SUMMARY: Jack Abbot is not an overly-neighborly person. He has secret nicknames in his head for most of the people on his floor and actively avoids any and all types of neighbor politics. However, he can’t deny his growing fondness for the single mom and toddler in apartment seventeen. (Nor his burning hatred for your baby daddy).
WARNINGS: this series includes a very chaotic reader with an even more chaotic toddler, mentions of abandonment, Jack's inability to consider anything good and worthwhile for himself, eventual smut, friends to lovers, mentions of previous abusive relationships, mentions of mental health struggles, miscommunication, age gap (reader is around 27 and Jack is in his 40's), medical inaccuracies and more.
A/N: I am very very excited to share this series and bring it to life. It started as a very random idea that quickly transpired into a huge story in my head within a matter of minutes. It does touch on some potentially triggering topics but warnings will be given in each chapter!
PAIRING: Jack Abbot x Single Mom!Reader
STATUS: Ongoing
Alternatively, you can read on Wattpad or Ao3!
─── ⋆ CHAPTERS ⋆
PART ONE 𖤓♡ — Jack Abbot values his routine and structure. Work, SWAT, gym... and for the past six weeks, spending his Sunday mornings admiring the enigmatic single mom who's apartment balcony sits across from his. [3k]
PART TWO 𖤓♡ — A scuffle in the hall causes Jack to accidentally take Phoebe’s wallet to work instead of his. He gains himself a new nickname amongst the Pitt and finally learns a thing or two about you and your daughter. [7.3k]
PART THREE 𖤓 — A trip to the ED, a retirement meal, and a phone call with Robby. One leaves you up close and personal with your neighbor, one has Phoebe spilling secrets like it's an Olympic sport, and another has Jack realizing he's got a fucking crush on the single mom in apartment seventeen. [7.1k]
PART FOUR 𖤓♡ — Phoebe's birthday party consists of four sets of eyes ogling Jack from the second he enters your apartment, screaming children, your mom noticing something rather interesting, and a night on the balcony that changes the trajectory of everything. [8.7k]
⤷ PART 4.5 𖤓 — You don't hear from Jack for three days after the kiss. But despite being swamped at the hospital, after he reaches out via text, he doesn't stop. [SMAU]
PART FIVE 𖤓★ — When Jack offers his company in the form of a date to celebrate your book release, he gets to understand the inner workings of your mind a bit more. Unfortunately, it does leave him with an ache he has to tend to using nothing but his own imagination. [7.8k]
PART SIX 𖤓★ — Three months of dating with no label and no real sense of security has you spiralling a bit when Tom demands to meet Jack. And you quickly start to realize that despite your attempts of keeping Phoebe and Jack apart, some bonds form whether you intend for them to or not. [8.2k]
PART SEVEN 𖤓★ — When the double date from Hell roles around, you're left with a new friend while Jack is struggling to come to terms with the type of person Phoebe is stuck with as a father. But despite that, it doesn't stop you and Jack from ending your evening with a bang. [12.2k]
PART EIGHT 𖤓★ — Pizzas, karaoke, movies and a sleepover. All at Phoebe’s request, of course, for Jack to spend Saturday night with them. And when Sunday morning rolls around, she’s got some things that she needs to get off her chest. [7.1k]
PART NINE 𖤓♡ — When Phoebe's field day goes nowhere near as planned, Bella is left to pick up the pieces of your broken heart while Karis goes into labor and Jack and your father have a heart to heart. [10.1k]
PART TEN (FINALE) 𖤓★ — TBA
─── ⋆ BONUS CONTENT ⋆
TBA
─── ⋆ MISC ⋆
#APT.17 (a tag for anything related to this series)
Summary: You grew up with the Danforths; your father was Chester Danforth’s right hand man. When he passes, his twins Titus and Ursula inherit the hotel and casino resort empire, but the chair of the High Council goes to Titus. There’s one rule for Titus to claim it: he must be married. And his bride… is you.
Warning: Age Gap (No specified), Arranged Marriage/Marriage of Convenience, Swearing,
SUMMARY: Reader is an author who has recently begun writing a book with sexual content. She's experiencing a bit of a roadblock because, well... she's a twenty-five-year-old virgin. She doesn't know what to do until hot and sweet Jack Abbot comes up to her in her beloved coffee shop-slash-office and changes her entire life.
WARNINGS: This series is very spicy. Their relationship begins sexually, and emotions, vulnerability and story telling comes after. There are mentions of starting a family, as well as toxic relationships (previous partners; not current). The speed of their relationship is also quite fast in comparison to real life relationships. This is fiction.
PAIRING: Jack Abbot x afab reader
A/N: Reader in this series does not have a chosen race or ethnicity, but usually reader is envisioned as a bit chubbier (that is how reader is in most of my fics).
STATUS: Ongoing
PINTEREST BOARD
CHAPTERS
Chapter One: Roadblock (6.5k)
Chapter Two: A Date and a List (5.5k)
Chapter Three: Falling for Jack Abbot (Literally) (6.2k)
Summary: The epilogue brings Jack, you, June, and Otis home in the softest way. On an ordinary morning after a long night shift, the house is warm with coffee, cinnamon rolls, baby noises, dog hair, and the kind of love that no longer has to ask permission to stay.
It is quiet. It is chaotic. It is theirs.
Warnings / Content Notes:
references to foster/adoption uncertainty and Safe Haven placement aftermath
adoption
happy emotional overwhelm
newborn/infant care
and references to past loneliness.
I don’t really know how to say goodbye to this story.
Writing Jack and Reader has been one of the most unexpected, emotional, and meaningful creative journeys I’ve ever had. What started as a story about coffee, cinnamon rolls, shift changes, and two people trying very hard not to want each other too much somehow became something so much bigger. It became a story about home, found family, healing, being seen, letting yourself be loved, and learning that sometimes life does not arrive in the right order — but it can still be yours.
To everyone who read, commented, reblogged, messaged me, screamed with me, cried with me, loved Otis, loved June Bug, loved Robby, and loved Jack and Reader through every soft, messy, impossible moment: thank you.
The support and love this story received was something I never expected. It has meant more to me than I can explain. You made this feel like a safe place for my art and my craft, and I will always be grateful for that.
This story also gave me something I didn’t fully see coming: the courage to start dreaming bigger. Writing Pulse Point has inspired me to begin working toward an original novel — something born from the same love of romance, emotional healing, found family, and the kind of ordinary life that feels sacred because of who you get to share it with.
So while this is the end of Jack and Reader’s main story, it is not the end of what this story gave me.
Thank you for staying until the porch light.
Thank you for loving this little family.
And thank you, truly, for helping me believe in my writing a little more.
Xoxo, Del
Epilogue: Where The Life Is
The adoption decree had been framed for three weeks, and Jack still looked at it as proof that was worth checking twice.
He never said that.
Of course, he didn’t.
Jack Abbot did not announce his fears unless cornered, exhausted, or emotionally ambushed by someone under twenty pounds.
But you knew him.
You knew the way his eyes moved to the bookshelf whenever he passed through the living room. Knew the pause in his step, the brief stillness of his hands, the way his gaze found the black letters printed neatly beneath the county seal.
June Michaela Abbot.
A name.
A real one.
Not Baby Jane Doe.
Not a temporary label.
Not a hope written carefully into forms no one could promise would become anything.
June Michaela Abbot.
Your daughter.
His daughter.
Yours.
The decree sat in a simple wooden frame beside a photo from your wedding day: you and Jack in the garden, his hand at your waist, June asleep in Robby’s arms, Otis sitting proudly at the front as if he had personally officiated. Next to that sat the tiny keepsake box with June’s ivory dress folded safely inside, the sash made from your wedding dress fabric tucked over the top.
Jack had arranged the shelf himself.
Then rearranged it.
Then pretended he had not.
You let him.
Some things were better left unteased until they could bear the weight of it.
This morning, though, Jack was not standing in front of the bookshelf. For once, he was asleep. Really asleep. Upstairs, behind a half-closed bedroom door, after an extra-long night shift that had turned into fourteen hours, three traumas, one septic workup that refused to behave, and a nine-thirty a.m. phone call where he had said, voice scraped raw with exhaustion, I’m leaving now. Don’t start the coffee until I get there.
You had started the coffee anyway. It was your day off, you could do as you pleased. Now the kitchen smelled like brown sugar, oat milk, cinnamon, and the kind of morning you used to think only existed in other people’s houses. The cinnamon rolls were in the oven, rising into golden spirals beneath a sheet of foil. Jack’s good mug waited beside the coffee maker. The baby monitor glowed softly near the sink, even though June was in the kitchen with you, sitting on the changing pad you had spread over the kitchen floor because sometimes parenting meant surrendering to the nearest flat surface. Otis lay at your feet with his chin on his paws, pretending not to monitor the baby’s every breath.
June stared up at you with her usual severe expression. Dark hair, thicker and longer now, stuck up slightly at the crown no matter what you did. Blue-gray eyes watched everything. Long lashes. Rosy cheeks. A solemn little mouth that made her look like she was three complaints away from filing with hospital administration. Seven months old, legally yours, and still somehow the most judgmental person in the house.
You held up the tiny black biker jacket.
June blinked.
“Don’t look at me like that,” you whispered. “Your uncle Robby is going to cry.”
June kicked one foot. A foot currently wearing a tiny sock covered in motorcycles.
Also from Robby.
“You’re right,” you said. “He did this to himself.”
The jacket had been ridiculous when Robby bought it. June had still been impossibly small then, tucked into soft sleepers and swaddles, her whole body fitting against Jack’s chest like a question none of you were allowed to answer yet. The sleeves had swallowed her arms. The tiny zipper had looked absurdly bold against her newborn softness.
Robby had said, “I saw it and thought…someday.”
Jack had said, “Over my dead body will my daughter ever get on a motorcycle.”
Now the jacket fits.
That was what got you.
Not perfectly. The sleeves still bunched a little. The collar sat crooked because June had no interest in helping. But it fit well enough that when you zipped it over her little white onesie and smoothed one hand down the front, your throat tightened. She had grown into it. Into the jacket. Into the house. Into her name. Into the places all of you had been afraid to make for her too early.
You reached for the tiny jeans next. June kicked again.
“Excuse me,” you said. “This is fashion.”
She opened her mouth and made a low, serious babble.
“Exactly. Strong point.” You nod at her.
Otis thumped his tail once without lifting his head. You pulled the tiny stretchy jeans over June’s legs and adjusted her motorcycle socks. One was already starting to slide down. Naturally, you fixed it. Then you reached for the two tiny black bows waiting beside the changing pad. June stared at them.
“Don’t judge me,” you whispered. “This is a milestone.”
Her hair was finally long enough for two tiny pigtails. Barely. It was still fine and soft around the edges, thicker at the crown, dark and stubborn in a way that made every attempt at symmetry feel like a negotiation. You parted it with the focus of a surgeon and the emotional stability of someone who had waited months to put bows in her daughter’s hair. The first pigtail leaned slightly left. The second one had opinions. You secured the tiny black bows anyway. “There,” you said, smoothing a wisp back from her forehead. “Perfect.”
June blinked at you with grave disapproval.
“I know,” you said. “Beauty is a burden.”
From upstairs, a floorboard creaked. Otis’s head came up instantly. June went still. You looked toward the ceiling. Another slow creak. Then the faint sound of Jack moving around the bedroom.
You smiled before you could stop yourself. “I think your dad is awake June,” you murmured.
Otis stood and trotted toward the doorway, then stopped halfway, torn between greeting Jack and maintaining his official post by the baby.
June slapped one palm against the changing pad.
“Agreed,” you told her. “He’s taking forever.”
Jack appeared in the kitchen twenty minutes later, looking like a man who had slept hard and not nearly long enough. His hair was crushed on one side. His T-shirt was wrinkled. His sweatpants hung low on his hips. Sleep still pulled at the edges of his face, softening the creases around his eyes and mouth. He had not shaved. He had one hand braced briefly on the doorframe, the other rubbing over his jaw like he was trying to convince his body to fully join the day.
But his eyes found June immediately. Of course they did. Before the coffee. Before you. Before anything.
They found her.
You lifted June carefully from the changing pad and settled her on your hip, tiny jacket creaking softly as she moved.
Then you turned her toward him. “Say hi to Daddy.”
Jack stopped in the kitchen doorway. The word still did that to him.
Daddy.
Even now. Even with the adoption decree framed on the bookshelf, and her last name finally matching yours and Jack’s.
His face changed in a way that was small enough that someone else might have missed it. You didn’t. June stared at him with grave suspicion, dark hair sticking up between the two little bows, one motorcycle-socked foot kicking lightly against your hip.
Then she opened her mouth and said, very clearly, “Da.”
The kitchen went still. Jack did not move.
You gasped. “June.”
Jack looked at you.
You turned her slightly toward yourself, scandalized. “No, ma’am. Say ma.”
June blinked at you. Jack’s mouth started to curve.
“Don’t,” you warned him.
June looked back at Jack. “Da,” she said again.
Jack’s smile went fully smug. “Interesting,” he said.
You narrowed your eyes. “It is a normal developmental sound.”
“Twice,” Jack replies.
“Randomly.” You argue.
Jack grins at June, “Directed.”
“You are insufferable.” You reply, rolling your eyes.
Jack crossed the kitchen, still looking far too pleased with himself, and bent to kiss June’s soft dark hair. “Morning, Bug,” he murmured. His voice was rough from sleep.
June grabbed a fistful of his T-shirt like she had been expecting him. Which, legally and emotionally, she had every right to do. Jack’s smugness softened immediately into something much more dangerous. Something quiet. Something overwhelmed.
Then he looked at you. “She said it twice.”
“I heard her.” You grumble.
Jack smirks, “Just making sure.”
“I can still divorce you.” You shoot back.
His eyes warmed. “You won’t.”
He was right.
He kissed you then, sleep-warm and smiling, one hand at your waist and the other still carefully supporting June’s back where she leaned between you. Not a wedding kiss. Not a hallway kiss. Not a kiss that asked for anything. A kitchen kiss.
A husband kiss.
A father standing barefoot in the morning with his daughter between you and his whole life written all over his face.
When he pulled back, June babbled again.
Jack looked down at her. “Exactly.”
“You don’t even know what she said.” You say with a laugh.
Jack nods at June, “She agreed with me.”
“She is seven months old.” You point out.
“And discerning.”
June blinked up at him, serious and unimpressed.
“See?” he said. “Discerning.”
You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling too hard for it to land.
Jack’s gaze moved over her then. Slowly. The tiny jeans. The motorcycle socks. The black jacket. The two tiny bows perched in her dark hair like punctuation marks on an already bad idea.
His expression shifted. “What did you do to her hair?”
You straightened immediately. “Her hair is finally long enough for me to do it. Let me have this.”
Jack looked from June’s tiny pigtails to your face. Whatever he had been about to say changed shape before it left him.
His mouth softened. “I didn’t say it was bad.”
You glare at him, “You said it with your face.”
“My face has been misinterpreted,” Jack replies.
You shake your head, “Your face is very clear.”
June babbled once, solemn and sharp. You pointed gently toward her. “She agrees with me.”
Jack looked down at June. One pigtail leaned left. The other stuck almost straight out.
His mouth twitched. “She looks like she knows something we don’t.”
You nod, “She always does.”
“Yeah,” he said, softer. “She does.”
Then he bent and kissed one tiny bow, then June’s hair. “Perfect,” he murmured.
He straightened and looked at the jacket. “Still no motorcycle.”
You widened your eyes. “What?”
“Why is my daughter dressed like Robby had influence?” Jack asks.
You try to look innocent. “She’s just wearing the outfit because Robby is coming over.”
“That sentence is not comforting,” Jack grumbles.
You tilt your head, “It’s his day off.”
“Still not comforting,” Jack murmurs.
You bounced June once on your hip. “You’re being dramatic.”
Jack gives you a look, “I’m being observant.”
“You’re being threatened by baby outerwear.” You correct him.
Jack points at June, “That jacket has an agenda.”
June slapped her hand against his chest.
Jack looked down. “Don’t defend it.”
She babbled at him, eyebrows lifting in a way that looked so judgmental you had to turn your face into your shoulder to laugh.
Jack saw. His eyes narrowed. “She gets that from you.”
You laugh but narrow your eyes at him, “She gets that from you.”
“She gets it from Robby,” Jack says, smiling softly.
You nod, “She does love Robby.”
“That’s a separate problem,” Jack replies, smoothing a hand down the back of June’s head. June kicked both feet at the sound of Robby’s name, one motorcycle sock immediately sliding halfway off her heel.
Jack pointed at it. “Even the socks are unstable.”
You reached down to fix it. “The socks are adorable.”
“They have motorcycles on them.” Jack deadpans.
“Yes.” You agree.
He shakes his head once. “No.”
You looked up at him. “You keep saying no like it will change something.”
Jack looked at June. Then at you. Then at the tiny jacket again.
His mouth twitched as he sighed, “I’m tired.”
“I know.” You reply.
“My defenses are compromised.” He continued.
You smile, “I know.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, “You planned this.”
“Yes.”
His eyes warmed despite himself. “You’re trouble.”
You smiled. “Still?”
His hand shifted at your waist, thumb brushing over your shirt. “Always.”
The cinnamon rolls saved you from answering. The oven timer chirped. June startled, then frowned toward the noise like appliances had personally offended her.
Otis barked once.
Jack said, “Report received.”
You handed June to him so you could grab oven mitts. He took her automatically, settling her against his chest with one arm while reaching for his coffee with the other.
“Careful,” you said.
Jack stopped mid-reach. His brows lifted. “With coffee?”
“With June. She’s been flinging her arms all morning.”
“I perform life-saving procedures,” he said. “I think I can handle drinking coffee and holding a baby at the same time.”
June chose that exact moment to throw one arm out with the dramatic force of a tiny conductor. Her fist bumped his wrist. The coffee mug shifted half an inch.
Jack froze.
You pointed at them. “See?”
He looked down at June. June stared back at him, deeply unimpressed.
“Hey bug,” Jack said to her. “Remember, you’re on Team Dad.”
You scoffed. “No. Team Mom.”
June looked from Jack to you. Then turned her head toward Otis. Otis thumped his tail once.
Jack’s mouth flattened. “She chose the dog.”
You smiled. “Smart girl.”
Jack looked offended. “Betrayal before coffee.”
June babbled. You reached for his mug and moved it out of range. “Team Mom handles risk management.”
“Team Dad performs life-saving procedures,” Jack replies.
You click your tongue, “Team Otis has her full attention.”
Otis wagged again, proud of himself for reasons he did not understand. You laughed as you pulled the cinnamon rolls from the oven. The kitchen filled instantly with warmth. Cinnamon. Brown sugar. Butter. The smell of every ridiculous, tender, impossible thing that had somehow become a foundation.
Jack went quiet.
You noticed as you set the pan on the stove. He stood near the island with June tucked against him, coffee still untouched, eyes on the cinnamon rolls like they had carried him across the past 2 years. Maybe they had.
June pulled at the collar of his shirt. Otis sat at his feet. The baby monitor glowed on the counter even though the nursery was empty. The adoption decree waited on the bookshelf. Your rings caught the morning light as you set the oven mitts down. Jack looked around the kitchen. Really looked. And you saw the old shadow pass near him. Not through him. Not this time. Just near.
The memory of all the years he had believed ordinary happiness belonged to other people. That it was something he visited briefly between disasters. Something borrowed. Temporary. For other houses. Other men. Other lives.
Then June babbled against his chest. “Da.”
Jack blinked. The shadow went. You did not say anything. You only reached for his coffee and slid it toward him. “Here.”
He looked at it. Then at you. “You started it before I got home.”
“You told me not to.” You reply.
“I did.” He says.
You smirk, “I ignored you.”
His mouth softened. “Good.”
You cut into the cinnamon rolls, spreading icing over the tops while they were still warm enough for it to melt into every spiral. June watched with the fixed intensity of a baby who could not have sugar and knew injustice when she saw it.
“You are not getting cinnamon rolls,” Jack told her.
June stared.
“You can judge me all you want.” She reached for his chin. He let her. Of course he did.
“Robby will be here soon,” you said.
Jack closed his eyes briefly. “Do we have to let him in?”
“He’s your best friend.” You reply.
Jack sighs, “He’s June’s legal namesake. He’s gotten enough.”
You turned, spatula in hand. “You agreed to Michaela.”
“I was emotionally compromised,” Jack grumbles.
You raise a brow, “You cried.”
“I did not,” Jack responds immediately.
“Jack.” Your tone indicated that you were not playing this game.
“I had a reaction,” Jack grumbles, taking a sip of his coffee.
“You cried.” You repeat.
June babbled.
You smiled sweetly. “She remembers.”
Jack looks down at her, “She was at the hearing for twelve minutes before falling asleep.”
“She is very intuitive.” You shrug.
Jack looks at you, “She is seven months old.”
You look over at June, then back at Jack. “She said da.”
Jack’s face rearranged itself into unbearable smugness again. “Twice,” he said.
You pointed the spatula at him. “Do not weaponize the baby.”
Jack looks at June, “She started it.”
Before you could respond, the low rumble of a motorcycle rolled up the street.
Jack’s head turned toward the front window. His entire expression changed. “No.”
You glanced toward the driveway, then back at him. “It’s Robby.”
“That is the problem,” Jack responds.
June kicked both feet. Otis trotted to the front door, tail wagging, because unlike Jack, he had accepted Robby as a necessary part of household ecology. The motorcycle cut off. A second later, footsteps came up the porch. Then a knock. Not the doorbell. Robby had learned that the doorbell woke June once and never recovered from the shame. You went to answer it before Jack could decide not to. Robby stood on the porch in jeans, boots, and his leather jacket, helmet tucked under one arm, hair flattened from the ride, and a grin already halfway to unbearable.
