TLDR: I'm Andie! Doing lots of writing, daydreaming, and attempting to be romantic (mixed results)
Requests: open! I can't make a whole lot of promises about timelines but I would love some inspo. Presently writing for OFF CAMPUS but will always love a Spencer Reid fic!
PSA: I pretty much only write x reader fics from 3rd person. It’s a habit I cannot break for the life of me. However I do my best not to give readers any specific names (maybe nicknames) or non-generalizable characteristics!
Pairing: John Logan x Graham!Reader (3rd person POV, reader referred to with she/her pronouns)
C/W: Smut!! 18+ MDNI.
W/C: 3.4k
A/N: I have never realllllyyy written/posted smut so please be nice! But also let me know what you think! I got a prompt about a laundry room and just decided to roll with it.
The house was thick with smoke and the general air of debauchery. It wasn’t even really a house party. It was just the team and friends, but the lights had gone down and the music had gone up and the drink had become just a bit more liberal. She’d had a drink or two, and her limbs had done just a little loose. It wasn’t so loose as to be sloppy, just that perfect amount of fizziness in her blood and on her tongue.
And Logan was at her side, floating a little bit like he was lost at sea the whole time. He was pulled away from her a few times, but he was always drawn back. Some teammate pulled him for a round of air hockey, and then he returned to her with a new drink she’d wanted to try. She went to dance with Allie, and Logan waited for her on the couch, mere feet away, playing Mario Kart with her brother. His presence ebbed and flowed like a bobber on the tide.
After dancing, she flopped back down on the couch beside him, hot with exertion and drink and joy.
Logan wasted no time offloading his controller onto her. “Kick G’s ass for me please. I can’t get him on this track.”
“With pleasure,” she chirped. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees to properly give her attention to boosting Logan’s abysmal Mario Kart score.
“How dare you weaponize my baby sister against me?” Garrett did not look away from the TV.
“She’s on my side now.”
“Hell yeah I am!” God, that proclamation made something light up in his blood. To make matters worse, once she’d well and truly won the race on his behalf, she bodily fell into Logan’s side. Logan moved his arm along the back of the couch to welcome her. He looked at her side profile as it glowed under the fluorescent colors of the idle nintendo game. The light caught in her eyelashes and played across the smooth planes of her face. Her skin was soft to the touch and he knew that because her cheek was swiftly thereafter pressed into his neck, presumably when she got tired of holding her head up.
She truly earned the epithet when he said: “Thank you for your help, gorgeous.”
“Y’ welcome.” The sound of her voice vibrated through his neck in such a way that was designed specifically to kill him.
“You drunk or sleepy?” he asked, nearly speaking into her hair. He was careful to keep his lips hovering over her hairline and his hands remained along the back of the couch. She had license to be as snuggly as she liked, but Garrett was three feet away and would raise at best an eyebrow and at worst a fist if Logan got too fresh.
“Sleepy,” she said, picking her head up in such a way that made him miss the weight of her. Her cheshire grin was sleepy but it remained. “Been a long week. I think another drink might actually do me some good.”
“You askin’ me to make you something?”
“Mmmm,” she hummed. She cut her eyes up at him with that understated heat that told him she was up to no good and he was going to be sorry about it. “Make me something real special, Johnny.”
“Stop flirting with Logan.” Garrett raised his voice to cut in.
She grinned like the fucking sun. Logan really thought he could use that smile as a source of vitamin D in the dead of winter. “I flirt with all your friends, Gare.”
“And I thought I was special.” Of course, Dean chose that moment to show up and lean over the back of the couch. “I’m hurt, babydoll.”
She tilted her chin up to Dean in the same way she had to Logan. “Sorry, Deanie baby.”
Suddenly, John wanted to be somewhere that wasn’t there. He pushed himself up off the couch, gently lifting the girl off him in the process. “Any drink requests, gorgeous?”
She stood beside him, and Logan couldn’t find it in him to take the hands he’d used to steady her away from her. His hands were balanced on her shoulders. Shoulders were a PG location. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said with that same smile that was going to get him into so much trouble soon. “You surprise me with a drink and I’ll surprise you with one.”
“As long as you don’t try to kill me with six different types of liquor—” he paused for Garrett and Dean to laugh. “—you’ve got yourself a deal.”
She giggled and bounded to the kitchen with Logan on her heels.
“Don’t let her poison you, Lo,” Garrett called after him and handed his old controller to Dean. His voice reminded Logan to be strong, not just against her liquor choices but her sweet talk too. Because, if he fell for it—for her—there would be consequences.
But they stood together in the kitchen, trading liquor bottles and the jigger and shaker. She pushed her shaker to him when it was ready. Logan could feel her eyes on him while he shook the drink on her behalf. More specifically her eyes on his biceps. He added a little extra flair just for her eyes.
They poured their drinks and traded glasses. To be specific, pint glasses Logan had pilfered from Malone’s over time. He sipped her drink. The sweetness and the bite of the alcohol played through his mouth in a way that reminded him of her. Sweet and then terribly biting in the back of his throat before it was gone.
She smiled over the rim of her cup, sipping her honeyed gin drink he knew she’d love. She loved gin so much that Logan kept a bottle on their bar cart just for her when she was over.
She put her glass down at what caught his attention wasn’t that coy, come-get-me smile. It wasn’t that bare slice of her waist or the low dip of her neckline. It was the lipstick print, flawlessly feminine and rich red on the rim of her glass. It drew his attention to the color on her lips in such a way that made him want to take that ruby red off with his own mouth.
He said her name, voice trembling just a touch. He stepped forward into her space, slowly, carefully so as to give her time to back away if she really wanted. She didn’t. He got close enough that he could smell the sweetness of her perfume and the bite of liquor on her breath.
“Johnny,” she mimicked him into the waning space between them.
“Tell me to stop.” He wasn’t sure if he was daring her or begging her when he said it. “Tell me to stop and we drop it. Never speak of it again. Say you don’t feel it, and I’ll drop it forever.”
Her eyes turned up to meet his. Hers were clear and bright and damn near crystalline. They were lit with the kind of fire that set the pit of his stomach alight with heat. “You know I won’t,” she whispered and took another glimmering sip of her drink.
And that was all it took. Logan snatched her wrist. “C’mon.” He took his drink in his other hand and yanked her to the nearest door. He sparred a moment to scan the kitchen for prying eyes and finding none, before they crossed the threshold and the line.
The door of the laundry room snapped shut behind the pair of them. He set his beautifully made drink on the dryer and his hands dropped greedily to the bare slice of her waist. The heat of her skin felt as though it would burn through him down to the bone.
“Gorgeous,” he whispered into the space between them.
“John.” She matched his volume. “You can’t keep longingly calling my name. You’re going to give me a complex.”
He laughed under his breath, shaking his head. When he looked up, she was looking at him with not heat but stubborn steel. “What are we doing?” he damn near pleaded rather than asked her.
“What we want.” It was so simple the way she said it. It was as if it was simply the fact of the matter. Her hand crawled up his chest to rest her fingers on his collarbone. Her breath played across his jaw in the most enticing way. ‘You are allowed to have the things you want, sweetheart.”
God, the words hit him like a physical blow. “Jesus, you can’t say things like that.” He gripped her waist harder in an effort to keep his bearings.
“I can,” she said simply. “And I just did.” She leaned up onto her toes and placed her lips a breath away from his. Logan wanted so badly to close the distance, and she could surely see it in his eyes. “Ask me, John.”
God, this girl. “Can I kiss you?” he breathed against her lips.
The smile that spread over her lips was satisfied and utterly devastating. “Yes.”
The space between his lips and hers closed with more force than the distance warranted. It was terribly gentle at first, and her lips were warm and smooth and tasted like that sweetness of classic lipstick. Logan wanted her more than any girl he’d ever seen, and it was that reason he didn’t set her on top of the dryer and fuck her fast and dirty like he did to all the girls in frat bathrooms. He wanted to savor all the tastes of her, touch every inch of her skin that he could reach. And Jesus Christ, he wanted to taste her. He'd looked forward to it the way a child might look forward to Christmas, and he simply couldn't wait for it.
He ran a tongue over her bottom lip, and the sweetness of the honey in her mouth played across his tongue. Logan walked her backwards, hands slipping under her crop top, to press her against the dryer. She, giving as good as she got, grabbed at his shoulders with prying fingers digging into his traps as if she wanted to own every muscle, every fiber of his body.
The way they clung to each other was so forceful, it was as if they were both afraid someone would come and physically tear them apart. She pressed herself into him further with an ankle hooked around his calf, and John took it in stride, moving a hand to her thigh to hike her leg up over his hip.
He licked further into her mouth, and scraped the tip of his tongue along the roof. The little whimper that he caused went straight to his groin. “Mmmm,” he moaned into her mouth. “I like the noises you make, baby.”
“You’re such a dick,” she mumbled, and John could feel her lips move against his when she spoke.
“It’s a compliment, gorgeous.” He pulled back to grin at her. The flush that decorated the high points of her cheeks was the perfect shade of pink in contrast to her eyes, which were pitch dark. “I like ‘em vocal. Lets me know when it feels good.”
The flush spread from her cheeks down her neck at that. It made him want to bite into it. “Jesus, Johnny,” she swore. “You can’t say things like that.”
He leaned in to croon into her ear, mimicking her snark from earlier: “I can. And, I just did.” And he followed his impulse to suck on her neck.
“Oh,” she gasped, and, in retaliation, she arched her body against him. He could feel her heartbeat everywhere, including against his thigh. It was like a drum beat whose cadence dictated everything he did. He wanted to feel it thudding with impunity up and down his body.
Logan scraped his teeth against her neck in a sharp mockery of a smile. “That feel good?”
“Mhmm, now stop being a cocky son of a bitch and fuck me?” She pulled away from him tilted her head back just to meet his eyes with a kind of challenge in them rather than a question. As if she was daring rather than asking him.
Part of him wanted so badly to give in to that dare. Instead, he said, “Not gonna let me take you to dinner first, gorgeous?”
“I didn’t take you for a gentleman, John,” she crooned in his ear. The way she said his name, his first name specifically, stoked a low, consistent flame in him. Something in him that burned for her specifically constantly.
“You wound me, princess.” He dug his fingers into the muscle of her thigh and ass in punctuation. He lowered his head to nibble on her earlobe a little when he spoke again. “I’m not typically a gentleman. But, I’d like to do right by you, princess. I don’t want to fuck you for the first time in a laundry room during a house party.”
“For the first time?” It would have been another smart ass remark were it not for the slight waver in her voice.
He pulled back to meet her eyes. “I’ll fuck you as many times as you’ll let me, baby. You know that you aren’t just like any other girl to me. I’m not going to incur Garrett’s wrath for a quick fuck.”
She smiled slow and shy and private and just for him. It made Logan feel like he’d won something more important than any game he’d ever played. “That was awfully romantic, Johnny.”
He leaned in to press his lips softly, chastely to hers. “I try my best, gorgeous. Now I’m not going to fuck you, but I can think of something in the meantime.” And Logan hit his knees on the tiled laundry room floor.
One might have assumed it was a selfless act, for him to offer to give her pleasure. In truth, this was the most selfish thing he could’ve asked her for. Dean had called him a munch for the preference a thousand times over, but there was nothing in the world he’d rather be doing than eating her out. He set his chin on her hip bone and looked up at her with wide, open puppy-dog eyes that he knew killed her. “Can I?”
She nodded mutely. There was something like awe in her eyes while she looked down at him and placed a hand reverently and gently in his hair
“I’m going to need to hear it from you, gorgeous.” He toyed with the hem of her skirt while he spoke, and felt immense satisfaction watching her flush somehow redder at his words.
“Yes,” she said, voice quiet and breathy and all too satisfying. “Yes, you can.”
Those were the magic words. “Thank you, baby. So polite of you.” Without further fanfare, Logan shoved her skirt up to her waist and began mouthing at her through her underwear.
“Jesus Christ," she swore, and Logan felt her knees buckle as the dryer caught her full weight with a hollow thud. He thanked his lucky stars right then that the music thrumming through his house was loud enough to shake the walls let alone muffle her. He wanted to hear every little sound she made on his quest to make her feel good.
He ran his tongue along the seam of her through the cotton of her pink thong. He kept at it, lapping industriously until she bit out the words: “Logan stop teasing oh my god.”
Logan looked up to meet her eyes which were blown out and almost glassy on the surface already. “You want me to eat you properly?”
“Yes,” she snapped, before adding, “please” almost like an afterthought.
“All you had to do was ask, baby.” Logan hooked two fingers through her thong, yanked it down, and dove right in. John Logan was not religious, but he did consider this to be something akin to worship. She tasted sweet in a very specific way, and a very specific kind of sugar high over took him. He alternated between feverish licking and sucking, cataloging the way her thighs tensed or the little sounds she made when something felt good enough that she couldn’t help herself.
“Johnny,” she whined. He met her eyes from where he knelt between her knees and her heavy-lidded, pleasure-addled eyes could have made him come right then. The sunset red and pink that decorated her chest and face and her kiss-bitten lips were the most beautiful colors he’d ever seen.
He pulled back only for as long as it took to ask: “Yes, baby?”
“Can I have your fingers?” she huffed. He didn’t even have to prompt her this time when she added, “please.”
He balanced his chin on her thin to smile fully up at her. “Such a good girl, thank you for asking.” Logan watched her chest hitch at the praise. He filed that knowledge away for later too. He would memorize her, top to bottom. “You can have anything you want when you ask that sweetly.”
When she opened her mouth to speak, he slid a finger inside and Logan took no small amount of pride in the fact that whatever words were about to come out of her mouth died there. His mouth went back to her clit and he slowly pressed inside her until he found that spot that made her gasp and made her thighs shake. “There,” she gasped, as if he needed any more confirmation.
Logan added a second finger and began to fuck his fingers into her with earnest. Every time he hit the spot, the little whimper she made continuously inflated his ego like a balloon. It felt like religion to look up and see her sitting on that dryer with her head thrown back. Her hips canted up into his mouth, arching so strongly that Logan’s free hand came to pin her hip down.
Nothing would get in the way of his task. He was singularly dedicated to making her feel astronomically good, better than any man had ever made her feel. John Logan didn’t consider himself to be a particularly possessive man, but he was a terribly competitive man. You didn’t need to possess a woman, just love her and fuck her better than anyone else.
Meanwhile, she began to move her hips little by little, industriously grinding her hips up against his face. He pressed her hips more firmly, almost bruisingly back into the dryer to control the pace. She, in all her terribly endearing stubbornness, didn’t stop her grinding. Her little whines and groans were something of a chorus that harmonized with the screaming lyrics coming from Dean’s obnoxious speaker system.
“Oh, God,” she whined. “Oh I’m—”
He pulled back just a hair’s breadth to whisper: “I know baby, you can come whenever you’re ready.” And then he got back to it. The rising tide of her voice, her little ohs, accompanied Logan as he sent her over the edge.
She all but screamed as her thighs tensed and shook around his head. Logan watched from his knees as her chest heaved up and down with the exertion that came with pleasure. He placed one more gentle kiss at her clit before he got to his feet. “That felt good, baby?”
“My God, there is no way you need me to feed your ego right now,” she griped in mock affront.
Logan laughed a full-body laugh. “It never hurts to hear it again.” He squeezed her hip and leaned in to speak closer to her ear. “Or to hear some notes for next time.”
“I’ll write up a Yelp review.” She stood and put her clothes back in order. John took no small amount of pride in the slight imperfections to her typically polished appearance. Her skirt was wrinkled where he’d pushed it up, a faint red mark bloomed up her jaw like an angry flower, and the only remnant of her lip gloss was a smear of it over her top lip.
All he had to do to put himself back in order was run a hand through his hair and swipe his lips with the back of his hand to rid them of any errant lip gloss. Then he reached down and pocketed her pink thong.
“You fucking freak.” She pointed at him with a knowing glare. “When am I getting that back?”
“Next time.” He left the laundry room with a wink.
Thank you for reading! Feedback is always encouraged! Let me know what you think.
pairing: John Logan x Di Laurentis “man eater”twin sister/au
blurb: Logan shares a casual past with Dean’s twin sister, at least that’s what they both think. He lets his insecurities about his upbringing get to him, she lets her cool girl, “man eater” persona get the better of her, and neither of them ever share how deep their feelings actually are (despite everyone else knowing)
30% smutty? oral f receiving, minors dni, drinking/alcohol mentioned, some cursing, yearning Logan ofc & slightly jealous Logan, au where instead of Summer, Dean has a twin sister, it’s my world so Logan has a truck
🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈
Logan’s POV
The shower wasn’t helping.
Steam filled the bathroom until the mirror fogged over completely, but his mind refused to quiet.
She was here. Actually here.
Not a FaceTime call from Cambridge.
Not an Instagram story she had posted.
She was sleeping under the same roof again.
Dean’s green light comment banged around in his head like a puck against the boards. What the fuck was that?
Logan dragged a towel over his hair.
Four months. It had only been four months.
Then why did it feel like years? His mind betrayed him.
⸻
Thanksgiving. The boys’ house. Music filling downstairs. Garrett yelling over a football game. Dean arguing with Tucker about whether pumpkin pie was overrated.
She’d found him in the kitchen washing dishes from their multi-course dinner Tucker prepared.
“I’m bored.” She said as she sat herself on the kitchen island directly behind his back and kicked her legs.
He’d smiled without looking up from the sink.
“Liar.”
“I’m serious.”
“No.” He turned around this time and leaned closer. “You just wanted an excuse to steal me.”
That smile. The one she only gave him “Maybe.”
He remembered taking her hand. Leading her upstairs.
The way she’d laughed quietly when Hannah almost caught them in the hallway.
The way the noise from downstairs slowly disappeared until it was just the two of them.
It was his room, but every time she stepped inside his heart raced. He’s never felt so comfortable yet so erratic all at once than in their opening moments every time before he got his hands on her. There was always something so comforting about knowing that’s how her visits would end up, yet so the opposite knowing he was finger tips away from an angel.
The second his door quietly clicked he finally put his mouth to hers, starving. He craned his neck downwards, both hands spread engulfing the sides of her face, her slender jawline, almost all the way around to the nape of her neck.
She didn’t even have time to wrap her arms around him, both of her delicate hands resting on his chest while his tongue explored hers. It was the kind of kiss that makes red heat spread down your entire body, blooming at your jaw and moving down your chest, in between your legs, weakening your knees. “Missed you.” She whispered against him, uncharacteristically tender to anyone else but not to him. He smirked against her mouth and almost nodded.
She tasted sweet, a mixture of the mini marshmallows they were hiding from Tucker earlier, her minty lip gloss and how her spit always tastes.
He grazed one hand to the small of her back gently, never letting it leave her body as he stepped forward toward his bed, guiding her by pure memory but keeping a hold on her.
She finally landed, perched on the edge of his bed with her legs naturally slightly parted. Only then did he disconnect from her, and it felt like the opposite of coming up for air. She was his air.
She looked up at him, big blue eyes through thick bare lashes. Her hair was slightly messy already, her skin glowing in nothing but the last pieces of sunlight creeping through his curtains, her lips puffed and wet from his kiss. Undone for him, exactly how he liked her and how only he could see her. He needed to see more of her.
She was wearing a large cream cable knit sweater as a dress, Dean’s, a cream slip dress just barely peaking underneath. Logan had been dying all day to see the rest of it.
“Wanna take this off of you Angel. That okay?” He asked genuinely, barely above a whisper and barely tugging at the hem of the sweater. So gentle, and that nickname he saved for her from her Halloween costume Sophomore year.
Y/N just nodded, never losing eye contact. He couldn’t help but keep his hands slightly too close to her body as he peeled the sweater off and tossed it across the room, finally taking her in. Her perfect body that he knew every inch of, every curve, that he dreamt about every month that she was away. Just barely covered by silk and lace, she looked like she was dipped in champagne. The strap naturally slipped off her shoulder, and her nipples pebbled through the bust, an effect of Logan’s wandering hands.
Logan dropped to his knees. In any other circumstance it would have seemed dramatic, but he knows if anyone else would have seen her they would’ve understood.
He spread both hands again but this time over the plush, soft skin just above her knees, looking up for another nod of approval from her before placing a gentle kiss on her inner thigh, stopping to look up between each one as he moved higher. “So soft baby.” He mumbled against her. Her slip was pushed just above her hips as his hands traveled, placing both hands over her hipbones and rubbing small circles with his soft but slightly calloused thumbs. He took a deep breath full of her before placing a single kiss directly to her center, the only thing between them being a thin cotton g-string. Logan knew he was sick, he did. But he craved that smell and even more than that, he craved her taste. Y/N let out a soft whimper, and it took everything in him not to full blown beg. He gave her another look upwards just through his own lashes, on his knees before her like a man worshipping, “Please angel, I need to taste you. Is that okay?”
⸻
Logan squeezed his eyes shut. Jesus Christ.
He could still remember the way she’d looked at him afterward. Unguarded. Unpolished. Safe. His thick length swelled at the memory.
He scrubbed both hands down his face. “Get it together,” he muttered.
It was a party. Not a confession. Definitely not the beginning of anything. Just another night. He almost laughed at himself. Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.
⸻
Y/N’s POV
Harvard had taught her plenty. Constitutional law. Civil procedure. How to dismantle a fifty page case brief before breakfast.
It had not taught her how to stop thinking about John Logan.
She sat crosslegged on the guest bed in one of Dean’s old tee shirts while her blow dryer sat idle beside her.
Four months. She’d made it four whole months. Without kissing him. Without touching him. Without hearing him laugh from the next room. Her stomach tightened.
⸻
Thanksgiving. She’d told herself she only wanted five minutes alone. Just five.
“Please angel, I need to taste you. Is that okay?”
For an opinionated woman, someone who always had something witty to say, being alone with Logan meant Y/N could give that all up. She truly melted into him whenever they were alone together, let him lead, and that’s one of the reasons she loved him loved IT so much.
From the second they made it into his room it was like she regressed into something pliable, she could barely speak. He was so strong but so soft with her at the same time. He tasted like the beer he was nursing after dinner, mixed with a slight hint of mint and the taste of his spit. He smelled so John, musky mixed with Irish Spring and a touch of something woody.
Logan looked up at her from in between her thighs, a few messy curls falling over his forehead and fingers curling into the strings of her thong. His big sad brown eyes below dark thick lashes, begging her for permission just to taste her. She realized her mouth was slightly parted, dry as she tried to swallow. All she could do was nod.
“Need words baby, I’m dyin down here.” He practically whined. It was filthy. Her face heated up as she flopped backwards on the bed, she couldn’t take looking into his eyes, his scrunched eyebrows.
“Please Johnny, need you.”
“Need what? Look at me baby, wanna see you.”
She propped herself back onto her forearms hesitantly. “Need you to taste me.”
That was all Logan needed. Even when they both wanted to move faster, he still ever so gently he ran her panties down her legs until they hit the floor, pressing one last kiss to the inside of her calf not breaking eye contact as he propped her legs up on his shoulders. He took a second just to stare at her now. Rosy, sparkling, and open for him. “So beautiful.” His voice was a mix between cocky, needy and growling. He licked a stripe from both holes up to her already sensitive clit making Y/N shiver, just to taste her arousal that had been pooling for him all day. The scruff on his face added the perfect amount of extra friction. “So wet for me already, you did miss me, huh?” Smart comebacks passed through her mind but she couldn’t get a word out before Logan dove into her, switching deep into both needy holes with his tongue long, coming back to circle her clit softly on a cycle. He knew exactly what she needed, no conversation necessary. But she knew by now that he needed this just as much.
Deep breaths and long groans escaped him mixed with the sounds of her whimpers and squelching. They both were reaching ecstasy and she didn’t even get to touch him yet. Her whimpers turned into whining, that’s her calling card to let Logan know she’s close. He added his middle finger into her core followed by his index, working in and out of her when he pulled away and mumbled against her thigh, “Cmon Angel, doing so well for me, let me see you. I know you’re close baby, you can let go. I got you.” He punctuated it with one final suck to her clit and she broke apart for him. She let out a ragged gasp, “John.” As her back arched and white hot pleasure peaked through her.
He licked her through her peak, lapping up whatever she had to give. He came up from his knees, still working her gently with his fingers to let his slick covered tongue and mouth explore hers.
⸻
She smirked to herself. She remembered how easily he’d read her. How he’d known exactly what she needed before she’d said a word. How being with him had always felt less like losing control, and more like finally being able to let go of it.
Heat rushed into her cheeks and in between her thighs.
“Nope.” She snapped off the bed quickly. “We’re not doing this today.”
She caught her reflection in the mirror. Wet wavy blonde hair. Bare face. Dean’s oversized shirt hanging off one shoulder.
She looked…Young. Not like the woman everyone thought she was.
Her smile faded.
The biggest joke was that Briar thought she was some legendary maneater.
Harvard thought she slept with senators’ sons. Her parents probably assumed she’d have a fiancé before graduation.
The truth? Twenty two years old. One man.
John Logan. Only John Logan. Always John Logan.
She’d never corrected anyone. Why would she? People saw what they wanted to see. A pretty girl who flirted, got taken on expensive dinners, ski trips, private jets. Dean’s sister must be sleeping with anyone, her pick of the litter. It was easier than explaining she’d never found anyone worth following after him. Because what if he’d only ever seen it as convenient? To him they were just comfortable, friends with history.
What if she’d built an entire fantasy around some guy she lost her virginity to at 18? She exhaled sharply. “No.” She pointed at herself in the mirror. “Absolutely not.”
She knew this game. Smile. Flirt. Laugh. Be Dean Di Laurentis’s untouchable twin sister. The girl nobody ever got close enough to hurt. She’d been playing the part for years.
⸻
By eight o’clock the house was packed. Music shook the walls. Someone had already started a game of beer pong. Pool balls clicked in the distance. Dean was yelling from the kitchen before half the guests had even arrived. Logan accepted another beer he had no intention of finishing.
“You okay?” Garrett bumped his shoulder.
“Fine.”
“You’ve been holding the same drink for twenty minutes.”
“I’m pacing myself.” His jaw clicked.
Garrett snorted. “Sure.”
The front hallway suddenly fell quieter. Heads turned. Logan looked up and forgot how to breathe. She was halfway down the staircase and he felt like she was moving in slow motion.
She wore perfectly faded vintage denim that fit like it had been tailored just for her, another Paris vintage shop find, paired with a simple fitted black camisole. Her classic gold jewelry caught the warm overhead lights every time she moved, matching her long golden blowout that bounced with each step. She had a slight natural glow to her, enough to make you question if she’s been on a short vacation in March. Beautiful enough to make people stop mid conversation without even realizing they’d done it. She looked expensive. Not because of the labels. Because she carried herself like she’d never questioned whether she belonged wherever she happened to be.
Garrett slowly looked at Logan. Then Tucker. Then Dean. Dean caught the exchange and smirked into his drink. Logan never noticed. His entire world had narrowed to the woman walking toward him.
He’d seen her in gowns worth more than his truck. He’d seen her in oversized Harvard sweatshirts. He’d seen her in her favorite old Briar hoodie of his that nearly reached her knees. He’d seen her in nothing. Somehow every time he saw her she stole the air from his lungs.
She reached the bottom step. “Wellsy!”
Hannah spun around from the kitchen island just in time to catch her in a hug. “There she is!” Hannah laughed. “I was beginning to think Harvard kidnapped you.”
“They tried.”
“And?”
“I billed them for emotional damages.”
Hannah snorted. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
The girls settled against the kitchen island immediately slipping into conversation like no time had passed.
Logan watched from across the kitchen.
She asked Hannah about her writing. About classes. About Garrett. Remembered little details from conversations months old. She made people feel remembered. It was one of his favorite things about her.
Dean caught Y/N’s attention and pointed toward the counter without looking up from the cooler. “Top shelf.”
She frowned and cocked her head. “What?”
Garrett grinned. “Open the cabinet.”
She reached up, opening the cupboard above the microwave. A brand-new bottle of Hendrick’s gin sat front and center, completely untouched. Beside it rested a few fresh limes and a bottle of tonic. She looked back over her shoulder, eyebrows lifting. “You guys remembered?”
Tucker looked offended. “Remembered? You’ve been gone four months, not dead.”
Dean snorted. “You think we’d let you come home without your grandma liquor?”
She gasped dramatically. “Gin is sophisticated.”
“It’s retirement home vodka,” Garrett shot back.
“It’s delicious.”
“It’s what accountants order.”
“It’s what the Queen drank.”
Dean pointed toward Garrett. “See? Old.”
She rolled her eyes so hard it made Hannah laugh. “You all have the palates of fraternity boys.”
“We are kinda fraternity boys,” Tucker reminded her.
“Exactly.” She pulled the bottle from the cabinet anyway, smiling to herself. “Thanks guysssss.”
“It was Logan’s idea,” Garrett said casually, already turning back to walk toward the beer pong table. “He said we’d better buy it because you’d complain if all we had was cheap vodka.”
Logan looked up so quickly Garrett burst into laughter.
“What?” Garrett shrugged innocently. “You did.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as her eyes found Logan across the kitchen.
“Thanks Johnny.” She answered casually and sweet, playing the part like a professional.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “It would’ve been weird if you came home and couldn’t have your drink.”
“See?” she announced triumphantly to the room. “Someone appreciates refinement.”
“Refinement?” Dean laughed. “You put lime in gin.”
“I put lime in Hendrick’s.”
“Oh, excuse me.”
She shook her head, already pouring herself a cocktail. Logan watched her squeeze a wedge of lime over the glass before taking the smallest sip. He smiled to himself.
She was, without question, the only person under forty five he knew who genuinely preferred gin. Everyone else ordered tequila shots or cheap beer. She drank gin like she was born at a country club fifty years too early. It should’ve been pretentious. Somehow on her, it was just another thing that made perfect sense. Another tiny piece of her he noticed. And judging by the way she caught his eye over the rim of her glass, lifting it ever so slightly in silent thanks, maybe she noticed him too.
Within seconds she was swept into new conversations. Remembering names. Laughing with girls she’d met exactly twice.
Somehow making every person she spoke to feel like they’d been the one she’d been hoping to see. Miss Universe, Garrett hadn’t been wrong.
Dean tossed her a ping-pong ball from across the room. “1v1?”
She caught it one handed. “You sure you want to lose in front of all these people?”
Dean scoffed. “I carried you through childhood.”
“You cheated through childhood.”
“I strategized.”
“You cheated.”
The boys laughed.
Logan smiled into his beer. God. He’d missed her.
An hour later he was in the same position, only moving from the kitchen to the living room to take a better view of her. Three drinks sat abandoned around him. He wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t even close. He was just…watching. Watching her tease Tucker after beating him at cards. Watching her steal chips out of the bowl in Garrett’s lap. Watching her lean over the pool table to sink a celeb shot. Watching her throw her head back laughing at something Dean had said. Like she’d never left, like she’d always belonged here. In another life he wished she’d always stay.
Allie appeared beside him. “You know,” she said casually.
“Hm?” He snapped out of his daze.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“That’s dangerous.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I managed to domesticate Dean Di Laurentis…”
Logan laughed quietly.
“…then honestly?” She sipped her drink. “Nothing is impossible.”
Y/N was laughing with Hannah, one hand wrapped around her almost empty gin and tonic.
“I think she likes somebody.”
His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the neck of his beer. “Oh?”
“I could be wrong…” A smile tugged at the corner of Allie’s mouth. “…but I’ve caught her looking at one particular hockey player when she thinks no one’s paying attention.”Logan felt his heartbeat stumble. “You think?”
“I know what I think.” She studied him for a moment, amusement dancing in her eyes.“Wait…” The usual crease found its way in between his eyebrows. “You’ve noticed that?”
She blinked. “Logan.”
There was enough disbelief packed into the single word that his stomach dropped. “Seriously?”
“You thought you two were subtle?”
He opened his mouth and closed it again. Allie laughed. “Honey…” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Dean has known since freshman year.”
Logan’s eyes widened. “…What?” He replayed Dean’s comment from earlier today.
“Garrett and Tucker figured it out about five minutes after the rest of us.”
“The rest of you?”
“Literally everyone.” She took another sip.“Well…” She reconsidered. “Maybe not Beau. Bless his heart.”
Logan stared at her. “You’re telling me that everyone knows the two of us-“
“-have been orbiting each other like idiots for four years?” Allie finished for him. “Pretty much. They were just letting you both take your time…and taking a little too long in my opinion.”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck “Jesus.”
“The only people who don’t seem to know you’re hopelessly gone for each other are the two of you.” She smiled sweetly.
Before he could process that, she patted his arm. “Good luck.”
Then she disappeared into the crowd.
Logan stood frozen. Four years they’d all known. He never considered the possibility that she was stealing glances too, watching too. He felt lucky enough to have her in bedrooms, laundry rooms, country club locker rooms. He never considered she could want him for more than that too, and he still wasn’t sold.
His gaze instinctively searched the room until he found her.
She was near the kitchen island again now, holding the gin he’d remembered to buy. Some guy Logan vaguely recognized from one of Dean’s economics classes had wandered over, leaning casually against the counter while talking to her. She smiled politely and laughed at something he said. The guy stepped a little closer. Too close.
Logan’s jaw tightened. Nope. The thought came so naturally it almost made him laugh.
He didn’t even know what he planned on saying. Didn’t have a reason and didn’t need one. He was on his feet before his brain caught up.
Across the room, Garrett watched him go and elbowed Tucker. “Took him long enough.”
Tucker smirked. “I’ll give him three minutes before he’s got his arm around her.”
Dean didn’t even bother looking up from his drink. “I’ll take the under.”
Pairing: John Logan x Graham!Reader (3rd person POV, reader referred to with she/her pronouns)
C/W: Smut!! 18+ MDNI.
W/C: 3.4k
A/N: I have never realllllyyy written/posted smut so please be nice! But also let me know what you think! I got a prompt about a laundry room and just decided to roll with it.
The house was thick with smoke and the general air of debauchery. It wasn’t even really a house party. It was just the team and friends, but the lights had gone down and the music had gone up and the drink had become just a bit more liberal. She’d had a drink or two, and her limbs had done just a little loose. It wasn’t so loose as to be sloppy, just that perfect amount of fizziness in her blood and on her tongue.
And Logan was at her side, floating a little bit like he was lost at sea the whole time. He was pulled away from her a few times, but he was always drawn back. Some teammate pulled him for a round of air hockey, and then he returned to her with a new drink she’d wanted to try. She went to dance with Allie, and Logan waited for her on the couch, mere feet away, playing Mario Kart with her brother. His presence ebbed and flowed like a bobber on the tide.
After dancing, she flopped back down on the couch beside him, hot with exertion and drink and joy.
Logan wasted no time offloading his controller onto her. “Kick G’s ass for me please. I can’t get him on this track.”
“With pleasure,” she chirped. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees to properly give her attention to boosting Logan’s abysmal Mario Kart score.
“How dare you weaponize my baby sister against me?” Garrett did not look away from the TV.
“She’s on my side now.”
“Hell yeah I am!” God, that proclamation made something light up in his blood. To make matters worse, once she’d well and truly won the race on his behalf, she bodily fell into Logan’s side. Logan moved his arm along the back of the couch to welcome her. He looked at her side profile as it glowed under the fluorescent colors of the idle nintendo game. The light caught in her eyelashes and played across the smooth planes of her face. Her skin was soft to the touch and he knew that because her cheek was swiftly thereafter pressed into his neck, presumably when she got tired of holding her head up.
She truly earned the epithet when he said: “Thank you for your help, gorgeous.”
“Y’ welcome.” The sound of her voice vibrated through his neck in such a way that was designed specifically to kill him.
“You drunk or sleepy?” he asked, nearly speaking into her hair. He was careful to keep his lips hovering over her hairline and his hands remained along the back of the couch. She had license to be as snuggly as she liked, but Garrett was three feet away and would raise at best an eyebrow and at worst a fist if Logan got too fresh.
“Sleepy,” she said, picking her head up in such a way that made him miss the weight of her. Her cheshire grin was sleepy but it remained. “Been a long week. I think another drink might actually do me some good.”
“You askin’ me to make you something?”
“Mmmm,” she hummed. She cut her eyes up at him with that understated heat that told him she was up to no good and he was going to be sorry about it. “Make me something real special, Johnny.”
“Stop flirting with Logan.” Garrett raised his voice to cut in.
She grinned like the fucking sun. Logan really thought he could use that smile as a source of vitamin D in the dead of winter. “I flirt with all your friends, Gare.”
“And I thought I was special.” Of course, Dean chose that moment to show up and lean over the back of the couch. “I’m hurt, babydoll.”
She tilted her chin up to Dean in the same way she had to Logan. “Sorry, Deanie baby.”
Suddenly, John wanted to be somewhere that wasn’t there. He pushed himself up off the couch, gently lifting the girl off him in the process. “Any drink requests, gorgeous?”
She stood beside him, and Logan couldn’t find it in him to take the hands he’d used to steady her away from her. His hands were balanced on her shoulders. Shoulders were a PG location. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said with that same smile that was going to get him into so much trouble soon. “You surprise me with a drink and I’ll surprise you with one.”
“As long as you don’t try to kill me with six different types of liquor—” he paused for Garrett and Dean to laugh. “—you’ve got yourself a deal.”
She giggled and bounded to the kitchen with Logan on her heels.
“Don’t let her poison you, Lo,” Garrett called after him and handed his old controller to Dean. His voice reminded Logan to be strong, not just against her liquor choices but her sweet talk too. Because, if he fell for it—for her—there would be consequences.
But they stood together in the kitchen, trading liquor bottles and the jigger and shaker. She pushed her shaker to him when it was ready. Logan could feel her eyes on him while he shook the drink on her behalf. More specifically her eyes on his biceps. He added a little extra flair just for her eyes.
They poured their drinks and traded glasses. To be specific, pint glasses Logan had pilfered from Malone’s over time. He sipped her drink. The sweetness and the bite of the alcohol played through his mouth in a way that reminded him of her. Sweet and then terribly biting in the back of his throat before it was gone.
She smiled over the rim of her cup, sipping her honeyed gin drink he knew she’d love. She loved gin so much that Logan kept a bottle on their bar cart just for her when she was over.
She put her glass down at what caught his attention wasn’t that coy, come-get-me smile. It wasn’t that bare slice of her waist or the low dip of her neckline. It was the lipstick print, flawlessly feminine and rich red on the rim of her glass. It drew his attention to the color on her lips in such a way that made him want to take that ruby red off with his own mouth.
He said her name, voice trembling just a touch. He stepped forward into her space, slowly, carefully so as to give her time to back away if she really wanted. She didn’t. He got close enough that he could smell the sweetness of her perfume and the bite of liquor on her breath.
“Johnny,” she mimicked him into the waning space between them.
