#I just wanna hug her and give her extra treats

[acidheaddd]

My sweet baby girl had to go to the vet. I've been battling with her over scratching her ears to the point of scarring and bleeding for about a week or so now. Finally got to take her to the vet to get it checked out as I was running out of ways to try and make her comfortable.

Turns out, ear infection in both ears. She's home now, with ear drops I gotta give her every 12 hours. I'm just glad I can finally treat the cause and hopefully she'll be comfortable and back to herself again soon.

[dammn-dean]

Hii could you do Simon and his wife arguing like pretty badly and their shouting at each other as their arguing she hears her newborn cry and once she goes to the baby room and feeds looks after her baby she didn’t wanna go downstairs to talk to him she just went on her phone on social media.

(If you’re okay with doing that!)

Thank you so much for the request! I hope that this is what you wanted... I changed it up a little, but I still think it fits the request. Thanks again 🖤

Whispers and Words

Pairing: Ghost (Simon Riley) x Female Reader

Words: Almost 3k (oops)

Warnings: Reader is a new mom, Simon is a bit mean/clueless, reader is insecure, arguing, barely there sexual talk if you squint

Staring back at your reflection in the mirror, a small smile on your lips. You felt like you looked nice. A very casual, but cute dress adorned your body for the first time in a long time. Your baby went down for bed already, giving you a little extra time to yourself to shower and get ready for Simon to get home. You even fixed your hair and put on a little make-up. You felt good.

There really hasn’t been much time over the past 6 months for you to treat yourself, much less dress up. Having a newborn was a full time job! Simon had been gone almost the entire time, not by choice but because of work. You weren’t sure if that was supposed to make you feel any better, because.. Well it really didn’t. You missed him so much, and he missed so many things your baby was accomplishing. Getting bigger by the day. He was home off and on for a combined maybe 4 weeks the past 6 months, two weeks straight after she was born and a few days here and there since. All of that felt like it didn’t even really matter at the moment, your Simon should be home any minute now. 

You had decided to spend the time you had getting ready, which didn’t really leave you a lot of time to cook for him like you had wanted. Instead you settled on ordering in from a few of his favorite places, so he would have plenty to eat over the next couple of days. Simon was always a big eater, and you hoped you could get to the market to buy groceries in the next day or two. You loved cooking for him, and he loved eating your food. As much as you would love for him to come home to a big home cooked meal, this would work just fine. The last bit of food you ordered arrived not long ago, so you started moving some food to serving dishes. You hoped it would make it easier on him, just get home and dig in. 

Simon was due home about an hour ago, which had you a little worried. You sent him a text about 30 minutes ago, a simple, “You okay?” with no response. You felt crazy checking your phone every other minute, seeing if there was a call or text from him. Nothing yet. You stood from the stool you were perched at, tired of staring at the now cold food. You decided as an attempt to salvage the meal, you moved some food to baking dishes, turned the oven to keep warm and began boxing up the rest for later. Your back was to the door as you had placed the last of the food in the fridge when you heard the sound of a key entering the front door. 

Giddiness filled your body, a smile on your lips as you quickly shut the refrigerator door and made your way to the living room. Smoothing your dress nervously as he entered through the doorway.

Simon takes a couple steps in the house, pausing by the door to slip his mask over his head and set it on the side table there for the sole purpose of holding his mask. His eyes then search around the flat looking for you. His tired eyes fall on you with a small smile on his lips. You don’t miss the way his eyes flutter down your frame with slow blinks, which make your cheeks warm. You hoped he liked your dress.

“Look at you sweetheart,” he all but coos, with his arm out for you to fall in with a hug.

You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped once you were in his embrace. Your head rests on his chest, arms wrapped around him as well as you can muster. His strong arms swallow you whole, making you feel a warmth you haven’t felt in a long time. 

“I missed you so much, Si.” Your voice is muffled into his chest. You can feel the rumble of his laugh more than you can hear it.

“I missed you,” he responds with a kiss on the top of your head. 

You pulled back a little to look into his deep brown eyes, loving that he is here with you more than you can even explain. Simon leans down to press a gentle kiss against your lips, which you return immediately. His hands began working his way over your shoulders, down your spine, before gently resting on your hips. The feeling of his large hands on you in such an intimate spot, that is a bit softer than it was before the baby, caused your spine to straighten. 

You pulled yourself from the kiss. “Oh! Food, let me pull it out of the oven for you.” You gave a quick peck to his lips at that and pulled yourself from his embrace to head into the kitchen.

Simon followed in after you, watching you pull a few trays of food from the oven. 

“I’m sorry it isn’t homemade… but I ordered all your favorites. I tried my best to keep it warm for you,” you explained. “I was expecting you a bit earlier, so I kept some in the oven for you. The rest is in the fridge!” You clapped your hands together with a small smile. “So you can have more of your favorites over the next few days.” 

Once your eyes fell back onto him, he held an odd expression, almost sorrowful. Your throat tightened at the look. Feeling like you made a mistake with the food. Internally cursing yourself, you were so sure he would be excited about having a bit of all his favorite take out, but maybe you were wrong. 

“Or if you want I can just put it all up and make you something!” You attempted to sound cheery, but you knew there were barely any groceries in the house.

You turned to the cupboards, looking through them all. Hoping something would magically appear even though you know there isn’t much in there besides some dried pasta, canned goods and cereal. For some odd reason your eyes began to burn with humiliation. Of course he wanted to come home to a home cooked meal, he’s been gone for months and I just ordered him take out. 

“Love,” Simon said softly. You ignored him, heading to the fridge. Knowing exactly what’s in there isn’t much better than the cupboards, but you didn’t know what else to do.

Standing there with the door to the fridge open, Simon slips up behind you. He slowly wraps his arms around you, pulling your form firmly against his. Your breath hitched in your throat. As much as you missed his touch, you weren’t prepared for how feeling his strong hands on your soft stomach would feel. Your body has changed a lot since giving birth, which is to be expected, you know that. The both of you just haven’t had any time to be intimate with each other since the baby. Your body needed to heal, and Simon was beyond understanding of that. Then your doctor cleared you, your body was better and this is the first time really seeing him since.

“You did great sweetheart, thank you for ordering all my favorites,” he whispers into your ear. Sending chills down your spine. “I will eat every last bit of it, promise.”

“You sure?” You question softly.

“Of course lovie,” he kisses the back of your head tenderly. “But Johnny asked the team if we wanted to go to the pub tonight.”

Eyebrows pulling down at that with a frown on your face. You turned your head to the side, attempting to see his face from your peripheral. 

“What?” Surely he wasn’t going to go.

“Yeah,” Simon pulled back from you to go around the island and perch on the stool you were previously on. “This last mission was a bit tough, and we all wanted to celebrate it going as well as it did. Happy to be back home, ya know?” He says as plain as ever. Reaching over to one of the baking trays and grabbing some chips to toss into his mouth.

“Sure Si, I get it,” you start, slowly turning around to face him. “But… Well it’s just that I haven’t seen you in almost two months, and I was really hoping we could spend some time together.” You bit your lip softly, eyes not leaving his. You hoped he could see the desperation on your face without you having to say it outloud. After a few moments of his blank stare, you decided to change the subject to your daughter. “You haven’t even had a chance to see the baby. And-”

“Y/N, don’t do that.” Simon started with a bit of an edge to his voice. “You know how much I miss you both. I can go out for a couple of drinks with the team, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“She’s been asleep for a while now, I know she will be up soon. She would love to see her dada, Si.” You felt your heartbeat in your throat now. If he won’t stay home for you, surely he will stay home for her. 

“That isn’t fair.” Simon stood from his chair. “You can’t hold her over my head. Our daughter isn’t supposed to be used as leverage.” 

“Of course not Simon, that isn’t what I meant. I just meant-”

“What did you mean then? To make me feel even worse about being gone from her? Because I don’t need your help to feel bad about that.” Simon’s voice was unintentionally raising by the second. You had no idea what it was like for him out there, on the job constantly thinking about you and your daughter. 

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad Si…” You gulped in some air, hoping it’ll calm your pounding heart. “I just have been so lonely and I was really looking forward to being with you tonight,” you explained softly. 

“It’ll be a couple hours Y/N.” Simon firmly stated with no room for argument. “I will be back before you know it.”

“I know that, but-” Cries echo throughout the flat, starting at the baby monitor on the kitchen island. You closed your eyes, telling yourself to keep your face even as your bottom lip attempted to wobble. You felt so sad and dejected. “Okay, Si.” You opened your watery eyes and gave a small smile that didn’t quite perk up the rest of your face. “Have fun and be safe okay?” 

You didn’t wait for a response before heading to your daughter's bedroom.

“What’s the matter baby girl?” You ask gently as you lean over the crib to pick her up.

“Hungry?” You whisper. 

Taking your spot in the corner of the room where your rocking chair is. You set up to feed her. You hum a small song to her as her cries finally calm and she accepts you feeding her. After her little belly was full you made sure that she was burped, then you changed her nappy and she was asleep again. You were grateful she was currently pretty good about getting back to sleep at night. Her tiny body was back in the crib as you looked her over. Perfect in every way. You gently brushed her head one last time before you turned to head back out of the room, but before your hand could twist the knob you changed your mind. 

You sat yourself back to the rocking chair, snagging your phone from the end table you had sat it on when you came into the room. You decided to just scroll for a while, not looking at anything in particular, just wanted to mindlessly scroll. Unfortunately it didn’t last long, after 10 minutes of not being able to take your mind off of him. You gave in, phone falling into your lap as the tears began to fall. You held your face in your hand, mascara long forgotten. You tried your best to keep quiet, not wanting to disturb the sleeping baby. Your mind just kept spiraling. 

“How could he not want to be here with me?”

“ I felt like I looked pretty… as pretty as I can look anyway.”

“Maybe I should have expected this. It’s so selfish of me to assume he would want to be intimate with me again, looking like this.”

 And worst of all, your mind started to wonder if he was even going out with the team at all. “Surely there isn’t someone else… No Y/N stop that.”

 You told yourself, nipping that in the bud. Simon would never do that to you, you knew that.  

The tears just kept on going and going, until you had no more tears left to cry. You felt exhausted, you couldn’t remember the last time you cried like this and it really took it out of you.  Checking your phone again, noting how much time has passed, you decided it was time to just go to bed. Using the back of your hands to wipe away the tears as best as you could before standing with a small sigh. You opened the door gently and slipped out without making any noise at all. 

Before heading to bed you wanted to drink some water, you could feel the beginning of a headache coming on. You started on your way to the kitchen, but stopped dead in your tracks before making it more than a few steps. Simon was still sitting at the stool where he was when you went to feed the baby.

“Si, I thought you were gone to the pub,” you breathed embarrassed. You couldn't help but notice the baby monitor in his hand. 

“I heard you talking to her, and humming that song you always do,” he started. “And I was just going to listen for a moment until you came back out.” His hazel eyes gazed upon you, heavy with the weight of sorrow. “Then you didn’t come out, and I heard you…” He stopped.

You swallowed nervously, hands knotted into your dress, eyes on the floor. Trying to do anything to avoid the tension rolling off of you in waves. 

“Baby,” he started only to falter momentarily. “Look at me please.” 

Unsure why, but you just couldn't bring yourself to look up at him. The stool was pushed back, as he gently stood up, his boots thud across the floor stopping in your line of sight.

His thumb and index finger grip your chin gently, pulling it up to force you to look at him. You weren’t sure what to expect, but seeing his beautiful brown eyes watery wasn’t it. 

“I’m sorry Si, I didn’t want you to hear that,” you tried to explain. “I’m just being selfish. I don’t want to force you to be here. I’m okay, go out with the team.” You attempt to reassure him. “I just want you to be happy.”

Your poor dress is a wrinkled mess, your sweaty palms constantly bunching and un-bunching the fabric. You weren’t sure why you felt so embarrassed, but you felt shame to your core over him hearing you cry like that. 

“You aren’t selfish Y/N, and I am happy, here with you and our daughter. It’s where I am my happiest, love,” he clarifies. “You two are my world, and you don’t need to apologize to me. I am the one who is sorry.” Simon pauses for a second to clear his throat, not allowing himself to get choked up. “I never want to hear you cry like that ever again, especially over me. You don’t deserve that, my sweet girl.” He presses a soft kiss on your mascara stained cheek. “The perfect mama to our perfect baby,” he whispers against your cheek. “My beautiful darling.” Mirroring the previous action, kissing your opposite cheek just as gently as before. 

His large hands reach for yours, gently coaxing them from your dress, forcing them to relax. He takes one hand in his and brings it to his lips, placing a soft kiss to it before repeating the same with your other hand. Simon warily looks you over, you are so beautiful, and yet your eyes are so sad. All because you want to spend time with him, how could he be so foolish. 

“You look amazing tonight sweetheart, this dress looks great on you,” he gushed. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it before.” His warm hands resume their spot on your waist. 

“Oh, it’s nothing,” you blush.

“Definitely not nothing, love.” Simon realized his mistakes, he was always a bit slow when it came to things like this. 

“How about we eat some dinner and get ready for bed love?” He asked sweetly. Large hands engulfing your hips, guiding you to the kitchen. “How does that sound?”

You couldn’t help the smile from forming on your lips. 

“I would love that Simon,” you muttered. 

Once he gets you to sit on a stool, he grabs some plates for the two of you and places a bit of food on each before sliding the plates over to where the stools are. Simon takes his spot beside you, and leans over to you and whispers, “Maybe then we can have some dessert, yeah?” 

Your eyes widen at that, as your duck your head to hide your burning cheeks. 

“You up for it, lovie?” Simon beckoned, placing a kiss on your warm cheek. 

“I- uh I mean we can, do whatever you want,” you kiss his cheek in return. 

“I have a few things that I want.” Simon says with a grin. “Eat up sweetheart.” 

Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you enjoyed it, and let me know if you have any ideas or requests.

[littlepadika]

Outbreak Day Eve

warnings: daddy!joel, fem little, ddlg, cute fluffy daddy time

Tomorrow was the anniversary of outbreak day which meant everyone in Jackson had the day off. No work or school or chores. The exception was patrol. Most people wanted to be with their families so it was always hard to pick who would have to patrol on this most important day. It was a day of mixed emotions. Some people liked to grieve what was lost. Some people treated it more like a celebration akin to 4th of July. With the heat of the summer lots of people were having picnics and cookouts.

Harper, who was head of patrol, was surprised when Joel asked for time off. He never asked for time off. If anything he was the one who volunteered to work on holidays. But Harper could tell there was a change in the man over the last year. Something about being with you.

"You got it, Joel."

"You sure? I know lotsa people are askin'." Joel is takenaback

"You've never once asked for a day off. Picking up extra to help out everyone else... you enjoy your day off kay?" Harper waved him off.

He was so excited to tell you. He came home and wiped his boots off on the door mat.

"Petal?" He turned to see you sitting at the table drawing. "Hey... whatcha makin'."

"Everyone at the daycare was drawing pictures of stuff from before da outbreak. I wanted to make one." You don't look up because you are deep in concentration.

"Oh yeah?" Joel comes over and sits next to you. He peers over your arm.

"See daddy..." You point at each of the details. "Das us at a moobie theater. Dey used to have moovies on big big screens. All new ones all da time. And see you holding popcorn. I like the popcorn here but Miss Thomas said it was really yummy at the moobie theater."

"That's right." Joel smiled, almost tasting the butter on his tongue.

"Did you see dem?" you ask.

"Oh yes. All the time." Joel leaned back in his chair. "The seats were big and comfy. You could get special glasses that would make the movie look three dimensional- like it was coming out of the screen."

"What!"

"And the popcorn was tasty but you also could get soda and candy all sortsa things...yeah I think I miss them a lot too." His smile falters a little as he stares out the window. He used to take Sarah to the movies on saturdays. It started with cartoons then more girly movies but Joel didn't care. He loved watching her eyes light up with imagination. He wishes he could share that with you as well.

"I sorry." you frown, not liking to see your daddy sad.

"s'all right." He seemed to snap out of his daydream, turning back to you. "come here and give your daddy a proper hello."

You hop out of your chair and into his lap. "I missed you daddy..." You hug him tight. He was so warm and solid and felt like home. He hugged you back just as hard.

"And I got good news baby! I get the day off too."

"Yay!" You bounce on his lap.

"So what do you want to do? We can go for a hike. We can do crafts. Whatever you want."

"What do you wanna do?" you ask, feeling very big for thinking about your daddy.

"Whatever you want." Joel reiterated with a squeeze of your thigh.

"No daddy." You furrow your brow. "Is outbreak day and you were there so dat means is daddy day."

"That what it means, petal?"

"Mhm." You nod feeling even more like a big girl. "That's what dey said. Do somefing you miss"

"Mm well... I guess I miss..." Joel thought of movie theaters, of baseball games, of concerts, of swimming pools... barbecues with neighbors and friends...

"What! daddy!" You cup his scruffy cheek.

"It's- i'm not sure we have one."

"What!" You exclaim, hating the not knowing.

"It's a slip'n'slide." Joel smiles at your eagerness. "It's uh a long mat that links up with the hose and we would slide down it.:

"Let's do it, daddy!" You bounce on his lap again.

"I want to." He chuckles. "I gotta see if I can fashion one." His mind already coming up with ideas. He missed building things. This would be a fun challenge

"I wanna help!"

"Of course you do, you good girl." Joel kisses you gently. "Why don't you draw a design for daddy to use."

"Okay!!!" you squeal.

Joel digs out a long tarp which is fairly slippery. The yard is small but at an angle there's a decent track for the slide. He hooks up a old sprinkler system into ends of it and runs the hose between them. You were right there next to him, eager to try it out.

"Like dis daddy!" You show him the drawing of a sprout of water coming out on either side.

"Mmm oh you want it there?"

"Mhm, daddy. Please."

It takes a few tries to get a passable stream of water but he felt pretty pleased with himself by the time the sun was fading in the sky.

"Can I try it daddy!"

"I don't want your nice clothes getting wet." Joel leads you back inside and changes you into one of his old shirts.

"What about you, daddy?" You look expectantly at your daddy.

"Oh dear I'm not sure I can make it down. I'm an old man, petal."

"Please daddy!" You hug him around the middle and give him your best puppy dog eyes. "Please daddy! I only wanna if you do it too!"

"Oh alright." Joel sighs, knowing his back would complain in the morning but he wanted to share this experience with you.

"I ready!" You signal him to turn the hose on. "Catch me daddy! catch me!" You give yourself a running start before pushing yourself onto your belly. you slid down the tarp way faster than you thoght you would. It was kinda like flying. You squeal as Joel catches you at the end.

"I gotcha!"

"That was so fun daddy!" You giggle. "I wanna go again!"

Joel lets you go a few more times before you are looking at him expectantly.

"Your turn daddy. I catch you. I catch you."

"Oh dear..." Joel chuckles. "You sure?"

"Mhm. You can do it daddy! You brave!"

"I'll try to be, baby girl." He strokes your wet hair before walking up to the start. There's a slight slope to the yard which helps. "Things you do for a girl, miller." He muttered to himself. He shucks off his tshirt and shoes. On the count of three he pushed himself onto the slide, traveling much faster than you. His legs slide out to the side which makes him laugh.

"Oof!" He stretches out a hand to stop himself and keep the full weight of his body from knocking you over.

"Yay daddy!!!" You were jumping up and down. "You were so fast!" You kneel down and flop on top of him.

"That was fun, huh?" He laughs.

"Ya." You kiss his collarbone. "I love this, daddy. Was every day like dis?"

"Yeah..." Joel hugged you close. "But it's better now that you're here."

The sun was staining the sky pink and orange and both of you watched it set.

"So... what are we gonna do tomorrow?"

