#but i can so clearly see the scene in my head for some reason | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

delugyu · 1 month ago

Text

cold, cursed city (part 1)

summary: You wish your best friend would just leave your budding relationship alone.

pairings: beomgyu x fem!reader, soobin x fem!reader

word count: 25.1k

tags: angst, smut (MDNI), best friend and roommate!beomgyu, reader has a crush on soobin, chaewon is reader’s other bestie, so much possessiveness and jealousy, beomgyu is extremely clingy, manipulation, lying, arguments, a lot of crying, guilt

smut tags: multiple smut scenes lol (2 in this part), switch!gyu, switch!reader, guided & mutual masturbation, dry humping, praise, little bit of degradation, nipple play, very desperate gyu, fingering, overstimulation, oral (f rec), dacryphilia?, pet names (angel, pretty girl, baby, etc)

notes: finally releasing this monster from its prison cell (my google docs). been working on this for a month because whiny possessive best friend gyu has been haunting me every day… anyway i hope u guys enjoy, and lmk what u think!

You hated the walk back to your apartment in the winter. It’s always so cold, and certain paths are always so icy. But you have no choice, and you’re fortunate enough that your job is only a ten minute walk away. It’s snowing today, though, hard enough to make you take each step with caution.

The wind whips across your face, making you squint to protect your eyes. You make it all of two minutes before giving up and going into the nearest public establishment you walk by, which happens to be your city’s library. You catch your breath as soon as you enter the building, taking off your jacket and folding it in your arms. You walk around slowly, looking for a comfortable chair to rest on. It’s unsurprisingly very quiet in the building. All you can hear is people typing on keyboards and hushed conversations every now and then. Everyone looks busy here.

You find a secluded area in the back corner of the library with three lounge chairs. You rush to take a seat there, letting out a sigh of relief as you sink into it. It’s right next to a heater, too. The yellow lights are soft and warm above you. You look out the window, watching the snow rage on. Now that you’re able to see clearly, you notice how there’s a good four inches on the ground. There’s a few people passing by here and there, but the streets are mostly empty. Even the cars are few and far between.

You fish your phone out of the pocket of your abandoned jacket to call Beomgyu. He should probably know that you’ll be back later than usual. By the looks of it, you could be waiting in this library for another hour.

“Hiii,” he says. You can hear his smile in his voice, and it makes you light up.

“Hi Gyu. Did you see the storm outside?” you ask, voice hushed so as to not disturb anyone. You don’t think he had work today, so you wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed home all day, unaware of the weather.

“Yeah, we’re supposed to get six inches or something. Are you on your way back?”

You groan, “I was, but the wind is ridiculous right now. I had to take shelter in some library.”

He laughs at you. “Should I pick you up?”

“I don’t think you should be driving right now honestly,” you answer.

“It’s gonna get dark if you wait it out though,” he reasons. “I’ll pick you up, I don’t mind.” You hear the jingle of his car keys when he grabs them.

“No, don’t, you can just pick me up once all the roads are safe,” you offer instead. “You know you’re not a good enough driver to handle this weather.”

“Wow. I’m gonna drive through it just to prove I can now,” he says.

“Then the next time I see your face will be in some news article explaining the crash,” you snide.

“No, it’ll be an article about all the sick wheelies and 360s I did despite the storm.”

“Yeah right,” you laugh. “How are you even gonna do that with your shitbox?” You realize you’ve been talking a little loud when you see someone’s head whip over at you. You sink into your seat in mild embarrassment.

“I’m so good I could figure out a way to make this car fly.” You roll your eyes even though he can’t see it.

“Oh I’m sure,” you say. “Alright, I’ll call you back when you can pick me up. I’m just gonna chill here ‘til then.”

“Okay. Hope they plow the roads so my shitty driving doesn’t kill us,” he says, and you know he’s doing that stupid sarcastic pout.

“You’re such a drama queen,” you reply.

“You love it.”

“I guess I wouldn’t put up with it for so long if I didn’t.” You take another look out the window to check the weather. The wind calmed down a little, but not enough to go back out. Plus, you’re comfortable right now. “Well, I’ll see you, Gyu.”

“See ya.”

As soon as the call ends, you relax further into the lounge chair. Your posture is horrid, with your back being more on the seat than it is on the back of the chair, but you can’t bring yourself to care. Work was awful today: your boss scolded you about missing paperwork, a potential partnership with another company fell through, and your coworker wouldn’t stop talking about her family problems on your lunch break. Thank God tomorrow’s Friday.

You’re scrolling through Instagram when you notice a tall figure coming into your field of vision from over your phone screen. You look up and realize he’s coming closer to you. Your eyes widen for a second in panic, and you scramble to straighten your back out and look more presentable. You worry that perhaps this is a worker about to kick you out. Why? You don’t know. Maybe you’re about to find out.

You look innocently up at the man as he finishes crossing the few steps it takes to reach you. You try to ignore how cute he is. And tall. And sexy. And really, really tall—did you say tall? He’s so attractive and so your type.

“Hey, I’m sorry, could I sit here?” he ends up asking. He points to the chair furthest from you, since you took the right-most chair of the three. You’re a little stunned for a second, then you remember you have to talk.

“Yeah, of course,” you say, nodding quickly.

“Thank you. All the tables were taken,” he explains quietly, putting a bag down beside his chair.

“I know, it’s weird to see a library so full,” you say. He takes his laptop out of his bag and opens it on his lap. You think you might be watching him too closely, so you snap your head in another direction. There really is no empty table, you note as you look at all the people in the library.

“Normally it’s not. It must be because of the weather,” the man explains. You look back at him when he speaks, and a small smile finds its way onto your face when you see his bunny-like features. You’re never the type to ogle at someone like this, but he’s seriously so pretty. You can’t help it.

“I mean, I’m only in here because of the weather, so I believe it,” you say. The man smiles. You swoon.

“Makes sense. I’d remember if I’d seen you before.”

You tilt your head. “Why?”

The man looks down at his laptop, as if he can’t look you in the eye when he speaks next. “Ah, no reason. I-I’m normally good with faces.”

He’s adorable. You figure this is how you can pass time until the storm is over.

“So you come here a lot?” you ask. You hope you’re not annoying him with all the conversation, but he seems happy to respond.

“I do my work here pretty much every day. I like it better than doing it from my home,” he answers.

“Oh wow, you work remotely?”

“Yep, and I get to choose my hours too. It’s a perk of the job.” He starts typing something on his laptop. You watch his diligent fingers fly across the keyboard. He has big hands. Your head is reeling a little.

“I wish my job was like that,” you say. “Well, I’ll let you work now. I don’t want to distract you.” You relax back into your chair, not realizing how close you’ve been leaning in during the conversation.

“No, I honestly like the conversation! It makes the time go by faster,” he rushes to say. You perk back up and can’t control how you beam. You’d be lying if you said that wasn’t exactly what you wanted to hear.

“I’ll make sure to keep talking in that case,” you giggle. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Soobin,” he introduces, looking into your eyes kindly.

You tell him your name. “Nice to meet you,” you say.

“Nice to meet you too.”

“So, what exactly do you do for work?” you ask. You’re surprised at how well he can focus on the conversation and on his work. It’s impossible for you to multitask like that.

“I do software engineering for an insurance company. We just finished a major project a couple days ago, so there’s not a ton to do for the rest of the week.”

“Damn, sounds like there’s money in that.”

He laughs, “I guess so.”

“My job’s a lot less interesting than that,” you start, going on to explain your position, then about the mess of today at work, and your conversation with Soobin flows from anything to everything until you remember that Beomgyu’s waiting to pick you up. You look out the window to monitor the weather. It looks like the snow has long since stopped. The streets are plowed, only illuminated by the streetlights since it’s gotten so dark. You find yourself disappointed to have to cut the evening so short.

“Are you leaving already?” Soobin asks.

“Yeah, my friend’s gonna pick me up.” When you unlock your phone, you find that Beomgyu’s already texted you a couple times. You also find that it’s been an hour and a half since you last called him. Holy shit, the time really did fly. You open his messages to read what he sent.

[Beomgyu] are u readyyyyy

[Beomgyu] ANSWER ME WHERED U GO

You call him, and he picks up after only the first ring.

“Finally,” he said. “You had me thinking you started going back on your own or something and died.”

“Pfft, you think so lowly of my survival skills,” you respond. “You should head out now before I lose any beauty sleep.”

“Oh, we can’t have that,” he jokes. You hear him grab his stuff and shut the door behind him. “I hate parallel parking so just wait for me in front of the building, I’ll pull up.”

“Okay. Thanks, Gyu~” you say sweetly.

“Mhm, see you,” he says.

“See you.”

The drive is only a few minutes. You should probably head out front now. You look back to Soobin.

“Hey, thanks for the conversation,” you say. “Made my shitty day a little better.”

“Same here,” Soobin agrees. He watches you put on your coat, getting ready to leave. You don’t think he has it in him to make the next move, so you do it instead.

“You know, it would be a shame if I had to leave right now without your number…” You blush as you say it, looking off meekly for just a second, then back to him to see him giggling. (You? Make him? Giggle? Fucking score!!!)

He motions for your phone with his hand. You can’t wipe the grin off your face as you open a new contact page. You watch him insert his information.

“Let’s meet again soon,” he suggests when he hands his phone back to you.

You nod. “I’ll be in contact,” you say and wave your phone in your hand. Perhaps you’ll be making more stops to the library now.

You seem to exit the library at the same time Beomgyu arrives. You get into his car quickly to avoid the cold weather, shivering once you enter the car.

“Why isn’t your heater on?” you ask, fiddling with the buttons on the dash to turn on the heat.

“My heater barely works. It won’t even kick in before we get back home,” he explains, shutting the heat off again. You make a face at him.

“Then drive, I’m freezing,” you insist.

“I’m on it boss.” He gives you a salute.

His music plays quietly in the background of the ride. He has a nice taste in music, the type fitting for night drives.

“What’d you do today?” you ask him.

“Play League,” he says. You laugh at him, and he looks away from the road for a second to smile at you. “What do you want for dinner?”

“Why do you always make me decide?” you complain.

“Cause I don’t know what I want.”

“I don’t know what you want either, you always reject my choices.”

It’s a short drive to your apartment complex, so you arrive quickly. You rush to get inside once Beomgyu’s car is parked. The moment you open the door to your apartment, you fall flat onto the couch. You don’t care how your face digs into the cushion, it just feels nice to alleviate the day’s stress.

Beomgyu follows behind not long after. “Damn, you ran here,” he remarks. He stays at the door for a minute, probably putting all his stuff away, before he approaches you. You feel him taking your boots off your feet, which you forgot to do in your haste.

“Thanks,” you murmur into the couch cushion.

“You’re welcome.” He leaves you for a moment to put your shoes on the shoe rack by the door. When he comes back to you, he’s sliding your jacket off your arms. He folds it sloppily and plops it on the coffee table.

You turn your head so it’s facing him instead of being pressed into the couch. “What’d you decide for dinner?” you ask him.

He laughs. “Wasn’t that your job?”

“No.” You sit up with great effort. He sits on the other side of the couch and extends his legs out. You freak out when he rests his feet on you. “Nasty!!”

“I got socks on!” he exclaims in defense. You slap his feet away until he gives up and tucks his legs into his body.

“What time is it?” you ask.

Beomgyu checks his phone. “Seven.”

“I’m too tired to cook anything,” you say.

“I think we have leftovers we can just heat up,” he says, then gets up to look in the fridge and make sure. He holds a container out to you. “You want?”

Looks good enough. “Yeah,” you answer. He closes the fridge and grabs two plates.

“I’m so nice, cooking for you,” he says, portioning the food between your plates. “How long do I nuke it for?”

“Try two minutes.”

The rest of the night follows like any other: you eat dinner with Beomgyu, you watch a little TV, you get ready for bed, then you sleep. You hope a certain tall, attractive man visits you in your dreams tonight.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

When you walk back home from work the next day, it’s considerably better in terms of weather. Your eyes linger on the library as you pass it by, and your hand twitches around your phone. Soobin still hasn’t texted you. You’re a little disappointed, honestly. Every notification you received throughout the day made you light up, thinking it might be him. You might just put your pride aside and text him yourself at this point. You even think about walking back and waiting in the library for him, but then you’d just look weird.

When you get back home, Beomgyu isn’t there. His work schedule is so inconsistent, you never know when to expect him. He’s not a 9-5 worker like you, so you suppose that’s where the difference in flexibility comes in.

You lean against the kitchen counter and find Soobin’s contact on your phone. You open a new conversation with him, excited to talk again. You don’t think too much about your messages before you send them.

Hiiii

It’s the girl from the library

You shut your phone off after, not expecting an answer for a while. You turn on your playlist and busy yourself with getting undressed, wiping off your makeup, and showering. You go back to the kitchen once you’re finished to figure out what you’re gonna make yourself for dinner. As you’re gathering a list of ingredients in your head, your phone vibrates on the counter. You grin as you rush to look at the messages, making sure not to open the chat immediately though.

[Soobin] Hi! I’m glad you didn’t forget about me

You find yourself giggling at the message. You’ll respond in a few minutes, not wanting to seem desperate by opening it right away. You pass the time by taking out some ingredients for the meal you’ll make tonight. As you wait for your veggies to steam, you decide that now you can answer Soobin.

Forget you? How could I?

Hehehe

Wyd??

You’re in a very chipper mood, swaying around as you stir your vegetables and decide they’ve softened enough. You hum the tune of a song while you add noodles into a pot of boiling water. Your phone buzzes when you’re in the middle of making the sauce, so you try to hasten your movements. You finish pouring everything in, giving it a quick stir and making sure the heat is on low before running to your phone.

[Soobin] Drinking and watching TV lol

[Soobin] How about you?

You take a picture of your stovetop, sending your work in progress to him.

Working on my culinary creations

You’re done making your meal when he replies to that.

[Soobin] Looks yummy

You laugh and open your camera, taking a picture to send of the plated meal. You type your response immediately, not caring about waiting a few minutes between anymore.

Tastes decent

It seems he doesn’t care to wait to respond to you either, cause his next text is immediate.

[Soobin] Woah five stars

Your conversation fizzles out not long after, but you feel satisfied with it. Even as you clean your dishes, your smile doesn’t leave your face. You almost forgot how exciting it is to have a crush.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

The next time you see Soobin is Monday after work at the library. You offered to hang out with him as he works, and he seemed more than happy to accept. He even asked for your coffee order so that he could bring you a cup. You need the caffeine after such a tiring day at work, you don’t care if it keeps you up until midnight. The coffee’s still hot, but not scalding, when you arrive. You take a seat in the same chair you sat in when you first met.

“Thank you for the coffee,” you say, using the disposable cup to warm your hands. Your face still burns from how cold the walk here was.

“Of course,” he replies. “How was work today?”

You shrug. “Not much to do. I almost fell asleep at my desk. What’s on your agenda for the day?”

You pretend to understand the techy language he spews back at you when he answers. You take a sip of your coffee, humming in appreciation at the taste.

“Where do you get your coffee from? This place does it so good,” you ask, trying to look at the cup for a logo.

“Actually, I get it from a cat cafe near where I live,” he answers. You gasp and look at him in awe.

“What?! Is it new? How have I never heard of it?” You always wanted to go to a cat cafe. Their delicious coffee is just a bonus.

“I don’t think it’s new, but it’s kind of secluded, and the sign is small, so it’s easy to miss.”

“You have to bring me sometime,” you insist.

“Noted,” he laughs.

It gets quiet when Soobin starts focusing on his work, which you don’t mind. You look around the library, taking in the atmosphere. Soobin was right, there are way less people here today than there were on the night of the storm. The library is warm and nice and never loses power, so it’s not a bad place to turn to, you suppose.

You turn on your phone and find a text notification from Beomgyu. You open it.

[Beomgyu] are u on ur way back

You usually tell him when you won’t be back after work, but you guess you forgot to this time. It’s reasonable for him to ask, since you’d be back home by now on a regular day. You explain yourself in a text message back.

No lol

I’m out with somebody rn

I’ll be back for dinner

[Beomgyu] nooo don’t make me cook

You snicker at his response.

Okay I’ll pick up something on my way back

[Beomgyu] muahahaha yessss

[Beomgyu] who are u with?

You think for a moment on how to answer the question. You don’t want to tell Beomgyu about a guy you’re only just starting to see. He’ll flood you with questions that you don’t want to deal with if this ends up going nowhere.

A friend you don’t know lol

You put your phone down when Soobin starts talking to you again. It’s so easy to sink into conversation with him. You find yourself asking most of the questions, liking his eagerness to explain little things about himself. You talk about yourself here and there too.

Time flies yet again, and you realize that you should be heading back home now. You remember promising Beomgyu to pick up dinner on the way back, but you’re not sure where to go. You look over at Soobin.

“Do you know any good spots for food nearby? I still gotta grab dinner,” you ask.

“Yeah, there’s a restaurant that does really good fried chicken, it’s not too far from here,” he answers, then tells you the name of the place. You commit it to memory. You’re about to thank him before he starts up again, “I’ll come with you. I haven't eaten much today.” He starts logging off and shutting down his laptop. You’re so excited at the prospect that you don’t turn him down, even though it means Beomgyu will have to wait a little longer for his food.

The walk to the restaurant is quick and filled with small talk. You get him to laugh hard at one of your jokes, and it feels better than scratching a winning ticket. At the restaurant, you sit across from him in a comfortable booth.

“This one is really good,” Soobin says, pointing to one of the options on the menu. You purse your lips and nod.

“Sounds interesting,” you say. “Normally I go for spicy chicken though.”

“The sauce is so good on it. At least try some of mine,” he insists.

The waiter comes and you order your food. As you wait for it to arrive, you figure you should ask Beomgyu what he wants from here. You send him the link to the menu online.

Lmk what you want

[Beomgyu] omgggg that place looks so good

You feel even happier with your choice to go here now. Hopefully Beomgyu won’t feel bad that you ate without him. You don’t linger on the worry, though, not when Soobin starts telling you about how his first job was at a restaurant that reminds him of this one. You lean into your palm, staring at his handsome face with a dopey smile. Maybe it’s just you, but today just feels like more proof that there’s a lot of potential between you two.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

Visiting Soobin at the library becomes a common post-work habit for you. You see him another three times in the next week. There’s something about him that won’t let your heart sit still, fluttering at each little thought of the man.

Your coworkers noticed you had some more pep in your step, and you wonder if having a crush is really giving you a glow. You were just excited to get out of work and go to the library. Even Beomgyu says something when you get back home.

“Someone looks happy,” he says from the couch as you walk into your apartment. You didn’t notice how hard you were still cheesing until he mentioned it. You take off your shoes and jacket.

“Maybe a little,” you giggle. Beomgyu follows you when you walk into your room. It’s normal for him to accompany you while you get unready. He sits on your bed, and you sit at your vanity.

“What are you so smiley for?” he asks. You guess your happiness is contagious, cause when you look at him through your mirror, he’s smiling too.

“Oh, nothing…” you say, building up the anticipation. Truthfully, ever since you left Soobin today, you were planning on how you should tell Beomgyu about him. You’re excited; you haven’t had a real relationship since high school, and you feel it coming up on you now. Any day now, you’ll get the courage to ask him out. Everything has been friendly so far, but you can feel the undertone of romance behind it all.

“What? Tell me!” he exclaims. He walks over to you, standing right by you as you clean your face. “Did you get a promotion?”

You laugh, “I wish.”

“Then what?” he asks. “Is it your new friend?” You shrug and sigh girlishly. You see his smile falter a little in the mirror.

He stops guessing and just watches you take off your makeup. He stays stood next to you, entertaining himself with the little trinkets on your vanity. His silence is a little weird, but you don’t break it with conversation either.

You finish taking care of your face and get up to pull some comfier clothes from your dresser. You throw them on your bed and look over at Beomgyu. He takes the hint and turns to the wall so that you can take off your work clothes.

“Did you see the group chat?” he asks as you slide a loose shirt on. You hum in confirmation. Your friend group is planning to go out together to a nice bar tomorrow night. You even mentioned it to Soobin, gauging his reaction to see if he’d potentially come. “Did you wanna go?”

Something in your heart urges you to spill your secret now. You want to try to sound casual about it, even though you feel like you could talk on and on about Soobin. You don’t let yourself pause too long, deciding to just speak without thinking too much about it.

“Yeah, I’m thinking I’ll invite the guy I’ve been talking to recently,” you say. You’re not prepared for how Beomgyu whips his head around and looks at you like you said something insane. You finish pulling up your sweatpants quickly, but you don’t think he even notices.

