#ignore me realizing i have a typo and needed to edit a line lol

[gretavanfunk]

Fighting Fire (Series)

Chapter Seven

Word Count: 5,897

Summary: Stevie and Sam never seemed to be what people refer to as "two peas in a pod" growing up. He got under her skin more times than she could count and Sam was desperate to be on a level playing field as his older brother and Stevie's best friend, Jake. One summer, Sam is forced to face his demons and in turn, Stevie is too.

Warnings: smut, 18+, minors dni, explicit content

This story is written and edited by me and it is my baby so I hope some people out there can enjoy it as much as I enjoy creating it! If there are typos, bear with me lol

Chapter Seven Playlist for the vibes!

"Sam," Josh sighed, "I need you to take a deep breath."

Sam took in a sharp breath and nodded before talking again, "I don't know what to do. What if I messed everything up?"

"You didn't," Josh said sternly, "You didn't mess anything up! She kissed you, that's a critical piece of information in this."

"Please," Sam sighed, "Don't tell anybody about this. She's freaking out about it."

"Let her cool off," Josh said, "Stevie does not do well when her mind isn't clear. Just give her some time and then talk about it."

Sam groaned, "I'm scared she won't ever talk to me again."

"No," Josh combated, "You laid out all of the facts out there, Sammy. If anything, it's a good thing you were honest with her."

Sam laid in his bed, conflicted while he spoke to his brother. He has never actually admitted this to anyone but Stevie. However, after they kissed, he knew he needed to talk to someone about it and he sure as hell was not about to turn to Jake for advice.

The only other person who knew Stevie well enough was Josh, so that's who he decided to turn to.

"I knew it," Josh boasted, "I knew something like this was going to happen!"

Josh giggled and Sam ran his hand through his hair, "What do you mean?"

"I knew you guys would hook up," Josh said, "I could just feel it."

"Um, in what way?" Sam questioned and Josh chuckled, "She's into you, Sam. I know that she is."

"Did she tell you that?"

"No," Josh sang, "Not explicitly but I can tell, Sammy. Even when we were together and she was ripping your head off, she was fighting real hard to ignore it."

"Interesting," Sam said, "but that means you don't actually know anything."

"I know everything little brother," Josh laughed, "You should know this by now."

Sam groaned and held on tightly too the phone, too overwhelmed with thoughts to speak. When Josh realized he wasn't going to say anything, he sighed, "Everything is going to be okay, Sam! She wouldn't have kissed you if she didn't want to. Just talk to her about it!"

Sam's eyes screwed shut, slightly regretting opening this conversation up to somebody else and he sighed, "Okay, okay. I'll talk to you later, Josh. I swear to God, do not say a fucking word!"

"Do you think I want to tell Jake about this?" Josh cackled, "Absolutely not. That is a battle you guys have to fight when you get there. Bye-bye baby brother! Good luck!"

After Josh got off the phone with Sam, a few hours passed before his phone was ringing again. He was enjoying some down time when Stevie's name flashed across his screen and his lips turned up into a smile, knowing exactly why she was calling.

"Hello?" Josh answered and he heard the phone being shuffled around on the other line.

"Josh," Stevie sighed, "I need to talk to you."

"And I need to talk to you, girl."

"Oh God," Stevie groaned, "Did Sam call you?"

"He sure did," Josh giggled, "So um, what exactly fucking happened?"

Stevie rubbed her face with her free hand, "Did he not explain it to you?"

"Sure he did, in his very careful and cryptic way," Josh explained, "But I need to hear it from you."

Stevie sighed again, causing Josh to chuckle to himself.

"I don't know," Stevie said, "I don't know! It was all so quick! I don't know what I was thinking."

"But you wanted to kiss him," Josh pointed, "So you had a little bit of an idea of what you were thinking."

Stevie rolled her eyes, "Okay, yeah. I wanted to kiss him but I wasn't actually going to! That's crazy!"

"Is it though?" Josh asked, "I mean, is it really that crazy to kiss someone you have feelings for?"

"Woah!" Stevie exclaimed, "Who said anything about having feelings for him?"

"Why else would you go after him when he stormed inside?" Josh laughed lightly, "Why else would you absolutely go in on him on our hike?"

"He was being an asshole, Josh," Stevie sighed, "That's why I yelled at him."

"Or," Josh sighed, "You care about him."

Stevie laughed, "Of course I care about him, Josh. He's your brother."

"I mean you care about him a little bit more than you realize, Stevie."

She remained silent, hoping Josh would have more to say. She knew Josh, and she knew he always had more to say.

Josh sighed, and continued, "Think about it, Stevie. You attacked someone who was about to punch him, you spent the rest of that same night taking care of him, you call him out when he's in the wrong. You don't have to do any of that, you do realize that, right?"

"Okay," she said, "So?"

"When you screamed at him in the parking lot," Josh said, "You claimed it was because he had ruined your last day hanging out with me and Jake. But, was it really because of that or was it because you were worried something could have happened to him?"

"Josh," Stevie groaned, "We had plans that day that we never got to do because of him."

"You still spent all of that time with Jake," Josh said, "Even if it wasn't how you planned. You still had that quality time with him. Probably even more one-on-one time you would've had if Sam hadn't wandered off."

"What are you even trying to say?"

Josh laughed at the annoyed tone in her voice, "I'm calling it how it is, Steve. You have a soft spot for him. You always have. You sacrificed your entire summer just for him."

"No," Stevie protested, "I only suggested the lake house thing to make things easier on you and Jake."

"Oh," Josh quipped, "So the lake house plan didn't have anything to do with making sure Sam would be okay? The thought of being alone with him for months on end didn't cross your mind at all?"

"You're so annoying," Stevie groaned and she heard Josh's loud laughter.

"Jake and I were completely fine with just leaving him with our parents," Josh laughed, "We knew he'd be okay regardless."

"So why'd you hype up my plan so much?" Stevie rolled her eyes and Josh replied, "You seemed pretty pumped about it. Besides, it is a good idea, nevertheless."

"There's nothing wrong with the fact that you have feelings for him, Stevie," Josh continued , "Just as long as you realize it."

Stevie felt her chest get tight, overcome with such intense discomfort and she felt out of control. She had called Josh just to flesh everything out of her, hoping he would have been revolted by all of this and talk some sense into her but he did exactly the opposite.

"I did not call you for therapy, Josh," Stevie sighed.

Josh smiled on the other end of the phone, "I'm just sayin', Stevie. You don't have to fight urges to kiss people you hate."

"Okay," Stevie sighed, "So what if you're right? I can't actually do anything about it, Josh! This is insane! It would make everything so incredibly complicated and I do not want to open that door."

Josh scoffed, "Well don't you think it's a little too late for that, Stevie? You already crossed that line. That's not really something you can take back."

"Josh," Stevie pleaded, "What the fuck am I supposed to do? Jake would fucking freak out!"

Josh began to laugh again and Stevie growled, "It's not funny, Josh! I'm seriously freaking out!"

Josh sighed, "You have to think about what you want, Stevie. Sam knows what he wants and for probably the first time in his entire life, he was completely honest with you. I think it's important that you sort these feelings out in your head and return that favor."

Stevie had her hand clasped over her mouth as she listened to him speak and Josh kept talking, "If you have real, genuine feelings for him then I think it's important that you tell him that. And even if you don't, you have to talk to him. You can't just string him along."

She nodded, "Yeah, I know that! But, what am I supposed to tell Jake?"

"Jake is not your keeper, Stevie," Josh groaned, "He's your best friend. If being with Sam makes you happy, then Jake isn't going to hold that against you. But, you have to figure it out soon because if he finds out about it later and you didn't tell him, that's when he's going to flip his shit. You've gotta kind of remove Jake from this situation and do what feels right for you."

Stevie groaned again, dramatically and flopped onto her back, "I don't know if I have real, genuine feelings for Sam."

"Figure it out, girl!" Josh exclaimed, "'Cause right now, his mind is reeling and he has real, genuine feelings for you."

"Ugh, okay! Fine," Stevie sighed, "You're such a pain in my ass."

"I love you too, mama," Josh giggled again and they hung up.

Stevie almost felt worse after her phone call with Josh. The tossing and turning that night only grew stronger the more she thought about what he said. She knew that she had always considered Jake in her thought processes and decisions she made, but being told to remove him from this felt so foreign to her.

She thought about kissing Sam and how electrifying it felt to be touched by him. But Jake was right there in the back of her mind too. What would Jake even say to her if he knew about this? She found it laughable to think about him being cool with it, especially after what he told her in the car when they picked up her stuff from her house.

"I just don't want you to fall victim to his bullshit."

Was what Sam told her bullshit? It didn't feel like it. It felt different from anything he had ever shared with her before. It felt like the truth. And she guessed that Josh believed what Sam had said too.

Maybe that made Stevie foolish. Maybe it made her and Josh a couple of fools together, but she wanted to believe it. Stevie wanted Sam's confession to be true, which she knew meant something about the way she truly felt. All she wanted to do now was sleep this day off. Maybe when she woke up, she'd come to her senses.

When she did roll out of bed the next morning, the house was quiet. She walked downstairs and there was no sign of Sam or Rosie anywhere. Stevie went to the kitchen, immediately going to brew some coffee, but she found some already in the pot. Then, she found a note on the microwave.

"Went out for a walk! Made you a breakfast sandwich! It's in the fridge! -Sam"

Something like this would have made Stevie smile before, but now she was just riddled with guilt. How could he still go out of his way to do things for her when she played with his feelings so much? She sighed, but went to the fridge and took the sandwich out. It was on a plate and saran wrapped. Stevie unwrapped it and stuck in the microwave, sipping her coffee lazily while she waited for it to be done.

She took the plate out of the microwave and didn't even bother sitting at the table to eat it. She leaned up against the counter and took a bite, cursing under her breath.

"Fuck, that's good," Stevie whispered.

It made her feel even worse than she did before. Her mind had been going over the conversation with Josh ever since she became conscious again, and she kept contemplating her own feelings about all of it. She knew that they needed to talk, but she had no idea what she wanted to say to him.

After her breakfast, she did her dishes and went out to the back patio. The clouds in the sky looked a bit dark and she was certain that rain would come soon. So, she grabbed the net for the pool, taking her time to get any leaves, bugs and debris out of the water and she cranked the cover back on.

While she was cranking it, she saw Sam and Rosie in the front yard, coming back from their walk. Stevie called his name and Sam practically sprinted inside of the house. Stevie frowned, knowing that he heard her but she decided to shake it off. Maybe he just wasn't ready to address anything yet.

She went inside the house and heard Sam's bedroom door closing upstairs. She silently cursed herself, wanting to just get this over with. In all reality, she knew neither of them were ready to talk about it. She decided that she really did need to take Josh's advice and actually think about what all of this meant to her. She was just on edge and consumed by what could possibly be going through Sam's head right now.

Sam was out of breath when he got to his room. He knew Stevie saw him in the front yard and he didn't want to talk to her or even think about what happened last night. Not until he knew he could address it without falling apart. He was worried that he had done irreparable damage to their dynamic. He heard Stevie come up the stairs and close the door to her bedroom and then he let out a deep breath. Maybe he should just get out of here and go home. It might be easier if they had time apart.

Stevie flopped back onto her bed, pulling out a notebook and a pen. She flipped it open to a random page and stared at the blank page for a while. She pressed the pen up to her lips, thinking about what she wanted to write down. Journaling about her feelings might help her sort them out and decide what direction she would like to go regarding Sam.

"He's so pretty."

No, cross that out.

"He's so infuriating."

Nope, crossing that out too.

"I want to kiss him again. I want to know what it's like to be in his arms. I want to share all of our deep dark secrets together. I want him to finally be happy and I want to be a part of that happiness."

Woah.

"Okay... maybe I like Sam."

Stevie grabbed the page, tearing it out and crumbling it up before throwing it across the room and throwing her journal too. She groaned and laid back, staring at her ceiling. She knew something had been different ever since she saw him in the backseat of Josh's Jeep the first night they reunited. She knew it then by the way her stomach had been twisted in knots just by his hand squeezing hers.

Stevie had tried to ignore it, tried to shove it down but now all of it was fizzing up to the top and it felt overwhelming. He was always someone who irritated the ever living shit out of her. But now, it was different. It was completely uncharted territory and she wasn't used to fantasying about him. She got a small taste of it, and she hated to admit it but she craved more.

What was it like to fall asleep in his arms with her head on his chest? And what was it like to wake up to see his face? What would it be like to hold his hand in the car or steal kisses and meaningful glances from each other during whatever mundane thing they'd be doing? What would it be like to watch him from the side of a stage and be the first person he greeted when he came back?

She wanted to know.

Stevie grabbed her pillow and stuck it over her face, screaming into it.

She felt so stupid for wanting to know. Here she was, at her ripe age of twenty-six, melting down over a boy like she was fucking fourteen. She threw her pillow and took a deep breath, but she heard the door to Sam's room open and she sat up quickly, holding her breath to try and hear what he was doing.

