a/n: yes i finally made a masterlist, yes it is a pain in the ass, yes im still proud of it.
current icon and header: pinterest and @/sunflirt
all of the pieces i write, unless stated otherwise, are written with a brown south asian reader (usually fem) in mind, we are STARVING for representation in interactive experiences such as these so i write solely for them. Also! While my blog is welcome to be perused by minors as well, please heed the warnings in my fics, I DON'T WANNA EXPOSE Y'ALL TO SHIT MINORS SHOULDN'T SEE!
•°Sam Wilson°•
Abhi Na Jao Chhod Kar (childhood friends to lovers)
Hope in the Night (emotional hurt/comfort, fluff)
Dance for you (fluff)
Curses (fluff)
The Way You Look At Me (angst, fluff, hurt/comfort)
Dil toh Baccha hai Ji (fluff)
Kiss Me Like You Mean It (fluff)
Who's the Bionic Staring Machine now? (fluff)
When You See Me Like I See Myself (angst, emotional hurt/comfort, fluff)
There She Is (emotional hurt/comfort, angst, fluff)
Weakness (fluff)
Empty Hands (fluff)
White is a Strange Color (angst)
The World is Too Heavy (emotional hurt/comfort)
Diwali Headcanons Part 2
Finals Break Down (emotional hurt/comfort)
Blissed Out (smut, 18+)
Time (slight angst, flufff)
Tera Ban Baitha Hai Mera Jiya (slight angst, flufff- C's Bollywood Challenge)
Patch Me Up (hurt/comfort, best friends to lovers)
Tu Marz Hai, Dawa Bhi (angst)
Self Care (fluffiest fluff)
Horns (slight angst, flufff)
Moments (fluffff)
Desi Headcanons (flufff)
Welcome To The Family (flufff)
Sit With It (slight angst, hurt/comfort)
Oh Baby (flufff)
Rest Of Our Lives (flufff)
Forever (tw: pregnancy, flufff)
Choices (tw: self harm, hurt/comfort)
Memory Memory II (fluff)
Bloom (angst, kinda happy ending)
Little Things (flufff)
Smut drabble #1 (18+)
Series:
Smut drabble #2 (18+)
Smut drabble #3 (18+)
Wilsons' Residence // Sam Wilson x Desi!Reader (Domestic AU)
This is a series of drabbles and one shots about the Wilson family! Requests open!
Call Me Maybe is so deep actually. If ‘before you came into my life I missed you so bad’ was sufjan Stevens, tumblrinas would have gotten it tattooed on their ribs in typewriter font.
re Shawn Hatosy's absolute power move of doing the Quinn collab
can I just say it's actually so wholesome for him to frame it as "stepping into the space with intention" and taking ownership of his moment as a total sex symbol and approaching it with creativity and idk
it just feels very healthy and sex positive and like just another expression of his love for acting and character building and I'm really here for it
Pixel post dividers for everyone! It's not much, but feel free to use them if you'd like.
I don't know the ideal size for these, so let me know if they're too tall. I can make them a bit shorter next time.
between blood and daylight (jack abbot x resident!reader)
author's note: hey hey! hope everyone has had a nice weekend. this one I am so so excited about, and really enjoyed writing. written for the lovely @lanalastname based on this request:
"heyyy can i request a jack abbot x reader! reader is his wife of a few years who works as a surgeon resident upstairs in PTMC (think of the residents of greys anatomy lol). when the mass casualty happens with pitt fest, the reader is inundated with surgery’s. later when things have calmed down, jack wants to check on her and finds her slumped against a wall and taking a breather. jack comforting and protective jack!!! thank u queen"
as always all support is appreciated so so much, i love you all. kiss me thru the phone.
word count: 4.6k ish works
warnings: some canon the pitt inaccuracies, like timings and stuff around season one, medical inaccuracies, pittfest fic so mass casualty situation and descriptions reflective of that, hurt/comfort, slightly angsty, female reader (described as she/her, descriptions of hair tied back)
songs i listened to while reading: free now by gracie abrams, strawbery wine by noah kahan, you're gonna go far by noah kahan, favourite by fontaines DC
description: you and jack built a life in the spaces between shifts, but when pittfest turns into a mass casualty, you're forced to find each other again in the aftermath
You and Jack got married on a Wednesday morning in a registry office in downtown PA. It was around 11am when you signed your marriage license with a BIC four colour pen, clad in a white, vintage slip dress you found at a Goodwill for $24. Robby and your best friend, Sarah, stood beside you as witnesses, and your husband (who was out of work maybe 4 and a bit hours) joined your pinkies together under the table as you signed your name in block capitals and then in a looped cursive. Sarah cried into the small bouquet of sunflowers she had brought you, and Robby squeezed Jack's shoulder as you laughed over how long this had been coming and how obvious it was that this was exactly how things were going to go - you, and your favourite people in the middle of the week, marrying your best friend in a room that smelled like gym socks.
You shared pancakes and bacon right after, a tangled mess of ankles and prosthetic leg under the table of a random diner a 5-minute walk away from the PTMC. You had joked about the inevitability of pancakes being your wedding main course, and Robby told you he was happy for you both, like, really, genuinely happy. And although you thought Sarah had cried enough for the four of you, you had to join in on the tear fest because you couldn't quite believe your luck.
Not in the fairytale sense, although you loved a good Barbie movie.
More like, you had spent so long building a life that fit around chaos that finding someone who didn't just understand it, but moved with it alongside you, felt like you cheated somehow. Especially when you used to spend weekends crying over Gracie Abrams songs and thinking being a doctor meant that you'd have to just put that part of your life in a filing cabinet in your brain labeled 'for much much much later'.
It took a really long time before anything had changed between the two of you. There were months of shared shifts, months of you running after your mentor, Garcia, on surgical consults down in the emergency room. You just kept ending up in the same spaces. Trauma cases and overnight shifts. The strange overlap where sugery and emergency blurred into something messy and necessary.
When Garcia started telling you to call her Yolanda, she also started ferociously teasing you about your more than obvious weak spot for Dr Abbot.
When he asked you over for the first time, he had done it with the adrenaline of a man who received a pep talk from John Shen, hyper on caffeine in the break room. That night, you made him start watching The Office and popped butter popcorn in his microwave.
The first time he kissed you, it wasn't after a near-death save or a shift that broke you both open. It was in his kitchen, at two in the morning, while you were both standing in fluffy socks from your sock drawer, eating leftover Chinese food out of cartons. There was no big speech or declaration of unspoken love, just like something finally clicked into place. He just looked at you, whispering a soft, "come here," and that had been it.
You had laughed against his mouth the first time, at the complete Jack Abbot of it all. You paid for it with strong, calloused fingers reaching under your tee to tickle across your sides.
Marriage, for the two of you, had been kind of, well, simple. It wasn't easy, or light, but it was a certainty. A quiet, mutual understanding that this wa not something either of you were ever going to risk losing. So you signed the papers and you went back to work at 7pm that night.
The day that the PittFest shooting happened, you were three years into being married. You were also on your second cup of coffee that had gone cold somewhere in the operating lounge.
It had been one of those shifts from the start, one of those exhausting, debilitating ones that settled into the marrow of your bones. The kind of day where surgery felt less like a speciality and more like controlled drowning. Upstairs at PTMC, the OR floor had it's own rhythm, one that ususally felt seperate from the craziness of the emergency department below. The craziness here was more contained. Everything narrowed in surgery, became a line, an incision. A set of glovef hands trying to keep a body from slipping somewhere irreversible.
It was just after six when the tone changed. You noticed it in the same way everyone else did, the slight shift in the air before there was any official announcement. A circulating nurse, Ricky, had paused mid-step after checking his pager, and how Yoyo had said ,"what was that?", stepping out of the scrub room. The answer hadn't even landed yet. Then the call had come over the system, and you tightened the strings on the pants of your scrubs.
Every elective case was halted. Every available surgeon, resident, scrub nurse, anaesthesiologist, and OR tech was redirected. The neat order that you loved dissolved into blood availability and damage control planning. Dana had called from downstairs before the line was even fully staffed, her voice clipped and too calm in that way she got when things were seconds from going bad.
"Multiple GSWs incoming. We're sending them up as fast as we can clear them."
You were pulling your hair back tighter, pulling on a fresh gown and scanning the room for what you'd need. You were far enough into your residency to not have to be asked if you were ready. You had to be ready.
You were a fourth-year surgery resident. Not in charge, but you were senior enough to be expected to move like you were. One of the interns looked green around the mouth as she struggled into sterile gloves.
"Breathe," you told her, firmly. " You were chosen for this program for a reason. Time to prove it, okay?"
She nodded too fast.
The first patient hit your OR three minutes later. Teenage male, gunshot to the abdomen, pressure crashing despite multiple tranfusions, abdomen rigid, skin waxy in that sick, terrifying way.
You took one look at your attending and said, "We're opening."
The rest of the night ceased to exist in any normal way after that.
Time lost its shape. It became measured in clamps and suction and blood units hung and discarded. In room turnovers were too fast and yet not fast enough. Your fingers and palms burned from the scrubbing of antiseptic and they were gone an uncomfortable pink colour. You were fairly certain you'd hit the dermis.
You tuned your thoughts out as you treated a woman in her twenties with a chest wound and a liver injury. You performed a solo surgery on a boy barely old enough to shave with a shattered femur and an arterial bleed.
At some point, Emery shoved a sandwich into your hand, and you realised only after your second bite that you were still wearing bloody gloves. You dropped the sandwich and a poor environmental tech sweeped it up instantly with the biggest sweeping brush you'd ever seen.
You couldn't let yourself think of Jack downstairs; there was nowhere in your body left to put want.
You knew he'd be there. Even before you'd married him, before you knew the shape of his silences and which shirts he slept best in and how his hands always found your waist in the kitchen like they belonged there, you'd known this about him: if disaster showed up, Jack Abbot moved towards it.
And inevitably, so did you.
That was the problem, some people might've said. Two people married to medicine before they'd ever signed the paperwork to marry each other. But it worked because you understood the call of it. The terrible, relentless insistence of being needed somewhere all at once. It worked because neither of you ever asked the other to choose.
The first time you looked up and really registered how tired you were, it was nearly eleven, and you were standing at the sink outside OR three scrubbing blood out from under your nails that wasn't yours. Your shoulders ached, and your lower back felt like somebody had driven a spike through it.
Dr Shamsi came through the corridor and paused when she saw you.
"You done?"
You looked at her blankly for a moment, and then suddenly remembered what the English language was.
"For now," you replied, smiling weakly at your superior.
She nodded toward the board. "Trauma load's easing. ER's still got a few minor cases downstairs, but we're catching up. Everyone's heading home, you should too."
You nodded and headed towards the lounge for water, or coffee, or maybe just a wall to lean against without being spoken to for thirty seconds. The hall outside of surgery felt eerie in comparison to the hours before. It was still busy, still bright, but with the edge dulled. The worst had happeed, and now everyone was in the long, ugly work of stitching the world back together badly enough that it might just hold.
You made it halfway down the back corridor before your body made the decision for you.
There was an alcove near the service elevators where extra linen carts sometimes sat. It was empty now, quiet. Out of line of sight of anyone moving with purpose. You stepped into it with the full intention of staying there for maybe ten seconds.
Instead, your shoulder hit the wall, and something in you gave way all at once. You had the sudden, humiliating awareness of how hard you'd been holding yourself upright. Your legs bent. You slid down the wall until you were half-sitting, half-folded against cold tile, one knee up, one arm thrown over it. You scrubbed a hand across your face and came away with the sting of dried sweat and the faint smell of chlorhexidine still clinging to your skin.
You weren’t crying.
You weren’t even close, you told yourself.
You were just breathing.
In.
Out.
Trying to coax your body into remembering that standing still no longer meant someone would die.
The hallway beyond the alcove hummed faintly with distant motion. A phone rang somewhere. Wheels rattled over linoleum. Overhead lights buzzed with the same sterile indifference they always had.
For one selfish, exhausted minute, you let yourself feel it.
The weight of all those open bodies.
The hot, metallic smell of trauma blood.
The way a teenager’s hand had twitched once against the drape just before anesthesia deepened.
The mother in OR Two whose wedding ring had left a pale circle on the prep tray after someone removed it and set it aside.
The intern whose gloves you’d had to retie because her fingers were shaking too badly to manage it herself.
You leaned your head back against the wall and closed your eyes.
And somewhere downstairs, because your mind was apparently cruel enough to supply it now that there was room, you thought of Jack.
Of his face under trauma bay lights. His voice when he was one step from snapping and therefore at his calmest. The fact that he would have gone all evening without eating if someone hadn’t forced something into his hand. The little line that appeared between his brows when he was worried and pretending not to be.
You wondered if he was still in the ER. Wondered if he’d seen things as bad as the things you’d seen. Wondered if he’d asked after you and been told, vaguely, that surgery had her and surgery still has her and surgery isn’t letting go yet.
You wondered if he was standing somewhere under fluorescent lights, tired to the bone, thinking of you too.
The sound of footsteps reached the alcove before the person did.
Your eyes opened slowly.
Jack appeared at the mouth of the corridor with all the quiet force he seemed to carry naturally, even exhausted. He was still in dark scrub pants and his black undershirt, trauma vest gone, sleeves pushed up, his face lined with the kind of fatigue that made him look older and sharper all at once. There was dried blood on one shoulder that might have been his but probably wasn’t. His hair was flattened in strange places from too many hands run through it over too many hours.
He stopped the second he saw you and something in his face changed.
He took you in all at once: your scrubs wrinkled and stained, your hair half-falling from its tie, the way your hands were hanging loose between your knees because apparently you’d forgotten what to do with them.
He came closer, slow enough not to startle you, and crouched in front of where you sat against the wall.
For a second neither of you said anything.
Then Jack asked, his voice low and rough around the edges, “You hurt?”
That was so Jack that you almost laughed.
Not hello. Not are you okay. Not Jesus Christ, there you are.
You shook your head.
“No.”
He searched your face like he didn’t believe you.
Maybe he shouldn’t have. There were things that counted as hurt that weren’t visible.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Another pause. Then, quieter, “You faint?”
The corner of your mouth twitched despite yourself. “No.”
“You look like you did.”
“Thank you.”
“You know what I mean.”
He stayed crouched in front of you, one forearm resting loosely on his knee, his eyes on your face in that uncomfortably direct way of his. Jack had never been the sort of man who filled silence because he was afraid of it. He let it sit. Let it ask its own questions.
You looked at him properly then. Really looked.
There was blood at the cuff of his shirt. A shallow scrape across one knuckle. A shadow of stubble that said the shift had outrun normal time.
“You check on everyone like this?” you asked.
His gaze didn’t move. “No.”
The answer landed somewhere deep.
You swallowed.
“You done down there?”
“For now.” He tilted his head slightly. “You?”
You laughed once, but it came out thin. “Apparently.”
Jack glanced down the hall, then back at you. “How many?”
The question didn’t need clarifying.
You rubbed your hand over your jaw and stared at the floor between his shoes. “Five. Maybe six, depending on what counts.”
He absorbed that without a flicker.
“How bad?”
You let out a breath and looked away toward the far wall.
Jack waited.
Eventually you said, “Bad enough.”
His jaw worked once.
There were versions of this conversation you could have with almost anyone else in the hospital. Surgical shorthand. Clinical phrasing. Detached language. Through-and-through. Ex lap. Massive transfusion. Non-survivable. Saveable. Lost on the table.
With Jack, the words always felt different. Because he knew exactly what was under them.
“I feel like - like they were all were so young,” you heard yourself say.
Jack’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes softened by a fraction.
You looked down at your hands. “One of them had a festival wristband still on. Bright green. I kept looking at it while I was retracting and thinking she probably picked out an outfit for tonight. She probably fought with her friend over eyeliner. She probably thought the worst thing that was going to happen was a bad hangover tomorrow.”
Your voice had gotten quieter without your permission.
Jack didn’t interrupt.
“There was this kid,” you went on, words coming a little uneven now that they’d started. “Not a kid, really. Seventeen maybe. We had him open for nearly two hours and every time his pressure came up I thought, okay, good, there you are, stay with me, stay—”
You stopped.
The rest of the sentence stayed lodged behind your teeth.
Jack reached out then, slowly enough that you could’ve moved away if you wanted, and put his hand over yours where it rested against your knee.
You looked at it first, then at him.
His face had gone very still in the way it did when he was feeling too much and letting almost none of it reach the surface.
“You did your job,” he said.
The words should have felt too easy.
They didn’t. Not from him.
You laughed softly, once. “You sound like a motivational poster.”
“Yeah, well.” The corner of his mouth twitched without quite becoming a smile. “Long night. Lowered standards.”
That got a real breath of laughter out of you, thin but genuine.
Jack squeezed your hand once before letting go. Then, after a pause, he shifted from his crouch to sit beside you against the wall like it was the most natural thing in the world for an attending to end up on a hospital floor in a half-hidden hallway.
His shoulder bumped yours lightly.
The contact nearly undid you more than anything else had.
For a minute the two of you just sat there.
The city beyond the walls kept moving. The hospital kept humming. Somewhere downstairs the Pitt still carried on, because it always did.
Jack tipped his head back against the wall and shut his eyes briefly.
“You eat?”
You turned to look at him. “Did you?”
“That’s not an answer.”
You smiled tiredly. “I had two bites of a turkey sandwich in between ORs.”
“Two bites.”
“It was a very stressful two bites.”
He made a low sound of disapproval. “I had crackers.”
“That’s worse.”
“I’m not the one slumped on the floor.”
You looked at him sidelong. “You found me in under ten minutes.”
"I know, we're chemically bonded or whatever the hell that instagram video told you”
“That is absolutely not what that-.”
“Shush. I think my brain turned off around hour three.”
You glanced at his hands. There was dried blood in the cuticles. “How bad downstairs?”
Jack was quiet for a second.
Then he said, “Bad enough.”
You huffed a soft laugh through your nose. “Wow. You really did steal my line.”
“It was a super good line.”
“It was lazy.”
He looked at you then, actually looked, and there was something in his face you only ever saw when the shift had carved him hollow enough to let tenderness show through.
“I was looking for you,” he said.
Your breath caught on that, stupidly.
“I figured.”
“No,” he said, and the roughness in his voice had nothing to do with exhaustion now. “I was looking for you.”
The distinction settled between you.
Not a head count. Not a casual check. Not a vague, eventual thought that he should probably find his wife before the night ended.
He had been looking. Your eyes burned unexpectedly and you immediately hated that.
Jack noticed, of course he did, but he didn’t call attention to it. He just reached up and pushed a loose strand of hair back behind your ear, fingers brushing your temple in a gesture so gentle it made your throat ache.
“You don’t have to stay up here by yourself,” he said.
You swallowed. “I know.”
His hand lingered for a second before dropping. “You want to talk about it?”
You considered the honest answer.
Not really. Not in details. Not all of it. Not the way it would sit inside you later anyway, no matter how many words you gave it now.
So you shook your head.
Jack nodded like that was an answer worth respecting.
“Okay.”
You rested your head back against the wall and looked at the ceiling. “I think I just needed one minute where nobody asked me for anything.”
He was silent for a beat.
Then, with faint dry humor: “You picked the wrong building.”
You laughed again, softer this time, and leaned your shoulder against his fully.
The roof door wasn’t far from where you were sitting. A strange impulse came over you then, sudden and simple.
“Come on,” you said quietly.
Jack frowned. “Where.”
“The roof.”
He looked toward the stairwell door. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“You can barely stand.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
You pushed yourself up anyway, using the wall for leverage. Your knees protested immediately. Jack rose in the same motion, one hand already at your elbow before you could pretend you didn’t need it.
“I’m fine,” you murmured.
“Sure.”
But he kept his hand there until you were steady.
The two of you took the stairs slowly, not because either of you said to, but because there was no rush left in either body. The hospital stairwell smelled faintly of concrete and bleach and old air conditioning. Somewhere on the third landing, you realized your hand had drifted to the railing while his was still lightly braced at the small of your back.
He only took it away when you reached the roof access door.
The night air hit cool and damp after the climate-controlled dryness inside. Pittsburgh spread below you in scattered gold and white, the city lights trembling faintly against low clouds. Somewhere far off, you saw fireworks flaring out, a small victory of celebration, muted by distance into soft blooms of red and silver over dark buildings.
The roof was mostly empty.
It always felt different up here. Like the hospital stopped being a machine for a second and became just a place, perched over a sleeping city full of people who had no idea how many lives were hanging in balance below them at any given moment.
You moved to the low wall and braced your hands against it, breathing the air in like it could scour the smell of the OR out of you. Jack came to stand beside you, close enough that his sleeve brushed yours when the wind shifted.
After a while you said, “When I was retracting on that liver case, I kept thinking about how weird it is that people can be having the best night of their lives one second and then…” You lifted one shoulder. “Everything changes because somebody decides to turn the world ugly.”
Jack’s gaze stayed forward. “Yeah.”
“I hate that they came to us like that.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute.
“I know.”
You turned your head and looked at him. The wind pushed a strand of his hair across his forehead. He looked older in rooftop light. Softer too.
“I was thinking about you,” you admitted quietly.
That got his attention. His eyes came to yours.
You shrugged, a little embarrassed now that the words were out. “Every time someone came up from the ER, I thought, okay, he probably saw them first. He probably touched the gurney. He probably heard whatever they said before they came under. I kept wondering if you were alright.”
Jack held your gaze for a long second.
Then he looked back out over the city and said, very softly, “I was thinking about you too.”
It should not have mattered. You had been married for years. You shared a home and a bed and bills and Sunday groceries and all the unglamorous little domestic rituals that make up an actual life. You already knew he loved you. Knew it in all the ordinary ways.
But there was something about hearing that in the aftermath of a night like this, here, with blood dried into both your sleeves and the city moving below you unaware, that made it feel newly precious.
You looked down at your hands and smiled a little helplessly. “This is stupid.”
“What is?”
“That we have to nearly work ourselves into the ground to remember to say obvious things to each other.”
Jack huffed a sound that might have been a laugh. “You know I’m not good at obvious.”
“You really aren’t.”
“Didn’t stop you marrying me.”
You glanced at him. “One of my more questionable decisions.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
Then, because the night was already cracked open enough for honesty and you were too tired to guard yourself from it, you said, “When it gets bad like this… I’m always glad it’s you.”
He went still beside you.
You pushed on before you could lose the nerve. “Not because I want you hurt, or dragged into every awful thing that happens in the city, but because if I have to do nights like this, if we both do, then…” You swallowed. “I’m glad it’s with someone who understands what it costs.”
The wind moved between you.
Jack turned toward you fully.
There were a lot of expressions he wore well, dry amusement, clinical focus, irritation, exhaustion.
This one undid you most. The rare, unguarded tenderness that made him look almost startled by his own softness.
He reached up and cupped the side of your face with a blood-roughened hand, thumb brushing just beneath your eye.
“You found me,” he said quietly.
It took you a second to understand. Then your throat tightened.
He was not a man for speeches. He was a man for distillation. For taking all the impossible, sprawling mess of feeling and reducing it to the one sentence that mattered.
Not I love you, though it contained that. Not thank you, though it contained that too.
Something steadier. Older. The sort of truth people carried in their bones long before they knew how to say it.
You leaned into his hand without thinking.
“And you found me,” you whispered back.
A real smile touched his mouth then, tired and small and completely for you.
“Yeah,” he said. “I did.”
He bent and kissed your forehead first.
It was such a Jack thing to do that your eyes stung all over again.
Then his hand slid to the back of your neck and he kissed you properly, slow, tired, and so careful it made your chest ache. There was no urgency in it, none of the rough edge you’d gotten from him on better nights and easier days. This was something else. A quiet claiming. A pause pressed into skin. A reminder.
You kissed him back with your fingers curled into the front of his shirt, the hospital far below and all around, the city still lit and moving, the worst of the night finally beginning to loosen its grip.
When he pulled away, he rested his forehead briefly against yours.
“You should go home,” he murmured.
You laughed softly. “With what energy?”
“I’ll drive.”
“You drove here?”
“I usually do.”
“No, I mean, you knew I drove here and that we'd probably be going at the same time?”
He looked at you with mild impatience. “I’m not asking you to parallel park under emotional distress.”
You smiled. “Such a romantic.”
“Don’t start.”
You rested your cheek briefly against his shoulder, letting yourself have the weight of him, the realness, the fact of being known this well and still chosen.
After a minute he said, “Come on.”
Reluctantly, you stepped back from the wall.
