You clock into the reality, realizing the dig he made at your “boy.”

“Yeah, she didn't wanna come, I kinda dragged her here. I was like, ‘babe, it may just be a light concussion but you're a nurse, not a doctor’ so, like, thanks, doc. We needed the big guns,” proudly speaks Noah standing against the wall, checking time on his phone for the 5th time since you've been in this room.

Jack's jaw tightens and he shoots him a look so dirty, Noah actually takes a step back.

“Watch it, kid, if it wasn't for nurses, American healthcare would be even fuckin’ worse.”

Abbot looks back at you, and raises an eyebrow as if to say “really? him?”

You should speak up in your boyfriend's defense, something — anything — to wipe that perceptive look on Jack's face, the smugness he isn't trying hard enough to hide. You might as well be in your birthday suit right now, for how bare you feel. How bare you always feel in his presence.

God knows how much you'd actually like to be — no, you have a boyfriend. A perfectly handsome, competent, and a caring one.

Handsome. Not rugged.

Competent. Doubtful.

Caring. Well, caring enough.

“Doctor Abbot…” you begin, voice stripped raw, breath coming uneasy, when his index brushes right over your thrumming pulse.

“Focus on the examination. Tsk, thought we taught you better here. Well, I at least did. Don't you agree, nurse?” 

The air leaves your mouth in a little puff, leaving your throat dry, your lips soon following. You need a glass of —

“Need some water? You've been here a while,” Jack asks, tone becoming gravelly and intimate, eyebrows drawing closer seeing how pale you look.

He immediately turns to Noah — hands leaving your neck — without waiting for a response from you. His voice takes on its normal cadence. “Hey, son, grab her a bottle, would you? Vending machine is at the end of the corridor. Thanks.”

His ‘Thanks’ comes out in a slow drawl that makes you squirm in your seat. 

Your attending has not even fully turned back to you yet, when your partner speaks up, “Uh, bottle of what?”

“A Pinot Noir, perhaps. Which one do you prefer?” His eyes find yours again, brows raising in deep amusement. Is he getting a kick out of humiliating your boyfriend — and by extension, you?

“Uh…” noah looks utterly confused. You feel almost bad for him. Almost. 

“Water, son. Get your girl a bottle.” Noah makes a move to leave, complying immediately to the doctor. Has he ever even listened to you so quickly? God, men are such dicksuckers for each-other.

“A chapstick while you're at it, maybe,” Jack mutters, trying to keep the humour out of his voice. Noah stops in his tracks again, clearly deaf to the sarcasm.

Jack huffs. “Just go.”

You honestly don't understand why he dislikes Noah so much. You've only been dating him for 3 weeks.

Well.

Noah did try to make a “romantic” gesture by coming to pick you up from your shift. Except, he arrived an hour early as a “surprise” and cribbed because you couldn't leave early. And he did just undervalue your job as a nurse. And…of course, an hour ago, he accidentally hit you your head with a football while he was showing attempting a trick.

As Noah leaves, Jack lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Don't worry, I'll get you a chapstick,” he says, staring shamelessly at your trembling bottom-lip before making a slow way up again.

“Penlight. Incoming.”

You've barely had time to react when a sudden light shone in your eyes. Your face instinctively tries to move back, only to be stopped by a feather-light touch on your jaw. Jack's finger retracts as soon as it comes, leaving you starved for more. More than just the pad of his index.

You hold still for him, letting him sway the torch alternatively between your eyes. When the light is kept back with a soft clink, there are no more distractions as he stands up straight again.

The creases in his scrubs only increase when he folds his arms over his chest.

Don't objectify him. Don't objectify him. Don't objectify him.

Fuck it. Too late for that. 

“So…” the man begins.

“So.” You mutter, your gaze trying to find something interesting on the floor.

“Nick seems like a good guy.”

“Noah.”

“Right. We should thank Nick for bringing you here right on time. Wouldn't wanna lose one of our best nurses.”

You scoff at his words. Your feet are moving in a slow back and forth rhythm, your eyes fixated on them.

“Let's not say things we don't mean for good staff satisfaction scores.”

“If you're trying to insult me by implying I care about that shit, good job. I'm slightly more offended than the time you implied I am too old for karaoke." He's slightly rocking himself back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“Didn't imply, actually. I think I was pretty direct.”

A huff of laughter leaves his lips. You don't want huffs or sarcastic laughs. You want his full belly-laugh. His happy laugh that you've only seen Robby drag out of him.

“I don't care about staff satisfaction scores,” he lightly shakes his head for a moment.

“Yes, you just sai —”

“Only care about yours.”

That makes you look up at him again with widened eyes and parted lips. Little shit, off-handedly throwing around words that gives you butterflies.

Dead butterflies, of course, just like your affections on him. Former crush. Yes.

You quickly regain your senses to retort.

“Satisfaction with your services? If so, thank you for checking me for a concussion.” The formality in your words completely betray the flush creeping up your cheeks.

“Of course, what else?” You hate the way he says your last name. The way it rolls off his tongue. The way it reeks of intent, and not casualty.

The sharp noise of metal rings dragging across a rod brings you out of your trance. Nic — Noah emerges from behind the privacy curtain, a bottle of water clutched in his right hand, and a simmering cup of black coffee in left. “Got you choices, babe.”

You smile thankfully at him, perhaps more grateful for the distraction. You extend your hand, your pointer gesturing at the water. You don't feel the same electricity when Noah's fingers brush against yours in the hand-off.

Jack takes a step back. He nods at you. “Rest. Hydrate. You know it.”

"Mhm, no big brain activity, limited screen time, don't avoid if symptoms worsen."

"Impressive. How does a civvie like you know the drill?" he asks, eyes widening in mock-surprise.

"Oh, I'm very smart. Could've easily been a nurse at your hospital," you can't help but smile.

"Shame. I'm sure you would've been terrific."

He nods at your boyfriend next, “Nick.”

“Uh, it's actually Noa —” but Jack's right hand has already caught the edge of the curtain, swiftly pulling it out of his way, and disappearing shortly after. 

“She prefers lattes, by the way.”

2

Bzzzzzzz 

“Doctor Ellis, I didn't know you allowed your staff to bring phones in a trauma bay. I would've brought mine to play some music while we inserted a chest tube inside this man.”

Ellis only grunts, too focused on work at hand.

Your cheeks heat at Doctor Garcia's comment, feeling the loud buzz against your thigh for the nth time today. 

“I'm sorry — ” you had only just begun when Dr. Abbot's voice cut in, deadpan and dry.

“Yolanda, you listen to music?”

“Doesn't everyone?”

“Yeah, well, normal people do. Why?”

Garcia's sharp glare to the attending does nothing to his demeanor. His hands — controlled, precise, and so fucking practiced — don't stop for even a fraction of a second. 

“Not everyone can have eccentric hobbies like nude yoga, Dr. Rabbit.”

Nude yoga? Nude? You force your mind to not conjure up an image of that. Especially not with your attending — who you have used to have a schoolgirl crush on — as the main character. Or, you'll be the one on the operation table instead of observing, breaking out in hives.

“I'm sorry, Dr. Garcia,” you complete.

“Apologise to the man on the table; It's not my life on line. No matter how much I wish whenever I work with you boy scouts.” You always cringe at the bluntness in her tone, but it's worse when directly aimed at you.

“Easy, Garcia,” Jack commanded, tone instantly gaining its authority, pausing a moment to shoot her a look. Yolanda doesn't deter, and two of your most-respected, highly-competent seniors seem to engage in a silent eye-conversation. It ends with a twitch of Garcia's lips as she glances at you, and your attending muttering, “shut it.”

Huh, Strange. 

***

The biohazard bin shuts with a snap, and you rub your clammy hands, trying to get the feel of rubber gloves off them. Trauma bays are always stress-inducing, no matter —

Bzzzzzzzzz.

You're about to kill someone tonight. It's gonna be your boyfriend. And you're gonna enjoy it. And you're gonna go online, talk about it, and watch a number of supportive women tell you, “I support your rights, but also your wrongs. You go, bitch.”

The constant vibration against your thigh, the baby crying in pedes, and looking like a fool in a trauma bay…you heave a sigh. Has the ED always been so bright? It's like the lights are directly in your eyes.

You hate loud. So much.

You un-pocket your phone, letting it unlock before you start typing furiously, your mouth instinctively murmuring everything you're typing. Your feet carry you forward, muscle memory taking you to a quiet corner, where you can peacefully argue. And bang your head against the wall, if you're lucky. But you're not sure if there's a staff discount at The Pitt. And frankly, you're already struggling with rent and groceries.

Look at you being fiscally responsible. 

“Fuck, sorry,” leaves your mouth as soon as you accidentally collide with someone. A single calloused palm settles on your hip, steadying you. 

Your lips part to say something, but no words come out. It seems the entirety of blood in your body has rushed towards your hip to greet Dr. Abbot's hand, before it retracts.

“Been apologising a lot today. Forgot your training or have you rejoined pre-school?” His body moves to your front, effectively blocking the view of rapid-paced staff, and people in wheelchairs and gurneys. 

“Just…one rookie mistake after another.” Your body sags sideways, taking support of the wall. As if on instinct, his posture mirrors yours, his entire side leaning against the wall as well. You deposit your phone back in your pocket.

“For what it's worth, you started out not too long ago. You are, technically, still a rookie,” he speaks. 

In this slow corner, the lights seem dimmer and noise quieter. Your shoulders drop just a bit. You're not sure if it's the location or him. Your bet is on location.

You wonder how you must look to the others, a junior nurse and the person with the most seniority on this floor, tucked away in a hushed hallway. What would they think of you? Certainly not co-workers.

Your lips curl in a tired, soft smile. “Trying to make me feel better again, sir?”

“Trying to tell you trauma surgeons have a permanent stick up their ass. Shen and I have bets on whether she lives in an ice castle or a secluded cave.”

Your smile grows bigger, and his eyes crinkle. “It's not just her. In fact, I admire women with a mean mouth.”

“Only women?”

“Men already are. I can't think of any situations where they'd need to be more mean.”

“I can think of a few,” his voice dips even lower, rocks coated in honey. Your eyes find the fluttering pulse on his throat, and travel up his face, to find his gaze fixated on your lips. He looks up again. Slowly. Not in a rush. 

In this low-lit corner and his head tilted down to adjust to your height, his curls — salt and pepper and presumably soft — brushed his forehead, creating shadows across his face. 

You clear your throat, trying to erase some of the tension. “It's Noah. You met him the other day, if you haven't forgotten."

“Oh, I tried.” 

You click your jaw, “He's a nice guy, sir.”

“Uh-huh. Is he blowing up your phone? What's wrong?” His brows furrow in concern, and you find his worry comforting. You're about to open your mouth to explain —

“Did he forget his Roblox password?”

You slightly shake your head, looking down at his shoes. “You…Dr. Abbot,” you trail off, looking up at him again to see the corner of his mouth twitching, eyes wide as if he's seriously expecting an answer.

“How do you even know what that is? And no, that's not it. He…sprained his ankle, hewasdoingaparkourjump,” you mumble the last part as quickly as you can, cheeks heating and eyes wandering.

Jack pauses, expression caught somewhere between humour and exasperation, “Wow, didn't know your boy was still in middle school. Tell me, were you trying to find a boyfriend or a son?”

You throw your head back, a light groan escaping your mouth. While you rub your eyes, you feel your attending move. After a second, he has a bottle of water in his hand.

You give him a look of gratitude and hold your fingers out. But before passing it to you, he twists off the cap with ease. For a moment, you let yourself enjoy the sight of his biceps straining against his scrub top.

You empty almost half the bottle, throat working the liquid down, flushed under the heavy gaze of the man standing in front of you who is currently shamelessly oggling your neck. He's quick to take the bottle off your hands once you're done.

You mutter a quiet “Thanks.” He holds out his free hand forward. You shoot him a confused look, your fingers come up, hovering centimeters away from his palm.

Does he want you to hold…?

“Your phone, nurse.”

Your eyes blink, realisation creeping with a smudge of cringe, “Oh, that makes more sense. Yeah.” But the embarrassment is quick to vanish when you think about what he said.

“What? No. I feel naked without my phone on me.”

His eyes drop to your chest the moment the word “naked” leaves your mouth. You're not sure you've stopped blushing in the last 2 minutes.

“You're not a teenager.”

“Well, I love my phone like one,” you defensively say, standing up straighter. Your right hand moves towards your pocket to protect your mobile.

Abbot rumbles your last name like a warning, his husky voice settling low in your belly, and your traitorous hand is fishing the phone out without a conscious thought.

Before you can even hand it to him, he slightly bends, prying it out of your fingers.

“Now, I feel like a teenager,” you pout.

He uses her corner of your phone to tap against your nose, “Then don't make me go all authoritative on you again, kid.”

With that, he pockets your phone and walks away. You watch him twist the cap off the bottle again and drink directly from the mouth of it. The mouth you just had your own lips wrapped around.

Kid. 

You need a chair. 

3

“Okay, instead of using this job as an excuse for a sad dating life, how about you guys just admit…y'all got no game,” Mateo knocks back the last sip of his drink, making this very, very bold claim.

“First of all, nobody was talking about dating life. We were talking about sex. Forget dates, when was the last time any of you got laid?” Ellis asks, using her glass to gesture vaguely around the table, a few droplets falling on the wood.

Your shift was hell. Well, everyone's was. Really, every shift is hell, so this one was no different. The only thing was that today, everyone decided to grab a drink. Not in the nearest park, no. Instead, they're all here, the nearest bar that's open at a time when a person should be doing a morning walk, not shots.

You're tucked between Mateo on your left and Jack on your right, in a worn-out brown leather booth, with Shen and Ellis across the table.

“I don't feel comfortable talking about the personal details of my married life with my colleagues,” replied Shen, sadly nodding his head.

Jack's voice, raspy from his whiskey, cuts in, “Oh, shut it, Shen.”

“I'd say 6 weeks since we slept together,” Shen gave up quickly. A series of sympathetic groans and nods went around the table.

Mateo juts his chin towards Ellis, raising his brows. “Hooked up with someone last week. Left before she woke up,” replied the woman.

“Didn't know you were a player, doc,” laughs your fellow nurse, before his head turns to you. “And you? Come on, we're the youngest and hottest, we gotta rub it in their faces. Besides, you have, uh, what's his name...”

You laugh nervously, tracing the rim of your glass with your index. While everyone’s lazy and heavy-lidded all around, you feel Abbot's fervent gaze burning a hole into the side of your head.

“Noah. And hate to disappoint, but it's been some while,” you admit. Not being able to hold back any longer, you finally turn your head to the right. Not taking his eyes off you, your attending takes a long sip of his whiskey.

“How much is a while?”

This is inappropriate. Your attending physician shouldn't be asking you this, you're sure of it. But nobody but you looks alarmed.

“I would say…none of your business, doc,” you softly murmur, the liquid courage making your tongue sharper.

“And what about you Dr. Abbot?” Mateo jumps in again.

It's your turn to look at Jack with the same intense gaze. He doesn't take his eyes off you, “been a while for me too,” he mutters so low, like he's only referring to you.

You lose. You lose the staring contest and let your eyes fall back to your glass. Thank god, you have some of your drink still left. 

“Why, is it…old man stuff?” Mateo asks, and your eyes widen at his question. You bite the inside of your cheek to hold back your laugh. Ellis's rich chuckle fills the quiet bar. You finally bring your cup to your lips.

“I'm an attending, Mateo. We're always at the very top of our performance. Here to serve well. In or out of trauma bays.”