The floor boards creaked as he walked by and she heard his footsteps go down the stairs. Then, there wasn't much other noise and she took another deep breath and got up, trying to work up enough courage to leave her room and try to face him. However, when she went downstairs, she realized that he had left again. Stevie sighed, feeling defeated at this point. She looked out the windows and saw that the rain was coming down now, pretty hard too.

She went to the kitchen window and saw that her car remained in the driveway. Which meant Sam was just out there in the rain doing God knows what. She grabbed a hoodie hanging up by the door before ripping the front door open and shuffling her shoes on and going outside. She stood on the front porch, looking for him in the front yard. She saw him at the end of the driveway, standing with his face up against the rain.

"Sam!" She shouted, "What are you doing?"

"Nothing!" he shouted back.

"It's pouring rain, Sam," Stevie yelled, "You're going to get sick out here!"

She watched him as he shook his head, not moving from his spot.

She rolls her eyes and inches closer to him, "Stop avoiding me! We're going to have to talk about this eventually!"

"No," Sam turned around to face her, "Actually we don't."

"We need to talk about what happened, Sam."

Sam shook his head and groaned loudly before turning to face her fully once again, "I bought a bus ticket home, so I won't be your problem anymore and you'll never have to see me again."

Stevie groaned shaking her head and walked even closer to him, "You are so dramatic! Will you just stop?"

"No! I shouldn't have said anything to you," Sam hung his head low and as the rain began to fall harder, his hair started to stick to his face.

Stevie groaned and put on her hood and bracing the elements to meet him out there. He watched her approach him and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Well, I hope you can get your ass a refund because you're not leaving," Stevie gritted her teeth, "We are not leaving things like this. You are not leaving things like this! I get a say in this too."

"What is it you want to say?" Sam asked, sadness flooding his eyes.

They were both soaked from the rain now and it was really sobering for her to be drenched in rain and staring up at him.

"I'm the one that should be sorry," Stevie sighed, "Everything was just so overwhelming. I was freaking out! I shouldn't have handled it that way."

Sam looked up, avoiding looking her in the face, "I shouldn't have unloaded that on you. I take it all back."

"Do you really?" Stevie's voice was quiet now, feeling sadness creep in, "Do you really regret it?"

Sam nodded and threw his hands up, agitated and his voice raised, "Yes! I do! Because maybe things wouldn't have changed and I wouldn't have lost you!"

Stevie reached out to him, impulsively and grabbed his wrist, "Who says you lost me, Sam?"

"Well I have, haven't I?"

Right then, a crack of thunder echoed through the sky but left the two of them completely unphased. Sam's voice was quiet too and they looked at each other for a minute before Stevie took in a sharp breath, "Don't go, Sam. I need you."

Sam's voice was stern when he spoke, "Have I lost you, Stevie? I need to know."

She shook her head and looked away from him, "No. You haven't lost me."

"Well then what," Sam questioned, "What now? We just go back to normal?"

She shook her head, "We can't go back to normal, Sammy."

"What do you want, Stevie?" Sam's voice was almost a whine, feeling reminiscent to a tantrum.

"Just stay," Stevie smiled, "Be here with me."

"I can't," Sam shook his head, "I can't just pretend that this didn't happen, Stevie. This means too much to me."

Sam's eyes were shut, trying his hardest not to cry again. Stevie's hand shook as she reached up to his face, hesitantly taking his cheek in her hand.

"Sam," she whispered and he shook his head, not opening his eyes, "Sam, look at me."

His eyes fluttered open and he bit the inside of his cheek, scared for what she was going to say next.

"I want you," Stevie whispered, teeth sinking into her lip.

"Don't say that," Sam shook his head, "I can't handle this going badly again, Stevie. I can't risk this ending badly."

Stevie shook her head too and shushed him, "I obviously have a lot of feelings about this, but I don't want you to go. I want you to stay and figure this out with me. Please."

"Stevie," Sam looked at her and he frowned, obviously not convinced by her words, "Don't do this out of pity, please."

"Sam," Stevie sighed, "I want you, slowly and steadily, but I want you."

He brought his hand up to the hair that was sticking to her face, pushing it back and cupping her face in his hand, "You're all I've ever wanted."

"Well," Stevie smiled, "I'm here. What are you gonna do about it?"

Sam smiled and rolled his eyes, "Shut up."

Sam's lips met hers, even more desperately than they had before. Both of them were dripping with water and were weighed down by their clothes, but it didn't stop them from melting into one another. Stevie's arms wrapped around his neck, pulling at his hair and Sam gripped her hip with his free hand, pulling her into him.

Their mouths fought against each other, quickly heating up into a make out session. The drank each other in feverishly and Sam's hands moved to her hoodie, tugging on it. Stevie moaned against his mouth, making him grunt in response. Another strike of lightning hit and she pulled away from him, eyes wide, "Okay, as hot as this is, we seriously need to go inside."

"Fine by me," Sam smiled, "Got an idea of where we could go."

She rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand, tugging him along up to the house. Once they were in the mud room, Stevie grabbed at Sam's shirt and he stood there, letting her peel it off of him. His hands moved to her hoodie, pulling it up over her head and frowning at the shirt that was underneath it.

"Why do you have so many layers on?" Sam asked and she rolled her eyes, "Because some people think it's cool to just stand out in the middle of a thunderstorm."

"Please," Sam grunted, "Stop talking."

"Then hurry up!"

Sam shook his head, smirking and peeking at her through his eye lashes before tugging on her shirt and taking it off. Stevie was then reminded that she hadn't had a bra on and her cheeks flared by the way Sam gawked at her.

It took him a second to collect his thought but then he hurried to her shorts and she laughed, grabbing at his shorts too. Suddenly, they both were standing in the mud room, completely naked with their mop of clothes on the floor all around them. Stevie's breath was uneven and Sam stepped closer to her, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"You doing okay?" he asked, making even more effort to keep his eyes on hers.

She nodded, "Yeah, I'm okay. Insanely nervous, but okay."

"Don't be nervous," Sam chuckled, "You're glowing, baby."

Stevie's heart fluttered and she couldn't stop herself from smiling widely and letting out a giggle, "Oh, stop."

Sam closed the gap between them, pressing their bodies together and kissing her under her earlobe before whispering, "Make me."

He kissed her lips softly and slowly, placing his hands on the dip of her back and slightly rocking them back and forth. It was freezing in the house and with their damp skin, both of them had goosebumps raised. Stevie grabbed Sam's arms, deepening her kiss with him and he bit her lip lightly, firmly pressing his hands into her hips.

When he pulled away from her, he stooped down and took her in his arms, holding her by her back and her legs, causing her to laugh.

"What are you doing?" She asked and Sam grunted as he started to walk with her, "I'm not going to fuck you in the mud room, Stevie."

She frowned, "Aww, why not."

Sam chuckled and shook his head, "Please, not the first time! The first time is going to be the most romantic shit you've ever seen in your life."

She laughed loudly, "Sam, how romantic can it be when I'm jumping your bones like I'm in high school?"

"Do you want it to be dirty, Stevie?" Sam nipped at her ear, "Cause that's definitely possible."

"God," Stevie sighed, pulling his hair in protest, "Stop talking about it so much and just fuck me."

Sam halted his walking, gripping her tighter and drawing in a sharp breath, "Whew, be careful Stevie. You're playing with fire here."

She laughed, watching his face as he tried to regain his composure and he continued walking, with a smirk plastered on his face. When they got to the start of the hallway upstairs, they stopped quicker than Stevie expected, standing in front of her dad's bedroom door.

"You wouldn't," Stevie muttered and Sam giggled, "Mmmm, would I?"

Sam kicked the door open and Stevie gasped, but she didn't protest as Sam carried her in and tossed her on her dad's bed. Stevie's mouth parted open when she watched Sam crawl on top of her, his hair cascading on the sides of his face and his necklace hanging low enough to drag across her own torso, sending chills down her body.

"You look good," Sam smiled, "So sweet and patient waiting for me to fuck you on your dad's bed."

"Jesus, Sam," Stevie's breath hitched and he smiled, "Don't act like it doesn't turn you on, Stevie."

Stevie reached down and placed her hands on Sam's hips, tugging him closer to her, "Come on, Sam, don't make me beg."

Sam hummed, kissing her neck softly, "I kinda like the sound of you begging, though. Be sweet to me and maybe you'll get what you want."

"You think I won't be willing to lay here, freezing my tits off?" Stevie rolled her eyes, "You've got another thing coming."

Stevie's hands moved to his front, palming at his dick and Sam hissed, already hard as a rock, "Woah, Stevie! Calm down!"

She smirked, "Not so tough now, are we?"

Sam hesitated, savoring the feeling of her hands wrapped around the base of his dick, moving slowly along it. His eyes fluttered before he grabbed at her wrist, stopping her movements.

"Stop," Sam hissed, "This isn't about me, right now. Let me warm you up, honey."

Stevie held her hands up, opening her legs wider to give Sam more access. His skin was cold against hers and he leaned down, giving her a kiss before sitting back and bringing his fingers up to her mouth. Her eyes were locked with his as she opened her mouth for them, taking his fingers in her mouth and sucking them slowly. She smiled when she saw Sam's mouth part and his eyes glaze over at the sight of it. Something so tame, yet so pornographic that he had dreamed about for years.

He pulled his hand away from her mouth and brought his body back over hers, meeting her lips with his again and letting her salvia on his fingers swipe through the folds of her center, making her body tense at the feeling.

"Fuck," she hissed in his mouth and his eyes fluttered open to widen at her, "Already so wet for me, baby."

Stevie's eyes twisted shut at the sound of the pet name, kind of mind blown that this was even happening right now.

"Open your eyes," Sam instructed, "I want you to watch me."

Her eyes shot open, shocked at his words but his fingers then found her clit, and rubbed small circles against it, making her stomach tighten at the sensation.

"Oh my god," she gasped, "Don't stop."

Sam smiled, watching her hands grip the bedspread beneath them and her back arch, "That's it, baby. Let it build for me."

Sam pushed her hair out of her face, peppering kisses along her jawline and down her neck, feeling the vibration of her moans against his lips, making his stomach erupt with butterflies. He had pictured what it would be like to have her like this, but this was better than he could have ever imagined it. Her hips were bucking against him and he wanted to fuck her, but he couldn't just yet. Not until he was sure he made her come, at least once.

Stevie's hands flew to Sam's arm, gripping it tightly as she arched herself up more and more, panting a string of profanities. Once she had reached it, she stilled his hand, laughing uncontrollably.

"Woah," Stevie said, trying to regain her breath, "That was crazy!"

Sam smiled kissing her slightly, but she pulled him in, kissing him back with more passion.

"Will you put it in, Sam?" Stevie asked, her cheeks rosy out of embarrassment, "I need to feel you."

Sam chuckled, "Whatever you say!"

Sam sat back, taking a deep breath and a moment to appreciate the display in front of him. Stevie's eyes remained locked on him, smiling at the tint of pink in his cheeks and the goofy smile on his face.

"Sam," Stevie said in a sing-song voice and Sam held his hand up to her, glancing over her body, "Shhh. Let me savor this, Stevie. This is years in the making right now."

She rolled her eyes but smiled anyway, "You better hurry up before I change my mind."

He looked at her, eyes dark, "Not funny."

She sat up and reached out for the back of his neck, pulling him into a kiss. This made Sam clock back into what was actually happening. Sam placed his hand on her shoulders, lightly pushing her back and deepening their kiss. Stevie was ready mentally for it, but when Sam lined himself up and pushed himself into her, she gasped. She hadn't expected the way it would feel so perfect.

Sam's face was in the crook of her neck as he bottomed out, but he hummed lowly into her skin, making her skin ignite at the sensation. It tickled to feel his facial hair against her skin and she laughed lightly, sighing in pleasure.

"Sammy, baby," Stevie turned her face to the side of his face and placed a kiss on his temple, "I need to see your face."

"Fuck," Sam muttered, "If you keep talking, I'm not going to last very long."

"You like when I call you baby?" Stevie teased, "Look at me, baby."

Sam used one hand to prop himself up over her and the other hand he laid his palm against her mouth, "I'm serious, shut your mouth."

Stevie giggled and she realized he hadn't moved an inch until this very moment when he began to find his pace, pumping in and out of her faster with every stroke.

Stevie bit his hand and he hissed, pulling it back but finding a new place for it around her neck. He didn't grip her very hard at all, using a feather like touch and seeming to just put it hand there as a way of doing something with it. She looked at his face and watched as his eyes rolled and shut tightly. He was focusing so hard on not letting himself go too quickly, but at this point, she just wanted to hear what he sounded like when he finished.

"Keep going, Sam," Stevie panted, "Get out of your head right now and chase it."

"Stevie," Sam's jaw clenched, "Please."

Stevie held onto the back of Sam's head, twisting her fingers in his hair as she moaned with every thrust and pulled his face to hers until their foreheads touched.

