#have I mentioned i have never imagined Tyler with eyes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

trippinsorrows · 2 months ago

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looking through your eyes + eighteen

authors note: this one gets pretty heavy and violent at points. please read the cw/tw's carefully in order to make the best informed decision regarding your mental ability to handle such heavy topics.

cw/tw: angst, violence, torture (gore), (light) fluff, ptsd episode, character being triggered, and references to childhood sexual assault

song inspo: ‘looking through your eyes’ by leann rimes

masterlist + story playlist

words: 10k

Solana knows Roman well.

She knew to start off the letter the way she did, asking for him to be open minded, because she knew exactly what his answer would be.

No.

It’s the same answer he still has even after her logical explanation. It’s a selfish thing. He’s a selfish bastard at heart because despite her being vulnerable about her mental state and making a solid point, he still wants and plans to say no.

Still plans come and take her home in a week.

And while he has his reasoning, believing that she can continue her healing outside of some mental facility, it’s also for his own good. He just wants her home. He wants to not have the house be so quiet and empty. To not have to be reminded of her absence in everything from the lack of the aroma of her delicious cooking to Dulce yelping and whimpering whenever he walks in the door home from work without Solana beside him.

He just misses her, and he wants her home.

He understands where she’s coming from and agrees she could benefit from continuing to talk to someone, to definitely stay on medication.

But, those things can continue without her being away from home.

There’s also the matter of safety. Yes, Roman went above and beyond what was probably necessary to ensure she has a copious amount of protection, but that’s still not as safe as her being with him.

And he’s almost certain that the facility she’s talking about is the same one Stratus mentioned to him. The place that’s an hour away.

That’s too fucking far.

From their home, Roman can make it to the hospital in ten minutes, if need be.

Solana being an hour away from him just isn’t a fucking option.

He needs her…..she needs to be close to him.

He’ll just have to help her understand that.

But, all of that is easy.

What’s not easy is the other major takeaway from her letter.

I love you, Ro.

In all of his thinking, perhaps overthinking, regarding his thoughts and feelings about his wife, never did it really occur to him that she could feel the same. He knew she cared about him. She’s said as such to him before. But, for whatever reason, he never allowed himself to imagine that she could love him.

And that she could love him without expecting anything in return. Because she believes him incapable of loving her because of his own trauma, and that’s not entirely wrong.

He does love her.

Fuck, he loves the living shit out of her.

But, he can’t act on it.

Even with this unexpected twist. Her loving him, which fucks with his head too. The why of it.

There’s not a lot to love, if he’s being honest.

He protects her. Keeps her safe. Gives her that safe space. Beyond that, there’s not really anything else.

Her standards must be so low.

Regardless, Roman can’t allow this new piece of information to change or impact his decision.

He can’t openly reciprocate her feelings.

Even….even if he sure as hell feels the same. It’s too risky. Too dangerous.

He just can’t.

Roman may love her, but he can never tell her he loves her.

It just has to be this way.

________

Ryan Alexander

Tyler Hawkins

Two men whose lives have been intertwined in various ways in the almost 60 years they’ve walked this earth. It started with a meeting in college, both men playing for the same baseball team, having a few of the same classes together, even pledging to the same fraternity.

They would end up in the same graduating class and go on to open up their own private security company that offered protective services for upscale clientele. Celebrities, athletes, even politicians.

But…..for the right amount of money, they could do more than just protect lives.

They could take them too.

The company easily and quickly made its name known through the right or maybe wrong places. Information falling in the lap of parties who were less interested in safety and more interested in murder.

It’s how Xavier Miller got in touch with them. How Solana’s father hired them to take out his wife and daughter after learning of her plan to run away and steal his children away from him, more his son than anything. He really didn’t give a shit about Solana.

Never did.

It was why when the hit failed to take out both Nina and Solana, Xavier was able to negotiate so that instead of paying the remaining debt due after the deposit. He got them to agree to slash it in half, leaving him owing 250k. The problem was as it always has been though. Xavier lacks vision, lacks long-term vision. He didn’t think about how finances could change for the negative between the time he made the deal and when payment would be due.

Because when that day arrived, he lacked the sufficient funds. But while Xavier may lack good financial and investment knowledge, he makes up for it in craftiness.

He formed a new deal. One that truly gave all three men a win-win. Xavier’s debt would be cleared, and Ryan and Alexander would be able to enjoy indulging in one of their favorite sexual pastimes. A privilege they can usually only pursue when traveling overseas where child sex slavery runs a lot more rampant and unregulated.

By luck though, they got their fill domestically in the form of an innocent, 12 year-old little girl.

A virgin.

Xavier’s daughter.

Solana Miller

Now known as Solana Reigns, the wife of the infamous Roman Reigns. The same man who Ryan and Tyler have no idea has been behind the absolute hell they’ve been through in the past almost two weeks. Kidnapped in the middle of the night, subjected to an unauthorized but ultimately approved (by Roman) beating by Jimmy and Jey before they were reunited with Xavier’s ain’t shit ass who had also received a long overdue beating from both Roman and the twins.

That beating, however, was nothing compared to the beginning stages of their demise, a version and level of hell only few experience, but something these fuckers have front seats for.

Roman is methodical with his torture, and this might be the most determined he’s ever been to maximize pain.

He’s going to ensure they only take their last breath when he feels it’s time, when he’s exhausted any and all ways to extend their life in order to extend their suffering.

And while many would think it started with the beatings, that’s far too simple, too easy. And Roman is neither of those things. He’s calculated and borderline sadistic when the occasion calls for it, and there’s not been a more deserving occasion for him to act on his dark, evil impulses than this.

So, it was only fitting that all three men, the rapists and the son of a bitch who organized it all, know exactly what it’s like to experience what they put Solana through.

And that’s exactly what Roman organized. Having all three men dumped and left defenseless in a maximum security prison. Whatever happened, fucking happened.

And judging by the battered, stunned, borderline traumatized expressions on their cut, brusied faces, exactly what Roman wanted them to experience is precisely what they fucking got.

For almost two weeks straight.

Jimmy and Jey toss the three men down on the ground before Roman before moving to stand behind him on either side.

“Ya’ll like fucking little girls, don’t you?” Jimmy sneers, Roman not even needing to look at his cousin to know he’s livid. “So what’s the big fuckin’ deal?”

“Don’t like it when your assess the ones on the receiving end, huh?” Jey taunts. Fitting.

But, now…..now it’s time for the real pain to begin. Roman lifts his hand to signify his desire from silence. The twins go quiet almost immediately.

The Tribal Chief turns up his nose as Ryan spits up blood onto the concrete floor. Granted, it won’t make much of a difference. When Roman is done with them, the room will be bathed red.

He steps forward.

“August 7th, 2005 and September 8th, 2007.” Roman shrugs and asks the men, “what’s significant about these dates?” When he doesn’t receive an answer, he takes his gun and aims it for Tyler, emptying the bullet into his knee. The man howls in pain and begins to cry. Roman scowls. Pathetic bitch. “I aksed a fucking question.”

He gaps,, forcing out through closed eyes. “I–I don’t know.”

Roman crouches down in front of them, ignoring the stench of piss and perspiration emanating off their pathetic bodies. “August 7th, 2005. A mother and daughter were attacked. Stabbed. Mother died trying to protect her daughter. Daughter survived. She was ten-years-old.” Roman looks away at the adjacent wall, jaw clenching a bit as he recalls the next part. “”September 8th, 2007. Two men break into the house and spend hours gang raping a child in her own fucking bedroom before beating her half to death and leaving her for dead.” Dead fucking silence. “She was 12-years-old.” He turns his empty, stoic gaze back onto them. “Sound fucking familiar now?”

“You carried out the rape,” he gestures to the set of crying rapists and then a numb looking Xavier. “And you arranged it.” Roman shrugs, rolling his big shoulders. “Seemed only fucking fair you three got a taste of what you put her through.” He then chuckles. “Now, I am a fair man. A fair Tribal Chief.” In a matter of seconds though, his disposition completely shifts, changes into something cold, heartless. “But, you don’t get that. You don’t get that fairness. You don’t fucking deserve it. You tortured her. You made her life a living fucking hell.”

“But you know where you really fucked up?” He reaches his arm out, pointing toward the sledgehammer, one of the twins placing it in his hand. Roman stands up and kicks Tyler backwards, hesitating not a second as he brings it down to his knees, one by one, effectively and immediately shattering both. “You did it to my wife.” Roman taunts over the sound of the man crying. He then moves to Ryan, aware of the knee he already shot, sticking with one to avoid too much blood. Can’t have the bitch bleeding out just yet. “That twelve year-old girl was my wife.” When he gets to Xaveir, he exerts a special amount of energy to strengthen the impact of his blow as he demolishes the older man’s knees. “That ten year old-girl was my wife!”

Roman tosses the sledgehammer to the side as someone has the audacity to utter out a pained, “p–please.”

That infuriates Roman more than what should be humanly possible. “Please?” He sees the word came from Tyler. Snarling, Roman jumps over the man, raining a blow so heavy that it breaks his nose, the sickening crack sounding through the air. “Is that what she said when you fucking held her down and raped her!”

The thought alone results in Roman continuing to punch the man until his fist is painted red and Tyler is clearly on the verge of losing consciousness.

Standing back up, he huffs, speaking to the rapists, “17 years. She’s suffered for seventeen years because of you.” He points to a barely there Xavier. “And 29 years because of you.” Roman’s upper lip curls a bit as he swears, “if I could torture you all for that long, I fucking would, but I can’t, so days will have to suffice.”

He’s filled with another level of rage when the cries and pleads for mercy intensify. “Shut up!” He then forcefully demands of the twins, “bring him in!”

Jey, he thinks, disappears for a few minutes only to return with an also bruised, battered Wes. Roman scoffs with disgust as Xavier looks horrified at the presence and sight of his son.

He coughs out, ribs probably broken or at least fractured. And if they’re not, Roman will make sure they are before the end of the night. “Pl—please don’t do—”

Roman has heard enough. This piece of shit has the fucking audacity to beg and plead for the life of his son but couldn’t even protect his own fucking daughter?

Fuck that.

Fury fills and controls the Head of the Table as he yanks up a barely conscious Wes and throws him against the brick wall, the impact loud enough for the sound of his shoulder popping to fill the room. Roman then grabs the sledgehammer again and rains it down on not only his knees but his hands as well, effectively smashing them, resulting in grotesque hairline fracture, bones protruding from his skin..

Xavier cries out and begs Roman to stop, which only fuels his tirade even more. Drives him to continue his brutal assault. Roman slams his fist onto Wes’s face, breaking his jaw before Roman squeezes the fucking life out of Wes’s neck and slams him again against that same brick wall.

And without second thought, as Wes fights to remain conscious, face almost unrecognizable at this point, Roman reaches for his eye, using his middle and index finger to gouge out his eyeballs one by one, ignoring the horrified screams of both father and son.

Xavier is full on sobbing but practically screams when Wes body drops to the ground like a ragdoll, and Roman tosses the bloody eyeballs toward Xavier.

“Waterboard him!” Roman directs to the twins who don’t hesitate to drag a crying Wes out of the room by his limp arm, most likely broken in the midst of Roman’s vicious beating. Breathing uneven, Roman flips his hair back that had come out of his bun and turns his attention back on the three older men.

“I’m going to make you all suffer the same fucking way you made her suffer,” he vows, every intention on maximixing pain in a way he’s never done before. “You’ll be wishing for something as fucking nice as hell when I’m done with you.”

________

Roman has just finished skinning a patch out of Ryan’s abdomen, the chunk of skin joining that of Tyler and Xavier’s slab of skin and other dismembered body parts.

Wes is up next on the list.

The fucker strapped to the chair has gone unconscious, but his pulse is still relatively strong, so Roman continues. He’s done this too many times to be deterred by someone tapping out.

Tossing the bloodied knife and saw to the side of the room with the rest of the blood stained tools of torture, he grabs the drill and starts to navigate which drill bit to use when the door opens.

Right away, he’s tempted to use the object in hand on whoever was stupid enough to interrupt him.

Roman turns to see none other than his aggravating ass cousin holding a phone. Of course. Attention back to the task at hand, he bites out, “I told you not to fucking bother me. Whoever it is, I’m busy.”

Jey is about as moved by Roman’s tone as he is by the bloody, gory scene before him. Indifferent but still eager to leave, he instead provides the additional information that he knows will absolutely snatch Roman’s attention.

“It’s Bautista.” Sure enough, Jey can see his cousin’s big shoulders go still. “He—”

Roman stands up, tossing the drill to the side and quickly removing the gloves that are caked in blood, skin, and other anatomical matter. He stalks toward Jey, issuing his harsh demand,“give me the phone.”

Jey does as such, sucking his teeth when some of the blood flicks on him. “Man, that’s nasty as hell.”

Roman doesn’t comment, just walks out the room for privacy and demands to the man on the other end, “what happened?”

Bautista doesn’t hesitate and is quick with an easy response. “She wants to talk to you, sir.”

There’s only a slight decrease in concern levels that Roman experiences in hearing that Solana wants to speak to him versus Bautista having to inform him that something has happened. She’s conscious. That’s good. “Put her on.”

Bautista doesn’t say anything, but Roman hears what sounds like slight movement and hushed voices. It’s followed up with a quiet sniffle and even quieter, “hey….” Another sniffle as her volume increases ever so slightly. “I’m sorry, it’s—it’s so late.”

Roman has no idea what time it is nor does he care what time it is. He just wants to know why she’s crying and who he has to kill. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

She takes a shaky breath and follows it up with an even shakier answer, weighed down with the heavy emotions she’s clearly struggling with at this moment. “We—we—we talked about my…my rape in therapy today, and I’ve never—I’ve never actually spoken about it to anyone, and I thought—I thought I was fine, but now…..”

His chest suddenly tightens. “Are you thinking about—”

“No.” Her answer is the firmest he’s heard in the conversation so far. Serious and solid. “Not that. I just—I can’t sleep because now I’m thinking about….about it, and I just….I wanted to hear your voice, and I’m sorry—you were probably asleep.”

No. No, he wasn’t. Far from it. And even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.

She comes first.

No matter what.

“I’m gonna come see you.”

“No.” The sniffling resumes as does her tendency to try to make herself as less of a ‘problem’ as she can, no matter how many times Roman tries to explain she never has and never will be anything of the sort. “I’ll–I’ll be okay.”

Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, he’s not taking the risk because Roman cannot physically handle hearing her crying, hearing her so upset and not be able to do anything about it.

“I’m coming, Solana. Give me a half hour, okay?” He’d head there straight away right now, but the idea of coming to her after spending house torturing men, blood, bone, and other unidentifiable matter splattered all over him, is the last thing she needs. “I’ll be there.”

There’s another delay, and he’d bet any money it’s her trying to hold back the tears as best she can. “Oh–kay.”

He swallows, asking, “can you put Bautista back on the phone?”

Again, more shifting on the other end. “Hello?”

“Don’t take your fucking eyes off her.” Roman’s tone is hardened and leveled. “I’ll be there shortly.” He doesn’t wait for a response, doesn’t need to provide instructions on how to make sure his wife is kept safe.

Bautista already knows what the fucking deal is.

Roman can’t get cleaned and showered fast enough, ridding his body of all of the telltale signs that he’d spent the majority of the day torturing his wife’s family and rapists. She doesn’t need to know that.

He’s impatient for the drive that feels much longer than the twenty minutes it actually is. A large part of that being that he just wants to get to Solana.

She’d called him. She’d reached out to him.

The same thing he wishes she had done that night. Something he still feels strangely about but will learn to sort through later. Not now.

Now his focus is on just making sure she’s alright.

That she’s safe.

Roman walks in with purpose, uninterested in Bautista’s short briefing, which is essentially more or less him just confirming that Solana hasn’t been left alone, another guard watching her as Bautista escorted Roman into the premises that’s otherwise locked down given it’s almost midnight.

Not that he gives a fuck.

Roman finds Solana sitting on her bed, legs pulled up to her chest. But, the minute her teary eyes land on him, she’s moving up from said bed, rushing over to him. Naturally, Roman catches her, holding her as she silently cries into his chest.

He’s gonna rip that fucking therapist a new one.

“I’m sorry—” Roman hates hearing her apologize. He hates seeing her upset, but the fact that she’s apologizing for feeling the way she does is a different layer of irritation. It reminds him of how she used to be. Makes him realize just how much and deep this regression has been. “I just—I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

He’s just about to once again remind her that she has nothing to be sorry about when her last statement snatches his attention. Alarms him a bit. “Solana….I need you to be honest with me—”

And she must know where he’s headed, because she pulls back, holding his gaze as she shakes her head. “I don’t want to hurt myself. I promise. I just….I just don’t want to be by myself.”

It makes sense, and he believes her. Somewhat. There’s still that part of him that’s skeptical. He’s not sure if that part will ever go away either.

Solana swallows and licks her lips, asking in that tentative voice, “will—will you stay with me tonight?”

It’s an easy answer. Something he already decided the minute he heard her crying on the other end of the phone.

“Yes.” She looks so massively relieved by that one word. “But not here.” And before the confusion fully sets in, he clarifies, “I’m taking you home.”

As expected, she looks surprised and torn, “Roman, I—”

“You get released in three days, Sol. I’ll bring you back tomorrow afternoon, but tonight, you need to be home. You don’t need to be here.” Roman isn’t a fucking professional, but he knows his wife. Knows that what she’s looking for is the feeling of security. There’s no more secure place than with him in their home. And even with Dulce.

Solana seems to be on the same page, nodding and offering no further protest. “Oh–okay.”

As she’s barely allowed any personal items, it takes less than twenty minutes for her to be ready to go, Roman directing Bautista to handle any issues that arise regarding her departure.

Roman is sure Stratus or even Gail will have issues with his decision. He’s also 100% sure that he doesn’t give a flying fuck.

Solana needs to get away.

She needs to be home.

She needs to be with him.

And, he’s proven correct, because the minute she walks into the house, she’s looking over at Roman, asking, “where is she?”

“Our room.”

Solana can’t seem to move up the stairs fast enough, Roman behind her, partially eager to see this long awaited reunion. He’s not sure who will be happier: Solana or her puppy.

It’s about a tie though, because the minute Solana moves over to the side of the bed where Dulce is sleeping and gets on her knees, carefully petting the puppy, Dulce’s head snaps up.

And instantly, she jumps at Solana.

They’re both crying, Solana holding onto Dulce who is a mixture of whimpers, licks, and that tail of hers excitedly wagging.

Solana says something in her to Spanish, something Roman can’t make out, but he doesn’t need to make it out. It’s obviously something moving.

Something healing almost.

Solana looks up at him, laughing and crying as Dulce tries to lick her face. Her voice cracks a bit as she says to him, “thank you.”

Roman nods, that same, warm, unfamiliar emotion building up. Fucking feelings.

Nodding, he says nothing, watching as she continues to hold onto and cuddle with Dulce.

Yeah…..

Definitely the right decision.

________

Roman lifts his eyes from the phone that he just put on Do Not Disturb to set his gaze on Solana. Out of the shower, she’s wearing only one of his shirts. Nothing else. He can tell by the way the cotton almost outlines her nipples.

Placing the phone to the side, he’s slightly taken back when she moves onto his lap. “I—” Her eyes drop downward, her hands grasping at his shirt. “I need a distraction.” He’s confused, but it’s only temporary as she trails off with the specific distraction she’s looking for. “Can we….”

He doesn’t need to hear more. Roman understands just what she’s asking for.

And his answer is simple.

“Solana, I don’t think…..” He has to phrase it correctly, word it so that it doesn’t sound like he is rejecting her. He is, but it can’t come across as just that. “You’re not—”

“I feel dirty,” she interrupts, eyes closing, mouth moving around as she does her best to balance emotion with verbalization. “I—I don’t want to feel that. I want—I want to feel you. I only ever want to feel you.” Solana opens her eyes, pleading almost. “Please.”

Something is telling him to tell her no, to find a way to decline without hurting her feelings or making her feel rejected, because that’s the last thing he wants.

But, it feels almost impossible. She’s upset. He doesn’t want her to feel the way she’s feeling, and if she believes being intimate tonight will help her, then he’ll give her that.

Roman nods and gently taps her hip, partially surprised when she moves off his lap, taking his hand as she lays back on the bed, pulling him on top of her.

Roman’s lips hover over hers as she breathes, “I just want to feel you.”

It’s taking a painful amount of self-control on Roman’s part to refrain from taking here right here and now. Because while he’s mentally conflicted, there’s no denying the hardness that’s growing in his pants by the minute as she lifts her thigh and grazes it against his hip. There’s no properly explaining how much he’s missed this.

He kisses her, tentatively almost, letting her take the lead as she moves her arms around his neck, tugging him closer. Roman’s hand goes to palm her breast through her shirt which makes her breathe against his mouth.

He shuts his eyes for a minute. He’d almost forgotten the sweet sounds she makes, fodder for his growing desire. He moves his mouth to her neck, sucking on the spot he’s learned makes her writhe under him, her nails scraping down his taut back.

And then, the shift.

Roman feels it only seconds before she acts on it, the way she starts to tense underneath him, the growing unsteady pattern of her breathing, the fear. But before he can pull away, she’s pushing him away, letting out a ‘no’ that comes from a different place, a different time. It comes from her trauma.

Her push is strong, but it’s not enough to get him completely off of her. Roman does that much all on his own, watching as she sits up in the bed and covers her face.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes into her hands. “I—I’m sorry.” Her shoulders tremble as the apologies melt into the bleeding of emotions she tried to mask away with intimacy. “I’m sorry—” Solana falling into a full out crying session, the third or fourth time she’s done as much tonight, is more than enough for Roman to motion her over to him.

“Come here.”

He’s at least grateful she lets him pull her onto his chest, letting her cry on him as he lays them back in the bed, his protective arms around her. For a second, he berates himself for taking her from the hospital. If they were still there, he’d wake up whoever the fuck he needed to wake up to give her that medicine she was prescribed for moments like this.

Moments where she just needs more.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, crying subdued a bit. But Roman is unsure what he dislikes more: the fact that she’s so upset or the fact that she thinks she needs to apologize for being so upset.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” is all he says. His hand is on the small of her back, moving in comforting circles. “Nothing at all, okay?”

She doesn’t say anything, just continues to cry into him, Roman wishing he could do more to settle her. It kills him to see her so upset.

A few minutes later, her tears having almost entirely subsided, she murmurs, “I’m sorry we couldn’t….”

He takes a deep breath, willing his voice to remain calm. “Solana, I told you before I don’t need that from you—”

“But, I wanted to. I just…..”

“It’s okay.” He cuts her off, kissing the top of her head. “I never expected that from you tonight anyway.”

He already knew she wasn’t in the mental space for it, but he didn’t want her to feel rejected either, so he went along with it. There’s a bit of regret, maybe more than a bit, but Roman also knows he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Still is.

“Rest.” He instructs, grateful when she simply nods against him, tucking herself closer into his body. And he watches her closely and intently, an infinite amount of pleasure rising within him when he feels the steady rise and fall of her body, confirmation that she’s finally drifted off into sleep.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep with her. He would actually prefer to stay up and watch her, but the weight of the day, mentally and physically, takes its unavoidable toll. And not too long after she succumbs to sleep, he does the same.

________

“Daddy.”

Roman’s eyes shoot open at the both familiar and unfamiliar voice. Looking down, he sees Solana sleeping peacefully on top of him, her hand atop his chest. But to his right, he finds sad eyes, tear stained cheeks, and a deep frown.

Naturally, he frowns a bit as well. He hates seeing any of this family upset. “Bad dream?”

She nods, holding onto the teddy bear in her arms. He’d gotten it for her a couple years back while he was away on business, and it’s become her comfort animal ever since.

Roman is careful in prying Solana’s arm off him, grateful when the extent of her stirring is simply her turning over on the other side. Over the years, she’s gotten better with not being as easily disturbed or woken up.

And he’s especially thankful for that in this moment.

Moving the blankets down and off, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and rolls his shoulders. She shifts the bear in her arm to one side and reaches up for him to pick her up. “Come here.” Roman does as such, pulling her up as he stands from the bed.

She lays her head on his shoulder while he quietly walks them out the room, cracking the door behind him. Roman takes her downstairs into the living room and hits the lamp on the side table before grabbing the remote off the coffee table.

Sitting down, she adjusts herself in his lap, holding onto her stuffy while he loads up the animated show with the creepy blue looking thing that kids apparently love, his included.

Especially the twin on his lap. It’s like her comfort show.

“You wanna pick the episode?” It’s a preference.

She nods and accepts the remote from him, selecting the same episode she’s watched the last 10+ times this has occurred. She almost always starts with this same episode, like she has to or else she can’t watch it.

A repeat and increasing thing, he’s noticing.

As the opening credits roll around, Roman gently rubs her back, asking, “you wanna talk about it?”

She keeps her focus on the TV while shaking her head no. An expected answer given the fact that she never really likes to talk in general, but as Roman thinks about the increase in how often this is happening, he’s starting to wonder if it’s past the point where she gets a choice in the matter.

For the past few months, every so often, or more often now, he’ll be awoken in the middle of the night by his youngest daughter. Upset and clearly crying, she’ll ask him to sit with her, to stay with her until she falls asleep again. Though at some point, the addition of letting her watch an episode or two of her show seemed to aid in not only calming her down but eventually lulling her back to sleep.

And every time Roman tries to get out of her just what these bad dreams are, she remains quiet, forcing him to wreck his brain over what could be bothering her so much.

The unknown of it all is starting to mess with him.

He can’t help her if he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Sissy?”

Both Roman and the daughter on his lap look over to see her twin rubbing her sleeping eyes as she walks over and climbs onto the sofa, the two adjusting so they’re both seated on top of him. “Did you have the bad dreams again?”

At that, Roman’s brow furrows. Did she talk about them with her sister?

He asks as such.

“Do you know what they’re about?” Roman and Solana suspected that she’d confided in her sister, her true confidant, but they also didn’t want to risk putting a rift between the sisters by making one feel like she has to ‘snitch’ on the other.

However, an unspoken communication of some sort is exchanged between the twins. The quieter of the two reluctantly nodding as the outspoken one shares, “sissy has bad thoughts…..”

Roman takes the remote and turns down the volume versus pausing as he notices she’s still trying to watch. To some extent. And it’s clearly helping to calm her, so he won’t deprive her of that. But, he does have to ask, “what kind of bad thoughts?”

That could be and mean so many things. And if the situation was different, he wouldn’t be too concerned. The level and standard for ‘bad’ that he has compared to his kids is vastly different. But given how upset his daughter has been getting, there’s gotta be something more severe to the ‘bad’ this time.

His twin, in more than just looks and demeanor, seems to hesitate for a second, Roman ready to encourage her that it’s okay to be honest with him. He needs that honesty at this point. “She—she has scary thoughts about something happening to you and mama. And—and bad dreams that something’s gonna happen to you when you go on your trips.”

Roman does his best to hide his surprise. And his concern. He wasn’t expecting that. Turning to the youngest of the two, he asks, “is that true?”

She looks down, tightening her hold on her bear as she nods slowly.

Roman closes his eyes and takes a second to gather himself. Comfort now. Process later. It’s become a bit of a routine for him.

Needing both of their attention, he takes the remote again to hit pause.

“Girls….” Roman has to remind himself to keep it simple and at a level they can understand. “I’m never going to let anything happen to your mom. Or to you. Or to your brother. And nothing is especially going to happen to me.” Seeing the emotion especially present in his youngest, he kisses her temple. “I’m always going to come back home to you guys, okay?”

And that’s a promise.

Come hell or high water, nothing could separate him from his family.

Especially his kids.

“Told you, sissy.” She then smiles a little, adding on with a toothy grin. “Daddy’s like a superhero.”

Roman chuckles. Far from it. But whatever helps them.

Taking over the duty of being the parent, showing that while she has many of her father’s interests and some of his temperament, she also has her mother’s caring nature, she asks, reaching for her little sister’s hand. “Wanna try to go back to sleep? You can sleep in my bed.”

The offer to not have to sleep alone as well as having some one on one time with him seems to be enough to be enough to coax her back to bed. He watches as the girls climb off his lap, the oldest taking the youngest hand, as she also handles the parting words, “goodnight, daddy.”

He offers a small smile. Their bond is something special. “Night, girls.” Hands still locked, they walk away, heading back up the stairs. “Love you.” He calls out after them.

An almost synchronized response is what he’s met with. “Love you too, daddy.”

It brings that warmth back to him, Roman blowing out a deep breath when it’s just him and the paused screen on the TV. He takes a couple minutes to sit on the weight of the conversation.

He doesn’t like knowing that his daughter is struggling with thoughts. Hates that they haunt her in the form of dreams. He knows better than anyone how difficult that can be. How exhausting.

So does Solana.

Thoughts of his wife and wanting to get back to her before she notices his absence and wakes up, Roman shuts off the TV and starts heading upstairs.

Walking back into their bedroom, he’s only partially surprised to find Solana awake, sitting up against the headboard, their son on her chest for one of his nightly feedings.

She gives him a sad, knowing smile. “Another bad dream?”

Roman nods and goes to sit back in the bed next to her. “Found out what they’re about.”

Solana’s eyes widen a bit. “She told you?”

He shakes his head. “The other one did.” He frowns a bit, sharing, “she’s having thoughts and dreams of something happening to us. Me especially.”

Solana’s frown is deep and concerned. Valid. “What? Where—Where did that come from?”

“Don’t know.” Roman answers. He’d have loved to been able to ask more questions, but it’s also the middle of the night and just getting some kind of answer is a huge win in and of itself. “But, I wanna schedule an appointment with her pediatrician. If something else is going on with her, we need to know.”

Roman has an idea of what it could be, now starting to put different pieces together. Her particular way of doing things, rituals of sorts, thoughts she can’t control. But, he wants to be sure.

“Of course,” Solana agrees. “I’ll call in the morning.”

Good.

Roman chuckles after looking over at the clock on the nightstand. 3:59am. He glances at Solana, “and you really wanna do this all over again?”

He’s still partially stuck on the fact that even with three kids, Solana is still wanting more.

The thought alone brings out a heavy sigh just from tonight’s events.

All three of their kids up and in need of something in the middle of the night like he and his wife don’t have work in the morning.

He can’t even really picture an additional child—or two–added into the mix.

Solana, however, only smiles, rocking gently to help soothe their son. “Only with you, papi.” A beat. “Only with you.”

________

“No!”

Roman is awakened by movement and volume. Both of which effectively deter and distract him from yet another strange dream, a fantasy of some sort.

Or…..something more.

Regardless, he has neither the time nor energy—nor desire—to think about that. Not with the woman violently stirring beside him. A nightmare. It’s obvious Solana is in the middle of a nightmare.

“No….” Twisting against the mattress, Roman sees the light sheen of sweat on her forehead. He frowns. How long has she been in the middle of this nightmare? “Get off me….”

