#pearlbound

It had been about seven years since you last saw him, or even heard from him. A little bit before you both graduated, you lost contact with him because his mom wanted to move to the base that his father was stationed at. Sam had tucked his own life into a cardboard box and traded it for his little brother’s stability, playing the role of the good son while you became just another ghost to him. 

There were no grand goodbyes, just an intimate going away party where you huddled with your friends, frantically whispering about how to exist in a world that didn’t include him anymore. How dramatic at seventeen years old. 

You always figured that you were friends that probably met too young, that oddly liked the same things instinctively and never really learned how to cross a line without fear of washing it away forever. Even at seventeen, you were never that delusional; if he had truly looked at you with nothing but friendship in his eyes, you would have felt the coldness of it.

It was always such small things at first. The way you always seemed to know exactly where the other was standing without having to look.  Lingering and silly glances when a song came on that you both loved at the same party. Late night conversations that felt like you were saving each other from your own minds; the kind of anger and sadness that only teenagers felt while the rest of the world was asleep, you were there for each other through it. It would always leave you wondering before you drifted off to slumber: is this normal?

After he left, you would occasionally catch up in the hollow way that old friends do; you knew that it was unfair to create a future through distance and thousands of miles away, he was coming to the same conclusion, unbeknownst to you. 

Now and then you’d think about him, about how if he still held the same sorrow that he felt back then. About if he ever was able to showcase the love he had for playing guitar, or if the callouses on his fingers just faded away throughout the years. How if you both had the courage, maybe where you’d be at now. But you usually try to wave the thought away before it gets the chance to stick for the rest of the week. 

Neither of you ever made a move, and he remained on the other side of the glass of your memory’s museum. 

And then of course, life does what it does best; time passes, and the distance between the two of you begins to feel like it's been stretched too far to ever possibly come back together again. All that he is now is a faceless social media account, never posting but as you would later find out, always lurking. Sometimes you’d randomly catch his name at the very top of your viewers list, sometimes leaving a like, sometimes not. It was incredibly embarrassing to admit, even to yourself, to say that you were always looking for it. You still felt a small skip in your chest when you realized that he’d seen something that you put out into the world, his proof of life. Proof of overlap. 

You never interacted with it, and it stayed like that for years, suspended in a quiet that unfortunately felt intentional on both sides. It was almost easier to stand in it than to ever break the pact of silence you had unknowingly agreed upon. 

So when you hear his laugh, before you even see him, a strong pit builds in your stomach within the matter of seconds. 

You feel frozen mid-step through the door, one hand still wrapped loosely around the strap of your bag, your body lagging behind your mind. You can almost convince yourself that you had imagined it as you break the threshold into the party. Someone’s birthday? The reason is amiss to you right now. 

Seven years compress themselves into a single moment as you scan the room to find the source, your heart doing something similar to a backflip in your chest. You navigate a sea of familiar faces and half-remembered acquaintances from years ago, but your eyes hunt for one specific frequency. 

There he is, leaning against the far wall, a drink held loosely in his hand and head tilted back as he finishes the laugh that pulled you through the door. The sight of him alone hits you like a physical blow to the sternum.

His gaze lifts from the noise, scanning the crowd of people with a casual, bored grace before landing on you. It skims past at first. 

And then snaps right back with sudden recognition, like his head was punched in your direction.

For a split second, something raw washes over his features. Stun first. Then a softer, unguarded surprise. It makes your stomach twist. 

He smiles. 

He smiles and he doesn’t look away because he can’t and you find it incredibly difficult to maintain composure with what feels like hundreds of people shouting your name to mark your arrival. You answer them on autopilot, nodding, laughing where it feels appropriate but it all feels like your tunnel visioned onto one person. 

‘Wow’, you think distantly. He hasn’t changed at all. Time has done him a favor and it feels like you should ask for permission to look at him right now. His hair is a bit shorter than before, but his face has filled out; sharp, more masculine. His frame is broader, muscular in a way that makes it difficult to reconcile with the lanky boy he used to be. 

You wonder, briefly and stupidly, how many people have been awarded the pleasure of noticing this before you.

You decide to let the moment fly away like always, decide to try to lose yourself in a conversation with a closer friend. ‘I’ll let him come up to me’, you think to yourself. Like you aren’t already bracing for it. After chatting with some of your friends, you catch yourself checking the place he’d been standing, not there anymore. You look away quickly like you weren’t meant to notice his absence. 

A hand lands over your shoulder from behind you. Warm.

“No fucking way,” he says, turning to face you a little too close as his hand pulls away. “Is that really you?”

Your hands shoot up to cover your mouth in shy shock, a laugh spilling out as you sheepishly grin beneath them, your heart hammering in your chest like it wants to answer for you. 

“Oh my god,” you manage, dropping your hands just enough so he can see you. “Hi.”

Hi. Like you didn’t rehearse this moment in your head a million times without realizing it. Sam laughs at you, shaking his head, eyes fixed on the way your pretty face has matured. 

“I thought I was losing my mind, I heard people shouting your name and I thought, ‘no way’. But—!”

He exclaims with his hand motioning towards you as if he’s trying to convince himself you’re not an apparition. Before you can even find the voice in your tightened throat, his arms reach farther in front of you, pulling you into a sudden and firm embrace. 

“It’s been way too long! How are you?” You try to keep it cool and normal and totally not desperate but your organs are quite literally buzzing inside of you when you feel his skin touch yours. He pulls back just enough to look at you, but the loss of his warmth is literally detrimental to you, skin humming hotly where he held you. 

“Good… good!” He laughs through what feels like a first meeting, “I missed it out here like you have no clue. It’s where I grew up, y'know? I thought it was time to move back.” 

You blink, processing the weight of his words. “You’re moving here?”

“I literally just got into town a few days ago,” he says, his voice dropping as he moves closer to you so you can hear him clearly. Invading your personal space in a way that feels desperately familiar, something you’ve seen in your dreams. ”I didn’t think I’d run into everyone so fast— especially not you!” 

“That’s amazing,” you manage, trying to swallow the lump in your throat. “I’m really glad to see you.” 

The music swells for a perfect second in between the two of you, a song that you had shared between playlists in high school plays and the silence between you suddenly feels dangerously loud. Sam’s eyes drop to your mouth for a fraction of a millisecond, so fast you almost miss it, before he quickly brings a hand up to rake through his hair, clearing his throat. 

“You look…” he trails off then laughs softly, rubbing the back of his neck. “You look really good.” 

“So do you,” you reply almost automatically, then wince at your desperation. “You look… different.” 

“I hope in a good way?”

“In a very good way,” you smile. 

Before either of you can say anything that might tip the moment too far, his attention flickers past you, just briefly.  

“Oh,” Sam says, like he’s remembering something. “Uh—, I’m actually here with my girlfriend, Penny.”

You honestly feel like you just got shot in the stomach. 

He gestures over your shoulder, pointing casually to where he was standing at the other side of the room. You follow his gaze and spot her, you almost can’t believe that you didn’t spot her bright ginger hair amongst all the other heads. She’s standing with a small group, posture easy but watchful. Her eyes are already drifting toward the two of you like she knows she’s being referenced, a soft smile washes over her lips.

“We’ve been together a few years now,” he adds, as if it was an afterthought. 

A few years. You nod, swallowing. “Yeah, I remember Penny! We shared a couple classes in school together.” 

“Yeah?” he says, a little surprised. “She’s great.” He doesn’t elaborate.

You believe him, you hate that you do. 

“Well,” you start, forcing a smile that feels as if it might crack your face, already stepping back, “I’m gonna keep making my rounds and get a drink—”

“—Oh yeah,” Sam nods quickly, “yeah, of course.” He doesn’t argue, his eyes just follow you a little longer than necessary. You can feel them burn into your back as you walk away.

The walk to the kitchen is like navigating a minefield in your state of mind, your smile feels hollow and practiced,  but you just can’t shake the phantom weight of the last five minutes. You just reconvened with the boy, now a man, you spent the four years of high school pining for. He didn’t look at you like an old friend, he looked at you like he had been lying in wait too. 

For the next hour, you are the master of “rounds”, charming as always and the life of every other five minute conversation you fall into. You play the part of the girl who is doing just great, immaculately. But your internal compass is broken, no matter who you speak to, you’re hyperaware of the coordinates of the blond, broad-shouldered man. You feel like a fucking teenager again!

You catch glimpses of him and the girlfriend through the gaps in the crowd. Sam leans down to whisper something in her ear, a private moment that feels like fate moved your head in that direction so you could specifically feel this pain. You see him pull her in closer when a group of guys walk past them, a domestic gesture so established that it makes you sick. 

