight attached to it.

right. the cuffs. in your blissful state of sleep, you’d forgotten all about them. you’re quite impressed to see that shawn’s lifted up the arm rest separating you both so you can rest your cuffed hands comfortably on the edge of your seat. obviously you won’t tell him that, though. his head is facing the aisle, resting on his shoulder at a funny angle and you know his neck is going to have a serious kink in it when he wakes up. you consider giving him a shove now to wake him up so you don’t have to deal with his whining later on, but you decide against it.

you rest your head back on your headrest and close your eyes, trying your very best to aim for sleep again when your eyes ping open. shit. this must be what woke you up in the first place. you have to pee.

you grab for your phone again, counting down the exact minutes until you’re on the ground so you don’t have to pee in the tiny aeroplane bathroom but the urge burns stronger. you mentally curse your body out for not playing ball with you and then you beat yourself up for not going to the bathroom when shawn did earlier in the airport. you’re considering that this is your karma for not waking shawn up to protect him from the crick in his neck and you shake your head in despair.

you try to ignore the sensation but when you glance down in between you and shawn, you see the water bottle he gave you earlier propped up against your hip. it’s half full and the swishing of the water against your hip is making the feeling worse. you decide this is all shawn’s fault – if he hadn’t bought you that water, you definitely wouldn’t need to pee – and so you give his shoulder a quick shove.

clearly, you’re stronger than you think as he grips onto the armrest on the aisle for dear life and frantically he looks at his surroundings, alarmed. he glances at you immediately when he hears you huff out a laugh, and then settles back into his seat, closing his eyes again. you repeat your movement to his shoulder, a little softer this time.

“what is it?” he growls.

“shawn, i have to pee,” you state honestly. no point in beating around the bush about it.

he mumbles sleepily, “just climb over. i’m tired,” before snuffling his nose in a way that you are not allowing yourself to call cute.

“dude,” you state, waiting for him to realise. he cracks his left eye open to stare at you as understanding dawns when he too feels the movement on his wrist.

he huffs out a sigh, muttering, “fine, let’s go,” before hauling you up to your feet as he stands. he lets you step up the aisle first and you spend a minute or so whisper bickering about whether you’re closer to the front bathroom or the bathroom in the middle of the plane. the gazes of your crew are turning to look at you and they’re laughing - oh they’re laughing alright.

not wanting to give them anymore entertainment than they deserve, you mumble, “fine, middle bathroom it is. now go, before i pee myself,” and give him a shove down the plane.

when you reach the bathroom. he leans on the wall beside the door and says, “be quick, i wanna go back to sleep,” before ruffling his hair with his hand. it makes part of it stick out but you’re not going to tell him, karma be damned.

you step inside the small bathroom and turn to close the door, rolling your eyes at your own stupidity as you fling it back open.

“jesus, that was quick,” shawn says as he sees your face pop out.

you decide to ignore his unfunny joke and tug his wrist towards you. “can you stand there please? i obviously can’t close or lock the door.”

without argument, he steps forward to block the door with his large body, shielding you from the view of any poor passengers who happen to be witnessing this shambles.

as you step inside again, pleased that your dignity won’t be exposed to everyone and their mother, you step towards the toilet, frowning when your arm won’t quite extend as far as it needs to to allow you to sit on it.

“um,” you say out loud, as if it will help that problem solving part of your brain work a little quicker.

shawn obviously hears you, calling out over his shoulder, “what’s up?”

“dude, i can’t reach.”

“what? what do you mean you –“

you pull open the bathroom door and he peeks inside, face falling as he sees the problem.

“what the fuck? why is the toilet so far back?”

“i know, right? the world is fucking with us. shawn, i really have to pee,” you say, adding on the end part desperately. you grit your teeth together and bounce from one leg to the other to really convey your point.

“ok, ok. stop, i’m familiar with the ‘i need to pee’ dance – i’ve got a sister, remember?” he says as he steps into the bathroom with you. the top of his coiffed hair touches the ceiling and you can’t help but smile when you hear him mutter, “they could have compromised a little on the length for a little more ceiling height,” before he turns around to face the door, locking it in place. his left arm is extended so you can get the length that you need to actually reach the toilet this time.

before you sit down, you check he’s giving you your privacy, smiling to yourself again when you see he’s facing the door with his eyes closed. he shakes his wrist impatiently at you, mumbling, “come on! hurry up! this is weird.”

part of you wants to make him wait for a long time, just like he did to you in the store earlier, but the other parts of you a) really need to pee, and b) think this is just as weird as he does.

you try your best to be quick, letting out an involuntary sigh of relief when you finally begin to pee. you notice his face crumple into laughter when he hears this and he lets out a loud guffaw. his laugh is infectious and the awkwardness of the situation adds to the hilarity, leaving the two of you in stitches.

“come on! now i need to go!” he says when he hears you stand up, flushing the toilet.

“hang on, let me just wash my hands. move – i can’t reach – just. ok, stop! you move backwards, let me get around here,” you organise, trying your best to navigate his giant body in this tiny space. you wash and dry your hands quickly, before extending your right hand back so he can use the bathroom too.

he tugs your cuff back more than you did and when you make a noise of protest, he explains, “i have to turn the other way! i need more slack,” as you hear him unzip his jeans.

“shawn, i swear to god you better be using your other hand,” you threaten lowly as giggles burst out of him again. you hear the toilet flush and he holds both hands in the air as he tries to move around you to the sink.

you end up stood against the door as he dries off his hands, pouting when he sees that his hair isn’t perfect. it won’t quite merge back with the rest of his hair and, unwilling to spend any more time than necessary in this bathroom, you shove your free hand under the tap to wet it and then slick down the curl that’s not behaving. he glances at you in the mirror, nodding his thanks before turning and unlocking the door behind you. he doesn’t realise your full body weight is rested on it so he has to act quickly to stop you from falling fully into the gentleman waiting to use the bathroom behind you.

a puzzled look falls on the man’s face when he sees both you and shawn emerge from the bathroom, that quickly turns to a smirk.

alarm bells ring in your head and you feel the need to explain, “nope – absolutely not what you’re thinking.” you yank your adjoined wrists up into the air and continue, “we’ve been pranked. get your mind out of the gut-“ you can’t quite finish your sentence as shawn is shoving you up the aisle back to your seats, whispering at you to not cause a scene.

“he was looking at us like we were fucking in the bathroom, shawn! of course i had to put him straight,” you hiss at him as you fall back into your seats.

“i know, but you’re never going to see this man again in your life. it doesn’t matter what he thinks,” he tries to rationalise with you.

“but what if he recognised you? what if he spreads that across the internet? oh my god what if-“ you’re stopped by his free right hand coming over your left one.

“breathe. calm down. the dude was like 70, he has no idea who i am. you need to relax,” he murmurs before settling himself back into his seat, rebuckling his seatbelt because shawn likes to follow all of the rules apart from the ones that you set him.

you huff and try and get more comfortable, ignoring the knowing grins of the crew members over the seats in front. you pull your phone from your hoodie pocket and check the time. only 21 hours and 42 minutes before you’re free.

shawn’s sprawled out on the seat at the side of you, wrist connected to yours and laid casually on the edge of your seat, long legs folded in a rather peculiar way and taking up most of your leg room. you’re just about to nudge his knee with yours to get him to move his legs out of your space when the seatbelt light pings on above you. he’s listening to music from his phone, frowning when he spots that his battery power is dropping by the minute. you watch his face fall deep in thought and you see the moment he realises his charger is packed in his hold luggage. ripping his headphones out of his ears with a huff, he swipes all of his apps up in a desperate effort to save battery. you’re weighing up whether to let him sweat about it a little longer or to tell him that your charger is in your carry on and he’s welcome to use it when you get off the plane when the pilot’s voice crackles through the speakers to signal you’re landing soon.

any thoughts you were going to verbalise slam to the back of your mind and you prop your head back on the headrest, taking note of how your breathing should sound and feel. if you take control of it now, it’s easier to retain it when your panic really sets in – coping strategies, you recognise.

your eyes aren’t closed yet but they are focused straight ahead on the furthest seatbelt sign you can see. the flight attendants are moving up and down the aisles preparing for the landing and you vaguely hear them speaking to shawn.

you feel him shuffle a little at the side of you, pulling in his mile long legs and sitting up a further in his seat, before reaching between the two of you to pull down the arm rest. he moves it slowly with his right hand, carefully gripping your wrist connected to his with his left, lifting it up and then placing it on the arm rest as he locks it in place. he shuffles in his seatbelt, loosening it to move closer to you as you still keep your gaze fixed on that glowing light at the front of the plane. he unceremoniously knocks your arm off the rest in between you to lay his arm on it – something you’re about to give him a pointed glare for until you realise what he’s doing.

his arm with the cuff on it is dangling over your lap, allowing you to manipulate the chain joining you together as much as you need. you lift your hand onto your stomach to feel your breaths, noting that you definitely feel calmer than earlier so you’re gifting yourself a win with that one. you feel shawn’s shoulder lean softly against yours and you subconsciously tilt your head towards him, listening carefully for his breathing pattern. still counting your breaths in and out, you hear him whisper, “do you want me to talk to you or do you need quiet?” “um, you can talk if you’d like. it sometimes distracts me from –“ you gesture wildly at the plane with your hand, wincing when shawn’s arm goes flying up with yours too. he laughs softly, waving off your apology.

he begins chatting quietly but incessantly in your ear about the album he was just listening to, the movie he watched in his hotel room last night after he was refused entry from the bar you all went to, mindless tales of his life that somehow make the half hour until landing speed by.

he’s mid way through explaining his opinion on why wolverine is the hands down the best superhero when the wheels of the plane hit the tarmac. you were so focused on listening to him talk, on hearing about his thoughts on random topics, you didn’t realise you were so close to the ground. the sudden jolt makes you grab the hand that’s dangling over the arm rest in panic, gripping it tightly as you snap your eyes shut.

he laughs softly at the side of you, turning his hand in yours to intertwine your fingers so you can get a proper grip of his hand. “keep breathing in, out, in, out. that’s it, there you go. hey, you’ve done it. we’re down.” he laughs to himself when you shake your head at him and then he replies, “look out of the window if you don’t believe me.”

you feel the plane physically come to a halt and you peel one eye open to peek out of the window. you blow out a relieved breath when you see tarmac, green fields and an airport parked in front of you. resting your head against the window and closing your eyes again, you say a silent thanks to whatever being has helped you land safely – one of your traditions each time you land.

you feel a tug on your hand rather than your wrist this time and you open your eyes to see your fingers intertwined with shawn’s in your lap. your face heats up immediately and you feel absolutely mortified that he’s seen you like this, at your most vulnerable, and you instantly loosen your grip and pull your hand away from his.

he stands up and steps into the aisle, reaching into the overhead locker to grab your carry on that he places in his empty seat. he sees you fussing with your phone and the arm rest and pretty much anything else you can to avoid his eye contact. the door opens and the crew begin to climb out of their seats and disembark the plane. when you stand up to grab your carry on, shawn whips it out from your grip and holds it in his right hand, left arm tugging at you to follow him. you make it out onto the plane jet way to the airport and he walks beside you, arm close but not touching.

“good job on there,” he says sincerely, not direct enough for anyone else to understand but specific enough to make your heart skip a beat. you send him a warm, appreciative smile, not knowing exactly what to say to him in response.

you show him your appreciation a little later when you’re all crashed in baggage claim. usually, you’re right up at the front, directing people to where their luggage is and yelling out names when you spot suitcases on the carousel. this time however, shawn collapses onto the floor, back resting on a wall in the middle of the crew. andrew takes pity on your weary glare at him and tells you that he’s got this and orders you to sit down.

feeling annoyed that you can’t complete your job properly, you begrudgingly slide down the wall and land ungracefully on the dirty airport floor. you see shawn pull his phone out of his pocket, sigh and slide it back into his jeans. you think of how great he was on that landing with you and feelings of gratefulness blossom in you. you reach into your carry on that’s been abandoned at the side of your feet and rummage around until you find the wire and plug that you’re searching for. pulling it swiftly out of your bag, you dump your charger into shawn’s lap, stifling a smile when he whispers, “yes! you’re the best, y/n,” quietly enough that the others can’t hear him.

you sneak a peek at his phone as he plugs it in and read the time quickly. after a fast bit of math, you realise that there’s about 20 hours left. maybe it won’t be as bad as you thought. you force yourself to turn away from him and check how the baggage claim is going, plastering a bored look onto your face. you wouldn’t want the crew to think their plan was working already.

ok, update? the plan was not fucking working and you were super naïve to think it was. you’re sat squashed up to shawn in the back of a blacked out car on the way to the hotel. he’s currently belting out the lyrics to an old 80s rock number, riffing his vocals up and down and air guitarring to his heart’s content. usually, this would have annoyed you, but when your wrist is strapped to an avid air guitar fanatic? that shit will drive you crazy.

the more you tell him to stop, the funnier he and the rest of the crew in the car find it, rocking out even harder and asking the driver to turn the music even louder.

you lift up your left hand that’s not connected to shawn and put it to your temple to rub at it, trying to diffuse the tension that’s built there.

dinner was an interesting experience to say the least. everyone had been so hungry that the group decision had been made to stop off at a restaurant en route to the hotel, despite your insistence that everyone checks into the hotel first, then gets dinner. you’d been outvoted, so, swallowing your pride, you’d called the restaurant that everyone had chosen to let them know you were on your way, an almost thirty strong team complete with sleepy tour crew and ravenous popstar.

you’d ordered a spaghetti dish, not really sure what else to choose and shawn had scoffed when he saw your dish come out from the kitchen.

you sent a warning glare at him, but you were unable to not react when he laughed as the waiter put down your dish. “is there a problem, shawn?”

“no problem at all,” he laughed. “you’re right handed, eh? can’t wait to see you eat that with these on,” he explained, wiggling his wrist so the cuffs made a metallic clanging sound.

you looked blankly at him, a little confused about what he meant but you weren’t going to tell him that. “thanks for the concern, but i’m sure i’ll manage,” you said, waiting for everyone to receive their meals before you dived in.

you picked up your fork with your left hand and passed it to your cuffed right one, just as shawn picked up his fork in his left. he made a move to cut his steak as you tried to twirl your fork in your pasta dish. ah, now you see what he meant. helplessly, you made eye contact with him and you both laughed before looking back at your dishes, trying to work out what to do.

“y/n, if you just give me two seconds, i’ll cut this up and then i won’t need that hand,” he suggested. exhausted from the day so far, you threw your fork onto the table and offered your arm to him so he could cut up his meal without stress. you refused to meet the eyes of the crew members around you and ate your meal as quickly as possible.

shawn seemed to forget that you were still joined together as he animatedly told a story to some of the crew and launched his hands widely, knocking over your drink in the process. you stood up quickly to avoid the steady stream dripping down the table and snatched the napkin he offered you out of his hand to try and blot the diet coke out of your pant leg.

dinner was wrapped up pretty quickly after that, so here you were, crushed into a van with a headache, a damp leg and a hyperactive superstar strapped to your wrist.

you check the time on your phone and you calculate that there’s only about 18 hours left in this nightmare. you try to comfort yourself in that you’ve all made it to the next city safely, there’s no more flights tomorrow and at least you’ve all eaten for the night. the worst has happened, right?

wrong. your forehead is pressed against the marble hotel check in desk in despair and the poor man who is trying to check the crew in is not quite sure what to do. he looks uncertainly to shawn who is stood beside you, looking just as confused at your dramatic reaction.

he prods you in the side once and he feels relieved when you lift up your head. you rest both hands on the top of the reception desk to bury your face in them, giving no thought to that fact poor shawn’s arm is hanging in mid air. you take three deep intakes of breath and force yourself to smile, accept the collection of room keys and thank the staff member for his prompt check in before andrew comes to check what’s going on.

“it’s not a big deal,” shawn mumbles at the side of you when you both turn to walk back to the group. he’s trying to be reassuring which you appreciate, but it’s just the worst end to the worst day.

you feel twenty plus pairs of eyes on you both as you round the corner into the reception room where the crew were waiting, giggling grins written all over their faces – it’s clear they’ve worked out what prompted your exaggerated reaction. they take one look at your murderous glare and not one of them dare say anything. cowards, you think yourself before you start handing out room keys, relaying the information about breakfast and housekeeping.

you pile into the elevators in groups, luggage already been taken to your rooms by the porters. you’re in the last group having made sure that everyone was happy with their room assignments and you plaster yourself against the mirrored wall of the elevator with a sigh as you all clamber in.

you hear one of the guitar techs ask, “hey, shawn, what number are you man?” and you can hear the teasing in his voice.

you silently plead with shawn not to tell him, not to give him what he wants, glaring at the back of his head when he answers, “221, dude,” straight away.

the guitar tech turns to you, not hiding his smirk very well at all when he asks, “what about you, y/n? what room at you in?”

the smirk on his face drops when you counter back, “wouldn’t you like to know, will,” shoving past him and walking down the corridor to find room 221 when the elevator doors slide open.

you hear the joking hooting calls of the crew behind you when you use the key to open the door and tug shawn by the wrist in the room, slamming the heavy door shut behind him.

“this is the worst day of my life,” you say into the room, to nobody in particular.

“what? why? this room is awesome,” shawn says from directly behind you, looking over the top of your head at the modern, glossy white furnishings of the room, king sized bed facing an enormous tv. giant, floor-to-ceiling length windows are directly next to the bed, the glow of the night time city lights blurring through the thin curtains pressed against the glass.

“no, shawn, i’m not saying this is the worst day of my life because of the room.”

“oh, i was gonna say; i knew you had high standards but woah,” he says as he kicks off his shoes and shoves them to the side of the little hallway so you don’t trip. he moves further into the room which means so do you and he turns on the tv, flicking through channels before settling on an old re-run of law and order. he’s perched on the end of the bed, bouncing a little to test its comfort as you stand in front of it, rubbing your forehead vigorously to try and release the tension.