Your drink goes down the wrong pipe, and you break out into a violent cough. Why would he say it like that? You're pretty sure you look like a tomato.

You feel a strong hand on your back, beginning to rub small circles through the thin fabric of your shirt. “Easy,” Jack whispers into your right ear. 

Is nobody watching this?

You look around to see Shen, Ellis, and Mateo have deeply engrossed themselves in a completely different conversation. You wonder for a second if it's intentional.

His heavy hand stops rubbing, instead patting the small of your back softly and rhythmically. Your coughs start dying down, and you wipe the underside of your watery eyes with your knuckle.

“Have trouble swallowing, kiddo?” His voice is right next to your ear, every breath rustling a tiny bit of your hair. 

Oh. Oh. OH.

“Think I need some air, sir,” you mutter, voice dried. You feel floaty, and it has nothing to do with alcohol.

Jack rises from his seat with a low grunt, “Think we're gonna step outside for a moment,” he announces.

You quickly follow suit and walk out after him before you can see anyone's expressions. You're pretty sure you hear Shen's giggle.

***

You welcome the morning chill that greets your face as soon as you step out, double doors falling shut behind you. You close your eyes, tilting your head upwards, and take a deep breath, easing the night's tension out of your body.

“Hot date yesterday?” You're quickly brought back to reality, turning sideways. Abbot has his hands in pocket and hair ruffled from the wind.

“Oh, uh, yes. How'd you guess?”

“You clocked in yesterday wearing something…different.” His eyes drop to your chest, before lingering on your lips, and then meeting your eyes again.

Your cheeks burn. You didn't realise he saw you in your fancy clothes. It was bad enough that you were running late, and worse that you didn't get to change before clocking in with your date outfit still on.

“Yeah. Noah took me to dinner. I just signed a new lease. I'm moving out of my current dumphole to another dumphole, but it's nearer to work. So.”

“Congratulations, glad to have you close.”

“Thanks, sir.”

A comfortable silence falls over for a minute before he speaks again, “was the place nice and quiet?”

“Hm?”

“Where he took you. Nick.”

“Ah. No. It's kinda trendy right now, so, super loud…” you trail off with a sigh. Jack keeps looking at you, as if wanting you to say more, as if finally expecting you to spill the truth out: Noah doesn't know you.

“Hm. Didn't peg you for a gold person, either.”

“What?”

He gestures with his chin towards your neck, where a sliver of chain is peeking out from under your shirt. A new one, gold colored, gifted by your boyfriend yesterday.

“I'm an anything person, really.”

Jack doesn't say anything, only waits. And this time, it works.

“Well, silver, if I had to pick. I like silver,” you speak, your voice bordering on a whisper.

Jack finally stops looking at you, and with that, you finally breathe. He casts his gaze towards the sky.

“I know.”

He says your name.

Your first name that he rarely says. Your heart stutters. Every bit of fresh air you inhaled seems to leave your lungs all at once. Instead, a family of butterflies — so fucking alive — have swarmed in there, rendering you speechless.

Please say my name again.

“I know, kid.”

“I'm not a kid, Jack.” For a second, you watch his eyes get darker. He takes a step closer to you. Then another. 

You crane your neck to look up at him. Suddenly, he turns his back to you. One of his hands peeks from his side, and tugs at the lower back of his shirt, pushing it down by an inch or two.

You stand confused, until you notice faint black ink — now visible — just below his neck. You suck in a sharp breath.

By the time Jack turns towards you again, you're barely holding yourself up. He leans forward, his nose only inches away from yours.

“I've got tattoos older than you,” he breathes, “kiddo.”

Your knees turn to jelly. A sharp heat travels straight into your belly, increasing the buzz between your legs. Your lips part, teeth sinking into your plush lower lip.

You can only numbly turn your body towards the door as he holds it open for you. There's not a hint of teasing or smugness in his expression. There is something else, though. 

Desperation.

You walk in through the gate, mind already trying to think of a reason to break up with Noah. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it finds plenty.

+1

“Oh, honey, just take this right now. The doctor has told your mom the rest. You're gonna be just fine!” You give your brightest smile to the 6 year-old girl, looking all sad and tiny on the gurney.

You stand up straight again, your back protesting. For someone still “young”, you definitely have an old-person back.

The mom gives you a thankful smile that still doesn't hide her tiredness, “Thank you so much.”

“She's gonna be alright, mom.” You flash one last smile and turn to pull the privacy curtain. When you step out, you see Lena, your charge nurse, and Jack in a conversation at the charge nurse station.

Lena calls out to you, “All done in there, hun?” You nod and give a thumbs-up. You expect your attending to say something, a joke, or even glance at you, but he doesn't.

Your heart sinks. After the morning at the bar, you went home and planned how to break-up with your boyfriend. On the other hand, Jack apparently went home and came up with, “10 ways on how I will ignore my co-worker who I occasionally flirt with on purpose.” 

For the past week, there have been no lingering looks, no cornering you to check in, and no making fun of you.

No point in dwelling. You start going on about your usual business, entering through another curtain, all while the back of your mind still calculates how to leave Noah.

You had prepared your speech and your reasons. But then, Noah lost his job the same day you were planning to have the talk. And 2 days later, he was leaving to visit his parents in California. Shouldn't you just wait until after the trip? It will be so much easier. 

Yes, you're definitely delaying it because it makes sense, and not because you're scared that Noah will absolutely take it the wrong way. He's been miserable lately as is, and while you were trying to be sympathetic, you couldn't find it in yourself.

Noah had always been unobservant and insensitive to your needs, not doing anything till he's told. All while, he expected it all from you — emotional support, moral support, and now, financial support. You saw nothing wrong with being “needy” but didn't you deserve the same treatment from him?

As you leave another exam room, still conflicted, you see Lena waving you over, the telephone receiver pressed against her ear. You quickly walk over.

Lena brings down the handset, palming the mouthpiece so the other person can't hear. “Sweets, it's your boyfriend, he's all panicking over something. Do you wanna take this, or should I make an excuse?”

The color from your face drains. This is humiliating, Noah calling at your work because he can't take care of himself. You quickly un-pocket your phone, tapping the screen awake.

9 missed calls from Noah.

“Uh, I'll take it. Thank you, Lena. Sorry too.” She gives you a sympathetic smile and hands you the handset.

“Noah, you can't be calling me at work.” You whisper into the mouthpiece.

“Babe, did you think I wanted to? I called your phone like 3 times, but you didn't pick it up. It feels like you're ignoring me.”

“It's because I am ignoring you. I am at a fucking hospital, working the emergency department,” your voice is straining with the effort to keep it low.

“Oh, I knew you'd throw your job in my face because I'm unemployed. You're a nurse, not a doctor, babe. See, I remember things.”

You take a deep breath.

“What do you want?”

“I locked myself out of my house. The locksmith will come by in the morning. Can you swing by and drop your keys? You know, I lost my license recently, and my ankle is still not good enough to take the subway.”

“No.”

“Jesus, I'm stranded, just be a good girlfriend for once.”

That sends you over the edge. You put the telephone down with more than necessary force, cringing when a few people turn to look at you.

“Fuck,” you mutter under your breath, tears of frustration welling up in your eyes.

“You okay, kid?” Lena asks sweetly, coming to stand closer to you. You're only able to nod at her. If you open your mouth, your voice will break. When your charge nurse finally steps away, you clear your throat, and blink back your tears. 

When you look up with clear eyes, there's Dr. Abbot standing about 20 feet away from you, in a conversation with a nurse that he's not listening to. Because he's looking directly at you.

You quickly move your head, “Lena, mind if I take 5?”

“Take 10, hun.” You flash her a grateful smile and start walking towards the supply closet.

You twist the doorknob and walk into what must be a 6×6 feet room, and close the door behind you. Your phone is still in your hand, clutched tightly enough to be used as a weapon. You open Noah's chat.

This isn't working out. When the locksmith figures out your door, pack my things in a box and leave them outside my door. Have fun folding your own bedsheets. I'm changing my Netflix password!

Your thumb hovers over the send button. Is the message too unkind? Too cruel for you? You drop the phone in your pocket, with the text still sitting there.

You force yourself to take deep breaths, pressing the heel of your hands against your eyes, turning around to face the organized racks.

“Fuck, fuck, fuc —”

The door slams open, and then shuts behind you, making you jump around, your hands falling to your chest.

“Jesus, Jack.”

“Did you forget your manners?” His voice comes out stern, low enough to drop the temperature of the room.

Your hands fall to your side. You're not in the mood for this. You don't want him in here, no matter how quickly your body is gaining color in his presence.

“What do you want, sir?” your question comes out breathless.

“You know, we pay you to work, not to hide in supply closets when you have fights with your childish boyfriend.”

“I asked Lena first, and I should be out in 5.”

“A patient can need you in 1,” he deadpans.

“Good thing there's Mateo and a bunch of fucking nurses already out there! I'm not the only one, sir,” you frantically wave your hands around, voice rising in pitch.

“Yeah, you're the only one yelling at your attending,” he leans back against the door, looking like he's enjoying a goddamn show. His calm pisses you off even more.

In your frazzled state, the true words spill out before you can filter them.

“Yes, my attending who has spent the last couple of days icing me out, keeping his distance, like I broke into his house and stole his leg.”

He's eyeing your motioning hands cutting through the air. You must look like the crazy one, while he stands there all frickin’ composed, his lips twitching.

“That's dark. And I'm your attending, nurse, as you mentioned. I'm not your boyfriend,” he shakes his head slowly like he's talking to a dog.

“I know that. Do you?”

“Oh, I know I'm not Nick,” he snickers.

“FOR THE LAST —” your voice booms throughout the small room before you stop yourself. You pinch your nose, chest heaving up and down.

Deep breaths. In and out. You're not the only two people in the hospital, no matter how much it feels like that.

Nurse, there's people that are dying.

“For the last time, his name is Noah,” you calmly say, voice shaking with the effort of controlling your pitch.

“Right, sorry. I just forgot because he forgot to fill his name out on your discharge papers when he brought you in. It's okay, children make mistakes like that all the time. Even when the forms are very easy to navigate, and the font size is very large,” Jack mocks, laughing sardonically. 

“Why do you care so much?” 

“Don't flatter yourself, sweetheart. I care about all my staff.”

Sweetheart.

“You're killing me.” 

“Trauma bay 1 is empty,” he deadpans, shrugging his shoulders. 

A humorless laugh escapes you. Oh, he thinks he's so funny.

“Staff. Is that what I am? Then why do you look at me differently than you look at others? Why do you catch me in the hallways? Why are you always seeking me out? Why have you not walked out of this —”

You flinch at the sudden motion, hand moving towards your temple where something just knocked against it. You look down, where a box maybe twice the size of your hand, lies on the ground.

The rack behind you is still vibrating from when your right arm collided with it 2 seconds ago. You shouldn't have been waving your arms around so much.

“Ow,” you mutter, the heel of your impacted hand rubbing your temple, and eyes downcasted at the box, looking at it like it personally wronged you. Which it did.

Jack quickly moves towards you, his left hand shooting up to take hold of your fingers that are kneading your head — same fingers that smashed against the rack — and brings your conjoined hands down.

“Careful. Are you hurt?” With only inches between you, he bends his head down to examine where you took the hit. His free palm brushes your hair back gently, and you shiver at the touch of his warm skin.

Trapped between your torsos, your hands are still joined, his thumb stroking against your knuckles to soothe any pain you felt on the impact.

“I asked you something, kid.” 

You've lost your voice. You look from your connected fingers to his eyes. 

And, oh.

His eyes have softened, looking at you with concern. This man sees lacerations, head traumas, hematomas, and fractures every single day. You've never seen him look this worried, and all for a pathetic clash that didn't even leave a bruise behind.

He switches positions with you, and suddenly, his back faces the shaky rack, his form protectively towering over yours. All of your body protests when he moves back, his hands dropping to his own sides.

“You can continue yelling at me now.”

In and out. Deep breath.

“Why have you not walked out of this room yet? And why have you kept me at an arm's distance?” you say but your voice is anything but loud, it's small and quiet, breaking at the end.

“As I said —”

“Stop, stop, stop. Stop, Dr. Abbot, and don't lie to me.” You instinctively take a step forward, closing all the distance again.

A pause.

“I really thought you were gonna break up with him. That morning, I thought you finally regained your senses, and were gonna cut off the dead weight,” he admits, running a hand through his hair.

“Jac —”

“Shut up and let me speak. I thought you were gonna end it with him, and you would come to the next shift looking happy and bright again. Just like you used to before you let that boy date you. You.”

His eyes are boring into yours, and he looks breathless and affected, so opposite to how he was just a minute ago.

“Me? What about me?”

He laughs humourlessly, “let's not fish for compliments. You know what you are. And if you don't, it makes me wonder what kind of limpdicks you have been with.”

You suck in a sharp breath, at a loss of words. Your cheeks burn, and your heart does a backflip. 

He thinks that?

Jack turns around, so his back is facing you. Both his hands brush his hair back, and you can see the expansion and contraction of his back as he takes deep breaths.

“What if I had broken up? Nothing would've changed. It's not like you would've done anything. You would've continued to eye-fuck me across gurneys, and flash a smile once a day,” you speak up, voice rising in pitch again.

He turns back sharply, walking even closer to you, his chest colliding with yours.

“Oh, you know it's more complicated than that,” he retorts, eyes narrowing.

“What? You're my senior, you're older —”

He says your name. Low. Authoritative. You feel a traitorous sensation between your thighs.

“I'm not just older, I am old. Period. And I know just how old I am, because I feel it everyday when I strap my leg, and wake up with a new pain every day."

You don't know how to respond. Your gaze falls to his lips, and before you know what you're doing, you're withdrawing your phone from your pocket.

You take a tiny step back to make space, and tap your screen awake. It directly opens to Noah's chat, your message still sitting there in the type box.

You turn your screen towards Jack. His eyes move back and forth, reading your draft. When his eyes meet you again, they're intense, frantic, and what do you know…excited.

“Why haven't you sent it?”

“Because he's already going through a lot. He doesn't have a job, or a car, or…okay, I get it.”

Jack's fingers come up to grab your chin, holding it up. He looks like he's just had a shot of espresso and topped it off with another 3.

“Do it. Do it right now, in front of me, or you'll chicken out. He lost his job, his car, the next thing he loses is you. The one that's worth the most.”

With his breathless voice, taking the edge of desperation as every second ticks, you know you've lost. You bite your bottom lip.

His thumb moves from your chin, to your lower lip, freeing it from your teeth, “don't worry yourself over him.”

Deep breath. In and out.

You slowly look down at your screen, your thumb hovering over the little arrow. 

Send. 

You put the mobile back in your pocket and look up at Jack with hope, like a kid waiting for approval. Jack flashes you the biggest smile you've ever seen on him. 

You did that. You.

“You did so good, sweetheart,” his thumb strokes your cheekbone, and you can't help but lean into his palm. You're high watching him smile, a similar one takes form on your lips.

He's so beautiful. He's the most beautiful man you've ever seen. He should be on TV, winning Emmy's for his grin.

But then you falter, “My…my minutes are up.”

“You can take another 5,” his face leans closer, and the tip of your nose kisses his.

“Patient might need me in 1,” you helplessly whisper, your breaths mingling.

“Well, consider me a patient, then. Your patient.”

You gulp. Your knees are growing weaker by the second and you can't stop staring at his soft lips. You let out a little pathetic whimper before lifting your chin, brushing your lips against his softly.

Fuck.

Your heart tries to escape your ribcage, palm operating with a brain of its own and landing right over his heart. His fluttering, excited, nervous heartbeat greets you, and your lips curve upwards.