“Good morning to my favorite family,” he said.
Jack called from the kitchen, “No.”
Robby’s grin widened. “He sounds rested.”
“He worked fourteen hours and slept four,” you said, stepping aside.
“So emotionally delicate,” Robby says, shaking his head.
You huff a laugh, “Correct.”
Robby walked in, then stopped dead in the entryway. His eyes found June. Tiny black jacket. Tiny jeans. Motorcycle socks. Two tiny black bows. Serious face. For once, no immediate joke came.
His hand went to his chest. “She’s dressed for me.”
Jack appeared behind you with June now on his hip, looking deeply unimpressed. “Unfortunately.”
Robby looked at June like she had personally rewritten the morning. “June Michaela Abbot,” he said, solemn as a proclamation. “Named after excellence.”
Jack looked at him. “Named despite you.”
“Revisionist history,” Robby replied.
June reached for the zipper on Robby’s jacket. Robby looked triumphant. “She knows.”
Jack deadpans, “She wants the zipper.”
“She wants family.” Robby corrected.
Jack shoots back, “She wants the shiny thing.”
“Both can be true,” Robby says with a shrug.
You laughed and took June from Jack before the two of them could turn this into a deposition.
Robby stepped closer, his eyes still soft on June. “Hi, Bug.”
June stared at him. Then made a sharp little babble that sounded like an accusation.
Robby nodded gravely. “Completely fair.”
You passed June to him, and Robby received her with the same careful awe he had never really lost, even now that she was bigger and sturdier and fully capable of grabbing his collar with alarming force. He held her against his chest and looked down at the jacket. “She grew into it.”
The words were soft. For a second, no one teased him. Not even Jack.
Robby blinked once, fast. Then he cleared his throat. “Terrible for my composure.”
Jack muttered, “You never had any.”
Robby turned towards him, “I heard that.”
“I intended that,” Jack replies, taking a long gulp of coffee.
Robby ignored him and looked back at June. “Your father is threatened by style.”
June slapped Robby’s zipper.
You leaned against the counter, watching them. Jack moved behind you, one hand finding your waist out of habit, his coffee in the other now that June was safely out of range.
“You did plan this,” he murmured.
You looked up at him. “Maybe.”
His eyes narrowed, but the warmth in them ruined the effect. “What else did you plan?”
You smiled. Then turned back toward Robby and June.
“Okay,” you said brightly. “Ready for your first motorcycle ride, June Bug?”
Jack turned so fast his coffee sloshed dangerously close to the rim. “No.”
Robby’s face lit with immediate, catastrophic delight.
You turned towards your husband.
Jack stared at you. Flat. Unamused. Entirely awake now.
You lasted three seconds. Then you laughed. “Seriously, Jack, what kind of mother do you think I am? I’m kidding. It’s just a picture. The bike is off. Robby will hold her.”
Jack looks from you to Robby. “Robby is the part I’m concerned about.”
Robby pressed one hand to June’s back, offended. “I have excellent baby reviews.”
“From who?” Jack asks.
Robby lifts June slightly, “The baby.”
June babbled. Robby lifted his brows. “See?”
Jack pointed at both of them. “That was not a review.”
Robby shrugs, “It sounded positive.”
“It sounded like drool,” Jack grumbles.
Robby glared, “You hate joy.”
“I hate motorcycles near infants.” Jack corrects him.
“Parked motorcycles,” you corrected.
“Near infants,” Jack says. “Our infant.” He added quietly.
Robby shifted June carefully to one arm and reached into the pocket of his leather jacket.
Jack pointed at him immediately. “Whatever that is, no.”
Robby paused, deeply wounded. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“I know you,” Jack says.
Robby pulled out tiny baby aviator sunglasses.
You gasped with delight.
Jack said, “Absolutely not.”
June stared at the sunglasses with the grave suspicion of a tiny federal judge.
“They’re UV-protective,” Robby said.
Jack looked at June, “She is not going on the road.”
“They’re for the photo,” Robby replies.
Jack narrows his eyes, “She does not need aviators for a photo.”
“You don’t know that,” Robby says, offended.
Jack gives him a look, “I very much do.”
You took the tiny sunglasses from Robby’s hand and turned them over. They were absurd. Tiny. Black. Completely unnecessary.
Perfect.
You looked at June. She stared back. “Just for the picture?” you asked.
June blinked.
Jack said, “She cannot consent to eyewear.”
You slipped the aviators gently onto June’s face. She went completely still. For one full second, everyone waited. Then June turned her head slowly toward Jack from behind the tiny dark lenses. Robby made a wounded sound. You covered your mouth. Jack stared at her.
His mouth twitched once. Then flattened immediately. “No.”
You burst out laughing.
Robby pointed at her, voice reverent. “Look at her.”
“I am looking,” Jack replies.
Robby touches June’s pigtails, “She’s perfect.”
“She looks like she’s about to reject a plea bargain,” Jack says, fighting a smile and failing.
Robby grins, “Exactly. Perfect.”
Otis barked once from the door. Robby nodded. “Even Otis agrees.”
Otis did not know what he agreed to, but he wagged anyway. The cinnamon rolls cooled on the counter while the four of you migrated outside. The morning was bright and mild, the porch light off now because daylight had finally taken over. The driveway still held the faint warmth of Robby’s motorcycle engine, but the bike was off, kickstand down, stable and silent.
Jack checked all three of those things. Twice. You noticed. Robby noticed too, but for once, he did not say anything.
Smart man.
Robby sat on the motorcycle first, both boots planted firmly on the ground, helmet set safely aside. Then he held out his arms.
Jack looked at you.
You smiled sweetly. “It’s a picture.”
“It becomes evidence,” Jack replies.
“Of what?” You ask.
Jack gives the motorcycle a disapproving look. “Poor judgment.”
You kissed his cheek before taking June from your hip and passing her to Robby. Jack hovered within immediate catching distance. Robby settled June securely against his chest, one arm around her body, one hand supporting her carefully, the way Eileen had taught everyone and Jack had corrected until the entire household developed a complex. June sat solemnly in her tiny jeans, black jacket, motorcycle socks, black bows, and baby aviators, staring into the middle distance like she had seen the open road and found it lacking.
Otis stationed himself beside the front tire.
Jack pointed at him. “Good.”
Otis wagged.
Robby looked down at June. “You hear that, June Michaela? Your father is a hater.”
Jack said, “Your father is standing close enough to stop this nonsense at any second.”
Robby groans, “You are ruining the vibe.”
“I am protecting the baby.” Jack corrects.
Robby shakes his head. “The bike is off.”
“You keep saying that like it addresses the jacket,” Jack replies.
You lifted your phone, laughing too hard to hold it completely steady. “Okay,” you said. “Smile.”
Robby grinned immediately. June remained deeply serious behind the aviators. Otis looked directly at the camera. Jack stood in the edge of the frame, arms crossed, coffee in one hand, face set in the expression of a man who had lost control of his household and was pretending it was new information.
“Jack,” you said.
Jack replies instantly, “No.”
“You’re in the picture.” You say.
“I am supervising.” He responds.
“You are sulking.” You correct him.
Jack looks over at you. “I am supervising with concerns.”
Robby leaned slightly toward June. “He gets like this.”
“Robby,” Jack warns.
June babbled. It sounded suspiciously like agreement. You took the photo right as Jack looked personally betrayed by his own daughter.
Perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
The picture caught all of it.
Robby is smug and soft-eyed. June solemn in her tiny aviators. Otis is on guard by the tire. Jack half in frame, exhausted and offended, and already moving closer because even when he protested, he could not keep himself away from the life.
You looked at the screen and immediately started laughing again.
Jack stepped beside you. “Let me see.”
You tilted the phone toward him. He looked. For one second, his expression stayed flat. Then it softened. Slowly. Helplessly. The way it always did when June was involved. The way it did when he thought no one was watching, the life got under his skin. In the photo, June’s tiny hand was curled around Robby’s jacket. Otis’s ears were perked. Robby looked like he had never been prouder of anything in his life. And Jack, half-caught at the edge of the frame, was looking at them like he was two seconds away from saying no and one second away from smiling.
You looked up at him. He was still staring at the picture. The morning held around you. Cinnamon rolls are cooling inside. Coffee was going cold in his hand. The adoption decree was framed on the bookshelf. The baby monitor is glowing on the kitchen counter. Robby was in the driveway, making himself at home in the middle of the family he had helped hold together.
Otis was guarding the motorcycle as if it were now part of his jurisdiction. June Michaela Abbot, wearing a baby biker jacket, tiny bows, and aviators, unimpressed by the entire world except for the people she had decided were hers.
Jack waited. You could see it. Not because he wanted to. Because some part of him always expected the old feeling to show up. The one that told him lives like this belonged to other people. That happiness was borrowed. That home was temporary. That love stayed only until it understood what it had gotten itself into.
He waited.
And nothing came. No warning. No catch. No voice telling him he had misunderstood. Only the morning. Only his wife beside him. Only his daughter in Robby’s arms. Only their dog at their feet. Only the warm smell of cinnamon and coffee drifting through the open front door. Jack looked from the photo to the driveway. Robby was carefully trying to convince June to wave. June was not convinced. Otis sneezed at the front tire. You leaned into Jack’s side. His arm came around you automatically.
“You okay?” you asked softly.
Jack looked down at you.
Then at June.
Then at the house.
His house.
His wife.
His daughter.
His ridiculous dog.
His best friend teaching his baby how to remain emotionally unimpressed while riding a parked motorcycle.
The life crowded, warm, and loud, and impossible around him.
This time, when he answered, he did not hesitate.
“Yeah,” he said.
His mouth curved as June grabbed for Robby’s zipper again and Robby declared it “advanced mechanical interest.”
Jack’s arm tightened around you. “I am.”
You smiled and rested your head against his shoulder. Inside, the cinnamon rolls waited. By the door, the porch light slept in the morning sun, no longer needed but still there, ready for nightfall. And Jack stood in the middle of the life he had once thought belonged to other people, holding you close while his daughter babbled in the driveway. Not borrowed. Not temporary. Not almost.
Summary You are a pastry chef, and after a nasty incident in the kitchen, find yourself in the ER, with Dr, Jack Abbot patching you up. As a thank you, you invite him to your restaurant, and so the story begins.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Tags No use of Y/N for reader insert, mentioned injuries with a knife, fluff, flirting, eventual smut, slow burn (not that slow just not yet lol), reader is tough but also a lover yk, irritating kitchen dynamics, age gap (late 20s/late 40s)
Author's Note Okay yeah I listened to Shawn's Quinn audio and yeah I was a little triggered and conflicted because I am a chef and it did awaken something in me like a sleeper agent. I don't know shit about shit in the medical field but I know how to write food!! So consider this a Grant Riley/Jack Abbot mishmash. This is a multipart series as I have already written like four chapters. Self indulgent. Enjoy.
xoxo
“Hey Chef?” Trina, the young server rounds the pass and peeks her head down the line.
“Hm?” you barely look up from the dish you're plating. Carefully unmolding the mousse over the caramel sauce, and grabbing the right spoon for a quenelle of Chantilly cream.
“There’s a guy at the bar asking for you.” Trina’s eyebrows raise slightly, treading lightly, like she’s not sure how this is going to be taken.
You let out a breath, pulling the perfect quenelle and laying it on the plate. “I’m a little busy at the moment. Service,” you set the plate up on the pass before grabbing another.
“And I did tell him that. But he says he knows you and that you invited him here.” Trina says, the edges of her words lifting. “Very hot, intense eyes.”
This is what makes you finally stop. There’s only one person you invited to the restaurant at all recently. And it was a joke, almost. In the way that if he didn’t want to come, you wouldn’t take it personally. But you would really want him to come. And now he’s here.
You take stock of the tickets on the board, dwindling after a slight rush, and recalibrates. “Just, uhm, give me a minute. Tell him he’ll have to wait.”
Trina’s eyes widen. “Holy shit you do know him.”
“Trina, please,” you bristle.
Trina backs away, her eyes not leaving you reddening cheeks. “Oh, we are totally talking about this after.”
“Bye Trina.”
The young server bounces away, an extra swing in her ponytail after learning something that you didn’t want to share.
It takes a second, but you regain your composure. The heat coming up your neck is surely due to the heat of the kitchen. It takes just a few minutes for you to knock out the next few tickets before starting on the last one. The dish you will deliver yourself. You take stock of your prep, what you have left over and what you can put together. You barely know the man, and now your trying to put a dish together that you think he may possibly like. But after a deep breath, you're in it again. This is your world. And you're good at your job.
A slice of vanilla bean Basque Cheesecake, plated with cherry compote and crushed salted almond brittle. Simple, but elegant. Something he could dig his fork into.
“Taking fifteen,” you nod to the Garde-Manger chef. He’ll watch your station while you step away. You remove your spare towel and apron, smoothing down the flyaways that have surely formed. On your way out, you catch your reflection in the metal door. You wipe under your eyes, trying not to look totally exhausted, and step out into the dining room.
There are eyes on you immediately. Hard not to notice the whites, pristine and folded at your elbow, and sticking out in the dim lighting and lively chatter. You make your way to the bar, and it takes all of about three seconds to see him. Broad shoulders, cinnamon sugar curls. He’s chatting with the bartender, who is completely enamored in their discussion.
You slip the plate in front of him and take the stool next to him. “I hope you didn’t already order dessert. This seat taken?” you ask.
Jack Abbott’s eyes drop to the dessert in front of him, but quickly find your face. His eyes find yours immediately, and his smile softens, “All yours.” You can feel your ears redden. Thank God for the dim dining room lighting.
“Thank you, Louis,” you nod at the bartender, “I hope this gentleman didn’t take up too much of your time.”
“Nah,” Louis shakes his head, “this guy has some crazy stories.”
“I’m sure he does,” you reply, but your eyes don’t leave Jack’s.
You wait for Louis to step away, taking care of someone else down the bar. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” you lean back in the stool.
“I think I should be asking that,” Jack nods down at the plate. “What do I have here?”
You tell him about the dessert. “Not on the menu, by the way. Chef special.”
A smile pulls at the corner of Jack’s mouth. “I’m honored.”
“I’m surprised to see you here, what with you working nights and all.” you shrug.
“I do get days off, you know,” Jack raises an eyebrow. “And I’m not one to turn down an offer for a great meal.”
“Well, it is because of you that I can even still make any desserts,” you wiggle your fingers at Jack.
On your left hand are two scars that make a perfect line across your middle and ring fingers. A late night and an intense argument in the kitchen, because when are they ever not intense, and a careless mistake with your best knife landed you in the ER in the middle of service. It wasn’t deep enough to nick the bone, but enough for you to have to sit out of service for almost a week, saddled with limited prep, and your Executive chef still won’t let you live it down.
“How are you holding up?” Jack asks, reaching for you. “No lingering pain, I hope.”
You let him take your hand and turn it over in his, inspecting his handywork. His hands are warm and calloused, and his grip is gentle, as if the already healed scars will burst open again at any moment.
“No pain,” you muse, watching him, “thank you.” Jack releases his grip, much to your dismay. You prop your head up with your other hand.
You open your mouth to say something, but there’s a hand at your back before you can start. “Chef, I’m sorry to interrupt.” It’s Casey, a long-standing server. He nods at Jack and gives a strained smile. “There’s a really big table with a birthday, and no one in the kitchen will write on the desserts.”
You deflate a little, your head sagging in your hand. You groan. It took less than 5 minutes for your 15 minute break to be cut short for something that you know the guys in the back are capable of. Writing “Happy birthday” with melted chocolate in a squeeze bottle is not rocket science, they just don’t want to do it. So they sent Casey- sweet, kind Casey, who would never be on the receiving end of your ire- to fetch you.
“Okay, Case, I’ll be right there,” you nod and the server is gone as quickly as he appeared, muttering a small ‘thank you’ as he leaves.
“Duty calls?” Jack asks.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” you groan, sliding off the stool.
“No, don’t be,” Jack assures you. “You’re working. I have no doubt if you came to visit me during a shift at the hospital, it wouldn’t look much different.”
You chew on your bottom lip, contemplating. It’s not terribly late, and he did come all the way out to see you. “Tell you what,” you start, leaning against the bar, “service is going to end in like an hour. It’ll take me a little bit to clean up my station after that. If you want to wait, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. If you don’t want to, no harm. Leave your number with Louis and I’ll be sure to make it up to you.”
“Deal,” Jack smiles, and you notice a dimple on one of his cheeks. Your stomach flips. “Besides, I’ll be busy here for a minute, dessert’s just been served.” He pulls the plate closer to him.
“Right, I’ll make sure to get your feedback after.” you smirk. You flag down the bartender, “Louis! Make sure Dr. Abbot is taken care of over here, as long as he’d like. On me.”
“Heard,” Louis gives you a knowing grin, that you promptly ignore.
With one last look, you push away from the bar and head back into the kitchen. It wasn’t a particularly busy night, even for a Wednesday. You continue to push out the last few tickets, while half of them don’t even have dessert, motivated by just the possibility of ending the night with Jack.
Thirty minutes later, Trina comes bouncing back to your station, a grin plastered on her face. “The hottie at the bar would like to send his compliments on the dessert.”
Without looking up from your plate, you nod, “Thank you, Trina.”
“So, like, who is he?” Trina leans in.
“Thank you, Trina,” you say, firmer.
“Boo, you’re no fun.” Trina pouts and turns away.
But the compliment sends heat up your neck, and you fight back a smile, instead chewing on the inside of your cheek. You hope you don't have to explain yourself to the guys who definitely all heard that exchange.
It doesn’t take you long to clear the tickets, and you start cleaning your station immediately, cater-wrapping leftovers and storing sauces and garnishes. You wipe down the stainless steel surfaces, trying not to think about Jack, and if he stayed, which ultimately ends with you thinking about him anyway.
“Damn,” the Sous Chef stops by your station with a sanitation bucket, not caring how it sloshes everywhere, “you got some place to be?”
“Get lost, Miller,” you deadpan.
Scottie leans his hip on your station, crossing his arms. “I’m just wondering if your incredible speed and attention to detail tonight has anything to do with the guy waiting around at the bar for you.”
You try not to give anything away, but you stiffen, just slightly. Jack waited. He stayed at the bar for over an hour, just waiting for you.
Scottie notices. “Gentlemen!” He hollers to the rest of the kitchen, “We've got a hot date over here tonight!” The kitchen erupts in hoots and laughter, and completely inappropriate questions ranging from who is he to have you fucked yet.
You remove your spare towel and apron, throwing them in Scottie’s face. “Just because you are in a bout of involuntary celibacy, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be.”
Scottie tosses the linens on the floor. “Hey, if you’d bother to bring any of your lady friends around-”
“Sorry, my friends like to orgasm when they have sex,” you scrunch your nose and push passed him, and the rest of the kitchen lets out a string of ‘ooohs,’ laughing and shoving Scottie back to his station.
It’s jokes, mostly. You have grown accustomed to the inappropriate and invasive atmosphere of the kitchens you've worked in. There’s another woman on the crew, Rose, but your shifts hardly ever line up, with one of you on prep during the day and the other on service at night. So you try to blend in in the ways you can, and be better in every other way. Wittier, smarter, faster. Don’t give them a reason to think you're the weak link.
“I’m out,” you call, walking towards the locker room. “See you losers tomorrow!”
In the locker room, you hang up your whites, and slip a crewneck on over your tank top. It’s not sexy, but it beats the dingy, worn straps of the camisole. You slide off your bandana and try to tame the flyaways it produces.
There’s a fine line between looking like a complete slob, and looking like you're trying way too hard, and you aren't sure how to stay on it. After fiddling with your appearance for way too long, you grab your bag and push yourself out into the dining room.
Sure enough, Jack Abbot is still waiting for you. He’s scrolling through something on his phone when you approach. Louis is nowhere to be found, probably refilling syrups.
“You waited,” you smile, coming up next to him.
Jack’s gaze immediately snaps to you, and his shoulders drop, like he’d been nervous about something. “Hey, yeah,” he smiles. “I’m a night owl, obviously. Had I gone home, I probably wouldn’t have gone to sleep, anyway.”
“Well, this place is just about closed,” you nod to the lingering guests, the servers gathered around a table, rolling silverware for the next day. “Would you want to head to a bar and grab a drink?”
“Yeah, I’d love to,” Jack slides off the stool.
The cool breeze is a balm to your flushed cheeks and nervous energy. It’s late August, so the nights are finally becoming cooler in Pittsburgh. The two of you walk to a bar that’s less than a block away. Your arms bump together as they walk, but neither of you overcorrects to stop it from happening again.
It’s not a bar that you have been to often, but whenever you need a drink without the watchful eye of your own staff, you head here. The bartenders are to the point, not bothering you with stories and questions when you clearly just want to zone out, and you tip well, so it’s mutually beneficial. You and Jack slip into an empty booth, each with a cold beer.
“So, Dr. Abbot, if I may call you that-” you settle into the booth, dropping your bag on the worn vinyl.
“Jack, please,” he interrupts, with a grin on his face.
“Jack,” you roll his name around in your mouth. “Have you been a doctor long? And always in the ER?”
Jack takes a long sip of his beer before answering. “I’ve been an attending for about 20 years, give or take.”
“Wow,” you raise your eyebrows slightly, “20 years. Long time.”
“Alright, alright,” Jack laughs, raises his palms towards you in surrender, “get the age jokes out now.”
Even though you are doing the mental math to try to figure out his age, you shake your head. “No, not in like, an age way. I just can’t imagine having the same job for that long. I’ve never stayed anywhere longer than 3 or 4 years. I was starting to think I was cursed.”
