a little spark

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Parker never really wanted kids.

Don’t get her wrong, it wasn’t something she felt strongly about, at least not in the way some people do. She didn’t hate kids, she actually really liked them. But she also didn’t feel strongly about having them, you know, like the kind of people with lists of baby names saved on their phones and timelines mapped out before they’re thirty. If anything, it was something she could take or leave. A hypothetical version of herself might have wanted them. Or not.

When she came out, the question drifted even further away. Kids belonged to another script, one she wasn’t following anymore.

Then med school swallowed what little space was left. Residency devoured the rest. Long shifts, overnights on call, and the bone-deep exhaustion that lived inside her permanently didn’t leave room for hypotheticals. Parker’s future became clear: rotations completed, exams passed, hours survived.

And then she met you.

Right out of college, when everything was still provisional and bright-edged. You were easy in a way nothing else in her life was. No games, no drama, no need to explain the sharp corners of her personality or the long silences she slipped into after difficult shifts.

You wanted the same things she did: partnership, independence, a life built by yourselves instead of inherited. A small condo that felt like yours. Shared groceries. Late-night takeout on the floor because you couldn’t afford a dining room table fresh out of med school.

Kids weren’t a loss. They just weren’t part of the plan.

And Parker liked the plan.

Years later, she still does: the quiet routines you’ve built, the ease of moving around each other in the kitchen, the way you reach for her all the time without looking. The life you’ve built is full and exactly what she’s ever wanted.

Which is why the tightness of her chest now feels so unfamiliar.

The backyard is strung with warm lights and the low hum of conversation. Someone has a speaker playing music near the sliding glass door, the music loud enough to hear but soft enough to not bother the neighbors. Laughter rises in pockets around the patio – people playing cornhole, the easy laughter of people who have known each other since they were barely adults.

Her college friends have aged into themselves the same way she has. They’re softer around the edges without the stress that came with higher education. One of them is arguing about grilling technique, another is balancing a paper plate and a sweating beer while telling a story Parker has heard at least three times in the last few years. 

She should be listening.

Instead, she’s looking at you.

You stand near the patio, half-turned toward the house, bathed in the amber glow spilling from the kitchen windows. Someone has pressed a bundled weight into your arms, small and wrapped in a pale blanket, and you’d accepted without hesitation, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

You don’t look uncomfortable, you’re not stiff or fumbling or awkward. 

You adjust, settling the baby against your chest as you sway without thinking to the beat of the music.

The baby’s fist curls into your shirt and you smile down at it, and Parker watches as you duck your head and your mouth moves as you say something to the baby with an animated expression on your face. 

“Careful,” a voice says from beside her. “You keep staring like that and people are gonna talk.”

Parker doesn’t look away from you as she responds, “I’m not staring.”

Tre chuckles quietly and bumps his shoulder against hers anyway. He’s holding two beers, handing one over to her without looking. 

“That’s my kid, Ellis,” he says. “You look like you’re planning a heist.”

Parker finally glances at him out of her peripheral. “Relax, I don’t even like kids.”

Tre snorts. “Yeah? Coulda fooled me.”

Across the yard, Hallie sets something on the patio table, keeping half an eye on you holding her baby the way all parents do – alert, and trying to hover without hovering. But she doesn’t move to take the baby back. You’ve gotten comfortable too easily, the sway of your body is absentminded and rhythmic.

Tre follows Parker’s line of sight to you.

“She looks real good with one, though,” he says casually. “A natural.”

The agreement leaves Parker before she can stop it. “Yeah,” she says softly.

Tre goes quiet. 

Parker feels it a second too late, the way it sounded. Intrigued instead of dismissive.

He turns his head slowly. “You two next?”

It’s meant as a joke, the same kind that’s been lobbed around her friend group for years. He isn’t the first to make jokes about Parker having kids. 

She opens her mouth to say something dry, something deflecting. Something that fits the version of her that her friends know and expect.

But then you laugh at something the baby does and the sound cuts through her like a wire pulled tight. 

The baby’s fist is still tangled in the front of your shirt, and your hand is spread instinctively over its back.

You look…

God, you look right. 

“C’mon,” Tre nudges her again with a laugh. “You’d be a scary PTA mom.”

Parker’s jaw sets. “I’d never survive the bake sales,” she mutters.

But she doesn’t say no.

Try studies her for another moment then tsks as he looks away, apparently satisfied with whatever it is he thinks he’s seen. 

“Hallie would lose her damn mind if she heard you even considering it,” he says. “She’s already planning playdates with babies that don’t even exist.”

Parker doesn’t answer because she isn’t thinking about playdates. She’s thinking about you, about the curve of your hands holding that baby, about the warmth in your face right now, about the way you adjust your stance without thinking to accommodate that baby.

About what you would look like –

She swallows hard.

No.

She takes a drink of her beer instead.

Across the yard, Hallie finally comes to reclaim her baby. You hand the bundle back with visible reluctance, but the smile lingering on your face. 

The rest of the party is a blur.

Parker answers questions on autopilot. She laughs in the right places, she corrects someone’s wildly inaccurate retelling of a college story, and nods through a half-baked debate about hospital administration policies with her med school friends.

But her attention keeps drifting to you.

To your hands when you gesture, to the way your shirt settles when you sit. To your stomach when you stretch.

Every time someone mentions the baby - sleeping schedules, daycare waitlists, pediatricians - something tightens in her chest instead of recoiling the way it used to.

She doesn’t understand it, nor does she try to. In fact, she tries not to think about it.

By the time you say your goodbyes, the sky is fully dark and the air has cooled.

You slip your hand into hers as you leave your friends’ house and she holds on tighter than usual.

The drive home is weirdly quiet. It’s not awkward or tense, or heavy, just…quiet.

The city lights smear across the windows as you drive. Parker sits in the passenger seat, her elbow braced against the window, clearly lost in thought. 

She hasn’t said much since you left.

You glance at her when you stop at a red, and she’s staring straight ahead.

“You okay?” you ask lightly.

“Yeah.”

Her answer comes too quick. You hum, unconvinced, and turn back to the road.

She’s been like this all evening, distracted and distant in a way that isn’t normal for her. At first you thought it was exhaustion, after all she works nights and she’s been up almost all day. But she doesn’t look tired, she looks like she’s thinking hard.

You catch her looking at you twice in the reflection of the glass. But not at your face, at something lower.

The light turns green and you start to go.

“You’ve been weird since the party,” you say softly. “Did something happen?”

There’s a long pause and she shifts in her seat. 

“No,” she says finally. “…but you looked real good tonight.”

When you pull into the driveway, the quiet is still just as noticeable.

Parker unbuckles her seatbelt but doesn’t get out of the car right away. The light in your kitchen that you always leave on glows from the second-story window and throws a warm cone of yellow light across the hood of the car.

You nudge her knee with yours. “C’mon, doctor.”

Inside, the air still smells a little like the candle you burned that morning. You kick off your shoes near the entryway, dropping your keys into the little ceramic bowl out of habit.

Usually, Parker would reach for you the second you were in the door. Maybe slide an arm around your waist, tug you in for a kiss. But instead, she lingers near the kitchen counter, her hands resting against the edge like she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

You follow her into the kitchen and lean back against the island, watching her.

“Okay,” you say gently. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Nothing.”

You raise an eyebrow. 

“Parker.”

You push off the island and step closer, caging her in against the opposite counter, you body pushed up against hers.

You tilt your head, studying her. “…was it the baby?”

Her shoulders tense up.

There it is.

Your eyes light up with recognition. “I knew it.”

She looks away from you.

“You’ve been weird since the baby,” you go on.

“I have not.”

“You have,” you insist, your hands settling on either side of her waist. “You went so quiet, you even stopped making fun of Tre. That alone was suspicious.”

“I make fun of Tre all the time.”

“Not tonight, you didn’t.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it again, still refusing to look at you.

You grin triumphantly. “Oh my god, it was the baby.”

“It was not the baby.”

You soften, your fingers digging gently into her shirt. “It’s not a crime to think babies are cute.”

Parker’s throat bobs as she swallows, her hands coming up to brush your arms just below your shoulders. Finally, she looks at you, but you watch in real time as her gaze travels from your face, down your neck, over your chest, and finally settles on your stomach. 

Your pulse kicks as you manage a, “What’s this about?”

She closes her eyes and exhales slowly through her nose, like she’s holding herself back from something. 

“It’s about you,” she says quietly. 

That shocks you.

“Me?”

One hand travels from your arm down to your side, before settling low on your abdomen. Her palm flat, the warmth from it heavy even through your shirt, fingers splayed just below your belly button.

Your breath catches in your throat.

Parker leans in until she’s right next to your ear.

“I care about you,” she mutters, “looking like that because of me.”

Oh.

The words are heavier than you’re used to hearing from her. There’s no teasing, no deflection. You feel it low in your belly.

“Are you serious?” you breathe.

Her thumb traces a slow, absent line just below your navel. 

“I can’t stop thinking about it.” Her gaze lifts to yours again, her usually warm brown eyes almost completely swallowed by black, pupils blown with lust. “About puttin’ a baby in you.”

“Parker,” you breathe, moving to stand next to her at the counter, though it doesn’t slow your heart rate back down.

Your deflection doesn’t go unnoticed. Parker’s lips part as her tongue darts out to wet them. 

“You like that?” she husks, watching you practically wither under her gaze as you do your best not to make eye contact with her. 

She moves to stand behind you and now it’s your turn, caged between her body at your back and the counter in front of you. Her hands find your hips and she pulls you back until your ass is flush with her.

“You want me to fill you up?” Her hand travels to your front, holding just under your navel again as she breathes into your ear, “You’d look so good swollen here with my baby.”

You let out a whine as your head tilts back and you grind against her. The heat in your belly has become a flame, her hands traveling over your waist, your hips, like she can already picture it. It’s not one-sided, either, Parker is pushing right back against you, her face buried in your hair just behind your ear, rubbing herself on your ass. 

“You wanna get me pregnant, Parker?”

She freezes behind you. 

Her hips stop moving, hands stop travelling, feet rooted to the floor as you can hear the little gasp she lets out.

“Don’t stop,” you whine, grinding back against her. “You’re gonna make me feel good, aren’t you? Gonna fill me up?”

That does it.