Just as you try to move your lips against his —

“Not like this,” he murmurs against your mouth.

You let out an entirely pathetic whine, forehead crashing against his neck with a soft thunk. Your affectionate graze on his sternum turns into a punch — also, pathetic — and it makes him chuckle. 

“How, then?” your mutter into his neck.

His arm comes around your waist, holding you up for him so you can let your weight go. His arm tightens as soon as he feels you melt. 

“When I'll get you all the silver jewelry in the world,” he breathily replies in your ear.

“That's a lot.”

“What can I say? I like paying for things.”

His free fingers travel to the back of your neck, deftly working the hook of your golden chain with a single hand. You catch as the necklace falls down your chest, reluctantly taking your face out from his neck.

Note to self: Ask him what perfume he uses later. 

“One hand, wow.” 

“A lot of things I can unhook with one hand.”

He captures your wrist that you've held against his chest — index hatefully scratching, trying to harm him for not kissing you — and brings it to his lips.

He doesn't break eye-contact when he kisses the inside of your wrist. Then the middle of your palms, and finally the tips of your fingers.

You're grateful for his arm around your middle, otherwise you'd be on the floor, shrieking and screaming.

“Don't want to see that on you again,” he points with his chin towards your fist with the necklace inside it.

“Yes, doctor.”

He nods, heat swimming in his gaze. He finally extracts his arm from around your midriff, using it to pull out your phone from your pants and swiftly slipping it in his. 

“No more worrying, hm? In return…” He empties his other pocket, taking out a set of keys. He brings your palm down from his face and puts them in it.

“Sit in my car at the end of the shift. You know which one. Turn the heating on, and wait for me,” he raises his eyebrows, awaiting confirmation.

“Yes, okay,” you gulp, closing your other fist as well. One holds your past, another, your future. Or, so you hope.

“Yes, what?” he asks, already side-stepping you and moving towards the door.

“Yes, doctor”

“Good girl,” he shoots you a wink, the door falling shut behind him.

Look at that, your 10 minutes are up.

you get to be pretty with pretty girls and enjoy their pole work as they go up. plus, your bachelors degree seemed to mean zip once you moved out to california and frankly, closed mouths don’t get fed.

you start making your rounds now, hiking the sides of your thong up. it has ties on the sides so you pretend to fumble with it, “accidentally” letting one side loose so you can ask the guys at the booth you’re walking up to, if they can help you. really selling it, you “stumble” into the table letting your plush hip bump into the table.

“oh! im so sorry boys!” you say in a clipped chirp

the table jiggles a bit upon collision, their glasses clinking with the ice inside. you fake steady yourself with your free hand so you can lean a bit over the table. tilting your tits forward, they threaten to spill out your balconette.

“could one of you help me with this?”

looking up through your lashes, your heart drops. the booth you’ve sorrowfully stopped at is currently resident to all of the cody’s. baz, craig and deran stopped by frequently together. all separately having had their time with you before. great tippers, but baz thinks he can charm you into letting him be handsy, craig just gets crazy high and lays back, with deran being the most tame. pope you’ve only ever seen once or twice. he’s easily the scariest out of all of them but somehow that makes him the hottest. all the girls knew about pope like he was an old wife’s tale. he’s only with the other boys once in a blue moon and if he was, you could look but he’d never touch you. those auburn curls and broad figure could ruin the whole building. but he always just seemed to stare around. never asking for a dance from anyone. all he does is frown. that intrigues you. especially when he’s the one closest as you’re batting your eyes waiting for assistance.

the boys are leering at you now, except for him, who’s just staring plainly still. this starts to make you feel a bit insecure and silly now. why’s he the only one that doesn’t look interested? a spike of hurt twinges considering there’s nothing you wouldn’t give to ride that frown off his fa-

“pope why don’t you be a gentleman and help this little lady out?” baz taunts as he claps pope on the back.

pope looks down at this and rolls his shoulder. his brothers exchanging looks like school boys. pope’s tilting to looking up at you now, his eyes glaze to your breasts soooo briefly before shifting forward. motioning you to get closer, he flicks his index and middle finger towards him.

“cmere”

you swear you leaked just at that. your face heats at this realization, hoping he couldn’t possibly notice as he takes the strings you’re holding from your hands. his calloused fingers graze yours as you let go. his hands burning traces onto your hip where he works your bottoms into a perfect bow. you try not to focus on how you can feel wisps of his breathing on your side. when he’s done, he pulls it taught, running his hand softly over the knot before dropping it.

you think you could teeter over with a single push now. remembering you’re at work, your eyes rise from the floor addressing the four- three sets of hungry ones before you. brushing hair from your face to pull yourself together, you sigh

“any of you boys looking for a dance tonight?”

being that it’s a full table, you know that at least one of them will say yes. a cash grab guaranteed being the only perk of entertaining this booth. you just hope that it’s deran before baz tries to-

“yeah let’s go” pope drawls

you swear you misheard until he’s raising hand up ready for you to take it. before you even think of letting him change his mind, you clasp it softly. pulling him behind you eagerly swaying your ass with help of the tips of your heels. you don’t even need to look back to know that his brothers are gawking at eachother. you can almost hear craig’s laughter as he jeers at baz— who would have surely jumped the gun had the eldest not beat him to it. this is interesting. something attention-seeking blooming inside of you. curious. pope has barely been around here, let alone gotten a dance. you’re going to have fun with this one.

you open the door to the last room down. velvet seating lines one side of the room, scattered with pillows. light dancing all around as it plays through a chandelier above. there’s a pole in the back, right in front of the mirror spanning the whole wall.

“you can take a seat now baby” testing with a pet name as you let go of his hand to adjust the lights.

you spin back to pope now, still in his controlled form, staring. but a bit relaxed now, hands on his stomach clasped. slightly leaning back against the cushions. you could lick your lips at the sight. if he was so gentle tying your bottoms, you wonder how rough he could be in other situations. you chide yourself mid thought. you don’t know why you’re thinking like this. you’re at work, you’re working and he’s just a customer. you’ll dance and he’ll pay and then he’ll leave. you mentally roll your eyes— how boring that’d be for you.

you saunter over and straddle his thick thighs. they’re so big they practically have you full spread over them. you bring one hand to brace yourself on his shoulder, the other winding its way behind his neck, playing with the curls there.

“you ever have a dance before baby?” you lilt, you’re testing again.

he quietly shakes his head no.

“mkay, so this is how it’s going to work-“

you look down to pull his hands from his stomach and place them on your hips. you suck in your breath slightly as you feel his warm hands on your bare skin again. you “adjust” yourself better onto him scooting closer.

once you look up from the contact, you notice that it seems like he’s steeling himself a bit. his eyes still softened but now he’s chewing on his lip. oh.

“hey, we don’t have to touch if you don’t want to?” you almost whisper, moving your head down so you can level your eyes with his.

“i think i just want to watch you first, sweetheart”

god his voice. the gravelly soft hush makes you throb a little. and he called you sweetheart at that… you think this cody is already better than the others.

you lift yourself off of him and turn to put on some music. this is also why you enjoy your job, you get free rein over the aux in a private room. you click on one of your favorites, excited to use it for this occasion.

cherry by lana del rey floods the speakers.

you look in the mirror to see him already tracking as you glide to the pole. you’re unordinarily nervous now, feeling the need to impress. to give him his money’s worth. to be good for him.

you drag your toes into your step as you reach the small platform. you inhale sharply for composure as you grab the pole with both hands. bending over deeply, ass facing him, with your legs spread behind you. you hope he can’t see how needy you are through your thong. only making things worse for yourself— but better for the show— you bow more and free one hand to fall by your ankle and slowly drag up your leg, your thigh and then between until you’re drawing your hand over your now soaked cunt. you’re feeding off of the way you can feel his burning gaze in your peripheral of the mirror.

you snap up with one hand sliding up the pole, making your way around it once before dropping legs spread, pussy facing him. keeping eye contact with him now, you’re not as nervous. now you need him to see all of you. you start to bounce on your knees when he begins to draw his hand to a forming bulge. fuck.

you want to up the ante, so you rise next to the pole poking your ass out fully into the mirror grasping the pole with your right hand. you kick into a jump with your left hand catching the metal, your feet still in the air swirling around. pope’s hand is grinding into himself now. god.

“you’re so beautiful” he sighs continuing the slow hard pushes on his cock.

you can’t take this anymore, you think you need him right now. you make to step off the platform when you hear three loud bangs on the door making you jump. pope doesn’t even flinch but a scowl returns to his face.

“pope! we have to dip- now” its craigs voice behind the door. if rage could’ve set your skin ablaze you’d be on fire right now. but it seems pope isn’t that happy either as he stands, gruffly smoothing the front of his jeans. you mosey over to him now, thinking about how this would happen the one night he’s here.

“well it looks like you have to go huh” you frown— mainly for yourself.

he scratches at the back of his neck as he reaches into his back pocket.

“it’s okay,” he then steps close enough to steal your breath “we’ll just have to make up for it next time hm?” tilting his head, he places eight, hundred dollar bills in your hand without breaking eye contact. your eyes flick quickly between your hand and his and his plain expression as he makes for the door. he’s turning away grabbing the door handle when you stop him.

“hey! wait this isn’t-“

Well, you and the men he brings home on occasion.

You spit a mouthful of foamy toothpaste into the sink and wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. “What makes you think that?”

Deran shrugs and shakes his head. “I don’t know. I was just talking to Adrian on the beach this afternoon and I noticed Craig looking at us like…I don’t even know. Just feel like he suspects something.”

You sigh, turning around to lean against the bathroom counter and crossing your arms over your chest. “Were you giving Adrian a handjob on the beach?”

“What the fuck?” He exclaims, face distorting in indignant horror. “No. Of course not. We were just talking.”

“Then Craig doesn’t know shit.” You shrug, bumping him with your shoulder as you move past him out of the small bathroom. “You’re being paranoid. Again.”

This is the third time he’s claimed that Craig is growing suspicious of his sexuality in the last month. Normally, you would have realized what he meant by Craig is onto me right away, but you’re practically brain dead after working back to back double shifts at the bar.

That’s the only logical explanation for why the following words leave your mouth.

“You should just tell Craig that we’re dating.”

You hear footsteps and laughter follow you down the hallway. “Us? Dating?” Deran snorts. “Yeah, right. Like he’d believe that.”

“Why not?” You shrug, plopping down on the couch in the living room of your shared house to turn on the television. “We live together. Spend the vast majority of our free time together. We even work together, since you bought the bar. You’re single. I’m single. A lot of people already assume we’re together. It makes sense.”

“Well, yeah, but—” He comes to an abrupt pause, like he’s racking his brain for a reason why your idea might not work. He sits down on the ottoman in front of you, forearms braced on his thighs. “Huh,” he hums, clarity blooming across his face. “Maybe it isn’t the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

“Thanks.”

You definitely had not given it any real thought before making the suggestion, but he’s right - maybe it isn’t the worst idea. At least now you’ll have a somewhat kinda true excuse when rejecting the advances of all of your bar regulars that just can’t get the hint that you aren’t interested in them.

Deran clasps his hands together in front of him. “Okay, but seriously. How would this even work? What are the rules or whatever?”

You stare at him and try not to laugh. “You’re overthinking it. There doesn’t need to be rules. We just keep doing what we’re already doing. We go out to eat sometimes, yeah? Go to the beach and the movies? Run errands together? Friends do those things, but so do couples.” You shrug. “So we just keep doing those things, and when anyone asks, we call it dating.”

“Boyfriend and girlfriend,” he clarifies.

You nod. “Boyfriend and girlfriend.”

He squints, shaking his head. “We don’t really act like boyfriend and girlfriend, though. We would need to make it believable. At least around Craig and our other friends. You know, hold hands, cuddle, maybe kiss—”

You cut him off with an exaggerated gagging nose.

“That’s a little harsh.”

You toss a throw pillow at his head that he catches just in time. “I’m fucking with you,” you laugh. “You’re right. There does need to be a little physical affection to make it believable. There’s no reason to stick our tongues down each other’s throats in front of your brothers and our friends, though.” It’s his turn to grimace dramatically at the mental image of that. “Just keep it casual. Holding hands is good, an arm around my shoulder every now and then won’t hurt, and the occasional kiss on the cheek should suffice.”

He tilts his head in consideration. Your words seem to appease some of his uncertainty, though you still get the feeling that he isn’t completely sold on the idea.

“Look, if you aren’t on board, just say so. It was just a suggestion. You won’t hurt my feelings at all if—”

“No, no,” he interjects. “It isn’t that. It’s just…” He trails off, pursing his lips in contemplation. You wait for him to continue with raised brows. “What happens when you meet someone? Someone you want to be with for real?”

You don’t have a quick-witted response for that.

That hasn’t crossed your mind in ages. You’ve been single for so long that you don’t even remember how it feels to truly want to date someone. Your last boyfriend left you with quite the sour taste in your mouth for relationships that still lingers more than two years later.

You’ve gone on the occasional first date here and there, and had a few mostly unsatisfactory hook-ups over the last couple of years, but nothing has ever come from any of them. The thought of a real relationship is at the very bottom of your list of priorities, and you can’t see that changing anytime soon.

“In the rather unlikely event that happens, then we simply end our romantic endeavor. We’re still best friends. No harm done. Sound good?”

Deran considers that for a moment, then shrugs. “Alright. If you’re good with it, I’m good with it.” His words try to play off how much it means that you’d be willing to do something like this, but you know him. His smile and his eyes say what his mouth won’t.

You nudge his thigh with your foot. “Then congratulations, dude. You officially have a girlfriend.”

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

Pope doesn’t know all that much about romantic relationships.

Not healthy ones, anyway.

He can’t say that he’s ever even been in one. At least not anything serious - nothing that didn’t fizzle out after a couple months or end in some argument that he can’t remember now.

Everything he really knows about romantic relationships comes from movies and books and the toxicity that he’s witnessed in his personal life. His mother and her goddamn three baby daddies. Baz and Cath. Craig and his ever changing girls of the month.

He can admit that these aren’t the best examples of romantic love, and maybe that’s why he’s having a hard time understanding the dynamic between Deran and his girlfriend.

There’s no screaming. No cursing each other out on a regular basis. As far as Pope can tell, the two of you never even get into minor disagreements.

And there’s no cheating.

One morning, just a few days after Pope gets out of prison, he’s making himself breakfast when he overhears Craig trying to convince Deran to go with him to a party later that night.

“Come on, man,” Craig whines. “Just swing by for a couple hours. Renn’s cousin is going to be there. You know she has a thing for you.”

Pope looks up in time to catch the disgusted grimace on Deran’s face.

“I have a fucking girlfriend, dude. You know that.”

“I keep forgetting you two are serious now,” Craig sighs. “Bring her too, then.”

When Pope meets you the very next day, he understands why Deran had seemed so repulsed at the mere suggestion of going to a party to hang out with some girl who isn’t you.

He stops dead in his tracks when he walks into the backyard and finds you laying by the pool. Strappy bikini a size too small, perfectly polished toenails, and skin glistening in the sun - he can’t help but stare at you until you realize he is standing still as a statue just feet away, watching wordlessly. You didn’t even hear him come out, your eyes closed and music pouring softly from a Bluetooth speaker.

“Shit,” you hiss as soon as you notice his presence, taken off guard. “Uhm - hey,” you laugh awkwardly, sitting up from your position on the foldable lounge chair and pausing whatever upbeat song you’re listening to. “I take it that you’re Pope? Deran told me you might be around today.”

