#cons of Raisins

[daily-deliciousness]

Rice pudding

[fullcravings]

Arroz Con Leche (Mexican Rice Pudding)

[morethansalad]

Habichuelas con Dulce / Creamy Sweet Beans Dominican Dessert (Vegan-Friendly)

[carcinized]

when i think about all the different ways you can use coconut with rice alone i want to throw away all other ingredients ever

underrated ingredient: coconut

[paukitstuff]

"I'm not a child, you don't have to hype me up" [esp/eng]

ESP: Necesitaba hacer este audio con Black Raisin Cookie 😭

ENG: I needed to make this audio with Black Raisin Cookie 😭

[mariacallous]

Imagine for a second, a group of Jews cooking a slightly different version of challah for Shabbat, matzah for Passover, and donuts for Hanukkah. A group of people whose ancestors were forced to convert to Catholicism against their will, yet continued to practice Jewish customs underground, even at the risk of being ostracized and tortured for doing so. Meet The Silent Jews.

Sometimes referred to as Crypto-Jews, anusim (Hebrew for coerced ones), or conversos, Silent Jews are descendants of Spanish Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492. Most left medieval Iberian territories for the Ottoman Empire or North Africa; others fled persecution and settled in new frontiers in the New World, where many found refuge. 

I come from one of those persecuted families who came to South America around 1532 and discreetly practiced Jewish rituals, living in fear of being hunted down by the Inquisition. I only found out that my family was actually Jewish as a teenager, that all our colorful, fragrant, crunchy dishes were deeply rooted in Judaic culinary traditions from 16th-century Spain. That the ingredients and aromas of my mom’s kitchen resembled dishes from the Sephardic gastronomy repertoire. 

When the pandemic struck, the combination of lockdown, curiosity, and melancholy led me to knead, mix, and eat plates from my mom’s Jewish inheritance passed on through several generations of women in our family. The kitchen was the right place to honor their sacrifices, bravery, and perseverance to maintain tradition, despite centuries of fear and persecution.

My locked-down days soon began to be filled with ingredients such as eggplants, spinach, leeks, and turnips, which mingled with the scents of cinnamon, anise, cardamom, and nutmeg, coming together with dried fruits and legumes.

Arroz con garbanzos (chickpea rice) was one of those dishes. With its characteristic aroma of bay leaf, caramelized onions, and raisins, it’s cooked with turmeric to give it its signature yellow color. As a kid, it was often mixed with a fried egg, with parsley sprinkled on top. In my search for Sephardic recipes, I became aware that this dish is very similar to pilaf with saffron, a Mediterranean spice my ancestors did not have access to since it didn’t grow in their new home.

Another delicious dish that also appears in the kitchens of Sephardic Jews from Turkey, Greece, and Morocco is estofado de berenjenas (eggplant stew). Made by sautéing eggplants in olive oil with garlic, onion, and cumin, this quick stew is served with smoked cheese or feta and an abundance of cilantro. My family pair it with homemade bread or corn arepas, an example of incorporating local ingredients.

On the most stressful days of the past year, comfort food became a necessity. A hearty dish of huevos con tomate (eggs with tomato) afforded me a sense of tranquility and a break from the chaos and uncertainty that surrounded me. This dish, which closely resembles shakshuka, was cooked at my house with ají dulce —the Caribbean’s colorful semi-spicy pepper— chili flakes, and smoked paprika. It’s so piquant and fragrant, I usually pair it with plain white rice or bread. However, my mother served it as a second course to complement her traditional pescado mermao, a hake fish stew cooked over a slow fire in an iron skillet with a mixture of garlic, peas, and eggplant, smothered in a sauce of chilies and tomatoes. The last touch included a bunch of fresh cilantro leaves and a hint of sour lime juice. It filled our entire house with a thick, citrusy aroma.

And the desserts! Buñuelos, small balls of fried dough with a sweet or salty filling; mine are usually made with raw cane sugar syrup, cloves, and nutmeg. There was always cake — plantain cake with cinnamon and smoked cheese, or traditional bizcochuelo, a sponge cake that was ever-present in my school lunchbox. Similar to pan d’Espana, which Sephardim took with them to the Diaspora, my mother put her own spin on this soft, light cake, using cornmeal instead of ground almonds, substituting orange blossom water with a few drops of rum, and swapping grated orange peel for the peel of a lemon, instead. 

Reconnecting with my roots through food during these difficult times has helped me to cope with stress, anxiety, and loneliness. There’s still so much to cook, eat, and share; I’ll continue paying homage to each and every one of the dishes that my family preserved with such dedication and courage. This is the only way I can celebrate — and always carry with me — their everlasting legacy.

[sotiredimbored]

good night y'all !!

gn raisin <3 gn Rin <3 gn con <3

[bonezone44]

Anyone else having visions of Joel Miller being tied down and milked??

here's 2 unfinished thoughts:

Imagine Joel being milked for his sperm. Like they need as much as they can get to breed with his semen, so they have to tie him down to a chair and jerk him off again and again. Even past the point of tears. He's a man. He can take it, right?

The next one gets a little into some non-con territory.

2) Yeah, Joel came, but it wasn't his fault. She musta put somethin in his drink. He didn't know what was going on. He just woke up with his hands tied behind his back and his ankles strapped to the chair. Yeah, it was a wooden chair, but he didn't wanna tip over and hit his head and hurt himself even worse. And she tied him down good, y'all. His wrists were burnin, he was tuggin on them so hard. He had the lines of blood to prove it, too.

And he didn't know why she felt the need to break into his house, drug him, tie 'im up and use 'em like a goddamn horse at the rodeo, but she did. And he didn't wanna cause anymore trouble for her--a woman like that is troubled enough as it is. Pressing charges would probably just make matters worse.

But, goddamn she rode him hard. Used her hands and her mouth on it, too. Milked him over and over again til his lap was all sticky and then kept on going. And he got bruises all over his neck and chest from her suckin on his skin like she was trying to suck the meat off his bones. Like he was a goddamn chicken wing.

Shit.

He felt like a goddamn chicken wing. All slathered and devoured and tossed away once she got every little bit of him that she wanted.

And sure, she was attractive. There was no denying that. And the wetness between her legs was like a goddamn Hoover. And the more he filled it up, the hungrier it got.

And it's not that he enjoyed coming that much--his spend mixing with her slick like a creamy syrup. It was biology. It was simply his physical body reacting to stimulation. It's not his fault that he blew his load so many times that it felt like his balls had shriveled up into itty bitty raisins. It's not his fault that he was gasping and crying and begging for release when she would bring him to the edge again and again and again.

He's only human, after all. He was trying to appease to her nature by egging her on and thrusting back up into her. He was trying to help her get her fill--thinkin that maybe if he helped her come a few times, too, that she'd have pity on the poor man and let him go.

----------

[justforbooks]

The actor Lou Gossett Jr, who has died aged 87, is best known for his performance in An Officer and A Gentleman (1982) as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley, whose tough training transforms recruit Richard Gere into the man of the film’s title. He was the first black winner of an Academy Award for best supporting actor, and only the third black actor (after Hattie McDaniel and Sidney Poitier) to take home any Oscar.

The director, Taylor Hackford, said he cast Gossett in a role written for a white actor, following a familiar Hollywood trope played by John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Victor McLaglen or R Lee Ermey, because while researching he realised the tension of “black enlisted men having make-or-break control over whether white college graduates would become officers”. Gossett had already won an Emmy award playing a different sort of mentor, the slave Fiddler who teaches Kunta Kinte the ropes in Roots (1977), but he was still a relatively unknown 46-year-old when he got his breakthrough role, despite a long history of success on stage and in music as well as on screen.

Born in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Louis was the son of Helen (nee Wray), a nurse, and Louis Sr, a porter. As a child he suffered from polio, but became a high school athlete before a basketball injury led to his joining the drama club. His teacher encouraged him to audition professionally, and at 17 he was on Broadway playing a troubled child in Take a Giant Step, which won him a Donaldson award for best newcomer.

He won a drama scholarship to New York University, but continued working, in The Desk Set (1955), and made his television debut in two episodes of the NBC anthology show The Big Story. In 1959 he was cast with Poitier and Ruby Dee in Raisin in the Sun, and made his film debut reprising his role in 1961. On Broadway that year he played in Jean Genet’s The Blacks, in an all-star cast with James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson,��Roscoe Lee Brown, Godfrey Cambridge and a young Maya Angelou; it was the decade’s longest-running show.

Gossett was also active in the Greenwich Village folk music scene. He released his first single Hooka Dooka, Green Green in 1964, followed by See See Rider, and co-wrote the anti-war hit Handsome Johnny with Richie Havens. In 1967 he released another single, a drums and horns version of Pete Seeger’s anti-war hymn Where Have All the Flowers Gone. He was in the gospel musical Tambourines to Glory (1963) and in producer Mike Todd’s America, Be Seated at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

His plays became more limited: The Zulu and the Zayda and My Sweet Charlie; the very short run of Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights, in which he played a black man owning a white slave; and a revival of Golden Boy (1964), with Sammy Davis Jr. His final Broadway part was as the murdered Congolese leader Patrice Lamumba, in Conor Cruise O’Brien’s Murderous Angels (1971). Gossett had played roles in New York-set TV series such as The Naked City, but he began to make a mark in Hollywood, despite LAPD officers having handcuffed him to a tree, on “suspicion”, in 1966.

On TV he starred in The Young Rebels (1970-71) set in the American revolution. In film, he was good as a desperate tenant in Hal Ashby’s Landlord (1970) and brilliant with James Garner in Skin Game (1971), taking part in a con trick in which Garner sells him repeatedly into slavery then helps him to escape.

In 1977, alongside Roots, he attracted attention as a memorable villain in Peter Yates’s hit The Deep, and got artistic revenge on the LAPD in Robert Aldrich’s The Choirboys. The TV movie of The Lazarus Syndrome (1979) became a series in which Gossett played a realistic hospital chief of staff set against an idealistic younger doctor. He played the black baseball star Satchel Paige in the TV movie Don’t Look Back (1981); years later he had a small part as another Negro League star, Cool Papa Bell, in The Perfect Game (2009).

After his Oscar, he played another assassinated African leader, in the TV mini-series Sadat, reportedly approved for the role by Anwar Sadat’s widow Jihan. Though he remained a busy working actor, good starring roles in major productions eluded him, as producers fell back on his drill sergeant image. He was Colonel “Chappy” Sinclair in Iron Eagle (1986) and its three dismal sequels.

But in 1989 he starred in Dick Wolf’s TV series Gideon Oliver, as an anthropology professor solving crimes in New York. And he won a best supporting actor Golden Globe for his role in the TV movie The Josephine Baker Story (1991). He revisited the stage in the film adaptation of Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class (1994).

Gossett twice received the NAACP’s Image Award, and another Emmy for producing a children’s special, In His Father’s Shoes (1997). In 2006 he founded the Eracism Foundation, providing programmes to foster “cultural diversity, historical enrichment and anti-violence initiatives”. Despite an illness eventually linked to toxic mould in his Santa Monica home, he kept working with a recurring part in Stargate SG-1 (2005-06). A diagnosis of prostate cancer in 2010 hardly slowed him down.