‘A few years,’ you think, taking the rest of your drink down in one stinging swallow. ‘He was building a life while I was watching a screen.’ 

You try to dive back into a story one of your closer friends is telling about your senior year, but you don’t think you can take another hour of this without a significantly higher blood alcohol content than you entered with. You feel a strange sense of relief when you look back to the spot and see that Sam is gone. 

You tell yourself not to look for him.

“Be right back, need a refill,” you mutter, slipping away. Your eyes lock onto the bottle of tequila abandoned on the edge of the counter, and fill your cup in a flash. 

You slip out onto the backyard patio, desperate for a lungful of fresh air that hasn’t already been inhaled and exhaled thousands of times. The night is crisp and temporarily relieves you of the choked-up feeling you’ve had all night. You look into your cup, swirling the clear liquid around, as if it was a Magic 8-Ball, searching for an answer inside of it. The stars burn aggressively bright tonight, icy points of light flickering back at you through the reflection in your drink. You don’t hear the sliding door open. 

“Did you end up getting that drink?” Sam’s familiar voice pulls you out of your rumination. 

“Yeah,” you say, waving your liquor-filled cup. “Second one, I needed it.”

“Same.”

He steps out from the view of the glass sliding door and next to you, leaving just enough space between the two of you to allow the ghost of time to breathe. He doesn’t look at the sparkling waves of the pool with you, he looks at you, his eyes trace the line of your profile.

“It’s kind of a lot,” Sam starts. “Coming back and realizing everything is the same but different at the same time.”

“I think the ‘different’ part is what’s tripping me up,” you sigh out. 

Sam finally turns his head, his gaze heavy and unblinking. “You mean me.”

You crack a pained smile. “Seven years is a long time, Sam. I didn’t expect you to be… frozen in time.”

“I halfway expected to walk out here and see you sitting on the hood of my car,” he admits, voice dropping to a low register that makes your skin tingle. “So if that gives you any insight into how I’m feeling.” Without the crowd to buffer the tension, the air feels thicker than inside, with all the things you never said to him. 

Sam lets out a dry, humorless laugh. “I’ve been giving the same speech about moving back here for like, two hours. It’s kind of exhausting. After the tenth time it’s feeling like a script more than my own life.” He pauses, his drink forgotten in his hand, expression sours just enough for you to catch the cracks in his facade. “Penny likes it, though. The homecoming of it all. She thinks it’s romantic.” 

Hearing him say her name, in the space you’ve created out here feels like a violation of privacy. 

“She seems… stable,” you say, choosing a word that feels far from ‘right’ or ‘nice’ or ‘pretty’. “Like she fits.” 

Sam’s grip tightens around his cup, you notice the plastic crinkling under the pressure. He turns his body towards you, his shoulder blocking out the light from the house and trapping you in the shadows with him. 

“She’s… yeah.” He trails off quietly, moving his gaze down to the concrete slabs beneath you. 

“Happy?” You direct the question to him.

He hesitates. 

“Serious,” it sounds like a confession. “It was the plan I came up with.”

“But?” 

“Plans aren’t the same as wants,” he rasps, eyes dark with a desperate, terrifying honesty. 

He’s looking at you with a hunger and yearning that hasn’t faded in almost a decade; only fermented, turning into something sharp and more intoxicating. You don’t say anything, you can’t. You haven’t even done anything but it still feels like you’re going to get him in trouble. Your eyes meet, gaze dropping to his mouth for a moment before they flicker back to his eyes. 

Sam notices, he swallows hard enough for you to see his Adam’s apple bob through the shadows of the backyard. He takes a half step closer, his hand twitching and mind silently going through the battle of reaching out to you vs staying still. But, then the sliding door creaks, someone inside laughs as they walk out to the porch, lighting a cigarette. The man motions toward Sam with a salute, you don’t meet his eyes, you guess they didn’t know each other.

Sam sighs out the tension, jaw setting. 

“Do you wanna,” he starts, then stops. Laughs quietly. “Do you wanna go somewhere a little less public?”

“We shouldn’t—”

“I know,” he interrupts. His eyes are pleading. “I just- walk with me?”

You hesitate, ‘no’ sits on the tip of your tongue but your legs are already moving. The guilt is a dense, physical weight in your chest as you follow through the sliding door and back into the party and leave your cups on some random counter. The sudden blast of heat and bass-heavy music engulfs you like a blanket against the chill of outside. Lights are turned down lower than they were before, the party is a blurred kaleidoscope of faces that you know but can’t make out. 

Sam doesn’t look back, but he moves through the crowd of people with a focused and quiet urgency. Every time a shoulder brushes yours or someone shouts a greeting in your direction, you flinch, certain that Penny has turned around and is watching how you trail behind her boyfriend like his shadow. Your pulse is a frantic beat in your ears, bouncing off time with the muffled music. 

Turning to catch a glimpse of the party you’re leaving behind, you reflexively scan the room for the girl. You find her near the drinks, ginger hair glowing orange under the dimmed lights, her back is towards you as she laughs at something a friend is saying. She looks comfortable and you look like you’re stealing something. 

He doesn’t head for the front door or toward the center of the living room. Instead, he guides you toward the narrow hallway that leads to the back of the house, where the bedrooms live. Once you turn the left corner, Sam leads the way walking next to you, his hand not quite touching the small of your back but close enough that you can feel the heat radiating from his large palm. 

You both reach the end of the hall, you can tell by the look on his face that he doesn’t know where he’s going, best guess is that the door in front of you is a coat closet. He looks over your shoulder, eyes darting back towards the noise of the party and checking the coast. Without a word, he takes your wrist in his hand, your fingers brush for the first time in God knows how long. 

The contact is electric, a jolt that sends shivers straight to your core. He turns the handle and pushes the door open, pulling you in after him. The click of the latch catching feels like the loudest sound you’ve ever heard. 

The world is suddenly reduced to six square feet, pitch black with the only light reflecting from the cracks of the doorframe onto his eyes. This space is designed for objects, not people, and certainly not for the two of you, every shift of your bodies causes the metal hangers to clink together like a warning. Not to mention, all the liquor is starting to hit you at once. 

You can smell him all around you, it’s a gut punch to realize that your body hasn’t forgotten a single note of him. God, how the fuck do I remember what he smells like? 

You hear his breathing, ragged and uneven, matching the frantic rhythm of your own heart beating against your ribs. 

“You’re single,” he says and it almost sounds like a whisper, like he needs to hear it out loud. His fingers rub the pulse point of your wrist, a worry stone he’s been using to steady his own racing heart. 

“I don’t really love the fact that you’re not,” you reply, voice trembling. 

“Neither do I,” he finally admits with no hesitation in his voice, words dropping between you like an anvil.  

You let out a shaky breath, your heart warring with your conscience. “Sam, she’s right out there.”

“I’ve known where she’s been every second of the last four years. I can’t remember why that’s supposed to matter right now.”

“Sam,” you breathe out, his name feels like a plea on your tongue. A surrender. 

“I know,” you can hear the strain in his throat, the sound of a man who's at the end of his rope. He closes the distance between you, his fingers snake into yours and up to softly hold both your hands. The silence that follows is deafening even against the muffled deep bass of the music outside. In the dark, the air between you feels more than electric, more than fire, more than spiritual, it feels primal and engrained into your being. 

“Tell me to stop. Tell me to go back to her, right now. And I swear I’ll walk out the door and this will end tonight and forever.” ‘Oh, so he’s putting the gun in my hand’, you think. 

Your faces are illuminated by the soft glow of the lights seeping in through the cracks of the door, you can make out the pain in his face. He can see the way your lips tighten, so as to not let any words out. Your hands slip from where he holds you and attach to the base of his neck, fingers raking into the hair at his nape. He doesn’t even let your hands land before his own latch onto your waist, his grip bruising as he pulls you in closer.

“We’re terrible people,” you whispered, though you didn’t move away. Your back was pressed up against the cold wood of the door, trapped in between the exit and the man who’s been the subject of your dreams for almost the last decade. 

“It’s okay,” you’re taken aback by his response. “I’ve spent seven years being good, and I’ve never felt more like a liar than I do in the last hour.”

He searches in your eyes one last time for a reason to stay honorable, but he’s finding none in the way you’re looking back at him.

He doesn’t wait for the green light, he just closes the last inch of agonizing space. When his lips finally hit yours, it’s a collision. The heat of his mouth is overwhelming, his slide of his alcohol-soaked tongue tracing the seam of your lips with a demand that leaves a growing wet spot on your panties. His hands are everywhere at once, one moves to hold one side of your face and the other is splayed wide against the small of your back, his palm so hot through even the fabric of your clothes. 