“headache?” he asks, turning the volume on the tv right down when you answer with a small nod.

“just wanna go to sleep, to be honest with you,” you say and then look at the bed.

he turns around from where he’s sat to stare at it too, as if its going to start speaking to you both and tell you how to get out of this mess.

shawn rubs his hand on the back of his neck and mumbles softly, “i mean, we’re going to have to share,” as he shakes the cuffs, just in case you’d forgotten. you hadn’t. “we can build a little wall with the pillows and i’m sure i can find a blanket if you don’t want to share th-“

you hold the hand that was rubbing your forehead up to stop him and you shake your head. “it’s fine, shawn. thanks, i appreciate you trying to make me feel comfortable – i really do – but even though you’re an ass to me most of the time, i trust you. we’re both pretty much going to pass out anyway, right?”

“right,” he agrees, looking a little relieved that you obviously feel comfortable around him, pointedly ignoring the comment about him being an ass.

he lets the room go quiet for a moment, obediently following you to the two suitcases propped up on small tables in the hallway. you unlock his first and then yours, unzipping it to find your underwear, pjs and toiletry bag right on top where you’d left them. perfect planning, you smile to yourself, trying to hold in an unsurprised giggle as shawn unzips his luggage to uncover utter chaos. he rifles through unfolded clothes to grab a shirt and sweatpants to sleep in, then his bag full of toiletries.

“yeah, yeah – we can’t all be as organised as you,” he says in response to your giggles but his tone is light and teasing, clearly unoffended by your laughter. the light atmosphere between the two of you is refreshing, and it makes you feel a little less bad about the situation you’ve been pushed into.

“so, can i make the worst day of your life even worse?” he asks, grinning at you as you groan.

“sure, go ahead; have at it; do your worst!” you joke, racking your brain to consider what he could say.

he pauses, considering whether to be tactful or direct, then states, “i need to shower.”

he guffaws out a laugh as you dramatically lean against your suitcase and pretend to sob. “fucking hell,” you mutter, before trying to reason with him. “ok, we’ve literally got less than 18 hours left; you can wait that long, surely.”

“i can’t! i stink!” he replies.

“you really don’t!” you say, sniffing the air around him to prove your point which makes him laugh again.

“ok, but i will. i have to!” he whines. “i shower every night before i sleep. please, y/n? we’ll figure out a way just like the bathroom on the plane,” he pleads, puppy dog eyes and childish pout in full effect.

you reason in your head your possible options; he’s probably right – you’ll both need to shower either tonight or in the morning. you’re probably better getting it out of the way tonight and then forgetting about it for the rest of your life. you sigh again, pushing up off the luggage and striding towards the bathroom with your pile of clothes. you tug at his wrist that’s connected to yours and say, “fine. but put that bottom lip away, it works on no-one.”

you pointedly ignore him when you hear him petulantly whisper, “clearly works on you,” as he walks past you and closes the bathroom door behind you. less than 18 hours, you remind yourself.

“that’s perfect! we are a bunch of geniuses!” he triumphantly yells, high fiving both of your hands in the air and then wincing at the metal string connecting you both clinks against his wrist bone.

you’d fashioned a privacy screen on the glass shower with rows of towels and steamed the bathroom up enough that all of the mirrored surfaces had turned translucent. you’d shook hands to create a deal that showers would be quick, a towel would be waiting and eyes would remained closed at all time.

“let’s get this shit done,” you mumble, unable to help your laugh at his sarcastic reply of, “that’s the spirit!” before he shucks off his tight jeans.

“shawn!” you screech, whipping yourself around to face the door and squeezing your eyes closed. “you have to give me some warning!”

“oops, sorry,” he states sincerely, apologising again when he almost loses his balance peeling off his socks and drags you down with him. “although i’m sure a glimpse of my leg won’t lead you to having to burn your eyes out.”

“you never know…” you mutter, smiling when his laugh echoes around the tiled walls of the bathroom. he realises that he can’t actualy take his shirt off – the cuff is blocking it – so he slides his shirt over his head, over the cuffs and rests it on your shoulder so it doesn’t get wet whilst he’s in the shower.

“ok, clothes are sort of off. task one was a success! we make a great team,” he says and you ignore the sudden heat that’s covered the back of your neck at the thought of a naked shawn behind you.

“if you take like, three steps back you should be at the edge of the shower – woah, that’s it. if you stop there, i should probably be able to reach. ah, perfect!” he narrates his thoughts like this a lot, you notice, and you smile at how similar to yourself that is.

he’s still going, telling you every precise move he’s about to make when your voice cuts through the bathroom to say, “shawn, man. i trust you. now get a fucking move on, my arm’s at a funny angle here.”

you hear him laugh again as you jiggle your arm around the shower screen to prove your point, and then reply with a short, “yes ma’am.” you absolutely know he’s saluting you with his free hand right now and you hate that you’re so confident in that. you also hate that that visual has lead to another one of him in the shower that you absolutely cannot let happen.

shawn’s apparently the type of guy that even when he’s trying to be quick in the shower, is still very thorough. he hums to every song that pops into his head and you think that if you weren’t stood in here, awkwardly waiting for him to hurry, he’d be singing his heart out. you feel a little sad that you’re missing that, but then the shower switches off suddenly.

“ok, i’m done,” he updates you. “can i have the –“ he’s interrupted as you lean as far back as you can and grab a towel from where two of them are resting on the sink, thrusting it through to him without turning around. he wraps the towel around his waist and then carefully climbs out of the shower, smiling when he sees your eyes are still firmly closed.

“woah, your arm is soaked,” he says from beside you, looking at the arm that’s connected to him. you open your eyes slowly as he tuts at the water droplets on the handcuffs and lifts the bottom of his towel up to pat it dry. “don’t want any rust,” he explains when he sees you staring at him blankly. “your turn,” he says without making any effort to dry himself off.

“do you not want to –“ you begin, gesturing at his wet body instead of finishing your sentence.

“and get all wet again? nah, i’ll wait. ok, let me turn around,” he says as he does just that. you peek around at him and see that he’s slapped his free hand over his eyes as double protection – you know he’s done that so you feel comfortable which makes you smile to yourself. you slide his t-shirt back onto his arm, ignoring the fact it’s probably going to be damp by the time he puts it on properly.

the red flush just above his jaw is present already from the heat of the shower, but you can’t help but notice how it grows when he hears you unzip your jeans and pull them down. you lift off your hoodie and shirt and repeat his earlier movement, sliding it over the cuffs and up his arm, using his already slightly damp t-shirt to ensure your clothes don’t get wet. you’re left in your underwear and you feel awkward about which to take off first. you take a deep breath and slide your free hand around your back to try and unclip your bra one handed, grinning in triumph as it unhooks. oh shit, you’re going to have to slide this onto his arm, too.

“uh, shawn?”

“yeah?”

“um, i have to put my bra on your shoulder, too. is that ok?”

you’re not expecting the burst of laughter that bubbles out of his mouth but it’s infectious, and really works wonders to rid the situation of awkwardness.

“up next on sentences i never thought i’d hear!” he jokes, before adding, “yeah, sure. i mean, how much weirder can this day get?” before falling silent as the lace item is hung on his shoulder. you kick your matching underwear off quickly to the side.

“thanks. ok, i’m ready. three normal people steps backwards, or two shawn steps, and then we’re there. awesome. i’ll be quick!” you say, powering up the shower before shawn can respond.

you almost throw yourself under the hot spray just so you can blame the heated flush covering your body on that scalding water, rather than the intimate situation you’ve unwillingly found yourself in. you wash quickly, wincing when the complementary shampoo bottle from the hotel slips through your hands and shawn forgets that he’s meant to have his eyes closed as he spins around at the loud noise. fortunately, he catches himself before he can see anything, and the steamy bathroom helps obscure his view, but you still can’t help the giggles that escape your lips at the mortified look on his face afterwards, free hand slapped over his eyes and head shaking in embarrassment.

you quickly rinse off the remainder of your shampoo and skip the conditioner, knowing full well that you’ll regret it in the morning but your one arm aches from working overtime to do the job of two of them. maybe you need to start joining shawn and the boys in the gym for arm day? that thought disappears almost as quickly as it came when you switch the shower off, met with the silence of the bathroom. the final drips of the shower head sound like a heartbeat in the room, speeding up as the last few droplets fall.

“i’m done,” you whisper, smiling gratefully at shawn even though his head is still facing the door as he immediately hands you a large, white bath towel, right hand covering his eyes. you wrap it around yourself, securing it by tucking in the front just above your chest and you step out of the shower.

“uh, i guess we should get dressed?” you say as you notice shawn stood there like a statue, towel wrapped a little looser than looks secure on his waist.

“i think that’s a good idea,” he responds, spreading his right hand so he can peek through his fingers at you, removing it completely when he sees that you’re decently covered. he turns to look at the two piles of clothes resting on either side of the large sink and then asks, “so, uh, how do you want to do this?”

you take in his pile of sweat shorts, shirt and underwear, and then yours of a sleep shirt, underwear and bed shorts and smile again at how similar you are. you make a mental note to put your folded shirt back in your suitcase as it’s clearly of no use to you while you’re still connected to shawn.

“um, how about one by one? eyes closed, facing away, quick as we can?” you suggest and he quickly agrees, both too tired to argue. you go first at his insistence, blushing furiously as you slip the bra off his shoulder and fasten it back on, mumbling about how much it’s going to suck sleeping in it.

“we could cut it off?” he mumbles, genuinely trying to be a help, and then lets out a startled laugh as you shove him lightly on the back, muttering about how expensive that thing was. you slip your shirt and then hoodie back over the cuff, up your arm and then over your head, skin feeling sticky with the warmth of the towel you’ve still not taken off yet and the two layers of clothes.

you pick the clean black panties off the sink and clasp them firmly in your left hand, trying to work out the logistics of putting them on one handed. shawn seems to sense your pause and turns to the side so his arm is closer to you, on an easier angle to manipulate, keeping his head firmly tilted towards the door to give you your privacy.

“uh, could you sort of bend down with me –“ you request, shocked when he immediately acquiesces without bickering. “thanks – ok, then back up?” finally dropping the towel now you were covered, you politely ask him to repeat it again for your sleep shorts, letting out a sigh of relief when you were fully clothed.

“ok, your turn,” you say, shuffling around him to take his place in facing the door, squeezing your eyes closed and desperately playing that scene with the singing from step brothers in your mind to distract you from the naked rockstar who’s getting dressed behind you.

a couple of minutes later, a flustered yet fully clothed shawn stood in front of you, giving you the all clear to open your eyes. he’s clad in his old t-shirt that he’s had on all day, and sweat shorts, kicking his towel into the shower to get it out of his way and apologising with a laugh for when he got his underwear a bit twisted when he was trying to get them on.

“that was the most pressured getting dressed for bed i’ve ever encountered,” he says, turning towards the sink and grabbing the toothbrush from his toiletry bag.

“i agree!” you say, grabbing yours from the case you keep it in. “i will never take having two hands for granted ever again.”

he offers you a squidge of his toothpaste and you take it, too exhausted to put in the effort to get yours from your toiletry bag. side by side, both of you silently brush your teeth, making eye contact in the mirror when shawn wipes the steam away with the palm of his hand.

it’s intimate, you realise, getting ready for bed with someone next to you. this is a side to you that no-one’s ever seen before, you think to yourself. you’re good at one nights, not committed relationships where domesticity comes as a given. to give yourself to one person like that? it takes away that control that you desperately need to function. it’s just not made for someone like you.

you continue your routine, smiling involuntarily each time you catch his eye in the mirror and he sends you a grin or a funny face. it’s easy, you note, this part. it’s like you’re working together towards the same goal and a strange feeling settles in your stomach when you realise shit, we make a pretty good team when we want to.

you both spit into the sink, sending him another shove along with an exaggerated eye roll when he almost accidentally spits onto your hand that’s reaching for the tap. it hits you suddenly when he passes you the towel he’s just used so you can wipe the wet from your mouth that the feeling of domestic calmness is actually kind of nice.

another awkward bathroom break later, you’re padding out of the bathroom, switching off the lights and pulling the door closed, sighing at the feeling of ice cold air conditioning dancing over your exposed skin. you pause to relish the feeling of being stood right under the fan, stumbling forward when shawn keeps walking, clearly forgetting that you’re still connected to him. he’s heading straight for the bed, wanting nothing more right now than to be cradled by snuggly white sheets as he drifts into sleep. it jolts him from his focus when you slam ungracefully into his side, but when he pieces together what’s just happened he simply smiles dorkily as if to say whoops!

you right yourself and stand beside him, arm tilted crookedly at a strange angle as shawn stands with his hands on his hips, looking intently at the bed in front of you. it’s large – a king, definitely – and looks plush and cosy. you feel your eyes close in anticipation of what it’s going to feel like to finally sleep in when shawn’s quiet voice interrupts.

“you’re gonna have to be on the left side. is that ok?” he asks, eyes locked on you now, scanning your face for your true reaction. you wonder if there’s any point in answering verbally, because with the way his forehead relaxes after he assesses your face, he seems to know your answer.

you figure he probably needs verbal confirmation, so you say, “that’s fine. it’s my regular side anyway.”

his face blossoms into a grin at your response and you assume that he’s probably just happy you’re not going to have a fit about it like the aisle seat incident on the plane. he starts to clamber onto the bed and shuffle over to his side of the bed on his knees, and when he drops down on his back – your arm pulled awkwardly as you carefully climb on – he says, “what a team we’re turning out to be.”

you smile in reply, not really sure what to say to that, and he understands that he needs to clarify. “i’m a right side of the bed type of guy. we’re like yin and yang,” he explains as he snuggles himself down into the fluffy pillows.

you shove at his side to get him to lift up his hips so you can pull the covers over you both, purely so you don’t need to reply to him. he’s tired, he’s no idea of the weight of what he’s saying, you tell yourself, andrew’s honest words still echoing around the back of your mind from earlier.

you begin to lay down in the bed and he bats one of your plump pillows down for you with your joined hands when it puffs up at the side of your head, almost suffocating you. you sigh in relief at the thought that you’ve made it this far and it’s finally time to sleep when your eyes jolt open.

“shawn.”

“hmm?” he says, dozing already and not opening his eyes as he speaks.

“dude, the tv’s still on.”

“ok,” he replies, smacks his lips together and then makes no move to do anything about it.

you lift the wrist that’s joined to his and give it a violent shake to disturb him, smiling to yourself when you see his eyes open reluctantly and glare at the ceiling.

“the remote is on your side,” you explain. he blinks once, then twice, before huffing out a breath and reaching blindly for where he threw it earlier onto the nightstand. it takes him a few fumbles to reach it because he’s refusing to lift his head from the pillow, but he eventually succeeds. he lets out a silent cheer for himself, raising both hands in the air in celebration – along with your joined wrist - before throwing the remote to the end of the bed. his eyes close again immediately and you admire his devotion to sleep for a second before mirroring his position.

a couple of minutes pass, the only sound flooding the room is the air conditioning filter blowing and deep breaths from the two of you when you hear shawn fidgeting at the side of you. he turns onto his left side, joined arms laying in the gap between you on the mattress and sighs. you blatantly ignore him and continue trying to fall asleep until he sighs again, purposely moving your wrist to wake you.

“what?” you ask as you turn your head on your pillow to face him with a glare.

he at least has the decency to look sheepish and his flushed cheeks glow pink next to the crisp, white bed linen. you look at the ceiling as you await his reply so you don’t have the chance to think about how objectively beautiful this man is.

“the lights,” he says, offering no further explanation.

“they’re amazing, aren’t they? if it wasn’t for thomas edison, we’d still be rocking the candles,” you say sarcastically.

he smiles into his pillow so you can’t see but then whines, “no! the lights are still on.”

“ok,” you say, purposefully repeating his earlier reply but not able to keep a straight face.

“i turned off the tv, it’s your turn to get the lights,” he tries to reason.

you lift your head to look to your side of the bed and see there are no switches, so you lay your head back down before delivering the news. “it’s on you dude, the switches are at your side.” you can’t hide the roar of laughter that comes after shawn’s groan, as if you’ve just told him he needs to walk barefoot over hot lava.

he flings himself backwards with another groan, and then tugs on your arm so he can roll onto his right hand side. you end up pulled half way across the bed so he can reach the controls, grin spread fully across your lips as you hear him smash every switch, lights around the room flickering on and off. eventually, he flops himself down face first into the pillow after he’s pressed every switch but the main lights in the room still remain on.

your eyes hone in on a main panel of light switches near the bathroom door and you tug on his handcuffed wrist. he groans in response.

“shawn. it’s over there,” you say quietly. you feel his pain – you’re both so tired.

“you do it,” he grumbles, refused to move his head from the pillow.

“ha! nice try. we come as a pair,” you explain and give the chain between you both a loud jangle. he flips onto his back, turning his head to look at you with a defeated look. you stare at each other for more than thirty seconds before you direct your gaze to the light switches and then back to him. he nods wordlessly and both of you sit up, quietly climbing off the bed and you wait for him to step down before setting off to the light switch. the sleeves of your hoodie have slipped over your free hand and make a dull noise as your palm hits against each light switch until the room plunges into darkness.

you’re just about to turn back towards where you think the bed is when shawn sleepily mumbles right next to you, “i’m lifting my hand for a high five right now but you can’t see me.”

you’re happy he can’t see your grin in the darkness and reply, “well i’m high fiving you back. don’t fall over anything on our way back,” you warn.

“aw, you care about me,” he retorts, obediently following you, warm against your back as you feel about for the bed close by.

“no, just don’t want you to injure me as you drag me down,” you joke.

