0ills

busy lurking… 20

[0ills]

Tony doodle/art page :D Giving this man back his piercings since he wont do it for us 💔

[0ills]

visiting chicago (partly influenced by the bear) and i got to eat at the beef today (im smuggling jeremy allen white home on the plane w me)

[polishcherrytea]

i hope it’s carmen berzatto

[tonyisforever]

Jaws of Life

Tony is still just trying to navigate the ways of being a better dad, and she seems to be his compass.

Some fluffy Tony as a single dad because I am all up in my feels this week, and a picture inspired me to write this.

I don’t notice him at first.

It’s Isabelle I see—tiny, pin-straight-haired, clutching a stuffed black cat by one ear like it’s the only thing tethering her to earth. Her pink backpack is way too big for her, with little stars on it. She stands in the doorway to my classroom like she’s arrived at the edge of a cliff and is still deciding whether to jump.

I crouch automatically, the way I always do with new little ones.

“Hey there,” I say, softly. “You must be Isabelle.”

Her fingers tighten around the cat, and she half-hides behind a pair of dark jeans. That’s when I finally look up.

He’s taller than I expected. Dark hair pulled back, a few strands escaping around his face. Tattoos climbing up his neck, sneaking out from under the cuff of his hoodie, ink decorating his fingers where they’re resting gently on Isabelle’s shoulder. He’s wearing a black hoodie that’s seen better days and a jean jacket on top, and he looks… tired. Not just “didn’t sleep well” tired. The kind of tired that has roots.

“Yeah,” he says, with a little half-smile like he’s bracing for judgment. “This is Izzy. Say hi, Bug.”

Izzy peeks around his leg and says, barely above a whisper, “Hi,” before retreating again.

“Hi, Izzy,” I say, smiling. “I’m really happy you’re here.”

My tone is easy, light. It always is with the kids. With adults, my brain likes to short-circuit, but four-year-olds don’t expect me to be cool or clever. They just need me to be safe. That, at least, I know how to do.

“First day?” I ask, glancing up at him again.

He nods. His eyes are warm brown, but there are shadows underneath, like he lost a fight with a month of bad sleep. “Yeah. She was in a different daycare before, but… this one’s closer to home. And, uh.” He clears his throat. “Everyone said you were good with the little ones.”

I flush at that, ridiculous heat creeping up my neck. “I try,” I say, because ‘thank you’ feels too big. I turn back to Isabelle. “Do you want to come see our classroom, Izzy? We have a reading corner with a big beanbag, and there’s a dollhouse, a kitchen set with fake cookies. The really important stuff, obviously.”

A little smile tugs at her mouth. “Cookies?”

“Fake ones,” I whisper, widening my eyes. “But if we imagine really hard, sometimes they taste almost real.”

She considers this seriously, then peeks up at her dad. “Daddy?”

He crouches to her level in one smooth motion, his hand sliding from her shoulder to take her small hand in his. Up close like this, I notice the ring of a healed piercing in his lip, the tiny scars on his knuckles, the faint sprinkle of gray threading through his hair. He looks like he belongs backstage at a show, not in a pastel-bright daycare lobby. But when he looks at his daughter, everything else falls away. It’s ridiculous how soft his face goes.

“Whaddya think, Bug?” he asks. “You wanna check out the fake cookies? You can tell me if they’re any good.”

She chews her lip. “You stay?”

His throat works. He glances at me, and I shake my head gently.

“Only kids in the classroom,” I say, apologetic. “Grown-ups have to say goodbye at the door. But—” I look at Isabelle again. “You can draw him a picture, and then when he comes back, you can show him everything, okay?”

She looks like she’s considering a contract. “You come back?”

“Of course I’ll come back,” he says immediately. “I’d never leave you somewhere without coming back. I gotta go to work, but then I’ll be right here, like—” He taps the floor. “Boom. Okay?”

I can almost see the fear behind his eyes, the way he searches her face, desperate for her to believe him.

“Okay,” she whispers.

He exhales, like he’s been holding his breath all morning. “Okay.”

I hold out my hand to her. “We can go put your backpack in your cubby together, if you want. Yours is the one with the little blue star.”

Izzy hesitates, then slips her small hand into mine. Her skin is warm and a little sweaty. She takes one step, then stops and looks back, big eyes suddenly wet.

“Hey,” he says quickly, voice soft but urgent, like he’s talking someone down from a ledge. “Hey, Bug, look at me.”

She does. I do, too.

“You know what?” he says, lips twitching into a crooked smile. “I think you’re braver than I. When I was your age, I cried when my mom left me at school. Like big, snotty tears. I bet you won’t.”

She sniffles. “You cried?”

“Totally,” he says solemnly. “I was a wreck. You’re way tougher than me. And your teacher?” He glances at me, then back to her. “She looks pretty cool, right?”

My heart does something weird. No one ever calls me ‘cool.’ Not even ironically.

Isabelle looks at me. Looks at him. Then nods, once.

“Okay,” she says. “No crying.”

My chest pinches.

“There you go,” he murmurs. “I’m proud of you already.”

He presses a quick kiss to the top of her hair, then straightens. For a moment, he looks like he might say something to me, but instead, he just offers a brief, tight smile.

“Uh. If she needs… anything,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “You can call. I put my number on the form. She’s, um.” His voice lowers. “It’s just the two of us. So she’s kinda… clingy.”

There’s no judgment in the word. Just a fact, and a thread of guilt he probably thinks he’s hiding.

“We’ll take good care of her,” I say, and I mean it more than he knows.

His shoulders seem to ease a fraction. “Thanks.”

He walks toward the door, then pauses, half-turning back.

“Oh. I’m Tony, by the way,” he says. “Perry.”

The name pings somewhere in the back of my mind—like I’ve heard it before, maybe on a playlist or in the background of someone’s conversation—but the thought floats away as Izzy tightens her grip on my hand.

“It was nice to meet you,” I say, hoping I sound normal and not like my stomach is doing Olympic-level gymnastics.

“You too,” he says, and smiles properly this time—quick and surprisingly shy, like he’s out of practice—and then he’s gone.

Isabelle’s fingers twitch in mine.

“Okay,” I whisper, leaning down so she can hear only me. “Want to see the fake cookies now?”

She nods, and we take our first steps into her new classroom together.

The first week is rough.

Transition weeks always are, but Isabelle clings like her spine has fused to my leg. She cries at drop-off three of the five days, silent tears sliding down her cheeks even when she’s trying really hard to do the “no crying” thing for her dad.

The first time she melts down, it’s over something small—a crayon she wanted that another child grabbed first. She crumples, body folding in on itself, and sobs that sound bigger than the moment, bigger than the classroom, bigger than anything a four-year-old should carry.

“Hey, hey,” I murmur, scooping her up and carrying her to the reading corner. I sit us down in the big beanbag, her body pressed fully against mine, her face buried in my shoulder. I sway gently, slow back-and-forth, carding my fingers through her curls. “You’re okay. You’re allowed to cry. It’s a lot, huh? New place, lots of kids, lots of crayons. Feels like too much.”

She hiccups against my neck. “Want Daddy,” she whispers.

I press my cheek to her hair. “I know.”

She smells like crayons and applesauce and the faintest trace of her dad’s cologne from the morning. It hits me, unexpectedly, how much she must be carrying—new routines, old fears, the weight of being someone’s whole world because he’s hers and she’s his.

“We’ll make a plan,” I tell her, because plans help. “What if we make a special picture just for Daddy? And then when he comes to pick you up, you can show him how brave you were. We’ll put so many colors on it he won’t even know what to do.”

Her fingers clutch the fabric of my shirt. “Pink?”

“Definitely pink. Maybe even glitter.”

She pulls back a little, sniffling, eyes still damp but curious through the tears. “Glitter?”

“We’ll break out the good stuff,” I whisper conspiratorially.

She hiccups again, but this time it almost sounds like a laugh.

By the time Tony comes that afternoon, the glitter picture is dry, and Izzy is buzzing with impatient pride. She hears his voice in the hallway and bolts for the door before I can stop her, slamming into his legs with all the force her little body can manage.

“Daddy!” she shouts. “Look, look, look, look!”

He staggers a step, laughing, and reaches down to scoop her up. The sound that leaves him is half-laugh, half-exhale, like his day doesn’t really start until this moment.

“Whoa, hey, Bug,” he says, hoisting her up onto his hip like she weighs nothing. “You miss me or something?”

She waves the glitter painting in his face. “Look!”

He takes it carefully. Glitter dusts his fingers, catching the light on inked knuckles. The picture is mostly pink scribbles with a few swirls of blue and gold. In the corner, where she demanded “words,” I helped her write DADDY in big, careful letters.

His features soften as he reads it.

“Whoa,” he murmurs. “Is this for me?”

She nods, “I cried, but then I didn’t, and we made a plan, and I painted and I didn’t even throw up at nap time.”

“That’s… that’s a lot of wins,” he says, voice husky with something I pretend not to notice. “I love it, Bug. I’m gonna put it on our fridge, front and center. Nobody will be able to miss it. Not even the cat.”

“You don’t have a cat,” she points out gravely.

“That’s how good this picture is,” he counters. “We’re gonna have to get one just to show it off.”

She gasps. “Really?”

He chuckles, glancing over her head at me. Our eyes meet for half a second, and I swear I can feel the exact moment his breath catches. 

“Hey,” he says softly. “Thank you. For… the plan. And the glitter. And… all of it.”

He looks wrecked in a different way than that first morning. Less panicked, more like he’s been fighting back emotion all day, and now that he’s here, it’s winning.

“It’s okay,” I say, voice gentle. “She did all the hard work.”

He glances at Isabelle, who is now enthusiastically telling him about the fake cookies and how Jenna tried to eat one, and “Teacher said it’s yucky, you can’t poop pretend food out,” and his mouth tilts into a lopsided grin.

“Sounds like you had a big day,” he tells her. Then, quieter, to me: “Is she… okay? Really?”

I’ve been asked versions of that question before. Parents with new babies, parents going through divorce, parents who don’t have the words for their own fear. But something in the way he asks makes my chest ache. Like, whatever my answer is will be the verdict on his entire life.

