hello and welcome to my page! i write some things and i also reblog my favorite fics that ive read.
(♡ = personal favorites)
MASTERLIST
Off Campus:
John Logan
Don't let me down - John Logan - You've been filming John Logan for many months. Forty seven saved clips, only eleven of them for work. You know his tells, his angles, his best light. You know him better than you probably should for someone who is just the social media girl. What you don't know is that the night he finally asked you out, there was a check involved. A thousand dollars. And three months of the most real thing you've ever felt sitting on top of a secret that was always going to cost someone.
Landslide - John Logan - The thing about Logan is that he always knew what to say. He just kept finding reasons not to say it.
or: the five times Logan almost confessed and the one time he did.
I can see you - John Logan ♡ - Three months ago, you and Logan quietly became something. You forgot to tell anyone. That was fine, it was yours, and you liked it that way. Then you found out your friends had started a betting pool on when you'd finally get together, and suddenly keeping the secret became a lot more fun.
or: four times someone almost caught you, and one time someone did.
I said "I love you". You said nothin' back - John Logan - the arrangement was simple: keep it casual, don't catch feelings, don't ask for more than what's on the table. 338 days later, you're starting to think simple was never really an option with john logan.
Ruin the friendship - John Logan - Falling for your brother’s best friend is already a terrible idea. Falling for John Logan, while Garrett Graham watches the two of you like a security threat, is even worse.
Dean Di Laurentis
What, like it's hard? - Dean Di Laurentis ♡ - Dean Dilaurentis has been the only person in your class who comes close to your grade. You've been pretending not to notice him for three months. Then a professor pairs you together for a semester project, and suddenly you have no choice but to sit very close to him in a library for five weeks and figure out what to do about that.
summary: what starts as a wrong number nude becomes something neither of them planned for. a week of texts, a facetime call neither of them hangs up from, and a party where jealousy finally shows its hand you and dean end up somewhere that doesn't have a name yet but feels like the beginning of one.
warnings: explicit sexual content, sexting, nudity, oral sex (f receiving), edging, dom!dean if you squint, jealousy, slow burn compressed into one week, strangers to whatever this is, dean diLaurentis being shameless about it, probably slightly ooc dean
author's note: hii i'm back! i know i've been mia this week and i missed you guys, but i come bearing gifts. this one is long, it's explicit, it's a little self indulgent and i had so much fun writing it. as always your comments and reblogs mean everything to me, let me know what you think
It was a slow Thursday night and you should have been studying.
But the list of TikToks was genuinely unstoppable, and you had been meaning to put your phone down for at least ten minutes, but you just couldn't, and then your phone beeped with a text from an unknown number.
unknown number: it's missing you…
unknown number: thinking about what we did last night at the bathroom of malone's. can we repeat that?
The picture that followed was so far from PG it made you quiver.
It showed a male body cut from the head down, a well defined torso, white boxers sitting low on his hips, left hand gripping himself while the right held his phone up to the mirror. You were a little shocked honestly. It was quite girthy. That couldn't be the right word but it was the one your brain produced and you were going with it. Not that you were going to pay a compliment to this unknown manwhore who was sending you unsolicited nudes at 7pm on a Thursday night. Also last night? This meant he was hooking up with people in a bathroom on a random Wednesday? Malone's dirty, sticky floored, one broken lock bathroom at that. Manwhore was definitely the right word.
yn: wrong number dude
Three dots appeared immediately.
unknown number: aw babygirl don't be telling lies ik you liked what we did last night
You stared at the screen.
yn: babygirl? ew
yn: also last night i was asleep by like 9pm
unknown number: oh geez i didn't know i sent an accidental nude to a nun
yn: fuck off. i just like to go to bed early
unknown number: sure you do sister
You made a face at your phone. The audacity. The complete and total audacity of this person.
yn: at least i'm not some dirty manwhore hooking up in malone's disgusting bathrooms on a wednesday night
unknown number: gosh. slut shaming. that's a low even for you
yn: you don't even know me?????
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Disappeared again. You stared at the screen. Appeared.
unknown number: fair point
A pause. Then:
unknown number: so who are you then, early bedtime girl
You should not be entertaining this. You should put the phone down, go back to your notes, pretend this never happened. You had a reading you hadn't even opened yet and a paper outline due Friday morning.
And yet.
yn: someone who now knows more about you than she ever wanted to
unknown number: be honest
unknown number: did you like it
You made a sound that was almost a laugh. Almost.
yn: goodbye
unknown number: that's a yes
yn: it's a goodbye
unknown number: same thing
You put the phone face down on your desk. Picked up your highlighter. Read the same sentence four times without absorbing a single word of it. Outside your window someone was playing music too loud and down the hall your roommate was on a call and everything was completely normal and you were sitting here with your highlighter hovering over the same sentence like an idiot.
Your phone buzzed.
unknown number: i'm dean by the way
unknown number: since we're basically intimately acquainted now
You flipped it back over before you could decide not to.
yn: we are not intimately acquainted
unknown number: i mean
unknown number: you've seen my left hand and dick
yn: i hate you
unknown number: you don't even know me?????
You stared at him throwing your own words back at you. Felt something move through your chest that was warm and annoying and completely unwelcome.
Then, against every instinct you had, against every reasonable self-preserving impulse in your body, you typed:
yn: …yn
Three dots. Then:
unknown number: yn
unknown number: pretty name for a nun
yn: i will block you
unknown number: no you won't
You put the phone down. Stared at the ceiling.
The worst part was he was right.
You didn't block him.
You also didn't text him first. That was the rule, and you held it with both hands because it was the only rule you had left and without it the whole thing became something you'd have to think about seriously, which you were not prepared to do. You did not text him first, not once, in the three days that followed. He always started it. A meme at 11pm with no context. A "hey nun" at 2pm on a Friday when you were between classes and your phone buzzed and your stomach did something you pretended didn't happen. A "what are you doing" on Sunday afternoon that you answered before you'd fully processed that you were doing it.
It was nothing. It was just texting. People texted. It meant nothing.
dean: okay but genuinely what are you wearing right now
You were in your roommate's oversized sweatshirt, frog socks, and a hair clip that was losing a structural battle. You looked down at yourself.
yn: why
dean: just curious
dean: academically
yn: academically.
dean: i'm a curious person yn. intellectually invested in you as a human being
yn: you're so full of shit
dean: okay but what are you wearing
yn: something you'd find very disappointing
dean: try me
You looked down at yourself again. The frog socks. The sweatshirt that reached your mid thigh. The hair clip dangling precariously off a chunk of hair that had given up.
yn: an oversized sweatshirt
dean: okay
dean: what else
You felt something shift in the air of your room. Subtle. Like pressure changing before rain.
yn: socks
dean: what kind
yn: …frogs
dean: okay that's genuinely adorable
dean: what's under the sweatshirt
You should have put the phone down. You were capable of it. It was a documented skill you possessed.
yn: why don't you tell me what you think is under the sweatshirt
You sent it before you could think about it too hard. Three dots appeared immediately, like he'd been waiting.
dean: oh so we're doing this
yn: i didn't say that
dean: you kind of said that
yn: i said tell me what you think. that's not confirmation of anything
dean: fine
dean: i think you're wearing something small. something comfortable that you'd never admit you wear for any reason other than comfort but that fits you really well
dean: i think about what's under that sweatshirt more than i should probably admit
The sentence landed before you could brace for it.
yn: you think about that
dean: since the minute you said wrong number dude and didn't block me
dean: yeah
Your room felt very small. You were very aware of the specific square footage of it suddenly.
yn: that's insane
dean: probably
dean: take the sweatshirt off
yn: absolutely not
dean: why not
yn: because i don't do this
dean: yn you've been doing this for twenty minutes
Annoyingly, infuriatingly, completely accurate.
yn: if i take a picture you better not be weird about it
dean: i will be so normal
dean: the most normal i have ever been in my entire life
yn: dean
dean: yn i promise on my life
You looked at yourself in your phone camera for a long moment. The grey bralette under the sweatshirt. The lamp light. You looked good. You looked like yourself which was the best you could say about most things.
You took the sweatshirt off. Took the picture before your nerve ran out. You made sure to adjust the bralette so you boobs could look better in the picture. You sent it.
Immediately wanted to be unconscious.
Three dots appeared. Stopped. Appeared. Stopped. Appeared. Stopped.
dean: okay
dean: so
dean: i need a minute
yn: you said you'd be normal
dean: i lied. i'm so sorry i completely lied
A picture came through forty seconds later and you were not prepared for it.
Same mirror but this time he was not wearing any boxers, just some towel wrapped around his hip, hanging very low, so low you could see that he had shaven recently, which was its own problem. But this time he wasn't doing anything. Just standing there, one hand braced on the bathroom counter, head tilted down, face still out of frame. The line of his stomach, the cut of his hips, and the very obvious, very clear, very present fact that he was already hard and making absolutely no attempt to hide it.
Your mouth went dry.
dean: you started it
yn: i didn't start anything
dean: yn
yn: what
dean: take the bralette off
yn: you first
The picture came through in under fifteen seconds. You made a sound. You were glad you were alone.
It showed him, in what you think it was his bed. The towel still there but now it was not covering him anymore, and you could see the total of his nature. He took the picture from the side, so you could see the way his member was hitting on his abs.
dean: your turn
Your hands were not steady. You were aware of that and chose to file it under irrelevant. You reached back, unclasped it, let it fall somewhere on your bed. Took the picture fast. Sent it before the part of your brain responsible for self-preservation could intervene.
dean: god
dean: yn
yn: what
dean: i've been thinking about this since thursday and somehow it's still better than what i had in my head
dean: which was already pretty good
yn: stop
dean: i'm not going to stop
dean: can i tell you what i'd do if i was there right now
yn: …yes
What followed was not brief. It was not vague. It was not tasteful. Dean DiLaurentis typed the way he apparently did everything else, with complete shameless commitment and an almost offensive amount of specificity and detail. He told you exactly where he'd start. How long he'd stay there. What he'd say while he did it. What he'd do when you tried to rush him. What he'd do when you tried to be quiet about it. He was detailed in a way that made your face hot and your thoughts go static and your hand move south without you fully authorizing the journey.
yn: you're really good at this
dean: i know
dean: are you touching yourself right now
yn: …maybe
dean: yeah?
yn: shut up
dean: i'm not saying anything
dean: keep going
dean: tell me what you're doing
yn: no
dean: yn
yn: i said no
dean: okay
dean: then i'll keep telling you what i'd do
He did. In more detail than before. More specific. He described it like he had all night and no intention of rushing any part of it and the combination of his words and your own hand and the particular airless quality of your room at 11pm on a Sunday had you pressing your face into your pillow trying to muffle yourself.
yn: dean
dean: yeah
yn: i hate you
dean: no you don't
dean: are you close
yn: …yes
dean: good
dean: don't yet
You stared at the screen. Your hand stilled involuntarily.
yn: excuse me
dean: you heard me
yn: you can't tell me what to do
dean: yn
yn: what
dean: wait
yn: dean i swear to god —
dean: wait
dean: send me a voice note
dean: wanna hear you when you come
You waited. Hating him. Breathing. Staring at the ceiling with your hand completely still and your entire body in open revolt.
dean: okay
dean: now
It took approximately thirty seconds and you were embarrassingly loud about it for someone who lived in an apartment with a roommate.
You lay there after staring at the ceiling, heart rate doing its slow return to baseline, phone resting on your chest going up and down with your breathing.
yn: i hate you so much
dean: that's fair
dean: for the record i just had to take a very cold shower
dean: so
yn: good
dean: yn
yn: what
dean: you're really pretty
Not hot. Not sexy. Not any of the words he'd been using for the last forty minutes. Pretty. Quiet and simple and completely unprepared for.
yn: goodnight dean
dean: goodnight yn
You put your phone down. Stared at the ceiling. Thought about the word pretty and how he'd said it like it was just a fact he was reporting. Like he wasn't performing anything.
You were in so much trouble.
It was Tuesday night, almost midnight, and you couldn't sleep.
You'd been lying there for an hour doing the thing you did when your brain wouldn't cooperate, cycling through everything unfinished, everything not tight enough yet, everything that still needed work. Your Political Science thesis proposal. Your reading for Thursday. The general low hum of being someone who wanted things badly and couldn't fully turn that off even at midnight even when there was nothing productive to do with it.
You were not thinking about Dean. You were specifically not thinking about the fact that it had been two days since Sunday and your phone had been quiet and the rule was the rule and you were fine.
Your phone lit up.
Not a text. A FaceTime request.
dean d.
You stared at it. One ring. Two rings.
Third ring.
You answered.
His face filled your screen and you understood immediately why he'd stayed out of frame in the photos. It would have been unfair to include it. Blue eyes, slightly messed up hair, the particular look of someone lying in bed at midnight who had picked up the phone and just called without letting himself think about it too hard. He was in a grey t-shirt and he looked — a lot. He looked like a lot.
He looked at you for one second and the corner of his mouth moved.
"Frog socks," he said.
You glanced down involuntarily then looked back at the screen. "You can't even see my feet."
"I assumed."
"That's —" You shifted against your pillow, propping the phone up against your lamp so you didn't have to hold it. "Hi."
"Hi." His voice was different out loud. You'd built a version of it in your head from the texts and the reality was lower, warmer, slightly rough with lateness. "You weren't asleep."
"No. You couldn't sleep either?"
"No." He shifted, adjusting how he was holding his phone. Behind him you could see the ceiling of what was presumably his room, dark except for the ambient light from outside his window. "I kept almost texting you."
"Why almost?"
"Didn't know what to say." He looked at the camera. "Figured this was harder to overthink."
"Is it?"
"Little bit." The corner of his mouth again. "You look —"
"Don't."
"I was going to say you look like you've been staring at the ceiling."
"Oh." You felt something unknot in your chest slightly. "Yeah. Thesis stuff."
"What's wrong with it?"
"The argument isn't tight enough yet. I know what I want to say but the through line isn't —" You stopped. Looked at him. "Why are you calling me at midnight to talk about my thesis."
"I'm not." He held your gaze. "I'm calling you because I've been thinking about Sunday and I handled what came after badly and I wanted to —" He paused. "I don't know. See you I guess."
The words landed quietly. See you. Not text you. See you.
"You went quiet for two days," you said.
"I know."
"After everything you said Sunday."
"I know." Something moved through his face. "It freaked me out a little."
"What did."
"Sunday." He exhaled. Ran a hand through his hair, briefly out of frame, back. "It stopped feeling like a bit somewhere. And I woke up Wednesday and I didn't know what to do with that so I did nothing. Which was —"
"Cowardly," you said.
He looked at you. "Yeah."
"You said you weren't a coward."
"I said I don't think of myself as one." His jaw moved. "There's apparently a gap."
You looked at him on your screen. His face in the low light of his room, honest and slightly tired and not performing anything. You'd been talking to him for a week and this was the first time you'd seen him and somehow he looked exactly like you'd expected and completely different at the same time.
"I'm bad at this," you said.
"At what."
"At —" You gestured vaguely at the phone. "This. Whatever this is. I don't usually —" You stopped. Started again. "I keep things separate. School and everything else. I don't text strangers at midnight and I definitely don't —" Another stop.
"Send pictures to them?" he said.
"I was going to say trust them." You watched something shift in his expression. "But yeah. Both."
He was quiet for a moment. Looking at you on his screen the way you were looking at him on yours.
"I keep things separate too," he said finally. "I'm pretty good at it usually. Compartmentalizing." He paused. "You're bad at staying in a compartment."
"Is that a complaint?"
"No." He said it immediately. No hesitation. "It's really not."
Outside your window the rain had started, that slow Tuesday night rain that made everything feel very still and very enclosed, and your lamp cast its amber light across your bed and Dean's face was on your phone screen and it was almost midnight and none of this was something you'd planned for.
"Tell me something true," you said. You didn't know why you said it. It came out before you'd decided to, which was becoming a pattern with him.
He looked at you for a long moment. Something working through his face.
"I haven't wanted to be a lawyer since I was about sixteen," he said. "I've been pre-law for three years and I haven't told anyone that."
"Not anyone?"
"Not anyone who'd have an opinion about it." He held your gaze.
"Why are you telling me?"
"Because you asked for something true." A pause. "And because you're bad at staying in compartments so I figure I might as well return the favor."
You smiled. Couldn't help it. Small and involuntary and probably visible on his screen.
"Your turn," he said. His own mouth doing the thing. "Something true."
"I'm terrified of wanting things too much," you said. "Policy work, the thesis, all of it. I've been building toward it since I was seventeen and sometimes the wanting is so loud I can't hear anything else and that scares me. Because if it doesn't work —" You stopped. Steadied. "It's a lot to carry around."
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I get that."
"You?" You looked at him. "You walk around like nothing touches you."
"Yeah." Something moved through his face. "That's a choice."
You held his gaze on the screen. The rain outside. Both of you quiet for a moment.
"What do you actually want," you said. "If you could just — want something."
He was quiet for a long time. Long enough that you thought he wasn't going to answer. The dots of his thinking visible on his face even through a screen.
"Hockey," he said finally. Quiet. Like he was saying it carefully. "I want to coach. Not eventually, not as a retirement plan — I want to work with players. I want to be on the ice, watching someone figure something out, building something. I played all through high school and college and I was good but not good enough to go anywhere with it and I think —" He paused. "I think I'd be good at the coaching side. I see things. What players need. What's missing."
"Dean —"
"It's stupid," he said. "I know it's —"
"It's not stupid."
"It's not exactly the future my parents planned for me."
"Dean." You looked at him on your screen. His face slightly guarded, waiting. "It's brave. Knowing what you actually want when everyone around you has already decided what you should want — that's brave. That's exactly what that is. Don't minimize it."
Something moved through his face. Slow and significant.
"Yeah," he said. Very quietly. Like a decision being made. "Okay."
He looked at you for a moment. Something soft in his expression now, different from before, the careful guardedness of it gone.
"(Y/N)."
"Mm."
"Why don't we know each other."
Something moved through your chest. Quiet and warm and a little painful around the edges.
"What do you mean," you said.
"Like — why is this the first time we've actually talked. How does that happen. You're clearly —" He shook his head slightly. "You're a lot. How have I been on the same campus as you and not knowing."
"I don't know," you said softly.
"I feel like I've been missing something and I didn't know what it was until five days ago when I sent a nude to the wrong number."
You laughed. Out loud, alone in your room at midnight, genuinely laughed. He smiled at the sound of it, something lighting up in his face that made your chest ache slightly.
"That is the most unhinged sentence anyone has ever said to me," you said.
"But you know what I mean."
You did. That was the thing that kept catching you off guard — how much you understood what he meant, how readily, how little you had to translate.
"Yeah," you said. "I know what you mean."
"Okay." He settled back against his pillow, phone propped up now. "Good."
A pause. Softer than the ones before.
"What does your name stand for," he said.
You smiled at your phone in the dark. "That's for me to know."
"And me to find out?"
"Don't push it DiLaurentis."
"You googled me."
"I was being safe. You sent me a nude."
"What did you find."
"That you're annoyingly good looking in photos and you are on the Hockey team" You paused. "Which tracks, apparently."
Something in his expression. Warm and quiet. "Annoyingly good looking."
"I said what I said."
"(Y/N)."
"Goodnight Dean."
"Tell me about the thesis," he said. "The through line thing. What's not connecting."
You looked at him. "You don't want to hear about my thesis."
"(Y/N)." He looked at the camera. Steady. "I called you at midnight. I want to hear whatever you want to say."
So you told him. About the argument, the framework, the part that wasn't landing yet. He listened with his head tilted slightly on the pillow, and he asked questions that were better than they had any right to be, and at some point you stopped noticing you were talking to a screen and started just talking to him.
He talked too. About hockey, about watching players and seeing the gap between what they were doing and what they could do, about the specific satisfaction of being the person who helped close that gap. He talked about it differently than everything else, less careful, more alive, the words coming faster and easier.
"See," you said.
"See what."
"You lit up. Just now."
He looked at the camera. Something soft moving through his face. "Yeah."
"Do that," you said. "Wherever it takes you. Do that."
He looked at you for a long moment.
"Okay," he said quietly. Like a door opening.
The rain outside. Both of you quiet. The comfortable kind of quiet that didn't need filling, that felt like something rather than the absence of something.
"I'm glad you called," you said finally.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Even though it's —" He checked something offscreen. "12:53."
"Even though."
A pause. Warm. Unhurried.
"You should sleep," he said.
"You should sleep."
"I will if you will."
"Fine."
Neither of you moved to hang up. Your lamp. The rain. His face on your screen, relaxed now in a way it hadn't been at the start of the call, the careful control of it dissolved, just him. Just the person underneath all of it, lying in the dark talking to you.
"Dean."
"Yeah." His voice had gone slow. Tired in the good way.
"Don't go quiet again after this."
"I won't." Immediate. Certain. "I promise."
"Okay."
"Okay." A pause. Barely anything. "(Y/N)."
"Mm."
"You're really pretty."
You closed your eyes. Felt yourself smile against your pillow.
"Goodnight Dean."
"Goodnight."
You didn't hang up. He didn't hang up. Your lamp on, the rain going, his face on your screen quiet and still. At some point the silences between words got longer. At some point you stopped filling them. At some point your eyes got heavy and you stopped fighting it and the rain outside was the last thing you were aware of before you weren't aware of anything.
You fell asleep with his face on your screen.
He was still there when it happened. He watched your breathing slow, watched the moment your face went fully still, the lamp casting its light across you, your hair half out of the clip, the sweatshirt. He stayed there longer than he probably should have, just — watching you sleep. Feeling something settle in his chest that had been restless for longer than a week. Longer than he'd been paying attention to.
He turned his own light off eventually.
Lay in the dark with your face small and quiet on his screen, the rain still going outside your window, and thought about hockey and thesis arguments and the way you'd said do that like you meant it, like you'd decided something about him that he was only just deciding about himself.
His phone died at 3am. The call cut out silently.
Neither of you noticed.
He didn't text on Wednesday.
You noticed at 11am between classes, phone in hand, no notification. You noticed at 3pm coming back from the library. At 7pm making dinner, stirring pasta on autopilot, checking your phone and putting it face down and checking it again ten minutes later like something might have changed. At 10pm in bed, lamp on, the specific silence of a phone that wasn't going to buzz.
You didn't text first. The rule was the rule and you were keeping it.
Thursday was the same. Nothing. You told yourself it was fine. You told yourself it had run its course — a week of wrong number texts and one FaceTime call that had ended with both of you falling asleep and that was a nice thing, a strange thing, a thing that had apparently meant more to you than it had to him, and that was okay. That was information. You were a person who dealt well with information.
You were a very good liar when you needed to be.
Friday night your friend Maya texted the group chat about a party at Phi Delta. You said no. Maya sent a voice note that was forty seconds of your name in escalating tones of disbelief. You said fine.
You wore the black top, which Maya had called fondly the slutty top. Not for any particular reason. Just because it fit.
The party was exactly what parties always were too loud, too warm, cheap beer and someone's vanilla candle losing the fight. Maya disappeared within five minutes and you got a drink, found a wall, and told yourself you were having a perfectly fine time.
You were fine. Everything was fine.
You were doing your idle party scan when you saw him.
Dean.
Across the room, red cup in hand, laughing at something. Dark green shirt pushed up at the sleeves, hair slightly messed up, looking easy and comfortable the way he always looked from what you'd gathered, like every room had been built specifically around him. He looked like the last two days of silence had cost him absolutely nothing.
You looked away.
Took a sip. Looked at your phone. Looked at nothing.
Looked back, because you were apparently incapable of basic self-governance, and that's when you saw her.
Dark hair. Good smile. Hand on Dean's arm with the comfort of someone who had a map of him. She leaned up and said something in his ear and he tilted his head toward her and laughed and your chest did something immediate and ugly.
And then your brain, unhelpfully, connected the dots.
The ease between them. The specific body language of two people who had been somewhere private together. The way she touched his arm like she'd done it before and expected to do it again.
thinking about what we did last night at the bathroom of malone's.
Her.
You looked away. This time you meant it. You pushed off the wall and went to find the kitchen.
Across the room, Dean laughed at something Jessica said and heard approximately none of it.
He'd seen you the second you walked in. Black top, drink in hand, finding your spot against the wall with the self-contained ease of someone who didn't need the room to come to her. He'd seen you and something in his chest had done something immediate and then Jessica had said something and he'd laughed on autopilot and thought I need to go over there and then thought about the two days of silence and wondered if you'd even want him to.
He was going to go over. In a minute. He just needed to figure out what to say first.
Jessica's hand on his arm, sliding slightly. "You okay?"
"Yeah." He scanned the room. "Sorry. Yeah."
He looked back to the wall.
You were gone.
The kitchen was quieter, the music muffled through the walls, someone's abandoned game on the counter. You made yourself a drink and leaned against the far counter and tried to look like someone who was completely fine and at a party by choice.
"You look like you're doing very complex math."
You turned. Tall, broad shoulders, easy to look at. He was looking at you with mild amusement, red cup loosely in hand, clearly also just occupying the kitchen for no particular agenda.
"That obvious?" you said.
"Little bit." The corner of his mouth lifted. "Bad night or just bad party?"
"Neither. Just needed a minute."
"Yeah." He nodded like that was a complete and reasonable explanation. "I get that." He shifted his weight, easy. "I'm Garrett."
"(Y/N)."
"You go here?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah." He leaned against the counter beside you, comfortable distance, just companionable. "What are you studying?"
"Political Science. You?"
"Business." He tilted his head. "So you're either going to run the country or make everyone's lives very difficult in an official capacity."
You laughed despite yourself. "Those aren't mutually exclusive."
"Fair point." His eyes were warm. "You know anyone here or are you flying solo tonight?"
"My friend Maya. She evaporated within five minutes."
"Classic." He grinned. "I came with my housemates. Two of them are definitely playing beer pong." He glanced through the kitchen doorway into the main room, something briefly crossing his face. "One of them is around."
You followed his glance without thinking. Through the doorway. Across the room. And found those blue eyes doing a very focused scan of the party that landed on the kitchen doorway and stopped.
You looked back at Garrett. He wasn't looking at the room anymore. He was looking at you, easy and present, no agenda.
He had absolutely no idea.
"So Political Science," he said. "What do you actually want to do with it?"
"Policy work. Education reform specifically."
"That's —" He looked genuinely interested. "That's actually really cool. I have a cousin in education, she'd probably lose her mind talking to you." He leaned against the counter, unhurried. "Do you like it? Like genuinely, not the resume answer."
You looked at him. It was a good question. A real one.
"Yeah," you said. "It's the first thing that ever made me feel like I was pointed at something."
"I get that." Something moved through his expression. "Hockey did that for me. It does that for me—" He shrugged, easy.
The conversation kept going, easy and warm, moving through things the way good conversations did when you weren't trying to have one. He was kind of funny in an uncomplicated way, interested without being performative about it, and you'd stopped scanning the room and stopped thinking about tall blonds and started just talking to this person who was genuinely good at talking to people.
At some point he said something that made you laugh and you leaned toward him slightly to hear it better over the music bleeding in from the main room and he leaned toward you and you were close, just close, just the natural physics of a loud party and a good conversation, and —
"(Y/N)."
Low. Tight. From the kitchen doorway.
You looked up.
Dean was standing there. Hands in his pockets. Jaw doing significant structural work. His eyes moved from you to Garrett to the distance between you and back to your face in a sweep that took half a second and communicated quite a lot.
Garrett straightened. Looked at Dean. Looked at you. Looked back at Dean.
You watched the understanding move across his face slowly, like something assembling itself piece by piece. His eyes tracked between the two of you once, barely perceptible.
He didn't move away from you.
"Dean." Warm. Genuinely pleased to see his friend. No agenda yet — just Garrett being Garrett. "Hey, man. Do you know (Y/N)? Political Science. Really interesting."
"We've met," Dean said.
"Have you." A statement. He glanced at you, something in his expression recalibrating.
"Briefly," you said. "Hey," you said pleasantly.
"Hey," he said. Something moved through his face. "You look —"
"Garrett was just telling me about the house," you said, turning back to Garrett.
Garrett, to his credit, looked genuinely angelic. "Was I?"
"You were about to."
"Right." Garrett nodded seriously. "Yeah, so there are four of us. Me, Tucker, and two others." He paused. "Dean actually."
You turned back to look at Dean with an expression you kept very neutral.
Dean looked at Garrett with an expression that said several things, none of them printable.
Garrett looked back at Dean with the innocent open face of someone who had made a choice and was at peace with it.
"Housemates," you said. "Fun."
"It's great," Garrett said warmly. "Really great. We're very close. Like brothers almost."
"That's nice," you said.
"It is," Garrett agreed. "Dean especially. Very important to me. I would hate for anything bad to happen to him."
"Garrett," Dean said.
"Just saying."
You looked at Dean. He looked at you. The kitchen felt very small.
A beat. Jessica appeared in the kitchen doorway behind him.
You felt her before you saw her — the atmospheric shift of someone entering a room with an intention. She stood in the doorway with her drink and her dark hair and her eyes moving between you and Dean with an expression that was very calm and very assessing. Her hand found Dean's arm again, light, proprietary.
Dean didn't look at her. He was looking at you.
Jessica looked at you. One sweep. Taking stock. Her hand pressed slightly on Dean's arm.
He shifted his weight. Almost imperceptibly. Away.
Her expression didn't change but something behind it did.
"Can I talk to you," Dean said to you. Not a question.
"I'm in the middle of a conversation."
"(Y/N) —"
"Garrett was talking."
"I really was," Garrett said. He had his drink raised to his lips. His eyes were very bright.
"(Y/N) —"
"We were in the middle of something."
"We really weren't," Garrett said helpfully. "I mean — we can be. (Y/N) seems great. I'm happy to continue."
Dean looked at his housemate with an expression of profound betrayal.
Garrett smiled at him with profound innocence.