“What?! What guy you’re talking to?” he asks, and you’re taken aback by how appalled he sounds.

You put your hands up. “Woah. Chill.”

“No. What are you talking about??” he pushes.

“I’ve already been talking to him for like, two weeks, it’s fine.” You figure he must be upset because he’s cautious of you being with men you barely know. That’s fair, you’re weary when your girl friends bring up new men sometimes too.

He’s quiet for a moment, and you think he’s dropped the case until he starts back up, “Is this the same person you’ve been seeing after work?”

“Yeah, he’s a really nice guy,” you answer.

“You said you were with a friend.” There’s something accusatory in his voice. You tense up as defensiveness flows through you.

“Because I was?” you say incredulously.

“Don’t tell me that’s why you came home so smitten today. I had a feeling.” He looks at you like he’s disgusted, but you can’t figure out why. It’s not like you did something wrong.

“You’re not happy for me?” you ask. He looks away and huffs out a laugh. His arms are crossed over his chest, and you’re baffled as to why he’s taking so much offense to this.

“No, I don’t know this guy,” he says.

“That’s why I’d be bringing him tomorrow.”

“Why? It’s just supposed to be us.” You sit on your bed, and he doesn’t follow. He doesn’t even move from the spot he’s standing.

“Just give him a chance. I think you guys could be friends,” you suggest.

“Fat fucking chance. No way,” he refuses. Now you’re getting upset, cause why the hell can’t he at least try to hang out with the guy you just said you’re interested in? As your best friend, he should be in full support of you finding love.

“Well, I’ll talk to the others about it and see what they think.” You pull your blankets up and go on your phone, not paying Beomgyu any more attention. You hear him scoff and leave the room.

You lay on your side and replay the argument in your head. Did you bring it up wrong? Maybe you introduced the idea at the wrong moment. Maybe Beomgyu had a bad day, and he’s just lashing out at you. He never does that though, why would he start now? You’re so frustrated. You wish you knew why Beomgyu cares so much.

Whenever you see him with girls, you don’t make a big deal. You help him with what little gestures to do to make her feel special. You always give him advice. His relationships never last, though, and he hasn’t seen anyone since you two moved together over a year ago.

Throughout the three years you and Beomgyu have been friends, you haven’t dated a single person. You guess you were wrong to assume that he’d be happy to see you finally do so. Did he want you to tell him sooner? It’s only been a couple weeks, though. That’s pretty soon.

You regret saying anything now. Beomgyu might not even go to the get-together if you ruined his mood that much. Maybe you shouldn’t go. All your friends might get pissed at you the way Beomgyu did. You don’t know what the right way is to introduce Soobin.

You throw an arm over your eyes and scowl at yourself. Why are you wallowing in self-pity? Beomgyu had no right to react like that! He forgets that you can do whatever you want with your life!

The smaller voice in your head reminds you that Beomgyu has always been a good friend to you. He rarely gets upset at you, and whenever he has, he was within his right. But this time? Really? Was it justified? You almost groan in frustration. You don’t know. All you know is that you’re in dire need of talking to another girl now. You unlock your phone and open your chat with Chaewon.

Heyyy you’re going to the bar with us tomorrow right??

[Chaewon] YES!!!!

You smile at her response. You love her bubbliness. It’s impossible to feel sad when you’re talking to her.

Thank god

We should get ready together at your place

I’ll just head there right after work

You hope she takes up your offer. It would be a huge stress relief for you. It would also be a good time to gauge her reaction on Soobin, as well as her thoughts on Beomgyu’s reaction. Debriefing life—even the bad moments—is never dull with her. It’s like she always knows what to say, and she’s always got what you need to hear.

A smaller part of this is motivated by the urge to avoid another argument with Beomgyu tomorrow. If he ends up coming, great. If he doesn’t, hopefully it won’t weigh on your mind so much. You don’t want to ruin your mood right before hanging out with all your friends.

[Chaewon] Omg yes please

[Chaewon] I have the cutest dress for you

You giggle and kick your feet in the air. Maybe you should ditch Soobin and let Chaewon carry you on her arm tomorrow night instead. She’s your hero right now.

I literally love you

[Chaewon] I LOVE YOU MORE

[Chaewon] IM SO EXCITED

ME TOO!!!!

Your shoulders feel less heavy after that. You shut your phone off and let out a sigh of relief. You find yourself excited for tomorrow to come now.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

Luckily for you, your work day passes quickly. You speed walk the whole way to Chaewon’s place, not wanting to waste a single moment. You’re excited for tonight, thankful that everyone said they’d be able to come. You try to push back the worry that Beomgyu might not go.

You’re out of breath when you knock on Chaewon’s door. She doesn’t leave you waiting long, swinging it open with a squeal and hugging you immediately.

“How are you?” she asks as she ushers you in and shuts the door. She takes your jacket for you as you slide off your shoes. She hangs it on a cute little coat rack.

“I’m good now that I’m with you!” you say, beaming. She takes your hand and drags you to her bedroom.

“Let’s not waste any time, we gotta look hot before the hour’s up!” In her bedroom, she already has two small bins of makeup products on the floor. She gives you her makeup mirror and uses a smaller handheld one for herself.

“Oh, I already did my makeup,” you say, trying to hand the mirror back to her. She raises an eyebrow at you.

“You mean your work makeup?”

“What’s wrong with it?” you ask, looking in the mirror to check it. Looks fine to you.

“It’s cute, but it’s so modest. You need to look sexy,” she responds. You nod and point at her like she made a great argument.

“You’re right, let me see what you got in these,” you say as you dig through her bins. You pull out the palettes and glosses that intrigue you. She also picks some products out for you, telling you how good they’d look on you. You grab a few of your own products from your purse.

As you both start applying, you think back to Soobin. You wonder how he’ll react seeing you in non-work attire. You bite back a smile at the thought. You still have to ask Chaewon about bringing him, though. You hope that Soobin kept his schedule free for this, but also that he won’t be disappointed if you don’t end up inviting him in the case that Chaewon thinks you shouldn’t.

“I got a surprise announcement,” you start, immediately grabbing Chaewon’s attention. She looks at you with wide eyes.

“I’m scared. Please don’t be pregnant,” she says.

“Well, there’s this guy…” You can’t even finish your sentence before Chaewon starts screaming. You burst out laughing, and she smacks the ground in amusement.

“Okay, okay, tell me more,” she pries once she calms down.

“His name is Soobin. He’s really cute, but also so hot. Like, Chaewon. I swear. I was drooling when I first saw him.” Her jaw is dropped open as she hears that.

“How'd you meet?” she asks.

“We met at the library a week ago and have been talking every day since,” you explain. “And girl… he does tech for an insurance company. That sounds like money to me.”

“Bring me to his mansion when you get married,” she jokes.

“Oh for sure. Imagine though,” you say.

“That’s so good for you. I could actually cry for you. You needed this.”

“Right?! See, at least you get it.”

“I mean, who wouldn’t? He sounds so good.” You pause doing your makeup to give her a pointed look. You emit an exaggerated groan and lean your head back.

“Don’t get me started,” you say.

“Well now I have to hear.”

“When I brought it up to Beomgyu, he completely freaked out. I mentioned bringing Soobin with me tonight and he just lost it.”

Chaewon scoffs. “Screw him, I wanna meet the guy! Who cares what Beomgyu thinks?!”

“I care, I don’t want him to be pissed at me,” you say, and Chaewon frowns.

“He’s just mad cause you’ll be getting it and he’ll be watching from the sidelines,” she says. You push at her shoulder and she laughs.

“You should try to set him up with someone so he gets off my ass,” you suggest, only half-joking.

“As if he’ll ever look at someone besides you.” You tilt your head upon hearing that response, not knowing what she means. She senses your confusion and continues, “I’m pretty sure he likes you.”

You rush to deny the claim, but your heart picks up in some weird sense of panic and shock. “That’s not it at all,” you say. You shake your hand frantically in denial.

“Keep telling yourself that. Why else would he freak out like that?” she asks.

“Oh my gosh… I’m not even hearing this one out,” you dismiss, locking this conversation away to never think about it again. “So, you think I should tell Soobin to come?”

“Yes! One million percent. I have got to see this handsome stranger,” she answers.

“Okay, I’ll text him once I’m done with this.”

“I haven’t been this excited in so long!” Chaewon squeals. Honestly? You either.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

The moment you find your friends’ table at the bar, you notice Beomgyu’s absence. Your heart sits heavy in your chest upon realizing that. Chaewon grabs your hand, and you wonder if you were wearing your guilt on your face. Her reminded presence is reassuring. You sit next to her at the table and greet all your friends.

“Did anyone pregame?” Aeri asks. “Cause I totally did.”

“Girl, I hope you Ubered here then,” Chaewon says.

“I drank a little, but only enough to feel a buzz,” Julie answers.

“Ayy,” Aeri cheers while high-fiving Julie.

“Meanwhile we were too busy scrambling into these dresses to think about drinking,” you say, pointing between yourself and Chaewon.

“You look hot, it was worth it,” Julie says.

“Is Beomgyu not coming?” Yeonjun asks, looking at you.

“I’m not sure. I thought he was,” you answer.

“He better,” Julie says. “The whole group hasn’t gotten together in so long!”

“Speaking of, there’s gonna be an addition to the group tonight,” Chaewon announces, shimmying her shoulders and looking at you. You roll your eyes at her with a fond smile.

“I asked this guy I’m seeing to come by tonight,” you inform, and the table erupts at the news.

“When’s he coming? I’ll give you my brutally honest opinion after seeing him,” Aeri says.

“Oh, you’ll love him,” you say. “Don’t flirt too hard, I can’t have you stealing him from me.”

“So a little flirting is okay?” she jokes. You lean over the table to swat her shoulder.

“He kinda gives shy vibes, so don’t be surprised if he’s not as energetic as us,” you say.

“Let’s just get him super drunk then,” Yeonjun suggests. The table bursts into a chorus of ‘yeahhhh’s.

“Oh hey, look who came,” Chaewon says, putting a hand on your shoulder and pointing her chin to Beomgyu walking towards your table. You hope your smile doesn’t look forced and awkward, but it feels it as he comes closer. Your eyes dart from Chaewon, to your other friends, to your hands on the table, then back to Beomgyu. Your heart pounds in fear that Beomgyu might still be mad at you. He wouldn’t come if he was that upset still, right?

He sits next to Yeonjun, and you’re holding your breath as you gauge the look on his face. He looks… happy. You release your breath slowly. He holds no anger in his eyes when he meets your gaze. A weight lifts from your shoulders.

Yeonjun slaps a hand onto Beomgyu’s shoulder. “Finally!” he exclaims.

“Hey, you think I’d miss a chance to drink with you guys?” Beomgyu responds.

“Okay, let’s get started. Should we each just open our own tab?” Julie asks.

“Yeah, that works,” you answer.

“Wait, I have no money, who wants to be my sugar mommy for the night,” Aeri says.

“You can put yours on mine,” Chaewon offers. Aeri wraps her arms around her for a quick hug in thanks.

“I will pay you back in double when I get my next paycheck,” Aeri promises.

“Ahh come on, don’t worry about that, let’s just have fun,” she responds. Chaewon pulls you up with her to go over to the bartender. Aeri follows along with the two of you. The other three probably split off on their own to figure out their orders.

The three of you take a shot for good luck first, then you work on your own drinks. You’re all giggling as you head back to your table with your drinks. Beomgyu and Yeonjun are back with their own beers, and Julie is nowhere to be seen.

“You think Julie’s drunk already?” Aeri asks the table.

“Oh, she’s been drunk. When she says she’s a little buzzed, that means she’s fucking wasted,” Chaewon says. Everyone laughs because it’s true.

You don’t know how much time passes where you guys just catch up on life and joke around, but at some point you feel your phone vibrate from a text notification. It’s Soobin.

[Soobin] I’ll be there in a minute! Please wait for me at the front so I can find you

“Guys, I gotta go grab Soobin, I’ll be right back,” you say. Everyone’s still caught up in conversation and doesn’t pay much mind to your announcement—everyone except Beomgyu. His eyebrows are upturned, eyes wide as they follow you when you stand.

You pat his head. “I’ll be back,” you reassure.

You don’t wait long by the bar door. Soobin finds you as soon as he walks in, greeting you with a hug. It takes your breath away for a second. It’s fleeting, and it’s over before you know it, but it makes your heart race.

“How have you been?” he asks. You’re standing so close that you have to bend your neck to look up at him.

“Good, better now that you’re here,” you say. He turns his head away to laugh. It’s unbearably cute. You have to stop yourself from squeezing his face in your hands.

“Do your friends know I’m coming?”

“Of course,” you answer. “They can’t wait.”

“Oh gosh,” he says, following you as you lead him to your table. It seems like Julie came back in the time you were gone, cause everyone’s there when you get back. All the girls squeal upon seeing Soobin. You give them a knowing grin.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Yeonjun greets. “Sit, sit.” He motions to the chairs on the opposite side of the table from him. You sit next to Julie, and Soobin sits next to you. Right across from you is Beomgyu. You tighten your lips when you see him looking off as if uninterested. You pray he can be amicable.

“Yeah, so, this is the boy,” you say.

“I’m Soobin,” he introduces with an air of awkwardness. It endears you.

The next few minutes are filled with your friends getting to know Soobin. They make good conversation, and Soobin responds well. Yeonjun even grabs a drink for Soobin at some point—“Be careful, he’s got plans to get you super drunk,” Julie joked—and it seems to loosen him up a bit. You just can’t help but notice how quiet Beomgyu is, though.

“I’m gonna grab another drink,” you announce, patting Soobin’s back as you get up.

You seat yourself on a barstool, tapping your fingers against the bar as you wait for the bartender to come to you. You hum along to the song playing.

“Hello again,” the bartender greets. You shoot your head up and smile. “Same as before?” You’re surprised he remembers your order when there’s so many people here tonight. You guess he’s just good at his job.

“Yes, please,” you say. You go back to humming and tapping to the beat of whatever song the bar is playing. You look back at your table for a second. Everyone looks like they’re enjoying themselves. It makes you happy to see your friends get along with Soobin.

You check your phone for any important messages, but all you received was a bunch of meaningless notifications from various apps. You shove your phone into your purse so you stop looking at it. You’re here to socialize.

A hand lands on your shoulder, prompting you to look back. You were expecting it to be Soobin, but you’re not surprised when you see that it’s Beomgyu. You give him a smile as he takes the stool next to you. You look back at the bartender, and Beomgyu looks behind the two of you at the rest of the people here. Beomgyu’s arm stays slumped around you.

When your drink is handed off to you, you turn your full attention to your friend. “What’s up?” you ask. You swivel your seat so you can face him directly, forcing his arm off you. He leans into the bar, getting—probably too—comfortable.

“I just wanted to see you,” he answers.

“How’s your night going?” You take a sip of your drink, licking your lips after. His eyes follow the movement.

“Alright, I guess,” he says. He looks out to the crowd again.

“You should go dance,” you suggest.

He shakes his head. “I only like dancing with you.”

“Isn’t that sweet,” you tease. He matches your smile before stealing your drink and taking a sip from it. “Oh my god, you and your big ass gulps, all the time,” you reprimand jokingly.

“I barely drank any of it,” he defends with a pout. You laugh and pat his head to summon his lips back upward. It works immediately, of course.

“How’s everyone doing at the table?” you ask.

He shrugs. “They’re having a good time. Soobin talks a lot.” Soobin wasn’t talking that much when you were at the table, so you’re surprised to hear that. Maybe the alcohol started really coursing through his system in the short time you were gone.

“That’s good,” you respond.

“Are you going home with him?” he asks, looking at you with big round eyes. Usually Beomgyu mellows down and laughs a lot when he drinks, but this time he’s a little different.

“With Soobin?” you clarify. He nods. “Probably not. I don’t think so.”

“Good,” Beomgyu says quickly. You laugh.

“Why good?”

“Don’t want him stealing you from me.”

“You’re such a child,” you chuckle. He holds your hand over the table when you let go of your glass. It’s not abnormal for him to be touchy with you, so you don’t question it. He brings your interlocked hands up to his face and leans into them. His face feels warm on the back of your hand.

“Let me know when you wanna head to ours,” Beomgyu says. He’s being cute right now, you can’t help it when you let go of his hand so you can poke his nose. He beams at you.

“Let’s go back to the table,” you say, grabbing your drink and getting out of your seat.

“No, stay here with me.” He’s so needy. You look him up and down, assessing him.

“How much did you drink?” you ask. You swear he only had a couple beers. He ushers you back into your seat with a gentle hand on your hip. “Gyu, I can’t just leave Soobin for the rest of the night.”

“He’s having fun. Don’t mind him.”

“I brought him here though,” you reason.

He sighs, and his eyes lose their sparkle. He turns his head so he’s not facing you anymore. “Fine,” he says.

“You can’t seriously be upset with me for this?”

He still doesn’t look at you. “I’m not.”

You bite your tongue and decide to leave it at that, even though you know he’s lying. He’s jealous for no reason; it’s not like you’re going to abandon your best friend all because you might have a man in your life. Soobin and you aren’t even anything more than friends right now. You wish you could talk some sense into him, but you don’t want to do that in public.

Beomgyu will wallow alone for the rest of the night if you leave him now. The choice is on you: abandon Soobin at the table, or abandon Beomgyu right here. It’s not like there’s a correct option.

You look at your table. Soobin’s intently listening to Yeonjun as he rambles on about something, while the girls seem to be in a conversation of their own. Does Soobin need you right now? He seems like he’s holding his own. Your eyes fall back to the boy that definitely does.

“Beomgyu,” you call, shaking his shoulder so he’ll look at you. He does. “Let’s go home.” His smile returns immediately.

You already start thinking of what excuse you’ll text Soobin later.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

You wake up feeling suffocated by both the tight dress you’re still wearing and by half of Beomgyu’s body weight being sprawled on top of you. Curse him for insisting on watching a movie with you last night—not only is he crushing you now, but your laptop fell off the bed sometime during the night. He better pray it survived the landing. Neither of you even finished the damn movie.

You push him off of you, not caring how hard you do it because of how much of a heavy sleeper he is after he drinks. You sit up and look at yourself in your mirror. Your makeup’s a little smudged, but you don’t look totally crazy. You let yourself wake up for a minute more before sliding off the bed to check on your laptop. The screen lights up with the title card of the movie you watched. Phew. You close the device and stuff it back in the drawer of your nightstand.

You change into comfier clothes and wipe away the mess on your face. You carry on with your morning routine as usual, then lounge on the couch as you wait for Beomgyu to wake up.

The first thing you see on your phone is Soobin’s response to your text from last night. You ended up telling him that Beomgyu wasn’t feeling well, and you had to take him home. That’s not a lie, is it? Beomgyu was definitely not going to be okay if you carried on the night without him. You shake the thought and open Soobin’s text.

[Soobin] Don’t worry about it :) I had a feeling something happened

You didn’t doubt that he’d be understanding. He really is a good person.

You pass the day alongside Beomgyu once he wakes up, hanging with him in his room for most of the day. He plays his games while you go on your phone. You make dinner for the two of you, and Beomgyu cleans the dishes.

You watch him scrub at your plates from your spot at the table. You want to ask him about Soobin, but you’re nervous about him reacting poorly. You don’t want to argue again.

Beomgyu couldn’t be that immature about it though, right? If you just ask him for his opinion on Soobin, it’s not like he can really take offense to that. You’re genuinely curious, and you obviously want his approval on the guy you’re talking to. You bite the bullet and just go for it.

“So, what’d you think of Soobin?” you ask. You’re eager to hear his review, albeit a little nervous. He gives a short laugh in distaste, and your brows scrunch in confusion. “Did you not like him?”

He shuts off the sink and dries his hands after cleaning the last dish, then leans his back on the counter and stares at you with an unreadable expression, which is weird because you can normally tell exactly what he’s thinking.

When he finally responds, his face is just as indecipherable. “I don’t think he’s the right guy for you.”

“Why?” You’re genuinely curious. Maybe you’re wearing rose-tinted glasses, and Beomgyu could see something that you couldn’t.

He sighs, “He was just… giving me bad vibes.”

“How come?” you ask.

“Just a feeling,” he explains. You groan. What a non-answer.

“Well, I think he’s super charming.” He scrunches up his face like you said something disgusting. “Stop being like that,” you scold.

“I can’t help it. It’s gross,” he says.

“Yeah okay. I didn’t say it was gross when I was helping you get a new girl every week,” you mention.

“That was years ago!” Beomgyu whines.

“Still happened.”

“That’s not a fair comparison,” he complains. “And it wasn’t every week.”