She moves so quick you don’t even register her hands popping the button of your jeans, only when she rips them down your body do you realize how fast she’s moving. With one hand between your shoulderblades, she practically shoves you down onto the counter, the other pulling your jeans and your panties down to your ankles. 

She drops to her knees without warning, burying her face in your pussy from behind. 

The yelp you let out at the sudden pleasure is loud and you’re grateful you have an entire floor to yourselves.

Parker drags her tongue from your clit to your hole, moaning as the taste of you floods her mouth. Her fingers dig into the sides of your thighs as her tongue alternates fucking into you and flicking at your clit and then repeating. 

“Fuck, Parker,” you cry out, your hand reaching back to fist the bun she’s tied her locs into. You know she’ll give you shit for it if you mess up her hair, but you couldn’t care less at this moment as you grind back onto her tongue. 

Her fingers trail up your inner thigh, slick gathering beneath them as she uses it to start circling your clit in tight little circles while her tongue pushes deep into you.

“God, fuck, P -” you choke on your own words as her tongue curls inside of you. “Gonna cum!”

Her mouth works overtime, licking and sucking like she’s starved for you, the circles her fingers were making becoming messy and desperate. 

The heat rises inside you, the burn of your release sending your mind reeling and when you come it’s messy – your thighs shaking desperately around Parker’s head as she pulls away from you, her face shining with your slick.

But she isn’t finished with you, a fact that she makes abundantly clear as she stands, arms wrapping around your middle and hauling you to your bedroom. She’s not gentle as she drops you to the bed haphazardly, and you scramble to rid yourself of the rest of your clothes, desperate to feel her skin against yours.

Your wife strips herself of her own clothes, but you only have a second to appreciate the sharp lines of her body before she’s turned her back to you, digging in a drawer for the strap. She retrieves the harness and deep brown silicone and slips it on in record time, desperation apparent on her face as she climbs onto the bed over you. 

You hold out a hand to her sternum, stopping her. Confusion flashes across her face before you push her down onto her back instead. She nestles comfortably into the pillows, a dark little smirk on her face as you climb on top of her.

You grind down against the fake cock, letting your slit rub over it until the tip bumps your clit deliciously. 

Parker groans at the sight, gripping your hips with bruising strength and pulling you up just enough to position the tip at your entrance before slowly pulling you down onto her.

Your head tilts back and you let out a sound that’s half-moan, half-sigh. Despite how wet you are, the stretch is overwhelming, the foreplay not opening you up enough for the size of Parker’s strap. Still, you slide down carefully until you’re fully seated on her, your lips parted and breath heavy as you try your best to focus on adjusting to the size with patience you don’t have.

Once the sting gives way to the feeling of fullness, you start to move. Alternating between circles with your hips and fully sliding up and down along the silicone, you’re slow as you search for that spot inside you, the one Parker always seems to find so easily.

“Fuck, baby, that’s it.”

Speaking of Parker, she lays below you, still holding onto your hips but not guiding you, letting you have full control. 

Your teeth catch your bottom lip as you struggle to find it, feeling good but not good enough, not as good as Parker fucks you. You whine loudly, your hands kneading at Parker’s breasts below you even as she starts to lift her hips to meet yours, fucking up into you.

The moment she puts in the effort, the strap rams into that spot immediately and your vision nearly whites out. You cry out loudly, your hips beginning to cant back and forth as you find a rhythm that keeps the silicone nudging that spot over and over.

“Fuck!” you moan, head still thrown back as that coil begins to pull taught in your belly once more. “Put a baby in me, please, Parker -”

You hear the gasp from underneath you, and it’s followed by a harsh grip on your waist as Parker manages to flip the two of you over without sliding out of you. You land on your stomach and Parker shoves her pillow under your hips for leverage.

She grips your ass, spreading you wide to get a good view of the faux cock sliding in and out of your cunt before setting a brutal pace.

“Takin’ it so good, gonna fill this pussy up,” she pants, somehow managing to keep her pace up and talk at the same time. The sight is driving Parker feral, dirty words beginning to flow out of her mouth like water. “You’re gonna look so good all swollen and full of me.”

Her words send shivers up your spine, pussy clenching tightly around the strap as a white ring begins to form around the base every time she pulls out. 

“Gonna be the prettiest baby mama I’ve ever seen.” Parker accentuates her words with a sharp smack on your ass, the crack echoing through the room accompanied by your squeal.

Her hips begin to stutter, momentum faltering just a fraction. Her clit has been grinding against the bumpher relentlessly, driving her toward her own orgasm, and she’s practically doubled over you, trying to force an orgasm out of you before cumming herself. 

“C’mon, baby,” Parker pants, pulling you back to meet her thrusts. “You’re gonna cum for me one more time, and then I’m gonna fill this pussy up.”

The movement from being pulled back and forth has your clit rubbing against Parker’s pillow underneath you and the slick sounds coming from between your legs grow louder as she drills into you at an unrelenting pace. 

Your body begins to shake uncontrollably as you cum again and you can’t stop the broken “Oh my god!” that falls loudly from your lips.

Parker’s thrusts never falter, the pace brutal as she continues to fuck into you, chasing the feeling of the silicone against her clit. 

“Fuuuuuck, baby, right there,” she groans, her thrusts dissolving into grinding as she nears her own edge. “Gonna – put a baby in you -”

It doesn’t take long before her legs lock up as her own orgasm overtakes her, grinding into the bumpher and nudging the tip of the strap into that spot inside you as overstimulation rears its head. 

She hovers above you, catching her breath, before collapsing onto the bed next to you, her chest heaving with exertion. 

Her attention is caught when she hears your muffled voice coming from your face-down form next to her.

“What?”

You lift your head just enough for her to see your exhausted grin as you let out a weak chuckle, “Think it worked?”

Parker huffs a breathless laugh. 

“Ask me again in nine months.”

➶❥➶❥➶

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“sooo, tonight’s date. well, i met him at whole foods. we were on the produce aisle and he approached me to ask which herb i think goes better with fish: cilantro or parsley – obviously, cilantro. anyways, we talked a lot and he was super funny and charming and he asked me out! the only thing is that he’s younger than me for like, a few years. make it like fifteen.” you huffed. “yeah, he’s twenty five. the youngest up until now is this whole… thing we are doing. but he seems nice, so here’s to hoping it goes well!” you downed (without wincing) a shot of tequila for some liquid courage and wrapped the video. “i’ll be back soon with all the after date deets. bye!”

once you turned off the camera, you quickly edited the video and posted it. you grabbed your keys and left, but not after checking yourself out in the mirror one last time. 

if you had told twenty year old you that her forty year old self would be divorced and recording dating content for an app called tiktok, she would have laughed in your face and asked “what the fuck is that?”

it still seems absurd to you now, six months after everything had started, but somehow, you feel more alive than you have felt in years. 

paul, your ex husband, and you met when you were twenty, started dating when you were twenty one and married a couple of weeks before you turned twenty four. the two of you met during college, while you were an undergraduate in molecular biophysics and biochemistry and he was getting his masters in chemical engineering. against all odds, your relationship was perfect for most of the eighteen years it lasted. paul was funny and attentive, did everything he could to give you the best, always pampering you and praising you for your hard work. but things started to go south somewhere around two years ago. all of a sudden, paul started to get distant, arriving late from work and snapping at you for nothing and apologising profusely when he realised what he had done, showering you in gifts as if they would fix things and make anything better, and soon, a vicious cycle was created. 

the end came on a warm summer evening and you remember it perfectly. the day was spent basking in the sun by the pool’s edge, occasionally dipping inside the warm water. paul and you had invited some friends over for a barbecue and that day had actually gone alright. he was the sweetest he had been to you in a while, almost a mirror image of that guy that you had fallen in love with eighteen years before. paul was fun again, had the time of his life grilling and talking everyone’s ears off, you even had made his favourite desert, apricot cheesecake, and made sure the guests’ cups were always full.

to the outsider, you were the picture perfect couple. 

but later that evening, after things calmed down and everyone had left, shit hit the fan.

with a silk robe still draped around your body, fresh out of the shower and with the steam of your en-suite bathroom sneaking into your bedroom, you moisturised your legs with your favourite body oil when paul said “you know, i was reading about polyamory and i think we should open our relationship.” 

“excuse me?” you twisted the lid back on and turned to him. 

“yeah, babe. we open the relationship and i get to go out and meet other women. it would be good for us.”

you shook your head, blinked a couple of times and licked your lips trying to make sense of what he was saying and to not strangle him – he is definitely not worth going to jail. “you want to meet other women…” you spoke and nodded slowly, your head bobbing almost owlish. “and what about me?”

he shrugged. “it’s not like you’re going to find other men to date you.”

you stared at him. 

this had been the first time paul commented negatively about your appearance after all those years together. in fact, paul had always said that what attracted you to him was how you were not the typical stick thin girl he was used to see around the campus; your curves filled out your clothes well, you had softness around your stomach, thick thighs, a pair of breasts to die for and an ass that made heads turn wherever you walked by. 

you had stopped listening to paul after that, only realising he was still speaking when the snort you let out interrupted him. you dropped the leg you had propped on your bed and aggressively gathered your pillows and blanket and started to make your way to the guest room. paul tried to stop you, saying a “baby, i didn’t–“ that you abruptly interrupted again as you yanked your hand back and told him to quit it.

that night, you didn’t cry yourself to sleep. 

no matter how strong the pain on your chest was, how you felt like you were a couple steps away from dying of heartbreak, and how betrayed you felt, you refused to cry over a man. 

you called in sick at work the next morning, texted your best friend grace as soon as paul left for his office, asking her to come help you pack your stuff because you were leaving him, and explained everything to her while you packed your belongings in cardboard boxes and black trash bags. 

it felt surreal, eighteen years of a life built together thrown away because he wasn’t man enough to be honest about his feelings and of how little he thought of you. with your keys left on the kitchen counter, together with a note that said that your lawyers would be contacting his to sort out the divorce papers, you said goodbye to your past life and never looked back.

surprisingly, paul was very cooperative. signed the divorced papers the moment they were served to him, never questioning one period nor a comma on the document. he was the one to initiate the formalities of the pre-nup, selling and sharing everything you acquired together after all those years as a couple – just like the agreement mandated – without budging. as much as you were thankful for him to be acting without a big fuss, the way he gave up so easily on your shared life left you with a sour taste in your mouth. 