“i’m offended,” he gasps, before adding, “we won’t fall. we’re a great team, remember.”

you’re finally about to reply with an agreement – its something that you can’t deny – when he spoils it by whispering, “hashtag teamwork makes the dream work,” and you’re glad you’ve found the bed so you can safely shove him onto it. his laughter sounds even more sweet in the darkness. you’re too tired to work out how many more hours you’ve got joined to him, and to be really honest, it doesn’t really matter to you right there and then.

you awake with a start to sunlight filtering through the curtains, trying desperately to jolt your brain into readiness. you’re hot in your hoodie and it’s twisted around to be under your neck, leaving it on an angle that you’re sure is going to be stiff when you finally move. ok, karma, we get it. i should’ve woken him up on the plane. let me live my life, you think to yourself.

a leg is touching yours when you shuffle slightly as you come around and your eyes open quickly when you remember who you’re sharing the bed with and - more importantly – why. he’s still fast asleep, face shoved far enough into his pillow that his mouth is slightly open. he’s breathing deeply and looks completely relaxed. you realise that it’s rare to see him so calm and you feel a little sorry for him that his life is so full of hustle and bustle. it makes you want to let him sleep a little longer, keep him safe and content like he is. it also makes you wish you’d get to see him like this again.

that thought lasts for a good fifteen seconds more until the sound that must have woken you up in the first place blares out again. you jolt in shock which appears to wake shawn up. his arm that isn’t connected to yours flails a little in the air and you find yourself dodging it as he fumbles around to try and stop the noise. it’s totally useless as the sound is coming from his phone ringing on the desk across the room but you watch him frustrated thrash for another couple of seconds.

“shawn, your phone is ringing,” you state the obvious.

“gee, thanks sherlock. where the fuck is it?” he growls, hair ruffled from where it’s dried overnight.

you sit up and rest on your elbows, eventually pointing your hand connected to him towards the desk. the movement pulls his arm out from under him where he was holding himself up and he flattens out onto the bed with very little grace, bouncing you up and down a little as the mattress ricochets with his weight.

“fucking hell,” he curses and makes a move to get up out of his side of the bed, covers thrown back in a fit of its-too-early-for-this-shit temper. he takes a step towards the ringing phone (which seems to get louder and more persistent by the second) and looks behind him confusedly when he feels a weight pulling him back.

you see the moment of recognition flash across his face when he sees the handcuffs joining you both together and you raise an eyebrow dismissively at him as he glances at you with a did we? expression. part of you is amazed by his ability to forget something that happened literally the day before and the other part of you is desperately trying to avoid the fact that this doesn’t seem to be the first time shawn’s woken up with a girl in handcuffs in his bed.

before your brain can start doing what it does best and overthink this, the phone rings out again. shawn seems to have pieced all of the previous day’s events back together as he’s woken up a little more and he glances across the room at the phone then back at you.

“team work?” he pleads, for once not pulling out the puppy dog eyes but looking desperate, like right now, you working together with him is the only way he can make it through the day.

you find yourself nodding your agreement and climbing out of the bed on his side, taking his hand as he helps you get down and allowing yourself to be pulled across the room so he can finally answer that fucking phone. you’re putting how easily you gave into him down to not being fully awake yet - that’s the only reason, honestly.

“what?” shawn greets into the phone - you hadn’t realised how grumpy he was on a morning which makes you smile; perfect pop star has his flaws too. you start to wonder just how many people get to see this side to him when he points at the digital clock next to where he’s leaning on the desk. the time reads 7:18 and your first thought is to plot a way to murder the person on the other end of the phone. your second thought is that shawn’s mouthing “only 8 hours left!” at you.

you give him an overly enthusiastic thumbs up which makes him grin, then he starts talking back into the phone. your heart feels a little duller at that realisation but you’re unsure whether that’s at the thought of not being joined to him again, or that he’s counting down the hours until he can get rid of you.

“ok man, yeah. see you soon, bye,” shawn ends his phone call, throwing his phone back onto the table with very little care which makes you wince. you turn the phone screen side up to check there’s no damage, and then pop it back down where it had landed before.

“that was andrew,” he explains, “wanted to check we hadn’t killed each other overnight.” you smile because he does. “i told him no and that we are a team now. unsurprisingly, he says he doesn’t believe me so whatever. he also said breakfast is at 8. are you down?”

“breakfast sounds incredible,” you reply, mouth already salivating over the thought of pancakes doused in syrup. maybe even a double stack after the day you’d had yesterday.

“cool. uh, we can’t go like this,” he laughs, gesturing between him and yourself still clad in sleep clothes.

“oh god, we’d better start getting ready now!” you groan defeatedly, pulling him over by your joined wrists to your suitcases still propped open in the hallway.

you’re pulling out clean jeans to wear - perfectly folded of course - as shawn rummages for his, all the while moaning that he’s going to smell disgusting all day because he has to wear the same shirt. he has the audacity to ask if you’d consider letting him shower again just to ward off the smell a little longer but the withering glare you send him is the only answer he needs.

after completing your pee ritual - one of you peeing, the other standing eyes closed, facing away, not listening - you turn away from each other and let the other person get dressed, sharing your can of deodorant with him and moving up and down, left to right to help clothes slide on easily. you brush your teeth in the mirror, shawn squeezing out his toothpaste for you again and smile warmly when you meet each other’s gaze. it’s funny how in such a short amount of time, you’ve already made such an easy routine. the thought that you wish you could experience more of this with him shocks you and you frantically lean over to spit out your toothpaste, just so you don’t have to meet his eyes again in the mirror. you have a moment of panic over this realisation and you worry that he’ll be able to see straight through you, he’ll laugh and tell everyone, then get andrew to fire you immediately. objectively, you know shawn is too good of a guy to do that, but your racing brain doesn’t pause to think of that.

desperate to distract yourself before shawn notices you’re acting weirdly, you check the time on your phone as shawn finishes up brushing his teeth and are surprised that the whole process of getting dressed has only taken you 15 minutes. you announce this to shawn and he high fives you with toothpaste dribble on his hand, wailing dramatically when you pretend to wipe it on his shirt.

“not the shirt! it’s the only one i have today! we are a team!” he yells, making you burst into laughter. he tries to make you join him in another high five but you refuse, dragging him back out the suitcases to grab your make up bag as he continues telling you why it is so important for teams to have good high fiving skills.

you sit down on the edge of the bed and unzip your make up bag between the two of you. shawn seems to realise you’re not listening to his impassioned team speech anymore and redirects his attention to the products laying in the bag. he picks up each product and reads the packaging out loud, helpfully passing them to you when you’re looking for certain items. you feel his intense eyes staring at you a couple of times, but when you look at him with a puzzled expression, he just smiles and keeps on looking anyway. you force yourself to carry on with your new audience watching, careful to keep your face neutral so he can’t read your thoughts from your facial expressions.

you shove the final product and compact mirror back into the bag, zip it up and throw it backwards on to the bed to deal with later.

“that was so sick to watch,” shawn says from beside you. he’s leaned back on his elbows and he looks almost as relaxed as he did when he was asleep this morning. your heart swells a little to know that he feels comfortable enough to be this calm around you.

“what was?”

“that make up application. i’ve never really sat and watched that before. i’m usually too busy. it’s like art. you’re really good at it,” he comments.

you shuffle uncomfortably and say, “stop being so nice. you’re weirding me out - i’m not used to it!” you joke, saying the first thing to come to mind to distract yourself from your quickening pulse rate.

“i’m always nice!” he retorts.

“to me?” you raise an eyebrow at him.

“ok, fair point. but you’re not nice back! it’s our thing!” he argues, sat up off his elbows now. his knee is touching yours and he keeps tapping it as he speaks.

“it is our thing,” you agree. “why did that become our thing?” you wonder aloud.

he hums at the side of you to let you know he’s thinking about what you’ve said, and when you turn to look at him he’s considering you. he’s got a look you’ve never really seen before on his face - a half smile, cheeks beginning to peak with that red flush but a concerned tilt etched on his eyebrows. you blink at him, giving him the time he needs to answer. you weren’t really expecting an true answer anyway, but you might as well hear what he’s got to say.

“i think there’s two reasons,” he states slowly, as if he’s picking his words very carefully.

“well do tell,” you say, turning your body to face him fully. your joined wrists clink in a reminder of why you’re sat here so close to him as you try to move your hand away.

“i think it’s because it’s fun. sure, there are lots of people i can tease, have banter with on this tour. but none of them give it back to me as good as you do.” he pauses, wondering whether to add this next part on. he looks up at your eyes and then goes for it. “i mean, don’t tell anyone because it would ruin my reputation, but i look forward to seeing you because i know you’re going to keep me on my toes. i’m so used to people giving into me but you hardly ever do. i love that,” he says honestly, adding, “but don’t ever tell any one!” jokingly onto the end.

“your secret’s safe with me,” you laugh with a wink.

he looks unsure then. ”what do you think?”

you exhale a breath, giving yourself time to gather your thoughts. you like the way he’s giving you control to agree or disagree here. he knows it’s important to you and he’s making sure you’re comfortable. it makes you feel calm and you decide you owe him an honest answer, rather than a bullshit one to stop the conversation.

“i agree with you,” you start, smiling when you see his shoulders relax. “i think it adds enjoyment to long days that can be pretty monotonous when you’re not performing. i like that we’re on a level playing field with each other and you don’t often find that. we’re pretty lucky to be able to piss each other off so royally on a daily basis, huh?”

he nods his head in agreement, devastating grin fixed onto his face. he opens his mouth to speak a few times but closes it again. he takes one look at you though and then starts to speak. it makes you smile when it looks like his mouth has started moving before his brain has had the chance to catch up.

“i think there’s another part to it, though,” he says.

“you do?”

“i do.” he pauses again, looking at you intently before swallowing twice. you watch his adam’s apple bob and he catches you watching. it seems to give him whatever signal he needed to be brave enough to speak. “i think i try my best to piss you off all the time because i think if i was nice to you, i’d never be able to stop.”

that you weren’t expecting. you sit frozen in your position, only noise in the room from the AC still blowing and from the fancy clock ticking on the wall that’s numbers are too difficult to read. he looks up at your silence and blinks at you, giving you time to respond. you look down at your joined wrists and wonder what you would do - what you would say - if you weren’t joined to him. you know you’d have run out of that door before the conversation had even begun.

shawn appears to be tapped into your thoughts and for a second you think you must have said all of that out loud when he says, “i’m so pleased you’re chained to me right now so you can’t escape and then avoid me for the rest of the tour,” he pauses again and you’re grateful he’s giving you the chance to digest all of this in these tiny breaks. a smile begins to tug at your mouth at how accurate his statement was and it seems to relax him that he hasn’t broken you. you’re shocked when you realise how you’re pleased you can’t run away too.

“ok, so, even though i’m glad that you can’t run away from me right now, i still want you to know that we don’t have to talk about this right now if you don’t want to. or ever, if that’s what you want. you’re totally in control and you can decide-“ he speaks softly, free hand making a calming motion that you’re fixated on as he talks.

that last part makes you look up at him properly - at those kind, brown eyes, red cheeks blotched with uncertainty and panic, perfect pink lips saying the exact words you need to hear - and you stop him with a hand that happens to be joined to his to his chest. he looks down at the contact and you both smile when you see his wrist dangling awkwardly at the side of yours. you slide your hand down and rest it on your thigh instead, his hand slipping down back to the mattress.

“i want to talk about it -” you assure him and you almost want to kiss him right there and then when you see a look of pure hope flood his face, followed by a boyish grin of happiness. “- but not right now, shawn.”

“that’s ok, that’s absolutely ok. that’s fine. we could maybe talk about it when we get these things off,” he suggests, wiggling the handcuffs as he mentions them and he’s talking faster with every word he says.

“shawn,” you stop him.

“sorry, sorry. god, ive been hiding this for so long and i’ve sprung this on you and i can’t stop talking please stop me from talking,” he says, eyes growing wider with each word.

“shawn, i can’t-“ you begin and his face falls. your heart falls right with it. “i - look, shawn. my job requires me to be in total control. it’s what i’m good at. i assess every situation, i plan ahead and i make sensible decisions. i’ve wanted to be a tour manager for my entire life and i struck so lucky when i landed this gig. i guess i didn’t know how lucky though.” he smiles at that, look of despair fading slightly which spurs you to carry on. “to stay good at my job and to stay true to myself, i can’t do this with you right now.” he nods, looking at his knees rather than you. his jaw moves as if he’s trying to hold in emotions. how did this morning turn into this? “i bicker with you and give as good as you give me because that’s the only way i can keep you at a distance; it’s the only way i can stay focused on my job and what i’m here to do. i owe it to you and to andrew and to myself to stay focused on that right til the end. does that make sense, shawn?” you ask him.

he’s nodding again, turning his head to look at you with a soft smile on his face. “perfect sense,” he reassures you. “so, not right now, but maybe?” he clarifies with hope in his voice.

you laugh softly, “not right now, but definitely.”

his grin returns and he lifts his hand softly to caress yours joined to his for a moment, before pulling away and rubbing both hands over his face. you lean into his shoulder so your arm doesn’t whack him in the face where it’s joined.

“so, for now? we’re normal?” he asks.

“absolutely. but i kind of like the team thing,” you confide.

“ok, so squabbling mixed with team work. that sounds fucking perfect to me,” he laughs, before adding on, “the guys won’t know what to make of that.”

“exactly - so we mess with their heads a little. just adds to the fun, no?” he’s nodding at you and he can’t seem to wipe the grin off his face. your cheeks ache a little so you know your face is mirroring his. you both feel like you’re floating, relieved that the elephant in the room has finally been discussed. you feel light, airy, full of hope. his phone pings from the desk across the room to signal a text, and he rolls his eyes when he hears it, annoyed that it’s interrupted this moment with you that’s he’s been waiting for since the second week of tour.

“why didn’t i put it in my fucking pocket?” he swears, standing up and pulling you with him to read the text. “andrew says he’s going to grab us for breakfast in 5,” he reads before tapping a quick message back. he turns to you when he’s placed his phone back down and his eyes dart around your face, taking in his view. you’re worried he’s about to say something about not being able to wait for you, so you’re more than a little confused when he says, “hey so, know how you like control so much?”

you frown at him and nod slowly, not quite sure where this is going.

“how about we put a little of that new found teamwork of ours into controlling that hair of yours?” he quips, moving out of the way of he mirror behind the desk. it was quite clear you didn’t use conditioner last night.

you guffaw with laughter. “how dare you! look at yours! looks like you’ve been dragged through a fucking hedge backwards!” you tease, shoving him playfully when he mumbles, “fucking feels like i have after being connected to you for 12 hours,” before guffawing in laughter.

when andrew knocks on the door a few minutes later, your hair is tied in a bun on the top of your head and shawn’s has a little product in it. you answer the door together and andrew looks a little surprised to see that a) you’re both ready and presentable, and b) you’re both still alive. he glances over shawn’s shoulder into the room to see if there’s any carnage and chaos to be seen in there and seems a little disappointed when it all looks normal.

“so, anything interesting happen last night?” he asks, looking you both up and down with a smirk.

shawn turns to you, shaking his head. “um, last night? hmm no, not that i can think of. nothing last night, right, y/n?”

“no, nothing last night,” you say, playing along perfectly with shawn’s game. andrew looks down right disturbed at the two of you speaking civilly to each other and two thoughts pop into your head: 1) you both really do make a fucking great team and 2) this might be even more fun than messing with shawn. from the look on shawns face as andrew turns around to stalk down the corridor towards breakfast, he’s thinking the same thing.

you forget to check the time on your phone - how long you’ve got left connected to him. thoughts of anything other than the conversation you’ve just had with shawn are shoved firmly to the back of your mind.

breakfast passes without incident, and it’s worth the inconvenience you’ve been through in the last 24 hours to see the looks of shock on the crew’s face as you and shawn help each other out at the breakfast buffet, working seamlessly together and sitting down politely at the side of each other, not a single bickering comment passed between the two of you.

“so how was last night?” one of the sound techs ask from the other side of the table, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and gaining laughs from the others.

shawn shrugs his shoulders as he shovels in more eggs into his mouth, pausing his movements to lean further towards you so you can cut your pancakes. he wordlessly passes you more syrup when he sees that you’re running a little low for your liking. “good, slept like a baby. you?”

“oh we bet you both slept like babies,” a roadie heckles from beside you, table bursting into childish laughter at his insinuation.

your sharp glare stops them pretty quickly as shawn seems oblivious, chomping loudly on his eggs still. the noise of his chewing grates on you fast and your eyes widen in annoyance as you stare at your plate, trying your best not to tell him to stop - the crew would love that. he leans in closer to you to ask you to pass the ketchup, still chewing in your ear. you send him a glare as you pass the bottle because he knows you hate it. the cheeky grin he sends you in return with a minute raise of his eyebrows tells you that he’s doing it on purpose to get a reaction from you. your heart races now you know why he loves your banter so much.

“fucking stop it,” you growl at him, tone more for show than you being truly angry.

“stop what?” he asks, obnoxiously chewing louder.

“that. it’s like having a fucking horse chewing in my ear.”

“if you don’t like it, move,” he suggests.

“oh believe me,” you retort, “if i could, i fucking would,” as you shake your adjoined wrists, knocking the egg that he’s balanced on his fork back onto his plate with the momentum. he’s about to retort as he locks eyes with you, and you hear the guys on the table around you groan, “ah, here we go again.”

your glaring contest is interrupted by andrew scraping back his chair, rooting in his pocket and walking his way around the table to stand behind you both.