The city stayed where it was. The hospital kept humming below. Somewhere a siren moved through the streets. Somewhere someone was still dancing off the remnants of a night that had become a nightmare for too many others.
But your body felt steadier now. Not whole. Not rested. Just steadier.
Jack put a hand at the small of your back as you headed for the door.
Not because you needed steering.
Just because he could.
And when you looked back once before stepping inside, at the city, at the roof, at the strange thin line between grief and survival that hospitals lived on, you felt it all over again, that impossible, terrible gratitude for the person walking beside you.
Not because the world was kind.
But because somehow, inside all that unkindness, the two of you had still found each other.
author's note: hey! i'm back again! thanks for the love on everything so far, all the support really means the world and it's so nice to get back into the swing of writing, please enjoy another one before I burn myself out <3
word count: 2,018
warnings: sort of suggestive, domestic bliss!!, reader is suggested to be younger than him, soft jack, medical inaccuracies as alwayssss
description: a morning spent with jack after a gruelling work week. you're both super in love etc etc etc
⏾
Your entire body is warm right now. Like, the kind of warm you feel right in the bottom of your tummy when you take the first sip of tea after a long, exhausting night shift, or the kind of warm you feel when you see a shelter dog finding his forever home after years of neglect. You can tell it's the morning, because there's this stream of light coming in through the left window where you hadn't closed the blinds all the way - it stretches across your closed eyes and across your face. Those blinds are always damn closed in this room, anyways, no harm in some light sometimes.
There's also warmth coming from a weight across your waist, heavy and grounding and solid, an arm thrown over you like it fell there sometime the night before and just decided to stay there. Your cheek is smushed up against soft curls that smell like cedarwood, antiseptic and something so distinctly him it's mind-numbing. If Robby found out that Dr Jack Abbot falls asleep with his head tucked into your neck and his leg folded across yours, you'd be screwed. That's why you keep it just your little secret. And maybe giggle about it with Victoria and Trinity when you've had just a little too much during girls' night.
You blink slowly awake, well rested and giddy to see the sunlight cutting in through the blinds after a solid week of heavy rainfall across Pittsburgh. Not that you've seen much of the outside, having been stuck inside of the ER for a grilling 6 days. Remembering where you are, under navy, soft cotton bedsheets, you look down at your sleeping boyfriend and his stupidly-cute, stupidly-open lips as light snores roll past and reverberate off of your neck. You rarely get to see Jack like this - completely vulnerable and soft and boyish - light freckles adorned across his forehead and soft lines beside his eyes remind you that he is fully human. Who is actually drooling all over you, by the way.
You shift slightly, testing the grip around you to see how much you can move, and the hold around your waist tightens automatically, a splayed hand moving across your stomach that's adorned in one of his old college t-shirts that frankly has seen better days, but you insist you wear anyways. You panic for a second, thinking you've woken him so your body goes rigid. You sigh in relief when you look down at him again and see him exactly in the same place as before. He must be exhausted. It's been one of those weeks.
For someone who claims he doesn't cuddle, he's treating you like a pregnancy pillow right now.
Your free arm reaches for your phone on the nightstand beside you, because of course you're thinking about your for you page. You swipe open the screen and see that you've got a snapchat video message from Shen, which you decide you'll leave opening till later, as it's most likely a review of a new coffee place he uber eats'd to the PTMC at 3am last night. Plus, you like to annoy Jack with stories of his residents' favourite syrup of the week.
You open the TikTok app, keeping your volume at the lowest setting, and scroll through a couple of videos. You're keeping an eye on the man that's basically on top of you to make sure he's not waking up. The one thing Jack hates more than iced vanilla lattes is interrupted sleep. Your about to scroll to the next video, when Victoria's face fills the screen immediately - Dr.J, explaining "Five Tips for your First Year Residency", in that bright, cheery voice that you're used to discussing charting struggles and Mateo-isms with.
But the second she says, "Number one-stop calling every mild tachycardia a crisis-"
Jack groans. His eyes are still closed.
"You're kidding," he mutters into your shoulder.
You grin. "You're awake."
"I was sleeping."
"You were snoring."
"I don't snore." You snort.
Victoria continues, "..if your attending looks tired, maybe consider they've been here 12 hours longer than you have-"
"Right on," he says, leaving a lazy kiss on the side of your neck that makes a shiver run up your spine.
Victoria's voice is long forgotten as you move your head to rest against Jack's soft curls on the top of his head, which he more than likely needs a haircut for. You'll remind him of that after you keep him in bed for as long as you can.
You have a few seconds of comfortable silence, afraid to say anything in the hopes of letting this moment go on forever. You're rudely interrupted by the Snapchat notification noise that rings through the room and you wince. As quick as the noise goes off, Jack has rolled onto his back, bringing you with him as a high pitched yelp comes out of your mouth.
"Sweetheart, I swear if another sound comes out of your phone I'm going to lock it in a box for a week."
You blink up at him, still half-laughing from the yelp you let out when he flipped you over.
"Violence?" you gasp dramatically. "Over a little text?"
His arms tighten around you then, pinning you more firmly as he takes your phone and throws it somewhere down the end of the bed. You think this may be an inappropriate time to comment on how his biceps look ridicously biteable right now.
"I was this close,", he says, holding his fingers barely apart, "to going back to sleep"
"You were awake the whole time?"
"I was drifiting"
"You were drooling"
He lifts himself off the bed then, moving to settle over you with those stupidly obnoxious veins in his arms bracketing you inbetween them. His expression is somewhere between grumpy and dangerously focused. You can't help but notice the sunlight cutting across his defined shoulders, or the mess of his hair from having your fingers in it all night.
You swallow.
"Okay, Jacko, I know you have this whole brooding, mysterious energy going on all the time, but this is entirely too intense for 9am"
He laughs through his nose and drops his head down to your shoulder, groaning, "Sweetheart, it is not 9am for me".
His voice vibrates warm against your skin, and you hate (love) how easily that makes your stomach flip.
"For normal people, it is," you counter, fingers instinctively moving to rest at the back of his head.
He lifts his head to look at you properly now. He looks unfairly too good and too put together for someone who just woke up. You try very hard not to stare. You fail, obviously.
His mouth tilts at the corner when he catches you doing it, that faint, almost-smirk he pretends isn't a smirk at all. The sunlight hits the line of his jaw just right, catches on the faint scar near his temple, outlines the shape of him in a way that makes you feel entirely unworthy of him.
"Stop that," he quips.
"Stop what?"
"That look."
"What look?!"
"The one where you're thinking something you shouldn't be"
You grin up at him, and notice how his eyes grow softer. You heart skips like 20 beats.
"I'm thinking extremely respectable thoughts, Dr Abbot"
"Liar"
His voice is rough with sleep and you feel it everywhere. He moves his weight just enough that you're aware of him in a way that takes your breath away and makes you feel like you've been given a double dose of epi all at once.
"You antagonise me first thing in the morning," he says quietly, studying your face. "Then you stare."
"I can't appreciate my boyfriend?"
"You can. Silently, preferably."
You hit him across the shoulder at that and he laughs, a carefree, easy laugh that shakes his shoulders and reminds you that he's still soft around the edges. He takes another exhale through his nose, but this time his hand slides from the mattress to your wait, setting it there. His thumb presses into the soft cotton of the tshirt you've stolen from him. A reminder that you're real, you're here, you're not a hallucination his brain cooked up after too many code blues.
He leans down, slower this time, his mouth brushing yours in a kiss that isn't rushed or teasing. It's warm, sleep-heavy, certain. His hand tightens again and you think you might have a bruise there from all the times his hands go back to that same spot.
"You didn't wake up once last night, you know" you whisper when you part, half-lidded eyes looking through long eyelashes right up at him. Jack thinks he might still be asleep. Dreaming.
"It's easier."
"What's easier?"
"To sleep, when you're here."
And there it is. You could cry at the admission. You almost feel your eyes welling up at the thought. Sometimes, it can be hard reading him. Like, when Dana tells you he's gone up to the roof again to take a break, but you know it's because he's beating himself up about something. He protects you from it. That dark side of him that you know listens to police scanners in hope of a distraction and finds comfort in wearing a SWAT medic vest every other week.
But here he is, above you, looking through you like he can see everything and beyond that. Admitting to you that you make it easier. You wish you could tell him that that's all you want to be.
Not a distraction, or a light to balance the dark, or something that fixes him. You just want to be a place he can rest.
"You know, I coud make it a habit. Sleeping here, I mean. Wouldn't want you losing some well needed z's"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. I mean-if, if that's something you'd want. Like, I don't want to overstep or make you feel pressured or like I'm slowly invading you space with my skincare products and emotional support water bottle or-"
He cuts you off by kissing you. Mouth crashing against yours in a desperate, searing kiss that knocks the breath straight out of your lungs. Firm, and certain and all too quick. And when he pulls back his forehead rests against yours again.
"You know, you left your conditioner in my shower three months ago."
You blink.
"That was strategic"
"I know"
"And you didn't say anything."
"Why would I?"
You hestitate. "Because..it's your place?"
He reaches up to hold your cheek in his too big hands, thumb hooking lightly under your eye to rub away a loose eyelash thats gotten stuck there.
"You think this is just my place?" he asks.
You falter a little at that.
"I don't want to assume," you admit, softer now. "You like your space. Your routine. Your...weird old man night-shift cave"
His mouth twitches faintly in an almost smirk.
"I think it stopped being just my space the second you left that damn polka dot scrunchie on the gear stick in my truck."
You let out a small, embarassed laugh. "Okay, that was actually not intentional."
He moves then, rolling just enough so you're both at a more comfortably aligned angle on the mattress, an arm firmly around you.
"If you want to sleep here," he continues, "sleep here"
Your chest tightens, and you can't believe what you're hearing. How normal this all is.
He presses a slow kiss to your temple, then your forehead, then back to your mouth, softer each time. Like a punctuation, telling you that he wants this, wants you, wants all the weird stickers you have on your diary and the little monkey keychain that swings off your bag.
"This is all very emotionally open of you, Dr Abbot."
"Don't ruin it, kid."
You smile and tuck yourself closer against him, your leg sliding comfortably over his like it's muscle memory now. He adjusts automatically, hand settling at you hip, chin resting against the top of your head.
"You think Dr J has any tips for moving in with your attending?"
Summary: Jack said the hardcover budget was flexible. That was his first mistake. After a bookstore trip that gets slightly out of hand, you come home glowing, carrying new books and reorganizing your red-tabbed archive like it is a sacred academic collection. Jack is amused. Fond. Far too pleased with himself for a man who should know better. Then he notices the one book that did not come from the bookstore. An old one. One you have read before. One with the red tab you almost took out. Page 212 is not like the others. It is not about Jack taking control, or guiding you, or making you ask for what you want. This time, it is about you wanting to learn him. And Jack, very dangerously, tells you to.
Warnings: 18+ only, smut, established marriage, Source Material bonus scene, oral sex, riding, teasing, orgasm denial, masturbation/watching, praise kink, reader taking control, Jack being absolutely wrecked, prosthetic intimacy/care, dirty talk, consent-heavy power exchange, aftercare, Jack Abbot losing his entire mind over his wife
Author's Note: You all were very normal about Source Material, so obviously I had to make page 212 everyone’s problem. A lot of you asked in my inbox and comments what actually happened on page 212, and I am nothing if not committed to public service. So… here it is. This is what happened after the bookstore. This is why Jack was flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, repeating that it was incredible, like page 212 had personally rewired his brain.
You’re welcome.
Xoxo, Del
MDNI 18+
Previous Part: Source Material
Jack had said the hardcover budget was flexible. That had been his first mistake. His second mistake was smiling when you took him seriously.
By the time you got back from the bookstore, the paper bag handles had stretched thin from the weight of your very reasonable, very necessary purchases. There were two hardcovers, three paperbacks, one special edition you had gasped over so dramatically that Jack had put it in the basket without checking the price, and one book you insisted was “for emotional support,” which had made him look at you with mild horror in the middle of the romance aisle.
“You have seven emotional-support books at home,” he had said.
You had clutched the paperback to your chest. “This one is specialized.”
Jack had looked at the cover, then back at you. “Specialized.”
You nodded. “Yes.”
“For?”
You had smiled sweetly. “You’ll find out if you behave.”
That had been his third mistake. He had behaved.
Mostly.
Now, Jack carried the bookstore bag upstairs like a man hauling evidence. You followed him into the bedroom and immediately kicked off your shoes. “I need to change first.”
Jack set the bag on the bed. “For book organization?”
“Obviously.”
His eyebrows lifted. “There’s a dress code?”
You reached for the hem of your sweater. “There is a mobility requirement.”
Jack looked at the bag. Then at you. “For paperbacks.”
You narrowed your eyes. “For systems, Jack.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Of course.”
He stayed near the foot of the bed while you crossed to the dresser, still in his jeans and soft black T-shirt, watch on his wrist. Covered. Composed. Very pleased with himself for a man trying not to look pleased.
You, on the other hand, were out of your bookstore clothes in less than a minute. Jeans first. Sweater next. Then you pulled one of Jack’s old shirts from the drawer and slipped it over your head. The cotton fell soft around you, hem brushing your thighs, nothing but underwear beneath it. Comfortable. Mobile. Bare-legged in the middle of your bedroom while he stood there fully dressed, watching you with the careful restraint of a man who knew better than to comment too quickly.
You turned around and found his eyes on you. Not crude. Not even obvious. Just enough. Your skin warmed. Jack looked at your legs. Then, at the books. Then back at your face. “That seems excessive.”
You tugged the hem of his shirt down with great dignity. “I have to be comfortable and mobile.”
His gaze dropped briefly again. “For organization.”
“Yes.”
Jack nodded slowly. “I see.”
You raised a brow. “Do you?”
His mouth barely moved. “I’m starting to.”
You pointed at him. “Do not make this weird.”
Jack’s eyes came back to yours, warm and dry. “I’m not the one reorganizing smut in my underwear.”
You lifted your chin. “I’m wearing a shirt.”
“My shirt,” Jack replied.
You grinned happily. “That’s because you have excellent attire for organization.”
Jack exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh. There it was again. That quiet, private look. The one he always tried to hide when he was too pleased with himself. It sat in the corners of his mouth, in the softened line of his eyes, in the way his attention stayed on you like your happiness was something he had managed to bring home in the bag with the books.
And maybe he had.
Maybe that was the dangerous part.
The books landed on your bed with soft, papery thuds, glossy covers, and crisp spines spilling across the comforter. The room still smelled faintly of rain from the window cracked open earlier, but now there was bookstore scent too: paper, ink, dust, new pages, the sharp sweetness of unread books waiting to become everyone’s problem.
You were radiant.
Jack was trying very hard not to look proud of that. He failed quietly. “This is a lot of books,” he said.
You pulled a paperback from the bag and set it carefully beside the others. “This is an appropriate number of books.”
Jack glanced at the pile. “For a library.”
You looked up at him. “Exactly.”
His mouth barely moved. You saw it anyway. “Don’t act like you’re not proud of yourself,” you said.
Jack’s eyebrows lifted. “For enabling you?”
“For supporting your wife’s intellectual and emotional development,” you corrected him.
His gaze dropped to the shirt again. His shirt. Your bare thighs. The red-tabbed books already waiting near the nightstand. Then his eyes came back to yours. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
You held up one of the new books. “This one has dragons.”
Jack nodded once. “Intellectual.”
You held up another. “This one has political intrigue.”
“Emotional development,” Jack replied.
You lifted the third. Jack looked at the cover. Then back at you. “That one has a shirtless man holding a sword.”
You hugged it to your chest. “Cultural enrichment.”
Jack’s mouth curved.
You looked down before your face could get too warm. “I need to reorganize.”
Jack exhaled through his nose. “Of course you do.”
“You can’t just add new books without creating space.”
“No?” he asked.
You gave him a look over your shoulder as you crossed to the bookshelf. “That is how chaos starts.”
Jack sat on the edge of the mattress, bracing one hand behind him. “Wouldn’t want that.”
“You mock me now,” you said, pulling three paperbacks from the lower shelf, “but when civilization collapses, you’ll be grateful someone in this house understands systems.”
Jack’s eyes followed you as you crouched near the shelf. You felt the attention. You were the one half-dressed, bare legs folded beneath you, hem of his shirt shifting every time you reached for another paperback. He was still dressed. Still covered. Still sitting there like control was something he could put on as easily as a black T-shirt and jeans. But his thumb had gone still against the comforter. That was the first sign.
You pretended not to notice.
Jack cleared his throat. “You’re going to save us with alphabetized smut?”
You glanced back at him. “Genre, then emotional damage level, then author.”
He stared at you. You smiled. Jack dragged a hand over his mouth. “I’m in too deep.”
You shrugged. “You married me.”
“I did,” Jack said with a soft smile.
“You had warning.”
He looked at the bed, at the new books, then at the old stack of red-tabbed paperbacks still sitting near your nightstand from earlier. His mouth twitched. “Not enough.”
You laughed, soft and pleased, and began moving books. Old ones came off the shelf first. Bent corners. Cracked spines. Covers soft from being opened too many times. Then the newer stack. Then the archive, because if the night had become an academic investigation into your red tabs, at least it deserved proper handling. Jack watched from the bed while you rearranged his entire understanding of your nightstand. You sat on the bed and sorted the books into piles across the comforter.
Jack pointed at that pile. “That category concerns me.”
You nodded in agreement. “It should.”
He looked at the stack of red-tabbed books. “And those?”
You followed his gaze. The archive sat in a loose line near his thigh. The books you had already shown him. The pool house. The cabin. The bar bathroom. The supply closet. The bedroom. The hotel mirror. His chair.
A timeline of ideas.
A timeline of trust.
Your chest warmed at the sight of them, ridiculous and intimate across the bedspread. A whole row of glossy covers and tiny red flags that had somehow become the story of you learning to ask for things and Jack learning, over and over, how to receive the asking. “Those stay together,” you said.
Jack’s eyes came back to your face. The teasing faded by a degree. “Yeah?”
You nodded, touching the nearest spine with two fingers. “They earned it.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then his gaze shifted. Not to the new pile. Not to the archive. To the book near your knee. You had almost forgotten it was there. Almost.
It was older than the ones from the bookstore. Older than the glossy new stack now spread across the comforter. The spine was creased white in three places. The corners were soft. The front cover bent slightly near the edge where your thumb had pressed it open too many times. A red tab stuck out near the middle. Small. Bright. Accusing.
Jack looked at it. Then at you. “That one didn’t come from the bookstore.”
Your hand paused on the book you were moving. “No.”
Jack’s gaze dropped back to the red tab. “You’ve read it before.”
“Yes.”
His attention stayed there, steady and too observant. “And it didn’t make the archive.”
The room went quieter. Not silent. The rain still tapped faintly against the window. The heater hummed. A paper bag shifted softly near the foot of the bed, where it had collapsed against Jack’s discarded shoe. But the air between you changed.
You looked down at the old paperback. “It didn’t fit the timeline.”
Jack did not answer right away. That was worse. He only looked at you, patient and warm and impossible to lie to. Then he said, softly, “Baby.”
One word. That was all it took.
Your shoulders dropped. “I know.”
His expression did not turn smug. That was how you knew he understood this was different. He glanced at the book again. “Try again.”
You sat back on your heels, the hem of his shirt slipping higher on your thighs. The old paperback rested beside your knee, untouched now, like it was waiting to see whether you would finally tell the truth about it. You were the exposed one. That should have made him the steady one. But Jack’s eyes were on the red tab now, and something about the page you had almost hidden seemed to reach beneath all that composure. Beneath the black shirt. Beneath the jeans. Beneath the calm, observant patience he wore so well. He had asked for the archive earlier, like a man prepared to conduct research.
Now he looked like he understood this was not research.
This was an offering.
You brushed your thumb over the comforter. “I almost took the tab out.”
Jack went still. Not tense. Still. The kind of still that meant he had heard the thing under the thing. “Why?”
You looked at the red tab. The paper near it had softened from your thumb. The edge curled slightly upward, bent from being opened and closed and opened again. “Because I knew if you saw it, you’d ask.”
Jack’s hand rested on the bed near your knee. Not touching the book. Not touching you. Just there. “And now?”
Your throat tightened. You hated that he always knew which question mattered.
Now.
After the books were spread over the bed. After the archive. After the chair, the pool house, the cabin, and the mirror. After he had listened to every explanation without making you feel foolish. After he had thanked you for trusting him with all of it. After he had taken you to the bookstore, like the red tabs were not something to be embarrassed by, but something to be funded.
Now.
You looked up at him. His face was calm, but not careless. There was a softness around his mouth, a focused quiet in his eyes. Jack, waiting. Jack, giving you room. Jack, making the choice yours before he ever reached for the page.
“Now I think I want you to,” you said.
Jack’s gaze held yours for a long second. Then it moved to the book. The red tab. Back to you.
His voice was quiet. “Can I read it?”
Your breath caught. Not because the question surprised you. Because it didn’t. Because of course, he asked. Because the first time, earlier that night, he had stolen a look at your book with the gleeful confidence of a husband who had decided marital clinical curiosity was a valid research method. He had been nosy and amused and half-smug about discovering the red tabs.
But this was not that.
This was the one you had almost hidden.
He knew the difference.
You nodded. Jack waited. Right. Words. “Yes,” you said. “You can read it.”
You picked up the paperback before you could change your mind. The cover bent naturally in your hand, familiar from rereads. The pages fell open almost on their own, not to the beginning, not to the last place you had stopped, but to the middle.
Page 212.
The paper was softer there. Worn at the corner. The red tab was slightly bent from your thumb.
Jack noticed that too. But he did not tease you for it. He only took the book when you offered it, his fingers careful against yours. His thumb slid beneath the red tab, holding the page open like it mattered. Like he understood, before he even read a word, that this one had cost you more than the others. “Thank you,” he said.
Your throat tightened. “For letting you read smut?”
His mouth curved faintly, but his eyes stayed soft. “For trusting me with the one you almost hid.”
The words landed low and warm in your chest. For a second, you could not make a joke.
Jack did not ask you to. He looked down at the page. And began to read.
Jack read the page once. Then again. The room did not change. Not really. The new books still sat scattered across the comforter in glossy, innocent piles. The bookstore bag still sagged near the foot of the bed, one handle twisted where Jack had carried it upstairs. Rain kept tapping lightly against the window, soft and patient. The lamp on your nightstand threw warm light over the bed, catching on the red tabs, the bent corners, the crisp spines, the old book open in Jack’s hands.
But Jack went very still. That changed everything. His thumb stayed beneath the red tab, holding page 212 open with a care that made your chest feel too tight. His eyes moved slowly over the paper. Not skimming. Not reading for plot. Reading like the page had shifted into something else entirely in his hands. Evidence. Invitation. Confession.
You sat on your heels near the middle of the bed, wearing his shirt and underwear, bare legs folded beneath you, surrounded by the archive you had already given him and the new books he had just funded with far too much dignity for a man who should have known better.
You were the one exposed. That was the obvious thing. Jack was still fully dressed. Held together in all the ways he knew how to hold himself together.
And still, somehow, he looked like the page was undoing him.
Not loudly. Jack did not do loud when something mattered. It was in the small things. His thumb stilling against the paper. His jaw shifted once. The slow breath he took through his nose did not quite let out evenly. The way his eyes paused halfway down the page, then returned to the top, like he needed to make sure he had understood it correctly.
You tried to keep organizing. That had been the plan. Move the new books into their rightful piles. Make room on the shelf. Slide the older ones back where they belonged. Do something with your hands so you did not have to sit there and watch Jack Abbot read the page you had almost hidden from your husband.
You picked up one of the new paperbacks. Set it down again. Shifted a hardcover half an inch to the left. Then immediately moved it back. Jack’s eyes stayed on the page. You hated him a little for reading silently. You loved him more for it. There was no teasing. No immediate dry comment. No twenty-two-year-old-with-shadows complaint. No marital clinical curiosity. No smug little lift at the corner of his mouth. This was not the chair. Not the pool house. Not the cabin or the bar bathroom or the supply closet or the hotel mirror.
This was page 212.
And Jack knew it.
Finally, his eyes reached the bottom. He did not look up right away. Your fingers curled into the hem of his shirt, where it rested over your thigh. Jack noticed. His gaze flicked to your hand. Then back to the page.
His voice, when it came, was quiet. “This one isn’t about me taking care of you.”
The words landed low.
Your throat tightened. “No.”