“She’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to be doing,” I say honestly. “She misses you, but she’s curious. She’s cautious… but she’s trying anyway. She’s brave.”

His eyes shine, just for a second.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, kissing the side of her head. “She’s the bravest person I know.”

He hugs her closer. For a moment, I wonder what it would feel like to have both of them in my arms, to be the soft landing instead of the observer. The thought rattles me so badly I straighten a stack of already-straight papers just to have something to do.

“You guys have a good evening,” I say, forcing my voice back into neutral.

“You too,” he replies, and for half a heartbeat, it feels like he means it in a way that isn’t just polite.

I don’t realize I’ve started to look forward to drop-offs until the morning he’s late.

It’s small things, at first.

The way Isabelle’s hand always reaches automatically for mine as soon as she steps through the door.

The way Tony’s eyes crinkle at the corners, even on the days when you can tell the rest of him is barely holding it together.

The way he always crouches to her height to say goodbye, like he refuses to speak down to her, the way he repeats “I’ll come back” like a prayer he’s trying to tattoo into her bones.

In the late morning, the classroom is already buzzing. Blocks clatter, someone’s crying because someone else touched their dinosaur, the usual symphony of small chaos. But Isabelle is not there.

I glance at the time. Five minutes past opening. Then ten.

I tell myself not to worry. Traffic exists. Mornings are hard. Kids get sick. I’m overthinking. I always overthink.

Still, my chest only unclenches when the door finally swings open and they stumble in like they’ve been chasing the clock since sunrise.

Tony looks like he slept in his clothes. His hair is pulled into a beanie, bits sticking out in rebellion. His t-shirt has a small smear of what might be toothpaste or might be yogurt. Isabelle’s hair is doing its own thing, wild and frizzy around her face, and she’s wearing a dress with strawberries on it and two completely different socks.

“We’re so late,” Tony groans under his breath, scooping her up as she drags her heels. “I know, I know, we’re here. I’m sorry, Bug, I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m just tired and I lost my keys and—”

He trails off, noticing me watching from the cubby area. He straightens instinctively, like he’s been caught breaking some rule. His gaze drops briefly to my lanyard, my soft cardigan, my colorful shoes, and I see the thought flash across his face: together. Unlike him. I want to shake him and tell him I forgot to eat breakfast, and my socks don’t match either.

“Morning,” he says, a little too briskly. “Sorry, she’s late. We had a… rough start.”

Isabelle’s arms are locked around his neck, face buried in his shoulder. I can see one eye, big and miserable.

“It’s okay,” I say, automatically. “Happens to everyone. You’re here. That’s what matters.”

I step a little closer, slowly. “Hey, Izzy,” I say softly. “We saved you a spot at the table. The kids are drawing pets. One of them is drawing a dragon. I think it might also be a potato.”

She doesn’t move. Her grip tightens.

“Bug,” Tony murmurs. “You good?”

She shakes her head, her little body hiding further behind him.

“She threw up in the car,” he explains quietly, guilt written all over his face. “I think it was nerves, not a bug, but she… I got frustrated. I shouldn’t have. I’m just… not great at this sometimes.”

The words land heavily between us. Not great at this. As if there is some perfect manual somewhere, and he missed the first ten chapters.

“You’re here,” I repeat, meeting his eyes. “You cleaned her up. You brought her anyway. That sounds pretty great to me.”

He looks at me like he doesn’t quite know what to do with that.

Izzy whimpers into his neck. I instinctively reach out and brush a curl away from her damp forehead.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I say, voice low. “It’s a lot of feeling, huh? Big morning. Big stomach. Lots of stuff all at once.”

She nods into his shoulder.

“How about this?” I suggest. “You and Daddy can come sit in the reading corner with me for a few minutes. We’ll take some deep breaths. Then, if you feel okay, you can stay. If you don’t, Daddy can take you home. Deal?”

Her grip loosens just enough for her to peer at me. “Daddy stays?”

“Just for a few minutes,” he says quickly, shooting me an apologetic look like he’s begging me not to kick him out on policy alone. “If that’s okay.”

Officially, parents aren’t supposed to linger. It makes separation harder. But there are rules, and then there are four-year-olds with vomit-wet hair and dads trying not to fall apart in front of them.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Just a little bit.”

We settle into the beanbag—me on one side, Tony on the other, Isabelle wedged like a little comma between us, still clinging to his arm. The three of us are close enough that I can feel the warmth from his body. It’s disorienting, sitting this close to him in the soft light of the classroom, his tattoos peeking from under his sleeve as he runs his fingers through Isabelle’s hair.

“Can we do breathing?” I ask her.

She nods, eyes shiny.

“Okay. Smell the flowers.” I inhale slowly, making a dramatic show of it, lifting my hands like rising balloons. “Blow out the candles.” I exhale, puffing my cheeks, pushing my hands gently down.

She copies me, inhaling with a shudder. Tony does, too, just quietly enough that she doesn’t notice he’s borrowing the trick.

After a few rounds, her shoulders drop half an inch. Her cheeks regain a little color.

“My tummy’s weird,” she mumbles.

“Yeah,” I say. “Sometimes tummies get nervous before brains do. But you know what tummies like?” I lower my voice. “Reading about dragons that look like potatoes.”

A tiny giggle escapes her. Victory.

“Okay.” She turns to Tony, fingers still twisted in his sleeve. “You come back?”

“I’ll always come back,” he says, voice rough. “You know that, Bug.”

She studies his face, like she’s verifying the truth of it. Then she nods, slowly.

“Okay,” she says. “You can go.”

It sounds like a benediction.

He kisses her forehead and stands, pausing to look at me.

“Thanks,” he murmurs. “For… being better at this than I am.”

“You’re pretty good at it too,” I say quietly, surprising myself.

His eyes search my face for a beat, like he’s trying to decide if I mean it. Whatever he sees there makes something about his posture soften.

“I’ll be back at three,” he says.

“Three it is,” I reply.

He leaves. Isabelle watches the door for a long moment, then leans into my side with a sigh.

“Potato dragon now?” she asks.

“Absolutely,” I say.

I find out who he is by accident.

It’s a Friday afternoon. The kids are wild with end-of-week energy, and I’m almost feral with exhaustion. Glitter is in my hair. There is dried paint on my arm. Someone has stuck a sticker that says GREAT JOB on my back, and I only find it when I sit down and feel the crinkle.

The kids are getting picked up one by one, a slow trickle of reunions and chatter and grabbed backpacks. Isabelle is playing with blocks in the corner, humming under her breath to some song I don’t quite recognize.

When the door opens, she looks up. Her whole face lights.

“Daddy!” she shrieks, abandoning the block tower and sprinting across the room.

He scoops her up, laughing. “Whoa, hey, careful, you’re gonna take someone out at the knees.”

“Look,” she demands, wiggling in his arms until he turns toward the blocks. “I built a castle. With a dragon. It’s you.”

“Excuse me, I am not a dragon,” he says. “I am a majestic, misunderstood… okay, yeah, I’m a dragon.”

I’m stacking crayons back into their box, pretending not to watch them too closely.

“Hey,” he says after a minute, walking over. “How was she today?”

“Good,” I say, smiling at Isabelle, who is now eating her own curls absentmindedly. “We had a full crisis over whether the dragon should be green or purple, but she recovered.”

“Important choices,” he says gravely. “Character-defining.”

He seems lighter today. Hair loose around his shoulders, hoodie pushed up over tattooed forearms. There’s a brightness in his eyes that wasn’t there that first week—fatigue still clinging at the edges, but buoyed by… something. Maybe just surviving.

As we talk, another parent walks past the open classroom door. She does a double-take.

“Oh my God,” she blurts, then claps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Are you—”

Tony stiffens almost imperceptibly.

“Nope,” he says lightly. “Definitely not.”

But the parent is already excited, fumbling for her phone. “You’re Tony Perry, right? My husband used to listen to your band in college. Oh my God, I have to tell him—”

My brain catches up. The name. Perry. The vague memory of eyeliner and guitar riffs and YouTube recommendations from years ago. It clicks into place like a puzzle piece being jammed home.

Oh.

Oh.

I look between him and the mom, and he catches my eye.

His expression is a mix of resignation and apology. Like he’s saying, without words: Yeah. That. Sorry.

Izzy is oblivious, tracing shapes on his chest with one finger.

He shifts the diaper bag higher on his shoulder. “We should, uh. Get going,” he says, offering the other parent a tight-but-polite smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Can I get a picture?” she asks eagerly.

He hesitates, eyes flicking to Isabelle, then to me. For a second, I see the conflict flash across his face. The old life, colliding with this new, fragile one he’s made. The part of him that knows how to pose and smile and be a story in someone else’s mouth, and the part that just wants to get his kid home for dinner.

“Maybe another time,” he says gently. “I gotta get this one fed before she turns into an actual dragon.”

The mom looks disappointed but nods, retreating.

When they’re gone, he glances at me. I’m still holding a handful of crayons. My mind feels like it’s been shaken like a snow globe.

“I, uh,” he says. “We can talk about it later. If you want. Or not. I just… didn’t want you to find out from some random YouTube rabbit hole.”

I realize, abruptly, that he thought I didn’t know. That I was just treating him like… a person. A tired, worried dad with a clingy four-year-old and dried yogurt on his shirt. And now there’s this layer of old noise over it.

“I’m not gonna, like, ask for an autograph or anything,” I blurt, then immediately want to crawl into a cabinet and live there forever. “That sounded— I just meant— You’re Izzy’s dad. That’s… that’s who you are here.”

He stares at me for a beat, long enough that my stomach drops.

Then his shoulders drop, too.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I kinda like that.”

The moment passes when Isabelle demands to know what’s for dinner and if dragons can have pasta. They leave, and the classroom hums back into its usual end-of-day silence.

But something has shifted.

Now, when I think about him, there’s a soundtrack.

The first time he cries in front of me, it’s because of a painting.

It’s a Tuesday. The air outside is cold enough that the kids come in with pink noses and cold fingers. We do an art project I call “All the Feelings”—messy watercolors where they’re allowed to use any colors they want to show a “big feeling.”

