#reggie app week | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

zerolostwalks · 11 months ago

Note

"hold my hand" "absolutely not" "they'll think somethings wrong if you don't" *grabs hand and kisses cheek* / sweet tarts

“Do you need a job?”

Reggie startled ever so slightly, trying his best to hide it by sitting up from the lounging position he was in while reading his book. Once up he found an aggravated Carrie standing in the doorway of the studio.

“Are you talking to me?” He asked, looking around knowing full well he was the only one here. Everyone else had gotten pulled into various family holiday events. Even Luke and his mom had managed to reach a sort of compromise for the season.

“Is there anyone else here?” She said again before releasing a long exhale disguised as a groan, “Anyway, did you need a job or not?”

“A job” He couldn’t help repeating the question, one of his eyebrows rising against his better judgment.

“Ok, so it’s barely a job.” She said weight shifting as she adjusted her feet with her eye roll. Her gaze shifted away from him, examining the room around them, eyes lingering on the many photos Flynn and Julie had plastered across the wall. “I really just need someone to come with me when I go to my mom’s for Christmas.”

“I’m sorry what?” He really didn’t mean to blurt out the question as fast as he did. Still blinking away the shock of the words he was hearing. Couldn’t recall her ever mentioning her mom before, or anyone for that matter. Though if he had to judge based on the way Carrie’s face scrunched up and how she shifted her feet again she wasn’t very comfortable with the topic.

“My mom’s been trying to reconnect and make up for lost time.” She said, voice bordering on her peppy show tone.

“I don’t know.”

“It would be just for a week and she lives incredibly close to some decent skiing. So you could think of it more like a little winter vacation if you’d like.” Carrie said, her voice never straying far from that peppy ‘sales pitch’ tone which did not ease any unease he had at the idea.

“What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch.” She quickly said, disbelief written all over her face in the short seconds before managing to school her expression again. “Look, me and my family are even paying for everything. All you have to do is show up.”

He chewed over the idea, also chewing the inside of his bottom lip not really buying this perfect vacation she was trying to sell him on. There definitely had to be something she wasn’t telling him. Why him? Why not any of her other friends?

On the other hand, it would be nice to have something to keep him out of his parents house that wouldn’t also have all his friends playing their usual ‘let’s help Reggie without him knowing it’ tactics. It might take them all a while to believe Carrie had randomly offered him what basically amounted to an all expenses paid ski trip out of nowhere. But weirder things had happened.

“All right, when’s this trip?” He asked, trying not to be floored by Carrie’s unexpectedly bright, if short lived, smile.

“We leave tomorrow.” She said digging her phone out of her purse and settling on the couch so close to him she‘d barely need to move to be in his lap. “Quick, give me your number so I can send you the details.”

“Oh yeah, sure.” He said fumbling for his phone, caught a little off guard by both her sudden proximity and the amount of shit he suddenly had to do before tomorrow.

He barely registered everything she said about texting her his address to coordinate with her driver. Far too focused on mentally making his packing list, hoping he had enough clean clothes. Didn’t even question her when she suddenly pulled him in for a series of selfies, the first half dozen inadequate because he didn’t look happy enough. He doubted he ever looked happy enough, certain she just gave up, and resorted to using whatever filter for whatever app she was sure to be posting it to.

The next day didn’t fare much better for his nerves. Pleasantly surprised when she did in fact show up at his place several hours before the sun would even dare to be up so they could get to the airport on time. Too tired to enjoy the fact he got to sit in the slightly roomier business class, falling asleep before the even finished taking off. It was a rare direct flight too, so he wouldn’t get another chance until the flight home.

Just as they passed security and into the throng of all the friends and family waiting, Carrie’s hand gripped his bicep tight pulling his attention to her as they walked.

“Ok so, before we get too far there is something you need to know.” She said in a sort of half whisper, trying to not be overheard but still trying to be heard over the noise all around them. “I may have lied about there not being a catch.”

His heart clenched, he knew it was too good to be true, but more than that he felt more than a little betrayed. Did she seriously wait til he couldn’t escape to tell him what basically amounted to his side of the deal? He didn’t get the chance to call her out though, as soon a woman Reggie could describe as overly sparkly was rushing toward them with a big smile.

“Carrie?” The woman said, throwing her arms around Carrie who had never looked so tense before.

“Aunt Debbie.” Carrie said through a forced grin, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“What nonsense.” Aunt Debbie said as she playfully slapped Carrie’s shoulder. “Of course we were going to pick you up, Richard’s keeping the car warm. Your mom would have come but she’s a little preoccupied.”

Aunt Debbie tried to do a little hand wave through the air, her vibrant nails looking more like talons than Reggie expected them to, clearly trying to dismiss or wave something away. The movement only seemed to make Carrie tense up more than she already was. Reggie didn’t get long to focus on that though as Aunt Debbie’s attention fell on him.

“Oh sorry, you must be..?”

“Oh, right, sorry. Aunt Debbie, this is Reggie.” Carrie said as Reggie extended his hand out to shake Debbie’s, all of the syllables he was going to use to greet her with however froze up in his throat as Carrie continued on. “My boyfriend I was telling you all about.”

“Ooooh well aren’t you handsome.” Debbie said, patting his, the sensation all he needed to know he wasn’t dreaming. “Well, we better hurry up before Rich gets too bored and does something foolish. Did you check anything?”

Debbie walked off after Carrie’s reassurances they only had carry-on’s. Reggie did not follow, forcing Carrie to double back for him, if she felt any guilt over the situation she had it hidden well under all the resigned exhaustion she wore.

“Your boyfriend?”

“It’s only for the week.”

“Carrie we’ve barely ever spoken to each other.” He said in lieu of saying how they could barely be called friends.

“Please,” she said, surprising them both, though she recovered faster than he did. “Like I said it’s only for the week. We don’t even have to get all lovey-dovey with the pet names or overt PDA.”

“But why do they need to think I”m your boyfriend?”

Carrie quickly looked over her shoulder to where Aunt Debbie was impatiently looking like she was waiting patiently. “I promise I’ll tell you later.”

He sighed, slowly resigning himself to the idea. His only other real options being telling everyone the truth and spending the next week uncomfortably awkward around strangers or trying to find some way to pay for a flight back home and leaving Carrie alone, by herself. “You owe me.”

She nodded as she painted on that winning showmanship smile of hers, “Of course, now hold my hand.”

“Absolutely not.” The words were out of his mouth faster than he intended, still too caught up in his own blindsided irritation. Her smile barely faltered, the slightest furrow of her brow.

“They’ll think somethings wrong if you don’t.”

He glanced toward Debbie who had definitely stopped trying to not look confused. He didn’t exactly trust his mouth at the moment, so he merely held out his hand towards Carrie. She grasped it in hers and pulled him down so she could quickly press a quick kiss to his cheek and whispering a quick “thank you” into his ear.

He swallowed hard, an attempt to both unclog his throat of all the wrong words and to clear his head of the memory of her lips ghosting across the shell of his ear. This was going to be a more complicated week than if he had just stayed home.

#jatp sweet tarts #reggie x carrie #I was like these will probably all be short fills...nearly 1500 words later #took a few story beats from Summer Wars but turned it into some sort of holiday rom com

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invisibleraven · 1 year ago

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“How come you always end up under my blanket?” for Peterpatter

Luke was bone tired as he entered the apartment, working a double was no joke. But the extra money brought the band one step closer to getting their demo recorded, so he knew in the end it would be worth it. Plus he knew the other guys were working themselves to the bone to help make this dream a reality-Alex at a museum as a janitor, Bobby as an office grunt for some friend of his lola's, and Reggie at the animal shelter, though they all agreed that Reggie would probably work there for free.

Speaking of, where was his Omega? Usually when Luke came home, Reggie would rush to greet him with a kiss or a drink, or whatever he sensed that Luke needed. He always seemed to know, often citing that Luke smelled different depending on his day. Luke made a joke about Reggie knowing all his different types of BO, but it was kind of... nice being known so intimately.

Especially when his parents had said he could never be a good Alpha-unable to support an Omega as a musician, too dreamy and lost in his music to pay a mate the right attention. But Reggie proved them wrong at every turn-he didn't care that they shared a tiny shoebox of a apartment, it was theirs. Plus he helped Luke write music. Sometimes working out a melody or a bridge, sometimes just smiling at it made the lyrics pour out.

God Luke loved him.

Which made it even more concerning when he called out and Reggie didn't answer. He knew his mate's schedule, knowing he wasn't working, and if he was going anywhere, he always texted Luke.

But his phone was empty, no note left, and Luke felt the panic rise.

Then-a small noise from their bedroom, and Luke rushed in, sighing with relief seeing Reggie asleep on the bed, curled up in the fleecy blanket that Luke slept under. Reggie usually ran like a furnace, so the room was ice cold, and Luke prefered to feel his extremities, even with his dislike of sleeves, so the blanket had been a compromise. Making it especially strange to see Reggie like this. He never did that unless...

Oh fuck.

Luke pulled up his calendar app, and cursed, noting the red days starting today, meaning Reggie's heat was due to hit any moment. Thank goodness he had the weekend off from the diner and they had gotten grocery shopping earlier the week. He sat down on the edge of the bed, running his fingers through Reggie's hair, almost hissing at the warmth radiating of of him.

"Mmm, Luke?' Reggie mumbled, blinking his heavy eyes open.

"Hey baby," Luke said with a smile. "Building a nest?"

"Started to, then got sleepy," Reggie said, yawning a little. "Pre-heats always wipe me out."

"I know," Luke said, leaning down and pressing a kiss to his scalding forehead. "But how come you always end up under my blanket?"

"It smells like you," Reggie offered in explanation. "It's a piece of you until you get home."

"Well I'm home now," Luke replied. "Though I kinda stink."

Reggie sat up and nuzzled his nose into Luke's neck. "I can still smell you under it all," he said. "But go shower, I wanna roll around in you before I go too far."

"You wanna join me?" Luke offered. "I know how much you like showers."

"That I do," Reggie said, stretching out his long limbs. "Go start the water, I'm right behind you."

Luke saluted playfully, tossing his shirt at Regie just to hear him squawk and laughed as he stripped off the rest and ran to the shower, his mate hot on his heels.

Sure, the shower proved mostly useless an hour later, but Luke felt better getting dirty after getting clean. Plus it was always fun to make Reggie smell like him and vice versa.

Because together? Even all sweaty and sated, Luke thought they smelled pretty darn good.

#filled prompts #ficlet #ruke #peterpatter #julie and the phantoms

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ataraxiamfrp · 9 months ago

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Thank you all for participating in our activity check! The characters listed here are the ones who did not pass activity check or did not submit an activity check for the period from 5 DECEMBER - 5 FEBRUARY.

If your character is on this list and wasn’t reapped last period, we will leave your app on your page for three days, during which you will have the chance to send us an ask to immediately reapp. If you choose to do this and you are dropped for activity in a future activity check, you will have to wait a week to reapp as that character.

To reapp, just send an ask including the following:

indication that you would like to reapp

character name and series

date

contact information

In the meantime, you will remain in the server, but be given a role that does not allow you to post until you either reapp. If three days pass without indication of a reapp, you will be removed from the server. If you would like to reapp after this point, then you will have to resubmit your full application. If you reapped last activity check, you will be immediately removed from the server and will have to resubmit your full application after a week if you wish to return.

Thanks everyone!

As a note, characters marked with an asterisk (*) must wait a week before reapping.

As always, please let us know if we have made a mistake and we can double check for you! Thanks a lot!