“What’s the matter? Commitment issues?” Jack eyes you, teasing.
“Ha, no.” you deadpan. After a moment, you shrug, “I don’t know, it’s the nature of the industry, I guess. There’s not a high overhead in restaurants, and a pastry chef is often let go first when things start to go south. They decide that they’ll just start getting shitty cakes from the restaurant service groups instead. And then there’s the egos, the tempers…”
You hate explaining this part, it always comes out wrong. You try to find the right way to explain that it’s not a lack of loyalty, but the never ending search for something better. “I’ve learned something in every kitchen I’ve ever worked. But when I feel like I’ve absorbed all I can, I move on.”
“All in Pittsburgh?” Jack asks.
“Oh, no,” you shake your head. “I’m not from here. I’ve, uh, moved around a lot. Been that way since I was a kid, so I guess it carried into adulthood.”
“Military brat?”
You purse your lips, “Yeah.”
Jack nods, considering. “I was a combat medic. Before. I understand the lifestyle.”
“But,” you try to save yourself, “I’ve been here for like 8 months, and I really like Pittsburgh. I like working at Brindle Bay. I’m hoping this is it, at least for a while.”
“Me too,” Jack smiles. “Otherwise, Pittsburgh would be woefully deprived of your creations. And that is a crime.”
“You’ve tried one of my desserts, Jack. I don’t know that you have a good frame of reference. Besides, it’s not like I’m saving lives, if anything I’m sending people to an early, sugary grave,” you let out a chuckle.
“Oh, I beg to differ. The cheesecake had me seeing God. In a good way. That is life saving,” Jack shoots back.
“You liked it?” you scrunch your nose. You can’t help yourself.
“Loved it. I sent compliments back, didn’t I?” Jack replies. He’s having fun watching you squirm, clearly.
“You did, but- ugh. You’d think I’d be better at hearing people talk about my food by now, but it’s still hard to do face-to-face.” You could go on about how a cheesecake is totally not hard to make, especially a Basque cheesecake, or how a child could make a cherry compote. But fighting that self-deprecating urge is what got you here in the first place. Owning your talent is how you made it this far.
“I’m usually a very downhome guy,” Jack presses his palm to his chest. “Give me a slice of chocolate cake, I’m good. But that cheesecake was incredible. You clearly love what you do, and you’re very talented.”
“What about you?” you ask, looking at him from down the beer bottle as you take a sip. “You still enjoy being in a doctor after 20 years?”
Jack sighs. He has this look in his eyes, and for just a brief moment, you can tell that he’s a million miles away. “You know, it has its moments. There are times when I think I want to leave it behind, but I just can’t stay away. It calls me back.”
“I think I know what you mean,” you nod. “I’d probably go nuts if I slowed down enough to leave the restaurant. I already need a million hobbies to keep my mind busy.”
“I volunteer as a SWAT medic in my off hours, keeps me busy."
Your jaw drops. Literally. “Seriously? Fuck, you are a glutton for adrenaline.”
“I’m good at it,” Jack shrugs. But he’s grinning, because he knows exactly what it sounds like.
“No,” you shake your head. “People are good at knitting. People are good at gardening. You pick a hobby that could get you killed. Like a crazy person.”
“You and my therapist would get along very well,” Jack retorts, not unkindly. It’s your turn to watch him squirm.
The conversation continues, and when the beers run out, you order another round. You tell Jack about all the places you've lived in your life, and Jack shares some of his most interesting medical cases. His eyes light up when he talks about near misses and good saves, and you can see why Jack just can’t walk away. There’s a passion in him that could never be satisfied doing anything else. It’s really hot.
Eventually, you come back to yourself long enough to notice that the already sparse crowd in the bar has all but disappeared, leaving the two of them and the closing bartender. You check your phone, 12:30 am. You’ve been sitting, lost in conversation for two hours.
“Shit,” Jack mutters, noticing your phone and checking his watch. “It is late. You’re probably exhausted.”
Even after all of these years working in the kitchen, the shitty floor mats still do nothing for your feet, which feel like rocks at the end of your legs. The weight of the day catches up to you all at once, and as much as you want to keep the night going, you're not sure how much fun you'll be in another 20 minutes.
“Yeah, I should probably head home. Take a long shower, you know.” you grab your bag, slipping out of the booth.
Jack leaves some cash on the table, and the two of you receive an appreciative nod from the bartender. Jack’s hand hovers over your back, just at your waist, and they slip out into the crisp night air. Even though it’s barely a touch, you can feel the warmth of his hands through your crewneck, and you start to think about all the other places you'd like Jack to put his hands.
“Where’s your car?” Jack looks down the street, and you snap right back out of your head.
“Oh, it’s fine-”
“Nuh-uh,” Jack furrows his brow slightly, teasing. “There’s no way I’m letting you walk back alone in the middle of the night.”
You don’t argue, just lead the way. “Thank you again. For tonight. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure if you would take me up on it. Coming to the restaurant, I mean.”
“I told you,” Jack nudges your shoulder with his own. “I am not one to turn down a good meal from a beautiful woman.”
“Uh, no,” you smile. “You conveniently left out that last part.”
“Thought it was implied,” Jack shrugs, that stupid grin on his face. His eyes seek out your, and you tug your bag closer.
When you reach your car, you round to face him full on. “This is me,” you nod back.
“I can see that,” Jack shoves his hand in his pocket. He fishes his phone out and hands it to you. “Maybe we can see each other on a day that neither of us has to work.”
“I think that sounds great.” you enter your number in and when you hand his phone back, your fingers brush for longer than could be considered a coincidence.
You are not one to deny yourself. You indulge in your pleasures, and go for what you want. Which leads you to step just a hair closer to Jack. Almost too close for normal conversation. “I’m going to say something.”
Jack follows suit, stepping closer. Definitely too close for normal conversation. “I’m sure I’d love to hear it.”
You hesitate for a moment, giving yourself an out, and promptly deciding that you don't want it.
“I really want to kiss you, Jack,” you are a breath away, your gaze dropping down to Jack’s mouth, and back up to his hazel eyes.
“Thank God,” Jack smiles. His voice is low and thick. “I thought it was just me.”
Jack’s hands settle in a firm grip on your hips. When you kiss, you bring your hands up to his jaw, brushing your thumb over his cheek and stubble. It’s a grounding, full kiss, that spreads heat through your entire body. Jack’s hands move over your back, pressing you fully against him. When you pull back, he still doesn’t let go.
“You say goodnight to all of your patients like that?” you bite your bottom lip.
“Just the ones that make really good cheesecake,” Jack teases, brushing his nose against yours.
“Right, cheesecake.” you wink and step out of his grasp. You step off the curb and slide into your car. Jack watches you, his hands flexing at his sides. “Goodnight, Doctor.” you call.
“Goodnight, Chef,” Jack nods. He steps away from the curb just as you pull away.
You can see him in your rearview mirror, watching you drive away. You can’t help but giggle to yourself and press your fingers to your lips, still remembering the way his felt.
yall i spend 95% of my life fully convinced im a lesbian, dreaming about all the women and then every once in a while one of three (3!) men does something and i just want to climb him like a mf tree
Pairing: Sir Jack Abbot x Princess!Reader
Word Count: 13, 104
Summary: After the High Council questions your claim, your dragon, and your unmarried status, King Aldren appoints Sir Jack Abbot as Captain of your Guard. Jack wastes no time rearranging your security, challenging the council’s assumptions, and swearing an oath that sounds dangerously like he means it. Later, in your chambers and on the eastern dragon terrace, you learn that Jack may be harder to dismiss than you expected — and his war dragon may have already chosen sides.
Warnings: fantasy politics, assassination attempt aftermath, injury mention, blood/wound references, misogynistic council members, arranged marriage pressure, protective guard dynamics, dragon bonds, slow burn, tension, no use of Y/N
Author's Note: Welcome to my dragon rider/bodyguard/princess fantasy romance era. This is very much a slow burn, heavy on political tension, dragon bonds, sworn protector energy, and Jack Abbot being devastatingly competent while trying very hard to remember himself.
Xoxo, Del
Six days after someone tried to put a blade between your ribs, the High Council gathered beneath the emerald banners of House Avelor to decide whether your greatest danger was the assassin, the dragon, or the fact that you remained unmarried.
The council chamber had been built to impress visiting kings.
It succeeded.
Sunlight poured through the tall arched windows in clean, silver sheets, catching on the polished stone floor and the banners hung between pillars carved with dragon wings. Beyond the glass, Crownreach Palace dropped in pale terraces toward the Silvermere, where the lake flashed bright enough to make grief look holy.
You did not look at the reeds.
You kept your hands folded on the council table instead, one thumb resting lightly over the other. The movement pulled at the healing cut beneath your ribs, a thin line of pain sharp enough to remind you that the assassin’s blade had missed your lung by less than two fingers. The gown chosen for you was Avelor emerald, the neckline stitched with silver thread fine enough to look like frost. Crown colors. Heir colors. A reminder and an argument.
Beside your place at the table, your brother’s chair sat empty. No one had removed it. No one knew how.
Across the chamber, High Chancellor Oren Veyre inclined his silver-gray head with all the grace of a man placing a knife exactly where he wanted it.
“No one questions Her Highness’s claim,” Oren said.
That was the trouble with Oren Veyre. He never lied when a careful truth would do more damage. King Aldren sat at the head of the table, one hand resting against the carved arm of his chair. He looked thinner in the morning light than you liked. Grief had not weakened your father so much as narrowed him, carving quiet hollows beneath his eyes.
Oren continued, “We question only the wisdom of leaving her unsupported.”
There it was. Unsupported. You let the word pass over your face without touching it. Unsupported meant unmarried. Unmarried meant uncertain. Uncertain meant vulnerable. Vulnerable meant manageable. And manageable, in the mouths of men like Oren Veyre, meant Cassius.
Vaela’s attention stirred beneath your ribs. Not words. Never words. A heat instead. A pressure. A deep, ancient irritation blooming through the fresh bond as if the dragon had turned one gold eye toward the council chamber from the eastern terraces and found every man inside it wanting.
You breathed in slowly.
Calm, you pressed back, though you were still learning the shape of sending anything through the bond without feeling foolish for trying. Somewhere beyond the high windows, stone scraped under talons. Several councilmen went still. Oren did not so much as blink.
“Six months is not long enough to settle a realm shaken by old magic,” Lord Alaric of the western holdings said, his gaze flicking toward the windows before returning to the king. “The Crownfire’s appearance has inspired awe, yes, but awe is not the same as confidence.”
You wondered how many times a man could call you a blessing before he admitted he meant a problem.
“My daughter is not old magic’s inconvenience,” Aldren said.
The room quieted at once. He had not raised his voice. He never needed to. Even grief-thinned, even tired, Aldren Avelor was still king. He looked down the length of the table, silvering hair catching the light. “The princess is my heir by royal decree. Every man in this chamber witnessed the oath.”
Oren bowed his head. “Of course, Your Majesty. Law is not in dispute.”
You almost smiled. Beside you, Queen Isolde did not move. Your mother sat with the kind of stillness people mistook for peace if they had never known a woman who survived by mastering every inch of herself. Isolde wore dark green silk, nearly black where the shadows touched it, her hair twisted into a severe bun at the nape of her neck. Her eyes gave nothing away.
Oren lifted his gaze again. “Confidence is.”
Aldren’s jaw tightened.
At Oren’s right, Cassius Veyre shifted as if the conversation had only now become worthy of him. He was beautiful in the way court liked men to be beautiful: tall, lean, and polished into something almost decorative. His light brown hair had been combed back from a face too symmetrical to be trusted, and his hazel eyes held the soft gleam of a man who had never entered a room without knowing how it should receive him. Wine-red velvet framed his shoulders. Gold thread glinted at his cuffs. The Veyre signet sat heavy on one elegant hand.
A portrait of reassurance. A cage dressed for a wedding.
“Her Highness has carried an impossible burden with admirable grace,” Cassius said.
His voice was warm enough to sound kind if one did not listen closely. You listened closely. Cassius looked at you then, and the corner of his mouth softened by a practiced degree. “But the realm does not need only a crowned heir. It needs the reassurance of unity.”
“Unity,” you repeated.
Cassius dipped his chin. “Between crown and council. Between old blood and present need. Between houses strong enough to hold Eldara steady.”
Beside him, Oren let the silence breathe. Then Lord Alaric said what everyone had been herded toward saying.
“A marriage alliance between House Avelor and House Veyre would quite much of the uncertainty.”
There it was at last, placed gently on the table like a gift. You looked at Cassius. He did not look triumphant. That would have been too honest. He looked patient. That was worse. You unfolded your hands. Across the chamber, a councilman inhaled as if even the movement of your fingers required interpretation.
“And after the wedding, Lord Veyre,” you asked, “which of my duties would you expect me to keep?”
The room went very still. Aldren’s eyes flicked to you, and something in them warmed with the briefest spark of pride. Isolde’s face did not change. Cassius smiled. Not widely. Not enough for anyone to call it condescension. Just enough for you to hate him.
“All of them, Your Highness,” he said. “I would only hope to make them easier to bear.”
Your mouth curved, though nothing in you softened. “How generous.”
Cassius’s smile held. “I would call it loyal.”
You let your gaze drop briefly to the Veyre signet on his hand. “I’m sure you would.”
A faint shift moved through the council. A few men glanced down at their papers. One cleared his throat and thought better of speaking. Cassius’s smile held. Then he leaned forward, just slightly. “You need not stand alone in this.”
And then he said your name. Not your title. Your name. In the High Council chamber, with your father’s crown at the head of the table and your brother’s empty chair still close enough to haunt the room. The sound of it landed like a hand set at the small of your back without permission. Aldren’s fingers tightened on the arm of his chair. Isolde’s gaze sharpened.
You did not look away from Cassius. “In this room, Lord Veyre,” you said, “I am Your Highness.”
For one breath, the polish cracked. Only a little. Enough. Cassius inclined his head. “Of course, Your Highness.”
Vaela’s satisfaction moved through you like a low curl of smoke. You nearly laughed. You did not.
Oren spoke before the silence could favor you. “No one here means disrespect. But a realm is not steadied by pride alone.”
“No,” you said. “It is steadied by roads that remain open, grain that reaches the villages before frost, and lords who do not dress their own interests as public concern.”
Another silence. This one had teeth.
Lord Alaric’s expression tightened. “Your Highness, those matters are being handled.”
You arched a brow, “Are they?”
Oren watched you carefully. You turned to Alaric. “The lower road through Wrenford has been washed out since spring. The temporary crossing cannot hold more than one grain cart at a time, and the river has already risen twice this month. If northern stores are sent that way, half the wagons will be waiting at the ford when the first snow hits.”
Alaric’s mouth opened. You did not give him space to use it. “The eastern toll road would be faster,” you continued. “But Graymere Post sits close enough to Veyre-held routes that any delay there becomes less a problem of weather and more a problem of permission.”
Cassius’s expression did not change. Oren’s did not either. That was how you knew you had touched the right nerve. You looked from one Veyre to the other. “If grain is delayed at Graymere, the lower settlements will not care which lord’s ledger slowed it. They will only know their children are hungry while the capital debates whether I require a husband to read a map.”
Aldren’s gaze stayed fixed on you. Queen Isolde’s hands rested motionless in her lap, but one finger pressed into the other hard.
Lord Alaric cleared his throat. “No one suggests Her Highness is incapable of understanding the realm’s needs.”
“How strange,” you said. “When I know too little, I am unprepared. When I know too much, I am overburdened.”
Cassius exhaled softly, almost like regret. Almost. “No one doubts your mind, Your Highness,” he said. “We only question how long one person can bear so much without breaking.”
Vaela’s heat flashed beneath your ribs. Sharp. Immediate. Threat. Outside, talons dragged hard against stone. Every man in the room heard it. This time, even Cassius’s eyes flicked toward the windows.
You breathed through Vaela’s anger. Calm, you pressed. The dragon did not understand tables. Or councils. Or the delicate art of letting men talk long enough to reveal where they were weakest. Vaela understood threats. She did not understand letting them finish speaking.
Oren turned fear into opportunity before it had finished crossing the room. “This is precisely the concern, Your Majesty,” he said. “The Crownfire is magnificent. No loyal servant of Eldara would claim otherwise. But magnificence unsettles men who must sleep beneath its shadow.”
Aldren’s voice cooled. “Careful, Chancellor.”
Oren bowed his head. “Always.”
No, you thought. Never.
“There are practical measures to consider,” Lord Alaric said, with the eager caution of a man stepping onto a bridge someone else had built. “Temporary measures. Until the realm steadies.”
You looked at him. “Temporary.”
“Your Highness’s movements,” Alaric said. “Her public appearances. Her flights.”
The chamber seemed to narrow around that last word. Vaela went still inside you. Not calm. Still. There was a difference.
Cassius folded his hands on the table. “No one would dream of severing Her Highness from the Crownfire.”
You smiled before you could stop yourself. Coldly. “No,” you said. “I imagine you would prefer a prettier word than severing.”
Cassius’s mouth tightened. Oren’s eyes sharpened. Lord Alaric pressed forward. “No one is suggesting harm to the bond. Only that Vaela’s flights be limited to ceremonial appearances and crown-approved routes until the investigation into the attempt on your life is complete.”
Your healing wound pulled as you sat straighter. “Vaela is not a carriage to be scheduled.”
“No,” Oren said smoothly. “She is a dragon powerful enough to unsettle an entire kingdom.”
“She is bonded to me.” You said.
“And that,” Oren said, “is exactly why your safety is not merely personal.”
The room settled around the sentence. There it was. The shape of it. Your body was not your body. Your grief was not your grief. Your dragon was not your dragon. Your life was not your life. You were the last heir of House Avelor. Therefore, everyone in the room believed they had a claim to the space around your ribs. You laid one hand flat against the council table. “There is no version of my bond that belongs to this council.”
Vaela’s presence opened beneath the words. Heat. Gold. Ancient, pleased fury. Outside, stone cracked. A line of pale dust sifted from the edge of the nearest window arch. No one moved.
Queen Isolde spoke into the stillness. “A measured response is not surrender.”
You turned to your mother. The words had been offered calmly. Carefully. With no direct support of Veyre, no plain betrayal to name. That almost made it worse.
“And how measured must I become,” you asked, “before I disappear entirely?”
Something moved behind Isolde’s eyes. Fear, perhaps. Or grief. Then it was gone, folded back beneath the queen’s perfect composure.
Aldren rose. Every chair in the room shifted back at once. “The matter of my daughter’s hand will not be decided by fear, rumor, or trade pressure.” His gaze moved from Oren to Cassius and then over every councilman seated before him. “Nor will her bond be made subject to men who speak of dragons as if they are troublesome horses.”
No one spoke. Not even Oren. Aldren placed one hand flat on the table. “As for her safety, I have not left the protection of my only living child to this council’s appetite for caution.”
Your eyes went to him. Aldren did not look away from you, and that was how you knew. Whatever he had done, he had already done it. Something tight and cold moved beneath your breastbone. Not Vaela.
You.
“Captain Marek will retain command of Crown Patrol and the outer rider rotations,” Aldren said. “He will continue to answer to the crown.”
At the far side of the room, Marek’s jaw shifted once. He stood near the eastern wall, crown leathers dark against the pale stone, his hands clasped behind his back. He had said little all morning, which was one of the things you trusted about him. Marek did not waste words where action would do. Now, however, even he looked as though he had only recently been told the next sentence.
Aldren continued, “But the princess’s personal guard has been reassigned.”
Your fingers curled once against the table before you stilled them. Isolde’s eyes lowered. She had known.
Oren Veyre’s brows lifted with careful interest. “Your Majesty?”
“The attempt on my daughter’s life proved there are weaknesses in this palace that cannot be mended by adding more men to the same doors.” Aldren looked toward the chamber entrance. “So I have recalled a man who knows the difference between a locked room and a defended one.”
The council chamber doors opened. The man who entered wore no court velvet. Dark riding leathers. Weathered steel. A sword at his hip. Broad shoulders dusted faintly with ash, as if he had come from the dragon terraces instead of the palace corridors. Silver threaded the hair at his temples, catching briefly in the morning light before he stepped beyond it. He moved like someone who had long ago stopped asking rooms for permission to occupy them. Not hurried. Not arrogant.
Certain.
The chamber shifted around him. Marek straightened against the wall. Tovan had once told you that old war dragons did not need to bare their teeth to make lesser creatures remember their own throats. You understood him better now.
The man stopped before the king and bowed. “Your Majesty.”
His voice was low, roughened by smoke and command. Then, after one measured breath, he turned. He bowed to you. Not as deeply as he had bowed to the king.
Deeper.
“Your Highness,” he said.
Vaela went very still beneath your ribs. You hated, immediately, that you noticed.
“Sir Jack Abbot,” Oren Veyre said.
He spoke the name as if it had entered the room armed. Perhaps it had. Jack did not look at the chancellor. Not at first. His gaze remained on you for one measured breath after he bowed, steady and dark and unreadable. Close enough now, you could see the faint scar cutting through one eyebrow, the smoke-darkened edge of his riding coat, the silver at his temples catching in the chamber light like steel beneath water. Then Jack straightened and turned to the king.
“Your Majesty,” Jack said.
Aldren inclined his head. “Sir Jack.”
The room adjusted itself around him. You saw it in the councilmen first. Small things. Spines lengthening. Hands settling. Eyes measuring the distance between Jack and the nearest door, Jack and the windows, Jack and the table where the king sat with his only living child beside him. Marek remained near the eastern wall, but something in his posture had changed. Not deference, exactly. Recognition.
You knew of Jack Abbot. Everyone did. Former commander of the Ashwing Riders. Siege-breaker of Valen’s Pass. The man who had flown through black stormfire over the northern border and came back with half his unit, a dead enemy prince, and a dragon so scarred that stablehands still spoke of Bramor in lowered voices.