You set your cup down on the counter and looked at Garrett. He was cute. He had a good smile and an easy energy and under literally any other circumstances you'd have been happy to keep talking to him all night. You looked at him now and then you looked at Dean — jaw tight, eyes on you, something desperate moving underneath all that control — and you made a choice.
You turned back to Garrett. Leaned against the counter so your shoulder was almost against his. Looked up at him. "So the house," you said. "How many bedrooms?"
Garrett blinked. Recovered admirably. "Four. Dean's is the —"
"(Y/N)." Dean's hand was on your arm, light, just fingers. Same as before. "Please."
Dean looked at his housemate with an expression that Garrett received with complete serenity.
"Two minutes," Dean said to you.
"I'm fine here."
"(Y/N)."
"You didn't text," you said. Pleasantly. Conversationally. Like you were noting the weather.
Something moved through his face. "I know —"
"Two days."
"Phone works both ways, you know."
Your mouth opened. Closed.
"What are you," you said, "my divorced dad?"
Garrett made a sound behind his cup. Not quite successfully contained.
Dean stared at you. The controlled expression cracking slightly, something underneath it that was almost a laugh that he was visibly, effort fully refusing to let happen.
"I —" He stopped. Reset. "That's —"
Jessica's hand dropped from his arm.
"(Y/N)." Dean's voice lower now. The control fraying properly at the edges. Something real pushing through. "I know. I know I should have texted. I kept picking up my phone and putting it down because I didn't know how to say —" He stopped. Looked at you. "Can we please go somewhere that isn't the kitchen?"
"I like the kitchen."
"Garrett —" He looked at his housemate.
Garrett looked back at him with the expression of a man fully at peace with his choices.
"I'm not going anywhere," Garrett said pleasantly. "Spiritually this is my kitchen."
"You don't live here —"
"Spiritually, Dean."
Dean looked at the ceiling. Looked back at you. His face doing something complicated and unguarded and very much not the easy composed version from across the room twenty minutes ago.
And then his eyes moved past your shoulder and something in them changed. Went very still.
You turned.
Jessica was still in the doorway. She wasn't looking at Dean anymore. She was looking at you with an expression that was perfectly calm and perfectly clear and said everything without saying anything. She knew. She didn't know who you were or what had happened but she knew what Dean's face looked like right now and she knew it wasn't about her.
She looked at Dean one more time. He met her gaze. Something passed between them — not unkind, just final. She turned and walked back into the party without a word.
The kitchen went quiet.
Garrett looked at the doorway. Looked at Dean. Looked at you. Took a long slow sip of his drink.
"Garrett," Dean said. Not looking away from you. "I need you to leave."
A pause.
"Yeah, okay," Garrett said. He pushed off the counter. Looked at you with a smile that was warm and genuine and knew entirely too much. "It was really nice to meet you, (Y/N)."
"You too, Garrett."
He looked at Dean. Something in his face that was fond and exasperated and rooting for him all at once. "You got this," he said quietly.
Then he walked out of the kitchen and you heard him immediately start talking to someone in the main room, easy and unbothered, like nothing had happened, like he hadn't just witnessed the complete dismantling of his housemate's composure in real time.
You looked at Dean.
He looked at you.
Just the two of you and the muffled music and the kitchen counter and everything that had been said and not said for a week.
"Talk," you said.
"Jessica," he said. "She's the one from Malone's. I need you to know I didn't invite her tonight, I didn't answer when she texted, I came here and she was just already —"
"I know who she is," you said.
Something moved through his face. "You figured it out."
"Yeah."
"When?"
"When I saw you with her." You kept your voice even. "Body language. The way she touched your arm." You paused. "The way you let her."
"(Y/N) —"
"I don't have a claim on you," you said. "I know that. We've been texting for a week. You don't owe me anything."
"That's not —"
"I was jealous." You said it clearly. Cleanly. Looking right at him. "I saw you with her and I knew who she was and I was jealous and I hated myself for it and then I went and talked to your housemate like an idiot."
"You didn't know he was my housemate."
"I kept talking after I found out."
Something moved through his expression. Warm and wrecked at the same time. "I know you did."
"I was making a point."
"You made it very effectively." He took a step toward you. Not touching. Just closer. "I was watching from across the room."
"I know."
"The whole time."
"I know, Dean."
"You and Garrett were —" He stopped. His jaw. "You were close."
"We were talking."
"And then you were laughing and leaning toward him and I was standing across the room watching it and I —" He shook his head slightly. "I hated it. I really hated it. Which I have no right to feel given that I didn't text you for two days."
"No," you said. "You don't."
"I know."
"You fell asleep on that call," you said. "And then you didn't text."
"I know." His voice dropped. "I know. I woke up Wednesday and my phone was dead and I plugged it in and I thought about texting you and I didn't know how to say — what that call was. What Sunday was. I didn't know how to say any of it in a text so I said nothing. Which was —"
"Cowardly," you said.
"Yeah." He held your gaze. "There's a gap between who I think I am and how I acted this week and I know that and I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, (Y/N)."
You looked at him. His face close and honest and tired of holding it all together.
"How long did you stay on the call?" you said.
He looked at you for a moment. "Until my phone died."
"What time was that?"
"3 a.m."
You held his gaze. Felt something in your chest do the cracking thing, the hairline fracture spreading just enough.
"You watched me sleep," you said.
"For a while," he said quietly. "Yeah."
The kitchen. The music. His face.
"Don't go quiet again," you said. Not angry anymore. Just — asking. "Whatever this is. Don't do that again."
"I won't." Immediate. "I promise I won't."
You looked at him for a long moment.
"Your place or mine," you said.
His whole face changed at once.
"Yours," he said. "Please."
"Say goodbye to Garrett."
"Garrett can —"
"Dean."
He was already texting with one hand, the other finding the small of your back to steer you out of the kitchen.
From somewhere in the main room a whoop rang out. Unmistakably Garrett. Followed by Tucker's voice saying "What?" and Garrett saying something you couldn't catch and Tucker apparently losing his mind entirely.
Dean closed his eyes for exactly one second.
"Your friends," you said.
"I know," he said. His hand warm at your back. "Come on."
The Uber was six minutes away and you spent all six of them standing outside in the November cold, not talking, which should have been awkward and wasn't. Dean stood close enough that your arm was against his, and the cold air bit at your shoulders and neither of you moved away from it or from each other. The party noise muffled behind the door. The street quiet ahead of you.
"You're doing the math thing," he said.
"Garrett told you about that."
"Garrett tells me everything. Mostly when I don't want him to."
"He seemed like a good person."
"He's the worst." A pause. "He's genuinely the best. Don't ever tell him."
The Uber pulled up. Dean opened the door and you got in. Dean folded in after you and the door shut and the back seat was very warm and very small and his leg was against yours from knee to mid thigh, solid and warm. The driver pulled out without a word. Some low music from the front. The city moving past the windows in intervals of light and dark.
Neither of you moved away from each other.
You stared out the window. Felt him looking at you periodically. Didn't look back. Could feel the quality of his attention like a hand on your shoulder — present, focused, pointed entirely at you.
"(Y/N)."
"Mm."
"I've been thinking about you for two days." His voice low, just for the back seat. "I'd be in class and just — thinking about the call. What you said. The way you said it."
"You could have just texted," you said.
"I know."
"Would have been considerably easier than all of this."
"Yeah." His mouth moved. "But you talked to Garrett."
"I didn't know he was your housemate."
"And when you found out?"
You turned your head to look at him. Close in the back seat, the city lights moving across his face.
"I was making a point," you said.
"You made it." Something heated in his expression. Something that hadn't been there in the kitchen — the composure fully gone now, replaced by something more direct. "It worked."
The Uber slowed. Your building. You got out, Dean behind you, the lobby, the elevator. The numbers going up in the quiet. You watched the display and not him and felt him watching you and not the display.
Your floor. Your door. Your keys, which you managed.
The door opened. You stepped inside. Reached for the lamp.
Dean stepped in behind you and the door clicked shut and before you could find the switch his hand caught yours in the dark — gentle, just his fingers wrapping around yours, stilling them.
"Hey," he said. Right behind you. Close.
You turned around.
He was right there. Closer than the hallway at the party, closer than the Uber, close enough that you had to angle your chin up to find his face in the dark. And you'd been building him in your head for a week from a torso in white boxers and a voice you'd invented for his texts and the FaceTime call that had felt like finally, and the reality of him — close, in the dark of your apartment, looking down at you with an expression that wasn't performing a single thing — was a lot. It was genuinely a lot.
"Hi," you said.
"Hi." His thumb moved across your knuckles. Once. "You okay?"
"If you ask me that one more time —"
"(Y/N)."
"I'm okay," you said. "I've been okay. I'm very okay and I'm going to need you to stop asking and start —"
He kissed you.
Not tentative. Not exploratory. Immediate and certain, his hand coming up to cup your jaw, tilting your head back, kissing you like he'd made a decision and the decision was this, specifically and completely this. You kissed him back and got your hands into the front of his shirt and pulled and he made a sound against your mouth that did significant and lasting damage to your nervous system.
He walked you backward through your apartment with a confidence that suggested he'd clocked the layout the second the lights came on. His mouth didn't leave yours except to drag briefly to your jaw, your throat, the soft place just below your ear that made you pull in a sharp breath.
He came back to it. Of course he came back to it.
"Dean —"
"Yeah."
"Bedroom is —"
"I know." He did. His hand found the hem of your black top. He pulled back just far enough to look at you in the low light from the window, asking without asking.
You lifted your arms.
He pulled it over your head and dropped it somewhere and then just looked at you. The way he'd said pretty over text, that same undone quality, like he was actually stopped by it. Like it required a moment.
"What," you said.
"Nothing." He reached out and traced your collarbone with two fingers, just the path of it, watching his own hand. "Just —" He exhaled. "Yeah."
"Eloquent."
"Shut up." He walked you the rest of the way to the bedroom. The backs of your knees hit the bed. You sat. Looked up at him. Reached for the hem of his shirt and he helped you pull it off and then he was standing there in your lamplight and you finally had the full picture — not a mirror, not a photo, not a screen. Just him. Looking down at you with blue eyes and a mouth that wasn't smiling and something in his face that was only for this room, only for right now.
You pulled him down by his belt loop.
He pressed you back into the mattress and took his time about it in a way that directly contradicted the energy of the last hour. He kissed your throat, your collarbone, the curve of your shoulder, hands moving over you with a patience that was a choice, deliberate, made with full awareness of what it was doing to you.
"You said you weren't going to go slow," you managed.
"I said a lot of things." His mouth against your sternum. Moving lower. "I'm revising."
"Dean —"
"(Y/N)." He looked up at you from where his mouth was making its way down your stomach, chin resting just below your ribs, eyes dark and entirely calm. "I've been thinking about this for a week. I'm not rushing it."
"I will actually —"
"You'll what." One eyebrow. "Finish that sentence."
You couldn't. Your brain had stopped producing complete sentences approximately thirty seconds ago.
"That's what I thought," he said, and moved lower.
He was good at this. You'd had data suggesting he would be: the texts, the specific confident detail of them, but the actual reality of his mouth and his hands and the focused attention he brought to learning you was something else entirely. He figured out what worked faster than felt fair. What made you grip the sheets and what made you forget you were supposed to be quiet and what made you say his name like it was the only word you currently had access to.
His hands on your hips. Pressing down. Holding you in place with a firmness that made your breath go unsteady.
"Dean." Strained. "Dean I'm —"
"I know." He didn't stop. Didn't adjust. Kept going with the same patient devastating focus until you were pulling at his hair and had completely abandoned the project of being quiet about any of this.
"I'm going to —"
He pulled back. Just enough. The loss of it was almost criminal.
"Are you serious," you said to the ceiling.
"Very." He pressed a kiss to your inner thigh, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and your sanity was not his problem. "You did this to me Sunday."
"You told me to wait —"
"And now I'm returning the favor." He looked up at you again. Blue eyes, completely unbothered, completely in control in a way that was profoundly unfair given the current situation. "Problem?"
"Yes," you said. "Significant problem. I have several —"
"(Y/N)."
"What."
"Ask nicely."
You stared at him. "Absolutely not."
He smiled. It was a terrible smile. It was a fantastic smile. He pressed another slow kiss to your thigh and you made a sound that surrendered significant ground in this negotiation.
"Dean." Through your teeth. Barely holding it together.
"Yeah."
"Please."
"Please what." Infuriatingly calm. His thumb drawing a slow circle on your hip. "Be specific."
"Please," you said, "don't stop."
"Since you asked so nicely."
He moved back and you stopped being capable of organized thought entirely.
When it finally tipped over the edge your hand was fisted in his hair and you were considerably louder than you'd planned and you felt him smile against you which should have been annoying and was not even slightly.
He came back up. Hovered over you, forearm by your head, looking down at your face with an expression that was heated and soft and something underneath both that you didn't have the capacity to name right now.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." Breathless. "You're the worst."
"You're welcome."
You grabbed the front of his hair and pulled him down and kissed him, which he allowed for approximately two seconds before he took over, and his hand moved to your waist and lower and you shifted against him and felt exactly what you'd seen in that photo a week ago and made a sound against his mouth.
"Dean."
"Yeah."
"Now."
"Yeah." He reached past you. Nightstand drawer, you'd already told him with your eyes and he'd already known. "Yeah."
He paused. Looked down at you. Something moved through his face, not quite a smile, something more than that. Something that felt like recognition.
"Left side," he said.
"Don't read into it."
"I'm not reading into anything."
"Good."
"I'm just —"
"Dean."
He kissed you once. Quick and certain and warm. "Right."
The thing about the texts was that he'd told you exactly who he was in them. Exactly how he operated. And he delivered on all of it, present in a way that felt total, attentive in a way that tracked everything, adjusting without being asked, paying attention in a way that made it feel specific to you rather than general, like he was interested in you specifically and not just in the thing itself.
His hands, which you'd had opinions about since Thursday.
The low way he said your name when he meant it, not as punctuation, just — yours. Like it meant something to say it.
At some point you said his name like a question and he said yours back like an answer.
At some point his forehead dropped to yours and you both stayed there for a moment, just that, just breathing, and neither of you moved to change it.
At some point everything tipped and he said your name against your temple and you pressed your face into his shoulder and felt the whole week, the wrong number and the texts and the call and the two days of silence and the party and the kitchen and Garrett's chaotic loyalty and Jessica's quiet exit and the Uber and his hand in the dark finding yours — all of it moving through you and landing somewhere soft.
The room quiet. Lamp still on. Both of you horizontal, breathing slowing back to something normal, the particular warm stillness of a room after something that mattered.
Dean was on his back. You were beside him, your shoulder almost against his, staring at the ceiling. Outside the November cold. Inside just the lamp and the quiet and the sound of him breathing next to you.
"(Y/N)."
"Mm."
"You okay?"
You turned your head. He was already looking at you, head turned on the pillow, close enough to see every detail of his face you'd been denied for a week — the line of his jaw, his eyes in lamplight, darker and quieter than across a party room, the thing in his expression that wasn't performing anything at all.
"You have to stop asking me that," you said.
"Probably." He didn't look away. "You okay?"
You looked at him for a long moment.
"Yeah," you said. "I'm really good actually."
Something in his face settled. Like something he'd been holding released.
"Good," he said quietly.
A pause. Comfortable. Easy.
"Garrett is going to be unbearable," you said.
"For the rest of my natural life." He paused. "He's going to tell Tucker."
"Is Tucker worse?"
"Tucker is going to make a bracket." Another pause. "Tucker is going to frame a bracket."
You laughed. Actually laughed. He smiled at the ceiling, small and private and genuine.
"Dean."
"Yeah."
"Don't go quiet again."
He turned his head. His expression did something you felt in your sternum.
"I won't," he said.
"I mean it."
"I know." He moved his hand across the space between you. Found yours on the sheets. Wrapped his around it, loose and warm, like it was the most natural thing. "I won't."
You looked back at the ceiling. His hand around yours. The lamp. Outside the city doing whatever the city did at this hour, indifferent and ongoing.
"Dean."
"Yeah."
"The coaching thing." You felt his hand go slightly still. "You should tell your dad."
A long pause.
"(Y/N) —"
"I mean it. Not being a lawyer. Hockey. Coaching. The thing that makes you light up when you talk about it." You turned your head to look at him. "Tell him."
He looked at the ceiling. His jaw moved. Something working through his face that was complicated and real and not resolved yet.
"Yeah," he said finally. Very quietly. "I know."
"You know?"
"I know." He exhaled slowly. Turned his head to look at you. "I've known for a while. I just —" He shook his head slightly. "I needed someone to say it out loud I think."
You held his gaze.
"Consider it said," you said.
Something moved through his face. Soft and significant.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
Outside the November cold. Inside the lamp and the quiet and his hand around yours and something that didn't have a name yet but felt like the beginning of one.
"What does your name stand for," he said.
You smiled at the ceiling. "Goodnight Dean."
"Tell me."
"Goodnight."
"I'll ask Garrett. First thing tomorrow."
"Garrett doesn't know."
"I'll make something up. Tell the whole team."
"You don't have a team yet."
"I will." He said it simply. Certain. Like a door that was already open. "I will."
You looked at him. Felt something in your chest that was warm and a little terrifying and completely worth it.
"Goodnight," you said softly.
"Goodnight (Y/N)." A pause. His thumb moving across your knuckles, once, slow. "Whatever it stands for."
summary: Dean DiLaurentis gives you the "I don't do relationships" speech, and you say okay and come back the next day to fix Tucker's cooking. Turns out the most dangerous thing you can do to a man like that is simply not need him.
word count: 11.5k
warnings: 18+ explicit sexual content, minors do not interact. situationship dynamics, brief angst, dean being cruel in a moment he regrets, dirty talk, slow burn, eventual fluff.
Daily calls with your mother had become more sparse over the course of your college years. They started daily and had slowly tapered to every other Saturday, which, in all honesty, was a bit of a shock given that she wasn't the type to loosen her grip easily. She had always been overprotective, and when you announced you weren't going to Texas University but to a college in Massachusetts, she had genuinely flipped her shit. Two years later she seemed kind of cool about it. Just texting. Sending random updates about your dog, like the Halloween costume from last year that you'd screenshot and saved.
You were sitting in your room in the sorority house, legs extended and resting on the desk, phone propped against your water bottle while you FaceTimed her and tried to paint your nails without smudging anything. The room was quiet except for your mom stirring something on the stove.
"So I ran into Olivia Tucker — you remember her, right? From church? She had a son named John," she said, not looking at the camera.
You had learned years ago that it was easier to say yes, of course than to endure five minutes of your mom describing a person like she was giving a statement to the police.
"Yeah, of course. I remember Mrs. Tucker."
"She mentioned her son John is attending the same college as you." She said it like she was reading off a notecard. Matter of fact. "She said he's playing hockey now."
Oh. That John Tucker.
"Yeah, I know who he is," you said, cleaning up the mess on your middle finger.
"Isn't that a big coincidence?"
"I mean, not really — he's like a year younger than me, right?"
"Yes, but you two used to play together when you were kids. At church, remember?" You did not remember. Your family went to church maybe twice a year. "Anyway, I gave her your number so she could pass it along to him. So you two could talk."
"Mom — what, that's not really —"
"She's probably not even going to use it."
She used it. Mrs. Tucker called three days later, and with the grace of a good Southern woman, she asked you to keep an eye on John — not in so many words, of course. She said he'd moved into a house with some of the other players and she just wanted to know he was taking care of himself. She didn't want you to do much. Just stop by, take a look around, report back. She'd handle the rest by phone.
What she did not tell you was that Tucker already knew about her plan.
He opened the door looking completely unsurprised to see you, leaned against the frame with his arms crossed and a grin that said nice try. He was, it turned out, perfectly capable of taking care of himself and, annoyingly, other people too.
Which is how you ended up here, almost a year later, sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island in the off campus house, crying into an onion.
"I'm just saying, get a dicer," you said, keeping your eyes on the knife because you had to. "This is inhumane."
"A real chef doesn't use those kinds of things," Tucker said from across the kitchen, doing significantly less chopping than you were.
"Well, good thing you're not a real chef then."
He turned around, visibly offended. "What did you just say?"
You opened your mouth to repeat it — and then Garrett wandered in from the living room, grabbed an apple from the counter, looked at Tucker's side of the kitchen and then at yours, and pointed at you. "She's doing all the work," he said, to no one in particular, and wandered back out.
"He's right," you said.
"He's a traitor," Tucker said.
You opened your mouth to agree and then the sound of footsteps came down the hallway, and Dean came around the corner fresh out of the shower, towel low on his hips and water still tracking down his chest.
You sniffed, eyes watering, nose red.
Dean stopped. Looked at you. And then let out a slow, deeply entertained laugh.
"Well," he said, "I've heard a lot of reactions from girls seeing me like this. But crying might be a first." He tilted his head. "You alright there, sweet pea?"
"It's the onion," you said flatly. "Tucker's making me cut it."
"Sure." He was already turning toward the stairs, completely unbothered. "Whatever floats your boat."
He winked at you over his shoulder as he disappeared around the corner.
You looked back down at the onion.
Tucker was very pointedly not looking at you.
"Not a word," you said.
"I didn't say anything," he said, in the tone of someone who was saying everything.
The party invitation from Tucker arrived as a single text on a Thursday night.
party saturday, be here, i made a playlist
You were in the middle of your readings and you looked at the message for a moment before typing back: do I need to bring anything?
yourself and good energy
You put your phone face down and went back to your reading. Then picked it up again.
what time
nine but come at eight so we can hang before it gets loud
That was Tucker's way of saying he wanted to cook with you beforehand, which you appreciated more than you would ever tell him out loud because he would absolutely use it against you. You sent back a thumbs up and returned to your notes, and you did not think about the fact that Dean would be there, because that was not a relevant consideration.
You thought about it the entire rest of the week.
Not in a dramatic way. Just in the quiet, persistent way of something you kept putting down and finding in your hand again. You were honest with yourself about Dean, had been from the beginning. You knew what he was. Charming in a way that looked effortless because it mostly was, easy with people, the kind of person who filled a room without trying. You'd watched him for almost a year. You knew the way he talked to people, the way he leaned in when something was funny, the way he'd come into the kitchen sometimes when you were there and open the fridge and just stand there for a full thirty seconds like the answer to whatever he was looking for might eventually appear.
You knew that he'd noticed you too. That wasn't ego, just observation. The way his eyes would find you first when he walked into a room where you already were. The way he'd aim a comment at you specifically when he had a whole group to choose from. The way he'd said I've heard a lot of reactions like your reaction was the one that mattered.
You'd been sensible about it for a year. You'd made the choice, every single time, to not do anything about it. And you were fine. You were genuinely fine with that. You knew what Dean was, knew what it would be, and you'd decided the math didn't work out in your favor so you'd left it alone.
It was just that sometimes, quietly, in the back of your head, a voice said but what if you didn't.
You got dressed Saturday night and told that voice to shut up, and went to the party anyway.
Tucker met you at the door at eight on the dot, already in a good mood, which meant either the playlist was really good or he'd already had a drink.
"You look great," he said, holding the door open.
"You say that every time."
"Because it's true every time." He handed you a beer from the counter as you came into the kitchen, already comfortable, already home in the easy way the house had started to feel over the past year. "I was thinking we do something with the leftover rice from yesterday, I got peppers —"
"Tucker."
"What."
"We're not cooking. There are already people here."
He looked genuinely confused. "So?"
You took the beer from him and looked around the kitchen. Logan was leaning against the far counter talking to someone from the team, and Garrett was already in the living room, and the house had that particular pre-party hum to it, not yet loud, still settling into itself.
Dean wasn't in the kitchen.
You noted this the way you noted a lot of things quietly, without making anything of it.
Logan glanced over when Tucker handed you the beer. "You're here early."
"She's basically a resident," Tucker said, like this was a fact.
"I'm a guest," you said.
"Guests don't know where we keep the good knives," Logan said and winked, and went back to his conversation.
You spent the next hour in that easy pre-party mode, moving between the kitchen and the living room, talking to people you knew by name now, accepting a second drink from someone who was mixing them near the back. Tucker orbited you loosely the way he always did at these things, appearing at your elbow every twenty minutes or so to say something that made you laugh and then disappearing again. This was one of your favorite things about him, he was never clingy, never needed to keep you close, just checked in like punctuation.
Dean appeared sometime around ten.
He came down the stairs and into the living room and you saw him before he saw you, which felt important. He was wearing a dark green shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbows, and he had that easy unhurried way of moving through a room like it had already arranged itself around him. He said something to Garrett near the bottom of the stairs and laughed, and you looked away before he could look up.
So. He was here. That was fine. That was completely normal and fine.
You went to find Tucker.
The next hour you spent being very deliberate about not being obvious. You talked to people on the back porch when Dean was in the living room. You came inside when he drifted toward the kitchen. You were not proud of it exactly, but you were not going to stand around waiting for him to decide whether tonight was a night he felt like paying attention to you. You'd done a lot of things in your life. That was not going to be one of them.
Your friend Anna, a sorority sister, texted at eleven: how's the party
You typed back: fine. dean's here.
Three seconds.
oh. OH. okay. call me tomorrow.
maybe
that means yes. don't do anything I wouldn't do
You locked your phone and put it in your pocket and thought about the specific, limited list of things Anna wouldn't do and found it unhelpfully short.
The thing was, and you'd been over this, you'd been reasonable about this, you knew what it would be. A night, maybe a few nights, comfortable and uncomplicated and then done. Dean DiLaurentis didn't do anything that looked like what came after. You'd watched him long enough to know that too. And you'd decided that wasn't what you wanted, so you'd kept your distance, and that had been the right call, and it remained the right call.
You were in college at a party on a Friday night and you had been sensible about this for almost an entire calendar year.
The voice in the back of your head said but you knew that going in and it doesn't have to mean anything you don't want it to mean.
You told it to shut up.
It had a point though.
You refilled your drink. Stood near the back door where the air was a little cooler and the noise slightly less consuming. Watched the party happen around you. Thought, very clearly and deliberately: you know what it is. you've always known. that doesn't have to be the reason not to.
You were still working through the logic of that when you felt someone come to stand beside you.
"(Y/N). You've been avoiding me."
Dean. Not accusing, just observing, the same way he did most things, like he was simply noting a fact about the universe. He had a drink in one hand and he wasn't looking at you yet, eyes scanning the room like he'd just happened to end up here beside you, which you both understood wasn't true.
"I've been talking to people," you said.
"You've been talking to people on the opposite side of every room I was in."
"Maybe I just like that side of the room."
He looked at you then. Really looked, in that direct way of his that felt like being assessed and appreciated at the same time. The music was loud enough that the conversation existed in its own small space, just between you.
"You've been doing that for a year," he said.
"Has it been a year?" You kept your voice light.
"Almost." He took a drink. "I've been patient."
The word landed simply, without performance. Patient. Like he'd been waiting. Like the last year had been something he'd noticed too, kept track of, decided to let run its course.
You looked at him for a long moment. The party moved around you, loud and warm, and you stood in it and made the decision clearly, with both eyes open, which felt like the important part.
"Bathroom's upstairs," you said.
Something shifted in his expression, not surprise, just confirmation. Like he'd known, and now he knew for certain.
"Yeah," he said.
He followed you up the stairs without touching you, which felt somehow more loaded than if he had. You could feel him behind you the whole way, that particular awareness of someone close, and by the time you reached the top of the stairs your heart was doing something inconvenient.
The upstairs bathroom was at the end of the hall. You went in, he came in behind you, and you turned to click the lock and found him already there, close enough that turning around put you nearly chest to chest with him, close enough that you could feel the warmth coming off him before he'd laid a hand on you.
He didn't kiss you right away.
That was the first thing. You'd expected him to, he'd been patient for a year, you'd just told him where the bathroom was, you'd expected him to close the distance immediately. Instead he just looked at you, and the looking was its own thing, slow and deliberate, like he was taking his time now that he finally had you here and he wanted you to know it.
"You made me wait a long time," he said.
"You could have said something sooner," you said.
"I said something tonight."
"Barely."
Something shifted in his expression, not quite a smile, more like he'd just decided something. He reached up slowly and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, fingers grazing your jaw, and the touch was so light it was almost nothing, which somehow made it worse.
"You're going to be like that," he said. Quiet. Certain.
"I don't know what you mean," you said, which was a lie and you both knew it.
He tilted your chin up with two fingers, not roughly, just — directing. Making you look at him. "Yeah you do," he said, and then he kissed you.
It wasn't tentative. It was a kiss from someone who had thought about this specifically, who knew what he wanted and had decided tonight was when he was going to have it, and you kissed him back and felt a year's worth of deliberate distance dissolve somewhere at the back of your mind.
He walked you backward until your hips met the bathroom counter and left you there, stepped back just enough to look at you again with that same unhurried attention, and you understood then that he wasn't in a hurry. That he'd waited this long and now he was going to enjoy it, and you were going to have to let him.
"Take your jacket off," he said.
You did.
He watched you do it. That was all — just watched, arms loosely crossed, completely at ease, like this was exactly where he'd planned to be tonight. You set the jacket on the counter and looked at him and he looked back.
"Good," he said, like that meant something.
Your heart was doing the inconvenient thing again.
He came back to you slowly, hands finding your waist, and kissed you again, deeper this time, one hand sliding into your hair and gripping, not painfully, just holding you exactly where he wanted you. You made a small sound against his mouth and felt him smile.
"There it is," he murmured.
"Shut up," you said.
"Make me," he said against your jaw, and then his mouth was on your throat and the option to respond coherently became briefly unavailable.
He took his time with your throat, your collarbone, the soft place below your ear that made your fingers curl into his shirt without your permission, and every time you moved to pull him closer he'd ease back just enough to remind you that he was running this. Not mean about it. Just clear.
"Dean —"
"I've got you," he said, against your skin. "I'm not going anywhere."
His hands moved to the hem of your top, pulling it up slowly, and he stepped back to pull it over your head and dropped it somewhere on the floor and looked at you again with that particular focus, and you had to actively resist the urge to cover yourself, because that was not what you did, but the way he was looking at you made you feel like you were already coming apart.