You let out a broken sound, half-sob, half-moan into his mouth and you can hear him moan in response, a sinister smirk plastered against his lips. The force is bruising. His satisfaction bleeds into you like ink on paper, the reckless heat of a man whose guilt couldn’t even be found if the girlfriend walked in right now. 

Fingers tighten in his hair, hauling him even closer as if you could somehow merge your skin with his. Your conscience has gone quiet, there is only the friction of his stubble against your skin and the realization that some fires never go out; they only smolder until the abettor begs to come back. 

The man wedges a thigh in between both of yours, a large pressure that hitches your breath, and forces you to find purchase against the solid muscle under you. The friction is sensory overload, a blunt reminder of everything you’ve been denied for so long. Meeting his desperation, you push into him hard, hands clawing at his neck as you force your tongue into his mouth.

Sam lets out a wrecked moan, and pushes back onto you just as hard, his body a solid wall of heat that slams you into the corner of the closet. The impact sends a row of heavy winter coats and sweaters cascading around you, the hangers clattering against each other as the wool and leather envelop you, muffling the sounds of the party into a distant buzz. You’re a mess of frantic limbs and open-mouthed starving kisses, in the blind rush to be even closer, Sam’s heel catches on a hanger. 

He stumbles back and doesn’t even try to catch himself when his weight shifts, he brings you down with him. Sam hits the carpeted floor first, thud absorbed by the coats that fell, and you land heavily in his lap, straddling his thighs before he’s got the chance to catch his breath. Hands immediately latch onto your hips, his grip punishingly tight, knuckles white as he anchors you to him. 

“For me,” he growls through the sloppy kisses,”-you were the one that got away. You were always the one.” 

“Sam,” you choke out, head reeling.” We have to… we have to go back out there.” 

He doesn’t pull away, instead he buries his face into the crook of your neck, lips attacking the skin and chest heaving against yours. The grip he has on your waist is a tether, refusing to let you fall back into the lie.

“Just… ten more seconds. Give me ten more fucking seconds of being real before I have to go back to lying.”

You know the door will have to open eventually, you know the “good people” you pretended to be are waiting for you out there, ready to be stepped back into like old, ill-fitting clothes. But here in the dark, he is yours. 

And somewhere outside the closet, the girlfriend loves a version of him that just died in the dark. 

i can't believe i bust this thing out in like, three days? i swear to you all that all that happened was that i had a dream and felt a DEEP need to write this... i love angst so much though im sorry, i'm thinking about doing a part two to this so if you really do enjoy it please let me know!

as always, playlist time! i've included some lyrics this time because it felt like it was needed

self control - frank ocean / (keep a place for me, i’ll sleep between y’all it’s nothing)

flashing lights - kanye west / (in my past, you on the other side of the glass of my memory’s museum, i’m just saying “hey mona lisa, come home you know you can’t roam with caesar”)

pushing it down and praying - lizzy mcalpine / (he is stable, you are deep, i know just how to get what i need)

somebody else - the 1975 / (so i heard you found somebody else, and at first, i thought it was a lie) / (c’mon baby, this ain’t the last time that i’ll see your face)

For a while, it had felt as though you did a disservice to your grandfather by moving out to that plot of land and trying to cultivate a new life for yourself. Instead of flourishing, the soil felt heavy and stubborn, as if it were mourning something too. You tried to make it work: constant dirt underneath your nail beds, early mornings, a persistent ache in your back that had lasted for months. Winter eventually came, and you had nothing to show for it. Only months after setting up your new life, Pierre had to shut down his own business, starved by the lack of crops coming in. 

You remember the day he closed the shop, making it seem like a business decision rather than a surrender. By the next month, he was wearing a name tag under the same roof as Morris. It was a kind of heartbreak that felt helpless; it didn’t come with tears, just defeat that something good had been taken from the town. The very life you were trying to escape in the first place, there was no way you could build your livelihood off buying seeds from the corporate monster that Morris fed. 

Going back to the city was one of the hardest things that you’d put yourself through; the train ride felt endless, with each passing mile stretching like a guilt you couldn’t shake. Leaving a town where the soil on the farm was still fresh, much like the new and thriving friendships you were making, had to be the worst part. Pierre, with his soft smile and tired eyes, Abigail with her nose in a controller, and the man who lived by the docks, whose name you’ve pushed out of your head. From the inklings you’ve heard, Pelican Town hasn’t changed that much. More people work at Joja; they work long hours for lower pay, but apparently, they lean on each other more than ever; the community has grown stronger on their shared disdain for their employer.

You, on the other hand, now work for a gentlemen’s club on the outskirts of Zuzu City. 

It’s not the life you envisioned right now, but it pays the bills. In the strangest way, it gives you a sense of control that the valley never seemed to do. The neon lights are the only thing to illuminate the path in front of you, the air smells of cheap perfume and strong whiskey. The patrons always seem to blur together—men with tired eyes, women who laugh a little too loudly. You’re not proud of it, but you’re definitely not ashamed; it’s survival, and after working in and leaving the farm, survival became something that you knew intimately.

The club is called Blue Hour. If you pride yourself on anything, it's a gentlemen's club; seeing heavy wallets is something normal to you. These men roll up in sleek black cars that shimmer under the neon blue sign out front. They smell like woody cologne and secrets that they’ll take to their grave. You’ve learned how to read a man’s entire night from the moment he walks through those double doors: the ones who sit close to the stage and pretend not to care leave after an hour. Those who crawl straight back to the private tables, and think they get the private room with it too. They’re all chasing something nearly unattainable here. 

For you, it’s just a job. A rhythm that has hardened you and a role you slip into when the sun goes down. 

You’ve grown used to the way the city breathes around you, the way it always seems to forget your name by sunrise. Here, no one asks about the farm, or the valley, or why you left. 

Tonight is like every other night. 

You walk in through the back door of the club around one in the morning. Baggy clothes swallow you whole, hiding the outfit that’d draw more than a few dangerous stares on your walk here. You’re greeted by the familiar rush of warm air and the sweet smell of sweat that seems to cling to the walls. Bartenders and other dancers call out to you to say hello, their acknowledgements like hugs. The strong pulse of the bass trembles through the floor and up your legs as you walk through the club, making your way backstage. 

You nod to the security guard at the end of the hallway, his face split by the soft, red glow of a hidden security monitor. Stepping into the dressing room, your eyes sweep over the walls, plastered with old promotional posters and lipstick prints of all the women who’ve passed here. 

“Late shift tonight?” one of the girls teases, pinning up her blonde hair, while you settle into the chair in front of your assigned vanity. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” you answer with a smug smile. “Figured I’d come make some money rather than count cracks in the ceiling.” Soft laughs and ‘I know that’s right’ ripple throughout the room.

You pull off your hoodie and sweatpants, revealing the short black leather dress, its zipper glinting off the fluorescent lighting of the dressing room. You finish the remainder of your makeup at your vanity, the mirror lights hum faintly against the sound of the overhead ones; the same ones that have buzzed like that for years, the perfect background to the chatter. You take a final look in the mirror, fingers grazing the curve of your collarbone before reaching for perfume. 

When you emerge onto the floor, the club is alive with bodies in all its crevices. The glow of the lights clings to your skin, the sequins, even the ice in glasses behind the bar. The stage gleams in the center of the room, men surround it reverently, like believers kneeling at the pews. 

You have a rotation of regulars that come in on different days of the week, men who ask for you by name, who already know your drink order, and say the kind of jokes that make you roll your eyes internally. They think they’ve memorized you, but they only know the version you allow them to. Walking out to the main floor, you catch a couple of them; before you can even take a step towards any of them, a hand touches your arm lightly. It’s one of the newer girls, a brunette with a habit of knowing everything before you do. 

“Hey,” she starts, leaning in close to you so she doesn’t have to shout over the music. “There’s a guy asking for you. Table seven.” 

You blink at her, caught completely off guard, that’s not any of your regulars’ usual table numbers. “Me?”

“Yeah, he pointed you out to me.” She motions a pointing finger towards you. “Didn’t look at anyone else in here.” 

You nod thanks to her; she gives you a knowing smirk before disappearing into the crowd behind you. You take a second to glance towards the bar and the private tables spread along the far end of the room, the lights are lower there. Soft amber bulbs pool light beneath the crystal fixtures that gleam off the glassware and expensive watches. It’s where the higher-paying customers sit, the ones who don’t come in for the spectacle as much as they come in for the illusion of intimacy. 

You hurry to the bar, reach for the bottle sitting near the back of it, pour yourself a double shot of vodka and down it in one clean motion. The bartender gives you a mock scolding look, as like you don’t do this every time a new person asks for you. You start walking to the private tables, blowing a kiss their way from behind your back with gratitude. 

