⭐️⭐️ oh, hello! my name is Abby and I'm glad you stumbled on my little void of Tumblr! ⭐️⭐️
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I am an adult, so being said: my blog is 18+, and adult content is shared/posted. I will try to keep things PG, but I do write stories and share stories with adult content, none of which you are to interact with as a minor.
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Now on to me 🧚🏼♀️
As you can tell from the bio, I'm 25, a swiftie, and a major Lewis Pullman fan. And i have indeed met Mr. Lew himself, along with the other awesome people in Atta Boy. Please go give them a listen! They deserve wayyyyy more monthly listeners.
I'm also a Leo sun, and a double Virgo moon and rising. Fun fact I'm the only Virgo anything in my family. I'm the baby of the family and a major people pleaser, but I'm working on it!
My friends will/would say I'm super quiet when you first meet me, but get me talking about anything I like, and I'm off rambling until you tell me to stop.
I'm currently finishing up my bachelor's, long story in for how long, but am currently double guessing my major... which is double the fun.
I post and share stories about Lewis Pullman characters, Glen Powell characters, and others. Some works are not suitable for under 18s.
You'll find a recommendations list linked in this post as well as linked to my masterlist in my stories. If you like them please give the og creators some love, they are all tagged along with their works.
Speaking of stories, if you like my story, please like, comment, and reblog. Reposting my works on any other platform is not allowed. Do not translate them either.
I do have an Ao3 as well under ElizaKasansky86. If you see the works posted there under that name, that is me. If you see them under a different name, please report them. That is the only other site you will see my work.
That's it! Please enjoy your time here and remember to take care of yourself! Byeeee 🧚🏼♀️🧚🏼♀️🧚🏼♀️
summary: One glitchy tablet, one HR email, and suddenly you’re married to your attending, Jack Abbot. HR thinks it was intentional and has already started merging your records. Claim it was a mistake, and your residency could be delayed. With only three months left until you're an attending, Jack agrees to play along. Pretending to be married might save your career—but can your heart survive the side effects?
tags: accidental marriage, slow burn romance, HR involvement, nosy coworkers, reader is a PGY-4 resident, jack is not a widow in this fic, possible medical/legal inaccuracies, fluff, smut
word count: 3.6k
a/n: the penultimate chapter ahhh. it won't be the end for trouble and jack, don't worry—we'll keep seeing them in blurbs/one shots! thank you all for still being here! it's been so much fun!! i appreciate you lots and LOVE reading your comments <33 i hope you enjoy! <33
i'm not keeping a tag list for this series!
Diagnosis: Married | Masterlist
The Pitt | Masterlist
Main | Masterlist
Previous part | Next part
Morning comes fast.
By E.R. standards, it had been a relatively slow night. The most exciting case was a drunk college girl who'd managed to snap her leg spectacularly after stumbling off a curb in six-inch heels. Beyond that, it had been the usual parade of forgotten medications, minor lacerations, kitchen burns, coughs, fevers, and people convinced that symptoms they'd ignored for weeks suddenly constituted an emergency at three in the morning.
Now day shift trickles in, filling the department with the scent of fresh coffee and half-awake greetings.
Jack's at the hub finishing the final comments on his last chart when a shadow falls across the counter. He looks up to find Robby, who jerks his head toward the elevator and leaves without saying anything else.
"Better get it over with," you say, logging off your computer.
He chuckles and follows your lead. "I guess. You'll wait in the car?"
You straighten and nudge his shoulder. "Mm. I'll probably call Olivia."
"Good idea," he says, standing. He catches your hand before you can walk away. "Good luck." He wishes he could lean in and kiss you, but you agreed on no PDA. Past him was a fool.
You squeeze his hand. "You too."
Jack waits until you've disappeared around the corner to the lockers before heading for the elevators. Five minutes later, the rooftop door swings shut behind him.
Robby's leaning against the railing, staring out across the waking city. He turns once he hears Jack's familiar stride, and a grin spreads across his face.
Jack groans as he steps beside him. "Just get it over with."
"What?" Robby asks. "The fact that I was right from the beginning? Or the fact that you should've listened to me ages ago? Or maybe"—he tilts his head—"the fact that this conference was exactly what you needed?"
Jack looks over at him. "You finished?"
Robby hums thoughtfully. "I could keep going—"
"Please don't."
"—but I do have a shift I need to get back to, so yes."
"Good."
Robby laughs and turns back to look out again. For a moment, neither of them says anything.
"I'm happy for you," Robby says.
Jack lets out a lighter breath than he would've managed a few weeks ago.
"She's good for you," Robby continues.
A smile tugs at the corner of Jack's mouth, his fingers curling loosely around the railing. "She is."
"You're good for her, too." Jack opens his mouth, but Robby continues before he can say anything. "Believe it or not, everyone else can see it."
Jack rolls his eyes.
"And if we've learned anything from this whole disaster, it's that you should trust my judgement."
Jack huffs a laugh but doesn't disagree. "It's weird."
"What is?"
He shrugs. "Getting something you'd already convinced yourself wasn't going to happen."
The teasing fades from Robby's expression, and he bumps his shoulder against Jack's. They stand there for another moment before Robby claps his shoulder. "I'd better get downstairs before they manage to burn down the place. I expect an invitation to dinner one of these days."
"Yeah, yeah." Jack waves him away.
Robby is halfway to the door when he calls after him. "Hey."
Robby turns.
"Thanks."
For a moment, Robby just looks at him. Then he dips his chin once before disappearing through the door.
Jack stays there for another five minutes, just breathing and watching the city. The hospital hums beneath him. Traffic slowly fills the street below.
For the first time in a long while, he lets himself enjoy the view before heading back inside.
With both your bag and Jack's grabbed, you head toward the parking lot, moving slower than usual as you try to summon the courage to call Olivia before you get there.
You've been avoiding her—to some extent—and you already know she isn't going to be happy about it.
So, you take small steps, unlock the car, and place the bags in the back before shuffling into the passenger seat.
It rings twice before she answers. She's at her kitchen table, staring at you with narrowed eyes. "Nice of you to finally talk to me."
You wince. "I know."
"You know?" she repeats. "That's all I get?"
You offer her a tentative smile.
She takes a bite of her bread, chewing while continuing to glare at you. Then her mouth twitches. "So?"
A large smile spreads across your face, and you nod.
She lets out a triumphant squeal. "I knew it! I fucking knew it!"
You laugh at her enthusiasm.
"This is the best news ever!"
You roll your eyes. "Okay, calm down. It's not that big a deal."
"Oh, it is."
"No, it isn't."
"It absolutely is," she says. "I've spent months watching you idiots ruin things for yourselves. It's finally over!"
You shake your head, but her glee is infectious.
"Tell me everything," she demands.
You tell her about the awkward car ride, meeting Jeremy and Warren, the fight, and making up. By the time you're done, Olivia's been grinning so hard her breakfast has gone cold.
"And then we..." you shrug, biting back a grin.
Her eyes widen. "No way! How was it?"
"So good."
Her jaw drops. "Yeah?"
You nod.
She leans back in her chair, looking thoroughly pleased. "Good. You deserve nothing less."
"Hey, I'm sorry for being such a mess these past months. You've been there through everything, and I'm so lucky to have you in my life. Thank you."
She waves you off. "No need to be sappy. You'd do the same."
"How's it looking on your end?"
She groans.
"What about Robby?"
"That wasn't really anything—just a kiss." She shrugs. "And I mean, I'm here, and he's in Pittsburgh, so..."
You suck your teeth in disappointment.
Her face sours. "Damn it."
"What?"
"I just remembered that I owe him twenty bucks. I thought Jack was going to confess first," she groans. "Should've trusted that my meddling skills were better than Robby's."
You laugh. "With betting like that, you're practically part of the Pitt crew already. Maybe you should consider moving? It solves two problems."
"Two?"
"Robby, of course," you grin, "and I don't have to miss you."
"Hm," she huffs. "Not sure about the first one..."
Movement catches your eyes before you can argue further. Jack's making his way across the parking lot, and without thinking, you sit up a little straighter.
"Oh, gross."
"Hey, be nice!" you chuckle. "Jack's coming."
"I gathered," she says. "Have fun. I'm expecting to be the godmother." She winks exaggeratedly.
"Love you." You roll your eyes and hit the end button.
Weeks slip by in that sweet, honeymoon-like bliss.
Surprisingly little has changed since you started properly dating. Jack still brings you breakfast, watches your terrible shows without complaints, and washes your scrubs. The only thing that's really changed is that he's finally shown you just how affectionate he is.
You wake up wrapped in his arms most mornings. He always seems to need a hand on you somewhere: your waist while you're cooking, your fingers while you're out walking, your ankle draped across his lap while you read on the couch.
Right now, though, his hands are firmly around your thighs, keeping them spread apart.
"Jack," you plead softly.
"What?" he hums, his voice warm with amusement as he deliberately lingers just out of reach. He presses a soft kiss to the inside of your thigh.
You let out a frustrated whine, wriggling your hips. His hold tightens, keeping you firmly in place.
He chuckles. "What do you want, sweet girl?" He brushes another kiss along the inside of your thigh, just a little higher than the one before. Then another, until his nose brushes the soaked pink fabric. "This?"
You shake your head.
"No?" He kisses the edge of your underwear, close enough that it sends a shiver up your spine. "Maybe this?"
You squirm again. "Jack, please."
He clicks his tongue, his dark gaze finding yours. "I know you can do better than that, sweetheart."
Heat creeps into your cheeks, your chest rising fast. His thumb brushes the corner of your underwear, staring at the wet material with a scorched gaze.
You gasp when he presses his thumb directly against your clit. "Please touch me."
"I already am," he says, amusement flickering across his face. His thumb leaves you again, stroking lazily across your hip instead.
You huff in annoyance, finally relenting. "Please touch my pussy."
"Oh, why didn't you just say that?" He grins. "With my fingers or my mouth?"
Head hazy with lust and impatience, all you say is: "Please."
Thankfully, Jack takes pity on you. He pulls the fabric aside, then descends on you. He licks broad stripes, groaning in appreciation when he gets your sweet taste on his tongue.
"Fuck. I'll never get sick of doing this."
You moan loudly, your fingers gripping his hair.
"You taste so good," he murmurs. "Doing so good for me."
He alternates between soft kisses, slow licks, and gentle sucks until the sensation becomes almost unbearable. All you can do is try to hold on, fingers gripping his hair, shoulders, arms—whatever you can get hold of.
It takes an embarrassingly short time for you to crash over the edge.
When you finally manage to climb back to yourself, Jack is looking up at you, his chin glistening and a thoroughly smug smile on his face.
"Better?"
You roll your eyes and swat his shoulder. His hand finds your chin as he crowds over you, pressing you into the mattress.
"I asked you a question."
You suck in a breath, staring into his eyes. "Yes."
"Good." He lets go of your chin and smirks when you push at his chest. He follows, letting you shove him down onto the bed. You swing a leg over him, and his hands find your waist automatically, helping situate you on top of him.
"Fuck," he swears as you sink down on him. Your mouth crashes into his as you slowly begin moving. Jack lets you set the pace for a moment before his hips snap up, setting a faster pace.
"Jack," you moan into his ear. His fingers grip your waist as he captures your mouth again. He comes with a drawn-out sound that reverberates in your chest. You let yourself sink against him, forehead resting against his shoulder.
His hands remain on your waist long after the moment has passed, thumbs absentmindedly stroking slow circles against your skin as the two of you catch your breath.
Neither of you says anything for a while. His heartbeat thuds steadily beneath you. Eventually, one of his hands slips up your back, his fingers combing gently through your hair. "Hey."
You smile into his shoulder. "Hey."
"Better?" he asks again, quieter this time.
You nod against him before lifting your head just enough to meet his eyes. "Much."
He grins, satisfied.
You trace lazy circles across the side of his arm. "You were incredibly annoying, though."
A laugh rumbles through his chest. "You complaining?"
You pinch his skin lightly. He catches your wrist, turning your hand over to press a kiss into your palm.
"You'll survive."
"I don't know," you sigh dramatically. "I may never recover."
He bites your hand lightly. "I'll take excellent care of you."
"Hm," you huff.
"I was planning on starting with water."
That earns him a genuine laugh. You lean down to kiss him again, slow and unhurried. He hums softly into the kiss. When you finally pull away, neither of you moves very far.
"I love you," he says softly.
You smile, brushing your nose against his. "I love you, too."
His arms tighten around your waist just a fraction before he sighs. "Now..." His eyebrows lift. "Go pee. I'll get you some water. Then we can cuddle again."
"Doctor's orders?"
"Absolutely."
You roll your eyes fondly as you climb off him, stealing one last quick kiss before you do. "I suppose I'd better listen to the professional."
He watches you climb off the bed with an unmistakably pleased expression. "You usually don't."
You glance back over your shoulder. "I make exceptions if my doctor's handsome."
"I think I'm gonna throw up." Parker slumps against the counter, staring blankly into the distance.
Shen spins around in his chair. "Maggots guy?"
"God, no." Parker's seen her fair share of disgusting things. Maggots don't even register anymore. "Abbot and Trouble in the supply room."
Lena snorts from her right. "Weren't you the one begging them to make up?"
"I was." Parker sighs. "But there are some things I never needed to witness."
Shen's eyebrows shoot up. "Hold on. They weren't...?"
"No!" Parker cuts him off before he can finish. She might need to bleach her eyes, but she's not letting that rumour start. "They were just making out."
"Oh." Lena pushes her glasses onto her head. "Then what's the problem?"
Parker just stares at her. "…His hand was on her ass."
There's a beat of silence before Lily, who's been quietly working at her computer, looks up. "I think you've been single for too long."
"I'm not that single."
"Not by choice," Shen says between obnoxiously loud slurps of his iced coffee.
Parker glares at him. "And I suppose you're drowning in admirers?"
He grins. "I don't kiss and tell."
"You don't kiss, period."
"Ouch." He clutches a hand to his chest, then grins as he takes another sip.
"The point," Parker continues, rubbing her temples, "is that I have to work with them. I don't want every room I walk into to be a potential traumatic experience."
"You're so dramatic," Lily says with a grin. She stands and gives Parker's shoulder a sympathetic pat. "Hit me up if you want to come on a double date sometime. My boyfriend has some cute friends."
Parker groans.
"Just be grateful," Lena says. "At least they're happy."
"They can be happy," Parker mutters. "Just... preferably behind a locked door."
"Good luck telling Abbot that," Shen says.
Parker drops her forehead onto the counter with a muffled groan.
"What are you doing?" Jack pauses in the doorway to the guest bedroom, still in his scrubs.
You peek out from the closet, sending him a smile. "Thought I'd clear out this room. Get rid of some old stuff and move the rest into our closet."
He looks around. Half the shelves are empty, and there are piles of clothes on the bed. Textbooks cover most of the desk alongside notebooks, loose papers, and other things you'd shoved in the drawers weeks ago.
"I keep forgetting I have things in here," you say. "And it isn't my room anymore, so I'm making space for your stuff, too."
"You don't have to," he says, pressing a kiss to your head. You shrug, grabbing another piece of clothing.
Jack wanders over to the desk, picking up one of the medical textbooks. "Are you keeping these or giving them away?"
"I'll give them away after my oral boards." You throw a dress onto the bed. "I figured some of the residents could use them. Med school's expensive enough."
"That's kind."
You shrug and toss another item onto the bed.
Jack continues sorting through the clutter, smiling at old photographs and forgotten receipts before unfolding a document. "What's this?"
He knows exactly what it is. The divorce papers that had haunted him for weeks with your signature sitting dry at the bottom of the page.
You look over. "Oh."
For a moment, Jack says nothing. "I can put them back if—"
You walk over, take the papers from his hand, and tear them cleanly down the middle. Then again. You drop the pieces into the nearby trash bin.
Jack blinks. "You sure?"
You glance at the bin, then back at him. "I thought I'd gotten rid of it already." A small smile tugs at your lips. "I don't need it anymore."
You lean up to kiss his cheek before returning to the closet. "So," you say over your shoulder, "should I donate this sweater or keep it?"
Jack doesn't answer immediately. His eyes drift to the trash bin.
"Jack?"
He looks up. You stand in the middle of the room that had once been yours with things that will find their place elsewhere in your shared bedroom.
He lets out a slow breath. "Keep."
During the next few weeks, Jack can't stop thinking about the divorce papers or how easily you had ripped them apart. It takes a situation at work for him to realise why.
Cyclist vs. vehicle. A pelvic fracture and a head wound that needed immediate attention. You had both snapped into action, dividing the work between you and taking control of the trauma room.
"Dr. Abbot, here—" a new nurse had called out, and Jack's head had snapped up. But it wasn't him she was talking to—it was you. He'd seen the nurse's face flush, but you'd answered before he'd even finished turning toward you. There'd been no indication that it had bothered you at all.
You had just responded like it was your name.
It hit him a couple of hours later. You had shown him just how much you wanted him. He had to make it clear to you that he wanted the same.
Things hadn't been done right the first time. A glitch. Rings bought out of necessity. And that was that. No romance at all.
You deserve a proper proposal—a real wedding. Something you can actually tell the others about in detail instead of repeating the same brief lie you'd been telling for months: that it had been a simple affair, that he'd proposed at home.
Jack wants to make the story real.
He buys a ring. A simple but flashy one. Then he spends days waiting for the right moment.
The opportunity comes when he's sitting on the couch waiting to pick you up from work. The entire drive is spent in a nervous haze, the box pressing insistently against his thigh.
He makes coffee as you head for the shower, so his hands have something to do. As it brews, he straightens the sugar bowl, then the coffee tin, then realises he's already done it twice.
You pad down the hallway, dripping water onto the floor from your still-wet hair. "What are you doing?" You watch him with narrowed eyes as you turn to the cabinet.
"Nothing?"
You huff, but decide to let it go, standing on your tiptoes to grab a mug. "Do you wanna go sit outside and eat—" your sentence cuts off when you spin back around.
Jack's on his knee, keeping it steady despite his prosthetic. He holds out the box.
Your mug slips from your fingers onto the counter with a soft click. "Jack?"
A shaky breath leaves him which almost turns into a laugh.
"What are you doing?"
"I think you know."
A watery laugh escapes you. "Is this—? Are you—?"
"Yeah," he chuckles breathily. "So do I get to say my speech," he teases gently, "or are you going to interrupt me the whole time?"
You press a hand over your mouth and nod.
His fingers tremble slightly against the box. "I've been thinking about us. About how we started."
Your hand tightens over your mouth.
"I wouldn't change it. Not really. If that stupid glitch hadn't happened... if Robby hadn't been stuck at work that day..." He shakes his head. "I would've never been lucky enough to have you to come home to every night."
You blink rapidly.
"The best thing that ever happened to me started as an accident." His voice grows quieter. "But I don't want our story to be that we got married by accident. I want it to be that somewhere along the way, after lots of dumb decisions—"
You laugh softly.
"Somewhere along the way, we fell in love. I want you to know that I choose to be with you. I choose you. Every day. And I want you to know that."
A tear trails down your cheek.
"So... Sweetheart. Trouble." He laughs softly, shaking the box lightly. "Will you marry me?"
You drop to your knees in front of him, laughing and crying all at once as you throw your arms around his neck. "Yes!" The word comes out broken by tears. "Yes, of course, I'll marry you. Again."
Jack buries his face against your shoulder, his whole body shaking with relieved laughter.
You pull back just enough to look at him, your cheeks damp with tears and your smile somehow brighter than anything he's ever seen.
"The ring," you remind him softly.
He lets out another breathless laugh. "Right."
The velvet box is still in his hand. You hold out your left hand without him asking. It trembles. A laugh escapes you when you notice his hand isn't any steadier.
"I've had a stressful morning," he murmurs. Carefully, he takes your hand. His thumb brushes once across your knuckles before he slides the ring free from its box. This time, there isn't a clerk handing it to him.
Just the two of you.
He guides the ring onto your finger slowly. It slides into place perfectly.
You stare down at your hand, tilting it to catch the light. He stares, too.
It sits just above the first ring that made you husband and wife. This one doesn't replace it—it gives it the beginning it always deserved.
He lifts your hand to his lips and presses a gentle kiss against your knuckles before looking back up at you. "I love you," he says.
"I love you, too."
He chooses you. You choose him.
a/n: did anyone catch the pink fabric reference?? :DDD
Well now I can't stop thinking of omega!reader who's going into heat for the first time (but doesn't know it) so she goes to the ER and who treats her? Why alpha Doctor Jack Abbott of course!
And by treat her, I mean he absolutely fucks her in that small patient bed
Hii a suggestion for the club fic would be to give us more Dana x reader!! the men are so greedy in the fic and we barely get our diva Dana!!
abso-fucking-lutely yes of course!!!
Obedience | The Jackrabbit Club
Pairing: Dana Evans x f!reader
Prev | Masterlist | Next
CW: nsfw, mdni, 18+, explicit sexual content, big ass harem babes, husband and Jack mention, pet names (kid, baby, mommy), dom!dana, Dom/sub dynamics, power imbalance (boss/employee technically but it's all consensual), lil voyeurism kink/public play, oral (f receiving), spanking (with paddle), wet humping (dana's thigh), after care
You learn pretty quickly that Dana's all about control.
She runs a tight ship, getting off on how closely you follow her rules, how consistent you are in your care of yourself and them.
It becomes routine pretty early on for her to wake you up at 9 am sharp, usually forcing you to peel yourself from a possessive Jack who has just fallen asleep.
But you always manage to break free, hair tussled with sleep, oversized shirt barely covering your plump legs as you give her a tired smile and a soft peck on the lips (you cannot mess up her lipstick).
She's always patient with you, making coffee while you make the both of you breakfast. She'll go over the schedule for the day while you flip pancakes, unapologetically smacking your naked ass when you reach over to grab the maple syrup and your shirt rides up.
She tries not to start anything in the apartment, knowing fully well that neither of you will go anywhere if you devolve into heated kisses and panting breaths.
No, play is reserved strictly for outside. It's one of the rules she and her husband established. You've met Benji briefly before, a night at the club where he just so happened to pop in for a drink while he waited for her to finish up so they could go to date night together.
He likes you, you know that much, and he's more than happy that you're able to keep his wife occupied and taken care of while she's at work.
Yeah, Dana loves to play with you while she works. It's a two-for-one as she calls it—giving you a reprieve from thinking and her a much needed distraction while she sits in on boring meetings where she doesn't have to make any decisions, just listen for hours.
Which is where you currently find yourself, on your knees, tucked beneath her desk, head between her legs as Kevin from marketing drones on and on about your Q3 analytics and Q4 projections.
You're supposed to be on this call too but Dana made it a point to note that you had something else to take care of for her and she'd fill you in later.
If anyone knows what's truly going on, you have no clue, but this is a sex club after all so it's not like they're going to buy that excuse outright.
But you're all professionals at the end of the day.
So no one says a damn thing.
Dana's instructions were clear.
You're supposed to edge her, not make her cum. If she does, especially while she's on camera, she will turn your ass so red you won't be able to sit for a few days.
Unfortunately for you, you know she's already cleared it with the rest of your partners, a scene that heavy required by the contract to be approved unanimously for your own well-being.
So you do as your told, closing the door, locking it, stripping every single item of clothing until you're naked before sliding out of your heels and rounding her sleek, glass desk.
Dana rolls her chair back enough for you to settle in between her open legs, all her attention directed at the screen before her as gets herself set up to join the call.
You crouch down without her having to give you a command, legs tucked neatly as you settle down on your heels, hands over your knees. That's when you do wait for her to get comfortable, to roll the chair into position.
It's only when the call starts and you begin to hear the airy and polite greeting from the team that you lean forward, resting your cheek against her inner thigh.
You stare up at her lovingly, nuzzling into her warm flesh as Dana engages in pleasant small talk with the marketing team. Her hand comes down to settle over your other cheek, petting and rewarding, her thumb grazing over your plump lips.
You stop yourself from humming out loud and instead focus on the gentle pleasure of her affection.
When Kevin takes the floor and she mutes herself, her grip shifts towards the back of your head, finally pulling you forward to settle against her heat.
You purr contently, noticing she's not wearing any underwear.
You begin by kissing her mound, just above her clit. She shivers deliciously, a huge boost to your ego every time.
"May I?" you ask, just like she expects you to, like you know she loves.
She nods once, curt, passed off as a reaction to something being said in the meeting, but you know better by now.
You've learned to read all of them well these past few months.
Dana's tells are easy.
A quirked brow to show disapproval, a tensed jaw to relay anger, and most notably, the need for a cigarette for...anything real.
That's when you know things are really bad.
Luckily, she hasn't had to smoke in quite a while, the work not only being fulfilling but also a refreshing change of pace.
You do worry sometimes.
Worry that one day she's going to wake up and realize that she made a horrible mistake. Worry that she'll resent Jack and Robby for keeping their jobs while she sacrificed hers. Worry that you won't be enough to keep her—
You're abruptly snapped out of your thoughts as she shoves your head against her glistening folds.
Fuck, she knows you too well.
Maybe this isn't about her at all. Maybe this is all about you.
And you know for a fact that you will never get tired of this, never get tired of her, of them.
You latch onto her clit, lips sucking, tongue swirling.
It's not intentional, you definitely don't think when she starts to buck her hips slightly, when you feel her stiffen beneath you.
You haven't made her cum this quick in...ever.
It's exhilarating. Thrilling. Terrifying.
You forget all about her command.
No, it's a deep, soulful desperation that makes you leap.
Take more than has been given.
It's why you barely catch her when she unmutes herself.
"Kevin, I need to stop you—I've got an emergency to deal with. Reconvene in thirty, thank you!"
She manages to leave the call, the room settling into a chorus of her pants and your eagerness.
She doesn't even have a second to pull you off, to stop you before she's cumming, your mouth finally detaching itself from her puffy clit only to lick up the spend that spills from her before it ruins the chair beneath.
You watch her through hooded eyes, the way her chest heaves, her legs shake, her composure crumbles effortlessly.
"Oh baby..." she finally speaks, voice slightly broken. "If you wanted mommy to punish you, you could've just said so."
You're so spacy that the mention of punishment only makes you beam even more, your glistening lips the most beautiful sight to her as you smile.
"Get up."
She rolls back, pulling you out from under her desk by your hair, hard enough that it hurts but not so much that you're screaming in pain.
A nice, perfect balance.
You stand before her, your naked body a delicious contrast to her fully clothed one.
"Turn around."
You do.
"Bed over, hands flat on the desk."
Your stomach flutters with anticipation as you hear her roll closer to you again, her heels digging into your shins to keep your legs spread out just how she wants it.
You let out a broken sob after a full minute goes by and she hasn't touched you.
"Oh, poor kid," she mocks. "Do you need something?"
You nod desperately as you feel her breath ghost right above your exposed folds, feel as she smirks before pulling back completely, only for the silence to be replaced with one, explosive smack against your ass.
You jerk away from her touch now, causing her to chuckle darkly.
"No need to count, baby," she states while she continues her assault on your ass. "Just speak up when you can't take any more."
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
The words don't process fully until your ass is throbbing.
You're honestly more concerned about her hand for a second but then she opens up her desk drawer and pulls out the cute paddle she bought you a week prior and you're a goner.
You don't hold back, body jerking and twisting with every hit, softer than her palm but still sharp as all hell given how sensitive you already are.
"'m sorry, I'm so sorry," you slur, goosebumps erupting as you feel the gentle hum of the air conditioner on your hot skin. "I didn't—mommy please—fuck!"
She doesn't stop, relentless and merciless.
"Just say the word baby."
You yelp loudly as the paddle accidentally lands too close to your entrance.
"Fuck—yellow! Yellow, oh my god."
She pulls the paddle back, wet from your arousal. You flinch as she tosses the object next to your head and she instantly pulls you onto her lap.
She shushes you gently, soft hands and gentle kisses over every inch of skin she has access to, careful not to touch your throbbing backside.
Ten minutes before she's supposed to reconvene, you come back to yourself.
"That was crazy," you giggle shyly, absentmindedly playing with her shirt buttons as she cradles you to her chest.
"It was," she smiles down at you. "You okay, baby?"
You nod. "Yeah, just didn't think we'd get there so quickly."
"Yeah no shit, you got greedy!"
You giggle then, light and airy. "It's your fault for being so pretty and attentive."
Dana rolls her eyes, giving you a once over before she shifts you to straddle her lap. The second your exposed folds make contact with the roughness of her skirt, you hiss, reminding the both of you of what's been left unfinished.
Heat rushes to your cheeks, embarrassment flooding through your body.
"'m sorry," you murmur.
Instead of answering, Dana grabs a hold of your love handles, pushing you down against her core, the fabric roughly coming into contact with your clit.
You moan, loudly, hands coming up to steady yourself on her shoulders.
"You have six minutes, baby," she kisses your jaw. "Make yourself cum."
Your mind goes blank, the pulsing pain becoming nothing more than a guide to follow as you roll your hips, desperate to find the release you're searching for.
"Look at you," Dana praises, hot and heavy against your ear. "Such a good girl for me, my perfect little toy."
You whine, movements speeding up as you find the perfect combination to build and build and build—
A spark of pleasure ignites through you, your grip tightening on her shoulders.
"Mommy..." you moan "Please may I—" you cry out in pleasure, core clenching but not daring to release. "May I please cum?"
Dana takes a second to assess you, to take you in fully—this perfect gift that they've been given, all needy and eager to please, a light in the darkness that her days at PTMC had created—
"Cum baby."
And that you do, pleasure washing away any doubt, any confusion, any fear that this is too good to be true.
You're here, right now, with her, seen, understood, loved and protected. And nothing could ever take that away from you.
She holds you close to her body as you tremble, as your breath quivers against her collarbone, as you come undone because of her and for her.
"Good girl," she kisses your shoulder reverently. "Did so good for me."
You hum, slumping on her shamelessly.
"Let me call Jack to pick you up and then I'll join my meeting, okay?"
You nod, absentminded, because you honestly don't care about logistics anymore. You know you're going to be taken care of, and that's what's making you feel just as alive as them.
dividers by @robinavitchslut
all images taken from pinterest
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8
Summary: After a drunken Vegas wedding, Robby disappears by morning, leaving you with nothing but a ring and a mistake that was supposed to stay in Vegas. But when a pregnancy and state paperwork force you to track down the husband who vanished, Robby learns the truth and this time, walking away isn’t so easy.
WC: 9K
Tags: Tags: Drunken Vegas Wedding, Runaway Husband, Unexpected Pregnancy, Forced Reunion, Second Chance Romance, Robby Wants to Stay, Romantic Comedy vibes with some Angst, No use of Y/N
Two weeks after the ultrasound, you had seen more of Pittsburgh than some people who had lived there for years.
Robby had made suggestions at first. Quiet ones. Nothing pushy. A museum if you wanted to get out. A bookstore in Squirrel Hill. A coffee shop Google reviews swore by. A park with decent walking paths. A place with pierogies that apparently everyone had opinions about.
You went. To all of them.
You walked through museums slowly, reading plaques until the words stopped sticking. You sat in coffee shops with a book open in front of you and barely turned the pages. You tried restaurants people called charming. You crossed bridges. You learned neighborhoods by name. You took pictures of views that probably would have impressed you more if you had not been trying so hard to feel impressed.
Pittsburgh was not bad. That almost made it worse.
It was pretty in ways you had not expected. Green hills. Old brick. Rain-dark streets. Houses tucked into slopes like the whole city had been built by someone stubborn enough to make gravity negotiate.
There were good meals. Good walks. Good days, technically. But none of it was Vegas. None of it was home.
Vegas had been heat rising off pavement after midnight. Neon bleeding across sidewalks. Music spilling out of open doors. Tourists laughing too loud. Coworkers yelling over the bar noise. The constant pulse of people moving, spending, leaving, arriving.
Vegas never asked you to be still. Pittsburgh did.
And at first, stillness had felt like relief. Then it started to feel like punishment. You were in your thirties. You had worked too long, carried too much, rebuilt yourself too many times to suddenly become someone who filled her days with errands and walks and waiting for someone else’s work shift to end.
But that was what your life had become.
Groceries.
Laundry.
Reading.
Dinners.
Walks through neighborhoods that were beautiful and quiet and not yours.
You were grateful. That was the part that made you angry. Because Robby had given you safety. A bed. Financial breathing room. Insurance. A house where no one expected you to be anything but okay. And still, some ugly, restless part of you kept pressing against the walls.
Not because you wanted to leave him. Not exactly. Because you missed yourself. You missed your life. You missed working.
Not bartending specifically. Not the sticky floors or the men who thought tipping meant they had purchased your patience. Not the ache in your feet after a long shift or the smell of tequila clinging to your hair no matter how long you stood under the shower.
You missed having somewhere to be.
A reason to leave the house that was not an appointment or a grocery list. A schedule that belonged to you. A body tired from doing something other than waiting.
Some mornings, the thought of going back showed up before you had even finished your coffee.
Not as a plan. Not exactly. More like checking for an exit in a crowded room.
How much money did you have left? How long would the drive take? Could you get your old job back, or had someone already taken your shifts?
You never followed the thought all the way through. You always closed the app, folded another load of laundry, made another grocery list.
But the thought kept coming back anyway.
You missed the noise.
Real noise. Human noise. The kind that filled the air before you had time to think too hard. Glasses hitting counters. Music too loud. Someone laughing from across the room. Someone yelling your name because they needed another bottle from the back. The low, constant movement of a place that did not care if you were lonely because it was too busy being alive.
Robby’s house was quiet. Not empty. Not anymore. But quiet in a way that made your thoughts louder. You knew the sounds of it too well now.
The dishwasher clicking into its dry cycle. The refrigerator humming. The heat kicking on. The distant rumble of Robby’s motorcycle when he came home late enough for the whole neighborhood to hear it before you did.
You knew which cabinet stuck. Which burner on the stove ran hotter than the others. How long the washing machine took to finish a cycle.
You knew all of it because there had been too much time to learn it.
At first, you told yourself it was useful. Robby worked long shifts. You were here. Cooking made sense. Cleaning made sense. Grocery shopping made sense. It was not like you were doing anything else. That thought started as a joke. Then it stopped being funny.
Some days, you woke up and made a list just to prove the day had shape.
Laundry.
Bank.
Walk.
Dinner.
Prenatal vitamin.
Call pharmacy.
You wrote things down even when you knew you would remember them, because crossing them off gave you a small, pathetic sense of accomplishment.
Other days, you did not make a list at all. Those were worse. Those were the days you stood in the kitchen with your hands braced against the counter, looking around for something that needed doing and feeling a little sick when you realized you had already done it.
The floors were clean.
The fridge was organized.
The dishes were put away.
The laundry was folded.
Dinner was planned.
There was nothing left to fix. Nothing left to manage. Nothing left to be useful for.
So you walked.
At first, walking helped.
You found different streets, different hills, different houses with porch swings and overgrown gardens and old stone steps slick from rain. You learned where the sidewalks cracked and where the trees arched low enough to brush your shoulder if you were not paying attention.
Then the walks started looping back on themselves.
Same streets.
Same houses.
Same quiet.
Same body moving through a place that still did not feel like yours.
And when you came home, Robby’s house waited exactly where you had left it.
Safe.
Warm.
Still.
You started getting quiet.
Not all at once. Not enough that anyone could point to a single moment and say, There. That was when it changed.
But Robby noticed anyway.
He noticed when you stopped leaving the television on in the afternoon. When your answers got shorter. When you started making dinner earlier and earlier, like getting it done sooner might make the evening arrive faster.
He noticed when you stopped telling him about the places you went.
At first, he tried asking.
“How was the museum?”
“Fine.”
“Coffee shop any good?”
“Fine.”
“Did you like the park?”
“It was fine.”
Fine became the word you used when you did not have the energy to explain that nothing was wrong enough to justify how wrong you felt.
Robby never called you on it.
That almost made it worse.
He would just nod once, careful and quiet, and let the answer sit there like he could tell it had teeth.
You wanted him to push. You wanted him to leave it alone. You wanted him to ask the exact right question that would crack you open without making you bleed.
You hated that no version of him could win.
You hated that too.
You hated how patient he was. How steady. How he gave you room without making you feel abandoned. How he came home exhausted and still checked the fridge to see if you had eaten. How he never asked you to explain feelings you had not figured out how to name.
You hated that he was doing everything right and you still felt like this.
Then the snippiness started.
Small things at first.
He asked if you had taken your prenatal vitamin, and you looked up from the sink with soap on your hands and said, “Yes, Michael. I managed to swallow one pill without supervision.”
The second it left your mouth, you wished you could take it back.
Robby only stood there for a beat, hand still on the refrigerator door. You watched the apology rise in your throat and die there.
Then he nodded once. “Okay.”
That was all.
No argument. No wounded look. No lecture about how he was only trying to help.
Just okay.
He grabbed a bottle of water, asked if dinner needed another twenty minutes, and moved around you like you had not just snapped at him hard enough to leave a mark.
Which somehow made the guilt sharper.
Another night, he came home and found you sitting at the kitchen table with a grocery receipt, circling prices you already knew were too high.
“You need me to pick anything up tomorrow?” he asked.
You did not look up. “No.”
“You sure?”
“I said no.”
The room went quiet.
Robby set his keys in the bowl by the door. Softer than usual.
“Okay.”
Something inside you twisted.
“Why do you keep asking me the same thing?” you snapped, finally looking at him. “I said no. I heard you the first time.”
His expression flickered before smoothing out.
“I was just checking.”
“I know what you were doing.”
For a second, he only looked at you.
Then his jaw shifted once.
“You know I’m just trying to help, right?”
The words were not sharp. Not exactly. But they were not as soft as okay either.
That made it worse.
You looked down at the receipt. “I know.”
“You don’t have to bite my head off for it.”
The silence that followed felt enormous.
Your eyes closed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know,” he said.
But this time, it sounded tired. Not angry. Just tired enough to make your chest ache.
Because he did know. And he was still standing there.
You did not even know what you meant half the time.
Only that everything inside you felt rubbed raw. Like your life had narrowed down to a house that was not yours, a body that kept changing, and a man who was kind enough to make your anger feel unfair.
Some nights, the pressure had nowhere to go, so you cried in the bathroom with the faucet running and hated yourself for needing even that.
You stared at yourself in the mirror and tried to pinpoint the exact place where gratitude had curdled into resentment, where rest had become stagnation, where being cared for had started to feel indistinguishable from disappearing.
The worst part was waking up each morning and doing it all again.
Coffee.
Laundry.
Walk.
Dinner.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
The worst day was the junk drawer.
It should not have been the junk drawer. That was what made it worse.
Robby came home to the contents of it spread across the kitchen counter.
Batteries. Pens. Loose screws. Tape. Rubber bands. Receipts. Three chargers that belonged to nothing useful. A takeout menu from a restaurant that had closed two years ago. A handful of keys with no labels and no obvious purpose.
You had sorted all of it into separate piles.
The drawer itself sat open and empty while you wiped down the inside with a paper towel, jaw tight, sleeves pushed up, one hand braced against the counter like this was a task with stakes.
Robby stopped in the kitchen doorway. For a second, he did not say anything.
Then, carefully, “What happened?”
You did not look up. “Your junk drawer was disgusting.”
“It’s a junk drawer.”
“That isn’t an excuse.”
“It’s kind of the point.”
“No, the point is that things go in it. Not that they rot there until future civilizations find them.”
The room went quiet. You kept wiping. The drawer was already clean. You knew that. Robby probably knew it too. Still, he did not say anything right away. He just stood there with his bag still over one shoulder, watching the counter.
Watching you. Not judgmental. That would have been easier. Careful. That was worse.
He set his bag down near the door.
“Did something happen today?”
“No.”
Too fast.
His eyes moved to your face. You hated that he heard it. The silence stretched.
You dropped the paper towel into the trash and reached for a stack of pens you had already tested twice.
“You don’t have to do that.”
His brows drew together slightly. “Do what?”
“Handle me.”
“I’m not handling you.”
“Yes, you are.”
Robby stayed still.
You snapped a rubber band around the working pens a little harder than necessary.
“You do that thing where you get all calm and careful like I’m going to break if you speak normally.”
His expression shifted, small enough that you almost missed it.
“I’m trying not to make it worse.”
“Well,” you said, looking up at him finally, “that’s worse.”
The words landed badly. You knew it immediately.
Robby looked down for half a second, then back at you. His face did not harden. That would have been easier too.
“I’m not mad about the drawer,” he said.
“I didn’t ask if you were.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you standing there like that?”
“Because I came home and found you sorting rubber bands like your life depended on it.”
You let out a breath through your nose. “It needed to be done.”
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a second.
Then, gently, “Did it need to be done today?”
Something in you went still.
You looked down at the counter.
The batteries.
The pens.
The small bowl full of screws.
All of it suddenly looked ridiculous.
Your hands curled against the edge of the counter.
“I needed something to do.”
The words came out flat.
Robby did not answer right away. That was worse than anything he could have said.
You swallowed once and kept staring at the mess.
“I already did the laundry. I already went to the store. I already took a walk. Dinner’s already made. The house is clean. The dishes are done.”
Your voice stayed level.
Too level.
“There was nothing else.”
The silence after that felt different.
Not sharp.
Not heavy.
Just bare.
Robby stepped farther into the kitchen, but not too close.
“You don’t have to keep finding things to fix.”
Your mouth tightened. “If I don’t, then I just sit here.”
He absorbed that quietly.
You hated how small your voice sounded when you added, “I’m tired of sitting here.”
Robby’s face softened.
Something in you recoiled from it. Not because it was pity. Because it wasn’t. Because he understood enough to make it dangerous.
“I’m not ungrateful,” you said quickly.
“I know.”
“No, I mean it.” You looked up, defensive before he had even accused you of anything. “I know what you’ve done. I know I’m safe here. I know I have a doctor because of you. I know I have insurance and food and a place to sleep, and I know all of that matters.”
“I know.”
“But I hate this.”
The words came out before you could make them kinder.
You stopped breathing for a second.
Robby did too, maybe.
You waited for the flinch. The hurt. The quiet proof that you had finally said too much. It did not come. His eyes stayed on yours.
“The house?” he asked.
“No.”
Immediate.
At least that part was true.
Your fingers tightened against the counter.
“No,” you said, softer. “Not the house.”
You searched for the right words and found nothing clean enough to hold it.
“This.”
You looked around, but there was nothing specific enough to blame.
The counter.
The drawer.
The piles.
Your own body.
Your whole life.
“This,” you repeated. “Whatever this is.”
Robby did not move.
You looked down before he could see too much.
“I feel like I’m waiting all the time.”
The confession scraped on the way out.
“Waiting for appointments. Waiting for test results. Waiting for you to come home. Waiting for the baby to be here. Waiting to know what happens after that. Waiting to feel like any of this is actually mine.”
Robby’s mouth tightened, but he still said nothing.
You hated that you were grateful for it.
“I had a life,” you said.
Your voice nearly broke on the last word. You shook your head once, quick and angry at yourself.
“I had a job. I had people who knew me. I had streets I could walk without looking at my phone. I had places I belonged even when they were terrible places.”
You looked back at the counter. “At least they were mine.”
The kitchen went completely still.
The refrigerator hummed behind you. Late afternoon sunlight pressed faintly against the windows. Somewhere outside, a car passed too slowly down the street.
You picked up one of the loose keys and turned it over in your fingers even though it told you nothing.
“Maybe this was a mistake.”
Robby went very still. You heard it more than saw it. The change in the room. The absence of movement.
Your eyes closed.
“That’s not—”
You stopped. Because you did not know what it was.
“I don’t know,” you admitted, voice thin. “Maybe you should just sign the papers.”
Silence.
The key bit into your palm.
“Maybe I should go back.”
Robby’s jaw shifted once. “Is that what you want?”
You opened your mouth. Nothing came out. Because if the answer had been yes, maybe that would have been easier. If the answer had been no, maybe that would have been easier too.
Instead, you stared down at the piles on the counter and felt like every possible version of your life had become too large to look at directly.
