𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵 @7hyuns - Tumblr Blog

million dollar man

johnny x reader

warnings; nsfw, slight angst, social class discrimination (? kinda), semi public sex

requested; yes a reallyyy long time ago by @cloroxteen sorry and thank you <3

a/n; please appreciate her this took so long

word count; 17.8k

songs; when the party’s over - billie eilish, million dollar man / without you / music to watch boys to - lana del rey

The ceiling was leaking again. Noticing made a sudden fatigue creep into your body, your movements slowing to a stop as you stared up at where the droplets of water began to form before falling. You wondered how long the hole had been there, if it even was a hole or simply damp again, how much it would cost to fix. Whatever it was, you knew it would be too much for you to afford. As it seems everything always is. Even with taking a home that was so closely compact to the industrial part of your city, it seemed nothing was at all cheaper.

You thought how fitting it seemed that you had gotten a leak in your ceiling just as fall began. That gave you far less time than you were going to need to scrounge up the money to get it fixed, especially if you wanted to get it done before the threat of part of your ceiling caving in became all too real. Though you heavily doubted that was something you’d be able to do, and considered the all-too-likely possibility of having to do it yourself this time.

At least last year you had been able to work two jobs, and relatively comfortably considering the length the situation of Chicago’s businesses had been going on. It was only just before Valentine’s day that something had gone awfully wrong at one of the stores you worked at, and it found itself closed down. Forty-eight people had lost their jobs that day, which seemed to make finding another forty-eight times harder in the city. For a while you had thought getting by with the one job would be enough if you were cautious – and bought nothing you didn’t absolutely need – but even that seemed a strain these days.

Not only was it fatiguing to see your ceiling giving up on you, it was painful to think that with the way you were living, you would never have anything you wanted. Even if you did eventually work enough to have the things you needed, which seemed a push from where you were standing watching a puddle form on your kitchen floor. In that moment, living had never seemed more bleak.

You walked around the splattering water to reach the cupboard underneath your kitchen sink, looking for the rusted tin bucket that you’d kept from the other times this had occurred. Dropping the bucket with a clash of hollow tin onto wet tile floors, you heard the drops begin to echo onto the surface. Taking a wary glance at the thin puddle on the floor, you realised you would be better off cleaning it up before you relaxed. You couldn’t find the energy, however, and instead made the short trip from facing the back of your couch to sitting down in the small space of the attached living room. Even these short strides seemed too much for you to comprehend doing, and that feeling remained despite you already tucking your legs up underneath you as you sat on the worn fabric.

The couch itself had seen too many years since it had been gifted to your parents on their wedding day to still be considered comfortable by any means. That was only if you stayed still on it for too long, though, which seemed the only saving grace you could find in it. Much like all of your other large furniture items that you’d filled the two main rooms of your ground-floor apartment with, you hadn’t paid for it. Or even picked it out yourself. Your parents had been kind enough to give you the old stuff that had been lingering in the garage of your childhood home for fear of losing the memories attached to them.

Thinking of them when you had a moment to yourself made you suddenly regretful. For what, you weren’t sure. Maybe being away from them both seemed a better idea at the time you left, or maybe you missed the simplicity of life on the further outskirts of the city. Maybe it was only a longing for your childhood to come back so you didn’t have to think about all of the grown-up things for yourself anymore. You had regretted running off what seemed so far since the day you had done it, but there was nothing more you could do now. Sometimes you could barely remember why you had moved to the city anyway. Chasing big dreams, or following someone who was chasing big dreams. One of you had managed to make those big dreams become real, had turned them into a tangible thing.

Looking around your cosy home, it seemed simple to tell that the one who had struck out wasn’t you. You supposed, with the ever-so-wonderful hindsight, moving straight into the city by yourself at a time so obsessed with glitz and glamour hadn’t been such a fine idea. Though you knew the largest reason you had followed the someone else into the city in the first place had been to earn your own glitz and glamour life-style.

Sitting on your parents couch in a flat with a leak in the ceiling, you were beginning to think you should have done what all other American girls did when they were seeking success and education, and moved to New York. Even your friends had spoken dreamily of the big city, saying that’s the only place you could ever hope to find real culture and, as most of your friends insisted, real jazz.

Chicago wasn’t a place of real culture or real jazz, not in any shape or form. You could guess it was warmer in New York than it was in Chicago, too. If you had flourished in a certain area, or if you had a passion, maybe you could have taken the chance and followed it all the way to New York. But you didn’t and you hadn’t. Instead you had moved further into your home city at the worst possible time and found yourself, along with all of the friends who had stayed, shrouded in fear and crime.

You had to remind yourself that it wasn’t all bad. You had to, because otherwise life seemed far too bleak to keep up with. The light rain that was pattering against your window would get worse, you knew. If not over the course of the night then in the morning, surely. The thought filled you with subdued fear. You wondered if the bucket would be enough to keep your stable through the entirety of the fall and into the winter. That was a tricky line to walk, though. If you left it too long, the ceiling would cave, just as the man who had fixed it last time had insisted.

The night seemed to be taking too long, and there was too much weighing on your mind to consider staying awake any longer. You rose up and took long, dragged footsteps the short few paces to cross over the door-frame into your bedroom. You didn’t bother even turning the light on, feeling as though the weight of the world was suddenly resting on your shoulders. You kicked the door shut behind you, tugging your work short off and stepping out of your skirt to pull an older, looser shirt on to cover yourself.

When you had finally crawled into your bed it seemed colder than you had expected. Even the sheets felt icy and uncomfortable when you tugged them up to cover yourself. There’s little more I can do, you reminded yourself, closing your eyes and hoping for warmth. The thought made you want to laugh, with its consistency in your daily thinking. I hope, I hope, I hope. But what good had that been doing you in the last few years, really? You wondered whether the hope of meeting success had been enough for the boy you’d followed. Judging from where he’d made it in such a short span of time, you could only imagine it had been far more than hope that had given him what he had now.

///

The books had been handled badly in, “The Ox,” for such a long time that even with having worked there for over a year, there seemed so much to do. The owner, who was only ever briefly glimpsed around the bar once a month gathering his reports, never wearing a name tag, was called Sicheng. You had never found the confidence to ask too many questions about the man – what his last name was (though you had discovered within the pages of the book that his full name was Dong Sicheng and he was around your age), where he was from, why he seemed to have a lack of interest in his own business – though that was the same for many people.

Men in bars loved to talk to anyone that would listen, which happened to be the most difficult job of the women pouring their drinks. And, as usual, women – without the exemption of yourself – loved to gossip about the most interesting things they could find out. The happiest moments in your daily life was when you would be preparing to go home, or even when one of the women would spend their break in your mini-office instead of having to leave the building into the fall chill, would seek you out to tell you something exciting they had learnt. Dong Sicheng had become a natural inquisition for most of the people who had him as a boss, as there seemed to be so little available to learn about him. All they had known upon first getting their jobs was his name and that he wasn’t from Chicago, or even America at all.

Over time, with the information the women working at the bar had collected, you’d put together a vague, blurry image of Sicheng in your mind. His name was Dong Sicheng but oftentimes in letters he received he was referred to as Winwin. He was around your age, he was from China though you didn’t know where. And he was very anti-social. Once a month was about as often as he’d show his face. That didn’t seem too strange considering what it was the women said the men who grew too brave in their drunkenness for their own good.

Most of them said he was part of a gang that had come over from China to work with the American gangs, though you didn’t know how realistic that seemed. All the stories about him seemed in ultimate agreement that he worked in some kind of dirty business. Though, with the state the city was in, you weren’t sure you would confidently say that any business wasn’t like to be dirty. Either way, whenever you looked over the books, you knew that something was out of the ordinary. Too many odd payments were made or received with no reason given, or a short, ‘donation,’ if anything. You didn’t think it was probable that anyone would be making donations to some bar on a main street of Chicago when there must have been hundreds of others in the surrounding area.

You stretched out in your seat, staring blankly at the box of papers you had to sort through today. You didn’t think it would too difficult a task, and you thought if you moved quickly you could get it finished before the half-way mark of the day. Not that that meant too much, your work day would still end at the same time whether you rushed through it or not.

Despite knowing it was a littler amount than you had expected, it didn’t seem to make the first two hours pass any faster. By the first time in the day that one of the women who worked on the bar slipped into your office, every blink was beginning to feel like dragging sandpaper over your eyes. You could still feel the ever-present worry about the tin bucket on your kitchen floor; whether it had overflowed even though the rain was only light today, whether it had been knocked over by some mysterious force.

The woman had been working there just under a year, and was, to your surprise, younger than you. She had come from London hoping to find adventure in the ‘new world,’ which to her, had only been Chicago as of yet. Instead of finding her hoped for adventure, she had found a job in a bar that was possibly run by a gang member, but seemed altogether too quiet to keep her satisfied.

She was frowning when she walked into your working room, her brows drawn and eyes shying away from yours. You rose your eyebrows at her as she began to search the room for something else to look at. “Ada?” She offered you a tight-lipped smile. “Is everything alright?”

“No, I, I need to ask a favour.” She mumbled.

“Alright.”

When she looked at you, you made yourself smile reassuringly at her. This seemed to give her a shred more confidence, though she still seemed hesitant to ask. “I forgot to pick my medicine up this morning.” She declared, looking straight at you.

The difficulty she seemed to have asking the favour made you feel an odd sense of fondness rise in your chest. You smiled warmly at her. “Do you need to go and get it now?” She nodded. “So, what can I do to help you?”

She shuffled on her feet, tangling her hands with one another. “I was wondering if, you know if you had less work to do, if you could watch the bar while I go.” She paused, waiting to see if you reacted. “I would be quick! Not any more than an hour, I promise. It’s alright if you can’t, I could just, go, I could go later.”