“Tell me to stop.” He wasn’t sure if he was daring her or begging her when he said it. “Tell me to stop and we drop it. Never speak of it again. Say you don’t feel it, and I’ll drop it forever.”
Her eyes turned up to meet his. Hers were clear and bright and damn near crystalline. They were lit with the kind of fire that set the pit of his stomach alight with heat. “You know I won’t,” she whispered and took another glimmering sip of her drink.
And that was all it took. Logan snatched her wrist. “C’mon.” He took his drink in his other hand and yanked her to the nearest door. He sparred a moment to scan the kitchen for prying eyes and finding none, before they crossed the threshold and the line.
The door of the laundry room snapped shut behind the pair of them. He set his beautifully made drink on the dryer and his hands dropped greedily to the bare slice of her waist. The heat of her skin felt as though it would burn through him down to the bone.
“Gorgeous,” he whispered into the space between them.
“John.” She matched his volume. “You can’t keep longingly calling my name. You’re going to give me a complex.”
He laughed under his breath, shaking his head. When he looked up, she was looking at him with not heat but stubborn steel. “What are we doing?” he damn near pleaded rather than asked her.
“What we want.” It was so simple the way she said it. It was as if it was simply the fact of the matter. Her hand crawled up his chest to rest her fingers on his collarbone. Her breath played across his jaw in the most enticing way. ‘You are allowed to have the things you want, sweetheart.”
God, the words hit him like a physical blow. “Jesus, you can’t say things like that.” He gripped her waist harder in an effort to keep his bearings.
“I can,” she said simply. “And I just did.” She leaned up onto her toes and placed her lips a breath away from his. Logan wanted so badly to close the distance, and she could surely see it in his eyes. “Ask me, John.”
God, this girl. “Can I kiss you?” he breathed against her lips.
The smile that spread over her lips was satisfied and utterly devastating. “Yes.”
The space between his lips and hers closed with more force than the distance warranted. It was terribly gentle at first, and her lips were warm and smooth and tasted like that sweetness of classic lipstick. Logan wanted her more than any girl he’d ever seen, and it was that reason he didn’t set her on top of the dryer and fuck her fast and dirty like he did to all the girls in frat bathrooms. He wanted to savor all the tastes of her, touch every inch of her skin that he could reach. And Jesus Christ, he wanted to taste her. He'd looked forward to it the way a child might look forward to Christmas, and he simply couldn't wait for it.
He ran a tongue over her bottom lip, and the sweetness of the honey in her mouth played across his tongue. Logan walked her backwards, hands slipping under her crop top, to press her against the dryer. She, giving as good as she got, grabbed at his shoulders with prying fingers digging into his traps as if she wanted to own every muscle, every fiber of his body.
The way they clung to each other was so forceful, it was as if they were both afraid someone would come and physically tear them apart. She pressed herself into him further with an ankle hooked around his calf, and John took it in stride, moving a hand to her thigh to hike her leg up over his hip.
He licked further into her mouth, and scraped the tip of his tongue along the roof. The little whimper that he caused went straight to his groin. “Mmmm,” he moaned into her mouth. “I like the noises you make, baby.”
“You’re such a dick,” she mumbled, and John could feel her lips move against his when she spoke.
“It’s a compliment, gorgeous.” He pulled back to grin at her. The flush that decorated the high points of her cheeks was the perfect shade of pink in contrast to her eyes, which were pitch dark. “I like ‘em vocal. Lets me know when it feels good.”
The flush spread from her cheeks down her neck at that. It made him want to bite into it. “Jesus, Johnny,” she swore. “You can’t say things like that.”
He leaned in to croon into her ear, mimicking her snark from earlier: “I can. And, I just did.” And he followed his impulse to suck on her neck.
“Oh,” she gasped, and, in retaliation, she arched her body against him. He could feel her heartbeat everywhere, including against his thigh. It was like a drum beat whose cadence dictated everything he did. He wanted to feel it thudding with impunity up and down his body.
Logan scraped his teeth against her neck in a sharp mockery of a smile. “That feel good?”
“Mhmm, now stop being a cocky son of a bitch and fuck me?” She pulled away from him tilted her head back just to meet his eyes with a kind of challenge in them rather than a question. As if she was daring rather than asking him.
Part of him wanted so badly to give in to that dare. Instead, he said, “Not gonna let me take you to dinner first, gorgeous?”
“I didn’t take you for a gentleman, John,” she crooned in his ear. The way she said his name, his first name specifically, stoked a low, consistent flame in him. Something in him that burned for her specifically constantly.
“You wound me, princess.” He dug his fingers into the muscle of her thigh and ass in punctuation. He lowered his head to nibble on her earlobe a little when he spoke again. “I’m not typically a gentleman. But, I’d like to do right by you, princess. I don’t want to fuck you for the first time in a laundry room during a house party.”
“For the first time?” It would have been another smart ass remark were it not for the slight waver in her voice.
He pulled back to meet her eyes. “I’ll fuck you as many times as you’ll let me, baby. You know that you aren’t just like any other girl to me. I’m not going to incur Garrett’s wrath for a quick fuck.”
She smiled slow and shy and private and just for him. It made Logan feel like he’d won something more important than any game he’d ever played. “That was awfully romantic, Johnny.”
He leaned in to press his lips softly, chastely to hers. “I try my best, gorgeous. Now I’m not going to fuck you, but I can think of something in the meantime.” And Logan hit his knees on the tiled laundry room floor.
One might have assumed it was a selfless act, for him to offer to give her pleasure. In truth, this was the most selfish thing he could’ve asked her for. Dean had called him a munch for the preference a thousand times over, but there was nothing in the world he’d rather be doing than eating her out. He set his chin on her hip bone and looked up at her with wide, open puppy-dog eyes that he knew killed her. “Can I?”
She nodded mutely. There was something like awe in her eyes while she looked down at him and placed a hand reverently and gently in his hair
“I’m going to need to hear it from you, gorgeous.” He toyed with the hem of her skirt while he spoke, and felt immense satisfaction watching her flush somehow redder at his words.
“Yes,” she said, voice quiet and breathy and all too satisfying. “Yes, you can.”
Those were the magic words. “Thank you, baby. So polite of you.” Without further fanfare, Logan shoved her skirt up to her waist and began mouthing at her through her underwear.
“Jesus Christ," she swore, and Logan felt her knees buckle as the dryer caught her full weight with a hollow thud. He thanked his lucky stars right then that the music thrumming through his house was loud enough to shake the walls let alone muffle her. He wanted to hear every little sound she made on his quest to make her feel good.
He ran his tongue along the seam of her through the cotton of her pink thong. He kept at it, lapping industriously until she bit out the words: “Logan stop teasing oh my god.”
Logan looked up to meet her eyes which were blown out and almost glassy on the surface already. “You want me to eat you properly?”
“Yes,” she snapped, before adding, “please” almost like an afterthought.
“All you had to do was ask, baby.” Logan hooked two fingers through her thong, yanked it down, and dove right in. John Logan was not religious, but he did consider this to be something akin to worship. She tasted sweet in a very specific way, and a very specific kind of sugar high over took him. He alternated between feverish licking and sucking, cataloging the way her thighs tensed or the little sounds she made when something felt good enough that she couldn’t help herself.
“Johnny,” she whined. He met her eyes from where he knelt between her knees and her heavy-lidded, pleasure-addled eyes could have made him come right then. The sunset red and pink that decorated her chest and face and her kiss-bitten lips were the most beautiful colors he’d ever seen.
He pulled back only for as long as it took to ask: “Yes, baby?”
“Can I have your fingers?” she huffed. He didn’t even have to prompt her this time when she added, “please.”
He balanced his chin on her thin to smile fully up at her. “Such a good girl, thank you for asking.” Logan watched her chest hitch at the praise. He filed that knowledge away for later too. He would memorize her, top to bottom. “You can have anything you want when you ask that sweetly.”
When she opened her mouth to speak, he slid a finger inside and Logan took no small amount of pride in the fact that whatever words were about to come out of her mouth died there. His mouth went back to her clit and he slowly pressed inside her until he found that spot that made her gasp and made her thighs shake. “There,” she gasped, as if he needed any more confirmation.
Logan added a second finger and began to fuck his fingers into her with earnest. Every time he hit the spot, the little whimper she made continuously inflated his ego like a balloon. It felt like religion to look up and see her sitting on that dryer with her head thrown back. Her hips canted up into his mouth, arching so strongly that Logan’s free hand came to pin her hip down.
Nothing would get in the way of his task. He was singularly dedicated to making her feel astronomically good, better than any man had ever made her feel. John Logan didn’t consider himself to be a particularly possessive man, but he was a terribly competitive man. You didn’t need to possess a woman, just love her and fuck her better than anyone else.
Meanwhile, she began to move her hips little by little, industriously grinding her hips up against his face. He pressed her hips more firmly, almost bruisingly back into the dryer to control the pace. She, in all her terribly endearing stubbornness, didn’t stop her grinding. Her little whines and groans were something of a chorus that harmonized with the screaming lyrics coming from Dean’s obnoxious speaker system.
“Oh, God,” she whined. “Oh I’m—”
He pulled back just a hair’s breadth to whisper: “I know baby, you can come whenever you’re ready.” And then he got back to it. The rising tide of her voice, her little ohs, accompanied Logan as he sent her over the edge.
She all but screamed as her thighs tensed and shook around his head. Logan watched from his knees as her chest heaved up and down with the exertion that came with pleasure. He placed one more gentle kiss at her clit before he got to his feet. “That felt good, baby?”
“My God, there is no way you need me to feed your ego right now,” she griped in mock affront.
Logan laughed a full-body laugh. “It never hurts to hear it again.” He squeezed her hip and leaned in to speak closer to her ear. “Or to hear some notes for next time.”
“I’ll write up a Yelp review.” She stood and put her clothes back in order. John took no small amount of pride in the slight imperfections to her typically polished appearance. Her skirt was wrinkled where he’d pushed it up, a faint red mark bloomed up her jaw like an angry flower, and the only remnant of her lip gloss was a smear of it over her top lip.
All he had to do to put himself back in order was run a hand through his hair and swipe his lips with the back of his hand to rid them of any errant lip gloss. Then he reached down and pocketed her pink thong.
“You fucking freak.” She pointed at him with a knowing glare. “When am I getting that back?”
“Next time.” He left the laundry room with a wink.
Thank you for reading! Feedback is always encouraged! Let me know what you think.
Logan woke up to a rooster, a dog, and your elbow in his ribs.
The rooster came first, somewhere outside the open window, tearing through the soft grey-blue morning with the kind of confidence usually reserved for fire alarms and drunk men outside bars after closing. Logan opened one eye, saw nothing but the faded blue wall, the dresser mirror across the room, and a pale strip of daylight beginning to crawl along the floorboards, and decided with the exhausted logic of a man who had gone to sleep in a house full of antique furniture and relatives who seemed genetically incapable of whispering that if the rooster was not physically inside the room, it was not his problem.
Then came the dog.
A thump against the door.
A scratch.
Another thump.
Then a long, offended sigh from the hallway, like whatever creature had arrived outside the blue room considered closed doors to be a personal failure of hospitality. Logan lifted his head just enough to look toward the sound, then froze when the old bed gave a thin, accusatory creak beneath him.
You made a small noise into his chest, asleep and offended.
He looked down at you. Your hair was everywhere, soft from being washed the night before, one loose wave caught near your mouth. Your cheek was pressed to his bare chest. One leg was tangled with his under the sheet. At some point in the night, you had stolen both the lighter blanket and the side of the bed nearest the window, which he had allowed because he was generous, in love, and unconscious.
The scratch came again.
You shifted and, without opening your eyes, drove your elbow into his side.
“Ow,” Logan whispered.
“Make Hugh stop,” you mumbled.
“That’s not Hugh.”
“Then make it Hugh and stop him.”
He bit back a laugh, “There’s a dog at the door.”
Your eyes cracked open.
Logan caught enough of your gaze to understand the betrayal.
“Already?” you whispered.
“What do you mean already?”
“These dogs run on a schedule.”
The dog whined again, soft and dramatic.
You sighed, rolled off him with the tragic exhaustion of a woman being asked to rise before destiny intended, and sat up with the sheet clutched to your chest. The early light moved over your shoulder and the messy fall of your hair, turning the whole room softer around you. Logan watched you rub one eye with the heel of your palm, your mouth pouting unconsciously with sleep, and felt something in his chest loosen in a way that had nothing to do with last night and everything to do with this morning.
The dog scratched again.
“I’m comin’,” you whispered, as though the dog had accused you of cruelty, “Lord.”
You reached for the robe folded over the chair, wrapped it around yourself, and padded toward the door. Logan sat up against the pillows, hair a mess, sheet low on his hips, still trying to remember where he had thrown his shirt.
You opened the door a cautious crack.
A shape immediately tried to shove its entire body through the gap.
“Biscuit,” you hissed. “No.”
The old beagle from dinner pushed his nose past your shin, tail wagging with slow, ancient entitlement.
“No,” you repeated, firmer, though Logan could hear the affection underneath, “We are not beginnin’ this.”
Biscuit stared up at you.
You sleepily stared back.
The beagle won.
He trotted into the room like he had been formally invited, crossed the floor with his nails clicking against the boards, and began sniffing Logan’s discarded shorts by the bed.
Logan looked at you, “Does he do this to everyone?”
“No.” You shut the door softly, then turned with narrowed eyes as Biscuit shoved his nose into one of Logan’s boots, “Apparently this is personal.”
Biscuit finished investigating the boot, sneezed, then came to the side of the bed and put his chin on the mattress, gazing at Logan with damp-eyed expectation.
You crossed your arms, “Don’t encourage him.”
“I’m not.”
“You are lookin’ at him kindly.”
“That’s just my face.”
“No, your face is saying, come here, old man, I have never once enforced a boundary against a dog.”
Logan held out a hand.
Biscuit immediately licked his fingers.
You made a soft little sound of defeat and threw both hands up, “Traitors.”
“He likes me.”
“He also eats horse manure if unsupervised.”
Biscuit, apparently satisfied with Logan’s moral weakness, attempted to climb onto the bed. He got his front paws up, failed to lift the rest of himself, and made a noise so sorrowful that Logan moved without thinking, reaching down to help haul him onto the quilt.
The bed creaked.
You winced at the derelict sound.
Biscuit gave no indication that he cared about structural integrity and settled heavily across Logan’s lap.
You stared at them.
Logan scratched behind the dog’s ear, “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You look like you’re about to say something.”
“I’m decidin’ whether to tell you this is a bad sign.”
“Because of the dog?”
“Because of that dog.” You pointed at Biscuit, who was now melting across Logan’s thighs with the boneless satisfaction of an animal who had manipulated a stronger species successfully, “Biscuit doesn’t sit with guests.”
“He sat under my chair at dinner.”
“I know.”
“So maybe he likes me.”
“Maybe he has identified you as emotionally available.”
Logan grinned, “Is that bad?”
“In this family?” You padded back toward the bed, robe loose at your shoulders, voice still rough from sleep, “It’s how they get you.”
The rooster screamed again outside.
Biscuit did not move.
You glanced toward the window with deep, quiet hatred, “I hope something eats him.”
“The rooster?”
“Yes.”
Logan laughed then, unable to help it, and the sound made you look back at him.
For a second, the room softened around both of you.
Morning. Blue walls. Old quilt. Dog across his lap. Your robe tied messily at your waist but slipping from one bare shoulder. The ranch outside already awake and demanding labour. You stood there for a moment, still sleepy, still half-warm from his bed, and then you came closer.
You bent down and kissed him.
It was meant to be quick.
It turned into something slower because he caught your wrist before you could pull away, and because you let him, and because you still tasted like sleep and cherry balm.
Biscuit sighed between you.
You pulled back, eyes half-lidded, “We cannot scar the beagle.”
“He came in here.”
“He’s elderly.”
“He’s nosy.”
“He is a respected member of this household.”
“He licked my boot.”
“He contains multitudes.”
A knock came at the door.
You straightened immediately, dragging your robe tighter. Logan nearly launched Biscuit off the bed with how fast he reached for the sheet.
Sarah’s voice came through the door, bright as a knife, “Breakfast in thirty. Mama says if you’re late, she’ll assume you’re helping with dishes.”
You closed your eyes, “Thank you, Sarah.”
A pause,“Is Biscuit in there?”
“No.”
Biscuit barked once.
Sarah gasped, “Slut.”
“Sarah!”
“I meant the dog.”
Logan stared at the ceiling while you pressed your fingers to the bridge of your nose.
Sarah’s footsteps retreated down the hall, “Thirty minutes!”
You looked at Biscuit.
Biscuit looked at you.
“He’s your problem now,” you told Logan.
Logan scratched the beagle’s head, “Morning to you too, buddy.”
Cowboy Week’s first official morning did not begin gently.
By the time you and Logan made it downstairs, the ranch had already become several different operations pretending to be one household. Breakfast was laid across the kitchen and dining room in practical abundance, biscuits under cloth, eggs, fruit, bacon, yogurt, toast, preserves, coffee in industrial quantities, pitchers of juice, and a basket of pastries that Hugh had stationed himself near with the suspicious focus of a man planning theft.
The kitchen doors were open to the back porch, and people moved in and out with plates, mugs, clipboards, work gloves, and the general urgency of a group that considered sitting down a brief inconvenience between tasks.
Your mother was at the long counter, hair pinned up, boots already dusty, reviewing a clipboard while spreading jam on toast. Your father stood beside her with coffee, talking to Travis, the stable manager, about the north pasture transport. Nana sat at the head of the kitchen table in a pale blouse and red lipstick, eating fruit with a small fork as though everyone around her had not been up since dawn. Grandad was reading a printed schedule with his glasses low on his nose, making dissatisfied noises at intervals.
“You’re late,” Sarah said as you walked in.
You checked the clock, “It is eight-oh-two.”
“Late.”
“Mama said breakfast at eight-ish.”
Your mother looked up, “I said eight.”
“You said eight-ish.”
“I said eight with the tone of ish.”
“That is not binding.”
Logan went to reach for a mug and found Hugh already holding one out to him.
“Coffee, Boston.”
Logan narrowed his eyes, “Is there something in it?”
Hugh looked offended, “Hospitality.”
Sarah took the mug from Hugh, sniffed it, and handed it to Logan, “Safe.”
“Thank you.”
“Do not thank him. It encourages him.”
Hugh leaned against the counter, “How’s Biscuit?”
You turned sharply, “How do you know about Biscuit?”
“This house has no secrets.”
“This house has too many floorboards.”
“Same thing.”
Your father, without looking away from the schedule, said, “Hugh.”
“I didn’t say anything improper.”
“You were approaching it.”
“Feels unfair to discipline intent.”
“Feels familiar,” Jordan said, walking in behind Maddie.
Jordan looked entirely awake in a way Logan found suspicious. His shirt was crisp, his boots clean, his hair neat, and his expression already faintly annoyed by the day’s inefficiencies. Maddie beside him looked softer but no less prepared, her hair pulled back, sleeves rolled with quiet purpose. She kissed your cheek when she passed and touched Logan’s arm in greeting like they had moved past introduction and into shared survival.
“You slept?” Maddie asked.
“Some,” you said.
Sarah’s mouth opened.
You pointed a piece of toast at her, “Finish that sentence and I will pour coffee in your boots.”
Sarah shut her mouth, smiling.
Logan found himself seated beside you at the long kitchen table with a plate he did not remember filling. Your mother tapped the table twice with her pen, and the room quieted in waves rather than all at once. It was not silence; no family this size could manage silence without medical intervention. But conversations dropped enough that her voice carried.
“Right. Monday. Officially, today is setup and first prep. Public events don’t start until Wednesday evening, but this ranch does not prepare itself, despite Hugh’s long-standing belief that chairs migrate.”
Hugh lifted one hand, “I have never said chairs migrate.”
“You have behaved like you believe it.”
“Different.”
“East yard needs lantern lines checked before lunch. South beds need watering before eleven because the zinnias have apparently given up on living. Small barn needs clearing for the scholarship displays. Texas branch is using the west arena for polo practice at one. Kitchen prep continues all morning. Flowers for the porch need cutting and cooling. The partners table is on labels, beans, and programme folding after breakfast. Anyone who thinks they are above folding programmes can discuss humility with Mrs. Alvarez.”
Mrs. Alvarez, at the stove, did not turn around, “I have time.”
“Nobody doubts that,” Grandad said.
Your mother continued, “Baby, I need you with Travis after breakfast. One of the ponies has a puffy eye, and the mare arriving from north pasture needs a quick look. After that, Mama’s side needs you in the beds because the zinnias remain dramatic.”
You sighed softly into your coffee, “They were dramatic yesterday.”
“They remain dramatic today.”
Sarah leaned back in her chair, “Maybe they need therapy.”
“They need water,” your mother said.
“That is therapy for flowers.”
“Sarah, you’re on west arena check with Hugh after breakfast, then barrel tack inventory.”
Sarah groaned, “Why am I with Hugh?”
“Because he cannot be trusted alone with confidence.”
Hugh pointed at Logan, “Put Boston with me.”
“No,” you, Sarah, and your mother said together.
Logan raised his brows.
Hugh looked wounded, “Conspiracy.”
Your mother glanced at Logan, “You, sweetheart, start with Bennett and Theo. They know where bodies are needed.”
“That sounds ominous,” Logan said.
“It is,” Bennett called from the far end of the table.
Theo lifted his coffee, “Welcome to the partner labour pool.”
Logan looked at you, “The what?”
You patted his knee beneath the table with the false comfort of a doctor about to give bad news, “The partner labour pool.”
“Why does that sound like an initiation into a cult?”
“Because you’re perceptive.”
Hugh leaned forward, “Technically, he should start on a horse.”
Your father, without missing a beat, said, “Technically, you should move the boxes out of the dining room.”
“I am being silenced.”
“You are being redirected,” your mother said.
Grandad folded the schedule and looked at Logan over the top of his glasses, “You ever handled fence posts?”
Logan sat up slightly, “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Better than Hugh, then.”
Hugh threw a biscuit at him.
Grandad caught it with one hand and put it on his plate.
Nana looked at Logan with calm interest, “Eat more before they take you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good boy.”
The table went briefly, devastatingly quiet.
Logan’s ears went pink. You pressed your lips together, fighting for your life.
Hugh’s smile spread slowly, “Good boy, Boston?”
You pointed your fork at him, “Don’t.”
Breakfast dissolved the same way it had assembled, not ending so much as turning into tasks. Plates were cleared by whoever had hands free. Your father carried a stack of mugs to the sink. Hugh stole one last biscuit and fled before Mrs. Alvarez could catch him. Jordan took a call by the back door, face sharpening into business. Maddie moved toward the mudroom with a folder tucked under her arm, already speaking to Travis about the retired racehorse demo later in the week. Sarah caught your sleeve, whispered something that made you swat her arm, and then disappeared after Hugh with the air of a woman going to war against male confidence.
Logan had barely stood before Bennett appeared at his side with a pair of work gloves.
“These fit?”
Logan took them, “Probably.”
“Good enough.”
Theo, behind him, handed him a bottle of water, “Hydrate before the ranch begins extracting value from you.”
“Is that the official motto?”
“It’s on the rejected merchandise.”
Bennett nodded toward the door, “Come on. Lantern posts.”
Logan looked at you across the room.
You were already being pulled toward the back hallway by Travis, who had a veterinary kit in one hand and the resigned expression of a man who knew exactly how many things could go wrong before nine. You caught Logan’s eye, pointed at him, then at the water bottle.
He lifted it in acknowledgement.
You mouthed, Drink it.
He took an exaggerated sip.
Your smile flashed, soft and pleased.
Then you were gone.
Logan had expected to be treated like a guest.
Watched, maybe. Tested, probably. Your family was warm, but it was also enormous and layered and full of people who seemed to understand invisible systems he did not yet know existed. He had expected to be asked questions, to make polite conversation, to carry things only after offering.
Instead, the ranch began using him.
Bennett and Theo took him to the east yard, where half-built lantern lines waited along a stretch of fence near what would become, by Wednesday, the pretty public-facing route between the main house and the converted barn. The posts were heavier than they looked, and the sun got mean fast. Logan found himself sweating through his shirt by nine-fifteen, holding one end of a wooden post while Bennett checked spacing and Theo read instructions from a folded paper he had apparently stolen from Sarah’s event binder.
“Does Sarah know you have that?” Logan asked.
“No,” Theo said, “That’s why I’m reading quickly.”
Bennett drove the post into place with practical efficiency, “Rule one.”
Logan adjusted his grip on the next post, “There are rules?”
“There are always rules.”
Theo held up a finger, “If Mama’s side offers food, take it.”
“That’s rule one?”
“That’s survival,” Bennett said.
Theo lifted another finger, “Rule two. Never accept an empty hand.”
Logan looked down at his empty hand.
Bennett immediately placed a coil of twine in it.
“See?” Theo said.
Logan stared at the twine, “That was educational.”
“Rule three,” Bennett said, “If the family delays explaining something, stretch.”
“Why?”
Theo smiled, “Tuesday.”
Logan looked between them, “Everyone keeps saying Tuesday.”
“Then start stretching,” Bennett said.
By ten, Logan had learned that Bennett had married into the Montana-Wyoming cattle branch and possessed the kind of calm that came from being yelled at by both weather and relatives. Theo belonged to one of Mama’s side cousins and worked in something polished and city-adjacent, which made him look like he should hate manual labour, except he folded programmes better than anyone and had the survival instincts of someone who had made peace with doing whatever an older woman holding a clipboard asked.
Together, they formed what Logan was beginning to understand was the partner class. A group of people who had chosen in, been tested, survived, and now treated incoming partners with the grim kindness of veterans.
“You play hockey in Boston, right?” Bennett asked, driving another post down.
“Massachusetts, yeah. Briar.”
“You trying for NHL?”
Logan had answered the question a thousand times in a thousand versions. From coaches, classmates, girls at parties, guys who wanted to compare injuries, men who had not skated in twenty years but still had opinions. There was usually something in it he had to navigate- expectation, disbelief, projection, a need for him to perform ambition in a way that was palatable to whoever had asked.
Bennett’s tone had none of that. In fact, it was the same tone he might have used to ask whether a fence line was straight.
“Yeah,” Logan said, “That’s the goal.”
“Draft?”
“Not yet. There are a few paths. Camps, scouts, development. Depends on the season, depends on who’s looking.”
Theo glanced over, “That sounds like horses.”
Logan huffed a laugh, “Does it?”
“Everything here becomes horses eventually.”
Bennett stepped back to look at the post, “He’s not wrong. Bloodlines, performance, timing, money, politics, everyone pretending luck is strategy.”
Logan thought about that for a second, “Yeah. That’s actually not far off.”
“Jordan will like that answer,” Theo said.
“Jordan likes answers?”
“Rarely. Enjoy it if it happens.”
The first time Logan saw you again, you were crossing the yard with Travis, your hair pulled up messily, boots dusty, a vet kit hanging from one shoulder. You had changed out of your breakfast clothes into jeans and a red top that already had a faint smear of something near the hem, and you were listening intently while Travis spoke, nodding at intervals, your face focused in a way that made you look older than you did when you were laughing with Sarah. A chestnut pony followed behind a groom at the end of a lead rope, blinking one swollen eye with offended dignity.
You looked up as you passed, saw Logan holding a coil of lantern wire, and smiled.
Just for him.
Then Travis said something else, and your attention snapped back to the pony.
Theo, from the fence, looked between you, “That’s another rule.”
“What is?”
“Do not interrupt her when an animal is involved unless someone is bleeding.”
Bennett considered, “Even then, depends who.”
Logan watched you disappear toward the shade of the small barn, “Noted.”
The second time he saw you, you had a hose over one shoulder and murder in your eyes.
He was walking back from the kitchen with more twine, two pitchers of iced tea, and an instruction from Mrs. Alvarez to tell Theo that if he wanted to steal her scissors, he could do it “like a man and admit it,” when you came around the side of the house dragging a green garden hose behind you, muttering disgruntledly to yourself.
The red top clung at one side of your waist where water had splashed you. Pieces of hair had escaped your clip and stuck to the damp line of your neck. Your boots were muddy at the toes. You were muttering under your breath with such focus that Logan slowed.
“Everything okay?”
You looked up, the irritation softening around the edges the second you saw him, “The zinnias are suicidal.”
“The flowers?”
“They wilt if you look at them without optimism.”
He fought a smile, “Can I help?”
“You are carrying enough.”
“I’ve got hands.”
“You have one hand. The other is holding emergency tea.”
“That feels important.”
“It is.”
You stepped closer, stole one of the pitchers from him, took three deep swallows straight from the lip, and handed it back.
“Drink more,” you said.
“You just drank half of it.”
“I am medically qualified.”
“You’re a vet student.”
“I know bodies.”
“That is not comforting in context.”
Your eyes flicked over him then, quick but not quick enough.
His shirt clinging at the chest from sweat. Forearms dusty. Gloves tucked in his back pocket. Your mouth curved slightly before you could stop it.
Logan caught it, “What?”
“Nothin’.”
“That’s a face.”
“I have a normal face.”
“You absolutely do not.”
You stepped closer still, your fingers brushing the back of his wrist as you reached for the twine. It was the lightest touch, almost accidental, except nothing about you ever felt accidental to him.
“You look useful,” you said softly.
His stomach tightened, “Useful?”
“Mhm.” You dragged your fingers once over the back of his hand before letting go, “Mama’s side loves useful.”
“Do you?”
You looked up at him through your lashes, dusty and damp and far too pleased with yourself, “I love many things.”
Then Travis called your name from the barn, and you were gone again, taking the hose with you. Theo appeared beside Logan two seconds later and took one look at his face.
“That gets worse,” he said.
Logan blinked, “What does?”
“The drive-by affection.”
Bennett nodded, coming up behind them, “You start expecting it.”
Theo sighed. “And then one day she walks past without kissing you because she’s holding a chicken or a clipboard or rage, and suddenly you’re the fool standing by a table wondering what happened to romance.”
Logan looked toward the direction you had gone, smiling before he could stop himself.
“Yeah,” Bennett said, “Already bad.”
By late morning, the sun had pushed everyone sensible into shade or denial. Logan ended up at the partners table on the side porch, folding programmes because Sarah had apparently designed them herself and now trusted approximately four people on the property to crease them properly.
“Logan,” Sarah said, hovering over his shoulder.
He paused mid-fold, “Yeah?”
“That is almost correct.”
He looked down at the programme, “Almost?”
“The edge is flirting with wrong.”
“Paper can flirt?”
“You’re dating my sister. You know objects can have energy.”
“That’s unfortunately true,” you said from the kitchen doorway.
The crate in your arms was emanating a high, frantic, peeping chorus that turned six heads at once. You looked furious at what was in your hold.
Logan stared, “Are those birds?”
“They are chicks,” you said, with the strained patience of a woman who had been handed one more living thing than the day had budgeted for, “Because Aunt Maribel thought they would be useful.”
Maribel looked up from the end of the table, serene behind her iced tea, “They will be.”
“This is a horse ranch.”
“It is a ranch. Diversification is healthy.”
“These are pocket poultry.”
“They were on the way.”
“They were not on anyone’s way. You brought them in a hatbox.”
“It was ventilated.”
Sarah leaned over the crate, delighted, “Oh my God, they’re tiny.”
“Do not bond with them,” you said, “I need them in the temporary brooder by the garden shed, but Travis just texted me that the mare from north pasture is warm to the touch, and Mama needs me in the south beds again because the zinnias are apparently still pursuing death, and if one more person hands me a living creature, I am going to become one.”
Logan stood before he thought about it, “I know where the garden shed is.”
You looked at him.
He held out his hands.,“We were just heading that way for the lantern hooks.”
“You know where the brooder is?”
“I know where the shed is. Brooder sounds like something I can identify with some hope.”
Sarah made a noise, but you kept staring at him, something shifting in your face that made him feel like he had done something more impressive than remembering the location of a shed.
“You’re sure?” you asked.
“Give me the tiny birds.”
Your mouth parted, then closed.
For half a second, you looked at him with such sudden, inconvenient warmth that Logan nearly forgot there were ten people in the kitchen and twenty chicks between you.
Then you passed him the crate carefully.
“They need to go in the brooder with the red heat lamp, not the white storage bin, because the white storage bin has seed packets in it, and if Hugh sees them, he’ll think it’s a snack container.”
“Hugh eats seed packets?”
“Hugh eats anything if it’s labelled right.”
From the far side of the kitchen, Hugh called, “I can still hear you.”
“Then stop eating decorative things,” you called back.
Logan adjusted the crate against his side. The chicks peeped louder in protest, “Red heat lamp. Not white bin. Don’t let Hugh name one.”
“Exactly.”
A voice from the back porch yelled, “Are you done flirting with your man, or is the horse healing itself?”
You turned toward the door, “I am coming!”
Sarah collapsed against the table, laughing.
You stepped closer to Logan, grabbed his face in both hands because your hands were finally free, and kissed him quickly on the mouth, then the cheek, then the bridge of his nose in a rapid sequence that made Theo cough into his fist.
“I love you,” you said, “Thank you. Don’t drop them.”
“I won’t. I love you too.”
“If Maribel tells you they’re useful, don’t believe her.”
“I’m right here,” Maribel said.
“I know.”
Then you were gone before Logan could answer, hurrying out through the back door toward the stable yard while someone shouted another question at you from across the porch.
Logan stood in the middle of the kitchen holding a crate of peeping chicks.
Everett, one of the uncles Logan had met twice and still could not place on the family tree, appeared in the doorway, looked into the crate, and sighed.
“Maribel brought chicks again?”
Logan glanced at him, “Again?”
“Every year she claims there’s a reason.”
Maribel lifted her iced tea, “There is.”
“No one has found it yet.”
The garden shed was not far, but distance in this place had already proven deceptive. Logan and Theo carried the chicks and lantern hooks across the yard, past the side porch where two kids were being instructed to sweep and were mostly using the brooms as weapons, past the revived flower beds from yesterday, past a water trough where Ranger, a red heeler with suspicious eyes, paused to examine Logan’s worth.
The dog followed them for thirty feet, then seemed to decide the chicks were a security risk and trotted alongside.
“You’ve got Ranger,” Theo observed.
“Is that good?”
“Too early to tell.”
The brooder was, thankfully, identifiable by the red heat lamp and the fact that three small children had already pressed their faces to the wire like they were witnessing a miracle.
One of them was Caroline. Or Cricket, as she had informed Logan yesterday with the grave authority of a child who had clearly corrected grown men before.
She was crouched near the brooder in little denim overalls, one ribbon hanging loose from her pigtail, both hands braced on her knees as she stared at the chicks with total, devastating seriousness.
Logan slowed with the crate in his arms, “You in charge here?”
Cricket looked up at him.
Then at the crate.
Then back at him.
“I’m supervisin’,” she said.
Theo coughed into his fist.
Logan nodded solemnly, “Good. I could use supervision.”
That seemed to satisfy her. She stood, dusted her tiny hands on her overalls, and pointed toward the brooder, “They go in there. Not the bucket. The bucket has dirt.”
“Important distinction.”
“Last year Hugh put a frog in the wrong bucket.”
Theo murmured, “Of course he did.”
Cricket stepped closer as Logan lowered the crate. The chicks peeped louder, frantic and offended by the entire concept of relocation. Ranger sat three feet away, ears pricked, deeply suspicious of poultry as a category.
“Are they scared?” Cricket asked, voice smaller now.
Logan glanced down at her, then softened, “Maybe a little. New place, lot of noise.”
She nodded like she understood this personally.
Then you appeared behind them, breathless from the stable yard, hair half-fallen from your clip and one sleeve pushed up past your elbow, “There are my babies,” you said.
Logan looked over, “The chicks?”
You blinked at him, then at Cricket, then at Ranger.
“All of you, I guess.”
Cricket immediately held her arms up, “Auntie, he didn’t drop ’em.”
“I see that,” You bent to kiss the top of her head, your voice gentling without you thinking about it, “Thank you for keepin’ him honest, Cricket.”
Logan watched your hand smooth over Caroline’s messy ribbon.
Something in his chest went warm and helpless. Cricket looked at him with sudden suspicion, “You know how to hold a chick?”
“Not professionally.”
“That means no.”
You laughed softly and came around the crate to help him, your shoulder brushing his arm, “Here, baby. Like this.”
The word was for him, casual and sweet, but Logan still felt it low in his ribs.
You reached into the crate carefully, cupping one chick in both hands. It quieted almost instantly, tucked against your palm in a tiny puff of yellow down. Caroline’s eyes went enormous.
“Gentle,” you murmured.
“I am gentle,” Cricket whispered, offended by the implication.
“I know, honey.” You smiled, “Just remindin’ everybody else.”
Logan looked down at the chick, then at your hands, then at your face.
You caught him staring, “What?”
“Nothing.”
Your cheeks warmed, but your smile stayed soft, “You’re doin’ that face again.”
“What face?”
“The one where you look like you’re thinkin’ too hard.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Cricket, still watching the chick, said, “Grown-ups lie a lot.”
Theo laughed so hard he had to turn away.
You bit your lip, fighting your own smile, and Logan looked at Caroline with a betrayed sort of respect, “Noted,” he said.
Cricket nodded, “Good.”
By lunch, Logan understood why dinner the night before had felt like both a feast and a warning. This family did not rest so much as change categories of effort.
Lunch was set out casually in the shade, sandwiches, fruit, leftover biscuits, chips, cold chicken, pitchers of tea and lemonade. People sat on porch steps, benches, folding chairs, overturned crates. The dogs moved through the groups with a level of strategy that suggested generations of selective breeding for emotional manipulation.
Biscuit found Logan within three minutes.
“Of course,” you said, dropping onto the step beside him with a plate balanced on your knees.
Logan looked down as the old beagle flopped across his boot, “He’s persistent.”
“He’s embarrassing me.”
“How?”
“By validatin’ you.”
Logan took the apple slice you offered him before you could put it on your own plate, “Maybe he has taste.”
“He once ate a beeswax candle.”
“Complex palate.”
You leaned your shoulder into his.
You were dusty, warm, and beautiful, and it made him want to put his hand on the back of your neck and keep it there. Your hair had been clipped up badly, pieces falling out around your face. There was still a damp mark near your waist where, based on your expression, the hose had betrayed you. You looked tired and bright and entirely in your element.
“You surviving?” you asked.
“Yeah.”
“Lying?”
“No.” He paused, “Maybe a little.”
You laughed softly, “That’s normal.”
“I delivered chicks.”
“You were very brave.”
“I watered flowers.”
“You were supervised.”
“I’ve been told I’m big and should eat.”
“That was Camille. She says that to everyone above five-nine.”
“I fixed a hinge.”
Your eyes flicked to him, pleased, “Did you?”
“Everett found out I own tools.”
“Oh, no.”
“That bad?”
“He’ll propose a truck sound to you by tomorrow.”
“He already did yesterday.”