Jack’s thumb shifted beneath the red tab. Not restless. Careful. Like he was holding the place for both of you. He looked down again, not reading now. Thinking. His brow barely drew together, just enough that you knew he had stopped seeing the fictional scene and started seeing the shape beneath it. Restraint had been easy for him to understand. Control, too. Praise. Waiting. Asking. Being seen. Worship. Those had all been things you had trusted him to give you.
This one was different.
Jack lifted his eyes. “It’s about you wanting to know what it feels like to take.”
Your breath caught. There it was. No judgment. No surprise.
Just Jack, finding the center of the thing faster than anyone had any right to.
You looked down at the comforter. The red tabs blurred at the edges of your vision. “I think so.”
Jack was quiet. You felt the weight of it. Not pressure. Never that. Just attention. The same kind he gave you when you asked for something clearly. The same kind he gave patients when they were scared enough that the truth had to be handled carefully.
His voice softened. “That’s why you almost took the tab out.”
You swallowed. “Yes.”
Jack set the book open on his thigh, page 212 facing up. He did not close it. He did not turn it over. He did not hide it for you. He left it visible. A little red-tabbed truth between his jeans and the comforter.
You picked at a loose thread near your knee. “It felt different.”
Jack’s hand rested on the bed beside the book. Open. Still. “How?”
You let out a small laugh that held little humor. “I don’t know.”
Jack’s gaze stayed on your face. Patient. Waiting.
You huffed softly. “I hate when you do that.”
His mouth barely moved. “Do what?”
“Wait like that,” you answered.
Jack shrugged a shoulder. “You usually tell me the truth when I wait.”
You glared at him. “That’s annoying.”
“I know,” Jack replied with a soft smile.
The warmth of the exchange loosened something in your chest. Only a little. Enough.
You looked back at the page. At the red tab. At the book you had read months ago and carried around in your head like a secret with a glossy cover. “It wasn’t just about sex,” you said.
Jack did not move.
“I mean, obviously it was about sex,” you added.
His mouth twitched faintly. There he was. Barely.
You breathed a little easier. “But not only that.” Your fingers smoothed over the hem of his shirt. “The other pages were about things I wanted you to do. Or things I wanted to ask for. Or things I wanted to feel.”
Jack’s eyes stayed steady on yours. “This one wasn’t like that.”
“No,” you said. “This one was…” You stopped. The word stuck somewhere behind your ribs.
Jack waited. The room seemed to gather closer around the silence. Rain against the window. The heater hummed low. The faint smell of bookstore paper still clinging to the new stack. The warm cotton of Jack’s shirt against your skin. His knee near yours, his body fully covered and still somehow more vulnerable than you had ever seen him with clothes on.
You looked at him. “You always know what I like.”
Jack’s expression softened. “You make that sound like a complaint.”
“It isn’t.”
“No?” he asked.
You shook your head. “No. I love that you know.”
His eyes changed. Small. Devastating.
You kept going before you could lose your nerve. “You know how to touch me. How to talk to me. How to make me ask for things. How to make me wait.” Your face warmed, but you did not look away. “You know when I’m about to get shy. You know when to push and when to stop. You know when I’m hiding.”
Jack’s hand shifted slightly against the comforter. You noticed because you were watching him now. Really watching him. “And I trust that,” you said. “I trust you with that.”
His voice came out lower. “I know.”
You smiled faintly. “I know you know.”
Jack’s mouth curved, but his eyes stayed serious. You looked back at the page again. “This one made me think about what it would feel like if I got to know.”
Jack’s thumb went still against the comforter. There. You saw it. Your pulse kicked. He did not speak. So you did. “I don’t mean know like…” You let out a shaky breath. “I know you, Jack. I know you. But I mean like that.”
His gaze did not leave your face. You pressed your fingers into the comforter. “I wanted to know what it would feel like to learn what makes you lose your breath. What makes you stop trying to look calm. What makes your hands tighten. What makes you say my name like you didn’t mean to.”
The room went very still. Jack’s eyes darkened. Not in the easy way. Not in the playful, teasing way he let you see when he wanted you to know he was affected. This was quieter. Deeper. The kind of reaction he could not turn into a joke fast enough.
Your own courage startled you. Maybe it was the shirt. Maybe it was the red tab. Maybe it was the fact that Jack was sitting in front of you, fully dressed and absolutely undone by the possibility of being known in return.
You looked at his mouth. Then back at his eyes. “I wanted to know what it felt like to tease you.”
Jack’s jaw shifted. One small movement. A crack in the stillness. You noticed.
His voice was rougher when he answered. “Yeah?”
You nodded. The word was easier now. “Yes.”
Jack looked down at page 212 again.
This time, when he read the lines, you knew he was not reading them for information. He understood. This was not about him taking control. This was not about him giving you an experience. This was about you wanting to create one. About you wanting to have his reactions under your hands. His restraint beneath your mouth. His patience tested by you, for you, because he had made wanting safe enough that you had started to wonder what else you could do with it.
Jack closed his eyes for one second. Just one. But you saw it. Your breath caught.
When he opened them again, his gaze came back to you slowly. “You were afraid to show me that.”
Your fingers tightened in the comforter. “Yes.”
“Because you thought I wouldn’t want it?”
“No.” The answer came fast. Too fast.
Jack’s brows lifted slightly.
You shook your head, embarrassed now for a different reason. “No. I knew you’d want it.”
His mouth curved faintly. There he was again. A little.
Your face warmed. “I mean, I hoped. I thought. I—”
“Baby.”
You stopped. Jack’s eyes were soft now, but the heat in them had not gone anywhere. “You knew.”
Your pulse jumped. The confidence in his voice should have annoyed you. It did not. It made your stomach flip. “Yes,” you admitted. “I knew.”
Jack leaned back slightly, one hand braced behind him now, the other still near the open book. He looked too calm again. Almost. Only almost. His breathing was different. You had learned that much already. You looked down at his hand on the comforter. Long fingers. Steady hands. Hands that had held you still, made you wait, praised you, touched you carefully, worshipped you in his office chair until you had understood what the book had only tried to describe.
Those hands were not touching you now. For some reason, that made the air feel hotter.
Jack followed your gaze. Then looked back at you. “This one is about you wanting control.”
Your throat went tight. “Maybe.”
His mouth softened. “Not maybe.”
You let out a quiet laugh, shaky at the edges. “Fine. Not maybe.”
Jack’s thumb moved once over the comforter. “You want to watch me.”
Your breath caught. “Yes.”
“You want to tease me.”
Your throat went tight. “Yes.”
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “You want to see what happens when I don’t get to touch first.”
The heat went through you so fast you almost looked away. Almost. Jack watched the answer cross your face before you said it. “Yes.”
The room held still around the word. Jack did not reach for you. That was what made your chest ache. He could have. Easily. He was close enough. You were kneeling beside him in his shirt, the hem high on your thighs, books scattered everywhere, page 212 open between you like a dare. But he did not move. He only looked at you like he understood the shape of the trust being asked of him now.
Not your trust this time.
His.
Slowly, Jack took the book from his thigh and set it on the bed beside him. He left it open.
Page 212 facing up.
The red tab bent slightly toward the lamp. That was the first real sign. Not his breathing. Not his stillness. The book. The care of it. The deliberate placement, like whatever happened next, required his full attention and both hands free, even though he had not yet been given permission to use them.
Your pulse stumbled. Jack turned back to you. His expression was calm.
His eyes were not. “Okay,” he said.
Your voice came out soft. “Okay?”
His hand came to rest palm-up on the comforter between you. Not reaching. Offering. “You showed me.”
Your throat tightened. “Yes.”
Jack’s fingers flexed once against the blanket. “And you want to try.”
You nodded. “Yes.”
He looked at you for a long second. Long enough that the room seemed to warm around the edges. Long enough that you felt the shift happen: the page moving from paper to possibility, the old fantasy stepping out of a book and into the dim gold light of your bedroom.
Then Jack’s mouth curved. Not smug. Not yet. Something slower. More dangerous because it was softer.
“Use me,” he said.
Your breath caught.
His eyes stayed on yours. “Tease me.”
The words went through you like a spark.
Jack’s hand remained open on the comforter. Waiting. “Take your time.”
Your pulse beat everywhere. He leaned back against the pillows, still fully dressed, still covered, still giving you the choice while the air between you went thick enough to touch.
His voice dropped. “See what happens.”
For one second, you could not move. Jack watched you absorb it. Every word. Every permission. Every inch of trust he had just handed you.
Then his mouth curved faintly. There. A little smug now.
A little Jack. “You wanted page two hundred and twelve, baby.”
His fingers relaxed against the comforter. “Come find out.”
For one second, you could not move. Jack’s words stayed in the room between you.
Use me. Tease me. Take your time. See what happens.
They settled over the bed with the scattered books and the warm lamplight and the rain tapping softly against the window. Page 212 stayed open beside him, red tab bent toward the light like it was watching too.
Jack leaned back against the pillows. Still dressed. Still covered. Still waiting. He looked almost calm.
Almost.
That made your pulse trip. You moved closer on your knees. Slowly. The mattress dipped beneath you. One of the new paperbacks shifted against your shin, and you nudged it aside without looking away from him.
Jack watched you come to him. He did not reach. That was the first thing you noticed. The second was how hard it was for him. Not because he said anything. He didn’t. Jack stayed quiet, eyes on your face, mouth relaxed enough to lie. But his hand flexed once against the comforter.
Only once.
You saw it.
His eyes flicked down to his hand, like he had caught himself too. Then back to you. Your courage warmed by a degree. You settled beside his thigh, close enough that the hem of his shirt brushed your skin, close enough that his knee nearly touched yours.
Jack’s gaze dropped to your mouth. You leaned in and kissed him. Softly at first. Familiar. Safe. His mouth met yours with a slow warmth that almost made you forget the rule before you had even started. Jack kissed like he had time. Like he had spent years learning patience and had decided to use all of it on you. His breath moved against your cheek, his mouth parting under yours, his body steady beneath the kiss.
Then his hand lifted. Habit. Instinct. A warm reach toward your waist.
You caught his wrist before he touched you. Not hard. Just enough.
Jack went still. His eyes opened.
For one suspended second, neither of you breathed.
His gaze dropped to your hand around his wrist. Your fingers looked smaller there, wrapped around him. He could have moved through your hold easily if he wanted to. He did not. He looked back at your face.
You swallowed. “Not yet.”
Jack’s expression shifted. Not surprised exactly. Recalculation. Like the words had just moved from idea to rule. Then his breath left him in a rough, quiet laugh.
“Fuck,” he murmured. “Okay.”
The sound went straight through you. He let you guide his hand back to the bed. Not limp. Not passive. Willing. That was worse. You placed his palm against the comforter beside his hip. His fingers spread over the blanket, tendons shifting under his skin. You looked at his other hand, still resting near his thigh, and then back at him. “Both.”
Jack’s eyes darkened. The corner of his mouth moved, barely. “Both?”
Your face warmed, but you held his gaze. “You said I could tease you.”
His jaw twitched. “I did.”
You leaned closer. “So let me.”
The room seemed to tighten around the words. Jack looked at you for one long second. Then he set his other hand down on the bed. Still. Given. Your breath caught at the sight of it. Jack noticed. His mouth curved faintly, but his voice was lower when he spoke. “There you go.”
You narrowed your eyes. “That sounded like praise.”
“It was.”
You shook your head. “You don’t get to guide.”
His mouth curved a little more. “No?”
“No.”
Jack’s fingers flexed once against the comforter. Then relaxed again. “Okay, baby.”
The obedience in it hit you harder than the pet name. You stared at his hands on the bed.
Jack Abbot’s hands.
Hands that had held you still in the pool house. Hands that had made you wait in front of the fireplace. Hands that had touched you carefully in his office chair like you were something he had been trusted to worship. Hands that had guided, steadied, praised, taken care.
And now they were staying where you put them. Because you asked. The knowledge moved through you slowly. Warm. Dangerous.
You bent and kissed him again. This time, you let yourself linger. Jack did not touch you. His mouth did. His breath did. His attention did. But his hands stayed flat on the comforter. You pulled back just enough to look at him. Still calm. Still mostly composed. You wanted to ruin that.
The thought should have embarrassed you.
It didn’t.
Not as much as you expected.
You kissed the corner of his mouth, then his jaw. His skin was warm beneath your lips, faintly rough with the shadow he doesn’t shave off. You felt the slight movement of his throat when he swallowed. There. You kissed there next. Jack’s breath caught. Small. Quick.
You paused.
His eyes stayed open, fixed on the ceiling for half a second before they lowered to you.
Your mouth curved against his skin. “Oh.”
His jaw shifted. “Don’t.”
You lifted your head. “Don’t what?”
His hands remained on the bed, but his fingers had curled slightly into the quilt. “Sound so pleased with yourself.”
You looked at his hands. Then back at his face. “I think I am pleased with myself.”
Jack let out a low breath that might have been a laugh if it had not sounded so strained. “Yeah,” he said. “I noticed.”
That made something bold unfurl in your chest. You returned to his neck, slower now. Learning. That was the point, wasn’t it? Not performing. Not proving. Learning him in a new way. You kissed beneath his jaw and felt his head tilt, almost unconsciously, giving you more space. More access. More of him. The gesture hit you harder than you expected. Jack, who usually made space for you with hands and instruction and quiet command, was making space for you with his own body now.
You kissed the newly exposed line of his throat. His hands twitched. Both of them. He caught himself before you said a word. You saw it. So did he. For one second, his jaw clenched, and the muscle there jumped beneath his skin.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” he said.
His voice was calm. Too calm. You kissed lower, to the place where his pulse was beating harder now. “Doing what?”
Jack’s breath moved out slowly. “Finding places.”
You smiled against him. “Isn’t that what you told me to do?”
His chest rose beneath your hand. “I told you to take your time.”
“You did.” Your fingers slid to the hem of his T-shirt. “And to tease you.”
Jack went very still when your nails brushed the line of his stomach through the fabric. You felt it before you saw it. The tightening. The way the muscles beneath your touch pulled firm. The way his breath paused in the middle and had to be restarted. You lifted your eyes. Jack was watching you now. Not the ceiling. Not the books.
You.
His hands were still on the bed, but they were no longer relaxed. His fingers had curled into the comforter, forearms tense, veins standing out beneath freckled skin. The sight of that, of his body obeying you even when it clearly wanted to do something else, made your pulse stumble. “You okay?” you asked softly.
Jack’s mouth curved. A little rough. A little wrecked. “I’m good.”
You believed him. You dragged your nails gently down again. This time, lower. Over the soft cotton. Down the center of his stomach. Jack’s abdomen tightened under your touch. His hips shifted. Not much. Enough. A small, helpless movement toward your hand before he caught himself and went still again.
The room changed. Your breath caught. Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly, like he knew exactly what you had noticed. You looked at him. Then at where your hand rested just above his waistband. Then back at him. “Oh,” you whispered again.
Jack closed his eyes for half a second. “Baby.” The word came out low. Not a warning. Not really. More like he had reached the edge of his own composure and found your name there.
You touched the waistband of his jeans with one finger. Just the edge. The denim was rough beneath your fingertip, warm from his body, and beneath it, impossible to miss now, was the hardness of him.
Your breath caught before you could stop it. Jack saw. His jaw clenched. For all his stillness, all his control, all his careful obedience with his hands pressed into the bed, his body had already answered you. The realization moved through you slowly.
He wanted you.
Not theoretically. Not gently. Not in the safe, familiar way you already knew. He wanted you so badly he was lying there trying to survive one finger at his waistband.
Your pulse kicked hard. “Jack.”
His eyes stayed on yours. “I know.”
You slipped one fingertip just beneath his waistband. Barely. Hardly anything.
Jack’s hips bucked.
Only a little. A sharp, involuntary shift up into your touch before he caught himself. Then he froze. So did you. For one breath, the room held perfectly still. Rain at the window. Books on the bed. Page 212 open beside him.
Your finger beneath his waistband.
Jack’s hands gripping the comforter like it was the only thing keeping him from reaching for you. His eyes found you. Yours were already on him. You had never seen him look exactly like that before.
Strained. Dark. Still in control because he had chosen to be, but only just.
You swallowed. “That was new.”
Jack exhaled through his nose. Rough. Almost amused. Almost not. “That was me trying to be good.”
The words went straight through you. You looked at his hands again. Still there. Still listening. Still not touching you.
Your chest warmed so sharply it almost hurt. “You are being good.”
Jack’s eyes flicked to yours. Something in his face shifted. The praise landed. You saw it. You actually saw it. His mouth parted slightly, then closed. His grip tightened once in the bedding. His stomach went tight beneath your hand. Oh. That did something to him too. Your courage flared hotter. You moved your fingertip again, slow along the inside edge of his waistband.
Jack’s head dropped back against the pillows.
His throat worked. His eyes stayed open this time, but only barely.
“You like that,” you said.
His laugh came out quiet and disbelieving. “You asking?”
“No.”
Jack’s gaze found yours. You held it. “I’m telling you.”
The air shifted. His hands flexed. “Yeah,” he said, voice rougher now. “I like that.”
You bent and kissed the center of his stomach, where the muscles were still tight beneath your mouth. Jack’s breath broke. Not enough to be dramatic. Enough to make you dizzy with it. You kissed him again, a little lower, over the cotton bunched where his shirt had ridden up from your hands. Your fingers pushed the fabric higher, slowly exposing warm skin inch by inch. Freckles. A faint line of old scar tissue near his ribs. The firm shift of muscle beneath your palm. You had seen him shirtless hundreds of times by now. In bed. After showers. In the pool house. Half-asleep in the morning, searching for coffee with the tragic seriousness of a man on a medical mission.
But seeing him like this was different. Because he was letting you look. Letting you take your time. Letting you be curious about him without turning that curiosity back on you. You pushed his shirt higher. Jack lifted his shoulders slightly to help.
Then stopped.
His eyes found yours. Waiting. You loved that he waited. You hated how much you loved it. “Take it off,” you said.
Jack’s expression changed. Just a little. But you caught it. The words moved through him the way his commands sometimes moved through you. His hands left the bed for the first time, but not toward you. Only to grip the back of his shirt and pull it over his head.
He did it slowly. Not because he had to. Because you were watching. The black cotton dragged up his stomach, over his chest, over his shoulders. His arms lifted. His biceps flexed. His forearms tightened, veins straining under the warm lamplight. Then the shirt was gone, tossed somewhere near the bookstore bag, and Jack was bare from the waist up, sitting beneath you with his hands returning to the comforter exactly where you had told them to stay.
Your breath caught. Jack saw. His mouth curved faintly. “There,” he said.
Your eyes narrowed. “You’re not allowed to sound smug.”
Jack exhaled a soft laugh. “I took my shirt off on command.”
“Jack.”
His smile deepened. “It’s new for me.”
A laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it. The sound softened his face for half a second. Then your hand settled against his bare chest, and the softness changed into something else. You kissed him there. Once. Slow. His skin was warm under your mouth. His chest rose carefully, like he was trying not to breathe too hard and give you more evidence. You followed the line of his collarbone, nipped lightly where his shoulder met his neck, and felt his whole body answer.
A breath caught. A hand twitched. His jaw clenched. You learned. You kissed the spot again.
Jack’s eyes shut. “Fuck,” he said softly.
The word was quiet enough to disappear into the rain. It did not. It stayed in your chest. You kissed lower, mouth moving over the freckled skin of his chest, down the center, over his ribs. Every place got an answer if you paid attention. A hitch of breath near his collarbone. A tightening low in his stomach when your nails followed. A rough exhale when your teeth grazed gently beneath his jaw. His head tipping back when you kissed his throat, giving you more before he seemed to realize he had done it.
That was your favorite part.
Not the sounds.
Not even the way his body reacted, though God, that was something.
It was the offering.
The unconscious little yes of his body before his composure could catch up.
You returned to his neck because of it. Jack tilted his head again. More this time. The movement was slow, almost reluctant, but there. A deliberate surrender of space. Your lips parted against his skin. You kissed him there, right over the place his pulse was beating harder now, and let your nails trail down his bare stomach again.
Jack’s hips shifted under you. Another small movement. Another loss. You smiled against his throat. He felt it.
His voice came rougher. “Don’t start.”
You lifted your head. “I thought that was the point.”
His eyes were dark now. Not calm. Not even pretending very well. “You’re learning fast.”
Your heart kicked. You looked at his hands.
Still on the bed. Still tight. Still not touching. Then back to his face. “I have a good teacher.”
Jack’s expression softened and sharpened at the same time. “That right?”
You nodded. Then your fingers found his waistband again. This time, Jack’s breath caught before you even touched him.
Your smile came slower now. More certain. “Yes,” you said. “But I think I want to learn on my own for a little while.”
Jack stared at you. For one second, he looked like he might say something. Something controlled. Something Jack. Then your fingertip slipped under his waistband again, soft and maddening and barely there, and whatever words he had found disappeared.
His hips bucked into your touch. A little stronger this time. His hands gripped the comforter so hard the fabric pulled tight beneath his fingers. His jaw clenched. The veins in his forearms stood out. And you watched him. You watched him try to stay still. Try to listen. Try to let you have this.
Your whole body went warm with it. Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. Strained. Hungry. Proud, somehow. Wrecked already and still giving you exactly what he promised. You bent down and kissed his chest again. Softly. A reward. Then you whispered against his skin, “Good.”
Jack’s breath left him in a broken, disbelieving laugh. “Jesus Christ.”
You smiled.
And took your time.
Because he had told you to. Because he had offered it. Because every second you spent learning him seemed to pull another thread loose in Jack’s careful control. Jack was still propped against the pillows, bare from the waist up now, jeans still on, hands still on the quilt where you had put them. Mostly. His fingers had started curling into the blanket more than relaxing against it. His forearms were tense. The veins there stood out under freckled skin, and every time your mouth found a new place that made his breath catch, his grip tightened like he was anchoring himself to the bed.
It was mesmerizing.
Jack Abbot, who could keep his hands steady in the middle of chaos, was lying under you trying to survive being kissed slowly.
And you were doing that.
You.
The thought made you bold enough to lift your head from his chest. Jack’s eyes opened. They found yours immediately. Not because he hadn’t wanted to look. Because he had been trying not to look too affected.
He was failing.
You smiled before you could stop yourself.
His jaw shifted. “Don’t,” he said.
The word was rougher now. You sat back slightly on your heels, still beside him, still close enough that your bare thigh brushed the denim of his jeans. “Don’t what?”
Jack looked at you. Then at the place where your hand still rested near his waistband. Then back to your face. “Look like that.”
Your smile widened. “How am I looking?”
His hands flexed once on the bed. “Like you just learned something dangerous.”
Heat bloomed low in your stomach. You let your fingers drift once more over the line of his waistband, light enough to be maddening, slow enough to feel his body go tense beneath the attention. Jack’s breath caught. There. Again. You were not imagining it. You were learning him, newly. His eyes narrowed slightly, dark and strained, but he still did not reach for you. Still did not take over. Still did not pull you down and turn this into something he knew how to control. He had promised. He was keeping it.
The realization did something strange to your chest. Something warm. Something powerful. Something tender enough to hurt. You moved your hand away from his waistband.
Jack noticed immediately.
His stomach tightened, then released on a slow breath, like he was not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.
You shifted in front of him. Not beside him now. In front of him. The mattress dipped beneath your knees as you settled between his legs, far enough back that he could see all of you, close enough that his body seemed to register every inch of distance as an insult. His gaze moved over you slowly: bare thighs, his shirt loose on your body, one shoulder already slipped low, the hem bunched high from the way you had been kneeling over him. You were still the one half-dressed. Still the one physically exposed. But Jack’s eyes had that look now, the one that made you feel like he was the one without cover. Because he could not touch. Because you had told him not yet. Because he was letting you decide.
Your fingers curled around the hem of his shirt. Jack went still. Not tense. Waiting. You felt his attention move over your hands, your thighs, your face. The rain tapped softly against the glass. The new books sat in neat little piles across the bed, abandoned completely now. Somewhere near your knee, one paperback cover bent slightly, and you would have cared if there had been any room left in your head for normal thought.
There wasn’t. There was Jack. Jack watching. Jack waiting. Jack breathing carefully because you had not told him what came next. You pulled the shirt higher. Slowly. His eyes followed the movement. Your pulse jumped at the sight of his expression. Not smug now. Not teasing.
Hungry.
Focused.
Almost stunned.
As if he had not quite understood, until this exact second, that you were going to let him see you too. Your courage wavered. Only a little. Enough.
