#I thought about ending this one on a high note

[masonmontz]

hello hello 🫶🏻

REMEMBER: english is not my first language

+18 smut - bj, the two of them tying each other up, dirty talk, pet name, a little bit of sub!mase word count: 3,7k

NOTES: this is not about their romance, there’s no romance in fact, i tried to write something different and i hope you like it 🤗(maybe I SAID MAYBE will be the part 2 or more bc it's an open ending) - don't wait for fluffy

✦‎۟ ࣭ ⊹

Mason tried but he couldn't take his eyes off you since you walked into that club.

The tight white dress really caught his attention, as did the high heels with the red soles. The red lipstick made Mason want to smudge it all over your mouth with a kiss.

And you noticed him too ‘cause Mason saw you look at him and smiled, taking a sip of your drink as you stared at him. It wasn't a normal club, the girls dancing on stage all night had only one goal, as did the men who danced shirtless and in suspenders.

Mason wasn't interested in any strippers, in fact he didn't come with that objective, he just decided to accompany the guys for a fun night. He just didn't expect to find something so interesting in a white dress and red lipstick.

And the best part is that you noticed him too.

You looked over your shoulder and walked to the bar, taking one last look at Mason before turning away. He didn't think twice before following you, ignoring his friends calling out to him.

You had your back to him and a dancer tried to stop Mason, but he just ignored her and kept walking towards you. Mason stood right behind you and you smiled because you knew he was going to follow you, and you turned in the seat to face him.

“Well, I thought it would take longer” you said and Mason smiled, shivering with your voice. He was mesmerized, Mason had never seen someone so beautiful. “Did you like what you saw?”

“I'm just thinking how much I like that red lipstick on your lips” he murmured and not even the loud music stopped you from understanding. “I’m Mason, nice to meet you.”

“I’m Y/n” you said and turned to order a drink, but Mason offered his glass to you. “What are you drinking?”

“Whiskey” he shrugged and you took a sip. Mason found the lipstick mark on the cup incredibly sexy.

“So Mason, what do you want?” you asked and Mason almost widened his eyes at you being so direct, but it was better this way than pretending you weren't interested.

“I- what?” he asked confused. “Well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t tell me what you want.”

“I wanna have sex with you and never see you again.”

Mason felt used, but maybe that's just what he does to some women. Mason prayed it was bad and he wouldn't have to see you anymore, because it would be a shame not to see such a pretty face again.

“Fine by me” he said even though it wasn't what he wanted to say to you. Mason would die to feel those lips just once.

Mason would be embarrassed to admit he was horny in the middle of a nightclub over a woman he hadn't even touched yet, but those eyes felt like they were fucking Mason every time you looked at his body. It had been a long time since he felt such a strong desire to have sex with a woman.

“Do you want to go to your house?” he asked, but you quickly shook your head and pointed at him. “Mine then.”

Mason didn't even bother to say goodbye to the guys before grabbing your hand and pulling you out of the club, not before paying your bill and his. You didn't say anything on the way, you just sent a message to the girls letting them know you had left.

Mason was even sexier driving and you wanted to give him a blowjob right there, but it was better to wait until you got to a safe place.

You took his hand that was resting on the backrest and brought it to your leg, Mason smiled mischievously as he squeezed the soft skin.

“You can touch me if you want” you murmured and brought your hand to his thigh, caressing it lightly and looking at him, who alternated his gaze between the road and you. “Don’t be afraid.”

“You’re the devil trying to kill me” you smiled and brought your hand to his crotch, caressing it over the fabric of his beige pants. Mason was hard and you noticed it as soon as you left the club, and you really wanted to touch him since you saw him for the first time that night.

Mason brought his hands to the hem of your dress and looked at you, who just nodded and allowed him to bring his hand to your pussy.

You sighed as he pressed a finger against your clit, and you tried to massage his cock through the fabric, but his finger inside you felt so much better and you couldn't concentrate. You spread your legs and prayed that no cars would pass by, because anyone would see Mason with his fingers stuck in your wet pussy.

You moaned and bit your lips, you took your hand off Mason's dick and held his hand that was on your clit, you pulled your white dress up and Mason could see your red panties that covered nothing.

Mason hated himself ‘cause he still had to pay attention to the road when all he wanted to do was stop the car and cum in your hot pussy. He pulled the small fabric of your panties to the side and you brought his finger to your entrance, making Mason feel how much you were dripping for him. He moaned when he felt the wetness and heat there.

“I’m gonna stop the car” he murmured but you nodded.

“No, someone can see us” You reached your hand down to Mason's pants again and unzipped him, putting your hand inside his pants and feeling his damp underwear. “You’re so big.”

He smiled and shrugged, and your right hand was on his cock and with your left hand you took Mason's fingers inside you, spreading your legs even wider as he penetrated you with two fingers.

You could barely masturbate Mason because you wanted him to thrust his fingers even faster inside you, but he still had to drive.

“Yeah this is so good” you moaned and tried to move up and down his cock, feeling Mason hard as cement. You're almost drooling as you imagine his cock dripping wet to fuck you, hard and veiny.

“You’re so wet” he mumbled and Mason stopped at a traffic light, and when he saw there were no cars around he leaned in and kissed you, finally smudging the lipstick like he wanted.

You moaned as Mason sped up the movements of his fingers, and if he was already good with his fingers, you couldn't wait to see the rest.

A horn took you out of the bubble and Mason sped up the car, wanting to get home as quickly as possible. Mason had moved away from you to drive and you decided to tease him.

You stuck your own fingers in your pussy and pulled them out, bringing them to his lips. Mason didn't think twice before sucking both fingers, licking and tasting the moisture there.

“Good boy” you whispered, and then you lowered the neckline of your dress so Mason could see your breasts, and he moaned when he saw your hard nipples waiting for his mouth. “This is all for you tonight.”

“Please, just masturbate me all the way home” he begged, but you laughed and nodded. You took his hand again and ran his finger over your nipple, and Mason spread you open with his fingertips. “I need to fuck you so bad.”

“How long to your house?” you asked.

“We’re arriving.”

You let go of Mason's hand and pulled on your dress, adjusting your clothes and reaching down to Mason's pants to button them up again.

Of course you rubbed his dick on purpose.

It didn't take long for Mason to stop in front of a large house, and you admired the building because it really is very beautiful.

Mason parked the car and you grabbed your bag and got out, and he quickly showed you the entrance to the house while purposefully rubbing his erection against your ass.

If he pinned you against the wall and fucked you there you wouldn't mind. Or maybe you'd ask him to fuck you on top of that Lamborghini.

You want to control him.

Mason took you to his room and you rolled your eyes when you saw how luxurious the room was, you knew he was a football player and earned millions, but they like to show off.

“All this luxury makes me horny” you mumbled and laughed, Mason smiled and you pulled him against you, kissing him once more.

You knew that the first time he kissed you in the car your lipstick had smudged, and when you walked into the house and Mason turned on the lights you saw his lips smudged with lipstick too. It was so sexy you could cum just imagining him with his lipstick smeared on your pussy.

“That's not very nice, I wanted to make you horny” Mason said and pushed you against the bed, making you fall on your back as he climbed up without letting his weight fall on you.

Mason took off his shirt before leaning down and kissing your lips hard, and you sighed at his tongue against yours.

“Do you have a tie?” you asked as he pulled away to pull up your dress and place his mouth on your nipple, and Mason raised his eyebrow at the request.

“Why? Do you want to be tied up?” you smiled mischievously and scratched his chest with your long nails, and Mason dodged because he shivered at the same time his skin burned.

“No, I want to tie you up” You took advantage of Mason being distracted and turned over in bed, placing him underneath you.

“You can choose the color of the tie” Mason murmured and he felt his cock throb at the thought of being tied up. He had never experienced that before and, well, it would be interesting.

Mason walked to the closet and you followed him, he opened a drawer with a tie and you took a black one. Luckily, he also had a chair in the closet and you grabbed it before leaving. Mason followed you.

You placed the chair in the middle of the room and took off your dress, leaving only your panties and hills for Mason. Mason took off his shirt and when he reached for the button on his pants you went over to him and stopped him.

“You won't take it off now” it was an order and Mason knew it. He obeyed. “Sit there.”

Mason sat in the chair and held out his hands for you to tie, but you smiled and followed him, pulling his arms behind your back.

“You’re not gonna touch me”

“Not fair.”

“It's fair, yeah” you tightened the knot and Mason's hands were trapped behind his back. You turned around and sat on his lap, pulling him in for a kiss. You were sitting on his dick and you could feel how hard he was. “Be a good boy for me.”

Mason closed his eyes and moaned, enjoying being dominated. Mason had never tried anything like it and he noticed that he liked it.

You stood up and Mason opened his eyes, watching you stop in front of him and pull your panties down, leaving you with only your Louboutin heels.

Mason licked his eyes as he saw the pussy in front of him. You lifted one of your legs and rested it on Mason's thigh, and he could clearly see the shine from the wetness there.

“You liked the view?” you asked and Mason agreed, so you smiled and sat in his lap. You grabbed his hair, making Mason look at you. You brought your hand to his chest and scratched, pulling your nail hard from his chest to his pecs, leaving marks.

You got off Mason's lap and knelt in front of him, watching Mason bite his lip as you looked up like the devil. You smiled and Mason knew that smile was capable of killing someone. A man.

You brought your hands to the waistband of his pants, lightly running your hand over the bulge appearing there. Mason sighed. You smiled. You opened the button and zipper, and Mason lifted his hips so you could pull his pants down, leaving him in just his underwear. You brought your lips to the fabric, leaving a light kiss on top that made Mason shiver. He tried to pull his arm away but it was in vain, because he was tied up.

A smile crossed your lips as Mason threw his head back, and you pulled down his underwear to watch his cock spring out of the fabric and rest hard against his abdomen. Mason shivered as you stared at his cock like it was a lollipop, you looked up only to find Mason's eyes desperate to feel your mouth around the length of his cock.

“What do you want?” you asked quietly, holding his cock with one hand and making light movements up and down, feeling it throb between your fingers. “How do you like it? Hard?”

Mason whimpered as you placed your palm on top of his cock, making circular motions as he squirmed in his chair, unable to get out.

“Please, put it in your mouth” he said in a whisper, throwing his head back as he felt the movements of her hand making strong movements around his cock. “Harder, please.”

As you made strong movements with your hand up and down you brought your lips to Mason's balls, he was so hard it looked like Mason was going to explode. You looked up once more and slid your tongue along his entire length as Mason stared at you, you brought a hand to his chest and scratched, seeing the marks you had already left there.

“Please, please…” he moaned when you finally put it all in your mouth, sucking Mason hard while what didn't fit in your mouth you masturbated with your hand. Mason was big and thick, and you couldn't wait to have that whole cock inside you. “I wanna touch you.”

“No” you held Mason sitting with one hand on his abdomen, licking his cock again afterwards. He was so beautiful that you could spend hours licking and sucking, without worrying about anything else. “You want to fuck my mouth?”

“Hell, yeah…” a hoarse moan left his throat and you felt your entire body tremble. Mason didn't seem to be thinking clearly with you making quick movements with your soft lips around his cock.

“Do it” you rested your hands on his thigh as Mason tried to lift his hips to fuck your mouth, and even tied up he had speed and you just looked up as Mason fucked your mouth like you wanted. “Oh my god I’m gonna cum.”

And that's when you stopped, taking his dick out of your mouth and getting up from the floor, hearing Mason complain. You walked and stopped behind him, bringing your lips to his neck and running your hands down his abdomen, reaching his hard cock and making calm movements, making Mason writhe in agony because all he wanted was to release himself.

“I wish you would suck me but I'd rather you fuck me” you whispered in his ear and Mason felt his whole body shiver with your voice, so you released the knot of his tie and Mason stood up quickly, pulling you into a hot kiss.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and moaned when you felt your nipples brush against his warm chest, and Mason walked over to pull you to the bed, but you stopped and held out the tie to him, lifting your arms. Mason's eyes lit up when he understood what you wanted.

“Tie me up” you said, and you almost smiled when you saw Mason’s smile. He tied you up quickly, but Mason glanced at the bed before you laid down.

“I'm going to tie your arms to the headboard” you agreed, and then you climbed onto the bed and crawled over there in your heels, sticking your ass out for Mason to look at.

“Oh Lord” he groaned as you turned over in bed and spread your legs with your arms up. He walked over to your side and tied your arms to the wooden headboard, and Mason quickly took off the underwear he was still wearing.

Mason opened a drawer next to you and took out a condom, and you bit your lip as you watched him put it on and climb into bed next. He held your legs around his hips and you wiggled, wanting him to penetrate you right away, but Mason smiled.

“Maybe it's my time to tease you” he murmured and rubbed the tip of his cock at your entrance, making you moan as he pulled out and did it again, teasing you without penetrating.

“Don’t you dare” you said angrily, but before you could say anything again Mason penetrated you all at once, making you moan loudly as he filled you completely. “Oh- this is so good.”

“Can I move?” you almost melted at the question, because even though Mason was so sexy, he was still concerned and kind.

“Yeah” Mason barely waited for you to respond before he started moving fast, and you rolled your eyes, unable to keep them open for long as Mason fucked you hard. “Yes… yes.”

“You’re so hot, this is so good” he groaned and you regretted the idea of ​​tying you up because all you wanted to do was scratch his back until you left marks that would last for a week.

“Don’t stop” you begged, you had been horny for hours and it wouldn't be long before you came, just like Mason.

It was only a few minutes of Mason fucking you until you felt your body tingle, and you tried to pull your hands from your tie to grab something, but Mason laughed at your desperation and lowered his head to bite your nipple, making you scream as you came around his cock, feeling your pussy throb against him.

Mason pulled his tie and released you, and you quickly brought your hand to your tits, seeking another release as your orgasm exploded inside you.

You moaned his name a few times and Mason held your legs, fucking you wildly and all you could hear was the sound of his skin slapping against yours, and it didn't take long for Mason to cum and throw his head back as he spurted inside you.

Mason's cock was throbbing inside you, and you were so sensitive you could cry, but you pulled Mason's hand from your thigh to your clit, and Mason raised his eyebrows in confusion, because you came ten seconds ago.

“Trust me” you said, and then made circular motions with Mason's fingers on your sensitive clit, and you moaned loudly once more as you came for the second time in less than ten seconds. Mason moaned softly as your pussy squeezed his cock again, and you closed your eyes and relaxed against the soft pillows of his bed.

Mason pulled out of you and now you felt only emptiness as you tried to control your rapid breathing. A few seconds later Mason threw himself down next to you, and when you opened your eyes you saw him staring at the ceiling.

“I didn't know that was possible”

“What?”

“Making a woman cum twice in a row.”

“Then you have a lot to learn about women, my dear.”

Mason let out a low laugh and looked at you, and you just smiled at him but closed your eyes.

“Will you sleep here with me?”

“Not even in your dreams” you murmured. “I need to go home, my fiancé is waiting for me.”

Mason would have laughed at the joke if he hadn't noticed the serious tone in his voice.

“Your what?” he asked with his heart racing. What the fuck?

“My fiancé” you shrugged and Mason really thought you were psychopathic or sadistic at that moment.

“You’re kidding” he said, sitting on the bed.

“If he thinks he can cheat on me, I can cheat on him too. I'm not cheating, I'm taking revenge.”

Oh my God. Mason is dizzy.

“So you used me? Just like that?” he asked indignantly.

“No, I really wanted to have sex with you and it was great.”

“Y/n you’re crazy” he said and threw himself on the bed again, trying to relax and hoping that no man would show up at his house tomorrow to punch him.

“Sorry but I need to go” you said and pulled Mason, and he accepted and gave you one last kiss before you got out of bed to look for your clothes. God, you hadn't even taken off your heels.

“I'll take you home, you can't go alone at this time.”

“I don't want you to take me home, I don't mind going alone.”

“You sure?”

“Just sex and we won't see each other again, remember?”

“Yes, sure.”

Mason didn't know if he was more frustrated that you used him to get back at your fiancé or that he never wanted to see him again because he really wouldn't mind having sex with you again.

He was naked in bed as he watched the most beautiful woman he had ever seen put her clothes back on and act like she had never seen him. It seems the tables have turned for him, and not in a good way.

“Thank you for this night and I’m sorry about this” you said and walked closer, giving Mason one last kiss and not accepting when he offered to go down with you to wait for a taxi. “Don't tie other women up, it's not cool.”

“Yeah right, I can't do this anymore because I'll remember you” Mason rolled his eyes but smiled at you.

“At least I know I'm unforgettable. Bye Mason.”

[goquokka00]

Stray Kids on Weed

The Bangchan Strain In which the love of their life smokes the mary jane, and they give it a shot for the first time...

Bangchan | Minho | Changbin | Hyunjin Jisung | Felix | Seungmin | Jeongin

A Few Notes: This is purely just supposed to be funny and a joke. I've also never been high and while I am friends with those who have either tried weed or do weed on the regular, I only know so much. So please just bear with me and have a good laugh, okay? Okay. Love you guys ❤️❤️❤️

I have a very firm belief that Mr. Bangchan over here in the corner's first time ever even dealing with weed is through a joint. He gives me the vibe that if he ever did smoke, it would be from joints, and he'd be good at rolling in general.

He sees you smoking it from time to time, and this time, he wanted to give it a shot. Of course, with any first time smoking, he ends up going into a coughing fit. I mean, you're breathing in smoke, why wouldn't you cough the first time? Hello?

But once the initial high kicks in, I see Bangchan as someone who'd be very giggly. Like, anything and everything is funny to this mother fucker. The picture that has been hanging for forever on your wall that was honestly really beautiful is immediately the funniest thing Bangchan has ever laid his eyes on because, and I quote, "The bear be kronked."

It isn't just the picture. It's watching dance practices, his own music, texts he's had with you in the past, need I say more? And if he found something funny when he was sober, then you bet your ass Bangchan's pissing his pants laughing. One time you had him rewatch the video of Jisung twerking that the younger member had sent out to just the members specifically, and Bangchan was on the floor, struggling to breathe from how hard he was laughing.

I also have this feeling that Bangchan would end up being way more emotional. Since he doesn't really show emotion when he's sober, I feel like more of his emotions would come out when high because you're relaxed, and riding the vibe train to who knows where. But I'm not talking just being more susceptible to his emotions.

I'm talking the stereotypical "Teenage girl is on her period and literally can't control her emotions." Bro will literally hear one sad thing and start bawling, only to giggle a few minutes later because he thought he sounded funny and saw you laughing at him crying.

And don't even get me started on the stripping issue.

I have this gut feeling that Bangchan would find clothes...uncomfortable...when high. They're clinging to his skin, tickling his arms, his jeans just feel weird, or his sweats are too hot. And so he'd just take them off, right then and there. And I mean everything.

If you're not there to watch him, or if he gets into the mary-ja-mooch when you're not there, you're gonna end up walking into the living room to see Bangchan ass-naked and laughing at his schlong because of how it's moving.

By the time his high is finally dissipating, you're usually able to get him back onto the couch curled up with a blanket and some water. And once he's sober, you both agree that this strictly stays between you two and that the kids will NEVER find out about his.

Do I think that Chan would go back to smoking? Maybe, probably not? I feel like he'd only do it on occasion, maybe if he's had a really stressful day and needs a break, but I feel like since he always ends up like...y'know...he tends to keep it on the down low.

Hey! Firstly, thank you so much for reading this post, and I really hope you enjoyed! If you did, please like, reblog, or comment so I can see how I'm doing with writing and getting feedback! I hope you have a lovely day! Sleep well, stay in good health, and eat something if you haven't! ❤️❤️❤️

Taglist: @miss-daisy04 @kayleefriedchicken @wolfs-archive @stayyyyyyyyyyyy21 @wolfs-howling @rose-w-00-d

[rosie-read-that]

bad blood / scott miller x reader

summary: set after twisters. when scott initiates a lawsuit against javi and his new business partners, they choose to take you on as their attorney—no matter that you and scott were once high school sweethearts, that you still have his ring in your closet, or that things between you ended catastrophically six years past. this is business. no need to go down memory lane… right?

content warnings: f!reader, alcohol use, language, offscreen parental death, one open door scene (unprotected piv), couple angst, riggs is his own walking red flag, questionable legal ethics

word count: 21.6k (sorry, guys 😬)

author’s note: here it is! i tried to rein in the length, but clearly i failed ✌🏼 shoutout to @hederasgarden and @sailor-aviator for giving scott his fandom-approved surname. on a final note, i am not a lawyer, i took one (1) business law class in college, so don’t take my word on any of this and definitely don’t do stuff with your ex while he’s the opposing party in a case you’re working (but if it’s david corenswet, i meannnn… should anyone be blamed?)

PRESENT DAY OKLAHOMA CITY

Well-meaning, and with typical Arkansan practicality, Tyler Owens leaned back in his chair and said, “Javi, you need to chill out, man.”

Immediately, you knew it was the wrong thing to say.

“What makes you think I’m not? It's not like my entire livelihood is on the line or anything, so why would I not be chilled out?—Dammit!”

“Actually, lose the tie,” you suggested, having watched him fumble for the last five minutes. You were sure it was nerves that did it, not a lack of dexterity.

Javi sighed and let the two ends hang pathetically around his neck. “I thought I was supposed to wear one…”

“I think that’s only for court,” Kate put in, “like with an actual judge and stuff.”

“Maybe in the 1970s,” remarked Tyler under his breath. Javi glared. “Bro, it’s gonna be fine.”

“We should be out there, tracking tornadoes!” There was a mounted television in the little waiting area, playing a 24-hour news channel on mute. Javi gestured at the weather report. It was March, and Tornado Alley was looking active, “robust,” as the weatherman put it… not that your clients would know firsthand, seeing as they were stuck in a high-rise in the city instead of out in the fields of Sapulpa County. Kate and Tyler were watching the radar images with twin expressions of restless longing. Javi yanked the tie from his neck. “That son of a bitch knew exactly what he was doing, tying us up in meetings at this time of year.”

“Yeah, he did,” you replied. “I know it’s inconvenient as shit, but believe me, I’m going to do everything I can to get you back out on the field. There’s no reason for all three of you to be here. I mean, it’s the modern age: some of this could be a Zoom meeting.”

 “You think we’re gonna Zoom in the middle of a storm?” Tyler quipped. Kate turned to him with a chastising look.

She was clearly just about as done as her other two partners, but a lot more level-headed about the fact that they were being sued for everything they had. Which you appreciated. Suits between friends and former business associates had a tendency to turn into mud-slinging wars, and there was nothing you hated more than a client stuck in denial. Kate was the opposite. She was cool-headed, calm. A happy medium between Tyler’s annoyed outrage (“who does this guy think he is!”) and Javi’s frustrated melancholy (“guys, I’m sorry, this is all my fault”).

Right now, Javi was sinking well into the latter.

“Just remember we’re here for you, Javi.” Kate rubbed a soothing hand across his back. “All the way. We know this is personal.”

“Yeah, which means it’s gonna get ugly. I hate the thought of our company going under because I had shitty taste in business partners, you know?”

“Well, you don't anymore. That’s character growth,” Tyler pointed out. “Now, I’m no legal expert, but as far as I can see, he’s got no legs to stand on—”

You held up a finger. “Uh, that’s not entirely true…”

“—and he’s going to come out of this looking like a complete and total tool. Which he is! If he wants to spend all this time and boatloads of his uncle’s money on a belligerent witch hunt, then so be it.”

“You mean our time, our money,” said Javi.

Kate looked at you. “If this ends up going to court, is it likely he’ll win?”