Joel bursts out laughing.

~~~~~

daddy masterlist

[writingsfromhome]

Dos and Don’ts IV

A/N: hello my loves this final part to this fic completes the birth of one of my favourite fics I’ve written. Thank you for reading and enjoying it just as much—every like, comment, and dm meant the world <3

Parts: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

—————————————————

We have an extra day in Barcelona and the team is buzzing to enjoy their nightlife since we could sleep all day tomorrow. I’d visited here while I was a uni student so I give some suggestions.

Harry’s a little on edge the whole time. Earlier today some headline from a musician Harry worked with was taken out of context and thus took the internet by storm. Now he was being flooded with people wanting to know his thoughts and feelings. It was a hot topic.

With a joint effort of me, Jeff, and Graham, we tried to keep the spotlight on his Barcelona show. Well my role was mostly to screen Harry from seeing any further discourse online.

The show itself was one of the loudest I’d been to—I was glad I had my own ear protection. The tense Harry falls away and he’s electric on stage. Even coming backstage he’s on a high; he hugs the crew and thanks everyone like he usually did at the end of shows and disappears into his dressing room with Jeff. They look like they’re talking intensely.

“So,” Sarah slides in beside me. “We noticed you’re a bit different coming back. What’s happened?”

I try to play dumb but the girls keep pushing.

“Me and my fiancé ended things,” I confess. They gasp, Claire’s eyes actually fill with tears.

“Shh!” I shush them. “Keep it on the down low please I don’t want anyone to know.”

“But y/n why are you even here!? Is it because of tour! I’m sure Harry could have rearranged things-“

“No no,” I appreciated their support but I didn’t want to hash things out. “It’s just…I think it was a long time coming. God, I don’t wanna cry. I’m good. For now. And I want to be on tour I need the distraction.”

“I get it,” they sympathize. “We’re gonna make you forget so hard tonight.”

“Okay but don’t,” I look around us to make sure there was nobody else around. “Please don’t tell Harry. Seriously please. I don’t want him to know especially. I don’t want him to treat me differently or something.”

“Lips are sealed.” Sarah zips her mouth. “But we can all tell you’re off. It’s hard not to practically living together these last couple months. If he asks we’ll say…”

“Just say she’s on a break?” Charlie suggests.

“Yeah,” I shrug. “Things are complicated, I’m on a break, whatever that’s fine.”

The girls lean towards me and envelop me in a hug. It reminds me of my friends I’d said goodbye to.

“Thanks,” I say through tears.

And the girls hold me to their promise.

After we get dressed for the night—I chose a corset-style top and trousers—we head out. The sun dips below the horizon and the old city is cast in a warm orange glow that could inspire anyone who set eyes on it. String lights come on and music plays from various doors; the city is alive.

We tease each other about looking so glam as we wander the narrow cobblestone streets. Aside from the shows we all wore sweats and tees.

Every place we pass sets my senses alight. We grab tapas from a place that smells irresistible and chat over each other about tonight’s wicked show. I continue avoiding Harry by sitting as far away from him as I can get.

As we wander off in search of the club I can’t help but feel a twinge at how incredibly romantic the moonlit streets felt.

The club is loud and alive, the noise levels even feel normal after the roar of the last few of Harry’s shows. My mood starts shooting up steadily as I drink in the energy around me.

We join the crowd and I give away my worries and my annoyances to enjoy the music. I feel it in my chest and for a blissful moment I’m grateful for my whole damn life despite everything.

“Cute guy!” Someone shouts in my ear.

Charlie nudges me to one of the guys dancing nearby. “Get distracted!”

I shake my head no.

“Do it!” She cheers. It barely travels to me. She grabs Claire’s hand and tugs her, letting her in on the plan and they goad me into going for it.

I motion a drink. I’d need another shot for the courage.

We trail back to the bar and do a round of shots, and they grin with thumbs up as I hesitantly enter the crowd again.

The dude they pointed out is tall and beautiful. Like beautiful not even handsome. I get stuck looking up at him in awe, he wasn’t really my type. A tad too pretty boy but when he notices me looking he smiles and I’m won over. I couldn’t deny a good smile.

“Hey!” He turns his body to me. At least I think he say hey.

“Hey!” I shout back.

“Que pasa?”

“What?!” I couldn’t hear a single thing. What did I expect.

He smiles and takes my hand that had been anxiously playing with the edge of my top. The other has a hand splint that I’d received in Madrid. Apparently I sprained my fingers.

The stranger wriggles both my hands to loosen them, raising his brow at the splint. I laugh.

He asks in my ear but I don’t understand. It sounds like a question, something bylar. When I scrunch my brows he laughs, “Dance! We dance!?”

“Dance!” I laugh. He was cute! “Yes! I want to dance with you!”

“Vamos,” he pulls me in. I understood that at least.

I used to do this in uni, I think. I should be able to do it again.

He teases me a little because I’m so tense. His hands knead down my back to my waist to get me to relax. It feels nice, being touched by a man that looks like he was carved from marble but filled with music.

I begin to find my rhythm and sway with him, eventually letting go completely. He compliments me as I start to move with him and pretty soon I’ve channeled my 20-year-old self. It feels pretty spectacular.

When his lips ghost my cheek I don’t protest. Right now, I felt good. Everything was on the back burner’s back burner and I felt grounded in this nighclub with this random stranger who was paying attention to me, just me. And it’s just us. And it’s just temporary. And I feel good.

When I turn around, my back to his chest, he moves my hair to the side and kisses down my neck. It felt good.

I run my hand up into his hair and he moves lower murmuring foreign words on my skin, our bodies still dancing in the same language, his hands still gripping my waist and my hips. I feel blissed out.

It ends in a split second.

“What are you doing?” Harry’s suddenly tugging me towards him. His mouth makes the words I just fill them in with his annoyingly bossy voice.

“Hey man,” the guy I’m dancing with tries to get in between us.

“What are you doing!?” I snatch my hand away from Harry.

Harry puts his hand on my partner’s chest and says something to him, maybe in Spanish. He looks at me with puppy dog eyes and I look at Harry. What had he said.

“What did you say?” I ask. I try to call back my dancing partner but he just salutes me with a smile and fades into the crowd. No wait, I’m being dragged away.

“Y/n what are you doing out there?”

“What am I doing?” I shout. “What are you?! I was having a nice time with that guy what did you say to him?”

He walks away, further back into the edges of the club. There’s a few people milling about with a number of them involved in heavy makeout sessions.

Harry turns to face me finally. “You’re engaged y/n, Claire and Sarah said things are complicated at home is that why you’re doing this?”

“What!” I throw my hands up, tears prick my eyes. What the fuck was his problem! Since when did he care? “Why do you care?! Yes, things are complicated and I was getting my mind off of said things—what is your issue? You want to drag me back here and remind me of how shitty things have been?”

“This isn’t the way,” Harry insists. “You don’t even know that guy!”

“Whatever I’m over this convo.”

I turn to leave but Harry grabs my hand, the one in the splint, and pulls me back.

“Sorry,” he lets go of the splint. Then picks it up again. “Look. I’m worried about you. This isn’t you, you’re not the girl that goes home with another guy when your fiancé is back at home! I just don’t want you making any regrets.”

“Oh is that it,” I step towards him so my hand isn’t so outstretched. He stands still but on my second step he inches back. “Since when did you get a high horse huh? Don’t tell me who I am and who I’m not. You barely know me! If I want to make decisions I regret I can do that. They’re mine to make.”

“No. Y/n, as mad as you are don’t go home with a stranger.”

“As if you don’t!” I scoff. “What’s your real agenda here? What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” He insists.

“Why do you suddenly care so much about my chastity?”

“It’s for your own good!”

He’s lying. I know he’s lying and I don’t know why he pulled me away from my beautiful Spanish dance partner but I was actually relaxing and now he’s put me right back into this crazed and tense headspace I kept finding myself in.

Fine, I decide. I could make him regret it.

“Really? You care about my morality that much?” I ask.

With my hand flat on his chest I’ve pushed him further into the wall behind him. He watches me with a guarded look.

But I want him unguarded, vulnerable. The same way he’s made me feel. I lean in, “Are you really worried about the technicalities of me cheating on my fiancé?”

I hover a half foot from his lips. Finally his eyes flicker down to my lips and I know I’ve got him.

I slide my hand up his chest and when my hand inches up the skin of his throat his eyes grow unguarded and heady with lust. He doesn’t push me away. He doesn’t say no.

Hypocrite.

I drop my hand.

“That’s what I thought Mr. Styles.”

I watch for a wonderful moment as the lust clears from his eyes and he realizes what happened. Shame, embarrassment, resignation, and then anger.

I spin on my heel and head away from him. He could deal with the consequences of his actions all on his own.

I’m half-afraid he’ll come after me but luckily I make it out of the club alone.

“He’s such a dick,” I say more to myself. Just to get it out because I’m pissed. “Who the fuck does he think he is!?”

My night is over. I just want to take this all off and forget about it. Maybe I can lock myself in my room and raid the mini-fridge, get drunk and cry myself to sleep. Those seemed like the best options right now.

I take an uber to the hotel. As I walk up to it I notice a weird crowd outside. For nearly 2am I wasn’t expecting this and my instincts kick in that this wasn’t normal. Especially when I notice all the camera straps.

“Excuse me,” I ask the front desk. “Why are there a bunch of paparazzi outside?”

“Is there?” The man behind the counter asks. “Sorry we will tell them to leave. Are you staying with us?”

“That’s a privacy concern out there, and a concern with your staff because they’re here. How do they know who’s staying here?!”

It seems to dawn on him I wasn’t just asking out of curiosity. He promises me he’ll get management. In the meantime I call Jeff and explain the situation. He starts to panic the way I hated, looking for something to blame. He calls Graham who sounds like he’s driving in nascar. It’s a very noisy and over-stimulating conversation.

“Call Harry!” Jeff orders. “Tell him he cannot go back to the hotel no matter what! Fucking vultures man!”

“Y/N,” Graham says in a calmer voice. “You need to go back to where Harry is with some sort of disguise. A hat or sunglasses. That sort of thing-“

“It’s night.”

“Yes night. No glasses. Book the closest hotel you can find. Tell his band they can come back, but to go through the back. They might get spotted but they’re trained on dodging questions. That will keep the vultures there waiting for Harry and we can pick you two up back to the airport tomorrow morning. Where’s after this?”

“Glasgow,” I bite my nail as I think. I had to call Harry asap. What if he was on his way back. “I gotta go now to call him though. Talk later.”

I hang up and call Harry. He picks up the second time.

I explain the situation and he reacts the same way as Jeff, swearing and cursing the papps. I tell him what I was going to do and tell him to go right back into the club. To pass on the word to the team even though I was going to send them a text.

I head up to my room and grab what fits in my bag. I didn’t have Harry’s room key so I decide he’d have to wear my hat and head back out. The vultures stay waiting, now just a few feet further away from the entrance.

I speak briefly to management—I figured Jeff could talk to them and give his classic earful.

On the drive I find a nearby hotel to the club and collect Harry to get him there. We’re too tense to talk when we meet up. Once inside again, I tell him to sit in the lounge while I go up to the desk.

Act above it all, I channel a rich bitch. We needed privacy and we needed nobody to know Harry was here.

“Hi I need a room.” I say.

“Of course, how many night will you be staying with us.”

I glance back to see where Harry sits. He’s in a wingback chair that’s mostly turned away and with his hair stuffed in the baseball cap you can hardly tell it’s him.

“Just a night. I need your best room please.”

“Absolutely,” the woman smiles and I feel bad for only giving a tight-lipped smile back. I wait as she clicks away, finally looking back to me with a slight frown. “So miss unfortunately we are very booked tonight. There are a couple events going on in the city making things very popular.”

“The best room will do. Preferably large.”

“Well,” she hesitates. “A lot of our larger rooms are taken um. I can offer you a bed with one king, it is a bit smaller because it’s by the elevators. I also have one with a queen that is tucked away in the corner with a better view.”

I wanted to be as far away from Harry as possible but by an elevator was asking for trouble.

“Well, I’d rather stay far away from noise so we’ll take the queen.”

“Is that just you or…” she glances at Harry.

“Yes. Two. We’ve had a rough day of travel he’s just resting.”

I hand over ID and my card, trying not to balk at the total. At least I’ll get reimbursed.

“Do you have any bags?” The concierge swoops in as I get the key card.

“No! No. Like I said, bad travel day. We just need somewhere to sleep and we’ll reunite with the bags once they arrive tomorrow.”

They leave us alone after that. I hoped it was because I’d been standoffish enough and not plain weird.

The elevator ride up to the 8th floor is stony and I spend the spare second to text Jeff and Graham the hotel’s address.

The room itself is pretty sub-par and the adrenaline of getting Harry here safely wears off.

I drop my bag by the door and pull out my toiletry bag.

“I don’t have clothes for you to change into, I didn’t have your room key.”

“Yeah. S’fine. I’ll just sleep shirtless unless that bothers you.”

We stare at each other for a tense moment.

“I’m fine with that, you’re the one with the high horse.”

After doing all this for him I wasn’t going to be easy to deal with if he wasn’t going to be easy to deal with.

He chooses to ignore me.

“How the fuck did they know I was staying there? We were under a-“

His phone rings and he answers. Sounds like Jeff.

I use the time to go to the bathroom and finally take off the makeup. I realize I should have grabbed my pjs from my bag too. I take my hair down and massage my scalp with my fingers, letting myself calm down despite the aggressive voices outside.

“Yeah whatever. Keep me updated.” I hear. Great. That was done with.

I leave the bathroom and Harry’s still pacing the floor.

“You’re gonna wear the carpet down if you keep doing that.”

He stops and looks at me, his eyes trail down my body.

“You didn’t bring yourself a change of clothes either?”

“You wish,” I head for my bag again and grab the tee and shorts. “I just forgot them out here.”

“Do you always have to be so snarky?”

Oh, so he wanted to fight. Good news for him, so did I.

“Depends. With you? When you’re being a dick? Yeah. I do.”

“It’s really quite unbecoming.”

“Is it?” I mock his accent. “It’s not proper for a lady to be snarky?”

“I don’t sound like that. You just never let anything go.” He continues.

“I never let anything go?” I repeat.

“Yeah! Ever!”

“What do you want me to let go?” I ask.

“Everything. You’re bothered by everything just let it all fucking go.”

“No like specifically what should I let go?” I turn on him and with each question I stalk towards him. “Being treated like trash by you? Being told I’m replaceable and unnecessary? Getting bossed around about who I can and can’t dance with because you suddenly decide to be the morality police!?”

“Jesus take it down a notch y/n.” We’re fuming as we square off. “I’m not your bloody fiancé.”

“And thank fuck you’re not!” I throw the clothes in my hand on the bed. “You’re my employer Mr. Styles and I’ve been nothing but a good fucking employee for the last year! I try to keep my patience and do everything I can to do my best! You’re the one always trying to blur lines! You’re the one always getting in my damn business when I don’t pay you to!”

With every accusation I poke my finger into his chest and it’s like literally pushing buttons. His face gets stonier and stonier until I’m sure he’s going to crack.

“You wanna know what your fucking issue is?” He swipes my hand away.

“Oh sure tell me, wise Harry Styles who definitely has no issues at all. Tell me.”

“This. This is your fucking issue,” he spits. “You’ve always got such a temper on you! I’m not blurring any bloody lines I check up on you and you get all offended over nothing!”

“Over nothing?” I ask. I laugh sarcastically and walk away from him. I was seeing red. “Over nothing?”

“Yes! I don’t do shite and suddenly you’re trying to bite my dick off.”

“You fucking wish,” I turn on him. “It’s crazy you don’t realize what an absolute jackass you are! We should be refunding all those fans who’ve come out to see you because the man they’re paying for is a fake! You’ve treated me like nothing and embarrassed me countless time-“

“Embarrassed you,” he scoffs.

“Yes!” I go on. “What do you call what you said on our way to Paris huh? You can be so cruel! So if I have a temper it’s justified because you’re one of the worst people I’ve met!”

“What did I say?”

“Are you kidding? You’re going to make me repeat it?” He was crazy. He was depraved and absolutely insane. Or he just hated me.

“I’m not playing a game just tell me!”

“You said I could have skipped the whole tour and nobody would notice.” I say the words that had looped through my head. And of course, he has the audacity to look surprised. “Thanks. A lot! It makes it even worse that you were so casual with your cruelt-“

“You need to stop being so sensitive,” he has the nerve to say. “Then maybe you can manage your temper.”

“I can manage my temper any time but you’re moody like a pre-pubescent teen and that looks to be a lifetime fucking problem!”

“What’s your fucking problem Y/n! What is your problem with me!? Why do you still work for me if you are this angry all the time!”

“I’m not this angry all the time, you just makes me this angry! And I hate you for it!”

“Then quit!”

“Maybe I will!” I had to. After tonight and this blowout I had to. How could I work for Harry like this.

“Great! Then you can take your problems with you.”

“Don’t gaslight me,” how dare he. “You’re not innocent in this! You create my problems and blame me for being this way.”

“Whatever y/n.”

“No.” I wasn’t letting him off the hook. I get in his face again. “Why did you stop me tonight? Why did you keep me from doing what I wanted tonight?”

“What? I told you I was looking out-“

“Bullshit!” I cut him off. “That’s a bullshit excuse, I want to know why!?”

I feel like I’m made of flames and in desperate need of a lobotomy. How could one guy make me this crazy. How could it all revolve around him.

“I was doing it for your own good! But clearly I understand why it’s so fucking complicated with your partner-“

“Don’t you dare talk about him,” I seethe. I was mad. Fuming. I want to get physical, I wish I could throttle him or at the very least access one of the pillows from across the room and smash it to the floor. I want him to see how angry I am because my words are twisted with every angle Harry could find. I wanted him to admit to something he’s been skirting for a long time. “Tell me.”

Harry stares at me with hate in his eyes and I know I have the same look. I wasn’t going to let him get away.

“You don’t even have the balls to admit it,” I poke. “Is this why you’re so hard-headed to anything I say? Because you can’t even admit something like this to yourself?”

“Just shut the fuck up y/n and stop being so mental.”

“I refuse to shut up. I want you to talk.”

His breathing gets faster and I watch him flex his hand. He was as angry as I was. Good.

“You’re a fraud. And I hate you.” I step into his space. Our bodies are a hair’s breadth away from each other’s. I want to show him how mad he makes me. I want to do something. I want him to admit this thing he’s been dancing around. It makes me so mad!

When he starts to shake his head at me I lose it. Instinct takes over where I want to physically show him how angry he was making me. I grab his face in my hands and push my mouth against his. I meet teeth.

But it doesn’t take long for him to respond. To correct the unadulterated anger with purpose.

He pushes back, kissing me harder whilst pushing me against the wall. I feel sandwiched, my chest crushed against his and I bite down on his lip trying to get back some control.

My hands are all over him, grabbing his shirt, running through his hair, pushing under his shirt to touch skin. Harry does the same, pulling at my hair and lifting me onto him.

Our tongues clash together, his hand grabs my ass, squeezing and moving up. His hands feel hot on my skin, his metal rings an icy contrast. Neither of us want to give up control. We keep fighting, just now with our bodies.

“Why can’t you ever just let it go,” he traces his teeth over my collarbone. It all feels too much.

In response I push him back, he stares at me for a heated second before we crash into each other again. We don't care where we are. All that mattered was here and showing the other who was in control. Who hated who the most.

Harry pulls away, his mouth a deep pink from our fight. His eyes are half lidded, his pupils dilated. I can tell he wants this but a part of him hesitates.

"We're doing this," I commit, not taking my eyes off his lips.

"I’m doing this," he growls and lifts me up, any hesitancy washed away. I wrap my legs around him, not thinking about anything but what I was going to do.

He whirls me around and deposits me onto the bed, and his body covers mine while his mouth attack my neck.

He wasn't gentle or slow, but then again, I didn't want him to be. I pull off his shirt, not wanting anything between us, not caring that my nails would leave marks down his back. Leaving something permanent on him sounded exactly what I needed.

I tug on his hair as his teeth come down on my chest. I feel heated as he swears, “Teasing me with this top all night was a fucking sin y/n.”

“Fuck off,” I gasp as he figures out the row of clasps at the front and the icy rings of his fingers presses against my sternum. I grit my teeth, “I didn’t wear this for you.”

His abs contract as he pushes himself back up, his eyes dark as his hands find the clasp on my trousers, undoing them with ease and tugging them off. His other hand comes back up to tilt my chin up.

“D’you really hate me?” He asks.

“Yes,” I respond with zero hesitation.

He moves his body, covering mine with his own again. My breath catches in my throat as he presses his lips to my neck, slowly moving down. He drives me crazy with anticipation and I wriggle up to keep up the pace but he holds me in place. I let out a moan as he kisses my inner thighs, his fingers gripping the tops of them. I'm squirming under his hold, the heat pooling inside of me.

“Do you hate me?” He asks again.

“Yes,” I cry, not wanting to relent to him.

“Good,” he says and that’s the last thing I remember.

The rest is a tangle of limbs, an out-of-body sensation, and seismic wave after wave coursing through my body. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before; the fury we felt with each other fuzes to the passion of the moment and it blitzes every damn thought out of my head.

Hours later, or maybe the whole night later—I don’t know but all I do know was that my body was spent and I was barely hanging on.

“I can’t,” I plant my hands on his shoulders and nearly pitch forward just from pausing. His hand splays on my back, keeping me in place as he turns us around.

“Okay?” He asks low.

I nod, grateful that he was taking over.

And after riding out what I know would be my last wave he rolls off of me, and we lay there just trying to catch our breaths.

After a few minutes, I sense him tilting towards me, his eyes on my face. When he stares for so long it becomes obvious, I look back at him.

His eyes are not the same ones that started this mess, they’re breezy meadows of green compared to the icy sea glass from before. But it’s not surprising. With each round and each minute we spent with other tonight, things had grown softer. Not gentle, but softer.

And as we look at each other with the awareness that the anger had bled into the threads of these tangled sheets a long time ago, we’re left with something neither of us want to distinguish. At least I don’t.

His gaze holds something too real for a place like this and I quickly look away and back at the ceiling. I feel his eyes on me a moment longer before he himself turns away to stare at the same ceiling.

“Y/N,” someone suddenly calls my name, tapping my cheeks with a gentle pat. I have to pull myself from the depths of wherever the fuck I just went to open my eyes and look up, at Harry. He looks concerned and asks me a question that I don’t register—I was truly out of it. I must have dozed off.

I push his hand away and grab the closest piece of clothing to wrap around myself in which ends up being a sheet. I take myself to the bathroom to clean up.

I hardly recognize the girl in the mirror. My eyes are blown out and my neck looks like it was rammed by a bull. I can hardly look at the rest of me. I would need to buy something high necked before we got picked up tomorrow morning and use all the concealer I had. I know I marked every inch of him I could find too.

I had never felt that level of passion with anyone. It was unnerving.

My knees collapse under me as I sit on the toilet and try to count the tiles on the opposite wall, just to come back to earth. To my body.

I sense a shadow under the door after I’m in there for a while, I watch it move from one side to the other and then move away. I wait longer, nearly falling asleep there before going back out.

The bed looks a right mess and most of the duvet is twisted to the side. I don’t bother with it, I use the sheet I’m wrapped in and crawl right into bed. Harry seems to have fallen asleep too but as I near sleep I feel the bed dip and the heavy weight of the duvet drapes over me.

I don’t have enough clarity or energy tonight to think about what any of this meant but I know I was right about leaving.

***

We return to London on a Wednesday morning and nearly kiss the ground. Harry was still playing two shows here but getting to go back home instead of a hotel room was enough to make us weep.

I didn’t really have a home to go back to. I’d been thinking about that a lot as the tour took us closer and closer to London. I had texted Gray yesterday and we agreed I could crash there until this weekend to get my stuff together.

London had a metaphorical grey fog over it in my mind. Nothing felt appealing about it and the only thing on my mind these days was home—my childhood home.

I already knew I was going to give in my resignation letter to Harry after tour but I had a 3 week period under contract. I don’t think I could afford a hotel for three weeks and staying with any of my friends is out of the question.

These thoughts kept me preoccupied.

It helped me not to think about that night though. I avoided Harry unless it was for work, returning to the solitude of my first few months working for him. He does the same: curt and avoidant. I know others notice but nobody dares to ask.

It was the most intense thing I’d done in my whole life and that was saying something. There was a way that Harry got under my skin that nobody else could. And it was hard to find a balance after the scales had shifted so far in that direction.

I felt like I had to block it out until I could have space to process it. And yet memories still seeped through when I was quiet for a moment too long or when he’d walk past me with the same cologne as that night and I’d catch a whiff. I was doubly sure this chapter had to close.