Some kids scribble chaotic rainbows. Some do angry red storms or soft blue swirls.

Isabelle chooses black.

She makes big, heavy strokes across her paper. Concentrated. Determined. A smear of blue in one corner. A streak of yellow that she immediately scratches over.

“What feeling is this?” I ask her when she’s done.

She thinks about it seriously. “It’s… when Daddy goes away,” she says.

My heart stutters. “When he leaves you here?”

“No.” She looks at me like it’s obvious. “When he goes on tour.”

I blink. “He goes on tour?”

She nods, dragging her paintbrush through the wash water. The water turns dark. “With guitars. And lots of noise. And lights.” Her eyes go a little distant, unfocused. “And then he comes back.”

Something in her voice tells me this routine is an old wound, not a new one.

“Do you go with him?” I ask gently.

She shakes her head. “I stay with Nana. Daddy says it’s too loud for my ears and he doesn’t want me to get squished.”

“That’s thoughtful of him,” I say.

“It’s okay,” she adds. “We FaceTime. I show him my drawings, and he sings me songs, and I show him my missing teeth.” She points to the tiny gap where one of her bottom teeth has recently vacated. “But I like it when he’s home better.”

“Yeah,” I murmur. “That makes sense.”

When Tony arrives that afternoon, hair still damp from a shower, keys jangling in his tattooed fingers, Isabelle runs to him, waving the painting like a flag.

“Daddy, look!” she shouts. “I painted when you go on tour!”

He freezes, coat half-off, blinking down at the paper she’s thrust against his chest. His jaw works.

“Oh,” he says.

“See?” she says, pointing. “This is when you leave. This is when you’re far. This is when you come back.” The black, the dark blue, the small streak of yellow she almost covered.

He swallows. Hard.

“Bug,” he says, voice rough. “That’s… wow. That’s… really good.”

Izzy beams, unaware of the way his hands are shaking.

“Teacher says I can take it home,” she announces. “We can put it next to the glitter one. On the fridge. For the cat.”

“We still don’t have a cat,” he says automatically, but the words are shaky.

I step in because it feels like he needs an exit ramp.

“She did great today,” I say. “She explained it really clearly. She understands you always come back.”

He looks at me like I’ve just handed him something fragile and priceless.

“Does she?” he asks, so quietly I almost don’t hear it.

“She said it,” I say. “In her own way.”

He nods slowly, like he’s trying to absorb that. His eyes shine again, that glassy sheen he keeps trying to blink away.

“Can I…” He clears his throat. “Can I talk to you for a second? ”

“Of course,” I say.

He orders Izzy to go sit back at the table and draw him another picture, and then comes back where she cannot hear us. When he steps in front of me, he looks stripped of something. The performance, maybe. The public face.

He holds the painting carefully, as if it might disintegrate.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts.

I blink. “For what?”

“For…” He gestures vaguely. “All of it. Dropping my life in your classroom like a bomb. Making you deal with my kid’s feelings about my job on top of all the other kids with all their other feelings about everything else.”

His laugh is short. Humorless.

“That’s my job,” I say gently. “The feelings. That’s… literally why I’m here.”

“I know, I just.” He exhales sharply, rubbing a hand over his face. “I didn’t realize how much she… noticed it. The leaving. The coming back. I thought I was hiding it better.”

“She’s four,” I say softly. “They always notice more than we think.”

His mouth twists. “I keep thinking I’m screwing this up.”

There it is. The thing I’ve been hearing under every question, every nervous drop-off, every tired joke. The constant hum of dad-guilt.

“You love her,” I say simply. “You show up. You come back. That’s… That’s not nothing, Tony.”

He laughs, but it’s more of a half-sob. He sets the painting down on a low table with exaggerated care, then braces his hands on the back of one of the little chairs like he needs to hold onto something.

“Sorry,” he mutters, voice breaking. “I don’t usually cry in tiny chairs.”

“It’s okay,” I say, a gentle joke layered over genuine reassurance. “They see worse.”

He huffs out a breath that might be a laugh, might be one step away from completely losing it.

“Can I—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “No, never mind. That’s… weird.”

“What?” I ask, before I can overthink it.

He looks up at me. His eyes are bright. “Just,” he says. “Can I say thank you without sounding like a creep? I know I’m just some guy who drops his kid off and occasionally melts down in your classroom, but you’ve… you’ve made this easier. For her. For me. And I don’t know how to repay that.”

“You don’t have to repay it,” I say. “That’s… not how this works. You don’t owe me anything.”

He studies me. It feels… intense. His attention is like a spotlight I’m not used to standing in.

“I kinda feel like I do,” he murmurs.

There’s a beat where we’re both just breathing in the soft hum of the empty classroom. The tiny chairs, the scattered crayons, the watercolor paintings drying on the rack. It feels like a strange little pocket in time where the rest of the world is muted.

“I’m just… doing my job,” I say quietly, because anything else feels too big.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re really good at it.”

My face heats. “Thank you.”

He glances at the clock and clears his throat. “I should, uh. Get her home. Before she decides, the table is a better place for paint than paper.”

“She definitely has opinions,” I agree, smiling.

He smiles back. It’s soft, this one. Unarmored.

“Yeah,” he says. “Wonder where she gets those from.”

He leaves with the painting tucked under his arm like a fragile piece of his heart he’s finally acknowledging exists.

I stay in the tiny chairs a little longer than I need to.

The shift from “Isabelle’s dad” to “Tony” is so gradual, I almost don’t notice it until it’s already done.

It’s in the small things.

He starts staying an extra five minutes at pick-up, lingering by the cubbies while Isabelle tells him every single detail about her day—what color cup she had, who sat next to her at lunch, how many times Leo said “poop” and got in trouble. He asks follow-up questions, real ones, listening like this is the most important briefing he’ll ever get.

He starts bringing coffee sometimes. “They messed up my order and gave me two,” he lies badly the first time, cheeks a little pink as he offers me the second cup. After that, he stops pretending.

“Thought you might need this,” he says on a Tuesday when I look particularly wrecked. “You have glitter in your hair.”

“I always have glitter in my hair,” I say, but I take the cup. It’s exactly how I like it.

“Huh,” he says. “Weird coincidence.”

He leans against the doorframe sometimes, arms crossed, tattoos on display, while I help Isabelle put on her jacket. We talk about little things—how he used to hate mornings even before he had a kid, how I once fell asleep during a movie in a theater and woke up to a completely different film because I’d slept through the credits and the cleaning break.

One rainy afternoon, when the pick-up rush is over and the last kids are gone except Isabelle, who’s sitting at the table drawing Very Serious Cats, he runs a hand through his damp hair and says, almost shyly:

“You ever… get used to this?”

“To what?” I ask.

“Being the person,” he says. “The one they look at for… everything. Every answer. Every hug. Every meltdown. Everywhere’s my sock at six a.m.”

He laughs, but it’s brittle at the edges.

I think about it. “I don’t know if you get used to it,” I say slowly. “But you get… more practiced at surviving it. At not taking every moment as a verdict on your entire soul.”

“That sounds… nice,” he says dryly. “I’d love to stop feeling like I’m one tantrum away from permanent emotional scarring.”

“You already are,” I say absently.

His head snaps up. “What?”

“You’re already emotionally scarred,” I repeat, realizing how that sounded. “I mean—we all are. That’s just… childhood. And adulthood, honestly. You can’t protect her from everything. You can just… make sure she knows you’ll be there while she feels it.”

He stares at me, then laughs. A real one, this time. “Do you give out therapy for parents as a side hustle, or is that just a bonus with tuition?”

“Comes free with the glitter,” I say, hiding my flustered smile behind a sip of coffee.

He watches me for a second, something thoughtful in his gaze.

“What about you?” he asks.

My heart skips. “What about me?”

“Do you have someone to come back to?” he says. “After you deal with everyone else’s socks and meltdowns and art projects and dragons?”

The question hits me in a place I didn’t expect. I open my mouth, then close it again. My life outside this room has always felt like a blank space compared to the messy, technicolor chaos inside it.

“Not really,” I admit. “It’s mostly just me. And my couch. And Netflix is asking me if I’m still watching.”

He winces. “That’s brutal. They should at least phrase it nicer. Like, ‘hey, champ, still going?’”

I laugh, surprised. “That might actually be worse.”

“You might be right,” he concedes. Then, quietly: “They’re missing out.”

I blink. “Who?”

“Anyone who doesn’t get to come home to you after a day like this,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Seems like they’re making poor life choices.”

My pulse stutters. I busy myself wiping an imaginary smudge off the table.

“You’re very good at this, you know,” he adds, gentler now. “Not just with Izzy. With all of them. And with… me, I guess.”

“You’re not one of my kids,” I blurt.

He smirks. “No, thank God. That would make the thoughts I have highly inappropriate.”

The air shifts.

I stare at him. He realizes what he’s said half a second after I do. His eyes widen, and he rubs a hand over his face.

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “That was— That came out wrong. I meant— I didn’t mean— Actually, I did, but I shouldn’t have said it. I’m gonna stop talking now.”

My heart is pounding so loudly, I’m amazed Isabelle doesn’t look up from her cats and ask what’s wrong with me.

“It’s okay,” I say, which is objectively a lie because my brain is doing cartwheels. “We’re both tired.”

He chuckles weakly. “Yeah. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.”

We leave it there. On the surface, anyway.

But later, when I’m lying on my couch, Netflix asks if I’m still watching, the scene replays over and over in my head. The way his voice dropped. The way his eyes flicked to my mouth for half a second before he caught himself.

I don’t know what to do with that.

So, like a true anxious person, I… do nothing.

The thing that finally pushes us over whatever line we’ve been circling isn’t big or dramatic.

It’s a Thursday. Isabelle has had a terrible day.

She’s clingy from the start, tearful at drop-off, refusing to let go of my hand for the first hour. She cries when someone takes the crayon she wanted, cries when someone bumps her arm by accident, and cries when she can’t make her block tower stand up the way she wants.

By nap time, she’s exhausted. So am I.

She won’t lie down on her cot unless I sit next to her. I do, rubbing her back in slow circles.

“Daddy’s leaving,” she whispers, eyes wide in the dim light.