Pope is silent for a moment as he pieces together who you are. His gaze trails over your bare shoulders and down to your thighs before looking you in the eye again.

“You’re Deran’s girlfriend?” He tries to keep his tone neutral, but he can’t hide the incredulity that slips through.

“That’s me.” Another awkward laugh, though you don’t seem offended by the question. You offer a soft smile, but he thinks something about it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Deran should be here pretty soon, but I was about to make myself some lunch. Do you…want a sandwich or something?”

He isn’t hungry. He already ate. But for some reason, he says yes anyway.

You yank on a pair of blue jean shorts over your bikini bottoms and he follows you into the house where you insist on making him a sandwich while he tries not to ogle you too hard.

(At the time, he told himself that he would have taken the opportunity to hang around any pretty girl because he had just spent three fucking years in prison. But that wasn’t it. It was you. He wanted to be around you, even after just meeting you).

“So,” you start, spreading mustard across a piece of bread with a butter knife, “Would you prefer if I called you Andrew or Pope? Deran always calls you Pope, but I guess that’s kind of a family nickname, right?”

The question takes him by surprise. He hasn’t heard anyone call him Pope much in years. It still sounds weird to hear the nickname again. It feels like it’s been forever since anyone has even called him Andrew, too - it’s mostly been “Cody” or “Inmate 87286-923” for the last three years.

He’d forgotten how his name - government name or otherwise - sounds when it isn’t being barked at him. Coming from you, both names sound like music.

You glance up when he doesn’t answer right away, your expression hesitant as if worried you said something wrong.

“Either is fine,” he answers when he remembers how to string two words together. “Call me whatever you want.”

And he meant that. He doesn’t really have a preference. He would be fine with you calling him anything, as long as you call him something - but he got the best of both worlds when you decided that you would call him Pope in the presence of his family but Andrew anytime the two of you find yourselves alone.

It isn’t the lack of fighting or infidelity that perplexes him the most, though. It’s the fact that in the now six months since he’s been back home, he’s never once seen Deran kiss you.

Only ever a peck on the cheek here and there. He’s seen his arm slung around your shoulder, and your feet propped up in his lap when the two of you lounge on the couch at Smurf’s. He’s seen you rub sunscreen on Deran’s shoulders and watched him swim around the pool with you on his back plenty of times.

But in the last half year, he’s never seen either of you kiss the other on the lips.

Not that Pope is complaining. The last thing he wants is to watch you kiss his brother. He experiences more than enough unwelcome thoughts anytime he sees the two of you so much as hold hands.

He just doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how Deran doesn’t kiss you every chance he gets. You’re over at Smurf’s often enough that he should have witnessed it at least once by now.

He hates that he even pays attention to such a thing. It’s really not any of his business how you two choose to show your affection, but he can’t help the way he feels the slightest jolt of jealousy when you kiss Deran on the forehead anytime you’re leaving Smurf’s - and then relief that’s all it is. A kiss on the forehead and nothing more.

Because if you were his - and he’s painfully aware of the fact that you’re very much not - he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off you as easily as Deran does.

It takes everything in him to stop himself as is.

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

“You look like you’re having a blast.”

The familiar voice pulls you out of your trance over the roar of rap music. You glance up from where you sit on the edge of the pool, your legs dangling over and into the lukewarm water. Pope stares down at you, his expression as neutral as ever and beer bottle in hand.

“And you look like you’re going to church instead of a pool party,” you snort. You aren’t surprised in the slightest that he’s wearing one of his typical short sleeve button-ups instead of swim trunks, but you are a little surprised that he’s here right now. Parties with dozens of half-naked shit-faced drunks aren’t really Pope’s thing.

Then again, they aren’t really your thing either, yet here you are - nursing the same piss flavored beer Deran had handed you over an hour ago as you watch him and Craig shotgun beers across the yard.

“What are you doing here?” You ask, patting the concrete beside you in invitation for him to sit down. “Where’s Lena? I thought she was with you tonight.”

“She’s at home. With the sitter.” He crouches down, albeit a little awkwardly due to the fact he’s wearing pants and shoes and can’t dip his feet into the pool like you. Even with his legs bent at the knees and his arms resting across them, he seems stiff. Uncomfortable. Like he’d rather be anywhere else than here. “I had a few things I needed to take care of before the job tomorrow.”

Ah, yes. The job. The job that you definitely don’t know anything about - as far as Smurf and the others are concerned, anyway.

You may not get involved, but you aren’t oblivious to what Pope and his family do to make money. Piecing it together hadn’t exactly been rocket science. Every time a major robbery, heist, or hit-and-run occurs within a fifty mile radius of Oceanside, Deran suddenly seems to have an abundance of cash.

What really made the pieces click into place was the time he asked you to cover his half of the rent and then mysteriously had the funds to completely pay your car off for you less than forty-eight hours later.

“Do I even wanna know where you got this money?” You ask when he hands you a thick envelope with over six thousand dollars in it. The exact amount you need to pay your car loan off.

Deran sighs. “No. You really don’t.”

The following morning, you turned on the news at work and watched coverage of a casino that got hit for over a half million just two towns over.

You aren’t a fucking idiot. His flesh and blood brother was in prison for a bank robbery at the time. Two plus two is four.

Pope’s not an idiot, either. He knows that you know. But you don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, and he doesn’t volunteer any information that could potentially put you in danger.

“And?” You ask, leaning back on the palms of your hands. You turn your head to look at him and find that he seems particularly interested in the beer bottle in his hand. “Did you get everything taken care of?”

A curt nod. “Everything should be good to go.”

And that’s that. You don’t pry any further.

“I would’ve watched Lena tonight if I had known,” you say lightly.

That gets him to look at you. “It’s your first night off in five days,” he says lowly, bringing the rim of the bottle to his lips. “Didn’t wanna ask that of you.”

“I wouldn't mind,” you murmur, looking away to play off the heat rising on the back of your neck at the realization that he knew it was your first night off this week. “I like spending time with Lena.”

Pope hums, the corners of his lips quirking. “Yeah. She likes spending time with you, too.”

“And I’d much rather be hanging out with her than be…here right now,” you grumble as Deran and Craig emerge from the house with another keg.

“What?” Pope chirps. “You don’t think holding your boyfriend’s hair back as he pukes into Smurf’s three hundred dollar orchid is fun?”

You snort a laugh, but you can’t help the way your fingers clench around the neck of your beer bottle at the word boyfriend. “You saw that, huh?”

“At least a dozen people saw that.”

“Good,” you huff. “That’s what he gets for thinking he can drink all of that on an empty stomach.”

At that exact moment, one of Deran and Craig’s surfer buddies yells “CANNONBALL!” from the roof of the house a second before you and Pope both get drenched in pool water. You’re in a bathing suit, so no big deal - annoying, but not a big deal. Pope, on the other hand, looks like he’s seconds away from jumping in the pool and drowning the guy for soaking his jeans and button-up.

“Jesus,” you grunt. “I’m over this. Wanna get out of here?”

Pope’s expression morphs from annoyance to surprise. He glances around like he isn’t one hundred percent sure you’re talking to him. Then, you stand and offer him a hand up. He hesitates a second longer, staring in Deran’s direction before accepting your hand and getting up.

“Where’re we going?” He asks, a step behind you.

“It’s a surprise.”

It’s not a surprise. You just didn’t think that far ahead before making the proposition - you just know that you want to be somewhere else. Somewhere that you aren’t surrounded by drunk, obnoxious assholes. Somewhere that you don’t look up and see a girl practically humping some douchebag’s leg. Somewhere that you can actually relax on your first Friday off in two months.

And, for reasons that you won’t let yourself dwell on right now, somewhere that you and Pope can be alone.

Somewhere you don’t have to worry that people are looking at you and wondering why is she spending so much time with her boyfriend’s brother while her boyfriend gets plastered twenty feet away?

The answer to that is quite simple, actually. Deran isn’t really your boyfriend. But no one knows that except for you and him. Not even Pope.

As far as he and everyone else knows, you and Deran have been in a committed relationship for well over half a year now.

“Don’t you want to let Deran know that you’re leaving?” He murmurs low enough that only you hear as the two of you make your way through a throng of people near the back door to the house. Deran stands several yards away with his back to you, talking animatedly with Craig and a few of their friends. “I’m sure he’ll worry if you dip without saying anything.”

You have to refrain from laughing at that. You stop to grab your tank top and shorts off the table by the back entrance, quickly cramming your feet into your sandals. “He looks a little occupied at the moment. I’ll send him a text and let him know I decided to head out early.”

You have no real intention of doing so, but Pope doesn’t need to worry about that.

He follows you to your car, gets in the passenger seat, and doesn’t question you any further until you park your car at the first somewhat calm, quiet place that comes to mind.

A quaint cliffside pull-off overlooking the ocean on the outskirts of town. It’s no more than a ten minute drive from the Cody house, but it’s so serene that it feels hundreds of miles away. You roll down both the driver and passenger side windows before turning your car off, and for a moment the only thing you can hear is the crashing of waves against the rocks below.

“Do you come up here often?” Pope murmurs, voice filling the silence.

You shake your head, not taking your eyes off of the moonlight that dances across the water. “I used to. A long time ago. Before Deran.”

From your peripheral vision, you can tell that he’s turned his head to look at you. “How did you two meet, anyway?” He asks after an extended silence.

You huff a humorless laugh. “It’s not exactly a cute story.”

He unbuckles his seatbelt, turning to face you more fully. “Well, now I’m really curious.”

You finally look at him. He’s staring at you with that same look that you’ve been trying and failing to get a read on since the first time you met him six months ago. He looks at you now exactly how he looked at you then, that day by Smurf’s pool.

You exhale, looking back to the black horizon so you might stand a chance of regaining the ability to think clearly. “We met about three years ago. I was still dating my ex boyfriend at the time. I was working the bar one evening when my ex stumbled in drunk and decided to pick a fight with some poor guy he thought was hitting on me. I tried to intervene, and my ex shoved me so hard I fell backwards and hit my head on the counter…” You trail off, shaking your head at the memory. Pope waits silently for you to continue.

“And Deran,” you continue with a soft laugh, “was sitting just two stools down. He didn’t even hesitate. Just grabbed my ex and started beating the ever-loving fuck out of him right in the middle of the bar until he was unconscious. That wasn’t the first time my ex put hands on me but it was the last.”

You look back to Pope to find he’s still staring at you, his jaw clenched and hazel eyes sharp even in the dimly lit car. For once, you’re able to tell exactly what he’s thinking and it sends a shiver up your spine. Without even saying a word, you know that if Deran hadn’t already pulverized your ex, you’d have to stop Pope from going and doing the same.

“Anyway,” you shrug, trying to break the tension brewing in your passenger seat. “That’s how we met. Deran stayed even after the cops showed up to make sure I was okay, walked me to my car when I was leaving…and just kinda stuck around after that, I guess. Been best friends ever since.”

The last words slip out before you can stop them. Best friends. It isn’t a lie. You are best friends - have been ever since that night. But sitting here now, alone with his brother, it’s too easy for you to forget that you’re supposed to be more than just best friends.

If Pope thinks anything of your choice of words, he doesn’t point it out. “Sounds like it was a good thing he was there that night,” he says lowly, his voice clipped. “I’m glad you got away from that.”

You give a small nod. “Yeah. Me too.”

“And Deran…” He starts, trailing off until you glance at him. “He’s good to you?”

You blink, taken off guard by the question. “Deran?” You snort. “Yeah, he’s…I mean, he’s Deran.” You shrug. “He doesn’t show up shit-faced at my job and pick fights with random men, if that’s what you’re asking.”

You laugh, but Pope doesn’t. “No,” he says slowly. “I’m asking if he makes you happy.”

You swallow. The space inside your car suddenly seems infinitely smaller. Even with the windows rolled down, it feels suffocating.

It’s a simple question. It should have a simple answer.

“Yeah,” you breathe. You force a tightlipped smile that feels completely unnatural. “Of course. Like I said, he’s my best friend.”

Those fucking words again. It’s as if you physically can’t stop yourself from saying them. Best friend, best friend, best friend. Not partner, not boyfriend, not lover. Just best friend.

The most fucked up part is that if it were anyone else sitting here beside you, you know you could force yourself to spew some fabricated bullshit about how in love you are. About how Deran makes you the happiest girl in the world and you’re going to spend the rest of your lives together.

But not Pope. Pope, who you most wish you could blurt out the truth to. Pope, who looks at you so intensely that you have to wonder if he can read your mind and already knows.

“Best friend,” he repeats. It doesn’t sound like a question. “That’s sweet.”

The silence that follows is brief but heavy. Then, your phone chimes with a text message, and you’ve never felt more grateful for an interruption in your life.

“It’s Deran,” you mumble, typing back a quick reply. “Just making sure I’m alright.” You press send, then place your phone back in an empty cup holder. “I should probably get home,” you sigh before Pope has the chance to press the subject of you and Deran any further. “I’ve gotta open the bar in the morning.”

He nods, but there’s something about the look on his face that makes you hesitate. You squint at him. “What?”

Pope shakes his head, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Nothing.”

It doesn’t hit you until later - when you’re lying in bed and failing miserably to keep your thoughts from wandering to Pope Cody - that Deran wouldn’t have texted to ask if you were alright if you had messaged him to let him know that you were leaving the party like you had told Pope you were going to.

That peculiar look on Pope’s face that you hadn’t understood at the time suddenly makes sense to you. He had realized, in that moment, that you never bothered to text Deran and tell him you were leaving.

And what kind of girlfriend doesn’t even take two seconds to let her boyfriend know she’s leaving a party they’re both at?

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

Pope barely slept a wink last night.

He spent half the night going over the details for today’s heist, and the other half replaying and overanalyzing everything you had said during the short time spent together in your car.

One question. Pope had asked you one fucking question. How did you two meet, anyway?

And you had answered him - somehow leaving him with even more questions than before you whisked him away from the party and took him to some remote cliffside pull-off on the outskirts of town.

Questions he can’t ask quite so casually.

Why didn’t you say goodbye to Deran when we were leaving the party? Why do you seem so reluctant to call him your boyfriend? Why didn’t you text him like you said you were going to?

Add those to the list of questions he already had - the biggest of which being why doesn’t he ever kiss you like I fucking want to kiss you?

He may not have the answers to those questions, but he knows one thing: he’s not crazy.

Well, he supposes that’s debatable. A lot of people would argue otherwise. But he’s not imagining things. Not this time. It’s not just wishful thinking on his part. There’s more than meets the eye to your and Deran’s relationship.

Maybe you don’t feel for Pope what he feels for you. But he doesn’t think you feel it for Deran, either.

But he can’t dwell on that anymore right now. Not when Lena’s babysitter is texting him one hour before he’s supposed to leave for a huge job to tell him that she had something unexpected come up and can’t watch Lena tonight.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he grumbles under his breath. He’s got less than an hour to figure out somewhere safe for Lena to stay tonight.

The last thing he wants is to leave her with Smurf and give her the satisfaction of being needed for anything, and he wouldn’t trust Nicky or Renn either one to watch a fucking dog - so he packs Lena an overnight bag and heads to find one of the only people on the planet that he truly trusts with her.

He breathes a small sigh of relief when he pulls into the parking lot of the bar and sees your car.

“What are we doing here?” Lena asks from the backseat.

“I have to go to work,” he explains gently. “Allison is busy tonight so we’re here to see if you can hang out with uncle Deran’s girlfriend for a while.” He turns around to look at Lena - she’s staring at him with those wide doe eyes that Pope has gotten used to seeing filled with disappointment. “Is that okay with you?”