"You have no idea," he said quietly, more to himself than you, and then his mouth was on your collarbone and his hands were at your waist and you gave up on dignity entirely.
His hands moved to the button of your jeans, unhurried, and he looked up at you first — not asking exactly, just checking — and you nodded and he undid it and crouched down to pull the fabric down your legs with a thoroughness that felt like a point being made. He looked up at you from there, and whatever was on your face made him look deeply, quietly satisfied.
"You've been thinking about this," he said. Not a question.
"Don't," you said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't be smug about it."
"I'm not being smug." He pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, which short-circuited something. "I'm just paying attention."
He stood back up slowly, hands trailing up the outside of your thighs, and lifted you onto the counter like it was nothing, stepping between your knees. You pulled him back in by the collar of his shirt and kissed him harder than you'd meant to and he made a low sound and kissed you back the same way, one hand flat against the small of your back pulling you closer.
"Tell me what you want," he said, against your mouth.
"You know what I want."
"I want to hear you say it."
You pulled back and looked at him. He looked back, completely unbothered, and you understood that he meant it, that he was going to stand here all night if he had to, patient as anything, until you said it out loud.
"Dean."
"I'm right here," he said pleasantly.
"You're so —"
"Tell me."
You told him.
"Please"
The expression that crossed his face was worth it. He kissed you once, hard, like a reward, and said good against your mouth, and then his hand moved and all the words you'd been planning to say next went somewhere inaccessible.
He knew what he was doing in a way that felt almost unfair, thorough, attentive, like he'd already decided exactly how this was going to go and was now simply executing. When you tried to rush it he slowed down. When you made a sound he filed it away and came back to it. The tile was cold at your back and his hands were warm on your thighs and his mouth was at your cunt and the things he said there were quiet and precise and designed specifically to ruin you.
"You've been driving me crazy," he said. Low, unhurried. "All year. You know that."
"Dean —"
"Every time you walked into a room." His hand didn't stop. "Every time you looked at Tucker instead of me. Every single time."
"That's your fault," you managed.
"I know," he said. "I know it is." Something almost rueful in it. "Doesn't change the fact."
When you finally came it was with your head hitting the mirror behind you and holding his shoulder and his name somewhere in the middle of it, and he stayed with you through the whole thing, unhurried, like he had nothing else in the world to do.
He gave you a moment. Then he pulled back and looked at you with an expression that you could only describe as thoroughly pleased with himself, which should have been annoying and wasn't.
"Don't," you said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was going to ask if you were okay," he said, which was such an obvious lie that you laughed, and the laugh broke something open in the room, and he grinned, a real one, unguarded in a way you hadn't seen before, and kissed you again before it could turn into a whole thing.
You worked his belt with hands that weren't entirely steady and he helped without comment, and then his hands were at your hips and he pressed his forehead to yours for just a second.
You watched him look for a condom on his backpocket.
"Yeah?" he said quietly. All the performance gone.
"Yeah," you said.
He pushed into you slow and you exhaled against his jaw, fingers gripping his shoulders, adjusting to the feeling of him. He gave you a moment, forehead still to yours, patient, present, and then he moved and everything else became temporarily beside the point.
It was charged the way it only gets when two people have been waiting too long. Not frantic but urgent, with a focused intensity that felt like something being resolved. His grip was firm and deliberate and you pulled him closer when he slowed down and he got the message and didn't slow down again. The mirror was fogging and somewhere below you the party was still happening and it was completely irrelevant.
"Look at me," he said.
You did. He held your gaze and something passed between you that neither of you named, and you felt it in your chest more than anywhere else.
"Months," he said again. Quieter now.
"I know," you said. "I know."
When he came he buried his face in your neck and went quiet and still, one hand flat against the small of your back holding you against him, and you held onto him too because it seemed like the thing to do, and because you wanted to, and those were the same thing tonight.
You stayed like that for a moment longer than necessary.
Then you both exhaled at roughly the same time, which broke the tension, and Dean huffed a quiet laugh into your shoulder.
You untangled carefully, straightened yourselves out. You hopped off the counter and turned to the mirror, fixing your hair, smoothing your top back into place. He leaned against the wall watching you do it, arms crossed loosely, shirt back on. His hair was a mess and he didn't appear concerned about it.
You met his eyes in the mirror.
"This doesn't have to be a thing," you said. Even, matter of fact. Not cold, just clear. You were giving him an out because you'd rather give it than have him feel like he needed to take it badly.
Something moved across his face. He pushed off the wall slightly. "What if I want it to be a thing?"
You turned around. "What kind of thing?"
He held your gaze. Didn't answer right away, which was an answer, and you'd known it would be, you'd known before you came upstairs, and still it took a small quiet moment to settle.
"Right," you said simply.
Not angry. Not hurt, or at least not visibly. You'd gone in with both eyes open and you'd meant it, and the math was what you'd always known it was. That was fine. You were fine.
You unlocked the door.
"Hey," Dean said.
You looked back.
He opened his mouth, closed it. Something in his expression that you couldn't entirely read. "Nothing," he said finally. "Never mind."
You nodded once and stepped out into the hallway.
Downstairs, the party had peaked without you. The music was louder and the living room was full and Tucker was in the kitchen, which is where Tucker always ended up at some point. He took one look at your face when you appeared in the doorway and turned to open the fridge and produced a beer, which he held out without a word.
You took it.
"Having fun?" he asked, very casually, eyes on the fridge.
"Yeah," you said. "Party's good."
"Cool." He closed the fridge. "I made queso."
"Tucker."
"It's in the pot on the back burner."
You looked at him for a second. He looked back, perfectly neutral, perfectly unbothered, and completely full of information he was choosing not to say.
"Thank you," you said.
"Don't mention it," he said. "Seriously, don't. I have a reputation."
You laughed despite yourself, and some of the tightness in your chest loosened, just a little.
Tucker handed you a chip.
You both stood at the stove and ate queso and said nothing about any of it, and that was, genuinely, one of the nicest things anyone had done for you in a while.
Dean came downstairs eleven minutes later, you weren't counting, you just noticed, and grabbed a beer from the fridge and leaned against the counter across from you, and the three of you stood in that kitchen like nothing had happened at all.
Dean looked at the pot on the stove. "Is that queso?"
"Made it myself," Tucker said.
"You absolutely did not."
Tucker looked at you. You said nothing, scooping queso onto another chip. Dean's eyes moved between you both and landed on you with something unreadable in them.
"Can I have some?" he asked.
"It's your house," you said.
He got a chip. Ate it. Looked at the pot. "That's really good."
"I know," you said.
Tucker stared directly at the wall and smiled at absolutely nothing.
It didn't have a name. That was the thing , it never got one, and neither of you tried to give it one, and somehow that made it easier to just let it exist.
It started simply enough. A week after the party, Dean texted you at eleven on a Tuesday night. Just: you up?
The second text was a trailer link. No context, no explanation, just: this.
You watched it once. Typed back: that looks pretentious.
i know. yes or no.
fine.
The house was quiet when you got there , Garrett's door closed, Tucker apparently out, and Dean was on the couch with a beer and the energy of someone who had been waiting without admitting to waiting.
You sat in the middle of the couch.
He pulled up the movie without comment.
It was pretentious and it was also actually good, and you told him so twenty minutes in when he glanced over to see what you thought. He said told you without looking back at the screen. You said you said it looked pretentious, which is not the same as saying it wasn't good. He said that's a very specific distinction. You said I'm a specific person. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then said: yeah.
Somewhere around the third act the distance between you closed. You weren't sure who moved, maybe both of you, gradually. His arm along the back of the couch and your shoulder under it and neither of you addressed it.
The movie ended and neither of you moved.
He found something else. A documentary, shorter, that turned out to be genuinely interesting. You watched most of it. Somewhere in the second half you were closer still his arm properly around you now, your feet tucked up beside you — and the lamp in the corner was the only light, and in here it was warm, and you were paying attention to about thirty percent of the documentary.
You woke up at two in the morning with a blanket over you that hadn't been there before. Dean was asleep at the other end of the couch, head back, completely unconscious. The TV was still on. You looked at him in the blue light of the screensaver, the line of his jaw, the stillness of someone actually asleep and felt the quiet weight of something you were not going to examine.
Then you got up, folded the blanket, left it on the cushion, and walked home.
You didn't text him about it. He didn't text you about it. Two days later he sent: you around tonight? and you said depends and he said on what and you said what's the plan and he said no plan and you said okay.
That was how it started.
By November it had a shape, even if it didn't have a name.
You came over two or three times a week. Sometimes it was a movie, sometimes it was just you in the kitchen making something with whatever was in the fridge while Dean sat at the counter with his phone and ate everything you put in front of him without comment except occasionally this is really good in a tone that suggested he was a little annoyed about it. Sometimes the whole house was there, Tucker loud and cheerful, Garrett and Logan drifting in and out, the TV on in the background and sometimes it was just the two of you and the house was quiet and those evenings had a quality to them that you tried not to examine too closely.
He texted you things that weren't questions. A link to an article about something you'd both argued about in passing. A photo of a sunset he'd apparently seen from the library roof, no caption. A voice memo once, at midnight, that was just him reading something in the flat unimpressed tone he used when something was genuinely getting on his nerves — listen to this, the message said, and you did, and you laughed, and he sent back a single: right?
You sent him things back. A recipe you thought he'd actually like. A clip of something that reminded you of a conversation you'd had. He always answered. Not immediately, not performatively, just he answered.
Garrett had noticed, in his way. He'd stopped doing double-takes when you were in the kitchen on a Tuesday night, had started just saying hey and opening the fridge like your presence was a given. Logan was less subtle, he'd caught your eye once across the living room when Dean laughed at something you'd said, and raised an eyebrow, and you'd looked away and he'd had the decency not to push it.
You talked to Anna about it on a Sunday afternoon in November, feet up on her bed, staring at the ceiling while she did her readings across from you.
"So it's a situationship," she said, not looking up.
"I didn't say that."
"You described a situationship."
"I described two people who spend time together."
"With benefits."
"Occasionally."
She finally looked up. "How often is occasionally?"
You said nothing.
"That's what I thought." She went back to her reading. "Are you okay with it?"
You thought about it honestly, the way you tried to think about most things. "Yeah," you said. "I went in knowing what it was."
"That's not what I asked."
You looked at the ceiling. "I'm fine," you said. "It's fine. I know what it is."
Anna made a small noncommittal sound that you chose not to interpret.
The physical part of it was easy in a way you hadn't entirely expected. Comfortable in a way that felt like it should have taken longer to get to. He knew what you liked with an attentiveness that might have been alarming if you'd let yourself think about it, and you knew what worked for him, and there was none of the awkwardness of newness anymore.
The only thing you were consistent about was the condom. Every time, without exception. Until one night in late November when Dean caught your wrist gently before you could reach for the nightstand.
"Why do you always —" He stopped. Nodded toward it. "Every time."
"Because I'm not stupid," you said. "You were getting around a lot before this and I don't know what this is and I'm not asking but I'm also not —"
"I haven't," he said. "Since the party. I haven't slept with anyone else."
The room went quiet.
"Oh," you said. A beat. "Me neither."
Something moved across his face that he didn't entirely manage to control. His thumb traced a slow absent line against the inside of your wrist.
"Okay," he said quietly.
"Okay," you said.
The air in the room changed into something neither of you was going to name. Then he kissed you, and it was different, slower, more careful, like something had been confirmed that he hadn't known he was waiting to confirm, and you let yourself feel it without examining it too closely, because that felt fair.
The first sign was the texts.
Not that they stopped completely, that would have been obvious, and Dean was too smart for obvious. They just slowed. A reply that came four hours later instead of forty minutes. A shorter answer where there used to be a real one. The voice memos stopped. The links stopped. You'd send something and get back a single word where there used to be a sentence, and you'd look at it and feel the shape of what was happening without being able to name it yet.
You told yourself it was school. Exams were coming, everyone was disappearing into the library, that was normal. You told yourself he was busy, stressed, in his head about the end of semester and the hockey team. You were busy too. You had your own readings, your own papers, your own life that existed completely separately from the off campus house and always had.
You kept coming over. Tucker needed someone to watch the game with and you'd promised him a recipe you'd been meaning to show him and you were not going to rearrange your life over a shift in text frequency.
But you noticed.
You noticed the way Dean would come into the kitchen when you were there and open the fridge and not look at you the way he used to. Not hostile, just absent. Like you were furniture. Like the awareness he'd always had of you in a room had been switched off at a source you couldn't locate. He ate the food you made without commenting on it. He answered direct questions. He didn't start anything.
You didn't push. That wasn't who you were.
But by the second week of December you were lying in your room at night doing the math and the math was not coming out well, and you were tired of pretending it wasn't.
You went over on a Thursday.
Tucker was at a class. You'd known that, you'd checked, because you wanted the house quiet, because you wanted five minutes of honesty without an audience. Garrett's truck wasn't in the driveway either. You knocked on Dean's door and he opened it in sweats and a Briar hoodie, textbook open on his desk, and the look on his face when he saw you was almost nothing, which was its own answer.
"Hey," you said.
"Hey." He stepped back to let you in, which you took as an invitation, and you came in and stood in the middle of his room and he closed the door and leaned against his desk with his arms crossed. Not aggressive. Just closed.
You looked at him for a moment.
"What's going on with you?" you asked. Quiet, direct. No accusation in it, just the question.
He shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing. Finals."
"Okay," you said. "That's not what I mean and you know it."
A beat. Something moved behind his eyes and then went still.
"I don't know what you want me to say," he said.
"I want you to say what's actually happening."
He looked at you. Then he looked away, jaw tightening slightly, and you recognized the particular quality of someone deciding something, not discovering it, deciding it, and some quiet part of you braced.
"I think this has run its course," he said. Flat. Careful.
You kept your face even. "Okay. What does that mean."
"It means —" He stopped. Started again. "I don't want this anymore. Whatever this is. I don't want it."
"Okay," you said.
He looked at you, and something in your steadiness seemed to irritate him, which you hadn't expected, and that was maybe the thing that cracked something open in him that should have stayed closed.
"I don't know what you thought this was," he said, and his voice had an edge now, "but it wasn't — I wasn't —" He made a short, almost contemptuous gesture. "You've been coming over here for months like you live here. Cooking, watching movies, acting like this is some kind of —"
"I never called it anything," you said.
"No, but you acted like it was something. You act like everything is fine and nothing bothers you and you're so —" He stopped, and the word he landed on was quiet and precise and clearly chosen to land: "You're so comfortable here. Like you belong here. And you don't."
The room was very quiet.
You looked at him. He looked back, and you could see the moment he heard what he'd just said, saw something flicker across his face that might have been regret but came too late to matter.
"You're right," you said. Your voice was completely level. "I don't."
He opened his mouth.
"I'm not going to make this into something," you said. "You don't want it, that's fine. I went in knowing what it was." You picked up your jacket from where you'd set it on the edge of his bed. "I hope finals go okay."
"Hey —"
"Good night, Dean."
You left. You closed the door behind you, not hard, just closed, and you walked down the stairs and through the front door and out into the December cold and you kept your shoulders straight the whole way home.
You didn't cry until you were in your own room with the door locked, and even then it wasn't for very long, because you'd known, you'd always known, and knowing didn't make it nothing but it made it survivable.
You texted Anna: you were right.
She called immediately. You let it ring twice, then picked up.
"I'm okay," you said, before she could ask.
"I know you are," she said. "Tell me anyway."
The hard part came later, at midnight.
You were lying in bed and you saw a link, a restaurant that had just opened, a tasting menu you'd been meaning to mention and you had his name pulled up in your contacts before you caught yourself. Thumb over send. The restaurant unremarkable and the gesture everything.
You put your phone face down on the mattress and looked at the ceiling for a while.
You'd known. You'd always known. That didn't make it nothing. It made it survivable, which was what you'd agreed to, and you were keeping that agreement.
The next afternoon you went to the off campus house.
Not because of Dean. Tucker had texted you at noon — i made something and i think i made it wrong, come look at it — and you'd said what did you make and he'd sent a photo that made you genuinely concerned for his wellbeing, and you'd said I'm coming over because that was what you did.
You showed up at three in the afternoon in your good boots and your coat, hair done, bag over your shoulder, because you had a study session after and you were not rearranging your life. You walked into the kitchen and Tucker was standing over something on the stove that smelled questionable and turned around with the expression of a man who needed saving.
"What is that," you said.
"I was trying to do the thing you showed me with the —"
"Tucker."
"I know."
You put your bag down and took your coat off and hung it over the stool and rolled up your sleeves and looked at whatever was happening in the pot, and Tucker stood next to you like a man watching a surgeon assess a patient.
"It's salvageable," you said.
He exhaled. "I knew it."
"Get me the garlic."
You cooked. Tucker hovered and passed things when you asked and made commentary that you ignored selectively and the kitchen filled up with something that smelled the way the kitchen was supposed to smell, and it was normal. It was completely normal. You were fine.
Logan came through at some point, stopped in the doorway, looked at the pot. "That smells good." Then he looked at Tucker. "Did you make that?"
"We're collaborating," Tucker said.
Logan looked at you. You said nothing. He grabbed a water from the fridge and left, which was exactly the right thing to do.
Dean came downstairs at some point, and you heard him stop at the bottom of the stairs, and you stirred the pot and didn't turn around.
"Hey," Tucker said, in the careful voice of someone being very casual.
"Hey." Dean's voice from the doorway. A pause. "What are you making?"
"She's fixing what I made," Tucker said.
You felt Dean's eyes on your back. You reached past the stove for the spice rack.
"Smells good," Dean said.
You said nothing. Not pointedly — just nothing. Tucker handed you the paprika.
Dean didn't leave. You could feel him still standing there, which told you something you set aside for later. You plated what you'd made, put Tucker's portion in front of him, put the extra in a container that you labeled with a piece of tape and a marker the way you always did, and started washing the pan.
"There's extra," Tucker said, to the room.
"I can see that," Dean said.
Tucker ate a bite. Made a sound of profound relief. "You're genuinely talented, you know that?"
"I know," you said, drying the pan.
You stayed another forty minutes, finishing your tea, going over the recipe with Tucker so he could try again, answering a text from Anna. Normal. Easy. The house the same as it had always been, Tucker the same as he'd always been, you the same as you'd always been.
When you left you said, "Bye Tuck, don't touch the leftovers until tomorrow, they're better the next day."
"Noted," Tucker said.
You pulled on your coat. Picked up your bag. "Later," you said, generally, to the room, and you walked out.
Dean stood in the kitchen after the front door closed.
Tucker was eating. Not looking at him. The kitchen smelled incredible and there was a labeled container in the fridge and the pan you'd used was clean and back on the rack like you'd never been there.
"She labeled it," Dean said.
"She always labels it," Tucker said.
Dean looked at the fridge. "For who."
"I don't know, Dean." Tucker turned a page in whatever he was reading. "Whoever wants it, I guess."
He couldn't focus in class the next morning.
The professor was talking and Dean had his laptop open and his notes half-started and none of it was going in because he kept coming back to the same thing, the same image, which was you standing at his stove with your back to him like nothing had happened.
Not performing like nothing had happened. Actually fine. The difference between those two things was something he understood logically and couldn't reconcile emotionally and it was making him insane.
He'd expected — he didn't know what he'd expected. Something. Some sign that what he'd said had mattered, that he had mattered, that the months of you being in his space and in his kitchen and in his bed and knowing how he took his coffee and showing up when Tucker texted you and falling asleep on his couch and leaving your chapstick on his nightstand —
You'd taken the chapstick. He'd noticed.
You'd taken it and labeled the leftovers and said later to the room and walked out and that was it, apparently. That was the whole thing. He'd said you don't belong here and you'd said you're right and you'd meant it, and that was the part he couldn't get past. You'd meant it not because you believed it but because you weren't going to fight him on it. Because you didn't need to.
You act like you belong here. And you don't.
He'd said that. He'd actually said that.
He stared at his laptop screen.
You'd been coming to that house since before he'd ever spoken a full sentence to you. Tucker's mom had called you, you'd shown up, you'd been folded into the house slowly and completely the way only people who actually fit somewhere ever are, Tucker texting you unprompted, Garrett knowing your coffee order, Logan moving over on the couch without being asked, and Dean had stood in his own room and told you that you didn't belong there and you'd looked at him like you were giving him the chance to hear what he was saying and he hadn't taken it and you'd left.
And then you'd come back the next day and cooked Tucker's disaster and labeled the leftovers and said later.
Later. Like you'd see them around. Like the house was still just a place you came to, unconnected to Dean, existing independently of whatever he'd decided.
Because it was. Because Tucker was your friend. Because you'd built something there that had nothing to do with Dean DiLaurentis and apparently had no intention of dismantling it on his account.
He wrote something down without reading it.
The thing was and this was the part that was sitting in his chest like something he couldn't shift, he'd ended it because it was getting too real. That was the honest answer, the one he hadn't said out loud to anyone including himself until approximately right now, which was not ideal timing. He'd felt it getting heavier and closer and more like something that had a name and he'd panicked, and when Dean DiLaurentis panicked he went cold, and when he went cold long enough he said things he couldn't take back.
You don't belong here.
He closed his laptop. Opened it again.
You hadn't fought for it. He'd said something genuinely cruel and you'd said you're right and you'd left, and the version of events he'd been running in his head where you'd be upset, where you'd pull back from the house, where he'd see the evidence of having mattered somewhere in your behavior, none of that had happened. You'd come back with your boots and your coat and your labeled container and your later and you were fine.
He was not fine.
That felt deeply, profoundly unfair, and he was self-aware enough to recognize that he had no one to blame for it but himself, which made it worse.
Wait, said something in the back of his head, quiet and inconvenient.
He picked up his pen. Put it down.
Wait.
He didn't finish the thought. He stared at his notes until they stopped meaning anything, and outside the window the Briar campus went on being cold and grey and completely indifferent to the fact that Dean DiLaurentis was sitting in class slowly understanding something he wasn't ready to understand yet.
The problem with ending things, Dean was discovering, was that it only worked if the other person let it end.
You hadn't made a scene. Hadn't texted him anything he had to respond to, hadn't shown up at his door, hadn't done a single thing that gave him something to push against. You'd just continued. Existing in the house, in the kitchen, in Tucker's orbit, completely unchanged, like Dean's opinion of the situation was one data point you'd received and filed appropriately and moved on from.
He ate everything you made. That was the humiliating part. Every single time you left something in the fridge he ate it, sometimes within the hour, standing at the counter in the kitchen alone like some kind of punishment he was administering to himself. Tucker never commented on this. Tucker never commented on anything, which was its own form of commentary.
You'd left soup once. Labeled, like always — back burner, twenty minutes, don't let Tucker have more than one bowl he'll eat the whole thing. Dean had read the label four times. Eaten two bowls. Stood at the sink washing the pot afterward feeling like a man losing an argument he wasn't allowed to be having.
Garrett had found him standing there once, staring at nothing, and said "you good?" and Dean had said "yeah" and Garrett had looked at the labeled container still on the counter and said nothing further, which somehow made it worse.
He started noticing everything.
The way you'd laugh at something on your phone and not share it with the room, just smile to yourself and put it face down. The way you always took your shoes off at the door and lined them up neatly to the left, always the left, and he'd started checking for them when he came downstairs, the presence or absence of your boots telling him things about the afternoon before he'd even gotten to the kitchen. The way you said Tucker's name — comfortable, fond, like a shorthand — and the way you had, at some point, stopped saying Dean's name at all. Not pointedly. Just it didn't come up. He wasn't who you were talking to.
He'd done that. He understood that he'd done that.
He just hadn't understood what it would feel like to have done it.
He tried, for a while, to be reasonable about it.
He made a list, mentally, of all the reasons this was fine. He didn't do relationships. He'd never done relationships. He had a plan for his life that had been in place since he was sixteen, and that plan had no room in it for whatever you were. Whatever you'd been. The comfortable weight of your presence, the evenings when you were in the house versus evenings when you weren't, the way he'd started coming across things during the week and thinking you'd have something to say about this —
That was the problem right there. That was the thing he kept running into.
He'd been having conversations with you in his head for weeks. Full conversations, with your actual responses, because he knew how you thought well enough to fill both sides, and that was, that was not the behavior of someone who was fine.
He talked to Garrett on a Tuesday night, which he never did, and talked around the subject for twenty minutes before Garrett said, flatly: "Just tell me what she did."
"She didn't do anything," Dean said.
A pause. "Then tell me what you did."
Dean stared at his ceiling. "I ended it."
"And?"
"And she's fine."
"That's it? She's fine and you are like this?"
"She's too fine," Dean said, and hated how that sounded.
Garrett was quiet for a moment. Then: "Dean."
"What."
"You absolute idiot."
January settled over Briar cold and grey and Dean settled into a particular kind of misery that he was too proud to name properly. He went to class. He did his readings. He played well enough at practice that Coach didn't get on him, which required more effort than it should have because his head was not where it was supposed to be.
You came over on Saturdays, usually. Sometimes Thursdays. Tucker had apparently taken to texting you about things that had nothing to do with cooking, Dean had seen the thread once, accidentally, and it was just the two of you sending each other increasingly unhinged videos with no context, a friendship that existed completely on its own terms, owed nothing to Dean, and was apparently thriving.
Logan had said, once, carefully, over breakfast: "She was here yesterday."
"I know," Dean said.
Logan looked at him. "Just saying."
"I know," Dean said again.
Logan went back to his cereal and didn't push it, which was the right call, and Dean appreciated it and resented it in equal measure.
He watched you from across rooms and told himself he wasn't doing that.
You never looked uncomfortable. That was the thing that was going to actually kill him. You'd come in, take your boots off, left side of the door, say hey to whoever was around, drift toward the kitchen with the ease of someone in a place they belonged, and it would be normal. Warm. Real. And Dean would be somewhere in the same house eating himself alive and you would be completely, genuinely fine.
He thought about the things he'd said. You act like you belong here. And you don't.
He thought about those words with a frequency that was becoming a problem.
It was a random Wednesday in late January.
Dean came home from a late class tired and cold and in the specific bad mood that came from hours with a professor who seemed to find his suffering amusing. The house was lit up when he got there, which meant people were home, and he could hear voices from the kitchen before he'd gotten his coat off.
Tucker's laugh. And then yours.
He stood in the hallway for a second with his coat half off.
"—absolutely not, that's not how that works—" Tucker, indignant.
"I'm telling you, Tucker, I watched you do it, that's exactly how you did it—"
"I was recovering, there's a difference—"
"There is no difference, the result was the same—"
Tucker said something Dean didn't catch and you laughed, full and real, the kind of laugh that meant you'd actually been caught off guard by it, and the sound of it hit Dean somewhere undefended and just stayed there.
He finished taking his coat off. Hung it up. Walked to the kitchen doorway.
You were at the island, Tucker leaning on his elbows across from you, some kind of card game between you that Dean didn't recognize. You had a mug of something and your hair was down and you were still smiling from whatever Tucker had just said, and Tucker was looking at you with the expression of someone who had won a point. Garrett was on the couch in the next room, feet up, barely paying attention, the way Garrett existed in the house like ambient weather.
"Dean," Tucker said. "Tell her that recovering from a bad move is a valid strategy."
"Depends on the move," Dean said, automatically.
"See," Tucker said to you.
"That's not what he said," you said, and glanced at Dean briefly,not long, not loaded, just a glance, the kind you'd give anyone and looked back at Tucker. "Your move."
Dean got a glass of water. Stood at the counter. The card game continued. Tucker accused you of cheating, you denied it with the specific serenity of someone who was absolutely cheating, Dean watched and said nothing and felt the sensation of standing outside something warm.
An hour later you started putting your coat on.
"Okay," you said, gathering your things. "Tucker. Rematch Thursday."
"Thursday," Tucker confirmed. "I'll win."
"You won't." You pulled your bag onto your shoulder. Looked at Tucker with something genuine and warm. "Bye, Tuck."
"Bye." Tucker was already looking back at his phone.
"Later, Garrett," you called toward the living room.
"Later," Garrett called back, not looking up.
You walked toward the door. Past Dean, close enough that he could have said something, close enough that the window was right there, and he stood at the counter with his glass of water and said nothing, and you pulled the door open and walked out, and the door closed, and that was it.
Tucker looked up from his phone.
The two of them sat in the quiet kitchen, the card game still spread out on the island, your mug still on the counter.
"She forgot her mug," Dean said.
"She'll get it Thursday," Tucker said.
Dean put his glass down. Picked it back up.
"She said bye to you first," he said.
Tucker looked at him for a long moment. Set his phone down. "Yeah," he said. "She did."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Tucker —"
"I'm not doing this, Dean."
"I'm not asking you to do anything."
"Good." Tucker picked his phone back up. "Because I really, genuinely, am not getting involved."
From the living room, Garrett said nothing, which meant he was listening to every word.
Dean looked at the door.
"She left her mug," he said again, quieter, to no one in particular.
Tucker said nothing. Which was, as always, its own kind of answer.
He lasted four days.
Four days of your mug on the counter — Tucker had washed it and left it there — four days of picking up his phone and putting it down, four days of being a reasonable adult who had made a decision and was living with it, and then on Sunday night at eleven p.m. he put on his shoes and his coat and walked across campus to the Kappa house like a man who had exhausted every other option.
He stood outside in the cold and looked up at the second floor windows and felt genuinely insane.
He found a handful of small rocks from the landscaping border. Looked at them. Looked up at the windows.
He threw one.
It hit the wrong window. A light came on and someone looked out — not you, someone he didn't recognize — and he stepped back into the shadow of the tree until the light went off again.
He tried the next window. Nothing. The one after that.
The window opened.
You leaned out, hair messy, clearly pulled from sleep or close to it, and looked down at him in the dark with an expression that moved through several phases: confusion, recognition, disbelief. Before settling on something that was almost exasperated and almost amused and fully of course.