My hand stills. “What do you mean?”

“He has suitcases,” she says. “He’s going on tour. He told me last night. He has to go on a big bus again. With boys.” She wrinkles her nose like this is the worst part. “And guitars. And lots of noise. Nana’s coming to stay with me. But I miss him already.”

I swallow. “Did you tell him that?”

She nods. A tear slides down her cheek. “He said he’ll always come back. But my tummy feels sad.”

Of course it does, I think.

I stay with her until her breathing evens out and her fist relaxes from where it’s been gripping my sleeve.

All afternoon, I feel a simmering ache of protective anger on her behalf. Not at him, exactly. In the situation. The fact that love can be messy and imperfect, even when everyone is trying their best.

When he comes at three, he looks… wrecked. Like he’s been up all night, pacing around the idea of leaving.

“Hey,” he says, voice rough. “How was she?”

“Sensitive,” I say honestly. “But very clear about her feelings. She told me you’re going on tour.”

He winces. “Yeah. It’s only for a couple of weeks this time. West Coast run. Back before you know it. That’s what I keep telling her, anyway.”

“And yourself,” I say quietly.

He exhales. “And myself.”

Isabelle runs into his arms the second she sees him. She clings to his neck like she’s trying to fuse them.

“You came back,” she says, like she’d been holding her breath all day.

“Always,” he murmurs into her hair. “Always, Bug.”

He holds her for a long time. I busy myself straightening art supplies, giving them a bubble of privacy.

“Hey,” he says eventually, shifting her on his hip. “Can I… ask you for a favor?”

My heart jumps. “Sure.”

He looks almost embarrassed. It’s strange, seeing this rockstar-turned-dad—tattoos, piercings, history of thousands of screaming fans—look like a shy teenager.

“I’m gonna be gone for, you know, a bit,” he says. “And I know she’s… attached to you. to… this. I was wondering if you’d be okay with…”

He trails off, grimacing. “God, this sounds creepy.”

“It’s okay,” I say, fighting a smile. “Just say it.”

“Would you be okay if I… called? Sometimes?” he blurts. “So I can say hi.. So she knows this doesn’t disappear when I’m not here. Only during normal human hours,” he adds quickly. “I promise I won’t, like, FaceTime you at 3 a.m. from a parking lot in Boise or something.”

The images his words conjure—him somewhere far away, lit by stage lights, calling us from the back of a tour bus—make my stomach twist.

“You don’t have to,” he says hastily. “You’re on the clock. I just—I thought it might help her. But if it’s weird, forget I asked.”

“It’s not weird,” I say. “FaceTime is… fine. As long as it’s not during nap time.”

His shoulders sag in relief. “Right. Yeah. Of course. Thank you.”

Izzy perks up. “I can call when you’re gone?” she asks.

“If she says it’s okay,” he says.

She looks at me, eyes hopeful. “You say it’s okay?”

I smile. “I say it’s okay.”

Her whole face brightens.

He laughs, kissing her cheek. Then he looks at me.

“Thanks,” he says again. There’s a weight to it now. A different kind of intimacy. “For… everything. I know I keep saying that, but…”

“It’s okay,” I interrupt gently. “I don’t mind hearing it.”

His gaze drags over my face, lingering on my mouth. The air between us hums.

“Okay,” he says softly. “Good to know.”

When he calls the first time, I’m on my desk, grading curriculum notes with a cat video playing in the background that I keep forgetting to pause.

The screen lights up with an unknown number. I hesitate, then answer.

“Hello?”

The screen shifts. There’s a blur of motion, and then Tony’s face fills the frame.

“Hey,” he smiles shyly. “How is Isabelle doing?”

“She’s coping better than expected,” I reassure him, calling Isabelle over so she can talk to him.

The three of us talk for a few minutes. Isabelle shows him the dragon she’s drawn (it does, in fact, look like a potato). She shows him the band-aid on her knee (“I fell, but I didn’t die, so it’s okay”). I hover in the corner of the frame, occasionally chiming in, occasionally just watching the two of them with a soft, tired fondness that does strange things to my breathing.

When they finally say goodbye, Isabelle blows a kiss at the screen.

“Bye, Daddy,” she says. “Don’t forget me.”

“Never,” He promises.

She grins and disappears, leaving Tony filling the screen now. The background shifts; he must have moved to somewhere quieter.

“Hey,” he says, voice lowering. “Thanks for taking the call.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “She looked happy.”

There’s a pause. The noise behind him dips, then swells again. He runs a hand over his face, the beanie shifting slightly.

“How are you?” he asks. It feels different, coming from him. More pointed.

“I’m good,” I say automatically, then amend, “Tired. Long day. We had a sand incident.”

“A sand incident,” he repeats. “Sounds ominous.”

“It was,” I say gravely. “There was sand in the shoes. Sand in hair. Sand on the ceiling. I’m still not sure how that happened.”

He winces. “My condolences.”

“What about you?” I ask, surprising myself. “How’s the tour?”

He hesitates. For a second, his eyes flick away, like he’s looking at something off-screen.

“It’s loud,” he says finally. “And weird. And kinda… hollow. Without her.”

The vulnerability in his voice makes my chest ache.

“She misses you,” I say. “But she also seems… secure. Like she knows you’re coming back.”

He nods slowly. “Trying to make that true.”

“It already is,” I say quietly.

He smiles, small and lopsided. “You always say the exact thing I didn’t know I needed to hear. It’s freaky.”

“Hazard of the job,” I say, a little flustered.

There’s another pause. It stretches, but doesn’t snap.

“I should let you go,” he says eventually. “You probably have, like, lesson plans to write and kids to drool on you and kids to put to bed.”

“Yeah. I should probably go too. You have a whole arena to conquer.”

He snorts. “Something like that.” Then, softer: “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Tony,” I say.

His name feels heavier in my mouth than it should.

We hang up. I stare at my dark screen for a long time.

He comes back two weeks later.

The morning he returns, I know before I see him. Isabelle is vibrating. She can’t sit still, can’t focus on the story I’m reading. Every sound from the hallway makes her head snap up.

“Do you think he forgot?” she asks me quietly, at one point, when the clock hits 9:15 and he’s still not there.

“No,” I say firmly. “I don’t think he forgot.”

Five minutes later, there’s a shadow in the doorway.

“Hey,” Tony says softly.

Isabelle bolts. She hits him so hard he stumbles back against the doorframe, laughing through a sound that is dangerously close to a sob.

“Daddy!” she yells. “You came back!”

“Of course I came back,” he manages, voice thick. He’s hugging her so tightly, I wonder how she’s still breathing. He’s in a hoodie and sweatpants, hair pulled back, eyes ringed with exhaustion, but there’s a brightness in him I haven’t seen before. Like something finally clicked into place.

I give them a moment, busying myself with the morning song, gathering the other kids in a loose circle. After a few minutes, Tony sets Isabelle down, crouching so they’re eye-to-eye.

“Okay, Bug,” he says. “I gotta go home and sleep for a thousand years. You gonna be okay?”

She nods solemnly. “I have a Teacher. And dragons.”

“That’s a solid support system,” he says.

He stands, glancing at me. Our eyes meet, and for a second, the room feels smaller.

“Hey,” he says. It’s a single syllable, but there’s so much packed into it—gratitude, relief, something that feels dangerously like longing.

“Hey,” I echo.

He clears his throat. “Can I uh—talk to you later? When it’s not—” he gestures around at the chaos of morning circle “—all this.”

“Sure,” I say, heart doing something complicated.

He nods, like he’s made some private decision. Then he ruffles Isabelle’s hair one more time and leaves.

All day, my brain alternates between overanalyzing that one look and telling itself to calm down.

By the time three o’clock rolls around, my stomach is a knot.

Izzy is one of the last to leave that day. When Tony arrives, he looks like he’s slept but not enough. There’s a nervousness about him I haven’t seen before.

“Hey,” he says, hovering in the doorway. “You got a second?”

“Of course,” I say. My hands are suddenly very interested in tidying the already-tidy block shelf.

Isabelle is packing her backpack, narrating every item she puts inside. “Lunch box, water bottle, art, potato dragon…”

Tony waits until she’s distracted, zipping her bag, then steps closer to me. Not too close. Just… closer than usual.

“So,” he says quietly. “I, uh. Thought a lot. On tour. About… stuff.”

“Stuff,” I repeat, trying to sound casual while my pulse hammers.

“Yeah,” he says. “About how my life is basically three things right now: Izzy, music, and… this room.”

He gestures vaguely to the classroom. “Which, don’t get me wrong, is a solid top three. But it made me realize there’s kind of a you-shaped… space in there too. And I wasn’t sure if I was just… losing it in a hotel room or if that was… real.”

My brain short-circuits. “A… me-shaped space?”

He winces. “That sounded better in my head. What I mean is—”

“Daddy!” Isabelle cuts in, running over to him. She thrusts a new drawing into his hand. “Look! It’s you and me, and Teacher and a dragon. We’re all holding hands.”

I stare at the paper. It’s a swirl of bright colors and uneven stick figures, but the shapes are clear. Three figures: one tall, one small, one somewhere in between. A dragon next to us, smiling. All our hands are linked.

My throat tightens.

Tony looks at the drawing. Then at me. Then back to the drawing board.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Exactly that.”

He crouches to Isabelle’s level. “Hey, Bug. Can you go put your lunch box back in your backpack for me? I think it fell out.”

“It didn’t,” she says skeptically.

“Can you check anyway?” he asks, pleading with his eyes.

She rolls her eyes in a very dramatic way, but obeys.

He straightens and looks at me again.

“I know this is… complicated,” he says quietly. “I’m a single dad. I have a weird job. I have, like, five million air miles and zero idea how to be a normal human being in a relationship. But I also know that when I’m here, watching you with her, or when I’m out there, wishing I was here… you’re always… there. In my head. In a good way. And I was wondering if maybe, when I’m not just Isabelle’s dad and you’re not just her teacher, if you’d ever… want to get coffee. With me. Like two adults who are allowed to talk about things that aren’t snack time and dragons.”

My heart is pounding so hard it’s almost painful.