You nodded gravely, “Then you’re doomed.”
A shout came from across the yard where Hugh was standing with one boot on a fence rail, gesturing with a sandwich.
“Boston! You ever play polo?”
Logan opened his mouth, but you clamped a hand over it, “No,” you shouted back.
Hugh grinned, “Didn’t ask you.”
“He says no.”
Logan looked at you over your hand, amused.
“You,” you said quietly, “know enough not to lie.”
He gently pulled your hand away, “I was going to say no.”
“Were you?”
“I was going to say I’ve seen horses.”
“That is not better.”
Hugh called, “We’ll start you on a slow pony!”
Sarah, from somewhere behind him, yelled, “That is what he says before bloodshed!”
Your father’s voice followed, calm and final, “Hugh, leave Logan alone.”
Hugh dropped his hands, “Everyone here hates growth.”
You smiled into your lemonade.
Logan watched you for a second, then leaned in and kissed your temple, “I thought you were exaggerating.”
“About what?”
“All of this.”
You looked out over the yard: the tables half-set, the horses moving beyond the fence, the cousins arguing, the partners eating in a tired cluster, your mother pointing toward the flower beds with a sandwich in hand, your father listening to a ranch hand near the gate, Nana under the porch shade like a queen in exile, Grandad reading the schedule as if it had disappointed him.
“I probably was,” you said.
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
Your smile turned softer, “Wait until Tuesday.”
“What’s Tuesday?”
“Allocations.”
“For what?”
You patted his knee, “Don’t worry about it.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Biscuit sneezed on his boot.
Logan looked down, “Even the dog knows something.”
“The dog always knows something.”
The afternoon was slower only in the sense that fewer people were actively shouting.
The heat pressed harder after lunch, sending some tasks indoors and others into pockets of shade. Logan spent an hour at the partners table folding programmes with Sarah hovering like a design tyrant. He spent another half hour helping Bennett and Theo shift a stack of folding chairs into the small barn, where Wednesday’s scholarship displays would be set. The converted space still smelled faintly of wood, hay, and polish, and even half-finished, Logan could see what it would become, long tables under string lights, old beams, open doors to the evening, framed photos waiting to be hung, ribbons and saddles and signs that made the family history look curated without making it fake.
Maddie was there, standing beside a grey horse with intelligent eyes and a scar near one knee, speaking quietly to a young groom while Jordan watched from a few feet away.
Logan paused at the doorway, chairs in hand.
“That the aftercare demo?” Bennett asked.
Maddie looked over, “Part of it. This is Foxglove.”
The horse flicked an ear.
“Ex-racer?” Logan asked.
Maddie’s expression warmed, “Yes. He hated retirement until he realised retirement involved peppermints and being admired.”
Jordan said, “He still hates inefficient handling.”
Maddie turned to him, “He hates your tone.”
Jordan looked at the horse.
The horse looked back.
Logan was almost certain the horse won.
Maddie smiled at him, “You’re doing pole bending, aren’t you?”
Logan stilled, “I’m doing what?”
Bennett made a low noise that sounded like pity.
Jordan looked at Logan for one brief second, then back at the horse, “No one told him?”
“Told me what?”
Maddie’s smile widened by a fraction, “Maybe wait for Tuesday.”
Logan looked at Bennett.
Bennett set down the chairs, “Rule three.”
Logan stared at him. “Stretch?”
“Stretch.”
That was how the day went- work, warning, work, affection, work, another warning disguised as a joke.
By five, Logan had enough dust on his boots to feel like he had earned them. His shoulders were tight from lifting and carrying. His shirt had been sweated through and dried twice. His phone contained three messages from Tucker asking whether he had been sacrificed yet, one from Garrett saying, Do not let them put you on a horse without your girl present, and one from Dean that simply read, cowboy logan era? send proof.
Logan sent back a photo of Biscuit lying across his boot.
Dean replied immediately.
that dog looks like he knows your secrets.
Logan glanced down at Biscuit, who was asleep again, this time against a porch post like he had been overcome by the moral weight of attachment.
Accurate, maybe.
The first official work day ended the way it had begun, with your mother clapping once and making the entire property shift categories.
“Enough,” she called from the back porch, voice carrying over the yard, “Everyone who is not necessary to animals, irrigation, or dinner emergencies, go clean yourselves. We are eating outside tonight because I refuse to waste this weather and because the dining room is full of boxes someone was supposed to move.”
Theo, beside Logan, whispered, “Someone is Hugh.”
“I heard that,” Hugh called.
“Then move boxes,” your mother said.
Hugh pointed at Logan, “Boston has arms.”
Your father did not even look up from speaking to Travis, “Boston has been useful all day. You have been ornamental since three.”
Sarah made a wounded sympathetic face at Hugh, “Pretty, though.”
Hugh threw a napkin at her.
It missed.
You appeared at Logan’s side then, sudden and warm, your shoulder brushing his arm, “You look dusty.”
“You look like you fought a hose.”
“I won.”
“There’s water on your shirt.”
“Battle scars.”
His eyes dropped before he could stop them.
The red cotton of your top had dried mostly clean but still clung in one place near your waist, and he hated himself only a little for noticing.
You saw him notice, mouth curving slowly, “John.”
He looked back up, “What?”
“We are surrounded by my family.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“My face is innocent.”
“My sister already used that lie today.”
You stepped closer anyway, because you were merciful or cruel, and brushed dust off his shoulder with your fingertips, “Shower before dinner,” you said.
“Yes, boss.”
“Don’t encourage Mama’s side by lookin’ handsome while carrying things tomorrow.”
“I can’t control that.”
“You absolutely can. Slouch.”
“I play hockey. I don’t know how.”
You laughed, quick and unguarded, and leaned up to kiss him once.
Your mouth brushed his, soft and tasting faintly of lemonade, and for one second, the whole yard narrowed again. Then Sarah yelled, “Stop kissing near the programme boxes. It’s affecting the brand heritage.”
You pulled away, laughing into Logan’s chest.
Logan looked over your head at Sarah, “Brand heritage?”
Sarah lifted both hands, “It is not content.”
You turned, still tucked against Logan’s side, “Nobody said content.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking you’re annoying.”
“That too.”
The room felt smaller when the door shut behind you.
Maybe it was the heat still clinging to both of you from outside, or the dust on your boots, or the fact that the whole ranch seemed to hum through the walls even when you were alone. Voices moved somewhere down the hall. A door closed. Someone laughed from the porch below. The shower waited through the open bathroom door, already seeming like the responsible choice.
You dropped your towel onto the bed and started unbuttoning your shorts.
“We have twenty minutes,” you said.
Logan leaned back against the door, watching you with the kind of quiet that was never really quiet.
You looked up, “John.”
“What?”
“You’re doing the face again.”
“I have a normal face.”
“You have a face that says you’ve been thinking unhelpful thoughts since the hose incident.”
His mouth twitched.
You slid the shorts down your legs and stepped out of them, standing there in your little cotton underwear and the bra you had worn under your work shirt, skin still warm, hair half-fallen from its clip, a faint smear of dust on one thigh. Logan’s eyes followed every inch like he was trying to be respectful and losing by degrees.
“You were yelling at flowers,” he said finally.
“I was watering zinnias.”
“You told them to stop being dramatic.”
“They were being dramatic.”
“You had a hose over your shoulder like you were going into battle.”
“I won.”
“I know,” His voice dropped, “That was the problem.”
Your stomach warmed.
He pushed off the door and crossed the room slowly, already pulling his shirt over his head. His skin was sun-warm and dusty, his hair a mess from the day, belt half-undone. He looked tired in the good way, the way that came from being used properly, from lifting and carrying and sweating under the Texas sun until the ranch had left proof of itself on him.
“You like me bossy and covered in hose water?” you asked, softer than you meant to.
His hands found your waist, “I like you here.”
You blinked up at him, the teasing catching somewhere behind your ribs, “Here?”
“Yeah,” His thumbs moved over your skin, slow and rough from work gloves, dragging little half-circles into the soft place above your hips, “With the animals. Your family. Telling everyone what to do like you own the place.”
“I do not own the place.”
“Feels like you do.”
“That’s because you’re easy to intimidate.”
“No,” He stepped closer, backing you gently until your shoulders met the bathroom door, “It’s because everyone listens when you talk.”
The breath left you all at once.
He kissed you before you could answer, one hand sliding up to the back of your neck, the other braced at your waist. It was not sweet in the way his kisses sometimes were when he was trying to slow you both down. It was hot from the start, deep and full of the whole day’s restraint. The glances across the yard. Your fingers brushing his wrist when you passed him on the porch. The way he had watched you with the pony, the chicks, the flowers, your family, and had apparently been collecting all of it somewhere inside him until he could not keep it still anymore.
Your hands went to his hair.
He made a low sound against your mouth.
“Quiet,” you whispered.
His laugh brushed your lips, “You first.”
“You’re the one startin’ things.”
“You took your shorts off.”
“To shower.”
“Yeah?” His hand slipped down your side, over your hip, catching beneath your thigh. His fingers spread there, palm hot against bare skin, thumb pressing into the crease where your thigh met your hip, “Then why are you looking at me like that?”
You opened your mouth.
Nothing clever came out. His smile softened, but not for long, because you tugged his hair just enough to pull his mouth back to yours and he forgot himself beautifully. His body pressed yours into the door, warm skin and hard muscle, his boxers rough against the inside of your thigh as he stepped between your legs. The contact made your breath break.
Logan felt it, his hands found your hips properly, fingers digging in with a little less patience, “There?”
You should have said shower.
You should have said dinner.
You should have said something responsible about thin walls and family and the fact that Sarah had the instincts of a fox near scandal.
Instead, you nodded.
He shifted his thigh between yours.
Your eyes fluttered.
“Use your words,” he murmured, mouth at your jaw.
“Yes.”
That was all he needed.
His hands tightened at your hips and guided you down against him, slow at first, a firm drag of cotton and heat over the hard muscle of his thigh. Your head tipped back against the door with a soft thud, and he kissed your throat immediately, catching the sound you made before it could become too much. His fingers flexed with the motion, not just holding you but leading you into it, pulling your hips forward, then back, then forward again until your body understood the rhythm he wanted from you.
“Quiet,” he reminded you, but his voice was already rough.
You gripped his hair harder, “Then stop lookin’ so pleased with yourself.”
“Can’t,” he moved your hips again, rougher this time, grinding you down against him with enough pressure that your knees nearly gave, “You feel what you’re doing?”
You did. You could feel everything. The pressure of his thigh. The damp heat gathering between your legs. The door cool at your back. His fingers bruising and careful all at once, one hand low at your hip, the other sliding up your ribs with a maddening lack of hurry, tracing the line of your side until his thumb brushed the underside of your breast.
You could feel the whole house around you, full of people and noise and family, close enough to make every breath risky and far enough that Logan’s body felt like the only solid thing in the room.
“Logan,” you breathed.
His hand slipped under the cup of your bra, calloused thumb finding your nipple and circling with slow, deliberate pressure. Your hips stuttered against his thigh.
“I know,” he murmured.
“You don’t.”
“I do,” His mouth brushed your ear as his thumb dragged over you again, firmer this time, “Spent all day watching you. With the horses, with the chicks, with that damn hose.”
You tried to laugh, but it came out as a whimper when he pinched lightly, rolling your nipple between his thumb and forefinger while his other hand tugged your hips into another slow, dirty grind.
He went still for half a second.
Then his hand moved again, “baby,” he whispered, almost like a warning.
You arched into him before you could stop yourself, spine leaving the door, chest pressing into his palm, your fingers twisting in his hair so hard he sucked in a breath against your neck.
His forehead dropped briefly to your shoulder, his breath hot and uneven against your skin, “Fuck.”
“You said quiet.”
“You’re making that difficult.”
“You’re the one with your hands on me.”
“Yeah,” His fingers tightened at your breast, thumb brushing again, making your hips jerk against his thigh, “I know.”
The words were too low. Too pleased. Too wrecked around the edges.
You pulled his hair until his mouth found yours again, messier this time, all teeth and breath and the taste of the lemonade you had both been drinking outside. He swallowed your sounds like he knew they belonged to him, one hand at your breast, the other guiding your hips in a rhythm that made the room blur at the edges. It was not enough and too much at once, the friction building fast because the day had left you sensitive, because Logan knew how to angle his thigh just right, because every time you tried to slow down, his hands encouraged you back into it.
His hand slipped from your breast to your back, unclasping your bra with a practised flick that should not have been possible when both of you were supposed to be hurrying. The straps loosened over your shoulders. He dragged one down with his teeth, then followed the path with his mouth, lips hot against your collarbone, the upper curve of your breast, the sensitive skin his thumb had already made tender.
You bit down on the heel of your hand.
He saw.
His eyes lifted to yours, dark and focused, “Look at me,” he said.
You shook your head against the door, eyes squeezed shut.
His hand left your hip and came to your jaw, gentle but firm, thumb pressing beneath your chin to tilt your face down to his, “Cherry.”
That did it.
Your eyes opened.
He was right there. Sun on his cheeks, dust still at his temple, hair wrecked from your fingers, mouth swollen from yours. He looked as desperate as you felt, like he had started this thinking he could control it and had realised somewhere between your first whimper and the way your body rolled against his that he was in just as much trouble.
“There you go,” he murmured.
Your whole body went hot, “That’s mean,” you whispered.
His mouth curved. “A little.”
“You like bein’ mean.”
“With you?” His thumb brushed your cheek, “Only when you look at me like that.”
Your breath caught. His hands moved to your hips again and pulled you harder against his thigh, the sound that escaped you was too loud.
His palm covered your mouth instantly.
Both of you froze.
Voices passed in the hallway.
You stared at each other. Logan’s eyes were dark, his breathing heavy. His palm stayed over your mouth, warm and steady, while his other hand held your hip with careful restraint, thumb moving once over the bone like he was reminding you he had you. The footsteps moved past the door. Someone laughed farther away. A door shut.
Only then did his thumb stroke once over your cheek.
“You okay?” he whispered.
You nodded against his hand.
His eyes searched yours.
You nodded again, fingers closing around his wrist, not pulling him away. Holding him there. Something in his face shifted. Heat, yes, but softness under it. The kind that always undid you worse than the rest.
He lowered his mouth to your ear, “Then keep quiet for me.”
Oh. Your body answered so quickly it was embarrassing.
He started moving you again, slower now, deeper, controlling every roll of your hips with his hand over your mouth and his thigh pressed exactly where you needed him. His fingers at your hip changed from guiding to gripping, dragging you down with more force each time your movements began to falter. Your head fell back against the door. Your fingers tightened in his hair, tugging, then smoothing, then tugging again when the pressure built too sharp.
Logan watched every second, jaw clenched, his own control fraying in the way he shifted against you, the way his breath caught whenever your hips stuttered, the way he pressed his thigh up harder as if he needed to feel you fall apart against him.
“That’s it,” he breathed, “Just like that.”
You whimpered against his palm.
“I know,” His voice was rough now, almost strained, “I’ve got you.”
It hit you harder because he was holding you through it.
Because the world outside the door kept moving.
Because dinner was waiting.
Because your family was everywhere.
And still Logan had made this tiny, impossible pocket of heat and trust and his hands on your body. Your orgasm rolled up slow and then all at once, your thighs tightening around his, body shuddering against the door as he kept his hand over your mouth and his forehead pressed to yours.
He held you there until the worst of the shaking passed.
Then he kissed your temple.
Soft.
Almost apologetic.
You were still trying to breathe when a knock landed on the door.
Both of you went rigid.
Hugh’s voice came through, bright and horrible. “Dinner in ten. If anyone is naked, that’s between you and God, but Mama says punctuality is a family value.”
You closed your eyes.
Logan’s shoulders shook once.
“Hugh,” you called, voice miraculously steady, “go away.”
“I have done my civic duty.”
His footsteps retreated down the hallway.
For a second, neither of you moved.
Then Logan dropped his forehead against your shoulder and started laughing under his breath, helpless and warm and still a little wrecked.
You pushed weakly at his chest, “Shower.”
He lifted his head, eyes still dark, mouth curved, “Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“I thought we were timing things efficiently.”
“You lost efficiency privileges.”
“You were the one—”
You pointed at him. “Do not finish that sentence unless you want to sleep with Biscuit.”
He kissed your finger.
Then your wrist.
Then, because he was apparently committed to making you late and insane, the inside of your palm.
“Logan.”
“Shower,” he agreed, though he was still smiling.
You stepped away on unsteady legs and immediately had to grab his arm. His smile softened into something dangerously fond.
“Don’t,” you warned.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought it loudly.”
He brushed your hair back from your face, thumb grazing your flushed cheek, “You look pretty.”
You stared at him, “That’s worse.”
“I know.”
The shower was quick after that.
Mostly quick.
There was one moment where he pressed you against the tile and kissed you like he was trying to finish a thought Hugh had interrupted, but you shoved shampoo into his hand and told him to be useful. By the time you both made it back into the bedroom, damp and cleaner and only slightly ruined, the hallway had gone quieter.
You pulled on a sundress in record time while Logan buttoned his shirt with the concentration of a man still recovering from his own bad decisions. You fixed your hair in the mirror, twisted the front pieces back, dabbed on cherry balm, and tried to make your face look like you had not just come apart against your boyfriend’s thigh ten minutes before dinner.
Logan came up behind you, adjusting his collar.
There was a red mark low on his neck.
You froze.
His eyes narrowed, “What?”
You turned slowly, “Nothing.”
“What did you do?”
“I expressed myself.”
He looked in the mirror and found the mark.
His face changed, “Cherry.”
“You have a collar.”
“Your family—”
“You’ll live.”
He stared at it for one more second, then at you, and the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
“You’re smiling,” you said.
“No, I’m not.”
“You like it.”
“I like you.”
“That is not a denial.”
He leaned down and kissed your shoulder, careful this time, sweet enough to make the heat in you turn soft, “Dinner?”
You took his hand, “Dinner.”
As you opened the door, Sarah appeared at the end of the hallway with a glass of iced tea and one eyebrow raised.
You stared at her. She stared back. Then her eyes dropped to Logan’s collar.
Logan went very still.
Sarah took one slow sip of iced tea, “I am choosing,” she said, “inner peace.”
You pointed down the hallway, “Go.”
She smiled sweetly, “Mama says five minutes.”
“Sarah.”
“Five minutes,” she sang, already walking away.
Logan looked at you.
You looked at him. Then both of you started laughing, quiet and breathless, as you hurried after her toward dinner.
The evening meal on Monday was less formal than Sunday’s dinner and somehow louder.
Long tables were set outside under the porch lanterns and along the edge of the yard, mismatched chairs pulled together, plates passed family-style, dogs weaving underfoot like small, furry negotiations. The Texas air cooled slowly, heat lifting off the ground in waves as the sky went peach, then lavender, then deep blue over the darkening pastures. Someone had put music on low near the porch. Someone else had started a debate about Friday’s rodeo scoring before the rodeo had even been properly allocated.
Hugh was arguing with a Texas cousin about polo horses. Sarah was telling an aunt that the printed programmes were not to be touched by “sticky children.” Jordan was on the phone for six minutes, returned, and immediately corrected a detail about one of the horses in the scholarship display without needing to be asked. Maddie sat beside him, calm and amused, feeding Foxglove’s story to an older donor who had arrived early and somehow been absorbed into dinner.
Logan sat with the partners this time because you had been pulled two chairs down by Travis to discuss the warm mare and then by your mother to identify which cousins could be trusted with watering cans. He could still see you. That seemed to be the arrangement of the day: separate currents, same river.
“You did well,” Maribel said, handing him a bowl of potatoes.
Logan blinked, “At what?”
“Day one.”
Theo raised his glass, “You made it to dinner.”
Bennett nodded, “And still have both boots.”
“Low bar,” Theo said.
“Important bar,” Bennett replied.
Maribel leaned around Theo, “Biscuit likes him.”
“Biscuit liked him yesterday,” Theo said.
“Yesterday was lust. Today is commitment.”
Logan almost choked on his water. Across the table, you looked over, saw his expression, and immediately narrowed your eyes at the partners, “What are you saying to him?”
“Nothing,” Maribel said.
“You are all terrible liars.”
“Necessary skill,” Bennett said.
A small child ran between the tables with a bread roll in one hand and a toy horse in the other. Behind him, a woman called, “Henry, if you drop that in the dirt, you are eating dirt bread!”
Henry sped up.
Logan watched as your mother, without breaking conversation with your father, caught the child by the back of his shirt, rescued the roll, turned him around, and sent him back to his table with one smooth motion. Your father kept talking like this was normal.
Maybe it was.
By dinner, Logan had been handed enough things that he stopped questioning it.
Plates. Napkins. A basket of rolls. Someone’s hat. A jar of pickles. Biscuit’s leash, though Biscuit himself had not agreed to the concept of being leashed and was currently lying under the table like a retired monarch.
So when a soft, sleepy weight was deposited against his side with no warning, Logan only looked down.
Baby Willa stared back at him.
She was not technically a baby anymore, you had told him, though everyone still called her baby Willa because families had no respect for linear time. She had round cheeks, one little curl stuck to her forehead, and a cracker clutched in her fist with the intensity of a tiny woman preparing for famine.
Logan froze.
Across the table, Sarah grinned.
“Congratulations,” she said, “You’ve been chosen.”
“By who?”
“Willa.”
Willa lifted the cracker toward his mouth.
Logan glanced at you.
You had gone very still beside Travis, a glass of lemonade halfway to your lips, your whole face softening before you could stop it.
“What do I do?” Logan asked carefully.
Your smile came slow and warm, “You take the cracker, baby.”
“I can’t take her cracker.”
“She’s offerin’.”
“It feels important.”
“It is important,” Sarah said, “She doesn’t share with Hugh.”
Hugh, from three seats down, looked wounded, “She shared once.”
“She threw it at your forehead.”
“It still made contact.”
Willa pushed the cracker harder against Logan’s hand.
So Logan accepted it with the seriousness of a man signing a treaty, “Thank you.”
Willa stared at him. Then patted his cheek with one sticky hand.
Your mouth tucked into the softest smile he had seen from you all day. Logan looked at you over Willa’s curls, “What?”
“Nothin’.”
“That’s not nothing.”
“It is.”
But your voice had gone a little sweet around the edges, your accent slipping softer with the tiredness of the day. You reached over and wiped a crumb from Willa’s chin with your thumb, then brushed the same hand lightly over Logan’s wrist.
“You look real comfortable there,” you murmured.
His chest did something stupid.
Willa leaned against him like she had settled the matter. Across the table, Maribel raised her iced tea, “Biscuit and Willa in one day. That’s serious.”
Logan looked down at the toddler now trying to feed him a second cracker.
“I’m starting to understand that.”
You smiled into your lemonade, “Cowboy Week gets you one way or another.”
Your family, Logan was learning, did not divide love and labour cleanly. They fed while scolding, kissed while assigning, teased while helping, asked about futures while handing over boxes. If they liked you, they used you. If they trusted you, they gave you something breakable. A crate of chicks. A table. A dog. A toddler. A question about your plans.
Their affection was not soft in shape, not always, but it was everywhere once you knew how to look.
After dinner, when the plates were mostly cleared and the younger kids had begun running in sleepy circles that suggested bedtime had become aspirational, you found your way back to him.
He was sitting on the porch steps with one beer, Biscuit asleep against his thigh, Ranger lying three feet away as if still deciding whether he approved. Bennett and Everett were talking beside him about a tractor part. Logan was following most of it, which felt like a victory.
You stopped at the top of the steps and looked down, “Oh, my God.”
Logan glanced up, “What?”
“You have two.”
He looked down at Biscuit, then Ranger, “They’re not both on me.”
“Ranger is within emotional range.”
Everett nodded, “That one doesn’t lie near strangers.”
Logan looked at the red heeler.
Ranger looked back, unimpressed.
You sat down one step above Logan, your knees on either side of his shoulders, and rested your hands lightly on his hair. The touch was casual enough that anyone could see it and intimate enough that his chest warmed under it.
“You’re collecting dogs,” you said.
“They’re collecting me.”
“That’s worse.”
Bennett lifted his beer, “Happens.”
Theo, from a chair nearby, called, “By Wednesday he’ll have pocket treats.”
“I will not,” Logan said.
Maribel walked past and dropped a small paper-wrapped biscuit into his shirt pocket without slowing.
You gasped, “Maribel.”
“What? Biscuit has blood sugar.”
Logan pulled the biscuit from his pocket and stared at it.
You leaned down near his ear, “Do not feed him at the table.”
“We’re not at the table.”
“That is the kind of reasoning that creates monsters.”
Biscuit opened one eye. Logan broke off a tiny piece anyway.
You sighed like he had disappointed generations of training.
Later, when the night settled properly and the lanterns made warm pools of light across the porch, you sat beside him instead of above him. Your shoulder tucked into his arm, your knee pressed to his. The conversations around you loosened with beer and exhaustion. Someone brought out leftover cobbler. Someone else started telling a story about the year Hugh fell off a pony and blamed the moon. Hugh objected from across the porch. Nana corrected the details. Grandad corrected Nana. Sarah filmed none of it and claimed this was restraint.
Logan did not say much.
He listened. Laughed when you laughed. Accepted a second plate because your mother looked at him like refusing would damage relations. Answered your father’s questions about preseason training, strength work, and whether he was taking proper care of his knees with more honesty than he expected to give.
Your father listened the way horse people did, Logan thought. To sound, to hesitation, to the part beneath the answer that told you whether something was being managed or ignored.
“You want it badly,” your father said eventually.
Logan looked down at the beer in his hand, “Yeah.”
“Good.”
That was all.
But beside him, you went very still, and he felt the moment land for you too.
Your father took a drink, then nodded toward the yard, “Tomorrow they’ll start trying to put you on a horse.”
Logan laughed, “I’ve been warned.”
“Listen to Sarah.”
“Sarah?”
Your father’s mouth twitched, “For speed. Cherry for form. Jordan if you want the horse judged more harshly than you. Hugh if you want to end up in a story told for twenty years.”
You leaned forward, “Daddy.”
“He should know.”
“I know enough not to lie,” Logan said.
Your father looked at you, “He does listen.”
You smiled down into your glass, “I know.”
It was nearly midnight when the porch finally began to thin. People drifted toward rooms, guest cottages, barns, late checks, lingering conversations by trucks. You were tucked against his side, warm and sleepy, your head tipping briefly onto his shoulder before you caught yourself.
“Tired?” he asked.
“No.”
“You just fell asleep upright.”
“I was resting my eyes.”
“For two seconds?”
“Efficiently.”
Biscuit, traitor and emotional opportunist, had his chin on Logan’s boot again. Ranger had disappeared at some point, likely to file a report. The lanterns hummed softly with insects. Somewhere beyond the yard, a horse shifted against a fence. The night smelled like dust, grass, smoke, sugar, and the fading heat of a long day.
You looked around the porch, at the last clusters of family, the plates still stacked near the door, the dogs sleeping under chairs, the glow of the kitchen windows.
“So.”
Logan looked at you, “So?”
“Day one.”
“Official day one?”
“Yes.”
He considered, “I carried chicks.”
“You did.”
“Watered flowers.”
“Supervised.”
“Got adopted by a beagle.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Was chosen by Willa.”
“That was serious.”
“Talked about my knees with your dad.”
“He does that.”
“Got warned about Tuesday.”
You turned your face into his shoulder, hiding your smile, “Hm.”
“What happens Tuesday?”
“Allocations.”
“You said that like it’s supposed to mean something.”
“It does.”
“Cherry.”
You lifted your head and kissed him, soft enough that his question disappeared for a second, “Come upstairs.”
He looked at you.
You widened your eyes innocently, “To sleep.”
“Right.”
“Mostly.”
Biscuit sighed loudly, as if disappointed in both of you. You stood, stretching your arms over your head, and Logan watched the movement before he could stop himself.
“John.”
“What?”
“Dogs are present.”
“Biscuit has seen worse.”
“You are impossible.”
“You asked me upstairs.”
“To sleep.”
“Mostly.”
You tried to glare. Failed and took his hand instead.
As you led him inside, stepping carefully around the floorboard Maddie had warned you about, Logan glanced once more toward the porch. Bennett lifted his glass in silent farewell. Theo gave him a thumbs-up that could have meant goodnight or good luck. Maribel, somehow still awake and holding iced tea, smiled like she knew exactly which one.
Upstairs, the blue room waited with its old walls, open window, and infamous bed.
Tomorrow, apparently, came allocations.
Tonight, there was your hand in his, the quiet hall, the soft drag of your thumb over his knuckles, and the feeling that Cowboy Week was not simply something he was surviving anymore.
It was something that had already begun to make room for him.
not because he knows it makes you flustered, but because he genuinely thinks there's nothing prettier than looking at you while you're talking. if you're telling him about your day, rambling about a class, or explaining something you're excited about, he's completely focused on you. his eyes never leave yours, and somehow that only makes you more nervous.
you've always been a little shy.
even now, almost a year into your relationship, you still struggle to hold his gaze for more than a few seconds before you're looking down at your lap with a little smile tugging at your lips.
the first time he noticed, he honestly thought it was adorable. "baby."
you looked up from your coffee with a quiet hum. the second your eyes met his, your cheeks started warming.
he smiled to himself. "ah, there she is."
"what?" you asked quietly, your eyes looking away, then back at him. "just wanted you to look at me” he smiles.
you let out a giggle before looking back down at your cup. "you're so weird."
he leaned his elbows onto the table, resting his chin in his hand as he continued smiling at you. "you're just really pretty."
your face only got warmer. "john.."
"what?" he asked innocently, his eyes big as he looked at you. "i'm being serious, honey."
you shook your head, looking down to hide your little smile, while he laughed softly to himself. after that, it became something he noticed all the time.
whenever the two of you were sitting together, he'd catch himself watching you instead of whatever movie or show was playing in the background. if you looked over and caught him, he'd never look away. he'd just smile that pretty smile that made your stomach flip every single time. "why are you looking at me like that?"
"'cause i love looking at you, duh" he said so casually.
"you're making me feel nervous, john." you barely got out as you became flustered.
"good thing i'm not planning on stopping."
there was one specific evening, the two of you were curled up on his bed after dinner, your head resting against his shoulder while he played with your hand, the tips of fingers running over your freshly done nails. you looked up to tell him something, only to find him already looking down at you.
not saying anything. just..looking. his thumb kept slowly rubbing over the back of your hand while his eyes stayed on yours. he seemed so serious about it too.
"what is it?" you whispered.
he smiled widely. "nothin, baby'."
"then why are you staring at me?"
he shrugged a little, brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear. "because i missed you today. like a lot. i literally could not stop thinking about you for even a minute."
you felt your heart melt, this boy literally had you down bad for him, "you saw me this morning."
"yeah," he murmured, still smiling, "and then i had to wait a six whole hours to see you again."
you laughed quietly, shaking your head. "you're literally so dramatic."
he reached up, gently tilting your chin with two fingers when you instinctively looked away again. his finger traced your cheek, he mumbled under his breath quietly, “so fucking pretty.”
your eyes slowly found his once more. you tried so hard to keep looking at him, but after a few seconds you couldn't help smiling and dropping your gaze again.
he laughed under his breath before leaning down to press the softest kiss against your forehead.
"you know," he whispered, "one day you're actually gonna look at me for longer than five seconds."
you smiled into his hoodie. "don't get your hopes up, johnny."
he wrapped both arms around you, pulling you impossibly closer until your cheek was tucked against his chest. "i've got forever to wait, sweetheart."
~ ~ ~
based off this request! i literally love writing john logan fluff sooo much 🥺🥰
blurb: a broken down car. boston. one phone call to your ex. a loft apartment. you did not expect this much from your weekend trip.
warnings: fem!reader, exes to lovers, angst but happy ending, alcohol, smut, oral (f. receiving), king of yearning john logan, celibate!logan, cumming untouched (m.)
“If your car ever needs a tune up, call me.”
The memory of Logan’s words was a harsh bite of mockery sneaking up on you in the middle of a surprise Boston rain shower, soaking you down to a lesser person.
Your thumb hovered over his contact name on your phone. The pitter patter of the rain hitting your screen like an underlining meant to emphasize his existence.
my hockey boy ❤️🏒
You hadn’t bothered to change it after the breakup. But frankly, that wasn’t entirely true.
You hadn’t come around to changing it. And if you’re really being honest—something you only do on Wednesdays at 4 pm with your therapist—you hadn’t changed it because you hoped that you wouldn’t have to.
You hoped that maybe keeping him as your hockey boy meant that he’d come back into your life and stay that way.
Now, as the sky continued to rumble and weep above, you prayed that Logan’s generosity was not limited to your relationship. And tonight, you were going to test that.
The phone rang three times before the call connected.
“Hello?” His voice was raspy, laced with more perplexity than anything else.
You closed your eyes. You hadn’t heard his voice in a year. “Hey, Logan?”
He could hear the faint yet rhythmic thuds of rain hitting your car window through the speaker. You had gone back inside your car to make this phone call.
“Is everything okay?”
He sounded concerned. That’s good, you thought. That means he cares.
You took a deep breath, “No, I…I’m not okay. My car stopped working and I’m stuck in the middle of this rain storm.”
“You’re in Hastings?” He asked.
You swallowed. “Boston.”
The line went so quiet you had to check your screen to make sure you hadn’t been disconnected.
Then, “You’re here in Boston?”
You bit your bottom lip, “Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“Boston Common.”
You heard the soft metallic jingle of keys and your heart skipped a beat at the implication. You almost wanted to take it back, undo this call, pretend it never happened.
“Listen, Logan, I don’t know where you live. You could be miles away from where I am, but I didn’t know who else to call—”
“I will be there in 10 minutes. Do not leave your car, alright?”
Your heartbeat spiked. For a moment, you felt like a selfish monster—making him leave his home, reopening a chapter in his life he might’ve wanted to close, clawing your way back in on your terms. Logan had always been too kind for his own good.
He called your name softly and you snapped out of it.
“You hear me?” He repeated.
“Yes, I won’t leave my car.”
“And lock your doors.”
You pressed the button on your car door.
After he hung up, you did nothing but stare out your window. You put the windshield wipers to tedious work, watching as they slid water across the glass in futile efforts.
You didn’t notice the time passing. And you certainly didn’t notice Logan’s figure until his knock on your window made you jump out of your skin.
You quickly unlocked and pushed your door open. Logan was drenched. His cotton t-shirt clung to his torso, catching the ridges enough to leave an imprint of his abs. Droplets of rain dripped from his brown locks, falling and sticking to his forehead. He looked like a vision.
Logan helped you out your car, guiding you with a strong arm behind your back—not touching—towards his jeep. He opened the passenger door and made sure you settled inside before closing it and going around to his side of the car.
You were breathing heavily, still recovering from the heavy downpour. When Logan got in and shut the door behind him, you looked over.
He threw his head back to push the wet strands of hair out of his face. When he turned to face you, you felt a dip in your stomach.
“I’m really sorry,” you said right away.
He held his hand up to stop your apology. “Are you alright? Did you leave anything important in your car?”
You shook your head. Phone, wallet, keys. All tucked safely—albeit sodden—in your deep coat pockets.
He shifted the gear out of park and drove the two of you away from the park.
The car ride was silent. The ambience of the outside storm filled enough gaps that should have been filled with conversation.
God, when was the last time you had a conversation with Logan?
It must’ve been junior year for you. He had just moved to Boston after being drafted by the Bruins, got a place of his own, playing hockey professionally like he always wanted. And you were back at Briar, studying hard, doing long distance with him, sharing dreams whenever he came to visit you on campus.
“It needs to be a loft apartment.”
“Why a loft?” Logan furrowed his brows.
“Fun downstairs, cozy upstairs,” you replied.
He smiled and nodded along, “Okay.”
“With floor to ceiling windows, so we can always have a view.”
His arms wrapped around you, “And what view is that?”
“Fenway Park.”
Logan rolled his eyes and buried his face in your neck, making you squeal. “You baseball brat! I can’t believe you’re choosing that over hockey.”
The stubble on his handsome face made you ticklish, squirming in his hold. “I never even heard of the Bruins before I met you!”
He gasped in mock betrayal, “Oh you’re gonna pay for that, Red Sox masshole!”
Your laughter filled the air as Logan attacked your neck with kisses and tickles.
It had been going so well.
Until it wasn’t.
Long distance was hard. It wasn’t gracious or patient, not easy on fragile hearts such as yours. It wasn’t the type to harbor kindness that saved you from the rain despite everything.
No, it was cruel, and you never wanted your love for Logan to be that. He was a rising star in the hockey world. He deserved so much. So much more than a college girlfriend who lived away, more than FaceTimes every night and short weekend trips whenever your schedules aligned—like the sun and moon trying to meet.
You blinked out the passenger window when Logan drove onto a familiar freeway. “Wait, why are we—”
“I live down the block.”
You finally tore your gaze out the window and towards him for the first time since he started driving. Logan’s eyes remained steady on the road ahead, his grip on the steering wheel unwavering.
You didn’t say anything else as he pulled into the parking lot of his apartment building, or when the two of you walked into the lobby where the doorman greeted Logan with ease, or when you took the elevator upstairs to the 21st floor where he lived.
When he unlocked his door, he held it open for you to step in first. You entered with hesitant steps, like an elephant finding home inside a mouse’s hole in the wall. You pulled your coat off—now damp thanks to his car heater—and hung it up on the coat rack.
Logan’s apartment was beautiful. Polished with exquisite furniture—from the fine leather couches, to the shiny marble island, even the brick veneer fireplace in the living room. The deeper you ventured in, the more you were left in awe.
The floor to ceiling windows.
Your footsteps paused as you reached the far end of the room. You peered out the glass, coming face-to-face with the same Fenway Park the pair of you just drove by on the way here. The one you almost asked Logan about.
You turned around and met his eyes. He stood behind the couch, holding onto the cushions to keep him upright.
Your eyes glanced to the side of the apartment, where the floating staircase was leading to his quaint bedroom. Your eyes flicked back to his.
An unspoken exchange lingered between you.
“How’d you know where my car was?”
Logan pursed his lips before shrugging, “I just looked for the blue Toyota Camry.”
You nodded, “Of course you did.”
Logan walked over to his open kitchen, pulling out a bottle of something. “Reliable car,” he remarked.
You let out a huff of amusement, “Oh, for sure. Except when it’s pouring, right?”
Logan popped open the cork, “Cars don’t like water. They’re like cats.”
You sauntered your way into his kitchen. “Wish I knew that before I bought it.”
“I told you that when you bought it.”
Right. Logan had been the one who accompanied you to the dealership when you finally saved enough money to put a payment down for a car. He had spoken to the salesperson, checked out everything, told you all that you needed to know about cars. He was the reason you got a Camry because he said it wouldn’t let you down unless you let it down.
Perhaps that applied to more than just cars.