Then, three years ago, Jack Abbot had stepped away from command. Not retired. Men like him did not retire. They simply stopped offering kingdoms convenient access to their violence. He had been training riders at the western aerie ever since, until now.
Vaela’s attention moved through you with a cool, sharp focus. Not approval. Not threat. Observation.
Oren folded his hands before him. “Your Majesty has chosen a formidable answer to a delicate concern.”
Jack looked at him then. Nothing in his expression changed, and still the air seemed to tighten. “An assassin coming within arm’s reach of the heir is not a delicate concern,” Jack said.
The room went still. You felt the words land beneath your own skin. Assassin. Not an incident. Not an attempt. Not unrest. Not a concern. Assassin. You had heard the softer versions for six days. The careful versions. The court versions that rounded the blade until people could pretend it had not been meant for your body.
Jack Abbot did not round it.
Oren’s smile remained smooth. “No one intends to diminish the severity of what occurred.”
Jack held his gaze. “Good. Then we may stop speaking as if severity is the same as surprise.”
Lord Alaric’s brows drew together. “Sir Jack?”
Jack’s gaze moved once around the council chamber. Windows. Doors. Servant entrance. Guard placements. Balcony access. Then, finally, Jack looked back at the table. “Her Highness was not attacked because she lacked guards,” Jack said. “She was attacked because too many people knew where the guards would be.”
Marek’s mouth tightened. Not with offense, you thought. With agreement. Aldren’s face had gone very still.
Oren’s fingers rested lightly against the table. “That is a grave accusation.”
Jack did not blink. “It is an assessment.”
Oren tilted his head. “Of the palace guard?”
Jack’s voice stayed even. “Of the palace.”
Another silence followed. This one was colder. Jack did not seem to mind. “The royal wing has four servant corridors, two old guard passages, balcony access from the eastern terraces, and inherited rotations that have not changed meaningfully in eight years,” Jack said. “Her Highness’s appearances are announced before breakfast. Her chapel hours are known by every maid who carries linen through the west hall. Her route to council has been the same since she was sixteen.”
Your fingers stilled against the table. Since she was sixteen. Not since you became heir. Not since the assassin. Not since Vaela chose you. Since you were sixteen. Jack had been in the palace for less than an hour, and he had already learned how long you had been predictable. The thought should have irritated you. It did. It also unsettled you.
Alaric cleared his throat. “Then you agree Her Highness’s movements must be limited.”
Jack turned his head toward him. “Changed.”
Alaric paused. “Changed?”
Jack’s eyes did not leave him. “Not limited.”
Your gaze lifted to Jack. He did not look at you. Oren did. The chancellor’s voice softened. “And Vaela?”
Jack’s gaze moved toward the windows. Beyond the glass and the carved stone arches, somewhere on the eastern terrace, your dragon waited. You felt the shape of her attention turn toward the room like sunlight catching on a blade.
Jack was quiet for half a breath. Then he said, “Grounding Vaela would be a mistake.”
The chamber seemed to inhale. You did not. You were afraid that if you did, someone would hear how much those words had shifted inside you.
Alaric leaned forward. “Sir Jack, surely until the threat is known—”
Jack cut him off. “The threat is known.”
Oren’s eyes sharpened. “Is it?”
Jack looked back at the chancellor. “Yes. Someone wants the princess dead and has had enough access to nearly manage it. That is the threat. The name can come later.”
Cassius, who had been silent since Jack entered, leaned back slightly in his chair. “A practical man.” Jack’s gaze moved to him. Cassius smiled. “I mean that as a compliment.”
Jack’s expression did not change. “I did not ask.”
The corner of Aldren’s mouth moved. Only slightly. You looked down at your hands before anyone could see your own reaction. Vaela’s satisfaction curled through the bond, warm and dark. Jack continued before Cassius could decide whether offense would serve him. “If the assassin has access to the palace, then stone is not safety. Familiar corridors are not safety. Locked doors are not safety. The air may be the only route Her Highness has that has not already been mapped by whoever wants her dead.”
You looked at him then. Really looked. Jack was not watching your father. Not Oren. Not Cassius. He was watching the room, as if every man in it was both a person and a possible opening for a knife. You had spent six days hearing people discuss whether you should be kept from Vaela for your own protection. Jack Abbot had been in the chamber less than ten minutes and had understood that taking Vaela from you would not make you safer. It would make it easier to trap you. Vaela’s attention pressed beneath your breastbone. A cool, ancient flicker moved through the bond. Not trust. Not approval. But the first sharp edge of interest. Jack’s eyes moved to you at once. You stilled. His gaze dropped, only briefly, to your mouth. Then away. So fast you might have imagined it. You did not think you had.
Jack turned back to the council. “Captain Marek will retain command of Crown Patrol and the outer rider rotations. He will answer to the crown as he has always done. On matters concerning Her Highness’s personal protection, he will answer to me.”
Marek gave one short nod from the wall. No hesitation. No surprise. So he had known. Jack continued, “Kael Ardent and Liora Venn will be reassigned to the inner watch. No other rider approaches Her Highness’s chambers, Vaela’s saddle, her feed, or her flight routes without my approval.”
Alaric’s brows rose. “Her feed?”
Jack looked at him. “Tack can be cut. Buckles can be weakened. Feed can be poisoned. Fire glands can be irritated. A dragon does not need to be killed to make her rider vulnerable.”
The words struck harder than you expected. Not because you had not known them. Because you had. Because some part of you had been trying not to.
Jack looked toward the eastern wall. “Tovan remains in charge of Vaela’s terrace stores and saddle checks.”
Marek nodded once. “He has already been informed.”
You turned slightly. “Has he?”
Marek met your eyes with the grim steadiness of a man who knew there would be consequences and had chosen them anyway. “Yes, Your Highness.”
You looked back at your father. Aldren held your gaze. No apology. Not yet. That stung more than if he had looked away.
Jack’s voice drew you back. “Your private chambers will be re-secured by sundown. The old guard passage between the captain’s room and the princess’s suite will be reopened.”
Your attention snapped to him. “The captain’s room,” you said.
Jack faced you fully. “Yes, Your Highness.”
You kept your voice even. “And who, exactly, will be occupying it?”
Jack answered without hesitation. “I will.”
The chamber went quiet in a different way. Not political. Personal. Your mother’s stillness sharpened. Cassius’s eyes flicked between you and Jack, something almost amused touching his mouth. You hated him for seeing anything at all. You kept your gaze on Jack. “You intend to sleep beside my rooms?”
Jack’s voice remained steady. “Near them.”
Your brows lifted. “That is not much better.”
Jack held your gaze. “It is faster.”
The answer was so blunt that, for one dangerous second, you had no reply. Jack did not look pleased with himself. He did not look embarrassed either. He looked like a man who had given you the relevant fact and did not understand why the room had tried to make something else of it. Or perhaps he understood perfectly and refused to help them. You had not decided which possibility was more irritating.
Jack looked back at the council. “At night, watch will rotate between Marek, Kael, and Liora. No one else.”
Alaric shifted in his chair. “Surely the existing palace guard—”
Jack turned to him. “No.”
The single word cut cleanly through the chamber. Jack kept his gaze on Alaric. “Until I know where the breach came from, I trust the existing palace guard to remain exactly where I can see them.”
A muscle feathered in Alaric’s jaw.
Oren leaned back slightly. “And during the day?”
Jack’s answer came without pause. “I remain with Her Highness from the moment she leaves her chambers until she retires.”
Your pulse moved once, hard. All day. Every day. You thought of council chambers and corridors. Of Vaela’s terrace. Of the library steps where you read reports, no one knew you had requested. Of the chapel alcove where Elias’s memorial candle burned low in blue glass. Of the bathing chamber door, the private sitting room, the balcony where you stood when the palace became too small to breathe inside. You thought of this man in every doorway. This voice behind you. Those eyes watching.
You forced your hands to remain still. “And was I meant to be consulted before my life was rearranged, Sir Jack?”
The title came out cool. Sharper than courtesy. Jack accepted it without flinching. “I was summoned to keep you alive, Your Highness. Not comfortable.”
Aldren’s eyes cut to him. Marek went very still. Your eyebrows lifted. Jack held your gaze. The room waited for you to take offense. You did.
Then Jack added, quieter, “When I can give you both, I will.”
Something in your chest shifted. Not softened. Shifted. You looked at him for a long moment.
“How generous,” you said.
Jack’s expression did not change. “No. Necessary.”
Infuriating man.
Oren’s voice slid in before the silence could become anything with a shape. “As Your Highness can see, Sir Jack understands the difficulties involved in protecting such a valuable life.”
Jack turned his head. “No.”
Oren paused. “No?”
Jack’s gaze did not move from him. “Her Highness will be briefed on every change to her guard. She will know the names of the men and women outside her doors. She will know every route I close and why I close it.”
Your anger, which had been moving cleanly through you a moment before, faltered.
Jack continued, “A protected ruler who does not understand her own cage has not been protected. She has been contained.”
The word moved through the chamber like a struck bell. Cage. You felt your mother look at you. You did not look back. Vaela’s presence opened under your ribs, slow and watchful. Not pleased. Not yet. But listening.
Oren’s mouth had gone flat. “An interesting philosophy for a guard.”
Jack’s eyes hardened. “I am not a guard.”
The room chilled. Jack stepped forward once. “I was commander of the Ashwing Riders for twelve years,” Jack said. “I have taken orders from kings, fools, dying boys with better instincts than their generals, and dragons who knew a storm was coming before any man looked up.”
His voice stayed even.
“I know the difference between protection and possession,” Jack said.
Your breath caught before you could stop it. Jack did not look at you. Somehow, that made it worse. Aldren rose from his chair. Every man in the chamber straightened.
“Then make the oath,” Aldren said.
Jack turned back to the king and bowed his head once. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
He removed his right glove. The motion should not have mattered. It did. His hands were broad and scarred, the knuckles marked pale in places where old wounds had healed badly. Not court hands. Not soft hands. Hands that had held reins in war winds, blades in blood, a dragon’s saddle straps through smoke and stormfire. You noticed.
Gods help you, you noticed.
Jack stepped toward you. For the first time that morning, the council table felt like too little space between your body and anything else. He stopped three paces away. Then he lowered himself to one knee. Not before Aldren.
Before you.
The entire chamber seemed to hold its breath. Jack laid his bare hand over the hilt of his sword. His head bowed, but not enough to hide his face from you. Not enough to turn the oath into performance.
When he spoke, his voice was low. “I swear my blade, my wings, and my life to your protection,” Jack said.
The words settled over the room.
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. “I will guard your body, honor your command, and abide your will until death releases me from service.”
Vaela went utterly still. You did too. Jack looked up at you. Dark. Steady. Unsoftened by ceremony.
Then he said, “If you will have me, Your Highness.”
No one moved. Not your father. Not your mother. Not Oren, whose silence had gone sharp enough to draw blood. The choice was not real. You knew that. Jack knew that. Every person in the room knew the king had already summoned him, already arranged the passage beside your chambers, already spoken to Marek and Tovan and whatever trusted riders Jack had brought back with him from the edges of war.
And yet Jack waited.
On one knee. In front of the entire High Council. As if your answer mattered.
Your throat tightened once. You hated that too. “You may rise, Sir Jack,” you said.
Something unreadable moved through his eyes. Jack stood. The motion was smooth, controlled, and too close to graceful for a man built like a fortress wall.
You tipped your chin up, refusing to step back. “And do not mistake my acceptance for obedience.”
For the first time, his mouth almost changed. Almost. Not a smile. Not quite.
“I would not dare,” Jack said.
Vaela’s attention sharpened inside you. Heat bloomed beneath your ribs before you could catch it. Jack’s eyes flicked, just once, to the windows as if he felt the dragon stir. As if he knew. Then his gaze returned to yours, and whatever had almost been in his expression vanished behind discipline.
Aldren’s hand settled against the arm of his chair. “The council is dismissed.”
Chairs scraped at once. Papers were gathered. Men stood too quickly or too slowly, depending on what they wished to prove. Alaric bowed first to the king, then to your mother, then to you. Oren Veyre moved with more care, his expression returned to its usual polished calm. Cassius lingered. He approached with the softness of a man who knew how to make intrusion look like concern.
Cassius’s eyes moved briefly to Jack, who had stepped back to your right, not close enough to crowd you, not far enough to be ignored. Cassius looked back at you. “How fortunate that the crown has found a man so eager to stand at your side.”
Jack said nothing. You did not look at him. You smiled at Cassius with every lesson your mother had ever taught you sharpened behind your teeth. “Yes. Fortunate men are so rare.”
Cassius’s smile held. Barely. He bowed. Beautifully. Like a man who believed time itself had been raised to favor him. Then Cassius turned and followed Oren from the chamber.
Outside, Vaela’s claws dragged once against stone. Slow. Deliberate. Every man leaving the room pretended not to hear it. When the doors closed behind the last of them, the chamber felt larger and more dangerous for being nearly empty. Your mother remained seated. Your father stood at the head of the table. Marek waited by the wall. Jack stood beside you, silent as a drawn blade.
You looked at Aldren first. “You should have told me.”
The words were quiet. They landed anyway. Your father’s expression did not soften. That would have been easier to resent.
“Yes,” Aldren said. “I should have.”
The honesty hurt more than an excuse.
Isolde rose then, dark skirts whispering against stone. “Your father did what was necessary.”
You looked at her. “Everyone is very fond of that word today.”
Her mouth tightened. Jack did not speak. You noticed that too.
Aldren’s gaze moved between you and the man he had placed in your shadow. “Sir Jack will inspect your chambers and the eastern approaches before the next bell.”
You turned toward your father. “Now?”
Jack answered before Aldren could. “Yes, Your Highness.”
You turned to him. His face gave nothing away. Of course, it did not.
“You have only just arrived,” you said.
Jack met your eyes. “Yes.”
You narrowed yours. “And you intend to begin by entering my rooms.”
Jack’s jaw shifted once. Marek looked down. Aldren closed his eyes briefly, as if asking patience from every god who had ever ignored him.
Jack said, very evenly, “I intend to begin by inspecting your exits.”
Something about the correction should not have warmed your face. It did. You hated him for that, too.
“How reassuring,” you said.
Jack inclined his head. “It is meant to be.”
You studied him. The broad set of his shoulders. The ash still clinging to one sleeve. The scar through his brow. The silver in his hair. The bare hand still ungloved at his side, fingers relaxed now, but ready. Always ready, you thought.
Vaela shifted somewhere outside. You felt the faintest pulse of interest through the bond. Not warmth. Not welcome. Assessment. As if the ancient thing bound to your soul had finally found one man in the chamber worth watching.
You drew a slow breath. “Very well,” you said. “Inspect my exits, Sir Jack.”
Jack bowed his head. “Your Highness.”
You turned toward the council chamber doors. For most of your life, guards had followed you through Crownreach Palace. Their boots had sounded behind you in corridors, outside chapels, across terraces, beside gardens where you had not been alone since childhood. You knew the weight of being watched. You knew the shape of being protected. But when Jack Abbot fell into step behind you, not too close, not too far, something in the air changed. Not because he crowded you.
Because somehow, he knew exactly how far away to stay.
The corridor outside the High Council chamber was colder than it had any right to be. Crownreach Palace had always held its chill well. Stone kept memory better than warmth, and this wing of the palace had been built from pale northern marble veined with silver. Sunlight spilled through the arched windows, bright across the floor, but it did little to soften the air. You walked through it anyway, spine straight, hands loose at your sides, every inch of you arranged into the shape of a princess who had not just had her life rearranged in front of half the realm’s most dangerous men. Behind you, Jack Abbot followed. Not too close. Never too far.
That irritated you more than it should have.
You had expected him to crowd you. To loom. To make his new authority known with the weight of his boots and the angle of his shoulders. Instead, he moved like a shadow that understood doors. At your chambers, the guards outside straightened.
Jack looked at the first one. “Name.”
The guard swallowed. “Brennan, sir.”
Jack’s gaze moved over him once. “Rotation?”
Brennan clasped his hands behind his back. “Second bell to fourth, sir.”
Jack glanced toward the second guard. “Who relieves him?”
The woman lifted her chin. “Darron and me, sir. Elise.”
Jack nodded once. “You and Brennan remain until Marek sends replacements. No one enters without Her Highness’s leave or mine.”
Elise bowed. “Yes, sir.”
You glanced at Jack. “Mine or yours?”
Jack opened the door and stepped aside. “Yours first.”
That should not have pleased you. You entered your sitting room before your face could betray you. Inside, Minka stood near the hearth with a tray of untouched tea. Her eyes widened the moment she saw Jack behind you. Then her cheeks went pink. Nessa, who usually managed your bath linens and riding leathers, paused beside the inner door with a stack of fresh cloth folded over one arm. Her gaze moved from Jack to Minka, and her mouth curved before she politely pressed it flat again. Elowen, older than your other attendants and far better at hiding what she noticed, stood near the writing desk with a folded shawl in her hands.
You looked at them, and the tightness in your chest eased by a fraction. “Elowen. Minka. Nessa.”
Elowen’s gaze moved once to Jack before returning to you. “Your Highness.”
Minka dipped into a quick curtsy. “Your Highness.” Her voice came out softer than usual.
Nessa lowered her head. “Your Highness.”
Jack’s attention sharpened at the names. You felt it.
You looked at him. “Is knowing the names of the women who dress me also a security concern?”
Jack’s eyes remained on the room. “It is useful.”
Elowen’s brows lifted slightly. Minka looked at the floor as if it had become deeply interesting. Nessa looked at Minka as if the floor had not been interesting at all until Jack entered the room.
You folded your arms. “Useful.”
Jack looked at Elowen first. “How long have you served Her Highness?”
Elowen’s spine straightened. “Since she was eleven, sir.”
Jack nodded once, then looked toward Minka. “And you?”
Minka lifted her eyes too quickly. Jack’s expression softened by the smallest degree. Not a smile, exactly. Close enough to make Minka’s blush deepen.
Minka swallowed. “Two years, sir.”
Jack inclined his head. “Thank you, Minka.”
Minka nearly forgot the tea tray in her hands. Nessa’s mouth twitched. You looked at Jack. Jack looked back at you with perfect innocence. Infuriating man.
Jack turned to Nessa. “And you?”
Nessa adjusted the linens in her arms. “Four years, sir. I attend Her Highness’s baths and riding changes.”
Jack’s gaze did not flicker at the word baths. “No one outside these rooms is to enter with garments, linens, water, food, or correspondence until I have reviewed the access list.”
Elowen’s mouth tightened. “Sir Jack, Her Highness’s household has its own order.”
Jack looked back at her. “Good. Write it down for me.”
You blinked. Elowen did too.
Jack continued, “Names. Duties. Hours. Who enters which rooms and why. I will not replace women Her Highness trusts unless I am given cause.”
Something in Elowen’s expression shifted. Not approval. But consideration. You hated that Jack had earned even that much.
You turned away from him. “You may go for now. All of you.”
Elowen looked to you, not Jack. “Your Highness?”
You softened your voice. “I am all right.”
Minka’s gaze flicked toward the bandage hidden beneath your gown. “Should I bring fresh tea later, Your Highness?”
You nodded. “Please. And eat something before you do. You look pale.”
Nessa murmured, “She has been pale since Sir Jack entered, Your Highness.”
Minka’s eyes went wide. “Nessa.”
Elowen gave Nessa a look. “Enough.”
Nessa lowered her eyes with entirely false innocence. “Yes, Elowen.”
Jack turned his face toward the balcony doors. It was the closest thing to mercy he had offered anyone since entering your chambers. You stared at Nessa until her mouth stopped twitching.
Then you looked back at Minka. “Eat something.”
Minka’s cheeks remained bright. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Nessa looked toward the bathing chamber, then back to you. “Should I prepare the afternoon bath?”
You glanced at Jack before you could stop yourself. Jack continued studying the balcony doors as if they had become the only thing in the room worth knowing.
You faced Nessa again. “Not yet.”
Nessa curtsied. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Elowen guided the younger women toward the door with a small motion of her hand. Before she left, she looked at Jack. Elowen’s voice stayed perfectly even. “Sir Jack.”
Jack inclined his head. “Elowen.”
Minka curtsied again, far too quickly. “Sir Jack.”
Jack’s voice was gentle. “Minka.”
Minka fled. Nessa followed her with a look of profound entertainment. Elowen paused at the door and gave you the smallest look. These young women, it seemed to say. Then her gaze flicked once toward Jack. You narrowed your eyes at her. Elowen’s expression did not change.
The door closed behind them.
Your private chambers seemed to grow quieter at once. Jack did not move for a moment. Then his gaze went to the balcony doors, the servant entrance, the inner bedchamber, the bathing chamber, and finally the folded maps half-hidden beneath a book of trade law on your desk. He saw all of it.
You folded your arms. “Do you intend to interrogate my curtains?”
Jack checked the balcony latch. “If they begin letting assassins through, yes.”
You hated the laugh that tried to rise in your throat. You swallowed it.
Jack tested the frame. “This lock is decorative.”
You watched his hands on the latch. “It locks.”
Jack looked at the metal. “It suggests locking.”
You narrowed your eyes at his back. “You have a gift for comfort.”
Jack kept his attention on the balcony. “No. I have a gift for noticing how people die.”
The air changed. You looked away first.
Jack moved to the servant's entrance. “Who uses this?”
You kept your voice even. “Elowen, Minka, Nessa, and occasionally Tovan when Vaela’s saddle needs adjusting from the terrace side.”
Jack turned his head. “Tovan enters your private chambers?”