“I don’t know.” The words were barely more than breath. “I don’t know what I want.”
Robby stayed quiet.
You hated that too. You hated that he did not rush in and tell you what to feel.
You hated that he did not make himself the villain so leaving would feel cleaner.
You hated that he stood there looking at you like he was trying to understand something that kept changing shape in your hands.
“I just know I can’t keep being this person,” you said.
Your voice cracked on person.
You looked around the kitchen.
At the drawer.
At the folded receipt.
At the house that had kept you safe and somehow made you feel smaller every day.
“I’m in your house. I’m using your insurance. Your money. Your space. And I’m snapping at you because you asked if I took a vitamin.” A short, humorless laugh left you. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here half the time except making both our lives harder.”
Robby’s jaw tightened. “You’re not making my life harder.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I’m not.”
“Michael.” Your fingers curled against the counter. “You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t ask for me. There was a reason you left Vegas.”
Robby went still.
“Because you didn’t want this life.”
His face changed then. Not anger. Not exactly. But something sharper than the patience he had been giving you all week.
“Don’t do that.”
You looked up. “What?”
“Decide what I want for me.”
Your throat tightened. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Yes,” he said, quiet but firm. “It is.”
The room held still around the words.
“You keep giving me an exit I didn’t ask for.”
You swallowed. “I’m trying to be realistic.”
“No,” he said.
Not loud. Not cruel. Just immediate enough to make you go still.
“You’re trying to make the decision easier.”
Something in your chest pulled tight.
“Because I don’t know how to make any decision anymore,” you snapped, and your voice broke before you could stop it. “I used to know what I was doing. I used to have answers. I used to have a life that made sense, even when it was messy, and now I can’t even tell if staying here is brave or stupid.”
Robby did not answer.
Your eyes stung.
“You don’t know what this feels like.”
That stopped him.
For the first time since he came home, Robby looked like the words had gotten through somewhere he had not expected.
A muscle shifted in his jaw.
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”
The admission sat between you.
No argument.
No correction.
No pretending.
He took a slow breath.
“I don’t know what it feels like to leave everything behind. I don’t know what it feels like to be nineteen weeks pregnant and sitting in someone else’s kitchen feeling like your whole life got replaced by appointments and grocery lists.”
You looked away.
“But I know this isn’t just about Vegas,” he said.
Your eyes moved back to him.
He held your gaze.
“And I don’t think going back fixes the part that hurts.”
You wanted to argue. You wanted to tell him he was wrong. You wanted to pick up every neatly sorted pile on the counter and scatter it just to prove none of it could stay organized anyway.
Instead, your mouth trembled once.
“I don’t know who I am here.”
There it was. The whole ugly center of it.
Not Vegas.
Not Pittsburgh.
Not the house.
Not Micheal.
You.
Robby’s expression shifted.
The sharpness did not disappear exactly. It softened into something quieter. Something worried. Something that looked too much like understanding.
For a long moment, neither of you said anything.
Then his eyes shifted toward the small table near the door.
Toward his keys.
Toward the spare helmet sitting on the lower shelf beneath his.
When he looked back at you, something in his expression had changed.
Not fixed.
Not certain.
Just decided.
“Come with me,” he said.
You stared at him.
“What?”
“Come with me.”
Your eyes flicked toward the small table by the door. Toward his keys. Toward the spare helmet sitting beneath them. Then back to him.
“For a ride?”
“Yes.”
You let out a short breath.
“Michael.”
He waited.
“You’ve spent the last month pointing out every mildly unsafe thing I’ve done.”
The corner of his mouth almost moved before settling again.
“You climbed onto the counter to reach a mixing bowl.”
“There was a chair right there.”
“You ignored the chair.”
“I was efficient.”
“You tried to move the bookshelf by yourself.”
“It was crooked.”
“It was heavy.”
You looked at him for a long moment. “And now you’re suggesting a motorcycle.”
“Yes.”
There was no defensiveness in it. No attempt to argue. Just the answer.
Your gaze drifted toward the window. Late afternoon light. Dry roads. The quiet neighborhood beyond the glass.
“You know this sounds insane.”
“I know.” The admission came easily. “I don’t think sitting in this kitchen is helping either.”
Something tightened painfully in your chest.
You looked back at the counter. At the sorted batteries. The bundled pens.
The keys you had been turning over in your hand like one of them might unlock a version of your life you recognized.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” you admitted.
“I don’t either.”
Your head lifted.
Robby held your gaze. “But I know walking isn’t enough anymore.”
Silence settled between you. Not awkward. Not comfortable. Just honest.
His eyes moved briefly toward the helmets, then back to you.
“And I think you miss it.”
Your throat tightened.
You did not ask what he meant.
The bike.
The noise.
The movement.
The part of yourself that had surfaced for a few minutes at dinner when he’d mentioned the rattle.
Robby’s voice stayed quiet.
“You sounded more like yourself talking about motorcycles than you have talking about anything else lately.”
That hit harder than you expected. Because he was right. Because you had not realized he had noticed that too.
Your hand drifted unconsciously toward the curve of your stomach.
Fear.
Habit.
Uncertainty.
Robby noticed.
He always noticed.
“If anything feels wrong,” he said, “we turn around.”
You looked at him.
“No questions asked.”
Something in your throat tightened. Not because of the bike. Not because of the offer.
Because after everything you’d just thrown at him, your fear, your resentment, your uncertainty, he wasn’t trying to convince you to stay.
He wasn’t trying to convince you to go. He was just offering you a way to breathe.
“You really think this is going to help?” you asked.
“No,” he said honestly.
Then, after a beat, “But I think sitting here is hurting you.”
The truth of it settled heavily between you.
You looked around the kitchen one more time.
The junk drawer spread across the counter.
The clean house.
The safe house.
The house that had started to feel too small around your skin.
Then you looked back at him.
“…Okay.”
Robby did not smile. He did not look relieved. He just nodded once.
“Okay.”
And for the first time all afternoon, the word did not sound like surrender.
Robby reached for his keys. And for the first time all day, the house did not feel like it was closing in.
You had forgotten.
Not the mechanics of it. Not how to swing your leg over the bike or settle your feet onto the pegs. Not the way the helmet muffled the world into something smaller and clearer all at once.
You had forgotten what it felt like.
The engine vibrated beneath you as Robby pulled away from the curb, steady and smooth beneath your hands.
Fall had settled over Pittsburgh while you weren’t paying attention.
The air held that crisp edge that only came for a few weeks every year. Cool enough to slip beneath the cuffs of your sweatshirt. Warm enough in the afternoon sun that you did not shiver. The sharp scent of drying leaves mixed with exhaust and chimney smoke somewhere in the distance.
For the first few minutes, you were aware of everything. The way your hands wrapped around Robby’s middle. The solid line of his back beneath your palms. The steady rise and fall of him breathing under your arms. The careful way he accelerated. The fact that you were nineteen weeks pregnant on the back of a motorcycle.
You could practically hear the list of reasons this had been a bad idea. Then Robby settled into the road.
Not fast.
Not flashy.
Just steady.
His body shifted before every turn, subtle enough that you felt it before you understood it. A lean to the left. A correction. A pause at a stop sign long enough to make absolutely sure the cross street was clear. He rode the way he did most things when he cared too much to say so outright.
Carefully.
Completely.
Without asking you to notice.
So you stopped fighting the movement.
Your hands loosened against his jacket. Your body remembered the old rhythm. Follow the lean. Trust the balance. Breathe.
The city unfolded around you.
And you remembered.
You remembered the wind. The way it slipped around your helmet and tugged at loose strands of hair. The vibration beneath your legs where they pressed against warm metal. The strange freedom of having nowhere to be except exactly where you already were.
You remembered riding behind your father while desert nights settled over Nevada, still warm long after the sun disappeared. You remembered the smell of hot asphalt cooling beneath streetlights. You remembered resting your helmet against his back and listening to him laugh with people your grandmother swore were perfectly respectable until they got together.
You remembered loving it.
Not the recklessness people assumed came with motorcycles. Not the danger. You had never cared much about that part.
You loved the simplicity of it.
Road.
Balance.
Movement.
You couldn’t check your phone. Couldn’t make grocery lists. Couldn’t reorganize drawers. Couldn’t sit in the same quiet house trying to figure out who you had become.
There was only this.
The steady rhythm of the engine beneath you. The city moving around you. The warmth of another person in front of you.
Robby took the back roads exactly like he had promised.
Slow.
Careful.
He stopped completely at yellow lights most people would have pushed through. Checked mirrors with almost annoying consistency. Left more space between himself and every other car than strictly necessary.
You found yourself smiling inside your helmet. Of course he did. The ridiculous part was that it worked. Because every careful turn and measured acceleration loosened something in your chest. Because the steadiness did not feel like control. It felt like permission.
You did not have to brace for the next thing.
You did not have to explain why you had snapped.
You did not have to make your gratitude look prettier.
You only had to hold on.
Trees burned gold and orange above sidewalks you had walked a dozen times.
You rode past the bookstore in Squirrel Hill where you had spent an hour pretending to browse before leaving empty-handed. The coffee shop with the crooked chalkboard sign and pastries that had been worth the hype. The museum where you had wandered through exhibits reading the same paragraph three times without absorbing a word.
The bridge everyone insisted you had to see at least once. The park where you had walked until your feet hurt because you had not known what else to do with the day.
You had been to all of these places.
Taken pictures.
Ordered coffee.
Gone home.
But this felt different.
Not like visiting.
Not like trying.
Pittsburgh passed around you in flashes of old brick and turning leaves and sunlight caught on river water. And for the first time since arriving, you were not wondering whether you could learn to love it.
You were not comparing it to Vegas.
You were not measuring what it lacked.
You were just there.
Present enough to notice the cool air against your cheeks.
Present enough to feel Robby’s breathing beneath your hands.
Present enough to tighten your arms around him once, not because you were scared, but because your body had remembered how to move with someone else’s.
Present enough to realize the constant restless buzzing in your head had gone quiet.
Not fixed.
Not gone forever.
Just…
quiet.
At a stoplight, Robby glanced back at you.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice carrying through the helmets.
You looked at him. At the familiar slope of his shoulders. At the concern tucked into the question.
Then you looked past him at the city stretching out beneath a sky washed pale blue. Leaves skittered across the pavement. Somewhere nearby, someone was raking a yard.
You realized you had stopped thinking.
Completely.
You squeezed him once around the middle.
“Yeah,” you said.
And for the first time in weeks, you meant it.
Robby looked at you for one second longer. Not long enough to make it strange. Just long enough that you knew he heard the difference.
Then the light changed.
He faced forward again, and the bike moved smoothly beneath you.
You kept your arms around him.
Looser now.
Not because you were paying less attention, but because your body had remembered what to do. The balance. The lean. The small shifts with the road. The trust required to follow someone else’s movement without fighting it.
He kept riding.
Past streets you recognized now.
Places you had already been.
Places that had felt like assignments when you visited them alone.
Now they blurred past in pieces of color and sound, less like places you were supposed to appreciate and more like proof that the world was still moving around you.
You did not have to decide what any of it meant. You only had to hold on.
At some point, the route changed.
Not enough for you to notice right away. Pittsburgh still felt like a city made of turns you did not know and hills you had not learned by instinct yet.
But you did not ask immediately. The ride had loosened something in you. Or maybe it had quieted something. Enough that not knowing, for once, did not feel like danger.
Then fifteen minutes became twenty. Twenty became longer. The houses thinned slightly. The streets widened. The storefronts changed from coffee shops and restaurants into older brick buildings, repair shops, warehouses with garage doors rolled halfway open.
Your arms tightened slightly around his middle.
“Michael?”
He turned his head just enough for you to see the edge of his helmet.
“Yeah?”
“Where are we going?”
For a second, he did not answer.
Then, “One more stop.”
You rolled your eyes even though he couldn’t see it. Then you settled back against the seat. The wind tugged at your sweatshirt. The engine hummed beneath you.
Whatever came next, you were still moving.
For now, that was enough.
A few minutes later, the bike began to slow. Robby eased off the street and into a small lot beside a low brick building. He pulled into a spot near the open bay and cut the engine.
The sudden silence rushed in around you. For a second, neither of you moved. Then Robby climbed off first. He pulled his helmet off and dragged a hand through flattened hair before turning back toward you.
Without a word, he reached for the strap beneath your chin. The clasp gave beneath his fingers. Cool fall air brushed against your face as he lifted the helmet away, taking the muffled quiet of the ride with it.
He hooked it over one arm before holding his hand out to you. You took it. The motion happened easily. Thoughtlessly. His grip steadied as you swung one leg over the bike and slid carefully down onto solid ground.
He let go once both of your feet were beneath you. Then he stepped back, tucking both helmets against his side like none of it was worth mentioning.
You adjusted the sleeves of your sweatshirt and looked up.
Auto & Cycle.
That was it. No name. No explanation. Just two words painted in faded block letters above the open garage bay.
The smell reached you next.
Oil.
Rubber.
Hot metal.
You turned toward him. “Michael.”
“Yeah?”
“Where are we?”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Duke’s,” he said.
You looked past him at the low brick building, the open bay, and the dark oil stains baked into the concrete.
Then back at him.
“This is Duke’s?”
“Yeah,” Robby said. “This is Duke’s.”
Then a man appeared in the bay, wiping his hands on a rag. Older. Broad through the shoulders. Grease on his shirt. His face unreadable enough to make most people rethink small talk.
He looked at Robby first.
“Thought you’d be back later,” he said.
Robby shifted the helmets against his side. “Plans changed.”
Duke’s gaze landed on you then. There was no obvious surprise there. Just assessment. The kind that came from years of looking at people and deciding whether they knew what they were doing.
Robby glanced between the two of you and introduced you.
Duke gave a short nod. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
Duke wiped his hands on the rag again, then nodded toward the open bay.
“Come on in.”
It was casual. Not warm exactly. Just an invitation.
You glanced at Robby.
He did not say anything. Did not nudge you forward or explain why you were there. He only stood beside you with both helmets tucked against his side, letting the choice belong to you.
So you stepped inside.
Duke’s shop was cleaner than your dad’s had been. Not clean. No working shop was ever really clean. But there was a system here. A rough one. Enough order under the mess to tell you Duke knew where things belonged even when they were not there.
Duke nodded toward Robby’s bike.
“Robby says you diagnosed his bike from the couch.”
You glanced over at Robby. He looked mildly uncomfortable.
“I didn’t diagnose anything,” you said. “He told me when it rattled.”
Duke’s eyes narrowed slightly, like that was exactly the point.
“Most people wouldn’t know what to do with that.”
You shrugged. “It’s just process of elimination.”
“Most people’s process of elimination starts and ends with ‘sounds expensive.’”
A corner of your mouth moved.
“They’re not wrong.”
“No,” Duke said. “They usually aren’t.”
He jerked his head toward the motorcycle sitting near one of the lifts.
“You want to take a look at this one?” he asked casually. “Could use a second opinion.”
You blinked.
“Me?”
“Unless there’s another motorcycle whisperer hiding in here.”
Your eyes shifted toward the bike.
It was older. Half-disassembled in a way that suggested someone had already thrown time and money at the obvious answers. The tank rested off to the side. Side covers leaned against the workbench. Parts had been arranged neatly enough to tell you Duke had a system, even if no one else could read it.
You found yourself stepping closer before you’d fully decided to. “What’s it doing?”
Duke leaned against the workbench. “Depends who you ask.”
You looked over at him.
“Owner says it started acting up out of nowhere.”
You made a face. “So the owner’s lying.”
“Almost definitely.”
That got the smallest huff of amusement out of him.
“The actual problem?” you asked.
“Rough idle on cold mornings. Hesitation under throttle. Intermittent misfires once it’s hot.”
You circled slowly around the bike.
“Compression?”
“Good.”
“Fuel pressure?”
“Within spec.”
“Plugs?”
“Changed.”
“Coils?”
“Swapped.”
“No difference?”
“Nope.”
You hummed softly. “Annoying.”
“Exactly.”
Your gaze moved over the exposed engine. Not touching. Just looking.
“Any codes?”
Duke rattled them off.
You frowned. “Only when it’s hot?”
“Mostly.”
You glanced up at him. “‘Mostly’ is a dangerous word.”
“Yeah,” Duke said. “That’s where I keep getting stuck.”
You bent slightly to get a better angle.
“If compression’s good, fuel pressure’s good, and plugs and coils didn’t change anything…” You trailed off. “I’d start looking at things that change once everything heats up.”
“Like?”
“Vacuum leak. Sensor drift. Wiring issue that only shows itself once everything gets warm enough to expand or shift.”
Duke nodded slowly. “You troubleshoot for a living?”
You kept your eyes on the bike. “I just don’t like guessing.”
“Neither do I.”
For a second, the two of you stood there looking at the motorcycle.
Then Duke pushed away from the bench.
“Alright,” he said. “Show me where you’d start.”
You pointed toward the intake side of the engine. “Did you smoke test it hot?”
Duke paused. “No.”
“But you did cold.”
“Yeah.”
“I’d rule that out before chasing electrical ghosts.”
Duke looked at you for a beat. Then nodded. “Fair.”
The conversation settled after that.
Question.
Answer.
Theory.
Counterpoint.
Duke would ask what you’d check next. You’d answer. He’d throw out another possibility. You’d explain why you agreed or disagreed. Nothing formal. Nothing forced. Just two people working through a problem.
Somewhere behind you, Robby stayed quiet. When you glanced back once, he was leaning against the opposite workbench with both helmets tucked against his side.
Watching. The thoughtful line between his brows had disappeared. He looked relaxed. Like maybe this had been what he’d hoped for when he pulled into the lot without telling you where you were going.
You looked away before you could sit with that too long.
Duke tapped the side of the bike. “Let’s see if you’re right.”
And for the first time in weeks, you realized nearly an hour had passed without thinking about what came next.
By the time Duke stepped away from the bike, the sun had started slipping lower behind the buildings. None of you had noticed the hour slipping by.
The garage doors stayed open, letting cool fall air drift through the shop. Long shadows stretched across the concrete, cutting between toolboxes and crates and the half-disassembled bike still sitting near the lift.
At some point, Duke pulled beers from an old refrigerator near the back. One for himself. One for Robby. Then he looked at you, looked briefly toward your stomach, and handed you a bottle of water without comment.
You took it without making him say anything. That felt easier somehow.
A few minutes later, the three of you had settled near the open bay.
Duke sat on an overturned crate, beer balanced against one knee. Robby leaned back against the workbench with his ankles crossed, nursing his bottle slowly. You sat on another crate, one hand wrapped around your water, the other resting loosely against your thigh.
The shop had gone quiet in the way working places did after the day was mostly done. Not silent. Just lower.
The radio hummed somewhere behind you. Traffic passed outside. Metal ticked softly as the bike cooled near the lift.
Duke took a drink, then stared out through the open bay like the memory was somewhere past the street.
“Once rode through Arizona with no front brake.”
You blinked. “What?”
Robby looked over slowly. “You’ve never told me that.”
“Because you make that face.”
“I’m a doctor. This face is appropriate.”
Duke ignored him. “Line went bad outside Flagstaff. Responsible thing would’ve been to stop.”
You waited.
He took another drink. “I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I was twenty-five and stupid.”
Robby tipped his beer toward him. “Half that sentence is still true.”
Duke gave him a flat look.
You tried not to smile.
“How far did you ride?”
“Too far.”
“That’s not a distance.”
“It is when you’re the one learning from it.”
Robby shook his head. “You’re impossible.”
“Back brake worked,” Duke said.
“Oh, well,” you said. “Perfectly safe.”
“See? She gets it.”
“I absolutely do not.”
Robby’s mouth twitched despite himself.
“What happened?” you asked.
Duke looked back toward the open bay.
“Came down a mountain road too hot. Had to choose between laying it down or becoming part of the guardrail.”
You went still for half a second. “And?”
“Didn’t become part of the guardrail.”
Robby closed his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”
Duke shrugged. “Bike was mostly fine.”
“You were not mostly fine,” Robby said.
“I could walk.”
You stared at him. “That is a very low standard.”
“Worked for me.”
You laughed then, sharp and surprised.
Duke’s mouth twitched like he’d been waiting for it.
“So the lesson was fix your brakes?” you asked.
Duke considered it. “No.”
“No?”
“The lesson was don’t let twenty-five-year-old men vote on important decisions.”
Robby lifted his beer slightly. “Hard to argue with that.”
Duke ignored him again. “They were idiots.”
“You rode with them,” you pointed out.
“I was also an idiot.”
There was no shame in his voice. Just fact. That made you laugh harder.
The conversation moved from there without effort.
Duke told you about a ride to Tennessee where six grown men had gotten lost because none of them wanted to admit they could not read a paper map. Another time, he and two friends ended up sleeping behind a laundromat because someone had confidently declared they could “absolutely make it another hundred miles.”
“Who was someone?” you asked.
Duke took a drink. “Me.”
Robby shook his head faintly.
You told them about Vegas.
Not the painful parts. Not the lonely parts. Just the ones that came easier in a garage with the sun going down.
The bartender stories. The tourist who cried because she thought she had lost her hotel, only to realize she was standing inside it. The man who tried to convince you Canadian money counted as a tip because it was “basically the same.” The bachelorette party that lost a bridesmaid for three hours and found her playing blackjack with three retired firefighters from Ohio.
Duke listened with his beer resting against one knee, expression still mostly flat, but not unreadable anymore. Every so often, his mouth pulled slightly at the corner, or his eyes narrowed in that dry, entertained way that made it clear he was enjoying your stories.
Robby mostly stayed quiet. Every now and then, he added something dry enough to make you glance over. But mostly he watched. Not the way he had been watching at home lately. Not worried. Not measuring whether you were tired or hungry or quietly falling apart.
Just watching you talk. Watching you laugh. Watching you lean into a conversation that had nothing to do with appointments or bills or what came next.
And for once, you did not mind being seen.
You took another drink of water and listened while Duke described a night ride through West Virginia that had apparently involved a wrong turn, a thunderstorm, and a man named Spider who refused to ride behind anyone because he believed it was “spiritually humiliating.”
“What happened to Spider?” you asked.
Duke looked at his beer.
“Married a librarian. Moved to Arizona.”
“Good for Spider.”
“He sends Christmas cards now.”
Robby’s mouth twitched.
You laughed again, softer this time.
The sound felt strange in your chest. Not because it hurt. Because it didn’t. For weeks, your days had been so quiet that even your own thoughts had started sounding too loud. Now you were sitting in a garage on a crate, listening to an old ex-biker tell stories like regrets were just facts with better lighting.
It was the first time in a long time you had been out of the house without feeling like you were trying to prove you were fine. You were not trying to be fine here. You were just there. And somehow that was easier.
The sun dropped lower. The light at the edge of the bay turned amber, then thin.
Eventually, Duke looked toward you.
“You get bored at the house,” he said, “come by.”
You blinked. “What?”
He took another drink of beer. “I could use company from someone who knows what they’re doing.”
For a second, you did not answer. The offer was so casual you almost missed the weight of it.
Not a job.
Not charity.
Not a favor.
Just an open door.
Your eyes moved automatically to Robby. He was already looking at you. Quiet. Unsurprised. Like maybe he had hoped Duke would say it, but he had not asked him to.
“It’s up to you,” Robby said.
You searched his face. “You’d be okay with that?”
His answer came easily. “You don’t need me to be okay with it.”
You had not realized you were waiting for permission until he refused to give it.
Duke glanced between the two of you.
“You can also say no,” he said. “I’m not adopting you.”
You looked back at him.
The corner of your mouth moved.
“That’s a relief. I’m terrible with curfews.”
“Figured.”
Robby glanced down, hiding a smile behind his beer.
Duke pointed the bottle toward the half-disassembled bike. “But you might be useful.”
The words settled somewhere warmer than they should have.
Useful.
Not fragile.
Not waiting.
Not someone being carefully kept safe inside a house.
Useful.
You looked around the shop again.
The crates.
The tools.
The open bay.
The old stories still lingering in the air.
Then you nodded once.
“Yeah,” you said softly. “Maybe I will.”
Duke gave a short nod like that was all he needed. “Good.”
Robby looked down at his beer, but you caught the brief relief in his face before he hid it.
Outside, the last of the sun slipped behind the buildings.
And for the first time since you came to Pittsburgh, the thought of tomorrow did not feel quite so empty.
—
The ride back was quieter.
Not worse.
Just quieter.
The kind of quiet that came after a day had finally loosened its grip and left both of you careful with what remained.
You held onto Robby as he took the long way home, the city slipping past in darkening streets and porch lights and trees thinning into shadow. The air had cooled since earlier, sharper now against your cheeks, but the engine stayed warm beneath you.
This time, you did not count turns or wonder how far from home you were.
When the bike stopped at a light, you rested your forehead briefly between his shoulder blades. Robby did not look back. He only covered one of your hands with his for half a second before the light changed.
The touch was brief. Barely anything. Still, something in your chest ached.
Because earlier, you had stood in his kitchen and tried to hand him an exit. You had said papers. Vegas. Mistake. Words that still sat between your ribs like bruises.
And he was still here. Steady beneath your hands. Taking the long way home.
By the time Robby pulled into the driveway, the sky had gone deep blue at the edges.
He cut the engine.
The silence settled around you slowly.
No radio.
No tools.
No Duke telling stories like nearly dying in Arizona was a normal personality flaw.
Just the quiet street.
The house.
Michael.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
Then Robby got off first, same as before. He pulled his helmet off and tucked it under one arm before turning back to you. His fingers found the strap beneath your chin. The clasp gave.
Cool evening air touched your face as he lifted the helmet away. Neither of you said anything.
He set both helmets against his side, then held out his hand. You took it without thinking.
His grip was steady as you climbed off the bike. He let go once your feet were beneath you, but only after making sure they were.
Inside, the house felt different.
Not changed.
Just less narrow.
You stood near the entryway while Robby set both helmets down by the door.
The hallway light was off. The kitchen was dim except for the glow over the stove. Somewhere deeper in the house, the refrigerator hummed.
The junk drawer was still spread across the counter.
Pens.
Batteries.
Loose screws.
The mess you had left behind.
For the first time all day, looking at it did not make your chest tighten.
Robby followed your gaze. He did not say anything about it. He only set his keys in the bowl and leaned one shoulder lightly against the wall, giving you room to decide what happened next.
You looked at the helmets by the door.
Then at him.
“Thank you, Michael.”
Robby glanced over. “For what?”
You swallowed once. “For not letting me disappear in here.”
His expression changed.
Small.
Quiet.
Enough.
Then you added, because that felt too bare, “And for introducing me to Duke.”
Robby looked down for half a second.
When he looked back up, his face was softer.
“You liked him.”
You shrugged one shoulder. “He’s fine.”
“High praise.”
“He’s tolerable.”
“That’s basically friendship.”
A faint smile tugged at your mouth. It faded, but not completely.
“I mean it,” you said, quieter now. “Thank you.”
Robby rubbed the back of his neck. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”
“I do.”
You tucked your hands beneath your arms. “I know you were trying to help.”
He looked at you for a second.
Then nodded once.
“I was.”
The honesty settled between you. Not awkward. Just there.
You glanced toward the helmets again. “I just don’t want to invade your personal life.”
His brow pulled together. “My personal life?”
“Duke. Your friends. Your places.” You looked back at him. “I know I’m already in your house. I don’t want to start showing up in all the corners of your life, too.”
Robby’s gaze dropped briefly. When it came back to you, there was something steadier in it.
“You’re not invading anything.”
“You say that.”
“I mean that.”
You pressed your lips together.
He pushed away from the wall, but he did not come too close.
“You’re allowed to have people here,” he said.
The words were quiet. Careful, but not fragile.
“You’re allowed to make friends. You’re allowed to have places that aren’t this house or the doctor’s office or whatever grocery store has the least offensive produce.”
A small breath left you.
His thumb worried once at the edge of his sleeve.
“You don’t have to ask permission to take up space.”
The words settled somewhere low in your chest. For a second, all you could hear was the refrigerator. The soft settling of the house around you.
Robby’s voice stayed quiet. “I don’t want you watching the front window and wondering if that’s it.”
You looked down at the floorboards. The sentence hurt. Not because it was cruel. Because it was too close to something you had not said out loud.
You swallowed once before looking up again.
He glanced toward the living room, then back.
“If something isn’t working,” he said carefully, “tell me before you decide to just live with it.”
“We’ll figure something out.”
Your throat tightened. “You make that sound easy.”
“I don’t think it is.”
That somehow made it easier to hear.
Robby held your gaze. “But I’d rather know.”
For a second, the house felt too quiet again. But not like before. Not like walls pressing in. More like a room waiting for you to choose where to stand.
“Okay,” you said softly.
Robby nodded. For a moment, neither of you moved. Then his mouth twitched faintly.
“And if you ever need actual girl company, I know a few residents who would be thrilled to have someone new to complain about me with.”
A surprised breath left you.
“Residents?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re offering me your residents?”
“I’m offering you potential allies.”
“Against you?”
“Realistically, yes.”
Your mouth curved despite yourself. “They don’t like you?”
“They like me fine.”
“Uh-huh.”
A faint smirk pulled at his mouth.
“I’ve been called an asshole once or twice.”
You looked at him. “You?”
“Allegedly.”
Your mouth curved. “That tracks.”
“See?” His shoulders loosened at the sight of your smile. “You’ll have plenty in common.”
This time, the smile stayed a little longer. Robby saw it. He didn’t comment. You were grateful for that.
You glanced toward the door, toward the helmets resting side by side.
Then back at him. “I did like getting out.”
“I know.”
You looked at him.
He blinked, like he had answered too quickly.
“I mean…” His hand fell away from where it had half-lifted. “I’m glad.”
A small silence settled. This one felt easier.
You nodded once. “Me too.”
Then you turned toward the hook by the door and hung your jacket there. Not over the back of a chair. Not folded beside your bag like you might need it again at any second.
On the hook.
Beside his.
For the first time in weeks, you did it without looking over your shoulder first.
Robby noticed.
He didn’t say anything. He only reached past you, took the helmets from the floor, and set them side by side on the shelf.
Yours beside his.
The house was still the house.
Quiet.
Safe.
Waiting.
But it did not feel like the edge of your life anymore.
summary: One glitchy tablet, one HR email, and suddenly you’re married to your attending, Jack Abbot. HR thinks it was intentional and has already started merging your records. Claim it was a mistake, and your residency could be delayed. With only three months left until you're an attending, Jack agrees to play along. Pretending to be married might save your career—but can your heart survive the side effects?
tags: accidental marriage, slow burn romance, HR involvement, nosy coworkers, reader is a PGY-4 resident, jack is not a widow in this fic, possible medical/legal inaccuracies, mutual pining, fluff
word count: 4.4k
a/n: thank you all for still being here! we're nearly at the end :(( but it's been so much fun!! i appreciate you lots and LOVE reading your comments <33 i hope you enjoy! <33
i'm not keeping a tag list for this series!
Diagnosis: Married | Masterlist
The Pitt | Masterlist
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You wake to the sensation of soft kisses brushed against your skin—your forehead, your cheek, and your chin. It's the best sleep you've had in months, muscles warm and at ease. The feeling grows with each kiss as you're reminded of the fact that last night was real.
Jack loves you.
It wasn't just a vivid dream; the tender kisses he places on your skin confirm that. You're tempted to pretend to stay asleep just to enjoy more of this, but you instinctively scrunch your nose as his lips land on it, his scruff tickling you gently.
"Morning," he murmurs warmly, his voice husky with sleep, as he breathes against your cheek. You can feel his smile before your eyes fully open as he presses another soft kiss to your face.
Jack rests on one elbow, his hair tousled, with the soft morning light catching the strands that are more white than grey. God, he's handsome.
Yesterday, you might have convinced yourself that this look of adoration he’s giving you is just a figment of your imagination, but today, you know it’s real. He’s actually gazing at you like this, as if nothing else matters—not your messy morning hair nor yesterday’s mascara remnants around your eyes. He simply looks like he’s glad you’re here with him.
"Morning," you grin back, stifling a yawn into your hand.
His smile broadens. "Hi."
You chuckle softly. "Hi."
He keeps staring at you with a smile on his face. His other hand finds your waist, and your cheeks flush in response as he drags you closer. Although his touch isn’t new, the familiarity feels different now—seeing as you now know the intent behind it means what you want it to.
"What?" you ask, a bit self-conscious, rubbing your eyes in hopes of wiping away the stubborn mascara stains.
"Nothing," he shrugs, yet the grin on his face suggests otherwise.
"Jack." You pout at him and watch as his gaze drops down to your lips.
"I just..." he laughs lightly and shakes his head. "I can’t believe this is real."
You know exactly how he feels, and you hope he's able to see it in your eyes. If he doesn't, then you hope he feels it as your hand brushes through his wild strands. His eyes flutter shut under your touch, and when he opens them again, you’re convinced he does.
You both lock eyes for a moment before he leans forward. At the last moment, you turn your head, and his kiss lands on your cheek instead. He makes a comically disgruntled noise.
"I haven't brushed my teeth yet," you lament, though unable to suppress your laughter at his pouty face.
"I don't care," Jack says, placing a kiss against your jaw.
"Jack," you giggle louder. "I’m serious. My breath stinks."
"I've wanted to do this for months," he says, pressing another kiss to your cheek. "A little morning breath won’t stop me. Honestly, you could have rotten teeth, and I’d still kiss you."
"Ew," you grimace, but he just laughs and plants another kiss at the corner of your mouth.
You debate it for a second, then your cringe morphs into a grin as you lean in, stealing a quick kiss from his lips.
When you pull back, Jack stares at you with wide eyes. You can see when realisation hits him; his eyes darken, and he leans in quickly, giving you no chance to dodge him again. His mouth meets yours, soft yet persistent, each kiss lingering a bit longer than the last. He swallows your giggles with his lips, but he can't help but laugh, too.
Eventually, he presses his forehead against yours, and you stay there for a little while, wrapped up in each other, letting the reality of last night fully settle. The room is quiet except for your breathing, and for the first time since yesterday, the silence feels comfortable.
"I missed waking up next to you," Jack confesses, his voice low in your ear.
You press a kiss to his cheek before resting your head against his shoulder. "Me too."
You breathe in, nose buried deep in the crook of his throat, and his arms tighten around you when he realises what you're doing—breathing in the scent that's purely him. You've never been able to do this freely, and it feels surreal to be able to be this close with no excuses needed.
The moment's broken when your alarm rings softly. Jack shifts to turn it off while still holding you close, and makes no move to let you go or get up.
"We need to get up," you say after a minute, trying to pull back.
"Says who?" he answers cheekily, pulling you in even closer.
"Check-out, for one," you reply, pushing gently against his chest. "And I’d like to shower before we have to sit in an enclosed space for two hours."
"What if I like the way you smell?" he says, and usually, your stomach would be fluttering at a sentence like that, but you know him too well—
"—Fritos are my favourite chips," he continues. His chest bounces a bit as you playfully swat him.
"Rude," you grin, and this time he allows you to slip out of his grasp. "And you’re a liar. I know your favourite isn’t Fritos."
"Says who?" he repeats with a grin as he watches you sit up. You move to the edge of the bed, and he sits up to be able to see you better.
"Says the several bags of Doritos in your cabinets," you counter with a raised eyebrow. You move to slide off the bed, but he catches your arm, pulling you back over to him.
"Ja-ack," you laugh as you land against his chest.
"Those are for Robby," Jack says, and before you can argue, his mouth captures yours again. He keeps you there for another five minutes before your alarm blares again.
"Fine," he concedes when you pull back again. "Just leave me all alone here."
You shuffle forward, but pause at the doorway to the bathroom, meeting his eyes with a mischievous smile. "You could always join me."
Jack freezes, and you can see him process the offer—the way his eyes darken and the slight swallow as his gaze trails over you.
"Or not," you shrug, stifling a grin as you turn away.
He's got his crutches in his hands before your sentence finishes.
The checkout line is ridiculously long, and under normal circumstances, you’d complain about it—after all, how hard can it be to hand over a keycard and walk out? But with Jack’s arm wrapped around your waist and soft kisses peppered onto your hairline, you just can’t find the energy to care.
Even as Jack offers to give you his car keys, so you can wait in the car, you shake your head. You want to stay close to him despite the line barely moving. The lobby is crowded, and it really makes no sense for both of you to be standing here. Still, after spending weeks keeping your distance, torturing yourself, the thought of being apart now feels absurd.
Jack doesn’t push the issue; he simply nods and pulls you closer again. You're plastered to his side for the ten minutes it takes before you finally reach the desk.
"Hey," a warm voice greets you just as Jack hands over the keycard. Jeremy stands off to the side, a bag slung over his shoulder, sunglasses pushed up into his hair.
"Hi," you respond with a smile, stepping out of the queue to approach him.
He returns your smile. "I’m glad I caught you—you left before I could tell you how nice it was to see you again yesterday."
"Oh, sorry about that," you start, embarrassment flaring at the reminder of your jealous outburst. "I had—"
"We had some stuff to do," Jack interjects, slipping an arm around your waist again. He gives Jeremy a tight smile.
"Oh, don't worry about it," Jeremy responds. "Warren was asking about you, but honestly, I’m not sure she even remembers anything now." He leans in a little closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. "I had to extend her hotel room for her—she got pretty wasted after you left. The ushers had to escort her to her room after she threw up in the plants in the hallway."
"What? Really?" Laughter bubbles out of you. "Well, that's very professional."
Jack squeezes your waist admonishingly but still huffs an amused breath.
Jeremy grins. "Anyway, it was great to see you again. You’ve really done well for yourself, Sleepy." He nods at you, then glances at Jack, offering him a nod as well.
"You too," you say, and you mean it. Jeremy was a great guy in med school, even if he wasn't the best at relationships back then, but you're sure he's grown up more. You certainly have.
You're more certain of what you want, more certain of what you deserve, and somehow, that has landed you with Jack.
"Maybe we'll see you around," you finish. Presby isn't that far from PTMC after all.
"Yeah, I hope so," Jeremy replies, pulling his sunglasses down. He smiles at you one last time before he walks off. "Get home safe."
Jack grumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like 'yeah, I hope so' as he steers you towards the exit. He keeps a neutral face until you're outside, where it turns sullen. A laugh escapes you the moment you’re near the car, and away from prying eyes.
Jack narrows his eyes at you as he pops open the trunk. "What’s so funny?"
Another laugh leaves you. "You're just a silly, jealous man."
"I'm not silly," he replies immediately as he places your bags inside the trunk before shutting it again.
"That's the part you focus on?"
"I'm not jealous," he insists, crossing his arms.
You tilt your head, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm not."
"Hey," you say, stepping closer. His arms drop the moment you gently press down on them. You curl your fingers into the front of his t-shirt. "You have nothing to be jealous of."
Jack huffs, staring at your hands.
"Jack."
His eyes lift to yours.
"I love you." The words still feel new in your mouth, but no less right.
His eyes search yours, still checking after everything revealed yesterday that you mean it. The tight line of his mouth softens when he finds a satisfying answer.
You draw him in closer. "Okay?"
"Okay." His hand slides to your cheek and you meet him halfway, your lips pressing together in a tender kiss.
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth when he pulls back. "Let's go home."
Coming home feels strange.
Not in a bad way, but it feels different than it did when you left. The air has shifted inside, the furniture moved without being an inch out of place, and the smell is different, and yet everything is exactly the same.
Jack's sweater still hangs over the back of the dining room chair. Your blanket is still draped across the couch, unfolded in that way Jack always grumbles over, but never does anything about.
Everything feels new and somehow the exact same. The only different thing is you and Jack. There's finally nothing unspoken between you, with all cards on the table. No uncertainty, no wondering, no pretending.
There's still the question of what this means for you, but it doesn't feel pressing. It's just there in the background, waiting until the moment feels right. There's no rush to speak.
You're free to enjoy this moment for what it is. The pleasantness from the drive, where Jack spent the entire trip with his hand firmly planted on your thigh, carries into the house.
The bags get unpacked together, clothes thrown into the washer by four hands rather than two. You follow Jack to the bedroom when he puts the bags away; he follows you into the bathroom when you put your toiletries back. You make lunch together, hips nudging, shoulders brushing—a task that normally takes ten stretches into thirty because neither of you can stop talking and laughing.
He keeps looking at you like he still can't believe it's real. You can keep leaning in close to prove to him that it is.
The day settles eventually as you both curl up on the couch with books. The laundry tumbles quietly in the background as warm sunlight spills in through the living room windows.
You're leaning against his chest, reading, but more focused on the hand that's trailing slowly up and down your arm. Every so often, you glance at him out of the corner of your eye, catching the scruff on his jaw that's slightly longer than usual, the way he scrunches his nose at passages in his book, and how his face is relaxed in a way you haven't seen before.
As if sensing you, he glances over at you. His mouth immediately curves into a smile when he catches you swiftly looking away. He huffs a little cute sound, squeezing your shoulder.
You grin into your book, nudging his leg with your hand. You try to refocus on the pages, but it doesn't take long before you're blinking heavily. Without even really thinking about it, you slide down until your head is resting on his lap instead.
Jack's hand follows soundly, petting your head softly and lulling you to sleep.
By evening, neither of you has spent more than a few minutes apart.
Dinner comes and goes. The dishes get washed. The laundry gets folded. Around you, the house gradually darkens, shadows stretching across familiar rooms. You try to stay awake as long as possible, hoping to drag your sleeping schedule back toward something resembling normal before your next shift. By the seventh yawn in under a minute, Jack gives you a look.
"Okay," he says with an amused huff. "Time for bed."
You grumble half-heartedly but still let him steer you toward the bedroom. Blearily, you grab at clothes in the closet. Jack doesn't comment on the fact that you grab one of his shirts, just glances at it with a pleased smile before he heads into the bathroom.
When he's done, you brush past him in just his shirt and underwear that he can't see, biting back a smile at when he swallows harshly. You don't fight the grin once you're alone in the bathroom, letting the giddy feeling take over.
Your phone vibrates against the counter, just as you've put your toothbrush into your mouth.
>> Hello??? Are you alive?!
It's Olivia. Fuck. She's already texted you three times earlier today, and you'd ignored her, unsure of what to say that won't reveal everything immediately.
<< Yes
>> That's it??
<< Yes, I'm fine <3
You add the heart, toothbrush hanging loosely from your mouth as you try to act normal.
>> Uh huh. How did it go?
You can picture her narrowed eyes when you read it. Your thumbs hover over the screen for a minute, thinking of what to say.
<< It was fine. Nothing worth mentioning.
You can see her typing, deleting, then typing again several times.
>> And what about Jack?
<< He's fine, too.
You pause before adding:
<< We're fine. Things are okay again.
>> What does that mean??
You take too long to answer her, but her following text shows that it doesn't really matter anyway—she knows you too well.
>> oh😏
When you reemerge, you've decided to keep this to yourself until the morning. No need to reveal to Jack that the plan has failed immediately. This can still be just yours tonight.
He sits against the headboard, prosthetic off, and duvet covering his lap. He looks nervous. "Are you gonna—?" He gestures vaguely toward the empty side of the bed before clearing his throat. "I mean..."
The uncertainty in his voice surprises you. You'd just spent the entire day together, and he's unsure if you want to share the bed. It's kinda cute.
"Yeah," you say softly. "If that's okay?"
His answer comes fast. "Of course it's okay." He pauses. "I just didn't know if—" he shrugs, trailing off.
You climb into bed, into the arm that was waiting for you. You both sink down until your head settles against his chest, listening to the familiar rhythm of his heartbeat.
You guess this is as good a moment as any other to finally have the conversation.
"I...uh—" you start. "I have the divorce papers printed on my desk."
Jack goes very still.
"I also still have that apartment viewing on Thursday." You stare at a loose thread on his shirt. "I know we've done this in a weird order. Getting married, moving in together, and then confessing."
You force out a laugh. "If you want to do this properly, we can."
The room goes quiet. Jack's arm tightens around you. "Properly?"
"You know." You shrug. "Dating. Separate places. Normal people stuff."