You sighed. “Okay, listen.” You sat on the coffee table. There was no avoiding the sight of three pairs of eyes with varying degrees of hopefulness trained on you, hanging onto your every word. Javi you had known before, but after a brief acquaintance, you’d decided that you liked Kate and Tyler too, had even spent an hour or two watching Tornado Wrangler videos on YouTube, and, while storm chasing seemed, well, kind of unhinged, their enthusiasm was contagious. They were passionate, not in a purely thrill-seeking or overly scientific way. They actually cared. And you wanted them to win. “The whole point,” you explained, “is that we’re trying to avoid this going to trial. If you’re looking to cut down on the cost to your bottom line—not to mention how this could drag on for literal years—it’s best to reach a settlement before this ever sees the inside of a courtroom. Either way, things are going to get a little worse before they get better. But the point is a clean break, right? When all this is over, StormPAR will never have any sort of claim over you. You’ll be free to chase storms, build your doo-dads—”

That got you a trio of chuckles. Good, let them think you were a meteorological idiot; all the better to make them feel like a united front.

“—and it’ll be like Scott and Riggs never happened.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tyler said, that steely determination from his old rodeo days coming through.

Kate gave a nod. “No matter what, we’ll be okay”

Javi put his hand on your knee. “Thank you… for everything. I know this has gotta suck for you too.”

“Who, me?” you asked, feigning ignorance. “I’m fine.”

“Mm-hm…”

“Do I not look fine?”

“You look great,” Kate said honestly.

“Miller’s gonna shit his pants.”

“Tyler!”

“Hey, we’re up,” your assistant announced, her fingers not pausing for a second as she typed on her phone. Abby may have the social skills of a polar bear, but her organizational skills were top-notch and you relied on her predatory instincts. Plus, you were sure that her geometrically perfect French bob had magical powers.

Signaling for the others to follow, you made your way down a hallway bordered by walls banded in frosted glass, the sound of typing and muffled phone calls familiar and yet not. This was enemy territory. Having you meet here instead of at the offices of Conway & Fine was a calculated move.

Before entering the conference room, you took Tyler by the elbow. “Please just… try to behave yourself.”

Me? He pointed at his face.

“Yes, you! Don’t provoke him—as a matter of fact, don’t even look at him—don't piss him off unless you want to make this a hell of a lot worse for everyone. Capisce?”

“I’ll be the picture of civility.”

You shot him a skeptical look.

“I’ll be a gentleman!”

You glared. “Tyler Owens, I’m holding you to that.” Adjusting your power suit, you put on your best Professional Face. “Alright guys, it’s showtime.”

Through the glass, your eyes landed on Scott. The temptation to bolt left you breathless, though you couldn’t say whether you wanted to run towards or far, far away. You wouldn’t. You were all too aware of the people standing behind you, counting on you, while Scott himself had been a stranger to you for the last few years.

You owed him nothing; this was simply business, you reminded yourself.

Simply business.

He turned his head and spotted you, and kept his eyes on you as you opened the door.

TEN YEARS AGO PARK HAVEN, PENNSYLVANIA

You’d been working on the same calculus assignment for the last three-quarters of an hour, the sound of rain lashing against your window doing nothing for your frazzled nerves.  While math was by no means your obvious strong suit, you would have finished by now if you hadn’t spent most of it staring at the wall beneath your windowsill, bouncing your leg, tapping your pencil compulsively against the edge of your AP textbook and imagining all the ways in which your life could go horribly, unfixably wrong. An outcome that now seemed likely.

“You still have time, sweetheart,” your mom tried to say at dinner that night. She smiled at you and patted your hand. “It’s only March.”

“Exactly—it’s March!” you’d wanted to say, but bit your tongue. There wasn't any point; your mom would always believe you were capable of walking on the moon, which was lovely, you guessed. Or it would be, if all your classmates weren't overachievers and if a lot of them hadn't already received acceptance letters and stuck pennants to the inside of their lockers for all the rejects to see.

It was hopeless… you should’ve gotten an answer by now.

Tossing the book and papers away, you buried your face in your hands and tried to hold it together. The sleeves of your sweatshirt emanated a woodsy, clean smell, kind of like rain in a forest, and you breathed in deep to let it ground you.

Slowly, the intensity of the storm outside faded to background noise, no longer angry, insistent—it was only rain after all, only weather. You sniffed, feeling silly, and snuggled into the navy-blue sweatshirt, wrapping your arms around your knees. The gold lettering read NICHOLS ACADEMY ATHLETICS. On you, it was practically a dress, and you’d been living in it all week, ignoring Mom’s teases about how “you’re going to have to wash it at some point!” while your dad watched you pass by, saying nothing, only flipping the page of whatever biography he was reading, not wanting to comment or so much as reference your boyfriend of two years, who played center field on Nichols’s prize baseball team and from whom you’d stolen the sweatshirt after a date at the park.

Try as you might, your dad had never warmed up to Scott, but you thought it had more to do with an objection to Scott’s father rather than to Scott himself. The whole family’s trouble, he said once, prompting a fight that ended with you slamming your bedroom door and not speaking to him for two days, until your mom laid down the law and said she wouldn't have that sort of tension around the house.

He didn’t get it. Scott wasn't like his father—if anything, you saw the way his jaw tensed whenever he heard rumors (whispered, unless intended to get a rise out of him by a school rival) about the private club scenes, the drinking, the reckless gambling, the other women. Of course your straitlaced dad assumed the apple wouldn't fall too far from the tree, but you knew Scott. You trusted him. And, fine, so you were seventeen, but you knew you wanted to spend the rest of your life with him—it happened, didn't it?

Granted, this was why that damned letter was so important. It was the perfect plan… so long as Scott got into MIT, which seemed like a given, and you into Harvard, the culmination of four years of meticulous planning and candle-burning work. But what if it didn’t happen? Could your relationship survive the time and long distance? As much as you hoped so, you didn’t want to find out.

Out of nowhere came sharp rap at your window. Startled, you looked up to see a familiar face peering through the rain-lashed glass, and automatically you sprang to your feet. “Scott! What the hell were you thinking!” you hissed, mindful of your parents, probably in bed at this hour. He paused halfway through the window, pretending offense.

“Wow, okay, here I thought I was making a big romantic gesture…”

“You’re soaking wet! You could’ve fallen and broken your neck!”

As you lowered and latched the window behind him, trying to be as quiet as possible, he defended, “I’m a tree connoisseur. If anything, I’m a that-tree connoisseur and she’s never let me down before. Literally. Sturdy branches on her.”

He had a point there. The tree directly outside your bedroom window had played makeshift ladder to him over the last couple of years—not that your parents were any the wiser. If your dad knew, he’d go straight to the nearest hardware store and buy the ax himself. (What he would do with that ax, having never done a day’s manual labor in his life besides recreational fishing, was beyond you.)

You shook your head, watching Scott drip all over the hardwood. God, he was stunning.

And there was a chance you might lose him forever in a few months.

You felt the sting in your throat and behind your eyes. “I’ll go get you a towel,” you said, averting your face and turning towards the ensuite so you could get a few seconds to yourself. He caught you by the wrist and spun you into his body.

“Wait a minute, kiss me first,” he demanded, a cocky grin on his face. You managed to see a flash of it before his lips met yours. You closed your eyes in spite of everything, melting into the kiss, into Scott, because it was as easy as breathing and just as pointless trying to resist.

His cheeks were cold, his mouth warm. Coaxing. The pressure of his hands on your waist like an anchor in the storm. He was perfect for you. How could you belong with anyone else? It was impossible.

His tongue brushed your bottom lip, and it was a move so practiced, so instinctive, so perfectly well-known, that it made the fear swell in your chest again. You held onto the front of his rain-drenched hoodie, breaking the kiss. Your breathing was ragged. You felt you could burst.

“You’re insane,” you tried to cover, burying your head in his chest. “My dad will kill you if he catches you.”

He took a step back and tilted your face up, gently, by the chin. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you replied.

“Tell me.”

Instead of answering, you made your way to the bathroom and got a towel out of the linen closet. You could feel Scott’s questioning gaze, but he waited, rubbing the towel across his head, brows knitted together as you hesitated, still trying to hedge. “I just—we have that exam next week and I’ve fallen behind on calc and I think I’m going to have to start over on my AP Civ end-of-the-year project, and my mom—”

“Your mom’s great,” Scott interjected.

“Why, d’you want her?”

He pursed his lips. As soon as you said it, you knew that it had sounded kind of bitchy.

“Fine, okay. She’s great, she’s just… trying to help.”

“Is this about Drexler getting her Harvard letter? Because it’s only—”

“It's only March. Yeah. That’s what Mom said. But I’m cutting it close, right? Some people got their letters in December, Scott—December!” You looked down at your feet. “I’m not going to get in.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Well, it sure feels like it!”

“C’mere.”

“No.” You shook your head.

“Come here,” he insisted, tossing the damp towel onto your bed and holding your arms loosely, his hands stroking up and down. No matter how much you held onto the scent-memory of him on his Nichols sweatshirt, nothing compares to the real thing. He made everything better; and if not, he made everything feel like it could get better, because he was Scott Miller, and the world bent to his charm or else. “You’re going to get in,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “They’d be crazy not to have you.” And the thing was, despite being utterly convinced only two minutes before that the worst was inevitable, you wanted to believe him, wanted to convince yourself that everything would settle into place as it should.

Scott dipped his head to brush his lips against yours, a deliberate barely-there sweep that made your eyes flutter closed and your arms lace around the wide breadth of his shoulders. Scott’s hands traveled down your back, pressing into your hips until you were flush against the length of his body. You felt him smile as he let you deepen the kiss, and the little rumble of his almost-laugh pinged all the way down to your toes, warming you from the inside the way only Scott could.

As his mouth moved down to your jaw and then the side of your neck, you slid your hands down his chest and then stopped, feeling something other than the hidden planes of his stomach through the fabric of his dark hoodie. You pulled away. Scott’s face had frozen into a look of mild panic and his hands wrapped around your wrists, holding them loosely, which only made the alarm bells ring louder in your head. That was not the sort of face he would make if he was hoarding old receipts.

“Scott?” you asked. He looked away, exhaled, and let your wrists drop with a resigned expression. You reached into his pocket, pulling out a sheet of white letter paper folded into quarters, carefully and with Scott-like precision. “What…” you began, glancing at him briefly and opening the sheet.

At the top, in cardinal red: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

You might have gasped. At the very least, one of your hands flew up to your mouth. “Oh my God… Scott…”

“We don’t have to talk about it now.”

“Scott! This is from MIT! You got in?”

“It's really not a big deal.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, his shoulders curved slightly inward.

Not a big deal? “Scott, shut up! You got in!” you exclaimed, aghast.

“You’re not upset?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” You set the letter down to the side, knowing he’d want to keep it—that so much as folding it and putting it in his pocket so he could make the ten-minute run to your house in the middle of a downpour must have been a minor sacrifice on your account. Because he wanted to tell you. Because he wanted you to be the first person other than his mom to hear the good news. “We’ve talked about this. This is your dream school, babe.”

“Yeah, well, it feels kinda shitty celebrating now.”

“Stop.” You reached up and gave him a peck on the lips, stroking his cheeks, resting your forehead against his. “I'm so freaking proud of you. You’re going to be the best, most kick-ass engineer.”

You looked into his eyes so that he’d know it was true, and for a moment you could tell he was letting himself feel the achievement—his shoulders relaxed, he caressed your hands gratefully, but there was something about his smile that signaled not all being well.

“I heard Mom talking on the phone with my uncle today,” he confessed.

“Your uncle Riggs? Down in New Orleans?”

“Yeah. She doesn't want me to know, but I heard her talking about college and…”

You placed your hands on his chest. “Is it that bad?”

He didn't like talking about it but you knew his father had made a few bad investments lately, and from your own dad, who had confided it to your mom in secret one night—not that he saw you lurking outside the kitchen, drawn by the mention of the name “Miller”—you were aware that he had made a truly catastrophic impulsive bet with some Swedish businessmen he’d been trying to impress. Add to that the drawn look on Mrs. Miller’s face whenever you saw her, and the overly sympathetic way your mom referred to “poor Pamela,” and you had enough evidence to assume that Scott’s father had royally fucked up this time. 

“They’ve been talking about selling the house,” he said with a dark look. “I think my parents are going to split up… for good this time.”

“Oh, Scott…”

“So who knows? I might not be able to go to MIT anyway—even with this.”

“Are you okay?” you asked, aware that nothing got his back up more than pity. But you had to ask.

He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

This was a side of him you’d never learned how to handle, not even after two years of dating. For all that he was an expert at making you feel like the world was yours for the taking, when it came to his own struggles, he was a tightly closed book. Instead of admitting when he was hurt or disappointed, he resorted to indifference and the kind of dark humor that could put you in a bad mood if you weren't careful.

Right now, all you wanted was for him to know that you were there for him. Nothing you could say or do would make Ray Miller grow practical common sense or an ounce of familial consideration—you weren't even sure that he knew your name, despite being Scott’s long-term girlfriend; he was hardly ever home, and never present even on the occasions when he was. But you could state the obvious, just in case he’d doubted it for a second.

“Hey, I love you,” you said to him.

“I love you, too,” he replied. “Now, no more shop talk—why do you think I risked my neck climbing up here?” And just like that, the matter was closed, the dark look disappeared, replaced by the telltale lowering of his dark lashes as he dropped another kiss at the side of your neck, his arms tightening around you, turning you so that the backs of your knees hit the edge of your bed.

“And here I thought your intentions were pure,” you replied, trying to downplay the butterflies in your stomach.

“Darling, there’s no such thing… especially when it comes to you.”

“What an idealist,” you rejoined, then fell quiet when he kissed you again. Without missing a beat, he lowered you onto the bed, hands gliding beneath your sweatshirt with apparent purpose. “Scott,” you protested, “my parents are across the hall.”

“So we’ll be quiet. Or we’ll get caught. What's the worst that could happen?”

“Um, you flying headfirst out that window?”

He pretended to think about it, then, by the warm glow of your bedside lamp, you saw his mouth quirk into a smirk before he dove towards your lips, eyes twinkling. “I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a price I’m willing to pay.”

PRESENT DAY OKLAHOMA CITY

“The damages your client is seeking are absolutely unreasonable. I would even say they border on the ridiculous—and, quite frankly, even frivolous!”

“Frivolous! Your client founded his new company with StormPAR assets—”

“His assets!”

“—accumulated during his tenure as a business partner to my client. Assets which came out of the pocket of Mr. Riggs as well, might I remind you!”

“We were equal partners!” Javi exclaimed, no longer able to keep his temper in check. You supposed the moment you snapped at Mr. Rankin, Javi figured the gloves were off.

Maybe instead of worrying about Tyler, you should've worried about yourself.

Rankin stabbed a finger at the files stacked in front of him. “Exactly, and Mr. Miller deserves to be compensated for the financial losses incurred from your breach of contract.”

Javi balked. “What, I can’t decide to leave my own company?”

“You can do whatever the hell you want, just not with my money,” Scott said in a dangerous monotone. For the last half-hour you’d been trying not to look at him, focusing instead on his middle-aged bespectacled lawyer, but to say you weren't losing your shit would be disproven by the Montblanc you’ve been fidgeting with since the meeting began. When he wasn’t glaring daggers at his former business partner, you could feel the power of his gaze, daring you to meet his eyes again.

“Oh, you mean your uncle’s money?”

“Javi.” You touched his hand in warning.

“You weren't turning your nose up at my uncle’s money when you were trying to found StormPAR.” Scott gibed. In your periphery, you saw Kate rubbing her left temple.

“Me? I thought we were partners, partner.”

“Like you give a shit! You jumped ship, Javi—you jumped ship, set up shop with the opposition, then hired my ex-girlfriend so you could get away with robbing us blind!”

You gritted your teeth. “Mr. Rankin, control your client.”

“‘Control your client’?” Scott spat out, leaning forward and turning the dial up to ten. “What the hell is wrong with you? What are you even doing here?”

“My job, Mr. Miller.” This time you did risk staring him in the face, ignoring the play of light on his cheekbones, the shape of his lips, the triangle of exposed skin at his throat that you used to know so well. “I work for StormLab. You might find my presence objectionable, but that’s neither here nor there as long as my clients choose to keep me on retainer. If you don't like it, you’re free to leave and we can negotiate with Mr. Rankin directly.”

He said nothing. Scott was never at a loss for words unless he was well and truly pissed, the force of his intelligence diverted into barely suppressed anger. You could've heard a pin drop in that conference room. His hands were on top of the table, tense, almost shaking, and the rise and fall of his chest was visible even to you. Against your will, your brain threw up images of those same hands holding yours, threaded through your hair, brushing gently against the small of your back; those same arms drawing you close; the same mouth smiling.

You cleared your throat, shuffled a few papers around, and once again addressed the general room and Mr. Rankin. “Now, if you turn to page 16, you’ll see that Mr. Rivera is willing to formally sell his share of StormPAR for less than he’s entitled—if both Mr. Miller and Mr. Riggs agree to desist in interference with StormLab, which, need I remind you, was founded two-thirds of the way with assets entirely independent from the former. If this action’s purpose isn’t frivolous, then Mr. Owens and Ms. Carter should be removed from this suit.”

“Like hell,” Scott interrupted, prompting Javi to fire back with:

“What, you think we’re not good for it? I’ll have you know—”

“You expect me to believe you started your little company on the merits of an NWS salary and a fucking YouTube channel?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Tyler lean forward, ready to pounce. Rankin muttered, “Language,” and pushed his eyeglasses up his nose. You knew he was a personal friend of Scott’s uncle—you could also tell that he would rather be out on the golf course than in the middle of this friend-divorce and embarrassing squabble, one where his input seemed superfluous and his counsel went unheeded even by his client.

Scott went on, full of accusation. “You used StormPAR money, didn’t you?”

“If you want to request any financial disclosures…” you began.

“We’re talking.”

Bitch. “No, you’re berating,” you shot back.

Javi put his hand on your wrist. “It’s fine. Yeah—I guess if you want to look at it that way, if I was making a living off StormPAR and taking Riggs’s money, then yeah, technically my share of StormLab exists because of what we had.”

“Javi.”

“No. Fair’s fair and all that. I don’t want any part of it anymore. Hell, you can have it. But come on, man, don’t pretend you’re doing any of this because you’re broke. Even if I gave you half of whatever StormPAR’s worth, it wouldn’t make a difference. You’re mad that I left. I get it. Let’s settle this, you and me. Leave Kate and Tyler out of it.”

“You stole our data!”

Now, that couldn't stand. “He made the executive decision to share data with Mr. Owens’s team.” Sure, it was a technicality but it was a true technicality.

“Bullshit!”

You sighed. “Are we getting anywhere here, Rankin?”

The lawyer glanced down at his watch and shook his head almost mournfully. “It’s not looking likely.”

“Wonderful.” You stood up, gathering your things and motioning for Kate, Tyler, and Javi to do the same. “Well, we’re all very busy people and clearly meeting in-person is counterproductive. Shall we agree to make this a video call next time? My clients have places to be.”

“I’ll bet they do,” Scott mocked, staring not only at Javi but at his new partners for probably the first time all afternoon. “How’re your investors doing, by the way, knowing you’re getting sued for infringement, breach of contract and fiduciary duty…”

You wanted to strangle him. In a voice that matched him venom for venom, you turned to your assistant and said, “Did you get that on record, Abby? Please, keep going,” you urged Scott, “you might just win us a dismissal.”

After a moment of charged silence, you told your clients: “We’re done here.”

“You’ll be hearing from me,” said the reluctant Mr. Rankin.

You snatched the chrome door handle from Tyler. “Boy, am I looking forward to it.”

Outside, you didn’t stop until you’d turned the corner into another section of the office, not wanting to be within eyeshot of Scott when you gritted your teeth and let the mask of cool indifference fall.

“Well, that went…” Tyler trailed off, leaning against the metal doorframe of Copy Room 3. The smell of toner and ozone was strangely comforting, bringing you back to your professional self now that Scott and his stupid, handsome-as-ever face were out of view. That, and you were noticing that Tyler Owens in a corporate-adjacent setting didn’t sit well with you; you couldn’t decide whether it was the outdoor tan or the in-your-face belt-buckle that gave it away. Regardless, he seemed too big for the confines of a downtown law office.

“It went like a garbage fire,” you confirmed, “which means about as well as I expected.”

Kate crossed her arms. “So we’re going to court, then.”

“I’m going to keep pushing for him to drop StormLab from the suit.”

“That just leaves me,” Javi remarked, downcast, but still willing to take one for the team.

“I mean, Javi, dear, you did abandon the partnership without ironing out all the kinks first.”

“How was I supposed to know I needed to hire a lawyer?”

“Um, literally everyone knows you’re supposed to hire a lawyer,” said Tyler, “especially if you’re dealing with someone like Textbook Type A over there.”

Javi ran a hand down his face, then shook his head. “What can I say? I-I thought he was my friend.”

“I know.” You clapped your hand on Javi’s shoulder. I understand. “But sometimes all that does is make it worse.”

After a bit more commiserating you parted ways with the three, hanging back with Abby to touch base on a few points and clear up the rest of your schedule, which included a deposition in an hour-and-a-half and witness prep at 4:30. Understandably, you were in the mood for none of this and wanted nothing more than to retire to your apartment with a glass of red and a bowl of popcorn as big as your head à la Olivia Pope, but alas… you were trying to make junior partner.

No rest for the wicked and all that.

You released Abby for a late lunch and made your way to the bank of elevators after a brief pit stop at the restroom, side-eyeing the fancy automatic taps and the whiff of something hotel-like emanating from the vents. You’d have to tell the office manager at Conway & Fine to up your game.

Fishing your phone out of your bag, you pushed the elevator button and began scrolling through a frightful amount of emails—there were intraoffice communications and check-in requests from clients, a few items of junk not caught by the email filter, the latest newsletters from PennAlumni and the Oklahoma Bar Association, as well as an invitation to an old mentor’s golden anniversary celebration. You were in the middle of responding to this when Scott sidled up next to you, giving no indication other than the familiar scent of his cologne and the tap of shined leather shoes against the polished tile. Of all the bad luck…

“So what is this, some kind of a decade-old revenge plot?” he finally asked, disconcerting you with the fact that he was standing so close to you that you couldn't glance at his expression without craning your neck. “Maybe I should’ve expected it from you, but Javi? I didn't know he had it in him.”

“Go away, Scott. This is business.”

“Really, is that what you want to call it? He could've hired anyone.”

“Well, he chose to hire a friend.”

“Right…” A laugh. Dry, cynical. “And what's your excuse?”

You stared at the light above the door, willing it to flash green and put you out of your misery. “Believe it or not, my taking this case has nothing to do with you. Forgive me if I thought you could be a fucking adult about it—clearly I was wrong.”

Ding!

You walked into the elevator without looking back. As parting words went, you thought they passed muster. Except, instead of being a regular person and taking the next car, Scott followed you in, ignoring the outrage written plain on your face.

You looked at him as if to say, “Do you mind?” It was obvious that he didn't. Whatever composure he’d lost in the conference room had been regained now that it was just you, and him, and the shared knowledge that you would have avoided being alone with him if you could.

He stood next to you, towering. As the floor number inched downward from 22, you were all too aware of his presence: the Scott smell of him, the warmth of his body, and the brush of his dark linen jacket against your arm. You wished you handed discarded your own in the restroom; you needed armor, and while Scott had donned his as soon as he was able, he had caught you unawares, expecting him to play fair even when all the evidence of the last two hours had told you that “fair” was no longer in his vocabulary.

As if to illustrate the point, you felt him lean in, his voice the closest it had been in over six years. “You always did love making a show of taking the moral high ground. How’s the view, sweetheart? You must love getting the chance to look down on me for change.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Not bothering to contain your disgust, you stepped away from him, clutching your bag in a white-knuckle grip. For a moment you felt struck by lightning. There was a time when you knew the planes of his face better than your own—the slope of his nose, the variations of blue in his eyes; you knew the shade of his hair in every light; how to tell a false smile from the true. But this Scott… the one with the shuttered expression, the see-if-I-care set to his shoulders, “how’re your investors doing, by the way”… It wasn’t like those things came out of left field—Scott had always been capable of a certain amount of pride, petulance, vindictiveness, even. But it was like the best parts of him had been filed away, or else hidden so deep that you couldn't find nary a sight of them when you looked into his face. “What happened to you?”