He held out a glass of wine towards you. You accepted it with a grateful smile, taking a sip.
Logan watched you over the rim of his own wine glass. “I’d give you the house tour but…this is pretty much it.”
“No, it’s nice,” you responded, looking around.
He nodded, “I’m glad you think so.”
Neither of you were willing to acknowledge his influence on your car preferences and your influence on his architectural choices.
You cleared your throat, “Thank you. Really. For saving me. You didn’t have to.”
Logan tilted his head, “No, I kinda had to.”
Your smile faded away.
He leaned against the kitchen island, “I told you if you ever had car troubles, I’m your guy.”
Your guy.
“Yeah, I know.” You replied. “I just…I wasn’t sure if you still meant that. After…everything.”
Logan looked away, finding sudden interest in the ceiling chandelier. “I’m gonna change out of this,” he pointed to his clothes.
You nodded, putting your glass down.
“You’re welcome to stay.” He told you, meeting your eyes once again. “We can go get your car in the morning—if it isn’t still raining—and I’ll fix it up for you.”
You wanted to decline his benevolent offer. Why was he so nice to you after you broke up with him? You didn’t deserve this—
Logan tugged you by your hand, his touch was electric after all the time apart. “C’mon, let me get you a change of clothes, too.”
He led you upstairs to the loft bedroom. The room was warmer, literally and figuratively. It wasn’t as chic as the downstairs, but definitely more homey.
Logan pulled open his dresser drawer and took out a t-shirt and pair of boxers. “These should still fit you,” he commented as he tossed them over to you.
You held them up. It was your favorite shirt of his, the one you always stole because of Joe soft the fabric felt. And the boxers, they had hockey sticks on them, something you bought him for his birthday one year.
He pointed to the en suite bathroom, “You can change in there, wash your face, whatever you want.”
You watched him for a moment as he pulled out his own change of clothes. Your mouth ran out of apologies and words of gratitude, so you simply nodded and made your way inside his bathroom.
By the time you stepped out in his apparel, Logan had already dressed in a fresh set of sweatpants low on his waist and a white wife beater. He paused when he saw you, needing to reintroduce the image of you in his shirt and boxers like it were a long lost language he once spoke fluently.
He cleared his throat after a moment, “You can have the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“No, Logan, it’s your place.” You argued.
“It’s fine, you’re my guest—”
“No, really, you should—”
“I insist—”
“But I—”
“Babe.”
You both froze when the word slipped out Logan’s lips so effortlessly. Your eyes met in a loaded exchange, but at least it got you to shut up about the bed. He cursed himself internally for allowing that to happen, and even more so when it felt so right doing it.
Logan let out a sigh and picked up a pillow and blanket, “Just…sleep on the bed. Please.”
This time, you didn’t shoot out a retort. You simply observed as Logan went down the stairs with his bedding.
You tried.
You really did.
But sleep would not find you no matter how many times you tossed and turned on Logan’s smooth sheets. Your mind replayed memories of him instead of dreams.
“Why are you doing this?” Logan’s voice was equal parts exasperation and anguish.
You sniffled, “Logan, I want what’s best for you. That’s all I want.”
“You’re what’s best for me!”
“No, I’m not—”
“You don’t get to decide that!” He held your arms with a desperate grip. “I’ve been making hard decisions my whole life. And this? You? It’s the easiest choice I ever made; it’s the only one I know that’s right.”
“You’ll change your mind, you’ll meet so many wonderful people in Boston. And I don’t want you to resent me for keeping you.”
“Resent you?” He repeated. “I love you. You’re it for me, baby. Don’t you get that?”
You sat up on his bed, your heart beating faster than normal. When you stood up and leaned forward on the loft’s railing, you spotted Logan sitting by the tall apartment window, staring out into the nighttime view.
“Since when do you like baseball?”
Logan turned his head and saw you at the bottom of the staircase. He huffed, “Boston brainwashed me.”
You smiled and sat across from him, your knees brushed against each other but neither do you pulled away. You followed his gaze out the window and towards Fenway Park.
“You been to any of their games?” You asked.
“One or two,” he answered.
“You a Red Sox fan now?” You teased.
“I have to be or else I’d get beat up on the streets,” Logan quipped.
You chuckled quietly. “What a waste of real estate.”
His expression sobered. He fiddled with his fingers before looking at you. “I only got this place because it’s what you always wanted.”
Your eyes darted to him.
He shrugged like the confession was helpless, inevitable, even. Logan wasn’t ashamed nor did he regret it.
“Logan,” you called softly.
“What do I have to do to show you that I want this? That I want us.”
Your chest tightened, “Logan.”
“It’s been a year, baby. I haven’t seen anyone else. I can’t. They’re not you.”
“Logan—”
“And you can try to tell me that this is what’s best for us, or whatever bullshit mature answer you have, but I won’t buy that. Nothing you say will change how I feel about you. I meant what I said when I told you that you were it for me.”
You kissed him.
He wouldn’t shut up if you hadn’t.
Neither of you complained.
Logan groaned against your lips like you were the first drop of rain in the midst of a drought. His hands buried themselves into your hair, pulling you closer until you settled onto his lap.
You found purchase on his broad shoulders, bringing your chests flush together. Your fingers tips brushed against the hairs on the nape of his neck, remembering what it felt like to tug on them.
As if he could read your thoughts, Logan pulled back enough to ask: “Please, baby, can I eat you out? I haven’t tasted you in so long.”
You must’ve looked pathetic when you nodded so quickly.
Logan pushed you to lay on your back. He lifted your shirt up enough so he could admire your bare chest. The sound that escaped him was even more pathetic than your eager consent.
His lips latched onto one of your nipples, flicking the bud and wetting it with fervor. His free hand kneaded your other breast with ample attention.
Your breath came out in shaky puffs. You closed your eyes and sighed, “Fuck, Logan.”
Your voice went straight to his groin. He switched to the other breast and showered it with the same affection.
You blinked down at him in a daze, weakly tugging at his top. He sat up immediately and pulled it off his frame, chucking it aside. Your eyes wandered over the bare expanse of his torso. His defined pecks and abdomen, the blooming bruises he earned from hockey slowly fading into yellow-green patches.
You didn’t have time to admire him in the way he deserved because Logan impatiently hooked his restless fingers under his boxers that you wore.
“Raise your hips for me, baby.”
You complied without hesitation. When your bottom half was left exposed, Logan sat back on his haunches and stared. His eyes glazed over with a subtle sheen and you almost worried that he’d start crying.
“You’re unfair,” he mumbled with softly arched brows. He reached down and propped your legs over his shoulders.
You cried out when his tongue slid between your folds in a tantalizing slow glide. You weren’t sure if the sound you heard came out of your own mouth or Logan’s.
“Tastes better than I remember,” he said.
His lips left a small peck on your clit before he sucked on it. Your hips flinched upwards, but Logan’s strong arms held you down.
“Reactive, huh? Did you miss my mouth?”
You huffed, “Yes.”
He smirked. So smug.
“Yeah, I bet you did. I can tell.” His fingers swiped against you and gathered your slick.
“You’re so wet for me.”
“Don’t tease.”
Logan’s smile widened. He leaned forward so his face hovered over yours. “I can do whatever I want, baby. I earned it.”
Fuck was he right.
He devoured you. He left your legs shaking and heart racing. His tongue prodded your hole so skillfully, just the right amount of pressure that made you yank at his hair.
“Right there,” you gasped out.
Logan doubled down on his ministrations. His hands lifted your ass up so he could bury his face deeper between your thighs.
Your eyes rolled back, “Baby, I’m close.”
Baby.
Logan hadn’t heard that name of endearment from you in a year and it made him grind down on his erection to relieve some tension.
“You’re so pretty when you’re about to cum,” he said, admiring the view of you. He could always tell when you were close to finishing.
He dove back in, rapidly shaking his head from side to side, resulting in a crude squelching noise to echo in the air. You shrieked, arching up towards him.
“Let me have it, angel. I need it. I deserved it.”
His words were enough to send you over. When you came, you both let out a moan. Logan held you through it, working his tongue to ride out your wave of pleasure. You had to shakily push his head away when it became too much to bear.
Logan threw his head back and sat down. You both panted, forcing air into your lungs, holding eye contact. When your gaze dragged downwards, you spotted the dark splotch on the crotch of his sweatpants.
Your eyes widened.
Logan let out a small chuckle.
“It’s been a while,” is what he said.
“Since you ate out a girl?” You queried.
His adam’s apple bobbed, “Since I came.”
The room went quiet.
The thought of Logan being celibate since the two of you broke up did dangerous things to your heart. It weaved precarious hopes that you feared would blossom into something neither of you could promise.
Logan pulled one of your legs into his lap and started caressing your foot. He stared down at your skin, allowing the moment to settle. You watched him, biting your lip in thought.
“Let me take care of you,” you offered.
“It’ll take a while,” he said.
Your eyes automatically glanced between his legs.
Logan let out another amused laugh that faded into a deep sigh. His expression shifted into something more thoughtful as he looked at your face.
“Come back to me, baby.” He murmured.
Your heart ached at the pleading tone.
“We can live here,” he gestured around the apartment. “Sleep in our loft, have dinner on the kitchen island, make love on the couch, look out at Fenway Park at night…”
That was the life you wanted with Logan.
It was perfect.
He was perfect.
He did everything perfectly.
And you had let your fears ruin that.
But not anymore.
You reached for his hands and pulled him closer. Your foreheads rested against each other. He closed his eyes for a second before looking deep into your eyes.
“You’ll have to go to every Red Sox game with me,” you whispered.
Logan’s chuckle came out sounding like a breath of relief. He nodded slowly.
“Whatever you want,” he murmured.
You tilted your head, “You. I want you.”
Logan squeezed your hands, “You have me.”
And that was the easiest decision you ever made, too.
logan’s spotify wrapped the year you guys broke up included party 4 u by charlie xcx and back to me by the marías iktr
Your problem with John Logan is that not only he is very talented with his hands, but he also looks really fucking hot putting them to good use, even if it’s not how you imagined him to.
“It seems to be a compressor issue,” he says, wrist deep into your car’s engine as he inspects it, “Could be only electrical, but you should definitely check the clutch as well.”
You hum, slurping on a milkshake as you sit behind the wheel, “I think you mean you should check the clutch,” you say, a teasing bite in your tone that makes his lips curve in a subtle smile, “I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can,” he says, reaching up to grab the car hood.
Logan keeps his hands up there, his undershirt riding up just enough for you to see his midriff skin. You can’t tell if it’s intentional, but if the smirk on his face is any indication, he knows what he’s doing, “It’s not like you to be the damsel in distress type.”
You drag your eyes up again, “Yeah, but I don’t even know what a clutch is, so.”
“Fair,” he says, slamming down the car hood. He barely cleans his hands before swiping them over his forehead, failing to get rid of the sweat, “Would you take it inside? I’ll drive it to the autoshop tomorrow, first thing in the morning— It’s just too fucking hot today.”
You shrug, putting the sweaty cup aside as you shut the car door closed, turning the key. The heatwave that has been terrorizing Massachusetts was the sole reason for you to beg Logan for him to check why your AC wasn’t working, and it’s making it impossible for anyone to be outside, especially doing handwork like he is. It’s only fair that you allow him the comfort of doing it later at the shop.
So you wait for him to open the door for you and back into the boy’s garage, a room big enough to fit a bunch of boxes, training equipment, a little sink where Logan now washes his hands and all four of their cars, though right now only Logan’s pickup truck is there.
“You’re home alone?”
Logan hums, “Dean’s in New York with Beau, Tuck and Garrett went to Boston for the weekend.”
“Oh, Boston’s so nice this time of year,” you say, “Very windy. Didn’t you want to go with them?”
“Hm, I– Couldn’t.” he clears his throat, opening the passenger door, “Turn the AC on for me? I wanna hear the noise.”
“Yes, sir.” You say, watching the left corner of his mouth twitches slightly, just enough for you to catch it.
It’s fun to flirt with Logan, you think. There’s a tension in the air between you two, always present. In your lingering touches under innocent hugs, sustained eye contact during casual conversations — always, always there, like fog surrounding your true intentions. But in moments like this, when you’re all alone and there’s no way around it, where you feel the hazyness clearing up and your feelings growing stronger, a pull from your guts in his direction.
You keep thinking he feels it too, wondering if the raggedy noise coming from the AC is the only reason why he’s sitting next to you on the passenger seat.
“Oh, that’s fucked,” he says, eyes widening in a way that makes you bite back a laugh. He turns the AC off again, “Yeah, I’ll definitely check the clutch tomorrow.”
You groan, head dropping onto the headrest. “This is awful.”
He chuckles, “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“It's bad timing. Summer has just started— We have a new heatwave coming every other week.”
“And I’ll get it checked before Monday.” He says, his hand dropping on your shoulder, squeezing in a reassuring way, “Just chill, alright? I’ll fix that.”
You look up at him, eyes traveling up his arms until they find his face, his big eyes staring at you in all their glory, no hair falling on them since it’s all pulled back under a red bandana, a smear of grease right below it being the cherry on top.
You smile, your own hand moving to his face, thumb pressing on his forehead to smudge it clean. Your fingertips move down to his under his jaw, “You look nice in a stubble,” you mutter, “Frames your face.”
Logan relaxes under your touch, his eyes closing, “I was going to Boston too,” he says, voice barely there.
“Hm?”
“With Tuck and Garrett. I was going with them this morning,” he says, head moving so his chin rubs against your palm, a gentle tickling, “Then you called, and– Well.”
“Wait,” you feel your breath catching, “You stayed back just to help me?”
“Yeah.” He says, like it’s the most obvious thing for him to do, because it might just be, “It’s you, y’know?”
Your thumb stops moving across his cheek, staying still as you process what he just said. It’s such a show of his attention towards you, that just like that, the fog that once hid your feelings has now lifted completely — you see Logan clearly in all his intentions, and you desperately want to kiss him.
Your other hand moves to grab his face too, pulling him to you.
Logan keeps his eyes shut, but he finds your mouth quite easily, like the image of you it’s printed on his memory. He bends over the console, pressing his lips to yours as his hand moves to the back of your head, keeping you close to him as you kiss, and kiss, and kiss, his mouth moving from your lips, across your cheek to your ear, “Baby,” he murmurs, “come here.”
His hands move to the small of your back, urging you to lift up from the driver’s seat and cross over the car center, your knees on the passenger’s seat astriding him.
Logan wraps his arms around you, moving up to get his mouth onto yours again, desperate.
“Been wanting this since forever,” he mutters against your lips, a line of open mouth kisses under your jaw and down to your neck. You throw your head back, mouth gaping as you let out a delicious groan. Logan smiles between kisses, “That good?”
“Shut up,” you answer through gritted teeth.
Your hands drop to the hem of your shirt, quickly pulling it up under Logan’s stare, his rough hands caressing your sides. Your fingers move to the back of his neck, lifting his head for him to look at your face, “Just keep kissing me?”
He nods, blown eyes watching your every expression as he takes his own shirt off, the loose bandana falling off his hair with it. You giggle at his urgency, your laugh turning into a gasp as Logan runs his tongue against your collarbone, pressing kisses on your cleavage.
Logan’s hands grab your waist, guiding your hips front and back, pressing you against his lap. He uses your jeans seams to his advantage, the friction nearly driving you insane, your moans driving him insane. “Fuck,” he murmurs, and you kiss him again, thrusting, “fuck, honey.”
“Logan,” you pant, “Logan, please.”
“Please what, baby?” He says, chin resting on your chest as he stares up, “Tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you, anything.”
You groan, his hips jumping up, “Logan, ah– Please, fuck me?”
His head drops to your shoulder, a warm breath hitting your skin as he huffs, “Fuck, yeah. Yeah, honey. Lift up for me?”
You hover over his lap, his talented fingers finally to good use. Not any tools, not your stupid car engine, but quickly undoing your jeans and pushing them down, just enough for him to fit his hand.
Logan moves his thumb over your panties until he finds your clit, rubbing in slow circles as your eyes flutter closed, a raggedy sound coming out of your mouth, “Logan, babe–”
He shushes you, a quick peck on your lips, “Let me have you like this for a second,”
he mutters, “Yeah? Just watch you for a moment.”
You nod, head dropping to his shoulder. Logan uses his pointer to pull your panties aside, middle finger finding your slit, “You’re soaked, baby,” he says, and you whine.
“You’re such a fucking tease, did you know that?”
He chuckles, “I’ll stop,” he says, but god, you don’t want him to.
You feel a tightness building your underbelly, a fire that moves down your body growing stronger with every one of his touches, and it all feels so fucking good, you think you could melt with it.
Logan takes his hand out of your jeans, hand on your thighs to lift you again, “Gotta take these out, yeah?”
You hum, watching as he pulls your jeans and panties out, then moves to undo his pants as well, “You have a condom?”
“Uh,” he looks around, eyes widening, “In my wallet, but it’s inside the house, I think.”
You twist around to face the dashboard, opening the glove box. “I might have some.”
A surprised laugh escapes his mouth, “You keep condoms in your glovebox?”
“I keep hygiene utensils in my glovebox. It just happens that condoms are one too.” You answer, “What about a thank you instead?”
Logan presses his lips on your upperarm, “Thank you so fucking much, really,” he says, taking the condom out of your hands and ripping it open, “You sure you wanna do it?”
“Yes,” you sigh, “Yes, pl—”
He kisses you again, swallowing your plea. He won’t let you say it, there’s only so much teasing he can do. Logan presses into you, hands guiding you down slowly.
It’s like throwing gasoline into the fire in your pit. You moan against Logan’s lips, his mouth opening up to kiss you. You keep moving your hips while he helps you with your slow, steady pacing, until that won’t do anymore.
“Logan,” you whimper, “faster, please.”
His hands squeeze your sides, panting with you, “Oh, fuck, baby–”
“Faster?”
“Yeah,” he mutters, “Just— Fuck,”
Your hands go for his shoulders for balance, and you start moving faster and faster. Logan’s head drops as he lets out a moan, “Babe—”
“I know,” you say, lips pressing against his entire face in clumsy, wet kisses, “Please, I’m close too.”
He starts thrusting harder, arms wrapping around your waist to keep your bodies joined completely, nose pressed against your neck. You feel the warmth overtaking you, your legs faltering as you wail out Logan’s name, mouth sinking down on his, a deep kiss as he follows you down the fire.
It takes a more gentle touch from him to pull you from your blissed out state, “Baby,” he mutters against your skin, “You okay?”
You hum, cheek pressed to his shoulder, “Fucking great.”
“Yeah?” Logan’s half-moon eyes stare down at you. Laying down on the car seat, he maneuvers you to join him, pulling you in an improvised cuddle on such a limited space.
Logan brushes his fingers over your cheek, a peck here and there, “If you want to,” he starts, “We can go inside, maybe take a shower.”
“Yeah, well, you’re still greasy,” you answer, and Logan laughs, rubbing his face against your arms as if to pass it to you. You yelp, pushing him gently, then saying in a softer tone, “In a minute, yeah? I’d like to lay here for a minute longer.”
His lips turn into a smile, “Yeah. I’d like that too.” He says, resting his chin on your shoulder, “Stay the night too?”
“Yeah. Of course,” you say, pulling his hand for a kiss, “But we’re driving to the shop in the morning. Next time I want the AC on.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He mutters, then lifts his head a little, “Do you still have that milkshake lying around? I could use a sip.”
You giggle, thinking the poor thing’s probably all melted now. Not that you’re much different.
notes: thank you for reading! i'm still a bit stiff with writing smut so please be nice to me. requests are open, likes reblogs and thoughts are appreciated! <3
Pairing: John Logan x Di Laurentis!Reader (3rd person POV + Birdy)
C/W: general thought spiraling. Otherwise nothing
W/C: 1.2k
A/N: My apologies for the Oscar Wilde quote I simply couldn't resist. Transparently, not sure how I feel about this one. But, I'm trying my very best to desensitize myself from perfecting everything to the Nth degree. But we're back with the twin sister reader. I think this will be a series but more of a like disjointed one (Read: I can't for the life of me write scenes in order)
""If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be, if you live what some might call the dynamic life but what I will call the artistic life, if each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know you will never become anything, and that is your reward". -Oscar Wilde
The pair of them sat on the floor of her bedroom and studied for classes that they respectively really shouldn’t have been taking. Birdy was in some elective business course she really should have dropped. Logan was taking a creative nonfiction course. To his credit, he was good at English classes. He was taking a minor in the subject for God’s sake. He was not, however, suited for the op-eds and think pieces and essays that plagued the subject of non-fiction.
Logan, for his part, was sitting in her desk chair and dedicatedly plucking away at his keyboard writing something she’d edit for him later. She’d taken up the mantle of editor to help Logan pass the class. Personally, she thought he was selling himself short. With her help, he’d more than pass the class,
She was not working as industriously as he was. She was laid out on the floor with her laptop but was occupied staring at the ceiling. Everything felt awful. It all felt like too much. She ordinarily would have worried she’d cry in front of Logan which would be embarrassing, but even tears felt too far away.
“What’s on your mind, songbird?” His voice shattered her spiralling reverie. Reverie, actually, was a strong word. It implied a level of pondering that simply was not occurring in her mind.
“Truly nothing,” she sighed. “A devastating amount of nothing.”
He leaned down, forearms braced on his knees, to flick between her eyebrows. “There is never nothing going on in that head, gorgeous,”
She batted his hand away like an annoyed cat. “It truly is nothing.” She threw an arm over her eyes in dramatic emphasis. “So much nothing, it's upsetting me.”
Logan settled cross-legged on the floor beside her. “Why don’t we take a breather then?” he suggested. Privately, behind the shield Birdy had placed over her eyes he smiled all too fondly down at her.
“You’re still working,” she muttered.
Logan scoffed and Birdy had to smile at the true ambivalence of it. “Fuck that. Let’s watch a movie.”
She opened her eyes to see him leaning over her. His eyes danced with that kind of mischief that she knew everyone found so charming. She liked to think she was immune to that light in him. But, warmth filled her chest under his gaze in damning evidence. “Right,” she said, sitting up. “I forgot I was talking to Mister Hockey, king of academic mediocrity. My deepest apologies.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. “Apologies accepted.” He offered her a hand to help her up. “It’s your turn to pick.”
That was how the pair of them ended up sitting in her bedroom sofa with her laptop balanced on her right leg and his left watching Dead Poet’s Society.
Birdy, conveintly, forgot until it was too late that it was a movie designed to make you cry.
She cried at all the points she was supposed to, but also a few of the points she wasn’t supposed to. Of course she cried when Todd screamed into the snow and all that, but, more than that, she cried when Neil realized his life was not his. The moment that sealed his fate.
Eventually she’d shed a critical mass of tears, and Logan paused the movie. His face was blurry through her tears, but the typical teasing light in his eyes was notably absent at her tears. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I know this movie is sad, but this is a lot. Something’s gotta be up.
She found herself groaning into her hands. “Jesus, I don’t even know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry, I’m ruining movie night.”
Carefully, so terribly carefully, he took her wrists and peeled her hands back from her face. “You’re not ruining anything, princess. But I think—” Logan paused for a moment. She watched as he tried to locate the words. It would have been funny under different circumstances. God bless 19-year-old boys and their attempts to be emotionally intelligent. “—I think you might need to talk to someone. And I’m here if you want that someone to be me.”
Not bad on the emotional intelligence scale. Ordinarily, she would wave it off. She didn’t need to talk to anyone, let alone him, about her odd, amorphous emotions. But, there were words in her throat that, almost without her consent, needed to come out. “I don’t know,” she sighed and leaned back deep into the couch cushions. She let the tear tracks dry onto her face without much care. “I guess I’m having one of those days where everything feels pointless. In a way, I’m always so jealous of you and Dean and all of you guys.”
Logan furrowed his brows, horribly and adorably confused. “Why the hell would you be jealous of us?”
She giggled a little at the confusion on his face. “If you’d let me finish—” Logan had the good sense to look a little chagrinned. “—I don’t give a particular fuck about sports or hockey or whatever. But you guys have such a clear purpose. You know what you’re doing and where you’re headed and why you wake up in the morning. I’ve seen you on the ice and you come alive. It’s electric. I know not everyone feels the way you do about hockey. I know Dean doesn’t feel that way for example. He doesn’t necessarily come alive on the ice the way you and Garrett do for example, but he has a purpose.” She found herself gesticulating increasingly wildly. “We talk about this a lot actually, and Dean always says it can be a curse to have one destination so clearly outlined for you and it is a blessing to have many options. But sometimes I don’t feel like I have any destination at all, and it all just feels pointless.”
She finished speaking and the space in her chest the words had occupied was soon filled by a rush of embarrassment. “Shit, sorry. I’m talking too much. It’s all such bullshit. These are such stupid problems, it’s just been on my mind lately and—”
“Hey,” his voice cut in, soft and ultimately firm enough to put a stop to her rambling. “Honey, it’s okay. It’s not bullshit. Everyone has their different problems. I have a set destination, a set place where I’m going. A family business and the NHL and all that.”
There was a part of her that felt horrible at that reminder of his path, the way it was different from hers.
He, seeming to read her mind, placed a hand on her knee. She looked up to see earnest, downturned eyes. “Hey. Game face, gorgeous. I’m not done with my pep talk.” The mocking furrow between his eyebrows made her giggle and privately wish to smooth out the wrinkle. “I don’t always love my path. Sometimes I hate how set it is. It gets to me the same way the opposite gets to you. In that way, I feel the same. But, I’m always here to listen. Even if you think you’re not worth listening to, I always think you are.”
It was the warmth in his honey brown eyes that got to her and made her eyes well with a familiar pressure. Apparently she wasn’t out of tears. “Jesus, shut the fuck up,” she mumbled, running a finger under her waterline. “You’re gonna make me cry again.”
“Well that wasn’t the goal, but I’ll take it.” His warm grin split the cold in her tears.
“Thank you Johnny.” She leaned in to look him as earnestly as possible in the eyes. “Truly, I appreciate it. Now do you want to keep watching?”
Logan’s face twisted almost comically. “Maybe something happier?”
Pairing: John Logan x Di Laurentis!Reader (3rd person POV, reader referred to as nickname (Birdy))
C/W: partying! Other than that just pining.
W/C: 3.6k
A/N: I wanted to write a “is this platonic or is this romantic?” kind of situation. That and I feel like so many people have done the sister trope with Garrett and not with Dean (I know Summer exists but still) Let me know if you guys want more of this. Maybe a part where they actually talk about their weird relationship…
Their second September at Briar was hot and not in a fun way. It was not blistering, that wasn’t how the northeast worked. Instead, the air still felt like hot soup. In John Logan’s humble opinion, this was the worst time of year to be a New Englander. Particularly because he and everyone else he knew was moving into real houses off campus. So, naturally, everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off moving boxes from cars and storage units and a bright orange flatbed cart that Dean somehow managed to find (or probably stole from Home Depot if we’re being honest).
Dean had the worst of it because his twin sister was also moving into a nice, quaint house a few blocks away. Their parents were truly stretched thin for the week. To Logan, the idea of having her nearer to them was both terribly exciting and felt like it was going to be a problem.
But, by that evening everyone had finished with the boxes and Ikea furniture assembly and the first grocery runs that were way too fucking expensive because they needed to buy all those things you forget don’t just come stocked in a kitchen. This meant that their lovely friends had gathered for the inaugural hang at their new place.
That was how Logan ended up sat on their inherited couch sipping a whiskey coke and waiting for his turn to play NHL 25 on the Xbox. That was also how he ended up glancing at Dean's sister—Birdy, to those that knew her—in irregular intervals. She leaned against their kitchen island, empty except for a few bare essentials and some liquor, and chatted with one of Dean’s new friends he didn’t recognize. He hadn’t gotten the chance to see her since she’d flown back from California.
She and Dean had spent the summer months there working a highly charitable summer youth program on behalf of their aunt and uncle. Rich kids. Logan had texted her non-stop over summer, but it wasn’t the same as seeing her here in front of him and drinking in the sight of her.
“You aren’t very subtle, bro,” Garrett damn near sang into his ear. The brunette devil, summoned by Logan’s too-obvious stares, leaned over the back of the couch and grinned that roguish grin.
“Dunno what you’re talking about,” he mumbled into his drink. He sipped it glumly.
“You’re glaring at Beau like he owes you money.”
“That’s Beau,” he demanded, turning to look fully at the boy talking to Birdy. He’d heard a lot about Dean’s new best friend over text this summer. Logan knew he was a football player, a frat guy, and supposedly lovely which seemed incongruous. He hadn’t pictured the boyishly charming, unassuming man talking to Dean's twin sister. It made his blood boil uncomfortably hot. Not the protect, I-promised-her-brother-to-look-out-for-her hot. No, this was unfortunately undeniably different in a way that set a sinking feeling in his chest.
God, this was going to suck.
Garrett poked his shoulder harder than necessary. “Hey,” he said. “I say this as a big fan of Beau: fuck that guy. Go get her.”
“I can’t,” he all but groaned into the couch cushions. “It’s her.”
“Stop being so fucking honorable, John.” Garrett smacked his shoulder for emphasis at each word. It seemed Gare had already gone over his typical two-beer limit for the night. “You know you want her. So go get her.”
And that’s how he ended up walking across his new living room and leaning his hip against the counter beside her. “Hey Birdy." He bumped her with a shoulder. Logan was special in that he was allowed to use her childhood nickname. “Long time no see.”
“Logan!” Arms came around his shoulders and her body hit hers with a force that nearly knocked him over. The way she giggled tipsily into his shoulder, allowing him to feel her breath on his skin, nearly sent him to his knees. “I missed you.”
Logan moved to hold her at arm’s length. She truly was beautiful. It was the kind of beauty he’d seen in vintage photos on the walls of old diners and in old newspaper clippings. She was a kind of gorgeous that was undeniable and utterly everlasting. Her hair honey ran down her back in thick waves that same way honey flows with a lazy viscosity. Her full cheeks and soft face had been a source of complaint when she sat on his dorm floor doing makeup last spring. But her round face and round eyes and round lips reminded him of Monroe and made her trace her features obsessively with his eyes.
“I missed you too,” he said. After he finished cataloging her face of course. “Looked like you had a lot of fun out west. I got pictures from you and Dean.” He ran a hand down her arm. “Looks like you got a good tan out of it too.”
“Occupational hazard,” she shrugged. Her smile was wide and crooked and it always looked as though she was up to something. But, what really did it for him was the glittering in her eyes. Emeralds set into the beauty of her face and catching the light in beautiful facets.
“What occupation?” He squeezed her playfully. “Being in California?”
“You underestimate how much pride Californians take in their state, but no. Surf lessons for the kids.”
Logan shook his head and chuckled. She was the only other person he knew who had almost as many odd jobs as he did. Most of them in child care for her rather than handymanning but still. “You know for someone who claims not to be athletic you teach a lot of sports. What did you teach hockey too?”
“I don’t coach.” She drew out the word, glancing askance playfully. “But I did do some child wrangling at the rink for Deanie.”
“Say that five times fast.” Logan had genuinely forgotten about his surroundings talking to her. Those surroundings included Beau Maxwell, who had become invisible until he spoke up. Logan turned to him and Beau, shockingly, grinned good naturedly back. “I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Beau.”
“I’m Logan.” He extended a hand to shake, which Beau did with an equally calloused hand. “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself before, I was a little excited to see our friend here.” He gestured to Birdy who rolled her eyes with shocking impunity. “I’ve heard lots about you from the delightful Dean Di Laurentis.”
“Delightful is a strong word for Dean,” Birdy mumbled, sipping coyly from her drink.
“Fair.” Beau raised a glass to her. “But yes, I’ve heard a lot about you all from Dean too.”
She put a hand on Logan’s shoulder to get his attention. As if she’d ever lost it. “Gonna go make a drink. Want something Mr. Beer-is-for-pussys?”
She always made him some kind of mixed drink, respecting his distaste for beer without having to ask why. He loved that about her. Logan nodded. “Yes, please.” He winked down at her. “Do your worst, gorgeous.”
She smiled that sly smile. “You’re on.” And she scampered off to make one of her truly insane concoctions.
The moment she was out of earshot, Beau spoke. “Don’t worry man,” he said. Logan turned to find the football player smiling a smile similar to Dean’s scheming smile but without the sharp edges. It was an altogether kinder smile. “I’ve heard enough about you and about her to know she’s off limits.” Beau bumped him with an elbow. “And not because Dean told me she was.”
Logan laughed into the dregs of his drink. “I’m torn between telling you to fuck off and saying thank you.”
“I’d take either,” he said good naturedly and sipped his beer. “Now Dean tells me you’re a beast on the ice.”
And just like that they were off and running, talking about their respective sports and comparing athletic experiences. Some fifteen minutes later she returned to him with a solo cup full of some vaguely red liquid. “Cheers.” She knocked her cup—full of the same liquid—against his and took a long drink.
“Do I want to know what this is?” Logan swirled his drink dubiously.
“Long Beach iced tea.”
“Don’t you mean a Long Island iced tea?”
“Nope,” she popped her lips on that last syllable and Logan’s attention caught on the shade of cherry cola red that adorned them. “Call it a SoCal twist.
Logan took a sip and, at first, it tasted sweet and tart and lovely. Then the liquor kicked him in the back of the throat. “Jesus Christ, songbird.” He coughed a little at the strength of it all. “You are fucking heavy handed, you know that?”
“It’s the only way to do it.” She leaned up to him on her tiptoes, tilting her chin up in challenge. “Unless you’re too chicken-shit to go drink for drink with me,”
She was closer right then than she had any right to be and she was just unbelievably gorgeous under the warm, low lights. She really earned the term of endearment when he said: “You’re on, gorgeous.”
And that was how the pair of them ended up on the floor of his new room around two in the morning drunk out of their collective minds.
“Y’ needa get a rug,” she slurred from her starfish position on the hardwood. She rolled onto her side and looked at him with stern eyes that were too wide and too watery to be anything but endearing.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “Now would you get off the floor? You’re not sleeping on the ground and we’re both waaaaay too drunk to getcha home safe.”
“I can walk,” Birdy rolled over onto her front and tried to push herself up off the floor. Unfortunately her arms gave out below her.
“Like hell.” Something possessed him to take her by the waist and try to bodily haul her into his bed in the most non-sexual way possible. She, the professional little sister that she was, went completely limp in an effort to evade him. But, Logan managed to lift her like a cat when you pick them up by the middle and chuck her onto the duvet. “I’ll sleep on the floor, you sleep here.”
“’S a queen,” she mumbled, face down in his bedding. “We can share.” She paused for a little bit too long. “Or I can go sleep in my brother’s room.”
Logan turned to look at her with true wide, eyed shock. “You do not want to do that, gorgeous.” He’d seen Dean with a few different girls that night and Logan wasn’t sure either of them wanted to discover which one (or multiple ones) of them he’d brought back. “Sleep here. We’ll share.”
Logan spared a moment to consider how he ended up here. This girl, the one he’d liked for so many months that he’d placed her on a neigh on untouchable pedestal. Something about the Madonna-whore complex applied here. She would surely have something very intelligent to say about it if she were sober. In any case, she was placed in the Madonna category completely.
Somehow, he was sitting in his bed with her wholly unprepared for this situation. She was the first girl he’d had in this room, in this bed, and no small part of him wanted her to be the only one. He might be getting ahead of himself though.
He was, however, prepared to have many girls in this room. So, naturally he had makeup wipes in his desk drawer which he offered to her then. “Don’t start,” he warned her as he extended the baby blue package to her.
She faux gasped. “I would never,” she took a makeup wipe and, surprisingly steadily for her level of drink, she began to methodically wipe away the makeup. “You got any hair ties in this bitch?”
He laughed softly and drew a few from that same drawer. “Here you are ma’am. Can I get you anything else this evening?”
“Some pajamas maybe?” Her voice went high and soft the same way it did when she asked Dean for something he'd rather not give.
Luckily Logan wanted nothing more than to dress her in his clothes. So, he leafed through his closet to locate a suitable T-shirt and pair of sweatpants. The nice thing about being an NCAA athlete is the sheer volume of merch. He tossed her a pair of Briar hawks sweats and a T-shirt that not-so-subtly had his name and number on the back. When he turned back to throw the clothes her way, he found her with her hair tied back loosely and her face bare of all the glitter and various pink powders. Her cheeks were still flushed an irremovable shade of red from the mixed-liquor drinks. Somehow, she was even more beautiful this way.
Birdy took his clothes with a soft “thank you” and Logan turned to let her change and change into his own pajamas.
“We’re doing this on the honor system?” her disembodied voice teased.
Logan didn’t have to be seen, so he grinned with sheer reckless abandon at the sound of her voice. “Scout’s honor.”
“There is no way you were a boy scout, John Logan.”
“No,” he conceded in the midst of swapping his day time T-shirt for a worn, sleep T-shirt. Clearly very distinct clothing items. “But the sentiment remains.”
“How gentlemanly of you.”
“I try my best, princess.”
“Is it ‘gorgeous’ or ‘princess,’ Johnny?” That faux-innocent voice did things to him. So did the nickname, though he didn’t know if he loved it or hated it.
“Johnny?” he demanded, faux offended. “How dare you. That makes me sound like I’m five years old. Also, can I turn around?”
He glanced over his shoulder just in time to find her drawing a black, lace bra from under her—his, really—shurt. Fuck him, Jesus Christ.
She was wholly unphased. She said, “yeah,” so casually while folding her bra and placing it on the neat pile of clothes on his nightstand.
He was never particularly artistically inclined, but goddamn he deserved an Oscar for the way he behaved so normal. He sat on his side of the bed and continued to wield his impish grin she’d come to expect from him. He sprawled out on his new fancy queen bed and turned to direct his smile at her. “I like that shirt by the way.”
She rolled her eyes sluggishly, almost as if her irises had a kind of gravity to them. “It’s yours, idiot.” Birdy laid down on her side facing him. The way they laid beside each other was rather opposite. Logan sprawled out as though he owned the place, which he supposed he did, and she was curled on her side as if to protect her vital organs. This, the pair of them in the same bed and far past drunk, was uncharted territory. There was a collective air of hesitancy between the two of them. The fun part of the alcohol—the giddy, carbonation bubbles in their blood—had worn off and now everything was just a little slower and a little unfamiliar.
Logan flipped to his side to mirror her. “You never did tell me about your summer in detail, songbird.”
She unfurled, something small and a little bit more trusting on her face as she leaned towards him and properly balanced her cheek against her palm. “There’s not much to tell, lots of child wrangling. A fair amount of tantrums. Did a good amount of yelling at little kids for Dean since he apparently doesn’t know how to control children.”
Logan turned to laugh into his pillow. Simply the image of his fearless defenseman—tall, broad, and only intimidating on the surface—hopelessly standing in the middle of a child hoard pleading with his twin sister for help was utterly ridiculous. “Oh I’m going to need you to tell me more about that later. When I’m sober enough to remember it all. I need some new dirt on Dean.”