“ok, enough! we were wrong, we get it. it’s not sexual tension that’s causing this bickering, you just fucking hate each other. the sweepstake of when they get together is off, guys! it’s not happening!” he announces to the table. “give me your hands, i’ve had enough!” he commands as he grabs a hold of your wrists and fishes the key to the handcuffs out of his pocket.

just like that, you’re no longer joined. you’re unsure how you feel but the only thing that comes to mind is you didn’t even give us the full 24 hours. you smack your lips together to stop yourself from saying that out loud. you’d never hear the end of it.

you look at your now free wrist and hold it in your left hand, soothing the skin where the cuff had rubbed slightly. shawn’s doing the same thing with his wrist and you both look up at each other at the same time. andrew is still hovering over you both, awaiting some sort of reaction - probably a torrent of verbal abuse if he had to bet - but nothing comes.

you shrug, mumbling a “thanks, boss,” as you turn back to your breakfast, shawn doing the same.

“what? is that it?” andrew asks, hands on his hips, looking wildly around the table to gain the support of the other crew members.

“um, yes? thank you for detaching us. please don’t do it again,” you offer when it’s clear he wanted more of a reaction.

“what the fuck? i was expecting you both to curse me out! i was definitely expecting you to run the fuck away from each other. shit, this was the worst idea we’ve ever had,” he says, addressing the others around the table.  

“the rest of this tour will suck without that entertainment!” one of the sound technicians cries, apologising silently to shawn when he sends him a geez, thanks look across the table.

“maybe it will! but you’ve only got yourselves to blame. we’ve decided that we’re going to be a team, right, y/n?” shawn says, sitting back in his chair and swallowing his last mouthful of orange juice. you nod enthusiastically, relishing in the reactions of the crew around you.

conversations restart around you, leaving only you and shawn to start your own. he leans in closely and whispers, “hey, y/n? when does the tour end again?”

you look at him with a puzzled expression but his eyes lock on yours, and your brain immediately gets to working out the answer. “um, we’ve got about 8 more weeks in total, give or take a couple of days,” you reply.

“cool. ok, 8 weeks.” he says, devilish grin taking over his face as he stares intently at you. you can’t help but mirror his grin, but you still send him a warning look – don’t say anything stupid in front of these guys. he leans further in to you under the guise of reaching for a napkin and whispers, “do you think they’d let me in on a new sweepstake? i think i could win us some cash, don’t you?”

your heart beat races and you feel your cheeks flush with warmth at the thought of what might happen after these 8 weeks of tour. anticipation thrums through your body and you hide your face from the rest of the table by putting your head down and pretending to fiddle with your bun. shawn loves the effect that he’s had on you and you can see him thinking the same as you – these eight weeks better fucking fly by.

the countdown might have restarted, but oh, it’s still on.

“Shit.”

The first thing you see when you look up from your desk to see where the voice has come from is a tall, toned man wearing black basketball shorts and a black hoodie. His backpack - black, of course - is hanging off one shoulder and the man is scrabbling in the front pocket, then wrenching open the main compartment. He’s jostled from the side by a man who pushes past him, scans his pass and pushes through the glass door to enter the gym. A defeated sigh pulls your attention back to the guy dressed in head to toe black. He’s glaring up at the ceiling, mumbling to himself and a small smile slips onto your face as you can practically see him cursing himself.

Taking pity on him, you call over, “Hey! You good?”

Your presence seems to make him jump and he turns his head to look in your direction. His wild, black hair is peeking out of a black beanie that he messes with on his head, pulling it further down towards his eyes.

“Uh - yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks,” he replies, voice deep but uncertain. You nod politely at him, offering a warm smile before returning your gaze to the paperwork you’re currently trying to complete for your boss. Rule number 6 from your training - don’t push the customer. Let them come to you. You fill in a few more of the details on the paper in front of you before you hear a whispered, fuck it.

“Excuse me? Sorry. I’m so sorry to bother you.”

You look up with a soft smile on your face. “Hey! Not so good after all?”

“Ha. You could say that. I uh- I appear to have left my gym card at home. I was kind of really hoping to work out some stress tonight and I really don’t wanna have to go all the way back home so I was wondering if maybe, well if you-”

“I can get you a temporary pass?” You offer, cutting off his rant and smiling when you see a look of grateful relief flood his face.

“Yes - yes. Is that possible?” He’s wincing like he hates asking for things even though it’s literally your job to help.

“I’ll see what I can do for you,” you say. He makes a little fist pump and he bounces on his feet like you’ve given him the best news he’s heard in a long time. You spin on your desk chair towards the computer and tap in your log in before finding the gym membership records.

“Name?”

“Uh, Jeon Jeongguk.”

“Okay. And date of birth?”

“September 1st ‘97.”

“Cool, I’ve got you. Wait, I think.” You pause and quickly raise your hand to your mouth to cover the burst of laughter that’s threatening to spill out. He looks confused, brow crinkled under his beanie, so you ask, “Um - is this you?” You laugh and move the computer screen to face him as much as possible. He braces his hands on your desk and leans over to see what’s made you question his identity.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he laughs, dropping his head into his arm. “My friends are the literal worst. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this,” he says when he’s finally lifted his head off where his arms are crossed on your desk. His cheeks are tinged with pink but he’s taking it in good spirits. 

The picture of Jeongguk should be similar to that of a passport - neutral background, serious face with no expression, hair a natural colour so it’s easier to identify you - basically as boring as it should be to be kept on your record for the gym’s policies. This one, however. The background is white and seems to be a wall in a house or an apartment judging by the door frame, but that’s about as close to the guidelines this photo gets. Jeongguk stands off center in the picture, pinkish-red hair shining bright in the natural lighting. It’s pulled back off his forehead by his hand and his face is schooled into the most obscene expression you’ll ever see. In the corner of the photo is the head of another person - a friend, you’d hazard a guess - who’s bent over in laughter and gripping a beanie that looks very much like the one Jeongguk’s wearing today to his face, presumably to dry up his tears of joy.

“I feel like I need to explain,” he laughs. “So um, when I first joined, the guy who takes your picture for your records was off when I came in - I guess he was ill or something. The owner told me like, ‘It’s cool, just send us in a picture when you get a chance and we’ll just use that.’ I got my friends to take one of me like a passport, you know? He took it on his phone and it took a long time to get one that we could use and I guess must have sent this in instead, that bastard!” He explains and joins in with your laughter.

“Jeez, who needs enemies when you’ve got friends like that?” You joke.

“I know, right? God, I can’t believe I’ve been coming to this gym for like, half a year and that’s the photo people see every time I swipe in,” he fake cries, refolding the turn up on his beanie.

“Dude, me neither. If I’d seen this before, I’d have had it printed out and on the staff notice board within minutes. This is too good not to be seen!”

He lets out a loud laugh at the thought of this and watches as you push your chair over to the printer. He’s trying to get a hold on himself when you return back to him, handing him a printed piece of paper with a bar code on.

“Here - this is your temporary pass. It’ll let you in today and register that it’s you. It only lasts for a day so get rid of it when you’re done. I should’ve just sent you back home for it - we shouldn’t be encouraging laziness!” you joke.

He swipes the paper from your hand, giggling again at his picture in the top right hand corner below the gym’s logo and then bowing forward to you in thanks. “Well yeah, but then my roommate definitely would’ve distracted me and you’d never have got a laugh out of this,” he says, flicking his face on the picture. “How dull would your day have been then?”

“You have no idea,” you say with a pointed look. “Well, I guess I should thank you for brightening my day, Mr Jeon.”

You see his eyes flickering down to your nametag fastened onto your white t-shirt before he says, “The pleasure was mine. Thanks again for this!”

He walks backwards from your table to the entrance of the members only area, only turning around to scan the piece of paper you gave him. When the tell-tale beep sounds and the door clicks open, he turns to you offering another silent fist pump before disappearing through the door with a grateful nod of his head.

You send him a grin and an enthusiastic thumbs up and return your eyes to your computer screen, ready to exit the page and return to the paperwork calling your name when temptation strikes. Quickly pressing print, you grab the page fresh from the printer and fold it neatly so only the hilarious picture of Jeongguk is showing. Trying your best to hold in your laughter, you unlock the desk drawer to your right and pop it neatly down the side. You’re sure you’ll find a good use for it.

*

It’s two days later when you’re dealing with an angry customer on the phone who’s ranting about a rowing machine being out of order when they were there last night. They’ve been shouting at you down the phone for the past twenty minutes and you haven’t got the chance to tell them that there’s another seven rowers adjacent to them, all of which were working. You’re currently resting your head on your hand, trying your very best not to roll your eyes and throwing in the occasional, “Of course, sir. I completely understand how frustrating that must have been,” to show you’re listening. Which you’re not.

The automatic doors into the gym reception open and your eyes slide across to send a practised smile to whoever has just walked in the door when you see it’s Jeongguk from the other day. He’s wearing black shorts and a black t-shirt this time with his hair uncovered. It’s styled in a tousled curl that frames his face perfectly. He grins in greeting and waves his right hand at you, causing you to look closely at what he’s holding. His gym pass.

“Good job!” you mouth across the room at him as he strolls to the members only door.

He bows jokingly, pretending he’s soaking in applause before throwing you a wink and disappearing through the door.

The voice on the phone screeches in your ear, “Miss, are you even listening to me?!”

You jilt out of the reverie you didn’t realise you’d been lost in and sit up quickly on your chair, snapping your mind back to the customer on the phone.

“I’m so sorry, sir. Of course I’m listening, I just wanted to make sure you’d had chance to air your concerns. I’ve listened very intently and I agree with you that it was completely unacceptable that rowing machine 7 was out of order.” You can’t resist the eye roll this time. “Let’s have a chat and see what we can do to put this right for you, okay?” 

*

An hour later and you’re finally off the phone having agreed to extend the customer’s gym membership for another week before he’ll need to renew it. Part of you was pleased that the customer seemed appeased, but the other part of you hated that this was the trivial bullshit that you had to deal with everyday.

Replying again to another monotonous email that springs to life on your screen, you take a sip of your caramel iced coffee and sigh at the sweetness that improves your day just a little bit.

“You know that’s not good for you, right?” 

A voice interrupts your partial sulking and you look up to find a pink cheeked and wet haired Jeongguk leaning forward on your desk.

“Which one - the repetitive hum-drum of my shitty job or the only ounce of joy I get in a day?” You reply sarcastically, shaking the remainder of your drink at him when you say the latter.

“Woah, okay. I’m going to go with neither of those. And then I’m going to take my foot out of my mouth.”

“Good choice,” you smile, slurping the last part of your drink off. “How was the workout?”

“Great. Had kind of a stressful day at work and working out makes my head feel a little clearer,” he explains.

“Another?”

“Huh?” he asks, looking away from where he was running his finger along the grain of wood on your desk.

“Another stressful day? You uh- you mentioned you were feeling stressed when you forgot your pass and I just-”

“Oh, right. Well, yeah. Another stressful day. It’s always stressful at this time of year. You know, new tax year and everything.”

“Ah, I see. What is it you do exactly?”

“Accountant.” He watches you nod your head in understanding. “Yeah - what was it you said? Something about your job being repetitive and boring? Think I’ve got you beat there,” he laughs.

“Call it even. I’ve just had a guy yelling at me for a machine being out of order when there was another seven of the same machine right alongside it that he could use,” you shake your head in despair.

“Are you serious? Is that what you were dealing with when I walked in?”

“Yeah, he was ranting for a good thirty, forty minutes I’d say. Sucks but I guess it’s part of the job for now,” you shrug.

“Ah, that’s why you looked royally pissed off. Makes sense. What are your plans then?” He takes in the confused look on your face and smiles at you before explaining, “You said part of the job for now. What’s after now, then?” You pause for a moment in thought and when he ducks his head to regain your eye contact, you realise that your gaze has drifted to the scattered pens and pencils in front of you.

“I uh- well. I dunno, to be honest,” you mumble.

“Okay, that’s cool. Is there anything you’d love to do but you just haven’t got around to it yet? Or are you more of a I’ll try it and see if it’s for me kind of girl?”

“Kids,” you blurt out almost as soon as he’s asked the first question.

He looks a little taken aback, but he nods and then continues. “Okay - okay! Right. Kids! Of your own or-?”

“Oh god, no. No, no, no. Not for a long time. But kids. I love kids. I’d love to work with them but-”

“No! Stop there. We don’t need to hear that ‘but’. So you want to work with kids. That’s awesome. I think you’d be great at that.”

“Oh really?” you laugh. “From the twice that you’ve met me, you think I’d be good with kids.”

“Great with kids, not just good. And yeah!” He can’t help but join in with your laugh and he watches you warmly as you lean back in your chair, resting your hand on your stomach from where you’re laughing.

“Hear me out! I have my reasons prepared,” he laughs. “Listen, the first time I spoke to you, you noticed I was pissed without me having to say anything to you. Reason 1 why you’d be great with kids.” He starts holding out his hand in front of your face and checking off the numbers on his fingers. “Number 2, you helped me out when I finally asked for it. Kids forget things all the time, right? You’re well practised at helping with that. Reason 3 - kids have temper tantrums like, hourly. You deal with grown men throwing hissy fits about fucking rowing machines. A kid would be easy for you to deal with. Do you need me to continue? I reckon I have at least three more reasons including you not judging me about my picture-”

“Who says I didn’t judge you?”

“I’m ignoring that. As I was saying, you didn’t judge me for my horrendous photo, you have a super organised desk,” he peers over the ridge that’s higher than where you’re sat to check he’s correct, standing back up when he’s convinced he’s right. “You fill paperwork out all day long which - I don’t know much about this - but like, I’m sure you’ll have to do that if you work with kids, right? And you work in a gym. Think of how active kids are and you’ll no doubt be able to keep up.”

“Finished?” you ask with a raised eyebrow.

“Let me check. Um-” he taps his chin as if he’s deep in thought. “Yeah, I think that’s all I’ve got for now. But if you need more reasons, I’ll be sure to come in tomorrow with a fully prepared Powerpoint presentation to really make sure you’re convinced.”

“That won’t be necessary. I mean, I’d kind of like to see what you’d come up with for your presentation but, no. Thank you. I- Well. That was quite the speech. Thank you.”

“You’re totally welcome. I meant it. You’d be great at it. The kids would be lucky to have you.” You’re aware of the full feeling of warmth in your chest. “What have you got to lose anyway?”

“Right. You’re right. Just easier said than done, you know?”

“Totally. Just keep what I said in mind, yeah? If being here is really as mind numbing as you say, it might be worth a change,” he says. He’s smiling at you supportively. It doesn’t feel like he’s telling you what you should do, like when your mom tells you you’ve got too much potential to be wasting it here.

“Not every moment is mind numbing,” you say, partly trying to get the attention off you.

“Oh really? Tell me about the moments that are slightly less boring, then,” he flirts, leaning forward and wiggling his eyebrows.

“You know, some days, I just really look forward to this guy stepping through the door,” you start.

“I bet he’s super handsome.”

“Oh yeah. Arms of steel, too.” You can’t help you snort of laughter as Jeongguk comically lifts up his arm and flexes. You pull yourself together and continue, “Yeah, god. It’s my favourite part of the day. My mouth literally starts salivating as I see him step through those automatic doors and-”

His face looks shocked, like his mind has frozen and he’s trying desperately to keep up with the turn of the conversation. His eyebrows are pulled together in confusion and then he guffaws out a laugh that echoes through the reception area, earning him several shhh’s from other customers. He slaps a hand over his mouth and you can see his crinkled eyes as he leans further forward on your desk. 

“You’re talking about the fucking Starbucks delivery man, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am. Who did you think I was talking about?” you ask innocently, unable to stop yourself from joining in his infectious laugh.

The phone rings loudly at the side of you on the desk and you glance at it with a sigh.

“I should leave you to it,” he says, pushing himself up and standing tall, almost towering over you. “Think about what I said, yeah? Have confidence in yourself.”

Your heart feels like it’s two sizes too big for your chest at how much confidence he has in you, and you nod at him. “I will. Definitely. Thanks, Jeongguk. Honestly, I- just. Thank you. For the pep talk.”

“Nah, don’t thank me. Think of it as a repayment for saving my ass from trekking home the other day. In fact - wait. Do you think you could thank me by changing my picture on the system?”

“Ha! No way. That’s staying for as long as I’m here,” you retort as you finally reach for the phone. He makes an oh, shucks movement with his arm, before turning around and heading towards the automatic door.

He smiles when he hears you greet the person on the other side of the phone, and he notes that your professional voice is different than when he’s spoken to you the last few times. He sends you a small wave goodbye which you return with a smile and a shooing motion that makes him laugh. The smile remains on your face throughout your phone call, and through the rest of your shift.

*

It’s just turned 10pm a couple of weeks after Jeongguk’s little pep talk. Your shift ended a little while ago and you’re on the final ten minutes of your work out, currently jogging on the treadmill and wincing at the ache in your calves as the machine tilts you up hill. Your playlist blasting in your headphones and you listen intently to the lyrics of the remix thumping through your ears in the hopes that it will make this torturous time fly by.

You’ve managed to concentrate on what must be two verses and a chorus when it’s suddenly time to sprint.

“For fuck’s sake,” you mumble what you think is under your breath. You fucking hate running. You fucking hate this gym. It could be the tiredness talking, but you fucking hate it.

Movement on the treadmill right in front of yours makes you open your eyes from where you’d clamped them shut to make it through the last four minutes of your workout. You’re about to start cursing whoever decided to take the treadmill facing yours when there’s rows of other available when you look up.

A devastating bunny smile is blinding you. Jeongguk. You huff out a laugh and shake your head as if to say I literally can’t speak right now before gasping in another deep breath, trying to remind yourself to keep your breathing steady.

He sends you an OK sign with his hands, smirk flooding his face as you roll your eyes at him. You can feel his eyes on you as you squeeze your eyes closed at the sudden incline of the treadmill. Two minutes to go, two more minutes. This is your least favourite part.

You open your eyes to find your water bottle, gulping down whatever is left as you drive into the final, thankfully flat sprint. Jeongguk’s effortlessly running on his machine, not seeming to break a sweat when you can literally feel the sweat dripping on the back of your neck.