Most recently, he played Will “Hooded Justice” Reeves in the TV series Watchmen (2019), in the series Kingdom Business, about the gospel music industry, and in the 2023 musical remake of The Color Purple.

His first marriage, to Hattie Glascoe, in 1967, was annulled after five months; his second, to Christina Mangosing, lasted for two years from 1973; and his third, to Cyndi (Cynthia) James, from 1987 to 1992. He is survived by two sons, Satie, from his second marriage, and Sharron, from his third.

🔔 Louis Cameron Gossett Jr, actor, born 27 May 1936; died 28 March 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[toxicanonymity]

I know your name is literally anonymity but I sometimes wonder what you look like or what you like or hate etc. I just would love to learn something personal about you 😭🫶🏼 but I respect you being absolutely anonymous here. It's actually a very big privilege!

And: do you have anything planned in writing/posting, something we can be excited for? I'm such a big fan of your work

Tysm nonnie! 🖤🖤 I'm happy to share some things about myself (below). Sometimes I wanna be less anonymous, but sadly it's served me well with how obsessive haters can get. You can always ask stuff though, I'd answer what i can and ignore what I'm hesitant about.

Thinking of posting some Narcos next ... Perhaps in the raid AU, perhaps not, I have nearly finished fics or drabbles in both. But i also started a kinda unhinged thighs out Joel scenario lol.

Likes & Dislikes without being a perfectionist...

Beverages

Like: water, grape juice, apple juice, chocolate milk, hot chocolate, matcha, ginger tea, caffeine free diet coke (fountain only) with cherry syrup

Dislike: alcohol, regular coffee, orange juice

Breakfast

Like: biscuits and gravy, egg white veggie omelets, green smoothies, croissants, waffles, yogurt parfait

Dislike: pancakes, jelly and jam, donuts

Comfort foods: egg in a hole, coconut soup

Fave condiments/spices/sauce/toppings: vinegar, mayo, mustard, sour cream, steak seasoning (like it on potatoes), apple pie spice, alabama white & North Carolina BBQ sauces, pesto, goat cheese, pizza sauce (w/ a spoon if good enough lol), Parmesan, sundried tomatos

Pasta: angel hair, capellini, tortellini, linguini

Crayola crayons (idk if they're all current). Colors go by the crayon when you draw with it.

Like: pacific blue, cerulean blue, brick red, burnt sienna, dandelion, hot magenta, earthworm scented

Dislike: cornflower blue, green-yellow

Smells/scents

Currently wearing: Nette La Forêt. I'm in an exploration phase and trying a variety but this is my fave rn.

Like: Woody, clean, fresh, eucalyptus, lavender, rose, burning wax / snuffed out candle, new shoes, leather, new tires, new car, tennis balls. Notes: amber, sandalwood, cetalox, vanilla

Dislike: Heavy citrus, anise/liquoriche

Sweets

Like: ice cream, froyo, brownies (no nuts), paletas (🥥 is a fave), lucky charms marshmallows

Dislike: Cake, cupcakes, caramel, oatmeal raisin cookies, anything with nuts or raisins really. I will pick them out of arroz con leche...

Actors

Make me more likely to watch something: Boyd Holbrook, Pedro Pascal, Kyle gallner, Bill and Alexander Skarsgård, Denzel Washington, Kate Winslet, Nicholas Cage, Adam Driver

Dislike: John krasinski, Adam Sandler, Meg Ryan

Appearance - heart shaped face, eyes on the larger side, dark circles, upturned nose, smaller lips. Sometimes glasses (favoring larger lenses)

I'm up for answering other categories or Qs if you're curious about random stuff. No-gos are work, family/partner, location, zodiac.

If I skip a tag game I prob overthought it or drew a blank.

[coolvieilledentelle]

Apportez du soleil de l'Italie à votre table

Pâtes aux sardines comme en Sicile (pasta con le sarde) pour 4 personnes (si c’est un plat unique et vous avez de l’appétit augmentez de 1/3 les quantités)

Préparation : 15 min Cuisson : 15 min

600-700 g de sardines si possible de Méditerranée extra fraîches (ou 350-400 g de filet) ou à défaut des filets surgelés

320-340 g de pâtes longues type bucatini ou spaghetti

30 g de pignons de pin de Méditerranée

30 g de raisins secs

3 pistils de safran

2 filets d’anchois à l’huile d’olive

1 càs de pluches de fenouil (ou, dans l’idéal, 5-6 pluches de fenouil sauvage) ou, à défaut 3-4 graines de fenouil (voire plus si l’on aime)

1 oignon jaune

huile d’olive vierge extra

sel et poivre 

1. Laver les sardines sous l’eau froide et les gratter très délicatement (sans retirer la peau), coupez la tête, la queue et la nageoire dorsale. Ouvrir dans le sens de la longueur et retirer les abats (toujours sous l’eau). C’est plus simple qu’il n’y paraît car la tête et les abats partent facilement Garder de côté les filets (et jeter le reste).

2. Tremper les raisins dans de l’eau tiède 10 min. Dans une grande poêle, faire revenir l’oignon émincé avec 5 càs d’huile et une louche d’eau. Porter à frémissement puis laisser cuire à feu doux pendant 5 minutes. Ajouter le safran dilué dans un càs d’eau, le fenouil, les anchois, les pignons et les raisins égouttés. Saler et poivrer et laisser cuire 3 minutes. Ajouter ensuite les sardines, 2 càs d’eau de cuisson (voire le double) des pâtes et laissez cuire 5 minutes.

3. Pendant ce temps, portez à ébullition une grande quantité d’eau dans une grande casserole. La saler puis y plonger les pâtes. Laissez cuire le temps indiqué sur le paquet en ayant soin de mélanger régulièrement. Égoutter les pâtes avec un peu d’eau de cuisson, les plonger dans la sauce et mélanger de manière à les enrober.  Servir bien chaud de suite avec un filet (généreux) d’huile d’olive.

[mykey-and-bobby-koopa]

((It's August 13th, which means… Koopa Week has come to an end.

To commemorate that event, here are some facts about Kamek, Bowser's Magikoopa servant:

• His full name is Karmelo Krystal Koopa.

• His shortened name is derived from his first name and the initial of his middle name.

• His middle name was derived from the color of his shell, which is light blue and without spikes.

• He is 59 years old. His birthday is December 21st.

• His sign is Sagittarius and his stone is turquoise.

• In terms of height, he is taller than Morton and shorter than Morton and Wendy; in terms of weight, he weighs the same as Jr.

• He has been nearsighted since he was 40, since then he has had to wear high magnification glasses. As he gets older, his vision becomes more blurry because he develops cataracts.

• His favorite dessert is rum raisin ice cream.

• His favorite color is gray.

• His shell is smooth, with no spikes on it.

• He walks semi-hunched over because his tunic is somewhat heavy. If he took it off he would feel lighter and would be upright like the rest of the Koopalings

• During his adolescence he wanted to study magic, being one of the first Koopas to be a Magikoopa. His love for it was born when he played “Dungeons and Koopas”, almost always being the role of a magician.

• He has an older sister, being only two brothers.

• He is a great lover of reading, he knows many things. One of his topics of interest is medieval fantasy literature.

• His first job was being the assistant of Bowser's grandfather, who at that time was the king. From there he has served the royal family uninterruptedly until the present. From the beginning Bowser's grandfather saw potential in him with his powers and magical abilities, teaching the young princes magic.

• He saw Bowser's father and Bowser himself grow up, knowing everything since they were both young.

• You could say that he is like the Koopalings' “grandfather”, since he treats them with tenderness and scolds them in equal parts. He helped in the birth of each one

• He met Mykey and Bobby's parents in person, being very close to them.

• Shortly after Bowser's father was crowned king, he met a Koopa with whom he fell in love. However, things did not go so well and nothing came of it. Since then, he has not wanted to start a relationship with anyone, even today.

//

Es 13 de Agosto, lo que significa que... la semana koopa ha llegado a su fin.

Para conmemorar ese hecho, aquí algunos datos sobre Kamek, el magikoopa sirviente de Bowser:

Su nombre completo es Carmelo Krystal Koopa.

Su nombre abreviado deriva de su primer nombre y la inicial de su segundo nombre.

Su segundo nombre fue derivado del color de su caparazón, es cual es celeste y sin pinchos

Tiene 59 años. Su cumpleaños es el 21 de diciembre

Su signo es sagitario y su piedra es la turquesa.

En cuanto a estatura, es más alto que Morton y más bajo que Morton y Wendy; en cuanto a peso, pesa lo mismo que Jr.

Es miope desde los 40 años, desde entonces ha tenido que usar lentes de gran aumento. A medida que su edad avanza, su vista se torna más borrosa debido a que desarrolla cataratas.

Su postre favorito es el helado pasas al ron.

Su color favorito es el gris.

Su caparazón es liso, no presenta pinchos en ellos.

Camina semi-encorvado porque su túnica es algo pesada. Si se la quitara se sentiría más ligero y estaría erguido como el resto de los koopalings

Durante su adolescencia quiso estudiar magia, siendo uno de los primeros Koopas en ser magikoopa. su gusto por ella nació cuando jugaba “Calabozos y Koopas”, siendo casi siempre el rol de mago.

Tiene una hermana mayor, siendo solo dos hermanos.

Es un gran amante de la lectura, sabe muchísimas cosas. Uno de sus temas de interés es la literatura fantástica medieval.

Su primer trabajo fue siendo el asistente del abuelo de Bowser, quien en ese momento era el rey. Desde ahí ha servido a la familia real ininterrumpidamente hasta el presente. Desde el principio el abuelo de Bowser vio potencial en él con sus poderes y habilidades mágicas, enseñándoles a los jóvenes príncipes la magia.

Vio crecer al padre de Bowser y al mismo Bowser, conociendo todo desde que ambos eran jóvenes.

Se podría decir que es como el “abuelo” de los Koopalings, ya que los trata con ternura y los regaña a partes iguales. Él ayudó en el nacimiento de cada uno

Conoció en persona a los padres de Mykey y Bobby, siendo muy cercano a ellos.

Al poco tiempo de que el padre de Bowser fuese coronado rey, conoció a un Koopa del que se fue enamorando. Sin embargo las cosas no salieron del todo bien y no se llegó a nada. Desde ese momento no ha querido entablar una relación con nadie, incluso en la actualidad.

[morethansalad]

Arroz con Leche Popsicles / Rice Pudding Popsicles (Vegan-Friendly)

opt for (evaporated) coconut milk, plant milk (powder), or other plant-based alternative

[greensagephase]

Nonviolent Communication Part Five Food Guide/Reference Post

Disclaimer: Photos are not mine. Variations of some of the food exist as it depends on the region of the individual.

Pan Dulce - Sweet Bread (Mexican pastries)

Concha - word literally translates to "Seashell" but it's a kind of pan dulce (the specific kind Miguel and reader ate)

Tamales - I feel like everyone knows these but they can be made out of chicken or beef, and of green or red chile.

Sweet Tamales - These are sweet tamales so they include sugar and can include different toppings like raisins, pineapple, and cinnamon sticks (not to eat but for flavor). Sometimes this varies based on the background of the individual. My mom has always added food coloring to make them pink and light green.