You saw his jaw clench. “If you want to know, then you shouldn’t have left.”

8…

7…

6…

You took a breath. “That whole last year—you pushed me away and you know it.”

Instead of answering your honesty in kind, Scott hitched up his sleeve so he could glance at the time on his fancy Swiss watch, a present from Good Old Uncle Riggs on the event of his graduation from MIT. “Yeah, well, you made it easy.”

4…

3…

2…

The doors opened onto a vast lobby. Incredulous, you kept waiting for him to take his words back, to apologize, to so much as glance at you, damn it. When you saw there wasn't any point, you swallowed the knot in your throat, stepping out of the elevator car and feeling twenty-one all over again.

This time, he didn't follow you. He leaned against the back handrail, not reacting even when you mustered every remaining ounce of dignity to say, “Go fuck yourself, Scott.” Then you turned on your heel and walked away.

TEN YEARS AGO PARK HAVEN, PENNSYLVANIA

Once more on your bedroom floor. Scott sat at your back, his arms wrapped around you and his head bent over yours. “Hey, listen to me… we’ll make it work. I’ll call you every day.”

“With a full slate of classes? That doesn't make any sense.”

“I don’t care if it doesn't. Hey,”—he kissed your temple—“it’s you and me. That doesn’t need to change”

“You say that now…”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do.” You sighed. “It’s the hot nerds I don’t trust.”

You felt him laugh. “You’re a hot nerd.”

“Stop it.” But you smiled anyway, probably for the first time since you’d opened the rejection letter from Harvard. Concerned, your mom had called Scott while you were holed up in your room, ugly-crying into the bedspread, and it was enough to make you regret having been so bitchy about her the week before. She really had been trying to help… not that it mattered now that Harvard had given you the hard pass.

It wasn’t like you had no other options—you’d have been crazy not to line up a contingency plan or two. But Harvard had been your dream since you could remember caring about college. It was your castle in the sky, the thing that kept you going through four years of grueling hard work, a neverending grind of AP and Honors classes, student clubs and extracurriculars. And still it wasn’t enough.

“We regret to inform you…”

Well, not as much as you regretted it.

As if reading your mind, Scott wrapped his arms a little tighter, his tone light when he said, “UPenn’s nothing to scoff at, you know. You’re upset because you got into an Ivy League?”

“An Ivy League in Philadelphia,” you protested.

You didn’t add “and not the one I wanted” because you knew, objectively, that he and your parents and Ms. Andersson, your favorite teacher, were all right. You were incredibly lucky to have gotten into the University of Pennsylvania—the campus was beautiful, it was close to home, and, like Harvard, it boasted its own fair share of Supreme Court Justices and legal luminaries. It wasn’t like your future was in complete and utter shambles. You would still have everything you wanted… except Scott.

You felt him shrug behind you. “So what? It’s just a five-and-a-half-hour drive—or an hour-and-a-half by plane if we’re desperate.” You shifted so you could shoot him a funny look. “I might have googled it,” he admitted, “right after you told me you got in.”

“Of course you did…” The fact that he had started making plans without waiting on Harvard made you feel better; it meant he had every intention of making it work and maybe you were the downer, seeing the situation as near-hopeless when, really, there had to be couples who didn't let physical distance stop them from being together.

Glass half-full. All you needed was a little faith, a little more optimism.

“At least we’ve got the whole summer,” you said, trying to implement this new, sunnier outlook.

You felt Scott stiffen.

“What?” You turned around properly, anchoring your hand on the side of his neck. You had a minor panic when he wouldn't look at you, and at the guilt written on his brow. “Tell me,” you said.

“Uncle Riggs wants me to spend the summer down in NOLA—something about getting to know me better. I think he must’ve worked it out with Mom. She’s finally put the house up for sale, doesn't want me around when strangers start traipsing through and asking about whether or not she’ll throw in the vintage furniture for an extra few grand.”

At last, after years of painful back and forth, the Miller divorce was imminent. True to Scott’s prediction, “poor Pamela” had hired an attorney and filed paperwork on the very week he climbed through your window. So far his dad had been uncharacteristically passive, perhaps figuring he had put his family through enough, or else fearful of the very same Marshall Riggs who had been summoned from the rafters to come through for his sister after a period of long estrangement.

It was Riggs who had retained Pamela’s ace divorce attorney, Riggs who agreed to pay most of Scott’s tuition. Spending a few months with him seemed like the least he could do. You were disappointed. But you understood.

“When do you leave?”

“Two weeks after graduation.”

“So we have a month,” you said. “That’s thirty days.”

“More like twenty-six… and three quarters.” He smiled the same wistful sort of half-smile that was on your face, and you kissed him, savoring the familiar taste of mint on his mouth from the gum he chewed out of habit.

“Then let’s not waste a second,” you answered back.

He placed a kiss on your forehead. “I love you.”

When he said it, it sounded like a promise that everything would be all right, and in spite of your worries you chose to believe him.

PRESENT DAY OKLAHOMA CITY

For the last ten minutes you’d had trouble hearing Kate’s voice clearly over the phone, but you figured it was to be expected since she was calling from the middle of nowhere (at least to your urban- and suburban-bred estimation), and really, after almost three months of similar experiences, you’d grown tired of plugging your ear and saying, “Kate? Kate? You’re breaking up!”

On the upside, your cognitive skills had to be getting a real workout from filling in the weather-induced gaps in your conversations. Case in point:

“—bad luck with the last two, but I—feeling—building in the east—”

“Yeah, her Spidey Senses are tingling!” you heard Javi yell in the background.

Kate laughed. “Go away!”

“Ask her if she caught the livestream!” Tyler said, no doubt from the driver’s seat.

It sounded like she had you on speakerphone, so you spoke to him directly. “Ty, need I remind you that I have an actual job.”

“Ouch! Did you hear that?—thinks we don’t have real jobs!”

“I did not—”

The clarity improved, and you could hear the sound of car doors slamming and voices cracking jokes in the background, which usually meant they’d returned to Kate’s mother’s farm in Sapulpa, where StormLab kept a satellite office in Cathy Carter’s barn. It was makeshift, but what you saw of it during one of Tyler’s Facetime calls had a rustic charm completely at odds with the glass-and-chrome offices where Herb Rankin worked.

Actually, now that you gave it a moment’s thought, not even Herb Rankin fit into his office.

“Listen to her, the Big City Bigshot slumming it with the rednecks,” Tyler went on, earning a few spirited hoots and howls from the other Wranglers.

“Kate is from New York!” you objected. You waved an arm in the middle of your dim-lit apartment as if anyone could see you, vaguely aware that you were holding a pair of chopsticks and had probably sent a strand of shredded cabbage flying behind your couch.

This assertion was too much for Javi to bear. “Excuse me! Kate is OK to the bone, New York’s just where she keeps her apartment.”

Kate laughed as she said something you couldn’t catch, then Tyler’s voice came, audibly close to the phone. “Hey, that reminds me, where’re you from, again?”

“Pennsylvania.”

��That is not a Philly accent.”

You were about to say that not everyone in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sounds like Rocky Balboa when Javi replied, “That’s ’cause she’s from the fancy part of Pennsylvania—but we don't hold that against her.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Tyler asked, “Wait, you’re not billing us for all this shit-talking, are you?”

You let out a snort, picked up your phone, and held it close to your mouth. “You know, maybe I should, Arkansas.”

At first you couldn’t work out what the hell was going on when Tyler broke out in “It's the spirit of the mountains… and the spirit of the Delta… it's the spirit of the Caaapitol doooooome,” but by the time the other Wranglers pitched in, with all the gusto of a drunk karaoke night despite being stone-cold sober, you understood that you had been treated to a rare and hopefully never-to-be-repeated rendition of one of the state songs of Arkansas. A short while later you hung up, cheeks sore and still laughing to yourself. The silence in your apartment was deafening by comparison.

Sometimes, you called them just because you lacked company. There wasn’t much to report on the Rankin front—as much as you had tried to negotiate on Javi’s behalf for a less hostile resolution, Scott insisted on keeping Kate and Tyler in the suit and seemed determined to take their tiff before a judge if his terms weren’t met.

Even Rankin seemed fed up.

Maybe it was a bad idea, maybe it was the two glasses of wine you’d had with dinner or the post-ballad high. Maybe you wanted to be the one to make StormLab’s problem go away. Whatever the reason, after you put the dirty dishes in the sink, you found yourself calling the one person you swore you’d never speak to ever again.

For good measure, as the dial tone rang you poured yourself another glass. When he answered, you nearly choked.

“Can we talk?” you managed to ask, swallowing down a mouthful of Syrah. There was a long silence on the other end. You didn't know if he had your number saved, if he knew who had called him, or whether he’d recognized the sound of your voice. You remembered that the last thing you had said to him was “go fuck yourself,” and added it to the mental list of why maybe you shouldn't have called him after all.

Tyler’s impulsiveness seemed to be as contagious as a rash.

Scott answered: “Not without my lawyer present.”

Okay, fair. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. He sounded clipped, like he’d rather be lowered into a tank of leeches than be on the phone with you. You were reconsidering the wisdom of your actions when he asked, “What do you want?”

Your eyes darted around the living room. Thinking on your feet wasn't new to you, it couldn't be, in your profession. But a part of you knew you’d taken a stupid gamble in pressing the call button, and now that the die was cast, you had to make it count.

You opted for the aggressive approach.

“Rankin says you're being uncooperative.”

You could feel the animus on the other end. “No, he didn't.”

“It was implied. No one wants to keep drawing this out, Scott. So, come off it. What is it that you’re actually looking to get out of all this?”

If he opted to tell you to go fuck yourself, you figured it would be fair play. This really was business, and not having to look him in the eyes made it easier to feel the rush of adrenaline that came with making a risky move in the name of work. You knew that technically, and in the strictest interpretation of the word, reaching out to another lawyer’s client crossed the line into inappropriate, but you were also a couple years beyond green. If you could cut out the middleman and get Scott to come to the table in a serious way, it would all be worth it. And Rankin could go back to playing 9 holes without losing face in front of his old school mate Riggs.

You waited for Scott’s response with bated breath.

“I want StormLab run into the ground.”

The answer came as no surprise but his tone did. Dark, intense, almost as bad as one of the nights he snuck into your room after a fight with his dad. It was the one and only time you’d ever heard him say he hated his father—his lack of control, his thoughtlessness, his inability to keep his word. Afterward he’d pretended he never said it, or rather, he was careful to never bring it up again, but you knew he had meant it.

And he meant it now. He wanted to take StormLab down. He’d succeed over your dead body. Javi and the others were counting on you.

You moved the phone to your other ear. “Right, well… that's not gonna happen, so any other alternatives?” You could feel he was about to end the call, so you tacked on, “Wait, just… hear me out, okay? Forget about Tyler and Kate—this isn’t about them, really, this is about StormPAR. Compromise on this one thing and you have a better chance of being compensated for what went down last year. You and Javi can just… move on with your lives. On paper it's about money, right? Riggs’s investment? So let’s settle this as soon as possible.”

“You and me?”

“And Rankin,” you added, your conscience getting the better of you.

There was a pause before Scott repeated, “You and me.”

“I don’t…”

“That’s my final offer.”

Alarm bells of a different sort rang in your head. On the phone was one thing, but in person, alone? Could you really sit across from Scott and keep your cool?

You had to. More than that, you wanted to prove to yourself that you’d grown up since you were twenty-one, that you were assured and confident and could handle messy things like sitting across from your ex. There were many things you regretted from that time; the one you regretted most was a reluctance to stand up for yourself. What was Tyler always saying? You don’t face your fears, you ride them. Frankly, you still weren't sure what the hell he meant by that, but it sounded a lot like “put your money where your mouth is.” At some point you had to choose to take action.

“Okay, fine,” you said. “When and where?”

“You busy tonight?”

You scoffed, casting a glance at your open laptop and the piles of paperwork lying on top of the coffee table. “I’m busy every night.”

“Perch. In an hour. Don’t be late.”

THREE YEARS AGO PARK HAVEN, PENNSYLVANIA

As a rule you’d been avoiding your hometown for the last three years, ever since your breakup with Scott. It was easier to stay in Oklahoma, where the possibility of running into someone who knew the Millers or would ask “are the two of you still together?” was slim. After your father died, you started to regret being such a coward. So much lost time… although your mom kept telling you that your dad understood the need to have your own life and never held it against you.

You held it against you, and all the more when your mom decided to downsize and move in with a friend.

After requesting two weeks off you got on a plane to Philadelphia and drove south to Park Haven to help her pack. You stayed up late, wore holiday pajamas, filled your hand with paper cuts, and inhaled about four pounds of dust in the attic. It was nice to spend time with your mom. All the old grievances seemed minor in comparison with the massive changes that lay ahead. Always one for sentimentality, sorting through boxes full of clothes, keepsakes, and old mementos put your mom in an especially chatty mood, and you soaked everything in, not having realized before how little you knew about your dad. He was so reserved in life, so buttoned-up, with clear expectations of himself and others that you were surprised to learn about his stint in an amateur dramatics troupe, the year he tried his hand at playing the alto sax, his fear of geese.

“Geese?” you asked your mom.

“Yes, geese. Those fuckers are vicious!” Having never heard your mom swear before, you froze while elbow-deep in a box of photographs dating back to the 70s. All she did was shrug and finish the rest of her margarita while lightbulbs flashed on her navy blue Rudolph sweater. “What do you want me to say? Parents have secrets, too.”

“Well, I think this parent went a little hard on the tequila,” you said.

Your mom plucked a faded Polaroid from the box. “You know… he didn’t look it, but your dad was actually a lot of fun. We both were. Then… life gets in the way, you start caring about PTA meetings and getting the HOA off your back…”

“Fuck the HOA.”

“Right on! Can’t say I’ll miss any of those jerks.” She sighed, and with a little shake of her head, put the Polaroid back in the box. “Sometimes I worry—” She stopped herself and glanced at you nervously.

“What?”

“Sometimes I worry that you think about us, about your dad and me, and that you don’t see us as having ever been in love. Especially after you and Scott—”

“Mom,” you warned.

“I know, I know, me and my big mouth.” She held up her hands, chuckling to herself. Normally you’d seize the opportunity to change the subject, but you were thinking a lot about how you could’ve been a better daughter, all the times you shut the door in their face because you didn’t want to feel scolded or uncomfortable, because you weren’t interested in what they had to say.

Your mom was trying to respect your privacy. The least you could do was not leave her with the impression that you thought she had a “big mouth.”

You reached across the box and touched her arm. “That’s not what I meant.”

“All I mean is… I know you’re not dating.”

“How do you know that?”

She grinned. “Mothers have their ways. I just don’t want you giving up, is all. If Dad and I weren’t the model marriage—”

“What are you talking about?” you asked. “Half of my friends have divorced parents. And even if you were divorced, the whole ‘nuclear family or you’re a failure to society’ thing is so five-decades-ago.”

“Well, good! Because I was happy—I want you to know that. Maybe it wasn’t the sort of romance people write songs about—God knows your dad had his faults. He wasn't perfect. No one is. But when you love someone… it’s less about keeping score and more about what you build. Together.”

She looked off to the far wall, where their wedding portrait sat propped in its frame, ready to be wrapped in old newspapers and put away. You turned around and looked at it, too—at your mom’s curly updo and poofy skirts, the sleeves that looked like pool inflatables, at least to your modern eyes, at your dad before his hair went gray, the sheepish smile on his face like he couldn’t believe he’d gotten away with the steal of the century.

You’d gotten so used to its presence in the living room that you couldn’t remember the last time you gave it more than a passing glance.

Lit by an alternating flash of blue and purple lights, your mom’s face was cast in an otherworldly glow. Then the spell was broken, and she was your mom again in an ugly Christmas sweater, smiling fondly at an old memory to which you weren’t privy. “For some reason, we brought out the best in each other. That mattered to us more than anything we ever did wrong.” And that was that, a twenty-nine year marriage summed up in a few sentences.

You said, “I guess that does sound romantic… in a super-practical, boring, construction-analogy sort of way.”

She laughed and threw a wadded-up newspaper at your head.

“Dad never liked Scott,” you said after a while, rolling the ball between your hands.

“What makes you say that?”

You threw her a pointed look. Her expression said, Oh, alright.

“He wasn’t disapproving, exactly. He was worried about you. Who wouldn’t be? Your first boyfriend, your first love… I don’t think he was quite ready to see his teenage daughter all head over heels over some guy on the baseball team. And the Millers, well… they had their issues, as a family. Maybe your dad didn’t want you becoming collateral damage. But, oh sweetie,”—it was her turn to touch your arm, Rudolph’s nose squished against the cardboard—“it was never about Scott. When you told us you were engaged, we were so pleased for you! And then a few months later… just like that…”

You swallowed the knot in your throat. How much time would have to pass before you could think of Scott without a tidal wave of sadness hitting you square in the chest? Collateral damage, that was one way of putting it. “I guess Dad was right, after all.”

“He never said ‘I told you so,’” your mom pointed out, “and he never would’ve wanted to.”

You squeezed her hand. “Yeah, I know.”

A phone call from your mother’s friend Rose prompted a break in packing. She went into the kitchen to discuss sideboard dimensions, and you went upstairs, where you were slowly going through your childhood bedroom and putting things in boxes marked Keep and Donate, or else in bags to be discarded when trash day rolled around.

You were almost finished, the walls empty of medals and photos, the corkboard of mementos lying in the recycling bin outside. Already it felt like a bedroom that had belonged to someone else, and while you were sad to know that, after the house was sold, you would never step foot in it again, the process of taking things down one at a time had given you a sort of detachment. There were items, like the snowglobe your friend Tash gave you when she got home from a skiing trip in the Alps in the seventh grade, that you had once thought you could never do without. But now Tash lived in LA with her wife and kids, and you hadn’t spoken much since high school except for a few text messages now and then.

You’d decided to keep the globe but you knew it would live in a box in your closet, a relic rather than an everyday part of your life in Oklahoma.

Speaking of closets, you tackled the wardrobe next, marveling at how many items would be considered “trendy” now that the fashion cycle had taken a turn—or God forbid, “vintage.” There were stuffed animals shoved into the top shelf, your old 50 State quarter collection, debate club certificates, a landscape picture from your senior year mock trial, and a shoebox falling apart at the seams.

You took it to the stripped bed with shaking hands, knowing you’d been dreading this most of all but that it had to be done, so why not now.

After you broke your engagement off with Scott, you’d gone home to lick your wounds. This was before you found a job, before you decided to move to Oklahoma on the literal toss of a coin, knowing only that you couldn't stay in Pennsylvania and that you needed a fresh start. Left with no other options, home had been your best bet, even though the weeks spent living with your parents and avoiding their worried questions had seemed at the time like cruel and unusual punishment. When you moved out you had left something behind, hidden beneath seashells and baubles and silly notes you had passed during class, movie stubs, train tickets, an inexplicable piece of gum, the collar that had once belonged to Clover, your old childhood dog.

You lifted a school ribbon and found it: a blue velvet box with a golden clasp. Your heart pounded in your ears. You took a deep breath, let it out again before lifting the lid… and there it was, glinting in the light of late afternoon.

“Honey, Rose wants to know if you’d like to join us for dinner at her place!”

Box, ring, and all tumbled onto the hardwood. Though you were alone, your mother calling to you from the bottom of the stairs, you felt incredibly guilty. “I’ll be right down!” you yelled back. You got on your hands and knees and slipped the ring back in its cradle.

It felt dangerous somehow, like a live grenade. But you couldn't get rid of it. When you went back home at the end of the month you packed it at the bottom of your suitcase and it’d been living with you ever since, moved from closet to closet, unseen but never quite forgotten.

PRESENT DAY OKLAHOMA CITY

The jewel twinkled in your hand, an oval diamond surrounded by small clusters and set in a ring of yellow gold. It was one of a kind. Scott told you he found it at an antique jeweler’s who dated it to the summer of 1880; it was a genuine Victorian piece, and for nearly four months it had been your most prized possession.

The same foolhardy impulse that made you call Scott and agree to meet him made you dig it out of your closet, right after you spent twenty minutes agonizing over what to wear and the state of your hair. This isn’t a date, you kept reminding yourself. If anything, it might be a trap. He was, after all, Marshall Riggs's nephew.

Letting your lesser sense win out, you slipped the ring on your finger and watched it catch the light. It truly was a beautiful ring. And it was sentimental, as though its selection revealed a hidden truth about Scott.

Its weight on your hand, present and comfortable, calmed your racing thoughts and the nerves roiling in your belly. You kept it on as you dressed and got ready, then chalked it up to a desire for punctuality when you rushed to the elevator, through the lobby, and into your waiting Uber still wearing it. The driver’s presence snapped you out of your momentary lapse in sanity. They were chatty, and the more you talked about work and the weather and what you liked doing in the city, the sillier it felt to be wearing your ex-fiancé’s engagement ring. Before getting out, you stuck it in the pocket of your linen duster… which was also, admittedly, kind of a stupid thing to do.

(You blamed Tyler for all of it.)

Located at the top of a fifty-floor high-rise, Perch was a bar and restaurant with full views of the city and a James Beard Award-winning chef. The atmosphere was relaxed and unfussy, the lighting unobtrusive, and the cocktails reasonably priced. At the door, the vest-clad host directed you through the assemblage of diners and beyond a decorative glass partition to the tables reserved for business meetings, minor celebrities, and men who didn’t want to be seen with their mistresses. Scott was there in rolled-up shirtsleeves. You watched from a distance as he rubbed his stubbled cheek and his pointer finger came to rest at the seam of his lips.

You would not stare at his mouth or let your eyes linger anywhere on his person. This was business, goddammit.

But hell if he didn’t look good. You hated that after all this time you still found him maddeningly attractive.

“Seriously?” he asked, casting a pointed look at the portfolio in your arms.

“Well, this isn’t a social call.”

“By all means.” He gestured at the seat in front of him, mockingly formal. You glanced at the coupe waiting on your side of the table, a cheerful yellow with a perfect white foam on top and a twist of lemon peel. “I took the liberty of ordering your usual.”

You sat down and set the portfolio to one side, adopting an air of casual indifference. “Actually, it’s not my usual anymore.”

“Really?”

“But thanks anyway. So, from previous conversations with Javi—”

“What is this mythical new usual?”

“Are you kidding?” you balked, narrowing your eyes.

“No, I’m just curious.” He propped his chin in his hand. Maybe lying had been a petty move on your part but you’d be damned if he forced you to backtrack and you came out of this looking a fool.

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but at some point you’re gonna have to learn to live with uncertainty. Anyway—”

“You don’t have a new usual.” Scott smirked. “It’s still a gin sour and you’re just being difficult.”

“Difficult… Wow, okay! We”—wagging your finger in the space between you—“are not together anymore, so these mind games you’re trying to play are highly inappropriate and also kind of a dick move—”

“A dick move!” he repeated.

“Yeah, a dick move! Which I know is, like, your whole personality now—”

“Is it?” he laughed.

“—but I’m trying to settle this like an actual grown-up and all you’ve done for three months is make that very difficult for everyone involved!”

He rolled his eyes. “This is such a fucking boring conversation.”

Incensed, you had the fleeting thought to throw your drink in his face, but people only did that in soap operas. “You were the one who wanted to do this in person!” you fired back, shrill and drawing the attention of a server who promptly beelined to a different table and pretended not to hear. Which only made you wonder what sort of clientele frequented her section.