When I get back to the flat on Wednesday Gray has vanished as he promised. He told me he’d drop by that evening to talk. Surprisingly, I felt calm about it. I don’t know if it was getting all of that ferocious energy out that had been churning for months, but I feel level-headed and I appreciate the space to myself.

Gray texts me before he arrives. Like this wasn’t the flat he was now paying for alone.

I know what he wanted to talk about—we were all supposed to go to Harry’s last show at the o2 since I had tickets for everyone. Josie was stoked and based on the way she’s been texting me leading up to the day I don’t think she knew. Gray confirms it.

“So,” he rubs the back of his neck. He looked nice in a beanie and corduroy jacket. I wonder if any of the effort was for me, then vanish the thought.

“So,” I echo.

We stand awkwardly across from each other—him propping himself up behind the couch and me leaning against the dining table. Like we needed to get as much furniture between us. Like we hadn’t shared a bed a few weeks ago.

“We should sit?”

“Yeah,” he attempts a laugh and sits on the sofa. I choose the closest chair and turn it to face him. “Yeah. Um, I don’t know how you feel about Saturday. But I haven’t told Josie yet. I haven’t really told anyone.”

I nod, “Me too. Not really. People at work think we’re on a break.”

“Right. Good.” He says. “I’m not tryna lie to people but I don’t really want to get into it…”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “So Josie?”

“I’ll let her know once…once you move out?”

Move out. Of this flat. It’s been home for nearly 3 years.

Gray had surprised me with it when he found it—I had been broke and only been able to pitch in for utilities and groceries but he’d been gracious. He’d been supportive once. But I guess his support had boundaries too. I didn’t entirely blame him for that.

“Sounds good. Or later, maybe when she’s done her exams.”

He leans back on the couch, arms spread over the back and sighs as he studies me. “Yeah of course. I should’ve thought of that. You’re always good at that stuff. She’s gonna be gutted.”

I nod. Not sure what to say to that.

“So you’ll be out on Saturday yeah?” He asks after a while. It seemed both of us had a lot on our minds. But his question stings a little.

“Yep. I’m off for most of the week so I’ll just pack things up. Uhm, with Josie and whatnot I guess we’re still acting like a couple? Will that be weird?”

“Yeah. It will be but we’ve got no other option.”

“Right.” I respond. His voice grows an edge I’m not a fan of. “Well. Thanks for letting me stay here. If you need anything else I guess you can grab it now.”

I want to ask how he’s doing, who he’s staying with, and just hold his face one last time to really remember. But his cold apathy grows like frostbite over the room and creeps into my heart. I always thought where there was love there would always be love but I’m not as sure tonight.

I stay busy and when I can’t sleep at night; I map out a dream, an exit plan home. I write up my resignation letter, I look at flights and rentals and talk things out with my family, I cancel wedding and couple shit, and grieve a fair bit.

On Friday afternoon, my only formal shift this week, I head to Harry’s with an anxious weight in my chest and a buzz in my head from the hope. Hope that this chapter of my life could end soon, and I can head home and recuperate and plan out what my life was going to look like.

Harry’s on a call when I get in. He spares me a glance but I head to the office with my stack of mail. Today was mostly for some housekeeping/admin but I hope to avoid Harry for the most part like I’ve done since that night. My letter sits like a bar of gold in my bag.

I hear him move about the flat. I restock some pantry items, and we speak as little as possible. Going with him to his meeting was my final task for today so I decide it’s a good time to hand in my letter.

I find him sitting in the studio, tapping a pen against the table.

“Mr. Styles?”

“Hm?” He drags his eyes away from his screen to look at me.

“So we’re heading to your meeting in 10. Before then I just wanted to hand this in.”

The envelope stays outstretched in my hand and he eyes it, not taking it.

“What is that?”

“Can you just take it?” I shake it a little, like a bag of treats for a puppy.

His muscles move one inch every ten seconds, that’s how slow he is to sit up in his seat and finally take the letter from my hands. I almost let out a big sigh of relief. The process was finally in place.

“What is it?” He asks again, tearing the corner and down the side like he usually did.

I wait for him to unfold the thirds before answering, “my resignation letter.”

His eyes scan the sheet left to right right to left and when he looks up at me it’s hard to say what he’s thinking.

“Is this a joke?”

“No? Obviously not? I’m handing in my 3 weeks. I’ll also email a copy to Jeff and you.”

“Why are you doing this?” He stands, his tall frame rigid.

“Why? Because I’m…I’m quitting? I think I’ve learned everything I could here a-and it’s time to move on.”

By here I don’t mean working for Harry Styles and co but just here as in London. I’ve learned a fuck ton of life lessons here, and it was time to process them elsewhere.

“Is this to get back at me somehow? I don’t understand,” the papers crinkle in his fist as he grips it tighter. “Do you want a raise? Can we talk about this?”

“No.” I say and even though there’s so much more I could say I think that sums up my answer.

He looks puzzled, then annoyed. Just then my phone buzzes. The car was downstairs.

I grab my laptop and we head down. I was coming along to take minutes and then head home. In the car I reassure Harry,

“I plan on wrapping things up in the next three weeks and making sure everything is set up for an easy transition. I’ll leave continuity notes and reach out to people I regularly communicate with to break the news. The next couple months are pretty easy anyway coming out of tour and going on holiday so there should be plenty of time for the new PA, whoever your hire, to catch up.”

He doesn’t say a word. It reminds me of our first drive to the studio together. How naïve I was. How things changed.

He continues staring out the window, resting his face on his fist. I remember my teeth dragging over that jaw. I blink the image away; this was why I had to go.

When we get to Graham’s office Harry tells Jeff, “we don’t need minutes.”

Jeff looks over at me for answers and I shrug. I guess I came here for no reason but at least I had my laptop to work.

“Uh y/n please come i-“

“She’s fine working out there,” Harry cuts Graham off. Graham looks offended, his gaze drawing between Harry and I. Again, I shrug. I wasn’t leaving today I don’t know why he was acting like it.

For the next hour or so I sit at a spare cubicle and do just as I said in the car. I type out lists for upcoming interviews and studio days. I send emails for information to note for whoever the poor person was to replace me.

I had been keeping the Dos and Don’ts updated over the last year and it feels like a baby the way it came together with so much thought. I was almost sad to part with it.

Nobody tells me the meeting is over. The door simply opens and Harry breezes past.

“I’ll be in the car.” He mutters. Any faster and I would have to hold down the papers around me.

When he’s gone beyond sight, I turn back to the open door.

“What’s the matter with him?” I hear Graham asking inside.

“You keep pushing him,” Jeff responds with irritation. “That’s not his brand Graham.”

“Well that’s a different tune. Prior to this you were singing my praises with these new ideas.”

“I don’t know. Something’s been up with him for…a while-“

“Since that article isn’t it?” Graham references the Harry Styles slander when we were in Spain. Little did they know other things had also happened.

“We dealt with that article.”

Shit, I think. Has he been any different? I think I was keeping too much distance from him to notice.

“Y/n,” my name snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Mhm?” I’m beckoned to the meeting room. “Yes?”

“Find out what’s wrong with him. Or better yet just convince him to be a bit more alive at his last show tomorrow with his usual charm? He hasn’t been his full capacity the last few shows has he?”

Shit. “Um. Burnout?”

The two men look at each other. They make a face like that couldn’t possibly be why. I tell the men what they want to hear, that I’d try to find out and get him back to his charming self (yuck) before joining Harry in the car.

“Jeff and Graham aren’t all that happy with you,” I say when we start driving. Harry was giving me a lift home. “They’re insisting you do it right at your final tomorrow. Be your charming self.”

He grunts in response, head facing the window again. Was he allergic to look forward in the car or something?

“Are you coming?” He asks after a good ten minutes of silence.

“Tomorrow?”

“Mhm.”

“Yeah. I gave my extra tickets to…my fiance,” my brain fumbles my words as it remembers what he was and now is. And the lie I had to keep up. “And his sister and her friend.”

He just nods in acknowledgement, somehow stonier.

When the car pulls up to my familiar building I thank his driver and begin my shimmy out but Harry puts a hand to my knee to stop me. His touch sears right through my stockings and he must feel it too because he slides his hand back.

“Answer this,” he looks at me for the first time tonight. Wow, this really did feel like my first week on the job.

“Sure,” I reply.

“Is it because of that night?”

It’s the first time it’s been mentioned, and his gaze burns brighter than a forest fire. It’s mesmerizing and I can’t look away.

Wait, he wanted an answer.

“It’s because of a lot of things,” I answer truthfully.

He clenches his jaw. Leans back in his seat. The seatbelt reverses to hold him in place again and he’s no longer looking at me. I take that as my cue to go.

***

Josie bursts into the flat dressed to the nines in a groovy floral jumpsuit and boas in her hand. “Don’t worry. I have one for each of us.”

Her friend trails behind her in an equally 70s inspired look.

“That’s what you’re wearing?” Josie judges her brother’s hoodie and jeans. “You’re lowering the vibe Gray do better. Y/n? Why didn’t you brief him?”

“I did!” I eye Gray. “Don’t blame me.”

This was way more awkward than I thought. Or I really was not as good of an actress as I wished.

“What am I supposed to wear?” Gray asks. “I’m not wearing a jumpsuit.”

Josie rolls her eyes. “Y/n please drag him back and find a decent tee or something?”

“Yes ma’am,” I take Gray by the arm and take him back.

“This is kinda weird hey?” I whisper when we close the door.

“I don’t really like it either,” Gray scratches his head. “But it’s for the best.”

I nod and then louder announce, “Well it’s Jo’s night so find something a tad more retro?”

We end up with a red tee and find a belt to tie the look. Josie hugs her brother with thanks when she sees it.

I had on a pair of black bellbottoms paired with a blank tank. My hair was in spacebuns and Josie plucks a few boa feathers to accessorize my hair. It’s cute.

We head off and I have to make a conscious effort to remember my mannerisms with Gray before all this. I feel woozy while I slide my hand into his on the ride there, as Josie snaps our pics on her disposable, as she tells us to get one of us where Gray’s kissing my cheek and she’ll save it to show our kids. It makes me sick.

He keeps an arm on my waist as we walk. I want this night to be over so bad but every time I look Josie’s way I perk back up a little. I wanted her to enjoy this.

And she does. I’m sure she’s lost her voice by the end of the concert. At one point we drift away a little and breathe easier to drop the act but when she’s back Gray wraps his arms around me from behind and we act like a happy couple. Again, I felt sick.

Being in Gray’s arms held none of the spark it used to. I just feel awkward and sad.

At one point Harry looks my way, I don’t know how he spotted me in such a big crowd. It’s between songs and he looks at the group I’m with. I give a pathetic wave and he nods ever so slightly, his gaze sliding off soon after. Gray’s arm tightens around my shoulder and my heart gives a squeeze in response. I’m reminded: this era was ending.

The band told me to meet them backstage at the end, to join in on the final-show celebration. Josie and Gray would wait at a local pub and with the way Josie’s Instagram stories were glowing I could imagine her sitting there uploading it all.

“I couldn’t have done it without any of you,” I catch Harry saying as I slip behind stage with my pass. “I know I’ve not been the easiest to be with but you all sit in my heart. This is our Euro tour, concluded.”

Somebody pops bubbly and I congratulate the whole team as they drink. They insist on going out for proper drinks and I’m denied not going. They tell me to invite my guests to party with them and I know, based on where we were going, Josie was going to flip.

Juniper, a club that gets us all in on Harry’s face card, is opulent and lively on the inside. Josie is buzzing about with her friend—Gray had opted to go home, claiming he had early morning sessions. Josie didn’t think twice about him, but we pretended to go back and forth with a final warning from Gray to Josie to behave.

“He’s a broody one,” Charlie comments on Gray as we chatter while we get drinks. “Sister?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t know yet though so,” I put my finger to my lip.

“So no Barcelona dancing tonight?” Sarah teases. I laugh and tell them to keep me tamed. “We gotta do some shots with the team though where is everyone?”

We gaze around the room and manage to get everyone together. After one round of shots and another that Harry forced on all of us I feel the tension I’ve been carrying with me most days slide away.

We end up sticking together as a group and dance together, laughing and cheering each other on. Even Harry’s in a cheery mood—I suspect the alcohol. I catch him watching me at one point and when I raise my brow he takes my hand and spins me in a friendly twirl. I trip on my wide-legged pants and he catches me from behind. With my back to his chest I have the urge to turn around and kiss him and feel the peculiar comfort I had received from him before. That thought drives me away from him again. Despite the tight knit group there’s too much between us to even attempt being close.

I call it quits when Josie finds me and announces she was going home. I hug the newfound family I had made over the last few months one final goodbye, knowing I might never see them together like this again.

***

Jeff’s reaction to my news surprises me the most. He’s visibly upset and tries to sell me anything to stay. I tell him there was nothing to keep me at my job but I would rely on him for a good reference. I think it’s the first time he’s ever reassured me.

Between Harry and I it remains curt. Sometimes even edgy. I post my own job replacement and Jeff keeps me updated on potential candidates. By the time my last week rolls around I’m host to a roil of emotions.

The first week homeless, Charlie had let me crash on her couch and promised not to say a word to anyone. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome and so I had checked into a hotel and called it home for now.

I’m on my way back home to the hotel after being at Gray’s. We’d invited Josie over for dinner now that her exams were over and she’d been suspicious from the start.

We had told her the truth and she refused to believe it, hurt and betrayal in her eyes as she looked at me and realized she had been kept in the dark for the last week. I felt worse then, than I did when Gray and I called it quits.

I promised her a lunch together this week to talk more. Just because I was out of Gray’s life didn’t mean I had to be out of hers. I thought I could also tell her then that I was leaving to go back home.

On my second last day at work, Harry sends me on an errand near the end of the day. When I get back there’s a small group of friendly and familiar faces waiting to surprise me. I’m touched by the gesture, and I try to corner Harry to say thank you but it feels he avoids me at every chance, always in a larger crowd.

I finally catch him while I’m heading out of the bathroom and he’s heading down the hall.

“Oh hey,” I step in his way. He looks cornered. “I just wanted to say thanks for throwing this.”

“Yeah,” he gestures it was nothing. “It was Jeff’s idea.”

Ouch. I hide the sting. “Well. Thanks regardless.”

He nods, staying mute, but his eyes speak a thousand words—just none that I can read. They stay trained on me, communicating whatever.

Slowly the furrow between his brows eases and the sharp edges of his face give way to a softened expression. I’m scared to move in case I break the trance and don’t get to hear whatever his racing thoughts spit out. Just when it looks like he’s about to say something, a guest turns the corner up the hall.

“Anyone in the toilet?” It was Mitch. Damnit.

“Nope,” I step out of the way, inadvertently brushing Harry. A shiver runs up my spine and I try to act casual but he stiffens beside me. Was it that awful being around me, jeez.

I give up. If he wanted to continue staying moody, so be it. I leave to go back to the party and don’t look back.

My final days in London are hard. The same way I arrived, I go: alone and unsure of what’s ahead.

I always thought here was where I would stay forever. And maybe one day I would return but there was a little too much friction between me and the Capital.

I finish work on an unremarkable note after going through processes with the new hire, and dotting all of my i’s. Harry is nowhere to be seen and I’m gone before he gets back. I’m frustrated that he’s behaving this way but there’s also too much between us for the simple goodbye I yearn for.

I visit all of my old favourites, have one last drink at my old local pub somewhere in between Gray’s flat and Harry’s. I shed a lot of tears on my pilgrimage through the city’s veins. I promise the paved and cobblestone roads I would be back one day.

The walls of my lungs ease open on the flight home. Still, tears cascade down my face silently as the plane sleeps. Eventually I do too. When I wake the sky is filled with bright blinding sunrise, and American soil peeks out below me: I was finally home.

••••••••••••••••••••

Present (2 years on):

My heart flutters seeing Harry here, I chalk it up to anxiety. But it annoys me that despite all the distance and the growth, he still had an effect on me.

Harry’s head turns and before I can be smart about it our eyes lock. His eyebrows raise ever so slightly before his face falls into a nonchalant facade again. I don’t even want to know what my face looked like.

Then he gets the nerve to smirk, hang his head, and then grab his drink and walk towards me.

“If I had a cross I would be holding it up right now.” I have to shout a little so he hears me before he gets to me. He was an emotional vampire feeding on all of mine.

“Now why’s that?” He continues towards me. My emotions swirl through me. “I thought time heals all wounds. Why the unfriendly welcome Mrs. Duran?”

I grit my teeth at the name, he was still filled with poison. “Right, the timeless wisdom of clichés.”

“I like to think I’m pretty timeless.” He smiles.

“I’ve found that time may heal wounds, but scars make sure you never forget.”

“Well, scars aside, you look good,” he moves on and I feel like an idiot the way I was used to feeling around him.

“Of course I do.”

“What are you doing in London? Last I checked I was getting a reference check from America.”

I debate not answering him but I was trying to straddle the line between indifference and confidence. It was like walking a tightrope.

“I’m in London for a little while,” I give vaguely.

“Ah,” he smiles and damnit I forgot how handsome he could be. How handsome could then turn into seductive so quickly. I had to remember: Still a devil. “Are you looking for a new employer? Because I could be hiri-“

“No.” I cut him off. “I finally have a job I love so I’m good.”

Something flickers in his eyes but surprisingly he stays quiet.

“What are you doing here? At The Violinist?” I ask. I sort of wish I still had a drink in my hand, they feel awkward and clunky and I want to avoid playing with my hair. Gah. “Global star drinks alone at his local bar?”

He laughs but I can tell I hit a minor nerve. “Here I’m just a local. Always have been—it’s nice to be anonymous for a little bit.”

I roll my eyes. I didn’t believe that for a second. He loved his fame and everything that came with it.

Plus I used to come here all the time, I would’ve known if my employer was a local too. He was lying for some reason.

“Mr. Styles if there’s one thing I remember about you, you’d choose death over anonymity.”

“Firstly,” he leans in and I get a whiff of his usual cologne with a hint of malt. “A person can change a lot. So maybe you don’t know me as much as you think you do-“

“Oh I don’t think anyone can change that drastically in only a year-“

“You seemed to have.”

His words take mine out of my mouth. I hadn’t changed, not really. I’d always been this y/n but the further I got away from him the more reassured I had gotten being that y/n.

“And secondly,” he continues before I could think of a response. “You no longer work for me. Harry is fine.”

The smile he throws me is almost sweet if I didn’t know the cruelty that could hide underneath. I don’t return the smile, I only raise my brow and look back down at my phone. My cell service hasn’t gotten any better and I’d missed the wifi password.

I could connect to Harry’s wifi, ask him so that I could order an uber.

I’d rather van gogh my ear.

I weigh all my options and consider the last one again. I look up to see what Harry was doing in the silence and find him looking at me. A shiver runs up my spine as our eyes clash. So much history and words unspoken fall in between. A very specific night flashes through my mind. I wonder if it does him because he looks down first. Damn.

“So I’ve gotta get going,” I say.

“Let me buy you a drink.” He says at the same time.

He laughs awkwardly and repeats, “One drink?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not drinking buddies.” I pull my purse to my chest, wanting to hop off this stool and run home if I need to. Put as much distance between myself and this man that was put on this earth to confuse me.

“Then what are we y/n?” He asks, his voice silky smooth as he leans in. The voice that whispered sweet nothings into my ear in my worst nightmares, nightmares of cotton sheets and heated limbs, of passion and shame.

“Ex-employer,” I point to him. I point to myself, “Ex-employee.”

“Exes have drinks together,” he grins full well knowing the double meaning.

“Never ends well,” I eye the door.

“Just as stubborn as I remember.”

“And you were saying people change?” I raise my brow.

He drops the smile and sighs, “I’m not gonna be able to convince ya am I?”

I shake my head. He should know that by now.

“Can I walk you out at least?”

I shrug, couldn’t hurt.

“What is this?” I ask as he opens the door for me.

“What?”

“This? Why are you trying to be so friendly?”

“I thought we could be friendly exes.”

And when did he get so cheeky.

“Something weird is going on,” I watch him stay in step with me as I walk up. With no service I was going to take the tube. “And I don’t like it.”

“Nothing weird is going on don’t get all paranoid on me.”

“Don’t call me paranoid! You never call a woman paranoid.”

“I thought that was conspiracy theorists?”

“Nooo. You’re being weird.”

"Alright, no need to get all Freudian on me. Just trying to be a decent human here."

I shake my head, somehow in our exchange my face had decided it was okay to smile. To forget what he put me through and remember instead that when things were good between us we actually got along.

Damnit. The devil knew how to play tricks. I wipe the smile off my face while he continues walking with me.

“So…what have you been up to?” He asks.

“Working, you know me.” I say after trying to figure out what his angle was but unable to find one.

“Oretta Smith I hear, how did you manage that?”

“I’m just that good Harry,” I say. His name is weird in my mouth. Sure I called him that in my head but I usually used Mr. Styles. I can tell he feels the same with his quick glance my way.

“How do you like that?”

“Yeah, she’s a great employer like I said. Very professional. Lots of flexibility.” Each praise is a knock to his ego. But it was all true, plus with Winnie joining the team I had a friend my age that felt great.

But there was also a darker side called burnout that I barely admitted to myself. Ever since we landed in London and I had time to orient my new self in a city that molded my old self, I felt the familiar singe of purposeless. But I keep it to myself of course.

“Great.” Harry responds curtly. “What about yourself? How’s your life, are you finally married?”

My instinct is to raise my defences and chew him out, he must know Gray and I were done what with me living in the States.

And yet, when I peer past the defences and take a long hard look at him I realize he is asking earnestly and without another angle.

We’re nearing the tube now. I hesitate in lying or telling the truth.

“We broke up,” I choose to confess. I peek at him and he looks surprised, even sorry.

“I didn’t know. Sorry.”

“I’d hope not,” I reply. “Otherwise you’d be an asshole calling me Mrs. Duran.”

He huffs an awkward laugh.

“Anyway this is me—

“I can give you a ride home—wherever that is right now?” He asks.

We’re stood in front of the glass doors. There’s not a lot of people this time of night. And as tempting as his offer was, the way he looks at me right now sends poisonous butterflies to my stomach and I think it’s best I get home for the big day tomorrow and not make any regrets.

“I’m not too far,” I lie. I point a thumb to the doors behind me. “I’m just gonna…”

“Yeah. Yeah right.” He’s awkward, which is a first. He clears his throat and stuffs his hand into his pocket. I watch him with a removed sort of curiosity. Eventually he coughs out his question. “How long are you in London for?”

“A few weeks,” I reply.

He finally meets my eyes again—and there goes my stomach. He was supposed to have zero effect on me, I was supposed to stay mad at him. Why was my body betraying me? Why did it continue to loop memories from that night and remind me of the things he whispered in the dark?

“A few weeks,” he murmurs back.

His gaze travels over my face openly, no longer holding back the barely-hidden expressions from before. Because I told him Gray and I weren’t a thing? Because I was entertaining whatever bullshit this was?

“Yep,” I nod. Awkward. Nervous. Cautious.

“My number’s the same,” his eyes snap back to mine. “If you want to go for that drink later.”

“Harry,” I try to break it to him another way. I wish I could just say I never want that drink. “I don’t think-“

“Don’t think,” he cuts me off. He laughs when I furrow my brows. “I mean, I’m right here for most of the next few weeks. When you feel like you want to have that drink just give me a call. Or text.”

Why, I want to ask him. Why, after all this time, after everything that happened? And it’s like he reads my mind in the silence.

“I know you left on a pretty poor note.” He shuffles his feet. “I know a lot of that was my fault. I apologize for that. Um, but I did enjoy having you around. You were excellent at your job and…you are missed. Even Jeff remembers you fondly. Which is saying something.”

This was some sort of prank. Or Harry had gotten so famous he now had a doppelgänger roaming the streets as him. It couldn’t be that Harry, my Harry, would say something so sentimental and so…genuine.

“So uh yeah, I would love to see you again while you’re in town.” He says when I don’t respond.

“Right.” I choke out.

He shrugs when I can’t bring myself to say anything more. “We do change, whether you believe it or not y/n.”

I swallow, hoping to lubricate my vocal cords and find my voice. “I-I really do have to go.”

Crestfallen, he nods. His hand comes up to touch my elbow. “Yeah ‘course. Just…think about it?”

I look down at his hand and he lets go, we stay in another bubble of silence. His eyes flicker down to my lips and I feel a wave of warmth as I try not to do the same.

“Goodnight,” I blurt and get to the other side of the glass doors. He watches me go.

On the escalator down I risk a glance back and he’s still there, watching until I’m out of sight. That ended incredibly awkward.

Leave it up to Harry to confuse me in coming back into my life. Damn him, he could never be consistent.