Jack saw it immediately. His face softened. “You don’t have to.”
The words were quiet. No command. No pressure. Just an open door. You looked at him. His hands were still pressed to the quilt. His body was still tense from everything you had done to him. He wanted you. God, he wanted you. You could see it in every line of him. But he still gave you the out first. That was what made you keep going.
“I know.” Your voice sounded softer than you expected.
Jack’s thumb twitched against the blanket, like he wanted to reach for you and had to remind himself not to. You noticed. So did he.
Your mouth curved. “Hands stay there.”
His eyes darkened. The command moved through him. You saw it land. Jack’s fingers curled deeper into the quilt. “Yes, ma’am.”
A surprised laugh slipped out of you. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m trying to be seductive.”
His mouth curved faintly. “You’re doing fine.”
“Fine?”
His gaze moved over you again, slow enough to make your skin heat. “Better than fine.”
The words settled over you like a touch. You pulled the shirt higher. His shirt. His old PTMC shirt, the cotton soft from years of washing, smelling faintly like laundry and him. You lifted it over your head and let it fall onto the mattress beside you, soft and careless among the books and red tabs and evidence of every other brave thing you had ever learned to ask him for.
Jack went utterly still. For one second, he did not even breathe. You were in front of him now in nothing but your underwear. One hand moved behind you, bracing against the mattress. The position changed everything.
It opened you to him.
Made you feel the air against your skin, the warmth of the lamp, the weight of his eyes as if they were hands he was still not allowed to use. Jack’s gaze moved over you slowly. Not like he was taking. Like he was being given something and knew better than to rush it.
His throat worked. “Baby.”
One word. Low. Rough. Almost reverent. Your breath shook. His eyes came back to your face, checking. Always checking. Not with worry. With care. With the kind of attention that had made every red tab safe enough to become real.
You nodded once. “I’m good.”
Jack believed you. He did not ask again. You let that belief settle over you. Then your fingers slipped to the edge of your underwear.
Jack’s hands tightened in the blanket. Immediately. Your eyes dropped to them. So did his. His fingers relaxed by force, then curled again anyway.
You hooked your thumbs under the fabric and lifted your hips just enough to slide it down. Slowly. Jack’s breathing changed. The sound of it made your whole body feel warm. Not because you were performing for him. Not because you felt like you had to be perfect. Because Jack was watching you like there was nothing else in the world he wanted more than permission to touch you, and still, he did not move.
You drew the fabric down your thighs. Past your knees. Off. It landed beside his shirt. Another piece of evidence. Another layer gone. You settled back in front of him, bare now, one palm braced behind you on the mattress, your other hand resting lightly over your stomach while you gathered the courage you had started to find with every hitch of his breath.
Jack stared at you. He looked wrecked already. You had barely started. That thought should have made you shy. Instead, it made you breathe deeper.
You looked at him. “I want you to watch.”
Jack’s hands went utterly still. Not fisted now. Still. Like the words had struck something too deep for immediate reaction.
His voice came out lower. “I am.”
“No,” you said softly.
His eyes stayed on yours.
You let yourself smile. “I mean really watch.”
Jack took one slow breath. The kind he took when he was trying to stay composed. It did not work. Not fully. His eyes moved over you again, hotter now, unguarded in a way you had never quite seen. He looked at your face first. Then your hands. Then the way you leaned back, one palm braced into the mattress, body open to him because you had decided to be. Then back to your eyes, like he wanted to make sure you were still with him.
You were. More than with him. You were leading him. That realization made your hand steadier when it moved.
You touched yourself slowly, still watching Jack watch you. His whole body changed. Not dramatically. Worse. A slow tightening from the inside out. His shoulders pressed harder into the pillows. His stomach went taut. His hands gripped the quilt again, fingers pulling the fabric tight. His jaw clenched so hard you saw the muscle jump.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
The word was barely there. You felt it anyway. Your own breath shook. You liked this. Not just being watched. Watching him watch. Watching Jack try not to come apart from the sight of you wanting him and not asking him to do anything about it yet. The power of it went through you warm and bright. You moved again, a little less uncertain.
Jack’s eyes stayed on your face. Then dropped. Then snapped back up like he had remembered himself.
You smiled. “Eyes on me.”
The command surprised both of you. The air changed around it. Jack stared at you. Then his mouth curved slowly. Not smug. Wrecked. Proud. “Yes, ma’am.”
Your breath caught. The phrase should have been funny. It was not. Not with his voice like that. Not with his hands white-knuckled in the quilt. Not with his body hard and tense beneath jeans he was not allowed to ask you to remove yet.
You kept your eyes on him. And kept going. Jack watched your face now because you had told him to. His gaze did not drop, not even when his breath started catching in uneven pieces, not even when his hips shifted helplessly beneath the denim, not even when you heard the rough sound he swallowed before it could fully escape.
He listened.
God, he listened.
The trust of it hit you all over again. You were the exposed one. But Jack was the one letting himself be directed. You were the one bare in front of him. But Jack was the one gripping the comforter like surrender had teeth.
Your voice came out softer. “Do you like watching me like this?”
Jack nodded. One rough, immediate movement.
You kept your hand where it was. “Answer me.”
His breath broke. His eyes stayed on yours. “Yes, baby,” he said, voice low and wrecked. “I like watching you like this.”
Heat tore through you. Your body answered before you could decide what to do with the words. Jack saw that too. A broken sound left him. “Jesus.”
You kept your eyes on him. Kept your hand where it was. Kept the rule. Jack did not touch you. But the room felt full of him anyway. His gaze. His breathing. His restraint. His wanting.
You moved slowly at first, learning the shape of being watched. Your breath caught on the first real wave of feeling, and Jack’s entire body reacted to the sound. His stomach tightened. His hands gripped the comforter harder. His mouth parted on an inhale he did not quite finish. Your hips shifted against your hand. Small. Instinctive.
Jack saw. His eyes flared darker. The sight of his reaction made you do it again. This time, the movement was less careful. A little more honest. Your hand braced harder behind you, fingers pressing into the mattress as your body began to rock against your own touch.
Jack’s breath grew uneven. Not loud. Not theatrical. Worse. Controlled breathing, failing one piece at a time.
You watched him watch you, and something reckless stirred beneath your ribs. “Do you know what I think about,” you asked, voice softer now, “when I touch myself like this?”
Jack’s jaw clenched. His eyes stayed on yours. For a second, you thought he might answer. Then he shook his head once. Not because he did not want to know. Because he wanted it too badly.
Your hand moved again. Your breath broke.“You.”
Jack’s hands pulled the comforter tight beneath his fingers. The single word hit him like a touch. You saw it. Felt it. Loved it.
“You,” you said again, because you could, because he was there and listening and still not touching you even though every line of his body begged to. “Your hands.”
Your hips jerked against your hand as you said it, the memory of those hands moving through you so sharply your eyes nearly closed. Nearly. You kept them open.
Jack’s breath punched out of him. His fingers flexed against the bed.
You knew what he wanted. God, you knew. You kept going. “Your mouth.”
Jack’s head tipped back against the pillows for half a second. Only half. Then he forced himself to look at you again. His eyes were darker now. Less controlled. More honest.
Your movements grew less precise, less careful, your body chasing the memory as much as the feeling. Jack’s mouth at your throat. His hands on your waist. His voice near your ear. The way he could make you feel wanted like wanting was something sacred and filthy and safe all at once.
Your breath came faster. Jack heard every bit of it. He reacted to every bit of it. A shift of his hips. A tightening low in his stomach. A rough sound swallowed before it could become your name.
“How good you fuck me,” you whispered.
Jack broke. Not completely. Not yet. But enough. “Fuck—don’t.”
The words tore out of him rough and helpless, halfway between a warning and a plea.
You stopped moving for one second. Jack looked at you, breathing hard, hands still where you had put them, jaw tight enough to make the muscle jump. Your pulse thundered. “Don’t what?”
He stared at you. Gone enough that the question seemed to undo him twice. His laugh came out low. Wrecked. Then his eyes dropped briefly to your hand before dragging back up to your face. “Don’t stop.”
The words moved through you like fire. You did not. Your hand moved again, and this time your hips followed without restraint, rocking into the feeling while Jack watched like every movement cost him. Your breath turned uneven. Your moans slipped out softer at first, then less soft, each one making his grip tighten, his forearms strain, his body go harder and stiller beneath the effort of not reaching. “Jack,” you breathed.
His eyes lifted to yours immediately. “I’m here.”
The answer came fast. Grounding. Ruined. Still Jack. Your body clenched around the sound of it. You were close now. Closer than you expected to be from this alone. But it was not this alone. It was him. His eyes. His restraint. His wanting. The way he looked at you, like you had opened a door inside him and he did not know whether to pray or curse about what he found there. Your hand pressed harder into the bed behind you. Your hips rocked again. Jack’s name caught in your throat once. Then again.
He made a sound like it hurt. “Baby.”
You shook your head, not refusing him, just overwhelmed. Your eyes stayed on his because you had told him to keep his on you, and some part of you needed to be just as brave.
Jack’s hands stayed on the bed. Still. Gripping. Shaking now. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, voice wrecked. “Fuck, baby, you’re so beautiful.”
The praise hit differently now. Not guiding. Not taking over. Just truth spilling out of him because he had no other place to put it. That was what did it. The restraint. The want. The way he watched you, like he had never seen anything more beautiful and had never been asked to survive anything worse.
“Fuck—Jack—” Your body went tight, then shook apart, pleasure moving through you in hot, helpless waves. Your hand pressed hard into the mattress behind you. Your hips rocked once more, then stuttered as your breath broke open around his name.
Jack made a sound. Low. Broken. Like watching you finish without touching you had done actual damage to his ability to function.
Your hand slipped from your body to the bed beside you. For a moment, you could only breathe. The room came back in pieces. Rain. Lamp light. Books. The red tab. Jack’s breathing. When you opened your eyes, he was still exactly where you had left him. Hands on the mattress. Body tense. Completely undone. He stared at you like he had just watched something sacred and obscene and did not have a category for either.
Your mouth curved, exhausted and shy and pleased all at once. “You okay?”
Jack blinked. Once. Then his laugh came out rough and disbelieving. “No.”
Your smile widened. His eyes stayed on yours. “But keep going.”
The words stayed between you. Rough. Breathless. A little ruined. You were still trying to breathe. Still bare in front of him. Still shaky from your own body, from his eyes, from the sound he had made when you came apart without his hands on you. For a moment, neither of you moved. Jack’s eyes stayed on your face. Not your body now. Your face. Like he was checking where you had landed. Your chest softened. You shifted closer on your knees, and his hands tightened immediately. He caught himself. You saw it. His mouth curved faintly, but there was strain in it now.
You leaned down slowly, one hand bracing on the mattress beside his hip. You stopped just above him, close enough that your hair brushed his chest, close enough that his breath warmed your mouth. “You did a good job watching me.”
His whole body went still. The praise landed. You felt it in the way his breath caught. Saw it in the flex of his hands against the quilt. The tightening in his stomach. The flicker of surprise across his face, like he had not expected the words to go through him the same way they had gone through you. Your smile softened. “Oh.”
Jack’s jaw shifted. “Don’t.”
You touched one finger to the center of his chest. “You like praise.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“I think I’m enjoying it the right amount.”
Jack’s laugh came out low and strained. “Professionally, I disagree.”
You kissed the corner of his mouth. Soft. Brief. Then you pulled back before he could deepen it. His head followed yours by half an inch before he caught himself and stopped. That tiny movement did something terrible to your confidence. Something wonderful.
“You did so good,” you murmured again.
Jack closed his eyes. Just for a second. “Baby.”
The word was rough now. Not a warning. Not a plea. Something in between. You kissed his jaw, then the side of his neck, feeling the place where his pulse jumped beneath your mouth. His hands stayed down. Barely. Your fingers drifted to his belt. Jack’s eyes opened. The room changed. Not because you rushed. Because you didn’t. Your fingertips found the buckle slowly, tracing the edge before you touched the metal. Jack’s stomach tightened beneath you. His breathing had gone careful again, which meant he was trying to act like he still had any reasonable amount of control.
You looked up at him. He looked back. Silent. Dark-eyed. Waiting. You smiled faintly. “Still no touching.”
His mouth barely moved. “I remember.”
The buckle came undone with a quiet metallic sound that seemed far too loud in the room. Jack’s hands gripped the quilt. You dragged the leather free one loop at a time. Slow. Deliberate. Every pull made the denim shift lower on his hips. Every soft scrape of leather through fabric made his jaw tighten a little more. You set the belt aside near the open book. Jack glanced at it. Then at you. Your fingers found the button of his jeans, and you undid it slowly. The zipper next. Jack inhaled through his nose. You heard it. You loved hearing it. The denim opened beneath your hands, and the hardness of him was suddenly closer, clearer, still covered but impossible to ignore.
Your mouth went dry. Jack saw. His voice came lower. “You okay?”
You looked up at him. This time, the question did not make you feel small. It made you feel held. Even now. Especially now. “I’m okay.”
Jack nodded once. Then you sat back enough to tug at his jeans. “Hips up.”
Jack froze. Only for half a second. Long enough for you to see the words land. Then he obeyed. His hips lifted from the mattress, controlled but not steady, and you pulled the denim down over his hips. The movement made his hands flex hard in the quilt. Made his chest rise. Made his jaw clench when your fingers brushed skin and fabric and restraint. You drew the jeans down his thighs. Slow because you could. Slow because he had told you to take your time. Slow because every inch of exposed skin felt like another piece of him being given back to you. You continued pulling the jeans down and off, setting them over the edge of the bed near his shirt.
You paused as you looked at him. The heat softened. Just a little. Enough for the room to change shape. Jack noticed immediately. His eyes sharpened. “What?”
You looked down at his prosthetic. Then back at him. Your hand rested lightly near his knee. “Can I?”
He knew what you meant. Of course he did. The question settled between you differently than the others. Quieter. Older. More intimate than teasing. Jack’s throat worked once. “Yeah,” he said softly. “You can.”
Your chest tightened. You moved carefully. Not because you were afraid of doing it wrong. You knew the sequence, you’d done it a few times. You had seen him do it a hundred times. After showers. Before bed. In the early mornings when he sat on the edge of the mattress, half-awake and stubbornly pretending he did not need coffee more than oxygen. But knowing did not make it casual. This part of him always deserved care. The fastenings first. Then the socket. The practiced adjustments, the familiar mechanics, the quiet trust of Jack lying still while you handled something he usually handled himself. He watched your face the whole time. Not your hands. Your face. Like there was something there he needed to see.
When it came free, you set the prosthetic beside the bed exactly where he liked it. Within reach. Stable. Ready for him when he needed it again. Then you turned back to him. Jack was staring at you. His face had changed. The heat was still there. God, it was there. But something else sat under it now, softer and more dangerous because it mattered. “What?” you whispered.
He shook his head once. “Nothing.”
You looked at him. “That wasn’t nothing.”
Your throat tightened. You leaned down before he could say anything else and kissed his thigh. Softly. Just once.
Jack shook. Not a little breath this time. Not a controlled inhale. His whole body gave one rough, helpless tremor beneath your mouth.
You lifted your head. His eyes were closed. His hands were still in the quilt. White-knuckled. “Jack.”
His throat worked. “I’m good.”
His voice was rough enough to make your chest ache. “That just—” He stopped. Jaw flexing.
You kissed him there again. Slower.
His breath broke. “Yeah,” he said, barely audible. “That.”
Warmth moved through you. Tender and hot at once. You pressed one more kiss to his thigh, and his eyes fluttered closed. Now he was down to his underwear. Now you were not the only one exposed. Jack seemed to realize that at the same time you did. His eyes opened. You looked at him. He looked at you. The room went quiet again. Not soft this time. Waiting.
You let your hand rest over his hip. “Still good?”
His mouth curved faintly. “You asking because you care or because you like hearing me answer?”
You tilted your head. “Yes.”
A rough laugh left him. “There she is.”
You smiled, then hooked your fingers under the waistband of his underwear. Jack’s smile vanished. His hands twisted hard in the comforter. You moved slowly. Down over his hips. Down his thighs. Off. The final layer joined the rest of his clothes.
For a moment, you only looked at him. Not because you had never seen him naked before. You had. You knew him. You loved him. You had known his body in morning light and hotel rooms and after long shifts when both of you were too tired for anything except slow hands and quiet mouths. But this was different. Because he was letting you look without turning the attention back on you. Because he was still not touching you. Because everything about him was open now: his body, his restraint, the wanting he had stopped trying to hide.
Jack’s gaze stayed on yours. He looked wrecked. He looked beautiful. He looked like he trusted you. You bent and kissed the line of his stomach. His breath caught.
You smiled against his skin. “You’re doing good now too.”
Jack’s laugh came out broken. “Glad to hear it.”
You kissed lower. His laugh stopped. The shift was immediate. His body went taut beneath you. His hands tightened. His hips lifted slightly, then pressed back down into the mattress like he had to make himself stay where he was. You looked up at him. “Hands.”
“They’re down.”
“Barely.”
His mouth parted on a rough breath. “Still counts.”
You smiled. Then you gave him your mouth. Jack’s whole body went rigid. For one second, all the careful breathing stopped. Then his head dropped back against the pillows, and a sound tore out of him. Low. Rough. Entirely uncontrolled. It moved through you like heat. You took your time. Because he had told you to. Because this was Page 212. Because he had watched you, and now you wanted to watch him try to survive you.
You learned quickly. What made his hands grip the blanket. What made his stomach tighten. What made his breath break into pieces. What made his hips shift before he caught himself. What made him say your name like it had been pulled out of him against his will. You gave him enough to make him shake.
Then pulled away. Jack froze. His eyes opened slowly. Dark. Disbelieving. You kissed his hip. Then his thigh. Then the line of his stomach, where his muscles were still tight from trying not to move. His voice came out rough. “You’re teasing me.”
You looked up at him. “Yes.”
His laugh was wrecked. Completely. “Right.” His head fell back again. “Page two hundred and twelve.”
You smiled against his skin. Jack looked back down at you. His eyes were ruined. You let your hand move lightly over his hip. His breath caught. Your smile widened. “You’re doing a very good job.”
His eyes closed. “Fuck.”
The praise landed again. You were starting to love that. So you gave him more. Your mouth returned to him, slow and careful and maddening enough that his fingers fisted in the comforter until the fabric pulled tight. Jack tried to stay still. You could feel it in every line of him, the effort of holding back while your mouth learned him the same way your hands had learned him earlier. He got quiet first. That was the warning. Not silent. Quiet. Breathing too hard. Jaw clenched. Eyes half-closed when you looked up, like keeping them open had become its own separate kind of work. Then his hips shifted. A little. Then more. You felt the change in him before he said anything. The way his body went tight beneath you. The way his breathing caught and stayed caught. The way his hands gripped the quilt so hard his forearms strained. Jack’s hand lifted from the bed. Only a few inches. Instinct. Need. A reach toward you before thought could catch up with wanting.
Then he froze. You froze, too. His hand hovered there, suspended between you, fingers slightly curled like he could already feel your skin under his palm. For one breath, neither of you moved. Then Jack dropped his hand back onto the bed hard enough to make the quilt shift. “Fuck.” The word tore out of him rough and frustrated and so completely unguarded that heat rushed through you all over again. His eyes were squeezed shut. His jaw was clenched. His chest rose hard, every line of him tense with the effort of staying where you had put him.
You lifted your head. “Jack.”
His eyes opened. Dark. Wrecked. Still listening. “I know,” he said, voice strained. “I know.”
Your mouth parted softly.
He dragged in a breath through his nose, then let it out like it hurt. “I’m trying.”
The honesty of it made your chest go warm. You shifted closer, kissing the inside of his thigh once, soft enough to make him tremble. “I know,” you whispered. “You’re doing good.”
Jack’s laugh broke out of him, low and helpless. “Baby.”
You smiled against his skin. Then you pulled away again. His entire body reacted. A sharp breath. A helpless shift. A hand that twitched against the quilt and then stayed down because he was trying so hard. You watched him. You watched Jack Abbot, your husband, the man who had taught you how safe wanting could be, lie there, undone and obedient and furious with restraint because you had asked him to let you have this. The sight nearly broke you. You bent back to him. Jack’s eyes opened again. You took him back into your mouth.
This time, Jack swore. Not softly. His hands twisted in the blanket. His shoulders pressed back into the pillows. His breath came in rough pieces as you built him up again, slower than before, then faster, then slow again when his body started going too tight beneath you. You felt every warning. Every near-loss. Every little break in his control.
And every time he got close, you pulled away. Once. Twice. By the third time, Jack made a sound that was almost your name and almost something worse. His eyes opened, and there was nothing calm left in them. “You’re killing me.”
You kissed the inside of his thigh again. “No.”
You looked up. His chest rose hard. “I’m learning you.”
Jack went still. The words hit him somewhere deeper than the teasing. You saw it happen. The way his face changed. The way his breath caught for a reason that was not only physical. The way his hands loosened for one second in the comforter, then tightened again. Your throat warmed. Then you lowered your mouth again. This time, he was already close. Too close. You felt it in the way his whole body locked beneath you, in the rough catch of breath, in the helpless lift of his hips before he forced them back down. His hands stayed on the bed, shaking now, gripping the blanket like restraint had become the last language he had left. “Baby,” he breathed.
You did not stop. Not yet. His breath broke. “Fuck.”
His head fell back against the pillows. “I’m—”
You pulled away. For good. Jack froze. Completely. For one impossible second, the room went silent except for the rain and the harsh sound of his breathing. Then his eyes opened. Slowly. Dark. Stunned. Almost offended. You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and smiled. A little breathless. A little ruined yourself. A lot proud.
Jack stared at you. His hand lifted again. Just barely. Then dropped back to the bed. Hard. “Fuck.”
This time, it sounded like surrender. You crawled up his body slowly, over the ruined line of him, over his tight stomach, over his chest still rising too hard. Jack watched you come closer like he did not trust himself to blink. You stopped with your mouth just above his. His hands were still on the bed. Still shaking. Still not touching you. You brushed your lips over his. Barely. “You don’t get to come yet.”
Jack’s laugh came out broken. Disbelieving. Desperate. “Okay.”
You kissed him again. A little deeper this time. Then pulled back. His eyes stayed on yours. Gone. Proud. Wrecked. “You’re a menace,” he said.
Your smile softened. “You told me to tease you.”
His throat worked. “I did.”
“You told me to see what happens.”
Jack’s mouth curved faintly, but the expression looked like it cost him. “And?”
You settled carefully over his hips, close enough to feel his body tense beneath yours. You leaned down until your mouth brushed his ear. “Now I want to see what happens when you finally get to touch me.”
Jack went still beneath you. Completely still. For one breath, the whole room held there. The rain at the window. The warm lamp. The scattered books. The red tab. The two of you on the bed with every piece of page 212 spread open between you like a dare that had turned into something much more dangerous than fiction. Jack’s hands tightened in the comforter. He did not move them. Not yet. That was what ruined you a little. He was bare beneath you now, undone by your mouth, your hands, your waiting, your no, your not yet. His breathing was rough. His jaw was tight. His eyes were dark enough that looking at him felt like stepping too close to an open flame. And still, he waited. He waited because you had not told him he could stop.
You kissed him. Slow. Deep. Your hands slid over his chest, and his body answered under your palms. Heat. Muscle. Freckled skin. The hard, uneven beat of his heart beneath your hand. Jack kissed you back like he was starving and disciplined enough to hate it. His mouth opened under yours, rough and warm, and for one second, you almost let him pull you into the rhythm he knew. The one where he took care of you. The one where his hands found your waist and his voice found the exact words that made you soft for him. But his hands stayed on the bed. Because you told them to. Because he was still letting you have this.
You pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes opened slowly. You felt the exact moment he realized where you were going. His breath caught. You lifted yourself above him. Jack’s whole body went taut. His hands fisted harder, but he still did not touch. You watched his face as you slowly sank down onto him. The effect was immediate. His head dropped back against the pillows. His eyes squeezed shut. His mouth opened around a sound that did not quite become your name. His hands jerked against the mattress. Stopped. Stayed. “Fuck,” he breathed.
The word was broken. Your own breath shattered in your chest. For a moment, neither of you moved. You couldn’t. He was everywhere. The feeling of him beneath you, inside you, holding himself still by force alone. The heat of his body. The hard rise and fall of his chest. The restraint trembling under your hands. You looked down at him. Jack looked utterly ruined. Ruined in the quiet, devastating way of a man who had been made to wait too long and then given exactly what he needed.