“And you were the one who called me,” Scott pointed out, “not the other way around.”

His being right made you even angrier. You had thought you were prepared, that magically you’d be able to have a civil conversation that settled the matter in a way that left you with your pride intact and StormLab the clear winner on the side of good. Clearly, you’d miscalculated. “You know what… fuck this.” After downing half your cocktail in a single gulp, you gathered the portfolio in your arms and made to stand before deciding that, actually, you wanted to get a few things off your chest first so that abandoning your PJs would be worth it. “I am so over this whole… fucking… stupid… mess. I’ve had actual divorces that were easier to mediate, Scott. Whole marriages—and not short ones either! Just take the fucking shares! Please… take the shares and go back to Riggs and leave us all the hell alone. We’re tired, okay? This is just… so unbelievably tiring. And fuck you, by the way—yes, it’s still a gin sour.” You finished yours, figuring that if Scott was paying, you might as well.

And now I’m ready to leave, you thought.

But Scott had other ideas.

“You spoken to your mom lately?”

“What?” You gaped at him, wondering if you were losing your mind. Was he? Was there a dimensional shift happening that you weren’t aware of?

“Pardon the observation,” Scott went on, “but you don’t seem… well.”

“Are you being for real right now?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

And how else could you mean it? was on the tip of your tongue. But the look on his face made you stop. No bullshit, no smug provocation. He was serious. Somehow, that was more unsettling than when he was fucking with you. It brought back too many memories.

“I was sorry to hear about your dad.”

He looked you straight in the eyes when he said it. You wanted to burrow into a hole in the ground—into him, if you were being honest. It didn’t matter how many years had gone by. A part of you was still twenty-seven and glancing at the door wondering if maybe, just maybe…

“Oh, I’m gonna need another one of these,” you whispered to yourself, stunned back into a seated position. The server came around and eyed your empty glass, asking meekly if you would like anything else. “I might as well,” you answered, sounding patently glum. All the while Scott kept a neutral expression, even waited until you had another drink—and a glass of water—in front of you, giving the server a soundless thanks before she scurried away.

Probably off to the kitchen to tell her coworkers about the crazy lady at B25.

“I thought about showing up to the funeral, actually,” added Scott when you had regained most of your composure. “But I didn’t know if I’d be welcome. Mom, being a firm believer in Emily Post, thought it’d be better if we skipped it. She sent flowers, though.”

“She what?”

“She sent flowers. Your mom never said?”

You shook your head. She must’ve been trying not to upset you. But you had been upset anyway, thinking about how Scott should’ve been there, how you had always expected him to show up and make things better.

All this time you had used his absence as yet another example of how little you must’ve mattered in the end. Which made no sense, because you were the one to break things off—and yet, that entire winter’s morning, you had bargained with yourself that if he showed up through those chapel double doors you would forget everything and beg him to take you back. It was too late for that. But knowing that he’d thought about going loosened a painful knot in your chest that you weren’t aware you even had.

You cleared your throat. “How’s your mom, by the way?”

“She’s doing all right. She’s part of a sewing circle, believe it or not.”

“Please tell me that isn’t a euphemism.”

“God, I hope not.”

You smiled involuntarily, picturing Pam Miller in her sweater sets and pearls. “I’m glad she’s doing okay. Your dad…?”

He picked up his drink, a Macallan on the rocks. It was his uncle’s drink, too. “I haven't heard from him in years. Guess neither of us ever saw the point.”

“Scott—”

“How’d you and Javi become an ‘us’ anyway? He never said.”

Fair enough. It made sense that he wouldn’t want to talk about his dad, let alone with you. But talking about Javi? When an hour ago he had admitted to wanting to bankrupt Javi’s company?

“I’ll be on my best behavior for the next”—he looked down at his watch—“fifteen minutes. Promise.”

“I don’t know, I think it’s better if we table all the personal talk,” you hedged.

“Better for whom?”

“Better for my clients. And better for me, too. We’re not friends.”

“We’ve never been friends,” Scott pointed out.

“Exactly. So why lie and pretend like we are?”

“Call it a term of this negotiation.”

“Scott…” Already this night was going nothing like how you’d planned. Your defenses had all the strength of a thin paper bag; he was in front of you, all dark-haired, blue-eyed, 6’4” reality and you weren’t unaffected. You wanted to keep talking to him, make the moment last… and all the more because you knew it had to end at some point. Scott would never be yours—not again. You’d made your peace with that a long time ago. But he has a right to know. Maybe if you could convince him that there was no grand conspiracy against him, he would be more amenable to Javi’s offer.

This is business, you reminded yourself. Redirect, bring it all back to StormLab.

“Fine,” you decided, settling in to tell the story of how you and Javi first met. “It happened maybe a year after I moved to Oklahoma City… I was out with a new friend and she took me to this bar after dinner to meet a bunch of people, one of whom was Javi. We get to talking, he tells me all about this new company he’s starting with a friend of his, says it’s a lucky coincidence or maybe fate having a twisted sense of humor because—”o

You broke off. You hadn’t considered how to broach this particular detail in the story. Obviously, Javi had no idea at the time how messy your backstory with Scott was. He had only thought to poke fun at his friend and seemed delighted to have solved a long-standing mystery for himself.

“So you’re the girl!”

“Come again?”

“The girl, you know. He has a picture of you in one of his old notebooks from college. What a small world!”

“What?” Scott prompted. You felt your face heating up and took a sip of water to hide it. You couldn't well omit the rest having already begun, but the knowledge that Scott had kept a photograph of you, whether by accident or otherwise, made you flustered then and it flustered you now.

You settled for: “He said he recognized me, and that he thought we might have a friend in common. Obviously, he meant you. He was dating one of Christa’s friends at the time—”

“Rachel.”

“Yeah. So he’d show up, be around… You know how Javi can be.”

“Like a persistent terrier.”

“Sounds like your kind of business partner.”

Scott looked away.

Not wanting to push things further in that direction just yet, you explained, “I work a lot, so it’s hard for me to make friends. Javi seems to make them wherever he goes. It’s nice having people like that in your life, to open you up, remind you there’s more to all this than billable hours and senior partner tracks. But we never talked about you. Not until this whole thing happened.”

“What thing did he say happened?”

Tread carefully now. Scott was watching you intently—if you said the wrong thing it might start a new argument between you and make his relationship with Javi a hell of a lot worse. In polished business-speak, you recited: “Just that you had a fundamental disagreement about the direction of the company.”

Your reward was a skeptical laugh.

“Also, that he might have left you on the side of the road during a tornado… which he feels bad about, by the way.”

“Not bad enough.”

“Scott, you can’t really want to ruin him, can you? I mean, this is Javi we’re talking about.”

“That’s not part of this discussion.”

“Okay?” you shot back. “I don’t remember agreeing to that condition.”

“You’re still at this table.”

“And that can easily be fixed!”

“All right, calm down.” Maybe it was you in danger of starting another fight. Scott, holding up his hands in a show of good faith, said, “I thought we were playing nice here, being civilized, acting like adults… What else have you been up to?”

“You want to know about my life?”

“Like I said, I’m curious. And seeing as this is a momentary parley, I plan on making the most of it.”

Again, you took in his face in search for any signs of subterfuge and found none, only the barest hint of levity in his eyes at your willingness to argue. It reminded you of the old days, when Scott would delight in teasing you for the sole purpose of seeing what your reaction would be. “Fine. But it’s going to be quid pro quo,” you demanded. “Call it a term of this negotiation.”

His mouth curved into a smile. Then he held out his hand across the table and waited for you to take it before saying, “Term accepted, counselor.”

In the end, playing nice with Scott turned out to be a lot easier once you’d established a few ground rules, mainly the stipulation that either of you could say “pass” if you weren’t willing to answer a question.

You went through the whole gamut of discussing your first jobs after college, gossiped about the old Park Haven crowd, the who-married-who and the who-got-divorced of it all. It turned out that, like you, Scott hadn’t returned to Pennsylvania much in the last few years. StormPAR kept him traveling through the Great Plains for most of the spring and summer, and during the rest of the year he lived in New Orleans, where Riggs and his mother lived. You got the sense that his life revolved around work, and that StormPAR, while not the be all and end all of his professional fate, had been an important part of it until Javi called it quits. You figured this explained, in part, why he took the loss so personally, and though you kept your thoughts to yourself you lamented that his one attempt to branch out for himself and away from his uncle—if you could call taking a major investment from Riggs “branching out”—had gone badly.

Either way, by the end of the evening you felt you’d been a little hasty in believing the old Scott had left the building for good. You exited Perch in higher spirits, glad to see that the night was clear and that the air felt good on your cheeks. When he asked if you were getting a car, you shared your desire for a long walk and he responded with mild horror until you explained that you didn’t live far. “Maybe twenty minutes? Thirty at most.”

“I’ll walk you home,” he insisted. You didn't argue because you were secretly pleased. The only thing you had to guard against was the urge to take his arm as you used to do. You felt giddy with it, which you were sure had to be the alcohol, but it was also the fact that Scott was here, in the flesh, that you were cracking jokes and sometimes even pulling smiles from his otherwise deadpan expression. You’d forgotten how that could make you feel like you’d won the jackpot.

“I’m sorry, I know you’re going to take this the wrong way,” you prefaced while walking backwards on the sidewalk, “but I have a really hard time imagining you as a storm chaser.”

“Excuse me!”

“I mean…” You stopped and full-body gestured. “I mean, look at you!”

“What?”

“Even your slacks are pressed!”

“Objection, why are you studying my slacks like a degenerate?”

“Don’t make it weird,” you replied, and fell into step beside him, if only to keep him from seeing that you were embarrassed by the implication that you might’ve been checking him out. “All I meant to say was—”

“That I don’t look like a rugged adrenaline junkie? Maybe ‘Rodeo Clown’ is more your thing these days.”

“Don’t—Tyler’s actually quite decent, you know.”

“But you knew exactly who I was talking about.” Scott snapped his fingers as if to say, Gotcha! as you ruefully shook your head. Something about Tyler Owens tended to evoke a Neanderthal-like competitiveness in certain men—Scott, being competitive by nature, fell for it all too easily.

“This is me.” You pointed at your building. It was a relatively new construction with climbing greenery and pop-out balconies where you’d lived for a year-and-a-half after a not inconsiderable raise, and the reason why you worked sixty hours a week.

“Can I come up?” Scott asked.

You whipped your head so hard that your temples throbbed. “That’s…” A no good, awful, terrible, ill-conceived, perilous idea?

Scott seemed to find your distress highly entertaining. “Jesus, would you relax?” he said. “I’m not asking to tuck you in—unless, if there’s someone—”

“There isn’t,” you hurried to say.

“Oh? How come?”

The knowledge that the man with whom you were formerly engaged was inquiring as to the current state of your love life with all the breeziness of do you have the time? was enough to make you believe in karmic punishment. “Like I said, I’m busy,” you managed to eke out, which only made him lift his shoulders as if to say, Then, what’s the big deal?

Scott Miller was good at that, getting his way.

“Fine,” you caved. “But only for ten minutes! Fifteen, tops!”

“Scout’s honor.”

In the elevator car you stuck your hands in your pockets, searching for your keys only to find the cold hard metal of your engagement ring. You looked guiltily at the oblivious Scott, who was staring at the floor display with a contented expression and was none the wiser about your having worn it earlier in the night like some kind of weirdo. Should you give it back? At the time he’d wanted nothing to do with it, but was keeping it the proper thing? Was it good for you to even have it?

At last you found your keys at the bottom of your purse. You opened the door, trying to remember how well you’d tidied after dinner as he walked in, inspecting everything. You watched as his gaze traveled over the open-plan kitchen and living area—the work files, magazines, and old mail stacked on various side tables; the midcentury beechwood couch you got for a steal at a secondhand warehouse when you first moved; the shelves, filled with books and framed photographs and trinkets you’d brought from home; and the view from your window, which wasn’t nearly as spectacular as the one from Perch, but it faced west, and if you were home during golden hour you could see the other buildings lit orange and gold.

“Yeah, this is exactly how I pictured it,” Scott mentioned at last.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, it’s just… you,” he answered. Your stomach turned to knots. He made you feel seen like nobody else could, not least of which because you’d let him back when you were younger and less guarded. Your heart kicked wildly in your chest, urging you to go to him, go to him, explain everything, get him back, because he was the one. Then Scott looked away, pointing at a sad fern that sat on a pedestal next to your mounted TV. “You still can’t keep a plant alive worth shit.”

“Rude,” you fired back, grasping at levity in order to shove the other thoughts away.

Scott drifted back to your bookshelves, seeing a few paperbacks he must’ve recognized from your old room at Park Haven. “And yet you keep trying. Do you actually use any of these?” he inquired, motioning towards the half-dozen board games you kept piled on an open top shelf. There was Clue and Monopoly, Candy Land, Sorry!, Scrabble and Life.

“Sometimes,” you replied, “when I have friends over. Which hasn’t happened much this year, if I’m being honest.”

“Let’s play.”

You laughed. You didn’t believe him. He pulled one of the boxes out and took it to the coffee table and all you could do was stare, incredulous, as he took his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves, actually sitting on the floor and looking expectantly at you to join him.

“You want to play Life with me?” you challenged. “Doesn’t that seem a little…”

“And you call me uptight.” He waved you over, determined not to take no for an answer. “Come on, hotshot, live a little.”

Despite your better judgment, and after a moment’s panicked hesitation, you lowered yourself next to him. He still smelled the same, like rain and sandalwood and pine. You wanted to curl into his side and feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath your ear, like you’d done on the nights he spent hidden away with you in your room. You had never gotten to live together; all you had were countable memories of waking up next to him and thinking, One day… one day we’ll have this every day.

As he set up the board, all you could do was stare at his hands.

SIX YEARS AGO NEW ORLEANS

Marshall Riggs greeted with you a double-kiss at the door, one on each side of your cheeks. Then he held you at arm’s length so he could look you up and down. “Would you take a look at that,” he said to Scott, “pretty as a picture! I suppose this is the part where I welcome you to the family?”

It was midsummer in Louisiana, on the hotter side of balmy and with the cicadas out in force. Shortly before you graduated Scott traveled to Philadelphia and asked you to marry him. Saying yes had been a no-brainer. You were in love, had put up with four years of distance and near-breakups, and now here was the culmination of all your compromise, communication, and hard work. For a second there you’d thought it would end badly; you were both in highly-intensive undergrad programs, there was only so much you could hash out over phone and video calls, and you were young. The question of “do we really want to make a life-changing decision at twenty-one?” had crossed your mind. But upon further reflection you realized that the answer was yes—had always been yes. And Scott seemed to agree.

In the absence of his father, “meeting the family” entailed paying court to his Uncle Riggs, a man you had spoken to a few times, at holiday parties and summer outings hosted by Pam, now settled in New Orleans and much happier than you’d known her before. But all those other times, you’d met Riggs as Scott’s girlfriend. Now you were his fiancée, with a fancy law degree and a diamond ring and everything, and while you would’ve preferred keeping your distance you knew this was important to Scott—that Riggs was important to him.

So you put on a smile and indulged the old man. Do it for Scott, you said to yourself. You’ve come this far. No point faltering while you were at the winning stretch.

You bowed your head. “Thank you for having us, Mr. Riggs.”

“Please, just Riggs,” he laughed. “Or Marshall—but only my ex-wives call me that.”

You soon found he had a way of twinkling his eyes that made you feel like you were sharing a joke. As he pointed out the features of his home—the old tapestries, the mural commissioned by Candice, his second ex-wife, the wall he knocked down because he wanted to “open up the space”, and his plans to expand the front garden, which, as it was, made the house look like it was in the middle of a tropical rainforest—he regaled you with stories about the people he knew, going off on tangents and bringing it back to the topic at hand. He was genteel and witty, and though he carried himself with Southern indifference there was no doubt he had power: he cocked his head, and a woman in an apron appeared with a tray of mint juleps; Scott held onto his every word; and when you were led into a dining room that might’ve fit forty or fifty at least, it was taken as a matter of course.

He pulled out your chair and sat you at his right hand because it was “the place of honor,” and Scott smiled encouragingly. You were doing so well.

You only wished that you could feel it.

“So, you want to be a big-deal attorney,” Riggs announced, digging into a perfect roast chicken. “What kind? Criminal?”

“Oh, no,” you replied. “Civil all the way. I’ve got a few offers but I want to shop around, make sure I’m making the right first move.”

“The right first move!” He pointed his knife at you. “I like that. By any chance, are you a chessplayer, sweetheart?”

“Can’t say that I am. My family are more into board games, really. Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick?” you explained.

He got a kick out of that. But he was partial to chess. “Opening moves—if you look at the big picture, they don't seem all that important. But well, in that case, why the hell’re there so many of ’em? Napoleon Opening, Greco Defense, Bled Variation, Balogh Defense… Sometimes how a thing starts dictates how the rest of it’ll unfold, from midgame all the way down to the end. If you're gonna do something, might as well do it right the first time or so I always say. Don’t I, boy?” He turned to Scott for confirmation.

“Yes, sir.”

“Yessir…” Riggs chuckled, spearing a roasted sprout. The ends of his bolo tie shifted on his neck. A turquoise the size of an acorn sat between his collar, and he was dressed to the nines—for your benefit, the guest of honor’s.

Nevertheless, there was something of the austere in his eyes. You couldn’t shake it when he put down his fork and sat back, looking from you to Scott, nodding like a king about to give his blessing to a pair of kneeling courtiers. “Pretty as a picture…” he repeated. “Look at you both—young, on the cusp, and none too hard on the eyes, if I do say so myself. A real golden couple on our hands! To opening moves”—he raised his glass—“may we always know when to make the right one.”

You raised your glass to be polite.

Scott leaned across the table. “Before you ask, yes, he is always like this.”

His uncle laughed, clapped him on the shoulder, and called for “champagne! To my nephew and his beautiful bride!”

As the night wore on, you convinced yourself that any discomfort was all in your head. You worked your way through three dinner courses, all impeccably cooked, and by the time the doberge was served you decided that you had judged the man too harshly. Sure, he was old-fashioned, but he was also jovial, polite, and he clearly doted on Scott.

“How nice it is to spend some quality time,” he remarked when Scott left the table, saying Pamela was on the phone. She wanted to know what plans you had for the rest of the week, whether you were still on for the garden fête on the 25th, and what dates you were considering for your engagement party, whether that would be here or in Pennsylvania, but I really do think you’d better do it here.

“I’ll just be a few minutes,” he said to Riggs, leaving you alone with his uncle. Now he had focused all of his attention on you, the full glare of his eye-twinkle and magnetic allure. He wasn’t a handsome man; it wasn’t about his looks—which were well past their prime—but about the knowledge that he could get almost everything he wanted simply by wanting it.

“It’s a shame we never did this sooner,” he went on. “Why do you think that is?” You shifted guiltily. The truth was, Riggs had always made you a bit uneasy. He had a reputation as a difficult man—ruthless, exacting, guileful, hard to please, and he liked doing business in the gray, always legal but never quite on the up-and-up.

Over the last four years, you may have avoided him on the grounds of self-righteous principle, but you couldn't admit to that if you were trying to leave a good impression.

You hedged, “I’m afraid law school doesn't leave much time to spare.”

“Very true… Not that I would know—it was always too much book learning for me, I’m a man of action,” Riggs explained, sipping his whiskey and looking happy as a clam. He had polished off two slices of cake earlier, but only because we’re celebrating. “Now, my nephew… he’s a bit o’ both, isn’t he? Either way, he’s got too much of his mother in ’im.”

You frowned, wanting to say a word in defense of Pamela. Riggs waved you off. “Don’t mind me, I’m just a silly old man with too many opinions. It tends to rub people up the wrong way—don't think I haven't noticed!” Another laugh, another narrowing of the eyes that could have been humor but which you felt like a lightning strike down your back.

He knows and you’re making something out of nothing struggled for dominance within your head, and still he kept on talking, forcing you to pay attention and leave the question unresolved.

He pointed in the direction where Scott had gone. “That nephew of mine—I don’t have any children of my own, did you know that? It never happened for me. Four wives and nothing to show for it—imagine that! But that boy… good thing his father never knew what to do with ’im—smart as a whip he is, and like a dog with a bone once he’s got an idea in his head. That part I’d say he got from me,” he said with a chuckle, wagging his finger in the air. He gave your hand a few avuncular pats and then kept it there, meaty and warm.

“I can see that you love ’im… I can see that you really love ’im. What bright, young, sensible girl wouldn't? You should see him ’round the office! He breaks hearts left, right, and center wherever he goes—a real catch, my secretary always says, and she’s been with me since Scott was yea-high. He’s got his mother’s looks, which I’ll say not to sound too self-serving, heh!” A slight tug on your wrist. You kept your objections to yourself, saying, He’s just a strange old man. As your discomfort grew, stretched to its very limits, he removed his hand and was back to being an innocuous grandfatherly man again. He seemed a little sad, wistful, even. Almost frail.

“I don’t know what I would do without him,” said Riggs, staring at his empty plate. “I really don't. Oh, here! before I forget—I have something for you.” He reached into the inner pocket of his cream suit jacket, extracting a long envelope which he slid across the table with a paternal expression, his gaze warm. You began to object, and, “Go on, now!” he insisted. “I don't hold with false modesty! Nothin’ but a waste o’ time in my book. Open it! Call it a graduation present to help you get started. Scott said your old man was taking some time off from his job, feeling under the weather.”

You opened the flap to find a check with more zeros on it than you could’ve reasonably imagined, payable to your name and typewritten in official font.

“Mr. Riggs, this is…” Your hands shook, you felt too hot in the enclosed dining room. Where was Scott? What was taking him so long? You slid the check in the envelope and tried to push it back to Riggs’s side of the table. “There is no way I can accept this,” you said. “It’s too much money, and while I appreciate the gesture—”

“Nonsense! It’s my pleasure and I won’t hear no can’ts or won’ts about it! I want you to know how well Scott’s been doing here since he finished school. He’s flourishing, all my business associates love him. I can’t possibly make do without him now.”

“I don’t understand,” you said, a pit growing in your stomach.

Once more Riggs pinned you with that twinkle in his eye. “I think you do, a smart girl like you. A man should sow his wild oats while he's young. I had a pretty young wife when I was his age. Marjorie, her name was. My first. It's true what they say—you never forget your first… By God, she was beautiful! and we had all these plans… so many plans! Dreams, really. But mine were always just a little too big for her, you understand, and at first that didn't matter much—we were in love. But then… the kids never came, and Marjorie had too much time on her hands—at the very least, she had more time on her hands than I did, that’s for sure! That gets to a woman sometimes.

“I know you won't have that problem, big city lawyer and all,” he said to you, as if in you he had the fullest confidence and he was speaking about other, less distinguished women. “But really, even if Marjorie’d been an ambassador to the United Nations she’d still have had a compunction about something or other… Ambition’s a hard pill for most folks to swallow.

“Now, you seem like a nice girl… really, I like you plenty! But let’s talk facts here for a minute. You are not the girl for Scott—not when he’s trying to become the man that he’s trying to become. The boy’s got the instincts of a killer. Really! All I’ve gotta do is stand back and look at him! But you, my dear, you’re nothin’ like him. You’ll never be. For most of my life, I thought the perfect woman would be someone to ‘balance me out,’ as they say. It’s taken me almost fifty years to find out that ain’t nothin’ but bullshit made up by Hallmark or whoever to sell us some cards. There ain't no use fighting one’s true nature. You and Scott are doomed to fail—if not now then in five years, if not in five then in another ten! You’ve seen the cracks, haven't you? He’s not the boy you met in Park Haven. He’s becoming his own man. He doesn’t need you anymore.”

You were almost too stunned to speak. Between the casual misogyny, the callous worldview, and the envelope that lay between you on the table like a coiled snake, you felt like you had left reality—there was no way this conversation could be taking place with Scott just in the other room.