He catches your eye as he sees you wince again and crosses his eyes, sticking his tongue out and trying his best to distract you. Your laughter blurts out of you and he mirrors you. He watches you as you check the remaining time and raises his eyebrows when you look back up.

“30 seconds,” you mouth across at him, shaking your head as if you can’t go on any longer.

“Keep going!” he mouths back, bunny grin in full force and two thumbs up in front of him. Part of you wants to tell him to put his hands back on the safety bars but that part is quickly distracted when he ducks to meet your eye line. Before you can question what he’s doing, he quickly pulls the face that’s on his horrifying membership picture and you guffaw in laughter. Your machine slows to a stop and you plant your feet on the strips either side of the conveyor belt, laying forward to rest your head on the screen of the machine until you can get a handle on your laughter.

When you finally look back up, Jeongguk has slowed to a walk on his machine and he’s smiling that bashful, devilish smile at you. You rip your headphones off your ears and rest them around your sweaty neck. He throws his hands up and mimes a mini cheer at you for completing your workout.

“You’re such a dork,” you laugh.

“It’s one of my many talents.”

“Thanks for that,” you say sincerely, gathering your belongings up from the treadmill as he hits the stop button on his machine.

“For being a dork?”

“For getting me through those last few minutes. Was it that obvious I was struggling?”

“Nah, I just fucking hate these things too. Avoid them like the plague normally. Couldn’t imagine being on one as long as you were.”

“You were watching me?”

“You’re kind of hard to not watch,” he confesses honestly, pink tinging his cheeks for the first time that night. Your heart thumps at the thought that an intense workout doesn’t affect him, but you do.

“Oh. So why were you on the treadmill tonight?”

“Because you looked fucking miserable. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve kind of made it my mission to get rid of some of the things that make you all gloomy,” he shrugs, coming around to meet you at your machine, shoving lightly at your back with the bottom of his water bottle to get you moving towards the changing rooms.

“Why?” you say, surprise having frozen your thoughts, and apparently your body too.

He shoves again with his water bottle, guiding his hand around to push at the small of your back when you still don’t move. “Come on, changing rooms are this way. And because, I dunno. You helped me out that day. You were kind to me and yeah, okay, maybe you didn’t know it, but you distracted me from what I was stressed about. It’s the least I can do to do the same for you. Okay?”

You’re pulled to a stop just outside the changing rooms where your locker is and you can’t help but stare at the man in front of you. He stands there openly for a moment, letting you, before he smiles at you as if he knows what you’re thinking. It’d be a miracle, sure, because you’re not even sure you know, but he looks at you like he can see right into your thoughts and watch them play out on a screen.

“I’m going to take this silence as an I’m trying to work out why I deserve this type of silence rather than an oh my god this fucking weird kid has attached himself to me and thinks I need a saviour which now that I think about it, it could seem pretty weird so please take comfort in the fact that this is not that-”

“Jeongguk. Stop. I- I appreciate how kind hearted you are, especially to an almost stranger. Let’s take my silence as a you’re kind of rare and I feel very lucky that you’re doing that for me and stop freaking out, yeah?”

“Yeah. Yeah!” He’s grinning now, shaking himself out of the moment of insecurity he’d just talked himself into. “Okay. Yeah. Also, anyone who has seen that fucking awful picture of me automatically gains friendship rights. I won’t have you calling yourself a stranger in this household anymore.”

“You’re not in a household.” “Then in this - gymhold? Either way, we’re buds now. You’re stuck with me being your cheerleader and I’m not sorry about it.”

You laugh softly, warmth flowing through your body at this boy in front of you. “Sounds awful,” you joke.

“See! You’re a sarcastic little shit. We’re going to be best buds in no time.”

You roll your eyes jokingly at his endless optimistic spin on everything and shove at his shoulder. “Go and get changed.”

“Back at you. Meet me out here? I’ll walk you out?”

You try and hold back the smile that threatens to overtake your face by biting at your bottom lip. “See you in a few.”

*

A loud slam on your desk makes you whizz around on your chair from where you’re filing random bits of paperwork in the correct drawers.

“What the-”

“I’ve brought you a gift,” Jeongguk states, then points with both hands at the tall Starbucks cup he’s just banged onto the desk.

“Uh- Did you take that off the delivery man outside?” you ask, turning to see your usual delivery guy stood at the floor to ceiling windows with a very confused look on his face. You send him a wave and he shrugs, walking back to his car without a backwards glance.

“Okay, maybe I did. I’m going to be honest with you, the other day when you said he was the best part of your day? Not good for my ego. So yes, I did take it off him outside. And yes, I did have to pay him a very large tip that I’m not proud of. But. Here.” He slides the cup across the desk to you with the most adorable look of focus on his face.

You reach across for it, taking a sip and groaning quietly at the sweet kick it gives you. “I thought you didn’t believe in sugary drinks? Some bullshit about them being bad for you?”

“They are bad for you and in 40 years time when you’re suffering with countless health complaints and I am a picture of youth, that will be my time to shine. I will preach and preach about how you shouldn’t have had those drinks when you were younger and you will say ‘Oh, Jeongguk. I should have listened to you. About that and everything else you ever said. You are so wise and so brilliant and no other man can ever compete with you.” He’s putting on a high voice now and your giggling only further encourages him.

“Oh so, we’re going to be friends in 40 years time?”

“Obviously. Or married. Whatever.”

You inhale a sip of your drink too fast at that, coughing and spluttering as you try to get your racing heart in check. When you finally stop, the smug look on his face makes your cheeks heat up.

“Oh? Right. So in that case, I will turn to you and say, “Jeongguk, baby. Honey. Sweetcheeks. Remember that day you stole my sweet, sweet,  sugary drink from the poor delivery man? You encouraged my habits and for that I can never forgive you. I want a divorce!” You play along, mimicking the high voice he was putting on.

“Oh shit. Will you let me keep the dog?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then no deal. You can’t divorce me. Give me back the drink,” he says, reaching over to take the cup from your hands. 

You’re too quick for him, sliding back on your chair so you’re just out of reach. “Nuh-uh, you said it was a gift. No take backs on gifts. That’s the first rule in the friendship rule book.”

“Fuck, I forgot we were friends now. Wow, that was a bad decision,” he jokes, winking at you as you let out a disgruntled, hey! “Okay, whatever. I’ll let you keep the drink and when you’re old and infirm I will look after you because I will be the picture of health with a god like body and I will never mention the sugary drink addiction ever again. Deal?”

You huff out a laugh at the god-like body idea, but then agree, “Deal.” He waves you forward, holding his hand out to shake in promise. “Awesome,” he says as he holds your hand firm in his. The fit is perfect and tingles run up your arm as he squeezes lightly at your hand. “I can’t wait ‘til we’re old and married,” he teases.

You shove him off playfully, cheeks aching from the grin you never seem to be able to dampen when he’s around. “Go workout,” you instruct.

“Yes, dear. See, great husband material already, no?”

*

“Is this her? Oh my god it totally is. Your face is all-“

“Shut the fuck up, you foghorn!”

You might not have recognised the first voice but you definitely recognise the fierce whisper that followed it. You keep your head down, pretending to concentrate on the paperwork you’re completing when the two whispering voices appear in front of your desk. 

“Tae, please-” you hear Jeongguk plead but he’s quickly interrupted by a firm hand to his chest. 

“Excuse me, miss. I would like to join this gym on a trial basis. As in, just for today probably. I have been informed that this gym is the best around and that the customer service is unbeatable.”

You hear Jeongguk mutter from where he’s hidden behind the man, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Tae,” but you decidedly ignore him. 

“Of course, sir! That’s not a problem at all. It’s great to hear that we’re being talked about.” You glance quickly at Jeongguk with a smirk on your face. “I’m so pleased that your friends are happy with the service,” you say as you start to load up the documentation you’ll need to complete on your computer. 

“Oh believe me, they’re very happy. Very, very-“

A swift knock to the man’s ribs quietens him and Jeongguk stands at his side, glaring determinedly at the man’s face. 

“Oh, hey, Jeongguk! Didn’t see you there. What a nice surprise!” you tease, faking innocence. His cheeks flush but he meets your gaze. 

“Hey yourself. You don’t normally work on Tuesdays,” he notes. 

“Were you trying to avoid me?” you ask at the same time the man gasps, turns to him and accuses, “You only let me come because you thought she wouldn’t be here!”

Another glare is sent in the man’s direction and the friend at least has the decency to look a little sheepish this time. 

“Thanks for that, man. Uh- well, I just. Uh- I have no answer to that. Please let’s move along.”

Feeling a little sorry for the way his friend has just dropped him in it, you lend him a hand and say, “We had to do a little swap around next week so I was landed with today’s shift to cover.”

You turn to his friend once you’ve seen Jeongguk nod in understanding and ask, “So, are you ready to set up your trial membership or are you really just here to mess with him?”

“Ha! No, I will set it up, please. With the amount of ramen I eat, it would be a good idea for me to join at some point. Also, a little birdie tells me there’s a kick ass sauna here so sign me up!”

“Sure thing. I just need a couple of details from you, then you’re free to try out our facilities. I can grab a PT for you if you’re wanting a tour around or-“

“I’m good, thanks. I’ve got my own personal PT here,” he says, nudging an annoyed looking Jeongguk’s side. 

“I know from personal experience he’s a great cheerleader. I’m sure you’ll be in good hands there,” you state, ignoring the wide eyed look Jeongguk’s friend is sending at him, the unspoken words of we are talking about this later you little shit clear for all to see, and diving straight into the form. 

A few minutes later, Taehyung as you now know he’s called, is signing the last pieces of paper that you’ve printed out for him. 

“Awesome! When you’ve signed that, you’re all done! So, if you do decide to join us, our photographer will grab you before your session one day and snap a picture of you to go on file. If you stick with us on a purely trial basis, then there’ll be no need for-.”

You’re stopped in your tracks by a devilish glint in Jeongguk’s eye, hands frantically gesticulating to you. He’s pointing at Taehyung, eyes wide, miming taking a picture. You’re desperately trying to follow what Jeongguk’s telling you, eyes flitting back to where Taehyung has almost completed his last signature when Jeongguk’s sigh grabs your attention again. He gesticulates one more time; he points at Taehyung, then makes the camera movement, points at himself, and then makes that obscene face that’s on his member profile picture. 

Realisation dawns just as Taehyung slides the papers and pen he used back across your desk, quickly turning back around to face Jeongguk with a look of suspicion on his face when he realises that you are clearly trying your best to hold in a bout of extreme laughter.

Jeongguk - bless him - looks innocently at his friend and shrugs, then claps him on the shoulder, chatting to him about how proud he is that he’s made the move to maybe join a gym after his protests all of these years. You know deep down he’s trying to keep his friends attention off you before you get your shit together. 

Taking a deep breath and holding in your remaining guffaws of laughter, you click around aimlessly on the computer to make it look like you’re busy before saying, “Oh, sorry, Mr Kim. I’ve just checked our updated policy and it states that all members must have a photo on file. It’s just for security reasons. Obviously, if you don’t decide to join us, we will destroy your file. Would this be a problem?”

“No, no. That’s fine. Where’s the photographer then? Do I need to pose?” he asks. 

“Just a headshot will be fine, Mr Kim. Our photographer is currently unavailable so you can provide your own photograph. The guidelines are all in your member pack,” you state as you slide the folder to him. “If you’re unsure, just call into ask. Or I’m sure Jeongguk would be happy to help you. Right, Jeongguk?”

“Of course, Taetae. I’ll help you out. No worries at all. I just email it in, right?”

“That’s right! As soon as possible would be much appreciated. Okay, here’s your pass. Got yours today, Jeongguk?”

He pats his hoodie pocket for a second before pulling out the pass with a grin. 

“Awesome. I hope you enjoy your workouts, and it was great meeting you, Taehyung. I’ll look forward to receiving your photo!”

*

It’s five thirty seven pm and you’ve been watching the clock for the last sixteen minutes. Your shift finished at six and you feel as though you’ve been sitting at your desk for at least ten hours, never mind the six that it’s actually been. Your eyes blink slowly as the clock ticks over to five thirty eight and you sigh, lips pouting in boredom. 

“Wow, what’s that face for?”

“I can’t help my face. Rude,” you retort, silently hiding the smile threatening to let slip how pleased you are that Jeongguk is stood in front of you.

“Didn’t say you could. Must be hell walking around with a beautiful face like yours. I bet you never get anything done without people bothering you,” he jokes but his eyes are serious.

“Ha! If only!”

“Are you telling me someone like you doesn’t have an equally as gorgeous boyfriend worshipping the ground you walk on?”

“Are you asking me if I’m single?” “What if I was?”

“Then I’d tell you yes, I’m very, very single.”

“And then I’d tell you it’s a crime and I don’t believe you! But that I’ve also never been as happy to hear someone is very, very single before,” he grins cheekily at you and you can feel your cheeks heating up under his gaze.

“Well go on, then. If I’m sharing, so are you! Is there a potential Mrs Jeon whose devastatingly gorgeous and effortlessly stunning that I should know about?”

“Funny you should ask - there’s one sat right in front of me right now,” he flirts, all toothy grin and cheeky glint, making you roll your eyes at his cheesiness.

“Oh my god. You really are a dork!”

“I told you!”

“So, uh, no girlfriend then?” you prompt, your need to clarify this more prominent than you’d realised.

“If you really have to ask me this then I haven’t been as obvious as I thought. I’m proud of myself! And no, I am also very, very single,” he confesses.

“What a coincidence.”

“It’s a funny old world, right?”

“It is,” you reply, just for want of saying something, having the final word. You sit in your desk chair, moving restlessly from left to right on it as he stares down at you, soft smile on his face that you know is mirrored on yours. Another gym member walks past and calls out a greeting, making you snap back to reality with a small wave. You cough quietly and sit up in your chair, breaking Jeongguk’s eye contact and trying to ignore the loaded atmosphere that’s covering you both. 

He wears a knowing smile on his face when he changes the subject.  “So, uh, it was weird coming to the gym yesterday.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah. I walked in and imagine my surprise when a short, old man was sitting in your seat. Let me tell you, he was not as much fun to talk to.”

“Or to flirt with,” you tease. “That’d be my boss. He was covering for me - remember when you brought your friend in last week and I’d swapped shifts?”

“Yeah, he didn’t respond too well to my charm. I’m taking Tae’s photo tomorrow by the way. He’s booked in at the hair salon ready for his ‘photo shoot’ as he keeps calling it. I reminded him that he doesn’t even want to join the fucking gym, but he’s just that extra.”

“I’m so looking forward to receiving that picture, let me tell you. Revenge will be sweet, hey?”

“So sweet. Deliciously, sickly sweet. As sweet as your Starbucks order, I’d go as far to say.” He watches as your eyes roll into the back of your head as you play along with him. He definitely does not have any inappropriate thoughts about that. None at all, thank you for asking.

“Anyway,” he prompts, getting your conversation back on track. “Were you up to anything exciting?”

“More exciting than this place? That could be literally anything. But yes, I’d say that it was.”

“But you’re not telling me.”

“But I’m not telling you.”

“Ouch. Consider my feelings hurt. No, no. It’s fine. I’ll just go and stew in self pity that my bud won’t tell me where she was yesterday even though it was - gasp - more exciting than this place.” He pretends to dab at streaming tears, letting out the occasional sob that attracts attention from other gym members in the reception area.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, you’re such a drama queen!” You laugh. “I’m not telling you.”

“I know.”

“Yet.”

“Oh. Oh. I can live with that,” he smiles. “Well, I’ll look forward to that day then.”

“Me too,” you grin.

*

It’s late - the end of your shift and you’re throwing your jacket on as you step out into the chilly air outside. You pull your phone out of your pocket to check on where your roommate is, checking her text when she said she was on her way to pick you up. You know her well enough to know that she’s not even left the house yet. You’re just about to text her to say you’ll get a taxi home when a body bumps into the back of you.

“Oh shit- I’m so sorry. Are you- Oh! Hi, you,” Jeongguk says as he finally catches a glimpse of your face. He’s holding onto your forearms to keep you steady from where he nearly knocked you off your feet, and he was frantically scanning your body to check for any serious injuries that could have been caused. Such a drama queen, springs back into your mind.

“Hi yourself. Nearly swept me off my feet there, Guk,” you joke.

“I mean, I’ve only been trying for the last month or so,” he retorts. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m just waiting for my roommate to pick me up. We’re um, we’re heading out for drinks tonight, so.”

“Oh, sweet! For anything special?”

“Actually, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” you say quietly, shoving your phone back into your pocket purely for something to do.

“I’m all ears,” he says. And the thing is, you can tell he’s not lying. He looks at you with openness, eyes wide and truly a window into him, mouth positioned in an encouraging smile and your whole body feels warm. It’s bubbling in your stomach and rushing through your blood stream until you’re pretty sure if he looked hard enough, he’d see a glow appearing straight out of your thumping chest.

“Remember when I was away the other day?”

“And you wouldn’t tell me why. I remember. In fact, it’s burned onto my consciousness and it’s destroyed my self confidence,” he teases. “But yes, go on.”

“Well, I also remember saying that I couldn’t tell you, but there was a yet in there,” you hint.

“Is this ‘yet’? Are we at ‘yet’?” He asks excitedly, almost bouncing on the spot. God, this boy is so special.

You nod eagerly. “It’s yet.” He shuffles closer to you in anticipation. “I had an interview.”

“Oh my god. Yes! That’s awesome! Good for you,” he blurts out, brimming with honesty. “I’m so proud of you that you went for something!” You can feel the enthusiasm vibrating from him and you fight back the urge to place a hand on his solid chest to calm him.

“It gets better,” you smile.

“Oh my fucking god, don’t tell me-”

You don’t reply, simply nodding your head with a wide grin swallowing your face.

He lets out a loud whoop and grabs onto you, flinging his arms around your shoulders and tugs you into him. He’s bouncing now and you have no choice but to clasp your hands around his lower back and jump with him.