You gave him a look. “Only as far as the terrace doors, and only because Vaela dislikes waiting.”
Jack absorbed that. “Vaela seems to dislike many things.”
You felt the faintest pulse beneath your ribs. Warm. Dry. Anciently offended.
You almost smiled. “Yes. She does.”
Jack looked back toward the bathing chamber door. Your skin warmed before he said a word. Jack’s expression did not change. “Who has access when you bathe?”
You lifted your chin. “Nessa and Elowen. Minka, if I need something fetched. Two water carriers bring the filled pails to the outer door and leave them there.”
Jack kept his gaze on the latch. “Always the same carriers?”
You stared at him. “You intend to inspect my bathwater now?”
Jack did not look at you. “I intend to know who can reach you when you have no blade within arm’s length.”
The answer landed too cleanly to argue with. That irritated you, too. Vaela stirred beneath your ribs. Not angry now. Attentive.
Jack moved toward the tapestry along the far wall. “This covers the old guard passage?”
You looked at the embroidered scene: the first Avelor king kneeling beside the Silvermere, one hand lifted toward a dragon made of gold thread. “It has not been used in years.”
Jack pulled the tapestry aside. “That is rarely the same as unusable.”
Behind the fabric, a narrow door sat half-hidden in the stone. Jack tested the handle. It opened with a groan of old iron and colder air. You stepped closer despite yourself. Beyond the door, a dim passage stretched between the walls, narrow enough that Jack’s shoulders nearly brushed both sides when he leaned in.
He looked back at you. “This leads to the captain’s room.”
You held his gaze. “You truly mean to sleep there.”
Jack answered quietly. “Yes.”
You folded your hands together before they could betray you. “Lightly, I assume.”
Jack’s mouth almost moved. “Very.”
You exhaled once. “That was not the reassurance you think it was.”
Jack released the door. “It was not meant to reassure you. It was meant to tell you the truth.”
You studied him in the pale light. “That is your habit, then?”
Jack’s gaze held yours. “When I can afford it.”
Your voice lowered. “And when you cannot?”
Jack did not look away. “I try to make the lie useful.”
That should have sounded worse than it did. You stepped away from the passage. “I have been watched my entire life, Sir Jack. I also know the difference between protection and possession.”
Jack let the tapestry fall back into place. “Good.”
Your brows lifted. “Good?”
Jack faced you. “Then you’ll know if I cross the line.”
You held his stare. “And if you do?”
Jack’s answer came without hesitation. “Tell me.”
You laughed softly, without humor. “And you’ll listen?”
Jack’s gaze did not move from yours. “I swore to abide you.”
You tipped your chin up. “Men swear many things in public.”
Something in his expression stilled.
Then Jack said, low and even, “Then test me in private.”
The room went quiet. Not empty, quiet. Not safe, quiet. The kind of quiet that had a pulse. Vaela’s attention sharpened beneath your ribs, a sudden gold-edged pressure that made your next breath feel too warm. Jack seemed to realize the shape his words had taken a moment after they left his mouth. His jaw tightened. Yours did too. You looked away first, furious that you had to. Jack turned toward your desk as if the maps had personally saved him.
His gaze caught on the folded reports. “Graymere.”
You followed his eyes. “Yes.”
Jack stepped closer to the desk but did not touch the papers. “Wrenford crossing. Western stores. Veyre toll routes.”
You looked at the reports. “You read quickly.”
Jack kept his attention on the map. “I recognize roads.”
You glanced at him. “Most men in that council recognize borders. They still manage to forget the people living inside them.”
Jack looked at you then. For once, he had no immediate answer. You lifted one shoulder, and the healing cut beneath your ribs pulled hard enough to make your breath catch. Jack noticed. His eyes dropped to your side.
You straightened before he could speak. “Do not.”
Jack’s gaze returned to your face. “I wasn’t going to.”
You narrowed your eyes. “You were.”
Jack held your stare. “I was going to ask how deep the wound was.”
You gave him a flat look. “That is not better.”
Jack’s voice stayed calm. “No. But it is relevant.”
You held his stare. He did not soften. He did not look away either.
Finally, Jack turned back to the maps. “These should be copied and kept somewhere secure.”
You blinked. “You are not going to tell me I should not have them?”
Jack looked at the notes again. “No.”
You waited. “Why?”
Jack’s fingers rested near the edge of the desk, close to your ink-stained notes but not touching them. “Because ignorance is not safer.”
Something in your chest shifted again. You were beginning to dislike that feeling.
Jack looked from the maps to you. “Lock the drawer.”
You stared at him. That was all. Not a warning. Not a lecture. Not a demand that you hand over your reports and let wiser men decide what you were allowed to know. Lock the drawer.
“I want to see Vaela,” you said.
Jack’s gaze moved from the closed door to you. “Then we go to Vaela.”
You hated the steadiness of that answer. You hated more that some part of you had expected resistance.
You crossed the room toward the terrace doors. “You are not going to tell me I should rest?”
Jack followed at a careful distance. “Should you?”
You set your hand on the latch and looked back at him. “That is not an answer.”
Jack’s mouth did not move, but something in his eyes almost did. “It is if you already know yours.”
You opened the doors before he could say anything else. The afternoon air met you at once, cool from Silvermere and sharp with the mineral scent of sun-warmed stone. It carried ash, leather, lake wind, and the faint copper-sweet trace of dragonfire. The tightness beneath your ribs eased before you meant to let it.
Jack noticed. He said nothing.
That, somehow, made it worse. The eastern terrace stretched wide beyond your chambers, built into the palace’s outer face with enough space for a Crownfire dragon to land, turn, and launch without scraping the carved balustrades. Beyond it, Crownreach fell away in green terraces and silver roofs until the city met the lake.
Vaela waited near the far edge. She was not pacing. She never paced. Your dragon stood as if the terrace had been built for the sole purpose of holding her, dark emerald scales catching the afternoon light in shifting flashes of green and black. Her horns swept back from her head like a crown grown from shadowed bone, and her gold eyes fixed on you the moment you stepped outside.
The bond opened. Heat moved under your breastbone. Recognition. Possession. Relief, though Vaela would have turned the palace to glass before admitting anything so vulnerable. You crossed the terrace before you remembered Jack was behind you. Vaela lowered her head, not in submission. She lowered it because she allowed you near. You pressed your palm to the smooth plane between her eye and jaw, and the breath you had been holding since the council chamber finally left you.
“There you are,” you murmured.
Vaela exhaled through her nose, warm enough to stir your hair back from your face. The bond pressed close around you. Gold heat. Old anger. The remembered flash of council voices, Cassius’s polished smile, Oren Veyre’s careful hands folded on the table.
You closed your eyes. “I know.”
Vaela’s talons shifted against the stone.
You opened your eyes again. “No burning anyone today.”
Behind you, Jack went very still.
You looked over your shoulder. “That was not for you.”
Jack’s gaze remained on Vaela. “Comforting.”
You almost smiled. Almost. Vaela’s attention moved past you and settled on him. The change in the bond was immediate. Cooler. Sharper. Assessing.
Jack stopped several paces away without being asked. He did not reach for his sword. He did not bow too deeply. He did not do what most men did with Vaela, which was either step back in fear or step forward with the arrogant hope that old magic could be impressed by posture.
He simply stood still and let her look at him.
Vaela lowered her head another fraction, bringing one molten-gold eye level with his face. Jack held her gaze. The air tightened. You felt Vaela’s judgment move through you with the slow patience of a blade deciding whether it needed to be drawn. Not welcome. Not threat.
Evaluation.
You watched Jack’s hands. They remained open at his sides. Vaela breathed once. Smoke curled thin and dark from her nostrils, drifting across the stones between them. Jack did not move. Something in the bond shifted. Not approval. Not yet. But you felt, with sudden and inconvenient certainty, that Vaela had expected to dislike him more.
Jack glanced at you. “Something amusing, Your Highness?”
You faced Vaela again before your mouth could betray you. “No.”
Jack’s voice stayed even. “No?”
You stroked your thumb along one emerald scale. “She is only deciding whether you are tolerable.”
Jack looked back at Vaela. “And?”
Vaela’s eye narrowed. You pressed your lips together. “Unclear.”
A sound came from near the covered archway leading to the lower aerie steps. It might have been a cough. It was not a cough. Tovan stood beside a low stone table with a basket hooked over one arm and amusement tucked very poorly behind his eyes.
“Tovan,” you said, grateful for the interruption.
Tovan bowed his head. “Your Highness.”
Jack inclined his head once. “Tovan.”
Tovan looked from Jack to Vaela, then back again. “Sir Jack.”
You looked between them. “You know each other.”
Tovan set the basket on the stone table. “Most men who command dragons learn who keeps them fed, saddled, and less inclined to eat the wrong person.”
Jack’s gaze moved briefly to the basket. “A lesson too few men retain.”
Tovan’s mouth twitched. “He remembers me fondly.”
Jack looked at him. “Bramor remembers your left sleeve.”
Tovan lifted his left arm, where the cuff sat shorter than fashion required. “A misunderstanding.”
You turned toward Jack. “Your dragon ate his sleeve?”
Jack’s face remained unreadable. “He disliked the stitching.”
Tovan nodded solemnly. “A known critic of embroidery.”
Vaela’s attention flicked toward Tovan with clear impatience.
Tovan lifted both hands. “Yes, yes. I brought them.”
He reached into the basket and drew out a strip of ironroot, dark red and fibrous, cut into neat lengths the way Vaela preferred. Your chest softened.
“You remembered,” you said.
Tovan gave you a look as if the idea of forgetting offended him. “You give her one after council sessions.”
Jack’s attention moved to you. You felt it like a touch. You ignored him and held out the ironroot. Vaela accepted it from your palm with imperial delicacy, crushing it once between her teeth before swallowing.
Tovan watched her with satisfaction. “Her stores were checked this morning. No rot in the western sacks, no damp in the inner bins.”
Jack looked at Tovan. “Who has access?”
“Myself,” Tovan said. “Two senior handlers, four lower aerie hands, the feed clerk, and whoever I assign to water and ash sweep under watch. Kael and Liora check saddle security when Her Highness flies, but they are riders, not stable hands.”
Jack’s expression sharpened. “Names.”
Tovan reached into his tunic and produced a folded scrap of parchment. “Already written.”
Jack looked at him.
Tovan’s expression did not change. “You were always going to ask.”
Jack took the parchment. “Good.”
Tovan glanced at you. “He says that when he means thank you.”
Jack did not look up. “I say thank you when I mean thank you.”
Tovan’s brows lifted. “There. Growth.”
You bit the inside of your cheek.
Jack folded the parchment and tucked it away. “Where is Bramor?”
Tovan nodded toward the far end of the terrace. You followed the motion. At first, you thought the shadow beneath the eastern arch belonged to the palace itself.
Then the shadow breathed.
A black-bronze dragon lay stretched along the sun-warmed stones, massive enough that the terrace seemed suddenly smaller for having to hold him. Scars broke the dark plates of his hide in pale, jagged seams. One horn bore an old crack near its base. His wings were folded tight, but even folded, they looked like things made to blot out fields.
Bramor.
War dragon. Siege-breaker. The kind of creature soldiers lowered their voices to discuss because speaking too boldly of death felt like inviting it to turn its head. He turned his head now. One ember-dark eye opened and fixed on you. Vaela did not move. That was what you noticed first. Your dragon did not bristle. She did not step between you and him. She watched Bramor with cool familiarity, as though the ancient war beast was an unfortunate but tolerated fixture of the stonework. Jack, however, shifted half a step closer to you. Not enough to block you. Enough to reach you. You noticed. So did Vaela. So did Bramor.
You looked at Jack. “May I greet him?”
Jack did not answer at once. His gaze moved to Bramor, and something wordless passed between rider and dragon, too old and private for anyone else to read. Bramor watched you. Still, Alert.
Jack’s shoulders eased by a fraction. “You may.”
You stepped forward slowly. Jack moved with you, close enough to intervene and far enough not to insult either dragon. You stopped several paces from Bramor and lowered your hand at your side, palm visible but not offered.
“I will not touch him unless he permits it,” you said.
Jack’s gaze flicked to you. Something in his expression changed. Not softness. Not surprise, exactly. Recognition, perhaps. Bramor’s enormous head lowered. The motion was slow enough to make the terrace feel silent around it. You held still. Warm breath rolled over your hand, dry and faintly smoky.
“Hello, Bramor,” you said.
The dragon’s eye narrowed. Not in threat. In focus. Jack felt the bond shift. You saw it in the sudden stillness of his face, though you did not know what Bramor had given him. Bramor lowered his head another inch. You lifted your hand only when his snout came close enough to invite it, and you rested your fingertips against the hard ridge above his nostril. His scales were warmer than Vaela’s. Rougher. Scarred in places where old wounds had healed thick and uneven. You touched him carefully. Not like a weapon. Not like a monster. Like something alive.
Bramor exhaled.
The sound rolled low through the terrace stones. Tovan went very quiet. Jack stared at his dragon.
You glanced back at him. “Is this all right?”
Jack’s eyes remained on Bramor. “Apparently.”
You looked at Bramor again. “Apparently?”
Jack’s mouth flattened. “He has opinions.”
Tovan murmured, “Usually louder ones.”
Bramor’s eye shifted toward Tovan.
Tovan immediately looked into the basket. “Ironroot, Your Highness?”
You withdrew your hand from Bramor slowly and returned to Vaela’s side. Bramor’s attention followed the basket. The movement was slight. You noticed it anyway. Jack noticed you noticing.
You lifted your brows. “May I give him one?”
Jack hesitated. It was the first true hesitation you had seen from him. Not uncertainty in the face of council politics. Not discomfort in your chambers. This was practical. Immediate. Born from knowing exactly what Bramor was.
Jack looked from the ironroot to your hand. “People have lost fingers offering Bramor less.”
Tovan’s head tilted. “Only once.”
Jack did not look at him. “Twice.”
Tovan considered that. “The second man was warned.”
You kept the ironroot in your palm. “Is that a no?”
Jack’s gaze returned to Bramor. Bramor stared at the ironroot with an intensity that did very little for his dignity.
Jack said, “That is a warning.”
You looked at the black-bronze dragon, then back at Jack. “Then warn me properly.”
Jack stepped closer. Not close enough to touch you. Close enough that his voice dropped between you like something meant only for your ears.
“Flat palm,” Jack said. “Fingers together. Do not curl them. Do not pull back when he lowers his head.”
You followed each instruction exactly. Jack’s attention moved over your hand, checking. Then his eyes lifted to your face. You hated that your pulse noticed.
You held your palm steady. “Like this?”
Jack’s voice lowered. “Yes.”
Bramor moved. Jack’s hand flexed once at his side. Steel would have done nothing if Bramor truly meant harm, but the instinct was there anyway. Protect. Intervene. Put himself between teeth and skin. Bramor lowered his scarred head to your palm. His mouth opened. His teeth closed around the strip of ironroot. Delicately. Absurdly delicately. He did not so much as brush your skin. The ironroot vanished between his teeth with a sharp crack. Jack went still.
You looked up at him. “Was that acceptable?”
Bramor chewed once. Then his massive head lowered again, and he nudged your palm with the blunt ridge of his snout. Not hard. Not demanding. Almost careful.
Your surprise softened into delight before you could stop it. “Oh.”
Jack stared at his dragon. Bramor nudged your hand again. Through the bond came something Jack did not expect. Not hunger. Not warning. Not the iron-hard focus Bramor carried into battle. Warmth struck behind Jack’s ribs with enough force to steal half a breath. Satisfaction. The memory of your hand, steady and gentle. The shape of your voice around Bramor’s name.
A deep, ancient certainty that had nothing to do with ironroot at all.
Jack’s fingers flexed again. Bramor did not know court law. He did not care for vows spoken under painted ceilings, bloodlines recorded by trembling scribes, or the fine architecture of restraint. Bramor knew fire. Fear. Loyalty. The difference between a hand that took and a hand that offered. And apparently, with the full force of his inconvenient soul, Bramor knew you. Jack looked at his dragon as if Bramor had just betrayed twelve years of military discipline for a strip of ironroot and a kind voice.
“Bramor,” Jack said, low.
Bramor ignored him. That was also new.
You glanced at Jack. “Is he asking for more?”
Jack looked at the ancient war dragon who had once torn the roof from a siege tower and was now presenting his scarred jaw to you like a cat in the sun.
“No,” Jack said.
Bramor rumbled.
Jack’s jaw tightened. “He is asking for that.”
You followed Jack’s gaze to the place beneath Bramor’s jaw, where scarred scales overlapped in rough bronze-black ridges.
You smiled. “May I?”
Jack should have said no. He knew that. He had no reason to know it, but he knew it anyway.
Instead, he said, “Carefully.”
You lifted your hand beneath Bramor’s jaw and scratched along the rough edge of a scarred scale. Bramor’s eyes slid half-closed. The rumble that moved through him shook dust from the terrace stones. Tovan made another sound that was absolutely not a cough. Vaela’s attention brushed through you, cool and gold-edged. Judgment. Satisfaction. Perhaps, if a dragon could be smug, that too.
You looked toward Vaela. “Do not be rude.”
Jack’s eyes moved to you. “Was that to me?”
You kept scratching beneath Bramor’s jaw. “No.”
Bramor leaned into your hand. Jack stared.
“He does not do this,” Jack said.
You looked down at the enormous head resting close enough to your hand to ask without words. “He seems to.”
Tovan folded his arms. “I have never seen him do this.”
Jack’s gaze cut to him. “Helpful.”
Tovan’s expression remained bland. “I thought so.”
Bramor nudged your hand again. You laughed softly and gave him another careful scratch. The sound of it moved across the terrace, small and unguarded. Jack looked at you before he could stop himself. The sun had caught in your hair. Your wound still troubled the line of your breathing, and your face was too pale from council rooms and blood loss and stubbornness, but your hand was gentle beneath a war dragon’s jaw. Gentle, not foolish. Kind, not weak.
Bramor felt it too.
The bond surged again. Warm. Certain. Fierce enough now that Jack almost stepped back from it. Not command. Not request. Recognition. A claim older than language and more dangerous than either of you understood.
Jack swallowed once.
Vaela watched him over your shoulder. Her golden eyes were steady. Assessing. The cool pressure of her attention seemed to say she had seen exactly where his gaze had gone and had not yet decided what to do about it. Jack looked away from you and back to Bramor. The traitorous beast looked blissful.
“Enough,” Jack said.
Bramor’s eyes did not open.
You looked at Jack. “Is that for him or for you?”
Tovan turned away sharply. Jack’s gaze returned to you. For one breath, the terrace seemed to narrow around the space between you.
Jack answered, “Him.”
Your mouth curved as if you did not believe him. Vaela exhaled smoke. Bramor rumbled again, lower this time, pleased past all dignity. Jack closed his eyes for half a second. When he opened them, he found Bramor still leaning into your hand. Still sending warmth through the bond. Still certain.
Jack had known Bramor’s loyalty in battle. He had known his rage, his discipline, his grief, his stubborn refusal to fall from the sky even when stormfire burned black across his wings. He had never known this. He had never stood on a royal terrace and watched his war dragon choose softness. You scratched once more beneath Bramor’s jaw, then slowly lowered your hand.
Bramor followed it.
Jack stared at him. “You are not helping.”
You glanced up. “Was that to me?”
Jack held Bramor’s gaze. “No.”
Your smile widened.
Tovan reached into the basket and held out another strip of ironroot toward you. “For Vaela, Your Highness.”
You took it from him. “Thank you, Tovan.”
Tovan’s eyes flicked toward Bramor. “I will bring something else next time.”
Jack turned his head slowly. “Next time?”
Tovan looked perfectly innocent. “Ironroot is Vaela’s preference. Bramor has his own.”
Bramor’s eyes opened. Jack felt the interest flare through the bond. Immediate. Shameless.
You looked at Bramor, then at Tovan. “He does?”
Tovan nodded. “He does.”
Jack said, “Tovan.”
Tovan ignored him with the ease of long practice. “I will see that it is prepared.”
You gave Vaela her ironroot, but your eyes flicked once more to Bramor. “Then I will thank him properly when I know what he likes best.”
Bramor’s rumble deepened. Jack looked at his dragon. Bramor looked back with no remorse at all.
Vaela’s attention warmed behind your ribs. Not laughter. Not quite. But something old and satisfied, watching two armed men, one ancient war dragon, and one princess all pretend something important had not just happened.
Jack’s voice came dry and low. “This has become a very poorly disciplined terrace.”
Tovan nodded. “Dragons are known for respecting rules.”
Jack looked at Bramor, who was still angled toward your hand as if waiting for the universe to correct itself and return your touch to him. Vaela’s tail curved along the stone behind you, elegant and possessive. Bramor lowered his massive head near your feet, not touching, only near. Jack watched him. Then he watched you. For the first time since he had entered the council chamber, Sir Jack Abbot looked as if he did not know what came next.
Jack walked you back through the terrace doors in silence. Not the same silence as before. Before, he had been unreadable because he meant to be. Controlled. Measuring exits, locks, servants’ doors, and weak points as if every room had already confessed its failures to him. Now, he was quiet because Bramor had unsettled him. You should not have enjoyed that. You did anyway.
Behind you, Vaela settled along the terrace stones with a slow scrape of talons and scale, her satisfaction moving through the bond like a curl of gold smoke. You did not look back at her. You did not need to. She was pleased with herself. That was rarely good for anyone.
Bramor rumbled once more before the doors closed, low and deep enough that the glass trembled faintly in its frame. Jack’s jaw tightened.
You glanced at him. “He is very expressive.”
Jack shut the terrace doors with more care than necessary. “He is usually more disciplined.”
You moved farther into the sitting room, fighting the urge to smile. “Perhaps he was bribed.”