Lena nods, her face perking up a bit.

Pope had figured she wouldn’t mind. He hadn’t been lying when he told you that Lena enjoys spending time with you. Really, he’d far rather Lena spend time with you than her regular babysitter, but he knows that for whatever reason, you enjoy your job.

(He would be more than willing to pay you significantly more than what you make as a bartender, but that’s besides the point).

Lena practically runs towards you the second that she sees you wiping down a corner booth in the nearly empty bar. Pope trails a few feet behind, carrying her overnight bag on his shoulder. He watches as you glance up when Lena calls your name. You instantly open your arms to her, letting her jump into your embrace. The smile on your face when you realize it’s her lights up the whole damn dingy room, Pope thinks.

You and Pope lock eyes with Lena still in your arms. Your gaze lands on the bright pink bag hanging off of his shoulder, and he looks at you apologetically. Without him even saying a word, he can tell that you already know exactly why he and Lena are here.

“Hey, are you hungry?” You ask Lena, placing her back down on the floor. “You want some cheesy fries?” She nods, a somewhat shy but excited smile growing on her face. “I’ll get you cheesy fries and a lemonade. Just go sit in that little booth while I talk to your uncle Pope for a minute, okay?”

Pope waits until Lena is out of earshot before speaking lowly. “I’m sorry,” he starts, but you’re already shaking your head. “Her sitter canceled at the very last second. I’ve gotta meet Deran and Craig in less than an hour. I just don’t wanna leave her with Smurf—”

“Andrew,” you interrupt him, effectively ending his rambling by simply saying his first name. “It’s okay. Really. I’m only working opening shift today, so I get off soon. It isn’t a big deal.”

Pope glances to where Lena sits in the corner booth, watching something on her iPad, and then back to you. “You’re sure?”

“Of course,” you say, soft but sure. You hold out a hand to take Lena’s bag. “Do what you need to do. Me and Lena will find something fun to do this evening.”

He hesitates a second longer, then hands you the bag. “There’s some money in the side pocket for you two to get dinner.” Then, lowly so the few people sitting at the bar can’t hear, “I should be back no later than eleven o’clock, max. Her bedtime is usually eight but it’s Saturday, so she can stay up a little bit later, if she wants. It’s up to you.”

You smirk. “I’ll try not to keep her up too late.”

He can’t help but think that you look so fucking pretty right now. Even in a simple black t-shirt with the bar’s logo and a server’s apron on. He wonders if Deran has told you how pretty you look today.

Or if Deran has even seen you today. Knowing him, he likely crashed at Smurf’s after the party or stayed out until the sun came up and was too hungover to wake up when you left for work.

“She’ll be fine,” you assure him delicately, seemingly taking his silence for hesitation. “Take your time and just…be safe, okay?” You look like you want to say more, but you bite your bottom lip, crossing your arms over your chest.

Pope gives a brief nod. “I will.”

He starts to walk past you to say goodbye to Lena when you grab him by the forearm. His gaze drops to where your hand grips him and then back up to your worried eyes.

“Promise me,” you whisper. “You won’t take any unnecessary risks. You won’t do anything to get yourself locked back up. Or worse.”

There’s a small, petty part of him that wants to ask if you made Deran make you a similar promise. But he knows how mean that would sound, and he knows he would regret it as soon as the words left his lips.

He settles for a simple I promise instead.

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

Spending time with Lena doesn’t feel like spending time with a child. It’s more like spending time with an adult trapped in a child’s body.

She’s more reserved and guarded than any seven year old should ever have to be. Hesitant to get close to anyone for fear that they’ll be the next person that she loses.

It never takes you too long to bring her out of her shell, though. All you had to do was ask if she wanted to go get her nails done, and glimpses of the bright little girl beneath the trauma began to peek through.

Any color she wants, you had told her. Multiple colors. A different color for each finger and toenail. She had said that would look silly - ultimately choosing a bright yellow for her toes and a baby pink for her fingernails.

When you asked if she wanted to come back for another manicure in a few weeks, she looked like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to be excited. She hesitated, asking “really?” in a tiny voice that broke your heart.

You had assured her you were confident that her uncle Pope wouldn’t mind.

Afterwards, it started to rain, so your original plan to take her to the beach got scrapped. You had been driving down the road, trying to brainstorm something else to do to pass the time for a couple hours, when you drove past an arcade that you hadn’t been to in years.

Lena hadn’t, either.

Air hockey, skee ball, Whac-A-Mole, pinball, and every claw machine in the building. With all of her tickets (and yours), she picked out a small stuffed bunny that she is now cuddling in your bed - fast asleep, with a belly full of the pizza that you picked up on your way home.

You tucked her into your bed hours ago and she fell asleep within minutes. You wish you could say the same for yourself.

Right now, it’s a quarter til midnight and you’re trying your hardest not to spiral - and the fact that Pope had said he would be back no later than eleven o'clock and you’ve yet to hear a word from him, Deran, or anyone else is only the second half of the reason why.

The first half is an innocent observation made by a seven year old.

“Why are you uncle Deran’s girlfriend and not uncle Pope’s girlfriend?”

You nearly spit out your drink at the question. It’s so random that at first, you think you must have heard her wrong. The two of you are sitting on your living room couch, eating dinner and watching some cute animated movie on Netflix that Lena chose.

“What - why do you ask that?” You laugh.

She isn’t even looking at you, her attention on the screen in front of her. She gives a small shrug and glances at you. “I don’t know,” she says in a small voice. “Sometimes I just wish you were uncle Pope’s girlfriend instead. Is that bad?”

What the hell are you supposed to say to that? Yeah kid, I wish that, too. All the time, actually. But your uncle Deran is actually gay and if I break up with him to get with his fucking brother then people are going to assume that Pope stole his girl and that I cheated on him. But I can’t say that I didn’t actually cheat on him, because then we’d have to admit to the fact that our relationship has been fake this entire time, and Deran would have to come out before he’s ready, and and and—-

Lena is staring at you.

“No,” you say softly. “I don’t think that’s bad. Sometimes we can’t help what we want. But…you don’t have to wish for your uncle Pope and I to be boyfriend and girlfriend. If you want the three of us to spend more time together, or if you want you and I to spend more time together, we can try to make that happen.”

“It’s not that,” she says meekly, looking down at her hands in her lap.

You tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Then what is it, kiddo?”

She hesitates for a moment. You’re going to drop the subject, because ultimately, it doesn’t really matter - what she wants or what you want - but then she opens her mouth.

“Uncle Deran doesn’t look at you the way uncle Pope does.” She looks up at you with those wide, earnest eyes. It’s at this moment that you have to remind yourself that she has no true blood relation to Pope - because just like him, you think she can see right through you. “And you don’t look at uncle Deran the way you look at uncle Pope.”

“Wow,” you laugh, a little too quickly. “Remind me to never play poker with you.” She scrunches her brows together in confusion. Then, you scoot a bit closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Grown-ups are complicated sometimes. But I promise you don’t need to worry about me, or Uncle Pope, or uncle Deran. That’s between us. All that matters is that we all love you. Okay?”

She nods, accepting that answer far more easily than you expect. She doesn’t press, doesn’t question, just leans into your embrace and goes back to watching her movie.

But her words continue to echo in your mind hours after she has fallen asleep and the small house has gone quiet.

Are you really so transparent that a fucking seven year old can read you like that? And if she’s right about the way you look at Pope…could she be right about the way he looks at you, too?

You’ve never let yourself think about it long enough for it to matter. Pope has never been a possibility.

Even if you wish he was.

And then there’s the more obvious and pressing matter at hand - it’s nearly midnight and you have no idea if the boys are okay.

None of them are answering their phones. After Pope and Deran, you even try to call Craig. All go straight to voicemail. You even send Nicky a short, inconspicuous text - simply asking if she’s heard from J. She has not.

You force yourself to put your phone down after that. If their phones are turned off, there’s nothing else you can do for the time being except wait.

You don’t even realize you’ve dozed off until the sound of a car door slamming shut jolts you awake.

You practically sprint to the door, unlocking and opening it before they have a chance to wake Lena up. Your knees almost give out in relief when you see both Deran and Pope standing upright, walking up the front porch steps.

Then you see a cut across Deran’s cheekbone.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, stepping outside. You reach out on instinct, your fingers hovering over the dried blood smeared across his skin. It’s not deep, but it’s ugly. “Are you okay?”

“It’s nothing,” he mutters, brushing it off but letting you inspect the wound. “It’s already stopped bleeding—”

You can’t help but glance past him to where Pope still stands at the top of the porch steps a few feet away. Your eyes are instantly drawn to a large stain on the side of his shirt, just under his ribcage. Dark red and wet looking. Undeniably blood.

“Holy shit,” you whisper, already stepping past Deran without thinking. “Jesus, what happened to you?”

Before you can think twice, your hands are on him, tugging his shirt up. Your stomach drops when you see the bloody gash across his ribs.

“You got shot,” you hiss.

“I got grazed,” he corrects gently, watching you with an unreadable expression. “I promised you I wouldn’t do anything to get locked up or worse, right? I didn’t break that promise. This is just a flesh wound.”

Behind you, Deran clears his throat. “Don’t worry about me, babe. I’m totally fine. In case you were concerned.”

“I know you’re fine, Deran. You’re not the one bleeding onto our porch.”

Deran is silent for a moment as you crouch down to get a better look at the still-oozing wound on Pope’s side. Then, he sighs, muttering something about going to take a shower.

“Don’t wake Lena up,” you call over your shoulder in a whisper-shout as he disappears into the house without another word.

And then it’s just you and Pope. Pope, with his abdomen still halfway exposed and blood dripping down his side.

“Come on,” you tell him. “Let’s get you patched up.”

He follows you into the house without any protest.

“Shirt off,” you command without looking at him as you gather whatever you can find from around the kitchen and small hallway bathroom.

You’re a bartender - not a doctor. Not a nurse. Not even a CNA. But you have been best friends with Deran Cody for a couple years now, so this isn’t your first time having to patch up a gaping, bloody wound.

It is, however, your first time patching up Pope.

Urgent care or the ER is out of the question, so you have to make do with what you have. A clean washcloth, hydrogen peroxide, Neosporin, gauze pads and tape.

Pope takes a silent seat on the couch and lets you examine the wound up close when you sit down beside him. You hear Deran turn on the shower from the master bathroom down the hallway as you begin wiping the mostly dried blood off of his skin with a damp washcloth.

“So,” you start, your face warming under his stare, “other than the obvious, did everything go okay? Are Craig and J alright?”

“Yeah,” Pope grunts. “They’re fine. Me and Deran got the worst of it.”

“Clearly,” you grumble. “Should’ve made you promise specifically to not get shot.” You glance up at him. “I’ll remember that next time.”

He looks down to where you carefully clean the skin of his abdomen. “How was Lena?” He murmurs. “Did she behave for you?”

“Of course,” you snort. “She always does. We had fun. Got our nails done, went to the arcade, got pizza for dinner, watched a movie about a fox and a bunny who are cops…”

“Wow. Sounds like your evening was far more relaxing than mine.” He pauses. “Did you use the money I put in Lena’s bag?”

You roll your eyes but don’t look away from the task at hand. “Yeah. Five hundred dollars was more than enough for dinner, you know.”

He lets out a low, rough laugh at that. You feel it more than you hear it. It rumbles through his chest beneath your hands, the muscles there jumping with the motion of it. Your eyes drift without meaning to, suddenly very aware of how close you’re sitting to him and the steady rise and fall of his bare, bulky chest only inches away. You force your attention away from the thick muscles, grabbing the hydrogen peroxide.

“This will probably sting,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. He nods, just visible enough to confirm he heard you before you carefully squirt the clear liquid over the gash.

“So, where’s she sleeping?” He asks, barely even wincing.

Your brows scrunch together. “In my bedroom?”

A pause. “And where were you sleeping?” You’re too distracted, and too tired, to pick up on the subtle, curious shift in his tone. With one hand, he pats one of your pillows that you had brought from your room along with a large throw blanket to assemble a makeshift bed on the couch. “Here?”

“Yeah?” You snort. “I let Lena sleep in my bedroom and I took the couch…”

“I thought this place had two bedrooms.”

You shake your head, still not entirely sure what he’s getting at. “It does. My room and Der…”

The words die in your throat. You completely freeze as you blot the clean wound dry with a paper towel.

Shit.

Your room…and Deran’s room.

“I mean—” You clear your throat, tossing the paper towel aside and grabbing the tube of Neosporin and a gauze pad to avoid looking him in the eye while your brain is scrambling to think of some excuse as to why a happy couple would be sleeping in separate bedrooms. You say the very first thing that comes to mind. “Deran snores. Like, really loud. And I’m a light sleeper, so…sometimes I crash in the guest room. It was my bedroom before we started dating.”

It’s a shit excuse. It doesn’t at all address why you didn’t just sleep in your and Deran’s shared bedroom tonight, but it’s the best you can come up with on the spot - with him staring at you like he can read your mind.

Pope doesn’t respond right away. You can practically feel his eyes on you, daring you to look up.

“I didn’t know that Deran snores,” he muses lowly.

Does Deran actually snore? Maybe? Sometimes?

You tear off a piece of cheap medical tape you found in the first aid kit. “Yeah, well, you’re not the one who shares a bed with him.”

The room feels impossibly small and suffocating. You hold the gauze pad up to the wound, your hands trembling more than you’d like as you try to make quick work of securing the bandage to his side.

You start to pull away, to tell him that should be good enough for now, to leave the room and attempt to regain your composure after all but blatantly admitting that your relationship is a sham, when Pope grabs your wrist.

At first, he says nothing. Just stares at you, as intense and unyielding as ever. His hand dwarfs your own, his skin like wildfire against yours.

You know you should pull away - should try your hardest to convince him that yes, of course your brother and I sleep in the same bed. Why wouldn’t we? We’re boyfriend and girlfriend. That’s what boyfriends and girlfriends do when they live together—

But all the words catch and pile up in your throat, making you feel like you’re going into anaphylactic shock.

“No, I don’t share a bed with him,” Pope drawls. “But you don’t share a bed with him, either. Do you?”

Your mouth goes dry. There’s no point in even trying to deny it. The truth may as well be written across your forehead.

Pope releases your wrist. You almost think he’s going to let it go - that he isn’t going to press this subject right here, right now, where Deran could so easily overhear. Instead, his hand settles on the exposed skin of your thigh, just above your knee. His calloused thumb applies just enough pressure to the flesh of your inner thigh to make your stomach knot.

“Not only do I think you don’t share a bed,” he murmurs, voice rough, “but I also think you don’t like calling him your boyfriend very much either, for some reason.”

Your heart is beating so hard you’re sure he can feel it through your skin. His hand slides the slightest bit higher.

“And I don’t think he kisses you,” he continues, leaning closer. “At least not the way I think about kissing you.”

Air leaves your lungs in a shaky breath. Your eyes drop to his lips before you can stop yourself.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispers, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his breath.

Your hand moves before your brain can catch up, coming up to cup his jaw. The rough scrape of stubble against your palm sends a shiver down your spine as your lips hover no more than an inch away from his.

He’s shirtless and wounded. Lena’s sleeping in the next room and Deran is showering just down the hall. You’re supposed to be in a relationship with his brother, but right now you can’t remember why you ever thought that was a good idea.

Right now, you don’t really give a shit about any of that because Pope is right. He’s right about it all. You and Deran don’t share a bed. You do struggle calling him your boyfriend. He doesn’t kiss you, and you don’t kiss him.

Never have. Not in the way that every fiber of your being screams to kiss Pope right now.

