Welcome Everyone,
I am a thirty-something woman (she/her) living with severe anxiety, PTSD, Social Anxiety, and chronic pain. I am probably one of the most awkward women on the planet and I think that reflects in my writing. I also try to be as inclusive as possible. Everyone deserves to feel seen and to be represented. And at the very least I hope I can make you laugh. đ€
So sit back and enjoy and remember comments, reblogs, and likes are very appreciated.
I am a thirty-something woman living with severe anxiety, PTSD, Social Anxiety, and chronic pain. I am probably one of the most awkward women on the planet and I think that reflects in my writing. I also try to be as inclusive as possible. Everyone deserves to feel seen and to be represented. And at the very least I hope I can make you laugh. đ€ So sit back and enjoy and remember comments, reblogs, and likes are very appreciated.
Avatar by Slashericons
My depression, fibromyalgia, and OCD has been hell. And I feel terrible leaving my fics hanging. I am not taking time off or anything I still write when I can find the energy. So be assured I am writing. Itâs just moving very slowly.
Summary: The full hearing means facing Trent one more time â in the same room, with the truth laid out in court and Jack sitting behind you, close enough to remind you you're not alone.
Warnings: stalking aftermath, courthouse/legal hearing, seeing abuser/stalker in court, protective order granted, discussion of harassment and attempted forced entry, emotional distress, trauma response, recovery after fear, protective Jack, soft Jack, hurt/comfort, found safety, love confession, happy ending
Authorâs Note: And here we are, the final chapter of Easier to Breathe. This series became so much more emotional than I expected, and I really wanted this ending to feel quiet, safe, and earned. Not magically fixed. Not like one court order erases everything. But like Reader finally gets to choose what comes next, and Jack is right there beside her. Thank you so much for reading this one, cheering them on, yelling at Trent, and loving soft, protective Jack with me. I love these two deeply, and Iâm so glad they found their way home.
The courthouse smelled like floor polish, old paper, and coffee that had been sitting too long.
You noticed because you were trying not to notice anything else.
Not the hallway full of people pretending not to look at one another.
Not the security officer posted near the metal detector.
Not the closed courtroom doors.
Not the fact that somewhere in this building, Trent Wallace was close enough to breathe the same air.
Jack sat beside you on the wooden bench outside the courtroom, one shoulder almost touching yours but not quite. Close enough that you could feel the heat of him through his jacket. Far enough away that you could decide whether you wanted to lean.
He had done that all morning.
Given you room. Stayed close. Let you choose.
His hands rested loosely between his knees. His tie was dark. His shirt was pressed. His jaw was shaved clean enough to tell you he had done it deliberately, but not recently enough to hide the shadow already coming back by the end of the morning.
He looked calm.
Jack Abbot could look calm while a trauma bay filled with blood, while alarms screamed, while everyone else in the room forgot how to breathe.
A courthouse hallway was not going to be the thing that made him fall apart where anyone could see.
But you knew him better now. Or you were learning him.
You saw the way his eyes moved every time the elevator opened.
You saw the way his thumb rubbed once against the side of his index finger, then stopped.
You saw the set of his shoulders, too still to be relaxed.
You saw how he kept his body angled between you and the far end of the hallway.
He was nervous.
Not like you.
Not with a tight chest and cold fingers and a pulse that kept kicking every time a door opened.
But nervous. Jack-nervous. Quiet. Controlled. Locked down behind his ribs because he would rather take a hit than hand you one more thing to worry about.
You looked down at your hands.
Your fingers were twisted together so tightly that your knuckles ached.
Jack noticed immediately.
His voice was low when he spoke. âYou want to walk?â
You shook your head. âNo.â
Jack nodded once. âOkay.â
You untangled your fingers, then tangled them again. His gaze dropped to your hands. He did not reach for you. Not right away.
âYou want my hand?â Jack asked.
Your throat tightened, so you nodded. âYeah.â
Jack turned his palm up between you. You slid your hand into his. His fingers closed around yours, warm and steady and careful. Your breath left you in a slow, uneven line.
âBetter?â Jack asked.
You stared at the closed courtroom doors. âNo.â
His thumb moved once over your knuckles. âHonest.â
A small laugh slipped out of you, weak at the edges. âTrying something new.â
Jackâs mouth barely moved. âProud of you.â
The words hit harder than they should have. You blinked fast and looked away. Jackâs hand tightened once around yours. Not enough to trap you. Just enough to say he was there.
A woman in a navy blazer walked past with a stack of folders tucked against her chest. Somewhere down the hall, a printer jammed and beeped angrily. A child laughed near the elevators, bright and out of place. A door opened, and your whole body went rigid before your brain caught up.
Jack felt it.
His body did not move much, but something about him sharpened.
You looked at him. His eyes were already on the doorway. Not panicked. Not obvious. Just ready. Then a clerk stepped out with a man in a gray suit you did not recognize, and your lungs started working again. Jackâs gaze came back to you.
You tried to smile. âIâm fine.â
He gave you a look.
You let the smile fall. âIâm not fine.â
Jack nodded. âI know.â
You swallowed. âI hate this.â
âI know,â Jack said.
Your fingers tightened around his. âI hate that he gets to be here.â
Jackâs jaw shifted once. âYeah.â
âI hate that Iâm nervous,â you said.
His eyes softened. âThat part makes sense.â
âI know it makes sense,â you said, staring at the scuffed floor in front of your shoes. âI still hate it.â
Jackâs thumb moved over your hand again. âBoth can be true.â
You let out a breath that almost became a laugh. âYou love that sentence.â
âIt does a lot of work,â Jack said.