what did end up proving to be difficult was navigating life as a newly divorced thirty nine year old. 

it is not like you were one of those women that completely isolated themselves after marriage. truth is that you had a very active life besides the one you shared with paul. you had a prolific career as a professor in the biology course at carnegie mellon university, one you shared your attention with the role of food engineer in a bustling local brewery owned by one of your best friends from college, you went to the gym and did pilates regularly, had your hobbies and went out with friends at least twice a month. but whether you liked it or not, almost twenty years beside someone isn’t something you easily forget over night.

you missed having someone to come back to at the end of the day, missed having someone to share the good and the bad days, missed hearing the shower running from the other room while you read in bed, missed the woody smell his cologne would leave in the sheets and missed the feeling of a warm body by your side when you went to sleep. 

the first two months were rough. you cried whenever you were alone – which, thankfully, wasn’t that many hours of your day and sleep came hard to you at night. some days you felt like a zombie, doing chores on auto pilot because they were already ingrained in your brain.

until one day, where you felt tired of feeling pity for yourself and probably too horny for your vibrator’s sake, a video of a girl in her twenties showed up on your for you page. she was getting ready for a date with a girl she met rock climbing and you gave her page a look, only to find similar videos of her getting ready and others talking about how the dates went. you got so immersed by her content that you scrolled so far back the you found the first video she posted, where she talked about starting an experiment to force herself to put herself out there. after years of bullying and awful experiences in high school that still haunted her in college, she decided she had had enough and wanted to live life like she deserved it.  

her comments were filled with girls around the same age as her, congratulating her and thanking her for normalising the situation and inspiring them to do the same, even some older women saying they wished they had had her strength when they were her age. 

you were never one for social media. yeah, you had some of them, all profiles privated, following and being followed by your close friends and family only, enough to just keep up with their lives. but the idea lingered in your head for days. what if you did the same as an older woman who hasn’t been out there in a while and just left a long term relationship? you figured that there would be other women going through the same and that it would probably be a good bonding experience. so you called grace, your best friend, the same one who helped you get your shit together and leave paul, who also had divorced a few years back, and told her about your plan. she loved the idea, and was the one to download all known dating apps to your phone and set your profile that night over drinks and laughter. 

four months later, you had been to several dates and counting. 

of course, you had your rules too. they were simple: no picking you up, you would meet them where you had agreed on. one date per guy only, maybe a second one if he really did it for you (none did until now). no bringing men back to your place – if sex was on the table, either go back to his or a hotel. and, most importantly, no strings attached. 

thankfully, everything had been working perfectly. 

your date was already at the table when you arrived at the factory. he was a gentleman, got up to greet you and pulled your seat and even ordered for you. but it didn’t take long for things to go south. he was the “me” type. talked about himself all of the time, going on and on about how he made his first million at twenty two with some internet scam that he promised was most definitely legal. when he actually asked about you, he interrupted you every ten seconds to say something about him that, in his mind, related to what you were sharing. 

shit really hit the fan the moment the waiter set you plates on the table. 

“you know, i’ve never gone out with one of you before.” he said mid chew. another ick to the ever growing list of icks you were ticking on your head. 

you stopped cutting your steak and squinted your eyes. “one of me?”

“yeah, fat girls.”

the air left your lungs like a punch. “oh.”

“mhm.” he hummed and barely swallowed before continuing his tirade. “my friends kept telling me how well you guys fuck, especially older ones like you.”

you let out the ugliest indignant laugh of your life, grabbed your purse, fishing your wallet and a couple of hundred dollar bills from it, way more than enough to pay for your meal and his, and threw them on the table.

“okay, i really don’t need this right now. have a nice dinner!” you told him. 

“where are you–“

“don’t!” you interrupted the idiot as you made your way out. 

a surprisingly chilly-for-summer breeze hit your face and you finally let out the breath you didn’t know you were holding. 

“oh my god. what the actual fuck.” you muttered to yourself. you laughed, more out of shock and feeling indignant about what just happened than finding it funny, as you went to find your car in the parking lot.

the shaky breath you took helped realisation dawn on you the moment you sat behind the driver’s seat. you just had gone through one of the most fucked up encounters of your life.

yes, you were fully aware your body is one you seldom find in magazine covers and now, in the age of ozempic, it is being more and more demonised. but you were also aware of your beauty, of how it was your body that helped you fight your fights and love the ones you love. so you refused to be seen as an experiment, refused to be seen as a toy for a twenty something dweeb to try his fantasies on.  

this is not how you expected to end your night, and you really didn’t want to waste a good outfit by going home before you had planned. you stared at the people walking around the street, couples, groups of friends and families all making their way somewhere, searching for a fun friday evening. 

the door of the dingy dive bar across the street opened and a couple around your age, holding hands and smiling, walked out. the sound of bruce springsteen coming out of the jukebox followed them out and called you in. it seemed lively enough and exactly what you needed, so with a muttered “fuck it”, you jumped out of your car and made your way across the street.

some good, cheap booze, nice music and a chat with the bartender seemed like the perfect ending for a disastrous night. 

the atmosphere engulfed you the moment you stepped your foot inside the bar. low yellow lights, the smell of beer and laughter followed you as you made your way to the counter. sitting on the only available seat, between a girl talking excitedly to her friend and a lone older gentleman with more salt than pepper hair, you flagged the bartender. 

“what’s your poison, sweetheart?” the charming barkeeper asked. 

“a shot of tequila and some whiskey, please.” you smiled at him. “oh, neat!”

he looked at you surprised, but nodded and went to get your drinks anyway. 

“what is so bad that a pretty girl like you wants to black out on a nice friday evening?” the man that sat next to you asked. he had finally looked your way and the sight you were met with wasn’t one you were expecting; he was extremely handsome.

a few years older than you, thin lips that looked strangely soft, nice hazel eyes that stared at you almost uncomfortably. up close, you could see clearer that his hair was actually sugar and cinnamon, the specks of auburn in the sea of grey told you that he was a ginger at heart, and the same colours could be found on his few days old stubble. oh, and yeah, his arms filled out his black t-shirt a little too well for your liking. 

he seemed to have an attitude to him, just the right amount of cockiness to be hot and not annoying. you could definitely see yourself riding him at the end of the night if he was the one you had gone on a date with. 

before you could answer him, the bartender came back with your drinks, setting both in front of you with a wink. 

you saw your bar top neighbour frown but tried to not think any of it, choosing to down your shot of tequila and wash it with a sip of whiskey first. 

“overall or just tonight?” you turned to him. “by the way, i’m–“ you gave him your name. 

“jack.” he shook the hand you had extended to him. “overall. i’ve got time.”

“okay.” you nodded and, for some reason, you told him everything. from paul’s proposition, to the divorce being finalized a day before your birthday, about the dates (of course you didn’t tell him about the tiktoks or details like your rules), and about tonight.

he was actually interested in what you had to say, looked at you while you spoke, barely interrupted you, only to ask about something he didn’t fully understand and even threw a few mhms to tell you he was paying attention. 

“and that’s why i’m here now and not across the street on my date.” you finished your rant with a sigh. 

jack gave you a slow up down that made you shiver. “he wouldn’t know what to do with you.”

“and you would?” you countered, the whiskey making you feel even bolder than usual. 

jack’s answer came in the form of a huff and a smirk, silenced by the sip he took of his own glass of whiskey. 

you studied him for a bit, eyes lingering on his crows feet, trailing down his face, beautiful toned and freckled arm, abruptly stopping on the huge wedding band on his, rather thick, finger. you turned, looked away and drank some more of your whiskey to deflect. 

“the wife isn’t going to be mad you’re out late in a bar?” you tried to go on another route, pretend you just didn’t flirt with a married man. 

“we can pull out the ouija board and ask her, but i think she’d like to know i’m having fun with someone nice.” he said it so naturally one would think he just told you she was waiting for him at home. 

“oh god.” you frowned and jack had the gall to smirk at your expression. but you barely noticed it as something tightened in your chest with his confession. “how long, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“two years.”

you exhaled and squeezed his forearm (in solidarity, obviously) as you said “i’m sorry.”

“so, what’s the idiot’s name?” he asked, changing the subject like an expert. 

you shook your head and looked down at your lap as if you were trying to hide something. jack looked at you with amusement in his eyes when you murmured something he didn’t quite catch. 

“gotta speak louder, sweets, the music is loud and my hearing is not the best.”

“paul.” you winced. “his name is paul.”

jack started laughing, loud enough that other patrons turned to look at you two. you nudged his thigh and told him to stop. 

“he has your ex’s name?!”

“yeah, i know, ok? i really didn’t think this through, maybe it’s a sign of the universe or some entity telling me that pauls are the spawns of satan or something.”

jack snorted. “have you ever had any news of paul number one?”

“last thing i heard was that he had knocked up a random twenty two year old girl he was hooking up with.” you shrugged. 

“ooof. you have any children with him?”

“nope, we never wanted any. just a cat that kind of hates him to be honest.” you giggled. “she’s my baby.” jack smiled at you and you had to hold it together so you wouldn’t melt. “what about you? what brings you here today?”

“i’m doctor.”

“got it. tough shift?”

“make it tough twenty years.”

“wanna share?” you smiled at him and mimicked his words. “i’ve got time.”

surprisingly, jack told you everything. about going to afghanistan and losing his leg, about coming back to the states and becoming a doctor, about his wife falling ill and dying, about how some shifts are harder than the others, everything. 

“today… today was just tiring, you know? had to accompany the SWAT, got grazed by a–“ you didn’t mean to, really, but you have what people call an “expressive face with a life of its own” and without you even noticing, you scrunched your features at the mention of the police force. “what?” jack asked. 