Pozole - A kind of soup/stew made from hominy and meat (can be chicken or beef). There's different flavors based on the kind of chiles used. The typical versions I've had are red and green but I also know of pozole blanco or "white pozole." People add different toppings to it based on the region they are from like cabbage, diced onion, and avocado.

Buñuelos - fried dough fritter. These are so good and are usually made for Christmas time (based on my experience).

Items on Gabriella's Ofrenda:

Pulparindos: the thin yellow packs included in Gabriella and Gabriel's ofrenda

Pelon Pelo Rico - the small green/white bottles with red lids

The pink gum tablets on Gabriella's ofrenda (those at the very end)

Paleta Payaso - the clown chocolate covered marshmallow lollipop This is how they are always portrayed but...

they always look different when you open them

Drinks mentioned on Gabriella's Ofrenda:

Yakult: the small bottles with beige liquid and red letters

Choco Milk: chocolate powder. It's like Nesquik.

Arroz con leche (Rice with Milk) : rice pudding but Mexican version

[jeremiah-fisher]

you and me,

—a the summer i turned pretty fic starring my first and favourite book boyfriend, jeremiah fisher ♡

「moments: college, reader insert」

JEREMIAH

— on a monday

. . .

“Jere, I know you’re busy, son, but please call me back when you get a chance. I need to discuss something with you.”

“Second time calling today, bud. Hope you’re doing okay. Call me back.” 

“Number three. I’m still at work but my secretary will patch you through.”

“Jeremiah. This is getting ridiculous. I know you have your phone on you. Call me as soon as you hear this.”

“For God’s sake, Jere. I have enough on my plate with Con and now I have to deal with you, too? Call me back. That’s an order.”

“Don’t bother calling me back. I’ve dealt with it.”

When I was five, my dad taught me how to leave voicemails. 

He had just returned from work and Mom was at the community centre volunteering with one of her nonprofits. Me and Conrad’s babysitter was just walking out the door, and Con wouldn’t let her go. She was the only high school kid who watched two whole episodes of Dragon Ball-Z with him and listened to all his ramblings about it. He was practically in love with her. 

Dad paid her an extra ten for dealing with my brother then sat us down on the sofa. He asked us if we wanted to watch some football with him, but I had another idea. I saw his phone in his pocket and I wanted to call Mom because I missed her. Dad was hesitant when I suggested it, but then he was pulling the phone out anyway. It never took much convincing to get Dad on your side. 

He called her number but she didn’t pick up. So he tried again. And then one more time. When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to pick up, Dad decided that I should leave a voicemail. 

With round eyes, I asked, “What’s that?”

“Well, it’s a message you can leave for someone on the phone. Here.” He dialled Mom’s number again then waited for it to go to voicemail. “Okay, it’s on. Tell Mom what you want, Jere.” 

In true excitement, I grabbed the phone from my father and stuck it against my ear like I had seen him do a thousand times. Usually as he was leaving in the middle of dinner. 

“Mom! Mom! It’s me! Jeremiah! Can you hear me?!” 

Dad chuckled and shook his head. “She can’t hear you, Jere. You just gotta leave a message. Tell her what you want.” 

I nodded. “Okay… Mom? I want to say… I love you. Bring me a cookie, please?”

When Mom came home later, she didn’t just bring me a cookie – she brought me a whole box. From the bakery near the community centre which I loved. We had been going there forever. Ever since it opened up years before. Mom loved their muffins and scones, Dad loved their mini cakes, and Con and I loved their cookies: chocolate chip for me and raisin for him. 

Mom died on an early morning last June. It hasn’t even been a year. When it happened, it happened so fast. One minute, Mom was asking if Con would read to her and the next, Nona was calling 911 and we were stumbling into the family car, following the ambulance as it took our mother to the hospital. Everything after that is kind of a blur. I remember it in parts – the nurses, the doctor, Steven, Belly, Laurel, Wendy… and YN. YN who wouldn’t leave my side for even a second. 

When they took Mom away, I thought for sure she would come back. How could it be that my mother existed for my whole life and then suddenly, she didn’t? That didn’t make any sense. 

But then Dad cried and it felt more real. He cried so much that he didn’t look like Dad at all. He wasn’t a crier, and he never encouraged us to cry either. But he cried that day in the hospital and then at the funeral home, and he couldn’t drive at all from all the crying in between so Conrad did. It was just me and him in the front seats while our Dad laid down in the back, clutching Mom’s favourite shawl. Conrad kept mumbling something about that under his breath, but I couldn’t make it out. 

When Dad was composed enough to go back to the funeral home, me and Conrad were alone for the first time. It was night time and the house felt so empty. Empty and sad and a little bit haunted. 

We sat at the kitchen table. There was so much food on it. Trays and bowls and plates from relatives and neighbours and Mom and Dad’s friends. There was so much food that some of it had to be stacked on top of each other. I wondered how we would eat it all, now that our family was down to three people. 

Conrad poured out a glass of milk which he drank in silence. It had to be rotten. No one had been to the grocery store in a while. That whole week when Mom got so sick that even Dad stopped going to work, the last thing any of us thought about was making sure the fridge was full of fresh groceries. 

He didn’t want to talk about it, about how Mom was gone, how she wasn’t coming back, and how it was just us now. Conrad did what he always did, including that night – he went to his room alone. Later, after I finished cleaning the kitchen, I went upstairs to mine. I thought about going to his room, because maybe if we were together instead of apart, we could still hold onto Mom somehow. But when I went to his door, I heard him crying. Big, fat, choked sobs. So I left him alone. 

In my room, YN was tucked under my covers. She stayed with me the whole day, and must have gotten in while we finished up at the funeral. I was grateful her parents didn’t force her to go home. I always need her, but that day, I needed her more than air.

I didn’t say anything to her as I crawled into bed, and she didn’t say anything to me. But when I started crying, too, she wrapped her arms around me and whispered one of my mom’s favourite poems in my ear until I fell asleep.

I stare down at my phone and press ‘delete’ on the piled up voicemails from my father. As soon as they’re gone, I dial an old number and wait until it reaches the voicemail box. I bite down on my lip to keep myself from crying when her voice swims in. Forever familiar and forever gone.

“This is Susannah Fisher! Or Beck, if you know me well enough. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the phone, but leave me a message and I’ll call you back in a jiffy!” 

I tighten my grasp on my phone and breathe in slowly. “Mom… I… I miss you. Every day. I miss you like crazy. I wish it wasn’t like this.” 

I try not to cry as I turn my phone screen off. In a frat house, the last thing you want is to be caught crying. Even about dead parents. 

Lifting myself off my desk chair, I head to the door and then downstairs to the kitchen because that’s where all the cereal is. It’s half past five and most people are either studying, prepping for a party, or participating in a campus club activity. I’m supposed to head to hockey practice in an hour. We have an away game next Sunday, which Coach says we need to be more prepared for. These days, all the ‘preparation’ has made my body ache. I feel like a sack being pushed around on the ice. The pain gets so bad some days that I miss being tackled on the field when I used to play football. 

“Yo, Fisher! What’s up, bro?” 

I turn around with a spoonful of cereal in my mouth to see Redbird – who’s real name is Tom but only his mother calls him that – stalking into the kitchen with a backpack hitched over one shoulder. He pulls it off and throws it in a random corner, knowing one of us freshmen will pick it up and bring it to his room later. He was always doing that. Even just as a sophomore, he thought he ruled the house. In a way, I guess he did.

“Nothing, man. Just having some cereal.” 

He smirks. “Late breakfast?” 

I had already had breakfast with YN downtown today in some little hole in the wall diner. I had two plates of pancakes and an Oreo smoothie. I was so exhausted after eating that we had to call a cab to bring us back to campus. 

“Yeah. Something like that.” I put my bowl down to set my eyes on him fully. “How’s Jen?” Jen, or Jennifer Munro, is the co-president of our sister sorority, Zeta Phi, down the street. Redbird started dating her a few months ago, and he talks our ears off about it any chance he gets. Half of us think he’s obsessed with her while the other half thinks he just likes the popularity being with her gets him. I’m part of the first half. 

Redbird grins. “She’s good. Studying for some test. We’re gonna head to a party later if you wanna join.” 

I shake my head. “Nah, I’m good. Have fun.” 

“Alright. If you change your mind, it’s down on Bayton.” 

Once Redbird is gone, I finish up my cereal then head upstairs to grab my hockey gear and my phone. I see a few texts in the frat group chat, a text from Conrad telling me Dad wants to see us next weekend (which I ignore for the time being), and a text from YN telling me she’s with her roommate at the library. 

Daisy: i’m at lindsay

Daisy: nat’s with me btw 

Jeremy: i’ll swing by after practice 

With my eyes glued to my phone, I’m heading out the front door when it opens to reveal someone standing on the other side. Lacie Barone, the social chair of Zeta Phi, smiles at me with all her perfectly aligned teeth on display. I had heard through parties that both her parents are dentists. It’s only now that I see how true it is. 

At 5’4, Lacie is much shorter than me, and she is undeniably one of the prettiest girls in the sorority, maybe even the whole university. The thing is, she knows this, too. And she uses it to her advantage. Before Redbird started dating Jen, he thought he might go for Lacie instead because she flirted with him at mixers. All the guys in the frat thought they could have a chance with her since she never dated anyone seriously, but always teased that she would if she found the right person. 

“Hey, Lacie,” I greet, returning her smile. “What’s up?” 

“Oh, nothing,” she replies, and her voice comes out a bit huskier than I remember it. Not that I talk to her all that much. “Actually, I was hoping to run into you.” 

“Me?” 

“Yes, you,” she giggles, tilting her head a little to examine me. Then she takes a step closer. Close enough so that I smell her perfume. It’s pleasant, but then again, most of her is. Lacie is one of those girls I would have totally gone for years ago when I was still figuring stuff out. Now, not so much. “As social chair, I’m in charge of planning the upcoming holiday mixer. Do you wanna help me?” 

I’m not an idiot. I know when a girl is flirting with me. I’ve had girls flirt with me since before I understood what it meant. Back in the day, I would return it. I’d entertain it, too, and let it be a means to a kiss or two. But not anymore. Every girl pales in comparison to YN. And suddenly, I miss her. 

I hike my hockey bag up my shoulder which still stings from yesterday’s practice. “Sorry, Lacie. I’m really busy with hockey and stuff. But you could ask Kev or Wren. They’re usually up for this kinda thing.” 

I try to bypass her, but Lacie holds a hand out and places it right on my chest. Then her smile starts to transform into a small pout, as if this is the worst news she has ever received.

“Do you, like, not like me or something?” Her voice comes out a little quieter this time, as if the thought of me not liking her is tragic. “Why do you keep pushing me away when I try to get close to you?”

Tiredly, I let out a sigh. “Look, Lacie, you're a really nice girl. And I won’t deny you’re hot.” This tidbit seems to peak her interest and I regret saying it as soon as it’s out. “But I’m not interested.”

“Why?” 

“I have a girlfriend. Pretty sure you’ve met her, too.”

Lacie’s face twists into agitation and disgust. And suddenly, I’m pissed at her. Pretty or not, if she has something bad to say about YN, she’s nothing to me. 

“Daisy? You mean, she’s not just a friend?” 