"Dean," you said, not loud. "What are you doing."
"I need to talk to you."
"It's eleven o'clock."
"I know. You weren't answering my texts."
You stared at him. "You texted me twenty minutes ago."
"You didn't answer."
"I was asleep."
"Can I come up?"
The expression on your face did something complicated. "You want to climb the sorority house."
"There's a trellis."
You looked to the left, apparently confirming the existence of the trellis, then looked back down at him. "Dean."
"Five minutes," he said. "I just — five minutes. Then I'll go."
You looked at him for a long moment, and he stood in the cold and let you look, because he'd run out of ways to manage how this went. You could close the window. That was a real option and he'd accept it.
You didn't close the window.
"The trellis is on the left," you said. "Don't break anything."
He made it up without incident, which he felt was frankly more than he deserved. You'd stepped back from the window to let him climb through, and he came in trying not to knock anything over and stood in the middle of your room feeling the full absurdity of the situation settle over him.
Your room was small and warm. Books on every surface, a desk lamp on low, a quilt on the bed that looked like it had been in your family for a while. It smelled like you, something warm, something that had been living in the back of his brain for months without his permission.
You sat on the edge of your bed and looked at him with your arms loosely crossed, not hostile, just waiting. Giving him the floor.
"I need to say something," he said.
"Okay."
"And I need you to let me say it without — I need to actually get through it."
"I'm not stopping you," you said.
He looked at you. You looked back, and there was something in your expression: patient, steady, not giving him anything, and he understood suddenly that you were going to make him do this himself. All the way. No half measures.
He took a breath.
"I said things to you that I can't take back," he started. "That night in my room. And I knew when I said them that they weren't — I knew they weren't true. I said them because I was scared and I was trying to make you leave and I wanted it to work so I made it as —" He stopped. Tried again. "I wanted you gone and I made sure you'd go and then you went and I've been —" He stopped again.
You waited.
"I've been losing my mind," he said. "For weeks. You keep coming over and cooking Tucker's food and laughing at his jokes and you left your mug on the counter and you said bye, Tuck and walked out like I wasn't standing right there and I —" He stopped. The words that needed to come next were the ones he'd been circling for weeks and he was done circling. "I'm in love with you."
The room was quiet.
"I'm in love with you," he said again, because it had come out steadier the second time and it was true and he was done with it living only in his head. "I have been for a while. I didn't know what to do with it so I — I did what I did. And I know that's not an excuse. I know what I said. But I needed you to know that it wasn't because you didn't matter. It was because you mattered too much and I didn't know how to —"
"Dean," you said.
He stopped.
You looked at him for a long moment. Something in your expression that was careful and real and not entirely closed.
"I know," you said quietly.
He blinked. "You —"
"I knew." You said it simply, without cruelty. "I've known for a while. I needed you to know it too." A pause. "And I needed you to say it. Out loud. To me. Without me making it easy for you."
He held your gaze. "Because you're not going to make it easy for me."
"No," you said. Not meanly. Just honestly. "I'm not."
He nodded slowly. That was fair. That was completely fair.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For what I said. You don't belong here — I knew that wasn't true when I said it. That's the worst part. I knew and I said it anyway."
You looked at him. And he watched something in your expression shift, not all the way, but enough, a small careful opening.
"I know," you said again. Softer this time.
"Can we —" He stopped. Tried to find the right shape for the question. "Is there a way back from this. Is that something that exists."
You were quiet for a moment that felt very long.
"Come here," you said.
He crossed the room and you stood from the bed to meet him and he kissed you carefully, like he was asking, and you kissed him back like you were answering, and it was nothing like the first time and nothing like any of the times in between, because those had all been about desire and this was about something that didn't have the same kind of ceiling.
His hands came to your face, gentle, and you let him, and he kissed you like he was trying to say the things that words hadn't been sufficient for the weeks of watching you from across rooms, the soup, the mug, the way your boots on the left side of the door had started to feel like something he needed, all of it, moving through the kiss like it had somewhere to go now.
You pulled back after a moment and looked at him.
"Say it again," you said quietly. Not a test. Just you wanted to hear it again.
"I'm in love with you," he said, without hesitating.
You looked at him for one more second. Then you kissed him again and this time you meant it differently, your hands in his collar pulling him in, and the tenor of the whole thing shifted from careful to something warmer and more certain.
He walked you back to the bed gently, and you sat and pulled him down with you, and he went willingly, propping himself above you, and looked at you for a moment. Your hair on the pillow, your expression open in a way he hadn't been allowed to see in weeks.
"Hi," he said, quietly.
The corner of your mouth moved. "Hi."
He kissed you again, slower this time, and his hands moved over you with a deliberateness that was different from anything before not performing, not proving anything, just present. Your shirt came off and his followed, and he pressed his mouth to your collarbone, your shoulder, the soft curve of your throat, taking his time in the way of someone who wasn't going anywhere.
"Dean," you said softly, fingers in his hair.
"I know," he said, against your skin. "I've got you."
You exhaled like something releasing.
It was slow and close and almost unbearably tender, the kind of thing that didn't have anything to hide anymore. He was attentive in a way that felt different now not just knowing what worked but wanting you to feel it, wanting you to know he was there, all the way there, not halfway out the door. You made soft sounds against his jaw and pulled him closer and he went, and you moved together in the small warm room with the desk lamp still on low and neither of you suggested turning it off.
When you came it was quiet and deep and you said his name and he held you through it with his face pressed to your temple, and afterward he stayed close, closer than strictly necessary, and you didn't move away.
When he followed he was holding your hand, fingers laced, which hadn't been planned and was completely true, and you held on.
Afterward you lay in the small bed in the quiet and the lamp was still on.
Your head was on his chest. He had his arm around you. Neither of you had suggested otherwise.
"You really threw rocks at my window," you said, to the ceiling.
"Small rocks."
"You hit Anna's window first."
"She didn't see me."
"She definitely saw you." A pause. "She texted me twenty minutes ago asking if I had a 'nighttime visitor.'"
Dean closed his eyes briefly. "Great."
You laughed, quiet, against his chest, and he felt it more than heard it and thought: there it is. there's the thing I've been missing.
He pressed his mouth to your hair.
"For the record," he said, "you do belong there. In the house. That was — I need you to know that was the opposite of true."
You were quiet for a moment. "I know," you said. "I always knew."
"You're annoyingly self-possessed, you know that?"
"You've mentioned it."
"Not a complaint."
You tilted your head to look up at him. Something in your expression that was warm and a little careful still, not closed, just real. This was going to take time, he knew that. He'd put something between you that didn't disappear overnight and you weren't going to pretend it had, because you didn't do that.
"Tucker's going to be insufferable about this," you said.
Dean thought about Tucker, who had said absolutely nothing for weeks and washed your mug and left it on the counter. "He already knows," Dean said.
"He's known for months."
"I know."
"He texted me two weeks ago," you said, "and said 'just for the record I think he's an idiot.' I asked who and he said 'you know who.'"
Dean stared at the ceiling. "I'm going to kill him."
"You're not."
"No," he agreed. "I'm not."
A beat.
"Garrett's going to say I told you so," you said.
Dean closed his eyes. "Did he tell you so?"
"He texted me a single thumbs up the morning after the speech. No context."
"I'm going to kill Garrett too."
"You're really not."
"No," he said. "I'm really not."
You settled back against him and the room was quiet and warm and your hand was resting on his chest and outside the world was doing whatever the world was doing and in here it was just this, finally, with a name on it.
drabble for logan x social media!reader from my one shot don't let me down (x)
"ugh i have so much content to edit," you said, dropping back onto logan's bed and sprawling across the football team had finally broken their drought and you had been dying to use the win graphics you'd made at the beginning of the semester. they were very good graphics. they deserved to exist in the world.
logan was sitting beside you, shirtless, holding his phone with the focused energy of someone watching something important. on the screen: diving. synchronized diving, specifically, which you had not known was something people watched voluntarily until you started spending time with john logan. last tuesday it had been badminton. before that, tennis. before that, an obscure soccer match from a league you had never heard of that he had somehow located at eleven pm on a wednesday night.
it was endearing in a way you had never told him because he would absolutely use it against you.
you opened your laptop and pulled up your folders, scrolling through with the resigned energy of someone who loved their job and also wished it would occasionally take a day off.
"what do you have to do?" logan asked, glancing over from his diving. "do you need help?"
"no, honey." you patted his knee without looking up. "just have to get through the win graphics, queue the posts, answer some comments, and then i'll be free."
he made a sound that was technically acknowledgment and was also, underneath it, the sound of someone already thinking about what free time meant.
"you're very transparent," you told him.
"i don't know what you're talking about," he said, eyes back on the diving.
you smiled at your laptop and said nothing.
"i need to pee," you announced approximately four minutes later, standing up and leaving your laptop open on the bed. "do not touch anything."
"i'm watching diving," he said.
"i mean it."
"i heard you."
you pointed at him once for emphasis and went to the bathroom.
logan did not mean to look. he wanted to be clear about that, at least to himself, he was not a snoopy person, had never gone through anyone's phone or read anyone's messages or opened anything that wasn't his. his eyes simply drifted in the natural way that eyes drifted when left unsupervised, toward the open laptop on the bed beside him, toward the photo library sitting open on the screen.
toward the folder with his initials on it.
J.L ❤️
he opened it.
he did not mean to do that either.
almost five hundred photos. dozens of videos. and yes, there, near the beginning, the forty seven that dean had identified on a team bus with the triumphant energy of someone solving a mystery, logan drinking water, logan laughing at something garrett said, logan looking directly into the camera with an expression he genuinely had not known he was making. logan tying his skates. logan mid-conversation with tucker.
he scrolled through slowly.
there was one from october where he was just standing at the boards, not doing anything, and somehow you had made it look like something worth keeping. like something worth putting in a folder with a heart in it.
he was still scrolling, grinning at the screen, when you came back into the room.
"uh oh." you stopped in the doorway. your eyes went from his face to the laptop and back. "what are you doing?"
"nothing," he said, in the tone of someone who was definitely doing something.
you crossed the room with the measured energy of someone trying to decide how concerned to be. "logan."
he turned the laptop toward you. "you tell me, joe goldberg."
"what does that even —"
"you have a folder," he said. "with my initials. and a heart."
"that's just organization —"
"a heart, specifically."
"it's a system —"
"almost five hundred photos." he was trying very hard not to look as delighted as he was and failing completely. "including, and i want to be precise here, approximately one hundred photos of me drinking water."
"those are for content."
"the heart is for content."
"logan —"
"the heart emoji specifically —"
"okay." you took the laptop back with great dignity. "this conversation is over."
"it's really not," he said.
"i have graphics to post."
"you have a folder —"
"i have comments to answer —"
"with a heart —"
"john." you turned to look at him with the expression of someone deploying their last line of defense. "go watch your diving."
he lay back against the headboard, still grinning, and picked up his phone. a moment later, without any announcement, his shoulder settled against yours in the comfortable unhurried way it always did.
you queued your first post. he watched his diving. the room was quiet in the specific way it was quiet when everything was fine.
"for what it's worth," he said, after a while. casual. eyes on the screen. "mine has seven hundred."
you looked up from your laptop.
he kept watching diving.
"seven hundred," you said.
"give or take."
"of me."
"give or take."
you looked at him for a long moment. he had the expression of someone who had said a thing and was now watching what happened next with great interest while pretending to watch synchronized diving.
you looked back at your laptop.
"hm," you said.
you posted the graphic. he watched his sport.
you were smiling at your screen for the rest of the evening and neither of you mentioned it again and it was, somehow, exactly enough.
Do you think you could help me find a john logan fic it was best friend au where they were neighbors turned best friend but then college happened to turned into
Enemies turned lovers kinda
hii! i dont think ive read this one but if anyone has please help us find it! thank you!!
hello and welcome to my page! i write some things and i also reblog my favorite fics that ive read.
(♡ = personal favorites)
MASTERLIST
Off Campus:
John Logan
Don't let me down - John Logan - The thing about Logan is that he always knew what to say. He just kept finding reasons not to say it.
or: the five times Logan almost confessed and the one time he did.
Landslide - John Logan - You've been filming John Logan for many months. Forty seven saved clips, only eleven of them for work. You know his tells, his angles, his best light. You know him better than you probably should for someone who is just the social media girl. What you don't know is that the night he finally asked you out, there was a check involved. A thousand dollars. And three months of the most real thing you've ever felt sitting on top of a secret that was always going to cost someone.
I can see you - John Logan ♡ - Three months ago, you and Logan quietly became something. You forgot to tell anyone. That was fine, it was yours, and you liked it that way. Then you found out your friends had started a betting pool on when you'd finally get together, and suddenly keeping the secret became a lot more fun.
or: four times someone almost caught you, and one time someone did.
I said "I love you". You said nothin' back - John Logan - the arrangement was simple: keep it casual, don't catch feelings, don't ask for more than what's on the table. 338 days later, you're starting to think simple was never really an option with john logan.
Ruin the friendship - John Logan - Falling for your brother’s best friend is already a terrible idea. Falling for John Logan, while Garrett Graham watches the two of you like a security threat, is even worse.
Dean Di Laurentis
What, like it's hard? - Dean Di Laurentis ♡ - Dean Dilaurentis has been the only person in your class who comes close to your grade. You've been pretending not to notice him for three months. Then a professor pairs you together for a semester project, and suddenly you have no choice but to sit very close to him in a library for five weeks and figure out what to do about that.
The football field is too quiet for someone like Beau.
That's the first thing you think, sitting in the row of bleachers with your hands folded so tight your knuckles have gone white. Beau was never quiet. Beau was a laugh that filled a room before he even walked into it, was elbows on the kitchen counter and bad jokes at midnight and that grin he saved for when he knew he was being annoying and didn't care even a little.
The football field is too quiet and the flowers are wrong and none of this is right.
Joanna stands at the front. You don't know how she's doing it, standing up there with her spine straight and her chin lifted, the way you only stand when you've decided that falling apart is something you'll do later, alone, where no one can see. She starts to sing, and the first note of Let It Be settles over the open air like something ancient and unbearable.
You stop breathing.
if you know it in one glimpse, it's legendary
You remember a Tuesday. You don't know why it's a Tuesday specifically, but it is, you can feel it in the tone of the light coming through the kitchen window, pale and unhurried. Beau was making coffee he didn't know how to make, arguing with the machine like it owed him something, and you were sitting on the counter watching him with your chin in your hand.
"You're going to break it," you said.
"I'm not going to break it."
"Beau."
"I'm not —" and then the machine made a horrible sound and he turned around with this look on his face, completely unrepentant, delighted, and you laughed so hard you nearly fell off the counter.
He caught you. He always caught you.
Johanna's voice cracks and you feel it split something open in your chest.
it was legendary. it was momentary. it was unnecessary. should've let it stay buried.
Except that's the thing you keep circling back to, the thing that feels like swallowing glass, you wouldn't. You wouldn't undo a single Tuesday. Wouldn't unfeel any of it to hurt less now. You would choose him again in every version of this, walk straight into loving him with your eyes wide open knowing exactly where it ends, and that feels like the cruelest part of all.
our field of dreams engulfed in fire. and I'll still see it until I die.
Joanna finishes. The last note dissolves into the open sky.
You unfold your hands. Look down at the marks your own fingers left.
Beau would have said something unbearable right now. Something that made you laugh and hate him a little for it. He would have leaned over and whispered something stupid right in the middle of all this solemnity, and you would have had to press your face into his shoulder to muffle it.
You sit in the third row of bleachers.
The football field is too quiet for someone like Beau.
summary: The thing about Logan is that he always knew what to say. He just kept finding reasons not to say it.
or: the five times Logan almost confessed and the one time he did.
notes: hii!! lazy sunday inspiration, this one is like sabrina short and sweet, hope you guys like it! enjoy your reading!!
warnings: childhood friends to lovers, fluff, happy ending.
word count: 4k
I've been afraid of changing because I've built my life around you
You had met Logan at a rink.
This was, in retrospect, the most inevitable thing about you, that two people who had built their entire lives around ice would find each other on it. You had been eleven, in the middle of a spin sequence that wasn't working, frustrated enough that you had stopped and put your hands on your hips and glared at the ice like it had personally wronged you. He had been eleven too, sitting in the penalty box with his helmet off, watching you with the focused attention of someone who had forgotten he was supposed to be somewhere else.
"Your left shoulder drops," he said.
You had looked at the penalty box. At the boy in it. At the hockey gear he was still wearing.
"Did I ask?" you said.
"No," he said. "But it does."
You had glared at him for a long moment. Then you had tried the sequence again with your left shoulder deliberately up and it had been better. Significantly better.
You had not told him that.
You had skated to the boards and looked at him.
"Why are you in the penalty box?" you said.
"Coach," he said, simply.
"What did you do."
"Argued a call."
"Was the call wrong?"
"Obviously," he said.
You had looked at him for another long moment.
"I'm (Y/N)," you said.
"Logan," he said.
Ten years later you were still talking.
one — the competition february, sophomore year
The thing about watching you skate was that it was completely impossible to be indifferent to.
Logan had been to enough of your competitions by now that he had developed what he privately considered a professional appreciation for figure skating, he understood the technical elements, the edge work, the difference between a clean landing and one that cost points. He had opinions about judging. He had once gotten into a fifteen-minute argument with Tucker about the scoring system.
He was, in other words, not watching you the way a normal person watched figure skating.
He was watching you the way he had been watching you for approximately five years without doing anything about it, which was with focused attention of someone who had accidentally learned the exact shape of their own feelings by observing them in a controlled environment and then never done anything with the information.
You were in the middle of your free skate program.
The arena was quiet, something that happen only when a competition in progress, a few hundred people all holding the same breath and you were in the center of the ice in a deep red costume that caught the light when you moved, and you were moving the way you always moved when you were doing this properly, like you were constantly sure of all the decisions and it was up to everyone else to accept it.
The triple axel was coming. Logan knew your program better than his own game tape.
He watched your set up for it and then you were in the air and rotating and landing clean, one blade, no stumble, the crowd exhaling around him in something close to relief.
Logan exhaled too.
You finished the program and stood in the center of the ice with your arms out and your chest heaving and your face doing something close to relief and the thin line with triumph.
He knew that face. He had photographs of that face going back five years.
Logan was completely gone.
After the scores were posted — first place, which was not a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention — Logan found you in the corridor outside the changing rooms, still in the costume, skates exchanged for boots, medal around your neck that you kept touching like making sure it was real.
You saw him and couldn't help but to smile.
"You came," you said.
"I always come," he said.
"I know." You were smiling the real one, not the competition smile, not the public smile. "How was the axel?"
"Perfect," he said. "Clean landing, good height, the rotation was exactly right."
"You sound like my coach."
"Your coach is correct."
You laughed and walked toward him and he opened his arms because that was what happened after competitions you walked into them and he held on and you smelled like the rink and some body lotion that he has been trying to steal for a long time, he had his chin on top of your head and everything was exactly the same as it always was.
Except that his heart was doing something extremely inconvenient.
"I have something to tell you," he said, into your hair.
"Mm?" You didn't move.
He had the words right there. Had been carrying them for approximately two years, which was when he had stopped being able to pretend to himself that what he felt was just friendship, had been practiced and ready and —
"You dropped your left shoulder in the step sequence," he said. "Third section. It cost you."
You pulled back and looked at him. "You can not be serious right now, Johnny."
"It's a small thing, but —"
"I just won," she said.
"I know. You also dropped your shoulder."
You stared at him for a long moment with a watchful expression.
"I hate you," you said.
"No you don't," he said.
"Maybe I do" you looked at him "No I don't," you confirmed.
You took his hand and pulled him toward the exit to find the others, and Logan walked behind you and thought about what he had almost said and hadn't. Logan had decided for once, to store away this information, maybe soon would come in handy.
two — the lazy day april, sophomore year
It was a Sunday in April, a Sunday that had decided to be warm for the first time all year, and you were lying on the floor of Logan's room with your legs up on his bed because the floor was cooler than the bed and you had been at the rink since six in the morning and every single part of you ached.
Logan was on the bed, technically reading something for class, practically staring at the ceiling.
You had been in this exact configuration approximately four hundred times over ten years. The comfortable silence of two people who had run out of things to say and were fine with that.
"My coach wants me to change the music for nationals," you said, to the ceiling.
"What's wrong with the current music?"
"She says it doesn't show enough range."
"What does she want instead?"
"Something more emotional apparently." You paused. "She used the word vulnerable which made me want to scream."
Logan made a sound that meant he was listening.
"I'm not un-vulnerable," you said. "I'm just — I show it differently."
"You show it on the ice," Logan said. "Anyone paying attention can see it."
You turned your head to look at him. He was still looking at the ceiling.
"That's a nice thing to say," you said.
"It's a true thing to say." He turned his head and looked at you. From this angle, floor to bed, you were looking at each other sideways, and there was something about the afternoon light coming through the window that was doing something to his expression, making it more open than usual, less managed.
"I've been thinking," he said.
"About what."
He looked at you for a moment. The open expression doing something more complicated.
"About —" he started.
Your phone went off.
The ringtone you had assigned to your coach, which you had made deliberately annoying so you couldn't ignore it. You grabbed it off the floor and sat up and mouthed sorry at Logan and answered.
Your coach talked for eleven minutes about the music change.
When you hung up Logan was reading again, or pretending to, and the afternoon light had shifted, and whatever the moment had been it had passed.
"What were you thinking about?" you said.
"Nothing," he said. "Doesn't matter."
You looked at him for a second longer than necessary.
Then you put your legs back up on his bed and went back to staring at the ceiling.
three — the boys september, junior year
The thing about you was that you were, objectively, extremely easy to be around.
Dean had arrived at this conclusion independently and over time, through the accumulated evidence of approximately a year of you being at various team events and group hangs and spontaneous Malone's trips, and it was not a controversial conclusion, Tucker had said the same thing, Garrett had nodded in agreement.
You were funny and direct and had opinions and didn't perform interest you didn't have, which was rarer than it should have been. You also had the unselfconscious ease of someone who had been comfortable on a competitive stage since you were fourteen, which meant you walked into rooms the same way you walked onto ice like you had already decided you belonged there.
Dean had been thinking about this for approximately three weeks when he cornered Logan after practice.
"Your figure skater friend," he said.
Logan looked at him over his equipment bag. "Her name is (Y/N)."
"Is she single?"
The locker room continued around them. Tucker was unwrapping tape. Garrett was checking his phone. Nobody appeared to be paying particular attention.
Logan's jaw did something.
"Yeah," he said. "She's single."
"Nice." Dean leaned against the locker with the easy confidence of someone who had made a decision. "Do you think she'd be open to —"
"She's focused on skating," Logan said. "Nationals are in February. She doesn't have time for —"
"I'm not talking about anything serious," Dean said. "Just —"
"She's busy," Logan said.
Dean looked at him.
Logan looked at his equipment bag.
"Sure," Dean said, slowly. "Right. Busy." A pause. "You sure you don't have a —"
"She's my best friend," Logan said. "Can you just — not."
Dean looked at him for a long moment with the expression of someone doing math.
"Okay," he said. "Sure."
He went back to his own locker.
Tucker caught his eye across the room and raised his eyebrows. Dean gave the smallest possible shrug, which in their particular shorthand meant: you are seeing what you think you're seeing.
Tucker looked at the ceiling briefly and then went back to his tape.
Logan texted you that night.
logan: what are you doing
yn: stretching. my hip flexors are staging a revolt. what's up
logan: nothing. just checking in
yn: at 10pm on a tuesday
logan: is that suspicious
yn: a little
logan: go stretch your hip flexors
yn: i am. you could come over and suffer with me
A pause. Longer than usual.
logan: be there in twenty
He showed up with food and sat on your floor and watched you stretch with the expression he sometimes had when he was thinking about something he wasn't saying. You didn't push. You had learned, over ten years, the difference between Logan processing something and Logan ready to talk about it.
You stretched your hip flexors.
He was quiet beside you.
It was, somehow, exactly enough.
four — the party november, junior year
Hannah had a very simple theory about Logan and you that she had shared with Allie approximately four months ago and had been collecting evidence for ever since.
The theory was: you were both completely in love with each other and were going to keep not doing anything about it until one of them finally cracked or they both graduated and went their separate ways, which would be a tragedy.
Allie's theory was identical, arrived at independently, and they had spent four months running what amounted to a covert observation project with no intervention component because, as Allie had said, correctly , very time anyone said anything to Logan he went quiet and every time anyone said anything to you, you laughed and changed the subject, and the only thing that was going to fix this was one of them actually doing something.
The party was in November, someone's house, the kind that happened naturally when enough people were in the same place with nothing specific to do. Allie and Hannah had come together. Logan and you had come separately and found each other within four minutes, which was, Hannah noted, always how it went.
You were in the corner of the living room now, in the configuration you always occupied at parties, close enough that yourshoulders touched, talking in the way you talked when you were somewhere loud, which was slightly lower and slightly more direct, leaning in.
"He's doing it again," Hannah said.
Allie, beside her, followed her eyeline. "The shoulder thing."
"He always does the shoulder thing when he's about to say something."
They watched. Across the room, Logan's shoulder had indeed done the thing, a slight forward tilt, the specific posture of someone turning toward something rather than standing beside it.
You were looking up at him with the expression you had when you were actually listening to someone, which was different from your polite listening expression and your processing expression and was reserved for maybe three people in your life.
"He's going to do it," Hannah said.
"He's not going to do it," Allie said.
"He's leaning in —"
"He never does it."
"There's always a first time —"
Someone across the room called Logan's name. Loudly. Urgently. Something about a game in the kitchen that required his participation immediately.
Logan closed his eyes very briefly.
Then he straightened up and said something to you — one second probably, or back in a minute — and went toward the kitchen.
You watched him go with an expression that lasted approximately two seconds before you reorganized it into something neutral.
Allie looked at Hannah.
Hannah looked at Allie.
"I'm going to lose my mind," Hannah said.
"Same," said Allie.
They looked at each other.
"We're not intervening," Allie said.
"We're absolutely not intervening," Hannah agreed.
They watched you drift toward the snack table looking slightly like someone who had been about to hear something and hadn't.
"We're not intervening," Allie said again, more firmly.
"Right," said Hannah. "Definitely not."
allie: okay so
hannah: i KNOW
allie: the shoulder thing
hannah: and her FACE when he left
allie: someone needs to do something
hannah: we said we weren't intervening
allie: i know what we said
hannah: allie
allie: i'm just saying
hannah: we are not telling them
allie: fine
hannah: fine
allie: ...fine
hannah: goodnight allie
allie: if they're still doing this at graduation i'm saying something
hannah: GOODNIGHT ALLIE
five — the almost january, senior year
You found out about the Dean thing entirely by accident.
You had been in the kitchen at the off campus house, making tea because it was January and you were cold and your coach had banned coffee during competition prep, and Tucker had come in and started making a sandwich and you had been coexisting peacefully until Tucker said, entirely unprompted and clearly without thinking:
"By the way, for what it's worth, I told Dean not to."
You looked at him. "Told Dean not to what."
Tucker looked at his sandwich. Then at you. Then at his sandwich again with the expression of someone who had realized, too late, that they had said something.
"Ask about you," he said finally. "Like — ask Logan if he could pursue you. I told him it was a bad idea."
You put down your tea.
"Dean asked Logan if he could pursue me," you said.
"Back in September. Logan said you were busy with skating." Tucker picked up his sandwich. "Which was — I mean, you are busy. But also —" he stopped. "I probably shouldn't have said anything."
"Probably," you said.
Tucker took a bite of his sandwich and left the kitchen with the energy of someone removing themselves from a situation.
You stood at the counter with your tea and thought about September and Logan showing up at your apartment at ten on a Tuesday for no reason, sitting on your floor, being quiet beside you in a way that had felt like something without ever becoming something.
She's busy, he had apparently said.
You looked at the doorway Tucker had disappeared through.
You looked at your tea.
Hm, you thought.
Logan found you twenty minutes later in the living room, already in his jacket, apparently on his way out.
"Hey," he said. "You good?"
"Fine," you said. "Where are you going?"
"Skate rental shop. I need new laces." He paused. "Do you want to come? We can get food after."
You looked at him.
"Sure," you said.
You got your coat.
one — the one time he did january, senior year.
The skate rental shop was quiet on a January afternoon, the mundane warmth of a place that smelled like rubber and old equipment, and Logan found his laces in approximately four minutes and then stood in the aisle for another ten not moving, which you had learned to recognize as Logan making up his mind about something.
You looked at a display of blade covers that you did not need.
"Tucker told me," you said, to the blade covers.
A pause.
"Told you what," Logan said.
"About Dean. In September."
The aisle was very quiet.
"She's busy," you said. "That's what you said, apparently."
Another pause. Longer.
"You were," Logan said. "You were in nationals prep."
"Logan."
"What."
You turned to look at him. He was looking at the laces in his hands with the expression he got when he was trying to decide something and hating that he had to decide it.
"Why did you say she's busy," you said. "Instead of — anything else."
He looked up. His jaw did the thing.
"Because," he started.
"Because why."
He looked at you. Really looked at you, the way he sometimes did when he thought you weren't paying attention, except you were paying attention and he knew it and he still wasn't looking away.
"Because it's you," he said. "And I couldn't just — I didn't want Dean to —" he stopped. Started again. "I didn't want anyone to."
The skate rental shop was very quiet.
"Okay," you said.
"Okay?" he said.
"That's — I needed to know that." You looked at the blade covers. You looked at him. "I also needed you to know that I'm not busy. I mean — I am. But I'm not. Not for — not for this."
Logan looked at you for a long moment.
"Not for this," he repeated.
"Not for you," you said, which was the more honest version, which you had decided to say because you were twenty-two and you had been doing this for five years and Tucker had accidentally said something in a kitchen and it was January and you were tired of not saying things.
The laces in Logan's hands had been thoroughly analyzed.
He put them back on the shelf.
"I was going to tell you after your competition," he said. "In February. Your sophomore year."