“Tony,” I say, because it feels too impersonal to just nod at him when he’s being this open.

“I know the rules,” he adds quickly. “I’m not asking to cross any lines while she’s in your class. I’d never… I don’t want to mess this up for her. Or for you. I just… wanted you to know that when the time is right, whenever that is… I’d like a chance. To show up. For more than just drop-off and pick-up.”

There’s a long moment where the sounds of the classroom fade into a dull hum. It’s just his eyes, earnest and scared and hopeful all at once, and my own heart doing its best impression of a drum solo.

I think about all of it. His soft voice at drop-off. The way he looks at his daughter is like she hung the moon. The way he brings me coffee without making a big deal out of it. The way he cries over her paintings in tiny chairs. The way my day feels different when I know I’ll see him, even for two minutes.

I think about my couch, and Netflix, and the ache I didn’t want to name.

“Okay,” I say quietly. “When the time is right… I’d like that too.”

Relief floods his face, bright and unguarded.

“Yeah?” he asks, like he needs to hear it twice.

“Yeah,” I say.

We both smile. It feels like standing at the edge of something, but for once, I’m not terrified of falling.

“Daddy, there’s no lunch box,” Isabelle announces, marching back over. “It was a trick.”

“You caught me,” he says, scooping her up. He looks at me over her shoulder, something warm and steady in his gaze.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell them.

“See you tomorrow,” he replies.

As they leave, Isabelle waves her dragon painting over her head. “Bye, Teacher!” she calls. “Don’t forget us!”

“Never,” I say.

And for the first time, I realize it’s not just a promise to her.

It’s a promise to myself, too.

[wonderless-mads]

Chasing shadows

Chapter thirteen

Jaime preciado x reader II series masterlist

summary: You’re the tour photographer, and Jaime Preciado can’t help but tease you at every turn. What starts as playful banter slowly turns into a slow-burn attraction neither of you expected, with stolen glances, late-night moments, and tension that keeps building backstage

Word count: 1,529

warning/tags: in this story m*ke doesn’t exist, probably eventual smut (18+ mdni), language, drinking, smoking, mutual pining, slowburn but flirting starts early, reader uses she/her

————————————————————————-

You woke up heavy and aching, the physical exhaustion a harsh reminder of the toxic exchange two doors down. You scrubbed in the shower, trying to wash away the scent of Jaime, but the heat was internal, a secret sickness you now had to carry.

Dressed in neutral clothes, your camera bag over your shoulder, you walked to the tour bus. Vic, was waiting by the door.

“Morning, Y/N,” Vic said quietly, his expression subdued. “Rough night?”

“Long night,” you corrected, keeping your voice even. “Editing photos and dealing with old business. I’m fine, Vic.”

You stepped onto the bus. Tony was sprawled on the couch. Loniel was cleaning his cymbal bag.

And there was Jaime.

He was sitting alone at the back table, hunched over his laptop with a mug of coffee. He glanced up as you boarded, and his expression was immediately, flawlessly indifferent. He gave you the same neutral, passing look he would give the catering delivery guy.

The performance had begun.

You walked past him without a word, stowing your bag near the front. You settled into a single seat, pulling out your laptop and deliberately avoiding the rearview mirror.

A few minutes later, the bus groaned to life. Jaime walked past your seat to grab a bottle of water from the fridge.

“Morning, Y/N,” he said, his voice completely casual, maybe even slightly bored. “Hope your editing session was worth the dark circles.”

He sounded like a genuinely annoying colleague. A genuinely infuriating liar.

“It was,” you returned, not looking up.

“Unlike some people, I don't get paid to sleep in until noon, so my schedule is demanding.”

He chuckled, a short, dry sound. He leaned against the back of your seat, close enough that you could smell his clean soap. “Ouch. Little cranky this morning, huh? Maybe grab an extra coffee, or, you know, get more sleep next time.”

The last line was delivered low enough that only you could register the subtle threat beneath the surface, a perfect reminder of who dictated your sleep schedule now.

Tony, overhearing the exchange, yanked down his headphones. “Don’t start with Y/N, Jaime. She's got actual work to do. Unlike you.”

Jaime opened his water bottle, his eyes flashing briefly to yours, a quick flicker of warning, before turning his attention fully to Tony.

“It's just banter, man. Y/N knows I’m only trying to help her survive my genius on stage,” Jaime replied easily. He pushed off your seat. “Besides, I’m busy fielding texts from last night’s adventures. You know how it is.”

He then moved back toward the couch, sitting down next to Tony. He threw his arm over the back, settling into the familiar, easygoing posture. He was the same Jaime they always knew.

You tried to focus on organizing files, but the back of the bus felt like a furnace. You were acutely aware of the bus vibrating beneath your chair and the low murmur of Jaime and Tony’s conversation.

The bus hit a rough patch, and you reached, adjusting the short, dark athletic shorts you were wearing beneath your long hoodie.

A second later, your phone, which was tucked into the pocket of your jeans on the seat beside you, buzzed almost silently, the vibration setting you specifically used for his number.

You slowly, casually retrieved the phone and held it low in your lap, hiding the screen with your thigh.

The message was from him:

> Jaime: Shorts are working overtime today, photographer. I see exactly where your hands are going when the bus hits a bump.

The immediate, vulgar intimacy of the message sent a dizzying wave of heat through your core. He was sitting ten feet away, talking about tour logistics, yet his attention was entirely on your body.

You gripped the phone so tightly your knuckles turned white. You couldn't respond. The rules were clear: no talking about it before or after.

You glanced quickly in the rearview mirror. Jaime was leaning back, completely engrossed in a conversation with Tony about vintage gear. He hadn't moved. He was a master of maintaining simultaneous realities.

You typed a quick response, your fingers flying across the screen with angry frustration. You needed to shut this down, or you wouldn't survive the ride.

> Y/N: Stop it. Now.

His response was immediate, a digital smirk:

> Jaime: Why? You look annoyed. I like you annoyed. It was half the fun last night.

You fought the urge to throw the phone across the bus. Instead, you slammed your laptop shut, loudly enough to make the few people awake look up.

You stood up abruptly, pulling the hoodie tighter around you, making sure your shorts were no longer visible. You grabbed a travel pillow and stormed to the back of the bus, past the couch where Jaime was sitting.

“I’m going to try to sleep in a bunk,” you announced to the bus in general, your voice clipped and loud. “The noise back here is distracting.”

You purposely avoided looking at Jaime, but you felt his amused gaze tracking you.

Tony just shrugged. “Yeah, Jaime gets loud when he talks about himself. Go get some rest, Y/N.”

Jaime, leaning back, spoke up, his voice easy and loud for the whole bus to hear, cementing the public narrative: “Good idea. Get some rest, Y/N. You need to look alive for Denver. Don't want any distractions."

It was another flawless double entendre. Don't get distracted by me. Don't look tired from being with me.

You ducked into a vacant bunk, pulling the heavy curtain shut. You didn't respond to him. You just curled up, gripping your phone. He had already won the morning. The bus hadn't even reached the state line, and you were already trapped in a suffocating bubble of secrets, rage, and overwhelming desire.

You pulled the heavy curtain shut on the bunk, creating a dark, suffocating space that was only slightly quieter than the main cabin.

You threw the pillow down, your phone still clutched in your hand.

You lay on your back, staring at the ceiling, trying desperately to regulate your breathing. You hated him, but the core of your body was humming with frantic anticipation.

Minutes later, you heard the faint sound of the curtain rings scraping along the track.

You froze.

The curtain shifted just enough for a dark, muscular arm to snake inside and latch the small metal hook from the inside onto the loop. The curtain was now locked, sealed, casting the space into near-total darkness.

You heard a quiet rustle, and then Jaime was sliding in beside you.

"Get out," you whispered, the fear lending a frantic edge to your voice. "Are you insane? Tony and Loniel are right there."

Jaime shifted, his body settling against yours. He was fully dressed, but his presence was heavy and intimate.

"Relax, Y/N," he murmured, his voice low and close to your ear: a rough, tight whisper. "I told Vic I was grabbing a hard drive. I needed to see you. Now."

He nudged your thigh lightly with his knee. "Besides, I needed a word with my photographer about those shorts."

"What about them?" you hissed, turning your head just enough to glare at him in the dark.

He didn't bother with the blank phone screen this time. The rules were established. He just reached out, his hand finding the edge of the short fabric at your hip, his fingers dipping just beneath the hem.

"What about them?" he repeated, his voice thick with sudden hunger. "They're too much, Y/N. You can't wear that on the bus and expect me to act normal. I've been picturing my hand right here since this morning."

He gave a slow, deliberate squeeze, and you gasped, the sound lost against the heavy vibration of the bus engine.

Then, his mouth was on yours.

The kiss was desperate, silent, and deeply possessive, a sudden, electric claim in the most public of spaces. He kissed you like he was drowning, pulling you tight against his chest, crushing you into the hard mattress of the bunk. His lips moved expertly, demanding everything you had, drawing a quiet moan from your throat that you instantly muffled against his shoulder.

He pulled your leg up, hitching your knee over his hip, the friction of your clothes against his jeans a silent, agonizing torture. He deepened the kiss, using the extreme pressure of the confined space and the threat of discovery to accelerate the desire.

"God, you're so hot," he whispered against your mouth, pulling back just an inch so you could hear his strained breathing. "Those damn shorts... they make me crazy. I've been dying to feel you against me all morning."

You were shaking violently, consumed by the illicit thrill. You hated the violation of your space, the calculated risk, but your hands slid around his back, pulling him tighter, needing the solid, muscular anchor.

You reached up, finding his jaw, tilting his head back to claim his mouth again, your desire overriding your disgust.

He responded with a deep, frantic groan, grinding his hips against yours, a primal, needy reaction that shattered his cool composure. He was losing control right there in the narrow bunk, ten feet from his bandmates, and the desperation was exhilarating.

He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged and uncontrolled. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, his mouth hot against your skin.

"Stop," he commanded, his voice raw, laced with effort. "We have to stop. I can't do this here."

He pulled away, his hands gripping your shoulders, holding you firmly in place. He looked at you, his eyes adjusted to the dark, dark and dilated with need.