I want to correct her and say, well that’s just my nickname for her, but I don't. It’s nice that I say it so much that others have taken to believing it’s her actual name.

“Definitely not.” I try to walk past her again, but Lacie seems to adamant about keeping me here today. Her hand finds my forearm this time. I try to shake her off, but her grip is iron tight. “Lacie, I really gotta go.”

Lacie looks at me with anger lining her irises. It’s the first time I’ve seen her look that way at anyone. “You know, a lot of guys are into me. But I like you. Doesn’t that count for something?” 

I shrug because I don’t know how she wants me to respond to that. Sure, being liked is always nice. Especially by popular girls. My ego definitely doesn’t hate it. But I’m also not sure what she wants me to do about her supposed feelings for me. 

“Thanks for liking me, I guess.” 

Her face drops. “That’s all you have to say?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. How about something better than ‘thanks?’”

“Thanks so much?”

Lacie rolls her eyes and walks back down the steps right past me. Then, at the bottom of the steps, she turns to face me again and stares at me with hard eyes. Under the sun, I have to squint to look at her. 

“I’m basically dangling myself in front of you like bait, Jeremiah, and you just don’t get it. What does Daisy have that I don’t?”

I purse my lips. I want to say, ‘a lot.’ But I don’t. “It’s not about that.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“I love her.”

Lacie clicks her tongue. “You’re a schmuck. When I walk away, I’m never coming back. Believe it.”

I nod, believing her because I know girls like her really do mean it. With another roll of her eyes, she strolls away, swaying her hips a bit, and I just shake my head as I walk towards campus in the opposite direction.

. . . 

YN

— on a wednesday

Fraiser Mont’s campus is giving me a migraine. A proper, nausea inducing, head-spinning migraine. 

I have been standing in the middle of campus trying to figure out where Albert Hall is and no matter which way I walk, I can’t seem to figure it out. It’s not like I’m bad with directions, but I’m definitely ready to claim that the map they gave us during freshman orientation is a total waste of paper. Nothing makes sense and there are so many people and so many buildings and I’ve gotten lost enough times to never want to step foot on campus ever again. 

In utter frustration, I release a sigh and stand back to stare at the digital map standing between trees on the heart of campus. Because my paper one is such a waste, I figure, how bad can the digital one be? But over the last few minutes, it has proven to be much the same as its sibling. 

“God,” I mumble to myself, licking my lips as cold, autumnal air whips my cheeks. It’s only the start of October and I’m not the least bit happy about it. “I’m never getting to class at this rate.”

I’m about to reach inside my pocket for my phone when, all of a sudden, a ginormous weight rushes in, dropping itself on me. Long, familiar arms go around my body, encasing me in a cocoon of warmth I very badly needed. 

I don’t say anything to him as he rocks us side to side. Then his mouth is in my ear. 

“Hey, so,” he starts. “I haven’t seen you, like, all day.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I hum, feeling my love for him blind my need to get to class on time. I’m not really looking at the campus map anymore more so than enjoying the warmth of his body holding mine. “So that wasn’t you making faces at me from the door of my chem lab earlier when you were supposed to be in stats?”

“Definitely not. I was in class.” He spins me around and grins while my eyes roll back a bit at his very obvious lie. He had run away the moment my TA saw him. “Okay, so I got to class a few minutes later. Big whoop.”

“If you flunk out, you won’t get a good job. And if you don’t get a good job, I can’t marry you.” I’m teasing and the look on his face is worth all the gold in the world. 

Jeremiah gasps. His mouth actually drops open in genuine shock. It shouldn’t be as funny as it is when I start laughing to myself. “What?!”

I shrug, totally nonchalant. “Well, my parents wouldn’t let me marry a bum.”

“I wouldn’t be a bum!”

“Try telling my parents that.”

He pouts, extra adorable in moments between autumn and winter when his cheeks are a little rosier and his eyes a little bluer. “Your parents love me!”

“Sure. For now.” 

His pout turns into a frown I want to kiss away but I hold myself back. I can’t let him win so easily. Not like he always does because I’m so damn weak for him and his cuteness. “Shit, I’m gonna be stressed out for the next four years.”

“Calm down, Jere-Bear,” I chuckle, leaning up to peck the tip of his Rudolph-esque nose. He always smiles really big when I peck him there and today’s just the same. “We’re going to be fine. It’s you and me, remember?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, and then he sneezes, and I’m pulling out my pack of Kleenex I keep handy just for him. 

Jeremiah has the absolute worst seasonal allergies known to man. He sneezes so much and so often that you would think he wasn’t born to do anything else. He’s fine in the summers, but when spring comes around, he’s a mess. And during the colder months, he sneezes because of how easily his body falls ill. I started pushing him to take vitamin C tablets to help supplement his awful immune system, but he says he hates the way they taste. It wasn’t until I got him orange flavoured ones that he finally changed his mind. 

“Let me take you to class,” he offers, sliding my backpack off my shoulders and onto his own. When I give him an unimpressed look, he goes, “My next period’s free, I swear on my inheritance.” 

I laugh and intertwine our shaky fingers. We’re both cold and it would be lovely to get out of it and into a lecture hall soon. “I’d marry you for your inheritance.”

“Not my dashing good looks?”

“Nah. What’s beauty to money?” 

He leans down to kiss my cheek. We both smile at each other like fools. “What about the fact that I’ve been stupidly in love with you for my whole life?” 

“I’d tell you you’re bad at math because we met when we were ten so that’s not your whole life.” 

“It’s the most important part.”

At this point, we have walked so far down the road that somehow, we have ended up at Albert Hall. I don’t know how Jeremiah got us here, but I’m thankful.

I stop to look up at him. Just as I suspected, his face is constructed to be full of doubt and pain masked by a simple smile. All our years of friendship have taught me exactly how to read him between the lines. And I’m grateful to be good at that despite all the things I’m bad at. 

I squeeze his hand in mine. “I don’t like being away from you either,” I tell him truthfully, each word honest and a little bit sad as it falls from my lips. I finally understand what this is all about and I hate that he feels this way at all. “But this campus is so big and we have so many classes. We can’t be together all the time.”

His smile finally withers away and he presents a frown which breaks me. “I thought it’d be easier now, you know? We could be together whenever we wanted, like how we were in the summers.”

“I know,” I nod, knowing exactly what he means and how he’s feeling. The summers in Cousins, the ones we used to have with all of us there, are a thing of the past now. In less than a year, life isn’t what we used to know. “But I like missing you sometimes because it feels so good when I see you again.”

He scoffs, but I see his cheeks burn with colour again. “Yeah, well, I don’t like missing you.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“No.”

I chuckle, wanting to kiss him in front of everybody, but I hold myself back. I shouldn’t fuss about what others think, but a part of me does. “Obsessed boyfriend alert.”

Jeremiah takes me into his arms again. “That’s right. I’m fucking obsessed with you, YN.” He grabs my face in his big hands and kisses me full on the mouth, right there for everyone to see. Funnily enough, no one seems to care as they head to their respective classes or focus on their phones. It helps me melt into our kiss a little more. When we part, he keeps his face close to mine and rubs his thumb across my bottom lip. “Wanna know what I’d marry you for?”

“Everything?”

He grins and leans in again to cover my face with tiny kisses. I giggle, feeling so stupidly in love that it outweighs me. “Every–” kiss “little–” kiss “thing.” 

For the next two hours, Jeremiah sits beside me in Albert Hall, playing games on his phone whilst my professor talks about molecular biology and every time I need a destresser from all the concepts being thrown at me, I reach down for my thigh only to find my boyfriend’s hand ready to squeeze mine, and I’m okay again. 

. . . 

JEREMIAH

— on a thursday

Every title on the Netflix homepage starts to blur about five or six minutes into searching for something worthwhile to watch. Usually, I’m not picky. I’ll watch anything so long as it’s not a period drama. But tonight, everything appears lacklustre and I’m struggling to stay awake even though I downed two energy drinks whilst studying earlier. I have a massive exam tomorrow and I’m internally freaking out about how that’s going to go. On the outside, I keep telling everyone I’m majoring in beerology. 

YN is next to me, her fingers tapping away on her MacBook. It’s brand new and pink. As in, someone specifically bought it in that colour for her. I smile to myself thinking about how I saved up every dollar last summer to get it for her birthday and how she got me a pair of Nike AirForces in a matching shade for mine. I never take them off.

Almost absentmindedly, I swing my head her way to watch her study whatever it is on her laptop screen which has captured all her attention. YN is wicked good at keeping her attention on one thing at a time, and never diverting from it. Me, on the other hand, I get distracted by everything. 

“Hey,” I call out, hoping to catch her eyes. But she doesn’t look up. “Are you gonna ignore me all night?”

YN chuckles, but still keeps her eyes glued on her screen. “If I really was ignoring you, I wouldn’t have replied.”

I shuffle my body closer to hers, and settle my head in the crook of her shoulder. I take a look at the screen to see what has her so occupied. It’s an article from an academic journal on neuroscience. The entire page is covered in big words I don’t understand, and it hurts my eyes a little bit.

Confused, I crane my head up a bit to question her. “You’re reading about neuroscience?”

“Yup,” she nods. Her finger pushes down on the arrow key, and the page moves.

“Why?”

“Because it’s interesting.”

“What’s so interesting about it?”

“I don’t know. It just is. What’s with all the questions?”

I tickle her side and she giggles. “I’m bored and you’re sitting here reading about neuroscience.” I don’t say it out loud, but I think it’s really fucking hot that she does that. During the summers, YN would never think about school or studying or books, apart from her cheesy romance novels. But seeing her now, I get to comprehend who she is a whole lot better. And it’s sexy. 

“It’d interest you, too, if you gave it a chance.” 

“Nah.” I lean back against my pillow and bring her into me. Her laptop falls against the bed sheets but now that I’m all over her, she doesn’t seem to mind so much. “The only brain I care about is yours.”

YN reaches up to dig her fingers into my hair. I melt into it a little bit. Into her. “Is that the best you’ve got, Fisher? I’ve seen you flirt with girls. I know you can do better.”

I stare at her. Every so often, YN will make a jab about all the girls I’ve messed around with. Before we got together, I took it as a friend teasing another friend sort of thing. But now, it’s different. It hurts. I don’t want her to think of me as some kind of guy who throws himself at any girl he wants. And what I hate more is that I can’t go back and change her mind about any of it. This is who I was to her and sometimes, it’s who I still am. 

As my mood changes, YN picks up on it quickly, and then she is scrambling to make things right. Her arms fling themselves around my neck, tight and desperate. I watch the remorse take shape on her face, the way it creeps onto her mouth and spills into her eyes. She looks like she wants to cry. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, her breath warm on my face. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

YN swallows, and I watch the motion in her throat. I need to keep my eyes on her face or else I might just get up and walk out. I’m itching to do it, to put distance between us, even though I know it’s not right. Any distance between us now feels like the end of the world.

Gently, YN touches my hair and pushes it back so she can see my eyes better. “It’s stupid. I’m stupid. I’m really sorry.”

I shake my head. Then I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. YN grasps me harder, harder than ever before, like she’s afraid I might disappear from right in front of her. 

“You still see me as that guy,” I say quietly, accusation simmering upon every word which exits my mouth. “I’m not like that anymore. Not since you.”