You judged by her insistence on going now that going later wasn’t so open an option to her. You made yourself smile again to soothe her worries before you stood up. “It’s fine, I’ll be finished with this work within an hour, anyway. I’d be bored silly with nothing else to do.”

This seemed to soothe her enough for her to nod, though still not without hesitation. “An hour.” She repeated, though you assumed that was more to cool her own guilt.

You nodded. “I’ll see you then.”

After offering you an apologetic smile, she turned and left the room. The click of her short heels resounded until she reached the room where all of the workers left their belongings in the morning. When she was gone, you fell back into your same sense of empty tiredness. The fatigue wasn’t a calling for sleep, more so for some miracle gravitational shift that would change your life for the better. Or simply enough for me to not have to return home to a ruined ceiling. The sense of dramatics in your tired eyes made you wonder how much longer you had before that worry was for your whole home. Even the far away idea of it made your stomach turn in anxiety.

You pushed yourself up away from the table, flattening your palms to provide yourself some stability. For a minute, you stayed like that; breathing deeply and expecting the worst of your future. Yes, let’s follow an old friend to inner-city Chicago on the off-chance that we’ll find the same glamour he undoubtedly will. What a fine idea! And what a find outcome it had evidently been, standing in a room that smelt of woodchips and liquor, desperate to return home to a flat that smelt of mould and old furniture.

Once the angry butterflies having their own little riot in your stomach had relaxed, you stood up straight, and heaved in a deep sigh. “An hour,” you reminded yourself, though interacting with drunk men didn’t seem like it had an amount of time to take before it became awful. It’s only the start of the night, you cooled yourself. You turned, pausing only to wish that you were hidden away in the comfort of you bed once more, before walking out in the main area of the bar.

Despite it being early into the night, it was swirling with movement. The band that Sicheng had play in the bar for most of the week were in full swing, though the awe of their music was drowned out by a collection of drunken young men singing along. You slipped to move past them without alerting them of your presence. Finding your way to behind the safety of the bar at the back of the room proved a tasking challenge, with such a mess of bodies and drinks being jostled and knocked, creating even more of real mess that someone would have to clean when this place emptied later. You felt a stab of pity for them, seeing an older man spill half a pint of his beer onto the floor after stumbling into one of his group.

When you finally shut the little gate behind you, you steadied yourself again. The rising noise of music mingling with the murmuring cacophony of too many conversations happening at once was making your ears ring. Fall had meant the lights had to be turned on earlier in the day, with no natural lighting being enough for the workers to find their way around. Even that seemed to make your head spin. Reminder: no more looking for second jobs as a bar maid.

Someone called out at the bar’s edge, an older man with slicked back hair and a three-piece on, though he seemed to have lost the jacket to his suit. The other girl seemed busy loading a set of drinks up onto a tray, so you exhaled heavily and turned to face the man properly.

Putting on a customer friendly smile made you feel the sleepiness settle more obviously on your shoulders. How much longer can I carry my life on my back? That’s not where it’s supposed to be. But that’s where it was, and if you ever wanted it to be anywhere else, you had to work for it. “What can I get you tonight, sir?”

The man smiled, and you tried to guess whether this would go smoothly or make you wish you were anywhere else all over again. If there was any hint of your distaste for the possibility of him being anything other than amiable, he took it. A friendly smile lifted his lips. “Just two whiskeys, please.”

Your heart settled a bit. Nodding, you turned to prepare the drinks. The smell of the whiskey was potent as soon as you pulled the top of the bottle, like the smell of men mingled with the ash-trays that decorated the tables in here. You poured an equal amount into the two glasses and turned to place them on the bar in front of the man.

He smiled again, dropping the money he was clutching in his hand down onto the counter. He inclined his head in the way men said, ‘thank you,’ when they didn’t particularly want to say it. You supposed that was better than nothing. As much as there was no shortage of people crowding, ‘The Ox,’ they all seemed fairly too preoccupied with there conversations, or with shouting along to the band’s music, to be making frequent trips to the bar. That wouldn’t be good for Sicheng you supposed, but it was something you were grateful for.

Then the door opened, and the bruised blue light of the sky outside was visible again. The noise from the street leaked in only slightly, just by the sound of some argument happening on the street. Take the back when you go home today. Last time, you had been blocked in by the police breaking up another fight-gone-violent, and then by a crowd of people desperate for something to see. You weren’t in the mood for that to be how your day ended again.

You glanced over to the large group of men walking in. They were all done-up nicely; three-piece suits with fine jackets that made you assume they were businessmen, slicked back hair, and cigarettes hanging from their lips. You could have written them off normal customers for a bar like this. Though on your second glance you saw enough to make your stomach drop again.

He was dressed much the same as all of his other companions; his suit was a dull grey, his hair was pushed off of his face, though some of it had slipped from its position, and he blew a cloud of smoke from his lips as he looked over to the bar. You thought, I wish I was invisible. You thought, I hope he thinks I look as good as I think he does.

Either way, you wished your were busy with something else, so you didn’t look like you were blatantly staring at him. It seemed to late for a regret like that one, though. He had seen you, and was making it no secret. You were sure if anyone was paying attention, they could see his eyes blatantly take in your figure, or as much of it as he could with the bar covering you. He turned to the group where they were picking out somewhere to sit, and shouted something over to one of them. The boy looked younger than he was, and laughed at whatever comment he made, nodding and turning to say something to another one of them.

Then he started walking towards you. The crowds of people seemed less of a problem to him than they had been for you, as he simply walked calmly on his path to the bar. When someone stumbled into that path, he didn’t seem to notice them at all, letting them tumble their way back out of it. The ease seemed attractive to you, though you guessed it was because you wished you had that same sense of confidence. Just like when you were growing up alongside him, you had to remind yourself he only had the confidence that you didn’t because he was a man. Boys were always brought up to think of themselves as important, even if they weren’t from the city. Girls, well, that was less of a concern with girls.

By the time he reached the bar, the bitterness you had felt at the back of your throat for most of your childhood had returned. You suddenly wished he wasn’t there, that you’d never had to of seen him again. Especially not when I’ve spent all day thinking of my lack of success. Seeing him in his fancy suit with his fancy friends felt like salt was being poured into your wound.

He grinned as he reached the bar, looking you up and down again. When his eyes met yours again, you held back the pride of having him look so blatantly and pleasantly surprised at the way you looked. You made yourself raise your eyebrows expectantly instead. “What can I get you, sir?” You repeated the question as you’d said it earlier. That way you knew he couldn’t interpret it a different way. Is it different? You weren’t sure. Your ceiling back home was leaking, you had to find another job so you could get it fixed, and you were covering on the bar for someone – you didn’t want to think about how much more of you it would take to start chasing him again.

He tilted his head at you, his grin not faltering. “That’s cold.”

You remembered how you’d smiled at the man before, the smile that said ‘I-am-just-here-to-get-payed-and-I-don’t-get-paid-enough-to-deal-with-you’ and mirrored that action again. “Is there a problem, sir?”

A hint of insecurity was beginning to reach his eyes. His grin slipped just slightly before he lifted it back to its original place. “You haven’t forgotten me. I saw how you looked at me when I walked in.”

You didn’t know how to seem cold when he questioned you. My ceiling is leaking, I am looking for another job to fix it, and I’m covering the bar for someone. I don’t have time to be messing around with him. You sighed heavily, letting him get the better of you as he always seemed set on doing. “Oh yes,” you rose your voice so he couldn’t not realise you weren’t serious, “I remember now, you’re Johnny, we were in the same hometown.” You stared blankly at him. “Ready for your drinks now?”

He quirked a brow at you. “Having a bad day?”

The bitterness in the back of your throat tasted like heat and the aftertaste of whisky. “Perhaps I simply don’t like strangers making snide observations of me.”

The grin fell from his face completely, replaced by a look of offended annoyance. “Good thing I’m not a stranger then, isn’t it, ___?”

“You may as well be.”

“I know everything about you. A stranger would know nothing about you.”

You scoffed. “I see getting your own business didn’t make you any smarter.” You glanced around to check no one else was at the bar waiting on you while you bickered. If I lost this job…There was no one but you and Johnny. “And it would be knew.” You corrected.

He recoiled at the comment, and opened his mouth to speak again before pausing. “You’re right.” His expression turned into one of mock understanding. “The girl I knew would never be as cold as you are.”

The comment stung, digging underneath your skin to wait there until you needed substance to be angry with yourself later. “The boy I knew…” you searched his face to try and find any semblance of how he used to be. The boy you’d chased was long gone, that seemed clear as day to see. Seeing it so up-close to you hurt more than it had when you’d simply pictured it. “What happened to him?”

Johnny shrugged. “He grew up.”

“And became a rich man. I suppose that’d change a person easily enough.”

He laughed lightly, nodding. “Only for the better.”

“I’ve met enough rich men to prove you wrong there.”

“Maybe,” his grin had returned. Though it wasn’t like his old smiles used to be, it was still pleasant to see when it lit up his features as it did. “What about your friends, huh?”

Confusion became evident on your features. “What about them?”

He bevelled his head at you. “Are rich women much the same as rich men? I always assumed they were worse, since their money’s being held by the rich men.”

You laughed. “I would certainly be worse if a man was holding my money.” You paused for a moment before shaking your head and laughing again. “You think I’m friends with rich women?”

“Well, rich women tend to convene together.”

You shook your head in disbelief. “Tell me Johnny,” you began, placing your forearms on the bare in front of him, “why would I be working in a place like this if I was rich?”