At that, he stills a bit. With Solana’s extensive trauma, it’s pretty impossible to know just what specific traumatizing incident haunts her dreams and interrupts her sleep. But this….this one is pretty obvious.

And it guts him.

He moves his hands to her shoulders. “Baby, wake up.”

She starts crying, and Roman isn’t quite sure how much worse and useless he can feel. “No. Please—please. You’re hurting me.”

There’s a heaviness in his chest as Roman deepens his voice and shakes her a little harder. “Solana, wake up.”

It seems the more he says it, the more she writhes and cries, trapped in the throes of trauma. Roman doesn’t want to be physical with her, doesn’t want to exacerbate an already difficult situation, but he can’t just sit here and watch her suffer.

He moves his hands to her arms, restricting her just enough, raising his volume yet again. “Solana, it’s just a nightmare. Wake up.” He’s not entirely certain if it’s his escalation or just the natural progression, but she shoots up, eyes opening for the briefest second before slamming shut.

And then, the climax.

Roman is taken back when she starts pushing and shoving him, but that surprise is easily weighed down with sympathy when she starts talking again.

“Get off of me!” She cries, never once letting up on him.

He takes it all, her fists really of no consequence to him as he continues to try to break her from this torment. “Solana, please—”

“No!” She’s the one with the increased volume, Roman biting back a hiss as a sharp almost burning pain throbs in his shoulder, the area where he was shot. But, it’s irrelevant. His focus is on Solana and nothing else.

“Baby, it’s me.” He’s no longer restraining her, letting her let it out on him as much as she needs to. Whatever she needs in this moment, he’ll give it to her. He’s not sure what else to do besides that, to be honest.

But, it’s when Roman manages to cup her face, again, repeating the hopefully calming, settling words, “it’s me” that seems to help break through to her. Blinking, wet eyes open, filled with fear. He studies her, watching her focus on him, as the fear starts to diminish. Replaced with recognition. “R–Roman?”

He nods, his own concern settling seeing her anxiety lessen. “Yes. It’s just me.”

She releases a shaky, emotional breath, clearly coming to grips with what just occurred. But, her gaze settling on his shoulder seems to bring back that previous level of horror. “Oh my god, I—I hurt you.” She slaps her hand over her mouth, shaking her head. “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

He looks down, realizing she must have ripped his stitches when she was hitting him, blood trickling down his skin. Roman is entirely unbothered. “Solana, I’m fine.”

She doesn’t seem to be hearing him, too focused on the unintentional thing she caused. “I hurt you…..”

He lowers her hands from her face, kissing her inner palms. “Baby, it’s fine.”

“I–I’m sorry. I–She closes her eyes, taking deep breaths, asking him in an unexpected calmer voice. “I—I need to stitch it back up for you.”

Roman shakes his head. “I can do th—”

But, she cuts him off, sounding a little bit more stable and a lot more desperate. “Roman, please?”

Not wanting to risk upsetting her again, he shakes his head, allowing her to take the lead as she grabs his hand and guides him into their bathroom. Roman sits on the toilet and watches her silently move around, gathering the medical kit and other needed supplies.

His eyes don’t leave her as she works carefully and tediously to stitch him back up, Roman partially thankful her focus is on something else versus the horrific memories that seemed to have been tormenting her the past couple hours.

He wants to say something, do something to help her feel better, to especially rip away the guilt evident in her eyes at ‘hurting’ him.

Solana may be the only person on this earth capable of doing as such, but it could never be physically.

Ever.

“I’m not crazy. I—I promise.” Her voice is shaky, unsteady by understandable emotion as she finishes up, starting to put the supplies back. “I just—I don’t know—”

Roman takes her hands in his. “Sol, I know you’re not crazy.” Feeling an unfamiliar sense of openness and vulnerability, he asks her, “do you know why I was able to help you with your panic attack that night?” Her eyes are lit with confusion as she shakes her head no. Roman’s jaw clenches. He’s never once told a soul what he’s about to share with her. “It’s because I used to have them.”

Her reaction is exactly what he would expect from anyone to hear such words coming from him.

“Wh—what?”

Roman’s eyes divert to the wall beside her as he powers through the discomfort. “It was….it was after my family was killed. I’d have nightmares about it and wake up freaking the fuck out.” Just like her. “That’s when they’d happen.”

“But, I couldn’t tell anyone, because they were already questioning if I would be fit to lead.” He scoffs, “I had to be perfect. I couldn’t let anyone know how fucked up I really was from what happened.”

He can only imagine that the softness in her voice matches the expression on her face. “Roman….”

“But, I couldn’t keep dealing with the shit either, so I found this book at my school’s library about mental health and whatnot, and it had a section on panic attacks and how to cope with them. So, I studied and learned them. It’s been fine since then. Haven’t had one in years.” Though that similar budding feeling of panic that used to be present before they’d occur is something Roman’s noticed having versions of for almost the past two weeks.

Since he found out Solana tried to kill herself.

She lifts her hand to his face, and he closes his eyes. He can feel it. Can sense it. Her sympathy or maybe something different. Maybe empathy. Regardless, he doesn’t want or need it. The point was to not bring attention to his fucked up past but rather help her reduce some of her self-judgment.

He stands up, forcing her hand to fall down as he instead cups her face, looking and speaking directly at her. “You’re not crazy.” Far from it. And he needs her to know that. “You just….you need help.” His voice shifts into something softer. “And I’m going to make sure you get it.”

Her gaze also shifts. Something both hopeful and sad. “I–I can go?”

Roman only hesitates for a second. “Yes.”

The answer he gives her is in no way indicative of how he feels about it. He still hates it. Hates the idea of her not coming home for good in three days and instead going to yet another treatment facility. This one longer and farther away.

But, if there’s anything the past few hours have taught him, have shown him, it’s that Dr. Stratus and Gail were right.

And so was Solana.

She’s not ready to come home.

She needs more help.

And he can’t, won’t, be selfish. Won’t be too consumed by his own want and desire to have her back with him. Not when it directly contrasts what she needs.

And what she needs is continued professional help.

So, that’s exactly what she’s going to get.

“I’ll talk to Stratus about what we need to do.” And that’s more so in regards to location solely, so Roman can get a head start on working on safety precautions for her. He’ll keep Bautista with her. That seems to be a good fit.

Solana, however, is bubbling with emotion again. From a different source. For a different reason.

She pushes herself into his chest, Roman easily dropping his hands to her waist, kissing the top of her head. “Thank you.” It’s as he holds her, her face buried into his chest that she murmurs those three, sacred, terrifying words. “I love you.”

He closes his eyes.

It’s one thing to read it but something entirely different to actually hear her say it.

He doesn’t know how to respond, how to react, what to say.

Even if does feel the same way.

So, he says nothing.

________

“You took her out of the hospital.”

“Sure fucking did.”

Roman has never been so unbothered while sitting in Dr. Stratus office as she paces across, visibly and audibly stressed the fuck out by what occurred.

After agreeing to let her continue treatment at the other facility, Solana was finally able to get some sleep. Roman as well. Not a ton, of course, because he woke up to her spot in bed next to him vacant. Dulce missing as well.

And if not for the note left for him that read ‘fixing us breakfast <3’, he might have even panicked a bit. Just a smidgen. Of course she would spend time doing something for them rather than herself. It’s such a Solana thing.

Regardless, he enjoyed breakfast with her but hated to see the saddened expression on her face as she said goodbye to her puppy, Dulce’s ears dropping and the whimpering returning as she also picked up on the pending separation.

She’s also felt and been impacted by Solana’s absence.

But, it’s a necessary absence.

Solana needs help.

And it’s that, that oh-so important reminder, Roman keeps repeating to himself as this blonde bitch continues to berate him like he’s a fucking child.

“Who the hell are you to make that decision?” She continues, pointing at him. “You do not get to remove my patient from my care without speaking to me!”

“I did what I had to do for my wife. She needed to get the fuck out of here.” Roman is a man who doesn’t believe in explaining himself, but given the situation, he makes a small exception. For Solana. Only for her. “But, if you don’t lower your fucking voice, you won’t have to worry about her, or anyone else, being your patient because the dead can’t be fucking psychiatrists.”

Dr. Stratus closes her eyes and shakes her head. “At the very least, you could have just texted me what was going on.”

“Keeping you briefed wasn’t my priority.” At all. “Keeping my wife alive was.”

She opens her eyes, asking, “was she suicidal?”

“She said no.” Roman still isn’t entirely sure he believed her. She could have been telling the truth, but she also could have been lying for a lot of different reasons. Still, that’s not something he feels the need to share. “She said she talked about her rape earlier that day in therapy and was having….flashbacks.”

“Flooding,” Dr. Stratus informs. “It’s when a survivor experiences intrusive thoughts, images, and flashbacks of their trauma.” She then looks at him, almost surprised, “she called you?”

Roman nods. “Said the coping shit wasn’t working.”

The doctor plops back down into her seat, saying more to herself than anything. “Well, I suppose that’s a good sign. That she reached out to you versus….other things.” That’s exactly how Roman feels. “Regardless, in the future, at least let me know what’s going on. I would have told you to give her the Hydroxyzine. We could have seen if it’s helpful.”

Roman doesn’t disagree with her there. The thought of one of her medications potentially being helpful definitely crossed his mind. But, he’s not about to tell this woman that.

He’s got other things he needs to discuss.

“The facility you were telling me about….” Roman looks away, not eager to have this conversation but knowing he needs to. For Solana. “Tell me more.”

________

A loud, guttural, almost animalistic growl leaves Samantha’s mouth at the same time the glass plate is tossed against the wall, shattering and spilling into tiny little pieces all across her kitchen floor.

Not that it makes a difference.

Punching the fridge, she ignores the throbbing in her fist and ineffectively tries to manage her nerves, dissuading the burning urge within to scream. It’s been less than 24hrs since she regained the ability to speak, her jaw finally healed enough and no longer wired shut.

But, now she’s left with nothing but pent up emotion all directed toward one person.

Solana

That fat bitch ruined everything. She stole Roman from her. The man who she’s been with since she was a fucking teenager. The man she always imagined would be her husband and father of her children, who would make her his Queen of the Bloodline, but none of that will happen now.

It won’t happen because of that slashed face whore.

Because Roman chose her over him.

Which brings up unfamiliar feelings towards her former lover.

Roman is an asshole. Always has been. As long as she’s known him, he’s been a dick, so his cruel behavior at times toward her never really bothered her. That’s just his personality. She never took it personally.

Not until now, at least.

Because now, it’s not just his wife she’s mad at, it’s Roman too.

Granted, her fury toward the troll is significantly worse.

She’d kill the bitch if she could.

“Rough day?”

Samantha nearly jumps across the room at the sound of another person’s voice. She instead is braced against the refrigerator as she lands eyes on the last person she expected to find in her place.

“Seth?”

It takes another second for her to register that it truly is the once friend of her former lover. He sits on her sofa wearing at least three different types of animal print that are all outlined in some kind of bling, hair looking as unkempt as his mental health.

She’s sly in trying to move closer to the knife set on the counter.

Seth, however, is as perceptive as he is insane. She stills when he casually pulls out a gun. “Ah ah. I just want to talk to you. That’s all.” He makes a face, playing with the gun.“Word on the street is that you got dumped.”

Samantha’s eyes narrow a bit. How does Seth freakin Rollins of all people know about her ‘breakup’ with Roman? Only those close to Roman would know that, and there’s no way anyone close to Roman would be speaking to Seth……

Right?

“Who—”

“You’ll find out about the members of this little crusade once you agree,” he explains, placing the gun on the sofa beside him, casually viewing his nails that are painted a hideous green. Like the color of slime from Nickelodeon back in the day. “Can’t risk snitches, of course.”

More interested than anything, Samantha asks, “what are you talking about?”

“Oh, that’s right.” He giggles, standing up and pulling a flask out of what seems like nowhere. “We’re gonna kill Roman Reigns.” Seth takes a swig as Samantha’s eyes widen, before he adds on, as if he forgot. “And his wife, Sadie.”

“Solana?”

Seth shrugs “Yeah, she can get killed too. Why not?”

Samantha finally laughs, crossing her arms. “You’re even crazier than I realized. You can’t just kill, Roman.” It’s damn near impossible. Does he not know the mountain of bodies that have tried and failed at the very same thing he’s suggesting? “And there’s no way in hell he’ll let you get even close enough to kill that bitch wife of his.”

“Oh, that’s a lot easier than you think.” Seth takes the flask to his mouth again, voice teasing yet malicious. “The Bloodline is full of traitors.”

Samantha goes quiet, wondering how much of this is madness and just how much is true. It seems too asinine to be true.

But, there’s also the fact that the only way Seth could have known about Roman leaving her was if someone within the Bloodline told him, which would most definitely make them a traitor. And even that feels almost impossible. Roman’s family is notoriously loyal. Who would want to betray him?

The plural form of the word ‘traitor’ is also something that catches her attention.

Could there be more than one traitor?

Seth meanwhile seems to be in a sense of imaginative blood lust, practically squealing, “the infamous Roman Empire is going to be coming to a gloriously bloody, gory end, and we’re trying to see who all want to be a part of our little murderous, traitorous gang.”

Again, she’s caught off guard, realizing just now he’s clearly referring to more than himself. “Gang?”

Seth tilts his head, pouting as he says almost mysteriously, “we both know your former lover has no shortage of enemies.”

That is dangerously true, but what’s even more dangerous is this suicide mission Seth is proposing.

“How is this supposed to be any different from any other time people have tried to kill Roman?” As much as she would love to see Solana’s life drain from her ugly ass face, Samantha would rather not lose her life in the process.

Seth is way too excited to answer. “Because this time, the call is coming from inside the house.” Her eyes widen. “With a little….Nightmare help as well.”

There’s so much to process in that one bombshell of a sentence. “Someone in the Bloodline is orchestrating this?” Not to mention whatever role the Nightmare Factory is playing. That’s just salt on an open, gushing wound.

This type of betrayal is bound to crush Roman.

Samanth smiles.

Oh, revenge is so so sweet.

“I’ll join, but on one condition.” Seth’s brow lifts, a sign he’s ready to hear out her caveat. “That I get to stab and kill that bitch Solana myself. I get to be the one to take her from Roman.”

At the vision alone, Seth’s mad smile grows followed by that crazy ass laugh. “Oh, this just keeps getting better and better.” He claps his hands together, nodding. “You got yourself a deal, curly.”

Samantha nods, pleased with the arrangement.

Whoever previously took the knife to Roman’s little wife, causing all those ugly ass scars, failed to get the job done.

Samantha won’t.

She does have another question, shrugging. “So who all is a part of this shit anyway?”

She’s especially curious about who the traitor is.

Or traitors.

Of course, it’s just more mental edging with the self-proclaimed visionary. “You’ll get to meet the gang soon enough, but we’ve got one more person to recruit.” Samantha’s curiosity is evident, prompted by Seth casually tossing the flask up and down with a wicked gleam in his empty eyes. “Can’t take down Roman Reigns without inviting his good ole’ pal Brock Lesnar to join in on the fun, now can we?”

#roman reigns x black!oc #roman reigns x black!reader #roman reigns fic #roman reigns #arisnotebook

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spikedfearn · 1 month ago

Text

I Said Just a Little Bit, Then I Got a Taste of It

Chapter V

bjorn x fem!reader

summary: After being transferred to another sector of Jackson's Star you reluctantly befriend a ragtag group of people with the exception of one cocky asshole who knows just how to get under your skin.

On the surface, you hate each other, but after experiencing a particularly harrowing event together, the two of you grow closer than anyone else could ever imagine.

a/n: bjorn fucks you seven ways to Sunday. that's it, that's the chapter. also, I don't know why it took me five chapters to realize I never mentioned the title of the fic is from the song "small doses" by bebe rexha lol, the lyrics inspired the story, it's worth a listen if you've never heard it before.

warnings: secret friends with benefits, enemies to lovers, angst, alcohol/drug use, nsfw, non-linear narrative, trauma bonding, resolved sexual tension, praise kink (both ways), oral (giving/receiving), loss of virginity, dirty talk, shower sex, falling in love

tags: @asvtrials @urfavhanna @orangebeauty @3arthtoeden @barnes70stark (comment if you wanna be notified when a new chapter drops)

wc: 5.1k

Masterlist Next Chapter

It was meant to be a one time thing—sleeping with Bjorn.

Something that neither of you would ever bring up, not to anyone, not to each other, a silent pact of secrecy you mutually understood but, like everything else that's happened since your transfer to sector six, things don't go as planned.

Kay nearly lunges at you when she sees you again, having barely been extracted from the ruins of that specific section of the man made tunnel you’d been down in. Her fingers create wrinkles in the fabric near the shoulder blades of your grimy tee you haven't gotten a chance to change out of, face wet with tears, arms coming up to return her embrace, the first time you've actually ever done so.

She'd been crying ever since she heard the news, word having traveled fast about what had happened after you went looking for Bjorn in the mines. Kay and the others had immediately rushed over to the accident site only to be met with heavy yellow tape and traffic cones policed by armed guards, roping the area off to the rest of the colonists that had gathered there.

According to the reports, you and Bjorn had been trapped for just over six hours, which doesn't seem accurate, not when it felt like an eternity to you, throats tight from the fumes while you found comfort in each other.

Speaking of, you glance over to see Tyler and Navarro taking turns bear hugging Bjorn, squeezing him a little tighter, holding him a little longer, undoubtedly over the moon to have him back alive.

Navarro buries her face in his chest to hide her tears, never one to show her emotions just like her brother, though the shakiness in her shoulders gives it away, the flat of his palm running over her back to reassure her.

You turn the other way as soon as you realize Bjorn is craning his head to look in your direction, his gaze burning into your profile with the intensity of it, fighting the urge to look over and meet the icy blues of his irises.

While you keep your eyes trained elsewhere you can't help but wonder what Bjorn is thinking while he stares at you, if he's thinking about what you just did together. If he's remembering how you sounded crying out his name, the way you looked desperately bouncing on top of him, how it felt to be inside of you with nothing in between.

You suppress the shudder threatening to run down the length of your spine thinking about it, not wanting Kay to notice, even if you could theoretically write it off as a side effect from being trapped for hours.

That’s when Tyler makes his way over to you and Kay, who's just barely let you go, swapping places with her to hug you next and apologize profusely, feeling guilty for what happened, like he's trying to take responsibility for sending you in after Bjorn, like it's his fault.

“Tyler—Tyler listen,” you insist, hoping to assuage his remorse, finally getting him to pull back and look at you, holding you at arm's length by your biceps, “I don't blame you like—at all. How could you've possibly known what was gonna happen? Besides, it was probably a good thing, Bjorn and I talked it out and we're…okay now.”

Thing is though, you honestly don't know where the truth lies in that statement, having no clue where you and Bjorn stand at the current moment.

Yeah, you hooked up and yeah it was incredible, best lay of your life—which isn't saying much considering you were hammered every other time—but you have no idea how it'll affect your dynamic going forward, what parts of it will inevitably change and what will remain the same, if anything at all.

And that scares you, the uncertainty of it all, downright terrifies you. It's the entire reason you chose to isolate yourself from other people after your transfer, wanting to be left alone, a type of peace that can only be forged within yourself, finding solace in its predictability.

But you've been flirting with danger instead, ever since you accepted Kay's invite to hangout, telling yourself—lying to yourself—that you won't get too close as you were integrated into the group, so slow and imperceptible you didn't even notice until you were in too deep, up to your shoulders in a bottomless pit of quicksand.

Once the medical team on standby clears you and Bjorn you're free to go, watching Tyler sling his arm around Bjorn's shoulders and ask if he and Navarro would like to have a sleepover at his and Kay's, “yanno like when we wuz little,” he laughed, patting Bjorn's chest with an added layer of enthusiasm, Bjorn accepting the invite with an easy little smile and nod.

You part ways soon after, promising Kay you'll talk to her later after you've showered and gotten a good night's rest. Going home to clean off the dirt and debris and dry come, scrubbing extra hard between your legs, scrubbing your thighs until they're almost red and raw, like you're trying to erase what happened, washing the evidence down the drain by your feet.

Though it does nothing to get rid of the finger-shaped bruises sitting just under your hips or the hickey halfway down your neck, examining them while you stand naked in the mirror you have hanging in your bedroom, a gradually fading reminder of what happened between you and him.

A structural defect in the support beams, that's what you're told the day after the cave-in while you're clocking in for another sixteen hour shift, something that had resulted in a disastrous domino effect leading to the collapse. An accident waiting to happen, blamed on the colonists who first erected the area rather than the corporation that had them go into the mines in an unsturdy environment in the first place.

The rescue mission wasn't about you and Bjorn, you worked that out on your own, why would they care about two low ranking miners that were referred to by numbers anyways? It was about the valuable resources that could still be extracted, saving you was a byproduct of retaining that tunnel before it could bury it all under rubble and wood. Fucking figures.

After work you stop by a convenience store and pick up a variety of pregnancy tests from different brands just to be sure, rushing back to your apartment to take them in the privacy of your own home, holding the plastic bag close to your chest so anyone passing by can't possibly see what's inside.

The fifteen minute wait is eating at you, feeling longer than the time you spent trapped underground, leg jiggling impatiently while you sit on the closed toilet lid with your fingers loosely steepled together, one elbow resting on either knee.

You slump back against the porcelain tank, eyes rolling up to the plaster-ridge ceiling the same time all the tension in your body drains when they all, by some miracle, come back negative. Thank fuck. That's one less thing you need to stress out over. Now you just have Bjorn to worry about, which is significantly less terrifying.

There's a knock at the door, startling you, immediately sweeping your arm across the laminate counter to trash everything, yelling over your shoulder to, “hold on a fucking second!” when the knocking persists. It can't be Tyler this time, he isn't this impatient. Or annoying.

Although you wish it had been, your eyes meeting striking blue ones as soon as you answer the door, your heart plummeting to your feet like a runaway dumbwaiter in an elevator shaft.

“What the fuck are you doing here?!” You hiss, looking left then right then left again to check if anyone is around, slightly relieved when you see no one—only slightly though, because Bjorn is standing on your doorstep like he just—belongs here.

“Whoa, calm ur tits love,” he responds, holding his hands up in front of him, “want me ta’ suck on ‘em again?” he smirks right after, causing your blood pressure to spike through the roof.

You curl your fingers into the loose fabric of his shirt, Bjorn letting you roughly yank him inside, using his back to slam the door shut behind him, still wearing that smug, shit-eating grin on his dumb face.

“The fucking nerve of you just showing up here unannounced!” You don't yell, not wanting the neighbor you share a wall with to overhear but you get pretty close to it.

Outwardly you're fuming, his shirt still twisted up in your clenched fist but inwardly—inwardly you're trying not to buckle under your own weight, inhaling the familiar scent of tobacco and winter gum rolling off his warm breath, remembering the taste of it, knees feeling a little weak and strange because of it. What the hell is wrong with you?

“And how exactly would I announce it? S’not like I got ya’ digits princess,” he reasons, punctuating his sentence with an annoying little chuckle.

“Even if I did I would've blocked your dumbass immediately,” you fire back, a bit harsher than usual, wanting him to take the hint and get the fuck out of your home. You don't even wanna look at his face right now, still coming to terms with what you'd done while under duress.

Because seriously—who fucks in a mineshaft when you're about to die? It kinda makes you wish you did, hoping for a sinkhole to open up from under your feet right now and swallow you whole out of sheer embarrassment.

“Ma’ point,” he says, tipping his head at you, making you huff, “whatever,” lacking a rebuttal, letting his shirt go to take a step back and tightly cross your arms in front of you, “why'd you come here anyway?”

“Well innit obvious,” Bjorn answers, taking a step forward, then another. And another. And another. And you freeze up, Bjorn close enough now your bodies are almost pressed together, gently placing his thumb on your chin while the rest of his fingers curl under your jaw so you have no choice but to look at him, “for a round two princess.”

Your eyes go wide in surprise and your lips goldfish apart—you don’t know what you were expecting him to say but it definitely wasn’t that. “I only did it in the first place because I thought we were gonna die!”

Bjorn rolls his eyes, leaning in to whisper into your ear, voice like coarse velvet, “don’t act like it wasn't tha’ best screw o’ ya’ life, princess. The way ya’ were moaning ma’ name and tha' heavenly way you wuz squeezin’ around ma’ cock. Haven’t stopped thinkin’ bout it since.”

So he was thinking about what happened in the mine when he looked over at you during your little reunion with the others. You briefly wonder how often he's replayed it in his head, if he lay awake last night while everyone slept around him, remembering how it felt to have his fingers inside you, his cock. If he dreamt about it, hearing your whimpers and pleas to a vivid degree, the sensation of his hands touching the most intimate parts of your body, burning hot like fire ants across your skin, just like you did.

He runs his thumb over your bottom lip, bringing your attention back to him, his touch gentle—barely there, like he's handling porcelain, staring into your eyes for an incredibly long, drawn-out moment.

Then his lips are on yours again, soft and hesitant, like he's testing the waters and you just melt into it, powerless to quit while you're ahead, your eyes falling close as you open your mouth, letting his tongue slip in.

It's easier to find the rhythm this time around, having gotten more than acquainted with Bjorn's style of kissing, the slick sound of it permeating through your tiny apartment, heat already gathering in your pelvis knowing what’s to come, where this is leading to.

Bjorn chuckles into the warm, wet cave of your mouth, thumb running over your now spit glossed lips, eyes roving over your face, seeming to like what he sees, “who knew I jus’ had ta’ stick my tongue down ya’ throat to get ya’ ta' shuddup? Woulda done it tha’ first night i met ya’ if I'da known.”

“Fuck off—hold on,” you pause, spreading your fingers apart with your hand on his chest, feeling his quickening heartbeat against your palm, “I'm not about to let you fuck me raw again,” you follow up, firm in your stance this time, thoughts wandering to the pregnancy tests sitting in the bottom of your trashcan. You were so fucking lucky not to get knocked up the first time around, you're not about to risk it a second time.

A smirk stretches across his face, reaching into the pocket of his tan quilted lined work jacket to fish out a box of condoms, “bought a pack on ma’ way ‘ere. And I hope ya’ know I plan on usin' every. Single. One o’ ‘em. These fuckers are bloody expensive.”

You exhale a breathy moan, nodding your head in return before you curl your fingers into his shirt again, except, instead of pushing him backward you yank him forward, smashing your lips back together.

It's intoxicating—making out with Bjorn, maybe that's why you're so utterly weak when it comes to his advances, whimpering so needy and eager in response to him slipping his hands into the back pockets of your jeans to roughly squeeze your ass through them.

The kiss you're tangled in is somehow more desperate than the one you shared in the mines less than forty eight hours ago, like you're both testing to see if the first time was a fluke or if it'll be just as incredible on the second go around.

“Ya’ gotta call tha’ shots last time princess, this time I wanna,” he tells you, more confident this time around, his eyes softening anyways, “if thas’ okay with ya’?”

The smile you give him is equally as soft, genuine, squeezing his wrist where it's still resting against the denim of your jeans, “what do you want baby?”

“Wanna eat ya’ out. Make ya’ come on ma’ tongue then fuck ya’ nice and deep,” he groans thinking about it, arms circling your waist to keep you close, moaning back just as weak and strained. You've never had someone care about your pleasure the way he does, never had anyone go down on you.

So you're pretty sensitive when he does, needy and pliant in his hands when he has your hips pinned down to your bed, jaw going slack as he licks up between your folds, following your breathy direction.

It's hard telling him what to do, a broken moan escaping you on every other word, legs quivering under him, repeating, “good boy,” like a scratched record every time his tongue finds your clit, able to pinpoint it after so many praises whimpered, circling his tongue around it, spurred on by the pet name.

Cupping the underside of both thighs, his nails bite into your skin, drawing them up so your knees are pointed to the ceiling, wearing them like a pair of earmuffs while he sucks on the bundle of nerves his lips are curved around.

“Mmm, yeah just—fuck that feels so good, you're doing so good, keep going just like that. Good boy,” you keen, high and pretty, your hand going between your legs to find the sweaty mess of his hair and yanking on it, making him growl in response. So, he likes his hair pulled too.

Bjorn settles his upper lip just above your clit, careful to cover his teeth, his bottom lip just above your opening before he licks into you, pushing his tongue in, causing you to grind down onto him, pulling on his scalp a little harder.

He spells his name out on your clit, like he owns it, says he read up on it just to make it good which turns you on all the more, knowing he cares enough to learn what to do and how to do it, how to get your thighs closing around his head and grinding down on the warm wet muscle penetrating you.

He shallowly fucks it in and out of you, the spit naturally produced on his tongue aiding in the slip and slide, warm breath wafting over the cooling trail of spit causing you to shiver even more.

It's when Bjorn's pushing his fingers in alongside and curling them over your g-spot that has your abdominal muscles spasming, coming on his tongue just like he wanted, licking you into hypersensitivity.

Bjorn looks just as drunk on it as you are, despite being completely sober when you pulled him into your apartment, lids droopy and his eyes glossed over, crawling over you to fuck you nice and deep just like he promised.

You go through three condoms that night. After the bed you make your way into the shower next, sliding up and down the steamed glass door as he fucks you up against it, your hands and tits leaving sweaty imprints for several seconds from behind because of it.

He has his shin resting against the lip of the low square tub to keep his balance, the warm water washing down over you with his fingers resting right over the bruises he left from before. Bjorn thrusts up into you, spearing you hard and fast, like he's trying to knock your pelvis out of its frame.

It feels so good, beyond anything you've ever felt before, grunting into your ear that you're, “jus’ as wet n’ tight as before’ and that you're a, “littla’ fuckin’ tease ain't cha’ princess?”

This is all under your command, something you told him to do after you soaked through your bedsheets, needing another spot to absolutely ruin, one hand curling over the lip of the glass door to keep it shut tight while he erratically fucks you up against it from behind, still learning how to channel it all in his hips so he can rail you that much harder.

Strands of hair are sticking to your face, trying not to swallow any of it as you cry out from the force of his thrusts, rattling the glass in its frame. There's no fucking way your neighbor doesn't know what's going on now, not that you really find it in you to give a shit at the moment.

He trashes the condom when you turn off the now cold water and get out, leading you back to the ratty futon you use as a sorry excuse for a couch, sucking another huge hickey into your neck just above your collarbone, like he's claiming his territory.

Bjorn's refractory period is incredibly short, already getting hard again as he's toweling off, rearranging you on all fours, ass up face down, his palm flat between your shoulders blades, fingers spread out over your still wet skin while he hits it from the back.

“Good—ah, good boy. You're doing so good, fucking me so well,” you keen, a high and needy pitch when your words have the desired affect and he plows into you that much harder. Work is gonna absolutely fucking blow tomorrow but you don't give a shit about that either, hoping to feel that ache between your legs every time you have to bend down and retrieve something or pick up the drill after a regulated break, vividly recalling everything he did to you.