For a moment, he doesn't say anything; then, he says: "Do you want that?"
The question catches you off guard. You hesitate but answer truthfully. "No."
Jack lets out a breath. Just a small exhale that sounds suspiciously like relief. "Oh."
You lift your head. "Oh?"
Jack's mouth twitches. "I don't either." He rubs the back of his neck. "But I don't want you staying because you think you have to."
Your chest squeezes. "Jack."
"You've spent months trying to make decisions based on what you thought I wanted." His fingers trace idle patterns against your arm. "I'd rather know what you want."
You stare at him for a second. "I want to stay. I want to stay here."
His eyes soften immediately. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "We don't have to rush to figure things out. I like having you here. We can't figure the rest out later."
"Yeah?"
"Mm," he hums, his grip tightening around you. "I slept like shit when you weren't here. I'd prefer not to do that again."
You huff a breath. "Me too."
Even though the apartment had been nicer than the others you'd looked at, you really didn't want to move. You're happy he feels the same as you do. Maybe it doesn't matter if you do this in an order that doesn't make the most sense—as long as it makes sense to you, that's all that matters.
The room quiets again until Jack speaks again. "Can I ask you something?"
Your chest tightens, but you still nod.
"Why Lily?"
You knew he was going to ask eventually, but it doesn't make it any less embarrassing. You sigh into his chest. "That day—" you don't have to specify which, he already knows. "The way you ran inside looking terrified—"
You swallow. "And how you yelled at me after..." The memory of it still stings now, even after his countless apologies. "It was the difference in how you treated me and her."
"I'm sorry," he says again.
"I know."
"No." His voice is quiet. "I need you to understand what happened."
You lift your head enough to look at him.
"I got there seconds after—" His jaw tightens. "I barely managed to pull you away. I was already petrified when I heard the code being called. I could only imagine you—" he stops, breathing heavily. "...I can't explain what that felt like."
He continues, "When I realised it wasn't you, I was relieved. And then I felt guilty for being relieved because someone had still gotten hurt, but all I could think about was how happy I was that it wasn't you."
The confession lands heavily between you.
"I was scared out of my mind. Angry at the patient. Relieved that you weren't hurt. Guilty that I was relieved. All at once. And I took it out on you. I'm sorry."
You squeeze his hand.
His eyes find yours. "It was never about Lily."
You believe him. Now, you do. But back then? Back then, you'd been drowning in uncertainty.
You shrug helplessly, revealing more of how you felt. "After that, I started noticing every little thing. The way you talked to her. The way she made you laugh."
"You make me laugh," he says firmly.
You roll your eyes at him, a slight smile tugging on your lips. "I think I was trying to make peace with losing you. If I wasn't the one for you, then she could be. She could be better for you. Kinder than me. Easier than me."
Jack's face falls. "Sweetheart..."
Your mouth twitches sadly, looking down at his shirt again.
"You genuinely thought that?"
You nod.
His hand comes up to cradle your cheek, lifting your gaze back to his. "Do you have any idea how much time I spent wishing you'd look at me the way I looked at you?" His thumb brushes across your skin. "It was always you."
You close your eyes, leaning into his touch. You sigh. "We wasted so much time."
"Yeah."
Moments stolen by fear and assumptions and bad timing. You think about every dinner that could have been a date. Every movie night spent pretending not to notice how close he sat. Every almost-confession. Every chance that slipped away.
But now, everything's finally out in the open. The conversation drifts after that. You talk about everything. The first dinner. The first kiss. The kiss cam. The bar. Every misunderstanding. Every moment one of you had walked away convinced the other didn't feel the same.
Sometimes you laugh until your stomach hurts. Sometimes you bury your face in a pillow because neither of you can believe how oblivious you've been. Sometimes there's silence while you mourn all the things that could have been.
By the time the conversation finally slows, pale morning light is spilling through the curtains. Your eyes burn with exhaustion, but your chest feels lighter than it has in months.
You don't know what happens next.
You don't know what being married and newly confessed and hopelessly in love is supposed to look like. But for the first time, that uncertainty doesn't scare you. You'll figure it out together.
Beside you, Jack shifts closer beneath the blankets until there's barely any space left between you.
His lips brush your hair. "I love you."
You smile immediately. The confession still feels unreal. "I love you too."
The smile you feel against your forehead is warm and content. And wrapped in his arms, with the future still unwritten and endless possibilities stretching ahead of you, sleep finally finds you both.
The next evening finds you faster than you'd like.
As you step in through the door to the hospital, side by side, it reminds you of the first time you walked in carrying a secret on your shoulders—only this time, your shoulders are light, and your stomach is fluttering with happy jitters.
Somehow, you manage to make your way to the lockers without meeting anyone. With your bags dropped, you sneak a brief kiss against the door before you reenter the Pitt. Jack's hand brushes yours, your pinky catching his for a second, before you take a step apart.
You try to bite back the smile that threatens to break through. If you want this work, you need to stop acting like a lovestruck teenager. It's incredibly hard, though.
Robby stands at the hub, tablet in hand and a frown on his face.
"Rough day?" Jack says, clapping his back. He leans against the counter as you trail closer.
"Yeah... Good luck." Robby rubs his face, dropping the tablet on the counter. When his eyes open, they narrow in on the space between you and Jack—or rather the lack of it.
You shift to the side, trying to act nonchalant, but Robby's a hound. His eyes follow the movement immediately, nose twitching as he tries to sniff out everything you're trying to keep quiet.
"How was the conference?"
"Fine," Jack replies, glancing up at the board. He taps his fingers rhythmically on the counter.
"It was?" Robby raises an eyebrow, staring at him. Jack nods at him, shifting his gaze away quickly. Robby watches him for a moment, then turns to you.
"Mm," you nod, offering a tight smile. "The usual."
Robby stays silent, shifting his gaze from Jack to you, and then he grins widely. He chuckles, "If you so."
"Yeah," Jack nods with an awkward smile.
"Well, that's good." Robby keeps grinning as he pats the counter twice. "I'll see you later." He salutes you, still smiling, then walks off without any further questions.
You stare at his disappearing figure with a sense of dread. With a hand around Jack's wrist, you pull him into a quiet corner, hissing: "He knows."
Jack frowns. "How could he? We were acting normal."
You stare at him. "Normal? If you call 'you not looking at him at all' normal, then yes. Very normal."
"I did look at him."
"For two seconds. Normally, you don't look away at all," you counter.
Jack crosses his arms. "Well...You gave it away to Olivia."
"I didn't—I told her nothing."
"Exactly!" Jack points out. "That's not normal for you."
You stare at him with pinched eyebrows and then sigh. "...Yeah, okay. Maybe I did."
Jack sighs, too. "I guess I did, too." He shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips as he leans closer. "But to be fair, I think we forgot that they've spent months dealing with our sorry asses. Of course, they know. They knew we were in love before we did."
"—Abbot, there you are! Stop hiding in corners with your missus—trauma incoming," Lena interrupts with a wink. She doesn't even look back as she disappears down the hallway.
Jack squeezes your hand briefly on the way out, sending you a soft smile. "See you on the other side."
You watch him disappear around the corner before you head after him. The familiar knot of anxiety never comes. For weeks, every shift had felt like walking a tightrope. Every glance from Jack had meant something, and every action had been dissected. Now, the uncertainty is gone.
The Pitt is still loud. Still chaotic. The same as it always was. It's you who is different.
Across the department, Jack glances back. Just for a second, but long enough to catch your eye. Long enough to smile, and then he's gone into a trauma room.
And for the first time in a very long time, you're looking forward to the shift ahead.
Ok so for the club, do you think Jack and Robby are like. A package deal? I can see them going at you individually, sure, but when it comes to another pairing (like Jack and Dana perhaps) what do you think the rabbot dynamic would be like?
I love them sm <3
Involved | The Jackrabbit Club
Pairing: Rabbot x f!reader ft. Dana Evans
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CW: nsfw, mdni, 18+, explicit sexual content, big ass harem babes, lots of pet names (daddy, mommy, papa) cuddling, fingering, piv unprotected sex, phone sex technically??, dana watches you and jack and robby gets jealous
You've gotten greedy.
You're sure of it when you don't hear your name being called down the hall, when you don't hear Dana walking into the room, loud enough that you should've heard it.
But how can you? When Jack's hands are all over you, demanding and perfectly curling those delicious fingers right where you need him the most, the ringing in your ears impossible to quell now.
You only manage to notice her because she moves into your field of vision, settling down on the lounge chair beside your bed where Jack has angled you towards.
"So this is why you're late."
You let out an embarrassed gasp as Jack's arm tightens around your neck to hold you steady against him and the other simply goes in even further so his palm can settle over your clit to give it the attention it deserves.
Your hand instinctively goes up to his. "Jackie—”
"Don't stop on my account," she tuts, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, her attention locked onto your hazy gaze.
Jack responds by thrusting his leaking erection into you, fingers only opening you up for him to slide right in.
You scream, eyes glossed over and mouth hanging open with drool leaking down over his arm.
Dana chuckles in response, pulling out her phone and pointing it at the two of you. You hear the unmistakable sound of the camera recording, shame mixed in with pleasure shoots up your spine instantly. You arch back into Jack, hips slowly rolling to meet his thrusts as he fucks into you.
"That's it sweetheart," Jack groans into your ear. "Put on a show for Dana."
You whine, pleasure overtaking whatever ounce of embarrassment still lingered.
"Mommy—” you mewl. "Fuck please."
"Nu uh," Jack spits meanly. "She can't help you here."
The noise that erupts from you is inhuman, causing Dana to laugh leisurely once more.
"Robby—” you gulp loudly, swallowing all the saliva that has pooled in your mouth. "Send it to him please."
Dana stops recording, engrossed in her phone for a second while, the loud keyboard haptic blending in with your moans and Jack's groans.
Dana Evans: [attached a video]
Dana Evans: No amount of money could ever make me go back to work at that godforsaken hospital.
At that same moment in the ED, Robby's ears flush pink instantly, excusing himself so that he can go to the bathroom.
His hands shake as he shuts the bathroom door behind him, somehow managing to get out his AirPods and put them in his ears without them dropping into the floor from his elated clumsiness.
He watches the video, revels in the knowledge that he can take all the time he needs, that Jack will simply continue to edge you until he gives him the go ahead.
He's semi-hard by the time Dana cuts the camera.
Robby: I'm quitting my job.
Instead of another message, he gets an incoming call from Dana. He picks up instantly, his still flaccid cock twitching painfully at the mere thought of what awaits him on the other end of the line.
"You can't quit!" It's you, your beautiful fucked out voice, high pitched and just the right amount of whiny. You huff and puff, desperately willing your mind to work, to piece together words into sentences. "You love it there."
He smiles, warmth flooding his chest instantly. "Yeah but I like you more."
He hears Jack thrust then, sharp and to the point, and you let out a pained cry.
"Is Daddy being mean?" Robby coos, throwing you a bone.
He can hear you nodding, can practically imagine the pout on your face.
"He is." You sob.
"Fuck, you better send me a picture of her tear stained face when you're done."
"Will do, Cap." It's Dana who responds, oh how far their friendship has come indeed.
"Robby..." you cry out again, Jack's movements speeding up, his hips slapping against your ass deliciously. "May I please cum? I'm so close, please, please, please—”
A sharp scream leaves your lips then.
"No, no, Jackie, stop I can't—I can't hold it if you keep—”
Jack only chuckles darkly in response. "Papa can't save you, little girl."
"But—” you scream again. "Robby please! I need—He's—oh my god."
"Cum honey, do it for me, I'll deal with Jack after—”
He doesn't need to tell you twice because the second he gives you permission you are coming undone like an avalanche, powerful and deathly.
Robby closes his eyes, reveling in the sounds spilling out of you, the whines, the cries, the moans, the incoherent babbling that he oh so adores. He listens closely as Jack sings praises into your ear, his hips slowing down as he buries himself deeply into you, spilling his own release inside of you.
He loves hearing Jack cum, adores just how satisfying it is to know that his friend, his partner is being taken care of in this way.
He stays on the line for a while, way more than his imaginary ten minute break but no one comes looking for him so he doesn't dare panic.
He hears shuffling on the other side, most likely Jack and Dana helping to clean you up.
"Honey, you still there?"
You nod. "Yeah."
You're always so bashful and shy after you cum, all the confidence you have getting safely tucked away for them to revel in your heated cheeks and starry eyes.
"Can you do me a favor? Can you take a picture of yourself? Just wanna see you—”
You do him one better, turning the call into a FaceTime which he accepts instantly.
You smile dopily at him, still curled on your sided, your face taking up the majority of the screen.
"There she is," he beams. "Thank you honey."
"Always Mikey," you purr. "Wish you were here."
"I'll cut you a deal," he blushes. "I'll make you dinner tonight and you can do whatever you want to show me just how much you missed me."
You giggle, nodding fervently.
"Okay, good girl," he hears his name being called, incoming trauma. "Now, if you're not too tired, be a good girl and make Dana cum."
Jackrabbit club where the reader is having a fun time dancing around, where a drunk guy tries to force her to dance with him and brendon sees it pulls you off the guy and hands you to rabbot, while they're comforting you, brendon almost breaks the dudes face, comes back to you and just flufffffff
well but of course
Overprotective | The Jackrabbit Club
Pairing: Brendon Park x f!reader, Jack Abbot x f!reader, Robby x f!reader
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CW: a man will forever disturb a woman's peace, sexual harassment, protective boyfriends, bruises and allusions to violence, fluff
Bodies bump into each other, packed like sardines, the smell of sweat, alcohol and lime only adding to the haziness from the strobing lights and deafening music.
You're dancing by yourself tonight, a gigantic ball of energy festering between your ribs like a scream you can't let out. And so, you dance.
Every so often you glance to your left, to the little VIP alcove by the elevators that Brendon has commandeered, dressed in a delicious suit that you made him promise to leave on after the hospital's gala he'd just returned from.
You grin brightly every time you catch his gaze on your bare thighs, the fabric between his legs tightening in the darkness with every swirl of your hips, every time you twirl and give him a good look at your skimpy underwear.
You've been teasing him for the better part of an hour, wondering when he'll finally cave and come join you...or grab you and take you home.
And then you remember the truth—he's waiting for Jack and Robby to come home as well.
As the knowledge settles in your gut, you only get worse, brattier, desperate to push his buttons and wind him up so much that he doesn't let you sleep at all once he finally snaps.
You want him to make you scream so loud the older attendings get a little scared for your well-being, curiosity wining over their need for privacy and sit down to watch you get the attitude pounded out of you.
You clench around nothing, the thrill of what's to come helping to alleviate that misplaced energy and yet...it's also your undoing.
You throw your hands up in the air as the DJ transitions into a new song, the room erupting in cheers and a combined screamed chorus. You turn to the group beside you, a bachelorette party that's just the right amount of drunk. You belt out with them, joyous in a way that you've never gotten to experience in this way before.
And then the music shifts, a little psychedelic and sensual, just like they know you like it. Your hands tease down your body, fingertips trailing over your curves, all for—
A set of hands settle on your hips and a victorious shiver runs through you.
Finally.
You turn easily in the grip, eyes half lidded and cheeks burning. Your mouth opens to tease, to coo, to devour.
But then the air is knocked out of your lungs, your body tenses painfully, the hands that holds you digging into your plush skin, entitled.
"What's wrong, sweet thing?" The man before you stinks of cheap vodka. "Keep putting on a show for me."
His speech is slurred, uncoordinated, unlike his grip, searing and possessive.
"Get off me."
He chuckles, can't believe the way he's being rejected so quickly.
"Oh come on, you were practically begging me for it," he leans in, tries to capture your mouth with his, pressing his crotch against yours as you recoil backwards.
That seems to snap him into anger, no longer willing to play any games. His gaze sharpens, fingertips dig into your flesh hard enough to bruise. He wants to make it hurt, wants to see you in pain.
You don't give in to him, you don't flinch, don't let him see just how much he's hurting you. It's what he wants, what will get him off.
Instead, you simply watch in twisted pleasure as a shadow looms over him, a large hand grabbing a hold of his shoulder, thumb digging into the fleshy spot below his clavicle.
The man twists in instant pain, a sharp inhale followed by a wail as he gets his grubby hands off you.
"The lady said off," Brendon snarls, pressing down until the man falls to his knees before him.
Bren holds out his other hand towards you, keeping as much distance between the man and you but needing to feel your skin on his.
You leap to grab it, tears already streaking down your cheeks as he brings your knuckles up to his mouth, placing a gentle kiss over them.
"Robinavitch!" Brendon yells over his shoulder, loud enough that the dance floor finally notices what's going on.
Panicked footsteps cut through the sea of bodies as Bren hands you over to Robby to take you away before security crowds you.
You go with him without question, melting into his warm and comforting embrace as he takes you towards the VIP section where a concerned Jack is waiting for you.
His arms open instantly and you throw yourself into them, Robby following suit and settling down behind you, shielding you from every direction.
You sob into Jack's shirt, mascara staining the white fabric but none of you care right now. You barely register as the man continues to kick and scream, security pulling him away from the dance floor and out the back, an honestly terrifying Brendon stalking after them.
The bar manager yells for free shots, the DJ starts up the music again, and slowly the party returns to what it was.
Jack holds you to him like his life depends on it, whispering sweet nothings into your ear while Robby trails gentle and soothing touches down your arm.
Your tears dry out after a while, only the numbness staying with you deep in your bones.
You hum in response, shifting back to look up at the two men beside you and mouthing a silent thank you, receiving a smile from Jack and a kiss on your shoulder from Robby in response.
Your gaze sharpens when Brendon walks back in, suit jacket slung over his forearm, hiding his fists underneath the fabric.
He crouches in front of you then, eyes so clouded with rage you're honestly surprised he's not more beat up.
"How're you doing, bunny?"
You blink away the unbelievable lust brewing in your stomach, trembling hands reaching out for him, holding his head before you lean in to press a soft kiss to his lips. He doesn't move, doesn't react, only lets you do what you need.
Jack and Robby watch, in awe and a blooming feeling of warmth that simply cannot be described, as you pull back the jacket, tossing it to the side so you can grab a hold of Bren's hands.
You stare at him deeply, questioningly. It's only when he nods that you move his hands towards your mouth, pillowy lips kissing his purpling knuckles reverently.
Pairing: Dana Evans x f!reader, Jack Abbot x f!reader, Brendon Park x f!reader, Robby x f!reader
Masterlist | Next
CW: nsfw, mdni, 18+, explicit sexual content, big ass harem babes, age gap (reader is mid 20s, everyone else is 40s-50s), pet names (baby, sweetheart, bunny, kid, honey, daddy, sir), subby reader, fingering (f receiving), handjobs, oral (m and f receiving), pussy slaps, spanking, light degradation, biting/marking, protected and unprotected piv sex, cum play/cum eating, after care, sharing is caring, free use | WC: 9k
It happens like most things do, over drinks and through inebriated bravery.
Dana, fed up with the job, tipsy on a few double tequilas on a night out with Jack and Robby, a rare occurrence that made the outings even more special to the three of them, pitched an idea.
It was wild and out there.
It was barely legal.
But it was enticing.
Tightened pants and flooded panties.
Made everyone just a little bit worked up, just shy enough that eye contact was very limited after that.
“Why don’t we open a sex club?”
With the investment of one more person, notorious ortho surgeon and loaded PTMC coworker Brendon Park, their silly, drunken conversation quickly became a reality.
They bought a building.
They gutted it, Robby gladly using it as a hobby for the few months it remained under construction.
Once the layout was designed, all they had to do was fill it up...
And through blushed and flustered mutterings, like the confident and professional business partners they are, they all collectively decided to ask you.
You had found it odd when Dana, out of the blue, announced she'd put in her two weeks notice. You'd only known about it because your boss had asked you to deal with the paperwork, instantly rushing down to the ED when the ticket came through.
She didn't tell you the truth, not right away. They'd all agreed to...ease you into it gently. She laid it out simply, need for a change of scenery, bored of the lack of protection and salary to match her job description.
You’ve always been Dana’s favorite, your devotion to keeping her and the rest of the nurses safe, oftentimes working overtime to figure out how to get them the best vacation times, best resources to allocate for them, best coffee pods for the break room — she adores you.
She’s pleasantly surprised that the news of her departure has you acting the way that it does. You get into the habit of bringing her coffee every morning, the one from the break room cause there was no way you could afford coffee shop coffee every morning. Brought pastries you'd made over the weekend. Actually showed her that you cared, that you were going to miss her.
So when Robby told her they'd finished construction, she invited you out to lunch to show you their new business venture.
The club is underwhelming, the bare walls and empty spaces reverberating your shy footsteps as she pushes you forward, hands over your eyes. You can't help but giggle, especially as the butterflies in your stomach flutter violently every time her front meets your ass with each step forward.
"Now it's not ready yet, that's what I wanted to ask you, kid," her hands make a show of sliding down your cheeks and landing around your neck.
Your gaze shifts through the open space. A large bar to the right, an open dance floor in front of you, surrounded by strategically placed pillars to create the illusion of privacy, an elevator tucked at the far end.
You twist your head to look back and up at her through your lashes.
"How big is it?"
She scoffs playfully at your clear innuendo, the two glasses of whine you'd had with lunch definitely loosening your tongue.
"Alright, snarky," she nips playfully, tightening her grip on your neck and turning you back towards the emptiness. "It's four floors, three for the business, one for..." she tenses behind you. "It doesn't matter yet."
Her breath against your ear makes you flutter down to your core, instinctively tightening around nothing. Dana notices, of course she fucking does.
She steps forward into you, deliberately pressing her front to your back deliciously.
"First floor's just gonna be a regular nightclub, drinking and dancing and maybe some light hand stuff," you shiver against her as she repositions her hands, her left one wrapping around your neck, squeezing the sides gently while the other roams.
You nod desperately, brain so fuzzy you need to give your consent but words were definitely not going to come out of your mouth. Only then does she allow her right hand to wander lower, grazing your heaving chest and settling like a burning fire over your stomach, waiting.
"Second floor's where things get interesting," she whispers into your ear. "A little nudity, some consensual voyeurism, definitely some under the clothes—” her hand slithers under the waistband of your skirt, landing over your lacy underwear, right over your clit. "action. If our patrons like someone and they're willing to play, we move up to—”
Two fingers swiftly drag down your clothed folds until they reach your entrance, pushing the fabric aside and sliding into you without issue.
"So wet already," she presses a kiss to your ear, fleeting and mean. "My good girl."
You moan, the sound bouncing off the walls deliciously.
"The third floor, well, I think you're smart enough to know what will go down up there."
You nod, mouth hanging open as she works you slowly with her fingers, long, dragged out motions that hit that particular spot inside of you with every thrust.
You cling to her for dear life, nails digging into her delicate skin and definitely leaving behind your mark.
"Dana—” you whine.
"Whatdaya need baby?"
Words lose their meaning, sentences disappear, all that remains are carnal, needy noises.
She tuts sternly. "Use your big girl words."
Your entire body clenches, tightening around her deliciously. She chuckles, unrelenting, slowing down.
"No!" you scream, hips moving on their own, seeking out your much needed release.
Her grip on your neck tightens, a warning.
"None of that, baby," she corrects. “What do you need?”
“To cum.” It takes every single working braincell to mutter those two words.
“Good fucking girl.”
With that, her fingers thrust back inside of you to the hilt, her movements no longer thrusting but rather wiggling inside of you, causing you to erupt into a chorus of moans and whimpers, your peak approaching quicker than before.
“Touch your clit for me, baby.”
You don’t know how you manage to do it, but you do, sliding one of your hands into your underwear and rubbing your throbbing bud in tandem with her movements.
It takes you no time after that for your stomach to clench.
“Fuck, Dana m’close—” you tighten everywhere, not even daring to breathe lest you come undone without her permission.
She lifts your gaze then, directly to face the mirror they’ve already installed behind the bar. The second you make eye contact with her, your disheveled appearance looking back at you, her devilish smirk—
“Cum, baby.”
And you fucking do.
The coil snaps, your body shaking against hers like an earthquake coursing through you. Wetness gushes out of you and drenches Dana’s hand. It drips down your legs sinfully, creating a puddle on the floor below you.
You’d be a little more embarrassed if you weren’t so fucked out, panting through the blurring of your vision, through the unbelievable pleasure making every nerve ending tingle.
It takes you a second to get yourself together, so much so that you don’t immediately feel the second pair of hands on you, stabilizing, allowing for Dana to pull away from you to clean herself up.
You watch through lidded eyes as she brings her right hand up to her mouth, tongue licking up your cum from her pruny fingers.
“Jesus fucking Christ, kid.”
It’s only then that you notice the new addition to your intimate moment, heat flaring up your entire body as you suddenly remember where you are and what you were doing.
“Don’t go shy on my account, sweetheart,” Jack flashes you one of his flirty smirks. “You did so fucking good for Dana.”
Your heart does a somersault in your chest, suddenly feeling the coolness of his touch, the stability of it, the possessive fire in his eyes. To hell with shyness.
“Thank you Jackie,” you hum, settling back against him while Dana scoffs playfully, walking to the other side of the bar and bringing out a packet of wet wipes.
“So,” he starts as his friend cleans you up. “Did Dana convince you or do you need a little more…persuasion?”
You giggle, brain finally catching up to your body.
“I mean…I’m no interior designer but I can give it a go.”
They both smirk devilishly at you.
Oh you’ll give it a go alright.
Two weeks later, you’ve quit your job at PTMC, have hired a team of interior designers with the gorgeous business black card that Jack has provided you, unlimited or whatever, and have practically furnished the entire first two floors.
The club is modern, Miami Vice inspired yet classy and sultry. They want to encourage patrons to go up the levels, to let themselves succumb to their desires in a safe and controlled environment, to have fucking fun.
You work on the legality of the service with Dana, making sure that whoever does become a member of the club has to go through a rigorous and thorough process, background check, credit check, liability waivers, all the works. You want everyone to be protected, safe, and this is the way to do it, so much so that you’ve signed on the dotted line first, after Dana made sure to add a whole clause about your…arrangement.
You find yourself on the second floor after the ink dried and she made you get her off with your mouth, profanities and praises blending into one on the private, VIP area you had so perfectly furnished.
The construction company is installing the polls, three separate stages strategically placed across the floor. The noise distracts you from the looming figure approaching you, you only feel it once it collides with your back.
You know who it is instantly. You’ve been privy to the four owners’s schedules for the past month, Brendon, Jack and Robby keeping their day jobs while you and Dana set everything up. You know the Shark is in surgery all day, Robby’s still on the day shift, and Dana’s stuck at a meeting with your lawyers, which can only mean—
“Hi Jackie,” you greet him, melting back into his hard chest.
You’ve only seen Dana and Jack at the club, the other two not having made an appearance yet but your body practically buzzes with excitement at the thought of opening night, of them taking advantage of the clause.
“Hi sweetheart,” he places a quick kiss to your cheek. “How’s it looking?”
You turn around, beaming. “Really good. The boys’ll be done with the floor in about an hour and Bren’s taking me bed shopping for the upstairs tomorrow.”
Jack’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He knows what you’re doing, why you’re dropping that particular morsel of information now. It’s a test if anything, a soldier speeding through town, announcing an incoming storm.
“Is that right?” His eyes darken.
You bite your lip, nodding your head, rubbing your thighs to emphasize.
“Your office is ready if you want to—”
He doesn’t let you finish the sentence, grabbing a hold of your hand and pulling you towards the hidden side of the floor where he knows his and Dana’s offices are.
He groans audibly as he takes in the interior. Dark wood, sturdy furniture, very Harvard professor-esque. There’s a bookshelf wall behind his large desk, a leather office chair to match and two more on the other side. To the left a gorgeous bar built into the wall, to the right, a large, velvet green couch over a soft, dark rug.
“Do you like it?”
His gaze snaps back to you, fiddling with your fingers behind your back, looking delicious in your little pencil skirt and dark maroon blouse.
“C’mere sweetheart,” he coos, holding his hand out to you.
Like a fawn on shaky legs, you cross the room towards him, head already becoming fuzzy as he pulls you into his embrace.
“It’s perfect,” he states, both hands coming to cradle your face. If he’s just talking about the room, you honestly don’t know, but the fire in your stomach becomes alight once more as he dips down to kiss you.
You whine into his mouth, his lips soft and gentle, exploring and teasing while he pushes you back against his empty desk. You gasp when your ass meets the wood, the perfect opportunity for him to shove his tongue into your mouth.
The kiss devolves into a sloppy mess after that, needy and claiming, heeding the warning and taking his chance before anyone else gets to.
You hop onto the desk without being prompted, spreading your legs so that he can comfortably settle in between them. He does like it’s second nature, his front pressing into your thigh wantonly, the outline of his stiff erection causing another moan to slip past your lips and get swallowed by his.
He detaches himself from you then, lips puffy and smeared with your lipstick, a sinful display that only has you gushing even more slick between your thighs.
He smiles knowingly at you, his hands roaming the expanse of your arms to land on your hips, pressing into you to ground.
“I know you already gave your written consent,” he leans down to give you a peck on the lips as a reward and you beam up at him. “But we will always check in for it explicitly, am I clear?”
“Yes daddy.”
He groans again, pressing his forehead against yours.
“Fuck, what did we do to deserve you?”
You giggle then, your own touch exploring the vast expanse of his chest. He’s hard yet soft, age blending the two into the perfect package. He’s wearing a basic black t-shirt and jeans today, casual yet unbelievably sexy. Settling on wrapping yourself around his neck, you play with the weathered skin, massaging it as you bring him down to kiss you again.
He obliges without much fuss, just as eager as you to finally seal the deal.
His lips distract you again as his hands roll up your skirt, exposing your sinful, white cotton panties. The smell of your arousal hits him softly then all at once, forcing him to break apart the kiss as his gaze is drawn downward.
“You’re dripping, sweetheart.” He groans above you.
“Dana had to leave before—”
You don’t get another word in as he dive in, mouth devouring you over your underwear. You fall back against the desk, hands swiftly tangling themselves in his salt and pepper curls as he laps and bites up your swollen pussy lips.
“Jackie!” You whine, over and over and over again.
“You like that, sweetheart?”
“Need more.”
“Oh, does my sweet little girl need something?”
You nod, pulling on his hair, squishing him against you harder.
He chuckles against your clothed entrance.
“Fine, I’ll be kind today.”
You practically sigh with relief before he pulls your underwear to the side and his mouth now lands directly on you. His hot tongue laps up the wetness that overflows, drinking you up like a man parched.
You don’t hold back on the noises that bubble up from your chest, knowing fully well you designed the offices to be as soundproof because you knew they were never meant to be just about business.
“Oh baby, you are delicious.”
“Thank you daddy.” You hum contently as he takes his time, licking long stripes from your clit down to you entrance, rolling his tongue into you leisurely, teasing you until you’re putty in his hands before going back up to suck and nip at your clit.
His eyes watch you intently, catch the heaving, the panting, the way your face contorts into pleasure with each movement he makes.
“Daddy…” you whisper, barely there and definitely not coherent. “Wanna cum, please.”
He stops his movements entirely, causing you to screech in pain. He smacks the inside of your thigh, causing you to stop your whining, before he stands up, his back cracking ridiculously.
You smirk, eyes glossed over with desire to the point where he knows you’re simply not here anymore. His mouth hangs open in mock offense, causing you to laugh playfully now. The sound is music to his ears, a lifeline back to the land of the living after so many years of hiding his sorrows in the darkness.
“The only way you’re gonna cum is around my cock, sweetheart.”
You’re certain that killed you. You can barely register as he unbuckles his belt, unzipping his pants and pulling his stiff erection out of his underwear. It lands, hot and heavy against your mound, and you can’t help but stare at it, dumbfounded.
You want to touch it, lick it, shove it into your mouth until you gag, until there’s tears falling down your cheeks—
“Another time, I promise,” he smirks. “But right now I need to be inside of you.”
You nod, breaking free from the spell he’s got you under and swiftly turning your body to reach back and pull open the top drawer of his desk, pulling out a string of silver wrappers.
He laughs, unrestricted and free, delighted by your cheekiness. What? You’ve gotta be prepared, at least until you all get tested.
You tear a square with trembling fingers, pulling at the tab and taking out the sticky condom. You both moan as you grab his cock, teasing fingertips smearing the precum leaking from his tip over the sensitive head before you roll the latex down his length.
“You’re so pretty, daddy,” you compliment, giving him a gentle tug towards you once you’re done.
“Thank you baby,” he kisses your nose appreciatively. “You ready?”
You nod feverishly. “Please.”
He wasted no more time, pulling your wrecked underwear down your legs swiftly.
Between your own wetness and the lube, he slides inside of you in one swift thrust. The stretch is divine, perfectly filling. Your body buzzes with satisfaction, completion, legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him further against you greedily.
He obliges, settling down over you as he begins to roll his hips. You grab onto him like your life depends on it, like you need him carnally, because you do, just as much as he needs you.
“More.”
“Manners, sweetheart.”
“More, please daddy.”
That does him in, hips snapping into you sharply, with renewed abandon and lust. Wet, slapping sounds fill the space quickly, the air becoming heavy with your combined moans and grunts. You need to cum, both of you, need to cross over that threshold together, need, need, need.
“I’m close, baby,” Jack grunts into your ear. “Touch your clit for me.”
You nod, one hand letting go of him to snake between your bodies, fingers rolling over your clit as you lift up to meet his thrusts.
“Fuck yes, daddy, so good,” you cry out, feeling how his cheek warms up at the praise. “Need you to cum in me please, I need it so bad.”
“Oh baby, fuck, you can’t say shit like that to me.”
You smile against his ear, taking the lobe into your mouth and rolling your tongue over it.
“Why daddy?” You tease, the vixen you are. “Don’t you wanna fill me up and watch as you leak out of me?”
That does him in, movements become sloppy, the air being smacked out of your lungs.
“Fucking cum, cum with me right now!”
He commands and you follow, clenching tightly around him, forcing him to come undone with you. He grunts and curses into your ear, hot and delirious as he sheathes himself as far as he can inside of you. Your body buzzes with electricity, nerves snapping deliciously as your orgasm crashes through you, clinging to him like a lifeline.
He collapses on top of you soon after, both of you panting as you catch your breath. You run your fingers through his hair, nails softly raking the skin as his own run up and down your sides.
It’s perfect.
“You’re perfect, sweetheart.”
He kisses your mouth again, a soft kiss swiftly becoming needy and all consuming as you’re both determined to show your appreciation of the other through it.
This was definitely the best decision they could’ve ever made.
“D’ya wanna order lunch?”
You smile brightly. “I mean, we’ve already had dessert, it’s only fair.”
He bursts into laughter again, a sound you desperately want to bottle up and keep guarded for the rest of your life.
Brendon picks you up at 10 am sharp the next morning.
You’re already waiting for him outside the club, your light summer dress, which he requested, flowing easily with the wind as his sleek BMW comes to a stop at the curb.
You start to make your way towards the vehicle when the tinted window on the passenger side rolls down.
“Not another step, bunny,” he instructs, swiftly stepping out of the car and walking over to where you’re standing, still like a statue.
He scoops you in his arms instantly, lifting you off the ground as you wrap your arms around his neck and lean into his firm kiss.
Unlike Jack, Brendon is methodical and precise in his approach. He kisses you like he’s trying to figure out what’s the best way to make you crumble, like a puzzle he is determined to solve through information based action.
You don’t let him, your hands sneaking under his navy polo and raking your nails down his back. He growls into your mouth, in genuine warning, but you simply smile dopily, pulling back to settle yourself back on the ground.
“Hi,” you mumble.
He rolls his eyes affectionately, grabbing one of your hands to pull you towards his car while the other opens your door like the gentleman that he is. Once you’re settled, seatbelt fastened, he closes the door and rounds the car again, sliding into the driver’s seat with ease.
“How was your night?” He asks, the car roaring back to life underneath you before his hand slides over your thigh.
You turn to look at him, his sunglasses resting perfectly against his gorgeous nose. His hair is gel-free today, the slight curl to it making it look fuller. He looks delicious, shiny Rolex on his wrist, a silver chain around his neck, the charcoal slacks perfectly snug against his thick thighs, accentuating…certain assets.
You’ve dealt with Brendon your fair share back at the hospital, the majority of HR related disputes that involved him being thrown your way because the frightening man never once shook your confidence. He’d always been respectful, thoughtful and logical when you explained what had been filed against him and how to proceed. It all usually went away by having him apologize, which he mostly did to not keep dragging out conflict between coworkers that you had to mediate.
If you’re being honest, you’d expected him to ask you out at some point but he never did, ever respectful of your professional relationship under the hospital. But now, with every single line blurred beyond recognition, he was not holding back any longer.
“It was good,” you tell him. “I’m a little sore.”
He smiles, grip tightening, inching upward towards your pulsing core.
“I didn’t know Abbot still had it in him,” he teases, turning to look at you as the stop light turns red. “But I shouldn’t be surprised, I too would revert back into a horny twenty-year-old if I had you naked under me.”
Heat rushes to your cheeks in an instant, causing a Cheshire grin to spread over his lips.
You’re about to bite back when the car behind you honks obnoxiously. Brendon tenses, annoyance flooding his senses as he deliberately drags his movements, the car rolling down the street as if the two of you have nowhere better to be.
And the truth is, you don’t.
You’ve already picked out the beds, your assistant’s waiting for the delivery back at the club while you pretend to have a reason for wanting to spend time with Bren. You’re supposed to be driving to a warehouse about forty-five minutes away from the club, the perfect time to get yourself a little action, to push his buttons.
His head nurse at the OR had texted you when his surgery ended the night before to tell you it had been a doozy and that she expects him in two days with nothing but the calmest energy possible.
So you get to work quickly.
He’s concentrated on the drive but he feels you shifting, grabbing a hold of his hand and moving it higher up on your leg, under your dress this time.
A wicked grin blossoms once more and is instantly dropped as his loose demeanor swiftly shifts into piping hot desire the second his fingertips graze your bare folds.
“Oh bunny,” he tuts. “You spoil me.”
You hum contently as he begins to explore freely, pressing further into you and gathering the slick that has already leaked so he can slide his fingers through you easily.
You drop back against the cool leather seat, legs spreading ever so slightly to give him better access which he takes advantage of instantly, perfectly manicured fingers teasing your entrance as his palm settles against your clit.
“Oh fuck—”
His hand lifts off your pussy before you can even register it, smacking over your clit in punishment.
“Pretty girls don’t use bad words,” he chides, the rule instantly making your head fuzzy, your clit pulsing at the harsh stimulation.
“‘M sorry, sir,” you slur, head falling agains this rock hard arm as he returns to his previous ministrations. He leans down quickly, placing a kiss to the top of your head, never once looking away from the road.
By the time you’re out of the city, you’re certain he’s created a puddle underneath your ass, your slick the only noise filling the car alongside the little noises that escape your lips.
“Sir,” you start.
“Yes bunny?”
“Can I…” you choke as he presses into you, thick fingers leisurely pumping against your walls. “May I touch you too?”
“Of course you may,” he hums. “Just be careful, don’t want to run us out of the road.”
You nod to appease him, but you’re definitely not going to listen to him.
You shift closer to him, the center console an annoyance in your path that you glare angrily at, causing him to huff out an amused laugh. Eager hands shoot out to the evident tent in his pants, aggressively large and demanding attention.
He groans at the contact and you’re certain he’s already leaking in his boxers. You make quick way of the button and zipper of his pants, your hand sliding under all the fabric with abandon as you pull out his dick.
He’s…big to say the least, thick in all the right places. Your mouth hangs open, saliva practically dripping from the corners as you pump him dryly a few times, eliciting deep rumblings from his chest every time.
You finally let the spit drip down on his head, the hiss that he emits sending you over the moon.
“May I suck you off, sir?” You look up at him with the biggest puppy eyes you can muster, your hand never once stopping its movements, now aided by your spit and his hot precum.
“Yes.”
It’s all you need to dive in, lips wrapping around his head like a lollipop and sucking him like you’re desperately trying to get to that bubblegum center. The car slows down slightly and you just know he’s thanking every god in existence for taking out the automatic vehicle, tinting the windows, and taking you up on the very obvious lie you’d fed him to get him out of his apartment.
You make it halfway down his shaft before you choke, hitting the back of your throat at the wrong angle and having to come up for air. You spit out the saliva that has pooled in your mouth instead of swallowing it, your hands catching it and continuing their movements sloppily.
“Fuck, princess,” he hisses through gritted teeth, doing the responsible thing and parking himself on the side of the road.
He pulls you off him long enough to unbuckle the two of you from your seatbelts and pushing his seat all the way back. You yelp loudly as he picks you up, placing you down on the space he’s made between his legs and the pedals.
Lust swiftly takes over as you get back up on your knees and take him back into your mouth, making quick work of breathing through your mouth as you take him further and further down your throat with each dip. Your hands and mouth work in tandem, ravenous for his noises, for the way his stomach clenches every time your tongue swipes over his slit.
His hands tangle into your hair, helping to guide your movements, slowly regaining control over you as his hips begin to buck upwards into your mouth. You gag and choke, all for the show of it, the pleasure coursing through his body palatable from just how much his thighs are shaking.
“I won’t last much longer if you keep going,” he pants, not once pretending to slow you down. Instead, you press further into him, deliberately removing your hands so that he can push you all the way down until your nose brushes his pubic bone.
The second he feels your breath on his skin, he’s a goner, a string of profanities filling the car as he shoots his spend down your throat. Your hands grip his thighs tightly, reveling in the feeling of the muscles trembling beneath you.
You swallow diligently, the feeling of your throat constricting around him only prolonging his orgasm. By the time he’s done and you’re slowly pulling off him, his hair is disheveled, a thin layer of sweat covering down to his neck and chest.
You flop down against his thigh, nuzzling into him as his hands stroke your hair and face gently, singing your praises and lips kissing the back of your hand reverently as his fingers interlace with yours.
“Do we still need to look at beds?” He asks, making sure he’s not about to actually ruin your work task for the day.
You shake your head. “I wouldn’t mind checking yours out though.”
Brendon’s never been less afraid of getting pulled over for speeding as he races back into the city after that.
Three months after Dana quit her job, the club opens its doors.
To say it’s a success would be an understatement.
The first floor is flooded with influencers, regular customers, basically every single person that got in line fast enough to get themselves into the cramped opening. The second floor is filled with colleagues and patrons that have been approved from the extensive waiting list. You’re not inaugurating the system yet, no, you think Javadi would have a heart attack if she knew what was meant to be going on other than the, honestly, classily underdressed dancers on the stages before you.
Laughter and joy explodes out of your little group, the older residents sitting to one side of the room while the first years ogle at the dancers, throw bills and drink to their hearts content.
You’re curled up on the couch, the sheer black dress you’ve chosen for the occasion hugging your curves perfectly, velvet patterns perfectly keeping your more intimate bits hidden tastefully. You watch them enjoy themselves, the stressful high of having worked so hard for this slowly settling into your bones.
“So,” the couch dips to either side of you. “How’s this work exactly?”
You blink back into the present, finally noticing Shen and Ellis sandwiching you.
You roll your eyes at Shen’s question, knowing exactly what he’s asking.
“When we open…that part of the business,” you explain. “You’ll get to pick if you want to simply observe or…play.”
Ellis takes a sip of her drink, shifting closer to you while Shen looks practically dumbfounded.
“If we want to play,” Ellis starts. “Are you a part of the offerings?”
You turn to face her, a thrilling grin on your features as your arm drapes over her lap.
“That could be arranged.”
Shen’s eyes practically fall out of his sockets as he chokes on his drink, causing the two of you to laugh.
“Who do we have to talk to to…arrange that?”
You open your mouth to reply to him when Dana saunters into the section.
“Baby, could you go check on Robby please?”
You nod eagerly, turning to Ellis before getting up and pointing your head towards Dana to answer her previous question. Ellis grins dopily as you get off the couch, making a show of swaying your hips, stopping in front of Dana for the older woman to give you a quick peck on the side of your lips.