“This is incredible! I’m so excited for you! Fuck this place!” he shouts louder than he should, making you pull back slightly to slap a hand around his mouth to quieten him. His eyes widen and then turn apologetic as he realises what he’s just shouted with your boss and regular gym members still inside. “Sorry. Sorry I got over excited. But still,” he says, voice lower this time now you’re a breath away from him. “Still, this is such awesome news. How do you feel?”

“I feel free. Amazing. Nervous. Fulfilled. I don’t know. I can’t quite believe it still. You know you’ve not even asked what the job is?” you say, punching his bicep lightly, not quite able to stop touching him now you’ve started.

“Fuck you’re right! What is it? What is it?” he chants.

“You’re looking at the new teacher’s assistant at the pre-school downtown,” you say, heart thudding in your chest as you break the news.

“Holy shit, are you- Oh my god! Oh my god!” He grabs onto your forearms again and the grip even through your jacket feels addictive. He’s bouncing again, excited energy radiating off him. “You wanted to work with kids and holy shit, you’ve done it! Yes!”

“I mean, it’s only a teacher’s assistant to start with but there’s plenty of oppor-”

“Hey! No! Only a teacher’s assistant? No fucking way! You’re going to be working with fucking kids. I asked you what your dream would be and you said working with the little shits. Oh my god! I’m so pumped for you!”

You laugh loudly as he pulls you in for another tight squeeze. He’s swaying you both left and right in his restlessness and you inhale his scent as you gasp for air. 

He only pulls away from you to shout to the patrons in the parking lot, “Hey! Excuse me?” You’re batting at his chest to tell him to stop whatever he’s about to do, but he only pulls you into his side, fitting you against him snugly as he carries on. “Hey! Hi! You see this girl right here? She’s just scored her fucking dream job! She’s amazing! She’s going to be the best fucking teacher’s assistant there’s ever been and-”

Your head feels dizzy with joy and giddiness as this wonderful man celebrates your news as if it’s the best thing he’s ever heard, as if it’s his news to be excited over. You look up at him as he screams across the parking lot, free of shame and exhilarated to share your news and the world around you suddenly drains away. He’s all you can see and you’re slotted so perfectly into his side and you’re so happy he forgot his pass that day all those months ago so you react how you’ve wanted to for months.

Your hand slides up to his sharp jawline and tugs him to face you. You laugh as he still continues his tirade of praise about you but his eyes are locked on yours. They widen a little as your eyes slip down to his gorgeous, delicate lips and you raise on your tip toes, pulling him to you until your lips finally meet. He quickly slides his hand to cup the back of your head, shocked by your sudden decision to kiss him but so, so contented as he can feel you exhale a shaky breath. You know that really, you should pull away from him - he’s already made a scene by shouting his excitement at total strangers in front of your place of work but fuck that - you’re leaving soon, anyway. You push back upwards to be closer to him and he gathers you in, arms resting at your lower back as you circle your arms around his neck, entangling your fingers into his fluffy hair. He nips lightly at your lower lip and you’re unable to hide the soft moan that slips out of your mouth but he quickly swallows it, sliding one of his hands up to the back of your head again where he can position your head where he wants you. It feels like reality and dreams and connection and desire and you can’t get enough. Neither it seems can he.

You’re vaguely aware of the automatic doors opening and closing behind the both of you but you don’t register any other presence, mind only on Jeongguk, Jeongguk, Jeongguk. 

A burst of noise from a group of teenagers exiting the gym breaks you both apart breathlessly, reluctant to move any further away from each other than truly necessary. You can feel his uneven breathing on your cheek and he’s staring intently at you, eyes flitting around your face like he can’t quite believe what just happened.

“I uh- I’m sorry?” you mumble, making no move to separate yourself from him.

He huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “What part of that are you apologising for? Because believe me, no apologies are necessary.” He’s brushing his nose against your cheek and down to your jaw now and it’s making your legs feel unsteady. You’re even more grateful he’s got you solidly wrapped up in his arms.

“I- I’m sorry for - shit, stop that I’m can’t concentrate-” he grins at that, smacking his lips to your cheek once before returning himself to look at you. “I was apologising for grabbing you. And not asking. You just make me feel all-” you pause.

“All? All what?”

“Warm.”

“Warm?” he laughs. He steps backwards to let a group of women enter the automatic doors and he tugs you with him. 

You nod shyly, laughing self deprecatingly. “Like, fuzzy and warm. And I just couldn’t not kiss you anymore. So. Sorry.”

“Apology accepted. And then returned with a note of thanks.” He’s so weird and you like him so much. “What?”

“A note of thanks. And maybe a bouquet of flowers. And one of those fucking Starbucks drinks you’re obsessed with. You know, just to say thanks for having the balls to kiss me because I was wrestling with myself to find mine.”

You giggle, resting your head in the crook of his neck for a moment to compose yourself. “Well then. You’re welcome. I hope you’ve found your balls,” you joke, shoulders wracking with laughter as he lets out a loud cackle.

“Don’t you worry. My balls are back in full force and ready to go. Wait- no- that sounded-. Okay, never mind. You see? You make me say stupid shit like this!”

“Now that I won’t apologise for. You’re literally the only thing that have made this past month bearable.”

“Me and the delivery guy.”

“Of course. I wonder how I should thank him?”

“Not in the same way as me,” he pouts and you can’t resist pressing your lips to his jaw before continuing.

“And you’re the one that pushed me to apply for something else. Without you, I might have been stuck here for who knows how many more months before I - to steal your words - found my balls and applied elsewhere.”

He’s smiling radiantly at you and the rest of the world blurs out again. He’s looking at you like you’re the sun and the moon and the stars and you feel dizzy with the weight of that. 

He’s about to speak when a car screeches to a halt at the side of you, headlines illuminating the two of you so brightly you have to squint.

“That’s uh- that’s my roommate,” you explain, pulling your arms from his neck and smoothing them down the arms of his hoodie. He grips at your hands, intertwining your fingers with his own as he nods in understanding. Jeongguk’s like an open book and you can see his reluctance to let you go so you squeeze his hands in yours.

“Okay,” he says.

“Alright,” you say back.

He huffs out a laugh, pulling you into him one more time with an arm around your shoulder, one hand still entangled with yours. You feel him peck the top of your head once, twice before he releases you with a light shove towards the car idling next to you.

“Congrats again, superstar. Now go get drunk!”

*

“So,” Jeongguk starts, leaning against your desk in a way that is oh so familiar now. It’s Monday evening, two days since you’d finally given into temptation right outside of here. You hadn’t spoken to him since, only realising that night when you’d only wanted to talk to Jeongguk that you didn’t actually have his number.

“So,” you parrot back to him, not bothered to bite down on the grin that automatically blooms in his presence.

“How are you?” he asks.

“Pretty good, thanks. You?”

“Shit.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, see. Friday night was incredible. You see, this incredible - and I mean incredible - girl rocks my world. She tells me that she’s applied for this job and - get this - she only fucking got it. Not only that, it’s her fucking dream job.” You’re smiling at him, playing along with his dramatics, dropping in plenty of oh really’s and no ways. “She’s going to work with kids, you know? Naturally, I was on top of the fucking world for her. And then guess what?”

“What?” He leans closer to you, goofily pretending to check no-one’s listening, then whispers, “Then she fucking kisses me. I’m talking, grabs me by the neck and plants one on me. I felt like I was floating on air. Like, this could be the best thing that ever happened to me. In fact, no. It was the best thing that had ever happened. And then-”

“And then-”

“I get home. First of all, I’m teased by my roommates because I can’t wipe the grin off my face. They kept telling me I was glowing. And then? I go to text this dream girl, just to say have a great night, congrats, thanks for blowing my mind and so on. And then I realise.”

You gasp playfully, trying to control your giggling. “What did you realise?”

“I realised that I don’t even have her fucking number.”

“Wow. She kissed you like that and didn’t leave her number? She sounds like a dick,” you joke.

“How dare you, take that back! She’s the girl of my dreams!” he jokes.

“Well that sounds like an awful experience. I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” you say, patting his hand where it’s laid on top of your desk.

He’s quick though, and when you move to pull away he flips his hand and grasps yours, intertwining your fingers as best he can.

“Nah, I’d like to go through it again and again. But not the number part. That bit really was shit,” he laughs.

You hold out the hand he’s not holding and look expectantly at him. “Phone?”

He reluctantly lets go of you to pat at his pockets - first his shorts, then his hoodie before his eyes meet yours. “Um, let me check my backpack.” He roots in there, pointedly ignoring your peels of laughter echoing around him before he drops his bag on the floor and drops his head to your desk with a thump.

“You forgot your phone, didn’t you?”

He whines loudly and nods his head as best he can while he’s still resting it on the desk. You’re so enchanted by him and the natural way he makes the laughter race out of you. He’s mumbling to himself about what the fuck did I ever do to deserve this and how sending a picture of Tae passed out, shirtless and drunk for his member photo was only payback and I shouldn’t be punished for it when you reach for your top desk drawer and swiftly unlock it.

You reach inside, searching for the piece of paper you’re after and withdrawing it quietly so as to not attract Jeongguk’s attention. You quickly scribble your number and a small love heart across the middle of the paper and slide it next to where Jeongguk’s head is resting. You give the top of the desk three small taps to get his attention.

He obediently looks up at you and follows your eye line to where you’ve placed the piece of paper beside him. He takes one look at where you’ve scrawled your number and his head is thrown back in laughter, hands clapping loudly in the reception area.

“Oh my fucking god, you’re amazing,” he says quickly before bursting out into another round of loud laughs.

He picks up the piece of paper you’d slid to him and holds it firmly in both hands, staring at that fateful photograph from his member’s profile that you’d printed off on the first day you’d met him. You’d scribbled your number directly across the part of his forehead that was on show and he felt as if his heart was bursting with fondness for you.

“Please let me take you on a date,” he says breathlessly, leaning over you desk again.

“It’s in the employee’s guidelines that we can’t date gym members. Sorry, JK, you’re shit out of luck,” you shrug, throwing your hands up in an I don’t make the rules gesture.

“Ah, shit. That really is a shame. Hey, when’s your last day again?”

“Friday.”

“Ha! Looks like you’re shit out of luck then. There’s no getting rid of me now. I’ll pick you up at 9 on Friday then? Text me your address when you’ve got my number.”

He bumps the top of your desk with his fist once and then backs away towards the gym area doors. He slides his pass out of his shorts pocket - at least he’s remembered that - and sends you a devilish wink across the room as he scans his pass and disappears through the door.

Well shit. Friday can’t come soon enough.

*

“What’re you watching?”

“Dunno.”

“Okay. How long have you been watching it?”

Jeongguk fishes his phone out from where he’s somehow laid on it and taps the screen until it lights up.

“Uh, maybe like, three hours? Three and a half maybe.”

“And you still don’t know what you’re watching?”

“Not a clue.”

“Okay baby. Are you having fun?”

“Fuck yeah I am. Grab some snacks and come and join me,” he says, making grabby hands at you over the back of the couch.

*

“Jeongguk? ‘M home.”

“In the bathroom!”

You kick off the uncomfortable shoes you’d been wearing all day and leave them in a pile by the door, making a mental note to tidy them up later.

As you move through the apartment, you slowly shed the signs of your work uniform until you’re stood in front of your dresser in your bedroom. Grabbing one of Jeongguk’s t-shirts from his side of the drawers, you let it fall over your shoulders and sigh at the feeling: of being home, of being in your little haven, of being in your favourite person’s shirt.

A voice calling your name grabs your attention and you immediately respond.

“You good, baby?”

“Yeah! Come find me!”

The treasure hunt wasn’t hard.

“Hi you- woah.” You stand in the doorway with your hand still braced against the door handle. The scene in front of you was quite a sight to behold. “Wow. Look at you,” you say softly, unable to dampen the smile that’s taken hold of your lips.

A giggle from Jeongguk makes your heart skip a beat (it often happens, let’s be honest) and he says, “Hi baby. Close the door. You’re lettin’ the cold in.”

Following his instruction, you shuffle further into the bathroom, pushing the door closed until it clicks. “So, how’s your day been?” you smile.

“It’s been awesome.”

“Yeah? Do anything fun?”

“You know, ran a little, saw some bunnies in the park down the street. Ran a bath.”

“Yeah, you ran a bath!” you tease, taking a seat on the closed toilet seat next to where Jeongguk is currently lazing in the bathtub. “I’ve never seen as much foam in my life!” you laugh.

His laugh rings out loudly in the warm bathroom. “Hmm, I didn’t really know how to use it - you know - one of those bath things you like to use. The ones that make the bath all bubbly and smell super good.”

“A bath bomb.”

“That’s what it’s called? I had to google how to use it but I couldn’t think of the name. I threw it all in here and it smelled so good so I might have put another two or three in,” he grins sheepishly, knowing full well you’re not going to berate him for wasting your bath bombs but at least having the decency to look like he’s sorry.

“Oh really? Well I think that’s the only way to experience your first bath in this apartment.” “Hell yeah. I can’t believe I’ve never had a bath here,” he says softly, sinking down further into the bubbles.

You rest your hand on the bathtub side, skimming your hand through the top surface of bubbles. “You don’t have the time usually,” you remind him quietly.

“Do now though,” he smiles, eyes closing as he rests his head back on the tiled wall.

“Damn straight you do, baby,” you say, smiling wider as his hand grips yours through the bubbles. 

“All the time in the world,” he whispers, squeezing at your hand.

A calm silence fills the room, only filled by the noise of water swishing when Jeongguk moves.

“Go on then,” you break the silence to say. “Which bath bombs did you use? It smells delicious in here.”

“Um- so I put a pink-y purple one in first. It smelled like marshmallows, so obviously I got excited. Then there was one that was like a turquoise colour. It had a label on it that said ‘calm’ so I thought why not? I think that was - oh wait. No, there was definitely one that looked like it had crystals or something on it.” He’s looking at you with those wide eyes, hands gesticulating and accidentally flicking water around the bathroom, but it’s like he’s telling you the most important thing ever. “It like, popped when I put it in the water so I was a little worried but it smelled so good.”

You smile. “Dude.”

“What?” he laughs.

“You’re going to be so stained when you get out of there!”

“What? Is that a thing-?” He lifts up his leg and his brown eyes bulge at the goldish tint to his skin. “I thought baths were supposed to make you clean!”

“You are clean. This is just one of the consequences sometimes. It’ll come off but you might have to shower when you’ve let the water out. We’ll talk about how to clean the bath out later.” He groans and you laugh. “But, how relaxed do you feel right now?”

He settles back, closing his eyes again with a soft smile on his face. “Good point. Totally worth having my body stained gold,” he says.

“Golden baby,” you whisper, adoring the sound of his laugh melting in the heated air.

“Do you know what would make me even more relaxed?” he asks, intertwining your hands again when he finds your fingertips.

“Hmm?” “Hearing your voice. Tell me about your day, baby.”

*

“Hey!”

“Hi you. Want some?” You say, offering a bite of your fruit bowl that’s serving as your breakfast.

“Mmm,” he mumbles, accepting the fruit that’s spiked onto your fork. “Thanks,” he whispers into your ear, pecking the top of your head with a quick kiss as he passes to fill up the water bottle in his hand.

“How was your workout?” you ask, flipping to the next page of the book in front of you, finishing off your sentence before turning your attention to Jeongguk.

“So good. You know when you can feel every muscle in your body? Yeah, that kind of good,” he says, pretending to lunge forward and stretch his muscles further.

“Ew. Personally, I think that sounds horrendous.”

“Nah, feels good. Maybe a massage would help later though if it really starts to hurt,” he says from beside you, looking up through his lashes at you.

“Ha! This is all self inflicted. You bring this pain on yourself!” you point out.

“So no massage?” he asks, still looking up at you and this time even pouting his bottom lip slightly.

“Oh for f- okay. Maybe a massage for you,” you give in. “I’m such a pushover,” you laugh.

“Nah, you just love me. Want me to relax.” He’s nuzzling at your ear now, making you giggle. “Always tellin’ me to relax and now I’m here. Relaxing all over the place. You love it.” He takes the fruit bowl that’s in your hands off you and shoves it onto the counter top where you’re sitting. “You love me,” he whispers.

You’re still giggling at how ridiculous this gorgeous boy is, but you can’t help but nodding. “Love you so much,” you whisper.

“Knew it,” he grins, then, “Love you back. C’mere.” He slides his hand to your cheek and pulls you in for a kiss.

*

“Babe, do you know how to braid hair?”

“JK, I love you but you do know it’s 11:30 at night, right?”

“Well, yeah, but I was just wondering.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Not really. Been asleep loads recently. Feel like I’m all energised a lot of the time now.”

Your feeling of frustration slowly disappears as you realise how much comfort Jeongguk’s last statement just brought to you. He’s finally getting the time off he needed.

“Okay then,” you say, rolling over onto your back, propping your pillows up a little behind your head so you can see where Jeongguk is resting against the headboard, phone lighting up his face. “Why’d you want to know if I can braid?”

“I’ve just seen this video on youtube of a dad braiding his daughter’s hair. And I thought, like woah, how cool is that. And also, like, what if I can’t braid hair? I want to learn now so I’ve got time to practise.”

Jesus, this kid. Your heart feels as though it’s two sizes too big for your body and you can’t trust yourself with words just yet so you nod your head at him and smile.

“Do you think you could teach me the basics?” he asks, not waiting for you to respond to his previous comment.

“Course I can.”

“Really?” he watches you sit up further in bed, pulling on the hair tie that’s keeping your hair in a pony tail. “Now?”

“Sure. Do you wanna learn now?”

“Yeah I do! Shit, I love you. Now teach me your ways, sensei.”

*

“Babe, Jin called. Says you’re not answering again.”