You glanced at him. His face was still calm, but his eyes werenât. That did something to you. Not fear. Not exactly. Something softer and sadder.
âYouâre nervous too,â you said.
Jack looked at you. For one second, you thought he might deny it. Then his hand shifted around yours.
âYeah,â Jack said.
The honesty made your chest hurt.
âYou donât look nervous,â you said.
His mouth twitched without humor. âIâve had practice.â
You hated that answer. You loved him for giving it to you anyway. The thought came fast and quiet and terrifying. Love. It sat there in your chest, too warm for a courthouse hallway.
You looked away before he could see it on your face.
âWhat are you nervous about?â you asked.
His answer did not come right away. That was how you knew it was real. Jack rubbed his thumb over your knuckles once, then stopped.
âI donât like that I canât do anything in there,â Jack said.
You turned toward him.
He kept his eyes on the hallway. âI can sit there. I can listen. I can keep my mouth shut unless someone asks me a direct question.â His jaw tightened. âThatâs about it.â
You looked at his profile. The controlled line of him. The restraint. The love he kept making into something practical because practical was safer than saying what it really was.
âThatâs not nothing,â you said.
Jackâs eyes came back to yours.
You held his gaze. âSitting there with me is not nothing.â
Something moved through his face. Small. There and gone.
âOkay,â Jack said quietly.
You squeezed his hand. âAnd keeping your mouth shut might be good for your character.â
His eyebrows lifted. You felt the corner of your mouth move. Jack looked at you like that tiny almost-smile mattered.
âDangerous thing to say before court,â Jack said.
âYouâre not allowed to threaten me in a courthouse,â you said.
His mouth curved faintly. âWasnât a threat.â
You narrowed your eyes. âThat sounded threatening.â
Jack leaned a fraction closer, his voice still low. âThat was restraint.â
Your stomach dipped, inconvenient and familiar.
You stared at him. âThis is wildly inappropriate hallway behavior.â
Jackâs eyes warmed. âIâm holding your hand.â
âYouâre doing it suggestively,â you said.
His expression barely changed. âTalented.â
A laugh broke out of you before you could stop it. It was quiet. Small. But real.
Jack watched it happen, and for a second, the hallway did not feel quite as sharp. Then the courtroom door opened again. A clerk stepped into the hall and looked down at the paper in her hand. Your heart slammed once.
âWallace matter?â the clerk called.
Your whole body went cold. Jackâs hand stayed steady around yours. You did not move. Not at first. Then Jack leaned close enough for his shoulder to brush yours.
âBreathe,â Jack said softly.
You did. Not well. But you did. Sofia appeared from the other end of the hallway, her folder tucked beneath one arm, her expression calm and kind and professional.
âThere you are,â Sofia said, stopping in front of you. âYou ready?â
No. The answer was no. You were not ready to walk into a room where Trent might look at you. You were not ready to hear him say your name. You were not ready to explain, again, that no had meant no the first time.
But readiness had not been the point for days now.
You had called 911 before you felt ready. You had filed paperwork before you felt ready. You had gone back to work before you felt ready. You had walked into your own life over and over with fear still sitting somewhere behind your ribs.
You looked at Jack.
He was watching you, not the clerk, not Sofia, not the courtroom doors. You. Waiting. Not pushing. Not deciding.
Your hand was still in his. You squeezed once. Then you stood.
Jack stood with you.Â
You looked at Sofia and made yourself breathe.
âYeah,â you said. âIâm ready.â
Sofia gave you a small nod.
âOkay,â Sofia said. âWeâll go in together.â
Jackâs hand was still warm around yours. You looked down at it. Then you let go. Not because you wanted to.
His hand dropped to his side, but he stayed close as you followed Sofia toward the courtroom doors.
The room was smaller than you expected. That was the first thing you noticed. Smaller. Quieter. Less dramatic than the version your fear had built in your head.
There were rows of wooden benches, a table on each side, a clerk near the judgeâs bench, a seal on the wall, fluorescent lights overhead, and Trent Wallace sitting at the other table in a button-down shirt that looked too neat to be sincere.
Your body knew him before your brain finished seeing him.
Your stomach turned. Your hand curled once at your side.
Behind you, Jack went very still.
You did not look back at him. You did not need to. You knew the shape of his stillness by now. Controlled. Furious. Silent because he had promised himself he would be.
Sofia touched your elbow lightly. âThis way.âÂ
You followed her to the table.
Jack sat behind you, close enough that if you turned, he would be there. You did not turn. Not yet. The judge entered a few minutes later, and everyone stood. After that, time went strange. Not fast. Not slow. Just strange.
The judge said your name.
Then Trentâs.
The clerk confirmed the case number.
Sofia spoke in a calm, even voice and explained that you were requesting an extension of the temporary order. The judge reviewed the police report, the 911 call summary, the photographs of Jackâs truck, the notes Trent had left at your apartment, the hospital security report, and the written statement about Trent trying your door handle while you were inside.
Facts.
One after another.
Placed on the record until they no longer had to live only inside your body.
Trent shifted at the other table.
You did not look at him. Not until he spoke.
âI just wanted to talk to her,â Trent said.
Your skin went cold. Jack did not move behind you. The judge looked at Trent over the top of her glasses.
âYou were instructed not to contact her,â the judge said.