“So it’s wrong when I find one guy I like and want to be with?” you question. He groans and crosses his arms.

“Why do you even need a boyfriend right now?” he retorts. “What’s wrong with what we have?”

You pause. What the hell is he on about? Having a friend is very different from having a boyfriend. He’s completely serious, too; his face is stone.

“Um, nothing? I don’t know what that has to do with this…” you answer, unsure. He sighs and makes his way over to you, but never gives you a response.

He picks up your hand and helps you out of your chair. Is this seriously where he’s gonna end the conversation? No, you want a real answer. You’re only being left with more and more questions.

“Don’t bring me back to your room, I want to talk about this,” you say.

“There’s no point,” he responds. He might be right, but you still want to know why he’s acting like this. You take your hand back from his grasp.

“Why don’t you like Soobin?” you ask, more demanding now. You harden your stare on him, but he’s not budging. You cross your arms as you wait for an answer. “Well?”

“Why does the reason matter so much?” he asks back.

“Beomgyu, what the fuck are you saying? Why are you being so secretive?” Anger starts filling your words, you can’t help it. It’s not fair for him to shit on Soobin nonstop without telling you why. If something happened that made him form this opinion, then you want to know.

“Calm down,” he says, and it only serves to upset you further. Before you can bark at him, he continues, “I just don’t think you need to be seeing anyone right now.”

“Why?” you demand.

“Cause you have me!” he exclaims like it’s obvious.

“That’s different!”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he says. You tilt your head and look at him incredulously.

“What does that even mean?” you groan.

“What do you want from him? I can give it to you instead,” he pleads. Something’s changing in the air of this conversation, something you’ve been pushing to the back of your mind for your own sanity. Chaewon’s words from yesterday rattle in the cage you mentally locked them in. You push them back, not letting them escape. That’s an impossible and crazy thought.

“Stuff that best friends don’t do with each other,” you answer plainly.

“Why not? We can. Nothing has to change,” he says.

Your head is spinning and you want to sit down. You rub your temples and close your eyes. Everything in your mind is flying by too fast for you to make sense of it. Beomgyu holds one of your shoulders, and you back away instantly.

“I think I’m gonna spend the night at Chaewon’s,” you say, defeated. You feel a serious headache coming on.

“Don’t, please,” he begs. “I’ll talk, I promise.” His eyes are watery now, and it only fuels your stress more. How did you manage to make him cry? What is going on?

“I need to collect my thoughts.” You just want to get out of this now. Beomgyu was right: this conversation was pointless. Now you’re left with more confusion than you know how to deal with.

He quickly gets on his knees in front of you, big eyes pleading to you, hands clasped over his heart. He’s going too far for this right now.

“What is wrong with you?!” you exclaim, half-frightened at the sight of your best friend acting so different in front of you. “What in the world has gotten into you?!”

You try backing away, but he wails immediately and stops you. “No!” he yelps, clinging onto your legs to keep you from moving any further. He leans his tear-soaked face onto your thigh. His skin is warm against yours, and you suddenly regret wearing such tiny shorts. You try moving away again, but your back hits the kitchen counter, and you realize you’re cornered.

“I was here first,” Beomgyu says with conviction, like that justifies his whole argument, like you’ll stop seeing Soobin just because of that.

“Can we talk about this like adults?” you ask. He looks up at you with those watery wide eyes, and you can’t help but feel your heart ache a little. You soothe him with your touch, running a hand through his hair and down his face, collecting his tears. He leans into your touch and wears the most pitiful frown you’ve ever seen.

“Please,” he begs quietly. “You don’t need anyone else, you have me.”

“Gyu, get up,” you say, trying to keep your voice authoritative but gentle.

He doesn’t, of course. “Tell me what to do,” he insists instead.

“I just did.”

He scowls at that and nips at the flesh of your thigh. You jolt in surprise and pull his head back by his hair. He winces in pain for a second, then looks up at you like a puppy.

“Behave,” you warn, and he smiles like he’s getting what he wants.

“I will, I’ll be good, tell me what to do,” he pleads again. He looks delirious off of this. It twists your stomach and makes you release your hold on his hair. He immediately goes back to your thighs, licking a short stripe up it, reaching the hem of your shorts. You gasp as your legs twitch, and he looks up at you with a grin.

“I can’t be doing this,” you say, and Beomgyu rolls his eyes in annoyance. You get another nip to the thigh, harsher this time. “Enough with that,” you tell him, swatting at his head.

“So you get a boyfriend and suddenly I can’t be close to you anymore?” he spits bitterly, angrier now. He stands back up, crowding you with his proximity. You hate how you immediately feel like you have less power. A part of you wants him back on his knees.

“We are still close.”

He scoffs at that. “Yeah right. It’ll be different now and you know it.”

“Well now it’s gonna different, since you put on that whole fucking show!” you argue, swinging an arm out in disbelief.

His brows are drawn together, and he looks at you furiously. “I can’t just sit back and watch another man have you in whatever way he pleases.”

“We’re friends, Beomgyu! That’s it!” you exclaim. You don’t bother correcting his assumption about Soobin ‘having’ you. “No amount of confessions is gonna erase Soobin from my life just like that.”

He clenches his jaw and stares at you silently for a few long seconds. The tension is so palpable and thick, you don’t even dare to breathe. He grabs your wrist and brings you down the hall, into your room. He lays you on your bed with a gentleness that doesn’t match the anger on his face. You know where this is going, you’re not stupid. You should stop this. You need to stop this.

Words get caught in your throat. You should speak, you should yell at him. You should shove him away and put him in his place. This is too far, too much.

You don’t stop him when he crawls onto the bed with you. You don’t stop him when you see the hunger in his eyes as he scans your frame. You wouldn’t stop him no matter what he does right now, your guilty conscience snides.

Your core clenches when Beomgyu brings himself down to hover over you. He remains wordless, just examining your every feature. You’re scared you’ll give away too much and let him in on your desire, but a darker part of your mind hopes that he catches it. Fire builds in your stomach as the moment drags on.

“Tell me what to do,” he whispers. He’s so close that you feel his breath on your face. You stay quiet. He traces up your jaw with the tip of his nose, smiling when your breathing stutters.

He pulls away a bit, just enough to stare at where your hips almost meet. You’d just have to push forward a few inches to close the gap, but you hold back. His hand finds your hip, thumb rubbing you comfortingly.

“Tell me what you need,” he tries again. You bite back a whimper at the deepness of his voice. He laughs at how you still don’t respond. “You this quiet with Soobin too?”

That pisses you off and brings you out of your haze. “No, I give him whatever he wants.” It’s a lie, but you mostly say it to piss him off, and clearly you’ve struck a nerve judging by how he grits his teeth.

“I’m trying to be good for you,” Beomgyu says. He grips onto your waist tight. “I’m showing you I’d do anything for you.”

“Soobin does that just fine,” you say pointedly. Neither of you are amused, and the moment is laced with venom from both sides now.

You gasp when Beomgyu suddenly takes your thighs and pulls them up toward your body, exposing your clothed pussy to him. You try to shut your legs, but Beomgyu’s hold is too strong and doesn’t budge. He smirks when his eyes land on the damp spot over your core.

“Does Soobin make you soak through your shorts like this too?” he taunts. Before you can even think of a smart reply, he’s bending you even further, bringing your knees to the sides of your head. He has you folded firmly in half, and it feels so demeaning, but it makes you so wet. He laughs at the sight of you, slack-jawed and speechless.

You’re fully-clothed but feel so exposed. Your heart is beating erratically. You’re starting to shake from how worked up you are; you ache for him to do something.

“No, he doesn’t, does he?” he continues, and you whine. “You can pretend all you want that he’s the man of your dreams, but you know he’ll never compare to me. Isn’t that right?”

You don’t respond to that. You’re too far gone in your lust to trust yourself to talk; you’ll end up saying something you regret. Beomgyu finally releases his grip on your legs, and you feel all your arousal leaking out of you as soon as your hips fall back on the bed.

“You don’t wanna tell me what to do? That’s fine. I can read you like a book. I know what you want,” Beomgyu says before grabbing your hand and placing it over your cunt. You immediately grind into it, losing yourself in the stimulation. He smiles deliriously at the sight, running his hands soothingly up your sides. “That’s it, now you’ve got it. Now you’re being good.”

One of his hands leaves you, the other helping to keep your legs spread. When you focus your attention back on him, you see him pulling his dick out and stroking himself. He spits in his hand before wrapping it around his length again, and you moan at the sight. He looks delicious.

His eyes are wild as they try to take in every part of you. It’s hard to keep yours open, but you want to watch him as much as you can. Something like this can never happen again, so you need to take it in.

You work your hand faster over yourself when you see him tug at his length with more fervor. His mouth drops open when he moans. He looks so pretty, making a mess out of himself. The sight is addicting, him panting and kneeling over you. You never thought about him like this before, but now thoughts this lewd will plague you.

“Gyu,” you whine, trying to find the perfect rhythm to get yourself off, but you need more. He senses your urgency and gets his hand off his dick in favor of grabbing your wrist. He plunges your hand past your shorts and panties, guiding it to your core. You gasp at how crude the action is. He bites his lip as he takes your two middle fingers and forces them into your fluttering hole. You moan at the intrusion, which was made so easy thanks to how embarrassingly wet you are. The slick sounds of your cunt fill the air, loud and filthy.

Beomgyu wraps his hand around your wrist again to control your movements, pacing the way you fuck yourself. It feels so scandalous and so hot, you find yourself getting worked up quickly. He makes you fuck yourself with vigor, and the way your palm meets your clit with each thrust has your mouth falling open. You stay in the rhythm he set even as he pulls away to fuck his fist again. His grunts and moans are shameless, and they’re like music to your ears.

“Fuck, you’re so dirty, you’re a dream,” he rambles, clearly teetering on the edge. He squeezes the meat of your thigh, then your hips, then palms your ass. “Are you gonna cum, my angel? Are you gonna let me see how pretty you look when you fall apart?”

“Yes, please,” you answer breathlessly, back arching into the feeling. Beomgyu bites down his smirk and runs his hand down the outside of your thigh.

“Wanna see it so bad, fucking dreamed of this.” You can feel the mattress shake from how hard he’s fucking his fist. His grip is bruising on your thigh, and he moans when he feels you jolt in pleasure. “Yeah, keep fucking yourself like that. So perfect.”

You moan out as you finally cum, clenching down on your fingers and throwing your head back as the sensation takes over you. You hear him whine, and it makes you tighten even more around your fingers, dying to hear it again.

“So good, so good for me,” Beomgyu praises in a shaky voice. You can tell his high is approaching. “Look so b-beautiful.”

“Cum for me, Gyu, let go,” you urge, making him moan out again. You slip your fingers out of your cunt but keep your hand over it, fingers ghosting over your clit as you watch Beomgyu lose himself. The slight overstimulation is delicious, and you bite your lip to keep yourself from whimpering at the feeling.

“Have I been good to you?” Beomgyu asks, out of breath as he squeezes the base of his cock. He strokes himself slowly once he regains his composure.

“So good, felt so nice,” you answer, feeling blissful after your orgasm.

“Yeah? Better than Soobin?” he asks, increasing his speed again. You can’t even scold him before his motor mouth starts running again. “Could fuck that little pussy so much better than him. Make you feel so good. Make you forget about him.”

He pushes your shirt up with his free hand, and before you can even react to that, he’s pushing up your bra too. “Oh my god, Beomgyu!” you exclaim, pulling your hand from your pussy to cover your tits. Beomgyu yanks your arm away and brings your fingers to his mouth. You stare at him in shock as he sucks your juices from your digits, diligently swirling his tongue around them. He’s moaning around your fingers, and a second later he’s spilling his load onto your stomach and breasts. Your mouth drops open. He’s got a lot of nerve doing all that; unfortunately for you, it was the hottest thing you have ever seen.

He takes your hand out of his mouth once he’s cleaned your fingers off, whimpering as he rides out the last of his high. He looks down hungrily at your body, taking in the ropes of his cum splayed on your skin. Like the horny freak he is, he sticks his fingers in the mess and smears it all over your torso.

“Gross,” you laugh. He ignores that. He tugs at your nipples with his cum-coated fingers. You yelp at the sensation, and he coos at you. He does it again, and again, until he’s had enough of his fun. He stares into your eyes, and you wish you could crawl away from his heated gaze, it’s that intense. His thumbs return to tease your nipples, but he doesn’t pull his eyes away from your own.

“You’re mine. Never see him again,” Beomgyu declares like it’s final.

“We’re meeting tomorrow,” you respond. He pinches your nipple harshly for that.

“Why? Cancel. Just stay with me,” he offers instead. You try to get up onto your elbows, but Beomgyu pushes you back down against the bed. He continues absentmindedly playing with your tits. He’s practically sitting in your lap to do so.

“…Can you wipe your cum off of me?” you ask, ignoring the conversation at hand.

“But I’m having so much fun.” He pouts. He’s cute like this.

“I let you have enough fun today,” you say with no real bite. He sighs like it will kill him to do so before getting off the bed and leaving for the bathroom. He comes back a minute later with a wet towel, and it’s peacefully quiet as he wipes you down.

“He’s not even really my boyfriend, you know,” you mention, watching his focused face as he rids you of the mess he made.

“Sure,” he laughs bitterly. “Tell him that.”

“We never made anything official,” you say.

“Then why’s he parading around telling everyone how you’re his girl?” Beomgyu asks, giving you a hard stare. You pull your bra and shirt back down once he finishes cleaning you, trying to feel a little more decent. He throws the used towel on the floor and crawls in bed next to you.

You perk up at that. “He is? How do you know?”

He stares straight ahead instead of at you. “You don’t gotta sound so excited.”

“I’m just curious,” you defend.

“Right,” he says, not believing you. “Yesterday at the bar he said it. Multiple times.” Did he? You hold in your gasps and squeals and suppress the urge to kick your feet. Maybe you were too drunk to remember, or maybe Soobin was saying it while you were away from the table. Or maybe Beomgyu’s just psychotic and putting words in Soobin’s mouth.

“Wow,” you say as nonchalantly as you can.

A few silent moments pass where you find yourself filling the time by trying to ignore Beomgyu’s stare on you. He turned to his side at some point and seems to find you to be the most interesting thing in the room. You try to focus on your nails, the walls of your room, your disorganized vanity, but nothing lifts his stare from you. You give in and turn your head to him, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Well?” you prompt.

“What now?” he asks.

“Now… you get out of my room,” you say, holding eye contact and keeping your expression still. His face falters immediately.

“Are you joking?” he asks incredulously, backing away from you with a scoff, propping himself up on his elbows.

“This shouldn’t have happened, Gyu,” you say with a sigh. You know it hurts him—it hurts you, too—but you can’t do this while you’re seeing Soobin. You’ve already crossed the line.

Beomgyu is silent and unmoving. After a minute, it becomes clear he’s not leaving. You don’t know if it’s out of stubbornness or desperation. He lays back down and curls himself into you, tucking his face in your neck and holding you tight.

“Beomgyu,” you warn, but to no avail. He stays there and nuzzles further into you, and you’re so pathetic that you just let him. A stronger woman than you would have put her foot down, but that kind of power doesn’t find you in this moment.

Another long minute passes, consisting of you staring straight at the ceiling, listening to your combined breathing. You think of how Soobin would feel if he found out about this. How are you going to look him in the eye tomorrow? Do you tell him about this? Is it wrong to keep it a secret?

You try to pull away from Beomgyu, but he doesn’t let you move. “Please, Beom—“

“Stop,” he murmurs, putting his hand over your mouth just long enough to get you to stop talking. “Let me have this one night. He gets you every other time.”

You can’t help but feel a little aggravated at that. “Because he’s the one I’m seeing! This is wrong!”

“What’s wrong is you looking for other men when I’m right here,” he says with finality. When you don’t respond, he continues, “So let’s just go to sleep.”

You decide to let him win this time, telling yourself that this will never happen again. Sleep doesn’t find you easily with the guilt eating you alive, but it does feel kind of nice to have Beomgyu hugging you like this again.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

When you wake up, Beomgyu’s already gone. You let out a sigh of relief. You feel bad for not wanting to see him, but you know that last night changed things. There’s a conversation that needs to be had that you’re not sure you’re ready for.

You sit up and stretch, then check the time and notice that it’s already nearly 10. Your eyes go wide, horrified—you’re supposed to see Soobin at 10! You have less than twenty minutes to get ready!

You leap out of bed and run to your closet, looking for a cute dress to throw on cause you have no time to curate an outfit. Once you have the dress selected, you hold it in front of you in the mirror. The fabric is super soft and looks casual enough while still being pretty. The light color of it looks great on you, too.

You don’t have enough time to linger on your options, so you go with it. You fold the dress and run to the bathroom to finish freshening up and getting ready. You need to take the quickest shower of your life.

You’re rushing out the door once everything’s complete, cursing at yourself as you check the time. It’s already ten minutes past. You shoot him a text as you scramble down your apartment’s stairs.

Hey! I’m gonna be a bit late, leaving now

Forgot to set an alarm, my bad

Wait for meeee

You shove your phone in your jacket pocket and speed walk down the street. You’re lucky enough to live near the heart of the city, so everything is at walking distance. You’re halfway to the cafe when you feel your phone buzz with a response.

[Soobin] No worries. I’m waiting :)

[Soobin] Gives your coffee some time to cool down

You smile at the response. Of course he already bought your coffee. Of course he memorized your order. It’s Soobin, he’s the most thoughtful guy you’ve ever known. Your phone buzzes with another text notification. This time it’s Beomgyu.

[Beomgyu] omg where’d you go i got stuff for breakfast!!!

Your heart squeezes at the prospect. You rush to type out your responses.

I said I was meeting Soobin today

I’m sorry

Brunch?

You slow down your walking, finding yourself nearing the destination too quickly. You just want to get Beomgyu’s response before seeing Soobin. Your phone buzzes when he replies.

[Beomgyu] hmm.. ok brunch

You don’t find yourself excited, though. You guys do things like this all the time, but now you’re just nervous. It makes your stomach churn with anxiety. You know things have changed. Even if he acts like nothing happened, you both know something did.

You shove your phone into your pocket when you arrive at the cute little cat cafe. You wipe the sweat off your palms before opening the door. You try collecting yourself before looking for Soobin, who’s sitting at a small table near the front of the shop. You smile when you see him, but it’s only half-genuine; the other half of your mind is busy trying to push down your worries about Beomgyu.

You seat yourself across from Soobin, who smiles widely and fully-genuinely at you. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” you apologize. “Thank you for the coffee.”

His smile stays on his face as he watches you grab the cup and feel for its temperature. “It should be good to drink now,” he says. “I had company, the cats were coming to me.”

You laugh before taking a sip of your coffee. It’s the best thing in the world, you’re grateful he got it in advance for you. The hot drink eases your mind a bit. You look around the cafe until you spot a cat. It’s a fluffy black and white one, perusing around lazily.

“That one is so mean, don’t pet it,” Soobin says, following your gaze. He brings your attention to a different cat with a pointed finger. “The orange one sunbathing there is the best.”

“Oh yeah? You’re an orange cat fan?” you ask.

“I think you’d like that one,” he says. As if the cat could hear that, it gets up and starts walking toward you.

“Look at you, cat whisperer,” you joke. The way his face scrunches when he laughs makes your heart flutter. The orange cat brushes up against your legs when it finds you, and you immediately coo at it. “Hello, sweetie! Can I pet you?” you say, bringing down your hand for it to accept. The cat rubs its head against you, and you pet it lovingly.

“So you’re more of a cat person?” he asks. You look up from the cat to pay attention to him.

“I like all animals,” you say.

“What’s your favorite?”

You think for a second. “Should I say bunnies because you look like one?” you giggle.

“That’s a good answer,” he laughs with you.

“What would have been a bad answer?”

He looks up in thought and leans his face on his palm. “Maybe a mole or something?”

“Hey, I like moles,” you say.

“You like all animals.”

“What a good listener.”

“It’d be a little sad if I forgot something you said just a minute ago,” he responds.

“Men are like that,” you joke. You feel your phone buzzing with a call notification. “Sorry, let me check this.”

Why the hell is Beomgyu calling you?! You told him you were with—you roll your eyes. That’s why he’s calling you. He’s so petty and childish. You shove your phone back in your pocket.

“No one important?” Soobin asks.

“It’s Beomgyu,” you answer.

“Ah, you should answer then,” he reasons.

“I’m sure it can wait,” you dismiss.

“I need to go to the bathroom anyway, you can call while I go.” He smiles as he gets up.