“Ah shit, my phone’s on silent. I can’t believe he calls you to tattle on me not answering.” “Right? I told him we were wink wink busy and he screamed. Then told me to get you to ring him back when we’re done,” you laugh, accepting Jeongguk’s high five.

“Amazing,” he whispers, before pulling his phone out of his pocket and selecting Jin’s contact. He takes a seat at the side of you, resting his elbows against the counter and stealing a bite of your cereal as the phone rings.

“Hyung!”

“Jeonggukie! I hope you washed before calling me.”

“What? You’re literally miles away from me right now.”

“Still! I don’t want to be infected with any of your sex germs.”

“Ha! Okay, hyung. Then I’m delighted to tell you that I’m squeaky clean so what’s up?”

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“It’s literally been three days, hyu-”

“I know it’s only been three days but I need to make sure you’re doing well. Fancy lunch tomorrow?”

“Of course, hyung. What time? Usual place?”

“Usual place. Say 12?”

“Ah, can we do a little later?”

“Why? Have other plans more important than me, Jeongukkie?”

“Hyung, don’t be like that! It’s just - you know my neighbour, Mrs Kim? She has this super adorable old dog that she doesn’t have the energy to walk all the time. I’ve kind of volunteered to walk him for her every day at 12.”

Your heart melts a little at Jeongguk’s kindness so you give him a fond nudge to the thigh with your foot, tapping at your heart when you get his attention. He laughs, swatting your foot away but grabbing it just before you can move it, pulling it and then your other to rest on his lap.

“Oh JK, you’re so sweet! A true martyr. No wonder the older ladies love you.”

“Hyung, there’s nothing I’m sacrficing to do it. I like it! It gives me seomthing to do each day and I get to be outside. I love the fresh air and I love the little guy and I like that I’m helping. Win win.”

“Wow. You’re perfect. And I am well qualified to say that because as we know, I am perfect myself.”

“Whatever you say, Jin-hyung. It only takes an hour or so. Meet me at my place at 1?”

“Ah, sounds good. See you tomorrow, JK!”

Jeongguk replies his goodbyes, clunking his phone onto the counter when he’s done and cupping your socked feet with his hands.

“Well, isn’t my boyfriend the sweetest?”

He laughs, pink flushing his cheeks slightly. To hide his shyness, he says, “He is. And handsome. And talented. And-”

“Okay, okay! We get it!” You laugh, kicking your feet off his lap. “Jeez, your head’s gonna be so big it won’t fit through Mrs Kim’s door tomorrow,” you mumble teasingly.

“Not the only thing that’s big,” he winks.

“Oh my god, that was terrible.”

“I know. I can only apologise. Now give me back your legs, they’re keeping me toasty.”

*

“D’you want some tea?”

You’re aware that Jeongguk is standing behind the armchair you’re currently curled up on, but you can’t quite answer him yet. You’re at that part of a book where you’re fully immersed, empathising and experiencing adventures with these characters. You can’t interrupt that with the real world.

Your eyes are racing across the lines on the page, and you feel Jeongguk move to take a seat on the arm of your chair.

You’re not sure how many minutes pass but eventually you reach the end of the chapter. You place your hand in your book, knowing you’re not stopping long enough to need your bookmark (you can’t possibly stop reading with only this many pages to go) and look up.

Jeongguk’s perched on the arm of your chair, looking down at you with a soft smile on his face.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“D’you want some tea?” He repeats softly.

“Yes please,” you smile sheepishly, feeling bad that you’d ignored him. “Sorry about that, I just-”

“I know. It’s fine.” He makes no move to get up yet. “I love watching you read.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. You always look so cozy. You’re all snuggled up and in this other world and throwing yourself into these adventures. It’s amazing to see. I always wish I had something to read when I see you. Like, I’m kind of jealous that I don’t usually have the time to start a book. I guess it just makes me feel really calm to watch you.”

“It does?”

“Yeah. It’s like, I know you’re here with me and you’re safe and nothing’s worrying you right there and then. Like, I don’t get to see this usually. It makes me realise I’m home and I’m with you.”

“Oh.”

Your heart is pounding in your chest at his words but somehow, you feel calm too.

“Can I ask what you’re reading or shall I leave you to it for a bit?”

“No, no. Of course you can,” you smile, reaching to the other arm of the chair for your bookmark and popping it in. For him, you’d pause for a little while. For him, you’d do anything. “I love talking about what I’m reading.”

Hours later - neither of you can be sure how long exactly - Jeongguk is sitting directly opposite you in the matching armchair, coffee table separating you both filled with books.

Paperback book and hardback books and new books and old. As many as you could locate in your apartment that you thought Jeongguk might like. You’d sat together and read the blurbs until he found one full of magic and adventure that he wanted to read. His eyes had sparkled when he’d picked it up, already entranced by the illustrations of the characters on the front cover.

Cut to now - Jeongguk folded up on the opposite chair to you, legs tucked under himself, nose pressed into the book resting against an arm of the arm chair.

You’d completed your book a while ago, now content to sip on the tea he’d brought you and watch him lose himself in the story in front of him.

You get what he means, you think to yourself as you watch him. It is calming to see; here’s your favourite boy, curled up safely in your apartment, well rested, relaxed, enough time to enjoy the normal things, the little things in life.

Your mind casts back to the time that he’s been home for the break. The endless sleeping for the first weeks, catching up on years of exhaustion; the desperation for you, catching up on years of unavoidable separations; the reconnecting with his family, catching up on lives in real time rather than over fuzzy facetime screens. Him discovering new loves, new hobbies, new ways to relax himself. Him simply being there in your apartment, dropping kisses to your cheek as he passes, joining in spontaneous dances in the kitchen.

Your heart’s doing that thing again, where it feels like there’s too much love in it, and it’s almost like he knows.

He turns the page of his book, peeking over the top of it at you as if he’s just wanting to make sure you’re still there, that he’s not just imagined this.

You send him a soft smile, pulling your cup to rest against your lips.

“Love being home.”

*

the buzz of the student bar around you was loud; it was pretty packed but you didn’t expect anything else for a friday night. you were waiting at the bar to collect your round of drinks and when the bartender finally finished up, you took the tray and carefully made your way back to the large table your group of friends had occupied in the corner of the bar. there were far too many of you to fit around a single table, so you’d dragged two together, chairs haphazardly positioned around.

navigating your way through the crowded bar wasn’t the easiest of tasks, and there was some near misses when a group boys who had had far too much to drink almost stumbled into the tray of drinks, but you finally made it back. your roommate helpfully cleared room on the table for you to slam down the tray with a relieved sigh. being the mother hen of the group, you diligently call the names of your friendship group to hand their drinks to them.

“jay? here’s yours. em? here you go, babe. and last but by no means least - shawn? here you go! god, i was so sure i messed up that order, the guy behind the bar asked me to reorder like three times.”

a chorus of thank yous echo around the table as you drop down in your seat, slinging your small purse around the back of your chair for safe keeping. conversations are quickly returned to but you feel a small tap on your right thigh as you take a sip of your drink. you raise your eyebrow in a question as you place your drink back down on the table in front of you.

“i told you i’d help you with the drinks,” shawn says quietly.

“and i told you, i’m a big girl; i can carry drinks on my own,” you retort.

large, brown eyes stare back into yours - challenging almost – but you’re determined that you’re not going to be the first to look away. this has always been a game between you and him. you’ve known shawn since you were kids – about eleven and twelve respectively – when he transferred to your school. he was (and still is) yours and your twin brother’s best friend despite him being in the grade below you both. shawn spent most of his childhood since he moved at your house due to his parents working long, tiring shifts and to be honest, he became part of the furniture.

your parents used to joke that shawn had definitely been here in a previous life; he was far too sensible, too wise and too perfect to not have been. they used to say that he’d learned all of the perfect traits to have in his last lives here and he’d kept them, discounting the imperfect ones and leaving them behind. that was the only way they could explain his level of pure perfection.

you, though? you described him as more of a chameleon. he had the uncanny ability to blend in to whatever surroundings he was in - despite his tall, dark figure and renaissance painting like handsomeness – and be whoever he needed to be to make a person happy. you’d told him this one night, back in the summer a couple of years ago where he’d quickly shook your comment off as a falsity, but you’d watched him far too carefully over the years. you knew what you’d seen; you knew what he was doing.

“you know, you don’t have to be perfect at everything in life, S,” you’d said.

he shrugged, turning his head away from yours as you sit on the dewy grass in your back yard. you needed to make sure he understood, that he knew how important it was for him to know that. you repeated yourself until he looked directly at you, tears flooding his eyes.

“i’m serious, S. you’re everything we want without trying. you don’t have to try and be whoever you think we need, you just have to be yourself,” you’d emphasised. you repeated this over and over, until shawn’s shoulders began to shake with silent sobs. “you’re so special as you are; keep being yourself. we’re so lucky to have you in our lives, please just keep being you.” you were so careful not to use that dreaded word ‘perfect’, despite it being the truth. he was truly perfect to you.

you’d both fallen asleep that night on the grass with shawn’s head laying in the crook of your neck, one of his legs laying over both of yours and his clammy hands gripping desperately at your sweatshirt as you cradled his head, giving him the comfort he so urgently needed.

your brother had rudely awoken you far too early the next morning by slamming the back door loudly. poor, innocent shawn was utterly mortified, trying to smooth out the creases he’d made in your sweatshirt before realising that his hands were all over your torso. he snatched his hands from your hips and stomach altogether like you’d burned him and leaped to his feet. he reached down to offer you his hand to help you up (ever the gentleman, even when he’s flushed an embarrassed red) and then refused to meet your eyes for weeks afterwards.

your brother never let either of you forget about it, but the two of you had never spoken of it again. it bothered you for a while; shawn was so good at giving everyone else exactly what they needed but even though it was clear you wanted to speak about his reaction to your honesty, he didn’t give in to you. it upset you for a while, but then you realised that the only person shawn was truly shawn with was you.

things started to go back to normal after you recognised this; after you stopped pushing him to discuss what happened. the childish teasing resumed, but with a new heat behind it as you grew up. at one point, your twin let slip to you that shawn was totally gone for you but you brushed him off. how could someone like shawn want you?

years later, the day before you and your brother left for college, shawn walked up to your bedroom as usual. he’d already helped your brother pack up his last few things at first – he was of course more unorganised than you – and then shawn had come to help you finish up. he’d made quiet small talk with you as he taped up your last few boxes, both of you ignoring the tension flooding the room. you resolutely disregarded it each time you were left alone together, not willing to admit to yourself what exactly that tension meant.

“what time’s your flight?” he asked.

“eleven thirty five. the van is coming to pick these boxes up in a couple of hours but we need to set off to the airport in the next fifteen minutes. H’s flight is at ten forty so i need to get a move on. i can’t believe i’m not going to see him for four months until break. i can’t believe i’m not going to see you for that long either. shit, this is going to suck, isn’t it?”

“for me? yeah. for you? nah, you won’t even think of us, you’ll be having too much fun.”

“of course i’ll think of you, S. every day,” you replied honestly.

he helped you pack the last box and then he methodically taped it shut. he was leaning against your door frame as you grabbed your backpack, ready to dash to the car where your family were waiting for you to go to the airport and start your college lives.

he stopped you at the door to your room, grasped your hand and held it tightly between his own. he brushed his thumb up and down your hand several times, mouth opening and closing as if he was trying to say something but failing. eventually, he spoke.

“you know i love you, right?” he asked, red blush scattered on his cheeks but this time, his gaze remained stuck on yours. he wasn’t hiding anymore.

“back at you,” you reply with an awkward smile. you’re friends, of course he loves you, just like he loves your brother.

he shook his head sadly, defeated, but still kept his eye contact with you. “ok.” you slipped your hand out of his and brushed past him to get downstairs.

he waved you both off at the end of your driveway and all you could think about throughout your flight was the intense burn of his heated gaze.

from that moment on, shawn never dropped eye contact with you. it was almost as if he didn’t want you to forget that moment where he’d been totally, completely honest with you. like he was trying to convey to you that what he said would always be the truth.

you’re both older now, both graduated from college, living and working in the same city. it’s a small world, right?

that’s how you’ve come to find yourself in a staring contest with the walking god that is your childhood friend turned 6’2” block of delicious muscle. he matches your perfectly raised eyebrow and sends you a winning smirk as your eyes automatically drift to his mouth when he licks his lips. you roll your eyes at him and reach to sip your drink, purposefully ignoring his smug smile still pointing directly at you. he wins that round, but your game will continue. it always does.

“y/n? did you hear what we said?” your roommate asks, impatiently waving her hand in front of your face. “you two were doing your weird staring thing again.”

your cheeks flush pink as you notice your group of friends around the table all looking your way. the small smiles on their faces let you know that yes, they definitely saw your staring contest and yes, they definitely don’t believe you when you say there’s no feelings there at all. you hide your embarrassment at being caught by shooting withering glares across the table (they’re used to it and send you knowing grins) before returning your attention to your poor roommate sat on the other side of you.

“sorry, what were you saying? i was distracted,” you say.

her annoyed face quickly falls and she smirks, replying, “oh honey, we could all see you were distracted,” sliding her eyes towards shawn who’s picking your glass up and placing it on the coaster at the side of it. he wipes the ring of condensation its left on the table up with a napkin. you ignore how that action being so utterly shawn makes your heart miss a beat.

“what’s up?” you ask quickly, trying to remove her attention from him back to you before he notices.

“em was just saying that she needs some photo editorials for her final graphic design project. all of her designs are finished, so this is the last part for her.”

“oh, that’s awesome to hear that they’re all finished! congrats, girl!” you say, clinking your glass to hers in cheers.

“yeah, i’m kind of freaking out though. the portfolio is due in next week and the photographers they’ve assigned to us are all booked out. i’m afraid i’ve left it too late,” she explains quietly. you wince for her when you see the stress in her eyes.

your roommate quickly dives back in, taking control of the situation. “so obviously, we were thinking, ‘hey! if only one of our best friends in the whole entire world was a photography major who could swoop in and save poor em’s ass so she can get her project in on time’?” she stares at you with wide green eyes, as if she was performing some sort of mind control on you.

“babe, chill with the telepathy - of course i’ll help you out, em!” you agree happily. “what’s the vibe?”

she cheers in excitement, thanking you profusely before eventually explaining, “so we’ve had to create a magazine editorial with a piece about modern romance. my piece is about lust; you know that animalistic want when you finally get that one person that you’ve always secretly wanted? i was kind of imagining like, one model sort of staring into the camera, then the reader feels like they’re the one who’s on the other end of the relationship? i mean, i don’t know. it was just an idea,” she says.

your heart swells with fondness for em – she’s so talented and so passionate but so, so unsure of herself. she almost reminds you of a female shawn. at this realisation, you find yourself speaking before your brain can really catch up (a habit of yours, you remind yourself.)

“count me in. i love that idea. the pictures we could get could be so raw, like we’re really making the viewer feel something. i’ll try my best for you, babe,” you agree.

she leaps up to hug you with a squeal, startling the others round the table who have separated off into their separate conversations. she’s hugging you so tightly that when she finally lets go, your balance wobbles a little. shawn’s hand on the small of your back steadies you as he guides you back to your seat. you send him a small smile in thanks and he nods back, rubbing your lower back with his thumb once, twice and then removing it to rest on his thigh before rejoining his conversation.

you feel warm inside at em’s gratefulness and you’re happy to be helping out a friend. savouring that content feeling, you stand up and quietly excuse yourself to the bathroom for a moment, smiling when another of your friends stand up to join you.

you’ve only been gone for a few moments, but when you’re returning to the table, you can see your remaining group of friends are all leaned in closely, everyone’s focus landing on shawn. his cheeks are patchy with his blush and he’s rubbing the back of his neck with his large hand, carved bicep flexing with clear unease. as you pass by the group of drunk students again, you hear a loud cheer from your friends. shawn’s smiling now – he’s always happy when he’s pleased other people.

you lower yourself onto your chair with a drop and state with your usual lack of tact, “what are you bothering my best boy with now?”

your face turns to one of genuine confusion when you see glances being shared around the table as if to say ‘who’s telling her?’ you turn your head slowly to the side to see shawn definitively not looking at you, eyes glued to a dint in the table that his long fingers are pressing against in discomfort.

your roommate sighs out a deep breath and states honestly, “we’re just cheering for your best boy here because he’s begrudgingly agreed to help out em, too.”

you tear your eyes back to him and the tell tale flush has flamed up again, blotching over his neck and cheeks.

“oh?” you ask, waiting for someone to give you more information.

when no-one divulges anymore, you nudge shawn’s knee with yours. he meets your eyes and the staring competition begins again. your eyebrow raises in question and he mirrors you. a small closed mouth smile begins to spread across his lips – he loves being the sole focus of your attention in these staring competitions but if you want to know more, you’re going to have to lose. you huff out a petulant sigh and whine, “shawn! tell me!”

his blinding grin is what makes you give in to the loss – the contrast of his white teeth and his flushed red cheeks is too much to not catch a glimpse of – and he huffs out a giggle that he’s won again. “what have they forced you to agree to?” you ask.

“they were just saying that em needed help with her final project. i figured that you’d all made me feel so welcome in the last couple of months since i moved here that it was kind of the least i could do,” he explains quietly.

your eyebrows furrow a little in response to what he’s saying and you redirect your gaze to em. “ok, he’s super sweet for agreeing – as we all already know – but he’s not a photographer. you know that right?”

she looks sheepishly at your roommate and realisation begins to dawn on you. your heart beat quickens and you sit back fully in your chair as she coughs twice and then says, “yeah, um. i’ve not asked him to be a photographer. i’ve – well – i’ve asked him to be a model?”

“my model?” you ask directly. you feel shawn stiffen a little in his seat at the side of you.

em seems to have frozen over with awkwardness but your darling roommate seems to think this is the best thing to ever happen to her. “yes, babe. your model! we couldn’t think of a better partnership – your sheer talent and his devastating good looks? em’s going to ace this project!” she looks smug and you know exactly why.  