Trentâs jaw tightened. âI didnât mean to scare her.â
Your breath caught, sharp and angry. Not because you believed him. Because some part of you was tired of how easily men like him reached for harmlessness after they had already done harm.
The judge turned back to you.
âWould you like to respond?â the judge asked.
Your mouth went dry.
Sofiaâs hand rested near your papers, not touching you, just there.
Behind you, Jack was silent. Waiting. Not saving you from the question. Trusting you with the answer. You drew in a breath.
âI told him no,â you said.
Your voice sounded steadier than you felt. You kept going before you could lose it.
âI told him to stop contacting me,â you said. âHe kept calling. He came to my work. He left notes at my apartment. He came to my door and tried to get into my apartment.â
The courtroom stayed quiet. You looked at the judge, not Trent.
âI told him to stop,â you said again. âHe didnât.â
Something in the room shifted. Or maybe something in you did.
The judge nodded once.
âThank you,â the judge said.
After that, it became paperwork again.
Questions. Clarifications. Dates. Addresses. Restrictions. No direct contact. No indirect contact. No social media. No workplace. No residence. No vehicle. No third-party messages. No approaching you in public.Â
The order would remain in effect for the full period granted by the court. Trent would be served with the signed copy before leaving. Violations were enforceable by law.
It should have felt bigger.
Maybe later it would.
In the moment, all you felt was the grain of the table beneath your fingertips and the weight of your own breath moving in and out of your chest.
Then the judge signed the order.Â
Just like that.
Ink on paper.
Consequences in writing.
The hearing ended without a crash. No shouting. No dramatic final look. No sudden feeling of freedom bursting open in your ribs. Only the scrape of chairs and the murmur of voices, and Sofia quietly telling you that you did well.
You stood because everyone else stood. You gathered your papers because Sofia handed them to you. You walked toward the door because your legs remembered how.
Jack was there when you stepped into the hallway.Â
He did not touch you immediately. He waited until you looked at him.
Then he asked quietly, âCan I?â
Your throat tightened. You nodded once.
Jackâs hand settled at the back of your neck, warm and steady, his thumb resting just below your ear. Not pulling you in. Not holding you up. Just there. Your eyes burned.
âItâs granted,â you said.
Jackâs jaw flexed once. âYeah.â
Your thumb moved over the edge of the folder. âItâs real.â
His hand stayed gentle at your neck.
âItâs real,â Jack said.
Sofia stepped closer, her folder tucked beneath her arm.
âYou did very well,â Sofia said.
You gave her a small, tired smile. âThank you.â
Sofiaâs expression warmed. âIâll email you a digital copy and make sure you have the enforcement information again. Call if there are any violations. Even small ones.â
âI will,â you said.
Jackâs hand did not move from your neck. Sofia glanced between you and Jack, then smiled gently.
âTake the rest of the day slowly,â Sofia said.
Jack nodded. âWe will.â
You looked at him.Â
We.Â
The word landed somewhere soft.
Sofia left you with one more kind look, disappearing down the courthouse hallway with her folder and her sensible shoes and the calm competence you had clung to more than once.
For a minute, you and Jack stayed where you were.
People moved around you. Doors opened. Elevators chimed. The courthouse kept being a courthouse. You looked at the signed order in your hands. Your name was there. Trentâs name was there. All the places he was no longer allowed to touch were listed in black and white.
Your apartment. Your workplace. Your car. Jackâs house. Your life, carved out in legal language.
Jackâs thumb moved once against your neck.
âWhat do you need?â Jack asked.
You expected the answer to be easy. Sleep. Food. Coffee. Your apartment. Some sharp, symbolic thing that proved you were not afraid anymore. But the thought of your apartment made your chest tighten.
Not in panic. Not exactly.
Just enough to tell you the truth.
You were tired.Â
You had walked into the courthouse. You had heard Trentâs voice. You had told the judge the truth. You had watched the order become more than temporary. You had done enough hard things for one day.
Your apartment would still be there tomorrow.
Or next week.
Or whenever you were ready to open that door because you wanted to, not because courage had started to feel like another test.
You looked at Jack.
His hand was still at the back of your neck, warm and careful, waiting without pushing.
âCan we go home?â you asked.
Jack went very still. Only for a second. Only long enough for the word to land. Home. His house. His kitchen with the emotionally unavailable fridge. His bathroom with your toothbrush beside his sink. His bed, where your body had slowly learned that rest did not have to feel like surrender. Jackâs thumb moved once beneath your ear.
âYeah,â Jack said, his voice rougher than before. âWe can go home.â
Your throat tightened.
âI mean your place,â you said, suddenly nervous. âI didnât meanââ
âI know what you meant,â Jack said softly.
You looked up at him. His eyes held yours. Your breath caught.
He did not smile.
Not exactly.
But something in his face softened so much it almost hurt to look at.
âCome on,â Jack said. âLetâs go home.â
Outside, the afternoon air felt too bright after the courthouse.
You walked beside Jack down the front steps with the signed order tucked into the folder beneath your arm. He stayed close, but he did not touch you until you reached the sidewalk.
Then his hand found the small of your back. Light. Questioning.
You leaned into it before he could ask.
Jackâs truck was parked a few rows down, right where he had left it that morning.
You had vaguely noticed that it was back. That the tires were whole. That the side no longer carried the long, ugly mark Trent had carved into it. But before the hearing, your body had been too busy preparing for a different kind of damage to care about fresh paint and replaced rubber.