Table seven comes into view. The music starts to melt down, the speakers are not as loud over here. 

“Hey there, handsome,” you say, tilting your head slightly. “I heard that you asked for me.” Your voice pulls out sultrily as you slide into the booth, your perfectly manicured nails trailing across the back of the seat before resting your hand lightly on the table. 

He nods once. When his voice comes through, it’s smooth, and quiet enough that you have to lean in closer to catch it. 

“I did.”

There’s something familiar about the tone of his voice, a cadence that you can’t quite place. You try to push the thought aside. Maybe, he just reminds you of someone. 

“Cleo,” you let your stage name roll slowly off your tongue, testing his reaction. 

“Cleo,” he repeats. “Nice to meet you.”

The lighting in the club tonight is darker than usual, so much so that most of the man’s features are swallowed by the shadow. You can make out the long fall of his hair; it’s light, because of the way the lights shine right through it. You can make out the sharp angle of his jaw and the straight bridge of his nose when he shifts his head against the shadows. Everything else is obscure in the haze of the dim bulbs and cigar smoke.

You shift closer to him, knees brushing his. “So, stranger…” your voice dips with a playful lilt, “... do you come here often?”

“No, not really, I’ve been a few times. Always late. I think on the wrong nights.” You can tell his lips are set in a smile, curving up slightly. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Maybe I was hiding.” You tease, tracing your fingertip around the rim of the untouched glass in front of him. 

“I must not have been looking in the right place.”

“Well,” you purr, eyes half-lidded, “...you found me.” 

“I suppose I did.” A breath from him, then quieter: “Worth the wait.”

You blink at him, thrown off guard by the calmness of his delivery. Men with money are still men, and they’ll leap at the opportunity to flirt with a pretty girl; that’s one thing you know to be true. 

“You’ve got a way with words.” You tell him, a smug smile can’t help but creep up on your lips. 

“Occupational hazard,” he responds, eyes flickering up towards you again. 

“What’s that mean?” A coquettish finger raises to twirl your hair. 

“Just means I write, or at least, I used to.”

You smirk. “Writer, huh? That explains it.”

He chuckles softly, a laugh so quiet you nearly miss it beneath the soft bass of the music. Shaking his head, he looks down at his drink and swirls it once. “Honestly, maybe it’s the lighting. Makes everything feel more picturesque, doesn’t it?”

You quickly throw a glance at the environment around you: women in revealing dresses, dark lighting, and the smell of alcohol stronger than the smell of desperation seeping from the men and the women. He’s right, this place was made for these dreamlike, near-recognitional moments. 

And something about his voice keeps beckoning you to a forgotten place in your mind. 

“So…” you cock your head, eyes blinded by the lights that illuminate your face for him. “ …why tonight? Why me?” 

You can see his hand ball up on the table, like he didn’t expect that question. “Because…” he begins,  “you seemed familiar. And, I thought I might regret not saying hello.”

Your lips twitch. “I look familiar?”

He exhales a smug laugh through his nose. “Maybe I saw you in a dream. Or somewhere I hoped I would.”

“Clever. That could work here.” 

For a moment, the club seems to fade around you. 

You spend a few more moments talking, the conversation is much less surface-level than it is with your regulars. His compliments are subtle, his questions are carefully asked. It feels as if he’s trying to memorize your every movement rather than get his rocks off. His eyes linger, but not in hunger. 

You try to steer the conversation the way you always do. Light teasing, practiced laughter, gentle questioning that guide him to where you are hoping to go. He doesn’t ask about prices, or dances right away like the others. The suspicion that you know this man from somewhere keeps creeping up on you. Your heart beats a little bit faster, but you can’t tell if it’s the vodka or him. 

Then, after a pause, you can see his gaze flicker towards the hallway that leads to the private rooms. He doesn’t move yet, but his gaze is clear enough. You and he already know you’ll say yes. 

“Do you want to take this somewhere quieter?” The words come out of your mouth less practiced-sounding than usual. 

“If you’ll let me.” 

Out of your peripheral, you catch how he towers over you; donned in a black button-up, rolled up his forearms, and black slacks. You grab his hand as he steps out of the booth; they intertwine almost instinctively, odd. 

You lead him to the hallway of private rooms, past the velvet curtains; his hand is strangely warm, unlike any of your regulars. When you lead them to the rooms, their hands feel cold with a lack of life, empathy, and care for any of the women they come to visit. 

The air changes as you move away from the open floor; the loud music and conversation give way to the low murmur of voices and different songs playing as you slide past each door. The echo of your heels clicking against the concrete is louder than everything else. 

You unlock the door with your fingerprint. The familiar click of the door is followed by the sound of your playlist beginning to shuffle. His hand slips free from yours once you step inside, fingers that brush your palm as they let go. Muscle memory takes you again, following the routine of the quiet transaction. You slowly sway your hips as your heels meet the platform where the pole is supported, as he settles himself onto the couch against the mirrored walls. Sparse lighting allows for the sensual mood, but conveniently, now you can catch a glimpse at the man you’ve been speaking to, an overhead bulb illuminates his frame like a halo around an angel. 

The bass of the music hums through the floor; every vibration seems to crawl up the back of your thighs and into your spine. Your heels click with a ringing metal sound as they click against the mirrored platform; you circle around it once. One hand wraps around the pole, the other sliding up the side of your curves as you look over your shoulder, catching the outline of his body watching you. He takes a sip of his drink. You inhale slowly, letting your body fall into rhythm. 

It’s only then, when he leans forward to set his drink down, that the light finally hits him right. The shadow finally slips away, and you swear you’re frozen in place. The shape of his mouth, the curve of his jaw, the furrow in his brows while he concentrates on you—it falls into place way too easily. 

A memory from another life. 

Elliot. 

For the first time in years, you feel your act falter. You blink a few times, trying to reassemble the image in front of you, but it doesn’t fade. He’s right in front of you. 

Your throat tightens as broken memories pool in—salty air, waves against a dock, an unfinished manuscript. Tart pomegranates staining your fingers, red wine that stains your mouth. 

“What?” He’s noticed the change in your expression; his own softens, eyes narrowing.

“Nothing,” you say too quickly. “...just thought I—”

“—recognized me?” he interrupts. “You look beautiful, (Y/N). Keep going.” 

“Elliot,” you press your forehead against the pole, eyes shutting as your nose points down at your shoes. 

“I wondered how long it would take you,“ He murmurs, running a large hand through his auburn hair.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you manage, though your voice comes out much softer than you meant it to. It’s been years since you’ve felt any kind of shame about your profession, something about seeing him here is dragging you backwards in time.

“Probably not,” he admits. “...but I was curious. I heard you had moved back to the city.”

“Doesn’t mean you had to come find me here.” 

He tilts his head, the half-smile still there. “I didn’t expect you to be here, either.”

You blink, caught between the present and the past that you act like you’ve forgotten. You remember the soil cracking under your fingers, how every seed you sowed seemed to mock you with a refusal to grow. Remember how your feet blistered, praying for some miracle to help you make something of this land. You left because staying in that town would have been nothing more than a reminder of your failure, and with that, you really never got the closure that should have come with leaving. 

There were late nights where you’d read his unfinished drafts, sitting crossed-legged on the bed in his cabin while the tide pressed against the shore outside, and he’d look at you like he wanted to say something but didn’t. It was always almost. Almost enough courage, almost enough time, almost enough—

“So what?” you start, your tone trembling between irritation and something you don’t want to name yet. 

“You wanna talk about old times? About how I left, about the fucking fishing fest?’’ 

Elliot chuckles at your annoyance, “Maybe later. Right now, I just want to look at you.”

“You are looking at me,” you bite back, gesturing at yourself. “This is me.”

“No,” he responds gently. “—the you I knew—”

“—the me you knew is gone. Been gone,” you interject. 

A beat passes. His eyes blink slowly with something like regret. 

“Then let me meet the new one.” 

You can feel the heat of his eyes burning holes into your skin from where you stand in front of him; every nerve in your frame is aware of him and the way he’s watching. Your knuckles whiten around the pole, and for a fraction of a second, you wonder if you should just stop and leave the room; just turn on your heels and slip back through the velvet curtains, but the draw is irresistible. It’s like he’s unravelling you without touch, stripping away years and memories with just a look. 

From where he sits, it’s as if time has warped around you. He dare not blink or avert his gaze, because every move you make is a reminder of what he lost, of what he didn’t chase or fight to keep. The times you’ve shared play on a faded loop behind his eyes, yearning nights in the cabin, thousands of crumpled sheets of paper laced with ink to be left unanswered, and yet here you are. Older, sharper, more aware of yourself in ways he could never find within himself without you—ways that make him strain through his pants too. 