She’d told you early on that while her husband and her had an arrangement, she’d probably never cross that line to kiss you, which you respected dearly. Your relationship with her was different from the ones you had with Jack and Brendon, a mutual understanding of care that went beyond anything you could describe.
And then there was Robby.
You try not to take it personally every single time he purposefully avoids you. It’s no secret that the other three are taking every chance they have to be with you, to touch and tease and claim.
It’s what you all signed for at the end of the day.
Literally.
You make your way across the room, sliding your hand over Jack’s arm and telling him where you’ll be going. He nods, two of his army buddies smirking knowingly as he turns to give you a quick kiss on the lips, comforting and gentle. You catch the snickers and teases, all harmless and filled with love as you make your way over to Bren’s group with Walsh and Garcia.
“Trinity’s looking a little lonely, don’t you think?” You taunt Yoyo, sliding into Bren’s open arms and letting him nibble at your jaw possessively. The surgeon raises her eyebrows in mock offense before downing the rest of her drink and making her way over there.
You grin triumphantly, leaning up to press your lips to Bren’s in a kiss that takes both of your breath away before you’re trying to slide out of his embrace.
“Where do you think you’re going?” He questions against your mouth.
“Upstairs,” you whisper. “Dana sent me to get him.”
Brendon sighs, understanding. “Be gentle.”
“Aren’t I always?”
A laugh bursts from both him and Emery.
You simply roll your eyes, placing a kiss to his arm before leaving them to their bickering.
You nod to the security guards on either side of the elevator and they use their keycards to call up the elevator for you. The doors open almost instantly since guests from the first floor are not allowed up yet and the third floor is still closed up.
You press the button for the fourth floor, however, imputing the pin for the elevator to actually move.
They’d surprised you a week ago, Jack’s hands over your eyes as he led you up to the fourth floor. They’d been weirdly cryptic about it, not wanting you to go up there until it was finished, the final piece of the puzzle to your downtown building.
So imagine your shock when you step off the elevator to a fully renovated penthouse apartment.
The interior is warm and cozy, a large kitchen to your right, big enough for you and Bren to go crazy and cook up a storm. A jacuzzi and sun tanning deck across the vast living room right in the center, and three bedrooms down the hall to the left — the master bed for you and two extra guest bedrooms if any of them needed or wanted to spend the night.
“What do you think?” Jack murmurs into your ear as he pushes you further into the space. You’re so overwhelmed with emotions you literally can’t speak, turning around in his arms to show him the look of absolute gratitude taking over your features.
“I love it,” you manage after a while. “Thank you.”
You kissed him until your lungs burned and your lips were bruised, until the movers cleared their throat before they started to move your boxed up apartment into your new home.
A home. They had built you a home.
It was a few days after that when you got a call from Dana.
Something something pipe broke in Robby’s house, he needed to stay with you for a while.
You practically burst with happiness, the forced proximity making you giddy with excitement. He’d been avoiding you for months and maybe now he’d come to his senses since you had been terrible about putting together the guest bedrooms and he’d definitely be forced to share the master bed with you if he wanted a good night’s rest.
He slept on the couch.
Jack had been too good at picking out furniture and he’d bought the most comfortable pull out couch in existence.
You wanted to kill him.
The apartment is dark when you walk in, the little lamps you’ve purchased casting the perfect amount of ambient lighting, like a trail from the entrance to the bedroom. You take off your heels, following the sound of running water.
At least he’d taken to using the master bath, well, he was forced to since he literally does not fit in the other shower.
You take a second to look around. The bed is unmade meaning he’d definitely taken a nap after he got back from work and at the very least your sheets will smell like him when you go to sleep tonight. His gorgeous light blue suit is laid out over the sheets, still in its dry-cleaning bag. The window to the room is open, the loveseat you’ve strategically placed for…reasons angled towards it, an ashtray with a few cigarette buts and a half drank glass of whiskey beside it.
You take a seat, picking up his half finished cigarette and lighting it up. They’re comforting, taste and smell like him, make you feel warm and fuzzy, a temporary bandaid over the cracks already forming in your dam.
The door to the bathroom opens, steam seeps out into the main room and out he comes, like an adonis, towel wrapped around his waist, chest and belly naked for your salivating gaze.
“Hi handsome.”
He doesn’t flinch anymore, not like he did those first few days.
“Dana sent you?”
You nod, taking another drag and blowing the smoke towards the Pittsburgh streets.
“You’re sulking.”
“I am not.”
“Then you’re hiding, which is way worse.”
“I just—”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to go down,” you tell him. “I get it, you work with these people, you’re their boss, this is…”
“Highly unethical?”
You huff out a laugh. “I was gonna say really fucking weird.”
He cracks a smile, tired gaze shifting from your face to the floor every second.
You pat the loveseat, making space for him. “Join me then.”
His eyes snap to yours then, shock raining down on him like a tropical storm. You know you shouldn’t take it personally, but he just keeps chipping away at you every time he denies you.
“I shouldn’t…”
“Robby.”
“Honey.”
You sigh, exhausted yet understanding.
Only, this time you can’t control the tears.
They bubble out of you like a faucet you can’t turn off.
He’s on you in seconds, powerful steps crossing the room in a flash, crouching down in front of you.
He shushes you gently, one hand coming down on your thigh while the other takes the cigarette away from you, putting it out on the ashtray before he cups your cheek.
“Look at me, honey,” he pleads. “It’s not you. It’s never you.”
Your brows scrunch in further confusion, his words digging deeper. As if he’s hearing them clearly for the first time, he curses under his breath, shaking his head disappointingly at himself.
“What I mean is, it’s me. I’m the problem,” he tries to explain himself but you just don’t get it.
“But I want you,” you sob. “Why don’t you want me?”
That breaks Robby’s heart, forcing him to get up and settle next to you on the loveseat, pulling you onto him and holding you tightly against his slightly damp chest. You burrow your face in his neck, taking in the clean and warm smell of his—your—body wash.
“I do, I want you, honey, you don’t even know how much.”
“Then why?” You turn to look up at him, his own haunted expression staring back down at you like you’re the most precious thing in the world, like if he were to give himself up to you, you’ll simply disappear.
He opens his mouth to answer. Closes it a second later. He sighs deeply, choosing not to rush into any explanation but rather allowing himself the indulgence of holding you.
You understand, melting into him as he cuddles you further onto his body. Timid hands soon begin to roam the expanse of his exposed chest, running your fingers through the dark patches of hair. He shivers under your touch, jaw clenching as you tangle your grip around his necklace to give yourself the leverage you need to start kissing down his jaw.
Your touch is fleeting, barely there, only a whisper of what could be if he simply allowed it. You don’t leap, don’t take the mile, only accept the smallest offering. You know consent is the most important thing for him, for all of them, so you don’t push your luck. As much as they all care for you, Robby included, this is meant to be about care and intimacy and trust.
“I’m not…” he starts. “I don’t know how to do this.”
You don’t speak, just let him get the weight off his chest as he needs to.
“I don’t want to break your heart when this gets so real I…I don’t want you to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” you whisper, certain and solid.
He shakes his head. “But I might.”
“Robby—”
“You’ll resent me for it.”
You open your mouth to speak but stop yourself. You’re not gonna hide behind half truths anymore.
“I would get over it,” you tell him. “I’ve got Jack and Bren and Dana, and honestly maybe even Shen and Ellis and who knows who else—”
He pulls back to look at you then, eyebrows raised in shock and a tinge of teasing. You crack a smile, smacking his chest lightly and rolling your eyes.
“The point is,” you put your foot down. “I’ll be okay, it’s what I sighed up for.”
He takes your hand then, pulling it up to press a kiss over the back of it.
“And who knows,” you poke. “Maybe your seven week itch can be cured with a little five on five action.”
It’s his turn to retaliate, biting down on the meat below your thumb strong enough to make it hurt.
You gasp, eyes glossing over instantly as the pain settles into your never ending pool of lust. Robby simply smirks around your flesh, tongue coming out to soothe the sting sloppily.
When he pulls back it’s like whatever animosity lingered between the two of you has been replaced by a carnal need to satisfy you.
“I gotta say, that list of kinks of yours—”
You burst out laughing, his teasing grin only broadening at that.
“You’re one to talk.”
“I am,” he states, plain and clear. “Maybe another day we’ll take ‘em for a spin.”
Your eyes sparkle with need and anticipation.
“Mikey,” you nod, mouth hanging open slightly, face angled upwards. “Please kiss me.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice, his face coming down to smash his mouth against yours possessively. He doesn’t ask for any more permission, his tongue forcing your mouth open to take him in and you do, moaning desperately as you squirm in his embrace to straddle his lap.
You’re both unapologetic, greedy and needy in your approach. He bunches the fabric of your dress until it pools around your waist, fiddling with the zipper only for a second before he’s pulling it down, grabbing all of the offending fabric and pulling it over your head. It lands somewhere with a thud, causing the two of you to laugh against each other’s lips like two horny teenagers on prom night.
“Results came back,” he murmurs against your lips. “You’re clean, I’m clean—”
You don’t even have to think. “Please fuck me Mikey.”
You feel his cock twitch against the towel separating the two of you.
“With fucking pleasure, honey.”
You smile brightly, drunk on his promises already, managing to lift your ass off his lap long enough for him to tug his towel open, pull aside your lacy excuse of underwear to the side and lining himself up with your already dripping entrance.
You don’t even catch a glimpse at him, you just feel him as he sinks inside of you. He’s perfect, the middle ground between Jack and Bren, almost as good as Dana’s strap but don’t tell any of them.
You moan loudly, hands coming up to his shoulders to stabilize yourself, clenching around him involuntary. He hisses into your ear, holding you still as he desperately tires not to cum.
“Honey, I need you to let me go or else this will be over embarrassingly quick.”
You giggle, heat rising to your cheeks as you try to relax your muscles, letting him slide into you until your pelvises meet. He groans, satisfied, as you do. All the while, you’re practically panting, desperation making you impatient as all hell.
“Can I please move?” You whine, tears brimming your eyes once more.
“Oh honey,” he coos condescendingly and your stomach tightens into delicious shame. “Give your old man a second. Gotta make sure you don’t break me.”
You’re so close to bursting, to screaming and kicking and—
His hand lands on your ass with a loud smack. You whimper, falling into him, pliant and submissive before his other hand balances out your other cheek.
You clench around him in retaliation, earning you another two slaps until you settle down again, murmuring apologies onto his skin.
“It’s okay, honey,” he shushes you. “You can move now, ‘m ready.”
You nod against him, sniffing away the tears and sitting back up. His big hands come up to cup your cheeks, thumbs wiping away the wetness before he leans forward to kiss you gently.
“Thank you,” you whisper, getting rewarded with another kiss.
“Move, now.”
You plant your legs firmly on either side of Robby’s thighs, using his chest as leverage against as you slowly start to lift yourself off him, feeling the sting of his cock dragging along your walls, your combined wetness gushing as you do.
You whine, rolling your hips before slamming back down until your ass slaps against his legs. He curses, grabbing ahold of your love handles to help you bounce on him with more fervor. Your boobs jiggle tantalizingly in front of him, his depraved mind entranced by the sight, by the feeling of you around him, by the satisfaction of finally letting him have what he’s been craving for so long.
He leans forward, capturing one of your nipples in his mouth, rolling his tongue, hardening the bud before he bites down and tugs. The noises that erupt from you only make him pull harder, letting you go only when you wince in pain.
“Look at you, baby,” he grunts. “Bouncing on me like a needy little girl, so eager to have my cock inside of you that it’s made you so dumb.”
You moan, nodding feverishly.
“We should’ve known you’d like this, the way you always took such good care of us at the hospital, it was so obvious, so…right.”
Oh he read the list of kinks you provided, alright.
“This is what you were meant to do, isn’t that right? Being used and shared by a bunch of people old enough to be your parents, huh?”
He accentuates each word with a sharp thrust of his hips to meet you in the middle.
“Gonna let us share you? Gift you away to our friends and colleagues,” you clench around him and he beams. “Gonna let us watch?”
“Oh shit fuck—”
Your orgasm hits you out of nowhere, your entire body exploding in a burst of pleasure that has you shaking, unable to stop yourself from clenching around him like a vice, forcing him to cum with you in a haze of trembling limbs and warmth shooting up deep inside of you.
You fall into him again, hugging him tightly as he returns the action tenfold, as if needing to fuse your bodies together. You knew in the back of your mind that the second Robby let you in, it would be impossible to kick him out, like a street dog that gets shown love for the first time, he’s chosen you just as much as you’ve chosen him.
He peppers kisses all over your face, adoration deep and eager for forgiveness, for what, you simply do not know, but you give it to him, your touch so gentle and kind he truly doesn’t know what he did right in his life to deserve it.
When he’s finally able to think, he pulls the two of you up on shaking legs, managing to set you down on the bed before he’s forced to pull out of you, his flaccid cock no longer able to keep the two of you connected. You both whine at the loss of contact, a noise that quickly devolves into a choir of moans as he gets on his knees before you and dives face first into your sticky heat.
He runs his tongue along your slit, gathering up the mess that the two of you made together, licking and sucking as much of your spend into his mouth as he can before he lifts himself back up.
You open your mouth without him having to say a single word, and if he were thirty years younger, that would’ve gotten him rock hard once more.
He lets the liquid drip from his mouth into yours, the lewdness of it all keeping you in that perfect haze. You hum as it hits your tongue, salty and something else uniquely yours, together.
You swallow. “Thank you, Mikey.”
“Anytime, honey.”
You’re back down an hour later after having to shower twice because the first one did not count for shit. You’re wearing a different dress now, the fabric hiding the bruises that have already started to form on your skin, leaving your back exposed completely to make up for the lack of skin you’re now hiding.
Robby will not let you go, his hands always having to be on you. He looks gorgeous in his suit, the suspenders Dana chose for him instead of a belt to pull up his tummy causing your brain to short circuit every time you catch the sight.
“Behave, honey,” he grumbles into your ear as he catches you staring again. “Let’s go say hi to Duke and then I’ll let you go have fun.”
“But I’m having fun with you.”
He stops abruptly. You actually mean that, and for the first time in his life, he allows himself to believe it.
He smiles brightly, unabashedly leaning down to capture your lips with his.
“Alright then.”
He parades you around the room, introducing you to his mechanic friend and beaming brightly as the two of you engage in light small talk, and for the first time in years, the weight on his shoulders lightens, enough for his two friends to notice.
Dana bumps Jack with her elbow, her gaze traveling across the room and landing on the two of you.
“Ow, what?” Jack whines as Dana crocks her head, catching Robby’s smile like a damn spotlight, shining so bright it might actually be blinding. “Oh hoho, good for him.”
“Good for us.”
Jack nods. “About damn time, we deserve it.”
“That we do.”
They clink their glasses, delightedly taking in their new life blissfully, only one thing on their minds—
Welcome to the Jackrabbit Club.
a/n: okay my loves, this is my new au. I've been toying with it for a while and honestly...fuck it, happy pride let's just go crazy. requests are open for them all, every other character is fair game too so request away. power dynamics are loosely inspired by @thykingdoncome's his best girl cause I love that series and need to shout it out every chance I get. basically, dana's the main boss, but jack, robby and park get free reign, anyone else needs explicit permission from one of them (and obviously consent from reader but let's be fucking honest). I will keep writing shit on the side, but will prioritize requests and asks <3
I really fucking hated how that AI-generated picture spread, so I made this quick edit of Pope and Shawn like a week ago. Use the damn Photoshop instead of using AI, guys.
Summary: Cameron is desperate to please you. Like, really desperate.
Warnings: female reader, Cameron is pathetic, oral sex (fem receiving), p in v, protected sex (wrap before tap). dry humping, Cameron is pathetic. Mix of book and movie canon.
He's so squirmy. For a guy who claims to not be nervous, it's really apparent that he is. From the way he practically jumped out of his seat when you came over to compliment his singing at open mic night, to how his eyes comically widened when you suggested going home together after talking for a few hours.
“Yeah, that's fine,” Cameron’s hands are running through his dirty blonde hair, a hundred thoughts clearly racing through his head.
“If you don't want to-”
“I do! I mean,” he cleared his throat, “That would be fine. Cool. It's just uh. I've been doing this thing, trying out the vagabond lifestyle, so I uh, live-”
“In a van? I’m aware, it's all this town could talk about when you first got here.” Gossip ran rampant in Sowell Bay. Folks loved to act as if a newcomer was a rarity and Cameron Cassmore had given them plenty to talk about. He’s single handedly kept this town entertained for nearly a month now. You had heard things, about someone owing him a lot of money, how he seemed to argue with nearly everyone he met.
At open mic night, his demeanor was different. Less guarded. Probably helped that Tova was there, proving to everyone that this guy wasn't some dangerous drug dealer or whatever the rumor mill came up with this week.
Yeah, he was still awkward and needed a woman old enough to be his grandmother to strike up a conversation. After a beer or two, he had relaxed enough that Tova made an excuse about needing to leave (not before sending you a very obvious wink).
At the very least, Cameron would be a good time. If he could stop tripping over his own words.
“Oh, yeah.” He was clearly uncomfortable with the gossip surrounding him. Granted, it's not like he tried to fly under the radar, "It's not bad or anything. I mean, the heater doesn’t work but I have a ton of blankets. If you're cool with that, that is.”
He doesn't want to take you back there, it's clear as day. So you offer him an alternative.
“We could go back to my place if you want.”
He nods, “Yeah. We could do that.”
Cameron is silent in your car though his body can't seem to stay still. He alternates. First, fidgeting in the passenger seat, shifting his hips like he's trying to get comfortable. Knees bending despite there being plenty of room to accommodate his long legs. Then he’ll run a hand through his hair, once, twice before moving on to fingers. Tracing over his many tattoos, finding something on his nails to pick at.
“Been awhile?” Your tone is light, well meaning. And yet, one would think you had just accused him of murder.
“No. Actually. Uh, before I came here I had a girlfriend. Not that she's still my girlfriend, we broke up before I left. But we did…it pretty regularly. So no, it hasn't been a while. I mean, it's been a while since I hooked up with someone but that's just more of a situational thing. Totally doesn't impact my ability at all, if that's what you're wondering.”
Alright, that was kinda a lie. The last two months of his relationship with Katie, things had cooled off in the bedroom. She was always tired or something. And it had been almost two months since he arrived in Sowell Bay so…four months and some change. But the last thing Cameron needed was for you to think he couldn't deliver. You were cute, you actually approached him at the bar. When was the last time something so serendipitous happened to him? He couldn't remember. So he had to play it cool and he'd like to think he was doing an alright job at it.
“Hooking up with someone you barely know is really different than having sex with your girlfriend. For all you know, I could be a serial killer,” you were joking but the way his eyes widened again, it was clear he was in over his head and your comment did not help.
“I'm not. Besides, too many people have seen us together. You also have a job that requires you to be punctual. So if you go missing, it'll be noticeable immediately.” Oh God, you were scaring the poor kid, “Sorry, I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts.”
He laughs and for the first time since he sang on stage, the facade breaks. His shoulders relax, a crooked smile forms on his face. The corners of his blue eyes slightly crease. Its really fucking cute.
It lasts until you pull into your driveway.
“You live here?” Cameron asks, incredulous at the sight of your townhouse.
“I mean, I rent it, if that’s what you’re wondering.” It makes Cameron feel slightly better, feel less like a loser who lives in a van. But once his feet hit the gravel, his body tenses up. He’s going into your house. You live in a house and you’re his age. A nice house, all by yourself. And what does he have?
He just needs a little more time. That’s all he ever needed. A little more time, and he’ll meet Simon Briggs, get eighteen years worth of child support, buy an actual car, pay back Aunt Jean, and then rent out a nice place. Maybe he’ll even have enough for a down payment for a house or maybe a condo. Yeah, a condo with a patio. Nothing like the shitty one bedroom apartment he lived in with his mom until she-
“Cameron?” Your voice breaks him out of his racing thoughts. Somehow, he got to your porch, feet just steps away from the door like he’s a fucking vampire waiting to be given permission to enter. You’re in the doorway, not quite inside your home but not outside either.
Anxiety is practically pouring out of him. It was endearing though. So you take a step forward, grasping his large hand into yours.
“It’s been a while for me too,” You confess.
“What? No, I just told you-” You don’t let him finish the blatant lie. No amount of eye rolls would do the trick, so you let your lips shut up his. There’s the distinct remnants of whiskey on his lips. They’re surprisingly soft. He doesn’t exactly scream ‘guy who applies chapstick regularly’. He’s rusty at first, body stiff. His nose smashes into yours, as though he doesn’t know where else it could go. Cameron’s fingers twitch, as though he wants to move them but just doesn't know where.
The last month before the breakup, all they had done was exchange quick, tight lipped kisses. Looking back, it was clear Katie was looking for any excuse to break up with him. It was even clearer that Cameron hadn't passionately kissed someone in a fucking while.
Just when he remembers what to do with his damn hands, you pull away. That was a total shit kiss, like did he even do anything besides stand there? Cameron should just go home before you ask him to-
“Let's go inside,” you give his hand a gentle squeeze before leading him into your living room.
“You have a fireplace in your house?” he stares in amazement and if he hadn't dropped the fact his mom was a drug addict who abandoned him, you would be confused by his reaction.
“It's really common in the houses up here. Gets cold in the winter and there's plenty of trees.” He continues to stare at it, like it’s hypnotized him. Reminding him of all the possibilities he could have had in his past. In the present.
“Why don’t we go to the couch?” That’s when it hits him. Why he’s here.
He doesn’t want it to be a one night stand. Yes, that would be much easier. But talking to you is nice. You don’t treat him like an idiot. You don’t listen to the gossip that swarms this town. You’re cute, but also sincere. There’s a calmness to you that he yearns for. Always had, if he really thought about it.
So he lets you lead him over to the couch and sits down first. It gives him more time to gather his thoughts, more time to plan how he’s going to convince you that he should be more than a one night stand. He doesn’t have the money to take you out to a nice restaurant-do those even exist in Sowell Bay or is it all family style restaurants where everyone knows everyone? And he could, if he dipped into his paycheck. Or maybe he could take you out on a picnic. Tova probably had a picnic basket he could borrow, she seemed like that type. He could get sandwiches from Ethan at a discount and it wouldn’t give you food poisoning as long as you ate it the day of.
“You think really loudly,” you giggle, running a hand through his soft hair. It’s mused from his earlier fussing with it and the ends are beginning to curl, “It’s really cute.”
“It is?” His eyes are wide and bluer than the ocean. It's the fact he's genuinely surprised by the comment that gets you.
Aw.
“Also if you’ve changed your mind, it’s okay, like really. We could just watch a-”
“No! I mean,” he clears his throat, clearly a nervous habit, “I’m fine. I’m not nervous. It’s not like I’m a fucking teenager and it’s my first time.”
You straddle his waist, much to Cameron’s surprise, “It’s just your first time in a while with a stranger, right?”
“I mean, there was one time me and my ex were on a break-”
Nope. You weren’t listening to this. You tugged on his hair, forcing him to look up at you. Before another excuse could fall from his lips, you pressed yours against his. This time, Cameron remembered what to do with his fucking hands. They reached for your shoulders, helping you push off your jacket. It landed on the floor, somewhere. He could pick it up for you later, if he remembered.
His hands skimmed across your back, landing at your hips. He really wanted to grab your breasts, he had been trying not to stare at them all night. But that would be too much too soon.
At least he's a better kisser this time. His tongue swipes across your bottom lip and a low sigh escapes your mouth. Cameron wants to hear it again. Like now. He's never felt this need so badly, to know you're enjoying it as much as he is. He wouldn't call himself a selfish lover, it was just never a driving force behind his actions.
He gives your hips a tentative squeeze and you shift in his lap, aligning your core with his crotch. You don't notice it at first, but then his mouth is exploring your neck and it feels really good. But this time when you shift, you can feel his erection pressing against your clothed core and fuck he’s already this hard from kissing?
Cameron is painfully aware how pathetic it looks to be this hard from a make out session. But you keep letting out these soft moans every time his teeth find your pulse point below your jawline and it's the hottest sound he's ever heard. He wants to hear it again, more than he wants to thrust his hips upwards to get some relief.
You grab his hair again, giving the ends a tug so he's forced to look up. He's pretty like this. Hair curly, pink lips slightly swollen. Adam's apple bobbing hard in his throat. Curious, you rolled your hips against his and his head tips back. His teeth are biting down on his bottom lip hard.
You could make a comment about it. But then he'd probably try to make an excuse, try to explain it away. And you don't want that. So instead, your mouth attaches itself to his neck and you continue to grind against his erection, having never been more grateful to be wearing a dress. Even though there's still two layers of fabric separating your bodies, you can feel how hard he is. His cock twitches against your covered core and it makes you want to swallow him whole.
You continue to rock your hips, delighting in the strained, breathy groans that fall from his mouth. Cameron can't help but jerk his hips upwards when your teeth sink into his neck. Fuck, you're marking him. He hasn't been this excited about a hickey since ninth grade. He can hide it with his hoodie, or maybe you want others to see?
Maybe you wouldn't mind if he gave you one? The thought thrills him. He's certain by tomorrow morning the whole town will be talking about how the two of you were seen going home together. But you didn't seem to care about that or the fact he lived in a van. So maybe you wouldn't mind if he marked you?
“Should we um…go to your bedroom?” His voice is strained, broad chest practically heaving. His hands are gripping your ass and unfortunately it's not because he wants to cop a feel. The reality is Cameron needs you to stop grinding against his cock because otherwise he will one hundred percent come in his pants.
You nod, leading him up the stairs. Cameron has to bite his tongue so he doesn't comment on the fact your place has three levels. Of course it does. You have your shit together, for a while now. And it's obvious he doesn't. He was also close to coming in his pants like a damn teenager.
He wants to see you again. But that won't happen if he's gawking over the fact you have an office and coming in his pants. You didn't seem to pay any mind to the gossip surrounding him but you've still heard it. He needs you to see that he's not some loser who lives in a van down by the river. He has potential, always had, the circumstances have just never been right and they're so close to being that.
He just needs a little more time.
Right now, he can't do much over the fact that locating Simon Briggs is harder than finding a needle in a haystack. But he can give you an unforgettable night. He can prove that he's worth keeping around, even if it's just for a tousle in the sheets.
So instead of ogling at your breasts, which look amazing in your lacy bra, he's studying your face as his fingers curve inside of you. He's listening for your breath to hitch, for you to let out one of those sweet moans so he knows what he's doing is actually bringing you pleasure.
Cameron has never thought so hard about this. Usually he considers fingering just part of the ‘warm up’, nothing too special. But what if he's bad and that makes you reconsider? If he can't use his fingers right, how could you expect him to pleasurably use…other parts of him?
His thumb draws a circle on your clit and he notices how your back arches off the mattress. Your hands grip his shoulders, nails digging into his broad shoulders.
“Yeah? You… you like that?” He winces. It sounded sexy in his head. But it comes out unsure and clunky. Usually he's the quiet type. But he's heard that erotic audio has become a big thing lately, so women must like guys who talk during it.
“I think you should get a condom.” Your voice is even and that worries Cameron. Shouldn't you sound a little more out of breath? Oh God, does he suck at this? Was Katie just faking it this whole time?
“You, you sure? I can keep going if you want.”
“I'm ready and it seems like you are too.” You're referring to the fact he's painfully hard in his boxers. At least he remembered to do laundry yesterday, the last thing he needed was for you to see him in a ratty pair of boxers that had more than an acceptable number of holes in it.
“Do you need one?” You run a hand through his curls to get his attention.
“No, I'm good. Absolutely have one. Cause why wouldn't I?” He nearly trips over his shoes to get to his pants and he hopes that maybe, just maybe, he has a condom that hasn't expired in his wallet.
Fuck, he doesn't. Because why would he? Katie was on the pill and despite everyone assuming he's a fuck up, she was the only one he was with for the past year.
“If you need one, second draw from the right.” Cameron looked to find you sitting up, legs to your chest.
“I usually have one. It's just been a while since I needed one. My ex was on the pill and I'm totally clean. I don't just walk around, putting my dick in everyone,” Jesus Christ, why did he say that? “What I'm trying to say is I don't want to get someone pregnant. I’d make a terrible parent.”
“I don't know you well enough to agree or disagree,” you chuckle, “But it's okay. You're fine, I promise.”
Cameron can't help but feel a pang of disappointment run through his body when he finds an opened box of condoms. Obviously you two aren't dating, you were free to fuck whoever you'd like. But that meant….you were free to fuck whoever you'd like.
He could be impressive, leave you wanting more. He'd like to think he’s decent at the whole sex thing.
Just needed to get this stupid condom on.
“I got you,” your voice is soothing. Cameron watches as your fingers roll the condom down his hardened length.
He has to make this good. Hell, unforgettable. You have a real, adult job (what it was exactly, he couldn't say at this current moment), and live in an actual house. Cameron knew he had a lot to offer, probably. But in this moment, he needed to wow you, make you want him back. Then he could prove he can be more than just a one night stand.
“You okay? Breathing kinda heavy.”
He doesn't respond back. If he does, he’ll just make up some excuse and that's the last thing he needs. Cameron surges forward, mouth crashing against yours. You're taken aback by the sheer force of his kiss.
One of his hands cups the nape of your neck, the other lays against the small of your back. He uses his hands to gently press you down against the mattress. You look like an angel among the pillows. A really sexy angel.
Focus.
His nose nuzzles into your neck, inhaling your sweet perfume. You smelled really, really good but he knew admitting that would make him look like a fucking weirdo. He wouldn't mind this, his body on top of yours, face buried in your neck.
Maybe afterwards.
For now, he grabs the base of his cock and guides it to your soaked core. The gasp you let you when his cock drags against your folds is music to Cameron’s ears. He still has it. One bad breakup didn't ruin his game.
You can feel every inch of him like this. The fat head of his cock rubs against your clit and you can't help the moan that falls from your lips.
“Sound really pretty when you do that,” Cameron says against your neck, “Gonna make you do it a lot tonight.”
“Y-yeah?” You try to chuckle but it's really hard when he’s rutting his cock against you. So instead you rake your nails across his inked biceps.
Usually Cameron doesn't talk. He’ll grunt occasionally, particularly when he's close to coming. But you don't need to know that.
“Yeah. Gonna make you feel good.” Every gasp and moan that fell from your lips motivated him.
“If you k-keep doing that, I'm gonna come,” you grit between your teeth.
“Want to come with me inside you?” You nod and Cameron has to fight the urge to raise a fist. He's doing this, things are actually going well.
He stills his hips and guides his cock down to your entrance. He sinks the tip in and holy shit, it feels like you're pulling him in, you're so tight.
“F-fuck. Bigger than I expected.” He should be walking on cloud nine with that compliment. Yeah, he always knew he was above average in that department. It's still nice to hear, puts some pep in your step. But Cameron can't because he's too busy trying not to come immediately. You're just so warm and feel incredible and yeah, it has been a long time.
So he stills his hips again, letting you adjust to the sheer size of him. His eyes trail over your body, landing on your bare chest. Fuck, your tits. They somehow looked even better without the lacy bra. He couldn't stop himself, bringing one of your breasts to his mouth.
The action causes his hips to move forward, his cock to sink another inch deeper. Your fingernails have become well acquainted with his back, leaving half crescent marks scattered across his shoulders.
You feel incredible. Actually, incredible was an understatement. It's taking everything in him not to fill you to the brim, to not come immediately.
He slowly pulls out, just a little. Then he thrusts back in and shit. Shit shit shit. This is fucking amazing. You were so tight and warm. His hands find the backs of your thighs and he pushes your legs closer to your chest. He doesn't think he can do that whole “your legs over his shoulders” thing because who the hell is that flexible besides gymnasts? So this seems like a good compromise. Plus it makes him look like he can take charge.
So he does and fuck, this is a terrible idea. The new angle allows him to go even deeper, something he didn't know was possible. With every kiss you press against his lips, Cameron finds his brain becoming more and more cloudy. The only thing he can focus on is this need to fuck you, to make you moan, make you come. He needs it desperately.
“F-feel s’good,” his words are slurred, which is odd considering he only had two beers, “Gonna make you feel better.”
But also you feel so fucking incredible. He can't deny that either. You're warm and tight, so fucking tight. Your walls grip his cock and has he ever had sex this good? He needs to focus, you have to come first, but you feel fucking fantastic and oh God, you just clenched around him and fuck. No, no, this was not happening, this could not be happening.
“F-fuck, wait!” He tries to warn you, tries to pull out. But your legs are wrapped around his waist and it's too late. His hips are jerking forward uncontrollably and he can feel himself coming coming into the condom.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Fuck!
He's pulling out before you can process what just happened. It's not until you see him taking off a now very full condom that it hits you.
Oh.
Honestly? It was hot. You never had that kind of effect on a guy before.
“Sorry, I um,” his face is bright red, “I-I’ll leave.”
“Why?” He paused, boxers barely on, “B-because I just came after two minutes of sex like a fucking teenager?”
You shrug, “I thought it was hot.”
His blue eyes widened, “You did?”
Nodding, you prop yourself up against your pillows, “Yeah. You were really into it, which was honestly refreshing. Most guys try to act like they're above it. I liked that you’re enthusiastic. I like that I made you feel that good."
He's staring at you like you just told him a mind blowing secret. A million thoughts are running through his head.
“Really?” Is all Cameron can get out. He's standing in the middle of your bedroom, clad only in a pair of worn boxers. His chest is rising up and down rapidly, like he just ran a marathon" "You don't think it's like, beyond pathetic?"
“Really,” you assure him, “I’d hate to see you leave so soon. We could still hang out or-”
“You want me to stay?” he sounds incredulous. Is such a concept that foreign to him? You knew there was more behind the sarcastic comments and eye rolls. Just weren't expecting it to be such….lonelieness.
“I would love for you to stay, Cameron.”
He nods his head, like that four letter word didn't just knock him off his feet. Silently, he moves back to your bed, his lips pressing against yours. This kiss is different. More urgent. Fervent almost. As though he thinks you slip through his fingers if he doesn't.
“You didn't come,” he whispers against your neck, lips trailing down your body.
“It's fine-” Cameron's shaking his head before you can even finish your sentence. His mouth skims over your chest, his breath against your nipples creating goosebumps across your body.
“No. Need-wanna make you feel good,” is all he says before settling himself between your thighs.
Before you could respond, he dived into your heat, eagerly. His tongue circled your clit in deliberate strokes, his eyes glued to your face, watching for every little reaction.
Somehow you tasted sweet and tangy and all too addicting. Cameron saw how your back arched when his tongue found your entrance. He shifted, moving your thighs so they hugged the sides of his face. His cock was throbbing (how, he didn't know) but Cameron didn't care. Every brain cell was focusing on you, making you feel good.
It's how he noticed that while his tongue was making you moan, it wasn't the same as when he sank his cock into you. Not as breathy, not as needy. Fingers. He had long fingers. It's how he was able to learn the guitar and actually be quite good at it.
His mouth moved back up to your clit, allowing his index and middle finger to circle your entrance.
“C-Cameron, please.” Good. Yes. He sank his fingers into your wet entrance. Fuck you were tight. Had he actually obtained any will power, he could have felt that tightness with his cock for longer. But he couldn't harp on that.
He crooked his fingers upwards, trying to find that spot. Normally this wasn't a mission, his fingers and Dick were long enough that they usually ended up finding it without any extra effort.
Cameron couldn't just hope now. He already left a less than desirable impression with how he came after maybe five minutes of sex. He had to prove he was good at this, that he wasn't some jackass who lived in a van and didn't care if his partner came or not. He was good at something damn it and you were going to see that.
All while having this internal battle, you were fighting the urge to claw at his shoulders. No guy had ever eaten you out with this much vigor. His broad tongue drags a flat, wet stripe across your clit and oh fuck.
Your back arches off the mattress, fingers tangling themselves in his hair. He's a quick learner, you'll give him that. He repeats the motion and God, he’s looking at you with such intensity, studying every little reaction.
“F-fuck, don't stop,” and he's a much better listener than he appears because he doesn't. He keeps going, keeps moving his fingers in a come hither motion that feels so good it's making your hips roll upwards. Cameron doesn't seem to mind that you're practically humping his face. In fact, he seems to enjoy it given how his own hips are jerking against your mattress.
“Don't stop. M’gonna cum,” you can barely get out more than several words, much less a full sentence. You expect him to pull away, like most guys do.
Instead, his mouth continues. Your body feels light. There's a warmth that's spreading, seeping into your veins. A band is tightening in the pit of your stomach, tightening with every stroke of his tongue.
His fingers brush against that one spot and you feel the band snap. You start to have a vague idea of what's going on, though it's hazy. Like the fact you can now feel his tongue lapping up your essence, nose bumping against your clit. The mattress is moving, ever so slightly, against the headboard with the way his hips are basically jumping your mattress. There's a wet spot quickly spreading from the crotch of his boxers, but Cameron hopes you have a washer dryer (why wouldn't you, you have a fucking fireplace) he can use. Right now, all he can focus on is the taste of you on his tongue, how addictive it is.
He's chasing after it, desperate. You have to pull his mouth off of your cunt for it to register to Cameron what you were saying.
“S-slow down. It's o-okay,” your breathing is uneven, tits nearly spilling out of your bra and all he can think is,
“Can I..go again? Like keep going? If you want…me to.”
The way his eyes light up and his mouth dives back to your soaked core when you nodded yes, he's just as excited, if not more so.
summary: One glitchy tablet, one HR email, and suddenly you’re married to your attending, Jack Abbot. HR thinks it was intentional and has already started merging your records. Claim it was a mistake, and your residency could be delayed. With only three months left until you're an attending, Jack agrees to play along. Pretending to be married might save your career—but can your heart survive the side effects?
tags: accidental marriage, slow burn romance, HR involvement, nosy coworkers, reader is a PGY-4 resident, jack is not a widow in this fic, possible medical/legal inaccuracies, mutual pining, angst, guns mentioned, injuries
word count: 7.8k
a/n: thank you all for still being here! i appreciate you lots. love reading your comments <33 i hope you enjoy! and as always, since this is an ongoing process, your ideas and thoughts for future scenes are more than welcome! big kisses to everyone who has sent in ideas already<33
i'm not keeping a tag list for this series!
Diagnosis: Married | Masterlist
The Pitt | Masterlist
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Olivia's never experienced a more painfully awkward breakfast in her life. And she's sat through her parents 'let's-tell-our-child-we're-divorcing-over-croissants' breakfast and survived. But this takes the prize. Because this time she's hungover, struggling for her life as she fights the nausea and throbbing in her head, while she has to watch as the two of you slowly torture yourselves over toast and coffee.
It's mostly quiet except for the occasional scrape of cutlery and chewing—something hungover her usually would appreciate, but today it's killing her. It's like you take turns to look at each other, just missing the other by seconds, and she can see both of you wanting to speak, but neither of you does. When she tries to force conversation, everything dies in short, flat answers.
Olivia had come ready for damage control after your phone call—the one where you'd sounded so heartbreakingly sure everything was over. But after seeing Jack at the party? The gifts, the speech, flying her out, the way he'd looked at you all night. The problem had never been feelings.
She had liked Jack the first time she met him because it had been obvious then, too. The man loved you. Desperately. The problem was that everyone seemed to see it except the two of you.
So, she was certain that things would be okay again. She only needed to give you slight pushes—saw it in the way you didn't deny her every time, how your eyes looked hopeful when she talked about him—and then that kiss happened, and somehow everything got worse.
Olivia still didn’t know what the hell had gone wrong. You hadn’t been in bed when she woke up, and she hadn’t had a chance to corner you yet. But something had shifted. Yes, you'd been upset when she found you afterwards, but not like this. She still thought it could be salvaged with a few encouraging words—the man had kissed you in private for fuck's sake! If that wasn’t a sign that it wasn’t just pretend, what was?
But you looked different now. Quieter. Defeated in a way that made Olivia’s stomach sink.
She sits and watches as you barely touch your food, keep your eyes fixed stubbornly on your plate—except every few minutes, when you’d glance toward Jack before catching yourself and looking away again.
And Jack—
Jesus Christ. He looked awful. Kept reaching for things that didn’t need reaching for to end up closer to you. Refilling your coffee before you asked. Sliding the jam toward you without a word. Every few minutes, Olivia also catches him looking. Quick little glances when he thinks you aren't paying attention. Checking if you’d eaten. Watching your face. Looking away the second you turned.
Two idiots. Clearly sad. Clearly in love. She's seconds away from grabbing both your heads and smashing them together.
"I’ll be right back," she announces suddenly, shoving her chair back.
Your head snaps up immediately, panic flickering across your face. Jack looks up, too, but neither of you says anything, which somehow makes it worse.
She shuts the bedroom door behind her with a long, suffering sigh and collapses onto the edge of the bed, grabbing her phone.
Robby picks up on the second ring. "You're alive," he teases, voice still gruff with sleep.
"Barely," she groans. "These two are gonna kill me."
He laughs softly. There's a rustling sound on the other end, and she imagines him sitting up in bed, sheets falling down on his lap, chest bare—she needs to focus.
"That bad?" he asks.
"You have no idea," she says, rubbing her temple. "We need to do something about it—it's even worse than I thought."
Robby's silent for a moment. "Hmm," he says, voice turning serious. "I think I might have an idea."
Olivia sits up immediately. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."
"Oh?" Robby replies, sounding far too pleased with himself. "You like me?
Her ears flush. "Oh, shut up!" she snaps, shifting on the bed. "Tell me your plan!"
"Yes, ma'am," he laughs.
"Any progress?" Parker asks as she leans against the counter, coffee cup balanced in one hand as she watches Shen stare blankly at the computer.
"None," Shen answers after a moment, drumming restless fingers against the desk. "Absolutely none."
Parker sighs and turns her attention down the hall as Abbot rounds the corner, a tablet tucked under his arm. He moves more slowly than usual—quieter, with less of his usual bark and bite.
"He's miserable," Parker murmurs. "Honestly, I’d prefer him to chew me out than to see him like this."
Shen follows her gaze and exhales through his nose. "Yeah."
Abbot pauses near the board, scanning patient updates. His jaw shifts like he’s grinding his teeth.
"Did you see her at rounds?"
Parker nods. "I think she looked even worse than Abbot does." She frowns, contemplating. "Do you think something happened?"
Shen bites the end of his pen. "No way, right? They seemed fine at the party."
Parker watches Abbot again. "...Yeah."
Jack knows he shouldn't be doing this. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't go back. But it's been weeks since the surprise party, weeks since that kiss, and weeks since he’s had a proper conversation with you.
You're still stuck on day shift, too. Through no fault of Robby’s this time—Gloria had stepped in, and suddenly you were staying put 'temporarily'. Temporary, his ass. At this point, he hardly ever sees you. Just quick hallway glances, elevator rides, and once in a while, a brief hug—but those are growing rarer.
So when the text came—the one he’d ignored for months—he answered. He put on his uniform, convincing himself it would be simple. Routine. A warehouse break-in—nothing major. Just in and out. But then someone panicked. Shots were fired, and everything went sideways.
Luke—a tall guy Jack barely knew—went down hard, hit in the side, then the jaw. Training kicked in before his mind could even catch up. Jack moved instinctively, dragging him to cover while bullets cracked overhead, stabilising him and applying pressure where needed.
After that, things blurred. Sirens. Movement. Noise. The Pitt. He barely registered the burning in his shoulder by the time Luke had already been rushed upstairs. Even then, he’d ignored it. Because Luke was alive. Because it barely hurt. Because—
Because maybe part of him didn’t care all that much lately. That thought sat ugly in his chest.
In the midst of it all, he had instinctively searched for you. Even in the chaos, he hadn’t seen you. Now that things had settled, he still can't find you. No glimpse of you in the hub, no voice echoing down the hall, no familiar figure moving between rooms. You're probably in an exam room, likely avoiding him.
His shoulder throbs harder.
