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soobinologisttt · 1 year ago

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playing with fire - yang jungwon

pairing ☆ jungwon x f. reader

warnings ☆ dom!jungwon, (im a sucker for doms), sub!reader, cunnilingus, cheating (reader and reader's exbf), in exbf's bed (lolol), praise (!!!), jungwon is a sweetheart, ft. ryujin of itzy and jaemin of nct

word count ☆ 4k

a/n: summer break !!! i can finally post more :) i am taking summer courses which sucks tho :(

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

usually, you love a good party. the drinks, the way drunk girls unite while in line for the bathroom. it became one of your favorite things about college.

but it wasn't always this way.

during your first year, you absolutely despised parties. opting out to curl up with a good book or tv show.

it was your second year when you found your love for parties.

your roommates begged you to go to a "beginning of the school year" party. then they dressed you like you were their doll.

3 shots later, you were all ready to go. (you wanted to pregame in fear of getting spiked at the party)

when you saw yourself in the mirror, you could not see the nerdy girl underneath.

short black skirt, tight white corset, boots that gave you at least two inches of height, and smoky makeup up with lashes.

your breast sat pretty, your ass was basically out, and your hair was straightened. straying away from the normal curls.

this was way out of your comfort zone but you liked it. feeling, for once in your life, hot.

of course, once you were actually at the party the confidence you had dissipated. you felt self-conscious, as you stood in the corner of the room.

you watched as people danced with friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, sneaky links. seeing them dance so openly and freely made you feel like an imposter.

you looked down into your red cup full of sprite. it wasn't even halfway finished.

you frowned as you looked back up. scanning the room for your roomates, you saw them having a good time.

sipping drinks and flirting with a group of guys that you've never seen.

that's when a pair of eyes found yours.

your eyes met his dark eyes and you felt your heart flutter.

your eyes dart to the floor in a panic as your cheeks heated up.

you never had gotten attention from boys, especially guys that were as hot as him.

he was tall, a good 5'10, lean, pretty face, dark eyes, jet black hair that looked soft to the touch and full lips that curve up into a cupids bow.

you could only imagine how they would feel.

you pulled yourself out of your thoughts and raced to pull out your phone.

focusing intently on your phone, you pull up your shared groupchat and start to type.

you only got to third word when you saw a body enter your eye sight.

you looked up to see who it is and it's the guy that was staring at you.

your heart was beating out of your chest. you've only ever read about guys this beautiful. but now you were in the presence of one.

you were awestruck like you just saw god.

he was dressed in the most basic fit, a backwards hat, a white tee, black adidias pants with stripes, and a white pair of adidas.

"hey, i've never seen you hear before." he gave you the most gut churning smile.

his long dimples catched your eyes like a moth to a flame.

"yeah, my roommate dragged me here and then disappeared." you bit your bottom lip.

"well, i can keep you company for the time being," he took your empty hand into his, leading you to the kitchen.

"what are we doing?" you question as you see where he is leading you.

"to get a drink." he smiled.

"what's your name?" you asked as he pulls you along.

"i'm na jaemin," he smirked.

that's when you knew you were in deep shit.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

now, your stood across the room from him just like how it started. glaring at him as if you were a hunter stalking its prey.

you know he feels your gaze. choosing to ignore it instead for some girl. the girl being one of your ex-roommates. the same one that brought you to a party in the first place.

you weren't surprised at this revelation. you knew she was known for being a homewrecker.

even going as far as sleeping with a professor. leading to his divorce with his wife.

so when you found the sext's between your boyfriend and ex-roommate, you didn't even flinch. she's known for this.

but, jaemin doesn't know that you know. all day you've been going around like everything is okay between you two.

just like is started, you plan to end it that way too.

he wants to play, you can play too.

while dressing up, you made sure to put on something that would turn heads.

dressing yourself in a tiny black skirt, red corset, and your favorite black heeled boots.

wearing the most dramatic makeup, a smokey red look with eyeliner that could cut.

nevertheless he doesn't even give you a second look. instead his focus is on the girl in front of him. looking her up and down while smirking.

you feel your face get hot, the anger has you crushing the red cup in your hand. nearing spilling all of you're sprite and vodka.

your hands releases before anything can spill.

instead you take a big gulp, nearly draining your cup.

you continue watching as the alcohol runs down, basking in the feeling of the warm substance reaching your stomach.

the feeling calms you. taking your mind away from the breaking heart in your chest.

you close your eyes and take a deep breath. containing the tears that you've been holding back.

when you open your eyes, you see him flashing his gummy smile at the women in front of him.

you are so over it. you are so ready to go over there and talk your shit.

not only to him, but to her too.

just as you were getting ready to stalk towards them, you feel a pair of hands on your waist.

you yelp as you jump to turn around.

"oh i didn't mean to scare you," your best friend, ryujin apologizes.

"it's okay," you turn back around as you feel your eyes start to water.

she quickly follows your gaze to where your almost ex-boyfriend is flirting with your ex-roommate.

she knows everything. as soon as your found out, she was there. threatening to cut his dick off and shove it down his throat.

at the time that made you laugh, but now it makes you want to cry. you wish she could do it without getting charged, but unfortunately that is frowned upon.

you put your head down to shield the forming tears from your best friend.

"forget about him," she makes her way to your front.

"i am trying," you pull your head up to look her in the eyes.

her hands make their way to your shoulders, shaking you lightly.

when you see her soften smile, you nearly break down.

"we are going to dance." she pulls you into a hug before pulling back and grabbing your wrist.

you hurry to gulp down your drink as she pulls you along.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

you end up between ryujin and a random guy.

your back is to him as you scan the room to find your cheating boyfriend.

you didn't realize how close you were until he leans over you and whispers into your ear.

"what are you looking at?" he follows your eyes to were you have been looking, "you've been staring over there all night."

you roll your eyes, "my boyfriend is cheating on me with my ex roommate."

you turn around to face him, faced with on of the most beautiful boys you have ever seen.

you thought the same about jaemin, but this guy topped him by a lot.

as tall (maybe taller) than jaemin, wide cat light eyes, that gleamed.

you couldn't help but notice how pretty his eyes are. a dark chocolate color that has you buckling at the knees just looking at them.

you immediately freeze, face turning red for the second time tonight.

"i'm sorry for throwing that all on you,"

"no, it's okay. i'm jungwon," he greets you.

that name sounds so familiar but you can't put your finger on it. you crinkle your face as you attempt to recall.

"jungwon... i know that name from somewhere,"

"we had a project together last year. over the pros of solar power." he tilts his head slightly and smiles, his dimple on full display.

his smile caused the butterfiles to unleash from their cage in your chest. you attempt to lock them back up, but instead they make their way down to your cunt.

you slightly rub your thighs together as you feel your underwear dampen.

"oh yeah," you smile back.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

during the night, you dance with ryujin and jungwon. even going as far as to grind on the both of them.

hoping to get a reaction for your cheating boyfriend but instead getting the attention of his friends. glaring at you like you were in the wrong.

you couldn't care less, flipping them off multiple times as you grind your ass on the two people surrounding you.

as the night goes on you start to forget about jaemin. enjoying your time with jungwon and ryunjin, laughing and dancing to the music.

sometime around 1am, ryujin excuses you and her to go to the bathroom.

while standing in line you catch a glimpse of jaemin leaving his room with your ex-roommate, attempting to hide her behind him.

"where have you been all night?" he questions accusingly, as the girl sneaks past you both.

"i don't know, where have you been all night?" you scolf, crossing your arms.

"looking for you," he rolls his eyes.

"i was so easy to spot, ask your friends," you smirk, "or maybe ask your little fuck buddy," you nearly laugh.

"what?" jaemin squints his eyes are he plays dumb.

"oh you thought you were being sneaky?" you laugh this time, "might want to tell her that, she has been eyeing me the whole night. i think she wants me next. too bad i don't want your sloppy seconds." you wink.

you watch as his face turns a deep red. making you want to laugh even more. as he opens his mouth to respond, you hear the bathroom door open.

it is your turn for the bathroom.

"come on y/n," ryujin pulls you into the bathroom with her before you could finish going off on him.

"thank you," you hug her.

you probably would of pushed him down the flight of stairs next to you guys if she didn't pull you into the bathroom.

"no problem," she smiles at you as she pulls back.

after you both pee, you decide to go to check jaemin's room. sepecting that they were fucking while you were dancing.

you know that is it going to hurt you but you just need to prove it. your noisy personailty getting ahold of you.

when you both exit the bathroom, you top her. stepping off the side so the line can keep going.

"you can go down first," you tell her, "i have something i have to do." you nod to the room jaemin and his mistress came out of.

"okay, call me if you need me," she smiles, "the offer still stands, i can cut it off and stick it down her month instead."

you shake your head with a chuckle.

"i need you out of jail, who else is gonna threaten people for me."

she rolls her eyes, "fine, well text me. i'll be downstairs."

you give her a tiny nod before turning to walk down the dark hall.

when you get closer to jaemin's room, you see jungwon enter it.

you feel your stomach flip.

"why is he in there?" you question.

you conutine to stalk towards the room and with one step at a time, you feel your heart drop.

by the time you open the door, your heart is in your stomach.

the light on jaemin's desk is the only light on in the room. casting a orangish yellow color within the room.

"what are you doing in here?" you ask the boy that is leaning on jaemin's desk. the very same desk that you do homework on. or atleast did.

you shake the thought out of your head.

"waiting for you," jungwon smiles.

"how did you know i was.... you know what nevermind, can you help?"

"sure, what do you need me to do?"

you look down at your shoes that are killing your feet.

"i'm looking for anything that proves that they were.. having sex." you wince at the heartbreaking thought.

he quickly moves to look around the bed as you rummage through jaemin's drawers.

knowing him, you thought he would hide it somewhere.

just like how he hide his secret side piece.

"like this?"

you turn around in a flash and to see jungwon holding the evidence.

a ripped condom packet.

you feel the tears form.

"fuck." you quickly wipe the few tears that are rolling down your cheeks.

he looks at you with pure eyes. watching as you wipe your tears.

he starts to walk towards you, "y/n, you know that he -"

he stops as you dash to the bathroom, feeling bile rise from your stomach.

you dry heave into the trash, only to find the final conformation that he indeed slept with her.

the condom, lazily tied and tossed for the world to see.

you feel your world crash down around you. you back up to the wall behind you. sliding down it as the tears slide down your face.

"he doesn't deserve you, y/n." jungwon sits down next to you.

"i know, jungwon. but it still hurts," you pull your knees to your chest and put your head on them.

jungwon takes this chance to move in front of you. pulling your head up to look into your eyes.

his brown eyes matching his dark brown hair, both glimmering in the bathroom light.

"can i take your mind off of it?" he wipes your tears.

"how?" you search his eyes for a clue to why he is being so nice to you.

"like this," he leans foward and smashes his lips onto yours.

you kiss back, feeling his warm lips against yours. not in lust but in want, need, yearning.

placing his hands on your cheeks he pulls you into a deeper kiss.

he pushes his tongue lightly against your lips. asking for entrance. you slightly part your lips and he pushes his tongue in.

he tastes like cranberry, probably from the cranberry vodka he was drinking.

you moan at the taste, sending a shock to your now aching cunt.

you took this time to push your tongue into his mouth, exploring it, memorizing, and craving more of it.

you don't even know how long you have been kissing when he pulls back.

you could care less as he rest his forehead on yours.

"fuck, you have no idea how long i've wanted to do that." his dimples reval themselves as he smiles..

"really?" you look down at your shoes.

"yes," brings his pointer fingers to your chin and lifts up your head.

"jungwon?" you question as your eyes flicker from one eye to the other.

"yes gorgeous?"

"can we get off the floor? my heels are hurting my feet." you chuckle.

"oh yeah," he moves quickly to get up.

once he is on his two feet, he holds out his hand to help you up.

thinking that he is just gonna help you up, you take it. but instead you end up around him.

legs circling him and arms incasing his neck.

your faces are inches apart when he utters.

"is this okay?" jungwon asks, pulling his face back a little to watch you answer.

you feel youself blush at the way his breath tickled your lips.

"yes, this is okay." you smile up at him.

he takes this as a okay to walk you out of thr bathroom. sitting you on jaemin's desk, he quickly makes his way to look the door.

"if you want to stop at any time, tell me okay?" he states as he takes big strides towards you.

you nod with a little smile. already feeling a little daze from the way he is talking to you.

"baby, use your words. i need to know that you understand," he reaches you and pulls you to the edge of the desk. pulling you closer to him.

"i understand jungwon," as soon as the words left your mouth, he lunges at your neck. soft lips leaving a trail of soft kissed and love bites.

"atta girl." jungwon praises you.

you feel the ache between your thighs worsen as he speaks.

"if i was your man, i would treat you better." he mutters on your neck.

"jungwon," you moan as he places one hand on your waist and the other on your left tit. pulling roughly on your corset, letting your breasts out of the tight garment.

"you like that? my hands all over you in his bedroom?" jungwon teases.

"mhm, i like it so much," you throw your head back in bliss.

his fingers pinch and squeezes your nipple making you jump and whimper.

"fuck y/n, you're so amazing." he grunts.

you close your thighs around jungwon, core aching in need as he continues talking.

"i would make you so happy y/n," jungwon starts, "baby, you would never feel the way he makes you feel,"

he brings his hand down from your tit to your clit. outlining the little bead as you arch into his hand.

you throw you head back, making it easier for him to have access to your neck.

he sucks roughly at your soft spot.

between the feeling of his lips on you and the noises that are filling the room, you could no longer hold back.

"fuck, jungwon." you moan loudly.

"you're so perfect y/n." he groans.

your fingers claw at his clothed back, wanting more.

"can i leave a mark?" he asks against your neck.

you nod as he starts to suck and nip at your skin savagely.

the sensation of his lips against your neck and his fingers circling you clit but not touching, you feel like you were going to combust of need.

"jungwon," you try to move your neck.

but, he doesn't let you move instead he places the hand from you waist on the back of your neck.

"please, please," you grind into his finger, finally getting it to touch your clit.

you roll your eyes in pleassure.

"what do you need baby?" he mumbles against your neck.

"i need you."

he pulls back and brings his hand from your clit to your chin. admirring his work before looking into your eyes.

"are you sure?" his bright brown eyes look at your wereily.

"please, i really want this," you smash your lips onto his.

you feel his arms embrace you before picking you up and making way to jaemin's bed.

you know this is wrong but you couldn't care less. jaemin cheated on you... and you want this.

jungwon lays you on your back on the edge of jaemin's bed.

"god, you're so gorgeous," he pulls back to look at you.

you blush and shy away, turning your head.

he pulls your head back to look at him.

"you don't have to cover up for me," he smiles at you.

"okay," you look into his big brown eyes.

he makes his hands down to your skirt.

"can i leave it on?"

fuck.

"yes," you whine.

he moves to his knees and kisses up your thighs to your underwear.

you gasp as jungwon's teeth latch onto the thin fabic of your underwear. you sit up on your elbows to watch him drag them off of you with his teeth.

you can feel the smooth surface of his teeth as he slowly drags them against your skin.

his hands are on the side of both of your thighs as he looks up at you with dark, lustful eyes.

once your underwear are past your thighs, jungwon finishes pulling them down quickly.

"lay just like that baby." jungwon mumbles as he lightly pushes you back down.

when you're back down, he starts to kiss up your thighs.

his hands return to the side of you as he continues to kiss up your thighs slowly until he makes it to your stomach.

"you're so pretty," he growls onto your stomach.

"jungwon, please." you arch.

he slides his right hand up your thigh to your wet heat.

you shudder at the feeling, feeling the sensation of your pulsating cunt.

the soft tips of his fingers prodding at your entrance.

"please what?" he smirks against your stomach.

"touch me," you moan as he slides his finger in.

"that's all you had to say y/n," he slides back onto his knees.

before you could even think of something to say, his mouth connects with your clit. sucking harshly as you whimper.

"fuck jungwon," he slides another finger into your wet pussy.

fingers pumping into you as he sucks on your numb clit.

"jungwon," you heave as he speads up his pace.

his tongue swirls around your clit as he continues to finger you.

"i am going to cum," you moan, "please keep going, just like that." you run your hands through his hair.

he doesn't stop as you grip his hair tightly.

you start to feel that build up of pleasure that jaemin could never bring to you.

"fuck, i am so so so close,"

jungwon moans against your clit and you break.

arching you back as you chant his name.

he slows down his motions and lifts off of you, quickly coming up to check on you.

"are you okay?" jungwon smiles with his red lips and puffy lips.

"yes, i am more than okay." you smile at him in a daze, "this is the first time in awhile that a guy has made me cum." you blush.

"glad i could help," he smiles again before going down to pick up your underwear.

"what are you doing?" you sit up on your elbows.

"dressing you. i don't want your roommate to worry." he helps you to pull up your underwear.

"she'll be okay," you smile as he stands.

"i want it to be special." he looks down at you.

"what?" you look back up at him.

"I want my first time with you to be special." he explains.

"why?"

"because, this is something i've been dreaming about. i do not want it to be in the same room that you're cheating ex lives in. you deserve so much better." he pulls you up and looks into your eyes.

you blush as you look down at the floor.

"is that okay with you?" jungwon brings his hand to your chin and guides it so that you are looking at him.

his eyes as wide as a full moon. glaring at you with a sparkle that has you wanting to drop to your knees.

"yes," you kiss him, jungwon kissing you back with more passion than you thought a human could ever have.

he pulls back after about a minute, "let's get you home."

you nod as he grabs your hand and leads you to the door.

as soon as you open it, your ex is standing there.

"what the fuck are you doing with my girlfriend?" he nearly screams.

"doing what you couldn't," jungwon smiles innocently, "making her cum."

you chuckle as jungwon pulls you though the party.

eyes are all on you both but you couldn't care less. for the first time in a long time you feel wanted. cherished.

you look around for your bestfriend but don't see her. pulling out your phone you see her text.

i went home, text me (jungwon texted me ;))

"i can drive you home." he says as you both step out into the cold.

"i would love that," you smile up at him from his right side.

"alright," he slings his arm around you and kisses your forehead, "let's go."

#jungwon x reader #jungwon imagines #jungwon fluff #jungwon smut #jungwon hard hours #yang jungwon #enhypen #enhypen x reader #enhypen imagines #enhypen fluff #enhypen angst #enhypen smut

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d0rianw1lde · 5 months ago

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Yes, Steve’s currently three cars behind Eddie’s van, following him down a long stretch of dark road on a Friday night. But he swears, it’s for a good reason!

Because what could possibly be the reason that Eddie could never answer his phone on Friday nights? Why they could never be together Friday nights? Why he always seemed so elusive when answering Steve’s questions to him. “Can’t. ‘M just busy.”

“Busy doing what?” Steve would ask.

“Stuff.”

Stuff. Right. Steve’s got the wheel in a white-knuckle grip as they travel down past the city. His heart spikes each time a billboard pops up for a club, or adult stores, or even the closest gas station. Because anything could be true in this moment- any fear Steve has for Eddie’s true intentions could come true in just a few moments.

Eddie’s van finally exits the highway, and Steve tails behind, a bit confused when he zips past the busy city and travels farther, hopping onto a dirt road with a winding path. Further, and further still, until they approach-

A barn? Eddie’s van nestles at the end of a long stretch of cars in the parking lot, and Steve watches as he hops out, a new swagger in his step as he rests his hand on his cuff belt buckle and approaches the doors. He slips in, and with Steve’s coast finally clear, he parks. He waits for a few moments, tapping nervously against the wheel. He takes a deep breath, prepares himself, and makes his way toward the doors.

God, there could be anything behind there- what if the town was right all along, and Eddie had been the leader of some massive cult, and he’s fallen for the trap? What if this was a weird sex thing, and he’d secretly been hooking up with tons of people all at once in a ..barn. Or something.

But Steve can feel a thumping from the ground- melodic, rhythmic. Music is blaring inside.

Music?

He approaches the door, presses against it, and swings it open.

Well, Steve didn’t truly know what he expected to find that night. He expected a bombshell piece of information, and a blowout fight, maybe. Maybe expected to find betrayal laid out at his feet after hours of driving,

But this? This wasn’t on the list.

In a million years, Steve would have never guessed that behind this door was Eddie ‘Metal Forever’ Munson, situated in the center of a large dance floor among a crowd of people dressed in various hues of flannel and tacky cowboy boots, moving in time with the loudest country music Steve’s ever had the (dis?)pleasure of hearing.

And never in a million years did Steve consider that this image could be hot.

Because there, moving in time to a song Steve couldn’t even really begin to point out, in a cropped motorhead muscle-tee, the best-fitting jeans Steve had ever seen, and his damn bandana hanging out of his back pocket was his boyfriend, smiling as he danced alongside a few older women, who both take a moment to appreciate Eddie’s assets.

And he knows every move- god, how long had he been doing this? Steve has to remind himself to shut his mouth and hide before Eddie could see him, but when the patrons all make their quarter turn, they’re all facing Steve, and Eddie’s eyes dart to meet his. There’s a moment of surprise written across his face, before he eventually smugly smiles and throws Steve a wink, giving him a good show as he digs his heel into the dancefloor, spins, and makes sure to slow it down just a tad to give Steve the show he so eagerly came to see.

And Steve wants to leave- he turns on his own heel to quickly exit the barn, but he’s stopped as he goes to push against the door by a hand grabbing his wrists, the familiar cold rings soothing his nerves for a moment before he realizes he’s been caught. Red handed.

“Nuh uh-“ Eddie says, spinning Steve around. “No, you wanna spy? Now you gotta dance.”

#yes the song in mind was fake id #and what #brought to you by EDDIE IS FROM TENNESSEE AND DEFINITELY MADE A HABIT OF GOING WITH WAYNE #no i won’t shut up about southern eddie #no i don’t care if this is out of character #because why not. why not.#stranger things #steddie #eddie munson #joe keery #joseph quinn #joe quinn #dorian ficlet

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youunravelme · 2 years ago

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to all the girls you've loved before part six

author's note: okay......so i can explain. i know it's been like four months, but i swear it wasn't on purpose and tbh i lost track of time. so here's it is after months of waiting. i promise i didn't forget about it, i just had other projects i was working on (like the 30k words i wrote for two separate fics) that really took up most of my inspiration. there is a time jump in this, but not a huge one. but enough excuses! here's to part six (which is 9.4k words, i figured y'all deserved it)!

pairing: single dad!mat barzal x reader

summary: being a nanny for rich people was probably the worst thing that ever happened to you, until you started working for mat.

warnings: children, rich people, fear of falling in love, moving into angst city baby

day forty-five

you woke up in an unfamiliar place. disoriented, you looked around, noting that it was still dark outside. there was a weight around your waist that was familiar in the sense that you'd felt that sensation before, but unfamiliar in that it smelled like someone new. your heart started racing at the feeling, until you recognized it for what it was: an arm.

your heart rate settled for a moment until you blinked and realized that while you were at home, you were in a different room and considering there was no crib, you could only make one leap in logic:

it was mat's room.

jason's words came back to haunt you almost immediately.

he'll get bored of you eventually. people always do.

your hands felt clammy as you slowly slid out of mat's hold. your knees were shaking. the air was too thick to breathe evenly, but you knew if you started hyperventilating in mat's room, he might wake up and freak out with you.

so you took some shaky breaths and then booked it back to your room.

you stared up at the ceiling for two hours until ella woke up. immediately, you got up, thankful for a distraction from the conflict brewing inside your chest.

when you opened your bedroom door, mat was standing across the hall in his own doorway. his hair was disheveled and his white tee shirt was askew, but it was clear he had the same thought as you.

the two of you stared at each other until one of ella's cries snapped you both back to reality.

"i'll get her," you said quickly before darting into ella's room and ignoring the feeling of his eyes on you. they burned into your back like someone was steaming the clothes hanging off your body.

in the crib, ella was kicking her legs and flapping her arms as much as her sleep sack would allow. and for a moment, you forgot the momentary discomfort at the sight of her gummy smile.

"good morning, sweet girl," you crooned. you reached into the crib and unzipped her sleep sack before picking her up and into your arms. she immediately snuggled into your chest, tucking her head under your chin.

you changed her diaper before heading out to the kitchen where mat was cooking eggs.

you wouldn't look him in the eye, just focused on getting ella into the high chair. mat walked past you, putting her plate of fruit on her high chair tray. it was the closest you'd been since that morning in his bed. and while it was technically innocent, it didn't feel innocent.

as much fun as he was, you'd forgotten that mat was still technically your boss, a friend too, but your boss nonetheless. and sleeping in his bed, regardless of how much you believed you needed it, was a mistake.

you couldn't lose this job, lose ella, lose sydney, but you didn't think you could handle losing mat. not entirely.

so you'd settle for losing the smaller moments of closeness. you'd stay professional with him if only for the sake of keeping your heart and income safe.

god, you hated thinking of him just as an income, but jason's words rang in your head like a small town church bell at noon. was he just waiting to sleep with you? was he just taking pity on you?

it was too early to get a headache.

you sat in a chair next to ella and checked your phone for any messages when a plate was placed in front of you with eggs made in the way you loved and a piece of toast.

"it was all i could manage without giving you food poisoning," mat said sheepishly.

you said a quiet thanks and turned your attention back to your phone, missing the way mat's face contorted into a frown.

"what do you have planned for today?" he asked, taking the seat across from you.

you shrugged, not feeling too keen on going out in public after what happened the night before. you weren't stupid, logically you knew new york was a large city and the odds of running into natalie or jason were slim, but you saw them last night and you weren't too eager to chance repeating the same thing.