You don’t really want to, but as you watch him walk away, you’re stuck sitting alone with nothing better to do. With a sigh, you unlock your phone and open your messages with Beomgyu.

What’s up

His response is immediate.

[Beomgyu] when are u coming back

You hold your head and groan at his antics. It’s been ten minutes and he’s acting like you’ve been gone ten days.

Whenever we’re done

Maybe an hour

He calls you again. Reluctantly, you answer. “What?”

“I just wanted to talk,” he says.

“No, you just want my attention. It’s one hour, I think you’ll live.”

“I think I won’t,” he counters. So annoying. You find yourself laughing for some reason, though. You see Soobin coming back, and you quickly fix your posture and tuck your hair back. That was fast.

“I gotta go,” you say abruptly. Beomgyu doesn’t get a word in before you hang up. He texts you his final words instead.

[Beomgyu] UR SO MEAN

Soobin sits back down in front of you. “What’d he say?”

“A whole lot of nothing,” you answer.

Soobin laughs. “Is that usual for him?”

“Always,” you groan.

After a moment, Soobin finds a new topic. “So what kept you up so late that you slept in so much?”

You freeze at the question. You have all of one second to decide if you’re going to spill the truth, or if you’re about to lie to his face. It would be the right thing to do to be honest with him…

“Beomgyu and I were hanging out,” you decide on saying. It’s technically true, but it feels like a cover-up rolling off your tongue.

You try to reason with yourself. You didn’t have sex. You got yourself off, with your own hand, and you didn’t touch him at all. The most he did was a little titty touching… so what? That’s so high school. It doesn’t even count.

You wonder if it would fool Soobin, cause it’s not fooling you.

“Oh, must’ve been fun then,” Soobin says. “Hopefully you can catch up on some sleep tonight.”

He’s so kind. You feel so gross. You don’t deserve him. Your smile doesn’t meet your eyes.

“You got any other plans for the day?” Soobin asks.

“I’m doing brunch with Beomgyu after this,” you answer.

“Wow, you spend a lot of time with him,” he comments. You don’t know why you feel a little offended at that.

“Yeah, we’ve been best friends since our senior year of high school. We moved to the city together, so we’re roommates.”

“Must be nice. I came here alone, so it was a little hard at first,” Soobin says.

“How so?” You’re honestly glad to shift the questions towards him for a bit. You like learning about him, and you hate how you always seem to end up talking about Beomgyu.

“I’m really shy, so making friends took a long time,” Soobin answers. “I’ve been here a few years now, though, so I made a decent community.”

“That’s nice. What’d you think of my friends on Friday?” you ask. “I heard you get chatty when you drink.”

He laughs and scratches his neck shyly. “Your friends were nice. I don’t think Beomgyu was very interested in talking to me though.”

You conceal your groan. Why does it keep coming back to Beomgyu?! You wish last night never happened so you could feel normal about this conversation. Even then, though, it wouldn’t erase how Beomgyu acted before that.

“Yeah, I don’t know, I’m sorry. Must’ve caught him on a bad day,” you excuse.

“Maybe. He seemed fine talking to you, though…” he mumbles, and you can tell that it’s bothering him. Now you really feel like shit. Any attempt you make to comfort him would be a lie after what you let happen between you two.

You grab Soobin’s hand, making his head pop up from where he was looking down all sullenly. “Thank you for coming that night. It means a lot that you met my friends,” you say. That puts a smile back on his face.

“Guess I gotta introduce you to mine now,” he says.

“I’d love that!”

“I’ll plan a day. How busy are you this month?” he asks.

“Not super,” you answer. You go on to ask about his friends, listening to him as diligently as you can while ignoring your phone buzzing in your pocket with text after text. You can guess who they’re from.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

The moment you get back home, you find Beomgyu already near the door waiting. He lights up, but you’re not amused.

“That texting and calling shit needs to stop,” you say, looking him dead in the eye.

He pouts and points at the table. “I made us food. It was gonna get cold.” You look at the table. He set up the dishes all cute, with plates of meats and pancakes in the middle alongside a bowl of berries. You sigh.

“We could’ve made it together when I came back,” you mention, but the fight leaves your voice. You wish you weren’t so endeared by him. You’re so weak, it makes you curse at yourself in your head. You sit at the table and pile some food onto your plate. He sits across from you and does the same.

You’re not sure what to talk about. You feel your skin heating up as you remember what happened the last time you were with Beomgyu. He must be thinking about it too. Maybe arguing about Soobin would be better than dealing with the awkwardness you feel right now.

You take a quick glance at him. He’s smiling and swaying around as he chomps down on his food. If he notices your discomfort, you’re glad he doesn’t say anything. You try to focus on your food instead of him as much as you can.

Usually Beomgyu is the only person you feel like you can do anything around, but right now you’re second guessing every little thing you do. Did you stare at him too long? Should you not check your phone right now? Where should you be looking? Does he know you’re overthinking this right now?

“I hope this is better than whatever you just did with Soobin,” he says, breaking the silence. You stop eating for a second to give him a disapproving glare. That’s one way to cut through your thoughts.

“You need to stop being so jealous,” you say. His neediness is being turned up to 100, and you don’t know how to deal with it. Whatever he thinks he’s doing is only going to drive you away from him.

“Well, I have to fight for your attention now,” he explains. You roll your eyes.

“No you don’t, I still spend most of my time with you.” It’s ridiculous that he thinks you’d just drop him like that. You literally live with him, you can’t avoid him. His insecurities are getting the best of him, and it’s changing your relationship with him.

“But soon you’ll spend it all with him, and I’ll have no one,” he says like he can see it all already. Gosh, seriously? His brows are upturned and the slightest frown mars his face. Why must he try to break your heart?

“Where’d you get that idea? I’m not going anywhere. You’ll always be the most important person in my life,” you reassure him. He looks down like he can’t stand to make eye contact anymore. His shoulders slump.

“I just have to make sure you don’t forget me,” he mutters. He keeps his eyes down. You sigh.

“I won't forget you. Can’t you just trust me? I’m telling you you’ll always be my number one. What more do you want to hear?” you ask.

He meets your eyes again. They still look sad. His lack of response puzzles you; he always has so much to say. You stay staring at each other for what feels like an eternity, until you pull your gaze away, unable to handle it.

You know you’re not in the wrong here. It’s not abandonment to just see another guy. He looked so pitiful, though. It would’ve hurt less to see him get angry and yell at you. He can’t really help how he feels, and you suppose it is a big change. What does he want you to do, though? Well, stop seeing Soobin. But you’re not going to do that.

You go to your room without another word, needing to leave his presence. It murks your mind and leaves you unable to think clearly. You text Chaewon to come over when she’s free. You just need to get your mind off of whatever’s developing between you and Beomgyu.

When her knock sounds at your door hours later, you run to open it, excited to finally talk to someone who won’t give you a headache. She holds up a grocery bag full of your favorite snacks, smiling ear to ear. You make a mental note to splurge for her next birthday; she always treats you so well.

You usher her to the couch and offer her a drink. She turns on the television and finds something to play in the background. Once you’re both situated, you open one of the snack bags and throw a blanket over the two of you.

“What did you do this weekend?” you ask her.

She doesn’t look away from the television when she answers, “Julie and I went to a spa.”

“Oh my god, and you didn’t invite me?!” you say in faux offense, although you definitely would have liked to go.

She laughs and points at the bag of food in your lap. “I made up for it with those.”

“You still owe me a day out,” you joke.

“I know, I’m thinking we’ll go to an amusement park in the spring. You down?” she asks.

“Oh, for sure,” you confirm. You go quiet for a bit, captured by the show Chaewon put on. The two of you make your own commentary on the characters and their decisions. You share looks when something crazy happens, and burst out laughing when Chaewon’s prediction about one of the plot lines comes true.

This is the stress relief you needed. You already feel lighter and happier. Good thing you asked Chaewon to come over. During a commercial break, Chaewon turns to you.

“Okay, I have to ask, how are things with Soobin?” Chaewon asks. The question doesn’t irk you, partially because it’s not Beomgyu asking it, but mostly because Chaewon put you in a better mood.

“It’s going good with him,” you say. You look down the hall to make sure Beomgyu’s door is shut. Talking to Chaewon about this might actually clear things up for you. She always has good advice.

“Tell me more,” she prompts, leaning in with a grin.

“Well, we went to a cafe today”—Chaewon cuts you off with a delighted ooooo—“and it went really well. He wants me to meet his friends next.”

Chaewon gasps. “You’re halfway into boyfriend territory now!”

Ugh. “About that…” you start.

“Uh oh,” Chaewon lets out.

“I really, really like Soobin, it’s just”—you shut up immediately once you hear Beomgyu’s door open. There’s no way he heard you, not unless he was intentionally listening in, and if he did, is he ballsy enough to come out and argue with you now? With Chaewon right here? You hold your breath.

He walks into the kitchen, and you let yourself breathe again. You watch him carefully. He opens the fridge. It’s a little early for dinner, so he’s probably just looking for a drink or a snack.

“Hey! Talk to me about that sexy tall man!” Chaewon says, bringing your attention back to her. You laugh nervously.

“Let’s talk about you, actually,” you say in attempt to shift the conversation. “How was your spa day with Julie?”

“We had fun, but it was nothing more important than Soobin updates!” she assures. She’s talking so loud, you flinch thinking about Beomgyu listening in.

“I don’t think we should talk about him right now,” you say, eyeing Beomgyu’s figure in the kitchen. You release your breath when you notice he’s still distracted in his search through the fridge.

“Girl… what,” Chaewon deadpans, following your gaze. She looks back at you, brows scrunched. You share a glance, and she puts two and two together. “You’re kidding me.”

“Please,” you whisper.

“He is so ridiculous,” Chaewon complains, shaking her head in disapproval.

“I know, but I can’t talk about it right now. Later, please,” you continue in a hushed voice. Beomgyu settles on an energy drink, closing the fridge and advancing toward the two of you. You pray Chaewon drops it.

“Hey Chaewon. Whatcha guys up to?” he asks as he lingers by where you sit on the couch. You look to Chaewon with pleading eyes. Hers are unamused and disappointed.

“Just talking,” she answers, her voice lacking any emotion. Beomgyu nods.

“Cool. What’s on TV?” he asks.

“Some crime show Chaewon likes,” you respond. It’s quiet for a minute, and you’re trying not to feel antsy. Beomgyu definitely didn’t hear your conversation about Soobin, but you can’t shake the reaction Chaewon had. You were just about to tell her how Beomgyu’s been acting, but now the conversation will have to wait.

When Beomgyu takes a seat next to you, you know that you won’t be able to talk to Chaewon about Soobin until the next time you see her. He puts his arm on the couch behind you and gets himself comfortable. It’s not like you’re going to ask him to leave, so you just lean into his side. You might as well make use of his warmth.

The three of you watch a couple more episodes of Chaewon’s show, and after some time your anxiety leaves you. It feels like a normal hang out, not like you’re in between your best friend you just got intimate with and your other best friend who has no clue.

“Are you having dinner here?” you ask Chaewon. She shakes her head.

“I think I’m gonna head out now, actually. I’ve got a few things to do,” she says. She gets off the couch. “But you need to come over tomorrow, ‘kay?” She points at you. You already know it’s because she wants to finish the conversation you started before Beomgyu came in. It must’ve been pestering her mind.

“I will,” you say. You get up from the couch to hug her. “Thanks for coming over.” You walk with her to your door.

“Love you, see you tomorrow!” she exclaims, waving.

“Love you too!!” You wave back.

Once Chaewon’s out the door, you return to Beomgyu on the couch. You lean your head on the armrest and fold your legs so they’re not resting on Beomgyu.

“I don’t wanna go to work tomorrow,” you complain. He laughs.

“When do you ever?” he asks.

“Fridays, cause there’s donuts,” you answer. He tugs on your legs to pull you closer to him. Your shirt rolls up a bit as he drags you down the couch, but he fixes it for you.

“Call out sick or something,” he suggests.

You groan, “I only get, like, seven sick days.”

“You should skip and we should go to the shopping center.” You hit his chest with your knee at his offer. He smiles down at you.

“The difference in maturity levels between us is crazy,” you say.

“I keep you young,” he jokes.

“Bitch, we’re the same age.” You hit his chest again.

Your phone buzzes on the table in front of you, but before you can sit up to check the notification, Beomgyu flips the device so it’s facing down.

“Who texted me?” you ask.

“No one,” he answers. “What do you want for dinner?”

You hum in thought. “I’m not really hungry honestly. I filled up on Chaewon’s snacks.”

“Same.” It falls silent, so you grab your phone and finally check your notifications.

“You liar, you said no one texted me,” you say, reading your text notification from Soobin.

He wears a mischievous smile. “Oops. Must’ve read it wrong.”

“Yeah right,” you say. You open your phone, going to respond to Soobin until Beomgyu takes your phone from your hands. “Hey!”

He shuts off your phone and puts it in the pocket of his sweatpants. “Talk to me instead of going on your phone.” You scowl at him, who looks back at you with a teasing grin. Asshole.

“Give me back my phone,” you order, hand reaching out for him to place it in. Instead, he takes you by the hand and drags you into his lap, laughing when you yelp.

“Why don’t you take it?” he offers, looking down at his pelvis.

“I’m not digging in your pants to get my phone back,” you say.

“Will you dig in my pants for other reasons?” He wiggles his eyebrows. You bite down your smile and smack his arm.

“You wish, freak.”

He snickers, running his hands up your arms. “I do wish.”

You’re acutely aware of the tension starting to build in the room, and you can’t deny how you’re getting excited in the heat of the moment. This is innocent enough, right? You’re just being playful with each other. Just because you’re starting to feel a little worked up doesn’t mean you’ll act on it.

You move your hand slowly down his chest, traveling down his torso, making your way down to the pocket of his sweatpants. He stares at you with big dumb eyes, and you hold back your laughter. You pry open his pocket, sliding your hand in and retrieving your phone, letting the weight of it drag across his thigh as you pull it out from the fabric.

“Got it,” you whisper, a winning smile on your face. You throw your phone behind you on the couch. You don’t know why you don’t move from your position, though. Maybe it’s the satisfaction you feel at watching his mouth fall just the tiniest bit open at your actions.

His hands grab your waist, thumbs lifting up your shirt just the tiniest bit, revealing a sliver of your stomach. He brings you forward on his lap, moving you even closer to him, and your eyes widen when you feel his half-hard length beneath you.

“Gyu?” you say, searching his eyes. He looks drunk off this moment, and he doesn’t bother to hide his lust. It’s evident all over his face, from his lidded eyes to his bitten lip. “Maybe we should”—

“Do you wanna ride me like this?” he interrupts, hands moving to your hips so he can guide them into a slow grind. You gasp at the sensation, not realizing how aroused you’d gotten. You feel him hardening below you the more you sway your hips over him. You feel dizzy.

You drop your head in his neck and let out a shaky exhale, letting him control your movements. God, this is so wrong. You’re doing this again? You’re really bad at keeping your own promises. But fuck, when your clit catches on the head of his cock, even through all the clothes, it feels like heaven. You can’t even think about how you should stop.

He slides your hair to one side of your neck and kisses the side he bared. “Good girl,” he praises, keeping your hips in a slow rhythm that has your brain malfunctioning. You whine, and your thighs twitch and tighten around him.

Beomgyu’s rock hard now, and you wish he didn’t feel so sinfully good. He presses his hips further up against you, and the added pressure makes you moan out before you can hold it back. He laughs and scatters wet kisses onto your neck.

“Look at you,” he says, voice so low it makes you shiver. “Pretty little thing getting herself off on my lap, creaming her pants for me. Cute girl.” He hastens your rhythm for you and holds you down tighter against him. You gasp and cling onto his shirt.

“Gyu, Gyu, please,” you stammer, feeling your high approaching.

“I know, sweet girl.” He matches your rhythm with his own hips now, making your toes curl.

“I’m gonna cum,” you breathe out, moving yourself even faster over him, losing yourself as you chase your orgasm.

“Yes, fuck, cum for me, I need to see it,” he insists, watching you spasm and shake over him. He moans out at the sight, and the sound is what brings you over the edge. You feel his dick twitch as you ride out your high, and you realize he came in his pants too. The thought makes your head spin.

You slow down as you begin to come down, holding his face in your hands. You wear a dopey smile, and he looks just as fucked out. You’d like to ruin him one day, to see him beg for pleasure and get more than what he can take. He has a pretty face for things like that.

Your hips still over him completely, and Beomgyu connects his mouth to your jaw. He sucks on your skin there, and you push his head away. “No marks,” you tell him. He nods quickly and goes back to licking and kissing and sucking your skin.

He trails his kisses down to your neck, lapping at every inch of skin he has access to. He’s messy with his tongue, coating you in his saliva. It’s so filthy, but it has your core pulsing again. You don’t know why he has this effect on you.

You jolt when you feel his teeth on your neck, biting down and sucking hard. It makes your hips push forward, and he moans against you. You’re not too far gone to let him get away with that, at least.

“Are you serious?” you scold, pulling Beomgyu away by his hair. He kisses your cheek, just barely missing your lips. You gasp, flustered.

“Sorry,” he apologizes quickly, breathlessly. He lays you down on the couch and lifts up your shirt and bra. He decides to connect his mouth to what he reveals there instead. He swirls his tongue around your nipple and sucks, squeezing and fondling your other tit with a hungry hand. You whine out when he just barely scrapes his teeth against the bud, fueling the heat in your core. He switches sides so that he can suck your other breast, delivering wet kisses to it.

His free hand travels up your thigh and stops just inches from your cunt. He swipes his thumb lazily over your inner thigh, so close you can feel it ghost your center. It’s getting you desperate for relief. You close your thighs around his hand, and it brings him right to your core. He moans against your chest at the collision. You wonder if he can feel your wetness through your thin pajama pants.

He rubs his hand against your cunt, moving slow enough to keep you wanting more. He detaches his mouth from you and stares at how your hips gyrate against him. He bites his lip and presses his fingertips harder against you, teasing your entrance through your clothes.

“Oh my god,” you moan, throwing your head back.

“Fuck, let me finger you,” he insists, bringing a thumb to your clit. Your head is spinning from the pleasure. “I need to, I’ve got to feel you.” You feel his bulge on your thigh, heavy and hard. You cry out. You feel your moral ground starting to slip.

“Take off my pants,” you instruct. “Just those.”

He rushes to follow through. Your pants are on the floor in an instant, and his hand is right back on you. He drops his head into your neck when he feels you this time.

“You’re drenched,” he moans. He runs his index finger through your folds over the cloth, so soaked through that he can feel the outline of your pussy perfectly. He pushes his index finger just barely into your hole, watching your panties scrunch up into it.

“Gyu!” you yelp.

“Let me, let me, let me,” he pleads, jamming his finger just a touch further. Your hands wrap around his arm, needing purchase on something. “You want to cum so bad, right? You want to feel good?”

“What do you want?” you ask back.

“To make you take whatever I give,” he answers. Your entrance flutters over his finger at that. “So let me take these off,” he says, pulling his hand away to snap your waistband.

You feel your sanity leave you. You need that pressure back in your cunt. His eyes are dark and blown out. He pulls your panties down just barely, letting them sit below your hip bones, your center still covered. He’s agonizingly slow as he pulls further and further, not daring to reveal your cunt until you say so.

“You’re driving me crazy,” Beomgyu whispers.

He’s the one driving you crazy. Your mind is completely fogged over. You’ve been turned into some kind of lust-drunk whore, seeing as you can’t focus on anything but him if you tried.

“Take them off,” you finally give in. You pulse and ache where you need him most. Beomgyu wastes no time when he pulls your panties off and away, and the first thing he does is hold your legs wide open and stare at your pussy.

“So perfect and slutty for me,” he says in his deep voice. “Gonna make this little pussy all mine.”

You whine at his words, thighs twitching and trying to close. You need him to do something, you need him to fill you. Your hole clenches over nothing, the emptiness starting to kill you. Beomgyu bites his lip and watches as your arousal leaks from you.

“You’re so cute, maybe I should just keep you like this,” he muses, laughing when you cry out and shake your head. “No? But I love watching this sweet cunt leak for me. You’re dripping like a whore.”

You arch your back, push your hips out, do anything you can, but he still doesn’t relieve you. You try to bring your own hand down to your pussy, but Beomgyu grabs it and pushes it back against the couch by your head.

“Please touch me!” you plead, desperate beyond belief. You might even start crying.

“Aww, my baby needs me,” he coos, soothing his hands up your thighs. “My pretty girl needs me, only me.” Finally, his fingers find your clit. You melt into the feeling, sighing in relief. Your hips twitch closer to his hand, making sure he won’t leave.