He seemed stunted in his point. He shook his head and searched his face to catch any impression that you were joking. “You don’t,” he paused, as if thinking his original words would be too offensive, “you don’t have money?”

I have a leaking ceiling and I’m looking for another job, and now I’m covering work for someone, though you didn’t want him to know about all of that. “I don’t know where you got that impression.” You made yourself laugh again, trying to swallow how hard the reality of how stuck you were as it began to sink back in. Talking to Johnny had almost been enough for you to forget it for a moment. Though only a short moment.

His features had become drawn and serious. Not even that rang a bell of recognition for you. “You must be alright for money if the only job you need is a bar maid, though.” He suggested. You wondered whose conscience he was trying to subdue.

Something inside of you was begging with you not to tell him that that wasn’t true. It pleaded with you to agree, or to brush it off. To do anything that would mean he didn’t figure out your financial situation. You weren’t sure you could handle that kind of embarrassment today. So you only laughed and shrugged again. “I guess so.” You made sure the smile didn’t slip, and hoped that it looked real enough for him to note see through it. You breathed in deeply again, before he could continue speaking. “So, what can I get you?”

Disappointment clouded his features for a moment before he hummed. “Five whiskeys, please.” Even thinking about the price of the order made you feel far poorer than you already were. When the bitterness rose up again, you made yourself force it back. He worked for his money, you thought, but then, so do I.

You put his order onto a tray, “Should I bring this over to your table?”

“No, no,” he took the tray away from where your hands rested on it. “I’ve got it. Thank you.” He dropped the money onto the bar-top. You thought even that much cash would be close to how much you needed to get your ceiling fixed. And he has that to throw away on drinks. The bitterness had the same aftertaste as the overbearing smell of the whisky did.

He only came back over to the bar ten minutes before Ada was supposed to be back. There was a playful smile on his lips that moved up to meet his eyes, and you tried to make yourself copy the action. You failed, only succeeding in smiling a tight-lipped, half-formed look of vague disinterest in his direction.

The expression didn’t go unnoticed. “Too long a shift?” He joked.

If he was still the same Johnny he used to be, you’d say something like, ‘oh, god, you don’t know the half of it!’ But he wasn’t. There were things your pride couldn’t let you confide in him, especially not in a place like this. So you made yourself shrug, and hoped Ada would be late getting back. “I wouldn’t believe anyone if they told me they enjoyed working.”

Johnny laughed, and placed the tray of empty whisky glasses onto the bar-top. A few of glasses clinked when they tapped together. You glanced over at the clock. “Would you believe me?”

“I meant working class people, not businessmen in fancy suits.” You chided.

He nodded in mock understanding. “Businessmen work quite a lot, you know.”

You shrugged. “So do working class people.”

“You don’t.” He grinned.

‘Oh, god, you don’t know the half of it!’ You forced a laugh to pass your lips. “Being around men like you makes up for however much time you spend tucked away in an office.” You tried to sound teasing, but the aftertaste of bitterness lingered on your words.

He didn’t seem to note any animosity, only laughing with you. “When does your shift end?” He questioned, flattening his palms against the bar-top and looking at you expectantly.

Something about the way his hair was falling into his face, with his head tilted and jaw tightened, made you fell the angry butterflies in your stomach soften enough to flutter. He didn’t look like he used to. Despite his words, and the way his brown eyes looked dark enough to be considered smouldering in the golden light, you made yourself raise your eyes in disapproval. “Flirting with a bar maid? Is that allowed for a man in your position?”

He chuckled, and dropped his head for a moment. When he looked up, you felt a blush reach your cheeks as if you were still the same young girl with a silly crush on the boy who seemed so much greater than you could ever be. “Anything’s allowed for a man in my position.”

You scoffed, “I see your confidence hasn’t faltered.”

“I see your unwillingness to answer questions hasn’t faltered.”

Shrugging, you moved to flatten your own palms on the bar-top. Though the space between your heights seemed infinite, you tilted your head up only slightly. “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“Maybe they’re uninteresting.”

It was his turn to scoff. “Flirting’s too mundane for you?”

“I am a bar maid.”

Johnny hummed. “Are you now?”

You recoiled slightly, pulling your hands off of the bar-top and moving away from him. “What kind of question is that?”

“An interesting one.”

Shaking your head, you looked to the door that lead into the room before the staff exit. There was no sign of movement there. Ada was running three minutes late. Somehow that made you grateful. “An uneducated one, you mean.”

“You don’t dress like a bar maid. Or pour drinks like you do it regularly.” He pointed out.

You sighed. “Why’s that any of your concern?”

He furrowed his brows. “Because if you’re not a bar maid, that means you lied.”

“So? It’s not like you need me to tell you the truth.”

“What was that promise we made?” He asked, leaning further onto the bar-top. “That we’d never lie to one another?”

You scoffed again. “Well, we were nine. I can’t keep all the promises I made to everyone when I was that age.”

He fell into a vague silence. You weren’t sure if you were supposed to say something to fill the empty space, though you couldn’t think of anything. Not being able to have the right words to say to him made you feel strange, almost inept.

“Well, whatever it is that you do,” he began, “when does your shift end?”

You laughed, half in disbelief and half in surprise at the surrealism of what seemed to be happening. “When the bar closes.” He hummed in acceptance of your answer. “Why do you need to know?”

“I wanted to take you to the pictures.”

You laughed. “I’m sure that’s what you wanted to do.” You teased, still feeling the anticipation of Ada showing up despite knowing Johnny had already figured you out.

Johnny raised his hands in mock surrender. “You know me. I’m nothing if not a gentleman.”

I don’t, you wanted to say. Instead you made yourself smile the same smile that was a size too small for you. “As are all businessmen.”

He took the edge in your voice as comedy, and laughed loudly again, before shaking his head softly. “You know, it’s quite dangerous for a lady to be walking home in the dark at the same time as drunken men.”

You made a noise somewhere between a scoff and an amused chuckle. “Well, thank you for your concern, sir, but I’m sure I’ll be just fine.”

He didn’t laugh. His features grew drawn in seriousness as he stared at you. “Do you not want me to walk you home?”

The idea of him seeing the very exterior of your building, with its brittle bricks and boarded up windows where different flats had been shut off, made embarrassment flood through you. Though you were sure even if he happened to miss those things in the dark, he would want to come in for a drink. Then he would see the old furniture, the leaking ceiling, and he would know you had lied to him more than once.

You scoffed at him. “I think your intentions might be worse than you’re implying.”

A grin turned his lips up again. The sight of him relaxing enough to joke made the nerves in your stomach cool slightly. “Would you want them any other way?”

Humming, you saw Ada appear in the doorway. She offered you an apologetic smile, seeing as she was nearing fifteen minutes later than she had promised to be. You imagined the city at this time would be crowded to navigate on foot, so you only shook your head at her. Tapping your fingertips against the bar-top a few times, you offered Johnny a quizzical look before turning your back on him.

“Is your shift over?” He asked, following you along as you walked toward the gate that sectioned off the open area from the alcohol lining the shelves.

A breathy laugh passed your lips. “No,” you responded.

You passed out of the gate, passing Ada as you did. She paused, quirking a brow at Johnny following closely on your heels. Her hand found your wrist as she stopped you lightly in your tracks. “Everything alright?” She asked.

Smiling brightly, you nodded, moving to squeeze her hand, “He’s just an old friend.” You assured.

She studied him for a moment before releasing her grip. “Give me a shout if you need me, alright?”

You smiled at her one last time before moving to make your way back to your small office. Johnny stuck himself to your side, and suddenly getting through the dense crowds of people didn’t seem such a task. There was an energy of confidence radiating off of him that other people seemed to pick up easily enough, scampering out of his path as he walked. When you reached the closed wooden door of your office, you turned to look up at him.

“What are you doing?”

He smiled, tilting his head at you. “Maybe I’d like to see your real work-place.”

Scoffing, you began to push the door open, walking in with him close on your heels. “There you go with your false intentions again.”

Laughing, he stepped inside the small room. “So I’m the one that spends all day tucked away?” You glared over at him, though he only shrugged. “It’s like those fox holes you used to get your foot caught in back home.”

“You used to fall in them, too.” You defended.

He shrugged, walking over to your desk and looking down at the papers discarded there. “You do the books for this place?”

You tilted your head at him, raising your eyebrows expectantly. “Don’t think I have the intelligence for it?”

He smiled, lifting the latest paper you’d last been working, eyes drifting over the words before he looked back at you. “There’s nothing you don’t have the intelligence for.”

His words flattered you more than any of the times people had called you pretty. Strangely, you wished he would notice more of your skills in the work laying out on the table, though you knew that was little enough to show for your intelligence.

When Johnny began walking towards you, you found your breath growing baited. For a moment, it didn’t matter that you didn’t know him as well as you used to. It didn’t even matter that your ceiling was leaking at home, or that you were looking for a second job to try and get it fixed, or that you supposed to be working right now. Even though if I lost this job…

His eyes were searching your face for something. Whether that was hesitancy to kiss him, or a want to kiss him, you couldn’t tell. All you knew was that there was no hesitancy in your mind about him kissing you. Still, he seemed to have frozen in his position, only looking down at you, searching and searching for something you couldn’t see for yourself.

“Johnny,” you mumbled, his name feeling strange in your mouth, “get on with it.”

A grin met his features again. His hands came to cup your face, and for a moment the same searching look came back to him. You moved your own hands to grip the sides of his suit jacket, and tugged him closer. Close enough that you could feel his breath fanning across your face. There was the ever-light hint of whisky on his breath. That was the only thing you could find to dislike about his closeness to you.