Allura Vysoren (nox)

Kuvira Beifong (nox)

Alhaitham (nox)**

Hua Cheng (nox)

Zahra Hydris (tha)**

Éponine Thenardier (tha)**

Anya Forger (tha)**

Delsin Rowe (syd)

Tanjiro Kamado (syd)

Kairi Imahara (Valkyrie) (syd)

Stark (syd)

Orihime Inoue (pup)

Sasariko Tatariko (scaly)

Eddie Brock (dust)

Mantra (dust)

Rolan (dust)**

Blagden (dust)**

Mimiru "Milk" Mielle (cue/queen)

Bloodhound (eren)**

Etsu (eren)**

Alygosa (eren)**

Hershel Layton (owl)

Kokichi Ouma (owl)**

Lyney (knox)

Aerith Gainsborough (rena)

Doug Eiffel (katie)**

Viktor The Machine Herald (katie)**

Mirage ( Elliot Witt ) (katie)**

Geralt Of Rivia (katie)**

Cyva (katie)**

Vax’ildan (katie)**

Zevlor (katie)**

Wrathion (katie)**

Claire Foley (hawk)**

Ozpin (hawk)**

Tanithil Yllavalur (hawk)**

Jenny Johnson (sandy)

Ochako Uraraka (basil)

Fuyumi Todoroki (basil)

Lumine (basil)

Karlach (dave)**

Deryk (shae)

Joshua Rosfield (shae)

Reggie Rowe (charlie)**

Vantage (charlie)**

Nihkee Moolah (charlie)

Kiana Kaslana (mikey)

Himeko (mikey)

Alfin (mikey)

Amber (mikey)**

Isyllde Aryaeis (shae)**

Rhistel Corym (shae)**

Astarion (maya)**

Gregory (lune)**

Julian (lizard)**

Strife (lizard)**

My Melody (alyssa)

War (alyssa)

Nahida (mango)

Navia (mango)

Yara Davina (may)

Scaramouche (noct)

#ataraxia activity check

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zaruba-needslove · 1 year ago

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Gotta say that this ended up being hilariously funny for me for no reason cos a few weeks back I used to grumble to myself about how it's hard for me to view recent dual audio vids in Japanese cos Youtube on mobile (I dunno about the App cos I stopped using it when my phone dun have extra space for it) don't actually make it easy to change audio, like you can't SEE the settings to change audio... and my youtube always DEFAULTS to Eng. .... and then TPC did this, now I have no free will to NOT watch Reggie's first mission episodes in Eng dub as well cos TPC casts Tom as Zarab. 🤣🤣🤣

#ultraman #ultraman regulos: first mission #tom constantine #twitter #seriously this is THE absolute conspiracy #tpc knew how to rope me into stuff

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shmaptainwrites · 4 years ago

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𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃 [𝐑𝐄𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒]

PAIRINGS — Reggie Peters x fem!Reader

SUMMARY — The gang decides to have a sleepover and spend some time in a day where life is really crazy.

WARNINGS — maybe a minor swear or two, but i tried to keep it family friendly

NOTE — this is my submission for the first day of reggie appreciation week! i’m super excited to be giving you guys some new content over the next seven days. today’s theme was quotes and the one i chose was “I always thought that quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be.” happy reading!

“Mom I’m gonna be fine,” you insisted, waving your hand dismissively while you packed a bag. “Emily will be around and it’s just the boys,”

“I know,” your mother sighed and scratched her head. “Just keep safe and remind the boys to as well,”

“I will you nodded,” slinging your bag over your shoulder and grabbing your guitar on the way out in case the boys decided to have a jam session.

“Who’s coming to pick you up?” your mother asked.

“Alex and Reggie,” you said while sliding down the railing. “I’ll be back sometime tomorrow,”

“Love you!” your mom called back in a rushed confusion.

“Love you too!” you slammed the door and waved happily at Reggie and Alex who were parked outside of your driveway.

“(N/N), what’s up,” Alex grinned back at you while turning the keys in the ignition.

“Nothing much, how about you?”

“Well I mean we did see each other like three hours ago so the most interesting thing that’s happened since then is I saw Reggie get stuck in a revolving door, but that happens at least once a month.”

“I know, but hey!” Reggie feigned offence and you laughed at the boys.

“How about you Reggie? Excited for tonight? It’s been ages since we’ve done this,”

“It sure has,” Reggie nodded in agreement. ‘It’s quite possible I forgot to pack clothes and just brought food, but Luke will have something I can borrow,”

“You guys are really something else,” you rolled your eyes and sat back in the middle seat, not really bothering to put your seatbelt on.

Alex popped in a CD and Reggie turned up the volume, blasting the music as you sped down the streets to Luke’s place.

When you arrived at the small home you were greeted warmly by Emily who brought each of you in for a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. She was like a mom to all of you, Luke’s house had just become the general gathering place. And even though she butted heads with her son and his choices on occasion everyone knew they loved each other deeply.

“Looking wonderful as ever Mrs. Patterson,” Reggie smiled after giving her a hug.

“Why am I not surprised he’s such a mom friend?” Bobby asked while making his way from the hallway into the living room.

Reggie stuck his tongue out at Bobby and said, “You’re only saying that because you’re jealous I’m Em’s favourite,”

“Okay pretty sure I’m her favourite,” Luke added while coming into the room. “You guys ready? I’ve got some games set up in my room,”

“And dinner will be ready at six so don’t be late otherwise I might have to eat all the pizza,”

“Emily you’re an angel,” Reggie grinned and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“Alright now shoo you guys,” she waved her hands, prompting you all to drag your things into Luke’s room, piling up the bags in one corner and the instruments in another.

“Okay I’m calling it, we do Monopoly first,” you said, pulling out the game from Luke’s closet.

You had all been there so many times it was practically your collective room.

Luke’s parents had even allowed him to move into the larger room when it seemed his old one was too small to hold all five of you.

“I want the dog!” Reggie bolted for the pieces, grabbing the bag out of your hands and snatching the small metal dog.

“And I will take the trash,” Bobby nodded, “Cause that's where I belong,”

“You do know that’s a thimble,” Alex noted and Bobby replied with an obscene gesture.

“I’ll take the car,” Luke nodded.

“I’m good with the boot,” Alex said, motioning for Luke to pass him the figure.

“I’ll take the iron then,” you said, taking the bag from Luke. “You know these are really random. It’s like someone looked at what was laying in and around their house and said: you know what these would make great game pieces.”

“You’re not wrong,” Reggie agreed with you while looking curiously at the small dog.

About an hour and a half into the game things were starting to get heated,

“Bobby you knew I was going for Reading Railroad you asshole!”

“Language honey!” Emily called from the kitchen.

“Well you snooze you lose Patterson,” Bobby grinned and Luke lunged towards him only to be stopped by Alex, but unfortunately taking out the whole board and messing up all the placements and cards in the process.

“Can someone lend me some money,” Reggie asked, puckering his lips and holding you his small stack of cash. “I have like 43 dollars,”

Meanwhile, you were sitting on your corner, piles of money surrounding you. It was so much you even had to borrow some from the game of life at one point, but it seemed as though it was becoming time to end the game and move onto something else.

The unanimous decision was to play the game of Life and save the non-board game activities for later in the night.

Let’s just say the gang had a track record of getting violent over games if that wasn’t already obvious.

“Oh my God, I have another baby!” Reggie grinned happily, placing his fifth or sixth child on the top of the car.

“What did you name this one?” Bobby asked, leaning back.

“Okay, so,” Reggie grinned, ready to give everyone a rundown of the names of all of the children in his car. “This is Jessica, she’s my oldest, absolute sweetheart and loves cooking, then there’s Elliot who’s such a drama geek, but we love him, Then there’s Carla and Sophiana who are twins, they hate each other, but are also very protective, and lastly here we have little Alexander, named after Alex because I felt like it,”

Alex placed a hand over his heart and cooed while the rest of you laughed.

“Guys dinner’s ready!” Emily called and Reggie was the first to abandon everything, even stepping over Luke and Bobby to get through the door.

“Reggie, relax babe,” you laughed, pushing yourself up and helping Luke and Bobby in the process.

“Have I ever told you how cute I think it is when you call us dumb pet names?” Bobby chuckled, slinging an arm around your shoulder.

It was true, Reggie was exclusively babe, Luke was honey, Alex was sweetie, and Bobby was darlin’.

“Someone might get the wrong impression and think I’m dating one of you guys,” you poked and Reggie came and attacked you with a hug from behind,

“I hope you tell them it’s me,” he said while pressing a smacking kiss to your cheek.

“We’ll see about that,” you teased.

Dinner was phenomenal as usual, Emily would always make her own pizzas from scratch and it was the comfort food for the band.

The meal was running quite smoothly until Bobby decided it would be a great idea to pick off a mushroom from his pizza, which Luke hated, and throw it in his direction, just not accounting for the fact you’d be leaning right in between the two, letting the mushroom smack you straight in the eye.

“Bobby!” you exclaimed.

“Sorry that was meant for Luke!” he apologized profusely,

“What?! For me?! After what you did?!” Luke exclaimed, grabbing his coca-cola and throwing it in Bobby’s face.

“Oh please God no,” Alex whispered.

“Food fight!” Bobby exclaimed and Emily didn’t even hesitate a second to get up, knowing it was no use to stop the teenagers.

“I hope you know you’re cleaning this up, Lucas! I was no wasted food!” she called.

“Got it mom!” he nodded, throwing a slice of pizza in Bobby’s direction, nailing him in the shoulder.

Reggie had since then decided to use you as a human shield, covering behind you.

“Stop using me as a shield Peters!” you exclaimed while you were getting caught in the crossfire of toppings and vegetables.

“Hey! I thought I was babe,” he pouted, turning you around to look at you.

“Not when you use me to deflect food you aren’t,”

Reggie instead, pulled you into his embrace, now shielding you from the incoming attacks.

“Guys!” Alex complained. “Come on we could be eating this!”

“It’s okay Reggie doesn’t care he can eat it,”

“I feel like I should be offended by that, but it’s true so I can’t be,” he admitted and you laughed.

After things died down you all got up, helping clean up the dining room.

Thank God it’s hardwood floors. You thought to yourself.

Luke suggested then you take things to the hot tub where you could all relax before slipping into bed and talking into the late hours of the morning.

You all agreed and took turns getting changed in the two washrooms. Luke tossed you a towel as you headed out the back door and the rest of the boys were hot on your tail, all slipping into the comfortable hot water.

Reggie seemed to think it was his duty to shield you from the prying eyes of Luke and Bobby, who to be perfectly honest weren’t even doing anything,

“Stop looking at my girlfriend you pervs!” he exclaimed, using his own body to hide yours.

“Reggie you do know I’m not your girlfriend,” you raised a brow.

“Not yet you aren’t gorgeous,” he winked at you and the boys laughed at his shenanigans.

“You also know we’ve seen (Y/N) in a bikini before,” Bobby added.

“Shame on you,” Reggie clicked his tongue before finally moving aside, but still wrapping his arms around you like a koala.

“Alex is there something wrong with your suit?” you asked as he had his hands awkwardly placed on his lap.

“N-No all good,” he insisted.

“Dude, come on, did it get small or something?” Luke asked.

Before Alex could say anything Boby swatted Alex’s hands away and his bathing suit filled with air from the jets, filling up like a balloon and Alex quickly tried to push the suit back down.

The boys burst into a fit of roaring laughter and you let out a chuckle as Alex’s beet-red face insisted.

“It’s not my fault guys!”

“Yeah doesn’t stop it from being funny,” Reggie continued to laugh.

As relaxing as the hot tub was you all had to leave before you increased your body temperatures too much and started to feel faint.

When you went inside you all changed into pyjamas and laid down on your respective mats and beds.

“You know,” Reggie started and the group groaned, already knowing what was coming. You just giggled, snuggling yourself further into his embrace. “I really thought quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be,”

“Reggie I love you, but sometimes the things you say-,” you cut yourself off with your own laughter.

“No seriously though! You always see it in comics and cartoons and movies and when do you ever encounter it in real life. Almost never! Like why didn’t they warn us about the dangers of walking the street at night or something actually useful,”

“Cause what kids show is going to centre their plot around walking alone at night?” Alex added from the couch, tossing a ball up and down in the air.

“Guys I don’t mean to bring down the mood,” Bobby said, looking up at the ceiling. “but do you guys ever feel like there’s not really a place for us besides with each other? I-I mean that’s just kind of how I feel but I wasn’t sure if you guys did too,”

“No I get what you mean,” you nodded in agreement. “but I also don’t think that’s a bad thing, you guys are family,”

Alex nodded stiffly and seemed to be biting the inside of his cheek, Reggie noticed this and brought it up,

“Alex you alright man?”

Alex looked like he was about to nod his head, but shook it instead, choosing to be honest.

“What happened sweetie?” you asked gently and he stopped throwing his ball up in the air.

“I came out to my parents… it… it didn’t go as well as I hoped,” he explained, fighting back tears. “They just looked so disappointed.”

Reggie didn’t hesitate to push himself up from the mat, coming to join Alex on the couch and bringing his friend into a tight hug.

You, Bobby, and Luke joined not much longer after, hoping you could deliver some comfort to your friend. Alex was Alex, that hadn’t changed and you wondered why his parents couldn’t see that.

“You know I was having an existential crisis once,” Reggie started and Alex was already laughing through his tears knowing his friend was going to use some sort of random story to try and cheer him up. “See I couldn’t find the parmesan cheese and then I started freaking out, but it was just on the table,” Reggie nodded while Bobby gave him a punch in the arm.

“Reggie that’s not even funny,” you said, but couldn’t help yourself from laughing.

“Well, Alex thinks it’s hilarious and that’s all that matters,” Reggie added squeezing his friend tighter.

The group continued to speak a bit more about the heavy topics until their eyes became heavier than words and most of them fell asleep.

Reggie thought you wouldn’t notice as he quietly stood up and left the room, so you followed him, seeing him leave through the unlocked back door, sitting on the brick ledge in the backyard.