“Thank you,” you moan. Beomgyu holds your face with his free hand, staring into your teary eyes.

“Don’t cry, I’ll give you what you need,” he says, voice soft. He dips a finger into your cunt, stopping once he’s knuckle-deep. He fucks his finger into you slowly, and you sigh at the relief. He watches his finger sink into you, humming in pleasure when he sees how it collects your wetness.

His actions pull soft moans from your mouth, but you can’t bring yourself to conceal them. It’s not like you need to be embarrassed anyway, seeing how much Beomgyu loves your reactions. You get sick of his slow pace after a while, trying to ride his finger faster.

“More?” he asks. He inserts a second finger into you. The stretch feels like heaven, you crave to be stuffed by him.

“Yes! I need it,” you exclaim. He picks up the pace a little. “Thank you, thank you..!” He laughs a little and leans down to kiss your forehead.

“You’re so nice to me right now,” he notes with a smile, fucking you faster on his fingers in appreciation. “This is how you should always be.” You pay no mind to the wet squelches your pussy makes as he pistons into you. Your stomach muscles clench as you feel yourself getting closer.

He starts curling his fingers inside of you, and it doesn’t take him long to find what he’s looking for. You arch your back and yelp at the sensation of him pressing against the spongy part inside of you. He grins and keeps thrusting against that spot, watching your reactions with amused eyes. His head moves down between your thighs, biting and sucking at all the flesh his mouth can find, then wraps his lips around your clit once he grows tired of marking you.

“Ah! Gyu! That’s—mmh,” you sputter, rolling your hips up into the feeling. It’s so much. He pushes his fingers into you harder, deeper, with more purpose. He toys with your clit using his tongue, swiping and flicking it while he sucks. You’re right there and he knows it, doubling his efforts.

The pleasure takes you under, and you cum with a cry. Your hands find purchase in his hair, tugging at the strands. It makes him moan, and the vibrations fuel your orgasm. He’s hungry for it, fingers coaxing as much of your cum as he can get out of you. He doesn’t give up his pace even as you start to come down, fog clearing from your mind.

“That’s enough,” you say, trying to push his head away. His mouth leaves you for all of one second before he latches himself back on. “Beomgyu, I already—fuck!” He sucks harder now and hooks his fingers harshly into you to rub right against a spot that has you seeing stars. He only pulls his fingers out long enough to push a third one in, pressing right back where he was.

You gasp, pulling his hair again, needing something to keep you in reality cause you feel like you’re about to slip. You shake and twitch with overstimulation, but Beomgyu doesn’t care. It’s like he hasn’t gotten his fill yet. He’s careless with how he breaks you, paying no mind to your body’s limits.

Your orgasm builds up and hits you quickly thanks to Beomgyu’s determination. Your thighs clamp around his face, but that doesn’t stop him. You whine and mewl as Beomgyu feasts on your arousal. Your poor pussy clenches hard around his three fingers, so much he can’t even thrust them anymore, so he curls his fingers rapidly inside you instead. Your cum pools out of you and onto his hand, your juices dripping out of you uncontrollably.

He pulls away, panting, staring at your pussy. He licks a stripe up it, then goes back down to circle his tongue around your entrance. You whimper and push his head away. He meets your eyes, and his dark gaze softens when he sees your teary ones.

“Can’t you just take a little more?” he asks. His eyes don’t leave yours as he nibbles and sucks on your thigh. You shake your head and push his face away again. With a pout, he rises back up so his face is hovering over yours. You don’t know why fondness overcomes you when you’re staring at him, but the feeling isn’t entirely unwelcome.

“You’re so good,” you say, cupping his face and giggling. He leans his face into your neck, and you can feel his shy smile form against your skin. He comes back up with stars in his eyes.

You want to kiss him, and the thought scares you because you’ve never wanted that before. The feeling is so overpowering that you have to look away. You try to find interest in the wall, but Beomgyu’s movement makes you turn your head back to him. He leans back to admire you.

He smirks at the sight of your thighs, prompting you to look down at them too. Your eyes widen in horror at all the marks he sucked onto them. He pats your leg with a happy grin on his face. “No more short skirts around him,” he says. What a little shit.

“Beomgyu!” you scold. Dignity finds you and forces you to sit up and reach for your clothes on the floor. Before you can grab anything, Beomgyu’s placing you in his lap and holding your face much too close to his. His hips jut up into yours, and you gasp upon feeling his erection. Of course he’s hard again.

“I still need you,” he whines. “Please, don’t go yet.” You pull your face away from him, so he takes your hand and presses a kiss to your palm. His puppy eyes are so sweet and pitiful, you have no choice but to stay. One sad look from him is all it takes for him to get whatever he wants from you. You’re weak.

“I-I’m still sensitive,” you say as he grinds into you. He grips your hips hard, keeping you in place so you have no choice but to take it. You can already see your juices on his sweatpants, leaving a damp mark right over his cock.

“Yeah?” he asks, half-breathless. It’s like he’s not even listening to you, too focused on humping you like a bitch in heat.

“Yes, slow down.” He drops his head on your shoulder and pants heavily, not slowing down at all. You’re buzzing in overstimulation, legs twitching uncontrollably. His hands are shameless as they try to grab at every part of you. He squeezes your hips, your waist, your tits. His tongue is warm on your skin as it trails up to your ear, where he bites down and sucks.

He pushes himself further against you, giving you no space and no chance to leave. He wraps his arms around you and pistons his hips like he’s actually fucking you.

You gasp, “G-Gyu! Stop being bad!” You tug his hair, forcing his head back. His mouth drops open, and he stares at you through lidded eyes. Lust has possessed him, and your words only fuel him.

“Then punish me,” he says. You pull his hair harder, forcing his head back as far as you can, and suck on his neck. He moans louder than you’ve ever heard from him before, and his hips stutter in their rhythm. His hands keep you pressed against him as close as you can get. You moan when you feel his dick twitch through his clothes. For a second, you wonder how it would feel inside of you, but you shove that thought to the back of your mind.

You detach yourself from his throat and watch his face twist up from the pleasure. You look down to see the cum stains on his pants, giggling at the sight. Your hips jerk, and he gasps at the sensation.

Your eyes land on the mark you sucked into his neck. It’s darker than the ones he plastered all over your thighs. You want to feel ashamed or appalled for leaving that on him, but all you feel is some sort of satisfaction. You let your body fall limp against him, sinking into his hold and laying your head on his chest. His hands run to soothe you, brushing through your hair and rubbing your back.

You avoid asking questions. You avoid talking at all. You don’t want to know what this is or what it means, you just want to bask in the afterglow of whatever this is. The unpacking part of this will be a problem for future you.

Even if you hate yourself for this tomorrow, you can’t think of anything better than Beomgyu’s embrace on you now. You’ve already crossed so many lines with him, adding a few more won’t hurt. You find yourself wondering what things you’d like to do with Beomgyu next.

You lean back to stare at his face. His smile is blissful and lazy. You can’t pull your eyes from his lips. Even in the middle of winter, they still look so soft. You wonder what it would feel like to run your tongue over them, or how they would feel wrapped around your fingers. Would they be carnal and unforgiving against your own, or would his lips find yours in a sweet, gentle kiss?

You feel his hand on the back of your head. He’s pulling you closer, and you panic. You tilt your head so that your lips find his jaw instead of his mouth. You pull away after planting a little kiss there. Your gaze flits down his face for just a few seconds before you lean in to place another kiss on his jaw, a little higher than the last, lingering a little longer.

“A real one now,” he requests, eyes pleading and hands resting on your neck. You peck his nose, then his cheek, then his other cheek. He holds your face still and whispers your name. You share the most intense stare you’ve felt in your life.

You close the gap and let your lips touch for just one second. It’s soft and simple, and it’s enough to satisfy your curiosity, but Beomgyu has to come back for more. His lips feel so nice, they were made to be kissed. His fingers dig into your hair, desperate, clinging to you as if you’ll slip away from him. His kiss is hungry, like he wants to consume you, like he’s trying to find a way to your soul through your mouth.

You use both your hands on his chest to push him away, and when you succeed, you stare at him with wide eyes. You’re trying to get your breathing back under control. His face is flushed.

“Please, you can’t go back to Soobin after that,” he begs. The fragile glass holding this moment together breaks, and your sense crashes back over you immediately. Shit, you forgot about Soobin. How could you have forgotten about Soobin?!

You pull yourself out of his lap and stare at your best friend with horrified, blown-out eyes. What the fuck? What did you just do? You have to tell Soobin, you have no choice now. Next time you see him, you’re going to spill everything that’s happened with you and Beomgyu. This isn’t right. This isn’t fair to him.

“Gyu… I’m so, so sorry,” you apologize getting off the couch slowly, putting on your clothes. How do you save this? How do you stop yourself from breaking both Soobin’s trust and Beomgyu’s heart? There has to be a way to salvage this. There has to be a way to make this okay.

“Why?” He shoots up, holding your arms so you stay. “Why would you be sorry?” He shakes his head like he’s not understanding, but his eyes tell you that he knows. He knows you’re going to try to stop this again. What will he do to prevent you this time?

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” you whisper. You can’t even look him in the eye.

His disappointment only shows for a second before it’s overcome by need. A need to stop you from leaving, a need to show you that he’s yours, a need to prove himself to you—you know it all already, it’s happened so many times before. You can’t give in. Not again. Not after you let him get this far. If you allow this, what else will you let him do?

His hands are shaking as they cup your face. When you meet his eyes, you see tears already falling from them. You hate it. You hate it so much, how you’re always the cause of them. You’re always finding new spots to put your knife, slower ways to kill him. You know it by now; you know he’ll be hurt, but you do it time and time again, and you never learn your lesson.

This time it will change. This time you have to mean it.

“Stop making this so hard…” you say, hushed, as you wipe his tears from his face.

“I can’t leave you alone,” he insists. “You don’t get it. It’ll kill me.” He turns his face to kiss your palm. You try to pull your hand away, but he catches your arm and brings your wrist to his mouth, kissing you gently over your pulse point.

Why does your heart race? Why does your breath catch? He keeps finding new ways to fluster and confuse you, and all this just to make sure you don’t leave him for Soobin. You don’t know what’s more pathetic: the fact that he keeps doing this, or the fact that it keeps working.

You smooth your hand down his neck and rest it on his shoulder. “Just go to sleep,” you tell him softly.

“Come with me. Don’t make me go to bed alone after this.” He looks so cute and hopeful, you almost give in. You tighten your lips and place a parting pat on his chest.

“Good night,” you say before walking to your bedroom. He must know better than to follow, because he doesn’t. You try to ignore how your bed suddenly feels so big and empty.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

“Tell me everything, girl,” Chaewon says as soon as you settle onto her bed with her. You rushed over to her place after work, needing to debrief her on whatever has been going on between you and Beomgyu.

“First promise me that you won’t hate me,” you start.

“Oh, this is how I know it’s gonna be good,” she chuckles.

“Promise me!” you repeat, clutching onto her legs and locking eyes with her.

“I promise!” You lean back and let out a dramatic sigh, preparing yourself for your recap of all the events. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.

“So, remember the day we went to the bar, how you said you think Beomgyu might like me?” you ask. She nods. “I think you might’ve been right. Things have been getting weird.”

“I literally fucking knew it, I knew he must’ve been on some shit,” she says, looking excited to hear more. “Continue.”

“Well…” you trail off, feeling your stomach knot up in fear of actually saying what happened out loud. “Oh my Godddd, I can’t.” You hide your face in your hands.

Chaewon pushes your hands down and shakes you by the wrists. “Tell me!”

You take a deep breath. “Okay, so. At the bar, Beomgyu came up to me and was like are you leaving with Soobin? And I was like no, and he was so happy about that. But then he got really upset when I wanted to go back to the table with Soobin. Literally so upset that I ended up going back home with him cause he was gonna sulk all night otherwise.”

“Oh my fucking God, Aeri and I were literally joking about that being the reason why you left. That’s crazy,” Chaewon says.

“The next day, I asked him for his opinion on Soobin, and he got all pissed at me for some reason,” you continue.

“It’s cause he likes you!” Chaewon chimes in, rising up and screeching with the adrenaline of the conversation.

“Well then it gets crazy. He starts talking about how our friendship is enough, I don’t need a man, and I’m like huh? I don’t even remember everything he said, but it was so weird, and he started offering himself up to me basically.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. Like, I’ll do whatever you want, literally like that,” you explain.

“Girl.” You share a glance.

“Just wait. It gets worse,” you say.

“Don’t tell me you fucked.”

“Just wait!” you repeat. “So I tell him I’m gonna head to your place to clear my mind, and—I can’t make this up—he drops to his knees and starts crying actual tears. And then it gets kinda horny?”

Chaewon busts out laughing and claps her hands. “How’d I know?”

“He’s biting and licking my thigh, and I’m still trying to talk some sense into him, but some demon ends up possessing me and he takes me to my bed, and we don’t fuck but we… yeah.”

Chaewon covers her mouth in shock. She’s speechless, and you let the first half of the story ruminate in silence for a few long seconds. You tighten your lips and nod like you’re disappointed too.

“When we finish, I tell him that this is never happening again, and that he needs to leave my room, but he doesn’t. He insists on sleeping in my bed with me because Soobin gets me every other night, which is not true, but I let him have it anyway.”

“You need to put your foot down. He’s crazy,” Chaewon says.

“There’s more,” you respond. “Also, that night, he told me that Soobin apparently said we’re together or something at the bar? Is that true?”

Chaewon scrunches up her face. “No? I don’t think he said that.”

You groan, “Beomgyu is literally driving himself crazy. Anyway, the next day I literally start hating myself so bad because I wake up and have to see Soobin immediately”—Chaewon gasps—“Yeah. And the whole time I’m thinking, do I tell him? Should he know? And, oh my God, Beomgyu would not stop blowing up my phone during our date.”

“I would have to fight him, that’s so annoying,” Chaewon comments.

“It was! He didn’t even need anything either, he just wanted my attention. I didn’t end up telling Soobin anything cause I was scared. When I got home, Beomgyu and I ate and he was like I hope this is better than what you did with Soobin.”

“Girl, beat his ass,” Chaewon says.

“Stop,” you laugh, pushing her shoulder. “We argue again, and then I ask you to come over. Then you know what happens when you’re there. When you leave, though, the demons get to me again and I get even freakier with Beomgyu.”

Chaewon looks at you in horror and shock.

“Yeah. So when it ends, I tell him that this won’t happen again. He gets all sad and cries again, and says all this heartbreaking, confusing shit. So no matter what I do, I feel like I’m hurting someone.”

“Can I be honest? He’s one hundred percent manipulating you,” she says. You flinch a bit at that. Manipulating you? That’s a little far.

“I wouldn’t say that,” you refute. “He just ignores all our friendship’s boundaries.” Beomgyu has touched you in ways that friends shouldn’t. He’s declared things to you that friends shouldn’t. He’s begged to you and drove himself to tears, he’s gotten in his head with insecurities about you, he’s done too many things that a friend would never do that you just can’t ignore.

Chaewon places her hand over your own. That’s how you know she’s about to get serious. You like talking about this with her because she can be fun, but she can also be mature about things and give good advice. Plus, at least with her, you don’t have to worry about not being heard.

“Listen,” she starts. “He cries to you because he knows you’ll give in. He brings up his devotion to you because it makes you feel like you owe him. It’s not about professing his emotions, it’s about doing whatever it takes to keep you closest to him.”

Your brain is struggling to fit all the pieces together. It’s not adding up or making sense to you. Maybe to an outside source like Chaewon, it looks a little bad, but you know Beomgyu better than that. You always have been influenced by him. Right now is no different. He doesn’t want to control you, you think. He just wants his best friend.

“He’s not evil, Chaewon, he’s just being annoying,” you say. She sighs and goes quiet for a second. You can tell she’s carefully formulating her response.

“He’s being selfish. He can’t stand to see you choose another man over him.” That much you know. He’s admitted to that.

“Then wouldn’t I be selfish too? Letting him do things with me while I’m talking to Soobin,” you ask, looking off to the side. When you say it like that, guilt pours over you. If Beomgyu’s being selfish, then you’ve been obscenely greedy. That’s not a far cry from the truth, though, and it may even be the actuality of the situation after all. You won’t defend yourself from that claim.

“The thing is, you wouldn’t be doing any of this if Beomgyu wasn’t messing with your head,” Chaewon reasons. “Would you have let him touch you if he never cried to you that night?”

You think back to your first intimate moment with Beomgyu. You definitely wanted it. The second time too. You ponder Chaewon’s words. If he never fell to his knees, begging you to stay, what would have happened? If he skipped the tears and the pity party and just took you straight to your room to fuck, would you have been okay with it then?

Probably not, you think. But how relevant is that? You can’t separate Beomgyu’s emotions from his actions. He felt like he was losing you, and that’s why he did everything. Everything that happened after was from the heat of the moment, an act of desperation.

Maybe it’s his utter devotion that turns you on, maybe that’s what keeps you from denying him. Seeing a man so desperate that he’d shed tears for you, perhaps it’s what makes you lose control. When Beomgyu’s on his knees, looking up at you with painfully honest eyes, promising you that he’ll be good, any woman in your position would fold.

What if it wasn’t Beomgyu? What if it was Soobin instead? Would you still give in? You try to picture it. You look into Soobin’s eyes and feel his fingers on your thighs. You try to make yourself burn up more, but you don’t feel much.

Okay, picture it more, maybe. He’s got you spread on your mattress, begging you for just one touch. He kisses your stomach, and his tears fall off his cheek and onto your skin. His tongue is warm and wanting, exploring further down your body until he bites down on your waistband. You tense up, needing more. You grab his hair tight. He looks up at you and you almost shriek, horror and humiliation crashing over you. He’s not Soobin at all. He’s Beomgyu.

Chaewon’s voice cuts through your thoughts to ask you another question, “Do you feel like you can’t leave him?”

“I’d never leave him,” you answer. You didn’t even have to think about it. She sighs.

“At some point, you have to realize that this is going beyond keeping a friend around,” Chaewon says. “He won’t let you go out with Soobin in peace. He argues with you whenever you mention him. He touches you to get your mind off of him.”

You don’t try to refute that. Should you just accept defeat? You could go home and surrender to Beomgyu. You could promise to never look at Soobin again, and he’d finally get what he wants without a fight. You’d live the rest of your life not knowing whether you’ve got the love of your life standing right beside you or waiting out in the world somewhere.

“He’s giving you no choice. He’s doing it on purpose.” Chaewon picks up your hands, lacing them with her own. “You have to start standing your ground with him. No more letting him control your life.” Her hands give a firm, reassuring squeeze to yours.

You nod. “You’re right.” She smiles.

“Okay. Bring it here,” she says, pulling you into a hug. The second your head lands on her shoulder, you start crying. You didn’t even know you had to cry. She rubs her hand down your back, letting you use her as an outlet.

“What happens if I can’t, and nothing changes?” you sob. You feel helpless in your own life. Nothing you do will change what Beomgyu does or erase what you have done.

“Then you leave,” she answers simply. You tense up at the idea. Do you have it in you? You’re not nearly brave enough. “You come stay with me for however long you need. I promise.”

“How will I look at Soobin after this?” You should save everyone a whole lot of trouble and just call things off with him. The thought makes you feel sick, though. You don’t want to leave Soobin. You have a real connection with him. Beomgyu’s just getting in the way of it, fogging up your mind at every chance he gets.

Chaewon pulls you out of her embrace so she can look you in the eye. Her hands stay on your shoulders, firm and reassuring. “Stop beating yourself up. You made a mistake, but you’re not the biggest one at blame here.”

You wish that was true. You blame your lack of spine, your inability to keep your conscience clear, and your willingness to lie to save face. You look down at your lap in shame. If Beomgyu’s an asshole, then you’re perfect for him. You’re not as good as you’d like to think.

Chaewon calls your name to bring your attention back to her. “Soobin isn’t even your boyfriend. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Well, that’s true. You sniffle.

“Won’t he hate me now?” you ask.

“He has no right. As long as there’s no label, you two aren’t exclusive. Sure, things are a lot more complicated now, but you’re not a bad person for anything you did,” she says. You nod slowly. Her words help you so much. You would have gone crazy without her.

Maybe you should take her advice: leave Beomgyu and stay with her, at least until you can make up your mind. You can’t do that to him, though. He’d fall apart. It would honestly be hard for you, too.

“Thanks, Chaewon,” you say. You flop down onto the bed, letting your body sink into her mattress. “I’m so exhausted after that.”