“Let me get this straight,” you began, willing your voice not to shake, “you’re offering me money to break up with Scott because you think I’m not good enough for him?”

“No, no, no!” Riggs drew in close to you and took both of your hands, his face earnest and pained. “You’re getting this all wrong. I’m not some mustache-twirling villain trying to thwart the course of true love! You’re a wonderful girl, I’m sure Scott’s been very happy with you. But everything has its season. The time for moons and Junes and Ferris wheels is over. You can leave him to me now.”

“With all due respect, you’re out of your mind!” You slid your chair back, making an angry scrape along the tile. Riggs closed his grip around your hands.

“Sittdown before you wreck the boy’s life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did Scott ever tell you about his old man? How he squandered the family fortunes and left him and Pamela all but bankrupt? Now, me, I’d have done the decent thing—put a pistol to my head for all my sins—but the man has his pride, though I don’t know where-all he gets it from. You see Pam now, up in her French colonial sunning her face and drinking cocktails like the belle of the ball?” He pointed to his chest. “I did that. Scott’s shiny new diploma from M-I-T? Right again! Now, I don't believe in somethin’ for nothing. Everything in this here world has its cost, sweetheart. Everything. I have invested in that boy—not just money, but my blood, sweat, and tears! I won’t abide a loss. I won’t abide it.”

“Scott isn’t an investment,” you shot back. “He isn't yours to own.”

“And yet it would seem he’s worth more to me than he is to you. If he marries you, he and Pam won’t see another cent from me even if I have to drive past them through the gutter. I’m telling you I would throw my own sister out on the street for him—my own flesh! Can you say the same? Could Scott? Would he choose you over his poor, silly mother? Now, I highly doubt that.”

The crazy thing was, he seemed genuinely aggrieved by this predicament of his own making. In his face you could see him imagining the scene—him in his black town car, driving past Pam. And yet he remained immovable. Either you gave up Scott or he would make good on his threat.

It was callous, immoral. I have invested in that boy.

The sound of Scott’s shoes came up the hallway. Riggs folded the check into your hands and said, “Don't make a scene. Think about it.”

“What did I miss?” Scott stopped to kiss the top of your head before resuming his seat. You felt nauseous, your hands clammy around the paper you hid in your lap. To you, Scott seemed like he belonged in another world, another time—a Before-Time.

As you tried not to cry, Riggs smiled at him broadly and said, “Oh, nothing much. But I have a little present for you.”

He pulled a box from the bottom of his seat, crimson leather and beautifully stitched. Scott lifted the lid. Inside was a silver Patek Philippe, the watch he would wear when you saw him six years later, sitting across from you at a conference table with a strange coldness in his eyes. He showed it to you, beaming with pride, and while you couldn't remember what canned response you gave, you did recall that he pulled Riggs into a hug, and said, “Uncle, you really shouldn’t have…”

PRESENT DAY OKLAHOMA CITY

For nearly an hour you and Scott sat on the floor of your living room, playing at marriage and midlife crises and how many babies you would have, which on any other occasion would have made you hysterically laugh or, as Javi said on the night you met, remark upon the universe’s odd sense of humor.

But you were strangely levelheaded. If anything, you felt slightly out-of-body and yet entirely in your body, if that made sense.

You were aware of every piece put on the board. You watched the spinner turn in a rainbow of colors, the clack of the spokes sounding faster and faster before it slowed and then drew to a stop. You felt the couch cushions at your back. Scott’s shoulder brushed against yours sometimes, when he reached for one of the tiny bright pegs that went on top of the tiny bright cars. It felt like you were inside of a dream, and because dreams didn’t matter and had no consequences unless you let them, you started to ease into surrealism.

You played the game, and gradually your body began to relax. This was familiar to you—Scott taking it way too seriously, you poking fun at the furrow between his brows, the way you alternated between cold-hard strategy and chaotically negligent gameplay just to see a reaction flicker across his face. He stretched his legs out beneath the table, threw an arm across the seat-edge of the couch; sometimes, you would recline further back and your neck would touch his arm. You did it a few times, feeling embarrassed at first. But when you saw he didn’t mind, you let your head fall back, waiting as he picked a card.

Something was building beneath your skin. You felt restless, and a little reckless. Despite the law you laid down at the restaurant, you couldn’t stop your gaze from lingering. It lingered everywhere: on the hollow of his throat, the shape of his nose, the play of light across his cheeks, his mouth, the spaces where his white shirt gapped between the buttons and you could see his bare chest underneath. Oh, you’re in trouble… you said to yourself, and yet it didn’t matter. You didn’t care. This was a liminal space, a void where you could be honest and unafraid of the truth.

Even when Scott caught you looking, all he did was look back. He let the tips of his fingers touch yours when sliding a card from your hands, knocked his knee against yours. There was a time—or maybe you imagined it—when you felt his hand stroke your shoulder and you almost did something out-of-line. Because there was a line, blurred, but it existed; you kept within the bounds because you knew it was the sole condition to prolonging this state, so you bought owner’s insurance and traded in stocks, changed careers, had twins, repaid a loan (with interest) and made your slow and steady way to retirement at Countryside Acres.

At the end of the game, after all the remaining play money had been counted, it was Scott who said, “Looks like I win,” and all you said was, “Why am I not surprised?”

Then you glanced at the clock. “It’s late.”

“And we haven’t killed each other. How’s that for a détente?” Scott began putting all the parts away, pulling the pegs out of the cars first, sticking each one inside its appropriate little plastic bag. You would’ve thrown them straight in the box and not had a care in the world about it, but you liked that he did.

It was a Scott thing—patient, methodical, kind of annoying, and mostly well-intentioned. You sat back and watched him do it.

“Wow… they teach words like that at MIT?”

“They tried it out with our class—apparently, word was going ’round that STEM nerds lack empathy.”

You smiled. “Now where would they go and get an idea like that?” His eyes flicked down to yours. Having finished, he went back to reclining against the couch, one arm draped over his bent knee.

His gaze on your skin felt like a physical touch, and when it stopped at your lips, a shock of heat went through your body, from the crown of your head down to your toes. You watched him swallow. The urge to kiss him was vicious, urgent and unrelenting, and when you saw his mouth part, his tongue emerging to wet his lips, you thought, Now now now, but then Scott stood so fast he almost upset the table.

“I should go,” he managed to say, his voice ragged. He sought sightlessly for his discarded jacket, found it lying over the top of the couch, and he couldn’t escape fast enough. Frustration rolled off him in waves.

“Scott!” You scrambled to your feet. You might have touched the very edge of his sleeve, but he held up his hand to stop you coming any closer.

“This was a mistake.”

You went stock still. The spell was broken—this was no longer the dreamworld where nothing mattered, this was the Real World. The one where everything had been broken, not least of which because of you, and it was all a mistake. Calling him had been a mistake, meeting him had been a mistake, thinking that you could control anything you felt about him had been a mistake.

And now there was this: Scott raking his hands through his hair, turning in the middle of the room, almost a decade’s worth of anger and disappointment and confusion and, why not, maybe a little hatred thrown into the mix.

“You never trusted me!” he threw in your face. “And I mean never—even when we were in high school, especially not in college—”

“Why are you talking about college?” you demanded, your voice rising to meet his.

“Every time I called, it was like you were expecting me to tell you it was over. Every girl I so much as spoke to when you came to visit—”

“I was eighteen! What the fuck do you want me to say? That I was insecure and kind of an idiot? Yeah, no shit! I thought we’d moved past that!”

“No, we didn’t move past it because it never changed! Maybe it stopped being about other women, but then it was about work, about the time I spent shadowing at my uncle’s company. Do you have any idea how exhausting it was to keep having to convince you that I was all in? And what, somehow we went from that to ‘you’ve changed, Scott, I don’t think I like who you are anymore, Scott’—?”

“What the fuck? I never said that!”

“The night we had dinner at my uncle’s—the night you left! And again in the elevator—”

“Can we not do this?” you plead. “I thought we weren’t going to do this. We agreed!”

“Well, maybe I'm changing the terms.”

“Then this ends right here.”

There was silence. You knew it was coming, and yet it still hurt like a freight train hitting you square in the chest when he looked you in the eyes and said: “What else is new?”

You flinched. You felt your whole body recoil, your eyes sting. Your fault. The one who couldn’t stand up for herself, couldn't commit, who ran at the first sign of trouble. You and Scott are doomed to fail. Riggs had laid down his vision for the future and you had believed him, had chosen to believe him more than you had ever believed in Scott, or in yourself.

You’re not the girl for him. You’re nothing like him.

Hadn’t you always told yourself the same in the darkest recess of your mind? Hadn’t you, in truth, been just a little bit relieved when you packed your things and moved back to Park Haven, play-acting ended, no more trying, no more waiting for the other shoe to drop?

“I’m sorry.” Scott took an immediate step towards you. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did,” you shot back with more vitriol than you intended.

“Don’t do that—don’t pretend to know how I fucking feel.”

“You forget, Scott. I know you.”

“I thought the whole point was that you didn't! That I was so… unrecognizable!”

“Well, you are!” you exclaimed, shouting again. “Suing Javi? Trying to take down his company? Being Riggs’s, what, fucking loyal dog—”

“Oh, spare me the hysterics…”

“Did you say it?” you cut in. “Did you really say you didn’t care about that town full of people?”

Scott froze. You watched his jaw clench, and you knew in that moment that he'd been counting on Javi’s discretion on that score.

If your intention had been to preserve any goodwill between them, that was all going up in flames now. Hell, after tonight, you and Scott might be incapable of being in the same room together, let alone working towards a peaceful resolution to a civil suit.

“You weren’t there,” he ground out. “There were other things going on.”

“Did you say it, Scott?” It was obvious that he had. The shame kept him from saying another word when you finally stepped around the coffee table. “But God forbid I say a word against Marshall Riggs, the undoubted patron saint of Tornado Alley. I'm sure his real estate empire only exists so he can share his considerable wealth with the downtrodden and needy!”

“What do you want me to fucking say? Do you want me to apologize for who my family is? I'm sorry if you find my uncle objectionable, but he is the only reason I ever made something of myself—you ever consider that? I’d be nothing without him—nothing! You think my father could have lifted a finger? Riggs is the only reason Mom and I made it through that summer. I owe him everything! So he makes business decisions you don't agree with—”

You scoffed.

“—but Javi knew exactly where all that money came from. He wasn't duped, I didn’t trick him… he made a choice. He made a choice! And then, what, Kate Carter comes along and he grows a fucking conscience? Give me a break…”

“And where the hell is yours! You think I give a shit what Marshall Riggs does? I care about you, you fucking idiot! Are you really going to stand there and tell me you’re happy? That it… that it feels good to know you’re suing your best friend, that you seemingly have no other friends, that you’ve hitched yourself to your uncle and the most you can say is you’re doing it out of obligation? You used to want more for yourself, Scott!”

He laughed at that. Rubbing his hand across his mouth, he regarded you with a derisive humor.

“Tell me, how’s the trust fund going? Your dad—he was always a pretty shrewd investor, right? and your mom’s family… they’ve got those boutique hotels along the eastern seaboard, the ones that get their pictures in the magazines and all over social media? It’s pretty easy to talk about wanting more for yourself when your father didn’t sink your family prospects on a deck of cards. I do what I have to do. Not that you’d ever understand.”

Money—had it been this big of an issue the whole time? Had you ignored it all the years of your relationship? Money… and jealousy of your father, Scott’s resentment towards his. You felt so blind, so stupid. The “cracks” Riggs had referenced had been there all along, and instead of talking about them you had stuck your head in the sand, worried that if you said the wrong thing all your insecurities would be proven right. That Scott would leave.

Scott… Did you ever stop to consider the damage that leaving him alone with Riggs might cause?

“You only think you can’t make it without him,” you dared to say. “But he doesn’t care about you.”

“What, not like you do?”

“No,” you affirmed. “Not like I do.”

Scott frowned at you. He appeared almost childlike, vulnerable. A boy calling “no fair!”, probably with Riggs’s voice in the background saying, Life isn't fair. “You don't get to do that. You don’t get to do that after all this time… you—you fucking left!”

“He offered me money. Did he ever tell you that? How he tried to buy me off to leave you? You talk about my trust fund, and it’s true—I grew up lucky, but we never had Marshall Riggs Money. There’s rich and then there’s capital-R Rich, the kind you only get when you’ve turned being a ruthless son-of-a-bitch into an art form.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Yes, you do. I can see it in your eyes—you know I’m telling the truth. I never liked him. What's more, he could tell I didn't like him, and he couldn't have that… no, not Riggs. He’d gotten used to you being his right-hand man and he wasn’t about to lose you. So he waited until you left the table—”

“I’m not going to listen to this.”

“—he waited until you left the table,” you repeated, almost toe to toe. You forced yourself to continue, even in the face of Scott’s patent distress. You couldn't live like this, not anymore. Keeping secrets, taking the biggest share of the blame. “‘If he marries you, he and his mother won’t see another cent from me even if I have to drive past them through the gutter,’” you recited. “Those were his words. I’m not lying to you—I wouldn't, not about this.

“He was never going to let us be together. Obviously, I didn’t take the money, but he was dead serious about his threat. And I was angry. I thought if only you’d stood up to your uncle before, if you weren’t blind to what he really was, I would never have been put in that position. So I took it out on you. I blamed you. And I said things…”

You faltered, remembering the night you returned to the hotel. You couldn’t stay, not with Riggs’s check in your pocket and the memory of his hand gripping your wrist. But Scott didn’t understand. He didn't know what had made you so upset, why you were throwing your clothes into your suitcase and talking about flights and returning his ring and about how it was time you stopped pretending. And, yes, you took to heart what Riggs had implied about other women. You weren’t picky. You weren’t careful. You just had to leave.

You were ashamed of it now. The knowledge of how you’d acted lodged in your throat like a stone you couldn’t swallow down. Scott remembered it, too. His eyes flickered this way and that, recalling, wondering how much of it was true.

“I said things to you that I wish I’d never… that I still think about, and I still regret, because I love—” Your voice broke. You placed your hands over his chest, then cradled his face, willing him to believe you, willing yourself to be brave. “I still love you, Scott. I love you. I should’ve told you the truth, but I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“No… you left,” he said weakly, bracing his hands around your wrists.

“I know I did… I know, but he can’t have you.” You kissed his mouth, once, twice, as many times as he allowed, and all the while you said the things you should’ve said that night in New Orleans. “I won’t let him have you… not this time… not again.”

Scott turned his head and the heat of his tongue met yours.

One second he was all coiled tension and the next he was all over you, walking you back towards the couch, kissing a trail down your neck, one hand tangled in your hair while the other was already up your skirt matching his strokes to the curl of his tongue. He laid you down on the couch, settling between your thighs, and even clothed the weight of him felt familiar—the pass of his hand up and down your leg, the way he liked to tease you by wandering just close enough to where you wanted before pulling away, distracting you with a searing kiss or a shallow roll of his hips.

In the past, there were times when he would draw it out for hours, taking you to the brink and back until you were sure you wanted to curse him.

At a friend’s New York wedding, he made you come three times before he entered you, and you weren’t too proud—now, with the real Scott on top of you, all over you, soon to be in you if there was any justice in the world—to admit that you had replayed that night in your head sometimes when you were lonely. When a bad day at work or an ill-advised night of drinking too much ended with you trying to chase sleep on the heels of an orgasm that was never as satisfying as the ones you got with Scott.

Even when you managed to make yourself come—really come, that full-bodied electricity-followed-by-deep-silence feeling—you had been all too aware of his absence. What was the point, you had wondered, if you couldn’t curl up next to him or listen to the steady flow of his breathing or hear him sigh into your neck when he wrapped his arms around you and went to sleep? What was the point if, upon waking, you wouldn't have Scott and his early-morning voice, the clarity of his eyes, the smell of the coffee he made in his stupidly expensive espresso machines? (God, you missed that coffee.)

It was Scott… it was only ever Scott.

The couch was a perilous place to be doing any of this. You weren't sure that he fit in it, for one, and for another, you were mildly worried about the potential costs of fixing a broken midcentury piece of furniture. Oh, well, you thought, life’s too short. Not bothering to undress, you pushed aside articles of clothing, hands bumping into each other, scraps of fabric pushed aside, belt buckle rattling as it landed on the floor, until finally he surged into you, gripping the side of the couch and burying a curse against your neck as you stretched around him.

He slid a hand below your hips and fixed the angle. The sex was hurried, messy and it had nothing of grace; it was imperfect and rather cramped, really, but all that mattered was how he felt. He felt like home. As you came, he entwined his fingers around yours, and then he finished, trembling, prolonging a wave of pleasure that took your breath away.

Don’t go, you want to say into his heaving chest.

Somehow, he turned you on your side so you could stretch along the couch. He wrapped his arms around you, stroking feather-light touched along your arm as his breathing slowed. You felt tired, hollowed out, but not in a bad way. In a quiet-before-the-storm way, when you can smell water in the air and the breeze picks up, and the world sits on the cusp of being new.

“I miss you,” he confessed, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I miss you too.”

After that, there was a silence so long it made you think he’d dozed off, but then he spoke again, painfully honest and a little scared. “I don't think I can do what you need me to do. I’m not… that’s not who I am anymore.”

“I think you are,” you said back. “I think he’s who you’ve always been.”

THREE WEEKS LATER

You were enjoying a rare weekend off from work. Figuring you could do with some real time off the clock, you’d let the office know you’d be holding all work calls and emails until Monday. Abby’s eyes had nearly popped out of her skull in a rare show of feeling, but after the emotional turmoil of the last few months, you knew you needed to walk around the city, have a massage, touch some grass, maybe eat a pint of ice cream in front of a frothy period drama—a true-blue staycation.

The morning after you and Scott slept together, you’d agreed that it was in everyone’s best interest to let things be. He needed time to think about a few things, and regardless of your shared history, you were still Javi’s lawyer. You distracted yourself by doubling down on other cases. It helped that dealing with Mrs. Richardson-Burkhardt and the four Barone siblings was as eventful as watching an HBO television series—between the scathing one-liners and last-minute twists, there was little bandwidth left over to think about Scott.

And yet you always managed.

For better or for worse, Scott had always been good at making you hope for things. Even when you wanted to err on the side of caution, expect the worst and thus avoid disappointment, just the fact that he loved you made you feel like anything was possible, like you could make things happen.

“We brought out the best in each other. That mattered to us more than anything your father and I ever did wrong.”

At a department store downtown, you watched across the way as a young couple studied a tray of rings at the jewelry counter, diamonds sparkling in the light. The woman grabbed her partner’s arm and pointed at one of the selections as if to say, “That one!”, and for a moment they were in perfect sync. The salesman offered up the band with elaborate flourish, the groom-to-be took his bride’s hand, slipped the ring on her finger, and they admired it together, the play of white gold on her black skin.

The woman beamed. So did he.

“Looks like we have ourselves a winner,” the pleased salesman declared.

After lunch and an overpriced iced coffee, you arrived home with a gift for the Travises’ golden anniversary party, a pair of gold-accented crystal champagne glasses you hoped would survive the flight. It would be nice to see your mom again, to reunite with your old college friends, and revisit old haunts.

The thought of going home no longer filled you with dread—for which, even if nothing came out of your night with Scott, if he decided that upending his life was too much for him to handle right now, you would always be grateful. For years, your idea of a worst nightmare was running into him and having the truth spoken aloud, plainly, and for both of you to hear. Nothing will ever be as bad as this, you told yourself.

But it was a half-lie. Not seeing him again would be worse.

Already, you felt his absence like a hollow in your chest.

On the kitchen counter, you saw that your phone began to ring. “Javi, how’s the weather looking?” you asked, putting him on speaker as you poured yourself some water.

 “She’s a fickle mistress, I’ll tell you that! Hey, I just wanted to let you know… Scott called this morning. He says he’s dropping the suit.”

“Oh?”

“You don’t sound too surprised. Any of that you're doing?”

“No,” you replied, picking up your phone, “that’s all Scott. I haven’t spoken to him in weeks, actually.”

“Well, he sounded different. Still Scott, but a shorter stick up his ass, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I know a part of how everything went down was my fault—business is business, as my Ma always says. I sold him my share of StormPAR, which means I also have to pay back some of the money we took from Riggs. That’ll hurt like a—well, you know… I’m not the guy’s biggest fan these days. But if I don’t have to hear the name Marshall Riggs ever again, I’ll count myself lucky and say it’s a price well-paid.”

“And Scott?” you ventured to say.

“Honestly, I think he’s done with the whole thing. Sounds like he’s closing up shop, which makes sense. He’s a damn good engineer but kind of hopeless as a chaser.”

You laughed. “Yeah, I guess I can see that. Are you okay?”

“Me, or me and Scott?”

“Both.”

To Javi’s credit, he took a few moments to actually think about it. “Yeah, I’m good. You know me… I never stay down for long. Man with a thousand plans. Me and Scott? Man, I don’t know about that one… I did leave him by the side of the road. Ruined one of his immaculately pressed shirts.”

You snorted. “God forbid.”

“Yeah, God forbid. Listen, if it were up to me, I’d just let bygones be bygones. Life’s too short, you know. Shit happens… I don’t want to be a guy who burns bridges over money.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“What I mean to say,” Javi spoke over a sudden burst of wind, “is that if Scott ever wants to give me a call, I’ll answer. You can even tell him I said that.”

“Me?” You set your glass down with a clatter, heat rising to your face.

“Yeah, you! I’m not an idiot, hotshot, that history’s not gone ancient yet.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Mhm… Anyway, the wind’s picking up. Kate’s off reading her dandelions.”

“You know, I kinda wish I could see her doing that…”

“Watch out, we might make a chaser of you yet!” Javi crowed.

You shook your head, said, “I wouldn't hold my breath,” but you were smiling. The sun streamed through your open windows and anything was possible.

Once Javi ended the call, you stared at your phone, wondering… And then you decided to be reckless one more time. Call it a calculated risk, you thought instead. You held the phone up to your ear and listened to it ring. The dial tone sounded a few times, and then it stopped.

He’d answered.

“Scott, it’s me,” you said, trying to relax the thrumming in your heart.

There was a pause and then you heard his voice: “Did Javi tell you?”

“Yeah, we just got off the phone.”

“Open your door.”

You made a face, glancing at the screen and holding it against your ear again. “What?”

“Open your door, UPenn!”

You dashed to the entryway, patting your hair, blotting your face, wondering if your shirt was wrinkled. When you pulled the door open, you saw Scott in full view, in the middle of the day. Not wearing white. The blue of his shirt brought out his eyes, which looked tired but less burdened, too.

He seemed lighter, if not happy then trying to get there.

“Thought I’d skip out on being a sore loser this time.” He gave a half-shrug.

“I don’t know, Miller… from here it doesn't seem like you're losing.”

He smiled at the floor, almost shy. And when he looked into your face you saw the boy you fell in love with at Nichols Academy, the one who took baseball too seriously, who loved Hemingway and your mom’s apple crisp, the one who sang bad Sinatra and got into fights and thought James Watt was something of a god. It was like the worst of the last few years had gone away, leaving only space for something new to grow, to be built—together.

“All I want is you,” promised Scott, taking you into his arms.

You stuck your hand in your pocket, extracted the ring you’d kept there for almost a month like a talisman, like a good-luck charm, and held it up to Scott. He stared at it, and then at you, with something like shock.

Something like awe and wonder.

“Don’t you know? You've always had me.”

And in that hallway, Scott Miller, a man who’d never cop to having a romantic bone in his body, spun you around and kissed you and wouldn’t have cared if your neighbor at Apartment 424 had noticed or if one of his investors appeared. Maybe there was something to Tyler’s corny catchphrase, after all: If you feel it, chase it—no matter the odds, no matter the obstacles in your path, because feeling it was purpose and inspiration and direction when you lost your way.