“You know you can’t escape that easy babe,” you said softly, causing him to turn around and notice you.

He chuckled softly while you slowly walked over to him, one hand in the pocket of your sweater, the other fixing his hair that had fallen in front of his eyes.

“Hey, Reg?”

“Mhmm,” he nodded, looking out at the soft city lights in the distance.

“I know you were deflecting with that whole cheese thing,” you said while seating yourself sideways in his lap.

“Oh really?” he asked and you nodded.

“Everyone else shared something, you just kind of stayed quiet,” you explained. “But you don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can always talk to me,”

There was a short period of silence, but then out of the blue Reggie decided to speak up,

“Sometimes I don’t wanna talk,” Reggie admitted, looking up at you. “Sometimes I just want someone to hold me, pretend my problems don’t exist. Just for a second,”

“Well I can do that too,” you nodded, turning yourself slightly so you could wrap your arms around his neck and pull him into a hug.

You stayed there, you weren’t entirely sure how long, but when you pulled apart it was agonizingly slow, clear that both of you would have rather stayed in that position.

When Reggie’s cheek grazed against your own, your eyes couldn’t help but flick down to his lips, and you didn’t know if it was the exhaustion or the need to be close to him again, but you kissed him.

It was soft and not very long, but it felt warm and complete.

When you pulled back again, Reggie went to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear, resting his forehead on yours.

Your mom had told you at the beginning of the night to stay safe, you were almost one hundred percent sure that wasn’t what she meant, but with Reggie, everything felt safe and that’s all that mattered.

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queenmolina · 4 years ago

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does this count as an au??

(part two)

#jatp insta edit #julie week #it’s been done before but i’m just figuring out this app im so sorry if this looks like copying #netflixwewantjatp2 #jatp #julie and the phantoms #alex mercer #luke patterson #julie molina #reggie peters #jatp social media au

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lulublack90 · 11 months ago

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Prompt - Message

@jegulus-microfic December 18 Word count 632

‘Ding!’

James’s phone alerted him to a new message. He looked down at the illuminated screen ‘New Match.’ The dating app notification read. He opened the app and scanned the message.

Congratulations Hotterthanthesun, Princeofstars has matched with you.

He clicked on the link to see his profile page. No pictures of his face. Just a rather artsy one of long, elegant fingers wrapped around the stem of a crystal wine glass filled with red wine. It made the fingers look ghostly pale, making the emerald ring wrapped around his index finger pop.

James sent a quick message.

Hotterthanthesun

Hey, how’s it going? gorgeous hands btw.

He barely had to wait before he received another message.

Princeofstars

Not bad just got back from work. Excellent abs btw. 😉

Hotterthanthesun

Wait what?

He checks what profile picture he’s got. Usually, it’s one of him at the top of the London Eye, the sky lit up golden behind him as the sun sets. What he finds is a cropped shirtless picture he took as a joke for Sirius. That backstabbing little…

Hotterthanthesun

So, looks like my best mate changed my profile pic. That is me though just to be clear. Totally not catfishing.

Princeofstars

Well, now I’m certain you are middle-aged and balding with a beer gut.

Hotterthanthesun

😅 No, I promise I’m not.

James and his mystery match continued to send messages to each other every day for weeks. There was a lot of flirting. But they also touched on a few more serious topics.

Princeofstars

My brother keeps pestering me to go see him. It’s getting annoying.

Hotterthanthesun

Why don’t you go see him then?

Princeofstars

We have a lot of baggage. He wants to try and mend our relationship. But I’m not so sure it’s a good idea.

Hotterthanthesun

My best friend would do anything to get closer to his brother again. Not that I know the ins and outs of your relationship but it might be worth thinking about.

Princeofstars

Ugh, you’re so sentimental. Fine, I’ll contact my brother. But be warned I’m blaming you if it goes tits up.

Hotterthanthesun

You can take it out on me when we finally meet.

Princeofstars

Well, now I don’t want it to go well.

Hotterthanthesun

I can think of a few things we could do if it goes right. 😜

Princeofstars

Incorrigible devil

Hotterthanthesun

😈

Princeofstars

Goodnight

Hotterthanthesun

Nighty night x

They’d both agreed they quite liked the mystery of not seeing each other's faces so they didn’t share them. James was having a good time. Whoever this faceless prince was he and James seemed to fit together.

“Oh, Reggie’s popping in later,” Sirius said as he poured them both drinks. “Took a lot to get him to agree mind. He’s still being a little shit. But at least this is progress.” James caught the happy little smile Sirius tried to hide. He knew how much Sirius missed his brother.

The doorbell rang and Sirius leapt out of his chair, furiously smoothing his hair as he rushed to open the door.

“Hi, Reggie.” James could hear the joy in Sirius’s voice.

“Don’t call me that, Sirius.” And the disdain in Regulus’s.

“Sorry,” Sirius said trying to appease him. “Drink?”

“Red wine if you have it.” Regulus sauntered past his brother and fluidly folded himself into the chair Sirius had just abandoned.

“Potter.” He reluctantly acknowledged James.

“Regulus.” Sirius was right he was definitely still a little shit. Sirius hurriedly gave his brother a glass of red.

“It’s not the best, but it has a fantastic tartness to it.” Regulus nodded, took a sip and grimaced. He put the glass down on the table next to his chair.

James went cold with shock. He recognised those long elegant fingers and that emerald ring

“Fuck.”

#December 18 #jegulus #jegulus microfic #james potter #regulus black #james x regulus #message

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liaromancewriter · 3 years ago

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Not Ready to Make Nice

Premise: When Ethan gets hurt, he’s not surprised to find that Cassie isn’t quite as understanding of his predicament.

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Trope: Hurt/Comfort Words: 1,470

A/N: My Tumblrversary celebration continues with a fic 3, requested by the lovely @rosebudde who wanted to know how Cassie would handle Ethan getting hurt. This is set during the third year of residency, shortly after Surrender takes place.

I’m participating in this week’s @wackydrabbles; the prompt will appear in bold below.

He felt his ribs sing as his assailant managed to get past his guard. The satisfaction he felt when his right hook connected with the other man’s face and heard the load groan more than made up for his previous distraction.

In the back of his mind, he knew he was pushing his luck. But when his gaze met his opponent’s, he knew neither was ready to call it just yet.

“Ethan’s hurt.”

All it took was two words from Reggie, the owner-bartender at Donahue’s, for Cassie’s world to come crashing down.

She had just finished getting ready for the bed after a particularly long shift when her phone lit up. She quickly changed out of her pajamas, donning the first tee shirt she found along with dark jeans.

Sliding her feet into the slip-ons she’d left by the bedroom door, she tapped the app on her phone to book a rideshare and ran out of the apartment, slinging her purse on crossbody.

During the short ride, her mind kept jumping through scenarios, wondering what had happened and how badly he was hurt. Given how close the bar was to Edenbrook, maybe he had been taken to the hospital instead.

But no, thought Cassie. Reggie had told her to come to the bar, not the hospital.

She practically jumped out of the car as soon as it stopped, throwing a quick ‘thank you’ to the driver before she hurried inside. She came to a halt when she saw Ethan sitting on his usual spot at the bar looking worse for wear.

His hair was badly mussed; there were small cuts near the corners of his eyes and his lips; as well, he had an ice pack pressed against the left side of his face. When he shifted, she saw the bruise forming along his jawline.

She started to walk towards him, the movement causing him to turn his head in her direction.

He raised his hand to brush away the lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead and she saw that his knuckles were badly bruised and slightly bloody. At least the bleeding had stopped.

“Ethan…” she whimpered as she reached his side, stepping between his open thighs.

Her hands shook as she framed his face between her hands, tears pooling in her eyes when he winced at the contact.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, dropping her hands but otherwise staying where she was. “What happened? Were you mugged? Did they catch the person who did this?”

Ethan grimaced again, but this time it was more rueful than from pain.

“Are you sure you don’t want to…” Reggie’s voice cut off when he saw Cassie.

He’d come in from the back where he had his office, a first aid kit in his hands. Without a word, he handed the box to Cassie and walked away.

She unlatched the cover, sifting through the materials in the box before removing the antiseptic pads and bandages in different sizes. She would have preferred a suture kit, but she could likely take care of the worse of the cuts with this.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” she said, using the pads to gently clean the cuts on his face, ignoring the way he flinched when the antiseptic stung.

She was more worried about his knuckles and wondered how she could persuade him to go to Edenbrook.

“In hindsight, it was a stupid thing to do,” he said, shifting in his seat. “At least I have the satisfaction of knowing my opponent probably looks and feels worse.”

She saw a wave of pain cross his face as his hand probed the area near his sternum.

“Do your ribs feel broken?” she asked, eyebrows snapping together as she added another worry to her list.

“No,” he sighed, dropping his hand, “just sore. Uh, there’s something you should know…”

Before he could continue, he heard heavy footsteps behind him and knew his time had run out.

“You!”

Cassie spat out the word, her eyes firing up when a badly bruised Tobias Carrick walked into her view.

The collar of his shirt was wet; his face sported tiny cuts much like Ethan and he was sure to have a black eye by tomorrow. His knuckles weren’t as torn, but Cassie noticed that he moved gingerly, an arm wrapped around his ribs as if holding them in.

“What did you do to Ethan?” she accused, advancing on him.

“Uh, Cassie…” began Ethan.

Tobias stood as still as a deer in the headlights, his expression neutral as his eyes clashed with Ethan’s. Both men shared a look that spoke volumes. Cassie caught it and she stepped back as she stared back and forth between both of them.

“You two did this to each other,” she said, sounding more resigned than shocked. “I don’t believe this. Aren’t you both too old for this BS?”

“Thirty-eight isn’t old, Rookie,” scoffed Ethan as Tobias protested the characterization too.

“I rushed here in a panic thinking you’d been mugged or robbed or worse,” she shouted, her anger escalating with every word. “When in fact the two of you decided to get into a fucking fight like two dogs after a bone. Am I getting this right?”

Ethan sighed loudly. “Tobias, can you give us the room?”

“Sure thing, buddy,” he said flippantly, reaching for the jacket he’d left draped across the bar stool. “My ride’s waiting outside anyway. I’ll see you both at work tomorrow…or not.”

He grimaced as he tried to stuff his arms into the sleeves, the twisting movement likely stretching his sore muscles.

Cassie turned away to slam the first aid kit shut, no longer caring to finish the job. If he could get into a childish fight, she thought pettily, he could fix himself up too.

“Cassie, please.”

His hands came to rest on her stiff shoulders, turning her around to face him. When she refused to look up, he put two fingers on her chin, raising her face to meet his.

“Let me explain,” he pleaded.

In response, she lifted an eyebrow and folded her arms beneath her breasts as she leaned back against the bar.

“This isn’t about me being jealous or not wanting Tobias to join the team,” he began, stopping when she dabbed at the edge of his eye with a napkin as the blood started seeping from one of the cuts.

“Anyway, what happened tonight was about a lot of things. Hopkins, our friendship, our rivalry, what happened in the past. It’s something that’s been building between us for more than ten years and we needed to settle it our way,” he explained, hoping that was enough but her expression told him it wasn’t.

“You were right when you said once that he’s my oldest friend; we were like brothers,” he continued. “But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have issues to work through; things we were too young and stupid to understand back then.”

She snorted at his description of them and then unfolded her arms to step closer, her hands resting on his wrist.

“Did you have to beat each other up?” she asked. “Couldn’t you try couples therapy instead?”

He grinned at that, flinching when his lip split open.

“Serves you right,” she said unsympathetically.

“It worked well enough for us when we were back at Hopkins,” he told her, holding out his hands in front of him. “Of course, back then we’d head to a boxing ring and did a better job of protecting our hands.”

“I don’t understand it,” she said, “but I will accept your explanation.”

She unbent enough to hold his hands between hers, taking perverse pleasure as he grimaced in pain when she deliberately pressed against his bruised skin.

He seemed to deflate in front of her eyes as the adrenaline wore off and the soreness in his muscles made itself known.

“You should worry about that tomorrow,” she said, nodding towards his ribs. “It’s always worse the next day. Let’s go home.”

He called out to Reggie, letting the other man know they were heading out.

Cassie tucked herself against him, carrying some of his weight as he draped one arm across her shoulder. He handed her his car keys as they slowly walked out of Donahue’s and towards the hospital parking garage.

Men, thought Cassie with a shake of her head, as she helped him get ready for bed and saw the bruising on his torso already turning purple. He groaned with pain when she nestled against him.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, shifting slightly away.

“What doesn’t hurt?” he complained, tugging her back.

“Good!” she said with gusto, angling her head to gaze up at him. “Maybe next time you’ll think twice about getting into stupid fights with your best friend.”

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Tagging in reblog.

#choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart choices

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remuslupininskirts · 3 years ago

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Before I get into the good stuff I would just like a quick comment on the post+ while all my moots are being tagged. I will not be signing up to it, it’s so stupid and since most of my stuff is fandom based it would be so idiotic for me to do it. It’s an awful idea and I encourage you guys not to use it if you were thinking about doing it.

(Okay the actual post now) Oh my god this is fucking insane! I can’t believe it! This took me like a week and a half to get here! This is amazing!

I’m gonna do a small appreciation post, no celebration this time, just because of the Christmas season, which is something that I celebrate and it’s all very hectic right now lmaooo. Any of the things I say are not allowed to be used against me at any later date.

@siriusblackinskirts @jamespotterinskirts my lovely pads and prongsy, my other thirds of our very own wolfstarbucks. Love you guys. Please don’t do anything else stupid, don’t eat anything that’s not ment to be consumed and don’t draw on your faces again. Your both idiots, but I love you for it :))

@regulusblackinskirts @dorcasmeadowesinsuits you guys are amazing! Cab, I said I would all you that from now on, and Reggie, I just hope that we always stay friends. Really i just love you guys. :))

@moony-likes-hot-choc teddie bear. Please, you are just the most fantastic person. So funny, amazing. just an all round good person basically. Love you my child!

@goingthruphases @nightowlart my irl people. Honestly I’m just happy that you don’t make fun of me for being on tumblr and actually using it for so long.

@nymphadorathebubba hehe my Dora The Explorer. I will always call you that. Your doing amazing and growing so fast! I’m so proud of you! Love you :)

@love-is-an-imaginary-dagger ash, my darling poet. Your just amazing! I can’t wait to talk to you on the server a lot and just aaaa. Hehe

@wolfstar-lb @potteringdeers I know I haven’t known each of you for a long long time like I have other moots but yeah, you guys are both lovely: I’m so glad I met both of you, and that I brought you to the server.

@cwossiants we also haven’t known each other for long, and we don’t interact a lot but my mincraft friend so I had to mention you spicificly! Hehe

And @/all my other moots. I love you all. You are all just so cool and loving and I’m so glad I met all of you. I really wouldn’t be here without you guys so I owe all my success on this stupid app.

@simpformoony @tarafications @moonystoast @mrs-brekker15 @freddie-boi @lupiningwolves @gayremus @moonypadfootprongss @1llalw4ysl0v3y0u @queerdeadwizards @huffpuff10 @enbysiriusblack @pansyspet @the-aggressiveshipper @elliethefanficwriter @japanniallslotion @albusseveruspottery @secret-murmurs @jeguluswhore @robincantfunction @carolinesalvawhore @couldibeanymorechaotic @acciorxses @fuckboyregulus @mischiefhasbeenmanaged @lucianinsanity @impishtubist @ceilu @mentalaboutyoutoo @velvetcloxds @accio-regulus-black @remusblake @theforestisspeaking @girlwithacrown @moonylovespoetry @mayamoons @remusloopy @that-freewheeling-bisexual

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nicknellie · 3 years ago

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Anonymous requested: Could I request willex fake dating au, maybe the boys are trying to get Alex a boyfriend and so he asks Willie to fake date him to get the boys off his back or something please!

Anon, I love fake dating AUs, I’m beyond glad that you suggested this. Plus with willex I think fake dating is very in character, especially for Alex. I had a lot of fun writing this one, thank you for your request! I’m sorry it took me so long to get round to writing it, but to make up for it I’ve made it longer than most of my other fics.

A Dream Come True

Alex had to hand it to them – when Luke and Reggie wanted something, they really pushed for it. Normally it would be one of the many things he loved about the two of them. Determination, perseverance, resilience, all good qualities. And when they put their minds towards something useful like booking Julie and the Phantoms a gig or dragging Willie out of the washing machine when he got stuck in it playing hide and seek, they were definitely useful to have around. So usually, Alex loved their pushiness.

He just didn’t like it when it was aimed at him. Even less so when they were trying (for the umpteenth time that month) to get him a boyfriend.

And the worst part was that this time Alex had run out of excuses.

For reasons Alex simply couldn’t fathom, Luke and Reggie had been obsessed with the idea of finding him a boyfriend for some weeks now. Reggie had downloaded several dating apps and entered all of Alex’s information, and every time Alex saw him the first thing Reggie would do was reel off a list of several candidates he’d deemed worthy. Luke, ever the technophobe (or rather just terrible with technology), had taken a more natural approach and spent countless hours wandering the streets of Hollywood for someone who was, in his words, ‘the sort of guy who would make Alex lose his goddamn mind’.

It wasn’t that Alex didn’t appreciate them trying to make him happy – he found it sweet, if a little weird – it was just that he knew nobody they found would ever be right. He knew what he was looking for, he knew what he wanted, and he didn’t think that Luke and Reggie could get it for him.

The first time they had tried to send him on a date Alex had faked a cold and pulled out at the last minute. The second time he had “accidentally” shown up to the wrong location and missed the entire thing. The third time he simply hadn’t gone – instead, he turned off all the lights in his house, locked all the doors and windows, and hid, so when he didn’t show up and Luke and Reggie came over looking for him they assumed he was out. The fourth time and most recent time he had pretended to fall asleep when they told him about it.

Alex wasn’t the most creative of people and he had pretty much exhausted all of his go-to date-dodging tactics. So the fifth time his friends tried to set him up, he completely panicked.

“So I was doing my usual lap of Sunset Boulevard this morning,” Luke said in lieu of a greeting the moment he walked into Julie’s garage. “And Alex, dude, bro, you will not believe the guy I saw.”

“Good morning to you to,” Alex said flatly.

Luke wrinkled his nose like the greeting confused him, but then saw Julie setting up her mic in the corner. A bright smile grew on his face as he was distracted and for a moment Alex thought he might have been lucky enough to get out of the conversation. But a moment later, Reggie entered the studio and also decided that greetings weren’t a necessity.

“Luke! Did you tell Alex about the guy yet?”

Julie snickered (she found the whole thing much funnier than Alex did and he most certainly did not appreciate it) and for a moment more Luke continued to just look at her, absolutely besotted, but then he came to his senses and all of a sudden his excited smile was directed at Alex.

“Right, that. So I ran into him outside the Orpheum, so he’s probably a music guy,” Luke gushed, winking in a way that Alex supposed was meant to be suggestive. “We had a little chat and he told me he’s training as a teacher and is also looking for someone to settle down with.”

“Sometimes I worry about you,” Alex said, laying a gentle hand on Luke’s arm. “You’re getting forgetful. I’m not looking to settle down with anyone.”

Rolling his eyes dramatically, Luke shrugged Alex’s arm off and instead planted his own hands firmly on Alex’s shoulders, shaking him a little. “Maybe not, but that might change when you meet this guy.”

“I doubt it. What’s his name?”

“Oscar. Maybe Oliver. Orville? I don’t know, but it definitely began with an ‘o’.”

“He sounds memorable,” Alex deadpanned. “I’m sure we’ll have a great time together.”

Reggie gasped excitedly. “So you’ll meet up with him then?”

“No,” Alex said firmly.

Julie giggled again (and once again Luke looked at her, dazzled). “Why not, Alex? You sounded so enthusiastic about him!”

“Very funny,” he returned. “I’m not meeting him.”

“Why not?” Luke whined, dragging the words out like a frustrated toddler. “You always do this! Reg and I try to set you up with people but you always say you don’t want to. Are we missing something?”

Alex could see the cogs whirring in Reggie’s mind before his face lit up and he triumphantly guessed, “Or are we missing someone?”

If anyone had asked, Alex wouldn’t have been able to give a reason for what he said next. It was completely untrue, a wild statement made under extreme pressure in the face of an emergency. Perhaps it was a bad decision, but he had run out of excuses to not meet people and he was getting desperate. He hadn’t had time to consider it.

Alex said, “Yes.”

Reggie’s jaw dropped, Julie dropped her microphone, and Luke dropped whatever respect he had left for Alex’s personal boundaries. He launched himself at Alex, tackling him to the floor in what he assumed was supposed to be a hug, and Alex was fairly certain that Luke was crying with happiness.

“Dude!” he shouted (though it was rather muffled since he had his face buried in Alex’s shirt). “That’s awesome news! Reggie and I can stop searching! I didn’t think you’d be able to find someone yourself, bro.”

“Thanks for having so much confidence in me,” Alex said flatly as he extricated himself from Luke’s vice grip and hoisted himself to his feet.

“You’re welcome,” Luke said as he wiped his eyes (yes, he was actually crying happy tears).

Julie had her arms crossed in front of her chest, looking half-puzzled and half-affronted. “You’re seeing someone? And you didn’t tell me? The only one of your friends who is even a little bit good at keeping a secret?”

“Hey,” Reggie interrupted, “I’m good at keeping secrets!”

“Reggie, honey, I love you but at Christmas you told everyone what you’d bought them as soon as you’d bought it.”

Reggie looked like he wanted to defend himself but couldn’t. “I was excited to see everyone’s reactions…”

Rolling her eyes fondly, Julie turned back to Alex. “Anyway – why didn’t you tell me?”

While he was a terrible liar, Alex just so happened to be a very good actor. In high school he’d got the lead role in the school play two years in a row, but whenever someone asked him if he was gay (before he had come out) he would often panic and pretend to faint to get out of the situation. Though he was technically telling a lie here, he decided it would be the prime opportunity to employ some of the improvisational skills he had worked on with Carrie back in their theatre club.

“It was all very new,” he explained, “we weren’t sure if it was going to go anywhere and we didn’t want to tell everyone until we were sure.”

It was only at this point that Alex realised he was digging a very deep hole for himself and it was most certainly too late to climb out of it now.

“When do we get to meet him?” Reggie asked excitedly.

“You already have,” Alex replied.

A little voice in the back of his mind was saying, shut up, you absolute idiot, what the hell are you playing at? Perhaps stupidly, he drowned that voice out.

Looking dumbfounded, Luke clutched Alex’s shoulders again. “We have? Who is it?”

The little voice got louder – don’t say it, Alex, I’m begging you not to say it, it’s like you’re actively trying to ruin your own life, you absolute–

“Willie.”

In eery synchrony, Luke, Julie, and Reggie all looked to each other with identical expressions of shock and bewilderment and then turned back to Alex with furrowed brows.

“Willie?” they all chorused.

Alex pursed his lips and rocked on the balls of his feet, suddenly regretting every decision he’d made that had brought him to this point in his life. “Yep.”

“I thought your thing with him finished like six months ago?” Julie said.

“Well, there wasn’t really much of a thing to finish,” Reggie reasoned, “just Alex’s pining from afar that had lasted for like four years–”

“Yes, thank you, Reginald,” Alex interrupted. It wasn’t that Reggie was wrong, Alex just didn’t like how right he was. “And yeah, it did… I guess. But then we were hanging out together a few months ago and it was really nice and we started doing it more often and eventually he asked me on a date.”

Alex was overly aware that every word he had just said was an utter lie. Firstly, he had never really got over Willie – Willie wasn’t the sort of person you could just forget or move on from, even though Alex had never actually dated him. Secondly, Alex and Willie hadn’t actually hung out together alone in quite a while. Willie had been busy with their blossoming art career, going to different presentations and awards shows, trying to make a name for himself; Alex, on the other hand, had been doing his best to avoid dating anyone. And thirdly, Willie had never once asked Alex on a date.

He knew he should have backtracked, told them the truth, but he was in far too deep.

“This has been going on for a few months?” Luke said incredulously. “How have you kept it from us that long? Dude, you just let Reggie and I spend literally all our free time trying to find you a boyfriend!”

“I never asked you to do that.”

“You could have told us to stop,” Reggie said.

“I did,” Alex returned. “Several times.”

Julie raised her hands placatingly. “Okay, okay. That’s not important right now. What’s important is that Alex and Willie are finally together. Are you sure they’ll be alright with you telling us while he’s not here?”

Alex shrugged, trying to act like he wasn’t too sure (which was easy because he’d never been less sure of anything at any time in his life). “Umm… well… we haven’t really talked about it much, but… you know, I’m sure he won’t mind too much. I’ll tell them tonight.”

Julie smiled warmly. “Well, I’m happy for you in any case. It’s nice that you’ve finally got what you wanted for so long.”

“Amen to that,” Luke said, finally picking up his guitar. Alex had all but forgotten they were supposed to be practising instead of talking about his very fake relationship with Willie which Willie didn’t even know about. “And Reg and I can finally stop looking for someone.”

“Could’ve stopped before you’d even started,” Alex said, sitting down behind his drumkit, “but alright.”

He knew that sooner or later he would have to tell Willie what he’d done and he was absolutely dreading it. Willie was a very chill person and Alex knew they’d probably find it funny more than anything, but it was still a daunting prospect. But for now, he focused himself on his drums, hammering out all of that excess anxiety, and forgetting the absolute nightmare he’d created for himself just for a little bit.

It was nearing one o’clock in the morning and Alex was very much not ready to go to sleep. For one thing, he was still wearing his clothes instead of pyjamas, and for another he was pacing his room like a caged lion with anxiety and had been doing so for almost three hours. He was trying to build up the courage to call Willie and let him know what had gone on, but he was so nervous that he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to string a sentence together if Willie picked up the phone.

He knew he would just have to bite the bullet. He couldn’t put it off forever or it would end in disaster. For the thousandth time he reminded himself that Willie was the kindest, funniest, most good-natured person he knew and that he had nothing to be scared of when it came to telling them that he had made a massive, probably damning mistake. Willie would be fine with it, Alex knew.

Before he could dwell on it a second longer, Alex dialled Willie’s number and let it ring.

It only rang twice before Willie picked up. Even though it was late, Alex had known Willie would pick up (the guy hardly slept at all) and he fought the urge to tell him to go to bed.

“Morning,” Willie said chirpily.

Alex checked the time and blinked in surprise; he hadn’t realise how long he’d been pacing for.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” he said. “How come you’re still awake?”

“Mario Kart,” they replied. Alex could practically hear Willie’s smile – suddenly there were butterflies in his already anxious stomach and they certainly weren’t helping. “Why are you still awake? I thought your bedtime was half nine.”

“It hasn’t been in two years and you know that,” Alex said. Willie giggled brightly which teased a smile out of Alex. “I, uh… I actually need to talk to you about something that happened today.”

Just get on with it, he told himself, don’t drag it out.

“Oh?” Willie said. “What is it? You sound nervous – do you need me to come over?”

“No,” Alex told him, “it’s late – or maybe early. Either way, you don’t need to come all the way to my place just so I can tell you this.”

“It sounds serious.”

“It might be,” Alex admitted. “It depends on how you take it.”

There was a brief silence on the other end and for a moment Alex wondered if Willie had decided to end the conversation, but then they said, “Alright, let me just pause the game.”

Another short pause as Willie stopped mid-race. Alex took the opportunity to collect himself, shake out his nerves. It would be fine. Willie would be fine with it.

“Okay,” he said a moment later. “I’m back. What’s going on, hotdog?”

Alex scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck, suddenly unsure where to start.

“Okay,” he began uncertainly. “Well… Luke and Reg have been trying to set me up with someone for a while now and I’ve been trying to avoid it as much as I can. I’ve sort of run out of excuses and you know how difficult it is for me to say no to them.”

Willie hummed knowingly. “Like with the Great Cactus Robbery of 2019.”

Alex winced at the memory – he hadn’t realised cactus spikes hurt quite that much, but he’d gone through with a lot that night for Luke and Reggie’s sake.

“Don’t remind me,” he said witheringly. “Anyway, you know what I’m talking about then. They told me about another guy earlier today and I really needed another excuse to give them. I tried just point-blank telling them no, but then they started asking questions and…”

“And?” Willie prompted.

“I told them I was seeing someone,” Alex said. There was silence on the other end. “I told them I was seeing you.”

After a moment or two (that felt like an eternity) Willie burst out laughing. Alex sighed, affronted, but he supposed it was one of the better reactions he could have got. At least Willie wasn’t angry at him.

“Why?” Willie wheezed between laughs. “Was that seriously the first thing that came to your mind?”

“Yes,” Alex grumbled. “I was under a lot of pressure. You were the obvious choice.”

They giggled happily and Alex realised just how true those words had been – whether he liked it or not, Willie would always be the obvious choice for him.

“Well, I’m flattered,” they told him, blatantly trying to contain their giggles. “Thank you for thinking of me, hotdog.”

“You’re welcome,” Alex said. “But I’m sorry about it too. I’ve created an absolute mess and dragged you into it, so I understand if you’re angry at me.”

“Does it sound like I’m angry at you?”

“No?”

“That’s because I’m not,” Willie said kindly. “I get it, man, you just panicked. No big deal. Besides, we can ride this out easily.”

Alex blinked. “We can?”

“Sure, man, it’ll be fun. We’ll pretend to date for a few weeks, have a friendly breakup, and then everything can go back to normal.”

“You’re sure?” Alex checked. This hadn’t been what he was expecting – he’d thought Willie would say it didn’t matter but he needed to come clean. He hadn’t been expecting the offer of dating.

Fake dating, said that irritating little voice in his head. It’s not real. Don’t let yourself forget that.

“Of course I’m sure,” they said. “I mean, it’s totally cool if you don’t want to, but surely it’ll be easier than backtracking completely with the others. And it’ll get Reggie and Luke off your back for a little while longer.”

He considered it, weighing up the pros and cons. On one hand, he’d get to date Willie at last, something he’d wanted to do since he met him. It would give them more of a chance to hang out together, Luke and Reggie would stop pestering him, and it was always fun to harmlessly mess with his friends. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure his sentimental little heart could stand getting to date Willie and then having him taken away even if that was the arrangement from the very start.

But it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

“Alright,” he said resolutely. “I’m in.”

“Cool,” Willie returned happily. “Shall we meet tomorrow to discuss, you know, like, boundaries and stuff like that?”

“Sounds great. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He heard Willie press play on his game, the unmistakable sound of an item box being broken on Mario Kart.

“See you tomorrow, Alex,” Willie said. “Or maybe now we’re dating I should be calling you ‘babe’ or something.”

If that made Alex’s heart flutter, he wouldn’t say anything about it. “We’ll go over pet names tomorrow. Goodnight, Willie.”

“Goodnight, babe.”

As Alex put his phone down and launched himself into bed (still fully clothed but suddenly far too tired to even consider getting changed) he thought to himself that there probably couldn’t have been a better outcome.

Alex had expected the meeting with Willie to feel awkward and weirdly formal, but it was completely the opposite. Both of them were in high spirits the whole time, jokingly holding hands and making heart eyes at each other, laughing every time one of them used a particularly ridiculous pet name for the other. (When Alex had called Willie ‘sugarpoops’ he had thought they might die from laughing.)

But the meeting was productive too. They set some effective boundaries – any touching was allowed, just not too intimate; kissing was fine, but only to prove a point; and just for the fun of it they agreed they had to act like the most sickeningly in-love couple the world had ever known. Alex didn’t really care if that would give the whole thing away, it seemed like a bit of fun and it would be useful when it came to reminding himself that none of this was actually real.

That bit, he had to admit, still stung.

He and Willie had arranged to meet Luke, Reggie, and Julie at the studio that afternoon, so spent the day together beforehand. Just to try and get into the swing of things, they treated their morning together as a mini date. Alex took Willie to minigolf, then they went to an ice cream parlour, and after that Willie tried to teach Alex how to skateboard for fifteen minutes before Alex got too nervous and gave up. It was fun and Alex tried not to think about the fact that this was the reality he was missing out on – if he imagined he was just hanging out with Willie as a friend, which in a way he was, then it was just about bearable.

They arrived outside the studio together and they could hear the other band members’ voices already inside. Alex’s stomach started squirming nervously which he thought was weird. He didn’t actually have anything to be nervous about – he and Willie weren’t really dating.

But still, he was starting to feel a little bit queasy and was seriously considering just running away.

Then he felt Willie’s hand slip into his and their fingers lace together. He looked down at them and saw that he had a kind, soft smile on his face, gently encouraging.

“Ready to be my boyfriend, sweetheart?” Willie asked teasingly.

The nerves didn’t disappear, but Alex found it a lot easier to ignore them after that.

“Always,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

Without another moment’s hesitation, Alex pushed open the studio door and led Willie inside. Julie, Luke, and Reggie all hushed immediately and looked at the couple like they’d been caught red-handed. If their guilty expressions were anything to go by, they had been talking about Alex and Willie before they had walked in. He could only guess as to what they had been saying, but at that point Alex hardly thought it mattered.

It was showtime.

“Hey guys,” he said, grinning broadly. “What are you talking about?”

The three all responded at the same time but with wildly different answers.

“That gig next week,” blurted Luke.

“I lost my favourite hairclip,” Julie explained.

“I’m thinking of buying a horse,” Reggie told them.

Alex and Willie looked at each other, trying to hide their amusement.

“Anyway,” Julie said, “doesn’t matter what we were talking about! Because you’re here now, both of you! And you’re dating!”

Without warning, Willie giggled brightly and attached himself to Alex like a koala to a tree. Alex laughed and threw his arms around Willie, holding them tightly, pressing a firm kiss to the top of their head.

“I feels so good to finally have it out in the open,” Willie gushed, gazing at Alex with pure adoration in his eyes. “Right, sugarplum?”

Alex gently rubbed the tip of his nose against Willie’s, fighting the urge to laugh. “Of course, my little cheesecake.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex could see his friends’ expressions – he had to close his eyes so he wouldn’t be able to see them, otherwise he definitely would have broken character and started laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. Luke looked utterly horrified, like the display of affection was disgusting; Julie was staring at the two of them wide-eyed, her face flushed red, looking like she would rather be anywhere else; and Reggie just looked baffled.

After a while, Julie cleared her throat and the couple turned to look at her innocently.

“So,” she said, “we’ve heard Alex’s version of the story, but Willie – how did… all this happen?”

Willie linked his arm through Alex’s marched the two of them over to the couch and sat Alex down, then sat primly on his lap, laying their head against Alex’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you asked.”

“I’m not,” Luke muttered, “this is weird.”

Julie kicked his shin and he shut his mouth.

“I had been watching Alex from afar ever since we met, but I didn’t think a cool, handsome drummer could ever care about someone like me. I was convinced we would only ever be friends. But then we hung out together and I saw all these different sides to his personality – he’s so caring and soft, you know, and he means everything he says. Alex isn’t like anyone I’ve ever met. So I decided to just go for it, ask him out, admit how I feel.”

Alex stroked a hand through Willie’s hair, eyes fixed on him. “Since then we’ve never looked back. And we never will.”

“Oh, my darling!” Willie exclaimed, throwing themself at Alex and pressing a kiss to his lips.

It certainly wasn’t how Alex had envisioned his first kiss with Willie going (and he had envisioned a great many different versions of it) but in a strange way it felt just right. Sure, they weren’t dating, but they were hanging out together, having fun, being in each other’s company and loving every second of it. Maybe the circumstances weren’t exactly what Alex wanted, but the love they held for one another was still there, nothing could take that away.

So maybe it wasn’t the best decision he’d ever made, but Alex let himself get lost in the kiss. He didn’t know how many times he’d get to do this in his life, so he figured it was better to make the most of it. He blocked out the fact that his friends were right there (a sure sign that he wasn’t thinking straight – absently he knew that he would be very embarrassed by this when it was all over) and just focused on Willie.

And he was sure he wasn’t imagining the fact that Willie seemed to be enjoying it just as much.

When Julie eventually cleared her throat again, they separated. But Alex couldn’t take his eyes off Willie. He knew he wasn’t imagining what he’d felt in that kiss – like sparks had flown between them, forcing their dynamic into something much more than friendly banter and an inside joke. Willie’s eyes were glassy and he was breathing heavily, scanning Alex’s face for something, though Alex didn’t know what. All he knew was that the kiss had pushed the boundaries they had spent all morning setting and if he wasn’t more careful he would lose himself to this silly little charade.

The five of them spent the rest of the afternoon and evening just talking to each other. Willie stayed firmly planted in Alex’s lap and they both used the occasional cutesy nickname for each other, but it seemed as if both of them had silently made the decision to tone things down a little bit. Luke seemed relieved about it at least – for all the heart eyes he made at Julie he certainly seemed uncomfortable at the affection Alex and Willie had shown. It was probably because Alex hardly ever showed love like that in front of people.

But god, he wanted to do it all again.

Luckily, it didn’t seem like any of their friends suspected Alex and Willie of lying to them. By the time they were all on their way home – Alex and Willie walking away hand in hand – nobody had brought up the fact that it could all be fake.

“That went well,” Willie said as they walked along the seafront, heading back to his place. The cold night breeze lifted their hair and Alex couldn’t keep his eyes off them, not when they were looking so beautiful.

“Yeah,” he said, watching the way the amber glow of the streetlamps danced in Willie’s eyes. “It did.”

“Have you thought about how long we’re going to do this for?” Willie asked. Alex was sure he heard nervousness in Willie’s tone, maybe mingled with hope.

He shrugged. “A few weeks maybe. Unless you had something else in mind.”

“No, no, that’s fine, man.” They had arrived at Willie’s apartment building and stopped just outside of it. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, smiling smally. “See you tomorrow.”

He didn’t know what he was thinking – he had expected a goodnight kiss from Willie, but instead he was left alone in the cold as Willie let go of his hand and hurried into the building. Alex was suddenly reminded again that it was all fake, that he shouldn’t have expected kisses when they were alone.

It hurt though. He knew that kiss earlier had been more than just top-notch acting.

He fell asleep that night, still thinking about it, the memory replaying on a loop in his mind. In one way or another, Willie was going to drive him crazy.

The next two weeks flew by. Alex found himself hanging out just with Willie more and more often, playing Mario Kart together at Willie’s insistence, going on more dates that weren’t actually dates, or even just video-chatting each other while doing their own separate things to enjoy the company.

After that first day as a “couple”, Alex was sure Willie’s confidence had been knocked. For the next few days they withdrew himself from Alex and Alex didn’t know if he’d done something wrong or if it was just something on Willie’s mind. Still, he let Willie work through it, and a few days later he was back to normal, clinging to Alex like a barnacle to a ship, calling him every pet name under the sun.

And still their friends were none the wiser.

The end of their time as a couple came all too quickly. Alex walked Willie back to his apartment again, a heaviness in his heart. He didn’t know how an actual breakup felt, but he was willing to bet that a breakup would be less painful than whatever this was. No part of him wanted to give this up, whatever silly little thing was going on between him and Willie – it was fun, it was freeing, it gave Alex a light feeling in his chest and made him so happy he thought he might burst at any moment. He didn’t want to give any of it up.

But still he walked Willie to his door.

They stood facing each other, hands interlinked between them, sad smiles on each of their faces. Alex tried to memorise every detail on Willie’s face as if it was the last time he would see them.

“This has been fun,” he said eventually, his voice low, quiet in the night air.

“You can say that again,” Willie agreed. “I loved being your boyfriend.”

“I loved being your boyfriend.”

Something flickered in Willie’s eyes, an expression gone too quickly for Alex to name, but it was quickly forgotten because a moment later Willie stood up on his tiptoes and kissed Alex.

It wasn’t like any of the other kisses they had shared in the past few weeks. There was nothing over-the-top and exaggerated about it, it wasn’t just a stunt they pulled to fool their friends. It was slow and soft and Alex felt the rest of his body go fuzzy and numb as all he could concentrate on was Willie’s lips on his.

An eternity later, Willie pulled away, his eyes scanning Alex’s face.

Alex swallowed heavily and said, “I thought we could only kiss each other to prove a point.”

Willie nodded. “Did I not get my point across very well? Do I need to kiss you again?”

Alex almost laughed but something stopped him. “Just… just explain it to me first. So I don’t get the wrong idea.”

“I loved being your boyfriend,” Willie said. “You enjoyed being my boyfriend. So… why should we stop?”

Alex felt his head spin. Somehow the nightmare he’d created for himself all those weeks ago was turning into a dream come true.

“You mean that?” he asked. “Tell me you mean that, Willie, please.”

“I mean it,” Willie said resolutely. “I’ve felt this way about you for too long just to let it go. If you want me then I want you. I want to date you, Alex. For real.”

Alex kissed him again, short but sweet.

“Is that a yes?” Willie asked, giggling.

“There’s no other answer I could have ever given.”

Even though they remained boyfriends (real ones this time), Alex and Willie decided to drop the over-the-top, lovey-dovey stuff. It was fun, but it wasn’t them. Instead, they chose to fill every second together with quiet declarations of love, casual dates, soft kisses, nothing that wasn’t real.

But they never did tell Luke, Reggie, and Julie how much of it had been fake.

Taglist (if you want to be added or removed just let me know): @ace-bookworm @williexmercer @boggie-brainrot @itstiger720 @the-reckless-and-the-brave @that-one-newsie @bluedarkness @lookingthroughmirrors @tmp-jatp @salty-star @julieandthequeers @lmaohuh @sunnysbright @sylphrenas @callmeontheleyline

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calamitykaty · 4 years ago

Text

A Twist of Fate

Charlie x Fem! Reader

Word count:7670

Warnings: Slight Swearing, I think that’s it?

Requested: Sorta? It’s a multi writer topic by @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic revolving around the idea of y/n finding an ad to rent a date for Thanksgiving. *You can find the first writers fic HERE

A/N: HUGE thank you to @dream-a-little-bigger-x for reading every rough draft of this that I sent her, along with bouncing ideas with me! Also a huge thank you to @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic for supporting me when I got stuck and reading my super rough draft!

I wasn’t gonna post this until tomorrow but now I have a Christmas Reggie fic that I want to post tomorrow so...Happy Reading.

Y/N wrapped the buffalo plaid scarf around her neck and pulled her favorite slouchy red beanie over her thick mop of curls. Her cellphone was pressed between her right shoulder and ear as she buttoned up her navy peacoat and half-listened to her mom rattle off the preparations she needed to make for Thanksgiving.

“Mom, I really need to…” Y/N attempted to interject only to be cut off by her mother. She placed the phone on speaker and set it down on the counter while she slipped her feet into a pair of black boots. She had stopped listening to her mother’s droning voice nearly a half-hour beforehand, but her ears perked up when her mother asked the dreaded question.

“Are you bringing Noah this year honey? I know you guys like to alternate holidays with his family, but your Aunt Martha is going to make it this year and she is just tickled to finally get to meet him.”

Y/N pursed her lips and ran a hand over her face, she hadn’t told anyone that Noah broke things off with her two months prior. She hadn’t meant to keep it a secret for so long, but her mom loved Noah and she just knew she would blame her for ruining a good thing. She had been dating Noah for three years and it was perfect until Noah started talking about marriage and Y/N began to realize that she couldn’t picture her entire life with him. Noah felt like a moment in time to her, not an eternity.

“I’ll have to check, Mom, I don’t know what Noah is doing yet.” Y/N settled on a half-truth to buy herself some time. She placed her elbows on the edge of the counter and rested her head in her hands.

“Honey, I need to know by the end of the week, okay?”

She could hear the irritation in her mother's voice at the non-answer that Y/N had given to her. Her mother was a meticulous planner and she could not stand curve balls making a mess of her perfect holiday plans. Her mother treated every holiday as if the editors of Better Homes & Gardens were going to drop in at any moment and do a two-page spread on her decor and perfect meal.

“Got it, mom! I have to go!” Y/N quickly ended the phone call and shoved her phone into her pocket. She huffed out a heavy sigh and made her way to her front door, grabbing her keys from the catch-all bowl on the table next to the door. She quickly locked up her apartment and rushed down the two flights of stairs to the small community lobby. She adjusted the scarf around her neck and reached for the door but stopped as a new flyer on the community board caught her eye. She took a step back and ripped the paper from the thumbtack that held it to the cork board and shoved it into her coat pocket before pulling the door open.

Her hair whipped around her face as she stepped outside and was met with the cool autumn breeze that had settled in over the last month. Y/N looked both ways before stepping off of the sidewalk and hurrying across the street where her best friend, Leigha, was already waiting for her inside the small corner cafe.

“How is it that I have to drive from the other side of town and can make it on time but you literally live across the street and can’t?” Leigha teased as Y/N unraveled her scarf and took her coat off, draping both over the back of her chair before sitting down.

“Sorry! Sorry! My mother…” Y/N rolled her eyes as she recalled the phone call.

“Enough said!” Leigha laughed, she had one of those laughs that turned heads. Her laugh was always a little too loud and sometimes she would snort, it always caused Y/N to break into a fit of giggles. Leigha had been Y/N’s roommate all the way through college and they had been inseparable since the very first day they had met.

“So,” Leigha crossed her arms on top of the table,” did you work up the courage to tell her about Noah?”

Y/N shifted her gaze across the cafe and bit her lip “not exactly…”

“You are unbelievable, y/n ” Leigha sighed, exasperated.

Y/N snapped her eyes back to Leigha and held her hands up in defense “I tried! Well...I mean…I tried to try…”

“You know if you show up stag and your mother already has a place setting for a plus one, you might as well just go ahead and bury yourself, honestly” Leigha tutted.

“That’s why I have a plan!” Y/N turned around and rustled through the pockets of her peacoat before placing the crumpled flyer on the table. She smoothed her hands over the paper and pushed it towards the middle of the table.

Leigha snatched the paper up as the waitress came over and took their orders, Leigha ordered a blueberry scone with a chai tea while Y/N ordered a croissant with a side of strawberry preserves and a coffee.

“I mean…” Leigha read over the paper before sliding it back over to Y/N, “you’ve got nothing to lose.”

Y/N bit her lip and stared down at the flyer, re-reading it for the fourth time before she pulled out her phone and scanned the QR code to bring up the app.

“I can’t believe I am actually this desperate to try to literally purchase a date a week before Thanksgiving.” She muttered as she began to fill out her profile.

“Wait! Thanksgiving is next week? As in a week from today? I haven’t even made my Thanksgiving Pinterest board yet!” Leigha panicked and grabbed her face.

Y/N looked up from her phone and shook her head at Leigha’s antics “why do you need a Pinterest board? You literally do the same thing every single year.”

“Yeah…” Leigha jutted her bottom lip out in a pout, “but I want people to think that I am making all of these intricate and super cute appetizers and stuff. It’s the illusion that I care about!”

Y/N looked up and thanked the waitress as she set the food and coffee down in front of her before turning her attention back to Leigha who was eagerly biting into her scone.

“Help me answer these?” She passed her phone over to the girl and picked up the knife, spreading the strawberry preserves onto her croissant.

“Beach or Mountains?” Leigha readout with her mouth half full.

“Mountains!” Both girls yelled out at the same time and burst into giggles. They continued down the row of questions, passing the phone back and forth until Y/N finally hit the submit button. Leigha practically yanked the phone from Y/N’s hand as the algorithm began to shoot out potential matches. Her thumb scrolled through the pictures at lighting speed before she stopped and slowly scrolled back up before thrusting the phone in Y/N’s face.

“This one! Oh my god, this one! And if you don’t select the platinum package so that boy can say he loves you then I will literally never speak to you again!”

Y/N wiped the jam from her chin and grabbed the phone from Leigha. He was cute, there was no doubt about that but unlike Leigha, she cared about what his profile said about him. She scrolled through his pictures, one of him playing guitar, one hiking, one surrounded by friends around a campfire. Lover of nature, endless adventure, campfire songs, and sharing the love with my friends. I’ll jump if you jump, let’s take this plunge together?

She felt her lips curl up into a soft smile as she whispered his name to herself, liking the way that it rolled so easily off of her tongue.

“I told yooouuuu!” Leigha sang out and crossed her arms over her chest, a smug look on her face.

Y/N placed the phone on the table and tried to control the blush that she could fill rising to her cheeks, “calm down,” she rolled her eyes, “I’m paying for a Thanksgiving date, not falling in love.” She selected the platinum option and typed in her credit card number before clicking the purchase open without a second hesitation.

“I better be your maid of honor!” Leigha teased as the two girls dropped the appropriate amount of money onto the table and began to layer their coats and scarves back on. Y/N pulled the girl into a hug and placed a kiss on her cheek before heading back across the street towards her apartment.

She had just placed the keys back into her catch-all bowl by the door when her phone began to ding. She felt her heart begin to race as she saw the approval message on her screen that Charlie had accepted her request to rent him as her Thanksgiving date.

“Oh my god...okay...okay, this is fine...everything is fine.” She muttered to herself as she received another notification that Charlie had messaged her. She set her phone down on the counter and peeled her coat and scarf off before slipping her feet out of her boots. She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans and grabbed her phone, refusing to look at it until she had settled in on her couch. She crossed her feet under her and pulled a throw pillow to her chest before finally sliding up on the notification and reading the message that he sent.

Let's get to know each other? Lunch tomorrow?

Y/N hesitated for a moment before her fingertips began to slide across the keyboard on her screen.

Sounds good! How do you feel about chicken & waffles? I know a place!

She read over what she had sent several times, worried that she sounded too eager. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she waited for his response, watching as several dots appeared and disappeared several times on her screen before he finally sent his response.

A girl after my own heart! How is 12:30? Send me the address?

She felt her cheeks grow warm at his response and mentally reminded herself that he was just being kind and that she was quite literally paying for him.

500 Rue Kennedy Dieppe, NB. and 12:30 is perfect! I’ll see you then!

Y/N took a deep breath and closed the app before her thumb hovered over her mother’s contact. She quickly clicked on her number and quietly whispered to herself “please don’t answer, please don’t answer, please don’t answer.”

“Thank god!” she exclaimed as the phone sent her to voicemail. She rolled her eyes at her mother’s elaborate message before finally being told to leave her message at the sound of the beep.

“Hi, mom...it’s me...I just wanted to let you know that you will need to make sure to set an extra place setting for thanksgiving. Love you.” She rattled off, keeping the message vague but to the point.

The following day Y/N stood inside of her closet staring at her assortment of clothes trying to decide what said “I'm cool and definitely not desperate even though I paid for a date for Thanksgiving because my family is insane.”

She pulled a mustard yellow cable knit sweater from a hanger and laid it out on her bed before heading back to her closet. Her fingers sorted through the variety of skirts before settling on a silky, pleated navy skirt that was cinched at the waist. She laid the skirt out next to the sweater before moving over to her vanity.

She sat on the poof chair and stared at her reflection for a brief moment before pulling the small drawer to the left open and lining up her primers, eye palette, eyeliner, mascara, and her signature red lipstick. She grabbed the mason jar that sat on the right tableside of the vanity and grabbed the appropriate brushes, lining those up as well.

She used her middle finger of her right hand to gently swipe the eyeshadow primer onto her eyelids before dusting the brush across a shimmery gold eyeshadow. She used a maroon eyeshadow on her crease and slowly blended the colors until she achieved a golden and subtle smokey eye.Y/N shook her hands out to steady her nerves before slowly pulling the liquid eyeliner across her eyelids and flicking it softly at the end for a subtle cat-eye before she carefully built volume on her eyelashes with the mascara. Finally, she grabbed the matte red lipstick and carefully swiped it across her lips before blotting them with a tissue.

Y/N jumped at the sound of her phone vibrating on her nightstand. She moved across the room and grabbed the phone from the charger.

See you soon!

She felt the nerves settle back into her stomach and wiped her clammy hands on her pajama pants before quickly undressing. She pulled the yellow cable knit sweater over her head, careful not to let it touch her face. She followed that by pulling on the pleated navy skirt, the fabric falling just above her knee. She pulled on the fabric of the sweater at her waist so that it slightly hung over the waistband of the skirt before she slipped her feet into a pair of black pointed flats. She took one last look at herself in the mirror and pulled her curls over her shoulders before grabbing her purse and slinging it across her body.

Y/N entered the bustling restaurant and let her eyes wander across the tables trying to find Charlie. She wrung her hands together and pulled her lips into a thin line when she didn’t see him, her heart dropping at the thought that she had been stood up or even worse, that she had really fallen for a scam. She turned on her left foot and reached for the door, barely pulling it open before she felt a hand on her shoulder. She let go of the door, resulting in a soft thud as it closed.

“Y/N? You weren’t about to bail on me were you?” The soft voice teased as she turned around.

“I thought you had stood me up, actually.” She could feel the blush that dusted across her cheeks at the accusation. Her left hand fell to her right wrist, her fingers loosely wrapping around it as she looked up at Charlie through her eyelashes and offered an apologetic smile.

Charlie’s green eyes crinkled at the edges and his nose scrunched up as he laughed “take the money and run, I wish I would have thought of that!”

“Oh..” Y/N looked back at the door and then back towards Charlie, “if you don’t want to do this, it’s fi--”

Charlie smiled softly at her “I was just teasing, I didn’t want to sit at the table by myself in case you didn’t show and have to do the walk of shame, so I was at the bar.”

Charlie placed his right hand on the small of her back and guided her to a table in the middle of the bustling restaurant. He pulled her chair out for her before taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. Y/N tucked her hair behind her ears and glanced at the menu, though she already knew what she was going to order. The waiter, a young kid, probably seventeen stopped by their table and quickly took their order.

Y/N finally looked up to find Charlie staring at her, his face cradled in his hands with his elbows propped up on the table.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just trying to figure out why a very beautiful girl would need to rent a date for a Holiday.”

Y/N felt herself blush at his compliment and shrugged her left shoulder “I got dumped.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry”

She smiled and waved him off “It’s no big deal, we wanted different things out of life. He wanted marriage and I,” she hesitated, she hadn’t talked about this with anyone other than Leigha.

“You what?”

“I want adventure and I know that sounds silly. Like, of course, you can have adventure and marriage but Noah,” she paused, “that’s my ex.”

Charlie nodded and gestured for her to continue, “Noah works in the financial district and he wanted marriage and kids and stability….and I barely know what I want to eat for breakfast let alone what I want for eternity.”

“You’re a free spirit, nothing wrong with that!” Charlie interjected and Y/N felt her first genuine smile of the night spread across her face.

“You get it.”

“I do get it.”

Y/N thanked the waiter as he sat down two beers along with their orders of chicken and waffles, before turning back to Charlie.

“So, tell me about your family. What should I prepare myself for?” Charlie lifted the pint glass to his lips and took a sip of the amber-colored beer.

‘Well,” Y/N blew air into her cheeks and sighed, “my mother thinks she’s Martha Stewart. So be sure to compliment the decor as soon as you see her. You’ll win her over for sure...and maybe don’t mention the whole free spirit thing or you will definitely end up on her list of terrible suitors that I have brought home.”

“Noted.” Charlie nodded before adding, “and your dad?”

“My dad is easy going, just talk about beer and hockey and you'll be fine.”

Charlie threw his head back in laughter and Y/N couldn’t help but smile at the way his whole face lit up when he laughed. She felt a flutter in her stomach as Charlie leaned forward so that his forearms rested on the table and his fingers lightly brushed across hers before he pulled back. Y/n pulled her hands off of the table and dropped them into her lap, her fingers lightly traced over the silky fabric of her skirt.

“Is everything okay?”

Y/N inhaled a sharp breath and rolled her bottom lip into her mouth before exhaling, “yeah, but I should probably tell you something,” she looked up at Charlie through her eyelashes.

“Well, c’mon then..” Charlie teased after several seconds of silence.

“My folks don’t exactly know that Noah and I are….done...and I know there’s going to be a big event made of it when they find out.”

“Oof…” Charlie sighed and took a swig from his beer and a bite of his food.

Y/N felt her heart beating in her ears, “I understand if you, I mean if this is too much and you want to back out.”

Charlie looked at her with a playful smirk, “are you actually going to eat that or?” He pointed at her untouched plate of food with his fork.

“W-what?” Y/N looked down at her food and back up at Charlie before letting a smile slip onto her face. She didn’t understand how someone she had just met could put her nerves at ease without even trying.

Charlie let his fork clatter on his plate before leaning forward on his elbows. Y/N watched with furrowed brows as he grabbed the maple syrup and poured it in a circle over her chicken before he leaned back into his seat and met her eyes with a soft smile on his face.

Y/N picked up her fork and knife and cut into her maple drenched chicken before popping a small bite into her mouth, “are you happy now?” she teased Charlie before putting her fork back down.

Charlie tried to hold back the smile that threatened to take over his face as he nodded his head.

“So, what’s our story going to be? It’s gonna have to be a good one if I have to upstage Noah to win over your folks.”

The two spent the next hour concocting a believable, but very romantic story of how they met. They talked about their likes and dislikes, their quirks and habits, and all of the little things that couples are supposed to know about each other,

Y/N felt butterflies erupt in her stomach as Charlie walked her to her car, his left hand just barely brushing against hers. She mentally scolded herself for feeling jittery over a guy that was simply fulfilling his job, but she also couldn’t help but hope that maybe he was feeling their connection too.

“I’ll pick you up next Wednesday at 4 pm, yeah?” Charlie asked as they arrived at her car. Y/n tucked her hair behind her right ear and nodded.

She felt her breath hitch as Charlie leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her cheek before walking backward and sending her a wave.

A week later and Y/N found herself pulling on a green sequined, long sleeve dress, the hem set just above her knees. It was her go-to holiday dress, classic but not too formal. She painted her face with gold eyeshadow, a sharp winged eyeliner, and her classic red lips. Her hair hung over her shoulders in cascading curls. She sat on her bed, fastening a pair of strappy black heels when her phone dinged. She fastened the buckles of her heels and grabbed her phone, a smile instantly sliding onto her face at Charlie letting her know he’d be at her place in five minutes.

She stood up and checked her appearance one final time before grabbing her gold clutch handbag and shoving her phone into it, just as Charlie knocked on her door. She quickly made her way to the front door and turned the lock before pulling the door open.

“Wow…” Charlie breathed out as she came into full view.

Y/N shyly smiled back at the boy, thankful that the blush she had on her cheeks already would mask the red glow that she could feel heating up her face.

“You’re not too bad yourself,” she teased, her eyes trailing from his brown wing toed shoes up to his pristine white button-up and finally to his slightly coiffed hair.

“Shall we?” Charlie extended his arm out to Y/N after she locked her door. She looped her right arm through his left, her hand resting lightly on his forearm as they made their way through the corridor and outside to Charlie’s car.

He opened the passenger side door for her and waited for her to get situated before closing the door and running around to the other side of the car. Their forty-minute drive was mostly silent as Y/N worked to calm her nerves down. She knew that she was going to have a lot of explaining to do when she showed up with Charlie in place of Noah and she was trying to memorize all of the details that they had agreed on a week prior.

“Are you okay?” Charlie glanced over at her for a brief moment before returning his eyes to the road, his left hand took hold of the steering wheel as his right hand settled on her bare knee.

His hand was warm against her cold skin and Y/N wasn’t sure why but she found her left hand moving to settle on top of his hand. Without hesitation, Charlie flipped his hand over and let her palm fall into his before his fingers slid between hers and gently curled.

“Just nervous…”

Charlie lightly squeezed her hand before letting out a small chuckle “if I didn’t know any better, I would think that you’re the one about to meet my family.”

“Oh, I’m not nervous about them meeting you, they’ll love you,” Y/N clarified,” I’m nervous about the terrible things that I know my mother is going to say to me about ending things with Noah.”

Charlie licked his lips as he pulled into her parents’ driveway. He pulled his right hand free from hers and put the car in park before turning slightly in his seat to face her.

“You know that nothing she says is going to be true, right? You don’t have to live by someone else's timeline for your life.”

Y/N pushed down the warming feeling in her heart and nodded her head at his words.

“Yeah, I know...are you ready?”

Charlie smiled brightly at her and pulled the keys from the ignition before getting out of the car. He double-stepped around the car to the passenger door and pulled it open for her, waiting for her to get out before closing the door.

He slid his left palm into her right hand and tangled their fingers together before placing a soft kiss on her hairline and whispered “let’s put on a show.”

Y/N could feel the nervous energy erupting in her stomach as they stood outside of her childhood home. She took a deep breath before twisting the doorknob and pushing the red front door open. They were met with the warm heat of the home and the smell of cinnamon as soon as they stepped inside. Charlie let his eyes wander across the walls of the entryway, scanning the line of pictures before tugging Y/N over to one.

“This is you, yeah?” The question was rhetorical as it had been obvious that it was her in the picture. She stood on a cliffside, at the top of a mountain with a bright smile on her face, her childhood dog, Rex, beside her and the ocean behind her.

“Yeah, I was seventeen and went backpacking by myself for the first time. My mom was so mad. This family that was passing by was kind enough to capture the moment for me and my dad insisted that it be hung on the wall of accomplishments…” Y/N rambled off the story before letting her eyes move from the picture and up to Charlie.

Charlie smiled down at her and laughed, “this is gonna sound insane, but I think that was my family that stopped and took the picture.”

Y/N pulled her brows forward so that her forehead was pinched in the middle “shut up! No it wasn’t!” she finally exclaimed.

“Rex….the dog’s name was Rex. I remember because I thought you were pretty and I got flustered and I said something dumb about Rex from Toy Story.”

Y/N’s eyes grew wide as Charlie recounted the story and she felt her cheeks growing red at the revelation “well, this is a weird twist in fate--”

She was cut off by the sound of her dad’s deep voice bellowing her name as he turned the corner. Charlie pulled her into his side and let his right-hand rest on her hip, while her right hand rested on his chest.

“Well, this certainly isn’t Noah!” Her father exclaimed a large smile on his face and his eyes soft. He had never been the biggest fan of Noah’s to begin with.

Charlie dropped his hand from her waist and stepped forward with it stretched out towards her dad, “Charlie Gillespie, sir.” He was taken aback when her dad threw his head back in laughter and pulled him in for a full bear hug.

“Nice to meet you, son”

Y/N giggled at her dad’s antics, he had always been the type to do things like that. He was a stout man with laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. He had graying hair and a well-kept beard and he radiated kindness.

“And you, little missy, are going to have a lot of explaining to do to your mother.” Y/N pulled back from her dad's embrace and blew the air out of her cheeks.

“Yeah, I know…”

Her dad gently squeezed her arm and gave her a reassuring smile before leaving the two to grab a beer from the kitchen.

“Why do I have the overwhelming feeling to call your dad pops and ask him over to mine to watch hockey?” Charlie joked.

Y/N shrugged and tangled her fingers with his, “I told you he was the easy one. Are you ready for the rest?”

“Lead the way, beautiful.”