"Fuck," he mutters. He steps toward the first empty room he sees, closes the door and pulls the curtain shut behind him. He gathers supplies one-handed, jaw tightening as he starts peeling off his shirt. It catches on the edge of the wound, and he bites back a hiss of pain.
Just as he throws the shirt on the bed, the door slams open. The curtain is ripped to the side violently as the door bangs shut. You stand there, breathing hard like you sprinted through the entire hospital. Your eyes are wild and desperate as you frantically sweep your gaze over him—face, chest, arms, stomach.
"I thought you got shot," you breathe out when you don't see anything out of place.
"You heard about my dramatic entrance?" he remarked lightly. "I was hoping for flowers, at least." He sits down on the bed, beginning to tear off the tape for the dressing.
That gets nothing from you. No eye roll. Not even an annoyed huff. Your chest is still rising too fast.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" you snap, voice cracking halfway through. "Why were you out there?"
"I—"
"Since when do you do that?"
Jack rubs at the back of his neck. "I've done it for about a year."
Your expression changes from confusion to hurt. "What?" Your brows furrow. "Have you done it while we've—" you trail off, hands gesturing between you.
"No," he says quickly and firmly. "No."
Your shoulders relax a bit, your breathing slowing as you watch him squeeze out saline and reach for a cotton swab. You frown, only then realising that he's sitting shirtless in front of you with a tray of medical supplies in front of him. The way he's favouring one arm, the ugly scrape across his shoulder— "Oh my god."
You move instantly, snapping on a pair of gloves, gently slapping his hand away. "Let me."
"It’s fine," he says automatically, even though he knows he can't reach it.
You shoot him a look sharp enough to silence him.
The room falls quiet as you step closer, reaching for a cotton swab with shaking fingers. You don’t say anything as you start cleaning the scrape. Your fingertips brush briefly against his skin as you adjust your grip, and something in his chest twists painfully. You haven’t touched him in weeks—not properly. No absentminded shoulder bumps, no hand on his back, no leaning into him during rounds—none of those quiet little gestures that used to come so naturally.
And now here you are, jaw tight like you're holding yourself together by sheer will, dabbing at the wound gently, fingers holding onto his shoulder to keep him still.
"Why do you do this?" you ask quietly as you place a dressing over it.
He tilts his head instead of shrugging. "It's better than golf," he jokes. You don't laugh. He tries again, "Midlife crisis?"
Maybe you’ll call him old, maybe you’ll roll your eyes—anything that’ll show him that he hasn’t ruined everything with that kiss. Instead, he hears a sniffle behind him.
Jack stills, turning to look over his shoulder. You're staring down at his back, jaw still tight, but now your eyes are also glassy.
"Whoa, hey," he turns around as you tear off your gloves and throw them into the bin forcefully. "Hey."
"I'm fine," you mutter, not looking at him.
"You're crying."
"I'm not." Your voice cracks on the final word, and Jack hates himself for choosing to respond to that text.
"Sweetheart," he says quietly, the word slipping from his lips before he can stop it. He hasn’t called you that in weeks.
You wrap your arms around yourself and sniff once again. You're still not looking at him. "You really scared me. I thought you got shot."
"Hey," he encourages softly. "Come here."
You hesitate, but then take a step closer to him. He reaches for your hands—they're still shaking a little. He’s not sure if you’ll let him, but you do. Before he can think better of it, he pulls you in between his knees.
He tilts his head, waiting until your eyes meet his. "I'm okay. My vest caught it—it’s just a graze."
"This time, maybe," you stress. "What about next time? You can’t control what happens out there, Jack."
He fights the urge to look away.
"You could’ve gotten seriously hurt," you add quietly.
"I know."
"I just—" Your voice wobbles again. "I don’t know what I would’ve done if—" You bite your lip hard and look away again.
He squeezes your hands gently, bringing your attention back to him. "I'm sorry," he says, and he means it. He wants to promise he won't do it again, but the words catch in his throat. You’ll be out of his life soon—not for good, but in a way that’ll tear the rest of his heart out, and he knows he won’t be able to fight it.
Then a tear drops down your cheek, and he can't stop himself. "If you hate this," he says softly, his thumbs brushing your knuckles subconsciously, "I won’t do it again."
You peer up at him, teardrops beading your waterline. He wipes your cheek gently. "What?"
"I won't go," he promises.
"Jack—"
"I mean it." The thought of seeing you cry breaks him. Not over him.
"Really?"
He can't say no when you look at him like that, like it means everything to you that he's safe. "Yeah," he says. "Really."
You stand there for a second, searching his face like you want to believe him, then something shifts in your face. You step back, drop his hands and wipe your face harshly.
You snap on a new pair of gloves and busy yourself with throwing out the supplies. "You don’t have to do that," you murmur. "I—I overreacted. You can do what you want."
Jack’s heart sinks, unsure what changed so suddenly. "You didn’t—"
"I did," you interrupt, a tiny laugh escaping you. "I just…" you trail off, letting the unfinished sentence hang in the air. Whatever it is, you swallow it down.
"You should get some sleep," you say quietly instead. "You have to be back in a few hours."
Jack opens his mouth, but you’re already turning away.
"I didn’t mean to—" he starts. He isn't sure what he means, just that he wants you to look at him again.
"It’s fine," you cut in too quickly. You leave him sitting on the bed, staring at the closed door.
The next day, Jack comes in early, shifting awkwardly in front of you until you look up from the computer.
"Uh," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "You got a minute?"
You nod, instinctively looking at his shoulder. "Yeah?"
He gestures vaguely. "The dressing thing... It's kinda tricky one-handed."
You close the chart immediately. "Okay."
The exam room he leads you into seems to shrink, feeling even smaller with him standing there, his broad shoulders taking up space as he awkwardly settles onto the bed.
You stand in front of him with gloves on. "Take your shirt off," you say.
His mouth twitches. "You buying me dinner first?"
You raise an eyebrow at him.
He sighs. "Tough crowd." Slowly, he slips his shirt off.
You try not to stare and begin peeling back the dressing. The scrape looks better. You work in silence.
"How’s it look?" he asks eventually.
"Fine." You finish taping fresh gauze over the scrape. "You should still be careful," you say softly.
"I am careful."
You don't answer him.
He sighs. "…Careful-ish."
You almost smile. Almost.
"Thanks," he says quietly when you finish.
"No problem."
He lingers like he wants to say something. You do, too. Eventually, duty calls when rounds begin.
After that, you start looking at apartments like you'd promised. Stealing glances at listings between patients—careful not to let anyone else notice. Scrolling through options when sleep refuses to come. It gives your hands something to do when the house feels too quiet.
You try very hard not to think about how much you don't want to leave. You love this little house. You love sitting on the terrace, listening to the birds. You love curling up on the couch. You even love the coffee machine you can't figure out how to use.
For the first time, moving doesn’t feel impossible. Not with your new salary. It would be tight, sure. Painfully tight. Your student loans aren’t magically gone just because you graduated, but—
You could make it work.
A studio. A shitty kitchen. Questionable plumbing. Somewhere small. Somewhere yours. Somewhere that doesn’t make your chest ache. Jack would probably appreciate it if you left. Sooner rather than later. You wouldn’t blame him.
Ever since the shoulder thing, something had shifted again. Or maybe you had.
Because the embarrassment lingered. You’d panicked. Ran through the hospital like a crazy person because someone mentioned gunfire and Jack. Cried and acted like losing him would ruin you.
You’d scolded him like you were together. Like you had any claim over what he did with his life. And then he’d agreed too easily to stop. That somehow made it worse because obviously he’d just been trying to calm you down. Keep things easier and less awkward.
The sooner you could release him from his shackles, the better. Then he could live his life how he wanted.
One morning, you don’t hear him come home. You’re curled sideways on the couch, laptop balanced against your knees, rental listings spread across the screen. You barely register movement until a familiar hand sets a paper bag down beside you.
"Breakfast," Jack says.
You glance up too quickly and slam the laptop halfway shut, like you'd got caught doing something you shouldn't have been doing.
His eyes flick downward, catching the word lease. He stills, and something unreadable passes over his face. "Didn’t mean to interrupt," he says quietly, then he heads for the kitchen fast.
You stare after him, chest twisting.
"Hey, sweet cheeks," a familiar warm voice greets you as you round the corner.
You glance over, offering a tired smile. "Hi, Myrna. You doing okay?"
"Yeah," she says, raising her cuffed wrists slightly. "Better if you let me out of these."
"No can do," you say, already walking backwards toward the hub. "Sorry."
She lets out an exaggerated grumble that usually makes you laugh, but today, you simply rub the heels of your palms hard against your eyes. Sleep has been awful lately. Even worse than before. For weeks, the same haunting images replay in your mind: Jack bleeding, Jack unconscious, Jack upstairs, Jack—
You stop yourself before your brain can finish that thought. Because imagining what would’ve happened if he had been the one shot, if that shoulder graze had been just inches over—
"You okay, sweetie?" Dana asks, lifting her glasses to look at you more closely.
You immediately straighten and drop your hands. "Yeah, I'm fine," you say quickly. "Just tired."
Which isn’t technically a lie. You are tired. Exhausted, honestly. Still adjusting to attending life. Still trying to prove to the hospital that they didn't make a mistake when hiring you. Simultaneously cursing and praising them for keeping you on day shift a little bit longer.
"We’ll get through it," Dana says, mistaking your expression for stress about the overflowing waiting room and how you'd been running around all day, barely able to catch your breath.
You nod once. "Yeah."
But honestly? The day has been good—busy, but good. You caught a medication error that could have had serious consequences and handled a complex consult. You kept the board moving. The pace allowed you no time to think, and if you just pushed through another few hours, maybe you’d be tired enough not to dream tonight.
Suddenly, the ambulance bays swing open behind you. "Agitated on scene," Ziggler reports as they wheel a patient inside. "Had to give midazolam en route. Vitals stable, but he’s a big guy—took three of us to get him on the stretcher."
You step in beside them, nodding. "Any known head injury?"
"Not clear. Witnesses reported he fell before we got there. Could be alcohol involved."
You exhale slowly. "Okay." Turning, you catch Trinity's eye and nod for her to join you.
Ziggler adds, "No obvious trauma on primary survey," as you guide the stretcher into a room. The transfer goes smoothly—monitor hooked up, vitals steady, respirations normal.
As you step closer to the bedside, the patient stirs slightly. You watch Trinity adjust the pulse oximeter and check his pupils.
"His respiratory rate’s picking up," you note.
"The sedation should still hold," she states.
You don’t answer immediately. You’ve seen this before. "He’s coming up early," you say.
And then—
His eyes snap open. Not slowly or smoothly, but suddenly; confused and unfocused. His head turns slightly, and his breathing sharpens.
"Hey," Trinity says quickly, her voice calm. "You’re in the hospital. You’re safe."
The patient shifts too quickly, his upper body attempting to rise.
"Sir, don’t sit up yet," you say calmly.
Trinity moves in. "Hey—" she starts.
"Trinity, don’t—" you start to warn, but it’s too late. The patient surges forward, and you react without thinking, grabbing Trinity's arm and pulling her back.
This leaves you at an awkward angle, and his elbow strikes your side as he moves. A sharp, crushing pressure slams into your ribs, knocking the breath out of you mid-inhale.
You try to steady yourself with your hand on the railing, but your fingers slip, and your head catches the side of the bed. Everything dulls for half a second as you crumple to the ground, groaning.
Trinity’s voice slices through the chaos, calling out your name in concern. You can't respond. "Hola Hoop!" she screams. She moves back, trying not to further agitate the patient, keeping her eyes on him when all she wants to do is glance down at you.
Footsteps sound in the distance—fast, hurried. The room fills with more people, and you catch glimpses of arms securing the patient. You hear shouting, someone calling for more sedatives.
You attempt to sit up but instantly double over as pain flares in your side. Gentle hands reach down to assist you. It’s Dana. You blink hard, struggling to breathe.
"I'm okay," you manage to say, slowly standing. Dana keeps her hands on your arm the entire time, her brow furrowed with worry.
"I just got the wind knocked out of me," you say, lifting your head. Something drips down on your nose, and when you wipe it away, your fingers come back bloody.
"Mm," she mutters.
Robby appears beside her, panting. He scans you quickly, already assessing the situation, barely glancing at the chaos behind him. "What happened?" He grabs gauze and gives it to you. It stings when you press it against your forehead.
"She hit her side and her head," Trinity blurts out. "Hard." You shoot her a glare.
Robby shares a glance with Dana. "Okay," he says, replacing her touch on your elbow. "I've got you."
"I can walk," you say.
"Great," Robby says. "Walk to an exam room, then." He ignores your groan and guides you out the door into an empty room. "Sit."
"I'm fine," you mutter, taking in shallow breaths.
"Mm," he says while snapping on a pair of gloves. "Let me be the judge of that. Sit down." You listen this time.
He stops in front of you, his voice softening as he looks down at you. "What exactly happened?" He gently touches the edge of your wound, shifting your face around. The bleeding has slowed, and when he doesn't immediately do anything, it confirms that it's superficial.
"I'm fine."
He frowns, pulls out his flashlight, and begins checking your pupils.
"Patient woke up early," you sigh. "Too little sedation. He was confused." You shrug and regret it instantly. Pain flashes white-hot. You mask it.
"You get hit anywhere besides your ribs?"
You glare at him, knowing he already knows. Still, you indulge him. "My head."
"Did you black out?" He lifts his finger, and you follow it.
"No."
"Nausea? Dizziness?"
"No." You answer all of his questions and follow his orders, knowing it's the only way you can get out of this room.
He nods when he's satisfied with your neuro exam and then gestures at your scrub top. He pulls it up slowly. The bruise already blooming along your ribs looks ugly. Robby presses lightly on it, and you hiss despite yourself.
"That bad?"
"It’s not bad," you correct him, but he raises an eyebrow as if not buying it. He presses again, and when your breath catches painfully, you finally admit, "…It hurts."
He rolls his stool back. "Okay. I’m ordering you a CT and chest X-ray."
"Robby, no. I'm fine," you protest. "I just need a moment."
He doesn't answer you.
You try again. "Robby, we’re understaffed."
"You’re not going back on shift like this," he turns and types something into the computer. "Jack would kill me," he mumbles, mostly to himself, but you hear it all.
"Don't call him."
"What?"
"Don't call him. I'm fine," you say. "He doesn't need to worry."
"Too late," Robby says as he takes a seat again. "Dana already filled him in."
"What?" You close your eyes slowly. "Great."
Robby frowns as he begins preparing to clean the wound. "What's going on with you two?"
"Nothing," you retort sharply, then let out a sigh. "Really, nothing. I just don't want him to worry over nothing."
You don't want a lecture again. You don't want a reminder of what he thought of you the last time this happened.
You straighten again, looking at Robby hopefully, "Can I come back if things look fine?"
Robby exhales slowly. "Maybe."
The usual ten-minute drive to the hospital is cut to a reckless five when Jack receives the call from Dana.
You got hurt. That's all he needed to hear before he was up and out of the house. A patient hit you. You hurt your side and your head.
Dana hadn't sounded panicked, but head injuries could be serious. You could be bleeding internally while he was driving. While he wasn't there with you.
He parks haphazardly in front of the ambulance bay, not caring that he's blocking the entrance. He tosses the keys to Whitaker, who stands outside with his phone, then pushes through the door without waiting for a response—he ignores the dumb expression on Whitaker's face.
"Where is she?" he calls, the second he spots Dana.
"In there," she replies, pointing. She grabs his shoulder before he can take off. "Easy there, soldier; she’s okay."
Maybe so, but he needs to see it for himself before he’ll believe it. He flings the door open and finds you sitting on the edge of the bed. He quickly assesses you: one hand is bracing your side, your breathing is shallow, and you blink more slowly than usual. Your jaw is tight, brows furrowed, and there’s dried blood on your face.
His jaw tightens before he can stop it. He hears Robby start to explain—
"Possible rib injury, head strike, CT ordered—"
You cut him off. "I’m fine," you say, then look at Jack. "You can go home again."
His brows furrow. He knows what you're like when you're in pain—how you downplay it and try to hide it. He steps closer instead.
"I don’t need a CT," you insist, starting to rise.
Jack exhales. For some reason, you’re negotiating this like it’s optional. It isn’t. "Sit down." He keeps his voice steady. "No," he says as your mouth opens. "Sit down."
You scowl but sit after a second, your breath catching slightly. A flicker of pain crosses your face before you manage to mask it. It lasts barely a second, but he sees it.
His tone softens. "You’re going for a CT." He glances over at Robby. "I can take it from here."
"Jack—"
He doesn’t respond, just holds his gaze steady, and Robby steps back with a sigh. "The wound is superficial. Neuro exam is clear."
Jack nods, snaps on a pair of gloves and sits down. He’ll do his own assessment after cleaning you up.
"I'll come get you when it's your turn," Robby says, shutting the door softly behind him.
"So," Jack says, tilting your face to get a better look at the wound, "you come here often?"
You huff an annoyed breath, easing the tension in his chest. Annoyance is a good sign. "Very funny."
He continues to work in silence, cleaning the blood away, irrigating the wound, and closing the cut with a butterfly stitch. "This probably won’t leave a scar."
"Good. I was really worried about that," you mutter. "Don’t want my face to look like Scarface."
"Even if it did, you'll still be the prettiest woman in the E.D," he says with an exaggerated wink as he turns around to discard his gloves.
You huff another breath, but this time it's softer, less annoyed.
"Can I see?" he says softly, nodding at your side. You nod, and he pulls up the fabric slowly. His jaw tightens again, his fingers hovering just above the bruise before settling cautiously against your side.
"Jesus," he mutters quietly. He pulls the shirt down again after a moment.
You fiddle with the ends of it. "I didn’t do it on purpose," you say quietly.
"What?"
"I didn’t mean to get hit," you say, eyes fixed somewhere near his shoulder instead of at him.
"Hey." He waits until you look at him. "I know."
Your brows pinch together like you don’t believe him.
Jack exhales through his nose and drags the stool closer until he’s right in front of you. One hand settles carefully over your knee. "Sweetheart, I’m not angry at you. I'm—" scared. The word sits right there, lodged somewhere behind his teeth.
He looks away instead, jaw working once before he settles on, "I’m just glad you aren’t hurt badly."
You study him quietly.
"I just…" He glances down, shakes his head once. "Dana called and said you got hurt, and suddenly I’m thinking about head injuries and internal bleeding and all the shit that could be wrong before I even get here."
His voice stays steady, but only barely. "And then I walk in, and there’s blood on your face."
You look down at your hands. "I didn’t mean to scare you."
"I know, sweetheart." He waits until you glance back up. "I promise I'm not mad. Not at you."
You nod, looking like you accept his answer. He keeps your gaze for a moment, then stands and helps you settle more comfortably onto the bed.
As soon as Jack’s certain you’ll be fine alone, he storms out of the room to find Robby. Spotting him, Jack pulls him into the break room and struggles to steady his breathing.
"Jack—" Robby starts, already sensing where this conversation is headed.
Jack crosses his arms tightly, straining the fabric of his shirt. "She shouldn’t have been in there by herself."
"She wasn’t alone," Robby replies.
"You know what I mean." Jack's voice remains low but cutting, controlled in a way that shows he’s trying hard not to lose his cool. "She got hit hard enough that she needs a fucking CT scan."
Robby leans back against the counter, arms crossed. "Yeah," he says. "But she also pulled Santos out of the way before things turned worse."
Jack’s jaw clenches.
"Jack," Robby says softly now. "You’re scared."
"I'm pissed."
"No," Robby says simply. "You're scared, so you're pissed."
Jack looks away. Because yeah. Fine. Maybe.
Robby continues, "That doesn’t mean she stops being good at her job."
"I know she’s good at her job." That's not what this is about.
"Then trust her."
Jack doesn’t answer immediately. Because he does trust you. That’s the problem. You were good enough to run toward things that could hurt you. He knows you'll do it again.
Robby sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. "Look, if I thought she was being reckless, I’d speak up. If I thought she couldn’t handle herself, she wouldn’t be here right now." He pauses. "She made the right call. The patient surged. Santos froze. She did what you’d have done."
Something in his expression shifts despite himself. Jack exhales slowly, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. "...I hate this job sometimes," he mutters.
Robby chuckles. "Join the club. We’ve got t-shirts if you’re interested."
That gets a faint laugh out of Jack.
Robby nudges his shoulder lightly. "Go check on her before she decides she’s medically cleared and sneaks back onto the shift."
Jack’s eyes narrow at the thought. It’s not a question; you would absolutely do that. He shakes his head and pushes away from the counter. "...Thanks," he mutters.
Jack stays with you through it all.
From the CT scan to the X-ray, and through the heavy silence in between, he never leaves your side. He positions himself just out of the technologists’ way but remains close enough to notice if you shift incorrectly. The only time he steps away is when he isn’t permitted to stay, and he’s quick to return the moment he can.
When you’re wheeled back into the ER bay, you insist on getting into the bed by yourself, but you can feel his hands hovering just behind you.
You shift wrong, and pain flashes through your side. "Fuck," you hiss quietly.
Jack’s there before you can even regain your balance. One hand rests on your waist, the other steadies your arm. "Easy."
You blink at him as he helps you settle in. His hand remains firm on your waist while the other supports your arm until you're fully seated. It’s only once you’re steady that he takes a small step back—still close enough to catch you if you sway.
And then there’s nothing to do but wait. That’s the worst part. Waiting gives you time to feel things you’ve been outrunning.
"I’m fine, Jack," you say again. "You can go home."
Jack doesn’t answer immediately. Just looks at you, not angry but also not convinced. Just… steady in a way that says he’s not participating in the argument.
Trinity appears at the edge of the curtain before either of you can speak again. She hesitates when she sees both of you. "I—I’m really sorry," she blurts out. "I didn’t think—he moved too fast and—"
You lift a hand slightly. "Hey, it’s fine," you say. "You couldn't have known."
Trinity still looks like she might combust from guilt. Her eyes flick to Jack, then back to you, unsure where to land. "I can—do you need anything? I can stay—"
"No," Jack interjects immediately.
Trinity blinks at him.
He continues, quieter but still firm: "You’ve done enough. She needs rest."
Trinity hesitates one second longer, then nods quickly. "Okay. Okay, yeah. Sorry again." She slips out, letting the curtain fall back into place.
"You didn't have to be that harsh," you murmur.
"You got hurt because of her. She needs to know that," he says.
You sigh. "It was an accident. She couldn't have known what would've happened."
"Maybe," he says, leaning back in the chair with his arms crossed. He sighs after a second, "These chairs suck."
You snort, wincing slightly. "Well, what did you expect? If the hospital can't afford more nurses, we're not getting the good chairs."
He huffs. "Still."
Jack calls out from his night shift. You tell him three separate times that he doesn’t have to. He ignores you all three times.
By the time you're discharged, he's there, clearly settled in for the long haul. And as you walk into the house, he keeps one hand on your elbow, as if afraid that if he lets go, you might just collapse.
"I can walk," you grunt for the fourth time.
"Congrats," he says flatly, still not dropping his hand.
You roll your eyes but don’t pull away. Mostly because your ribs feel like they’re trying to murder you. Also because—
Well. His hand is comforting.
Inside, he hovers like a worried shadow. He guides you to his room and then to the closet for a change of clothes. When you mention wanting to shower, he frowns. He glances at the door and then back at you.
"I won't lock the door," you assure him with a sigh.
He nods, exhaling reluctantly. "I'll be right outside. Just yell if you need anything."
You raise an eyebrow. "It's just a shower."
His expression remains serious. Before you can say anything else, he rummages through his closet and emerges with one of his button-up shirts. "You can’t lift your arms properly," he points out, awkwardly holding it out. "This is easier."
You look at the shirt, then back at him. You have your own shirts, but you take it anyway. "…Thanks."
He shrugs in response.
The shower sucks. Everything hurts. Washing your hair hurts. Breathing hurts. Existence hurts. By the time you’re done, your head is throbbing again. It's not a concussion. Robby had been annoyingly clear. You got lucky. No concussion, no fractures, no internal bleeding. Just bruised ribs and a nasty bump on the head. You don't feel particularly lucky.
Jack fusses the second you emerge. He follows you to the dining room table, makes you food, and then proceeds to stare until you eat it. After a few painful bites, he helps you stand, his hand finding your elbow again. You don’t mention that you’re perfectly capable of standing on your own this time.
He starts steering you down the hallway toward his room.
You stop. "What are you doing?"
"You can sleep in my bed."
"What?"
"It’s better for your ribs."
You frown. "My bed is fine, Jack."
"Mine is firmer," he says immediately.
You stare. He's right. Your mattress is softer, cheaper, but perfectly fine under normal circumstances. Less ideal when every breath feels like a knife.
Still, you hesitate. "That’s really not necessary."
Jack exhales slowly, visibly trying not to argue. "There’s also more space."
You blink.
"For pillows," he adds hastily. "You’ll probably need to stay propped up. Plus, you hit your head, and I need to keep an eye on you."
You narrow your eyes. "I don’t have a concussion."
"You still have a head injury."
"It’s minor," you say, crossing your arms, only to regret it as pain flares up. You uncross them gingerly. Jack notices but stays quiet.
"You shouldn’t be alone tonight," he says, quieter now.
You look away first. "…I’ll be okay."
"I know," he says softly. "I just wanna keep an eye on you."
Something in your chest aches worse than your ribs because he sounds so careful, so concerned. You shake your head and slowly turn toward your room, hoping he’ll let you go. "I’ll be fine."
Jack doesn’t argue, which somehow feels worse. You take three steps before hearing movement behind you. He returns from the dining room, carrying a chair.
"What are you doing?"
He shrugs. "If you’re sleeping in there, I’m staying in there."
"Jack," you protest.
"What?"
"Your back’s gonna hurt."
He shrugs again and pushes your door open with his shoulder. "I’ll survive. I've slept on worse things." He sets the chair down beside your bed and sits down, like that’s the end of the discussion.
You stare at him from the doorway. At the chair. At him sitting there with crossed arms waiting for you. He means it—he’ll stay there if necessary, on that hard chair rather than crossing any lines by sharing your smaller bed. It's gone too far echoes in your head, but the image of him sitting there all night for you is too much. You're too tired, too sore, to keep this going.
With a long, exhausted sigh, you finally relent. "…Fine."
Jack looks up.
Avoiding his gaze, you mumble, "Your room... I’ll sleep in your room."
His expression softens in an instant—too quickly, almost as if he had been trying hard not to hope you’d agree. "Okay," he says quietly. Then, gentler, "C’mon."
And when his hand brushes lightly against your back as he helps you toward his room, you don’t move away. He helps you get into bed, positioning the pillow so you hurt the least amount. There’s a glass of water and some painkillers on the bedside table. His fingers brush back your hair, and you lean into his touch before you can stop yourself. For a moment, both of you freeze.
He steps back first. "I'll be right back."
You can hear him rummage around, and then he enters with the chair in his arms again.
"…Jack."
He sets it beside the bed and angles it towards you. Then he sits again, arms crossed.
You stare at him. "What are you doing?"
He frowns like the answer should be obvious. "Looking after you."
"No," you say slowly. "Why are you sitting there?" The whole idea of sleeping here was so he wouldn't stay in that chair.
He shrugs. "You’re hurt," he adds. "It's better if I—." He nods down at the chair, like that explains everything.
You exhale slowly and pat the mattress beside you. "C’mon. I didn’t mean to take your bed from you."
He hesitates, which somehow stings more than the chair itself.
You try to hide your hurt with humour. "Okay, well, I guess this way, there’s more distance from your snoring."
Jack just shakes his head at you. He lasts maybe forty minutes in the chair before you wake in pain, attempting to turn and failing without hissing.
Before either of you thinks about it too hard, he's helping reposition the pillows, one hand braced carefully at your ribs. It's easier for his leg to crawl onto the other side of the bed, and he stays there waiting until you fall back to sleep. He doesn't even realise when he falls asleep half on top of the blankets.
Jack checks on you constantly during that first night. He’s alert every time you shift, every breath that seems off, and even the tiniest sounds. The moment you move, he’s awake.
You don't say anything when you see that he's moved to the bed, and he doesn't either. But he keeps his distance, lying rigidly on the far edge of the mattress like touching you might somehow make things worse. Somewhere during the night, still half-asleep and in pain, you inadvertently shift closer. When you awaken again, you find his hand loosely wrapped around yours. The second he realises you're awake, he instantly lets go.
"Sorry," he murmurs quietly.
You don't answer. You just close your eyes again, a different ache settling in your chest.
The second night, you're not sure why you wake up. There’s a blanket tucked around your shoulders. Jack’s still asleep with one arm stretched awkwardly toward your side of the bed like he’d fixed it without waking properly.
By the end of the first week, things have shifted. You stop waking every time you move wrong. Breathing no longer feels like punishment, and turning in bed has become more uncomfortable than impossible. Sometime during that first week, Jack quietly stopped pretending the chair was still an option.
Somewhere along the way, the physical distance between you also disappeared. Sometimes you'd wake to find yourself closer than you remembered falling asleep—your shoulder brushing his chest, one of his hands loosely curled near your waist like he'd reached for you in his sleep and stopped halfway.
For the first time in weeks, despite the pain, you sleep. No nightmares. No gunfire. No waking up imagining Jack bleeding out somewhere you can’t reach. Because with him there—warm, solid, and close—your brain finally quiets down.
You tell yourself it’s practical. His mattress really is better. Firmer. Easier to breathe on. Less painful to get up from. You tell yourself that staying another night makes sense. Then another. Then somehow—
Another week passes. And you’re still there. By then, you don’t technically need help anymore. Breathing feels almost normal, and the bump on your head is gone.
You could return to your room—probably should. But every night seems to end the same way: you drifting closer in your sleep, Jack pulling you in without thinking, one arm heavy around your waist, your face nestled against his chest.
You tell yourself it’s just because moving hurts. Because untangling yourself would disturb him. Because his room is colder. Because—
You stop examining it too closely. It’s easier that way because you know what you're doing is only gonna hurt you in the end. It almost starts feeling normal again, and with every little thing, you catch yourself hoping. Then you remember the hallway.
I should’ve never agreed to this.
The hope curdles again.
Going back to work takes another week.
Jack hates it, insisting that it's too early and that you should take another week off. Eventually, he relents since you'll be back on night shifts—with him. You assure him you’ll stick to light duty: no lifting, no trauma rooms unless absolutely necessary. You listen—mostly—trying to let your residents take charge whenever possible.
You're still hurting, and maybe you should’ve taken a few more days off, but that's not the worst part. That's how normal everything has started feeling again. The heating pad after shifts. Coffee waiting while you chart. Pain medication offered before you even remember it's time for it. Parker and Shen grinning whenever they see the two of you together.
It should’ve felt reassuring. Instead, some days it made you want to scream. Because none of it made sense anymore. Not after the kiss. Not after the hallway.
The longer it goes on, the harder it becomes to ignore that eventually something will have to give. You needed to move back to your own bed. Look at apartment listings again. Print out the divorce papers.
One morning after rounds, Robby lingers like he’s debating something. "Hey," he says. "You two got a second?"
"No," Jack says flatly.
Robby ignores him. He herds both of you toward a quieter corner near the supply room. You lean back against the wall automatically, careful of your ribs, relieving the dull ache after twelve hours of work. Jack's hand lifts like he wants to steady you, but he drops it again after a second.
Robby notices but says nothing. Just pinches his brows together and hopes that what he's doing won't backfire. "There’s a convention in Cleveland this weekend," he says carefully.
You groan immediately.
Jack blows out a frustrated breath. "Why do I feel like this is about to become my problem?"
"Because it is," Robby admits, wincing slightly.
"Seriously?" you sigh.
Jack exhales through his nose. "Fine. I’ll do it."
You turn toward him instantly. "What? No. You have the weekend off."
"You’re still recovering," he counters.
"I’m fine."
Jack shoots you an unimpressed look. "You’re leaning against a wall right now."
Before you can argue further, Robby clears his throat, looking surprisingly guilty. "Actually…"
Both of you turn to look at him.
"It’s a two-person thing."
Silence hangs in the air.
"…Oh," you say slowly.
Robby immediately starts retreating before either of you can object. "Thanks, guys," he says quickly. "I owe you one."
"Robby—" you start, but it’s too late. He steps around the corner fast.
You let out a sigh, and Jack follows suit.
"Well," he says after a second. "Looks like we’re going to Cleveland." He doesn't sound particularly happy about it.
You aren't exactly thrilled about it either. Hours trapped in a car. A convention neither of you cares about. He could have gotten a weekend to himself, but now, instead, he was stuck with you.
He sighs, then says, "I'll bring the car round."
You nod. "Okay."
There’s a beat where neither of you moves. Jack shifts his weight like he’s about to say something else, then doesn’t. Instead, he just gives a short nod and turns away.
a/n: ahhh almost there!! and we finally get trouble's injury scene that i have had planned since the start. a few of you have suggested it as well and i've just been waiting in excitement for it!! :DD
summary: One glitchy tablet, one HR email, and suddenly you’re married to your attending, Jack Abbot. HR thinks it was intentional and has already started merging your records. Claim it was a mistake, and your residency could be delayed. With only three months left until you're an attending, Jack agrees to play along. Pretending to be married might save your career—but can your heart survive the side effects?
tags: accidental marriage, slow burn romance, HR involvement, nosy coworkers, reader is a PGY-4 resident, jack is not a widow in this fic, possible medical/legal inaccuracies, mutual pining, angst, two people being dumbasses, drinking, hangover
word count: 6.6k
a/n: wooo another chapter done and over 100k words written!! this is actually sooo insane to me. when i started this fic i never imagined that it would go on for this long🤭 thank you for being here <333 i hope you enjoy! and as always, since this is an ongoing process, your ideas and thoughts for future scenes are more than welcome! big kisses to everyone who has sent in ideas already<33
i'm not keeping a tag list for this series anymore. follow the diagnosis: married? masterlist and turn on notifications instead <33
Diagnosis: Married | Masterlist
The Pitt | Masterlist
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Jack's been counting down to this day all week—his first day off in a little over a week. It's slightly pathetic just how much he's built it up in his head, but it's the truth.
Every day feels like an exercise in restraint. Every morning, he wakes up after barely sleeping, stares at the drawer where his police scanner is hidden and has to look away before temptation wins.
He made a promise to himself the day you moved in, and he's gonna keep it—he won't touch it while you're still in the house. Even if his entire body is screaming for it. For the radio in that drawer. For the SWAT uniform hanging in his closet. For anything that'll dull the restlessness.
Jack's a man of his word, even as it gets harder with each passing day. Even as the lack of sleep hollows him out enough for people to notice. Even when you notice.
He can still feel the touch of your fingers under his eyes from two nights ago, soft against the dark circles as you frowned up at him. Asking him if it was because of his leg and telling him you bought him more of that cream and that he could use your heating pad. He'd nodded because telling the truth wasn't an option—and besides, his leg had been giving him hell that day.
But it wasn't the reason for him not sleeping, not that he could ever tell you that. He couldn't tell you that it was the thought of you drifting away from him, of you leaving, that kept him awake. That only seeing your face for a handful of minutes each day was driving him insane. That every day brought the end closer, and he could feel the countdown in his bones.
Tonight, however, he finally gets a semblance of relief. No work. No interruptions. Just an entire evening with you. An evening where he'll watch whatever you want to without complaining if it means he gets to sit next to you, listening to your laugh and teasing you.
He just wants your company.
It's around half past seven when the front door cracks open. Jack had offered to come pick you up, but you insisted that it was too nice not to walk, and so he'd relented. He didn't want to start the evening out on the wrong foot.
"Hey," you greet him, sending him a quick smile as you move towards your room. "I'm gonna shower real quick."
He sends you a smile back from his position on the couch and grabs his phone. He has it all planned out: takeaway, a bad movie, and if he's lucky, you'll fall asleep on his shoulder.
He opens the app, finds that place around the corner that you'd mentioned before and scrolls through their menu. He hears the shower turn off, then the sound of you rummaging through the closet and by the time you come into the living room, he's halfway through speaking, "I was thinking we could order in toni—"
And then he looks up.
His smile fades as he sees you standing in the doorway, bag slung over your shoulder and a confused look on your face. It dissolves into an apologetic one as you step further into the room, "Shoot," you say. "I forgot to tell you—I'm going out with Parker and some of the other girls tonight." You bite your lip, adding, "She's been asking me for days..." as if it's some sort of consolation.
For a second, he just stares at you, the air leaving his lungs so fast it almost hurts. Tries to process the fact that this was a night he'd been waiting for all week, and to you it's just another night.
"Oh," he says. "Okay." He stands, forcing his expression into something neutral as he follows you into the hallway. "That sounds fun," he adds, the words stiff in his mouth.
"Yeah," you reply as you shrug on a jacket. "We're going to that club near the park."
Jack folds his arms and leans against the doorway, trying to breathe through the sting in his chest. "Okay," he says. "Be safe. I'll come pick you up when you're done."
You look up from the shoes you're slipping on and shake your head. "You don't need to wait up for me. I'll just call an Uber."
He frowns. "I'm gonna be up anyway," he says. He won't be able to sleep until he knows you're home safe. He adds in a softer tone, "I don't mind. Call me."
For a brief second, your hand loosens on the bag strap as your eyes flicker over his face. Can you see the hurt and disappointment he's trying to contain? Your mouth parts like you're about to say something. Something like: Maybe I can stay. Maybe I can reschedule.
The words hover on the edge of your lips, so close Jack can almost taste them. And for one stupid second, he thinks you might actually say them because he sees how your shoulders soften and your weight shifts, like you're reconsidering leaving.
Then the moment passes. Your fingers tighten around the strap again, and your feet turn to the door. "I'll see you later," you say and disappear out the door faster than he can respond. He stares at the shut door.
He notices you never actually agreed, and before he can second-guess it, he pulls up Ellis’ contact.
>> Text me when you're ready to leave. I'll drop you and the others off, too.
He hesitates for a second. Then adds:
>> Trouble wants to pay for an Uber. But I won't be asleep, so call whenever.
He gets a reply seconds later.
<< Sure thing, boss
He stares at the screen for a second before locking it and sinking back onto the couch. He flicks on a random sports channel, though he knows he won’t take in a second of it. He curses Robby's name one more time in his head, despite having talked it out. Still, he can't help but put some of the blame on him; it lessens the blame he can put on himself.
You sit cross-legged on Parker's bedroom floor, your makeup bag spilt open around you in a mess of brushes, palettes, and lip gloss tubes. The room smells faintly like vanilla body spray and the citrus candle Parker lit twenty minutes ago. Music hums low from the speaker on her dresser, some playlist she made in your first year of residency.
You sweep a glittery brush across your lid, tilting your head for a better angle. Behind you, Parker's bathroom door is open, steam still curling out from her shower. You can see half of her face in the bathroom mirror as she expertly draws a sharp wing. For a while, the only sounds are the music, the rustle of brushes, and Parker humming under her breath.
Then she says, casual as anything, "So, you gonna tell me what's up with you and Abbot?"
Your hand stills mid-swipe. The brush hovers near your eyelid as your shoulders tense, but you force yourself to relax, lowering the brush to the palette in your lap.
"Nothing’s going on," you say, aiming for light and dismissive.
Parker lets out a short laugh from the bathroom. "Sure," she says.
You glance toward the doorway and catch her raised eyebrow in the mirror. "Then why do you look like you haven’t slept in days?"
You stare down at the eyeshadow palette, pretending to inspect the colours even though your mind goes completely blank. "Uh…"
Does she know? Does she see the same things you do? For an overwhelming second, the urge to spill everything to her fills your chest. You suppress it. You can't betray Jack like that.
Parker snorts softly, caps her eyeliner, and steps into the doorway. She leans one shoulder against the frame, mascara wand in hand, watching you with the kind of knowing look that makes lying feel impossible. "You know, if you both sleep that badly without each other," she says, "maybe you should consider coming back to nights."
You blink at her and let out a quiet breath of relief. Her assumption wasn't even close, or well, it was right, but she hadn't figured out the reason for the distance. You're even more glad you kept your thoughts to yourself now.
"It’s only a week until I’m back," you say, dipping your brush into the eyeshadow again. You can deal with another week. Robby had already offered to move things around and get you back on nights early, but you'd refused before he could finish the sentence. You're not ready to see Jack and Lily interacting just yet. Not sure that you would be able to hide your heartbreak well enough.
Parker disappears back into the bathroom, and you hear drawers opening. "I’ll cover half your patients if you come back early," she calls out.
You laugh, shaking your head as you blend the shadow into your crease. "You literally cannot do that."
She reappears with a lipstick tube in hand, shrugging, "Fine. Shen will buy you coffee before every shift."
That makes you laugh harder. "Every shift?"
"Mm. And after!"
You reach for your mascara, twisting the tube open. "You're resorting to bribery now?"
She shrugs. "Whatever works."
You lean closer to the mirror, carefully brushing mascara onto your lashes. "Parker," you say, smiling, "I’m not coming back early. So you can drop it."
She groans dramatically.
"I don’t mind day shift," you continue. "And it’s just temporary." You cap the mascara and toss it back into your bag, then look up at her through the mirror. "So, can we please have one night where we don’t talk about work?"
Parker presses her lips together, considering, then she sighs heavily—the theatrical kind meant to show she's only giving in under protest. "Fine," she says.
You grin. "Good. Because you have to help me figure out what to wear."
"Ooh," she says, dropping onto the edge of her bed. "Okay, show me everything."
By the time you and Parker join the other girls, you’re feeling that pleasant buzz of tipsiness. And after just another half hour with Trinity pushing drinks into your hands, you're drunk.
The place is packed—shoulders brushing past in every direction, voices layered over the pulse of the bass, the air warm with the smell of liquor and perfume and too many people in one room. Coloured lights flash across the dance floor as you move in between the throngs of people. It's nice, letting go of all your worries and just having fun.
It even makes the guilt of leaving Jack alone at home subside. You hadn't anticipated that he would look that sad—you'd actually expected the opposite. It was the whole reason why you agreed to go out tonight, to give him the house to himself.
Limiting the time you spend alone with him is the safest. Working days has been hell, besides the obvious, but having him find you the second he enters the Pitt, the smile he gives you as he kisses your cheek, and the way his shoulder keeps brushing yours during rounds, it's enough to make your resolve wobble.
It's enough to make you doubt if you really do have it right—until you see him talk to Lily, and then the confidence surges again. Not even Olivia’s increasingly exasperated insistence that you're reading it all wrong could shake that certainty.
Since the argument at the lockers, Jack hasn’t pushed back on the shift change. He still checks if you’ve eaten, still keeps a protein bar in his pocket if you haven't, still brings you tea at the start of his shift—but he hasn’t fought for more, and somehow that hurts worse than when he did.
So instead of being curled up beside him on the couch, you’re here—pressed into a cracked vinyl booth with a drink in your hand and Parker half draped across the seat beside you.
"Pleeease," Parker whines, dragging the word out as she collapses dramatically against the backrest. Her margarita sloshes dangerously in her hand. "Come back to nights."
Across the table, Trinity snorts into her drink as Princess mocks her.
You laugh, shaking your head. "Parker, no. You promised no work talk."
Parker presses a hand to her chest like you’ve mortally wounded her. "So that’s it? You’re abandoning us? Leaving us in the clutches of hell when salvation is right there?"
You stare at her flatly. "Wow. Since when did you become so poetic?"
Parker lifts her glass solemnly. "Since Abbot started nitpicking my charting. Trauma changes people."
Lily bursts out laughing beside her, the sound bright enough to cut through the music. The bruising around her throat has faded into mottled yellow and green now, and her voice has almost completely recovered. Her scans had come back clean, no concussion, no lasting damage, and she’d been one of the first people demanding a night out the second she was cleared.
"No, seriously," Parker says. "He told me to fix my chart because I wrote 'patient states pain is better' instead of 'the patient’s pain is improved'."
"That sounds fair," Trinity says, her head tilting as a small smirk plays on her lips.
Parker glares at her. You laugh, louder this time.
Parker swivels toward you. "He was never this bad when you were on nights."