"Keep your eyes on me, Sammy," Stevie pleaded, "I want to watch you come."

Sam hissed at her words, working harder into her and she felt him trembling, smiling as he came undone right in front of her eyes.

"That's it baby," Stevie encouraged, "Come for me."

Sam was biting his lip, keeping his eyes locked on hers. His eyelids were low, almost barely open and Stevie ran her hand through his hair before placing it on his cheek and nodding at him enthusiastically.

"Let it go, Sam," Stevie whispered, "I want you to flood me."

"Fuck," Sam grunted and shutting his eyes. Stevie smiled as she watched his lips part and heard him whimpering. She felt his body tense and he moans changed pitch as he unloaded into her.

"Shit," Stevie hissed, gripping onto his back and rocking with him through it. It was the most pornagraphic thing she had witnessed, while also remaining some of the sweetest sex she had ever had. When he started to calm down, they laid together, his head on her chest. Stevie lightly ran her fingertips through his hair and he hummed, "Holy shit."

She chuckled, "Yeah."

"Yeah?" Sam asked, fishing for praise.

"That was probably the hottest thing I've ever seen," Stevie admitted and he lifted his head to look at her, smiling, "That was nothing, Stevie. Next time, I'll really give you a show."

She laughed and shook her head, "Of course you will, Sam."

He removed his dick from her, hissing as he did so and laid his head back on her chest, wrapping his arms around her and letting her soothe him to sleep.

The next morning, the two of them woke up to loud knocks at the door. Stevie's eyes fluttered open and she looked around. Sam was laying beside her, his face resting on her shoulder with an arm draped over her waist.

"Sam," she whispered and he hummed in response.

"There's someone at the door," Stevie said and he opened one eye, "Okay?"

"Can you go check it out?"

Sam groaned but he rolled over, sitting up slowly and stretching, "Okay, okay."

Stevie sat up as Sam left the room, heading to his room to lazily throw on some pants at the very least. He went downstairs and yawned as he got to the front door, picking up all of the wet clothes that they left out in the mud room. He reached for the front door, cracking it open.

Sam popped his head through the crack in the door and his eyes widened as he saw his brothers standing before him.

"What the hell are you two doing here?" Sam asked, not doing a very good job at hiding his shock in his voice.

"Nice to see you too," Jake laughed, "We're here to surprise Stevie for her birthday!"

"Hello, Sam," Josh greeted, "Where's Stevie?"

"Uh," Sam stammered, "She-she's still sleeping. Let me go check on her."

Josh smiled and winked at him and Jake chimed in, "That's okay, don't wake her up! We'll just surprise her when she comes down."

Sam opened up the door wider, letting them come in and he started to panic, "I'm just- I'm just gonna go upstairs and throw these in the laundry."

"Okay," Jake eyed him nervously, "Whatever."

Sam partially tripped over himself up the stairs walking into the bedroom casually before shutting the door abruptly. Stevie saw the panic in his face and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Who was at the door?"

"Jake and Josh are here," Sam said and Stevie's jaw dropped, "Fuck."

[homeformyheart]

first line tag game

aww thank you for the tag, @pearlsandsteel!!!

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag some of your favourite authors!

I think this has gone around for a while so anyone who wants to share that wasn’t tagged, please do! and feel free to tag me! 

but also tagging: @mistyeyedbi; @vintage-vamp; @gloynporslen; @kelseaaa; @otherworldlypresents; and @ambrosykim.

favorite opening line: I got to revisit half of the feb prompts and I gotta say I love most of ‘em, but if I had to pick a few I’d go with #3, 8, and 18 but those are mostly because they’re also my fave fics.

patterns: in all the fics except for 1, my opening line usually describes an action of a character and establishes setting, which makes sense. I think that’s how my brain works when it’s trying to create an opening scene.

1.  bucket list - drabbles w/all pairings

lyra rummaged through the drawer of her nightstand, tossing out old receipts, rubber bands, and other random knick-knacks that she really didn’t need but kept anyway “just in case.”

2.  vows - adam du mortain x regina bishop

regina took one last look at herself in the mirror, her grandmother’s veil framing her face and covering her shoulders.

3. threats - mason x ria knight

ria flexed her fingers in and out of a fist under her crossed arms as she glared at bobby fucking marks.

4. birthday - felix hauville x hayley bishop

felix zoomed around the warehouse living room, rearranging the balloons and streamers strung about the room, before tweaking the position of the large banner hung across the window.

5. prepared - adam du mortain x regina bishop

regina walked into the living room, smiling at the sight of adam reading quietly on the couch, on one of their rare days off.

6. camping - felix hauville x hayley bishop

felix stopped mid-stride, jerking hayley back a step, to let the late morning sun warm his face.

7. katniss - adam du mortain x lyra kingston x nate sewell (LT)

lyra hummed cheerfully as they arrived at a secluded part of the forest, skipping to the small clearing where several training dummies and equipment were laid out.

8. story time - adam du mortain x regina bishop

nate laid out several children’s books in front of jacques, who was seated in his lap patiently, unusual for the typically fussy child.

9. cereal - felix hauville x hayley bishop

hayley chuckled at the image of felix sitting in her shopping cart, legs crossed, skimming his fingers lightly over the shelves as she moves through the aisle.

10. dinner date - mason x brooklyn kingston

brooklyn stopped just outside of the main warehouse doors when her phone rang, motioning for mason to go on ahead without her as she picked up.

11. undercover - adam du mortain x regina bishop

adam frowned as he looked up at the detective’s apartment door from where he currently hid in the shadows of the stairwell.

12. breakfast run - mason x ria knight

they didn’t have time to address whatever had happened in the bakery that day, or at least, that’s what ria told herself.

13. guilt - felix hauville x hayley bishop

felix took a deep breath, letting the cool spring air fill his lungs, smiling despite the sharp pain from his hypersensitive internal organs.

14. photo - adam du mortain x regina bishop

farah tried to sit still, cross-legged on the bed, as regina rummaged through her packed closet for some of the old mission documents she kept forgetting to bring back to the warehouse to shred.

15. tonight - adam du mortain x regina bishop

farah ran into the room and jumped on to the full-sized bed in the room, which was just big enough to be comfortable for two people, if those two people were willing to get cozy.

16. traditions - nate sewell x m!detective (gift)

nate rubbed his hands together and blew on them to try to warm them up before shoving them back into the pockets of his coat.

17. spiked - tina poname & ria knight

ria crossed her arms over her chest and tried not to look bothered as she patrolled the perimeter of the square.

18. bets - unit bravo vs. unit alpha; adam du mortain x regina bishop

regina rubbed her eyes and tried to hide her yawn behind her hand. being at the facility sometimes felt like being at the casino or a strip club – no windows or clocks that would indicate how much time had passed.

19. heartbeat - adam du mortain x regina bishop

regina stumbled toward the ground, hand splayed against a nearby tree trunk for balance.

20. attention - mason x brooklyn kingston

things were finally quiet enough that brooklyn could catch up on paperwork. it was calming, sitting behind her desk, fingers flying over the keys, and seeing progress bit by bit

[homebody-nobody]

you’re a part of me

(WHAT?? Jax wrote ANOTHER fic?? THREE FICS?? in TWO WEEKS?? I know, I’m shocked too. We’re gettin closer and closer to bein a Real Fic Writer lads.) How many juke first kiss fics will you write, Jax? all of them. as many as I want. I dunno. you're an adult obsessed with a tweeny-bopper show. shut up. who even has the patience for 5 +1s in this house it's 3 +1 and only barely bc I don't know how structured fic works so it's not even separate like it's supposed to be. anyway enjoy some dumb teenagers falling in love if the dialogue is cringe sorry lol I was trying to stay in the tone of the show and may have gone a little bit too disney channel (Also if you see typos/the same adjective used twice in one sentence/paragraph, no you didn't I don't edit it makes me nervous)  ------------------------------- (ao3) ------------------------------ '... Luke has thrown out any semblance of personal space. He orbits around her just as closely as the others, no longer threatened by or hyper-aware of the consequences of his proximity. Basically, he’s getting entirely too comfortable.'

(3 times Julie and Luke almost kissed and 1 time they did) ------------------------------------ Luke is overly physical. Theoretically, Julie already knew this. She’s seen him with the boys, the way he lives in other people’s space, hanging off Reggie and lurking next to Alex, not caring where his lanky limbs or knees or elbows end up, even if it’s in other people’s ribs. He was never like that with her, too afraid of the crushing disappointment that came when she phased through his hands. But now, there isn’t the strange, tingles-up-her neck way-weird, way-wrong sensation that came when she accidentally brushed through him. So even though Julie’s used to keeping a respectful distance, Luke has thrown out any semblance of personal space. He orbits around her just as closely as the others, no longer threatened by or hyper-aware of the consequences of his proximity.  Basically, he’s getting entirely too comfortable. 

She notices it the first time during rehearsal, when they’re hashing out the particulars of a melody -- Luke wants it to go down, and Julie thinks it should go up. She plunks herself down at the grand piano to prove that her idea will sound better, fanning the half-finished sheet music out across the top, pointing out the measure they’re arguing over, smudged and crinkled from repeated erasings. 

Luke narrows his eyes at her from across the room, his face set in his trademark (adorable) grumpy expression. “It just sounds better!” she argues. “Listen.” She puts her hands on the keys, left hand hitting the chord, right dancing over her proposed melody. “So please, keep chasing me…” she sings, building to the last word and sliding her voice over an intricate run ending in a step up. Looking up, she tilts her head, her wild hair piled into a tenuous bun, curly tendrils framing her face. Luke’s stomach does an interesting flip. “See?” 

He stands up, swinging his guitar strap down across his chest before walking around her, putting his right hand over where hers had just been on the paper. He stands just behind her shoulder, sending goosebumps down her spine. “It should go down,” he insists. “It’ll flow better with the next line and then the break before the chorus makes more sense. Listen.” He puts his foot up on the bench and swings his guitar back up like it's an extension of him, playing a riff and singing the line they’re arguing about before dipping in to the next. “So please keep chasing me,” he sings, his voice gracefully stepping up and then back down, “Cause even though I’m runnin’, I know you’re the one I need.” 

“You’re making it too simple!” she cries, slamming her hands down in her lap and turning to face him. She opens her mouth to continue the argument, but when she looks at him, she starts, finally realizing just how close he is. The toe of his sneaker brushes her leg, and he leans over the sheet music, closing her in against the piano. His dark eyebrows pull together, mouth slightly pinched as he concentrates, solid and strong and very much in her space. “Um --” she says. 

He shrugs, shaking his head a little bit. “What,” he says, not understanding what she’s having a problem with. Julie’s eyes drop to his mouth, close and stupid kissable, and he notices the motion. The air crackles as both of them unconsciously draw closer, song forgotten, focused only on each other. Luke leans in, half an inch, and Julie’s breath hitches in her chest. This is stupid. She knows this is stupid. Luke is dead. Full ghost. Not real. Well, real, but not a viable option. He might have a physical presence now -- a very strong, very warm, very attractive physical presence -- but that doesn’t make him any more possible. And yet, here she is, pulled into him like he has his own gravitational field and she’s helpless to it. Luke licks his lips, and Julie tilts her chin up, fractional motion tiptoeing toward something irreversible and dangerous. 

Just as she’s about to step over that uncrossable line, there’s an almighty crash. Both of their heads whip up in time to see Alex topple off his stool -- he’d fallen asleep as they were arguing. The noise wakes Reggie, whose head was lolling against his amp. “I didn’t do it!” he yells, flailing into sitting up straight. 

Julie clears her throat and turns back to the keyboard, stretching her hands over the keys. “You’re, uh --” she says, glancing at Luke out of the corner of her eye to find him smirking in an infuriatingly adorable manner. “You’re right. It should go down.” He stands up straight, mildly surprised at his easy victory, and backs off from the piano to show Reggie the chords. They sketch out the verse and Alex adds a backing beat, the moment forgotten. 

That is, until Carlos comes in to nag her to eat. Alex poofs out and Reggie dives behind his amp. Since the whole discovering-corporeality thing, they’re not totally sure if Julie’s the only one who can see them still, and they’d rather not have to explain to Julie’s dad what three teenage ‘holograms’ are doing living in his garage. Carlos delivers his message and then darts back inside, eager for dinner, and Julie stands up from the piano, gathering the half-finished song and tucking it into the folder she keeps her in-progress projects in. 

Reggie emerges in a comic mess of limbs and grins at her, Alex poofing back on to his stool. “I’ll be back after dinner to finish this,” she says, hoping they don't notice the shake in her hands as she tucks the folder away. Luke pops his chin over the edge of the couch, behind which he’d taken cover. 

“Hey Julie!” he calls, and she turns back to look at him. “Just remember; KISS.” 

Her brain short-circuits, heart tripping over itself as she remembers his eyes on her, his shoulders and his hands and his stupid concentration face. “I, uh -- What are you --” she sputters.

A shit-eating grin spreads across Luke’s face as he puts his elbows on top of the couch and pushes himself up. “Keep it simple, stupid.” 