“girl, this is going to be a little awkward, don’t you think? i’ve known shawn since we were kids. this photo shoot is about lust and want and need – i need a model who is completely neutral to me to really act this out.”

you both ignore shawn’s gulp and muttered, “it’s about what now?”

“why would it be awkward?” your roommate asks with another smug smirk swiped across her face.  she leans in closer to whisper out of earshot of the others. “you’ve told me countless times about how you have absolutely no feelings for each other. if you’re telling the truth, you’ll do it,” she challenges. it’s not quite as powerful as shawn’s staring competition, but you never back down from a contest.

you take in a deep breath and then announce to the table, “ok, cool. we’ll do it. right, shawn?”

he’s looking wide eyed at you but he nods his agreement – he knows not to battle you when you’ve got your determined eyes on. the table seems happy that they’ve won and they turn their attention to jay’s story about a guy at work and the mop from the broom closet, but shawn leans in to your side. his face is a breath away from yours as he softly explains that they absolutely didn’t tell him what the photo shoot was about and they definitely didn’t mention that you’d be the one taking the pictures.

you can’t trust yourself with words right now so you take a large sip of your drink and shrug your shoulders at him. you categorically ignore the rapid pulsing of your heart and the clammy feel to your hands and chant to yourself it’ll be fine. we can do this. it’s ok. when shawn’s thigh nudges against yours later that night, you have to repeat that mantra to yourself with a little more force.

“are you sure this is the outfit she wanted me to wear?” shawn calls from behind the closed wooden door of your bathroom.

you’re distracted, fiddling with the settings on your camera so you eventually call back, “yeah, dude. that’s the bag she sent for you. why? what’s wro-“ you freeze.

oh. shawn steps sheepishly out of your bathroom door and onto your wooden floorboards. they creak under his weight and he stands stock still, head down and eyes on his bare toes that are flexing uncomfortably on the hard floor. your eyes sweep over him from feet to head and your mouth goes dry, heart beat picking up in your chest. oh.

his legs are clad in a pair of light wash jeans that you need to ask em where she bought them from because jesus, they fit so well in all the right places. they sit low on his hips, the band of his white calvins peeking deliciously over the top of the waistband. your eyes pan upwards even further, your hands gripping tighter and tighter on your camera when you see his bare torso and chest, abs and other muscles you wouldn’t be able to name rippling in the soft golden glow from your window and lights. you open your mouth to offer him some reassuring words, to say something but you can’t quite manage that simple movement.

he quietly whispers, “y/n?” to break you out of your reverie. you swing around on the stool you’re sat on in front of the window to fiddle with a wire connecting to your lights, just to give yourself some time to pull your shit together. you can do this. it’s for em. the quicker you do this, the quicker he can put a shirt on that magnificent body and the quicker you can ignore these thoughts that don’t seem to stop infiltrating your brain at the moment.

you cough just to break the silence and spin back around, smiling when you see that shawn still hasn’t shifted from his spot in front of your bathroom door. his hands are tucked into his front pockets and he looks desperate for you to tell him that this is fine. this is normal and you’ve done this lots of times before. you’ve never been as good as you hoped at not giving into him.

“you look great! it’s the vibe remember. so get your beautifully sculpted ass over here so i can check my lighting,” you say. keep it light, keep it teasing. that’s familiar territory.

his devastating grin takes over his face and he looks so grateful, more confident in himself now. he bounds over to where you are and stops stock still in front of you.

“where do you want me?” he asks, and your eyes flutter closed involuntarily.

“um, if you could just stand a little to your left – yep. there, that’s perfect. i’ll just grab a couple of test shots – find your angles and stuff – and then we’ll go from there. ok?” cool. you sounded professional and not at all like you can’t stop thinking what it would be like to run your hands down the front of his chest, leaving tiny red possessive marks on his skin to show that he’s yours.

he interrupts your thoughts with an appeasing, “of course!” and steps into the position you’d instructed him to.

you bring your camera up to your face and automatically feel calmer, like there’s some sort of barrier between him and you. he diligently follows your quiet instructions – “look out of the window, ok great, now look straight. perfect.”

you quickly click through the pictures on the viewfinder and a pleased smile involuntarily floods across your face. “these are going to be sick. em’s gonna owe us so hard,” you say.

he moves to the side of you, hands back in his pockets and leans in close next to you. he has to bend down from his gigantic height to see over your shoulder. his face is right next to yours and when you inhale, you can smell the distinct scent of shawn. you turn to see that he’s wearing a matching grin on his face, clearly pleased with how the testers have turned out.

“y/n, you’re super talented. those are awesome,” he breathes out.

the praise he’s giving you makes your pulse speed up again and you feel your face growing warmer. you push your wheely stool back to alter your position slightly and he steps back in front of you, awaiting your next instruction.

“it’s easier when you’ve got a model like you,” you say quietly, honestly. he shakes his head, trying his best to brush off the praise and something in you clicks. no. he needs to know how great he is and you need to be the one to tell him. you’re also desperate to see more of that pink flush bloom on his cheeks.

“ok, as much as i adore cute, humble shawn, you’re going to need to ramp it up a notch. remember – the brief from em was lust, want, need. ok? i’m going to start shooting so let’s see what you’ve got,” you say, picking up your camera again and trying to calm your jittering knee.

shawn looks a little lost but tries his best to pose for the camera. he’s lifting up his arm to rest on his head, tensing his muscles and your skin feels as though it’s burning as you look through the view finder and click, click, click. how can this man be real? you’re sure he’s been sculpted out of marble; there’s no other way a human can be that defined.

“am i doing ok?” he mumbles, suddenly unsure of himself after you’ve gone quiet, giving yourself the permission to drink in your model that you’ve never quite allowed yourself before. instinct strikes and you know you can push him harder; you owe it to him and to em to get the best out of your model.

“you’re doing great, S.” his pink glow returns to his cheeks immediately. that flush drives you insane. “i want to try something, ok? i want you to picture someone you’ve always wanted; someone you’ve always been desperate to have, been desperate to feel. that moment just before you get your hands on them? i want you to picture that; close your eyes and put yourself in that moment. when you open your eyes again, look at the camera as if its the girl you’re imagining,” you instruct. he nods his head and closes his eyes obediently, taking a couple of moments to follow your orders.

you study him as his fanned out eyelashes flutter on his cheeks as his mouth parts a little, tongue swiping over his bottom lip before perfect white teeth takes its place. his long fingers twitch on his thigh as if he’s holding himself back from reaching out to touch and the muscles in his abs clench and relax. shit, there’s no point in trying to trick yourself - you’d love to be in that picture he’s imagining. the girl in that fantasy has no idea of how lucky she is. you can’t resist but take a few snaps of him.

you’re not prepared for the look that’s overtaken him when his big brown eyes slowly open. he’s focused; he’s looking directly at the camera you’re still holding in front of your face and his eyes are almost turning black. he blinks at you as if he’s waiting for you to tell him what to do and you realise you’re going to have to talk him through this.

“ok, move back a little towards the door. walk forwards towards me – eyes on the camera at all times – you’re almost ready to touch, but not quite yet,” you tease, thrills shooting inside of you as you see his tongue wet his plump bottom lip again. “that’s it, S. your eyes are giving me everything, that’s awesome.” his flush returns at your praise. you realise that this really is a thing for him and you want to see how far you can push it.

feeling a little braver, you keep your voice low and say, “remember S, she’s been waiting for this as long as you have. show yourself off, show her what she’s been waiting for all this time.”

his calloused hand starts at his collarbone, and then moves surprisingly delicately down the centre of his chest. his blown pupils are covered by the half close of his eyes and his mouth gasps open quietly at the feel of his own hands.

drunk on how much faith he has in you, how willing he is to follow your instructions, you continue, “use your other hand too. imagine where she’d want to touch the most. where have you let her have teases of? when you’ve stretched your arms up and she’s glimpsed that patch of skin above your waistband.” he immediately complies, any shakes of nervousness seemingly disappeared as his solid hand knows exactly where it’s heading. his eyes have totally closed now, acting out pleasure perfectly. your camera is constantly clicking and you know this is going to be one of the best photo shoots you’ve ever taken part in.

“camera,” you mumble, too intensely invested in what’s playing out in front of you to form a full sentence currently.

his eyes flutter open to look directly at your camera and your pulse rate has never been as fast. shit, he is perfect and you wish he knew it. your mouth betrays you by speaking, “shit, you’re perfect, S. this is incredible.”

never breaking his eye contact, he whispers back, “don’t say that. you know i hate that.”

he pulls his head down to face the floor and then glances up at the camera from beneath those luscious eyelashes, hand carding through his thick curls as you say from behind your camera, “no, fuck off. you need to hear it. you’re so hard on yourself and i get that you don’t like the pressure of the label, but what i’m seeing through this camera right now? it’s fucking perfection.” his patchy blush spreads further down his neck and his hand rushes to cover it. it drives you wild to see how your words can affect him.

“shit,” you whisper through the camera, always keeping that comforting barrier between the two of you. “turn around. go closer to that window and look over your shoulder,” you instruct.

he acquiesces immediately, padding the couple of paces over to the window in bare feet. you gasp as you see the golden hour lighting hitting him perfectly and you wheel your stool to be right next to him, shooting from below.

he’s about to ask what to do next when you mutter, “don’t move.” your blood spikes when he freezes immediately. “relax your brows, part your mouth a little – fuck, that’s it. perfect, S,” you whisper. his head drops back at your words and you’re close enough to hear his shuddering intake of breath.

“what shall i do? please tell me, please, i want to do so well for you,” he whispers, eyes still closed and facing into the setting sun.

your stomach feels as it’s about to fall through your body and you close your eyes for a second, grasping desperately onto the last strings of self control in you - he’s less than a foot in front of you, shirtless, giving into everything you ask him to do. you remind yourself you have to stay focused get this job done.

“you’re doing so good, S. so perfect. put your hands against the wooden strip. imagine you’re holding on, trying your best not to pounce on her. this is the only way you can control yourself. got it, perfect. look at the camera, shit, yes, shawn. so good, so, so good.” he’s peering over his own bulging arm with hooded eyes at the lens, the sun illuminating his features in a golden glow but not touching the dark black of his eyes. a curl falls in front of his face and you capture it before he pushes it back.

he sucks in a shallow breath each time you tell him how great he is, how lucky you are to have him as your model, how stunning he looks in the light. he pauses each time you stop speaking, looking at you rather than the camera to await your next instruction. it’s like he’s powered by your voice, and it’s your job as a photographer to give your model exactly what he needs.

“fuck, whoever you’re imagining is so lucky, S. she has no idea what she’s missing.” his head drops forward with a breath, hand tugging at the hair at the nape of his neck. his beautiful face might be obscured but the shot is still breath taking.

“she’ll think she’s dreaming when she finally gets to be with you, S. she’ll run her hands up and down your washboard abs until she can’t take any more. her tiny hands will cling onto your back and she’ll be thanking her lucky stars that she’s going to be with you. shit, hold it there – that’s it,” he’s scraping his fingers down his chest, catching on one nipple and leaving a trail of three delicious nail marks against his perfect porcelain skin. “d’you want her to mark you up, S? you’d ask her so nicely, S, so of course she would. she’d do anything for you,” you’re interrupted by an almost silent moan escaping his lips. ordinarily, you wouldn’t have noticed but you’re so in tune with him that there’s no ignoring it. your whole body throbs to the same pulse of your heart.

before he can notice you’ve stopped speaking and clam up, you continue, shocked by how low your voice is right now, camera still keeping up its continuous shutter noise despite your lack of focus on that right now. “it’s what you deserve, S. someone who’ll give you every part of them, someone who’ll give you exactly what you want. someone who’ll make you feel so goo-“

“stop. please stop. fuck,” he breathes out, flushed face hidden behind his arm again. his knuckles are white, gripped onto the wooden strip on the window sill so hard you can see the defined muscles in his arm flexing.

you lower the camera down to rest on your thigh – shit, you’ve overstepped the mark. you’ve pushed it too far; you’ve failed your at job to make your model comfortable enough around you to give you everything of them and you’ve completely ruined your friendship. embarrassed and ashamed, you daren’t lift up your head so you keep staring down at your camera, fiddling with the settings nervously as you nervously say, “sorry. i’m sorry, so so sorry. we can just-“

“fuck, y/n. please, just. please,” he pleads with you. you don’t know what he wants from you but shit, you’d do anything right now.

“what do you need me to do? shall i just lea-“

“just fucking stop talking. your voice is so sexy, i can’t take it. i just need a second, holy shit.”

you’re frozen in your seat, trying desperately to digest the information that he’s confessed to you and you grasp the courage to look up and refocus your gaze on him. his face is still hidden but you can see his chest moving up and down as he tries to take deep, calming breaths. your eyes travel further down his body and scan over his unmistakeable bulge in his jeans. fuck. you feel lightheaded as you breathe out a loud sigh, your eyes falling closed. you shuffle on your stool to try and rid yourself of that undeniable ache between your legs but you hear him mutter, “jesus christ,” under his breath as you do.

you peel your eyes open to see him openly staring at you, head finally pulled up to its usual position. he looks almost animalistic, and from the roll of his eyes in the back of his head when he finally gets a good look at you, you’d imagine you look pretty similar.

“fuck, i’m so sorry. i uh- i thought i’d have better self control than this,” he whispers, huffing out a laugh.

you giggle with him and immediately try to reassure him, “i’d tell you that it’s not the first time someone’s got hard on a shoot but i’m sure you’d want the names and contact details of who they were so you could kick their asses so…” you trail off, relieved when he laughs again, louder this time and finally ungrips his hands from that poor frame of your window.

“yeah, probably best to keep that to yourself right now,” he says, glancing down to his pants and shaking his head to himself. silence settles in the room and despite the situation, it’s not awkward, not now. you desperately try to keep your gaze anywhere in the room but him, but it’s remarkably difficult to not focus on something so tempting stood in front of you.

he breaks the silence by confessing, body still tilted towards the window and not you, “i nearly pulled out of this so many times, you know?” you look up at his eyes but before you can respond, he says, “yeah. i was running over and over in my mind what could happen and there were two options i kept coming back to.”

“was this one of them?” you ask openly.

he smirks to himself, “what? that i’d embarrass myself to shit by getting hard because of my best friend’s voice? ha, no. even i couldn’t imagine something like that would happen.”

your cheeks flush with his honesty and you cross your legs without thought, eyes falling briefly closed at the relief it gives that delicious ache. “fuck, you’re not helping,” he laughs, running his hand through his hair desperately.

“sorry, sorry. just, if it makes you feel better? you’re definitely not the only one affected. i’m just lucky i can hide it a little better,” you say with a grin and a pointed glance towards the bulge that’s still not disappeared.

he laughs again, loudly this time and it’s a laugh you recognise. it warms your already liquid insides with fondness. “what were the options then? the ones that almost made you quit?”

“you really want to know?” he asks, waiting for you to nod your head in approval. “one – i’d get here and be so overwhelmed by this and by you that i’d freak. i’d run out of the fucking door and you’d never let me live it down. i’d let you down and poor em – i’d ruin her project. i was so scared of that, y/n.”

you pout your bottom lip at hearing him and respond before he can continue, “stop, you could never let anyone down. stop being so hard on yourself, S.”

he lets out a sarcastic, “too late for that one,” which sends you into a fit of blushing giggles.

“ok, option two then?” you prompt.

“fuck, i tried so hard not to think about option two. this was the one that only came to me at night when i was weak but i had to push it straight out of my head.” you sit up straighter on your stool, lips parted as you wait to hear what he’s about to say. “option two was that yeah, i lost all self control, but you did too. i kept thinking about your dark eyes and how you’d be telling me what to do with that fucking voice, y/n, that’s why i nearly lost it then. i just needed you to shut the fuck up before i pounced on you – i hope you didn’t think i was rude.”

your mouth is as dry as the desert, and your limbs feel heavy with want. you lift up your hand to pinch your short clad thigh to check if you were dreaming – much to shawn’s amusement when he notices – and breathe out the air you were holding in when no, you’re absolutely awake and this is absolutely happening.  

“say something, y/n.”

“fuck, i wish you hadn’t told me to stop talki-“

your confession is halted as the front door to your apartment slams shut.

“guys? it’s me! are you done? i couldn’t wait to see these photos, i hope you don’t mind!” em calls through the hallway. you can hear her kicking off her high top shoes and throwing her purse onto the kitchen table.

looks of panic flood over both of your faces and you grab shawn’s hand, pulling him across your bedroom and shoving him into the bathroom attached with a hand on his chest. em’s moving further towards your room but before you shut the bathroom door on shawn to protect him from em seeing his situation, you notice shawn’s hand gripped in yours and his eyes fixed on your other hand on his chest.

you lightly drag your nails a centimetre down his chest and his black eyes fly up to meet yours. he squeezes the hand he’s holding when you remove your other hand from his chest. he rubs his thumb back and forth several times, dark eyes staring into your soul. you’re instantly transported back to all of those years ago before you left for college. his eyes boring into yours are telling you that what he said all of those years ago? it’s still true.

he’s about to speak but you stop him by whispering, “later.” you reluctantly withdraw your hand from his, before slamming the door in his face just in time.

your bedroom door swings open behind you to reveal em, excited look on her face dropping when she sees the room is empty apart from you.

“oh what? he didn’t bottle did he? or i’m calling him up right now to get his ass here immedi-“

“hey, fuck you! i’m in here!” shawn interrupts jokingly from behind the door.

you smile at em innocently and explain, “we’ve just finished. i think you’ll be pretty pleased with them babe. come see, i’d say they’re pretty perfect.”

i saw shawn live in concert on wednesday and i am in love. this happens to be the result of that (sorry)

inspired by 99 percent mine by sally thorne!