***

Waking up super early to catch the train out to Cambridge is so worth it because I get to watch Josie walk the stage and graduate with distinction wearing her famous smile that beams over the vast room.

Despite what happened with Gray and I, Josie and I have kept in touch steadily over the last year. It started as weekly facetimes which reduced down to monthly calls and have now become a steady stream of texts and memes swapped back and forth.

When she found out I’d be in London around her graduation dates she gave me no choice but to show up, sending me a ticket without asking.

I knew I’d see Gray, and a part of me was nervous and curious how that was going to go. But mostly I was grateful to still be in Josie’s life and spend time with her in person. She was the part of this life I missed most.

I’m sat somewhere in the middle of the room and Josie was smart enough not to seat me with the rest of her guests. But I know I would see everyone during photos and the dinner we were having later on. I try keep my focus on the ceremony however.

“Y/N!” Josie rushes towards me when she sees me after the ceremony. The group she departs from I recognize is a mix of her girl friends, her family, and a few others.

“Josie!” I return the same energy and she leaps into my arms. I squeeze her tight to me. “I’m soo proud of you my girl.”

We sway side to side, until we get enough hug.

“Look at you!” She exclaims when she leans back. “Your hair looks amazing and you are glowing. Please tell me you have a boy in your life.”

“No,” I laugh.

“A girl?” She asks hesitantly.

“No! I’m just…happy where I am right now! How about you look at you! You look phenomenal as per.”

“Oh thanks,” she takes the compliment and giggles. “I asked my dad to grad gift me a salon and spa visit so I am rejuvenated and blown out.”

“Aren’t you ever,” I touch a lock of her hair. “Congratulations.”

“Eek!” She squeals. “Finally finished this hellscape! I can’t wait to never write an exam again—ooh wait I want you to meet my boy…”

“So that’s why we’re actually glowing,” I tease as she tugs me towards the group. That definitely has Gray. My stomach drops the closer we get, he doesn’t seem to notice. He looks busy talking to one of Josie’s friends.

“Anyway,” she deposits me in front of a 6 foot something guy made of angles. “This is Jax. My boyfriend. We met during a Friendsgiving Myles threw last year.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jax smiles. “Y/N right?”

“Yes!”

“I was supposed to get around to that,” Josie huffs.

“Sorry she talked about you a lot when she found out you were coming. She was really excited.”

“Ugh,” she turns to me like she was embarrassed but her face is glowing. Josie was in looove.

“You two are so cute,” I tease which just makes Josie blush a little harder. “So are we getting any pictures?”

“Oh yeah,” Jax swivels his head. “Liliya has the good camera if you want to get-“

“Oh we can use our phones,” Josie cuts him off.

“No get the high res one—Liliya, camera?” Jax motions a shuttering action to the friend Gray was talking to. He’s so tall above the crowd that both look up at him and comply.

“Y/N,” Josie drags my arms back and takes me on the outskirt of the crowd. “I’m so sorry I never mentioned because I thought you wouldn’t come if I did tell you but you-“

“Y/N?”

Josie’s rushed whispers are cut short when Gray notices me and calls my name. He looks stupefied. I spare a glance to Josie and she’s paled.

She didn’t tell him.

“Hey,” I force a friendly tone. I was going to kill that girl.

“Did you all want a photo?” Josie’s friend Liliya shoulders her way back into the circle with the camera on a strap. She turns to Gray, “Babe?”

It’s an odd sensation, like all oxygen has left my lungs and they’re being squeezed as if tightened in a vice. Gray’s eyes drag away from me to his…girlfriend? Definitely not Josie’s friend.

It shakes me in the moment how much I realize I still cared, still carried a shred of hope for…something. And not consciously knowing this makes this moment feel a little like a slap in the face.

What did I think? I was going to leave this country for a year and people were going to pause where I last left them? Of course Gray’s moved on. Aside from the end he was a great partner and anybody would want that.

These thoughts race through my head in the few seconds Gray responds to his girlfriend and I look at Josie. She looks guilty as charged.

“I tried to tell you just now?” She whispers.

Deep breaths, I remind myself. You’re not the hot-headed y/n these people knew last. This day is not about you. It’s about Josie.

“It’s cool. Let’s get some photos,” I smile. “Don’t want to miss having them with you.”

She sighs but keeps her eyes on my face as we walk farther out.

“I am really sorry,” she whispers.

“Hey it’s alright,” I lie. This was the worst of it—Gray had moved on, had a great girlfriend, and I was living the life I wanted. No harm and no foul. “Honestly Jo I get it, you wanted me here reallllly bad.”

“I did!” She says. “But I’m also gonna kill Jax.”

I laugh and we straighten up when we realize the camera was already pointed at us. Josie flashes her degree and a few of her friends join the pictures too. We hustle back to Gray to see them and flipping back on the first few makes my breath catch in my throat. There’s one in particular where Josie is turned to me talking and my mouth is in a big grin because I’m laughing.

I catch eyes with Gray in an uncomfortably intimate second.

“Send me that one for sure wow Gray that’s a really good shot.”

“Oh wow,” his girlfriend peers over. “That’s a great candid.”

“Yeah,” I agree. I’d love a copy too. And of course that’s when Gray’s girlfriend notices me and introduces herself.

“I don’t think we’ve met—is that an American accent I detect?”

“It is,” I smile. “I’m Y/N.”

“Oh!” Two spots of pink appear on her face. It seems she’s heard of me. “Well it’s nice to meet you—nice that Josie invited you! I’m Liliya but Lily works too.”

“C’mon!” Josie interrupts the awkward by grabbing her brother’s arm and pushes him in the direction of where her friends are posing for photos. He takes some shots but Josie hates the look of them and gives the camera to Lily instead.

With just Gray and I left behind it grows very awkward.

“I thought Josie told everyone I would be-“ I say just as he says, “I didn’t realize you would be-“

We stop and chuckle awkwardly.

“Sorry,” I shake my head.

“No,” he shrugs. “It’s cool. It’s cool you’re here actually.”

“Okay,” is all I can say. Until the awkward silence stretches. “So…Liliya?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Liliya. You?”

I want to lie, but I shake my head. “No. Sorta needed the year to breathe a little.”

“Fair. How’s America?”

“Oh y’know, still super-sized and politically a guessing game.”

“Have you turned on our news while you’ve been down at all?” He raises a brow. I laugh because he was right. It was all a shitshow everywhere.

He asks me about my family as Josie jogs up to us.

“Okay, tell me the truth is my hair going flat?”

“No,” I look behind her where her friends are hovering over Lily and the camera going over their photos.

“Good. Where’s mum and dad?” Josie asks Gray. “Dad was just here 10 minutes ago he said he’d come by for—oh there’s mum! Look!”

We turn to where she points. Michelle—what I’ve always called Gray’s mom, spots her daughter at the same time and waves. She starts to walk towards us.

It’s nice to see her but I also feel a bit nervous; going cold turkey on relationships you only had because of an ex are always weird to come back to. Especially ones you were fond of.

“Mum! You’re missing all the pictures!” Josie says. “Where’ve you been!?”

“I just saw somebody I knew back from my first job as a librarian can you believe that?” Michelle says as she joins the group.

“Crazy. Well mum look who got to show up today! Isn’t that crazy too?”

Michelle looks at me and the bright smile that was intended for her daughter dies like a flower in overnight frost. The look wipes the anticipation off my face.

“Who?”

That one word shades the sun from the sky and brings forth a gust of western winds through the group.

“Mum,” Josie look between me, her mum, and Gray. She’s confused. “Y/N?”

“Hey Michelle,” I croak. Maybe my hair was too different for her to recognize me, or maybe she had early onset alzheimers. Surely this woman who I’ve had a better relationship with than her own son has wouldn’t be treating me like your worst frenemy at your high school reunion.

But Michelle looks right through me. I can’t explain how it feels, not in the moment. I’m gutted, and feel an unexplainable wave of sadness.

“Mum…” Josie sounds hurt and Gray finally decides to swoop in.

“Mum let’s check out the photos we took already. We gotta get some of the three of us.”

They walk away and I feel seven inches tall but I turn to Josie with a brave face and face her teary one.

“That was kind of awkward,” I downplay.

“Y/N I’m honestly so sorry I-,” Josie blinks rapidly.

“No it’s ok!”

“I don’t know why she acted like that-“

“Hey It’s natural for her to feel that way I’m alright don’t get upset-“

“It’s not alright though! That was such a…she never acts like that.”

It was true. Michelle was a free-spirit as she called herself. That’s why Gray had such a hard relationship with her; in his words, she was too emotional and ungrounded for him.

Yet apparently, she was able to find enough ground to stand on when it came to treating me like a nobody. I wonder if it’s because she heard Gray’s biased side of the story or she was hurt herself—still, the way she’s always talked about herself never struck me as someone who would believe a one-sided story. Or be a bitch to someone they previously called their daughter. It hurt like a mofo.

I didn’t want Josie to find out this way, here of all places, that her mom was just human after all. She idolized that woman.

So even though it hurt, I comfort her instead.

“She probably just feels betrayed by me leaving and stuff since we were close too. Imagine if Jax broke up with you and she gave him the cold shoulder—wouldn’t you feel justified?”

Josie scrunches her brows to think about the simplified story I’ve just fed her to feel better. I can tell it still doesn’t sit well with her but she nods in acceptance, “I guess.”

“Yeah, just forget it Josie. Plus you’ve got pictures to take so dry those eyes.”

“Shit I know,” she blinks some more. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to invite you here and twist the knife at every bloody turn.”

“Jo I’m honoured to get to be here and see all your hard work pay off. Don’t worry about anything else.”

“It’s unfair,” she says before she drifts to her group of friends. “I feel like nobody understands how…how understanding you are. But I’m really glad we’re still in touch. And you came for me.”

Her words bring tears to my eyes and I nod, afraid that talking would bring them forward. I watch her crash her group and start instructing photo coordination. I help hold things for people while they take photos and feel like a stranger outside the crowd. If it weren’t for Josie, I think I would have regretted coming here. I feel homesick and unwanted. A tough combo.

I was supposed to crash on someone’s couch tonight and do brunch with Josie tomorrow before going back to London but from the last half hour alone I know I’m going back to the city no matter how late it gets tonight. I think of the hotel room that was home right now, of how lonely that was going to feel to go back to too.

Home right now was in America, in the same time zone as my family, and comfortable in my shared apartment with one of my high school best friends who I reconnected with after going back home. I miss it so bad. And I feel like I’ve bitten into an unripe fruit coming back to the UK before I was ready apparently. My experience feels soured.

I shake off the doom and gloom when the party breaks. We were all going to meet at the restaurant at 6–my plan was to explore the university city and find a place to kill some time in. Maybe go outside to a park with lunch. Josie tries to convince me to join her and her friends for their mid-day celebration but I lie and tell her I had some work to do.

I call Winnie on my stroll through the city. I insist she update me on last night first, and she has more to tell—the guy had a yacht and he was inviting her to a party tonight. She tells me to join if I came back early and we cross our fingers that Oretta wouldn’t need her before then.

I originally called her to rant about Michelle and Gray but I don’t, I didn’t want to kill her vibe. So I scroll through my other contacts but don’t want to worry my mom and it was too early back home to reach anyone else.

My eyes catch on Harry’s name, he was at the top of my texts currently because he sent me a link this afternoon asking me for thoughts on it. I hadn’t opened it yet, I wasn’t sure what to think about this new persona he was wearing or that he thought yesterday’s run-in went okay enough to casually message me for my thoughts.

I remember the weird electricity of yesterday and shove my phone back into my pocket.

He genuinely wanted to have a drink? And talk??

I did enjoy having you around. You were excellent at your job and you are missed.

Was he trying to make up for his cruel words? But he also seemed a lot more mellow than before. Maybe that was just because I didn’t work for him. What did he want? And was I twisted for believing the new schtick?

Most curious of all was him at the pub in the first place. He was not a local there—that was a big lie.

I try to conjure up my previous hatred, calling him the Devil in my head. But it’s harder to do. Seeing him yesterday, he was just a man standing in front of a woman with a head full of cautionary tales and bad experiences.

Without warning images from that night come back and I feel my heart flutter. I shut them down just as quick. Not all bad, my body tries to remind me. I tell it to shut up.

I’ve barely stepped foot in this country again and already my mind was running circles around my heart. How exhausting.

***

I’m early to the restaurant, before anyone else apparently. As the hostess finds my name on her floor plan Josie comes in behind me with Jax.

“Oh! Y/n you’re early!” She seems flustered.

“Yeah I didn’t think I would be,” it was only a few minutes to 6.

We make small talk while we’re led to the table, Josie’s eyes keep darting to where our table might be.

“Sorry I was hoping to do this before you came,” she says when we get there. There are name cards along the 7 seats and she picks the one in front of me. “I’m just gonna move mum to my other side so it doesn’t get weird. Which means she’ll be closer to dad but…I think he’s bailing since his girlfriend doesn’t want to do this.”

Josie shrugs, I know how she feels about her dad’s girlfriend. She begins explaining the plans she has to do dinner with her dad later this week and the more she talks the more I can tell that she feels awkward. And I hate that it’s because of me. At one point Jax and I catch eyes and pass an awkward smile.

“Josefina Duran,” I walk up to her fiddling with the name tags. She stops talking immediately. I grip her shoulders. “Thanks.”

“Sorry,” she whispers. I wrap my arms around her and she melts into me.

“Stop apologizing.”

“Sorry. I can’t help it. It’s a disease.”

We let go with a laugh and she seems more stable. “This is going to be fine.”

Famous last words.

It’s definitely not fine and very awkward. Jax ends up sitting in front of me, and even though Liliya’s name tag was beside mine it’s suddenly swapped as they slide in and Gray sits beside me. I guess it might be too awkward for her but not awkward enough to fit someone we both dated between us.

I can sense Michelle’s pinched face as she notices us sitting beside each other and I feel badly for Josie the most as she tries to play the gracious host. At one point I sense Jax laying a hand on her arm and taking over, asking Michelle questions about her yoga and getting her talking.

“Did you need more?” Gray turns to me with the wine bottle, it’s the second thing he’s said to me tonight. Otherwise he mostly just watches me talk and leans back enough when others are talking so I can be involved.

“I’m okay,” I whisper. I didn’t want to draw any attention while Michelle was talking. She hadn’t said a peep to me, even when Josie tried to involve us both in a shared memory. She continued acting like I was Casper the ghost.

I can feel Lily’s eyes on us as Gray offers wine, of course they would be. No wonder Gray barely spoke to me all night. Fuck me, what was I doing here.

Jax is a sweetheart, asking me about my job and encouraging conversation between the both of us. I’m so happy for Josie that she found a partner like him.

By the time dinner is over I mostly want to cry. I feel spent. But I also feel like I crashed an intimate dinner and everyone’s polite enough not to mention it. Despite Josie, I do actually regret coming.

As we pay the bill and shuffle out, Josie grabs my arm.

“So I have two friends where you can crash at their place or Jax can sleep over at mine and you can sleep at his or-“

“I think I’m gonna head back to the city.”

Her face falls. But it’s like she knew I was going to say that.

“Sorry Jo. I think you should come to the city next week—maybe visit your brother? And while you’re down we’ll do brunch then. I’m mostly free while I’m here. I’m just pretty tired and have to help Winnie with something tomorrow.”

“Really?” She says in the smallest voice I’ve heard out of her. Salt to my wounds.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I know we were looking forward to getting time together.”

She juts out her lip and I’m reminded of the girl I met when I first started dating Gray. How she’d taken to me so quickly. How the whole family had. How things could end up like this.

And suddenly I see the future laid out in front of me. After tonight it would be hard to keep this relationship going—Josie and I. She’s just seen her mom be an unreasonable bitch for the first time, I can tell she’s been trying to compensate all night but the cracks won’t go away. It’ll always be a sitting duck between us.

We might try to stay in touch, maybe I’d reach out if I was ever in London or if she ever visited the west coast. But this would fizzle out.

She was still young and naive enough that her mom hung the moon and stars; mom’s beliefs were gospel, her opinions were rulings, and she’d just delivered my ultimate sentence: I was a black sheep to the family. How could sweet Josie walk through a mess like that?

“I’m so proud of you,” I tell her as I fight tears. “Congratulations again and thank you for inviting me.”

“Thanks. And you don’t have to be so nice. I know it was kind of a shitty invite.”

“No,” I insist. “I loved being here. I don’t regret showing up for you. I can’t wait to hear what you get up to.”

“I’m going to make sure to make it to the city next week,” she squeezes my arm. “We’ll see each other soon.”

“Exactly,” I look over at the rest of the group, where her boyfriend waits for her. Her family. “And I really like Jax, so good on you for that.”

“He…” she twists her lips, swallowing what she was going to say before vomiting it out. “I always aspired to have a relationship like yours and Gray’s. I never wanted to settle for anything less so that’s…that’s why Jax.”

“Hm I think you made us the bar and you leapt over it babe,” I wrap my arms around her again. I ache with the loss of what we used to be.

“See you soon,” she says before she drags herself back to the group.

I stand off to the side, awkwardly ordering an Uber. The group begins to walk the opposite way waving bye to me. I breathe easier without the weight of them around.

As I tap my foot in anticipation of the ride to the station arriving, I feel a hand tap my shoulder.

“Y/n,” it’s Gray. “Hey I…I just wanted to say something before you left.”

“Oh. Hey yeah. Shoot.”

What was it with everyone wanting to say something to me.

“Uh…ok give me a minute,” he laughs in the way I know to mean he was feeling nervous. “I just sort of jogged back impulsively.”

“Yeah well you have,” I glance at my phone. “4 or so minutes.”

“Damn,” he ruffles his hair. “Alright. I think I just wanna say sorry.”

“Oh.” That was it. Everyone had something to say to me and the something was apparently sorry.

“Yeah I’m sorry. I…when we broke up I was so upset and caught up in my own head. I blamed you for everything. I think it only hit me when you just up and moved out of the country how things actually went down.”

I hadn’t told anyone but Josie that I was leaving.

“Yeah you were just like gone.” He continues. “I guess a part of me thought we’d get some space, maybe circle back later…”

“You really betrayed me,” I remind him.

But even I know what he means. He hurt me bad and it might be crazy stupid but on some level we were both aware we were in an ugly place and maybe with some space we might come back to the place that was good for us again. Maybe bump into each other one day, strike up a conversation, find there might still be a small amount of love left. Enough to water and grow again.

“I know,” he sighs. “I know. I hate that I hurt you like that. I regret…I actually don’t really hang out with that group of friends as much anymore. I sorta have myself to blame but I didn’t like who I was with them.”

I listen, letting him speak. It hurt too, knowing this was the Grayson I had fallen in love with. Kind and supportive, and now apparently he’s learned to communicate. Maybe that was a Lily thing.

“I guess,” he blows the air out of his cheeks. “I want to say I’m really truly sorry. I missed you a lot after you left. Nothing was the same and life was fucking hard. I wish things didn’t end the way they did and I stayed mature but I was just jealous and angry.”

I nod to acknowledge what he’s saying and watch him take a breath to continue.

“And I always appreciated how you never let us shake your relationship with my sister because she bloody loves you—I don’t think how mum treated you was right today but I never really understood her in the first place. I’m sorry about that.”

“Yeah,” is all I can manage without making it obvious how emotional this was all making me. How one year could make me feel like a completely different person. How this man I loved, and still love in some way, could stand in front of me talking about us as something in the past. Because we were. Long past.

My phone dings with a notification that my ride would be here. We glance down and out into the street.

“Anyway,” he swallows. “I just wanna apologize. And say I genuinely hope you find love y/n. Love that’s as fierce and loyal as you are. I hope you can forgive me one day. And I hope you’re successful as hell in whatever you pour yourself into.”

“Thank you Gray,” I want to say I was sorry too. For what it was worth. But my car pulls to the curb.

I wave at the driver to let them know I’d ordered it and we walk the few feet to the back door.

I face Gray and open my mouth to say it. Say something more: how I appreciated his words, how I was sorry for how things ended too, how I hope he is happy. But nothing comes out of my mouth. I just stare at him, my eyes welling with tears instead.

Gray holds out his hand and I look down at it. I knew those hands well and it’s like walking into a place you used to frequent in the past and have memories rush towards you as you remember: those hands held me and wrapped around my own and comforted me, they made me food and stroked my hair, and carried my bags when they got too heavy. They once wore an engagement band I gifted, they once held a small box with a life-changing question I had said yes to.

Now it was just a hand.

I clasp it and he squeezes.

“I know,” he says, his eyes trained on my watery ones. He squeezes again and lets go.

I rush into the car, those two words nearly cracking me in half. I wave goodbye through the tinted window and feel a wave of despair that pulls me down into the depths of darkness.

Too much was happening at once.

My emotions spiral out of me and I feel alone in this foreign country; I needed comfort where none could be found.

I don’t mean to. Or maybe I do. But on the train back to London I text Harry: is it too early to cash in on the drink?

His response is immediate: no, I was waiting for this text last night

I smile, despite myself.

Can I come over? I text with shaking hands.

H: For drinks?

Y: For drinks

H: Ofc.

***

The taxi drops me in front of the familiar building. I feel an echo of anxiety pierce through me as I go through the familiar doors. I nod at the concierge, the night replacement was new and I’m grateful nobody can recognize me making this potentially stupid decision.

For a brief second I wonder if Harry had other plans tonight but decide not to overthink it. He’d invited me openly. And maybe I was making a decision based on sadness and loneliness and grief and needing to be wanted but I make it. And I would make it like a grown woman—ready to accept the consequences.

I didn’t want to go back to my lonely hotel room. I didn’t want to call anyone and talk about what just happened. I didn’t have words. My body was taking the beating, feeling everything under the sun and now bruised and battered for it. I just wanted my body to forget that. And there was only one person in this godforsaken city that could help.

I’m let up to the penthouse and I forgot it had a distinct smell, wood-like and something indescribable. Weird that it felt comforting.

“You made it,” Harry comes into view in a simple pair of shorts and a long-sleeved white tee pushed up to his elbows. It’s the sleeves that really do it.

“I did.”

I leave my bags beside the elevator next to the umbrella stand, keeping my eyes on him. He doesn’t take his off mine either. I’m glad he doesn’t. Now I know he knows we both said drinks but meant something more.

He reaches out for me before I even get to him, and I know I would think about that later. A lot. But right then in the middle of his entryway I wrap my arms around his neck and lean up on my toes to reach him too.

His lips are soft against mine and he tucks me into him, his hand splayed out on my lower back. It feels like a return to a lover, someone who knows you, like I would’ve thought seeing Gray again would feel. But it’s just Harry, and the thought of baseless familiarity freaks me out a little.

The next time I feel his lips they’re on my jaw and neck and down to the base of my throat. He murmurs my name as he makes his way down and my body reacts immediately. He takes me by the waist and backs me up against the nearest wall, and I have a feeling I might fall.

I had made the conscious decision to walk into the devil’s lair because it was the only place I could get what I needed.

My fingers dig into his shoulders. My body wants this. Every part of me wants to pull him close and hold him and never let go. I wanted all of it tonight.

But I am so tired.

I put a hand on his chest and press gently. I can feel the warmth of his skin, the firmness of his muscles and the beat of his heart as he pauses.

“Sorry, I should have started with a hello. That was too fast was it?” He whispers, looking me straight in the eyes.

I have a million answers, but nothing comes. He puts his hand over mine and I feel it as a shiver runs up my spine.

"Is this too fast?" he asks again, and I hear the worry in his voice.

I shake my head.

He gives a breathy laugh, "Then tell me."

"I think I-“

“Don’t,” he covers my mouth with a laugh. “Please please. Don’t think.”

I smile under his palm and he drops his hand, I can tell he’s proud of lightening the moment by the sheen in his eyes. The moment is tender in a way that takes me back.

He brushes back my hair and kisses my forehead. I close my eyes, breathing in his cologne.

“That’s not where I want to be kissed,” I tell him.

“Then where?” He plays along.

“Anywhere but there.”

He kisses my nose. “There?”

“Not there,” I open my eyes to look up at him. “I’ll have you know that was very snotty just an hour ago.”

He groans, “you really have a way of taking the desire out of a situation.”

But his brows furrow and he watches me even closer.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I respond to his unasked question.

With that statement he takes a painful step back and I nearly slide down the wall without his support.

“What?” I ask.

“We should take that drink first.”

I feel the loss of his body pressed against mine, I realize miserably.

“What do you mean? I thought the drinks were just an excuse?” I ask.

He laughs a little, “Maybe tonight, but I really did want to have a drink with you. And talk.”