“I know, I know. I’m so sorry, Jere. Honest. I don’t know why that slipped out.” Her nose meets mine as she nuzzles into me, her go-to apologetic action. I melt into it, too, just like always. “I love you so much. Please forgive me.”

Even though the hurt lingers, I find myself wrapping my arms around her body, and when I do, she deflates against my chest, tucking her head into the crook of my neck. I feel her breathe me in–deep, long breaths. When I hear her breath hitch, the way it does when she is about to cry, I hold her tighter. 

Later, the credits of White Chicks are rolling on the flat-screen TV and YN is hiccuping from laughter as she reaches out for her water bottle. It’s black and has a logo of the student union on it. We got a whole bunch during Frosh Week, and YN took to putting them on everything she owns. I have a feeling she might want to be a part of the union someday.

“That movie never gets old,” YN chuckles, setting her bottle aside. I pull her into me so she lands on my chest. For a long moment, neither one of us says anything and I think I’m falling asleep, but then YN starts drawing circles on me and I know she has something on her mind. 

I bring my fingers to the side of her head and brush some strands away. “What’s up?”

“Word on the street is… Lacie Barone has a thing for you.”

I don’t know why, but hearing her say that makes me clamp up. I have nothing to be afraid of or to feel guilty about, but suddenly, I do. I feel bad all over. 

I’m tentative as I ask, “Where’d you hear that?”

“Through the grapevine.” 

I look down at her with an unamused look. 

YN chuckles and sets her chin on my chest. Her slightly awkward smile makes me want to kiss it away. Is this what her earlier comment was about? “Fine. Redbird told me.” A pause hangs between us, and then, almost brokenly, she questions, “She asked you out?”

“Not… not really.” 

“Come on, Jere. You can tell me. It’s not like I’ll be mad.”

“That’s not it. She didn’t ask me out. We just… talked.” 

“Oh, yeah? When?”

“I don’t know. A few weeks ago, maybe? It was before I went to practice. She came over here and we just talked by the door.” I stop explaining to gauge her expression. “Are you pissed?”

“No. Should I be?”

“No! Nothing happened between us. We just talked.”

“Okay, so then, it’s fine.”

“You’re not mad that she likes me?”

YN chuckles. “No. I can’t control who has feelings for you.”

I narrow my eyes on her. “You’re oddly calm about this. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking…” she says, her finger travelling down my chest. “That Lacie Barone is probably so jealous of me. I get to have you and she doesn’t.”

“YN…”

“Aren’t I right?” YN lifts herself up and slides her hand under the hem of my Fraiser Mont sweatshirt. Her warm, nimble fingers caress my skin in waves of curiosity and desire. I love when she touches me like this–possessive and a little bit crazy. “Because while she sits all alone on her pretty little pink princess bed in her stupid little sorority, I get to be here with you.” Her fingers pass over my stomach, making it do somersaults. I swallow, trying not to get worked up but knowing I’ll fail by the end. “And I get to touch you… and kiss you…” Her fingers work their way up my body, making me breathe heavy until her thumb finds my right nipple. Then I just about lose myself to her, to everything she never fails to make me feel. “...and fuck you, and she can’t do anything about it.”

My eyes flash with desire, unkempt and ferocious. Even when she thought Belly and I had something, YN had never been this vocal about her jealousy. The fact that she feels even the least bit threatened by Lacie should be hilarious, and the two of us should be sitting in bed laughing about it, but this… this is somehow not what I expected and equal parts something I don’t hate as much as I should. 

If the fact that Jeremiah Jr. is chubbing up is anything to go by.

I bite down on my lip in an effort to keep my moans from running loose but it’s utterly useless when YN pulls her hands out from under my shirt and reaches in for a kiss. I grab her by the waist as she lunges herself at me, settling her perfect ass on my nether region. 

Each kiss she gives me is lengthy, wet, and hot. Our mouths feel like they’re on fire; crackles of flame dripping from our lips and onto the other’s. 

“Lift your arms,” she instructs, her voice husky, like she just ran a marathon. 

I bite down on her lip and drag it out with my teeth. I smirk to let her know I will be doing no such thing. “Why don’t you make me?”

YN licks her lips and scrambles for my shirt, dragging it off my body, up and over my head, until I’m naked from the waist up. I meet her gaze for a moment, hoping I can read her eyes, but she won’t let me. The brown of her irises fly over every part of me as she takes me in, as if this is both her first time seeing me this way and her last. Her gaze burns, and rattles me to the core. Each time we do this, I feel like I’m falling in love with her all over again.

“Lacie doesn’t get to touch you,” she murmurs, hesitant eyes finding mine. They’re begging for confirmation and I can’t wait to give it. “It doesn’t matter how she feels.”

“Okay,” I nod, setting my hand in her hair so I can push some back. I’ve always loved touching her hair. I love how soft it is, and how good it smells. Back when her hair was the only part of her I could touch intimately, I took full advantage. And now, it’s muscle memory.

“I mean it,” she presses, and her eyes get that teary look to them again, like she’s really scared. I bring her in for a small kiss, which she returns in desperation. 

I rub my thumb over her cheek, trying to get her to calm down. I don’t know why Redbird told her about Lacie in the first place. I don’t know why I told him. The guys and I were just talking the other night and when they talked about Lacie having a thing for me, I blurted out what happened. I hadn’t expected it to get back to YN, especially not like this. And it wasn’t like I was trying to hide it from her. A part of me knew she’d be hurt if she knew so I kept it to myself. 

“There’s no one for me but you, YN. You know that.”

YN frowns. I try to kiss it away, but she frowns even harder. “I know that, but does she?” Her chest rises as she breathes in and out fast. “I hate that bitch.”

“Woah,” I laugh, tickling her side. “Hold on a sec, babe. What’s with the language?”

“Well, what else do I call the girl trying to steal my boyfriend?”

I’m filled with so much love for her that I grab her in a hug, taking us tumbling down into the sheets. I throw my legs over hers, wrapping us in like a cocoon. Then I start leaving kisses all over her face and jaw and neck, until she’s giggling and trying to push me away. 

“Alright, okay! God! Will you stop?!” 

“No way,” I throw back, squeezing her in close; close enough that I can smell my body wash on her from when she showered here this morning. I don’t know why, but that turns me on even more. “There’s no boyfriend to be stolen, just so you know.” 

“Still…” A lightning strike of something bold and yearning passes over her face, and suddenly, she’s pushing me onto my back and straddling me. When her eyes fall into view again, I warn my dick not to start acting up before I can figure out where this is going. I don’t want to spend extra time in the bathroom again like last weekend when YN was bent over doing pilates on my floor minutes before Natalie, her roommate, called her out for drinks, leaving me all alone to deal with my mess. “Her goddamn audacity is pissing me the fuck off.”

I rub the sides of her waist, hoping to calm her down. “Mm… so, what are you gonna do about it?” Okay, so maybe I’m trying to do the opposite. 

“For starters, I wanna beat her up.”

I can’t help it when I laugh. Just the thought of YN brawling with Lacie is funnier than it should be. And hilariously enough, I know YN would win. All those years of basketball, swimming, and surfing have made her stronger than she looks. And funnier than that is the fact that her fighting for my honour gets me all hot on the inside.

“Baby, Daisy, love of my life,” I tease, adding an extra bit of cheesiness to my nicknames to placate her. “You don’t have to do that. I’m only yours, and you’re the only girl for me.”

The corners of her lips start to lift up in a tiny smile. I press a hand to the back of her neck and pull her down for a soft kiss. It’s sweet at first, our lips together and moving perfectly in sync, but then my dick stirs again and I know I need her real bad. 

YN laughs into my mouth when her ass grinds on me just right. “Excited?”

“You have no idea how much,” I groan, breathing the words hastily. I need her so badly. Now, now, now. I feel like I’ll explode if she doesn’t touch me more. I lift my hips a little to give her a taste of the reckless desire I’m experiencing. “Feel that?”

YN licks her lips, and I know just by looking at her face that she’s just as far gone as me. All she’s wearing is a pair of my old shorts and a green t-shirt. When the tip of my cock meets her mound, I find out she’s forgone underwear and it makes me want to fuck her into oblivion. 

“Y-yeah.”

I don’t know why I say it, but when the words slip out, I don’t regret them half as much as I should because the fire in YN’s eyes is enough to make me want to do it again. Again and again just to see that look on her face. “You think any other girl makes me feel this way?” I say the words slowly, letting each one roll off my tongue carefully so she understands just how much I mean them. How true they are. “I can’t even get hard to the thought of anything but you.”

Her eyes fall shut, and she seems to mull the statement over whilst my dick begs to be paid attention to. “Jere…” she whispers, sounding just a little bit lost. “Promise… promise me something.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Promise me you’ll only think of me. When I’m here and when I’m not.”

“I promise.” 

YN opens her eyes, and for a moment, I think she is surprised by my answer but then the expression flies away and all that’s left on her face is pure adoration and… lust. 

She bends her body, and when she gets close to my lips, I think she’ll kiss me but she doesn’t because her mouth is suddenly on my chest and she’s kissing down the length of my torso with pecks wetter than the damn ocean. 

When she reaches my navel, her mouth presses around the point and she kisses me there, her lips moist and perfect. I didn’t know that was a place I could feel so thrilled by but now that I am, I never want her to leave it alone again. 

Her hands find the sides of my sweatpants, and she starts pulling them downwards. Down and down until my cock springs free, slapping up against my skin after being trapped for so long. I let out a breath of relief, feeling as though I ran a marathon even though I’ve been locked away in this room, and on this bed, for ages.

YN keeps her brown eyes on me, and they darken every inch that her mouth moves closer to my tip. I try to hold her line of sight but it’s hard with the way she hovers over my dick like it’s no big deal. She knows how sensitive I am there, and yet she always does this… this teasing game. 

It’s another thing I should despise but I don’t. 

With a hand on my inner thigh, YN leans in and breathes out over my dick. I whine, grabbing her shoulder to pull her closer to where I need her most but she is everything pure evil as she ducks down to kiss my other thigh. 

“Come on,” I beg, hoping she will get on with it. I have never been good at the waiting game, especially not with her. Other guys might love being pulled to the edge and thrown back, but I certainly don’t. I have zero patience for it. “Please… need you so bad.”

YN smirks. “I bet Lacie wouldn’t make you wait, huh?” 

“Babe.”

“I’m just being honest. With all the guys she’s been with… she must have lost some of her patience, too.”

I fold my smile in. I hate that I love this; the way she is isn’t right, but I love it. I’m practically salivating for it. “Are you calling her a slut?”

The tops of my girlfriend’s shoulders rise up, just a little to prove her nonchalance. “Maybe.” Her hand suddenly finds its way to the further up my thigh and closer to where I need her most. She keeps her eyes steady on mine as she whispers, “I can be a slut, too… for you.”

“Oh, fuck.” 

Without a single warning, YN lowers her head. Her hot breath sails over the tip of my dick again but this time, she takes the voyage home. 

The heat of her mouth engulfs me like a burning fire, hold and wild and uncontrollable. I fist her hair, grabbing as much as I can in my hand and away from her face so I can see it better. Every line and scar and all the small pimples she says she hates. To me, she’s the most beautiful person in the entire universe. No matter what she looks like. 