“I expected to pay,” He begins, toying with the watch on his left hand, a nervous habit you don’t remember; something that must have been born while out of your sight.

 “...whether you recognized me or not.” 

The words of admission come across as not crude but achingly honest, ‘even if it was just for a fleeting moment, if it was a fake version of your love’, he thinks to himself. He leans back into the red velvet couch, the movement fluid and unhurried when he stretches out his arms along the backrest and lets his knees fall apart in front of you, claiming space that wasn’t even offered. 

“You don’t have to.” The song deepens, a dark guitar swelling beneath a soft beat. “But, I couldn’t walk away without trying.” 

It feels like the quiet confession you had wanted for years, being ripped up from its grave where you buried it so long ago. It’s cruel, you think. How soft the tone of his voice is when in a place like this. How it almost feels like the perfect moment to have reconnected. You forget where you are for a moment, your pulse trips. His eyes don’t waver. 

“I’d like to make it worth the price,” you whisper. 

Elliot’s emotions still seem to paint onto his face like shadows, moving across his face in passing, so quick you would've needed to look for them in order to catch them. His lips curve, a faint smile that you remember so fondly, unashamed eyes never leaving yours.

One of your hands glides through the length of your hair, the other brushing its fingers lightly along the zipper at your chest, pulling it down an inch more. You grab hold of the pole in front of you, walking teasing circles around the platform with your fingers still cascading upon the zipper. You lock eyes. Elliot doesn’t even pretend to play the part of a man who’s come to watch a woman strip. The way he’s looking at you isn’t hunger or lust; it’s something else. Something like an ache. 

You push off the floor, letting your body lift, legs curling around the pole in a smooth, practiced swing. Suspended in the air, the muscles in your thighs scream in protest but the rush of adrenaline from his eyes watching you, keeps you moving. You tilt your head back to allow your hair to fall down your back, the leg not supporting you kicks out while you arch your back for him, letting gravity play its part while you slowly spin around the pole. He leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees: you can feel the intensity of him tracing every curve of your body, every peak and valley that he never got the chance to see years ago. You do make him feel lustful; he would never deny that. But the fascination of seeing someone so in command of their body, so aware of themselves in a space, is fighting for a top spot with his lust. 

The music shifts down into a slower tempo, and you step down from the pole gracefully, heels clicking against the quiet of the private room. Your body sways naturally with each step, dress clinging to you, slipping and sliding over your curves with every switch of your hips. Elliot doesn’t move a muscle; his eyes track you like an animalistic predator.  

“You’ve changed,” he notes, like he hasn’t. It’s only now you notice how he’s aged, cheeks sunken in deeper, and the lines between his eyebrows more pronounced. The broadness of his chest and how his black dress shirt strains around his biceps. 

“So have you,” you tug the zipper farther down its track, low enough to where it looks like nothing lies under this dress. You sway your hips closer to him in sync with the music, then turn slowly to arch your back, giving him a full view of your ass, hugged tight by the leather restraining it. 

“You always moved like this?”

“Always…” you murmur, “...just not in front of you.”

Before he can even think about touching you, you start to walk back towards the pole. You make eye contact with him through the mirror in front of you as you pinch the zipper that rests right below your breasts. The lights catch on the tiny metal teeth as you move it to the end of its track, the sound lost under the bass.  

You’ve done this a thousand times, smile, move, tease, reveal. Every motion has its blocking, every look has a purpose. Your body is forgetting the score and the routine feels heavier right now. You usually try to turn yourself into an illusion, your mind is supposed to drift somewhere else while your body moves itself, counting the songs, thinking about what to eat when you get home. That’s how it’s always been; it shouldn’t feel this intimate. It’s supposed to be easy. Detached. Mechanical. 

The fabric falls off your body with the downward swing of your arms, and you kick it off to the side. The cool air hits your skin, but the heat of his gaze outweighs it. A black, fishnet bikini is left in its place, your taut nipples poke through the holes in the fabric. You catch Elliot drag one of his hands down his face, like he’s trying to steady himself, eyes flicking between your reflection and the real you. You grab hold of the pole once more. 

Another spin, another lift. You push off to climb higher, the muscles in your arms tightening as you pull yourself to the top of the pole. Your left hand anchors you while the inside of your thigh catches the metal, holding you steady. With a controlled breath, you lean back into the motion, spinning gracefully, left leg bending just enough to give a clean, pretty point to your foot. Your free hand slides down the pole, sliding in between where your thighs meet, and you fold your torso onto the metal, bringing your legs to curl in front of you. The motion is deliberate and practiced, your left thigh swings itself out and around while you grip tightly onto the pole with both hands, allowing you to open your legs in a controlled spread, offering the prettiest glimpse of your panties to the man in front of you.

You start your descent slowly, body glistening down the pole in one continuous motion. Your hands stay planted between your thighs as you spin almost upside-down, your left leg hooks back onto the metal to support, flexing your muscles as you hold yourself steady. Then, with an intentional slowness, your hands trail away from the pole, sliding down the length of your torso, tracing the curve of your stomach before finding your breasts and then pointing your fingers to the floor. 

You finish your move, landing lightly on the balls of your feet. The lights catch the beads of sweat that line along your collarbone, the weight of Elliot’s gaze so strong and unyielding, you didn’t even notice how he got up from his seat to move closer to you. 

“When you left, I kept thinking you’d come back. That you needed time,” he says as he moves in half steps in your direction. 

You pause, one hand resting on the pole. The cool metal grounds you as a spark of irritation begins to flare in your chest. You didn’t start dancing for him to bring up the past, and the room feels like it’s closing in on you, much like the world did years ago. The annoyance begins to bubble over when you realize he’s rewriting the story you left behind. 

“You were always writing! Always, talking about your next piece or chapter, next whatever!” You say, a lump of heat rising in your throat. “I told myself that’s what artists did, but after a while it got so—fucking—old, Elliot. It felt like you wanted nothing to do with me.”

He rubs his palms on his face like it’ll keep him in one piece. “Hah… you have no clue…” he mumbles, “...how many nights I sat at that desk. Trying to get you out of my head.”

Your eyes threaten tears the way they begin to sting. 

“You should have tried harder when I was there,” your words come out like knives. “I was just waiting… for you to… show up.” 

A pause settles between the two of you, the deep bass of all the private rooms mix together like an orchestra coming to a crescendo, you break the pause: “I didn’t know how to stay,” you confess. “Not when the only man keeping me there had no time for me.”

For a heartbeat, you think he probably won’t say anything at all. Then he leans forward, giving you a look that pierces through the dim lighting of the room:

“Come back with me.”

You blink, caught off guard. “What?”

“Come back to the cabin with me tonight.” He’s serious. Every syllable falls off his tongue with the weight of all the nights spent apart.

You let out a soft, incredulous laugh. The idea of stepping back into Pelican Town is unbelievable to you; you left that place worse than how you found it. Shame and embarrassment build in you the longer you think about it. 

“You can’t be serious.” 

“I have time now,” he says, quieter now. 

Your disbelief fades, replaced by a tight-lipped silence as you shake your head downwards, averting Elliot’s gaze. 

“I’m not asking for forever,” he pleads, stepping closer to you until you can feel the warmth radiating off of him. “Just tonight, just… to see if it was worth it.”

“If what was worth it?” 

“All the years I spent writing about you after you left.”

The confession lands like a stone thrown at your chest, heavy with the weight of thousands of pages you never read, of nights you spent apart. 

“You think one night will fix everything?”

“No,” he begins, “but maybe it’s enough to start.” He bends down, picking up your discarded dress from the floor. There’s a tenderness in the way he holds it. He comes back to stand close enough to lift the fabric, guiding your arms through the sleeves of the dress. The zipper hums against you softly as he pulls it up, fingertips that brush the nape of your neck, the gesture is so intimate.

You don’t remember deciding; there’s a blur from when you left the private room, through backstage, and meeting him outside with your things. 

Outside, he pauses to grab his suit jacket from the coat rack near the exit. Without a word, he drapes it over your bare shoulders. It’s warm and smells like him, ink and salt. The night air feels much cleaner than being suffocated by the haze of alcohol and cigar smoke. You don’t speak as you follow him to the valet. When the car pulls in, he opens the passenger door for you like nothing has changed. You hesitate for a breath, just long enough to wonder what the hell you’re doing—and then you slide in. The door closes behind you with a soft, sure sound. 