Now, standing in the parking lot with the signed order under your arm, you saw it.
The new tires. The repaired side. The place where the paint caught the light just a little differently if you knew where to look.
Fixed did not mean untouched. Safe did not mean nothing had happened.
But the truck was there. Whole enough to drive.
Jack glanced at you. âWhat?â
You looked at the repaired side of the truck. âI didnât really look at it this morning.â
Jack followed your gaze. His mouth flattened, but only for a second.
Then he looked back at you. âYeah.â
âThey did a good job,â you said.
Jackâs shoulder lifted once. âItâll do.â
You raised an eyebrow. âThatâs high praise from you.â
His mouth twitched. âItâs a truck.â
âItâs your truck,â you said.
Something quiet moved through his face.
âYeah,â Jack said. âIt is.â
You looked at it again, at the clean line of the door, the replaced tires, the faint mismatch in the paint that probably no one else would notice unless they knew where to look. Your throat tightened.
âIâm attached to it,â you said.
Jack looked at you. âTo the truck?â
You nodded, feeling a little ridiculous and not enough to take it back. âYeah.â
His eyebrows lifted slightly. âWhy?â
You shifted the folder against your chest. âBecause.â
Jack waited.
You looked through the passenger window. At the seat you had sat in after terrible shifts. After quiet ones. After the nights when the ER followed you out to the parking lot, and Jack let the radio fill the space until you were ready to talk. The same seat where you had watched his hands on the steering wheel and pretended not to notice how steady they were. The same seat where you had sung badly because he had made some dry comment about your music, and you had decided to punish him with volume. The same seat where silence had started to feel less awkward.
Less like distance. More like trust. Your mouth softened before you could stop it.
âThis is kind of where we started,â you said.
Jackâs face changed. You looked at him then.
âAll the talks,â you said. âThe drives. The music.â
His mouth barely moved. âYour music.â
You pointed at him with the folder. âOur music.â
Jack gave you a look. âAbsolutely not.â
âYou sang once,â you said.
âI did not,â Jack said.
âYou mouthed some of the words,â you said.
âThatâs not singing,â Jack said.
âIt was emotionally singing,â you said.
His eyes warmed despite himself. âThatâs not a thing.â
âIt is when you do it,â you said.
Jack shook his head, but the corner of his mouth moved. You looked back at the truck, your chest full now in a way that had nothing to do with the courthouse.
âAnd our first kiss,â you said, softer.
Jack went quiet.
The memory moved between you.
The side of the truck. The dark. The charged stillness. The way everything had been waiting, waiting, waiting until neither of you could keep pretending it wasnât.
Jackâs gaze settled on your face.
âYeah,â Jack said, his voice lower. âThat too.â
You swallowed.
âI hated that he touched it,â you said.
Jackâs jaw tightened once. You looked at him before he could take that guilt anywhere useful. His eyes held yours.
âBecause it was ours,â you said.
Something in his face softened so much it nearly undid you.
Jack stepped closer, slow enough that you could move away if you wanted to. You did not. His hand came up and touched the side of your neck, careful and warm.
âItâs still ours,â Jack said.
Your breath caught. The courthouse noise faded behind you. The traffic. The footsteps. The heavy glass doors opening and closing behind you. The whole ugly, fluorescent, official machinery of the day.
For one second, there was only Jack. Jack and the fixed truck. Jackâs hand on your neck. Jack saying ours like he had always known exactly where to put you.
You nodded, throat tight. âYeah.â
His thumb moved once below your ear.
Then he leaned down and kissed you.
Not long.
Not enough for the courthouse parking lot to become a scene.
Just enough.
A warm, steady press of his mouth to yours, his hand still gentle at your neck, the signed order tucked between you in a folder that crinkled against his chest.
When he pulled back, his eyes stayed on yours.
âCome on,â Jack said quietly.
You looked up at him.Â
His mouth softened. âLetâs go home.â
Your heart gave a slow, painful turn.
Jack opened the passenger door for you, and you climbed into the seat that had held so many versions of you before this one. Tired. Angry. Flustered. Laughing. Afraid. Wanting.
Safe.
When Jack shut the door gently and came around to the driverâs side, you looked down at the folder in your lap. The order was inside. Signed. Real.
Then Jack got in, and the truck settled around both of you like a familiar room.
He glanced at the folder in your lap, then at your face.
âYou okay?â Jack asked.
You looked down at the signed order. Then you looked at him.
âNo,â you said.
Jack nodded once. âOkay.â
You reached over and took his hand before he could put the truck in reverse. His fingers closed around yours.
âBut I want to be with you,â you said.
Jackâs eyes stayed on yours for one quiet second.
âThen letâs go,â he said.
He started the truck, backed out of the parking space, and drove you home.
The drive to Jackâs house was quiet. Not tense. Not empty. Just quiet in the way the world felt after something official had happened and nothing had changed fast enough to match it.
The order was granted.
Your name was in black and white.
Trentâs name was in black and white.
There were rules now. Boundaries. Consequences.Â
The city still moved around you.
Jack drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting near the console, close enough that you could take it if you wanted.
You did.
His fingers closed around yours without hesitation.
Neither of you said anything until he pulled into his driveway and put the truck in park.
For a second, you both just sat there.
Jack turned the engine off, and the sudden silence settled around you, thick and strange.
You looked at his house.
The front door. The porch light. The curtains. The place that had started becoming familiar before you had decided what to call it.