“No.”

You aren’t quite sure whether he kisses you or you kiss him. You just know within seconds of your lips touching his, the restraint that you’ve been fighting to maintain for months crumbles. His mouth moves against yours with the kind of urgency that both shows and tells just how much he’s been holding himself back all this time, too.

He exhales against your lips, one hand coming up instinctively to grip your waist while the other tightens on your thigh. The pull of it drags you closer to him on the couch and before you know it, you’re straddling his lap, your hands braced on his broad, freckled shoulders for balance. He fists the hem of your t-shirt, bunching the fabric at your waist just enough for his knuckles to graze the exposed skin of your sides.

The unmistakable flavor of menthol on his tongue from a cigarette he undoubtedly smoked on the drive home with Deran tells you that he couldn’t have predicted this happening right now anymore than you could have.

Your fingers glide over the planes of his shoulders and up the sides of his neck until they weave through his short brunet curls that you’ve longed to run your hands through for longer than you care to admit. You give a gentle tug to the hair at the base of his skull and the sound that vibrates from deep within his chest shoots straight to your core.

It’s nothing short of a miracle that your brain is somehow able to register that Deran has turned the shower off.

As much as it equally physically and emotionally pains you to do so, you scramble off of Pope’s lap, adjusting your t-shirt back into a proper position and wiping any evidence of his kiss from your mouth with the back of your hand. As you scoot to the opposite end of the couch from him, you can’t help but take in the current state of him - lips kiss swollen, chest and neck flushed pink, and clad only in the pair of jeans that he attempts to adjust to conceal the bulge you were able to feel through your sleep pants.

If it weren’t for the fact that you can hear Deran exiting the bathroom at this precise moment, you don’t think you’d be able to stop yourself from taking him right here on this couch.

And that’s a very dangerous thought.

Deran enters the living room wearing only a pair of basketball shorts, sandy blond hair still dripping and his own skin flushed pink for reasons entirely different from Pope. Luckily, he barely spares a glance in your direction, walking past you and Pope to get to the kitchen.

“Bleed out on my couch yet? Or are you gonna make it?” Deran calls from where he rummages through an open fridge. You look to Pope, mentally urging him to play off what had just transpired not even ten seconds before Deran walked in the room.

He doesn’t. He stares at the back of Deran’s head, his jaw clenched so tight that you’re surprised he doesn’t break a tooth.

You answer before the silence can turn (more) weird.

“He’s patched up well enough for now,” you say, voice unnaturally high. Then, as casually as you can manage, “there’s leftover pizza from dinner in there, if you’re hungry.”

“Sick,” Deran grunts. “What about you, man? You hungry?”

You raise your brows at him, shooting him a look that clearly says fucking answer him, act normal, I swear to God if you don’t eat that leftover pizza—

He doesn’t take his eyes off of you when he answers with a singular, emotionless word. “Starving.”

Deran has no reaction, but something about the way he says it while looking at you makes it feel like the back of your neck is on fire.

You clear your throat. “Well, I have to open in the morning, so I should probably get some sleep…” You turn to Pope, trying not to completely melt under his stare. “Um - Lena can just sleep here tonight, if you don’t wanna wake her up this late. You can come back and get her in the morning, or you sleep here on the couch if you want—”

It won’t kill you to actually share a bed with Deran for one night. He is your best friend, after all.

“No, that’s okay.” He shakes his head and reaches for the blood soaked shirt on the coffee table. “It’s probably best if I come back in the morning.” He doesn’t elaborate as he starts to put the stained button-up back on.

“At least let me give you one of Deran’s t-shirts to wear for the time being. That thing is covered in blood.” You don’t wait for a response before you’re rising from the couch and walking down the hallway to Deran’s bedroom.

The second the door shuts behind you, you lean against it - fingertips touching your bottom lip that still tingles from where his mouth had moved so desperately with yours. You take a few deep, steadying breaths before you’re able to force yourself to look for a clean t-shirt in the absolute shit show that is Deran’s bedroom.

Part of you feels relieved that Pope is insisting on coming back to get Lena in the morning so that you won’t have to actually sleep in this mess. As much as you love Deran, you can’t say with confidence that he’s changed his bedsheets anytime in the last six months.

Another part of you is glad that Pope won’t be occupying your couch tonight because you know you wouldn’t stand a chance of getting a decent night’s sleep if he were a mere short walk down the hallway.

At least when Pope leaves you can take the couch and try to process the fact that you straddled his lap, stuck your tongue in his mouth and felt the very obvious evidence of his arousal with only walls separating the two of you from Deran and Lena.

You rummage through Deran’s closet until you find the first t-shirt that passes a sniff test while trying not to spiral until you’re fully alone.

“Here’s a t-shirt. If you want to leave your shirt I can try to get the blood out of it—”

You look around the small living room and kitchen to find that Pope is nowhere to be found. Deran leans against the counter, taking a bite of a slice of leftover pizza.

“Where’s Pope?”

Deran shrugs. “I heated a piece of pizza up for him but he muttered something about going home and dipped.”

“He’s the one wearing a bloody shirt, not me,” you sigh, tossing the t-shirt onto the couch and trying to play off the disappointment you feel at his sudden departure.

“Do you think he was acting kinda strange?”

Your stomach flip flops at the question. You can’t bring yourself to look Deran in the eye, so you take your place on the couch once more, your back turned to him. “I mean, he did technically get shot. I guess anyone would be a little on edge after that.”

The excuse feels sour on your tongue, but it’s all you’ve got.

“I guess,” he agrees with a mouthful of pizza. An awkward pause. “Seemed fine enough on the drive here, though.”

You shrug, grateful that Deran can’t see your face at the moment. “Probably just a combination of blood loss and an adrenaline crash after the job. How did that go, by the way?”

Much to your relief, Deran doesn’t press the subject of Pope any further before telling you he’s going to bed after he’s finished eating.

Unfortunately, that does very little to quiet the chaos in your mind.

When you finally turn off the lights and curl up under your blanket on the couch, you know that sleep won’t come easily. Not with the ghost of Pope’s hands still burning against the skin of your waist, not with the taste of a menthol cigarette still lingering on your tongue, and definitely not with the impossible to ignore realization that you have no earthly idea what the fuck you’re supposed to do now.

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

Pope has no issue being celibate. He got used to it during his three years in prison.

Then, almost immediately upon being released, his brothers all but forced him to go to a strip club for his birthday, where he ended up having the most unsatisfactory hook-up of his life. He’s sure the woman - whose name he doesn’t even remember - would say the same of the experience.

All it took was that one brief and underwhelming sexual encounter for him to decide that he would rather remain celibate than have sex that feels so…meaningless and unfulfilling.

Coincidentally or not, he had just met you when he came to that decision.

You, his baby brother’s girlfriend, who patched up his wound as if he’s made of glass one moment and then climbed onto his lap and kissed him breathless the next. You, whose lips taste so honey sweet that you got him hard with just one kiss. You, who whimpered as you broke away from him just seconds before Deran entered the room, leaving him desperate to do whatever necessary to keep drawing sounds like that from you.

It all replayed on a loop the entire drive back to his place.

The way you tasted, the feeling of your skin, and how it took every bit of his self restraint to resist laying you down just so he could feel you squirm beneath him.

He wishes he could say this is the first time that he’s thought of you as he gets himself off in the shower, but that would be a lie. It’s far from it, but it is the first time doing so knowing how it feels to have your hands in his hair and the weight of you grinding down right where he most wants you.

Tonight, it takes him no time at all - all he has to do is think of the sweet smell of your perfume and how good it felt to have your fingers in his hair while your lips moved in synchronicity with his own, and he’s finishing with a groan of your name as warm, white liquid follows the water down the drain.

When he lays down in his bed, he finds it difficult to feel guilty about any of it.

He knows that he should. He doesn’t want to hurt his brother. But he felt every ounce of how you had kissed him. There’s no doubt in his mind that you want him as bad as he wants you. That’s not something a person can fake.

Not you, anyway. Pope knows you. You aren’t a good liar.

If he believed that he was intruding on a happy, healthy relationship, he may feel a shred of remorse. But there’s no part of him that believes that to be the case.

You may care about Deran, but no part of Pope believes that you’ve ever kissed Deran the way you kissed him. You may spend most of your time with him, but Pope knows who’s really on your mind the whole time. And you may have love for his brother, but Pope is more sure than ever you aren’t in love with him.

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

That morning, you wake far earlier than you need to.

Lena likes to sleep in on days she doesn’t have school, and you don’t have to be at the bar until eleven, but you still find yourself awake at the crack of dawn.

Busying yourself does little to keep your brain from wandering to Pope. You bake blueberry muffins for when Lena wakes up, start a load of laundry, and clean the kitchen and living room all while thinking about what the hell you’re going to say and do whenever he comes to get Lena.

Should you tell him that last night was a mistake and that it can’t happen again? Probably. That would make everything a lot fucking simpler. Nip it in the bud, before either of you get too invested, someone finds out, and people get hurt.

But you’re already invested. Your heart has been invested in Pope Cody since the day you met him by Smurf’s pool. Kissing him last night was just the dam finally breaking.

So what do you tell him, then? The truth? And completely betray Deran’s trust?

Other than Adrian, and a couple nameless men before him, you’re the only person he’s ever told the truth to. You are the only person he’s ever told who he hasn’t also slept with.

You’re the only person he’s ever told simply out of trust, and you won’t blatantly betray that.

You’re drinking coffee on the front porch when Pope parks in front of your house. Equal parts excitement and anticipation bloom in your gut the second that he gets out of his truck and begins walking in your direction.

He pauses when he reaches the top step. He looks at you like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to do anything other than look at you.

“Good morning,” you hum, coffee mug pressed against your lips. “How’s your side?”

“Sore. Fine,” he murmurs, hesitantly taking the seat on the opposite side of the small patio table. “I changed the bandage this morning. Lena sleep okay?”

“She’s still snoring,” you say fondly.

“She does that,” he sighs, looking around like he’s expecting to see someone else. “Where’s your boyfriend at?”

You roll your eyes. “Your brother,” you correct, placing your mug on the table but not taking your hands off the sides just so you have something to occupy them, “is out surfing. About that, though…” You trail off, going silent. Pope waits, patient but as expressionless as ever.

Not even ten minutes ago, you swore to yourself that you’d only kiss him again if you also give him some kind of explanation that assures him you’re not actually committing infidelity by doing so.

And fuck, you really want to kiss him again, so it’s now or never.

You nod your head in the direction of the front door. “Let’s go inside.”

He quirks a brow, but doesn’t question or object as he stands to follow you into the house. When he enters, you close the door quietly so as to not wake Lena - she’s a deep sleeper, but you really need her to stay asleep for a little bit longer. Just long enough for you to get this off your chest before you chicken out.

You hesitate in the kitchen. You consider sitting down on the couch, but one vivid flashback of what happened last time the two of you sat on that couch together makes you think twice about that, and you settle for leaning against the counter with your arms crossed over your chest instead.

You’re both silent for a moment, but Pope is the first to break.

“Look, I don’t regret last night,” he says, low. He takes a tentative step towards you. “Not at all. But if you do, it’s okay. We can pretend it never happened, if that’s what you—”

“You were right.”

He freezes. Then, takes another small step, leaving only a few inches of space between you. “About which part?”

You lift your shoulders in a half shrug. “All of it. Me and Deran. We don’t share a bed. We don’t kiss. Never have. Not like you and I did. Not even close.”

He doesn’t look surprised. You didn’t expect him to. He had already said it all himself. You’re only confirming what he already believes to be true.

“I’m not in love with Dean. And he isn’t in love with me, either.”

No, he doesn’t look surprised, but you can’t help but think he does look a little bit relieved - even just to hear you say it out loud. But that tiny smidge of relief written in his features is quickly replaced with confusion.

“Then why the hell are you guys together? What am I missing?”

You look down at the floor, your stare locking onto a blueberry you had dropped while making muffins. This is the part that you know you can’t answer honestly. At least not in a way that will make sense to him. He’s going to have questions…ones that you can’t answer in complete honesty without outing Deran.

“Hey,” Pope says, voice uncharacteristically soft. He closes the remaining bit of distance between you and places a tentative hand on your waist, causing you to look up at him. He braces his other hand against the ledge of the counter that you lean against, caging you between it and his body. His hazel eyes bore into yours, searching for whatever it is that you aren’t saying. “You can talk to me. I’m just…trying to understand.”

“I know,” you whisper. You uncross your arms, placing your palms against his chest. Your gaze drops to the chipped polish on one of your fingernails.

“I do love Deran. A lot. And he loves me, too. But we aren’t in love.” You take a breath. “Our relationship is fake.”

His eyes narrow ever so slightly. “Fake.” He repeats the word, his voice unreadable.

“Mm-hm.” You nod, even though you can tell it wasn’t really a question. “Fake.”

“Why?”

You can’t help but snort a laugh at the bewilderment in his tone. You sigh, rubbing your thumb absentmindedly against the front of his shirt where your hand rests on his chest.

“I know it sounds crazy,” you admit. “But it made sense at the time.” Pope waits, silently giving you the opportunity to keep going. “It was my idea. As you know, I work at a busy bar. Men hit on me…pretty much constantly. Some don’t take no for an answer the first time. Or the second time.”

His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“So being able to say that I have a boyfriend helps,” you continue with a shrug. “Most guys back off quicker if they believe there’s another man involved. And at the time…I wasn’t interested in being with anyone for real anyway. A lot of people already assumed me and Deran were together. I mean, we hang out all the time, we live together…it didn’t really come as a shock to most people.”

You pause, then add more firmly, “As for Deran…he has his own reasons for agreeing to the arrangement. But that’s for him to share, when and if he ever feels ready.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, and then a slow look of realization settles over his face. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Oh.”

He doesn’t ask for clarification. Doesn’t push the boundary. But Pope’s smarter than most people give him credit for. You can see the gears turning behind those hazel eyes and you have no doubt he can read between the lines of what you are saying, and what you aren’t.

His grip on your waist tightens and his gaze intensifies. The air in the kitchen seems to grow heavier. “And what about now?”

Your words come out as a breathy whisper. “What do you mean?”

“You said you weren’t interested in being with anyone. What about now?”

You swallow. “Now…”

Now, you see the pretty hazel eyes that are staring at you in your dreams every night. Now, when the boys go out on jobs, you’re a mess until you know that not only Deran is okay, but Pope, too. Now, you struggle to call Deran your boyfriend when people ask, because you’re secretly wishing it was Pope you were calling your boyfriend instead. Now, you know how Pope tastes and you aren’t really sure how you managed to go so long not knowing how he tastes. Now, you’re staring at his lips and can’t remember how to form a coherent thought, much less a coherent sentence.

So instead of answering him with words, you grab his face in your hands and pull his face to yours.

For a fraction of a second, he freezes. Then, when your tongue sweeps his bottom lip, a sound releases from deep in his chest and he’s kissing you back. He’s kissing you back like Deran won’t be home any given moment and Lena won’t be waking up any minute now.

His hands rub up and down your sides and yours go to his hair, subconsciously remembering how much he seemed to like your fingers tugging on his curls last night. His lips part for you, his tongue quick to dance with yours. He brings one hand to cup your jaw, tilting your head to deepen the kiss.

Everything that follows happens fast. One second, you’re leaning against the counter kissing, and the next, he’s easing your sleep shorts and panties down your thighs and lifting you onto the edge of the counter before kneeling in front of you.