When his lips finally met yours, you felt as if something inside of you was settling. Nothing else seemed to matter but the fact that you were finally kissing him. It felt unattached from the dreamy imaginations you’d had about the possibility of kissing him when you were younger. Then, you had always pictured his lips tasting like the candy he used to steal from the shop on the outskirts of the city, and you had pictured his hands feeling soft like the rose petals that grew in his parent’s garden. Now, his lips had the suggestion of whisky on them, mixed with the faintest memory of the cigarette he’d been smoking earlier. And his hands were rougher, and they seemed to shroud your entire face as he cupped it.

The girl version of you would probably have been disappointed at the idea of kissing someone who wasn’t the Johnny she knew. Things, you supposed, had changed quite significantly since you’d moved into the city. And with as little experience – or even basic knowledge – that you’d had with romance, you decided you knew barely enough to know what a relationship was back then. Now, with Johnny’s hands mapping out over your body, something in you decided that this could at least be a learning point. If not of love, then of affection.

When his lips left yours, a flood of disappointment moved through you. As much as a heavy whine wanted to pass from your lips, your pride wouldn’t let it, your lips locking closed. There was amusement lighting up his features, and no matter how hard you tried to force it you couldn’t bring up that bitter feeling again.

You wondered if you should whine again, or if you should complain, or maybe even just pull away and stop playing a game that was so childish in retrospect. At whatever glare had come into your eye, Johnny cocked his head. “Is there a problem?”

You pushed his hands away from you, scoffing as you did. “You’re a tease.”

He hummed, curling his arms around your waist and nodding. “If you don’t want me to tease,” he started, dipping closer to you again, “tell me what you want me to do.”

Drawing away from him slightly, you tried to study him like he had with you. You didn’t know what he’d been looking for, so in turn you didn’t know what you were looking for in him. You felt amusement mingling with excitement inside of you, and only when it met a burst of confidence did you let yourself speak. “Do whatever you’ve been thinking about doing to me all night.”

Another boisterous laugh left your lips. He spun you both around, turning and beginning to walk you both away from the closed door. When you felt the edge of the desk touch the tops of your thighs, you let him lift you. As one hand held you steady against him, the other swiped papers out of the way to make room to set you down. Part of you wanted to be anxious about the work getting muddled, about whatever work you’d already done in the day being wasted, but you couldn’t think about anything other than the way Johnny attached his lips to your neck. Flattening your palms against his chest, you let him begin to push your skirt higher up your legs. When you felt it bunch at your waist, you finally stopped biting back the whine that was sitting impatiently at the back of your throat.

He unravelled himself from you for a moment, “Quite bold of you to assume I’ve been thinking about you all night.”

You whined impatiently again, feeling his hands move higher up your thighs. “Of course you have. I’m a delight.”

He laughed, dropping his head into the crook of your neck to leave more kisses in the bare space there. When you felt his fingers hook into the sides of your underwear, a desperate moan tumbled past your lips. Johnny offered you a mock wary glance. “You’ve gotta be quieter than that if you’re gonna let me do whatever I want.”

You tried to shrug off the words. “I didn’t say whatever you wanted. I said whatever you’d been thinking about.”

“Same thing.” He pulled your underwear the rest of the way down your legs, stopping only to give you a quick glance as you kicked them off. A vague feeling of insecurity came over you then, with your skirt bunched into a roll of fabric at your hips and your underwear discarded on the floor. The feeling wasn’t given very long to grow, with Johnny crouching down in front of the desk shortly after.

There was a look in his eyes that told you he had a million teasing remarks sitting on the tip of his tongue for the sight that greeted him. Though he remained silent as he gripped the backs of your knees and tugged you closer to the edge of the desk. A surprised gasp left your mouth before you had the chance to recover from the shock. You wanted to say that the light chuckle that left his lips was because of something else – some joke his friends had said earlier that he’d only just caught on to – but you knew that wasn’t possible.

Johnny didn’t seem too keen on giving you a clear amount of time to overthink anything. You placed your flattened palms against the desk as he attached his mouth to your heat, curling your lip to bite back the moans that begged to leave your mouth. The noise from outside of the small office seemed distant and drowned out now that all you could fully focus on was the feeling of Johnny’s lips against you. It’s been too long, that’s all it is. Though you wondered if it was really that, or just something too difficult to accept. That maybe this was just another of Johnny’s many skills.

As the coil already began to start forming in the pit of your stomach, you were coming to the vexed realisation that that was going to be the case again. Oddly, even in such an intimate position of him having his head between your thighs, you felt that moving to thread your fingers through his hair would be too much. You wanted to think more about that, but the coil in your stomach was shifting into a pressure that made you try and stutter a warning to Johnny.

But all of a sudden the feeling stopped altogether, and he was pulling away from you slightly. Still with his knees against the floor, he bevelled his head up at you. Your head was spinning too much for you to be sure what expression was casting across your features, but you almost sure it was one of childish irritation. “Problem?” He questioned, running his hands up your thighs from your knees until his fingertips were dancing over your core.

You tried to push your hips forward to gain something more, but the short space you had on the desk prevented you. “Is that you’ve been thinking about?”

“Seeing your face when you start to beg?” He grinned, “Yeah.”

Sighing, you shook your head at him. “I’m starting to think you’re just a bad person nowadays.”

He pulled his fingertips away from you, bringing them to his lips before he spoke again. “Well, just this once, then,” he began, pressing a few light kisses to the inside of your thighs, “I’ll give in and, well, you know – be nice.”

“How kind.”

And then the room felt like it had gone underwater again. The noise that had previously just become loud background volume had turned back into distant, dreamy chatter again. Small moans fought past your mouth, but you reminded yourself of just how awful things would be if anyone caught you in this position. Well, I might finally speak to Sicheng. Nothing’s all bad. But the way Johnny moved his mouth against you made it difficult to think rationally about anything.

When the coil in your stomach began to push against you again, you imagined the worst; Johnny pulling away from you again, or maybe even someone wandering in. By the time you felt the coil snap, you were too distracted by the euphoria of it to think of anything else. It’s just been too long…but you weren’t even sure that by the time your bitterness for Johnny reappeared you would be able to say he had made you feel that good for any reason other than sheer talent.

He remained silent for a few moments, kissing the inside of your thighs softly as they shook slightly in the aftermath. When he rose to stand up, he placed your underwear back at your feet, pulling them up until they reached where your thighs met the table. You pulled in a breath to steady yourself and then let your legs drop onto the ground, lifting your underwear up until they were back into their correct place.

Johnny was looking at you with his head tilted. You glanced over at the old clock that hung above the door and saw it was two minutes until the under-boss for Sicheng would come and throw everyone out. You usually tried to get out five minutes or so before this happened – as did all the women – to give them a safe head-start. Thinking about walking home with packs of drunk men staggering around in every direction, with the high likelihood of rain, sounded like the last thing you wanted to do.

“You gonna let me drive you home or am I supposed to walk you back?” Johnny asked, pulling your attention back to him.

You made yourself laugh, even if the question didn’t directly suggest itself to be a joke. “I guess I’ll let you drive. Only because I wouldn’t want you making two journeys for me.”

He hummed, pulling the door open and waiting for you to walk out in front of him. “You’re such a delight.” He teased, falling in behind you as you made your way through the packs of people. It felt odd that not one of the people crowded into this room seemed to have checked the time enough to try and get out before the rush. Maybe you were just trying to think of anything other than the way Johnny’s hand was resting on your hip so he didn’t lose you as you directed the two of you to the main door. When your hand caught the handle, you hesitated, wondering if you should scrap this entire idea and go out your usual way. Something about leaving the building without telling anyone you’d finished your shift felt unnatural, and made a small tremor of anxiety make itself present.

But there was too little time left for you to push your way back through the crowds to the opposite side of the room. Instead, you pushed the handle down and pulled the door open to let the smell of the city into the main bar room. After a while of living in the middle of Chicago, you got used to the collide of different smells surrounding you at all times. Though in that moment, with your head feeling fuzzy and your legs feeling half as strong as they usually did, everything seemed more present than it really was.

Especially the cold. The second Johnny gave you a light push outside, the icy air curled around your bare arms and the sliver of skin exposed where your socks didn’t meet the end of your skirt. Part of you wanted to push yourself further into where Johnny had wrapped his arm tightly around your waist, but the other – still far more dominant – part of you refused to look like you needed anything from him. Rain was falling harshly against the ground, splashing up to greet your grey socks and darken in shade.

No matter how much you wanted to feel like you were entirely governing the moment between you and Johnny, you couldn’t do much more than let him guide you in whatever direction you needed to take to reach his car. You took the chance to glance up at him, and despite the lack of light, you could tell he still looked just as good as he had when he’d walked into the bar. His hair was growing damp from the rain now, as you imagined yours was, too. But more strands were starting to fall into his face, and he was looking straight ahead with the few directing lights shining in his eyes. He doesn’t look like he used to. Somehow that didn’t seem too important anymore.

He opened the car door for you, grinning tiredly as he gestured you inside. You didn’t know whether to laugh or thank him. If he was the same Johnny you used to be friends with, you would have just laughed and slapped his hand away from the car door. Now that you were both outside, in the real world, the bitterness had transformed into your usual non-purposeful nerves around the businessmen that came into the bar daily.

“Thank you,” you mumbled quickly, shifting in your seat as he shut the door for you. Before he walked to his side of the car, he offered you a quizzical look and then a polite smile. The same polite smile you’d offer a stranger if they had just thanked you for doing something kind for them. Your chest felt drawn and tight.

When he started to navigate his way away from the other swarm of cars beginning to come back to life after being sat in a parking spot all night, you began to try and articulate an excuse. Or think of another street you knew well enough to tell Johnny that that’s where you lived. It had to be somewhere nicer than the one you lived on now, but not so nice that it would seem implausible for you to afford it mostly by yourself.