Jackâs thumb moved once over your knuckles. âReady?â
You let out a small breath that was almost a laugh. âI donât know.â
His mouth softened. âThatâs okay. Come on.â
That made something ache in your chest.
You nodded, then opened the door before you could start crying in his truck for the third time that day.
Jack met you at the front of the truck and walked with you to the house. He unlocked the door, stepped in first, checked the hallway by habit, then moved aside so you could come in.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet, maybe.
Or maybe you had gotten used to everything being loud.
Phones ringing. Sofiaâs voice. Court instructions. Your own heartbeat. A judge saying your name. Your fear becoming official record.
Now there was only Jackâs house.Â
The faint hum of the refrigerator. Your shoes on the entryway floor.Â
Jack locking the door behind you.
You stood there with your bag still on your shoulder and no idea what to do with your hands.
Jack set his keys in the small bowl by the door. âRobby texted.â
Your head turned. âAlready?â
Jackâs mouth twitched faintly. âHeâs efficient when heâs being annoying.â
You watched him pull his phone from his pocket. âWhat did he say?â
Jack glanced at the screen. âWeâre both off tonight.â
You blinked. âBoth?â
Jackâs eyes lifted to yours. âBoth.â
You stared at him. âHe canât just do that.â
âHe can,â Jack said. âApparently, he did.â
You shook your head. âBut the scheduleââ
âCovered,â Jack said gently. âHe said if either of us shows up, heâs calling security on us.â
Your mouth fell open. âHe did not.â
Jack held out the phone.
You read the text.
Robby: If either of you comes in tonight, I am having security escort you out. Go home. Eat something. Sleep. That is not a suggestion.
You stared at the screen.
Then, despite everything, you laughed.
It came out small, startled, and a little cracked at the edges, but it was there.
Jack watched you like he always did when you laughed now, like he was cataloging the sound somewhere private.
You handed the phone back. âHeâs bossy.â
Jack slid the phone into his pocket. âHeâs chief.â
Your brow furrowed. âThat does not make him less bossy.â
âNo,â Jack said. âIt gives him institutional support.â
You laughed again, softer this time.
Then the quiet came back.
And this time, it brought the exhaustion with it. It hit all at once. Not gently. Not gradually.Â
One second, you were standing in Jackâs entryway with your bag on your shoulder and Robbyâs ridiculous text still bright in your mind. The next, your whole body felt like it had gone heavy from the inside out.
Your shoulders dropped. Your knees felt weak. Your eyes burned.
Jack stepped closer, careful and slow. âSweetheart?â
You looked at him.
That was all it took.
You moved into him before you could decide whether you were going to.
Jack caught you without making it feel like catching.
One arm came around your back, the other hand settling at the back of your head, and he held you against his chest while your bag slid from your shoulder and dropped softly to the floor.
You closed your eyes.
For a second, you did not cry.
You just stood there and let him take some of your weight.
Jackâs mouth brushed your hair. âIâve got you.â
Your hands curled into the back of his shirt. âI know.â
His arm tightened around you, not enough to trap you. Just enough to let you feel the answer in his body.
You breathed him in.
Laundry detergent. Coffee. Hospital soap.
Jack.
The normalness of it nearly broke you more than the hearing had.
âIâm so tired,â you whispered.
Jackâs hand moved once over the back of your head. âI know.â
âNot bad tired,â you said, your voice muffled against him.
Jack went still for half a second. Then his hand moved down your back, slow and steady. âNo?â
You shook your head against his chest. âJust done.â
His breath left him quietly. âOkay.â
You stayed there for another moment, held upright by the one person who did not make you feel weak for needing it.
Eventually, Jack shifted just enough to look down at you. âWhat do you want to do?â
You looked around his living room.
The couch. The coffee table. The folded blanket over the armrest. The kitchen beyond it, where the laptop had been earlier. Where you had sat in front of a judge and said the truth out loud while Jackâs knee pressed against yours under the table.
Your body felt too tired for another decision and too wired to sleep.
You did not want to talk about the hearing again.
You did not want to be brave for another hour.
You did not want to sit perfectly still and feel the whole day catch up with you.
You looked back at Jack.
He was watching you carefully, giving you the question and the space to answer it.
Your voice came out quiet. âI want a normal night in.â
Jackâs face softened.
You swallowed, suddenly embarrassed by how badly you wanted something so simple. âSweats. Takeout. Maybe Love Island.â
Jackâs eyebrows lifted.
You pointed at him. âDonât.â
Jackâs mouth curved. âI didnât say anything.â
You tilted your head. âYou said it with your eyebrows.â
Jackâs mouth curved. âMy eyebrows have concerns.â
You narrowed your eyes. âYou pretend not to care.â
Jack returned your stare. âI donât pretend.â
You gave him a look. âJack.â
He held your gaze for half a second too long.
Then he sighed. âThat one with the stupid tattoo was lying.â
Your mouth fell open. âSee?â
âHe was,â Jack said, irritation creeping into his voice like this was an actual offense. âHe told one girl he was closed off, then kissed the other one in Soul Ties.â
You stared at him.
Jack looked back at you, utterly unbothered. âThatâs not complicated. Thatâs lying.â
A laugh broke out of you before you could stop it.
Jackâs brow furrowed. âWhat?â
You smiled. âYouâre invested.â
âIâm annoyed,â Jack said.
You pointed at him, triumphant. âYou know what Soul Ties is.â
Jack sighed. âUnfortunately.â
You pressed your lips together, trying not to smile too hard. âYou hate that man.â
Jack looked back at the screen. âI hate men who act like boys and expect women to manage the fallout.â
You went still for half a second.