It took you a while, but you understood it now.

[zevrra]

forgive me—

tags: 18(+) only!, mdni, nsfw, suggestive content, fem!reader, nanami kento(jjk), sorta priest au, smut, short & sweet

creator notes: this isn’t really a fic or anything just some thoughts i couldn’t get OUT of my head the last few days! the nanami brainrot is taking over >:3

priest!nanami who can’t stop thinking about you. who took a vow of celibacy only to end up with dreams of you every night. dreams about the way your body must look without any clothes. what it would feel like to kiss you. how your skin would feel beneath his rough hands. how would you taste on his tongue. can’t get the thought of what your pussy must feel like when he finally slips himself inside. twitching, leaking, groaning, as he buries his cock inside of you.

wakes up every morning with soaked pajamas.

priest!nanami who touches himself through his pants while in the confession booth next to you. he begs god to forgive him and his sins but he can’t stop. listening to the sound of your voice is enough for him. makes it even harder to hold back when he knows you’re speaking about him. he’s needy, a total mess, palming himself as he imagines entering your side of the confession booth and finally getting a taste of the forbidden. and you want him to do it so bad but he never does. clarity hits him after you leave and he comes down from his sensitive high, locks himself in his room to pray for the rest of the day.

priest!nanami when he finally is presented with the chance to make you his he doesn’t even think twice. he’s pulling you into his room, kissing you with so much passion and energy because he fears you might just be another dream. let’s you have your way with him as long as he gets just a taste, one taste, it’s all he’s begging for. eats you out like it might be his last meal on this earth. doesn’t stop until his chin is soaking wet and you can hardly stand. holds you up by your ass with your legs wrapped around his waist so he can fuck you, right then and there. and when he finally does get to fuck you, it’s better than heaven could ever be. he’s rutting, desperate, bottoming out inside of you because he can’t hold back anymore. from his lips he whimpers how he loves you over and over again.

priest!nanami who ends up solely devoted to you. gives up his priesthood just to be with you. you are his goddess and nothing can get in the way of you two ever again.

[kettlefire]

Age is but a Number (DPxDC)

Daniel Fenton was only thirteen months old when he took his first steps. Only fifteen months old when he said his first words. He was two years old when he uttered his first sentence.

Danny could walk back his whole timeline from the moment he opened his eyes into this world. Except, none of those moments counted. They held no true weight for Danny's life.

No, there were certain moments that mattered. That had a clear shift to his life. Not every moment, not every milestone mattered.

Danny was five years old when he first felt the sting of disappointment at his parents missing a school event. He was six years old when the lab door was closed in his face for the first time, but not the last time.

He was eight when his young mind realized who was the one raising him. The one feeding him, waking him up, getting him dressed, and dealing with his tantrums.

Danny was ten when he learned to love and hate his parents for the true first time. Seeing both the good and the bad in them, and still loving them despite it.

He was eleven when he watched his sister crack under the pressure. Stood teary-eyed in the doorframe of her bedroom as he watched her cry and sob. He was twelve when he got into his first real fight with his mother, hiding away at Tucker's place for a few nights.

Danny was fourteen years old when he stepped into his parents' portal. When he accidentally hit the on switch. When a combination of ectoplasm and electricity ruined his life.

He was only fourteen when he experienced death for himself. Felt his life force leave him, and flood him at the same time.

Danny was still only fourteen when his world changed. New powers and abilities appear out of thin air. When a crazed billionaire latched on to him. When Danny had taken the mantel of a hero without meaning to.

He was still just fourteen when his life was filled with constant fighting. Both ghostly and human. Things got more tense between Danny and his mother. School was a weight that Danny wasn't sure he could handle.

Danny was fifteen when he had an existential crisis. The weight of a looming crown he was meant to take on the moment he turned eighteen or died fully. Having witnessed timelines where his family was gone. Having recognized a pattern of repetition in a life that Danny didn't want.

He was still fifteen when he made an impulsive decision. It was stupid and rash. Something expected from an angsty teenage boy, and not from an heir to a throne and a town to protect.

There had been no big fight. No big showdown. His parents still didn't know his secret. Danny hadn't bothered telling Tucker, Sam, or Jazz about his great plan. One moment, Daniel Fenton was in Amity Park. The next moment, he was gone without a trace.

Danny is just a fifteen year old boy, perched on a hill miles away from home. He didn't know what he was doing or what he was going to do. He didn't even know what state he was in.

He had just flown through the sky, a bag of emergency supplies slung over his shoulder. Danny had no intentions of stopping. That was until he stumbled cross a state line, and felt it.

A strong sense of caring and love. A feeling that Danny could only compare to the love he felt from Jazz. There was a strangeness in the air, but also a feeling of home. It drew Danny in like a moth to a flame.

Danny was just fifteen, curled up on a damp hill. Staring up into the night sky, and wishing for things to be different.

Not completely different. He didn't want to get rid of Phantom. Didn't want his life to go back to how it had been. Danny wanted things to get better. He wanted to feel like a kid again, something he realized he hadn't felt in a long time. Despite Jazz's best efforts to shield him.

The first tear had left Danny before he even realized it. A shaking hand wiped the tear away, silently cursing at himself for being such a baby.

Except that wasn't the only tear. It was like a dam, he never knew was there, had broken. Tears streaked down Danny's cheeks faster than he could wipe them away. Choked muffled sounds quickly turned to harsh gasping sobs.

Danny was only fifteen when he finally broke. Curled up on a random hill in a random state in the middle of nowhere. A glowing young teenager whose glow only seemed to dull with each gut-wrenching sob. Yet the stars seemed to twinkle even brighter than ever on this countryside.

So lost in the whirlwind of emotions that Danny was too young to fully decipher, he never noticed the approaching vehicle. Didn't so much as flinch when it came to a stop near him.

Danny's pain radiated with each sound he made. With each tear that left his toxic eyes. There was seemingly no end to it all. Until a single voice managed to pierce through Danny's bubble.

"Oh, dear... It's just a boy. Quick, grab a blanket!"

A small, frail voice was all it took. A voice weathered with age, and a tremble to it. Danny's whole body froze, head lifting to look at the speaker.

Except his vision had been quickly covered for a brief moment as an old flannel blanket was suddenly wrapped around Danny's shoulders. It smelt of dirt, hay, and warmth.

A kind old woman quickly followed to take a seat beside the glowing teenager. A warm, loving smile on her lips as she brought a thermos to Danny. An equally old and warm man seemed to follow behind her.

Danny's sobbing had quieted as quickly as it had started. The teen was completely bewildered, stunned to silence. This old couple, the embodiment of the American dream, didn't so much as blink at the sight a glowing boy crying on their land.

She had called him a boy. She had called him a boy. Danny was just a boy to her. His hands trembled as he accepted the thermos, taking a drink from the still hot coco inside.

Danny's stunned silence must have spoken volumes. The old man had given out a chuckle, moving to stand beside his wife.

"Don't worry, bud. Our son is just as strange as you."

Danny was just fifteen years old when he stumbled onto the Kent farm. When John and Martha Kent stumbled upon a crying glowing boy. When a sweet old couple hadn't cowered in fear but instead embraced Danny. Offering kindness and comfort with no strings attached.

He was only fifteen when he found himself a new home. A new life. One where he didn't have to be anything more than a teenage trying his best. When his powers weren't needed, only appreciated. Never expected.

A life where a warm home-cooked meal and a mother's kiss seemed to greet him every morning and night. Where a father's touch seemed to linger in every tractor lesson, every game of catch, and every time Danny learned more about the farmer lifestyle.

Danny was fifteen when he found his family. When he met the equally kind son of an amazing couple. When he had someone willing to teach him how to handle his powers, but never expected him to.

But Danny was seventeen when his past came back. When a town and people he cared about, all came flooding back in. When the guilt and shame of abandoning them came flooding back in.

When his new picture, perfect life started to crumble around the edges. When he realized life never went well for a Fenton and Fenton-adjacent. The perfect safe bubble had to burst eventual.

And well, that's a story for another day.

[introspectivememories]

NICO: WE SHARED THE LIFT THIS MORNING! I WAS GOING TO THE POOL TRAMPOLINE WITH MY TWO DAUGHTERS AND HE WAS GOING TO THE RACETRACK. PINKHAM: VERY DIFFERENT LIVES YOU'RE CURRENTLY LEADING.

[dahkis]

the vibe of each of the flora's themes

adele, adele's oath: a sacred, but mythical feeling befitting the virtuous knights from the old stories that used to be told to children. the choir is singing the knights' praise, perhaps symbolizing their initial glory days, serving the god-king during his heyday before ultimately betraying him and breaking their oath to protect him. however, it continues to have a non dominating presence in the background, symbolizing the present. although the knights of the einherjar was replaced with the militaristic high flora army, the flickering flame of a noble knight has not died yet. it was alive in adele, who remained loyal to her oath to the god-king to the very end.

khali, oblivion: the drums and choir ramping up throughout the song symbolizes her bubbling feeling of deep anger boiling over. she has a strong yearning for vengeance against ypsilon for the undeserved death of her family.

illium, death of asylum: the choir is singing to the metaphorical revival of the god of the verdent flora; illium's fusion with the elder crystal symbolizes him inheriting their will and carrying on the burning passion of the verdent flora race through the pride of their invention of mechanical wings. there's a sense of determination, but a quiet anger festering among them as well.

ark, recollecting memories: i miss my wife tails, i miss her a lot

[syncrovoid-presents]

I will continue being gone for a few days, sadly my original al plan of releasing the newest chapter of The Consequence Of Imagination's Fear has also been delayed. My apologies

Can't go into detail because its hush hush not-legally-mentionable stuff but today is my fifth 12 hour no-break work day. I'm also packing to move too in a fortnight (which is a Big Yahoo!! Yippee!! I'll finally have access to a kitchen!! And no more mold others keep growing!!! So exciting!!!)

[genderfluidgothwitch]

Also, I made a realization today. Today was the first time EVER where I have officially been too stoned to watch a horror film

[todayisafridaynight]

Isn't It Something though.............. I've always considered it a deliberate irony that he's always had his status as Arakawa's "only" son to fall back on (as Masato, anyway), and it was even his Get Out Of Jail Free card, but it was ultimately not the whole truth and they all more or less knew it. And there's also something there about the resources and support that should've "rightfully" been Ichiban's too, but that he was denied because Jo refused to tell the truth.

I can't quite articulate it right now but I wouldn't say you were jumping the gun in taking note of it! I do think it's supposed to be of note, to throw people off the scent on the first playthrough and raise eyebrows on subsequent playthroughs.

Also I'm 20 minutes into First Penguin (I started like, this time yesterday) and literally so evil to make Tsutsumi sing the high note when they were harmonizing their names 😭😭😭 he hates singing because he doesn't think he sounds good so it's incredibly rare for him to sing even when he's cast in musicals... LOVE THE PROTAG THOUGH. QUEEN

it really is just some Butterly Effect shit its genuinely bonkers that because arakawa opened the wrong locker, All Of This happened. question as old as time What Would've Happened If He Opened The Right One but god What If right..

you've probably finished the ep at this point since i take nine years to respond to things BUT AW JLKAJ THAT'S SO UNFORTUNATE FOR HIM NOOOO. LIKE RELATABLE BUT NOOOOOOO ESPECIALLY GIVING HIM THE HIGH NOTE if i may drop the smallest of spoilers this is at least the only time he has to sing iirc but honestly he sounded right fine 😭 AND IM GLAD YOU LIKE IWASAKI SO FAR GENUINELY one of the neatest protags of all time i love her so much

[verystressedcollegestudent]

if there's one thing i hate more than slackers in group projects its goddamn hypocrites

[louisa-gc]

how to start reading again

from someone who was a voracious reader until high school and is now getting back into it in her twenties.

start with an old favourite. even though it felt a little silly, i re-read the harry potter series one christmas and it wiped away my worry that i wasn't capable of reading anymore. they are long books, but i was still able to get completely immersed and to read just as fast as i had years and years ago.

don't be afraid of "easier" books. before high school i was reading the french existentialists, but when getting back into reading, i picked up lucinda riley and sally rooney. not my favourite authors by far, but easier to read while not being totally terrible. i needed to remind myself that only choosing classics would not make me a better or smarter person. if a book requires a slower pace of reading to be understood, it's easier to just drop it, which is exactly what i wanted to avoid at first.

go for essays and short stories. no need to explain this one: the shorter the whole, the less daunting it is. i definitely avoided all books over 350 pages at first and stuck to essay collections until i suddenly devoured donna tartt's goldfinch.

remember it's okay not to finish. i was one of those people who finished every book they started, but not anymore! if i pick up a book at the library and after a few chapters realise i'd rather not read it, i just return it. (another good reason to use your local library! no money spent on books you might end up disliking.)

analyse — or don't. some people enjoy reading more when they take notes or really stop to think about the contents. for me, at first, it was more important to build the habit of reading, and the thought of analysing what i read felt daunting. once i let go of that expectation, i realised i naturally analyse and process what i read anyway.

read when you would usually use your phone. just as i did when i was a child, i try to read when eating, in the bathroom, on public transport, right before sleeping. i even read when i walk, because that's normally a time i stare at my screen anyway. those few pages you read when you brush your teeth and wait for a friend very quickly stack up.

finish the chapter. if you have time, try to finish the part you're reading before closing the book. usually i find i actually don't want to stop reading once i get to the end of a chapter — and if i do, it feels like a good place to pick up again later.

try different languages. i was quickly approaching a reading slump towards the end of my exchange year, until i realised i had only had access to books in english and that, despite my fluency, i was tired of the language. so as soon as i got back home i started picking up books in my native tongue, which made reading feel much easier and more fun again! after some nine months, i'm starting to read in english again without it feeling like a huge task.

forget what's popular. i thought social media would be a fun way to find interesting books to read, but i quickly grew frustrated after hating every single book i picked up on some influencer's recommendation. it's certainly more time-consuming to find new books on your own, but this way i don't despise every novel i pick up.

remember it isn't about quantity. the online book community's endless posts about reading 150 books each year or 6 books in a single day easily make us feel like we're slow, bad readers, but here's the thing: it does not matter at all how many books you read or what your reading pace is. we all lead different lives, just be proud of yourself for reading at all!

stop stressing about it. we all know why reading is important, and since the pandemic reading has become an even more popular hobby than it was before (which is wonderful!). however, there's no need to force yourself to be "a reader". pick up a book every now and then and keep reading if you enjoy it, but not reading regularly doesn't make you any less of a good person. i find the pressure to become "a person who reads" or to rediscover my inner bookworm only distances me from the very act of reading.

[giamee]

🌐 ᯓ★୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐊 '𝐍 𝐍𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐘!

hsr men x f!reader .... SMUT!! 🚨🚨🚨

request ؛ ଓ @coreakin-sakarat What will the honkai star rail men play when yr having sex and who bottom or both and do they go rithm oh oh and do they use toys on u and what are their favorite parts of ur body to fuck

gia's notes ؛ ଓ i did this as more of me just... talkin abt what i think the hsr men are like in bed in order from least to most freaky in my humble opinion. i hope that you like it even though i didn't exactly hit every point u brought up :(

DAN HENG .ᐟ୨୧ starting it off sweet with him, i see dan heng as more of a bottom than anything... he's not super experienced, quite a tender lover, and i see him as remaining quite serious and stoic within the bedroom too. definitely more of a slow and sensual pace, just wants to feel it all with you <3 he's quite hesitant to try things out imo, but i reckon that you could convince him to try out using toys with some convincing! 1000% a thigh guy, really likes pulling out and painting your thighs with his cum as he watches them shake. presses kisses to your forehead as you come down from both of your highs. lowkey i get the vibe that the aftercare and the cuddling and falling asleep together is more satisfying to him than having sex. THIS MAN CRAVES SKIN TO SKIN!!!! he will interlace your fingers while fucking and kiss all over your face!!! a very sweet lover <3

GEPARD .ᐟ୨୧ this man SCREAMS pleasure service top to me. he could cum in his pants just by watching you i swear. he just wants to satisfy you as best as he can :((( your wish is his command frfr. he'll put you in whatever positions you want fully customisable experience just say the word. will sometimes pause midway through sex just to ask you if he's doing a good job and if it feels good with his big puppy dog eyes AWEE. i think he would probably be a little hesitant to try out toys, especially at first? his logic reverts to him assuming that he wasn't good enough at pleasuring you and so you have to revert to a piece of plastic... but be a bit dominant and show, don't tell, him just how good a vibrator can feel and he'll be a lot more on board with the idea <3 his whole mentality is just.. do anything to give you pleasure so if you're on the freakier side, this man is game! (PEG HIM) the little sadistic side of you gets a kick seeing tears well up in his eyes if you edge him just to hear his whines and moans... he might be a top but this man is a sub thru and thru. a bad bitch (you) tells him what to do and he listens!! anyways back to when you and him are fucking... this man is just utterly in love with your pussy, they way it gushes and clenches around him, and his absolute favourite position is any where he gets to just bury his face in ur tits while he's buried inside of you because everything is just so comforting and all of him is now surrounded by something so warm and soft... he's in heaven <3 so yeah he's a tits guy who would have thought!! no matter the shape or size HE'S PUTTING THEM IN HIS MOUTH <3 his thrusts get real sloppy at the end when he's about to cum too, starts babbling in your ear about how good it feels and how much he loves u. what a cutie pie

ARGENTI .ᐟ୨୧ to be honest? i had to think a bit about this one. to me, argenti doesn't really seem like the type to bring up using toys... but that doesn't mean that he isn't game if you mention it. he seems ... not passive exactly? but he just seems like the type to go with the flow with sex. whatever you're into he'll just be like shit i'm down let's go. not kinky per se, but he's definitely a passionate lover. very much wants to explore sensuality. ooh maybe he would be into some sort of wax play or blindfold type behaviour i take it back. would probably chuckle if you decide to get on top and place his hands on your hips to help you adjust to his size and set your own pace <3 very loving, wants to celebrate the beauty of your naked body and worship it in the name of adrila. so yeah if you've got a praise kink, HE'S YOUR MAN!!! you feel like the subject of a poem as he sings your praises, telling you how pretty you look and sound when you cum. like shiiiii that would be enough to make me blush <33 in terms of pace and stuff, i feel like he would be pretty standard? maybe on the slower side because of... you know... passion. it's nothing crazy but still a good time. he seems like he prefers to be looking up at you so RIDE THAT MAN!! maintain eye contact as you sink down on it. raise your hips back up ever so slowly and watch the slightest twitch of his brow as you swivel your hips, sinking back down on it ever so slowly. you might just see him blush. and just as the name suggests, the knight of beauty is a SIGHT to behold when he cums (probably inside).

WELT .ᐟ୨୧ yeah peepaw has got some EXPERIENCE to him lmaoo. he's got a sort of... cheekier? side to him. as an older man, though, he doesn't exactly have the same stamina as he did in his youth :( but that doesn't mean that he can't still get down and dirty with you!! quite the opposite actually. so his solution? he uses toys on you <3 he's more of a bottom but he is DEFINITELY in charge. his dirty talk OMFGG im giggling just thinking about it he would praise you and whisper such sweet words to you as he slowly splits you open on his fat cock, telling you how you're such a good girl for taking him so well, how you feel so good around him, all so he can feel you clench around him like a vice grip as he finally bottoms out <33 def would just have his hands around your waist as he moves you up and down his length when you're feeling weightless. but if he's in a more passive mood, he also LOVESSSS just sitting back and watching you struggle to ride him with a lazy adoring look in his eyes as he holds a vibrator to your clit <333 he'll coo at you as you start crying from the overstimulation, his hands wiping away your tears so tenderly and encouraging you to keep going just for him <3 a little bit of a sadistic side to him because he really does just love watching you squirm. another thigh and ass guy imo, really loves the way they jiggle as they slam down against his own thighs as you start to pick up the pace and ride him with increasing desperation. also loves watching them shake when you cum <3. so yeah as a no brainer i think one of his favourite positions would be reverse cowgirl. yum <3

BOOTHILL .ᐟ୨୧ now dont get me wrong this man FUCKS. since he's a cyborg does his dick count as a toy...? yeah fuck it let's go with it HIS BIOCOCK VIBRATES!! so the sensations on that will go CRAZYYYY. and then i'm thinking because of his synthesia beacon and stuff he doesn't exactly experience much sensation down there. so when you're having sex, what gets him off the most is just seeing your pleasure as you unravel. makes him feel good vicariously <3 so yeah definitely a missionary lover in my eyes so he can watch all your facial expressions and reactions as he hits all the right places, how your brows furrow and your eyes slide shut and eyes roll back in your head as he keeps up his unforgiving pace at juuuuust the right angle <33 but don't get me wrong he's no vanilla bitch either!! if he wants to be feeling more ... sensations he can and will make you just sit on his face for actual HOURS just eating you out to his heart's content. you'd think that his tongue is cybernetic too with the way it flicks across your clit at a borderline INHUMAN speed. but no he's just that good. some of ur most intense orgasms have been from him tonguefucking you like this, his head firmly sandwiched between your quivering thighs as you're basically humping his face as u ride out your high. and hey, he's not complaining <3 and then his smug shit-eating grin does NOT help at all when you're still trying to come back down to earth and he's sitting up wiping the slick off his face with that hungry look STILL in his eyes good lord i hope u can survive the night. this bastard has definitely ruined toys for you, they just don't feel the same any more <//3

BLADE .ᐟ୨୧ fucks hard. angry and/or jealous sex with him has just gotta be >>> 😮‍💨😮‍💨 he's on the rougher side and for MOST of the time will dom. and also tbh i don't really see him as being the type to use toys since he's more spontaneous in terms of having sex (public sex. he's got a high sex drive) but very very passionate for sure- lots of grunts and low moans right up in ur ear mhhhnrng. but also at the same time i feel like he would be quite emotionally detached from sex at first, seeing it as more like stress relief than an act of intimacy? and don't get me wrong, some of the best fucks of your life have come from him when he's just trying to release some pent up anger, but on the flip side there's a more vulnerable side to him, almost. one that's barely there any more from years of bitterness and resentment, but still manages to creep up on him on those late nights where he can't quite sleep. so if you're with him on those rare occasions, this is when you experience him not fucking you, but making LOVE. he won't talk, but he doesn't need to, not with the way he's holding you close to him and kissing you with something akin to desperation as he sinks into you and kind of just... stays there for a bit. it's oddly comforting to him, and if he's feeling especially weak he'll need some comfort- just to get him through the night. it's these nights where you take control more, setting a slow and sweet pace and kind of just... hushing him and whispering sweet words to him as you slowly let yourself grind over him, feeling the way he twitches inside of u <333 but yeah back to not vulnerable blade. a fan of quickies for sureeee (see: high sex drive) another tit guy because i am biased. the force of his thrusts in some dark alleyway or hidden corner will have them jiggling and threatening to fall out of whatever shirt you wear. and if he's got you lifted up in his arms, your legs wrapped around him as you're chest to chest with each other, he just can't tear his eyes away from your boobs. leaves bites on them, laves over them like a damn dog until they're coated in saliva and stiff and perked up because of how cold it feels when drying on your skin. if you're in doggystyle, you'll feel his hands clasp over them from behind, a few short and sweet squeezes to them before his blunt nails are flicking over your nipples just to hear you squeal <3

AVENTURINE .ᐟ୨୧ just like blade, he very much has two different modes. let's start with the freaky one bc that's fun. he's quite open to experiment with all aspects of sex- who's in charge, who's topping, toys, positions, you name it. he trusts you enough to do anything with or to you short of causing each other pain. so yeah he's a freak alright!! i feel like if you're in an established relationship, he'll feel guilty due to the amount if time that he spends away from you because of his job, and make it up to you by spoiling you with gifts... he loves to buy you new toys to try out as he sits back and just watches as you squirm and then writhe in pleasure as he slowly palms himself, eventually unzipping his trousers and jerking himself off until he cums all over u <33 definitely gets a kick out of seeing his cum painting your pretty face and how your tongue darts out to catch it before it drips onto the floor <333 or maybe he just strokes himself to stay hard, his eyes hungrily watching you as your own remain transfixed on his cock, the flushed tip disappearing with every stroke of his hand, the slick noises of his precum overpowering the buzzing hum of the dildo inside of you. and then when neither of you can handle the tension any more, dying to feel each other's touch, after you've cum a couple of times and are all nice and sensitive for him, then and ONLY then will he finally put it in, quickly setting a pace to fuck your brains out like a wild animal <3 lovessss doggystyle or the speedbump position because then he's all up in your guts and ur moans/screams of pleasure are just music to his ears. definitely the type to go a little feral bc... yeah. so yeah that's freaky mode! but like blade he has a softer side to him UNLIKE blade it is still definitely there and more accessible... but that doesn't mean he exposes it to you just like that either. but yeah if he's feeling more vulnerable emotionally, especially right after he wakes up from a nightmare while you're groggily waking up next to him, he just needs comfort. you holding him and stroking his hair, telling him how he's safe and how much you love him. if you've been together for a while and he really trusts you, he might even cry. almost begs you to call him kakavasha instead of aventurine, and you oblige. and then as soon as his name leaves your lips, he's kissing you hard, gradually letting them become tender as you undress each other with the utmost amount of care. it's love that motivates him, from what you can feel from his fingers tracing your skin and how soft his lips press against yours. he lets out a quiet moan as he sinks into you and basks in your warmth for a bit, letting his arms now wrap around your frame tightly, holding you to himself as if you would disappear any moment. and you hug him too, draw patterns on his back, stroke his hair and hum as you tell him how much you love him, listening to the sound of his shaky breaths as you slowly raise your hips, sinking back down inch by inch to hear him hiss. at first, he would still refuse to let you see his face when you have sex like this, not until you gently coax him to look at you, and you see the crystalline tears already escaping from his eyes. he's definitely the type to cry during sex like this- something so soft and tender that it's overwhelming to him for so many reasons- the vulnerability of it all, how much you love and care for him written all over your face, the way you squeeze against him so perfectly. and then he buries his face in your chest as you keep whispering words of affirmation to him and he cums so fast, deep inside of you and then he stays even when he feels himself go soft. just because it feels nice. and he falls asleep just like that, clinging to you, the person he loves.