Julie practically runs out of the garage. Alex raises an eyebrow, his gaze arcing from the door to land on Luke. “That was uh…” Luke schools his expression into one of false innocence. “Bold.” Luke rolls his eyes and brushes him off, but Reggie gives Alex a knowing look. Their friends are idiots. 

It happens again one afternoon when Carlos has a baseball game and Julie has the house to herself. Or, so she thinks. She’s lazing around on the couch, avoiding her history homework spread out on the coffee table, Adventure Time babbling on the television. She’s slowly working her way through a bag of gummy bears and m&ms (her favorite candy combination),  wearing an enormous hoodie that used to be her mom’s, home alone; life is fantastic. Until -- 

“Oh, sweet, cartoons!” Luke poofs into existence directly next to her on the couch, and she starts violently enough to shake candy into the couch cushions. Some of it lands on his chest, and he holds up a green gummy bear with a wistful expression. Julie just stares at him, still mildly in shock, definitely still annoyed, and really not in the mood to endure his moping about food when she was having a perfectly nice time by herself. 

“Hey,” he says, either ignoring or unaware of what he’s just done to her heart rate and her peaceful afternoon. “You think now that I’m corporeal --” (he over-pronounces the word, having just learned it from Flynn days before) “I can eat like, regular human food?” It isn’t until he looks to her for an answer that he realizes what he’s just done. “Oh, sorry,” he says, that same stupid-ass grin settling on his face, not sorry even a little bit. “Did I spook ya?” 

His glee at the pun, which he definitely stole from Reggie, sparkles in his gray-green eyes, and Julie’s heart, which had just started to recover from his sudden appearance, trips over itself one more time. Emerging from the shaken-up snowglobe of her brain, she blurts out her first thought. “You’re the worst,” she says, even while thinking the opposite. 

He looks genuinely hurt for about half a second before turning the gummy bear towards her, too, and speaking for it. “You should be nice to Luke,” he says in an absurd voice. “He’s so handsome and talented!” He laughs at his own joke and pitches his voice up to continue with the bit, but she snatches the candy out of his hand and pops into her mouth, grinning. He feigns shock. “That bear could have had a family, Julie.” 

“If they did, they’ll all be happy together in my stomach,” she says, eating another one to punctuate the statement. Luke laughs, and the sound has a heart-stopping melody of its own. It’s comfortable, the relationship that they’ve developed with each other. He always laughs at her jokes and is the first to offer her a compliment after rehearsal, and she loves his dorky sense of humor, even when she gives him a hard time about it. They write music and goof around, and even with the (very strong) undercurrent of romantic (she hopes) tension between them, a friendship sits comfortably on top. He’s only been in her life for a short time,  but she can’t imagine it without him. Her feelings for him endanger that, so she does her best not to let it show. He asks her what she’s watching, and she explains the basic premise of the episode so that he can understand what’s going on. 

She’s hyper-aware of him as they watch the show, and  she envies the ease with which he occupies her space, his shoulder brushing hers, their knees occasionally bumping. He slouches all the way down on the couch, one foot kicked up on the table, turning the remote in his hands and messing with the battery cover, completely at home. (He’s always fiddling with something -- a pen, his necklace -- or bouncing his leg, or clicking a guitar pick between his teeth. It’s a habit that’s mostly adorable and only sometimes annoying.) If he notices her staring at him, he doesn’t say anything. 

It takes a couple more episodes, but she finally relaxes, and the distance between them -- already spare -- vanishes, her shoulder tucked under his, her head angled toward him, their feet bumping on the table. Half her attention is on Finn and the land of Ooo, and half on the boy beside her, who doesn’t seem to give any indication that he’s thinking about this as much as she is. Luke has a way of pulling her in until she’s closer than she ever planned to be, like she can’t help but touch him. Ever since the night they played the Orpheum, he’s become magnetic, his presence a force she can’t resist. If she tilted her head down, just a fraction, it would be resting on his shoulder. What would he do? Would he shrug her off, or rest his head on hers? She watches his hands play with the remote, imagining what his strong, slender fingers would feel like laced with hers. She’s had crushes before, of course -- she liked Nick all the way from seventh grade up to this year -- but nothing so real and powerful as this. 

“Don’t you think Finn sounds just like Reggie?” Luke asks, pulling her from her thoughts. She looks up at him, and he looks down at her, and -- oh. 

He’s very close. 

His eyes always remind her of an overcast sky, swirling with unknown depth, and they widen when they meet hers, filled with awe. Blood rushes in her ears, muting the TV, tuning out anything that isn’t him. Her heart is beating so hard and so fast she wonders peripherally if he can hear it, and then that thought fizzles out with the rest of any kind of logic when his gaze drops to her mouth. He’s going to kiss her. He’s going to kiss her!! Panic and elation and anticipation all scramble in her chest. She’s never kissed anyone before, and even though she’s never asked, she knows he probably has. What if she’s bad at it? She’s half freaking out and half telling herself to shut the hell up as he turns his entire body towards her, his hand reaching up to hold her face and -- 

The front door slams open, announcing Carlos and Ray. “Mija!!” her dad calls. Luke jerks back from her like he’s been burned, eyes filled with absolute terror, before he disappears. 

“JULIEEEEE!!” Carlos hollers, launching himself across the living room at her and landing on her stomach, knocking the air out of her. Her arms come up around him automatically, despite all the sweat and the diamond dirt sticking to it. Feeling mildly shell shocked and like she’s been hit by a hell of a lot more than her little brother, she barely listens as Carlos and their dad babble over each other in an attempt at telling the story of Carlos’ game-winning home-base slide. She’ll be happy for him once her heart rate slows down. 

Luke stays away for almost a full twenty-four hours after that particular mishap, long enough she almost asks Reggie and Alex if he talked to them about it. There’s about a thousand reasons not to, but mostly, she doesn’t know if she can even explain just what happened. She does tell Flynn, who launches into a very confusing monologue that starts with her admonishing Julie for thinking anything good can come from involving herself with a literal ghost and ends with her gushing about how many cute love songs they could write together, zero percent of which makes her feel better. 

The only reason he doesn’t continue avoiding her is rehearsal, which, of course, he would never miss. She’s hoping to talk to him before they get started, but then the bus gets stuck in traffic and all of her boys are already set up with their instruments and having an impromptu jam session by the time she gets home.  “What --” she hisses as she heaves the doors shut behind her. “Did I tell you guys about playing in here without me?” Alex shrugs and apologizes, and she can’t really be mad at Reggie, at least not for long. 

But Luke -- he barely looks at her, nervous fingers dancing across a complicated riff even as the other boys stop playing. It takes a second of silence before he looks up to see the rest of his band staring at him. “Oh,” he says, the phrase ending in the discordant sound of fingernails on steel strings. “Yeah, right. Sorry.” 

They get started, but nothing sounds right. Luke rushes the tempo and refuses to make eye contact with anyone, spinning off into fancy riffs that have no place in the song they’re working on. Reggie keeps trying to keep up with him, tripping up Alex and frustrating Julie, and when the song grinds to a cacophonous halt for the fourth time, she stands up from the piano. Reggie takes a step back. 

“What is your problem?” she practically yells, stomping over to Luke. He’s been surly and unusually stubborn, and the shift from his usual cheerful, passionate demeanor builds her own stewing anxieties to a dangerous head.

“It’s not my problem you can’t keep up,” he says, and then, after watching the words register in Julie’s expression, immediately regrets it. Alex’s eyebrows shoot up and Reggie makes a very soft ‘ooooohhh’ noise under his breath.

“It’s not keeping up if you can’t hold a steady tempo,” she says, too upset over his refusal to cooperate to catch the reaction from her bandmates.

“Okay, so maybe I was rushing,” he admits, trying to walk it back. But Julie’s on a roll, and once she gets started laying into him, she very rarely lets up.

“Thank you!” she yells, the sarcasm clear in her tone. She’d been especially fond of the product so far, a song she thought embodied the perfect blend of Luke’s harder edge and her singer-songwriter roots. His sudden, uncharacteristic left turn is as much an interruption in their rehearsal as a knock to the tenuous pride she’d been building in the piece.  “And what are all those riffs you’re tossing in? You have to hear how they don’t fit.” 

“Oh come on,” he says, proud in his ability and therefore less willing to step down. He rolls his shoulders back and moves toward her, the challenge set in his spine. “I was shredding and you know it.” Luke is sweet and kind and silly and compassionate, but he’s also a musician, and a lead guitarist at that. His ego, though it rarely becomes an issue, is far from insubstantial. 

“If you want a solo, fine!” she cries with exasperation, her hands flying through the air like they always do when she’s upset. “But you have to say something so we can give you room for it!” Her annoyance has turned down the sensitivity on her Luke-nonsense monitor, caught up enough in the trouble that she can’t see that he’s riling her up on purpose.

“What, you afraid of a little improvisation?” He’s smiling now, and his obvious glee, such a stark flip from where she thought this was going, throws off her tirade. He starts walking toward her, and his newfound physicality gives him an ability to fluster her to a much greater degree than before.

“No --” she stammers, stumbling backwards, distracted out of anger by his sparkling eyes and the power in the body approaching rapidly. “That’s not what I --” There it is again, that power he has to turn the rest of the world into radio static, her vision blurring and her hearing dulling until it’s just Luke filling up the world in front of her. 

“C’mon Julie,” he says, and right now she hates his stupid smirk and the stupid way he rolls her name around in his mouth before letting it out. “you have to take risks once in a while.” She’s backed up against the piano now, her hands wrapped tight around the lid, and he’s still pushing it, strong and warm and undeniably, frustratingly male in her space. 

But Julie isn’t one to let him intimidate her into silence, no matter how cute and well-muscled he may be. She takes a breath and looks him in his ridiculous sparkly eyes, poking him in his absurdly firm chest.“I am not afraid of taking risks, mister,” she says, “Let’s not forget who performed in front of her entire school to get back into the music program --” 

“My idea,” he scoffs, not backing up. Why isn’t he backing up.

“Or who fronts a band of actual ghosts!” she continues, her voice increasing in volume again, and the speed of her heart tripping over itself could be from the argument or the boy who’s collarbones are less than a foot from her face. Both are entirely possible. 

“Less ghost now,” he reminds her, tilting his head, his weight leaned one one leg, his hand resting on the head of his guitar, relaxed when they’re supposed to be arguing. 

“You just get to poof out after we perform!” she says, only about two-thirds of her mind still focused on the fight itself, the other third completely wrapped up in the feeling of Luke in front of her. “I’m the one who has to stick around and ask questions!” 

“So you’re saying you take chances,” he says, diabolically diplomatic instead of challenging. He leans forward, putting his hands on the piano behind her, caging her in with his arms. She refuses to back down again, even though his face is now inches from hers. “You’d take a leap of faith?” 

“Yeah,” she says, only half-certain, because she’s not totally sure they’re still talking about music, and her heart is in the base of her throat and her stomach is somewhere around her shoes, and suddenly her hands are sweating when they definitely weren’t a minute ago. This definitely isn’t an argument about the song anymore. 

“Oh yeah?” he says, and there’s the challenge again, except this one sounds more like a dare, and he’s definitely looking at her lips this time, not even trying to be subtle about it, and her hands are braced on his forearms and when did they get there? And Luke is warm and when she looks up, his eyes are on hers, and despite all that bravado and provocation there’s still a question there, and all she would have to do to answer is lift up on her toes and finally, finally press her lips against his, and -- 

Alex coughs. The oxygen goes out of the room like someone opened an airlock, and Julie feels herself sink, just barely, back down on her heels. The world fills back in, colors and sounds suddenly too bright, too abrasive. Tearing her eyes off Luke, she glances over his shoulder to where Reggie and Alex are, still with their instruments, watching them intently. Alex looks politely put out, his eyebrows tilted up with incredulity, like he's asking if they seriously just made him watch that. Reggie, on the other hand, hides nothing in his expression, shock and amusement there in equal parts as he glances between Alex and the two of them still tucked close against the piano, jaw askance in a surprised smile. 

"Are you done?" Alex asks, in a tone that sounds less like a question. "It’s not that I mind…" he gestures between the two of them with a drumstick. "This, but like, time and place, dude." He's not talking to Julie. Luke clears his throat, appropriately chastised, but still looking smug as shit. 

"Um, sorry," she mutters as he returns to his spot next to his amp. 

Alex shrugs. "Not your fault," he says, "from the top?" 

"Uh," she says, frozen for a moment in embarrassment and confusion. She looks to Alex, and he gives her one of his soft, kind smiles, the sort that makes her feel like everything is going to be okay. “Right, okay,” she finishes, as her hands twitch and she settles back into her body. Rushing back around to the bench, she flexes her hands over the keys, curling them into fists and then back out again when they tremble. “From the top.” 