"You talked about my shoulder."
"I know," he said. "I know I did."
"And on the Sunday in April —"
"Your coach called."
"And at the party in November —"
"Dean," he said, simply, and you almost laughed.
"Five times," you said.
"Probably more," he said. "I stopped counting."
You looked at him. This person who had been in the penalty box when you were eleven and had told you your shoulder dropped and had come to every competition and had stood in a locker room in September and said she's busy when what he meant was something else entirely.
"So say it now," you said. "We're in a skate rental shop in January. There's nobody here. Say it now."
Logan looked at you.
"I love you," he said. Not dramatically just simply, the way he said true things, like it was information that had been waiting a long time to be delivered and was relieved to finally arrive. "I've loved you since you told me I didn't ask and then tried the spin again anyway. I love you and I'm sorry it took me this long."
The blade covers blurred slightly.
You reached up and took the lapel of his jacket in your hand.
"You talked about my shoulder," you said.
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."
"I'm going to bring that up for years."
"I know," he said. "I deserve that."
You pulled him down by the jacket.
He kissed you in the skate rental shop in January, between the blade covers and the laces display, with nobody watching and nothing to interrupt, and it was warm and unhurried and tasted like something that had been a long time coming and had finally, simply, arrived.
When you pulled back he had the expression you had been trying not to notice for five years — open and certain and entirely unmanaged.
"For the record," you said, "my shoulder doesn't drop anymore."
"It really doesn't," he said. "You've completely fixed it."
"I know," you said. "I'm very good."
He laughed and pulled you back in, and the skate rental shop continued to be entirely quiet around you, indifferent and perfect.
You told Allie and Hannah together, which was the only way to do it.
You had barely gotten the words out before Hannah made a sound that could only be described as vindicated, and Allie said I told you to Hannah at the same moment Hannah said I told you to Allie, and then they looked at each other and then at you and both started talking at the same time.
"The shoulder thing at the party —"
"In sophomore year when you called after the competition —"
"The thing in September with Dean —"
"We knew," Hannah said. "We have known for so long."
"How long," you said.
They looked at each other.
"Since the first time we saw you two in the same room," Allie said.
You looked at them. "And you didn't say anything?"
"We said we weren't going to intervene," Hannah said, with the dignity of someone honoring a commitment.
"You could have said something to me," you said.
"We said we weren't going to intervene," Allie said, equally dignified.
You looked at them both.
"I cannot believe," you said.
"You're welcome," they said, simultaneously.
Logan told the team at dinner.
Or rather, Dean asked where you were and Logan said she's coming later and Tucker said she's coming? is she — and Logan said yeah in the even tone that contained a lot of information, and Dean looked at Tucker and Tucker looked at Dean and Garrett looked at his food and the table continued exactly as it always had except that something had shifted in the specific, settled way of something that had always been heading here finally arriving.
When you got there Logan moved over without being asked and you sat beside him and his shoulder was warm against yours and everything was exactly the same as it had always been.
Except that his hand found yours under the table.
And this time he didn't let go.
allie: so
hannah: SO
allie: we called it
hannah: from the beginning
allie: the penalty box story is the most romantic thing i have ever heard
heyy! i just want to say that i loved everything you wrote and i cant wait to read more of your writing. as i was stalking your blog (sorry) i saw the ask that said that you are brazilian, thats really impressive you write so well in english id never have imagined anyways keep going!!!
(also i dont wanto be annoying, but how would you feel about a masterlist???)
hello, thank you so much for reading and for the asks! yess, im brazilian, but im also a english teacher and ive been living abroad for many years, so that explains a little more. about the masterlist ive been trying to put together a masterlist but i found some technical dificultie and i suck with technology so maybe it will be out by the end of the next week. thanl you for reading and for the sugestion!!
summary: You've been filming John Logan for many months. Forty seven saved clips, only eleven of them for work. You know his tells, his angles, his best light. You know him better than you probably should for someone who is just the social media girl. What you don't know is that the night he finally asked you out, there was a check involved. A thousand dollars. And three months of the most real thing you've ever felt sitting on top of a secret that was always going to cost someone.
notes: hii i'm back!! after a week of writing between breaks this one finally came to life and i really hope you guys enjoy it, also i've been informed that puck flying accidents are not very common but we're all going to pretend together, also may contain some hockey inaccuracies, i love the game but i'm definitely not a pro. as always thank you so much for reading and please let me know what you think, your comments genuinely keep me writing!!
warnings: swearing, a bet that was a terrible idea, one thousand dollars, dean being dean, forty seven saved clips, angst with a happy ending.
word count: 12.2k
When you started working on the social media position for the hockey team at Briar U, you didn't understand how it was possible for people to take you even less seriously than you already took yourself. But then there would come the moment that they needed you, and things would change, and you would think oh, how the tables have turned.
You understood this in the first week. The girl who came before you, Liana, had walked you through everything: cameras, angles, schedules, the way the athletics department liked their content formatted. But had failed to mention that the players would not look at you so much as look through you at first. Like you were part of the furniture. A tripod with a heartbeat.
In a way, that was fine. Being invisible was a perfectly good way to do the job. Players acted more naturally when they forgot the camera was there, and natural content was always better than posed content. This was something you had understood instinctively from the beginning.
You had been doing this job since the beginning of fall semester. It had come to you not accidentally but not exactly sought either, you had always followed the team, always been a genuine fan. Liana, the former social media girl, was a friend from a very boring Thursday morning class you had both suffered through together. When she came close to graduating she recommended you for the job. You had been working the library circulation desk before that. When the athletics department called it had seemed like a no-brainer.
A few months in, you knew the inner workings of the team the way you knew the layout of your own apartment. Their training schedule, their game schedule, the subtle social architecture of a group of people who spent most of their waking hours together. You knew which players were camera shy and which ones had a natural appeal and actively enjoyed being filmed — cough Dean cough — and by now you knew everyone's best angle, best light, best moment.
Which brought you to Logan.
You were also, which was a separate and entirely unrelated issue, completely down bad for one of the players.
It had not happened all at once.
You had known who John Logan was before you got the job, everyone who followed Briar hockey knew who he was, which was most of the campus, but knowing of someone and being in the same building as them four times a week were different things entirely.
You had known about his escapades too. His romantic history was the kind of thing that Olivia, your friend and a woman of genuinely exceptional gossip quality, had mentioned more than once with the relish of someone who considered this information a public service. Before the job, you had laughed about it the way you laughed about things that had nothing to do with you.
Now that you actually knew him, not knew knew him, but saw him daily, which was its own specific category, you thought about his former, and hopefully past, escapades and felt something uncomfortably close to jealousy.
The crush had consolidated gradually and against your will, the way water finds its way through things. A practice here. A post-game there. The specific way he looked when he was focused on something, the way he talked to his teammates, the way he sometimes looked directly into your camera with an expression that suggested he had briefly forgotten it was there and was just looking.
And then there was the other thing, which was honestly the worst part: he was so unfairly polite. He said good morning and good afternoon. He smiled when he caught you filming something. He said goodbye when he left and apologized if the puck flew in your direction, which it occasionally did, and each time he said sorry about that with the specific sincerity of someone who actually meant it.
You knew you had a crush on him. Obviously. That part was not new information.
What was new information was the following Tuesday, late after practice, the rink mostly empty, you sitting in the stands with your laptop open and the tiredness of someone who had been on their feet for three hours. The players were filtering out through the doors and you were reviewing footage on autopilot, not really watching, when you looked up without thinking about it.
You were looking for Logan before you had decided to look for him.
When you found him, he was at the boards, removing his helmet and pushing a hand through his hair.
Fuck me, you thought.
And then it seemed like he had heard you, because he lifted his eyes and looked straight at you across the empty rink and smiled.
You smiled back and closed your laptop.
Time to go home and think about John Logan in bed.
You reached for your camera on the tripod — force of habit, you always checked the last few shots before packing up — and opened the gallery.
Logan drinking water. Logan laughing at something Garrett said. Logan tying his skates. Logan high-fiving Tucker after a good drill. Logan making a face directly at the camera, having clearly just noticed you filming him, looking entirely unbothered about it.
You stared at the screen.
Oh.
Oh no.
The real problem came later.
The game was at Harvard, which meant the bus, which meant a situation you had been successfully avoiding for six months. You never took the team bus, too much male energy, too many large people occupying space in a way that made you feel like you had accidentally wandered into someone else's environment. You usually went with the student bus, which was fine, which was your preferred option.
The student bus had a mechanical issue and couldn't make the drive in time.
So you, along with the other team staff, boarded the team bus with approximately forty hockey players and the quiet resignation of someone who had lost a negotiation they hadn't known they were in.
The game itself went fine, nothing groundbreaking, but Briar won, which was all that mattered. You packed up your equipment and joined the line filing back onto the bus, looking for the same seat you'd had on the way there.
You were making your way down the aisle when you spotted Logan sitting alone.
You slowed down. Made the calculation. Gave yourself approximately four seconds of internal encouragement.
A freshman defenseman sat down next to him before you could finish the thought.
You did not pout. You were a professional.
"Aw, look who it is." Dean's voice came from the seat directly behind Logan. He was sitting in the aisle seat, legs stretched out, watching you with the expression of someone who had seen everything. "You can sit with me."
"Sure," you said.
"Geez, don't look so happy about it." He pulled his legs in so you could slide past. "I even let you have the window."
"What a gentleman," you said, settling in and pulling your laptop from your bag.
"Are we watching a movie?" Dean pointed at the laptop.
"No. I'm working."
"Bummer," he said, shifting in his seat to get comfortable. Dean was a broad person and the seats were not designed with broad people in mind, which meant that when you sat down you were immediately, unavoidably in contact, arms pressed together, shoulders touching. You had briefly considered putting the armrest down for some personal space, but Dean seemed completely unbothered by the proximity, which somehow made it easier to be unbothered yourself.
This was the thing about Dean that had surprised you most when you first started the job: there had never been an awkward phase. No stiff introductions, no careful professional distance, no period of working out who you were to each other. He had simply decided you were friends and proceeded accordingly, and somehow six months had passed and it felt like you had known each other much longer than that.
You connected your camera to the laptop and started pulling up photos from the game. Selected the best ones. Started uploading them to the shared drive.
"Uh oh," Dean said, leaning over. "That's not my best angle."
You looked at the photo. He was facing almost entirely away from the camera.
"Shut up," you said, lightly slapping his hand away from the screen. "What do you mean not your best angle? Are you not proud of your very nice backside?"
This was a callback, and Dean knew it. He had said something similarly direct about you at a party two months ago in the shameless way that Dean said most things, and you had decided that the only appropriate response was to give the same energy back.
"I am," he said, "but the front is much better. You should check it out sometime."
"Are you referring to your face as the front of your backside?"
Dean repeated the question back to you in a mocking tone.
You opened the photos and started scrolling through them, and approximately three seconds later you noticed the pattern and began praying, quietly and sincerely, that Dean would not notice it too.
Too late.
"Why do you have so many pictures of Logan?" He was looking at the screen with his eyebrows raised. "There are like ten Logan pictures for every one of anyone else."
"Logan just photographs well."
"He photographs well."
"Yes."
"That's your explanation."
"That's my explanation."
Dean looked at you with the expression of someone assembling a conclusion. "You have the hots for Logan."
"The hots? Dean, what is this, a Disney Channel movie? And no. I don't."
"Yeah? Explain the hundred photos of him drinking water. Sorry, but you can't use those for Instagram." He paused. "Unless you're using them for something else. Like, I don't know. Your spank bank."
You gasped and punched his arm. "Shut up."
"Admit it."
"I plead the fifth."
"That's not how that works."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You have to. I'm your best friend."
"No you're not. It's Olivia."
"On the team, I meant."
"It's probably Tucker."
"Tucker?" Dean looked genuinely wounded. "Tucker? Don't try to change the subject."
You closed the laptop.
"Go to sleep, Dean."
"This conversation is not over."
"Yes it is."
"No it's not."
"Yes it is."
"No it's not," he said, adjusting himself against the seat with the decisive energy of someone settling in for a nap. You let your head fall back against the window. A moment later his head dropped onto your shoulder with the comfortable weight of someone who had decided this was acceptable.
"Do not drool on me," you said.
"I bet if it was Logan you wouldn't mind," he said, eyes already closed. Of course not.
"Don't be disgusting."
"And by the way —" he opened one eye "— he has the hots for you too."
"Oh my god," you said. "Stop talking like this is iCarly."
He closed his eye again.
The bus moved through the dark and you sat there with Dean's head on your shoulder and the laptop closed on your knees and tried very hard not to look at the back of Logan's head in the row in front of you.
Oh no, you thought, again, for the second time that week.
A couple of weeks later, Dean found you setting up the tripod in the corner of the film room before pre-game interviews.
"So," he said, appearing at your elbow with the energy of someone who had been waiting for the right moment. "I saw that you didn't RSVP to the invitation for mine and Beau's birthday bash. And it's tomorrow."
You winced. You had been avoiding this topic.
"I have a thing," you said, very casually, adjusting the tripod height without looking at him.
"A thing." He repeated it back with the tone of someone who found this deeply insufficient. "What thing could possibly be more important than my birthday?"
"They painted a new wall in the hallway of my apartment so —"
"Shut up," he said, moving closer. "You're coming. Also —" he said it with the specific energy of someone deploying their strongest argument "— Logan is going to be there."
You kept your eyes on the tripod. "I would assume so. Since you live together."
"You know what I mean."
"I really don't."
"Yes you do."
"I'm working tomorrow night," you said.
"It's a Saturday."
"Content doesn't take weekends off."
"You literally schedule everything in advance and you know it." Dean leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. "Come to the party. Talk to him. He's going to be right there."
"I talk to him all the time. It's my job."
"Yeah, but when you talk to Logan you do the thing."
You looked up for the first time. "What thing."
"The thing." He gestured vaguely at your face. "The thing where you forget to be normal."
"I am always normal."
"You called his assist last Tuesday 'genuinely cinematic.'"
"It was a good play."
"To his face."
"As a professional observation —"
"He smiled about it for the rest of practice." Dean looked at you steadily. "Come to the party."
You turned back to the tripod.
"I don't think Logan has the hots for me, you know," you said. "He's like a hot athlete. And I'm like the social media nerd."
Dean stared at you with the expression of someone who had just heard something that offended him on multiple levels simultaneously.
"Geez," he said. "You're not the girl in every romcom who doesn't know she's pretty." He paused. "Also you may be a nerd but — with all due respect to you and to my buddy Logan — you're pretty hot."
You pushed his shoulder and muttered a low stop.
"I'm being sincere!" He caught himself on the wall, laughing. "Party. Tomorrow. Eight o'clock. Logan will be there." He pointed at you one more time. "You will also be there."
He walked away before you could respond.
You looked at the camera. The camera looked back at you.
Genuinely cinematic, you thought, mortified.
You were definitely not going to that party.
The thing about watching two people be completely oblivious to each other was that it was, at first, entertaining.
Dean had found it genuinely funny in the beginning, the way you would track Logan across a room without realizing you were doing it, the way Logan would find reasons to be wherever you were without announcing that was what he was doing. It was like watching a nature documentary.
It had been funny for approximately three weeks.
It was now week seven and Dean was losing his mind.
It was a Thursday practice, nothing special about it. Dean was on the ice going through drills with Tucker when he caught it, the peripheral awareness of someone who had been watching a situation develop for too long.
You were in your usual spot in the stands, laptop open, camera on the tripod, doing the thing you always did where you looked like you were reviewing footage but were actually, if you knew what to look for, tracking Logan across the ice without moving your head.
Logan, for his part, was doing the thing he always did where he skated past your section of the stands more than was strictly necessary for any drill that had been assigned.
"He's done that four times," Tucker said, appearing at Dean's elbow.
"Five," Dean said. "You missed one while you were talking to the coach."
Tucker watched Logan complete another unnecessary loop near the boards. "Are they ever going to do something about that?"
"Apparently not," Dean said.
On the ice Logan slowed near the boards not stopping, that would have been too obvious, just slowing and said something up toward the stands. You looked up from your laptop and said something back. Logan smiled. You looked back at your laptop immediately, in the specific way of someone using a screen as a shield.
Logan skated away looking slightly more cheerful than he had thirty seconds ago.
"It's painful," Tucker said.
"It's excruciating," Dean agreed.
"Wow, that's a big word" Tucker said mocking Dean and skating away.
After practice Dean was still thinking about it in the locker room.
He was unwrapping his tape when Garrett sat down across from him.
"You have a face," Garrett said.
"I'm thinking."
"About what."
"Logan and the social media girl, or as I call her, (Y/N)"
"So her name—" Garrett replied.
Garrett looked at him with the mild, steady expression he used when he was waiting for someone to either say something sensible or stop talking. "And?"
"And they've been doing this for like seven weeks and nothing is happening and I'm tired of watching it."
"So tell him to do something about it."
"I've told him." Dean had, in fact, told Logan approximately six times in varying tones of directness. "Telling doesn't work. Logan needs a push."
"A push," Garrett repeated.
"A significant push."
Garrett looked at him for a long moment. "What kind of push."
"A financial one," he said.
"Dean —"
"Hear me out."
"I don't think I want to."
"A thousand dollars," Dean said. "I bet him a thousand dollars that he won't ask her out. He needs the money, he likes her, this solves both problems simultaneously. It's elegant."
Garrett stared at him. "It's really not."
"It gets him to do the thing he already wants to do."
"By paying him."
"By incentivizing him."
"Those are the same thing."
"Garrett," Dean said, in the tone of someone who had considered the counterarguments and dismissed them. "They have been doing this for weeks. At this rate they'll still be doing it at graduation. I'm helping."
Garrett looked at the ceiling briefly. "You shouldn't do this," he said finally.
"Noted," Dean said.
He did not change his mind.
Logan came in from the showers to find Dean sitting on the bench across from his locker with an expression that meant something was coming.
Tucker was in the corner pretending to check his phone. Garrett was lacing his shoes with more focus than the task required.
"What," Logan said.
"I have a proposition," Dean said.
Logan looked at Tucker. Tucker looked at his phone. Logan looked at Garrett. Garrett looked at his shoes.
"What kind of proposition," Logan said.
"A thousand dollars," Dean said. "All you have to do is ask her out."
He didnt't have to specify who the her was.
The locker room was quiet.
Logan opened his locker. Got his jacket. "No."
"Logan —"
"No, Dean."
"You like her."
"That's not —"
"You've skated past her section of the stands five times today during drills that don't require you anywhere near the boards." Dean's voice was completely even. "I counted."
Logan said nothing.
"You check her posts before anyone else on the team," Dean continued. "You know her schedule better than your own. You said sorry to her last Tuesday when the puck went near her even though it didn't come close to actually hitting her." A pause. "You apologized preemptively."
"I was being polite."
"You were being in love with her," Dean said, simply. "Which is fine. Great, actually. And fixable. With one conversation and a thousand dollars."
Tucker made a small sound that was not quite disapproval and not quite agreement.
Garrett said nothing, which was its own kind of answer.
Logan looked at his jacket in his hands. He thought about the time that had passed, the practices and bus rides and the specific way you closed your laptop when you were trying to hide something. He thought about his bank account, which was having a difficult semester. He thought about the rent that was due. The equipment he needed.
He thought about asking you out, which he had been meaning to do, which he had been telling himself he was going to do, which he had not done.
I was going to do it anyway, he told himself. The money doesn't change what I was going to do anyway.
"Fine," he said.
Tucker made the sound again, slightly louder.
Garrett looked up from his shoes for the first time. His expression was not angry, not exactly. More like a person watching a decision being made and knowing already how it was going to cost someone.
Dean produced a check from somewhere — written on the back of a receipt, which was so Dean that Logan almost laughed — and held it out.
Logan took it.
He folded it once and put it in his jacket pocket and did not look at Garrett again.
I was going to do it anyway, he thought.
He almost believed it.
The subject of the party was a sore one.
Part of you wanted to go and part of you didn't, and the two parts had been arguing since Dean walked away from the tripod, and by the time you got back to your apartment you had resolved nothing except that you needed to talk to Olivia about it.
Olivia listened to the full recap of the Dean conversation with the focused attention of someone taking notes. When you finished she was quiet for approximately three seconds.
"We're going," she said.
"I said I wasn't sure —"
"I've made up my mind. You were invited so you need to go, and I'm coming with you because—." She looked at you with the expression of someone who had already decided the fun they were going to have and was simply waiting for logistics to catch up. "What's the theme?"
"Dynamic duo."
"Perfect for us." She was already opening her laptop. "I know exactly what we're wearing."
"I don't even know what to wear," you breathed out, dropping flat onto your bed and staring at the ceiling. "What kind of theme even is that? Dynamic duo? That's so vague."
"It's not vague, it's versatile." She turned the screen to face you. "Clueless. Cher and Dionne. The plaid."
You looked at the screen. You looked at Olivia.
"Obviously," you said.
You walked into the party in matching plaid ,short skirt, blazer, the whole thing and felt immediately, objectively, like you had made the right costume choice. Olivia walked in beside you with the confident energy of someone who had never had a bad entrance in her life.
The house was full and warm and smelled like every college party you had ever been to. You did a quick scan of the room in the completely professional way of someone who was not looking for anyone specific.
You found him in approximately four seconds.
Logan was in the kitchen with Dean, drink in hand, laughing at something. He was wearing a sleveless gray shirt with a pair of wings.
You gave a small wave in their direction. Dean spotted you first and his face did something immediately, and then he clapped a hand on Logan's back and pushed him in your direction with the subtlety of a person who had never heard the word subtle.
Logan crossed the room.
"Hey —" His eyes moved over you and something in his expression shifted slightly. "Clueless?"
"Yeah," you said, nodding perhaps a few more times than necessary.
Beside you, Olivia made a sound that she converted, barely, into a cough. She had been documenting your inability to form complete sentences in Logan's presence for approximately three months and found it genuinely hilarious.
"You look very pretty," Logan said.
"Oh — thanks." The blush arrived before you could do anything about it. Compose yourself.
Logan seemed to remember that you were not alone. "You too, Olivia."
"Yeah, right," Olivia laughed. "I'll go get a drink."
She disappeared into the crowd. As she passed behind Logan she turned to face you and mouthed make a move with the enormous unsubtle energy of someone who had been waiting three months to say it.
You looked back at Logan.
"I'm glad you came," he said. "Dean mentioned you weren't sure."
"I had some content to edit," you said.
"This is more important," he said, lightly, like a joke, but with something underneath it that wasn't entirely a joke.
"Yeah," you said.
And then you were both just standing there. Drinks in hand, the party moving around you, talking the way you had discovered you talked when you were alone together, which was easily, which was the specific ease of two people who had been in the same orbit long enough to have figured out each other's rhythms without officially acknowledging it.
"So what are you supposed to be anyway?" you asked, taking the opportunity to look at him properly. The gray shirt. The wings. The arms, which were — you looked at his face instead. "Jacob Elordi in Saltburn?"
Logan laughed — a real one, surprised and warm. "Bird and the bee. I'm the bird. Tuck's the bee."
"Oh," you said. "That tracks."
"Does it."
"The bee has better energy," you said. "No offense to you."
"I'll tell Tucker you said that."
"Please don't."
Dean chose this exact moment to appear between you.
"Hello, you two." He looked between you with barely concealed delight. "What are we talking about?"
"The birds and the bees," you said, and watched Dean's eyebrow go up in real time.
"Oh, I like where this is headed."
"No — I mean his costume," you said quickly. "What are you supposed to be?"
"Maverick." He pointed across the room to where Beau was talking to a very beautiful brunette. "Beau's Goose."
You considered this. "Was there not a dynamic duo where one of them didn't have a tragic ending? You could have been Ice."
"Ice and Maverick hated each other," Dean said.
"No they didn't! In your own words they had the hots for each other."
Dean opened his mouth. Closed it. Pointed at you. "That is actually a fair point."
"Thank you."
"You're insufferable," he said, smiling. He looked between you and Logan one more time. "I'm going to go find Beau. You two —" he gestured vaguely at the space between you "— continue."
He disappeared back into the crowd.
You looked at Logan. Logan looked at you.
"He's not subtle," you said.
"No," Logan agreed. "He really isn't."
The party continued around you. At some point you had moved slightly closer together. Neither of you had announced it. At some point his hand had found the small of your back, briefly, when someone pushed past in the crowd. It had stayed there a moment longer than strictly necessary. You had not moved away.
At some point Olivia had caught your eye from across the room and given you a look of such unrestrained triumph that you had been forced to look at the floor to keep from laughing.
"So —" Logan started. He stopped. Tried again. "I've been thinking. For a while actually." He looked at you with the expression of someone abandoning a rehearsed script entirely in favor of just saying the thing. "Would you like to go out? With me. On a date."
Inside your chest, something that had been very carefully managed for months made a sound like:
YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES —
"Yes," you said, with great composure. "I'd like that."
Something settled in his expression warm and certain. "Good. I was hoping you were going to say that."
"I was hoping you were going to ask," you said.
He smiled. Not the polite one, not the team-photo one the real one, the one you had forty-seven saved clips of and only eleven of them were for work.
Across the room, completely uninvited into this moment, Dean let out a noise of triumph loud enough that Tucker turned around to look.
You and Logan both looked at Dean.
Dean pointed at both of you, then at himself, then gave two thumbs up with the energy of a man who had absolutely no shame about any of this.
"He planned this," you said.
"Obviously," Logan said.
You looked at Dean, who was now saying something to Beau that was making Beau look confused and Dean look extremely pleased with himself.
"I'm going to delete all his content," you said.
"Probably," Logan said. "But maybe tomorrow."
You looked back at him.
"Yeah," you said. "Maybe tomorrow."
What you did not know — what you would not know for three months — was what had happened two hours before that conversation.
The first date was a Tuesday.
Logan had asked on a Saturday and then spent the intervening three days being completely normal about it, which meant he had checked his phone approximately forty times and suggested three different restaurants to Dean who had not asked for his opinion and had given it anyway.
He picked you up at seven. You had worn something simple and he had looked at you the way he sometimes looked into the camera, direct, unhurried, like you were something worth paying attention t, and said you look great in the specific voice he used when he meant things, and you had said thanks, so do you and meant it, and the evening had been easy in the way that things were easy when they had been building for a long time and had finally found the right outlet.
You talked for three hours. Not about anything important about the team, about your job, about the things you had noticed about each other without ever saying so. He told you about the preemptive puck apology before you could bring it up and looked slightly embarrassed about it, which you found endearing in a way you did not make him aware of. You told him about the forty-seven saved clips and watched his expression do something warm and complicated.
He walked you back to your dorm. He kissed you at the door — soft and unhurried, the specific patience of someone who had been waiting a while and had decided that arriving was enough for now.
You went inside and stood in the hallway for a moment.
Oh, you thought. Not oh no this time. Just — oh.
What followed was three months that assembled themselves quietly and completely, the way good things tended to do when you stopped trying to manage them.
You learned the specific rhythm of being with Logan, which was different from the rhythm of being near Logan, which you had spent seven months memorizing from behind a camera. Being with him was easier. Less careful. The things you had noticed from a professional distance — the way he focused, the way he was with his teammates, the particular quality of his attention when he was genuinely listening were the same up close, just without the glass between you.
He remembered things. That was the detail that accumulated the most weight over three months small things you had said once, in passing, that he filed away and produced later in the specific way of someone who had been listening more carefully than you knew. The coffee order. The fact that you hated the overhead lights in the film room. The name of the professor whose class you had shared with Liana.
You told Olivia about the coffee order detail on a Thursday night and she looked at you with an expression that said everything she was choosing not to say out loud.
"Don't," you said.
"I'm not saying anything," she said.
"You have a face."
"I have my normal face."
"Olivia."
"I'm just glad," she said simply, and went back to whatever she was doing, and you sat with that for a moment and found that you were too.
Logan was also, three months in, still thinking about the check.
Not constantly. Not the way he had in the beginning, when it had surfaced at inconvenient moments, the first dinner, the first time you laughed at something he said, the first time you fell asleep on his shoulder watching something neither of you were paying attention to. Those early weeks it had been a persistent background noise, a low-level static of something he should have said and hadn't.
But the weeks had passed and the static had gotten quieter, the way noise does when you choose not to listen to it long enough. He had paid his rent. He had replaced the equipment. He had told himself, again and again, that he had been going to ask you out anyway, that the money had been incidental, that what they had built in the three months since was real regardless of how it started.
All of that was true.
The part that was also true, the part he didn't let himself look at too directly, was that you didn't know. And not knowing was its own kind of thing, a thing that existed in the space between you without you being aware of it, that he was aware of every time you said something honest to him, every time you looked at him the way you looked at him.
He had meant to tell you. In the beginning. There had been a window, early on, when it would have been a small thing — by the way, Dean made a bet, it's a whole thing, I was going to ask you anyway—. He had rehearsed it. He had not said it. The window had closed, and then it had been a week, and then a month, and then three months, and now saying it felt like dropping something large into a quiet room.
So he didn't say it.
He told himself it didn't matter because it hadn't changed anything real.
He was getting better at believing that.
It was a Saturday afternoon in February, the specific grey-white quality of a winter afternoon that had given up pretending it was going to improve, and you were in Logan's room doing nothing in particular.
This had become one of your favorite things — the doing nothing in particular. You had a tendency, left to your own devices, to fill time with productivity, with scheduled content and edited footage and the general sense that unoccupied time was time being wasted. Logan had, over three months, introduced you to the concept of lying on a bed on a Saturday afternoon and simply existing, which you had resisted and then accepted and now found genuinely necessary.
He was on his back, one arm behind his head, reading something on his phone. You were beside him, legs tangled, working your way through a Cosmopolitan from 2003 that you had found at the thrift store the previous weekend when you had gone with Allie. It had a younger Jennifer Lopez on the cover and approximately forty pages of advertisements for perfumes that no longer existed, and you had bought it for fifty cents because something about it felt like an artifact.
"Listen to this," you said.
"Mm."