“Andrew,” you breathe. He takes a calf in each calloused hand, parting your legs just far enough to plant kisses on your inner thighs, the light stubble on his jaw tickling the sensitive skin. “We can’t—Lena’s right down the hallway—”

“It’s gonna be fine,” He murmurs the words against your skin in between trailing kisses up your thighs. He stops when his face is only a few inches from your exposed cunt, looking up at you in a way that makes you fight against the urge to clench your thighs around his head.

“Just stay quiet. Can you do that for me?”

You nod. You nod because you know if you speak, you’ll sound every bit as eager and desperate as you are. Three damn years that you’ve been single, and the last time you even had so much as a disappointing one night stand was months before you and Deran began your fake relationship, so it goes without saying that…touch-starved is a bit of an understatement.

You could have fucked someone at any point if you had wanted to. God knows Deran has. But the truth is, you haven’t wanted to. The last few hook-ups you had prior to you and Deran getting “together” had been so underwhelming that you’ve been repulsed at the thought of sex for the longest time.

Then you met Pope. And now here you are, with his head between your legs in the middle of your kitchen.

He all but moans into you when his lips settle over the bundle of nerves at the apex of your folds. You fight the urge to surge forward, bracing yourself on the countertop with one hand as the other shoots to his hair. You have to purse your lips tightly to keep from releasing the noises that threaten to pour from your throat as he tentatively explores you with his mouth.

Strong arms wrap around your thighs, supporting you from below. His fingers dig into the flesh with just enough pressure that you know you’ll later be able to feel tiny, tender bruises in the exact spots where his fingertips press into your skin.

You glance down at him. It’s the kind of sight that would bring you to your knees if you weren’t already perched on the edge of the countertop - the kind of sight that makes you grateful that he’s helping support your weight right now because it turns your legs to jelly.

His eyes are closed and he’s lost in you - alternating between soft strokes of his tongue up your center and sucking your clit between his pretty lips that are wet with you.

Heat rapidly pools low in your belly and your thighs flex around the sides of his head as you inch closer and closer to release. You croon his name, instantly slapping your own hand over your mouth as soon as the word slips out. He chuckles low against you, the vibration of it shooting through you.

The familiar feeling of a hot coil dangerously close to snapping begins to overtake your senses. Your eyes snap shut and your head rolls back, bracing for the climax that is seconds away from washing over you—

Deran’s voice. Craig’s obnoxious fucking laugh. Both coming from directly outside the house.

“Fuck,” you hiss, ignoring the screaming ache between your legs and practically pushing Pope off you. “Fuck, where’s my—”

Pope reacts even quicker than you. He’s grabbing your sleep shorts and panties from where they lay on the floor, shoving your feet into the holes of both at the same time. He stands, face flushed pink and glistening with your slick, and then darts down the hallway without a word, leaving you to pull your clothing into place just moments before Deran and Craig enter the house in their wetsuits.

You turn in the opposite direction of them, unable to look either one in the eye. You grab the hand towel in front of you and pretend to busy yourself with an imaginary spill on the counter.

“Morning,” Deran calls as he makes a beeline for the fridge. “Smells good in here.”

You clear your throat. “Oh, yeah. I made blueberry muffins. They’re on the dining table. Help yourselves.” Your voice comes out too high-pitched and you mentally recoil.

“Where’s Pope?” Craig asks. “I saw his truck out front.”

“Yeah, he’s here,” you say, forcefully casual. You turn to face them, leaning against the counter and hoping your face looks neutral. “He’s in the bathroom. Or…waking Lena up, maybe. Not sure.”

Really smooth, idiot.

Craig nods in response, seemingly oblivious as he grabs a muffin from the tin on the dining room table.

“What are you guys doing back so early?” Then, fearing the questions sounds more accusatory than curious, you add, “I figured you’d be in the water until lunch time.”

A…curious? Suspicious? Look comes over Deran’s face as he takes a step toward you, leaning in to place a hand on your waist and a kiss on your cheek. “We’re gonna go back out. Just wanted to grab a quick bite to eat.” He retreats, joining Craig at the table. “That okay with you?”

Your cheeks warm and you force a laugh. “Yeah, of course.”

For the next few minutes, you attempt to keep yourself busy by unloading clean dishes from the dishwasher. And by attempt to keep yourself busy, you actually mean try to ignore how uncomfortably sticky wet your underwear are.

After what feels like forever but in actuality was likely no more than ten minutes, Pope and Lena appear from the hallway.

“Hey Lena,” Craig greets her with a smile. Then, eyes trailing over Pope he adds, “How you feeling, man? Heard that bullet grazed you pretty damn good last night.”

Pope shrugs, face giving nothing away. “Never been better.”

The three of them converse while eating, but you can’t help but notice the way that Pope barely says a word to Deran. Hardly even looks at him, really. You try to tell yourself that he’s just being…well, Pope, but deep down you know it’s the fact that he had his fucking tongue buried inside you seconds before Deran got home.

And even though Pope knows that Deran isn’t actually your boyfriend, they’re still brothers. He’s still lying to his brother, and that can’t come easily.

It doesn’t come easily to you, either. Even just being here in this room with all of them right now, you feel like if you open your mouth, you’re surely going to blurt out the truth.

“Everything okay with you?” Deran asks, pulling you out of a trancelike state.

You had been staring at Pope’s side profile.

“Me? I’m fine,” you answer a bit too quickly. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Not looking forward to this shift today.”

There’s a beat of awkward silence, which Pope is the first to break. “Lena? Isn’t there something you wanted to ask?”

You glance from Pope to Lena. She’s staring at Pope with a shy smile on her face, like she isn’t totally sure if she wants to speak or not.

“Go on,” Pope encourages. “You can ask her.”

She looks at you…and then briefly at Deran before back to you once more. “Do you and uncle Deran want to come to my house for dinner tonight?”

You can’t stop your eyes from going wide at the question. You aren’t sure what you were expecting, but Pope encouraging Lena to ask you and Deran over for dinner wasn’t anywhere on the list of possibilities.

Your foot twitches with the urge to kick Pope from beneath the table.

“Oh—”

“Ah, I’m sorry, Lena,” Deran interrupts you. “I’d love to come over but I have to cover a shift at the bar tonight because we’re short staffed.” Deran looks at you, brows slightly raised. “But you’re more than welcome to go, if you want.”

Lena’s looking at you hopefully. “Uncle Pope’s going to make spaghetti.”

“Oh, is he?” You quip, glancing at Pope, who has been staring at you the whole time with an impassive expression. “Well, I do love spaghetti. Of course I’ll come.”

That earns a toothy grin from Lena, and something like a smirk from Pope.

Dinner. It’s just dinner. Lena will be there. And Deran knows about it, too. Even gave you his blessing to go, so it’s not like you’re being secretive.

Dinner is good. Dinner is fine. So why is your heart racing at the thought of it?

When Pope and Lena say their goodbyes and head out to his truck, you spot the small purple bunny that Lena had won at the arcade last night on the kitchen counter. You could just bring it with you to dinner tonight and give it back to her then, but you’re going to take this as an opportunity to interrogate Pope.

By the time you slip on your flip flops and run outside, Lena is already buckled into the backseat and Pope is opening the driver’s door.

“Wait a sec!” You call. He freezes, looking back over his shoulder. “She forgot this.” You toss him the bunny and he catches it. You wait for him to shut the door before you speak again. “What the hell was that?”

“What was what?” He starts to take a step closer to you, but stops himself after a quick glance in the direction of the house.

“That,” you whisper-hiss. “Inviting me and Deran to dinner after eating me ou—” Now it’s your turn to stop yourself. You shake your head. “You’re lucky he’s busy at the bar tonight.”

Pope smirks, the apples of his cheeks turning pink as he appears to be fighting off laughter. “I already knew that Deran is busy tonight. He was complaining last night about being understaffed and having to work tonight.”

“Oh. That’s…oh. That makes sense.”

He shrugs. “Just figured it would be less weird if Lena invited both of you.”

You cock a brow. “So you put her up to that, then?”

“I needed an excuse to see you tonight,” he says simply, opening the door to his truck again. “Do you…actually like spaghetti?”

You laugh, your face warming at the hopefulness in his voice. “Yeah. Spaghetti’s good.”

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

“What happens when you meet someone? Someone you want to be with for real?”

The question Deran asked in response to you proposing a fake relationship nine months ago has echoed in your mind all day long. From the moment that Pope and Lena pulled out of your driveway this morning, throughout your shift at the bar, the entire time you’re getting ready to go over to their place for dinner, and with every bite of spaghetti, the question rings louder and louder.

“In the rather unlikely event that happens, then we simply end our romantic endeavor. We’re still best friends. No harm done. Sound good?”

At the time, it did sound good. It sounded so simple. But you never could have predicted that the person you would meet, the person you would want to be with for real, would be his damn brother.

What kind of luck is that? To genuinely fall for someone for the first time in years and it happens to be your best friend’s brother?

No harm done. You can only fucking hope - hope that Deran doesn’t feel betrayed, hope that he still wants to be your friend, and hope that he isn’t angry with Pope whenever you tell him.

Because you are going to tell him. Soon. You’re just still trying to figure out exactly what it is you’re going to tell him.

Pope’s mouth is on your throat.

Dinner was over a while ago, followed by several games of Connect 4 at Lena’s request. Then, you insisted on cleaning the kitchen while Pope helped her get ready for bed. Now, the house is quiet. The curtains are drawn, the doors are locked, the lights are low, and his mouth is on your throat.

An Animal Planet documentary playing on the TV illuminates the otherwise dark living room. You’re flat on your back on the couch with Pope above you, one arm braced next to your head and his other hand resting just under the hem of your shirt, fingers splayed across the skin of your stomach. Your legs are wrapped around his waist, keeping him pressed as closed as possible while still wearing clothes.

He alternates between peppering wet kisses and sucking tiny love bites along the column of your throat. You feel the hard press of him between your legs, unable to resist arching upwards in an attempt to relieve the rapidly growing ache in your core. He lets out a low, throaty groan at the movement, grinding down with enough pressure to make you gasp out in longing.

“Andrew,” you whisper, voice strained with arousal. Your hands shoot to the sides of his head, delicately urging him back. He pulls away instantly, just enough for his face to hover inches above yours.

“What is it?” He murmurs, worry on his face. He removes his hand from beneath your shirt, smoothing the fabric back into place. The simple gesture makes your stomach flutter. “What’s wrong?”

You shake your head quickly. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, really. I love this. Being here with you. Spending time with you and Lena. This…” You trail off, breathless, glancing down at the very limited amount of space between his chest and yours. “I just can’t help but feel bad about keeping it from Deran. I know I’m not actually cheating on him…but he’s still my best friend. And your brother. I want to be honest with him before this…goes any further.”

His expression is soft as he nods. He maneuvers off of you, sitting up and helping you into a sitting position beside him, one arm wrapped around your shoulder as he pulls you into his side. “What are you gonna tell him, exactly?” He places a tentative hand on your thigh. “What is…this?”

A shaky laugh slips out. “I was hoping we could figure that out together,” you say, eyes dropping to where his hand rests on your leg. “All I know is I don’t want it to end. I just want to tell him first.”

“There’s nothing for me to figure out. You’re it for me.”

Your eyes shoot back up to his. His thumb brushes over your skin in slow circles. He tilts his head, a faint smirk appearing on his lips. “But I’m not going anywhere. So you do whatever you need to do.”

You start to lean in, to kiss him once more, when the front door rattles sharply from a few feet away. The handle twists back and forth, like whoever is on the other side is fully expecting it to open. Pope goes rigid beside you. There’s a brief pause, then the handle jiggles again, followed by a light knock.

“Hey, it’s just me,” Deran’s voice calls from beyond the door. “You guys in there?”

You’re pulling out of Pope’s embrace in an instant, standing to open the door. “Just act casual,” you murmur low, too quiet for Deran to hear.

You unlock the knob and deadbolt with shaky hands, trying your hardest to erase any signs of unease from your face. You’re going to talk to Deran about all of this, and soon - but not in front of Pope.

Tonight. Once the two of you are back at your place, alone.

“Hey,” you greet him cheerfully when you open the door. “How’d you get off work so early? Thought we were short staffed tonight.” It’s only 8:30 - the bar doesn’t normally close until ten o’clock on Sunday nights.

“We were,” Deran huffs, walking past you to enter the house as you hold the door open for him. “But we were also dead tonight, so I decided to close. Let everyone go home a little early. I was driving home and saw that your car’s still here so I thought I’d stop by.”

Deran pauses next to the recliner, hesitating before sitting down - he glances around the room, seemingly noticing how it’s dark except for the muted under the cabinet lights in the kitchen and the TV playing in the small living room. His gaze lingers on the two half empty beer bottles on the coffee table, one directly in front of Pope and the other in front of where you had been sitting moments prior.

Deran gives an awkward clear of his throat when Pope only stares at him wordlessly. “So, where’s Lena?” He asks, looking around for any sign of the girl.

“Asleep,” Pope answers shortly. “She has school in the morning.”

“Right,” Deran says with a click of his tongue, though there’s something in his voice that makes your stomach twist.

You hover awkwardly by the recliner, not eager to reclaim your original seat next to Pope. “She just laid down a few minutes ago,” you add. “We had been playing Connect 4 and watching a show on Animal Planet.” You gesture vaguely to the television and the red and yellow checkers scattered across the coffee table, evidence of your post-dinner activities. “I was uh - I was just getting ready to leave, actually.”

Deran’s eyes dart back and forth between you and Pope before he responds. “Ah. I see.” He pushes himself off the arms of the recliner with his palms, standing back up. “Well, I guess I’ll see you at home then.”

And whether due it’s the look on his face or the tone of his voice, you have no doubt that he knows something is off.

You nod quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Deran mumbles an emotionless see ya later to Pope, not waiting for a response before he’s opening the front door and stepping back outside. When the door closes behind him, it echoes in the otherwise quiet room.

“Shit,” you grumble under your breath, looking around for where you had put your shoes. “Well, if he wasn’t already suspicious, he definitely fucking is now. I’ve gotta get home and try to explain—”

You don’t even notice that Pope stands up and walks over to you until he’s taking your face in his hands, tilting your head to look at him.

“He may be upset at first,” he says with a half-shrug and sympathetic look. “Probably will be. I know I don’t know all of the details, but I know you love him. He loves you, too. Everything will be okay.”

You nod meekly, trying to believe his words, but your brain is spiraling with worst-case scenarios. You won’t actually believe that things will be okay until they are okay.

And you know there’s only one way to make that happen.

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

Deran’s not an idiot, and he sure as hell isn’t blind.

Pope may be a near decade older than him, and he may have spent a good portion of Deran’s twenties in prison, but Deran still knows his brother well.

And he knows you very well.

Well enough to know that in the three years that the two of you have been friends, he’s never seen you look at someone the way that you do Pope.

He doesn’t really understand why you look at Pope the way that you do, but then again, he doesn’t really understand why you’re best friends with him, either. He supposes you see the best in people, even if you could do better.

Whatever the hell is going on between you and his older brother, isn’t a new and shocking revelation to him. He’s noticed Pope staring at you on too many different occasions to count at this point, and he knows you’ve always had a soft spot for Pope.

But he’s noticed a shift over the last few days. Normally, he can ignore Pope’s staring, but it’s more than that now. It’s more than just stolen, longing looks when he thinks you aren’t watching.

Because now, you’re staring back. Maybe not in the exact same creepy, intense way that Pope does, but that’s besides the point.

He accepted that he can no longer play it off as a soft spot when he and Pope got home from their most recent job and you looked like you had seen a ghost when you realized that Pope was bleeding. The second that you noticed the red stain on Pope’s shirt, Deran was suddenly chopped liver.