“Harry,” I groan. “I’m all out of talking tonight. Truly.”

“As much as I want to say forget talking and take you to bed I need to do this…just follow me,” he leads me and my flushed body through to the main living area which I was well familiar with but it’d gotten a facelift. I make commentary on the changes and he tells me more about it as he pulls a wine he wants out for us.

“I changed things around a little after you left,” he says as he hands me the wine glass. “I needed it. The change.”

“Oh.” Is all I can muster. I follow him to the sofa, tonight he doesn’t leave as much space between us but it still feels like a weird parallel to the night I landed in the hospital; a confrontation with Gray leading me to wine with Harry. “Look Harry I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Why not?”

“I…I’m at minimal capacity right now I just-“

“Just let me talk then.”

“Why does everyone want to talk!”

“I need to tell you what I should have said a long time ago and I want to apologize-“

“You already did-“

“Properly.”

I cross my arms and sigh.

“Y/n bloody hell I forgot how quickly you can get under my skin.”

“So this isn’t a great thing then.”

“Y/N,” he says my name like a warning and I want to comply. I roll my eyes and knock back my glass of wine, the buzz from the glass at dinner has long since worn away.

“Part of me wants to top you up but another part remembers what happened last time.” Harry eyes me.

“No I’m okay with just one glass. Drinking when I’m upset doesn’t end well.”

“Yeah…I don’t want you concussed on my watch again.”

“No we don’t want that,” we smile at each other, a soft and sentimental smile that gets the anxious stuttering of my heart to calm down a little. He just wanted to talk, so what?

But the anxious voice runs through the scenarios he might want to—his recent text, or something I did as his PA he wants to take up now. Gah.

“I really have missed having you around,” he says softly.

“Didn’t feel like you would with how you treated me.” I raise my brow.

“I know.” He pauses then mumbles something before talking to me directly. “You must have heard about the PA before you? Maybe from Riley?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“Hmmm this feels like a trick question.” I say but he tells me he just wants to know what I knew. So I rip the bandaid off. “You had a fling with her.”

He hangs his head back over the seat of the sofa and sighs. “I knew that piece of…Riley makes me really mad when I think about him sometimes.”

“Does he?” I raise my brow. “I can think of someone else who makes me madder.”

“I know that’s supposed to be me. And I don’t know what to do about that except come clean right now.”

“And why is that?” I ask. “Coming clean? I came here just to get distracted in bed with you. I never thought I’d live to see the day where a guy like you wants to talk instead.”

“Y/N,” he says with such an intense look my way my stomach flips. “Trust me. I want to have you in my bed more than you do. But I told myself if that day ever somehow happened it would be after this.”

I shrug, let him continue. In reality his words make me weak and I can’t speak. Which kind of annoys me—why did he have such a strong pull over me? How did he so easily admit he’s thought about me, about having me in his bed!?

My heart flutters amongst other things.

I remember a brief conversation I had with my mom last year when she asked me why I wasn’t putting myself out there and dating again and I told her I just didn’t have the heart for it. She had said it seems I left my heart in London—my passion and my heart. Sitting here with Harry stirs something inside of me, scares me, and I want to distract that with more wine. But I manage to control myself.

“I was fairly new to the industry when I hired Riley and it was his second proper job or something so we were both a bit young and we ended up being friendlier than we should have.” Harry starts. “But he was great at his job and never gave me any issues. I stayed naïve that people in this industry would look out for my best interest-“

“That’s really naïve,” I can’t help but comment but he throws me a look and I zip my lips. “Sorry.”

“I was lucky that the first few relationships I built as I got my foot in the door were genuine but I realized too late that it wasn’t a norm. Everyone wanted a piece of me and they all wanted me to be someone else. Some angle. Shit hit the fan pretty quickly. So when I needed more help I decided to create a new role for Riley and hire a PA. She was seasoned and came highly recommended.”

I nod along to his story.

“Long story short, she started out good but she kept trying to get me alone and get me talking. And back then after being friends with my old PA I didn’t have the wisdom of setting boundaries—don’t give me that look.”

“What!” I raise my hands. “I’m just listening.”

“You’re judging me.”

“Just continue,” I encourage. I was judging a little.

“Anyway, where I thought we were just friendly she thought I—I dunno I was falling for her or something. And one night she was working late so she had dinner here. She kept refilling my drink I didn’t realize she wasn’t drinking as much. It’s not much of an excuse but by the time she came onto me I was pissed and it didn’t take much.”

He continues the story like it was nothing but his voice catches a little and he doesn’t look me in the eye. My insides grow colder. I want to reach inside of him and hold the old Harry, the naive one who didn’t know better.

“Please don’t feel bad for me,” he cuts my sympathy short. “I didn’t turn into a great person after that. Especially with how I treated you.”

“That’s right.” I pretend to be unaffected by his story like he wanted me to be. But it’s near impossible.

“So that’s how I decided it was best for me to play the asshole. I couldn’t fire her after that—it would look awful and she could report me and screw me over. But I could make working for me a nightmare and so I did. A few months later she quit.”

He sighs and takes a swig of his wine, “Then you came along and I thought ‘I should play the asshole from the get go.’ I had gotten good by then at compartmentalizing my personality in the industry.”

“Hmph,” I raise a brow. He has the decency to look embarrassed but he continues.

“But the more time we spent together the worse I felt. You were nothing like the previous PA. You were genuine and down-to-earth. Pretty fiery but I wouldn’t find that out until later,” he grins. I roll my eyes. “I tried to ease up a little but things kept happening to push me back into the asshole box.”

“But you were so snappy, and a dick.”

“I know. I didn’t know how to tell you you worked too hard without dropping the asshole act and making you feel even shittier.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had to be the villain in your story-“

“What?” What was he talking about?

“Yeah like, you were working all the time even though there were some times I told you to wrap it up for the day.”

I remembered that, thinking he was kicking me out.

“But you took the job so seriously. I appreciated everything you did but you were dogged at making sure you did the best at any cost.”

“What do you mean? At any cost?” I ask, a cold sensation running down my back.

“For example take that one time a few months in when I asked you to call me because you forgot to order wine. You bloody came all the way back to hand deliver it-“

“Yeah because you said to call you and you were gonna be pissed if I-“

“No, y/n,” he lays a hand between us. “I just wanted you to call to know where you usually ordered from so I could order that for myself. You weren’t in any trouble! But I could only blame myself for playing the hard asshole too well.”

I think about that night, Josie’s birthday party. How I left early and upset Gray. How I didn’t need to but I had been following the Dos and Dont’s list.

Shit, the lists. They were added onto by the last PA who, now I know, was having her life made into hell just so she would quit. Some of those lists were on an extreme I didn’t even have to follow. Fuck. That was on me.

My face must be a painting of regret because Harry apologizes again.

“I’m sorry but I didn’t want you to…I just felt like I had to play the villain so you could do what you had to do. So you could continue hating me and we could establish the clear boundary.”

“Right.” I have a bitter taste in my mouth.

“But I genuinely liked you, I thought you were funny and sensitive-“

“You don’t like my sensitivity.”

“I do. I just hated how angry you were-“

“Because of you.”

“I know. I created a monster, I’m Frankenstein.”

“Damn straight.” I agree and we pause a beat before laughing.

“Anyway,” he continues. “You were funny and sensitive and resilient, passionate and smart, and you cared so deeply. It was rare meeting people like you in this field. I wanted to wrap you in bubble wrap but I think I shattered you instead. I’m sorry for the way I just let my past colour your time here. I feel like you left because of me-“

“It was really a lot of reasons.”

“I know but I was part of that and I felt no good. After you left I was a miserable son of a bitch for a while. I couldn’t even enjoy my holiday because I kept thinking of you. I was miserable so I barely even said goodbye—I didn’t realize you were going to run away so far. But I also didn’t want to say goodbye because I was scared I would convince you to stay by spilling my truth.”

His words sit on my chest and they slowly sink down to my stomach. I don’t know what it meant, what he wanted me to do with this confession. It’s too much.

“Mostly,” he continues, shifting closer to me on the sofa. He lowers his voice, “Mostly I’m sorry about Barcelona.”

I flush at the mention of it. At the heat and passion from that night. His eyes roam my face.

“I’m not that guy. I should have treated you nicer, should have been the one to keep my patience.”

“I didn’t make it easy,” I admit.

“No,” he chuckles. “You really fucking did not.”

We smile.

“But you’re so much more than anger y/n. I could barely sleep that night, I kept regretting giving into the anger and not being slow and soft with you the way you deserve. I regret it all the time.”

His confession pulls the veil off my eyes and I see a sharper image of my past. Of everything. It all comes at once and I can’t sort through it in the moment but I know what I want to do.

I shuffle over until I’m up against Harry, I hold his face in mine and he cups my face in his hand.

“You drove me crazy,” I tell him. “Made my life hell.”

“I know. But you drove me crazy too. Nobody got under my skin like you did.”

“Same.”

His hand snakes down to my thigh and he nudges it over his lap so that I’m straddling his body. I feel vulnerable and scared—not the first time these emotions have coursed through me in this very room. But today I don’t feel powerless.

His lips are soft against my cheek, my jaw, down my neck. Unlike the first time he’s slow and deliberate like someone who’s waited so long to unwrap a cherished gift and can’t stand ripping even the gift wrap. He pushes my hair out of the way and trails his fingertips down the back of my neck.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispers in my ear. The more he talked the more nervous he was making me. I turn my head to capture his lips, run my fingers through his hair which is too short to really grasp. I missed his old hair.

We break apart for a breath and I can feel the tension. The desire to have him near clashing with the need to go slow. To savour this. Somehow we both feel it.

“We don’t have to do anything tonight,” Harry promises me, his finger trailing down my arm. “Just having you here is enough.”

Oh god. How did he know just the things to say. This man was way too suave. He really was the devil.

But I needed him. It’s scary to admit but I did. I wanted to be here, I really did. I needed to be in this moment with him. Fulfill some shut-out desire that had grown dusty in the corner of my heart.

“I want to do this.”

With a gentle kiss he gets us up and takes my hand. I feel myself being pulled through the living room and towards the bedroom. The sheets are cool, but not cold and when he crawls in beside me I forget that I had ever been anywhere else.

He’s attentive and deliberate and I’m buzzing with anticipation. I decide to pick up the pace, propping myself up to take off my blouse. I watch his throat bob up and down like he’s never seen me like this before even though he has. It’s endearing.

The way his hands fit in the curve of my waist makes it harder to breathe. He moves his hands up my torso and to the straps of my bra. He pauses, as if asking permission, and when I nod, he kisses me. He unhooks it and slowly slides it off my shoulders, eyes fixed on mine.

The intensity of his gaze is overwhelming.

I pull him close to kiss him again, and he pulls me under him so I can feel the full weight of him against me. This is what I needed. To be physically present and not stuck in the after tremors of the earthquakes of my past. Not that he wasn’t part of my past but this is different. A non-verbal agreement to just be present. I knew his ways with women, it could be a one-night thing and that’s what I needed.

But that’s why the moments of tenderness and adoration nearly take my breath away. I don’t know where to put these things.

He kisses down my shoulder while his hand trails down to my trousers. He hooks his finger into the belt loop and tugs gently, looking up at me for consent.

I nod.

He slowly takes them off, and when his fingers brush against my bare legs, my breath hitches.

It happens again when he presses his lips against my hip bone.

He stops for a moment, and I can almost see the cogs in his brain whirring.

He moves up to press his forehead against mine.

"I don't know how to do this right," he says quietly, and his eyes search mine.

“What do you mean?”

“This is always how I should have treated you,” he whispers. “I want you to know-“

“Harry,” I smooth out the lines on his forehead.

"No," he grabs my hand and kisses it. "I don't want you to feel like I don't care because I do. I don’t want to hurt you. I'm not good at saying these things. But I want you to know how much I value you. That I like you as a person. I respect you. I want you to be okay.”

“I-“ who was this Harry, seriously!? “I get it. I’m okay. I am.”

He smiles at me tentatively and my heart does a somersault.

I grab the back of his neck and pull him down, pressing my lips against his. I could taste the sweetness of the words he had said.

I tug at his shirt and it flies into the darkness of his bedroom. His skin is heated against mine.

It feels like an eternity before he finally reaches the band of my panties, and my heart thumps wildly.

"May I?" he looks up.

"Please," I whisper.

For the first time since I’ve met him he doesn’t make it about himself or what he needs. It’s almost intimidating how intense he is as he looks after me and it’s hard to reconcile this man with the man in my head. We’re of one mind and it’s like he knows everything I’ve been through in the last 24 hours; he just attends to my every need reminding me that I was here, right here, in his arms and in this body.

And it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Are you staying the night?” He asks later with a final kiss to my shoulder.

“If that’s alright?” I ask. I didn’t want to be alone in a cold hotel room.

“I’d love nothing more.” He says earnestly.

Love. I brush the word away.

He warns me that he was a slug if I stayed and he’s not exaggerating, with his arm draped over me and tucked up against him he’s like a child with a plush. He falls asleep just as quickly.

I should too but can’t. I feel so intensely about this body laying beside me, I want to crawl inside of him, understand him, understand us and how this worked.

Or maybe I wanted to just understand me, and why I felt a piece of myself sliding back into place tonight. I had to be the most fucked up person in this city.

Instead of sleeping I lay awake thinking about everything and I can’t help it. I go over this morning—god it felt like weeks ago. Josie’s graduation. Josie. Gray. Even Michelle.

I feel slightly paralyzed by everything that transpired today—it truly felt like peering through a glass window into a life I used to have. I try to break open the glass, sort it all out.

On one side is me and everything I’ve done this whole year to move on from the crumbs of my life here in London. I don’t know why but I really did think that coming back I would be 100% untouchable by my past. I was an idiot for thinking that because I was bothered that Gray seemed to have a steady girlfriend. Why did I think anything would rekindle between us?

I dig deeper, did I even want that to happen? Or did I just want to prove to myself that I was the one Gray let get away because I was too scared to face the possibility that I was the one who let Gray get away.

But clearly something didn’t work with us, I think bitterly. A few months with his new girl and he found the balls to open up with me and communicate his grievances and his apologies.

Love that’s as fierce and loyal as you are, he had said. Was I too much for Gray? Is that why we were made to burn out? It hurt too that he had damaged all my relationships I made in my life here in London only to cut those same people out of his life immediately after I left. The more I think about it the angrier I feel.

And his mom, I still feel bruised by her acting like she didn’t even know me. It stokes the anger higher. Her own son has called her crazy on multiple occasions, I was always nothing but kind to her. Gray was the one who put the final nail in our coffin yet the woman who called me her daughter and claimed to love me had been cruel. Even in the face of getting along for Josie’s sake she had put her petty feelings in the forefront.

These people made me so angry.

How did I ever think I could rekindle anything with Gray? As much as I was to blame, I realize, Gray couldn’t even be kind in the end. Just because the year apart was good to him didn’t mean he would still be good for me.

I think about the man laying beside me, in a hypothetical situation if things got ugly I instinctively want to say he would be cruel too. But I have to push past the persona he claimed to have put up and think about the glimpses of the man I saw underneath. Something tells me he would be just as fiery in letting me know how he was feeling. But with his recent apologies I’m not as convinced he would go out of his way to hurt me again.

Even in the bar last night, I just assumed he called me Mrs. Duran to be cruel but he hadn’t known. Or when I had assumed at Josie’s birthday party I would be fired for forgetting wine because he was an asshole when really he just acted like one so I wouldn’t feel worse.

How many times had I judged people because of how skewed my own lens was? It’s a sobering reminder.

Josie’s face flashes through my mind and I tear up at knowing we were going to cut each other out. No matter how much we loved each other staying in touch at this rate was no longer sustainable. For her best interest.

I think of my younger brother back home, my older sister, our family of 5. When I went back home there was so much to catch up on and eventually, apologize for. I had missed out on so much of my family’s life because I believed I needed to leave to grow. Well, life sure handed me a lot of lessons but I needed to go back home to plant them and let me grow.

Harry stirs beside me, nuzzling my neck in his sleep. I feel myself go teary eyed for no reason.

I wondered if this was just a one-night thing. If we would see each other again while I was in London. Did I want to see him? My heart sings yes immediately.

Damn.

What was it about him that pushed my emotions to the highest highs and lowest lows. How did he know every button to push and every bruise to kiss. This had to be toxic, we couldn’t just take our great big baggage of a past and see each other casually while I was in London. It couldn’t be that easy.

What if it was, hope whispers. I squirm. Could I forgive Harry for everything he’d done?

“Y’sleeping?” Harry mumbles to my left. Shit.

“Yeah,” I say which invokes a throaty chuckle from him. I check the time, it was nearly 4. Double shit.

“Liar,” he tugs on my hips and I turn to face him. “Talk to me.”

I couldn’t. Half of my thought were about him. And how could I tell him I was thinking about my ex after spending the night with him. So I just shake my head.

“Please?” He brushes my cheek with his thumb. “You need to sleep.”

“I-“ I try to say I can’t but the words get stuck in my throat. The emotions of everything I’d been thinking in the last couple hours threaten to dislodge the words from my throat so I close my mouth. But it doesn’t work.

A sob bursts out of me and before I can reel it all in the floodgates swing open and it carries all the pent-up sorrow and confusion, grief and anguish I had bottled up.

Harry freezes for a moment, probably very confused to wake up and have me reacting this way. But he recovers and pulls me into his warm chest.

“What is going on in that head of yours love,” Harry murmurs. Love. I sob even harder.

He murmurs reassuring words whilst stroking my back and I cry an embarrassing amount in the same bed where just hours ago I was blissed beyond comprehension. Life moves fast.

Finally when I gain enough composure I lean away, covering my face because crying into him was one thing but seeing my ugly cry face was another.

“Here,” I feel his body move and then tissues pressed into my hand. I’m grateful for them but I wasn’t going to blow my nose here. I sit up and try to dry my nose. His hand reaches out and the tips of his fingers rest on my spine like he was tethering my lost body to him. Somehow even that is reassuring.

“Don’t go trying to kiss my nose this early on again,” I try to joke through a stuffy voice.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he tugs my arm a little and I fall back beside him. He holds me in both his arms and I watch in horror and affection as he kisses the tip of my nose.

“Stop being so nice,” I laugh and cry a little too.

“You’re actually complaining about me being nice?”

“No I just—I’m not used to it,” I press the tissue to my eyes again.

“Well get used to it,” he peels the hair off of my face and pushes it back. “I don’t want to be the one hurting you. I swear to never ever be the reason you cry like this to anyone.”

“Don’t say those sorts of things if you don’t mean it.”

“I do,” he caresses my face. “You’re breaking my heart y/n, I don’t know who hurt you but I never want to see you like this. Especially not because of me alright? I’m sorry if I ever-“

“Stop,” I put my hand to his mouth. Which is kind of gross since I just blew my nose but I’m pretty sure him kissing my snotty nose means he didn’t care.

“But-“ he says behind my hand.

“I’m embarrassed right now,” I admit.

“You have seen me in every compromising situation,” Harry says. “And we have been through too much together to be embarrassed right now.”

“Fine,” I sigh. “It is tiring.”

“Maybe you can finally sleep now that it’s…almost 5?”

“Sorry,” I sigh. “I hope you don’t have something early?”

“Nope,” he kisses the top of my head. “And even if I did it wouldn’t matter.”

So we both try to go back to bed and I manage to fall asleep, all of those tiring racing thoughts washed away by a good cry. I feel warm and cared for and vulnerable and protected. A stark change from how Harry has made me feel before. Maybe this was temporary or maybe this was the start of something new. I’m just taking it minute by minute while all I can think is Do I or Don’t I?

***

It’s my final week in London and if you’d asked me a couple weeks ago if I was looking forward to going back home I would have said without hesitation yes.

But that night at Harry’s and putting my past to rest brushes away an old and tired film I had been viewing the city with since I landed.

We had seen each other a couple times a week since—I’ve been cautious despite my body saying otherwise. There were many days I had been free but I had made up some excuse not to see him, I was scared of getting too attached and having to leave.

But I can’t deny how nice it was to be with Harry without any labels. Most of the time I went over to his, it was tricky going out somewhere too public and risking getting papped. Together we just talk about life and work, my life back in America and my relationship with my family, his life growing up and his relationship with stardom. We watch movies and listen to music and make jokes and I open up a little about what had been weighing on my mind that night.

Winnie teases me that I was lighter than she’s ever seen me, that London looked good on me. I tell her she’s crazy. But even Oretta admits it when Winnie brings it up to her.

Harry makes the effort to make up for how he acted until it’s not just words. I believe what he was saying. And I admit to my faults too.

We still get under each other’s skin.

The thing we argue about the most is an opportunity Harry tries to get me to sign off on. The link he texted me when I was in Cambridge was an upcoming single one of his friends was releasing and he wanted to get me to bid on executing a music video for it. I tell him he was nuts and that I had no experience, plus I had a job. But he persists. He thinks I should explore putting my creative skills to use and not just my organizational skills. The arguing continues.

I have a date with him tonight, at the same bar we bumped into each other that first night. I have a question I’d been meaning to ask him.

“You aren’t actually a regular here are you?” I ask when we’ve settled.

“Of course I am,” he says but I know he’s lying. I raise my brow and he looks everywhere but at me. “Fine. I’m not.”

“So how the hell did you end up here that night?”

“Coincidence.”

“Liar.”

“I’m an honest man.”

“Truth please?”

“You’re embarrassing me here let’s move on.”

“Nuh-uh,” I’m enjoying his bright cheeks and darting eyes. “Did you stalk me or something?”

“I…I knew this was a local spot for you. Or was.”

“Really? How?”

“You mentioned it a few times? And I dropped you off here once after work.”

He might’ve. I’d met many friends and especially Gray here. I motion for him to continue.

“I might’ve known you were in town, might’ve found out you were here and…”

“So you did stalk me,” I gasp. “Oh my god ladies and gents he is obsessed.”

“That’s a strong word.” He argues.

“You. Stalked. Me.”

“Oh fine, I’ll confess: I’m used to the stalkers and I thought it was high time I did some stalking and see what the fun was all about,” he joins in on making fun of himself.

“Someone get me a restraining order,” I say just as someone approaches our table with drinks. As soon as they leave we burst out laughing.

“So have you given the music video any more thought?” Harry asks as the evening continues.

“Can we not talk about this right now?” I ask.

“I just think you should give it serious thought. I know you want to go into PR, be somebody’s Graham, but you have a really good eye for this thing. Before you pursue what you think you want, try this out.”

“You’re one dude,” I say again. “Who believes I can do this. You want me to throw away the career I’ve worked on for years to dabble in this and potentially waste time instead of getting to where I want?”

“Firstly, if you love doing something it’s not time wasted. And secondly you only ever need just one person to believe in you, angel.”

His fingers brush mine on the table, the familiar electricity courses through me just through the small touch. And of course, his use of pet names always turned me to putty. I hated how malleable he made me.

“Consider it. Just write a proposal y/n, it’s not betraying Oretta or anything. I can talk to her if you want if they choose your idea.”

It was scary putting myself out there for something I didn’t believe in myself for. But my echoes of burnout grow towards the idea of doing something less demanding than being an assistant just like a sunflower to the sun. It basks in letting my creativity flow.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Not for too long,” he taps my fingers again. We were cautious about being too touchy in public, even in a place like this where people genuinely didn’t care who he was. “Proposal’s due at the end of next week.”

When I would be back home in America. Away from here. Him.

We hadn’t talked about it, if we would try to keep in touch. I can’t really imagine a long-distance thing with Harry. Not at this stage. Mostly we enjoyed being in each other’s company and I was scared forcing labels just because we would be apart would ruin this fragile thing.