Jack seemed to realize what he had said at the same time you did. His expression softened, the irritation easing into something quieter.
Then he cleared his throat and looked toward the stairs. âSweats. Takeout. Love Island.â
You looked at him, chest tight and warm all at once. âYouâre really okay with that?â
Jack bent to pick up your bag. âIâve watched it with you before.â
You looked at him. âYou complained the entire time.â
Jack set your bag beside the stairs. âI provided commentary.â
You raised a brow. âYou accused a man of emotional fraud.â
Jackâs brow lifted. âAccurately.â
A laugh broke out of you before you could stop it.
It was small. Tired. Still a little cracked around the edges.
But it was real.
He stepped closer to you, his hand coming to rest lightly at your waist. âYou said normal night in.â
Your breath caught.
Jackâs thumb brushed once over your shirt. âSo thatâs what weâre doing.â
You looked up at him, and the day loosened around you by one small, impossible inch.
Your voice came out soft. âThank you.â
Jackâs eyes moved over your face. âAlways.â
The word landed softly this time.
Not like a promise he had to prove.
Like a place you were allowed to rest.
You nodded toward the stairs before you could cry again. âSweats first?â
Jackâs mouth twitched. âSweats first.â
You lifted a finger. âAnd food.â
Jack nodded. âFood.â
You pointed at him before he could say anything else. âAnd you are not allowed to be medically concerned about my takeout order.â
Jackâs eyebrows rose. âDepends on the order.â
You gave him a look. âJack.â
He held up one hand. âIâm reserving judgment.â
âYouâre ruining normal night,â you said.
His hand squeezed your waist once. âIâm participating in normal night.â
You corrected him immediately. âYouâre medically supervising normal night.â
Jackâs mouth curved. âSomeone has to.â
You rolled your eyes, but you smiled as you stepped away from him and headed toward the stairs.
Behind you, Jack locked the door.
You heard it.
The click of the lock.
The slide of the deadbolt.
A sound that should have made your body go tight.
Instead, in Jackâs house, it let something in you unclench.
Just a little.
Enough.
By the time the third episode started, neither of you was really watching.
The takeout containers sat open on the coffee table, mostly empty, with two crumpled napkins, Jackâs half-finished water, and the remote balanced dangerously close to a carton of noodles. The television kept flashing bright island sunlight across the living room, all turquoise water and impossible tans and people having dramatic conversations in clothes that did not qualify as shirts.
Jack had opinions.
He had tried very hard not to have opinions.
He had failed before the first recoupling.
Now, though, even his commentary had gone quiet.
You were tucked into the corner of the couch with your legs folded beside you, one of Jackâs old sweatshirts pulled over your head, warm from the dryer and too big in the sleeves. Jack sat close enough that you had slowly, without either of you acknowledging it, ended up half in his lap.
Your shoulder pressed against his chest.
His arm rested low around your waist.
One of your hands lay over his forearm, your thumb moving absently over the veins beneath his skin while the show continued unwatched in front of you.
For the first time all day, nothing was asking you to answer.
No phone call. No judge. No paperwork. No one saying your name like it belonged in a file.
Just Jackâs couch.
Jackâs hand.
Jack breathing beside you.
The quiet should have scared you.
It didnât.
You shifted slightly, turning your face against his shoulder. Jackâs hand moved at your waist, slow and absent, like he had been waiting for you to settle before he let himself relax too.
On-screen, someone said something about loyalty.
Jack made a quiet, unimpressed sound in his chest.
Your mouth curved against his sweatshirt. âYouâre judging.â
Jackâs thumb moved once over your ribs. âIâm observing.â
You lifted your head enough to look at him. âYouâre silently judging.â
Jack kept his eyes on the television. âHe deserves it.â
You smiled faintly. âYou donât even know what he said.â
Jackâs jaw shifted. âI know his type.â
You raised an eyebrow. âHis type?â
Jack glanced at the screen. âMan with sunglasses indoors and too much confidence.â
A laugh slipped out of you, soft and tired.
Jack looked down at you then.
The amusement in his face faded slowly, not disappearing, just settling into something quieter.
You felt it happen.
The shift.
The air changing around you in that small space between the couch cushions and his chest and the hand he had wrapped around your waist.
Your smile softened. âWhat?â
Jack did not answer right away.
His eyes moved over your face like he was trying to memorize something he was afraid he might not get to keep.
Then he lifted his hand.
Slowly.
Carefully.
His fingers brushed along your jaw, warm and callused, and you went still under the touch.
Jackâs thumb moved once near the corner of your mouth. âIâm proud of you.â
Your throat tightened immediately.
You looked down, but his hand stayed gentle on your face.
Your voice came out thin. âJack.â
Jackâs eyes held yours. âI am.â
The television kept going behind you, bright and loud and ridiculous.
Jackâs voice stayed low enough that it felt separate from everything else.
Jack brushed his thumb along your cheek. âYou got through today.â
Your eyes burned.
Jackâs hand stayed steady at your jaw. âYou answered the call. You did the hearing. You said what happened out loud, even when it hurt.â
You tried to breathe around the pressure in your throat.
Jackâs gaze did not leave yours. âThen you came home and asked for a normal night because you knew that was what you needed.â
Your eyes filled.