The rehearsal goes -- okay, after that. The magic is missing; therefore, while she usually feels inspired and courageous and empowered walking out of the garage, she just feels exhausted and drained. She eats dinner with her family, and her dad definitely notices that she’s uncharacteristically quiet, but saves asking about it until after Carlos is safely sequestered with his iPad. “How ya doin, kiddo?” he asks as she helps him clear up the dishes. “Everything okay?” 

Julie looks at her dad with mild alarm, wondering what exactly he knows. He does his best, he really does, but it took him a while to even notice she was in a band. Not to mention, he still believes they’re holograms. “Um,” she says convincingly. “Yeah?” 

He smiles kindly, in the way that means he’s very politely calling bullshit. “Alright, mija. What’s going on?” 

Heaving a sigh, Julie keeps her eyes on the dishwasher she’s loading, trying her best to plan an escape route out of this conversation. “I promise, Dad,” she says, “It’s nothing.” and then, what she thinks are the magic words. “Boy stuff.” 

But Ray’s been prepping for this, had conversations with Rose about it before she passed, while the cancer slowly ate her alive. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to be there for her daughter through the time in her life a girl needs her mother the most, and she wasn’t about to let him hide behind toxic masculinity and leave Julie to figure it out on her own. “Okay,” Ray says, trepidation clear in his voice but also not unwilling to approach the topic. “What’s his name?” 

Julie almost drops the pot she’s scrubbing. “Does it matter?” she asks, her voice crawling up several octaves. 

“Just trying to learn who is in my daughter’s life,” he answers diplomatically, sitting down at the counter to make it clear he’s not letting her out of this one easily. 

“I promise, Dad,” she says, doing her best to frantically dodge the interrogation she knows is coming, regretting she brought it up at all, cursing herself for being so obvious. “It’s dumb. You don’t even know him.” 

Ray nods slowly, pretending to believe her. Julie goes after the pot a little harder, because maybe if she just finishes the dishes she can go upstairs and bury herself in her bed and not have to have this conversation anymore. “It’s not that guitarist, is it?” he asks, and her spine goes stiff as a ramrod. Ray’s her dad, but he’s not blind. He’s seen the way they look at each other when they perform, the way the boy follows her around the stage like a puppy, desperate for her attention, disappointed when she jams with the other members of their band and not him. He’s an excellent musician, but Ray knows too many stories of near-legends gone sour with misdirected young love. 

“No!” Julie cries immediately in an obvious lie. “Of course not!” She turns, half-laughing, explanations falling out of her mouth “We’re just friends,” she insists, lacing her fingers in front of her and nodding exaggeratedly. “Just friends. Only friends. Uh-huh. Friends. And!” she continues, gesturing widely, “he doesn’t even live here! So that… wouldn’t even make sense!” she laughs awkwardly. “So no way. That it’s him. No way it’s him.” 

Ray sighs out a laugh that Julie’s too panicked to hear and leans forward on his elbows. “Alright, nina. Just be careful, okay?” She’s nodding along, edging her way towards the stairs. “You and your band…” She looks like Rose, in that hoodie that practically swallows her, hair piled messily on top of her head. Her mom was also a terrible liar, he remembers fondly. “You have something special. Don’t throw that away for a boy.” 

Julie nods rapidly and then bolts, thundering up the stairs before throwing her bedroom door closed behind her and diving headfirst onto her bed, burying herself in decorative pillows. How does everyone  know?? First Flynn and then Reggie and Alex and now her dad? Is she that obvious? (Um, yes.) She flops onto her back, staring up at the colorful tapestries slung across her ceiling, the string lights and posters and art. Usually, she loves her room, the feeling of her creative mind as a space she can inhabit, exploring her heart and the things she loves without having to shut out the outside world. But tonight, she feels trapped in her own head, so she grabs her notebook and squeezes out the window, perched on the roof outside her room. 

The evening air is cool and crisp, the gentlest bite warning the oncoming winter, as much as there is a winter in LA. She spends a while scribbling down half-baked lyric ideas and doodling angry black scribbles around the edges of the pages when nothing comes out right. It’s harder to write on her own, now, without the steady pulse of Luke’s genius behind her, the electricity that flows between them as they create impeccable harmonies. Sometimes, it feels like music belongs to the both of them together, a joined force, like they’ve given up their individual melodies for something greater. It’s thrilling and terrifying all at once. 

Eventually, she just ends up holding the notebook open to ‘Perfect Harmony’ with one hand, the other arm wrapped around her legs, her chin propped on her knees. She still hasn’t shown it to Luke, afraid of how real it feels, how clear it makes her feelings for him. Also, it’s a ballad, which they haven’t even approached yet, and she has no idea how Reggie and Alex will feel about such an explicitly romantic duet. She’s thinking that maybe she might be able to vague it up, maybe even make it a solo piece, when Luke appears next to her, like thinking about him draws him to her. (Which might actually be true -- she hasn’t examined that very closely.) 

“Hey!” he says cheerfully, all awkwardness from the evening’s rehearsal ostensibly disappeared. He plucks the notebook out of her hand, using the other arm to hold back her immediate demands for its return. “New stuff?” he asks. This is not normally such a grievous invasion of privacy. Ever since they started writing together, their songwriting journals have become common property, and half the pages in hers are marked up with his handwriting and vice versa. 

“It’s not ready yet!” she cries, pushing against the (stupidly strong) arm he has across her collarbone, willing to climb bodily over him to snatch the notebook back. Luke’s face very slowly falls as he reads it, the lyrics sinking in, and her protests trail off as she stops scrambling to grab it out of his hands. 

He stands suddenly, pacing across the roof. “Did you --” he starts, breathing shallowly, his tongue tucking his teeth between his lips, nostrils flaring before he speaks again. “Why did you copy this out of my songbook?” It’s not accusatory, only a question, born of true confusion. 

“I didn’t,” Julie replies without skipping a beat, equally baffled. 

“I wrote this after the garage party,” he says. “How is it in your notebook?” 

“I wrote it at school before the garage party,” she replies, doing her best to keep down the memory of the Luke in her imagination and the song coming to her fully formed in the form of a Patrick Swayze-esque daydream. She didn’t even tell Flynn about that part. 

“At school…” Luke repeats, studying the lyrics with a furrow between his eyebrows, and as much as Julie is also reeling from shock at the mystery, it’s kind of adorable to watch him try and solve it. “This doesn’t make sense,” he says, looking up at her, signature grumpy expression in place. He tilts the notebook flat, like he’s presenting it to her, hoping she has the next steps. Like he’s reached his conclusion, and it’s that he’s confused. 

“It doesn’t,” she says, and it comes out as half a laugh unintentionally, just looking at his ridiculous, adorable face. 

“Why are you laughing?” he demands with exasperated urgency. “This is super weird!” He rushes over and collapses next to her, a mess of flannel and limbs and beautiful dumbass. He shoves the notebook back into her hands as she folds her legs underneath her, relinquishing her grip on her knees. 

“Yeah,” she sighs, unable to wipe the grin from her face. “Yeah, it is.” Luke looks like he wants to ask her what she’s smiling at, but then he starts smiling, too, because her happiness is his happiness. Julie’s already past the strange coincidence, lost in the joy of his gray-green eyes and the feeling of him next to her. She’s too used to strange, to the ever-changing rules of the afterlife and the constant uncertainty that Luke and her boys bring to her life. Yes, it’s strange, but she’s in a ghost band and her crush is dead and still manages to look at her like that so she has a certain level of perspective when it comes to things like this. 

“What are you --” Luke tries to say, but her eyes are on his and they’re warm and brown and kind and he’s finding it a little hard to form sentences. 

“This is ridiculous,” she says, and he’s nodding without knowing what he’s agreeing to. “We wrote the same song on the same day,” she laughs, and he nods again, half-listening, half lost in her. She’s excited now, about the possibility brought on by magic and her connection -- their  connection -- souls tied together with passion and music and love. “That’s impossible!” It cements something for her, the feeling of coming together, of sliding into place. They’re so solid, tight, together, on the same wavelength… musicians have put it a thousand ways throughout the years, to communicate the feeling of a co-writer, a bandmate, a partner, reading your mind, singing the next line, playing the next riff that was just in your head. Julie and Luke get the added bonus of being inexplicably spiritually linked. Nothing can break that, or replace it. She’s not scared of it, anymore. 

“Impossible,” he echoes. He always feels a little bit stronger, a little more alive whenever he’s with Julie like this, just the two of them, hanging out or writing music, and he’s in her immediate proximity, soaking in the warmth of her brown skin and brown eyes and the chaotic energy of her wild, incredible hair. She pulls him in, without knowing the power she holds or the light that she emits, casting a golden glow over everything around her. 

“Luke,” she says, and he tunes back in, realizing that he’s steadily leaning toward her as they sit on the roof, Julie cross-legged, Luke angled toward her, one leg stretched out, his elbow propped on his other knee. “Are you listening?” 

“Um,” he swallows, “Yeah?” but he’s looking at her lips, not her eyes, and he’s thinking about kissing her, just once, just to see what she tastes like, remembering the smell of gummies and m&ms, hoping she’ll be just as sweet. She doesn’t say anything, mostly because she forgot what she was going to say in the first place, watching his eyes watch her mouth, breathing him in. He’s too close again, closer than any friend or bandmate should be, and there’s no mic between them, and the door to her room is closed, and there’s no bandmates or brothers or dads, and her heart pounds in her chest. 

When she tilts her chin towards him, she feels ready, finally, knowing what he means to her. Only a breath separates them, but they both stop, waiting for the inevitable interruption, the door slamming open, or someone calling up from the yard below, but it doesn’t come. Realizing what they’re both waiting for, they breathe out a simultaneous laugh, their foreheads dropping together. The tension fades, and Julie’s smile feels uncontainable, demanding every inch of her face as this beautiful, goofy, genus, talented boy adores her while she sits there, falling in love with him. 

It’s easier, this moment, than the one before, because it feels less laden with the weight of someone pulling away, unsure or unwanting. This moment is comfortable, joyful, the two of them acknowledging every minute of want and disappointment and hilarious misfortune over the past few days, acknowledging what they would have asked for instead. And when Luke finally reaches up, pulling her in gently with his hand on her neck, his thumb sliding over her jaw, it’s with confidence and tenderness, reassured that she wants this, too. Julie leans easily into the touch, and when their lips meet, the spark and rush is better than any performance, any screaming crowd drowning in lights. They kiss each other, moving together, leaning in as one, harmony made in the movement of mouths and the press of lips, and this moment -- it’s perfect. 

[evenstevensranked]

#17: Season 3, Episode 18 - “Stevens’ Manor”

With the house to himself for the weekend, Louis decides to open up a bed and breakfast to afford a snowboarding trip for the gang! What could possibly go wrong?!

I’ve been meaning to tell you guys to ignore any typos in my reviews within the first day or so of them being posted. It takes a few read-throughs for me to catch any/all errors. 

That being said...

This episode opens with the subplot. Although, this is yet another one where the subplot and main plot work together super well. I’ve noticed that this is becoming a theme with these higher-ranked episodes. Huummm. 

It starts off with Ren spying on Ruby breaking up with some random guy Dexter. Her oh so serious, love of her life boyfriend of 4 days. Sounds about right. This show seriously nails how ridiculous middle school ~relationships~ truly are. Ruby is devastated, so Ren presents the idea of turning their upcoming weekend sleepover into girls night complete with nail polish, magazines and ice cream! Yeeee!

Ruby clearly shocked and offended by Dexter’s decision to end it. We don’t actually hear the conversation, so this exaggerated expression really gets the point across.

It cuts to Louis, Twitty, Tawny, and Tom (who I will refer to as “the gang” from this moment forward) discussing how badly they want to go snowboarding at some lodge. Tawny estimates that it’d cost around $200 per-person, and I mean, what 13-year-olds have that sort of money laying around? I’m a grown adult and I can’t even afford Starbucks on some days. So, yeah. To any sane person, the idea would be totally off the table and seem completely farfetched... But not to Louis Stevens!! He’s all “Oh, it’s no problem” as he runs to answer a call on the school’s payphone, which is the millionth thing that closet space next to the stairs has been used for. The call is from someone looking to book a reservation at Stevens’ Manor. I really hope that payphone has a different number than the school and that Louis didn’t give out Lawrence Jr. High’s number as the contact info for “Stevens’ Manor.” I can’t. 

He explains to the gang that Steve and Eileen are going away for their anniversary, Donnie has an away game, and Ren is sleeping at Ruby’s... which means he’s got la casa all to himself. Twitty asks how he’s gonna get his parents to actually let him stay home alone though... and like??? I know that Louis can get a little crazy, but does he really need a freaking babysitter or something? Actually, wait. What am I talking about?! He immediately seized the “home alone” opportunity to turn the house into a bed and breakfast. Here we go again with the give Louis Stevens an inch and he will take 100,000 miles trope, lol. His plan is to fake cry to Eileen about wanting to come with her and Steve and not wanting to stay alone, before deciding to be ~strong~ and stick it out. Steve even calls Louis a “soldier” for it, haha. Okay. Whatever works I guess! I’d like to point out this kinda ugly transition they do of Louis smirking about his plan, to the moment where he’s actually executing it. It’s so weird looking omg. 