"I just needed to remind you who you belong to, and I needed to show you why you need to listen when I tell you to change your damn clothes," he said, his voice flat, immediately erasing the passion with cold control. "You're mine until this tour is over."

He shifted, releasing your shoulders. He reached for the lock, unhooking the curtain with a quiet scrape.

"Stay here until I'm back at the table," he commanded. "And tomorrow those shorts need to stay in the bag."

He slid out of the bunk as silently as he had entered. Before fully closing the curtain, he paused, his eyes finding yours.

He didn't speak a final word. He simply gave you a slow, possessive, challenging smirk, a clear communication that he had won this round, and that the risk had been worth the reward.

The curtain slammed shut. You lay in the darkness, trembling, the scent of him heavy in the air, listening to the low rumble of his voice rejoin the conversation with Tony.

You had just had a highly intimate, rule-testing encounter disguised as a quick chat. You didn't hate him less. You just knew you needed him.

You stayed in the bunk for another hour, the silence broken only by the low engine hum and the rhythmic pounding of your own heart. When you finally emerged, you felt different: less shaky, more calculated. Jaime had reminded you of the terms of his control, but he had also revealed his massive vulnerability: his desperate, immediate need for you.

You walked back to your seat, greeting Tony and Vic with a neutral smile. Jaime was back at the table, now playing a low-volume game on his laptop, headphones around his neck. You sat down and pulled out your own laptop, but you didn't plug in. You didn't even open a file.

You needed to retaliate. You needed to prove that the leash went both ways.

You glanced across the aisle. Jaime was wearing those familiar, tight jeans. The thought of how quickly he had lost control in the bunk, and the absolute chaos your body caused him, sparked a wicked, retaliatory grin.

You reached for your phone scrolling through your gallery until you found the perfect thing.

You chose three quick, silent shots, of yourself infront of a mirror in nothing but your black lacy bra.

You settled back, opened your messages, and quickly edited the best photo. You didn't use a filter or crop. It was just a stark, close-up image of the soft curve of your chest, the delicate lace, and the deep shadow ,a view only you and the camera shared.

You didn't hesitate. You tapped his contact and hit send.

> Y/N: Since you like to comment on my outfits... here's the base layer. Hope the ride isn't too distracting.

You placed the phone face-up on the seat beside you, pretending to read a magazine. Your heart was pounding so hard you thought the vibrations might actually shake the bus.

Jaime didn't react immediately. He finished a level of his game, setting his laptop aside with a deliberate slowness. He reached for his phone on the table.

He didn't look at you. He didn't look up at all. His focus was entirely on the small screen in his hand.

You watched him. You watched the small, private action unfold across the aisle.

His eyes scanned the screen. His thumb paused. Then, the reaction came. It was subtle, internal, and absolutely devastating.

His breathing hitched a tiny, audible intake of air that was instantly covered by the bus engine noise, but you heard it.

He lowered his head slightly, leaning forward, pressing his elbow onto the table. His shoulders seemed to slump for a split second, an involuntary physical reaction to the punch you had just delivered.

He slowly moved his phone beneath the edge of the table, shielding the screen from view. His fingers, which had been resting loosely, suddenly curled into tight, tense fists against the dark denim of his jeans.

You didn't need to see his face to confirm the success of your strike. You watched his body.

His knees, which had been casually splayed, now squeezed together under the table. His posture was rigid, forced. And then you saw it: the tight, unmistakable strain across the front of his jeans.

He had a hard-on. A strong, painful erection that he was frantically trying to hide beneath the lip of the table, ten feet away from you, with Tony sitting directly across from him.

You fought a wild, triumphant surge of adrenaline. You had him. You had utterly ruined his carefully constructed cool.

Jaime cleared his throat, a dry, ragged sound. He reached across the table, picked up his coffee mug, and took a large, deliberate sip, trying to regain control.

You finally looked up, meeting his eyes across the aisle.

His eyes were furious, a blazing, dark promise of revenge, but they were also needy. He knew you had won the exchange. He knew you could now reach him any time, anywhere, with a single, private message.

He didn't speak. He just sent you a single, frustrated, unedited text:

> Jaime: You're playing a dangerous game, Y/N. You have no idea what you’re doing to me.

You smirked, a small, genuine smile that felt dangerously good. You tucked your phone back into your pocket. You didn't need to respond. The tension in the air was thick enough to choke on. You were sitting three feet away from a man who was fighting a painful boner because you sent him a picture of your bra.

You turned your attention back to your laptop, finally ready to get some work done. The bus ride was going to be a long, glorious war.

————————————————————————-

Next chapter

[0ills]

someone send me a photo of tony to draw/recreate…

[toner-boner]

[0ills]

saving this for later…. full tony sketch page… hmmm…hmm…..

[0ills]

how do i make friends on here that share interests with me no borax no glue 🧐

[0ills]

drawing every era of tony with the gauges, snake bites, and dermal. For posterity.

[0ills]

slightly late to ieroween… fully rendered frank!! (please ignore the hand it was giving me hell)

[datadegroove-deactivated2026042]

it blew my vagina clean off its hinges

[tonyisforever]

The Syllabus Says History; Your Body Says Otherwise

You only signed up for HIST 341: The History of Rock because you needed three more upper-division credits, and the registration system ate your first, second, and third choices. On the first day, you grab a seat near the back and prepare to be bored by another droning survey of dates and dead guys.

Then Professor Perry walks in and ruins your plan.

He’s not in tweed. Not in the performative black turtleneck of a musicologist who monologues about “late-capitalist post-punk.” He’s ink and quiet confidence, silver ring flashing as he sets down a dented thermos, sleeves pushed to his elbows. His hair is just overgrown enough to read as human, not curated, though you can imagine how it looks when he’s just woken up—messy, purposeful, unfair. He leans against the desk like the room belongs to him because, for the next seventy-five minutes, it does. He doesn’t read from slides. He talks—calm, unhurried, like he trusts you to follow. He folds time with his hands, tracing a line from Muddy Waters to Zeppelin to Riot Grrrl without losing breath.

He says, “The thing about rock is it keeps breaking itself to see what bleeds.”

You write down the sentence and then stare at it like a confession you didn’t expect to make today.

By week two, you’re in the front row.

You start dressing like a dare. Nothing obscene, nothing you couldn’t defend if anyone asked—just strategic: a slip of collarbone, a hem a fraction higher, lip gloss that says you know what your mouth can do even if you keep it closed. You tuck your hair behind your ear while he lectures about transgression as a creative engine, and the motion feels louder than the projector fan. He doesn’t look at you long; that’s how you know he’s noticed. Every time his eyes skate over your face and away again, the slide deck goes a little blurrier.

On the second Wednesday, you ask a question you already know the answer to—about the difference between sincerity and performance in punk—just to make him talk to you and only you. He hears the subtext. You can tell by how carefully he answers, measuring each word like a bartender who knows your tolerance.

After class, you take your time packing your bag. He erases the board, white dust catching in the hairs on his forearm. Students drift out in a murmuring current until the room is half-empty. You’re almost at the door when he says, “A minute? If you’re free.”

You are always free for this.

“Your paper proposal,” he says, tapping the edge of your one-page outline with his knuckle. “It’s ambitious—‘The Body as Amplifier: Gender, Gaze, and the Live Stage.’ If you chase it, you’ll have to get very precise about terms.”

You don’t mean to step into his space as you speak; your body does the math for you. “I can be precise,” you say, and your voice sounds softer than the conversation requires. “If you’ll… help me… refine it.”

He holds your eye a second too long, sees everything he shouldn’t see, and blinks it away. “That’s what office hours are for.”

“Friday?” you ask.

“Friday,” he says, and you both pretend it’s a word that means only itself.

Office hours smell like old books and his thermos coffee—burnt, loyal. He’s alone when you knock and gesture you in with a lift of his fingers, the veins on his hand mapping the exact amount of blood you don’t need to think about. His walls are a minor museum: framed tour posters and a black-and-white photo of a guitarist’s hands; a crumpled setlist pinned above a shelf crowded with vinyl and monographs. There’s a plant in the corner that looks like it’s thriving only because he talks to it between grading sessions.

You sit. He pulls your chair closer to the desk with two fingers hooked around the back like he’s moving a chess piece, then thinks better of how intimate that looks and lets go. Your knee bumps the desk’s underside; the vibration skitters through both of you.

“Refine it,” he says—business, professional, all safe edges—and dives into the work. He’s good at it, this careful narrowing, this art of naming what you’re actually saying. He sketches a small triangle on a notepad. “If the thesis is here,” he says, tapping the point, “then every paragraph has to feed it. No scenic detours, even if the scenery’s gorgeous.”

“Are you saying I’m indulgent?” You ask, your mouth curving like you already know the answer.

“I’m saying you’re brave with the risks you’re taking,” he counters, smiling back before he drags the expression off his face.

Your shoulders relax. The conversation finds its rhythm—terms and citations and three perfectly placed examples he pulls from memory like he keeps a live index card catalog under his tongue. You forget to be coy because you’re enjoying the work, the clarity, and the click of ideas into alignment. When you forget to flirt, he does, too. He leans in—closer, elbows on the desk, his focus a physical thing that warms the air between you. You inhale and get coffee and laundry soap and something clean you can’t name, and then the moment happens. The small, stupid, fatal moment.

You pass him a printout. Your fingers brush his when he takes it. He doesn’t move.

The world narrows to contact. The paper crackles, uncertain. He lifts his eyes, and the look is direct enough to count as touch on its own. He should drop your hand. He should say something neutral and stand. He doesn’t.

“Sorry,” he says finally, except he doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds like a man who has found himself suddenly off-map and is deciding whether to enjoy it or not.

“It’s okay,” you say, because it is, and also because “okay” is not the right word for what your pulse is doing.

He clears his throat, places the printout deliberately on the desk, and tries to steer you both back into the lane. “Where were we?”

“Citing performance theory to avoid saying what we mean,” you answer, and your voice shakes, just a little, betraying you like a loose floorboard when you were just trying to sound confident.

His mouth twitches. “Brat,” he mumbles.