Jack turned the latch and tested it once. “With ironroot?”
You looked back at him. “And manners, apparently.”
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. For one breath, his expression shifted. Not a smile. Not quite. But something close enough to make your chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with the wound beneath your ribs. Then he looked away first. You hated that you noticed. You hated that you liked noticing.
Jack crossed to the balcony-side window and checked the latch again. “Tovan will need to revise the feed access list.”
You folded your arms. “Because your dragon has developed a preference for being hand-fed by princesses?”
Jack glanced at you. “Because Bramor’s attention has changed.”
Your amusement faded by a fraction. “Changed how?”
Jack did not answer immediately. He looked toward the terrace as if the door were not thick enough to keep the dragon’s certainty from reaching him.
“Clearly,” Jack said at last.
You studied the side of his face. “That is not an answer.”
Jack’s mouth flattened. “No.”
You waited. Jack turned from the window. “Bramor does not offer softness to strangers.”
The words landed more carefully than you expected. You looked down at your hand, the same hand that had rested beneath Bramor’s scarred jaw. You could still feel the rough warmth of his scales against your palm.
“He did not feel like a stranger,” you said.
Jack went still. You regretted the words as soon as they left your mouth. Not because they were untrue. Because they were.
Jack’s gaze stayed on you, steady and intent. “No?”
You closed your fingers against your palm. “No.”
The sitting room felt too quiet. Too small after the open terrace. Too full of things neither of you had permission to say.
Jack looked away again, this time toward the inner door. “Then he knew something before I did.”
You searched his face. “What does that mean?”
Jack’s attention returned to you. For a moment, you thought he might answer plainly. Then his shoulders settled back into discipline.
“It means,” Jack said, “that I will account for it.”
You let out a quiet breath. “Of course you will.”
Jack’s brows drew faintly. “That displeases you?”
You looked toward the writing desk, where Elowen’s shawl still lay neatly folded. “Everything becomes a security concern with you.”
Jack’s voice stayed even. “Not everything.”
You looked back at him. “No?”
Jack’s eyes held yours. “Some things are only important.”
Something warm and dangerous moved beneath your ribs. Vaela stirred through the bond, sharp and interested. You ignored her. You did not do so successfully. Jack’s gaze flicked toward the terrace doors, as if he could somehow feel the dragon’s attention through the stone and glass. Perhaps he could.
You cleared your throat. “Were you frightened of her?”
Jack looked at you. “Vaela?”
You nodded once. “Most men are.”
Jack’s answer came without hesitation. “No.”
You studied him. He did not sound proud of it. He did not sound like a man making himself larger for the sake of being believed. He sounded as if he had simply been asked whether the sky was blue and saw no use in dressing the truth.
You asked, “Why not?”
Jack looked toward the terrace again. “She did not threaten me.”
You almost laughed. “She considered it.”
Jack’s mouth moved by a fraction. “I noticed.”
You stepped closer without meaning to. “And that did not frighten you?”
Jack’s gaze returned to yours. “It made me respectful.”
The answer was so simple that it stripped something raw inside you. Respectful. Not afraid. Not enthralled. Not suspicious. Respectful.
You looked toward the terrace doors, where Vaela’s dark green shape moved faintly beyond the glass. “Most men call that fear.”
Jack’s voice softened by the smallest degree. “Most men need better words.”
You did not know what to do with him when he said things like that. It would have been easier if he had been arrogant. It would have been easier if he had treated Vaela as a threat to manage or a weapon to wield or a crown symbol to display under prettier lighting. It would have been easier if he had looked at your dragon and seen only danger. Instead, he stood still and let her judge him. Instead, he had waited. Instead, he had not reached for his sword. You hated the gratitude that tried to rise in you. You hated more that it felt deserved.
“You understand bonds,” you said.
Jack’s expression changed again. A shuttered thing. Old, perhaps. Or wounded. “I understand mine,” Jack said.
You tilted your head. “Only yours?”
Jack’s eyes moved briefly to the bandage hidden beneath your gown, then back to your face. “Enough to know yours is not ornamental.”
Your breath caught before you could stop it. The words struck too close to council chambers. To polished men and careful arguments. To all the ways they had spoken of Vaela as if she were a problem of optics, succession, and public confidence. You turned away first. Jack did not follow. That was what undid you a little. He did not step closer when you needed space. He did not fill the silence because it made him uncomfortable. He simply let you stand inside your own chambers and decide whether to speak.
You touched the back of the nearest chair. “The council thinks she unsettles people.”
Jack said, “She does.”
You looked back sharply.
Jack held your gaze. “That does not make them right.”
Your fingers tightened on the chair.
Jack continued, “Power unsettles people most when they cannot control it.”
The words moved through you with a strange, aching precision. You wondered if he knew how cleanly he had cut. You wondered if he had meant to. You suspected he had.
You turned back toward the room. “And you?”
Jack’s eyes did not leave you. “Me?”
You kept your voice steady. “Do I unsettle you, Sir Jack?”
Silence followed. Not empty. Not safe. Jack looked at you as if every answer available to him was dangerous. Then he said, “Yes.”
Your pulse jumped. Jack’s jaw tightened, as if he had not meant to give you the word so plainly. You should have left it there. You did not.
You lifted your chin. “Because of Vaela?”
Jack’s gaze held yours. “No,” he said.
The room changed. Or perhaps you did. For a moment, there was no council. No assassination attempt. No old guard passage behind the wall. No Crownfire dragon beyond the terrace doors, watching through gold patience. There was only Jack Abbot standing in your sitting room, sworn to your protection, far too close and nowhere near close enough. Vaela pressed through the bond. Cool. Interested. Judgemental.
You swallowed once. “That sounds like the sort of thing a man says before remembering himself.”
Jack’s expression closed by degrees. Slowly. Deliberately.
“Yes,” Jack said.
The honesty should have made it easier. It did not.
You looked away. “Then perhaps you should.”
Jack inclined his head. “Your Highness.”
There it was again. Distance restored with two words and a title. You should have been relieved. You were not.
Jack turned toward the writing desk, where he had left the list Elowen would complete by morning. “I will have Marek place the first watch outside the outer corridor before sunset.”
You let him change the subject for now. “And the old guard passage?” you asked.
Jack looked toward the hidden panel. “I will inspect it myself before nightfall.”
You folded your arms. “Alone?”
Jack’s gaze returned to you. “With Tovan, if the lower hinge route is still open.”
You frowned. “Tovan knows the old passage?”
Jack said, “Tovan knows most things that are inconvenient for other people to forget.”
You could not argue with that. Jack moved toward the inner door, then stopped before opening it.
He looked back at you. “I will send Elowen back first.”
You lifted your brows. “You are announcing my own attendants to me now?”
Jack’s face remained composed. “I am asking whether you want them.”
That quieted you. He was not ordering. He was not assuming. He was asking. You looked at the empty room, at the tea tray Minka had nearly forgotten, at the bath linens Nessa had abandoned, at Elowen’s folded shawl on the desk. You were suddenly tired. Not weak. Not fragile.
Tired.
Your wound ached beneath your ribs. Your head felt full of council voices and dragonfire and the low, impossible rumble Bramor had made beneath your hand.
“Yes,” you said. “Elowen first.”
Jack nodded once. “Then Elowen first.”
You watched him reach for the door. A thought caught in your chest before he could open it.
“Sir Jack.”
He stopped immediately. “Your Highness?”
You drew yourself straighter. “If I object to one of your changes, what happens?”
Jack turned fully back to you. “You tell me.”
You narrowed your eyes. “And then?”
Jack said, “Then we discuss it.”
You stared at him. The answer was too clean. Too simple. Too unlike the men downstairs who wrapped cages in velvet and called them policy.
“You make that sound easy,” you said.
Jack’s eyes did not soften, but his voice did. “It rarely is.”
You studied him. The dark riding leathers. The silver at his temples. The scarred hands held still at his sides. The sword he had not touched when Vaela judged him. The man who had knelt before you in a council chamber and sworn to abide you until death released him from service.
“And if discussion does not change your mind?” you asked.
Jack answered, “Then I'll tell you why.”
You lifted your chin. “And if it does change your mind?”
Jack held your gaze. “Then I change it.”
You did not speak. Jack did not look away.
Your voice came quieter when you found it. “Because you swore to abide me?”
Jack’s answer was immediate. “Because I meant it.”
The words settled between you. No flourish. No performance. No velvet. You could distrust a speech. You knew how. You had been raised inside speeches. You did not know what to do with a man who made his vow sound like a fact.
Jack opened the door. Elowen stood beyond it, one hand lifted as if she had been about to knock. Minka hovered several steps behind her with fresh tea and cheeks that pinked the moment she saw Jack. Nessa leaned against the corridor wall with her arms full of folded linen and an expression that said she had already guessed more than anyone had told her.
Jack stepped aside at once. “Elowen.”
Elowen’s gaze moved from Jack to you. “Your Highness?”
You nodded. “Come in.”
Elowen entered first. Minka followed, clutching the tea tray with both hands. Jack’s eyes flicked to the tray, then to Minka’s pale face.
His voice gentled. “Careful with the step.”
Minka looked down at the perfectly flat threshold as if it had personally betrayed her. “Yes, sir.”
Nessa made a small sound behind her. Elowen gave Nessa one look. Nessa immediately became very interested in the linens. You looked at Jack. Jack looked back at you with that same infuriating innocence he had worn earlier. You should not have found it charming. You absolutely did.
Jack inclined his head. “Rest, Your Highness.”
It was almost an order. Almost. But then he stepped back, leaving the choice in your hands. That was the trouble with Sir Jack Abbot, you were beginning to realize. He looked like every man sent to stand between you and your own life.
Summary: It started with a drunken dare—one impulsive ring of the doorbell at Station 42 that should’ve been nothing more than a funny story the next morning. From the echoing halls of Fernwood Elementary, to the roaring engines and restless nights at the station, an unexpected wildfire ignited between you and Brett Richards.
But wildfires don’t stay contained. As boundaries blur and emotions deepen, you’re forced to confront what happens when a spark becomes a blaze—one that could warm you for a lifetime… or burn everything you thought you knew.
Chapter One: Gravity
Chapter Two: Fire Prevention
Chapter Three: Lucky Bones
Chapter Four: Innamorata
Chapter Five: DEFCON 5
Chapter Six: Strike
Chapter Seven: Abigail
Warnings: all warnings will be listed before the chapters! alcohol, mentions of past unhealthy relationships, brett is a widow, smut, bondage & rope play, fire, fluff, will add more as the story continues
Pairing: Titus Danforth x fem reader
Word count: 5K
Warnings: not proofread, set before the Ready or Not films, mentions of parent's death, references (not graphic) to some weapons and canonical hunts and violence, some coarse language, the bricks are being laid for the arranged marriage trope and maybe yearning? Maybe didn't pull that off very well. There aren't physical feature descriptions for reader.
A/N: Prepare to read absolute garbage! First time writing for Titus and I was half asleep while writing some of this. Planned/potential first part of a series, what do you think? Would love to hear your thoughts, comments and reblogs are always appreciated and I'm about to hopefully sleep but I am quite nervous to post this. Thank you for reading! 🫶
Dividers: @strangergraphics thank you!
Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Your family had been entangled in Mr Le Bail’s embrace for generations, not as established as the favoured Danforths but not fresh blood like the El Caidos. A comfortable couple of centuries is how your father would describe it, but his eye was always on how more power could be attained and how each foot could be manipulated for the most advantageous next steps. After years of slinking away from conversations and trying to remove yourself from the equation as much as you could, you saw how your father would do anything to gain Chester Danforth’s favour. But who wouldn’t? With the high seat ring always on his finger and the surname he’d carried, he was not a man anyone could say no to.
You sat in a stairwell with your brother in the East wing of your family’s estate. The steps between you meant his eyes could catch the comings and goings of any of the upper floor levels and your ears with the lower levels, despite how quiet this wing was. A hiding spot for secret conversations that you two could always meet at since being children. Whether to cry over your mother’s death or childish schemes for more sweets.
You sat with your legs criss crossed as you thought. You didn’t know how to tell him what was breaking your heart. You’re sure that he had a feeling from the way you were avoiding his eyes and fidgeting with your fingers, hyperfixated on the ringless one that would taunt you.
“Mike.” You rubbed your temple as if applying enough pressure might relieve the ache and fix everything. Your brother nodded, having immediately known this was to do with your partner, now ex. “We were meant to go away next week and he was making a big deal of it and then…There was a ring in the dresser.” You say sadly as you look down at your hands, nervously twisting and squeezing your own fingers to try and distract from the pain thrumming in your chest cavity.
That same finger was still teasing you as your composure was slipping with each quickening breath. You both knew what the weight of a marriage meant in your world, how easily a fairytale can become a satanic slasher. A part of you had hoped you could dance around ever having to be in a position where this would become your reality. Ignorance was bliss. Any spouse could easily land up as the prey of a fatal hunt, it didn’t happen to everyone but it was a risk you could not take. You could not put another soul in this position, especially one you were in love with.
“I can’t just say ‘hey! I can’t marry you because actually, my family’s wealth and empire is part of this Satanic cult and if we get married, we might have to hunt you!’” Hot tears started to prickle your waterline and burn your cheeks. His face fell as he watched you, he looked up at the stairs and then down back at you. “I pretended I hadn’t seen it and broke up with him on Tuesday. It was devastating, his face… He knew I was lying, that there was something.” You let the tears fall and don’t bother hiding them from the one other person in your life who understands this mindfuck of a world.
“I’m so sorry…” Your brother says your name gently as he watches you with a thoughtful but kind gaze. “It’s fucked.”
“I know and I’m only the spare.” You sigh and rub your face, your breathing is evening out a little more and you try to inject some humour into this shitshow of a world.
“Yeah, well unfortunately, I don’t think you’d like to trade.” Your brother replied as he looked down, his fingers fidgeting with the sleeve of his shirt. A habit he kept hidden except for on his lonesome or when with his sister. He was a fidgeter, a habit that the father you shared would always pointedly sigh over. Despite the tease that the words should hold, his words were earnest.
He was the heir and you were the spare. Those descriptions were accurate and more beneficial for your father anyway, since it would be assumed that you’d potentially “marry out”. But it meant there was a different kind of pressure on both of you, another thing that you were expected to carry with little say in the matter.
You paused, rubbing your temples and trying to apply pressure. “No, you’re right. I’d rather just have a whole new solution instead."
“There is one.” Your brother said with a sigh, rubbing his face. He hated himself for the words that were about to leave his mouth. “If you marry into another family in the Council, there’s no hunt. No hunt for either of you.”
As those words settle into your ears, you still as it feels like the very air in your lungs right then and there disappears.
~ One Year Later ~
The Danforth estate was as sprawling as you’d expect for a name that had centuries of wealth and luck carrying it through generations. There was a meeting of the Council, your father would be present as your family’s representative, you and your brother’s presence there was mainly just to be a glorified guest in the country air and perfectly polished rooms. You’d been to this estate multiple times throughout your life, not enough to know it like the back of your hand but well enough to remember where at least a few of the rooms were.
Mainly the quiet ones. And that was all you were in the mood for. As soon as you’d be graced with the chance to escape for a few moments. You hated the Wilkinsons, they had a sliminess that made your skin crawl and wore putrid colognes that were an abrasive assault to your senses. There was no way in hell you were dealing with them and the rest of the energy that clung to these gatherings. You’d find your way into one eventually, once the bare minimum pleasantries were over.
As you stepped out of the car, you looked from your brother to the Danforths that were standing at the bottom of the steps waiting for all of the families to arrive. Chester wasn’t there, it was just his twins in their sunglasses and fake smiles. The look on Titus’s face became less bored as he looked at you, you stood next to your brother, a slight step behind your father. Your presence surprised both the twins but Titus almost smiled to himself at seeing you.
It had become a very not so subtle habit of yours to avoid any social interactions in the Le Bail organisation, filling your time with the more legal and conventional side of your family’s empire and an interest in music. One that had been nursed since you were young, and you would make a hobby of conveniently being away at the right time or slipping out of rooms. Titus viewed you as a spectre, a woman you could get a quick glimpse of in the corner of your eyes, appearing from nowhere in the least expected moments and then disappearing, floating out. An absence that weighed on you.
He couldn’t help but wonder why you were here, you looked decadent and his boredom was disappearing with each millisecond. He didn’t speak as Ursula and your father politely greeted each other, his gaze was thankfully camouflaged by his sunglasses as he watched you.
Ursula cleared her throat, speaking your name with her perfectly composed, chirpy smile that lacked any genuineness. “How nice to see you, it’s been awhile. Still playing with knives?”
Her tone came across as friendly enough. Referencing the fact that in the few hunts that you’d joined, being more than competent, a thought you never wanted to dwell on, you carried throwing knives. Small blades were always your weapons of choice and where most of the weapons training of your education had been devoted. The lack of space they took up spoke to Ursula as a representation of your lack of interest in the hunts and the duties given to those blessed in your circles.
You blinked, tilting your head to look at her with a tired but soft smile. It was all childish. “Why? Do you need to borrow one?” You adjusted your dress and pulled out a small sheathed throwing knife, holding it flat out in your hand as you offered it to her. Ursula was stunned at your reaction, she awkwardly took the knife as she watched you smooth your dress for a second and then link your arm with your brother’s and walk off, up the stairs to the estate.
“They’re so fucking odd.” Ursula mutters under her breath as your family walks off into the doors, she places the knife in one of the many carefully concealed pockets of her overpriced blazer. But behind his tinted lenses, Titus’s eye softened as his mouth quickly turned up into a smug smirk at the boldest display he’d ever seen from you. A charmed and thoroughly pleased chuckle left his lips as he glanced at you over his shoulder for a second before smirking at his sister, struggling to piece her composure back together.
Not only a handsome brute, Titus Danforth was more observant than he was often given credit for. When the Danforth twins were taking their first steps, they were also being primed to become skilled hunters, observation was a key and necessary skill for that. Titus had a reputation but he was overlooked, his sister seen as the calmer, less impulsive half of the package that they were and the fact that the Council’s arrogance was too loud to really appreciate observation.
The Council was made up of several, loud families. Arrogance was key to having a seat at the fucked up table. It was part of why it was always so interesting seeing your family whenever there were gatherings. Like Chester, your father was a widower with two children, you weren’t a twin like he was though. Your brother was the more vocal one of you two, but you both were reserved. He’d felt a hum of amusement and curiosity when you’d all been younger and he’d seen the way your brother and you shared a look and a whisper for nobody else’s ears, you had a secret language just like him and Ursula. But you two were still different, he’d never seen you raise a hand to your brother like Ursula had to him and you didn’t tear each other down with words like his and Ursula’s competitive rapport, at least not publicly.
When there were cocktails being served in the evening before dinner, you’d stood off against a bookshelf silently, you and your brother a quiet observant pair like usual. He’d noticed something different though, your brother was standing with more tension winding his shoulders and jaw up more than usual. His own eyes locked in on those standing in the room. He didn’t bother hiding the way his eyes rolled at the Wilkinsons and exchanging a glance with you, your eyes looked wider than usual as you stood in the room. The choice of your dress made sense, the long black dress allowed you to slink in the shadows easier, but no matter what you wore, his eyes would find you in any silent room or pit of darkness. It was impressive that someone with such an adverse reaction to attention always captured him.
Titus watched your brother have a short conversation with Viran, one that you silently watched, your face twisted slightly to look like you might be biting the inside of your cheek as you watched. Your brother didn’t humour a conversation with the younger Rajan brother, Titus also found him annoying but he felt that way about most people. You only gave a polite nod and a small smile that never met your pretty eyes.
The only person your brother seemed less tense with was Daniel Le Domas, a man that Titus had no respect for, Titus thought that little of Daniel that he didn’t even despise him. His stomach twisted slightly as he watched you lean forward slightly and you whispered something to your brother and Daniel, your brother smiled wistfully and Daniel sipped from his glass that was never empty. He didn’t like the sight of you talking to Daniel, you seemed more comfortable around him than anyone else in the room that wasn’t your brother. Daniel was married, clearly unhappily, he made no efforts to hide that but Titus was confident that you weren’t the type to try a married man. He’d bet on it, it was his house and the house always wins.
Your brother was doing the bulk of the conversating, but they were all short conversations anyway. He had less patience than he usually did. Daniel Le Domas was disenchanted by all that had happened and was married, it was easier for you both to be around him. He wasn’t a candidate you’d have to judge and worry about for marriage. It was one of the unmarried men in this room that was the source of your curse and solution. You weren’t pleased with the choices and your brother was a fisherman desperately looking for the right catch.
You stood by your brother, carefully holding a glass that your lips had barely touched. “Alex?” You whispered after Daniel had stepped away for a bathroom break. Your mind was working quickly on any of the potential options.
Your brother quickly shook his head. “No.”
“He’s not really MIA,” you offer. Alex had left his family, taken a road rarely travelled by those with blood on their hands. You weren’t attracted to him but he’d always seemed nice enough and the fact he’d gone no contact with his family seemed like a green flag in this situation. Especially when you stood in the same room as his family, you couldn't imagine a soul on Earth enjoying the company of Helene Le Domas.
“No. He’s spineless, not kind. There’s a difference. You can’t trust someone like that.” You sighed and nodded at that, biting your lip. The pool of options for a marriage that didn’t ruin someone’s life was getting far too slim.
Something that you and your brother were in agreement over was that the Wilkinsons weren’t worth touching with a ten-metre long pole. The Le Domas family was officially ruled out, the only eligible bachelors left were Viraj Rajan and Titus Danforth. While whatever arrangement might happen would be a marriage of convenience, you tilted your head and pondered the thought, you struggled to see yourself married to either of them, even if it was a sham.