That morph tho. I guess the editing job isn’t too bad for 2002... but dang, it’s just slightly unsettling to me lol. 

I like how this episode basically jumps right into the plot asap! We’re only two minutes in at this point and the BnB transformation is already underway! Eileen and Steve ultimately leave and trust Louis to man the fort of course, and the birth of Stevens’ Manor happens the second they’re out the door -- courtesy of a short montage. Louis must’ve been preparing for this bed and breakfast idea for a long while, just waiting around for the opportunity -- because he has shirts embroidered with a fancy “SM” ready to go for him and his friends to wear! He’s even set up the technology to accept credit cards. Louis Stevens does not play! 

The first guests arrive and I’m assuming it’s supposed to be a joke when Louis greets them “Welcome to Stevens’ Manor! You must be the Mannings!” lol. The Mannings are an older couple made up of a “fellow Lou” Louis and his wife Edna. This information is vital for later on. When they’re shown to their room, (which is Louis’ bedroom transformed into the “Lincoln Bedroom” lol) Edna says “This is even cozier than the pictures we saw on the internet!” WOW!!! Louis really did have this planned! He probably whipped out a www.stevensmanor.com domain for this. How did he rearrange and clean his room with enough time to take the photos, post them, and get hits on the website (in 2002, mind you) without his parents noticing though? That stuff took tiiiime back then. Not to mention cleaning that filthy room of his would require the help of a garbage company! Oh, well. That’s an irrelevant detail. I told you he’d been preparing for this moment! 

Where did he get that bust of Lincoln (see 2 photos up) and that painting too? I searched out of curiosity and found this near-exact bust which costs $850!!!!! That thing better be some cheap plastic knock off because something tells me Louis somehow spent more money on making the place look legit than he’ll ever make back from it lol. 

The next guest is a woman named Mrs. Colepepper. What is up with these writers and throwing the word “pepper” into last names? We already have Ryan Zellpepper and now we’ve got this lady lol. I also just realized that both of these characters are black... not that that means anything at all. It’s just randomly sort of interesting imo. 

The last main guests are a pair of twin teenage boys and their parents. Now, Even Stevens is good at not double casting people (a.k.a being weird and having the same actors play two or more different characters throughout the series and hope the audience doesn’t notice) -- But they messed up here and I gotta call it out!! They’re acting like this is the first time we’ve seen these twins, but they actually already made an appearance as LJH students back in Season 2! Their first appearance is literally sooo brief that only a weird superfan like me would notice, but yeah. 

The twins in this episode.

The twins in Season 2! We haven’t covered this episode yet so I feel really weird including a screenshot but.. lol. 

There’s this short scene where Louis introduces Tawny as the Manor’s “human jukebox” because apparently she’s a piano wiz and knows “all kinds of songs” (Also, where’d Louis get the grand piano?! haha) One of the twins sarcastically asks “Does she know ‘I hate it here, we should’ve gone to Hawaii’?” And Tawny adlibs a song “I hate it here, we should’ve gone to Hawaii, where they say Aloha and roast little piggies!” This one line always gets stuck in my head. Always. I’m tempted to continue writing additional lyrics just to give myself more to sing.

There’s also a fantastic bit here of Tom arguing with Mrs. Colepepper about the pulp in her orange juice. I can’t even explain it, all you have to know is that it’s amazing. Also, Louis tells the twins to check out the “Rec Room” and hands them two ping-pong paddles. They’re like “All you have is a ping-pong table?” and Louis says “Yeah... Well... I never said anything about a table. So.” IT ALWAYS GETS ME! It’s such a small line, but I love it. ALSO Beans is the BnB’s “licensed masseuse.” Right.  

At Ren and Ruby’s sleepover, Ruby gets a make up call from Dex and they talk on the phone all giggly for an hour and a half. Ren is fed up and decides to head home. Safe to say Ren was in for a surprise when Mrs. Colepepper was asleep in her bed... 

Louis tries to explain the situation to her and of course, Ren is vehemently against it until she sets her eyes on the ~gorgeous~ twins. As they’ve already stated -- The twins hate it there, so she catches them juuust as they’re about to check out. Ren literally referred to these guys by name in S2. They were some weird names like “Mosh and Stosh”?! lol, Smosh. But now she’s acting like it’s the first time she’s ever seen them in her life and it always bothered meeeeee. 

Something that kills me about this bit is when their father says “The boys just aren’t happy here. I kinda have to agree with them. Your kiddie pool hardly qualifies as an ‘aquatic center’ so...” -- LOUIS REALLY PUT “AQUATIC CENTER” as a selling point knowing that all he had was a kiddie pool.

Imagine showing up to a BnB where this is the advertised “aquatic center.” I am dying of laughter. First the nonexistent Rec Room, now this. I can just hear Gordon Ramsay ripping this place apart on an episode of Hotel Hell.

Ren immediately tries to persuade the twins to stay for obvious reasons by bribing them with lame board games, but they apparently reciprocate her attraction and decide to stay. The fictional board game they pick to play is The Organ Donor Game (sounds like a fun time???) and it’s so suggestive. Ren says “Ooo! You landed on my kidney. That’s gonna cost ya! No cheating and... Hands off my pancreas” in the most sultry voice ever. Like... WHAT?! The doorbell rings while they’re playing and it’s Ruby coming over to apologize, but she too decides to stay at the Stevens’ once she sees the twins. Wow. I love how a fan is always conveniently there to blow Ruby’s hair dramatically whenever she sees a guy she likes.  

It happened the moment she developed a crush on Louis, too. And, uh... Didn’t Ruby JUST GET BACK TOGETHER with Dexter like, an hour ago?  

Meanwhile, Beans is giving Louis Manning a massage by walking on his back in hiking boots??? Beans just further solidifying his place as “The Worst” in my heart. Old Louis (which is what I’ll call him now I guess) gets his back thrown out thanks to their wonderful, 8-year-old, obviously not licensed masseuse. This place is a lawsuit waiting to happen. 

Eileen decides to call home and check in with Louis, which creates one of my favorite situations everrrrrrr in the series. Y’all know I love when shows highlight the comedic side of miscommunication, and this is probably Even Stevens’ best stab at it. Edna is the one who answers Eileen’s call and all hell breaks loose when Eileen asks for Louis. “Louis hurt his back, he’s in a great deal of pain right now.” Edna explains. And Eileen says “You tell him I’ll be there in two hours and that I love him very much!!” Of course, Edna thinks Old Louis is cheating on her with some woman named Eileen and it’s great. 

Louis (Stevens lol) overhears the conversation and starts freaking out because how the hell are they gonna get all of the guests out of the house and revert it back to the way it was when it’s only midnight? That’s when Ren gets the brilliant idea (no seriously, it’s brilliant) to set all of the clocks forward to 7am checkout time! Oh my freaking god. Most of the guests have only been asleep for an hour or so, and suddenly they’re being told breakfast is ready. It’s absolutely hilarious! “Skies will be mostly... dark” Ren informs them of the days’ weather, omg. 

There’s no way they have enough time to serve everyone a full breakfast, so they shove all the food into a blender and give it to the guests as the “Deluxe Breakfast Combo To-Go!” Seriously, Gordon Ramsay would have a field day with this.

They pretty much scream at the guests to “move it!” and get outta the house at midnight while they’re all still in their pajama’s and disoriented. Even if it was 7am, this is some terrible service. At this point, I’d give Stevens’ Manor a generous zero stars on Yelp.  

Amazingly, they get everyone out with enough time to hustle and clean up the house before Steve and Eileen get back! *Whew!* Louis and Ren scramble to explain the whole Enda lady who answered the phone situation and claim that she’s the school nurse. Steve is so confused, “The school nurse made a house call in the middle of the night?!” Honestly, though. Suddenly Edna walks back in the front door “Excuse me, I forgot my umbrella.” Haha. That’s when she and Eileen have their final brush with miscommunication. Eileen is all “Thank you for taking care of Louis!” and Edna says “Well, let me tell you something, Eileen. I have dedicated my entire life to taking care of Louis, so let me give you a little warning... STAY AWAY FROM HIM!” 

Steve: “These school nurses are so protective...” 

Steve and Eileen decide to head upstairs and go to bed immediately, to Louis and Ren’s relief -- which actually made me realize something... Where do Steve and Eileen sleep?! From what we’ve seen of the upstairs it seems to only have a bathroom and Louis, Ren, and Donnie’s rooms! I’ve never seen space or a door for a third bedroom up there! Omg. Maybe they have a secret bedroom in a hidden attic or something? Hey! They had a giant secret cave underneath their house. It’s possible. 

The final minute bit of this episode is great. Steve and Eileen are watching some local news program and Mrs. Colepepper happens to be the host. She shares her experience at Stevens’ Manor and how she’ll never forget it in a strangely positive review segment. The best line is when she says “I don’t normally sleep through the night, but when my head hit the pillow -- the next thing I knew, it was morning!” HAHAHAHA. She makes a point to mention the “hip, young staff” and shows a picture of the gang (see cover photo.) And yeah. Steve blows a gasket. 

THE END!

This is a great episode. I mean, really. It’s super memorable, funny, and it’s an awesome episode for the cast as an ensemble. I cracked up countless times writing this review! It definitely gets a lot of “iconic” points for sure. I just personally prefer episodes that have more of a story to them and focus on the characters. As great as this episode is, it’s definitely one of those wacky plots that could only make sense in crazy Season 3. But I gotta give it to them... This is such a wild and elaborate plot, but they somehow make you believe that Louis could’ve actually pulled this off irl. I’m sure there were some impressionable kids out there who entertained the idea of doing something similar themselves, lol. I want y’all to know that #17 isn’t a “bad” spot by any means. I feel like I say this a lot, but at this point in the countdown, everything seriously is pretty much top notch. I’m simply arranging the best of the best in an order I hope is both personal and objective. It’s a difficult line to straddle, believe me.

To top off the review, I’ve added not one -- but two Stevens’ Manor designs to the Redbubble shop!! AYYYYYYYYY! I got carried away. I’m actually really excited about these, haha! Ya can now get the main “Stevens’ Manor” design and the employee logo design printed on whatevaaa you want. Doing these reproductions of things that exist within the shows’ universe is so fun. I’m really trying my best to get as close to the way they appear on screen as I possibly can (with my limited photoshop skillz)

They’re available in the shop now! Yay!

Thanks for reading!!

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Redbubble

[ilikebigbooks-and-icannotlie]

Fast Firsts and Sloppy Seconds (Part 3)

A Rowaelin/Manorian AU

It’s still 10:23 PM Tuesday, May 23, 2017 (HST), holla!!! This part’s pretty short, because I really struggled with it :( So, part 3.5 will be coming in a day or two, probably, and then I will make an immediate push for part 4 (Becca and Cas please become really annoying and fight me if I don’t) so 3.5 should be done by like Thursday night/Friday morning, and 4 will be ready by Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Also, if anyone wants to teach me a thing or two about photo editing, I have a pinterest board of 487 pins which is part of why this chapter’s kind of a disaster sshhh that I would love to turn into edits for you guys :) I’m feeling like an instagram or snapchat vibe? Idk, hmu if you know anything on the subject. Lol it’s 4:23 EST and I’m low key deceased but like it’s fine why do I keep doing this to myself so apologies if there are any typos - I tried my best. Tagging @highlady-casandra​ because this is the reason I haven’t edited for you yet and I’m sorry, I love you!!! Also @miladyaelin​ who is asleep, lol - thanks for trying pal :) 3.5 will probably be posted at a more reasonable time so you can actually look at it first before I make a fool of myself post it … but i say that every time so who knows Also tagging @fictionalcharactersaremyreality​, @rowanismybae​, @the-north-star​, @throneofstars​, @fortunatelycleverpaper​, @snaps7​, @thegirlwith-that-smile​, the anon who sent me that ask earlier today, and so so so many more, thank you for caring about my story and wanting more of it, I love you guys! HUGE thank you to everyone for the kind words and reblogs and notes, I appreciate every single one <3  

Happy reading!

Part 1  Part 2      Part 3.5

The second Dorian saw that look in Aelin’s eyes, he knew the dance was over. He easily stepped out of the way, a small smirk on his lips as he glanced behind him, catching the slightly scared and entirely determined look in the barkeep’s eyes as Aelin stepped directly into his arms.

The barkeep almost immediately stepped back, attempting to keep Aelin at a comfortable arm’s length away. Dorian couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness, as though Aelin would actually let him keep her at a distance. In any case, he didn’t really have time to spend watching the soon-to-be happy couple. His eyes quickly scanned the pub, once again falling onto Manon. He took in the satisfied smirk on her lips as she watched Aelin dance with Rowan. If you could call it dancing, that is. Rowan was awkwardly waddling from side to side, stiff as a board, as Aelin moved around him like a force of nature – absolutely breathtaking.