“A good cry will do that to you,” Chaewon laughs. She lays down beside you and rests her arm over your waist. You pull yourself closer to her until you’re laying on her chest. You throw a leg over her, getting comfortable.

“Let’s order pizza,” you suggest.

“Yesss, and watch more of my show,” Chaewon adds. She picks up her phone and searches for a good pizza place that can deliver to her. As she does that, your phone screen lights up to signal that Beomgyu’s calling you.

“Oh my God,” you say, holding your phone up for Chaewon to see.

Chaewon smirks and shakes her head. “We summoned him.”

You sit up as you answer the call. “Hi Gyu, what’s up?”

“Not much, just wondering if you’re gonna be here for dinner?” he answers.

“No, I’m getting pizza.” Beomgyu hums on the other end, and it’s quiet for a few seconds.

“Are you with Soobin right now?” he asks. You’re displeased but unsurprised at his question.

“I’m with Chaewon,” you say flatly. Chaewon leans closer to you and points at your phone.

“Let me talk to him,” she whispers, fury in her eyes. You shake your head. You absolutely cannot let that fight happen.

“Oh. Are you sleeping over there?” Beomgyu asks. Chaewon nods with wide eyes, like you’d be crazy if you said no.

“I might, yeah,” you answer.

“Alright. Tell her I said hi. Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll be back after work.”

“Yay, have fun with Chaewon then! Bye~” he sings.

“See you.” You hang up and turn to Chaewon. “Did you order the pizza?”

“It’s on its way,” she confirms with a grin.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

You take a deep breath before you enter your apartment. You’re nervous to face Beomgyu again. Not knowing how he’s going to act is worrying you, because you don’t know if you’re going to walk in and get a normal night with your best friend, or more confusing confessions that toe the line between friendliness and something greater.

You don’t see him when you come in, so you wonder if he’s working. That would make your night less stressful. That proves to be wishful thinking, though, when shut the fridge after grabbing a drink and see Beomgyu walking into the kitchen. He greets you with a sweet call of your name.

You smile at him, but it doesn’t meet your eyes. After your conversation with Chaewon yesterday, the only thing that’s been lingering on your mind is how to finally put your foot down. Do you wait for him to try something to have that conversation? He’s going to be offended no matter when you say it, so maybe you should just get it over with. You don’t know.

“How was work?” he asks.

You shrug. “It was kind of a long day.” Not for any work related reasons, but you don’t tell him that part. Standing in the kitchen with him feels awkward now, even though it never used to before. You just can’t stop thinking about him in unfriendly ways, be it from his kiss or from his confessions.

You realize that these thoughts will only pester you worse and worse the longer you ignore the topic with Beomgyu. He’s talking about what he did at work today, but you’re barely listening. Your eyes linger on his lips as he speaks. You follow the movement of his hands as he rambles, thinking about how those slender fingers felt inside of you.

God, stop! This is why you should have never done anything with him. At this rate, you’ll never be able to have a normal conversation with him again. Your heart starts beating faster. You need to let him know that you need space. Fuck, why did you let it get this far? His sad eyes flicker in the back of your mind already.

Beomgyu moves to the couch, probably expecting you to follow him and turn on the television. Your feet stay planted where they are, watching him with careful eyes. He looks back at you when he realizes you didn’t trail behind him, staring at you expectantly.

You force yourself to move, walking slowly into the room with him. You sit on the couch, leaving a considerable amount of space between the two of you.

Now’s the time. Speak up, you have to. Don’t worry about his feelings. Think about Soobin. Do this for him—better yet, do this for yourself. Prove that you have it in you.

“Beomgyu,” you say. He furrows his brows, seeming confused at your serious tone. “We can’t do this anymore. I’m serious.” You steady your breathing as you look him straight in the eye.

“What do you mean?” he’s quick to ask. You know he’s not dumb enough to not understand what you meant. He grabs your hand to hold it, and you let him have it for a few seconds before you pull away.

“I mean, no more playing with each other. No touching, or kissing, or anything we wouldn’t normally do.” You’re anxious as hell, but you feel strong for once, and it’s nerve-wracking yet empowering. You’re setting your boundaries. No more reckless decisions that leave you regretting everything the next day.

Beomgyu rolls his eyes. “Why, cause Soobin said so?”

“No, because I said so,” you correct. He tilts his head as a frown starts to form on his face. You remind yourself that you can’t let him win. You remind yourself of everything that Chaewon said. Beomgyu will do anything he can to win, and you can’t let that happen.

He’s quiet for a moment, unnerving you. You know that he’s coming up with his pleas now. You have to cut him off before he can get anything out.

“You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose you because of some dumb decision we made,” you say, hoping he’ll understand, but the sadness in his eyes only grows at that. He drops his head onto your shoulder and hugs you. Oh lord. You hug him back with a heavy exhale.

“What am I supposed to do? Watch you be happy with someone that’s not me?” he murmurs into your neck. You lean out of the hug so that you can look him in the eye. He needs to know you’re not breaking this time.

“Yes. It’s either that or we argue like we have been everyday.” It’s about time that he stops sulking at every mention of Soobin.

“Then I’ll take the arguments. I’ll take you yelling at me and hitting me, I don’t care. I just can’t take you being with him,” he says.

“I’d never do that,” you refute, sick at the idea of hurting him. “You have to listen to me. Let me see this out with Soobin. I want to at least give him a chance without you intervening.”

He sighs with a heavy heart. Is he going to let you win? That easy?

“Did Chaewon tell you to do this?” he asks. You drop your jaw in shock. He’s got some nerve asking that.

“That doesn’t matter, the only thing that does is that I told you we have to stop, and you need to listen.” You can’t believe he’s bringing Chaewon into this. He’s out of his mind if he thinks you’re going to let him blame her.

Beomgyu deflates into the couch and looks down at the floor. You ignore how your heart clenches. You can’t comfort him, that would be his window for turning this situation around. He has to know you mean this, so you walk away, going to your room and shutting the door.

You lean your back against the door and zone out, staring at the wall. Don’t think about how Beomgyu feels. Don’t think about how you might have ruined your friendship.

What do you do now? Will he want to talk to you anymore? Maybe you should have let him plead his case a little. He’s insecure, he can’t help it. You slide down the door until you’re sitting down.

You have to stop making excuses for him. He’s an adult, it’s time he acts like it. Chaewon’s right, you can’t keep giving him what he wants, and putting your foot down and hurting his feelings was the only way he was going to learn.

That’s what you’ve been doing, you suppose, but this time you mean it, and you hope he knows it. You’re going to have to put in more effort into resisting the urge to comfort him. If he keeps making things hard for you, you’ll have to start ignoring and avoiding him. The thought scares you.

You don’t want to think about this anymore. You wish you didn’t have to do this, but you had no choice. Your thoughts about him were driving you crazy, and you had to put a stop to it before they could get even worse. Not to mention how guilty you’d feel hanging out with Soobin if you continued letting Beomgyu have his way with you.

You open your phone and go to your chat with Soobin and type a quick message.

Hey

You just want to reassure yourself that you made the right choice. Hurting Beomgyu’s feelings can’t be for naught. You don’t expect Soobin to respond so fast, but he does.

[Soobin] Wow I was just thinking about you lol

[Soobin] Hi

Your heart skips a beat as you read his texts. He thinks about you?

Oh really? About what?

[Soobin] I wanted to see you again

You bite your lip and a smile grows on your face. See? Wasn’t this worth making Beomgyu a little sad? Wasn’t it a fair trade off? He’ll be okay, surely. And eventually, you might even stop feeling guilty for doing it, too.

You deserve to be able to talk with Soobin without your conscience barking at you. This is what had to happen. You’ll feel better about this when everything all works out in the end.

How about tomorrow?

[Soobin] I’d love that

Yayyyy

Finally something not shitty about my day

[Soobin] What happened?

You groan. Where do you even start?

Argument with my friend

[Soobin] Beomgyu?

Yep…

[Soobin] Well I’m glad I could make you happy for a minute then :)

You find yourself giggling at his message.

You’re cute

[Soobin] Thank you

[Soobin] You too

You almost squeal when you read that. He’s so shy when it comes to flirting, but when he does it, it never fails to give you butterflies. You imagine him blushing as he sent it, feeling a little hesitant to be so bold. What an endearing guy.

Finally, you feel like you can end the night on a decent note. You feel better now that you’ve got something to look forward to with Soobin. You don’t let yourself think about Beomgyu anymore tonight, not wanting to sink down that rabbit hole.

I’m gonna go to sleep, thanks for cheering me up hehe

And for everything that you do

Good night

[Soobin] Sleep well

[Soobin] Dream of me

Your heart flutters. Your fingers race across the keyboard.

Fingers crossed

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

The air around you and Soobin feels so much lighter now that guilt doesn’t have you in its claws. You ended whatever you had going on with Beomgyu, and now you can focus more on Soobin. Your heart holds an open invitation for Soobin to occupy, you’re just waiting for the feelings to further bloom.

It’s unfortunate how early it gets dark out, but you don’t let it ruin your day. You bask in the glow of the streetlights as you and Soobin walk to the park.

“I used to come here all the time with my sister and nephew,” he says. You find a gazebo to sit under. From here, you have a perfect view of the frozen-over lake ahead of you. “We’d play tag with him, but we’d have to run super slow to give him a fair chance.”

You can see that image clearly in your mind, and it makes you smile at how cute it is. Soobin being such a family man is so charming to you. He has such marriage potential. You’re getting ahead of yourself, though.

“This seems like a good place to bring a kid. So much space to play,” you comment, looking out at the park. The grass doesn’t look so alive right now, and all the trees are bare, but it must be nice in the summertime. Even now, there’s something beautiful about it.

“Yeah, it makes me think about having kids of my own to run around in these fields.” The idea of a mini Soobin playing here makes you chuckle. He’d definitely have well-behaved kids. He would be a good dad.

“You want to stay here when you raise a family?” you ask.

“I think so. There’s a lot this place has in store. I’m a little attached to it,” he laughs. You wonder if you’ll think of the city so fondly one day too. You’ve only been here for a little over a year.

“Really? What’s the best thing in this city, then?” you ask and smile at him.

He looks at you for a long second, then lets out a little laugh. His cheeks are red when he looks back out at the lake. “I don’t know…”

You giggle, swooning over him yet again. “What about your hometown? What was it like there?”

“It was nice. I lived in a small area. I miss it sometimes, but I don’t think I’d go back. I think I mostly miss being a child,” he answers.

“I can relate to that,” you say. “Life’s harder now.” You think about the past week in particular and all the chaos with Beomgyu. Teenage you would never have imagined getting tangled up in something like this, especially not involving him.

“Things like this are good, though,” Soobin adds, smiling at you. “Things with you.” Your face heats up. He’s getting so flirty and brave.

“Same for me,” you say. “It’s good with you.” You spend a few quiet seconds admiring his face, letting the butterflies flutter wildly within you.

“I think it’s been long enough for me to ask this,” Soobin starts. Your body tenses in anticipation. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

Oh god. The butterflies halt and replace their happy fluttering with silent dread. All of your effort is going into maintaining a neutral composition. You don’t want to let your internal dilemma show. Your heart is going haywire, like it’s trying to beat right out of your chest. You don’t blame it for trying to run away; a part of you wishes you could too.

“Can we wait a little longer?” you ask meekly. You fear hurting his feelings, but you simply need more time. This is not how you imagined this moment would go. You wish you could scream yes and jump into his arms, but things have gotten muddy in the past week. You need to sort everything out with Beomgyu first. If this is going to happen, you need to make sure it comes from a place of one hundred percent certainty. You can’t be exclusive with Soobin with Beomgyu lingering in the back of your mind.

If Soobin’s trying to mask his disappointment, he’s failing. Your heart drops. Is this where he leaves you? No—you’re not ready for that either. If he gets up right now, you’re ready to cling onto his jacket and beg him not to go. You don’t know what you just did. You messed up. You should’ve just said yes.

“I’ll wait however long you need,” he ends up saying. He stays right where he is. You sigh in relief and hug him. He lets out a noise of surprise, but is quick to hug you back.

“Thank you. I’m sorry. Things are just…” you trail off as you pull away from him. He brushes your hair out of your face. “…Confusing right now.”

“Is there someone else?” he asks.

You gulp. “Kind of. It’s… Beomgyu.”

“Oh, right. He doesn’t like me.”

You frown. “I don’t know why.”

“You really value his opinion,” he notes.

“It’s not only that…” you say, looking down at your hands fidgeting in your lap. Soobin lifts your head back up with a gentle hand. He smiles when your eyes meet.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. I’m ready whenever you are,” he reassures. He leans in to place a peck on your cheek. You heat up wildly.

“You should probably know, though,” you urge.

“No,” he insists. “Honestly, I don’t want to know. I’m just happy I get you to myself every time that I do.”

A weight lifts itself from your shoulders. You feel like you can breathe again. You’re lucky that Soobin is so understanding, and even luckier that he’s willing to wait for you to figure your own things out. He doesn’t owe you that, but you’re endlessly appreciative that he gives it to you anyway.

You lean into Soobin’s side and look out at the scenery in front of you. The two of you fall back into conversation, and you find yourself feeling sad when it’s time to go.

As you hug him goodbye, you feel inclined to just never let go. You feel so comfortable in his embrace. You insist on meeting up again over the weekend, and he puts up no fight in accepting. Gosh, he makes your heart race. Things are finally feeling good again.

notes: yayyyy what do we think?? chapter 2’s already at 7.6k and i’m estimating it’ll get up to ~17k-20k, but we shall see. i’m excited to hear ur thoughts, so feel free to leave feedback! 🤍

#txt x reader #beomgyu x reader #txt smut #beomgyu smut #txt hard hours #beomgyu hard hours #beomgyu angst #txt angst #txt fic #beomgyu fic #soobin angst #soobin x reader #soobin fic

671 notes · View notes

avelera · 2 months ago

Text

Analysis: Why Jayce broke up with Mel in Arcane 2.08

Since the finale episodes of Arcane dropped this morning, I've been going back and re-watching some of my favorite scenes, and I was struck by Jayce breaking up with Mel.

First of all, yeah, he clearly does break up with her, though I missed how formally he does so on my first watch-through. He does it in the Council chamber, just before Viktor attacks. But since they get interrupted, he finishes breaking up with her (after checking in with her) on the balcony later.

But what really struck me about the breakup wasn't in those scenes, but actually back in 2.07, when Jayce is alone in cavern in the darkest timeline. I definitely didn't catch on the first viewing that this is where he chose to break up with her.

In the background, you can hear Jayce in the depths of his despair and solitude starts going over in his mind all the steps that led him to where he is.

Here are some of the quotes he hears:

"I never asked for this!" - Himself to Viktor, trying to justify his actions up to that point just before Viktor leaves him.

"This research is everything, my whole life," a quote from one of his first conversations with Viktor but, more importantly, it establishes Jayce's entire raison d'etre up to that point. Hextech research was his life.

"He was my mentor, Mel, and I betrayed him," obviously is Jayce discussing the coup d'etat against Heimerdinger he orchestrated to save Viktor, but it was with Mel's assistance and urging.

"You must destroy it. It corrupts. Consumes." A quote from Heimerdinger, warning against Hextech. Which must feel especially prescient now that Jayce is stuff in the evil bombed-out future where Hextech destroyed the world.

"I was trying to create magic." Jayce to the Council to defend his Hextech research and save himself from banishment, but, he only mentioned magic at Mel's goading, which I would guess he's beginning to recognize now for what it was in retrospect.

"It's your time now, Jayce." Mel, part of her goading of Jayce into advancing Hextech research and his political career.

"Perhaps it's time for the era of magic." Mel's words on the night she saw Hextech for the first time, after helping Jayce and Viktor break into Heimerdinger's lab.

"You must destroy it." Heimerdinger about the Hexcore, again, probably feeling pretty prescient right now with Jayce literally in the pit of despair in a the evil Hextech future.

Finally, while looking out over the fire while clearly going nearly insane from the isolation, Jayce begins to hallucinate seeing Mel. But then, her image in the fire gives way to Viktor's.

The decision has been made there. It's not just Jayce reflecting on his two closest loved ones (as I thought the first time), rather, it is the moment Jayce makes his decision: he is picking Viktor over Mel. He has decided that the reason he is here in this terrible place is because of Mel, not Viktor. He is choosing his partner, going back to what they had before she became involved in their life. His new course is set.

Now, I want to preface the next part by saying I love Mel, she's a fascinating character, and though I ship Jayvik I also ship/shipped MelJayVik, so this isn't coming from a place of bias. I'm just analyzing the material when I say these flashbacks were Jayce rearranging the narrative in his head and realizing Mel's been manipulating and goading him in his pursuit of Hextech.

Given where he is when this is happening: starving, freezing, in pain, alone for weeks if not months in a stone box, slowly going insane, surrounded by the burnt corpses of people destroyed by Hextech, I'd say... yeah. His need for someone to blame is pretty understandable. He even starts whispering, "No!" in a panic at the memories in response to what she says in his mind.

So when we get to the Council chamber in the main timeline in 2.08, I'd argue that Jayce is spoiling for a fight. He's had months of agony to decide things are over with Mel and that he's angry at her. He wants to blame her for what happened to Viktor, for what happened to him, and he's in pain and he wants to lash out. The relationship is definitely over.

But then Mel is in pain too. And Viktor shows up, with his own autonomy, showing that they all had their shitty parts to play in this drama.

The attack by Viktor adds another element, Jayce was probably also mourning that he had to shoot Viktor at that point, another thing that was painful and made him want to lash out and blame others for this horrible place he's in emotionally and the horrific place he's been in physically until recently.

It's only after Viktor's attack though that Jayce realizes that this situation is complex, it's not all Mel's fault. It would be easier to just pin all the blame on Mel and make Jayce and Viktor her victims, but Viktor shows to him that he has his own agency and Jayce needs to be clear-eyed going forward about who he is saving, because it's not "Mel's victim". Viktor is his own person.

Jayce also remembers some of the care he once had for Mel when he catches her before she falls (in a tender moment I mistook for a full reconciliation between them the first time but no, it's just him remembering he cares for her wellbeing). Jayce can't trust her anymore, after realizing just how adept she was at manipulating him without his realizing, but he does still care for her as a person. And he's cooled off enough to address the pain she is clearly carrying.

(I admit, I do love this moment of him calling himself an ass, because I adore Jayce but it's a lovely beat of self awareness and really shows his growth as a person that he can say this to someone that just hours before he was squaring up to fight against and blame for all his misfortunes.)

But anyway, the moments you really see that it's over between Mel and Jayce:

When he doesn't explain to her what happened to him. That's not for her to know anymore. He's decided that they're not together or intimate anymore. And he's probably still hurting from realizing how she's used what he told her in the past to encourage/manipulate him to her own ends and therefore wary of sharing. This is also a reason for the breakup: he can't share the immense pain he's been in because he can't trust her anymore, and he knows it. It's over.

In the scene on the balcony when he turns away from her instead of towards her before offering his advice. Jayce is very touchy-feely, he always offers physical comfort to his loved ones. But there, he deliberately turns away instead of taking her in his arms and comforting her. Again: it's over between them. But he still respects her. So he reminds her of how indomitable she is, along with offering the slight backhanded compliment born of his distrust for her: she's never the passenger, she is always the one in control. He knows, because he's realized she used to control him.

I've mentioned in other meta that this season deals in a lot of comeuppance for events in S1, and this is arguably Mel's. She'll be ok, she's got magical sun powers and she's the head of a powerful house now. But she doesn't get to keep Jayce in her life as her lover anymore after what she did, because she did manipulate him, even if she had good intentions mixed with the self-interested ones.

The trust is simply gone now. But he cares for her and wishes her well, so, I'd argue they parted on as good of terms as could be done.