“on top of all that, you’re a cop?”

he shook his head and drank some more of his whiskey before continuing. “not a cop, sweetheart. i’m a tactical medic that accompanies the SWAT team in case they need medical support in the field.”

you snorted into your cup of coke – you had changed drinks some time ago, together with the absurd portion of buffalo wings and french fries that jack insisted on ordering after being aware that you were downing straight whiskey on an empty stomach. also because you were a responsible woman and knew you had to sober up so you could drive back home – and took a large sip before saying “sounds like a cop to me.”

he leaned closer to you and whispered “what happened to ‘fuck the police’, huh?”

you laughed as he pulled back. “ACAB, baby. and is this you admitting you are a cop?”

he shook his head again, that playful smile still present on his face when he told you once again that he wasn’t a cop. “my therapist told me i needed a hobby.”

you gave him a wide-eyed, bewildered look. “cooking is a hobby, knitting is a hobby, skating is a fucking hobby, not doing the same thing you’ve been doing for most of your life, with the added bonus of guns firing for some adrenaline.” 

jack gave you an earnest smile. “is it bad that i’m happy your date failed?”

“no. i really liked meeting you too.”

“good.”

as if on cue, your phone’s screen lit up with a text from grace, asking if everything was ok and if you had already gotten home. it also made you notice that it was almost one thirty in the morning, meaning you had been talking to jack for almost five hours. 

“is everything ok?” he asked. 

“mhm. it’s just my friend checking in on me.” you flagged the bartender. “it’s kinda late, i should probably go home.”

“yeah,” he checked his watch. “you should. are you good to drive?”

you nodded. “could you close my tab, please?” you asked the bartender when he arrived.

jack stopped him, telling him to add your drinks to his tab. “i’m gonna take her to her car and come back.”

“no problem, abbot.” the bartender said, finger gun shooting him. 

jack draped his jacket over you the moment you set foot out of the door. the short walk to your car was made in silence, just appreciating the little time together you had left. 

“thank you. for walking me out and for saving my night.” you offered him a shy smile and gave him his jacket back. 

“thank you for letting me.” he offered back. opening the palm of his hand to you, he said “give me your phone.”

“why?” you asked, but gave him the device anyway. 

jack opened the phone app, created a new contact and added his number on it. “text me when you get home.”

“okay, i will.” he gave you the phone back and you saw that his contact name was “jack from the bar”. it made you snort. 

“good. and, if you are up to it, i’d love to take you out on a real date.”

“i’d love to.” you hopped on your car. “bye, jack.”

“bye, sweetheart.” he closed the door for you. “drive safe.”

the drive back home was fast. given that the city was found to be asleep for long when you finally left the bar, the drive that, on a normal pittsburgh traffic, would have lasted at least forty minutes, was done in ten.

marie, your fluffy, blue-green eyed cat greeted you at the door, loudly complaining about how you left her alone for some subpar man. she went back to the top of her cat tower when she got bored of your pets, which didn’t take long to, and you made your way to your kitchen to grab some water. 

as requested by jack, you shot him a quick “i’m home” text, to which you got a reply seconds later, one that said “sleep well, sweetheart.”

still buzzing with the night’s events, you propped your phone against your pastel blue smeg mixer and pressed record. 

“hey guys…” your voice was tired now, a big contrast from the chirpy one you had on the video you recorded and posted hours before. “ it’s almost two in the morning and the date was… something.” you stopped again, snorted and shook your head, and took another sip of water as if the liquid would make the story you were about to tell less worse. “i’m not going to beat it around the bush. it was awful.” you laughed.

“he was a gentleman until the moment i sat down at the table. greeted me, pulled the seat so i could sit down and even ordered for me. then he went on that well-known “me!” rant about how great he was and how he was a self-made millionaire at such a young age. then, the waiter set our plates down…” you took a deep breath and a mirthless laugh left your lips. “and he, for some reason, thought it would be nice to say that the had never been with a fat woman before, that his friends kept telling him, and i quote ‘they fuck well, especially older ones like you.’ i’ve never gotten up and left a date so fast in my life!”

“but you guys know i don’t like to waste a good outfit.” the easiest smile you had in your whole life came to your lips and the tone of your voice changed to something much sweeter, softer. “and i made my way to a dive bar across the street and ended up meeting someone there. he’s sitting there at the counter, drinking because he’s a doctor and had a shitty day too. he was actually the one to engage in conversation first, and i don’t even know what to tell you guys, but he is the best person i’ve met in a while. i actually spent like, five hours straight talking to him. we just sat there, he ordered this ridiculous amount of buffalo wings and fries because he knew i left the date from hell without dinner, and we just talked. talked and talked and talked about everything. he’s funny and charming and quick witted,” you stopped and let out a low whiny laugh and whispered the first few words like it was a secret.

“and he’s so hot. he’s so fucking hot it’s ridiculous. he’s not that tall, an alright height, grey hair, beautiful hazel eyes that felt like he was staring into my soul, thick arms and thick thighs that is making me lightheaded just thinking about them. anyways, he walked me into my car, gave me his phone number and actually told me to text him telling him when i got home and that he wants to go on a date with me if i’m in the mood.” you looked at the time again, it was ten past two in the morning and your feet were trying to kill you. “well, gotta to to sleep! bye!”

you stopped the recording and posted the video without even editing it, made your way to your bathroom for a much needed shower before falling asleep. 

40andthriving🩵| post date with the twenty something rambles. this is not edited and i’m so sorry about the length. will deal with it when i wake up (or not) imsotired | girl, what the fuck? ew. at least you got a hot doctor in the end. (PLEASE, tell me you are going on a date with him!!!) user802764277193701 | i’d have stabbed his hand before leaving           → 40andthriving🩵| i still have to feed marie, but sure… santos.trin | told you you should join us on the lesbian side, we’d treat you so much better. but i’m happy you found your silver fox doctor or whatever 🙄           → 40andthriving🩵| love you too, trinity. and who said i’ve never been with a woman?                     → santos.trin | are you fucking serious?                               → 40andthriving🩵| 🤫 sophiesoph | thank fuck everything worked out in the end!  theegraceadams | girl, you better call me when you wake up!!!

you woke up around ten that morning to your phone blowing up with texts and missed calls from grace. after hearing an earful from her and reassuring your friend that everything was ok, you agreed to go out for brunch to catch up. 

you were about to head to the shower when your phone pinged again. it made you sigh, thinking it was grace starting her rants once again, but the sight of a new contact name made you smile. 

jack from the bar: Good Morning. How are you feeling this morning? Any hangover? sent: morning, jack. i’m pretty good! surprisingly, no hangovers sent: you? jack from the bar: Better now. Just wanted to check in on you. Have a good weekend, sweetheart.  sent: you too, jack 😊

grace parked beside you the moment you hopped out of your car. as you expected, your “good morning” was barely out when she started questioning what happened the previous night. you told her to calm down and that you were only telling her what happened after you scored a table and ordered your usual. 

“girl, so what?!” grace said after you spilled the happenings of the five hour impromptu encounter you had, and finished the last of her third mimosa. “from what you’ve just told me, he’s hot enough to be on a calvin klein ad and he clearly cares about you. what guy would want to know if a woman he just met got home ok and texts her the next morning asking how she’s doing?” grace flagged the waiter and ordered her fourth mimosa. you made a mental note for it to be her last. “so what if he has a questionable hobby?”

you scrunched your nose at the thought. 

“babe, please! isn’t your rules ‘one date only’ and ‘no strings attached’? just go for it, have the time of your life and go for your next one. maybe you should go out with women too like that trinity girl that comments in all of your videos suggested.”

“yeah, you’re right.” you agreed, but a little voice that you were trying to ignore told you that it would be hard to follow the one date one/no strings attached rule with jack.

today’s shift was one for the books. all trinity wanted was for her to grab her stuff, dennis decide if he was going home with her or meet amy at the farm, order the greasiest take out she could think of and sleep. and not dream of yolanda, if possible. 

once again, yolanda and her had a fight over the status of their relationship, and, to make things better, yolanda flirted with the new ortho resident right in front of her. 

the night shift started to trickle in. ellis stopped by where trinity was charting to check out on her. five minutes later, came in shen with his watered down cup of dunkin’ and, not long after, abbot arrived.

there was something different about him. abbot looked… lighter? well rested? it would make sense knowing it was his day off yesterday, but everyone knows jack abbot doesn’t rest. trinity started at the night shift attending, noticed how his already playful demeanour seemed more light hearted, how easily he countered robby’s old man grunts with even stupider jokes, making the day shift attending sigh exasperatedly. 

an alert went off on trinity’s head, and the video she watched earlier that morning on her way to the PTMC popped in her head. 

“why are you staring at dr. abbot like that?” dennis asked. “oh my god, do you want to sleep with him to get back on garcia?”

“what the hell, fuckleberry? no!” trinity’s face was full of disgust. “it’s just–“

“what’s going on?” victoria questioned. 

“trinity fought with garcia again and now she’s eyeing dr. abbot. i think she wants him.” dennis answered before trinity could say anything. she slapped the back of his head. 

“abbot? ew! go for ellis.” victoria added. 

“i swear to fucking god, you two.” santos pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. she fished her phone in her scrub’s pocket and opened her favourite influencer’s tiktok’s profile, clicked on her latest video and turned the device to her friends. 

“oh, who is this? she’s hot.” vic asked as she paid attention to the video. 

“just it’s this influencer trinity has a crush on.” dennis earned himself another slap in the back of his head. 

“i don’t have a crush on her, i just think she’s cool. now watch the fucking video.”

the video ended and victoria gave her the phone back. “it fucking sucks what happened to her but i don’t get what this has to do with anything.”

trinity looked at her friends like they were missing the most obvious clue. and they were.

“the ‘hot doctor’” trinity added air quotes for effect, “she’s talking about is abbot.” 

dennis looked at her and sighed. “i think that’s a stretch, trin.”

“no, look at him!” trinity nodded in his direction. “he’s more abbot than usual. he even seems happy and well rested.”

it was victoria’s turn to contradict her. “i mean, how many silver fox doctors are there in pittsburgh? and maybe he finally had a good night of sleep.”