"i think we'll just take it easy, stay home and hang out," you said. the words what about you were sitting on the tip of your tongue, but you kept your mouth shut.

mat hummed as he took a bite of his toast. "i'm gonna go work out with tito before practice, and then i think we have some interviews or media to do," he said.

you nodded but said nothing. when ella finished her breakfast, which looked like her tossing eggs onto the floor, you scooped the plate up and hurried back into the kitchen, excited to do something more than just sitting in a room with mat. you started washing the plate, not even thinking about the dishwasher three feet away.

"i can get that," he said, reaching around you and grabbing the plate straight out of your hands. he placed in in the dishwasher before grabbing the broom and sweeping up the eggs on the floor as he cooed at his daughter.

your heart lurched in your chest at the sight, at the view of him being so gentle and doting. you cleared your throat and dusted your clean hands on your pants to keep them from doing something stupid like pulling mat to you and asking him to hold you like he did last night.

"i hate to rush off," mat started as he placed the broom back in its corner and washed his hands. "but i told tito i'd actually be on time today." he got ella out of her high chair and kissed her chubby cheeks. "dada loves you ella bean," he said before approaching you.

you did your best to prepare for eye contact. but the bottom line was as soon as you met his eyes, you couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

he was the prettiest man you'd ever seen, with an even bigger heart.

you snapped out of it when ella reached for you, focusing on how her downy brown hair was growing longer, instead of how she was a complete carbon copy of her father.

for a second, you almost felt bad for her birth mother, nine months of being pregnant, all that labor, only for ella to look just like mat.

but then you remembered that same woman dropped her daughter off with him with just a note, and any lingering feelings of empathy and pity immediately vanished.

you took ella and scampered off to her room, ready to get out of mat's presence.

the two of you were playing with some of her toys when you heard mat call out a goodbye before the door shut behind him.

it wasn't until the lock clicked that you could finally breathe.

day fifty-five

"are you coming to the game tonight?" sydney asked over the phone.

you had your cellphone tucked between your shoulder and your ear as you prepped ella's lunch for the day. the baby in question was babbling to herself when she wasn't stuffing her face with the cheerios you gave her until you could give her lunch.

"uh..." you hesitated, trying to play it off like you were too focused on mashing up bananas.

"oh come on," sydney said. "i feel like i haven't seen you in forever."

"you saw me last week."

"that was seven days ago. you didn't even come to the game earlier this week. what was that about?"

the words were on the tip of your tongue, the truth dangled in front of you like low hanging fruit, but you couldn't get yourself to say it. not in his home, not when he would be getting home shortly, not in front of ella, even though she would never be able to repeat it.

sydney said your name. "are you there?"

you sighed through the receiver. "i'll be there."

"great! i'll pick you up!" she said before hanging up.

you and ella ate in silence until mat came through the front door. ella immediately squealed and threw her bananas in the air, some of which landed in her hair, other pieces ended up on the floor.

"ella bean!" mat smiled as he dropped his things on the ground.

he walked over and you shot up out of your seat to walk into the kitchen under the guise of grabbing paper towels to clean up her mess.

"how was she?" mat asked, taking over your job in supervising his daughter eating her lunch.

you shrugged even though he couldn't see you. "she's been fine. it's been a normal day."

"are you coming to the game tonight?" he asked. truthfully, he'd asked you earlier that morning, or maybe the word begged was a better word to use. you could tell he was disappointed that you hadn't gone to his game earlier that week, but he was never going to pressure you.

"yeah, we're riding with sydney."

"do you have anything to wear?" he asked.

your back was turned, so you didn't see the hopeful gleam in his eye. so when you shrugged and said "sydney said she would get me a shirt," you didn't see the way his shoulders sagged and how the corners of his mouth turned down.

when you turned back around, he was back to looking happy.

you started cleaning up the banana off the floor while mat handed ella her water cup.

"she takes a nap right after lunch, right?"

you looked up at him to find him already staring at you. his hazel eyes felt like they could see right through you, like they could tell you were pulling away and wanted to know why.

you nodded, rendered speechless by his gaze.

"i'll put her down, i've missed her." he booped her nose which made her immediately shriek and squeal. "i don't have to be at the arena for another two hours, so you're free to do whatever."

you expected as much, after his first long roadie, mat wanted to do everything concerning ella. considering he got back earlier that week before having a home game two days later, he hadn't been as present as he would like.

and the result was always a clingy mat.

"sounds good," you said.

maybe you'd text sydney to hang out at a coffee shop for the time being. or maybe you'd lock yourself in your room under the guise of napping while you stared at the ceiling and wondered how you got into this situation.

as ella finished up, the idea hit you immediately.

erin, the woman who you nannied for first.

when mat put ella down, you snuck out the front door and across the hall, praying she would be home. you knocked and waited, fully expecting to turn around and go back to mat's apartment.

you stood outside for all of five minutes before turning back around and heading back into mat's apartment.

"everything okay?" mat asked when you walked back inside the apartment. he was just coming from putting ella down if having one of the baby monitors in his hand was any indication.

"yeah, i'm fine," you said. "i'm just gonna go lay down for a little while."

"oh," he replied. "thought we could watch one of those reality shows you like. felt like i haven't seen you in awhile."

you gave him a small smile. "rain check? i'm really tired."

mat smiled back, though it wasn't as confident as it usually was. if you looked hard enough, you could see the edges of it shake, like he was doing his best to keep up appearances.

but you headed back to your room before you could do something stupid like apologize for the emotional distance and ask for forgiveness.

you got got into bed and stared at the ceiling, only taking your gaze off of it to turn your baby monitor on. you weren't sure how long you were in that borderline comatose state, just repeating jason's cutting words in your head, when ella woke up.

you got up when she cried, fully expecting mat to be gone by then, considering it had been an hour and a half. but you walked into ella's room to see him pulling her out of her crib in his game day suit.

and it should've been illegal to see him snuggle and kiss her cheeks. to witness him cooing back at her as he changed her diaper. you leaned against the door frame, unable to keep your heart from soaring at the sight. just to think, a month and a half ago, he was terrified, now he was changing a diaper like he'd done it his entire life.

he didn't notice you until he turned around and nearly jumped ten feet in the air at the sight of you standing there. "jesus fucking christ," he said. "you scared me."

you couldn't help yourself. "you don't say," you quipped with a grin tugging at the corners of your lips.

mat closed the distance between the two of you and passed off ella. "i hate to run, but--"

"you don't have to explain yourself to me," you said. "we'll see you later."

he nodded and booked it out of the room, but not before pressing a kiss to the side of ella's head.

you heard the door lock behind you a beat later.

you and ella spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around before it was time to start getting ready for the game. you had her dressed in her barzal jersey and a coat while you slapped on a pair of jeans and a tank top, waiting for sydney to bring you the shirt you'd end up wearing.

it was a quarter to six when sydney knocked on the door. she had her daughters with her. winnie immediately went to see ella, who was sitting in her playpen with one of her toys in her mouth.

"you look cute," sydney commented before tossing the shirt at you. without even thinking about it, you tugged the shirt over your head and threw on the jacket you had laid out on the couch.

"so do you," you replied while slinging the diaper bag over your shoulder. you quickly scooped ella up and looked at sydney. "you ready?"

she nodded as the two of you got three kids out to her suv. you had ella in one arm, her car seat in the other, with her diaper bag weighing heavily on your shoulder.

fifteen minutes had passed by the time you got all the girls in the car and strapped in yourselves. you thought everything was normal until sydney turned the music on a little louder and looked at you from the corner of her eye.

"what's going on with you and m-a-t," she spelled out his name probably as a precaution to prevent winnie from picking up any details.

you froze, but tried to play it off. "what do you mean?"

sydney rolled her eyes. "don't play dumb. you asked me for a shirt to wear tonight instead of raiding his closet like you usually do. you didn't go to the game earlier this week under some flimsy excuse."

you sighed, knowing you had been caught.

but sydney wasn't done.

"not to mention, m-a-t asked me what happened at the bar because you'd been distant ever since and hadn't talked to him about it." sydney sighed. "i'm not mad," she said. "i just want to know what's going on with you, i thought things were going well. you two seemed..."

you looked over at the blonde. "seemed like what?"

she shrugged. "just thought you two were a good fit is all."

you groaned. "syd--"

"but we don't have to talk about it, i just think you need to have a conversation with him sooner rather than later."

whatever you had to say was cut off by winnie screaming out the lyrics of baby shark.

the five of you arrived with an hour left until the puck drop. thankfully, the wags rented a suite which meant you didn't have to contend with a huge crowd and ella didn't have to feel confined to just one seat the entire night.

grace along with the other wags greeted you and ella with grace offering to take ella from you in exchange for a margarita, an offer you couldn't turn down.

when the boys came out for warmups, you went with sydney and her daughters and ella down to the ice. ella fought the headphones on her head, she kept reaching for them but you had to pull her little hands away so she wouldn't hurt her ears.

it took a few seconds for matt martin to spot the five of you before he was skating over and waving at his daughters and wife. he smiled at you and ella, tapping the glass once before continuing his warm ups. it was seconds later when your mat showed up with a big smile on his face. ella shrieked, and though the sound was lost in the ruckus of the arena, mat looked happier.

your eyes met and the noise died down, even if it was for a brief moment.

you okay? he mouthed.

you nodded and gave him your most convincing smile. it seemed to do the trick because he was beaming back at you as he skated away backwards, eyes locked on yours.

you turned away and caught sydney staring with a smirk. and while she didn't say anything, you could almost hear her train of thought.

when the game finally started, you were all back in the suite. ella was clinging to you, refusing even the idea of being held by someone else. you couldn't blame her, it was getting close to her bedtime and she was always clingy around that time.

you did your best to pay attention to the puck, to the other players on the ice, but your eyes kept finding 13 whether he was on the bench or the ice. he kept glancing around the ice, probably following the puck like you should be, and occasionally talking to his teammates.

you turned when someone nudged you. grace was standing there with a cup of ice water in her hands. "do you wanna sit?" she asked. "i know your arm is getting tired." you smiled and nodded thankfully, following her over to a pair of seats.

she let you sit in silence for just a moment before she started talking. "are you okay? you seem lost in thought tonight."

part of you wanted to be annoyed with the constant interrogation. no one had ever asked you this many times if you were alright. but that thought alone had your heart lurching.

no one had ever checked on you this many times like sydney, grace, and mat had. it was an unusual feeling, and one that made your heart beat faster in your chest while also making your stomach turn.

"i've just got a lot on my mind," you said, hoping the answer would suffice.

grace nodded, like she could recognize when it wasn't worth the effort to keep pestering. "if you ever need someone to talk to, i'm here. i know running into an ex is never fun."

you kept a straight face even though grace hit the nail on the head.

the game continued on with the islanders winning 6-2. but you had been so out of it, if anyone asked, you wouldn't be able to tell them who the isles played against.

you made your way down to the locker rooms with ella sleeping against your shoulder and the diaper bag slung over the other shoulder. you would've put her in the car seat, but after an earlier attempt ended in her crying and screaming for ten minutes before she fell back asleep, you decided to just hold her. grace had the car seat in one hand so you wouldn't have to carry it while holding winnie's hand with her other one so sydney could carry her diaper bag and her youngest.

the three of you waited with the other wags, making small talk amongst yourselves like you had all night.

anders came out first and kissed his wife before greeting everyone else. matt came out shortly after with casey. his attention was immediately drawn to winnie who ran into his legs with zero hesitation.

you waited for ten minutes before your mat came out with his game day suit on and wet hair. it felt as familiar as your mother's homemade cooking.

he smiled when he saw you, anything anthony was telling him didn't matter anymore.

"what'd ya think?" he asked.

"you played a good game."

his gaze drifted from your eyes to your lips then to the baby on your shoulder. his brows creased in confusion. "she didn't sleep in the car seat?"

"we tried, but she screamed and wouldn't settle unless i was holding her."

he nodded before adjusting the bag in his hand so he had a free one to scoop the car seat out of grace's grip. he nodded towards the diaper bag on your shoulder. "want me to carry that?"

"you saying i'm not strong enough to carry it by myself?" honestly, you were supposed to be keeping things professional between the two of you, but you just couldn't help but quip back at him. not when he made it so much fun.

mat rolled his eyes and took the bag off your shoulder and slung it over his own. "let's go home."

day sixty-eight

with christmas approaching, you were spending all of ella's nap times, packing your bags and wrapping presents. thankfully, you had the foresight to ship your family's christmas presents to your parents' house.

it was just a matter of wrapping mat and ella's presents.

you might've gone overboard with ella's presents, spending too much money on books and a stuffed animal you thought was cute. mat's present was different.

it was always gonna be different.

originally, you weren't even sure if you were going to get him a present considering you were trying to keep things professional. but sydney let it slip that his present to you was really thoughtful, so you immediately left the apartment as soon as mat got home.

in the end, the tie felt a little impersonal, but you added a note, heartfelt enough to not be insulting, but maintaining an air of professionalism. you kept the presents in your room, knowing mat wouldn't try to guess what you got him if it was out of sight.

mat had roped you into decorating for christmas, a tradition he hadn't honored since moving out to new york, but with it being ella's first christmas, he was going all out.

with ella's first christmas approaching, mat's family made plans to fly in two days before to attend the game. you made plans to leave the city so his family didn't have to get a hotel room and you could miss the christmas eve traffic.

your bags were packed by the door while mat got ella ready.

"who's driving you to the airport?" he asked at the dinner table the other night.

"no one," you said after you'd swallowed your food. "i'm taking an uber."

mat made a noise in the back of his throat. "no you're not. i'll drive you. what time do you have to be at the airport?"

"mat, it's not that serious."

"it is to me. so again, what time do you need to leave?"

mat came walking down the hallway with ella all bundled up against the cold weather that was raging just outside the window. snow flurries were falling down at a rapid rate, something that might've concerned you had mat, a canadian, not been the one to drive you.

he handed ella off to you before scooping your bags up in one hand and opening the front door with the other.

"you don't have to carry my bags, mat."

"well, you're carrying my child, so why would i make you carry bags on top of that?"

"you could've carried ella!"

"not when i was planning on carrying your bags! now let's go, you don't want to miss your flight, now do you?"

the three of you headed out to his car and loaded it up. mat placed your bags in the trunk while you strapped ella in before you both hopped in the front and headed towards the airport.

"you excited to see your family again?"

you nodded. "it'll be good to see everyone again."

"you don't have any relatives you'd rather avoid?"

you couldn't help it, a laugh burst out of your mouth without your permission. "actually not this time around but--"

an alert on your phone cut you off.

flight BA4739 has been cancelled due to a mechanical issue.

"you've gotta be shitting me," you said.

mat glanced at you before quickly turning his eyes back to the road. his attention, though, was still on you. "what happened?"

"my flight's cancelled."

mat eased into the right lane and began the drive to the apartment. "are there any flights you can catch?"

you were a step ahead of him, checking every possible flight out of jfk and shaking your head when you came up empty handed. "it doesn't look like it." you sighed and pressed your head against the head rest. "god, i'm sorry mat. i know your family is coming in tomorrow and this puts a dent in things."

he scoffed. "it's fine, just means they'll have to get a hotel, but i can take care of that easy."

your eyes shot open. "mat, don't put them in a hotel, i can find someone to stay with."

"i'm not kicking you out of our home. that's ridiculous."

you clenched your jaw to keep it from dropping at his statement. mat said it so plainly, it was almost like it wasn't a big deal.

"mat--"

"listen, you're not going to a hotel, that's final. when we get home, we'll check for the next flight out and i'll buy the tickets."

"you don't have to--"

"consider it my christmas present to you," he said like there weren't presents under the tree with your name carefully written on them.

you rolled your eyes, but there was a smile tugging at the corners of your lips.

when the three of you got back to the apartment, you grabbed ella while mat took the bags. the second you three were settled, you were pulling out your laptop and double checking for flights. when you couldn't find anything, you sighed and resigned yourself to a white christmas in new york.

day sixty-nine

you and ella were dancing to christmas music in the living room when the barzals came in through the door.

"let me see my grandbaby!" nadia said, dropping her purse on the couch.

you handed ella over immediately, though you hung around for a second to see if she would cry. but ella just smiled and stuck a fist in her mouth.

liana came through next, hugging you briefly before turning her attention to her niece.

a man who you'd never met but knew to be mat's father walked in carrying bags of his own with mat following behind him. you fully expected to be bypassed in favor of ella, and you wouldn't even blame him. but he stopped in front of you and placed the bags on the ground at his feet. with a heavy hand he'd placed on your shoulder, mike barzal began to speak.

"thank you," he said. "thank you for taking care of my son and my grandchild. when we heard the news, my wife and i were trying to figure out what to do, but then mat called a few days later and sang your praises." he squeezed your shoulder gently. "i can't tell you how much it means to us knowing that you're here taking care of ella and helping mat."

you managed a smile, not really having the words to communicate how much having mat and ella has changed your life.

mike squeezed your shoulder one more time before walking over to where his wife and daughter stood.

mat approached you next, the bags he carried in were resting by the door.

"i can sleep on the couch, or go out and buy an air mattress and sleep in ella's room," you said. "just say the word."

mat rolled his eyes and elbowed you lightly. "quit it. this is your home too, i'm not kicking you out."

"i hope i didn't hear you offering to vacate your room," nadia turned around and faced you, quirking an eyebrow. "we're not going to make you leave."

"you wouldn't be making me do anything, i'm offering--"

"and we're denying the offer," she said matter of factly. "there's a nice hotel not too far from here."

"i don't want to split up your family for christmas!"

nadia approached and with the arm not holding ella, she reached out and squeezed your hand. "sweetheart, you've been taking care of my babies, you're family to me now."

you swallowed the lump in your throat.

"i'm sorry you don't get to spend christmas with your family," she started. "but i'm glad i get to watch you open the presents we got you in real time."

your jaw dropped. "mrs. barzal you didn't have to--"

she shook her head. "you deserve to be appreciated, sweetheart." then she directed her attention to ella. "isn't that right, baby?"

liana turned her attention to you. "are you going to the game tonight?"

you shook your head. "i'm going to grace's to help with last minute decorations for the team christmas party."

"are you taking ella?"

you shrugged. "i figured i'd leave that up to you. i can take her if you'd rather focus on the game and not a cranky baby.

nadia pressed kisses to ella's cheeks, enough that the little girl shrieked with laughter. "let's play it by ear, if she's cranky before the game, she can go with you, if that's alright."

you smiled and nodded.

as the day went on, ella stayed in pretty high spirits, even when mat left to head to the arena. she took a lengthy nap which gave nadia enough confidence to take her to the game. you ubered to grace's house, a secret that was meant to stay between you and liana, who saw you ordering the ride.

you arrived at grace's house five minutes before the puck dropped. in true hockey wife fashion, she had the game pulled up in the living room so you could watch while you worked. sydney's daughters were camped out in front of an ipad, watching bluey while their mom came in and out of the room with bags of groceries. grace's daughters, you were told, were already in bed.

"where's the baby?" winnie asked when she saw you.

you couldn't help yourself and laughed. "she's at the game."

"why aren't you with her?"

you smiled and squatted down to look her in the eye. "her grandparents are watching her, so i came over here to help."

winnie furrowed her brows, scrutinizing you. "but you're her mom, you're supposed to be with her. my mom is always with me."

"i'm not ella's mom, winnie. i'm her babysitter. like when your parents go out sometimes and they have a babysitter watch you? that's my job."

"then where's her mom?"

you opened and closed your mouth a few times before you realized the words just failed you. there was no way to say the truth other than plainly.

so you shrugged and said "i don't know."

sydney and grace rounded the corner and smiled when they saw you, greeting you with hugs.

"so it shouldn't take too long," grace started. "we're just adding a few decorations, sydney's gonna help me in the kitchen with prepping some of the food for christmas." her attention turned to you. "do you think you can handle the decorations around the house? it should just be the downstairs and the railings up to the second floor. nothing too extravagant."

you looked at the totes of decorations numbering in three total on the floor. "i can do that," you said.

grace smiled wide. "thank you, thank you, thank you!"

you smiled back and immediately got to work. it wouldn't take you long, the house was already pretty decorated, but grace had gone about and beyond and insisted on getting stockings for every player's family still in town, which was more than half the team. there was a table in the front entrance where you put the players' stockings and laid them out in neat rows.

on the stockings, there was the last name of the player with names below it being members of their family. marty's had sydney's, winnie's, and alice's name below his own. sorokin's just had his own name. but you hesitated when you pulled mat's out of the tote.

barzal was in big letters with ella's name underneath.

and then your own.

you blinked over and over, thinking maybe you were hallucinating.

"i hope i didn't overstep!" grace's voice startled you out of your stupor. "when mat told me you were staying in town for the holiday, i went ahead and added your name. do you know if his parents and sister are joining us?"

you shook your head. the plan was you'd be with the barzals christmas eve and christmas morning, but christmas night, when you went to the lee's house, nadia, mike, and liana would stay back. as far as you heard, anders had extended the invitation, but they declined it, not wanting to impose.

grace nodded. "okay, sounds good then!" she made a move to walk away but stopped when she saw the look on your face. you weren't quite sure what she was seeing from her perspective, but your mind was racing and your feet felt like lead. "are you okay? you seem in your head."

you shrugged. "just trying to figure things out."

"is everything okay with mat? you two seemed fine not too long ago."

and you were. but you hadn't told sydney or grace about how you slept in the same bed as mat the night you ran into your ex. and you weren't going to share that now. they'd both read into it, think things were different than they actually were.

"i just miss my family," you said.

it was clear she didn't believe you, but thankfully, grace let it go. she walked back to the kitchen while you continued to lay out the stockings.

you finished with the stockings shortly after, not sparing another glance to the one with your name on it.

it took another thirty minutes to finish the decorating before you joined grace and sydney in the kitchen. you took a seat at the bar and watched them prepare some of the dishes for christmas. it was mostly just chopping and putting things into pans and oven safe dishes.

you were halfway listening to the chatter happening between the wives when your phone buzzed.

liana told me you ubered to anders'?

mat.

you texted back, a small smile on your face. sydney was already here, i didn't have a ride otherwise.

could've asked me to drop you off.

two hours early? no thanks.

well, stay there until the game is over. i'm picking you up.

you rolled your eyes, but still couldn't keep yourself from smiling.

"what's mat saying now?" sydney asked.

"huh?" you asked, head snapping up to see two smirking blondes staring back at you.

"mat," grace said. "what did he say?"

"how did you--"

"you only smile like that with him," sydney explained. "certainly never smiled like that around your ex, the one time i saw him with you."

at the mention of jason, your stomach churned, but you kept up appearances.

you, grace, and sydney were chatting on the couches when the front door opened with matt, anders, and mat walking in. winnie, who was originally dozing off, popped up from laying on the couch to see her father standing there. she smiled and ran over to him.

anders walked in the living room and kissed his wife.

which just left you and mat, staring at each other across the room and not saying a word.

"how was the game?" sydney asked.

all three of the hockey players shrugged in unision. "fine," anders said before collapsing on the couch next to his wife. "how was your night?"

grace looked at you and sydney before smiling and turning to her husband. "i'd say it was productive and fun." you and sydney hummed in response.

matt came and sat next to his wife and a sleeping alice who was in sydney's arms. which just left an empty spot next to you and mat who was still standing in the doorway.

"barzy, you gonna come sit or stand there awkwardly?" anders chirped.

almost like he was snapped out of a daze, mat walked over and took the seat next to you, leaving about four inches between your hips and his. almost immediately, he threw his arm over the back of the couch behind your head.

you turned and looked at him for a moment, forgetting about the other people in the room. "ella with your parents?"

he nodded. "i offered to take her, but my mom insisted on putting her down."

"did you score at all tonight?"

he grinned and nodded yet again, but it was marty who cut him off.

"should've seen him! two goals, one assist."

your jaw dropped as you looked back at mat. "that's insane!" he immediately beamed at your reaction. your eye contact was broken up when his phone vibrated. mat's face twisted into a frown before he stood up and offered you a hand.

"hate to rush off, but my mom just said ella keeps crying and won't go to sleep, so we gotta go."

marty and sydney stood to their feet, each carrying a child. "we should also be heading out," matt said. anders and grace stood up a beat later, offering to walk all of you to the door.

matt and sydney exited first, with you and mat trailing behind them. mat's hand rested lightly on your lower back, something that had your knees trembling.

grace and anders hugged all of you goodbye and promised to see you in two days. they stood on the front porch and watched as all of you got into your respective cars.

mat didn't say anything until he was pulling out of the neighborhood. unlike the times before, the silence wasn't tense or awkward, it was just calm.

"did you have fun?" he asked.

"yeah, it was nice seeing them outside of hockey games and bar meet ups." you yawned.

"missed you at the game, it wasn't quite the same without you there."

"you scored twice and assisted on one goal, i'd say you did fine without me."

"could've gotten a hat trick if you were there."

you furrowed your brows, but there was a small smile playing at the edges of your lips. this felt normal, like nothing had changed, just you and mat. "how do you figure?"

he shrugged. "i always play better when you're there."

you almost did it. you almost asked him why. but you were scared of the answer, scared of what it would change.

scared that it wouldn't change a thing.

he's not gonna fall in love with you.

it was only a matter of minutes before you were back at your apartment. the two of you took the elevator to get to your floor.

you could hear ella's cries through the front door as mat hastened to unlock it. the second the door was open, every head turned towards the two of you. mat shut the door while you walked over to where liana was holding a crying ella.

ella immediately reached out for you, rubbing at her eyes when she finally settled on your hip. "sorry," you apologized to mat's family.

"what're you apologizing for, sweetheart?" nadia asked. she squeezed your arm before ushering her family to the front door. "we need to get to our hotel and get some rest. we'll see you three tomorrow."