The lights of the city start to fade in the side mirror, the glow dissolving into the dark stretch of the road ahead. It looks more familiar with every mile that passes, even though you haven’t driven past here in ages. Nostalgia continues to burn in your throat as you pass by the overgrown trees that seem taller than you remember. 

“I used to drive this road every week,” Elliots says, his voice barely loud enough to cut through the engine's hum. “Just to see if you were thinking about coming back. I’d stare at the old farmhouse.” A pause, his throat bobbing. “The lights were always off.”

His truth to you stings more than it should; you would have never imagined that. You look ahead of you, eyes blinking through the blur of your tears and the high beams, trying to keep your voice even. 

“I saw your name at a bookstore, you know.” 

“Yeah?”

“You never told me you published,” you shoot back as if you’re scolding him for missing a dinner invite rather than a years-long silence. 

He huffs out a laugh. “You never asked.” 

“You didn’t make yourself easy to find,” you counter.

“I wasn’t hiding,” he starts, glancing over to you with a small grin growing on his lips. “I just didn’t know how to reach out.”

You let out a laugh that doesn’t seem to meet your eyes. “Funny. You managed to sell a whole book in stores, though.”

Elliot laughs softly, bitterly. Borderline sad. “Writing about something isn’t the same as fixing a situation.”

“What did you write about?” 

“You.”

His response lingers in the air before you say anything. 

“You wrote a book, about me?”

“Not by name. But anyone who really knew me would have recognized you,” he explains, hands moving gracefully upon the steering wheel. “It was easier to turn you into a story than admit to myself I couldn’t move on.”

You don’t know how to respond. Instead, you look back out the window, where the paved road turns into dirt. The town’s edges are close. 

“Does everyone still talk to you?” You ask after a while. “Sam, Harvey, Willy—?”

“Of course. A few of them. Sam moved closer to the city, Harvey has multiple practices now, I think.”

“What about Leah?” The question leaves you before you can stop it. 

His eyes flick to you, then back to the road. “What about her?”

“You spent a lot of time with her.” 

“She was… there,” he looks up at the rearview mirror and then to you, guiltily, “...she understood parts of me.” A beat. 

“But she wasn’t you.”

You scoff, looking out the window to conceal the way your throat is getting tight. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” 

“(Y/N), I’m trying to be honest with you.” His tone is pleading. Fingers almost spasm towards you, but stay on the gearshift. 

Silence continues to travel with you; words don’t come as easily as you imagined after four years of making up this scenario in your head. You thought if you ever saw him again, maybe you could feign memory loss, or that you’d have the courage to say something sharp. Now that you’re in front of him, the only sound is the tires crunching on the gravel road, then he makes a turn you don’t remember. 

“Where are we going?”

“Back way to the cabin,” he says softly. “It’s faster.” 

“I didn’t stay long enough to ever notice this,” you murmur. 

You look at him, and then he looks back; there’s no challenge in his eyes, no smugness. When the car finally rolls to a stop, he cuts off the engine and steps out into the cool night. When he circles around to your side to open your door, you hesitate, just long enough for him to sense it. 

“No one is here,” he reads your fear without you saying anything. “Just us.”

Gravel and sand crunch underneath your heels as you close the distance between you on the way to the front door. The sight of the ocean after so long dares to make you more emotional than you already are. Waves crash against the shore the same way they used to. 

Hair falling into his face as he fumbles with his keys, opening the locked door. The lock clicks open for you, and the door swings open. You stand at the threshold of the doorway, not ready to walk any further in. Elliot moves first, setting his keys on the table near the door. He doesn’t sit yet, just leans on the wall, arms crossed as if he were trying to contain himself. You hate that the sight of him in this warm light feels like a healing wound you want to pick at. 

Walking in, you immediately notice everything that’s changed, it feels like you’ve wandered into a stranger’s home. You stand near the doorway, stepping in any deeper feels close to trespassing. 

“Do you want one?” he asks, motioning to the tray on his desk adorned with crystal glass and a bottle of whiskey. You shake your head, the sound of the liquid hitting glass fills the room. You see him take a big swig of his glass out of the corner of your vision, your eyes widen at the gesture. 

“Rough day?” 

“Seeing you… didn’t exactly make it easier.” He coughs out, throat bitter from the truth and the alcohol.

“You found me,” you mumble.

He hums, not disagreeing and not confirming, just turning the glass in his hand and swirling the liquid as he takes a seat on his bed.  

“You don’t have to stay by the door.” Elliot glances up to you, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You look like you’re ready to run.” 

You sigh, taking another half step further into the room. “I thought leaving before would make it easier to move on from you.”

He exhales deeply through his nose, a tired sound, the kind that comes from hundreds of restless nights thinking about what he should’ve said. 

“And yet, here you are.” He looks up from the floorboards for your eyes to meet. “Didn’t make it easier, huh?”

“You were always too busy—” 

“—I wasn’t busy.” He cuts in, sharp, but softening his tone once he sees your reaction. “...I was so scared I would…” 

A deep sigh slips past his lips. “...that I would fail you like I’ve been failing myself.”

You never thought he was a failure, or thought to imagine that’s what he felt about himself. You loved his work; editing it for him was one of the joys you found while living in the valley. Late nights over empty bottles of wine, your fingers tracing over the edges of his pages while he would move to the piano, drunk and smiling. They were few and far between but, those were the nights that made the day worth working through. 

‘How’s the farm looking?’ ‘I picked up a leek at Pierre’s yesterday, terrible!’ 

You’d find yourself in shambles by the time the sun went down, searching for peace in the saloon after harvesting strawberries the size of peas. The times when you’d catch Elliot there, the times when he’d invite you over to finish the night at his cabin, always felt like that peace you were looking for. He’d pour you a glass of wine and ramble on about the last draft he was stuck on, you’d listen from his bed as he paced across the room, smiling at the way his words spilled out like the wine that was poured earlier. 

You told yourself that it was harmless, the way your knees would brush up against each other when you both leaned forward to read the same page, or how his voice softened when he’d catch you watching him in deep thought. Maybe he felt it too, or maybe both of you were too cowardly to make a move. You still remember the night the storm had cut the power out, trying to conserve the last candle he had in the cabin. The two of you had already finished one bottle, cheeks warm and spilling out laughter was easier than before, Elliot stumbled towards the piano like a man possessed. Every few notes, he’d miss a key, wince dramatically, then grin at you like he meant to do it all along. He’d turn to you after you nearly choked on your wine from laughing, eyes glassy, saying something about how your laugh sounded better than anything he could play.

The memory lingered in the quiet of the cabin, as if the candlelight from that night had been trapped in here ever since. You shifted slightly on the edge of his bed, tracing the fabric of his comforter with your fingers, feeling the weight of the moment settle on both of you.

“And yeah, there was Leah.”

His words break the spell of nostalgia; you couldn’t roll your eyes harder if you tried. 

“It wasn’t like that, (Y/N).” 

Your eyes squint, and you try to open your mouth to reply, but he continues before you can get any words out. 

“Leah was just…” His voice stumbles, something like he’s stepping around the truth. “it wasn’t… it wasn’t ‘love’. I think she knew that.” 

“So you just, fucked her after I left?” you snap, voice cracking like a whip. “I knew you had something going on.” You can feel your fingernails dig into your palms, the pain doesn’t register through your irritation. “You could have just said that, instead of leading me on.” 

His words that border on admission twist like a dagger in your back, he turns to look at you. The movement stirs another memory within you, which you whisk away with a quickness.  

“‘All those years’ definitely meant something to you, Elliot,” you nod sarcastically in his way. “We never said it, but I knew how you felt, and you knew how I felt.”

“I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again!” His voice rises against yours in desperation, hands splayed in front of him to make a point. 

“You acted like you didn’t care if you did!” Your words cut through to him, trembling on the edge of a sob.

Elliot runs a large hand through his hair as he rises from where he sat on the edge of the bed, he’s getting irritated. His other hand finds his temple, thumb pressing in a familiar gesture you remember too well from the times he couldn’t quite find the right sentence; he walks a couple paces away, jaw tight and his free hand planting on his hip. If fighting was the goal, you would have stayed at the club, you know that. There’s no point in arguing it further to you, not when your voice would crack under the weight of what you feel for him, or rather what you’re trying not to feel anymore. 

A tense stillness speaks for the way the hearts in this room ache; you wonder how it can be that after all this time, the pain feels like it happened only yesterday. Your mind keeps tugging you backwards, towards the faded memories of the old nights that you’ve spent here; your hands move to unclench themselves, softening at the memories. 

Elliot runs a large hand through is hair as he rises from where he sat on the edge of the bed, 

A deep and long sigh leaves your lungs. 