“oh my god, fine!”

as if on cue, abbot passed by them, flicking trinity’s ponytail as he said “time for rounds, kids.”

saturday turned into sunday, that turned into monday and monday turned into tuesday. 

wednesday arrived and grace’s words still echoed in your head like they did all weekend; she was right, you should ask jack out. it was just a date, a single one, and you weren’t going to see him again anyway. you already had been bending all of your personal-non-experiment rules with this very important social investigation, what is another one, right?

you promised yourself you would text him, you did, but you got so caught up with life that you simply didn’t have the time nor remembered to. johnny was releasing a new beer this week and you had been spending more time than usual at the brewery. a few setbacks happened along the way, but nothing you, the expert, couldn’t deal with. and, of course, you still had your job at carnegie and everything that came with being a member of the faculty. 

and that is why you spent a perfect wednesday evening in bed grading papers. 

the sound of your phone vibrating next to you was a welcome and much needed distraction after hours spent staring at your laptop’s screen. it was a few minutes past nine when your screen lit up telling you that “jack from the bar” was calling. just the sight of his name across the device was enough to have goosebumps erupt on your skin and have you question all of your rules. 

something flared up in your stomach. it wasn’t butterflies, no, but something more positive than that. to you, butterflies meant anxiety, and what you were feeling was something more akin to excitement and longing. the phone had to shrill a fourth time for you to wake up from your daydream and pick it up. 

“hey, jack from the bar! what do i owe you the pleasure?” you wanted to cringe with the obviously fake nonchalant tone that came out of your mouth. jack laughed on the other side of the phone and that made you feel a bit less self conscious. 

“are you ok? you sound a bit distant.”

you shook your head and brought the phone closer to you, laying it on your chest. “yeah, i’m on speaker. just  doing some late night work.”

“did i get you on a bad time? i can call you back tomorrow.” jack sounded concerned. 

“no! no. i’m grading some papers and if i read the word salmonella once again, i think i might self combust.”

jack laughed and it got a few chuckles out of you too. “that bad, huh?”

“more of a tough week, actually?”

jack groaned on the other side and the sounds of fabric rustling hit your ear, it sounded like he was sitting. “wanna talk about it?”

“oh, it’s just work stuff. friday is launch day at the brewery, so i’ve been working overtime there. had a batch go to waste on monday because of contamination – that, by the way, i have no idea how it happened and i have a feeling people are hiding the reason from me – but thank god it’s already solved. and, of course, the university and everything that comes with being a professor.”

“and salmonella has something to do with it? should i be worried?” he asked playfully. 

“no, no worrying. no salmonella involved. it wasn’t exactly something that could be harmful to humans, the bacteria basically just ate the yeast and killed it, so the beer was a mess and it came out all wrong. we had to clean out all of our tanks, the lab and all the tools we use and start over. that takes us at least a whole working day .”

“ooof, and what about carnegie?”

“oh, i’m teaching foodborne illnesses and how to prevent it. basically making your job a bit easier for you, you know?” you joked. 

“really?” he sounded gleeful and a smile spread across your face. “thank you for your service, professor.”

“no problem, jack from the bar.” you suppressed a yawn and asked him “what about you? slow night?”

“not exactly, but i just had a couple of minutes to spare and wanted to talk to you.”

“oh.” it left your lips before you could think about it. 

“yeah,” jack chuckled. “are you do–“ jack was cut off by a female voice shouting at him. the only words you could make out was “multiple MVC” and “three minutes”. jack asked her to bring him a gown and got back to you with a sigh. “fuck, i’m sorry. i have a golden weekend this week and wanted to know if you are free this saturday. i’d love to take you out for dinner. on a real, proper date.”

“yeah, yeah! i’d love to!”

“great, sweetheart. i’ll text you with the details. hope everything goes well with the beer and the papers. loved talking to you. bye!”

“thanks. bye, jack!”

you turned off the call and, for some reason, the chat gave you enough will power to finish grading the papers. 

jack and you kept in touch throughout thursday and friday. he was just as charming through text as he was that night at the bar. jack texted you good morning, asked what you were supposed to do that day and how it was going and effortlessly made jokes that made your co-workers side-eyed you when a easy laugh left your lips without a warning.

he also asked a lot of questions; jack was clearly making an effort in trying to get to know you and find things in common to plan the date. 

it was around ten in the morning of a very sunny saturday when he finally told you where you were going. jack greeted you like usual, asked how your morning was going and if you had slept well and told you about his shift and one of shen’s shenanigans. 

jack from the bar: The Carnegie is hosting the 59th International. I was thinking we could take a look and visit the Butterjoint for dinner and drinks. What do you think?  sent: perfect! i’m dying to visit the exhibit and butterjoint has the best old fashioned in pittsburgh  jack from the bar: An Old Fashioned drinker? You really are a woman after my heart, huh?

the flirting made you smile and your brain short circuit at the same time. as if he sensed your mild panic, or maybe he just needed to finish his train of thought, jack sent another text.

jack from the bar: Pick you up at six? sent: six is fine, but i’d rather meet you there jack from the bar: Of course, sweetheart. See you there! sent: see ya

“hey, guys!” you sat down by your vanity with a light robe around your body, your AC on and a cup of ice cold tea on your hand. marie jumped on your lap the moment you sat down and you didn’t dare to take her out of her spot. “as you can probably guess, i’ve got another date. and yes, it’s with the hot doctor from the bar.”

you grabbed your favourite concealer, dabbed some on the back of your hand, warmed it with a brush and started applying it on a few specific spots. “not explaining my base routine because it’s the same as usual, same products. we don’t do over consumption here. i’m going for concealer only on a few spots i want to cover because it’s so hot today and i can’t deal with a bunch of sticky stuff on my face.” you made an ugly face when you realised how that sounded.

“anyway! hot doctor– i’m gonna call him mcsteamy because he’s a hot silver fox and we need an alias for him. mcsteamy called me on wednesday – yes, he called me, and asked me on a date. we’ve been texting back and forth ever since, and guys… he’s sooo nice. just as fun as he was that day at the bar. he’s super attentive and actually took time to get to know me, which i know it’s the bare minimum, but after the last two dates i’ve had? that’s growth.” you set the blush brush down and started rummaging through your drawer for the shimmery eyeshadow that made your eyes pop. 

“so he planned a museum date and drinks after, and you guys know that those are my favourite. hold on, i’ll be back.” you stopped recording and went to get dressed. 

“alright, so dress is vintage bluemarine, i think? got it second hand in NYC,” you said, showing off the midi pink, flowery dress that contrasted beautifully with your skin. “green tabi flats because we are going to walk a lot and green purse to match, no brand, got it at the flea market in florence.”

you sat back down by your vanity, this time a bit closer to your phone. silenced engulfed you for a couple of seconds longer than needed as your feelings towards the date started to make sense. “i’m not nervous, which is a first in these four months. it… i don’t know, it feels right?” you shook your head. “i know how this sounds, there’s no expectations here and the rules still stand, obviously, but it feels like i won’t have any surprises, you know? maybe because we’ve already talked a lot last week at the bar. and i know that that doesn’t mean anything, but i don’t know, there’s something about mcdreamy that feels like i’m going to have a good time. as usual, i’ll be back in a few with the run down. bye!”

40andthriving🩵| pre date with the bar’s silver fox doc rambles. i have a feeling we won’t have a post date horror story this time. 🤞 santos.trin | you got your she/they shooters by your side!!!           → 40andthriving🩵| thank you!!!                     → user802764277193701 | yep, the knife is ready…                               → 40andthriving🩵| girl…  justmyluck91 | sending you good date vibes ✨✨✨ theegraceadams | love you, bestie! hope it goes amazing!!!           → 40andthriving🩵| love you 🩵🩵🩵

jack was already waiting for you by the carnegie’s entrance hall with both of your tickets in hand when you arrived. he was a vision, dark denim pants that hugged his thighs so well that you didn’t have to imagine what was underneath, and the black polo shirt that he insisted on leaving a couple of buttons undone also didn’t disappoint, you could clearly see the outline of his muscular chest and arms and a teasing bit of his chest hair.

the once-over jack gave you when you were finally by his side made goosebumps rise on your skin; the look he gave you made you feel like a prey who met her predator, it made you feel like you were about to be eaten alive in the most delicious way.

or like the hottest person in the building. 

“good to see you, sweetheart.” jack said as he hugged you tight, his left hand squeezed your waist when he kissed your cheek. 

“you too, jack. have you been waiting long?”

“no, but you’re worth any wait.” he said and winked at you, making you shake your head and playfully roll your eyes. 

he lifted the tickets and asked “shall we?”

you nodded yes and jack guided with his hand on the small of your back as you walked the halls of the carnegie museum of art. strangely – or maybe not, but you were unwilling to admit – it really felt right. jack asked how your day had gone, if everything went alright with the launch of the beer (it did). you had to cancel a couple of classes and stay at the brewery past midnight that last thursday, but everything was a success – jack even joked that he would take his friend robby there on a date. apparently, the man was a fan of your work. 

“hi!” you heard a sweet voice call from one of the workshop rooms. it was a young girl in her twenties, with big glasses adorning her face and big, curly hair that looked like a crown on top of her head. her smile was contagious. “i’m amara, one of the museum’s educators. we are hosting ‘imagining home together’, a creative workshop with the center for artistic activism. we still have two slots open, wouldn’t you guys like to join us?”

you looked at jack, searching his face for a sign if it was something he would like to do. 

sensing your unsureness, amara pressed. “it would be great bonding activity for such a lovely couple like you.”

“oh, we–“

“we would love to!” jack answered at the same time, squeezing your waist and smiling at you. 

amara beckoned you inside the room, pointing to an empty table on the far end of the room, telling you and jack to get comfortable. 

“alright, guys!” amara brought the attention of the chatty class back to her. “this is the fourth edition of ‘envisioning a just pittsburgh’ and this year’s theme is ‘home’. we want you to explore what home means to you, is it a place? a community? a language? what can we do to make pittsburgh a better place, for those who have been here from the beginning and for those arriving? we want you to explore it using whatever medium feels more comfortable to you, may it be with a painting or a drawing, poetry or music, we want to see the artistic side of you. you guys have forty five minutes to get your work done and the other forty five minutes will be reserved for the presentation!”

jack turned to you with a sly smile on his face. “this is going to be fun.” he sat down with a small wince, and you remembered his leg. 

“you good?”

“yeah.” he stretched his right leg and exhaled. “long shift last night, barely had time to rest.”

“you sure you want to do this? we can reschedule the date if you want.”

jack playfully kicked your shin, and pulled your chair closer to him in a swift move as he said “of course not. you backing down on me?”

“no!” you slapped his thigh and it felt as muscly as you imagined. “alright, mr. hotshot doctor what is it going to be? what’s your artistic vein? why do i feel like you were in a band in your teens?”

he laughed and confirmed your suspicions. “i was in one, had to leave it when i was deployed.”