You shouldn’t love the way the word fits in his mouth. You do. You swallow it like a warm shot and feel it hit all the familiar places on the way down.

“We should keep this—” he makes a motion between you like a careful bridge, “—professional.”

You shouldn’t love that he had to say it out loud because it means he was thinking it. You do.

“I’m capable of being professional,” you lie.

He knows you’re lying. “Friday’s over,” he says, softer. “Go home. Write. Bring me something I can’t ignore.”

You stand. Your bag strap slips down your shoulder, and he reaches to fix it on instinct before stopping himself an inch away, hand hovering. The air hums.

“Tony,” you hear yourself say. You don’t mean to. The name leaps out like a fish. He stills—immediately. A full-body freeze. You’ve slipped. You’ve fallen. You’ve told him the exact precise thing he has been refusing to name for the past forty minutes.

“Professor,” he corrects quietly, but it lands less like a boundary and more like a plea.

You nod. “Professor,” you repeat, properly.

He exhales, and the breath sounds like relief and regret in equal measure. “Go home,” he says again, and this time you do.

That night, your draft is sharper than you expect because he’s in every sentence. You write, delete, and write again, chasing the heat up and down the page, until the muscles in your hand ache with the shape of his name you aren’t allowed to put into MLA format.

The next week, you sit in the front row like a lit match.

He’s different. Not obvious—no one else would see it—but you can feel the static, the adjustment. He doesn’t look at you while he traces Hendrix’s distortion back to Delta blues. He doesn’t call on you when your hand goes up. He asks another student to pass back papers so his fingers won’t brush yours again. He is, in every visible way, the model of a man who is proud of his distance.

It’s supposed to make you stop.

Instead, it drives you insane and even more infatuated with him.

You learn from him in new ways. The way he hooks his thumb into his pocket when he’s thinking. The way he rolls a stick of chalk between his fingers, leaving faint dust prints along his knuckles. The way he says “punk” like a promise and “pop” like a door you can walk through without knocking. You go to office hours and talk about your paper like it’s the only thing you care about. You know he hears the second soundtrack under your voice. His replies are clean and distilled. Between the lines, there is a storm brewing.

On a Wednesday that smells like rain, the first break happens.

You’re the last one packing up. The class has spilled into the corridor, a messy river of backpacks and opinions. He’s unscrewing his thermos. You come up to the desk not because you need anything but because you need to be close enough to hear him breathe.

“I got the journal article you recommended,” you say. “On embodiment and power.”

“Good,” he says—safe word, safe tone, safe distance. He doesn’t look. His hands are busy with a lid that suddenly won’t cooperate.

“You were right,” you add. “About it being… clarifying.”

Something in the way you say "clarifying" makes him look up. The look catches both of you unprepared. You didn’t expect your mouth to feel like a confession. He didn’t expect to like it that much. A beat. Two. His knuckles whiten around the thermos. He inhales, trying to reset—then stops. You’re close enough to see the moment the reset fails.

“Don’t,” he says.

“Don’t what?” Your question is soft and ruthless.

“Don’t tell me I’m right just because you think it’ll get you what you want,” he says, the honesty cutting sharper than he means it to.

“What do I want?” you ask, stepping into the space beside the desk so his body is between you and the door. You’re not touching, but you feel like you're touching everywhere all at once.

He stands there and tries to save both of you with a joke. “A good grade,” he says, and it’s cute that he thinks the room is still capable of jokes.

You lift your chin. “I want you to stop pretending these are only ideas.”

Silence hurtles between your ribs. He takes a step forward because he’s human, then forces himself back because he’s also decent. He’s losing the internal battle. He knows it. You know it. You close the distance because you’re tired of pretending you don’t like what it feels like when your gravity field bends his.

“Please,” you say. “If you’re going to be distant, at least tell me the truth about why.”

His jaw works. He sets the thermos down carefully, slowly, like any rash movement will set off the room. “Because it’s wrong,” he says at last. “Because I can ruin things I love by wanting them too much. Because I’m not a boy anymore, and I know the cost of impulse.”

“What a beautiful answer,” you whisper, and you mean it. “What a brave lie.”

He exhales sharply. You can feel the warmth of it on your cheek. You can count the lashes on his lower lid. He’s not touching you, but he’s touching you in every way that matters.

“Just say stop,” he says, voice fraying.

“Don’t you dare,” you answer, and you reach.

You don’t kiss him hard. You don’t need to. You put your mouth on his like you’re signing your name on a form you’ve already read four times. He makes a sound—broken, relieved, terrified—then answers you. His hand finds your jaw like he’s memorized it in a past life and is grateful to confirm the topography. He tastes like coffee and a word you haven’t learned yet, and you feel like your knees are about to give out on you.

It is less than a minute. It is a year. It is the exact amount of time required to alter a trajectory.

He pulls away first, swearing under his breath, thumb still against your cheek like he forgot to tell it to stop. “I’m sorry,” he says, already paler, already building distance like scaffolding between the two of you.

“For kissing me?” You’re breathless but steady.

“For liking it,” he says, and you feel yourself fall the rest of the way.

He steps back then—one, two—like he’s staggering, and the room goes bright with his guilt. “We can’t. I can’t.”

Your mouth curves even as you ache. “You just did.”

“I won’t again,” he says.

You don’t argue. You don’t need to. In his eyes, you can see that he’s not telling the truth.

After that interaction, you collect your kisses like contraband.

An empty stairwell, the shadow of the back row after everyone leaves, the hallway outside his office, a breath’s worth of mouth, and the soft drag of his fingers down your wrist before he disappears like a warning. Every time, he’s the one who ends it, the one who says no more, the one who puts two or three days between you to prove he’s good. He’s very good at guilt. It makes him stern in class, almost cold, with unfairness turned up like a volume knob to drown out everything else.

When he passes back an exam, his knuckle grazes the back of your hand. The contact sends a spark up your arm that lands square in your throat. He pretends nothing has happened and moves to the next desk. You sit there, still, like the room is a photograph.

One late afternoon, he stays seated while you stand to leave, and his eyes end up level with your sternum. He blinks and stares at the corner of the room, somewhere safely boring. “This is getting harder,” he says before he can stop himself.

“I know,” you say. The honesty makes your lungs sting. “I keep replaying that first kiss when I try to sleep.”

He stands so fast the chair squeals. “Don’t,” he says, pained. “Don’t tell me that.”

“Then kiss me and I’ll stop talking,” you whisper, and you mean it, and it ruins him for the rest of the day.

He doesn’t. Not that day. He walks around the desk and opens the door like a gentleman escorting a guest out after a museum gala. You leave, vibrating so hard your bones feel like tuning forks.

He’s confusing in the ways good men are when they’re drowning in their own decency. He avoids you—in the hall, in the snack line, in the student lounge—then sends you two paragraphs of feedback on your bibliography that are so careful, so generous, you want to show them to someone just to prove he’s real. You don’t show anyone. You are not an idiot. You are reckless, but not stupid.

You start listening to the homework like it’s a way to touch him legally. Blue's riffs seep into your shower time. You dance in your kitchen to Patti Smith while your tea cools. When he talks about distortion as a deliberate choice, you hear him talking about you.

You catch him after class and hand him your newest draft. He takes it like evidence, as if a page could be contraband. You lean over the desk to point at a paragraph that still feels flabby; he nods, then flinches because your hair has fallen and grazed his wrist.

On a Thursday in late October, he hosts a guest lecture—a friend who toured in the ‘90s and somehow survived. The room is packed, sweaty, and full of the giddy indecorum of free pizza. You sit in the front, legs crossed, trying not to be obvious. He does not look at you once in the whole hour, which in Tony-time means he looked at you constantly when you weren’t watching.

After, the friend holds court at the front, students circling. You hover by the doorway, waiting until the cluster thins. Tony catches sight of you, and his expression does a complicated, private thing. He excuses himself from the friend with a back-slap and comes toward you, but the way he sets his shoulders says he intends to be good.

“Nice event,” you say. Your voice is cool, but your hands aren’t.

He nods. “Yeah.” The room is a mess of paper plates and half-empty cups. “Are you heading out?”

“I thought I’d tell you—” you start, and then a hand clasps his shoulder. It’s his friend, gregarious and oblivious, pulling him back into conversation. “One sec,” Tony says to you, apologetic, and you nod even though your heart drops a half-inch.

You grab your bag and slide out into the corridor. Fluorescent light flickers, buzzing like a trapped fly. You should go home. You should, but you don’t.

You lean against the cool wall and wait. Five minutes. Ten. The lecture hall empties in a trickle. Finally, he steps into the hall alone, eyes finding you like he knew exactly where you’d be.

“I wanted to say,” you tell him, quietly, “I got an email from the department. They approved my revised topic for the final paper.”

His mouth softens. “Good.”

“I mentioned you in my acknowledgments,” you add, and it’s a joke, but it’s also the truest thing you’ve said all day.

He closes his eyes for a second, as if it physically hurts. Then he opens them and does the brave thing that will cost him sleep. He reaches out and touches your wrist. Just that. Two fingers, gentle, a point of contact that lights up your whole body.

“Come here,” he says, and there’s nowhere to go but into the shadow between two doorways.

The kiss is softer than the last. Truer. You feel him opening and resisting at the same time. His hand skims your waist, respectful even now, not a grip but a promise of one. Your fingers slide into his hair, and he makes a sound that registers somewhere between prayer and profanity.

“Say stop and I will,” he says against your mouth—habit, oath.

“Don’t,” you breathe.

He doesn’t. He presses you the smallest bit into the wall, enough to make you feel the line of his body, the safety of his strength. Your mouth opens like a door; he has earned the right to walk through. He explores carefully, fully present, no games. When he pulls back, your lips chase him without your consent, and he smiles like that’s the worst and best thing he’ll think about all week.

He steps away first. His eyes are dark with want, hollow with guilt. “I’m sorry,” he says—because that’s all he ever lets himself say.

“I’m not,” you answer, and he flinches because he loves that about you.

“This is getting dangerous,” he murmurs, then laughs at the absurdity of what counts as danger in a corridor with a vending machine flickering. “Don’t come to the office tomorrow.”

“Then look me in the eyes and tell me that you mean that,” you say.