#arcane #arcane spoilers #jayvik #jayce talis #mel medarda #it's about their relationship but I'm not putting it in that tag because it could come across as anti #but I'm not anti Mel this is just analyzing the text

773 notes · View notes

vaguely-concerned · 2 months ago

Text

for what it's worth I personally don't believe spite had anything to do with the pantry near-kiss experience at all. I think that was a 100% lucanis naturel disaster no supernatural additives present or indeed required. at most spite was watching that whole situation go down with mild puzzlement about approximately every part of it, I don't think he'd have much interest in it one way or the other. the explanation seems much more mundane and grounded and in some ways much sadder to me.

if your nervous system has never been in a place where any surge of emotion, even -- in fact sometimes especially! -- a good and exciting one makes you feel like your soul just touched a hot stove it can't get away from, then sincerely, from the bottom of my heart and without a trace of snark, thank goodness and I hope you never experience it. For the rest of you... fistbump of solidarity it's rough out here but *grits teeth* we stay silly etc. In the place lucanis is in during that part of the game, feeling like you're losing control (again even for ostensibly good happy reasons) can feel an awful lot like you're dying, or worse. on top of everything else going on for him -- again going only with non-supernatural elements and not even comprehensive: a year of non-stop horrific trauma added to pile of previous mountain of childhood and attachment trauma. chronic sleep deprivation. apparently dead grandma doubling as mother figure. cousin-brother aggressively fucking around and in real danger of finding out. fucked up the ONE thing he thought he knew how to do that's been the central pillar of his identity. the world might be ending even more than it already was because of it. keeps faceplanting with barely any dignity and having to get up again with alarming regularity GOD how could I ever not save treviso this man desperately needs a W (just one!!) like few people in the history of the world have before him. he's more caffeine than man because the alternative feels worse. it's bad in here. and ON TOP of all that he's in the process of falling just. appallingly soul-shrivingly in love, which can notably be playing on hard mode even when you're in a mostly functional place, that shit routinely rocks people to the core under the best of circumstances.

so I'm not surprised it's too overwhelming for him to handle when he tries to throw himself in head first -- in fact I'd have been more surprised if it weren't lol. he clearly wants it so much, which only makes it so much more painful that he can't actually bear to touch it when it's offered to him freely and eagerly. this is the tantalus-level awfulness of this kind of attachment trauma; food seems to be right there, you can see it, almost smell it sometimes, but no matter what you just can't seem to reach it. seemingly not for any flaw in the existence of the food, but because of something broken in you that can't or can't bear to actually eat. his deliberate flirting routine is kind of deeply dorky tbh lol (in the most endearing way possible let's be perfectly clear) and I don't think it's entirely natural to him -- that's a hastily cobbled together 'oh god I am getting the vibes here it is happening for some reason they like me for my personality quick what would illario do' approach if ever I saw it, supported by the fact that it never really makes a return after this --

BUT I do think his obvious near-unbearable delight with rook's existence and person that shines through in that scene is entirely real and unfeigned. he likes them so much. he wants so bad to be able to be close to them. he's so hungry for the reprieve and release and relief they represent to him, just for one moment, just one break from all the awfulness to have something uncomplicatedly good. and it's here, it's been offered, he's welcome!!! and he has to flinch away at the last minute anyway because he's an exposed nerve of a human being. there's a point at which every sensation including joy becomes indistinguishable from agony. he's pretty much exactly at that point. for the love of god have some mercy on him people. the feeling that salvation is right here but you're too broken a vessel to hold it is one I wouldn't wish on anyone. let him have a few moments to stare into the void before he's ready to get back up and try again surely we all deserve at least that much lol

#dragon age #dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age: the veilguard spoilers #dragon age spoilers #lucanis dellamorte #rook x lucanis #rookanis #this is literally just me ranting about the feelings he evokes in me and not really directed at anyone I just. I Feel. things #in case you can't tell. I'm the lucanis. him is me. we be like this. this all makes the too much kind of perfect sense to me #it's odd in narrative structure but it's uh. uncomfortably real in some ways. freeze is difficult to describe in conventional narrative #it's a bad time to have in a bad place. but very decent company to be in I must say I love him. so much #also I think we might have exposed some of the basic garrusness going on here haha (just one thing please just one good thing)#and how much getting there hinges on feeling completely safe in that relationship. anyway. everyone ok. I'm not but someone should be

475 notes · View notes

rosie-read-that · 4 months ago

Text

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.

#rosie.fic #scott miller #scott twisters #scott miller x reader #scott twisters x reader

672 notes · View notes

sinofwriting · 4 months ago

Text

Protective - Max Verstappen ( I ❤️ MILFS verse)

Words: 910 Word Prompt: Protective (Part of the I ❤️ MILFS verse) Note(s): Takes place during the Baku 2024 race weekend. Also I hate James Vowles

Masterlist | Support Me! | I ❤️ MILFS verse | Sin’s Sept. Blurbs

Logan is a momma’s boy. It’s something he’s known for as long as he can remember. It’s something that has been thrown in his face, a taunt, a tease, as if he’s supposed to be ashamed that he loves his mom. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for his mom and that includes ending what was supposed to be a good month of silence from him other than a short interview he did just after the news broke and the quickly deleted statement he put out.

He’s no longer an F1 driver for the 2024 season, but he still is traveling with the calendar. He hadn’t used the hotel room Williams booked for him since Australia, not when Red Bull always gives Max a suite and there’s always a little envelope with Logan’s name on it that holds a key.

He had stayed completely in the hotel during Monza. He loves the amount of support Charles gets, loves how passionate they are, but it’s a lot to be around, to walk around. He also doesn’t need to hear another drunk Italian man shout about wanting desperately to have Charles’ babies.

He had planned to do the same in Baku just because he didn’t feel like exploring Baku. But then a video gets leaked.

And that’s the end of Logan’s silence.

He shows up on Friday by himself. His parents are already in the Red Bull garage, waiting for him, but they know that he’ll be awhile.

He smiles at fans when they cheer and greet him, taking his time to sign stuff and take pictures, ignoring the hungry photographers and reporters that are watching. He squeezes the hands of fans who despite what happened are wearing his number and telling them how much they love him.

He takes a few more photos before finally pulling away from the fans and beginning to walk. It doesn’t take long before someone finally pounces. A microphone being handed to him, that he easily takes and a camera trained on him and oh great, he wants to roll his eyes a bit, Will Buxton.

“Logan, how are you doing?”

Logan smiles, nodding at some of the people he recognizes from other teams as they pass by. “I’m good. Enjoying the weather.”

Will laughs and it’s so fake it grates on Logan’s ears. “And are you here for duties with Williams?”

His eyes are hungry, his whole expression is. He clearly wants to press and dig deep but is trying to be patient.

He shakes his head, “Here to support my dad. I no longer am associated with Williams.” He knows fans had speculated after seeing his name cleared from their website, but the dissociation had only become official just three hours ago.

“Really? Not even development.”

He shakes his head, smiling. “Ties have been cut, man.” He laughs.

“And Logan, the video that has been circulating these past twelve hours, have you seen it? What are your thoughts?”

“I have seen it. And it’s disgusting really. James has never been shy about sharing his feelings about me and that’s fine, I was a driver on his team, I was a driver. But there’s no reason to bring up and say things about someone who isn’t a part of the team or any of the teams, but is just part of the driver’s staff and a parent. I could see why if they were disruptive or causing a mess, making a scene, but that isn’t the case.”

Will nods, “I couldn’t agree more, Logan.”

“I also want to say thank you to all the people who have been talking about this and talking about the words he said about my mom. I haven’t yet seen a statement put out, but I hope that what he said isn’t brushed aside.”

“I hope so as well.”

“I still say I should get to punch him.” Max comments after they finish watching Logan’s interviews and Logan can’t help but hum in agreement.

“Max.” Christian sighs, though he looks more amused than anything.

“If he wants to call someone a whore, he should call himself that. He has a wife and baby at home and yet is talking about meeting with Carlos in hotel rooms. And calling Pan a bitch just because she supported Logan? Fuck him.”

“We know, Max.” GP nearly looks bored, but there’s a glint in his eyes that Logan just knows means trouble for the Williams team principal.

A throat clears and everyone looks at his mom. “I think we all need to calm down. Especially you,” she gently pokes Logan’s forehead, before running her fingers through his hair. “The protective thing is nice, but it’s not the first time I’ve been called those things and it won’t be the last. We need to be adults about it.”

Logan frowns at her words. “You’ve been called a whore before?”

Max is frowning as well and something churns in Logan’s gut.

“Yes.” She says simply.

“Momma.”

She shakes her head, “No more interviews, Logan. Not about this at least. You didn’t say anything wrong, but I don’t want people thinking that it’s okay for them to just ask and talk about.”

She then turns to Max and Logan watches as she stares at him. “Do I even bother asking you to not say anything?”

Max shrugs. “You could.”

She sighs. “Just don’t threaten him. The FIA is already looking closely at you.”

“No threats.” He agrees.

#max verstappen imagine #max verstappen x reader #logan sargeant imagine #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #formula 1 imagine #formula 1 x reader #I ❤️ MILFS verse #Sin's Sept. Blurbs #sins fics

831 notes · View notes

blushweddinggowns · 6 months ago

Text

Eddie threw an arm over Steve's shoulder, bringing him into a half-hug, “So, what did you guys think?”

“It was great!” Steve said quickly, relaxing into Eddie’s side, “You guys killed it, dude!”

“He’s right,” Robin agreed, “It was awesome! Super, duper fun and we’re so glad we got to see it. But actually, we kinda got to go-”

Eddie frowned, the loose grip he had over Steve’s shoulder tightening on it’s own accord, “Go where? Don’t tell me you guys are tired already?”

For some reason, Robin didn’t look at him after he asked the question. Instead she looked to Steve, a brow raised as she waited for something. But then Steve was giving her a subtle nod, her queue to start talking again. She leaned in closer, whispering as loud as she could in the noisy environment, “So… you’re like cool, right? Steve said you were cool.”

Eddie cocked his head at her, beyond confused, “I-yes? I guess?”

“About the thing?” She pressed, jerking her head his direction, “Steve’s thing?”

“Oh!” Eddie blurted, finally catching on. But he still didn’t get what Steve being gay had to do with them ditching. He nodded quickly, “Very cool with it. Have zero issues.”

It was almost true. Whatever issues Eddie had with Steve’s sexuality involved his own bullshit more than anything else. Plus, his answer had Robin smiling. Gesturing for Eddie to lean in closer, “Good. Because we, um. Share the affliction if you catch my drift.”

“That’s fine,” Eddie said, not missing a beat. He had kind of figured that out along the way. Considering the process of elimination on who could have possibly talked Steve through his queer thoughts. Not that Eddie cared, “No problem here.”

“Good!” She said with a grin, “Then you know just how limited our options are where we live. And according to an insanely pretty girl, there is an honest to god gay bar, like a few blocks away!”

Eddie swallowed, discomfort suddenly settling in at the suggestion, “T-That’s where you guys are going?”

“Yeah!” She said excitedly, setting her sights back onto Steve, “It’s time for someone to realize that we are hot enough to flirt and be flirted with! Closets don’t matter when you’re hours away from home.”

“We share the exact same closet,” Steve groaned, “Don’t start preaching to me.”

“And tonight we can escape from it!” Robin argued, “Come on! Eddie’s going to be busy with his friends and groupies anyway. What else are we doing-”

“I’m actually not that busy,” Eddie interrupted, trying his damndest to keep his voice calm. Suddenly, he felt nauseous again. He didn’t-He knew Steve could handle himself. He did. B-But creeps were everywhere! And he wasn’t used to being around guys who only wanted one thing and Robin would be distracted with girls a-and Eddie was really struggling with this idea.

Though Steve seemed to disagree. The next thing he knew, Steve was smiling back at her. Letting out a good-natured sigh, “Fine, fine! We can go. Someone has to make sure you don’t get kidnapped.”

“Oh my god, yes!” Robin nearly squealed, bouncing a little in her seat, “This is gonna be so fun!”

Eddie’s heart squeezed uncomfortably in his his chest at the excitement, dread starting to fill him. He opened his mouth, words escaping before he could even think of it, “Sounds like you two might need a D.D. I can do it.”

It was probably the first time Eddie had ever invited himself to something he clearly wasn’t a part of. But he had to give himself some credit for how smoothly it came out.

Robin looked up at him, clearly surprised, “Really? It’s not exactly your scene.”

Eddie shrugged, “It could be. I like George Michael.”

Steve snorted next to him, “That is the one true gay litmus test. You got us there.”

“Seriously though,” Eddie pressed, refusing to let it go, “Then you can both drink, dance, have fun. And not worry about how you’re getting back to the hotel.”

“But don’t you want to stay here?” Steve asked, “Robin wasn’t kidding about the groupies. You should have heard what some of them were saying.”

“You could definitely get laid,” Robin added. She was staring at him now, looking at Eddie in a way that seemed a little past confused. Like she was examining him. Testing him. Or maybe that was just in his head.

Eddie held firm, “Maybe, but I’d rather hang out with you two vs playing wingman to the boys. What do you say?”

“If you really don’t mind…” Steve said, trailing off. But Eddie could tell that he was happy. He could barely keep his smile to himself as he looked to the side, biting his lip in a way that Eddie fucking knew other people would notice. How could they not?

from the next chapter of this fic

#steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie ficlet #stranger things #oh no not me I'd never lose control #gay steve harrington

487 notes · View notes

aishangotome · 1 month ago

Text

"Ah, No Need for Money" - Azel (His POV)

Card and story provided by @shatcey!

Azel: Enis, please tell the High Priest...

Azel: ...that God seems to be infatuated with a foreign girl.

Some time had passed since I began using Rhodolite's foreign girl as a shield against women –

Due to official duties, there was a day when I absolutely had to leave the solitary desert castle and stay at the royal palace.

(...Damn it. This is why I don't want to stay in the castle for long.)

(That damned geezer keeps sending me woman after woman whenever he gets the chance...)

The place I quickly head to, so as not to get entangled any further, was the room prepared for foreign guests.

(At this rate, the woman is probably being targeted too.)

(I've assigned her a guard as a precaution and had given those around her strict warnings.)

(She shouldn't be drugged with aphrodisiacs like before... but I should still go check on her.)

(Not that I'm worried or anything, but I couldn't leave her alone in the temple.)

(Since I brought her to the castle for my own convenience, I'll have to compensate her if anything happens.)

(...That's right. It's just that simple.)

Making excuses to no one in particular, I reach the designated room.

When I knock on the door, hurried footsteps and a loud clatter overlap from inside.

(What is it?)

Azel: I'm coming in.

I open the door before I hear permission.

Emma: Th-this is a misunderstanding!

The first words I hear and the scene before my eyes are something even a miracle diviner couldn't predict.

(I gave them strict warnings, though...)

In the moonlight, the woman, who had fallen to the floor, is dressed in harem attire.

The area of exposed skin is greater than usual, and even more concerning is the design of the clothes.

The color and material clearly imitate the attire of a God, and it's tailored in such a way that 10 out of 10 people would recognize her as God's woman.

(Is this the geezer's doing? Or the maid's meddling?)

Emma: I didn't expect anyone to come to my room at this hour...

Azel: Ah, so you do know that's harem attire.

Emma: ...The head maid brought it to me as an apology for the aphrodisiac incident before.

Emma: It seems the harem has many outfits prepared so that Prince Azel can receive women at any time...

Emma: She gave it to me out of goodwill, saying it would suit me.

Azel: Goodwill? You mean malice.

(It's transparent that they want me to lay my hands on her no matter what.)

Exasperated, I still extend my hand to the woman.

I understood from the situation that she had tripped when I knocked on the door.

Emma: ...Thank you.

The woman seemed to understand my intention and obediently took my hand to stand up.

(No injuries... good.)

Emma: The maids only gave me the outfit, they didn't force me to wear it.

Azel: Then why did you put it on?

Emma: ...Well, that...

Emma: I-Isn't it cute?

Azel: Huh?

The woman's face turns a distinct red.

Emma: This outfit... it's so Tanzanite-like and cute, I thought.

Emma: And see, it matches with yours, Prince Azel.

Emma: I just wanted to try it on once since I wouldn't be showing it to anyone.

Emma: I didn't expect you to come right after I put it on...

Her voice trails off, and in the end, she even puts some distance between us.

(...What is this strange feeling?)

For no reason, I withdraw the hand I had started to extend.

Azel: You have a peculiar hobby, wanting to try on harem clothes.

Emma: I thought you'd say that, so I was going to wear it in secret...

Emma: ...By the way, what brings you here so late at night, Prince Azel?

(...)

Azel: Actually, the High Priest sent another woman to me...

Azel: I felt my life was in danger, so I came to take refuge with you.

(It's not a lie.)

(...Although I've already shaken off the woman and there's no need to take refuge.)

Emma: I see...

Fortunately, the woman didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

Emma: ...Wait a minute. You're not planning to stay here all night, are you?

Azel: That's my intention.

Emma: I didn't hear that!?

Azel: I just said it.

(This is the quickest way to ensure your safety from those crazies.)

Emma: Then I'll go change.

Azel: You can stay in that outfit if you want to.

Emma: ...It's not exactly calming, is it?

Azel: You said yourself it was "cute."

Emma: It's more embarrassing than cute in front of you, Prince Azel.

Azel: Don't worry about it. I don't feel anything even if you wear harem clothes.

Emma: Even so, I do mind...!

I instinctively grab the hand of the woman who tries to escape to another room.

(Ah...)

Emma: ...Prince Azel?

Azel: No...

(Why did I stop her?)

(...It's not like I thought she looked good in it or anything, or that I wanted to see more...)

(It's not like that...)

Unable to back down now, after hesitating, I sit down on the nearby bed.

Emma: ! ?

As I pull the woman onto my lap so she can't escape, an indescribable silence swallows everything.

(What am I doing?)

(...How am I going to explain what I intend to do from here?)

Emma: Um...

Azel: You're interested enough in the harem to wear that outfit in secret, right?

Emma: Eh?

Azel: Then let me give you a bit of trivia.

Though I know it's forceful, I take an apple from a nearby fruit basket and place it in the woman's hand.

Emma: ...What's this?

Azel: Aren't you hungry? You can eat it, you know.

Emma: There's definitely something behind this, isn't there?

Azel: I'm a benevolent God.

Emma: A benevolent God wouldn't force someone onto his lap like this...

Azel: Just eat it.

When I urge her, wanting to silence her, the woman obediently takes a bite of the apple.

Emma: Mmm... It's delicious.

(Why is she needlessly exuding sex appeal just by eating? Is it because of the outfit?)

Whether intentional or unconscious, the woman puts her arms around my neck for support.

Though I brought this upon myself, I felt dizzy.

Emma: But what does biting into an apple have to do with trivia?

(That's right, I almost forgot the main topic.)

Azel: ...There are a few unspoken rules in the harem.

Azel: What do you think it means to eat fruit in front of the master?

Emma: .......

Emma: "Aren't you hungry?"

(...Damn it, she's too cute.)

(No, that's not it, that's not it.)

Azel: "Won't you eat me?"

Emma: Huh!?

Azel: If the master bites back into the apple... I'm sure you understand what happens next?

Emma: I don't understand, I don't want to understand!

I put my arm around the clearly flustered woman's waist and bring my face close to the apple.

Azel: The act of eating fruit openly in front of someone requires self-confidence.

Azel: If you're confident you can captivate me, try it. If you can...

My lips touch the apple – the woman, red-faced, watches in a daze without stopping me.

(...Stop me.)

Emma: Eek...!

Instead of biting the apple, I pinch her cheek.

Emma: Wh-What are you doing!?

Azel: Learn from this and don't carelessly wear harem clothes.

Azel: It's a good thing it was a benevolent God who found you. If another man had seen you, he might have misunderstood.

(...Did I manage to gloss over it?)

(I glossed over it, I must have glossed over it.)

Emma: ...No one but you, Prince Azel, would come to my room this late at night.

Azel: That's good to know.

(...)

(................)

(...................This is awkward.)

(Even though I didn't eat the apple, why is it strangely sweet...? Damn it.)

FIN

If you’d like to support my translations, feel free to leave me a tip or buy me a coffee through the "Leave a Tip" button on my navigation bar!

#prince azel #azel radwan #ikepri jp #ikemen prince #ikemen prince azel radwan

201 notes · View notes

pi-creates · 19 days ago

Text

I can’t stop being upset about Veilguard’s writing, and apparently the only way I can get it out of my thoughts is to put it down in words, so here we go…

I’m frustrated, I’m upset, and the longer I think about the way this game was written, the more problems present themselves… and I bloody hate that. It feels like a first draft writing effort, and every time I’m reminded that this game was in development for so many years, I cannot fathom this being the end result. Dragon Age 2 had 16 months of development, and it feels more cohesive and put together writing-wise. I can see the years of polish in the visuals, but the spectacle of the game doesn’t blind me to all the problems in the writing.

Naturally, these are personal opinions, I am genuinely thrilled for people who have played the game and enjoyed it – I wish I could be there enjoying it with you – but clearly these things get under my skin more and spoil the experience for me when they aren’t problems for you. And I also acknowledge there are genuine good parts of the game which I enjoy, but those moments aren’t enough to overshadow the negative experiences that irk me.

And because this post has apparently gotten away from me… I’m gonna put some headings to summarise the problems I’m having, because otherwise this is just a massive rant with no structure.