“Of course, you will tell you all about the tiny terrors later. I live to serve.” She snuggled her face into his pillows, only half her smug smile was visible. It was horribly cute and Logan was swiftly finding himself sinking into a territory he wasn’t supposed to be in.
“I know, princess,” he sighed into the pillow. The carbonated blood stage of drunk had passed, leaving the both of them in the spinning, sleepy stage of drunk. Safe in bed, it was enjoyable in a different, lower frequency kind of way.
Birdy began giggling nonsensically for such a length of time that Logan spared a second to worry if she was maybe losing it. “You really can’t commit to one nickname, can you Johnny?”
“Why would I pick one? they’re all true. You’re gorgeous, you have a lovely voice like a song bird, and you are the people’s princess.”
“You make me sound like Princess Diana,” she mumbled. She was fading fast, he could tell. And so he smiled at her with such unabashed affection. She was so sweet like this. He wanted this feeling again. He wanted to look across his bed nightly and have her steady presence right there.
Before Logan could come up with some quippy response, he looked back to her and found her sound asleep. He only knew because face was utterly slack and her mouth was slightly ajar. “My princess,” he whispered into her ear, only once she was asleep. Because John Logan was utterly sappy, only in the privacy of his own home.
The light was soft when she opened her eyes. Everything was warm and hazy and smelled like cedarwood and that plasticky fresh smell of new sheets fresh from the packaging. It took her a few blinks to recall where she was and why she was there. The light filtered through Logan’s curtains, his windows facing the eastward sunrise.
Then there was the elephant in the room which she’d mentally put off for long enough. It was the arm flung over her, resting in the dip of her waist. It was the softness of his nose grazing the back of her neck. For a minute, Birdy closed her eyes and tried to forget who was holding her and just sank into the feeling of being held. She let herself forget that there would be drama because it was Logan and let herself enjoy physical touch.
Then he woke up. The individual segments of his body seemed to move, to come alive one at a time. His arms flexed against her waist, dragging her body fully into his. Surely before he realized who she was. They’d had a lot to drink last night. He probably thought she was some random girl.
That was how she rationalized the hardness that pressed against her ass. The heat that flooded her body was uncomfortable because it was undeniable. She could feel him against her and, God help her, she couldn’t help but catalog the size of it. It was truly an unconscious observation, unavoidable and she simply could not be held accountable for it.
She simply could not let this go on. “Logan,” she whispered, rather more shakily than she would have liked into the silent morning. Her voice was rough with a night’s disuse, but that was not the only reason for its trembling timbre.
He hummed in response, nuzzling his face to the back of her neck and drawing his nose over the bumps of her upper vertebrae. “Good morning, Birdy” His voice was also horribly rough with morning. Except, in his case, it was horribly attractive. It was quintessentially masculine with a rich depth to his voice which should be illegal this early.
The sequence of events that occurred in the next few moments would have been comical if she wasn’t the one experiencing it. She could feel the moment Logan realized what was actually happening. She could feel it because his body immediately stiffened, each muscle seemed to be strung through with a kind of palpable, taut tension like a guitar string. Then, given she had such wonderful presence of mind, Birdy attempted to roll over like James Bond escaping a villain to escape the awkwardness that was this whole terrible experience. But then, in a lovely finale, the tension in Logan’s body seemed to hold her to him like a prison to his chest.
“Lo would you mind letting go of me?” She squeezed out in an utterly herculean show of effort.
“Oh shit yeah sorry.” He nearly shoved her away from him. Rowen gamely cooperated and rolled to the other side of the bed. She turned to face him only when she was safely at a PG distance. His eyes were horribly wide, shocking for how early in the morning it was, and staring at her like a deer in headlights. She supposed his eyes could be called doe eyes at the best of times. They stared at each other in horribly uncomfortable silence for some time, before John cleared his throat and, still in morning voice, asked, “Sleep okay?”
She paused for a moment to take inventory of her physical self, and came to the conclusion that she was terribly hung over. Headache? Check. Sandpaper throat? Check. Generally aching lymphatic system? Check. “Fine,” she sighed. “Not ideal but fine. Jesus, we drank a lot last night.”
“And who’s fault is that?” Logan turned to the pillow and sighed with the utmost drama. She maintained that John Logan missed his calling in the theatre. He was truly a visual study in the hungover college student. His back was tense. She could see the muscle perpetually tensing with the effort it took to breath. His face was buried in his bedding in such a way that made her question how he was breathing in the first place.
“I take full responsibility for our alcohol consumption in the past 24 hours,” she magnanimously admitted. Then, because her self preservation instincts were not firing at all cylinders, she said, “I do not take full responsibility for any embarrassing things I said or did under the influence of said alcohol.”
Logan turned to face her with terribly mischievous, honey brown eyes. He was the kind of sweet that was dangerous. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t sweat it, princess.”
Pairing: John Logan x girlfriend!Reader (3rd person POV)
CW: depictions of mental illness. Very reflective of personal experience so may or may not resonate. Take care of yourself <3
WC: 2k
AN: Off campus has officially reignited my love of writing cheesy ass romance. I simply had to write something terribly self indulgent. Also apologies for my inability to write in second person, it's a curse. But the reader has no name (no use of y/n either) and no identifier other than generally being referred to with she/her pronouns!
There were times in her life when everything was easy. When surety flowed like blood in her veins and everything about her life felt like an energizer battery had been clicked into the back of her neck. In contrast, there were also times when the air she breathed felt like water and she was drowning in it. Those were the times when getting out of bed in the morning took strength and standing upright flight like an insurmountable challenge. When bringing her mind back to her perfectly satisfactory life in her perfectly functional body felt like reeling in a whale with a fishing rod.
As such, no one had seen her in a few days. Her housemates left her alone, though she could tell it grated on Allie in specific. But, everytime Allie asked something to the effect of ‘you holding up okay babe?’ she just smiled and said something to the effect of ‘all good, just busy.’
Allie clearly wanted to push. The girl was a pusher. But they’d been in enough tear-inducing blow-out fights (two to be specific) that Allie knew better, and Hannah knew to get in the way. And so she sat curled at the edge of her bed—still in her outside clothes which would ordinarily be intolerable—and soaked in the nothingness of it all.
Time got sludgy when her mind was like this. The world moved with some kind of inconsistent ebb and flow, and she ended up spaced out at the wall for some indeterminate amount of time. Her mind moved around, poking all of the sore spots in her head as if her own psyche wanted to see how far it could push before her sanity snapped. Thus far it had pushed at her career path, specifically her choice of music as a hobby rather than the aforementioned career path. It had poked at her journalism skills which never seemed to be up to scratch.
Nothing had quite broken her, rather just pressed her further into that small ball on the end of her bed.
She was so far into her own head that, from the outside, it took a few minutes of incessant knocking for her to unfurl from the ball of flesh she’d become to get off her ass and open the door.
Standing, wearing a horribly unimpressed twist to his lips, in her doorway happened to be her boyfriend. He was wearing a tasteful T-shirt half-tucked into a pair of khakis. The whole vibe of the ensemble made her say, “No I don’t want to hear about our lore and savior Jesus Christ.”
Logan briefly stopped looking miffed at her to look miffed down at his outfit. “You couldn’t possibly be comparing me to a Jehovah’s witness right now.” This was one of the many things she loved about John Logan. He had an incredible ability to go back and forth, verbally toe to toe with her. He matched her in a way she’d never been matched before or since. That was part of the reason she went a little bit cold at his next words. “You haven’t picked up your phone. Any thoughts on that?”
He wasn’t playing anymore, clearly. There was no hint of a smile playing across mock-serious lips like their usual romantic comedy routine.
She opened her mouth to serve up a quippy, pre-packaged excuse. She’d been doing homework. She’d been writing. She’d been editing. She’d been asleep. She certainly looked the part for that last one. But, none of those excuses seemed to want to come out. Instead, the sheer volume of the hurt, the warriness sitting behind Logan’s eyes bored far too intently into her and the only thing she could physically do was drop her head to her hands and start sobbing.
All the numbness from the past few days melted away into ten tons of grief. Suddenly it was all sitting on her all at once and she crumpled under it all.
“Shit, baby.” He surged forward like a wave, lifting her gently the way the tide did. Also much like a wave, the wall of him hit her and she surrendered to it. He wrapped his arms around her and took the back of her neck to press her tear-ridden face into his collarbone. “It’s okay baby, it’s okay.”
“S-s-sorry,” she hiccuped into his shirt. The general melancholy seemed to leak out of her the same way the tears did and she was entirely limp against him. “‘M sorry.”
“No, honey.” John picked her up the way one might pick up a toddler—and she spared a moment to consider how much muscle that took—and sat the two of them down on the end of her bed. The same place where her sludgy self had been piled earlier. Now she was gathered in his lap with his arms holding her in the shape of a real person. “Don’t apologize,” he whispered, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear and pressing his lips to the top of her head in more of a caress than a kiss.
They sat like that for a long time. His arms contained her whole self as if it was this simple to hold her together. He tucked her into him and brushed his hand back and forth through her hair in a soothing motion.
Unfortunately, she ran out of tears before she ran out of inexplicable grief. The gravity of earth seemed to be too much to pick her head up off his shoulder. But she managed to whisper, “I’m sorry,” into his chest.
Logan’s chest rose and fell with a rather belabored sigh. “What did I tell you about all the sorrys, baby?”
She hummed non-commitally.
“Words, baby.” The hand in her hair left to lightly grasp her chin, tilting her head up to look at him properly. The way his eyes looked into hers almost made her sob again. Wide, honey eyes were turned down to hers with such palpable concern that made guilt crawl into her throat like a many-legged creature. If she could speak properly around said creature, she’d have apologized again. But, she could only shake her head. “Okay, that’s okay,” he soothed. “Do you want to talk about it at all?”
She opened her mouth, and it took some time for anything resembling words to come out. “I don’t really know what to talk about,” she said. It was a lame response, but it took some force to get even that truth from between her lips.
“Okay,” Logan said softly. He looked thoughtful. “Why don’t we start with why no one has heard from you in three days?” There was no judgement in his voice this time. Rather than accusatory, he simply asked. By this point, Logan knew her well enough to know there was no point in being mad at her when she was adequately mad at herself. There was nothing worth accusing her of.
“I’m not really sure,” she whispered. Her chin tilted down to look at the faded Carhartt graphic on his shirt rather than his face. His hand remained on her chin, but he didn’t force her to look at him this time. “It just all gets too big, you know? It all gets in my head. My psychiatrist calls it an episode, but I don’t know that that’s very descriptive. It really just feels like the whole word is telling me I’m not good enough. Like what’s the point of my dreams, my efforts, all the things I’m doing they’re all really just futile because the world is so huge and so cruel. It’s like my brain takes everything that makes me happy and twists it to make me sad. And Jesus, you make me so happy and I just feel like I can’t talk to you because it just makes me feel like I’m going to bring you down. Talking to anyone at all feel like too much and what’s even the point a—”
“Hey.” The hand on her chin brought her back up to look at him. “It’s okay. Thank you for telling me.” he spared a moment to smile like an idiot. “And I’m glad to hear I make you so happy. But let me just check if I understand okay?”
She nodded numbly into the calloused palm holding her so terribly gently.
“So, your psychiatrist calls it an episode, and it’s a little like when an old injury flares up. But, instead of physical it’s mental?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Does it have anything to do with like the seasons or your classes or anything like that? I know with my mom—” he paused for a moment to swallow thickly, and she waited. “—it always gets worse in the winter. Probably because they’re fuck all to do in Massachusets in December except drink but still.”
She smiled at him, for him, and raised a hand to squeeze his shoulder. “It doesn’t really move with the seasons for me. It’s more symptomatic of a mood disorder.”
“Mmmm, I love it when you use big words,” he leaned in and pressed his lips lightly to her cheekbone.
“Symptomatic is not a big word, John Logan. You just can’t read.”
“Blasphemy.” He continued trailing light, tickling kisses over her face. “See I know that word.”
“So proud of you, sweetheart,” she deadpanned.
He laughed into the soft skin of her face. His stubbled tickled her face. “Thank you for talking to me, baby. I know it’s not easy. Permission to enter the ‘fixing’ stage of this conversation?”
She laughed into him. John Logan, God bless him, was a mechanic in more than just the physical sense. He was a fixer. His knee jerk response, first instinct when presented with an issue was always to consider how to solve the problem. It took him a little while into their relationship to understand that that is not how women operate. “Permission granted,” she said, punctuating with a kiss on his cheek.
“Okay. Now is there anything we can do for next time to make it easier for you to talk to me about how you feel? I don’t like going three days without hearing from my girl. It makes me think I’m in trouble.”
That made her laugh harder than she had for several days. “You aren’t in trouble, and I’m sorry I’ve been a bad girlfriend the past few days. I just—” she paused a moment to gather her words like apples in an orchard. “I guess I got scared that it would all be too much for you too early.”
“Baby,” he whispered, smiling and shaking his head. “We’ve known each other for like two years. We’re not exactly getting to know each other. I got to know so much of you before I even knew I loved you.”
She felt her bottom lip wobble, once again like a child, and a tear won the battle she’d waged against it. She brushed it away quickly as if it could ever evade his notice and smacked her palm against his chest. “Jesus fucking Christ, I hate you. You’re so stupidly romantic.”
The boyish grin she fell in love with broke his lips. “Thanks baby, I try. Now can we agree you’ll talk to me next time. Just shoot me a quick text, one word and I’ll know. Do we need a safeword?”
“We have a safeword,” she quipped without much thought. “We have three actually. It’s called the stoplight system.”
His shoulder shook with laughter that was inordinately loud. “There’s my girl. Now stop being a brat, you know what I mean. Pick a word.”
She let the smile play unabashedly across her face. “Is pineapple too stereotypical?”
“I mean it’s not our real safeword so I think it’s fine. As long as I never have to say or hear you say pineapple while I fuck you, I’m cool with it.”
She punched him in the arm and the two of them dissolved into laughter. It didn’t fix the problem. Chemical imbalances in the brain weren’t magically fixed by her lovely boyfriend making her laugh. But, being held by her while their collective bodies shook with laughter made everything feel just a bit easier.
Let me know your thoughts!! I love love love comments
By the time the plane touched down in Texas, Logan had heard Cowboy Week described in enough different tones that he was beginning to suspect it was less a family tradition and more a hereditary condition.
From you, it had sounded like a warning wrapped in nostalgia, a week of dust roads, horses, too much food, old family feuds, cousins by the acre, and relatives who remembered everything you had ever done wrong on a horse before the age of twelve.
From your mother, over the phone two days before, it had sounded like a logistical operation with no tolerance for anyone who confused arrival time with arrival-adjacent.
From Sarah, in the group chat, it had sounded like a threat.
From Hugh, it had sounded like an excuse to call Logan “Boston” until the word lost all meaning.
From Nana, who had sent one voice note at seven in the morning and another at ten-thirty at night because time zones were apparently for people without romantic conviction, it had sounded like a blend of inheritance, weather, red lipstick, and mild emotional blackmail.
His last warning was from you, quietly, when you were folding a white cotton dress into your suitcase the night before you left Briar, it had sounded like something more delicate than all of that.
“You’re going to see everybody in one place,” you had said, smoothing your palm over the dress as though it had personally offended you by wrinkling, “Which is lovely. And loud. And mildly horrifying.”
Logan, sitting on the edge of your bed with one of your packing cubes in his lap because he had been appointed Assistant to the Packing Manager after incorrectly suggesting you could simply “throw things in,” had looked up at you, “I’ve met your family.”
“You’ve met my immediate family.”
“Your siblings.”
“Yes.”
“Your parents.”
“Yes.”
“Your grandparents.”
“Yes.”
“And survived.”
You had given him a look, “That was dinner.”
“Dinner was three hours.”
“Exactly. A controlled sample.”
Now, standing just outside baggage claim with Texas heat pushing through the automatic doors every time they opened, Logan was beginning to understand that you had not been exaggerating. Or, more accurately, you had been exaggerating in the wrong direction.
Cowboy Week was not smaller than you had made it sound. It was bigger. Wider. Older. There was a whole week waiting outside the airport, and Logan could feel it before he saw it, in the way your shoulders had been drawn up since the plane began descending, in the way you kept checking your phone even though all three of your siblings had already texted that they were there, in the way your fingers brushed the strap of your tote every few seconds to make sure your passport, lip balm, and emergency perfume were exactly where you had left them.
“You good?” Logan asked, low enough that the family beside you, three suitcases deep and already losing a child in a straw hat, would not hear.
You turned to him immediately, bright by instinct, even though he could see the nerves under it, “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you’ve checked that bag five times, and if you do it again, I’m going to start thinking there’s a newborn foal in there.”
“There is not a newborn foal in my tote.”
“Could be. Your family’s involved.”
“You are very funny for someone about to meet my extended family on their home turf.”
He shifted his duffel higher on his shoulder and leaned down enough to kiss the corner of your mouth. You smelled like airport air, cherry balm, and the perfume you had dabbed on in the plane bathroom before landing because you said sitting in one place for four hours made you feel stale. He had been dating you long enough not to ask what that meant; he knew the answer would involve a hand gesture, a wrinkle of your nose, and a comparison to old linen.
“You act like they’re going to eat me,” he said.
“They won’t eat you.” You paused, “They may assign you a task before you know the layout.”
“That’s fine.”
“Do not say you can ride.”
“I can ride.”
You turned your whole face toward him, “John Logan.”
“What?”
“You can sit on a horse without publicly disgracing yourself. That is not the same as saying you can ride in this family.”
He laughed, which was exactly the wrong thing to do because it made you look at him like you were deciding whether he deserved to be saved.
“Okay,” he said, “What do I say?”
“You say, ‘I know enough not to lie.’”
“That sounds like something your grandfather would say.”
“It is something my grandfather has said.”
“Good to know.”
“And if Hugh offers you anything, you decline.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
“What if it’s water?”
“Especially then.”
The doors slid open again, letting in a flash of sun, heat, and the sound of someone yelling your name with the confidence of a person who had never feared public attention in his life.
“Little Sis!”
You closed your eyes, “There he is.”
Hugh was leaning against the hood of a black SUV like he had been staged there for a magazine shoot no one had requested, sunglasses on, one boot crossed over the other, eating what looked like a breakfast taco out of foil. He was in jeans and a pale shirt with the sleeves shoved to his elbows, looking exactly like the kind of man who would say he did not care about winning and then keep a record of every victory since childhood.
Jordan stood beside the open trunk of the second SUV, phone to his ear, expression flat and expensive. He was in sunglasses too, but where Hugh looked like he had chosen his for drama, Jordan looked like he had chosen his because he had been forced into daylight and found the concept inefficient. Maddie stood beside him, hair pulled back, boots already dusty, one hand resting on the handle of a suitcase while she checked something on her phone. Her engagement ring flashed when she reached absently for Jordan’s wrist, glancing at whatever he was showing her with the calm familiarity of someone who had survived enough of his family to marry into it anyway. Logan realised instantly, this was Jordan’s fiancée.
Sarah was perched on the passenger side of Hugh’s car, wearing denim shorts, boots, and a white tank under an open shirt, her hair pulled back, mouth already curving when she saw you.
“Oh, thank God,” Sarah said as you came close enough for her to grab you, “You brought the good lip gloss.”
“I missed you too,” you said, hugging her with one arm while trying to keep your tote from sliding down your shoulder.
Sarah kissed your cheek, then immediately inspected your face like you had arrived for customs but the customs officer was your younger sister, “You look tired.”
“I was on a plane.”
“You look plane-tired.”
“That’s a real category?”
“It is on you.”
“I’m going home.”
“You’re going to a ranch.”
“Same thing.”
Logan barely had time to smile before Hugh clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to test both affection and bone density, “Boston.”
“Hugh.”
“You ready?”
Logan glanced at you. You were already giving him the look that meant do not engage, “For the ranch?”
“For the week.”
“I’ve been briefed.”
Hugh grinned, “By Cherry? Terrible source. She makes it sound organised.”
“It is organised,” you said.
“It is organised the way a barn fire is organised once everyone starts yelling the same name.”
Jordan slid his phone into his pocket and stepped forward to kiss your cheek, “Flight okay?”
“Yes.” You hugged him, softer than you had hugged Hugh, “You look like you’ve already threatened a man today.”
“I asked a trainer for a timeline.”
“That is not a denial.”
He turned to Logan and offered his hand, “Good to see you.”
“You too, man.”
Jordan’s handshake was firm and he had a type of calm that did not need to prove itself by crushing fingers. Logan liked him, mostly because Jordan had never once tried to be warm when he did not feel like it. His approval, if you got it, came quiet and exact.
“You brought boots?” Jordan asked.
Logan nodded, “Yeah.”
“Good.”
“That was approval,” Sarah whispered loudly, “Write it down.”
Hugh was already reaching for your suitcase. You smacked his hand away, “I’ve got it.”
“Seriously?”
“I’ve got it.”
“It weighs more than you.”
“It does not.”
“It contains what, twelve outfits for dinner?”
You lifted your chin, “Nine.”
Sarah gasped, “Amateur.”
Jordan, without looking, lifted your suitcase into the trunk with one hand and Logan’s duffel with the other, then went back to checking something on his phone. Hugh pointed at him with the remains of his taco.
Jordan did not look up, “You are leaning on the car while eating.”
“I’m creating morale.”
“You’re creating crumbs.”
Logan felt you laugh beside him, quick and bright, and something in him eased. You were different around them. Maybe more yourself, if that was possible. Sharper and faster. Ten years younger and somehow more grown-up at once. Your siblings seemed to pull old versions of you up through the polished surface, and you let them because you loved them enough to be irritated without having to perform kindness.
That was how Logan ended up in the back of Hugh’s SUV with you pressed against his side, Sarah twisted around in the front seat to talk to you over the console, Hugh driving with one hand low on the wheel and Jordan following behind with Maddie and half the luggage.
Texas opened out around you in long roads and hot sky. The airport fell away into highways, then smaller roads, then land that seemed to stretch farther than it had any right to.
Logan had been to your farms before. He had been to your Boston orchards, had stood under cherry trees in summer light, had watched you move around animals with a confidence that made him feel seventeen and useless again. But this was different, this was wider, dustier. Less pretty at first glance and more powerful.
You leaned forward between the front seats, talking with Sarah about who had arrived, who had not, which aunt was already complaining about the room assignments, whether Nana had forgiven Grandad for changing the dinner seating without telling her, and if Sarah had remembered to bring the printed schedules.
“I made digital ones,” Sarah said.
You went still, “Sarah.”
“What?”
“You printed them, right?”
“People have phones.”
Hugh made a low noise from the driver’s seat.
You spoke very carefully, “Did you print the schedules?”
Sarah slowly turned around in her seat, “I am sensing,” she said, “that the answer you want is yes.”
“Sarah.”
“They can be printed at the house!”
“The printer at the house jams if you look at it with expectations.”
“I made them very pretty.”
“Pretty does not help Nana when Aunt Camille asks what time breakfast is and Nana says to check the schedule and the schedule is trapped in your Canva account.”
Sarah looked offended, “It is not trapped. It is designed.”
Logan coughed to hide a laugh.
You turned on him immediately, “Do not encourage her.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You laughed internally.”
“I thought it very quietly.”
Hugh flicked his gaze to the rear-view mirror, “Don’t worry. By Wednesday, you’ll be doing that out loud.”
“Wednesday?” Logan asked.
Sarah smiled, “Optimistic.”
The road stretched ahead.
For a while, the conversation moved around Logan rather than at him, and he was grateful for it, because it gave him time to understand that your family did not simply exist in Texas. He had known your family was spread out, obviously. He had known there were farms and orchards and vineyards and horse operations in a way that sounded fake if he ever tried to explain it to anyone at Briar. But hearing Sarah and Hugh talk about it in the car made it feel less like wealth and more like weather. Everywhere and inescapable.
“Mama’s side is arriving tonight?” you asked.
“California got in this morning,” Sarah said, “Napa lot and the Central Valley lot, because they are apparently different.”
“They are different emotionally.”
“They are both fruit people.”
Hugh scoffed, “Do not let Aunt Camille hear you call wine grapes fruit people.”
“They are fruit.”
“They are personality disorders with vines.”
You turned to Logan, “Mama’s side is mostly fruit, wine, and presentation.”
“That is reductive,” Hugh said.
“It is accurate.”
Sarah began counting on her fingers, “California does grapes, stone fruit, almonds, a little citrus depending on which cousin is lying. New York does apples, pears, cider, and that very expensive jam Nana pretends not to like while eating directly from the jar. Georgia does peaches and pecans. Florida does citrus and winter strawberries. Oregon does berries and hazelnuts. Washington does apples and cherries, and North Carolina does flowers and vegetables for the event side.”
Logan stared at her, “That’s one side?”
“That’s Mama’s side,” you said.
Hugh lifted a finger, “And the events. Don’t forget events.”
“That’s Hugh’s career choice and emotional support category,” Sarah said.
“It is called curation.”
“It is called telling people where to put chairs while wearing linen.”
“And somehow,” Hugh said, “everyone wants me near the chairs.”
“You are always near them,” you said, “but rarely lift them.”
He placed a hand over his chest, “Words wound.”
“And your dad’s side?” Logan asked, because at that point he needed the map before the week swallowed him whole.
You settled back against him, your shoulder brushing his chest, “Daddy’s side is what happened when Nana’s family and Grandad’s family married.”
Hugh nodded, “Romantic, if you ignore the amount of property law involved.”
“Grandad’s side had Texas first,” you said, “Horses, cattle, land, the main ranch- this is where Jordan works since he’s a bloodstock agent. Then Kentucky for thoroughbreds and sales. Oklahoma for quarter horses and reining stock. Montana and Wyoming for cattle and ranch horses. Colorado for hay and alfalfa. New Mexico for rescue and rehabilitation because Nana said the desert needed somewhere kinder.”
“She did say that,” Sarah said, “Then bought half a county.”
“And Nana’s people brought in Massachusetts, obviously. The Boston orchards. Cherries, apples, old family grudges, very good pie. Virginia for boarding barns and hunter-jumper people, because Nana had a foxhunting aunt with terrifying posture. Pennsylvania for dairy and feed contracts, though nobody likes to talk about the Pennsylvania cousins because they’re always right about weather.”
Logan blinked. “How many states is that?”
“Daddy’s side? Combined? Nine,” you said, “Ten if you count the one Maryland cousin who owns three goats and behaves like that’s agriculture.”
“It is agriculture,” Sarah said.
“It is a hobby with fencing.”
Hugh glanced back, “And all of them send people to Cowboy Week.”
Logan looked out the window at the land unfolding around you. “All of them?”
“No,” you said.
“At least not all at once,” Sarah added, “If all branches arrived, the FAA would open an investigation.”
“Cowboy Week is the closest we get,” Hugh said, “The main people come. The loud people come. The useful people come. The people with grievances come. The people who think they are useful but are actually just loud also come.”
Sarah looked at him, “You could have said your own name.”
“I was creating suspense.”
You leaned your head briefly against Logan’s shoulder, “Basically, it started as Grandad’s side checking horses and stock and repairing what weather broke. Then Nana married him, and suddenly half of New England had opinions about Texas. Then Mama married Daddy, and fruit people got involved. Now it’s horses, agriculture, wine, family, charity, events, competitions, old grudges, new babies, and Hugh almost dying on the mechanical bull every year.”
“I do not almost die.”
“You dismounted by flying through the air last year,” Sarah said.
“That bull has a bias.”
“That bull is machinery.”
“Exactly.”
Logan listened, and the size of it settled slowly in his chest. The way your family had thrown roots across the country and still insisted on dragging itself back to one place once a year, like geography was something to be argued with but not obeyed.
No wonder you looked nervous.
The farm appeared piece by piece.
First, fencing. Miles of it, or what felt like miles, running along the road in clean, weathered lines. Then a wide gate set back from the road, dark metal and pale stone, with the family name worked into the arch above it in a style that made Logan sit up a little straighter without meaning to. Beyond it, a long drive stretched toward low buildings and pastures, the late afternoon sun turning the dust behind the car gold.
There were horses visible in the distance. Dozens.
Some grazing with lazy flicks of their tails. Some lifting their heads as the vehicles turned in. Farther back, Logan could make out barns, paddocks, a riding arena, another house, trucks, trailers, a cluster of people near what looked like an outdoor kitchen, and beyond all of it, more land.
So much land. You went quiet beside him and Logan felt your fingers tighten around his.
He looked down. You were watching the farm through the windshield, eyes hidden by sunglasses, mouth soft.
“This is it?” he asked, and you nodded, “This is Cowboy Week?”
You smiled without looking away, “This is where Cowboy Week happens.”
That, Logan realised quickly, was not the same thing.
By the time the ranch came into view properly, Logan had stopped pretending he was not staring. It was not one house, instead there was a property that kept revealing itself the longer he looked- a main farmhouse set back behind old trees, a second house beyond it, guest cottages and converted barns scattered across the property, arenas already marked out with temporary rails, trucks moving between outbuildings, people carrying crates, saddles, coolers, coils of hose, folded tables.
There were banners going up along one fence line, not tacky ones, but dark green and cream with elegant lettering and the old family crest he had seen stamped on the corner of the stationery your grandmother still used.
A ranch dog trotted across the drive with the confidence of someone who owned three-quarters of the land and tolerated human tenancy. Near one of the arenas, two teenagers were arguing over a stack of poles. Behind them, someone was pressure-washing a stock tank. Farther out, horse trailers stood in a neat line, and beyond them, under a temporary awning, a group of older men in cowboy-hats were pointing at something with the grave intensity of surgeons.
You leaned forward between the seats, your face lighting despite yourself, “Oh, they moved the west arena.”
Sarah nodded, “For polo practice. Texas branch complained about sun angle.”
Hugh scoffed, “Texas branch complains when the sun rises in Texas.”
“Are they wrong?”
“Yes.”
“You complained for twenty minutes about the coffee at the airport.”
“That was different. That coffee had no honour.”
Logan looked at you, “This is quieter than usual?”
You smiled without looking at him, “A little.”
Hugh barked a laugh, “Last year there was a hay bale fire by now.”
“It was contained,” Sarah said.
“It was Wednesday.”
“Containment is not time-sensitive.”
The main house had a wide porch shaded by deep eaves, with rocking chairs, potted plants, and enough people on it to make the word casual feel legally inaccurate.
Your mother stood near the steps in a white shirt, jeans, and boots, one hand resting on her hip while she spoke to a man carrying two boxes of glass jars. Your father was beside her, hat tipped back, talking to Grandad as if they had not both positioned themselves with a clear view of the driveway. Nana sat in a chair with a glass of iced tea, wearing sunglasses, red lipstick, and the expression of a woman who had never once been early in her life because the world was simply late to her.
You made a tiny sound beside him, “They’re pretending they weren’t waiting.”
“They’re bad at it,” Logan said.
“They are usually better.”
“That’s because Nana told them to come out,” Sarah said, already opening her door before the car had fully settled, “She said if she had to wait for you guys, she wanted scenery.”
Hugh parked and killed the engine, “Welcome to Cowboy Week, Boston.”
Logan stepped out into heat, dust, and the immediate sensation that he had entered a family story already in progress. Before he could reach for his duffel, the front door flew open and a tiny child in pink boots came hurtling down the porch steps with all the reckless determination of someone who had never once considered gravity a serious threat.
“Logie!”
Logan froze.
You turned to him, delighted, “Oh no.”
The toddler crossed the gravel at a speed that made at least three adults shout different warnings. She ignored all of them. Logan had just enough time to open his arms slightly before she slammed into his legs with a joyful little grunt.
“Logie!”
He looked down at her.
Then at you.
Then back at her.
“Hey, bug,” he said, careful and impossibly gentle. Your heart did something humiliating in your chest. The toddler, whose actual name was Caroline but who had insisted on being called Cricket since sometime around Christmas, wrapped both arms around Logan’s shin like she planned to physically prevent him from ever leaving again.
“You came,” she said, looking up at him with open accusation, like she had doubted his commitment.
“I did.”
“You bring me hockey?”
He blinked, “Hockey?”
“She means the puck,” you said, biting your lip.
Logan’s face changed, “Oh. Yeah, I did.”
Cricket gasped like he had just confirmed the existence of magic, “You did?”
“I promised, didn’t I?”
She nodded very seriously, “At Nana’s party. You said next time.”
“I remember.”
Hugh, stepping out of the SUV behind them, lowered his sunglasses, “Right. He’s famous with the under-fives now. That’s worrying.”
Sarah appeared beside you, “Cricket has taste.”
“She’s three,” Hugh said.
“Advanced taste.”
Logan crouched, pulling the puck from the outer pocket of his duffel. He had brought it because Cricket had spent twenty minutes at Nana’s birthday in Boston trying to steal one from his bag, and you had teased him for being soft when he packed it that morning. Now he handed it to her, and she held it with both hands like treasure.
“My hockey,” she announced.
“Your hockey,” Logan agreed.
Cricket looked down at it, then up at him again, “Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“Hockey.”
Logan glanced at the gravel, then at the entire porch of watching relatives, then at you, who was now making absolutely no effort to hide your smile.
“She wants a demonstration,” you said.
“With what, my hands?”
Cricket immediately held out a tiny stick. It was not a hockey stick. It appeared to be half of a toy broom, painted pink, with a ribbon tied around it.
Logan stared at it. You covered your mouth. Cricket waved it impatiently, “Use this.”
“Of course,” Logan said solemnly, taking the toy broom handle from her, “Professional equipment.”
“Like your ice stick.”
“My ice stick. Exactly.”
He set the puck on a patch of smoother dirt near the drive, crouching lower so Cricket could see. The pink broom handle was absurd in his hands, too small and too light, but he treated it with such complete seriousness that the porch began to quiet with interest. He tapped the puck once, twice, then slid it gently toward Cricket’s boots.
She squealed and stomped both feet.
“Again!”
“Again?” Logan asked.
“Again, Logie.”
He did it again.
This time, Cricket tried to stop it with one pink boot and missed entirely, nearly spinning herself around. Logan caught her by the back of her little shirt before she could tip over.
“Careful, bug.”
“I got it!”
“You absolutely did.”
“You lied,” Hugh muttered.
Logan looked up, “She got it.”
Cricket beamed. A woman from the porch, one of your cousins from Mama’s side, put a hand to her chest, “Oh, Logan, you didn’t have to remember that.”
He flushed a little, “It was no problem.”
Cricket pressed the puck to her chest, “Mine.”
“Yes,” her mother said, “But we are not sleeping with it.”
Cricket’s face immediately collapsed into betrayal.
Logan, apparently unwilling to survive three-year-old sadness, said, “Maybe it can sit on your dresser.”
Cricket considered this with the gravitas of a land treaty, “By my horse?”
“By your horse.”
“My horse is named Pancake.”
“Great name.”
“She bites.”
“Less great.”
You laughed, and Cricket turned to you suddenly, remembering you existed, “Auntie!”
“There I am,” you said, crouching down as she threw herself at you next.
Cricket climbed into your arms with zero concern for your travel clothes, one fist still closed around the puck. You kissed her cheek, and she immediately pressed the puck against your jaw as if blessing you with hockey.
“Cold,” you said.
“It’s hockey.”
“That’s true.”
She twisted back toward Logan, “Logie sleeps here?”
“He does,” you said.
“In your room?”
The porch went dead silent in the way only a family with terrible instincts could manage.
Logan closed his eyes briefly. You stared at Cricket. Cricket stared back, innocent and lethal.
Sarah made a sound like she was dying. Hugh whispered, “Children are truth.”
You lifted your chin, “He is staying in the blue room.”
“With you?”
“Cricket.”
“The blue bed yells.”
Logan’s eyes opened. You looked slowly toward Nana. Nana took a sip of iced tea and looked away, as though she had never discussed furniture in her life. Grandad coughed into his hand.
Your father said, “Caroline.”
Cricket leaned toward Logan and whispered loudly, “It yells.”
“Good to know,” Logan said, voice strangled.
She patted his cheek with her free hand, leaving a tiny dust print near his jaw, “Be brave.”
That ruined you. You pressed your face into Cricket’s hair and laughed so hard your sunglasses slid down your nose.
Logan stood quickly, because the look on your face was dangerous to him. That soft, unbearably fond thing in your eyes had started again, made worse by the toddler in your arms and the pink broom handle still in his hand. He handed it back to Cricket like a man returning a ceremonial sword.
She accepted it. Then, after a moment’s consideration, she reached into the front pocket of her tiny overalls and produced a sticker. It was purple and star-shaped.
“For Logie,” she said.
Logan looked at it. Then at her. Then at you.
“You have to take it,” you whispered.
He held out his hand. Cricket stuck the purple star to the back of it with solemn precision, “For coming.”
His face softened so openly you had to look down for a second.
“Thanks, bug,” he said.
She nodded, satisfied, then immediately wriggled out of your arms to go show the puck to a cousin near the porch.
Hugh watched her run off, “He has a fan club.”
Sarah nodded, “Under-fives and grandmothers. Strong demographic.”
Logan looked down at the sticker on his hand, “I don’t know what just happened.”
You slipped your fingers through his and lifted his hand to inspect the star, “You were accepted by Cricket.”
“Is that good?”
“It is catastrophic. She’s going to make you watch cartoons before breakfast.”
“She gave me a sticker.”
“You’re done for.”
“I know.”
Your mother reached you by then, and whatever you were going to say disappeared into the force of her hug. She held your face afterward, thumbs near your jaw, looking you over with affection sharpened by assessment.
“You’re thin.”
“I am not.”
“You are plane-thin.”
Sarah pointed at you triumphantly, “I said that.”
“You are both dramatic.”
Your mother kissed your forehead, then turned to Logan and hugged him too, which still surprised him even though she had been doing it since the second dinner. She smelled like citrus soap, sun-warmed cotton, and something floral that probably came from a garden she could name down to the row.
“Logan, sweetheart,” she said, pulling back, “You survived the flight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nana, from the porch, lifted her glass, “Still doing that.”
Logan looked up, “Ma’am?”
“The ma’am thing.” She smiled, “Lovely. Don’t let them civilise it out of you.”
Grandad stood and came down the steps to shake Logan’s hand, “Good to see you, son.”
“You too, sir.”
Your father greeted you with one arm around your shoulders, kissed the top of your head, then gave Logan a nod that felt like a handshake before the actual handshake came.
“Glad you made it.”
“Me too.”
Hugh, behind him, muttered, “He says that now.”
Your father turned his head, “Hugh.”
“What? I’m building atmosphere.”
“You’re building a reason for me to send you to the feed shed.”
Sarah made a thoughtful noise, “He’d get lost.”
“I would not.”
“You got lost in the west guest house last Christmas.”
“It has unnecessary doors.”
“It’s a house.”