“Shit, shit,” I mumble as she licks a stripe down one side of me. I watch with bated breath as she fumbles around on the bed, searching for something. “W-What are you–”

Her eyes brighten as she seems to find whatever she was looking for, and I feel her smile take form right on my dick. I crunch back numbers in my head to keep myself from shooting down her throat right then. 

YN leans back and licks me softly while her hand drops something into mine. I lower my gaze and catch the sight of my phone on video mode. I stare at her, halfway between terrified and awestruck, and whisperingly ask, “Are you sure?”

YN leans up to touch her lips to mine in a breathless, barely there kiss. When she smiles, it’s wickedly sweet. “Trust me, you’re gonna wanna watch this later.”

I curse out as she slides back down my body.

I press start on the video, aiming to hold it in just the right position to capture the perfection of this moment but I’m shaking so much that the end result may appear more like something off Paranormal Activity than Pornhub. 

A rush of passion flows through my veins each time her tongue presses onto my hard dick, making it chub up and leak just for her mouth to lick up. YN makes a whole show of it, like those girls in the adult movies with their big eyes and sultry expressions. I muck up every second of it like I’m some kind of high I’ll never feel again.

When it gets to be too much and I know I’m close, I grip her head with my open hand and forcibly tilt it down so my cock pushes deep into her mouth. YN groans, whines a little too, and I don’t hold back. I thrust in, my camera hand trembling, and I hit the back of her throat repeatedly. 

“Oh, fuck. Fuck. Your fucking mouth, YN… shit! Can’t get enough of you.” 

Even though I’m practically using her like a cock sleeve, my dream-like girlfriend smiles around the base of my dick and tightens her throat, letting me take everything I could ever want from her. Everything she wants to give me.

YN weens off me for a second to take my dick into her palm, but not before slathering it with her tongue. I feel my heart skip a beat. Then two more when she reaches into her panties to produce more wetness. 

Her fingers softly wrap around me as she talks, tugging on me, rubbing me up and down in the best way any guy could imagine being touched. “She won’t ever get to see you like this…” YN dips her mouth down to lick my tip. “...she’ll never get to watch your face change when you…” this time, she wraps her mouth over my tip and suckles, her eyes round and unforgiving on mine even though I’m so far gone, I wonder if it’s the blues she sees or the whites. “...come.”

Her voice is like a command because as soon as the word leaves her, I’m falling over the edge and spilling down her mouth in rivulets of paper white she swallows, happier than she ever was in both my dreams and fantasies combined I grab her by the face and tug her into me, throwing her under my body and leaning in as I kiss her hot on the mouth, not caring for my own taste because all I want, and all I need, is her. 

. . . 

YN

— on a friday

One of the best moments of my life happens minutes before I walk into my last midterm exam of the year in Wentworth Hall. 

There are rows upon rows of desks and chairs and the soggy smell of an old swimming pool next door and I should be scared absolutely shitless about how this exam is going to go but I’m hardly thinking about it when my phone tells me I have been tagged in a TikTok video. The username is from the school’s hockey team, so I open it more urgently. 

The official account of the Fraiser Mont varsity hockey team has posted a new video with all the team members stretched out across various areas of the rink and the locker room. The video starts out with Josh, the team’s defenceman, and one of Jeremiah’s close friends at the frat house. The cameraperson asks Josh who his type is. He immediately shouts, “Kiki Layne!” without missing a single beat. 

The camera then swerves to a bunch of other guys who name their favourite women, most of whom are celebrities. At the very end, the cameraperson finds Jeremiah sitting on a bench, sipping from his water bottle. He looks a little surprised to see the camera in his face at first, and it’s completely adorable. His eyes get so round and attentive. I’m practically melting on the sidewalk. I wonder if there will ever be a time when I’m not enamoured by him. 

“Hey, Fisher,” the cameraperson says. I finally recognize the voice as belonging to the editor of the school newspaper, Archie Rodriguez. “Who’s your type?”

Jeremiah looks right at the camera and grins, big and wide and endlessly gorgeous. “My girlfriend.” In nanoseconds, his teammates jump on his back and pummel him, giving him noogies and slaps on the arms. And even still, through all the ruckus, he manages to find the camera again and winks, saying, “Love you, Daisy.”

I download the video with a giggle and save it to my JEREMIAH <3 folder.

A week later, one of the worst moments of my life arrives and it’s in the form of midterm grades having been uploaded to the university assessment website. I had been dreading the posting all week, after I left the exam room feeling as though I could have done better, and now, my greatest fears are confirmed. 

I’m failing chemistry.

Chemistry–a course I was brilliant at in high school. A course I never worried about ever in my life because everything about it used to come seamlessly to me, binding with my memory like glue so I was never afraid to step into chem class nor take a test. But now? Now, I’m doomed. A single dip in my GPA is threatening to my future. I know that better than I know anything else.

Misery slithers into my veins as I shut the lid of my laptop and stand up. My legs are wobbly and it’s hard to walk at first but eventually, I make it to my closet. I start rummaging through my drawer, under my folded shirts, until my hand lands on a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey I stole from my house the last weekend I spent over there. Dad must have forgotten about it under the kitchen sink and I thought Jeremiah and I could share it sometime. Now, I’m about to drown myself in it alone. 

Alarms blare inside my head as I walk back to my bed. Words like, don’t do this, YN. Don’t. pestering me incessantly with each step I take. The rational part of my brain seems to be working on overdrive. I ignore it, though, and pop open the top, readying myself to take a swig when my doorknob shakes and in strolls Natalie with Jeremiah right behind her. They’re laughing about something and it stops me dead in my tracks. 

I pull the bottle down, away from my lips, but I know I have nowhere to put it. Besides, Jeremiah has already caught sight of me and he looks concerned, which is saying something because Jeremiah rarely ever gets that way, and I usually don’t give him reason to be. 

His expression is deadly calm as he reaches my side, settling down on my bed as he gives me a once over. I begin to roll my eyes at him, knowing he won’t understand what I’m going through, when he asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” 

Natalie pretends to busy herself with her end of the room, fluffing her pillows as if they aren’t already perfectly fluffed and perfectly aligned. My roommate is OCD, I’m almost one hundred percent sure.

Jeremiah picks up my whiskey bottle and examines it. His left brow goes up, and then he finds my eyes again. “Were you gonna drink without me?”

Of course he thinks that is what I was about to do. 

“No, Jere, of course not,” I mumble, grabbing the bottle from him and finally taking a swig. He watches me do it and I go slow just for the dramatic effect. I hate that this is who I become when I’m stressed out, but at the same time, stopping myself from becoming this way is next to impossible. “Let’s just have a party, right here, at 10 AM.”

Jeremiah licks his lips and glances back at Natalie who is now fully indulged in the conversation being had without her. They share a look and the next thing I know, she is excusing herself to go do laundry. I scoff when she leaves the room empty handed.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Jeremiah swings his gaze back on me and I read every bit of genuine fear and worry painted across his face. It sparks a semblance of guilt in the pit of my stomach, aiding my distress. I may not give him reasons to worry about me often but this time, I have.

“Why are you drinking? What happened?”

His questions set my heart on fire. The last thing I want to do is talk about what happened. If I do, it will make my losses and my failures and the fact that I suck more real. 

“Nothing happened,” I argue, taking another swig. Jeremiah catches the base of the bottle on its descent down then pulls it away from me completely. “Hey, give me that!”

“No way. Not until you tell me what the hell is going on.” He sets the bottle down on the floor and I hmph out angrily. “You never drink outside of parties. What’s going on with you? Did you have a fight with your mom? Or Esme?”

There are a lot of things which can bother a person once they start dating their best friend, and worse, when they start dating their childhood best friend. Someone who has grown up with them and seen all their sides – the good and the bad. 

Before we started college, all the bad seemed to stem from my strenuous relationship with my mother and older sister. They were, in some very vital way, one of the reasons why I looked forward to summers in Cousins the most. Because I could get away from them and have a life outside of the one I lived in Portland, in a house that often felt like it was suffocating me. 

All that bad and more, Jeremiah knows about. Heck, some of it he lived with me. He knows me better than I know myself, every bare inch of my soul. And I know I should be grateful for that. I should be celebrating the fact that I got so lucky to fall in love with someone who knows me so well that he can read even the slightest change in my behaviour. But I don’t want to. Not right now. Not at this moment.

Right now, all I want to do is wallow in my own pity and self-loathing. 

“I didn’t have a fucking fight with anyone, Jeremiah. Chill out.” 

I go to grab the whiskey again but he stops me. I was expecting him to because that’s who he is, but when he throws his arms around me in a hug, I’m left feeling more confused than ever.

He holds me tight, even scooting closer so we’re pressed up chest-to-chest, and he squishes his face in my hair. I smell him everywhere – his shampoo which smells like Asian pears, the subtle hint of cologne on his skin, and his uniquely Jeremiah Fisher scent I love most. And I just… melt. 

The tears come on and I sniffle into his shirt. I don’t say anything and we just sit there and hold each other for a minute. When Jeremiah does speak, he surprises me. 

“We can drink if you want to,” he says, his hand finding its way into my hair. “As much as you want. But you have to tell me what’s going on.” He leans back to look at me. He searches my face for a second then adds, “Is this about the midterm grades?”

“How did you–”

“Mine were posted two hours ago, so I just figured yours were, too.”

I lick my lips to give them some moisture. Even though I’ve had two swigs of whiskey, I feel parched. “And how’d you do?”

Jeremiah rubs the back of his head sheepishly. “I’m failing intro to business and barely passing math.” He grins as I just stare at him. “But C’s get degrees, right?”

I huff as I stand to my feet. This is precisely why I can’t talk to him about what I’m going through. He will never understand what it’s like to actually give a shit about school and grades and the future. Jeremiah only thinks in now’s and the present. When we were in middle school, he used to say that he would never work a day in his life because his father had so much money. He never once gave thought to making his own. His attitude even now seems to allude to old statements.

“Babe, I’m kidding–”

“Not all of us are rich, Jeremiah,” I fume, turning on him with flaming red ears and heat coursing through my veins. “We don’t all have daddy’s money to turn to whenever we want. I actually want to go to grad school, and failing chemistry isn’t going to help that!”

“I didn’t mean–”

Everything about this moment is slipping away from me and I’m transforming into a monster as each second passes, and yet, I cannot seem to bring myself to stop. If anything, I get worse. 

“Yeah, I know. You didn’t mean it like that.” I shake my head at him. “Are you ever going to take anything seriously? Or will you spend your entire life just having fun?”

Jeremiah jumps to his feet. His once calm demeanour changes, and he looks just as livid as I do. “What are you so pissed at me for? I didn’t fail your exam for you!”

I stare at him, not believing he just said that. Especially after being so sweet a minute ago. “Fuck you.”

His neck turns a dark shade of red, and his lips tighten to portray bouts of frustration I have undoubtedly flung on him. “What the hell is wrong with you? Just because I’m always nice and understanding doesn’t mean you can treat me like a damn punching bag, YN.”

“Nice and understanding?” I scoff. “Where was the ‘nice and understanding’ when I told you to stop playing video games so loud when I was studying for my test? Or when I told you I had to sleep but you dragged me to one of your stupid frat parties anyway?”