Johnny turned out onto the main street by the bar you had been working out for a little over a year. A street you had walked up and down a hundred times. “So, where am I going?” He looked across at you, a few strands of hair reaching far enough down his forehead to begin to cover one of his eyes.

You hadn’t been given enough time to think of an excuse that would work well enough to go past Johnny. Instead you only rattled off your address and hung your head, too nervous to see the look on his face as he realised. Whether that was realised you had not-so-directly been lying to him or that you were poorer than he had first imagined, you didn’t know. All you knew for sure was how businessmen got when they were around people with less money than them. You didn’t want to think of Johnny looking at you like that.

The rest of the drive passed in silence. Not an awkward silence, but in the few sneak glances you took at Johnny you could only see him focused ahead on the road. Part of you was surprised that he even knew his way to your street, as you could safely assume he’d never been there before. The rain was hitting the roof of the car loudly, though you found yourself more entranced with the people rushing along the streets outside.

The car passed one of the larger shops in the city, with it’s ‘open,’ sign still high in the window. In the window away from the door, there was a sign that read, ‘Help Wanted.’ A small gleam of hope lifted into your chest. For once, you wanted to feed into the idea that luck was on your side. That hope translated quickly into worry. Worry that you wouldn’t get the job, or that if you didn’t make Johnny stop the car right there and get straight out to apply for it then it would be gone in the morning – even the worry that the other good things that had happened through the day were beginning to make you delusional to see what you wanted.

You stayed silent and let Johnny drive you the rest of the way home. When the car slowed to a stop, part of you didn’t want to get out, in fear of the dream-like haze of the day disappearing. Getting out of the car, closing the door on Johnny – it felt all too much like waking up from some sweet dream. I just don’t want to get out into the rain, that’s all. But lying to yourself seemed to be getting harder and harder.

Pushing the car door open, you tried to think of something to say. A goodbye, maybe, or maybe a flirty suggestion of seeing him again. If it was still the Johnny you had known, maybe you would make that joke. But the man sat in the car with you wasn’t.

When your pause had become awkward and unnaturally long enough for him to tell you didn’t know what to say, Johnny breathed in sharply. “Will I get to see you around, then? Or do I have to charm you into talking to me every time I see you?” He asked, making himself smile to soothe your evident nerves.

It didn’t work, but you appreciated his effort. “Maybe I like to see you make an effort.”

He laughed then, and you wanted to feel confident that it was genuine. The rain was falling harder. “Well, I better get used to it, then.”

A grin turned your lips upwards. Even if it didn’t feel like you were talking to the Johnny you used to know, the Johnny you had followed all the way to the city for the slightest hope of doing as well as he had, you thought you might be able to get used to this new one. “You better.” You assured him, pushing the car door the rest of the way open.

The light feeling had returned to your chest as you hurried to your door. An odd sense of gratitude was in your stomach that he hadn’t made any mention of your living space. You hadn’t gone back to the back room to get your jacket, so you gave morning you a congratulations for forgetting to take her key out of her breast pocket after leaving the house. Johnny offered you one more wave before he drove off, rain water rising from the floor and spraying up as you stood in your doorway to watch.

When he was gone and the door closed behind you, you let out a deep breath you hadn’t known you were holding. Reality was sitting at your kitchen table waiting for you to accept her, as much as you didn’t want to. You dropped your key onto the bowl that held it on the kitchen side, and looked at the floor. The rusty metal bucket had overflowed, water just starting to tip over the side.

You knew you should empty it out and put it back, but looking up, the small leak seemed to have grown larger. The man did the say the ceiling was at risk. You pulled out one of the two chairs at your kitchen table and sat down, staring at the forming puddle. Where earlier in the day irritation and bitterness had been rising to press against your chest, now there was only faint emptiness and a perpetual longing for something you couldn’t recognise. It made you think of the papers thrown all over the floor of your office back at work. It made you think of Johnny, in a strange way. It made you think of the help wanted sign in the window of the shop. Tomorrow, you promised yourself. When you got that second job tomorrow, things would only be on the up.

///

By the time you got to work the next day, you were late. Or you would have been if Ada hadn’t told the under-boss that you had an appointment to be at that morning. You took that as a thank you for her being late back the other day, and a good thank you at that. Though that had been the only positive for the day. Applying for jobs always set you too on edge, made you too nervous. I’ve done it now, but it was the waiting you hated most.

The rest of the day you had spent tucked away in your office, picking up your papers and re-organising them while ignoring the growing want to see Johnny that was spreading through you. You had gone a year and a half without so much as speaking a single word to him, you were sure you could go a few weeks.

And yet, you couldn’t stop thinking about him. For the entire day as you finished the work you hadn’t done yesterday and the work you needed to get done today, you were thinking about him. From the way his hands felt on you to the way his lips felt on you. Even down to the way he spoke. All of it had made you feel almost like you had your friend back, only he was a little different. Maybe you just felt like you had a friend again.

He showed up again when you had almost finished your day’s work. You had paused midway through writing a sentence to try and guess if the pattering noise you heard was rain or something else. It had made dread fill up within you, imagining the bucket filling up and soaking into your floorboards again. Though, partially, the blame for that is on me. But if it happened again, you didn’t know if the floorboards would hold steady or start to rot.

Then you heard a knock on the door of your office, and out of fear of it being the under-boss coming in to press more about your late appearance you only yelled back a quick, “Come in.” And then he was walking straight into your office, hesitating only to see if there was another chair somewhere. When there wasn’t, he settled to lean against the walking, kicking the door shut absentmindedly behind him.

You rose your eyebrows at him, like your natural instinct when you saw him in any mundane setting was to question it. “What’re you doing here?”

He didn’t laugh in response. His lips didn’t even twitch upwards in a grin he couldn’t quite suppress. The only feeling you could distinguish from him was light vexation. “Doyoung mentioned that you went around there looking for a job.”

It surprised you that Doyoung and Johnny even had any ties to one another. Their lines of work didn’t seem as if they’d cross at any point, though you supposed most men in any kind of business would seek each other out to grow their circle of affluent friends. Bitterness was resting in your chest again.

“And?”

Johnny made a face. “And why do you need another job?”

You dropped your pen down onto the desk. “Do I need to tell you every time I consider making a decision now?”

“We’re friends, aren’t we? That’s what friends do.”

You thought about the events of yesterday and wondered what the answer to that was. “What do you want me to say?” You asked after a moment.

He breathed in sharply. “I don’t know. Tell me why you need another job or something. This one seems perfectly fine.”

Perfectly fine, but not enough. Nothing ever is. You didn’t want to have to tell him that though. But thinking of lies on the spot had never been your strong point. Now, sitting there right in front of an attractive stranger-who-isn’t-a-stranger, your skills seemed to have gotten even worse. “I need the money.” You muttered finally, keeping your voice low enough for you to hope that he wouldn’t hear it at all.

The room was too small and the noise coming from the main room was too low. He heard, made a face of acceptance, and then fell into silence. You didn’t know whether his lack of response was a good sign, that maybe your work ethic had surprised him into silence. Though you could only guess his thought process was one of pity. The thought made you cringe.

“You can’t get a job there.” He sounded apologetic.

You looked up at him, screwing your face up. “What do you mean?”

He loosened up, stepping away from the wall and further into the room. “Dirty money.”

A light laugh passed your lips then. “I’m pretty sure all money you earn in Chicago is dirty.”

He shrugged, though a hesitant smile was beginning to light his features up. “The job’s not for anyone who won’t be…you know, making the money directly.”

You huffed. “Why’d he advertise it in the window, then?”

“Usually everyone’s assumption is that every job in Chicago is a little bit illegal, at least.”

Nodding, you picked your pen back up. All on the up. You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If it was happening to anyone else, you thought you might find it funny. But the leaking ceiling, the looking for a second job, the never being able to afford anything other than necessities – that was your life. You couldn’t laugh at it until it wasn’t anymore.

“Why do you need the money?” Johnny asked quietly, the floorboards creaking as he moved closer to you.

You laughed bitterly, not letting yourself look up at him in case there were tears in your eyes. “You know, the normal stuff. And…” you didn’t want to say it.

“And?” He pressed.

“God, I don’t know.” You sighed, suddenly feeling all too suffocated, pushing your chair away from the desk. “I’ve been looking for another job for a while now.” You murmured, hoping it would explanation enough for your sudden drop in interest to the conversation.

Johnny felt back into a silence that you could only describe as pensive. The room itself seemed to still in its wait for his answer. The only sign that the moment hadn’t completely frozen in time was the noise and movement coming from the main room.

He cleared his throat, swiping away invisible dust from his hands before mumbling a quick, “I could help you out.”

You were shaking your head before he finished speaking. Often times, handouts either came because of pity or in expectancy of being payed back. You wanted neither of those things. “I’m not taking handouts.” You declared, picking your pen back up to provide some security for yourself.

For a minute he looked hesitant. Really, truly hesitant – like he didn’t know if he should say what he wanted to. In a moment of boldness, he let the words slip out. “What if it wasn’t a handout?”

“What?”

“What if you, sort of, worked for me?”

You put the pen back down. The action was beginning to feel repetitive. “I thought you didn’t want me working with dirty money directly.”

“Who said my money was dirty?” You scoffed, looking back to the desk as he sighed. “I didn’t mean, well, I didn’t mean working, as in typical working.”

Scepticism showed on all of your features as it ran through you. “Get to the point, Johnny.”

The same hesitation came back to him. “There’s a lot of, parties, and dinners and stuff when you’re in business.” He started. You nodded and gestured for him to continue. “Everyone brings someone with them, but I, well, I don’t.” He went silent.