Your palms pressed to his chest. “You okay?”
His laugh came out rough as he closed his eyes. “No.”
Your eyes widened slightly.
Jack opened his eyes. The heat in them nearly took you apart. “I’m good,” he said, voice wrecked. “But no.”
A breathless laugh slipped out of you. That made his mouth curve. A little. Barely.
Then you moved. Just once. Slow. Testing. Jack’s hands dragged against the bed but stayed there. His whole body answered the movement, hips shifting beneath yours before he forced himself still again. “You’re still not touching me,” you whispered.
His jaw flexed. “You haven’t said I can.”
Your chest tightened. There it was. That was the thing that made your throat ache even now. Even with your body tight and hot around him. Even with his breathing wrecked and his eyes dark and his control fraying so badly you could see every loose thread. He still waited. Your hands slid from his chest to his wrists. Jack went very still. You lifted one hand from the mattress. Then the other. His fingers were tense in yours. Warm. Shaking.
You brought his hands to your waist. “Now.”
His eyes locked on yours. “Now?”
You nodded, breath catching. “Touch me.”
Jack surged up. The movement stole the air from your lungs. One second, he was beneath you, hands waiting where you had placed them. The next, he was sitting up into you, both arms around your body, mouth crashing into yours with a sound so raw it made you shake. His hands spread over your back, your waist, your hips, everywhere at once like he had been denied oxygen and found it in your skin. He held you like touching you was relief. Like he had been waiting there for hours. Like permission had struck him harder than any command.
You let him. You let him have the first desperate press of his mouth. The rough slide of his hands over your back. The way his fingers dug into your hips, not taking control exactly, just holding on with everything he had not been allowed to use before. Jack kissed your jaw. Your throat. Your shoulder. His breathing was hot against your skin. “Baby,” he rasped.
You curled one hand into the back of his hair. His body shuddered beneath yours. “Jack.”
His mouth found yours again. Messy now. Less controlled. You let him kiss you until you felt his rhythm start to shift under you, until the part of him that always wanted to take care of you began to rise on instinct, hands tightening, body trying to guide. Not selfish. Never that. Just Jack. Trying to give. Trying to make it good. Trying to turn his own undoing into something useful. Your hand moved to his shoulder. You pushed gently. Jack stopped immediately. His eyes opened.
You held his gaze. “Lie back.”
The words moved through him. You saw them land. For one second, his arms tightened around you as if the idea of letting go again might actually hurt. Then his grip loosened. Slowly.
His jaw flexed. “Okay.”
He lowered himself back against the pillows. Not because he wanted distance. Because you asked for it. Because page 212 had teeth now, and Jack had given you permission to bite. You followed him down just enough to keep him inside you, your hands on his chest, your knees bracketing his hips. His hands returned to your waist this time, allowed now, but careful. Waiting for what you wanted them to be. That was somehow worse than no touching. The restraint still lived in him. Only now it was under your hands too. You started to move. Slow at first. Too slow for him. You knew because Jack’s eyes closed for half a second, because his hands tightened at your waist, because his breath caught and came back rougher. You leaned forward, palms braced against his chest. “You can touch me,” you whispered. “But I’m still leading.”
Jack’s eyes opened. Dark. Gone. “Yeah.” The word was barely there. Then his mouth curved faintly, wrecked and proud. “Yeah, you are.”
Heat moved through you at the sound of it. You moved again. This time, you let yourself search. Not for what would make him react. You already knew too much about that now. For what felt good for you. The realization made your breath catch. Jack felt it immediately. His hands tightened at your waist. Not pulling. Not directing. Holding. You shifted your hips. Once. Then again. The first angle was good. The second was better. The third stole a sound from you so sudden you almost lost your balance.
Jack’s eyes snapped to your face. “There?”
You swallowed, unable to find words. He felt your answer in the way your body clenched, in the way your hands pressed harder against his chest, in the way your hips tried to chase the same place again before your mind had finished catching up. His grip changed immediately. Not taking over. Holding you there. Helping you keep it. “Use it,” he said, voice wrecked. “Use me.”
The words went through you like fire. There it was again. The whole page. The whole point. Not him doing it for you. Not him taking back the rhythm. Jack beneath you, hands on your waist, holding you steady while you took what you wanted from him and watched what it did to both of you. You moved again. Found it. Stayed there. Your breath broke. Jack’s did too. His hands flexed over your hips, rough now but still following you. Every movement dragged a sound out of him. Every time you shifted over that perfect angle, he felt it. You knew he did. His whole body went taut beneath yours, his jaw clenched, his eyes fixed on your face like he was trying to survive every answer you gave him. You started to lose the rhythm when the pleasure built too quickly. Jack felt that too. His hand slid up your back, steadying you. Not guiding. Grounding.
“You’ve got it,” he whispered.
Your eyes fluttered. “Jack.”
“I know.” His voice cracked around it. “I know, baby.”
You kept moving. Slow. Then less slow. Your hips found the rhythm your body wanted, and Jack let you have it. He held your waist when you needed balance. He slid one hand over your thigh when your leg trembled. He watched you like the whole point of his body was to be something you could take from and come back to. You were close again. Already. It should have embarrassed you. It did not. Not with Jack looking at you like that. Not with his hands finally on you after all that waiting. Not with the memory of his voice breaking under your mouth still warm in the room. Jack’s breathing changed beneath you. You felt it. The warning. The tightening. The way his body began to strain under yours, his control already worn thin from everything you had denied him before. His hand gripped your hip. “Baby.”
Your eyes found his. He looked almost pained. “Close?”
He let out a rough laugh. “Yeah.”
You slowed. Just enough. Jack’s head dropped back. “Fuck.”
You leaned down, chest brushing his, mouth near his jaw. “Not yet.”
His hands tightened on you. For one second, you felt the reflex in him. The urge to pull you closer. To move. To take. Then he stopped himself. A broken breath left him. “Okay.”
The obedience in it nearly undid you. You kissed his jaw. Soft. Proud. “Good.”
Jack’s eyes closed. His whole body clenched beneath you. “Oh, that’s not fair.”
You smiled against his skin. “You told me to tease you.”
“I regret nothing.” His voice was rough. Barely steady. “Also everything.”
A laugh broke out of you, helpless and breathless. The laugh turned into a moan when your hips shifted again and found the angle harder. Jack’s hands tightened at your waist. His eyes opened. “There.”
You nodded, breathless. “There.”
He held you through it. Letting you use the rhythm. Letting you set the pace. Letting his own restraint shake apart under you while still keeping you exactly where you needed to be. Your movements grew less controlled. More honest. Your body chasing the pleasure now, chasing him, chasing the way his hands finally felt on your skin after being denied for so long. Jack watched your face. He did not look away. Not once. Even when his own breath started breaking. Even when his hips began to move under you in tiny, desperate shifts he could not fully stop. Even when his mouth parted around words he had not found yet.
You gripped his chest. “Eyes on me.”
His gaze snapped fully to yours. Immediate. Listening. Still. Always.
Your pulse kicked hard. “Tell me,” you whispered.
Jack’s brow drew together, strained and ruined. “Tell you what?”
You slowed again. Just enough to make his breath catch sharply. His hands gripped your hips. “Don’t.” The word came rough. Then he caught himself. His eyes closed for half a second. “Fuck.” He opened them again, wrecked. “Don’t stop.”
Your mouth curved. “Then tell me.”
Jack stared at you. For one second, he looked like he could not decide whether to curse or kiss you. Then his voice dropped, breaking at the edges. “You’re driving me crazy.”
Heat bloomed through you. Your hips moved again.
Jack groaned. “You’ve been driving me crazy since you showed me that damn page.”
You moved faster. His hands slid up your sides, then back to your hips, holding on like he was trying not to lose the last pieces of himself. “You made me watch you,” he said, voice rough and breathless now. “Made me wait. Made me—fuck—made me want you so bad I couldn’t think.”
Your breath broke. “Jack.”
His eyes stayed locked on yours. “You have no idea what you look like right now.”
You nearly faltered.
His hands held you steady. “Beautiful,” he said. “So fucking beautiful.”
Your body answered the words immediately. Jack felt it. His eyes darkened further. “Yeah,” he breathed. “There. Take it.”
You did. You took the rhythm. Took the angle. Took the feel of his hands and his voice and his body under yours, the way he had offered himself and then let you make something of him. Pleasure built fast now. Bright and hot and impossible to slow down. Jack was close too. You could feel it in every line of him. His breathing was wrecked. His hands were shaking on your hips. His body moved beneath yours now, unable to stay fully still, meeting you in small, desperate movements that made your own pleasure sharpen.
“Baby,” he said. Your name followed, rough and broken.
You leaned down until your mouth brushed his. “Wait for me.”
His whole body went tight. A sound left him. Almost a laugh. Almost pain. “Trying.”
“I know.” Your lips brushed his again. “You’re doing good.”
Jack swore. The word broke out of him, low and helpless. Your body clenched around the sound. His hands gripped you harder. Not enough to take over. Enough to tell you he was there. Enough to tell you he was barely holding on. You moved once more, and the angle hit perfectly. Your breath caught and stayed caught.
Jack saw it. His eyes did not leave yours. “There,” he said, voice wrecked. “There, baby. Stay there.”
You did. You stayed with it. Rode it. Used it. Used him. Used the way his body held you, the way his voice broke, the way his eyes stayed open because you had told him to look.
The pressure built and built until your arms shook against his chest. “Jack.”
“I’m here.” His voice cracked. “I’m right here.”
That was what tipped you over. The words. His hands. His restraint finally breaking into need under you. Your body went tight above him, pleasure rolling through you hard enough that your eyes almost closed. Almost. You kept them open. You watched him watch you fall apart. Jack’s face changed. The last of his control went with it. “Oh fuck,” he breathed.
Your hands clenched against his chest. His hips moved up into you, rougher now, not taking over but gone enough that the rhythm became both of yours. “I’m gonna come.” His voice broke. “Oh god, baby, I’m gonna come.”
You nodded, still shaking. “Yes.”
The sound of him losing it pulled another wave through you. He was trying to keep his eyes on yours. Trying to stay with you. Trying to be good even while he came apart. “You’re doing so good,” he breathed, voice ruined. “So good. Fuck, baby, you’re doing so good.”
Then you felt it. The exact second Jack let go. His body locked beneath yours. His breath caught. His hands gripped your hips like he needed somewhere to put the force of it, and then the restraint that had held him together all night finally snapped loose. His hands tightened at your hips. “Oh—fu-fuck.”
He came apart under you. Not controlled. Not composed. Jack. Shaking. Breathing your name. Face open in a way you had never seen, as if every piece of him had risen to the surface at once and trusted you enough to stay there. The sight made your chest ache.
You collapsed forward against him before your arms could give out. Jack caught you immediately. This time, he was allowed. His arms closed around you hard, pulling you down against his chest as the last of the pleasure moved through both of you in shaking, uneven waves.
For a while, there was only breathing. Yours. His. The rain. The books. Page 212, open beside him on the bed, smug and ruined and absolutely never going back to being just a page in a book again. Jack’s hand moved slowly up your back. Then down. Then up again. His chest rose beneath your cheek, still too fast. You could feel his heart pounding. You stayed there until your body started to remember gravity. Then, with a soft, exhausted sound, you rolled off him and collapsed onto the bed beside him. Not gracefully. Not even close. One arm fell over your face. Your hair spilled across his pillow. The sheets were twisted low around your hips, and your chest rose and fell like you had just survived a natural disaster with excellent lighting. Beside you, Jack was somehow worse. Flat on his back. Hair wrecked. Chest shining faintly with sweat. One arm bent over his head. Mouth parted. Eyes fixed on the ceiling like he was waiting for language to return from wherever it had gone. The book was open near his hip. Face-down now. Spine bent. One red tab crumpled slightly from having been handled with less academic care than usual.
You were going to complain about that eventually. Probably.
When your lungs worked again. For now, neither of you said anything. Then Jack laughed. Not loudly. Not even fully.
Just one dazed, disbelieving breath of sound. “That was incredible.”
Summary: Your shift starts with a six-year-old convinced stitches are a government conspiracy and ends with Jack walking into the ER carrying fancy decaf, plausible deniability, and absolutely zero ability to be normal about his pregnant wife. Santos clocks the coffee. Then the butter. Then the honey. Then the bag. And by the time everyone follows you into the parking garage, your very private marriage becomes everyone’s favorite new problem.
Warnings: Pregnant!Reader, pregnancy symptoms/nausea/food aversions, brief pediatric injury/stitches, medical setting, established marriage, workplace teasing, soft husband Jack, chaotic ensemble, no real angst, everyone being deeply nosy in a parking garage.
Author’s Note: Welcome to You Never Asked. This is an established-marriage Jack fic, so the whole premise is less “secret relationship” and more “private adults who never made a department-wide announcement.” Reader is a child life specialist, meaning she works with pediatric patients and families to help kids understand scary hospital experiences in age-appropriate ways. Present-day Reader is pregnant in this fic, so skip if pregnancy fic is not your thing. Otherwise, please enjoy Jack Abbot attempting subtlety and failing because he knows too much about his wife’s coffee, toast, butter, and farmers' market honey.
Xoxo, Del
Previous Part(s): | Prologue |
Chapter One: Shift Change
YOUR POV:
You were halfway through convincing a six-year-old that stitches were not a government conspiracy when your phone buzzed in the side pocket of your child life bag. You ignored it. Not because you lacked curiosity. Because Miles Warren had one hand clamped beneath his chin, one suspicious eye fixed on the suture tray, and the posture of a man preparing to report Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center to whoever regulated betrayal, he was six. Furious enough to be forty-five.
“No one is sewing my face,” Miles announced.
Dr. Mel King looked up from the rolling stool near the bedside, where she had been reviewing his chart with the focused gentleness that made kids trust her faster than they expected to.
“No one is sewing your face without explaining it first,” you said.
Miles narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like trick words.”
“Fair,” you said, because it absolutely did.
His mother sat beside the bed with one hand hovering near his sneaker, wearing the exhausted, hopeful expression of a parent who had already tried snacks, bargaining, and one deeply unsuccessful promise involving extra screen time. Perlah stood near the counter, quietly arranging supplies with the calm efficiency of someone who had already survived three versions of this exact argument before lunch.
You smiled at Miles and reached into your bag. “I’m going to tell you the truth in kid words,” you said.
Miles’s hand loosened slightly. “Kid words?”
“Yep.” You pulled out two options and held them up. “You can hold the squishy dinosaur or the blue stress ball while we talk.”
Miles studied both with the gravity of someone choosing legal representation. Mel leaned back slightly on the stool, giving him time.
The dinosaur was green, soft, and vaguely cross-eyed. The stress ball was shaped like a globe and had seen better days.
Miles pointed with his free hand. “Dinosaur.”
“Strong choice,” you said, placing it gently in his lap.
Miles picked it up and squeezed. “What’s his name?”
You looked at the dinosaur with grave consideration. “That depends. Is he a doctor dinosaur or a regular dinosaur?”
Miles blinked. “A doctor.”
“Then Dr. Pickles,” you answered.
Perlah’s mouth twitched. Mel’s eyes brightened in immediate approval.
Miles looked down at the dinosaur, deeply unimpressed. “That’s a bad doctor name.”
“You’re right,” you said. “He’s had some complaints.”
Miles’s mother let out a soft, relieved breath that almost became a laugh.
Mel nodded once, as if this was clinically relevant. “Dr. Pickles is currently under peer review.”
Miles looked at Mel. “What does that mean?”
“It means other doctors are checking his work,” Mel said.
You nodded toward the dinosaur. “And his attitude.”
Miles squeezed Dr. Pickles again. His shoulders lowered by half an inch.
You counted that as progress. Your phone buzzed again. You ignored that, too.
Probably Jack. Definitely Jack. Which meant the text was probably about ginger ale, crackers, decaf coffee, the mint candies he had started keeping in places you had not known mint candies could be kept, or the fact that you had slept for roughly four hours and then stared at the ceiling as if it had personally betrayed you.
Jack had not been overbearing about the pregnancy. Not exactly. He had been Jack about it. Which meant he noticed everything, filed it away, and quietly rearranged the world by six inches so it bothered you less. He knew you still adored coffee and had accepted decaf with all the grace of a woman being exiled from her homeland. He knew you got jealous every time someone walked past with a real latte. He knew you had wanted fries for three days last week and then gagged the second a takeout container opened near you.
He knew the specific face you made when you were trying to decide if a food sounded possible or if your stomach had already declared war. He knew you were tired. He knew you were trying.
That was the part that got you.
Jack never treated the pregnancy like you were fragile. He treated it like you were doing something hard, and he wanted to be useful. You loved him so much that it made you deeply irritated.
“You said truth,” Miles reminded you.
“I did.” You shifted closer, keeping your voice calm. “First, Perlah is going to clean your chin. That part might feel cold and wet. It might sting a little because cuts are rude.”
Miles’s eyes moved to Perlah. Perlah held up the gauze to show him.
“Then,” you continued, “Dr. King is going to use medicine to help the skin around the cut get sleepy.”
Miles’s face tightened. “How?”
You did not soften the answer into a lie. Kids usually knew when adults were sanding off the sharp edges of truth. They could feel the missing parts. “With a poke,” you said.
Miles stiffened. His mother’s hand twitched toward him, then stopped.
You kept your attention on Miles. “It is okay to not like that part.”
“I don’t like that part,” Miles said immediately.
You nodded. “Excellent honesty.”
“It sounds terrible,” Miles grumbled.
“It is not my favorite design choice either,” you said.
Mel hugged the chart lightly to her chest, like she was restraining herself from laughing. “Medicine has several design flaws.”
Miles’s mouth twitched before he remembered to be outraged. “Medicine is stupid.”
“Sometimes,” you agreed. “But the poke is fast, and then the sleepy medicine helps the stitches hurt less.”
Miles looked at Mel. “How many stitches?”
Mel shifted closer on the stool, her expression open and serious. “Probably three.”
Miles stared at her. Mel held up three fingers. “Maybe four if your chin decides to be dramatic.”
Miles looked personally offended by his own chin.
You held up your fingers. “Here are your choices. You can watch what’s happening, or you can look at your mom. You can count, or I can tell you each step before it happens. You can squeeze Dr. Pickles, or you can squeeze your mom’s hand.”
Miles considered this. His mother leaned closer. “You can squeeze my hand as hard as you need, bud.”
Miles looked suspicious. “What if I break it?”
His mother smiled in that brave way parents did when they were trying not to cry in front of their children. “Then I’ll get stitches too.”
“That’s not funny,” Miles said.
“No,” she agreed. “It was medium funny.”
Miles gave this serious thought.
Your phone buzzed a third time.
Mel’s gaze flicked briefly toward your bag. Mel saw things. Not loudly. Not with the hungry curiosity of someone looking for gossip. She noticed the way a room shifted, the way a voice changed, the way someone’s hand moved toward pain before they remembered other people could see.
Quietly. Accurately. A little dangerously.
You reached into the front pocket of your bag for your laminated prep cards, and your fingers brushed the edge of a saltine sleeve. You paused. Jack. Of course. He had tucked crackers into the pocket that morning while you were standing in the kitchen, wearing one of his old shirts, staring mournfully at his real coffee like it had betrayed you by existing. Not the main pocket. That would risk crumbs near your stickers and fidgets. The outside pocket. Because Jack Abbot was an emotionally devastating maniac about practical details.
You had started dressing differently two weeks ago. Not dramatically. Nothing that would look like a confession to anyone who wasn’t paying close attention. Looser sweaters. Longer cardigans. Scrub tops that skimmed instead of clung. At first, it had been practical. Your body had changed quietly, then all at once. One morning, you had stood in front of the bathroom mirror, shirt lifted just enough to see the new curve beneath your ribs, and Jack had gone still in the doorway behind you. You had seen his face in the mirror. Not surprise. Not fear. Just love. So much of it, so sudden and bare, that your eyes filled before you could tell yourself not to be ridiculous.
Jack had crossed the room without a word and wrapped both arms around you from behind, one hand settling carefully over the place where your son was beginning to make himself known.
“Don’t look at me like that,” you had said, already crying.
His chin had brushed your shoulder. “Like what?”
“Like you’re happy,” you replied through tears.
Jack had gone quiet for a second. Then his thumb moved once over your stomach, barely there. “I am.”
That had made you cry harder, obviously. Jack had held you through it with the grim patience of a man accepting consequences for being too sincere before coffee.
Now, in Miles’s exam room, you tugged the hem of your cardigan lower without thinking. Mel’s eyes dropped for half a second to the visible corner of the cracker packet, then briefly to your cardigan. Then she looked back at Miles. She did not say anything. That was somehow worse.
You pulled out the prep cards and turned back to the bed. “Okay. This card shows what stitches look like when they’re still in the package.”
Miles leaned forward despite himself.
You showed him the card, then the next one. “These are not like sewing clothes,” you said. “No giant needle. No sewing machine. No one is turning you into pants.”
Miles stared at you and almost smiled. “Who would turn me into pants?”
“No one in this room,” Perlah said.
Miles glanced at Mel. Mel shook her head. “I’m not qualified for pants.”
Miles looked marginally reassured.
Something shifted low in your abdomen. Small. Strange. Not painful. Not sharp. Just enough to make you pause with your thumb resting against the edge of the laminated card. It was still new enough that your body had not figured out how to make it casual. A flutter. A roll. A quiet internal reminder from someone who had recently developed the habit of making his presence known at inconvenient times. Yesterday morning, while Jack was making breakfast, it had startled you badly enough that you had stopped mid-sentence.
Jack had gone still across the kitchen, butter knife in hand, eyes already on you. You had told him it was nothing. He had not believed you for one second.
Now, in Miles’s exam room, you let one hand drift to the lower edge of your cardigan for half a breath. Then you moved it away.
Mel was looking at the chart. Mostly. “You okay?” she asked.
You lifted the next card. “Yep.”
Mel nodded. She did not challenge you. She did not stare. She only tucked one foot under the stool and watched Miles again, giving you the grace of not making your body the center of the room.
You appreciated that. You also did not trust it.
Miles squeezed Dr. Pickles. “What if I cry?”
You looked back at him, grateful for the question. “Then you cry.”
His brow furrowed. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” you said. “Crying is allowed.”
Perlah stepped closer with the cleaning supplies. “I cry when my coffee order is wrong.”
A sharp little pang of envy hit before you could stop it. Coffee. Real coffee. Full-caffeine, glorious, beautiful coffee. You missed it with the kind of intensity usually reserved for long-lost lovers and discontinued favorite lipsticks.
Miles looked at Perlah as if this were possibly the most adult thing anyone had ever admitted to him.
Mel nodded. “I cried once because a patient gave me a sticker and told me I was doing a good job.”
Miles looked at you.
“I cried last week because someone walked past me with an everything bagel,” you said.
Mel’s eyes slid briefly toward you. Damn it.
Miles frowned. “You don’t like bagels?”
“I love bagels,” you said. That was the problem.
Mel’s gaze lingered for half a second longer than necessary before she turned back to Miles.
Miles looked between all of you. “Adults cry a lot.”
“Constantly,” Perlah said.
“Secretly,” Mel added.
You nodded. “In supply closets.”
Miles considered this and seemed to find it medically acceptable.
Perlah moved beside the bed. “I’m going to clean your chin now. Cold and wet first.”
Miles clutched Dr. Pickles. “No tricks?”
“No tricks,” Perlah said.
You held up the card. “Truth in kid words, remember?”
Miles looked at you. “Tell me each step.”
“I can do that.”
Perlah cleaned the wound. Miles hissed through his teeth but did not pull away. You kept your voice low and steady, narrating before each step, leaving space for him to react, reminding him that holding still did not mean pretending he liked it. Your phone buzzed again.
This time, even Miles noticed. “Is someone calling you?” he asked.
“Texting,” you said.
His brow furrowed. “Is it important?”
You thought of Jack’s probable message. Ginger ale still helping? Crackers are in the outside pocket. There’s decaf in your travel mug if you want it. No pressure. Just options.
Your throat warmed. “Someone’s just checking on me,” you said.
Perlah smiled to herself.
Miles nodded like he understood this on a personal level. “My grandma texts like that.”
You smiled. “Then your grandma and my person would probably get along.”
Mel’s gaze lifted again. Your person. You had not said husband. You rarely did at work. Not because you were hiding. Not exactly.