“You could have left any time you wanted!”

“So you and Miss Perfect Teeth could make out behind my back?” It’s a low blow and I know it but I don’t stop to think about the consequences when my mouth starts moving. Not even when Jeremiah looks at me like I’ve struck him with a sword. “I know what your frat brothers think of me. I know they think you should dump me for her. And honestly, why don’t you? She’s gorgeous and fits your type better than I do. She’s rich, too, so she’ll never fight with you about the future.”

In a low voice, Jeremiah whispers, “Where is all of this coming from? I thought we talked about Lacie. I don’t like her–”

“Yeah. For now. When I’m right here. When all of this is still so new. We’ve been together for two years. Two more and you’ll be sick of me.”

“That’s not true. Why are you picking a fight, YN? I love you–”

“And she could love you. Probably better than me, too. She’s definitely smarter. Did you hear she’s basically a shoo-in for Harvard? She’s going to become a freaking aerospace engineer and I’m failing first year chem!”

When the last of my words slip out of my mouth, Jeremiah walks past me and out my door. He doesn’t even glance back. Not once. And with him gone, everything I said comes flooding back and I fall to the ground crying. 

. . . 

Jeremiah hasn’t texted me. All day. It’s like he forgot he has a phone. A phone to call me with or text me with or do anything with. 

After our fight this morning, I was so certain we would go back to our old selves by the afternoon. But when his text never comes, even by sunset, I’m petrified that I ruined everything for us. Again. 

Most of all, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that the apologies outweigh me. I carry them around everywhere I go. It’s a Friday night and everyone on campus is readying themselves for a night in or a night out. There is a distinct buzz in the air, especially for that time between spring and summer. My first year at Fraiser Mont is about to come to an end and I should be celebrating with the person I love most. Instead, I’m walking around campus feeling utterly dejected and sorry for myself and trying to figure out if he and I can ever come back from this. 

Jeremiah and I have never really fought. Not about anything. Sure, we had our differences, like which Star Wars movie is the best or if Chinese or Indian food is better. But none of those differences have been so monumental to have completely upended our relationship – whether platonic or romantic. Now, I don’t know if I can say the same. 

It was so stupid of me to bring up Lacie. Especially since we already talked about it. Jeremiah had reassured me that nothing ever happened between them and nothing ever would. But the ridiculously insecure part of me kept thinking that if our circumstances were any different, there is zero doubt that Jeremiah would go for her. Even Taylor agreed. Belly thought Jeremiah loved me too much, but Taylor said that Lacie did seem like the type to beat a guy down until he submitted. So how long would that be? Lacie may be a year older than us, but Jeremiah’s never been opposed to older girls. He would kiss college tourists all the time back in Cousins.

Worst of all is what happened during my first week at Fraiser Mont and how, every so often, I replay it in my head.

Jeremiah had invited me and Natalie to the rager at the frat house at the end of the first official week of classes. I had meant to go and see his place earlier, but Frosh Week and basketball tryouts had taken up all my time. 

Natalie and I wanted to get dolled up with the girls in the hall, who were all going to different parties around campus, and between pre-gaming and photoshoots, we ended up being late to the party. 

Jeremiah was nowhere to be found when I first arrived, but Redbird was there and so were Wren and Clint. Wren asked us who invited us and Natalie said Jeremiah. Redbird got this look on his face, this look of understanding, and he immediately stuck his hand out for her. 

“Nice to meet ya, Mrs. Fisher. I’m Tom, but everyone calls me Redbird.”

Natalie giggled and shook her head, pushing me to the forefront. “Oh, that’s not me. YN is Jere’s girlfriend.” 

Redbird turned his eyes to me, stared for a second, then blinked twice. The haze of whatever he was drinking seemed to wear off and he finally understood what was going on. 

“Aw, crap. I fucked up. I’m sorry. YN, right?” He didn’t stick his hand out for me and everyone became visibly uncomfortable. Wren and Clint escorted Natalie in, while Redbird said he’d show me to Jeremiah. We walked inside and he kept talking. Over the last year, I’ve learned that Redbird talks a lot. “Sorry about that back there. I just figured when Fisher said he had a girl that she’d be…” Redbird seems to catch himself this time and flushes. “Sorry. I think I’m fucking wasted. I’m talkin’ outta my ass.”

When Jeremiah fell into view, Lacie was with him and they were smiling. Her body was way too close to his and he didn’t even seem to notice. He was talking to her and she kept nodding, taking dainty sips from her solo cup. I didn’t know her name or what she studied or anything else about her. All I knew was that I hated that girl. 

“Fisher! Your girl’s here, man!”

Jeremiah fell away from Lacie at once, grinning as he walked up to us. He threw an arm over my shoulder and tugged me into him, bumping fists with Redbird as he brought me over to Lacie. 

“Hey, Lacie, this is my girlfriend, YN.” 

Lacie nodded and smiled at me. At the time, I wanted to believe it was a pleasant enough smile. That it didn’t mean something awful. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said back, smiling too. “Do you go to school here?”

“Yeah. I’m in my second year.” Lacie turned to smile at Jeremiah. “Jere, it was nice catching up with you again.” Her hand landed on his bicep and swept down. I froze, but said nothing. What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey! Get your hand off my boyfriend, bitch!’ “I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah,” Jeremiah nodded in return, and I hated that his smile said he meant it. Either he was purposely being obtuse or he truly had no idea that that girl was flat out flirting with him. That she liked him. When he turned to me, I must have appeared peeved because he said, “Hey, you alright?”

I pasted on a smile so he wouldn’t know how I was feeling. I didn’t want our first college party to become an emotional warzone. Besides, that thing with Redbird was natural. It happened all the time when people saw me and Jeremiah together. Back in Cousins, Mr. Roscha once joked that Susannah was like Angelina Jolie with the circle of friends she kept. Even though she never invited the Roschas over for dinner again after that, Mr. Roscha’s comment stuck with me. Is that the way people saw us? Like some big poster board for multiculturalism?

It was the thing with Lacie that annoyed me the most. Lacie Barone pissed me off precisely because she was exactly Jeremiah’s type. Or at least, the type everyone expected him to have. Even when he said I was the only girl he loved, what did it matter if I didn’t live up to the women he actually found attractive?

After walking around for almost an hour, I set myself down on a bench outside of The Lindsay O’Brien Arts and Sciences Library. It is the most high-tech library on campus, with the newest computers and tablets for students. Natalie and I often find ourselves on the second floor, typing away essays or prepping for labs. It’s essentially our second home. There is a Starbucks on the first floor. Without really thinking about it, I gravitate towards it. 

Ten minutes later, I have two frappuccinos in my left hand and my phone in my right. I check Jeremiah’s location and breathe a sigh of relief when I discover he’s at the park down the street. I get on the first bus which passes by, hoping my drinks don’t melt too much. The bus drops me off at the edge of the park and the moment I step onto the sidewalk, I see my boyfriend in a white t-shirt shooting hoops with his frat brothers. 

None of them notice me walking up. They’re all equally as enthralled in the game as the others. The game looks intense and I wonder if I’ll be able to catch Jeremiah’s attention at all. I take a seat on the bleachers and wait, taking sips from my drink every so often. 

I keep my eyes on Jeremiah. He moves so coolly over the court, as if it was made for him to run around on. In high school, watching him play football was incredible. He was so good at it, so alert at all times. His coach thought he might play professionally someday. Even when his dad ignored his games, Jeremiah tried his hardest to be the best. And he was. This past winter, when he played hockey for the varsity team, he was phenomenal on the ice. Each game felt like I was watching a beautiful story unfold. And he seemed happier, too. Happier on the ice than he ever was on the field. 

He’s a jock. He always has been. Sports are what he does best. And I love that about him. The fact that anything he puts his mind to, he does so well in. No matter how much effort it takes.

I’m finishing up my frappuccino when Jeremiah finally walks up to me. He pushes his curls back as he gets closer, moving them away from his eyes. He grabs his drink out the tray and takes a sip. 

“It’s melted–” He ignores me and keeps drinking until half the coffee is gone. I swallow the pain lodged in my throat and timidly meet his eyes. “Can we talk?”

He keeps the tip of the straw in his mouth and asks, “What about?”

“Just… everything.” I know him. I know he won’t make this easy. He wants me to apologize and put on a performance and I will. I’ll do anything for him. Always. “Wanna go get cheeseburgers?”

He shrugs then takes another sip. “I don’t know. My car’s back at the house.”

“Let’s walk there.”

“It’s far.”

“That’s okay. We can talk on the way.” When he doesn’t respond after a few seconds, I turn desperate. “Please, Jere. This whole day has been so crappy. I just wanna eat burgers with you.”

And though he has every right to make me suffer a little more, just a little while longer for all the horrible things I said earlier, he doesn’t. Because that’s not who he is. He waves at his friends and promises to meet up later, and then off we go in the direction of the McDonald’s twenty minutes away.

Jeremiah doesn’t say anything at first. He just keeps sipping on his frappuccino. It isn’t like him to stay so quiet. He must be really upset. And I made him that way. 

We’re about to cross the street when I turn and face him, making myself look at him directly. I need to see him. To see him clearly and remember the promises I made to his mother and myself when she passed away. 

‘I’ll take care of your angel, Susannah.’ 

I reach for his hand and he surprises me by holding mine back. I smile a little, our intertwined fingers giving me a new sense of hope. He’s already looking at me when I lift my head up. “I love you,” I tell him, honest and truthful and real. “I love you more than ice cream and all the sand on Cousins Beach and more than Hayden Christensen in any movie he’s done.” Jeremiah rolls his eyes at the last remark, but the ends of his lips lift up, too. I’m making progress, thank God. “And I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean it. It doesn’t matter if she could love you or even if she already does. I love you more. I always have and I always will. I’m sorry I was mad. None of it was your fault and I did use you as a punching bag. I’m really sorry, Jere. You’re my favourite person and I love you so much and I just…” The end of my sentence gets muffled by his chest as he brings me into him for a hug. I breathe him in, in all his sweaty, Jeremiah Fisher goodness. “I don’t want to lose you.”

He kisses my hair. “You won’t. Not ever. Not to anyone.” He pulls away so we’re looking right at each other. “You’re the only girl who never gets mad when I eat the last of her food, so how could I lose you?”

His little joke gets a thunderous laugh out of me and when he lifts my hand up to kiss the back of it, I know we’re okay. Really, really okay. Maybe we will have more of these useless and ludicrous fights in the future but so long as we find one another again, we’ll be alright. 

At McDonald’s, I save one last French fry and as the two of us are leaving the restaurant, I catch Jeremiah by the sleeve of his shirt and force him to look at me. Then I stick one side of the fry in my mouth and he does nothing but chuckle, bring me in by the waist, and chew on his end until his lips meet mine.

. . . 

JEREMIAH

— second year, on a sunday

I’m swamped after hockey practice tonight and truthfully, I should do as Coach recommended and catch up on my sleep in time for the big game tomorrow night, but as it goes, I’m bad at taking advice and I would much rather be in my girlfriend’s bedroom with her feet in my lap as she reads her textbook and I decide between the five different shades of blue nail polish she has. 

“Just pick anything,” she instructs, wiggling her toes at me.