“Are you asking me to come to dinner parties with you?”

“Sort of.”

“And you’d pay me for it?”

“Yes.” It was a statement but he made it sound closer to a question.

You breathed out heavily, the confusion making your head throb. “Why would you do that? Couldn’t you just ask a girl on a date?”

He shrugged, as if making up a reason was too much for him to be bothered with. “I’d buy you nice dresses for them, if you wanted. You could come spend some nights at my house. Maybe, if you liked it, you wouldn’t have to work here at all.”

“Johnny,” you mumbled, standing up, “I really don’t understand. What would I be doing?”

His arms curled around your waist. “Pretending,” he said, “pretending that you’re in love with me and that we’re one of those icy affluent couples.”

“Why pretend when you could go out and make the real thing for yourself?”

“How would that help you?”

“You’re doing this for me?”

He shrugged again. “Well, half and half.”

Despite yourself, you laughed lightly, dropping your head against his chest. “I’d be getting payed, like I get payed here? To go to fancy dinners?”

“If you needed me to.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, you know, if you spend some time at my place and liked it, you could just move in.”

Part of you wanted to recoil, though you stayed in your spot. “That seems like a quick decision.” You huffed. “It all sounds very nice, Johnny, but what happens when you actually meet someone you love? Where would I go?”

“Can’t you just let me answer that question if we get there?” Something about the ‘if’ gave you a childish hope.

This is ridiculous. I don’t even know how to make conversation. What a stupid idea. But your ceiling was going to cave in. Even if it didn’t, it was still leaking. You had been looking for a second job for far too long now. You hated the smell of whisky and men packed into bars.

You breathed out deeply, half in a sigh and half in exasperation at yourself. “Well, things really can’t get any worse.” You untangled yourself from him, searching his face again before answering. “I accept.”

His lips lifted, the same amusement from the day before coming back to his eyes. The butterflies in your stomach fluttered nervously. I’m ridiculous. How stupid can I be? “You accept?” He grinned.

“Sure. Why not?”

///

The first dinner was three days later. You had been coming and going to your work at the bar as usual, too nervous to accept that Johnny’s offer had been real and not some desperate fever dream. In those three days, he’d come by for a few moments at least on each, usually muttering the same comment about you not needing the job anymore. You never had an answer other than a shrug, too embarrassed to ask, ‘is this real? Is this really happening? Have I really gotten lucky?’

His car was waiting outside for you when you left, just as he had promised earlier in the day that it would be. When you climbed inside, taking a nervous glance at him like you would a stranger you got into a car with, he chuckled lightly. Sometimes you wondered if he looked at you as a stranger or as someone he knew. Or maybe something in-between.

“I wanted to get you a dress.” He told you, driving you down the main-street in a direction you hadn’t been in before. It seemed uncomfortably surprising to you to see the lines of stores you had never had the money to even consider going into before. It was even more uncomfortable to imagine spending someone else’s money in them.

“Are you sure?” You asked, though you weren’t sure why. If he decided he wasn’t, you were back to the starting line.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’m not seeing how beneficial this is to you. I’m not giving you anything back.”

He grinned over at you, laughing softly as he moved one of his hands to grip your thigh. “Would you believe me if I said the pleasure of your company is enough benefit?”

Scoffing, you shook your head, looking back out the window. “I just might, since I’m such a delight and all.”

Laughing again, he slowed the car to a stop. When you looked up at the shop, you couldn’t stop yourself from gaping. From the outside, you could tell the inside was nicer than your house. And a single dress inside was probably worth more than everything you owned.

You wanted to ask him if he was sure again, but instead you just let him come round and open the car door for you. You slipped yourself out, feeling his arm curl around your waist as soon as your feet hit the floor. He walked you both up to the door, and in an odd way you felt like you were about to be turned away. In your clothes, looking at the glossy interior of the building, you felt out of place and awkward. Like everyone would be able to tell the second they saw you.

The woman at the desk smiled brightly as you approached. “What can I help you both with today?” She asked, smiling again. You felt surprise purely at her customer service. No one at the bar was payed enough to put that much effort into their delivery.

Johnny sensed your lack of confidence in answering. “We have a reservation under Seo.” He told her.

She nodded, still smiling, and looked down at the books, flipping around a few pages before looking back up. “Of course, sir.” He moved then, walking you both backwards.

He grinned at the surprise on your face. You felt like a child in a playground far too big for them. He gestured to the door furthest away from the entrance. “That’s the ladies dressing room. Tell them you have the Seo reservation.”

You nodded. “Where are you going?”

Laughing, he gestured to a different door. “To the men’s dressing room.”

“Right.” You shook your head.

He pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead, shoving you lightly in the direction of the ladies dressing room. “Don’t be nervous.” He assured, turning away from you and towards the other door.

You paused anxiously, tapping your knuckles quietly against the wooden door. The speed at which it sprung open in front of you almost made you stumble back. But the woman standing on the inside was smiling brightly, and there was something in the curves of age on her face that made a strange part of you feel safe, like her face itself was friendly.

“Seo reservation?” She asked, moving aside to let you walk in.

“Uh, yeah.” You answered, looking at your hands as you tangled your fingers together nervously.

She smiled softly at you, the most typical way of showing pity. She caught your hands and pulled you in the direction of rows upon rows of dresses of all different fabrics and shapes. “Is this your first time here?” You nodded. “Do you know what your reservation says you’re getting today?” Johnny had failed to mention that, you shook your head. She laughed. “Well, you’re getting a dress for a dinner party, and another for today.”

You didn’t even want to think about how much a single one of the dresses here would cost, let alone two. “Who, uh, who picks those?”

She smiled softly again, giving you the same look you’d give to a child who had hurt themselves. “I’ve picked out some options for you to choose from.” You nodded, watching as she moved to a certain row and pointed them out. All of them were prettier than all of the things you owned.

It took you longer than it should have to pick two of the dresses. Every one seemed too nice to see put back on a shelf somewhere until some other rich woman decided that was pretty enough for her. Thinking of ‘some other rich woman’ was also odd, though for different reasons.

Putting the dress on was the strangest thing you’d done in a while. Stepping into the fabric felt like accidentally stumbling into Johnny’s world. You felt inept, and the tightness of the dress only served to make you feel suffocated. Though the woman gushed a thousand different compliments as she saw you finally dressed. You wondered whether that was part of the job, or genuine joy at seeing you out of your own clothes that now seemed impossibly drab in comparison.

When it was finally time to leave, the woman explained that the dresses would be payed for at the front desk. She handed you two price tags and wished you a nice day. You clutched the paper tightly in your hands, too scared to look at the price for either. The idea of having to add two numbers that you could only imagine were inconceivably high together was making your head hurt already.

Johnny was already out by the time you were walking back to the front desk. His back was to your door, and he was busy throwing money down on the counter. You felt a desperate need to ask if he was sure again. But then, as he’d said himself, why wouldn’t he be? He didn’t seem like the type of person to not know what he was thinking. Unlike you, who couldn’t decide whether or not you were even okay with having two dresses bought for you. Even if I could never buy it for myself.

He turned around when he heard your shoes on the floorboards. He breathed in sharply, and made a quiet humming sound as you got closer. Despite your wish to keep your head up high, the nerves drove you to drop your head as you reached him, handing him the paper price tags. He took a quick glance down at them both, placing them on the front desk before taking more money out and sliding it over to the woman.

The ease in which he did it made you breathe in sharply. You weren’t sure if that was because of how much it was to throw away, or the innate attractiveness of the action. The memory of that day in your office was slowly coming back into your mind. A flush of heat was creeping up your neck to meet your cheeks.

“Johnny?”

He hummed as he looked down at you, slipping his arm around his waist as the woman handed you both back the clothes. “Yes?”

“Where are we going now?” You asked, trying to keep your steps in line with his ones as he walked you both back outside.

“Lunch, maybe. Do you want something to eat?” He asked, walking round to open the car door for you.

After you’d settled back into your seat, you looked at him, curling your fingertips around the inward sides of his jacket. “Like back to your house?” You mumbled, feeling his free hand grip your thigh.

A complacent grin turned his lips upwards as he cocked his head at you. “Do you think I have a café in my house?” He teased. You groaned, gripping the sides of his jacket tighter. He pressed a light kiss to your lips, moving away before you could deepen it. “You know I didn’t mean you have to sleep with me for money, right? Because that’d feel a little too much for me.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “I promise I’m not looking to get payed for this.”

There was an odd look in his eye for a fleeting second before it was replaced with amusement again. “As long as you promise.” You nodded, and he hummed in disapproval. “You have to use your words.”

You paused, wondering how long you could hold out if you decided not to say it. You didn’t decide to test it out. “I promise.” Then the warmth of his body was replaced with the cold air and he was moving back around to his side of the car. You slipped your legs inside properly and shut the door, hoping to close out the promise of more rain.

The drive back was more excruciating that you had wished it would be. Even staring out the window at the passing of new buildings wasn’t enough to keep you distracted from the weight of Johnny’s hand on your thigh. Whenever you stole desperate glances over at him, he seemed entirely unbothered, face blank and eyes staring forward. Rain was beginning to patter against the roof, though for once it didn’t worry you. It only felt like background noise. You barely noticed when the car stopped moving, too focused on the focused look on Johnny’s face. It felt stupid, and verging on childish, to be so enamoured with the simplest things that he did.

For a moment after he stopped driving, he caught your eyes, tilting his head at you. He was searching again, looking for something that he didn’t seem to be able to find. In a strange way, it felt a lot like you were doing the same. He pushed the door on his side open and slipped himself out into the rain. You mirrored his action, though he got to your side before the door swung open properly. He caught it before it could slam into him, cocking his head at you and quirking a brow.