"It's a quiz." You held up the magazine. "Is your relationship ready for the next level? I feel like we should take it."
"I feel like that magazine is older than some of our teammates."
"That's what makes it valuable." You turned back to the page. "Okay. Question one. When you picture your future, does your partner feature prominently? Options are: always, sometimes, or only when I'm feeling optimistic."
"Always," Logan said, without looking up from his phone.
You looked at him sideways. He was still reading, expression neutral, like he had answered a question about the weather.
"Okay," you said, and looked back at the magazine, and did not make anything of it, because making something of it would have required acknowledging that it had landed somewhere specific and stayed there.
You worked through several more questions — about communication, about conflict, about shared values — Logan answering in the same unhurried, matter-of-fact way, like the answers had already been decided and he was simply reporting them.
And then you got to the last one.
"Okay, last question." You shifted onto your side to face him. "If your partner made a serious mistake — something that hurt you — what would it take to make things right? Option A: a heartfelt conversation and genuine apology. Option B: time, space, and proof of change. Option C —" you paused, because option C was very 2003 "— a grand romantic gesture. Flowers, candlelight, the whole thing."
You said it like it was funny. You said it with the lightness of someone reading from an old magazine on a Saturday afternoon.
Logan put his phone down.
He looked at the ceiling for a moment. Then he turned his head and looked at you with an expression that was doing something complicated underneath the surface.
"What would you pick?" he said.
You considered it. "Honestly? C, but private. Like not in front of everyone. Just — showing up. With flowers, or peonies, they are my favorite. And meaning it." You paused. "The meaning it is the important part."
Logan looked at the ceiling again.
"Many flowers," he said. His voice was even. Carefully even.
"Like an unreasonable amount," you said. "Like someone made a decision about it."
"Right," he said.
He was quiet for a moment. You looked at him — at the careful evenness of his expression, the specific stillness of someone sitting with something — and almost asked what he was thinking about.
Then he turned back to you with the warm unhurried expression you knew, and kissed your temple.
"Good to know," he said.
You looked back at the magazine. Jennifer Lopez looked back at you, unbothered.
You did not know, lying there on a grey February Saturday, that you had just handed him the exact shape of something he was going to need.
Logan knew.
He stared at the ceiling after you looked away and thought about a check written on the back of a receipt and a conversation in a locker room and the specific, settling weight of something that had been waiting a long time to be said.
Too many flowers, he thought. Private. Meaning it.
He closed his eyes.
I have to tell her, he thought.
He did not tell her.
Allie had not been looking for information.
She had been in the kitchen at the off campus house on a Wednesday evening, waiting for Dean to finish getting ready so they could go to dinner, scrolling through her phone with the patience of someone accustomed to waiting for Dean to finish getting ready. She was not listening. She was not paying attention to anything except the particular injustice of being told seven-fifteen and it being seven-thirty-two.
And then Dean's phone rang on the counter.
She glanced at it automatically. Logan.
Dean came out of the bathroom still pulling on his jacket and picked it up. "Hey. What's up."
Allie went back to her phone.
"What do you mean you need to tell her." Dean's voice had shifted into something lower, more careful. "What's — Logan. Logan, have you not told her yet?"
Allie looked up.
Dean had his back to her, one hand pressed to the counter, the specific posture of someone having a conversation they hadn't prepared for. "It's been three months, man. How have you — okay. Okay, calm down. Just — tell me what happened."
A pause. Dean listening.
"So tell her," Dean said. "Just — tonight. Call her and tell her. It's been long enough, she'll —" another pause "— Logan, I know it's not going to be easy but you can't just — yes I know you actually love her, that's not the — okay, listen —"
Allie set her phone down on the counter very carefully.
"What," she said.
Dean turned around.
The expression on his face moved through several things in quick succession — surprise, recalibration, and then the specific, flattening look of someone who understood exactly what had just happened.
"Allie —"
"What did you do," she said. Not a question.
Dean lowered his phone slowly. On the other end Logan was saying something, unaware.
"Dean." Her voice was very even. "What did you do."
He told her.
He told her all of it — the bet, the thousand dollars, the locker room — and Allie stood in the kitchen and listened with the stillness of someone who was getting progressively more furious in a way that had not yet found its exit.
When he finished she said nothing for a moment.
"She's my friend," she said finally.
"I know —"
"She is my friend and you let her date him for three months without telling her."
"It wasn't supposed to —"
"Dean." She picked up her keys from the counter. "Do not follow me."
"Allie, please just —"
"I have to tell her," she said. "She's my friend. I'm not going to —"
"Please," Dean said, and his voice had lost all its usual confidence, stripped down to something that was just — asking. "Please just give me a chance to fix it. I'll tell Logan to tell her tonight. Just give me —"
"You had your chance to fix it three months ago," Allie said. "And two months ago. And last month." She looked at him for a long moment. "I love you. And you did something really wrong. And she needs to know."
She left.
Dean stood in the kitchen alone and listened to Logan's voice still coming from the phone in his hand.
He put the phone to his ear.
"She already knows," he said.
You were in your aparment when Allie knocked.
She told you everything standing in your doorway, quickly and directly, the way Allie did things — no preamble, no softening, just the facts arranged in order. The bet. The thousand dollars. The locker room. Three months.
You stood very still while she talked.
When she finished you said nothing for a long moment.
"Get your keys," you said.
"(Y/N) —"
"Get your keys, Allie."
The drive to the off campus house took four minutes. You did not speak. Allie drove and you looked at the road ahead and felt cold clarity of someone who had moved past the part where things hurt and into the part where they simply had to be dealt with.
The lights were on when you pulled up. Of course they were.
You didn't knock.
You walked in and Logan was already in the hallway, like he had heard the car, like some part of him had known — and the expression on his face when he saw you was the expression of someone who had been waiting for this and was still not ready for it.
Dean was behind him. Tucker and Garrett further back, in the doorway of the living room, with the expressions of people who understood the room and had decided to stay very still.
"Hey —" Logan started.
"Did you take a bet," you said, "to ask me out."
The hallway was very quiet.
"Yes," Logan said.
The word landed.
"How much," you said.
"A thousand dollars."
You looked at him. This person. This person whose coffee order you knew, whose preemptive apologies you had found endearing, whose smile you had forty-seven saved clips of and only eleven of them were for work.
"You had to be paid," you said. Your voice was very quiet. "Someone had to pay you. To ask me out."
"It wasn't —"
"A thousand dollars," you said. "That's what it cost. That's what asking me out was worth to you. A thousand dollars and someone else's idea."
"That's not —"
"I told you I loved you." The words came out steadier than you expected. "Three weeks ago. In your room. I told you I loved you and you said it back and the whole time —" you stopped. Started again. "The whole time there was a check. There was a check and you knew and you said it back anyway."
"I meant it," Logan said. "I mean it. I love you, that has nothing to do with —"
"It has everything to do with it." Your voice cracked slightly and you pushed past it. "Because maybe you do. Maybe you actually do love me. But I will never know that now. Do you understand that? I will never know which part was real and which part was a thousand dollars because you didn't tell me. You had three months to tell me and you didn't."
"I was going to —"
"When?" you said. "When were you going to tell me? After another month? After a year? Were you ever actually going to tell me or were you just going to keep it and hope I never found out?"
He said nothing.
"That's what I thought," you said.
You turned to Dean.
Dean was standing very still with an expression that had none of his usual ease in it, stripped down, uncomfortable, genuinely ashamed in a way that you recognized as real and that made it worse rather than better.
"I thought you were my friend," you said. Your voice was different now, not cold, something more broken than cold. "I thought — you were supposed to be my friend. I told you things. I told you how I felt about him and you used it. You turned it into a transaction and then you watched me fall in love with him and you said nothing."
"I know," Dean said. His voice was very quiet. "I know."
"I taught you how to use the camera," you said, which was not what you meant to say but came out anyway, and somehow it was the most honest thing — the small specific intimacy of it, the way you had shown him the angles and the settings and he had been genuinely interested and you had thought this is what a friend looks like. "I showed you everything. I thought you were —"
"I was," Dean said. "I am. I'm so sorry."
"Don't." You picked up your bag. "Don't apologize right now. I can't — I need you to not talk to me right now."
You looked at Logan one more time. He was standing in the hallway with his hands at his sides and the open, devastated expression of someone who had run out of words and knew it.
"Please," he said. Just that. Just the word, quiet and without any of the composure he usually wore like a second skin.
"I have to go," you said.
"Please just let me —"
"Logan." Your voice broke on his name, just slightly, and you steadied it. "I have to go."
You walked to the door. Behind you you heard him take a step.
You opened the door.
"You two fucking suck," you said, to the hallway, to both of them, to the three months of Tuesday practices and bus rides and magazine quizzes and I love you said and meant and received by someone who was keeping a check in his jacket pocket the whole time. "Never talk to me again."
You walked out.
Allie was waiting by the car. She took one look at your face and said nothing, just unlocked the doors, and you got in, and she drove, and the campus moved past the windows dark and quiet and entirely indifferent.
You did not cry until you got back to your aparment.
And then you did, for a while, with Olivia sitting beside you saying nothing because there was nothing to say, just being there the way people who actually loved you were there when things went wrong.
You had to be paid, you thought, in the dark.
A thousand dollars.
The house was very quiet after you left.
Tucker and Garrett had retreated to the living room. Nobody was saying anything.
Dean sat on the bottom step of the stairs and put his head in his hands.
Logan stood in the hallway where you had left him and looked at the closed door and thought about everything — the check, the locker room, the first dinner, the magazine quiz on a grey February Saturday, too many flowers, private, meaning it — and underneath all of it, constant and quiet, the thing he had known for three months and had managed to convince himself didn't matter:
You had deserved to know.
You had deserved to know from the beginning and he had chosen not to tell you and you stood in his hallway and said I will never know which part was real and he had had no answer because there was no answer that fixed that.
Garrett appeared in the doorway of the living room. He looked at Logan for a long moment.
"I told you not to," he said. Not unkindly. Just said.
"I know," Logan said.
"From the beginning. I told you."
"I know, Garrett."
Garrett looked at him for another moment. Then he went back to the living room without saying anything else, which was somehow the most devastating response available.
Logan sat down on the floor of the hallway with his back against the wall and stared at nothing.
I have to fix this, he thought.
He had absolutely no idea how.
The email to the athletics department went out the following morning.
It was professional and brief — you cited personal reasons, thanked them for the opportunity, offered to train your replacement, gave two weeks notice. You sent it before you could think about it too hard, before the part of you that loved the job could talk the other part out of it.
You were not going to sit in that rink anymore. You were not going to film those practices or those games or stand in that corridor outside the locker room with your tripod and your equipment bag and pretend that everything was the same as it had been before.
Your phone had messages from Logan and Dean by noon. You read none of them.
The football team's social media coordinator reached back out by the end of the day.
You started the following Monday.
The football team was different from the hockey team in ways that were both obvious and unexpected. Louder, in some ways. Different rhythms, different energy. The guys were nice and the work was interesting and you were good at it, because you were good at this, that had never been in question.
You were fine.
You were getting finer by the day, which was either progress or a very convincing impression of it.
Allie texted. Garrett texted — I'm sorry, for what it's worth I told him not to — which you appreciated more than you could say. Tucker sent a single text that just said I tried to talk him out of it and you believed him and told him so.
You did not respond to Logan.
Logan's days had a new shape to them and he hated it.
Practice was the same, same drills, same ice, same team, but the stands were wrong. The spot where you always sat, third row back on the left side, was empty now, and he knew it was empty without lookin. He looked anyway. Every practice, every morning skate, every film session, he looked, and the spot was empty, and he looked away.
Logan texted you every three days. Not long messages, just checking in, just your name sometimes, just I know you don't want to hear from me right now but I'm sorry. He did not expect responses. He sent them anyway because not sending them felt worse.
He watched your football content. Every post, every reel, every behind-the-scenes clip. He watched the way you filmed the new team — the same eye, the same instinct for the right moment, the same ability to make something look like something worth watching — and felt the specific, particular ache of someone who understood what they had lost because they had been paying attention to it the whole time.
He had always been paying attention.
That was the thing that made it so much worse.
Three weeks after you left, the hockey team got a new social media person.
Her name was Jade. She was a sophomore, enthusiastic, slightly overwhelmed, and she had asked you to walk her through the setup on a Tuesday morning when the team had a late practice, which meant you were in the rink, with your old equipment, showing someone else how to use the angles you had spent seven months learning, when the team came off the ice.
You had not planned for this. You had assumed they would be gone by the time you were done.
They were not gone.
You heard them before you saw them, he familiar noise of the team coming out of the locker room corridor and then Tucker saw you first and stopped walking so abruptly that Garrett walked into him.
"What —" Garrett looked up. Saw you. His expression did something complicated.
The rest of the team filtered out around them, and then Dean, and then Logan, and the corridor went through a specific collective recalibration.
You kept your face completely neutral. "Hey," you said, to the general group. "This is Jade. She's taking over the social media. I'm just showing her the setup."
Jade waved cheerfully, unaware of the atmospheric pressure of the corridor.
"Taking over?" Tucker said slowly.
"Yes," you said. "I moved to football." You said it simply, like it was information and not anything else. "Jade is great, she's going to do a really good job."
The team was looking at you with various expressions. Tucker looked pained. Garrett looked like he was doing math.
Dean was looking at the floor.
Logan was looking at you with the expression of someone watching something leave that they had already lost and were only now understanding the full shape of. You could feel it without looking directly at him. You had spent seven months learning the specific weight of his attention.
"I already left," you said. "This is just the handover."
"But —" Tucker started.
"Tuck," you said, gently. "It's fine. Jade is great."
Jade smiled again.
"We kind of made you leave," Tucker said, in the specific tone of someone who had been holding something for three weeks and had finally said it out loud.
"Tucker —"
"No, like —" he stopped. Looked at Dean. Looked at Logan. Looked back at you. "We made you leave. That's what happened. And I just — I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say but I'm sorry."
The corridor was very quiet.
"You didn't make me leave," you said carefully. "You tried to talk him out of it. I know that."
Tucker nodded. Still pained.
"Right," Garrett said finally, in the tone of someone deciding to be graceful about something painful. "Good luck with football."
"Thanks," you said.
You turned back to Jade and kept going with the walkthrough, and the team filed past, and you did not look at Logan as he walked by even though you could feel him slowing down, even though you could feel him wanting to say something.
"Hey," Logan said. Very quietly. Just that.
You kept your eyes on the camera settings you were showing Jade.
He stood there for a moment. Then his footsteps continued down the corridor.
You exhaled very quietly and kept talking to Jade about angles.
Behind you, fading, you heard Dean say something low and urgent to Logan that you couldn't make out. And Logan's response, quieter still:
"I know."
Logan started showing up.
Not to you, he respected the never talk to me again enough not to push himself into your space. But he started showing up in the ways that were available to him.
He fixed the tripod mount in the storage room that had been broken since October — the one you had mentioned once, months ago, in passing, because it made the camera angle slightly off and you had learned to compensate for it. He left a note on it that said finally fixed it. sorry it took so long. No signature. He didn't need one.
He started showing up to the football team's games.
Not every game. Not in a way that was dramatic or obvious. Just there, in the stands, with the quiet patience of someone who had decided that if the mountain wouldn't come to him he would go to the mountain and sit in the stands and watch from a respectful distance.
Olivia told you the second time it happened.
"He was there again," she said carefully.
You said nothing.
"He's not doing anything," she said. "He's just — there. Watching."
You said nothing.
"I thought you should know," she said.
You knew.
You knew because you had clocked him the first time — third row back, left side,— and you had kept filming and not said anything and thought about it for three days.
He texted you after the third game.
logan: you got a good shot of the QB in the third quarter. the one right before the play call. it was good.
You stared at the message for a long time.
yn: how would you know
logan: i was there
A long pause.
logan: i'll keep coming if that's okay. i won't bother you. i just want to be there.
You put your phone down.
You picked it up.
yn: it's okay
Dean did not sleep the night you found out.
He lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about the specific expression on your face when you said I thought you were my friend — not angry, which would have been easier, but broken, which was not easier at all.
At four in the morning he picked up his phone.
dean: allie
allie: i'm awake
dean: i know i really messed up
allie: yes
dean: i don't know how to fix it
A long pause.
allie: you start by not trying to fix it. you start by just being sorry.
dean: i am
allie: i know. she needs to hear it from you. not a text. not through anyone else. you.
dean: she said never talk to her again
allie: i know what she said. give her time. and then go.
Dean put his phone down.
He stared at the ceiling until it got light outside.
You took your own sweet time.
Not to feel better, you were not operating under the illusion that time fixed everything, but to feel what you needed to feel without an audience. You went to classes. You went to work. You filmed the football team's Tuesday practice and focused on the angles and the light and the professional satisfaction of a job done well, and you did not think about hockey, and you did not look at your phone when certain names appeared on the screen, and you let Olivia bring you food and watch bad television with you without making you talk about it.
On the fourteenth day Dean was waiting outside your lecture hall.
He looked terrible. Not dramatically terrible — Dean was constitutionally incapable of looking terrible — but tired.
You stopped when you saw him.
He held up both hands. "I'm not here to make excuses," he said. "I know you said never talk to me again. I know. I just — five minutes. And then I'll go and I won't bother you again if that's what you want."
You looked at him for a long moment.
You stepped to the side of the path, out of the flow of people. He followed.
"Say what you have to say," you said.
Dean looked at you with the expression you had never seen on him before, no performance, no charm deployed at the right moment, nothing managed. Just a person who had done something wrong and knew it and was standing in front of the person he had done it to.
"I've never had a friend like you before," he said. "Like — actually. I have guy friends. I have girls I've hooked up, almost dated or whatever. But I've never had a girl who was just — a friend. Who I talked to and who talked to me and who I could be around without it being anything else." He paused. "And I took that and I made it into a scheme. And I told myself I was helping and maybe part of me was but part of me just — didn't think far enough ahead. Didn't think about what it would mean to you if you found out. Didn't think about you at all, honestly, which is the thing I'm most sorry about." He held your gaze. "I thought about Logan being in love with you and I thought about the bet being clever and I didn't think about you being a person who deserved to know the truth. And I should have. You should have been the first thing I thought about."
The path had mostly emptied. A bird somewhere was doing something aggressively cheerful.
"I miss my friend," Dean said. "I know I don't get to just say that. I know. I just needed you to know that it's real. You are actually my friend and I actually miss you and I'm actually sorry, not sorry like I feel bad, sorry like I understand what I did."
You looked at him.
You thought about the bus and his head on your shoulder and on the team, I meant and the way he had looked genuinely wounded when you said Tucker was probably your better friend on the team.
"It's going to take time," you said finally.
Something in his expression shifted — careful, not quite hope yet.
"I know," he said.
"You don't get to just be normal yet. We have to rebuild that."
"I know."
"And you have to actually be different," you said. "Not just sorry. Different."
"I will be," he said. "I already am. Or I'm trying to be." He paused. "Is that enough to start with?"
You looked at him for a long moment.
"It's enough to start with," you said.
The careful-not-quite-hope became something more than that.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"Don't thank me yet," you said. "We have a long way to go."
"I know," he said. "I'll go as slow as you need."
You looked at the path ahead.
"I have class," you said.
"I know. Go."
You went.
It was a start.
Logan was harder.
Not because you were angrier at him — you were, if you were being honest, angry at both of them in equal measure, just differently. Dean had betrayed a friendship. Logan had betrayed something larger, something that had your name on it, something you had handed him on a grey February Saturday when you said I love you and meant it with everything you had.
You saw him at the football games. Third row back, left side, every time. Not looking at you directly, just there, present, with the quiet patience of someone who had decided that showing up was the only thing available to him and had committed to it without reservation.
He sent you a text after every game. Not about him, not about them, about your work. Good shot in the second half. The one where you caught the receiver right before the snap. The slow motion reel you posted was really good. The timing was perfect. Small specific things that said I was paying attention without saying anything else.
You read them all.
You responded to some of them.
Small things. Thanks. I almost didn't post that one. Nothing that opened a door, just acknowledgment. The acknowledgment of someone who was not ready and was not pretending to be and was also not entirely gone.
He was not pushing. That was the thing you noticed most. He had shown up to three football games and fixed a broken tripod mount and sent careful specific texts about your work and he had not once asked for anything in return. Had not once said I think we should talk or please give me a chance or any of the things that would have made it easier to keep the door closed.
He was just — there.
Being different.
The grand gesture arrived on a Thursday, five weeks after the fight.
You were in the football team's equipment room going through footage on your laptop when someone knocked on the door. One of the managers looked in.
"There's someone outside asking for you," he said, with the specific expression of someone who had seen something and found it notable.
You went outside.
The path outside the athletics building was where you found him — Logan, in the cold, with flowers. Not a bunch. Not a normal amount. An amount that represented a decision — sunflowers and peonies and something small and white, wrapped loosely in paper, assembled with the specific intention of being too many, more than one person could reasonably carry, held in both arms with the careful energy of someone who had thought about this and decided it was not enough and added more anyway.
You looked at the flowers. You looked at him.
He looked tired in the same way he had looked tired since the night you left — not dramatic, not performing it, just genuinely worn down in the way of someone who had been carrying something for five weeks without putting it down.
"You said private," he said. "Too many flowers. Someone made a decision." He paused. "I made a decision."
Your throat did something inconvenient.
"Logan —"
"I'm not asking you to forgive me today," he said. "I just you said meaning it was the important part. And I needed you to see that I mean it. That's all. I'm not asking for anything."
You looked at the flowers. Peonies. He had gotten peonies specifically.
"You remembered the peonies," you said.
"You mentioned them once," he said. "A long time ago."
"You were paying attention," you said.
"I was always paying attention," he said quietly. "That was never the problem."
You stood there in the cold outside the athletics building and thought about I will never know which part was real and the third row left side and the texts about your work and five weeks of him being different without being asked to prove it.
"This isn't enough," you said.
Something flickered in his expression.
"I know," he said.
"I need more than flowers."
"I know," he said again, steadily. "Tell me what you need. Whatever it is. I'll do it."
You looked at him for a long moment.
"I need time," you said. "Real time. Not rushing. Not us going back to how things were because it was comfortable and we missed each other. Actually starting over and doing it right."
"Okay," he said.
"I need you to keep showing up," you said. "Not just when it's easy. When it's hard and uncertain and you don't know if it's working. You keep showing up anyway."
"I will," he said.
"And I need you to understand that I might get angry again," you said. "Even after I've forgiven you. It might come back and I might need to say something and you have to let me say it without shutting down."
"I will," he said. "I'll listen. Every time."
You looked at him.
"The texts," you said. "About my work."
"Yeah."
"You were at every game."
"Yeah."
"Third row back. Left side."
He looked at you quietly.
"I know," you said. "I noticed."
Something in his expression shifted.
"I was always going to ask you out," he said. "I need you to know that. Not as an excuse. Just as a true thing. The money didn't change what I felt. It just — it gave me a reason I shouldn't have needed and I took it and I'm sorry. But what happened between us was real. Every single part of it was real."
"I know," you said, which surprised you slightly, because you hadn't known you knew until you said it. "I know it was real. That's what made it hurt so much."
He nodded.
"Give me the peonies," you said.
He carefully extracted the peonies from the arrangement and held them out. You took them.
"The rest you can take home," you said.
"Okay."
"And Logan —" you paused. "The showing up. Don't stop."
Something broke open in his expression — not dramatically, not loudly, just quietly and completely, the expression of someone who had been holding something for five weeks and had finally been given a place to put it down.
"I won't," he said. "I promise."
You looked at him for one more moment.
"Slow," you said.
"As slow as you need," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
You went back inside.
You stood in the equipment room with the peonies and thought about everything — the check and the bet and the fight and five weeks of third row left side and too many flowers on a Thursday afternoon in the cold.
You were not okay yet.
But you were standing with peonies, which was somewhere.
It was enough to start with.
The getting back together did not happen all at once.
It happened the way the crush had happened — gradually, against nobody's will this time, the way things did when they had been building for a long time and had finally found the right conditions.
The first time you went back to the rink it was not for work.
It was a Saturday game, mid-March, the kind that mattered for standings, and you had told yourself you were going because Allie and Hannah were going and Olivia was going and it was a group thing and had nothing to do with anything else.
You brought your camera.
Not the work camera your personal one, the smaller one you used when you were filming for yourself rather than for a content schedule. You told yourself it was habit. You told yourself you just liked having it.
You sat third row left side.
The thing about watching hockey when you actually knew what you were looking at was that it was a completely different experience from watching hockey when you were just there for the atmosphere. You knew the plays. You knew the patterns. You knew which moments were about to become something before they became something, the specific pre-motion stillness that preceded a good play, the way certain players telegraphed their intentions without knowing they were doing it.
You knew Logan's tells better than anyone.
Which was why you had your camera up and ready when he got the puck in the second period the slight shift of his weight, the way his head came up a half second before anyone else's, and then the play unfolding exactly the way you had known it would, clean and fast and entirely worth watching.
You got the shot.
Forty-three seconds of it, actually.
You lowered the camera and looked at what you had captured and felt something settle in your chest that was warm and quiet and entirely familiar.
Genuinely cinematic, you thought, and smiled at the ice.
Briar won.
The team filtered out of the locker room in the usual way in ones and twos, loud and post-game, spilling into the corridor where the usual group had gathered. Allie found Dean. Hannah found Garrett. Tucker found someone to complain to about a call in the third period.
You were reviewing footage on your camera when you felt someone stop beside you.
You looked up.
Logan was still in half his gear, hair damp, and he was looking at you with the expression you had forty-seven saved clips of — the real one, the one that had nothing managed about it — except that now you were allowed to look at it directly, which was still something you were getting used to.
"You came," he said.
"I came," you confirmed.
"You brought your camera."
"I brought my camera."
He looked at it. He looked at you. "Did you get anything good?"
You turned the camera around and hit play. The second period play unfolded on the small screen — the weight shift, the half second of stillness, the clean fast movement of something that knew exactly where it was going.
Forty-three seconds of it.
Logan watched it. Something in his expression went soft in the specific way it did when he was actually feeling something and had decided not to manage it.
"That's —" he started.
"Genuinely cinematic," you said.
He looked at you.
You looked back at him.
And then he kissed you right there in the corridor.
It was warm and certain and tasted like relief of something that had been a long time coming and had finally, simply, arrived.
When you pulled back he was smiling the real one, the one you had been filming without quite admitting why for seven months.
"So," he said.
"Yeah," you said. "We're back together." You pointed at him. "Don't fuck up."
Logan laughed a real one, surprised and warm, the kind that carried down the corridor and made Tucker laugh too without knowing why.
"I won't," he said.
"I mean it."
"I know you mean it."
"Good." You tucked your camera back into your bag. "Buy me food. I've been at a hockey game for two hours and I'm starving."
"Done," he said immediately.
You started walking and everything was different from before, which was the whole point, which was exactly what you had asked for.
Better. Not the same. Better.
Behind you, fading, you heard Tucker say something to Garrett.
Summary: one random night. No names. No consequences. Except three weeks later you’re standing outside a locker room and the guy who had you pinned against a door is introduced as your fiercely protective older brother’s best friend. The same brother who makes his teammates promise to treat you “like a sister.” The same brother who will absolutely commit murder if he finds out. So obviously the only logical solution is to keep sneaking around behind his back. What could possibly go wrong?
Warnings: 18+ content
Read part two here
The bass in the Boston bar is loud enough to rattle the ice cubes in Logan’s glass, but it’s not enough to drown out Dean’s incessant complaining.
“I’m just saying,” Dean mutters, leaning against the sticky mahogany of the bar and dragging a hand through his hair. “It’s the first weekend of the season. The energy is prime. The girls are out. And Garrett is sitting in his room icing a sprain that barely qualifies as a bruise.”
Logan smirks, taking a slow sip of his whiskey. “Leave him alone. The guy’s got a bruised ego more than a bruised ankle. Besides, it’s a classic case of NFP.”
Tucker, who has been quietly peeling the label off his beer bottle, looks up with a heavy sigh. “I swear to God, Logan. If you make me ask what that means, I’m leaving.”
“No Fun Permitted,” Logan deadpans, flashing that easy, charming grin that usually gets him out of trouble. “Garrett’s resting up. The captain’s gotta lead by example. Or whatever.”
“More like missing out by example,” Dean grumbles.
Logan lets his friends bicker, his gaze sweeping over the crowded dance floor. The flashing neon lights paint the sweating bodies in shades of electric blue and violent pink. He loves this city, loves the start of the hockey season. Out on the ice, he’s one of Briar University’s top players, a forward with hands so fast the scouts practically drool over him. They did drool over him. Up until the draft.
A familiar, heavy weight settles in Logan’s chest, dulling the buzz of the whiskey. He skipped the draft. Walked away from the NHL, from the millions, from the dream. The guys know he pulled his name, but they don’t really know the depths of the why. It’s easier to play the funny, sarcastic, reliable guy than it is to explain the deal he made with his older brother. His brother put his own life in a holding pattern to run Logan & Sons, the family mechanic shop, while Logan gets to play college hockey for four years. The shop was supposed to be run by their father, but their father is currently busy being a fall-down drunk. When graduation hits, the party is over. Logan goes back home, takes over the shop, takes care of the old man, and his brother goes free.
“Earth to Logan,” Tucker says, waving a hand in front of Logan’s face. “You’ve got that look again.”
“What look?”
“The ’I’m plotting a murder or thinking up a terrible acronym’ look,” Tucker points out.
“JCT,” Logan counters smoothly. “Just Chilling, Tucker. Relax. I’m going to go get another drink. Try not to marry anyone before I get back.”
Logan pushes off the bar, leaving his teammates to their own devices, and weaves his way through the crush of bodies. That’s when he sees you.
***
Across the room, the heat of the dance floor is exactly what you need. You throw your head back and laugh as your Northeastern teammate, a fiery winger named Cammi, spins you around.