“Fuck ur pussy’s so addictin’ princess, can't get a ‘nough o’ it,” he growls, adding to the bruises he's already left on your thighs to your hips this time, the wet slap of skin and your moans echoing off the walls of your tiny apartment.

Your fingers claw at the sheetless mattress, trying to cling onto something as your orgasm slams into you like a freight train, the imprint of your wet naked body left behind for the cotton drill fabric to absorb.

Bjorn grunts when he comes again, nearly collapsing on top of you, his gloved cock still inside as he slowly softens, peppering little kisses all over your back.

“Fuckin’ amazin,’” he sighs, sharing your sentiment. You've both proven your hypothesis correct, both times were just as mind blowing as the first, maybe even better, your bodies in tune now that you know what the other likes, what gets each other off.

You hum in agreement, your heartbeat slowly returning to normal. “Gonna have to go to bed soon. You know, for work.”

He groans in annoyance, rolling off your body to lie next to you, loosely steepling his hands behind his sweaty head, “right—work.”

“What, did you forget?” You snort, crossing your arms to rest your cheek on your stacked wrists while you look at his profile, from his pretty lashes down to the plush of his lips. Sometimes you forget just how attractive he is.

“Yanno,” he says, making eye contact with you then, holding a warmth you've never seen before, affection blossoming inside your chest as a result, “fo’a moment—I did.”

“Oh,” is all you can say in response, burying your face directly into your arms so he can't see how pink your cheeks are. You're not used to this, someone being sweet on you, at least not someone you're actively sleeping with, everyone else just faceless nobodies you met at a bar or in a liquor store.

Bjorn fucks you one last time before he leaves, this time with you on your back so he can look you in the eyes while he pushes in slow and deep, so deep it feels like his cock is brushing up against your pelvis.

There's no dirty talk this time around, just Bjorn whispering hushed praises like, “ur so fuckin' stunning it's unreal” and “ur so good ta’ me, ma’ good girl.” Kissing over your chest, your neck, your face, every one of them feeling like a thank you, your heart feeling strange inside your chest.

It's so incredibly intimate and foreign, something you've never experienced before, his hand finding yours so he can weave your fingers together, holding it up by your head while he thrusts inside, taking his time in taking you apart.

He kisses you when you come together, no tongue, no desperation, just an endlessly soft press of his lips to yours, kissing your forehead as he pulls out, cleaning you up with a wet washcloth after you tell him where to find them, boneless and tired against your futon.

You exhale into the quiet air as soon as he leaves, gaze tracing over the ceiling, like you're searching for an answer that isn't there. What the absolute fuck have you gotten yourself into?

After that night, instead of blowing off steam in the mines, Bjorn blows his steam off on you, coming around every night to fuck you once, twice, sometimes three times if he's feeling particularly frisky, having gone through three and a half boxes of condoms. That's like 140 condoms. Jesus he's so fucking horny all the time.

It's to the point you give him your door code to avoid any unwanted questions if anyone passing by just happened to see him waiting alone on your doorstep, sometimes coming home to him already naked on your bed if his shift ends before yours or hustles down the short hallway to tackle you if yours ends before his.

It's supposed to be casual, just something you do to work through all the pent-up tension you build while tearing down the rock in the mines, a way for you to forget about it all if only for a few hours. You want it to stay like this, easy and uncomplicated, so you keep it a secret from the others, something Bjorn ultimately agrees to when you insist on it.

He seems displeased by your request which takes you by surprise, figuring he'd be just as on board with it as you are but he doesn't argue, just nods his head while looking up at your ceiling, settled back against your upright futon still fully-clothed, chewing his bottom lip between his teeth.

You decide not to pry, even though you really, really, want to, itching to pick his brain and decipher why he doesn't seem to like it but a part of you, the majority of you, doesn't want to know the answer, afraid of what it might be, so you just don't open that can of worms.

You're at a bar with everyone, knowing full well Bjorn will find his way into your bed soon after—like he always does. It's the only sure thing other than the zero percent chance of sunlight LV-410 gets.

It's been two months since you and Bjorn started fucking on the down low. Kay is waddling now, very, very round and puffy. It's cute, she has that pregnancy glow about her, especially since the group's been splitting her shifts up amongst everyone so she can kick her swollen ankles up and relax, something she is endlessly grateful for. Promising to name her baby boy after every single one of you, but you don't think, “Tyler Bjorn Navarro Rain,” followed by your name then Harrison makes for a very good one.

You're nursing your cold beer in your hands, knocking back another swig as Tyler goes on another long-winded speech about giving capitalism the middle finger if he wasn't a cog in it, already drunk.

“Whoa,” Navarro whistles, looking at the side of your neck, at the fresh hickey Bjorn gave you last night, sitting too high up to hide under the collar of your shirt, like this was his plan all along, “who gave you that?”

Everyone turns to look so you slap your palm over the purpling bruise, flinching at the slight sting. God you're getting sloppy, you should've told him to suck somewhere you could hide, that bastard. Now you're flaming red, the intensity of your blush and the way your floundering for an answer confirming their suspicion.

“Oooo,” Kay joins in, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, giggling, “is there something you’re not telling us? Someone perhaps?”

“I uh—well. It's nothing. Just tripped is all,” you lie, very lamely you might add. It's too perfect and round to be anything other than what it is and no one's buying it, not even Andy. Andy.

“Yah n’ fell right into tha' jaws of a hungry shark,” Tyler cracks, slapping his knee over his own joke, like it's the funniest thing in the fucking world. It isn't, it really, really fucking isn't. You feel caught, like a fish in a casting net, out of breath and fighting for your life. This is the worst possible scenario, the absolute last thing you wanted to happen.

“Yah,” Bjorn smirks, torpedoing through all the noise, immediately lifting your head to glare at him, hand still over your neck, sending a flirty little wink your way, “why don’tcha share with tha’ class princess?”

“You’re the absolute last person I wanna fucking hear from jackass,” you seethe, biting his head clean off his shoulders, angry and embarrassed. He falters, picking up on your tone, looking sorry for saying anything. Good. He fucking should be. He isn't the one being grilled right now, even though he's the cause of it all.

“I gotta go,” you announce, rushing out of the bar despite everyone calling for you to come back. You'll never live this down, feeling like the talk of the town all over again, just like you were back in your old sector.

You don't let Bjorn leave hickeys on your neck anymore, making him swear that he won't do it again if he wants to keep fucking you so he obliges, apologizing between filthy, wet kisses which you appreciate.

No one asks you anything else about the guy you're sleeping with, aware that you'll just clam up and leave, which you appreciate even more, pretending like the whole bar incident didn't happen in the first place, denial your only way to cope.

Bjorn usually leaves after you're both fucked out and spent but then—then he starts to stay. Starts to hold you in his arms when you're done, tucking your hair behind your ear, kissing your scalp, telling you something along the lines of, “even assholes like me like a good cuddle every now n’ then.”

It's warm. Safe. Your head is pillowed against his chest, your ear pressed to his left pec, listening to the rhythmic sound of his heartbeat, the even rise and fall of his diaphragm. It's comforting, tangling your legs with his, feeling your eyelids grow heavy with exhaustion. You could stay like this forever, just you two.

But you don't want that. Can't want that. You've already allowed yourself to get close to people again but this—this is something else entirely, getting close to someone on an extremely intimate level like this. You're playing with fire and you know you could get burned at any moment. Will get burned. Emotions are the worst thing to have in a place like this, only producing pain when the inevitable happens, and it always, always does.

You just can't help but want to know how he's doing, if he's doing well, if he's thinking about you.

You don't just wanna see him at night when you're casually hooking up, you wanna see him in the morning too. Want to cook breakfast just for two and hold hands under the table while he makes fun of your terrible cooking but eats it anyway because you made it just for him. And you don't just wanna hold his hand in the privacy of your apartment, you wanna hold it when you're with the gang or walking around in general.

You wanna do stupid mundane shit with him like grocery shopping or folding laundry, washing dishes while he dries them or cuddling under the blankets while you enjoy a movie night, sitting in his lap or on the other side of the futon with your legs tangled in between while he tickles you even though you fucking hate being tickled. But you might not totally hate it if it's him.

And you wanna be greeted by him at the end of every night because these four walls are just a shitty space you reside in, you wanna come home to him.

Because Bjorn feels like home.

Your heart is so full and warm yet light and airy at the same time, like a swollen helium balloon wanting to float up and away into the atmosphere watching him sleep, a sort of peace on his face you don't get to see often.

Oh. Oh—fuck no, you think as the realization starts to sink in, utterly disbelieved that it's taken you this long to notice, to make sense of it.

You're falling for Bjorn.

#not to toot my own horn but i fkn ate this chapter up #enjoy the happiness while it lasts #bc I'm gonna break your heart in the next one >:)#bjorn alien romulus x reader #bjorn alien romulus fic #bjorn x reader #bjorn alien romulus #alien romulus #spike fearn

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delopsia · 2 months ago

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nosedive | rhett abbott x reader

Word Count: 18,900 Cross Posted on AO3 Warnings & Notes: 18+, AFAB!Reader. Storm chasers AU, Kate, and Tyler appear but are so inconsequential that they can be read as OC's. You do not need to watch Twisters to understand and read this fic! Arguing, brief food mentions, undisclosed past trauma, storm chasing, vehicle accidents, anxiety attacks, friends to lovers, grinding, unprotected sex, includes a sketch that I traced from stock photos I stitched together. Brief Summary: You swore off storm chasing a long time ago. You haven't been able to look at that old truck since the accident, and if you could have your way, you'd never think about that part of your life ever again. You've moved on. Every time you touch that damn truck, something goes wrong. But when your friend and her so-called business partner become wrapped up in a never-ending quarrel, it's Rhett who becomes your biggest supporter. You think you're beginning to remember why you used to love this. How you used to live for your out-of-this-world builds and ideas. Or maybe…just maybe, you're beginning to fall in love with something that isn't a truck.

"So, at what point are we going to tell them?"

"What would that be?" Speaking with the straw against your lips, seconds away from taking another sip of that cheap gas station coffee. "That I'm the one who keeps filling Rhett's truck with tiny ducks?"

"No," Kate's eyes roll, her head shaking ever so slightly, not quite ready to admit to her part in it. "About Dallas."

A gust of wind blows past. Entirely invisible to the eye, and yet you catch Kate's head following as it twists through the field, the wheat rippling in waves. Strange how something you can't even see can cause so much trouble, ripping up the garage roof, blowing Rhett's hat down the driveway, and taking that long-awaited Amazon package across the lawn.

Worse, it blows your straw around, leaving you to gape like a fish as you blindly try to find it again. "Do we even want to tell them?"

Her brow furrows. Confused.

"You can't convince me it's not entertaining to watch them puff up like a bunch of peacocks when we mention him," you can't help but giggle, memories flickering through your head like a slideshow. Rhett grumbling about Dallas under his breath. Tyler pulling up his YouTube channel to prove he's done bigger things than this Dallas guy ever could. Overhearing them griping about him in the hotel gym. "Can you imagine the look on their faces when they finally see him?"

A smile bursts onto her face. "You drive a fair point."

Something clangs to the left. Appearing so suddenly that both of your heads swivel toward it.

Speak of the devil.

Rhett and Tyler. Hauling some kind of unnamed contraption to the trucks. You're pretty sure that it's supposed to put extra weight on the chassis to prevent them from being blown around as easily. Rhett's been muttering about having to build a new one ever since his original build cracked a few days ago.

If you weren't distracted, you think you would be able to recall more of the details, but all you can focus on is...

"Are they allergic to shirts?" Kate chirps after a long moment, but she's not making any effort to peel her eyes away.

Neither are you. Too wrapped up in the way Rhett's bicep flexes as he readjusts his grip on the steel frame. Not quite as bulky as Tyler, but he's got a wiriness to him that almost seems to hypnotize you, stuck staring until you run the risk of being caught. "Are we complaining?"

"Absolutely not," and you only peel your gaze away when you realize that they're walking toward your little afternoon coffee party. You're not dealing with the misery that is Tyler's cockiness again.

Kate's got the same idea, her cheeks dusted with a subtle shade of pink that wasn't there a few seconds ago. Something flickers behind her eyes, the same kind of glint you're used to seeing when she's caught the trail of a brewing storm, but she doesn't say anything.

You wonder if this new frame means they'll focus on upgrading those drills next. Anchoring two feet into the ground was likely an impressive feat when they first installed that onto the rigs, but the technology has progressed so much further since then. Longer augers would be a start, twisting deeper into the earth, harder to be ripped out by high winds.

"So, do you know when Dallas is coming in?" Kate asks once the boys are within earshot, like she doesn't know the answer to her own question.

Rhett's head perks. Tyler peeks over his sunglasses.

"Few more days, I think," feigning interest in your drink, swirling the straw in circles, anything to pretend that you haven't noticed them yet. "Sunday at the latest."

"Dallas!" Tyler crows. So loud and sudden that you jolt in your seat. "Finally comin' to meet us, huh?"

Rhett peeks at you through the corner of his eye, either too focused on the task at hand or not quite bold enough to match Tyler's antics. Even from a distance, it's difficult to miss the way his gaze rakes up and down your frame as if transfixed by your pajama shorts and the beauty that is your half-awake face.

"He was supposed to be here earlier, but..." motioning toward the empty beer can blowing past. Budweiser's aluminum version of a tumbleweed. "Another wind delay."

Tyler scoffs, the heel of his boot thunking against the can and sending it flying. "How many more times is he gonna use that excuse?"

"As many times as he wants," Kate's stolen the words right out of your mouth, her shoulders shrugging as she turns her attention back to her cell phone.

Wind howls in your ear, rolling the ballpoint pen across the table and right into your cup. It tips before you can even comprehend what's happening, the remnants of your coffee spilling into the dirt.

"I reckon that's my sign to head inside," you sigh, defeated. This battle was lost the moment you quit paying attention to your drink.

There's not much for you to gather, but nature herself had might as well be interfering with your every move. Blowing the cup toward the garage, rustling your notebook pages when you scoop it up, the pen jumping off the edge of the table just to rub salt into the wound. It's not bothering anything else, not Kate's hair, not the dumb hat on Tyler's head, just your things.

Talk about a personal vendetta.

At least the garage has never betrayed you like this. Cozy and windless, albeit a bit dusty, depending on the day of the week and what project Rhett is working on. The loveseat tucked into the far right corner is much softer than that sunbleached wooden chair, the beaten cushions enveloping you in a loose hug. The thick armrest is the perfect size to fit your notebook. Doesn't have you trying to cram yourself into an itty bitty space.

And with the back of the couch being up against the wall, there's no opportunity for someone to mosey up and peek at your notes, either.

The side of the pen is dented, the groove creating the perfect space for your finger to settle into as you begin to draw. This must be the pen that you forgot on the roof of your car and wound up driving overtop of.

Ink drips from the tip in spurts, scattering across the page in small, ugly blotches. What's supposed to be your delicate sketchings of an idea are starting to look more and more like an interpretive art piece in a museum. Is it a component for one of the storm vehicles, or is there an underlying message about the beauty of mistakes and brokenness?

Whatever. The answer only matters if it's attached to a big, fat check from a private collector looking to hang it next to a myriad of other, questionably produced works.

"Whatcha ya doin' over there?" Rhett's voice echoes through the garage, seems to come from so many directions that you don't realize where he is until you spot him in your peripheral. Red dirt and grease smeared across his forearms, sweat glistening in the overhead light. You already know he doesn't smell the best, but you can't say you hate the sight of him.

Your pen drifts across the paper once more, streaking through a blob of collected ink in your efforts to build the general shape of a truck. "Sketching."

It's such a bland reply. Shouldn't intrigue him in the slightest, and yet you can hear the soft thunk of his boots against the cement floor, drawing closer. "Sketchin' what?"

"A fantasy for an advanced anchoring system," your pen darts across the metal arms, extending from the roof of the truck, one on the passenger side and one on the driver, anchored into the ground. "Buildable, but it's not a feasible idea."

The light reflects off of his rodeo buckle. Amelia County's bull riding champion. "Can I see?"

You're not sure why he wants to look at your fantasy sketches, but you don't have the energy nor the will to tell him no. Certainly not when he's bending down next to you, so close that his bicep bumps into your arm, hot and swollen from hauling around that heavy frame. You're making no effort to move away, either. If anything, you're moving closer, turning the notebook for him to see.

As if to guide his thoughts, his index finger traces across the lines, grease-stained and so, so much thicker than yours. "What's makin' ya think it won't work?"

"It's not realistic." Easy answer. There's a reason why nobody else has done this.

But Rhett's head just tilts to the side, a thought visibly crossing his mind. You know it's there; can see it glisten in his eyes as it passes by. "Yes, it is."

You feel the tug of your arm and the warmth of his hand around your wrist before you realize that he's pulling you up from the couch. There's a creak in your knee as you rise, helplessly stumbling after him.

"What are you doing?" You're chirping, but Rhett doesn't reply, too dead set on hauling you to the other side of the room.

He spins. So do you. The garage blurs into streaks of gray.

Then your back bumps into his sweaty chest, and you're staring at...a newly built drill for the frame.

"Does this look unrealistic to you?" His voice rumbles straight through you, low as the thunder that you've spent too much of your life chasing.

"Well...no," you croak after a long moment, "but you already know that it—"

"What about that?" His hand darts out, pointing toward the old radar, built out of scrap material and the sheer power of will. It doesn't work anymore, not after that hunk of debris split it down the middle, but it did for a good few weeks.

Rhett isn't waiting for you to reply, already pointing toward another contraption. The roll cage, and the rest of the steel exoskeleton frame that hasn't been welded onto Tyler's truck. Then he's guiding your attention to the windshield and window cages; lord knows those glass replacements are getting expensive. The armor plating that has yet to be welded to the vehicles, the reinforced overhead spotlights, the custom grill guards, and all of the little, unnamed crafts that you have yet to see in action.

"None of this was feasible, either," his words are solid, fleeting things, dancing around your head like words from the gods above, "but we still gave it a shot."

A puff of air breaks past your lips.

All of that happened long before you and Kate stumbled across them crammed into the corner of a Waffle House. Their trucks were already built. Field tested beyond belief. But...well, you suppose his ideas had to have started the same way yours do, a random thought that evolved out of control until it became a reality.

"Your ideas are no more unrealistic than these were," Rhett murmurs, and it almost sounds like he's sharing a secret. A whimsical little thought meant to stay between the two of you.

...maybe he has a point.

You turn, twisting to face him. The tips of your noses bump. Piecing blue eyes staring right back into yours, wide as can be. Too close. Way too close. But you don't make any effort to move, and neither does he. He should. Fuck, any closer, and you'd be kissing him, can already taste his minty toothpaste on his breath.

"Rhett!" Boone's voice arcs across the room like lightning, sends you jumping apart as if struck by it. "You fixin' to bring that upper frame or what?"

Whatever that moment was, it's gone in an instant.

Your head comes so close to hitting the ceiling that you can feel it graze past. Seatbelt cinching tight around your chest. Ass bouncing against the seat. Struggling to keep both your hands on the shivering plastic handle overhead. Something clatters across the floor, landing in the mess of components and contraptions that met their maker three bumps ago.

You'd complain, but Tyler's rollercoaster of a truck looks even worse than whatever the hell you just experienced.

"I'm shocked this old truck has survived this long," you're trying to sound calm, but it comes out resembling a yelp more than anything else. "I remember you driving to high school with this thing."

Rhett's hands flutter across the wheel, a wave of mud kicking up from under the back tires. "These ol' ranch trucks last forever if you take care of 'em."

"Doesn't care involve things like...not driving into ditches?" Your shoulder presses against the glass, sliding around as the truck veers to the left, loosely chasing Tyler's messy trail.

"Probably," he laughs, "but we survived, didn't we?"

"I'm not too sure about that," frankly, you think half of your soul may still be sitting on the road, milliseconds away from experiencing the horror of Rhett's truck diving into the ditch.

"Oh, c'mon," his hand darts out, nudging your arm, "ya worry too much."

You haven't forgotten about the clouds twisting up ahead, downward spiraling, growing thinner and thinner as it nears the earth. A plume of red dirt rises, staining what was once a perfect, white funnel cloud. Wind squeals around the edges of the truck, wedging its way through the nonexistent gaps between the windows and wailing in your ear.

Tyler's truck rips straight into the center, unhindered by the mud and soybean plants being hurled against it. There's already a drone dancing around the upper part of the funnel, bobbing and weaving, serves as the eyes for however many people are watching the live stream it's broadcasting.

Rhett's a little more conservative, looping out to the side and into the path of the tornado instead. Leaves scatter across the windshield, wedging beneath the windshield wipers. But the nose of the truck turns to face the cyclone, and the wind is already beginning to tear them away.

"Wanna press the button?" You can hardly hear him. Only realize he's talking when you notice his mouth moving.

You're already reaching out, pressing the little green button on the dash.

The drills whir to life, entirely inaudible, but it's impossible to miss their vibration as they dig down into the soil, the truck gradually sinking lower.

One blink and the world around you turns to dust. The little ranch truck shivers under the battering of the wind; feels like you're going to blow away at any moment, but nothing around you is moving.

Hesitant, you peek out the passenger window up at the tornado overhead. It's almost calm. A little quieter now. The crystal sky peeks through the twirling clouds, and if you tilt your head just right, it kind of looks like one of Rhett's gentle blue eyes.

Rhett's elbow nudges yours as you settle back into your seat.

You know what he's going to say before he's even opened his mouth.

"Now, is this more fun than it is with Dallas?" Always comparing your ventures together to what you've done in the past, like he's aiming to jump up to the top of your 'Best Experiences' list.

"Nah," repeating the same thing you always tell him. He should have expected this answer from a mile away. "Dal still has ya beat."

His eyes roll, but he laughs nonetheless. Defeated again. "One of these days, I'm—"

Bang.

The truck jumps.

Something sharp scatters across your face. Wind screams in your ears.

The world flips on its head. Upside down. Rightside up. Upside down again. It jars you so hard that your teeth snap together, head smacking against the seat, and there's something yanking against your chest, and your ears are popping and, and, and—

You should have known that was coming.

Why didn't you know that was coming?

You don't feel the pressure on your shoulders until it's gone. Replaced with something warm that you can't identify. Can't think to try and identify where it's coming from. Something about your head doesn't feel right, but it doesn't hurt. Tickles. Like something is running down the side of it.

The truck flipped. How did the truck flip?

Fuck.

You, from three years ago, would have seen that coming from a mile fucking away. How have you gotten worse at the one thing you're supposed to be good at? You should've checked the drills, the circuits, the wires. Why didn't you run through any of the safety checks before you left? What if the tornado had been stronger? Sucked you up and spit you out several hundred feet into the air?

Did you not learn from the last time?

This was entirely avoidable.

There's something muttering near you. Sounds like thunder in a strange sort of way. Deep rumbles, rolling in one ear and out the other. But thunder doesn't pause in the middle of its booming, not like this.

"We're okay."

Your throat is so raw that you can hardly speak. Dry, too. Chest heaving, sucking in air faster than your lungs can handle it. What, what...what...

"We're okay," Rhett. That's Rhett's voice in your ear. "We're okay."

And he keeps saying it. Over and over, like he's trying to convince himself just as much as he's trying to convince you. But it's not working. You're still shivering, and his voice is lodging in his throat, and...

Your head goes dark.

You don't necessarily know if you pass out or if your memory decided to stop writing things down.

One moment, you're in the truck, and the next, you're sitting in the middle of a hospital room, squinting as a nurse shines a blinding light directly into your eye. She hums something to the woman next to her, then turns the light off.

There's a spot in your vision now. Dead center, lingering as you turn your head to look at whoever is sitting next to you, entirely blocking out their face. Their hand over top of yours, thumb swiping idly across your skin, back and forth in a rhythm that you haven't figured out yet.

"What failed?" You know it's your voice, can feel your mouth shaping around the words, but it sounds nothing like you.

"Hm?" Rhett's hum nearly disappears amongst the commotion going on around you.

"The truck," trying again, a little more specific now. "What went wrong back there?"

Stitches line his forearm, probably sliced open by the same thing that left the cuts on the left side of his cheek. Glass from the shattered windshield, you think.

"You'll never believe this," he leans closer like he doesn't want anyone else to hear what he's about to say. "We got hit by a tree."

That doesn't... "A...tree?" Parroting him. You're expecting for him to furrow his brows and ask how in the world you've managed to mishear him, but all he does is nod. You heard him perfectly.

All of that was because of a tree hitting the side of the truck. Probably struck hard enough to rip the drills from the ground and gave the tornado all the leverage it needed to start throwing you around like a children's toy.

...huh.

"Hey, is there a lug wrench sittin' over there?" Rhett asks, his foot kicking out toward the tool cabinet as if to try and point you toward it. Whatever he's doing up under the truck, he must not be able to see that you're already standing in front of the damn cabinet.

You already see them, sitting amongst the mess of tools resting on top of it. "You've got two."

His head pokes out from the side. "I do?"

"One is silver, the other is black," lifting them both for him to see. You don't see a difference between them; they both do the same thing, but you're not the one needing them.

"Give me..." his lips purse, "the black one."

You bend down, handing the tool off to him, but the silver one is still in your other hand. "Remind me again what drawer these belong in?"

He taps the thing against his chin. "Any of the middle ones is fine."

"And here you wonder why you can never find anything," you tease, an ache blooming in your chest as you laugh, still a bit sore from being rolled around like Mother Nature's bowling ball.

Something metal hits the floor, audibly rolling away. A bolt, you think. Rhett swears, boots squeaking as he clambers out from beneath the vehicle. "'ts hard to stay organized when ya share a garage with someone like Tyler."

"That bad?" You would look to see what he's chasing, but organizing this mess is higher on your priority list.

There's so much junk on the top of this cabinet that you can't figure out what is what, in such a disarray that it seems to swallow up everything you sit on top of it. Somewhere in here is your ten-millimeter socket.

Kate's voice echoes from outside, loud enough for you to hear her but not enough for you to understand her. Tyler shouts back, the slam of a truck door punctuating whatever he has to say. You think he's still talking when Kate blurts something that sounds like an "I don't care!" Tyler doesn't seem to like that at all.

You turn to look at Rhett right as he does the same. Defeat. Confusion. An overall look of being absolutely done with hearing it from them. You recognize it all; you're feeling the same damn thing.

And here you thought you'd found a place to escape from them.

"Are those two ever gonna get together?" Rhett whines after a moment.

Your head shakes, "Kate's got a strict 'no dating business partners' clause."

They're getting closer now, slowly but surely carrying their argument to the garage. You're not sure why. Everyone was there when the argument started in the restaurant, gradually clearing all of you out of the booth with to-go boxes and a migraine to boot.

Rhett reaches through the open truck window, pressing the garage door opener. With a groan, it starts to close, taking away your fresh midnight air but granting more silence in return. "Does that rule apply to you, too?"

"I'm not sure," you'd never actually...considered if you were wrapped up in that law or if it was Kate-exclusive. "Why?"

Rhett's eyes dart away.

Have his ears been red this whole time? Or maybe it's a trick the light is playing on you because it seems to disappear as he rushes toward the side door, sliding the deadbolts into place and twisting the locks.

There's no way that he's... "Are you seriously locking them out?"

"Do you wanna hear them argue for another hour?" He doesn't need for you to answer that; he already knows the answer. "Get me that padlock off the table."

Padlock. Shit, where did you last see that?

There's so much on this table. Jumper cables. Tools. Tools. More tools. Bolts. A box of nails. Your missing socket. A chocolate candy wrapper. Tootsie rolls. Another box of nails. Shit, is that a broken phone case? You push your hands through the mess, shoving it all to the side, but you don't see it. Where is it? Where is it?

Someone knocks on the garage door. Rattling across the garage.

Fuck, fuck, where is it? You don't see—

There it is.

You don't feel it in your grasp until you're halfway across the room. Shoving it into Rhett's open hands. The garage door rattles. But Rhett's shoving the hook through a hole in the tracks, squeezing it closed until it clicks.

"Are y'all in there?" Tyler's muffled voice is the last thing you want to hear.

Something moves in the window.

Your body moves on its own. Grabbing Rhett by the bicep. Diving toward the couch.

He's too big to be tumbling after you, but he does, the loveseat squealing as he lands on top of you. An elbow finds its way into your ribs. Your knee slots between his thighs. His hair is in your face, and you can smell the vanilla of his cologne, and his hand is on your waist—

"Rhett?" Tyler tries again. Knuckles tap at the window.

You know they can't see you. If they could, then they would be calling you out on it.

This couch isn't wide enough for you and Rhett to be lying on it like this, your shoulder hanging off the edge, his knees awkwardly bent to make room for your legs. He's finding a way to make it work, though. Wedging himself up against the back cushion, granting you enough room to roll onto your side without falling off.

You're not sure if you want to comment on the arm that drapes around your waist, securing you to him.

"I entirely forgot about the window," he whispers. Does he think Tyler can hear him talking from outside?

Laughing, you tap him on the nose. "I know you did."

So much of his hair has fallen into his face that you can no longer see his expression, concealed under a mass of unruly, brunette curls, untamable by any means of the word. He can very well push it out of the way himself, but for some reason, you find that your hand is beginning to do that for him. Collecting locks of it with your fingers, sorting them to their respective sides, tucking some of it behind his ear.

"Watcha doin'?" He asks as you unveil his hidden eye. It looks bluer than it was before.

Your touch falters. "I wanted to see your face."

"Yeah?" The corner of his lip lifts a little.

"Yeah." Nodding.

And your hand just...falls onto his cheek. Idly resting there, like this is exactly where it belongs, where it's always gone after you've finished fixing his hair.

Worse. He doesn't make any effort to stop you, lets your thumb swipe up and down his skin, meandering across the tiny cuts that linger there. If you didn't know any better, you would think he nicked himself while shaving, but there are far too many of them for that. Too high, too. There's even one up beside the corner of his eye.

"No!" Even the garage door isn't enough to muffle Kate's voice. "We're not doing that, Tyler!"

Tyler isn't quite as loud. You can hear the general sound of his voice, carrying through a sentence or two, but you can't make out a single word.

"Because—because it's ridiculous," Kate's still going. Tyler says something a bit louder.

You don't know when Rhett started moving, but all of a sudden, you're way too aware of how close his face is getting. Inching closer and closer until...

He rubs his nose against yours. Slow little motions that don't stop until you can no longer fight off your smile.

"What're you doing?" You giggle, making no real effort to stop him.

He's too close for you to see his mouth, but you recognize the way that the corners of his eyes turn upward with his grin. "Distractin' ya."

It must be working because you no longer have the capacity to think about what's going on in the driveway. His hand smooths up your back, making its way up to your face, and he's so warm, heat radiating off his palm like he's got a small fire burning in his veins. Rough fingertips brush against your cheek, hesitant to make any solid contact.

"Your cheek is still swollen," his palm gradually comes to flatten against your cheek, his hand so big that it seems to cover your entire face.

Kate's voice echoes in the back of your head. No dating business partners. But something about his touch...it's addicting. "Well, that's what happens when you get thrown around by a tornado."