“Sorry,” you mumbled, letting him offer his hand to help you out. Whenever you’d been caught in rain before, it hadn’t seemed of any importance at all. Now, wearing a dress that cost more than you were willing to think about, an anxious need to be somewhere dry was overcoming you.

Johnny didn’t seem to have the same concern. His pace was almost leisurely, his arm curled around your waist as seemed his favourite resting place. You couldn’t particularly complain about the offhanded affection anymore, the warmth in his hold far nicer than the biting cold of the outside air.

If you had been gaping up at the exterior of his house, the inside was almost enough to knock you off your feet. It was nicer than any house you’d been in before, let alone your own. The hall that opened straight from the front door was decorated with golden-painted wooden furniture and ornate fixtures that made your picture of the price tags from today look like child’s play. You swallowed thickly, suddenly self-conscious of every movement you made against the marble of the floor. Everything seemed impossibly fragile, even if rationally it wasn’t. The idea of brushing against any of the items in just the hall made you nervous.

“You like it?” Johnny asked quietly, curling his arms around your waist as you stared at the painting on the wall. He littered light kisses across your neck, and you tried to clear your head enough to answer.

“It’s rich.” You mumbled.

He exhaled a laugh, his breath fanning across the skin of your neck. “Rich in what?”

“Being rich.”

He shook his head, turning you towards him. “You’re alright.” He said quietly. “It’s okay.” He assured.

You tilted your head at him. “I know.”

“Do you know that you fit here?” He asked, cupping your face in his hands.

You laughed lightly, shaking your head. “I don’t,” you mumbled, kissing his fingertips, “but I’m not sure I mind that.”

He hummed, turning you in the direction of the stairs. “As long as you’re alright.” He mumbled, burying his face in the crook of your neck.

Walking ahead of him felt unnatural, especially when you didn’t know what direction you were taking the two of you. But with his hands gripping tightly onto your hips and pushing you in the right direction, the nerves felt dulled and unnecessary. “You know I am,” you mumbled. His lips were still attached your neck, now leaving marks in their path downwards.

When you stumbled into a closed door, Johnny detangled himself from you. The few seconds it took for him to push his bedroom door open seemed like too long to have his hands away from you. He tugged you into the room behind him, slamming his lips against yours as soon as you’d pushed the door shut behind you. His hands pushed your dress up as he spun you in a different direction. Your lack of awareness about your surroundings was something you knew you should be thinking about, but the feeling of his hands mapping out over your body seemed too good to waste with letting your mind wander anywhere else.

When you felt the bed hit the back of your knees, you were reminded again of the day in your office. A flush of heat moved through you as you tightened your grip on Johnny, letting him lift you just enough to be able to put you down on the bed.

The sheets were soft and silky underneath you, and even the mattress felt welcoming enough to cool any nerves left over under the surface. His mouth was travelling down your neck again, though this time he was pulling your dress down to get more access. The way he adjusted the fabric so carelessly caused your heart to rise into your throat, being able to imagine nothing but him throwing away that pile of money for nothing.

He didn’t seem too intent on letting you have too much time to think. With his body hovering over yours and his hands getting closer to where you wanted them, your brain didn’t seem to want to work properly. You couldn’t particularly blame yourself. Small hums of his name were the only thing leaving your mouth, even if the strange fear of having another room full of people so close to you still lingered.

Johnny moved further down your body, kissing over the satin fabric of your dress that was starting to feel all too suffocating as you laughed lightly at him. He grinned lazily, pushing your dress to bunch up at your waist like he had done with your skirt. You let your head fall back further into the comfort of the sheets and the pillows.

He curled his fingers into your underwear, pulling them down your legs until you kicked them the rest of the way off. The familiarity of the action made your lips lift upwards. His lips pressed lingering kisses to the inside of your thighs, this time, he took his time to leave marks behind. Even if his actions weren’t supposed to be teasing, you couldn’t help but feel that way. A light whine left your mouth as you lifted your hips up from the mattress.

Johnny only laughed, slipping his forearm over your hips and pushing them back down. He waited another moment, simply observing you as you huffed at him before he moved away from you. Rising up from the bed completely and sitting on the chair at the far side of the room.

“You want me to touch you?” He asked, eyes full of that usual amusement. You swallowed the pride bubbling up in the back of your throat and nodded over at him. “Then earn it.” He declared.

“Or I could just do everything myself.” You grumbled, drawing a laugh from him.

“You could, but you won’t.”

He was right. Your curiosity was too peaked to not even try to flatter him. “What do you want me to do?” You asked quietly, suddenly too embarrassed to look him in the eye.

He hummed, as if in mock deep thought. The sound drew another frustrated huff from you, the heat from earlier still making your cheeks flush. The room fell into silence as you stared at the silk sheets. When you worked up your nerves enough to catch his eye again, he was observing you patiently. The look in his eye made you press your thighs together.

For a long minute it felt like he was just taunting you, waiting to see how much you could take before you had to look away again. The feeling of being challenged was enough of a reason for you to keep your eyes focused on him, even if the confidence in your gaze was artificial.

A hint of pride was in his eyes when he finally moved, gesturing down at his lap and beckoning you forward. The same air of confidence and power was radiating from him as when he made his way through crowds and watched people move out of his path. It was something you weren’t sure you disliked anymore. There was no bitterness in the back of your throat as you swallowed, only a vague ball of nerves.

You rose from the bed, almost slipping off and onto the carpeted floor when your dress fell back into place and glided along the silk of the sheets. You managed to balance yourself easily enough, catching your feet onto the floor before you royally embarrassed yourself. It was only when you were stood right in front of Johnny, with his eyes raking over your form, that you faltered again, pausing and not knowing what to do with yourself.

His hands spread across your hips, pulling you to sit over one of his thighs. When you were finally in place, his hands moved away from you to rest on the arms of the chair. He looked up at your expectantly. “Go on, then.” When you hesitated again, he laughed lightly. “Or do you need my help again?”

You felt your shoulders tighten in irritation. “Are you gonna help?” You muttered, raising your eyebrows.

He shrugged, his hands already moving to grip your hips again. He bevelled his head at you as he dragged your core against the fabric of his trousers. The amusement was the only thing you could find in his eyes as your moans grew louder. “I always give in too easily,” he murmured, pulling your lips back to his.

The kiss was slow and easy, though you were more distracted by the feeling of his thigh underneath you than his lips against yours. Any moans that tried to escape your mouth fell into his instead of getting any further. Though it wasn’t long before he seemed to grow tired of not hearing you as he pulled away.

By then, the coil in your stomach had already begun to tighten, and the noises you were making were growing in volume. Just when you thought you were going to feel the coil unravel, Johnny’s palms flattened against your hips to stop you moving anymore.

You huffed in annoyance, trying to move yourself again but not being able to push further past Johnny’s hold. “Johnny,” you groaned, gripping onto his wrist.

“I did tell you I wanted to hear you beg.” He chided, curling his arms around your waist and rising to stand.

You gripped to him tighter in surprise, holding back yet another huff as he laughed at you. “What if I don’t want to?”

He shrugged, dropping you ungraciously onto the bed, making you bounce slightly as you landed. He laughed again, “Maybe I won’t give in this time.”

You hummed as he leaned down to hover over you again. “You always give in too easily.” You curled your arms around his shoulders and tugged lightly at the hair at the nape of his neck.

He pushed your dress further up to bunch at your hips again, pulling himself away from you for a moment as he dropped his suit jacket onto the floor. His shirt went next, and finally his hands went to grip his belt. When he’d finally gotten himself undressed, he put your hands together and rested them above your head. He paused for a moment, tilting his head at you as you nodded quickly. He wrapped the belt around your hands, tightening it until he knew you couldn’t get out of it yourself.

He reconnected your lips, pushing your legs further apart to fit himself back between them. The moan of surprise that left you as Johnny pushed inside of you was swallowed by Johnny’s mouth on yours. The pace he set was far slower than you wanted it to be, though he didn’t seem to take note of the whines that weren’t able to leave your mouth.

You pulled away from him, “Faster,” you whined.

He slowed down. “What was that?”

You bit down on your bottom lip. “Please,” you mumbled quietly, too quietly for you to fully hear yourself.

“What was that?” He picked up his speed just slightly.

You groaned, half in annoyance and half at the increase of speed. “Please, Johnny.” You said again.

“Please what?”

“Faster, please.”

He finally set a faster pace, letting his hand move between your legs as you moaned louder. When you finally felt the coil begin to form again in your stomach, you let out an embarrassed few murmurs of, ‘please.’ Johnny made no show of having heard you, or if he had, he made no show of caring about your begging.

He bit down onto your shoulder as you moaned louder. “Johnny, please,” you whined, feeling tears prick at your eyes of him denying you again.

He chuckled softly, nodding as his nose bumped against yours before he pressed his lips back to yours. This kiss was more rushed, his free hand wondering as you tilted your head further upwards to deepen the kiss.

He pulled his lips away from yours just as the coil in your stomach started to unravel. His lips didn’t seem to be able to choose one place to kiss. “You’re so beautiful,” he muttered, “so, so beautiful.”

Your head was too fuzzy for you to be able to form words. All you could fully compute was the silk of the sheets against your skin underneath you, and Johnny’s lips pressing lazy kisses to your neck as he slowed a stop. You weren’t even sure when he’d hit his own high, though you knew that he had.

He stayed still for a moment, just stroking his thumb across your cheek before he moved away from you. Oddly, having the heat from his body disappear from above you made you feel empty. He reached to undo the belt that held your hands, and then brought them to his lips to press fleeting kisses there.