There was the possibility of marriage to another family associated with the organisation, but outside of the Council their status was significantly lower and would put yourself in a position to be used as a convenient ladder for some soulless sucker. Your brother had already laid out that a marriage was best with someone of a more equal footing, anyone else with a noticeable imbalance was too big of a risk and one you couldn’t trust.
“Viraj is intense and Madhu is unbearable, I couldn’t have that as a brother-in-law.” You whisper and your brother’s eyes travel around the room again.
“And the Danforths… In this situation, marrying Titus would either be the best or worst thing, no inbetween.” Your brother replied, he watched you for a moment as your forehead furrowed.
“I’m not Danforth material.” You answered honestly and he sipped his drink, a slight hum of agreement coming out as you both thought of the intense Danforths.
The Danforth twins had been summoned to their father’s study; it wasn’t a rare occurrence because of their status. But despite the smug smirks both Ursula and Titus were wearing, neither were clued in on what exactly it was that their father wanted to discuss this afternoon. Probably something to do with the next upcoming Council meeting, or to go over their plans for their next political deal.
Chester looked at his children carefully, he’d done everything he could to raise them to the highest of possibly achievable standards, he knew his children were better than the other families but he still saw a mass of flaws when he looked at them both.
“There’s still no heir, from either of you.” Chester spoke matter of factly, his calm, all knowing voice was starting to become a bit airier with age.
Ursula’s eyes widened slowly as she looked from her father to her brother and back. This was a conversation that always weighed heavily on the back of her mind, occasionally being ripped to the front and suffocating her in a way that none of the men in her family could understand. She almost wanted to flee whenever this happened, but she kept her calm composure, allowing herself a single blink to blink it away before the stone front was covering her.
The silent tells of Ursula’s discomfort and guilt were clear as day to Titus as he glanced at her, seeing her deer in headlights eyes before she could smother it away. This was something Titus knew would become a greater focus for the remainder of Chester’s life, a pressure to plague him for years. His eyes glanced at his sister’s again, the stone composure didn’t hide all from him, he knew this was the one thing she would abdicate without argument and it was to be demanded of him.
“Yes, we’re aware, father.” Titus said quietly as he watched him, he held his hands together calmly, not betraying a single emotion as he looked at the man that he’d idolised his whole life but had also a quiet resentment festering for the manipulation that had moulded him from the start to the man he now was.
Chester looked at Titus and frowned. “It’s taken generations for this power, the High seat is an intergenerational effort, it takes so much to build but the smallest of missteps to crumble. A single generation - or lack of - will ruin it all. That is something we cannot accept, I won’t be let down.”
“The High Seat won’t leave the family.” Ursula says as she steps closer. Titus frowns, it’s so Ursula to speak as if she is the one carrying the burden, finding the solution when she’s volunteering him up for the work she doesn’t want to do, the burden she quite literally will not carry.
Titus clenches his jaw as he watches his family silently. Does Ursula - controlling Ursula - know just how much power would be handed to Titus simply for this? And of course he’d have to do this the right way. He’d have to marry to satisfy his father’s need for the pristine reputation and Mr Le Bail’s requirements. He’s sure that his father already has a list typed up of candidates, his father had tried to raise marriage prospects with him in the past but Titus had done well for shrugging this off for awhile, he was bored easily and the faces he’d met on his father’s lists were never interesting to him.
“I’ll find someone.” Titus said as he watched his father, emphasising that he wanted this to be his choice. Not his father’s and certainly not Ursula’s. Maybe he’d humour their thoughts for a moment before shooting them down with a laugh. But if he was to have a wife he wanted one that was at least somewhat interesting.
It was muscle memory that led to you walking to a study that you remembered having entered a few times over the years. If this was another’s home, you like to think you wouldn’t be so bold, but the Danforth estate was so large and had countless studies, if it was even noticed in the first place, nobody would mind in the grand scheme of things.
The study had the same perfect bay window you remembered, there were only a few glimpses of sunlight left but it was still the spot you knew would be the most comforting. You sat down carefully, gently fixing the skirt of your dress that’s length reached your mid-calves. It was elegant and black, more simple than loud but that was your taste when it came to family business.
You looked at a few piles of books that sat near the bay window, touching them carefully as the spines were clearly aged, dust coating them and now your fingertips. One of them could surely entertain you well enough for a while as part of your plan to pass time. It was then that you heard the click of the doorknob turning as the door opened into the room, revealing Titus Danforth stepping in.
Titus had seen you walk into here, the first thing he notices when he steps in is your eyes that immediately look up to see him. You're surprised but you don’t look like a deer in headlights, nor a fox with its paw caught in a trap. There’s no fear or disgust on your face, just genuine surprise to have someone else step into this slice of a moment in time.
A Danforth walking into a study on the Danforth estate shouldn’t surprise you but it still does. “I’m sorry to have imposed, did you need the room?” You clear your throat after a moment and then ask politely.
“No.” Titus watched you, his smile growing slightly, he walked closer and then sat on the desk near the window and faced you. You bit your lip for a second to hold your tongue back from saying something, sitting on desks and tables was a habit you’d always hated. Titus noticed the bite but he didn’t know the reasoning, he still found it interesting. He wanted to learn every reaction and expression you were capable of, what would trigger them and what noise was elicited by what word or look.
His hazel eyes flicked down to the book next to your side, you felt your cheeks heat up with embarrassment as you looked down at the books you’d moved closer to peruse. You put them down, tidily moving them to the side, trying to wipe some of the dust off, more for the sake of a distraction than anything else.
“You’re on your own…” Titus said as his eyes moved from the dusty books to your eyes. They were mesmerising, the shape was what caught him and then the colour of your irises was the most enchanting hue he’d ever seen.
“Yes, I didn’t mean to snoop. I just like the quiet.” You look down, you find the quiet more comforting than the tense body language and pissing contests that took place whenever the families of the Council gathered. Cautious not to provoke, hyper aware that making yourself at home and sitting next to some dusty tomes in a study in these circles could be interpreted as something much less innocent.
After a quiet moment your gaze lifted and met him again, he was just watching you quietly, thoughtfully. It wasn’t something you’d expected to see before, his eyes were hard to decipher but you hadn’t noticed the wide, almost softness they also had. They were a pretty hazel colour, you give him a small smile.
“I know.” He said and then he took something out from his pocket, Titus took your hand at the same time, placing a small familiar blade into your hand that he’s holding now with both of his big hands. You look down, shock and embarrassment floods you at the unexpected gesture. The hilt catches your eyes, it’s one you’re more than familiar with, weighed and carved to perfection for throwing.
“Oh, thank you!” You chuckled quietly and then looked up at him. “Ursula didn’t need it after all? I’m surprised she didn’t return it herself.”
“She doesn’t know.” He shrugs with a slight smile that grows, his dark eyes twinkling. It was hard not to immediately light up at your reaction and your soft chuckle, it had a melodic ring to it that he could get used to.
Your eyes and mouth widen at the same time, you chuckled as the words land and are then absorbed. “Titus Danforth! You little pick pocket!” You laugh more, genuinely quite surprised at him doing something like that and then telling you, all over a small knife you didn’t really have any issue parting with. He felt a flutter in his stomach and a warmth flood through his pale freckled skin at the sight of glee on your face, a laugh he’d earnestly drawn out.
Titus looked down at your hand and nodded with a smile, then back at your eyes, committing the way your eyelashes fanned out to memory. He’d considered not returning the knife after he’d pocketed it from a clueless Ursula, he’d considered it seriously, keeping it for himself. The etchings and patterns on the sheath and hilt distinctly declared this as a knife belonging to your family, it would be a humourous memento that was undeniably yours. He’d wondered if you’d thrown this particular knife before, he assumed so, whether as part of training or in an actual hunt, he didn’t know. But he decided it was best to return it to you, especially with the fact that it would give him an easy opening to talk to you.
You were always so reserved at these things, you and your brother always sidestepping social interactions and ducking out of conversations as soon as you could. He’d noticed that your brother tended to speak more than you but that wasn’t saying much, and Titus knew in his gut that this dynamic wasn’t a guard dog watching over a delicate flower of a sister, but because you liked to observe and absorb. Titus knew you were better than the others, more interesting and that you wouldn’t say it to him right now, but you knew it too, in your own way. What Titus wouldn’t give to be able to see into your head and know what exactly it was that you thought.
Titus looked at you, he looked at your hands slightly for a moment. Hands that were soft except for where some calluses had likely formed from your musical gifts. “Do you still play?” Titus asked as he shifted a little closer, still holding your hands with the most gentle touch.
“Not as often.” You answered vaguely but truthfully.
“Hm.” He nodded, still holding your hand in his own, thinking it would be nice to keep his hand with yours for as long as possible. His touch surprised you but you wouldn’t allow yourself to say anything. “You look divine.” He says simply as his eyes go to your dress. Your eyes flick up to his face, the irises are such a pretty green, you know they’re technically hazel but there’s just so much green in them in this light.
“Thanks…” You whisper quietly and give him a small smile, tilting your head down to try and avoid the way you can feel your cheeks heat up, even if he can’t tell. It feels weird to be complimented when in these social circles but especially when it’s just the two of you. It makes it feel more real and less like the superficial compliments exchanged over drinks and handshakes with an audience.
He nods after a moment, still looking at your hand before looking back at you, his eyes looking less green for a moment as they soften and seem to grow. “I last saw you play two years ago, back in Berlin.”
It takes a moment for his words to really land and then your eyes widen quickly. Your cheeks heating up more as surprise swirls from your stomach to your head, straightening your back up the more you try to meet his eyes. “Really? I didn’t know…”
Titus shrugs as if it’s nothing. “I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to see you… play.” There’s a silence that hums between you both, his thumb rubs a soft, light circle over your knuckles. It’s a surprisingly soft touch but you also can’t help the unease at the feeling, you feel a sense of embarrassment crawling up you at this oddly intimate moment. You never would’ve imagined Titus holding your hand as you two sat alone in a study, maybe it was an accident and Titus didn’t even realise he was still holding your hand.
When in reality, that was what was consuming him.
“I had piano lessons when I was younger, I didn’t really have the patience for it… To excel in a way like you do. Can you play that too?” He asks and you nod for a moment before speaking.
“Yes, it’s a good foundation.” You watch his eyes, Titus always has been someone with intense eye contact but his gaze seems more interested in your hand then meeting your eyes. It’s odd. It feels unnerving. Maybe it’s from admitting he didn’t immediately excel at something. You can imagine that easily being a sore topic for someone in the Danforth line and with what knowledge you know of his and Ursula’s upbringing.
“I’d like to hear you play again.” Titus spoke gently, repeating your name in a tone you’d never heard from his lips before, his thumb brushing over your hand again before he carefully let it go, his eyes looked over his shoulder and it almost pained him to not get to see your face, your hair, your lips for another second. He moved his hand away delicately and slowly, as if it was paper he was trying to keep dry in a rainstorm. Titus was not a quiet man but you watched his hand squeeze yours one last time before fully letting go, detaching completely and silently leaving you alone in the study.
Summary: The boxes are still everywhere. Your books are taking over Jack’s stairs, the kitchen is only half-unpacked, and there is a box in the hallway labeled MISC BECAUSE I GAVE UP that Jack has taken very personally. But you’re here. In his townhouse. On his couch. Eating pizza after a long day of moving. Crying over Lilo & Stitch while Jack pretends not to be completely devastated by the fact that he gets to do this with you now. And when he tells you he loves you, this time, nothing about it is desperate. Nothing about it is a last chance. Nothing about it is hidden. He just loves you. Out loud.
Warnings: Established relationship, domestic fluff, emotional softness, moving in together, mild angst reflection, crying over Disney movies, kissing, language, Jack Abbot being deeply in love and emotionally devastated by it, and pizza sauce as a love language.
Author's Note: And here we are. The epilogue. This story started with two people insisting they were casual while building something domestic, intimate, and terrifyingly real around each other. A charger. A toothbrush. Coffee. Sweatshirts. A mug in his cabinet. All these tiny pieces of a life they were pretending not to want. So ending here — with boxes everywhere, pizza on the coffee table, and Jack finally getting to love her out loud in the home they’re building together — felt right. Thank you so much for loving this story, yelling at Jack with me, rooting for Reader, and letting this little emotionally devastating man take up so much space on your dashboards. I have loved writing every painful, tender, stupidly romantic second of this.
Also, small announcement: I’ll be posting 'You Never Asked' soon! It’s a previously written Jack fic that I’m updating, editing, and polishing before sharing here. It’s the longtime-married/“you never asked” fic, and yes — Reader is pregnant. Think casual privacy mistaken for secrecy, PTMC chaos, Robby being deeply annoying, Jack being the kind of husband who thinks he is subtle but absolutely is not, and everyone slowly realizing not only that they’re married… but that they’re having a baby.
So if you’re not ready to say goodbye to soft domestic Jack quite yet… neither am I.
The townhouse looked like it had lost a fight with cardboard. Boxes lined the hallway. Boxes sat half-open in the kitchen. Boxes leaned against the wall beside the stairs, your handwriting scrawled across the sides in black marker: BOOKS, MORE BOOKS, BATHROOM, COFFEE STUFF, and, because the day had gotten away from you somewhere around the third trip from the moving truck, MISC BECAUSE I GAVE UP.
Jack had stared at that last one for a full ten seconds. “That’s not a category.”
You shrugged, “It became one under pressure.”
“It’s a cry for help,” Jack replied.
You narrow your eyes, “It’s a box.”
“It says you gave up,” Jack said, pointing at the box.
You sighed, “I was being emotionally honest.”
He had looked at you then, sweat darkening the collar of his T-shirt, one hand braced on his hip, the other around the corner of a box labeled BOOKS, SERIOUSLY, THIS IS THE LAST ONE.
“It was not the last one,” he’d said.
You had pointed down the hallway. “That one doesn’t count.”
“It says books.” Jack counters.
You correct him, “It says cookbooks.”
Jack had stared at you.
You had stared back.
“Different genre,” you’d said.
He had closed his eyes like he was asking for patience from a higher power; neither of you had time to consult.
The real fight, though, had not been over the books.
It had been over the mugs.
Jack had opened the box labeled COFFEE STUFF and gone very still.
“Why?” he asked.
You looked up from the silverware drawer. “Why what?”
He lifted one mug out of the box. Then another. Then a third. “Why are there so many?”
You shrugged, “Because they’re different.”
Jack blinked. “They’re mugs.”
“That is a hurtful oversimplification.” You frowned.
Jack looked into the box like it might produce legal documentation. “This one has a goose on it.”
You nodded. “That’s my fall mug.”
“Your fall mug,” Jack repeated.
“Obviously.”
He picked up another. “This one says ‘don’t talk to me until this is empty’.”
“Work mug.”
Jack grabbed another, “This one is shaped like a cat.”
“Emergency mug.” You replied.
His eyes lifted slowly to yours. “Emergency mug?”
“You don’t plan for joy, Jack. That’s your problem.”
He stared at you for another second, then very carefully placed the cat mug beside his black one in the cabinet.
“Top shelf?” he asked.
Something in your chest softened. “Top shelf.”
Now, the boxes were still everywhere, the kitchen was only half unpacked, and the living room looked less like two adults had moved in together and more like a storage unit had made a desperate attempt at romance.
But the couch was clear.
Mostly.
Clear enough for the two of you to collapse onto it with a pizza box open on the coffee table, paper plates balanced on your knees, and Lilo & Stitch glowing blue across the half-unpacked room because, after eleven hours of lifting boxes, arguing about shelf placement, and discovering that Jack owned exactly three throw pillows and believed that was “plenty,” you had demanded something comforting.
Jack had said, “A documentary?”
You had looked at him like he had personally betrayed you.
He had corrected himself before you could respond.
“Disney. Right. Obviously.”
Which was how you ended up tucked against his side on the couch in the townhouse that was now somehow, impossibly, partially yours. Your hair was a mess. Your T-shirt was sticking to your back in a way you refused to think about too closely. One of your socks had gone missing somewhere between the bedroom and the stairs. Your whole body ached from carrying boxes, and your arms had reached the point of exhaustion where even lifting a slice of pizza felt like an effort.
Jack was not doing much better.
He had one arm stretched along the back of the couch behind you, his head tipped against the cushion, his knees spread just enough to make room for the pizza box between you. His hair was damp at the temples. His T-shirt was soft and old and pulling tight across one shoulder from the way he had moved furniture all afternoon while pretending his back did not hurt.
You knew it hurt.
He knew you knew.
Neither of you had said anything because Jack Abbot had many fine qualities, but admitting physical discomfort after carrying an unreasonable number of boxes labeled BOOKS was not one of them.
“You’re doing it again,” you said.
His eyes stayed on the TV. “Doing what?”
“Pretending your back doesn’t hurt,” you said.
Jack’s gaze stayed on the TV. “My back doesn’t hurt.”
“Jack.”
He reached for his slice of pizza, moving carefully enough to prove your point. “It’s aware of the day.”
You turned your head slowly.
Jack glanced at you, caught. “What?”
“Your back is aware of the day?” You ask, raising your brows,
Jack nodded once, “It’s a precise description.”
“It’s an evasive description.” You said to him.
He picked up his pizza, unimpressed. “You’re very argumentative for someone whose belongings are currently blocking access to half my kitchen.”
“Our kitchen.” You corrected.
The words slipped out before you could decide whether you were ready to say them.
Jack went still.
Not dramatically.
Not enough for anyone else to notice if there had been anyone else there.
But you felt it.
There was a slight pause in his breathing. The way his hand tightened once around the paper plate. The way his gaze moved from the TV to you like you had handed him something fragile without warning.
Your chest softened.
“Our kitchen,” you repeated, quieter.
Jack looked at you for another second.
Then his mouth moved.
“Yeah,” he said, rough around the edges. “Our kitchen.”
You looked back at the movie before your face could do something embarrassing.
On the TV, Stitch blinked his big, impossible eyes, and Lilo said something that made your already exhausted heart immediately decide it had not suffered enough today.
“Oh no,” Jack said.
You sniffed. “Don’t.”
Jack sighed, “You’re crying.”
You frowned, “I am emotionally fatigued.”
“You’re crying over a blue cartoon alien,” Jack replied.
Your eyes stayed locked on the screen. “But Jack…”
His hand, warm and familiar, settled lightly at your hip.
You swallowed hard. “Ohana.”
A sound came out of him. Not quite a laugh. Not quite surrender.
“Jesus,” he murmured, but there was no bite in it.
“It means family,” you said, pointing vaguely at the TV with the crust of your pizza.
“I know what it means.”
“And family means nobody gets left behind,” you said, pointing vaguely at the TV with your pizza crust.
Jack’s hand rested warm at your hip. “I know that too.”
“Then stop judging me.”
His brows lifted. “I’m not judging you.”
You looked up at him, unimpressed and teary-eyed. “You are absolutely judging me.”
“I’m watching you cry over a cartoon alien,” Jack replied.
“That is judging.”
Jack’s thumb moved once at your hip. “It’s observing.”
You glared at him. “You weaponize observation.”
His mouth curved. “Occupational hazard.”
You huffed and reached for a napkin, dabbing under your eyes before the tears could get dramatic. They were already dramatic. You knew that. You were sweaty and tired and sore and overwhelmed in that particular way that came from moving your life into someone else’s house and realizing, halfway through unpacking your mugs, that it was not someone else’s house anymore.
Not really.
Not if your books were by the stairs.
Not if your shampoo was in the shower.
Not if Jack had spent twenty minutes reorganizing the cabinet so your favorite mug could sit next to his black one without making it a whole thing.
Not if your box labeled COFFEE STUFF had made him pause in the kitchen and say, very quietly, “Top shelf?”
The difference now was that he let the remembering mean something.
You took another bite of pizza and tried to pretend you were not still crying.
Jack watched you for a second.
You could feel it.
Not the old kind of watching. Not the careful, guarded attention that used to make you wonder if you had imagined the warmth in it.
This was open.
Steady.
Almost soft enough to make you nervous, except you had learned, slowly, over weeks and then months, that Jack’s softness did not disappear anymore just because you noticed it.
You wiped at your cheek with the back of your wrist.
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “I love you.”
You turned from the TV so fast that the blanket slipped off one shoulder. “Oh god, no.”
Jack blinked. “No?”
“No, Jack, I’m a mess right now.” You gestured vaguely at yourself, mortified and still sniffling. “I’m sweaty. I’m tired. I’m crying. I think I have pizza sauce somewhere on my cheek.”
Jack looked at you for a second. “Left side.”
Your hand flew toward your face. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Jack answered.
You exhaled, “That is humiliating.”
He reached for a napkin from beside the pizza box. “It’s pizza sauce.”
“On my face.”
His mouth twitched. “On your beautiful face.”
You froze.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours, steady and warm, like he knew exactly what he had said and had no intention of taking it back.
“Don’t do that,” you said, but it came out softer than you meant.
“Do what?”
“Say things like that while I’m covered in moving sweat and Disney tears.”
His mouth twitched into a smirk, “Seems like the right time.”
You stared at him. “It is absolutely not the right time.”
“Sweetheart,” he said, leaning closer with the napkin in hand, “that is the point.”
The word landed so gently you forgot how to breathe for half a second.
Sweetheart.
Jack had started saying it a few weeks ago.
Not constantly. Not carelessly. Never in a way that made it feel like filler. It slipped out of him in moments like this, warm and low and devastatingly specific, like he had found a place for all the affection he used to swallow and had decided to let it live there.
You sat very still while he touched the napkin to your cheek.
He wiped away the tiny smear of sauce with the kind of focus he usually reserved for sutures and impossible lab values.
“Did you get it?” you asked.
Jack did not answer right away.