The main house was not a farmhouse in the quaint sense.
It was a farmhouse in the way your family used the word farm, which Logan had learned often meant large enough to house a small government. Long and pale, with wraparound porches, green shutters, wide steps, and rooms that seemed to have been added whenever some generation had produced too many children or too many opinions.
There were old oak trees around it, providing islands of shade. Wind chimes moved lazily near the porch. Boots lined one side of the entry in chaotic rows. Somewhere inside, a dog barked once and then apparently decided the arrival of fifteen more people was not worth getting up for.
Before rooms, before bags, before Logan could even pretend to understand where anything was, your mother led everyone toward the side porch where the week board had already been set up.
Or, more accurately, the boards. Plural.
The first was a green-framed chalkboard the size of a small door, written in Sarah’s looping handwriting and divided into days, events, duties, and names. Breakfast prep. Barn check. Water runs. East yard. Arena set-up. Kids. Kitchen. Dinner. Partner labour pool. A smaller board beside it listed competitions: barrel racing, roping, trail relay, family polo scrimmage, mechanical bull night, junior clinic, founders’ dinner, aftercare demo, and something called “state branch games,” which Logan did not like the sound of at all.
The third board was a map of the United States. That one stopped him.
It was pinned with little coloured flags. Green for Mama’s side. Burgundy for Daddy’s. Cream for merged branches. There were strings running between states like a conspiracy wall, except instead of crime it tracked horses, fruit, land, marriage, and generational stubbornness.
Logan stepped closer despite himself, “You made a war map,” he said.
Sarah appeared beside him, offended, “It is a heritage map.”
“It has strings.”
“For clarity.”
“It looks like you’re hunting your relatives.”
“Sometimes we are.”
You leaned against Logan’s side, pointing, “Green is Mama’s side. California is split because if you call Napa and Central Valley the same branch, Aunt Camille will develop a migraine for social reasons. New York is apples and cider. Georgia is peaches and pecans. Florida is citrus. Oregon is berries and hazelnuts. Washington is cherries and apples. North Carolina is flowers, vegetables, and event florals.”
Sarah pointed to the burgundy side, “Daddy’s side. Texas is main ranch. Kentucky is thoroughbreds. Oklahoma is quarter horses and reining. Montana and Wyoming are cattle and working horses. Colorado is hay and alfalfa. New Mexico is rehab and rescue. Massachusetts is Nana’s orchards. Virginia is hunter-jumper and boarding barns. Pennsylvania is feed, dairy, and weather pessimism.”
Logan stared. Hugh leaned over his shoulder, “And Maryland has the goat cousin.”
You sighed, “Maryland is not official.”
“The goat cousin is real.”
“The goat cousin is one woman with three goats and a Facebook page.”
“That is how empires begin.”
Logan looked at the map again, “How many people are here?”
Your mother, passing with a clipboard, said, “Enough.”
“That did not answer anything,” Logan said.
Your father clapped him once on the back, not hard, but enough to redirect his soul, “You’ll learn.”
Then your mother clapped her hands once, lightly but with terrifying authority.
“Right. Rooms first. Bags upstairs, quick refresh, then I need bodies in the kitchen and the east yard. Dinner at eight. If you are late, I will know and I will not be charmed by your excuse.” Hugh opened his mouth, “Especially you.”
He closed it.
You lifted your tote higher on your shoulder, “Where am I?”
“Blue room with Logan,” your mother said.
There was half a second of silence, and Logan felt every sibling, parent, grandparent, and porch-adjacent relative turn their attention toward you with varying levels of delight.
Sarah coughed into her hand. Hugh grinned, “Walls are thin.”
Your father said, “Hugh,” again, but this time with the exhausted weight of a man who had been saying it for twenty-four years.
Sarah leaned toward Logan, “He’s not wrong.”
Nana set her glass down, “Blue room’s nice. Loud bed, though.”
“Nana,” you hissed.
“What?” Nana lifted both hands, “I am discussing furniture.”
Grandad looked at Logan with sympathy that did not quite manage to hide amusement, “Old house.”
Logan, who had played in front of crowds, fought on ice, took hits that made his vision flash white, and once been chirped by Dean for forty straight minutes without breaking, felt heat climbing the back of his neck. You looked like you wanted the porch floor to open and swallow you whole, which made him want to laugh and kiss you and apologise all at once.
Your mother, mercifully, turned toward Mrs. Alvarez, “The blue room bags upstairs, please. Cherry, Logan, fifteen minutes. Then downstairs.”
“Fifteen?” you repeated.
“You’re young.”
“That does not answer me.”
“It was not meant to.”
Hugh slapped Logan’s shoulder again as everyone began moving, “See? Holiday.”
The blue room, when Logan finally saw it, looked nothing like he expected. It was upstairs at the back of the house, tucked beneath a sloping ceiling with exposed beams darkened by age and a window that opened over the side garden, where flower beds ran along the house in loose, bright waves.
The walls were a soft, faded blue, the kind that had probably been repainted three times in slightly different shades because someone’s grandmother had once said it made the room feel cooler.
There was an old brass bed with a white quilt folded back to reveal cream sheets, an antique dresser with an oval mirror, a small writing desk near the window, and a door that led into an ensuite bathroom with old tile, a claw-foot tub, a shower that looked more modern than the rest of the room, and a vanity already cleared for guests.
Someone had put fresh flowers on the dresser in a little glass vase. Someone else had left a stack of towels tied with blue ribbon on the bench at the foot of the bed.
You stood in the doorway for a second, taking it in, “Oh.”
Logan set his duffel down near the bench, “You okay?”
“Yes,” You stepped inside, touching the back of the desk chair with your fingertips, “I forgot how pretty this room is.”
“Loud bed,” he said, because he could not help himself.
You turned and pointed at him, “Do not start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said two words.”
“Furniture commentary.”
“I will throw you out the window.”
He glanced at the open window, “That seems loud too.”
Your mouth twitched, which he counted as a win.
For all of three minutes, it was peaceful. Then someone shouted for Sarah downstairs, a door slammed somewhere along the hall, Hugh’s voice rose in argument with a cousin over who had stolen his hat, and your phone buzzed twice with messages from your mother that you read while already opening your suitcase.
“Don’t unpack yet,” you said, though every part of you looked like it physically pained you, “We’ll come back up after we help.”
“Are you telling me not to unpack?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.” You took a breath, shut your suitcase with tragic discipline, and turned toward the door, “Come on. Before she sends someone.”
By the time you got downstairs, the main kitchen had become a controlled disaster.
It was a huge old farmhouse room with long counters, double ovens, a wide central work table scarred by years of knives and heat, copper pans hanging from a rack above the island, and windows thrown open to let in the heavy late-afternoon air.
There were bowls of peaches on the counter, bundles of herbs drying on linen towels, trays of cut lemons, stacks of napkins, jars lined up for labelling, a crate of apples by the back door, and a dog sleeping directly in the worst possible place, apparently confident that the entire family would rather step over him than ask him to move.
Which, Logan noticed after two minutes, was true.
The kitchen was full of everyone.
A man in a faded cap was rinsing herbs at the sink, sleeves rolled to his elbows. A cousin’s husband was peeling peaches into a bowl while carrying on a conversation with one of your aunts about irrigation timing. Two teenage boys were being sent out with baskets and explicit instructions to pick the apples from the east trees and not get distracted by the golf cart. Sarah had been handed a stack of cream labels and a red marker and was arguing with a girl her age about whether the word heritage made jam sound expensive or haunted. Your mother stood at the centre of it all in boots and a white shirt, directing movement like a general who happened to know exactly how much sugar went into peach cobbler.
She told an uncle to find the tractor keys because the south flower beds needed watering before evening heat cooked them. She told a teenage cousin that if he broke the irrigation timer again, he could explain himself to the dahlias. She told Mrs. Alvarez that the herb butter could wait but the biscuits could not.
Then she turned to you without missing a beat.
“Cherry, sweetheart, wash your hands. We need the cherries pitted for the hand pies, and then I need you to check the flowers by the side porch. They looked dramatic when I passed.”
“Flowers cannot be dramatic.”
“They absolutely can,” your mother said, “They get it from my side.”
Hugh walked in behind you, reached for a biscuit from a cooling rack, and was smacked on the hand by Mrs. Alvarez without her even looking, “Every year,” she said.
Hugh withdrew his hand, wounded, “It’s tradition.”
“So is consequences.”
Logan smiled before he could stop himself. That was when a woman at the far end of the table looked up from snapping beans and pointed at him with the empty end of one, “New partner?”
You glanced over, “Camille, be normal.”
Camille smiled beautifully. “I am being normal.”
“No, you’re being Mama’s-side normal.”
“Better hair, same questions.”
Your mother waved Logan toward the long work table as if his placement had been decided before he arrived, “Logan, you can start there. Maribel, Bennett, Theo, Ellis, Camille - be kind.”
Every person at the table looked up in a way that suggested kindness would be negotiated.
Logan sat because he could feel, instinctively, that refusing was not an option. The table was crowded with bowls, cutting boards, herbs, beans, peaches, paper labels, twine, and enough knives to make it clear this was not a ceremonial assignment. Maddie was there too, sleeves rolled neatly, peeling an apple in one long strip with the kind of quiet competence that made Jordan’s sharpness seem less genetic and more like something she tolerated on purpose.
Beside her, Maribel slid a bowl toward him, “Snap the ends off,” she said, “Good ones here, ugly ones there.”
Logan looked at the two bowls, “How ugly is ugly?”
Bennett, broad-shouldered and sun-browned, did not look up from chopping herbs, “If you have to ask, ugly.”
Theo leaned toward Logan from the other side, lowering his voice with solemn urgency, “First Cowboy Week?”
“Yeah.”
“Rule one, never ask if everyone is related.”
Logan paused with a bean in his hand, “Why?”
“Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes business, sometimes it starts a fight.”
Camille nodded, “Sometimes all three.”
Ellis, who had the open, cheerful face of a man who had survived years of family holidays without retaining useful fear, pointed his knife toward the back door, “If Mama’s side offers you food, take it.”
Bennett added, “If Daddy’s side offers you a horse, ask your girlfriend.”
Maribel, not looking up, said, “If Hugh offers you anything, decline.”
Logan glanced across the kitchen at you. You were at the sink with your hands under the tap, laughing at something Sarah had said while your mother tied an apron around your waist without asking. The apron was pale blue with a little red trim at the pocket. You accepted it like a soldier accepting armour.
“I got that warning,” Logan said.
“Good.” Maddie dropped an apple peel into a bowl, “He’s not malicious. He’s just recreationally dangerous.”
Hugh, from the other side of the kitchen, called, “I can hear you.”
“Then learn,” Maddie said calmly.
Jordan, who had appeared in the doorway with his phone in one hand and a set of keys in the other, looked at Logan seated at the table and gave the smallest approving nod. It was so brief Logan wondered if he had imagined it. Sarah did not let him.
“Jordan approves of bean work.”
Jordan turned toward her, “I approve of anyone being useful.”
“You must hate mirrors.”
“Sarah.”
You laughed, and Logan looked up. You were at the counter now, pitting cherries into a wide ceramic bowl, your hands already stained faintly red at the fingertips. Your hair was still braided from the flight, but looser now, pieces slipping around your face. You were talking to your mother, listening, nodding, then turning to tell one of the teenage cousins that if he put the apple basket on the wet floor again, you were personally going to make him eat floor apple pie.
He moved the basket. Immediately.
There was something about seeing you like this that caught Logan off guard. He knew you at Briar. He knew you in his truck, on campus, at parties, at the clinic, in his bed, arguing with a coffee machine, calling your mother on speaker, stealing his sweatshirts, holding goats, kissing him against his kitchen counter like you had never once believed in restraint. He knew the version of you who wore red lipstick to the grocery store and cried over old horses on rescue pages and could turn his whole day around by texting him a photo of your shoes.
But here, in this kitchen, you were just part of the machinery. Loved, teased, trusted, ordered around, obeyed in turn. Your mother passed you a bowl without looking; you caught it. Sarah stole a cherry from your cutting board; you smacked her wrist with a towel. An aunt Logan had not met, kissed the top of your head as she passed, then handed you a stack of folded napkins like affection and labour were the same language.
It did something strange to his chest. Then someone outside shouted, “Need two strong ones by the east cooler!”
Every head at the partners table turned toward Logan and Bennett. Logan looked around, “Me?”
Theo clapped him on the shoulder, “Congratulations.”
Bennett stood, “If they like you, they give you jobs.”
“And if they don’t?”
“They give you worse jobs.”
Logan followed Bennett out into the yard, where the heat hit harder after the crowded kitchen. The east cooler turned out to be a large insulated unit near the side of a converted barn, and the job turned out to be moving crates of drinks, ice, and something labelled DO NOT TILT - SARAH WILL KILL YOU into the correct order.
One of your uncles, a tall man called Everett with a grey beard and a hat that looked older than Logan’s truck, introduced himself, asked Logan about hockey within thirty seconds, and then managed to connect NHL prospects to tractor engines without any visible strain.
“So you’re aiming pro?” Everett asked, handing Logan a crate.
“Yes, sir.”
“What position?”
“Right Wing.”
“Good legs, then.”
Logan lifted the crate onto the stack, “That’s the hope.”
Everett grunted, “Horses and hockey. Same principle.”
Logan glanced at him, “Is it?”
“Balance, timing, don’t panic when something bigger than you changes direction.”
Bennett, carrying another crate, said, “That’s the most sense you’ve made all week.”
Everett ignored him, “You work on cars too?”
“A little.”
“My niece said mechanic.”
You said mechanic.
Logan did not know why that made him smile, but it did.
“Yeah,” he said, “My dad has a shop.”
Everett nodded, filing this away as if it mattered, “Good. We’ve got an old truck making an ugly noise by the equipment shed. Not today,” he added when Bennett groaned, “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Cowboy Week,” Bennett said to Logan, “is a series of people saying not today and meaning in twenty minutes.”
By the time Logan got back to the kitchen, there was dust on his shoes, a stripe of condensation on his shirt, and a new understanding that your family did not so much ask for help as absorb nearby bodies into systems already moving.
You looked up from the flower buckets near the back door as he came in, “Where did they take you?”
“Cooler.”
“That was merciful.”
“I’ve been told there’s an ugly truck.”
“There is always an ugly truck.”
“I was told not today.”
You smiled, “That means tomorrow.”
“That’s what Bennett said.”
“Bennett has survived six Cowboy Weeks.”
“Should I be worried that everyone counts survival in numbers?”
“Yes.”
Before he could answer, your mother passed between you with a tray of lemons and kissed your cheek in motion, “Cherry, flowers.”
“I’m going.”
“And take Logan with you if he’s standing there being handsome.”
“Mama.”
“What? Handsome men can carry buckets. That is why God gave them shoulders.”
Logan coughed into his hand. You closed your eyes for one second, then picked up two buckets of cut flowers, “Do not look pleased.”
“I’m not.”
“You are spiritually pleased.”
“I’m carrying buckets.”
“You love carrying buckets when my mother compliments your shoulders.”
“It was a practical observation.”
“It was propaganda.”
Outside, the side porch had been half-transformed already. Tables were set but not dressed, chairs stacked in groups, lanterns waiting along the railing. The flower beds beneath the porch were, as your mother had claimed, being dramatic. Some of the blooms were leaning under the heat, their bright heads drooping like fainting debutantes. You set one bucket down and made a noise of offence.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. She was right.”
“The flowers?”
“They’re being dramatic.”
Logan followed your gaze, “They look like flowers.”
“They look thirsty.”
“Right.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“I’m learning.”
You pointed toward the hose coiled near the spigot, “Turn that on, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
You gave him a look, “Nana has ruined you.”
“Nana likes me.”
“Nana likes trouble.”
“Then she likes us both.”
He turned the water on, and the hose gave an immediate cough before spraying sideways across his boot. You laughed so hard you nearly dropped the bucket.
“Helpful,” he said.
“You look very ranch.”
“I look wet.”
You took the hose from him, adjusted the spray head with a practised twist, and started watering the flower beds with the seriousness of a surgeon. You were still in your travel clothes, apron tied over your skirt, braid slipping, cherry stains on your fingers, and Logan, carrying a bucket of cut flowers behind you while you muttered at petunias, felt an almost unbearable affection for you.
“You know,” he said, “when you said Cowboy Week, I didn’t picture this.”
You did not look up, “What did you picture?”
“Horses. Hats. Hugh being annoying.”
“All present.”
“Not you scolding flowers.”
“They know what they did.”
A shout came from the kitchen door, “Your mama wants the white pitchers, not the blue ones!”
You shouted back without turning, “Tell her the blue ones are for Wednesday!”
A beat, “She says she knows and wants the white ones now!”
You stared at the side of the house, “That is deeply inconvenient.”
Logan held out his hand, “Give me the hose.”
“You know what you’re doing?”
“I can water flowers.”
“These are not hockey players. You can’t just spray them aggressively.”
“I’ll be gentle.”
You handed him the hose with theatrical reluctance, “Low pressure. Roots, not petals. Do not drown anything.”
“Yes, boss.”
You took two steps, then came back, grabbed his shirt in your fist, and kissed him quickly. Your lips tasted faintly like cherry balm and heat, “What was that for?” he asked.
“For being useful.”
“I can be more useful.”
“Don’t flirt with me while holding a hose.”
“That feels like a missed opportunity.”
You pointed at him as you backed toward the door, “Roots.”
“Not petals.”
“Look at you, learning.”
Then you were gone again, swallowed by the kitchen, leaving Logan watering your mother’s dramatic flowers beneath a Texas porch while someone’s old dog came to stand beside him and judge his technique.
By half past five, Logan had snapped beans, carried crates, discussed hockey with two uncles and one cousin who had strong opinions about fighting majors despite having never watched a full game, watered flowers under your supervision, been sent outside to move a cooler six inches to the left because “the sun angle changed,” and received four separate pieces of advice from the partners table, only half of which made sense.
He had also watched you move through the afternoon like a bright thread being pulled through every room.
You laughed with your mother over the white pitchers. You argued with Sarah about labels. You bent down to kiss Nana’s cheek when she came in to inspect the pies and leave without contributing labour. You were sent to find tractor keys and returned with three sets, none of which were correct, but one of which apparently unlocked a cabinet nobody had opened since last summer. You helped Mrs. Alvarez carry a tray without being asked. You corrected Hugh’s attempt to call a peach cobbler a “fruit casserole.” You caught Logan’s eye from across the kitchen twice and smiled like the two of you had a secret, which you did, though at that point the secret was mostly that you desperately wanted a shower.
Finally, your mother looked around the kitchen, checked the clock, and clapped her hands once.
“Enough. Everyone who is staying in the house, go upstairs. Showers, rest, clothes for dinner. If you are not back by eight, I am beginning without you aggressively."
Hugh wiped his hands on a towel, “What does that mean?”
“It means I will be disappointed before I am angry.”
“That’s worse,” Sarah said.
“Exactly.”
You untied your apron and hung it on the back of a chair. Your hair was loose now, the braid having given up somewhere around the white pitcher debate. There was a smear of cherry juice near your wrist, a bit of flour on your hip, and Logan was not proud of the fact that watching you wash your hands at the sink made him think things that would get him killed by at least three people in the room.
You looked over your shoulder, “Coming?”
He nodded, maybe too fast. Bennett, from the partners table, did not look up from wiping down a knife, “Blue room, right?”
You stopped.
Theo sighed wistfully, “Historic furniture.”
Camille smiled into her glass of iced tea, “Excellent acoustics.”
Maddie, still calm, added, “Terrible floorboard outside the door too. Avoid the middle plank.”
You stared at all of them, “Do you people have a meeting?”
Maribel pointed at Logan, “We are trying to keep him alive.”
“By discussing floorboards?”
“Among other things.”
Sarah appeared beside you, grinning, “Don’t worry. I’ll walk loudly past your door.”
“Sarah.”
“What? For privacy.”
“That is the opposite of privacy.”
“It’s cover noise. You’re welcome.”
Logan looked at the ceiling.
You grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the stairs before anyone could say anything else.
The blue room was quieter when you returned, or maybe it only felt that way after the kitchen. The late-afternoon light had turned thick and gold, slanting through the open window and laying itself across the floorboards. The flowers on the dresser had softened in the heat. The room smelled faintly of old wood, clean linen, and the soap someone used in the upstairs hallway. Outside, the side garden was glowing under the lowering sun, flowers revived enough by Logan’s careful watering to look smug about it.
You shut the door behind you, leaned back against it, and exhaled.
Logan stood near the foot of the bed and watched you, “You okay?”
“Yes.” You opened your eyes, “That was the quiet part of the week.”
He laughed, “That was quiet?”
“Relatively.”
“Relative to what, a riot?”
“Thursday.”
“Good to know.”
You pushed away from the door and went straight for your suitcase, the temporary restraint from earlier gone, “We need to unpack before showers.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. If we shower and come back to exploded luggage, I’ll be angry.”
“At me?”
“At the room.”
“Right.”
“And then at you if your socks touch my clothes.”
“My socks are clean.”
“They are socks.”
He held up both hands, “Okay. Type A girlfriend. What’s the play?”
“You shower first because you smell like airplane, kitchen, cooler water, and outdoor labour.”
“That’s a complex profile.”
“It is not my favourite of yours.” You unzipped his duffel with brisk competence, “If you want to shower now, I’ll take things out and put them in piles. You can put them away when you’re done.”
“So you’re dumping my shit somewhere.”
“I’m creating a temporary organisational system.”
“Sounds like dumping with a degree.”
You gave him a sweet smile, “Your pile can go on the floor.”
“Bench is fine.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He leaned down to kiss you, but you turned your face at the last second so his mouth landed on your cheek, “Shower.”
“You’re bossy in Texas.”
“I’m bossy everywhere.”
“True.”
He was still smiling when he went into the bathroom.
You had both suitcases open before the shower had fully warmed. It was not that you did not trust him. You did. Logan could do his own laundry, manage his own coursework, pack his own hockey bag, cook for himself, and remember the details of your schedule better than some men remembered their own birthdays. You loved that about him. You loved competence in the same way you loved good boots and clean counters and people who knew which flowers needed shade.
But Logan’s version of unpacking was functional, not beautiful, and you did not intend to spend a week tripping over a duffel because he had decided a chair counted as a dresser if he believed in it.
So you made piles.
Shirts on the bench. Jeans on the chair. Socks and underwear in a neat stack that you would not put away because you were his girlfriend, not a hotel maid. His toiletries beside the sink, but still in the leather bag because he could decide where they went. His laptop and notebook on the desk. The book he had brought, which you strongly suspected he would not read because Cowboy Week had never once allowed for uninterrupted leisure, went on the bedside table nearest the window.
Your things took longer because your things had subcategories; shower things, hair things, dinner things, emergency dinner things, things that could crease, things that could survive being creased, lip products, sleepwear, perfume, jewellery wrapped in a handkerchief, and the small pouch of practical farm items Sarah mocked until she needed something from it.
The shower cut off just as you were laying your white cotton nightdress across the quilt to let the fabric settle.
It was not lingerie, exactly. It was soft and thin and old-fashioned in a way you liked, white with tiny red embroidered flowers near the neckline and a little red ribbon threaded at the straps. It was the kind of thing that looked innocent until it was on your body, at which point it became something else entirely through no fault of its own.
The bathroom door opened, letting out steam.
Logan came out in a towel slung low around his hips, hair damp and darkened, skin flushed warm from the shower. You glanced up once and immediately went back to arranging your hair products because self-preservation was important.
“Your pile is on the bench,” you said.
He looked at the bench, “That’s my pile?”
“Yes.”
“It looks judged.”
“It has been.”
He crossed the room behind you, and you felt him before he touched you, heat and soap and bare skin at your back. His hands found your waist, damp fingers spreading over the fabric of your top, and before you could tell him not to, he shook his wet hair against the side of your neck like an overgrown dog.
You shrieked, but quietly, which made the sound ridiculous, “Logan!”
He laughed, catching you when you tried to twist away, “What?”
“You are wet.”
“Showered. Usually how it works.”
“You are dripping on me.”
“You smelled like airport.”
“I did not.”
“A little.”
You wriggled in his grip, laughing despite yourself when he pressed his face into your shoulder and shook his hair again, “John, I swear to God, I will scream.”
“You can’t. Walls are thin.”
“Do not use my grandmother’s furniture commentary against me.”
His hands slid to your ribs, finding the place that always made you fold if he got you there properly. You grabbed his wrist, half fighting, half trying not to laugh so loudly someone came upstairs to investigate.
“No. No tickling. Absolutely not. I have a schedule.”
“You unpacked my bag while I was naked and vulnerable.”
“You were in the shower.”
“Still vulnerable.”
“You are about to be physically vulnerable if you do not let me go.”
He loosened his grip enough for you to slip away, but not before stealing a kiss, his mouth warm and clean against yours. It caught, for a second. The laugh in your throat quieted. His hand came up, thumb brushing the edge of your jaw, and you felt the shift, the small downward pull in your stomach that always happened when Logan stopped playing and started looking.
“We have dinner,” you whispered.
“Not yet.”
“You are very bad at time.”
“I’m good at other things.”
“You need to put clothes away.”
“You need to shower.”
“Exactly. We have tasks.”
He kissed you again, slower this time, just enough to make your knees soften before he pulled back with an expression that said he knew exactly what he had done.
“Go shower,” he said.
You narrowed your eyes, “Don’t look proud.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re unbearable.”
“Go shower, Cherry.”
You did, mostly because if you did not, dinner would begin without you emotionally and physically.
When you came back out, the noise of the house had sunk into a late-afternoon rhythm- footsteps below, a burst of laughter from outside, distant voices near the yard, birds calling and then quieting as evening began to gather at the edges of the property.
Logan had actually put away his clothes. His duffel was tucked beside the wardrobe. His laptop was open on the bed in front of him, a notebook balanced against his thigh, one knee bent, hair partly dry and curling slightly at the ends. He had put on black athletic shorts and nothing else, because apparently his commitment to productivity did not extend to shirts.
He looked up when the bathroom door opened and you saw the exact second he stopped reading.
You had wrapped your damp hair in a towel for long enough to keep it from soaking the back of your nightdress, but you had taken it down before leaving the bathroom. Now it hung wet and heavy over one shoulder, darkened by water, dripping occasionally onto the cotton at your chest. Your skin still held the heat of the shower. The nightdress skimmed your body, soft and light, the little red details almost too pretty for the way Logan was looking at them.
You padded barefoot to the vanity and set down your comb, moisturiser, and perfume like you had not noticed him staring. For a while, he let you pretend.
You combed through the ends of your hair carefully, wincing once at a knot. You smoothed cream into your hands, working it over your knuckles and wrists, then up your forearms. You dabbed balm on your lips. You lifted your perfume bottle, the small cherry-glass one you had brought because the full bottle was too risky to travel with, and touched it to your throat, your wrists, the hollow behind your ear. Logan closed his laptop.
You met his eyes in the mirror, “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You cannot say nothing while looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” His mouth curved, when you did not answer. He set the laptop aside, moved off the bed, and came up behind you, his hands settled at your waist and his chin dipped toward your shoulder. He did not shake water on you this time. He kissed the side of your neck, just above the embroidered edge of your nightdress, and the softness of it made your fingers pause around the perfume bottle.
“You unpacked,” you said, because saying his name felt too revealing.
“I was scared not to.”
“Good.”
His hands moved to feel the shape of you beneath the thin fabric, “Did my pile pass inspection?”
“It was adequate.”
“Adequate.”
“With room for improvement.”
He kissed below your ear and inhaled gently, “I’ll work on it.”
“You should.”
“You smell good.”
“I put perfume on.”
“You smelled good before.”
“That’s not how perfume works.”
“It is to me.”
Your eyes flicked to his reflection. There were things Logan said that were designed to make you roll your eyes, things designed to make you laugh, and things he said without quite realising they were dangerous.
That was one of the dangerous ones, warm enough that it slipped under your ribs and settled there.
You put the perfume bottle down. He watched your hand fall away from it, watched the way your throat moved when you swallowed, and then he kissed you again, this time lower, where your neck met your shoulder. His hands pressed slowly at your waist, thumbs stroking the soft place beneath your ribs through the cotton. You leaned back into him before you could think better of it, your damp hair cool against his bare chest.
“We have dinner at eight,” you murmured.
His mouth moved against your shoulder, “It’s not eight.”
“It is going to become eight.”
“Eventually.”
“That is how time works.”
His hands slid lower, over your hips, fingers catching the hem of the nightdress, “You’re very educational.”
“Someone has to be.”
“I watched you boss flowers around today.”
“They needed direction.”
“And the cousins.”
“They needed more.”
“And me.”
You let your head tilt back against his shoulder, “You liked that.”
“I liked being useful.”
“You liked my mother complimenting your shoulders.”
His smile pressed into your skin, “That too.”
You reached back and touched his hair. It was soft now, drying into waves at the ends, and he made a quiet sound when your nails grazed his scalp. That sound did something to you, something embarrassingly immediate and tender, because Logan could be all muscle and steadiness and hockey-bred force, but he melted in small, devastating ways when you were gentle with him. You loved having access to that. You loved that he gave it to you without making you fight for it.
He turned you gently by the waist, and you let him. His mouth found yours, warm and unhurried, and the room seemed to pull itself inward around the kiss. The open window, the fading birds, the old blue walls, the distant voices below - all of it became background to the slow press of his lips, the heat of his hands, the clean scent of soap on his skin.
You meant to keep it light. You really did. You meant to give him one sweet thing and then step away, finish your hair, put on dinner clothes, and walk downstairs like a sensible woman with a mother who noticed everything and a grandmother who thought furniture commentary was a social service.
Logan ruined that by kissing you like he had been waiting through every mile of the flight, every sibling insult, every crate moved, every flower watered, every minute of sitting across the kitchen from you while you were bright and bossy and loved by everyone in sight.
His hand came up to cup your jaw, thumb under your chin. The other slid to the small of your back and pulled you in until your body met his, soft cotton against bare chest, your damp hair cold where it brushed his arm. He kissed you deep and slow, like he had nowhere to be, like the house below was not full of relatives with opinions, like dinner was not sitting at the end of the evening waiting to expose every flush and swollen mouth.
You made a small sound before you could stop it.
He smiled against you, “Already?”
“Shut up.”
“Walls are thin.”
“I will actually hit you.”
“With what? Your moisturised hands?”
You bit his lower lip. The smile disappeared, instead he made a quiet sound in his throat, the one he usually tried to hide because you had once told him you liked it and he had never recovered. You kissed it out of him again, softer this time, fingers sliding into his hair, nails grazing lightly over his scalp until his hand flexed at your back.
“Cherry,” he said, and your name came out lower than before.
“Hm?”
He walked you backwards in response, careful despite the way his mouth moved against yours, one hand at your hip and the other spread warm between your shoulder blades. The backs of your knees touched the bed, and you both froze at the same time.
The brass frame gave the tiniest, most traitorous creak.
Logan looked down. You looked up. For one long second, neither of you breathed.
Then you whispered, “Nana warned you.”
“She warned both of us.”
“She was discussing furniture.”
“She was forecasting.”
You bit your lip to keep from laughing, but Logan’s hands tightened at your waist, and the laughter changed into something softer when he lowered you onto the quilt with almost exaggerated care. The bed still made a sound, because it was old, opinionated, and clearly related to your family by temperament.
Logan froze again above you.
You stared at the ceiling, “We are never surviving this week.”
His forehead dropped to your shoulder, his laugh quiet and hot against your skin, “We haven’t started it.”
“Exactly.”
He lifted his head and looked at you then. Really looked. The amusement faded at the edges, replaced by that focused heat that made the room feel smaller than it was. His fingers found the hem of your nightdress and stopped there, waiting. You nodded once.
He lifted the fabric slowly, not rushed, dragging it up your thighs, over your hips, his knuckles brushing bare skin as he went. His mouth followed lower, kissing the inside of your knee, then the soft place above it, then higher until your breath caught. One of his hands stayed on your thigh, thumb moving in firm little strokes that made you press your lips together. The other hand held the cotton gathered at your waist, keeping you open to him while his eyes lifted to your face.
“Quiet,” he murmured.
“You first.”
His mouth curved. Then he kissed the inside of your thigh, and the argument left you completely. It was unfair, the way he knew you now. A year of loving each other had made him patient and confident in a way that still managed to surprise you. He did not touch you like he was guessing. His fingers slid along your skin with purpose, thumb pressing at your hip to keep you still when you tried to shift closer, mouth brushing everywhere except where you needed him most because he knew exactly how quickly you got impatient and exactly how much he liked making you admit it.
“Logan,” you breathed.
His eyes flicked up, “Hm?”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” His smile was soft for half a second.
Then he pressed his mouth over your underwear, and your hand flew to your own lips before the sound could escape properly. The bed creaked. Both of you froze, waiting for a knock or amused shout of your names, but below, someone laughed, a door shut, footsteps moved somewhere in the hall and faded again; nobody called for you.
Logan’s fingers tightened around your thigh. You looked down at him, heart beating too hard, heat pooling low and unbearable. He looked back at you; you nodded.
His hand slid up, slow enough to make you tremble, and hooked into the waistband of your underwear. He drew the fabric down one leg, then the other, watching the way your body lifted for him despite the need to be quiet. There was something obscene about how careful he was. How tender. How completely undone his face looked while he touched you like you were something he knew and still could not quite believe he got to have.
He kissed your hip once. Then his fingers found you; in response you bit the side of your hand.
His touch was slow at first, two fingers sliding through the wet heat of you, spreading it with a patience that made your thighs tighten around his shoulders. He watched your face as he circled your clit with the pad of his thumb, light once, then firmer, then again in that steady rhythm that made your eyes flutter shut. His other hand pressed your thigh down against the quilt, holding you open when your hips tried to chase the movement.
“Baby,” he whispered, “Look at me.”
You did. His fingers dipped lower, teasing, then pressed inside you with a slow curl that made your whole body arch. The bed complained beneath you.
His hand came up over your mouth immediately. The room narrowed. His palm covered your mouth, warm and steady, and your eyes fluttered because the gesture was so familiar, he watched you, checking, always checking, and you nodded once against his hand. More than that, you wrapped your fingers around his wrist and kept him there.
His jaw tightened, “Oh, you like that,” he whispered.
You made a sound into his palm that was supposed to be an insult and failed.
“I know,” his thumb brushed your cheek once, sweet enough to make your chest ache, “I know, baby.”
His fingers curled again, slow and deliberate, pressing into that place that made your thoughts scatter. His thumb moved in tight, careful circles, never losing rhythm even when your hips jerked against his hand. You grabbed at his shoulder, then his back, nails dragging over warm skin until he sucked in a breath of his own. His palm muffled you, but not enough. Not with the bed, not with the house, not with the way he was looking at you like the old blue room and every person below it had become background noise to the problem of making you fall apart quietly.
You tried. You really did, but the next sound broke through his fingers.
He stilled, eyes flicking toward the door. Footsteps passed in the hall.
Your heart slammed so hard you could feel it under his hand.
The footsteps faded.
Logan looked back at you, and there was something wicked under the caution now, “Need something better?” he murmured.
Your thighs tightened around his hips. His gaze dropped briefly to your mouth beneath his hand, then to where your underwear had been pushed down one thigh and abandoned in the rush of his touch. He looked back at you.
“Okay?” he asked, so low the word barely had sound.
You nodded.
His hand left your mouth. The air felt cold where it had been. He reached down, took the underwear from where it had caught against your knee, and lifted it between you. For one heartbeat, you stared at him, eyes wide and hot, because there was something filthy about the tenderness of his face while he did it, something that made your stomach flip harder than if he had been rough with it.
He kissed you once, soft enough to make your chest ache, then pressed the fabric to your mouth.
“Bite down,” he whispered.
You did.
Logan looked like a man watching his own good sense leave the room, “Jesus Christ,” he breathed.
Then his mouth was on you.
You arched so sharply the bed complained beneath you, but the sound that tore up your throat disappeared into cotton. Logan’s hands locked around your thighs, spreading you open with the ease of someone who knew exactly how you liked to be held. He kept you where he wanted you and worked you apart with his tongue while you twisted against the quilt, one hand in his hair, the other gripping the bedsheet hard enough to wrinkle it beyond repair.
The world outside the room went hazy. The voices below became meaningless. The open window let in evening air and the last distant call of some bird retreating into the trees, and all you could feel was Logan’s mouth, Logan’s hands, Logan’s shoulders under your knees, the slow, molten drag of pleasure building so deep and heavy you forgot to be embarrassed by how desperately you were holding him there.
He took his time because he could. Because he had spent all afternoon watching you be bright and bossy and useful, and now he had you on the old brass bed, biting down on your own underwear while he licked you like the week had already given him something to prove.
Your orgasm came with your whole body pulling tight beneath him, thighs shaking around his head, your fingers twisting in his hair as the cotton muffled the broken sound of his name. Worked you through it with careful little touches of his tongue until you were trembling and pushing weakly at his shoulder.
Only then did he lift his head. His mouth was wet, eyes dark.
He looked at you like you were the problem and the reward.
You pulled the cotton from your mouth and tried to breathe, “You are evil.”
His smile was small, “You started it.”
“I took a shower.”
“You wore that.”
“It is a nightdress.”
“It is attempted murder.”
You laughed, and the laugh broke when he crawled back over you and kissed you, letting you taste yourself on his mouth. It should have been too much. It was. You kissed him anyway, fingers dragging down his bare back, legs wrapping around his waist as he settled between them.
The bed creaked again. You both froze.
Then Logan sighed into your mouth as he pushed down his boxers with one hand, “I hate this bed.”
He sat up on his haunches, hair wild and eyes bright as he scanned the bedside table for his wallet- with greedy fingers he rooted around in the tight pockets, his body bent over yours at an angle that would've made you laugh if your mind hadn't softened to melted butter. Instead, you peppered kisses along his ribs that tensed as his breath hitched and his forgotten hand at your waist came up to drag his blunt nails against your scalp placatingly- he victoriously held up the small golden wrapper and readjusted over you.
You plucked the condom from his fingers, tore it open with your teeth and slinked your hands between the two of you- kissing him slowly when he moaned softly at the feeling of your fingers rolling the latex over him. You wrapped your arms around his neck and waited for him.
This time, when he moved, he did it slowly. One hand braced near your head, the other at your hip, fingers spread wide over the soft cotton still gathered around your waist. You watched him through half-lidded eyes as he lined himself up, breath catching when the blunt heat of him pressed against you.
He paused, “Okay?” he asked.
Your heart squeezed, “Yes,” you whispered.
He pushed in slowly, and your eyes closed at the stretch, your fingers digging into his shoulders. He went still halfway, forehead dropping near yours, breath rough and uneven. You could feel the restraint in him, the way his body wanted more than the room would allow, the way his hand tightened at your hip as if holding you still might help him hold himself together.