“You changed things,” your arms cross in front of you as you let your eyes drift around the cabin, the piano sits on the opposite side of the room. His desk is pressed flush against his bed, shortening the walk from when he inevitably wakes up in a stir to write. More lamps stand in the place of the single hanging bulb he used to have, mountains of melted candle wax are cemented into the table that sits in the corner of the room, fossilized remnants of too many lonely nights. 

“Couldn’t stand to see it the same way you left it.” His eyes follow your gaze, large shoulders slumping slightly. “I thought if I made it different, that I could breathe again.” 

Your eyebrows raise with mock innocence, “And?” 

Elliot lets out a breath that sounds almost like a laugh. “Still can’t.” Another beat.

He glances toward the window, where the moonlight cuts through the glass in fractured pieces across the wood floorboards. The ocean outside whispers against the shore like it’s eavesdropping, and you realize it's felt like you’ve been holding your breath since the moment you stepped back into this room. You let the air from your lungs out slowly, like if you exhaled any faster this would all blow away from you. 

Elliot’s eyes move back to trace the outline of the woman you’ve become: lipstick rubbed off from work,  the hardened glint in your eye, the scent of a perfume that has never mingled with the air of this cabin. There’s something almost reverent in his stare, like he’s seeing the same person from years ago but haunted. You shift under it, throat tightening. He takes a half-step closer to you, hand twitching at his sides like he wants to reach out. 

 “I didn’t know how to put the pieces together again,” his voice fractures around the words desperately, shoulders shrugging with surrender to you. “—but you’re here now. (Y/N), please. Help me put the pieces together.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he asks softly. 

“Talk to me like that. Look at me like that.”

Elliot’s jaw tightens, “I don’t know how else to look at you.”

For what seems like eternity, neither of you move and the air between you builds up thick. Nights of anxiety dulled by the way that he used to rest his chin on your shoulder attack your mind; it’s not fair. Are you moving backwards? Is this a mistake? 

“I’m tired of messing up my life with over-complicated moments.“

Your chest tightens; he doesn’t understand. Your body aches to be known, to be expressive within itself. To be forgiven and to forgive yourself for every wrong choice that led you back here, the thought swells to an unbearable size, unbidden as you stand before him. 

“You don’t get to say things like that after all this time, Elliot. You don’t get to make it sound easy.” 

Another pause. 

“I shouldn’t have come,” you whisper and only think about turning your head away. 

Then his lips brush yours. It’s not a soft kiss; it’s the kind of kiss that feels like an apology that should’ve been spoken years ago. It’s painstakingly slow; trying to learn the anatomy of your lips for the first time is something so sweet, that your knees threaten to buckle at their touch. The world feels as if it shrinks around the two of you, experiencing a moment you dreamed about for years, his lips would haunt you like a ghost come the morning light. 

The wary meeting of your lips turns into something heavier, hungrier. Elliot’s desire seems to take up all the space in your chest; the kind of kiss that makes you an amnesiac to every quiet night you spent in the city. Your hands move to his chest, clutching at his shirt in an effort to anchor yourself while your lips mold around his. Elliot’s hands snake underneath the suit jacket to wrap around your waist; it’s more destabilizing to you than it is grounding, and you swear he could hear your rapid heartbeat over the crashing waves outside. 

His tongue ghosts over your bottom lip, a question, an admission. You answer him by opening your mouth to him, finally getting the chance to taste the inside of his; faintly minty, faintly strong from the remnants of whiskey on his tongue. Your hands thread up the base of his neck and through his hair at the back of his head, pushing, urging him closer to you.

You both pull back at the same time, just slightly, lungs huffing and breath mingling. The space between you is not close enough, it feels charged with the fire of a thousand suns. His hands stay glued to your waist, fingers tracing the curve of your hips through your clothes. 

He slips his jacket from your shoulders, his free hand finding a way up your neck, palm tracing your skin to cradle your jaw, coaxing you into another fervent kiss.  A fleeting second before your eyes flutter closed, you see the pain etched in between his brows, the kind that belongs to someone who thinks you’ll evaporate in his hands if his lips aren’t on yours. The intimacy makes you stumble backwards, and you break the kiss for just long enough to toe off your heels.

“You’re drunk,” you mumble, pushing away from his lips. 

“I’m not,” he begins, you shake your head at him. 

“How can I show you that I’ve never been more sure.” It’s a statement rather than a question; he doesn’t wait for your response. 

His arms barely have to try to reach down to the backside of your thighs, digging his fingers into the soft flesh right under your ass as he lifts you from the floor. The motion is effortless, but the rush of the moment sends you both reeling, soaked in the kind of urgency that leaves no room for slowness. Elliot walks you backward until your lower back hits the edge of a table, still connected at the lips. The impact sends stacks of paper flying and pens scatter across the floor, something louder clatters on the hardwood. Neither of you flinches. 

“You shouldn’t—” you breathe out, his lips catching the rest of your sentence. “—say things like th—” 

“Stop giving me reasons to.” 

Elliot looks at you like he’s trying to remember every version of this moment that he’s imagined before, his eyes lock over every part of your being, and his hands are warm and gentle as they guide you to sit on the bed. Fingers trace up the curve of your thigh, over the fabric, and past your waist to pinch the zipper that holds everything together. You follow his gaze down your body, then back to each other. The question doesn’t need to be spoken when the answer is alive in the air between you. 

The man in front of you pulls the zipper slowly down your body, your eyes switch between him and his fingers. Mouth agape, your chest heaves at the sudden intimacy and your hand moves to grip his bicep, harder, broader than it was years ago. The strength there feels oddly unfamiliar, but the way he is looking at you doesn’t; it’s the same burning gaze he always had. 

“Tell me you were thinking about this like I was,” a yearning plea leaves his mouth. 

“E-Ellio-” Your voice cracks, a traitor to the armor you’ve built up so thick.

“Please.”

You nod, biting your lip so hard you swear you can taste the faint iron of blood. A soft mewl escapes your lips as the zipper reaches the end of its track again, the leather dress parting in front of him. The cool air of his home brushes over your exposed skin, goosebumps chasing its trail. The fishnet pattern of your underwear does nothing to hide details of your body from Elliot’s eyes, each diamond of the fabric dimpling your flesh in a way that makes him swallow hard. 

You can’t meet his gaze for long. It’s too much. It almost hurts to shed your skin to him at this moment, something that you had wished for years ago, finally stands in front of you. His eyes swallow you whole, tracing the swell of your breasts and the curve of your waist, down to the holed fabric that barely covers your cunt, now glossy with need. 

Elliot’s hands guide you commandingly, pulling you towards him as he sinks back into the pillows that adorn the headboard, your dress falls discarded to the floor with the movement. He spreads out before you, making a spot for you to straddle his lap, your knees bracketing his hips. The fabric of his slacks brushes the supple skin of your inner thighs, the hard outline of his cock presses through the material, already stressing against the zipper as you sit right on top of it. The sensation sends a lightning strike up through your core, pussy clenching around nothing as you settle on him. 

“Fuck…” he breathes, hands fixed on your hips and guiding you into a slow, aching grind against the mound in his pants. The friction is vexing, his thick length rubbing right through the material of the fishnet, catching on your clit through the resistance, making you gasp softly. Your fingers linger over the first fastened button of his shirt, tracing the edges before you slip it back through its hole. One by one, your fingers work down the line. You occasionally glance up to meet his eyes that seep with desire, the way they hold yours makes it seem like there's much more coming undone than just the buttons. 

As you slip off the shirt for him, Elliot’s fingers find your neck, bringing you in closer to him for his lips to brush against your throat with fevered kisses, painstakingly moving down your chest. He tugs the cup of the fabric of your bikini to expose your breast to him. He mumbles something about how beautiful you are while he cups one of your breasts in his large palm, thumb circling your nipple teasingly before pinching it, just enough to make you gasp. His mouth follows after, lips closing around the peak of your breast, tongue swirling in slow circles that send lightning strikes through you. The other hand kneads your ass, pulling you in tighter against the bulge in his pants that grows larger by the second. 

Without words, you lift off him slightly, giving him some room as he undoes the buckle with deft fingers, the clink of the metal loud in the quiet of the cabin. He slides his slacks and boxers down just enough to free himself, his thick cock springing up, the head less pink than you imagined but glistening with his precum. You help him slide off the rest of his pants that pool at his knees, and he tugs down your barely-there panties to get a better look. He pulls the barely-there top off of you with ease, exposing your glittering breasts, still moistened by the shimmer oil you massaged on yourself earlier. 