"bye mom," mat kissed his mother's cheek and hugged liana and mike before walking them to the door and locking it behind them.

you stared at him, even as he turned around and made eye contact with you. you finally noticed a line on his forehead that you missed earlier.

you gestured to your own forehead. "you have a line right here..." you trailed off.

mat reached up a hand and felt for it before rolling his eyes. "it's from my helmet, dumbass."

you gasped and covered the one ear of ella's that wasn't pressed against your collarbone. "in front of the baby?"

"you said worse two days ago when you hit your hip on the kitchen counter."

you rolled your eyes, which seemed to be a recurring theme between the two of you that night. "i'm gonna try to take the queen to bed, wish me luck."

"i can put her down if you want," he said but you were already walking down the hallway and waving him off.

it took twenty minutes to settle ella down enough to go to sleep, and by the time you hit your mattress, you were out like a light.

day seventy-one

you woke up when the sunlight peeked through the blinds. your heart immediately shot to your throat when you realized you couldn't hear ella's sound machine through the baby monitor. the panic didn't settle when you turned over and realized it was off.

you jumped out of bed, barely remembering to throw on a sweatshirt over your tank top, and threw the door open.

you were immediately greeted with the sound of christmas music coming from the kitchen. it wasn't until you rounded the corner and saw mat making eggs with ella on his hip that you finally relaxed.

mat turned around at the sound of your heavy panicked breathing. his brows were furrowed and he moved the pan off the stove when he saw you were winded. "are you okay?"

"the monitor was off, i'm so sorry i thought i turned it on last night but i forgot--"

"i turned it off this morning," mat said. "figured you deserved a chance to sleep in."

ella smiled at seeing you and reached for you. mat didn't hesitate to walk her over, probably to make it easier to cook breakfast. you took ella and cherished the snuggles she gave you.

"when is your family coming over?"

mat tapped his phone, presumably to check the time or his texts. "fifteen minutes or so?"

you spared a glance outside. "will they be okay in the snow?"

"uh oh, mama bear's coming out," he teased. "we're literally from canada, my family will be fine."

you nodded, feeling heat crawl up your neck at the slight overreaction and concern.

the three of you sat at the table, eating the eggs and sausage mat made. normally, when you were with your family, you'd eat homemade cinnamon rolls, but maybe this year was about changing traditions and embracing them.

you picked up your phone and called your mom, waiting for her to answer. when she didn't pick up, you just shot her a quick "merry christmas" text and telling her to call you back when she gets the chance, that you couldn't wait to see her tomorrow.

by the time the three of you finished breakfast, his family was knocking at the door, greeting the three of you with an excited "merry christmas" when mat opened the door. while they got settled, you took ella out of the high chair and carried her into the living room.

you sat on the floor in front of the recliner and plopped ella in your lap while mike and nadia brought their wrapped presents in. mat and liana were the ones to pass them all out while their parents got situated on one end of the couch.

you were surprised to see some presents for you written in handwriting you knew did not belong to mat, part of you fully expecting nadia to have been bluffing two days ago.

when the presents were passed out, mat took the seat behind you in the recliner, even going as far as to let you lean against his shin for support.

"now, i don't know how you do it in your family, but in the barzal family, we going youngest to oldest, and we record everything," mike said, holding his phone up. "our sweet ella, though, is the first person to take away liana's long standing reign over opening presents first."

mat got out of the recliner, choosing to sit on the floor on your left, seemingly to help ella open her presents. you scooted back to use the recliner as back support now that mat was sitting next to you.

you heard a beep, presumably of mike's camera starting to record.

"let's open this one, ella bean," mat said to his daughter. he started ripping it at the edge, carefully placing the present in front of her and waiting to see if she did anything with it.

ella stared at it, but otherwise seemed uninterested

"look ella," you said, reaching around her and tugging the paper a little more.

she was uninterested until she heard the distinct sound of ripping. then she tried it for herself, laughing and clapping her hands when it made the noise she liked.

her first present was a puzzle made up of the letters of her name from liana. her next present was from nadia and mike, a box of playpen balls. you couldn't wait to open them, to get her settled in her playpen with them and watch her entertain herself.

mat helped her open the books everyone had bought her. he must've told his family she'd gotten into reading lately, because you weren't the only one contributing to her library.

mat's present to ella was a walker. she'd started crawling a few weeks ago, and mat was determined to get her to start walking before the end of the year.

your last present was the last one for her to open. it was just in a gift bag, and ella thoroughly enjoyed taking the tissue paper out once she got a hang of it. but nothing could've prepared you for the shriek that left her mouth when she saw the stuffed hippo.

you didn't think you'd ever seen her smile that big.

she reached for it with grabby hands, bringing it to her chest when she got it.

"guess we know her favorite gift," mat chuckled.

the rest of the morning was filled with the other presents being opened. you ended the morning with cute sweaters and a barzal jersey.

"so you can stop wearing mat's," liana had said. "figured you'd at least want something clean to wear to games."

mat had mumbled something under his breath, but when you asked him to repeat himself, he just pressed a kiss to the top of ella's head and kept his mouth shut.

when it was mat's turn to open gifts, you could feel yourself flush with embarrassment when he opened your gift. you didn't know the platonic way of saying "i got this because it would bring out your eyes," so you settled with "i thought you'd like it."

and he did, he swore it would be the tie he'd wear in the first game of the new year when you got back in town.

nadia made a wonderful christmas lunch. it was light because she knew you were going to the lee's in a matter of hours, but still better than anything mat could've cooked up.

it wasn't long before the three of you were saying your goodbyes with mike, nadia, and liana all promising to come see you soon, and to thank you for taking care of their newest addition.

just like any other time the three of you left the apartment, you carried ella while mat grabbed the diaper bag.

ella sat in her car seat, snuggling her hippo while mat drove.

"you must be pretty proud of yourself for that hippo gift," he said.

you smiled at him, reveling in the way he'd occasionally take his eyes off the road to look at you. "i am. i have an extra one in my closet just in case this one gets messed up."

his jaw dropped. "you're a fucking genius."

you weren't the last ones to get to anders' and grace's house, but you surely weren't the first. there was a line of cars parked on the street, none of which you recognized.

"are we taking the car seat inside?" you asked when mat put the car in park.

his hand paused over the door handle. "do you think we should?"

you shrugged. "we could always come back out and get it if we need it. but i'm willing to bet that she's gonna be passed around like a hot potato tonight."

mat rolled his eyes but sighed anyway. "as long as dobson doesn't hold her, it'll be fine." with that, he got out of the car and opened the back door to grab the bag.

"wait why?" you asked, getting out and unbuckling ella. "what's wrong with dobson?"

"he's like 23!"

you blinked. "am i missing something? why is that a problem?"

"he's too young to hold her, he'd do something dumb like drop her."

you rolled your eyes as you picked ella up, but said nothing.

the three of you were immediately accosted by christmas music and food smells when you walked through the front door of the lee house.

"you made it!" grace exclaimed, coming out of the living room to greet you. "grab your stocking and head to the couches, i think my husband is gonna do a toast and then we'll get started on dinner."

you nodded along and turned to look at mat who hadn't said anything. your heart dropped straight to your toes when you saw him pick up the stocking that made your mind go blank the other night. his fingers traced over his last name, then ella's name, then yours. he hesitated on yours though, fingers running over it like it was something delicate.

it felt weird to watch that moment, like you were intruding on something private, but before you could look away, he looked up at you. "did you see this?" he asked.

you nodded. "saw it the other night. are you mad?"

he quickly shook his head. "nope. just caught off guard." he glanced back down at the stocking before looking up at you and smiling. "let's get on with this, shall we?"

the night started with anders toasting to the team, but more importantly the wives and girlfriends and support behind each member who'd played a large role whether they realized it or not.

mat nudged you at that moment, which earned him an elbow in the side and a wink from anthony who stood next to him.

when they broke off for dinner, mat offered to take ella so you could get your plate first, but you declined, saying you could wait a few more minutes.

while he was gone, sydney approached. "so, how was this morning? get caught up under any mistletoe?" she nudged you. "get any sentimental gifts?"

when you thought about it, you didn't really. the gifts you got, while amazing, weren't tear jerking, which was surprising considering sydney had said mat's gift to you was thoughtful.

but what was thoughtful about a spa gift card and some bath bombs?

"nope, just the typical gifts, you know?"

sydney's face twisted a little before it righted itself when mat came back with a plate of food.

"got you what i thought you'd like," he said, handing the plate to you.

your brows furrowed. "i thought we agreed you'd eat first."

but he smirked. "no, you did."

"mathew. go eat!"

he shook his head. "not before you. now, let's trade, i'll take my child and you take the plate and go eat with sydney and the other wives if you want." mat handed the plate to sydney before taking ella and walking away before you could say anything.

you watched him walk away for a moment before turning to your friend, only to find her already looking at you. "what?"

she had a smirk for reasons you weren't sure you wanted to know about. "oh nothing."

the night continued on without much fanfare, with you and mat leaving around the same time as the martins again because of the children all three of you brought.

you'd made it back home before midnight. mat this time, wanted to put ella to bed, making sure to leave the hippo out of her crib.

you were in your room packing the last bit of your things so you could leave tomorrow and fly home. you were in the zone until you heard a throat being cleared. when you turned around, mat was leaning up against the doorway with a box in his hand.

"i know you're probably tired, but i have one last present for you."

"mat--"

"i didn't want to give it to you in front of my parents and liana, just seemed too personal." he offered no other explanation and just handed you the box.

you took it carefully, going to your bed and sitting down on the edge to open the present. when you pulled the lid off the box, you were staring at tissue paper until you pulled it away to reveal a photo album.

oh god.

it was the thoughtful present sydney had talked about.

you immediately pulled it out of the box and started flipping through it. the photos were some you'd never seen before, but they were all of you and ella. until you got further in, the photos went from just you and ella to you, mat, and ella.

you looked like a proper family.

sydney or grace must've had a hand in it, because half the photos you didn't remember being taken and they were all candids.

you could feel your eyes water, you noticed the pressure. but you kept wiping at your face to prevent them from falling onto the album itself.

you looked up at mat who looked the most unsure of himself since that first night he had ella. "i hope it wasn't over stepped, i just figured you would like to see how important you are to me, to us, me and ella." he gestured at the book. "some of the photos i took, others i got from grace and syd. i hope it's not weird or anything--"

but you were already up and crossing the room towards him.

a beat later you grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled his lips to yours.

he responded not even a split second later, his mouth moving against yours. mat's arms came around your waist while your hands made a home in his hair.

was kissing always supposed to be this charged? to feel this right?

you had no idea how long you stood there, kissing mat, before you both pulled away to breathe. your eyes opened slowly, only to meet his hazel irises almost immediately.

and then reality hit you.

jason's words haunting you at just the right time.

he's not gonna fall in love with you. you're a no good bitch who didn't know what she had when she had it.

you pulled away instantly and stumbled back into your room, dodging mat's hold when he tried to reach out for you.

"what's going on?" he asked. "what just happened?"

you shook your head and grabbed your bag, moving past him without making contact. "this was a mistake," you said. "i have to go."

god you felt sick to your stomach.

mat was calling your name, but you kept walking, out the front door, down the stairs, and onto the street where you hailed a taxi.

it wasn't until you got in that you exhaled.

what the fuck had you done?

taglist:

@nicoleloveshockey @thg02 @fallinallincurls @bbbbruins @random-readers-world @sydsxoxo @jhughesy @whenmypartysover @sunflowerhood @spencereidbasis @icanfsplel @avareadsthings @zegraswrites @matthewkniesys @heyitsmeimdead @kashee-h @bordelhoe @diary-of-jj @literatureluster @dani746 @barzyblogbabe @tomhollandsbabymama @wickedlovely121 @coldheartedmar @oh-my-ladymay @heartsforhischier @brrbrina @sebsfeverdream @cathamnsns-diary @coldheartedmar @wickedlovely121

#mat barzal #mathew barzal #mat barzal x reader #mat barzal imagine #mathew barzal imagine #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #nhl blurb #mat barzal blurb

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forthebrokenheartedthings · 14 days ago

Text

Ash and After - Part 17 - The Shape of Absence

Pairing: Clark Kent x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader

AN 💌: Can't have anything nice with me around.

TW: Graphic Sexual Content

WAYNE MANOR

You sit at the kitchen island in nothing but leggings and a soft tee, barefoot, a mug of tea cooling in front of you. Alfred stands by the window, pretending to read. He hasn’t turned a page in ten minutes.

You haven’t asked where Clark went. You know. But something inside you refuses to name it until you have to.

The door opens. You look up—

And he’s there. Still in his suit. Hair windblown. Eyes… tired.

You don’t hesitate.

You run. Throw yourself into him, arms tight, breath catching in your throat. You kiss him—slow, deep, real—mouth pressed to his, fingers in his hair like you could anchor yourself again.

He kisses you back. God, he kisses you back.

But something… Something is off.

When you pull back, forehead still against his, you feel it. Your eyes search his.

“What happened?”

Clark doesn’t answer right away. He just exhales. Sets you down gently. Walks to the TV. Turns it on.

The headline crawls across the screen in big, white letters:

SUPERMAN RESCUES MISSING REPORTER LOIS LANE — Reunited After Being Presumed Dead

You don’t move. Don’t speak. Your breath catches once in your chest. And then you step back— Just once. Not out of fear. Just to breathe.

The fire hasn’t been lit in weeks. You sit cross-legged on the rug in front of the cold hearth, an untouched glass of water on the table beside you. The TV is off. The lights are dim.

You haven’t moved since leaving the kitchen.

You’re not crying. You’re not speaking. You just… sit.

Staring into the empty grate.

Bruce finds you like that. He doesn’t announce himself. He doesn’t offer comfort. He just leans against the doorframe and waits.

After two minutes of silence, you speak.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Your voice doesn’t shake. It’s not sad. It’s flat.

Bruce steps inside. One slow step. Another.

“No.”

You look down. Pick at the hem of your sleeve like it’s fraying.

“Then why does it feel like I’m the one who got left behind?”

Bruce sits on the edge of the chair beside you. Not close. Just near enough.

“Because you loved him.”

A pause. Then:

“And that’s always the most dangerous choice in a war.”

You let that sit. Then:

“Did I make a mistake?”

Bruce’s answer is simple. Honest.

“No.”

You finally look up. Eyes rimmed red, but dry.

“I didn’t ask him to stay because I needed saving.”

“I know.”

“I just thought maybe… this time… I wouldn’t have to be the strong one.”

Bruce’s jaw flexes. He doesn’t know how to answer that. So he doesn’t.

He just sits next to you and pulls you into him.

VALENCIA, SPAIN

Bucky stirs the foam off his beer with the end of a matchstick. The TV above the bar buzzes with soft, staticky English.

The screen shows Clark Kent in his Superman suit stepping off a ship—Lois Lane crumpled in his arms.

“After being presumed dead, Lane was found and rescued by the Avengers and Kryptonian intervention—”

The match snaps in Bucky’s hand.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.

The bartender says something in Spanish, but Bucky doesn’t catch it.

He just keeps staring.

One headline. One photo.

You’re not in it.

He takes another sip of the beer. Doesn’t taste it. Doesn’t feel it.

Clark knocks. Once.

He doesn’t wait for permission. Just steps in, quiet, shoulders heavy.

You sit on the window ledge, one knee pulled up to your chest, your profile lit only by the streetlights below.

You don’t look at him. Don’t speak.

He waits a long beat.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

Your head tilts slightly, as if you hadn’t expected something so soft. Then, flat:

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He exhales.

“I didn’t know how.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Finally, you turn.

Eyes sharp. Still red. But not shattered.

“I don’t care that you saved her.”

He blinks.

“I don’t,” you say again. “That’s who you are. You’d have done it for anyone.”

A beat. Then your voice drops.

“I care that you didn’t tell me. I care that I had to see it on a fucking screen like the rest of the world.”

Clark takes a step forward. Stops.

“I care that the second you saw her, you let us become a question mark.”

His lips part. Close again.

“And I care,” you say slowly, “that I don’t know if I’m the ghost in your life… or if she is.”

Clark’s whole body stills. He doesn’t breathe for a long time.

Then—

“I didn’t kiss her.”

Your jaw tightens.

“I know. You didn’t have to.”

He steps closer.

“But I thought about it.”

That stops you. He steps closer again.

“And then I saw your face.” “And all I could think was—how do I come home and still deserve that?”

You swallow. The silence rings.

“You don’t owe me anything, Clark.”

“Don’t say that,” he whispers.

“I mean it.”

You stand slowly. Walk toward him. Stop inches away.

Your voice shakes then, just a little.

“If you love her, if there’s even a piece of you that needs her… go.”

He looks at you. Eyes full. Tormented.

“But if you stay,” you whisper, “stay for you. Not because I’m asking.”

His hands hover at your waist. Don’t touch.

“You’re not the only one with a ledger,” he says.

“Then don’t leave me holding it.”

And that—

That’s when Clark breaks. His forehead drops to yours. And for once, he lets the tears fall.

The light is low. Golden. Faint.

You stand at the far side of the bed, shirt in your hands, gaze on him. He hasn’t said anything yet. He doesn’t need to.

You can see it all over him—the tension in his shoulders, the heaviness in his breath. And you know Clark Kent too well to pretend this is just another night.

But still. You let it be one.

You drop the shirt. Cross to him. Place your palms on his chest, right over his heart, and lean your forehead into the hollow beneath his throat.

He doesn’t move. But his arms come up slowly. Wrap around your waist. Hold you close like you might vanish if he blinks.

“You’re leaving… aren’t you?” you whisper.

His chin drops until his lips brush your hair.

“Not yet.”

A pause.

“But yes.”

You pull back, meet his eyes. Searching them like you might find an answer that would make this hurt less.

“You still love her.”

“I do,” he says. No shame. No stammer. Just truth. “But I love you more than I ever thought I was allowed to again.”

That… hurts. But it helps, too.

You nod once. And then you kiss him.

Not soft. Not slow. Hungry.

You kiss him like he’s already slipping through your fingers, and he kisses you back like he’s trying to remember every inch of your mouth.

He backs you into the bed. Lays you down like you’re the most sacred thing he’s ever held.

When he peels your shirt away, he whispers—almost to himself:

“You are the kindest punishment I’ve ever known.”

You pull his head down and kiss him again before he can say something that would really wreck you.

His hands are everywhere. Your ribs. Your thighs. Your jaw. His mouth worships your skin like it might be the last time he ever gets to feel joy.

You’re warm beneath him, arching into him with a gasp when he slides down and takes his time— His tongue slow. His fingers firm.

Your thighs lock around his shoulders when you come, your moan soft and broken, fingers twisting in his hair.

You drag him back up to you. Strip him bare. Take him in, inch by aching inch, eyes locked to his.

When he fills you, your breath catches. When he moves—slow and deep and careful—your nails rake down his back and you whisper his name like a prayer you didn’t realize you’d been saying your whole life.

You don’t rush. You don’t hide.

And when you finally collapse together, sweaty and tangled and shaking, you bury your face in his neck and murmur:

“You’re still going.”

He doesn’t answer at first. Just holds you tighter.

“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.”

You don’t hesitate. You don’t cry. You stroke his hair and kiss his temple.

“You are.”

He turns to face you fully. Brushes your cheek with the back of his hand.

“That’s the morning’s problem,” he whispers.

“Then sleep,” you say, curling into him. “Just for now.”

You wake to the smell of him.

His side of the bed is still warm. The sheets tangled. The pillow pressed with the shape of his head.

But the weight is gone. And so is he.

Your hand slides across the sheets, finds nothing but empty cotton and the vague heat of someone who had wanted to stay… but didn’t.

At first, you don’t sit up. Don’t cry. Don’t even blink.

You just lie there. Staring at the ceiling.

Until the wind shifts, and the paper on your nightstand flutters.

You roll over. Read it.

Clark’s handwriting. Tidy. Gentle. And brief.

“I love you. I’m sorry. I had to try. You would’ve told me to.”

You close your eyes. Let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding since last night.

“Goddamn Boy Scout.”

No anger. No betrayal. Just tired affection. And grief with soft edges.

You fold the note in half. Press it to your lips. Slide it under the pillow.

Then you get up.

You don’t pack with drama. Don’t move like a woman breaking.

You dress, tie your hair back, look at yourself in the mirror and whisper—

“You don’t get to disappear too.”

You find him polishing a silver watch, his glasses perched on the end of his nose.

He looks up when you walk in with your bag. Doesn’t speak. Just watches you with the kind of look only a man who’s raised too many broken hearts can wear.

“Going already, miss?”

“Back to the Compound.”

“And him?”

“He’s doing what he has to.”

Alfred stands slowly. Walks to you. Places a hand on your shoulder.

“It was never your job to save him.”

Your eyes flick up. Tired.

“No. But I still wanted to.”

Alfred kisses your forehead like a father would.

“Come back when you’re ready to be loved again. We’ll still be here.”

You smile faintly.

“I know. Love you, old man.”

AVENGERS COMPOUND

The sun burns hot and indifferent.

You step off the Quinjet in full gear. Sam is waiting.

He doesn’t speak. He just wraps you in a hug that says I saw the news. I know. I’m still here.

You hug him back. No tears. Just… thanks.

Cap is at the railing above the compound gym. He meets your eyes. Nods once.

You nod back. No words. No questions. Just an understanding.

You drop your duffel inside your room, tie your boots tighter, and head straight to the mission board.

Mission accepted. Mission accepted. Mission accepted.

Blood. Bruises. Exhaustion.

It feels good not to feel anything.

And for a while— No one stops you. Part 18

#bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes #james bucky buchanan barnes #the winter soldier #winter soldier #james buchanan barnes #clark kent #bruce wayne #clark kent x reader

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bittersuitejacobs · 1 year ago

Text

• an unhealthy obsession • Nate Jacobs •

one. spectacle

Summary: A new school year is about to begin and after reinventing herself into the perfect prey, Ophelia finds herself in Nate Jacobs' crosshairs far sooner than she'd expected, at McKay's end of Summer party.

Warnings: SMUT, drinking, semi-public fingering, implied traumatic childhood.

A/N: 3032 words. Coming out of the gates red hot. This whole fic is very self indulgent, you have been warned. Looking forward to hearing what you guys think about this set up. ❤️

{ masterpost }

THE TAGLIST IS ALWAYS OPEN ! (just message or comment to be added)

---

Nate Jacobs was a shockingly easy person to read.

Ophelia Chase, who was no stranger to falling into obsession - whether it was with books, movies, shows, or people - found him to be an incredibly alluring subject for observation, so perhaps it was less that Nate himself was easy to read, and more that Ophelia was a most competent reader. Either way, she'd noticed his apparent saviour complex, his desperate desire to be some kind of hero, especially when it came to Maddie. It had started with this idle thought, a curiosity as to whether she could use it to get him to notice her too.

Ophelia knew in a rather detached way that she has become someone who others would consider objectively hot. It stemmed from being an unfortunately plain and sickly child, which continued for most of her experience being homeschooled through middle school, as did her less than flattering wardrobe and hair choices. Both of which were courtesy of a controlling mother who was struggling with feeling out of control in her own life and making up for it by treating her only daughter like the World's ugliest doll. At least that's what Ophelia had believed for a long time; the sickness that too plagued her childhood, left her feeble and frail and often bedridden was less an act of God, as her mother so often wept, but an act of malice perpetrated by the very same woman. Now, with an entirely too permissive father who travelled for work, and no more poisons being discretely fed to her, to keep her needing the mother who feared her freedom, Ophelia was finally, after years, beginning to come into her own as a teenager.

But she started in the background.

She worked hard to remain unnoticed. At parties hosted by her peers, she dressed well enough not to stand out, but never enough to draw attention to herself. Observing from the sidelines, drink in hand, figuring out the creatures around her, it's how she first properly noticed Nate, not that he was entirely foreign to her to begin with. But the real obsession started when she'd noticed his wandering eyes, clinging to those she hadn't anticipated him being drawn to, always when he knew Maddie wasn't looking. Pretty girls, sweet girls, girls who were surprisingly different to his admittedly beautiful but brash girlfriend.

Maddie was a hurricane of a girl, Ophelia wondered if Nate was trying to tame her like a bucking bull.

Nate wants to be in charge. Wants to be the hero. Wants.

And Ophelia wanted him.

So it started with catching the eye.

It started with dressing the part.

After spending the Summer in Sweden with her father, she gets back a few days before her Senior year starts with high hopes and set intentions. A day at the mall has her set with a whole new wardrobe, and Mckay's party is the first chance she has to try it out. Its a far cry from the baggy jeans and graphic tees she'd spent most of the past few years in. A tight, white t-shirt with the words 'Too Sweet' stretched across her chest, tucked into a high waisted pleated skirt with a flirty hem on her thighs, the look was completed with white, knee high socks and a pair of cherry red flats. Her long, healthy hair was pulled into two messy buns, and she kept her makeup light, apart from the red lip she wore. The perfume, however, was a novelty, aift from her father, sweet and citrusy, from one of his trips to Spain.

If this was to be the debut of the new and eye catching Ophelia Chase, she'd make sure everything was absolutely perfect. She'd even been practicing, for far longer than she was willing to admit, to hide the Southern twang to her accent, mirrored from her father, whom she'd spent most of her time with growing up.

However, when she finally arrived at the party itself, it seemed she still had a lot to learn, considering she was unable to abandon her wallflower ways. Drink in hand, she received no shortage of attention considering her look, but still felt awkward being noticed so much more than she usually was, even after taking a few dexys a pretty boy offered her as she'd headed to the bathroom. Or perhaps they'd made her too aware of how different, how out of place she felt when caught in their gazes.

There was a moment where Nate, who'd she'd been seeing around all night, gorgeous and shirtless, swanning around like he owned the place, actually noticed her. He's drunk, had been since she'd arrived around eleven, but he'd also been pressed up on some girl who definitely wasn't his girlfriend, so Ophelia kept her focus elsewhere. Still, it made her smile; his tumultuous relationship with Maddie apparently wouldn't be a problem tonight. Every cruel aside her mother had hissed long ago about the likes of Nathaniel Jacobs whenever his family had been brought up blow through her mind at once. She often wondered how much of her mother's ire had come from a place of truth; she warned Ophelia that just being near him would spoil her, ruin her, taint her in some terrible, intangible way. As a child, she'd thought that couldn't possibly be true. At seventeen, however, the prospect kind of thrilled her.

Now, she was sitting on the arm of a sofa, pleats of her perfectly white skirt splitting on her thigh as she chatted lightly with a girl she'd seen around school, hanging out with Maddie and Kat; BB. Out of the corner of her eye she spots him in the kitchen, pouring another shot for himself, when he looks up and catches sight of her.

Ophelia's heart is in her throat suddenly -

BB makes an amusing observation about someone across the room, and Ophelia's momentarily caught up in laughter. Its only when BB grins broadly at the laughing girl and announces she's going to get a drink, asking if Ophelia wants one, to which she smiles sweetly and agrees. In her own head, she's wondering if she has time to head outside for a cigarette, and doesn't notice she now has new company before he speaks.

"Cute shirt, is it true?" Giving a start at the sudden voice beside her, Ophelia then looks down for a second, before seeing the 'Too Sweet' emblazoned tightly across her chest. Looking up again, she sees Nate smirking with amusement, "I get the feeling it is."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Like her heart isn't going a hundred miles an hour in her chest. He offers her a shot, one of the two he's holding, eyebrows raised in silent question, silent challenge. Ophelia wet her lips, smiling slyly, attempting to regain her composure, "not sure if I should be accepting drinks from strange men," still, she took it from his hands, heady buzzing in her ears from the brief moment their fingers brush.

They've had multiple classes together since the start of high school.

"I'm Nate," he offered, "now we're not strangers, Too Sweet." He offered his own shot to cheers.

"Fi," she cheerses him, and they both take the shots. Ophelia, who's been drinking around the world for years, isn't bothered by the way it burns, but pretty girls, sweet girls, they're not supposed to take shots like it's nothing. Tequila was always something she enjoyed, though she prefers it with a chaser, it still brought back fond memories of time spent in Mexico with her dad. Ophelia makes a face, shudders a little, and listens to the way Nate laughs at her reaction, pride blooming in her chest at her own performance. He takes the shot glasses and puts them on a nearby table that's already covered in bottles and cups, returning to take the seat BB had just vacated. He's got a hand on her thigh, sliding just up beneath the hem of her skirt.

"How come I've never seen you around before?" He had, Ophelia had just never been worth looking at before now. Feeling uncharacteristically bold, Ophelia shifts, presses her leg into his hand just a little.

"Who says you haven't?"

"Because I'd remember a pretty girl like you," he gives her thigh a squeeze, and Ophelia can feels like she's about to go into cardiac arrest from the way he's looking at her. Everything feels warm and fuzzy and wonderful and Ophelia thinks about how fucking often she'd pictured this moment, this 'first' meeting, but never imagined it going this well. Instead, Ophelia laughs, blush rising on her cheeks.

"Fuck, I thought I was the sweet one," she dropped her gaze.

"You are from where I'm sitting," he wets his lips, once again looking her over, gaze clearly leering. Emboldened as she feels the shot start to hit her, she slid from the arm of the sofa into his lap.

"You wanna check again?" Not in a thousand years could she have imagined how this situation would be playing out. Nate Jacobs' arm around her, Nate Jacobs holding her face, Nate Jacobs running his thumb along her bottom lip as he gazed at her with what she can only describe as want. His thumb comes away clean, her shiny, transfer-proof lipstick proving itself to be true. Ophelia can read the amusement in his eyes, "I didn't want it coming off on my drinks," her blush only grew deeper, despite the fact it was the thinnest truth, self conscious of any alternative situations he may have assumed she was preparing for.

"Too sweet," Nate had muttered faintly with a smirk, Ophelia grinned back, letting him pull her in for a kiss. They're both drunk, Ophelia's head spinning as he nips at her lip, deepens the kiss into something messy and passionate, his tongue in her mouth, hand moving from her face to her thigh. She's not sure when she moved to straddle his lap, but she hears the appreciative way he murmurs, "that's right," against her lips as she wraps her arms around his neck, pressed against him, his hands on her ass.

It was as if her blood was singing in her veins to be in this moment, at this party, already wrapped up in the very boy who's attention she'd designed herself hoping to entice. The future, the concequenses, be damned; she moaned into Nate's mouth as he roughly groped her ass.

One of his hands moves, warm and broad as it trailed back over her thigh beneath her skirt. Nate has always known what he wants, was always rather direct about it too, from what Ophelia had witnessed, and now was no different. When he pushes her pretty, lace panties to the side, sliding a finger into her with ease in the middle of the party, Ophelia gasps.

"So fucking wet," Nate teased, already adding another finger, curling them inside of her. Instead of a proper response, Ophelia's eyes fell closed, biting her lip to hold back the pleased noises trying to escape her. If anyone around then had taken notice - which they hadn't, since Nate's hand on her ass under her skirt was enough for everyone to already look away - Ophelia didn't care.

Nate kisses her again, rougher this time, biting at her lip, finger fucking her in his lap as his other hand came up to rest on the back of her neck in a firm grip. Blaming the drinking, or the music, or the dexys, or shirtless, flirty Nate goddamn Jacobs, Ophelia sighs and whimpers into Nate's mouth as her hips rock gently against his fingers, his thumb insistent against her clit.

"Nate-" she chokes out breathlessly as she's getting close, forehead pressed against his. Nate smirks at her, looks so goddamn pleased with himself, but thankfully doesn't stop.

"Gonna make you cum in the middle of the party, aren't I?" He goads, all warm and encouraging and smug. She wants to tell him to shut up, but he's unfortunately right, and Ophelia's not getting anywhere close to coherent right now. All she can do is nod, weakly, panting and breathless as she feels herself begin to topple over the edge, "slut," he goads against her lips with a grin. Ophelia leans in, kissing him to muffle how she's whimpering as her orgasm crashes through her, stars bursting bright behind her eyes, a mix of shame and elation following in its wake.

Never ever could have imagined this.

Coming down from the sudden rush of endorphins, she pulls back a little, only to see Nate's smug, wide smile as he removes his fingers from her, raising them to his lips. Ophelia, who was already shocked by her own actions, breathing hard, arms still around his neck, watches with a flustered, wide-eyes gaze as Nate sticks both fingers in his mouth, tasting her, tasting what he'd been able to do to her.

"Sweet girl," his grin is all teeth; Ophelia feels trapped in his dark, hungry gaze, but desire still burns low in her gut amid the satisfaction. Nate's hand finds her thigh again, squeezing gently, "lets get another drink and go upstairs; you can return the favour."

Fuck, her mum was right. She'd absolutely let him ruin her.

Ophelia nods eagerly, despite her expression still clearly reading as flustered, but before she can, he pulls her in for a final kiss, makes her taste herself on his tongue. A soft, needy noise escapes her, and before he finally lets her stand, Nate mutters -

"Such a good fucking girl, Fi."

She thinks she might pass out with how much she wants him right now.

As she stands, he smacks her ass before he gets up, and Ophelia, having regained access to her higher brain function, rolls her eyes at him, but grins.

But in the kitchen, halfway through pouring another drink, someone Ophelia vaguely recognises as one of Nate's friends mutters something to him that makes him furious. Its like he's forgotten her entirely, storming from the kitchen, leaving her utterly confused by the very sudden change. Debating whether to follow him or wait there, her mind is made up by the pretty, soft spoken blonde who compliments her outfit. The girl introduces herself as Jules, wearing a rather cute outfit of her own, in dark blues and florals, and Ophelia compliments her as such.

"I'm Ophelia, by the way," she offers with a bright smile, "but Lia's less of a mouthful," she offers with a laugh. Jules is new to town, and has the most beautiful laugh.

"Did you pick Ophelia?" Jules grins, but Ophelia shook her head.

"Mona couldn't find a way to feminize Hamlet," she smiled wryly, "so I had to grow up hearing 'never kill yourself over a boy'."

"Clearly she should have had more faith; you would totally own as Hamlet," Jules' face fell, however, as Ophelia's expression twists bitterly.

"I would," she agrees, head starting to feel fuzzy in all the wrong ways, as it did whenever she found herself reflecting on her mother, "Mona should have done a lot of things differently."

"Sorry," immediately Jules is apologising, "I shouldn't have -" but Ophelia tries to relax, giving her a tight smile.

"Shout out to terrible moms for breaking the stereotype," she managed, ruefully, grabbing the nearest bottle of liquor, forgoing a cup as she raised it in sarcastic cheers. Jules, however, barks a laugh, shaking her head.

"I will gladly drink to that," she offers in solidarity as Ophelia takes a large mouthful of the vodka. Surprised by the unfortunate common ground, something warms in her, the tension genuinely easing, and she offers the bottle. Jules only takes a token sip, but the moment breaks as both girls end up bursting into laughter, commiserating together.

When Ophelia leaves to find the bathroom, she assures Jules she'll return, but it's Jules who manages to disappear before she gets back. The atmosphere in the kitchen is tense. Nate is back but looks like he's more than half way to murderous as he's chugging the last of the vodka Ophelia had drunk from earlier.

And she barely gets through a sentence to him before he spits at her to fuck off. His gaze is so fucking cold -

"I just- are you- ?"

"I said -" he steps up to her, leaning in and radiating malevolent intent as he looms so large over her in this moment, "fuck. Off." Ophelia shrinks back, like she isn't thinking about how damn hot she thinks he is right now, how much she wants him to push her up against the nearest wall or counter.

"I'm going," she huffs, quietly defensive as a front, "sorry for trying to give a shit, Jesus fucking Christ," stepping back with placating hands. In her haste to get away, she misses the brief moment in which Nate's fury holds a flicker of surprise, but it passes, disperses as she retreats from the kitchen towards the front of the house. She doesn't see him throw the empty bottle in the garbage disposal with so much force it shatters upon impact, but she certainly hears it.

Mckay's house isn't really within walking distance, which she forgets until she's a block away and halfway through a cigarette. So she has to call herself an uber to return to the quiet, empty, upper-middle class family home that is the Chase residence. Tucked into bed, she's out before her head even hits the pillow, and only when she wakes up the next day, shocking hang over hitting her like a truck, that she can reflect on the night.

All things considered, it was at least a partial success. She'd definitely caught his attention, at least until something more important to him had stolen it. It wouldn't take her long to learn that it was Maddie and some college guy fucking in the pool, doing the exact same thing Nate has used Ophelia for; making the other jealous.

But, Ophelia thinks with quiet pride as she popped Advil and drank water like her life depended on it, that tonight was definitely a good start.

#nate jacobs x oc #nate jacobs x original character #nate jacobs imagine #euphoria x oc #euphoria oc #euphoria original character #euphoria x original character #nate jacobs fanfic #nate jacobs x reader #euphoria imagine #auo

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2danny2furious · 5 months ago

Note

hi! I really loved your headcanons! could i request a fluffy oneshot with y/n and the other commentary youtubers (drew, jarvis, kurtis, etc.) maybe they could be playing a game or minecraft or go on a group vacation? totally no worries if this isn't your style and thanks in advance!

This was so much fun to write! Hope you like it!

Title: Love and War

Pairing: Danny Gonzalez x Reader

The sun beats down on your shoulder. You are crouched behind the bushes- tired, sweaty, and just about ready to give up. But you know the stakes are high: this is war.

You peer over the leaves, assessing the battlefield.

“Pool area is clear. Over.”

“That’s what daddy likes to hear. Over.”

“Jesus Christ!” Drew groans into his walkie-talkie. “Can you please stop constantly referring to yourself as daddy?”

“No,” crackles Danny’s voice. You can hear the smile in his words. “Over.”

The commentary boys had recently received an obscene amount of Nerf guns as part of Nerf’s latest sponsorship campaign. Now that everyone has been reunited at an AirBnB mansion for Vidcon, all Danny wants to do is battle the other guys in nerf wars. Coincidentally, for the past three wars, the chosen opponents have been The Sad Boyz and Kurtis.

You suspect this is because Danny had caught you hearting a message from your best friend, emphatically claiming Jordan as the sexiest man she’s ever seen. Oh, boys.

“Y/N!” shrieks Amanda, “there’s an ambush headed your way!”

You leap up, wobbling as you brush away twigs pressed into your legs and your feet regain feeling. You whip your head towards the fence.

You can hear Kurtis calling, “We’re coming to get youuuuu,” in quite possibly the creepiest voice you’ve ever heard, and Jarvis and Jordan giggling as the three approach.

They’re getting closer and closer by the second. But where to go? They’re coming from the back fence, and the gate is locked from the north side.

“Guys, I’m trapped and out of ammo! I’m gonna die I’m gonna die I’m gon-”

“Y/N, we got you”, Drew’s calm voice soothes you over the walkie-talkie. “Danny’s on his way.”

“Babe, this way!”

You follow Danny’s voice to the north gate. You can hear the enemy approaching, and fear grips your heart.

“Danny, hurry!”

After what feels like an eternity, the gate door swings open. There he stands, your tall prince in shining-dripping-with-sweat white tee shirt armor. His green eyes, pale in the sunlight, crackle with excitement.

“You didn’t think I’d lose my girl to those diabolical cretins did you?”

You hold back a smirk at his ever insane vocabulary as he grabs your hand, hurrying you around the house and through the garage.

“Whew! That was close,” you giggle. You take a moment to admire Danny’s toned biceps and flushed cheeks as he pulls down the garage door, the back of his shirt clinging to the curves in his muscular back. You mentally take back every complaint you’ve ever had about his long runs and never ending gym sessions.

“You pervert,” he chuckles, wiping sweat from his hair.

“The damsel is safe,” he reports into his walkie-talkie. “I have her in an undisclosed location. Over.” He looks over at you with a wink. You grin and roll your eyes.

Danny walks over to you and hugs you from behind, wrapping you into his arms and kissing the top of your head. You let yourself relax in his warm embrace, and can’t help but marvel at how perfectly your bodies fit together. He sighs into your hair and squeezes you extra hard.

“It’s been so great seeing the guys, but I can’t fucking wait to go home. I miss having you all to myself,” he says. His voice is low and quiet, heavy with a desire you recognize instantly.

“Hmm... me too,” you hum. “You’re always getting us into situations like this though, you god damn extrovert.”

“Touché,” he murmurs. He spins you around to face him, and kisses you with a softness that surprises you. His warm lips find yours again and again, his hands cupping your cheeks..

“GUYS”, your walkie-talkies crackle loudly with the sound of Amanda’s voice, causing both of you to jump. “The Sad Boyz have disappeared from the pool vicinity-we think they might have advanced into the house. Team meeting under the deck, stat. Over.”

“Fuck you, Amanda,” curses Danny. “I was just about to start an amazing make out sess-”

“No one cares, Danny. Y/N’s too hot for you anyway. Over.”

“It’s true, Amanda. So true. Over,” you giggle as Danny bites your shoulder in play anger, wrestling your body closer to him as you squeal and try to escape.

Your team assembles under the deck to load up on ammo and get your bearings straight. Drew devises a plan, his calm demeanor prevailing even in the most dire nerf war situations. You plan to station yourselves at all sides of the house, so that the enemy would have no chance of escaping. Danny, to no one’s surprise, insisted that he be stationed by you to protect you.

“I was so close to losing you last time,” he says, looking into your eyes. “I’m never letting that happen again. You could have died.”

“Danny,” sighs Drew. “They’re foam bulle-”

“She could have DIED, Drew, you think this is a joke?”

Drew can’t help but grin, shaking his head. “Alright, you losers, come on. We got a battle to win.”

Drew and Amanda creep into the house silently, and you and Danny position yourselves behind the grand couches in the mansion. As you wait, he makes faces at you from across the living room, trying to get you to laugh.

Suddenly, you hear a noise in the hallway. You and Danny hesitantly arise from behind the couches, creeping forward to point your nerf guns towards the sound. Kiwi, the poodle, emerges from the hall, peering up innocently as he wags his tail happily.

But why would Kurtis’s dog be here? you think.

“Babe, look out!”

You look up to see Jordan and Jarvis standing across the room from you, grinning madly and pointing their nerf guns at your chest. You raise your gun, and as you do, feel something soft poke the back of your head. Kurtis.

You close your eyes, bracing yourself for the stream of foam.

“NOOOOO!” Danny screams. You open your eyes to see Danny leap in front of you as Jordan and Jarvis open fire. You quickly spin to shoot Kurtis in the chest before he can react.

His jaw falls open in shock. “The citizens of Kurtistwon will have their revenge,” he seethes. “Mark my words.”

You don’t even have time to revel in your glory, because Jarvis and Jordan aren’t content with their kill; they savagely empty their magazines into Danny’s still body on the floor, every foam bullet mercilessly striking his body instead of yours.

When the assault is done, Danny’s eyes flicker open and shut, his chest heaving as he pretends to struggle for air.

“D-D-Danny,” you sob. You kneel down to the floor, next to your boyfriend’s spasming body. Using every last drop of self control to keep yourself from smiling, you whisper desperately, “Why? Why did you do it, you stupid boy?”

“I had to s-save you,” he coughs as he chokes back a laugh.

“Danny, no! Don’t leave me!” you cry, bringing his limp hand up to your cheek, pressing a kiss softly into his fingers.

“I…I’ll always love you Y/N.”

And with that, Danny’s head lolls lifelessly to the side. The sight of his eyes crossed goofily and his tongue sticking out is enough to break you, and you burst out in a fit of giggles. Danny’s lips began to twitch and pretty soon he’s cackling too, the two of you clutching your sides, howling with laughter as your friends decide to unite and open fire against these two idiots on the floor. :)

#danny gonzalez #danny gonzalez fluff #danny gonzalez fanfic #danny gonzalez x reader #birds #brian david gilbert #danny gonzalez oneshot #drew gooden #kurtis conner #fox szn #baddie smp #commentary youtuber

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moon-and2saturn · 1 year ago

Text

Illicit Affairs

d.r.w x reader

chapter v

Word Count: 15.6k

Warnings: THIS STORY CONTAINS SMUT, MINORS DNI!!! swearing, flirting, fluff, power dynamic; SMUT: kissing, touching, fingering, oral sex (f. & m. receiving), unprotected sexual intercourse, choking, a touch of exhibitionism, a little bit of a praise kink

A/N: This story is in collaboration with my wonderful, talented friends @gretavanstink & @childinthegardenn!! Go give them a follow and give @gretavanstink’s fics some love! Thanks for reading! :)

listen to the official playlist on spotify here !

chapter iv

· · ───────── ·𖥸· ───────── · ·

Your eyes flutter open, but quickly close shut as they’re blinded by the light coming from the window on the far side of Daniel’s bedroom. God, why didn’t we close the curtains? You think to yourself, then begin to remember how rushed and clumsy the end of your night had been. There wasn’t much time to worry about the curtains.

Once you’re done thinking about the brightness of the morning sun, you turn over in the bed to look for Daniel and find that the spot where he used to be is empty. Typical. Not wanting to think about it, with the fear of reading too much into it, you slowly rise from the bed, grab your phone, and stumble toward the bathroom. Your slight hangover finally hits you as you trip over your feet slightly and you feel your head start to pound.

“I’m never letting Rose talk me into doing shots of cheap vodka ever again,” you mumble to yourself as you turn on the faucet and rinse your face with the cold water. You check your phone to see the time: 9:15 am. What in God’s name possessed him to get up this early on the weekend?

Having not planned to spend the night, you didn’t have much to get ready with, so you decide just water will do for now. After using the bathroom, you finally feel prepared to face the day, whatever it may hold. You open the bedroom door and step out into the living room, following the distant sounds that you hear coming from the kitchen.

As you round the corner, you see Daniel standing in front of the stove, seemingly making something on the stovetop. He’s wearing a tight, white tank top that clings to his skin, and you can see his back muscles flex as he cooks. God, he just looks unbelievable. He paired it with a pair of gray sweatpants, sitting loosely just right above his waist. How a man is allowed to look that good this early in the morning is a crime.

“Good morning,” you hum, finally breaking the silence to alert him of your presence. He turns over his shoulder to look at you, the corner of his mouth turning upward slightly as he sees you there behind him. You feel like you look pretty disheveled, but it seems like the sight of you looking groggy in his old band tee was exactly what he wanted to see at that moment.

“Good morning,” he says with a smile. “I was making some eggs, if you want some. I wasn’t sure when you’d wake up.” You nod and walk over to stand at his side, leaning against the counter as he finishes up. He cuts up the eggs a bit with his spatula before lifting them off the pan and onto a plate sitting on the counter.

“Here, you can have this one. I’ll make myself another,” he mutters, handing you the plate of scrambled eggs. You give him a shy smile as you take the plate, slightly taken aback by the hospitality. It makes you happy though, it almost feels natural.

“Thanks… do you have ketchup?” you ask.

“You’re one of those people, huh?” he laughs, walking over to the fridge. He opens the door and grabs a bottle of ketchup, setting it on the counter before reaching back in to get a few more eggs. With the eggs in one hand, he shuts the fridge door and then uses his other hand to hand you the bottle. “Here. There’s coffee in that pot over there, too, if you want a cup. There’s mugs in the cupboard above it.”

You smile and nod, turning around to walk to the other side of the kitchen. You put the plate down and open the lid of the ketchup bottle, squeezing some ketchup onto your plate. You reach up to open the cupboard above to get a mug and your eyes scan for the perfect one, finding a cute marbled one and grabbing it. You pour some coffee into the mug, opting for no cream because you honestly didn’t want to ask for anything else, then pick up the sugar next to the coffee maker and pour some into the cup.

You find a seat at one of the barstools on the other side of the wall, since he had a tall counter in between the kitchen and living room, like a kind of kitchen island. You take a sip of your coffee then have a bite of your eggs, looking up at him as he makes his own on the frying pan across from you.

“This is really good,” you remark, smiling lightly as he turns around to look at you. “It was really nice of you. You didn’t have to do all this, you know.” You add, feeling slightly bad that he put in all this effort just for you. You almost don’t feel worthy of it, it isn’t like he’s your boyfriend or anything. It’s casual, and you know he doesn’t owe you breakfast.

“It’s nothing, really,” he says casually, turning back to the stove. “I was going to make myself something anyway, it would be rude not to make something for you too.”

“Yeah, I guess,” you relent, shrugging as you take another sip of your coffee. “Well, thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure,” he says, finishing up his eggs and plating them. He grabs his own coffee and comes to sit across the island from you. The two of you eat in comfortable silence until you finish up your food, standing up to take your dishes to the sink.

“No, let me do it,” he says, reaching out to take them from you. You shake your head, insisting as you walk back into the kitchen.

“Daniel, you made me breakfast. The least I can do is put my own dishes in the sink,” you scoff teasingly, placing your dishes down and then approaching him. He rolls his eyes affectionately and then wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you into him. He’s seated in the stool and somehow, he’s still taller than you.

“I had a good time last night,” he smirks, placing soft kisses along the underside of your neck. Shivers shoot down your spine as your arms fall to his waist and you tilt your head back slightly.

“Did you? ‘Cause at the club, it seemed like it wasn’t really your type of scene,” you reply with a laugh.

“Wasn’t talking about the club,” he mutters against your skin. Fuck, the effect he has on you is overwhelming. The feeling of his lips ghosting along your skin felt intoxicating, but you really couldn’t stay any longer.

“As much as I would love to continue this, I do have to go home…” you answer, leaning up to place a short kiss on his cheek before backing away, not trusting yourself to stand your ground if his hands were still on you. “I have a quiz in my philosophy class tomorrow morning that I still haven’t studied for.”

“As if you actually need to study,” he remarks with a laugh. You roll your eyes and walk out to the living room, with Daniel following closely behind.

“Believe it or not, I do,” you say, trying to hide your smile and keep your serious demeanor. “I also have to do the reading for your class, if you don’t recall.” He chuckles and you hear him mutter “Whatever” as you walk toward the bedroom. As you gather your costume, you look down and realize that you’re still wearing his shirt and are only in your underwear.

“Oh, shit, I forgot. I should give this back, I can just put my costume back on really quick,” you mumble, reaching down to grab the hem of the shirt to pull it over your head, but Daniel’s strong hand stops you.

“No, you keep it,” he says, pulling your hand away. He walks over to his dresser, grabs another pair of sweatpants, and hands them to you. “Take these too. No reason for you to put that sweaty costume back on, baby.”

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna take this stuff if you need it,” you say suspiciously.

“I’m sure. That shirt doesn’t even fit me anymore,” he answers, leaning down to kiss your forehead. “You look better in it, anyway.” Your cheeks flush and you nod, slipping the sweatpants on. He walks you to the door and you slide on your shoes. He calls you an Uber and he walks you downstairs to the front of his building, placing a soft kiss on your lips before you walk out the door and enter the car.

On your short ride home, you start to wonder what November will have in store for you. You already know that it’s going to be extremely busy– the deadlines have already begun to pile up. A lot of your professors made papers due before Thanksgiving break, wanting to give you that time off. While you appreciate the time off, it also adds to your stress by having all these assignments due all at once. You weren’t looking forward to it.

· · ──────── ·𖥸· ───────── · ·

When you walk into Daniel’s class on Monday morning, you get yourself situated and then look around the classroom, noticing one glaring difference. Stephen didn’t show up. Not that you expected him to, but you were almost nervous that he’d make a bigger scene. You breathe a sigh of relief, hoping that he’ll keep his knowledge of your relationship, if you can even call it that, to himself.

The rest of your week goes rather smoothly, with you being too busy writing papers to think about much else. This is how the next week goes too, completely swamped with work and studying. You knew that this is how November always goes, but it doesn’t change the fact that you dreaded it.

You barely got to see Daniel at all, only able to pop into his office every once in a while to say hi. You could tell that he was drowning in work himself, always having things to grade whenever you would visit his office. You understand that you were both busy, but you have to admit that you miss him. You wouldn’t necessarily tell him that, though, not wanting to scare him off.

He’s given you mixed signals lately on what you are to him, and it’s honestly starting to drive you crazy. You both started this arrangement with the idea of it being just sex, but you find yourself wanting to just spend time with him more and more, without a hookup. Sometimes, you wonder if he feels the same way. He’ll invite you to sit in his office and study, just being in each others’ presence. That isn’t exactly what you would call casual. But you didn’t want to push too hard, preferring to have questions than have nothing at all, so you just let it go.

You’ve finally finished all your assignments, turning them in at the beginning of the week. You leave on Saturday to go home to your mom’s house for the Thanksgiving break, so you’re trying to get your work in early. Your mom’s job had gifted her a 4-night stay in a beach resort in Fort Lauderdale for the holiday, so the two of you were leaving on Monday morning for Florida. Your family never got to go on many vacations after your mom became a single mom, let alone a beach vacation, so this gift from her job was a lovely surprise.

You’ve avoided telling Daniel about it, partially due to your busyness, but also because he had been under the impression that he’d see you over the break. Being from neighboring towns, he had mentioned in passing about possibly visiting Frankenmuth and seeing the holiday decorations.

The idea sounded nice to you at first, but you realized that it would complicate things. How would you explain to your mom why you’re going there? You guys haven’t visited there in years, so why would you go now? You were in no position to try and explain your relationship with your professor to your mother. So when she brought up the trip plans, it was almost the perfect excuse. But now you had to break the news to Daniel.

On Friday, you knock on his office door apprehensively, unsure if he’s there. When you hear his voice tell you to come in, you take a deep breath and crack the door open, shutting it behind you. You approach his desk and he puts down the papers he’s reading to look up at you.

“Y/N, what can I do for you?” he says deeply, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. You look down at your feet and fidget with your hands briefly.

“Well… I wanted to tell you that I’m actually going away with my family for the break, not going back home. I know you thought we might spend some time together so… I’m sorry,” you spit out nervously, looking up at him to gauge his reaction. He doesn’t give you one though, but just nods his head.

“I see. That’s fine, I understand,” he answers. “Where are you going?”

“Florida. It’s some sort of beach resort,” you say, trying to still seem casual about it all.

“Sounds nice,” he remarks, standing up and placing his palms on the desk, leaning forward so that his face is only inches from yours. “Send a few pictures of you looking gorgeous in a bikini and come back with a tan, and I think we can call it even…” God, he always manages to make you flustered without even trying. You breathe out a quick breath as his lips turn upward into a smirk.

“Deal,” you say, biting your lip slightly as you see his eyes glance down at them. One of his hands shoots up to wrap around the back of your neck, pulling you into his lips. His tongue grazes your bottom lip as he pulls you closer, your body flush against the front of the desk. Before it can go too far, he pulls back, flashing you a cheeky smile. “Something to remember me by.”

At that, you compose yourself and pull away from him to turn around and walk out the door. As you twist the knob and pull the door open, you’re startled by Danie’s voice once more.

“Don’t miss me too much, sweetheart,” he says cheekily, shooting you a wink as you turn round to face him. You roll your eyes with a soft smile.

“No promises,” you tease, turning back around to walk out the door. You hear a chuckle fall from his lips as you shut the door behind you.

Finally, you head home to pack for your trip. You throw a variety of clothes into your suitcase, some warmer stuff for when you’re still in Michigan, and then your summer clothes for Florida. The next morning, you wake up, pack the car, and drive you and Rose back to your hometown. She’s just staying at her parent’s house for the break, so the two of you go home together.

“So… how did sexy professor feel when you told him you were leaving for break?” Rose asks with a teasing tone. You roll your eyes, keeping your eyes on the road as you drive down the highway.

“He was fine,” you scoff. “It’s barely even two weeks, he doesn’t care. It’s not like he’s my boyfriend or anything,” you add.

“Right,” she answers sarcastically. “So, you’re saying you’re not gonna miss him?”

“Well, I–” you start, looking over at her with a glare. “I’m not sure what that has to do with anything,” you mutter, turning back to the road. You hear her giggle behind you and you take your right hand off the steering wheel to smack her arm playfully.

“You’re down bad,” she laughs, turning to look out the window.

“You’re insufferable,” you say, shaking your head as you try to hide your smile.

Whether what Rose said held any truth or not, you would never admit it. You don’t feel that it mattered that much, anyway. Even if you felt that way about him, you wouldn’t even think of telling him about it. It’s clear that he has no interest in being serious with anyone, especially his student. You’re sure that if you were to want something more, he’d laugh in your face. So, you’ve subconsciously decided to shove it down as far as you could, in hopes that the butterflies would go away.

You can be honest with yourself and say that you’ll miss him, however, in more ways than one. Sure, your sexual chemistry together is deeper than anything else you’d ever experienced before, but it goes a bit further than that. You just find yourself wanting to spend time with him, to be around him.

Over these past three months, you’ve gotten to know each other so well that it almost feels like he’s your best friend. You’ve shared so many of your deepest secrets together, and you’re vulnerable with each other in a way that you wouldn’t dare to be with someone else. It’s hard not to miss a person who’s there for you in that way. You can admit that the arrangement between you two has far transcended the bounds of a casual hookup, but you’d never delude yourself into thinking that you could ever be together publicly. So, you’re just happy with what you have now.

The two of you finally exit the highway into your hometown and you drop Rose off at her parents’ house, then pull into your driveway a few minutes down the road. You quickly greet your mom then head upstairs to start packing for your trip, since you’re leaving in the morning. As you open up your suitcase, you pull out your phone and are surprised to see a text pop up on your lock screen.

From: Daniel🥁

Make it back okay?

Fuck. You smile down at your phone widely as you look at the message for a moment before responding.

To: Daniel🥁

Got home not too long ago, just packing up my things now.

You press send, still smiling at your phone like an idiot. If Rose saw how easily he affected you, you knew you’d never hear the end of it. You didn’t expect him to reach out so soon after you left, but you can’t deny that it made your heart swell. A guy never cared enough to check in on you like this before, now that you think about it. You try not to read into it too deeply, though.

From: Daniel🥁

Glad to hear that.

From: Daniel🥁

Don’t forget the bikinis ;)

You smirk to yourself and throw your phone down on the bed, turning around to dig through your top drawer to find the swimsuits you plan to bring. After a few moments of searching, you finally find them, pulling them out and putting them on the bed. You take a quick picture of them on your bed and attach it to your message.

To: Daniel🥁

You mean these?

You don’t even have to wait more than ten seconds before your phone pings again with another text. You knew he was eager, but you didn’t think he was that eager.

From: Daniel🥁

Yes, those…

From: Daniel🥁

Do I get a sneak peek?

You giggle to yourself as you pick up the bathing suits and toss them into your suitcase along with the rest of your clothes.

To: Daniel🥁

Oh, no. I think I’ll save that for the beach.

To: Daniel🥁

You’ll just have to be patient :)

You smirk to yourself as you put your phone down on the floor and pile some more things into your bag. As you sort through your clothes to pick out what to bring, a certain t-shirt catches your eye. It’s the Foo Fighters shirt that Daniel lent you after Halloween. Almost instinctively, you toss the shirt into your suitcase. After a minute or so, you’re startled by the sound of your phone vibrating on the floor. You pick it up to see Daniel’s contact taking up the screen as his call continues to ring. You know you’re in for it now.

“Hello?” you answer innocently, sitting cross-legged as you hold the phone up to your ear.

“There are a lot of words to describe me, sweetheart, but patient is not one of them,” he says on the other line, his voice low and raspy. Fuck, his voice just sent shivers down your spine. You don’t even care if you’re in trouble or not, just getting this reaction out of him was worth it.

“It’s never too late to learn,” you say cheekily, smirking to yourself as you wait in silence for his response. Even after all this time, he made you so nervous, but you can’t help but test your luck to see how much you can get away with.

“We both know that’s not how this works,” he answers. You can practically hear the arrogance dripping from his voice, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t turn you on. “You’re not forgetting who’s in control already, are you? You’ve only been away mere hours.”

“No, I remember, professor,” you say, your smirk widening.

“I thought so,” he says, pausing for a moment. The line is silent, but you could cut the tension with a knife. “You wanna be a good girl and try one of those on for me, baby?”

Fuck, it’s getting harder and harder to resist. He had the ability to make you want to do anything he asked, and he knew that. He has you right where he wants you. But you intend to still have the upper hand, no matter how hard it is to maintain.

“Can’t,” you say casually. “They’re already all packed away, probably buried at the bottom of the suitcase by now. Sorry.” You almost wish he could see the smug look you have on your face right now. You hear him let out a short laugh on the other end, almost sounding like a scoff, but still somewhat lighthearted.

“Okay, Y/N. If you want to play this game, then so be it,” he says softly. You can practically hear the smirk across his lips. “I suppose you’ll just have to make it up to me.”

“That can be arranged,” you say with a smile. After a brief moment of comfortable silence, you look at how late it's gotten. “Hey, I gotta go. We have an early flight tomorrow.”

“Ah, alright,” he answers, clearing his throat. “Safe travels, then. I hope to see you and your beach photos soon,” he says with a soft laugh at the end of his sentence. Even when he was trying to sound nonchalant, he was still charming. You really don’t understand how he does it.

“You certainly will,” you say softly. “Goodnight, Daniel.”

“Sweet dreams, angel.”

You sigh to yourself as you end the call, falling back onto your bed and looking up at the ceiling. You hate how much his use of nicknames makes your stomach flutter. Your cheeks are a deep shade of pink as you turn over in bed, turn off your lamp, and plug your phone in before bed.

If this is how he acts after a few hours apart, how will it be by the end of the week? You smile to yourself as you think about it. The attention that he paid you was above and beyond what you expected this relationship to go. It’s gotten to the point where you’d do almost anything to keep it. You close your eyes, feeling excited for your short getaway with your mother, as well as the prospect of a possibly attentive Daniel texting you daily. This was about to be the longest week of your life.

· · ──────── ·𖥸· ───────── · ·

You shove the last few books into your bag before slipping it over your shoulder and leaving your apartment for the first day back to class after break. Much to your dismay, it’s also the last full week of class before finals are in full swing, which you’re absolutely dreading. Your philosophy professors have all slammed you with long essays, all to be turned in by the end of next week. It’s all you’ll be able to focus on.

Luckily for you, your art history exam is the least of your worries. You know all the content well, and whether you like to admit it or not, you may have a bit of an advantage when it comes to the class. You have easy access to the most direct study tool for the test, not like you’d need it. But you wouldn’t admit that to anyone out loud for fear of anyone thinking you get special treatment (a.k.a Stephen… fuck that guy).

At the end of your last class, you decide to pop into Daniel’s office to see if you could study there for a little while. You get stuff done better with company, or at least that’s what you tell yourself. As the elevator opens to the third floor, you turn the corner and see that his office door is already cracked open. You knock softly on it before opening it up and find him sitting at his desk, seemingly grading essays. His head lifts up as he hears the knock, you can see his expression soften as he sees it’s you.

“Y/N,” he says, putting his papers down on his desk to give you his full attention. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” You roll your eyes at him, already feeling slightly flustered at his flirtatious tone.

“Well, I have some work to do and was thinking maybe you’d want some company?” you ask hopefully, entering the room and leaving the door cracked the way you found it. “Unless you’re too busy, of course. I don’t wanna impose.”

“Don’t be silly. Go on, sit,” he answers, his lips tugging upward into a small smile as he adjusts his posture and picks his red pen back up to continue working. You can’t help but feel the warmth grow across your face as you walk over to sit on the couch across from him, leaning against the arm and stretching out before taking out your laptop. Your eyes flicker toward him once more before you open your laptop and pull up your draft for one of your classes.

You try for a while to get your thoughts together enough to continue writing, but your mind has completely drawn a blank. You thought you had your argument down on this paper for your moral philosophy class, but now you feel as though you’ve completely lost it. You’re meant to propose a thesis about decision-making and what different ways of decision-making can tell us about ourselves. It’s all rather deep and introspective, which you typically enjoyed, but now it just made your brain feel like mush. You have an outline of what you want to discuss, but you don’t know where to start.

Your eyes leave your laptop to look over at Daniel again. His eyebrows are furrowed slightly as he writes a note furiously on someone’s paper. How he managed to look so handsome while doing such mundane tasks genuinely drives you crazy.

Now that you think about it, Daniel must know some things about philosophy. He has several philosophy books on his shelves behind you, including a book by Kant, which is one of the many sources that you have to pull from for this essay. You wonder if he may be able to help– at the very least you could bounce ideas off of him, as a scholar. God, he’s intelligent. Hot and smart, completely unfair.

Suddenly, his eyes lock with yours and you realize that you’ve been caught. Shit. He raises an eyebrow at you as you nervously look back at your computer, pretending like you were doing something. You knew he wouldn’t be convinced, though.

“What is it?” he asks, putting his pen down to look over at you.

“Nothing. It’s nothing, I just got distracted–” you answer swiftly, looking at the cursor blinking on your laptop to avoid his gaze. He clicks his tongue before cutting you off.

“Alright, bring it here,” he says, with a smirk appearing across his lips. You hesitate at first, but he raises his eyebrows at you expectantly, as if to say ‘come on’. Reluctantly, you peel yourself off the couch and walk over to his desk, bringing your laptop with you.

You go around the desk to stand on his right behind it, placing the computer in front of him and then leaning your arm on the top of the desk. You wait as his eyes scan the assignment and the small amount of introductory text that you’ve written so far.

“Why don’t you focus more on consequentialism rather than deontology? It’s more easily explained, considering it relies more on feeling than it does on theory,” he starts, turning over his shoulder to look up at you.

“And here I thought you were a Kantian,” you say teasingly, He lets out a small laugh before continuing, his lips curled up into a smile.

“I can both be a scholar of Kantian ethics while also believing that consequentialism makes the most sense in practice,” he says smugly. “Given our little arrangement, I would think that you would be most familiar with consequentialism.”

“What do you mean by that?” you ask, crossing your arms as you lean back to rest your back against the desk. Another laugh leaves his mouth, sending jolts throughout your body. He stands up from his chair, placing his arms on the desk on either side of you, almost trapping you in. His face is mere centimeters away from yours and you can feel his breath against your cheeks.

“Well… I’d say that our relationship is rather hedonistic… wouldn’t you?” Daniel answers with a smirk.

Fuck. He even makes philosophy sexy. And he isn’t entirely wrong, either. The two of you certainly disregarded a number of morals in favor of your… “arrangement” in order to pursue pleasure. You often think to yourself that it’s part of the reason you like it so much as if you pursue it because it’s wrong. You both knew that the entire thing was incredibly morally compromising, in more ways than one, but chose to pursue it anyway.

“I suppose that’s true,” you answer, in almost a whisper. His face is too close for you to even think straight. What were you doing over here again? You can’t even remember.

“We both know that it is, sweetheart,” he says, his nose brushing against yours. “You like this little forbidden love affair, don’t you?”

A quiet sigh escapes your lips as your head starts to spin. Before you even have the chance to respond, his lips crash into yours. It’s messy and rushed, his hands tangled in your hair as he pulls you closer to him. Your arms wrap around his waist and your fingers hold onto his belt tightly as the kiss intensifies, his tongue gliding against your bottom lip swiftly before finding its way into your mouth, tangling with yours.

All of a sudden, reality crashes into you head-on. You left the door cracked open. In between kisses, you pull away from his lips, and they start to descend down your neck toward your collarbone.

“Daniel,” you say quietly, attempting to control your breathing as he sucks harshly on your neck. “The door. I didn’t close it.” His eyes flick upward toward the door briefly before he continues his assault on your neck, kissing softly onto your collarbone.

“I don’t care. I don’t think you do either,” he growls against your skin, holding your waist tightly in one hand as the other tugs on your hair, eliciting a quiet whine out of your mouth.

“Someone could walk in and–” you start, your mind reeling as you try to stay focused, but he interrupts your rambling immediately.

“Let them,” he whispers, sending goosebumps throughout your body. “Don’t act so innocent… Deep down, you know you’d like it,” he says with a smirk before his lips return to yours. He pulls on your hair again and you moan quietly into his mouth, which luckily muffles the sound.

As he lowers your back to lie down on the desk and holds your waist still with one hand as the other pops open the button of your jeans, your mind has completely forgotten about the door. He was right. You don’t care if someone walks in. Something deep inside you almost wants somebody to, just so that they know that you were his.

Before you can question what this thought means, your thoughts are pulled back to the present as he slides your jeans past your waist and lets them drop to the floor. He kneels behind the desk, his face level with your core. His thumb starts to rub slow circles against your clit, still covered by the fabric of your panties. You knew you were already soaked, feeling the tension of the wet fabric move against your folds. Without a moment of hesitation, Daniel dips his fingers into the sides of your underwear, yanking them down to sit with your jeans.

It isn’t even a second later that his lips wrap tightly around your clit, sucking harshly as his hands hold you still by your hips. He held you so tightly that you were sure that it would leave marks, but you didn’t care. All you could think about was how his mouth felt against you, his tongue swirling harshly around your swollen bud. It was like he was starved, as though he couldn’t survive another moment without tasting you.

One of his hands leaves your waist and you feel his finger glide through your folds before it enters you completely. Your body jolts, and his other arm moves to hold you down, stretching completely over your torso. His eyes drift upward to look into yours, burning into you.

“Stay,” he commands before dipping his face back down into you, licking a stripe up to your clit before inserting a second finger into you. His fingers worked fast and harsh, curling up into you so much that your eyes nearly rolled back into your head. You can feel your orgasm creeping up on you fast, so much so that you can hardly even control it. You knew you couldn’t control it, actually. He controlled it.

“Shit, Daniel, I’m close,” you whine quietly, still conscious that any noise too loud would certainly echo through the hallways. He smirks against you as his pace quickens, helping you chase your high.

“Yeah, that’s it, baby. Let me have it, fuck,” he mumbles against you, sending shockwaves throughout your body as you finally let go.

It was almost euphoric, you hadn’t realized how much you had craved him during your time off from school, but it was clear now. His touch was intoxicating, every hint of it made your head spin. He helps you through it, slowing his fingers down and then finally pulling them out. He stands up, bringing his fingers up to his mouth and slowly sucking your release off of his fingers with a low hum.

“So sweet,” he says, his voice low and dripping with lust. You sit up, still sitting on the desk as he brings his lips down to yours. You can still taste yourself on them, which was surely his goal. You’d be lying if you said that didn’t turn you on even more. Your hands reach down to his belt and attempt to undo it before his strong hands stop you.

“Uh-uh,” he says sternly. “You’ve got work to do.” Damn him for always being right. You would never say that to his face.

“Ugh, fine. Whatever,” you answer stubbornly, reaching for your computer and retreating back to your spot on the couch. You pout as you sit down, hoping it’d persuade him.

“Finish the paper. If you’re good, then maybe we’ll pick up where we left off,” he says with a smirk, adjusting his very obvious boner inside his pants before sitting back down at his desk and returning to his task. God, this man was going to be the death of you.

· · ──────── ·𖥸· ───────── · ·

You lay your pencil down and flex your hand, trying to relieve yourself from the cramp in your fingers from writing the last answer on your final. After skimming over what you’ve written, you let out a satisfied sigh. You lower your desk before you stand, slipping your bag over your shoulder and making your way to the desk at the front of the room. A blush creeps onto your cheeks as Daniel looks up to watch you lay your exam down on the pile and a smile tugs at the corners of your mouth.

You open your mouth to say something, but you stop yourself as you hear another student lower their desk, followed by footsteps down the aisle behind you. With a smile and a nod, you turn and leave the classroom. As you step into the hall, your watch lights up with a message and you glance down at it, a new smile playing on your lips.

From: Daniel🥁

Test period is almost over, go wait outside my office.

Your cheeks flush and you glance over at your shoulder to see Daniel staring at you from behind his desk, a smirk on his face. He winks at you and you roll your eyes playfully before turning and leaving. You glance towards the elevators as the doors open to let a few other students in and you flag down the last person to hold the door.

“Thanks,” you say, stepping in and tapping the button for the third floor. You slip your phone out of your packet and swipe through your notifications as you lean your shoulder against the wall. The elevator stops at the second floor and, not paying attention, you move to step out, your body colliding with another student stepping in.

“Shit, sor-” you trail off as you realize it’s Stephen. You fight to not have a visible reaction as you step back to let him in and continue, “Sorry.”

Stephen scoffs and rolls his eyes, stepping in and standing off your shoulder behind you. “Did you even have to show up for the final?” He says under his breath but loud enough for you to hear.

“Probably not, but I did anyway,” you say, not bothering to look at him. “Believe it or not, I earn my grade.”

Stephen laughs and you see him shake his head in the reflection on the door. “Oh, I’m sure you work really hard for it,” he says as the doors open to the third floor.

“I do,” you say simply, adjusting your posture and shooting him a look over your shoulder as you step into the hallway. You don’t bother with a goodbye, you don’t owe him politeness. As the doors close you hear him scoff, but you don’t glance back, you just head to the bench outside of Daniel’s office and plop down.

You let out a sigh and rub your temples, leaning back against the wall behind the bench. You’re exhausted, having not had a good night’s sleep all of finals week, but this was your last one and you couldn’t be more relieved to be done.

You pull your AirPods out of your bag, putting one in as you slip your phone out of your pocket. “Hmm,” you hum, scrolling through your playlists. You pick a random one, not really sure of what you’re in the mood to listen to, and tap shuffle. Heaven by Niall Horan and you let your eyelids fall shut, your head resting on the wall.

“Let’s not get complicated, let’s just enjoy the view.” You shake your head at the words and scoff a laugh through your nose. Sounds easy when you put it that way, you think to yourself as you tap the skip button. You’re not ready to unpack those thoughts right now.

You’re not sure how much time has passed when you hear the familiar click of Daniel’s shoes on the tiled floor, the sound prompting you to open your eyes. You can’t help the smile that stretches across your face when he rounds the corner, his lips tugging up when he sees you waiting.

“Good girl,” he says as he approaches you, running his finger along your jaw quickly before unlocking his door and holding it open for you. You stand and slip your bag over your shoulder, stepping past him into the doorway. He lightly swats your ass as you pass him, a soft gasp escaping you. You spin around as he closes the door behind him, his shoulders moving as he laughs to himself.

“Pleased with yourself?” You ask, folding your arms across your chest and raising an eyebrow.

“Hmm, very,” Daniel says, dipping down to press a kiss to your temple as he walks past you to his desk. He leans back against the edge, glancing between you and the chair in front of him.

You roll your eyes playfully and sit down, putting your bag at your feet and letting your hands rest in your lap as you look up at him through your eyelashes. “Did you have something you wanted to talk to me about?” You ask, your voice sweet.

He glances at the papers on his desk and picks one up, holding it out to you. “Sam is playing a solo gig tomorrow night, starts at 9,” he explains as you take the flier and skim it. “Figured you and Rose could use a laid-back night out.” He shrugs casually, the poster boy of calm, cool, and collected. Your cheeks flush lightly as you realize he’s inviting you to go out with him. You can’t help the beat your heart skips as you flick your eyes up from the paper to meet his.

“I’ll be there a couple hours before he starts,” he continues. “I told him I’d help him get set up and soundcheck.”

“Okay,” you say simply, not daring to allude to him asking you out. You weren’t sure whether it was for his sake or yours. You’ve been trying to cling to casual as tightly as you can, to not let yourself indulge in any sort of delusion that tells you he could be interested in you the same way you’re interested in him. “I’ll talk to Rose when I get home.”

There’s a moment of silence between you and you swear you can see something like disappointment that you didn’t give a straight-up yes. Your heart flutters at the idea of him wanting you there, but you push the thought away before it can overwhelm you.

“I’ll be there,” you add finally, “I just have to see if Rose is free to come along.”

His shoulders relax slightly, barely perceivable, and a small smile graces his lips. “No big deal if she can’t,” he says, the tone of his voice causing the flush in your cheeks to spread down your neck. The thought of spending a night out with just him driving you to your feet as you slip your bag over your shoulder.

“Well I’ll see you tomorrow night then,” you say, smiling up at him briefly before turning towards the door.

Before you can take a step, Daniel catches your wrist and pulls you into him, his free hand pressing into your lower back as your hand splays across his chest to catch yourself. His lips capture yours before a word can leave them, his tongue swiping across your bottom lip. You part your lips for him and his tongue strokes against yours. He kisses you until you’re breathless and lifts his head, smirking down at you.

“See you tomorrow night, baby,” he says, his hand sliding over your ass and squeezing as he dips his head again to press a kiss to the sweet spot below your ear. “Congrats on finishing finals,” he murmurs against your skin, sending a shiver down your spine.

“Could’ve been done on Wednesday, if it wasn’t for your Friday final,” you challenge, fighting to keep your voice even as you let your head roll to the side to give him easier access. His lips trail down the slope of your neck and he pulls the collar of your sweater to the side to continue towards your shoulder.

“Not my fault,” he hums against your skin before lifting his head. You fight back a disappointed groan at the lost contact and look up at him. “Now, as much as I’d like to lay you out over the desk, I have exams to grade.”

You roll your eyes and push against his chest, but he doesn’t release his grip on you. “Well, then you should probably let go, professor,” you say sweetly, blinking up at him. This time when you push against him he lets go, allowing you to step back from him as you adjust your bag on your shoulder.

“Tomorrow,” you say, turning and walking towards the door. “Enjoy grading,” you add before you open the door and leave, starting your trek back to your apartment. As you approach the bus stop, you tug your phone out of your pocket and open your texts with Rose.

To: Rose🌹

What are you doing tomorrow?

Three dots pop up as the bus pulls up and you step on when the doors open, tapping your phone to the card reader to pay for the ride before sliding into a seat.

From: Rose🌹

Just packing for break. Why?

To: Rose🌹

Daniel invited us out to go see a solo gig that Sam is playing

You lock your phone and let your head fall back against the seat, letting out a long sigh as thoughts swarm your head. Though you tried to keep them at bay, they are persistent thoughts and you can’t have your guard up 24/7. Daniel invited you out. Sure he invited Rose out too, but he made it clear he only cared if you show up.

From: Rose🌹

SEXY PROFESSOR!

You smile at the message, assuming that means she’ll go with you, and shake your head.

To: Rose🌹

You’ll get to see Sam👀

From: Rose🌹

I bet he told sexy professor to invite me😌

You sit up and slip your phone into your pocket as the bus pulls up to your stop, grabbing your bag and stepping down onto the sidewalk. Thank god your building is right around the corner from the stop. You make your way inside and up to your apartment, opening the door to a grinning Rose.

“Let me get a little packing done and then we can debrief,” you giggle as you walk to your room, crouching in front of your record crate and thumbing through your jazz compilations. You settle on one and put it on to spin, turning and hauling your suitcase onto your bed. As you rifle through your sweaters, tossing the ones you want to take with you onto your bed, you let your mind wander to Daniel.

The thoughts that you’d been pushing away since Thanksgiving threatened to overwhelm you. You’re down bad. Rose’s words fill your head as you fold a pair of leggings and tuck them into your bag. You let out a heavy sigh, dragging a hand over your face. It was supposed to be casual. No strings attached. You weren’t supposed to feel like this.

But you couldn’t deny the way the hint of disappointment in his eyes earlier had made you feel. The way his shoulders relaxed when you assured him you’d be there. The way you could feel him watching you while you took your exam. You finish arranging clothes in your bag and zip your suitcase closed, leaving only your toiletries and electronics to be packed before you leave on Sunday.

When you finally emerge from your room, you spot Rose on the couch curled up on her phone with a bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table. You smile and plop down next to her, pointing to the glasses and saying, “I hope one of those is for me.”

“I figured you could use something to unwind from all the frustrated sighing I heard coming from your room,” she says as she looks up from her phone. Your cheeks flush and you grab the bottle, filling both glasses and handing one to Rose. You clink your glasses together and take a sip, sighing and leaning back against the couch.

“Yeah, those sighs,” she adds, nudging you with her elbow. You glance sidelong at her and roll your eyes as you start recounting what happened with Daniel, telling her how you’ve been feeling since you got back from break.

“Rose, he actually looked disappointed when he thought I might not go tomorrow,” you say, emptying your glass and leaning forward to pour yourself another.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” She asks, holding her glass out for you to top her off. You blow a laugh through your nose and fill her glass before returning the bottle to the coffee table.

“Is it?” You ask as you tuck one leg underneath you and turn to face her, propping your elbow on the back of the couch and resting your head on your hand. “I mean, I’m the one who said this could only be physical.” You pinch the bridge of your nose, continuing, “And he very plainly said no falling in love, which I laughed at at the time. And here I am…”

You trail off, staring into your wine for a moment before drinking half of it in one gulp. Another deep sigh leaves you and you let your head fall dramatically against your arm.

“Here you are, what?” Rose prods, peering at you over her glass as she takes a sip.

“I’m not saying it, I’m not putting it into the universe,” you say, shaking your head, and setting your glass on the table. “I’m not gonna lose him because I’m reading into things that may or may not even be there.”

Rose raises her eyebrows at your last statement and her lips twitch into a smirk for a second before she curbs her reaction. You grab one of the throw pillows behind you and bury your face in it, muffling the groan that comes out.

“If you having feelings is something that scares him off, do you really want him?” She asks, stretching her legs out in front of her, one ankle crossed over the other.

“Unfortunately, yes,” you mumble, face still buried in the pillow.

“But you want more than what you have right now?”

“I don’t know what I want,” you say, lifting your head and finding her staring at you with an eyebrow quirked. “I just know that I want him, so if this is what I have to do to have him, then fine.”

Rose opens her mouth to say something, probably to ask another prying question, but you cut her off, saying, “Rose, I don’t think I can keep talking about this without crying. And I don’t want to cry about this.”

“Wanna order food and watch a movie?” She says brightly, knowing it would cheer you up and keep you distracted. You thank her with a look and pull out your phone to open Doordash, the two of you sitting side by side to look together. After you settle on pizza and place the order, you turn the TV on and scroll through Netflix, picking a thriller neither of you had seen or heard of.

· · ──────── ·𖥸· ───────── · ·

Afternoon sunlight streams through your windows, forcing you to squint as you open your eyes. You and Rose had both fallen asleep on the couch, your best friend waking you at some point when she got up to go to her bed. A glance at the clock on your nightstand tells you it’s 2 pm and the quiet hum of music and the slide of a drawer across the hall tell you Rose is awake. You sit up and stretch your arms over your head, a slight twinge of pain from falling asleep on the couch making you wince slightly as you get out of bed and walk over to Rose’s room.

“What time did we go to bed last night?” You ask through a yawn, rubbing the sleep from your eyes as you lower yourself into her desk chair.

“Like 2 am,” she says, glancing over at you as she packs a pair of sweatpants. “The movie wasn’t thrilling enough to keep either of us awake, apparently,” she adds with a laugh.

“Clearly,” you say, laughing with her. Your eyes drift to her suitcase and you sigh, remembering that her family is going away for Christmas this year. “This is the first Christmas Eve our families won’t be together,” you comment as she folds a bikini up.

“I know,” she says, a hint of sadness in her voice. “We’ll be home for New Year’s though!” You smile at this, already excited for the party at her family’s lake house.

“Oh, I hope it blizzards again like the first year,” you say, fond memories of the weekend your families spent snowed in together drifting through your mind.

“That was the best year,” she agrees, zipping her suitcase up and setting an empty duffle bag next to it. “Hopefully all the festivities keep your mind off you-know-who. You need a distraction.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” you say sarcastically, rolling your eyes and standing up. “I’m gonna go dissociate in the shower now.” Rose giggles as you walk away, stopping in your room to grab your robe before you walk down the hall to the bathroom, closing the door behind you.

You strip out of your shorts and the Foo Fighters shirt you still haven’t given back yet, tossing your clothes into a pile by the door. Daniel had told you to keep the shirt, but something felt wrong about that. He isn’t your boyfriend, so there’s no reason to have his clothes, but you have to admit you’ve been enjoying sleeping in it. It’s just a shirt, right?

You do a decent job distracting yourself for a few hours before you have to get ready, but now you’re standing in your mirror staring at yourself, thinking about what Daniel might be wearing. “I am pathetic,” you mumble, shaking your head at yourself despite the smile on your lips. Your eyes drift over your reflection and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, feeling good about your look. You had gone with a pair of black wide-leg jeans, a black bodysuit, and a green knit cardigan. Once you added your tan Chelsea boots, the outfit came together.

“Don’t you look academic,” Rose says, leaning in the doorway smiling. You giggle and shake your head, stepping away from the mirror.

“It’s winter and we’re going to a jazz club,” you remind her, grabbing your phone from your bed and slipping your crossbody around you. You glance at your phone, checking to see when the Uber would be there.

“If you let me finish I was gonna say in a hot way,” she laughs as you nudge her out into the living room. “In a hurry to see your man?”

“The Uber is almost here,” you say, drawing out the last syllable as you walk out into the hallway, pausing for Rose to join you. “You look good too by the way, red is your color,” you add as you turn to lock the door, nodding to the red sweater she has on.

“We look very festive,” she points out and giggles as the two of you step into the elevator. You walk out to the front of your building as your driver pulls up and you hop in, confirming your name with him and opening your texts with Daniel.

To: Daniel🥁

On our way!

You tuck your phone into your pocket and sit back, your hands fidgeting in your lap. “Gonna try to go home with Sam tonight?” You tease, glancing at Rose out of the corner of your eye. She grins and shrugs innocently.

“We’ll see,” she says, “You gonna try and bring Daniel back here?”

You stare at her for a moment, her staring back with an eyebrow raised. “Even if I tried,” you begin, shrugging as you add, “He wouldn’t.” You try to act like that doesn’t bother you, sure that Rose sees through it. But if she does, she doesn’t say it, she just gives you a sympathetic smile.

The driver pulls up to the curb outside of the club and you and Rose climb out, thanking him as you close the door. You and Rose walk inside and you spot Daniel immediately.

He’s standing on stage with his back to you, leaning on the piano and talking to Sam, who is sitting on the piano bench. The sleeves of his sweater are pushed up to his elbows and, as your eyes trail over the rest of him, you swear you can see a line of another tattoo on the back of his ankle. As if he can tell you walked in, he glances over his shoulder, making eye contact with you and smiling.

Rose nudges you in the side with her elbow and you break your stare with Daniel to glance at her. “Well, go on,” she says, nodding her head towards the tables at the front of the stage. You take a deep breath and walk further into the space, stopping when you get to one of the front tables. Daniel hops down off the stage and walks over to you, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you into him as he drops his head to kiss your cheek.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says as he straightens. “Hi Rose,” he says, lifting his free hand in greeting.

“Hey Daniel,” she returns, sitting down at the table, her eyes flicking to yours for a second.

“Sam!” He calls over the sound of Sam practicing, looking over his shoulder and waving his friend over. Sam stops and gets up, dropping to sit on the edge of the stage.

“Yes?” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow at Daniel.

“Sam, this is Y/N,” Daniel says, gesturing to you and then to your best friend, “And this is Rose.”

You and Rose both raise a hand to wave, both of you chirping, “Hi Sam.”

Sam smiles at you both, but his eyes linger on Rose for a beat too long. You smirk to yourself as you watch them try not to stare at each other. “Nice to meet you both,” he says, his eyes wandering back to Rose. “My dog’s name is Rosebud, but we call her Rose.”

Your best friend smiles and laughs, “It’s a great name, what can I say?”

Daniel glances back and forth between Sam and Rose, his own lips twitching into a smirk that matches yours as he squeezes his arm around you lightly. You look up at him and meet his eyes for a moment before he leans down and presses a kiss to your lips. He pulls back and studies your eyes briefly before straightening and saying to you and Rose, “We have to check a couple more things and then I’ll be down to sit with you guys.”

With that Sam returns to the piano and Daniel hops back up on the stage, kneeling down to check some wires. You take the seat to Rose’s left, leaving a seat on her right as well as one on your left.

“Yeah,” Rose says as you sit down. “I’m trying to go home with him tonight.”

You smack her leg playfully and laugh, “I don’t blame you considering he still can’t keep his eyes off you.” You point subtly to Sam, whose eyes drift to Rose again as Daniel says something to him.

“Sam,” Daniel says, rolling his eyes and clearing his throat. Sam’s attention snaps back to Daniel as he repeats what he said, Sam nodding in agreement.

“Look what you did,” you tease Rose. “You got him yelled at.” Rose’s cheeks flush lightly and she smiles.

Once they’re finished setting up and sound-checking, Daniel hops back down off the stage and walks over to your table. “I’m gonna go grab drinks. Rose?” He says, looking at her.

“Oh,” she says, caught off guard. “Just a vodka soda.”

“Okay,” Daniel says, turning his eyes to you and raising an eyebrow. “Y/N?”

“Gin and tonic for me,” you say, suppressing the shiver that threatens at the base of your spine every time he says your name.

He nods and your eyes follow him as he walks to the bar, a soft smile on your lips. You can see him making friendly conversation with the bartender and you find yourself wondering what he’s saying as he gestures towards your table and glances back at you. He winks as he catches your gaze and you feel your face and chest flush, turning your attention to your hands in your lap.

“So he calls you pet names and kisses you on the cheek and introduces you to his best friend and you’re just supposed to not have feelings for him?” Rose asks, her tone hushed as she raises an eyebrow at you. You wave your hand as if you could swat her words out of the air.

“Rose,” you warn, shaking your head and rolling your shoulders to release some of the tension.

“Fine,” she says, drawing the word into a whine and holding her hands up in surrender. She lowers her hands as Daniel walks back to the table, setting your drinks down before taking the seat to your left. Your heart skips as he drops his hand to rest on your thigh, tracing slow circles with his thumb.

You and Rose chat casually as you sip your drinks. Rose talks about her directing final and how her group got the best notes from their professor out of their whole class. You explain your thesis for your moral philosophy paper, Daniel squeezing your thigh lightly when you mention pivoting from deontology to consequentialism.

“Smart choice,” he says, winking at you when you look up at him. You watch as he brings his glass to his lips and takes a sip of his whiskey, his tongue darting across his lips as he lowers the glass again. You breathe out a sigh of relief as Sam steps onto the stage and sits behind the piano, flashing a bright smile to the crowd before his fingers start to dance over the keys, his eyes drifting closed.

The opening to Smoke Gets In Your Eyes fills the space, mixing with the soft chatter coming from other tables, and Daniel’s hand stills on your leg as you both glance at Rose to find her eyes fixed on Sam. A smirk tugs at the corners of your lips and you turn your attention back to Sam as the song comes to an end, the music replaced with applause. His eyes open, a soft smile on his lips as he brings them to the microphone.

“Hi everyone, thanks for coming out tonight,” he says, looking down at your table and smiling. “And thanks to my friend, Daniel, for helping me get set up tonight.”

Daniel smiles and lifts his glass towards Sam, who returns the gesture with the drink he has sitting on the piano. They both take a sip and smile.

“Anyways, you all know I like to play more than I like to talk,” he continues. “So sit back, relax, and enjoy.” And with that, his fingers return to the keys, sound filling the room once more.

About an hour goes by and Sam smiles as he brings another song to a close, this time Skating In Central Park. His eyes drift to Rose and you catch her shy from his gaze out of the corner of your eye.

“Alright, I’m gonna take a little break here, but I’ll be back,” Sam says, grabbing his glass from the piano and walking off the stage. He appears at your table and leans on the back of the empty seat next to Rose.

“I’m gonna go fill up,” he says, raising the empty glass and glancing around the table. “Can I get anyone a refill?” You and Daniel both shake your heads, but Rose smiles and pushes her seat back.

“I was gonna get another, I’ll come with you,” she says, standing up and winking at you quickly before she and Sam walk to the bar together.

“I think if I hadn’t disappeared with you that night,” you start, your eyes drifting towards the hallway where you and Daniel had gone back in August. “She would have disappeared with him.”

He blows a laugh through his nose and squeezes your thigh firmly, drawing a soft sigh from your lips. He leans over to speak in your ear, putting his arm around you and keeping his voice low as he says, “Careful angel, I might have to take you back there for a little reminiscing.”

You shiver as his lips brush the shell of your ear, squeezing your thighs together as his words course through you. You would hate the power he has over you if it didn’t make you feel like the only person in the room.

He smirks and sits back in his seat as Sam and Rose return and you look up at them, noting how Sam has his hand on Rose’s lower back as she walks a step ahead of him. She beams at you as she sits down, taking a sip of her drink and letting her eyes follow Sam back to the stage.

“He asked me to get a drink with him after the show,” she says, leaning over to whisper to you as Sam steps onto the stage and the crowd applauds. You grin and squeeze her arm, excited for her to get her moment with Sam.

“Told ya I’d be back,” he says into the microphone as he sits down, smiling and winking at Rose. You look between the two of them and then at Daniel, who smirks at you before turning his attention to Sam as he starts another song.

You try to follow his lead and pay attention, but Daniel’s hand is on your leg again, his fingers pressing into your inner thigh. You let your eyes flutter closed for a brief moment and look at Daniel when you open them, only to find him casually watching Sam play. As you turn your eyes back to the stage, Daniel’s hand drifts further up your thigh. You whip your head to look at him and, while he still doesn’t look at you, you catch his lips twitch into a smirk.

You huff and roll your eyes, turning back to watch Sam bring the song to a close and roll right into another. Daniel brushes his fingers along the center seam of your jeans. It’s just the ghost of a touch, but it still forces a shaky breath from you as arousal tightens your abdomen. And as soon as it’s there, it’s gone as he lifts his hand and traces one finger along the crease where your leg joins your hip. His hand doesn’t return to your thigh again, instead resting on the back of your chair as he puts his arm around your shoulders casually.

Sam plays through a few more songs without addressing the crowd, but as what seems to be the last of the medley closes, he brings his lips to the mic and says, “I want to thank you all for coming out again.”

“I’m gonna wrap things up here, but if you’ve seen me before you know I never leave a show without playing this next song,” he says as he begins the opening of Rhapsody In Blue.

You watch Sam’s eyes close, his fingers knowing where each key is on their own, and let your eyes do the same. Your lips tug into a soft smile as each note washes over you, as you lose yourself in the song, and before you know it the song ends and the crowd applauds. Sam stands and gives an exaggerated bow before leaving the stage.

“That was incredible,” Rose gushes as Sam returns to your table. “You didn’t even have to look.”

“I’ve been playing that song for a long time,” Sam laughs and runs a hand through his hair. Rose’s cheeks flush and she smiles, glancing at you and Daniel.

“Great show, Sam,” you say with a smile.

“Sounded great, bud,” Daniel adds, his hand resting on your shoulder. “Let’s get this torn down so we can get out of here.”

“So,” Rose says, turning to you as Sam and Daniel hop up on the stage. “How are you getting Daniel back to our apartment?”

You glance towards him as he works on wrapping a cord back up and sigh. “I’ll just remind him that we won’t see each other for a month,” you say, shrugging casually and smiling. “And how are you getting Sam to take you back to his place?”

“Well I can’t exactly go back to our place with you and sexy professor there,” she says, winking at you and glancing up at the stage as Sam looks over his shoulder at her. “I don’t think I’ll have to do much convincing.”

You fall into a fit of giggles and continue chatting as you both steal glances up at Sam and Daniel. Since most of the equipment is the clubs, it doesn’t take them long to reset the stage and return to your table.

“So, how about that drink, Rose?” Sam asks, offering her his hand.

“Lead the way, Sam,” she says, taking his hand and leaving the table with him. She casts a look over her shoulder at you and winks, smiling as she turns back and they head for the door together.

“And then there were two,” Daniel says from behind you, grabbing your hand to pull you into him. You turn to face him as his hand falls to rest on your lower back and you look up at him, a smile on your lips. “Hi, baby.”

“Hi Daniel,” you say softly, pushing onto your toes to press your lips to his. His arm tightens around your waist as he kisses you back, his tongue sliding across your bottom lip before he lifts his head and smiles down at you. “Thanks for inviting us, we had a good time.”

“Anytime,” he says, his gaze darting to your lips and back to your eyes. “Come on, let me drive you home.”

You grin and nod, turning to walk towards the door. Daniel’s hand wraps around yours as you leave together, rounding the corner to where his car is parked. You slip into the passenger seat, smiling to yourself as he gets in and starts it up.

“It’s a left at the li-” you start, but you’re cut off.

“I remember,” he says simply, the implication of him remembering how to get to your apartment after one time making your head spin.

“Okay,” you whisper as you force away the thoughts that pop into your head. It’s really not that big of a deal. It’s not like the directions are difficult. He lives here year-round, he’s familiar with the city. It’s not that big of a deal.

Daniel pulls into a parking spot in front of your building and you both sit silently for a moment, the soft mumbling of the radio the only sound. You glance up at your building before you turn to look at Daniel, biting your lip.

“Do you want to come up?” You ask, your heart pounding in your chest. Before the last word could fully leave your lips, Daniel takes the key out of the ignition.

“I was just waiting for you to invite me,” he says casually, opening his door and getting out. You blow out a breath and smile to yourself for a moment before you climb out. He pauses on the sidewalk to wait for you and lets you walk a step in front of him as you swipe into the building.

As you wait for the elevator in silence, Daniel lets his hand rest on your lower back, stroking his thumb absentmindedly. The elevator dings and the doors slide open. As they slide closed with the two of you inside, Daniel turns to face you and guides you back against the wall, his hand gripping your waist. You gasp as your shoulders bump the wall and you look up at him through your lashes.

“I love it when you look at me like that,” he says, bringing his hand up to brush your hair back from your face and cup your cheek. You feel your face heat and your heart pound as he stares down at you, his lips curved into a smirk. You open your mouth to speak, but the doors open and Daniel pushes away from you to let you lead. Slipping your key into the lock, you open the door to your apartment and flick the lights on.

“Sorry, it’s a little messy,” you say, looking around the living room. “We’ve been packing for break.”

Daniel waves dismissively as he slips his shoes off, leaving them near the door, and wraps his hand around yours. He pulls you in and presses his lips to yours, the kiss slow and gentle as you part your lips for him and he brushes his tongue over yours.

“You gonna miss me?” He asks when he pulls away, his hand sliding over your ass and squeezing firmly. He holds your body against his and you can feel him, already hard.

“I think you’re gonna miss me,” you muse, smiling up at him innocently. You sigh softly as he drops his head to bring his lips to your neck. He brushes your hair off of your shoulder and you feel his teeth nip the spot where your neck meets your shoulder.

“Daniel,” you say softly, the sound half sigh, half moan. He hums against your skin as his hands slide your cardigan off your shoulders, the garment falling to your feet. His lips continue down to your collarbone, teeth grazing your skin lightly and sending a chill down your spine.

“I’m gonna miss that,” he says, his breath ghosting over your skin as he brings his lips to your ear. “The way you say my name.”

You fight the shiver that builds at the base of your spine and you bring your fingers to rest under Daniel’s chin, pressing your fingers up to make him meet your eyes.

“Make me do more than say it,” you say softly, taking his hand and leading him back to your bedroom. As you cross the threshold of the room, Daniel tugs on your hand, bringing you back against him. He leads you into the room until the back of your legs hits the edge of your bed, forcing you to sit. He lays his phone on your nightstand and you stare down at him as he kneels down to take your boots off for you, followed by your socks.

“What are you-” you start, but he cuts you off with simply a look. You close your mouth and watch as he rises, his fingers dragging up your legs until they reach the button on your jeans. He pops the button and draws the zipper down, motioning for you to stand, which you do without a word.

Daniel sinks to his knees again as he hooks his thumbs in your belt loops, dragging your jeans down your legs and pausing for you to step out of them. He looks up at you and smirks, his hands roaming from your calves and up the backs of your thighs. You let out a quiet moan as his fingertips dig into your flesh, a wave of arousal pulsing through you.

When Daniel stands again, he guides you to the center of the bed and lays you down, hovering over you as his hand drifts between your legs. He pops the snaps of your body suit one by one, holding your gaze until the third snap pops open. You whine when he doesn’t touch you, but brings his hand up to drag each strap down your arms, revealing you inch by inch until he drags the body suit down your legs and tosses it on the floor.

“Fuck,” he hisses through clenched teeth, taking in the deep plum-colored set you’re left lying in. “I’m definitely gonna miss this,” he adds, his finger hooking under the strap of your bra and letting it snap against your skin. The feeling draws a whine from you and you try not to squirm under his intense gaze.

“Sit up,” Daniel instructs, hunger dancing in his eyes. You do as he says and he reaches behind you, making quick work of the clasp of your bra and clicking his tongue as it slides down your arms. He tosses it on the floor with your other clothing and guides you back down onto the bed, hovering over you and kissing you for just a second before he begins to trail kisses down your throat. Across your collarbones. Between your breasts.

“I’m gonna miss this,” he says before pinching your nipple between his teeth, dragging his tongue over it a second later. Your back arches in response and you gasp, and Daniel blows a laugh through his nose, the rush of air making you shiver.

“Daniel,” you whisper as he sucks a mark into the skin just below your breast. “Please.”

“Please what, sweetheart?” He asks as he kisses down your abdomen, goosebumps following where his lips brush.

“Touch me,” you plead, pushing up on your elbows to meet his eyes just before he sucks a mark onto your inner thigh.

“I will, don’t worry,” he says, pressing a kiss over the already purpling spot. He makes a twin mark on your other thigh and you fight the urge to brush his curls out of his face, the urge to tangle your fingers in his hair and pull him to where you need him. As if he can sense your growing frustration, he drags a finger over the lace covering your core. You can almost hear the smirk as he groans, “Always so fucking wet for me.”

Daniel hooks his fingers in the waistband of your thong and slides it down your legs, leaving you fully bare to him. He sits up for a moment, taking in the sight of you before he tugs his sweater off, leaving him in a tight-fitted black t-shirt. He lowers himself back between your legs and slowly drags his tongue through your core, his lips wrapping around your clit as you gasp and clutch the sheets in your fist.

“As sweet as ever,” he says, lifting his head only long enough to praise you. His arms wrap under your legs, pulling you to his mouth as his tongue attacks your bundle of nerves. A brief pause, a tap on your outer thigh. “Up,” he says, guiding your hips up and slipping a pillow under you before sinking back between your legs.

“Daniel,” you moan as he buries his face in your pussy, his nose brushing your clit as your hips jerk involuntarily. Your head falls back, your hand slipping into Daniel’s hair as he devours you like you’re his last meal. The familiar tension in your abdomen builds as he works you closer and closer to the edge, his lips returning to your clit, teeth grazing the spot lightly as he slowly presses a finger into you and curls it forward.

“Daniel, I’m-” you pant, your thighs trembling as your control starts to slip.

“Let it go, baby,” he whispers, adding a second finger with the first. “Give it to me.”

Your orgasm crashes over you, your toes curling as your walls flutter around his fingers. You cry out as your back arches off the bed and your vision blurs as he works you through it, his fingers curling inside of you slowly. “Good girl,” he whispers, pressing feather-light kisses to the inside of your thigh.

As you start to come down, Daniel kisses his way back up your body, stopping when he’s over you and pressing a hungry kiss to your lips. He reaches behind his head and grabs his shirt to tug it off but you stop him with a hand planted on his chest. Your fingers move to the hem of his shirt and you tug it up and over his head, tossing it to the floor and returning your hand to the center of his chest.

He raises an eyebrow at you as you push him gently, staring up at him with a smirk on your face. Begrudgingly he moves to lay on his back and you move to hover over him, capturing his lips in another slow, deep kiss. Your tongues tangle and you feel him grip your waist. You lift your head and meet his eyes, smiling sweetly.

“My turn,” you whisper, your lips brushing soft kisses to his jaw and down his neck. You drag your teeth over his collarbone, smiling to yourself as Daniel drags in a breath, his fingers twitching where they grip your waist. Your fingers trail down his chest and abdomen as you sit back on your knees between his legs, just wanting to look at him spread out on your bed. You smirk and bite your lip as your fingers undo his belt and pants, sliding them down over his hips as he lifts up slightly, propping himself up on his elbows to watch you.

You drop his pants to the floor and slide back over him, your lips wandering down his chest. Your fingers trace along the waistband of his boxer briefs as you drop kisses lower and lower. You brush your hand over his cock, hard and throbbing beneath the black fabric, and smirk as his hips buck up.

“Y/N,” Daniel warns. You look up at him through your eyelashes and smile sweetly, bringing your lips to the spot just below his navel. He groans and lets his head fall back, his eyes closing.

“Such a tease,” he growls. You bite your lip and drag your tongue along the line of muscle that disappears beneath his waistband as you push his briefs down, letting them fall to the floor before you settle between his legs.

He lifts his head, meeting your eyes the moment before your tongue glides up his length, and his mouth falls open as he drops his head back down, his fingers darting into your hair. You blow a laugh through your nose and smirk, flicking your tongue at his tip and drawing a moan from his chest.

You wrap your hand around the base of him, slowly sinking your mouth over his cock, taking each inch of him until his tip brushes the back of your throat. With a glance up, you find him propped on his elbows again, watching his length slide past your lips.

“I’m gonna miss this,” he says, gathering your hair into a ponytail in his hand. “So fucking pretty with your lips wrapped around my cock.”

You hum around him and slowly draw back, your tongue dragging along the vein that runs his length. Your hand replaces your mouth as you pull all the way back, swirling your tongue around the tip and smiling up at him.

“A picture lasts,” you say, lowering your mouth back onto him and winking. Daniel raises an eyebrow at you, a silent question. You hum around him in confirmation and draw your head back again before sinking back down.

“Fucking hell, Y/N,” he growls, reaching to the nightstand for his phone and opening the camera. He focuses it on you and snaps a photo as you glide your tongue flat along the underside of his cock. You feel your cheeks heat and you lower your mouth over him again, taking his full length into your mouth and moaning around him.

“Fuck,” Daniel moans as he hits the back of your throat again. “If you keep doing that I’m not gonna last, sweetheart.”

You ignore him and continue, setting a slow pace, taking every inch of him every time you slide your lips over him. The next time you lift your mouth from him, his hand drops your hair and wraps around your throat, his fingers pressing into the sides of your neck gently.

“Something wrong?” You ask, your voice dripping with lust as you look at him through hooded eyes.

“Lay down,” he says, his fingers moving to grip your chin.

“I wasn’t done,” you challenge, meeting his eyes defiantly. He smirks and clicks his tongue before easily guiding you onto your back, leaving you breathless as he hitches your leg over his hip. Daniel leans forward, hovering over you with a smirk tugging at his lips.

“And I need to be inside of you,” he whispers as he rolls his hips, his cock gliding over your sensitive clit. You gasp softly, the sound cut off as Daniel captures your lips again, this kiss frenzied and hungry, all tangled tongues and nipping teeth.

You break the kiss, your head falling back as Daniel pushes into you slowly, feeling every inch of his cock stretch you in the best way. His head falls into the crook of your neck and he buries himself to the hilt, his breath ragged against your skin as your walls flutter around him.

“I’m gonna miss this,” Daniel whispers as he sets a slow pace, his hips rolling into yours. One hand grips your waist while the other grasps your breast, kneading your flesh as he fucks you slow and deep, every stroke drawing a moan from your lips. “You are so fucking soft.”

“Daniel,” you moan out, your voice breathy. He sucks at the sweet spot beneath your ear and groans against your skin as you squeeze around his cock. You whine softly as he pulls out of you and taps your hip.

“On your stomach,” he says, stroking his cock slowly as he stares down at you, your chest and face flushed as you turn over, dragging a pillow into your arms. He draws you up onto your knees with a hand under your hip and you bury your face into the pillow as his cock glides through your folds before slipping back into you.

“So fucking sexy,” he moans, brushing his hand down your back as he resumes a slow pace. “So pretty and perfect.”

You cry out into the pillow as his tip brushes your cervix, the new angle making your thighs tremble. He slides his hand under you and lifts you up so you’re on your knees, your back pressed firmly to his chest as he continues fucking into you. One hand drifts down to circle your clit slowly, his palm pressing into your lower abdomen, and his other hand snakes between your breasts to wrap around your throat.

“You told me you didn’t just want to say my name,” he whispers, nipping at the shell of your ear. “So fucking scream it.”

Daniel’s hips snap forward harshly, his fingers attacking your swollen bud. It’s all you can do not to crumble right there in his arms, feeling your second orgasm hurtling towards you, and you toss your head back against his shoulder, his hand tightening around your throat. This new angle drags the tip of his cock against your sweet spot and his quick pace makes your head spin as you try to focus on every sensation at the same time.

“Fuck, Daniel!” You cry out, your eyes squeezing shut, as your orgasm wrecks you. Daniel holds you firmly against his chest, never slowing his pace as he fucks you through your climax. Curses mingle with his name in the air as you shudder against him, your entire body feeling like a live wire.

“Just like that, baby,” he whispers into your hair, bringing his hand from your clit and resting it on your abdomen. He strokes your skin gently, lowering you back down to the bed and pulling out just long enough to put you on your back again. “Wanna see that pretty face when I finish,” he says, smirking as he pushes back into you. You see his eyes trail over you, pausing for a beat longer at where your bodies are joined and he smirks, grabbing his phone and snapping another photo of you.

“A picture lasts,” he teases, repeating your words from before as he runs his hand up your thigh and grips your hip, pulling you into each thrust.

You hook a leg around him as his rhythm starts to stutter and his face twists in pleasure. He drops his head to suck your nipple into his mouth as he fucks you, his teeth clamping around the bud. Your fingers tangle in his hair, savoring every single sensation as if this was the last time, and you tug on his curls gently, bringing his lips to yours.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he moans against your lips as his hips stutter again, his orgasm crashing over him. With a hand on your hips, he thrusts into you harshly, his cock twitching as his release coats your walls. He buries his face between your breasts and pants heavily, his warm breath tickling your skin as you stroke his hair.

“You,” Daniel mumbles against your skin. “Are so fucking perfect.” He rolls to lay next to you, catching his breath for a moment before he turns onto his side and props his head on his hand, studying you quietly.

“Come on,” you say finally, a lazy smile spreading across your face as you meet his eyes, his free hand tracing slow patterns on your skin. You take his hand and get up, steadying yourself on shaky legs before leading him down the hall to the bathroom.

After the water heats up, you pull him into the shower with you, letting the water wash over your shoulders and sighing deeply. You clean each other up, Daniel’s hand drifting between your legs gently, sending a chill down your spine.

As you turn to rinse the suds from your hair, Daniel dips his head, capturing your lips for a brief, soft moment. You look up at him, your heart skipping a beat as you think about how gentle he’d been with you all night. Even at Sam’s show. Before you have too much time to think, Daniel steps out and holds the curtain back for you as you step out as well, grabbing a towel and handing it to him before grabbing one for yourself.

“I kinda wish I could just stay here for break,” you admit quietly as you slip into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and slide under your covers. Daniel’s lips curve into a smile for a brief moment before it’s gone and he bends down to pick up his boxer briefs, sliding the black fabric up over his hips.

“What’s this?” He asks, studying one of the pictures on your dresser. You sit up in bed, squinting at the picture, and smile fondly.

“That’s me and Rose when we were kids,” you explain. You tell him about the New Year’s party her family hosts at their lake house as he lifts the covers and slides into bed next to you.

“The first year they invited my family we got snowed in at the house for an extra 3 days,” you sigh, smiling at the picture of you and Rose in the fort you’d built one afternoon.

When your gaze drifts back to meet Daniel’s, you find him watching you thoughtfully and you tilt your head to the side, raising an eyebrow. “Penny for your thoughts?”

He blows a laugh through his nose and shakes his head, pulling you into him, your back to his chest. “It’s late,” he says as he slips an arm under your head, his other arm wrapped around your waist, fingers drifting under the hem of your shirt to rest on your stomach.

“It’s late,” you parrot, wiggling into a more comfortable position and letting out a deep sigh. It’s not long before you hear Daniel’s breathing slow and even out as he drifts off, leaving you awake in his arms. In your bed.

You hadn’t even asked him to spend the night, he’d just slipped into bed with you. Like it was an instinct. Your head spins with dangerous thoughts. Maybe he does want more with you. He’d been so willing to break rules lately. There’s no way he’d be acting this way if he didn’t at least feel a little bit of what you had been feeling, right?

Fuck, you think. Maybe you’re in over your head. Maybe you’re delusional and this is just how he is when he’s comfortable with someone. Maybe this all means nothing. But what if it doesn’t?

· · ───────── ·𖥸· ───────── · ·

chapter vi

Taglist:

@peaceloveunitygvf @mackalah @jakekiszkapunchmeintheface @spark-my-nature @dannys-dream @violetstarcatcher @demonrat444 @heheheheheheheurmum @theres-a-tvjoe @bladenotblaze @gardensgatekeeper @sleepyomens @whimsiliz @annavanfleet @highladyofasgard @gvfpal @ninab2 @jordie-gvf @freyjalw

#Spotify #greta van fleet #gvf #greta van fleet fic #danny wagner #danny gvf #danny wagner fic #danny wagner x reader #danny wagner gvf #danny wagner smut #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet smut #greta van fic #gretavanfleet #greta van smut #illicit affairs

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inthemytdl · 2 years ago

Text

Teenage Dream

Summary: Jack prepares for his first date (with a girl)

Note: she/her pronouns

“Are you sure?” Jack brushed down the black shirt and army style jacket Dean gave him.

The sleeves went a couple inches past his hand, so he had to roll them up to fit properly. The shirt, on the other hand, fit well.

“Trust me, chicks dig the bad boy look,” Dean said. “A little dirt, a little grime. Works every time.”

Jack had never been on a date before, but he imagined dressing nicer than this. Wearing his FBI suit, maybe. It was the nicest one he owned and the sleeves fit perfectly.

He turned to Sam. “Is that true?”

“Sometimes,” Sam said, without looking up from his computer.

But Jack had seen a good amount of romance films and couldn’t imagine Sam as the bad boy in any of them. In his mind, he was always the nice guy. The hero.

“Did you think you’d go in your FBI suit?” Dean laughed. “This is a date, kid, not a case.”

“I like that suit. Cass says blue is my color.”

Cass nodded. “It’s true. And that”—he pointed at Jack—“is horrible.”

“Hey!” Dean shouted. “That’s style. Army green, simple tees. That’s in right now. It’s all over the mags.”

“Mags?” Sam said.

“Magazines. God, you guys are old.”

Jack watched the scene unfold. Dean was doing that thing where he pretended to be young again while Sam groaned and Cass filed his nails against the wooden table. Usually, he’d let it go on, but there were just thirty minutes until his date with you and he still didn’t have an outfit.

“I don’t have time for this!” Jack shouted. His skin was hot like when he used his powers.

“Woah. Relax. It’s just a date,” Dean said.

“He’s never been on a date before, Dean,” Sam countered.

“So? Neither has Cass and he’s doing fine.”

“Dating, love, relationships. Those are human things,” Cass said. “Trivial.”

“Trivial?” Dean craned his neck toward him and the pair erupted into yet another argument as Sam approached Jack.

“It doesn’t matter what you wear,” he said. “Just be yourself. Girls can tell when you’re faking.”

“They can?” Jack felt more nervous than before. It was all too human. And he was only half of that. He wasn’t used to having sweaty palms or a butterfly-filled stomach. He thought he was sick the first time he felt their flutter before Sam explained that it was normal.

“Uh, yeah. Sometimes,” Sam coughed. “But you’ll be fine.” He gave him those puppy dog eyes he gave families when working a case: his attempt to take half of their pain. It worked sometimes. Jack was grateful it worked now.

“Okay,” he said, leaving to change.

He hurried to his room and put on a white button up paired with a brown suit. That blue tie he loved. He stopped for a moment to look in the mirror, did an awkward smile, then made his way back to the command center.

The chaos had died down by the time he arrived, and all three of the boys sat around the table listening to Sam. Jack overlooked the scene from the head of the table. This was one of the few times the bunker was quiet: when one of them was talking and the others listened. And that was rare. Most days, they talked over each other.

“Woah. Look at you.” Sam was first to notice him. His dimples pinched his cheeks as he smiled.

“Much better,” Cass rasped.

Dean scrunched his face and made his way over to him. Jack wiped sweaty palms down his blazer. Dean was never all that nice to him, but a couple months in the bunker and they had become somewhat of a family.

“You’ve got to learn how to properly tie a tie,” Dean said, and he adjusted it for him. “There. Not as good as before but… decent.” He nodded, then fished in his pocket and produced silver keys. “Here.”

“You’re letting me drive the impala?” Jack said.

“Don’t make me regret it.”

Sam clapped. “Alright, go get ‘em, tiger.”

A rush of energy overcame Jack, though he couldn’t tell why. It might’ve been confidence or nerves or something entirely different—he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t used to feeling this way. He had grown accustomed to fear and adrenaline. Love, even. But never romantic, and never like this.

This would be the first time he went on a real date, and one where no one tried to kill him. He felt prepared; he knew what to do. Once he got to the restaurant, he would pull your chair out for you, you’d talk, and then you’d fall in love with him.

There was only one thing he was unsure about.

“What should I say when I get there?” he asked.

“I read in a Teen Vogue magazine it’s custom to talk about your interests,” Cass said.

“Zombies?”

“No—no zombies!” Dean said. “For the love of god, no zombies.”

“Just follow her lead, okay?” Sam said.

Jack nodded, making a mental note of all the advice he’d be given. But if he wasn’t allowed to talk about zombies, what would he talk about?

“Uh, kid.” Dean laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not moving.”

“I’m not?”

“No,” Cass said. “You’ve been standing in Dean’s beer puddle for thirty seconds now.”

“Oh.” He felt the liquid squish below his feet.

“Here, I’ll walk you.” Sam placed a hand on his back and led him to the door.

“You’ll call me if you need help?”

Leaving during a case felt wrong—like when he finished a box of cereal and it didn’t have a toy in it or when he waved at someone and they didn’t wave back—but Sam insisted he go.

“Yeah,” Sam said, opening the door for him.

Jack lifted a slow hand and waved goodbye.

Sam smiled and waved back; gave him that look that took half his nerves, half his pain. Then the door shut and it was time for his date.

#jack kline #jack kline blurbs #jack kline x reader #jack kline fics #jack kline x yn #supernatural fics #jack kline oneshot #spn fics #jack winchester #jack kline imagine #supernatural fanfiction

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theharrowing · 2 years ago

Text

White Lies 🤍 2: Sleep sweet, pretty

Yoongi is everything you could ask for. He is attractive, confident, and smart. And his partner Taehyung is as possessive as he is beautiful. Too bad a relationship would be a major conflict of interest.

You need to have them, at all costs.

🤍 Yoongi x Female Reader x Taehyung

🤍 word count: 7.5k + screencaps of conversations

🤍 college au, cop au, partial social media au with a lot of written story, strangers to lovers & established relationship, yandere, hurt/comfort, smut, fluff, angst, slash, poly, minor character injury & death, graphic violence, nsfw, 21+.

🤍 warnings: a lot of deception; very forward flirting; use of date rape drug; effects of being drugged against one's will. there is no assault of any kind, just fear.

🤍 note: don't forget mc's fake name is Sandra. she won't be referred to this for too many chapters.

🤍 written parts beta read by @neoneunnajimin

🤍 posted nov. 2023 | read on ao3

PREVIOUS | INDEX | NEXT

* * *

You pace around beside your couch and stare at your phone as it rings, watching as the 212 number takes up the screen. With shaking thumbs, you halt in place and accept the call, anticipating what Vante's voice may sound like.

"Hello?" you ask as demurely as possible, squeezing your eyes closed.

The voice that greets you is deep, rough, and with an accented lilt that makes your heart race. "Well, hello, pretty."

It takes a split moment to get your bearings. How could someone's voice sound like honey and barbed wire all at once?

"H-hey, V," you finally say, biting on your bottom lip and opening your eyes. Although your apartment lighting is not terribly bright, you have to blink a few times.

"Wow," Vante says, "your voice sounds so sweet."

You huff out a quick, quiet sigh, lips upturning as you catch the bottom one between your teeth, and then you begin to pace around some more. "Yours is very…"

"Very…?"

"Handsome," you respond meekly. "Very handsome."

Vante chuckles and it is a sound so rich and deep you physically swoon, knees weakening some as you twist your body in the direction of your bedroom, needing to move around and let out some energy.

"So…" Vante begins, and you smile further as you mirror him, asking, "So…?"

"So, what are you wearing?" After a pause, he clarifies, "To the date, I mean," with a tone that is playful and seductive.

With your free hand, you fidget with the bottom hem of your black sweater and almost regret considering an outfit so plain. You remind yourself that the plan is to string him along, at least for now.

Playing along with V's demeanor, you giggle, doing your best to sound shy. "Nothing too flashy…I was thinking a black tee tucked into black jeans. It's cooling down, so maybe my favorite oversized forest green flannel. And some black boots."

"And this tee…will it be a crew neck, or maybe a v-neck?"

You mentally pat yourself on the back for being the most clever person alive as you say, "A v-neck, in your honor, of course."

"Of course."

"And you?"

"I was thinking about wearing a tight white tee tucked into some tight black jeans. With boots, and maybe a flashy designer jacket."

You hum and close your eyes, attempting to remember Vante's body type in the many photos you have seen. As far as you remember, he is a bit muscular and seems on the taller side. Broad and masculine but not overly ripped.

"Emphasis on the tight," you tease.

Vante chuckles, forcing your eyelids to flutter closed, then he says, "God, there are so many things I want to say in response to that, but I feel I should save them for the second or third date."

"Wow," you respond, feeling a sudden shyness that only increases as he continues to laugh.

"Alright, pretty," he finally says, "just wanted to hear your voice quick, but I should let you get back to winding down. I have to finish up here and then catch my flight home."

"Sounds good. Safe travels."

"See you soon," Vante sing-songs, and you feel yourself swaying when you say, "Looking forward to it."

And then the call ends, snapping you back to reality. Your eyes focus on the top of your wooden dresser and you heavy-blink, reminding yourself that this is a mission and that you are not, under any circumstances, supposed to get close to either of these men.

But god damn does Vante sound real fucking sexy. This might be a problem.

* * *

The Marías play loud and dreamy as you twirl and sway through your room, holding your soft green flannel in both hands. It fans out with each movement and you twist it dramatically to drape it over your shoulders. Although you are dressed down in a tee and skinny jeans, you look good. The garments hug your curves nicely and the shirt shows off just enough cleavage without it feeling like too much for a casual night at the bar.

You apply a little makeup to your eyes and cheekbones, then look over your jewelry, deciding on a simple pair of gold hoops and the necklace that you always wear – a small gold charm in the shape of a rabbit's foot dangling from a thin gold chain, for luck.

Although there is plenty of time to eat a meal before heading to the bar, you feel so antsy that you only manage to pick at a salad and some fruit. You chug some water and then check the time.

And then, with a deep breath, you decide to head out early and text your boss.

// these two conversations take place at the same time - you can use time stamps to track the back and forth if you want to //

With the phone you were using to text Vante slid into your small black leather purse, and the phone you were texting Seokjin with sitting facedown on the countertop, you swivel to the left in time to find the man who had been sitting across from you taking a seat one stool away.

"Hey," he mutters, head tilted down too far for you to see his face clearly. "I hope you don't mind that I join you on this side? Things over there got a bit too wild for my taste."

Two things stand out about the way this man speaks. The first is that there is a hint of an accent, especially on certain consonants, and it seems that he is speaking in a slow and measured way that almost makes his words feel somewhat forced. The second is that, despite feeling forced, his voice is very deep but also quite mellow and soothing.

Although he does not sound like the man you spoke to on the phone last night, there are enough hints of similarities that remind you of him. At least you are somewhat certain that this man is not Vante based on physical stature, but you decide to stay alert just in case.

"I don't mind," you respond, making your voice sound as sweet and inviting as possible.

The man, who seems to be wiping at his drink-dampened black shirt and jeans with a grey bar rag, looks up and regards you with a familiarity in his eyes that causes you to pause. You watch as his face comes clearly into view beneath the visor of the black baseball cap, and his eyes linger on you.

Time feels as if it slows down as you watch this stranger's eyes trace over your face. And then he blinks rapidly, gives his head a quick little shake, and chuckles.

"Sorry, you…" he begins, turning his attention back to his shirt, then glancing your way briefly to say, "you remind me of someone."

"Oh?" you ask, swiveling on your stool enough to fully face him.

The man hums then sighs and lets his arms drape at his sides. He looks defeated; the wet mark on his shirt is pretty large.

"Lemme buy you a drink to make up for that person's sloppiness?" you ask with one of your wide, winning smiles.

He shakes his head and tosses the rag onto the bar, turning his body to face the counter but staying angled slightly toward you, tilting his chin at the two shots that have been neglected beside your purse.

"Looks like you're expecting someone."

"I was," you clarify, dragging out the 's' as you rotate toward the bar but keep yourself slightly angled at him. You glance back at the shots of Fireball. "I think I got stood up."

From the corner of your eye, you watch the man straighten up, and you smile to yourself as he mutters, "Oh! Oh, that's so unfortunate."

Although you should check to make sure Vante is still not receiving or responding to your messages, you feel bold enough to turn to the man and slide one of the two shots his way.

"Join me?" you ask. "Not as a date but just as…a person who can help me with these shots."

"Are you sure?" the man asks, reaching for the glass and eyeing it suspiciously. "What is this, anyway?"

Rather than answer, you watch the man lift the shot glass to his nose and frown. Through a giggle, you say, "It's Fireball," and reach for the second one.

"Cinnamon," he mutters in understanding rather than a question, and you nod, swiveling once more to face him. He concedes with a shrug, saying, "Alright," and your smile wider.

"Cheers," you say, holding your shot toward the man who mutters, "Yes, cheers. To accidentally having poor judgment and winding up beside one another."

You laugh as you tap your glass against his and lift the shot to your lips. The cinnamon flavor kicks you square in the mouth, cloying your senses with a bittersweet assault of artificial earthiness and heady whiskey.

The man winces and shakes his head, slamming his glass against the counter ungracefully and sticking out his tongue. You take the opportunity to tease him about his toast, asking, "Poor judgment, eh?"

With a deep, pretty chuckle, he says, "You made a date with a flake and I humored conversation with a slob."

Briefly, your gaze flicks to the woman who had been talking to him before, and she is shouting something toward her group of friends while waving her arms emphatically, thankfully not holding a drink. When he finishes his statement with, "And here we are," you rip your gaze away and regard him.

This man is very attractive up close, with soft lips and a sharp stare. If you squint he would look similar to the photos you have seen of Min, only his nose is more straight and pointed, and his eyes appear to be a light hazel green.

You offer your right hand and introduce yourself as Sandra, sitting tall on the barstool and watching as he hesitates to lift his own.

"My English name is Cody."

"Cody," you mutter, feeling your lips fight the urge to smile, and you know that your eyes are widening but you attempt to stay as straight-faced as possible. Cody is such a bro name, you would not have guessed it was his. Cody grabs onto your hand in a warm, firm shake that does not last long enough, and you ask, "And your non-English name? Or is that impolite to ask?"

"Not impolite," Cody responds, "just reserved for those close to me and when I travel back to Korea."

What are the odds that you meet someone from Korea while being stood up by Vante? At least you feel justified in the swirling thoughts that insist Cody seems similar to Min. You even wonder if Min Cody, or Cody Min, could be someone's name. You hope that another drink will quiet those thoughts enough so you can have a pleasant conversation with him before walking back home. Once there, you can perform some searches just to put your mind at ease.

"This round is on me," Cody insists as he sits high in his chair and reaches for the wallet in his front pocket.

Another loud group enters and files around the bar to where the two of you sit, and as you get the bartender's attention, Cody begins looking around behind the two of you.