Jackâs voice roughened. âThatâs brave.â
You shook your head a little. âIt didnât feel brave.â
Jackâs expression softened. âI know.â
Your breath caught.
Jackâs thumb brushed your cheek. âMost of the time, it doesnât.â
That undid something in you.
Not all at once.
Just one small thread giving way.
You looked at him, at the soft gray in his hair, the tired lines around his eyes, the mouth that had kissed your forehead and your hands and every place you had needed him to be gentle.
Jack swallowed, and his voice turned rougher. âYou let me in.â
Your chest tightened.
He said it like it mattered.
Like he knew exactly what it had cost you.
Jackâs hand moved from your jaw to the side of your neck. âYou let me help.â
You blinked hard.
Jackâs thumb rested just below your ear. âEven when it was hard. Even when every part of you wanted to act like you could carry it alone.â
You tried to breathe.
Jack looked at you like you were the only thing in the room. âYou trusted me.â
Your eyes filled before you could stop them.
Jackâs face softened. âThat means something to me.â
You stared at him, unable to look away now.
The words were right there.
Too big. Too fast. Too true.
You had known it in pieces before this. In the bedroom, when he stood between you and the door. In his kitchen, when he printed your paperwork and changed his shirt for your hearing. In the ER, when he watched you work instead of making you feel watched. In the truck, when he drove you home without asking you to be okay.
You had known it.
Your body had known it before your mouth did.
Jack made you feel safe.
Jack made you feel steady.
Jack made you feel like being loved did not have to mean being handled, managed, doubted, or made smaller.
And now he was looking at you like he was proud to be trusted with you.
You blinked, and a tear slipped down before you could catch it.
Jackâs thumb caught it instead.
You let out a shaky breath. âIâm grateful for you.â
His face changed.
Barely.
Enough.
Your hand tightened around his forearm. âI donât know if Iâve said that enough.â
Jackâs voice was quiet. âYou donât have to.â
Your fingers pressed into his sleeve. âI want to.â
His eyes searched yours.
You swallowed. âBecause I am.â
Jackâs thumb moved along your jaw. âMe too.â
That should have been enough.
It would have been enough yesterday.
Maybe even this morning.
But tonight, with the takeout containers on the coffee table and Love Island playing unwatched and Jackâs hand warm at your face, something in you could not keep standing one step back from the truth.
You got quiet.
Jack noticed immediately.
His brow shifted. âWhatâs wrong?â
Your heart started pounding.
You looked at his mouth, then his eyes.
Your voice came out unsteady. âJack.â
He went still.
Not tense.
Still.
Like he heard something in the way you said his name and did not want to move too quickly around it.
Jackâs hand stayed warm at your neck. âYeah?â
You tried to say it.
Your mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Jackâs eyes stayed on yours. âTake your time.â
You shook your head a little because that was not it.
Or maybe it was.
Maybe you were okay enough to finally say it.
Your fingers curled into his sleeve.
You whispered, âI love you.â
For one second, Jack did not move.
The whole room seemed to hold its breath.
The television kept playing, but the sound went distant, meaningless. Someone laughed on-screen. Someone gasped. The island sunlight flickered over Jackâs face.
He stared at you like the words had hit him straight in the chest.
Your stomach dropped.
Then Jack kissed you.
No hesitation after that.
No careful distance.
No answer made of language yet.
Just his hand sliding to the back of your neck, his other arm tightening around your waist, and his mouth on yours like he had been holding himself back from this exact moment for longer than either of you knew.
You made a small sound against him, half relief, half ache.
Jack pulled you closer, and you went willingly, your hands finding his shoulders, your body turning into his until there was no space left between you but breath.
The kiss was not frantic.
It was worse than that.
It was slow and deep and completely certain.
Like he believed you.
Like he was answering before he trusted his voice.
When he finally pulled back, it was only far enough to rest his forehead against yours.
His breathing was uneven.
So was yours.
Jackâs thumb brushed the side of your neck once.
Jackâs voice came out rough. âI love you too.â
Your breath broke.
Jackâs eyes opened, and he looked at you from inches away, wrecked and steady and so completely yours that it hurt.
He held your face like he needed you to hear him. âI do.â
Your eyes burned again.
His thumb brushed your cheek. âI love you.â
You closed your eyes, and another tear slipped free.
Jack kissed it from your cheek.
Then he kissed your mouth again, softer now. Slower.
You let yourself sink into him, into the couch, into the warm weight of his arms and the steady beat of his heart beneath your hand.
Outside, the world had not fixed itself.
The order was still printed in your bag.
Your apartment was still waiting.
But Jackâs arms were around you.
His mouth was warm against yours.
And for the first time all day, the truth in the room was not fear.
summary â jack has seen you leave a trail of broken hearts and bad dates, and heâs determined to prove to you that youâre looking for love in all the wrong places.
warnings â 12.6k words. age gap (jackâs around 50; readerâs a 4th year resident, so 20s), attending/resident power dynamic; mentor/mentee relationship, idiots in love maybe?? yearning!jack, jealous!jack, jack âiâll pay for itâ abbot strikes Again!!!! hurt + comfort (one instance of jack being an ass, but he smooths it over during the same shift - they canât stay mad at each other), mild angst, patient death, jackâs leg - reader helps him adjust the prosthetic and takes care of him during a long shift, canon-typical medical scenes and probably lots of inaccuracies (iâm an english major reddit is my best friend) ; on-page patient death, reader performing compressions, reader DATES DATES and may be unprofessional (affectionately she just wants to find love and her entire life revolves around the hospital who can blame her), readerâs written to have hair she brushes and can pin up, she also gets on her toes to kiss him but that can be ignored i just liked the image jack basically bribes her into a date, no smut but theyâre So very much thinking about it, rushed-ish ending i think?
notes â wrote this in a slump it took so Unbelievably long and iâm not even sure i like it but i wanted to post something before i give up on writing anything ever again!!!!