You shrug, "Maybe your charting got worse."
She narrows her eyes at you.
Trinity leans in over the table, "I, for one, hope you won't ever go back." She lifts her glass. "To day shift, where I hope Trouble stays forever."
Parker groans but lifts her glass anyway. "To Trouble, who abandoned us to die." Lily nods emphatically.
You roll your eyes and clink your glass against theirs.
"No, but seriously," Parker says, nudging Lily with her elbow, "Tell her she needs to come back. Abbot is terrifying right now, right?"
Lily shrugs. "He’s just tense."
Parker scoffs. "That's because he likes you. He’s less scary with you."
Lily laughs and shakes her head. "No, he isn’t."
"He is," Parker insists. "You’re the only person he hasn’t snapped at all week."
Lily rolls her eyes. "That’s because I’m still on light duty."
She says it casually, thoughtlessly, but the words hit somewhere tender. Because, of course. Of course, he’s gentler with her. Of course, people notice. You'd noticed.
You stare down into your drink, the ice shifting softly when you tilt the glass. You force a smile. "That’s nice of him."
Lily nods. "I'm back on normal duty Monday, and I cannot wait." She leans in, adding with a little grin, "I might also have a date with a radiologist..."
Parker's eyes widen, "What?"
Your eyes widen. "When did that happen?" you ask. Does Jack know?
"When I went for that scan the other day," Lily grins.
"Damn girl," Parker laughs.
"Hey, at least something good came out of it," Lily says. "I think we're going to that place nearby. Momo's or something—"
You lift your drink and take another swallow, eyes drifting to the dance floor while the conversation moves on around you. If Jack loses his chance with Lily because he was doing this with you, would he forgive you?
A new song blasts through the speakers, bass vibrating through the floor beneath your feet.
"Oooh, I love this song!" you hear from your left as Parker rushes out to the dance floor.
Lily laughs from beside you and reaches for your hand. "Come on."
You hesitate for half a second, but let her pull you up. Because, despite everything, you still like Lily. She’s warm and funny and kind. None of this is her fault. You can’t blame her for the ache that opens in your chest every time you look at her and think about Jack. So you let her lead you into the crowd.
And for the next half hour, the night becomes loud and stupid in the best possible way, and for a little while, you let yourself disappear into it.
You try not to picture Jack at home. Maybe stretched out on the couch. Maybe reading with those stupidly adorable glasses on. Maybe glancing at his phone every now and then, waiting for it to ring because he told you to call.
That thought should make warmth bloom in your chest. Instead, it hurts. Because even now, while you’re pulling away for his sake, he’s still there. Still showing up. Still making space for you. Still offering in a way he never should have to.
So you drink. Shot after shot. Trying to soften the ache. Trying to drown the guilt. Trying not to think about the fact that if it weren’t for you, he could probably be moving on with his life instead of waiting around for your call.
By the time you stumble back toward the booth, your head is pleasantly foggy, your limbs loose and warm.
Parker drops beside you, breathless from dancing. "You good?" she asks.
You nod, then immediately regret the motion when the room tilts. "Yep."
She gives you a sceptical look. "You are not getting any more drinks."
"I’m fine," you insist, reaching for her cocktail on the table.
Parker snatches it first. "Nope."
You glare at her. "Parker."
She folds her arms around the drink protectively. "You're wasted."
"I'm not."
She shoots you a disbelieving look. "I'm gonna call Jack," she says, pulling out her phone.
"No!" you say, grabbing her hand quickly.
She blinks at you, surprised.
You try to soften it, "I'll just get an Uber once I sober up a bit. I don’t want him coming out at one in the morning because I had too much to drink."
Parker studies you for a second, then nods hesitantly. A few minutes later, Trinity drags Parker back onto the dance floor when another song comes on, and you stay in the booth, sipping water, trying to steady the spinning in your head. Lily joins you after a moment, giggling at something on her phone.
You’re staring blankly out into the crowd when something shifts. Even through the music and the blur in your head, you feel it. That strange awareness that has nothing to do with sight. Your body notices him before your mind does, gaze lifting automatically toward the entrance.
And there he is.
Jack stands just inside the bar, arms folded behind his back as he scans the room. The second his eyes land on you, your breath catches. Every ounce of drunken warmth drains out of you. "What the fuck?" you mutter.
You whip around to Parker, who has just returned to the table, suddenly looking guilty.
She winces. "Sorry."
Your stare hardens. "You called him?"
"You were too drunk to get home alone."
"I told you not to."
Trinity appears behind her shoulder, adding with no remorse. "Abbot said he’d drive all of us home."
You stare at them in disbelief. "I see," you say flatly. So much for not disturbing him. But then again, you should've thought about it—Lily's here, of course, he'd come.
Before you can say anything else, Jack reaches the table.
"Hey, girls," he says, warm and easy, that small familiar smile on his face. "Looks like you’re having fun."
"Oh yeah," Parker says brightly, then points at you. "This one had way too many shots."
Jack’s gaze moves to yours, and the smile softens. "I can see that."
You're leaning against the back, staring hazily at him. He steps closer and gently brushes a loose strand of hair away from your face. Your body leans into it before you can stop yourself, then you remember Lily is sitting right there.
You straighten immediately.
"I’m fine," you say. You stand to prove it. The room lurches violently.
Before you can stumble, Jack’s arm is around your waist, steady and immediate. "Mm-hm," he murmurs. "Sure you are."
He's warm, a scorching heat that sends fire through your veins. You hate how natural it feels to lean into him. Hate how easy it is to stay there. You’re too tired—and too drunk—to pretend you don’t want the support. Even if Lily is looking. She'll get to have him forever; you only have a short time—she'll have to forgive you.
Jack glances at the others. "Come on," he says. "Let’s get everyone home."
The girls pile into the car, laughing and arguing over seats as Jack opens the passenger door for you. You slide in without looking at him. He sets a bottle of water in your lap, then reaches over to buckle your seatbelt.
You stare out the window while quiet music plays through the speakers. One by one, he drops everyone off. Parker is last, leaning through the window with a drunken grin.
"Love you," she sings.
You glare at her. She laughs and shuts the door. Then it’s just you and Jack. The silence in the car feels enormous. Jack keeps one hand on the wheel while the other taps lightly against his thigh.
"You have fun?" he asks after a minute.
"Yeah," you murmur.
"That’s good."
Silence settles again.
"Day shift treating you okay?" he asks.
"Yeah." You can feel the heat of his gaze on the side of your face, but you don't look at him.
"Good," he nods.
"Mm."
He’s quiet for a second before speaking again, fingers tightening briefly on the wheel. "I miss having you around."
You grip the hem of your shirt and almost turn toward him. Almost say I miss you too. But Lily’s words echo in your head. He’s been checking in a lot.
You stare harder out the window. "I’m coming back soon," you say instead.
"Right." He nods once.
Normally, you’d say something, anything, to fill the silence. But tonight you can’t. You don't know what to say that won't make things awkward.
You lean against the window pane instead, listening to the soft murmur of the radio, and tell yourself you’re just resting your eyes. Just for a second. Sometime between one red light and the next turn, sleep pulls you under.
Jack turns into the driveway slowly, careful not to take the corner too sharply. He cuts the engine and sits there for a moment, looking at you in the dim glow of the moonlight.
"Hey," he says softly. You don't stir. He leans over and brushes a hand over your shoulder. "Hey, we’re home."
You hum lightly and turn your head onto the headrest, brows pulling together faintly, but your eyes stay shut.
He exhales a quiet laugh. "Alright."
Jack gets out, walks around the car and opens your door. "Come on, sweetheart," he murmurs, reaching for your hand. "Can you stand?"
You blink slowly, eyes glassy and unfocused. "M'awake," you mumble.
"Mm," he breathes.
You try to stand up, but the second your feet hit the ground, your knees buckle. Jack catches you instantly.
"Okay," he says gently, one arm steady around your waist. "That answers that." You mumble something incoherent into his shoulder. Then, before you can protest or he can overthink it, he slides one arm under your knees and lifts you.
You let out a sleepy noise of surprise, one hand grabbing weakly at the front of his shirt. "Jack—"
"I’ve got you," he murmurs into your hair as he walks up to the door. Your head drops against his shoulder almost immediately, too exhausted to argue.
He sets you down just long enough to unlock the door, then lifts you again and carries you inside. He nudges the bedroom door open with his shoulder and carries you straight to the bathroom.
"Alright," he says softly, setting you carefully on the sink, one hand still holding your waist. He grabs your toothbrush and puts toothpaste on it. "Here."
You stare at him and obediently open your mouth. He lets out a short huff of laughter.
"Honey, no. Here." He places the toothbrush in your hand. "Brush your teeth."
"Oh." You begin brushing with slow, clumsy movements, squinting at yourself in the mirror.
Jack leans against the counter beside you, arms at each side of your legs, making sure you stay upright. When you finish, you spit, rinse, and immediately wobble. His hand catches your elbow.
"Come on. Let’s get you to bed." He helps you down from the counter and guides you toward the bedroom. But instead of heading for your room, you stop in front of his bed and tug weakly at your shirt.
Jack freezes. "Wait—"
You frown at him. "Need t'sleep."
"I know, but—"
You’re already trying to pull your top over your head and failing miserably. Jack turns around so fast it would almost be funny if he weren't so flustered. You let out a tired little huff as you wrestle with your clothes. There’s the sound of fabric hitting the floor. Then silence.
Jack glances back over his shoulder just long enough to see you standing there in only your panties. He catches a glimpse of the curve of your ass before his gaze jerks away immediately.
"Hang on." He pulls one of his T-shirts from the dresser and holds it out without looking directly at you. "Here."
You take it, and stumble into his eye line while pulling it on. He catches your arm without thinking. "Okay?"
"Mm," you hum. He expects you to walk past him, but you don't—you crawl straight into his bed instead. He almost can't remember the last time that happened, but you don't notice how he stares, already curled onto your side with your eyes shut.
He debates whether or not to tell you that you're in the wrong bed, when he wants nothing more than to just slip in beside you and not say anything. But he can't—not when he knows that's the last you want.
So, he says, "This isn't your bed, sweetheart."
You blink sleepily up at him. "Wanna stay here." The words are slurred and soft and so completely unguarded that his chest tightens.
"You sure?"
You make a sleepy little sound and scoot further into the bed, like that settles it.
Jack stands there for a long moment. Every instinct tells him this is a terrible idea. Not because he doesn't want this—god, he wants it too badly—but because you're drunk, and things between you are already fragile. One wrong move could break whatever trust still exists between you.
So he keeps his distance, decides that he'd better sleep on the couch tonight. He pulls the blanket higher over your shoulder, then he reaches to move the hair away from your face. Indulging himself for a moment.
You catch his wrist with barely open eyes. "Stay." The word is so quiet he almost misses it.
He should say no. He knows he should. But the word won’t come. He looks at you for a second, then nods once. "Okay."
He's not that strong.
He walks around to the other side of the bed, takes off his prosthetic and lies down, leaving space between you. For a minute, everything is quiet. Then, half asleep, you roll toward him. Your hand finds the front of his shirt, curling there lightly as your head nestles into the space between his shoulder and neck. You breathe in deeply and sigh contentedly.
Jack closes his eyes.
A few seconds later, your breathing evens out again. Jack stares up at the ceiling in the dark, every nerve painfully aware of how close you are. He wants to wrap an arm around you, but he stays still.
After a long moment, he carefully pulls the blanket over both of you and lies awake beside you, trying to memorise this—your weight against him, the sound of your breathing, the faint scent of your shampoo. This might be the last time he ever gets this. He'll be damned if he doesn't take advantage of it.
He falls asleep faster than he intends to.
You wake up slowly, dragged out of sleep by the dull ache behind your eyes and the heaviness of a hangover settling into your body. For a moment, you stay still, half buried in warmth, then awareness catches up.
The blankets are softer than yours. The pillow smells like clean laundry and something familiar, and beneath your cheek, it rises softly with each breath.
Your eyes snap open.
Morning light spills pale through the curtains, washing the room in soft gold, and the second you register the shape of the dresser, the angle of the chair in the corner, the familiar navy comforter—
Your stomach drops.
Jack’s room. Jack’s bed.
Heat floods your face instantly. You vaguely remember the night before, fragments flicker back—the bar, the car, him carrying you inside. Flashes of his hands on your waist, the brightness of the bathroom light, stripping in front of him (oh god) and then crawling into his bed. Asking him to stay.
A groan builds in your throat, and you swallow it down. Oh god. Slowly, carefully, you glance beside you.
Jack is asleep on his back, one arm tucked under his neck, the other around your waist, hair rumpled, face slack with sleep. He looks peaceful. Too peaceful for someone who had to deal with your drunk ass the night before.
You stare for a second too long. In sleep, all the tension leaves his face. This is the version of him that always weakens your resolve. It would be so easy to forget the distance you’ve been trying to create, to stay here in his arms.
You force yourself to move. Cautiously, you slide toward the edge of the bed, lifting the blanket inch by inch.
The mattress shifts under your weight. Jack stirs. You freeze. Then his breathing evens again. You exhale silently, then you slip out of bed and stand, clutching the hem of his shirt. Fuck. You won't drink ever again.
You make your way into the bathroom as quietly as you can. The second the door closes, you lean against it. Drag both hands over your face as you whisper: "Fuck."
You turn the shower on and step under it as soon as the steam rises. Water runs down your face, hot enough to sting. You scrub your body harshly, trying to wash away the shame clinging to you. Trying not to think about what it felt like waking up there and how badly a selfish part of you wanted to stay. Trying to dismiss the voices that whisper that maybe this meant something—that Jack deciding to stay wasn't a thoughtless decision.
You shake your head, wrap a towel around yourself and stare at your reflection in the fogged mirror. "Act normal," you mutter to yourself.
Jack's awake when you open the door again, sitting on the edge of the bed, hair still tousled from sleep. His head lifts the second the door opens.
For one second, neither of you says anything. You’re standing there in a towel, droplets dripping down your shoulders, too panicked earlier to remember to bring clothes with you. A decision you regret very much right now.
His gaze flicks over your body before returning to your face. The glance is brief, but your pulse jumps anyway as heat floods your body.
"Hi," you say, managing to sound normal at least.
Jack gives you a small smile. "Hi."
Silence stretches. The air feels heavier than it should.
You tighten your grip on the edge of the towel. "I’m sorry about last night."
Jack’s brows pull together slightly. "For what?"
You stare at him. "For Parker calling you. For being drunk. For… this?" you say, motioning vaguely toward the bed.
Jack glances behind him, then back at you, confused. "You sleeping here?"
You nod.
"You’ve slept here before," he says, like it means nothing.
"I know, but—"
Jack tilts his head, watching you carefully. "But what?"
You shrug. "I don’t know..." It's not like you can tell him how, despite the hangover, this is the best you've felt in days—that you haven't slept more than two hours unbroken ever since moving from his bed to your own.
"I'm gonna—" You point vaguely toward the closet, grab some clothes, and hurry back into the bathroom.
From the other side of the door, Jack says after a moment, "I’m gonna go get breakfast. You want your usual?"
"Yeah, thanks!" you answer, head buried in your hands. Fuck.
Later that day, when the hangover has almost slipped its grasp on you, you begin studying. Hunched over the dining table, surrounded by colour-coded notes, flashcards and three different review books, you answer old exam questions.
After two hours, your neck aches, your eyes burn, and the words begin to blur into meaningless strings of letters.
You stare at a question about differential diagnoses for metabolic acidosis and realise you’ve spent five minutes on it without making any progress. With a groan, you rub both hands over your face and lean back in the chair.
Across the house, the television murmurs quietly in the living room where Jack has been stretched out on the couch for the last hour, giving you space while you study. You hear the soft click of the TV being turned off, and a moment later, he appears next to the table.
"You okay?"
You let out a tired laugh, too tired to even pretend. "No."
Jack glances down at the table, then steps behind your chair, scanning the questions. You can almost feel the heat radiating from his body, and you have to force yourself to not lean back. You flip your pen between your fingers and stare down at the question in front of you.
"You want help?"
You hesitate, unsure if this crosses any lines. But he’s still your attending, and this—this could just be work, so you agree, "Yeah, thank you."
"No problem," he says and pulls out the chair beside you.
You shift your notes aside to make room. He picks up your review book, skims the page, then glances over at you. "Walk me through what you’re stuck on."
You hesitate, then start explaining the question. At first, your voice feels stiff, your answers clipped. But Jack listens the same way he always does—calmly and patiently. When you get something wrong, he doesn’t correct you immediately. He asks another question instead, nudging you toward the answer.
Within fifteen minutes, the panic in your chest has eased. Within thirty, you’re actually remembering the material.
And somewhere in the middle of him explaining anion gap calculations on the back of a notepad, you forget to be careful. You laugh when he teases you for overcomplicating the answer. You roll your eyes when he smirks at you for getting something right. You blush when he praises you. For a little while, it feels easy and familiar, like nothing between you has changed at all.
Eventually, you lean back in your chair and exhale. "Okay, I'm beat," you admit. "But that really helped."
Jack’s mouth lifts at one corner. "You know these things. You just have to trust yourself."
You huff but smile at him. "That's easy enough to say."
He doesn't answer that, just leans back in his chair and looks at you.
You shake your head, smiling faintly, then your gaze drops back to the books spread across the table. Soon you’ll be an attending. The thought should feel exciting. Instead, your stomach tightens. Because once residency ends, so does this. Your smile fades.
Jack notices immediately. "What?"
You tap the edge of the flashcard against the table. "Nothing."
He waits.
You stare at your notes for another second before saying quietly, "I was just thinking... this is the last big hurdle."
"The boards?"
You nod. "I'm gonna be an attending after residency ends," you say quietly.
"That's how it works usually," he teases.
You twist the flashcard in your hands. "And after that, everything changes."
Jack drops his grin and studies you for a second. "Meaning?"
"Meaning once I’m an attending..." You force yourself to keep your tone even. "We won’t need to stay married. We can get a divorce"
The room goes very still. Jack doesn’t move. For a second, you think maybe he didn’t hear you, then he sets the pen down slowly. "I see."
You keep talking because silence feels unbearable. "This whole arrangement was about residency. About making it through—"
He says your name softly, but you push ahead.
"—once I'm done, there's no reason to keep pretending."
You can't bear to look at his face, to see the relief that you'd brought it up, so he didn't have to, so you stare at the table instead.
Jack's hands flex once on the table before stilling. "We can’t," he says.
You blink and look up too quickly, hope flaring so suddenly it almost hurts. "What?"
He folds his arms loosely. "If we separate right after you become an attending, people are going to notice." He continues, voice calm and practical. "They’ll put it together. HR might even call us back in."
You nod slowly. "Oh... Right." He was just worried about appearances. It wasn’t the divorce that bothered him—just the timing.
"There’d need to be some time in between," he says. "Otherwise, it looks suspicious."
You force your expression to stay neutral and nod, "That makes sense."
Jack watches you, waiting.
You nod once more. "Okay."
Then, because you need to say something to prove you’re being reasonable, you add, "I’ll start looking for a new place after boards." You try smiling, but it feels more like a grimace.
His expression shifts. "What?"
You keep your eyes on the flashcard in your hands. "It might take me a bit. So the sooner I start, the sooner I can get out of your hair."
Jack lets out a short breath through his nose—almost a laugh, but not quite. The silence that follows feels sharp. Slowly, you look up.
His face is unreadable. But something in it has changed. His jaw is tight. His shoulders have gone still. And for just a second, there’s something in his expression that looks almost like hurt. The sight catches you off guard. His mouth parts slightly, then closes like he was about to speak and swallowed it back down instead.
You frown slightly. "I just—you've been very kind in letting me stay, but I don't wanna overstep." You’re not sure why you’re explaining yourself, only that the sudden overwhelming gap between you makes you want to fix it.
Jack looks away for a moment, like he needs a second before answering. "You're not overstepping." Then he adds in a quieter voice, "But fine, if that’s what you want."
Something twists uneasily in your stomach. You try to smooth it over, "I just mean... I don’t want to make things harder for you."
Jack gives a short nod. "Right."
You wait for him to say something else. He doesn’t. The warmth that had settled between you while studying is gone now.
You glance down at your notes, then back at him. "Jack—"
He stands before you can finish. "You should get back to studying." He gathers the notepad he was using and sets it beside your books. "Let me know if you need help with the rest."
Then he turns and walks back toward the living room. You watch him go, unsettled. The plan has always been temporary. He knows that. You know that. So why did the room feel like it cracked open the second you said it out loud?
You stare down at the notes in front of you, but the words blur uselessly on the page. Your chest feels tight, your thoughts louder than they were a minute ago. Right now, leaving doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. Though you suspect it won't ever—not truly. Not when it's not what you want.
Summary: After a drunken Vegas wedding, Robby disappears by morning, leaving you with nothing but a ring and a mistake that was supposed to stay in Vegas. But when a pregnancy and state paperwork force you to track down the husband who vanished, Robby learns the truth and this time, walking away isn’t so easy.
WC: 8K
Tags: Drunken Vegas Wedding, Runaway Husband, Unexpected Pregnancy, Forced Reunion, Second Chance Romance, Robby Wants to Stay, Romantic Comedy vibes with some Angst, No use of Y/N
You woke up before Robby left.
You knew that before you opened your eyes.
The house had a different kind of quiet when he was still in it. Not loud. Just… occupied. Water running briefly in the bathroom. A cabinet opening in the kitchen. The low hum of the coffee maker. Footsteps moving down the hall, steady and unhurried. Small sounds. Ordinary sounds. The kind that should not have felt as familiar as they already did.
But they did.
And because they did, you stayed where you were for one long second with your eyes closed, pretending you weren’t awake enough to notice them.
That lasted until his footsteps passed the bedroom door.
Your eyes opened to the wrong ceiling.
Still wrong. Still unfamiliar. Still his.
What little light made it through the curtains was still more night than morning, faint and gray-blue and barely there. It left the room softer around the edges, which felt unfair. A phone charger trailed off the nightstand, the cord dipping toward the floor. An old empty glass of water sat beside the lamp. On the dresser, a pair of headphones rested in a loose coil, and a laundry basket sat off to the side with clothes folded over the edge like he’d meant to deal with them and hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Little pieces of him everywhere.
Nothing dramatic. Just enough to make it impossible to forget that this was not some empty room you had borrowed for the night.
You lay there for another second, staring at the ceiling, letting the weight of that settle over you again.
Then you pushed yourself up slowly.
Your body still ached in all the dull, familiar places. Neck. Shoulders. Lower back. The heaviness in your legs from too much driving and too much stress. But not the way it had yesterday. Sleep had helped.
Which was inconvenient.
You swung your legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment, gathering yourself, tugging the hem of your shirt down without thinking about it.
No version of this looked normal in the morning.
Not the room. Not the bed. Not the fact that somewhere in the kitchen was the man who had gotten drunk and married you in Vegas, left you in a hotel room, and was now making coffee before work like any of this belonged in an ordinary life.
You stood and opened the bedroom door.
Robby was in the kitchen in black scrubs, a zip-up hoodie pulled on over them like he hadn’t bothered with anything more than necessary. One hand wrapped around a coffee mug, the other resting lightly against the counter. His hair was still damp from the shower, and there was a faint tiredness to him, nothing dramatic, just the kind that settled in around the eyes when sleep never quite lasted long enough. He looked up the second he heard you, like some part of him had already been listening for that.
For a second, neither of you said anything.
The light through the kitchen window was still more night than morning, faint and gray-blue and not yet touched by the sun. It made the whole thing feel too soft. Too calm. Him in scrubs. You barefoot in the hallway. The smell of coffee in the air. It made the moment feel dangerously close to normal, and that unsettled you more than if it had felt awkward.
You leaned your shoulder lightly against the doorframe, more for the support than anything else.
“Morning,” you said, a little quieter than you meant to.
He nodded once, then glanced toward the clock on the microwave before looking back at you.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
You shook your head. “No, it’s okay.”
Your voice came out softer, rougher with sleep.
“My sleep’s been off lately anyway.”
He watched you for a second, like he was weighing that.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.
The question was simple. Careful.
You gave a small nod. “Yeah. Just… tired, I think.”
Another pause.
“Your bed is…” You stopped, then tried again. “Really comfortable.”
The corner of his mouth moved, barely.
“Yeah,” he said. “Glad you like it.”
You nodded once, like that settled it.
His gaze lingered a second longer, then shifted toward the counter behind him.
“There’s medicine in the cabinet by the fridge,” he said. “Top shelf. Pain relievers. Allergy meds. Zofran. Whatever you need.”
You followed his glance without turning your head all the way.
“Okay.”
“Just—” He stopped himself, then tried again, quieter. “You don’t have to wait it out if you don’t feel good.”
You nodded again, small and quick, like you’d heard him even if you didn’t quite know what to do with it yet.
“Okay. Thanks.”
It came out soft. Careful.
He took another sip of coffee, then set the mug down. “I’ve got to head in.”
“Okay.”
Your voice came out soft again. Careful.
He reached to the side of the counter, picked up a key, and slid it toward you.
You looked at it, then at him.
“You don’t have to—”
“I do.”
Quiet. Steady.
You stepped closer and took it, your fingers brushing briefly against his before you pulled back.
“If you go out,” he said, “the front door sticks a little. You have to pull it when you lock it.”
“Okay.”
He glanced back at the counter, then reached for his wallet, pulling out a card and setting it on the counter between you.
“There’s food in the fridge,” he added. “But if you need anything—just use that.”
You looked down at it.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know.”
Same tone. Just as steady.
You nodded, looking down at the key in your hand and the card next to you.
“Okay.”
The word felt small.
“I’ll try not to take up too much space,” you added, almost under your breath.
You wished you hadn’t said it the second it was out.
Robby’s face shifted, something softer and more serious all at once.
“You’re allowed to take up space.”
You nodded, even if you didn’t quite believe it yet.
“I know,” you said. “I just… need a minute to get used to it.”
Robby held your gaze for a second longer, like he was deciding whether to say more.
He didn’t.
“Okay,” he said instead. Quiet. Not dismissive. Just… letting it be what it was.
You nodded again, more out of habit than anything, and looked back down at the key in your hand, turning it once between your fingers before closing your hand around it.
“I’ve got to go,” he added after a beat. “I should be back a little after seven. Maybe eight if it gets busy.”
You nodded. “Okay.”
He shifted, grabbing his bag from the stool by the counter and his helmet from where it rested nearby. The movement broke whatever stillness had settled between you, folding the moment back into something more practical.
At the door, he paused again. Not long. Just enough.
“Text me if you need anything. My number’s on the fridge,” he said.
You nodded without looking up this time. “Okay.”
He hesitated, like he was deciding whether to add more.
“If something comes up and you can’t get a hold of me,” he added, a little quieter, “call Jack. He’s a friend. His number’s under mine.”
That made you glance up.
“Okay,” you said again, softer this time.
It wasn’t quite a promise, but it was close enough.
He seemed to take it that way. Gave a small nod, then reached for the door.
“Have a good day,” he added, almost like it came out before he could think about it.
That caught you a little off guard.
Your eyes flicked up to him.
“You too,” you said, softer than you meant.
A small pause.
Then, like he couldn’t quite help himself, “Don’t forget to eat something.”
A quiet breath slipped out of you, something close to a laugh but not quite.
“Okay.”
His mouth shifted faintly, like he might say something else and decided against it.
Then he stepped outside.
The door opened. Closed. His footsteps crossed the porch, steady and familiar already in a way that felt strange.
A second later, the low, unmistakable rumble of his motorcycle came to life in the drive, familiar in a way that didn’t quite belong to him, deep and rough enough to carry through the walls and floor and settle somewhere low in your chest before you could stop it.
You stood there, listening as it idled for a moment. Then the sound shifted, throttle, movement, and faded as he pulled away. And then nothing.
The house settled around you in a different kind of quiet, bigger, emptier. The kind that made every small sound stand out, the hum of the fridge, the faint tick in the wall, the air shifting through the vents.
You stayed where you were for another second, then another, your fingers still wrapped around the key.
Seven.
Your mind landed on it before you meant it to.
You had a time now. A shape to the day. A point where it would stop feeling like this.
Your hand drifted almost absently to your stomach, palm resting there through the soft fabric of your shirt.
“Well,” you murmured.
A small pause.
“I guess it’s just you and me today.”
The words came out quieter than you expected.
Your thumb brushed once, lightly.
“Try to keep the party to yourself, okay?” you murmured.
A small pause.
“…we’re not doing all that today.”
Your mouth twitched faintly, something almost like a smile before it faded again.
Then you dropped your hand and pushed yourself away from the counter.
“Okay,” you said softly, like you were agreeing to something you hadn’t quite decided yet.
The room didn’t answer. The fridge hummed behind you.
You crossed the kitchen and opened it. Cold air brushed your legs. Eggs. Jelly. Milk. Butter. Creamer. Bread. A few leftover containers tucked neatly to the side.
You stood there for a second, just looking.
Your eyes moved over it again.
“You could use groceries,” you said quietly. “Maybe I could pick some up.”
The thought lingered a second longer than you expected. Then you closed the fridge and stepped back.
“Breakfast,” you reminded yourself, softer now.
You reached for a mug without thinking. The one you grabbed had a small chip along the rim, worn smooth around the handle.
You noticed it, but kept it.
Bread into the toaster. Plate on the counter. Butter out of the fridge.
You leaned back against the counter while you waited, letting your gaze drift around the room again.
The mug in the sink. The dish towel on the oven handle. The bowl by the door where he’d dropped his keys and whatever else had been in his pockets.
The toaster popped.
You finished up without thinking too hard about it, then stood there for a second with everything in your hands.
Your eyes flicked toward the living room.
You hesitated.
Just a second.
Then shifted your grip and started that way anyway.
The couch sat along the wall, the window off to the side letting in soft morning light. The blanket was tangled over one arm and part of it spilled onto the cushion, like he’d kicked it off this morning and only half put it back before leaving. One pillow was crooked, slightly flattened, and the remote rested beside it like the last thing he’d touched before getting up. A stack of mail sat on the side table next to a medical journal, one page bent slightly where it had been marked instead of bookmarked. A pen rested across it, forgotten. A half-empty glass of water sat nearby, close enough to suggest it had been reached for in the dark. A jacket hung over the back of another chair.
Everything in its place. Almost. Everything his.
The couch looked just messy enough to tell on him.
You noticed.
And immediately felt a little bad.
He’d really slept there.
You didn’t say anything.
You stepped forward and sat down carefully on the edge of the cushion. The couch dipped when you sat, and you immediately adjusted like you’d somehow done it wrong.
You hadn’t. But you shifted anyway. Just in case.
You set the plate down and kept the mug, staring at it for a second before taking a sip.
Your eyes flicked back to the blanket.
Then away again.
“…don’t make this weird,” you muttered.
Which, at this point, felt like a losing battle.
You leaned back a little, stopped, then tried again like it was something you had to ease into.
There.
Close enough.
You grabbed the remote and turned the TV on.
It opened straight into some grainy war documentary, complete with dramatic music and a very serious British narrator.
You just stared at it.
Then at the remote.
Then back at the TV.
“Okay, grandpa.”
You backed out before the man on screen could keep explaining tanks to you.
The home screen popped up, all neat rows of apps and subscription logos.
Netflix. Hulu. Prime. Max. ESPN. YouTube.
And then Continue Watching.
You hovered for a second.
“You are absolutely invading this man’s privacy,” you informed yourself.
You clicked anyway.
Documentary. Documentary. Baseball highlights. Action movie. Another documentary.
Your mouth twitched.
“…you are so predictable.”
Then you saw it.
Bright colors. Dramatic faces. Someone mid-argument in a kitchen that probably cost more than his entire house.
You blinked.
Scrolled back up.
There it was.
Some version of Real Housewives.
You stared at it.
“No.”
You leaned closer.
“No, because why are you watching this.”
You glanced back at the rest of the row.
War. Sports. Explosions.
Then back at the Housewives chaos frozen mid-fight.
“…this feels like a dirty little secret.”
You sat back slowly, still staring at the screen.
“Do you watch this after work,” you murmured, half to yourself, half to the empty room, “or is this like… a bad day thing? …or a good day thing.”
That somehow made it worse.
Or better.
You weren’t sure.
You stared at it a second longer.
Then, against your better judgment…
You clicked it.
The volume came on a little louder than expected. Voices layered over each other immediately, sharp and fast and absolutely committed to whatever argument you had just dropped into the middle of.
You fumbled for the remote and turned it down.
“…okay.”
A woman on the screen pointed at someone across a marble island like it was a matter of principle.
Another one cut her off mid-sentence.
Someone else laughed in a way that was definitely not friendly.
You blinked.
“…wow.”
You shifted a little further back into the couch without thinking about it, mug still in your hands.
This was… a lot.
And also…
You watched another thirty seconds.
Then another.
“…this is terrible,” you muttered.
You didn’t turn it off.
“…she’s lying.”
You leaned forward a little, like that would somehow help you understand the situation better.
It didn’t.
But you stayed there anyway, eyes on the screen, following along just enough to pretend you knew what was happening.
“…no, because that didn’t even answer the question,” you added under your breath.
You took a sip of coffee, not looking away.
This was absolutely not what you expected to find on his TV.
Which, somehow, made it worse. Or better. Still unclear.
You glanced at the row of paused shows at the top of the screen for a second.
Then back at the argument still unfolding.
“…this is what you unwind with,” you murmured.
Another woman stormed out of the room dramatically.
You blinked.
“…respect.”
Your mouth twitched faintly before you could stop it.
You leaned back a little more this time, settling into the couch without catching yourself.
The blanket brushed your arm again.
You didn’t move it.
Didn’t even really notice.
You shifted again, this time without thinking about it, pulling your legs up just slightly, angling yourself into the corner of the couch like you might actually stay there for a while.
The blanket slid a little more with the movement, bunching near your hip.
You hesitated.
Then reached for it.
Just enough to pull it over your lap. Not fully. Not like you were settling in.
Just… there.
“Okay,” you murmured, quieter now.
The TV kept going, voices overlapping, someone insisting they weren’t yelling while very clearly yelling.
You took another sip of coffee.
Set the mug down on the table this time instead of keeping it in your hands.
Your elbow found the back of the couch. Your shoulder followed.
At some point, without really deciding to, you stopped sitting like a guest.
It happened slowly. An inch at a time.
Your weight shifted. Your back settled. Your legs tucked a little more comfortably beneath you.
The cushion dipped differently when you moved, less careful, more… natural.
You didn’t catch yourself this time.
“…this is so bad,” you muttered.
You didn’t look away.
Someone on the screen threw a glass down, not hard enough to break, just hard enough to make a point.
You blinked.
“…okay, that was dramatic…I respect it.”
Your mouth curved faintly, something small and unguarded.
You leaned your head back against the couch, eyes still on the screen, letting the noise fill the space instead of the quiet from before.
It felt easier like this.
Less like you had to think about where you were.
Less like you had to think about him.
Or the bed.
Or the couch.
Or the fact that you were sitting in his living room, wrapped in his blanket, watching something he’d left half-finished like you belonged there.
You didn’t think about that.
You just watched.
Another minute passed.
Then another.
You shifted again, absently tugging the blanket a little higher over your lap, settling deeper into the corner of the couch.
And then…Your stomach turned. Not enough to make you move right away. Just enough to interrupt.
You stilled.
Eyes still on the screen.
“…no.”
You waited. Maybe it would pass. It didn’t.
The next wave came slower, heavier, enough to pull your attention fully away this time.
You sat forward a little, one hand already moving to your stomach.
“Don’t—”
It cut you off.
You pressed your lips together, breathing through your nose, trying to give it a second to settle.
It didn’t.
“…okay,” you muttered, quieter now.
You pushed the blanket off your lap, a little less careful this time, and reached for the remote to pause the show.
The screen froze mid-argument.
Someone mid-sentence. Someone else mid-eye-roll.
You stood too quickly.
Regretted it immediately.
“Great,” you breathed.
Your hand came back to your stomach as you turned toward the kitchen and then changed direction halfway there.
Bathroom.
Definitely bathroom.
You made it just in time.
You barely got the door shut before you dropped to your knees. One hand braced on the edge of the toilet, the other pressed to your stomach like it might help.
It didn’t.
The first wave hit hard and fast, knocking the breath out of you. You squeezed your eyes shut, shoulders tightening, riding it out because there wasn’t anything else to do.
“Okay—” you tried, and then lost the rest of it.
It came in another wave. Then another. Slower. Heavier. The kind that left you shaky by the time it finally eased off enough to let you breathe without bracing for the next one.
You stayed there anyway.
Head tipped forward. One hand still gripping the edge. Breathing slow through your nose, waiting.
Nothing.
Not gone. Just… quiet for now.
“…great,” you muttered, voice rough.
You flushed, then shifted back just enough to sit against the cabinet behind you, letting your head fall back for a second.
Everything felt off. Your stomach. Your head. That weak, hollow feeling that came after, like your body had just run a marathon you didn’t sign up for.
You pressed the back of your wrist to your mouth, then pushed yourself up slowly, careful this time.
The room tilted just enough to notice.
“Cool,” you breathed.
You turned the sink on and rinsed your mouth, cold water helping a little, not enough. You stayed there a second longer than necessary, staring at nothing, waiting to see if it was going to start again.
It didn’t.
Good enough.
“Okay,” you said quietly.
You meant it like a decision.
You wiped your mouth, stepped back into the hallway, and made your way to the kitchen with less confidence than you would have liked.
You frowned and shifted things around, checking again like it might appear if you tried hard enough.
Still nothing.
“…seriously?”
Your stomach rolled again, not as bad, but enough to make you close your eyes and lean your hip against the counter.
“Okay, that’s not funny.”
You stayed like that for a second, breathing slowly, then reached for your phone.
You didn’t overthink the text.
You: you said zofran was in the cabinet? I don't see it.
Robby: Damn sorry. Check the nightstand drawer in my room.
You stared at the message.
“…cool. great. love that.”
You made your way down the hall, one hand still on your stomach.
You stepped into his room and crossed to the nightstand.
Your hand hovered.
“…this is how people end up knowing too much about each other.”
You opened the drawer anyway.
There it was.
Right on top.
You let out a quiet breath.
“…unbelievable.”
Your hand closed around the pack and then paused.
Because now that you were actually looking…
You blinked.
“…oh.”
A box of condoms.
Right next to a small travel-size bottle you absolutely did not need to examine any closer.
And…
You frowned slightly.
A folded piece of paper tucked toward the back.
You didn’t mean to. You really didn’t. But your eyes caught it anyway.
A phone number.
Just a name and a number. Nothing else.
You stared at it for exactly half a second. Then straightened immediately.
“Okay. Yep. That’s enough.”
You grabbed the Zofran and shut the drawer a little too fast.
“…we’re done here.”
You stood there for a second, staring at the closed drawer like it might undo what you’d just seen.
It did not.
“Not my business,” you muttered under your breath. “…definitely not my business.”
You turned and headed back toward the door, a little quicker this time, like distance might help. It didn’t really. But it helped enough.
Robby: You find it?
You glanced back at the closed drawer once. Then very deliberately away from it.
You: yeah.
You: also your nightstand is… a lot.
There was a pause.
Robby: I’m choosing not to ask what that means.
A small, tired smile pulled at your mouth as you stepped into the hallway.
You: that’s probably the right call.
Another buzz.
Robby: Did you take it?
You leaned against the wall, popping one into your hand.
You: about to.
You: your kid’s not playing nice.
That got an answer almost immediately.
Robby: Already causing problems?
You huffed a quiet laugh.
You: just a normal morning for us.
Robby: Don’t worry. I’ll talk to them.
You smiled, softer this time, tucking the pill under your tongue.
You: please do. they’re being rude.
Another buzz.
Robby: No respect. unbelievable.
That got a quiet laugh out of you.
Robby: I’ll grab more zofran on my way home.
You blinked at that.
Your grip on your phone tightened just slightly.
You: you don’t have to.
The reply came back quick.
Robby: I know.
Robby: Still going to.
A small pause.
Robby: Just in case.
You looked down at the message a second longer than you meant to.
Your hand drifted back to your stomach without thinking.
“…okay,” you murmured.
You: thanks.
The reply didn’t come.
You stood there another second, phone still in your hand, then let out a slow breath and locked it.
Your stomach still felt off. Not sharp anymore. Just… unsettled. That hollow, shaky feeling that made everything feel a little slower than it should.
Good enough.
You pressed your palm lightly to your stomach, thumb brushing absently over the fabric of your shirt.
“Alright,” you murmured. “That was unnecessary.”
A small pause.
“Very dramatic.”
You pushed yourself off the wall and made your way back to the living room, slower this time, like your body needed a second to catch up.
The TV was still paused mid-argument.
Of course it was.
You glanced at it, then at the couch, then at the blanket half-fallen where you’d shoved it off in a hurry.
“…we’re gonna try this again,” you muttered.
You sat down carefully, testing it.
Nothing immediately revolted.
Promising.
You pulled the blanket back over your legs, then a little higher this time, tucking it in closer without really thinking about it. Your body sank into the couch more easily now, less careful, more… tired.
That was the thing. You hadn’t really noticed it before. But it was there now.
Heavy. Slow. Settling in your shoulders, your legs, behind your eyes.
You leaned back, then shifted, then slid down just a little until your head rested against the arm of the couch instead of sitting upright.
Better.
Your hand drifted back to your stomach again, palm resting there, thumb moving in slow, absent circles.
“…you’re a lot,” you murmured quietly. “Your dad says he’s gonna talk to you, so maybe… listen to him?”
Your mouth twitched faintly.
It shouldn’t have made you smile.
But it did.
Just a little.
You picked up the remote and unpaused the TV.
The argument resumed instantly, voices layered, someone talking over someone else, a level of intensity that felt ridiculous compared to the quiet weight settling in your chest.
You turned the volume down. Just enough. Background noise. That helped. You watched for a minute. Maybe two. Not really following it. Just letting it fill the space.
Your phone sat beside you, dark now, but the last message lingered anyway.
‘I know. Still going to. Just in case.’
Your thumb stilled against your stomach.
That part… got you.
Quiet. Uncomplicated. No big deal made out of it.
Just… there.
You swallowed once, then shook your head lightly, like you could reset the thought before it settled too deep.
“…don’t get used to that,” you murmured to yourself.
A small breath out.
Because this wasn’t… It wasn’t permanent.
It wasn’t anything you could lean on like that.
It was a situation.
Temporary.
You adjusted the blanket a little higher anyway.
Your hand stayed where it was.
“…still nice, though,” you added under your breath.
Soft enough it didn’t really count.
The TV carried on. Someone stormed out dramatically. Someone else called after her.
You blinked at the screen, then let your eyes unfocus again.
Your body sank another inch into the cushions, muscles loosening one at a time.
Still a little nauseous.
Mostly just tired now.
Your hand moved once more, a slow, absent brush over your stomach.
Your breathing evened out gradually, the noise of the TV soft in the background, the house quiet around it.
The blanket was warm. The couch steady.
And before you could stop yourself from thinking too much about any of it, your eyes slipped closed.
The TV kept going.
The house stayed quiet.
And you fell asleep.
—
Robby should have left twenty minutes ago.
Maybe longer.
Long enough that the ambulance bay had emptied and filled again around him. Long enough for the last of day shift to scatter, for night shift to settle in proper, for the hospital parking lot to go from hot and bright to cooled off under the dark. Shen had the floor now. Sign-out was done. None of it was his anymore.
And still, he stood beside his bike with his helmet hanging from one hand and his keys in the other, staring at nothing.
The side doors hissed open behind him.
“Please tell me you’re not out here trying to have a spiritual moment with that damn thing.”
Dana.
Robby let out a breath through his nose and glanced over his shoulder.
She came down the ramp with her bag over one shoulder, tired in the way only the end of a hospital shift could make a person look, but still sharp-eyed enough to clock him immediately.
“Why’re you still out here, Cap?”
He glanced over. “I’m thinking.”