“Thank you,” you mumbled, leaning up to kiss him lightly again.

Johnny hummed, moving away from you for a moment as you dropped back to lie on the bed again. You noted then that there was a chandelier hanging from his ceiling. The sight made a cross between a breathy laugh and a disbelieving scoff pass your lips.

“Here,” Johnny mumbled, making you look up at him. He handed you a white-dress shirt that felt clean and soft when you held it.

“Thank you,” you mumbled again, getting up to take the dress off carefully and place it on the chair Johnny had been sat on earlier. When you got back to the bed, you pulled the shirt on, only bothering to do up two of the buttons before flopping to lie on his chest. He pressed a drawn out kiss to your forehead. “Is there really a dinner party tonight?” You mumbled against his chest.

He laughed tiredly, his chest rumbling as he did. “We don’t lie to each other, remember?”

You breathed out a laugh, pushing yourself up from his chest slightly. You glared at him for a long minute before shrugging. “I suppose.”

“Better start getting dressed soon.” He mumbled, pressing his lips to your temple. Part of you wanted to groan at the idea of moving and leaving the house again. The other part of you wanted to wrap yourself in silky fabric and eat a meal that was probably more expensive than all of the food in your house altogether. You hummed in acknowledgement of his words, starting to try and think of all the reasons to detangle yourself from him and start making yourself feel pampered enough to spend a night around people richer than you.

///

The dinner hall was more than you had expected it to be, which was saying a lot on account of your imagination being particularly overactive when it came to splendour. When you walked in, Johnny’s arm curled lazily around your waist with him dressed in his newest suit, his air tidy and slick again in a way that made him look like he could own the building, you felt immediately out of place. The people surrounding you were about as glamorous as him. And just as rich, you knew. Which meant, of course, far richer than you.

But then you remembered just how indistinctive you must seem in the situation. Dressed in golden silk, with your hair fixed prettily, you were entirely sure no one would offer you even a second glance for no reason other than to look at your exposed legs. The idea made you feel more confident, so whether or not it was true that no one could tell you were their least favourite thing – as it was, a very common person in the working class – you weren’t particularly bothered.

Johnny had warned you before you even set off for the party that it would be a dull affair. When you’d first stepped into the hall, with its golden floor – that Johnny insisted was not real gold but was only paint, though you weren’t sure, you didn’t think you’d seen real gold often enough to be sure – and its rows of high chandeliers, and its tables full of rich looking food and decorated glasses, you hadn’t though that possible. Now, sat on your velvet lined chair and listening to Johnny and a table full of older men talk about business, you gave into the possibility that he might be right.

Their discussions came to a stand still only when the staff came out to clear the tables and ask after everyone’s opinion on desert. Johnny had turned to you, almost as if to check you were still there. You were distracted by then, feeling a stab of guilt in your chest for the staff who had to tidy up after you and everyone else.

He reached out to stroke his fingertip across your bare collarbones. “I should get you a golden necklace,” he mumbled, “it’d look nice on you.”

“Gold looks nice on anyone, I’d think.” You laughed.

He shrugged, grinning as he listened to you speak. “Everything looks nicer on you.”

Making a noise of mock disgust, you knocked his hand away, feeling it immediately seek out to rest on your thigh. The action made your eyebrows raise as you looked back around the table as people spoke amongst themselves. “What’re you up to?”

He laughed, lifting his hand further up the skin of your thigh as heat flushed through you. “Can’t I just rest my hand here?”

“No.” You decided, stopping his hand before it could get any higher.

“Don’t tell me,” he began, putting his hand back to its original place on your thigh, “you don’t want to do anything in public?”

Scoffing, you shook your head, “I would never.”

He bit back a laugh, but his grin told you all you needed to know. “Is this,” he lightly nodded to the table full of unfamiliar faces, “what, too public?”

“If we get caught, it’s your business.”

“Hey,” he defended, taking his hand away from your thigh, “my job’s attached very intimately to yours.”

“Then keep your hands to yourself.”

“Do I have to keep my hands to myself if we go, well, somewhere else?”

You rose your eyebrows. “Do you not have any respect for your associates?”

He grinned again, clutching your hand in his own and shrugging, “Not these ones.” He pulled you to stand with him, tightening his arm around your waist as he looked down at the table with a false look of concern on his features. “Excuse us,” his voice was arid and professional as the others at the table turned to look up at him, “but my girl’s not feeling too well, so I’m just going to help her find the bathrooms.” The table rose in a quiet murmur of acceptances and quick – and most likely detached – worries for you.

And then he walked you both out of the hall. Only when you got back into the entrance hall with its red velvet carpet leading into the double doors of the dinner room did you let yourself laugh in disbelief. “You’re insane.”

“If you had to look at yourself in this dress all night, you would be, too.” He defended, pushing the women’s bathroom door open and pulling you along beside him.

The woman stood at the mirror startled when she saw Johnny beside you, before you cleared your throat. “Sorry, I’m, I’m not feeling very well. I thought it would be best if I wasn’t alone.” It sounded more like a suggestion than a statement.

The woman nodded in acceptance, smiling pitifully at you the way older women always did with young girls. “That’s quite alright, I hope you feel better soon.” She didn’t offer Johnny the same courtesy, only sharpening her eyes at him and moving past him.

When the door banged shut behind her, the two of you snickered as he pushed you towards the closest stall. His lips quickly found yours, nose bumping against yours as his hands slid up your dress as soon as he had the lock drawn across.

He pushed your back up against the side of the stall, his hands already trying to pull your underwear down. “This is quite possibility the least romantic thing I’ve ever done.” You scoffed.

He pulled away from you, drawing an involuntary whine from your lips. He shook his head, “We can always wait until later, if it’s romance that you want.”

Huffing, you pulled him back to you by his jacket, feeling the kiss speed up as his hands rushed to go back to where they had been before. His hands curled underneath your thighs, gripping tightly enough for you to have to catch a moan before it passed your lips.

“Jump,” he mumbled, pressing your back further up against the wall.

You hesitation for a second, pulling away to offer him a sceptical look before doing as he’d told you. He caught you, keeping you steadily pressed to the stall’s wall. The grip he had on your thighs drew a groan from your lips as his own travelled down your neck. His fingers curled around the sides of your underwear in a manner that was becoming all too familiar. When he’d finally gotten them almost all the way down, he chuckled, shaking his head at himself as they got stuck. He dropped your legs back to the floor, watching you laugh at him as you kicked them off. Johnny caught them before they hit the floor, tucking them into his pocket. You laughed breathily at him, letting him lift you back into your previous position.

He dropped down to his knees, lifting your legs so they were resting across his shoulders as he placed his mouth straight onto your core. His lack of teasing drew a shocked moan from your lips, your head dropping back to hit the stall wall. As per his usual act, the second your fingers went to tangle in his hair, he pulled away from you. The feeling in your stomach faded as he rose to stand up again, a complacent look settling over his features.

“Do you know how to be nice?” You huffed, wrapping your legs around his waist again.

He struggled to unbutton his trousers, grunting at the effort. The complacent look came back as soon as he had them undone, as if he had done everything smoothly in the first place. “I could be a lot meaner.” He promised, pressing his lips to your neck as he pushed into you.

You dug your nails into his shoulders, dropping your head onto his shoulder to bite down and keep yourself quiet. Back in the room at the bar, you had only been distantly aware of the crowds of people in the other room. Now, with the tables full of people you would have previously thought of as elite with only a hallway to separate them from you and Johnny, you couldn’t be more aware of anything.

Even with that lingering in the back of your mind, Johnny still made it difficult for you to be able to think of anything other than the way the coil in your stomach felt like forming heat. His lips were on your neck again, leaving behind a series of fresh marks that you were sure would get you some odd stares when you returned back to the table. His hands were gripping your thighs, though you could practically feel his disappointment as not being able to map out over your body like he hadn’t done it before by now.

This time, when his groans grew slightly in volume, you pulled your head away from where you had been softening your volume in the crook of his neck to be able to see his face screw up as he hit his high. His eyebrows furrowed as dropped his head back, the muscles of his arms tightening as his nails dug into the bare skin of your thighs. You had to drop your head back onto his shoulders when the coil in your stomach began to unravel again.

By the time the two of you had caught your breath, you hoped that your legs would be steady enough to uphold yourself when he set you back down. On the slight heel of your shoes, your hope suddenly seemed bleak. You wavered, feeling Johnny wrap his arm around your waist to keep you balanced.

You glared at him. “I thought we came in here to be more discreet.”

He laughed, “You looked bored, I’m just trying to keep things exciting for you.”

“I thought I was working? Is work ever supposed to be exciting?”

A grin turned up his lips. “I think you’ll find this job a little more fulfilling than most.”

He opened the bathroom door, taking a quick look out before walking the two of you back in the direction of the heavy oaken double doors into the dinner hall. “I don’t feel like I’m working at all.” You mumbled, shifting to look away from him.

Johnny laughed loudly, pulling open one of the doors as a few sets of eyes turned to look back at you. “Don’t look at it like a job then.”

You sighed at him, tilting your head up at him as he grinned arrogantly at you. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

His smile softened, though it stayed dashed across his features as you both reached your table again. He paused for a minute as he pulled your chair out for you, the searching look coming back to his face. This time, he seemed to find whatever he was looking for. “I’ve missed you.” He said quietly, tucking your chair back in.

You thought, maybe he isn’t so different as I thought he was. You caught his hand in your own, gripping it tightly as you smiled. “I’ve missed you, too.” You responded. And even if the words felt foreign on your tongue, you thought, I’m telling the truth.

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