“Fine.” He’d worn me down and I submit. “Fine I’ll get something in for you.”

He pulls back with a shocked expression. “Did I just convince the stubborn y/n y/l/n to do something she didn’t want to do?”

I scowl. “Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t,” he laughs, waving his hands around him like he was fanning in an aroma. “I’m soaking this in though.”

“Whatever,” I say with a smile.

“You make me work hard,” he smiles back. “For everything y/n. That’s one of the things I l-I-that I really like about you.”

We ignore the near slip of something far too serious for what we had going. We move past it but it sets my heart racing.

“So this friend of yours,” I change the subject. “With the music video. Didn’t you guys have like, beef when you were on tour? All that article stuff?”

“You of all people should know not to believe what you see online. It was all manipulated and put out of context.”

“I know but you were all moody for all your shows afterwards. I remember Jeff and Graham complaining. I assumed the articles had worn you down a bit.”

He raises a brow like he’s waiting on me to figure something out.

“What?”

“Really? You think it was the artcles?”

“Well what else happened that-“

Oh god. Was I that stupid?

Of course it wasn’t the articles, it was me! Us.

A smile stretches over the contours of his face as realization dawns on mine, “Twice in a row I’ve got you today, I should buy a lottery ticket.”

“I’m off my game today is all, don’t get used to it.”

I can’t believe it. Not that I didn’t believe Harry after the last few weeks but I—that night—really meant that much to him that his feelings over it had affected the rest of his tour? I had affected his tour?

“Why didn’t you say anything if it was weighing on you so much? If I recall I tried to talk to you a couple times.” I ask.

“What could I say,” he snorts. “You were engaged and my loss of control was why you cheated. Then you were quitting and I knew if I said anything you might have stayed. I didn’t want to keep you where you didn’t want to be.”

His words tug at my heart. He really had thought up a storm.

“Harry,” I lean back. “Gray and I broke up before I joined you guys on tour again. We weren’t cheating.”

His forehead creases, “What?! But you were together at my London show. I thought you two broke up after you moved back home?”

“No,” I guess in the last few weeks I’d just mentioned we broke up a long time ago. He didn’t know any specifics. “We were fake-together because he hadn’t broken the news to his sister then. But that’s why I was all…y’know in Barcelona-“

“Fuck me,” he groans. “No wonder you thought I was an ass for pulling you away-“

“Well you were-“

“Yeah alright-“

“Why did you really pull me away though?”

“I…I was feeling a bit possessive.”

“What?”

I wasn’t expecting that to come out of his mouth. He smiles sheepishly, “I thought we already came to terms with that.”

My stomach does a few somersaults. Until tonight I don’t think I’ve really focused on the magnitude of how Harry felt back then. Parts of my mind were still remembering him as a prick just because it was easier to remember my side of things. But this spins things in a brighter light.

“I was just your assistant though.”

“Y/N,” he tilts his head to the side. “Did I not already tell you what I thought about you that night in my flat?”

“Yeah but-“

“I’d never met anyone like you, I really liked you. I couldn’t have you though and I had to push you away constantly. And that drove me a bit crazy sometimes.”

I let out a noisy breath, wondering if how he felt about me was just as intense now as it was then. A part of me knows it must be. Feelings like that didn’t fade. But here I was, barely knowing what it was I felt for him. All I knew was that it was nice when we were together.

Why me, I want to ask. But I hold back. It wasn’t a question I could ask my ex-employer current-lover part-time-asshole.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “Was that a bit strong?”

“No,” I sigh again and he laughs. “Fine. A little. But it’s fine, I’m okay.”

“Okay,” he believes me. “So you broke off your engagement and didn’t tell anyone?”

“Kinda, we weren’t in a place we could come back from. We decided that mutually after things blew up. He didn’t even know I was leaving the country actually.”

Harry whistles. “You ran out on all of us.”

I scratch the side of my head, “Maybe?”

“Well I’ve enjoyed having you again, here.” He says with sincerity. “I’m really relieved to be able to get to say everything I wanted to your face.”

I agree. Neither of us mention I was leaving later in the week.

Even by the night before I’m leaving London we still hadn’t discussed a thing. But there’s a heaviness to us as we have dinner at his, as we pretend to watch a movie only to cuddle on the couch. We lay there facing each other and I trace his eyes, his nose, his wonderful mouth. It’s so odd to me that this was the same Harry Styles performing in sold out venues and on the walls of teenage bedrooms. That I got to have him in these quiet moments and be present.

I feel so grateful for this. That I didn’t have to carry around these draining stories within me anymore, that it felt like it happened to someone else. In a way even if nothing came from all this, I got closure. I was able to move on now.

I imagine my heart and it feels like when you take a stroll mid-March and realize nature was healing from winter’s blues. Warm and blooming the earth was growing again—my heart was growing stronger. Now the idea of a date or a partner didn’t seem so daunting and exhausting. I would never have guessed that it would take the man who almost broke me to come into my life again for me to see how to fit those pieces back in place again.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do not having you in town anymore,” his lashes flutter as I run my hand through his hair. It was still shorter than I was used to but it had grown in the last three weeks.

“Oh you’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ve worked on your schedule before: meetings and studio sessions and photoshoots and interviews.”

“A busy life isn’t always a full one,” he whispers. And it’s the closest thing to a confession we were going to get to. I cover his mouth with mine and we indulge in each other one final time.

There is a symphony of unexpected but undeniable intimacy woven between the beats of our entwined hearts. I know I would probably never feel this way with anyone and I don’t think I’d want to. Being with Harry was passion. It was losing myself and finding myself at the same time. It was being vulnerable and guarded and cherished and known.

My flight out tomorrow is around noon but I can’t stay the night as I’d have to help Oretta in the morning to make sure everything gets to the airport in time. Harry walks me down to his lobby and we stand there for a few, just holding each other tight. He doesn’t ask me to stay and I don’t ask him to come.

“This isn’t goodbye y/n,” Harry says when we part. His hand rests on his heart. I know the feeling, mine aches so hard I want to press my hand to it just to tell it everything would be fine.

“No,” I shake my head. My eyes had been teary ever since he squeezed me to him. “We’ll talk soon.”

“You’ll be directing music videos soon.”

I roll my eyes, “I’m still working on the proposal.”

“I have a good feeling about it.”

“That makes one of us. But…thanks for believing in me.”

“Thanks for believing in me,” he whispers. “Even when you didn’t have to.”

I’m glad I did. The only time in my life not paying attention to the warning bells had paid off.

“I’ve been working with this new producer and he wants me to come out to a studio in Cotati?” Harry mentions. “How far is that from where you are? Are you still in m Burbank?”

“Burbank’s where my parents are,” I shake my head. I look up what he’s talking about and feel a thrill when it’s less than a couple hours. Still, I try to maintain neutrality. “A little over an hour?”

“Well,” he brushes my hair over my shoulder and keeps his eyes looking just over it. “Depending on what you’re doing—maybe if you’re free…we can see each other again?”

I would love that. My heart is bursting just thinking of getting to have him in the place I called home. Of this meaning something. Of him wanting to see me again.

“Of course if you have a boyfriend by then and he doesn’t want you to see me that’s…I mean, live your life and if it works out we-“

“Yes,” I cut him off. “Yeah. Let’s see but that sounds good.”

He meets my gaze and I laugh a little, he was nervous and that was rare.

“Good,” he smiles with. “Until next time.”

“Until next time,” I step into his arms and it’s a quick affair before he steps away. I turn to head out the door, shielding my eyes from him. Not wanting him to see that this was stupidly hard to say goodbye.

He waves me off and I head back to my hotel with a heavy heart. But I think about him asking to see me again. Who knows when that would be. And I know this wasn’t the end of our story.

***

I’m happy to land in SFO the following evening, happy to busy myself with Oretta’s business, happy to have Winnie chattering away. I spent parts of the flight I wasn’t sleeping working on my MV proposal and it awakens a familiar passion inside of me I’d been afraid I’d lost.

I send out a silent thanks to Harry for knowing what was good for me.

I think of Harry often, Gray even less until I don’t think of him at all. I dream of London weekly; I missed it this time around. And as life resumes again I anticipate the change I sense on the horizon.

So when life gives me lemons I stop asking Do I or Don’t I. If one thing the last year has taught me was I had to listen to my gut and look at the signs. I had to start asking what I wanted and go after it. Even though Harry and I barely talk, I remember the lessons he’s taught me.

I stop looking to others to make decisions. There’s no guidebook or lists to help me make my decisions either. I take deep breaths and I believe in myself.

I build a new life on the remains of my old. I don’t let it dictate what I did anymore, I simply leave it as the foundation to elevate me even higher. I reach for the sky with my feet planted firmly on the ground. And I grow with reckless abandon.

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🤍

Epilogue

[wambos-storytime-corner]

7 Deadly Diapers, Ch. 3: Gluttony pt. 3 (TW: Addiction, weight shaming)

“The.. the stuff in the.. um.. the gym bag—?“

“You mean your diaper bag? Ugh, yeah. I want you to put it on.” Whitney, feeling a new sense of power and independence smiled at the chance to put her husband well beneath her. Something had overcome her and she had begun to feel so free.

“But it’s so— so…” he gulped and tapped his fingers.

“So what, Ethan? Ironic? Poetic? Fitting? You have been treating me like shit so long and you think you get to just let me nurse you?— Which, don’t even get me started on how crazy that prospect is— but you seriously believe that you get to act like none of that ever happened? Nuh-uh. Think again. I wanna watch you put it on. Then MAYBE I’ll think about feeding you.” She reveled in the power bestowed to her by her wish. How this was all happening was far from being something she had on her mind. Her only concern was how to milk this miracle for all it was worth. Literally…

Her suddenly submissive husband wanted to retaliate but unfortunately there wasn’t a rebellious bone in his body that could override his lust for latching onto the generous nipple of his wife’s breasts. So, cringing, he soldiers on and swaddles himself into his diaper.

“That’s right.. plenty of powder. Top tapes first. No. No no. Ugh! I have to do everything for you don’t i…” taking charge she straps the remainder of the big hulking weight lifter into his shameful, powdery, prison-like pampers. Then came the onesie which was swiftly squeezed overtop of him, snapping it all shut. Unlucky for the big buff baby, it was just tight enough in the crotch to make him constantly aware of the bulk under his butt and groin.

But even more bizarrely, he noticed an odd sensation hugging his arms and torso.. his burly, masculine physique was compressed and compacted beneath the soft tight leotard more and more before both him and his wife’s eyes until he was nothing but a scrawny, girlish wimp of a man. It looks like he’d struggle lifting a 10 pound box now! The onesie had eaten all that hard work and in turn his confidence shriveled along with it. He looked panicked at his wife who’s face was anything but empathetic. She just cackled down at her new harmless, weakling of a spouse basking in her and her wish’s devilish craftsmanship, punctuating it all with a full palmed grip on his plush rump.

“Dawww! There we go! God, don’t you look just darling…” she covered her lips with a malicious snicker, “Now how about you strike some poses for me and while you’re at it you can ask me EXACTLY what you want. And keep it extra polite Mr. ‘This body doesn’t happen from whining and eating cheat pizzas’.” She smirks looking at her meek little husband contentedly whilst pulling her phone out to snap pics.

Ethan grimaced at the mental quandary he found himself toiling with along with the mourning he felt for his once perfect body. He couldn’t admit his desires without undermining what he’d faulted Whitney with earlier. And with all that had been taken he couldn’t bear the thought of giving up his pride any further and admit he was wrong! All he had left was his integrity! His self-certainty! His sense of discipline against his own bodily urges and cravings!…

Which made the feeling of defeat all the more painful as his eyes returned to his wife’s gorgeous, Siren-like breasts. All he could do was lick his lips, strike a pose for his wife, and buckle under the crushing weight of his deepest desires.

“I’ll do anything for a taste of you. Please, Whitney…” his drool oozed down over his chin as he gave her the show of a lifetime.

“That’s mommy from now on. And that’s a good start. But anything really broadens the scope don’t you think? Anyone can SAY they’ll do anything, but I want to see actions. And I have an idea on how you can prove precisely that. So, if you really want your big, warm, juicy dessert.. you gotta clean your plate first, bubs~!”

(Sorry for the delay. Works been crazy and I had to get some extra photos! Hope this will make up for it! 🥰)

[gyll-yee-haw]

*mischevious laugh while i rub my hands together* what about detective loki x reader where he's veeery jealous and possessive and reader "teases" him about a specific guy he hates (not intentionally), maybe she just talk to him in a way that loki considers too friendly and then he end up railing the shit out of her to make her know who she belongs to (maybe with some choking while he says "you're mine"...some breeding kink omg im weak asf

Requesting the real requests here baby 🥵

Sorry it took so long, had to make it extra special for my fave bf <3

Warnings: jealous and very possessive and dom!David, mention of gun use (doesn't happen and it's not around the reader!), choking, so much dirty talk, breeding kink :)

Like 2.3k words

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It was one of those rare days David didn't have much to do at the station and was actually leaving when his shift ended. Since you were out in the city, you told him you would meet him at the station and you could go home together.

Walking in, you greeted some familiar faces, who were used to have you around, waiting for your boyfriend. You sat on a chair and started scrolling through social media, just killing time, not really paying attention to anything.

"Hey." You heard a male voice greeting you. It was Detective Miller, someone you always ran into at the station.

You learned to like him, cause he always calmed you down whenever David was too deep on a case and just disappeared. He didn't mind when you called or showed up, begging him for news. David didn't like him very much, though. He said Miller was annoying and a little laid back. You just laughed, knowing David was the one who worked too hard.

"Hi." You smiled at him.

"Here to report a crime? Did your boyfriend disappear again?" He smirked.

"No." You laughed. Then you saw David approaching. "He's right there, actually."

"Hey." Dave greeted you, ignoring the other man's presence.

You stood up from your chair, to give him a hug.

"Hi. Are you finished for today?" You asked with a smile.

"Yeah, I'm ready to go now." He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and brought you closer, basically forcing you to turn away from his colleague, guiding you towards the door.

Your brows furrowed and you let out a little "ouch" that you knew he heard. He didn't do anything about it, though, just kept walking you to the car.

You got in and he just drove. David was silent the whole time. He was never one to speak much, but there were other small signs that indicated he was mad. Like the way his hands gripped the wheel. During those times, you were always afraid to say the wrong thing and make it all worse, so you chose to be silent too.

At least until you walked into the house. You didn't like to see him like that in there... you couldn't do anything about all the horrible things he saw on the streets and at the station, but your home was his safe place. Where the two of you laughed like the world was peaceful, cuddled like there was no other place to be. He was different at home. He wasn't that pile of stress in front of you, he was your Dave. And that's why you needed to talk to him, do anything to get him out of that state.

"Babe, you wanna talk about your day?" You offered.

He shrugged, taking off his belt, putting his gun and everything away safely.

Your heart fell. He didn't usually treat you so indifferently, no matter what happened at work... no matter how stressed he was, he would never take it out on you. That's when you started to overthink. Well... maybe he was mad at you? Maybe he didn't like your visits at his work place... maybe he didn't really want to see you right now and you were forcing him to? You were annoying him...

"I'm sorry." You murmured.

"What?" He finally turned his attention to you.

"I'm sorry." You repeated, a little louder.

"I heard you." He mocked. "But I'm not convinced."

"I..." You stuttered. You didn't even know what to say. Was he trying to humiliate you just for showing up at the station? You weren't sure anymore.

"Nothing to say now?" He asked, arms crossed, looking at you. "Cause you seemed so talkative earlier with Miller."

Oh. He was jealous? You felt relief wash over you and couldn't hold back your laughter. But as soon as you saw the way he was looking at you, it suddenly became a lot less funny.

"I just..." You realized you would have to explain yourself, and there was something thrilling about it. "I was just being nice."

"Yeah? You decided to be nice to everyone but me?" He questioned.

"Dave, what are you talking about? When was I not nice to you?"

"When you decided to disobey me." He closed his eyes and if you weren't sure where this would end before, now you were. "I don't wanna see you talking to that asshole again, do you understand?"

"Why?" You asked with your sweetest, most innocent voice, and had to bite back a smirk. "He's always so nice to me."

He left out a sigh. You didn't have to be so difficult when he was already so pissed. When he approached, you stood very still. He stopped behind you, one hand delicately placed on your waist in contrast to the other, that grabbed a fistful of your hair. He didn't pull it yet, just left it there, as a warning.

"Yeah, I bet he's so nice to you." He rolled his eyes, breathing on your neck. "Did you know that the other day I almost lost my job? You know why?"

You shook your head slowly, as far as his grip on your hair allowed you to.

"I was having a fucking shitty day and I heard him talking about you. About what a pretty little thing you are." He said, placing kisses on your neck between his phrases. "And how I was so stupid for staying away for so long, cause someone might... have to take my place."

His own words made him angry again. He finally pulled your hair, bringing your body as close as possible to his.

"And it took all of me to not grab my gun right there and then." He rested his chin on your shoulder, speaking close to your ear. "But then... I just remembered that I was the one who was coming home to you that night. And the next one. And always, because you're mine, aren't you?"

"Yes." I whispered, since he was close enough to hear it. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know..."

"Oh you didn't know?" He released your hair and you felt relieved for a moment. "Then I guess I'll have to teach you a fucking lesson. On your knees, now."

You obeyed immediately, getting on your knees in front of him, in the middle of the living room. You just knew that the less you acted up, the more generous he would be after. The quicker the anger would go away.

"Good fucking girl." His hand went to your chin, forcing you to look up as he shoved two fingers inside your mouth, and you welcomed them, licking in circular motions. "You know what? Think that asshole is right. I'm so stupid."

You frowned confusingly, never stopping sucking his fingers.

"Yeah, I'm stupid for letting him get into my head when I just know I can get you on your knees for me. He can't imagine the things you do for me, like the good little slut you are." He shoved his fingers deeper into your mouth, making you gag a little.

With his other hand, he got rid of his belt and started unbuttoning his pants. Then he removed his fingers from your mouth and you enjoyed the break to breathe, because something indicated that would be the last time you'd be able to do that for a while.

He pushed his pants and underwear down enough to remove his hard cock, giving it a few strokes. Your mouth watered at the mere sight of it.

"Open up, put that mouth to better use than fucking disrespecting me." He said, eyes as dark as they could possibly be.

Again, you wouldn't dare to not do as you were told that night. You allowed him to push his cock inside your mouth a little more gently then you expected him too. But once you fully adapted to it, he began thrusting fast. Hand behind your head, keeping you still for him to use. His moans loud and incoherent.

Then he slowed down, and eventually stopped, removing his cock from your mouth and giving it a few strokes in front of your face. He wasn't going to cum just yet, you knew it was going to be a long night. The thing is that he was pissed. And he just fucked your mouth a little to get to see the tears forming in your eyes, you on your knees... absolutely submitting to him. He wanted to remind himself that he could get you like that, eager to serve him. But he didn't really enjoy being so rough on his princess' pretty face, he knew she could get hurt. With her pussy, though, it was a different story. He could be merciless. And that's exactly what he needed right now.

"On the couch, ass in the air for me." He demanded.

You thought you were in for a long and humiliating spanking session. But he just didn't feel like wasting time that night... and also... he wasn't exactly mad at you, he was just making sure you knew who you belonged to. So all he did was push your panties aside and run his fingers through your folds, making sure you were wet enough.

David was so scary when he was mad, but it was all about these little details... he checked the entire time for any signs that you weren't having fun or that he could hurt you. He would never forgive himself if he did hurt you, even a little bit.

And he was delighted to find that you were soaked, so he could carry on, shoving his cock inside you at once.

"Fuck..." he grunted as you moaned loudly, both in pain from being so brutally stretched out and from the pleasure of finally having him inside you. "You gonna let me mark you as mine, huh? Pussy so tight, squeezing me so good, gonna fuck you until it's the exact shape on my cock, so you won't be able to take anyone but me."

"Dave!" You cried out as he trusted deep and so fast. "Don't want... don't want anyone but you..."

"Good. Cause you're fucking mine." He said, hand wrapping tightly around your throat. "You. Are. Fucking. Mine. Did you hear me?"

"FUCK, YES!" You moaned, feeling like his words were bringing you closer and closer to your release. "I'm yours, Dave, all yours... fuck me, fuck me so good..."

"Yeah? So good, pretty baby?" His movements never lost intensity, but started to lose rythm, indicating he was getting close too. "You know what? Wanna get you fucking pregnant so everyone knows you're always filled with my cum, that I give you everything you fucking need..."

All you could do was scream his name. He had never said anything half that dirty to you before. You were pretty sure not even David knew he had a breeding kink... it was the last thing you would expect from him.

"Dave! Can I please cum, please please please..." you just kept begging, even though your voice was muffled as he pushed your head to the sofa.

"Yes, baby, you're such a good girl, of course you can..." he used a sweet tone that didn't match the loud sounds of his skin collapsing with yours so hard. "Do it, do it now, baby, fuck..."

God, the way you screamed, unable to control your legs, unable to stay still, forcing him to use more strength than he would like to keep your hips under his control, just so he could keep hitting that spot you liked...

God, the way you came so hard, screaming that you belonged entirely to him.

"Fuck, gonna fill you up, my sweet girl..." he said as he felt closer to the edge. "Gonna fucking cum..."

He shoved his cock so fucking deep and gave you every single last angry drop of cum he had. And he kept himself burried that deep as he tried to catch his breath. You were absolutely unable to move, just laying there, feeling absolutely brainwashed as all you could think about was belonging to him.

You left out a whine that almost broke his heart as he removed his cock from you.

"Shhh... I know, baby." He stroked your hair gently. "I'll be right back, okay?"

You weren't strong enough to answer. He gave you a kiss on the cheek and left. Time didn't feel real, but he probably didn't take more than a minute to come back, bringing you a glass of water. He sat on the sofa and helped you sit on his lap to drink it.

"Are you okay, baby?" He asked as he scanned your body for bruises or any sign of stress.

"Yeah, feeling great." You smiled at him, earning a smile back. "Dave... why didn't you tell me about the things you heard that day?"

"I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable, I guess." He shrugged. "Besides... it doesn't matter, only you and I know about us... I don't care what he thinks."

"Yeah, but you felt uncomfortable. You should have talked to me about it... next time that piece of shit tries to talk to me, I'm gonna kick him in the balls." You put on your most dangerous expression. One that always made David laugh. "And before you say I'm going to jail: no I won't, I know someone."

"You do?" He chuckled.

"Yeah. Someone who's as mine as I'm his." You leaned closer to his face, lips barely brushing his.

"Glad you know that." He sealed the agreement with a passionate kiss.

[huckleberrykai]

txt ~ there's food at home

pairing: dad!txt x fem!reader scenario: what txt would be like as dads! :) warnings: obvs mentions of dads, mom!reader, very fluffy click here for my masterlist!

soobin:

i wrote a lil bit about soobs here

i feel like soobin would have sooo many kids

like a small soobin army

he'd just have like 4 kids running around at his feet at all times

he'd be the best best best dad even if he's a little bit irresponsible sometimes cause he just can't say no

always trying to do things with all of them like playing a video game together even tho he always lets them win :')

don't even try get alone time with him when your babies are there because they just wanna hug him all the time :( <3

just you, your husband, and 4 whole children piled in your bed

soobin loves it tho, all his favourite people all in one bed cuddled up to him :')

yeonjun:

GIRL DAD GIRL DAD

i feel like he'd just have one daughter

she'd be the apple of his eye, he'd do anything for her

the responsible but still fun dad

like he wouldn't give her ice cream for breakfast but he'd buy her any princess dress she asked for

even if you asked him not to spoil her too much he'd still do it

"why can't i spoil my baby Y/N?"

would def put you all in matching outfits and take silly family selfies

definitely takes her to get her ears pierced without your knowledge so they could wear matching earrings