I mull over the choices again. Cobalt blue. Sky blue. Peacock blue. Ocean Blue. Sapphire Blue. So, so, so many blues. Half the time I think these are all the same colour and the nail polish industry is just lying to these girls who buy them. There can’t possibly be that much of a difference between all of these blues. Right?

“Jere, come on,” YN whines, looking up from her history textbook with a flicker of irritation. “The faster you do this, the faster I can get ready and we can go.” 

I pick up the one labelled ocean blue and spin it open. “Alright, princess. Chill for a sec.” I hold her big toe and slowly paint down her nail. “There. One toe done.”

YN looks over her book again and grins. “Why do you always pick ocean blue?”

I gawk at her. “How can you tell the difference between all these blues?!”

“I just can.” She puts her book down and smirks. “Wanna know why I always pick blue nail polish?”

I get started on her other toes. “Because it’s your favourite colour.”

“Yeah, duh. But why is it my favourite colour?”

“Because…” I finish off with the second last toe and look up with a cocky grin. “Because of my beautiful blue eyes.” For emphasis, I make my eyes bigger and blink in rapid succession. “These babies are what made you fall for me, huh?”

“Well, it definitely wasn’t your charming personality.”

I laugh and easily pull her other foot closer. Over the years of continuously doing this, I think I could get a degree in it. I might be as good at painting nails as I am at hockey or football. “Or was it the fact that I gave you a nickname and bought you ice cream?”

“Probably the ice-cream.” I tickle the bottom of her feet and she giggles. “I like blue because it reminds me of the ocean, too, and of being back in Cousins.”

I cap off the nail polish and smile at her. “We’ll go down as soon as school lets out. Deal?”

“Yeah.” 

The both of us have been going back down to Cousins Beach since last year. After Dad tried to sell the house – Mom’s house – it felt all the more important to keep going back, to keep making memories even if the person who held everything together was gone. In a way, being there meant being closer to Mom, too. Her grave was closeby and we could visit whenever we wanted. 

These days, I was thinking about asking Con if he would be okay with me and YN living there permanently after we graduate. I haven’t talked to her about it, but I know she would want to. I can build that surf shop with my inheritance and YN could find some work in town. Most of all, I think we could both be happy there. In the place that started it all for us. And I could marry her there. Kiss her on the beach in front of our families and friends. Promise my life to her like I already have so many times in my heart. 

YN uses her big toe to poke my stomach. “Hey, what are you thinking so hard about?” I grin and lift up that same toe to kiss it. She recoils and makes a face. “Ew! Gross! Do you have a thing for feet all of a sudden?”

“No, but maybe I just have a thing for your feet.”

“You disgust me.”

I lean over her body until I’m right on top of her. Her textbook falls out of her hands, landing somewhere on the floor, and I just take my time to stare at the girl I’ve been in love with my whole life. “I’m disgusting?”

“Oh, yeah,” she replies, her breath on my lips as she cards her fingers through my hair. I’ve always loved that, that feeling of her familiar fingers floating through my hair. There was no better feeling in the world. Sometimes, it reminded me of my Mom, too, when we would be on the couch and she would read me her poems and run her fingers through my hair for hours. YN leans in until our lips are milimetres away. “I think you’re filthy.”

The next thing I know, I’m sucking a hickey on her chest, she’s moaning my name, and we both forget to tell Natalie that neither of us can make it out to dinner with her and her boyfriend tonight. 

. . . 

YN

— third year, on a saturday

A few girls around school, the ones interested in hockey anyway, have taken to calling Jeremiah ‘sex on legs’ recently. His first two years as a defenceman put him on the map as a member of the Fraiser Mont Boys Varsity Hockey Team, but after this summer, when his Coach asked him to fill in the role as forward centre, the girls have been nothing short of loco. Everywhere you go on campus where hockey is even slightly mentioned, Jeremiah is talked about. And not only that, he is discussed. There is a message board outside the team’s locker room and I have seen more than a handful of love notes for my boyfriend stuck on it over the last few weeks. 

Funnily enough, I’m not jealous. I thought I would be since the Lacie Barone thing triggered me like crazy in first year, but surprisingly, I’m okay. Better than okay. And if there ever is a time I do find myself growing irksome, Jeremiah finds a way to dispel my bad thoughts (usually through physically draining means, which I’ll never complain about).

Tonight, the team is playing their last game of the season. Everyone is on high alert, especially since it’s a home game. The members’ families and friends are all here to witness the brilliant sporting event, and I’m happy that Mr. Fisher actually made it out. I was surprised when he called me to ask for the details last week. He said he would make time in his schedule to come. And then he did. And now, he’s sitting right next to me as I cheer so loud, my ears sting. 

I’m wearing Jeremiah’s jersey. His number is 27, and he always gloats to anyone who will listen that it’s my birthday. I’m sure people are sick of hearing it, but he never stops. He shows me off like I’m better than a trophy. And I guess, to him, I am. 

“YN,” Mr. Fisher says, grabbing my attention as I much on hot popcorn. I bought two bags for us but he has hardly touched his. I guess he’s colder than I am since he hasn’t even taken off his gloves. “Explain something to me.”

“Sure.”

He looks out at the rink, to where his son is nodding at his team member. “Is Jere always like this?”

“Like what?”

“This… cheerful playing hockey?”

I know what he’s trying to ask me, the question within the question he is afraid to voice. That parental regret I have learned is more normal than one would think. Mr. Fisher wonders if he steered his youngest child in the wrong direction when he pushed him to play football, like he did with his oldest. And now, he is thinking in what if’s. 

“Yes,” I nod, full honesty on my tongue. There is no point in lying to him. He doesn’t deserve that and neither does his son. “He is. He loves hockey more than anything.”

“More than football.”

“Yes. He… he loved football, but not like he loves hockey. He’s incredible on the ice, Mr. Fisher. Just look at him.” I smile out at the rink, watching Jeremiah glides across the ice like he was made to do it. “He belongs out there. Even though he grew up not playing it regularly, he’s now playing forward for one of the most exciting college teams in the country. That’s how extraordinary your son is.”

Mr. Fisher doesn’t say much of anything after that. He stays relatively quiet for the rest of the game, except for the parts when everyone cheers. When he cheers, it’s loud and proud and I’m sure Jeremiah whips his head around to hear it. I hold back my tears so I don’t ruin the moment. 

When the game is down to the last minute, everyone is at the edge of their seat. There is one goal standing between loss and victory. The entire arena is deadly silent, quiet in a way that is almost serene. But then Jeremiah focuses and his back bends and when he splits the ice with his shot, it flies right past the goalie and into the net. 

I let out the biggest scream of my life and Mr. Fisher laughs, and when I hug him, he hugs me back. We start jumping up and down together, the arena cheering and hooting and hollering. Jeremiah’s teammates all hit his back and helmet and he spins and laughs and then he’s skating over to the edge and I’m running down with Mr. Fisher right behind me. 

As soon as I’m in his line of vision, Jeremiah pulls the cage up and pulls his helmet off. I throw my arms around him and kiss the side of his head four times, just the way he likes. Then I kiss his lips because I can and because I just heard yet another girl walk by calling him hot. 

“You did so well,” I whisper, feeling so proud of him as he looks at me. I touch his hair and move strands away from his forehead. “We’re partying till dawn tonight.”

A sexy wickness flashes through his eyes. He knows exactly what I’m talking about and he’s just as excited as me. “I thought of you when I took that last shot.” He brings me in by fisting my jersey and kissing me. On my mouth, he smilingly whispers, “And I can’t wait to take so many more after this.”

I giggle as I pull myself away from him, giving his father space to talk to his son. I don’t know what they say to each other but I do know that the genuine smile on my boyfriend’s face is something I’m etching to memory. I snap a picture of them together on my phone and promise to get it printed for both of them later.

Once Mr. Fisher is gone, Jeremiah and I are walking out to the parking lot. We barely get inside his car before most of my clothes are off and I’m moaning his name under the stars.

[chaotic-on-main]

Do you hear that?? The tinkling chime of your favorite instrumental blasting from an oncoming ice cream truck down the street? It's summer where I'm at which means it's time for hot weather and cold ice cream!

Let me write you a drabble/one-shot!

My freezer is on full blast and my shutters are now open until July 31st! What can I get ya?

What I need from you:

☀️ Send me an ask with your preferred ice cream and favorite topping! ☀️ Please only one ice cream and topping at a time, but you are absolutely allowed to request more than one! ☀️ With your ask, please give me a general scenario/idea you'd like to see in it! As you'll see, the tropes are very vague and if you're able to give me some specifics, it will help a ton!

Rules:

☀️ Must be 18+ to partake. Please have your age on your blog. It doesn't have to be specific, just "over 18+" will do! ☀️ I do not and will not write smut, but I can do suggestive as stated below. I also will not write non-con, A/B/O, SA, or cheating. ☀️ No anons allowed. If you ask on anon, I will not answer. Unfortunately with anons, I have no way to confirm your age. ☀️ I do reserve the right to turn down a request. I may dm you with a reason why if I choose not to.

Important notes:

☀️ I do not plan to start on these until I finish my last chapter of my main fic Unspoken Words which means it will probably end up being the beginning of July! ☀️ All characters are aged up. ☀️ I've never written for a lot of these characters so it might take me a bit longer but I WILL get it done. ☀️ This is open to any and all. Following not required but much appreciated! ☀️ I will most likely write gn!Reader unless stated otherwise! ☀️ If not stated, I will most likely write these in a ModernAU unless I can make it work in canon! I may dm you if I'm running into problems.

☀️ Levi ➵ matcha green tea ☀️ Hange ➵ mint chocolate chip ☀️ Erwin ➵ rum raisin ☀️ Miche ➵ cinnamon ☀️ Armin ➵ vanilla bean ☀️ Sasha ➵ cookie dough ☀️ Jean ➵ peanut butter cup ☀️ Connie ➵ cookies and cream ☀️ Marco ➵ double fudge brownie ☀️ Reiner ➵ lemon sorbet

☀️ Gojo ➵ birthday cake ☀️ Megumi ➵ pralines and cream ☀️ Toge ➵ chunky monkey

☀️ Tanjiro ➵ raspberry sorbet ☀️ Nezuko ➵ red velvet cake ☀️ Rengoku ➵ pumpkin spice ☀️ Uzui ➵ neopolitan ☀️ Shinobu ➵ lavender and honey ☀️ Mitsuri ➵ sakura blossom ☀️ Giyuu ➵ sea salt dark chocolate

☀️ Percival ➵ coffee ☀️ Vex’ahlia ➵ salted caramel ☀️ Scanlan ➵ rainbow sherbet ☀️ Pickle ➵ orange dream ☀️ Keyleth ➵ butterscotch ☀️ Vax’ildan ➵ black cherry ☀️ Grog ➵ rocky road

☀️ Sprinkles ➵ first date ☀️ Caramel drizzle ➵ hallmark AU ☀️ Whipped cream ➵ meet-cute ☀️ Chopped nuts ➵ blind date ☀️ Cookie crumbles ➵ hurt/comfort ☀️ Candy ➵ mutual pining ☀️ Fresh fruit ➵ suggestive (smut-adjacent) ☀️ Hot fudge ➵ one bed ☀️ Kitchen sink ➵ whatever you want (within my limits)