It just never came up in a way that needed correction, and Jack was private enough that announcing your marriage at the nurses’ station sounded like something he would endure with the expression of a man being asked to donate a kidney recreationally. Also, there was a small, terrible part of you that found the whole thing funny. PTMC knew you by your first name because kids did better with first names. Families did too.
You were Child Life, soft sweaters, a calm voice, and stickers tucked into every available pocket.
Jack was Abbot. Night shift. Dry voice. Trauma rooms. Military posture. Coffee so black it seemed medicinal.
People saw you both in fragments. Shift change. Late consults. Hallway overlap. The occasional staff meeting where Jack sat in the back and looked like every agenda item had personally offended him. Almost no one put the pieces together.
Robby knew, obviously. Dana knew too, because Dana knew everything worth knowing and had the good sense not to announce other people’s lives at the nurses’ station. But Robby was the one who enjoyed it. Robby had stood beside Jack in a suit and called it deeply unsettling when Jack adjusted his tie for the fourth time before the ceremony. He had been Jack’s best man, a title he brought up only when it would annoy Jack most.
Perlah finished cleaning Miles’s chin. “First part done,” Perlah said.
Miles opened one eye. “That kinda sucked.”
“It does suck,” you agreed.
Miles looked surprised. “You can say that?”
“Yes,” you said.
Miles processed this with the intensity of a philosopher in dinosaur socks.
Mel rolled closer on the stool. “Sleepy medicine next.”
Miles’s face tightened. You leaned in just enough to keep his focus. “Do you want to count, or do you want me to tell you when it’s done?”
Miles swallowed. “Tell me when it’s done.”
“Okay.” You placed Dr. Pickles more firmly under his hand. “You squeeze him. I’ll watch the medicine.”
Miles nodded once. His mother offered her hand. Miles took it. The poke happened fast. Miles cried. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a tight little burst of tears that made his mother’s face crumple and Perlah’s gaze soften.
You stayed with him through it. “That was the worst part,” you said when the needle was gone.
Miles sniffed hard. “That was terrible.”
You nodded. “It was.”
“I hated it,” Miles added.
“That’s okay,” you said. “You’re allowed.”
Miles looked down at Dr. Pickles, betrayed by medicine and possibly dinosaurs.
Mel gave the anesthetic a minute to work. Your phone buzzed again. Perlah set the used supplies aside. Mel glanced at your bag, then back at Miles. Only once. A quick thing. Barely anything. Still enough.
“You can check that,” Mel said gently.
“I’m good,” you said.
Mel hugged the chart closer to her chest. “It’s persistent.”
You smiled. “That’s one word for him.”
The second the sentence left your mouth, you felt Mel’s attention sharpen by a fraction. Not enough to make a thing of it. Enough. Miles’s mother leaned over to kiss the top of his head, giving you a small window. You reached into your bag and checked your phone. There were, in fact, four texts.
Jack: Ginger ale still helping?
Jack: Crackers are in the outside pocket if not.
Jack: No pressure. Just options.
Jack: Love you both. You’re doing good.
You stared at the last message for half a second too long. Love you both. You’re doing good. It was such a Jack text. Practical care stacked under one plain, devastating sentence. No exclamation points. No hearts. No little cartoon baby emoji. Just ginger ale, decaf, and love, organized in order of immediate usefulness.
You typed back with one thumb.
You: We’re okay. With a patient. Dr. Pickles is under peer review.
The response came almost immediately.
Jack: Sounds fair. A second later: Jack: Tell him to improve.
You bit the inside of your cheek. You had texted him a picture of the dinosaur earlier, with no explanation except "new attending on peds."
Jack had replied: Looks underqualified.
You locked your phone. Mel’s eyes were on Miles, but you knew better than to think she had missed the way your face softened. You tucked the phone away and picked up the sticker sheet. The stitches went better than Miles expected and worse than he wanted. Both things could be true. He squeezed Dr. Pickles hard enough to flatten the dinosaur’s head. He cried once more when the first stitch tugged, then got distracted by the fact that Mel had once fainted during a blood draw when she was twelve.
“You’re a doctor,” Miles said, scandalized.
“I recovered,” Mel said.
Miles eyed her. “But you fainted?”
“Briefly.”
You leaned closer to Miles. “She’s very brave now.”
Mel pulled off her gloves. “Medium brave.”
Miles nodded solemnly. “Medium brave counts.”
By the time Mel finished the last stitch, Miles looked exhausted, offended, and deeply proud of himself. A good combination. “You did it,” his mother whispered.
Miles looked at you. “Was I brave?”
You peeled a dinosaur sticker from the sheet. “Very.”
Miles frowned. You waited.
“Medium brave,” he corrected. “Not all the way.”
You pressed the sticker gently to the back of his hand. “Medium brave counts.”
Mel smiled as she reached for the discharge instructions on the computer. “Usually more than all-the-way brave,” she said.
Miles looked at her. “Why?”
Mel glanced over from the screen. “Because medium brave means you were scared and did it anyway.”
Miles looked down at Dr. Pickles. His chin was swollen. His cheeks were blotchy. His fingers were still tight around the dinosaur. But he smiled. Just a little.
You felt that tiny, internal shift again. A small roll low under your ribs, subtle enough that no one else should have noticed. You breathed through it.
Mel did not look at your stomach. She did not ask. She only handed you the sanitizer when you reached for it and watched your hand settle for one brief second against the lower curve beneath your cardigan before you caught yourself and moved.
That was the thing about Mel. She didn’t need to say anything to make you feel seen.
Miles’s mother thanked everyone three times. Mel gave wound care instructions. Perlah handed over extra gauze and the kind of practical reassurance parents needed after watching their children bleed. You promised Miles that Dr. Pickles could stay with him until discharge as long as he did not file another complaint with the medical board.
Miles hugged the dinosaur to his chest. “He’s on probation.”
“Fair,” you said.
You stepped out of the room with Mel a few minutes later, letting the door click softly behind you. The noise of the ER met you all at once. Phones. Monitors. A transport tech laughed near the desk. Someone called for an EKG. The familiar, relentless rhythm of PTMC refused to pause just because one six-year-old had survived the betrayal of stitches.
Mel stopped beside the counter and reached for the sanitizer. You checked the time. The day shift ended in thirty minutes. Your phone buzzed in your pocket. You glanced down.
Jack: I’m early. Five minutes out.
You smiled despite yourself.
Jack had always liked nights. He liked the dark. The smaller crew. The way the hospital narrowed down to alarms, instincts, and people who knew how to move without talking too much. He liked the solitude of it, the strange mercy of working while the rest of the world slept.
Or he had.
Lately, nights had started to feel different. Lately, nights meant leaving you at home with ginger ale on the nightstand, decaf in the cabinet, pillows wedged around your hips, and a body that could not decide what it wanted without punishing you for guessing wrong.
Jack still loved the work. You knew he did. But you also knew the way his hand lingered at your back before he left now. The way his eyes moved over your face like he was trying to memorize how tired you looked before he had to spend twelve hours away from it. The way he kissed you once, then again, like the second one might keep something safe that the first one could not. He hated leaving. You knew that, too.
Mel dried her hands with a paper towel beside you. You slipped your phone back into your pocket before she could see the screen. Mel didn’t ask who it was. She didn’t need to. Instead, her gaze moved once to the ginger ale beside your water bottle. Then, to the sleeve of saltines in your bag. Then to your face.
“You feeling okay today?” Mel asked. The question was gentle enough to pass as nothing.
You adjusted the strap of your bag on your shoulder. “Yeah.”
Mel nodded once, accepting the answer without quite believing it. “Good,” she said.
You looked at her for another beat. Mel only smiled mildly and tossed the paper towel into the trash. You turned toward the workstation to finish your notes, one hand resting briefly over the place where your son had rolled beneath your ribs. The day shift was almost over. Night shift was getting ready to begin. And no one in the ER knew that Jack Abbot was five minutes away from walking through those doors with decaf in one hand, plausible deniability in the other, and every intention of checking on his pregnant wife without anyone noticing.
The first thing you saw was the cup. Not Jack. Not technically. The cup came through the ambulance bay doors first, carried in one hand like a formal apology. It was not from the cafeteria. It was not from the lobby kiosk. It was definitely not hospital decaf, which tasted like someone had rinsed a coffee pot and asked you to be grateful. This cup had a sleeve. A stamped logo. A handwritten label. Fancy. Suspicious. Hopeful, which felt cruel.
Then Jack came through the doors behind it, already in dark scrubs, his badge clipped at his chest, his other hand wrapped around his own coffee. Real coffee. Actual coffee. Coffee with caffeine and dignity and a future. You stared at it with immediate, unreasonable resentment.
Then you looked at your husband. Jack’s eyes found yours from across the department the way they always did, quickly and without announcement. Face first. Then shoulders. Then the ginger ale beside your laptop. The sleeve of the crackers was half-tucked under your notebook. Your cardigan, loose and soft over the curve you had spent the last two weeks pretending was not becoming obvious.
His gaze dropped for less than a second. You felt it anyway. Then he crossed the ER like he was only coming in for the night shift. Like he had not texted you three separate options in the last hour and found a new brand of decaf because you had said, once, half-asleep and miserable against his pillow, that you missed coffee so much you could cry. He set the fancy cup beside your laptop. ‘Decaf. Don’t yell until after trying’ was written in black marker across the lid.
Your throat did something ridiculous. Jack’s face did not change. “New one,” he said.
You looked at the cup, then at him. “You bought me fancy decaf coffee?”
His mouth barely moved. “Try it.”
You picked up the cup with both hands because it was warm and because your body, traitorous and exhausted, had already decided that warmth was reason enough to hope. The first sip was cautious. Defensive. You expected disappointment. You expected hot brown sadness. You expected the thin, bitter lie every decaf had been telling you for the past month and a half.
Instead, the coffee was warm. Smooth. Rich. Good. Actually, unfairly, wonderfully good.
Your eyes closed before you could stop them. “Oh my God,” you said.
Jack went still. Not in a way anyone else would notice. Not unless they knew him. Not unless they knew the exact way his body held itself when he was waiting for the verdict on something that mattered more than he wanted it to.
“Yeah?” he asked.
You nodded, still holding the cup close. “Jack.” His eyes stayed on you. “It’s good.” The words came out smaller than you meant them to. Grateful in a way coffee probably did not deserve.
Except it was not just coffee. It was a normal thing. One thing your body had not rejected. One thing that tasted as if it belonged to the version of you who used to drink real coffee without negotiating with your stomach first. Jack understood that. Of course he did. That was the best part.
His shoulders settled by a fraction. “Good.”
You looked down at the lid again, and a laugh caught in your throat. “I wasn’t going to yell,” you said.
Jack gave you a look.
“I was going to emotionally object,” you corrected.
“Mm,” he hummed.
“With dignity,” you added.
Jack nodded once. “Sure.”
You took another sip, and this time you did not bother hiding how much you liked it. You were too tired to perform indifference, too relieved to make him work for it. “Thank you,” you said.
Jack’s expression went quieter. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”
Behind the counter, Santos lowered the chart in her hand. Slowly. “Oh, no,” she said.
You closed your eyes. Jack did not move.
Santos pointed at the cup. “That was a moment.”
Jack looked at her. “It was coffee.”
“It was not coffee.” Santos’s eyes narrowed. “It was emotionally loaded coffee.”
Robby made a pleased sound from the workstation behind her. “Excellent band name.”
Jack’s gaze cut toward him. “Don’t help.”
“I’m helping myself,” Robby said.
Dana did not look up from the discharge papers in front of her, but the corner of her mouth moved like she had decided not to be held responsible for anyone in the department. Mel, who had been reviewing something on her tablet near the counter, glanced between you and Jack with quiet interest. Not nosy. Not loud. Just watching.
Santos was loud enough for both of them. “Since when does Abbot bring Child Life specialty beverages?” she asked.
Jack picked up his own coffee. “Since Child Life suffered enough.”
You took another sip. “I support this policy.”
Santos pointed at you. “You’re too happy. That’s suspicious.”
“I’m drinking good decaf for the first time in weeks,” you said. “My joy is proportionate.”
Robby leaned one hip against the workstation. “Strong argument.”
Jack looked at him again. Robby lifted both hands. “I’m neutral.”
“You have never been neutral in your life,” Dana said.
Robby nodded once. “Also fair.”
Jack’s real coffee drifted near you when he shifted his weight, and your stomach made one small, sour complaint. You did not move. You did not even think you changed expression. Jack noticed anyway. He moved his cup to the far side of the counter without looking at it. Small. Quiet. Automatic. Your fingers tightened around your decaf. Mel noticed. You saw her notice. Her eyes flicked to Jack’s hand, then back to your face, and something thoughtful crossed her expression before she politely looked down at her tablet again.
Santos missed none of it. Her gaze sharpened.
Jack lowered his voice, but not enough to be secretive. Just enough to make the space between you feel smaller. “How bad?”
You knew what he meant. Not work. Not Miles. Not the coffee. The nausea. The hunger that kept arriving with disgust tucked beneath it. The way your body had started treating dinner like a negotiation no one had authorized. “Manageable,” you said.
Jack’s eyes narrowed by a fraction.
You sighed. “Annoying.”
He almost smiled, “Closer.”
“The bagel smell in the break room was a crime scene,” you grumbled.
His mouth twitched. “That bad?”
You nodded. “I considered filing charges.”
Jack nodded as if this were a reasonable escalation. “What sounds possible for dinner?”
You looked down at the coffee in your hands. Good coffee. Actual good coffee. Decaf, tragically, but not a punishment. Not a thin, bitter insult. Good enough that your whole body seemed confused by the relief of wanting something and being able to have it.
“Toast,” you admitted.
Jack nodded once. “Toast is good.”
“Toast is barely dinner,” you said with a frown.
Jack looked at you so sincerely that your chest squeezed tight. “Toast is dinner if it stays down.”
Your throat tightened. That was the thing about Jack. He did not make ‘possible’ sound like failure. He just lowered the bar until you could step over it without shame.
“Butter and honey,” you said.
His expression softened. “Irish butter’s in the fridge.”
You looked at him. “You got more?”
He nodded. “Aldi had it.”
“You went to Aldi?” you asked, eyes bright.
Jack shrugged. “I survived.”
“You hate Aldi.” Your eyebrows rose.
“I hate the parking lot,” Jack corrected you.
You couldn’t stop your smile, “And the cart quarter.”
Jack's eyes narrowed, “The cart quarter is an aggressive system.”
You laughed before you could help it, one hand settling briefly against your cardigan when your son shifted low and strange, as if he had opinions about grocery logistics. Jack saw. Of course, he saw. His eyes dropped for half a second, then came back to your face. “Still okay?” he asked.
You nodded. “Yeah.”
His voice stayed low. “Good honey’s on the counter.”
You inhaled sharply, “The farmers market one?”
“The one you said tasted like flowers and sunshine,” Jack replied.
You stared at him for one second too long.
Santos put the chart down. “Hold on.”
Jack did not look away from you quickly enough.
Apparently, that was Santos’s final straw. “No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
You took another sip of coffee.
Santos pointed at Jack. “You know what butter she has.”
Jack’s face stayed calm. “Most kitchens have butter.”
Santos glared, “Do not insult me.”
Robby made a quiet, delighted noise.
Santos’s finger stayed aimed at Jack. “You said Irish butter. From Aldi. Like a man who has personally fought the parking lot and lost.”
Jack’s brow furrowed, “I didn’t lose.”
“You know where her farmers' market honey is.” Santos continued.
“It’s on the counter,” Jack said with a nod.
Santos stared at him. “Again, not helping your case.”
Dana finally looked up. “It is good honey.”
Santos turned on her. “You stay out of this.” Dana’s eyebrows lifted. Santos exhaled sharply. “Actually, no. You’re involved now. Is this normal?”
Dana glanced once at you, then at Jack, then at the coffee in your hands. “For them?” she said. “Yes.” The department went quiet for half a beat. Robby’s smile became openly dangerous. Jack looked at Dana. Dana returned to her paperwork like she had not just thrown a match into gasoline.
Santos’s eyes widened. “For them?”
You looked down at your coffee. Jack took a drink from his. Neither of you answered. Mel hugged her tablet a little closer to her chest. “Oh,” she said softly.
Santos snapped her attention to Mel. “Oh, what?”
Mel’s cheeks colored. “Nothing.”
“No, that was an oh,” Santos replied, eyes narrowed.
Mel shrugged. “It was an observational oh.”
Robby nodded. “Clinically, much worse.”
Jack set his coffee down. “Robby.”
Robby folded his arms. “What? I’m supporting the diagnostic process.”
Santos pointed between you and Jack. “Oh, my God.”
You took another sip. Jack’s jaw shifted like he knew exactly where this was going and had decided to let it happen.
Santos’s eyes narrowed. “You’re dating.”
The words landed in the middle of the nurses’ station with the subtlety of a dropped tray. Perlah, passing behind Santos with a stack of supplies, slowed for exactly one step before deciding she valued her peace and kept walking. Mel’s eyes widened. Robby leaned back against the workstation, delighted in a way that did not bode well for anyone. “Interesting theory,” he said.
Santos pointed at him without looking. “You know something.”
“I know many things,” Robby said, nodding wisely.
Her eyes narrowed, “About this.”
“Especially about this,” Robby agreed.
Jack’s eyes cut toward him. Robby smiled. “Sorry. Department morale.”
Santos turned back to you. “Are you dating Abbot?”
You looked at Jack. Jack looked at you. There was a very long second where neither of you spoke, not because you were trying to hide anything, but because the actual answer was so much funnier than the question. “No,” you said.
Santos blinked. “No?”
“No,” Jack said.
Santos stared at both of you. “That was too synchronized.”
“Still true,” Jack said.
She threw up her hands, “Then why do you know her butter?”
You lifted the coffee. “It’s very memorable butter.”
Santos pointed at you. “I do not like you right now.”
You nodded solemnly. “That seems fair.”
Mel looked from you to Jack again, her expression caught somewhere between surprised and delighted. “So you’re not dating?”
Jack picked up his coffee. “No.”
Mel’s eyebrows drew together. “But the coffee?”
“It’s decaf,” Jack said.
Santos made a strangled sound. “That is not an answer.”
Dana turned a page. “It is one if you’ve met him.”
You smiled into your cup. Jack saw that too. The smile. The way you were trying to hide it. The way you were failing because the coffee was good, and he had gone to Aldi for butter, and your son was rolling around like he had decided to make himself known during the least convenient window of time. His face softened before he caught it.
Santos saw that too. She went very still. Then she pointed at him again. “You have a face.”
Jack stared at her. “Most people do.”
“No.” Santos stepped closer. “You have a specific face.”
Robby pressed his lips together. Jack looked unimpressed. “That cleared nothing up.”
“You looked soft.”
“Santos,” Mel said, but she sounded like she was trying not to laugh.
“He did,” Santos insisted. “He looked soft at Child Life.”
You glanced at Jack. “Congratulations.”
His mouth twitched. “Thank you.”
Santos threw a hand out. “See? Vibe.”
Dana sighed. “This is why I don’t work nights.”
“You work all the time,” Robby said.
Dana looked at him. “And yet I avoid this.” The overhead speakers crackled, and someone called for environmental services near trauma two. The ER resumed around you in pieces. Monitors beeped. A printer coughed out discharge paperwork. Someone laughed near the medication room. Jack glanced toward the board. Night shift was beginning to swallow him. You could feel it happening. The department reaching for him. The trauma rooms and consults and handoffs and all the things that would keep him here while you went home to the quiet house with the new loaf of bread on the counter and good honey waiting beside it.
His gaze came back to you. “I’ve got four minutes,” he said.
“Luxury,” you replied.
He almost smiled. “Can I walk you out?”
Your chest warmed before you could stop it. “You have handoff.”
Jack shrugged. “Robby’s still pretending to work.”
Robby lifted one hand without looking away from the show. “Rude. Accurate.”
Jack held your gaze. “Four minutes.”
You smiled despite yourself. “Okay.”
Santos made a sound. “No.”
Jack looked at her. “Problem?”
Her eyes narrowed, “Yes, problem. You cannot say you are not dating and then walk her out with your emotionally loaded coffee situation.”
“It’s her coffee,” Jack said.
“That does not make it less loaded,” Santos replied.
You started gathering your things before Santos could build a formal case. Your notebook went into your Child Life bag. The laminated prep cards slid into their folder. Dr. Pickles, temporarily retired from active duty after Miles’s successful stitches, stayed tucked in the side pocket.
Jack watched your hands. Not hovering. Not taking over. Just ready, the way he always was.
When you reached for the bag strap, his eyes dropped to it. “Can I?” he asked.
The question was quiet enough that it was mostly yours. You handed him the strap. Jack took the bag and settled it onto his shoulder like it belonged there. Santos stared. Mel’s mouth parted slightly. Robby looked delighted enough to require supervision.
Dana did not look up, but she said, “Careful, Abbot. That bag has stickers.”
Jack adjusted the strap. “I’m aware.”
Santos’s voice went flat. “You’re aware.”
You picked up your coffee. “There are a lot of stickers.”
Mel smiled. “That tracks.”
Santos pointed between you again. “You are all hearing this, right?”
Robby pushed away from the workstation. “I hear many things.”
“You knew he carried her bag?”
Robby’s grin widened. “I know many things.”
“Stop saying that,” she snapped.
Robby’s grin turned wicked. “No.”
Jack looked toward the elevator, then back at you. “Ready?” You nodded. The movement made your back complain in a low, annoying pulse. You must have shifted your weight more carefully than you meant to, because Jack’s hand lifted a fraction at his side. He did not touch you. Not here. Not in front of the whole department while Santos was watching like she had been personally assigned to solve the mystery of your entire life. But he wanted to.
You could feel that too. “I’m good,” you said softly.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours for one second longer. Then he nodded. “Okay.”
Santos looked at Mel. “They are absolutely dating.”
“They said they’re not,” Mel said, though her voice had gone thoughtful.
Santos narrowed her eyes. “People lie.”
Dana picked up her bag from the counter. “Sometimes people answer the question asked.”
Santos turned slowly toward her. Dana’s expression stayed mild. Robby made a sound like he was enjoying the evening more than anyone had a right to. Jack started toward the elevators with your Child Life bag on his shoulder and your four-minute goodbye ticking down beside him. You fell into step at his side.
Behind you, Santos made a sound. “Nope,” she said.
You glanced back. She had grabbed her coat from the back of the chair and was already following.
Mel looked between Santos and the elevator. “Are we all going down?”
“I am,” Santos said. “For reasons.”
Robby pushed away from the workstation. “I’m done for the day.”
Dana picked up her bag. “I’m also leaving before this becomes my problem.”
“Too late,” Robby said. Dana ignored him.
Cassie appeared from the hallway with her keys in hand, Langdon beside her, still zipping his coat. “Are people leaving?” Cassie asked.
Jack did not stop walking. “Shift change,” he said.
Robby smiled. “Love this place.”
By the time the elevator doors opened, all of you had somehow become a group. You. Jack. Santos. Mel. Robby. Dana. Langdon. Cassie. It was too many people for one elevator, and exactly the wrong number of witnesses for a secret that had never really been a secret. Santos got in first, like proximity might help her solve whatever crime she had decided Jack was committing. Mel followed, glancing between you and Jack with careful, growing curiosity. Robby stepped in behind her, already wearing the expression of a man who knew exactly how this ended and had chosen not to save anyone. Dana entered last with the resigned calm of someone who had seen more than enough hospital nonsense to recognize when nonsense had become inevitable. Langdon and Cassie squeezed in at the last second, both still half in their coats, both clearly unsure why Santos looked like she was about to interrogate someone under oath. The elevator doors slid shut. Jack stood beside you with your Child Life bag on his shoulder. The bag had three cartoon stickers on the front pocket, two laminated keychains, one slightly crushed granola bar in the side pouch, and Dr. Pickles’s green squishy dinosaur head peeking out from the top. Jack Abbot, night-shift attending, former combat medic, allergic to unnecessary bonding, carried it as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
Which it was to you.
Not, apparently, to everyone else. The elevator hummed down one level. Santos looked at Jack’s shoulder. Then at you. Then back at Jack’s shoulder. “I’m just saying,” she said, “this is weird.”
Jack did not look at her. “Most things are.”
“No.” Santos pointed at your bag. “This is specific weird.”
Robby made a pleased sound. “Specific weird is my favorite kind.”