JING YUAN .ᐟ୨୧ another member of team lazy but pussydrunk (him and welt have permanent memberships lmfao) whenever the two of you fuck it usually starts with him making you work for it. involving either you getting off by grinding on his thigh or riding him, desperately throwing your weight back onto him to even simulate the feeling of his powerful thrusts- all in vain as he merely sits there, looking up at you with a maddening smile and just WATCHING you... what a creep <3 but yeah he loves loves loves seeing how worked up and whiny you get for him to do something, anything, just for him to do the exact opposite, placing two firm hands on your hips to effectively get you to stop, and you whine again from the loss of friction. and he'll merely smile, telling you how you're such a good girl for him, getti my off from watching you get so so close, just to do it over and over again. orgasm denial and edging really are his two best friends fr. so he's not really a strict dom but more of a tease, you get me? i think that YES he will use toys. really gets a kick out of vibrating panties or a vibrator inside of you that he can remote control <33 just really enjoys when you're in public trying to remain composed (what a creep <3) keeps u constantly stimulated all day, finally making it up to you when you both get back home, fucking you properly as you're on the verge of tears and ready to cum any second. hmmm hear me out on this but i think his favourite place to cum would be your back.. like yeah finishing inside is cool and all but pulling out and cumming all over your back just drives him CRAZY and ready for another round... as soon as you recover <3

LUOCHA .ᐟ୨୧ LORDDDDDD he's like jing yuan but even WORSE. he's dangerous too because in his eyes, it isn't him or a toy but him AND a toy. this man will have u in his lap thighs spread legs hanging over his knees so he can keep them open as he has one hand gripping your chin forcing to look at yourself in a mirror, the other hand holding a vibe to yr clit <33 every time your eyes start to roll back he'll do a light slap to your face, forcing you to hold eye contact with him through the mirror, his feline eyes dancing with mirth at your already fucked-out expression. and then when he's sure that his gaze is holding your attention, he'll let go of your face, letting his hand snaie downwards until his hands are collecting your slick on his fingers before pushing into you, pressing a sweet kiss to your cheek that contradicts how hard he's fingering you <3 squirting is not an achievement but the new standard with him!! that man is NOT relenting until you coat his arm and the floor (even the mirror) he really likes making you kiss him just after you cum- when your brain is foggy from the intensity of your orgasm, you can barely hear, let alone process what he's saying, and when u finally manage to connect your lips to his the kiss is just so sweet n sloppy, showing how worked up he is already <33 he's a little mean with it but you wouldn't have it any other way!! because that man knows what you need and will DELIVER. and he loves alllll of you. especially your pussy. and ass lol

DR RATIO .ᐟ୨୧ ok stay with me now cos this one's more of a scenario but!!! imagine that you haven't seen veritas in a while because you've both been busy but he messages you, saying how he'll finally be back soon!!! and ur just so excited that you can't contain it, and all those lonely nights are starting to tally up... your hands just don't do the trick any more and you finally cave, getting out your old reliable dildo to try and satiate your lust. trying your hardest to focus on veritas while you fuck yourself so that you'll be able to cum... pretending that it's his cock instead of some silicone... moaning out his name into your room with your eyes screwed shut to try trick your brain into believing that it's really him!! and it seems to work because you can feel that coil in you begin to tighten, and just when ur about to cum you feel a hand on top of yours, startling you out of your impending orgasm. and you open your eyes to see none other than the man who you had been fantasising about just now <3 and he's got this smirk on his face and a certain look in his eyes, and when you glance down you can see that he isn't exactly... unaffected from watching you earlier <33 i feel like he would degrade you a little, calling you such a stupid girl for needing to think of him just to even get close to cumming <333 and you'll whine and get embarrassed, trying to hide yourself with the covers, but deep down you know he's right so you peek at him from behind your lashes, batting them and begging him to help you as sweetly as you can. and how can he deny you when you're just so sweet and submissive for him? he'll be quick to take out his cock, slipping the head through your folds, letting it catch as it skims past your needy hole, letting the tip slap against your sensitive clit just to watch your whole body twitch as he chuckles to himself before bullying his cock into you. even after fucking yourself it's still a stretch, especially cos he has you in a mating press, his strong hands keeping your thighs pinned as he puts hisbweight behind his thrusts, really slamming into you until you're bouncing back against the mattress <33 a good hard fuck that hits all the right spots he needs to in order for you to cum HARD. but if he's feeling mean, he won't even oblige your request, instead being all smug and settling back on his haunches, goading you to keep going and make yourself cum without him because you're just so close, you can do it. watches your pathetic attempts to do so as you huff and beg him because you just can't without him <//3 and maybe if you beg hard enough he'll consider helping you out... even though it's just so entertaining to watch you keep trying. ironically enough, it's the way he calls you his sweet girl as he finally pushes into you that sends you over the edge more than any of your own touches did. and once you ride out that high, body no longer convulsing on his dick, he'll pull out of you just to flip you onto your stomach, then pull your hips up to meet his before fucking into you to make you really cum because of him this time <33

SAMPO .ᐟ୨୧ this man is MOST DEFINITELY an experimentalist!!! 1000% down for literally anything. you use toys on each other el oh el. the epitome of a switch. he'll top or bottom too, it's always a good time with him. definitely a freak. tbh i headcanon him as having a crazy oral fixation... if he's not sucking on your tits already then put your fingers in his mouth!! he'll have hearts swimming in his eyes, especially if you let them slide to the back of his throat until he gags and his eyes get all teary!!! definitely a sight to behold if u start fingerfucking his throat. or maybe just gag him with your panties, letting urself hear his muffled whines and moans as you finally free his cock and deepthroat him <33 oh god his whines and moans... get this man on twitter NEEOOOWWW. as a top he's definitely more goofy about it, not super strict. sex is about making sure you both feel good and just having a good time im his eyes.

GALLAGHER .ᐟ୨୧ ... this man... a certified freak. me personally im not into it but IF U LIKE ANAL THIS IS UR GUY 1000%%%. he def loves ur ass more than anything. the type to stick a finger in as he makes out with you or just let his finger tease the ring of muscle, circling it ever so slowly to feel u squirm while sat naked in his lap. when he eats you out he'll let his tongue drop a little lower to tease both of your holes. if u let him he'll eat your ass with GUSTO. and YES he's using toys on you you're not safe... buttplugs with the cute jewel on them and when you're in public he'll give your ass a slap or squeeze just to see your face change as you feel it press a little deeper into you... he'll have a vibrator fucking into your pussy as he's all up in your guts, laughing at the way you can't even form words right now. yeahhh he's a FREAK. oh and did i mention that he's an ass guy??

SUNDAY .ᐟ୨୧ ohohoho. this man has actual YEARS of pent up sexual frustration under his belt. his wings. whatever. he's a man who thrives off of control, and this is no exception in the bedroom. massive dom. both soft and hard. but more hard <3. really gets off on u calling him sir LAWLLL. lowkey i see him being into some real freaky bdsm stuff... cos hes got the whole sexually repressed catholic thing going on n all yknow. likes seeing u kneeled w your hands tied behind your back. you stripped naked while hes fully clothed and smiling so sweetly as he watches you try and get yourself off by humping his shoe. anything for that power imbalance with him hrrrrng. and if youre feeling a bit more bratty, touch his wings. preen them, blow air on them, even grip onto them HARD with your fingers and it'll get him all riled up. and then that sweet smiling facade will drop and youll see his eyes change into something a touch more feral as he pins u down and fucks u hard and properly. just to remind u who's really in control <3. the aftercare goes crazy, naturally. but then i also saw this post talking abt how hes a PEOPLE PLEASER and i agree 10000% so when he's feeling more soft, your pleasure is his greatest reward. a headrush mix of sweet praise and filthy degradation. telling you how you're a nasty bitch who's just so good for him... how you take him so well like the filthy slut you are.... and he's just so so composed during it all like an ANGEL EHFHWJFJE it makes ur head spin istg. yeah he's a freak in the sheets LOLL

IF YOU LIKED THIS, TRY ...... eat it 'til your teeth rot!

[ SMUT ] how the hsr men eat pussy!

alternatively, find my hsr masterlist here! ˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

[blkkizzat]

YAKUZA!TOJI X MILF!READER —aka toji on some joe goldberg bullshit

⟢ rating: mdni.18+ each episode will have its own ratings but general warnings— lactation kink, face riding, drugs (weed, alcohol, cigs), infidelity, yuji is sukuna x reader child, size-kink, milf kink, breeding kink, voyeurism, masturbation, dubcon/noncon, squirting, pussy talk, biting, creampies, obsessive tendencies, heavy manipulation, yandere, Toji in daddy and dad mode. this will be fem black reader coded as reader is foreigner and uses some aave but no other descriptors. ⟢ total run time: 𝟏𝟑.𝟒𝐤 of ? ⟢ opening theme: Rich Baby Daddy - Drake

⟢ subscriber access: tag request in comments, previous tag list from the teasers are already accounted for. ⟢ director's note: this fic is to celebrate my year of having this account! literally this is the first fic i thought of and wanted to write and have been working on it since nov'23. so full circle moment fr! i hope you enjoy it. ⟢ executive producers: special thanks to @littlemochabunni, @ryomens-vixen, @yung-notorious and @buttercupblu143 for helping me beta this and bounce off ideas and listen to me be crazy for the past 9-10 months about this fic 🥹.

꒰ disclaimer: this is a plot-driven eventual smut fic and is told mostly in Toji POV through flashbacks until the end of episode 3. so if you stick with me i promise you a freak nasty pay off in episode 4 💕🤭. the build up makes it 100x better, trust~ ꒱

🎬 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓—

🎞️ 𝐒𝟏 𝐄𝟏: ❝ I STILL GOT SOME LOVE DEEP INSIDE OF ME, PLEASE DRAG IT OUT OF ME ❞

⟢ Reflecting on the last 3 months of meeting you during a time of organizational unrest, how did casual desire turn into a sinister obsession for a deadly yakuza assassin like Toji Fushiguro? It's your fault though, as a new resident of the yakuza luxury high-rise, The Nursery—shoulda known better than to have smiled that brightly at a single-dad widower, mamas. episode run time: 𝟒.𝟕𝐤

🎞 ️𝐒𝟏 𝐄𝟐: ❝ POPPIN' MY SHIT COME WITH CONSEQUENCES, POST NUT CLARITY I CAME TO MY SENSES ❞

⟢ With tensions in the organization at an all-time high and a traitor still on the loose, everyone is on edge. Fortunately, Toji has been watching over you for weeks, especially since Sukuna has been even less attentive. But when Toji notices you making a new friend—a potential lifeline apart from him—can he keep his jealousy in check? Just how far will Toji go to have you all to himself? episode run time: 𝟖.𝟕𝐤

🎞 ️𝐒𝟏 𝐄𝟑: ❝ WE FROM TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS BUT IT'S A MATCH TO ME ❞

⟢ Forced to make difficult choices this past week, it's becoming increasingly clear Sukuna's loyalties lie more with the organization than you. But of course, as chance would have it, Toji is there to console you when you have no one. Who needs Sukuna, friends, or anyone else when you have Toji? Toji can see the cracks forming in your resolve—but when he pushes, will you still be able to resist his charms? Or will you crumble in his hands? episode run time: ⩇⩇:⩇⩇

🎞️ 𝐒𝟏 𝐄𝟒: ❝ JUST SAY GOODBYE TO HIM, THEN TAKE THE RIDE TO ME, RIDE TO ME ❞

⟢ Circumstances align and you're practically served on a platter to Toji, he takes this as the prime opportunity to finally claim you as his. Toji deserves you. You know this though, so he won't have to do a thing—you'll come to him all on your own like a good sexy lil' milf won't you, mamas? Nevermind about your world falling apart around you—Toji has already made all of the arrangements to see that you and Yuji are taken care of. episode run time: ⩇⩇:⩇⩇

🎬 𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓—

🎞️ 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐒𝟎 𝐄𝟏: ❝ WANNA STICK AROUND FOR THE RIDE? BABY HOLD ON TIGHT ❞ AKA "DON'T DROP THE PANCAKES"

Prequel/Standalone. Yakuza!Sukuna x Exchange Student!Reader. ⟢ Moving to a foreign country for school ain't all sunshine and rainbows—especially when your student status prevents you from acquiring legitimate employment. Good thing a friend of a friend has a connect for under-the-table work. Although, being a topless maid for a ruthless yakuza leader wasn't on your bingo card for your new life abroad—especially when you end up pregnant. episode run time: ⩇⩇:⩇⩇

©𝐛𝐥𝐤𝐤𝐢𝐳𝐳𝐚𝐭 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒. 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐟𝐱, 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞.

[likeumeanit9497]

the re-do | m.s. |

matt sturniolo x fem!reader

summary: y/n participates in the triplets' "dirty q&a" video, where she accidentally infers that her experience losing her virginity to matt back in high school had been mediocre. instead of taking offence, matt makes it his mission to show her just how much he has improved since then.

warnings: SMUT; established friendship; m/f oral; unprotected p in v; dirty talk; 18+

notes: hi guys! this is my first ever one shot so pls be gentle with me (i'm genuinely so terrified to post this). it has absolutely NOT been proof read forgive me, but i hope you all enjoy <333

“Guys why am I actually nervous to film this?” Nick proclaimed from his place in the backseat of the car beside me. “No I am genuinely so scared right now.” Replied Chris from the seat in front of me as he began passing out our respective orders from McDonalds.

“We can’t act nervous or else the fans are gonna go even crazier than they already will.” Added Nick as Matt adjusted the camera on the dash. “You’re sure you’re gonna be able to handle the inevitable shit talking that’s gonna come from all this?” Matt asked as he turned to face me in the back. I took a deep breath but nodded. “The more they see me the more desensitized they’ll be. They’ll have to eventually get over it.”

As one of the triplet’s closest girl friends, I had been on the receiving end of a fair amount of hate from their fangirls on the internet. Because I had known them since elementary school, I had been a part of many of their earlier videos when their fans had still been pretty chill about our friendship. But over the past year, a new wave of younger fans had found the videos and had made it their life mission to publicly bash me any chance that they could. It became too much when, a few months ago, one of them decided to spread a rumour that Chris and I had slept together based on nothing other than strategically edited clips of us smiling at each other. It was then that the guys and I had made the decision to keep me as out of the public eye as possible.

However, the guys had sat me down last week to explain how fed up they were with how restricted they felt they had been in their content. They wanted to make an attempt at reclaiming a fandom built primarily of viewers closer to our age, and they thought that the best way to try that was to ignore the petty complaints and make content that they wanted to make. So, since I had been staying with them in Los Angeles for the month, I had agreed to not only be in one of their regular videos, but I had agreed to be in their ‘dirty q&a’ video. I couldn’t lie, I was a bit nervous, but mostly I was excited that my friends were finally confident enough to make videos with more extreme topics.

“Alright guys, ya’ll ready?” Chris asked, intaking a sharp breath while his hand hovered over the record button on the camera. We all responded with a falsely enthusiastic “ready!”, and the camera was turned on.

“Alright, first question,” Nick began after his long-winded introduction filled with disclaimers and explanations for their change in content. “How many people have you slept with?” Already with the first question, it was obvious that the guys were tentative about answering. “Bro I don’t know, next question.” Chris responded, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands. “What do you mean by ‘I don’t know’ Chris?” Asked Matt tauntingly. “I mean I haven’t fucking kept track of everyone I’ve slept with.” He responded bluntly, before realizing how bad that had sounded. We all, however, erupted into laughter immediately. “Okay okay it’s not that bad guys I swear, I just have a bad memory is all.” He attempted to remedy his previous answer, but all three of us continued to laugh.

“Matt, how about you?” Asked Nick, to which Matt simply held up five fingers to the camera. “Same with me.” Nick agreed before turning to me. “Y/n? Spill it.” I rolled my eyes before answering truthfully. “Seven.” I shrugged, and I caught Matt’s smiley eyes through the rear view mirror.

“Alright next question is…” Chris was scrolling through the responses to their Instagram threads. “How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

“Sixteen” We all responded in unison, and immediately buckled over in laughter. “Not all at once though ya’ll.” Nick explained through his laughter, while mine and Matt’s eyes flew open and Chris’ laugh turned into hysterics. “Well…” Chris began before he was cut short by the three of us telling him to shut up. “I’m definitely gonna have to cut that one out. Sorry you two fools, I kind of set him up there.” Nick rolled his eyes as he looked between Matt and I.

Ironically enough, the fans had been half right in their rumour about Chris and I sleeping together. I had slept with one of the triplets before, but it wasn’t Chris.

When we were sixteen, Matt and I had decided that we wanted to lose our virginities to each other. It had been a no-strings-attached decision, and our friendship thankfully never wavered after it was done. Both Nick and Chris had already lost theirs that same year, and we had both just kind of wanted to get it over with. Obviously, this piece of information was known only by Matt and I, and of course Chris and Nick since they had barged into the room while we were in bed together. Even though the vindictive side of me would love to have the fans know this piece of information and shatter their dreams, I knew that the fallout would be an absolute nightmare.

“Okay let’s see…” I had been handed Nick’s phone to choose a question to answer and was scrolling through my options. “Here’s a simple one. Favourite position? Mine’s speed bump for sure.” I placed the phone down, satisfied with my confident answer, only to be met with multiple pairs of confused eyes. “I beg your pardon? The fuck is speed bump?” Asked Nick as he took his phone back. “The one where you’re kinda just lying flat on your stomach with the guy behind you. Trust me it’s chef’s kiss.” I responded simply. Chris’ facial expression turned from confusion to one of understanding. “Ohhh yeah that’s a good one.” He replied as he dapped me up. “Great, gonna have to edit that out too unless you want the rumours to get really bad again.” Nick said as he rolled his eyes. “Shit, sorry Nick.” Chris said, giggling slightly.

“Let’s just move on.” Matt said as he began scrolling on his own phone. “Best and worst sexual experiences.” He read off of his screen. There was a moment of silence while we all thought of our answers. “I had a girl throw up on my dick once. The problem is I don’t know if that makes it the worst or the best though.” Said Chris, earning a loud groan from each of us. “You’re sick.” Replied Matt, giving his brother a disgusted look.

“I mean I guess the worst sex would probably be my first time right? Like that makes sense right?” Asked Nick in an attempt to steer the conversation away from Chris’ confession, to which I nodded in agreed response without thinking. I caught Matt’s eyes in the rearview mirror again, this time seeing them filled with a pleading expression. Realizing what I had done, I silently prayed to the universe that my action would go unnoticed by the others. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, my head nod didn’t make it past Chris, which was made incredibly clear when he mumbled to Nick behind his hand that was hiding his smiling mouth from the camera.

“Did you see that?” He asked, and Nick looked confused so he continued, “Y/n agreed with you about her first time.” He managed to get out before erupting into laughter at the expense of his brother. Matt threw his hands up in the air once Nick joined Chris in his giggling, and I winced from my place in the backseat; also mouthing an apology to Matt’s reflection in the mirror.

“Bro come on it was my first time! I guarantee you were trash your first time too.” Matt said in an attempt to repair his ego as he threw his empty cup at Chris. “Maybe so, but I don’t have the girl who I lost it to here in the car to confirm it.” Chris snarked back, playfully nudging Matt’s shoulder. “We all gotta start somewhere dude.” He added when Matt didn’t respond. As Nick continued choking on his own laughter, Matt crossed his arms and stared out the window, very clearly wishing he was anywhere but there in that moment.

“Okay okay,” Nick began catching his breath. “We need to cool it because 90% of that what we just filmed is completely unusable. Let’s please just try to make it through this video without exposing Matt and Y/n’s bumpy sexual history again.” He pleaded as he began scrolling through his phone to find new questions.

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

“God, that was rough.” Said Chris as we all climbed out of the parked car. We had finally finished the video. It took us an hour to film, and would still be edited down to just twenty minutes of content where we weren’t exposing big secrets or directly fuelling past rumours.

“At least it’s done. It might be a while before I ever want to do that again.” Nick responded as he opened the garage door leading into their house. “Agreed.” Added Matt from behind me as we climbed the stairs to the main level. We all walked over to the fridge to grab drinks, as if the beverages would clean our dirty mouths.

“Alright,” Chris began after a hefty chug from his Pepsi, “I’m going to my room. Matt, Nick, get on Fortnite with me.” He began descending the stairs. “I’ll get on once I shower Chris. I have a desperate need to scrub this FILTH off of my body.” Replied Nick, and he began walking towards the stairs leading to his bedroom. “Y/n, come upstairs whenever you want to go to sleep and I’ll get off the game.” He called over his shoulder as he disappeared at the top of the stairs.

Matt and I were left alone in the kitchen, him sitting at the table and me sitting on top of the counter in between the stove and the fridge. Swinging my legs carelessly, I decided to break the silence first. “I’m really sorry about all of that in the car Matt. I didn’t mean it.” He looked up at me and chuckled. “Yes you did, and it’s not a big deal. I know I wasn’t great back then.” He responded before taking a drink from his can. I smiled softly at his response but decided to leave it be. There was no use in trying to deny it. The sex was just boring, short, and awkward; the way that most first times are. At least he didn’t take any offence to it.