He doesn't seem to have much else to say to that.

To be fair, you don't know what you would say to that, either.

His thumb swipes across the upper portion of your cheek. Your fingers find their way down to his jaw, pushing through the stubble there. It's soft, has had time to lose the stiffness that comes with being recently shaved.

It seems that you may have finally lost Kate and Tyler; you don't hear them bickering outside, at least. You lift your head, craning to look over the arm of the couch and at the door. The window is impossible to see from this angle, but you get the feeling that they're no longer standing outside.

"What's that?" You ask, nodding toward something that you know he can't see.

Rhett's fingers trace their way over to the shell of your ear, not interested in trying to look at what you're asking him about. "Hm?"

"The little contraption sitting next to the door," clarifying, "it looks like a bunch of pipes welded together."

"Oh, that's...supposed to be a tree to hold a bunch of different instruments," he tilts his head back a little, realizes he can't see anything without sitting up, then immediately lets himself fall back against the couch. "I can get everythin' on it, but I can't get it to stay on."

"Industrial glue and steel hose clamps." You have to pause for a moment, sifting through dusty memories, trying to recall how you used to protect Kate's old contraptions. "Maybe build a thin cage around it in case those two things fail."

Rhett's quiet again, his brows knitting together.

Is he confused, or is he just thinking about what you said?

It takes him some time to find his words, half-built sentences flickering behind his eyes. You can practically hear the gears turning up in his head. And then, hestiant, his lips part. "I feel like you know a lot more 'bout storm chasin' than you let on."

Something in your lower belly twists. "What's telling you that?"

"You're confident when you're in here," he doesn't need any more time to think on this, his thoughts flowing off his tongue like a waterfall, "most of the folks who walk in here don't have the slightest clue what we're building, but you recognize almost all of it."

Your eyes dart away, looking down at your intertwined legs, bent and crammed onto this tiny little couch. His fingers curl around your jaw, gently guiding you to look him in the eye.

For reasons unbeknownst to you, you don't fight him on it.

"You draw up some of the coolest concepts I've ever seen, you...you..." the corner of his lip wobbles up and down. The sight of it makes your head feel funny. "Shit, you make me feel like I'm not the only person here who knows how to do this kind of stuff."

You suppose you should have expected this. It takes one to know one, and you haven't done yourself any favors by always working with him in this dingy old garage. But you don't entirely know how to respond to that or where you should even start...

"I used to work on an old storm truck that Kate and I owned," it comes out so easily that it almost surprises you, "but that was...god, that was forever ago."

Rhett's eyelashes flutter, his head tilting like that of a curious puppy. "Why'd you never tell me?"

Shattered glass. The snap of hydraulics splitting in half. Blood blurring your vision. Ear-splitting howling. The world flipping on its head. Rain in your eyes. Steel digging through your back. Your chest tightens. Hail pounding into your skull. The screaming. It's your fault. It's your fault. It's your fault.

And you're...warm.

"'m sorry," Rhett murmurs, and you don't know when he got so close, but you can feel the vibration of his voice against your nose. A careful hand smooths up your back, another arm securing you to him, tucked up under his chin, shielded from the glaring openness of this too-big garage.

He doesn't move, and neither do you. But this time...this time, you think you know why.

Rubber squeals against the pavement, so shrill that it soars above the roar of the engine. Your shoulder slams into the window, seat belt cinching tight as everything spins into a blur.

"Tyler!" Kate yelps.

"Kate!" Tyler. Ever so mocking.

"You're gonna get another ticket." Her hand darts out, smacking his arm. Tyler's got something clever to say about that; you don't hear any of it. If you start listening now, you'll have a migraine before the funnel cloud touches the ground.

Rhett meets your gaze out of the corner of his eye. Telepathy must be real because you know exactly what's running through his head.

Here we go again.

If you'd known this would start up again, then you probably would have faked an illness to stay home. A headache, an upset stomach, or a sudden onset of death that will miraculously cure itself when the storm chase ends. Anything.

Tires squeal again, the truck seeming to tip onto its front wheels. The seatbelt yanks on your shoulders, throwing you back into the seat. Rhett's phone smacks against the console. A scattering of papers, nameless weather instruments, and unlit rockets scatter across the floor.

Wind rocks the vehicle back and forth. Squealing through the crack in the window like a kettle boiling over. Or maybe you're just hearing things because nobody else seems to hear it. Tyler's shouting into his camera. Kate's rattling something off about how the tornado is forming directly above the town you're driving through.

A wave of rain pelts the windshield. Hail pattering on the roof. Something silver flies past the nose of the truck, striking the building to your right. The brick splinters, debris falling like rain. Kate yells something. Tyler shouts back at her.

"Hang on, hang on," Rhett jumps in his seat, blindly smacking his hand on the console, looking at something you can't see, "stop the truck."

But Tyler is saying something into the CB radio, veering the truck to the right with one hand. Kate doesn't lift her head from the scanner. And they're still fucking arguing. You don't know if they even hear Rhett over the clash of their own voices, nevermind the storm.

Rhett yanks on the door handle. It peels open, rain spewing through the gap. "Ty, stop the damn truck!"

"Rhett?" You yelp. Scrambling. "Rhett, wait!"

You can't stop him.

He's jumping out of the truck before it's even stopped moving. Bricks and sheet metal hurl past. The door slams closed. You don't see where he went. Where is he? Where did he-where did he go? Why is the truck still moving—

"Stop the goddamn truck!" Screaming so loud that it doesn't even sound like you.

The truck lurches. The seatbelt rips the air from your lungs. Taking it off is the last thing you should be doing, but it's already unclipped. Papers crunch as you scurry into Rhett's seat. Wind beats against the door. Does everything in its power to keep you from forcing it to open. You can't see a thing. Not even with the damn door halfway open.

"Where's Rhett?"

You don't know which of them asked that. You don't care to figure that out. "If you two could stop fighting for two fucking seconds, then maybe you would know!"

It's like someone flipped a switch. The wind and rain just...dies. There's a reason for that, a term and definition that Kate probably memorized in college, but you're not sticking around to hear it. Slipping out of the truck, you dart out into the mist. Fog already licks at your heels, so humid that it feels like you're wearing a second skin out here.

"Rhett?" Calling out.

You don't see him. There's nothing but debris and disheveled produce stands, all the cracked open watermelons and runaway apples in the world, but no cowboy. But where did he... Turning around. Where did he get out of the truck? It was further back than this. Yeah. He must be further down the road.

"Rhett?" You're trying again, toeing through the mess.

There goes the rain again. Starting up so quickly that you wonder if Mother Nature accidentally pressed pause on her remote. Something carries over the rumbling thunder. Something that sounds like your name.

You hear him, but you don't see him. "Rhett?"

"I'm over here." He's already walking toward you, must have seen you coming before you even realized where he was. The rain thickens, but you can see the rip in his shirt clear as day, blood pouring from his shoulder like the water falling from the heavens.

"God, Rhett—don't do that!" It comes out a little too loud. A little too quick. "You can't just go hopping out moving vehicles—"

He throws his hands behind him, gesturing at something. "She needed help!"

You hadn't seen the little old lady standing on the other side of the road until now, being helped back into the safety of an untouched house. You suppose that's who he's talking about, but... "And what if something happened to you?"

"Nothin's gonna happen to me!" Thunder booms behind his words. Just as irritated as he is.

Your hand flies out, gesturing to his bloody arm. "Clearly, it already did. Look at your shoulder, Rhett!"

"God, why are you always so worried?" He spits. Doesn't hear a word you just said.

"I don't know; maybe it's because we almost got sucked into a tornado three days ago?" You can feel your face getting hot. Teeth grit, jaw popping under the strain. "Maybe it's because I've seen storms kill people, Rhett!"

He stiffens.

So do you. Glued in the middle of the street. Even the rain stabbing at your eyes can't make you blink. But the wind is one of those things that forces you to move—swaying sideways, shielding your gaze with an arm. A horn honks, headlights piercing through the silver veil.

Getting back into the truck with him is the last thing you want to do.

Gravel crunches beneath your feet. Shifting under your weight, seeming to drag you in like a thin layer of quicksand. Tiny little pebbles leap into the tops of your shoes, wriggling down through the gaps and working their way up under your foot. Walking barefoot would have been more comfortable.

Ugh, but then you would have to worry about dodging the sharp metal hiding beneath the rocks, leftovers from experiments gone wrong, and backyard-tested explosives.

The spare garage isn't much further up the driveway. Smaller, built to hold only one or two vehicles, depending on their size. There's no point in adding all of the extra space, not when the main garage is on the same property, fully decked out with its fancy tools, wifi, and air conditioning.

Understandable, but you wish someone would have stopped to consider installing a light all the way out here. You can't see a damn thing this far out. Is there a bobcat standing between you and the building? Nobody knows!

There doesn't seem to be anything lurking in your path. You certainly don't feel anything brush past, even when you peel open the door and blindly feel along the inside wall, looking for the light switch.

The grill of a truck glares back at you. Same old golden paint, still the same diamond-shaped chip beneath the left headlight. The dust is new, and yet, somehow, it's the same too. Exactly how it's always been.

And how it will stay if you can help it.

It's a beautiful truck, really. Only one previous owner, still relatively new, decorated in gadgets that you've long since forgotten the specifics of. It's got everything. A roll cage. Bulletproof glass. Window cages. Augers hang on either side of the vehicle, in combination with the overhead arms, and those are only the things you remember installing.

There's a wire sticking out of the cables for the drills, has inexplicably wriggled its way out of the covering. That's what you get for choosing the cheapest company to haul this piece of junk all the way out here. You don't want to touch it, but...it's a simple fix. You've just got to slide this strip of metal up and—

Sparks scatter. A shock bolts through your fingers.

"You mother—mmh!" Yelping. Yanking your hand back. A twitch runs up your arm, the muscles in your hand shivering.

And here you wonder why you quit messing with this goddamn truck.

You peel the door open, blindly feeling around the console until you find the stupid tool you came all the way up here for. This old hunk of metal can sit here and rot for all you care. Why did you even try to mess with it? You know full well what will happen if you do more than open the door.

Something always has to go wrong.

You don't even feel your hand touch the light switch, but the room plunges into darkness all the same. To hell with—

"Am I interruptin' anything?"

The door slams shut behind you, the knob jabbing into your spine. "Rhett?"

It's so dark out that you nearly miss the way his hands twist together, his head tilted toward the ground, not quite bold enough to look you in the eye. "I just...wanted to come and tell you I'm sorry," he pauses, peeking up at you through his lashes. You've never seen someone look more like a kicked puppy in your life. "I was actin' just like Tyler back there."

...huh.

Can't say you were expecting that.

"It's...uh..." What do you say? You can't say that it's okay. It's not okay. "Thank you?"

That seems to be enough for him. Shoulders falling, finally lifting his head to look at you properly. But then, his brows knit together. It's too dark to see where he's looking, but you can almost feel the heat of his gaze fixating on the garage behind you. "What're ya doin' out here?"

"Working on something?" This is what you get into focusing on creating an excuse and not rehearsing it beforehand. An amateur surrounded by Hollywood stars would be more convincing than you are.

"Top secret stuff, huh?" Is he buying it? He sounds like he is. "Somethin' broke on that gold truck of yours?"

...

Son of a bitch.

"How did you..." you don't...you don't know what to...say... "know about that?"

He jams his thumb over his shoulder, pointing blindly toward the heap of metal a few hundred feet away. "Was over in the scrap pile when ya brought it in a few weeks ago."

He's fucking with you.

He's got to be fucking with you.

"And you never said anything about it?" You feel like a deer caught in the headlights of a bullet train. Nowhere to run. Facing down your doom as it barrels toward you at a hundred miles an hour.

"Figured you'd talk about it when y' wanted to," Rhett says it so matter of factly. Like this isn't a big deal. Like you haven't had Kate thinking that the truck has been delayed for the past month and a half.

It takes a moment to gather words on your tongue. It takes even longer to arrange them into a comprehensible sentence. "Does anybody else know?"

Rhett shrugs. "Not that 'm aware of."

You don't entirely know what it is that leads you to reach for the doorknob and twist it again. Nobody is forcing you to show him the truck. Hell, he's not even asking or acting like he wants to see it, but your body seems to be moving on its own accord. Maybe it simply can't handle another day of carrying around the secret, or maybe it's something else. Something that words aren't capable of describing.

Rhett doesn't say a word. Quietly following you into the dark garage, winces when you flick on the overhead lights without warning.

And then his eyelashes begin to flutter in that dumb, endearing sort of way. Intrigued. "What made ya wanna hide this?"

"Because if Kate finds out it's here, I'll have to work on it," you almost lean your hip against the front bumper. Almost.

Damn thing would probably blow up if you actually followed through with that impulse.

"I'm not followin'." Rhett runs his fingers across the hood, leaving behind little trails amongst the collection of dust.

"Every time I touch this truck, it ends badly," now that you're saying it out loud, it sounds like you're trying to convince him that the thing is haunted. "I drove it here, and a headlight blew. Tried to fix that exposed wire on the driver's side and shocked the hell out of myself."

"What, two—"

"Time before that, the hydraulic arm snapped, and we turned into an EF3's playground toy." Not giving him any time to wiggle into the gaps of your argument. You're not touching it. End of story.

He doesn't push it any further. Doesn't downplay what you're trying to tell him or try to sell you on the novelty of coincidences and misinterpretations. No, he just...hums and nods his head as if this is a story he hears all the time.

A part of you hates that you ever expected anything less of him.

The cicadas take over. Singing their shrill, repetitive tune that somehow manages to get louder when you're inside. You don't know if it counts as silence when there are hundreds of bugs screaming the song of their people, like nature's rejected choir.

"Do y' want me to fix it?" Rhett's voice is like silk against the grating little pests lurking outside.

"Fix what?" You're lost.

"The headlight," he taps his knuckle against it, visibly disturbing the dust there, "and the wire that shocked ya."

You're not entirely sure if you want to put the time and effort into this old piece of junk. There's a fairly large possibility that something internal has dry-rotted over the years and is bound to break at any moment, something that will cost a whole lot more than a cheap little headlight. But...

"Only if you want to," you don't mean for it to come out so miserable. Like you've had to strangle the words out of your own throat.

Rhett doesn't seem to notice it, his lips pulling up into a meager smile right before he moseys off to mess with the exposed wire. He taps his finger against the metal casing, following it up to where it ventures over the roof, then follows that until it guides him toward the driver's door.

It's like he's got a blueprint of how you rigged this together, knows exactly where you've got the electric control box sitting, and which of the wires belong to the exposed one. The cover snaps back into place with the slightest bit of pressure. Easy as can be. No sparks, no shocks.

The headlights are a bigger pain in the ass than they should be. You remember that all too well, the tediousness of removing the internal cover, several screws, and the grill, all to reach what should be an easily accessible headlight.

"At the risk of soundin' dumb," Rhett's talking funny with that screw resting in the corner of his lip, "but you really built this thing?"

"Once upon a time, yes." It doesn't even feel like you were the one who came up with all of this.

The countless sleepless nights spent tweaking and redrawing plans. Building or scouring the ends of the earth for specific little parts. The perpetual stiffness in your neck from building your inventions into the truck. God, the grease stains that claimed so many of your t-shirts.

The memories are all there in your head, and when Rhett tugs at the grill housing, your hands still twitch with a muscle memory you've yet to lose. He needs to tilt it up and towards himself. It's easier that way. But the memories don't feel like your own. Belonging to a past life, a glimpse of something that was never really meant for you.

A stray thought draws to the forefront of your mind. "How's your shoulder?"

"Hm?" He lifts his head, staring at you. Then, realizing what you said. "It's a'ight, jus' needed a couple stitches."

You wonder what he defines as 'a couple'. But he doesn't push for any more history between you and the truck, so you don't push him for anything, either.

There's a bunch of spare bulbs hiding in the main garage, and that really should be the end of it. Once the hood slams shut, there shouldn't be anything left to tinker with. The light works, the wire is no longer exposed, and everything is in order. You have absolutely zero reason to lay eyes on this truck again.

To be fair, that's exactly what happens.

For a day.

"I thought they were s'pposed to quit arguin'?"

You hear Rhett before you see him. Half-open eyes and messy hair stumbling down the unlit hallway, his arms full with his fuzzy brown blanket. Must have had the same idea that you did, seeking out the room furthest from Tyler's, hoping for another minute or two of sleep.

You hate to tell him that there's no peace to be found in this damned house.

"Bold of you to believe them," your attention darts back to the notebook resting in your lap, pen idly drawing across old lines, darkening them. Four in the morning is too early for creativity, but you can't fall back asleep, and you didn't bring anything to distract from the never-ending quarrel.

The couch cushion dips, Rhett's heavyweight settling in next to you. His cheek finds its way to your shoulder, landing there so naturally that you hardly even question it. "What're ya drawin'?"

"Same thing as before, just making it look a little less..." You don't know where you were going with that. Rhett isn't awake enough to catch it.

His gaze is so warm that you can feel it following your hand around the page, drinking in the careful strokes of the pen.

It's almost enough to distract from Kate's muffled swearing, but nothing short of a speaker at full blast is going to drown them out. So the pen continues to dance across the paper, and the silence remains battered by two people who need to suck up their pride and kiss already. If not for the sake of their own mundane love lives, then for the sanity of those around them.

"Have ya ever considered buildin' this idea?" Rhett reaches out to trace his finger around your crudely drawn wheel, the only spot he can touch without getting in your way.

"I started on it a long time ago," rattling it off without much thought. You don't have the capacity to consider what you're saying right now. "The sockets and connections are already built into the roof, but I could never get the hydraulic arms right."

"I could help."

"Yeah?"

He tilts his head up to look at you, and you're just awake enough to realize that those aren't actually stars sparkling behind his eyes. But damn, does it sure look like tiny galaxies are lurking beneath the sea of blue.

You don't know why you let him lean up and rub his nose against yours, but it must be the reason why you nuzzle him back.

If there is one thing more awkward about sitting through Kate and Tyler's never-ending argument, it's having to survive their new form of fighting—the silent treatment. Each refusing to say a word when the other is in the room, resigning to comments filled with double meanings and glares out of the corner of their eyes.

You, quite frankly, might combust if you have to sit through another silent meal. If you wanted to be put in timeout, you would go back to elementary school.

"I see we had the same idea," you yawn, fighting to keep your eyes open as it takes over. One wrong step and your food is going to find itself in the gravel, and you're not looking to brave the wall of silence for a second time.

"Great minds think alike," Rhett kicks his foot at you, perched up on the tailgate of his truck. "Unless your mind belongs t' two people I cannot name."

The initial plan was to wait until the weekend before you spent any time working on your truck, but it's hard to put it off when Tyler and his fleet of vehicles tear out of the driveway before noon, taking away damn near ever project Rhett had on the drawing board. You don't see Kate leave, but her car is missing from its usual spot, and you're in no mood to learn any more than that.

They'll get over it.

...once hell freezes over.

It's like you become caught up in a time loop. Every day, you wake up expecting to be put to work, to chase a storm, or to go on a supply run for weather equipment that you don't know the name of. Every day, you eat breakfast in the back of Rhett's truck and watch as every vehicle on the property flees the premises. Every day, you walk into that spare garage, roll up your sleeves, and begin tinkering with last night's project.

And Rhett just keeps coming around. Always the one to attach your creations to the truck, races you to pick up the heavier things around the shop, pokes at your sketches until you've explained every little thought and whim that went into why you created that particular part.

Working with him is so much different than it was with Kate. She was never difficult to work with in the past; nothing big stands out in your memory, but you distinctly recall every frustrating moment she asked to change something that she didn't fully understand. Builds like these were nothing like what she was familiar with. She knew weather, not cars, and that was okay, but...

Fuck, it's like Rhett shares a brain with you. It's strange; he looks at what you're doing, and he just...understands it. Like you've finally found someone who understands a language that only you have spoken until now.

It's two weeks before the parts begin to fall into place, but once they do, it's all uphill from there. The hydraulic arms fit like a glove, and the batteries built beneath the seat offer more than enough electricity to operate them without sucking power from another operation. The drills spin as they're supposed to; they don't even warp when they sink into the rocky Arkansas soil for the first time.

Sunlight reveals that the cage protecting the windshield has rusted to hell. Rhett's sputtering about an improved design before you've even realized how bad it has gotten. A few of the tires need replacing, and if you don't let him fix those mismatching rims, he might just lose his mind.

"How d' you just let it look like that?" He's gotten heated so quickly, but that growing smile suggests he's only trying to bother you for the fun of it, "'n how did I miss this for so damn long?"

"It doesn't affect the performance," you shrug, don't really recall when or how you wound up with one rim that doesn't match the others. Don't particularly care, either.

"It's affectin' mine!"

Your afternoon plans didn't originally include running between three shops in search of rims that match the aesthetics of the truck, but it's hard to say no when Rhett grabs you by the hand and guides you along like he does.

And he...doesn't really let go.

Maybe he does a few times, but he's loosely holding your hand in his while you walk from one store to another, and he's grabbing it to show you a set that he thinks is perfect for the truck's aesthetic. He's squeezing it when someone starts eyeing you up in the checkout lane. He's toying with your fingers at the stop light. And he reaches for it again at the end of the night when the rims are finally, finally on.

Now that you think about it, 'no dating business partners' almost definitely applies to you, too, but...

Oh, what the hell, why do you care?

"Do you...want to try something?" Rhett's thumb swipes across your knuckles, idle little motions that seem to burn into your skin.

You think you know what he's about to try and do, but... "Okay."

He's gentle about it, guiding you forward toward the shimmering gold vehicle, sparkling in all of its post-bath glory. His other hand finds your waist, drawing you to stand in front of him, back kissing his warm chest.

"What are we doing?" You know what he's doing.

"Nothin' huge," he murmurs, voice low in your ear, so close that you can almost feel his lips brushing against the shell of it, "just...touchin' the door, a'ight?"

His hand slips behind yours, grasping it from behind. Gently, he pushes it forward, so light that you can hardly feel his touch at all. Your stomach twists. That paint is too close.

Your arm stiffens. He doesn't push any further.

It's too...well...if Rhett's not afraid of it, you suppose that...

It's cool beneath your touch, like ice, when you compare it to the burn of Rhett's palm. There's a scratch in the pain that you hadn't noticed up until this very moment, just deep enough to feel when the pad of your finger drifts across it. It feels...well, like a perfectly normal truck. You're not sure what else you were expecting.

Your eyes dart to the window, peering at the silhouette of the steering wheel.

Rhett's hand disappears from behind yours, leaves you cold and alone, up against this truck, but he makes no move to step away. Still here, even if you can't necessarily feel him. "That's not so bad, is it?"

"You're not gonna make me drive it next, are you?" You don't mean for it to come out sounding so annoyed, like a petulant child.

His laugh echoes through the room and out the open door; doesn't seem to mind your tone at all. "Nah, we can wait on that."

You don't touch it again until a few days later, your hip idly coming to rest against it during a conversation. And again, when Rhett's on the roof of the vehicle and needs you to climb up and hand him something. It doesn't shock you. The door doesn't magically slam shut on your fingers. It's...normal. Hell, it's at the very bottom of your list of inconveniences.

That's mostly because two names have taken over the rest of the page, but you digress.

There's a moment when you catch yourself climbing into the driver's seat; you accidentally spilled a jar of bolts all over the floor, and the only way to fully clean it up is to get the truck out of the way. The key finds its way into the ignition without question, twisting so easily that you hardly realize what you're doing.

But then the engine rumbles to life, vibrating beneath your feet and echoing around the tiny garage like thunder, and ice forms in your joints. Stiff, freezing you into place like someone's pressed the pause button.

Rhett tilts the broom handle toward you; those blue eyes are warm enough to melt you back into motion. Something about him keeps reining you in. Stops you before you can force yourself beyond your boundaries before you're ready.

You're starting to love that about him.

"I thought we were past this," you mutter, chin resting heavy against your knee.

A midnight breeze swirls past you, bringing a chill that has you drawing your legs closer to your chest. At least the night is quiet, even the chirping cicadas have turned themselves down, nothing but a distant melody that you can hardly hear. Your ears catch the sound of a fork striking a plate, so sharp that it carries through the window and out into the parking lot.

"'m sorry," Rhett's knees crack as he bends down to sit next to you, back coming to rest against the cool exterior of his truck. He's so close that you can feel the heat radiating off his arm, warm and cozy like the flames of a campfire.

"You've got nothing to apologize for," it's not his fault. Nobody could have expected that bringing up the YouTube channel would end in...that.

He hums. "I know."

Wind slams against the truck behind you, rocking it just enough for you to feel the motion against your back. Rhett's hair lifts. Dancing. Twisting along with it. Blowing into his face until he sputters and forces it behind his ear once more. If you had known you would be sitting outside, then you would have grabbed your coat before you came all the way out here.

But hindsight is twenty-twenty, and you've got nothing but this thin t-shirt and the warmth of your own body to get by on, hugging your legs even tighter. They've been in this position for so long that they've begun to go numb, but you prefer this to shivering.

"Cold?" Rhett leans over, nudging you with his elbow. You think he leaves a small fire behind, burning a little spot into your skin.

"Little bit," biting back the waver in your voice.

"C'mere," and he's not really waiting for you to give him a yes or a no, already lifting his arm, beckoning you into his warm side. You shouldn't, but...

Oh, what the hell.

One little motion is all it takes to scoot under his arm, your head dropping to nestle against the expanse of his chest, and fuck, he's burning up. It's like snuggling into a big, cozy flame, one that envelops you before you can think twice about it. His head tilts, his chin coming to rest against your forehead, freshly shaven and a little bit prickly.

You can hear his heartbeat right here. Deep little thump, thump, thumps, following an unnamed tune that you've never heard before. It seems the cicadas have drums now. Performing their little melodies for their barely-there audience, punctuated by the drone of a car crossing through the lot.

"What if I drive us to McDonalds?" Rhett's voice vibrates through your skull. Your head goes quiet. "Think there's a Taco Bell down the road, too."

Finding the ability to speak is...hard. "I'm not sure if I'm ready to move yet."

"That's a'ight," his lips press to your temple, "we can stay here, too."

He doesn't say anything about what he just did. Neither do you, but it sticks in the back of your head like glue. You could convince yourself that it's just a ghost, one who has decided to follow you around and kiss the side of your head every time you think about him, the lingerings of a memory that refuses to leave.

It's there when you lean up against the passenger side door, bent legs lazily slotting between Rhett's as you eat your greasy fast food. It bubbles to the surface when you run into each other in the living room and become sucked in by the Dr. Phil episode blasting from the neglected television. You can feel its presence when you spot him outside the garage while you and Kate are having coffee on the porch.

You don't know if she realizes that you tune out of the conversation right then and there, mindlessly following the sight of his pale shoulders as he hoses something off. Muscles flex with the mundane effort, thick enough to cast a shadow.

"I mean, can you believe he said that?" Kate's still going, the ice rattling in her cup as her hand moves about. "Yes, I'll admit I have feelings for him, but you know how that would affect the business!"

"Who says that kind of thing?" You wonder what it would be like to dig your nails into those shoulders. What it would feel like for those jean-clad hips to slip between your parted—

"Exactly!" Kate hasn't the slightest clue what kind of daydream she just interrupted.

The memory of a kiss has zero reason to make itself known in the middle of an auto parts shop. When your hands are stained in indescribable grime that has no doubt managed to mar your face, the rattiest clothes you own hanging from your body with all the grace of a cardboard box. If you don't already look your worst, then you certainly feel your worst.

So why do you have the audacity to think about crossing the aisle and kissing him until you get kicked out? What provoked you to start thinking about this? You're supposed to be looking for that stupid...battery...damn which of these...did...

"Which brand were you looking for?" The question is so prominent in your mind that it slips out of your mouth before you can realize it, already turning to look in his direction.

"The purple one," he rattles off, staring down at something in his palm.

The...purple one?

Huh, you'd thought it would be a lot more complicated than that.

"I..." Rhett lifts his head, a lone curl casting across his cheek, wide blue eyes staring back at you. There's not a thought behind them. "I...forget the name."

Not your truck, not your fight. If he wants the one with the purple label, then that's what you'll pull off the shelf—

Shit, you forgot how heavy these damn things are. Your elbow pops, shivering under the sudden weight. It's not too heavy; you were just...not ready to actually carry something heavy. If you'd remembered, then you would have lifted it differently.

Rhett's arm drifts past your chest, his hand curling around the plastic handle, taking it from you so easily that you hardly feel it leave your grasp. "I got it."

You understand why you were so unprepared now.

It's because he makes the thing look light as a feather, only needs one hand to hold it as you walk to the checkout together. He doesn't even need help to put it up on the counter, so nonchalant about it that he doesn't even pay attention to what he's doing.

An ancient little television buzzes in the top right corner, directly above the chair of the missing cashier. You don't think it's been touched since it was hung when this place was built, a mountain of dust resting atop its boxy shape, but it still plays. A blurry newsreel crosses the screen, a bald-headed man pointing at a live weather radar.

The nameless man waves his hand across a patch of red and purple on the screen, rattling off words that take you a moment to process. "As this growing storm bears down on—"

"Y'all ready to check out?" The cashier is right in front of you all of a sudden. Rhett says something that you don't entirely catch.

This is the storm Kate was muttering about earlier, up in the northwest corner of the state, projected to produce conditions ideal for one of her beloved little tornadoes. The tiny ones that do nothing but rock the trucks back and forth, maybe striking a few unlucky houses but not taking out entire towns.

Your lower belly twists.

You're not entirely sure why it happens, but it does. Stomach churning back and forth like you're about to be sick, all over the sight of a television screen. Something in the room begins to ring, quiet but gradually growing louder, right in your ears, this piercing noise that you can't seem to shake. Your tongue is numb in your mouth, the air cold in your chest.

The scene changes. A woman in a raincoat, holding a microphone to her lips as she gestures broadly at the road behind her. Cars rush past. A Prius, a minivan, two Volkswagen Beetles, a silver truck, a red truck, an ancient motorhome...

"There they are," Rhett mutters, just barely audible over the ringing. You and he are supposed to be out there with them.

You think your hand is shaking.

Again, the cameras change, jumping back to the same bald weather forecaster as he points to something you don't understand. But they've laid it out for people like you, all of Kate's unexplained terminology has been dumbed down into vague, simple terms that you recognize loud and clear.

"That storm is gonna be too much for their trucks to handle." It darts out of your mouth before you can think about what you're about to say, teeth chattering around the letters.

Rhett tilts his head. "What do you mean?"

"The storm trucks," your jaw shivers, muscles fighting to disobey your every command. "Are any of them rated for tornadoes stronger than an F2?"

"None of 'em are," he reaches to pull his card from the reader, then, pausing, "the only rig that can handle that sort of thing is..."

You tear your gaze from the television, the reporter's voice droning on and on about something you don't entirely understand. Rhett's already looking back to you. Still frozen in place. You think you catch one of your own thoughts flickering behind his eyes.