“really?” you gave him a fake questioning look. “let me guess, singer?”

“nope, lead guitar. and composer.”

you sneaked a look at his hands and fought back a smile. jack noticed, obviously, but let you slide with just a smirk. 

“makes sense.”

“what about you?”

“oh, i’m more of a photography person. did occasionally write the angst poem as a teen.”

jack and you kept chatting, trying to decide on the theme. he told you about moving in from boston and adapting to the new city and you shared how you went through the same when you left your hometown for college in pittsburgh. it wasn’t an easy adaptation, but bit by bit, every person you met made you feel welcomed and loved. 

the forty five minutes flew by quickly with jack by your side. it was shocking how easy it was to talk to him, something about his tone of voice and how effortlessly flirty he was made you feel like you had known him for ages. 

amara’s voice called for attention again, signaling the time had run out. the first person to present was an old lady who appeared to be in her seventies, she had made a beautiful watercolour work representing the immigrants that helped build pittsburgh. after her, two twin brothers in their early teens, with the aid of their parents, presented a cute collage of what home was to them. their explanation brought tears to your eyes; to them, home was the corners of the city where their late grandma used to take them on the weekends. the park, the ice cream shop and the toy store. 

next, it was you and jack. 

“hi!” you greeted everyone and got a chorus of hi’s back. “jack and i are both outsiders who were welcomed by pittsburgh many, many years ago. so we wrote a little poem about it.” you pointed at the man by your side and said “he’s going to read it.”

“to the stories carried from distant shores, may pittsburgh open its doors. for every language, dream and name, for it deserves a place, deserves the same. to live, to hope and to safely start, to call this city a home with all our hearts. with space for hope in every room, let homes be safe, let futures brightly bloom. and may justice live in the streets, both old and new for pittsburgh is a home that belongs to those who grew here, and those arriving too.”

jack looked at you, easy smile adorning his handsome face while people clapped for your work. 

“ugh, i’m so torn between the pierogi with sausage and the lamb belly.” you told jack while you took a look at the menu for the hundredth time. 

the ten minute walk between the museum and the restaurant had been an educational one. jack told you he had parked between the two points of interest, across the street from the st. paul cathedral. he offered to call an uber, an offer that you countered with a “i’d love to walk, it’s such a beautiful evening.” to which jack quickly agreed to, and you backed down just as quickly when you remembered his leg. he shut you off with a scoff and gently pulling you by your hand down the museum’s stairwell.

jack abbot was a very opinionated man, you learned. and a funny one too. he had something to say about every piece of art you saw at the exhibit, commenting on everything, from the background of the artists to their choice of colour scheme. quickly, you noticed how easy it was to get a rise of him and would ask contradictory questions just to get jack to crack and go on a rant, which you found equal parts entertaining and sexy. it didn’t take long for jack to notice your dirty tactics, and he was quick to playfully – and softly – pinch the plush of your love handles, easing your jolt by kissing your temple and calling you trouble in the most sensuous, stern voice you have ever heard. it made you melt. 

the two of you kept talking after arriving at the butterjoint. between shared bites of the delicious chicken fried pickle that he told you you had to try, and the falafel you wanted to order too, jack told you his favourite work was the one by the peruvian duo, arturo kameya and claudia martínez garay, citing how their choice of colours rewired his brain. you mentioned taking a liking to the works of saloua raouda choucair, represented by a collection of jewellery made by the lebanese painter and sculptor. when asked why by jack, you told him you liked how she worked the metals and the crystals used, and how meticulously well she transferred her abstractionist vein throughout all of her artwork, no matter the medium used, paint, wood or silver. 

“i’ll drink to that.” jack raised his beer bottle and clicked it against your cream soda old fashioned, the same one you had mentioned a few days prior while texting him, the same one that jack insisted on ordering for you the moment you sat down at your table. 

remember your rules. one date. just one date, you had to remind yourself. 

“why don’t we order both and share?” jack countered. 

“you sure?”

“of course, sweetheart.” he said and flagged down the waiter, placing your orders. 

“now tell me, what made you choose the academic world?” jack turned to you the moment the waiter left and asked. 

you exhaled and pursed your lips. “honestly?” jack nodded and you shrugged. “it just happened.”

the frank and genuine tone of your answer made jack laugh. 

“i’m serious.” you playfulled slapped his hand and he caught yours in a barely there grip, and started playing with your fingers when you didn’t pull back. “for a long time i didn’t know what i wanted to do. i knew for sure that i didn’t want to follow my family’s business. for a while i even thought about studying history and maybe get a major in archeology or something like that, then one day, just before the college application period started, i remember watching this one documentary on national geographic about the sea and i thought ‘okay, i can see myself doing this’. and it was like it was set in stone. i got fixated on finding a school i could apply and study biology, then ship myself to california to get a masters in marine biology and go from there.”

“a mix up happened with my admission and i found myself as a molecular biophysics and biochemistry undergrad. i wanted to change it back to biology but they told me it would only be possible on my second semester. but i ended up loving it. i always had, like, really good grades, so around my fourth semester my coordinator asked if i wasn’t interested in tutoring and it was downhill from there. instead of getting a masters in marine biology, i went on to the engineering route, a lot of it influenced by my ex, i must admit. it escalated to a point where i got a PhD and started teaching at the same place i once was a student. it’s equally fun and frightening to see it become a full circle ride.”

jack looked at you with what you later identified as admiration, and of course his starstruck stare did not help with that feeling on the pit of your stomach, the same one you had been harbouring since he followed you to your car that first night. it also felt disconcerting and you tried to hide it with a smile. 

“what about the brewery?” he asked. 

your smile grew bigger when the memories of how the brewery came to be flourished in your head. “the brewery is johnny’s baby – he’s one of my best friends in the whole world. we went to college together. same undergrad, masters, everything. but he went to the corporate world, got a job at a big company, which he ended up hating pretty soon. but it paid him good money, so he kept doing it until he had enough cash to open his own business.”

“cut to 2019 and he invited me to work with him. a passion project that he had no idea if it would work or not, and it did! by some miracle we survived the pandemic and now we are preparing to start importing to a few countries.”

jack’s stare behind his beer intensified, and it made you focus your attention on the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed the golden liquid. you mimicked him, downed a couple fingers of your old-fashioned, knowing fully well your lips probably wouldn’t follow your brain if you tried to say something, not with the way he was looking at you. 

you couldn’t remember the last time someone had made you feel this important and wanted.

“what about you? what made you go from the army to medicine?”

jack took a look around the room, the smile he had on the whole time you were talking diminished a bit and you could see he was carefully choosing what to say. it made you wonder if it was a touchy subject. 

“my family never really had much money, so when highschool was over…” he raised his shoulders to his ears, tipping his head forward as he once again searched for words. he sighed and his shoulders got back to their normal position. “they sell you this world of wonders and promise you a lot, you know? and to a kid that didn’t have much growing up, that seemed heaven sent. i always wanted to be a doctor, so it seemed like a good opportunity. they promise to pay for your college, and you get a roof over your head and three meals a day. seemed like a win-win situation.”

you nodded, silently telling him you were listening. jack looked a bit conflicted and you wondered when was the last time he shared his story with someone, or if he ever talked about it at all. 

“i don’t agree with it, you know? i had a very certain, almost utopic plan in my head that i was going to follow; it was going to be in and out, get my education done and leave as soon as my time was over. but the war happened, my leg happened and that’s it. physical therapy,” he tapped his temple and widened his eyes, “therapy, learn to walk with the prosthesis, that took me almost eight months ‘til i was even able to do anything alone, and a little longer ‘til i could finish my residency.”

you let out a shuddering breath. “i’m so sorry, jack.”

“don’t be.” jack shook his head and squeezed the hand he was previously holding. “that’s life. yes, it was horrible, but maybe i had to go through it to be the jack i am today. if it hadn’t happened, i probably– most definitely wouldn't have left the army when i did, and wouldn’t have finished med school, wouldn’t have come to pittsburgh to do my residency. and probably wouldn’t be here having this date with you.” he finished the sentence with a sly tone of voice that had you grinning. 

“such a flirt, aren’t you?”

he winked at you. “i’ve been told once or twice.”

you shook your head, smiling. as you were about to flirt back, the waiter came back with your dishes.

“thank you!” you told the waiter with a polite smile as he left.

“this smells amazing.” jack said and both of you started eating. 

the rest of the night passed like a blur. jack and you shared your meals like promised, laughed at shared stories of weird night shift patients, even weirder students and an exploding beer tank or two. you also poked jack about the whole SWAT thing, to which he now agreed with you about how it sounded. it had taken him a spat with his best friend and an earful from his therapist for him to see how he was basically running away from one chaos to another. he still didn’t have an answer for what else he could do, but at least he had started to see how dangerous it was. 

somewhere between the last bite of your dinner and the first of your desert, you and jack changed tables, locating yourselves at a more secluded high-top, as per the request of your lovely waiter, chris – the restaurant got more and more crowded by the hour, and chris politely asked if you and jack minded changing seats. obviously, you didn’t. 

the change was very much welcomed as it got the two of you physically closer to each other. 

dessert finished with you and jack side by side. 

another cream soda old fashioned for you and jack’s hand found itself on your lower back. his thumb tracing lazy circles aimlessly, as he talked about the time robby and him got stranded on a road just outside of pittsburgh during a road trip. two hours and a shitty cellphone signal that suddenly decided to work later, his then resident, john appeared to pick them up in the middle of nowhere.

jack’s beer turned into a dr. pepper and the bar got even more crowded. the chorus of voices was so loud that it had you even closer to jack. with a hand on his shoulder and the touch of your breath against his neck, you whispered, almost secretively, the story of how you and grace almost got arrested for public disturbance after a night out with one too many drinks a few days after your divorce had finalised.  

a can of coke took your cocktail’s place, and jack grimaced when the pirates lost a run. his hand was still on your lower back, this time massaging the soft flesh that connected it to your waist and your own hand caressed his opposite shoulder. you stared at jack, counted the freckles that kissed his face very lightly, adored the way the crow’s feet adorned his green-hazel eyes and imagined how his stubble would feel between your legs. 