“Logan.”
“I know,” His voice was rough, “I know.”
He sank the rest of the way in with one slow roll of his hips, and you had to press your mouth to his shoulder to keep quiet.
“There,” he murmured, almost to himself, “Fuck.”
You clenched around him because he sounded ruined, and he immediately closed his eyes like he had been punished.
“Cherry.”
“What?”
“Don’t.”
You smiled against his skin, “Don’t what?”
His eyes opened, narrowed and hot, “You know what.”
You did it again. His hand came up over your mouth. You laughed once into his palm, breathless and nearly silent, and his expression cracked, affection pushing through the heat so hard it almost made you worse.
“You’re a nightmare,” he whispered.
“You love me.”
“I really do.”
Then he started moving. Slowly at first, because the bed was old and the walls were thin and neither of you were brave enough to test every warning Nana had given you in front of half the bloodline. But slow did not make it less. It made it deeper. Worse. Every careful thrust pressed the breath out of you. Every controlled roll of his hips made your thighs tighten around him. His hand stayed over your mouth, thumb stroking your cheek like an apology while his body did everything else like a confession.
You dragged your nails down his back. He buried his face in your neck to catch his own groan.
The bed gave another small creak. You both went still again, but he did not stop moving his hand. His fingers found your clit between you, slick and precise, circling in time with the shallow movements of his hips. The contrast of it, the absolute stillness of his body over yours while his fingers kept working, nearly ended you right there.
“Logan,” you breathed into his palm.
“I’ve got you,” his voice was barely there, “Quiet, baby.”
The next orgasm came slower, rolling through you in waves that made your back arch and your mouth open silently against his hand. He watched you the whole time, jaw clenched, eyes burning, his fingers slowing only when your body went loose beneath him.
By the time he came, it was with his face buried against your shoulder and your fingers in his hair, your leg hooked high around his waist, your mouth at his ear telling him softly, sweetly, that he was good, that you loved him, that you had him. He shuddered through it like the words were another kind of touch, his body heavy and warm over yours, the old bed finally quiet beneath you as if even the furniture had been subdued by exhaustion.
For a while, neither of you moved.
The room had dimmed. The blue walls had gone shadowy, the window framing the first darker line of evening beyond the garden. Somewhere outside, someone started laughing again. Somewhere downstairs, a dish clattered. Life had continued without you. Dinner was still approaching. Cowboy Week was still waiting with its schedules and horses and relatives and inevitable humiliations.
Logan lifted his head and looked at you, hair a mess, mouth soft, expression open in a way that made your chest hurt.
“You okay?” he asked.
You nodded, then touched his cheek, “Very.”
“Good.”
“You?”
His smile was small, “Very.”
You kissed him once, gentle. Then you glanced toward the clock on the bedside table and gasped, “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“We have to get ready.”
He dropped his face to your shoulder, “No.”
“Yes.”
“Dinner can start without us.”
“No, it cannot, because my mother will know.”
“Your mother knows everything anyway.”
“That is not comforting.”
He rolled off you with a groan, and the bed creaked so loudly you both turned to stare at it.
From the hallway, Sarah’s voice floated past, bright and merciless, “Blue room treating you okay?”
You slapped a hand over your mouth. Logan stared at the ceiling like he was considering a new identity.
Hugh’s voice followed from farther down the hall, “Structural integrity still holding?”
Your father, distant but unmistakable, “Hugh.”
Nana, somewhere below, called, “It is an old bed!”
You buried your face in Logan’s chest and shook with laughter so hard you nearly cried.
Dinner, when you finally made it downstairs, had spread beyond the formal dining room and onto the lawn like the house had accepted defeat.
The tables had been set beneath the trees near the main house, long and crowded and glowing beneath strands of lights not yet needed but already beautiful. The linens were simple, the flowers bright, the plates mismatched in a way that had clearly taken effort to make look effortless. Pitchers of tea and lemonade sat alongside bottles of wine from Mama’s side. Baskets of bread, bowls of peaches and tomatoes, platters of grilled vegetables, smoked meat, salads, fruit, butter, honey, and things Logan did not know the names of but immediately wanted to eat covered the tables.
People moved around laughing, calling names, finding seats, swapping seats, ignoring assigned seats, being forced back to assigned seats by Nana, who had apparently decided Sarah’s printed schedules were lovely but seating was a moral issue.
Grandad sat at one end of the main table, already arguing with one of his brothers about a horse from 1987. Nana sat near the centre, because she liked to see everyone. Mama was pouring wine for an aunt from California. Daddy stood behind her chair, hand resting briefly on her shoulder before moving away to help one of the younger cousins with a stuck chair leg. Jordan and Maddie sat close enough that their knees touched under the table, speaking quietly in that steady language of people who did not need to perform affection for it to be obvious. Hugh had somehow ended up between two women who were both laughing at something he said, which was entirely predictable and deeply irritating.
Sarah waved you over, then immediately frowned, “Why is your hair wet?”
You sat down across from her, “I showered.”
“So did I, but I used a blow dryer because I respect dinner.”
“You forgot printed schedules.”
“I will not be silenced by administrative violence.”
Logan slid into the seat beside you, still slightly damp at the edges and looking composed enough that only you could tell he was not. Hugh leaned forward from several seats down, eyes narrowing.
Dinner began in the usual family way, which meant there was no clear beginning at all. People simply started passing plates, filling glasses, tearing bread, reaching across each other, scolding children, correcting stories, restarting old arguments with obvious pleasure.
Logan was handed food from three directions before he had even unfolded his napkin. Nana made sure he took seconds of something he had not yet finished firsts of. Daddy asked him about training. Grandad asked if he had ever ridden western. Hugh answered for him and was immediately told by you to stop narrating other people’s lives.
The sky turned deeper gold. Then orange, then a soft, bruised pink near the horizon.
Cricket fell asleep against her mother’s lap clutching Logan’s puck.
You saw him notice. His face softened so openly that you had to look down at your plate for a second.
Under the table, his hand found your knee. You looked over at him.
He was watching Grandad explain something to Sarah about barrel turns, nodding like he understood half of it and cared anyway. The side of his face was lit by sunset. His hair had started to curl slightly at the ends. His boots were wrong, apparently, and he had no cowboy hat, and Hugh would never let him know peace, and tomorrow morning he was almost certainly going to discover muscles he had not used even in hockey.
But he was here. His thumb moved once over your knee.
You leaned closer, “You okay?”
He looked down at you, and the expression on his face made the noise around you dim for one dangerous second.
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m good.”
“You sure? Cowboy Week technically hasn’t started yet.”
“I’m starting to understand that.”
“You can still run.”
He smiled, “Airport’s far.”
“Hugh would drive you for the drama.”
“Sarah would film it.”
“Jordan would judge your form.”
“Maddie would pack snacks.”
“Nana would make me eat first,” he said.
You laughed. His smile warmed, “I’m not running.”
The words were simple yet they landed anyway.
You slipped your hand under the table and threaded your fingers through his.
Across the lawn, someone lit the first lantern. Then another. The table glowed. The horses shifted in the distance. The first cicadas started up in the trees. Around you, your family kept talking, laughing, eating, arguing, living loudly beneath the Texas sky.
At the head of the table, Grandad lifted his glass and tapped it once. The noise slowly settled. “Before we start the week,” he said, though from Logan’s expression you knew he was thinking the same thing you were, which was- what the hell was today if not starting, “I’ll say what I say every year.”
Nana muttered, “And every year it gets longer.”
Grandad ignored her with the ease of fifty years of practice, “This land has held a lot of us. Some of us worked harder than we liked. Taught some of us more than we wanted. Brought some of us back when we needed it.”
The table quieted properly. You felt Logan’s hand tighten around yours.
“It’s not just horses,” Grandad said, “Not just work. Not just food and games and making fools of ourselves on that damn bull Hugh keeps insisting is tradition.”
“It is tradition,” Hugh said.
“It is a lawsuit,” Nana replied.
Laughter moved through the table. Grandad smiled, then lifted his glass a little higher, “It’s remembering. That’s all. Remembering where things started. Remembering who taught us. Remembering that family gets bigger, stranger, louder, and more impossible every year, and somehow we keep setting more plates.”
His eyes moved around the table. They paused, briefly, on Logan. Then Grandad looked back at Nana, and his voice softened, “And somehow, thank God, there’s always room.”
Your throat tightened. Nana looked away first, pretending to adjust her napkin.
Everyone raised a glass.
“To Cowboy Week,” Grandad said.
“To Cowboy Week,” the family echoed.
Logan lifted his glass with them.
You watched him do it. Watched the sunset catch on his face, watched your family’s light spill over his shoulders, watched the exact moment he understood that this was not just a visit. Beside you, Logan squeezed your hand once beneath the table. And you knew, with a sudden and ridiculous certainty, that by the time the week was over, there would be dust on his boots, sun on his neck, family jokes at his expense, a toddler with his hockey puck, and some new piece of him tucked into the land the way he had already tucked himself into everything else.
Pairing: John Logan x girlfriend!Reader (3rd person POV)
CW: depictions of mental illness. Very reflective of personal experience so may or may not resonate. Take care of yourself <3
WC: 2k
AN: Off campus has officially reignited my love of writing cheesy ass romance. I simply had to write something terribly self indulgent. Also apologies for my inability to write in second person, it's a curse. But the reader has no name (no use of y/n either) and no identifier other than generally being referred to with she/her pronouns!
There were times in her life when everything was easy. When surety flowed like blood in her veins and everything about her life felt like an energizer battery had been clicked into the back of her neck. In contrast, there were also times when the air she breathed felt like water and she was drowning in it. Those were the times when getting out of bed in the morning took strength and standing upright felt like an insurmountable challenge. When bringing her mind back to her perfectly satisfactory life in her perfectly functional body felt like reeling in a whale with a fishing rod. When being a functional, healthy, social person felt like a foreign concept.
As such, no one had seen her in a few days. Her housemates left her alone, though she could tell it grated on Allie in specific. But, everytime Allie asked something to the effect of ‘you holding up okay babe?’ she just smiled and said something to the effect of ‘all good, just busy.’
Allie clearly wanted to push. The girl was a pusher. But they’d been in enough tear-inducing blow-out fights (two to be specific) that Allie knew better, and Hannah knew not to get in the way. And so she sat curled at the edge of her bed—still in her outside clothes which would ordinarily be intolerable—and soaked in the nothingness of it all.
Time got sludgy when her mind was like this. The world moved with some kind of inconsistent ebb and flow, and she ended up spaced out at the wall for some indeterminate amount of time. Her mind moved around, poking all of the sore spots in her head as if her own psyche wanted to see how far it could push before her sanity snapped. Thus far it had pushed at her career path, specifically her choice of music as a hobby rather than the aforementioned career path. It had poked at her journalism skills which never seemed to be up to scratch.
Nothing had quite broken her, rather just pressed her further into that small ball on the end of her bed.
She was so far into her own head that, from the outside, it took a few minutes of incessant knocking for her to unfurl from the ball of flesh she’d become to get off her ass and open the door.
Standing, wearing a horribly unimpressed twist to his lips, in her doorway happened to be her boyfriend. He was wearing a tasteful T-shirt half-tucked into a pair of khakis. The whole vibe of the ensemble made her say, “No I don’t want to hear about our lore and savior Jesus Christ.”
Logan briefly stopped looking miffed at her to look miffed down at his outfit. “You couldn’t possibly be comparing me to a Jehovah’s witness right now.” This was one of the many things she loved about John Logan. He had an incredible ability to go back and forth, verbally toe to toe with her. He matched her in a way she’d never been matched before or since. That was part of the reason she went a little bit cold at his next words. “You haven’t picked up your phone. Any thoughts on that?”
He wasn’t playing anymore, clearly. There was no hint of a smile playing across mock-serious lips like their usual romantic comedy routine.
She opened her mouth to serve up a quippy, pre-packaged excuse. She’d been doing homework. She’d been writing. She’d been editing. She’d been asleep. She certainly looked the part for that last one. But, none of those excuses seemed to want to come out. Instead, the sheer volume of the hurt, the warriness sitting behind Logan’s eyes bored far too intently into her and the only thing she could physically do was drop her head to her hands and start sobbing.
All the numbness from the past few days melted away into ten tons of grief. Suddenly it was all sitting on her all at once and she crumpled under it all.
“Shit, baby.” He surged forward like a wave, lifting her gently the way the tide did. Also much like a wave, the wall of him hit her and she surrendered to it. He wrapped his arms around her and took the back of her neck to press her tear-ridden face into his collarbone. “It’s okay baby, it’s okay.”
“S-s-sorry,” she hiccuped into his shirt. The general melancholy seemed to leak out of her the same way the tears did and she was entirely limp against him. “‘M sorry.”
“No, honey.” John picked her up the way one might pick up a toddler—and she spared a moment to consider how much muscle that took—and sat the two of them down on the end of her bed. The same place where her sludgy self had been piled earlier. Now she was gathered in his lap with his arms holding her in the shape of a real person. “Don’t apologize,” he whispered, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear and pressing his lips to the top of her head in more of a caress than a kiss.
They sat like that for a long time. His arms contained her whole self as if it was this simple to hold her together. He tucked her into him and brushed his hand back and forth through her hair in a soothing motion.
Unfortunately, she ran out of tears before she ran out of inexplicable grief. The gravity of earth seemed to be too much to pick her head up off his shoulder. But she managed to whisper, “I’m sorry,” into his chest.
Logan’s chest rose and fell with a rather belabored sigh. “What did I tell you about all the sorrys, baby?”
She hummed non-commitally.
“Words, baby.” The hand in her hair left to lightly grasp her chin, tilting her head up to look at him properly. The way his eyes looked into hers almost made her sob again. Wide, honey eyes were turned down to hers with such palpable concern that made guilt crawl into her throat like a many-legged creature. If she could speak properly around said creature, she’d have apologized again. But, she could only shake her head. “Okay, that’s okay,” he soothed. “Do you want to talk about it at all?”
She opened her mouth, and it took some time for anything resembling words to come out. “I don’t really know what to talk about,” she said. It was a lame response, but it took some force to get even that truth from between her lips.
“Okay,” Logan said softly. He looked thoughtful. “Why don’t we start with why no one has heard from you in three days?” There was no judgement in his voice this time. Rather than accusatory, he simply asked. By this point, Logan knew her well enough to know there was no point in being mad at her when she was adequately mad at herself. There was nothing worth accusing her of.
“I’m not really sure,” she whispered. Her chin tilted down to look at the faded Carhartt graphic on his shirt rather than his face. His hand remained on her chin, but he didn’t force her to look at him this time. “It just all gets too big, you know? It all gets in my head. My psychiatrist calls it an episode, but I don’t know that that’s very descriptive. It really just feels like the whole word is telling me I’m not good enough. Like what’s the point of my dreams, my efforts, all the things I’m doing they’re all really just futile because the world is so huge and so cruel. It’s like my brain takes everything that makes me happy and twists it to make me sad. And Jesus, you make me so happy and I just feel like I can’t talk to you because it just makes me feel like I’m going to bring you down. Talking to anyone at all feel like too much and what’s even the point a—”
“Hey.” The hand on her chin brought her back up to look at him. “It’s okay. Thank you for telling me.” he spared a moment to smile like an idiot. “And I’m glad to hear I make you so happy. But let me just check if I understand okay?”
She nodded numbly into the calloused palm holding her so terribly gently.
“So, your psychiatrist calls it an episode, and it’s a little like when an old injury flares up. But, instead of physical it’s mental?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Does it have anything to do with like the seasons or your classes or anything like that? I know with my mom—” he paused for a moment to swallow thickly, and she waited. “—it always gets worse in the winter. Probably because they’re fuck all to do in Massachusets in December except drink but still.”
She smiled at him, for him, and raised a hand to squeeze his shoulder. “It doesn’t really move with the seasons for me. It’s more symptomatic of a mood disorder.”
“Mmmm, I love it when you use big words,” he leaned in and pressed his lips lightly to her cheekbone.
“Symptomatic is not a big word, John Logan. You just can’t read.”
“Blasphemy.” He continued trailing light, tickling kisses over her face. “See I know that word.”
“So proud of you, sweetheart,” she deadpanned.
He laughed into the soft skin of her face. His stubbled tickled her face. “Thank you for talking to me, baby. I know it’s not easy. Permission to enter the ‘fixing’ stage of this conversation?”
She laughed into him. John Logan, God bless him, was a mechanic in more than just the physical sense. He was a fixer. His knee jerk response, first instinct when presented with an issue was always to consider how to solve the problem. It took him a little while into their relationship to understand that that is not how women operate. “Permission granted,” she said, punctuating with a kiss on his cheek.
“Okay. Now is there anything we can do for next time to make it easier for you to talk to me about how you feel? I don’t like going three days without hearing from my girl. It makes me think I’m in trouble.”
That made her laugh harder than she had for several days. “You aren’t in trouble, and I’m sorry I’ve been a bad girlfriend the past few days. I just—” she paused a moment to gather her words like apples in an orchard. “I guess I got scared that it would all be too much for you too early.”
“Baby,” he whispered, smiling and shaking his head. “We’ve known each other for like two years. We’re not exactly getting to know each other. I got to know so much of you before I even knew I loved you.”
She felt her bottom lip wobble, once again like a child, and a tear won the battle she’d waged against it. She brushed it away quickly as if it could ever evade his notice and smacked her palm against his chest. “Jesus fucking Christ, I hate you. You’re so stupidly romantic.”
The boyish grin she fell in love with broke his lips. “Thanks baby, I try. Now can we agree you’ll talk to me next time. Just shoot me a quick text, one word and I’ll know. Do we need a safeword?”
“We have a safeword,” she quipped without much thought. “We have three actually. It’s called the stoplight system.”
His shoulder shook with laughter that was inordinately loud. “There’s my girl. Now stop being a brat, you know what I mean. Pick a word.”
She let the smile play unabashedly across her face. “Is pineapple too stereotypical?”
“I mean it’s not our real safeword so I think it’s fine. As long as I never have to say or hear you say pineapple while I fuck you, I’m cool with it.”
She punched him in the arm and the two of them dissolved into laughter. It didn’t fix the problem. Chemical imbalances in the brain weren’t magically fixed by her lovely boyfriend making her laugh. But, being held by her while their collective bodies shook with laughter made everything feel just a bit easier.
Let me know your thoughts!! I love love love comments
YOU’RE ALL I HAVE TO LOSE ⟢ spencer reid x greenaway!reader
summary: after spencer is exposed to anthrax, the hardest part isn’t being afraid. it’s knowing you love him for the same reasons you’re furious with him.
genre: angst (with a happy ending!) tags/warnings: reader is elle's sister, inspired by 4x24 amplification so tw for a classic CM near-death experience, reallllly whumpy but there’s some comfort, reader is very angry and very stressed and very in love, emotionally devastating phone message, lowkey feels like an undisclosed jello ad oops, title from close behind by noah kahan, no use of y/n. 6.3k words. part of a series but can be read as a standalone!
a/n: writer’s block took me out back & shot me approx 57 times over the past month, but i finally resurrected myself hallelujah so i am back with a bang 💥 (a very depressing bang. not the fun kind of bang. my bad). hat-tip to @slut-for-artists for the song rec that inspired the title!
greenaway!reader masterlist 🥀
You’re angry.
That’s the only emotion you can process when you first walk into Spencer’s hospital room. You’re angry, and you shouldn’t have to be here, and everything about the place feels wrong. It should be louder. There should be sirens or alarms or shouting, something ugly to match the feeling crawling beneath your ribs, but instead there’s only the measured beep of the monitor, the low hum of fluorescent light, the soft shuffle of Morgan shifting in the chair on the other side of Spencer’s bed, and the anxious tap-tap-tap of your foot against the linoleum floor.
There’s also Spencer.
Spencer, pale against the pillow, is sound asleep in a hospital gown with an IV taped to the back of his hand, a cannula under his nose, and his curls flattened on one side. His mouth is parted slightly, his breathing thin but steady. Better than it could be, according to the doctor. Better than it had been, according to a hollow-eyed Morgan when you first got here. Better than dead, which is apparently the standard you should be grateful he’s surpassing now.
You hate this room. This whole entire fucking day.
Morgan is leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight enough that his knuckles have gone pale. He looks like he’s aged ten years since this morning.
“He woke up once,” he says quietly. “Couple seconds. Doctor said that’s good.”
You nod without looking away from Spencer. “Good.”
“He’s gonna be okay.”
You try to hum some sort of acknowledgement, some half-hearted agreement you don’t entirely mean because at this point you can’t really know if that’s true, but no sound comes out. Instead, you reach for Spencer’s hand.
His fingers are warm. The plastic hospital bracelet brushes your wrist when you thread your fingers through his, and you feel almost burned by it. Spencer is supposed to have ink smudged on his hands and paper cuts from case files and maybe chalk dust from a man impromptu lecture no one asked him to give. He is not supposed to look fragile under a hospital blanket.
Morgan studies your face for a second, then stands.
“I’m gonna grab some coffee,” he says.
You don’t point out the fact that he already has a half-full coffee cup in his hand. You just nod.
At the door, he pauses. “He was asking about you earlier. Before they brought him here.”
Your grip tightens around Spencer’s hand.
“Just thought you should know,” he says.
Then he leaves, and the room gets even quieter.
You sit there with Spencer’s hand in yours and stare at his face until the anger sharpens again, because anger is a much easier emotion for you to deal with than fear.
“You absolute idiot,” you whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
—
You had been with Rossi and Emily when you found out.
The day had already felt a bit off-kilter since it started. Anthrax in a park in Annapolis. Dead civilians, sick children, hypermasculine military personnel taking over the BAU and breathing down everyone’s necks. Dr. Kimura from the CDC explained the intensity of this strain in a voice so calm it made the information hard to process. The team had swallowed Cipro in a lame attempt at some sense of control, then scattered across the Washington metropolitan area trying to build a profile before the unsub executed another attack.
You went with Reid and Dr. Kimura to the hospital earlier. You noticed the way his inflection turned clinical as he talked about infection rates and symptom onset, the way his eyes stayed focused on the numbers in the patients’ charts because if he let himself see them as people for too long, he’d feel all of it. You saw the way his focus faltered around Abby, a young woman who just wanted to go on a bike ride around the park and was now experiencing aphasia and severe respiratory distress as she tried to stay alive long enough for a cure to be found. You desperately wanted to touch the back of Spencer’s wrist as you walked beside him in the hallway, but you chose not to, because you were surrounded on all sides by sick people and your relationship did not belong in the middle of it.
You regretted that choice later.
Of all the stupid things to regret, that was the one your brain kept returning to. The touch you hadn’t taken. The two seconds of warmth you’d decided could wait.
By early afternoon, you and Emily were with Rossi following a lead away from the rest of the team, chasing down information on Dr. Lawrence Nichols, a disgraced military scientist who’d been downgraded to working on the flu. Emily was having a tough time with the casual deception a case like this required, so you were talking with her beside the parked SUV when Rossi got a call from Hotch. You watched him out of the corner of your eye as his expression changed and his gaze flicked quickly toward you before it shifted away again.
It was small. Practically nothing. A slight narrowing of his eyes. An almost imperceptible shift.
But still, your stomach went cold.
“What?” you asked.
Rossi lifted one finger, still listening to Hotch on the other end.
Your voice came out sharper. “Rossi.”
He lowered the phone. “Morgan and Reid went to check out Nichols’ house.”
You waited.
Rossi’s jaw tightened. “Nichols is dead. The house is contaminated with anthrax.”
For a second, your hearing went thin, and the whole street seemed to drop underwater. Emily shifted beside you. A car passed behind the SUV, tires hissing against pavement, and all of it reached you half a second late. Emily said something, but you didn’t catch it. Your eyes were fixed on Rossi because you knew there was more coming. You’ve been around the block enough times to know that people always pause before saying the worst part out loud, as if a few seconds of silence can soften the impact of devastation.
“Reid discovered the body and the exposure site inside,” Rossi said. “He sealed himself in before Morgan could enter.”
All at once, heat rushed up the back of your neck. Your hand went tight around the car door handle you hadn’t realized you were holding. Somewhere at the edge of your vision, Emily went still.
“Is he in decontamination protocol now? Or is he already at the hospital?”
Rossi didn’t answer fast enough, which was an answer in itself.
You turned away from both of them and walked three steps before bending forward, hands braced on your knees as you searched for breath.
Emily approached cautiously.
“I’m fine,” you snapped automatically.
“That’s not what I asked. I said Hotch wants to talk to you.”
You straightened slowly, smoothed your hands down your blazer, and took the phone from her.
“Tell me exactly what’s going on,” you said too fast as soon as you got the phone up to your ear.
Hotch did. He gave you all the facts he had: Nichols had been dead for days. There was anthrax spilled in the lab and the AC was blasting it through the house. Definitely a homicide, and whoever killed Nichols was likely responsible for the recent attacks. Reid had gone inside and accidentally stumbled upon the scene, shutting Morgan out before he could follow him inside. Kimura and the CDC team were on their way with protective equipment and a decon shower, but Reid was refusing to leave, instead insisting on working the profile from inside since he was already exposed.
Already exposed.
Those words had a sharp, horrible finality to them.
“What do you mean, he’s refusing to leave? You’re his boss, Hotch. Make him leave.”
Hotch’s voice stayed even, but there was strain under it. “He believes there may be an antidote or identifying information on the partner inside the house. He’s continuing to work the scene until one or both of those things are located.”
You pinched the skin between your brows. “Get him on this call for me.”
Emily turned fully toward you then. Rossi was watching with the careful stillness of someone standing near a live wire. Hotch said nothing.
You swallowed hard. “Hotch, transfer me to Reid’s phone, now. I think we all know he won’t answer if I call him myself, and I need to talk some sense into him.”
“He’s working.”
“Hotch. Please.”
The silence that followed was very, very loaded.
Then Hotch said, “Give me a minute.”
You lowered the phone a little and stared at nothing for a second. Your chest felt too tight, your blood too loud, every part of your body braced for impact. Emily came to stand beside you, but she didn’t try to touch you, and you appreciated that more than you could say.
“He’s going to do everything he can to find the cure and track down the unsub and get out of there,” she said.
“I know.”
“He’s Reid. If there’s something in that house to find, he’ll find it.”
“I know.”
And you did know. That was the problem. You knew him so well there was no room to be surprised. Spencer would knowingly stay in a room full of anthrax because people were dying and he had a chance to stop it. He would put his lungs and brain and life on the line to prevent the person responsible for the prior attacks and Nichols’ death from taking any more lives. You’d expect nothing less from Spencer Reid, and right now, you hated him for it.
A muffled voice came through the phone before you could fully catch your breath.
When you lifted it back to your ear, you heard movement first. Then Spencer.
“Hi.”
He sounded too normal.
You gripped the phone so hard your fingers hurt. “Do not hi me right now, Spencer Reid.”
A tiny pause. Then, softer, “Okay.”
“Are you symptomatic?”
“Not really.”
“Spencer,” you said.
“I’m okay right now,” he said, before you could ask again. “Kimura’s team is coming in soon. We’re currently in a limited window where I’m still useful and the scene is still viable.”
“Oh, goodie. Well, as long as you’re useful, everything’s just fine then,” you bit out.
“Sweetheart,” he said softly, “you know what I mean.”
Emily looked away. Rossi did too, like they were granting you privacy by pretending not to hear the sharpness in your voice.
Spencer was quiet for a second. You pictured him inside Nichols’ house, phone held close, hair falling in his face. You pictured powder on the floor, sealed doors. You pictured him alone in there.
“I found a second workspace,” he said. “There’s a bunch of notebooks filled with different handwriting, so it definitely doesn’t belong to Nichols. Whoever this desk belongs to is probably our unsub.”
You wanted to scream.
Instead, you leaned your forehead against the SUV door and forced yourself to breathe through your nose. “You need to go to the hospital.”
“I will.”
“Now, Spence.”
He paused. “I’ll go as soon as I can.”
Your throat tightened.
“You do realize you’re a person too, right?” you asked. “Not just a brain with a badge and a duty to uphold.”
Despite everything, you heard the faintest breath of a laugh. “I’m aware.”
“Great. Then act like it.”
“I am acting like it,” he said, and there it was, his signature stubbornness. “Leaving now wouldn’t make me safer in any meaningful way if we still can’t identify the unsub and still don’t have an antidote for the strain. If I can figure it out from in here, there’s a chance we can save the patients at the hospital, and me.”
You pressed your free hand over your eyes.
“Don’t do that,” you said.
“Do what?”
“Make sense.”
His quiet inhale caught slightly. Maybe from the anthrax, or maybe from you. It was hard to tell.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“But you’re still staying.”
“For now,” he said.
You sighed softly and rubbed your temple with your free hand. “You’re so frustrating.”
“I know.”
“And arrogant.”
“I can be, on occasion.”
“And so ungodly, unbelievably stupid.”
“Well, technically, I’m quantifiably a genius, although I don’t believe—”
“Spencer.”
“I know you’re angry with me,” he said quietly.
“You have no idea how much.”
“Well, I think I have some idea. I know you.”
“No, you really don’t.” You looked down at your boots. “Because if you did, you’d be walking out of that house right now.”
His voice went softer. “If I thought walking out was the thing most likely to get me back to you, I would. I promise you, I would.”
That took every bit of air out of you.
Spencer didn’t rush to fill the silence. He just let the words sit there, awful and sincere and completely unfair.
Then he said, “I’m not trying to scare you.”
“Well, you’re doing a damn good job for someone who isn’t trying,” you replied. You blinked hard, furious at your body for even considering tears when rage was so much more useful.
“Listen to me,” you said. “Find what you need to find, and then you get the hell out. No extra detours or noble self-sacrificing bullshit. Got it?”
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
There was more noise on his end now. Another voice. Hotch, maybe, through the sealed door closing him inside.
“I have to go,” Spencer said, pausing before he added: “I love you.”
You dug your fingernails into your palm.
“Don’t say it like that,” you whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re only saying it in case it’s the last thing I hear from you.”
He took a shaky breath. “I’m saying it because it’s true,” he said firmly. “And because I want to say it. That’s all, okay? I love you.”
You swallowed, and when you spoke again, your voice was steadier than you felt. “I love you too. Stop being a hero and get back to me.”
“I will.”
The line clicked dead a second later.
You kept the phone against your ear long after there was nothing left to hear.
—
The next time Spencer let himself think about you, really think about you, he was sitting on the floor with poison in the air and sweat cooling at the back of his neck.
By then, his body had started showing signs of distress. The cough had come first, small enough that he tried to classify it as irritation from the environment, from dust, from the pollen in the garden outside. Then came the ache behind his eyes, the heat under his skin, the faint tremor in his hand that he could ignore if he kept it busy, if he kept turning pages, pulling drawers open, reading notes, forcing pieces of Dr. Nichols’ life into order.
He was aware of each symptom with miserable precision. He knew exactly what they meant. He also knew the unsub was still out there with a larger attack planned, so his personal awareness changed nothing. His body could be evidence later. Right now, he had work to do.
Still, there came a point when he had to step back and admit how serious things had gotten.
Garcia’s voice shook through the phone when he asked her to record a message for his mother. She tried to be brave about it. He could hear the effort it took, could picture her sitting at her desk with all that color and joy around her while despair leaked through anyway.
He recorded his message to Diana as steadily as he could.
He said all the things a son should say when he’s trying very hard to say goodbye without sounding like he’s saying goodbye. He kept his voice gentle. He tried not to cough in the middle of it. He nearly failed once, clearing his throat to get the urge to pass. When he finished, Garcia was silent for a few seconds.
“Okay,” she said finally, and he could hear the tears in her voice. “Okay, I got it.”
Spencer swallowed. He was covered in a sheen of sweat. His throat hurt. Everything hurt, actually, in a diffuse, widespread way he disliked for its lack of specificity. “Garcia?”
“Yeah, boy wonder?”
He closed his eyes.
He had been trying not to ask. He had been trying to tell himself that the message to his mother was already indulgent enough, that he did not have the right to take more time away from the case for something that served no immediate operational purpose. But the thought of you never getting to hear his voice again if this went badly kept pressing against the inside of his ribs until it became impossible to ignore.
“Can you, uh, record one more message for me?”
Garcia inhaled sharply.
“Oh,” she whispered, understanding immediately. “Of course. Yeah, of course I can.”
Spencer opened his eyes and looked around the room. Papers were spread across the floor in front of him, Dr. Nichols’ handwriting scrawled across margins and folders and binders. Somewhere outside, people were moving around in protective suits, building a perimeter, preparing to come in as soon as they could. Out in the field somewhere, you were trying to work despite your fury and fear. He knew that with the same certainty he knew his own name, the same certainty with which he could recite the periodic table in order by atomic number. You were angry because you were scared. You were scared because you loved him. That thought — that you loved him — probably should have brought some comfort; instead, it made his chest ache worse than the cough did.
“Ready whenever you are,” Garcia said, softly enough that it almost didn’t sound like her.
Spencer tried to take a breath deep enough to steady himself. It caught halfway down. He turned aside, coughed hard into his elbow, and waited for the room to stop tilting.
Then he looked down at his hands, at the pale dust along his cuffs, at the pulse ticking too fast beneath his skin, and began.
“Hi,” he said simply, because every other possible opening sounded wrong — either too formal, or too casual, or too final. He let out a breath that was almost a laugh and tried again. “You’re going to hate this. I know that. You’re probably already furious with me, and you’ve got every right to be, so if this message makes you even more furious, I’m sorry.
“I just need you to know that I wasn’t trying to be a martyr. I know you’ll think that’s what it was, some ‘noble self-sacrificing bullshit’ like you called it earlier, but that’s not what this is for me.” He paused, eyes stinging. “I keep thinking if I find the right thing fast enough, if I can connect the dots, then maybe we can stop the next attack and everyone at the hospital would have a chance. Maybe I would, too.
“And I keep thinking about you. I don’t know if that helps or makes it worse, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I thought about you being mad at me, and about the way you must’ve been rolling your eyes when we were on the phone earlier, and about your apartment, and the coffee you pretend to like when I make it too sweet, and the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention.”
A cough broke through him. He bent forward, eyes squeezed shut, one hand braced against the floor. It took too long to stop. When he lifted the phone again, his voice had gone hoarse around the edges.
“I wanted more time with you,” he said. “I wanted more ordinary days. That’s— that’s what I keep coming back to, which is strange, because technically, ordinary days are the least remarkable kind, but I think those are the ones I’ll miss the most. You at my desk stealing pens, and you pretending not to smile when I say something you think is ridiculous, and you falling asleep before the end of a movie and denying it in the morning.
“And if you’re hearing this, I know you’re going to want to do the thing where you decide this proves some terrible theory you’ve always had about what happens when you let people matter too much, but…”
His eyes burned. Because of the fever, maybe. Heartbreak, definitely.
“Don’t do that. Please, please don’t do that. Don’t let this be the reason you shut everyone out. I know it took a lot for you to let me in, and I know asking this is unfair, and I hate that I can’t say it to you in person, but I need you to keep letting people love you. You have to let them stay.”
He coughed again, violent enough this time to make his whole chest seize.
“The team loves you,” he said. “You know that. Garcia will smother you with affection and care packages. Morgan will check on you constantly and won’t even pretend to act cool about it. JJ will know when you’re lying about being fine before you can finish a sentence, so don’t try. Emily will sit beside you casually and pretend she isn’t worried, because she knows you hate being handled.” A faint, broken smile pulled at his mouth. “Rossi will feed you, so get ready to eat a lot of pasta. Hotch will give you space and somehow still make sure you’re never truly alone.”
He swallowed hard.
“And Elle… Call her. Please. She was there once when you needed her. Let her be there for you again.”
The words felt intrusive, maybe, as if he was reaching into parts of your life he had no right to touch. But if this was all he got, if this recording became the last shape his love ever took, he needed it to be honest.
“I don’t want you to be alone,” he said, voice breaking. “I don’t want you to decide that losing me means you were right to keep the door locked. I can’t bear it, so please, do this for me.”
He pressed his thumb into the crease of his palm until the tremor in it settled.
“I love you. I know you know that. I know I say it all the time now, probably too much, and if I get out of here you can complain about that for the rest of our lives and I won’t argue with you. But if I don’t,” he said, forcing himself through it, “then I need you to know that loving you was never something I regretted. Not for one second. And being loved by you was… it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
A sound came suddenly from outside the room. Movement. Voices. The heavy plastic rustle of protective equipment. He looked up and saw shapes gathering beyond the doorway, bright orange suits and face shields and Dr. Kimura’s focused eyes as her team entered the house.
He looked back down at the phone. There was so much more he wanted to say. There would always be so much more. That was the terrible thing about loving you — no matter what he said, it could never be enough to cover it.
“I have to go,” he said. “I’m going to try very hard to make sure you never have to hear this.”
Then, quieter:
“I love you. I really, really love you. Keep letting people in, okay?”
Garcia made a tiny broken sound through the phone, then cut the recording and the call before he could hear her cry.
—
The day stitched together in pieces after that.
Rossi and Emily kept you updated as information moved through the team, and Morgan called whenever there was a concrete update on what was going on in the house. Garcia called once too, telling you they had a name now — Chad Brown — and that Reid had been right about Nichols not working alone. There was a protégé. A student. A man with knowledge and access and ideology and rage.
You remember standing with your arms folded so tightly across your chest that your shoulders started to ache. You remember Emily offering you water and you pretending not to hear her. You remember Rossi telling you to sit down, not as an order, but in that low, paternal way of his that made you want to be even more difficult on principle. You remember staring at your phone until your eyes burned, as if your fear could force Spencer’s name to appear on the screen.
Mostly, you remember waiting.
When Hotch finally called, his voice was steady. They had Brown. The attack on the Metro had been stopped. Reid and Kimura’s team found what they needed. Reid was out of the house and had been decontaminated. Paramedics had transported him to the hospital where the treatment was being prepared, and Kimura was hopeful, and they would know more soon.
“Is he conscious?” you asked.
“Last we heard, yes,” Hotch said, and the words scraped through you. “Morgan is on the way to Walter Reed now to see what’s going on.”
You wanted to ask if Spencer had asked for you, but you didn’t. It felt too naked, somehow. Too pathetic. So you just said, “I’m on my way,” and Hotch didn’t waste anyone’s time pretending he could stop you.
Garcia found you before you made it out of the building.
She looked wrecked. Her mascara had smudged at the corners, and she had one hand wrapped around a cup of coffee she clearly hadn’t touched. She stopped in front of you like she wanted to hug you, then thought better of it, although it looked like that decision pained her immensely.
“He really, really loves you,” she said quietly.
The words were so abrupt, so earnest, that for a second you could only stare at her.
“I know,” you said.
Garcia nodded too fast. “I know you know. I just—” Her mouth trembled, and she pressed it together. “I just needed to make sure. I wanted you to hear it.”