But you can't help yourself, looking back up toward the grainy screen. The weatherman is still talking, his warbled voice drowning in the squealing filling your ears. You think you catch the card reader beeping, yelling about a forgotten credit card. The storm wasn't this big when it crossed Kate's screen; you remember it fit perfectly between these two towns. The forecast entirely covers them now, extending out to the areas nearby.

Something warm curls around your hand.

The ringing stops.

You don't know where the cashier has gone or when Rhett walked up next to you. But you can hear the shallow sound of your own breath, the sharp ins and outs that mismatch with the slow puff of Rhett's.

It's still audible, even as the room changes. Ever so present when the tile floor morphs into smooth concrete, that familiar musty scent swirling around your head, assaulting your nose and drying your mouth out. Shimmering gold paint glares back at you. But your right hand is still warm.

"You've got this," the keys jingle as Rhett talks, awkwardly holding them out with his other hand. They're right there for you to take. You don't even have to reach. "I know y' do."

You're still not so sure about that. But the radio in the corner is blaring its muffled severe weather alert warnings, the old television screen is burned into your retinas, and this damn old truck isn't going anywhere, regardless of how hard you glare at it.

Rhett's shoulder nudges yours, his hand squeezing a little tighter. "It's just a grumpy ol' truck."

The truck roars. Back tires squealing as your hands fly across the wheel. Cinching all twelve thousand pounds of machine to the left. The guy behind you blares his horn.

"Prick." Rhett snarls under his breath. His hand on the overhead handle tightens. Muscles and veins flex so harshly that you can see it in the corner of your eye. The front right tire dips off the pavement, the steering wheel almost ripping itself to the right.

Where are they? Where are they?

"I thought you were navigating!" You don't mean to yell. Too focused on jumping your foot between the brake and gas pedals, fighting against a speed limit that you know isn't being enforced right now.

"I am!" Rhett's nail taps angrily at a screen. "Wherever they are 's got no fucking service."

The storm seems to be further to the east, right might be your best bet. But this road doesn't look like it goes on for at least another mile, and you can't take another dead end. Not with the rapidly darkening sky overhead. Looming. Waiting for the right moment to drop an ocean's worth of hail and rain upon you.

"Right!" Rhett yells. "Go right!"

The tires scream. Foot tapping the breaks. The steering wheel spins. You're vaguely aware of your body tilting in the seat. Shoulder bumping into the glass.

But you never teeter off the road.

Even if you come close to it.

"What made you decide that?" You feel as if you're still spinning, even as the road straightens out in front of you.

His hand lifts, middle finger pointing toward something you don't have time to identify. "I remember them passin' them grain silos before the live stream cut off."

You see them. A cluster of six, up in the distance, towering over the corn fields that have swallowed you whole. Maybe a mile or two up the road, give or take. Plenty of time for you to lean on the gas pedal again, the floorboard rumbling as the speedometer crawls back up to seventy.

Everything still seems attached. No sensors are going off on the control panel crudely built into the center console. You know Rhett would have said something if one of them lit up, but you're looking at them anyway. Just in case one magically decides to light up with a catastrophic error in the next thirty seconds.

You've already got to tap the brakes again. Stupid, winding country roads forcing you to crawl back under fifty to avoid tipping over. It would be so much easier to cut through this patch of field that has already been harvested, barren, until spring rolls back around. Dodge the curves and jump right back onto the main stretch. Actually...

If Kate can accidentally drive this truck into a small river and come out fine, then a little offroading shouldn't hurt it in the slightest.

What's stopping you?

"What the hell?!" Rhett squeals. "You coulda damaged the damn—!"

"Dallas has handled worse." There's no way you're doing this. There's no way you're really driving this rig. Never mind hauling it straight through someone's old cornfield. Bouncing up and down with every little bump in the soil.

Rhett's head whips toward you. Still clinging to that oh-shit handle. "Dallas?"

...well.

He had to find out eventually.

All it takes is the slightest nudge to the left to jump back onto the road. And you never realized how quiet driving on the pavement is until now. Virtually silent as you reach for the turn signal, easing through a turn that you were definitely supposed to stop for.

The cornfields break apart up ahead, diving down into the much shorter soybean crops, expanding as far as the eye can see. No police cars around to catch sight of you blowing through another all-way stop, straddling the thin expanse of pavement.

There's a van parked on the side of the road, tucked away in a little patch of gravel. Lights and cameras flash. Yellow and white ponchos scurry back and forth. Dressed in t-shirts and shorts and flip-flops, not one of them prepared for more than mild rain.

"There's no way they didn't come this way," Rhett's echoing the very thought that just crossed your mind.

The first drops of rain come in one thick sheet. Slamming against the windshield. Blurring sight of the rapidly deteriorating road. You've only just turned the windshield wipers on, but they're still not enough. Whirring back and forth as fast as they can possibly go.

Everything around you has gone white. You can't—shit, you can't see the road. "Can you see anything?"

Rhett leans forward, chin bumping the dashboard. The tablet in his lap beeps. Once. Twice. Three times. "Not a fuckin' thing."

The console lights up. Purple in color. The wind gauge.

"What does...?" Rhett doesn't finish that question. Doesn't really need to.

"The wind speeds are higher than a hundred-fifty miles an hour," your mouth is moving, but you don't recognize what you're saying. Don't have time to focus on that. "Tell me if the green one comes on."

Gravel abruptly appears under the tires. Panging against the sides of the truck like hail.

Rhett reaches for something on the dash. "What does green mean?"

"That we should go in the opposite direction." And you don't want to remember if that light is meant to detect two hundred mile-an-hour winds or two hundred fifty.

Fog melts from the windshield. You didn't recognize it was even there. Fading away into a clearer world. You can see the fields again, mere feet away from the vehicle, as you tear down a road too tiny for your tires to fit on.

Clouds stir overhead, so dark that they're visible even through the rain. Twisting in a slow spiral, gradually descending to the earth below. But she's not here yet. She still needs a minute to gather her momentum before the clouds can kiss the ground.

Red flashes up ahead.

Your stomach drops.

"Take this left!" Rhett's order is your command. Shooting off onto an even smaller dirt path. A windmill shudders to your right, swaying back and forth.

There they are.

Drills whir on either side of Tyler's truck. Digging deep into the earth. But there's nothing to help the aluminum trailer hitched to it, shivering violently under the wind.

"You're sure they don't have this covered?" Rhett has to shout for you to hear him. Even then, you don't think you do.

The back of your throat is sour. It's crawling into your eyes, clawing at your belly. Your hands shiver. The steering wheel briefly slips from your grasp.

Something isn't right.

Your foot slips off the gas pedal. Sporadically tapping around, struggling to jump back on. Dallas's engine roars louder than the winds squealing past.

"It's not working!" Tyler's voice arcs across the radio.

Hail crashes into the roof. Scattering across the windshield cage.

"The barrels aren't deploying!" Kate.

The backend of their trailer jumps. The left auger slips through the soil. Tyler's truck twists a few feet. Was never meant to withstand this kind of wind.

Dallas is slipping. Tires fail to cling to the ground as you rush forward.

"Rhett—"

"I'm on it." He's already got his hand on the overhead button. Thumb hovering over the red light.

You're almost—you're almost. Just a few more yards is all you need. Almost. Tyler's door parallels with your passenger side. Little more. Little more—

The brake pedal spurs beneath your foot. Kicking back. Dallas lurches. Something internal shrieks.

"Now!"

Drills spin. Digging into already saturated ground. The engine roars impossibly louder, and the lights begin to flicker. All power concentrates over your head. Groaning to life, the hydraulic arms resting overhead begin to extend. Arking high into the air. Twisting outward. The tip of a drill bumps into the trailer, but it's still moving. Swinging over top of Tyler's rig, drills sinking into the ground on the other side.

A blackened wind takes hold of the outside world. Dallas shudders. But the steel arms never let Tyler's truck out of their hug. You don't think they're slipping any further. Fuck. Fuck you couldn't tell even if they did. Why did you think this was a good idea? Why did you think this was a good idea? Why did Rhett let you do this? It's too loud to hear if they've blown away. And you can't see a single—

"Hey."

Your shoulder is warm. And that sensation is crawling up the back of your neck, forcing your head to turn. Rhett's hands crawl up to your cheekbones, blocking out your surroundings. You're trying to look out the windshield, but he's not letting go.

He's the only thing in existence.

The console digs into your side as he pulls you toward him. His forehead kisses yours. Noses resting against each other. It's so dark, but the blue of his eyes is still as bright as the sky lurking above the clouds. The howling tornado softens into a hum.

"We're okay," it's nothing but a whisper in the rampage, "we're okay."

You hear him. There's no reason you should be able to. His mouth is moving. The words never greet your ears. Lost. Drowned out by a muffled sound that you're no longer capable of comprehending.

But you hear him.

This mattress...is the lumpiest thing you have ever felt in your life. A bed made of bubbles would be more even than this is, digging into the curves in your spine and nudging awkwardly beneath your hips. But you can't bring yourself to move. Not when the tension is easing from your back and shoulders. Has been there for so long that it almost hurts to let it slip away.

The television is on, multicolored lights flickering across the screen, playing what you think is another newsreel, but you can't look at it. Not today. Not tomorrow. You're dying here in this cheap motel bed. The last thing you plan to hear is either the slow drone of the weatherman or the boom of thunder outside.

Someone knocks at your door.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

"Who is it?" Using your voice requires far too much effort on your behalf.

A muffled sound works its way through the scratched wooden door. You don't know what he says, but you know who it is.

Your body tells you that getting up is impossible. Your heart already has you sitting up, sore feet falling onto the thin carpet without complaint. Something twitches in your back as you walk toward the door, wordlessly begging for the comforts of that shitty bed.

"Hey," you breathe.

Rhett's eyelashes flutter. "Hey."

Neither of you say anything further. It's as if all of your words have spilled out of your brain and carried off with the breeze, venturing off into the storm, never to be seen again. You think the same thing must happen to Rhett because he doesn't seem to have any words left, either.

Wind twists through his hair, whirling past and into your hotel room. Its invisible hands find your backs, pressing until you fall together like a pair of dolls. Like two trucks who needed one last nudge to nosedive off the cliff. His arms curl around your waist, and your nose is buried into his shoulder, and he's so warm and real.

"So Dallas, huh?" His breath tickles your ear, almost enough to make you shudder.

"You gotta admit, I had you convinced," talking into his shoulder, unbothered by how muffled it makes you sound.

"Sure y' did." It's his laughter that does it, sends a shiver racing down your weary spine. You think you're going to collapse into a million tiny pieces. "I would've never guessed that it was your fuckin' truck."

There's a part of you that wonders how he never figured that out; you're pretty sure that you scribbled Dallas's name into the license plate of your sketch that he's looked at so many times. Or maybe he did and simply didn't make the connection that Dallas was a truck and not another man.

"Found out why those two losers were always arguin'," he makes no effort to draw away from you, his arms remaining comfortably looped around you.

"Really?" Perking up. Maybe you've got a little bit of energy left after all. "What was it?"

Rhett leans back a little bit, enough for you to see his face, but he's yet to let you out of his grasp. "Dallas."

"Oh, so you both fell for it!" You giggle, and you're only vaguely aware of the door slamming shut on its own, cutting off the shrill embrace of the midnight air.

"Hey, at least I didn't make snide remarks about 'em," but you can still see the lingering embarrassment coloring his cheeks, unusually rosy. He fell for it, hook, line, and sinker, but...

Your hand darts up, pushing a strand of hair behind his ear. "To be fair, you have always been the sweet one."

The corners of his lips quiver, gradually curving upward, but his eyes refuse to meet with yours. "Y' think so?"

You know so, but those words don't dare to make their way out of your mouth. Even if they did, it would be no use because they fizzle away the moment the bridge of Rhett's nose bumps into yours. He's been eating those butterscotch candies again; you can taste them on his breath, sweet as can be.

You could kiss him if you wanted to.

All it would take is the littlest nudge forward for your lips to collide. A clever gust of wind could even do it, forcing you to take that final step forward, throw yourselves into fate's palm, and see what she decides on the matter. You could spend the rest of your life doing just this, gazing into soft hues of blue, kissing him through every storm that will ever pass. Or, this could be the only night that you ever experience this.

Thunder rumbles outside, the overhead light flickering with it in perfect synchrony. There's no stopping this one. No amount of magic powder can ease up the onslaught of rain and hail raging outside of your window, pelting everything in its sight.

"'s probably my cue to get out before the rain picks up too much," he says, so suddenly that you're almost shocked to realize that this isn't a dream.

He disappears so easily. Slipping away as easily as an afternoon daydream, those eyes daring to linger for a second longer before he turns to reach for the door. That big, bruised hand of his dwarfs the knob, gingerly wrapping around it like it'll break at any given moment.

Your lower belly coils. Sour.

You should kiss him.

And that might be how his name tumbles out of your mouth. That might explain where you get the nerve to grab a fistful of his t-shirt, yanking so hard that he stumbles. His gasp is the last thing you hear.

It's messy. Chapped lips collide, and noses crash. His chin bumps into yours too hard, and his chest hits you with the force of a freight train. But he exhales when you do. He tilts his head forward, and you think you're beginning to fall, plummeting off the cliff and into the nebula.

Rhett draws back just as quickly. His eyelashes flutter. You release your grasp on his shirt. Maybe you shouldn't have—

The corners of his eyes curve with his smile. You blink, and he's leaning back in.

You're not falling into the abyss alone.

Except, you literally might be falling because you're vaguely aware of the world spinning around you, seemingly weightless for a few fleeting milliseconds, before your back finds home in the lumpy mattress you paid fifty-something dollars to sleep on.

"Shit—" Rhett blurts, jerking away as if burned. "'m sorry, I..."

You only realize you're moving when you see your hand coming to rest against his cheek, coarse and unshaven. It's been a few days since the last time it was trimmed, has had time to soften and lose that sand-papery texture.

"I don't mind this," you confess. Lightning crackles outside, so bright that you can see the flash of it through the curtains.

Rhett meets you in the middle. Your noses bump once more as teeth unexpectedly clash, such a disaster that it ought to make you embarrassed, but you don't have the capacity to think about that right now. Not when he's letting himself settle against you, his heavy body slipping between your parted legs, fitting against you like he was built just for you.

Kissing him is...kissing him is like running into a tornado head first. He's so strong, pressing you down into the bed, anchoring you here with his weight alone, and he's just...Fuck, he's everywhere. His hand is curling around your face, and his belt buckle is digging into your lower belly and he smells like the rain that has enveloped the outside world.

He's traveling. Working his tiny, open-mouthed kisses across your cheek, the tip of his nose tickling the side of your neck as he finds his way to a spot beneath your ear.

Your hips jerk up into his.

He gasps.

"Is this...can I...?" Breathy. Hesitant. Like he's lost the ability to think.

It must be contagious. All you can do is nod. Dumb. But it's enough. It's more than enough.

No dating business partners, but surely they'd make an exception for a pretty cowboy, right? Kissing him doesn't count. Tangling your fingers in his hair doesn't count. It doesn't count if they never find out. Whatever the repercussions may be, they're not enough to stop you.

They would understand if they knew he tasted this sweet. If they knew that he hums when he tilts his head, leaning deeper into you, as if he hasn't gotten enough of you yet. His chapped lips tangle with yours so easily that you almost think you've danced to this tune before, falling into a routine that you haven't thought about in years.

The hand on your cheek disappears, fingertips idly tracing across your skin, down your neck, and then up to the corner of your eye, doing nothing but feel you. Something rumbles outside, in perfect tune with the slow roll of his hips, grinding down into you.

"Rhett," your head is spinning, idly grabbing at his biceps like that will somehow anchor you down.

"I ain't goin' nowhere," uttered like a sacred promise.

But the need for oxygen strikes you at the same time. Reeling back. Gasping. Eyes peeling open for what must be the first time in hours. Days, even.

Oh, he is something. Swollen lips and pink cheeks, his unruly hair ruffled and stubbornly falling into his face, so long that the ends of it tickle your face. You can only tuck so much of it behind his ear before some of it escapes and falls forward again.

Your eyes meet.

He laughs. "I feel like a damn mess."

"I'm sure I don't look any better," your thumb wanders out, tracing across his bottom lip. His tongue darts out, timidly wetting the pad of your finger. It's the last push you need to lift your hand and tap him on the nose with it.

Those eyes scrunch shut. Overreacting just a little bit.

Thunder slams into the ground with its heavy iron fist, shaking the motel and rattling you back into motion. Leaning back up to drown in him once more, almost sighing as he meets you, grants you the luxury of settling your head against the pillow. You think he only means to shift his position, but the bulge in his jeans grinds into you all the same, a little spark of heat bolting up your core.

"This is okay?" He whispers against your lips, those big forearms settling on either side of your head, seeking more leverage.

Your tongue is limp in your mouth, distracted by how the dim light catches on his bicep, illuminating a bulging vein there. Thick, winding down into his forearm and into his big, meaty palm.

Rhett's nose finds your cheek, gently nudging.

It takes a moment to recall his question. "More than okay."

Rhett's chuckle is a fleeting thing. There one moment and dissolving the next, overtaken by your sudden movement, too impatient to wait any longer. But you miss. It's hard to find any leverage when you've got him between your legs.

His hips roll down; you're convinced that you feel him twitch in his jeans. "That what yer after?"

There's no reason why this should work the way that it does. These layers between you should be making this harder to feel, but you're nearly convinced that the clothes are a minor hallucination because they do nothing to stop the feeling of him slowly rutting against you. The coarse material of his jeans drags against your thighs, the tent in his jeans heavy against your core.

You can't help yourself. One of your hands are tangling in his hair, and the other is grabbing hold of his bicep, greedily squeezing the thick muscle that you've spent too much of your life staring at. It flexes in your grasp, shamelessly showing off. You'd call him out on it if not for—

"Your ass is vibrating," you can feel it against your knee, a steady buzz that wasn't there before.

"Think it's Ty," he doesn't reach for his phone. Instead, his finger curls into the pearl snap buttons of his flannel, raking down and popping them open one by one.

His pale chest is...distracting.

"Are you gonna answer?" You croak, already fixating on that bucking bull tattoo. Old. Faded. Some little thing he picked up right after he turned eighteen, a discount job that has already begun to wear down. You recall him saying that his momma almost kicked him out of the house for it.

"Nah," the thin fabric falls from his body like a distant memory, landing somewhere on the floor. "Whatever it is can wait 'till mornin'." It's the tiniest motion, reaching into his pocket and tossing his phone off to the side, but the light catches on his chest just right, and...

"Rhett, this is..." You had a feeling it was worse than just a few stitches, but the image in your head wasn't this.

It's just below his collarbone. Healed at the top but opening up into a wide gash that is far too wide to be stitched closed, scabbed over, and surrounded in a sea of yellow and purple. You can see where the stitches once were, little red dots following the space that has already scarred.

"I know," he mutters, almost sounds ashamed.

You don't know what makes you do it. But you lean up, lips delicately pressing to the thin line of pink skin. Just two slow pecks, steering clear of what you know is a sore wound.

"'re you kissin' me better?" His voice is right in your ear, his smile shifting the tone of his words.

"S'ppose I am," there's an unexpected twang to your tone; you're starting to sound like him.

Your foreheads meet. Softly thunking together, noses rubbing back and forth in their own unspoken dance. He squirms, pulling himself a little higher on the bed, and—

"Shit." He's hissing, dragging his hips against yours again—something about that angle, fuck.

Rhett's the one who's taken charge of this, deliberately grinding himself into you like he can't think of doing anything else, but it's you who pushes things further. Craning your head up to find the prickly underside of his jaw, pressing your lips to the space beneath his ear. It's just so hard to stop yourself, lightly sucking on the skin there, enough to hear him gasp and leave a faint red patch in your wake.

One after another, gradually making your way down his neck, his heavy breaths enough to make you dizzy. Only stopping when you can no longer reach, forced to reel back before the ache in your neck begins to grow.

Rhett picks up right where you left off, his tongue poking between his lips as he kisses down your neck, leaving behind little wet spots that seem to freeze over in the chilly bedroom air. His big hands dip beneath your shirt, callouses dragging against your sensitive skin. You know what he's about to ask, and you're already arching your back off the bed.

But he doesn't take it off. Stops right as he pushes the fabric up to your neck, skipping across it, lips finding your naked chest instead. "You'll get cold if I take it all the way off," he murmurs as if he can hear the question floating through your head.

Without warning, his mouth finds your nipple. Delicately pulls it into his mouth like you'll shatter if he's too rough, his tongue swirling around the little bud in such a way that your head spins in tune with it. Your hands are in his hair, clinging to those curls resting at his nape, a little noise whistling out of your throat.

He draws away, and—shit, it really is cold in here.

Your hips jerk on their own accord. Impatient for something you weren't thinking about.

"Hang on, hang on," Rhett's chuckling at your antics like this is a little game you've been playing for years on end.

You're playing into it. Lifting your hips when his fingers curl beneath your waistband, shyly drawing your legs together when you realize that he's taken your underwear with your shorts, all in one go. It's easier to ignore the sudden over-exposed sensation when he reaches for his belt, pinching it open and squirming out of those too-tight jeans that have no right to cling to him like they do.

He's here before you hear the clothes hit the floor. Slipping between your legs once more, his body so warm against your chilly skin. Melting away the metaphorical frost that has already begun to call you home.

Oh.

You didn't realize he was—fuck, that's so much better without clothes in your way. His cock slipping between your folds, the thick underside massaging against your swollen clit so easily.

"Rhett..." aimlessly babbling, grasping at his biceps before you can think twice about it.

You don't know if it's because you never gave it much thought or if it's because it's been a while, but he's so much bigger than you thought he'd be. Just the sight of his thick, weeping tip is enough to make you dizzy, the kind of size that almost makes you feel minuscule in comparison.

"So fuckin' wet already," you don't know when he got so close to your ear, a violent shiver quaking across your body as he whispers in that stupidly low voice of his. "were y' wantin' me that bad, sweetheart?"

You can't respond. Not when he's using his own body weight to keep you pinned to the mattress as he ruts his big cock against your pussy, deliberately targeting your poor clit over and over. Little fireworks rattle up your spine and explode in your head with every motion, glittering behind your eyelids, staining your view of his face.

"I...shit, Rhett..." speaking is like swimming through a tsunami, words there and gone in a matter of milliseconds, washed away to the back of your mind. "Rhett..." It's no use. You can't...you can't...

The bridge of his nose kisses yours, one of his stray brunette curls coming down to tickle your cheek. You fear the day he cuts his hair short. "Say it again."

He's said...something, you know he did, but it's so—it's so hard to focus. Too distracted by the way precum obscenely spills out of his slit, mixing with your own wetness, sickening the glide of his length, his every motion punctuated by a quiet squelch that's too loud for this little hotel room. Kate can hear it from down the hall; you're sure of it.

Hell, maybe she's too busy with Tyler. Maybe she'll throw that 'no dating business partners' rule to the wind and shut that loud-mouthed cowboy up once and for all.

"...huh?" You think you were supposed to be figuring out what Rhett said. Still haven't done that.

"Say my name again," he sounds a little breathier now, his sharp hips forcing your thighs to rise and fall with the motion of his body, clinging to him like he's the only stable thing in this big, blinding world.

"Rhett." It slips out like you've been uttering it your whole life, tongue hand-crafted to do nothing else but form the shape of his name. Can't really stop yourself now that you've begun to say it. Mindlessly mumbling his name with every long thrust. "Rhett...Rhett!"

Pressure unexpectedly blossoms. Air catches in your throat as his cock head dips into you.

"Shit—!" Rhett's yelp dissolves into a muffled groan. "I didn't mean..."

But your legs are curling around him, your heels digging into the swell of his ass, urging him deeper. More. You want more of this.

Oh, and he gives you exactly what you want. Softens and lets you draw him in, so overtaken by the sensation that he visibly fights to keep his eyes open. You weren't ready for this at all and you don't even care. It's hard to think about the ache when he's already dragging against a sensitive cluster of nerves, his cock so thick that it rubs against them without even trying.

"'s it feel good or 'm I hurtin' ya?" Rhett's voice is like gravel. So much lower than what you remember it being.

"'s good," you're whining, absently squeezing at his biceps as he sinks further and further into you. There's just so much of him to take, slowly splitting your poor pussy wide open inch by fucking inch.

Thunder booms outside, but it's not near as scary as the monster between your shivering thighs. Lightning flickers as you feel him bottom out, buried to the hilt, and you don't...you don't know if you have room left to even breathe.

There's no real waiting. He can't, with you taking it upon yourself to dig your heels into the bed and impatiently rutting yourself against him. Shallow little ins and outs that very nearly punch the air out of your lungs.

"So fuckin' impatient," his chest settles against yours, anchoring you into the bed and forcing your squirming hips to hold still. "Needin' my cock that bad, baby?"

You've got just enough of your bearings left to glare at him. No, you were wanting him to buy you a snack out of the vending machine. What else could you want?

"Hey, I didn't say I wouldn't give it to ya," he chuckles like he can hear every little snarky thought that crosses your mind; maybe he's been reading your mind ever since the day you met.

All of a sudden, he's moving, drawing those strong hips back, only to rock back into you, doing nothing but shallowly rut his cock into you. If it were anyone else, this wouldn't work, but fuck he's already got this figured out. Massaging against those little nerves you haven't touched in so, so long, such a simple thing that has you clenching around him.

And you're helpless to do anything but cling to him and take it. Pinned to this shitty motel mattress as the storm rages on outside.

"'s that better, hm?" He coos, nuzzling your noses together as if to soothe the pitchy noises he's gently punching out of you. "I can feel your little legs just a shakin'."

There's nothing you can say. Stunned into mindless sounds that you can't seem to stifle, all too aware of how he's beginning to pull out further, fucking you in long, heavy strokes that leave stars sparkling in your vision.

Your hips involuntarily buck. The angle shifts.

"Aha—!" You're crying out. Way too loud. The neighbor absolutely heard that.

But you can't think about that because Rhett's caught onto it, swiveling his hips. Misses on the first try. Drifts closer on the second—

Not a thing escapes your lips, but your back rises up off the bed, clenching around him as he strikes that spot again, and you're only vaguely aware of how you're getting wetter. Absolutely dripping around him, every little motion punctuated by a sickening squelch that you can't possibly ignore.

"This poor lil pussy of yours," he's so talkative, purring those filthy words against your lips like they're gospel. "Gonna have ya limpin' all tomorrow."

You can't...you can't keep still. Wriggling helplessly, not sure if you're pushing up into him or trying to pull away; whatever it is, it's not working. That fat cock of his is still sinking into you at his own pace, balls lightly smacking into your ass, heavy and full and...

"Probably have to tell 'em a little lie or two," kissing him only briefly shuts him up. He's talking the moment you part ways. "'s not really acceptable to tell 'em the shop mechanic was—mmh between your pretty little legs all night long."

Your hand finds its way up his arm. Crossing his shoulder blades. On a one-way track to tangle in his messy hair and pull. It's enough to yank his head back, that pretty, pale throat on full display as a warbled moan jumps out of him.

Rhett's teeth sink into his bottom lip, muffling something you wish you could hear. "Talk to me, baby."

"Wanna...wanna hear you," that doesn't sound like your voice at all. If you couldn't feel it coming out of your own mouth, you'd think it was someone else entirely. "Please." For extra measure.

You'll fuss about begging on another day. When you're not—oh, when you're not...

The tiniest noise stumbles out of Rhett's throat. Music to your fucking ears. You want more of it.

It takes a moment. Gathering the strength to use the rest of your body. But then you do, and you're deliberately clenching around him, shivering thighs squeezing his pistoning hips as tight as you can, and he whines.

"Fuck, I...I..." Stumbling out of him. Aimless, but it's damn near enough to make you dizzy.

"Uhuh," is all you can utter. Dumb.

Lips collide. Crashing so clumsily that it's a wonder you don't knock a tooth out, nothing but open-mouthed entanglements and tongue. Calling this a kiss would disgrace the very word. Kisses are meant to be elegant. A beautiful sort of dance that no language will ever be able to properly describe.

Soft little whimpers creep past his defenses. Faint at first, but it's so hard to stop once he starts crying into your mouth when you clench around him once more. You don't know if it's the sound itself or the delicious drag of his cock that sends the wave of heat roaring into your lower belly. Hell, maybe it's both.

"Sound so fuckin' pretty." He's the one who says it, but you utter it in the back of your mind, too.

This room is so damn hot all of a sudden. A familiar pull has you fluttering around him, spasms that you feel just as much as he does. And he's driving directly into those little nerves so easily that your entire body is beginning to tingle with it, his weeping cock head striking them over and over and over.

Rhett shivers. A bead of sweat runs down his flushed face. "Fuck, I'm—"

"Close!" You blurt. Didn't mean to finish his sentence for him, but it's already out there, and oh, oh, oh.

His motions are quickening, unexpectedly thrown off of his rhythm, only for his hips to slam into you so hard it rocks the headboard. An unfamiliar heat blossoms, and you can feel his cock twitching inside of you and—Oh, he's cumming in you.

That's all it takes.

Your ears go numb as your back arches. Heart hamming in your chest. Crying out something that you never get to hear as you cum around him without warning. Little sparks firing across your nerves, and for the briefest moment, you think you've been swept up into a twister. Swirling 'round and 'round, nothing but Rhett's sweaty body to keep you from flying away entirely.

And the storm whispers your name, barely audible over the hammer of your own heart. Echoing as the color drowns to black, warping until you can't no longer hear that, either.

One of your eyes peeks open.

Did you fall asleep?

Because you feel like you fell asleep. Don't quite recall feeling so groggy, gravity weighing heavy on your eyelids, fighting against all odds to stay closed. Your tongue is almost stiff in your mouth, difficult to move.

Rhett's hand has long since curled around your face, his thumb stroking the thin skin beneath your eye. Delicate. You don't think he's realized you're back yet, so distracted that the proof of it is evident in his face. Those deep blue irises flickering across your face, trailing across your forehead, your cheeks, your bitten lips, cracked and dry from the elements.

You're far from looking your best. That you know for sure, but something about the way he looks at you...has you feeling like the prettiest thing this side of the country.

The corner of his lip rises the moment your eyes meet. "There ya are."

"I think I fell asleep," you croak. That still doesn't sound like your voice, but there's nowhere else it could be coming from.

"'s only been a few minutes," pausing to press a kiss to your temple. That might be a faint hickey forming beneath his ear. "had me thinkin' I killed ya."

You can't help but giggle, an image emerging to the forefront of your mind. "Could you imagine having to explain to everyone that your dick killed me?"

His eyes roll as hard as they possibly can. You're almost disappointed that they don't get stuck. "'s not that big."

"You'd sing a very different tune if we could swap places," you mumble, reaching for his hand. So much bigger than yours, you can hardly even cover half of it.