“See?” Cammi yells over the pounding remix of a 2000s R&B track. “I told you coming out was better than sitting in your dorm organizing your hockey tape!”
“I don’t organize my tape!” You shout back, laughing as you sway your hips to the rhythm.
“Liar!”
You let the music wash over you, closing your eyes for a brief second. You’re a freshman. You made the Northeastern women’s hockey team as their starting center. You’re in Boston. You are finally, truly, free.
Whenever things get too loud, too chaotic, your mind always drifts back to the quiet, suffocating terror of your childhood home in New York. Your father, a star defenseman for the Rangers, was a god to the public and a monster behind closed doors. The memories of his explosive rage, the sound of things breaking, the way he treated your mother — it’s a dark stain on your mind. Garrett, your older brother, had been your shield. He took the hits, both literal and metaphorical, hiding you in his room, turning up the TV, doing whatever it took to keep you safe.
And then the lung cancer took your mother, and the house had grown even colder. But you survived. Garrett survived. You both got out. Garrett is across town right now, the captain at Briar, nursing a sprained ankle. You had texted him earlier to check in, and he’d ordered you to go out and celebrate the start of your own season.
So here you are.
You’re wearing a sleek, dark red slip dress that clings to your curves in all the right ways, paired with comfortable black combat boots because you refuse to ruin your feet in heels. Your hair falls in messy waves around your shoulders. You feel good. You feel electric.
Someone bumps into you, sending a splash of someone’s drink onto your boots, but you barely register it. You just keep moving, letting the heavy bass guide your hips, losing yourself in the anonymity of the crowd.
***
Logan freezes halfway to the bar.
He’s seen a lot of beautiful girls in his time at Briar, but the sight of you in that dark red dress stops him dead in his tracks. It’s not just the way the fabric slides against your skin, or the way you move with a natural, effortless athleticism. It’s the sheer joy radiating from you. You look like you don’t have a single care in the world, like you own the space you’re occupying.
He watches you laugh at something your friend says, the bright, genuine sound of it somehow cutting through the heavy thrum of the club’s speakers.
“Well, damn,” Logan mutters to himself.
He doesn’t think. He just moves. Logan has always been a player who acts on instinct — on the ice, and off it. He navigates the sweaty crowd until he’s right at the edge of your circle. He waits for the exact right moment, right as the DJ transitions into a slower, heavier beat.
You step back, and Logan steps in.
***
You feel the solid wall of a chest against your back before you even realize someone has approached. The sudden heat radiating from the stranger sends a shiver down your spine. A pair of large, strong hands settle lightly on your hips.
Normally, you’d shove a guy away. But there’s something about the confident, gentle pressure of his hands that makes you pause.
You glance over your shoulder.
He’s tall. Much taller than you. Broad shoulders, a mop of messy, dark hair, and a pair of sharp, amused eyes that lock onto yours. He has a ridiculously handsome face, a sharp jawline dotted with a faint hint of stubble, and a smirk that screams trouble.
“You’re in my way,” you say, shouting slightly over the music, though your tone is teasing.
“Actually,” Logan says, leaning down so his mouth is hovering near your ear, his voice a low, raspy rumble that makes your stomach flip, “I think you backed into me. Standard MVA.”
“MVA?” You ask, turning around fully so you are facing him. You have to tilt your head back to meet his gaze.
“Motor Vehicle Accident,” he replies smoothly, his hands sliding from your hips to rest casually at his sides, giving you space, which you internally appreciate. “But in this case, a Dance Floor Collision. DFC.”
You arch an eyebrow, trying not to smile. “Do you always speak in acronyms, or are you just trying to be annoying?”
“A little bit of Column A, a little bit of Column B,” Logan says, stepping just a fraction of an inch closer. The scent of him — woodsmoke, musky cologne, and something distinctly masculine — wraps around you. “I’m mostly just trying to keep your attention.”
“It’s a bold strategy.”
“I’m a bold guy.” He smirks, and there’s a genuine sweetness in his eyes that contrasts with the cocky tilt of his mouth. “You’re celebrating something. I can tell. Your vibe is extremely ... victorious.”
You laugh, the sound bubbling up from your chest. “You can read vibes now?”
“It’s a gift,” he nods solemnly. “So? What are we celebrating? A promotion? A birthday? Successful bank heist?”
“Start of the season,” you reply, the words slipping out before you can filter them.
“Ah.” Logan’s eyes light up with recognition. “An athlete. Should have known. You’ve got that ... balance.”
“Balance?”
“Yeah. And the combat boots. Very intimidating. I like it.” He leans in again. “I’m celebrating the exact same thing.”
“You play?” You ask, looking at the breadth of his shoulders. Obviously, he plays.
“I dabble,” Logan says, his eyes dropping to your lips for a fraction of a second before meeting your gaze again. The shift in his attention is subtle, but it sends a rush of heat straight to your core. “What’s your sport?”
“Puck,” you say.
Logan’s smile widens. “A hockey girl. My favorite kind.”
He doesn’t ask what team. You don’t ask him either. It’s better this way. No names, no schools, no complications. Just the heavy, pulsing beat of the music and the electric tension pulling the two of you together.
“You talk a lot,” you murmur, stepping into his space. You don’t know what’s come over you tonight. Maybe it’s the freedom. Maybe it’s the whiskey you had before leaving the dorms. Or maybe it’s just him.
“I’ve been told I have a big mouth,” Logan whispers, his hands finding their way back to your waist. His thumbs brush against the bare skin at the low dip of your back, and you gasp softly.
“Prove it,” you challenge.
Logan doesn’t hesitate. He closes the distance, his mouth crashing down onto yours.
The kiss is explosive. It’s not hesitant or sweet; it’s hungry, demanding, and incredibly hot. Your hands immediately go to his hair, pulling him down, deepening the kiss. He groans, a low, guttural sound that vibrates against your lips, and pulls you flush against his body. You can feel every hard line of him against the soft fabric of your dress.
The club is too loud, too crowded, but right now, there is only the frantic slide of his tongue against yours, the taste of whiskey and mint, the desperate grip of his hands on your hips.
“Too crowded,” Logan mutters against your mouth, his breathing jagged. He pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes dark and dilated. “Let’s go.”
You don’t need to be told twice.
He grabs your hand, his fingers lacing through yours, and pulls you through the throng of dancing bodies. You follow blindly, your heart hammering against your ribs. The destination doesn’t matter, only the urgency.
Logan navigates the club with practiced ease, finally spotting a secluded hallway near the back that leads to the bathrooms. It’s dimly lit, the pulsing lights of the dance floor reduced to a soft, flickering glow. He pulls you down the hall, pushing open the heavy wooden door of what looks like an employee or VIP bathroom that someone forgot to lock.
He pulls you inside and kicks the door shut behind him, the lock clicking into place with a sharp clack.
The silence of the tiled room is deafening compared to the club outside. The only sound is the heavy, ragged breathing echoing between the two of you.
“You are absolutely gorgeous,” Logan breathes out, backing you up against the cool tiles of the wall.
“Less talking,” you demand, grabbing the lapels of his jacket and pulling him back down to you.
He laughs softly against your lips — a rough, breathless sound — before devouring your mouth again. His hands are everywhere, frantic and exploring. He maps the curve of your waist, the slope of your back, his large palms hot against your skin. You let out a soft moan as his lips leave your mouth to trail fiery kisses down your jawline and onto your neck.
“So impatient,” Logan teases, though his own voice is tight with desire. He bites down gently on a sensitive spot just below your ear, making your knees buckle slightly.
“You’re the one who dragged me in here,” you manage to say, your fingers fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. You push the fabric aside, pressing your palms flat against his warm, hard chest. His heart is racing just as fast as yours.
“Correction,” Logan groans, as your hands slide over his abs. “We dragged each other. Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD.”
“Shut up with the acronyms,” you whisper fiercely, pulling his face back up to yours.
He kisses you again, deeper this time, his hands sliding down to grip the back of your thighs. With a swift, effortless motion that reminds you how incredibly strong he is, he lifts you off the ground. You wrap your legs around his waist instinctively, your combat boots scraping against his jeans. Logan presses you against the door, holding you up with ease, his body a solid weight keeping you pinned.
The angle is perfect. The friction is maddening.
You reach down, your fingers tangling in his belt loops, tugging him even closer. The raw, desperate energy between you two is overwhelming. It’s completely out of character for you. You don’t do this. You don’t hook up with random guys in club bathrooms. But the way he looks at you, the way he touches you like he’s starving for it, strips away every inhibition you have.
“Tell me if I need to stop,” Logan says, his voice thick, his forehead resting against yours. Even in the haze of lust, that core of reliability, of fundamental goodness, shines through. He’s asking for consent. He’s making sure you’re okay.
“Don’t you dare stop,” you breathe, your hands sliding up into his hair, pulling gently.
Logan’s eyes flash with a dark, primal heat. He shifts his grip, one hand supporting your thighs while the other slides up to trace the edge of your red dress. He pushes the thin fabric up, his rough fingers grazing the sensitive skin of your upper thigh. You gasp into his mouth as his touch becomes more deliberate, tracing higher, sending bolts of pure electricity straight to your core.
He kisses you harder, swallowing your moans, his tongue tangling with yours in a desperate, wet rhythm that mirrors the heavy thrusting of his hips against yours. The heavy denim of his jeans grinds against you, and it’s simultaneously the best and most frustrating feeling in the world.
“You’re driving me crazy,” Logan mutters, his lips moving frantically over your neck, his teeth scraping lightly against your collarbone.
“Then do something about it,” you dare him, your voice shaking with need.
Logan chuckles, a low, dangerous sound. His fingers expertly work the clasp of your undergarments, and when his skin finally meets yours, you let out a loud, uninhibited cry that is completely swallowed by his mouth.
He moves inside you, and the sensation is so intense, so overwhelmingly perfect, that you see stars behind your closed eyelids. Logan groans loudly, his grip on your thighs tightening as he sets a frantic, punishing pace. He’s strong, so incredibly strong, pinning you against the heavy wood of the door, completely controlling the rhythm.
Every thrust sends a shockwave through you. The heat in the small bathroom is stifling, the air thick with the smell of sex and sweat and his intoxicating cologne.
“Look at me,” Logan commands, his voice ragged.
You open your eyes, meeting his gaze. His pupils are blown wide, his jaw clenched tight with the effort of holding back. The sheer intensity of his stare makes your breath hitch.
“You feel unbelievable,” he rasps out, his hips snapping forward with a force that makes the door rattle in its frame.
“Faster,” you plead, your nails digging into his shoulders.
Logan obliges, his pace doubling. You cling to him, entirely lost in the storm of sensation. The world outside the bathroom ceases to exist. There is no abusive past, no dead mother, no heavy burden of the mechanic shop or the alcoholic father. There is only here. There is only now. There is only the sliding heat of his body, the rough texture of the wall at your back, and the mind-shattering pleasure building in your chest.
“I’m close,” you sob out, tossing your head back.
“Let go for me,” Logan whispers against your neck, his thrusts becoming jagged and desperate. “Come on. Let go.”
His words, the deep, encouraging rumble of his voice, are the final push you need. The climax hits you like a freight train, a cascading wave of blinding heat that tears a loud moan from your throat. Your body shudders violently against his, your muscles clenching tightly around him.
Logan grunts, burying his face in the crook of your neck. He gives one final, deep thrust, his entire body going rigid as he finds his own release. He holds you tightly against him, his chest heaving, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your own.
For a long time, neither of you moves. The only sound in the bathroom is the heavy, ragged sound of your synchronized breathing. Logan’s face is still buried in your neck, his lips pressing soft, absentminded kisses against your damp skin as his heart rate slowly begins to settle.
Eventually, the reality of the situation begins to seep back in. The muffled thud of the bass from the club outside reminds you both where you are.
Logan slowly lowers you down, his hands lingering on your hips until your boots hit the floor. Your knees are trembling so violently that you have to lean against the door for support.
He steps back, looking slightly dazed, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he buttons his shirt. He looks at you, his eyes sweeping over your flushed face, your swollen lips, and the messy tangle of your hair.
“Wow,” Logan breathes, a genuine, awe-struck smile breaking across his face. “That was ...”
“Yeah,” you manage to say, smoothing down the front of your red dress, feeling a sudden, intense flush of shyness. “It was.”
You avoid his gaze, quickly fixing your clothes and running a hand through your hair. The magic of the bubble is bursting. The anonymity is starting to feel heavy.
“Hey,” Logan says softly, stepping closer and lifting a hand to gently tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. The sweetness of the gesture makes your heart ache. “I never even got your name.”
You look up at him. You see the genuine interest in his eyes. He’s not just a frat boy looking for a quick lay. There is a depth to him, a heavy, quiet kind of reliability that you can sense even now. But you can’t. You’re Garrett’s little sister. You have a reputation to build, a life to start, and getting tangled up with a Briar hockey player — a guy who looks like trouble wrapped in charm — is a terrible idea.
“It’s better this way,” you say quietly, stepping around him toward the door.
Logan frowns, his hand dropping to his side. “Wait. Seriously? No name? No number?”
“No acronyms,” you reply, offering him a small, almost sad smile.
Before he can argue, you unlock the door and slip out into the dimly lit hallway. You don’t look back. You merge back into the sweaty, pulsing crowd of the dance floor, letting the music swallow you whole.
Back in the bathroom, Logan stands alone, staring at the closed door. He runs a hand through his hair, a soft chuckle escaping his lips.
“Well,” he murmurs to the empty room. “FML.”
***
The Matthews Arena is freezing, smelling sharply of Zamboni exhaust, stale popcorn, and that distinct, metallic tang of fresh ice. For Logan, it’s a scent that instantly feels like home, even if he’s sitting in enemy territory. Northeastern University’s rink is packed for the women’s game against Harvard, the crowd a sea of red and black.
Logan shivers, pulling the collar of his Briar University hockey jacket a little higher. He bumps his knee against the plastic seat in front of him, leaning over to look at his best friend.
“I still can’t believe you dragged us out of bed before noon on a Sunday,” Logan complains, his voice raspy from sleep. “It’s practically a human rights violation.”
Garrett doesn’t even look away from the ice. He’s practically vibrating with nervous energy, a half-eaten pretzel abandoned in his lap. “Shut up, Logan. You slept until eleven. And it’s my sister’s first home game against a rival. I wasn’t going to miss it, and I wasn’t letting you idiots miss it either.”
“We’re honored, truly,” Dean drawls from Logan’s right, suppressing a yawn. “But couldn’t we have been honored from the comfort of our couch? With, like, breakfast sandwiches?”
“Focus,” Garrett commands, pointing a finger toward the ice. “Puck drop is in two minutes. And I swear to God, if any of you embarrass me, I’m making you run stairs until you puke at practice tomorrow.”
Tucker, sitting on the other side of Dean, chuckles softly. “Relax, G. We’re on our best behavior. We just want to see if the Graham hockey genes actually transferred over, or if you stole all the talent in the womb.”
“Oh, she’s got the talent,” Garrett says, and for a second, the cocky, commanding captain of the Briar team melts away, replaced by a fiercely proud older brother. “Just watch number twenty-one.”
Logan leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He hasn’t met Garrett’s little sister yet. He knows they’re incredibly close, knows a little bit about the dark, heavy history they share with their father — a topic Garrett rarely touches, but when he does, it’s with a protective ferocity that Logan respects. The timing just never worked out for them to meet. When you were visiting Briar, Logan was usually back home dealing with his dad or at the shop. And since you started at Northeastern a few weeks ago, their schedules have been a nightmare of overlapping practices and away games.
The buzzer blares, echoing through the arena, and the starting lines skate out to the center circle.
Logan’s eyes immediately scan the red jerseys for the number twenty-one. He spots you lining up for the face-off. Even under the bulky pads and the caged helmet, there’s a distinct posture to you. A coiled, aggressive energy that reminds him so much of Garrett it’s almost funny.
The referee drops the puck.
You win the draw instantly, a sharp, precise flick of the wrist that sends the puck straight back to your defenseman. And then, you explode into motion.
“Whoa,” Dean says, sitting up a little straighter. “Okay. She’s fast.”
“Told you,” Garrett says smugly.
Logan watches in genuine awe as the game unfolds. You aren’t just fast; you’re brilliant on the ice. Your hockey IQ is off the charts. You anticipate plays before they happen, finding open ice where there shouldn’t be any. Halfway through the first period, you receive a pass in the neutral zone, weave through two Harvard defenders with a blindingly quick deke, and fire a wrist shot that pings off the crossbar and into the net.
The crowd erupts. Garrett jumps to his feet, screaming his head off, slamming his hands against the glass.
“That’s my sister!” Garrett roars, looking back at the guys with a wild grin. “Did you see those hands? Did you see that?”
“NFD,” Logan mutters, his eyes wide as he watches you celebrate with your team, slamming your gloves against your teammates’.
“Don’t do it, Tucker,” Dean warns.
“I have to,” Tucker sighs. “What does NFD mean, Logan?”
“No Freaking Doubt,” Logan says, a grin spreading across his face. “She’s lethal. G, I think she might actually be better than you.”
“Don’t push it,” Garrett warns, sitting back down, though he’s practically glowing with pride. “But yeah. She’s incredible. Has been since she was five. I basically taught her everything she knows.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” Logan laughs.
For the rest of the game, Logan can’t take his eyes off the ice. It’s a distraction he desperately needs. For the past three weeks, his mind has been a broken record, constantly skipping back to the girl in the red dress from the club. It’s driving him insane. He’s the guy who lives in the moment, the guy who never gets hung up on a one-night stand. But that night in the bathroom wasn’t just a hookup. It felt like a collision. He’s spent the last twenty-one days scanning crowds, looking for that wild hair, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He doesn’t even know her name. He’s half-convinced he hallucinated the entire thing.
But watching you play, the sheer aggression and skill you bring to the ice, it centers him. It’s a damn good game of hockey.
By the time the final buzzer sounds, Northeastern has secured a 4-2 victory, with you notching a goal and two assists. You’re the clear MVP of the match.
“Alright,” Garrett says, standing up and stretching. “Let’s head down to the tunnels. I texted her to meet us outside the locker room.”
The boys shuffle out of the stands, joining the flow of parents and friends heading down to the lower levels of the arena. The air down here is thicker, smelling strongly of sweat and sports tape. They find a spot against a cinderblock wall just outside the double doors of the Northeastern locker room.
“So, what’s the protocol here?” Dean asks, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. “Do we bow? Do we offer her a tribute for absolutely carrying her team today?”
“Just be normal,” Garrett snaps, suddenly looking a little anxious. “And keep your gross, flirtatious comments to yourselves. She’s my baby sister. Look at her, tell her she played well, and do not hit on her. I mean it. Especially you, Dean.”
“Hey! I am a perfect gentleman,” Dean protests.
Logan chuckles, leaning his head back against the cold wall. “Relax, Garrett. We know the bro code. Best friend’s sister is strictly off-limits. Untouchable. It’s, like, the fundamental law of the universe.”
“Exactly,” Garrett says, pointing a firm finger at Logan. “I trust you, Logan. You’re the only one of these idiots who actually respects boundaries.”
“I am a pillar of morality,” Logan agrees solemnly, placing a hand over his heart.
Tucker snorts. “You’re a pillar of something, alright.”
They wait for another fifteen minutes as players slowly trickle out, greeting their families. The heavy double doors swing open again, and Logan hears Garrett suck in a sharp breath.
***
You push through the locker room doors, a heavy duffel bag slung over your shoulder. Your hair is still damp from the showers, falling in messy, natural waves around your face. You’re wearing a pair of comfortable gray sweatpants and a massive, oversized Northeastern Hockey hoodie that swallows you whole. Your muscles are aching, your legs feel like lead, but there is a triumphant, soaring feeling in your chest.
You beat Harvard. You proved you belong here.
You scan the crowd of lingering families in the hallway, your eyes searching for a familiar face. And then you see him. Standing tall in his Briar letterman jacket, looking exactly the same as he always does.
“Garrett!” You call out, a massive, exhausted smile breaking across your face.
You drop your duffel bag instantly, not caring where it lands, and practically launch yourself at him. Garrett catches you easily, wrapping his large arms around you and lifting you entirely off your feet, burying his face in your damp hair.
“God, you were amazing,” Garrett murmurs fiercely into your shoulder, his voice thick with emotion. “I am so damn proud of you. That goal in the first period? Filthy. Absolutely filthy.”
“I learned from the best,” you whisper back, squeezing him tight.
In this moment, the rest of the world fades away. It’s just the two of you. The two kids who used to hide in a locked bedroom in New York, the two survivors who made it out to the other side. Every time you step onto the ice, you play for yourself, but you also play for him. Because he made sure you survived long enough to lace up your skates.
“Okay, okay,” Garrett laughs, finally setting you down, though he keeps one arm securely draped over your shoulders. He looks down at you, his eyes shining. “Let me look at you. You look terrible. Exhausted.”
“Thanks,” you scoff, punching him lightly in the ribs. “I feel terrible. But winning takes the edge off.”
“I brought the guys,” Garrett says, his tone shifting into his captain voice. He turns slightly, gesturing to the three tall, intimidating hockey players standing a few feet away. “They’ve been dying to meet the mythical little sister. Guys, this is her.”
You turn, a polite, friendly smile already plastered on your face. You’re ready to meet the famous Briar boys you’ve heard so much about.
“Hey, it’s nice to-”
The words die in your throat.
Your eyes sweep past a blonde guy with a cocky grin, past a tall, quiet-looking guy with curly hair, and land squarely on the third guy.
The tall guy with the messy, dark brown hair. The sharp jawline. The broad shoulders. The guy who, three weeks ago, pinned you against a heavy wooden door in a club bathroom and made you see stars.
The blood instantly drains from your face. The world tilts on its axis.
***
Logan freezes.
Every single muscle in his body locks up. He stops breathing. He stops blinking. The cinderblock wall behind him is the only thing keeping him from collapsing onto the floor.
He stares at you. At the damp hair, the gray sweatpants, the oversized hoodie. But it’s the eyes. It’s the sharp, expressive eyes that he spent an hour staring into in a dark, sweaty hallway. It’s the curve of your mouth that he had bruised with his own.
*No. No, no, no.*
The realization hits him with the force of a freight train colliding with a brick wall. The girl in the red dress. The girl who tasted like whiskey and mint. The girl whose moans he still hears when he tries to fall asleep.
It’s you.
It’s Garrett’s little sister.
Panic, cold and sharp, floods Logan’s veins. His heart begins to hammer violently against his ribs, a frantic, terrified rhythm. He is a dead man. He is literally going to die today, right here in the Matthews Arena. Garrett is going to murder him. Garrett is going to strip him of his hockey gear, drag him out onto the ice, and beat him to death with his own stick.
“Earth to Logan,” Dean says, elbowing Logan sharply in the ribs. “Introduce yourself, weirdo.”
Logan swallows hard. His mouth is completely dry. He tries to form words, but his brain is short-circuiting. Code Red. CR. Catastrophic Failure. CF. I Am Going To Die. IAGTD.
He looks at you, really looks at you, and sees the exact same horror mirrored in your eyes. You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. Your lips are slightly parted, your chest rising and falling rapidly as the shock registers.
“Hey,” Logan manages to croak out, his voice sounding entirely unlike his own. It’s an octave higher, strangled and tight. “I’m Logan.”
***
“Logan,” you repeat, the name slipping out of your mouth like a curse word.
John Logan. Garrett’s best friend. The guy your brother trusts more than anyone else in the world.
You slept with him.
You can feel the hysterical urge to laugh bubbling up in your throat, but you ruthlessly suppress it. Your mind races, trying to stitch together the pieces of that night. No names, no schools, no complications. What a spectacularly stupid rule that turned out to be. If you had just asked his name, if he had just mentioned he played for Briar ...
“Yeah, this is Logan,” Garrett says, oblivious to the nuclear bomb currently detonating in the space between you two. He claps Logan on the shoulder, and you watch Logan flinch as if he’s been burned. “And this is Dean, and Tucker. Guys, my little sister.”
“Incredible game out there,” Tucker says smoothly, stepping forward to offer a fist bump, which you return mechanically. “Your vision on the ice is insane.”
“Uh, thanks,” you manage to say, tearing your eyes away from Logan to look at Tucker. “I appreciate it.”
“Seriously,” Dean chimes in, flashing a bright, flirtatious smile that instantly makes Garrett narrow his eyes. “You didn’t tell us she was a superstar, G. Or that she was this pretty.”
“Dean,” Garrett barks, his voice low and dangerous. “I will end you.”
“Just stating facts!” Dean raises his hands in surrender.
You try to focus on the banter, try to act normal, but it’s impossible. You can feel Logan’s stare burning a hole into the side of your head. The tension radiating from him is palpable. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler.
“So,” Garrett says, turning back to you, completely blind to the silent panic attack Logan is having three feet away. “We were thinking of grabbing food to celebrate. There’s a diner a few blocks from here. You up for it, or are you too dead?”
“I ...” You desperately want to say no. You want to grab your bag, run back into the locker room, lock the door, and never come out. But you look at Garrett, at the sheer happiness on his face. He’s so excited to have you here, to introduce you to his world. You can’t ruin this for him.
“I’m starving,” you lie, forcing a bright smile. “Food sounds great.”
“I am?” Logan stammers, his eyes snapping to Garrett.
“Yeah, you drove us here in your truck,” Garrett points out, looking at Logan like he’s grown a second head. “Are you okay, man? You look like you’re going to throw up.”
“I’m fine,” Logan says quickly, too quickly. “Just hungry. Blood sugar is low. LBS.”
“Stop with the acronyms,” Garrett sighs, rolling his eyes. He turns to you. “He does this thing where he makes up acronyms. It’s annoying, but you learn to tune it out.”
“I know,” you say softly.
The words slip out before you can stop them.
The hallway goes completely silent.
Dean and Tucker pause. Garrett frowns, looking between you and Logan. Logan looks like he’s about to sprint down the hallway and jump into moving traffic.
“You know?” Garrett asks slowly, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “How do you know?”
Crap. Crap. Crap.
“I mean,” you backpedal frantically, your heart hammering against your ribs, “I assume it’s annoying. You know? Guys who do that ... it’s usually annoying.”
Garrett stares at you for a second longer before his face clears, and he laughs. “Yeah. See? Even she thinks you’re annoying, Logan.”
Logan manages a weak, strained chuckle. “Yeah. Hilarious.”
The walk to Logan’s truck is the longest walk of your entire life. Garrett walks beside you, excitedly breaking down the plays from the game, asking you about your linemates, while the three boys trail behind.
You can feel Logan’s eyes on your back the entire time. It’s a heavy, burning weight.
When you reach the parking lot, Logan clicks his keys, and a massive, beat-up black Chevy Silverado chirps.
“I call shotgun!” Dean yells, lunging for the front door.
“No way,” Garrett says, grabbing Dean by the back of his jacket and yanking him backward. “Sister gets shotgun. You animals get in the back.”
“Garrett, it’s fine,” you protest immediately, holding your hands up. “I can sit in the back.”
The idea of sitting in the passenger seat, mere inches away from Logan, in the enclosed space of his truck, sounds like absolute torture.
“Nonsense,” Garrett insists, opening the passenger side door for you. “You’re the VIP today. Get in.”
You shoot a desperate, fleeting glance at Logan over the hood of the truck. His face is pale, his jaw clenched tight. He looks completely out of his depth, which is terrifying, because Logan is supposed to be the guy who has it all together. The cool, calm, collected one.
You climb into the truck. The smell of the interior hits you instantly. It’s the exact same smell that clung to his skin that night in the bathroom. Woodsmoke and that same masculine cologne. It makes your head spin.
Logan climbs into the driver’s seat. He shuts the door, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles.
Garrett, Dean, and Tucker pile into the back seat, instantly filling the cab with noise and chaos as they argue over legroom.
“Alright, Logan,” Garrett says from the backseat, leaning forward to clap Logan on the shoulder. “To the diner. Let’s get some food in this champion.”
Logan starts the engine. The low rumble of the truck vibrates through the seat, sending a phantom shiver up your spine. He puts the car in drive, finally turning to look at you for the first time since the locker room.
His eyes are dark, filled with a chaotic mixture of panic, disbelief, and something else — something dangerously similar to the raw hunger you saw in the club.
“Buckle up,” Logan says, his voice a low, raspy whisper that is meant only for you.
You swallow hard, grabbing the seatbelt and pulling it across your chest. The click of the buckle sounds as loud as a gunshot in the tense silence of the front seat.
“Ready,” you whisper back.
Logan tears his gaze away, staring straight ahead at the road as he pulls out of the parking lot.
It’s going to be a very, very long lunch.
***
The bell above the door of Della’s Diner chimes a cheerful, tinny note that sounds entirely too happy for the funeral march currently playing in Logan’s head.
The diner is a quintessential college town staple — smelling of old frying oil, burnt coffee, and maple syrup, with neon beer signs buzzing faintly in the grease-stained windows. It’s usually Logan’s favorite place to recover after a rough practice, but right now, it feels like an interrogation room.
“Booth in the back,” Garrett declares, pointing to a circular corner booth upholstered in cracked red vinyl.
It’s a tight squeeze. Too tight.
Garrett slides in first, pulling you in right beside him. Dean drops into the opposite side, dragging Tucker with him. That leaves one spot left. Right in the middle. Directly across from you.
Logan stands in the aisle for a fraction of a second too long, staring at the empty space on the vinyl seat like it’s a trap door.
“Sit down, man, you’re blocking the aisle,” Tucker says, giving Logan a shove.
Logan practically falls into the booth. His knees immediately bump against something soft under the table.
You jerk your legs back so fast you nearly spill the glass of water the waitress just set down. “Sorry,” you murmur, your cheeks flushing a brilliant shade of crimson.
“My bad,” Logan chokes out. He pulls his long legs back, pressing his knees firmly together. He feels like he’s trying to defuse a bomb with a pair of chopsticks.
The waitress, a gum-chewing woman in her fifties named Stacy, pulls a notepad from her apron. “What can I get you boys? And the lovely lady?”
“Three orders of the lumberjack special,” Garrett says without looking at the menu. “Extra bacon for me. Tucker will have the chicken wrap, because he’s boring.”
“It’s called macronutrients, Garrett,” Tucker sighs.
“And for the lady?” Stacy asks, giving you a warm smile.
“I’ll just take a side of fries, please,” you say, peeling off your oversized Northeastern hockey hoodie to reveal the gray tank top underneath. “And a strawberry milkshake. Extra thick.”
Logan swallows. Hard.
“Coming right up, hon,” Stacy says, clicking her pen and sauntering away.
“Just fries?” Garrett frowns, shifting in the booth to look at you. “You played a hell of a game, you need protein. You want some of my eggs?”
“I’m too amped up to eat a heavy meal, G,” you say, leaning back against the vinyl. “You know how I get after a game. Adrenaline crash hasn’t hit yet.”
“Suit yourself,” Garrett shrugs. “But you’re eating at least half my bacon.”
Logan stares blankly at the laminated menu in front of him, seeing absolutely nothing. He is in hell. A very specific, vinyl-upholstered circle of hell.
You are sitting directly across from him. The diner lighting is catching the faint sheen of sweat still lingering on your collarbones. He can see the subtle shift of your athletic shoulders under the thin fabric of your tank top, and all he can think about is the way those shoulders felt under his hands when he pinned you against that bathroom door.
Stop it. Logan squeezes his eyes shut for a microsecond. Wayne Gretzky. 2,857 career points. 894 goals. 1,963 assists.
“So,” Dean starts, leaning his elbows on the table and giving you his best, most dazzling smile. The one that usually makes puck bunnies melt into puddles. “Northeastern, huh? Why didn’t you come to Briar with Garrett?”
You look at Dean, your expression perfectly composed. “Northeastern offered me a full ride and a starting position at center. Briar wanted me to sit on the bench for a year to develop. It wasn’t a hard choice.”
“Ouch,” Dean laughs, clutching his chest. “Brains, beauty, and she’s ruthless. You sure you’re related to Garrett?”
“Dean, I swear to God,” Garrett warns, his voice dropping an octave. “I will stab you with this fork.”
“Just making conversation!” Dean defends himself, picking up a sugar packet and tossing it at Garrett. “It’s nice to actually meet her. You’ve kept her locked in a tower for years.”
“I haven’t kept her in a tower,” Garrett grumbles. “She was back home. I was here.”
Logan keeps his eyes glued to the table, tracing the wood-grain pattern with his thumbnail. He needs to say something. If he stays silent, it’s going to look suspicious. He is the loud one. The funny one. The guy who never shuts up.
“So,” Logan forces his vocal cords to work, glancing up to meet your eyes. “Center. You like running the offense?”
Your breath hitches slightly when his eyes lock onto yours, but you recover instantly. You are incredibly good at this game.
“I do,” you nod, wrapping your hands around your glass of water. “I like controlling the pace. Setting up the plays. Better than waiting around for someone else to pass me the puck.”
Oh, Jesus. Logan’s brain completely short-circuits. She likes controlling the pace. Mario Lemieux. 1,723 points. 690 goals. 1,033 assists. Won the Stanley Cup in ‘91 and ‘92.
“She’s a control freak on the ice,” Garrett laughs, bumping his shoulder against yours. “Always has been. Even when we were playing street hockey as kids, she bossed me around.”
“Someone had to,” you shoot back, a genuine, easy smile breaking across your face. It’s the exact same smile Logan saw in the club right before he kissed you.
Stacy returns, balancing a massive tray of food. She deposits plates of eggs, pancakes, and greasy bacon onto the table. Finally, she places a tall, condensation-beaded glass filled with pink milkshake directly in front of you. It comes with a thick red straw and a mountain of whipped cream.
“Enjoy, sweetheart,” Stacy says, winking before she walks away.
“Thanks,” you say, grabbing the glass.
Logan watches in slow motion as your lips wrap around the thick red straw.
You take a long, deep pull of the milkshake. Your cheeks hollow out slightly from the effort, the thick ice cream requiring serious suction. You swallow, your throat working, and pull the straw away, your lips slick and shining with the pale pink liquid. A tiny drop of milkshake lingers on the corner of your mouth.
You dart your tongue out and lick it away.
Logan’s hands grip the edges of the table so hard his knuckles turn stark white. Bobby Orr. Number 4. Eight consecutive Norris Trophies. 270 career goals. It’s not working. The stats aren’t working.
He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, trying to adjust his jeans without anyone noticing the distinct, painful problem developing below the table. He is having a physical reaction to his best friend’s sister drinking a strawberry milkshake. He is a monster. A depraved, irredeemable monster.
He just wants to finish the season. He wants to play his final year of college hockey, graduate, and go back to his dad’s mechanic shop. That’s the deal. He just needs to survive these next few months before Garrett inevitably finds out and murders him with his bare hands.
“You okay, Logan?” Tucker asks, pausing halfway through a bite of his chicken wrap. He looks at Logan with narrow, analytical eyes. “You’re sweating.”
“I’m fine,” Logan rasps, reaching for his ice water and downing half the glass in one go. “It’s hot in here. HC. Heat Casualties.”
You let out a soft, sudden sound — a cross between a cough and a laugh — and choke on your milkshake.
Garrett immediately drops his fork and thumps you on the back. “Whoa, easy. Breathe. You good?”
“I’m fine,” you wheeze, covering your mouth with a napkin. Your eyes, bright and watery, dart across the table to glare at Logan. “Just went down the wrong pipe.”
“It’s Logan’s stupid acronyms,” Garrett sighs, handing you another napkin. “I told you, he’s insufferable.”
“They’re not stupid, they’re efficient,” Logan says defensively, though his voice is still a little tight. “Saves time.”
“Saves time for what? More terrible jokes?” Dean quips around a mouthful of pancake.
“Exactly,” Logan snaps back, finally finding his rhythm. The banter is safe. The banter is familiar. “At least I have jokes. Your entire personality is just hair gel and daddy issues, Dean.”
“Hey!” Dean protests, running a self-conscious hand through his perfectly styled hair. “I love my father, thank you very much.”
You laugh, and the sound does funny things to Logan’s chest. It’s warm and real, totally different from the dark, heavy lust that defined your first encounter. He realizes, with a sinking feeling of dread, that he likes you. Not just the physical memory of you, but you. The way you hold your own against his idiot friends. The way you look at Garrett with pure adoration.
I am so dead, Logan thinks, watching you steal a piece of bacon off Garrett’s plate. I am absolutely, definitively dead.
The rest of the meal passes in a blur of hockey talk, arguments over NHL standings, and Tucker quietly destroying everyone’s logic with statistics. You fit into the group seamlessly. You speak their language.
Under the table, it’s a different story.
The booth is small, and Logan has long legs. Twice, your knee brushes against his. The first time, he flinches so violently he nearly knocks over his coffee mug. The second time, he freezes, holding his breath as the soft denim of your sweatpants drags slowly across the heavy denim of his jeans.
He looks up. You are casually talking to Dean about Northeastern’s defensive lineup, sipping your milkshake, acting completely unaffected. But Logan sees the slight tremor in your hand holding the glass. He sees the high color in your cheeks.
You are feeling it too. The electricity. The undeniable pull.
It’s making the situation infinitely worse. If you hated him, if you were disgusted by him, he could back off. He could bury it. But knowing that the memory of that bathroom is playing on a loop in your head just like it is in his? It’s a ticking time bomb.
“Alright,” Garrett says, tossing his napkin onto his empty plate and reaching for his wallet. “I got this.”
“You don’t have to pay for me, G,” you protest, reaching for your own bag.
“Put it away,” Garrett orders, throwing a twenty-dollar bill onto the table. “Big brother privilege. Besides, you’re a broke freshman. Save your money.”
You roll your eyes but let your bag drop back onto the seat. “Fine. Thank you.”
“Okay, before we get out of here,” Garrett says, his tone suddenly shifting from casual to commanding. He looks at Dean, Tucker, and finally, Logan. “Phones out. All of you.”
Logan stares at him. “What?”
“Phones out,” Garrett repeats, pulling his own cell phone from his pocket. “You too, Y/N.”
You look just as confused as Logan, pulling your phone out of your hoodie pocket.
“Exchange numbers,” Garrett instructs, gesturing between you and the boys.
Logan’s blood runs cold. He stares at Garrett, convinced this is some sort of elaborate trap. “Why?”
“Because,” Garrett says, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the table. He looks at the three of them with deadly serious eyes. “You three are my brothers. You’re the only people I trust completely. My sister is living in this city now. She’s at Northeastern, dealing with a new team, new classes, new everything.”
Garrett pauses, looking at you, his expression softening slightly. “I’m not always going to be available. We have away games. I have practice. Sometimes my phone dies. If she ever needs anything — a ride, help moving a couch, someone to bail her out of a bad situation — and she can’t reach me, I want her to be able to reach you.”
You stare at your brother, your throat working. “Garrett, I’m fine. I don’t need a babysitting squad.”
“It’s not a babysitting squad,” Garrett says firmly. “It’s an insurance policy. Mom is gone. Dad is ...” Garrett’s jaw clenches, the muscles ticking violently. “Dad is dead to us. It’s just you and me. And these guys. This is our family now.”
The diner goes totally quiet. Dean drops the joking facade, his face sobering instantly. Tucker nods slowly.
Even Logan feels a sharp, painful ache in his chest. He knows better than anyone what it’s like to deal with a toxic father. He knows what Garrett has sacrificed to protect you. Garrett is handing over the most precious thing in his life to his best friends, trusting them to protect her.
“He’s right,” Tucker says quietly, unlocking his phone. “Read us your number, Y/N.”
You look overwhelmed, blinking rapidly as if fighting back tears, but you softly read out your ten-digit number.
Dean types it in, saving the contact. “Got it. And hey, for the record? I’m honored, G. We got her back.”
“Always,” Tucker agrees.
Garrett looks at Logan. “Logan?”
Logan’s hands are shaking as he unlocks his phone. He types your number into the keypad. The screen glows brightly, mocking him. He hits Save Contact.
Y/N Graham.
“Got it,” Logan forces the words past the massive lump in his throat. He looks up, meeting Garrett’s eyes.
“I need you to promise me,” Garrett says, his voice thick with emotion, looking specifically at Logan. “You treat her like a sister. All of you. She is off-limits to everyone on our team, everyone you know. You look out for her like she’s your own blood. Understood?”
“Understood,” Dean says solemnly.
“Got it, Garrett,” Tucker nods.
Garrett doesn’t look away from Logan. He knows Logan is the wild card. The guy who hooks up and moves on. The guy who never commits.
“Logan?” Garrett prompts.
Logan looks at his best friend. The guy who covered for him when his dad showed up drunk to a home game. The guy who let Logan sleep on his floor for a week when things got too bad at home. Garrett trusts him implicitly.
“I promise,” Logan says, the lie tasting like ash on his tongue. “Like a sister. I swear, G.”
“Good,” Garrett exhales, clapping Logan on the shoulder. The tension breaks, the heavy atmosphere dissipating back into the background noise of the diner. “Alright. Let’s get out of here. I need to ice my ankle again before practice tomorrow.”
They all slide out of the booth. You grab your hoodie, pulling it over your head to hide your face for a second.
As they file out of the diner into the crisp autumn air, Garrett walks ahead, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you into his side. You lean into him, laughing at something he says.
Logan hangs back, trailing behind with Dean and Tucker.
He stops on the sidewalk, looking up at the gray, overcast Boston sky. The clouds are thick, heavy with the promise of rain.
He promised Garrett he would treat you like a sister.
He thinks about the heavy wooden door of the club bathroom. He thinks about the way your nails dug into his shoulders. He thinks about the sounds you made when he pushed inside you, the desperate, uninhibited way you wrapped your legs around his waist and begged him not to stop.
Logan closes his eyes, tilting his head back toward the sky. He lets out a long, ragged exhale that turns into a white cloud in the cold air.
I have done things to her, Logan thinks, a feeling of absolute doom settling deep in his bones, that absolutely no one should ever do to their little sister.
He opens his eyes, staring at your retreating back as you walk to the truck with Garrett.
Fuck his life.
***
The dashboard of your beat-up Toyota Corolla flickers violently, a dying strobe light of warning symbols, before the entire console goes pitch black. The engine gives one final, pathetic shudder and dies, leaving you coasting in terrifying silence down a dark, empty stretch of road just outside the Boston city limits.
You wrench the steering wheel hard to the right, using the last of your momentum to pull onto the gravel shoulder before slamming the car into park.
For a moment, the only sound is the frantic beating of your own heart and the rhythmic, aggressive drumming of the freezing November rain against your windshield.
“Perfect,” you whisper to the empty car. “Just perfect.”
You slam your hands against the steering wheel, letting out a frustrated groan. It’s nearly midnight on a Tuesday. You were just driving back from a late-night study session at the library, your brain completely fried from staring at anatomy textbooks. Now, you are stranded in the freezing cold.
You grab your phone from the cup holder. Your fingers are already starting to go numb. You pull up your favorites list and immediately hit Garrett’s name.
The line rings once. Twice. Three times.
“Hey, this is Garrett. Leave a message, unless you’re Dean, in which case, stop calling me.”
“Damn it, Garrett,” you mutter, hanging up. You try again. Straight to voicemail. He must have finally fallen asleep after complaining all afternoon about the massive bruising on his ribs from practice.
You lean back against the headrest, staring blankly at the dark screen of your phone. You need a jump. Or a tow. Or a miracle.
Your thumb hovers over the contacts list. Garrett’s mandate from the diner echoes in your head. If she ever needs anything ... I want her to be able to reach you.
You never thought you’d actually have to use the emergency hockey-player hotline.
You scroll down. Dean? Absolutely not. He would show up with a stupid grin, probably hit on you while holding the jumper cables, and make the entire ordeal ten times more exhausting. Tucker? Tucker is a solid option. He’s quiet, respectful, and probably knows how to fix a car.
But then your thumb stops on the last name.
John Logan.
A hot flush of heat floods your chest, completely counteracting the freezing temperature of the car. It’s been weeks since the diner. Weeks of aggressively avoiding him. If you go to Briar to see Garrett, you make sure Logan isn’t around. If the boys come to your games, you keep a safe, polite distance. But avoiding him hasn’t stopped you from thinking about him. Every time you close your eyes, you’re back in that club bathroom.
You stare at his name. If you call Tucker, it’s safe. If you call Logan, you are willingly inviting the chaos back into your space.
But there is a strange, twisted logic forming in your tired brain. Logan has already seen you completely unraveled. He knows what you sound like when you lose control. The barrier of intimacy is already so irrevocably shattered between the two of you that calling him almost feels ... easier. There’s no pretense to keep up.
Before you can talk yourself out of it, you press the green call button.
It rings twice.
“Hello?” His voice is rough, heavy with sleep, and the sound of it sends a sharp jolt straight to your core.
“Logan,” you say, your voice trembling slightly — mostly from the cold, but partly from the sheer adrenaline of hearing him say your name. “It’s ... it’s Y/N.”
There is a split second of silence on the line, followed by the sound of rustling sheets and a loud thud, as if he just vaulted out of bed.
“Y/N?” His voice is suddenly wide awake, sharp and entirely focused. “Are you okay? Where are you? Did something happen?”
“I’m okay,” you say quickly, not wanting to trigger a full-blown panic. “I’m not hurt or anything. I’m just ... my car died. I’m stuck on the shoulder off Route 9, a couple of miles past the exit for the campus.”
“Is anyone with you?” He demands, the protective edge in his voice so fiercely reminiscent of Garrett it makes your throat ache.
“No, I’m alone. I tried calling Garrett, but he’s not picking up, and-”
“I’m on my way,” Logan cuts you off smoothly. “Lock the doors. Keep the hazards on if the battery has enough juice for them. Do not get out of the car for anyone but me. Understood?”
“Understood,” you whisper.
“ETA is twenty minutes. Hang tight, sweetheart.”
The phone clicks dead. You stare at the screen, your heart doing a strange, fluttering gymnastics routine in your chest.
***
True to his word, exactly eighteen minutes later, the blinding headlights of a pickup truck cut through the rain, pulling up right behind your dead Civic.
You unlock the door the second Logan steps out of his truck. He’s wearing a pair of faded gray sweatpants and a dark Briar hockey hoodie, the hood pulled up against the freezing rain. He walks over to your window, his jaw clenched tight, scanning the dark road around you before he looks down at you.
“You okay?” He asks, his voice muffled by the glass.
You roll the window down an inch. “I’m freezing, but I’m fine. The engine just completely died.”
Logan nods, immediately shifting into a mode you haven’t seen before. It’s not the sarcastic jokester from the bar, and it’s not the panicked guy from the diner. This is Logan in his element. He grew up in a mechanic shop.
“Pop the hood,” he instructs, turning back to his truck.
You pull the lever under the dash. By the time you step out of the car, wrapping your thin jacket tightly around yourself, Logan is already hooking up a set of heavy-duty jumper cables to his battery.
“Get back in the car, Y/N,” Logan barks over the sound of the rain, glancing up at you. “You’re shivering. I’ve got this.”
“I want to help,” you insist, your teeth chattering.
Logan sighs, walking over to the front of your car. He effortlessly lifts the heavy hood, propping it open. He moves with practiced, confident precision, attaching the red clamp to the positive terminal of your battery, then the black clamp to a piece of unpainted metal on the engine block.
“It’s a dead battery,” Logan says, wiping his wet hands on his sweatpants. “Alternator might be shot, too, considering it died while you were driving. But this should get you enough juice to get to my place or back to your dorm.”
“Your place?” You echo, the words slipping out.
Logan pauses, the rain plastering his dark hair to his forehead. He looks at you, his eyes dark and unreadable in the dim light. “Yeah. My place. Or your dorm. Whichever you want.”
He turns away, walking back to his truck. “Start it up!” He yells over his shoulder.
You slide back into the driver’s seat, turning the key. The engine sputters, whines a pathetic, high-pitched noise, and then, miraculously, roars to life. The heat instantly blasts from the vents.
You let out a massive sigh of relief, leaning your head against the steering wheel. He saved you.
You step back out of the car into the rain. Logan is already disconnecting the cables, tossing them into the bed of his truck before slamming the tailgate shut. He walks back over to you, rain dripping from his nose and chin, a small, tired smile playing on his lips.
“Good to go,” he says, his voice a low rumble over the idling engine. “SRO. Successful Rescue Operation.”
You laugh, the sound bubbling up through the cold. You are so overwhelmed with relief, so utterly grateful that you didn’t have to spend the night freezing on the side of the road, that you don’t even think about what you’re doing next.
You step directly into his space.
“Thank you, Logan,” you say, looking up at him. “Seriously. You’re a lifesaver.”
Before he can respond, you rise up on your toes, press a hand flat against his damp chest for balance, and press your lips to his.
It is meant to be a thank-you kiss. A quick, friendly peck on the corner of the mouth. But the second your lips touch his, muscle memory violently hijacks your brain.
Logan freezes. For a millisecond, his entire body goes completely rigid under your hand. And then, with a sharp, desperate intake of breath, he breaks.
His large hands come up, gripping your waist with bruising force. He pulls you flush against his body, opening his mouth over yours, entirely swallowing your gasp. The kiss is instantaneous fire. It’s exactly like the bathroom at the club — frantic, hungry, and completely consuming. You tangle your fingers into the wet hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer, your mouth opening to the familiar, intoxicating slide of his tongue.
The freezing rain soaking through your clothes suddenly doesn’t matter at all. The only thing that exists is the burning heat of his mouth, the solid wall of his chest, and the desperate, crushing grip of his hands on your hips.
Logan groans into your mouth, a rough, guttural sound that vibrates straight down to your toes. He walks you backward until your spine hits the wet metal of your car door, pinning you there just like he did before.
But then, as quickly as it started, the reality of the situation crashes down on both of you.
Logan tears his mouth away, his chest heaving violently. He rests his forehead against yours, his hands still gripping your waist in a vise. You are both panting, staring into each other’s wide, terrified eyes.
“What are we doing?” Logan whispers, his voice trembling.
“I don’t know,” you breathe back, your hands still resting on his chest, feeling the frantic, galloping rhythm of his heart.
“Garrett is going to bury me under the ice rink,” Logan says, his eyes squeezing shut. “He is going to murder me. He’s going to use my bones to make a new hockey stick.”
“And I’ll be shipped off to a convent,” you add, your voice tight with panic. “I’ll be the first ever hockey-playing cloistered nun.”
Logan lets out a breathless, choked laugh, his forehead still resting against yours. “We can’t do this. You know we can’t do this.”
“I know,” you whisper. “We really can’t.”
You wait for him to step back. You wait for him to let you go.
He doesn’t move an inch.
Instead, his thumbs slowly begin to stroke the curve of your waist, right through the wet fabric of your jacket. The touch is so agonizingly slow, so heavy with intent, that a small, broken whimper escapes your lips.
“I’ve been going insane,” Logan admits, his voice dropping to a harsh rasp. He opens his eyes, staring directly into yours. The raw vulnerability in his expression makes your heart shatter. “Since the diner. Since the club. I can’t sleep. I can’t think on the ice. Every time I close my eyes, I see you drinking that damn milkshake.”
“Logan ...”
“I know I’m supposed to be the reliable guy,” he continues, his hands sliding up your sides to grip the lapels of your jacket. “I promised Garrett. I swore to him. But Y/N, I can’t stop. You are all I think about.”
The admission hangs heavy in the freezing air between you, thick and undeniably true. You feel the exact same way. The rules, the brother, the consequences — none of it feels real compared to the overwhelming, magnetic pull you have toward this man.
“My backseat is practically a living room,” Logan whispers, his eyes darting down to your lips.
“Logan ...” you say his name again, but this time, it’s not a warning. It’s a surrender.
“Tell me to get in my truck and drive away,” Logan pleads, his face inches from yours. “Tell me right now, and I will.”
You look at him. You look at the rain dripping from his lashes, at the desperate, agonizing hope in his eyes.
“I don’t want you to drive away,” you say, your voice perfectly clear over the sound of the storm.
Logan lets out a sharp exhale, his restraint finally snapping completely. He kisses you again, hard and bruising, before grabbing your hand and pulling you away from your car. He drags you toward the truck. He throws open the heavy back door, practically lifting you off your feet and tossing you onto the wide, expansive upholstered bench of the backseat.
He climbs in after you, slamming the door shut.
The sudden silence inside the truck is deafening. The windows are heavily tinted, shielding you from the outside world. The only light comes from the faint glow of the dashboard in the front.
Logan wastes absolutely no time. He crawls over the leather seats, caging you in against the soft upholstery. He straddles your hips, looking down at you with a gaze so hot it could melt glass.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, his hands instantly reaching for the zipper of your wet jacket. He pulls it down with frantic haste, tugging the damp material off your shoulders and tossing it onto the floorboards.
“You talk too much,” you breathe, reaching up to grab the collar of his hoodie, pulling him down to you.
The kiss is explosive. It’s different from the club. At the club, it was pure, anonymous lust. This is heavier. This is loaded with weeks of pent-up desire, forbidden attraction, and the terrifying realization that there are real feelings involved.
Logan’s hands are everywhere, exploring you with a desperate reverence. He pushes your tank top up, his large, warm palms flattening against the bare, shivering skin of your stomach. You gasp into his mouth as he trails his hands higher, mapping the curve of your ribs before pushing the fabric up entirely.
“God,” Logan groans, pulling back just enough to look at you in the dim light. His eyes trace the lines of your body, filled with a deep, consuming hunger.
“Don’t stop,” you plead, your fingers tangling into his wet hair.
Logan leans down, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the slope of your breast. The contrast of his scorching mouth against your cold skin sends a violent shiver down your spine. He traces his tongue along the edge of your bra, biting down gently on the sensitive skin, eliciting a loud, uninhibited moan from your throat.
“You like that?” Logan rumbles against your skin, his hands moving to the button of your jeans.
“Logan, please,” you beg, arching your back off the leather seat.
He works the button and zipper with practiced ease, his fingers sliding beneath the denim. The second his rough skin brushes against your center, your entire body completely locks up.
Logan watches your face intently as his fingers begin to move. He sets a slow, maddeningly precise rhythm, his thumb circling and pressing exactly where you need it. You throw your head back into the leather seat, your hands gripping his shoulders like a lifeline.
“Look at me,” Logan commands, his voice thick with lust.
You force your eyes open, meeting his dark, intense gaze.
“You are mine,” Logan whispers fiercely, the words slipping out of him like an undeniable truth. He increases the pressure, his fingers moving faster, deeper. “You hear me? You’re mine.”
You can’t even form words to agree. The pleasure is too absolute, too consuming. The heat inside the cab of the truck is suffocating, completely fogging up the windows and isolating you both in a cocoon of raw, desperate need.
You feel the climax building rapidly, a tight, coil of energy in your lower stomach.
“Logan,” you sob out, your nails digging crescents into his shoulders.
“Let it go, sweetheart,” he encourages, leaning down to capture your lips in a devastating kiss. “I’ve got you.”
You shatter completely. The orgasm rips through you with a violent intensity, pulling a loud, muffled scream from your throat directly into his mouth. Your muscles clench tightly around his fingers, your entire body trembling uncontrollably as wave after wave of pleasure crashes over you.
Logan holds you through it, his chest heaving, waiting until the violent tremors begin to subside.
When you finally open your eyes, you are gasping for air. Logan is looking down at you, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Without a word, he reaches down and grabs the hem of his own hoodie, pulling it over his head in one fluid motion. He tosses it aside, revealing his broad, heavily muscled chest.
He reaches for the waistband of his sweatpants.
“My turn,” he whispers, his eyes completely dark.
You reach up, helping him push the fabric down. The second he is free, he settles back over you, parting your knees with his thighs. He aligns himself perfectly, pausing for just a fraction of a second to look at you, to make sure you are ready.
You nod, lifting your hips to meet him.
Logan pushes inside you in one long, smooth, devastating thrust.
A sharp gasp leaves your lips, your eyes fluttering shut at the overwhelming sensation of being completely filled by him. It is infinitely better than the club. There is no door to pin you against, but the heavy, solid weight of his body pressing you deep into the leather seat is so much better.
Logan lets out a low, guttural groan, resting his forehead against yours as he takes a moment to adjust.
“Fuck,” he breathes out, his voice shaking. “You feel perfect.”
“Move,” you demand softly, your hands tracing down the hard, sweaty planes of his back to grip his hips.
He obeys. He sets a slow, agonizingly deep pace. Every thrust is deliberate, completely burying himself inside you before pulling almost entirely out. The friction is maddening. The truck rocks gently on its suspension with the force of his movements, the only sound inside the cab the wet slide of bodies and the heavy, ragged sound of your synchronized breathing.
“Wrap your legs around me,” Logan whispers harshly.
You immediately do as he asks, crossing your ankles over the small of his back, pulling him even deeper.
The change in angle is all it takes for Logan’s restraint to snap. The slow, deliberate pace vanishes, replaced by a frantic, punishing rhythm. He grips your hips so tightly it’s definitely going to leave bruises, his hips snapping forward with a force that drives you further and further into the seat.
You cling to him, entirely lost to the storm. The feeling of him inside you, the way his body covers yours perfectly, the desperate sounds he makes against your neck is intoxicating.
“Y/N,” Logan groans, his pace becoming erratic and entirely unhinged. “I’m going to-”
“Do it,” you sob out, your own second climax building with terrifying speed. “Logan, please.”
He thrusts deeply one final time, a harsh, jagged cry tearing from his throat. His entire body goes completely rigid as he finds his release, burying his face in the crook of your neck. The force of his climax pushes you directly over the edge, your body shattering around him simultaneously.
For a long time, neither of you moves.
Logan is a heavy, completely exhausted weight on top of you. His heart is hammering a frantic, terrifying rhythm against your chest, his skin slick with sweat despite the freezing temperatures outside. The windows of the truck are entirely opaque with condensation.
Slowly, the reality of the situation begins to creep back in. The rain is still drumming relentlessly against the roof of the truck.
Logan slowly lifts his head, looking down at you. His eyes are soft, devoid of the frantic panic that usually accompanies your interactions. He brushes a damp strand of hair out of your face, his touch remarkably gentle.
“Garrett is going to kill me,” Logan says quietly, the words lacking their usual terror.
You let out a soft, tired laugh, running your hands through his messy hair. “Yeah. He really is.”
“It’s worth it,” Logan says, leaning down to press a soft, lingering kiss to your lips. “For the record. I would let him kill me a thousand times if it meant I got to do this again.”
Your heart does a painful, stuttering flip in your chest. You look up at him, seeing the utter sincerity in his eyes. He isn’t joking. He isn’t deflecting with acronyms.
“Me too,” you whisper.
Logan smiles, a devastatingly soft expression that completely alters his face. He rolls off you gently, reaching down to grab his hoodie.
“Come on,” he says, pulling the hoodie over his head before handing you your damp jacket. “Let’s get you back to your dorm before you catch pneumonia. SVD. Safe Vehicle Drop-off.”
“You’re an idiot,” you laugh, sitting up and starting to re-dress.
“Yeah,” Logan agrees, watching you with an expression you can’t quite place. “I am.”
could you do another dean fic?, the last one was amazing!!!, i really loved it💞
hii, thank you so much!! yes i can absolutely do more dean, he is so fun to write honestly. i don't have official requests open yet but if you have an idea you'd love to see with him drop it in my asks and i'll see what i can do!!
taking a break from work to check tumblr and i find out i hit 10k likes today?? 😭🎉 thank you so much for all the comments, reblogs and new follows it really means a lot!! more writing coming soon, stay tuned!!
oh my freaking word i love your fics so much, they are genuinely amazing. you’re writing is incredible queen!!! alright brb i’m about to go read everything you’ve ever written real quick 😝
hii, sweetie!! thank you so much! this is really kind of you!! i hope you enjoy reading and thanks for the ask!