Dana closed her eyes. Mel pressed her lips together. You took another sip of your decaf, which remained warm and good, and therefore, the only reason you had not started openly laughing. Jack’s gaze slid toward you. Just briefly. That was all. But you knew him well enough to read it. ‘Careful’, his eyes said. You lifted your brows. ‘I am behaving beautifully’, your face said back. His mouth moved at the corner. Santos saw it.
She stepped forward as the elevator doors opened into the parking level. “Oh, absolutely not,” she said. Jack walked out first because he was closest to the doors. You followed with your coffee in hand, the cool garage air brushing across your face. It smelled like concrete, rainwater, and old exhaust, sharp enough to wake you up a little. Somewhere farther down the row, a car chirped unlocked. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Your back ached in that deep, annoying way that felt less like pain and more like your body had reorganized itself without asking permission. You shifted your weight as you walked. Jack noticed. He slowed half a step.
You did not look at him when you said, “I’m good.”
Jack raised a brow. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought it loudly,” you replied.
Robby coughed behind you. Santos’s footsteps stuttered. Mel made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh.
Jack looked down at you. “I’ll work on that.”
You smiled softly. “No, you won’t.”
“No,” he said. “Probably not.”
Santos pointed at both of you as she walked. “See? Dating.”
“We’re still not dating,” Jack said.
Robby’s smile turned bright enough to become a workplace hazard. You started walking towards your car, which was only two rows away, and you were suddenly very aware of the butter in your refrigerator, the honey on your counter, the toast waiting at home, and the fact that your husband was on the edge of being swallowed by the night shift. The group followed. Of course, they followed. Santos had the look of a woman who had found blood in the water and also somehow filed an HR complaint about it in her head. At your car, Jack shifted your bag carefully off his shoulder and handed it to you.
“Can I have that?” he asked.
You smiled and traded him the coffee for the bag so you could dig out your keys. He held the cup without comment, thumb resting against the sleeve, watching you search the pocket where your keys were supposed to be and definitely were not. You frowned. Jack reached into the smaller front pocket without looking. He pulled out your keys. You looked at him.
He held them out. “Front pocket,” he said.
Your eyes narrowed. “I know where my keys are.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Eventually.”
Behind you, Santos made a sound of actual physical pain. Mel whispered, “Oh.”
Langdon looked at Cassie. “What did I miss?”
Cassie’s eyes were huge. “A lot, apparently.”
You unlocked the car. Jack handed your coffee back to you. “Text me when you’re home,” he said.
“You’ll probably be in trauma one, saving lives,” you replied.
Jack grinned. “Text me anyway.”
Your chest warmed. “Bossy,” you said.
Jack’s face softened, small and private. “Accurate.”
You opened your mouth to argue, but your son shifted low and strange again, a flutter turning into something just solid enough to make you pause. It was not painful. Just new. Still new enough that wonder arrived before you could protect yourself from it. Your hand hovered near your cardigan and stopped there. You did not press. You did not draw attention. You only breathed once, slowly. Jack’s eyes dropped. Half a second. No more. When they came back to your face, his expression had changed. Barely. Enough. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” you said, softer. “Just ready to be home.”
He nodded. The department pulled at him from three floors above you. You could feel that too. The invisible hook of night shift. Handoff. Trauma bays. The board. The particular gravity of people needing him. But for this second, in the parking garage, he stayed.
His hand settled briefly at the small of your back. Familiar. Automatic. Yours.
You leaned up without thinking, and he bent down to meet you.
The kiss was quick. Not dramatic. Not performative.
Just the warm press of his mouth against yours before one of you went home and the other went back inside. A married goodbye. The kind that had happened in kitchens, doorways, airport drop-offs, grocery store parking lots, and once in the middle of a hotel hallway when Robby had yelled that he was happy for you but also deeply uncomfortable. Jack pulled back first, but not far. His thumb brushed once against your back before he let his hand fall.
Behind you, something clattered against concrete. Probably Santos’s keys. Possibly Santos’s entire understanding of the world.
“I’m sorry,” Santos said.
You turned. Santos stood ten feet away, mouth open, keys now on the ground near her shoe. Mel had gone perfectly still beside her. Langdon looked like someone had switched the language on a monitor and expected him to interpret the rhythm strip anyway. Cassie had both hands pressed over her mouth. Dana looked at the ceiling like she had requested one quiet shift change and been personally denied. Robby looked like Christmas had come early and brought catering with it.
Santos pointed at Jack. “You said you weren’t dating.”
Jack’s hand stayed near your back. “We’re not.”
“You kissed her,” she replied.
Jack nodded. “I did.”
“So you’re dating,” she replied, gesturing between the two of you.
“No,” Jack said. “We’re not dating anymore.”
Santos blinked. Mel blinked. Cassie dropped her hands. “Anymore?”
You looked up at Jack, then shrugged. “What’s it been, six years?”
“Seven in May,” Jack said.
“Seven in May,” Robby said at the same time.
The garage went silent. You turned slowly toward Robby. Robby lifted both hands. “What? I was there.”
Santos’s mouth opened. “You were where?”
Jack sighed. “Don’t.”
Robby’s smile became catastrophic. “Best man.”
Santos stared at him. “Best man?” she repeated.
Robby nodded. “Great suit. Very emotional day.”
Jack looked at him. “You cried.”
Robby pointed at Jack. “Allegedly.”
You lifted your coffee. “There are photos.”
“Hostile witness,” Robby said.
You looked at Jack. Jack looked back at you, his face soft in a way he probably would have hidden if he had remembered anyone else was there.
Santos made a sound. Not a word. A sound. Then she looked at Jack. Then at you. Then at Jack again. “You’re married?”
Jack nodded once. “Yep.”
You nodded too. “Yep.”
The garage erupted.
“YOU’RE MARRIED?” Santos’s voice bounced off three levels of concrete.
Jack winced. “Inside voice.”
“No.” Santos stabbed a finger toward him. “Absolutely not. You do not get an inside voice right now. You lost inside voice privileges when you kissed Child Life in a parking garage and revealed a seven-year marriage.”
Cassie looked between you and Jack, eyes bright with shock. “Wait, before PTMC?”
You nodded. “Before PTMC.”
Mel’s expression softened. “That’s why the coffee.”
Santos spun toward her. “Do not act like the coffee was enough information.”
“It was emotionally loaded coffee,” Cassie said.
Robby pointed at her. “She gets it.”
Jack’s eyes closed for half a second. Dana adjusted the bag on her shoulder. “This could have been an email.”
Santos turned on her. “You knew.”
Dana looked at her. “Yes.”
Santos threw both hands out. “Why does everyone know?”
“Everyone does not know,” Dana said.
“I didn’t know!” Santos exclaimed.
Dana’s expression stayed perfectly calm. “Then, everyone clearly does not know.”
Mel pressed her lips together. Cassie turned away, shoulders shaking.
Santos pointed at Dana. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Dana’s eyebrows lifted. “It was not my marriage to announce.” Santos stared at her. Dana added, “Also, you never asked.”
Jack’s mouth twitched. Santos looked personally betrayed by the entire universe. Then she turned on Robby. “You,” she said.
Robby put a hand to his chest. “Me?”
She glared at him. “You knew for seven years.”
“Technically longer. They dated before that,” Robby replied.
Jack stared at him. Robby shrugged. “Context matters.”
Santos took one step toward him. “You watched me investigate Aldi butter like an idiot.”
Robby grinned, “You were doing great.”
“I hate you.” Santos snapped.
Mel looked at you, still gentle despite the chaos. “How did you meet?”
That quieted the group by a fraction. Not completely. But enough. You felt Jack beside you, the small shift in his body. Not discomfort exactly. Something older. Something private. Your hand tightened around your coffee. “Military hospital,” you said.
Mel’s face softened. Cassie’s expression changed too, curiosity gentling into something more careful. Santos, to her credit, did not make a joke. Jack looked toward the far end of the garage, then back at you. You smiled a little. “He was lurking outside room 417.”
Jack’s eyebrows lifted. “Lurking.”
“You were standing in the hallway pretending not to hover,” you said to him.
Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I was waiting.”
“For what?” you asked. He paused.
Robby leaned in. “Careful. This is how history gets written.”
Jack gave him a look. You looked back at Mel. “I was helping a little girl get ready to see her dad after he’d been hurt. Jack saw us.”
Mel’s eyes warmed. Cassie pressed a hand to her chest. “That’s actually really sweet.”
“He asked someone who I was,” you added.
Robby nodded immediately. “Immediately.”
Jack looked at him. “You weren’t there.”
“I know Miller,” Robby said. “Miller told the story better.”
Jack’s jaw shifted. “Miller told the story worse.”
You smiled. “Then he asked me for coffee.”
Santos squinted at Jack. “You asked someone out?”
Jack stared at her. “Yes.”
“Out loud?” she continued.
Jack looked confused. “How else would I do it?”
Robby opened his mouth. Jack pointed at him without looking. “No.”
Robby closed his mouth with visible effort. Langdon looked at you. “And he proposed?”
“No,” Santos said, already turning back to Jack with renewed offense. “No, wait. I need this. How did Abbot propose? Did he do it with words? Did he make eye contact? Did he file paperwork?”
Jack looked toward the elevator. “I have to go back inside.”
“Absolutely not,” Santos said. “You owe us seven years of lore.”
Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “I owe you nothing.”
“You owe me emotional damages,” she snapped back.
Dana started toward her car. “You’ll survive.”
“I might not,” Santos called after her.
Dana did not turn around. “Then update your emergency contact.”
Robby laughed. Jack did not. Mel looked at you, smiling now. “How did he propose?”
You glanced at Jack. His face had gone quieter, the line of his mouth held flat like he knew what you were about to say and wanted very badly to stop you, but not enough to actually do it. You loved him so much that it made you a little stupid. “He put it on the grocery list,” you said.
Santos stopped moving. “I’m sorry?”
Robby’s face lit up. “Oh, this is good.”
Jack looked at him. “Do not.”
Robby ignored him completely. “Strong list.”
Cassie whispered, “The grocery list?”
You nodded. “At home. In the kitchen. He asked me to look it over and see if he missed anything.”
Mel’s smile grew. Langdon blinked. “And he wrote ‘proposal’ on it?”
“Not proposal,” you said.
Jack’s expression softened before he could stop it. You looked down at your coffee. “He wrote, ‘marry me?’” You said. “With a question mark.”
Cassie made a soft noise. Mel pressed the tablet to her chest. “That’s beautiful.”
Santos pointed at Jack. “You proposed with errands.”
Jack’s jaw shifted. “She said yes.”
Robby nodded gravely. “Again. Strong list.”
You smiled. “There was coffee on it, too.”
“Of course there was,” Dana called from near her car.
Santos dragged both hands down her face. “This entire department is a conspiracy.”
“It’s not a conspiracy,” Mel said, though she was still smiling.
Santos turned to her. “You are only saying that because you’re happy for them.”
“I am happy for them,” Mel replied.
Jack looked at you then, and the noise around you thinned for a second. His eyes moved over your face. Tired. Nauseous. Amused. Softened by good decaf and too much attention and the strange tenderness of watching your private life become public in one loud, ridiculous burst. He stepped closer. “Enough,” he said, not exactly to the group. To you, maybe. For you.
Santos opened her mouth. Jack looked at her. She shut it. Mostly.
He turned back to you. “Go home. Eat your toast.”
Santos pointed weakly. “See? Again with the toast.”
You opened your car door. “Goodnight, Santos.”
“The toast was married toast,” she glared at you.
“All toast is married if you use the good honey,” Robby said.
Dana opened her car door. “I’m leaving before this gets worse.”
“It can get worse?” Langdon asked.
Robby smiled. “Always.”
Jack handed you the coffee one last time, his fingers brushing yours around the cup.
“Text me when you’re home,” he said.
You nodded once. “I will.”
“And after toast,” he added.
You smiled. “Bossy.”
His gaze held yours. “Married,” he corrected quietly.
Your chest went warm. “Apparently,” you said.
His mouth softened. For a second, you wanted to stay there. To keep him in the parking garage under bad fluorescent lights with your bag in his hand and the whole department spinning around the two of you. To have one more minute before the ER took him back. But the night shift was already waiting. And you had toast to make. And a son the ER did not know about yet, shifting softly beneath your ribs like he had survived his first family scandal and found it unimpressive.
You slid into the driver’s seat. Jack shut the door carefully after you were settled. Through the open window, Santos was still staring at him like she had discovered a new organ. “I have follow-up questions,” she said.
Jack nodded once. “I’m sure.”
She pointed at him. “Tomorrow.”
“No,” Jack said immediately.
“Yes.” Santos snapped back.
Dana’s voice carried from across the row. “Tomorrow will be worse if you fight it.”
Robby lifted a hand. “I have photos.”
Jack’s head turned slowly. “Do not,” he said.
Robby smiled at you over Jack’s shoulder. “I have selected favorites.”
You laughed as you set your coffee in the cup holder. Jack looked pained. Santos looked reborn. Mel looked delighted. Cassie was already whispering something to Langdon, who still seemed stuck on the phrase grocery list. And you realized, with your good decaf beside you and your husband standing in the parking garage in his dark scrubs, that PTMC had finally caught up to a story that had been yours for years.
Santos pointed at Jack one last time. “Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
Jack glanced toward the elevators, already half-pulled back to work. Then he looked at you. His mouth moved, barely. “You never asked,” he said.
Santos stared at him. “That,” she said, “is the most annoying thing you have ever said.”
Robby leaned closer to your window. “Top five.”
Jack looked at him. “Go home.”
Robby pushed off your car with a grin. “Yes, sir.”
You started the engine. Jack stepped back, but his eyes stayed on yours until you pulled out of the space. In the rearview mirror, you saw him standing there for one more second, surrounded by people who suddenly knew one of the truest things about him. Then the elevator doors opened. Night shift called him back.
ׂׂׂૢYou and Tucker slept together once, and while it was a mistake on your part, Tucker can't seem to leave you alone. You've got him completely addicted. He spends every spare second trying to convince you that he can treat you better than anyone ever has.
•°. *࿐•°. *࿐•°. *࿐•°. *࿐•°. *࿐•°. *࿐
The first time you slept with Tucker, it wasn't supposed to mean anything. At least that's what you told yourself. You'd spent two years rebuilding yourself after your ex. Two years scraping pieces of your dignity off the floor after being lied to, cheated on, and fed promises that turned out to be empty. Somewhere along the way, you stopped believing men were worth the effort.
Tucker, unfortunately, didn't seem to get the memo. "Just one date." he pleads "No." you say emotionless. "Okay so then maybe dinner as friends?" he says grabbing your bag for you, "Tucker." He grinned from where he sat across from you in the student lounge. "I'm hearing maybe."
You rolled your eyes, the problem wasn't that Tucker annoyed you. The problem was that he didn't. He remembered things. Tiny things. The way you hated onions. The way you always ordered extra ice. The fact that you got quiet whenever someone you didn't know would show up. Most people saw your walls and walked away.
That didn’t bother Tucker in the slightest. "You know," he said casually, "I could treat you way better than that loser ever did." You laughed. He tilted his head. "You hear one thing about my ex and suddenly you're trying to save me." His smile faded slightly. "No." He protested.
"Yeah." you say chuckling. "No." His voice was quieter this time. "I'm trying to convince you that you deserve better." The words landed harder than they should have. You hated that. You hated that every time he looked at you, it felt genuine. You hated that he never pushed when you told him to back off.
Most of all, you hated that part of you wanted to believe him. "You should give up," you said. Tucker laughed softly. "Not happening." you roll your eyes and continue walking. "You are unbelievably stubborn John." you say half jokingly,
"You don't even know what you're fighting for, and you don't really want me. ." His eyes met yours. "Yeah, I do." you knew exactly what he meant, he wasn't chasing some fantasy version of you. He'd seen the trust issues, the bitterness. The way you ignore him anytime something starts to feel real.
And he stayed, not because he thought he could fix you. Because he wanted you anyway. "Tucker..." His expression softened. "You don't have to decide anything," he said. "I know you're scared." You opened your mouth to argue. He raised an eyebrow. "Terrified, actually."
You rolled your eyes. "Shut up." A smile tugged at his lips. "Look, all I'm saying is that whenever you're ready to stop assuming every guy is your ex, I'll be here. I promise you, I am not him." The worst part wasn't that Tucker wanted you. The worst part was that after months of fighting it, you wanted him too.
—
A month later, Tucker was still trying. Good morning texts, Pictures of him randomly doing things, random complaints about classes. The occasional "you should come to my game tonight" that always ended with you changing the conversation, and tonight was no different.
Tucker: Big game tonight.
You didn't answer.
Tucker: I know you're reading this sunshine.
Tucker: You're actually the most stubborn person I've ever met.
You smiled
You: Go focus on hockey.
Three dots appeared immediately.
Tucker: So you're coming?
You: Tucker. Stop.
Tucker: :(
You locked your phone.
—
The arena was loud. You immediately regretted showing up. The stands were packed with students, music blaring through the speakers while players skated warmups across the ice. You pulled your jacket tighter around yourself and climbed into an empty seat near the glass.
Nobody knew you were there. Especially Tucker. You told yourself you weren't there for him. You were just curious. Just wanted to see what all the fuss was about and nothing more. Then Tucker skated past, and somehow he spotted you immediately. You watched his head snap toward the stands. Then stop…Then do a double take. A slow grin spread across his face.
The entire warmup he kept glancing over. Every single time he passed your section. It was ridiculous. By the time the game started you could practically feel his excitement from across the rink. The game itself was surprisingly entertaining. Fast. Aggressive.
You caught yourself paying attention whenever he had the puck. Caught yourself getting nervous when he got checked into the boards. Caught yourself cheering when he scored. The second the puck hit the back of the net, Tucker's head turned toward the stands. Toward you.
His teammates crashed into him in celebration while he pointed in your direction. The girl beside you shouted. "HE SCORED FOR YOU." She said with a huge grin on her face. "He did not."
—
They won.
Unfortunately.
You were halfway to the parking lot when someone grabbed your elbow. "Took you long enough." You turned. Tucker stood there with wet hair and flushed cheeks, still wearing part of his gear. The smile on his face was so cute it made you melt.
"You came." you give him a soft smile "You actually came." You rolled your eyes. “Just wanted to see if you were actually a good player like everyone says.” His grin somehow got bigger. For a moment neither of you spoke. The parking lot buzzed around you with people leaving the arena. Then Tucker's expression softened. "You stayed the whole game."
The simple observation hit harder than it should have. He knew you haven't stayed a whole game since your ex, he hadn't expected you to. Part of him still thought you'd leave. You looked away. "Yeah." When you looked back, he was staring. Not with his usual teasing smile. Just looking at you. Like you were something he'd been waiting for.
Your chest tightened. "Tucker." you say uncomfortable. He hummed "You know this doesn't mean anything, right?" A laugh escaped him. "You keep saying that." He pauses "And somehow you keep showing up."
—--
The fight with your mom started at 8 that morning. You'd called her on your way to class hoping that this time she would comfort you. By the end of the conversation, you were sitting in your car gripping the steering wheel while she listed all the ways you were disappointing her.
Your grades weren't where they should be, you weren't taking enough classes, you spent too much time on soccer, you didn't spend enough time on soccer. You weren't trying hard enough, you weren't enough.
The conversation ended the same way they always did, with words neither of you could take back. The rest of the day only got worse. A failed exam, terrible practice, coach who pulled you aside afterward just to tell you he expected more from you. By six o'clock, you felt hollow.
Like somebody had scooped everything out of your chest and left nothing behind. You sat in your car long after the sun started setting. Not driving, not moving, just staring. You thought about calling Hannah, but you couldn't stand the thought of talking. Couldn't stand the thought of explaining why your voice sounded the way it did.
Somehow you ended up pulling into Tucker's neighborhood. You feel stupid immediately. What were you doing? You weren't his girlfriend, you weren't even really anything. You sat there for another minute. Before finally getting out. You climbed the steps before you could knock, the door opened, Garrett stood there. His eyebrows shot up. "Hey."
Garrett knew you. Not well, but enough. Enough to know something was wrong. His expression changed immediately. "Are you okay?" The question almost made your eyes sting, you hated that stupid question.
"Is Tucker here?" Garrett glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah, he's-" The reality of what you were doing hit you all at once. Showing up at Tucker's house because your life was falling apart. Showing up because somewhere along the way he'd become the person you thought about when things got bad. Your chest tightened. No. No, that was pathetic. You took a step back. "Actually, never mind."
Garrett frowned. "What?" You shake your head. "Forget it." He sighs, you forced a smile. "I should go." Then you turned and walked away before he could stop you. The cold evening air hit your face. Your vision blurred. You hated yourself for coming. Hated yourself for crying. Hated that after everything, after all your promises to never depend on another person again, you'd somehow ended up on Tucker's doorstep.
You were halfway to your car when the front door opened behind you.
"Hey sunshine"
You stopped walking, the stupid nickname he gave you because he said you were the grumpiest person he knew, and needed sunshine. His voice alone was enough to make your throat tighten. Footsteps hurried down the porch steps. You didn't look at him. If you looked at him, you knew exactly what would happen. "What happened?" His voice was soft.
"Nothing." It came out weaker than you wanted. "You never come here." The lump in your throat grew. You stared at your car, at the pavement. Anywhere but him.
"I wasn't thinking." You squeezed your eyes shut, the tears were coming now. The horrible kind that showed up after holding everything together for too long. "I just..." Your voice broke.
People wanted things from you all the time.
Teachers, coaches, your mom. Everyone wanted more. More effort, more success, more perfection. Nobody had stopped to ask if you were okay. Nobody except him. Your eyes filled before you could stop them, you looked down quickly. Tucker didn't say anything.
Didn't tell you not to cry, didn't ask questions, didn't try to fix it. He just stepped closer embracing you into his body, that was the thing that finally broke you. A tear slipped down your cheek. You laughed weakly at yourself. Tucker's face softened. "You don't have to leave, I'm here for you sunshine, just let me in.”
—
You'd been ignoring Tucker for almost three weeks. His texts went unanswered, calls went straight to voicemail. So the last person you expected to see standing outside the soccer field after practice was him. you spotted him leaning against the fence. The second his eyes found yours, he pushed off it.
"We need to talk." You groaned and started walking past him. "Tucker, don't." "No." That made you stop. His voice was angry. "I've done the space thing. I've done the waiting thing. I'm done pretending I'm okay with you disappearing." Your chest tightened. "Tucker-”
"I like you." You froze. "I really, really like you." Your heart started pounding. "I think about you all the time. I look for you everywhere. When something happens, you're the first person I want to tell." You stared at him. "Tucker..."
"And I'm not here because I expect you to magically trust me." His voice softened. "I'm here because I know you're scared, and I know that's why you're running." He stepped closer. "I'm not asking you to marry me." A small smile tugged at your lips. "I'm asking you to stop pretending there's nothing between us."
"I don't want to keep fighting for someone who won't let me in. And all my friends tell me to just let you go." The honesty in his voice hurt, you knew he was right. You'd spent weeks pushing him away because it felt safer than admitting how much you cared.
Tucker looked at you for a long moment. "If you tell me you don't feel anything, I'll leave. I promise sunshine." Your heart sank immediately, you couldn't say it, couldn't lie to him. A smile slowly appeared on Tucker's face. "Yeah," he said quietly. "That's what I thought."
You rolled your eyes, trying to hide the tears threatening to form. "You're so annoying." His grin widened "So," he said. "So?" you repeated. "Can I finally take you on a date?" You laughed and nodded. "One date." you say softly "Oh sunshine, there's going to be more than one date." he says and kisses the side of your forehead.
Summary: Tucker is finally going to ask the big question when suddenly… he can't even say a word because of how nervous he is.
Disclaimer: English is not my first language, so I apologize if there are any spelling or grammatical errors.
I saw this post and immediately thought about Tucker 🤠.
The sun was starting to hide, bringing beautiful colors to the sky. You love to watch the sunset. It gives you peace to the point that you don't even feel the cold that the afternoon was bringing. It has been such a beautiful day for you and your boyfriend of years, Tucker. It started with you finding your old photo book that you made back in college and remembering all those days. Even if it has been just a couple of years since you all graduated, it feels like much more, and you definitely miss those days sometimes.
Then you and Tucker made lunch together, something you both weren't capable of doing as often as before because of your jobs. He insisted on making your favorite food and, by surprise, he made your favorite dessert too. You received a lot of calls during the day from all your friends: Hannah and Garrett, Dean and Allie, Logan and Grace. All of them wanted to know about your day, and you happily told everyone about it. By the time Logan and Grace called, you started to suspect something, but you weren't really sure what was supposed to happen that all your friends were so eager to know about.