Y/N tugged on Charlie’s hand and he followed behind her as they made their way to the den where her brothers were corralled around and a card table, intense looks on each of their faces as they held their cards close to their bodies. Their wives were set on the opposite side of the room. Y/N could feel the three women’s eyes on her as she entered the room with Charlie and she knew their hushed whispers were aimed at her and the fact that Charlie was very much not Noah.

Her youngest brother, Josh, was the first of the three boys to look up and notice her. He dropped his cards on the table, face down, and scooted his chair back against the hardwood floors.

“Junebug!” He yelled as he practically launched himself towards her. Y/N exploded into a fit of giggles as her feet left the floor and he twirled her around in circles. Josh was three years younger than her, sitting at nineteen but she had always been the closest with him. Her giggles quieted down as he sat her back down and turned to Charlie.

“Well, you’re not Noah.” Josh quipped with a playful smirk on his face.

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck and laughed “I have a feeling I am going to be getting that a lot today.”

“You play poker?” Josh eyeballed him.

“I know my way around a deck of cards, yeah.” Charlie shrugged.

Josh turned to Y/N and lightly punched her shoulder, “looks like you got yourself an upgrade, Junebug!”

Y/N rolled her eyes at her brother and wished Charlie luck as he was pulled over to the table and introduced to her two older brothers, Samuel and Michael. She felt her shoulders relax for a moment as the table erupted with laughter from something Charlie had said. He looked up from his cards and shot her a wink before turning his attention back to the game at hand.

Y/N glanced back at Charlie one last time before making her way over to the prying eyes of Amy and Melissa, the wives of Samuel and Michael. The two women each held a mug of her mother’s homemade cider in their manicured hands.

“Who’s the cutie?” Amy was the first to speak, her left eyebrow raised as she asked the question.

Y/N looked over her shoulder for a moment with a smile before turning back around “Charlie…”

“Oh! Well, you’ve certainly never said Noah’s name like that before!” Melissa looked at Y/N with wide eyes.

Y/N shook her head at the two gossipy women “like what?’

Amy and Melissa both shot knowing looks to each other before Amy quipped, “sweetie, that boy’s name left your lips like honey falling from a spoon.”

“It did not!’

“You can deny it all you want, but we both heard it!” Melissa declared and brought her mug up to her lips, taking a sip of the warm cider.

“Looks like I’m out boys!” Y/N heard from the other side of the room. She glanced over her shoulder to find Charlie laying his cards down on the table before he slid out of his chair. She smiled at him as he made his way over to her. He stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist and tugged her back into his chest, his head resting on her shoulder.

“Charlie, these are my sister-in-laws, Amy, and Melissa.”

“Very nice to meet both of you.” Charlie beamed at the two women.

Melissa and Amy stood up at the sound of heels clicking against the tile floor of the kitchen. Melissa made her way around Y/N and she gently squeezed Charlies’s bicep, “good luck honey.”

Charlie pressed a kiss to Y/N’s cheek and tightened his arms around her waist as he felt her body tense in his arms.

“You’ve got this,” Charlie reassured before loosening his grip on her and letting her grab his hand.

Y/N sucked in a deep breath and gently pulled Charlie behind her as she navigated through the formal dining room and towards the kitchen where her mother was sure to be found.

She stopped just inside the doorway to the kitchen and turned to face Charlie, “you can still get out of this, ya know?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Charlie placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around, nudging her into the kitchen while he followed.

Y/N stood silently for a minute as she watched her mother pull the green bean casserole from the oven and wipe her hands across her floral apron. Her mother was a thin woman with auburn hair that was almost always pulled into a chignon.

“Mom? Can I talk to you?” Y/N hesitantly asked, suddenly feeling less like a twenty-two year old woman and more like a twelve-year old child.

“What do you want to talk about, dear? Because if it’s about Noah,” her mother grabbed a wooden spoon and stirred the brown gravy that was simmering on the stove, “then I frankly don’t have time to listen to your childish reasons for ending the only good thing you had.”

“You know?” Y/N choked out

Her mother grabbed the pepper grinder and began to twist the top over another pot of food, “I called Noah after we spoke last week since you couldn’t give me a straight answer when I called you.”

“Oh…” Y/N placed her hands on Charlie’s chest and gently pushed him backward. Her eyes pleading with him to give her a minute. She didn’t want him to bear witness to the reprimanding she knew was about to come. Charlie hesitantly left her side and waited on the other side of the door.

Her mother finally turned around to face Y/N. She placed her hands on the edge of the counter, her knuckles white from the tight grip.

“Honestly, y/n. I don’t know why you can’t get your life together. You graduated college just to throw away your education for this silly photography hobby of yours and now you threw away a perfectly acceptable relationship because you want to travel and have adventures? You’re not a child, anymore, y/n. When is this going to stop? When are you going to grow up?”

Y/N stood silently as the words washed over her. She could feel the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and let out a shaky breath.

“I…”

“What? You what, Y/N? What explanation could you possibly have this time?” Her mother cut her off.

Charlie pushed himself off of the wall he had been leaning on from the other side of the door and quickly made his way back into the kitchen. He felt her mother’s eyes on him as he quickly pressed a kiss to Y/N’s cheek, his hand sliding across the middle of her back before he put on his best smile and made his way over to her mother.

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Y/L/N. My mother would be insanely envious of the spread you’ve created, it’s magazine worthy!”

“Thank you, dear. You are much too kind! I am so sorry, but I don’t believe I caught your name?”

Y/N looked down at the floor and smiled to herself at the charm that Charlie exuded as he introduced himself to her mother and offered to help her bring the endless amounts of food to the formal dining room for her.

“I’ll go gather everyone.” Y/N shot an appreciative smile to Charlie before she made her way back to the den to gather the rest of the family into the dining room.

Y/N made her way over to the empty chair next to Charlie, the latter getting out of his own chair to pull her chair out for her before sitting back down. He placed his hand on the inside of her thigh and let his thumb rub circles on the top of her leg.

Her dad stood at the top of the table and carved the turkey while small talk was exchanged between her brothers and their wives and suddenly the question finally came from her mother.

“So, how did you two meet?”

Y/N glanced over at Charlie not sure if he was going to take the lead or not and was surprised when he started spitting out a story that was definitely not the one they had agreed on during their lunch meeting,

“I met your daughter several years ago on a hiking trip with my family,” Charlie paused and looked over at her before continuing, “my older brother, Patrick actually took that photo that you have on your wall in the entryway!”

Y/N’s heart was beating erratically as Charlie squeezed her knee before turning his focus back to her mother “your daughter took my breath away that day and I kicked myself for weeks for not getting her number and just having this missed connection. I guess you could call it a twist of fate, really, that I found her again.”

Y/N’s mother smiled at the two of them and Y/N felt her body tense for just a moment before relief rushed over her at her mother’s words “that may be the most romantic thing I have ever heard in my life.”

“Can we eat now or?” Josh hesitantly asked as he grabbed the plate of yams and began piling a portion onto his plate.

Y/N felt at ease for the rest of the evening as their shared meal went off without a hitch. Her family shared embarrassing stories of her with Charlie and she sipped glasses of wine as he endlessly complimented her. Her heart felt full as the night drew to a close and her dad pulled out the last Thanksgiving tradition. The wishbone was passed around the table until it landed in her hands. She turned to Charlie and gestured for him to grab the other end of the bone. They both tugged on the bone with their eyes closed until it snapped.

Y/N opened her eyes and looked down at the fractured bone in her hand and then over to Charlie who was holding the larger side.

“Make a wish,” she whispered to him with a soft smile on her face. Charlie shook his head and kissed her forehead.

“I don’t have to, I’ve got everything I want right here.”

Y/N dropped her eyes to the table and reminded herself that as much as she felt the connection between her and Charlie, that he was just playing a role.

She looked up as the sound of chairs sliding against the floor filled the room. She followed suit and slowly stood up from her chair.

“Do you need help, mom?”

“You go ahead and head out honey, I know you have a long drive.”

Y/N made her rounds of goodbye to her family before looking back at Charlie and grabbing his hand. They silently walked to his car and he opened the car door for her. Y/N hummed along to the songs that played on the radio during the drive back to her place. She tried to ignore the heat that she felt in her stomach as Charlie’s thumb ran across her knuckles every now and then. She watched the cars that passed by them, red tail lights lighting up her face as they drove on the highway. Before she knew it they were parked outside of her apartment.

“I guess this is it then…” Charlie looked over at Y/N as she unbuckled her seatbelt.

“I guess so.” Y/N agreed, her right hand rested on the door handle as she looked at Charlie, her eyes searching for any indication that he didn’t want her to leave. She let her hand pull on the door handle when Charlie didn’t respond.

She swung the car door open and stepped out into the street before making her way to the sidewalk. She turned around at the sound of another car door shutting and was taken aback by Charlie running over to her side

“I should walk you to your door,” Charlie answered the silent question

Y/N smiled and led the way through the apartment corridor until they stood outside of her door, her keys dangling in her left hand. She looked up at Charlie and smiled, “you didn’t have to see me inside, ya know?”

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand and shrugged, “all part of the job.”

Y/N felt her smile falter and turned around to place the key into the lock of her apartment door. She quickly turned the key and opened the door before stepping inside. She turned to look at Charlie one last time, “well, thank you for giving me my money’s worth,” she let her eyes fall from his.

“Goodbye, Charlie.” She closed the door and dropped her keys into the catch-all bowl before kicking her heels off and making her way over to the couch. She let her body slump into the soft cushions and pulled her phone out to call the only person that was going to understand.

“Tell me everything!” Leigha demanded as soon as her face appeared on the phone.

‘Well,” Y/N sighed, “I think I accidentally started to fall in love with him.”

Leigha couldn’t stop the giddy laughter that erupted from her small frame “I knew this was going to happen! I so called this!”

Y/N rolled her eyes at her best friend and poked her bottom lip out in a pout “it’s not funny Lee...I’m never gonna see him again and now I have all of these feelings to deal with.”

“You don’t know that!” Leigha argued

“I appreciate that you’re a hopeless romantic, Lee, but I was nothing but a paying customer to him...he basically said so himself.” Y/N frowned, thinking back to Charlie’s words as he walked her to her door.

“Oh...hun, I’m so sorry.”

Y/N let a sad smile slip onto her face, “I’m gonna go to bed, coffee tomorrow morning?”

Y/N hung her phone up and pulled herself up from the couch. She shuffled through the apartment until she reached her room and slowly peeled the sequined dress from her body. She made her way to the vanity and grabbed a makeup wipe and slowly removed the makeup from her face before she crawled into bed and pulled the covers tight around her body.

It was 8 am when Y/N was pulled from her slumber by her phone blaring the ringtone that Leigha insisted she set for herself. She rolled over with her eyes still closed and fumbled around for her phone before slowly cracking her eyes to hit the green button.

“What?” Y/N grumpily answered

“Don’t what me!” Leigha chastised, “there’s a cute boy at the cafe and he just ordered your order! Like to the T!”

Y/N set up in her bed and pressed her fingers into her eyes, rubbing the sleep away in small circles.

“Ok? And?”

“AND?! AND!!! His name is Charlie! I swear to god if you don’t get out of bed and make yourself look decent, I will literally kill you!”

Y/N dropped her phone onto her bed and pulled the covers back. She quickly made her way to her bathroom and brushed her teeth. She stared at herself in the mirror and ran her fingers through her messy bed head, her curls tangling together between her fingers.

“Shit..okay….okay…” She muttered to herself and opted to twist her hair up into a top knot. She secured it with a hair tie and ran back to her room where she threw on a pair of black leggings and an oversized jumper. Her heart nearly leaped out of her chest when she heard a knock on her door.

She wiped her hands on her leggings and quickly made her way to her front door. She took a deep breath to settle her nerves before reaching forward to unlock the door. Her hand shook as she turned the doorknob and slowly pulled the door open. Stood on the other side was Charlie with a small brown bag and a hot coffee extended out to her.

Y/N stepped to the side and opened the door wider, allowing Charlie to come in.

“What are you doing here?” She asked as she took the bag and coffee from his hands. She sat the bag on the counter and pulled the cup to her lips, taking a small sip. She hummed to herself as the warm liquid slid down her throat.

Charlie stepped forward and hesitantly took the drink from her hands, setting it on the counter behind her. Y/N watched anxiously as Charlie’s eyes moved across her face, flickering between her eyes and lips several times before he lifted his hands and placed one on her right cheek while the other cradled her neck.

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” Charlie whispered into the space between them before catching her lips with his. Charlie pulled away before Y/N had a chance to react, his face glowing red as he held his bottom teeth between his top two teeth.

“Is this free of charge?” Y/N joked as she placed her hands on Charlie’s chest and leaned forward, bringing her lips back to his.

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