"Who says we can't?" He says it so...bluntly.

...is he already implying that pegging is on the table?

You can't find your words. Neither can he. All too quiet as you stare back at each other.

You crack at the same time. Sputtering into laughter like a pair of dumb kids, collapsing into perfect synchrony as you scramble out of the bed. Don't need to utter a word to Bare feet stumble across horrendously patterned carpet. His hand guiding you along on a one-way race to a too-small bathroom.

You're beginning to realize that cowboys and mechanics are just nerds with a very specific niche.

There's no way that Rhett is still out there poking at Dallas, running his hands over the different components, pressing on buttons just to see what they'll do if anything at all. Even from the door, you can see the gears twisting and turning in his head, processing every little detail and scratch like it's a work of art he's never laid eyes on before.

Except he has laid eyes on Dallas before. More times than you can count, and that beat-up old thing is far from a work of art. At least it's still prettier than Tyler's rusty old rig over there in the back...

No, it's not there anymore.

Did they leave already?

"Where's thing one and thing two?" You hope he doesn't notice the way you waddle across the parking lot, an ache plaguing you with every step. It was cute, the idea of being sore from a night in bed with him, but hell, is the actual experience a lot less romantic to deal with.

"They ditched us fer a date at some kind of storm chaser convention."

And here you thought Kate would at least give you the luxury of sticking around to tell you where she was going. Better yet, sending a text.

"A date?" Tilting your head to the side, like that'll somehow make you hear better.

Rhett presses another button. Every light in the truck turns on. "'s what it looked like on Ty's Instagram story."

You've already dug your phone out of your pocket, thumbs fumbling over each other as you search for your friends. Kate's account is the same as it was three days ago. No new posts since July of last year, but Tyler's...

There they are. Posing in front of the camera, spinning it around to unveil a line up of storm trucks. There has to be at least two dozen of them, sidled up next to each other in a perfect line with little white boxes resting on their hoods. A blurry sign sits behind them, forces you to replay the video and squint in order to read it.

Voting opens @ 4 PM.

"You have got to be kidding me," deadpan. Damn, not even an invite? After all that arguing? After yesterday? They wouldn't even have a truck to enter if it weren't for Dallas!

"Hm?" Rhett blinks at you. If this were a cartoon, he'd have a question mark hovering over his head right now.

You turn the phone around, showing him the video he's already seen. "They entered a competition for the best storm rig in the state!"

He bites the inside of his cheek, watching it again. After a moment, those big blue eyes flicker up to you. "...we could beat 'em."

"You think so?" Is this what you're doing now?

"I know so." Grinning.

They'll never let you hear the end of this.

And that's exactly why you find yourself bouncing up to him, your hands bracing themselves on his chest as you lean in to steal a kiss from his waiting lips. Curling a fist in his t-shirt, don't even need to tug for him to fall into line, boots thumping along as you dart back into the room. Scrambling to collect your bags, tripping over him in your effort to shove your pajamas back into the suitcase.

"Who's drivin'?" He giggles, leaning across you to get the room key.

The answer is obvious. "I am!"

Kate and Tyler don't realize you're there until it's too late.

#rhett abbott x reader #rhett abbott #oneshot #afab reader #outer range #tw food mention #description is subject to change (i hate it)

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sunnyferr · 7 months ago

Text

"Akatsuki Yandere + a song for each one"

Hey! This is my second post! I hope you like it as much as you liked the previous one<3

No mentioned pronouns

WARNING: YANDERE, Obsession, manipulation, obsessive jealousy, verbal aggression, mention of physical abuse

part 1 / part 2

characters: Deidara, Sasori, Hidan, and Kakuzu

playing: NEW MAGIC WAND - Tyler, The Creator

Deidara, one of the youngest members of the Akatsuki, I would say he's closer to the "teenage romance," so to speak. I see him as the "sweetest," if you will.

Still, I view him as someone who manipulates emotions. He would use the classic "don't you love me anymore?" as his main weapon. He would never lay a hand on you, but he would play with your innocence and kindness towards others, especially towards him.

"Do you want that nice guy to end up dead because of you?... Hmm, that's what I thought."

Gradually, you would see how your interaction with the outside world deteriorated. He hardly let you communicate with other members, always under his watchful eye.

He would hug and kiss you as much as possible, but only if you were obedient to his rules and commands. He tends to give the cold shoulder when you don't obey what he ordered.

His hands on your cheeks, squeezing lightly as your plump lips parted, he looked at you like a small and defenseless being, one who wouldn't harm a fly. He knew he had you under his control. Your teary eyes made him want to hug you tighter, so tight he could crush your ribs, but love was like his art, explosive, isn't it?

playing: hostage - Billie Eilish

He does not have a heart, Sasori does not have that feeling of "love" like Deidara, he only feels obsession towards your body, your delicacy, and your sweet demeanor... the most innocent puppet in his collection.

He would always be by your side, protecting his next work of art, constantly admiring your eternal beauty, his eyes piercing your beautiful waist and hips, your beautiful hair and your bright eyes, but in his gaze, it is cold, only showing greed to have you there, just for him.

"No, I don't like you at all, you seem annoying to me, what I like is your body..."

He would be in your room all night, watching you sleep while he fixes his puppets, watching your chest rise and fall with your breaths, your body relaxed and stretched, he looks at you with desire, undoubtedly you will be part of his next collection.

He never kissed you, never touched your body, he saw you as so fragile, as if you were made of glass, he did not want to harm your perfectly cared for skin, it would be sacrilege for him...

His hands so close and yet so far from your body, with a destructive desire to strangle you and turn you into his next work of art, to him it seemed... exciting, imagining the way you writhed before him, it made him feel in some way, as if he had control of your life, he loved being able to possess you, to do whatever he wanted with you, like a puppet...

playing: Ultraviolence - Lana Del Rey

In addition to being aggressive as a partner, he is a crazy obsessed with his partner, and always forces you to be behind him, chasing him like a dog in search of some love, because he couldn't even provide that to you.

He always saw you as a fragile doll, that he really wanted to break, stain, just to satisfy his morbid fascination with you, he always wanted to destroy you, sees your tears as the most beautiful and adorable thing, even if they are from the pain he himself caused you.

"Look… are you about to cry again? You are so cute when you cry for me…"

His eyes always on you, watching every move, if you spoke too much, he would correct you when you got to his room, grabbing you tightly by the wrist, quickly dragging you to his room.

He won't really feel guilty about anything, just pretends to by bringing you some flowers and maybe some chocolate or candy he knows you like, so you feel a little loved, and then he will continue to be the same human trash as always.

A wet cloth on your cheek, he had hit you again for throwing a "tantrum", you were crying, in the darkness of the room, until he opened the door, with the same bouquet of flowers as always, throwing it beside you, as if that would make the bruise on your cheek disappear, he slowly approaches you, and places a hand on your injured part, and leans in to give you a kiss, a kiss that seemed sweet, but in reality, meant nothing to him.

playing: Drunk Walk Home - Mitski

A really tough man, very materialistic, not so jealous, he really doesn't care, what he doesn't want is for you to leave his mental control, he is very materialistic, he loves money, how far would he go for it?

I know it's hard to hear, but he prostitutes you, of course, only with the people he wants, he really has a fetish of seeing you surrounded by other men, it's something that actually increases his sexual desire, seeing you trembling and embarrassed is something he craves.

"You look so beautiful when you look like that… you should be grateful that I see you as a beauty…"

You really agreed to that "job" because he threatened to leave you if you didn't accept, really a manipulator, playing with your kindness and love for that man.

although he is a LITTLE kind with the aftercare, helping you up and taking you to the shower, giving you privacy to shower, since in half an hour, more clients would come…

he watched the steam come out from under the door, while he was counting bills, going back to the raw memories of your tears running down your cheeks, really exciting to be honest, he stopped counting when he felt the water turn off, and saw you coming out of the shower with just a towel covering your intimacy it made him think of the beauty he had in front of him, too bad that beauty was not only defiled by the man…

#naruto #naruto x reader #akatsuki #akatsuki x reader #akatsuki yandere #deidara #deidara x reader #sasori #sasori x reader #hidan x reader #hidan #smutt #akatsuki smut #kakuzu #kakuzu x reader

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kayharrisons · 26 days ago

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Really fucked it up this time, didn't I my dear? [Bjorn x fem!reader] [3 of ?] [18+ ONLY]

You're avoiding him, more than you already have been lately.

A/N: fr wasn't kidding when I said this fic was giving me brainrot. Also been ill lately, so hoppefully this is ok!!!

Series warnings: unplanned pregnancy, discussions of abortion, eventual childbirth, commitmentphobe Bjorn, possessive Bjorn, talks of morning sickness and other pregnancy symptoms, friends to fwb to something Worse, cheating mentions, some degrading speak, nsfw content such as sex and eventual Alien type scenarios

You don't see the gang for another week. You're too caught up in your shifts and still reeling with the knowledge of your pregnancy.

You don't know what to do, in all honesty.

You want nothing more than to talk to Bjorn about it, to get his input, for him to just hold you and tell you it's gonna be okay no matter what.

But you're not spoken properly in weeks, not since the damn falling out you'd had. You're terrified of bringing it up to him, of making things even worse, of him wanting nothing to do with you ever again.

You exhale, breathing the muggy air in deep to your lungs before heading back inside your trailer. It's small, only built for one person. Would you raise the baby here? With Bjorn? Apply for a two person trailer?

You'd considered terminating it. It wouldn't be the worst choice, you imagine. Just take a pill, hunker down in the bathroom and wait for it all to be over, never think of it again.

You feel ill, at the thought. You'd tried not to get attached but...

You wanted it. You wanted to keep the baby. It felt selfish and weird but oh so right. You pictured yourself with your baby, their tiny face, a replica of Bjorn's blue eyes blinking innocently back at you. You'd never craved to have something so badly in your life.

You move into your bathroom, pursing your lips at your reflection in the old mirror. You don't look much different; maybe a couple shades lighter than usual thanks to the constant nausea but... otherwise, you look the same.

You turn to the side, smoothing a hand over your stomach, pulling your t-shirt taut against your skin.

Not showing yet, of course. You try and picture yourself with one of those cute little bumps that pregnant ladies get, but it's such a faraway idea that you can't even begin to.

Exhaling, you scrub a hand down your face, exiting your bathroom and retreating to your bedroom, collapsing onto the bed and curling up in the sheets. God, you were so tired lately, so fucking exhausted.

"Give your mom a break, huh, kid?" you murmur, brushing your fingers along the bare skin of your stomach. "Your dad sure fucking isn't. You've gotta be on my side, 'kay? He can't fight the two of us."

If he even wanted to be involved, of course.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"Cancelled again?" Navarro asks, arching a brow as Tyler reads through the message you had sent him on his data-watch.

"Hm?" he looks up, finding three expectant faces staring back at him. "Oh, um, yeah. Stomach ache."

Bjorn scoffs, slouching further into his seat and necking the rest of his beer. "She's shite at lyin'. And what's she messagin' you for anyway? She's my best mate-"

"Is she?" Kay asks, arching a brow at him. "Because you've been biting her head off every time you see her, lately. Doesn't seem very... best of you."

Bjorn rolls his eyes, cracking open another beer. "We've had a fall out. Whateva. Still don't change the fact that she's my best mate, get your own," he asides to Tyler, sneering.

Tyler shakes his head at his cousin, swatting the back of his head on his way past to the kitchen. "She didn't look well, when I saw her last." he frowns, grabbing a box of cereal and popping a handful in his mouth. "Had to do a security check for work at the mines, she looked half asleep on her drill."

Kay shifts uncomfortably in her seat, playing with one of her curls. Bjorn's eyes snap to her, narrowing in thought.

It was one of her nervous tics. His cousin was hiding something.

He soon focuses his attention back on Tyler, though, seeing as the topic is on you.

"Probably trying to work as many hours as she can, same as the rest of us." Navarro reasons, attempting to placate her brother. "You know what she's like though, over achiever."

"Hey, we love her for it." Kay defends, smiling softly. Bjorn exhales, chugging half of his beer at that.

Ain't that the fucking truth?

He considers his can of beer as that traitor thought crosses his mind, and with that, he's downing the other half.

"Wanna take it easy there, cuz?" Tyler asks, brows raised, concern shining in his eyes.

Bjorn scowls. "Fuck off, dad."

He grabs a third can.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

There is a loud, persistent knocking at your door.

You startle awake, sitting bolt upright in your bed and bleerily blinking at your dark surroundings. Your head is pounding in time with the door.

"Who the fuck-?" you groan, staggering out of bed.

Your rent is paid, you're off work for the next two days, your friends typically don't knock like assholes.

So just who in the fuck has the audacity?

You pull your shirt back down over your stomach, yawning as you open the door of your trailer.

"What?" you damn near bark, too tired for whoever is interrupting you and your much needed rest.

Oh.

Bjorn's glassy blue eyes blink back at you, raking over your dishevelled state in a way that would previously make your stomach curl with desire. Now it's full of dread.

He wets his lips, swaying a little, before smoothly leaning against the railing of the steps that lead to your trailer.

"Thissa bad time, love?" he drawls, voice thick, deep, the words slurred.

For fucks sake.

With a sigh, you step out of the way and let him inside.

#bjorn alien romulus x reader #alien romulus #alien #bjorn alien romulus #bjorn x reader #spike fearn

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foreverisntenough · 6 months ago

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‘OURS’

Summary: You were his and he was yours but what would it be like adding one more? Thrust into a whirlwind romance you never could’ve imagined that became your forever love. You continue building a new life across the pond with a very beautiful Scouser. A sequel to the ‘You’re Mine’ fic.

Index:

Chapter 1 - Size of A Plum

Chapter 2 - With a ‘U’ or an ‘O’

Chapter 3 - Auntie Laur and A Very Drunk Boy

Warnings: This series will contain fluff, suggestion, smut (unprotected sex,) pregnancy, mention of the word ‘daddy,’ kind of angsty, alcohol consumption - not sure what else really… if i miss anything please lmk!

Note: Thank you for reading! Please be sure to like, comment, or message me what you think of the series! Try not to nitpick with any real pregnant logistics it’s better if you just read along happily :)

Chapter 4 - Baby Dior | ‘Ours’

“Thank you for coming over for dinner tonight. If you came from 7 hours away or 7 minutes away, Y/N and I really appreciate it. Erm… we do have some news we wanted to share with our all, our families.” Trent smiled and looked at you. You squeezed his arm reassuring him that you were okay. “We've been discussing this for some time, so we’re absolutely buzzing…” he paused and looked at you again offering you the moment.

“So yeah, this… erm, sorry a little nervous.” You quivered, shaking some. Trent pressed a kiss to your forehead whispering to you that everything was okay. You watched Marcel’s eyebrows raise interested, your sister's cheeks rose from a smile of anticipation, Tyler leaning forward in his chair, your dad leaning back in his. You watched as a caterer placed a little white box in front of everyone’s seat. The whole table inspected the plain carton in front of them. “So, if you wouldn’t mind opening up the little boxes in front of each of you. Hopefully, you’ll be excited with us come this Fall as we are…” you paused. You could hear the thick material of the boxes being plied open over the muffled music outside. Then you heard the first breath get sucked in from your mum. “We are expecting a baby!” You got out fairly confidently. Collectively there were a lot of gasps and ‘oh my gods.’ You giggled a little as Trent held you closer in support. In each box there were respective things for each person pertaining to their role in your baby’s life i.e being an uncle, a grandmother, an aunt. With the little gifts was also the ultrasound. On each one you had written a little blurb.

‘Baby Girl Alexander-Arnold coming this Fall!’

In Marcel’s box you felt the need to include a little white sticky note on the photo as well.

‘Yes, this was planned’

It was cheeky and it made him smile that you knew him well enough to know he’d be a little taken aback by all this coming at him. Dianne thought she was going to have a heart attack. She grabbed your mum's hand and your mum was in the same boat.

“A baby girl!” She yelled astonished, standing up. She ran over to you first. She gave you the tightest hug you’ve ever been given before she released you to give possibly a tighter one to Trent. You picked your head up to see everyone impatiently waiting to say congratulations asking a million questions but your dad caught your eye. He was at the end of the table unmoved with tears in his eyes. You got up and squeezed Trent’s shoulder before walking over to him. You crouched next to his chair and put your hand on his arm.

“Oh, dad… ” you whispered sympathetically . Your mum walked around you placing a kiss on your cheek before going over to Trent. She wanted you to have your moment alone with your dad. You had such a special bond with him. Your whole family was close but this was really different from your relationships with your mum and sister. You were so similar. You learned with him, you explored the world with him. He was your best friend, your role model, the first man you truly loved with your whole heart and in a twist of fate and the heat of one summer he in a way brought you to Trent. Without him you would’ve never known those big brown eyes on 78th Street.

“I’m so proud of the women you’ve grown up to be. So incredibly kind and loving. You’ll be the most amazing mother to a very lucky girl.” Tears started to fill your eyes as he spoke quietly only to you. He wiped away his own before he did yours. His approval was all you ever wanted. He gave you everything you could ever want in a life, in a backwards way he introduced you to Trent. He was the best parent you could ask for and unknowingly also a wingman. The fact that you were about to embark on your own parental journey was surreal.

“She’ll be lucky to have the most amazing grandad too.” You cooed leaning your head onto his shoulder.

“I guess I’ll have myself an official born and bred Red now I suppose.” He joked. He pressed a kiss to your forehead before he picked himself up from his seat to go give Trent a hug and you followed.

“Congratulations, honestly. I couldn’t be happier for you two. It’s so important that you have each other on this journey.” You could feel your dad shifting into a mode you knew well. One where he was speaking vaguely before diving into something he had been harboring. “I’d like to request that my visits to see my granddaughter will be at Anfield.” He joked and gripped Trent’s shoulder in a way that made you quickly squeeze his opposite arms hand.

“Trent, come here a minute.” You heard your dad say it and you got nervous for Trent you couldn’t imagine what he was possibly feeling. Trent went over and your dad wrapped his arm around his shoulder and they walked off away from your families. You were in a conversation with your mum and Dianne but mentally you were somewhere else trying to read Trent’s lips and monitor your dad’s body language.

“Do not want to be in that discussion.” Marcel quipped seeing Trent’s face fall into a more serious mold. He was sitting with Tyler and your sister trying to eavesdrop.

“Yeah impregnating his daughter isn’t exactly the best way to win a dad over is it?” Your sister laughed also starting to watch their conversation closely.

“Nah it’s not.” Tyler laughed. “Trenty can hold his own though he’s got the prem trophy on his side. Your dad can’t forget that.” Tyler sarcastically but maybe seriously commented, your sister couldn’t tell. Their conversation lulled to only small comments about what they thought they overheard.

“I trust you wholeheartedly on the pitch every weekend. I’d like to think I can trust you just the same with my daughter and my granddaughter every day of their lives.” Your dad spoke sternly towards Trent looking over his shoulder at you caressing your belly. You looked beautiful and healthy. He meant what he said earlier. He was so proud of you. He wanted to threaten Trent. Scare him. As kind and humorous as your dad was, he definitely had a fire that made him absolutely terrifying. Like the man you’d see at the pub you wouldn’t want to piss off. Trent was polite and considerate listening intently hanging into every word your dad said. He couldn’t exactly understand the emotion though. He watched your dad rant about how special you were and Trent agreed but it was a slightly different form of affection. Trent was wrapping his head around the fact that he was going to be a dad, that he would have a daughter, that he would have this conversation someday. Trent swore, promised, vowed he would take care of you and your babygirl and also in true form, never without some humor your dad also insisted Trent promised England would win the next World Cup. Your dad believed him about taking care of you and only partially about the World Cup. They returned to the party, your dad more at ease, Trent more on edge.

Your house was so full for the rest of the week. Your mum began helping start the nursery, your sister and you in fits of giggles trying to sort out how to dress for the upcoming match of Trent’s you were going to in Spain, your dad and Trent watching the remainder of other leagues seasons. Suddenly their 4 day stay was over, the house was quiet, it was strange to have your family there one day and gone the next. You didn’t realize how much you missed them, especially your sister. You made a promise you’d be better about seeing each other in person more.

After your family left there was only about a week and half until you were flying with Marcel to the Champions League Final in Madrid. This very well could be the year Trent and Liverpool won the treble; The English Premier League, The FA Cup, and after this 90 odd minutes, The Champions League. You arrived at the stadium. It was bustling. It was busy, nosy, everything you didn’t want to experience thrust into one place; large men pushing around, alcohol everywhere, smoke and flares in the air. It wasn’t ideal but there was nowhere else you wanted to be. If you weren’t months into a pregnancy the atmosphere would be exciting, almost beautiful in the way it energized the air. Trent had won this before but there was no problem with winning it again. Liverpool was playing AC Milan and it was bound to be a good game. You and Marcel weaved your way up to your concourse. Since Marcel found out you were pregnant he had been almost as protective as Trent. You weren’t sure that was possible but he was a close number 2. The joke that you spent more time with him probably was more true than you’d like to admit. He had become one of your best friends in England. He was like a little brother, as much as you loved to razz the other or pick fights, you loved him unconditionally and vise versa. He would do anything to keep you safe. He kept his arm around you as you made your way up to a box. Eventually the rest of the Alexander-Arnold camp arrived and you mingled around while a few people you hadn’t seen in a while congratulated you quietly about your pregnancy, unsure if that was something you were doing yet . Trent’s manager found out fairly early right after your families knew but you hadn’t seen him in person since he found out. You sat up in a box tucked away from the crowds and as a surprise to you about 5 minutes before kick off, in walked a friendly familiar face who was ecstatic to see you. Jude had snuck into the stadium incognito in hopes of not drawing attention to himself. So far he had managed the task well.

“C’mere, Mum!” He cheekily cooed, not as quiet as you would’ve liked, pulling you into a hug. You squeezed him tight. “Brought your little family something.” He handed you a bag. You said you’d open it later, you couldn’t handle any more emotions than you were already feeling. You believed in Trent and the team wholeheartedly. It just was stressful. You were massively nervous for this game but he insisted. You rolled your eyes at him being such a pest but you dug through the little gift bag. You unwrapped tissue paper and unfolded a Bellingham Real Madrid jersey. You smiled at how small it was. It did occur to you that if all Trent’s friends giftedyour baby girl jerseys she was going to have quite the collection.

“You know he’s not going to let her wear this in England.” You joked pulling him in for another hug. “Thank you, Judey. When we come back to Madrid with her, she will definitely have it on.” You giggled.

You moved outside the box to see Liverpool warm up on the pitch. Trent stood with his brow furrowed as he surveyed the seats in front of the box high up for you. He finally found you and his stern face snapped into the full cheeky smile you loved. You blew him a kiss and he made a heart with his hands back up to you. No matter how many matches he did it at, it always made your heart skip a beat. You felt so special being the girl in the crowd he was sending his love to. While you loved the gesture it also acted as a signal to those who cared if you were or weren’t at a game. If there was a heart in that boy's hands, there was a Y/N in the stands. Before you knew it you were singing You’ll Never Walk Alone swaying back and forth with Marcel and just as quickly the match was underway. Your eyes followed Trent closely as you leaned back in your seat, one hand subtly trying to hold your bump. You wore one of Trent’s jerseys from a few years ago with a pair of Reformation black shorts and a mesh Gucci black GG heeled sandal that featured the logo monogram patterned in rhinestone crystals across it paired with Bottega Veneta silver drop earrings and matching silver mini Sardine Bag.

What started as a fan account updating that you were simply at the match, moved to a breakdown of your outfit, and then spiraled into uncontrollable internet chaos. Comments flooded Instagram and Twitter posts of you sitting in the box next to Jude and Marcel. Being with Jude only fueled the fire and more for eyes to search for you at the stadium.

‘ISTG she’s pregnant. Why have we not seen her lately?’

‘YK Jude and Trent drive her crazy 😂’

‘She’s so cool. I want her closet’

‘Wait Jude Bellingham is at this match?’

‘Imagine sitting next to Jude Bellingham and friendzoning him lol’

‘She bagged box tickets to the UCL final… mission complete’

The first half began and as much as you were trying to watch you were slightly distracted as Marcel and Jude rattled on about what you should name your baby every time the ball went out of play. It faded out eventually when unfortunately, you all watched Milan net an early penalty but then in quick succession Trent bagged an assist to equalize. You watched minutes tick by. The match felt both painfully slow and unbelievably fast. The crowd were chanting. At first you didn’t clock it until a few people beneath the box turned to look up at you. You assumed it was to see Jude but they were pointing more at you. You’re not sure what drew the attention to you. People seemed to be fixated on Trent and there for you. Half the stadium sang out in unison…

‘She’s not that fit, she’s not that fiit, Trent Alexander Arnold, your birds not that fit’ . * IYKYK the tune*

When the chant fully registered, you didn't know what to do. You felt paralyzed. Jude leaned over and cupped his hand over your ear. He whispered to you not to react. To wait until it was over. You understood why he said that. There would be more of a story if there were videos of you running away crying but the thing was you couldn’t move if you wanted to. It felt never ending. Ringing and ringing around the stadium. When it finally faded out. Dianne came over and rushed you inside. You started balling. You had no control of your tears. It wasn’t that the chant was all that offensive, it was just the feeling of being targeted by so many people and more so, the feeling that you were carrying your little girl as they insulted you. Dianne sat with you consoling you until Jude came inside after a couple minutes. He plopped next to you on the couch. When his big frame sat down, your side of the cushion raised. He told you he got tired of everyone taking photos of him but you knew he just wanted to make sure you were okay.

“Me and you can hide out, yeah?” He cooed sweetly wrapping his arm around you laying it over the back of the couch. You watched the game on the large tv inside a little annoyed at yourself for being unable to withstand the crowd. You wanted to see Trent play so as it got into the final minutes you walked outside. It wasn’t looking good for Liverpool. They didn’t have a ton of possession but you were holding out hope. In an instant, a bizarre deflection off a shot bounced off god knows who into the back of the goal. Your stomach dropped. 2 -1 Milan. You felt sick. This couldn’t end like this. 90 minutes. 5 minutes of stoppage time. Then 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes,1 minute left then the absolute worst sound you’ve ever heard; the referee’s final whistle muffled by half the crowd beginning to celebrate. Your eyes glazed over. You looked at Marcel dropping his head into his hands. You ran your hand over his back. Jude squeezed his hand tight above your knee.

“It’ll be fine.” He whispered as you both watched Trent take a seat defeated on the pitch. His head between his legs. They had lost the Champions League final. Cynically, Trent had to do a press conference post match. You went downstairs in the stadium with Tyler to be there with him.

You could barely look Trent in the eyes when you saw him. He walked over and hugged you in complete silence. Your cheeks squished together in the embrace. You pressed your lips to his skin and he closed his eyes. You could still feel his rapid heartbeat and chest heavily rise and fall. He was absolutely devastated. He let go and went on to go do his media duties. You trailed behind him watching his strong back walk into the room security tailing you. You stood in the back corner with people from the club and Trent’s camp. Your heart broke hearing his voice. His eyes eventually cast up towards you and they softened. You could barely manage a sympathetic smile. When you finally got to leave the stadium it was chaos and yet simultaneously soundless in the car. Trent wanted to get the fuck out of Spain so that’s what you did. You were on a plane back to England promptly. You didn’t know what to say. What you did know was that Trent needed to avoid his phone at all costs. Between the loss and the chant about you… he couldn’t see the internet right now. You grabbed his phone and turned it off putting it away in his bag. He was laying face down on a couch on the plane. You sat on the floor next to him. You rubbed his arm. He didn’t acknowledge you for a while until he turned his head to look at you. His blank stare didn’t change, it was just empty.

“I know, baby.” You whispered understanding his numbness, pushing your lips against his forearm. There wasn’t really anything to say. Trent wasn’t the type of person that wanted to hear ‘you played well’ or ‘you did your best’ type stuff even if it was true. He took losses to heart. Eventually he pulled you up for a cuddle with him. You sat next to him and opened your arms for him to settle into you. He let out demoralized breaths and sighs as you ran your hand up and down his back. He kept his face hidden in the nape of your neck. You kept the trip quiet only whispering how much you loved him after you’d kiss his head every so often. The loss lingered for days. When you settled back in at home he was almost vacant but he still took care of you. He drew you a bath every night. Sometimes he would join you but it’d be quiet, other times he would stay downstairs playing fifa in the cinema.

“You want to take it out on me?” You were asking if he wanted to have rough sex in an effort to make him feel better or just release a little. You’d done it a lot before it was always fun and hot but Trent was less than impressed.

“Nah baby. For one thing, you’re pregnant I’m not going to choke you out am I? Secondly, I’m not really in the mood for all that, honestly.” He was fairly snippy lately but you understood and let it go. You felt terrible and a little lost on how to fix this one but one day you decided you needed to get him out of the house. It was officially summer and the off season there was no use sitting inside. You forcibly dragged him with you and the dogs to go for a walk on Formby Beach. Trent rolled up the bottom of your sweatpants for you. Bending down was starting to get more difficult for you so you appreciated it. As you walked along the shore you spotted a family playing football. A little girl and her brother playing in the sand both in Liverpool jerseys; the boy wearing a Salah number 11 and then an all too familiar 66 flashed when the little girl turned around. Seeing her tiny curls in the kit hit you like a freight train. This would be your life. You would have a daughter just the same. You nodded your head in their direction for Trent to see. He squeezed your hand he was holding.

“Thank you.” He whispered quietly into your ear with a kiss behind it. He was happy you made him come with you. You smiled back at him before returning your gaze to the children’s football game.

“Always for you. You should say hi, T.” you cooed, turning back to him, swiping your thumb over his cheek.

“Nah, I don’t want to.” He wasn’t usually the person to go out of his way to flaunt who he was but he definitely didn’t feel like it after Madrid. They were only kids, you knew they'd be excited to meet him. Trent was not feeling the best and you understood that too. But as the way life goes suddenly the ball skidded across the sand towards you two. Trent juggled the ball a few times, flicking it upwards to catch it with a smile forming on his face. You gave him a knowing look because even as much as he was wallowing in the loss he still absolutely loved football at the end of the day. He walked it over to the two kids. You frowned seeing the two kids absolutely lose their minds seeing the one and only Trent Alexander-Arnold come over. They gushed that he was their favorite because he’s a Scouser like them. In turn, Trent teased the little boy about his Mo jersey. Their parents weren’t much better at containing their excitement. Trent took photos with them and talked for a little. When you walked away you could tell he felt significantly better, that he felt lighter. He wrapped his arms around you and you stood on the shore.

“I’ve never been more in love with you.” He cooed. The salty air had a wet chill to it but his warm embrace made it all okay. You stood in his embrace listening to the waves roll in and wash out. Things were calm for the first time in a while.

“You say that every time.” You giggled and everything on that beach and in the world slowed for a moment. You leaned your head back onto Trent. He hummed and kissed your cheek.

“And I mean it every time. Every day somehow it’s more than the last.” His words were more sincere than ever. You hated that they lost the game but it didn’t really matter in the big picture.