she's his little princess he can't say no :(

beomgyu:

he is the 3rd child .

you'd have like 2 kids and he'd just encourage them when they're being silly

he'd never scold them, but he'd try to be stern when you're around

but otherwise he's very much a 'just don't tell mom' dad

you'd come home from the supermarket to them all covered in mud and not even question it

he'd be a great dad overall tho, always looking out for his kids

oh theres a bully at school? not anymore! don't like your sandwich? he'll make them a new one! need a hug? dad's there in a second.

as goofy as he is he loves his babies so much he'd do anything to make sure they're safe and happy <33

taehyun:

dadzilla.

he'd have 3 kids i think, he'd try his best to be the best dad ever

he just wants everything to be perfect ~ he wants the best for his kids, even if that means feeding them vegetables and taking away their games consoles until they do their homework

packs their lunches every day with a little note and a treat

probably the most responsible dad out of them all

definitely has his moments tho

they're his babies after all

definitely slips them extra pocket money

or if he know's they've had a rough day the day before he'll put an extra chocolate bar into their lunchbox

his downfall is spoiling them - maybe even more than yeonjun sometimes

he's just so proud of them they deserve everything :(

hueningkai:

i feel like you'd just have one son and he'd be kai's carbon copy

he'd be so well behaved neither of you even had to really try

they'd just spend forever hanging out on the couch playing pokemon

he'd be kai's little best friend fr

when they'd feel chaotic tho,, good luck. they're teaming up against u and tickling u until you agree to get mcdonald's even tho there's food at home

he'd even gift his plushie collection to him so he can start his own :')

he'd def be best friends with taehyun's son bcs the tyunning best friends agenda runs through generations

overall he'd be a great dad, he'd try his best with packing lunches and hanging out with him - even if his sandwiches aren't as good as mom's

you'd be the cutest little family :')

so much love hsjkal soft dad kai my beloved

[maxillness]

Christmas Sex || KM20 x Girlfriend!reader

Warnings: 18+, unprotected, kitchen sex, oral (F reviving), fingering, praise kink

Wordcount: 1k

Wanna hear a funny story? Even though I’m Danish, I actually had to look up Danish cookies. Do I feel embarrassed? Yes. Am I ever gonna talk about it again? Nope

Kevin had brought his girlfriend to Denmark for the holidays, and she had decided to surprise him with Christmas cookies

She decided to bake some Danish cookies hoping he would like them

The hard part was to figure out which ones she wanted to make. There were a lot to choose between

“Smells amazing in here” He said as he entered the kitchen. Kevin had been out all day with his friends

“I’m happy about that” She said as she placed a plate with cookies on the table

“Is this… Jødekager?” He asked as he took a bite of one

“Yeah. I tried. Are they good?” She asked scared that they were bad

“They taste amazing” He answered and kissed her cheek before going to the kitchen “Are there more in the oven?” He asked as his girlfriend joined him

“No, that’s Vaniljekranse” She said trying to pronounce the name

“Have you gone on a baking streak?” He asked connecting his lips to hers

“I’m just in the Christmas spirit” She chuckled as the timer beeped. She took out the tray and turned off the oven “Watch it. They’re hot” She said as Kevin went to take one

“Wait till after dinner, then you can eat them for dessert” She said as she turned away from him and leaned over the counter to read something on her phone

“I was planning on eating you for dessert, but I can have both I guess” He said as he hugged her from behind

“You don’t need to wait for dessert to eat me, darling” She said as he started kissing her neck. She could feel his heart beat as his chest was against her back

“I know, but you’re a treat, and treats are for desserts” He mumbled against her skin

“Guess I’ll just wait to eat you after dinner too” She said as she pushed away from the counter

She tried to walk away, but was pulled back and was pressed between her boyfriends body and the counter

“I’m not a treat, I’m the snack you eat when your hungry” He said before kissing her deeply

“But I’m not hungry, baby” She said in a teasing tone

“But I’m hungry for you” He said kissing her deeply again, this time it was all teeth

He put his hands on her back thighs to pick her up and put her on the counter. She put her legs around his waist to push him further into the counter

“I thought you said you weren’t hungry” He said as he started kissing her neck and throat

“I won’t be the one eating” She said as Kevin’s hands went under her shirt

“Was that a demand?” He mumbled on her skin

“Everything I say about sex is a demand. You know that” She said with a seductive voice

“No, I just do everything you tell me to do” He said as his fingers went under the waist band of her shorts. He managed to pull them down a long side with her panties, even when she sat on the counter

“God, I love you” He said between kisses as he went on his knees. He pulled her towards the edge of the counter and put on of her legs over his shoulder

“Fucking hell” She breathed out as his lips wrapped around her clit “Fuck, you’re doing so good for me” Her hand went to his hair as she leaned her head back with pleasure

One of Kevin’s hands went to her inner thigh before going to her core. Her slid one of his fingers through her folds before slowly going in making her moan and tug on his hair

He slowly started going in and out of her. She tugged on his hair when he sped up, making him moan giving her extra pleasure

He added another finger when he could feel her clench around his finger. He curled his fingers up hitting the right spot making her see spots

“Fuck, just like that” Her moans got louder and heavier as she got closer to her orgasm. With a few last thrusts of his fingers, she came around his fingers, his name rolling of her tongue

“Get up” She said looking down at him when he rode out her high. Their lips connected yet again, making her taste herself on him

Her hands went to his belt, quickly unbuckling it. She zipped down his zipper and pulled his cock out

He moaned when she slowly started stroking him. He drew his cock through her folds before entering her

She adjusted to him before he started moving “You feel so good in me” She said and he could only whimper at her words

“Are you gonna come for me, baby?” She asked when she could feel him twitch inside her as his thrusts were getting sloppier and uneven in his rhythm

“Fuck. Yes, I’m gonna come for you” Both their moans got quicker and louder as they both got closer and closer to their orgasms

“Fuck. You look so pretty like this. So close to your orgasm that you can’t even think straight. Hands shaking from pleasure. Your face red because you like getting praised. God, I fucking love seeing you like this. Whimpering by my words” He came just by her words

A few more thrusts and she came around him as well “Fuck, you did so well for me baby” She whispered as she kissed his cheek

They both got their clothes on before she turned towards him again “I think you deserve a cookie” She said giving him one

“I thought you said after dinner” He said smiling down at her

“You were good for me. You deserve it” They connected their lips again

“Thank you, darling. They taste really good, just like you” He said jokingly as he kissed her jaw

“Shut up” She said as she hit his shoulder playfully

[harlowtales]

Jack x Reader handing out Halloween candy meet the sweetest thing ever.

18+ sweet/romantic 🎃

“Trick or Treat Jackman” You said giving him a twirl in your nurses outfit which was just some scrubs, crocs, and a stethoscope. Your hair was in a messy ponytail and the scrubs hugged you in all the right places.

“Ah fuck yeah. Think I’m bouta have a heart attack.” Jack said faking cardiac arrest by holding his chest. He pulled you close for a kiss. “Hey baby wanna go get it on in my old room.” Jack used to dream about girls like you liking him back in that old room.

“Ewww no.” You said giggling. “Plus, I don’t like guys with claws.” You hadn’t been over at his parent’s house in a long time. Jack volunteered to hand out the candy this year with Clay and his girlfriend. Jack’s parents were at a company holiday party, but had lived in the neighborhood for decades and handed out some of the best candy on the block like full chocolate bars. All the kids knew you didn’t skip the Harlow house. Now that word got around Jack was handing out the treats, the doorbell would be ringing more than usual.

As the guys were getting everything ready for the kids, you and Clay’s girlfriend were putting the finishing touches on your costumes and making plans for the afterparty. “I feel like your costume needs something” Clay’s girlfriend said who was dressed as a bunny. I know! Blood!” She took some fake blood and smeared it on your scrubs. “There, now you’re a nurse from hell” she giggled.

“I’m going to scare children now!” You exclaimed and you both laughed. You heard the doorbell ring. It was your first kiddo.

“TRICK OR TREAT!!” You heard extra loud through the door.

Jack emerged as Wolverine and Clay as a Vampire. Clay and Jack were confused for each other a lot of the time so the kids thought Clay was Jack. To be polite and avoid confusion they simply said “Thank you Mr. Harlows!” They were happy with their full chocolate bars, juice box and suckers. They were the first but definitely not the last. Word spread that Jack was at the door. Those kids met other kids along their way and bragged about what they got at the Harlows house.

“Look what we got!” They said pulling out their treasure

“What! You gotted full chocolate bars?!!” Kids they were showing said, and all those kids skipped other houses and headed straight there. A mini-mob was growing at the door.

“Do you fucking hear that?” Jack said incredulously as a swarm of excited and screaming kids surrounded the door.

“What’s the plan bro.” Clay said looking afraid to open it.

“Well we have to open the door for starters” You said

“They’re just kids you guys.” Clay’s girlfriend said and pushed past her boyfriend who she thought was being silly to open the door.

“No baby wait! There’s too many kids!” Clay protested but she had opened the door and the screams were deafening. 30 kids were jumping up and down with their buckets out and some older kids had pillow cases. Some parents sat on the perimeter of the chaos to tell them to calm down, but so far they were just watching and recording it on their phones.

Jack looked at Clay and Clay looked at Jack. Fortunately they had enough to give each kid the same thing or it would get ugly. “Ok!” Jack yelled over the commotion. “You push…no treats! Understand?” They all nodded yes. “Form a line and we got something for everyone” goblins, gouls, ghosts, and witches all obeyed and a line formed from the door and halfway down the block because more kids now had come.

“Hunny we’re going to run out!” You said worried.

“I’ll run to the store.” Clay’s girlfriend said grabbing the keys and squeezed her way past little ones to get out the door.

A lot of moms were coming too to see Wolverine. Jack had a tight white tank top on and jeans and they weren’t missing that. Some moms flirted shamelessly as they came to the door with their little ones. “You can just write your number on the back of that chocolate bar for a real chocolate treat.” One mom said and winked. You frowned, but Jack thought it was funny and tried to hide blushing.

“These women are pathetic! In front of their kids?!” You complained

“Baby calm down.” Jack said. It wasn’t like dads that came to the door hadn’t flirted with you. You rolled your eyes and continued to greet kids. To your dismay nobody was the least bit scared by the blood on your outfit.

“My girl better get back soon because we are running real low.” Clay said panicked. The line seemed to just get longer and longer.

“Got more!!” Clay’s girlfriend said as she just pulled up and scooted to the door.

“Finally! We were facing ambush.” Jack said.

After some hours one last little timid girl came to the door. Her dad was carrying her because she was afraid to come to the door on her own. “Hi Jack.” The father said, a big burly guy in a plaid shirt and baseball hat. The little girl was dressed as Ariel from the Little Mermaid. “Can you give my baby something a lil special. This is the first Halloween without her mom.” The dad said sadly.

“Of course, baby?” He said turning to you “Can we get this lil angel something real special from the treats?”

“I’m not an angel I’m Ariel.” The little girl said in a whisper looking down.

“You know imma have to hold you to hear you better.” Jack said. He desperately wanted to hold the little girl as his heart was breaking. Dad nodded it was ok and she actually reached out for Jack to take her into his arms. He took the Wolverine claws off and outstretched his welcoming embrace. You were holding back tears as you gathered extra treats for the little sweetheart.

Jack held her and tilted her chin up. She had the biggest green eyes he had ever seen, but was frowning. “Now what did you say?” He said

“Um….I not…I not an angel. I’m a mermaid. I’m Ariel.” She said a little louder now.

“I’ll tell you what.” Jack said “I want you to tell me your Ariel as loud as you can.”

The little girl looked at her dad who was recording and wiping his eyes from some tears staring to fall. He nodded it was fine to yell. “I am Ariel.” She said a little louder and giggled covering her mouth.

“Ah that’s not loud enough yet.” Jack said shaking his head.

She got a very determined look on her face and geared up to belt it out. She balled up her little fists and said “I…AM…ARIEL!!!!!”

Everyone clapped and she was giggling and kicking her feet in glee. She reached back out for her dad who took her back in his arms.

“How did that feel?” Jack asked her handing her a bag of extra treats.

“I feel good!!” She said with a big smile on her face.

“Listen man.” Jack said to the dad, here’s my girl’s number. Call her and we’ll set something up for her alright? Dance classes or something to boost her confidence. I used to get teased so I know how it is.”

“Thanks Jack.” The dad said giving his little girl a peck on the cheek.

“Byeeeee!!!” The girl said sweetly waving her tiny hand.

After you closed the door everyone was quiet and exhausted. “I don’t want to party now.” You said. “That was a lot.”

“Yeah so sweet.” Clay’s girlfriend said as she wiped her eyes and Clay rubbed her shoulders.

“Baby, can you arrange anything they need as soon as they call?” Jack said his blue eyes glassy

“Yeah of course babe.” You said rubbing his back

“Well bro I think me and the missus are heading home.” Clay said as they said their goodbyes.

You hugged Jack and asked if he was still in a mood to go to the club. “I’m ok babe.” He said “DJ Wolverine has to make an appearance.”

“Ok DJ Wolverine don’t forget your claws.” You said giving him a kiss.

@itsyagirljaz @ride4harlow @jacks-daycare @heavyhitterheaux

[vimara00]

Hi everyone, it's Vi! ✨ Today I decided to write something with the trope "she fell first but he fell harder" because I can. Also, I wanna wish u a Merry Christmas!!! 🎅 🎄

Hope you enjoy! ❤️ (Again, sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes, english is not my first language 🙈)

Pd: It's gonna be a part 2

All characters reservations to Horikoshi

Warnings: jealousy

Too blind to see (Kirishima x F!reader)

(Image created with AI)

Kirishima and y/n have known each other since birth as both of their mothers were friends. They dreamed of the two of them getting along and, in an ideal future, getting married and giving them grandchildren, but it was too early for the last part. They became inseparable and did everything together; They went to the same kindergarten, same high school, and even managed to enter the UA. However, because of y/n "sanation" quirk, she was at another class. But that wasn't an impediment for seeing each other every day. And when she wasn't with Kirishima and his friends, she would be helping on the nursery as part of her training. Her mentor, Recovery girl, always said that she'll take her place when she retired, so y/n needed to work extra hard if she wanted to be able to save heroes' lives during battle.

Kirishima was y/n's number one fan; she was his muse, his rock, and his 'best friend' while for her...he was way more than that. She was in love with her best friend and came with the realisation, at a very young age, that he didn't see her as a potential partner so she kept her mouth shut for all this years, scared of rejection.

However, lately, Kirishima's been more protective than normal; At first, she thought it probably had something to do with the LOV's recent attack, but certain actions made her think otherwise...

The other day, Deku came in with new injuries, and because he was a regular patient, he talked a lot with y/n while she treated his wounds. They became very good friends as she was one of the few who knew of OFA. Kirishima hadn't noticed how close they were till he came in later that day to check on Midoriya and found them siting next to eachother (shoulders touching and being VERY VERY close for his liking) reading and talking about his notes. He was standing at the door annoyed by the scene happening in front of him, and suddenly, a new sensation came with it, one he couldn't put into words, but it felt similar to fear. Of what? He was yet to find out...

He decided enough was enough and entered the room, making his presence known. Izuku might have noticed the intense look Kirishima was giving him cause he tensed and moved a little so his body wasn't touching hers at all; He knew that, even though the redhead was such a great guy, when it came to her, he sure as hell would beat someone up just because that person looked the wrong way (Midoriya has seen it many times). Y/n didn't think much of it as she greeted him with a kiss on the cheek and kept doing some reports that Recovery girl has left for her. After she was done, they left so Izuku could rest, but not before she gave him a quick hug and said their goodbyes. Kirishima was rather quiet all the way to her doorm, and once they arrived, he said 'You are really close with Midoriya, ah?' 'Yes, he's a really nice guy! He comes almost every day so he's my favorite patient by now' His face turned into a frown to that and respond 'Is that so?' He hadn't stopped looking intensibly at her, and it was making the e/c girl nervous. <Why does he sound like he's jealous?> The girl was wondering when suddenly, he grabbed her forearm gently so her body was now facing him. His eyes were no longer on her but the floor, and he whispered 'I don't like you being that friendly with him. I'm supposed to be the one who receives your hugs and the one you tend their wounds of!' He paused for a few seconds and finally looked at her as he continued 'I don't like sharing your attention or you affection. I know it's selfish but lately, when I see you with others, it hurts and it annoys me...I feel kind of left out and I don't like it one bit' Someone would of assumed this 'sensations' Kirishima was having were of pure jealousy or envy because of the threaten of her finding someone else and that this might have been his confession but no. He's convinced himself, and her, that it was his mission as a 'big bro' that he needed to be sure the guy she settled for was a nice one. That night, both of them went to sleep with a huge weight of their hearts. Y/n because she realized that nothing has changed and that she'd always be his friend no matter how cute she dressed or how mature she acted, she'd never be his first option. As for him... He felt his chest tighten at the thought of her being with some other dude.

The next few days, he did everything in his power to not let Midoriya or any other of his friends near y/n, but he couldn't control everyone for too long, could he? It wasn't long enough until UA most handsome guy, had to pay a visit to the nursery and even took the chance to invite her to endeavors agency to work with them. She was very excited to tell him about what happened and that she accepted their offer, but Kirishima had to pretend that he was happy when he actually was feeling sad)?

Since then, mister cute face has spent too much time with her and did everything together; from eating lunch to going on missions alone and then having dinner at his house (Midoriya and Bakugou were there too but still) The redhead was going crazy to say the least. However, he began to wonder if these emotions were similar to the ones a brother would have for his little sister or more like a boyfriend would have for his girl. The word 'jealousy' came along with those thoughts and so he understood why he got so annoyed and anxious whenever she was with someone else or how worried he got by just the idea of her having a boyfriend or even marrying someone; marrying someone who wasn't him. He was in love with her! All this time, he actually thought he was doing the right thing by being protecting her from praying eyes but he was just keeping her to himself instead. He realized how mistaken he had been and needed to make his intentions clear for her even if she rejected him. He just needed to find the right time

....

Part 2 in a few days 😉

[pinkrifle]

Hello!! It's me again, I love thinking about what it's like to be a big sibling to the boys, so.. What do you think it would be like to be Stan and Shelly's big sibling? Like being a comfort person to both of them, being able to calm Shelly down when she needs it.. I love thinking about that...🫠

- 🩷🩷

— being stan/shelly’s big sibling!!

cws/tw’s: none?

a/n: I LOVE STAN AND SHELLY THIS ASK IS SO REAL THANK UU !! i feel like i’m the ceo of big sibling hc’s for south park 😙🔥.. (which i have no problem being 🤞) and i do have a little bit of writers block so excuse the duration of time i’m posting these at :( thanks for your patience!

misc. notes: reader is g/n, writing is in hc’s since non specified,,, kevlly will be in purple text, and uhh thassit:3

your probably randy and sharon’s last fave, hence being the oldest. which kinda drives you crazy but it makes shelly feel a little bit better about herself!!

if wendy ever breaks up with stan (for the 500th time) you always welcome him into ur room to sob and have multiple amounts of ice cream 🤭 if shelly makes fun of him for crying you give her that 😐 look and she backs off.

when stan get’s the spooky fish and dead ppl start appearing in his room you are the first to help him and hug/cuddle him when needed 💔 your also the first to dig into aunt flo’s purse and find the adress of the pet store.

you love when kyle and kenny come over!!! not much cartman,,, you make all sorts of activities to do when kyle and kenny come over and you make it a little less fun when eric comes 😙… stan does get embarrassed your hanging out with his friends and he tells you to shoo

you do worry for stan when he hangs out with cartman incase cartman gets him or manipulates him into something terrible.

during shelly’s outbursts you always take her in maybe like the bathroom or her room just to calm her down and let her cry on your shoulder or yell at you, just wanting the best for your little sister &lt;3

you do also treat her to ice cream since her braces do tend to hurt when she yells alot and you clean the spit off of her chest/shirt

when u and shelly were kids you wanted a pet pony so bad….. and when stan was born you guys tricked him into begging randy and sharon for a pony, your parents didn’t think it was that funny as you guys did 🤭

definitely give stan a bunch of advice on girls, boys, etc, if randy ever starts genuinely being a bad parent to you guys you’ll always spend as much time as you can with your little siblings.

if you guys ever were to get allowance you would divide yours amongst all 3 of you just to give them some extra, they are forever grateful (stan is jumping all over the place)

whenever shelly or stan get in trouble you always sneak up to them and try to talk to them if their upset, and you try to distract sharon/trick her into getting them out of trouble. you always keep them out of trouble anyways

when you babysit them it’s A RIOT, shelly screaming at stan, stan screaming at shelly, you end up just yelling at the both of them to stfu and sit down 😕 and that one time where shelly throws cartman against the wall while she’s babysitting him, you help him up (and slightly giggle,,,)

helping at tegridy farms when your siblings don’t wanna/can’t do it anymore, your still the least favorite child but with some dignity lol. (u definitely have tried some weed before and shelly n stan have smelled it on u, giving you a wtf look 😭)

always teasing them because your in higher grades than them, but u always help with their homework since you should already know it !!

if you and stan get into a fight he’s always the one apologizing (still upset but like, how upset could this guy be if u bring him dr pepper) and embarrassed the next morning. you forget about the fight and he takes a sigh of relief.

if you and shelly get into a fight, your always the first apologizing because she’s so damn stubborn. she tells you “whatever, it’s fine” and sends you out of her room, definitely acts like you didn’t even talk the next morning and gets all buddy buddy with you

whenever they wanna hang out with their friends, sharon tells you to walk/drive/watch them, it irritates all 3 of you because you just wanna relax, stan wants some alone time with his buddies (and not to get ripped on) and shelly thinks that she’s 13 so she’s old enough to be out by herself >:(

for my kevlly ppl (cuz i know i am <3) , when shelly brings kevin over your on cloud 9!! how could your sister, a meanie poo bag such an amazing guy? regardless, your happy for her and always bug the two of them, much to their dismay.

always “accidentally” walking into their room before a private moment and getting so happy when shelly tells everyone she and kevin had their first kiss 😙

you make them matching bracelets and they “hate it” (THEY DONT. ABSOLUTELY KEEP MAKING MATCHING STUFF FOR THEM 🤭🤭🤭)

a/n: I HAD SM FUN WRITING THIS WOOHOO!!! i thought i would be slacking off but no i think this is a pretty decent length!! :) i hope you enjoyed this and if you want something more complex then don’t be afraid to ask! keep requesting yo i love it

[miaisagirllover]

who you gonna call? (ghostbusters!)

here is my @bylerween2023 day 1 fic for ghosts and hauntings. it’ll be on ao3 soon as this is a queued post. basically byler and lumax catching a ghost in hopper’s cabin.

Lucas Sinclair didn’t think he’d be spending his Halloween at the police chief’s dingy old cabin, trying to capture a ghost (and go on a subtle double date). But here he was, at 10pm in the middle of the night with a torch in his left hand, and his trusty wrist-rocket in the other.

“I don’t even know why you took that dumb slingshot with you,” Max asked “If there’s actually a ghost in there, the rock or whatever you’ve brought to shoot is gonna go through it.”

“It could be useful.” Mike said, coming to Lucas’ defence. “If it isn't a ghost and is just some rat, then it could work.”

“Thank you,” Lucas replied “And it’s a wrist-rocket, not a slingshot, Max.”

“Can we just go in guys?” Will asked “I’m really tired. I only came because I had nothing to do.”

“Did you come because there was nothing to do, or was it because Mike was doing this?” Lucas asked.

Just as Will was about to retort, Hopper finally came out of the cabin, commanding the 4 kids.

“I want you all to just catch whatever is in my house and get rid of it. It’s been banging on the walls and throwing my stuff off of shelves. Even broke one of my best cups.”

“Are you sure it’s not just a rat or anything?” Mike asked sceptically.

“Tell me, Wheeler, have you seen any invisible rats around? Because I haven’t,” Hopper angrily responded “So stop being such a pussy, get in here and catch the goddam ghost!”

With those last few words, he pushed them all into the cabin, giving an extra shove to Mike. Then he closed the door. Max looked through the dusty blinds.

“He going in his car,” Max said “He’s just ditching us here! We don’t know jackshit about this ghost.”

“Can we all just agree that this is stupid?” Mike said “It’s obviously not a ghost and is just some stupid animal that decided it felt at home in this place.”

"Yea, let's just watch a movie here." Will agreed.

"I brought some candy, so it can be a full on movie night." Mike added.