Show me things, stop just telling it to me.

So much of the game feels like writer’s notes where they put “what the player should take away from this scene” and instead of being creative with how they do that, they just say it verbatim. My immersion in this game was being broken by the game reminding me it’s a video game – which yes, I know it is, but I want to be invested in this world and feel like I’m part of it.

Varric and the game’s own pop-up system is the main problem that’s consistent through the whole game – constantly dropping narration or mission summary where they have zero problem dropping exposition on us and/or spoiling future content. Forget letting me explore these things and reach my own conclusions, the game is going to make sure I know exactly the interpretation I’m meant to have for every moment.

And it’s so damn frequent, I feel like they don’t think I’m paying attention and therefore need to constantly poke me with reminders instead of trusting me to reach my own conclusions. Do they not trust me to have an attention span long enough to go on a walk with Davrin without reminding me at the end of the walk that I did that?

To add to that problem, I absolutely hate how the writing just has people know things – they shouldn’t know this, they shouldn’t be talking to us about this, all evidence points to them not being able to know or be ok discussing this, but for some reason they do.

The Veil Jumpers suddenly just know how to translate and interact with ancient elven artifacts, ignore how the Dalish have been trying to do that since the fall of the Dales (and realistically, even before that) and their efforts over those hundreds of years were a scrap, a pittance of what could be known. But I guess the Veil Jumpers are just better than those hundreds of years in the few years they’ve been active.

Oh, and the scary reputation of the Dalish is just gone? These people just go to the elves they have deemed “savages” because they simply know these ones have good intentions? This world has been established as very untrusting of the intentions of other groups, but that’s simply gone now for this one – I wish I was shown how this started in some way instead of just being told it’s chill now.

And don’t get me started on Strife and Irelin and their seemingly endless knowledge that they shouldn’t have. I read the comics, I get that they’d probably know about the Dreadwolf and have a vested interest in learning more once that particular bit of information was revealed to them – but they somehow also just know about the mask Cyrian is wearing? They know it will influence him but not control his will? Why do you know this with no doubt whatsoever?

Why can’t these things just be presented as theories? Or give us something to find and reference where that information comes from? I want to learn things without just having characters tell me things they know.

And overall, I hate how this game decides to just exposition dump information on us, then we sit around and talk about the exposition dump – it’s overwhelming in magnitude. It feels like such a passive way to have us engage with everything, and this is supposed to be an interactive experience. Instead of being force-fed exposition in big chunks, drip feed details, let us put the puzzle together, let us gather and discuss what we learn with multiple interpretations like the RPG this is meant to be.

And this exposition problem also ruins the stakes in the game for me. Personal interpretation, probably, but the stakes in this game feel artificially inflated to me via having characters constantly tell Rook they are going up against the biggest threat ever. We bring in past heroes of the series to reiterate that, how they think we’re up against worse things than they faced… and I don’t feel that. Telling me constantly how hopeless things are, but every obstacle ends up being overcome relatively easily and without great losses… no, I don’t feel the stakes are real.

Oh, and hearing the talk of how all of Thedas is in trouble, there is so much destruction and only Rook can save them… why don’t you find a way to show me that? Because I’m not feeling that, I’m not seeing it, and I’m starting to think the Inquisitor is making stuff up so Rook doesn’t ask them to get involved again when they’re so busy.

This is a lore problem in the series…

Plot holes and wonky lore can happen, it’s not surprising… especially when there are three games prior to this as well as several books, comics, and other branches of the universe. There have been inconsistencies since the start, and a lot of it doesn’t matter – I don’t care if the second moon is forgotten about, the moon not being there isn’t going to make a problem with the way the story is told since that moon is never something elaborated upon in the plot.

This game though… it has problem that are both related to information in this game not being consistent with previous games, and information within its own contained plot contradicting itself.

I’m not going to beat the dead horse of “this isn’t how the previous games did it/explained it”, people who played the previous games are aware, I don’t see a point of elaborating in detail all the instances of this. Just take some dot points of the one’s I noticed:

The Crows are a horrifying organisation that are suddenly presented wholesome

The Qun offering to rehabilitate Karash is horrifying and it’s presented wholesome

Slaves are meant to be everywhere in Tevinter, but we don’t see that

Racism is supposed to be rampant in Tevinter (and other nations, but particularly here for any non-human), and we also don’t see that

Handling pure lyrium is fine now (unless you’re Harding)

Adult Dalish without vallaslin (Elgar’nan’s captives)

Fenharel’s agents are just gone now – as are all signs of mass elven exodus from cities

Solas’ opinion on blood magic is suddenly negative instead of neutral

Spirits dying is given the same weight as people dying

Flemeth…….just everything about Flemeth and Morrigan

Re-write of the after credits scene in Inquisition to recontextualise the Flemeth and Solas interaction

Isabela’s attitude towards Shathann sending Taash away without their knowledge (the comics make me doubt she’d be cool with this)

Non-Dalish elves knowing things about ancient elves and elven language

Blight sickness and how darkspawn are “born” (some leeway for this one since the blight is overall just different in this one, but it does feel less interesting this way)

Morrigan naming the Crossroads in lieu of the true name being lost to time, but everyone uses the term now

Crossroads looking different through elven eyes

You can’t just make people be magic/not magic (me side-eyeing Illario and his random ability to do magic now)

This is a contained problem in this game…

What troubles me more is the inconsistencies within the same game… that isn’t just deciding “this is how it works now in this iteration”, this is a problem that they wrote into existing, then either didn’t notice or didn’t resolve appropriately. And granted, some of these things aren’t inherently plot holes, but when you put certain aspects under inspection, it doesn’t make things look good.

For starters… I have to talk about Varric. Or more accurately, not-Varric.

I’m under the impression that not-Varric is simply Rook’s memory of Varric being projected for them. I personally don’t think there’s some extra level of Solas interference in what Rook is seeing moment to moment… and I feel the need to state that because Rook’s memory cannot conjure up information that Rook doesn’t know.

So why does not-Varric point out that the ritual dagger is the dagger from DA2?

Rook could not recognise it, there is absolutely no reason for Rook to even theorise that – so not-Varric should not be able to impart this knowledge to Rook. And what makes this worse for me, aside from being an impossible situation as the plot presents it, is that this observation doesn’t matter in the slightest. They put this backstory to the McGuffin Dagger and I don’t know why since all it does is create a plot hole. The only purpose I can see for this moment existing at all is to bolster the illusion that not-Varric is real and trying to help with the cause in whatever way possible.

Then there are other issues with Varric not being alive which makes other character’s lack of talking about him feel awful. Like, it’s not natural the way people avoid mentioning him when it would be very appropriate to do so – and I understand that to an extent, the game’s gotta game – they want to surprise us and therefore the characters aren’t going to blatantly give the surprise away early. But the Inquisitor doesn’t ask after him at all? Doesn’t mention how Kirkwall is coping now that the viscount is dead? Dorian doesn’t say anything after learning Varric found Solas in his city and then died? Isabela has nothing to say about Varric until after the illusion is broken for Rook?

It makes it feel like Varric’s friends (aside from Harding, the only person who seems to actively mourn him at the start of the game) don’t give two shits that he’s gone.

That’s not even accounting for how characters don’t bother to check in with Rook who is constantly talking with the companions about their various issues of mourning, hearing voices or apparitions, and just checking in with them overall – but none of that is seemingly reciprocated.

Frankly, this makes me feel awful. I feel awful for Varric being seen as so disposable that his friends don’t mention him or his absence. I feel awful for Rook who is apparently not worth the direct effort that they offer others.

And I try to think of how a new player to this series would feel about all of this – because Varric was just some guy who walked us through a tutorial in this game. Most of our time with him is fake, any connection I saw form between Rook and Varric in this game isn’t real – but then Rook mourns Varric more than he mourns the companions we have spent most of the game with.

I don’t like it.

And I don’t like the utilisation of returning characters. Morrigan, or as she’s utilised in this game deus-ex-Morrigan, has a new view of Flemeth and therefore she will take on Mythal’s soul fragment so she can again swoop in and save the day by handing us the means to get a reconciliation type ending… it couldn’t be something that characters in this game figure out, just have a returning character provide us with the magic solution. Also ignore how the whole reason Morrigan was afraid of her mother in the DAO and DAI was that her body would get taken over by her spirit… but I guess that doesn’t happen now. We can just create new rules for this iteration because it’s easier to tell the story this way.

Solas is also just… I’m so upset by what was done with him. He was a character in DAI who told half-truths or lied by omission, leaving others to assume false information without him actually saying it – it was never just blatant lies to take advantage of others. And his motivations were about restoration of something he felt he had robbed the world, it was about righting what he viewed as a mistake which lead to such a cascade of problems that he needed to somehow rectify it. Whether you agree with his point of view or his desires doesn’t matter, his principles remain the same in terms of what motivates him.

Then this game happens and he’s just a liar constantly, and not even a clever one if you can apparently just trick him up with a “woopsie, this isn’t the real dagger”, and he also apparently has no insight into the idea that Rook would anticipate that.

They make him act like the worst interpretation someone could have of him, the thing he actively was trying to tell us was a false interpretation in DAI and the comics. But history was written and remembered by those who experienced the negative outcomes of his choices, and they remembered that as the greatest evil in comparison to what else could have been. But apparently in this game, that’s the truth now. His motivation is about his desires and he cares nothing for the people who has hurt or will be hurt. But it’s ok, because just as easily as his motivation changed between DAI and Veilguard, it will be changed again at end game if you listen to deus-ex-Morrigan.

Then there are smaller things, but things that really would have been caught if someone was just paying a little bit of attention…

Like Harding and Emmrich going camping in Fereldan… which if we’re to believe the things the Inquisitor was saying about Southern Thedas, I don’t think you’re going to have a fun trip. But I’m glad they’re able to find some time for a vacation while the refugees are getting blighted all over.

Or Rook actively saying “I should talk to Varric” directly in front of characters in the lead up to end-game, and those characters choosing to completely ignore that.

Or in Neve’s companion story, Aelia deciding to interrogate the witness to the red lyrium deal right next to where it happened. She didn’t need to be in the area, she was puppetting the smuggler, and she clearly has insight into what the person is seeing and doing while puppetting them. So I guess she’s just there so we can figure out she was involved.

Or the game telling us that Anaris need Cyrian to perform rituals for him since Anaris doesn’t have a physical body to do them himself… except he apparently doesn’t because he can kill Cyrian when he disobeys. I still would like to know if Cyrian ever died originally, by the way, and if so how he’s back and seemingly normal – this game likes to answer big lore questions like it’s nothing, but they just gloss over details like this.

Or how in Emmrich’s missions, Manfred’s spirit dies and can just be brought back to life… so I guess spirits dying means nothing if they can be brought back with their memory and personality intact. So that Solas flashback where we were supposed to be appalled that spirits died? Apparently there was nothing lost there, someone just needs to revive them and they can carry on as normal.

Or how the rewrite of DAI’s ending cutscene implies that Solas killed Flemeth/Mythal… before he had the power to do so since the whole reason he has been able to do anything in this game is because he absorbed her amassed power. So Flemeth/Mythal would have to let her power go willingly since Solas should not be able to forcibly take it, but clearly, she didn’t since the dialogue we’re given is her being reluctant. Solas apparently has the power he needs to do things when the plot demands it, but also no power when the plot demands it (aka, when Rook needs to prove they’re better than him).

Or the crew making a fake Ritual dagger near end game. For no reason whatsoever. They just decided to do that knowing it would only be a prop, but they had no plans that even involved a prop at that point – so they just did this because the plot told them they had to.

And speaking of that Ritual dagger… all the old elves want that dagger for one reason of another, but they never seem to try to get it when they can, or they don’t seem too concerned when it’s not in their grip anymore. Solas doesn’t try to hold onto it after Varric gets stabbed. Elgar’nan doesn’t try to pick it up after it kills Ghilan’nain, in spite of him knowing it’s the one thing that can kill him… nope, just leave it there and peace out.

Or my personal most hated thing – Isseya and her stupid motivation making no sense.

I cannot fathom the logic of having Isseya, a warden who was forced to blight griffons, who came to resent this order as she watched the griffons go mad, made it her mission to safeguard a clutch of eggs, takes the blight from the eggs into herself while using magic to put the eggs into status, then goes off to her calling which doesn’t actually end in her death… and somehow, 400 years later, she’s decided that since those eggs have hatched and the griffons are healthy and unblighted, the thing she wanted, but they’re in the hands of wardens which she doesn’t really like, so now she’s gonna go get those griffons to blight them.

Literally doing the thing that made her so mad at the wardens. Because she wants to save the griffons from the wardens and their cruelty… by repeating it… I just… this is nonsense.

If she’s capable of articulating that she’s mad at the wardens for their cruelty to the griffons, then she shouldn’t be repeating it thinking she’s saving the griffons. If she was just keeping the griffons captive to keep them away from the wardens, then I could buy that, but adding the element of her wanting to blight them just makes this nonsensical.

Oh and never talk the First Warden down – it will make the final scenes with Isseya even worse if he tells you about the feather from her griffon and show it to her. Because I don’t even think Isseya dies in that variant of the cutscene, she just says sorry and rolls on the floor while I guess Rook and Davrin let the griffons out…

Who is Rook?

Usually, in a game like this, choices are what make us feel like an active participant in the world. It helps us build up our own character and determine how/why they behave the way they do, and also how the world around them is shaped by the consequences of those moments.

But this game feels so stripped of choice, especially choice which is any way related to morality or priorities that aren’t standard ‘Hero traits’. Rook will always do the right thing, they can’t be motivated by personal desires, excitement, monetary gain, fame, etc…. and when Rook is forced to make a choice, there is no option which would be looked at as unreasonable by companions. They might give us an approval/disapproval pop up, but it never really feels like Rook is capable of being incompatible with anyone, they will always be seen as justified in companion’s eyes. And to me, this makes Rook as the game presents them incredibly bland.

Most of Rook’s unique characterisation happens in the character creator – the game gives us minimal chances to expand or form a personality for Rook that is significantly different from any other person who plays the game. We do the heavy lifting here, we transpose qualities on Rook because the game won’t give us meaningful opportunities to do that.

And not only do I feel like the game lacks choices that would help us define Rook, it lacks decisions that make me feel like I’m having any impact on the world overall. I can defend Minrathous or I can defend Treviso… this is the one choice we make which seems to actually shape the world we play in.

And it doesn’t even come up as something Rook can regret in the sequence about regrets… Rook apparently is faced with only regrets that are the result of other people’s decisions to volunteer to do something. But the one thing where Rook actually has to actively choose something, something they are actually responsible for the suffering on the side they don’t defend… that isn’t something they can regret.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Surely, if Rook should regret anything it should be the thing they feel direct responsibility for, no? But Rook doesn’t. Because Rook doesn’t regret anything they do, because they aren’t written with choices that they can regret since they aren’t seen as responsible for negative outcomes.

Honestly, that sequence might as well have been about mourning or sadness rather than regret, because Rook has to be upset at the loss of companions, we don’t get to influence that. But Rook isn’t regretful – that’s how they get out – but I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t then make us able to actively regret the legitimate choices we make, rather than feeling regret for our companions deciding to risk themselves.

Rook feels like an outside observer to everything that happens around them. They are the mediator, the sounding board, the magic-8-ball for decision making when companions need a push because they’re stuck. Sure, they do things, but for an RPG the way they go about things feels so linear.

And on another note… why is Rook seen as important? They start championing Varric’s cause in his absence, they want to stop the veil coming down and that starts with stopping Solas, then stopping Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain. But to the outside observer, Rook is just some guy who says they are on an important missions, and they really need to speak with all these important leaders of factions – just trust them, I’m sure the First Warden is happy to make time for a meeting. And also the First Talon of the Crows, I’m sure they are fine with just some foreign person saying they need to meet your leader.

What I’m trying to get at is that Rook has no title, your group isn’t given any proper title or status which these people can look at and assume Rook is being truthful, trustworthy, or even worth their time. No one has any reason to hear Rook out, but in this game, they either just do, or they don’t and it’s because they’re actually a bad guy.

But Rook is no one special. They realistically shouldn’t be trusted like they are, they should absolutely be struggling to be taken seriously by others but it’s portrayed as unfair when that does happen. But they’re the protagonist, and it’s like everyone in the world simply knows that. I want Rook to struggle, I want them to grow and prove themselves, but it feels like we skip passed that to get straight to the fantasy of being in charge and considered fit for that role.

Pacing and feeling like something was missing…

The start and ending throw a lot at us and expect us to keep on running – but then the middle portion of the game suffers due to the companions putting a stop sign on the plot so you can do their companion quests. And they aren’t shy about telling you “you need to stop and do our quests or we’ll be distracted at end game”… and again, thank you game for explaining game mechanics to me.

I was going to complete character quests, because if I care about the characters of course I’m going to do that. Having to actually pause the plot and have the characters explain to you that you have to care… I don’t know how to explain this, but it immediately took me out of the fragile immersion I was trying to get into. It makes me upset with the companions for reasons I can’t put into words. Maybe it’s because in one fell swoop it made me see them as checklists to be completed instead of people I wanted to know? I’m not sure, if someone had a similar reaction to this moment and has a better explanation, I would love to be enlightened on what it is that makes me so uncomfortable about this.

But I digress, the problem here is that the plot grinds to a halt. We stop doing things which feel like we’re advancing our plan of stopping the big baddies, we just kind of patter around and make sure our companions feel ok. And most of those missions to help our companions aren’t connected to the enemy we’re facing… Aelia, Anaris, Hezenkoss, Illario, The Dragon King, Isseya – they aren’t agents of the big baddies, they are just enemies that pop up at the same time as the big baddies are around, and are therefore making the situation worse.

So yes, we’re still doing stuff, but it feels like fluff. It feels like a detour while we just hope the world doesn’t burn while we stop to go on another picnic.

This is something that happens in a lot of games, the urgency isn’t real because you can stop progressing plot to go for a long walk if you want to – but in none of the other games did it feel so blatant to me. I still felt like most of the little tasks in the interim of plot advancement were at least advancing the cause in little ways… I don’t feel that with a lot of the things that happen in the middle of the game. It just becomes about companion missions; the bad guys will wait until we sort that out, the blight will stop advancing so we can have family dinners and go for walks.

And I really don’t know how to explain this, but it feels like something is missing in how the story progresses. Like extra things were meant to be happening and they are just not there. Maybe this is another part of how the game often just tells me things that happen in scene transitions, or it’s me really wishing there were more actual plot advancing missions in the middle of the game.

This problem I think also is most evident in the romances. Veilguard seems to take its romance pacing more from the Mass Effect games than the previous Dragon Age games – and while it was acceptable in Mass Effect to have very few romance scenes, and predominantly only having one big scene which culminates at end game, but suddenly introducing it in this series makes it feel like a huge downgrade from previous instalments.

It feels like we’re missing things, we’re given banters by companions commenting on the progress of our relationship and our partner can talk about how close they feel to our Rook – we’re given the impression our relationship is strong and established midway through the game. But with how strong the characters talk, it feels like we should have experienced so many more interactions with our partner to substantiate that.

For comparisons sake, in DAI if you enter a romance prior to going to the Winter Palace, you get romantic dialogue with your partner if they’re present, you get a dance, you get to feel like you’re in a relationship as it’s developing into something deeper. You get more interactions as the game goes on, moving from spoken interest, kisses, and intimacy (in most cases). It’s a slow build, and let’s you feel the build up by giving you glimpses of each step as the relationship develops, and then letting you just experience being in the relationship.

This game feels like it gives us the bare minimum in actual content, but has characters talk about how established the relationship is. The heavy lifting is again left to us to interpret all these blank spaces and fill in how this relationship is developing. The problem isn’t inherently with what the game gives us, it's what it doesn’t.

It lets us choose a relationship in the middle of the game, then it doesn’t give us all the progression – rather it gives us the minimal amount of snippets to meet the checklist of “they express interest, they mutually agree to be in a relationship, the relationship is consummated physically”. Sure, we can continue to pick flirt/love based dialogues, but it doesn’t feel nearly as strong as the banters seem to be telling us it is. And over all, we can go a very long time between each progression point.

I love this franchise, and I so desperately wanted to like this instalment… and instead I feel hollow.

#dragon age #dragon age veilguard #dav #dav spoilers #veilguard spoilers #dav critical #veilguard critical #i'm just sad #i don't know how else to articulate it #it looks so pretty but feels so empty #i don't like being negative about things #i'd rather enthusiastically talk about things i love #but i just can't stop ruminating on this

339 notes · View notes