“T… I love you. I’m proud of you. You’re going to be a really good role model for her. You work so hard. You never give up and I really admire that. I wish I was like that.” You began to self reflect a little. You thought Trent to be much more resilient than you were.

“Thank you, baby.” He paused but then he laughed shaking his head. He didn’t agree with you. In fact, he didn’t think he was all that different than you were in terms of toughness. “You’re much stronger than you realize, Y/N.” Whenever Trent said your full name you knew he was absolutely certain about what he was saying and he was serious too. “This isn’t easy what you’re doing, what you’ve done. You’re amazing. You should never doubt yourself but I want you to know that when you do… I’m right here, baby.. I’ve got your back. I'm right behind you. Not giving up.” These were the times when you knew that there was something much deeper between you two then just attraction, then just good times. Trent really, genuinely cared for you not just as his girlfriend but as a person; he respected you and believed in you undoubtedly. You held hands walking back to your car and you stood at the boot. Trent helped you brush the sand off your feet. He kissed your ankle and you laughed. You heard children’s voices yelling so you picked up your head. You tapped Trent’s shoulder to turn. The kids from earlier were screaming bye to Trent. You giggled at their flamboyance. He waved back before wrapping his arm around your waist walking you to the passenger side.

“Passenger princess, that's what they call it now?” He laughed as he helped you in. You told him to shut up pulling the door closed.

“You’re lucky you’re cute.” You quipped as he got into the driver's side. He drove home with your hand laced with his. Everything was going to be just fine.

On a whim after dinner that night you decided you were going to make dessert. You had finally started to pull Trent out of his post Champions League funk. You put on some music walking back into the kitchen when Trent offered to help. The two of you landed on cupcakes, don’t know why but that’s what was happening. You got about ¾ of the way done when Trent cupped your chin. His dark gaze and long pretty lashes looked down at you. He scooped a bit of the frosting you had made off the whisk with his fingers and brought it to your plump lips.

“Open your mouth.” He cooed. You felt your heart rate pick up. You parted your lips a little for him. He slowly stuck his fingers in your mouth and you sucked whirling your tongue around them to taste. That’s at least what you were trying to do but you couldn’t shake the wave of excitement that ran through you when he did that. He pulled his fingers out equally as slow and wiped the corner of your mouth with his thumb. He kept his eyes fixed on you the whole time. He hummed with a stern face before it fell into the perfect smile. He dropped his eyes from yours and gazed down at your swollen boobs spilling out of the little top you were in. His breath caught in his throat. Desire started to course through him. He pulled you closer to him. He leaned further towards you but kept his thumb right on your lips. He was teasing you, waiting for you to make the first move. He licked his lips and gave up waiting before his juicy pout crashed into you. You let out a quiet whine. He tasted so sweet from the frosting he had tried before. He hungrily dropped his hands to your ass, gripping it. “You’re so sexy.” Trent softly groaned. The kiss was needy and messy. He started to peel off your clothes. His fingers dipping down towards your pussy. “Already wet f’me, baby?” He whispered with a smirk. You tried to respond but stuttered and ended up just nodding. You were fucking adorable. In a flash you were up in your bedroom lying on the mattress. Trent pulled you towards him by your ankle. You squealed with a giggled as he dragged you. He got on top of you and pulled the lace thong you were in off with a shaky breath trying to compose himself. Your arms draped over his shoulder. He looked down at you and slipped his hand under your top to brush over your hard nipples. You were so sensitive you couldn’t help but whimper. His pearly white teeth flashed in a smile before they dropped and began to nibble against your nipples. He always tried to be gentle since you got pregnant but in the heat of the moment it was hard to restrain yourselves. You were gripping on the bed sheets above your head. You were babbling the most lewd things, you couldn’t even believe the things you were whining out. When he slowed he took your legs and placed them over his shoulder. That was like a death sentence for you. You loved it, he knew you loved it. It was a match made in heaven and quickly you started to unravel.

“I’m gonna cum!” You inhaled sharply as your chest heaved underneath him. Trent placed a harsh kiss onto the back of your leg. And then he stopped when your orgasm came crashing over you. “T…Oh my god. What?” You whined as your pussy fluttered around him. He relaxed his body so you dragged your foot down his chest sensually back to the bed.

“You need to understand how much I love you.” You were confused when he said that. You were pretty sure you understood just fine and he was showing you how much he did until he just stopped. “You need to see what I see.” He pulled out of you and you hissed. He turned you to face the large mirror in your room and stood behind you on the bed. “Do you know how beautiful you are?” He asked rather harshly. His warm breath fanning against the shell of your ear sent shivers down your spine. He playfully licked down the side of it only to nibble on your earlobe. He teased you, dragging his leaking tip through your folds circling your entrance. “Do you?” he slipped his cock into your pussy with no warning. The buildup in these few seconds when he wasn’t inside you was insane. You leaned back into him as he continued to build his pace again. He kissed your neck and you let out a desperate moan. Your heart swooned a little at the sentiment of his words. You stared into the mirror, watching him place gentle kisses against your skin in contrast to his harsh thrusts.

“I love you so fucking much.” You moaned out after a sharp breath when he hit a little bit deeper. His hand came around you and softly wrapped around your neck. He was so gentle dragging his finger down your throat. You knew he did it because he had said he wouldn’t earlier and it set you off. “T… Please, I need to cum.” The cutest scowl formed on your face.

“I got you. I got you, baby.” He whispered to your ear again. Your whines constantly getting louder. You felt like you were gonna black out. It felt so good. Your grip on him tightened and then you released. Your pussy spasmed around his cock. White hot pleasure coursed through you. Trent’s breathing deepened seeing you cum in the mirror. “God, you’re such a good girl f’me. I’m gonna cum, baby..” He threw his head back. Being able to see him had you barreling toward another high almost adjoining the other. He swallowed hard, fixing his gaze back on you as he reached between your legs. His fingers pinched your clit and you yelped out. He rubbed harsh circles repeatedly. You were a mess. The sounds in your room were nothing but pornographic. “Want me to cum inside?” You nodded your head completely drunk off his cock.

“Oh fuck! Fuck!” You whimpered, feeling both your own orgasm and his cum. He pumped you full, slowing his thrusts prolonging your high. You grinded back into him desperately needing a little more. His hands gripped your waist tight as he rocked into you a few more times

“Just… just need a little more. Fuck. Good girl.” He said almost silently out of breath, teetering toward drowsy. You both dramatically crashed back into your bed. You cuddled up to him with a giggle. That was exactly what you both needed.

“If I could fall in love with you for the first time all over again, Y/N, I would.” He panted, staring up and ceiling talking into the thick air. You pouted your lips at him.

“That’s really sweet, T.” You giggled leaning your head on his chest. “So this cheer you up more than cupcakes?”

“Massively, more than cupcakes, baby. Nothing could ever come close to comparing to you.” He smushed a kiss against your forehead.

You laid in bed the next morning. You woke up and rolled away from Trent unintentionally. You didn’t know he already had woken up. He furrowed his brow at you moving away from him, more often than not you woke up practically on top of one another, so he wasn’t having it. He extended one of his arms to come and wrap around your naked waist and playfully dragged you across the bed back toward him.

“Gotcha” he laughed in a groggy morning voice. You giggled and attempted to break out of his tight hold. He wouldn’t let go. Not this morning and not in a million years. He tucked you into his chest resting your head in the nape of your neck. You were so close that if you even opened your mouth in the slightest your lips would be on his skin. He whispered to you but you couldn’t exactly make it out. You think he said he loved you..

Despite the Champions League loss, Liverpool was still going to have a Parade in the city for their Premier League title. You helped Trent get ready, making him breakfast, before you sent him on his way to AXA for the 4+ hour parade he was about to embark on. You and Dianne thought it’d be nice to go to the house he grew up in to watch the route. It would be cute to be able to see his trajectory from his boyhood home to premier league winner. You also liked that he knew exactly where to find you while he was up on the bus. When the team buses went by he blew you a million kisses and he blew a million and one back. You stood and watched everyone drink and party. Lately, you didn’t feel like yourself and as you leaned your head onto George’s shoulder seeing the red flares fill the air you felt less like yourself then ever. Your body had changed so much and your ways of socializing had changed even more. You hardly felt yourself and yet you were watching Trent be more himself than ever.

Summer was in full swing. 30 degree weather and shitty ac was not helping the swelling you were dealing with. You had gotten to celebrate Trent’s success from this year but soon after it totally dissipated. The funny thing with footballers was as quickly as they were able to move on from their losses they did just the same with their wins. All eyes were on the upcoming season. The workouts, plans, activations, all sorts of things for football started right up again. You sat in your back garden by the pool on a late afternoon. You laid on separate chairs as long as you could but ultimately you ended up sitting yourself in between his legs sharing a seat. You leaned your back against his bare chest. He snaked his hands around your waist. Caressing your stomach. When your phone pinged. You got an email notification from Tyler and Trent’s manager.

“T…T…” you slapped at his arms. Your jaw dropped and a sudden jolt ran through your veins. Trent answered with a distracted hum. “No, seriously…” you cooed, turning your head back to him. “Did you just get Ty’s email!”

“My phone is inside. What’s it say, baby?” He pressed a kiss against your cheek peeking over you to look at your screen but you weren’t giving him a good enough view. His hands nicked the phone from you. “Let me see” he wanted to read the email in full.

“T.. we got invited to Paris fashion week!!!!” You squealed, kicking your feet up and down on the longue chair.

“Okay, okay, okay, excited girl. I’m assuming you want to go?” He laughed at you. Squeezing you tight. “We can, if you’re feeling up for it.”

“T… we have to. We have to pull together like looks* Can I dress you? Pleaseeeee” you began to babble excited imagining the fits. He rolled his eyes at your pestering and agreed. You bickered back and forth who had better style until the sun went down. You began walking back inside whilst Trent was rambling about what he wanted to have for dinner.

“You know it’s me, just admit it, baby…” you teased cutting him off and squeezing his hip. You never landed on an agreement of who dressed better. It was typical Trent, he knew he was wrong but he never wanted to lose.

“What are you on about?” He looked at you confused, swatting your hand away from him.

“I have better style. It was literally my job. Just concede for once, T.” You giggled going to pinch at him again.

“Nope!” He popped the ‘p’ laughing. “I dress better and I'm a lot faster too.” He slapped your ass and took off running like a little kid back into the house away from you

“That wasn’t up for debate! I’m pregnant, T! Be nice to me!!!” you whined left in the back garden. “This is your baby, come backkk!” You yelled after him. He turned around laughing.

“C’mere” he grunted, scooping you up carefully. “I’m always nice to you, baby.” He cooed with a big fat kiss.

“Can you come here pleasaaaseeee. I need to see this on you.” You whined begging Trent to come into the wardrobe. You sat on an ottoman there on FaceTime with Lauren as you packed for Paris. Trent had delegated his packing to you but he really needed to be there. You had worked as a stylist for major magazines so you offered to coordinate with his PR team and the brands of the shows you’d be attending. You worked together to decide what you were going to wear and in turn be delivering to your hotel on the day of the show. You were currently packing for all the rest of the days you were going to be there.

“I thought this is what you were on the phone for, Laur.” Trent laughed, jogging into the room. He heard Lauren’s voice before he entered. “What do you need, baby?” He cooed, pressing a kiss on your head.

“Can you put this on for me?” You tossed a short sleeve Louis Vuitton button up shirt towards him and he snatched it out of the air, putting it on the island while he took his top off. You were 50/50 on the color at the moment. Trent pulled his shirt over his head. Leaving his toned abs on full display. You looked Trent and then back at Lauren with full cheeks and mouthed a ‘yum’ at her. She fed into it and teasingly whistled at Trent.

“Stop objectifying me.” He feigned offense. You rolled your eyes at him because no matter who said it you knew he loved when people liked the way he looked.

“Aw baby you’re just so pretty.” You cooed with a giggle. To be fair, you were incredibly serious. He did look really good. He swung the shirt around his back to slip his arm in.

“Yeah, T, you’re so pretty.” Lauren laughed only egging the situation on. Trent threw her a less than impressed stare. You bit your lip watching his big hands do the small buttons.

“Yes or no?” He asked as he finished the last one. He left the top two undone and he looked good you just were trying to focus on the actual shirt.

“Erm… “ you pondered for a second. Trent spun around with his arms out to show you it in full.

“Good modeling," you giggled, drawing a smile from him. You decided you liked it. The shirt would work.

“We’re done? I can go?” Trent asked wanting to get back to whatever he was doing. All you knew was that he wasn’t packing. You just hummed. He came over to you and pecked your lips. “Thank you baby.” He cooed standing above you taking off the shirt. You ran your hands up his taut abs.

You were upstairs the entire day, accessories bags, toiletries, there were so many things to get together. Frankly you loved packing. It was your two favorite things: organizing and clothes. You zipped the last bag and laid on the floor exhausted.

You landed in Paris and were thrilled. You got off the plane onto the tarmac. Trent carried your bag in one and held your hand in the other.

“Mon amour” he held the door of the room for you to enter. Followed by the bellhop with all your bags.

“Merci joli garçon” you replied giggling hearing his silly accent attempt French. ( thank you pretty boy) you sat down on the couch and let out a sigh exhausted from the flight.

“Oh yeah?” He laughed at your dramatics. “You hungry, baby?” Trent ask cupping your jaw swiping his thumb over your cheek.

“I need to change but yes.” You smiled back at him. You showered together and then got dressed. You put on a on denim shacket dress, gold strappy sandal heels, and a light blue Fendi bag with gold hardware. You needed to stop wearing heels soon or you were going to die but honestly Paris wasn’t the place you were going to stop.

You were outside at a favorite cafe of yours in the sixth arrondissement. You sat next to Trent in black and dark green rattan chairs looking out to the street at a small circular table. You were hungry and landed on doing your own taste test of a few different crepes. Your tabletop was covered entirely with plates.

“I think I’m just happy with the chocolate…” you told Trent looking at him with a smile reaching towards his face. You wiped your thumb over the corner of his mouth to get a bit of chocolate.

“Yeah? You were never a chocolate person until her.” He spoke looking at your hidden stomach. “I’m more into sweets, you know? I think I lean towards the berry ones.” You dragged your smooth leg over his under the table. You hummed interested in everything he had to say but you pulled him in for a kiss in the middle of his sentence. You lips pressed into each other.

“Sweet” you cooed, pulling away from his perfect pout. He gave you a cheesy smile and you returned one just the same.

“Me or the crepe?” He laughed looking into your eyes. He placed his big hand on your bare thigh and squeezed high up.

“Mmmm both I guess.” You giggled before picking up your fork to take another bite of the chocolate crepe. “Do you want to go to a few shops before we go back for dinner?” You asked after you had seen the Dior store on your walk over to the cafe. He agreed so you went after you got full from all the crepes and browsed for a while. You really wanted a Book Tote for your holiday to the Maldives but ended up with that, a pair of silk pants, and Dway slides. As you were walking with your sales associate to check out you spotted the Dior bracelet sets. “Want to match with me?” You picked one up holding it towards Trent.

“Yeah, baby. I’ll match with you.” He grabbed it from you and inspected it. He held it over his wrist to imagine it on him. “This one though.” He grabbed a different color. He held it over his wrist to check again and then yours. “Yeah, this one is for us.” You nodded with a childish grin liking the way his face looked while he thought. You had moved into the mens section looking at trainers with Trent when you saw it.

“Ohhhh my god T…” you whined with a pout, taping his arm, seeing the entrance into a separate part of the store for Baby Dior.

“We can go…” he laughed at you taking one trainer he was trying on off. He held your hands as you walked in. You leaned your head onto his shoulder and hummed. He pressed a kiss to your head as you made your way to where new born things were. You two had a field day. You always loved shopping but in Dior… with Trent… for your baby… it was the absolute dream.

“Babbbyyyy, she needs these.” Trent groaned. He held up a little pair of high top trainers. You knew pretty quickly that Trent was going to give this little girl everything. He already gave everything to you but throw in chubby cheeks and his dna in the mix, he was a goner.

“Yeah, T. I like those.” You giggled as he furrowed his brow, inspecting the shoe size chart for age to months trying to figure it out. It was really adorable how dedicated he was to learning all things about babies and little girls.

“et nous pouvons envoyer tout ça en Angleterre?” You asked the sales associate before you paid for an obscene amount of stuff. You took French in school your whole life and it always came in handy. You felt like you got better service when you were in France so you handled the check out. The women nodded at you. “Parfait, merci.” You cooed. (And we can send all this to England? , Perfect, thank you)

“Beautiful and smart” Trent came to stand in front of you and nuzzled his nose against yours. You kissed his plump lips. You felt your cheeks warm as he pulled you into his chest. He pressed another kiss to your forehead. He picked his head up and said thank you to the sales associate before being escorted out of that side of the store. You took about one step out the door before someone had spotted Trent that had been waiting to meet him. You took a photo for them and didn’t think anything of it but the internet sure had a lot to say.

‘Are they in front of BABY DIOR?’

‘OMG are they going to Paris Fashion Week??!?’

‘Are we going to talk about the fact that Trent Alexander Arnold is walking out of baby dior in France today?’

‘If she is pregnant, that baby is going to be beautiful… omg’

•

Thank you for reading! Please like, comment, or message what you think of the chapter … 🤍

Next part - Chapter 5 xx

#trent alexander arnold x reader #trent alexander arnold #trent alexander arnold imagines #taa x reader #taa66 #oursfic

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kagetxiga · 27 days ago

Note

Ok I know that I requested earlier but it was so good 🥲🥲🥲😭😭😭😭!!!!! Ok sbg x phantom reader?

Reader Is a phantom but she has a human like figure for herself but I doesn't make it any better since she is still VERY creepy I mean like more scary then the phantoms like reader is so quiet that ASHLYN CAN'T EVEN HEAR HER an she a whopping 8 feet tall 😁 with A LOT of hunting skills 🥲😭 like the first encounter with reader was her chasing them spider style 🥲 her smile is so long it reaches her FOREHEAD 😨

that's all 😆🦅🦅🦅🦅❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

If to tired to do do it later I don't mind waiting!

-by ohmydearesthowiluvu72

Hey darling! I was WAITING for a trope like this omg, i’ve always wondered how a Phantom!Reader would be like!! You also had requested for it to be poly so don’t worry girl, i gotchu 😉 anyways, enjoy! 🌷🧸💕

MASTERLIST

HAUNTING NIGHT

A SBG X PHANTOM!READER TROPE

Let’s just say

They had a hard time sleeping

It’s not every night you wake up in a new realm where phantom monsters chase you and your friends

But after that field trip? It’s every night.

BUT A HUMAN PHANTOM???

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF A SLENDERMAN LOOKING CREATURE CHASED YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS?

Logan passed out in fear and they had Ben carry him the rest of the chase

“Hey…guys? What’s that?” Taylor mumbled while pointing behind them

And all they see is a person

At least that’s what they thought

The reader has long and lanky arms and legs, making them a whole 7’10 tall

Did i mention how their eye pupils are fully white?

So just imagine a tall figure in the woods, blending in with the shadows and all you see is their huge ass smile reaching their ears, showing off their beautiful pearly whites and their eyes wide open.

Yeah they weren’t gonna deal with that

So they ran!

BUT YOU CHASED. 🗣️🗣️🔥🔥

Bending backwards and doing twists and acrobatics, you chased them on all fours, making weird hissing sounds while they yelled in fear and for the sake of their lives back at the base

It doesn’t help how you can climb over the walls to their base

You’re already taller than the original phantoms, you’re too short for your head to reach the top of the walls, but when you stretch your hand up?? Yeah you can totally climb it.

Soooo it wasn’t fun when they found that out

When you climbed up the wall, they were fucking terrified, and i mean terrified

They didn’t know what to do!! This has never happened before!!

Sadly taylor was the first one you lunged after, pinning her down to the ground and was about to chop her face off (you were hungry), but Tyler immediately swung an axe at you, making a deep cut on your arm

To which it grows back!!

Ta-da!! You can regenerate!

So obviously that wasn’t much help, it just angered you even more so you went after Tyler, sparring Taylor for later

Sadly Ashlyn grabbed a flashlight and shunned it at you, unlike other phantoms, you don’t melt or bubble up like them, it just makes you weak

Super weak to the point you can barely move

So when that happened, you had practically fainted due to hunger and the light

They couldn’t kill you, because after further inspection, they realized you were human(-ish) so they took you in for interrogation, having you tied up on a chair with ropes all around your arms, wrists, ankles, thighs, basically everywhere

When they realized you were a hybrid, they were quite scared for their safety, but also concerned for you, maybe you had been forced to transform like that, maybe you were in the same shoes as them, having been in a field trip and been stuck here, or maybe you were just born like that

You finally woke up from fainting and immediately had a headache and all sorts of aches everywhere from the massive lights shunned at you when they were asking questions

Turns out, you were just part human, having been born like that in the phantom world

You were starving tho, so they somewhat fed you (they gave you a granola bar and an apple)

After that, they kept you in the chair until further notice, having you in a separate bus, and each night, they send someone to stay with you the entire time, questioning you and making sure you’re not doing something /going anywhere

Tyler, Ben and Logan didn’t like the idea of having you around, you were weird, you were different, you were apart of them

But at the same time, they couldn’t kill you, you were too humanized to the point if they even did end up killing you, they would be haunted by the thought of murdering someone

Ashlyn and Taylor were on edge, they hated being put at risk of danger, they hated the thought of you releasing from the chair and doing god knows what

They couldn’t trust you one bit, but they still took care of you, having to slowly build yours and their trust together

While you’re taken hostage, they’re the ones who usually feed you, they eventually found out that you’re a carnivore, having to be eating meat. But you still ate the granola bars and other food they gave you, but it wasn’t a good option of food.

AIDEN. OH MY GOD.

Dude this guy was driving YOU on edge

He can pop up out of no where with like idk a MACHINE GUN and it scares you.

Aiden loves to taunt you

He just loves torturing you

I think it’s cause you attacked his friends

Just be glad that you didnt attack ash…

He would always act like a bodyguard too, along with ben and tyler

Like when ash or taylor goes to feed you, theyre always looming behind

Now lets say you were acting nice, honestly you could care less that you’ve been taken hostage, you’re not fighting for your life in the wild, you’re being hand fed by pretty girls, and you’re just sitting there chilling

They eventually let you out

And but not without weapons being on them

“Okay…im gonna untie you, you better behave” Taylor said with unease in her voice

“Okay!” You cheered with a gleeful smile

But to them it was horrifying to see your smile

You slowly stood up as you stretched your limbs, but then you hit your head on the bus roof.

After a few hours, with you just wandering around exploring the place, you eventually just…

Fell asleep on the bus rooftop

They found you weird, but this is where they’re learning to fully trust you

Sure i will admit, you were used as a guard dog or a guard in general

But this is how they realize that you’re still a human and guilt was being spread like the plague

You had harmed yourself when you jumped in to protect logan from a phantom, earning a large scratch all across your chest down to your pelvis

And after getting to a safe place, they immediately treated you up (thanks ben)

But it didnt take long for it to heal (regeneration) but they still felt bad

After that, you gained logan’s respect and trust, the others…you just gained respect

HEY YOURE STILL PART PHANTOM DONT BLAME THEM

but eventually with a lot of bonding and sharing adventures together, they trusted you

It took a while, along with a rocky path, but they trusted you and thats all you needed

Thank you! ^^

-K.T

#fandom #school bus graveyard x reader #sbgxreader #sbg fandom #sbg taylor #sbg tyler #sbg ben #sbg x reader #ashlyn sbg #aiden sbg #sbg #sbg (webtoon)#logan sbg #sbg fanfic #aiden x reader #tyler x reader #x reader

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stardancerluv · 2 months ago

Text

A Space Journey

Part Two

Summary: New developments for Tyler. Reader and Tyler

Notes/Warnings: Mentions of fights in Tyler’s past. Esteem issues with Reader. Company induced angst with Tyler. Drinking. (Be safe and responsibly)

Runs long. It’s been writing itself. Ooh, he so deserved better.

❤️s, feedback, comments & reblogs are welcome!

Tyler, stood outside of the office. Opening and closing his hands, unease prickled him. The rain was particularly heavy today and he was more then happy to be out of it. He couldn’t imagine what they would want. He just had a very good salvage. They should be happy.

“Harrison, get in here.”

Turning sharply on his heal he went into the office. He bit the inside of his cheek when he saw a high ranking military officer and someone from the science office.

“You wanted to see me sir.” He kept his eye level straight. Just past the balding, company man that sat behind the desk and directed to to his salvages.

“Yes, Harrison. We’ve noticed you.”

The seat creaked as he sat back.

He felt his heart pick up speed.

“Me sir?”

The man nodded. “One of our bigger cargo ships has gone missing. It’s beacon recently came back online but no one is answering any of the coms we sent.”

The man gave an indifferent shrug.

“Perhaps, space pirates took it, raided it and killed the crew; we can’t be sure. But we want you to go and look into it.”

“When sir?”

“Fifteen days, Harrison.”

“If I may, depending on where it is why not send me now and perhaps I’ll come back faster then planned like with the Omega 17 salvage I just came back from.”

For a moment, a smug expression fell over his face. The pay day and his efficiency was superb. But he caught himself, and went back to a blank expression.

The man behind the desk chuckled.

“Told you guys, my boy is motivated.” The glanced at the two other men. “And he’s good. My best.” He gave him a smile. It made his stomach churn.

The military man stepped forward. “We believe, this time you will encounter hostiles.”

He pressed his lips together.

“Alright. I’ve never dealt with hostiles or anyone for that matter.”

“What about the few fights that led to a late night, dawn in one of the 4 by 10 rooms?” The man’s razor thin mouth cracked into a smirk that spread across his face.

This was beginning to sound like something he may not walk away from. He felt ill.

“Easy. You will get some training. You don’t get it, it doesn’t sink in before we need to ship out; we replace you.

“Hey, you said it would be my man we’re using.” The man behind the desk genuinely rankled.

Tyler never would have guessed that he cared one way or another.

The military officer shrugged. “My men will give you a rundown on how to handle yourself.”

“What about my crew?”

“Honestly? We are well aware of how important your family is to you, they can stay on the Corbelan IV, your cousin doesn’t need any help from us. Or we can give you a different crew.”

The man’s tone was as flat and as unforgiving as he looked.

“We don’t care as long as you accomplish what we want you for.”

“How’s the payout?”

The man behind the desk let out a chuckle. The military officer glanced down at him and back to him.

“If it all works out you will be able refit uthe Corbelan IV with the repairs its been needing and more.”

“Alright done.”

“Go to quadrant twenty seven at eight hundred hours tomorrow.”

********

Tyler, moved through throngs of people. Another miserable day in Jackson. His mind was a jumble. Did be really say yes?

“Baby want a good time?” Hand reached out, he grimaced and shook his head barely stopping.

He had to get out here. You all did. Damn, you had never even see anything else.

He was grateful, when he got to the Corbelan no one was there. He needed some time to think.

He plopped down in one of the chairs. It barely gave under his weight. But it would have to do. Looking out of the shuttered smudged window, he saw more dark clouds had rolled in bringing more rain.

He raked his fingers through his hair. He could do this. If he felt strong enough he’d bring the others along. How would he even explain using another crew.

He smirked to himself, at the idea of making some solid credit. They had wanted him. His eyes moved over the small sitting space. Grungy, cramped. Far too small. He rested a boot on the table.

Two small hands that had rough softness covered his eyes. A broad smile curled his lips.

“Guess who?”

He chuckled, tilting his head to one side. “My annoying sister.”

A peel of laughter came from above him.

“Guess again?“

“Oh! Oh! I know Navarro.”

“No!!!” You slipped to the side of him, hand on your hip.

“I knew it was you.”

He chuckled but as he looked you up and down, a smirk curled his lips. Damn. Even in your faded, torn company shirt and cargo pants you looked good.

“Looking good baby.”

You shrugged. “May I?“ Your eyes fell to his lap and back up to his eyes.

“Please.” He smirked pushing against the chair, it was unforgiving. So he could happily make room for you in his lap.

You easily made yourself comfortable. It relaxed him after what he had just gone through, good or bad. It had filled him with unease filled confidence if that was even possibly.

You wiggled more and then giggled.

“Tyler? Are you off world?”

Another giggle came from you.

His attention coming back to he rose an eyebrow as he saw you giving him a playfully serious look from under the shield of his cap. You were far too cute sometimes.

“Just the meeting I had.”

He made a face, mentally shrugging the feel off. He looked at you, cocking an eyebrow.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“What? Oh this?” You playfully placed your hands on his cap.

He motioned for it. “Give it back.”

“Nah, its comfy. I like it.”

He made a swipe for it. You avoided his hand and squealed.

Wrapping his arms around you he held you close. Easily snatched it off your head, pulled it onto his.

You were beginning to protest, when he dipped close and pressed his lips against. He felt a soft push before he felt you melt against him.

*******

Eyeing your reflection in the scrapped, mirror. You frowned. Even though the rain had let up and you all could walk to the bar with just ash and soot hanging in the air, your hair fell flat.

You had never been one to use taming spray. But it just looked so boring and dull. You had wanted to look good for Tyler.

Kay came bouncing up behind and gave you a tight embrace. You could smell the soft scent of the drinks she had been enjoying. She endearingly, pressed her head against yours.

“What’s the matter? Is my brother being insufferable?” Her eyes met yours in the mirror.

“No.” Your shoulders slumped. You patted her arms. “He’s great. I just don’t think I’m enough.”

She pulled back and turned you to face her. “What is this?” Her eyes were sharp with concern. “He adores you. I’ve never seen him so happy.” She chuckled. “So full of himself. He’s like I got the best so I am the best.” She smiled.

“Truly.”

“Yeah. I’ve never seen him so confident.” She looked playful. “If I didn’t like you so much, I would have pushed him out of the Corbelan long time ago.”

You smiled then. “If you say so.”

“I do.” She offered an arm. “Now, let’s get back out there! We have to get a few more dances in and have a few more drinks.” She gigglee.

“Yes!”

******

“One more.” He gave you a wink, taking the glass. “You gotta finish yours too.” His gestured to yours.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” You hopped onto the stool beside him, grabbing your own glass.

You glanced over at the small very jammed dance floor Kay was shimmying with some random blonde guy you once or twice saw in your sector of the mine. You had lost track of where Bjorn and Navarro were.

You looked back at Tyler in time to see him bringing the glass to his lips. In the hazy, warmth the drinks you had distantly made you jealous of the glass. Looking him over, you noticed how sweat prickled his dark strands, his cheeks were flushed and how he tilted his head back as easily drank the entirety of the glass.

A loud sigh came from him, slamming the glass down he wiped his mouth the back of his hand. “Ready?”

You nodded, happily taking his hand.

His hands were firm, as he held you to him. You fingers grazed through the shorter strands of where he shorn some of his hair. It was a wonderful contrast to the longer, soft strands.