Something about her face made your chest tighten. There was more to it — something she wasn’t saying, something she was holding back. You could see it in the way she looked at you, nervous and guilty and gentle all at once.
But Penelope Garcia, for all her usual glitter and gossip and inability to mind her own business, could keep a secret when it really mattered.
So you let her.
You just reached for her hand, squeezed once, and pushed through the doors to the parking lot.
—
Now, as you sit in an ungodly stiff chair next to his hospital bed, Spencer’s fingers move against yours.
It’s small. Barely anything. An involuntary twitch, maybe. But it’s enough of a movement to assume it could mean something bigger if you’re desperate enough, and apparently you are, because you go still so suddenly Morgan looks up from the cup of red Jell-O he’s been eating with a plastic spoon.
“Reid?” Morgan says.
Spencer’s brow furrows.
For a second, nothing happens. Then his eyes open slowly, heavy and unfocused at first. He blinks up at the ceiling like he’s trying very hard to decipher what type of room the ceiling belongs to.
Morgan moves, relief breaking over his face. “Hey, kid.”
Spencer’s gaze shifts toward him. It takes effort. Everything about his movements right now looks like it takes effort.
His voice comes out rough. “Are you eating Jell-O?”
Morgan cracks a wide grin. “Man, you almost die from a bioweapon and this is what you wake up concerned about?”
Spencer blinks slowly. “Is there any more Jell-O?”
Your laugh escapes before you can stop it. It’s small and wet and humiliating, and Spencer’s eyes move immediately toward the sound.
The drowsy confusion in his face shifts, turning into something so relieved and so sorry that all the air you just got back leaves you again.
“Hi,” he says.
You swallow. “Hi.”
Morgan looks between the two of you for half a second, then pushes himself out of his chair. “I’m gonna go tell Dr. Kimura that Sleeping Beauty here is awake,” he says. “And apparently find more Jell-O.”
Spencer’s mouth twitches faintly. “Green, if they have it.”
“You’re lucky I’m pretty much obligated to be nice to you right now,” Morgan tells him sarcastically, but his hand lands on Spencer’s shoulder for a second before he leaves, firm and warm and full of things he’ll probably never say out loud.
Then the door closes behind him and the room is quiet again, but it isn’t the same quiet as before, because Spencer’s awake now. His eyes are open. His fingers are caught between yours, weak but there, his thumb making the smallest attempt to move against your skin.
There’s too many feelings to parse through. Relief, first. Relief so enormous it can barely fit inside your body, but somehow it does, pressing against the anger and terror and frustration you also feel, against all the miserable little aftershocks of the day.
For a moment, you just look at him.
He looks terrible. Pale, sweaty, hair mussed, lips dry, throat probably raw from coughing and whatever else his body has been through. He also looks alive.
You want to kiss him.
You want to hit him.
You settle for tightening your hold on his hand and saying, very evenly, “I’m so mad at you.”
Spencer closes his eyes for a second.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” you say, because the calmness is already slipping. “You really, truly do not. I possess levels of anger right now that are previously unrecorded in modern psychiatry.”
His mouth curves faintly, but it fades almost immediately. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
Spencer looks at you for a long second, too tired to dress the truth up into anything gentle. “I’m sorry for what it did to you,” he says. His voice is rough and low, dragged out of a throat that still isn’t ready to cooperate. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, and I’m sorry that when I did, I couldn’t tell you what you wanted to hear.” He pauses, breathing carefully. “But if I had left before we found what we needed, people could have died.”
You stare at the bed rail.
You know the exact reason behind the choice he made, because you’ve made choices with the same bones. Spencer’s been on the other side of this with you before. Not with anthrax in your lungs, obviously, but in basements and alleys and warehouses and too many places where you put the job before your own safety without a second thought.
You hate that. You hate him a little for making it impossible to be purely angry.
“I know,” you say, voice quieter now. “I know you’re right. Or close enough to right that I can’t even enjoy being mad at you properly.”
Spencer gives you a weak, exhausted almost-smile. “I’m sorry for that too.”
You look back at him, and the sight of him ruins you all over again.
“You could have died, Spencer,” you manage to say in a hoarse whisper.
His expression changes. The humor disappears, what little there was of it. His fingers tighten around yours with visible effort.
Your voice shakes, and that irritates you enough to make your eyes burn. “I know you. I know you weren’t actually trying to be some self-sacrificing hero, even though you have a very irritating talent for landing there by accident. I know I probably would’ve done the same thing, which is frustrating because it makes my moral high ground very unstable.” You inhale, careful and shaky. “But I was so scared, Spencer. I was so scared I couldn’t pretend to be normal about it.”
He looks at you like that sentence hurts him worse than anything else.
“I thought about that too much,” he says.
You frown. “About what?”
“You. Being scared.” His eyes drift down to your joined hands. “I thought about you being angry, and about you pretending you weren’t afraid because Rossi and Emily were there. I kept thinking…” His brow creases faintly, concentration pulling through the haze. “I kept thinking if I could just find the answer, then maybe I’d get back to you before anyone else could see your fear. I knew you’d hate it if they could.”
You let out a breath that breaks in the middle. Your free hand lifts before you really decide to move, fingers hovering near his face. He watches you do it, quiet and trusting, and that almost makes it worse.
You brush his hair back from his forehead, and his eyes close.
The simple trust of it dismantles you a little. You had spent the whole day imagining him behind sealed doors, breathing poisoned air, making logical arguments while his body betrayed him by degrees. Now he’s here, under your hand, alive and exhausted and still somehow trying to be gentle with you when he’s the one in the hospital bed.
“I love you,” you say. “And I genuinely hate you right now.”
Spencer’s eyes open again, slow and soft. “That seems pretty fair.”
Your laugh comes out wet. You look away, but he squeezes your hand before you can get far.
“I love you too,” he says. “And I know it doesn’t make it better, but I was trying to make sure I could get back to you. That was the point. I know it looked like I was choosing the work over everything else, but I wasn’t. The work was my way out.”
You turn back toward him.
He looks exhausted by the length of his own words, breaths a little uneven, but his eyes stay on yours.
“I know,” you whisper, because you do. “I know, Spence.”
You lean forward carefully, giving him time to shift away if he needs to, but he doesn’t. He tilts his face up the smallest amount, and you press your mouth to his.
The kiss is soft by necessity. There’s no heat in it, not really — not the kind the two of you are used to. His lips are chapped and warm and careful beneath yours, and for one long, holy second, all you can focus on is that you get to do this again. You get to kiss him in a hospital bed and hate the reason for it, but you still have him here to kiss. You get the fragile press of his mouth, the weak squeeze of his fingers around yours, the proof that his body is still a living thing and not a memory you’ll spend the rest of your life surviving. It isn’t enough to undo the day, but it gives your fear and love somewhere to go. It’s a promise made with whatever energy he has left.
When you pull back, your forehead rests near his temple.
“You scared the hell out of me,” you murmur.
“I know.
“If you ever do that again, I will murder you myself.”
“I know.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I know.”
You pull back enough to glare at him. “Normally you’d argue with at least one of those.”
His tired smile is tiny and perfect. “I’m conserving my energy.”
The door opens after a soft knock, and Dr. Kimura steps in with Morgan hovering behind her, a green Jell-O cup in one hand and a fresh coffee in the other.
“Look who I found,” Morgan says.
Spencer nods at Dr. Kimura before his gaze flicks to the Jell-O. “Is that for me?”
Morgan chuckles. “Yeah, kid, it’s for you.”
You wipe quickly under one eye with your thumb and try to regain whatever dignity you can scrape off the floor.
Kimura checks Spencer over. Vitals, pupils, lungs, cognitive questions he answers with enough impressive precision to make Kimura’s eyebrows lift. Morgan stays near the doorway, and you don’t let go of Spencer’s hand the entire time.
Eventually, the room settles again.
Morgan leaves the Jell-O on the tray and tells Spencer not to be a pain in the ass to you or any of the nurses. Dr. Kimura tells him he’s on the mend but needs a lot of rest, and Spencer nods, probably because he knows you wouldn’t give him a choice anyway.
Once it’s just the two of you alone in the room again, your anger has gone a bit quieter. It’s still there, and knowing you, it’ll probably stay there for a while, tucked stubbornly behind your ribs, ever-present but currently overshadowed by disgusting amounts of relief and love.
Spencer’s eyes are already slipping closed.
“Sleep,” you say.
“Will you stay?”
You sit back and wrap both hands around his. “Yeah, genius, I’ll stay. Obviously.”
The corner of his mouth turns up into a crooked, sleepy smile. “Good.”
It takes less than a minute for him to fall asleep again.
This time, watching him sleep doesn’t feel like waiting for the floor to disappear beneath you. His breathing is still rougher than you’d like, and his face is still too pale, but the monitor keeps a steady rhythm. Alive. Alive. Alive. His fingers are warm under yours, and there’s a green Jell-O cup sitting unopened on the tray because, apparently, even near-death experiences cannot kill Spencer Reid’s bizarre snack preferences. You know he’ll ask for a spoon as soon as he’s awake again and his appetite comes back.
You do not know about the recording.
You do not know that somewhere, locked carefully behind Garcia’s cyberdefenses, there is a version of his voice trying to love you through the worst possible outcome. You do not know that he spent the better part of what might’ve been his last hour on earth trying to make sure you would be okay.
But maybe it’s better you don’t know.
You don’t need the version of him that said goodbye. You need this one: alive, stubborn, fever-warm, breathing steadily with Jell-O waiting untouched beside him.
His fingers twitch against yours again in sleep.
You keep holding on. You hold on, and you stay.
ᝰ.ᐟ
this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️
PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!
"what if they fucked" WRONG. what if they ruined each other's lives irreparably. what if there was nothing left but a smoldering heap. what if everything that brought them together twisted and corroded and ripped them apart. and then they fucked.
summary: you agree to girls’ night to celebrate your first week back at work and end up a little too drunk, a little too honest, and very much forced to confront how serious your relationship with spencer has gotten.
genre: fluff tags/warnings: reader is elle's sister, alcohol consumption, drunken girls’ night shenanigans with Penelope & Emily & JJ, and they are nosyyyyyy, knight in shining armor spencer reid, drunken attempt at seduction lmao but nothing explicit happens, deep relationship talk, tooth-rotting sweetness, no use of y/n. 6k words
a/n: GIF creds to @reidgif 🫶🏼
greenaway!reader masterlist 🥀
By the end of your first week back at Quantico, you’ve realized two things.
One: you are still very good at your job.
Two: being back at your job means everyone around you suddenly has opinions about what you should be doing with your Friday night.
You’re halfway through slowly packing up your things when Garcia appears at your desk with a mischievous grin on her face.
“No,” you say immediately.
She puts a hand to her chest. “That is so rude. I haven’t even spoken yet!”
“I can feel your schemes in the air, Penelope.”
JJ stands nearby, bag in hand, looking far too calm for someone participating in an ambush. “We’re going to O’Keefe’s.”
You finally glance up. “And?”
“And,” Garcia says slowly, as if speaking to a child, “you’re coming with us! It's girls’ night.”
This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that your teammates have tried to force you out with them. You say yes more often now than you used to, because, against all odds, they’ve somehow weaseled their way into your life as genuine friends, but you’re not exactly what one would call a reliable attendee. Especially not on a night like tonight, when all you want to do after your long-awaited return to functional society is eat takeout on the couch with Spencer, take a long hot shower (also with Spencer), and pass out (again, with Spencer).
You stare at them. “Funny, I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
Emily, leaning against the edge of a neighboring desk with her arms folded, lifts one shoulder. “That’s because we didn’t ask. We’re telling.”
You grimace and lean back in your chair. “I just got through my first week back, you guys. I’m exhausted.”
Garcia softens. “Exactly. You got through your first week back! We need to celebrate, honey.”
You glance over toward Spencer on instinct, and he’s already looking at you. Garcia follows your line of sight and lights up.
“Oh, good idea. Reid! Tell your girlfriend she should come with us.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “Don’t you dare.”
Spencer, who should most definitely understand the danger he’s in, simply pushes back from his desk and says, very calmly, “I think you should go.”
You blink at him, utterly betrayed. “Et tu, Reid?”
Morgan lets out a bark of laughter from across the room. Emily actually smiles. Garcia clutches her chest.
Spencer, to his credit, has the decency to look a little apologetic. “You made it through your first week back,” he says. “You should celebrate.”
Emily nods toward him like he’s finally said something useful. “See? Even Boy Wonder thinks you need a drink.”
“And fries,” Garcia adds. “And female companionship. And a chance to talk about something other than work or the deeply haunting state of Reid’s current hairstyle.”
You drag a hand down your face. “Why are you all like this?”
“Because,” JJ says, “you’re our friend, and you’re back, and we want to hang out with you.”
Garcia nods emphatically. “Exactly. You survived a gunshot, surgery, physical therapy, what I can only assume is the world’s clingiest boyfriend, and your first week back on the job. You can survive one night of dive bar drinks with the hottest women the FBI has to offer. Women who happen to adore you, I might add.”
You blink at her. “This is emotional terrorism,” you say with a deep sigh.
Garcia beams. “So that’s a yes!”
“It’s not a—” You stop. Exhale. “Fine. One drink.”
JJ smiles immediately. Emily looks pleased in the most annoying way possible. Garcia claps once like a Disney villain.
Emily reaches over and grabs your bag off the floor before you can change your mind. “Great. Let’s go, ladies, before Greenaway remembers she has free will.”
You stand with a huff that’s mostly for show and shrug into your jacket. Spencer is already there by the time you straighten, close enough that nobody else would clock the way his hand brushes your elbow.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“No, Brutus.” You give him a look. “You betrayed me.”
He chuckles softly. “I’ll come pick you up later,” he says. “Whenever you want to leave.”
You glance up at him. “I can just take a cab home, Spence. You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to,” he says. “I want to.”
Garcia is already halfway out of the bullpen. “Greenaway! Move your brooding little booty. We’re leaving.”
You roll your eyes and sling your bag over your shoulder.
Spencer catches your wrist for one brief second, just enough to turn you back toward him.
“Have fun,” he says softly.
Then, before you can say something sarcastic and ruin it, he leans in and presses a quick kiss to your temple.
He steps back like he didn’t just do that in the middle of the office, and you stare at him.
“What?” he asks.
Morgan passes behind Spencer and lets out a low, entertained whistle.
“Shut up, Morgan,” you and Spencer shout at the same time, still looking at each other.
Morgan just grins wider and keeps walking.
Spencer nods toward the door. “Go. I’ll see you later.”
Emily appears at your side and pushes you out of the bullpen and toward the elevators with an arm around your shoulder. “That was disgusting.”
Garcia grins. “No, it was adorable. Big difference.”
JJ presses the down button and smirks. “I’m suddenly much more interested in our topics of conversation this evening.”
The elevator opens with a ding, and Garcia ushers everyone in with entirely too much enthusiasm. You step in last, turning just in time to catch one more glimpse of Spencer standing by the bullpen doors, hands in his pockets, watching you leave with that soft, wrecked look he never quite manages to hide anymore.
—
The familiarity of O’Keefe’s hits you all at once the second you push through the door.
Warmth. Noise. The sticky smell of beer and fried food. The hum of conversation layered over a game playing on one of the TVs in the corner and music from the jukebox near the bar.
“Oh, thank god,” Garcia sighs, pressing one hand dramatically to her chest as she leads the group towards a booth in the back. “A room full of alcohol and bad decisions. I’m home.”
You exhale through your nose at that and sit down, accepting your fate for the evening.
“Okay,” Garcia says, clapping once as the waitress appears. “We need mozzarella sticks, fries, and something colorful with lots of tequila in it.”
Emily glances at the drink menu. “No tequila for me tonight. Jack and coke, please.”
JJ laughs and hands the menus back in a neat stack. “I’ll just take a beer.”
You look down at your own menu without really reading it. “Whiskey, on the rocks.”
Garcia hands over the menus with a satisfied sigh. “Perfect. We’re off to an excellent start.”
Emily glances at you. “You still have time to fake a migraine and leave, you know.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
The drinks come, and feel your shoulders unclench by accident after your first sip.
You realize this feeling is another thing nobody tells you about getting injured badly enough to disrupt the whole architecture of your life. Everyone focuses on the obvious parts — surgeries, scars, whether you’ll be okay, whether you’ll be normal, whatever that means. What no one really prepares you for is how strange it feels to start participating in your own life again once the worst of it is over. How bizarre it is to sit in a bar on a Friday night, in jeans and boots and lipstick with your girlfriends around a wooden table, and realize the world kept spinning while you were busy focusing on surviving.
There’s also the more humiliating part, which is that you haven’t done this in what feels like forever. Drinking, or hanging out with friends, or just simply sitting still and talking and existing without a doctor asking whether your pain is sharp or dull or a man you love watching your face too closely every time you stand up. The whole thing feels weirdly high stakes for something as stupid and simple as greasy fries and cheap liquor.
Garcia raises her glass. “To Greenaway,” she says, voice softening in a way that makes you self-conscious, “being back at work and a semi-willing participant in girls’ night.”
Emily lifts her glass. “A triumph.”
JJ’s smile is warm when she reaches in with hers too. “To Greenaway.”
You look at all three of them over the rim of your glass. “This is disgusting,” you mutter, which is about as close to thank you as you’re willing to get.
You let your glass clink against theirs anyway.
For a while, the conversation behaves itself. Garcia launches into a story about a disastrous blind date with a man who described himself as “alpha-adjacent,” which makes Emily nearly choke on her drink. JJ talks about Henry’s current refusal to sleep unless one sock is missing, which Garcia insists is “actually very chic of him.” After a waitress drops off the fries and mozzarella sticks, Emily tells a story about a truly alarming hostel she once stayed at in Prague, and before you know it, you’re contributing your own horror story about a motel in Kansas that smelled like mildew and bad choices.
Penelope points at you with a fry. “See? This is nice. You’re socializing,” to which you roll your eyes in response.
By the time you’re halfway through your second whiskey, the room feels warmer, the edges softened just enough that you stop noticing how many people are around you and start noticing smaller things instead. The exact shade of Emily’s lipstick. The glitter worked into Garcia’s eyeliner. The way JJ laughs with her whole face when she actually lets herself. The fact that you’re here at all.
You’re halfway through a story about the world’s most idiotic suspect trying to outrun Morgan during a case in Vermont last year when your phone buzzes against the table.
You look down, and Spencer’s name glows up at you from the screen alongside a text preview:
How’s it going? I hope you’re having fun.
Your mouth twitches before you can stop it.
Emily clocks it instantly. “There it is.”
You look up. “There what is?”
“Your face,” Garcia says, delighted. “You have a face!”
You cock a brow suspiciously. “Everyone has a face, Penelope.”
Emily leans back, arms folded. “No, she means your Spencer face.”
You stare at them. “My what.”
“Your Spencer face! You get this, like, very specific look on your face when you talk to him, or hear other people talking about him, or anytime you even think about him. Sorta smug, sorta soft, very in love. It’s adorable,” Garcia explains.
You pick up your phone and groan, “I hate all of you,” before typing back under the table:
i’m… surviving. no rescue required yet but it’s minute-by-minute
Three dots appear almost immediately.
Glad to hear it. Love you.
“It’s undeniable,” Garcia says, catching your expression. “That is, without a doubt, your Spencer face.”
You slide your phone face-down onto the table. “Say that one more time and I’m leaving.”
Garcia leans both elbows on the table and gives you a look that’s far too bright to be trustworthy. “Okay. So. Since Reid has officially entered the chat—”
“No.”
“—we have questions.”
“Absolutely not.”
Emily lifts a shoulder. “You had to have known this was coming.”
Well, she has a point there.
Garcia starts firing off questions immediately. “How clingy is he? Are you moving in together? Who fell first? Who said I love you first? Did he cry when you said it? Did you cry? Was there background music? Candles? Rose petals? Should I be offended that I wasn’t invited as a witness?”
JJ snorts into her beer.
You put your glass down carefully. “You all need professional help.”
“Don’t worry, I have a therapist on speed dial,” Garcia says. “What I don’t have is information.”
Emily tilts her head. “C’mon, Greenaway. You can’t really expect us not to be curious about our two coworkers who are dating.”
The thing is, they’re not wrong to be curious. The Spencer they know isn’t the same Spencer you know. They know the version of Spencer with brains and facts and a perpetually crooked tie, the one who hides half his personality behind statistics and awkwardness until people make the mistake of thinking that’s all there is to him. But you, by some impossible stroke of luck or an undeserved & pre-determined string of fate, have been granted the privilege of knowing there’s so much more. And somewhere along the line, without asking permission, he stopped feeling like a part of your life and started feeling like the shape of it.
Maybe that’s why this line of questioning makes your skin feel too tight — because they aren’t asking about a silly little coworker crush like they had been at that margarita night Garcia hosted many months ago. Now they’re asking about your actual life. About something real enough that if you look at it directly for too long, the brightness and warmth nearly blinds you.
“You gave him a key to your place, didn’t you?” JJ asks, breaking you out of your trance.
The table goes quiet for half a second.
You look at her. “Who told you that?”
JJ shrugs. “No one had to. When he first came back to work after you got shot, he was so worried about leaving you alone all day, so I went with him to check on you at lunchtime. He let himself into your apartment with a key on his usual keyring, and he looked very comfortable doing it.”
You look down at your drink. “You people are so invasive.”
Garcia points at you triumphantly. “Aha! That’s not a denial!”
You take a long sip of whiskey that does absolutely nothing to save you.
“It was… practical,” you say, which immediately sounds like a lie, even to you. “I gave it to him when I was still stuck at the hospital so he could bring me things from my place. Then he didn’t want me to be alone while I was recovering, and…” You lift one shoulder. “He still has the key.”
Emily’s mouth curves. “Very practical.”
“Shut up.”
“So,” Emily says. “How serious is this thing, really?”
You could dodge. You should dodge. You should say something glib and slippery and let them all chase their own tails around it.
Instead, because your second glass of whiskey is now treacherously empty and because these women have somehow figured out how to disarm you with minimal effort, you hear yourself say, “Um. I guess it’s… pretty serious. Yeah.”
Garcia actually slaps a hand over her heart. “Define pretty, please. Pretty pretty please!”
“God, I don’t know, you guys,” you say with an exasperated sigh. “Serious enough that, yeah, he has a key to my apartment. Enough that I can’t remember the last time I spent more than, like, four hours without talking to him, outside of when we’re asleep. Enough that everyone in this room is apparently allowed to bully me about him.”
JJ leans forward slightly. “Do you see a future with him?”
You look at her, then at the table, then at your empty glass. The honest answer rises before you can kill it.
“Yeah,” you say quietly. “That’s kind of the problem.”
Garcia goes so still you’d think someone muted her with a remote. Emily’s brows lift. JJ just watches you.
You let out a short, humorless laugh. “Not, like, a problem-problem. Not in a bad way. Just… I think he got serious about it before I realized I was letting him get serious, and then I was already in it too, apparently, before I’d even noticed that was happening, and then one day I looked up and he was just…” You stop, irritated by the catch in your own voice. “Everywhere. In every corner of my life.”
You swirl your glass against the table and stare at the condensation gathered on the rim, trying very hard not to think about how exposed you feel right now.
Then, because the alcohol has successfully eliminated your usual filters, you add, “He’s annoyingly good at staying, through pretty much anything. And… I think he’s teaching me how to be good at staying too.”
Garcia makes a strangled noise and beams at you.
“Oh my god,” she whispers. “You are in love-love.”
You roll your eyes. “That’s not exactly breaking news.”
“It’s not,” JJ says gently. “Anyone with eyes can see it nowadays. But it’s still nice to hear you say it out loud.”
You stare at her — at all of them, really: Garcia glowing with vindication and affection, Emily pretending not to be touched, JJ looking so proud it hurts, and another thought arrives uninvited: they love you too. Not in the way Spencer does, obviously — not in the all-consuming, low-voiced, hand-at-your-waist way. But still, in a real way, in a way you don’t think you’ve ever been loved by friends before. In the show-up, drag-you-out, celebrate-your-first-week-back, make-fun-of-you-until-you-stop-deflecting way.
You laugh despite yourself, because what else are you supposed to do with this? These women, this bar, this absurd line of questioning, this life that somehow expanded around you while you were busy trying not to die?
Garcia pulls your focus back to the conversation at hand. “Now I need to know if he’s actually romantic or if this is all just the natural result of extreme pining and good bone structure.”
You shake your head and reach for another fry. “Yes. Fine. He can be romantic,” you admit.
Garcia leans so far across the table you’re worried she’s about to fall into the mozzarella sticks. “In what way?”
You hesitate, because how do you explain Spencer as a boyfriend? How do you explain that privately he’s still Spencer, still dorky and earnest and too smart for his own good, but also softer than anyone would guess, and sharper too? That he remembers everything you say and acts like that’s normal? That he takes every tiny thing he knows about you into consideration before planning dates? That even the physical things with him somehow feel impossibly specific, like he’s learned your body with the same frightening thoroughness he learns everything else? That he can be so maddeningly practical one second and then look at you like you’ve just hung the moon in the sky with your bare hands the next?
Eventually, you say: “He notices things.”
Emily’s expression shifts first, like she gets exactly how loaded that answer is.
Garcia, predictably, wants more. “Such as?”
“Everything,” you say. “If I’m cold. If I’m tired. If I’m trying to pretend I’m not either of those things. He remembers stupid little things I say and then acts on them weeks later like that’s normal behavior. Like, last week, he bought me this ridiculously expensive brand of coffee beans from a cafe on the other side of the city because I mentioned them once in passing. He keeps my favorite pens stocked at his desk and in his bag because he knows I chew on mine until they stop working.”
You grimace. “Yeah, well. Don’t encourage him. I can’t handle much more of it and still keep my dignity intact.”
Emily props her chin on her hand. “How bad?”
You look at her. “What does that mean.”
“On a scale from one to ten, how embarrassing is he as a boyfriend?” she asks with a shrug.
“Honestly?” you say. “Pretty bad.”
Garcia crows in triumph. “I knew it.”
You look away. “I mean, I’m sorta embarrassing too.”
That catches all three of them off guard. You feel your face warm and immediately regret opening your mouth. But it’s too late now, so you plow forward.
“I miss him when he’s in the next room,” you mumble. “Which is humiliating and codependent and probably very concerning.”
JJ gives you a look that is somehow both sympathetic and deeply entertained. “That doesn’t sound concerning. It sounds sweet.”
Garcia puts both hands over her heart. “You are so disgustingly gone. I love it.”
You lean back in the booth and look up at the ceiling like maybe some god out there in the universe will mercifully strike you down before this gets any worse.
The strike never comes.
—
At some point after their humiliating interrogation, the conversation drifted. Garcia got louder. JJ got funnier. Emily, somehow, got both meaner and more affectionate at the same time. Somebody put more money in the jukebox. A second basket of fries appeared and disappeared. Then another round showed up, and then maybe another one after that, and after a while, keeping count lost its appeal.
Garcia made a passionate argument about who from the BAU would last the longest in a zombie apocalypse (“Survival isn’t just about brute strength! It’s also about adaptability and vibes!”). JJ reached that dangerous stage of tipsy where everything struck her as deeply, genuinely hilarious, including your comparison between Rossi in reading glasses and the Tootsie Pop owl. Emily had one elbow on the table, chin in hand, and the sort of lazy, amused smile that meant she was enjoying everybody else’s nonsense immensely.
The whole room has
gone pleasantly soft around the edges. Warmer. Louder. The lights above the bar blur into dull gold halos. Every time Garcia laughs, it seemed to set off the whole table half a second later. Your own body has gotten looser too, the good kind of loose — shoulders unclenched, thoughts less guarded, the usual sharp corners of you sanded down just enough.
But beneath all of it, quiet and constant, is the simple thought that if you asked, Spencer would come pick you up in a heartbeat.
You didn’t realize how much you were counting on that until the room tips one degree too warm and the thought of trying to get yourself home without him suddenly felt both very impossible and completely undesirable.
So you text him.
come get me?
And, because he’s Spencer, his reply comes almost immediately.
You got it. On my way.
The fuzziness only intensifies after that, but you’re at least mostly aware of what’s happening around you. Garcia has somehow moved on from zombies to explaining why she could absolutely win a bar fight if motivated by love. JJ is smiling into the rim of her drink. Emily has abandoned subtlety entirely and is now openly enjoying your slow descent into drunken sentimentality, which is rude but expected.
Then O’Keefe’s front door opens, and there he is.
Spencer pauses just inside the bar for half a second, scanning the room. His shoulders ease the second he spots you, that familiar little drop in tension so slight most people would miss it. You don’t. You never do.
He makes his way over, tie gone, coat on, hair a little wind-mussed from the cold outside. He looks tired in that way only he can: wrung out around the eyes but still put together, still handsome even under shitty bar lighting and the accumulated weight of a work week.
He stops beside the table and waves awkwardly to the entire group.
“Hello,” he says.
You tip your face up, far too happy to see him for someone with any pride left. “Hi, baby.”
The entire table goes silent.
Spencer’s brows lift the tiniest amount. Then his mouth softens into that look — that one that always makes your pulse jump.
“Hi,” he says softly, just to you.
Garcia clamps both hands over her mouth. Emily looks delighted. JJ’s expression has gone so calm it circles back around to dangerous.
You point a finger at all three of them. “Don’t.”
“No one said anything,” JJ says, holding both hands up defensively.
Garcia lowers hers from her mouth just enough to whisper, “Yet.”
Spencer, because he is either merciful or trying very hard to be, just asks, “You okay?”
You nod a little too emphatically. “M’great.”
Emily deadpans, “She’s drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” you say, while reaching for Spencer’s hand and missing on the first attempt. “I’m just… friendlier than usual.”
Spencer takes your hand himself and laces your fingers together before you can fumble again. “Of course.”
He says it so gently that it almost makes you emotional, which is very much not helping the situation.
Garcia, meanwhile, has given up all restraint. “She told us things.”
“Penelope,” you warn.
Spencer’s gaze flicks from her to you, faintly alarmed now in the way of a man who knows there are degrees of terror in your mind and that drunken honesty ranks highly among them. “Things like…?”
Emily takes pity on him, sort of. “Nothing classified.”
JJ sets her glass down. “We mostly just confirmed what we already suspected.”
Spencer, still holding your hand, blinks once. “Which is?”
Garcia leans in, beaming. “That you’re absolutely, totally, completely obsessed with each other.”
You look at the tabletop. The wood grain is suddenly fascinating.
“Ah,” he replies with a soft chuckle.
JJ hands you your purse from where you abandoned it at the opposite end of the booth. “Text us tomorrow so we know you’re alive.”
Garcia points at Spencer. “Take care of her, loverboy.”
He nods. “Always.”
You wish, briefly, for the floor to open up and swallow you whole. But instead, Spencer helps you stand with such absurd care it’s almost offensive. His hand settles lightly at your waist as he steers you through the bar, and your body goes willingly.
—
The night air outside is cold enough to bite.
It hits your face sharply but clears none of the pleasant fuzz in your head. The city glows around you in smeared halos of headlights and neon and streetlamp glow, and Spencer guides you toward the curb where his car is parked, one hand still warm at your back.
He opens the passenger door and looks at you with that quiet, attentive expression that makes you feel both cherished and mildly threatened.
“You good?” he asks.
You lean against the car and squint at him. “They interrogated me.”
Spencer’s mouth twitches. “That does sound like them.”
You point at him. “It’s all your fault.”
“My fault?”
“You made me go!”
He waits while you lower yourself into the passenger seat and leans in just enough to buckle you, and the whole thing is so stupidly sweet that you have to look away and pretend the dashboard is wildly interesting. He closes the door once you’re settled and walks around to the driver’s side.
When he gets in, he glances over at you as he starts the engine. “I didn’t make you do anything. I just encouraged a night out with your friends.”
“Still Brutus,” you mutter, which is met by a low chuckle and shake of the head from Spencer.
The rest of the drive home is quiet in a good way. Spencer keeps one hand on the wheel and the other resting open between you, and somewhere around the second red light you lace your fingers through his.
He looks over.
“What did they ask about?”
The questions blur together in your whiskey-soaked brain. “Everything,” you say after thinking for a moment. “They were very nosy and a little deranged.”
You turn your head to look at him properly. His profile is too familiar now — the slope of his nose, the soft concentration in his mouth, the line between his brows that shows up when he’s listening carefully.
“They asked what you’re like as a boyfriend,” you add.
Spencer glances over, faintly amused. “And?”
“And I had to say things.”
His brows lift. “Tragic.”
You nod dramatically. “Exactly. It was.”
By the time he parks outside your building and gets you upstairs, your thoughts have all softened into a single, inconvenient ache.
He helps you out of your coat, sets your purse down on the table, gets you water without asking. You sit on the edge of the bed while he moves around the room, toeing off his shoes, unbuttoning his cuffs, setting his watch on the nightstand.
He’s tired. You can see it in the slope of his shoulders and the care he’s no longer even trying to hide. He’s always gentler with you when he’s exhausted, as if all the extra effort it usually takes to conceal the full force of how much he cares has finally burned off.
You watch him longer than you mean to, and he catches you.
“What’s up?”
You shake your head. “Nothing.”
Spencer’s expression shifts. He comes over and kneels in front of you, hands resting lightly on your knees.
“What is it?” he asks softly.
And there it is — that awful tenderness. That exact, patient attention that always seems to make honesty feel both easier and much, much worse.
You look at him and find, with some irritation, that the words do not want to come out in anything resembling order.
“They asked…” You stop, frown, start again. “Um. They asked if this is serious.”
Spencer’s face softens so visibly it’s almost unbearable.
“Oh,” he says.
You nod, suddenly more nervous than you were in the bar, which makes no sense because it’s just him. Just Spencer, the man who has a key to your apartment and alphabetizes your spices and picks you up without hesitation and tells you he loves you at least five times a day.
But that’s exactly why it’s so nerve wracking, maybe.
You look down at the front of his shirt instead of his face. “And I told them yes.”
A beat of silence.
Then, quietly: “Okay.”
You let out a breath that sounds more annoyed than relieved. “No, see, that’s not enough.”
Spencer’s left hand moves from your knee up to your chin, guiding your face up just enough that you have to meet his eyes.
“What do you need me to say?” he asks gently.
“I—” You stop. Try again. “I don’t know. Something normal. Or not normal. Just…” You gesture vaguely between the two of you because apparently language has abandoned you. “They asked and I said yes and now I’m in my head about it because we’ve never actually said so out loud in those words, and I know that’s stupid because, like, obviously we’re serious. Duh. We say I love you. You have a key to my freaking apartment and we haven’t spent a night apart by choice in months. I know what this is. But I just—”
You stop again, mortified.
“It’s not stupid,” he says.
You swallow. “It’s not?”
“Not at all.” His thumb brushes once across your cheek. “And yes. We’re serious.”
The simplicity of it makes your throat go tight.
Spencer gives the smallest, softest little playful shrug. “I mean, think about it. You have a key to my apartment too.”
You almost laugh. It comes out sounding too close to a sigh.
Spencer watches your face for a second, then adds, quieter, “I think about it all the time, you know. How serious this is for me. How serious you are to me.” He glances down for half a second, then back up. “But I didn’t know if saying that would make you feel pressured, so I was trying very hard to let you get there however you needed to.”
Something in your chest folds in on itself.
It’s not even the serious part that gets you, not really. You already knew that. It’s the rest of it — the fact that he’s been thinking about it too; the fact that he’s been intentionally careful not to crowd you into saying something before you were ready. It’s so unfairly him that, for a second, all you can do is stare.
You look at him for a second too long, then reach for the front of his shirt and tug.
He comes without resistance, mouth brushing yours, soft and warm and patient.
The kiss deepens slowly. His hand slides to your waist and yours goes into his hair, because you like the little sound it pulls from him. You slide your other hand down his chest, mouth skimming his jaw, and in your softest, most shameless voice, you ask, “Are you going to fuck me now, or do I need to make a more persuasive argument?”
Spencer closes his eyes and laughs softly against your cheek. “No, angel, I’m not.”
You blink. “Rude.”
“You’re drunk,” he reminds you softly.
“I’m also charming.”
“You are,” he agrees.
“So—”
“So no.”
You grumble. “You hate joy, Spencer Reid.”
“I love joy,” he insists. “I’m a huge fan of joy. I’m less of a fan of taking advantage of you when you’ve had too much whiskey.”
You squint at him. “What if I said ‘make love’ instead? Does that move the needle at all?”
Spencer actually breaks at that, shoulders shaking with a laugh he tries and fails to suppress.
“No,” he says, still smiling, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of your neck. “It doesn’t.”
You sigh dramatically. “This relationship is so one-sided.”
“That is an absurd statement and you know it,” he says with a laugh, and leans in again — one long, slow kiss that leaves your knees weak and your head warm. When he finally pulls back, he brushes his thumb over your bottom lip. “Try again when you’re sober. I’ll do anything you ask.”
You smirk. “Anything? That’s a very dangerous offer.”
Spencer stands, mouth twisted in an exasperated grin. “Go brush your teeth, silly girl.”
You glare. He waits. You lose and grumble dramatically as you trudge into the bathroom.
Eventually, exhaustion starts to take hold. Spencer helps you out of your clothes, hands you one of his old shirts, gets you under the blankets. He climbs in beside you after turning off the lamp, and the room goes dark around the warm shape of him.
You roll toward him instinctively, your body finding his like a puzzle piece. His arm settles around you as you lay your head on his chest and tangle your legs with his. The two of you fit together too easily now, which is still a bit alarming if you think about it for too long.
For a minute, neither of you says anything.
Then you murmur, already half gone, “You liked when I called you baby.”
Spencer’s chest rises under your cheek with a silent laugh. “Maybe a little.”
You smile into his shirt. “Knew it.”
“You’re not going to start calling me that all the time now, are you?”
“God no. You know how I feel about using pet names.” You tilt your head just enough to look at him in the dark. “But… maybe sometimes.”
Spencer’s hand slides up your back, slow and warm. “I’ll take it.”
His breathing evens out under your ear. Yours follows a second later.
“Sweet dreams,” he whispers sleepily. “Love you.”
Your heart still flutters in that same embarrassing way it did the first time he said those words.
“Love you too,” you whisper back.
Tomorrow, you’ll wake up and remember enough of this to want to throw yourself violently into the Potomac. You’ll remember the bar and the interrogation and the pet name and the failed attempt at seduction and the deeply incriminating declarations of emotional seriousness.
But that’s a problem for tomorrow’s version of you. Tonight, Spencer’s body is warm against yours, his mouth is still soft from kissing you, and the awful, frightening shape of your future no longer feels quite so awful or frightening when it’s lying here breathing beside you.
Serious, you think, right before sleep pulls you under.
Yeah.
That sounds about right.
ᝰ.ᐟ
this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️
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