“what, sweetheart?” he looked back at you and asked softly. the low timbre of his voice hit you where you had just imagined how his beard would feel. the feeling was strong enough to have you press you legs together and enough to have jack notice it. a small smirk showed up on his lips and it made you bite your own. 

your answer to his question came in the form of a kiss. 

jack didn’t give you time to backtrack – not that you would, anyway – as he pulled your body flush to his. 

your hands went straight to where they had been itching to feel the whole night: his soft curls. you twirled it between your fingers and pulled at the hair on the nape of his neck the more he deepened the kiss. 

jack was devouring you. 

if his stare felt like you were being preyed on, his kiss felt like you had been caught at last. it wasn’t messy or frantic; it was somehow slow and intense, deep and tender. it made you feel revered. it was also nothing like you had experienced before in your entire life, not even with the person you had spent eighteen years of your existence with. 

god knows how long you spent kissing. air wasn’t a necessity anymore, the feel of jack’s chest against yours and his grip on your ass was everything you needed to survive. the rest of the world could perish, you couldn’t care less.

the trance you found yourselves in broke when the bar roared when the pirates’ scored a home run.

“we should go.” jack said after he pressed his forehead against yours. you barely had time to say “we should”, deciding on simply agreeing with a couple of nods and hums as jack kept pecking your lips.

“mine or yours?” he asked with his lips still touching yours. 

“yours.” you answered and kissed him one last time.

jack asked for the check and paid for it, looking at you like you had told him you were the one who killed the virgin mary when you suggested splitting the bill. 

halfway through your walk to jack’s car, when the silence had finally become comfortable again and not anxiety driven, and the buzzing on your skin didn’t feel like electric shock anymore, jack said “i’m really offended that you thought i’d let you pay for your dinner.”

you burst out laughing. 

“i’m serious!” you could hear the outrageousness in his voice, laced with a hint of barely contained laughter. 

“jack, it’s fine! you know people split the bill in dates all the time in this decade, right?” you tried to joke but it didn’t really land. 

he huffed by your side. “yeah, well, i don’t like it.”

jack felt the way you were staring at his profile and turned to you. “what do you want to know, sweetheart?”

as softly as you could, you asked “when was the last time you went on a date?”

a beat or two passed and silence grew for longer than necessary. you were by jack’s car when he finally answered “last one was a few years ago.”

if your memory doesn’t fail you, jack mentioned that day at the bar, very briefly, that it had been two years only of his wife’s passing. 

you nodded and squeezed the hand that held yours one last time, before he closed the door on the passenger’s side and jogged to his. 

the elevator ride from the garage floor to where jack’s apartment was located on the fifth, made you feel like a teenager. he pressed you against the elevator’s wall the moment it opened its door, pressing the button that sent the machine to his floor by muscle memory. 

the kiss was just like the one you shared back at the restaurant’s bar, with a touch more of desperation as an added bonus, shown by jack unconsciously frictioning his very blatant, very large erection against your belly, only getting worse as he trailed down from your lips to your neck. 

it felt all too consuming. 

jack’s presence could be felt not only where his body touched yours, but on your soul. the way he traced his lips down your collarbone to your décolletage set you ablaze. his grunts were exciting, the obvious desire made you feel like the most powerful woman in the world. jack kissed, bit, sucked and licked every part of you he had access to on the 3x4 metal box. 

you had no idea this was even possible, but you were pretty sure an orgasm was approaching and your cunt hadn’t even been touched yet.

you made a mental note of googling if that was actually a thing. 

jack’s right hand fingers tightened their grip on your hair as he left hand one trailed up your arm, stopping by your shoulder to slowly pull at the thick, ruffled strap of your dress. he nosed his way down, carving a trail of wet kisses on your chest. 

down, down, down.

air hitting newly exposed skin. 

the tip of his tongue licking your nip–

ding!

the elevator finally arrived at his floor. jack sighed and the puff of air that left his lips hit your wet, exposed nipple, making goosebumps blossom all over your body. 

“fuck…” he murmured as pulled the pink fabric back up, covering what he had exposed of your chest. 

when the doors opened, you looked up and noticed the very in your face, angled at the both of you security camera. shameful warmth took over when you thought of the doorman watching the show you and jack put on. 

“you always forego on bras on your dates?” jack asked as he unlocked his door. he had tried to go with a casual, relaxed tone, but you could feel the underlying hint of jealousy in his voice. 

you refused to entertain the giddy thought you just had, filed it for some other time or whatever. 

so you giggled and gave him a “only when the dress asks to.”

jack huffed and said “ladies first.” motioning with his head for you to get in. 

his apartment was big, exactly what you would expect of an emergency medicine senior attending. it was also meticulously neat, exactly what you would expect from an army brat, but somehow, it was also lived in.

a big screen sat on top of a beautiful, darkish wood TV unit. there was a very obvious comfortable looking reclining chair, one you could clearly imagine jack sitting down after a rough shift to relax, or with a couple of beers to watch a game on TV with friends. the couch was just as big and fluffy looking, cream with a couple of throw pillows and a terracotta throw blanket. he also had three very well taken care of plants. 

there were a few picture frames scattered around, of him with family and friends. two of them had jack looking very in love with a very gorgeous latina woman, whom you instantly assumed to be his late wife. there was one of him in black scrubs with an asian guy, a beautiful black woman with dreads and a red headed older lady in grey scrubs by his sides. they seemed to be at the emergency room and jack’s folded arms and too-stern-to-be-real face made you smile. that must be shen and ellis, you thought, remembering your conversations.

there were also a couple other ones with a guy closer to his age, taller and a bit fuller than him, with darker hair and a full beard that was starting to get some greys in it. they both wore scrubs in one of the pictures and jack was more relaxed in this one, both men apparently holding back laughter as a blonde woman, also in grey scrubs and around their age, gave up and rolled back in laughter. 

the other picture jack had with him had the other guy dressed in a leather jacket and black t-shirt, very similar to the polo jack had on. they were sitting down on a high top, with two beer flight paddles sitting in front of them.

“you want something to drink?” jack called from the kitchen. you were so entertained being nosy that you didn’t notice he had sat your purse on the entryway table and went to the kitchen to try and be a good host. 

a crass joke popped up in your head, but you shook it away and went for “no, i’m good!”

you turned back to the picture to analyse it further. the colourful wall on the background was awfully familiar, as were the glasses used on the flights and the logo adorning them. 

your brewery.

johnny’s brewery. 

robby.

somewhere in the back of your mind, a conversation you had with grace years and years ago popped back again. 

it was a chilly and lonely weekend, one in which the two of you were still married, but your husbands were away on a work trip. grace texted you a picture of a badly rolled joint, captioned with “read and puff???”

read and puff was a game the two of you created on your dorm sharing days, where you would smoke a joint and read poorly written books just for the sake of it. 

she arrived at yours not even twenty minutes later after you replied with a “YES!!!”

the shitty romance book you had chosen was forgotten a few pages in, after it served the purpose of making you laugh. out of nowhere, grace hit you with a “do you think you walk by your soulmate everyday without noticing it?”

“what?” you whispered, confused.

“think about it! everyday we go to coffee shops, malls, walk around the city and pass by hundreds of people that have the same, or similar, routine as us but we never notice them. then one day… you have a new co-worker, or a new pilates buddy, and you guys talk and find out you’ve been frequenting the same places but never really noticed each other there.”

you nodded, it made sense. “yeah, i think so. but we’ve already found ours, so who knows.”

“yeah…” grace murmured her answer. 

later that evening, after you sobered up, grace told you she and clayton – her then husband – were on a rough patch and she was thinking about getting a divorce. 

you shook away the memory of that read and puff night and repeated your rules like a mantra. 

one date. no strings attached.

one date. no strings attached.

one date. no strings attached.

“here.” jack extended hand pulled you out of you mini spiral and offered you a glass of chill water. you smiled at him. 

“thanks.” you pointed at the picture frame. “i’m guessing that’s robby.”

he nodded. “how did you know?”

“that’s the brewery. back at the bar that night, you mentioned he was, and i quote, a fan of my work. why didn’t you tell me you’ve been there before?”

“i was afraid of looking like a creep, like i had been stalking you.”

you snorted. “makes sense.”

jack took the almost empty glass from your hand, setting it on the coffee table before pulling you to him. “come here.”

unlike your previous kisses, this one was slower, but needier somehow. jack had a way of making you feel like pliable putty in his hand almost instantly. his tongue traced yours with casual dominance and his fingers knew exactly where to touch you without you having to tell.

your body reacted to his like magnets attracted themselves; opposite poles that when in touch with each other, couldn’t let go. 

jack guided you to his large sofa and laid you on it. the furniture was as comfortable as it looked. 

he let go of your lips just to attach his back again on that sweet spot of your neck, getting a whiny moan as a reward. 

“you have no idea how many times i thought about this.” he confessed. 

“yeah?”

“yeah. you walked in that bar and sat beside me, talked about that stupid fucker and laughed at my stupid jokes, and all i could think about how beautiful you were, how soft your skin would feel. how i wanted to have you under me, how you would sound and taste.”

“fuck.” his confession made you weak, and you silently thanked him for laying you down before doing it. 

“i know, honey.” jack cooed, rather cockily, as he pulled the straps of your dress down, freeing both of your breasts and popping a nipple between his lips. he teased you, alternated between licking and sucking and kneading your free tit. 

“sh–shit.” you moaned loudly after he lightly grazed his front teeth against your nipple and continued. “i touched myself to the thought of you that night.”

“yeah?” you felt his question against your chest more than actually heard it. jack lifted his head and ordered “tell me about it.” before diving back in, this time giving his attention to your other tit. 

“i was so wet when i got home. went for a shower and– fuck! oh god… my panties were drenched. i usually need a vibrator when i’m alone, but i was so worked up that i came so hard with my fingers.”

sometime during your own confessional rant, jack had bunched the fabric of the skirt of your dress and pooled it around your waist. “yeah? like this?”

he didn’t bother taking your panties off, just pulled it to the side and rubbed his thumb in lazy circles on your puffy clit. 

“yes, jack.” you moaned his name and he gifted you with his index and middle fingers. they filled you up deliciously. 

in true jack fashion, like he had done before as if he had been rewarded with a map of your body, he found your g-spot easily. 

jack massaged the swollen spot softly, studying your every breath, sigh and moan. he loved the way your body welcomed him as he moved his fingers in a come hither motion, got mesmerised by how your pussy got wetter, how your skin prickled and the way your thighs were starting to tremble. 