Then Tucker takes you to your favorite place for dinner, and you start connecting the dots. But you didn't want to get your hopes up and be disappointed by the end of the day, so you told yourself that it was all because you both had been working so hard that you hadn't been able to spend proper time together.
You ignored the expensive restaurant, how Tucker insisted on dressing well, how much he was sweating, and how he protected his left pocket with his life.
That day started so well, and it was going to have an even better ending.
When your dinner was over, you both ended up walking around the city to your special place for watching the sunset. You didn't notice when he left your side until he tapped your shoulder and you turned around.
He got on one knee, pulled the velvet box out of his pocket where it had been all day, and with shaking hands he opened it, revealing the ring that made your eyes start to tear up and your heart race. You couldn't believe that it was happening. Your hands covered your mouth by reflex, and time stopped for you. You didn't even register if there were more people around you because it was just you and him.
Tucker found the courage to look at you when he heard you gasp. And when his eyes met yours, his mind went blank. The speech he had prepared for months was gone, his ability to breathe was forgotten, and how to properly speak was erased from his mind.
He just stood there on one knee with the box between his hands and his eyes on you, watching every little gesture you made and how your eyes went from glossy to letting tears run down your cheeks. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't even recall a single word of that speech he wrote in his phone notes and perfected for months.
The only thing that he managed to get out of his mouth was:
“Please?”
His eyes were as big as a puppy's, practically begging you to say something, to say yes.
Tucker swore he was going to throw up because you may have taken seconds to answer, but for him it was practically hours.
“Yes!!! Yes, yes, yes,” you repeated a couple more times, saying far more words than Tucker during the whole proposal.
You jumped into his arms, and he stood up to catch you, air finally filling his lungs. You hid your face in the crook of his neck, unable to stop crying, and Tucker recovered his ability to speak.
“I love you,” he said your name like a prayer. “And I want to be by your side, loving you with all I have, for the rest of my life.” It was a promise, almost like a vow.
“I love you too, John Tucker,” you answered, looking at his face and seeing how pale he was.
You took the stray strand of hair that had come loose from his bun and moved it away from his face so you could scatter kisses all over it. He laughed, and you finally saw his beautiful dimpled smile that warmed your heart.
He took the ring and placed it on your ring finger. It fit like a glove. It didn't surprise you that he got your ring size right; after all, Tucker was quite a perfectionist. You looked at your finger without quite believing that it was happening. You were going to be Mrs. Tucker. You were going to marry your college boyfriend, the one nobody in your family believed you would stay with for this long.
The ring was exactly the one you always wanted. You were surprised by it because the only time you told him about it was when you two had been together for less than a year. You were young and drunk because of those huge parties that used to be so common back in the day at the frat house of Tucker and the rest of the boys. You told him because you were so sure that he was the one, and you were really surprised that he remembered it because he was as drunk as you were, or even more.
“I had a whole cute speech prepared,” he confessed, embarrassed, feeling the heat creep into his face.
You looked back at him.
“Can I hear it now?”
He smiled, placing one of his hands on your cheek and leaving little caresses there, his other hand intertwined with yours. He leaned toward you, leaving a sweet kiss on your temple before resting his forehead against yours.
You just closed your eyes, letting yourself feel the moment.
He whispered:
“Beautiful girl, I have loved you since the first day we met. I love everything about you, even the things you hate about yourself. I love them even more because the only thing you deserve is to be loved for the rest of your life. In the ups and downs, to have a friend, a partner in crime, a sous-chef, someone who makes you laugh through the difficult times and loves you with all his heart. If you let me, I can be that person until our last days, and not even then, because I plan to love you and follow you wherever you go. Heaven or another life, I'll find you and love you in the way you deserve because my heart belongs to you and it always will.”
He let out a shaky breath before opening his eyes and finding yours. Love could not be hidden, not in your gaze or his.
“Would you give me the honor of being your husband?”
“Yes!!” you said immediately. “Always.”
He captured your lips in a sweet kiss that mixed with the tears of both of you. You giggled when he broke the kiss and started leaving multiple kisses all over your face, his beard tickling you.
“I need to get that speech printed,” you mumbled against his lips when he left another kiss on your mouth.
“Then it's a good thing I have it on camera,” he said, pointing his head toward where his phone was recording.
He had set up a camera because he knew you would want photos and a video to remember the moment. Now he just wanted to throw it in the trash and never see the video, at least not the first part of it.
Of course, you did want to watch the video. You practically ran to the phone and stopped the recording, and if you were honest, you didn't really recall the nervousness on Tucker's face and in his body until you watched the video and saw how he got down on one knee and looked like he had a loading bar stuck to his forehead.
“We are never showing that to anybody,” and by that he meant all the boys.
“I’m definitely showing that to our future children.”
Your enthusiasm made Tucker not argue. It would make him the happiest man alive to teach your future children what love looks like.
Because that was what you and Tucker were: the definition of a cloying love, which you loved more than anything.
It was the end of one phase in your relationship and the start of a new one that you both were really excited to begin.
Warning(s): Fluff, mild body insecurity/anxiety, Garrett being an absolute sweetheart.
The invitation had been taped to the fridge for a week, a glossy cardstock reminder of your impending doom: The Annual Briar Hockey Kickoff Pool Party.
To anyone else, it sounded like the event of the semester. Sun, music, free alcohol, and a house full of elite athletes. But to you? It felt like a public execution.
You stood in front of the full-length mirror in Garrett’s bedroom, staring at your reflection in your swimsuit. The fabric dug in slightly at your hips, and every perceived flaw, every soft curve, and every insecurity you usually hid beneath oversized sweaters felt magnified under the harsh bedroom lighting.
Everyone there is going to look like a Sports Illustrated model, your brain whispered. You’re going to stick out like a sore thumb.
A wave of sudden, suffocating panic washed over you. Your throat tightened, and before you could stop them, hot tears spilled over your eyelashes. You quickly sat on the edge of the bed, burying your face in your hands, trying to breathe through the sudden tightness in your chest.
You didn't hear the door click open, but you definitely felt the shift in the room when Garrett walked in.
"Hey, beautiful, Tucker is downstairs honking his horn like a maniac because—" Garrett stopped dead in his tracks. The easy, cocky grin vanished from his face, replaced instantly by pure concern. He dropped his gym bag to the floor with a heavy thud. "Hey. Hey, what's wrong?"
In a second, he was on his knees in front of you, his large hands gently prying your wrists away from your face. His gray eyes scanned your tear-stained cheeks, full of a fierce, protective worry.
"I can't go," you choked out, your voice small and thick with embarrassment. "I can't go to the party, Garrett. You should just go without me."
Garrett frowned, his thumbs softly wiping away the tears tracking down your cheeks. "What do you mean I should go without you? I don't want to go without you. Did someone say something? Did Tucker open his mouth? Because I will punch him, I don't care if it's preseason—"
"No! No, no one said anything," you interrupted, looking down at your lap because looking at his perfect, sculpted chest—already shirtless and clad in boardshorts—was making you feel infinitely worse. "It's just… the swimsuit. And the party. Everyone is going to look perfect, Garrett. The hockey girls, the cheerleaders… and then there’s me. I just don't feel good. I feel… big. And soft. And I don’t want people looking at me and wondering why you're with me."
The room went dead silent.
For a terrifying second, you thought you had annoyed him. But when you finally dared to look up, Garrett wasn't annoyed. He looked completely heartbroken.
"Is that really what you think?" he asked, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly register.
You shrugged miserably, a fresh tear escaping.
Garrett let out a long breath, leaning forward so his forehead rested against yours for a brief, grounding moment. When he pulled back, his hands moved from your face down to your waist, his palms warm against your skin. He didn't pinch, he didn't adjust—he just held you, his grip firm and steady.
"Look at me," he commanded softly. You met his gaze. "You are hands down the most beautiful person in every single room you walk into. And I’m not just saying that because I’m your boyfriend and it’s my job. I’m saying it because it’s a fact."
"Garrett—"
"Nope, shut up, I’m talking," he interrupted, a faint, tender smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "You think I give a shit about what anyone else at that party thinks? Half of those guys are idiots who couldn't find a book in a library, let alone dictate what’s attractive. And the girls? They aren't you. I don't want them. I want you."
His hands slid back up to cup your face again, forcing you to take in the absolute sincerity radiating from him. Garrett Graham was a lot of things—cocky, competitive, a golden-boy captain—but he never lied to you.
"Every single inch of you is perfect," he murmured, his eyes dropping to your lips before snapping back to yours. "If anyone dares to look at you and wonder why I’m with you, it’s because they’re wondering how a guy like me scored someone so completely out of his league. Because that’s the truth. I’m the lucky one here."
Your breath hitched, the tight knot of anxiety in your chest finally starting to unravel under the sheer weight of his devotion. "You really mean that?"
"With everything I've got," he said fiercely. He leaned in, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your lips. It tasted like mint and felt like safety. When he pulled away, he gave your waist a playful little squeeze. "Now, if you want to stay home, we will stay home. I’ll text Logan and tell him we’re out, and we can order a pizza and watch whatever terrible reality TV show you want. I don’t care about the party. I just care about you."
You looked down at your swimsuit again. It didn't magically change, and the insecurities didn't completely vanish—that's not how anxiety works. But looking at Garrett, seeing the absolute worship in his eyes, made the voice in your head feel a whole lot smaller.
You wanted to go. You wanted to see him be the captain, wanted to laugh with his friends, and honestly? You wanted to wear the damn swimsuit.
"Can we… can I wear one of your oversized button-downs over it? Just for a bit?" you asked quietly.
Garrett’s face lit up with a brilliant, blinding smile. "You can have my entire wardrobe. Hold on."
He bounced up, walking over to his closet and tossing a lightweight, unbuttoned white linen shirt onto the bed. "Here. It'll look hot on you anyway."
You let out a wet laugh, wiping your eyes one last time as you slipped your arms into the shirt. It smelled entirely like him—mahogany, cedarwood, and clean laundry. It draped down past your hips, giving you the perfect amount of comfort.
"Better?" Garrett asked, walking back over and wrapping his arms around your waist from behind, looking at your joint reflection in the mirror. He rested his chin on your shoulder, his chest pressed flat against your back.
You looked at the two of you in the glass. He looked big and protective; you looked safe and held.
"Better," you whispered, turning your head to kiss his cheek.
"Good," Garrett smirked, his usual playful arrogance returning now that he knew you were okay. He nipped playfully at your earlobe. "Because you look incredible. And honestly, I’m probably going to spend the whole night trying to keep my hands to myself, so really, you’re the one causing the problems here."
"Oh, shut up, Graham," you laughed, shoving his chest playfully as you grabbed your sunglasses.
"Never," he grinned, taking your hand and lacing his fingers tightly through yours as he led you out into the afternoon sun.
There was a specific kind of silence that existed between a ceasefire and a surrender. It wasn't peaceful. It was the heavy, suffocating quiet of a battlefield when the artillery stops but the smoke hasn’t cleared—the kind of silence where you stay flat on your back in the mud, holding your breath, waiting to see if the next sound is a medic or a firing squad.
That was exactly how the bedroom felt.
The digital clock on Dean’s nightstand glowed a sharp, neon green: 2:14 AM. The numbers cast a sickly hue over the piles of discarded clothes, the silver championship ring glittering on his dresser, and the empty space on the mattress beside you.
You were awake. You had been awake for three hours, staring at the ceiling of the off-campus house, listening to the muffled, bass-heavy thud of music vibrating through the floorboards from downstairs. The hockey team had won their mid-season matchup against Harvard tonight. Naturally, the house had mutated into a sweaty, beer-slicked haven for half the campus before the third period was even over.
Dean had asked you to come down. He had wrapped his massive, heavy arms around your waist from behind while you were brushing your teeth earlier that evening, pressing his lips to the junction of your neck and shoulder, smelling of expensive cologne and victory. “Come celebrate with me, sweetheart,” he’d murmured, his voice that low, velvety purr that usually turned your knees to water. “Show off for me.”
But you hadn’t gone down. You had stayed upstairs, claiming a headache, because lately, looking at Dean Di Laurentis in a room full of people felt like trying to look directly at the sun. It burned. It reminded you that no matter how tightly he held you in the dark, the rest of the world still remembered him as the untouchable, silver-spoon god of Briar University—the guy who used women like disposable cups and never drank from the same one twice.
A sudden shift in the noise downstairs signaled the party was finally fracturing. The front door slammed. Laughter echoed in the driveway.
Then came the heavy, slightly uneven thud of footsteps ascending the stairs.
Your chest tightened, a familiar, toxic shot of adrenaline hitting your bloodstream. You closed your eyes, adjusting your breathing to a slow, rhythmic pattern, pretending to be asleep. It was a defense mechanism you’d mastered over the last month. If you were asleep, you didn't have to talk. If you didn't have to talk, you didn't have to fight.
The door clicked open.
The scent hit the room before he did: expensive vodka, stale beer, winter air, and a faint, floral undertone that definitely didn't belong to you.
Dean moved through the darkness with the innate grace of a predator who knew the terrain. He kicked off his shoes, the heavy thud of his boots hitting the closet door. He didn't turn on the light. He didn't need to. He slid his jeans down, leaving them in a puddle on the floor, before crawling onto the mattress.
The bed sagged violently under his weight. Instantly, the heat radiating off him rolled over you. He reached for you automatically, a muscle-memory reflex developed over months of sharing this bed. His large, calloused hand slid over your hip, pulling your back flush against his chest. He buried his face in your hair, inhaling deeply.
"I know you're awake," he whispered. His voice was thick, rough around the edges from shouting over a sound system and drinking top-shelf liquor.
You didn't move. You kept your eyes shut. "Go to sleep, Dean."
"You didn't come down," he muttered, his hand tightening slightly on your hip, pulling you closer until there was no air between you. "Tucker asked where you were. Logan asked. I looked like a fucking idiot walking around my own house alone."
"You're never alone in a room full of people, Dean," you said quietly, finally opening your eyes to stare at the dark wall. "I'm sure you found plenty of company."
The tension in his frame was instantaneous. His muscles turned to granite against your back. He didn't pull away, but the warmth vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp rigidity.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he demanded, his voice dropping an octave.
"Nothing."
"Don't do that," he snapped, shoving himself up on one elbow so he could look down at you. In the dim green light of the clock, his sharp jawline looked jagged, his eyes dark and unreadable. "Don't do that passive-aggressive bullshit. If you've got something to say, say it."
You turned over slowly, looking up at him. The gray light caught the faint silhouette of his shoulders. He looked magnificent. He always did. That was the tragedy of it.
"I don't have anything to say," you lied, your voice cracking slightly. "I'm tired."
"You're not tired. You're punishing me," Dean said, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. "You've been punishing me for weeks, and I don't even know what the fuck I did."
You stared at him, the silence stretching out between you like a barbed-wire fence. There was no war. You hadn't screamed at him. He hadn't broken up with you. But there was no peace, either. Just this. This endless, agonizing cold war.
The cracks hadn’t formed overnight; they had spider-webbed slowly, tracing the fault lines of who Dean Di Laurentis used to be.
Before you, Dean didn't do relationships. He did marathons. He did weekends in New York, penthouse suites, and a rotating door of beautiful, nameless girls who were more than happy to be a footnote in his gilded life. When he chose you, everyone at Briar had held their breath, waiting for the punchline. You had believed him when he said he was done with that life. You had believed him because when Dean looked at you, it felt like the entire world narrowed down to a single point.
But confidence is a fragile thing when it’s built on the shifting sands of a playboy’s reputation.
The shift had happened three weeks ago at a mid-week mixer. You had walked out of the bathroom to find Dean cornered against the kitchen counter by two girls from the lacrosse team. He wasn't pushing them away. He was leaning back, that lazy, devastating smirk plastered on his face, his eyes hooded as he took a sip of his drink. He was performing. He was being Dean Di Laurentis, the myth, the legend. One of the girls had reached out, her fingers lingering on the collar of his shirt, laughing at something he said.
He hadn't stopped her. He had looked up, caught your eye across the crowded kitchen, and the smirk had faltered—but he hadn't moved away either. He had stayed right there, trapped in the amber of his own vanity.
Since then, the poison had set in. Every time he picked up his phone, every time he stayed out late with the team, every time a girl giggled a little too loudly in his vicinity, the ghost of his past stood between you.
"You smell like perfume," you whispered into the dark bedroom, the words finally slipping out before you could stop them.
Dean stiffened. "It's a party. People bump into each other. I was poured into a booth with ten different people after the game."
"It's always a party, Dean. And it's always someone else's perfume." You sat up, pulling the duvet up to cover your chest, suddenly feeling naked and vulnerable under his scrutiny. "I'm just tired of wondering."
"Wondering what?" he asked, his voice rising, a dangerous edge of frustration cutting through the alcohol. "Wondering if I'm cheating on you? Is that what you think of me? After everything? After months of me giving you every single piece of myself, you still think I'm just waiting to jump into bed with the next girl who smiles at me?"
"I think you miss it," you said, the truth cutting through the air like a knife. "I think you miss how easy it was when you didn't have to care about anyone's feelings. I think you miss the validation of a room full of girls wanting you, and I think you let them get close enough to remind yourself that you still have it."
Dean sat up completely, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He rubbed his hands over his face, a long, harsh breath rattling in his throat. When he pulled his hands away, he didn't look at you. He stared at the floor.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he muttered.
"Don't I?" You felt a tear slip down your cheek, hot and humiliating. "Tonight. Tell me you didn't let someone touch you tonight, Dean. Tell me you didn't play the part."
He didn't answer right away. And in that hesitation, the world crumbled just a little bit more.
"I was drunk," he said quietly, his voice dangerously level. "Some girl from the sophomore class was toasted. She stumbled into me by the keg. She started talking, leaning into me. I didn't… I didn't invite it."
"But you didn't move," you finished for him, the realization settling into your chest like a block of ice. "Because it feels good, doesn't it? Having them look at you like that."
Dean turned his head, his gray eyes flashing with a sudden, volatile anger. "Yeah, it feels good! You know why? Because at least when I'm downstairs, people look at me like they actually want me there. I come up here, and you look at me like I'm a monster. You look at me like I've already broken your heart, so what the fuck is the difference if I do or I don't?"
The words hit you like a physical blow. You flinched, pulling the blanket tighter around yourself.
"Is that your excuse?" your voice trembled. "You're going to slide back into your old habits because I'm not cheerful enough for you? Because I'm insecure about the fact that my boyfriend used to treat women like sports cars?"
"I don't want an excuse because I didn't do anything wrong!" Dean shouted, finally losing his temper. He stood up, towering over the bed, his chest heaving. "I didn't kiss anyone. I didn't take anyone upstairs. I came up here to be with you. But you're so convinced I'm going to ruin this that you're ruining it yourself!"
The argument broke something. Not a clean break, but a hairline fracture that made every step afterward agonizing.
The next morning was a masterclass in avoidance. Dean left for early practice before the sun was fully up, leaving the bed cold and the house smelling of regret. You spent the day in the library, staring at the same page of a textbook for four hours, the words blurring into a meaningless jumble of black ink.
By the time Friday night rolled around, the atmosphere in the off-campus house had shifted from a cold war to an absolute blackout.
There was another gathering—there was always another gathering. The Briar hockey house was a revolving door of noise. You had tried to stay in your room, but the isolation was eating you alive. You needed water. You needed to prove to yourself that you could walk through his world without shattering.
When you reached the bottom of the stairs, the heat of the crowded living room hit you like a wall. The air was thick with the scent of cheap vodka and sweat.
You saw him almost immediately.
Dean was leaning against the archway leading into the dining room. He had a red plastic cup held loosely in one hand, his head tilted back against the wood frame. He looked devastatingly handsome—wearing a black henley that showed off the broad expanse of his shoulders, his blonde hair perfectly disheveled.
And he wasn't alone.
There were three girls huddled around him. One of them, a stunning brunette with legs that went on for miles, was laughing hysterically at something he’d said. She was standing entirely too close, her forearm resting against Dean’s chest.
Your breath caught in your throat. You waited for him to step back. You waited for him to do what he’d promised—to show that he was yours.
Instead, Dean took a sip of his drink, his eyes scanning the crowd over the rim of his cup. He looked reckless. He looked angry. And when his gaze finally landed on you standing at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes hardened.
He didn't move away from the brunette. In fact, he leaned in a fraction closer, whispering something in her ear that made her giggle and press her hand flat against his collarbone.
It wasn't a betrayal of the body—not yet. But it was a betrayal of the truce. He was weaponizing his past, using the exact thing that tore you apart to punish you for doubting him. He was proving that he could go back to the old Dean in a heartbeat if he chose to.
The noise of the party faded into a high-pitched ringing in your ears. You couldn't breathe. You turned on your heel and walked straight back up the stairs, your feet moving on autopilot until you slammed his bedroom door shut behind you.
The lock clicked into place. It was a pathetic little piece of brass, completely useless against a guy who could probably kick the door off its hinges if he wanted to, but it was the only barrier you had left.
It was nearly 3:00 AM when the doorknob rattled.
You were sitting on the window sill, your knees pulled up to your chest, watching the snow begin to fall outside. The party downstairs had finally died out, leaving the house in that hollow, haunted quiet that always followed a rager.
The knob rattled again, harder this time.
"Open the door," Dean’s voice came through the wood. He sounded exhausted, the anger replaced by a heavy, slurred fatigue.
You didn't move. "No."
"Open the fucking door, sweetheart. I'm not doing this right now." A heavy thud indicated he had leaned his forehead against the paneling. "Come on. Just let me in."
"Go sleep on the couch, Dean. Or go find the brunette from the kitchen. I'm sure she has space for you."
A long silence followed. For a second, you thought he might actually leave. Then, a sharp, metallic click echoed through the room. Dean had used a paperclip on the external lock—an old trick he’d used a thousand times when his roommates locked themselves out.
The door swung open.
Dean stood in the doorway, his eyes bloodshot, his jaw covered in a dark layer of stubble. He looked entirely undone. The black henley was wrinkled, and the smell of alcohol was overpowering. He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, but he didn't approach the window. He stayed by the threshold, looking at you like you were a stranger.
"You're packing your things," he noted, his voice flat. He was looking at the duffel bag sitting open on the desk, half-filled with your clothes.
"I can't do this anymore, Dean," you whispered, looking out at the snow. "This isn't a relationship. It's an interrogation. I'm constantly waiting for you to slip up, and you're constantly trying to prove that you can."
Dean closed his eyes, his head dropping back against the wall. "I didn't touch her."
"You let her touch you. To hurt me." You turned your head to look at him, the tears finally flowing freely down your face. "You used her to punish me for being hurt. Do you have any idea how cruel that is?"
"I was angry!" he burst out, his eyes flying open, raw and bleeding with an emotion he rarely let anyone see. He took three long strides across the room, stopping just inches from where you sat on the sill. He reached down, grasping your wrists, his grip tight but not hurting. "I am so fucking angry because I don't know how to fix this! I stopped going out. I stopped talking to people. I gave up everything because I wanted you to see that I was serious. And it’s still not enough!"
"Because you haven't changed the way you think, Dean!" you cried out, pulling your wrists from his grip. "The second things get hard between us, you run right back to the validation of random girls. You use them as a shield so you don't have to feel rejected by me. If you really changed, you wouldn't need them to feel like a man."
Dean flinched as if he’d been struck. The color drained from his face, leaving him looking incredibly pale in the dim light of the room. His hands fell to his sides, his fingers twitching against his thighs.
The silence that followed was absolute. The finality of it pressed down on the room, heavy and suffocating.
"Is that what you think?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper. The anger was gone, leaving behind something far worse: total defeat. "You think I'm that hollow?"
"I think you're terrified of being vulnerable," you said, your heart breaking into a million jagged pieces as you spoke the words. "And I'm terrified of being the one who gets destroyed when you decide it's too hard."
Dean looked at the half-packed duffel bag, then back at you. He didn't try to touch you again. He didn't launch into another defense. For the first time since you’d met him, Dean Di Laurentis had nothing to say.
"Fine," he whispered.
He turned around and walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open behind him.
You sat on the window sill for a long time, watching the snow blanket the campus in a deceptive, pristine white. Downstairs, you heard the heavy thud of the front door closing.
There was no shouting. There was no slammed door. There was no war, and there was certainly no peace. There was only the long, freezing winter ahead, and the terrible realization that sometimes, loving someone wasn't enough to save them from themselves.
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