His fingers shifted, the napkin lowering to his other hand. He wiped his thumb once against it, then cupped your face properly, palm warm against your cheek.
You held still.
Mostly because you forgot how not to.
His eyes moved over your face.
Not checking for sauce anymore.
You knew it.
He knew you knew it.
But neither of you called him on it yet.
“Jack?”
His thumb moved once along your cheekbone.
“Got it,” he said quietly.
He still did not move away.
Your throat tightened. “You sure?”
His gaze came back to yours. “Yeah.”
His voice went rough around the edges. “I’m sure.”
The words settled between you with more weight than pizza sauce deserved.
The room went still around them.
The boxes were stacked along the wall. The half-empty pizza box on the coffee table. Lilo & Stitch was glowing blue across the living room. Your books were in uneven piles by the stairs because Jack had underestimated how many one person could own, and you had refused to apologize for literacy.
His thumb brushed your cheek again. “You’re here,” he said.
Your chest tightened. “I’m here.”
“That’s why I said it.”
You swallowed.
Jack’s hand stayed on your face, steady and warm.
“I love you when you’re not leaving,” he said. “When nothing’s wrong. When I’m not trying to fix something. When you’re sweaty and tired and crying over a blue alien with pizza sauce on your face.”
“Beautiful face,” you corrected weakly.
His mouth softened. “Beautiful face,” he agreed.
Your eyes burned again. “Oh, that was cruel.”
“It was accurate,” Jack said.
You looked at him through fresh tears. “You’re really going to make me cry harder during Lilo & Stitch?”
His thumb moved once along your cheek. “Looks like it.”
“That feels medically irresponsible.” You murmured
“I’ll survive the peer review.”
You let out a wet laugh.
Jack smiled at the sound. Not much. Enough that it changed his whole face in the low blue light from the TV.
Then he looked around the room.
At the boxes.
The books.
The pizza.
Life is still half-taped and half-labeled and not even close to finished.
“I get to do this with you,” he said, quieter now.
Something in your chest went soft and unsteady.
You covered his hand with yours. “Watch me cry over Disney movies?”
“Yeah.” His eyes came back to yours. “That. Carry too many boxes of books.”
“You volunteered,” you reminded him.
Jack glanced toward the hallway, where the boxes still sat stacked two deep against the wall. “I was misled about the quantity.”
“You saw the boxes.”
“I trusted you.”
“That was your mistake.”
“Clearly.” His mouth twitched, but the feeling in his eyes did not leave.
“I get to argue with you about where the mugs go,” he continued. “Find your socks under the couch. Step over boxes labeled things no organized adult should ever write on cardboard.”
“MISC BECAUSE I GAVE UP is a valid category,” you said.
Jack’s eyes shifted to the box in the hallway. “It is a cry for help.”
“It is emotionally transparent.” You corrected him/
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “It is chaos.”
“It is moving.”
He looked back at you then, the teasing still there but gentler around the edges. “It is you.”
Your chest did something stupid. “That sounded affectionate.”
“It was,” Jack replied.
Oh.
The word landed warmly.
Simple.
Easy.
You were still getting used to easy.
Not effortless. Not perfect. Not without history. But easy in the way the truth could be easy when neither of you was trying to drag it through a locked door first.
Jack looked at you like he could see every bit of that moving through your face.
He always could.
He just knew what to do with it now.
“I get another chance,” he said.
Your fingers tightened around his.
His voice roughened.
“With you. With this.” He glanced around the living room again, and a breath left him like the sight of the mess might actually undo him. “I get to come home and have your books blocking my stairs.”
“Our stairs,” you said.
Jack went quiet.
The TV flickered blue over his face.
Your throat tightened. “Jack?”
“Yeah,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Our stairs.”
You leaned into his palm before you could think better of it.
Jack saw it.
His expression changed.
Not into surprise exactly.
Into gratitude.
Into wonder.
Like after everything, after all the ways he had almost lost this, your face in his hand still felt like more than he knew what to do with.
“You’re here,” he said again.
Your thumb moved over his knuckles. “I’m here.”
“And I get to love you like this.” He murmured.
You tried to smile. It came out shaky. “Sweaty and crying with pizza sauce?”
Jack nodded once, “Especially then.”
Your breath caught.
Jack leaned in slowly, giving you every chance to turn back toward the movie, toward the pizza, toward the safer shape of a joke.
You didn’t.
You met him halfway.
The kiss was soft.
Unhurried.
Nothing like the parking lot. Nothing like the hotel. Nothing like every desperate moment when touching him had felt like trying to hold water in your hands before it could disappear.
This kiss stayed.
His palm was warm against your cheek. Your hand was still over his. The couch dipped beneath both of you, old springs complaining under the weight of two exhausted people, half a pizza, and a love that had taken the long, stupid, painful way home.
When Jack pulled back, he stayed close.
Your noses brushed.
On the TV, Stitch said something small and wounded.
You sniffed again.
Jack looked toward the screen. Then back at you. “You’re going to start again, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
He reached for the napkin without looking away from you. “Good thing I’m prepared.”
You laughed, and this time it came easier.
Jack settled back against the couch and pulled you in carefully, not assuming, still asking in the way his body had learned to ask. You went willingly, tucking yourself into his side, your head finding the place beneath his jaw like your body had remembered a map your heart had finally agreed to read.
His arm came around you.
Warm.
Solid.
Home.
The boxes were still there.
The kitchen was still half-unpacked.
Your shampoo was in his shower, your books were on his floor, your mug was in his cabinet, and somewhere behind you, a box labeled MISC BECAUSE I GAVE UP sat in the hallway like a monument to your moving-day defeat.
Summary: The boxes are still everywhere. Your books are taking over Jack’s stairs, the kitchen is only half-unpacked, and there is a box in the hallway labeled MISC BECAUSE I GAVE UP that Jack has taken very personally. But you’re here. In his townhouse. On his couch. Eating pizza after a long day of moving. Crying over Lilo & Stitch while Jack pretends not to be completely devastated by the fact that he gets to do this with you now. And when he tells you he loves you, this time, nothing about it is desperate. Nothing about it is a last chance. Nothing about it is hidden. He just loves you. Out loud.
Warnings: Established relationship, domestic fluff, emotional softness, moving in together, mild angst reflection, crying over Disney movies, kissing, language, Jack Abbot being deeply in love and emotionally devastated by it, and pizza sauce as a love language.
Author's Note: And here we are. The epilogue. This story started with two people insisting they were casual while building something domestic, intimate, and terrifyingly real around each other. A charger. A toothbrush. Coffee. Sweatshirts. A mug in his cabinet. All these tiny pieces of a life they were pretending not to want. So ending here — with boxes everywhere, pizza on the coffee table, and Jack finally getting to love her out loud in the home they’re building together — felt right. Thank you so much for loving this story, yelling at Jack with me, rooting for Reader, and letting this little emotionally devastating man take up so much space on your dashboards. I have loved writing every painful, tender, stupidly romantic second of this.
Also, small announcement: I’ll be posting 'You Never Asked' soon! It’s a previously written Jack fic that I’m updating, editing, and polishing before sharing here. It’s the longtime-married/“you never asked” fic, and yes — Reader is pregnant. Think casual privacy mistaken for secrecy, PTMC chaos, Robby being deeply annoying, Jack being the kind of husband who thinks he is subtle but absolutely is not, and everyone slowly realizing not only that they’re married… but that they’re having a baby.
So if you’re not ready to say goodbye to soft domestic Jack quite yet… neither am I.
The townhouse looked like it had lost a fight with cardboard. Boxes lined the hallway. Boxes sat half-open in the kitchen. Boxes leaned against the wall beside the stairs, your handwriting scrawled across the sides in black marker: BOOKS, MORE BOOKS, BATHROOM, COFFEE STUFF, and, because the day had gotten away from you somewhere around the third trip from the moving truck, MISC BECAUSE I GAVE UP.
Jack had stared at that last one for a full ten seconds. “That’s not a category.”
You shrugged, “It became one under pressure.”
“It’s a cry for help,” Jack replied.
You narrow your eyes, “It’s a box.”
“It says you gave up,” Jack said, pointing at the box.
You sighed, “I was being emotionally honest.”
He had looked at you then, sweat darkening the collar of his T-shirt, one hand braced on his hip, the other around the corner of a box labeled BOOKS, SERIOUSLY, THIS IS THE LAST ONE.
“It was not the last one,” he’d said.
You had pointed down the hallway. “That one doesn’t count.”
“It says books.” Jack counters.
You correct him, “It says cookbooks.”
Jack had stared at you.
You had stared back.
“Different genre,” you’d said.
He had closed his eyes like he was asking for patience from a higher power; neither of you had time to consult.
The real fight, though, had not been over the books.
It had been over the mugs.
Jack had opened the box labeled COFFEE STUFF and gone very still.
“Why?” he asked.
You looked up from the silverware drawer. “Why what?”
He lifted one mug out of the box. Then another. Then a third. “Why are there so many?”
You shrugged, “Because they’re different.”
Jack blinked. “They’re mugs.”
“That is a hurtful oversimplification.” You frowned.
Jack looked into the box like it might produce legal documentation. “This one has a goose on it.”
You nodded. “That’s my fall mug.”
“Your fall mug,” Jack repeated.
“Obviously.”
He picked up another. “This one says ‘don’t talk to me until this is empty’.”
“Work mug.”
Jack grabbed another, “This one is shaped like a cat.”
“Emergency mug.” You replied.
His eyes lifted slowly to yours. “Emergency mug?”
“You don’t plan for joy, Jack. That’s your problem.”
He stared at you for another second, then very carefully placed the cat mug beside his black one in the cabinet.
“Top shelf?” he asked.
Something in your chest softened. “Top shelf.”
Now, the boxes were still everywhere, the kitchen was only half unpacked, and the living room looked less like two adults had moved in together and more like a storage unit had made a desperate attempt at romance.
But the couch was clear.
Mostly.
Clear enough for the two of you to collapse onto it with a pizza box open on the coffee table, paper plates balanced on your knees, and Lilo & Stitch glowing blue across the half-unpacked room because, after eleven hours of lifting boxes, arguing about shelf placement, and discovering that Jack owned exactly three throw pillows and believed that was “plenty,” you had demanded something comforting.
Jack had said, “A documentary?”
You had looked at him like he had personally betrayed you.
He had corrected himself before you could respond.
“Disney. Right. Obviously.”
Which was how you ended up tucked against his side on the couch in the townhouse that was now somehow, impossibly, partially yours. Your hair was a mess. Your T-shirt was sticking to your back in a way you refused to think about too closely. One of your socks had gone missing somewhere between the bedroom and the stairs. Your whole body ached from carrying boxes, and your arms had reached the point of exhaustion where even lifting a slice of pizza felt like an effort.
Jack was not doing much better.
He had one arm stretched along the back of the couch behind you, his head tipped against the cushion, his knees spread just enough to make room for the pizza box between you. His hair was damp at the temples. His T-shirt was soft and old and pulling tight across one shoulder from the way he had moved furniture all afternoon while pretending his back did not hurt.
You knew it hurt.
He knew you knew.
Neither of you had said anything because Jack Abbot had many fine qualities, but admitting physical discomfort after carrying an unreasonable number of boxes labeled BOOKS was not one of them.
“You’re doing it again,” you said.
His eyes stayed on the TV. “Doing what?”
“Pretending your back doesn’t hurt,” you said.
Jack’s gaze stayed on the TV. “My back doesn’t hurt.”
“Jack.”
He reached for his slice of pizza, moving carefully enough to prove your point. “It’s aware of the day.”
You turned your head slowly.
Jack glanced at you, caught. “What?”
“Your back is aware of the day?” You ask, raising your brows,
Jack nodded once, “It’s a precise description.”
“It’s an evasive description.” You said to him.
He picked up his pizza, unimpressed. “You’re very argumentative for someone whose belongings are currently blocking access to half my kitchen.”
“Our kitchen.” You corrected.
The words slipped out before you could decide whether you were ready to say them.
Jack went still.
Not dramatically.
Not enough for anyone else to notice if there had been anyone else there.
But you felt it.
There was a slight pause in his breathing. The way his hand tightened once around the paper plate. The way his gaze moved from the TV to you like you had handed him something fragile without warning.
Your chest softened.
“Our kitchen,” you repeated, quieter.
Jack looked at you for another second.
Then his mouth moved.
“Yeah,” he said, rough around the edges. “Our kitchen.”
You looked back at the movie before your face could do something embarrassing.
On the TV, Stitch blinked his big, impossible eyes, and Lilo said something that made your already exhausted heart immediately decide it had not suffered enough today.
“Oh no,” Jack said.
You sniffed. “Don’t.”
Jack sighed, “You’re crying.”
You frowned, “I am emotionally fatigued.”
“You’re crying over a blue cartoon alien,” Jack replied.
Your eyes stayed locked on the screen. “But Jack…”
His hand, warm and familiar, settled lightly at your hip.
You swallowed hard. “Ohana.”
A sound came out of him. Not quite a laugh. Not quite surrender.
“Jesus,” he murmured, but there was no bite in it.
“It means family,” you said, pointing vaguely at the TV with the crust of your pizza.
“I know what it means.”
“And family means nobody gets left behind,” you said, pointing vaguely at the TV with your pizza crust.
Jack’s hand rested warm at your hip. “I know that too.”
“Then stop judging me.”
His brows lifted. “I’m not judging you.”
You looked up at him, unimpressed and teary-eyed. “You are absolutely judging me.”
“I’m watching you cry over a cartoon alien,” Jack replied.
“That is judging.”
Jack’s thumb moved once at your hip. “It’s observing.”
You glared at him. “You weaponize observation.”
His mouth curved. “Occupational hazard.”
You huffed and reached for a napkin, dabbing under your eyes before the tears could get dramatic. They were already dramatic. You knew that. You were sweaty and tired and sore and overwhelmed in that particular way that came from moving your life into someone else’s house and realizing, halfway through unpacking your mugs, that it was not someone else’s house anymore.
Not really.
Not if your books were by the stairs.
Not if your shampoo was in the shower.
Not if Jack had spent twenty minutes reorganizing the cabinet so your favorite mug could sit next to his black one without making it a whole thing.
Not if your box labeled COFFEE STUFF had made him pause in the kitchen and say, very quietly, “Top shelf?”
The difference now was that he let the remembering mean something.
You took another bite of pizza and tried to pretend you were not still crying.
Jack watched you for a second.
You could feel it.
Not the old kind of watching. Not the careful, guarded attention that used to make you wonder if you had imagined the warmth in it.
This was open.
Steady.
Almost soft enough to make you nervous, except you had learned, slowly, over weeks and then months, that Jack’s softness did not disappear anymore just because you noticed it.
You wiped at your cheek with the back of your wrist.
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “I love you.”
You turned from the TV so fast that the blanket slipped off one shoulder. “Oh god, no.”
Jack blinked. “No?”
“No, Jack, I’m a mess right now.” You gestured vaguely at yourself, mortified and still sniffling. “I’m sweaty. I’m tired. I’m crying. I think I have pizza sauce somewhere on my cheek.”
Jack looked at you for a second. “Left side.”
Your hand flew toward your face. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Jack answered.
You exhaled, “That is humiliating.”
He reached for a napkin from beside the pizza box. “It’s pizza sauce.”
“On my face.”
His mouth twitched. “On your beautiful face.”
You froze.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours, steady and warm, like he knew exactly what he had said and had no intention of taking it back.
“Don’t do that,” you said, but it came out softer than you meant.
“Do what?”
“Say things like that while I’m covered in moving sweat and Disney tears.”
His mouth twitched into a smirk, “Seems like the right time.”
You stared at him. “It is absolutely not the right time.”
“Sweetheart,” he said, leaning closer with the napkin in hand, “that is the point.”
The word landed so gently you forgot how to breathe for half a second.
Sweetheart.
Jack had started saying it a few weeks ago.
Not constantly. Not carelessly. Never in a way that made it feel like filler. It slipped out of him in moments like this, warm and low and devastatingly specific, like he had found a place for all the affection he used to swallow and had decided to let it live there.
You sat very still while he touched the napkin to your cheek.
He wiped away the tiny smear of sauce with the kind of focus he usually reserved for sutures and impossible lab values.
“Did you get it?” you asked.
Jack did not answer right away.
His fingers shifted, the napkin lowering to his other hand. He wiped his thumb once against it, then cupped your face properly, palm warm against your cheek.
You held still.
Mostly because you forgot how not to.
His eyes moved over your face.
Not checking for sauce anymore.
You knew it.
He knew you knew it.
But neither of you called him on it yet.
“Jack?”
His thumb moved once along your cheekbone.
“Got it,” he said quietly.
He still did not move away.
Your throat tightened. “You sure?”
His gaze came back to yours. “Yeah.”
His voice went rough around the edges. “I’m sure.”
The words settled between you with more weight than pizza sauce deserved.
The room went still around them.
The boxes were stacked along the wall. The half-empty pizza box on the coffee table. Lilo & Stitch was glowing blue across the living room. Your books were in uneven piles by the stairs because Jack had underestimated how many one person could own, and you had refused to apologize for literacy.
His thumb brushed your cheek again. “You’re here,” he said.
Your chest tightened. “I’m here.”
“That’s why I said it.”
You swallowed.
Jack’s hand stayed on your face, steady and warm.
“I love you when you’re not leaving,” he said. “When nothing’s wrong. When I’m not trying to fix something. When you’re sweaty and tired and crying over a blue alien with pizza sauce on your face.”
“Beautiful face,” you corrected weakly.
His mouth softened. “Beautiful face,” he agreed.
Your eyes burned again. “Oh, that was cruel.”
“It was accurate,” Jack said.
You looked at him through fresh tears. “You’re really going to make me cry harder during Lilo & Stitch?”
His thumb moved once along your cheek. “Looks like it.”
“That feels medically irresponsible.” You murmured
“I’ll survive the peer review.”
You let out a wet laugh.
Jack smiled at the sound. Not much. Enough that it changed his whole face in the low blue light from the TV.
Then he looked around the room.
At the boxes.
The books.
The pizza.
Life is still half-taped and half-labeled and not even close to finished.
“I get to do this with you,” he said, quieter now.
Something in your chest went soft and unsteady.
You covered his hand with yours. “Watch me cry over Disney movies?”
“Yeah.” His eyes came back to yours. “That. Carry too many boxes of books.”
“You volunteered,” you reminded him.
Jack glanced toward the hallway, where the boxes still sat stacked two deep against the wall. “I was misled about the quantity.”
“You saw the boxes.”
“I trusted you.”
“That was your mistake.”
“Clearly.” His mouth twitched, but the feeling in his eyes did not leave.
“I get to argue with you about where the mugs go,” he continued. “Find your socks under the couch. Step over boxes labeled things no organized adult should ever write on cardboard.”
“MISC BECAUSE I GAVE UP is a valid category,” you said.
Jack’s eyes shifted to the box in the hallway. “It is a cry for help.”
“It is emotionally transparent.” You corrected him/
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “It is chaos.”
“It is moving.”
He looked back at you then, the teasing still there but gentler around the edges. “It is you.”
Your chest did something stupid. “That sounded affectionate.”
“It was,” Jack replied.
Oh.
The word landed warmly.
Simple.
Easy.
You were still getting used to easy.
Not effortless. Not perfect. Not without history. But easy in the way the truth could be easy when neither of you was trying to drag it through a locked door first.
Jack looked at you like he could see every bit of that moving through your face.
He always could.
He just knew what to do with it now.
“I get another chance,” he said.
Your fingers tightened around his.
His voice roughened.
“With you. With this.” He glanced around the living room again, and a breath left him like the sight of the mess might actually undo him. “I get to come home and have your books blocking my stairs.”
“Our stairs,” you said.
Jack went quiet.
The TV flickered blue over his face.
Your throat tightened. “Jack?”
“Yeah,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Our stairs.”
You leaned into his palm before you could think better of it.
Jack saw it.
His expression changed.
Not into surprise exactly.
Into gratitude.
Into wonder.
Like after everything, after all the ways he had almost lost this, your face in his hand still felt like more than he knew what to do with.
“You’re here,” he said again.
Your thumb moved over his knuckles. “I’m here.”
“And I get to love you like this.” He murmured.
You tried to smile. It came out shaky. “Sweaty and crying with pizza sauce?”
Jack nodded once, “Especially then.”
Your breath caught.
Jack leaned in slowly, giving you every chance to turn back toward the movie, toward the pizza, toward the safer shape of a joke.
You didn’t.
You met him halfway.
The kiss was soft.
Unhurried.
Nothing like the parking lot. Nothing like the hotel. Nothing like every desperate moment when touching him had felt like trying to hold water in your hands before it could disappear.
This kiss stayed.
His palm was warm against your cheek. Your hand was still over his. The couch dipped beneath both of you, old springs complaining under the weight of two exhausted people, half a pizza, and a love that had taken the long, stupid, painful way home.
When Jack pulled back, he stayed close.
Your noses brushed.
On the TV, Stitch said something small and wounded.
You sniffed again.
Jack looked toward the screen. Then back at you. “You’re going to start again, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
He reached for the napkin without looking away from you. “Good thing I’m prepared.”
You laughed, and this time it came easier.
Jack settled back against the couch and pulled you in carefully, not assuming, still asking in the way his body had learned to ask. You went willingly, tucking yourself into his side, your head finding the place beneath his jaw like your body had remembered a map your heart had finally agreed to read.
His arm came around you.
Warm.
Solid.
Home.
The boxes were still there.
The kitchen was still half-unpacked.
Your shampoo was in his shower, your books were on his floor, your mug was in his cabinet, and somewhere behind you, a box labeled MISC BECAUSE I GAVE UP sat in the hallway like a monument to your moving-day defeat.