She was the one he’d dragged to ballroom dance lessons when his mother had forced him into them the summer after his freshman year of college. He didn’t need to be stuck partnered with any of the other pretentious bitches at the country club. And as much as Aelin pretended to complain, he knew she enjoyed it. No one could make Aelin do anything she didn’t want to do.

Their dancing had been comfortable, as it always was, as they learned to be. But this, this was a tragedy. However, even in the face of tragedy, Aelin looked like a princess.

And while he was the one dancing, Dorian was damn sure he looked like a prince. He couldn’t help but smile to himself as he thought about Manon angrily glaring at Aelin while they fell back into old patterns, easily moving around the floor. He definitely hadn’t quite gained the upper hand, but he felt like he was at least just below a tie at that point. After looking Manon over once again, he decided it was time for another drink. Another incredibly muscled, incredibly tall man appeared to have taken over for the white-haired barkeep. What were they putting in the water here? He had dark shoulder-length hair, a nose that looked like it had definitely been broken at least a few times, and overall looked generally pissed off at the world.

However, Dorian was absolutely determined to get more Guinness. The pub had emptied out significantly since they arrived, as the night carried on well into the next morning. He grabbed a seat at the bar, and tried his best not to be offended when the bartender grumbled about “typical Americans” after he’d ordered the beer. It took every ounce of determination in his body not to turn around, to look for those heart-stopping golden eyes, but then all attempts proved futile as she settled into the seat beside him.

“Looks like you’ve been replaced, twinkle toes,” she smirked, unable to keep the satisfaction out of her voice. “Jealous?”

He glanced over at her then, eyeing her casually crossed arms, her tired eyes, and her undoubtedly pleased smile. He couldn’t help the small smile that grew on his own face as he looked at what was likely the most earnest side of her he’d seen all night. He guessed she was probably too tired to put on her own mask in that moment.

“Manon,” the bartender grumbled, sliding the pint over to Dorian. “Don’t you have tables to serve?”

“Don’t you have glass to clean, Lorcan? Or better yet, business to mind?” She snapped at him. Her cold glare would have stopped Dorian in his tracks, but the bartender – Lorcan – merely rolled his eyes and walked over to the other end of the bar. He was clearly trying to pretend he was checking on another patron, but it was pretty clear to both Manon and Dorian  that he honestly just didn’t seem to want to deal with her shit.

Dorian cleared his throat, sliding his hands around his beer and taking a sip. Manon’s golden eyes were focused on him as  he forced himself to spit out the words he’d been desperate to ask since he first saw her looking like she was plotting a hundred different ways to kill Aelin. “So, were you? Jealous, that is?” He avoided her eyes, taking one of his hands off of the death grip on his beer to run it through his hair.

“Yeah,” her voice was even, almost aloof. “I was.” His eyes snapped to hers - confusion, and fear, and something more swimming through them, all at once. She rolled her eyes at his response, twirling her braid between her fingers. “Well don’t look too excited,” she scoffed, pulling on the white strands.

“So does that mean you want to dance?” Their eyes met, and for the first time, Dorian didn’t look away. He couldn’t look away, even if he tried. There was something there, tying him to her. Paralyzing him.

Her low laugh cut through him, inflating his lungs, and finally letting him breathe. She reached for his beer, taking her own sip before offering him a small smile. Her golden eyes had become molten, a warm amber. “Well played, princeling. Well played.”

“Come on,” he goaded, lightly bumping her shoulder with his. “You can’t be nearly as bad as that guy!” He gestured towards Rowan with his chin, and Manon laughed even harder then, an honest laugh, as she watched Rowan awkwardly fumble next to Aelin. “If you think my brother’s bad, you wouldn’t even be able to handle seeing me.”

Brother. He hesitated at the words, then suddenly saw the similarities, glancing back and forth between the apparent siblings. The hair was of course a blatant giveaway. But also, their strong chins, the high cheekbones. Dorian wasn’t sure how he’d missed it before. And then suddenly something in Manon’s face changed.

Confusion, shock, and then – something along the lines of disgust? Dorian followed her gaze to find Aelin and Manon’s brother all but dry-humping as they danced. He let out a sharp laugh at the sight. There was no way to know exactly what Aelin had done, but whatever it was, it worked. Two became one as they fit together perfectly, moving in time to a rhythm Dorian would’ve sworn the hulking bartender had absolutely no sense of rhythm only seconds before. But he supposed Aelin had enough rhythm for both of them, as the white-haired giant helplessly followed along, drowning deeper into Aelin. A smile spread across Dorian’s face as  he watched his friend let herself feel pure joy for the first time in a long time.

He turned back around to find Manon watching him instead, a skeptical eyebrow perfectly raised at his pleased expression. “Shouldn’t you be angry? Off to defend your girl or something?”

Dorian barked out a laugh at the thought, shaking his head at the ridiculousness. “Aelin isn’t anyone’s anything. And the last time she was – well,” he hesitated, “let’s just say it didn’t end well.” The thought of his other best friend brought a tightness in his chest that he would rather have ignored just then, as he brought his beer to his lips once again. He couldn’t exactly say he would have enjoyed being stuck in Dublin with both Aelin and Chaol, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel bad for both of his friends.

When he refocused his attention to Manon, he was surprised to find her still watching the dancing couple. Although – when he looked closer – he got the distinct feeling she wasn’t watching anything. Manon appeared to be lost in a world all of her own, drowning in memories she was either afraid to lose – or desperately wanted to forget.

“Hey,” Dorian prodded, bumping his knee against hers – and leaving it there – terrified of the contact, yet desperate for more. “You okay?”

The second she turned to him, he knew he’d made a mistake. Her mask was back in place just as quickly, as she leaned into him, running a long nail down his chest. Her hot breath sent a chill down his spine as her lips lightly grazed his ear. “Let’s play a game, princeling, and I’ll show you exactly how okay I am.” As she leaned back against the bar, a savage smile graced her lips that should have made him afraid. But instead just made him want her more. Clearly, that was because he was a self-loathing idiot, because there could be no other explanation for his need – his impossible desire.

That, or she was clearly a witch. Seducing him somehow, with her charms. In that moment, he realized that his hand was somehow – suddenly in her hair? He was entirely unsure how it had happened? But somehow, in some way, his hand had ended up pushing one of the white strands behind her ear, as if he had no other option. He simply couldn’t help it – it was instinct, an impulse he couldn’t stop, and didn’t even realize was happening. Like breathing.

“Witchling,” he whispered. His sapphire blue eyes were locked on her golden ones, and in that moment, he could feel it. A part of him shifted and he knew – he knew – that whatever they had, it was precious. His hand had a mind of its own, moving to cup her cheek, and he didn’t think she could help herself either, as she closed her eyes and leaned into him. A hint of a small smile appeared on her lips as her mask began to crack again. They breathed as one. Inhale. Exhale. And then her eyes shot open. A fear was in them – uncertainty – and then an unbreakable hardness. Dorian suppressed a growl – and then let out a gasp.

Suddenly, her lips were against his. Her tongue immediately took advantage of the gasp, moving in, and invading his senses. She was all he could feel, the only thing he ever wanted to touch, as the taste of her burned into his memory. He needed her. All of her. His hands traced her hips, her waist, her breasts, pulling her against him, and onto his lap.

He took control of the kiss, a new savagery taking over him that it  seemed – it seemed she liked, even responded to. She opened herself up to him, fully straddling him as he turned her back towards the bar. A low moan slipped past her lips against his mouth, as his hands climbed up her shirt, tracing slow lazy circles against her soft skin. He was determined to take his time. To claim her. By the end of the night, he was going to have all of her. And she will have been begging for it. He barely pulled away, breathing heavily as their lips lightly brushed against each other. She was entirely still in his arms, waiting for him. Her golden eyes poured into him as they met his, a shiver running down her spine at the words that left his lips. “I want to taste every inch of you.”

Manon let go of all pretense of reason as her princeling closed his eyes and claimed her mouth once again. She opened for him, melting against him even as a deep chill set deep within her bones.

His fingers slid to her jaw, tipping her face to thoroughly take her mouth, every movement of his jaw a sensuous promise that had her arching into him. Had her meeting him stroke for stroke as he explored and teased until she could hardly think straight.

This wasn’t the plan – he wasn’t supposed to taste this good, this right. He wasn’t supposed to make her feel this way, she wasn’t supposed to feel. She’d had enough feeling for a lifetime. But as every part of her burst with need, with an impossible heat, with an icy thrill, she felt everything. And she just kept falling, deeper and deeper, his touch on her body, his hands everywhere, stroking, tracing. She melted into the hardness of him, aching for all of him, as his dick strained against his jeans, pushing against where she needed him most, but not giving her nearly enough.

And then it just – stopped. And in that moment, Manon was entirely certain she could have murdered Lorcan. “For Christ’s sake, Manon,” he growled, his hand still clinging onto the back of Manon’s shirt where he’d pulled her away. “If you’re gonna fuck ‘im, fuck ‘im somewhere else.” He roughly let her go, walking away again and grumbling to himself once again about chaperoning. Manon cleared here throat as she awkwardly slid out of Dorian’s lap, pushing more pieces of her white hair back as she attempted to collect herself.

Dorian, however, was the calmest he’d been all night. Because finally – finally – he knew exactly what he wanted. And he knew they weren’t done. And he knew he was going to get it. And as Manon struggled to breathe – she knew she had never been more desperate before in her life.

A distraction.

She needed a distraction.

“Darts!” She blurted out, after scanning the room, looking for something – anything – to drag her out of this fiery, hot, hell. She flashed a grin at him, trying her hardest to keep it together. “Fancy a game?”

And as she floundered, and her chest rose and fell, and her face flushed, he smiled. An absolutely, irrevocably, rakish, panty-dropping type of smile. The kind that showed a little too much teeth – and reminded her of what it felt like when they bit her lip. The kind that made her helplessly think about all of the other things she wanted him to do to her with that mouth – those teeth. And at that look in her eyes – that glazed over, lost look – as she bit her lip, and focused on his, he finally let out a calm breath. Because for the first time that night, he was truly in control. And he liked it.

So because he could, his grin turned almost feral, and his voice was a sensual caress, sending chills down her spine. “I could think of a significantly better game to play involving sticking things in a target, and far more interesting things to do with my hands, but your wish is my command, witchling.” His voice was a velvety purr by the end of it, and she was left questioning how in the hell their roles had changed so quickly.

Boys never left her like this. She didn’t allow it. Manon was always in charge, and never got attached. They were two very simple rules. Yet this stupid boy, with his stupidly soft lips, and irritatingly delicious tongue, and new dumb confidence, and infuriating smirk was suddenly causing her to reconsider everything. And she wanted to hate him for it. Except there she was, ready to beg for more. What the actual fuck?

She said absolutely nothing as she spun around, her braid whipping around her shoulders. A large gulp of his beer and a few large steps later, he was right beside her. The burning hand he placed at her lower back only caused her to walk faster. She wanted nothing more than to have that hand in places that ached for his touch. So she sped up instead, desperate to run away – to forget.

Never forget, but never remember.

And then they were there, across the room. She grasped for the mask she needed to pull on to survive as she pulled the darts out of the board. But the action was more or less futile. The game had already begun. And she was losing.

[ilikebigbooks-and-icannotlie]

Fast Firsts and Sloppy Seconds Part 3.5

A Rowaelin/Manorian AU

God this part was so hard, I was super stuck, super distracted, the second half was just NOT happening - but then finally around like 1 AM I fell into a grove, lol. It’s currently Friday, 3:25 AM EST, but only 9:25 PM on Thursday in Hawaii!! This is the last one I’m doing this late, I swear to god. Tags are gonna have to be in a reblog, because I’m kind of deceased rn. Thanks for sticking with me, guys, love you all <3 As usual apologies for typos, the chapter didn’t make actually make it to Becca again Happy reading!

EDIT: JUST FUCKING KILL ME. I was in bed, all happy and shit, it’s 3:56 am rn, and then I shot up, because I realized that I forgot to trigger warn, and I am SO sorry!!!! Luckily no notes  yet, so that’s good, and I had added a cut, so that’s also good! Trigger Warning: It’s nothing too bad, just vague mentions of child abuse towards the end, but I wanted to make sure everyone reading is okay, and prepared, and can avoid it if they want to. Love you guys, gnight! :) <3

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3     Part 4

Dorian was losing terribly. Manon was entirely invested in the game, her darts hitting their mark almost every time. To be fair though, Dorian wasn’t trying very hard. It’s not that he wasn’t focused, however. He was particularly focused on the way she looked in those shorts. On the way her shirt barely climbed up her body every time she thrust her hand forward. On the way her eyebrows scrunched together when the dart was so close, but not quite where she wanted it. On the way she cheered every time she did hit her mark. On the fact that she was intentionally avoiding his eyes and keeping a healthy distance between them. Dorian was incredibly focused. Just, not on the game at hand.

“That’s the third time I’ve beat you in the last half hour!” She turned to him, smiling once again, and regretted it immediately. The heat in his eyes hit her like a wave as he scanned her body, his eyes lingering over her breasts and between her legs.

That was why. That was why she had avoided it – avoided meeting his eyes. She lost all conviction, all ability to breathe, under that gaze. And  in no way did she like it. Her eyes quickly flicked away from him, desperate for something anything else to occupy her mind other than her desperate need to tear off his clothes. Because she couldn’t. Right then, she knew she couldn’t. She knew she simply wouldn’t survive. Not then, not with that boy.

There had been others, of course there had been. But with the others, she’d stayed in control. With the others, she hadn’t been prepared to be entirely undone with a single smile. What was happening to her? Her life was not a romance novel. It was the farthest thing. And her chances of a happily ever after – those were nearly nonexistent. Particularly with this tourist, who’d already told her he wasn’t even supposed to be in the bar that night. Before saying some stupid line about fate that made her dumb ovaries clench. She could not believe this shit.  Had she not already made enough stupid decisions? For fuck’s sake. When her brother had been all she had, her first instinct was to run to her bitch of a grandmother and ruin everything. She flinched at the memories – the thirteen of them – and then shook her head, shaking away the anger, the sadness. It was fine. She was fine. She wasn’t there anymore.

Never remember, but never forget.

Her gaze flicked back to him then – the American. Thankfully, he’d been much too occupied with staring at her lips to notice her eyes, and the sadness that still echoed within them.

“Pool.”

Her eyes snapped to the soft pink lips that were curving back into the grin that it seemed he had designed just for her. The grin that she was growing infuriatingly addicted to.

“If you’re sick of winning, witchling,” he winked, teasing her with the nickname, “then let’s see how well you handle losing.” He turned almost immediately, not even giving her a chance to respond before he started towards the pool tables. She had no other choice but to follow. Since when did she follow?

She forced her gaze away from his delectable ass in those impossibly tight skinny jeans, and scowled at the back of his head instead. She wasn’t particularly good at pool. But damn it all, she was determined to even the playing field. He wasn’t going to phase her. He was going to be exactly like all the other boys, and she was going to make sure of it.

She stepped directly into his side, pressing into him, and was immediately pleased by his sudden intake of breath. She might not be good at pool, but she was good at this. She stepped on her toes and reached an arm around his neck, pulling him down to her lips. “Let’s make a bet.” After all, as he kept trying to tell herself, she had nothing left to lose. Her voice was a husky whisper as she “accidentally” grazed her free hand against what she assumed was a terribly painful hard on, resting it on the pool table. “If you win, I’ll dance for you.” She had absolutely no intention of losing.

“And if you win?” His body was entirely still, his words barely articulated through gritted teeth, as her teeth grazed over his earlobe.

“We’ll see.” Her voice was a sensual caress filled with delicious promise. She pulled back, and his eyes immediately snapped to hers, to the blatant wanton desire, analyzing, inspecting, dissecting. Looking for more that she refused to show. She didn’t blame him, she’d certainly been quite hot and cold all night. But in that moment, she’d made a decision, and she was sticking to it. Her princeling would not break her. Because he was not her anything. And she was determined to remind herself of that.

Taking the stick from his hand, all of her pulled away from him in one movement. And he couldn’t help but shiver at the sudden cold, the sudden ridiculous feeling that she was missing from him. Like she was a piece that had just been pulled away. But any absurd thoughts were very quickly replaced with a decidedly better image.

Manon leaned over the table, stretching her arms forward as she gathered all of the balls, placing them inside of the black triangle. His eyes were glued to her. To her strong legs that he wanted wrapped around him as he dove deeper and deeper into her, to the bottom of her tight ass in those unfairly short shorts, to the small stretch of impossibly soft skin at her waist that he desperately wanted to taste. She was quickly but surely turning into his weakness. And he didn’t think there was  anything he could do to stop it.

 The game continued from there. Manon intentionally leaning a little too far forward, whether she was across from or next to him, Dorian scorching her entire body with the barest of touches every time he walked by. Every time they met eyes, each could swear the other was about to throw them on the table and fuck them right there. They kept drinking, and playing, and laughing, and needing, as the night moved on. Slowly but surely, Manon’s hips started to move, and little by little. Dorian of course didn’t comment on it, but there was something about her, about the smile it brought on her face, that he couldn’t help but be drawn to.

She stood up, finishing her turn, and looked at him – watched him watch her. And she couldn’t help the small laugh that bubbled from her lips. “What, you’re not even going to try to be casual about the fact that you’ve been staring at me?” She raised an eyebrow at him, and then uncomfortably cleared her throat. Because he wasn’t smirking. For the first time that night he had a soft, honest smile on his lips, and she absolutely hated the way it was making her feel. So entirely determined to ignore, it she persisted with her current strategy. She lifted her beer, and took another long sip. The band had moved to another faster trad song, and she couldn’t help but sway her body to the lilting melody.

That had always been her strategy in her past life, drowning herself in music. The truth was, Manon had spent her entire childhood in dance classes until her mum passed. But she hadn’t danced since then, and wasn’t sure if she wanted to now. It was just something about the night, the boy, the alcohol coursing through her veins – she hadn’t felt this light, this close to happy, in years.

Running a hand through her hair, she closed her eyes. The long white locks had been pulled out of the braid a little while ago. Most of it had fallen apart anyways, and she couldn’t be bothered to recreate it. Plus, every so often, Dorian would run his fingers through the ends, and she was finally maybe letting herself admit that she liked it. He walked over to her then, pulling her against him. She opened her eyes, a scowl on her face as he began to sway with her. “Care to take your turn, princeling? The entire kingdom waits with bated breath.” She felt his chuckle through her chest as she fought to keep herself rigid, desperate not to melt against him. She quickly forced her whirling mind back to the subject at hand. “D’you forfeit, then?”

He failed to answer her once again, lowering his face to her neck, and placing gentle kisses that left her breathless, and then caused a gasp to leave her lips as his lips latched on and nipped at the soft skin. She pushed him away lightly before he could leave a mark, but shamefully wanting him to. His sapphire eyes poured into her, that grin slipping back onto his face. “I just wanna dance.” His voice was rough, and as he pulled her tighter against him, the hard reason for it pressed into her stomach.

She couldn’t help but bite her lips as an entire night’s worth of tension and need swept over her. He moved to lower his lips again, but she stopped him, lightly taking his face in her hands, and before she could stop herself – before she could reconsider, and regret - placed his lips on hers. This kiss was nothing like the last one. It was slow, and lazy, as if they had all of the time in the world. He quickly took control of this one as well, his angling her chin to grant him better access as she opened her lips, letting him take over her senses. Their tongues danced as his worked to memorize all of her, not out of desperation, but out of sheer curiosity, out of a simple urge, something more carnal, more relaxed somehow, and she was sure she felt it too.

Around them, the music swelled, growing even faster, and all she wanted in that moment, was for it to take her away. She pulled away from him slightly, catching her breath, as he just grinned, lightly pressing his forehead to hers, and closing his eyes. They began to sway together then, lost in their thoughts.

While Dorian made some sort of effort to sort out his feelings, Manon was making every effort to ignore hers. The familiar jig brought back memories of older times, dancing in that same pub as a little lass, Rowan swinging her around as they jumped, her mum clapping along with the beat of the drum, her feet moving faster and faster.

She couldn’t help but smile at the memory as her feet fell into the familiar pattern. And then she stepped out of his arms, and began to dance. Her arms fell down by her sides, and muscle memory took over. Laughter bubbled out of her as an unfamiliar sensation of joy rushed through her. The song quickly shifted, changing, growing, moving with her. Steadily melting into one of her mother’s old favorites. But she didn’t stop, as tears poured down her face.

Vaughan had come out of somewhere, though she wasn’t sure where, sweeping her into his arms. He’d always been her favorite cousin when they were kids, and everyone knew it. The two were always comfortably quiet together, playing in the garden, or running around in the nearby fields. Whatever it took for him to not be in the house. Vaughan and Lorcan were her aunt Maeve’s sons, and to say she was hard to live with would be an understatement.

His smile nearly split his face, and she let out a light laugh at the foreign expression on Vaughan’s lips. He’d always been the most mild of her cousins, always careful of his expressions. But in that moment, there wasn’t a person in the pub that couldn’t read his blatant happiness.

Vaughan had been the only one to try to connect with her since she’d been back. Not asking how she was, but just making sure she was okay. He was the only one that she allowed to see the ghosts behind her eyes. So he was the only who knew exactly what a big deal her smile was.

Rowan was still mad at her. And she understood why, she really did, she just – she missed her brother. But, she probably should have thought about that before she’d left.

As for the rest of them - Lorcan had always been a pain in her ass, and distance certainly hadn’t made the heart grow fonder. He had been Maeve’s favorite son, and she made sure Vaughan knew it. And though Manon knew it wasn’t really his fault, she didn’t really know if she could ever forgive him for it.

Manon and her cousin Gavriel had never been close, but they had certainly found peace. They weren’t close, but they weren’t hostile – they just had a pleasantness, she supposed. He never told when she stole cookies late at night, and she never told when he snuck out.

Tears pricked her eyes once again as Vaughan spun her around, bringing a cheering Fenrys into view, with Connall next to him, an arm around Fenrys’ shoulders. The twins had always been more annoying than anything else. Fenrys was always messing with her shit and playing pranks, and whatever Fenrys did, Connall usually followed.

But Connall was also the one who’d beat up the boy who broke her heart when she was 13 and didn’t want Rowan to know. And Fenrys was the one who’d convinced Rowan to let her come back to them a few weeks ago. And after everything they’d been through, she couldn’t really hold anything against them.

Fenrys and Connall had lost their parents to the sea when they were both young, so they were sent to Maeve. They were the ones she took her rage out on the most. And to protect Connall, Fenrys was the one who provoked her, and always took the worst of it. So Manon would never stop being proud of the smile on his lips, no matter how much he annoyed her.

The opening cords of “I’ll Tell Me Ma” rang through the room, perfectly in tune with the cords of her heart. Vaughan burst out laughing at what must have been a crazy expression on her face, and she couldn’t help but laugh with him at the ridiculousness of it all. And at the boy that had caused it. She turned to him then, shutting down the wave of fear that tried to take over. Tonight, she would forget, and in that moment, wouldn’t let herself remember.

Grabbing Dorian’s hand, she went straight to the bar, and quickly climbed on top of it. Lorcan looked like he was about to have a coronary, but she didn’t really care. Fenrys kept him at bay as years of ceili training coursed through her veins, and she let the music drift through her, dragging her through memories she thought she had long forgotten, and welcoming the feeling of home that the dark haired man had awakened inside of her. She danced for her mother that she loved, for the brother she missed, for the father she never knew, for the girls she’d come to love, for the rolling hills that meant so much – she danced for her first night of freedom. And as her heart tightened when she glanced at the smile on Dorian’s lips, she hoped it wasn’t the last.

The final cords played, and the song ended. Her chest was heaving as Dorian helped her down. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d danced that much. But despite the pain, she finally felt right. Her eyes immediately searched for Rowan, to see if he’d felt it, if he knew, and then she felt a little piece of herself break again as she watched him. He was absolutely glued to the girl, his hands climbing up her shirt as they practically dry-humped. Rowan saw and felt nothing else, completely absorbed. He was looking at the American the way Manon had caught Dorian looking at her. Like he was starving, and she was the main course. Manon turned away, ignoring the tightness in her chest. She couldn’t blame him for it, for indulging. At least he was brave enough to do what she herself was afraid to let herself do.

And then, as the soft hints of Carrickfergus sent another wave of tears to her eyes, she knew only one thing. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore. So she shoved down the waves of irritation at her stupid urge to cry again, and turned to Dorian, actually prepared to accept her feelings for the first time that night. He calmly took her into his arms, and she leaned against him, letting the familiar words to the soft song pour out of her, as he led them in a gentle waltz.

 Dorian was lost. Entirely gone. And her voice, her beautiful, sweet, delicate voice, was pulling him further and further away. There wasn’t much he’d been sure of in his life recently. Their senior year of college had been nothing short of a disaster for a lot of reasons. But between Aelin shining like a wild fire in the arms of Manon’s brother, and the gorgeous woman finally losing herself on top of the bar, Dorian was sure of two things. One was that there was something magical about this town, something almost like fate, that had dragged their soggy asses into the small pub. And the other was that there was no way in hell he was going to make it to Dublin.

At the final cords of the song, everyone who was left in the bar brought their hands together to clap. Finally at peace, finally alive instead of just living, finally okay for the first time in years, Manon looked up at the boy she’d wanted in her bed all night, absolutely determined to have him. Her head was tilted slightly, a small smile on her lips. Dorian immediately read the question in her eyes, taking the hand she offered, and nodding his head only once.

No words were said between them as they walked out of the pub hand in hand, only stopping briefly to pick up his backpack. The aggressively strong wind made even the thought of an umbrella entirely needless.

Together, they made their way through the pelting rain, feeling nothing but calm as it washed away the past.