“You know,” He began after a few moments of silence, his eyes shooting to mine as he stood up from his place at the kitchen table. “I’ve gotten much better.” A playful smirk travelled to his lips as he began walking towards my frozen figure on the counter. He stopped just a few short centimetres away from me, so close that I could reach out and touch any part of him that I wanted. I couldn’t tell if he was fucking with me, until I felt his early signs of arousal press lightly against my knee.

My throat was dry, and I felt like a deer in headlights. Even though Matt and I had slept together when we were younger, the dynamic was much different than now. The proposition came about awkwardly, and we were a fumbling mess with very little understanding of how it felt to be aroused. But in this moment, I was very very aroused just from this conversation.

In my silence, he placed a firm hand on my hip, rubbing his thumb across it gently. “I can do just about anything. Just let me know how you want it and I can give it to you.” My stomach did a somersault at his words, and I felt my panties dampen. He used his free hand to push my legs apart so that he could stand in between them, and my limp hands subconsciously moved up to grab onto his shoulders. At the first sign of my willingness, Matt quickly leaned forward and peppered soft, teasingly slow kisses along my neck. His lips travelled up to my ear, where he bit the lobe playfully before whispering, “Well, tell me. How do you want me Y/n?”

His words caused me to clench on nothing and I nearly moaned from the anticipation. With him still waiting on my response I whispered back, “You can do anything you want to me, Matty.”

Without missing a beat, he attacked my lips with his own and I melted from the immediate relief. I moved my hands from his shoulders up to the base of his head, and as his tongue danced along with mine I pulled gently at his messy hair; my own mouth filling with a moan falling from his lips. His right hand traveled up my grey hoodie to find that I had nothing on underneath, and he lightly brushed the bottom of my left tit with his thumb. Suddenly his hands moved from under my shirt and gripped my ass as he effortlessly lifted me off the counter and into his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist and he stumbled towards his bedroom.

Once inside the undisturbed room, he placed me down on his desk, my ass hitting the mouse and causing the computer to turn on; casting a light on the otherwise dark room. He wasted no time in removing my hoodie, leaning me back slightly so he could easily twirl his tongue along each nipple. I hummed in pleasure from the warm, wet sensation of his mouth connecting to my skin, and brought my hand down in between our bodies to softly run my hand up and down his clothed hardness. After a few moments, he pushed my hand away and dropped to his knees in between my legs.

Pulling my grey sweats off my body and pushing my thong to the side in one quick motion, Matt took a moment to relish in my swollen, dripping hole. “I don’t remember you being this wet for me last time.” He smirked as he looked up at me with blown out pupils. “Let’s see if you taste the same.” My eyes rolled to the back of my head at his filthy words, and a moan slipped from between my lips as his mouth made sloppy contact with my sensitive bud. I subconsciously grabbed onto the back of his head, suffocating him with my heat as he continued to suck and kiss my clit. As his tongue worked on my nerves, he released a guttural moan that vibrated against my heat, causing my back to arch at the intense feeling.

When we had done this all of those years before, Matt’s movements were lacking in confidence. He had fumbled around my clit blindly, and had ate me out cautiously as if he was afraid of hurting me. Now, this Matt had clearly gained experience, as my stomach was already beginning to fill with the familiar pressure from the build up of an orgasm once I watched him find all of my most sensitive spots; his eyes blissfully closed.

Suddenly, he pulled his mouth away from my heat and I groaned at the loss of contact. He straightened his body back up to my level and brought his face so close to mine that our noses were touching. “Kiss me. I want you to know how good you taste.” He whispered through his glistening bright red lips. More on fire than I had ever been in my life, I immediately attached my open mouth to his, moaning at the distinct taste of my sweet arousal on his tongue. As we deepened the kiss, his fingers found my heat and he ran two of them up and down my folds to collect my wetness before slamming them into my cunt; finding my spongey g-spot on the first pump with his curled fingers.

My head rolled back, lost in the euphoric feeling of his fingers filling me up, and he watched my facial expressions intently as the wet sounds of my upcoming orgasm filled the space between us. “Holy fuck, Matt.” I slurred, my voice coming out choppy as his fingers continued to relentlessly pound into me; never losing contact with that one spot that drove me crazy. “I-I’m gonna-” I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the very beginning of my orgasm roll over my body.

Suddenly, all of his movements stopped and my eyes shot open out of frustration. In the time since my eyes had screwed shut, his own had darkened in arousal. My body trembled from the sudden halt in its pleasure, and he smirked at me. “You want to cum, sweetheart?” He asked, his kind words a harsh paradox to his sinister expression. Still, I nodded eagerly to which he pulled his fingers out of me completely before leaning up and placing his wet mouth right against my ear.

“You’re gonna fucking wait for me.”

I attempted to squeeze my legs together to take some pressure off of my throbbing, unsatisfied core as his vulgar words scrambled my brain, before he pulled me off the desk and pushed my head down so that I was now the one on my knees. Confused, I looked up to find him gazing down at me. He gestured towards his clothed member. “Go ahead.” I grinned slyly.

My turn.

I had made an attempt at giving him head the first time we had sex. Just like him, I had struggled with confidence due to the sole fact that I had no clue what I was doing. Since then, I had had plenty of practice, and I was excited to now be the one to show him my improvements.

I grabbed onto the waist band of his pyjama pants and pulled them down to his knees. With only his tight red boxer shorts covering it now, the outline of his thick cock and the small wet spot at its tip from his pre-cum made my mouth water. I brought my mouth up to the skin on his lower stomach, right above the Calvin Klein logo on his boxers, and began peppering excruciatingly slow kisses along the light sprinkling of hair there. I glanced up at him through my eyelashes to find him peering down at me with curious lust, his mouth open slightly and his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.

After a short while, I grabbed his boxers and pulled them down to meet his pants at his knees. His hardened cock smacked his stomach on its release from the tight material, where it left a wet patch from his pre-cum. Grabbing it with my left hand, I collected a pool of saliva in my mouth and stared up at him as I let it all drip down his swollen member. After pumping my hand for a few strokes, I placed only the tip in my mouth as I watched his eyes dilate. I swirled my tongue teasingly along the swollen tip, tasting the the saltiness of his fluid. Eventually, I began pumping my hand up and down his shaft in rhythm with my head bobbing along the top half of his cock. He shifted on his feet at the new sensation and let his head fall back. I kept my pace agonizingly lazy, knowing that it would drive him crazy.

With my tongue, I licked a strip from the base of his ball sack, up his shaft, and to his tip, earning a hushed whimper from his lethargic mouth before he grabbed my hair and shifted his hips. Looking down at me and holding my head firmly in place, he began thrusting his hips as he kept me still. He started slow, but when he realized that I could take more his pace began to pick up and his cock began to hit deep in my throat. I looked up at him through my tear-filled eyes, and saliva began to drip down my chin. “Fuck you look so good with my cock in your mouth.” He grunted out through each thrust. I lifted my hand to cup his balls, giving them gentle squeezes that seemed to send him towards his climax.

As a moan fell from his lips, he pulled my head back so that his dripping cock sprung free before he got the chance to fill my mouth with his cum. He stood there for a moment with his eyes closed taking deep breaths as if he was fighting the urge to finish right then, before he opened his eyes and gazed down at me. “Get on the bed.”

I pulled myself up off the ground and, on shaky legs, walked over to his bed with him following close behind. Once I reached the edge of the bed he stopped me, turning me around to face him and pushing me down so I would sit. “Put your feet on the bed and pull your knees up to your chest.” He commanded, and I did as I was told, albeit I was a bit confused. “Good girl.” He praised me as he pulled me right up to the edge of the bed before pushing my legs further apart.

Placing one of his knees on the bed beside me, he lined his cock up with my entrance; rubbing it tantalizingly along my wetness. Placing one arm around my waist to brace my body, he slowly pushed his cock inside of me right there on the edge of the bed. His trusts were slow but harsh, and the position he had placed us in made it so that my cervix was barrelled into each time his hips met mine. He placed his sweat-coated forehead against my collar bone and released small breathless grunts with each deep thrust. “So fucking good Matt. Oh god.” I whined as his pace began to increase in speed. He planted his teeth into my shoulder as we fell back onto the bed; his body now completely on top of mine as he continued to drive into me.

He lifted his head and looked fixedly at my fucked out face, his eyes glossed over in erotic pleasure. With this visual, I was brought back to the first time we had fucked, in a position so similar to this one. His rhythm was slower and much more tentative, and we were both certainly much less pleasing to the other, but still I suddenly got hit with a wave of recognition in how much we had both grown since then.

I was pulled out of my trance by Matt’s commanding voice. “Move back real quick and get on your stomach.” I did as I was told, feeling the emptiness that came from his dick sliding out of my soaking wet pussy. Assuming he wanted me in doggy, I got on my knees and arched my back; my head and shoulders pressed firmly against the soft mattress. I felt the bed move as he climbed on all the way, and in a moment of animalistic desperation I pushed my needy cunt subconsciously back to meet heat of his cock.

“No.” He stated simply, his veiny hands massaging my ass. Confused, I looked over my shoulder as I waited for him to explain. He had an ominous smile as he moved his gaze from my fully exposed cunt to my face. “I wanna see if your favourite position is really worth the hype.” He used his hands on my ass to push it down flat to the bed before adjusting himself so that he could line up correctly. Still looking over my shoulder with glazed eyes, I watched his expression as his cock sunk into my core once again. His jaw was clenched tightly and his eyelashes fluttered slightly from the new sensation that the position gave him as he bottomed out. “Oh fuck.” His eyes were fully shut now as he stayed still for a moment. Small beads of sweat traveled down his stomach as I took in the beauty of the man who was making me feel so so good.

Getting turned on even more just from Matt’s visual pleasure, my walls clenched subconsciously and I whined, “Please keep going Matty.” His eyes snapped open and landed on mine, before he leaned forward — one hand beside my head and the other planted firmly to the small of my back — and began pounding into me relentlessly.

The depth of this position allowed me to feel every inch of his cock, and it became impossible to keep the moans and strings of profanity from escaping my lips. This seemed to be the case for Matt too, as over the sounds of my own moans and the wet sounds of our bodies connecting, I could hear the gruff throaty moans of his own pleasure. “Fuck. You’re so fucking tight Y/n.” Even though I was aware that we were both making far too much noise that Chris and Nick would definitely hear, I couldn’t get myself to bring it to Matt’s attention, as the animalistic vocalization of his indulgence was bringing me closer and closer to my climax.

“I-I need to cum Matty.” I managed to vocalize as my nerves began to unravel. “Hold it. Want you to cum with me.” He responded, leaning even further forward so that his body was practically lying on top of mine. He took a free hand and wrapped it around my throat, lightly squeezing the sides as my pleasure became dangerously close to bubbling over.

“P-Please cum for me. I can’t hold it anymore.” I begged, digging my nails into his silk bedsheets and feeling my walls quiver each time he drove his cock into my cervix. His breathing became hitched in my ear and his movements became sloppier. Biting my ear, he asked, “Where do you want me to cum, Y/n?”

Without wasting time, I moaned my response. “Cum in me please. Want you to fill me with it.” At that, Matt slammed his twitching cock into me a few more times before finally telling me what I so desperately needed him to.

“Okay sweetheart. Go ahead and make a mess for me.” Even before his words fully left his dirty mouth, I gave into the overbearing pressure in my stomach and felt my intense orgasm over-take me. Practically screaming his name, my pussy convulsed uncontrollably. I felt the immediate relief and heard the gush as I squirted along his cock and down his legs. “Jesus.” He moaned out as his body suddenly stilled. As my legs shook, I could feel his cock twitching inside of me; painting my walls with his cum.

After we both came down from our highs, catching our breath and reconnecting with our minds, Matt slowly pulled his dick — freshly bathed in my own juices — out of my swollen core. With a satisfied sigh, he threw his body onto the bed beside mine. Both of us laid there for a moment, facing one another with glazed over expressions, before a shameless smile crept onto Matt’s face.

“Well you definitely didn’t squirt the last time we slept together.” He chuckled proudly, and I knew his ego had been inflated. I rolled my eyes. “Well, you didn’t whimper the last time we fucked either.” It was my turn to smile as he covered his face bashfully. We laid there in silence for a moment, both of us lethargic and fucked out.

“If that was anything like when ya’ll lost your virginities then I am extremely impressed.”

Matt and I both shot our heads up and looked around the room for the origin of that familiar voice. We were alone, but my eyes focused on the lit-up computer. On the screen, Matt’s Discord was open to the group with Nick and Chris. I turned to look at Matt, who had also clearly made the same discovery that I had, and whispered, “Did you for real leave the channel unmuted?” He tucked his lips together and shrugged apprehensively, before climbing off the bed and over to the computer.

“Chris, how much of that did you hear?” He asked into his headset. I heard a laugh through the mic. “Oh Matt, I heard it all. Good work. I’m a proud brother.” I covered my face in embarrassment as Matt rolled his eyes. “Fuck off. You’re a perv.” He mumbled to his brother, but I caught the small smile that tried to creep to his lips.

“I’m gonna need a fucking lobotomy to get over the trauma that I was just put through.” I heard Nick’s voice now through the mic and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Bro you could have just left the server, you act like I forced you to listen to the entire thing.” Matt argued with his older brother. “You think I stayed and listened to the ENTIRE thing? What are you crazy?” I was full out laughing now, despite the embarrassment. “I left as soon as I figured out what was happening, but I still heard waaaay too much.” Matt laughed now and muted his mic — perhaps a bit too late — then walked back to where I was on the bed, propped up on my forearms.

“Whoops.” He simply said as he pulled his boxers back up. I shook my head and smiled shyly. “We are literally never going to be able to live that down.” I replied as he draped his body along the bed beside me again. Rubbing his eyes awkwardly, he shrugged softly. “Well, at least they’re gonna have to stop teasing me about my skills.” I smacked his arm playfully and he responded by grabbing me swiftly and pulling me to his side.

“You were impressed, weren’t you?” He asked teasingly, as he held me close. I closed my eyes and sighed, “I was, Matt. Really, really, impressed.” He giggled into my neck at my truthful response and I swatted him once again.

“I’m glad we got our re-do. I’d been wanting that for a while.” He said after a moment. I looked at him with a smile and ruffled his hair. “Me too, honestly. I always knew you had some potential in you.” I teased.

“Well, if you don’t want to have to face Nick right now, you’re welcome to sleep in here tonight.” He offered and I sighed in relief. “That would be great, actually.” I said as I began to sit up. “Let’s get cleaned up first though.” He began as he got up and grabbed us both towels from his closet, “You’re not allowed to get under my sheets until you wash my children off your thighs.” My eyes shot open at his disgusting choice of words and I quickly covered myself with my towel. “Matthew Bernard you are sick!” I exclaimed as we both headed towards his bathroom. “Sure am. But so are you.”

He pulled me into a hug while we stood in the bathroom waiting for the shower to warm up. As he rubbed circles on my back with his hand, I sighed. “I think this is the secret to good friendship.” He chuckled before asking, “What is?” Playfully, I smacked his ass over his boxers. “Fucking the shit out of each other once in a while.” He laughed and pulled away from the hug before getting into the shower; leaving the glass door open so that I could follow him. “Shut your weird ass up and get in the shower with me, friend.”

[yueebby]

onsen incident  — gojo satoru

synopsis. gojo satoru gets everything he wants and right now he really wants to go to an onsen with you.

contents. fluff, lovesick!gojo, he's just a cute loser, highschool!gojo (first year), he needs to be locked up asap

notes. this is part ii to indulge me? and a piece in the series, but can be read alone.

you’re not sure how you ended up here. one moment you were exorcizing a grade one curse that rampaged a small town with gojo and now you find yourself back at the ryokan you had stayed at the prior night. except this time around you have an overly excited gojo, still at a high from the successful mission.

“suguru mentioned how nice the onsens here were,” he brings up innocently, his lips curving into a sly grin. you spare him a side glance. 

“we should be heading back to the airport to return to tokyo,” you asserted, eyes trained on the entrance of the onsen— a wooden paneled door leading to the private hot spring that came with the room you and gojo had unknowingly reserved. 

gojo stretched leisurely, his body arched like a cat as he yawns, “i don’t know about you but i’m beat! that curse wore out all my energy and a quick dip in an onsen is just what this body needs.” he opens one eye, gauging your reaction.

you don’t buy his act. “you exorcised the curse instantaneously, gojo.”

but gojo doesn’t back down easily, “yeah, well that took up a lot of cursed energy and now i’m drained,” he reasons. the white haired male solidifies his argument by collapsing on you just to show how fatigued he was. his dramatic show nearly sends you tumbling.

annoyance simmered in you, arms folding over your chest. the flight back to tokyo was in a couple of hours, and you had hoped to be able to go sightseeing. 

but gojo’s sky-blue eyes plead silently as they look up at you, unblinking. his pink lips start to quiver. it was hard to deny him when he was basically begging. as comical as his dramatics were, you could almost argue how hard it was to resist his unwavering gaze. plus, he was the one that completed the mission singlehandedly.  

“fine.” you yielded. “thirty minutes and then we leave.”

he perks up happily.

“great! let’s go!” without wasting a moment, he seizes your hand and practically skips to the entrance. 

you recoiled, nearly shrieking, “you pervert! i’m not going in there with you! i’m going to go sightseeing.” 

gojo looks at you like you’ve sprouted two heads.

“... then what’s the point of the onsen?” he looked at you incredulously. it deeply troubled you that someone so conniving could look so innocent.

your response is caught in your throat, leaving you flustered and unable to make eye contact. arms remained crossed, you mutter, “you’re insane if you think i’m stepping foot in an onsen with you.”

gojo’s tongue prodded at his cheek, lost in thought, “they do say you have to be insane to be a jujutsu sorcerer." he looks at you all enthused, "don’t be shy now, we’ve already slept together after all.” there’s a teasing lilt in his voice.

“we slept in the same bed– not together! don’t you go spreading that around now,” you jump to cup a hand over his mouth. you feel him grin underneath the palm of your hand.

“same thwing,” gojo’s voice is muffled, but he doesn’t bother taking your soft hand off his face. 

“it is not,” you furrow your eyebrows. 

“it can be.” he wiggles his eyebrows, a boyish smile growing.

you remove your hand from his face, “have you no shame?” 

“not a shred,” he declares cheerfully. “come on, we’re wasting precious time standing here. i can feel the steaming water calling our names.” 

“i’ve told you already, gojo. i’m not going to a hot spring naked with you.” 

he waves his hand dismissively, “you don’t have to be naked, it’s not unheard of for people to go in with a towel.”

you sigh exasperatedly at his stubborn disposition, “it would still be highly inappropriate.”

“as inappropriate as cuddling with your classmate while he’s naked and unconscious?” he raises an eyebrow suggestively. gojo was once again referring to the previous night’s moment of vulnerability.

you stiffen. 

“it was not like that and you know it. for all i know, you were the one cuddling me,” you retorted, crossing your arms with a huff.

 gojo raises his hands in defense, “how about we call it even and hop in the hot spring together as a compromise?”

“that doesn’t make any sense.”

“it makes perfect sense. just two classmates relieving the weight of the world off their shoulders.” 

you hate that he’s starting to convince you. 

the knowing smile creeping on gojo’s face signals that he’s sensed your weakening resolve. he decides to deal the finishing blow.

“this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. with busy lives like ours, who knows the next time we will be able to visit one of the world’s best hot springs?” he gestures dramatically. reluctantly, you start to give into his words.

“fine. but if i see you indecent, i will kill you.” you point a finger threateningly at gojo. 

he simply chuckles, “kinky.”

operation satoru x [name]!!!!

gojosatowu attachment: 1 image

shoko.ieiri what the actual hell gojo.  i did not need to see a picture of you with nothing but a towel on. ts is disgusting.

getosugu where is [name]? i thought you guys were returning from your mission today.

gojosatowu heh the two of us are going to take a little dip in kyushu’s world famous onsens haha :3

shoko.ieiri WHAT

getosugu  you?? [name]?? onsen?? together?? gojo satoru explain hello?

shoko.ieiri where is [name] you dirty pervert  i swear i’ll murder you if you pull any dirty tricks answer now

gojosatowu gotta go! ive been dreaming of this day ><

shoko.ieiri  don’t you go ignoring us!!

you’re already settled in the hot spring by the time gojo arrives. with a snug towel secured tightly around your body, you are submerged underwater from the chest down. the steam curls lazily into the air, casting a dreamlike haze around you.

“for someone that was excited about the onsen, you came awfully late,” you quipped at the snow-haired boy. his signature glasses are absent, allowing you complete access to his azure eyes. on the other hand, gojo is granted the opportunity of seeing you in all of your natural beauty.

gojo enters the steaming water just a couple of feet away from you, “had to calm myself before seeing you.” he sighs contentedly when the water envelopes him. it was true. his nerves were a lot calmer when he was fighting the grade one curse than the short walk from the changing room to the hot spring.

you can't help but roll your eyes at his obvious flirtation attempt, but you decide to let it slide.

the conversation lapses into silence, an awkward veil settling between you. you were starting to regret ever entertaining gojo’s invitation to the onsen. to escape the discomfort, you divert your gaze to the steam rising from the water's surface and the surrounding rocks. the trees around you start to look interesting as you focus on not letting you eyes stray on gojo’s solid buil—

breaking the silence, gojo interjects, "did ya think i looked cool taking down that curse?"

your eyes shift from the rocks to gojo’s face, “it was quite impressive how you were able to crush the curse with your infinity.” you have heard of stories of gojo’s strength, but seeing it with your very own eyes was truly incredible.

he preens under your praise, a faint blush coloring his cheeks.

"perhaps i deserve a reward," he suggests, his voice taking on a playful tone.

you entertain the idea, your curiosity piqued. "i suppose you do."

a deeper flush tinges gojo's cheeks, and he averts his gaze. without warning, he points at his cheek, anticipating something. you tilt your head, puzzled by his unspoken request. he keeps pointing to his cheek, poking it multiple times.

“…”

“give me a kiss!”

the water ripples with how fast you lean back, “huh? no way.”

undeterred, gojo shakes his head. "fine then. i guess i'll have to kiss you.”

your eyes widen as he leans closer, and you instinctively scoot away, surprised by his boldness. "what? no!"

“eh?! why not? i went total snowagumon on that curse!”

“that’s your job gojo,” you respond matter-of-factly. you’re a bit taken aback by his digimon reference. how dorky.

gojo clicks his tongue, feigning indignation as he looks away. “hmph. can’t even get appreciation for keeping the world in balance.” 

you let out a resigned sigh, realizing he's being dramatic again. it almost feels like dealing with a child. but you suppose you’ll play right into his hands this time– and this time only. he has worked hard on this mission, taking on all the work while you watch idly from the sidelines.

hesitantly, you inch closer towards his frame. the distance closes as you lean towards his face. it was only a split second, but your lips placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. 

you watch what once was a pink blush blossomed into something deeper. gojo sits up a little straighter and you notice how the corner of his lips are slightly upward.

“gojo, are you oka–” 

“satoru. call me satoru,” he interjected, sounding breathless, his eyes locking on yours. 

you look at him, uncertain. “isn’t that a bit too informal? we’ve only known each other for a couple of months.”

“if it was up to me, we’d be married by now,” satoru closes his eyes nonchalantly, sinking deeply into the water until half of his face is under. he blows a series of bubbles. he really was a child.

your laughter rings out melodiously as you throw your head back, finding his remark utterly amusing.  “you’re actually ridiculous.” 

satoru watches you with a soft smile, his heart feeling lighter. it was criminal how cute you were. if this was his reward for exorcizing a measly grade one curse, he was willing to wipe out all special grades on the earth just to receive your praise again. maybe next time you'll even kiss him on the lips (he'll die a happy man if that happens).

"i am, aren't i?" he muses, basking in the joy of the moment.

extra notes. i lowk hate this but due to popular demand i had to write it. ps i dont even know anything abt digimon i js know gojo likes it gn (forgive me if my digimon reference was totally wrong)