Elliot hooks his forearms under your thighs again, hands cradling the swell of your ass, lifting you up until your cunt hovers right above his thick head. He lets his eyes trail from your face to then lock on the space where you’re about to join, mouth watering in greed. The sensation of you hovering over him has the vellus hairs on your body standing at attention, just waiting for him to lower you onto his cock. “I’ve dreamed of you like this,” he whispers, voice trembling with anticipation, “—every night.” 

He lowers you slowly back down onto his lap, bare skin finally meeting, cock sinking into your soaked pussy with a stretch that steals your breath. “Holy fucking Yoba…” he groans at the way you wrap around him, shocked from how tight you are. Your nails dig into his shoulders, clutching them for support as you adjust to his size.

Your hips tremble when your ass finally meets his lap, a seat molded as if it weremade for you. The overwhelming fullness of his cock makes your thighs tingle as his thick head presses up against your cervix. Your head tilts back as you squeeze on his dick even harder, your pleasure unravelling in steep waves, sickeningly hot moans spill loudly from you. 

“L-Let, me feel you milk my cock,” he pleads, his hands guiding your hips up and back down to take him down to the base, and a high-pitched whine comes out of you. Throbbing inside of your creamy cunt, he holds you close, and his breath runs hot against your neck as he whispers words of encouragement. 

“Just like that…” he murmurs, voice heavy with lust and eyes never leaving yours. You lean into him, arms wrapping around his neck and your face finding in the crook of his neck, a flush of embarrassment at how undone you’ve become because of him. He thrusts slower into you, letting out a sweet aww. 

“That’s my girl…” he whispers in your ear, your eyes roll back at the sound of the sweet words. 

His hands slide down your waist to cup your ass, spreading you wider, opening you up to take him in deeper. The angle sends a jolt of pleasure through your core as his cock hits that perfect spot. His rhythm is consistent, each thrust telling you how long he’s been waiting for this; kisses reach his collarbones, trying to occupy yourself with something to let yourself last a little longer. 

You urge him to lie flatter on the bed by pushing his shoulders, a soft “lie back” slips through your lips, adorned with a sweet smile. 

He complies, a sweet, unyielding smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as he lets you ease him down until he’s flat on his back. Your cunt clenches around him at the sight of how the pillows fan out around his head, his hair a halo upon the white linen sheets. His cock settles even deeper inside of you, this new angle makes your breath hitch as your knees sink into the mattress at his sides. 

Your hands splay across his chest, looking for some semblance of support as your hips grind down to meet his. Elliot’s neck cranes to watch the sight below, his hazel eyes darkening with lust as his cock slides in and out of you, the slippery glide of your sopping cunt gripping him from the base to the tip. The bed groans under the rhythm you’ve built, wet slides of skin slapping against skin, and the rustle of the sheets tangling underneath you fill the quiet of the cabin. 

His moans are thick with awe, his thumbs dig deep into the flesh of your waist, you both look down, mesmerized by the way your skin pools around his thumbs and the soft parts of you ripple against the impact of your bouncing. 

His hands slide back under to cup your ass, shifting beneath you as he plants his feet into the mattress; his muscles tense with the best intentions. His hips fuck up into you so fast, you have to hold onto his arm that keeps you anchored to him. Gripping your hip with his left hand, he moves to reach his right thumb onto your clit, rubbing fast circles that threaten to make you cum soon. “F-Fuck, Elliot,” you cry, voice breaking into moans as you unravel completely on top of him.

Something primal flashes behind his eyes and the bed shakes furiously beneath you, headboard tapping the wall with the steady, fast rhythm he’s created. Your tits bounce with each thrust he gives you, and it only urges him more. He can’t resist shifting his weight and positioning to lean up and capture one in his mouth, tongue flicking over your nipple repeatedly, which causes your cunt to clench even tighter around him, earning you a deep groan from him.

“Look at me,” he commands, and you comply.

His cock stretches you so wide that every thrust of his hips heats the coil that wraps furiously tight in your belly. Your hands slide up from holding onto his arms to your own tits, fingers toying and teasing your nipples. Groaning at your gesture, he starts to spasm inside of you and stills your hips at the base of his cock. 

“Don’t… move…” his words come out in shivers, you can tell he’s about to cum by the iron grip he has on your ass. You freeze on top of him, your pussy pulsing around him unbearably. 

His hips start to roll against yours after a couple of seconds, urging you to continue. Hooking your arms around his neck once more for support, you rhythmically slam your hips on his thick cock that stretches you out wider than you could ever imagine. 

“(Y/N)...” he moans, “imagine how long… I could have been drilling, this perfect cunt of yours.”

 “All because… we wanted to play games with each other,” you gasp at his words, lost in the haze of pleasure, your body only moves on instinct. You can’t even will yourself to go back and forth with him; his cock is hitting all the perfect spots inside of you. The moans that leave your lips are not from a one-night stand kind of affair, Elliot can tell. You try to speak, to tell him that you thought of this too in your lonely city apartment, your fingers never enough to mimic the idea of him that you had in your head. Words choke in your throat, replaced with another guttural moan at the deep roll of his hips into your heat. 

“I-I imagined you,” you manage, voice breaking, “like this… always you…” The admission makes his dick twitch inside of you, a low growl rumbles deep in his chest as he pulls you in by your neck for a desperate kiss. 

The kiss is sloppy, all tongue and some teeth crashing into each other, his wet muscle sweeping into your mouth with a fervor that matches the relentless pace of his hips. Hands move to reach his neck, kisses broken off by lewd moans as hands roam up your back, tugging your waist flush against him until your chests are pressed together, cheek pressed to the rapid pulse of his heart. 

(Y/N),” he gasps, “I can’t—” his words cut off as he spills inside you, cock pulsing and the warmth of your own climax washing over you sends you over the edge. You cry out to him, a raw sound, your body shuddering as you collapse next to him. His arms wrap around you through the aftershocks of your orgasms, anchoring you through till the end of it. Your fingernails dig crescents into the skin of his shoulders; you try to hold on to the moment for as long as you can have it at this point. 

“Stay,” the pleading tone in his voice as he drifts to his sleep of exhaustion, makes you feel horrible. 

You don’t answer him. His arms tighten around you as you lay sweaty and depleted. 

Your eyes flutter closed.

You wake before the sun has any chance to rise, the cabin is teeming with an eerily quiet calm, the waves have begun to still outside. Elliot’s breathing is slow and even beside you, rhythmic enough that it’s almost a lullaby. For the first time in a while, it seems like he’s finally allowed himself a good stretch of uninterrupted sleep. 

You’ve managed to squirm away from him in your slumber, and a very small, guilty part of you thanks your past self for offering you a way out of his bed. Yet, the second your eyes land on him, the relief wavers. Unfortunately, he looks impossibly beautiful like this. Auburn locks spill across the pillow, and strands of hair catch the moonlight pouring in from the windows to frame his face divinely. The shadows trace the lines of his jaw in a much different way from how the lights did at the club. 

The juxtaposition of the warmth you feel under the covers is cut through the slightly colder air of the cabin against your naked frame. Bare feet press into the cold wood floor as you pick up items left discarded, your dress, your heels. The act of gathering them feels like you're picking up pieces of yourself that you broke on the way inside of here. Your eyes catch the edge of a piece of paper lodged between the wood floor and your shoe, you pick it up. Your heart stutters in your chest as you can guess the words inked across the paper before you read them. 

“He traces the absence of her in the predetermined lines of his mistakes, in the spaces that were never touched. I wanted to tell you once, long ago, that you were the one to call out to all along. And that you still are.” 

He and his are replaced with me and I’s, her replaced with you on the margins of the paper. 

An invisible tether between you and him pulls with so much tension. The sight of him so unguarded tugs at your emotions, bringing back the nights you almost believed you could be enough to this town, to him. Your fingers tremble with sleep as you zip your dress back on, leather clinging to your skin and a visceral reminder of the world that waits for you outside the warmth and familiarity of the cabin. You carefully crumple the paper into your dress to read at a better moment and then reach for the door handle, grab your heels and move to open the door.

You pause at the doorframe, hypnotized by the last look you might get of him. For a heartbeat, you imagine him waking, voice thick with sleep, calling your name in the dark to ask why you’re leaving. Maybe in another life he would. Maybe in another life you would have stayed and seen it through. 

Either way, you let the door close gently behind you and walk into the quiet of the night, into the possibility of a morning that hopefully won’t mean anything to either of you. 

my first post on here! this was previously uploaded to ao3 for kinktober 2025 sex work day, but i thought it might get some more readers on here, i see a lot of elliot lovers here! when i first posted it, i didn't really love it but second read through; it's growing on me LOL

as i'll always do, here's some songs i listened to while writing to get me in the mood: