#luke bryan fic

[countrymusiclover]

My Klaus Mikaelson book is excluded from the list because I know it would get the most votes. Sorry, my readers

[honkshoo-zzz]

no one look at me

[cairamarie]

has anybody written a small town southern/cowboy/redneck marauders fic ??

[uc1wa]

oh god this song w this

18+ minors dni

tags: fem reader, oral sex, penetrative sex, unprotected sex (pulling out), alcohol, dick (being a slut), frats (?)

dick grayson had a questionable reputation on campus. playboy, daddy’s money, beer pong champ, finance bro, and the king of hookups and god does everybody he’s been with know. there’s a reason all of his previous partners shoot him 2am texts asking what he’s doing.

but tonight he has his eyes on you.

loud music blasts in the frat house that feels awfully tiny with the mass of half naked people who are standing and grinding inside of it, random strobe lights are placed in all corners and the theme of "save a horse, ride a cowboy" is obnoxiously obvious with random cowboy hats hanging on walls and flannels being worn by everyone.

you were dragged by your friends to attend this party, one of which you’d never attend, knowing the man-whore personality of the house you’re standing in right now.

you’re leaned against a counter, solo cup of jungle juice in your hand as you’re buzzed, but still aware enough to know you still don’t want to be here.

the only thing giving it away is your bored expression—because your shorts that are uncomfortably too short, the tied flannel, and cowboy hat on your head tell a different story.

people watching was fun at parties, the outfits, the who’s talking to who, and the who’s dragging who upstairs was entertaining to your tipsy self.

your eyes didn’t spot the ravennette who was familiar with everybody coming towards your way till he was beside you, his body heat radiating onto yours and his breath against your neck as he tries to talk to you.

and the appeal of the man wasn’t hard to understand. he’s wearing a white crop top that his abs are peaking out of, an open flannel and jean shorts that show his quads beautifully.

everyone thought the man was hot, but to be attracted to him was another thing.

"can’t tell if you look lost or don’t wanna be here anymore," the smell of liquor too apparent in his breath that touches your neck, making you slowly meet his blue eyes and obnoxious smirk.

you only raise a brow, scoffing and leaning into his ear now. "don’t wanna be here," you say, leaning back on the counter.

and if anybody knows dick, you know he gets what he wants, and tonight his eyes are on you and your pretty tits that are held up by a push-up bra that you obviously wore for him, he just knows it.

he leans over again, this time snaking an arm around your back and moving his fingers along the exposed skin. "c’mon, i gotta room upstairs that’s practically sound proof." and honestly, you wouldn’t put it past him. the man has money to spend, and maybe he did soundproof his single in his frat house, just because he can. or, maybe he says that so that you can scream and his brothers can fist bump him in the morning. who knows?

but your mind is a little hazy and your speech a little slurred and dick’s arm doesn’t feel awful around you, so you lean in again, this time with a grin playing on your lips. "what’s in it for me?"

dick’s eyebrow arched, his smirk upturned and his hand tightening around your back at the question.

"wanna find out?"

and a few more teasing words of banter were said, a shot thrown down both of your throats, and a few inappropriate gropes placed on your body before he had your hand in his, leading you up stairs shamelessly while smiling at his friends on the way.

dick’s door closes with a kick of his foot, not locking it because… why would he? he doesn’t care if somebody walks in on the two of you.

when he turns around and you’re sitting on the bed for him, he’s grateful you’re wearing skimpy clothes, less hassle and easier access. he can only smirk, asking himself how dumb you are, you obviously dressed like this for him.

the man walks over, kicking his shoes somewhere in the dark room and slipping his flannel off, his biceps seem bigger than they did in your finance class you had with him last semester. his hands are big, veiny and long and fuck they feel good when he cups your face, looking down at you and moving his knee to spread open your thighs.

his thumb moves to your bottom lip, pressing the soft skin until you open your lips all pretty for him, taking his thumb in your mouth and sucking.

"good girl," he says, the hand that’s not cupping your cheek going down to unbutton his jean shorts.

then, dick takes a step back, slipping his thumb from between your lips and moving to the other side of the bed, sitting down and looking at you expectantly. "c’mon, show me more of your pretty self," he leans back on the heel of his hands, his broad chest sticking out and his lap looking like the perfect seat right now.

and all you can do is nod with wide eyes and listen to the man who was slowly but surely talking his way into your pants.

his dark blue eyes watch as you rid yourself of the cowgirl boots you were wearing. he licks his lips when you take your flannel off, eyes darting down to your hands that fumble to take your shorts off. you stand there with your cowboy hat sitting on your head and dick chuckles, "you’re doing real good with the theme, y’know?" he slurs.

you roll your eyes, "not proud of it," you slur right back, stepping forward while placing your knees on either side of his hips, wrapping your arms around his neck and leaning in.

"i’ll make you proud," dick says, his big hands resting on your hips, fingers playing underneath your thong that should just be considered a string at this point.

he leans forward, biting your bottom lip enough to make you whimper before he attacks your lips, forcing his tongue in and kissing you sloppily. saliva coating both your lips, threatening to spill out by how feverish his force is, his hand pushing you against his cock that’s already hard. and jesus you’re glad you wore the stringy panties you decided on because the feeling of him—even through the shorts he’s still wearing is painfully delicious.

you pull back, eyes half lidded and view not as straight as a sober persons, "gonna make me wait?" and maybe if you were sober the quickness of dick’s moves would seem normally paced, but he was quick to push you off of him to the side of his bed and throw his shorts to the side, followed by his boxers. all he’s wearing is a little white crop top and fuck he looks real good.

he’s toned and defined beautifully. not jacked like some guys are, letting it know that they’re juiced up. no, dick was the most naturally beautiful man to exist. (unfortunately, you weren’t the first to realize that… and definitely won’t be the last).

you lean back on your palms this time, watching him walk over to you painfully slow, his cock hardened all for you. "take a picture, it’ll last longer," he smirks, climbing on top of you while pushing you down and letting your legs wrap around his waist that feels so small in comparison to his broad shoulders. he takes your cowboy hat off, setting it to the side because that will definitely come back up.

you roll your eyes for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, arms wrapping around him and lips reconnecting again. the man is quick to arch your back off the bed, one finger sliding behind you to unclip your bra—which almost feels sickening how fast he was to do so—but your brain doesn’t let that register with the alcohol in your bloodstream.

dick remembers your words from earlier, gonna make me wait? and next thing you notice when you look down is your bra thrown on the ground and dick’s lips on your stomach, kissing down with hands on either side of you on the mattress until he’s sat at your pussy that’s embarrassingly wet for him.

"next party’s on thursday, you should come out," he starts while tugging your panties to the side with a curl of his index finger. "dress real pretty for me again."

and dick says that to every girl, sometimes giving a hint on what he wants them to wear, knowing once he hits, he will always quit and find the next person untouched by him.

"i’ll think about it," you say, broken into a whimper as his lips are quick to suck on your clit and his index and middle finger plunge into your wetness. if the music wasn’t booming from downstairs, maybe the sounds of your wetness would be more embarrassing, but dick just thought it was hot and your moans were real pretty.

and again, if you were sober, you’d probably arch a brow at the minimal time dick stayed down there, but you weren’t and were real hungry for him to fill you up.

"show me what the hype’s about," you say as he climbs up to you, one arm beside your head and one groping one of your breasts enough to illicit small whines from your throat. "i’ll see if you can handle it," he says cockily, voice dripping in ego as the hand that’s groping your breasts goes down to line his cock up with your hole.

in one quick motion he’s filling you up, your back arching off the bed and a loud pitched moan leaving your lips with eyes squeezed shut. dark blue eyes watch your face, cocky smirk not leaving his lips for a minute until he’s sucking on your neck. dick is shameless, he’s purposely leaving marks wherever he wants on your body, knowing he won’t let you do the same even if you tried.

the man above you is going to make sure you remember him fucking you, even if it’s just by you waking up with blotches on your neck and chest in the morning.

"too much?" he asks teasingly, showing no remorse with the deep groans he spills out with every time he fills you up. and dick is girthier than you thought he’d be, everytime he pushes into you feels like the first no matter how wet you are. it feels like he’s ripping you open with the hard and fast pace he’s maintaining.

an answer to his question is impossible, the only sounds are moans and whimpers, more so when his lips are on yours. your sounds mixed together are delicious to your ears and you pull him closer, sweaty body’s and breath tasting like liquor feels intoxicating.

he flips you both over with ease, his toned back resting on his mattress and pillow with you on top now. a loud groan escapes your lips, his full length filling you up but from another position was brutal at first. dick gave you a few more seconds to adjust before his big hands guided your hips up.

"you got it baby," his voice is low and full of desire, blue eyes taking over your frame that feels made for him. one hand comes off your skin to grab the cheesy cowboy hat and he motions for you to put it on with a shit eating grin.

coming to realization, you roll your eyes, "really?" you ask, rolling your eyes with a small laugh. but you put it on, and then fall back onto dick, riding him slowly and at an angle that makes him hit the spot deep inside of you repetitively. "fuck, fuck, fuck," you moan, your eyes closing and neck thrown back from the delicious feeling.

while dick is groaning, he can only smirk up at you, knowing he’s getting exactly what he wanted when he chose the theme for the party that night. "you look so fuckin’ good, riding me so good, yeah?" he’s verbally and physically fucking you at this point.

"takin’ this cock so good, baby," he groans, feeling himself twitching and turning you back over again, so he’s on top when he finishes.

in no time dick’s pulling out to spill his cum all over your lower abdomen, chuckling to himself as he pulls off of you and looking down. it’s his favorite view, flushed red cheeks, chest heaving up and down (making your breasts look even more delicious), and his cum painting your sweaty body.

if he was feeling more like an asshole, he’d ask to take a picture. but he knew you were a nice girl from one of his past semesters and decided not to be a total dick.

"you look good," he says it like it’s a reminder, like you’re already supposed to know—because why else would you be in dick grayson’s bed if you weren’t hot? and he walks away, going to the bathroom that���s connected to his room and returning with a wash cloth, cleaning you up with a laugh. "i’m leaving after this," you say, wiping your lips with the backside of your arm.

and dick let’s out an internal sigh of relief at that, he hates when girls are insistent on spending the night or staying for more of the party, latched to him. "fine by me, want me to get an uber?" he asks, throwing the rag to the side and sitting there for another second, looking at your fucked out state—the one he put you into.

you nod your head, sitting up in the bed, knowing if you stay with spread legs that dick will attempt a round two before the car he’s called you gets here. "wanna hand me my clothes?" you ask, not as slurred of words as before, the fucking sobering you up slightly.

"y’don’t wanna borrow a shirt?" because dick has a drawer full of old shirts from varying events on campus that he gives to his hookups, another reminder to everyone else that he’s the one who fucked you good tonight.

"fuck no," you roll your eyes, moving to get your clothes yourself and slipping them on as dick slips his boxers and shorts on, staring at you as you get dressed from the ledge of his bed.

the clothes weren’t as comfortable as what could’ve been a comfortable and baggy shirt, but you were trying to move as quick and invisible as possible out of the party and to the uber that just rang its arrival on dick’s phone. "it’s here," he says, standing up beside you and wrapping a hand around your waist. "sure you don’t wanna spend the night?"

"positive," the exact answer he knew he was going to get.

"this was fun," he says, leaning into you slightly. "you have my number, i’m always available," if it wasn’t dick, that sentence would’ve been cringey and gross, but his voice sounded too good right now and you nodded. "i’ll keep that in mind."

his hand moves to your cheek, tilting it to press a kiss to your face. "i’ll follow you out," which was code for you to leave and close the door behind you as dick freshens up.

and now you understand. dick knew how to fuck.

[puckinghischier]

Crowded

Luke Hughes x fem!reader

summary: reader gets nervous in the crowd, but luke is right there to help her out of it

notes: i’m once again throwing a luke fic out into the world. i saw this request in my inbox and immediately thought of the zach bryan concert the boys just went to. i would literally give anything to attend a concert with them. i just KNOW they’re great concert buddies. sorry it’s kinda short, i just didn’t know how to drag it out any longer. i hope you enjoy!! happy reading!! 🫶🏼

request: from my 400 follower celly - Character A can tell Character B is getting nervous in a big crowd, so A slips their hand into theirs to help them calm down.

[2.8k]

You had been looking forward to tonight for months. From the second Luke surprised you with the tickets for your birthday, you immediately started planning an outfit, making a playlist, and anticipating the trip.

When he told you his brothers and a few friends were tagging along, it only made you more excited, enjoying every moment you got to spend with your boyfriend’s brothers and their hockey friends.

After the concert, everyone was driving over to stay at the lake house for a few weeks, enjoying as much of the summer together as they can before pre-season training starts. You couldn’t wait to have a few weeks of fun on the water, but also wanted tonight to last as long as it could.

Your excitement grew even more when you found the perfect outfit for the occasion, even buying a matching light-up cowboy hat off of Etsy. You were especially excited for the chance to wear your boots again, not having many excuses to wear them in Jersey.

Luke had his hand planted firmly on the small of your back, making sure not to lose you as you weave through the crowd. You had bought Luke a new shirt for tonight, the orange t-shirt matching the burnt orange color of your dress.

He leads you over to the crowded merchandise stand, telling you to pick whatever you wanted. You struggled, loving every item tacked onto the display board. When you told him you couldn’t decided between a t-shirt and a hoodie, he bought you both before you could even open your mouth to protest, buying himself a hat and t-shirt as well.

“Luke, you just spent over $300 without even batting an eye,” you barked at him, crossing your arms to try and look menacing.

You know Luke could’ve afforded to buy you the entire stand and still not make a dent in his bank account, but you don’t like when he spends large amounts on you for no reason.

“Yeah, so?” he shrugs, taking your elbow and leading you away from the cloth covered table, slinging the clear bag of merchandise over his shoulder.

You roll your eyes and huff at him, unfolding your arms and taking his hand, letting him lead you through the sea of bodies.

“’So?’”, you mimicked his response. “You didn’t have to buy half of the merch stand just because it took me more than three seconds to choose which shirt I wanted.”

He glances back at you over his shoulder. “The fact that you didn’t have your mind made up the second you saw the options means you clearly wanted both, so I bought you both.”

You reach over and pinch his side, mildly annoyed with how well he understands the way your brain works.

“Quit pinching me you little gremlin,” Luke hisses out, the nickname being one he uses when you’re being stubborn or annoying.

“Quit spending all of your money on me, you giraffe-man,” you fire back.

You can see his shoulder’s shake, your impromptu nickname for him amusing him.

He doesn’t respond right away, the two of you having made it to the entrance to your seats, walking up to the worker standing under the numbered sign.

The usher instructs you to show your tickets to one of the workers at the bottom of the set of stairs.

When you walk into the arena, you notice how large the space feels, the open floor and mostly empty seats creating the illusion of size.

Luke has to nudge you a bit, reminding you to keep walking, too in awe of the fact you’re actually here.

“Not so unhappy with me spending my money on you now, huh?” he leans down to whisper into your ear, making sure you can hear him over the roaring chatter.

You hit him lightly in the chest, a smirk on his face as the two of you walk down, showing your tickets to the usher once you reach the bottom of the stairs, a bright colored wristband with bold letters spelling out VIP FLOOR printed on each one.

You make your way over to a small, sectioned off area near the main stage, seeing the rest of your group already waiting for the two of you.

Jack is the first one to notice you approaching, his eyes lighting up and arms being slung into the air.

“It’s about time! We were starting to worry the two of you got lost!” he calls out, causing the rest of the group to turn their heads and call out greetings.

You smile, having missed those in the group that didn’t live in New Jersey.

Walking over to Quinn first, you give him a long hug, the last time you saw him being when he played his brothers in Jersey months ago. The frequent facetime calls the two of you share not being enough to scratch your Quinn itch.

“Quinnifer! I missed you!” you squeal as you squeeze him as tight as you can.

You can feel his chuckle as he squeezes you back. “I missed you too, Munchkin” he leans back, ruffling your hair.

Although you see Jack nearly every day back home in Jersey, Quinn is the brother you’re closest to. You and Jack are literally two peas in a pod, but there’s something about Quinn that made you feel comfortable with him from the moment Luke introduced the two of you.

He’s like the big brother you never had, always calling him when you need advice or need to complain to someone about Luke.

Anytime you have a particularly nasty argument with Luke, Quinn is the one you call. He always allows you say whatever you need to get out of your system before breaking the problem down and agreeing that his brother is an idiot, but that he also loves you with everything he has in him.

At first you tried to go to Jack with problems surrounding your relationship with Luke, but he clearly didn’t know how to help you. He either told Luke about your conversations, causing the argument to grow worse because Luke claimed Jack had no business knowing about what’s happening in your relationship, or he would shrug his shoulders and say “just don’t yell at him when I’m trying to sleep. I need my beauty rest.”

You swat Quinn’s hand away, trying to smooth down your now tousled hair.

“I see you dressed the goon, tonight,” he points out Luke’s orange shirt.

You turn your head to see him talking with Cole.

“Believe it or not, it was his idea,” you think back to after you bought your dress, trying it on for Luke once you came home from shopping with your girls. He loved the way you looked in it, his eyes widening the second you emerged from your walk-in closet.

He swallowed thickly, his gravelly voice choking out a “Did they happen to have a matching shirt? Because if you’re wearing that, I’m going to need something to match so everyone knows you’re there with me, not up for grabs.”

You blush at the memory, looking back over to Quinn.

“I always knew he was whipped, but damn you’ve got him down bad, huh?” he shakes his head, smiling in amusement.

“Wrapped around my little finger,” you hold up your pinky, wiggling it at Quinn with a giggle.

You feel a pair of arms snake their way around your waist, a heavy object resting itself on top of your head.

“What’s wrapped around your little finger?” Luke asks, his chin bumping against your scalp as he talks.

“You, duh,” you reply, moving your head forward and craning your neck to look up at him.

He looks between you and his older brother before uttering out a “Oh one hundred percent. Couldn’t unravel myself if I even wanted to,” he lets go of you, stepping up to stand beside you.

Quinn just laughs, bringing Luke in for a hug.

After you make your way around to greet everyone, the lights are dimming and the atmosphere inside of the arena changes.

You love the hum of excitement in the air, finding Luke and standing in front of him. You hear the first notes of Overtime as Zach Bryan comes onto the stage, screaming as loud as you possibly can.

Luke has a content, amused smile on his face as you scream out the lyrics, jumping and dancing around as the beat allows.

As the concert goes on, you make the switch from dancing with Luke to dancing with Jack, attempt to get on Quinn’s shoulders to get Zach’s attention, and slinging your arm over Cole’s shoulder to sway back and forth with him during one of the slower songs.

When it comes time for Zach to sing Revival, your favorite song of his, you beg Luke to leave your secluded area to get closer to the stage, wanting to experience being in the crowd for this one particular song.

He looks at you apprehensively, eyeing the large sea of people on top of one another, barely any room between the bodies pressed together. He worries about losing you in the crowd, your small frame allowing you to get swept away easily.

You tug on his arm like a little kid, repeating “please, please, please,” over and over again, assuring him you’ll be fine.

Luke eventually gives in, letting his brothers know where you two are going, claiming you’ll meet back up with them after the concert.

Grabbing your hand, Luke leads you off of the small platform and into the crowd, pushing his way as far up to the front as his large body will allow him.

You stop just a row or two of people away from the stage where Zach had just climbed onto, adjusting his guitar and microphone before starting the song.

As the song rang out around you, you sang along to every word, joining the rowdy crowd as the chorus starts.

You start to jump around in the small space you have, enjoying every second, until Zach walks his way over to the small portion of stage in front of where you stand.

As soon as his figure stands over the crowd around you, bodies start pushing against one another, everyone trying to get as close to him as they can. You feel yourself being shifted towards the metal barricade, not being able to fight against the rush of people.

You start panicking, whipping your head from side to side to find Luke. All you can see around you are strangers, not being able to move your body to look behind you. You have absolutely no control over your own body anymore, being stuck in-between a girl slightly taller than you and a man that has at least a hundred pounds on you.

Squeaking out a “excuse me,” and “can you let me out please?” you try to make your exit from the suffocating situation. Your eyes turn frantic when you realize that no one can hear you or cares to hear you. Your breath picks up, heart pounding in your chest.

You can feel the tears pricking in your eyes, not being able to regulate your breathing anymore, gasping hot air into your lungs as fast as you can.

You’re about to let out a scream, begging someone to pay attention to you and let you out of the mess you’re in, when you feel a familiar hand slip its way into yours.

Whipping your head around, you catch a glimpse of curly hair behind you, not realizing that the body pressed against your back has been Luke this entire time. You figured you had lost him when you were surged forward, unable to see him anywhere around you.

Your breath starts to slow slightly, knowing you’re not alone in this crowd easing some of your nerves. The feeling of your heart pounding is still present, not wanting to be in this situation one second longer.

Luke attempts to tug your body back towards him, but the impenetrable wall of people around you prevents him from doing so.

You manage to wiggle your way in a circle somehow, now facing Luke.

He takes one look at your frightened face and knows he has to get you out of here, now.

Pulling you towards him, he cages you in with is arms, your cheek pressed to his chest. He starts walking backwards, his hockey roots coming in handy as he all but body checks people out of his way. The two of you finally make it to the back of the large crowd, Luke not letting go of you until you were back over in your original section.

Quinn was watching the whole thing from the small platform he was stood on, about to walk over and fish you out himself before he noticed Luke’s head slowly moving backwards, away from the stage.

He can see you’re still shaken, walking over to meet the two of you at the top of the ramp.

“Is she okay? Is she hurt?” Quinn asks, concerned about how frightened even Luke’s face looks right now.

“No, she’s fine. Just shaken up, I think. She got trapped between a random girl and some dude at least triple her size,” he tells Quinn, running his hand down your hair in soothing motions. Your hands were still clutching his t-shirt, not wanting to let go of him just yet.

Quinn stares at your trembling figure the whole time, knowing you don’t want to leave Luke’s embrace but wishing he could do something to help you.

“Let’s get her out of here and to the car, yeah?” Quinn suggests, picking up yours and Luke’s bag of merchandise off of the floor of the platform.

Luke just nods, leading you back down the ramp.

Quinn steps over and let’s everyone know to just meet them in the parking garage before following yours and Luke’s intertwined bodies towards the nearest exist.

Luke manages to get you up the stairs and out into the outer ring of the arena without letting you go. Both pairs of your feet moving in tandem, not once risking tripping over one another.

He leads you out of the doors and into the cool night air.

You finally allow yourself to leave his embrace, instantly feeling better in the openness of the outdoors. Never letting go of his hand, you continue to let him lead you to the large garage.

Luke’s BMW sits right where he parked it, the loud beep echoing in the dark garage as he unlocks it.

He opens the passenger door, lifting you slightly to sit you down on the leather seat. His hands come up to your cheeks, his thumbs wiping the stray hairs that were sticking to the damp skin under your eyes.

“All good now?” he asks you, the frantic look of your eyes now gone.

You nod, looking into his concerned eyes. “M’alright. Just got scared. Too many people,” you mumble out, leaning into Luke’s palm slightly. “Sorry I made us go out there. Just wanted to have fun.”

Luke leans his forehead against yours, shaking it back and forth slightly. “No, it’s not your fault. Just bad timing is all,” he assures you, knowing how upset you’re going to be when you realized you missed most of the last song.

He pulls his head back, standing back to his full height outside of the SUV.

You notice Quinn standing a few feet away, letting you and Luke have your space.

Frowning, you call out to the eldest Hughes. “You didn’t have to leave early too, Quinny.”

Quinn looks over when he hears you address him, walking closer to the vehicle.

“Ehh, show was almost over anyways,” he waves you off. “Had to make sure my favorite little munchkin was okay,” he shrugs, telling you its no big deal.

You smile at him, thankful you not only have your boyfriend to look out for you, but Quinn as well.

“I promise I’ll make it up to you. Both of you,” you look between the two brothers, only ever seeing how alike they look when they’re standing in front of you.

They both tell you it’s not necessary, the main priority being that you’re safe and sound outside of the arena.

“Fine, I guess that means neither of you want to stop for post-concert pancakes on the way to the lake, then?” you tease, watching both of their heads snap up. All three brothers’ secret love of sweets is something you use to your advantage, only ever having to mention how good ice creams sounds before Luke and Jack are ushering you out of the door and driving you to the nearest ice-cream shop.

“Well, I guess if you really just feel the need to do something nice for us…” Quinn trails off, making a smile break out on your face, unable to hide the laugh at the sudden switch up.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” you continue to laugh at the pair, Luke leaning in to buckle your seatbelt for you as Quinn climbs in the backseat, sending a quick text to the rest of your group, telling them if they want to join in on the pancake outing, they need to be making their way out of the arena, and fast.

[bratbarzal]

Let It Happen (LH43) 2/3

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Fem!Reader

WC: 17k

>PART ONE<

Turn me into something tragic, just for you I let it happen.

General Warnings: after the first part you're probably thinking how could there possibly be more snark? you're about to find out. same with idiotic shenanigans, they're not quite finished with those!! fluff, cursing, sexual references, and fade to black type smut!!

A/N: DON'T HATE ME FOR MAKING IT 3 PARTS I'M JUST AN ADHD GIRLY WHO CAN'T READ 30K IN ONE GO BUT APPARENTLY CAN WRITE IT??? part three will be tomorrow I pinky promise!! I was nervous about splitting this whole thing up bc I really did write a whole romcom lmao!! I know long fics aren't to everyone's taste but I know no way of life other than the art of yapping!! Sorry that this took a little longer than expected there were a couple of scenes I couldn't get right but I hope you guys like this half as much as you did the first part!! and again I'd love to hear any thoughts!! reading your messages and your reblogs and your tags made my month and ily a lot!! like I said, I promise part 3 will be tomorrow, I didn't want to force so much at you in comparison to the first part!!

“I’m bored.”

Luke hadn’t thought he would regret staying at home when he had told Jack he wasn’t feeling well enough to drive out to Detroit for the Zach Bryan concert - if anything, it was an effort to push him and Ellie a little closer. She took Luke’s place, roomed with Jack in their hotel and everything, and they seemed to be having the time of their lives in all the videos dispersed into the group chat. But that was all before he came downstairs, eyes on the pictures of the all-you-can-eat breakfast the group were partaking in before coming back, and opening the kitchen cupboards to see them bare, with a few protein bars and boxes of granola tossed in like they’d been ransacked for the apocalypse. 

He’d had fun last night, though.

Even after the movie had ended, when the two of you had stayed up on the couch, talking about life - about hockey, about school, about his brothers, about your mom - if he’s honest, it had been the closest he had felt to another person that wasn’t one of his brothers in a really long time.

He really felt like you were connecting.

So much so that he’d retired to his bed for the first time all summer with a big, dopey grin on his face. Had laid awake scrolling through astrological compatibility after the two of you had drifted onto that topic after the movie finished, talking for maybe two hours before you had yawned so big he thought you might swallow him whole.

He had thought he knew you, before.

Had thought that those brief observations made from back in college, about your coffee preferences, your perfume collection, your taste in music, had painted a somewhat blurry picture of who you were - of all the things that blended together to formulate you - but he had been so wrong. 

And he had laid in bed last night thinking much deeper about the girl who was laying only a couple rooms down the hall - a few walls away. 

The girl who had come downstairs, bare feet padding softly into the kitchen, and had poured out two glasses of juice and handed one over to him without even asking. 

“Hi Bored, I’m Luke,” he smiles as he accepts the drink from your hand, the expression deepening as you roll your eyes back at him, this time with a glimmer of fondness slipping through the surface of your facade. 

You reach past him into the cupboard for the box of granola, and he grabs one of the protein bars before closing it, your bodies moving around each other in tandem like a well choreographed routine - easy and effortless in a way that calms whatever nerves he might have had around this new development in your relationship being one-sided.

You had never seemed uncomfortable in the house, or around the rest of the guys, but you had never been like this. 

“I was thinking,” you drag out, voice sweet and alluring, like you even have to put it on to convince Luke of anything, “we could go out on the boat,” you glance back at him as you pour out your cereal, lashes fluttering to complete the act, “You have your license right?”

“Yeah,” he replies, settling himself down to lean at the kitchen island as you cross to the other side, taking one of the stools, “But I’m not really supposed to take it out on my own.”

You hum as if you’re thinking, crunching your food before asking, “Is that brotherly advice or is that the law?”

“Advice, I guess,” he shrugs, pushing forward ever so slightly onto his forearms, where he can feel the tense of his muscles, and can see the diversion of your attention. 

“And you always do what your brothers tell you?”

When you tilt your head, the sun shining through the kitchen window reflects on your irises, making them sparkle, and he can see all the different hues in there, as if you’re using the elements to try hypnotise him into compliance.

You’re so pretty, you don’t even need the special effects.

“I’m a good boy,” he smiles teasingly, with a tilt of his own head, driven by infatuation and admiration, keeping your gaze and trying not to shudder visibly when your eyes drop to his lips. 

“You wouldn’t be on your own, though,” you pout, “I’d be there. I was a lifeguard for the past three summers, you know.” Of course he knows. “I promise I’ll save you if you get thrown overboard.”

You don’t have to say the following sentiment that the two of you share - that if he were to be thrown overboard, it would undoubtedly be by your own hand. 

“Yeah, you’d give me mouth to mouth?”

You scoff, leaning down onto your forearms and mirroring his position, careful not to knock your bowl. “Unfortunately for you, Hughes, they don’t advise the use of that method, anymore.”

“And you always do what people tell you?”

It’s one of his favourite things to do with you, he’s noticed - turn the tables, use your own wit against you. It gets him a reaction, every time. A rush of something real that washes over you, has you fixing your shoulders and biting back a smile. 

Although you don’t bite this one back. Luke doesn’t think that you could, even if you tried. Your eyes even crinkle a little in the corners, and Luke doesn’t see the danger in it - too lost in the way they reflect the glorious sunshine back at him in dazzling sparkles - until one drops in a wink as you retort, “I’m a good girl.”

Touché.

He thinks his heart might have skipped a beat. He can all of a sudden feel every last crumb of the previous bite he took from his protein bar lodged in his throat, and he needs a drink, so he pushes himself up from the counter to try at least gain a height advantage over you, and forces down some gulps of his juice.

The look you’re giving him isn’t doing him any favours - the height difference working against him as your eyes look up to meet his, round and pleading despite the cunning genius he knows is buried within them. 

“Fine,” he huffs, rolling his eyes as your smile grows wider, “But we need to be back before my brothers so I don’t get a lecture.”

“Yes!” You squeal, pushing up from the stool, “I knew you weren’t as boring as you seem!”

He frowns, despite knowing you’re just teasing him for this exact reaction, and watches as you clean up your bowl, discarding of the mushy granola and rinsing it out. 

“I just need ten minutes to get ready and then we can go!”

“You have five.” He grumbles, watching as you rush out the room and listening for the stomp of your feet up the stairs. 

He’s probably going to regret this. 

—

The bikini had been your first strike - baby blue, the type that ties with strings around your neck and back - when you had come down the stairs, the slap of your slides echoing against the wood and diverting his attention from his phone to your emerging figure. Your t-shirt was clutched in your hand, your tote bag in the other, and he had just stood there, mouth agape, until you rolled your eyes and stormed straight past him, calling, “Thought we were on a time crunch, come on,” behind you.

Your second strike had been the way you had waited until you were on the boat to apply your sunscreen, sat next to Luke, who was trying to keep a steady hand on the wheel as he drove his way down to a clear spot further out on the lake. Luke who was biting his tongue from offering to help you, and could smell the sweet melon scent of the lotion as it sank into your skin. 

And the third had been the way you had been smiling down at your phone, distracting him with the pretty curve of your lips as he steered over the water. 

Three such minor infractions already had him regretting the decision to bring you out here alone.

“Who’s got you smiling like that?” He asks, trying not to sound as jealous as he feels at the thought of it being another guy.

“It’s Cole,” you tell him, eyes still on your phone.

“You and Cole text?” The boat jolts slightly as his hands tremble, and he diverts his attention to you.

“No, he’s got Ellie’s phone.” You type something back before turning the device to show him a selfie Cole had taken in the hotel lobby, Jack asleep on one of the benches in the background and Ellie posing in front of his sleeping figure.

“Why’s Cole texting from Ellie’s phone?” Luke asks, eyes back on the water as he steers the boat, long fingers curled around the wheel and muscles flexing. 

“They’ve been hanging out,” you tell him, “They were together when we got back from the club the other night, he was in our room.”

“And you’re only just telling me this now, because?”

“Oh, my bad, control freak, didn’t realise you needed the whereabouts of everybody in the house,”

“Jack’s been off all week,” Luke mutters, remembering his brother’s reaction when he had told him he was staying at home instead of going to the concert. He had called him out on staying home just to be around you, saying he’d regret missing out on such a huge experience, like there won’t be a hundred other concerts in his lifetime, and that you wouldn’t even appreciate him doing it. “Making all these passive aggressive comments,”

“No way! Jack Hughes? Passive aggressive?” You gasp, shuffling in your seat to give him more of your attention, “What next, is he gonna start acting like the world revolves around him too?”

“Don’t get cute,” Luke rolls his eyes. It’s starting to make sense, him chewing his ear off like that - even though the two of you had literally caught him out on a date, if he feels like Ellie is moving on with his best friend, he’s bound to feel some sort of way about it. “If they were together when he came home from that date, maybe he saw them,”

“They were hardly getting it on with the door wide open, Luke, they were playing cards.” You scoff, “Plus, he has no right to be upset, he was literally on a date he told nobody about.”

“He gets in his head about stuff like this,” Luke reasons as he slows the boat, bringing it to a stop in the middle of the water so he can focus, “Talks himself in circles until it makes him so dizzy he does something stupid.”

“You think that’s what he’s doing?”

“I don’t know, I don’t like assuming the worst of my brother, though.”

“Alright, let’s say Jack is only being a dick because he thinks Ellie and Cole are hitting it off,” you stand up now that the boat is steady, kicking your slides off and ambling over to the benches at the back, out from under the cover of the roof. “What are we supposed to do about it, we can hardly keep them apart, keeping track of Jack and Ellie is hard enough without throwing Caufield into the mix. He's sneaky.”

“We’d only technically have to follow Ellie, still,” Luke says as he follows you to the back of the boat, thankful your back is to him when you start to push your skirt down your legs, and you can’t see the way his eyes go three times their usual size, he’s almost anticipating a swat to his chest for when you turn and notice. “They can still hang out, just not one-on-one, one of us could keep an eye on them, take it in turns.”

“That sounds an awful lot like hard work, Hughes,” you huff, taking a seat on the leather bench and stretching your legs out before lounging back, “Can’t your brother just grow a backbone and ask her out? It would save us both a lot of hassle.”

“I’m working on it,” he throws himself onto the bench opposite yours, thinking of all the times he’s tried to cut the conversation with his brother short by just telling him to grow a pair. “I guess you’re right, we can’t stop them being friends, it would be hypocritical.”

“Hypocritical?”

“Yeah, ‘cause we’re friends.”

“You think we’re friends?”

“You don’t?”

“We watch one movie together and now all of a sudden you think we’re besties?”

“I think we’re friends ‘cause you like my company, you wouldn’t have asked me to bring you out here if you didn’t like being around me.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re deluded.” You smile, pushing your sunglasses down from the top of your head to the bridge of your nose and relaxing back. “I like tanning and being on the water. You’re a glorified chauffeur at this point. Not a good one, either.”

“I got us out here no problems, didn’t I?”

“I had to hold on the whole way, you were throwing me around like a loose can in the trunk of your car.”

“Yeah, well the water was choppy,”

“A good workman never blames his tools, Hughes.” You smile over at him, and the innuendo makes his cheeks go hot. Definitely regretting bringing you out on the water with no escape about now.

“Did you really ask me to bring you out here just to lay out in the sun?” He leans forward with his elbows on his knees, watching as you angle your neck to face him. 

“Is that a problem?”

“It is if you’re gonna be a grouch about me being here.”

“I thought you’d be all quiet and brooding like you usually are.”

“Me?” He laughs, “Quiet and brooding?” He doesn’t think anyone has ever used the word quiet to describe him in his life. He knows you can’t be serious - all you’ve done for weeks is blast him for getting on your nerves.

“I’ve literally seen you talk once before this summer.”

What the hell do you mean by that? You barely knew who he was that day he approached you in the club. 

“That’s ‘cause you’d have to notice me to see me talk.”

“You’ve never talked to me.”

He did talk to you. Several times, in fact. That day outside your dorm with Ellie’s gift basket, a couple times in class - but they’re all insignificant, minor exchanges of words he would quite like to forget, if he’s honest. Mumbling and stuttering and, quite frankly, embarrassing, to say the least. A far cry from the confident man he’d like to think he has become. “Why would I talk to you?”

“That’s rude,” you pout, and he straightens up immediately.

“No, I just mean, like,” he waves his arms out in between the two of you, gesturing over and shaking his head. “You’re you. We were never really on the same level for me to be talking to you.”

You bring your glasses back onto the top of your head, pushing your hair out of your face and squinting against the sun to level him with a glare. “Aren’t you a big time athlete?”

“I am now. You wouldn’t have given me the time of day back then.”

“You never gave me a chance to.”

“You could have approached me.” He thinks you’re just biting back for argument’s sake, if he’s honest - there isn’t a chance in hell you ever spared a thought for talking to him or giving him the time of day. You barely even looked his way - and he definitely would have noticed. 

“So could you.” You frown. 

“I tried once.” He distinctly remembers the one time he did approach you, away from class and apart from the first time he met you, dialled up with liquid courage and driven by the way you were dressed as a sexy Patrick Bateman, and he finally felt like having the right conversation starter around his love for American Psycho might have helped him kick something off with you, or at least got you to acknowledge his existence. He would have even taken you calling him Lu again. “At a Halloween party in Freshman year. You blew me off. I barely got a word out before you were storming off.”

“When you were dressed as Scooby Doo?”

His lips part and close repeatedly like a fish bobbing it’s mouth, blinking slowly at you as he realised just what you even having that memory meant. “That’s a weird thing to remember for someone not interested.”

“A giant dork in a dog costume is a pretty hard thing to forget.” You grin satirically, “I never said I wasn’t interested, you just caught me at a bad time and never tried again,”

“You wanted me to try again?”

“I want you to be quiet. Aren’t you due a nap or something?”

“You can’t seriously tell me you asked me to bring you all the way out here just to lie out in the sun and do nothing,” he groans, watching you return back to your previous position, body bathing in the sunlight and sunglasses pushed back down onto your nose. 

“What, did you think we were gonna play mermaids?” He can’t see the roll of your eyes anymore, but he knows when it happens by now, just from your tone of voice. 

“You can do that back at the house, we have loungers out by the pool,”

“It’s not as peaceful as this.” You sigh, “Plus, the trees around the back block the sun this time of day. I’m getting pale cooped up in the club all week, I have catching up to do.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Lay back and relax,” you advise, nodding toward the bench he’s perched on the edge of, reaching your hand down into your tote and blindly tossing the bottle of sunscreen in his general direction, “You could use some sun, too. And if you’re a good boy, I’ll let you do my back later.”

Luke, surprisingly, folds - doing as he’s told and lounging back into the leather, and he begrudgingly thinks a little too much about how right you are. This is peaceful. The soft whoosh of water against the boat, clear blue skies, no yelling or arguing or people competing around him. Just you, and the sunshine, and the smell of melon-scented sun lotion seeping into his skin.

It isn’t long before he drifts off, his head resting on his folded arm, the heat of the sun warming him like a blanket, and the last thing he sees before his eyes close is your head turned his way, lips parted slightly as you sleep, yourself, skin glistening and your chest rising and falling in deep, steady breaths. 

When his eyes open again, you’re sat up, holding your hair up with one hand and fanning yourself with the other.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, voice thick with sleep as he sits up, his skin peeling uncomfortably off the leather. 

“I’m hot.” You whine, turning to him with a pout.

He scoffs, resisting the urge to say something corny like, I know you are, before he points out over the side of the boat. “If you look to your right, there’s a large body of water you can cool down in.”

“I’m not getting in there!”

“Why not?”

“Lake monsters, for one,” you scoff, releasing your hair and he watches it fan out over your shoulders in soft waves.

“They’re only native to Scotland, I heard.” Luke stands, looking over the side and into the steady waters to gauge how safe it would be to go in without a vest. The water is still, he’s never had any problems in this part of the lake, and he’s confident the two of you could at least take a dip without there being any concerns - you were a lifeguard, after all, and he’s always been a strong swimmer. 

“Aren’t there fish in here?” You ask, beside him now as you peer over the edge yourself. 

“There’s actually a cool hack to check, do you want me to show you?”

You eye him sceptically but nod, anyway, and he holds his hand out to help you walk to the back of the boat, stepping down onto the stern where it’s easier to reach into the water. 

You’re careful not to let him fall behind you, clearly cautious of the fact that he could push you in. Instead, he stands beside you, squats to reach down over the edge and run his fingers through the ripples that form. He stands back to full height and you squint to look up at him, the sun blaring from over his shoulder and reflecting off his sweat-slicked skin. 

It makes your eyes sparkle again, and it’s almost enough to make him change his mind from what he’s about to do - only, before your powers of hypnosis can work on him for the second time in a matter of hours, he quickly grasps onto your hips and launches the two of you into the water. 

He has the same misguided confidence he had when he squirted you with that hose - a burst of energy that he immediately succumbed to before he could think rationally about it, and it’s the same energy that forces deep and hearty laughter to rumble from his chest as you squeal on your way into the lake. 

The two of you land with a big splash, and emerge simultaneously, you running your hands through your wet hair to push it back out of your face.

“What the hell did you do that for?”

“You said you were hot, I was trying to help!”

“You are so dead!” You exclaim, splashing him with a swat of your hand against the water.

“Oh, look, a fish!”

“Ew, no!” You yell, squirming forward to try and dodge it, unintentionally leaping right into Luke, the heat of his firm chest under your flattened palm, an arm curling over his shoulder to steady yourself. 

His arms curl around your body by instinct, wrapping around your waist and holding you against him until you realise his trick, and your hands press on the top of his head until you’re pushing him under the surface with a yell of, “So dead!”

Laughter ripples out of him, from the pits of his stomach to the parting of his lips, and comes out in bubbles against your skin as you hold him down, your body thrashing to get away from his until you break free from his hold, and he rises back from under the water.

“Get back here, you’re not getting away with that!” He calls after you, launching himself forward to catch you.

“No,” you squeal, trying to gain momentum as you leap away, only for his arm to curl around your waist, pulling your squirming body back against him with a splash. “Let me go, you brute!”

“Tell me you’re having fun or you’re getting dunked,” he commands, lips beside your ear as your back is held flush to his chest, your skin still warm from the sun and smooth against his. 

“You dunk me and I’ll leave your ass to the lake monsters,” you warn him, still squirming in his hold.

“Like you could drive the boat, you need me,” your body seems to still the lower his tone gets, succumbing to his hypnotising powers, and he can feel you square your shoulders against him. 

“Yeah right,” even Luke can tell how much your denial is forced from the shiver down your spine, “Jack can do it, how hard could it be?”

“You’d really hijack the boat just to avoid admitting you like my company?” He asks as he lets you go, and you turn immediately in the water to face him. He tilts his head when your gazes meet across the water, and your eyes flicker between his as if trying to read him like a book.

“Today’s been nice,” you admit, with a dramatic roll of your eyes, “Last night, too. Not specific to your company. Just being away from everybody else."

“So that’s the key?” He dares to swim a little closer, just enough that you won’t notice him reducing the proximity between the two of you. “You wanna get me on my own?”

“You-,”

“Wish,” he finishes, your eyes meeting in a steady gaze despite the bobbing of your heads to stay afloat. He’d like to think it’s more than the water that has brought you back this close to him, legs kicking beneath the surface, his hands itching to hold back on your waist to help, “Yeah, I do.”

If he has managed to stay more or less in place while treading water, then it can’t be the current drifting you toward him, and you’re so close now that he could hold you, if his brain could just link to his hands to give them the courage to do so. 

You like being alone with him - you’ve pretty much just admitted so - feel comfortable enough that you change your plans to fit him into them - just like you had last night - you wanted him to talk to you in college, you noticed him, even, enough to remember the fact that he never did. 

There has to be some base level of interest there for you to be this close, in the first place. To move into his house, to agree to spend your summer in his company, to spending more time with him than he’s noticed you spending with your supposed best friend. 

And just as he convinces himself of it, and his thoughts link to the movement of his hands underwater, inching closer to grip at your hips and pull you all the way toward him, a shrill ringing carries all the way from the boat to Luke’s ears, turning both of your attention back to the vehicle.

“Shit, that’s Jack’s ringtone.” He groans, “They’re probably back by now.”

The two of you swim back toward the boat, and he pulls himself up onto the stern before lending you a hand to get up, yourself. 

There are a bunch of texts from his brother.

Where are you at?

Did the demon get you in your sleep?

Where’s the boat?

Please tell me you’re dumping her body and she’s not dumping yours.

You’re dead either way when you get back!

“Shit, we better get back,” he grumbles, rushing to the front of the boat to get it started again. Before you sit beside him, he feels the draping of a towel across his shoulders, and his heart thuds at the small smile you give him when his eyes meet yours.

“Sorry if I got you in trouble.”

“It’s fine,” he shrugs, nonchalant despite the rampant beating in his chest, and the thought of his brother chewing his ear off when the two of you get back. “You’re worth the headache.”

He winks, teasingly, and his eyes go back to the water before he gets the chance to see your cheeks flush. You’d probably just blame it on sunburn, anyway.

You don’t speak much on the drive back, but Luke can feel your eyes on him, can practically hear your mind whirring with a million thoughts - only because his is doing the same. 

Why does he has to have a brother with the world’s worst timing?

He would have kissed you.

At least, he thinks he would have.

His hands were reaching out. He would have pulled you in by the hips, held you against him, raised so that your faces were finally level, and he would have made a move. He can feel it in his bones, still thrumming with almost-arrogance. A knowing, sure feeling that he can’t shake - one that tells him you would have kissed him back.

But he’ll never know, now.

When the two of you get back, Jack is waiting on the dock, and you gather your things before Luke helps you off the boat. He ushers you past his brother, knowing you’d be down to argue all afternoon, if necessary, but he can take this one on his own. He doesn’t want you hearing the sort of venom he knows his brother can spew out when he’s mad like this.

You brush past Jack on the edge of the dock, who thankfully waits until you’re back at the gate and out of earshot to start on Luke.

“What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”

“What, I’m not allowed to have fun when you’re not here?” Luke scoffs, rolling his eyes at his brother’s theatrics.

So he took the boat out, it’s really not that deep, he thinks. He’s an adult, he has his license, there really shouldn’t be a problem.

“I know you’ve seen Jennifer’s Body, you shouldn’t be out on the lake on your own with her,”

“Implying she’s a demonic serial killer might be a little over-dramatic, even for you,” Luke huffs as he starts to make his own way back.

 “Trust me, it’s not.” Jack stops him with a hand gripping at his elbow. “Whatever trick she’s pulling on you, Luke, you need to wise up,”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“She isn’t interested,” Jack tells him, “She’s using you to pass the time until someone better falls into her lap, and you’re falling straight for it. Letting her convince you to stay behind and miss hanging with the rest of us, taking the boat out on your own, don’t you think it’s weird how she never had any interest in talking to you before it started benefitting her? Before you made it to the big leagues?”

Luke narrows his eyes at his brother, shoulders slumping as the words seem to weigh on them, like a heavy towel draped across to dry him and rub away all the affections you had blessed him with over the past 24 hours.

But it isn’t Jack’s words that are ringing around his head, this time. It’s yours. 

You never talked to me.

You never gave me a chance.

You never tried again.

Maybe you did have some level of interest before. Maybe his intuitions earlier had been right. Maybe it’s still there. 

“It’s none of your business, Jack,” he grumbles, not allowing him a second to rain on this parade. “You don’t even know her.”

“Don’t come crying to me when she breaks your heart, then.”

“Trust me, I won’t.”

If you’re thankful for any rule at the house, it’s the rule for knocking before you come into any bedroom. Quinn knocks most mornings to let you know breakfast is being prepared, or before he goes on a store run to ask if there’s anything you or Ellie need. Jack knocks for Ellie, and now Cole does too.

You can always tell when it’s Luke though.

Repeated and incessant, a constant rapping of knuckles against the wood until you answer, instead of any sort of pattern or rhythm.

“Can I come in?” He asks as soon as you open.

“No.” You tell him every time, but to no avail. 

“Thanks,” He swerves into the space beside you, careful not to shove past as he makes his way into the bedroom. “We have a problem.”

“Yeah, they’re called boundaries, Hughes.” You scoff, slamming the door and following him. “You can’t just waltz in here like you own the place.”

“I do.” He frowns, “Own the place. This is my house."

“Your brothers own it, actually.”

“What are you, Michigan Census Bureau?” You mimic the words back to him, your face scrunched tight and your voice as whiney and annoying as it can go, and he pushes his hand in your face, just light enough to cover it and not actually smack you because he doesn’t have a death wish. “The problem. You have to focus,” he clicks his fingers in front of you, and you swat his hand away with a frown.

“Click at me like a dog again and I’ll bite your fingers off.” The look on your face is one he should probably fear, but there’s a nagging instinct he can’t fight to keep pushing your buttons. He doesn’t know where it comes from, but it feels wrong to ignore.

“Is that supposed to turn me on?”

“The problem, Luke, get on with it.”

“Right.” He sighs, throwing himself down on the bed, “I can’t find Cole and Ellie anywhere. I think he took her out.”

“What?” You reach forward and push at his shoulder, “You had one job, Hughes!”

It had been his turn to take watch, as the two of you had agreed the other day out on the water, but it was really starting to get tiring, having to play third wheel to a situation he really didn’t understand, and he needed a recess. Five minutes just to recuperate, he didn’t expect them to make a break for it so quick. 

“I left to make a sandwich! I’m allowed to eat, you can’t expect me to starve it goes against my rights!”

“You’re such an idiot,” You scoff as you rush toward the closet to find something to wear, your plans of a self-care day now flushed down the toilet thanks to Luke’s insatiable appetite. “You couldn’t watch them for an hour without succumbing to malnutrition?”

“Why can’t you be on watch for once?”

“I was doing my nails,” You retort, wiggling your freshly painted fingernails in his face, crimson red to match your toes, and the colour Luke feels his cheeks turning at the sight of them. “Because thanks to someone the gel started lifting after spending my entire afternoon the other day with my hands in a soapy bucket.”

“You’re the one who took the detour to beat Jack home and got my car all dirty.”

“Whatever, turn around.” You’re already lifting your tank over your head before Luke gets the chance to comply, his mouth falling agape before he can control it at the sight of you stood in just your bra and pyjama shorts in front of him. The instruction only registers when your tank top hits him in the face, dropping into his lap so he can look up at your scowl and swivel in his place on the bed. “They’re probably at the mall, she was saying she wanted to go to the art supply store there.”

“So what, we’re gonna just bump into them? Won’t they think it’s weird we’re showing up there after we both said we were staying in today?” He tries not to look into the corner of the room, where he knows the mirror placed there will show him the reflection of you changing - although what’s the use in hiding anything, now? He’s already seen it.

He’s also seen you in your many different bikinis over the past few of weeks. Has been up close and personal, even, holding your body against his out in the lake. 

But your bathing suits aren’t slightly sheer and frilly around the edges, and don’t push up on anything - not that they really need to.

But thinking about that isn’t gonna do him any favours. 

Old men playing chess, animals in the shelter, getting slammed into the boards at high speeds - thinking of those should get his mind back on track.

“Nope, we’re gonna follow them.”

“I thought you said that spying on people is childish.”

“It is when you’re talking about lurking in bushes and hiding behind menus, Luke.”

When he sees you come around the front of the bed to grab your sneakers, he decides on his own terms he can turn back around, careful not to let his eyes linger too long on the expanse of your legs beneath the skirt you’ve now changed into. 

If it wasn’t for the other afternoon spent working together to wash his car, or the evening spent watching movies, sharing a bottle of wine and indulging in those sticky face masks or the way you had quite literally drifted into his arms in the lake the other day, he would probably feel like a creeper for the way his one track mind has persisted. But, despite your efforts to convince him otherwise, he isn’t deluded. 

There’s something brewing between the two of you. 

It’s in the twitch of your lips that now follows every time you roll your eyes, and the magnetised force in which your eyes track him whenever he enters the room, where you had been entirely indifferent before - you’re warming up to him, he can sense it.

“So what’s the plan?”

“I wanna see what it is they keep running off together for,” you shrug as you braid your hair into pigtails in the mirror, your gaze flickering back to him, “Every time we interrupt them, they just keep sneaking back off again. Maybe if we find out what it is they’re doing, we’ll be better at keeping them away from doing it.”

“And how are we supposed to stay hidden?”

“Easy, we have to wear something we usually wouldn’t be caught dead in.”

“I’ve seen you in that exact outfit like twelve times.” He gestures with a lazy hand to the outfit you have on - white t-shirt, navy skirt, socks that go just above your ankles and the same pair of sneakers he must have seen you in every day the last year you were both in college together. 

Not that he was paying that close attention.

“I know. Can I borrow that quarter zip you wore the other day? You know, the one that’s the colour of baby poop? Super hideous, really gross-,”

“Har har, real funny,” he whips the tank top he’s still, for whatever reason, clutching in his hands at you before throwing it onto the bed, and storming toward the door, calling out a, “Let’s go,” over his shoulder and not bothering to check if you’re coming when he starts to make his way downstairs - the echo of your giggling laughter following him down the hallway tells him as much.

—

“Are you sure she said the art supply store?”

Luke’s neck is starting to hurt from craning it above the shelves in search of Ellie’s curls, this being the second art store the two of you have checked. Somehow he’s the one looking out while you peruse the shop, now cooing at a section of crotchet animal kits and pointing them out until he mutters out some half-hearted cute, or nice.

“There aren’t many things I could have confused it for, Luke, unless you know of anything that rhymes with art supplies?” You pick up one of the kits, turning it to assess the difficulty by the pictures on the back before putting it back on the shelf.

“Maybe she said she had parts to buy?”

“Alright, smartass,” You scoff, shouldering past him to make your way toward the exit, clearly having no luck in finding them here. She definitely wouldn’t have parts to buy for anything, she’s hardly Fix-It Felix. “You can buy me lunch and we’ll see if she’s put anything on her story yet.”

“I’m starting to think they’re not even at the mall and you’ve lured me out of the house under false pretences for free food.” The diffidence he’s giving is entirely forced as he drags his feet behind you, following you out of the store. “If you wanted me to take you on a date, you could have just asked. It was probably the stop for a smoothie that had us missing them in the first place.”

You gasp, and before he has the opportunity to retort with something just as annoying, you grab his hand and tug him with you behind one of the giant plants that are beside the coffee stand, keeping a hold of him as you poke your head around the corner.

“There they are,” you whisper back, your fingers still clutching at his as he crowds into the same space to make sure he too is hidden behind the sprawling leaves.

“Oh so hiding behind bushes is alright if it’s your idea?”

“Shh,” you frown, your hand releasing his and pressing over his mouth, “They’ll hear you, Loud Mouth,” and his eyes follow the pointed finger on your other hand to where Ellie and Cole are walking together toward the store you and Luke just left - side by side, sodas in hand, smiling and laughing and nudging at each other. 

In better circumstances, he’d be thinking about how he’s pressed to your back, bending to accommodate for the height difference, your head tilted to make room for his to lean in for a better look, and your hand still resting on his face, not really covering his mouth but more caressing his jaw in an absentminded fashion as you watch the two of them. 

But all he can think about, disturbingly enough, is his brother - and how hurt he’d be to see what’s happening between his supposed best friends. 

“We’re following them, right?” He asks lowly, his face not too far from yours, and when you turn your head to the side to look at him, he feels like your gaze is softer than usual when it takes in how hardened and dark his is.

“Definitely,” you agree, stepping away from him and turning to face him properly. “If you saw me out of the corner of your eye, you wouldn’t know it was me, right?”

Wrong, Luke thinks, but that’s only because he’d be able to pick you out of a line up in a pitch black room by now - blind folded, spun around a few times for good measure and facing the wrong way.

When he had found a Mets jersey on the rack in the Goodwill you had dragged him to in search of a disguise, and your words from earlier about not being caught dead in something had rang in his head, he had thought it was perfect. And then you had waltzed over with the same jersey, and your eyes had lit up.

“We can’t wear the same thing,” he frowned, unable to hold the weight of the expression for too long when he saw just how excited you were getting. “That’s hardly blending in."

“No, it’s perfect!” You exclaimed, “Ellie would never expect me to match anyone!”

He had thought the shirts were too much before you threw in the identical orange baseball caps you had found, and at that point he was cursing whatever scorned woman it was that dumped all her ex’s shit into the thrift store.

The two of you look cute in your matching gear, he can’t deny that, he just wishes you could have found something that made him feel a little less dirty, maybe Wolverine blue and yellow, if you were gonna dress up as a couple.

Luke doesn’t like how you still make his throat dry in Mets gear.

He reaches out to adjust the cap on your head, pulling the bill down to cast more of a shadow over your face, and combining that with the way your braids, the ones you said you’d never usually wear but seem to suit you anyway, come out the bottom of either side of the cap, he figures anyone else would have a hard time immediately placing you. “Probably not,” he shrugs, making sure to keep an eye on the apparent lovebirds still hovering in the entrance of the art store. 

“Great.” You smile victoriously, “Put your arm around me.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” You scoff, “I’m hardly asking you to ravage me outside the Pretzel Peddler, Hughes, make haste,” you shoo him forward, taking control of the situation and forcing yourself under his arm as the two of you stumble back toward the art store. 

Remaining incognito isn’t entirely hard when the two of you are moving as one, you stuffed under his arm and him able to hide his face in the top of your head if he thinks either Cole or Ellie are likely to see you.

Following them is easy, able to maintain a short enough distance that you can both eavesdrop on their minimal conversation, and there isn’t really a problem until they break apart. 

Ellie goes toward the back of the store, Cole towards the front, and you whisper to Luke that it might be best for you to break apart, too - if you both follow one of them, the other is more likely to catch you - and so you drift after Cole, and he drifts after Ellie, and while the two of you can still see each other, there are a lot of unidentifiable hand gestures in place of where you can no longer talk. That is, until Cole heads further down the other end of the store, and you slip completely out of view.

It’s less fun, spying this way, watching as Ellie browses the shelves, looking over all the sketchbooks until she finds the right one - as if he hasn’t seen a stack of around 5 of them in their room back at the house - swerving so fast on her feet that Luke stumbles on his own to get away, rushing around the bend before she can see him. 

When he rounds the corner of the aisle and sees you heading straight for him, eyes wide and step rushed, he rushes, too, tripping forward until the two of you collide, your stance thankfully much sturdier than his. You grab him by his shirt to make sure he’s steady on his feet before you pull him with you as you fall against the shelf behind you, standing on your tip toes and tugging him down to meet your lips with a surprised grunt.

What the fuck?

Your hands move up to cup at either side of his face, holding him in place as you angle to slot the bill of your cap to the side of his so they don’t bump and fall off, and he loses himself in the warmth of your kiss before he even realises that he’s halfway gone. Your hands cover both of your profiles, and Luke thinks that if you are caught, there’s no way for them to identify the two of you unless Ellie has the orange-red colour and long, supposedly almond - or so you had told him - shape of your nails memorised. Because who would pay such close attention to something like that?

A hand falls to your hip, another to your waist, and he’s teasing your back into an arch with his touch, only distantly hearing surprised exclamations of oh fuck, and sorry, from either side of the aisle.

He pays no mind to the sound of rushed, retreating footsteps, trying to press his tongue between your lips for a further taste of very berry smoothie and sugary balm that he can feel the stickiness of, that he wants his lips to be coated in forever.

He savours the seconds after, where you drag out the show just to make sure Ellie and Cole have actually disappeared, and he pushes his luck one more time, deepening the kiss until you pull away, your hands on his chest shoving purposefully. 

“What was that for?” He asks, breathless and dazed as he takes in your appearance, lips swollen and wet by his doing, pupils dilated.

“PDA makes people uncomfortable, right?” you shrug, like it’s the most obvious explanation for the way you just kissed the life out of him. Like there was nothing else you possibly could have done to get out of that predicament. And his heart thumps as he remembers that those are his words, uttered in a tease way back in the restaurant at the club. “They were hardly gonna stick around and watch, I don’t have Caufield down as a voyeur.”

Luke watches as your eyes drop briefly to his lips, and he swears he sees the flicker of a smile twitch at the corners of your mouth. His fingers come up by instinct, pressing tentatively at the sticky residue that coats the outline of them.

“You tell anyone I did that and I’ll gut you like a fish, Hughes.”

He nods, still in a daze, if he’s honest, and stays in place while you nudge past him to follow in the direction where Ellie and Cole disappeared. 

When he does finally come to, shaking his head to pull himself out of the way his brain is trying to relive the last few minutes, he follows, too - maybe less discreet in his movements, this time, in the hopes that another close call might just gain him another kiss, too.

You’d like to think you have good intuition when it comes to others and their actions. You can see straight through people, a shift in their expression, a twitch in their smile, a glint in their eye - it makes you protective of the people you surround yourself with, keeping only a close-knit group of friends, and keeping everyone else at arms length. 

Friends who you know when they’re upset, or down, need someone around, or need space. It’s how you know Luke has been avoiding you all week, and how you know even more just to leave him to it. 

Not that you’re friends.

It started with long days at the rink - not that you lament his training, but you know he hadn’t been that deep into his regimen so far this summer. Quinn had been the one to drop you off at the club that last couple of days, and Luke hadn’t joined the group when they had played a round of golf and stopped by the bar for some refreshments after.

You’ve seen him around the house still, usually shooting off to God-knows-where, eyes locking in the hall as he passes you like a ship in the night, until he shifts his gaze with an awkward smile.

If he wants to be childish about one stupid, meaningless kiss, you have no choice but to let him.

You’d hardly forced yourself on him. He could have pushed you off if he didn’t want it. Instead, he’d pulled you even closer, even tried to slip you some tongue! And it had kind of been his suggestion in the first place.

You wouldn’t be so bothered about it if you had something to do with Ellie gone for the next week - her little sister’s birthday taking precedent over your summer plans, and the family taking a trip out of state. You can’t even go out, trapped inside due to the unforeseen storm - and you hate thunder, it reminds you too much of all those tumultuous nights locked in your room, listening to your parents fighting, the wind and rain doing little to drown it all out.

But all you have is the house, and with the house comes the movies - the ones he had promised to watch with you.

You had both written down your top ten, yours in his notes, and his in yours, and the damn page has been haunting you every time you unlock your phone. And that’s how you’ve given in so easily. It has nothing to do with the fact you miss him - it’s just pure boredom and curiosity that has you watching Happy Gilmore on your own on a Friday night.

You don’t miss him.

That would be ridiculous.

Luke Hughes is annoying. 

His taste of movies is annoying.

The fact that won’t talk to you is annoying.

“Hey, I thought we were gonna watch this together.”

Or not.

Luke leans against the doorway, possessing the kind of casual indifference that only a man could, frowning and pouting as if he’s not the sole reason you’re cooped up on your own watching a damn movie about golf of all things.

“Thought you were avoiding me,” you bite back, arms crossed over your chest and brows furrowed in frustration. 

“Why would I be avoiding you?” He asks as he steps into the room and closes the door behind him, your eyes darting straight to long, slender fingers wrapped around the handle. 

“Because you kissed me, and then all of a sudden started acting like I don’t exist to you.” You accuse with a pointed glare, figuring one of you has to have the guts to talk about it. 

“Actually, you kissed me,” he smirks, perching himself on the edge of your bed, “And then told me in graphic detail you’d pretty much murder me if I ever spoke about it again, so I,” he frowns, “Didn’t.”

You can’t help but scowl at how stupid that sounds. He can’t seriously think you would murder him. If you were the murdering type in the first place, you’d have done it long ago. You even tell him as much.

“I don’t know, you had this scary look in your eye, kind of didn’t want to test that theory,” he shrugs, reaching in the pocket of his hoodie and throwing a bag over to you. 

M&Ms. Your favourite.

“You gonna scoot over?” He asks, raising a brow and widening his eyes as if he’s pleading, as if you’ve been the one giving him the cold shoulder.

You roll your eyes and shuffle across the bed, making room for him beside you that he occupies way too quick, legs stretching out in front of him, all the way down the bed, as he gets comfortable.

You try to focus on the movie, as if you have any clue what’s been happening so far, anyway, but you can see him out of the corner of your eye, an arm tucked behind his head, his chest stretched out, and his jaw tensing as he chews on the candy he’s already stealing from you.

He’s had a haircut. Shorter on the sides, and it makes his face look a little more defined. Still curly - maybe even curlier - and softer than before, in a way that you’d want to run your hands through it, if you were a crazy person, of course.

And he smells good, too.

You’re starting to think this has been his plan all along - for distance to make your wretched heart grow fonder, or whatever - and you find yourself tensing your own jaw as you grind your teeth and try to tune back into whatever Adam Sandler is yapping about. 

“I sort of was avoiding you,” he admits, and you can still see him out of the corner of your eye, looking down at you, now, although you don’t look back.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologises, shifting a little to face you more, “I thought you might have felt weird about kissing me.”

“I didn’t.” 

“Okay then.”

“Alright.”

“We can talk about it, if you want?” He suggests, and that’s finally when you look at him, with his lips twisted nervously and his brow raised, anticipating your response. 

What’s there to even talk about? You kissed him as a distraction. He knows that. You know that. 

“I’m good.” You tell him, a short, forced smile to ease the tension before he smiles back.

“I know something we can talk about,” he leans in, “Considering how little you care about this movie.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“How you had a big fat crush on me in college,” he smirks, eyes darting between yours, the flash from the tv screen highlighting all the different hues of blues and greens in his irises.

He’s not gonna catch you out, though.

“You’re delusional.” You tell him, your own eyes narrowing, almost like a defence mechanism. He seems to be quite good at reading you, and you’re not letting him in that easy.

“So you keep saying,” he pouts, pensively, “But then it’s you never talked to me, Luke, and I remember small random details about you, Luke!”

“I don’t sound like that,” you frown, taking slight offence to the squeaky voice he puts on, more than likely to distract you from the closing distance. He speaks again before you can realise you really should be putting more effort into denying such ridiculous accusations, before he completely slanders your good name. 

“You’ve been avoiding me all week and I missed you, Luke-,”

You don’t know why your mouth is all of a sudden on his, but if you take a second to think about it, you’ll spiral out. His lips are soft, and your noses slot perfectly beside each other - no painful bumps or clumsy collisions. Just a plain, normal kiss between two people who tolerate each other. That’s all.

When you part, his eyes drift open softly, his lashes - infuriatingly long as they are - flutter open, and his irises glaze over as if he’s under a spell. 

“That was-,”

“To shut you up,” you mutter, rolling your own eyes and forcing a scowl. “You were starting to give me a headache.”

He nods, that dumb look still in his eyes, and you feel your jaw clenching almost achingly at how it makes you feel.

“And I care very deeply about Gilmore’s happiness, so if you could cut it out with your yapping, I’d really appreciate it.”

“His name is Happy-,”

“I didn’t ask.”

When Luke is on the ice, most of the noise around him usually tunes itself out. Aside from the scrape of his skates, and the thudding of his heart, he can usually dial out the crowd, the chanting, the booing, the chirping, whatever it may be - all distractions to the end goal.

The one noise he never can ignore, though, is that of the goal horn, blearing throughout the arena, bouncing off of every corner until it hits him like a freight train, and he thinks they ring a little louder when it’s him that scores.

And with that horn, he can fine tune himself back into his surroundings. To shouts and cheers and applause, a sea of red and white jerseys jumping up, the Devils logo brandished across their chests, and his work being praised by the masses.

He somehow has the power to zero in on you, too. Arms raised, up a little in the stands, not too far that you’re just a speck, but not too close that you’d be a distraction.

A wide smile on your face, adoration in your eyes, and 43 on your arm. 

“Luke!” Your lips read, drowned out by the crowd, but he can still make it out, calling out to him like you’re the only other person in the room. “C’mon, Luke!” 

He smiles, as big as he ever has before, and points straight at you, dropping a wink like you could possibly catch it from out in the stands, and taking a bow.

“Hughes, you big lump, wake up!”

He groans as he’s shaken from his sleep, soft hands gripping at his arms and jolting him awake.

“What?” He doesn’t open his eyes, not yet, but he thinks it’s the weight of his furrowed eyebrows keeping them closed. 

“I need a favour,” you whisper.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“It’s 2am. I don’t do favours before 9.”

“C’mon, please?” He opens one eye to your pleading face, and then another, when he catches the teary reflection of the moonlight in your eyes.

“What is it?” He straightens up, rubbing the sleep from his eyelids and straining to make the rest of you out in the dark. 

“I need you to look at the window in my room, it’s whistling.”

“It’s just the storm, it gets like that when it’s windy,” he sighs, sinking back down a little into his pillows. He had thought you were in danger, or something.

“Can’t you fix it?” You plead, soft fingers still squeezing a little at his bicep, and his chest starts to feel heavy just from the tone of your voice - but it’s 2am. You had him up until midnight watching Wall-E, and he has a morning skate with his dad at 6am. 

“Do I look like a handyman?” He huffs, also a little aggrieved at the fact you had disrupted his rather nice dream. “Just go to sleep and ignore it.”

“I can’t.” You whine, “I can’t sleep if there’s a storm, they freak me out. And I can’t ignore it when it’s literally screaming at me through a broken window. And I’m on my own in there, it’s scary.”

Luke presses his palm firm into the socket of his closed eyes, trying to rub away the exhaustion that is urging every fibre of his being to fall straight back asleep. 

He can’t fix the window. It’s been like that for as long as him and his brothers have lived here - always the dud room left to whoever rocks up last to the house - and even if he could, he’s comfortable, and warm, and if his bare feet touch the cold, hardwood floor, he won’t be able to get himself to drift back off. 

He sighs, shuffling beneath the sheets before grasping them and flipping them over, making room beside him and muttering a grumpy, demanding, “Get in.”

“Luke,” you whine, and he can see your pout even through his closed eyes - lips plump and plush and if he gets even a glimpse he’s going to start thinking about kissing them, again. “You’re really not gonna help me?”

“I don’t offer my super comfy bed up to just anybody,” he reasons, making a little more room, “C’mon, you can barely hear the rain in here, it’s this or the couch downstairs.”

“Can’t you take the couch and I take your comfy bed?”

Luke opens one eye to look at you, eyes glimmering nervously in the crack of moonlight that sneaks through the curtains, lip tugged between your teeth, and relents, immediately. “Do you want me to take the couch?”

He could probably go sleep in your bed, if you’re really that bothered. He doesn’t do too well with noises while he sleeps, but he will if he has to - if that’s what makes you feel better. But you had just said it was scary being alone, and he’s counting on that to make a case for himself to keep his super comfy bed in his whistle-less bedroom.

“No,” you grumble, shoving at his arm, “Move over a little more.”

He relents, making as much room as he can for you to crawl into his bed before he flips the sheets back over on top of you, waiting for you to get comfortable before he melts back into place.

His legs extending into yours is purely accidental, but he doesn’t move them when you don’t flinch away, taking a second to adjust his positioning until he realises something. 

“You’re not wearing pants.”

“Neither are you.” You mumble back straight away, turning to face him, the bare skin of your calves brushing his as you move.

“It’s my bed,” he shrugs, his body on its side and his arm beneath his pillow, the space cramped now that you’re both squeezed in, and he’s trying to give you room, but he swears you have space on the other side. “I don’t wear pants to bed.”

“I don’t either.” 

“What if there’s a fire?”

“I think I’d rather succumb to the flames than let your brothers see me in my panties.”

He just hums, sleepily, trying not to overthink how you wouldn’t mind him seeing you in them. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore the press of your skin to his. 

“Do you want me to go put pants on, Luke, would that make you happy?”

“Don’t ask such a ridiculous question.” He huffs, sinking into his pillows and getting himself back into the right position to drop back off into a deep slumber. “Go to sleep.”

The soft patter of rain against the window lulls him, and he slowly feels you relax beside him, a few minutes of silence settling between the two of you - comforting and still - before you break it. 

“Luke?” You whisper, this time barely audible, like you don’t even want to be heard - and it’s that thought that has him ignoring you, sleep clutching his eyes closed anyway, so close to drifting back off. 

He feels your body shuffle against the mattress, still not enough to lure him back into full consciousness, but he’s aware enough to know your every move.

And he’d like to think he can predict them, imagining you shuffling to get comfy and hoping he’s too deep in his sleep to care if you nudge him while doing so.

But he could never predict the soft press of your lips to the corner of his mouth, and the gentle, almost non-existent muttering of a thank you against his skin. 

He only lets himself smile when he can feel you settle back into the bed, body laid beside him, bare legs brushing against his under the sheets.

You are so welcome, he thinks, that soft smile curving into something much deeper as he succumbs to sleep, body melting into an oozy, gooey, consuming mess beside your own. 

Luke should have known you’d get your own back on him for the whole avoiding thing.

The two of you had been sweet for a solid week, movie nights every other night, especially after you had shared his bed, you’d even made him lunch to come back to the day after. And he had started driving you to and from work, again.

And it’s the drive home from work one day that he sees something in you switch.

“It’s just gonna be a couple people, you’ll probably even know some of the girls from college.”

“It’s your house, Luke, you don’t have to explain your parties to me.” You shift your knees back to face the dash, where they had just been angled toward him, and you cross your arms against your chest. 

“We can pick back up on movie night tomorrow, I don’t have any training all day so we can do a marathon, if you want.”

“Ellie’s back today, so I don’t know.”

He frowns, tightening his fingers around the wheel as he watches you retreat all of a sudden, like you’re annoyed with him, or something.

And then as soon as he pulls up outside the house, you’re climbing out of the car before he even has a chance to come around and open the door for you, storming up the driveway and disappearing inside.

He tries not to let it get to him. Tries to lose himself in the festivities of the night - a house party thrown on whim at the discovery that most of the brothers’ mutual friends were in town. He was excited to see his boys from Michigan, Ethan, Dylan, Luca and Jacob, who all climb out of Ethan’s truck with a 6-pack in hand, and crowd around Luke, embracing him with brotherly pats on his back and ushering him into the kitchen to partake in their pre game ritual - a round of shots to line their stomachs. 

He still keeps a close eye on you once the party is underway. Watches you and Ellie, watches when Cole joins the two of you, and you laugh at whatever dumb jokes he’s trying to tell you. Watches your gaze flicker his way throughout the night, and leave just as quickly, and he has to shrug off the chirps of his friends when they notice, too.

He later watches you catch up with a couple of the girls coming from your sorority, and that’s around the time he loses you, lost in a round of beer pong that fills his bladder quicker than he could have anticipated.

He excuses himself up to his room, the music dying down the further upstairs he gets, and relieves himself with an inebriated bop of his head to whatever melody he can still hear blasting through the floorboards. 

He zips his jeans back up, and ambles over to the sink, washing his hands under the faucet until the sound of his door opening has his heart falling into the pit of his stomach. 

“Jesus,” he gasps, shutting off the water and turning to face where you’re stepping into the room and closing the door behind yourself. “You ever heard of knocking? What are you doing upstairs?”

“Was just checking you weren’t like jerking off in here or something,”

“What if I was, were you planning on watching?”

“Yeah, right,” you scoff, pulling a face to feign some sort of offence, but Luke watches as you fidget, tucking your hair behind your ears and shuffling on your feet. 

“Like you’ve been watching me all night,” he smirks, tossing the towel he had used to dry his hands back onto the hook and taking a step into your space, backing you against the counter, your shoes no longer shuffling along the floor. It feels like it’s been days now that you’ve been off with him, even though it’s been a mere few hours, but in those hours, he’s had a lot of time to think about your relationship, or lack thereof.  “Think I haven’t seen you? Can’t take those pretty eyes off of me, can you?”

He’d first noticed when you came downstairs with Ellie, earlier, pinned to her side and gossiping about something, no doubt catching up on her week away. You kept glancing his way, subtly at first, eyes darting over and shifting back just as quick to your best friend, faking interest and nodding along until you looked back over. Your efforts were more noticeable as the two of you moved around different corners of the room, interacting with different groups and still meeting eyes across the expanse of space between you and him. 

His heart jumped every time.

And then Victoria had arrived, just before he had been recruited to play beer pong - an old hookup from his college days. She had always been more of a friend than anything else, and Luke had no interest in reigniting whatever dampened spark they once had, she has a boyfriend now, anyway, but when her hand grazed his arm, and he looked over to see your glare zeroed in on the exact spot she was touching him, he thought he’d have a little fun with it.

Nothing too extreme, a few loud laughs, a little longer spent with her than initially anticipated, but she had been more than happy to regale him with stories about her new relationship, so pretending to pay attention didn’t seem like such a bad idea if it was going to make you do something.

He had a sneaking suspicion as to what had turned your mood, earlier, and he was about to have fun testing his theory - that you had been jealous at the mere mention of other girls being at the house.

He didn’t think it would culminate in you following him all the way up to his room, confronting him in his bathroom with nobody else around, but he’s hardly mad about it, now.

“Shut up,” you scowl, but your tone is weak, and Luke knows he’s got you. Chin tilted up to meet his eyes in defiance, gaze locked on his as he moves closer, and he’s thankful, for the first time tonight, that the boys had forced him to take those shots when the party started.

He wouldn’t have the courage to challenge you like this, otherwise - an inebriated cockiness taking over, puffing out his chest and filling him with the same sort of misplaced bravado he’s been convincing himself to muster all week.

“You already know how to make me.” He mutters, lowly, the proximity of your face to his giving his tone a breathiness that he hopes comes across more seductive than slurred. His mind is stuck on that kiss from the other night, when he had apparently irritated you so much that you felt that was your only option. 

You blink slow, eyes dropping to his lips, and before he can blink, himself, you close the distance.

This is different to before - incomparable to a kiss given just to hide your faces, one just to stop him from talking and another when you had thought he wasn’t conscious. 

This is heated, and intentional, and intense. 

Dainty fingers clutch at the front of his shirt, pinching slightly at his skin before taking a hold of the fabric, and there’s no possible way for you to play this off as something less.

Your lips are firm, slotted against his, and moving before he knows it - his tongue licking at the seams until they part, and you grant him access to the sweet taste of fruity liquor inside your mouth. 

Large hands take residence on your hips, sliding daringly backward until he’s gripping at your ass, long fingers stretching down to trace the hem of your skirt, denim thick but not immune to his absentminded efforts to chase the feeling of more. 

He’s expecting you to come to your senses, anticipating the grip of your hands to turn into a shove, and the sweetness of your taste to turn sour when you start to yell at him, fire in your eyes and venom on your tongue - but all he hears is you moaning into his mouth, all he feels is the press of your torso against his as your back arches into his touch, his fingertips grazing the top of your thigh as your skirt moves in his hold.

He’s greedy with the way he touches you after that, hands cupping, fingers kneading, nails scratching even just to leave his mark, and he barely notices yours slipping down, down, down until the cold press of your fingertips grazes his abdomen, stomach tensing at your touch. 

He groans a little, his movements halting as you manage to distract him from his ministrations, using the leverage you have on his body to press and push until your lips part - swollen and wet with his spit.

His heart thuds in his chest, thump thump thump echoing in his head as he watches you - holds his breath and stares at you with his own lips parted, the taste of you lingering in a way he doesn’t want to swallow too soon. 

He waits for your face to turn, for that hypnotised look in your eyes to turn into a glare, the distance between you bringing some much needed clarity - but the shift never comes.

Instead, you push yourself away from the counter, and he finds himself looking straight down as your hands make their way back to the hard ridges of his stomach.

“What are you doing?” He stutters as your fingers start to tickle lower.

“I wanna give you a hand.”

“Give me-,” he splutters, his own hand stopping yours in its tracks. “Am I dreaming right now? Is this a trick?”

“No,” you persist, pushing your hands despite his weak, half-hearted efforts to stop them. “You did me a favour, why can’t I do one back?” 

“Because that’s not-,” He can’t believe he’s trying to turn this down, the lump in his throat protesting the words that try to come up. You just kissed him. You just let him hike your skirt up and push you against the bathroom counter, let his fingers go so far beyond the realm of reality that he thinks he’s still lost in a dream - and he can’t figure out why he’s even questioning it, anymore. “There’s a pretty big difference between me letting you sleep in my bed and you jerking me off,”

“It’s only a big deal if you make it one, Luke.” You shrug, pausing at the waistband of his pants. Every nerve from his ribs to his toes tingles, the teasing touch of the tips of your fingers sparking something unshakable within him. “Do you want me to help you out or not?”

“Are you high or something?”

“No,” you chuckle, meeting his eyes again - sparkling and beautiful, a hidden vulnerability flashing across them at the insistence of his hesitant rejection. “Are you? You’re really gonna turn me down to just jack yourself off in here on your own?”

“Please don’t call it that.” He pleads, the last thing he needs right now is any sort of reminder of his brother. Not when you have your hands on him. Not when you could conceivably get on your knees right before him. Not when his deepest darkest fantasies could play out after so many years of pining after you. “No.”

“No?”

“No.” He lets out a panicked stammer. “Not no. I meant no, like no to your question, not no period.” 

“What?” You step back with a frustrated huff, taking your hands away, close enough still that he can reach out and grab them, holding them between the both of you.

“I want-,” Good lord, he wants a lot. He can still taste you on his tongue, still feel the press of your kiss on his own swollen lips, and his head is spinning so far out of control he doesn’t think he’ll be able to knock any sense back into it any time soon. “Are you sure?”

“Oh my God, Hughes, just pull your pants down and let’s get on with it.”

Luke pulls you in for one more kiss before he relinquishes all control, and hums and whines as you work his zipper down, the sound bouncing off the tiles and reverberating around his skull.

He doesn’t know how you can so easily go back to normal after. 

He can’t understand how you could just lift yourself back onto your feet when the two of you were finished, adjust your skirt around your hips, and leave him alone in the bathroom, panting, flushed and barely coherent, all evidence of your tryst swallowed down like the moans you had forced him to suppress - all except the faint bruises on the lowest part of his stomach that you had sucked into his skin, the ones he hopes grow darker as the days go on, the ones he feels pulsing as he rejoins his friends in the kitchen. 

He had once again promised not to utter a word to anyone - but it doesn’t stop the thousands of them that swirl around his brain after, the ones that linger there all through the night, resurface through the week, and etch themselves into the very core of his being. 

Thousands of words in hundreds of languages, mixing to form romanticised poems he might never understand.

All he does understand, is that he’s so far gone for you now, it isn’t even funny. 

Far gone is starting to seem like the understatement of the century.

Luke can’t get enough of being around you, and it’s so detached now from the two of you only ever hanging out to scheme about Jack and Ellie that he can’t even remember the last efforts you made to do anything about their relationship.

He’s now just focused on whatever relationship the two of you are building between yourselves.

Watching movies in his bed, comparing commentary on your favourites, asking for his opinion, and him asking for yours. And he likes how gentle you are with the things he loves. Movies are kind of his thing, and sharing them with someone else - sitting and watching them and waiting for some kind of reaction, good or bad - could be intimidating with anyone else. 

But you’re so attentive. You ask questions, you remember things, and you try to understand why he might love a film, and try to see things from his perspective, rather than stamping your own opinion over his and ruling anything out.

You’re open-minded, even though you pretend not to be. You’d given Happy Gilmore a second chance, even, and Luke never had you pegged as the second chance type.

You talk a lot more to him on your drives to and from work - not that you didn’t talk before, but this is different, entirely. You have actual discussions, around more than just what’s happening at the house, or what’s happening at work. 

The two of you talk about college, about your major, your plans for after school. You talk about hockey, about Jersey, about his friends and teammates back there, and the life he’s built away from the one you pretend you never knew. 

And the way he feels about you starts to consume him in ways he never thought possible. In ways that make him sort of understand where Jack had been coming from all those years, when he’d never shut up about his feelings for Ellie, and how he thought about her all the time, and wanted to be with her 24/7.

It’s what has him hovering around at the club after he and Quinn had played a round of golf, waiting outside for Quinn to give the keys back for their caddy, and spotting you chatting to Cara at the side door to the restaurant.

He waves as soon as you see him, and his heart jumps when you immediately excuse yourself to skip over, a bright smile on your face that he never thought could be directed his way.

“Hey!” You greet him, cheerily, ponytail swaying behind you as you come to a stop in front of him. 

“What time are you getting off?” He asks, foregoing any small talk and cutting straight to the chase. 

“I’m on the lunch shift today, so 3,” you pout, checking the watch on your wrist that he knows reads just past 1. “You don’t have to wait around though, I can catch a ride from somebody else,”

“No, I’ll take you home.” He assures you, “I need to go to the mall, I’ve got to get a present for a baby shower, I was hoping you’d help me.”

“I don’t know how much help I’d be, babies give me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Yeah, same,” he chuckles, “Maybe we could grab dinner or something, instead?”

“I was gonna pick up a dress for the party next week, so maybe we could do that first?”

“And then dinner?” He asks, a hopeful raise of his eyebrows that is spurred on by the way you’re biting back a smile.

“Yes, Luke, then dinner.” You chuckle, beaming up at him when his face breaks out into a full-blown grin.

“Sick,” he replies, “Yeah, cool,” he nods as he watches you step away, amusement gleaming in your eyes, “I’ll be out here at 3.”

“I’ll see you then.”

Luke watches as you make your way back to the side door of the restaurant, meeting your eye when you look back at him and relishing in the way he can catch the flush of your cheeks all the way from the fountain. 

He smiles to himself as he turns on one foot, light in his step and light in his head, nodding to the guy who is painting the railings leading up to the club foyer and swinging on his feet as he waits for his brother.

If he had a little less self-awareness, he thinks he could start leaping and swinging from the nearest lamp post like a scene straight out of Singing In The Rain.

He hasn’t felt elation like this in a long time.

He hadn’t uttered the word, exactly, but this is as close to a date as he might get, and his entire body is buzzing at the thought of it. 

“Are you coming?” Quinn calls out as he descends the steps at the front of the club, keys in one hand and a water bottle in the other.

“Uhh,” Luke drags out as he not-so-subtly looks back to where you and Cara are talking by the side door. “I think I’m gonna check out the gym.”

“You know it’s just a bunch of old guys on machines in there, right? Plus, I thought we were going in the morning with the rest of the guys?”

“Right,” he mutters absentmindedly, “I meant the pool.”

“You hate indoor pools.”

“The sauna?”

“Your little crush is getting out of hand, huh?” Quinn chuckles, elbowing at Luke’s side to get his attention back.

“It’s not a crush.” Luke huffs, lips pouted as he tears his eyes away from you with great effort. 

“I think we’re past the point of you denying it, Luke,” his older brother gestures to the wall Luke had been staring at when he came outside, “You’re literally watching paint dry to pass the time until she finishes work-,”

“No, I mean like I had a crush on her,” Luke sighs, “Before this summer, when I just thought she was pretty and hot and I could never pluck up the courage to do anything about it. It doesn’t feel like a crush anymore. Or maybe it does, I don’t know, I kinda feel like she’s crushing me, to be honest.”

He gives a nervous laugh when he says it, but it’s not enough to cover up the way he really feels - not when it comes to his big brother, who puts his keys back in his pocket just so he can spare a hand to reach out and pinch at Luke’s cheeks, teasing, “Lukey’s in love,” before he swats him away.

“Hardly,” he scoffs in denial, although he doesn’t really understand why he’s fighting the thought of it so hard.

It’s not exactly a preposterous idea. Love might be an overestimation - you haven’t exactly let him all the way in - but like seems like an understatement. Obsessed seems dramatic. Infatuated?

“I don’t know, I like spending time with her, like talking to her, is all,” he shrugs. He likes a lot more than that, but confiding in Quinn after how his last encounter with Jack about the whole thing had gone has his back up, a little. “I feel like she might like me too.”

It’s the first time he’s said it aloud to anyone else. He’s chirped you about it enough - taken note of the various shades of pink he can flush your cheeks when he does, darker and darker as the days go on - but he’s been abiding by your request of staying quiet about any of the specifics.

And it’s been hard. Oversharing is kind of his thing, usually, and keeping information from his brothers isn’t exactly something he loves doing, not when he’s been cursing Jack all summer for doing the same.

“Jack thinks she’s using me. He doesn’t like her.”

“Jack doesn’t like that he can’t beat her. Like he can fire a thousand shots at her and nothing goes in, he isn’t used to that.”

“Oh, but I am?” Luke scoffs, although he isn’t entirely sure if he is offended. “Are you calling me a loser?”

“No, Luke, I’m not calling you a loser.” He chuckles. “It’s like hockey, right, you and me, we chase people down. Don’t give in until we’re caught up and we can disarm someone. That isn’t Jack’s game. He’s usually the one being chased, you know? Usually the one ahead.”

“He’s not that bad on the other side of the blue line,” Luke scoffs, although he gets where his eldest brother is coming from. He hasn’t really thought about it in that context - that you and Jack don’t get along because you’re alike - but it makes sense now that he thinks about it.

“He’s not like you, though. You get some weird thrill out of going after people you have no business going after, you have since you were younger, taking down kids 4 or 5 years older than you and twice the size for fun. Makes sense you’d want someone so far out of your league.”

Luke looks back over to where you’re still stood with Cara, and just manages to catch your eye before you look away, pretending he hadn’t caught you. The smile erupts slowly onto his features, close-lipped and soft, but he feels the joy of it all throughout his body. 

“I think I’m wearing her down.”

Stolen glances across whatever room the two of you happen to be in, smiles that you’ve only ever sent his way, feather-light but purposeful kisses on the corner of his mouth when you think he’s asleep, seeking him out in his bathroom after seeing him with someone else - yeah, he’s getting there.

“Good for you, Luke,” Quinn chuckles, patting his brother on the back, “As long as you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

He does. At least he thinks so. 

You feel weird.

It’s the only word you can think to describe the mood you’ve been in for the past week.

Well, weird and off.

You can’t quite put your finger on it, either, but it’s throwing you off your game. 

There had been a second the other day where you had thought you might have gotten to the bottom of things - when you’d come inside from sunbathing with Ellie and had found Luke in his room, packing a bag for his trip to Vegas for some award ceremony he and Quinn were nominated for. 

Clarity had hit you like a brick to the head, panic swirling in your chest at the thought of him being gone for a whole week, but then he’d looked up from where he was perched on the ground, had given you a lopsided grin, and had ushered you over to help - and the speed in which you had started to feel normal again quickly diminished any thoughts of Luke being the cause of your weirdness.

But it has been hard to shake, even as unidentifiable as it may be, and the longer you feel this way, the worse it gets, bubbling up like anxiety that keeps your jaw tight, and your lips pressed together.

It culminates the night of the boys’ party - a celebration of Quinn and Luke’s nominations, and a good luck send-off of sorts that Jack had wanted to throw before they left. 

You had started the night off fine - kind of attached at Luke’s hip, him muttering teasing remarks into your ear about you clinging to him ‘cause you’re gonna miss him when he’s gone, and catching up with a couple of the guys from Michigan. You might have even been having fun at one point, smiling into the red cup Luke had placed in your hand at the beginning of the night that you still hadn’t drained, as you watched him shoot pool and he kept smirking up at you as he leant over the table.

You shouldn’t be feeling anxious when he looks at you like that, but God, do you feel something.

And then your phone starts to buzz in your pocket, and assuming it’s Ellie, who, once again, is away with her family - this time in Europe for a couple of weeks - you pull it out.

But it isn’t Ellie.

It’s your dad.

And the heart that had been thudding in your chest at the mere capture of Luke’s attention just moments ago, is now dropping out of your ass.

It isn’t a call, thank God - you don’t think you could handle that, feeling the way you currently feel - but an email.

Your dad hasn’t called in a while. He rarely texts, either.

This is how it is, now. Emails and Facebook posts you happen to come across, like you’re some distant co-worker or an old family friend.

Not his only daughter. Not the kid he abandoned in search of a better life.

When you open it up, there’s no subject, no body either to the email, just an attachment. 

A family photo, him, his new wife, and their two boys, stood in front of the Eiffel Tower, edited into a postcard that reads, Wish You Were Here!

And resentment bubbles within you.

I could have been, if you’d have invited me.

You shove your phone back into your pocket and do a quick glance around the room to check if anyone might have noticed the tears welling in your eyes, but you’re safe. 

Luke’s attention is on the table, the rest of the boys’ attention is on him, and you slip away before he has the chance to meet your eye - to see straight through you in the way only he knows how, and make your way to the kitchen in the search of something stronger.

When you push your way through the door, whatever weird feeling that has been consuming you for the past week culminates into something bigger.

Something darker, and heavier, and angrier, like a tornado of emotions tearing through your very core, picking up every last bit of restraint on it’s way as your eyes narrow onto it’s next target.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Jack pulls back in a daze from the blonde who’s face he was just suctioned to, brows furrowed as his intoxicated gaze zeroes in on you.

He slurs out your name, glaring like he’s trying to get his eyes to focus before they roll dramatically, and he runs a hand through his messy hair.

“Jesus, what do you want?”

“Maybe for you to have some respect, or is that a little too much to ask?”

“Could you give us a minute?” He asks the girl in front of him, who scowls at you before walking off, shouldering past you to exit the kitchen as you stare Jack down. “Why are you being such a psycho?”

“I’m sick of you messing Ellie around, Hughes, I’m not gonna just stand around and let you play with her heart like she means nothing to you anymore.”

“She’s not even here,” he scoffs, “She won’t find out unless you tell her.”

“And you think I won’t? She’s my friend, Jack, we tell each other everything.”

“Yeah? She tell you how she’s into Cole?”

“No. Because she isn’t.” You’d cleared that up with her a while ago, asking her straight up if something was going on - and she had said no. She wouldn’t lie to you.

“Then why do I keep getting told that she is? Why is everyone seeing them out together all the time? Why is she texting him tonight and not me?”

“Maybe ‘cause you’re making it your mission to stick your tongue down other girls throats all the time. This entire summer, you’ve done nothing but avoid your feelings so much that maybe she thinks you’re not into her. Maybe you need to pull your head out of your ass and talk to her like a grown fucking adult and stop playing stupid games with her heart.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“And you should be fucking listening. If you keep messing her around, you’ll lose her for good,” you threaten, with a jab of a pointed finger into his chest.

Jack looks flushed, cheeks pink, lips puffy, eyes red-rimmed and hair a mess as he looks back at you - and it’s like he’s functioning in slow motion, you can practically see the cogs turning in his inebriated brain as he comes up with some way to jab back, some way to make you hurt the way the thought of Ellie leaving does to him, just to avoid admitting you’re right.

“What, like how you keep messing my brother around?” 

“Excuse me?” You scoff, stepping back when he jabs a finger at you.

“You heard me,” he snarls, “Leading him on like some lovesick puppy while you couldn’t care less about him.”

“Is that what he said?”

“No, funnily enough he won’t even talk to me about you,” Jack’s glare sends a shiver down your spine, one that overrides the buzz of pride at him following your instruction - you know this level of animosity comes from the swirling of intoxication and frustration, he doesn’t actually hate you, the two of you have gotten on somewhat in the past couple of weeks, despite him making out otherwise, but this is different. This makes you feel small, like a speck of something fragile, ready to be stomped and crushed under his irate foot. And it’s not the kind of small you usually like. The kind of small where you compare yourself to the bigger picture. No, this hurts. Aches. Itches in a way that you need to relieve, immediately. “But I bet that’s your doing, because that’s how toxic you are, making it so he can’t even confide in his brother about his feelings. Feelings that you just want to stampede all over like they’re nothing. Break his heart like it’s some kind of sport.”

That isn’t true. 

That’s not who you are.

That’s not what you’re doing, not what you want.

You know how it feels to have someone break your heart like that, you’d never do that to Luke.

“Go fuck yourself, Jack.” Is all you can mutter out in defence of yourself before you’re shouldering past him, barging through the uninterested crowd and stomping out of the kitchen.

You think it’s the need to feel bigger that has you poking your head into every room in search of him - the person who had ingrained the notion of needing to feel bigger to feel better to your memory - only able to find comfort in a mop of messy curls that sits on top of a head higher than the rest. It’s what has you grasping at his hand when you do find him outside on the deck, dragging him wordlessly - and thankfully enough, without protest - back through the rest of his house, and to his room before you push him down onto the bed, instructing him to move up and sit against the headboard before you straddle his lap.

You kiss away his questions, fingers clumsily working at the buttons of his shirt until you can tear it off, swallowing down his confusion into your own mouth as he shrinks into your advances.

When you start to grind down into him is when he gains back some level of consciousness, large hands grasping at your waist and pushing until your lips part with a loud smack. And you’re both breathless, panting against each others mouths as he tries to figure you out, looking up at you with a furrowed brow and swollen lips.

“What’s going on?” He asks, eyes darting around you in concern.

Concern that makes you feel larger than life - makes your chest expand and your heart swell and your lungs fill with so much air that you feel like you might float away. To have someone look at you like that, care about you like that, want you for more than what bare bones you’re offering to him, what everyone else wants you for, it makes you feel gigantic.

Like a hot air balloon, carried to far away lands by the flames of his affections.

And if they shut off, you’ll drop into oblivion. Breaking suddenly from the airy mechanics that keep you afloat, plunging at great speeds until you inevitably hit the earth with an almighty, painful splat.

You never did like falling.

“I want you.”

His face scrunches a little as he thinks - thinks a little too hard for someone who’s been pursuing you all summer - and before he can question it, you reach for the hem of your top, pulling it off until you’re left in just your lacy bra, your skirt riding up as your legs fall to either side of his hips.

It’s the most you’ve ever given him aside from being around him in your bikini and the one time you had changed and he hadn’t turned around quick enough, and before you can feel self conscious about it, you feel his eyes rake down the long expanse of your bare skin.

And the way he looks at you now makes you feel even bigger - a hunger in his eyes that tells you he could spend the rest of his time on earth working his way through every inch of you, savouring whatever parts of you that you’ll let him get a taste of, and he’ll never let you go.

“Please?” You’re already technically on your knees, what harm can begging do if it just makes him do something?

You don’t want to talk about it like you know he’s about to ask, don’t want to have to explain why you sought him out, why, for once, you didn’t care that people might see the two of you holding hands, you marching him to his bedroom and him following like exactly what Jack had said - a lovesick puppy.

You just want him. Want to feel bigger. Want to feel wanted. 

Want to give in to the part of you that has been dying to fold to him all summer, to let him close that gap, to break down the barriers you’ve been desperately guarding.

He cranes his neck to press a sweet kiss to your lips - one lacking the intensity from before, but not the adoration he always manages to pack in there - the kind that twists at your gut until you can’t take it anymore.

“Please,” you whisper against his lips, kissing him again. “Give me something to hold onto when you’re gone.”

You figure if you use his own words against him - words uttered teasingly, but truthfully, earlier - he’ll give in.

The thought of losing this, of him leaving and finding something better, of distance being wedged between you for the first time all summer and finally giving him clarity, making him see you for what everyone else thinks you are.

Maybe if you give him what he really wants he’ll hold on a little longer.

It’s not like you don’t want it, too.

“You only had the one drink?” He asks, responding with fervour, the pressure of his kiss starting to build. “The one I got you?”

“Didn’t even finish it,” you kiss him again, “Stone cold sober,” and again, fingers trailing between you to work at the button on his jeans, “Want you now.”

“Yeah,” he lifts his hips and helps you pull his pants down, a clumsy shuffle to temporarily part while he wriggles them off, “Want you, too.” He mutters before leaning in to kiss at the corner of your mouth, “Wanted you for so long.”

There’s a voice inside that itches to tell him, I know, but it’s quickly shut up by another - a voice that’s louder, a voice you can’t ignore anymore when it comes to Luke.

A voice that tells you, you know nothing.

>PART THREE<

[lieutenantfloyd]

Top Gun: Maverick Fic Recs

Hey y'all! Here are 21 of my favorite TGM fanfics of all genres and ships, listed in no particular order.

Some of these fics are 18+ so read at your own risk. None of these works are mine and all credit goes to the amazing authors! <3

X READER

Safe Zone by @sunlightmurdock — (Series // Rooster and Hangman x reader)

A team of elite naval aviators holding down the fort at the North Island Air Base while they wait for reinforcements after a virus sweeps the continental U.S. - only, it’s been three months and no one has shown up.

Hold My Hand by @labyrinth-runner — (Series // Cyclone x Reader)

Jag! Reader is assigned to defend a pilot, finding the job to be more complicated than she thought.

Rooster’s Flight or a Manual for the Marooned by DontLetThemTakeYouAlive (Series // Rooster x Reader/OC)

"Rooster's Flight: A Manual for the Marooned" follows Madeline, a pastry chef escaping scandal in Amsterdam, and Bradley, a lost naval aviator stationed in Japan. Fate brings them to sunny San Diego, where their friendship blossoms amid career challenges and a clashing of characters. Madeline's culinary journey intertwines with Bradley's self-discovery, navigating love and loss.

Resilience, self-discovery, and the unpredictable paths of career and matters of the heart shape their narrative in this tale of second chances and unlikely connections.

Fine Piece by @dragon-kazansky (Series // Cyclone x Reader)

You have it bad for Vice Admiral Simpson. But to prove you’re fit for the job; you need to put that aside and focus on the flying.

Someone Special by @fanboygarcia (Oneshot // Cyclone x Reader)

What happens when the Dagger Squad catches on to the fact that known grump turned lovesick fool Admiral Simpson has someone special in his life?

Invisible String by @halfway-happyyy (Oneshot // Rooster x Reader)

the one where rooster’s about to leave on a mission he doesn’t know if he’ll be back from, and he wants you in every way imaginable. as always, soft feelings ensue! 

Do you wanna make somethin’ of it by @theharddeck (Oneshot // Rooster x Reader)

turns out, our favorite WSO has a side hustle, as quinn's favorite cowboy.

@bullet-prooflove's entire TGM masterlist

Everything she writes is outstanding, but the Beau x Ally fics (The First Time Series, The General Series, Deployment!Series, and Syria!Series) are something I think about literally everyday.

i don’t know, blame the air force? by @gretagerwigsmuse (Oneshot // Rooster x Reader)

in which lieutenant commander bradshaw feels his girlfriend’s wrath after she gets her year end bonus and uncle sam takes a pretty penny out of it

There Are Rules by @tongue-like-a-razor (Series // Maverick x Reader)

Your risky flying seriously pisses off your instructor at Top Gun and you're about to find out why.

Through the Hourglass by @bratshaws (Series // Rooster x OC)

Rooster x Plus Size OC!

Happy Birthday, Mr. President by @rhettabbotts (Oneshot // Bob x Reader)

after a hard week, the last thing bob wanted to do was attend his birthday party. so instead, he plays out one of his biggest fantasies with you.

Whoever's in Lemoore by @cherrycola27 (Oneshot // Bob x Reader)

A fic based on the Reba McEntire song "Whoever's in New England"

Angels Don't Always Have Wings by @bradshawssugarbaby (Series // Rooster x Reader)

a series of oneshots revolving around baseball player!Bradley Bradshaw x reader (nicknamed Angel)

Do I? by @bradshawssugarbaby (Oneshot // Cyclone x Reader)

Inspired by Do I? by Luke Bryan. (this fic was so good I had to go take a walk after reading it for the first time)

Road to Perdition by @sailor-aviator (Series // Hangman x Reader)

The Great Depression wasn't called a depression for nothing. Jobs were scarce, and the price of food and other necessities were rising higher and higher with each passing day. What little money you were able to make went straight to the bank and out of reach from your booze-swilling lech of a brother. It's on one such run that you come face to face with members of the infamous Dagger Gang; a group of, admittedly handsome, men who steal from the banks to hand it back out to the poor. You want nothing to do with them, but that blond-headed devil might just have something to say to the contrary. (1930s!Mobster!AU)

His Best Friend's Wedding by @ereardon (Series // Rooster x Reader)

Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw has been your best friend for a decade. He’s also your fiancé’s best man. So when he shows up at your hotel room the night before your wedding, it’s just because he’s your friend, right? 

OTHER SHIPS

Mistaken Identity by @ladylanera — (TGM x Mission: Impossible crossover)

What should be a joyous homecoming quickly unravels after it's discovered a nefarious, unknown group has put a hit out on Captain Mitchell, mistaking the Navy captain for being a covert IMF operative by the name of Ethan Hunt who has an uncanny likeness to the captain for some reason. Enter a twisty web of lies that threaten the very existence of the family as we know it.

**Fic contains spoilers for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One**

Flower Power by ReformedTsundere — (Icemav)

Flowers, Pete reminds himself, slamming the last of the books closed, are the worst.

New Chat Created: North Island Daggers by Comin2U — (gen fic)

Harvard: why Whatsapp and not just a basic text message? Hangman: because one of us has an android and ruins the ability to message with just internet. Coyote: Screw you too hangman. ________________________________ In which 12 daggers, the best of the best of naval aviators, are all a bunch of kids and thrown in a group chat.

come fly with me (let's fly, let's fly away) by GatheringBlue — (TGM x 9-1-1 Crossover)

It's a common misconception that Buck trained to be a Navy SEAL. For as long as he could remember, flying had been his dream. Most little kids wanted to be a firefighter or an astronaut, but Buck had always wanted to be a pilot. He wanted to fly far, far away from home, where his parents’ comments that might as well have been slaps for how badly they stung couldn’t get to him. Flying was his way out. His escape. If he was thousands of feet up in the sky, way up with the clouds, then his parents couldn’t touch him. No one could. When Buck got pulled from the reserves just after the lawsuit, it seemed like perfect timing. There was nothing left for him in LA. Not anymore. So, it looked like Buck was heading back to Top Gun.

[ajvocals43]

Country Girl (Shake it for me)

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 3378

Warnings: Rushed writing (not edited), body image issues, cheesy cliches

Summary: Y/n is in love with Dean, but what happens when she decides to show him what he's missing out on?

A/N: I couldn't let Dean's birthday go by without writing a fic for him. This was done really quickly and hasn't been edited but I've had this idea for a while. I will also say, I didn't add it but if you play Whole Lotta Woman by Kelly Clarkson during the beginning of the bar scene, it hits. That, along with Country Girl by Luke Bryan are what this was based off of.

Hot. That was my only thought as I stepped out of the backseat of the dark chevy impala. I stared up at the western themed motel in the small town in the middle of seemingly nowhere. Dean was freaking out, as per usual when it came to the “Wild West”, and what better place to be for all that than Texas. It’d been a long time since I’d been to the lone star state; not since I was a teenager trading months between my parents. It hadn’t seemed as hot then. Right now, I felt like I was standing on the surface of the sun in my dress pants and blouse that I’d worn to interview families while Dean and Sam went to the Morgue. I really needed some shorts. Really, I needed the confidence to wear some shorts. 

“Is anyone else sweating balls out here?” I asked the brothers who were grabbing their things out of the trunk to head into the room. My question fell on deaf ears as they both continued their conversation inside the air conditioning. They were probably both tired of my complaining since it hasn't stopped since we hit the dry heat earlier this afternoon. I sighed, grabbing my bag, shutting Baby’s trunk and heading into the room. Sometimes we split into 2 rooms but most times there were rooms that had 3 beds, or 2 beds and a cot that we would rotate through each town. This would have been my turn to have a cot but luckily, there were 3 beds lined up against the far wall. I sighed as the air conditioning kicked on and I felt the vent above me start to blow cold air into the room. 

“Better, princess?” Dean called from where he stood at the thermostat on the wall opposite me. I nodded, feeling the cold air chill my skin from the hot summer sun outside, walking over to my bed on the left side of the room. 

“Didn't you grow up in Texas, Y/n?” Sam asked from where he sat on his laptop. “Shouldn't you be used to the heat?” 

“I alternated months. And I never came in August because no sane person comes to Texas in August, Dean!” I called over my shoulder, rifling through my clothes for something that wasn't coated in sweat. 

I heard Dean chuckling behind me as he moved about the room. “Sorry, I don't choose where monsters kill people.” 

“Please, you're just happy you get to wear a cowboy hat again.” I shot back.

“You're damn right I am!” Dean said with a smirk. “And don't forget the boots, either, sweetheart.” 

I rolled my eyes as I went to get out my laptop, unable to stop the smile that crept onto my face. Sam was right, I'd spent a lot of time in Texas growing up and I'd loved it. Times had changed though and while there were pieces I'd always love and miss, it wasn't home anymore.  But I did have to admit, seeing Dean’s excitement made me feel something that I hadn't felt in a long time. It was rare to see him like this and for a second, I just let myself enjoy that, not knowing the next time I would be able to see it. 

Yeah ok, so I'm one of the dumb girls who fell for Dean Winchester. Sue me. I'm not going to go through the whole story of how the brothers saved my life and we became besties but then I started to grow feelings for the elder brother through the endless flirty banter. It's not necessary and I don't want to waste time on it. But it didn't change the facts. I was in love with him. And he didn't even notice me. 

Could I be more of a cliche? 

 Apparently, yes. 

We had a lot of work to do, so we got to putting the stories together and starting on the research for the night. And it took forever, especially considering how tired we all were from the drive into town. We decided to have dinner and call it an early night. 

 We’d spent a couple hours researching and coming up with a plan before Dean announced that he was bored out of his mind and going out. Sam looked at me, we both knew I was going with him. 

It wasn't that I didn't enjoy going out with Dean, I relished and feared the alone time in equal measure. Because on one hand, having time alone with Dean usually meant I got to see parts of him that I don't think he lets others see very often. And that just made me all the more hopeless because it felt like what he told me in these moments connected us on an even deeper level and that I knew him better than any one night stand or past girlfriend ever could. Because I knew the now Dean. The one that had been through hell, purgatory and so much more. I could understand him because I knew he wasn't the same 26 year old hunter that those girls had thought they could fix. I was under no delusions of being able to fix Dean Winchester. He was a fully grown adult and I was not his mother. But I think what kept my unreasonable hope of ever being with him going was that I accepted him. Bad habits, snap decision making, self-sacrificing traits and all. Because he was Dean. And all those broken parts that left scars and tore apart past relationships made him the most caring, courageous and loving person I'd ever known. 

On the other hand though, going out alone with Dean sometimes meant having to deal with broody moods, childish behavior and… picking up girls. Girls who looked nothing like me. I wasn't ashamed of my size…for the most part. I could appreciate my curves most days, but there were times where I struggled not looking like the bartenders or waitresses at the establishments we stopped at. The kinds of girls Dean picked up. He rarely ever went home with girls now, but it still happened. And it was not a fun time for me to sit in the backseat so he could drop me off at the hotel with Sam like I was a kid. Or even worse, when I refused to ride and had to walk or wait for an Uber to come pick me up. Because then, Dean wouldn't leave until someone safe showed up to come get me, and while I appreciated the thought, I did not appreciate the glares from the girls or the feeling like I was a child who couldn't take care of herself. 

Regardless, because we were friends, I wanted to look out for him. I knew Sam got some anxiety when Dean would just up and leave sometimes because you never know what could be lurking in the shadows, especially in our line of work. Or at least that's what he told me. I had the stinking suspicion he just wanted me out of the room because he knew about my feelings for Dean and didn't want to monitor my moping while he was gone. Which was understandable. 

 Dean and I got into our respective sides of the car as usual. Sam normally rode up front in the passenger’s seat, but would sometimes sacrifice the leg room for me when I got car sick. This wasn’t new by any means and yet, my body’s reactions were as if this was the first time we’d been this close together. I was hyperaware of his smell, the sounds of the leather moving and adjusting underneath us, the feel of the engine under me. I rustled through his box of cassettes on the floor before landing on Bob Seger. Dean gave me a look as I switched out the Led Zeppelin that had been in earlier. I shrugged and turned up the volume as the opening notes of Rock ‘N’ Roll Never Forgets came through the speakers. Dean was still giving me a weird look so I ignored him and started singing, waiting to enjoy the feel of the rushing air cooling down the car as we pulled out onto the road. 

Surprisingly, we didn't go to a bar though. Dean pulled Baby into a parking spot in front of a western shop that couldn't have been more than a mile away from the motel. What were we doing here? With the lack of movement on my part, Dean rounded the car and opened my door for me.

 “Come on, Princess. Let's get some gear.” I just stared at him. Why were we here? “You comin?” He asked when I just stared at him in shock. 

“Uh… y-yeah.” I stuttered. I truly didn't expect this from him. I scrambled to get out of the car and follow Dean who had turned with a smile and begun to walk into the store. 

As I entered the store, I got over my shock and figured he probably wanted a hat. Or boots based on the extensive collection that lined 3 of the 4 walls in the store. I followed him for a little before I ventured off to find shorts. The sweating was starting to get uncomfortable and I couldn't last much longer in jeans and dark shirts. I wandered through the racks, attempting to find clothes in my size, of which there weren't as many as I would like. But I did find some. A few lighter material tops and shorts that seemed like they’d fit. But I got distracted (I know, terrible for a hunter) and missed Dean sneaking up behind me. 

“What about these?” I turned to find Dean with a pair of what could barely be considered shorts. And sure they were cute with all their jewels and the belt that was looped through them, but they would no doubt look like underwear on me. 

“You’re funny.” I said as I turned back to what I was looking at. 

“I do.” he agreed, “But what's wrong with these?” 

“Theyre short.” I scoffed. 

“Isnt that the point of shorts?” he asked, seemingly confused. He wasn't wrong. And on good days, they were something I might wear. 

“I see your point. I guess” I said hesitantly. 

“Great! Then let's grab some boots…” he turned and eyed a scrap of fabric that was supposed to be a shirt “and this” he picked it up “and get out of here.” I laughed and followed obediently. 

We picked up some boots because we needed to be “authentic” for some reason and left for the motel. When we got back to the room, Sam was still in the same place we’d left him. “I’d assumed you guys went to get food or something.” He said before turning his computer towards us. “But get this. I think I found what we’re looking for.” 

The rest of the hunt went pretty smoothly. A simple salt and burn, and only Sam got mildly injured from being thrown into a wall. So we decided to celebrate. Well…Dean did. I figured this time I would stay back. 

“Why didn't you go with?” Sam asked from his place at the table. 

“Didn't feel like it.” I shrugged, not looking up from my book. 

“Uh huh.” Sam said. He paused for a while before saying “Y’know, he's not going to know how you feel unless you show him.” 

“Show? Not tell?” 

“Well we all know both of you are terrible at expressing your feelings. So maybe showing would be easier.” At this, he shut his computer and turned to look at me. 

I put my book down. “I love your confidence in me Sam, but you see as clearly as I do what his type is.” I said, trying not to let my sadness show. 

“Maybe…” he drew out, “But I also know my brother.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked. 

“It means, you should go to the bar.” Sam said, as if it were that simple. Maybe it was for other girls. The ones who didn't have the history we did. 

“Im scared Sam.” I finally confessed. 

“And?” he asked. “I don't remember you ever letting a man control your life.”  

He was right. I was a total cliche but… to be honest, I loved making people realize they'd underestimated me. The bar wasn't far, close enough to walk even though Dean had taken the car. Sam’s words got me thinking. And while I was terrified of being rejected by him, I felt like I owed it to myself to have a good time, regardless of what or who Dean was doing. 

So it was time to get off my ass and stop moping. I went over to my duffel bag in the corner of the room and found the shorts and top Dean had picked out earlier that week. What better way than to make a man regret than to throw his own choices back at him. I jumped into the shower and pulled on the clothes. It was a lot more skin than I usually showed but… it'd do the trick. The shorts did wonders for my ass and the top the same for my boobs. And while I wasn't fond of my thighs spilling out the bottom with the highest inseam of a short I'd ever had, it was a pretty sexy look. As a hunter, I never wore makeup so I did my hair and was about ready to leave, when at the last minute, I changed my regular thick boots for the cowboy boots we’d gotten earlier that week. It'd been a while since I'd rocked the denim and boots look, I kind of missed it if I was honest. 

And with that, I bade Sam goodbye and walked out the door. When I walked in, it was actually pretty crowded. It must've been a dancing night because when I looked to my right, there were at least 30 people on the floor line dancing. Maybe I'd head over there. But then I spotted Dean at the bar and I made my way over to him, swaying my hips just a little so as to draw a bit of attention from those around me. Maybe they’d see what he was missing. I stopped in front of him and he seemed stunned. Probably surprised that I came out tonight when I'd been adamant about staying in the motel earlier. But then, of course, the bartender returned and started flirting with Dean.

Refusing to let that break my mood, I turned and smiled at someone on the other end of the bar. He smiled back and waved. Just then, the music changed, and I heard the beginning guitar of Luke Bryan’s Country Girl start blasting from the stage. It was one of the few newer line dances I’d kept up with. I'd gone dancing years ago with a friend of mine and she taught me it so I at least knew one modern dance. I jumped up and strutted over to the floor, my steps falling to the beat of the song. 

And wow. In my constant fight against the supernatural, I sometimes forgot how much fun simple things like dancing could be. I lost myself in the moves, getting more into it until I was in the middle of the floor, smiling and laughing with those around me. Throughout the song, I let my worries fade away and let myself embody the spirit of the lyrics. Until it came to an end. I turned around to leave and found Dean had moved from the bar to one of the smaller standing tables that rounded the dancefloor. I made my way over to him. 

“I almost forgot how much fun those are.” I panted, coming off the dance floor. 

“Yeah, I bet.” Dean answered as he slid a glass of ice water to me across the small table top. “You were a natural out there though.” 

I took a sip and let the cool water slide down my throat. “That? It's really just about getting the repetition.” 

“Nah, I'll leave that to the professionals,” he held his bottle of beer up in a salute to me. “I'm just fine with my place watching.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, looking back to the dance floor. “Who were you watching? The blonde? The redhead?” I tried for nonchalance. 

“You.” I heard him say behind me. It took a second for the word to register. 

I turned around, confused. “What?” 

“I'm always watching you. You know that.” 

Right. I really needed to stop getting my hopes up about things that were not real. “Dean, I appreciate that, but I promise, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself-”

“It's not like that and you know it.” 

“Dean, I-”  I started. 

“Baby, don't make me spell it out for you; you know I want you.” He deadpaned. 

My jaw dropped. There was no way I had just heard that right. “Huh?”

He looked at me silently, waiting for me to wrap my brain around what he was saying, like it wasn't the last thing I had expected to hear come out of his mouth. 

“You…want me?” I asked finally. “Like me, Y/n, me?”

Dean chuckled slightly. “So the teasing wasn't intentional. 

“Teasing?” I asked, bewildered. “What teasing?” 

“The dancing, the flirting, the tight clothes-” 

“Tight clothes?” I blurted. 

“Not like that.” he started. I hadn't realized the sexist connotation to those words as he’d said them. “Sweetheart, you have to have realized what you do to me when you wear those jeans, or leggins, or those deep v tops.” 

“That's because they don't make a lot of clothes that fit bodies like mine.” 

“Really?” his voice dropped. “Cause I'm pretty sure that every stitch of clothes you're wearing, right down to those boots were made specifically to fit every inch of your body perfectly.” He grabbed onto my belt buckle and pulled me, harshly against him. “And to drive me right out of my damn mind.” 

Well fuck me. 

Literally. Please. 

My eyes dropped to his lips. Inches from mine now, I could feel his body heat radiating through our clothes. He leaned down, his right hand moved from my belt up my back and into my hair, grabbing a fist full of curls and pulling gently, drawing my eyes up to his. I licked my suddenly dry lips as I watched him smirk before leaning in slowly, giving me plenty of time to back out. Fat chance of that happening. I raised up on my toes and met him halfway, sealing our lips together in the single hottest kiss I'd ever had. I'd laughed at the amount of girls that gushed over his abilities but holy hell. They were right. I held onto him as we kissed every last breath out of our lungs, only pulling away when it started to hurt. I felt his smile against my own as we caught our breath.  

This was crazy. Absolutely insane. And incredible. “Damn woman.” Dean said, his breaths matching mine. “You drive me crazy.” 

“I know the feeling.” 

“Yeah?” he asked with a smirk. 

“Yeah.” I said dreamily. But my smile sobered as I remembered the bartender. “But what about-” 

“What about what Y/n?” he asked. 

“The bartender?” I asked. He looked at me blankly. “Shes cute.” 

“And?” he asked. “Princess, have you seen yourself?” He made a show of looking me over. “You’d drive any man out of his mind. I'm just lucky you chose to do it to me.” 

“Who said this was for you?” 

His face turned damn near murderous for a moment. “Let them try it and see what happens.” With that, his hand slid down to wrap around my waist and pull me impossibly tighter to him. There would be no doubt to anyone that we were together. “You’re stuck with me now sweetheart.” 

“Sweetheart?” I asked, playfully. “Not ‘princess’?” since that seemed to be his favorite name for me as of late. 

“You like that, huh?” he asked gruffly. “Well…you're mine, princess.” And with that, he leaned down to kiss me again. 

Masterlist 

[jocelynscrazyideas]

dancing in the dark | Jack Hughes x Reader

Inspired by the song dancing in the dark by rhianna

~ memories ~

Summary: jhughes and y/n spend time together at the Michigan home when the rain cuts the power out.

Warnings: language, rain, power outages, drunk, strictly only kisses!

a/n: I met this guy, he def doesn’t like me, but I’m so delulu to the point I think I can change his mind.

💬: smut/nico of Luca Fantilli fic? Maybe an F1 blurb?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Jacks shoulder has finally healed. I’ve been having to take care of him for the last week. Quinn and Luke have been out at concerts and Jack and I have been tagging along- but from a walking distance.

The two have been running around like little toddlers, often Jack has chosen to sit around or walk behind them and admire the fun.

The brothers had attended the Zach Bryan concert a few nights ago but I chose to stay home. I love ZB, but hearing people scream at 12:30 am, isn’t my thing.

Rain storms are common in Michigan, and since summer is finally here rain is expected. With my extra free time taht isn’t taken up from jack’s shoulder I have been cleaning.

Deep cleaning is my new favorite hobby. My room is spotless, and Jack’s room is de-cluttered. I’ve known the Hughes since Quinn and I were seven. I’m four days older than Quinn. I use rank everytime the brothers get in arguments, I use my wisdom of a few days to break up the fights they could get into.

~ memory pt.1 ~

About 15 years ago we were at the Toronto home during the summer. I flew up to Canada to spend time with the Hughes, I brought presents for them- being I missed Christmas and all of their birthdays. “Look at the water guns!” Luke screams at me. I drop the water guns and hug Luke.

Luke’s five year old body wraps around me and I find myself laughing. Quinn and I are matching at the age of nine, and Jack was around seven.

Jack picked up a big box that I filled with gift cards, a new mini stick, and a huge water blaster. He opened the box enough to see all of the prizes and he shuts it and sets it down. He hugs my shoulders as he towers over Luke’s body from under me.

Quinn takes me from behind, I remember feeling the warmth of the three boys. I’ve really known them forever, my mom is bestfriends with Ellen, so I’ve just naturally been born into the family.

I felt safe. Ensured and promised a warm, clean and welcoming home with the Hughes.

Quinn opens a box, it’s filled with cards and water guns, there are multiple water balloons. I purposely remember buying that bag full of balloons thinking in Quinn.

~ end of pt.1 ~

“Y/n! How you’ve been?” Jack walks into my room drunk. It’s summer I let him drink his body away.

“Nice beer belly.” I mock him as I get off of my bed and rub the tummy as if I were pregnant.

“Thanks, worked hard for it tonight.” He slurs out. “Jack let’s get you to bed okay?” Rain stars to put onto the house.

I have a balcony in my room. I immediately run over to the glass sliding door to close it. Rain gets in my face as I close the windows and the door in my room. “Nice rain.” Jack mocks me as he walks out of my room.

“Where’s the other two?” I yell out from the top of the stairs, Jack runs into the kitchen- he had ran down the stairs to stop talking to me.

“Jack!” I yell. I give up. So I close my door and run down the stairs. I see Jack in the fridge.

“You hungry? Where is Ellen?” I ask. “I dunno.” I responds. I hold his shoulders as I stand on my tip toes, in peering over his shoulders just enough to see what he’s looking for.

“Yummy in my tummy!” He chants, “Jack.” I massage his shoulders.

I strictly turn his head towards mine. He leans into my chest. He rests his head onto my collar bones as he mumbles a song.

“Come.” I motion his body. We walk to the stairs. I sit him in the first step and I run back to close the fridge and the pantry door he probably rummaged through.

I turn around to look for Jack and he’s disappeared. “Jack?” I look around for him. Lights go off. Thunder claps at me, lighting floods into the sky. “Jack?” I get more nervous.

~ memory pt.2 ~

We head for the hose, I fill up Luke’s nerf water gun and te water balloons. I take my shoes off to run freely around the backyard of the Hughes household. Jim is grilling on the deck outside. Ellen and my mom are talking in the kitchen inside watching us play. Quinn fills his gun up, and I take my gun I already filled from behind my back.

I shoot jack in the eye, Luke and I team up in the other two boys. Their backs facing us as they both re-fill their guns, Luke fires at them. Someone gets hurt.

Ugh.

“Hey!” I yell out over their arguments towards eachother. Quinn yells at them to listen to me. Jim looks over at us to make sure us says something smart and not stupid.

“It’s an accident! Luke and I took our chances, Jack if you’re going to get mad at Luke- you should get mad at me too. I told him to fire.”

And done. Problem solved.

~ end of pt.2 ~

I left my phone upstairs in my room. I don’t have a flashlight. “JACK!” I scream, I can’t see anything. It’s pitch black. I have no sense of human presence in the room. “Jack please, I’m scared.” I whisper as I walk silent towards the living room. I sit on the couch that faces away from the kitchen. The TV glimmers on. “What the fuck.” I whisper.

“Hey.” Jack taps my shoulder. I jump.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.” I yell at him. Jack laughs. “You wnat some?” He picks up a bottle of alcohol. “Where…” I start. I look over at the pantry I had closed.

The TV light shines and lights up the main floor of the home. Michigan storms terrify me.

The pantry door is open. The Hughes are rich, inside of the pantry full of snacks is a room full of liquor. “How were you so quiet?” I asked Jack.

“I dunno.” He takes his hand and places it onto my hip. He pulls me back to lay down with him. I ask him to dance. Drunk dancing is always the best. “Sure.” He gets up takes my hand and we slow dance to sound of rain.

“Do you have your phone?” I ask him. Jacks hair flips into my face as he looks down into his back pocket of his jeans. He takes it out and plays a random song.

Perfect.

He jump up and down. Side to side swaying, hips are shaking, Jack screams the songs out. He hugs me to stabilize himself. He smells of heavy cologne and beer.

We dance until his legs give out. “I’m tired” he says.

I help jack up the stairs as I hold onto the bottle of liquor he had taken. “Yeah, you’re definitely drunk.” I laugh. As we rest into my bed. “You can sleep in here for tonight okay?” Jack lays on my chest.

I would have gotten weirded out in how close we’ve gotten- especially because Jack and I have had something before, but my mom instincts had came out. I let him lay on me until he almost fell asleep.

I hold him onto of me so he doesn’t fall off my queen sized bed. I slide out under him, i take his shoes off and his hat off. I set them off into a bean bag I’ve had since we were kids. I’ve had this room for years, and I’ve kept it the same.

“I’m not drunk!” He giggles out again. His smile makes my stomach tingle. He keeps himself awake by talking to me.

We had a deep conversation, and he laughed out. “I’m not drunk y/n! We should check!” He laughs.

He holds my jawline. Connecting our lips together. He kisses me as if we were still in our relationship in 2017.

“I love you.” Jack laughs out after pulling away from our kiss.

Quinn walks into the house. “Y/n! Luke and i are home! Where is Jack his shoes aren’t down here!” Quinn yells out from downstairs.

[cuteandhughesy]

Ceilings | Luke Hughes (playlist)

summary: imagine my writing has been turned into a film - complete with a soundtrack that perfectly captures the essence of the scenes and helps you visualize the words you’ve previously read and bringing them into movie format ✨

warnings: descriptive scenes that may include suggestive and/or smutty dialogue | songs and artists that you may not like | read at your own discretion

a/n: this series will not only provide extras explanation of scenes from the fic, but dive into clues you may of missed ♥️

link to ceilings

───────── 🎶 ─────────

TOO WELL BY RENEE RAPP / WHO! WHAT? BY TRAVIS SCOTT

track 1 (2)

the opening scene of this fic your thrown pretty much right into that university party environment.

Who! What? would be the song playing as you’re meeting the hockey team—as they are playing their bet game, and inevitably make luke’s bet. the song is heard in the background, serving as white noise to the critical conversation.

as the scene shifts, finding you and ariana in the background, the song has also shifted. Too Well plays at the party, heard in the background as you two talk.

the song continues throughout the rest of the scene, slowly fading as you and luke ‘meet’ and converse.

I REMEMBER EVERYTHING BY ZACH BRYAN

track 2

you and luke plan to meet at the coffee house you work at to further discuss your fake dating arrangement. this song is playing over the radio system at the coffee house, providing background noise to the bustling cafe.

TENNESSEE ORANGE BY MEGAN MORONEY

track 3

the beginning instrumentals play at the end of the previous scene, after you and luke exchanged numbers and make plans about the basketball game the following day.

it bleeds into the basketball scene—meeting the guys out front with ariana. this song transitions to playing through the radio in rutger’s truck.

I feel the lyrics of this song almost provide a subtle foreshadowing about the future of your and luke’s relationship—unbeknownst to either of you at that point.

PROMISE BY LAUFEY

track 4

you’ve just had you’re feelings hurt by matthew—he doesn’t remember you from the party—and you’re feeling pretty shitty about that whole interaction, especially after you went for the sole purpose of seeing him.

luke drives you home in rutgers truck, and the two of you share a rather sweet conversation about the interaction, and despite how you’re feeling, luke lifts your spirits—and you even manage to crack a teasing remark at the end of the conversation.

SEVENTEEN BY TROYE SIVAN

track 5

this is one of my favourite scenes in the whole fic—you and luke are walking through campus, discussing where you’re going to go from here, and what’s to come of your plan.

it’s flirty, fun and yet, there’s some serious tension between you and the words with luke. I feel you get a real insight at their dynamic here, and you see them slowly building that friendship.

this song specifically works as a good transition scene song, because it’s not too crazy—but still upbeat enough to fit the vibe.

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL BY ED SHEERAN

track 6

you’ve been stressing all day about seeing matt, and everything seems to be going wrong. you’ve been locked out of your house, so you’re wearing a stinky work uniform, your skin and hair feel dirty, and you’re running late.

luke essentially calms you down in the scene, even if he doesn’t realize it—even hough you don’t realize it.

the beginning instrumentals would play softly over the scene while you’re changing, and luke makes the comment about your underwear. this is another one of my favourite scenes, just showing how in tune you and luke are.

the song continues through the scene—quieting as the conversation continues—right up until you’re falling asleep in luke’s bed. there’s a moment where you’re sleeping and luke is admiring you, signalling the shift of feelings.

YOU COULD START A CULT BY NIALL HORAN

track 7

the end of the library scene and luke is walking you home—this is not written in the fic, but it’s alluded too. this song serves as a calm transition between this scene and the next.

the second half of this song playing as luke shows up to your house, drunk and wanting you. I’ve definitely said this already but this is my FAVOURITE scene in the entire fic.

luke is so soft and sweet here and the things he says to you is just….ugh.

JIMMY COOKS BY DRAKE & 21 SAVAGE

track 8

the party scenes, which obviously are a bit difficult to read. this song would be playing during the beginning half of the scenes, serving as a bassy noise in the background, adding to the ambiance of the scene.

the song would continue as you go back to luke and rutger, who are talking with one another—when rutger brings up you and what he’s just seen.

BE STILL BY THE FRAY

track 9

after matt has tried to take advantage of you, which thankfully was stopped before it could escalate any further than unwanted touches and kissing. but still disgusting.

rutger has driven you and luke back to your place, and this song would start playing as you breakdown, letting luke comfort you.

not written into the fic but you’d see you seeking comfort in luke, cuddling into him under your bed. I can just picture you freshly showered, hair wet in and your pyjamas. you’re tucked into luke’s chest, basking in his comforting presence as he strokes your hair.

ITS YOU BY ZAYN

track 10

you and luke are standing in the hallway (after your momentary panic thinking he’s gone missing with his concussion).

this is when you and luke confess your feelings for one another, and although it’s a serious conversation, there’s still that playful teasing that’s you’ve had with one another through the entire fic.

the chorus of the song begins playing as soon as they kiss. it would continue into the second kiss and fade into almost nothing as ethan walks up the stairs and interrupts you.

PRETTY BOY BY THE NEIGHBORHOOD

track 11

there is no specific scene in the fic that i’ve got this song attached too, however in a movie I would want to the audience to see how you and luke are in your relationship—essentially falling in love.

a montage of scenes over this song—things like having sex, laughing, watching movies, talking, getting drinks and food, watching the hockey games, partying…anything that you’d do with a boyfriend in university.

CEILINGS BY LIZZY MCALPINE

track 12

you have just found out about the bet—the bet that includes luke trying to make you fall in love with him before playoffs. and i mean the proof is in the pudding, and you’re heartbroken.

you’ve broken up with him—drunk and at his house—and you’re running out the door.

the song begins palying as you’re leaving, tears running down your face. mark is the one who follows you out, offering to drive you home.

there’d be a collection of scenes after that, all showing the heartbreak and pain of going through this breakup—especially considering you now believe it was one sided the entire time.

the song would fade as ariana comes into your room, ready for the playoff game—which is the next scene in the fic.

LIKE REAL PEOPLE DO BY HOZIER

track 13

luke had just told ariana everything and after she hears the confession, she thinks you need to hear it, and tells luke to go to you.

the song begins playing gently in the background as he starts to confess his feelings to you, and when he tells you he loves you, the song picks up.

and as they kiss, the music continues.

UNWRITTEN BY NATASHA BEDINGFIELD

track 14

the classic ending to a rom-com—come pelted with a fun, early 2000s hit over the final scene and end credits.

scene:

he smirks as you grab your phone, making a mental note to also thank your small blonde bestie. luke studies your face, cheeks flushed, lips pink and eyes wide, much different from when you first opened the door. in a moment of boldness he says, "I told you that you and I have chemistry."

you smile, playing with the hair at the back of his head as you think about that very first night when luke had found you at the party. "I didn't believe you back then."

"do you believe me now baby?"

"I guess so lukey." you tease and he smirks before kissing you again.

this is when the song would begin playing, and the scene would fade into the end credits. i’m very admit that if this fic was a movie it would have the same style of credits as anyone but you—complete with different scenes of the cast singing along and dancing.

[yumiis]

｡ﾟﾟ･｡･ﾟﾟ｡ ﾟ。 COUNTRY ISN'T BAD ; SCHLATT

　ﾟ･｡･ﾟ

genre; tooth rotting fluff

type; drabble

a/n; this is a female reader! also, look. i'm from the south, i like country music, let me fulfill my cute little fantasy. i thought this was absolutely ADORABLE. btw, this fic is inspired by a couple songs. crazy girl by eli young band, and do i by luke bryan.

read below!

Ever since Jay moved to Texas, he quickly realized most radio stations tend to play country. Whether that be modern country, 90's country, or 2000's country, it was almost all country music. Jay isn't normally the type to actively listen to that kind of stuff, so he skimmed past the channels trying to find anything else.

This morning, Jay left you in bed alone to go run some errands. You knew that he was leaving early the night before, so you kept sleeping when he left. When Jay got in the car, he was far too tired to bother flipping through channels to find music he liked. He left it on a 2000's country channel, much to his dismay.

About an hour into the road trip, some of these songs got him thinking. Specifically, about you. The lyrics weren't all about tractors and beer, the songs he heard were.. genuinely sweet. Talking about how they love their girlfriends and wives, and how beautiful they look with no makeup, or how they wish they knew how their girlfriend was when they weren't there.

It was a bit later in the day, around lunchtime, and Jay was still out running errands. He decided to call you. He pressed your contact, and after a couple rings, you picked up. "Hey, baby." He smiled as you answered.

"Hey! How's your day been without me, huh?" He sounded a bit cocky, which was usual.

"Oh, it's been fine. Gonna be honest, pretty lonely. There's no one here to make me the best sandwich ever for lunch." You sighed. He chuckled a bit, "Aw, poor thing. I'll be home soon, I'm about 30 minutes out," He paused, thinking. "Y'know I love you?"

You swallowed, "Well, yeah, I sure hope so. We do have a house together.. And pets." He nodded, "Yeah, yeah. I'll see you soon, alright babe?" You smiled, "Okay, bye hon."

After you hung up the phone, he shoved his phone in his back pocket and made his way to his car to drive home to you. Of course, with more country music.

One specific song came on, apparently called 'Crazy Girl'. It really, really reminded Jay of you. The song went on about the girl being self conscious in the relationship, thinking the man would leave her. He goes on to comfort her and tell her she's wrong. Was he.. Was Jay crying? Over a country song? No way. He needed to get home.

After what seemed like an agonizingly long car ride, he finally made it home to you. His girl. He hopped out the car, locking it and making his way to the front door. "Baby! Sugar?" He smiled as he hung his keys on the hook by the door. You turned the corner, "Jay! You're in a really good mood," You smiled into his chest as you hugged him, "What's got you feeling so happy?"

"Country music." You scoffed, almost laughing. "No way, you? You listened to country music today?" He nodded, "Yeah, I did. It's all that was on the radio, sugar." You looked to the side, then back up at Jay. "Oookay.. Were you.. crying?" You noticed the red on his cheeks, and that his face was also a bit puffy.

"What? No! What a stupid assumption." He shrugged it off. You sighed, "You're telling me why you cried later, mister."

It was around 10pm now, both of you lying in bed together. "So, Jay?" He turned over, humming in response. "Why were you crying on the way home? Tell me or else." He sighed, "Okay, okay. I.. heard this stupid country song and it really reminded me of you. It was about this insecure girl," You paused him, "Woah, okay, rude." He shook his head, "No, stupid! Let me finish!"

He continued on about what the song was about, and you almost started crying. "Oh, Jay.. That's.. that's actually really sweet." He hugged you close to his warm chest, "I love you so much. You know that?" You nodded, burrowing into his neck. "Of course I do."

Jay softly hummed, then spoke, "Maybe country music isn't that bad."

[fairyfairyfairy]

okay so i was just thinking about it and like… what music do the voltron paladins listen to?!?

so im only gonna do lance and keith rn because ive only sat and thought abt them. (may or may not have been writing a fic)

here we go!

KEITH

okay. so a lot of people say he listens to like the iconic emo artists- (mcr, yk the drill) but i honestly dont think he does?? i think keith would be the type of guy to really want to feel and hear all aspects of a song and listens to multiple genres, so heres a few artists i think hed like. (i also think hed like country music. reminds him of his dad. dont kill me)

The 1975

Chase Atlantic

Gorillaz

maybe The Crane Wives?

Jason Aldean

Luke Bryan

theres a few more im not thinking of rn but when (if) i do ill edit them on!

his favourite songs tho from them tho?! Sex - The 1975, Heaven and Back - Chase Atlantic, Night Train - Jason Aldean, And honourable mention that isnt on this list, Beautiful is Boring - BONES UK.

LANCE

okay so lance i think is definetly the guy to know all the words to all his artsist songs and find reasons to go on walks or drive places JUST so he can put on his headphones or blast it in the car. he definitely listens to a whole mess of stuff and doesnt really ‘not like’ any genre/artist. so, heres a few i think hed like!

Waterparks

Rihanna

Beabadoobee

Ayesha Erotica (yall know he would)

Paramore

The Wallows

Gus dapperton

i honestly have a lot more for him but again i think he could jam out to literally ANYTHING. these artists i put im realizing are all pretty similar genre wise but i thibk we would also LOVELOVELOVE 70s rock

his favourites from these guys — Prune, You talk funny - Gus Dapperton, Cologne - Beabadoobee, Rose-Coloured Boy - Paramore, Scrawny -Wallows.

anyways this post has gotten long, but hopefully i make sense! if you have any reasons why im wring, reasons why im right, or suggestions on what other stuff theyd like including the other paladins, let me know!!

[the-teufort-nine]

I don’t usually send asks because it makes me nervous but I just had to send my compliments to the chef. I’m bestowing upon you the highest honor I can give, notifs on for posts. Keep up the good work I’m eating ur fics up like chemist ate that piece of toast 🍽️

thank u anon 😊im cooking up part 3 as we speak! Luke Bryan is playing and im yapping to my buddy @pinkypiechar about it in real time :3

[roosterforme]

From a Texas girlie I figure I give Jake writers some inspo (there are several Jake seresin (derogatory) types here, can’t find the good ones..yet) some songs every country boy fucks with

Pretty much everything Luke Bryan has ever done

She’s country-Jason Aldean

Dolly Parton (obviously)

All my exes live in Texas- George strait

Florida Georgia line

Carrie underwood-Miranda lambert (country woman murder songs) they hide that they listen to it..but they love it

Humble and kind- tim McGraw (makes me SOB, great for angsty -> fluff fics

In my daughters eyes- Martina McBride (also Tod Schroeder version) 🥹

I loved her first- heartland 🥹

Nonny, I love this. Thank you for sending me such a comprehensive list, because I am not much of a country fan. However, my favorite country song is on your list! (All My Ex's Live in Texas. That song slaps. Hard.) It's so easy to imagine Jake full on jamming to all of these.

[babstheyaga]

My first ever ask on Tumblr but whatever happened to Soundwave after we left? Like did Mirage kill him before finding us and Ratchet? Or is he still kicking? Same with the family who found us on Day 2?

(Sorry if this is like weird to ask, I usually tend to hyperfocus on the little details and its one of my favorite a03 fics by far)

Also what bands would the Autobots listen to? I recall Sleeping with Sirens being mentioned for Mirage in the story! What about the others?

He's still kickin! Mirage did not kill him, but a little wink wink, Ratchet still has a tracker on him from SoundWave...

The Alexander family is somewhat alive. The parents have long since been gone, but the children are... Around... Somewhere... May or may not be with Solus...

As for the last question, I actually have playlists for them all in my intro bio (pinned post).

Mirage used to listen to a lot of Sleeping With Sirens, Pierce The Veil, Ghost Town, Set It Off, Beartooth, stuff like that! But nowadays he prefers more monotone. blackbear, Hozier, Chase Atlantic, still sad/depressing, but much more tame.

Arcee likes Phonk music. Songs that she likes to imagine running people over with her bike too.

BumbleBee is a HUGE classic rock/metal fan! AC/DC, METALLICA AND MOTLEY CRUE!!! he's HUGE on them!

Jazz is a big 2Pac fan, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop, Dre, Salt-N-Pepa, classic rap!

Optimus likes old people music. Frank Sinatra, Dolly Parton, Earth Wind & Fire, but he also enjoys some country, Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton...