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sunlightmurdock · 10 months ago

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The Odyssey | 1.5 | Bradley Bradshaw

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Bradley learns that maybe the two of you weren’t on the same page after all.

Warnings: enemies to lovers, power imbalance (professor / student relationship), age gap (22 / 33), swearing, infidelity, nudity, mentions of erections, making out. Semi-oral (f receiving), touching, mentions of sex. Ohhh boy you thought it was all okay. Wc: 5.8k

It didn’t feel like seven days at the Gabris estate. It felt like so much longer. A whole summer, even. The sunny day down at the lake, and then two whole days of rainstorms, and the day that Teodora showed you how to know which apricots are the sweetest to pick, the day that Zoe twisted her ankle on the crumbling back steps. The night by the piano.

This morning.

Luke must know where Bradley is, after he didn’t go to their room last night. Maybe he would think Bradley fell asleep in the study, but he isn’t that stupid.

Of course, Bradley is here with you. He fell asleep here last night, shortly after you had. He’s still asleep now, breathing deeply against the crook of your neck, his thigh slotted between yours and his palm on your stomach.

You haven’t been awake long.

It’s a warm, sunny morning and you can hear Sandro’s wife singing in the kitchen downstairs. Bradley smells like summer. You twist in his arms and turn your face toward his neck, breathing in the citrus and faint sweat and remainders of his cologne.

Bradley wakes to the feeling of your lips soft against his neck, and your fingers stroking at the hair at his nape.

Instantly, he realises that he didn’t make it back to his own bed last night, but he can’t find it in himself to mind. His arms snake around your middle and he squeezes you closer. He’s in your room. Not only that, but he’s in your bed. You’re laying on your side, the textbook half squished under you. The two of you fell asleep studying. He’s still fully clothed, and that’s what matters.

He lifts his arm and squints to check his watch. It’s still early. The two of you slept almost all night. Lowering his wrist, he startles once more to find that your eyes are now open. You blink tiredly at him.

“We fell asleep.” You mumble, barely awake. Your legs stretch out from under you as you push yourself onto your back and inch away from him. You’re close enough that all you can smell is his cologne. Each inhale tempts you towards letting your heavy eyelids just fall shut, letting your cheek rest against the muscle of his shoulder.

“Morning,” You murmur against his neck.

He kisses lazily at your temple. “Good morning, honey.”

Last night, Bradley had touched you again. The two of you had been sitting on your bed, and you were teaching him the Wall Street way of playing poker — as skilfully learned from your time watching your father — and Bradley had, so crudely, wagered your underwear.

They are laying, discarded, on the floor of your room now.

It feels good, pretending that none of this matters. That he is allowed to touch you, and lay with you, and kiss you.

“Did you sleep okay?” One of his palms pressed firmer into the middle of your back, flattening you against his chest as he turns his face toward your neck.

“Like the dead.” You mumble against his warm skin, resting your cheek against his clavicle. He hums amusedly.

For a moment, you let it be quiet. He’s still on the cusp of sleep, barely awake and groggy. Your fingers skim up the swell of his bicep and across the scarred skin on his shoulder, onto the muscled plains of his back.

He hums at the feeling, letting you know that he’s enjoying the soft touch. Maybe you’re enjoying it just as much. His skin there is soft, and always warm. You reach for freckles that you can’t see, guided by the ridges of his shoulder blades.

“I could stay like this forever.” You whisper. He makes a tired sound of agreement as he rubs the sleep from his eyes.

Sighing as he pulls his hands from his face, he pulls back and lets himself look at you. Settled down against the pillow, just watching him. Studying him.

Eyes heavy and blinking at him. Lips parted just slightly, like you’ve got something to say. The warmth of your skin. The look in your eye. The fact that he knows your underwear are still on the floor.

Bradley moves before he really weighs up what he’s doing. Eclipsing your jaw with his palm, you hold your breath as he leans in and kisses your top lip.

It’s slow, but the feelings it sends through you aren’t. The soft weight of his chest pressing into yours, just a taste of what the real thing could feel like.

Another slow kiss, his fingers curling around the nape of your neck, pulling you closer. You comply eagerly, pressing into his touch. His knee slides between yours, finding leverage on the mattress between your thighs.

Your mind skips ahead of you, flooding the darkness behind your eyelids with images of him that night with Natasha. His hands inching along the backs of her bare thighs. The need coursing through them, pressing close to each other with each kiss.

His warmth is inviting, intoxicating. His palm sits heavy on your cheek as you shuffle impossibly closer to him. He welcomes you against him, covering you with a fraction of his weight. Bradley likes strong women. Experienced women.

You rush forwards, chasing his mouth, grabbing at his shoulder, tugging him closer. He follows your lead wordlessly, carding his open palm over your hair, teasing his tongue along your lip.

It occurs to you that this could be the first time that you ever have sex. Everything you’ve been so afraid of. Ashamed of. Enveloped, hidden away by the strong feeling of his hands on your body.

It could happen. All that’s stopping you is his underwear, and the fact that he told you he wouldn’t. But he wants to. He told you he wants to.

A greedy hum passes your lips, caught against his. Your fingers slide from his shoulder into his hair before you can remind yourself that this isn’t right.

At first, Bradley thinks that he’s imagining things. There’s no way. But then, it happens again just as it had the first time. Your hips shift at just the right angle — the third time is just too much for it to be a coincidence, you’re grinding against his thigh.

A low grumble fights its way from his chest and into his throat, his hands sprinting for you like the snap of a rubber band, grabbing you tightly by your hips. It crosses his mind that he’s moving too fast and considers pulling back to check. Before his mind can land on an answer, your hand tousles into his curls and grabs firmly.

Even all of those too-big shirts he wears, nothing could really hide the fact that Bradley just remains to be a big guy. Tall, wide shoulders, long legs and a strong middle. He reminds you of his strength, dragging you against him by your hips. The brown hair that dusts his thigh brushes the inside of your thighs, the apex of your legs.

“How’s that?” Bradley asks as his thumb brushes a strand of hair back off of your temple.

Heat flushes instantly across your face. Bradley sees it in the calculated way that your eyes widen just slightly. The way he feels your fingers flex at the nape of his neck.

“It’s fine.” You bite back. Bradley should have known that even in a time like this, you would still be fighting him for the upper hand. Not tonight, honey. His words cross your mind, this time tinged with the resentment and shame your mind has coated them in.

You’re certain that he hasn’t ever told Natasha no in her entire life.

He trails his tongue along the seam of your lips, slow and soft, then brushes forwards and captures your mouth into a bruising kiss. He barely even pulls back to speak, his lips brushing yours. “Tell me what you want.”

You whimper. His massive hands and their hold on your hips, rocking you against the denim of his jeans. It’s impossible to think straight. “I don’t know.”

“I know what I want.” Bradley tells you, tucking his thumb under your chin and angling your jaw so that he can bite at your throat. The action has you keening against him, eagerly following the direction of his thumb so that his mouth can reach more of your throat.

It’s cruel honestly, everything he’s doing to you. He’s the first man to tell you that he wants you. Not because you’ve been together a while and it’ll happen eventually. Because he thinks you’re sexy. He’s attracted to you. He wants you. And fuck, his voice is so deep. “Tell me what you want.”

“I — Bradley, I don’t —“ You sigh, huffing a deep and frustrated noise as he sucks warmly at your skin. “I want you to touch me… I think.”

“You think?” Bradley’s hand sits against the backside of your thigh, warm, his long fingers splayed out along your skin. His lips barely have to move before he’s sucking at your neck. His warm mouth, languid against your skin. Swiftly, he curls his fingers into the soft flesh of your hips and tugs you against him, working you against his thigh.

The friction ignites something. Something you’ve felt before. The kindling is hot but it’s all white smoke for now. Blinking, you stare up at him with a decision to make. He squeezes your hips.

“I do. I do want you to touch me.”

The expectation is that he’ll pull back and tear your nightdress up out of his way and have his way with you. Bradley nips at your throat compliantly, kissing his way down your jaw and your throat.

He tips you onto your back and follows suit, settling between your thighs. The morning sun covers him in gold, from the flecks in his irises and the strands in his curls to the tanned swell of his shoulders. He mouths at your collarbones, following the sweetheart neckline of your nightie, palming at your thighs.

A moan tangles from your lips as he flattens himself against your body, his bulge between your legs and his hot chest against your skin.

Bradley dips his hand between your bodies and feels you finally. He sighs against your chest, smiling. “Oh, honey.”

Your heartbeat thuds. His fingers graze your swollen clit and you jolt a bit, otherwise stuck to the spot by his weight.

“No wonder you want me right here,” He murmurs, gathering your excitement on the tips of his fingers. “All worked up. Don’t worry, honey. I’ve got you.”

You drop your head back onto the pillows, feeling electricity rush through your middle as Bradley circles your clit with a featherlight touch. A whimper slips your mouth despite your best efforts, despite your teeth sinking into your bottom lip.

“I want to do it.”

And then you have his attention. He looks up at you, his face stark and the smugness that had settled there all gone.

“Yeah?” He swallows, so hard already that he’s aching. Far from in the mind space to really disagree with you. His brows draw together. “It?”

This time yesterday, you probably would have said no. Maybe even last night, you would have.

This morning, it’s a breathless and desperate, “Yes.”

“I don’t —“ Bradley squeezes at your thigh and shakes his head. “Baby, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“It’s just one step further than this,” You tell him, convincing yourself as much as you’re convincing him. “Doesn’t make it any different. It doesn’t change what we’ve already done, right?”

In these past seven days, Malcolm has never felt as far away. After what he did, what he must have done, you’ve never felt as far from him as you do now. He’s probably been looking for a phone number to contact you, and you’re glad that he hasn’t found one.

You don’t want to speak to him. In this moment, all that you want is right in front of you.

“But…” He swallows thickly, trying not to be driven by how badly he wants this. He taps his thumb against your chin. “You’re — You’re sure, this is what you want?”

“Uh-huh.”

He hesitates, planting a hand into the pillow beside your head. His face is knotted up and unsure. A week ago you had been crying in his arms after the biggest betrayal of your life. This can’t be the right thing to do.

He glances down, feeling your fingers brushing along the ridges of his abdomen.

Your lip throbs with the weight of your teeth pressing into it as your fingers dip into the waistband of his white boxer shorts. Bradley’s breath catches as your fingers wrap around his hardened length.

“Please?”

A deep sound passes his lips. How’s a guy supposed to say no to that? He leans in slowly, capturing your lip between his, his tense body melting against yours.

He groans as he pulls away from your mouth and moves downward. Your hand slips from his underwear and finds purchase against his shoulder.

He kisses down your cheek and your jaw, spilling dirty kisses along the naked span of your chest as far as the nightgown will let him as his hands bunch at the bottom hem of it.

Your mouth hangs as he hunches over and pins your thighs back.

Glistening in the warm glow of the room, you writhe and wriggle beneath Bradley as his strong hands pin you down, lazily swirling his tongue along your puffy, swollen clit.

“I said — I want—“ You stumble, your brows knitting together.

“I know what you want,” Bradley interrupts, turning his head and kissing at your thigh, silencing you all together as he looks up at you with those big brown eyes. “There’s no rush. Right?”

You guess not. You don’t have time to guess at much before his broad shoulders force apart your thighs and his hot mouth blanks your mind.

A whine spills from somewhere deeper in your throat, coming right from the pit of your stomach. Bradley’s messy with his work, lapping eagerly between your legs as his middle finger teases at your dripping pussy. He hasn’t ever done it like this.

It’s more desperate now, but like it’s easy for him, like he knows you. His chin drips with your excitement, leaving your thighs sticky and dampened with slick and saliva.

His hand slips between his hips and the mattress, wrapping loosely around his cock over his boxers, grinding his hips into his hand.

And then, three knocks rattle the heavy, old door to your right.

Bradley stops, and sits back on his knees at once. Your face is colorless, eyes wide and round. He runs a hand over his wet mouth, and turns his head towards the sound.

“Fuck.” He exhales, his lips hinting at a smile. As much as he should look just as scared shitless as you do, something in him finds this a little bit funny.

He’s expecting it to be your new best buddies, wanting you to come down to breakfast with them. Already deciding that he can handle hiding behind the door while you get rid of them, Bradley couldn’t be cooler.

Three more knocks rattle the old door on its hinges, and Sandro calls out from the other side. “Bradley?”

Instantly, the smile is wiped from Bradley’s face.

You scramble to cover yourself and close your legs and move, not quite as aware of your surroundings as you could be. As Bradley goes to move at the same time, your knee lifts and catches him squarely in the balls.

Sandro pushes his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he hears a loud, strained grunt come from inside.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry — I didn’t—“

Bradley lifts his face out of the pillow and swallows as he adjusts himself, exhaling heavily. “It’s fine. Fuck— what the hell is the matter with him?”

Matter with him in the sense that he is impolite enough to know exactly where Bradley is, and what that must mean, and to be knocking on the door anyway.

You watch as Bradley stumbles to his feet, clearly wounded, still clutching at his manhood as he picks up his jeans.

“You can’t — you’re going to answer the door?” You panic.

“What else do you want me to do? Hide?” He huffs, struggling to pull his jeans up his legs and button them.

“You could go out the window.”

He shoots you a look, entirely unimpressed. You open your mouth to protest, left with no time to do anything but squeak softly in defeat as he pulls open the door an inch, blocking it with his body.

“What?”

Sandro presses his lips together. He looks Bradley up and down. Disheveled, his curls a mess and still naked from the navel upward.

“There’s someone on the phone for you.” Sandro explains quietly. Bradley’s brows knit together as he starts to wonder who could possibly be trying to reach him this early in the morning. “Her father. I believe.”

A quiet gasp comes from behind the door. Bradley closes it a little more, slotting himself into the gap.

“Cool. I’ll be right there.”

“Sure. He sounds upset.” Sandro lifts his palms and shrugs as he takes a step back from the door, his mouth twitching. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Ha. Ha.” Bradley answers, unimpressed.

He swings the door shut, and flattens himself back against the wood as he pinches at the bridge of his nose. You remain in the middle of the bed, your knees tucked up to your chest, your hand covering your mouth.

“Fuck me.” Bradley sighs, leaning his head back against the door. He stretches his hand into the pocket of his jeans and plucks his cigarettes from the pocket, shaking his head. “Does he have a monitor on you that I don’t know about?”

He almost makes you smile, but you’re wincing as you slip out of bed and stand up.

“Let me speak with him,” You offer, walking nervously toward him. “He’s just going to be rude if he’s asking for you. I’ll handle it.”

“And miss out on telling him what an incredible morning we had?” Bradley jokes, unlit cigarette wobbling between his lips as he steps around you and reaches for his shirt. You stumble mid-step, practically pouncing on him as you grab at his arm.

“No! You can’t tell him anything.” You plead.

Bradley turns and looks at you over his shoulder, brows furrowed in disbelief.

“Believe it or not, honey — I’m not itching to have that talk with your dad. I was kidding.” He scoffs, pulling his t-shirt over his head and running his fingers messily through his hair. “You should pack your stuff. I’ll… see you later.”

“Wait!” You frown at him. “But we were…”

Bradley seems to remember his moment of insanity then — of how close he was to actually doing it just a moment ago, and blinks at you. He plucks the cigarette from his lips and leans forward to leave a passive kiss to your temple.

“Another time,” He sets it between his lips again and digs his left hand into his pocket for a lighter. “Gotta go.”

Another time. Gotta go. The door swings shut behind him and the smell of burning tobacco fills your nose as he light’s the cigarette out in the hallway. You hate that smell. You hate how casually he just moved on from that. And oh, you could kill Alessandro.

“Hello?” Bradley pins the receiver between his ear and shoulder as he pulls the ashtray from the window ledge and flicks the tip of his cigarette toward it.

“That’s how you answer the phone? — You don’t introduce yourself, or ask who you’re speaking with? Mumbling over there—“

Bradley perches against the window and sets his cigarette back between his lips. “I know who I’m speaking with. Sir. How can I help you?”

“I want to know what kind of operation you’re running over there. There’s no contact number for this place anywhere on the itinerary, and then when I do finally track down a number, I spend two days calling and get nothing but a dead line!”

“We had some bad weather, unfortunately it knocked out the power. Just got it back on last night, actually.” Bradley explains calmly.

“And you think that’s acceptable? — What if it was an emergency?”

“Was it?” Bradley prompts. Maybe he has a little bit of an attitude, but he doesn’t like the way your father talks to people.

“You think you’re funny, son?”

No, generally Bradley doesn’t think that he’s too funny. He’s a lot of things, and he’s got a good sense of humour but he’s not funny like Robin Williams or Chevy Chase. But, Bradley’s got a special knack for always being able to get the last word.

“I think the house is five hundred years old and has some pretty questionable wiring. Was there something you needed me for?”

“You know that I can have you fired?”

Bradley leans his head back and thunks it against the window frame. He can’t blame you for the attitude you catch when this is the guy you learned it from.

“In the interest of preserving my good friend’s phone bill, I’m just trying to be… concise, here.” Bradley answers, flicking more ash into the tray. If this phone call keeps going the way that it is, Bradley figures he’ll be chain smoking through until the afternoon.

“My son-in-law has been trying to get through to my daughter. He’s… worried about her. Has she said anything to you?”

Said something pretty interesting to me earlier, Bradley thinks. Right around the time she stuck her hand in my shorts.

“No, sir. Maybe her friends, but not me,” Bradley gives the answer you would want him to give. “We’re headed to Siena this afternoon and the city’s a lot more reliable for communication and stuff. I can have her call you once we’re there?”

“No. Don’t tell her that I called.” Your father decides. Bradley doesn’t mention that you already know, because he was in your room when he was informed. “What’s the number for this place?”

“I don’t have it on me. I can take down your number and I’ll call you from the hotel when we get there.”

“Not very organised for a college professor, are you, champ?”

Bradley wets his lips with his tongue and presses them together. He spends as little time on the phone as he possibly can, resenting your father’s every word. He likes the thought of Malcolm sitting at home and tearing his hair out, worrying.

He likes the thought of that little dirtbag being kept awake at night, terrified that you know what he did and that you’ll leave him. It’s what he deserves.

Bradley likes that you fell asleep in his arms last night, peacefully, and that you woke up this morning and found yourself comfortable enough to ask for what you had. Your fiancé probably didn’t cross your mind.

He goes for his morning run a little later than normal, after his phone call, and thinks about what you had said.

He shouldn’t have agreed to it as quickly as he had, maybe. It should have required more thought, and discussion — better place or time, perhaps.

He had been so adamantly against it, but this is starting to feel different. It’s more than a few kisses here and there. It’s Bradley enjoying feeling your weight in his arms when he sleeps, and looking forward to your smile when he wakes up.

It’s better, with him. Your first time would be better with him — and he doesn’t even mean that in an overconfident way. He just knows that he and Malcolm are far from the same, and that Malcolm could never treat you the way that Bradley does so naturally.

Bradley decides that he won’t initiate anything other than a discussion on the topic of sex. As much as he does want it, he could go for months without it. And this has to be your call. But, he doesn’t want to know what sparked the idea into your head this morning.

If you ask him again, he already knows that he would do it.

By the time he has finished with your father and with his run, it’s almost time to go. The group of eight of you are spread around the mini-can, bags loaded and waiting for Bradley while Pasquale sits in the front. It’s a really short drive today. Just over an hour to the other side of the city.

“Did anyone else get their assignments back late all the time?” Abigail muses as she lays across the three backseats of the van. You’re sitting a row in front of her, fiddling with your Walkman.

“Even when I was TA’ing, and I’d get my grading in on time, Bradley still gave everyone their results back like a week later.” Robin agrees.

“Yeah, ‘cause he was too busy slipping it to Miss Penny all year.” Luke scoffs without looking up from his chapter on bathhouses, his arms stretched around Robin’s middle as she sits on his lap.

Instinct almost has you whipping around to look at him. Common sense has you gripped to the spot, staring at the little plastic contraption . You blink furiously at the cassette tape in front of you.

Miss Penny. Who the hell is Miss Penny? Granted, you hadn’t spent too much time wandering the humanities building, but you’re affronted to not be able to picture this mystery woman nonetheless.

“No— Miss Penny? No. Please, like Bradley would ever tell you who he’s screwing.” August — Gus —, the only other guy in your little group of eight, scoffs towards Luke. He’s standing outside of the van, leaning up against the doorframe.

“And if he was making it with anyone, it was for sure Doctor Hayes. Have you seen the two of them talking? — Man, even I felt the tension.” Zoe decides.

Screwing. Slipping it to. Making it.

And now the introduction of Doctor Hayes.

At least this woman you have heard of; she’s an anthropology professor, and she certainly wasn’t making it with Bradley — she’s happily involved with a woman.

It was a big point of conversation in your household. The news came to light just before your father was going to make a donation, she visited him personally to ensure that her romantic indiscretions wouldn’t affect his generosity.

If Bradley wasn’t screwing Doctor Hayes, then he probably wasn’t—

“You’re right, they were probably just friends,” Luke shrugs, again without looking up from the book. It should soothe you, but it doesn’t. It’s an arrogant thing, the way he knows everyone’s waiting on his every word, so he doesn’t have to lift his gaze to engage. “Doesn’t change the fact I saw them going at it in his office.”

When you look up you’re startled by Robin already looking at you, like she just stole the crayon you’ve been waiting for and she’s waiting for your tantrum to begin.

You glance across at Luke instead, who is still staring smugly at his chapter.

They already think that Bradley is screwing you, maybe they’re making it up to get a reaction.

You muster the calmest look that you can, and flip back a page in your notes, pretending that you’re reviewing the material.

You haven’t ever been to Bradley’s office. There’s a vague understanding of approximately where it is that comes with having spent four years wandering those halls, but in a pinch you would be guessing at exactly where.

You don’t know what his desk looks like, or if he’s got one of those frosted glass window panes in the door, or maybe it’s just a heavy wood door without a window.

Some of the old rooms still have those. They’re heavy and creaky and your daddy’s donations are eradicating them one by one.

Those big, heavy, creaky doors would do wonders for someone in need of privacy. As your eyes fall shut to blink, you’re met with a split-second snapshot of Luke nudging it open.

After hours, after a day of tough lessons. Bradley all stressed with that red flush across his chest that he gets when stuff is really starting to get to him. Miss Penny, in her mysterious shroud of fog… perched against his desk— or worse— bent over it.

You swallow.

“No you did not.” Abigail declares with a wrinkled face, not believing the dirty little story for a moment.

You would like to not believe it either.

“Uh-huh. It was when I was TA’ing, I came by to drop off some papers. She was sat on his desk with her back to the door and he was just—“

“Gross, I don’t want to hear about Bradley getting his rocks off with the librarian.” Zoe complains.

The librarian. Miss Penny is the fucking librarian. She has permed hair and cat-eye glasses, a skirt shorter than faculty standard allows too. She made you pay eight dollars in late fees one time. She’s like a decade older than Bradley, maybe fifteen years.

Your nose wrinkles as you turn your head to peer in the direction of the kitchen. Why her? Why—

“Alright, everybody ready to go?” Bradley has said his long goodbyes to the Gabris family, always wishing he got longer with them, even if Sandro did cockblock him this morning.

He climbs into the passenger seat as an awkward silence fills the van. Everyone takes their seats and stares ahead at him. He turns his head to peer back over his shoulder, frowning in confusion.

“What?”

“Nothing, man,” Luke answers coolly as Robin slides into the seat next to him. “You’re paranoid.”

Another time. Gotta go. You bet he was that casual with Miss Penny, too. With however many other women he might have been with. You set your headphones over your ears and turn toward the window.

It’s ridiculous, maybe, to be jealous of women that knew Bradley far before you could ever stand to be in the same room as him. But this isn’t jealousy, per se. It’s something else. You don’t doubt that Miss Penny didn’t mean much to him, you just… were hoping that you meant more, maybe.

The drive is short, and you’re piling into another old, crumbling hotel on the outskirts of Siena as the sun is just starting to set. You follow the crowd into the lobby and Bradley starts his normal routine of collecting the keys.

At first, you’re chatting with Zoe, and nothing feels different. Then, you catch something in your peripheral. Glancing down, your eyes widen and your train of thought ventures away.

“My ring.” You realise, setting your suitcase down on the faded carpet of the lobby. Bradley turns around, and finds you staring at your bare hand.

“I don’t have my ring.” You haven’t worn that thing since the first day you got there. Bradley has noticed every single day that you haven’t had it.

“What?” Pasquale frowns, looking between you and your hand.

“My engagement ring!” You snap at him. Everyone, at once, stops to look. Bradley stares at you. “I don’t— I must have left it! We have to go back.”

“Jesus Christ.” Luke scoffs, rolling his eyes as he drops down onto the couch. He figures he could be here a while, while you’re descending into hysterics.

After speaking to your father, Bradley figured he knows why you’re so upset. If you come home without that thing, he would give you the worst lecture known to man, or worse than that, even.

“I’ll call Sandro, and see—“ He takes two steps towards you, his face soft.

“No, I need to get it back. Now. We have to go back.”

“Mr. Bradshaw has a meeting here tomorrow, very early.” Pasquale chips in from beside you.

“I don’t care! I can’t believe I left it— Malcolm’s going to kill me if I tell him I don’t have it. What am I supposed to tell him? — That I took it off?”

You’re not thinking about your father, or getting into trouble with him. Bradley stops moving. You’re thinking about your fiancé.

Bradley has been comforting you, and singing to you, and kissing you for a week straight — not once thinking that you might one day want to wear that ring again.

This morning, he had been fooling himself on his run, thinking that this was anything more than fooling around. That he meant anything to you at all. That you understood him.

He stares at you, finding none of those feelings he had thought you felt this morning. Or last night, or this whole past week.

Nothing but blind panic, because you weren’t smart enough to double check you had everything.

“Didn’t you?” Robin asks.

“Just for a second! I— I — didn’t mean to.” You struggle, eyes wide and fleeting between Bradley and Pasquale.

That’s not true. You took it off because he hurt you. You haven’t worn it in seven days. You didn’t even think about it this morning when you had packed your things, or before that when Bradley had been in your bed.

You’re growing agitated, and so is Bradley. A muscle in his jaw ticks. You meant to take off that ring, and maybe you can’t admit to yourself that you meant to leave it behind.

“Maybe they could mail it—“ Pasquale tries.

“Do you seriously expect me to go home without it?” You’re looking at Bradley still, like this is his fault somehow. Like he’s the one who took it off of your finger. Your expression turns cold. “That ring is worth more than you make in a year!”

Bradley’s expression flattens. No hurt, no anger. Just pure detachment. He holds his hand out towards Pasquale.

“Give me the keys.”

“But, Bradley, you have—“

“Give me the fucking keys,” Bradley snaps. Zoe flinches at your side, and you feel her looking at you. Pasquale awkwardly drops the keys into Bradley’s open palm. “I’m going to get the ring, if it’ll shut her up.”

Your mouth closes, lips pressing firmly together.

“I’ll—“

“You stay right there.” Bradley bites. He can’t think of anything worse than being stuck in a van with you for the next two and a half hours. Without looking, he squeezes the keys into his palm and heads for the door.

With him gone, you’re the only thing for them all to look at.

None of them knew exactly what was going on between you and Bradley this whole time, but they’re all certain of the same thing now: whatever it was, they all just witnessed the end of it.

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