“jack, please.” you begged, for what you didn’t know, when he attached his lips around your clit. his tongue circled your nub, licking it with the flat muscle.  

jack timed his ministrations, synchronising the roll of this tongue with the pumping of his fingers. you ran your fingers through his curly hair, tightening them when he moaned and relaxed against you. 

“jack, i’m gonna–“ your orgasm washed over you before you could finish your warning. 

the man didn’t stop his attack on you after you came, making sure to extend your orgasm as much as he could as he helped you ride it out, until it became so unbearable that you clenched your thighs around his head and pushed him out with the palm of your hands. 

jack looked like a maniac. hair sticking out in all directions, his stubble wet with your juices, pupils blown out and chest so red one would think he had spent all day in the sun. 

“i think i went deaf on my right ear.” he said while trying to pop it with his finger. 

“sorry.” you said, laughing breathlessly. 

“ten out of ten, hope it happens again, or whatever the kids are saying nowadays.”

you shook your head and got up on wobbly knees to kiss him again. almost instantly, your hand dropped to jack’s painfully hard erection, only to have him stop you the moment you finally undid his fly and started to trace your nimble fingers inside his boxers. 

“not gonna last, baby. and i really want to fuck you right now.”

“and i really wanted to suck you.” you said, tone of voice the same of a spoiled brat. jack let out a shuddering breath and kissed your pouty lips. 

“let’s go to the bedroom, sweetheart.”

jack’s bedroom was as beautiful as the rest of his apartment.

a dark, greyish green accent wall that contrasted against the other three white ones. his king sized bed set there in the middle, just as soft looking as the rest of the furniture you have met so far. he had four big pillows on top of it, a habit he most definitely kept from his wife. 

everything was just as neat. he had art on his walls, another TV, this one smaller than the one in his living room, in the wall right across his bed. a pile of medical books on a night stand and a pile of vinyls on the other. 

“sorry about the mess.” he said when he noticed you were studying the contents beside his bed. 

“what mess? i was trying to figure out what you were listening to.”

“pearl jam, nirvana, rush, some radiohead, semisonic.”

“good taste.” you complimented him and got a smile back. 

“thank you.”

the wall to your left had an almost floor to ceiling window, lined by a doorless buffet cabinet that had more vinyls, books and other trinkets. beside it sat his crutches and a folded wheelchair. 

you were fumbling with the zipper on the side of your dress when jack sat down on his bed with a groan. he had already ditched his jeans and was roaming his hand around his leg and where his prosthesis attached to the limb. 

“you okay?” you asked him. 

jack nodded, said a “yeah” without looking at you. he seemed embarrassed, almost ashamed and you wondered if anyone besides his wife had been intimate with him since he lost part of his leg. 

“we don’t have to do this, jack. not if you are uncomfortable with me or anything.” you told him as you ran your fingers through his hair again, softer this time. he purred. 

“i want to. it’s just… you’re the first person since li–“ jack sighed. “no one besides liz has seen me like this.”

his words echoed in your head. liz. his late wife now had a name. no one had seen him like this besides her. jack hadn’t been intimate with anyone since her passing. 

you don’t give yourself time to think, knowing you would get in your head. so you just dropped to your knees in front of him and asked “alright, how do we take this off?”

jack’s smile grew bigger. “press here.” he said, guiding your hand to the base of the socket of his prosthetic leg. “and pull.”

jack turned to his night stand and pulled a packet of wet wipes, a balm and a single condom. the strap of your dress fell further down your arms, and a sudden wave of self consciousness hit you when you realised how crazy you probably looked, with your messy hair and tits out. you tried to ignore it when you saw jack looking at you with hungry eyes again. 

“i can take it from here, sweetheart.” he said when you tried to help him take the gel liner off his residual limb. 

you nodded, whispered an “okay” and got up to take off your dress while jack cleaned his limb. 

jack knelt on the mattress and rolled his condom on, and you mimicked his position to take him on another needy kiss. 

“is like this more comfortable for you?” you asked in a raspy voice. 

“yeah.”

his confirmation hit your ears and you dropped on all four in front of him, arching your back and wiggling your butt when you looked back at him. jack murmured something that sounded a lot like a “you’re gonna kill me” as he started to run his tip from his entrance to your clit, collecting the mix of your natural lubrication and your first orgasm. 

even after working you out, jack’s cock still felt a bit like a tight fit. it wasn’t one of those monster cocks people talk about in books, the ones you highly doubted ever existed, but he was clearly thicker than most men, and the thickest you had ever had. 

“shit.” both of you whispered when he finally hit your hilt. 

a giggle left your lips and soon turned into a moan when jack gave his hips an experimental thrust. he stopped, maybe getting used to you, maybe assessing how you felt. you truly couldn’t tell, brain fogged by your needy haze. 

it was jack’s turn to laugh when you pushed your ass back at him. “so needy, aren’t you, honey?” he mocked, but took pity on you and started moving his hips again. 

you knew jack was as desperate as you when he didn’t bother to start slow. the tip of his cock repeatedly hit that sweet spot inside of you, turning you into a whimpering mess in seconds. you were so out of it that you didn’t hear a word of what he was saying. 

jack slowed his thrusts and bent down on top of you, fast enough to grab both of your arms, folding them by your sides like handles for him to loop his own through it and bring you flush against his chest. 

once again you felt him everywhere. his thrusts were faster than it had been before, the tip of his cock hit your g-spot repeatedly and the warmth of his skin on your back was starting to make you dizzy. on top of that, jack was kneading the rolls of your stomach in a way you knew you were going to have hand prints all over the next morning. 

jack abbot had reduced you to a whimpering mess. 

you heard chuckling behind your ear and felt his lips press a kiss there. “yeah? it feels that good, baby?”

you nodded like your life depended on it. “so good, j–jack.”

the praise gave him more confidence and jack started pounding into you harder and brought his fingers to your clit. 

“holy fuck, jack. just like this. i’m gonna cum again.”

“cum for me, baby. i’m right behind you.”

you nodded and a few thrusts and a couple of moans later, you and jack came together. 

you fell onto his bed and rolled to your back and jack fell right beside you. the two of you basked in each other’s presence in silence, just listening to your erratic breathings and the feel of your skins. 

“shit.” you were almost dozing off when jack said it several minutes later, making you alert again. 

“what?”

“i gotta take care of this.” he said pointing to his, now limp, dick wrapped in the condom. 

“hold on.” 

you got up from his bed and made your way to his window, bringing his crutches back with you. jack thanked you and you made your way towards his en-suite bathroom. 

jack discarded the condom and cleaned himself while you peed, a scene way too domestic for a one night stand. 

you woke up to the distant sound of red hot chilli peppers playing and the smell of bacon. the bed felt good but strange under you, but soon the memories of the previous night hit you and a pleased smile graced your lips. 

sitting up, you noticed a black t-shirt waiting for you on the night stand. it fit you alright, a bit tight on your chest and did a poor job of covering most of your ass, so you pulled your underwear back on and made your way to find jack in the kitchen. 

“good morning.” you greeted him. 

jack smiled and greeted back, pulling you into a sweet kiss. he tapped on the granite counter and told you to hop on it. “i’m almost done.”

you did as he told and you engaged in an easy conversation about the music that was playing. 

seeing jack work around the kitchen was as arousing as he had been the night before. he moved around effortlessly and the evidences of what you did – the scratches on his back and the bites on his chest – were worn with pride. 

jack turned the cooktop off and set the last dish on the table before he turned back to you. 

“you look so good with my shirt on.” he told you, running his hands up and down your thighs, his thumb getting awfully close to your core every time. 

“yeah?” you whined and fell for his bait, bucking your hips when his right thumb got too close to your clit. 

“yeah, honey.”

jack grazed his thumb against your slit and you whined his name. 

“lay back, sweetheart.” you propped your elbows against the cool counter and did what he asked, but stayed in an angle that still let you see what he was doing. 

“she’s so pretty.” he said as he pulled your panties to the side again, and brought his face close to your pussy. “begging for me.” 

you were about to come up with a smart remark when jack licked a long strip up your cunt and took your clit to his mouth, making your hands go straight to his hair, pulling him closer. 

his tongue was soft against your clit and it made you feel like you were walking on clouds. you wished you could stay like this forever, with his face between your thighs, his tongue inside of your and with his hands roaming your body. 

unlike last night, your orgasm creeped out on you and hit you without a warning. you were still a trembling mess when jack emerged from what was quickly becoming his favourite place on earth. 

“alright, now we can eat!”

as expected, your phone had countless notifications from grace, from phone calls, to all caps texts and worried audio messages. you sent grace an audio message back as soon as you set foot inside jack’s elevator, reassuring her that everything was ok and that the date went incredibly well. as usual, you weren’t able to hold yourself and told her a short version of how the sex went, which earned you a very loud audio of her screaming “yes, bitch! ahahahaha.”

you felt sorry for your poor uber driver. 

you pet marie who, rightfully, was pissed off with your disappearance, and went straight to your bathroom. 

“hey, girlies.” you opened and closed your mouth a few times and brought your hands together in a low effort clap. “i’m alive and well… so well.” you giggled and pointed to your clothes. you caught a glimpse of yourself and part of you couldn’t believe you were recording a video like this; hair in a bun because it was so messy from jack pulling it, that you didn’t have the means to deal with it at his place, a couple of hickeys on your neck and chest and, even with the remnants of the previous night’s make up and two skipped skin care routines, you were glowing. 

“it’s two something in the afternoon and i just got home, as you can probably see. the date was incredible. mcdreamy was everything i was expecting and more, way more. i don’t know what to tell you guys except that i guess we will have a first on this channel.”

“mcdreamy will be the first date number two.” you turned the camera off and posted the tiktok. 

40andthriving🩵| yeah, i really don’t know what to tell you guys.  theegraceadams | bitch, you look fucked out. i love that for you santos.trin | oh my god??? user802764277193701 | can put away the knife ig justmyluck91 | girl, come back!!! tells us how the date went!!! imsotired | dude????? SECOND DATE ALERT! 🚨🚨🚨 sophiesoph | marry him

a/n ii – no, i don’t like grey’s anatomy, i just think eric dane was hot. RIP to the baddie.

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