"There's a hightop in the corner. Would you be comfortable going there?"

Although the bar is not too dimly lit that retreating to the corner would shroud the two of you in shadow, there is some comfort in being seated at the bar with a tender nearby. But the crowd only seems to get bigger and louder, settling on stools to your right while others stand behind those who are seated, and so you nod, already fed up with the proximity of this group.

"Sure, yeah," you say as you slam back the remnants of your drink. "I'll secure us a spot."

"Gin and tonic?" Cody asks, stopping you in your tracks. An icy chill works down your spine, and you wonder how the hell he knows what you are drinking. But then he adds, "Or was it something with vodka?"

Although his addition assuages some of your discomfort, there is a nagging feeling that he somehow knows what the bartender poured for you, making you uncomfortable. Your drink was clear, so gin and tonic is a fair assumption.

"Y-yeah," you respond, testing him by saying, "It was gin and tonic. Tanqueray."

Had he watched the bartender, he would have known the man poured you Hendrick's. Cody seems unfazed.

"Sounds good," he says, adding, "I think I'll have that too," as you turn away with your purse clutched tightly in your hand and approach a tall round table in the corner with two stools sitting vacant beside it.

As you take a seat on the little wooden stool, you attempt to settle your pounding heart and unravel this situation mentally. The feeling nagging at you to be weary of Cody is quite present, but you are unsure whether it is him that makes you feel this way or if you are struggling to set aside the case that you are working on. Seokjin has been going to great lengths to keep things secretive, which in and of itself causes disquiet. And now Cody carries similar enough traits with one of your targets that the foreboding nature of your job is all that you seem to be able to think about.

It is unfair to you for these thoughts to cloud your mind so heavily, and you hope that this next drink will help you relax. Sure there are a lot of coincidences, but this is a large city with a diverse population. Coincidences certainly can happen. Unfortunately, as soon as Cody approaches with the glasses, your bladder begins to ache.

"Thank you," you sing-song as you stand from the stool that you only sat on a moment ago. "I need to run to the bathroom quickly."

Cody responds, "Have fun!" and you giggle as you walk toward a small doorway off to the right that opens into a hallway containing two gender-neutral restrooms. As you enter the closest of the two rooms, you click the lock on the door handle in place, then begin to shimmy your jeans down and take a seat, fishing through your purse for the other phone and finding that Vante has, in fact, never seen your last messages.

You wonder if there is a chance that he has somehow found out that you are an officer attempting to make contact with him. But it would make more sense for him to simply still be in Europe, possibly just playing a game with you because he takes pleasure in toying with people. It seems dramatic even when you think about it, but what else could it be?

As you put your phone away, reach for toilet paper, and wipe yourself off, you take a deep breath in and out. and try to center your thoughts. Tomorrow, you will regroup with Seokjin and form a new plan. If you have to wait a little while to get onto Min's tutoring list, it is not the end of the world. For tonight, you should just enjoy yourself.

With your pants buttoned and everything in place, you wash your hands, inspect your face and hair to verify that you still look as amazing as ever, and exit the restroom. Some top 40s song from the 90s plays that has a lot of the college kids shouting, and you return to your seat while Cody types something on his phone and then slides it into his front pocket.

"So do you always come to the bar alone and wear a baseball cap to hide your identity?" you tease, unsure where any of this is coming from but feeling a strange burst of energy. You reason with yourself that you still need verification that he is not Min.

Cody laughs, reaches for the hat, and pulls it off. His hair is clearly bleached blond and colored mint green, which is a little more difficult to see in the less well-lit corner. It falls over his forehead, parted down the center, nearly covering his eyes, and he looks dreadfully pretty.

"Is this look less threatening?" he asks, running a hand through it only for it to fall neatly in place again.

Once more, the nagging voice in the back of your head tells you that this haircut seems similar to the one in the surveillance photos of Min. You remind yourself that you have never seen the man in person and that your brain could simply be filling in information in an attempt to create patterns because that is what human brains do best. But the similarity is striking.

"Yes," you say after too long of a pause, angling yourself toward him, slightly to the left from facing the table.

"This one's for you," Cody says as he slides a full drink in your direction.

You take the chilled glass and lift it to your lips, then you playfully say, "And you didn't drug it, I assume?"

Cody does not immediately respond to what you say; he stares blankly for a split moment before blinking and chuckling. The pause makes you worry, but then he says, "I assure you I did not, but if you would like to switch—"

"No, no," you insist, feeling awkward for saying anything at all. If it weren't for all the time you spent shadowing the special victims detectives over the summer, you would likely not instantly assume that any drink offered from a stranger could be tainted.

With a sigh, Cody says, "Nah, here, switch with me. We'll just swap out the straws because I had a sip of mine."

Before you can respond, he gently pulls the drink from your fingers and replaces it with his own. You watch as he swaps the straws, feeling your mouth tug into a smile, and when he is finished, you pull the drink to your lips and have a sip.

"When the drug kicks in, you might have to walk me to a cab, though," Cody jokes, insinuating that he has now drugged himself, and you nearly spit out the gin and tonic that has barely had a chance to settle on your tongue.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry," he laughs as you struggle to keep your composure and swallow your first sip. You set that glass down and raise your hand as if threatening to backhand him, making him flinch and dramatically gasp.

Without thinking, you say, "You're a pain in the ass," making him laugh harder.

"It's not funny to joke about that, I know," he says, still chuckling. "But in my defense, you started it."

Rather than respond with words, you simply hum and have another sip through the straw. This seems to amuse him, causing the laughter to continue.

Conversation with Cody is nice and easy. He tells you that he is a student at a nearby university, and you tell him that you are also a student – the same lie you tell to everyone. He talks about growing up in New York with one American parent but visiting Korea often, hoping that once he graduates he can spend more time with his family. You describe your past and relationship with your family with very general, distant details, excluding a lot. The parents that come along with your fake identity are not too exciting; mom is a legal aid and dad is a veterinarian. You attend such a prestigious school to follow in their overachieving footsteps, blah blah blah.

By the time you discover Cody can speak three languages and has a deep love of anime, your drinks are empty. And although you should stop while you are ahead and call it a night, a large part of you wants to keep drinking.

"Another?" Cody asks, and you sigh, nibbling your bottom lip.

"I want to," you say, uncertainty in your tone.

Cody must pick up on it, saying, "But…"

"But I also don't want to get very drunk."

"We can switch to non-alcoholic," he offers, shifting around on his stool. "Or go somewhere else." You raise an eyebrow, and he lifts his hands as if in surrender, insisting, "No funny business! Just thought we could hang out somewhere quieter. Doesn't have to be one of our places. I don't live too close by anyway."

This surprises you a little. "No?"

"Nah," he shrugs, "I just like the atmosphere in this area more than where I live so I cab over to waste my time and cash here, instead."

Although you should not blurt, "I live nearby," you do anyway. In an attempt to not sound like you are trying to get into Cody's pants, you add, "But I don't know what we would do there. I don't really watch TV."

"Have you eaten?" Cody asks, seemingly unfazed by your word vomit.

As if on cue, your stomach grumbles, and you giggle while shaking your head. You remember the meager amount of food you managed to eat before shuffling out into the evening.

"I had something light, so…no. Not really."

"Why don't we grab a bite nearby? Maybe that will give us the reprieve we both seek…I'm sure most food establishments aren't this loud and rambunctious."

The reprieve we both seek… It's nothing too big or wild, but it is just austere enough to make you think about Vante. Although you feel frustrated that your mind is so eager to continue circling back to him, you consider that if this were Min sitting before you, there is a good chance they both speak similarly. It could be a slip up.

"Or…not…" Cody says, and you rapidly blink out of your thoughts and shake your head, offering a smile and a giggle.

"I space out," you supply plainly, "a lot. Sorry."

"Ah," he responds, sitting up a little higher. "No problem."

"Do you eat meat? There's a burger shop nearby that I really like."

Cody smiles and shrugs. "I eat everything."

As you stand up to stretch, the room tilts. It catches you off guard, and you halt your movement, then do your best to breathe through it and blink it away. Cody has his head tilted down, putting on his hat, and you are thankful that he does not seem to notice.

With a smile, he lifts his hand and says, "Lead the way," but there is something different about his voice. Deep and inviting in a familiar yet unfamiliar way, and far more accented than it had been all night.

You shake it off and nod your head. Despite only having two drinks and a shot, you are not a heavy drinker as is, and on an empty stomach, it is enough to weigh you down and make you paranoid. You just need to get out into the cool open air and you will feel much better.

But your feet are heavy. Each step that you take feels weighed down, and there is a lightness to you that feels as if fog is simmering through your system. Alarm bells begin beaming through your body and you worry that perhaps you should try to get rid of Cody and call Seokjin.

Cody places a hand on your lower back. "Everything alright, space cadet?" he asks in the same tone he has taken all night, and you nod.

You are certain he could not have done anything to your drink while you sat there and drank it with him. And if he drugged both drinks, he should be equally affected. But if he did do something, you are not eager to draw attention to feeling sluggish. You think it would be best to try to get rid of him somehow. It just becomes a matter of how much time you have before the effects hit you harder, if at all.

The two of you make your way through the bar and you oddly feel much more in control when you are moving steadily rather than little by little. You forget all about getting rid of Cody and walk right to the burger spot around the corner.

But standing on line at the counter in the brightly lit space feels overwhelming, and it all comes back again. You open your mouth and say, "So," but catch yourself before asking, so you really did drug my drink, huh?

"So?" Cody asks, leaning close, and you notice a musk that cuts through the deep-fryer stench. It is nice and rich, inviting but not cloying.

"So I usually get the bacon cheeseburger," you ramble, "and fries. But I imagine everything here is pretty good."

"Good to know," he responds, voice bright. You think his hand may be on your lower back again, but you are not quite sure.

When it is your turn to order, your mind screeches to a halt. You stare up at the white menu board with red text and you cannot find words.

"Was it a bacon cheeseburger?" Cody supplies. "A number two?"

"Y-yeah," you respond, looking at the bored teen behind the register. "No tomato, please. And a soft drink."

"You?" the teen asks, eyes moving to Cody.

Cody hums, soft and dulcet. Hypnotizing. "I'll have the same, but with tomato please."

Without asking, Cody pulls out his card to pay. Only, when he begins to hold it out, he quickly pulls it back. "Actually," he mutters, "I should use this cash."

Although you are unable to see the name on it, you notice that it is a black card, which feels far too prestigious for a university student to have access to. You realize that neither of you told one another your age – you just assume he is close to yours, which would make him too old to be an undergrad unless he has taken time off before returning to college.

The cashier gives the two of you a number and two empty paper cups, and you make your way over to the soft drink dispenser and stare at the options. Caffeine could make you feel better, but then you risk the chance of staying up late. Sugar might cause you to have a hangover in the morning, but you think you could risk it for some lemonade.

"Preference?" Cody asks, holding up the beverage cups.

You have gravitated to the ketchup dispenser to fill two tiny paper cups, still thinking about beverage options.

"Lemonade, please. With like…half ice? Not too much."

"Got it," he responds, holding one of the cups under an ice dispenser.

"Ketchup?" you ask.

"Two please."

You manage to get all four tiny paper cups of ketchup into your left palm, then turn to watch Cody securing plastic lids over both drinks and grabbing two paper-wrapped straws. Perhaps it is the prospect of having food in your system that is causing you to feel more energized, but maneuvering through the booths and finding one along the wall is easy. You begin to wonder if maybe something about the gin and tonic was just off. Maybe you got hit with a wave of intoxication.

Once you get settled, you slide your drink over and begin to tap the end of the straw to the table with a small, "Thank you."

Cody takes out his phone and smiles at the screen before typing out what you assume to be a response to a message. His smile lifts, showing off his gums and pearly teeth, and you catch yourself staring before blinking your gaze elsewhere.

Out of curiosity, you pull the phone from your purse and check to see if Vante ever saw any of your messages, and you frown at the discovery that he has not. His behavior is weird, but you suppose you were also planning on playing games with the guy. Still, being stood up is being stood up, and it is hard not to take it personally.

Cody continues typing away at his phone while you wait for your food, chuckling quietly from time to time and making you feel awkward for sitting here with nothing to say. It is not that you don't have people who you can also text, but it feels rude to do it when you are with someone in a restaurant. Not that this is a date, nor do you two owe each other anything, you remind yourself, feeling silly for forgetting that simple fact. The two of you are just strangers who happened to meet and who decided to share a drink and a burger. Nothing more. In fact, if you remember correctly, Cody removed what looked like a wedding band from his ring finger earlier in the night.

Another grumpy teen brings your food in bright red baskets, and Cody finally puts his phone away. He smiles and says, "This looks great," and lifts his gaze to you for only a split second before looking back down.

Something in his eyes seems different, but you are unable to put your finger on what. They seemed sharper, somehow…almost seductive.

You reach for your food and dig in, doing your best to not moan when the grease hits your tongue. Conversation continues to be non-existent with the exception of Cody groaning through a mouthful about how good his burger is.

Once you are down to just lemonade and some wayward fries, you excuse yourself to the bathroom. Unfortunately, your bladder is on a bit of a timer when you consume alcohol, and the added liquid does not help. You are grateful when there is no line and make quick work of relieving your bladder and washing your hands. The mirror is covered in stickers, but you lean forward on your toes and do your best to take in your state.

To your surprise, your pupils are constricted quite small, and you begin to worry all over again that something could have been added to your drink. Somewhat sluggishly, you turn and grip onto the door handle, yanking it open and feeling tired from every small movement.

Cody is back on his phone when you return but he regards you with a polite smile and glances at you long enough for you to notice that his eyes seem perfectly normal – a sign that he likely did not drug both drinks, and evidence that he likely did not drug yours.

This fixation only makes you feel paranoid, and you wet your lips, eye up the rest of your food, and decide that you should call it a night. Cody's fries are all gone, and he barely has any soda left, which you find rather disappointing because you would have liked to leave alone. You suppose you still can.

"Well, I'm just down the block," you say, rubbing your hands, which begin to sweat, down your thighs. "It was nice to meet you."

"I would offer to walk you home," Cody says through a sigh, leaning back in a stretch, "but being that I am still a stranger, it may make you uncomfortable to have me knowing where you live."

You hum and nod to acknowledge and agree with what he says.

"But if you'd like I could sit on a phone call?" he offers, resting his arm over the back of the booth.

With a shrug, you shake your head to decline, but your mouth betrays you by saying, "Alright, sure."

"Yeah?" Cody asks, smiling brightly and sitting up from his relaxed position. He takes out his phone, and although you only catch a glimpse of his lock screen, there is something familiar about the image. It's the colors. Tan skin, greyish fabric, gold jewelry. You wonder where you may have seen it before.

Cody breaks you from your thoughts, asking, "What's your number?"

Once more, your mind draws a blank, and you search your brain. What is your phone number? "Uh…212...555…55…26—wait."

Cody looks up from where he is typing on his phone and you realize you had given him your actual number and not the burner number that Vante has.

"That's my work phone, it's 5505."

With a light chuckle, Cody finishes saving your number. And then he must call you because your purse begins to vibrate.

"That's me," he says with a smile and a wave.

"Alright," you respond, reaching absent-mindedly for your cup of lemonade and taking a large gulp. Although you do not look at Cody, you can feel his eyes on you.

Your phone stops vibrating but you open your purse and pull the device out, ready to call Cody back once you begin your walk. Not that you think you need to, seeing that your block is relatively safe and you are not shy about walking at night. You carry pepper spray and a knife in your purse, but you are also worried you may not have the coordination to wield either.

With a limp lift of your hand, you begin to wave, muttering, "Uh, thanks. I would have finished my drink and gone home feeling a little defeated tonight. It was nice to have company."

Why are you saying all of this? Cody is attractive, kind, smart, and has a fun sense of humor, but you were planning on just brushing him off. Plus he might be married. He smiles and it is bright and disarming. From where he sits, his head is tilted back enough to see under his baseball cap, giving a view of his handsome features and long, pretty throat that bobs when he swallows.

"I'm glad," he says, voices soft and deep. "You also made my night better. I almost forgot all about how damp my sweater and jeans are."

"Almost," you repeat, smiling. Suddenly, you feel shy – why do you feel shy? "Alright, well…I'll call you."

"Okay," he says, smiling as he sits up.

You turn to leave and the room tilts once more. So hard, in fact, that it makes you queasy. From the corner of your eye, you notice Cody sitting at attention, and you wonder if you visibly lurched.

"Ugh, I'm a lightweight," you complain, hoping to brush it off, but before making another move, it begins to feel as if the floor is sinking away.

"Sandra?" Cody mutters, "You alright?"

"Y-yeah," you insist, but you are not alright. Something is definitely wrong.

"Maybe I should call you a cab? Or something?"

You shake your head, "I live too close. It's not worth it."

"Alright, then how about I walk you? I'll keep my head down. I won't look at where we go."

Although you mean to laugh, it comes out in a scoff. "Alright, fine."

Cody is quick to get on his feet and slot an arm around your waist, holding you loosely but making you feel secure. The two of you walk through the somewhat tight path between booths, hips pressed against one another and warm, but then he gives you space as soon as there is some to give, only resting his hand against your back as he reaches for the door.

"How many drinks did you have?" Cody asks in a way that is gentle and not at all accusatory.

"Just what you saw," you respond sluggishly. "Two plus the one shot."

The two of you walk to the left and down the block. In the fresh night air, at a steady pace, you feel much more comfortable. It's the stopping and starting that seems to fuck with you.

At least the weather is nice – a chill in the air but not cold. The seasons are certainly changing, but at a pace you can acclimate easily to. Cody hums some tune and you keep wanting to ask him what it is but you find that you are unable to make yourself speak. This causes your palms to prickle with anxiety.

"How long have you lived here?" Cody asks after about a block.

"A few years," you respond robotically, curious why you are suddenly able to talk without issue.

"I was wondering why a college student isn't living on campus. Then again…you seem too old to be living in the dorms." This line of conversation feels strange but you can't pinpoint why. "Did you take some time off in between schooling?"

"No," you respond before you can stop yourself.

"Did you study something else before theater arts and music?"

"Yeah."

"Interesting."

Fear spikes and you worry that he may ask you what you previously studied. It is so odd that you are so easily answering questions that you would ordinarily lie around – your undercover persona did not study anything before becoming a theater arts major. She traveled and worked at her father's veterinarian office as a receptionist while taking some time to decide what career path she wanted to take.

Cody stops abruptly, muttering, "Shit, my shoe is untied," pulling you from your spiral.

As he bends to sort that out, you lift your gaze from where it had been glued and unfocused to the sidewalk and look around. Just up ahead is your building.

"Oh," you say weakly, "we're here."

You continue on without your companion, putting one foot in front of the other and reaching for your purse, which is slung over your shoulder. Although you use this purse often, you struggle to get the zipper opened, and you stumble while focusing on it too much.

The hand on your back returns, helping you to feel steady, and Cody asks, "Need some help with that?"

Luckily, you find your keys and hold them up, feeling triumphant. Cody walks you to the front landing, up four short steps to the high Victorian door, and waits patiently as you attempt to grab hold of the correct key, only to drop them to the cement in a loud clatter.

You feel frustrated as you say, "Fuck," and Cody is quick to bend and hold them out.

"Large gold one," you say, and he lifts the correct key and leans to slot it into the keyhole.

The last thing you want is for this stranger to walk you to your front door, but your dizziness is only increasing, and you are unsure whether you can make it to your second-story flat alone.

The brownstone you live in is just like any other – tall and old as fuck. As you enter and begin toward the stairs, every footfall can be heard, creaking in a greeting you are all too familiar with. The staircase is tall and you grip onto the railing and make your way up. Cody seems to hesitate.

"I don't have to continue if you think you got it," he says.

Without stopping or looking back, you grumble, "Need my keys."

Cody meets you on the stairs, and with a hand on your back, gently presses you to walk up. You are grateful for his warmth and for his assistance. And, at this point, if he tries anything once you are in your apartment, it will all be caught on camera. Not to mention, there is a Glock in your nightstand.

"Thank you," you mumble as you reach the top of the stairs and turn right to the tall white door. "Small gold key."

Inside your front pants pocket, your main phone buzzes with a notification that there is someone at your door. You ignore it, seeing as that someone is you.

Cody is quick to find the correct key and unlock your flat. He holds onto your arm while you kick out of your boots, and he toes out of his shoes and says, "Just want to get you a glass of water, okay?"

From where the two of you stand near the front entrance, there is a camera trained directly on both of your faces hidden across the narrow room in a bookshelf. You accept his offer and hobble off toward your room. Your flat is somewhat of a rectangle. You enter into the living room and to the right, straight ahead down a hallway is your large master bedroom. Tucked away on the left as you walk through the hallway is a kitchen and then a bathroom.

It feels too warm in your flat, pulling you off kilter, and you throw your purse toward your bed, which rests in the center of your room against the right wall, missing and watching it hit the floor in a loud thud. Then you stumble forward and fall to your butt on the edge of the mattress and begin to yank at the sleeves of your green flannel, wiggling about in an attempt to shed it from you.

Cody appears with a large plastic white cup and halts in the doorway. He shifts, and you catch him averting his eyes.

"Just trying to get rid of this thing," you grumble impatiently as the garment falls from your left shoulder but won't comply to go any lower. With a sigh, you give up and smile at Cody.

"You can just set it here," you nod toward your small wooden bedside table. "The door will lock when you leave. Thanks for the help."

Cody approaches slowly and you wonder if it is meant to put you at ease – no sudden movements – but the anticipation begins to weigh on you. You want to lie down and go to sleep, and you want Cody to leave.

He smiles and levels his face with yours, eyes searching for something. Then he places the cup on the table and says, "I hope you feel better."

"Thanks," you mutter, wishing he would hurry up and go.

Cody bends and lifts your purse from the floor, which is open and spilling its contents. He sets it beside the cup of water and hands you your phone. Then he stands straight and fishes his own from his pocket, thumbing around before lifting it to his ear, and when you continue to stare, he tilts his chin toward the vibrating device in your hands. With a knit brow, you cock your head to the side but answer his call, lifting the phone to your ear.

"I figure that if I am being trusted to leave on my own, I should give you some assurance that I am, in fact, leaving."

"Okay…" you respond, drawing the word out. You could have all the assurance you need by watching the video footage from your hidden camera, but you suppose this is a kind gesture.

Cody smiles, lifts a hand, and waves. Then he turns and leaves the room. "It was nice meeting you, Sandra," he says, drawing your fake name out nice and slow.

"You too," you mutter, heavy with sleep.

"Sorry the night ended this way."

You sigh. "Me too."

"If you ever want drinks and a burger again, let me know. I'm just a short cab ride away."

Briefly, you wonder if the two of you hit it off. It was fun and comfortable talking with Cody, but you are still concerned with how drunk you became – if that is what you can call whatever is happening to you.

"Alright," you respond too late, hoping to be polite.

In the living room, you hear some soft sounds and then the door opening. Although it is faint, you think you hear it closing, as well.

"I have left your humble abode," he says as the phone in your pocket buzzes with another notification to alert you that someone is outside your apartment.

You assume that the reason he insisted on calling was so that once he was outside of the apartment, you would only hear his voice through the phone. It is a nice gesture.

"Thanks again," you say, sighing with relief.

Through the phone, you can hear the steps creaking as he descends the stairwell. "My pleasure."

You begin to fade fast. Although you know that you should drink water, you twist your body, lift your legs onto the bed, and curl up. You feel too warm to care about your comforter, but you lament not having enough energy to get out of your jeans.

The phone ends up under your face. Miraculously, your cheek does not end the call.

"Tired," you mutter, feeling your eyelids flutter.

"It was so nice meeting you," Cody says, and in an instant, your blood turns cold.

That is the exact voice you spoke with on the phone last night. The accent is much more prominent, just as it was last night, and it is much more gravely. It is unmistakable.

He adds, "Sleep sweet, pretty," before hanging up, and you curl in on yourself, panting and shivering, hanging in a horrifying liminal space of being too afraid to want to sleep but too intoxicated to keep your eyes open.

* * *

'Cause I know what you're thinkin' about Babe, I'll let you spin me around I know what you're thinking about Babe, I'll let you spin me around Babe, I'll let you spin me around Babe, I'll let you spin me around

🎵 visit the playlist!

the feelings of being drugged are all kinda made up but also based on the drug ghb. please do not feel the need to sully your internet searches! i will explain it all in detail in upcoming chapters. and you may have noticed that because mc is a detective and trying to figure out who these men are that there is a lot of talk about facial features and accents. this is in no way meant to fetishize these characteristics, it is simply detective work - i tried to keep it as broad/general as possible. the little ploy that was played at the bar is based on something called "operation fireball" - google it if you're into true crime!

also!!! please never take a drink from a stranger or leave a drink unattended!!!

CAN YOU TRACK WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE THAT MC IS COMMUNICATING WITH??? everything will be made clear soon, but feel free to speculate!!! readers of the taegi pov probably already know what's going on, but mc pov purists will have all the questions answered quickly, as well!!! don't worry. 🤍

ARE WE HAVING FUN? QUESTIONS??? CONCERNS??? REBLOGS AND COMMENTS ARE THE LIFEBLOOD OF THIS SITE, BUT LIKES ARE ALSO SUPER APPRECIATED!!! 🤍🤍🤍 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! I LOVE YOU! DRINK SOME WATER AND STRETCH YOUR NECK!!!

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#yoongi x reader #taehyung x reader #taegi x reader #taegi smut #bts poly #bts yandere #bts angst #bts smut #bts social media au #undescribed #undescribed images #fic: white lies

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