Dana made a face. “About anything helpful?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just dragged a hand over the back of his neck, gaze dropping for a second like he was trying to find a better version of that answer and coming up short.
She watched him for a second. Really looked this time.
She stopped a few feet away, looked from him to the bike and back again. “You’ve got a pregnant wife at home. Pretty sure this isn’t where you’re supposed to be right now.”
Robby let out a quiet breath through his nose. “I’m just taking a minute.”
Dana raised an eyebrow. “That’s a funny way of saying you’re avoiding going home.”
Robby looked back out toward the lot, rolling the helmet once in his hand like it might give him something to do other than answer.
That was enough.
Dana’s face softened.
He still didn’t say anything. Just shifted his weight, dragged his thumb along the strap of the helmet, then rubbed a hand over the back of his neck again like maybe he could work the tension loose if he kept at it long enough.
Dana let the silence sit.
That was the problem with people who’d known you forever. They didn’t rush to fill the quiet. They just stood there and let you wear yourself out trying not to say the thing.
Robby exhaled through his nose and looked down at the pavement.
“I’m not avoiding going home.”
“Mhm.”
He gave a small shake of his head, jaw tightening. “I’m not.”
Dana raised an eyebrow, watching him for another second.
Then she glanced at the bike, then back at him.
“You’ve been off the clock long enough that this is starting to look suspicious.”
Robby didn’t answer.
The helmet rolled once in his hand. His thumb dragged along the strap. Then his hand went back to the back of his neck again, rubbing there like he could unknot something if he kept at it long enough.
Dana gave him the silence for another moment before speaking again, her voice quieter now. Less teasing. More direct.
“What are you nervous about?”
Robby let out one short laugh, low and humorless enough that it barely counted.
“How much time do you have?”
She didn’t smile. Didn’t soften it. Just stayed there, waiting him out like she’d done a hundred times before.
Robby looked past her, out toward the road leading out of the lot. Toward home.
When he finally spoke, it came out quieter than he meant it to.
“I left her there alone all day.”
Dana didn’t jump in. Didn’t correct him. Just stayed where she was, shoulders loose, giving him room to hear himself.
Robby looked out toward the road again, jaw tight.
“She was fine when I left,” he said. “Then she wasn’t.”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“Then she was texting me telling me looking for meds and that my nightstand is…” He exhaled through his nose. “…a lot.”
That got the smallest shift out of Dana.
Not quite a smile. More like she had a thought and made the active choice not to say it.
Robby caught it anyway. “Don’t.”
Dana lifted both hands a little. “I’m not saying anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was,” she admitted. “But I’m being supportive.”
That got a short breath out of him. Not a laugh exactly. Just enough to break the edge of it.
Then the silence settled again.
Robby looked down at the pavement for a second, then back out at nothing.
“I don’t know what I’m walking into,” he said.
That one came out quieter. More honest than the rest of it had been.
Dana’s face changed a little at that. Softer now. More open.
He kept going before he could talk himself out of it.
“I don’t know if she had a terrible day. If she hates being there. If she spent the whole day uncomfortable in my house trying not to touch anything.” He swallowed once. “I don’t know if I’m going home to silence, or to her pretending she’s okay because she doesn’t want to make things harder, or to her telling me she made a mistake staying.”
His fingers tightened around the helmet strap.
“I don’t even know if she’s still there.”
Dana didn’t interrupt. Didn’t rush to reassure him. She just listened.
And somehow that made it easier to keep going.
“And if she is,” he said, voice low now, “I still don’t know what version of this I’m supposed to be. Helpful? Hands-off? Normal?” He let out a short, tired breath. “I know what I’m doing here. I know how to help here. This—”
He gestured vaguely. The lot. The road. Home. All of it.
“This feels like waiting to do the wrong thing in my own home.”
Dana watched him for a long second.
Then she stepped a little closer, not crowding him, just enough to make it clear he didn’t have to keep standing there alone in it.
“Okay,” she said, and her voice had lost most of its sharpness. “First of all, breathe.”
Robby glanced at her.
“I mean it,” she said. “You’re halfway to inventing a disaster before you’ve even opened your front door.”
He looked away again, but some of the fight had gone out of his shoulders.
Dana tipped her head. “You’re scared you’re going to walk in and find out she had a worse day than you knew how to help with.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
She nodded once, like that confirmed it.
“That makes sense,” she said. “It doesn’t make you useless. It just makes you nervous.”
Robby dragged a hand over his face. “Those don’t feel that different right now.”
Dana’s mouth tightened a little, not unkindly.
“Well, they are.”
She let that sit for a second.
Then, gentler, “You don’t need to have this solved before you go home, Robby. You just need to go home.”
He looked at her then.
Dana held his gaze.
“If she had a bad day, then you deal with the day she had. Not the five worse versions you’ve already built in your head.” She paused, then added, “And if she didn’t, you don’t punish both of you by showing up like you’re walking into a firing squad.”
That got the faintest pull at the corner of his mouth.
Dana saw it and kept going.
“You are not going to do this perfectly,” she said. “Pregnant women don’t need perfection. They need steadiness. Food. Water. Medicine where they can find it. Somebody who doesn’t make them feel like a burden for needing any of it.”
His eyes dropped. Because that, at least, he understood.
Dana’s voice softened another notch.
“You know what helped when I was pregnant? Not grand gestures. Not people hovering. Just somebody making the day smaller.”
Robby stayed quiet.
Dana shrugged one shoulder. “Checking in. Picking up what I needed before I had to ask twice. Letting me feel miserable without acting like I was ruining the room.”
She let that settle too.
“You’ve already been doing that.”
He looked back at her.
Dana nodded. “Answering texts. Getting more Zofran before you leave.”
That pulled a real huff of laughter out of him this time.
She gave him a look. “At least this place is good for something useful.”
Robby shook his head, the edge of that laugh fading as quickly as it came. His thumb dragged along the helmet strap again, something to do with his hands.
“Yeah,” he said, quieter. “Guess so.”
The silence didn’t press the same way this time.
Dana didn’t fill it. She just stayed there, watching him, letting it settle into something steadier.
Robby looked out toward the road again. Toward home.
His jaw tightened slightly.
“I don’t know if I’m helping,” he admitted.
That one came out low. Almost like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
Dana didn’t jump in. Didn’t correct him. She just let it sit for a second, then shifted her weight, leaning back lightly against the barrier.
“You showed up,” she said.
He glanced at her.
“That’s not nothing,” she added. “You answered her. You got her what she needed. You’re going back.”
Robby let out a slow breath through his nose, gaze dropping again.
“That’s the baseline.”
“Yeah,” Dana said. “And right now, baseline is good.”
He huffed quietly, not quite convinced.
Dana tipped her head. “You’re not going to walk in and fix everything in one night.”
“I know.”
“You’re also not going to ruin everything in one night.”
That got him to look at her again.
She held it there, steady.
“Most of this,” she said. “It’s just showing up the same way tomorrow.”
Robby looked away first.
His grip tightened on the helmet for a second, then loosened.
“Yeah,” he said.
Dana pushed off the barrier, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder.
“So,” she said, back to something lighter, “you can keep standing out here thinking yourself into a worse version of this…”
She nodded toward the lot.
“Or you can go home and see what actually happened.”
Robby looked at the bike. Then at her.
“And if it’s bad?”
Dana didn’t hesitate. “Then you deal with what’s actually bad. Not what you’ve been imagining out here.”
Robby nodded once, more to himself than anything. Then he lifted the helmet, settling it into place.
As he swung one leg over the bike, Dana called after him, “And for the record, if you want to live long enough to embarrass that child in public, you should retire this damn thing.”
Robby looked at her over his shoulder. “Goodnight, Dana.”
“Go home, Robby.”
He started the bike.
And this time, he actually left.
—
By the time he pulled into the drive, it was 8:45 and fully dark.
The porch light was on.
So was the kitchen light.
And her car was parked at the curb.
That stopped him before he even killed the engine.
Not because it meant anything dramatic. Just because it meant she was there. The house didn’t look empty. It didn’t look like a place somebody had bailed out of halfway through the day.
It looked… occupied.
He killed the bike, got off, and stood there a second longer than necessary with his helmet in his hand. Then he headed inside.
The first thing he noticed was the smell.
Not the usual detergent-and-clean-house smell that always sat low in the place. Something warmer under it. Butter maybe. Garlic. Something cooked. Something real.
He shut the door quietly behind him and let his keys fall into the bowl by the entry.
The house was silent.
No TV. No footsteps. No movement.
Just the hum of the fridge and the faint tick of the clock on the wall.
Then he saw the note.
It was stuck to the fridge under one of the old magnets he’d had forever and never thought twice about until right then.
He stepped closer and pulled it free.
Went grocery shopping. Made dinner. It’s in the fridge. Going to bed.
That was it.
No name. No explanation. No apology for touching his kitchen or making herself at home in it just enough to cook him dinner and leave proof she’d come back.
Robby read it once.
Then again.
Then once more, slower.
Something in his chest loosened so suddenly it almost hurt.
He opened the fridge.
And there it all was.
Not just dinner.
Groceries.
Actual groceries.
Cheese. Bacon. Juice. Fresh fruit, actual fruit, not the kind that came in a plastic cup. Ginger ale. A bag of salad shoved into the drawer like somebody had bought it with good intentions. Hummus. Pre-cut vegetables. Cottage cheese.
And chicken defrosting on the bottom shelf.
Because apparently she’d made dinner tonight and still thought about tomorrow.
Robby stared at that a second longer than everything else.
A few things were clearly for her.
A few things clearly weren’t.
Which somehow got him even more.
On the middle shelf sat a container with his name written across the lid in black marker.
Robby stared at it.
Then laughed under his breath, too tired for it to be much more than air.
“Okay,” he murmured.
He set the note on the counter and took the container out, but his eyes kept catching on the rest of the fridge.
She’d organized it.
Not in an aggressive way. Just enough to make more sense than it had that morning. The kind of adjustment somebody made absentmindedly while putting things away. The kind that said she’d stopped hovering in the space long enough to actually use it.
Then he checked his banking app.
Nothing from his card.
That hit harder than it should have.
He’d left it there for her to use.
Had she not wanted to? Or had she thought she wasn’t supposed to?
His mouth tightened slightly.
That, apparently, was a conversation for later.
He closed the fridge and looked around the kitchen.
The plant over the sink had been watered.
He could tell because this morning it had looked one inconvenience away from giving up on life, and now it looked mildly less offended by existence.
The dish towel hung a little straighter over the oven handle.
When he opened the pantry, the shelf with the crackers and cereal had been nudged into something more logical than the nonsense system he’d let evolve on its own.
He stared at it for a second.
Then shook his head once, smiling despite himself.
She had touched things.
Not much.
Just enough to leave fingerprints.
And after that morning, after the quiet, careful way she’d said she’d try not to take up too much space, he couldn’t help feeling relieved that she had.
Not taken over. Not settled in completely. Just… made herself present.
Enough to move a few things around. Enough to stop disappearing from every room she entered.
His eyes drifted toward the living room next.
The blanket on the couch had been straightened at some point, then clearly abandoned halfway through. One corner still hung off the side. The remotes had been grouped together in a line that made no sense unless somebody had tried to impose order on them out of sheer annoyance.
And the TV…
Robby picked up one of the remotes and turned it on.
Paused mid-fight.
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.
He stared at the screen.
Then at the couch.
Then back at the frozen image of two women in full makeup arguing in a kitchen bigger than his entire first apartment.
“Fuck.”
He looked around the room again, at the blanket, the grouped remotes, the evidence of her day in his house.
Then back at the television.
“She is never letting me live this down.”
Because how exactly was he supposed to explain that it was mostly background noise? That there were a thousand seasons, and sometimes it was easier to let strangers yell in the background than lie awake in silence with his own head?
He could already hear her not believing him.
“Sure, Michael. Background noise. Very normal. Definitely not emotionally invested.”
Robby stared at the screen another second.
One of the women was mid-point, finger raised, face furious.
“…I’m not,” he muttered.
Which was not helping his case.
That laugh came easier. Tired, short, but real.
He turned the TV back off and went to the kitchen with the leftovers.
The microwave hummed a minute later, turning the container in slow circles while he stood there reading the note again.
Went grocery shopping. Made dinner it’s in the fridge. Going to bed.
No flourish.
No extra line.
No see you later.
Just the facts.
Which somehow made it more hers.
And maybe more dangerous than if she’d made a thing out of it.
Because there was no performance in it. No attempt to make him feel guilty or grateful or anything else.
She’d just… done it.
He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and leaned back against the counter while the microwave ran.
Dana’s voice came back to him, irritatingly clear.
“Be easy to come home to.”
He looked around the kitchen.
At the groceries. The plant. The reorganized pantry shelf. The note. The leftovers.
At the quiet evidence that she’d had a day here. A real day. She’d been sick. She’d gone out, bought groceries, come back, made dinner, and gone to bed.
And something about that made the nerves he’d carried all the way from the parking lot finally start to unwind.
Not all the way.
But enough.
Enough that another thought slipped in under them before he could stop it.
Maybe this didn’t have to be a disaster.
Maybe the two of them were still awkward and mismatched and doing this in the strangest possible order, but maybe that wasn’t the same thing as doomed.
He looked at the note again.
At the groceries in his fridge.
At the dinner turning in the microwave.
She hadn’t just stayed.
She’d come back.
She’d settled in, at least a little. Enough to buy groceries. Enough to cook. Enough to leave something behind for him besides tension and a legal document.
And maybe, he thought, careful with it, because it felt too easy to ruin by naming it too loudly, maybe she’d seen something in the day worth coming back to.
Not him, exactly.
Not yet.
But maybe this.
The space.
The possibility of it.
Maybe she thought, even a little, that this could be something they could get through. Something that might even be good for both of them if they stopped bracing against it long enough to let it be.
The microwave beeped.
He took the food out, peeled back the lid, and the smell hit stronger this time. Something simple and good and homemade in a way his kitchen had not smelled in a long time.
He ate standing at the counter at first.
Then gave up and sat on the stool by the island.
Halfway through, he got up again and grabbed the pharmacy bag from where he’d left it by the door.
He took the new box of Zofran out and set it in the cabinet by the fridge where it should have been in the first place.
Then he stood there a second, hand still on the cabinet door.
‘Just in case.’
The words from his own text came back to him, and something small shifted in his chest all over again.
He shut the cabinet and looked at the note on the counter.
Then grabbed a pen.
He flipped it over and wrote on the back in his blunt, slightly slanted handwriting.
Ate. It’s good. Thank you. Next time use my card. More Zofran in the cabinet. —M
He looked at it.
Then added, after half a second:
Housewives isn’t what it looks like.
That made him stop.
He stared at the line.
Then huffed a tired laugh, crossed it out, and stood there another second thinking better of himself.
Too much.
He stuck the note back on the fridge with the same magnet she’d used.
Not because she’d see it tonight.
Just because it felt like the sort of thing you did in a house where somebody had made you dinner and gone to bed before you got home.
He turned off the main kitchen light, leaving the small one over the sink on.
The house settled around him again.
Quiet.
Occupied.
Different.
When he looked once more toward the dark hallway, he didn’t feel nervous anymore.
Just tired.
And strangely, quietly relieved.
Then he crossed back into the living room, looked at the couch she’d clearly claimed for part of the day, the paused chaos on the TV still lingering in his head, and smiled to himself again.
“She’s never letting me live this down,” he muttered.
He picked up the remote again.
Hesitated for half a second, then hit play.
The argument resumed instantly, voices overlapping, someone already mid-sentence like nothing had been paused at all.
Robby shook his head, a quiet huff of a laugh under his breath.
“Yeah, alright.”
He reached for the blanket, folding it properly this time before settling it over the arm of the couch, the noise filling the room again without asking anything from him.
Then he turned back toward the kitchen to finish dinner, the sound of it following him like it always did.
Summary: After a drunken Vegas wedding, Robby disappears by morning, leaving you with nothing but a ring and a mistake that was supposed to stay in Vegas. But when a pregnancy and state paperwork force you to track down the husband who vanished, Robby learns the truth and this time, walking away isn’t so easy.
WC: 15K
Tags: Tags: Drunken Vegas Wedding, Runaway Husband, Unexpected Pregnancy, Forced Reunion, Second Chance Romance, Robby Wants to Stay, Romantic Comedy vibes with some Angst, No use of Y/N, Duke being a mentor
Robby doesn’t go home right away. He tells himself it’s because he needs a minute to clear his head before walking back into that house. That’s true. It’s just not the whole truth. The whole truth is uglier.
Home means her. Means the key he handed over like it was something simple. Means the fact that she is there now, somewhere inside his house, with her bag by the door and her anger still in the walls and what he did sitting between them like something alive.
Pregnant.
The word still won’t settle. It hits in flashes instead. In the gaps between everything else. Her face in that room. Her voice when she said it. The way the air changed after.
“I’m pregnant.”
Like a hit he still hasn’t stopped taking.
He shuts his office door harder than he means to and braces both hands on the desk, head bowed, pulse still running too fast. The room is quieter than the floor outside, but not quiet enough. Phones somewhere down the hall. A monitor chirping. A laugh near the station, too loud, too thin. The department already knitting itself back together around the shape of what happened. That almost makes it worse.
Because out there, the story is spreading to the Nightshift. He can feel it. Not the real one. Not all of it. Just the scraps Dayshift had to build from.
Vegas. Wife. Pregnant. Sabbatical.
The rest will build itself by the next morning.
He drags a hand over the back of his neck. His skin feels too tight. His scrubs feel wrong. Everything about his own body feels wrong.
His pregnant wife.
Jesus Christ.
The thought lands hard enough to make him straighten just to get away from it.
Wife.
Not in the abstract anymore. Not as a certificate he left untouched in that hotel room. Not as something that happened under cheap chapel lights and too much liquor. Not as a mistake he could shove far enough away to stop hearing it.
His wife is in his house.
His wife drove across the country alone.
His wife had to ask the state for help.
His wife had to Google him.
Robby shuts his eyes. For one second, just one, he lets the humiliation of that wash over him. Not his own.
Hers.
“I had to Google my own husband.”
He swallows hard. That line keeps coming back. That and the way she looked when she said she’d been counting tips to make appointments. The way her voice sharpened around the word alone.
He had no answer for that. Still doesn’t.
The folder she shoved into his hands is sitting on the desk now, bent at one corner. He stares at it like it might tell him what the hell he’s supposed to do next. It doesn’t. He reaches for it anyway. The top pages are what he expected. Household information. Income. Spousal details. State forms. Blank spaces where his life should have been and wasn’t.
His jaw tightens as he flips through them. Then he hits the clinic paperwork.
A thin packet clipped together. Intake forms. Lab slips. Visit summaries from some small women’s clinic outside Vegas. Not a hospital system. Not a real OB practice with continuity and resources and maternal-fetal backup and decent imaging on site. Just enough care to get by. Just enough to confirm a pregnancy, estimate dates, run the basics, keep somebody moving forward if better options were out of reach.
His stomach drops harder. He scans without meaning to. Positive test confirmation. Estimated gestational age. Prenatal vitamins recommended. Follow-up in four weeks. Bloodwork ordered through an outside lab.
He knows exactly what kind of place this is. Understaffed. Overbooked. The kind of clinic people use because it’s what they can afford, what they can get into, what they can reach. And she’s been doing this there while he’s been here, with great health insurance, attending pay, every possible referral he could’ve made if he’d actually been in her life enough to matter.
Robby stares at the page too long. She should have had better care than this. Not because the clinic is bad. Because she should not have been piecing together the bare minimum while carrying his child.
His hand tightens on the paperwork. He could sign them.
That’s the part that keeps sitting there. Simple. Clean. Practical. Give her what she asked for. Make this easier on her. Easier on both of them. Stop complicating a life he already made harder. Let her go back to Vegas with what she came for and tell himself that this time, at least, he didn’t make it worse.
It should feel like the right thing. Maybe it is the right thing. So why the hell can’t he do it?
Robby stares at the paperwork. Really stares this time. Like if he looks at the forms long enough, his hand will just move. His name will go down where it needs to. The decision will make itself.
It doesn’t.
Something in his chest goes tight instead. Not sharp. Not panic exactly. Just pressure. Deep and ugly and impossible to ignore.
He leans back in the chair and exhales slowly through his nose. This should be easy. Not easy-easy. Nothing about this is easy. But the next step should be.
She wants the forms signed. She wants distance. She wants him out. He can give her that. So why does the thought of doing exactly what she asked feel so much like standing in that hotel room all over again and walking away before the hard part starts?
His jaw tightens.
No.
Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe this is different. Maybe this is him finally doing the decent thing instead of the selfish one. Maybe signing the paperwork, giving her space, and staying out of her way is what a better man would do.
That thought sits there for half a second. Then something in him shoves back hard enough to make him look away from the page. He doesn’t have a name for it. Only that the pressure in his chest gets worse every time he tries to settle on it. Like his body is rejecting the decision before his mind can dress it up into something reasonable.
He drags a hand over the back of his neck. He needs to talk to somebody. Not because he can’t think. Because he can, and that’s the problem. He can make a case for signing the forms. Make it sound decent. Respectful. Practical. Line up every reason it would be easier on her if he just gave her what she came for and stopped making himself part of the problem. And right now, he doesn’t trust his own head enough to know if that’s true, or if it’s just fear in better language.
His eyes drop back to the paperwork. He needs something outside of this. Something that doesn’t sound like him. The answer comes almost immediately after. Not clean. Not fully thought through. Just something in him reaching for outside of this office before he does the easy thing and calls it right.
Robby’s mouth tightens.
Maybe he needs to hear somebody else say it. Maybe he needs somebody to look at this whole mess and tell him signing the papers is the cleanest option. That giving her space is the least selfish move he has left. That letting her go back to Vegas is better than making her stay in a house with a man she doesn’t trust. Maybe if somebody else says it, he can stop fighting whatever the hell this is in his chest and just do it.
The thought should feel like relief. It doesn’t. Still, he grabs onto it anyway. Because if he sits here much longer, he’s either going to sign the papers just to stop looking at them, or go home and make this worse.
There’s a knock against the frame before he can get any farther with that thought. He looks up too slowly.
Jack is standing there, one hand braced against the doorframe, surprise flickering across his face before it settles into something flatter. More watchful.
Not because Robby looks bad, though he does. Because Robby is in his office at all. Robby is almost never in here unless he absolutely has to be. He lives out on the floor, at the hub, in trauma bays, half-standing over charts, moving too much and sitting still too little. A closed office door with Robby behind it is unusual enough on its own.
A closed office door with Robby looking like this? That’s worse.
“You heading out?” Jack asks.
Robby lets out a breath through his nose. “Yeah.”
Jack’s eyes flick to the folder on the desk, then back to his face.
“You being in here is weird,” he says evenly. “You looking like that while you’re in here is worse.”
Robby huffs one humorless laugh. “Good to know I’m subtle.”
“Never been your thing.”
Jack doesn’t come in. The office is too small for whatever this is, and the look on his face says he knows that too.
“The floor’s handled,” he says. “Dana’s got handoff. Ellis is handling the board. Nobody’s dying if you leave ten minutes early.”
“Comforting.”
Jack’s mouth shifts like that almost earns a smile, but not quite. Then he looks at Robby a little more directly.
“Don’t worry about out there. I’ve told everyone they needed to mind their damn business.”
That lands heavier than it should. Not because Robby thinks Jack can stop the gossip. He can’t. Nobody can now. But because Jack heard enough to know today went bad in a way that matters.
Robby glances back down at the paperwork. “Appreciate it.”
Jack waits. Long enough for the silence to turn into an opening. Robby doesn’t take it. Jack notices that too. Of course he does. But he doesn’t push. Doesn’t ask what happened. Doesn’t ask if this is about the woman who came looking for him. Doesn’t go digging where Robby is clearly not ready to let him.
Instead, he says, quieter, “You going home?”
The word hits wrong immediately.
Home.
Robby doesn’t answer fast enough, and that’s answer enough.
Jack takes that in without comment.
“Alright,” he says. “Then at least go somewhere you can think straight before you do.”
He pushes off the frame. Stops. Looks back once.
“And Robby?”
Robby lifts his head.
Jack’s voice stays even. “Whatever’s waiting for you there… don’t make her carry it alone tonight.”
Robby goes still.
Jack doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t soften it. Just lets the words sit there exactly as heavy as they are. Then he leaves.
The quiet after is worse.
Robby sits there another minute. Maybe two. Long enough for the fluorescent lights overhead to start feeling like pressure. Long enough for the clinic paperwork to stop looking medical and start looking accusatory.
Estimated gestational age. Prenatal follow-up. Patient advised to return.
Patient.
Like she’s just some chart. Some stranger. Not the woman who had to piece her care together in a small clinic because he made sure he was absent enough to be useless.
Spouse information.
He almost laughs again. His entire life reduced to blank lines because he never left her anything else. And still, the forms are there. Simple. Concrete. A path she already asked for.
He could sign them. He could go home, hand them back, tell himself he was respecting what she wanted. Tell himself he was making it easier. Cleaner. Less uncomfortable. He could call that mercy. He knows enough to know it would probably sound noble if he said it right.
That’s what makes it worse. Because under all of that, under the decency, the practicality, the respect, is the same cowardice in a different suit.
He stands abruptly, grabs the folder, then stops.
Not home. Not yet.
Because if he goes home now, he’s going to walk in guilty and half-cocked and start trying to fix things he doesn’t understand well enough to fix. He’ll say something wrong. Push where he shouldn’t. Back off where he shouldn’t. Do exactly what he already did in Vegas, make a decision inside his own panic and call it the best he could do.
No.
He snatches his keys off the desk, scoops up the folder, and heads out before he can second-guess it.
The department feels different when he steps back onto the floor. Not stopped. Never stopped. But aware. He can feel eyes flicking up and then away. A conversation cutting off too fast near the station. The charged little vacuum that forms after something public and ugly has already happened and nobody knows yet how much they’re allowed to say.
He keeps moving. Doesn’t give anyone anything. But he feels it. The nurses’ station is quieter than it should be for this point in the evening. Al-Hashimi is saying something to a resident. Shen’s is at the board. Two nurses are charting with the kind of focus that looks a little too deliberate to be real. Nobody stops him. Nobody says a word.
Then Al-Hashimi looks up from the desk. And somehow that’s worse. Because there’s no curiosity in it. No gossip. No barely-hidden judgment. Just one long, steady look that says she saw exactly what kind of woman had to come down here and claim him out loud, and exactly what kind of man that made him look like.
Robby’s jaw tightens. He gives her a small nod as he passes anyway. She returns it. Nothing more. That almost sits heavier than if she’d called him an asshole to his face.
Outside, evening has settled in hard enough that the air feels cooler than it should. Damp. Pittsburgh dusk hanging low over the lot, ambulance bay lights throwing harsh white across the pavement. He doesn’t remember the walk all the way to the bike. Just the weight of the folder in one hand, the helmet hanging from the bars, the metallic click when he unlocks it.
His motorcycle waits exactly where he left it, dark and familiar and uselessly steady. Usually the bike helps. Usually riding strips the noise down to something manageable. Engine under him. Wind in his face. Enough speed to burn off whatever he doesn’t want to think about.
Tonight it just feels exposed. Appropriate, maybe.
He shoves the folder into the saddlebag more carefully than it deserves, then stands there for one second with one hand braced on the seat and his head tipped down.
Pregnant.
The word is back.
He tries, just for a second, to picture her in his house right now. Shoes off by the door, maybe. Standing in his kitchen. Looking at his things. Looking at the life he came back to while she… what? Counted bills? Worked sick? Sat in a cheap clinic waiting room with fluorescent lights and intake forms and nobody with enough history to care beyond the next appointment?
His grip tightens on the seat.
Jesus Christ.
He let that happen. Not directly. Not knowingly. But he let it happen all the same by making himself absent enough for it to be possible.
He straightens, drags the helmet on, swings a leg over the bike, and fires it up. The engine roars to life beneath him, louder than the thoughts for half a second. He pulls out of the lot with the kind of focus that only comes when every other option is starting to feel like cowardice.
The city is settling into evening around him by then. Streetlights blinking on one by one. Traffic bunching and thinning in waves. Restaurant windows glowing warm. People heading home. Ordinary lives moving around him in every direction while his own feels like it split open and never quite closed again.
He rides mostly on instinct. His body knows the route even when his head won’t stop replaying the last few hours.
“I had to ask the state for help.”
“I had to Google my own husband.”
“I’m pregnant.”
Then, layered over all of it now, the clinic paperwork in his hands. Minimal prenatal care. Patchwork care. Just enough. Not because that was what she deserved. Because it was what she could get without him.
The bike takes a turn a little sharper than usual. He corrects automatically. His shoulders are locked so tight they ache by the time he turns onto the street.
The mechanic shop is still lit. Not wide open anymore, but not dark either. The garage bay is half-shut. A long bar of warm light cuts across the pavement beneath it. Music plays low from somewhere inside, too muffled to make out. Familiar. Grounding in a way he doesn’t deserve.
He parks on the edge of the lot and kills the engine. Silence rushes in too fast after the motor cuts. For a second, he just sits there staring at the strip of light under the bay door. Then he gets off the bike, grabs the folder from the saddlebag, and heads inside.
The smell hits first: oil, metal, old rubber, engine heat still hanging in the air. The kind of place that smells like work and tells the truth about itself. No performance. No polish for the sake of it. Just labor. Tools. Time. Things either fixed or left broken.
Duke’s near the back workbench, wiping his hands on a rag while he looks over something spread out under the hanging light.
He glances up at the sound of the door. Then stills. Not dramatically. Just enough. His eyes go over Robby once, quick and practiced, and whatever he sees there makes him straighten slow.
“You look like hell.”
Robby lets the door swing shut behind him.
“Yeah,” he says, voice rougher than he meant it to be. “I know.”
Duke studies him for another beat, then tosses the rag onto the bench.
“That bad?”
Robby looks down at the folder in his hands.
Then back up.
“Worse.”
Duke studies him for a beat, then jerks his chin toward the side of the building.
“Come on.”
Robby follows him without a word.
The evening air hits cooler out back. The heat from the day is still trapped in the brick and the concrete, but the edge has gone out of it. Around the side of the shop, two old metal chairs sit against the wall beside a rusted ashtray stand nobody’s bothered to empty. The sounds from inside dull behind them, muffled music, the low mechanical hum of a place that never really goes quiet.
Duke drops into one chair with a grunt and nods toward the other.
“Sit down.”
Robby does. The folder stays in his hands. His fingers are tight around the edge of it, thumb rubbing once against the corner, then again. His other hand comes up to the back of his neck, presses hard, drops, then comes right back like it doesn’t know where else to go.
For a second, neither of them says anything. Duke doesn’t rush him. He just leans back in the chair and waits. Robby stares out at the lot. At nothing. His mouth opens. Closes.
Then—
“I got married in Vegas.”
The words land flat between them.
Duke doesn’t react.
Robby lets out a rough breath through his nose and keeps going before he loses his nerve.
“A few months ago. During my trip. I was there. She was there. We met. We were drunk and—” his hand drags over the back of his neck again “—we did something stupid.”
Duke’s voice stays even, “Sounds like it.”
Robby nods once. “Yeah.”
A beat. Then, quieter—
“I left the next morning. I didn’t wake her up. I didn’t say goodbye. Just left.”
That one sits there.
Duke doesn’t soften it by repeating it back. Doesn’t make a face. Doesn’t give Robby anything to push against. He just lets the silence hold it in place until Robby has to keep talking.
“She found me today.”
Duke’s head turns slightly. “She found you?”
“At work.”
“Mm.”
“She showed up during my shift. Announced she was my wife.”
That gets a little more out of him. Not much. Just enough.
“Public?”
Robby laughs once under his breath. It has no humor in it.
“Yeah.”
Duke nods like that tracks.
Robby looks down at the folder in his lap. “She’s pregnant.”
That changes the air. Not dramatically. Duke doesn’t jerk or swear or sit bolt upright. He just stills in a way that feels complete.
“How far?”
“About three months.”
Another pause.
Then Duke asks, “Yours?”
Robby looks up sharply, but Duke doesn’t blink.
“Had to ask.”
Robby swallows hard. “Yeah. Mine.”
They sit in that for a second. Robby’s fingers tighten around the folder again.
“She needed my information,” he says. “For government financial help. Personal information. Income. All of it. She couldn’t get the help she needed without it because legally I still count.”
Duke’s eyes drop to the folder. “That what all this is?”
Robby nods and hands it over.
Duke flips through it slower than Robby did. Not because he’s reading every line. Because he’s reading the shape of it. Thin packet. Thin care. Thin margins. He closes it and hands it back.
“That all she came for?”
Robby nods once.
“Paperwork. Information.” His thumb presses hard into the back of his neck again. “She wants to go back to Vegas.”
Duke watches him. “And?”
Robby laughs again. Smaller this time. More tired.
“I convinced her to go to my house instead of leaving right away.”
Duke says nothing.
Robby keeps his eyes on the folder.
“She drove all that way. She was exhausted. Hadn’t eaten. She was going to head back immediately. I told her to go there, shower, sleep.” A breath. “We argued back and forth about it until finally she said yes because she didn’t really have a better option.”
That one gets him harder than the rest. Duke can hear it in the way the last sentence comes out flatter.
“She there now?”
Robby nods. “Yeah.”
The lot is quiet for a second. Just distant traffic and the faint hum from inside the shop.
Then Duke asks, “And you came here instead of going home?”
Robby drags his hand down over his mouth. “I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do.”
Duke tips his head once, like “go on”.
Robby looks back down at the folder.
“She wants the forms signed. Wants to go back home. Be done with me.” He exhales through his nose. “And part of me thinks maybe I should just do it.”
Duke’s brows shift a fraction.
Robby keeps talking.
“It’d be easier on her.” He rubs the back of his neck harder. “Cleaner. She doesn’t trust me. She’s pissed off. She has every right to hate me.” His mouth tightens. “And if she wants out, maybe the least selfish thing I can do is sign whatever she needs and let her go.”
Duke leans back in his chair. “Let her go?”
Robby nods once. “I figured I could send her money. Like child support or something.”
The words come out quick, like he’s been holding onto them.
Duke says nothing, so Robby keeps filling the space.
“I make enough. I can send her money every month. Cover what she needs. Appointments. Bills. Whatever.” He shrugs once, helpless and irritated with himself for sounding helpless. “She wouldn’t have to deal with me. I could still help.”
Duke is quiet long enough that Robby finally looks over at him, his face flat.
“Oh,” he says. “You really thought that one through. Father of the year here.”
Robby’s jaw tightens. “I’m trying to figure out what makes this easier on her.”
“No,” Duke says. “You’re trying to figure out how to stay involved without having to stand there and be the man who caused it.”
Robby looks away first.
Duke doesn’t let him sit in that for long.
“You think mailing checks makes you a father?”
Robby’s head turns back. “That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.”
Robby’s fingers clamp tighter on the folder.
Duke leans forward, forearms on his knees.
“You let her leave now,” he says, voice low and blunt, “you are never seeing that girl again.”
The words hit so hard Robby doesn’t answer.
Duke keeps going.
“And you are damn sure never knowing that kid.”
Robby swallows hard.
“That’s not—”
“That is exactly what that is.”
Silence.
The night feels closer somehow. The brick wall at their backs still warm. The air thinner than it was a minute ago.
Duke watches him.
“You think she’s driving back to Vegas pregnant, hurt, proud as hell, and giving you another easy shot after that?” He shakes his head once. “No.”
Robby’s hand comes back to the back of his neck. “She hates me.”
Duke’s voice doesn’t move an inch. “She’s allowed to.”
Robby looks over at him.
Duke meets his eyes.
“She is allowed to hate you. She is allowed to be angry. She is allowed to not trust a damn thing that comes out of your mouth right now.” He pauses. “You know what you don’t get to do?”
Robby says nothing.
“Let her suffer because hating you makes this uncomfortable.”
That one settles in deep. Robby looks down at the folder again.
Duke nods toward it.
“She’s still married to you,” he says. “Like it or not, those papers don’t mean shit by themselves if she turns around and files and your income still counts against her. The government’s not gonna go, ‘Well, emotionally this felt resolved.’” He snorts once. “She’s still tied to you.”
Robby knows. That’s the worst part. He already knows.
Duke sees it on his face and presses anyway.
“So don’t sit here and sell me some bullshit story about how signing a few forms and wiring money makes this noble. It doesn’t. It makes it clean for you.”
Robby’s jaw works once. “I’m not trying to run.”
Duke looks at him for a long second. “Aren’t you?”
Robby doesn’t answer. Because he can’t. Because the answer is sitting there between them in the shape of everything he’s been trying to call decency.
Duke sits back again.
“What kind of man do you want your kid to know?”
That one gets him to look up.
Duke doesn’t blink.
“The one who walked away?”
A beat.
“Or the one who stepped the hell up when it got hard?”
Robby’s throat tightens.
Duke’s voice stays level. That somehow makes it worse.
“Because if you let her leave now, if you tell yourself you were respecting her wishes while she drives back across the country carrying your kid by herself, then no.” He shakes his head once. “You would not be a man for that. You’d be a coward with a bank account.”
That one lands ugly and clean.
Robby drops his gaze. His thumb digs into the back of his neck hard enough to hurt.
“So what the hell am I supposed to do?”
Duke lets the silence sit for a moment.
“You need to fight.”
Robby looks up again. “What?”
Duke jerks his chin once. “You heard me. Fight for her to stay.”
Robby’s mouth tightens. “She doesn’t want me there.”
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
Duke leans forward again.
“What matters is that your wife is in your house right now because she ran out of better options, and you are sitting back here trying to decide whether to be useful from a distance.”
The words hit one after another.
Duke points at him. “Don’t let her pride or your cowardice let both of you fail.”
Robby stares at him.
Duke doesn’t soften it.
“You want to know what you’re supposed to do?” he asks. “Go home. Feed her. Listen. Tell the truth. Tell her you were wrong. Tell her you ran. Tell her you don’t want to do it again.” He pauses. “And fight.”
Robby exhales slowly, but the pressure in his chest doesn’t ease. It just feels more honest now. Less tangled. More painful.
“I don’t know how.”
Duke nods once. “Good.”
Robby frowns.
Duke shrugs. “Means you stopped pretending this has an easy version.”
He looks out at the lot for a second, then back at Robby.
“You are not gonna fix this tonight,” he says. “You are not gonna erase Vegas, or erase leaving, or erase the fact that she had to do this alone.” A beat. “What you can do is show her that the man she needed finally showed up.”
Robby looks away fast.
Duke lets him.
“She can hate you and still need you to be better.”
The words go through him slow.
Then Duke adds, flat and final, “So be better.”
Robby sits there with that. The folder in his lap. The ache in his shoulders. The smell of oil and warm brick and old cigarettes. The full, sickening shape of what letting her go would actually mean. Not mercy. Not respect. Loss. Permanent, stupid, deserved loss.
He drags a hand over his face. “I was hoping you’d tell me to sign them.”
Duke huffs once. “I know.”
Robby lets out one rough breath.
Duke stands.
Conversation over, apparently.
Robby stays seated another second, staring at the folder like it changed in his hands.
It didn’t.
He did.
Duke waits by the chair.
“Well?”
Robby looks up.
Duke jerks his chin toward the lot.
“You gonna sit there all night, or are you gonna go fight for your wife and kid?”
That gets him to his feet. Slowly. The folder comes with him. It doesn’t feel lighter. But it feels clearer.
Duke watches him for one more second.
“Buy food on the way home,” he says. “Real food. Not vending machine bullshit.”
Despite everything, something in Robby’s chest almost catches into a laugh.
Almost.
“Yeah,” he says.
Duke nods once. “Good. Now go home and be a man.”
That one stays with him.
Robby grips the folder tighter, heads back around the building toward the bike, and doesn’t stop moving.
—
You wake up slowly. Not wrong. Not panicked. Not dragged up out of sleep by nausea or a mental checklist or the sharp, ugly jolt of remembering your life too fast. Just… awake.
For one long, strange second, nothing is wrong at all. You’re warm. Comfortably warm, the kind that sinks all the way down into your bones. The blanket is heavy enough to feel safe without being suffocating. The pillow under your cheek is soft. The mattress doesn’t sag or fight your back before you’re even conscious enough to resent it.
You stay where you are, eyes still closed, body loose with the leftover weight of real sleep. Real sleep. Not half-sleep. Not the kind where your brain keeps one eye open even when the rest of you gives out. Not the kind that leaves you more tired somehow. This was sleep. Deep enough that your body feels heavy in a good way. Quiet. Rested. You can’t remember the last time you woke up and didn’t feel behind immediately.
The thought lingers. Then the silence does.
Not silence exactly. A low hum somewhere. Air moving through vents. The faint creak of a house settling. But none of it feels harsh. None of it comes with neighbors through thin walls or traffic scraping past outside or your own thoughts already sprinting ahead of you.
You breathe in. Laundry detergent. Something clean underneath it. Faintly woodsy. Warm. Not your sheets.
Your eyes open.
The ceiling is wrong. Not bad. Just unfamiliar. Your whole body goes still before your brain fully catches up, that quiet animal moment where something in you notices first.
This isn’t your room.
The truth settles in slowly. The light is different here. Softer. Late enough that it’s gone gold where it slips past the curtains. The walls aren’t yours. The lamp on the nightstand isn’t yours. The furniture isn’t yours.
And the bed—
You know this bed. Not well. Not enough for it to mean anything dangerous. Just enough to know it isn’t yours.
Michael’s.
The name comes easier in your head than it should.
You’re in Michael’s house. In Michael’s bed. In Pittsburgh.
Your hand slides over the sheet beside you before you can stop it. Cool. Empty. No body heat left there. No sign he’s been in it since you passed out face-first hours ago, too exhausted to care what came next.
You stare at the ceiling a second longer, waiting maybe for the stress to hit. For your chest to tighten. For the anger from earlier to come rushing back, sharp and useful.
It doesn’t. Not right away.
You don’t feel good. Not exactly. But the edge is gone, blunted by sleep and distance and the simple fact that nothing in this room is actively hurting you. For one unguarded minute, you just feel still. And that unsettles you more than panic would have.
You push yourself up slowly, the blanket sliding into your lap. Your body protests in a dozen dull little places. Shoulders. Lower back. Neck. All the usual damage from too much driving and too much tension and not enough anything. But even that feels less sharp than it should.
You rub a hand over your face and sit there blinking yourself fully into the room. The bed is neatly made on one side and not on the other. A navy comforter. Clean sheets. One pillow knocked crooked from where you must have dragged it under your head in your sleep. Your overnight bag sits near the dresser where you left it.
And then your eyes drift. A dark T-shirt over the back of a chair. A watch on the nightstand. A book with a receipt tucked partway into it. A pair of glasses folded beside it. Not staged. Not polished. Just… his.
Michael’s room. Michael’s life. You’re sitting in the middle of it.
And for the first time, really, the fact of him starts to shift. Not the man you got blackout drunk with. Not the man who left. Not the man you tracked down online. Not the one you’ve been angry at for months. Just Michael. Sober. Ordinary. The kind of person who reads before bed and forgets where he left his place.
You look at the book again. The glasses. The watch. Small things. Boring things. The kind people leave out when they expect to come back to them.
Something in your chest shifts with it. Because the version of him you carried here was easier. Easier to hate. Easier to flatten. Easier to hold at a distance.
But this is just a room. A person who lives in it.
And the anger you’ve been holding onto doesn’t sit here as neatly as it did in your car. It’s still there. It just isn’t the only thing in the room anymore.
You swing your legs over the side of the bed and pause when your feet hit the floor. The house is quiet. Not empty quiet. Occupied quiet. There’s a difference.
You listen. For a second, nothing.
Then—
a cabinet door.
Soft. Somewhere outside the room.
A drawer. Something set down on a counter. Movement. Not much. Just enough to remind you he’s here.
You glance toward the door, suddenly more aware of yourself. The T-shirt. Sleep shorts. Bare legs. Hair probably a mess. Face still warm from sleep. And the fact that whatever clarity you thought you had coming here is about to get tested the second you walk out that door.