10 minutes later, everyone was on an old couch, watching some horror films. It didn't seem like Chief Hopper was too big on films, as he only had old stuff in his cabin. After a while, the kids picked "The Invisible Man" as their movie of choice.

"Hey, Lucas, remember that the film isn't real, so don't get scared." Max teased.

"I won't get scared because of some shitty old film." Lucas said, before lightly slapping Max's arm.

"Max was able to scare you with a cheap Michael Myers mask, remember that?" Will pointed out.

"Yea, and you screamed like a girl too," Mike added "not even my little sister could scream that high."

Lucas pretend-sulked for a few seconds before taking a snack from Mike and eating it. As they were all eating and watching the film, Will noticed something.

"Mike, where did you get the snacks from?" He asked.

"Yea, we haven't gone trick-or-treating yet." Max joined in.

"Well," Mike began "I saw Holly's bag and thought she might be eating too much. So I just borrowed a few sweets from her."

"Mike!" Will shouted "You just stole sweets from your sister!"

"I just borrowed them." Mike responded.

"How the fuck do you borrow sweets, Mike?" Lucas asked.

"Ok, ok maybe I shouldn't have stole them," Mike said "But do you guys really wanna watch this old film without any Skittles or Reeses?"

"He has a point." Max answered, as she reached out for his bag.

"Can't believe I'm dating a thief." Will said.

“Would you break up with me if I continued stealing?” Mike asked “Because if you would, maybe I’d consider stopping.”

Will didn’t say anything back, he just kissed him on the cheek. Just as Mike was about to hug him, Max spoke up.

”Ugh, you guys are so clingy. Get a room.” Max joking said, before mime-vomiting.

”Hey, just because we didn’t break up 5 times in 9 months doesn’t mean we’re clingy.” Will replied.

Just as Lucas was about to join in, a clash of something came from the kitchen.

”What was that?” Max asked.

”Eh, probably just some cup.” Mike said.

”Cups don’t just fall out of nowhere.” Lucas said.

”What if it’s the invisble man?” Will joked. Everyone laughed for a bit, until they suddenly heard a loud bang. It shoke the living room, maybe even the whole house.

”What the actual fuck was that?” Max asked, although no one else knew.

”Should we go check it out?” Mike proposed.

”Nah, I’m good. Probably just a stray cat.” Lucas nervously answered.

”Do strays bang on walls?” Will asked sarcastically.

”No, but what if there’s something there?” Lucas answered.

”Ok, let’s settle this.” Max joined in. “Me and Lucas will go check the fallen object, and you two can see what made the bang happen.”

Everyone agreed, even a slightly scared Lucas, before splitting up. Max and Lucas went to the left of the house and searched the kitchen and guest bedroom, while Mike and Will went to the right, towards the bathroom and master bedroom.

After 15 minutes of thorough searching, Lucas and Max found nothing. They had found a bunch of little trinkets in the house, even a ballerina music box, but nothing too supernatural.

”I wonder if they’re gonna make out instead of searching.” Max told Lucas.

”It less likely that they’re not.” He joked back.

”WE CAN HEAR YOU GUYS!” Mike shouted from the bathroom.

”Shit.” Max whispered, before shouting back “HAVE YOU GUYS FOUND ANYTHING YET?”

”NOPE, NOTHING’S IN THE BATHROOM.” Mike replied. “WHAT ABOUT YOU GUYS?”

”NOTHING,” Max shouted back “LET’S MEET UP IN THE LIVING ROOM.”

It only took a few seconds for the 4 of them to get back together and they had nothing of interest to share.

”Can we just go home now?” Will asked “We found no ghosts or animals in this place, Hopper is just getting old and losing his wits.”

“Yea, let’s leave this shithole.” Mike said “But I’m not telling the police chief he’s getting old.”

They were all packing up, Mike putting his stolen sweets back in his bag. Once everyone was ready to leave, Lucas opened the door, but something happened. 

It closed on itself.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Max screamed. She and Mike were completely shocked, while Lucas and Will were now terrified. They all stared at the door for a few seconds, before Mike finally spoke up.

"It was probably the wind, let just try again." He said, though he and everyone else knew that wasn't wind. After a few seconds of trying to open the door, he found something out.

"It's locked." Mike finally said.

"That bullshit," Lucas replied, "You can't lock this door from the outside. Let me try, man."

"Alright," His friend answered, "But don't be shocked when you can't open it."

Just as Lucas was about to put his hand on the doorknob, Will heard something.

"Guys, who the actual fuck turned on that?" He asked, pointing to the kitchen counters. There stood the ballerina box, with the little figure spinning. A delicate, yet slightly eerie tune was coming from it.

"I didn't turn it on." Lucas spoke, "And I was with Max all this time, so it wasn't her."

"Well," Mike began "It wasn't me or Will so-"

He was quickly interrupted by a flying plate coming out of a cupboard. It nearly hit him right in the face, but instead smashed into the wall next to him, spreading fine china all over the floor.

"Holy shit, there's a ghost." Mike slowly said.

"We need to leave right fucking now!" Max urgently shouted.

Everyone started running to the backdoor to try and leave. But suddenly, the couch was right at the door, blocking the teens.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Will screamed. He didn't even know why he came in the first place.

"Now do you think ghosts are fake?" Max asked Mike.

"Max, we are trapped inside this cabin by something, and you're trying to make me say I'm wrong?" Mike slowly told Max.

"Who cares, let's just camp out here till morning." Lucas said

"Are you telling us to stay in a haunted house for a whole night?" Will asked. "Nope, I'm not doing it."

"You can try leave, but this ghost has us trapped." Lucas replied. "So we should wait till Hopper comes back and let him deal with it."

"Alright, fine." Will reluctantly gave in. “But I’m locking my door all night.”

”Alright,so me and Lucas get the bedroom on the left, and you and Mike get the one on the right.”

They all rushed to their new rooms, hoping they wouldn’t get a pan lobbed at them by the ghost.

“Do you think Hopper could actually deal with a ghost?” Mike asked Will, once they shut and locked the door. “I mean, if he needs teenagers to catch a ghost, he would faint if he saw what we saw.”

”Yea, he would not do jackshit if a fork was floating in front of him.” Will laughed

They sat in a peaceful silence for a few seconds, savouring the ghost-free moments.

”Do you wants some candy.” Mike finally asked.

”Depends,” His boyfriend replied. “Are they stolen goods?”

”Stolen, but I guess you’ll miss out on your favourite.” Mike shook a bag of Reese’s Cups in front of Will’s face.

”How dare you tempt me like this?” Will jokingly exclaimed. “You know what, fuck it.” He added as he took Mike’s bag of Reese’s.

”I knew you’d give in!” Mike victoriously said.

”You know I love them.” Will replied.

“More than you love me?” Mike teased.

”Hmmm. Maybe, maybe not.” Will said

Mike lightly punched Will on his arm, and they started play fighting, like they were 7 years old in Mike’s basement again. After a while, they decided to go to sleep, Will taking the left side and Mike taking the right. Mike was a heavy sleeper, almost immediately slumped onto Will. A few minutes passed by and Will also fell into a slumber.

”Which side are you picking?" Lucas asked. "Because I always take the left."

"I pick that side too." Max said.

"Well, there's only one way to settle this." Lucas started. "PILLOW FIGHT!"

He suddenly grabbed a pillow from the bed, and hit Max with it. She retaliated and smacked him over the head. Feathers were everywhere and the two of them layed on the bed, tired but energetic at the same time. Then Lucas had an idea.

”Wait, what if this ghost is like the invisible man?” He said, suddenly sitting upright. “We can’t see him, but he’s still touchable. We could cover him in,like, feathers or paint. Then, once we know where he is, we’ll attack!”

”Lucas, it’s a ghost, they go through walls.” Max replied. “The feathers will just fall as if there was nothing there.”

”It’s worth a shot.” Lucas said, now standing up and at the door. “I’ll wake up Will and Mike.”

He ran to the other room and opened to the door. Mike was laying on Will’s shoulder, the both of them asleep. Until Lucas spoke.

”Guys, sorry for waking you up, but I have an idea to catch the ghost.” He announced.

”Mhh, what?” Will sleepily asked, waking up and straightening his back. Mike’s head slipped off his boyfriend’s shoulder, waking him up in turn.

“So when paint falls on something invisible, it’ll cover it, right?” Lucas explained. “That means that we can cover the ghost in paint and then attack!”

”Lucas?” Will asked.

”Yea?” He replied.

”You do know that ghosts can go through things?” Will said. “So paint would just spill on the floor and Hopper would kill us.”

”That’s what I said.” Max suddenly appeared in the doorframe.

”Well, it’s worth a shot.” Lucas replied.

Will and Mike got out of bed after some more persuasion by Lucas (Mike took 5 minutes more than Will to get out). Everyone quietly crept around the house  and got their supplies. Lucas went back to his room and got feathers from his pillow fight with Max. Will got flour from the kitchen and Mike got paint from the cupboard. Finally, Max got a blanket and rope. They went over their plan quickly: they would go into the living room and try to open the main door, which would hopefully bait the ghost. Once they all have him, Lucas, Will and Mike would throw their stuff on him. Then, Max would catch the ghost with a blanket. Finally, they would fight him and tie him up.

The teens all went to the living room and loudly tried to open the door. Mike was falsely complaining in an effort to attract the ghost.

”Oh no!” He theatrically bemoaned. “We can’t open the door! I guess we’re just stuck here.”

After a few minutes of silence, an apple fell from a fruit bowl. Lucas led everyone into the kitchen, waving his hand in the direction they needed to go. Suddenly, the room shook again and a drawer opened. They all took this as their cue, as Lucas shouted, “GO!”, although Max went forward a bit sooner, clearly eager to catch a ghost.

The boys threw their stuff in front of them, right at the drawer. Most of it splattered on the counters and cabinets, but some of it covered a human figure. And someone screamed.

”WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!” It was Max. They hadn’t caught a ghost or invisible man, it was just their friend.

”Shit, Max, I’m so sorr-“ Will began to apologise, but he was taken by something. It grabbed the back of his shirt, lifted him up and pinned him against the wall.

Then, a drawer opened and a knife floated to Will’s neck.

”Holy fuck.” Mike had dropped his paint bucket in utter shock. This ghost was going to kill his boyfriend. But then the knife dropped and a pen made its way to the ghost. It went through Will’s pocket until it found a piece of paper he’d used to doodle on the go. The pen started to write something. After a few seconds, it scrunched up the paper and threw it to the kids. Mike immediately crouched down to read it. 

“Either he dies, or all of you do.” He shakily said. “That’s what the note says.”

”Mike, it’s fine.” Will spoke, holding back tears. “Just get out alive, ok?”

”Will, you are not dying to some ghost.” Max told him, blue paint masking how pale she was from terror. But as she said that, the knife hovered towards the three of them, almost like a threat.

”That it, fuck you.” Mike whispered, before running to take Will’s flour bag.

”What are you doing Mike?” Lucas shouted urgently. His friend was now reaching for the bottom of the bag. Finally having some flour in his hand, Mike threw it at the floating knife, revealing someone holding it. Will fell down from the wall, escaping the ghost’s grip.

”Take this, dipshit!” Max shouted, putting the blanket over the ghost’s head. Lucas ran to get the rope and tie him into a knot.

Mike ran to Will, checking on him in case he was hurt.

”Will, fuck, are you ok?” He breathlessly asked.

”Mike, I’m fine.” Will replied, extremely drained. “Why didn’t you just get out?”

”Do you think we were going to let you die in front of us?” His boyfriend said. They both hugged eachother so tightly that one of them might’ve been crushed.

”So, when you guys are done with your love-fest, what are we going to do with this guy?” Max asked, pointing to the writhing figure under the blanket.

”We need to stop this thing, that’s no normal ghost” Will said. “Let’s bury him outside.”

A few minutes later, Mike and Will were outside, having just finished digging a hole for the ghost to lie in. Max and Lucas were in the house, trying to carry him out. Dawn was beginning to rise, small wisps of light making it through the darkness. The two boys were sat on the grass in silence. After a bit of pondering, Mike then spoke.

”Will, when you said the ghost wasn’t normal, what did you mean by that?” He asked.

”It’s just that, I think he just drained me.” Will said, still slightly shaken from his near-death experience. “When he had me, it was like someone was in my head and they were stealing my energy. I guess that’s why I told you guys to go, it’s probably just what it wanted me to think, that there was no hope for me.”

”So you think this ghost has like, powers and stuff?” Mike asked.

”I mean, yea.” Will answered. “It should take a lot to even be a ghost, let alone being able to get into people’s head and show them-“ But then he stopped talking.

”Will, what do you mean?” Mike asked, now more worried than ever.

”It was just some stuff to scare me.” Will began. “Once the ghost got to me, he started showing me visions of you guys. Except that you were all dead in the worst ways possible. It was like a threat: you die, or this is how your friends will end up. He also showed me things that had already happened, like when my dad still lived with me, Mom and Jonathan. He just made me relive it way more vividly than a memory could ever be.”

Just as he had finished, Lucas and Max came through the door, carrying the ghost in between the two of them. Lucas was holding the feet, while Max was carrying the head.

”Can we just burn this fucker?” Max asked.

”I’m pretty sure ghost’s can’t die, and therefore can’t burn.” Lucas replied.

”Well, let’s just get this done and over with.” Will said.

Lucas and Max both unceremoniously threw the ghost into the pit, then Mike and Will tossed the dirt over it.

”Isn’t it weird this will be the closest we’ll ever get to murder?” Mike spoke.

”Well, it’s not really murder if the victim is already dead, is it?” Lucas asked

After 2 minutes, the gang was done with the job. They’d fully buried the ghost, hopefully never haunting anyone else. They all said their “fuck you’s” and “shit-heads” (Will even spat on his grave) before leaving. 

“So, can we all agree that this has been the worst Halloween ever?” Lucas spoke.

”Yea, I think getting flour all over me was the worst part.” Max said, before adding, “Well, except from Will being assaulted by a ghost.”

They all walked off into the sunrise, hoping they don’t get trick instead of treat again next year.

[high-functioning-fang1rl]

Well today has been…less than stellar. So dissociating into fandom is definitely called for!!! These come from my script so I might be biased, but here we go!

How Nica Pierce would cheer you up if you had a bad day:

💙 For starters, she can tell right away. One look at your face and she’s immediately on red alert.

💙 At the beginning she’d ask what was wrong/how she can help. But once she knows you well enough she doesn’t say a word, she simply clears her calendar to stick around.

💙 If you’re crying she LAUNCHES into attack mode: “Who.” You may want to answer wisely, because if you give details there would absolutely be consequences for whoever upset you.

💙 Nica gets extra clingy when you’re upset; she pretends she doesn’t know you’re the one who needs the comfort but she gives ALL. THE. HUGS.

💙 immediately she makes plans to either order/make your favorite dinner. There’s no way you’re not getting your favorite treats when you feel crappy.

💙 She doesn’t leave Mama Bear mode the whole night; even if you don’t want to talk about it, she’ll be checking on you frequently and when she finally gets you alone/comfortable she will ask “Do you wanna talk about it?”

💙 Whatever your preferred method of self care is will be supplied by her: Are you a bath person? It’s drawn and ready. Wanna watch your favorite show/movie? It’s in the queue. Need to be active/get out? I’ve got the keys whose car are we taking? She pays attention and knows what you need- wordlessly she’ll provide it so you can just decompress/breathe.

💙 Any obligations/duties you had are taken care of. Put everything out of your head except what you need to feel better: she’s got it.

💙 She will make you laugh- whether it’s dark humor, sarcasm, or just reminiscing to better times, she’ll make sure to add some humor to the situation.

💙 She’s the QUEEN of pep talks. It must be the mothering instinct, but she knows exactly what to say and knows when to say it. She’ll wait until you’re ready for advice and just listen until you’re ready.

💙She’ll never let you feel alone.

[luvghostie]

Hello! So I was hoping you could do this as a platonic thing, but;

What would Kyle, Stan, Kenny and Cartman be like with a father figure reader? Reader constantly cares for them, supports them praises them like no tomorrow and is in general kinda like a dad to them. I'm curious as to how they would treat them and act around them.

Aww, yes I love this request<3 sorry it took so long, I had things to take care of but enjoy!!

╰┈➤𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒

𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐄.ೃ࿐

{𝘔𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦, 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘈𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵}

Cartman: um, do you want my autograph or something?

Cartman doesn't know how to react to someone being there for him. Yes, his mom provides for him the best she can but she rarely gives him reassurance or affection.

He'll be very cruel to you at first wondering what you actually want from him.

When you stay longer he'll realize you're not using him for anything weird but instead you are like something he's always wanted... An actual parent.

“Hey... Can you please tell me I'm not stupid? Not that I need your praise or anything, I'm just ego feeding... Yeah.”

compliments and hugs are something he'd love. Just not in public.

Often times he'll probably cry knowing that he's rude to you. He wants to change himself but he doesn't want to get hurt by the other kids.

Memories of bullying, neglect and nasty remarks about his weight are something he hopes you confined him about. Making him forget all those bad times which tore him apart.

In general, Cartman will try to give back what you give to him. It might not be in the same way, but know he appreciates you more than anyone else.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Kyle: I wish my dad or even my mom was like you-

Kyle has two parents but both of them seem annoyed with him all the time. Ike is little but they give most of their time to his projects or things he likes, leaving the older out.

He'll ask you questions that he can't ask his mom or dad. They vary from animal questions, life questions, or even questions he worries about late at night.

“Could an asteroid hit so hard that none of us feel the impact? So, we die peacefully?”

The answers you give him he takes to heart and tries his best to understand. Remember, he's only in fourth grade.

If cartman says anything rude to you Kyle is always in your corner. (no doubt he and Cartman have had fights about how he talks to you)

You'll have to break the two apart before things escalate

Kyle tells his parents about you but not everything. He's worried that the knowledge and affection you give him will make his parents see you as something that might send him to hell. Realistically, it's because you're more of a parent than either of them could ever be.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Kenny: *muffled* please don't randomly leave... Not only will you hurt me, but you'll also hurt Karen.

Kenny is the most emotionally and physically hurt so you might have to give him extra compliments. Everyone else in the group has at least one parent that attempts to feed, help, or nurture their kid. However, his could give two fucks.

He'll make you thank you cards for caring for him and keeping him alive. Karen will also give you her favorite barbie, assisting that you deserved it more.

Kenny might ask you often if he could stay with you or at the least hangout. His parents wouldn't look for him anyways.

*muffled* You wanna go throw rocks at the elderly?

He gets upset at times when others bug you or talk over him. He won't yell, but he'll wait for them to shut up.

If he dies in front of you, he hopes you know he'll just come back in three days. The first time he died while you were there terrified the shit out of you. Not to mention how Cartman, Kyle, and Stan didn't seem to care much.

Kenny is a sweetheart and is very glad to have you around. It's a plus to him that Karen likes you as well. He'll try not to make sexual jokes around you or make you uncomfortable, it's a force of habit though.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Stan: Hey, hows your day?

Stan is the most normal one in the group. He loves his family but having you around is nice.

His mom sometimes isn't home and his father can be kind of overbearing at times so you're like his gateway to being relaxed.

If he has homework he needs to do or struggles with a subject he'll ask you for help on the topic. Especially because his dad's not very smart and would probably punch something if he was wrong.

He'll talk a lot about random things he finds interesting or Wendy. Speaking of wendy, you'd probably help him with his relationship and give him a nudge in the right direction.

“You think she'll like the flowers?”

If he throws up before giving her the flowers you'll do him justice and do it for him.

Stan might cry openly in front of you and the group if he has problems. Everyone tries to help the best they can but you might have to yell at Cartman for being a dick.

Stan is a nice boy and is grateful for all you do for him and his friends. He'll give you compliments and buy you food for payback. Even his mom likes you.

[lpsluvblr]

Freaky Friday stuff (I literally never watched the movie, I just know this is what people say when they talk about switching bodies 💀💀)! For a day each of them has to switch their body with someone else from their group, however they can choose who it is. For a day they have to live as that person, as in trying their best to act like them. Who does each of them want to switch with and why - either because they think it will be easy to be them, or they want to have an experience in their body (like getting taller/shorter) or both or something completely else if you can think of it.

It’s a good movie if you ever want to watch it

Ok I’m going to start with Vinnie he would probably want to be Sunil for the day just because he probably really wants to be tall and would get a kick out of having control of his ears for once lol but I’m sure since he’s been around Sunil so much he’d just wanna know what it’s like to be his best buddy for a day I feel like this is also something he himself has thought of and talked about with Sunil just because.

Zoe would want to be Penny because she wants to see what it’s like to have a cute but different shape she’s also curious on what bamboo taste like she also would like the option to be able to walk on two legs better then she could in her other body plus it would give her an opportunity to try on outfits to see if she could up penny’s fabulousness.

Minka would want to be Vinnie she’s genuinely curious about his cold bloodedness and scaly skin she also has wondered how Vinnie could catch flies and what they taste like she’s already used to climbing on things and Vinnie’s body would give her an opportunity to do that way faster and in more areas of the shop as a not so bright side she’d have to get used to being short and small so painting could be a challenge lol

Russell would want to be pepper because he genuinely is so fascinated by her ability to make smells and how they affect her emotions so he himself would be determined to figure it out while he was in her body he would have to get used to walking on four legs a bit more then he normally would but he would also for once in his life be able to hug or be picked up without fear by others getting hurt.

Pepper would want to be in minkas body she would hang by her tail rather then smell it and get to hold stuff with her extra finger toes plus she could play with all the paints and really try something new and no one would go running and screaming from her they would actually think she was cute.

Penny would want to be Zoe because she wants to see what it would be like to have her type of body plus she could experiment with different hair styles now that she’d have more of it to work with she’s also wondered what dog food/treats would taste like she would probably spend hours dressing herself up in different outfits and she still gets her usual positive attention for cuteness being Zoe.

Sunil would be in Russell’s body he always wondered how Russell saw the world and about those quills of his plus he really wants to roll into a ball whenever and it happens a lot because he still get scared he also still maintains some cuteness still he also sit on his own head if Vinnie lets him to get a chance to see why Vinnie likes it so much.

This was fun I feel like I’ll think of more after I post this lol

[nrdmssgs]

But we doooooo, @vasyandii, we do!!!!!!!

So in my head so far Nak is

So-so beautiful! This a very subjective opinion, and I don't mean, that Nak has this super-model type of beauty. She is beautiful like a real person, you know?

Very sad background. I want to give her all the hugs, I wanna do bad things to her mentor. Sadly, I know nothing about Lao history, but I feel that Naks story is mirroring some parts of it.

You know, when they say 'I better hire a good learner, than someone with a huge skill set and no intention to grow'? So in my head, Nak is the learner. Ofc she knows many things, she is very talented and skilled. But I think, what made Nikolai understand, he really wants her in the Chimera is her eagerness to learn and develop!

Has this strange sense of humor. She will make you laugh to tears (if you are friends, and she feels like it). But then you`ll try to retell her joke to others and think 'wait, how she made it so hilarious and when I do this - it doesn't make any sense... why was it so funny back then?'.

Nerves of steel. I mean, to tame Krueger, you'll need these.

Maybe its not easy to become her friend, but once you have - its for life. She will call you on your birthdays, she will visit you, when you catch cold and bring you something to munch on.

Very good in undercover operations. Fast learner, pays attention to details, picks up fast on Nikolais habits (like small talks, that actually serve as good sources of information, that can be used later) and finds her ways of approaching different companions.

She is not that easy to impress with fancy gifts or a date at some fine-dining restaurant. She just don't see the point. But take her in the middle of the night to the park, bring some street food, share your headphone with her and put on some music, that made you think of her? She will be remembering this as one of the best dates ever!

Looks adorable in a classic yellow raincoat.

Nikolai has a huge soft spot for her. He doesn't treat her like a child. (ok, he does, but as a joke, and only when mocking Zhar with all that 'my child is better than yours' stuff). But he always makes extra sure, she is alive and well. And always pays attention, if she has a sad face and asks her 'do you want to talk about anything, or do I have an authority to go flat line somebody?'

Zhar loves her dearly, but keeps a respectful distance at first. Her ability to get along with Krueger just leaves Zhar with this reaction constantly.

Whenever Zhar visits Russia - she brings Nak condensed milk and pryaniki. Nak giggles every time, she sees a pryanik with a new picture on it.