Maybe he should feel relieved. If you’re going to fall for one of his brothers, at least it isn’t Craig. He loves the guy to death, but he doesn’t exactly have the best track record with women. He’d just cheat on you, or give you some unheard of and incurable STD, or pull a move like he did with Renn and leave you for dead the first chance he gets.

Still. He never expected it to be Pope.

But Deran knows better than most that the heart wants it wants. He can’t fault you for that. He just doesn’t understand why you didn’t tell him.

He’s told you everything. Everything. Things he’s never told anyone else. You know about the family business - well, more or less. He doesn’t exactly try to hide it. You know the truth of what a monster Smurf is. You were the first person he told about his plans to buy the bar you’d been working at for years - the exact place the two of you met. You know he’s gay. He trusts you implicitly, but you’ve kept the fact that you’re seeing his brother from him?

He isn’t angry (he’s trying not to be, anyway) but more than anything else, he’s hurt.

His best friend. His brother. And neither told him.

When you get home less than five minutes after him, he’s nursing a beer on the couch, waiting for you. He doesn’t say anything at first. You enter the house, slowly, leaning against the door and not meeting his eye for a long moment before taking a deep breath in.

“There’s something we need to talk about.”

“Yeah,” Deran snorts a sarcastic laugh. “I’d say so.”

You look up. If you’re surprised by his response, you don’t let it show. You purse your lips, making your way to the living room the two of you have shared for the last few years now, taking a seat on the loveseat directly across from him.

“Listen,” you start, staring down at your hands in your lap. “I should’ve told you. I know that. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I had some perfect reason, because I didn’t. I was just scared. I didn’t know what this was, or where it was going, and I didn’t want you caught in the middle if it didn’t work out.” You pause, your voice softening. “But still. I’m sorry for not telling you from the start.”

Deran’s silent for a moment, letting your words sink in. The tension in his shoulders eases the slightest bit at the sincerity in your voice.

The two of you never fight. Bicker like children sometimes, sure. Like when he doesn’t rinse his dishes off before putting them in the sink or waits too long to switch the laundry over so it starts to smell musty and you have to restart the load, or when you eat his last protein bar or forget to put the trash on the curb on garbage day.

But you never fight. You’re the one person he never has to fight with. Even now, he doesn’t want to fight with you.

He nods, staring down at the amber colored glass in his hands instead of you. “How long has this been going on?”

You let out a quiet snort of a laugh. “Depends. If you’re asking when the first time we kissed was…not even twenty-four hours ago. If you’re asking how long I’ve had feelings for him, then…I don’t know, really. A while.”

“Not even twenty-four — last night? As in after we got back from the job last night? You mean you guys were sucking face while I was in the shower?”

“Yes,” you moan, hiding your face in your hands. “Oh my god, don’t call it that—”

“I knew it.” Deran shakes his head with a humorless laugh. “I fucking knew he was acting even more off putting than usual last night.”

You spread your fingers apart, peeking out from the cracks. “He is not off putting—”

“Holy shit. You are in love with him.”

You groan dramatically, throwing your head back and staring up at the ceiling. Deran tries not to laugh, but he can’t help it.

You sit up a little, expression completely serious now. “Just so you know, I didn’t…tell Pope. About you. He knows that our relationship is fake, but I only told him my reasons for agreeing to it. Not yours.”

He should feel relieved to hear that, but he doesn’t. He just feels guilt - guilt that you felt you couldn’t confide in him. Guilt that you’ve been in this fake relationship for him all this time while harboring feelings for his brother for “a while.” Guilt that you were willing to prioritize him over your own happiness. Guilt that you and Pope wouldn’t have had to sneak around at all if it weren’t for him.

“Well.” He lifts the beer bottle to his lips, taking one last sip before setting it down. “Guess there’s only one thing left to do.”

Your brows pinch together. “What do you mean?”

“I’m breaking up with you.”

You blink, and then your eyes go wide in surprise. “What? You’re…breaking up with me?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Consider yourself dumped.”

Your jaw drops. “You can’t dump me. We weren’t really even together.”

He waves a hand at you in dismissal. “I think what you’re actually trying to say is thank you, Deran.”

“But—”

“Jesus Christ,” he groans. “Will you just let me give you my blessing? You’re off the hook. We’re good. Go suck face with Pope or whatever nasty shit you two were probably doing before I showed up.”

You roll your eyes, but your expression softens. Then, you stand, walking over to where Deran sits on the couch to take the empty space beside him.

“You’re really not mad?” You ask in a small voice.

He exhales through his nose, grabbing your hand in his and giving it a firm squeeze. “No,” he says simply. “How could I be? I mean, I’m not thrilled that it’s Pope, but…” He shrugs. “You committed to a fake relationship for nearly a fucking year for me. You deserve to be happy. Even if it is with my brother,” he adds, a tad more dryly.

You nod slowly, your gaze locked on where his hand still holds yours. “People are gonna talk, you know.” You turn your head slightly to look at him. “About why we broke up. About how I’m with Pope now. They’ll think that I left you for him, or that he stole your girl, or that—”

“So?” He cuts you off. “If I hear anyone say anything about you, I’ll knock their teeth out. Pope would do worse than that.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” you say gently. “I don’t care what people say about me. I know the truth. I just don’t want you to feel pressured to…explain. You know, admit that it was a fake relationship or come out before you’re ready to…”

He shakes his head, shushing you. He wraps his free arm around your shoulder. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m a big boy. You don’t need to worry about protecting me from rumors anymore. Let people think and say whatever they want. I’ll come out when I’m ready. Not because people are being nosey assholes.”

You seem to relax a bit at his reassurance. You lean into his embrace, resting your head against his shoulder.

“And not because you’re doing my brother, either.”

That gets a laugh from you. The kind of laugh that lets him know that nothing has really changed between the two of you.

Deran gives your hand another squeeze before letting go. “Go on,” he mutters, nodding towards the front door. “He’s probably pacing holes in the floor right now.”

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

Pope has typed and erased an embarrassing number of text messages in your chat thread since the moment that you pulled out of his driveway.

Let me know how it goes.

You can come back here for the night, if you need to. You can sleep in the bedroom and I’ll take the couch.

How pissed is he?

He doesn’t send any of them. Instead, he sits on the couch, stares at his phone, and hopes that you’ll text or call or magically reappear beside him.

It’s a good thing that he’s accustomed to running off of very little sleep, because he doubts he’ll be getting much at all tonight. He already knows that his mind will race with thoughts of you until he eventually collapses from exhaustion, and that it’ll probably finally happen just hours before he has to take Lena to school.

Pope tries to pay attention to the documentary about killer whales playing on the screen in front of him, but he can’t control how his thoughts keep drifting to you. He thinks of how badly he wishes to sleep with you curled into his chest.

Sleep. That’s all. You said you wanted to talk to Deran before things went any further between the two of you, and Pope doesn’t mind. He’d be content to hold you all night and nothing more. To be close to you, in any capacity, puts him at ease like nothing else. That’s been true since he first met you by Smurf’s pool the day after he got out of prison.

When you pull back into the driveway no more than an hour after leaving, he’s so zoned out that he doesn’t even hear you until you’re knocking softly on the door.

“Hey,” he greets you lowly, instantly relieved and a little taken aback by the cheeky smile on your face when he opens the door. “Is everything oh—”

But you’re stepping across the threshold and cutting him off by pressing your lips to his before he can get the question out.

He freezes for a split-second and then he’s kissing you back.

It feels familiar and new all at once. Familiar because Pope has already committed the taste and feel of you to memory in less than a full day’s time, and new because the way you’re moving your lips with his is unrestrained in a way that all of the previous kisses have not been. The truth of you and him is out there, now. There’s no second-guessing, no weight on your shoulders, no reason to hesitate, and he can feel the difference.

You urge him backwards with your hands planted on his waist. Without ever breaking the kiss, he pushes the door closed behind you and takes your face in his hands. You guide him backwards until his legs make contact with the couch and gently push him down. He pulls you onto his lap, his hands ghosting down your back as you settle over his thighs.

“Yeah,” you whisper against his lips, breathless as you caress his face in your hands. “Everything’s more than okay.”

“You sure?” He murmurs, looking up at you in the dim blue light of the television. You nod, your nose brushing against his and corners of your lips perking into a soft smile. “What did Deran say?”

“He’s thoroughly repulsed by the thought of us kissing,” you snort. A laugh rumbles deep in Pope’s chest. Your hands drop to his chest, where you smooth the fabric of his button-up before your fingers find the top button. “So we should probably do a lot of that in front of him. Just maybe not right away,” you hum, smirking.

You pop the button, and then move onto the next, and then the next, until each one is undone and you’re pushing the fabric off his shoulders and down his arms.

“He didn’t love the way that he found out,” you answer, more serious now. “But he understands. Just wants me to be happy. And you make me happy.”

His entire body goes warm at the sentiment. He pulls you flush against his chest, his hands slipping beneath your shirt to tease the skin of your back. He holds you, gazes up at you, like you’re worth more than gold to him.

And you are. You, and the little girl asleep in the other room, who will be tickled to wake up and learn that you’re still here. That you aren’t going anywhere, if Pope has any say in it.

He smiles at the thought before capturing your lips in his once more.

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

{ Epilogue ~ 2 years later }

“This tie is too tight. It’s cutting off the blood flow to my brain.”

“Oh, come here,” you groan playfully. Pope leans in, letting you adjust the green tie that matches your dress (and complements his eyes) perfectly.

“You didn’t have to wear this, you know.” You give the length of the tie a gentle tug after loosening it. “The dress code is semi-formal. You could have gotten away with just a button-up.”

“I know,” he grumbles. “But I wanted to match you and Lena at least a little bit. And I figured I should probably get used to wearing one before our wedding.”

The response warms you as much as the Southern California summer sun.

A beachfront wedding. Small and intimate, with a total guest count of less than thirty people…you can’t think of anything more perfectly Deran and Adrian.

“You don’t have to wear one at our wedding either,” you snort, raising an arm to play with the curls at the base of his skull in the way that he likes. “If you don’t want to.”

He grabs your other hand in his, glancing down at the ring that glimmers in the midday sun. He’d put it on your finger only a few months ago, and in the general chaos of life - Lena’s spring soccer season and ballet recital, helping Deran plan his wedding, you and Pope closing on your new house and getting settled in - the two of you haven’t had much time to begin planning your own special day yet.

“Thought you said it looks good on me,” he hums low, unserious.

“Oh, it does,” you laugh. “Very much so. But I care that you’re comfortable at our wedding. You’d look good in anything.”

Soft instrumental music begins to pour from speakers at the edges of the makeshift ceremony setup and everyone goes quiet, turning to look down the aisle. Lena appears moments later, wearing a frilly flower girl dress that matches yours in color. She smiles nervously the entire time she walks down the aisle, small wicker basket in hand. Every few steps, she grabs a handful of pink and white petals, scattering them across the sandy path. As soon as she reaches the end of the aisle, she runs to where you and Pope sit in the front row and climbs onto his lap.

And then Deran and Adrian appear. Hand in hand, they walk down the aisle together until they come to where Craig - who became legally ordained in the state of California solely for this occasion - stands beneath the driftwood arch you helped decorate with flowers earlier.

They take turns exchanging handwritten vows. They cry, you cry, even Craig gets misty-eyed. And then they’re pronounced husbands in what you can only think to describe as the most endearingly Craig way possible, and everyone on the beach cheers.

Afterwards, everyone helps themselves to unlimited beer and the taco bar set up back at the bar, which Deran has closed to the public for the day. You’d done what you could to spruce the place up - miniature floral arrangements and tea lights candles on the tables - but it’s still a bar. Deran’s bar, broken surfboards and all.

Low music fills the room as guests mingle and drink into the evening. Pope surprises you when he offers you his hand and guides you to the very small, cramped space carved out in the middle of the room for a makeshift dance floor.

It’s more swaying than slow dancing, but you enjoy it all the same.

“I know you said that I don’t have to wear a tie to our wedding,” Pope murmurs low, “but what about dancing? Do we have to dance in front of everyone at our wedding?”

“We’re dancing in front of everyone right now,” you snort. “What’s the difference?”

He glances around the room. “Yeah, but no one is paying any attention to us right now. Everyone is too drunk and paying attention to Deran and Adrian. At our wedding, all eyes will be on us.”

“As they should be,” you hum. You bring a hand to the side of his face, steering his gaze back to you. “Yes, we’re going to dance at our wedding. But I’ll let you pick the song.”

He smirks, his grip on your waist tightening. “I guess I should take some lessons, then.”

The clinking of silverware against glass draws everyone’s attention to where Deran and Adrian stand side by side. You and Pope pause your swaying as he wraps an arm around you and pulls you into his side.

“Alright,” Deran says, clearing his throat. “I’m supposed to say some heartfelt shit now, so bear with me.” Adrian laughs beside him, bumping their shoulders together.

“Two years ago, if someone had told me that I would be standing here today, I wouldn’t have believed them. I probably would have tried to fight them.” That earns a few laughs, but you know better than anyone that he isn’t joking.

“I’m sure most of you know that I haven’t always been the easiest person to deal with,” he continues. “But Adrian—” Deran glances at his now husband with a kind of softness that he reserves only for him, “—Adrian never gave up on me. He stuck around when a lot of people would’ve dipped. And I can’t tell you all how glad I am for that.”

Then, his eyes find you. “And speaking of people who stick around…this one right here.” He points to you with his beer bottle. You suddenly feel every eye in the building on you. Pope gives your arm a comforting squeeze. “Best girlfriend I ever had.”

The small crowd laughs, and you cover your face with your hands, but he presses on. “I’m serious. She was the first person to ever tell me that it’s okay to be who I am. That there’s nothing wrong with me. And there’s no way that I would have gotten to this point without her. And now…I get a front row seat to watch her marry my brother.”

By the time he finishes, you’ve dropped your hands from your face. Now, you’re actively blinking back happy tears. You can’t find the words, so you hold up your hands to form a small heart and hope the simple gesture is worth a thousand words.

Later, after the crowd has thinned and the sun is setting, you and Pope head back down to the beach with a handful of others to gather the remaining chairs and decorations. Lena is supposed to be helping, but she has wandered to the shoreline, happily dipping her toes in the water.

You both pause at the same moment to watch her - her feet bare, her hair and flower girl dress both blowing in the slight breeze. You can only hope that feels as at peace as she looks right now.

“Seeing Deran and Adrian today…” Pope starts, then trails off like he’s searching for the right words.

You turn towards him. “What about it?” You ask gently.

He’s still staring out towards Lena. “Makes me excited for ours.”

“Yeah?” You hum. “Even if I make you slow dance in front of everyone?”

“Yeah.” He meets your eye, his normal intensity fully present. “Whenever you’re ready. Doesn’t matter when or where. I just want that with you.”

Deran’s toast echoes in your mind. Two years ago, if someone had told me that I would be standing here today, I wouldn’t have believed them.

The words could have been taken from your own mouth. After everything the two of you have been through as individuals, and everything you’ve been through together, you’re marrying the love of your life and raising a beautiful little girl together. You’ve made the most of a tragic situation; turned it into something safe and secure for her - a forever home for the three of you. Maybe more, someday. You can’t help but picture Pope with a tiny baby all his own, soft curls and hazel eyes.

Only time will tell. And you have all the time in the world, now.

𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆

and that’s how the show ended….right?? RIGHT???

thank you so much if you read all 18.7k+ words of this. this fic is my baby. i worked on it for well over a month, and i hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it.