You giggled softly as he leaned in close, his lips grazing your throat. He nipped at you. It made you wiggle against him.

“Man, I want you.” His voice rasped in your ear.

Moving just so. Loving how his scent enveloped the two of you. It pushed away the others or even the place.

“I will always be yours.” You whispered in his ear.

He pulled you even closer to him.

******

He rubbed his temples under the water beating down at him. He really shouldn’t have drank that much last night.

But then again, it was the night before the company owned more of him. He was doing this for you and the others. He had to keep telling himself this.

******

He swished the water and the paste in his mouth after scrubbing at his teeth. Might as well not look and smell like he had danced and drank the night away.

Going into the kitchen, he opened one of the containers and snatched up two blocks of the corn bread. Sighing, he munched on one. By the time he came back to his room. He placed the one he grabbed for you by the environment gauge and time giver.

Carefully, he pulled on his long sleeved, thermal shirt leaving the buttons undone, always felt strangled otherwise and then he pulled on a pair of his heavier socks. He looked back at you. He had wanted to tell you, more then he even wanted to tell Kay or Bjorn but right now, he couldn’t he had to get the feel of things.

A soft sound came from you, still asleep as you moved and settled onto your back. You had snagged one of his shirts. Seeing you in it, made him smile.

Looking away, he reached out and pulled over his boots. Another soft sound came from you. Maybe he should leave a note, but you and the others knew how sometimes he would leave early if he had a good lead on a new salvage. But this was different. He chewed the inside of his cheek.

“Tyler?” Your voice was soft, still heavy with sleep and he felt your hand on his back.

He put on a brave face, a winning smile

“Hi sleepy.”

“You are already leaving?”

He nodded. “Got to.”

“Ok.” He felt your hand leave his back. He shuffled a bit to face you more.

You looked back at him.

“Look you trust me right?”

You nodded.

“Good.” He chuckled softly. “Look I got some good things ahead. I promise.”

You pressed your lips together. “Good. Just be safe.”

“Me? Always.” He pointed at his table. “Look, I even nabbed your favorite. The corner of the corn bread.”

You smiled then. “Thank you.”

“Nothing but the best, I can give.”

You moved fast and hugged him tight. You tucked in under his chin.

“Baby?“ He without hesitation hugged you back.

“Had a nightmare.”

He squeezed you. “Nothing will get me.”

He felt as you nodded.

“Now you are one that’s gotta to be safe in the mine today.” He rubbed your back. “Take a tablet before you head out, to clear your head. I’ll get us some good rations for tonight.”

*******

A few hours in, sweat was running down his face. He rubbed his forehead with his arm. They prodded him, pricked him to draw his blood. Now, he was hooked up to something and he was running on some kind of device; it beeped in time with the beat of his heart. He could not wait to get back to you and the others.

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shieldofiron · 7 months ago

Text

Pretty Boy Live in Santa Fe, 1977

Part 1/3 Also on Ao3 here

For @harringrove-relay-race. Very happy with how part 1 turned out, and there will be more to come. Thanks to @foxxtastic for the intro and next up will be something stunning from our fearless Relay Race leader @half-oz-eddie

Rated M / 5k words / Part 1/3

Part 1: Into Hades

Rolling Stone Magazine - May 2002

Billy Hargrove arrived after I did, in his lovingly maintained blue Camaro, the subject of his song, “Lady Blue.” “Lady Blue” was recently named #93 on Rolling Stone’s Top Love Songs of the Century.

“I wrote, ‘She’s the wind in my hair, the rumble in my soul.’ I thought it was so obvious,” He laughed, his blue eyes still boyish. “My niece made it her wedding song, I said ‘Really? It’s about a fuckin’ car!’”

He showed me several pictures of his niece, the supermodel Tyler Sinclair. It seems good looks run in the family. He suggested the diner and he ordered waffles, winking when I mentioned that we’ll be here a long time.

The decades have been kind to him, maybe a few more lines. It’s not hard to imagine him stepping right back onto the stage, as if no time has passed at all.

“A little extra glitter on the eyes,” He said with a smile, “to hide my crows feet. That’s all I need.”

I ask what he’s going to wear to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony for Kaleidoscope's induction and his smile dims only for a moment.

“I think I should pull out some old costumes. You know, the butterfly still fits.”

He was referring, of course, to the sheer butterfly cape costume that nearly had him thrown off the stage in Houston Texas in December 1976. He caved to putting on a pair of silvery shorts rather than the nude underwear it was designed with. He later wore it with the nude underwear on the inside cover of Kaleidoscope, the album that will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in just a few short weeks. Kaleidoscope was his last album with the iconic Glam Rock band Pretty Boy, which famously broke up at the height of their career while touring for the album, onstage.

It’s not often that a band is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and there’s a question if all of them will even show up.

“I’ll be there,” Hargrove said, fiddling with the silver band on his middle finger. “I have no problem with seeing him.”

The him is, of course, the lead guitarist and other lead singer of Pretty Boy, Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington invites me to his oceanfront house in Malibu later that afternoon.

“I haven’t decided if I’m going to go,” He said thoughtfully, his brown eyes darting around the room.

When I mention that Billy is going to go, he seems surprised.

“He didn’t say he was going to punch me, did he?” Harrington smiled, but it doesn’t seem like much of a joke.

For one of the most famous rock stars of the 70s, Harrington is shockingly low key. He wears a t-shirt and slouchy linen pants, and he jokes that he ought to have shaved when I take out my camera. The house is stunning but empty, with miles of blank white walls and overstuffed white furniture.

“I’m looking for a little peace,” He shrugs, “I used to have all these pictures up, all this furniture… It was too much.”

It was hard not to see him as an artist without a muse. He drifted listlessly, picking things up and putting them down as we talked. So it was a surprise to me to hear that he’s been recording.

“I may never release it but… Yeah,” He laughed, “Music. After all this time. Bet you didn’t know.”

He picks up a rare photo from the piano. It’s from the early days of Pretty Boy, before Billy Hargrove. Harrington has his arm around his bandmate, Eddie Munson. Their drummer Chrissy Cunningham is balanced precariously across their shoulders, laughing and cringing at the same time. Bassist Robin Buckley smirks from the corner of the frame, messy bangs in her eyes.

“Who knew, right?” He asked no one, shaking the frame a little.

There are no pictures of Billy Hargrove.

“That’s a… a long story,” He said, when I asked.

But I have time. I tell him Rolling Stone will pay for it. At least that makes him laugh.

It was just by chance that Pretty Boy’s last concert was filmed.

“We were meant to just film in Vegas,” The director, Argyle Molina-Zapata, sat down with me after a private screening of Pretty Boy Live in Santa Fe, 1977, “But there was a freak rainstorm, and I couldn’t get my camera’s out of the back. The crowd was digging it, refused to leave. I remember when Billy hit the high note for ‘Mother Make Me,’ there was this lightning crack… brilliant.”

Molina-Zapata shook his head, “But the footage, what I got of it, was awful. Awful! So I begged Murray to let me come with them to Santa Fe.”

Murray was Murray Bauman, famed tour manager, who handled the Boys, later Pretty Boy from their first album Starfire, all the way to Kaleidoscope.

“And I was lucky,” Argyle nodded, “They had that extra tour bus.”

The tour busses are featured in the first few minutes of the film. They roll around the corner, one reading Billy Blue (Billy’s original stage name was Billy Blue before he dropped the Blue), and the other, Steve’s Six (Named after Steve’s best friends from his hometown.)

“They were nightmares,” Murray Bauman’s voice crackled over the phone, “Nightmares on tour. Separate buses. Separate hotels. Fuck me, I swear to god at one point they wanted separate stages. And the label caved on almost all of it. Fucking nightmare.”

It’s almost impossible to imagine it when you see them on stage together. There’s something electric that passed between Billy Hargrove and Steve Harrington, something that drove crowds wild. They gravitate towards each other on the stage, orbiting like planets until they can share the same mic. They can’t seem to stay apart.

It’s hard to see exactly what happened that night.

“I’ve watched it a million times,” Argyle laughed, “But the only two people who can really say what happened are Billy and Steve.”

What you can see is this: Steve tearing into “Pride & Prejudice”, the lead off Kaleidoscope and the last song of the night.

Billy was trembling, visibly shaking as he sang and Steve harmonized along.

What can I say, if you ask me to walk away?

Baby, there’s no words for you.

Baby. I don’t know what to do.

Billy danced closer, joining Steve, his handheld mic loose at his side.

Can you ever put away your pride?

Is it worth it to not have me at your side?

I guess it must be, because I’m yours,

Regretfully,

Baby.

Billy leans in, sharing Steve’s mic for the bridge.

Is it really a mystery?

What I mean to you, and you mean to me?

Is it really, baby?

Billy shook his head, curls bouncing. He looked into Steve's eyes. He smiled. Steve looks at Billy, and Billy looks at him. It almost looks like Billy mouths something, but bootleg footage also has appeared where it looks like Billy just nodded. Steve goes a little shell shocked, hand freezing on his guitar, falling out of sync.

And then Steve turned away and left the stage, handing his guitar to a stagehand. Billy turned to the crowd, his expression strangely triumphant. He was always magnetic on stage, but this moment transcends that. It somehow feels like he’s getting everything he wants.

So I guess I’m losing you,

You promised me you would and it’s true.

Baby, there’s no words for you.

Baby. I don’t know what to do.

Steve Harrington hasn’t performed in public since 1977.

“None of us knew what was going to happen that night,” Chrissy Cunningham curled up next to her husband, Eddie Munson, on the large white couch of their Seattle home.

They’re a handsome couple still, draped in rock and roll finery. He toyed with the edge of her scarf, and she curled his long hair around her long fingers.

“We had some of our own shit going on at the time so…” Munson shrugged, “Maybe we were distracted.”

Their living room was crowded and verdant, every spare flat surface covered in plants. Their partner, former record executive Jason Carver, puttered in the kitchen in an apron that read Plant Papa.

“Yeah,” Chrissy smiled, “We had some stuff going on at the same time. But still… It seemed like they were getting better. Didn’t it seem like they were getting better?”

Munson shrugged, “The thing about Billy and Steve… they were soulmates. You don’t write music like that and not… it was like they had a second language, just for them. They were soulmates, I really believe that. Everything they did, everything that happened… they could only hurt each other that badly if… yeah.”

When I ask what they did to each other, Eddie and Chrissy just scooted closer together, like teenagers in a slasher, hiding from the killer. She laid a hand over his leg, her two stone diamond ring catching the sunlight.

“Steve never wanted Billy to be in the band,” Eddie shook his head, “but Jim had a soft spot for Billy. And Steve had… I mean Jim was…”

“Jim was like a father. To all of us.” Chrissy’s knee jiggled.

“We were this little tiny band from Nowhere, Indiana,” Eddie nodded, “And Jim believed in us.”

“I was just a junior exec at the time. I was put on the Kaleidoscope tour in case of catastrophic failure, which by the way it was,” Jason Carver is making risotto while we speak, the steam curling the lock of hair that falls over his face. “But it wasn’t my fault although I was high as hell on coke half the time. I guess I deserved to get fired. But Jim was the real deal. Gold records out the ass, best wife in the world, and his daughter, I mean… she was something else.”

They’re referring, of course, to Jim Hopper, producer on Kaleidoscope as well as Billy Blue and The Boys’ records, and the father of pop superstar Eleven aka Jane Hopper.

“Jim was…” Steve Harrington’s eyes always got a little misty talking about Jim, staring out over the ocean. “Yeah, I guess he was a little like my dad. My own parents were always gone. Which is like… I grew up so privileged so like I’m not saying… I just mean I grew up mostly by myself. And we were just so lucky he even agreed to listen to us when we got to LA.”

“I remember that night,” Joyce Hopper’s voice was raspy, cigarette-y in the way only old movie stars are. She’s a gorgeous woman in jeans and a gardening hat, speaking to me while she tends to her garden at her home in Castellammare. “He came home and said, ‘I have the next ones, the next big ones. Fuck, Joyce, they’re brilliant. Unpolished, but brilliant.’”

When I ask about when Jim discovered Billy Hargrove she just laughed.

“If Steve and the rest of The Boys were unpolished, Billy Hargrove was a fucking ten carat diamond,” She said. “But Steve’s band was Jim’s, and he could polish them up how he wanted. And then when he thought they were just right for it… he set the diamond.”

Jim Hopper was a big man, larger than life both in appearance and in personality. His fingerprints are all over some of the best hits of the decade.

Watching him on old interviews, there’s an immediacy to his presence that leaps off the screen.

“My daughter is the one who really found him. She snuck out with her sister and wandered God knows where. And she just… found him. Called me the next morning, saying ‘Dad, you have to hear this guy.’ He was playing in this… terrible club,” Jim said, tapping his cigar on the table of Merv Griffin’s set. “Absolute shithole, pardon my french. And he’s got a great voice, you’ve heard his voice, right?”

“I have,” Merv said.

“I had to get him out of there. He was a star.”

Billy Hargrove was a teenage runaway from San Diego when he came to LA in 1971.

“I had a girl’s backpack from my stepsister, eight dollars, and an extra pair of underwear. By the end of the next week? I had two more dollars,” Billy laughed. “But I got lucky. I met Heather.”

Heather Holloway was a showgirl at Wildwoods, a nightly revue. She found Billy at the backdoor, and took him to her apartment.

“She saved me,” He frowned. “Whenever I needed her most.”

Heather Holloway, Billy Hargrove’s first and only wife, died in 1979.

“I got a job singing at Sugar, this great gay club downtown. It was in the late afternoons, so I had a crowd of about… two. But those two brought two more,” Billy smiled, “Heather would talk me up to all the promoters. He’s a singer, he’s great, you’ll love him, he’s so cute.”

“He was an instant hit,” Sugar’s manager, Bob Newby, tells me by phone as well. “I did have to keep a couple of creeps off him, when he just started he was only nineteen. But even if you closed your eyes… he was a hit.”

“Guys used to think that because I was a part of the entertainment, I was fair game. And let me tell you, the novelty of that wears off mighty quick,” Billy shakes his head.

He shares a diary entry from his late wife of a night in April 1972. He came to her home with blood all over his face.

“Some guy thought because I was a fag…” Billy’s mouth twisted, but he went on, cradling the little marble notebook in his hand. “He could do whatever he wanted to me. When I fought back… he cracked a bottle over my head.”

He’s not just a piece of meat. He’s a person. I don’t understand these people. I just don’t understand, Heather Holloway wrote. I cleaned him up and he’s sleeping now.

The next diary entry is from a day later. April 12. Billy and I drove to Vegas and got married. When we spoke in the morning he said he was afraid for me too, even though I’m careful with the girls. He’s afraid of the cops trying to bust up the Wildwoods and picking me up. At least this way, he says. He and I can come home to each other. Look out for each other. Always. The groom wore band aids and his great velvet pants. The bride wore lavender. It was perfect.

“And lucky too. Because within a month… I met Jim,” Billy smiled. “And my whole life changed.”

Upside Down Records signed Billy Blue, unagented, in1972 and he spent the next year working on his debut album with Jim Hopper.

“I didn’t even realize, when it happened,” Billy shook his head. “A couple of girls came by after a show, wanting to talk to me, wanting to meet me. That wasn’t that unusual. But they were young, far too young to get into the club. And the little one, she was asking all these weird questions. Did I have an agent? Did I know if I had enough songs for an album? Weird fuckin’ questions. And then she said I have to meet someone. To be honest, I thought she was coked out of her mind when she said, ‘You have to meet my dad.’”

“I was not,” Eleven promised me, “coked out of my mind. But that’s just Billy.”

Eleven aka Jane Hopper, meets me backstage at one of her shows. She’s dressed in slouchy leather pants, to match her sister and drummer Kali Hopper.

“I knew he was something special. My dad was always talking about the IT factor. That thing that made a person something special. But I didn’t get it until I saw Billy Blue singing on that tiny stage,” She smiled. “He didn’t just have the IT factor. He was IT.”

It’s odd then, that Billy Blue’s first album had a surprisingly tepid response. His first single, in 1973, “Let Alone,” came in at only 26th for the month of April on the pop charts.

“People liked it,” Billy shrugs, “But I don’t think they knew what to do with it. You have my songs, these like… little pop love songs and ballads. I wasn’t that strong of a writer at the time. It was like half my songs, half covers. And so they’d book me, expecting fucking… Peter Frampton. And here comes this big queer with glitter on his nipples.”

But the lyrics of “Let Alone” would hint at his later songs, a hallmark simplicity that shone off his raw voice and poetry that hinted at a troubled past.

And if you were meant to care for me

You would, and that’s how it has to be

You said I couldn’t go on without you

Ha, look at me, looking brand new

At the same time, The Boys’ song “Paper Girl,” penned by Harrington, was number one.

She’s my paper girl

Wakes me up every morning, right on time

She got me smiling, got my head in a whirl

Picture perfect, paper girl

“Billy didn’t have much commercial appeal. Sex appeal, yes,” Jason laughed, toying with Chrissy’s hair. “But for sales? That’s where The Boys came in.”

“I hated that name,” Eddie said, “To start with we were half girls.”

The Boys had already had a somewhat successful tour under their belt by the time Jim suggested a collaboration with Billy Hargrove.

“It was a nice, short tour,” Steve Harrington glances away when I ask about the first tour.

“It was a nightmare. Balls to the wall nightmare,” Robin Buckley’s voice is a warm crackle over the phone. “Steve went on like thirty overlapping benders at once.”

Her partner, soap actress Vickie Carmichael cackles behind her, at their home in Salt Lake City.

“The thing about Steve is… well… he’s never found a good way of coping with himself,” Robin huffs. “Music was about as close as he ever got. But in those early days, he just kept looking for more and more.”

“You don’t think it was about-” Vickie asked, just barely into the phone.

“No.”

“It was about Nancy,” Eddie said confidently when I mentioned their first tour. “Nancy, Nancy, Nancy.”

The Boys got their start in the late sixties, beginning with Eddie and Steve. Eddie gave Steve guitar lessons, which turned into some talent show performances. They used to practice at Eddie’s Uncle’s trailer.

“That’s where we got the name,” Eddie nodded, “My uncle used to just call us that, and it stuck.”

“I don’t even remember,” Chrissy said.

“That’s not how we got the name,” Steve shook his head, when I mention Eddie. “It was our first gig, after we got Chrissy and Robin. Robin put it down after the headliner kept asking when ‘you boys’ would go on, and kept addressing it to Chrissy’s chest. She blew him out of the fucking water.”

Nancy Wheeler was there that night, writing about local bands for a tiny column in the school paper.

“She was beautiful. Smart. So smart. Could hear her talk forever,” Steve said, eyes falling.

Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler were married in 1972 after they graduated high school.

“Steve made his own choices,” Chrissy shook her head.

That summer, the Boys plus one drove to LA and Nancy Wheeler took a job at Women’s Day Magazine and later, Rolling Stone. Steve Harrington and The Boys got a “steady gig” at La Bonita Rosa on the strip, playing for drunks every night from seven to eight.

“I really liked playing at La Bonita,” Steve said. “The audience, right there. You could smell the sweat. You could see on their faces if you were bombing. And we used to bomb. A lot. But it was a great place to try things. Experiment. We played there for about a year but… it felt too short.”

Within the year they had met Jim Hopper, who got them into the recording studio and sold their demo nearly on the spot to Upside Down Records.

“They had a great sound. They had got this way of playing. Smooth like a polished stone. Everything sounds good sitting in a frame like that,” Jim said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1981. “Their songs were… catchy, but basic. But they had the sound.”

Upside Down records set the Boys on a US tour after “Paper Girl,” and “Joy to Love You,” both charted.

“It was like… overnight. One day we’re in a studio, messing around. Kid stuff. I was nineteen,” Steve Harrington shookhis head. “But…”

“That tour,” Chrissy trails off, playing with her ring again.

“I…” Steve Harrington scratched his nose. “I was losing it. Majorly losing it. It felt like we had just moved to LA and we were already neck deep. I mean, I had a number one fucking song. And for some reason I got it in my head to call my mom. She told the maid she wasn’t home. And I could hear her over the phone. My mom. So yeah. I lost it. Lost about half my damn mind on that tour. And people will say it was because of Nancy, because we got married just out of high school, and she wasn’t supportive… but that wasn’t true. Nancy saved me.”

“Nancy never wanted him to be in the band. But… she also didn’t seem to care that much either,” Eddie shook his head, “It’s… complicated. Love is supposed to be. Simple. Like the chords of a song. 1-3-5.”

Jason Carver rolled his eyes at that, “Then what are we?”

Eddie grinned, “We’re a band.”

Nancy Wheeler met me on a Thursday in New York City, slim sunglasses dominating her small porcelain face. We get lunch at her favorite deli shop, and she perches at the counter, loafers dangling. She’s an editor at The New Yorker now, but she still has a soft spot for rock and roll, as evidenced by the Grateful Dead t-shirt under her blazer.

“That tour. I didn’t even know anything was wrong. He just came home with a funny look on his face, saying, ‘We’re headlining.’ So I said, ‘That’s great, Steve.’ He just kept… saying it. It was starting to piss me off, if I’m being honest,” She shook her head. “I should have known something was wrong.”

“I wish she had stopped me. But how could you know right? Hindsight is always 2020,” Steve Harrington said. “I mean, she was my wife. How could she not want me home? But that’s just… sorry. That’s not fair to put on her. I chose to go.”

“I flew out to meet them when they were in Indianapolis, visited my family, and I came a day early to see him,” She smiled warmly, and then it fell. “He was… Well, first, Eddie Munson tried to intercept me at the hotel, so I wouldn’t see him. I told him, ‘I’m here to see my fucking husband.’”

Steve Harrington didn’t add any more details about the tour, just shrugged when I asked.

“He was coked up like you wouldn’t believe,” Robin scoffed. “She walked in on him with two girls and coke all over his… well.”

“I just asked him. Do you want to come home? Do you want to get help? Or not?” She purses her lips. “And so he came home and we found a rehab place near Hawkins.”

“The tour kind of… fell apart. Obviously. We had lost our lead singer and guitarist to fucking… Hawkins, Indiana,”

Everything stopped for the Boys. Upside Down offered to let them out of their two album contract, but Steve couldn’t afford to pay it down.

“Rehab,” He shrugged. “Is expensive.”

Right as it seemed that everything would be over for the Boys, things were looking up for Billy Blue.

“Jim was always saying, ‘the record is selling alright, the songs are getting there but he needs a… push,’” Joyce said. “‘He’s so close. So close. He’s a star.’”

“He always believed in me,” Billy smiled, toying with his ring again. “Always. Even when I threw a jug of milk at his head.”

Joyce laughed when I asked about that moment, “He came home saying, ‘He milked me, Joyce. But he’ll fix the song tonight.’”

“And I did,” Billy said. “And the album was going alright. I did a little tour, socal and the southwest. And then one night, Jim brings me this song. He said, ‘I want you to tell me what’s missing from this.’”

The song was, of course, the Boys’ biggest hit, “Hades.” Steve Harrington’s first version was called, “To Orpheus” and the chorus goes:

Don’t turn back don’t look behind you baby

I’m close, I’m right behind

The future's so bright, and I want you to take me

Wanna be holding your hand when I make it across the line.

“It was fine, but just kind of… nothing. It was supposed to be about Eurydice, but it was so… nothing. She just loved Orpheus and that was it. There were no insides to her. She was going to follow him to her doom,” Billy shook his head. “That’s not right.”

This was not the version that made it to the recording booth, of course. The Boys’ single, “Hades featuring Billy Blue,” came out in 1975. The actual chorus goes:

Turn back on me and I won’t forgive you baby

Don’t want you to see me like this

Up ahead is bright, and I want you to take me

If you’re strong enough to cross that finish line

“‘Hades,’ was a real step forward for the Boys. Gone were the teenybopper tunes,” Steve Harrington’s biographer and personal friend Dustin Henderson wrote in his book The Pretty Boy. “Their first album got the kids dancing. But the second proved that they actually had something to say.”

“Still hate it,” Steve Harrington said. “I wrote that song in rehab. It was deeply, deeply personal to me.”

“He came out, all ready. He wanted to start recording right away,” Robin sighed. “Like I mean the next day. All these songs, just pouring out of him. But the label had lost faith in us. And they certainly weren’t going to let us start recording with a guy who had only just earned his thirty day sober chip.”

“The song wasn’t ready,” Billy shook his head. “But I guess he was. Jim said he needed this. So Jim asked if I would come and like… pitch some stuff as a personal favor. Songwriting credit, that’s all it was supposed to be. Get the songs moving, get them going.”

Steve Harrington takes a long time to continue speaking about it.

“I felt it, writing for that album. I felt proud of those songs. They didn’t belong to anyone else but me,” He toyed with some piano keys while we talked, and then finally sat down and began to play something tuneless and half formed.

“That album was all about Nancy,” Chrissy said. “I mean. I know it. You know it. Nancy knew it. And she kind of hated it. But-”

“You can’t leave your husband right as he gets out of rehab,” Nancy said to me, toying with her wedding ring. “When he writes all these songs about how you’re the only thing… Steve was always like that. Heart wide open. That’s why when he met Billy. I almost thought… it would all be okay. That sounds fucked up but. I thought they could save each other. That the music could save him.”

“It was just a songwriting credit,” Billy raised his hands. “Jim swore up and down. I was just gonna come in there and sit down with this guy Steve. But when I walk into the studio, there’s two mics set up.”

“I was the Boys’ only singer,” Steve Harrington shook his head. “And to be absolutely honest, I was kind of a jackass about it. So to have some guy come in and say he’s gonna sing me my song… well…”

“Steve was the only one who would ever argue with Jim, And he let him have it that day,” Eddie laughed. “He called him the most low down, dirty, rat bitten bastard in California, and that he would die rather than give up his band to someone else.”

“I did not want his band. I did not know his band. And I did not care. And his song sucked. And I told him so. And then I sang it. Better.” Billy smiled.

“Billy was…” Chrissy shook her head. “Incredible.”

I ask Steve what Billy was like that first day in the studio.

“He was,” Something passed over his face. “Alright. He has a great voice, alright.”

“I was good. Better. Best.” Billy smiled.

“But he didn’t understand the song. He wanted Eurydice to… doubt. To think she wasn’t going to get out,” Steve slammed his hands on the keys. “It’s been… almost twenty years. I still don’t understand it.”

I asked why he let Billy stay. But Steve doesn’t have an answer.

“They were like oil and water, right away,” Chrissy said.

“Yeah, but oil on the water can catch fire,” Eddie shrugged.

“Jim asked me to stay,” Billy looked away from me, down at his waffles. “It was a favor to the label.”

“If Billy said louder, Steve said mute,” Robin snickered. “It was kind of great, actually. Finally someone called King Steve on his shit. One day I came in and they were arguing over how close the microphone should be to your throat. Almost got in a physical fight over a fucking microphone. I mean, I love Steve. But he always thinks he’s like… the babysitter. It’s his job to do everything for everybody.”

“Like who was this guy? Really? He came into my studio with no shirt on, most of the time still half smashed from the night before, and he thinks he can make all these changes. But Jim keeps telling me it’s just business, the label thinks it’s good business.” Steve frowned, and then smiled, and then frowned again.

“Yeah, I never wore shirts back then. Or underwear,” Billy said with a grin. “I was a rockstar!”

“Steve fought for every song on that album,” Nancy Wheeler patted her lips primly with a napkin. “He only lost on one.”

“Billy Hargove has songwriting credit and lead vocals on “Hades.” Dustin Henderson wrote.

“Billy was all over that album. He’d make some minor suggestion, maybe this chord instead of that, this word is better. And Steve would flip out, yell at him, yell at Jim, threaten to storm out… and then two days later quietly tell me to change the chord, he’d start singing the new words. Billy was there with us about every single day,” Eddie said.

“Of course, it was our biggest hit,” Chrissy laughed. “Everything but that song, Steve did what he wanted. Oh we had Billy in the studio, making suggestions. But Steve did what he wanted except for ‘Hades.’ Jim said that song is the album, and he wouldn’t cut it.”

“Jim was always right,” Steve closed the piano. “The bastard.”

Hades exploded onto the radio in late 1975. They didn’t have the same distribution as their first record, but the Boys had another hit.

“Billy had this way of singing it. Still does. He broke four mics when we recorded it. Singing so loud I had to keep an eye on the cymbals to stop them from shaking. You can feel him, right in your chest.” Chrissy giggled. “Like he was trying to wake all the dead from Hades. If anyone could, he could.”

“It’s a really, really great song,” Robin said.

This song belongs to Billy Blue, Rolling Stone wrote in 1976. The only question now is, what will The Boys do next?

“I remember that article. Fucking… Harrington said that he basically wrote the whole song. But he said, ‘the label thought bringing Billy in was a good idea,’” Billy gets tense for the first time. “I’m not saying I was like… I just mean. It would have been nice. To treat me like an equal. I’m more than just a singer. I’m not just… a piece of meat.”

“Billy was really pissed about that article. I remember, the day after the article came out, we were getting breakfast at this tiny place off La Cienega. Steve had this car back then, a big maroon BMW, and Eddie had got him a vanity plate when he bought it. Stupid thing it said, ‘BIGBOY.’ Anyway, We’re having breakfast, and we hear this screech outside, like an accident,” Robin Buckley gets uncharacteristically quiet as she goes on through this story. “Billy’s car is parked halfway out of the parking lot, and he comes in like a bull in a charge. Billy… he wasn’t some wimpy guy. He was small, but he was strong as hell… He came right over and grabbed Steve by his collar and lifted him right off the counter. And he said, I’ll never forget it because Steve used to recite it from memory, yell it at me, ‘Tell me I’m not dreaming. Is that Steve fucking Harrington? The lead singer of the Boys. Hey man, I love your song ‘Hades.’ How’d you get your voice to sound halfway decent for once?’”

“I don’t remember that,” Steve Harrington said flatly when I asked.

“And Steve used to be a fucking dick in high school. So he starts getting real bitchy, shoving Billy off him, asking what his problem is, why he’s such a dick all the fucking time, when it’s not even his band. And Billy said something like, ‘No one wants your shit band. Not with you in it,’” Robin paused for a moment. “And they just. Stare at each other. Like… daring each other to do something.”

Billy just shrugs when I ask, “I was pissed. I gave this guy a number one hit, and he still wanted to treat me like some… airhead singer the label brought in as a stunt. I’m not just a singer. I’m not a piece of meat. I’m a person.”

When I ask Steve about that day he’s pretty quiet, deflated at his piano. He only wants to talk about the song. The music. Can’t seem to talk about Billy any other way.

“He sang it like he not only knows Orpheus can’t save him, but that he won’t. It was supposed to be hopeful. A happy ending.” Steve said.

“So you still hate the song?” I asked.

“No, I don’t. It’s brilliant. And that’s the whole problem.”

To be continued...

Next up is Half-Oz-Eddie's piece at 7:00 pm. GET HYPE!

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