Then something else reaches you. Not sound this time. Smell. Soy sauce. Rice. Something warm and savory curling through the quiet.
Chinese food.
You blink once. And against your will, something almost like disbelief tugs at the corner of your mouth. Of course. Of course this is what your life looks like now. You slept in his bed and woke up to dinner in his kitchen like any of this is normal.
The absurdity of it is enough to make you move.
You stand slowly, smoothing your hands down the front of your shirt on reflex. Your body still feels heavy with sleep, but looser now. Less wound tight. Less held together by the anger that got you here.
That absence sits strangely in your chest. You don’t know what replaces it yet. But the cabinet already opened. The food is already out. And he is already in the next room.
Whatever happens next, you don’t get to avoid it anymore.
The bedroom door opens with almost no sound. The hallway beyond it is dimmer than the room was, evening light stretched thin and gold across the floorboards. The house feels lived-in around you in small, irritatingly ordinary ways. A framed print on the wall. A pair of shoes near the edge of the hall. A jacket slung over the back of a chair farther down.
Just his.
You follow the smell into the kitchen.
And there he is.
Robby’s standing at the counter with his back half-turned to you, one hand braced against the edge while the other digs through a white plastic takeout bag. He’s changed out of his scrubs. Dark T-shirt. Sweatpants. Hair a little flattened in the back like he scrubbed a hand through it too many times on the drive home. He looks tired in a way that isn’t subtle. Not dramatic. Just twelve-hour-shift tired. The kind that sits in the shoulders and behind the eyes and makes every movement a fraction slower than it should be.
There are containers spread across the counter already. Rice. Soup. Dumplings. A carton flipped open beside a stack of paper napkins. Two sets of chopsticks still in plastic. A bottle of water near one plate. A beer near the other.
He notices you before you say anything. Not because he turns. Because something in him stills first. Then he looks over his shoulder and sees you standing there in the hallway, sleep-warm and uncertain and suddenly much too aware that this is his house and you are in it.
For a second, neither of you says anything. The whole thing is so weirdly intimate and so deeply wrong for the two of you that it almost circles around into funny.
Almost.
His eyes flick over your face once, quick and careful, like he’s checking for something without wanting you to catch him doing it.
“Did you sleep well?” he asks.
His voice is rougher than usual. Tired. Quiet.
You lean one shoulder against the frame and fold your arms, more because you don’t know what else to do with them than because you need the barrier.
“Yeah,” you say. “Your bed is annoyingly comfortable.”
His mouth shifts. Not quite a smile.
“I’m glad.”
A beat.
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“That was probably smart.”
That gets the faintest breath of something out of him. Not a laugh exactly. More the shape of one.
“Yeah,” he says. “That was my read on it too.”
You glance at the counter. At the containers. At the sheer amount of food he seems to have brought home.
“You got Chinese?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s… a lot of Chinese.”
He glances at the spread like maybe he’s only just seeing it through your eyes now.
“I wasn’t sure what sounded safe.”
That catches you a little. You look back at him.
He shrugs once, awkwardly. “So I covered possibilities.”
Your eyes move over the containers again. Plain rice. Soup. Dumplings. Lo mein. Something in orange sauce. Fortune cookies shoved off to one side like an afterthought.
“You bought enough for six people.”
“I panicked.”
That gets a quiet, unwilling twitch at the corner of your mouth before you can stop it. Robby notices and looks away first.
You push off the doorway and step fully into the kitchen. It smells warm and salty and lived-in. Soy sauce. Ginger. The faint stale trace of coffee from earlier. A dish towel slung over the oven handle. Mail on one end of the counter. A half-dead plant in the window over the sink that looks like it’s surviving mostly out of spite.
It should feel invasive, being here. It doesn’t. Not enough, anyway. That bothers you more than if it did.
“There’s a lot of it,” you say again, quieter now.
Robby rubs a hand once over the back of his neck, tired enough that the gesture looks more automatic than nervous.
“I didn’t know what you’d want.”
That lands differently. Simple. Matter-of-fact. Not dressed up as something bigger than it is. Still, it gets under your skin in a way you don’t love.
Because he’s trying. Not elegantly. Not especially well. But trying. And that’s harder to be furious at than the version of him you had in your head on the drive here.
He glances back at you when you don’t answer right away.
“You hungry?”
The question is careful. Not loaded. Not pushing. Just there.
And the honest answer, embarrassingly enough, is yes.
Your stomach has gone from hollow to actively irritated in the last two minutes, probably because the smell of hot food reminded your body it’s allowed to want things when they’re available.
You exhale through your nose. “A little.”
Robby nods once like that’s enough to work with. “Okay.”
He reaches for one of the containers and flips the lid all the way back. Soup. Then another. Rice. He moves around the counter with the tired efficiency of someone who has spent all day making decisions and doesn’t have the energy to make this one more complicated than it needs to be.
There’s something weirdly grounding about watching him do something so ordinary. No big emotional moment. No heavy conversation yet. Just takeout containers and tired hands and the quiet fact of him being here when you woke up.
He slides a bowl toward you. “Soup first might be safer, if you haven’t eaten in a while.”
The old instinct rises immediately, sharp and automatic.
‘I can decide that myself.’
But the words don’t make it out.
Because he isn’t talking down to you. He isn’t trying to take over. He’s just… paying attention. And for the first time since you got here, your pride doesn’t rise fast enough to turn it into a fight.
You step closer and look down at the open containers. “This is weird.”
Robby nods once. “Yeah.”
“That’s it?”
He shrugs. “I don’t have a better word for it.”
You stare at him. Then laugh. Quick. Unplanned.
Robby stills for a second at the sound, then glances down at the food.
“I was hoping the dumplings might help.”
You huff softly. “That’s optimistic.”
“I’ve had worse plans.”
The quiet that follows is different. Not hostile. Not easy either. Just… possible, in the most uncomfortable way.
You look down at the bowl in front of you. At the soup. The rice. The stupid amount of food he brought because he clearly had no idea what would make you sick and what wouldn’t and apparently decided the safest move was to buy half the menu.
Your throat tightens a little around that. You don’t let it turn into anything.
Not yet.
Instead, you pull the bowl a little closer and say, quieter this time, “Thank you.”
Robby’s hands still for a second on the counter. Not dramatically. Just enough to tell you the words landed. He doesn’t look at you right away. Keeps his attention on the beer bottle in his hand like maybe it needs adjusting. Like maybe if he gives himself one more second, his face will be easier to manage.
When he finally does look up, his expression is careful enough to hurt a little.
“Yeah,” he says. “Of course.”
The silence after that stretches a beat too long. You shift your weight. He shifts his. There’s a chair across from you, and he is very pointedly not taking it.
“You can sit,” you say before you think too hard about it.
His brows lift slightly, like he wasn’t expecting the offer. Or like he’s not sure it is one.
“I’m fine.”
“You look like you got hit by your day.”
That gets the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“Accurate.”
You take another sip of soup because looking at him for too long right now feels like a bad idea.
“So sit.”
For a second, he just looks at you, like he’s checking whether you mean it, whether this is a trap, whether he’s about to do the wrong thing in his own kitchen somehow.
Then he sets the beer down, drags out the chair across from you, and drops into it with the careful heaviness of someone whose body is feeling every hour he’s been upright.
He exhales once through his nose. Long. Tired. The sound of it changes the room. Makes it feel smaller somehow. Less like a standoff, more like what it is: two exhausted people in a kitchen trying to figure out how the hell they got here.
You look down at your spoon again. “Long shift?”
Robby gives a quiet huff. “Twelve hours.”
“Bad?”
He rolls one shoulder, then winces a little like even that cost him. “Could’ve been worse.”
Silence stretches a second too long.
You stir your soup even though it doesn’t need it. Across from you, Robby shifts like he’s about to say something, then thinks better of it.
You take another sip. “So which kind of day was today?”
Robby drags a hand over the back of his neck, then drops it. Picks up his beer. Doesn’t drink. Sets it back down.
“The kind where I had to avoid answering questions about my ‘pregnant, one-night-stand, Vegas wife’ for fourteen hours.”
That pulls a quiet laugh out of you. You can’t help it. It slips free and hangs there between you, surprising enough that you almost clamp down on it after the fact.
Robby hears it and lets out the smallest breath through his nose.
“Yeah,” he says. “Exactly.”
You stir your soup once, slow, mostly so you have something to do with your hand. Then you say it because you want it clear.
“I’m not sorry I said it.”
“I know.”
You look up at him. He meets your eyes. Doesn’t look away. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t do anything except sit there and take it, which somehow makes it harder to hold the line than if he’d argued.
“I’m not asking you to be.”
You nod once. “Good.”
The word comes out flatter than you mean it to. You take another sip of soup, then glance at him again.
“I’d love to hear what they had to say, though.”
That gets the faintest shift in him. Not quite tension. Not quite amusement. Something awkward and tired caught in the middle.
“Trust me,” he says, “they had a lot to say.”
“I just wanted to let them know why you were busy,” you say, and the innocence in your voice is so deliberate it almost embarrasses you the second it’s out.
Robby gives you a long look. “You really know how to make an exit, don’t you?”
You take another sip of soup, trying for unfazed and not entirely sure you pull it off.
“I like people to be informed.”
He picks up his beer this time and actually drinks from it, eyes still on you over the rim.
“That’s a very generous way to describe what happened.”
“I was being courteous.”
“You were detonating a device and walking away.”
A laugh slips out before you can stop it. Small. Sharp. Real enough that you feel it hit the room on the way out.
Robby’s mouth twitches at the sound, tired enough that it barely counts as a smile, but it’s there.
You look back down at your bowl too fast, like maybe that will hide the fact that it happened.
“I did not detonate anything.”
“No?”
“No.”
He leans back a fraction in the chair, studying you with that dry, exhausted look of his.
“You announced that you were leaving and referred to yourself as my ‘pregnant, one-night-stand, Vegas wife’ in front of half my department.”
You glance up. “That’s not an announcement. That’s context.”
“That’s not context.”
“That is absolutely context.”
Robby huffs softly through his nose and looks down at his plate, like maybe the lo mein is somehow less ridiculous than this conversation.
“Sure.”
You shift your weight against the counter. The edge of the laminate presses into the back of your thigh.
“I just wanted them to understand the situation.”
“Oh, they understood.”
You lift a brow. “Good.”
“My charge nurse took one look at me and asked if I needed to hide in triage before I embarrassed myself further.”
That gets a short laugh out of you.
Another pause.
He picks at the edge of his takeout container with his thumb, not looking at you when he adds, “And the two gossip queens of the department spent the rest of the shift looking at me, whispering in a language I don’t understand, like I was the entertainment for the day.”
You blink. “That’s terrible.”
He gives you a look.
You take another bite of soup. “For you.”
That gets him. Just barely. A soft, unwilling twitch of his mouth, gone quick.
“Pretty sure there’s a betting pool now.”
Your spoon pauses halfway to your mouth. “On what?”
Robby looks down at the counter for a second, then back up. “Us.”
You blink. “Us?”
“You, me, whether we got matching tattoos, whether Elvis actually married us, whether you’re having a boy or a girl, whether it was a dare.” His mouth shifts faintly, something like disbelief at his own life moving through it. “Stupid stuff like that.”
That pulls another small laugh out of you. You can’t help it.
Robby hears it and looks away first this time, dragging a hand over the back of his neck like he needs something to do with himself.
The room goes quiet again after that. Still too careful. Still full of too much. Still one wrong word away from going sharp again.
But open.
You pick up your spoon again.
“So,” you say, not looking at him, “what were the odds on Elvis?”
Robby huffs softly through his nose. “Disturbingly high.”
That gets you one more time. Quiet. Quick. Real.
And across from you, tired and stiff and still too careful with every movement, Robby’s mouth twitches again before he looks back down at his plate like the expression escaped without permission.
The moment almost goes easy. Almost.
You set your spoon down a little too carefully. The sound is small. Still enough to change the room.
Across from you, Robby looks up. Not fast. Not startled. More like he felt the shift before you said anything.
You keep your eyes on the bowl. “I still need you to fill out the paperwork.”
The quiet that follows is different now. Less awkward. More deliberate.
Robby doesn’t answer right away. His fingers shift once near the neck of the beer bottle, then stop. “What paperwork?”
You look up at him. The question sits there between you, too neutral to be real. “Don’t do that.”
His expression tightens slightly. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Yes, you are.”
You set the bowl down fully this time, freeing your hands.
“The paperwork. The stuff I brought. Whatever you need to fill out and sign so I can submit it to the state and get the help I need.”
Robby holds your gaze for a second, then looks down at the table, then back at you. “You want to do that right now?”
You let out a short breath through your nose. “You think I drove across the country for fun?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No. You’re just stalling.”
His jaw shifts. He leans back a fraction in the chair, one hand coming up to the back of his neck. Not defensive. Not yet. Just buying himself a second. And that, more than anything, tells you this conversation isn’t going to stay simple.
Robby rubs the back of his neck once, slower this time, then drops his hand. “You’re not going to qualify.”
You frown. “What?”
“My income,” he says. “Once they run it, you won’t qualify for anything.”
For a second, you just stare at him, because that was not the answer you were bracing for.
“That’s not how that works.”
“It is.”
“No.”
His eyes stay on yours. Calm. Tired. Annoyingly certain. “You’re legally married to me on paper,” he says. “That counts.”
Your jaw tightens. “Then we get divorced.”
The words come out fast. Too fast. Like if you get them into the room before anything else can grow around them, maybe they’ll still feel simple.
Robby goes very still. “That’s not fast.”
You blink. “What?”
“A divorce,” he says, voice level, almost too level, “that’s not fast.”
You stare at him. “Well, it’s faster than this.”
“That depends what this is.”
The answer is so calm it almost makes you angrier than if he’d snapped. You straighten fully, arms folding tight across your chest.
“This,” you say, “is me trying to fix a problem.”
“I know.”
“No,” you say. “I don’t think you do.”
His hand comes back up to the back of his neck. More tired than nervous now. More habit than tell.
“I know divorce doesn’t happen tomorrow,” he says. “And I know my income is still attached to you until it does.”
You watch him as he keeps going.
“That means going back to Vegas doesn’t solve the part you came here to solve.”
You laugh once, sharp and disbelieving. “So what’s your answer?”
Robby doesn’t look away. “You stay.”
The simplicity of it knocks the air sideways.
You just stare at him. “Excuse me?”
“You stay here.”
He says it the same way the second time. No softer. No bigger. Just as plain and impossible as it was the first.
“You stay here and let me help you.”
The kitchen goes very still.
You let out a short, disbelieving breath. “You really think it’s that simple?”
“No,” he says. “But I think it’s the least stupid option in front of us.”
You look at him for a long second.
“The least stupid option?” you repeat.
“Yeah.”
“That’s your pitch?”
“It’s the honest one.”
You laugh again. Quiet. Sharp.
“Wow.”
He doesn’t flinch from that either. “I’m not trying to sell you something,” he says. “I’m trying to tell you what makes sense.”
“You mean what makes sense to you.”
“No,” he says. “I mean what makes sense if you stop pretending the paperwork fixes this tomorrow.”
Your arms tighten. “I’m not pretending anything.”
“Yes, you are.”
The room goes tighter around that. Not loud. Not yet.
“You’re acting like I sign a form, you drive back to Vegas, and somehow that solves the part that matters right now,” he says. “It doesn’t.”
Your head turns back to him, sharper now. “It lets me put my life back together.”
“No,” he says. “It gets you back to a state where my income still keeps you from qualifying for aid, where you’re still paying out of pocket, and where you’re still doing this by yourself because divorce takes longer than either of us would like.”
The quiet after that feels bigger than the kitchen, because he’s right in the most irritating possible way: practically.
“So what?” you ask. “I stay here because the system is stupid?”
Robby exhales through his nose. “You stay here because going back doesn’t fix anything.”
Your head tilts slightly. “And staying here does what exactly?”
Robby doesn’t hesitate. “It gives you a situation that actually works.”
You let out a short breath, not quite a laugh. “For who?”
“For you.”
“For you,” you correct immediately. “This works for you.”
His jaw tightens. “It works for both of us.”
You shake your head once. “You don’t get to decide that.”
Robby leans back a fraction in the chair, then forward again, like he can’t decide which version of himself is less likely to make this worse.
“I’m not deciding it for you,” he says. “I’m telling you what it is.”
You let out a short, sharp breath. “God—” you shake your head, a small, incredulous laugh slipping out. “That’s somehow worse.”
His hand drags back through his hair. “Jesus Christ.”
“No, go ahead,” you say, one hand lifting in a quick, dismissive wave. “Explain my life to me. That’s been going great so far.”
His jaw shifts. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It’s exactly what you’re doing.”
You push off the table, shoulders tight. “You don’t get to sit there and tell me what works for me after leaving me in Vegas without a word.”
Robby’s eyes stay on yours. “I know I left.”
“Yeah, and you keep saying that like it does something,” you shoot back. “Like it fixes anything.”
“I’m not saying it fixes anything.”
“Then stop using it like a shield.”
He looks down for half a second, then back up, something more worn than careful in his face now. “I’m not shielding anything,” he says. “I’m trying to get you to stop acting like going back solves this.”
“It solves enough.”
“No,” he says. “It gets you back to the same shit you were already drowning in, except now my income is tied to yours, you still won’t qualify, and you’re still pregnant.”
The last word sits heavier than the rest.
Your face hardens. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Talk like I don’t know what the hell is happening to me.”
His brow pulls tight. “That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you sound like.”
Robby exhales, dragging a hand hard over the back of his neck. “I’m not saying you don’t know what’s happening,” he says. “I’m saying you’re acting like pride is a plan.”
You let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Oh, fuck you!”
His mouth tightens, but he doesn’t back off. “You’d rather drag yourself back to Vegas and make this harder than stand here and admit I might actually be useful to you.”
You shake your head, hand cutting through the air again. “Useful,” you repeat, a short, bitter laugh following it. “God, you really hear yourself and just keep going anyway.”
“Because I’m right.”
Your fingers curl against your arms, grip tightening without you noticing. “No,” you say, quieter now, sharper for it. “You don’t get to call it pride because I don’t trust you.”
Robby goes still. The room tightens.
“There it is,” he says, lower now.
“It is that,” you snap, a frustrated breath leaving you. “What the fuck do you expect?”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is when the person offering help is the same person who disappeared.”
The words hang there.
Robby takes them. Doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t soften. When he finally speaks, his voice is flatter. More tired. More certain.
“You don’t have to trust me!”
You blink. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t,” he says. “Be pissed at me. Stay pissed at me. I’m not asking you to feel better about me right now.” A beat. “But I’m not letting the mother of my child go back and struggle through this because trusting me feels worse than being scared!”
Your head jerks back. “Wow!”
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” you say, a short, tense laugh slipping out. “That’s kind of the problem.”
“No, the problem is you’ve been doing this alone for so long that now you’d rather keep doing it alone than owe anyone anything.”
The anger spikes, hot and immediate.
“Don’t— don’t do that,” you say, shaking your head, one hand lifting again. “Don’t sit there and act like you know me.”
His hand goes through his hair again, rougher. “Jesus Christ, I know enough!”
“No, you don’t!”
“I know you drove across the fucking country pregnant because you didn’t have another option!” he counters. “I know you’re going to clinics you shouldn’t have to go to. I know you left paperwork in my hands because you’re trying to hold this together by yourself and it’s not working.”
You go still. Completely still. Because none of that is wrong. And that pisses you off more than anything else he’s said.
You let out a breath through your nose, shaking your head once like you can physically knock the truth out of it. “That doesn’t mean you get to step in and fix it.”
“I’m not fixing it,” he says. “I’m trying to helping.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“It’s not.”
“It is when it’s you,” you fire back, a frustrated laugh slipping out. “Do you not get that?”
Robby’s jaw tightens. “I get that you don’t trust me,” he says. “I get why.”
“Good,” you snap. “Then maybe stop acting like I should just— what— say yes and play house with you?”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“It sure as hell sounds like it.”
A beat.
Then, quieter, but still sharp, “I don’t need you to save me, okay? I’ve been handling my own shit just fine.”
The words come out too fast. Too defensive. You hear it. So does he.
Robby leans forward slightly, voice lower now, steadier. “No,” he says. “You’ve been surviving.”
You let out a short, frustrated laugh, dragging a hand over your face. “Same thing.”
“It’s not.”
“Yeah? Well it’s been working so fucking far.”
“Has it?” he asks. “Or has it worked just enough to get you here?”
That knocks the breath sideways. You hate him a little for it.
Your hand presses flat against the counter, grounding yourself. “And what if I don’t want this?” you ask. “What if I don’t want your help, your house, your— whatever the fuck this is?”
Robby doesn’t hesitate. “Then hate it.”
You blink.
He leans forward a little more, eyes locked on yours. “Be angry. Don’t forgive me. Fight with me every damn day if that’s what you need.” His voice drops. “But I’m not letting you and my child struggle through this because saying yes bruises your fucking pride.”
That one hits deep. And for once, you don’t have something immediate to throw back.
For a second, the kitchen goes completely still.
You stare at him.
He stares back.
And the worst part, the part that makes something hot and ugly twist up in your chest, is that he looks like he means it. Not in some big dramatic way. Not like he’s trying to sell you on anything.
Just… certain.
You hate certain.
A short, broken laugh slips out of you. “Yeah,” you say. “You mean it now.”
Robby’s brow tightens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
You shake your head, looking away before you can stop yourself. “It means this is easy right now.”
His jaw shifts. “This isn’t easy.”
“No,” you say, looking back at him, sharper now. “It’s not hard yet.”
That changes the room. You can feel it.
Your arms fold tighter across your chest, like you’re trying to hold yourself together with your own body.
“This is still new,” you say. “It’s still a situation. A problem. Something urgent and dramatic and immediate.” A short, ugly laugh slips out. “It’s still the part where you get to feel like you’re doing the right thing.”
Robby doesn’t interrupt.
“But what happens when it isn’t that anymore?” you ask. “What happens when it’s just life?”
Your hand comes up, sharp and frustrated, then drops again when it doesn’t know where to go.
“What happens when this house doesn’t feel temporary anymore? When it’s appointments and bills and no sleep and a baby screaming at three in the morning and nothing about any of it is romantic or urgent or clean?” Your voice tightens. “What happens then?”
Robby watches you carefully. Too carefully.
“What happens when you get tired?” you ask.
He opens his mouth.
You don’t let him answer.
“What happens when you decide this is too much? When you remember you didn’t ask for any of this either and suddenly it’s easier to leave than stay?” The words are coming faster now, sharper, like you’re cutting yourself open with them on the way out. “What happens when being a father stops feeling important and starts feeling hard?”
“That’s not—”
“You don’t know that!” you shoot back.
He goes quiet.
You shake your head, a short, humorless laugh breaking loose. “You didn’t know you were leaving in Vegas until you did.”
You take a step away from the table, then another, not going anywhere, just moving because if you stay still you’re going to crack open right there in his kitchen.
“You don’t get to say you’re staying like that means something to me,” you say. “You don’t get to look me in the eye and act like I’m supposed to build anything around that.”
“I’m not asking you to—”
“Yes, you are,” you snap. “That’s exactly what you’re asking.”
He stands then. Not fast. Not threatening. Just enough to make the room feel smaller.
“I’m asking you to let me help.”
“And I’m asking you how the hell I’m supposed to trust that,” you fire back.
His face tightens. “You don’t have to trust it tonight.”
You let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Oh, fuck that.”
His jaw shifts. “I mean it.”
“No,” you say, shaking your head hard now. “No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to leave me in Vegas without a word and then come back talking like trust is some gradual inconvenience we’ll work through.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“It’s exactly what you’re saying.”
Your throat is tight now. Burning. And you know if you don’t stop, this is the part where it gets real.
You don’t stop.
“I can survive you leaving,” you say, and your voice breaks just enough on survive to make you hate yourself instantly.
Robby goes completely still.
You look away because if you keep looking at him, you won’t get it out.
“I already did.”
The words come out quieter. Worse. You press your palm hard into the counter.
“But I am not doing that to my child.”
Silence. Dead silence.
You can hear the refrigerator humming. The faint tick of something cooling near the stove. Your own pulse beating too hard in your ears.
When Robby speaks, his voice is lower than before. “I’m not going anywhere.”
You shake your head immediately, tears of anger threatening now, which only makes you angrier. “You do not get to promise that.”
His face tightens. “I’m not promising—”
“Yes, you are.” You look at him again, and now there’s nothing between the two of you but the worst part of it. “And you haven’t earned the right.”
Robby doesn’t move. Doesn’t defend himself. Doesn’t try to soften it.
“You don’t get to play house with me for six months and then decide it’s too hard,” you say. “You don’t get to get bored or scared or trapped and walk out when it stops being dramatic enough to hold your attention.” Your voice drops, rough and furious. “You don’t get to be temporary for my child.”
Robby’s hand comes up to the back of his neck, but he doesn’t look away. “I know.”
“No,” you say, and now the tears are there, not falling, just burning, making your whole face feel too hot. “I really don’t think you do.”
A beat.
Then, quieter. More awful because it is quieter.
“Because the truth is, I don’t know what to do with someone who says he wants to stay after he already proved he can leave.”
That one changes him.
Not dramatically. Not enough to save you from having said it. But something in his face goes raw. For the first time all night, he doesn’t look like he has the next answer ready.
He just looks hurt. And guilty. And there.
His voice, when it comes, is rougher. “I know that’s what I gave you.”
You don’t answer.
He takes a breath. Then another. “I know that all you’ve seen from me is that when things got real, I ran.”
You close your eyes for half a second. Because hearing him say it out loud is somehow worse than throwing it at him.
When you open them again, he’s still looking at you.
Still here.
“I can’t fix that tonight,” he says. “I know I can’t.” His jaw tightens once. “But I’m still here.”
The words are small. Not enough. Nowhere near enough. But they hurt anyway.
You look down, your hand still flat on the table like it’s the only thing keeping you upright. Then, because the truth is ugly and you’re too tired to keep dressing it up—
“If I let you be part of this,” you say, voice shaking now despite everything you’re doing to stop it, “and you leave again…” You swallow hard. “I’ll get over it.”
Robby doesn’t move.
You finally look up at him. “But I will never forgive you if you do that to my child.”
The room goes so quiet it feels like standing inside a held breath.
Robby’s face changes. Not just guilt now. Something deeper. Something almost shattered. And when he answers, there’s no fight left in him at all.
“I know.”
Not defensive. Not trying to win. Just true. And somehow that hurts most of all.
The kitchen goes silent. You can hear the refrigerator hum. The tick of something cooling near the stove.
Robby doesn’t move.
Then, quietly—
“I know you’re not afraid for you.”
That pulls your eyes back to him. He swallows once.
“You’re afraid I’ll make them feel the way I made you feel.”
The room changes. Not louder. Just deeper.
You don’t answer.
He doesn’t wait for one. “I know I haven’t earned the right to ask you not to think that.” A beat. “I’m asking anyway.”
You stare at him. Then laugh, and the sound comes out wrong. Thin. Frayed. Almost embarrassed.
“You don’t get to ask me that.”
His expression shifts. “I know.”
Your hand presses flat to the counter. “I’m trying so hard not to be stupid about this,” you say. “Do you get that?”
The question catches him off guard, but you keep going.
“I’m trying not to make a choice that feels good for five minutes and ruins something bigger later.” A beat. “And you standing there saying you want in doesn’t make you safe. It just makes this harder.”
Robby takes that without moving. “I know.”
You shake your head. “That’s the problem. You keep saying that like it helps.”
He lets out a breath through his nose. “It doesn’t help,” he says. “It just happens to be true.”
That almost gets you. Almost.
“I’m not asking you to feel safe with me tonight.”
A beat.
“I’m asking you not to shut me out before I get the chance to earn it.”
That’s the one that makes your throat tighten, because it’s exactly what you didn’t want him to say.
You let out a breath, shaky enough to piss you off. “You’re asking me to risk it.”
Robby doesn’t move. “I’m asking you to give me the chance to prove it’s not a risk.”
You laugh, short and bitter. “Everything about you right now is a risk.”
His jaw tightens. “I know.”
You look away, then back at him, your fingers curling harder against the edge of the counter.
“I don’t get to be wrong about you,” you say.
Robby’s expression shifts. “You’re not—”
“Yes, I am,” you cut in. “Because if I’m wrong about you leaving, fine. That’s on me. If I’m wrong about you staying, my child pays for it.”
Silence. Heavy. Real.
Robby doesn’t interrupt. He just stands there and takes it. Then, quietly—
“Then don’t trust me.”
You blink.
His eyes stay on yours. “Just let me be there anyway.”
You stare at him. Then laugh once, quiet and bitter. “You really think that’s enough?”
Robby’s expression tightens. “No.”
That catches you, but he keeps going.
“I don’t think anything I say tonight is enough.”
The room goes still.
“I think I have to earn it,” he says. “And I think the only way I do that is by staying long enough for you to stop wondering if I will.”
That one gets through. You hate that it does. You look away, jaw tight. “That’s not enough.”
“I know.”
“It’s not even close.”
“I know.”
You press your hand harder into the table. “Then why does it feel like you think it is?”
Robby shakes his head. “I don’t,” he says. “I think what I can offer right now matters more.”
You glance back at him. “Like what?”
Robby leans forward slightly. “Like this actually working,” he says. “Insurance. Better prenatal care. A real OB instead of whatever clinic you could get into because it was cheap enough. Tests done on time. Appointments you don’t have to dread because of the bill after. A house you can stay in without paying for it. Food you don’t have to budget down to the dollar. A bed. A bathroom. Space to breathe.”
He swallows once.
“You keep Vegas. Your apartment stays yours. I’ll cover it. Your job, your things, your whole way back stays intact. You are not trapped here.” His eyes stay on yours. “You’d just have more than the bare minimum while this gets figured out.”
You stare at him longer than you mean to. Then look away, because something in your chest is starting to feel too tight.
“That doesn’t make it okay,” you say.
“I know.”
“It doesn’t fix anything.”
“I know.”
A beat.
“But it fixes right now,” he says.
Your eyes flick back to his. Because that’s the problem, isn’t it?
Right now.
Right now is where all the practical things live. The things you can’t argue with cleanly.
You press your hand harder into the table. “And what happens when right now is over?”
Robby doesn’t answer immediately. That alone makes something twist under your ribs, because there it is. The part no one can promise.
“When it’s not urgent anymore,” you say. “When it’s just my life in your house and our child in the next room and me still not knowing what the hell we’re supposed to be doing.”
His jaw shifts once. “You don’t have to know that tonight.”
“No,” you snap. “But I do need to know I’m not waking up in some situation I can’t get out of.”
That changes his face. Not softer. Set.
“You are not trapped.”
You let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“No,” he says. “It’s not.”
You stare at him. At the calm in his voice. At the way he’s standing there like any of this can still be managed with enough patience and enough careful words. It makes your skin feel too tight.
“Do you hear yourself?” you ask, sharper now. “You disappear for months, I show up pregnant, and now suddenly you want to play house like that fixes anything?”
He flinches.
You push back from the table so fast the chair scrapes hard against the floor. “No.” You shake your head once. “No, I can’t do this.”
You turn away before he can answer, one hand already up at your forehead, pressing hard like maybe you can stop the room from spinning if you just push hard enough.
Because for one awful second, you almost said yes. You almost let yourself imagine it. A house. A bed. A kitchen with food in it. Not having to count every dollar before you make a decision.
And that’s the dangerous part.
Need. Not him. Need.
“I cannot be this stupid,” you say, voice low and shaking now. “I cannot be the woman who gets cornered by one disaster and lets it turn into another one.”
Behind you, his chair moves. You tense immediately.
Then his voice comes, closer now. Low. Controlled. Firmer than before, “This is not another disaster.”
You turn back so fast it almost hurts. “Oh, you don’t get to say that.”
He’s standing now. Not too close. But not hanging back either. For the first time since this started, he looks like a man who has decided something and is not stepping away from it.
“No,” he says. “I get to say I already made one disaster out of this, and I’m not doing it again.”
That stops you. Only for a second. Then your anger surges back up to cover it.
“You don’t get to decide what this is for me.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I don’t.”
A beat.
“But I do get to tell you I’m done standing here pretending the right thing is letting you walk out because that would make this easier on both of us.”
Your whole face hardens. “You think this is about easy?”
“I think that’s exactly what this is about,” he says, and now there’s something in his voice that wasn’t there before. Not anger. Not quite. Conviction. “I think you’re scared, and I think you have every reason to be. And I think if I stand here and let you leave because it’s cleaner or quieter or less complicated, then I’m doing the same thing I already did in Vegas.”
That lands hard enough to knock the next breath out of you. He keeps going before you can recover.
“I left once.” The words come flat. Clean. No defense in them. “I am not doing it again.”
Your throat tightens. You hate that that hits. You hate him a little for saying it out loud.
“I don’t know you,” you say, but it comes out thinner now. Less sharp than you want it to. “Not really. I know what you did. I know how fast you left. I know I had to come find you because you made yourself impossible to reach. And now I’m supposed to stay here and trust that this version of you is real?”
He takes that hit but doesn’t back off. “You don’t have to trust me yet.” You blink, but his eyes stay on yours. “But you are not getting back in that car and driving to Vegas like that’s the better option.”
Your chest goes tight. “You do not get to tell me what I’m doing.”
“No,” he says. “I’m telling you what I’m doing.”
That catches you off guard.
His jaw shifts once. “I’m not standing here while you walk out because both of us are scared of what happens if you stay.”
The room goes very still.
You fold your arms harder over your chest, but it does nothing to stop the shaking under your skin.
“You think this is fear?”
“I know it is.”
That makes you laugh, broken and furious. “Oh, that’s rich.”
He doesn’t flinch.
“You’re scared I’ll fail you again,” he says. “You’re scared I’ll wake up tomorrow and this’ll all disappear. You’re scared if you need anything from me, I’ll make you regret it.”
Each one lands. Because they’re true. Because hearing him say them makes you feel seen in a way you do not want right now.
“And I’m scared too,” he says.
That wasn’t what you expected.
You look at him. Really look at him. His face is tight. Tired. No easy softness in it. No smooth charm. Just a man standing there with his hands at his sides like he’s making himself stay still through force.
“I’m scared that if I let you walk out right now,” he says, “I am never getting a chance to fix any of this.”
You look away first. Your voice comes out low. “Maybe you don’t deserve one.”
“Maybe I don’t,” he says.
Immediate. No argument. No defense. That makes you look back.
He takes one step closer. Still not crowding. Still giving you room. But there is nothing uncertain in him now.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that you are pregnant with my child, standing in my kitchen, trying to decide whether surviving by yourself is somehow safer than letting me help.” His voice roughens just slightly. “And I’m telling you I’m not letting pride make this decision for us.”
Your breath catches. You hate the word us. You hate how right it feels.
“I’m not talking about pride,” you say.
“Yes, you are.”
The words hit like a slap. Your eyes flash.
“No, I’m talking about not being stupid.”
“You’re talking about leaving before you have to find out whether I mean it.”
That knocks you back a step more effectively than if he’d raised his voice.
Your throat works around nothing.
He sees it and keeps going.
“I know exactly what I did,” he says. “I know what I made you carry. I know you have every reason to hate me for it.” His jaw tightens. “Hate me. Fine. Be angry. Fine. But don’t stand there and tell me the smartest thing either of us can do is let you drag yourself back across the country because staying here would mean needing me.”
The room is so quiet now it almost rings.
Your eyes sting. You are furious enough to shake. And underneath that, more exhausted than you even want to name.
“I can’t do this if you think this fixes it,” you say finally.
His expression doesn’t move. “I don’t.”
“I can’t do this if you think I’m suddenly okay.”
“I don’t.”
“And I can’t do this if tomorrow you wake up and decide this was guilt and panic and obligation and not actually—”
Your voice catches. You stop.
Humiliated.
He answers before you have to force the rest out. “It’s not guilt.”
You hold his gaze. The air between you feels thin. “Then what is it?”
His jaw shifts once. “It’s me fighting for what’s right instead of what’s easy.”
That one goes through you slowly. No room left to hide from it.
He takes one more step. Close enough now that you can feel the heat of him, the steadiness of him, the fact that he is not backing down.
“I should have fought sooner,” he says. “I didn’t. That’s on me.” A beat. “But I’m fighting now.”
Your breath leaves you unevenly.
He doesn’t look away. “I want you to stay.”
The words are simple. No decoration. No excuse wrapped around them. Just true.
“I want to help you. I want to help with the baby. I want to do this the right way, even if I already did everything else wrong.”
Your chest hurts. Actually hurts. Because this is what you wanted him to say. And also exactly what you didn’t want to need.
He sees the break in your face and softens only a fraction. Just enough to keep you from running.
“You can be angry at me in every room of this house,” he says. “You can hate me through dinner and breakfast and the next damn week. But please just stay.”
The word lands and stays there. Heavy. Certain. A plea. A decision. A fight.
Not controlling. Not passive. Real.
Your body feels suddenly too heavy for your bones. The fight in you is still there. It’s just not endless anymore. It’s expensive. It hurts.
And worst of all, it’s losing to exhaustion and truth and the awful fact that some part of you needed him to finally say stay like he meant it.
You drag a hand over your face. “God.”
He says nothing. Just waits. And somehow that’s what does it. Not the logic. Not the offers. Not the practical things. The fact that for once, he is not stepping back first.
You let out a breath that almost turns into a laugh, but breaks instead. “This is such a mess.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly.
A beat passes. Then another.
You stay where you are. Still standing. Still angry. Still here. And when you finally speak again, your voice is quieter, worn at the edges.
“So what happens now?”
Robby doesn’t answer right away. His hand comes up to the back of his neck, rubbing once like he’s buying himself a second to think. His gaze drops toward the floor, then shifts toward the hallway, then back to you.
“I’ve got an office,” he says finally.
You blink. “An office?”
“Yeah.” A small breath. “It’s… not really a room right now. More like storage.” He glances past you like he can see it. “But I can clear it out. Turn it into something you can actually stay in.”
The words settle quietly between you. Not an offer dressed up as something bigger. Not a solution that fixes everything.
Just… something.
You nod, a little. “…okay.”
It feels like a small thing to say. It isn’t.
Robby nods back once, like he understands that.
“It might take me a couple days,” he adds. “I’d have to do it on my day off. Move everything out, get a bed in there. Make it… decent.”
“That’s fine.”
And it is. You don’t need perfect. You just need something that doesn’t disappear the second you look away from it.
A beat passes.
You glance toward the living room. “I can just take the couch until then.”
Robby shakes his head, not sharp, just immediate. “I’ll take the couch.”
You look back at him. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
The way he says it isn’t defensive. Just… certain.
You hesitate. “I don’t mind the couch.”
“I know,” he says again. “But I’d rather you didn’t.”
There’s no edge to it. No argument. Just preference.
You study him for a second, trying to figure out if this is guilt. Or obligation. Or just… him.
“I usually end up out there anyway,” he adds, quieter. “Falling asleep on the couch, I mean.”
That shifts something. Not big. Just enough to make this feel a little less like a sacrifice and a little more like something he’s already used to.
You glance toward the hallway, then back at him. “…so where would I be?”
Robby’s jaw shifts slightly. “The bedroom.”
You still. Not tense. Just… aware.
“That’s your room.”
“Yeah.”
You look at him, unsure. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”
He nods slowly. “Yeah.”
A beat.
“It’s my space,” he says. “I get why that’s… not easy.”
Your eyes lift to his.
He doesn’t look away. “I’m not asking you to be okay with it,” he adds. “Just—” a small pause “—to get through a couple nights.”
That lands. Not as pressure. As honesty.
You hold his gaze for a second longer than you mean to, then look away. And somehow that’s enough to keep you from walking.
“…it’s just for a couple days,” you say.
“Yeah.”
“Until the office is ready.”
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
“…okay.”
The word comes out small. Careful.
Robby nods once. “Okay.”
Neither of you moves right away. Because now that the decision is made, there’s nothing left to hide behind. No more arguing. No more deflecting. Just the reality of what you’ve agreed to.
You glance toward the hallway, then back at him.
“One day at a time,” you say.
It comes out quieter than you mean it to. Not comfort. Not even really a plan. Just the only shape this can take without crushing you under it.
Robby nods once. “One day at a time.”
The words settle between you, heavier than they should, because now they mean something different. Not until this gets easier. Not until one of you changes your mind.
Just this:
tomorrow exists.
And the day after that.
And neither of you gets to run before it gets there.
You swallow once. Your arms loosen at your sides, not because you feel better, but because you don’t have the energy to hold yourself together that hard anymore.
Robby notices, but doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move closer. Doesn’t try to soften what this is. He just stands there, looking almost as tired as you feel. And somehow that makes it worse.
Because there’s no relief on his face. No victory. Just the same wary understanding settling over him too.
Like he knows exactly what you know:
this is not a truce.
Not a pause. Not a temporary arrangement until one of you finds a cleaner exit. It’s both of you standing in the middle of the damage and admitting there isn’t another road around it.
You look down at the floor. Then back up.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” you say.
Your voice is soft now. Worn thin. But you need it said.
He nods immediately. “I know.”
“And I’m still angry.”
“I know.”
“And I still don’t know what the hell this is supposed to look like.”
His jaw shifts once. “Me either.”
That lands harder than you expect. Because it would be easier if he acted certain. If he had a plan. If he could hand you something finished and sensible and impossible to fall through. Instead, he’s just here. Staying. The same as you. And somehow that makes this feel more real than anything else tonight.
You nod once, small, almost to yourself.
The silence that follows is awkward in a new way. Not hostile. Not sharp. Just full of everything neither of you knows how to say without making it heavier.
Your eyes catch on the hallway again. His room. The office you haven’t seen. The couch he’s already claimed for himself. All of it waiting there like something already decided.
Your throat tightens, because that’s the truth, isn’t it? Not every detail. Not every conversation. But the part that matters.
You are here. He is here. There is a child coming whether either of you is ready or not.
And neither of you gets to run from that now.
The realization lands low and hard. Not dramatic. Just final.
Robby shifts his weight slightly. “If you want,” he says quietly, “I can show you where everything is.”
The words are careful. Not crowding. Not giving you a way out. Just offering the next step because there has to be one.
You nod before you can think too hard about it. “Okay.”
Even that feels bigger than it should.
He steps back first, making room.
You move toward the hallway slowly, aware of him beside and behind you without really looking at him. The house still feels strange. Still too intimate. But less like somewhere you can escape from and more like somewhere you are going to have to learn in pieces.
That thought scares you. More than you want to admit.
One day at a time.
You hold onto it again.
At the mouth of the hallway, you stop. Not because you mean to. Because suddenly this feels real in a way the kitchen didn’t. His room. His house. His life. And you standing at the edge of it, too exhausted to keep fighting and too scared not to understand what agreeing to stay actually means.
Robby stops too. Not close enough to crowd. Just near enough that you can feel him there.
For a second, neither of you says anything.
Then you ask, because you need to hear him say it plainly, “So that’s it?”
His eyes lift to yours.
You force the rest out anyway. “We just… figure this out now.”
It isn’t really a question.
But he answers it like one.
“Yeah.”
No hesitation. No careful softening.
Just yes.
The simplicity of it goes through you harder than anything else has. Because there it is. No more pretending one signature or one drive or one bad night is going to untangle what already exists between you.
This is it.
Not forgiven. Not healed. Not even understood.
Just real.
You look away first. Your voice comes out quieter than before. “One day at a time.”
This time it sounds less like a compromise. More like surrender.
Robby nods once. “One day at a time.”
And that’s all either of you has. No promises big enough to trust. No language clean enough to make this simple. Just two frightened, stubborn people standing in the hallway of a house neither of them knows how to share yet, understanding in the same terrible second that whatever comes next—
it comes here.
With both of you.
You nod once. Then finally make yourself move. Toward the room. Toward the night. Toward the life neither of you gets to run from now.