He stares at you for a long time. “I can’t,” he says finally, which is his most honest sentence yet.

The small things multiply.

A shoulder brush in the copy room. A pressed, restrained kiss in his office when the door is technically open. You start wearing sweaters; he has to push down at the collar to get his mouth to your throat in the seven seconds you allow yourselves before sanity returns. You keep it all between the lines—no streaking across the field, no open defiance of the scoreboard. It nearly kills you, this discipline. It kills him slowly because he’s older and knows the art of endurance, but it kills him, too.

When he’s guilty, he grades your drafts with a surgeon’s precision and emails you at 2 a.m. with notes that make you cry because he sees you, not just the work—you. When he can’t stand wanting you, he becomes kind in a way that is cold: Good point; revise paragraph three. You learn the weather by his punctuation.

On the first truly cold day, you stop by a tiny record store near campus. The bell over the door is timid; the clerk looks like they’ve been nineteen since 1998. You flip through a bin without seeing any of the jackets because your brain is playing the highlight reel of Tony: the curve of his mouth when he says "good" and the way his laugh has two registers. You pick up an album at random and turn—and then there he is down the aisle, a knit beanie pulled low, a battered leather jacket soft from the years. He looks like the secret origin story of the professor persona: young, hungry, and dangerous in a way that feels like faith.

You both freeze. Then you both smile, helpless.

“This is my church,” he says, voice low, like the albums will judge him if he’s loud.

“I came to make confessions,” you joke.

He tips his head, acknowledging the line. “Careful,” he says. “I’m weak here.”

“Good,” you say, and you step into his space.

He doesn’t kiss you between S and T because even his worst decisions have integrity. He does let his fingers slide along the inside of your wrist, a slow stroke that leaves your skin buzzing for an hour, and when you pick up a record by an artist he loves, he leans in to tell you why, and his mouth almost touches your ear. Almost. The very moment is where you will live for the next two days.

~~~

It’s nearly dark outside. His office is a warm square sucked out of the corridor’s chill. You bring him a draft that is honest in a way that scares you. He reads one paragraph twice. Three times. Sets the pages down carefully as if they’re made of breath.

“This is… it,” he says. “This is the exact argument you’ve been circling.”

You joke so you won’t cry, but he doesn’t laugh. He sees you, really sees you, and it unravels you more than the silence. His chair screeches back as he stands and crosses the space between both of you, and it’s happening again, the same pull neither of you can name. Either of you could stop it, but you don’t.

The kiss starts slow and breaks open—hungry, reined-in, hungry again. His hands bracket your face with reverence that makes your knees weak. Your fingers slide under the edge of his jacket, and his whole body shudders like you’ve found a switch he didn’t know was there. He pulls back once to breathe you in, forehead on yours, eyes closed.

“Tell me if this is too much,” he murmurs.

"Tony," I breathe, and he groans, the name a trigger that unleashes a torrent of desire. His hands roam under my sweater, exploring the curves of my body, his touch a blend of reverence and hunger. I guide his mouth to my throat, and he loses himself, his tongue tracing a scorching path down my neck.

The door is locked, but you can hear the voices drifting from the corridor, but we're lost in our own world, the risk of discovery only heightening the thrill. He pulls away, straightening my clothes, smoothing my hair with shaking hands. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, but the apology rings hollow. We both know he's not.

He kisses me again, his hands returning to their exploration, this time more daring. He traces the curve of my breast, his thumb brushing against my nipple through the thin fabric of my bra. I gasp, the sensation sending a jolt of pleasure straight to my core. He takes it as an invitation, his hand slipping under my bra, his fingers finding my nipple, rolling it between them, sending waves of pleasure coursing through me.

I reach for his belt, my fingers fumbling with the buckle. He groans, his dick hardening against my hand. I slide my hand inside his pants, my fingers wrapping around his dick, feeling it twitch in response. He groans, his head falling back, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

I sink to my knees, my hands working his pants down. His dick springs free, hard and throbbing. I take it in my hand, stroking it gently, my thumb brushing over the tip, spreading the bead of precum that's gathered there. He groans, his hands tangling in my hair.

I take him in my mouth, my tongue swirling around the tip, tasting him, savoring him. He groans, his hands tightening in my hair, guiding me, setting the pace. I take him deeper, my lips sliding down his shaft, my tongue teasing the underside. He groans, his body trembling, his dick twitching in my mouth.

He pulls me up, his lips crashing into mine, his hands roaming my body, pulling at my clothes. He pushes me against the desk, his hands sliding under my skirt, pulling my panties aside. I gasp as he enters me, his dick filling me, stretching me. He groans, his forehead pressed against mine, his breath hot against my skin.

He starts to move, slowly at first, then faster and harder. I wrap my legs around him, pulling him deeper, my fingers digging into his back. He groans, his movements becoming more urgent, more desperate. I can feel myself teetering on the edge, the pleasure building, threatening to overwhelm me.

He reaches between us, his fingers finding my clit, circling it, teasing it. I gasp, the pleasure intensifying, my orgasm building. He groans, his movements becoming more frantic, more desperate. I can feel him getting closer, his dick twitching inside me.

We come together, our bodies shuddering, our breaths mingling. He collapses against me, his body trembling, his breath hot against my neck. We stay like that for a moment, our bodies entwined, our breaths mingling. Then he pulls away abruptly, as if the air between you is hot enough to blister. He says your last name like it’s the only thing keeping him from saying your first in a tone that would get him fired. “We can’t do that ever again,” he rasps.

“Then stop acting like you care about me,” you fire back, suddenly feeling your blood run cold.

He laughs, broken. “I can’t.”

You should be ashamed of how much pride blooms in your chest at that but you’re not.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, and it lands with a weight you recognize as the backbone of who he is when no one’s watching.

“Then don’t,” you say, simple as gravity, and he looks at you like the solution might really be that simple, if only the world were less complicated.

The guilt gets worse after that. He withdraws, starving you of office hours for a full week. In class, he’s immaculate—focused, formal, almost theatrical in how evenly he distributes his attention. He doesn’t look at you when you answer a question with brilliance you earned at 1 a.m. He doesn’t laugh when you make a joke that would usually crack him open. He’s performing decency like a man who could get an award for it.

You don’t chase him that week; instead, you let the distance stretch until it hums like a live wire between you, vibrating with everything unspoken. You write, and you pour all of it into the paper—the longing and the rage, the ache of restraint, the way desire itself begins to feel like a kind of religion, sacred and punishing in equal measure. The draft that comes from it is the best thing you’ve written in years, sharpened by hunger and softened by confession. You email it, and when it’s gone from your hands, you finally sleep for the first time in days.

That morning, you see that he replies at 5:12 a.m., which is either very late or very early. This is rare. Proud of you. — T.

It’s the first time he signs an email with just an initial, and you press your phone to your mouth and breathe like you’ve surfaced from deep water, startled by how something so small can feel like proof of a secret you’re not supposed to hold.

When he breaks again, it isn’t neat. He doesn’t kiss you and then retreat with a quip to cover it; he kisses you and stays there, breathing hard, his hands buried in your hair like he’s forgotten how they arrived, like memory itself has surrendered. It happens after a lecture on rebellion as spectacle—how authenticity gets commodified, amplified, and sold back to us with a louder amp. You wait until the last student drifts out, the shuffle of footsteps fading down the hall. He wipes the chalkboard clean, line by line, pretending not to notice your reflection lingering in the darkened glass of the windows.

“Are you angry at me?” you ask at last, your voice stripped down, too tired for games or careful phrasing.

He turns, the chalk still in his hand like a prop in a play he’s forgotten the lines to. “I’m angry at me,” he admits, low and unflinching, “for wanting something I have no right to want.”

“You do have it,” you say, because your body is bold when your brain is exhausted, because the truth slips out easier when you’re too tired to lie to yourself.

The chalk drops into the tray with a hollow clatter. In four quick steps, he’s across the room, and your back hits the edge of the front row as his mouth finds yours. The kiss isn’t careful and it isn’t polite; it’s honest, and the honesty burns. His hands slide down to your waist and pull you closer until there is nothing left between you but heat and breath and the low sound in his throat that unravels every nerve you’ve ever had. Your hands circle his neck, and you feel the flex of muscle under your palms—the physical proof of him, the weight of everything he’s been holding back. When his mouth drags along your jaw, you hear yourself make a sound you didn’t know you could make, one that will live in his head and undo him each time he tries to sleep.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he murmurs against your skin, the words a confession and a plea all at once.

“I know,” you breathe, pulling his face back up until his eyes meet yours. “But do it anyway.”

He shakes his head, pain etched across his features. “You don’t deserve a man who hides.”

“Then stop hiding,” you say, and the dare makes the air go thin, as if the room itself is waiting for his answer.

He steps back on a visible effort of will, chest heaving, hair mussed—your fault. He looks wrecked and righteous at the same time. “This is me stopping,” he says, voice hoarse, as though the words scrape him raw. “This is me being the adult.”

You nod, crushed beneath the weight of it, because for the first time, it sounds like he truly means it. “Okay,” you whisper, though the word tastes like surrender.

He stares at your mouth like he’s trying to memorize it, like he’ll need the shape of you just to survive the lifetime. Then he turns, grabs his bag with shaking hands, and leaves the room without looking back. The door closes, and you sit alone in the front row, your pulse settling by increments. The chalkboard still has the word authenticity half-erased. You laugh quietly—sad, a little wild. “Yeah,” you tell the empty room. “We know.”

[digenovanicolo]

Tony Perry??? nah what a nerd what a— [trips] [hundreds of thousands of photos of Tony spill out of jacket] w-what a fuckign asshole i— these arent mine im just [gathering them up frantically sweating] listen i just listen fuck [thousands of pictures of Tony scatter across the floor] shit fcuk im holding them for a friend jus t listen

[beachcemetery]

[0ills]

Gee! Absolutely cannot capture his eyes so this is as close as its gonna get 🙏😔

[0ills]

Frank!! Getting better at capturing peoples essence I think 🤔🤔 Who should I draw next… 

[0ills]

Been practicing drawing people so I tried to replicate one of my favorite photos of the guys :3