It was midnight and a peds nurse was lingering by the ambulance doors, and Jack knew that he wasnât meant to be there. Lewis was his name, maybe, but Jack couldnât even be sure of that â and knew he had no reason to be sure of it, because the guy wasnât meant to be there. Running the ER in the middle of the night, with all of the dayâs patients handed off, and the nightâs still finding their way through triage, was difficult in itself, and he didnât have the energy to also babysit Ryan-or-Lewis-or-whoever hovering there like a little boy waiting to be picked up from school.Â
âIs he meant to be here?â Jack asked, closing the space toward the desk where Lena was pointing something, jutting his thumb in the direction of the guy.Â
Lena flattened a printout on the desk with two fingers, hardly sparing him a glance.
âHim. Peds. Why is he there?â he tried again.
âCouldnât tell you,â she said, but the corner of her mouth had flicked up, proving that she was simply choosing not to tell him.Â
âHeâs off his unit,â he said. He knew he sounded just slightly silly stating the obvious.
âSeems so.â
âSend him back, then,â Jack drawled, incredulous, hands finding his hips. âThereâs enough shit going on here.â
âYou send him back,â she retorted, amused just slightly. âIf youâre so concerned.â
Jack looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head as his hands went to rest on his hips. When he looked back down, he found you walking toward the nurse and it suddenly made complete sense.Â
He let out a sigh. âThis has to be a joke.â
His eyes, as they did more often than was appropriate, caught on you, hair coming down loose from where youâd pinned it, the scrubs lopsided at one hip, riding lower than where theyâd started at the beginning of the night. You turned to say something to the guy quickly, and the movement caught the slip, your scrub top moving up half an inch, and Jackâs eyes went there before his brain could tell him that was wrong, some groove in him that noticed you before it noticed anything useful. He had a second of pure, unhelpful distraction before his brain reminded him that he was an attending and had things to do.Â
âI actually think itâs funny,â Lena said, shrugging.
Of course it had something to do with you. He shouldâve figured it out the second he saw the guy standing there with his hands in the pouch of his scrubs, rocking heel to toe like the floor was just too exciting to be standing on. Nobody loitered around the ambulance bay at midnight for good reason. People came through those doors bleeding or they didnât come through them at all, and this guy had shown up with nothing wrong with him, except maybe a case for some lovesickness.Â
âIâm gonna make this stop,â Jack said, already pushing himself away from the nurseâs station.
Lenaâs eyes widened slightly. âDonât say anything that gets you sat down with HR.â
âShe can goddamn try me,â he said, and went. Also because Jack was fairly sure you would never report him to HR.Â
He crossed the floor and caught the tail-end of your conversation as he closed in.
â â just tell me when youâre free, thatâs all Iâm asking,â the guy was saying.
You were already half-turned, already gone as you waved a hand loosely beside you. âI donât know, I just donât think we should try again.âÂ
Jack blew out a breath, standing a few feet short of you, your back facing him. Why was he not surprised? Heâd been keeping tally without meaning to, and he knew that was embarrassing. There was the radiology fellow whoâd started hand-delivering films that very well couldâve gone through the system; the travel nurse whoâd washed through in six weeks and left the floor faintly weird in his wake; the anaesthesia resident who now took the long way around the department if he saw you at the end of it, as though he were a dog whoâd learned the fence was electric. And now this one, apparently, Peds with his whole hopeful heart hanging out in Jackâs department.Â
âYouâre so sweet for coming down here,â you practically crooned at him, shifting on your heels, eyes flicking down to the form in your hand. âBut I really do have a whole long night ahead of me, and I know my answerâs not gonna change, so I wonât make you wait around for it, okay?âÂ
Jack fought the urge to roll his eyes when you said the words with the upward lilt of a woman sending a toddler back to his mother. He wanted to laugh a little when he saw that the guy had taken it standing up like it was a gift.Â
The hell of it was that Jack understood the man. He understood every last one of them because he stood next to you fifty hours a week, had been doing so for three years, and whatever the department thought of him after his consistent therapy, he was not carved out of stone.Â
Jack was afraid that if he hadnât been your attending these last four years and a little younger, wearing his heart on his sleeve, heâd have been eating out of the palm of your hand.Â
You gave the guy a there-there pat, and it was only then did his eyes land on Jack, who he probably knew was your fucking attending. You turned then, and immediately said, âOh, Dr. Abbot, Iâve got the guy in sixâs labs back, the potassium ââ
âMhm.â Jackâs hands came up and landed on your shoulders before youâd finished the sentence, squaring you off the spot where you stood and turning you bodily back toward the floor like you were a gurney.Â
âIt is four-point-nine, but the EKGâs good, so I was gonna recheck in ââÂ
âLetâs recheck it now,â he said. He kept you moving, his palms broad through the cotton of your scrubs, steering you a few feet till your own feet caught onto the idea.Â
You grumbled something under your breath, and once heâd stopped you right in front of six, you turned to face him with your brows raised.
âSay something?â he asked, tipping his chin down.
âYou seem like youâre mad at me,â you said.Â
âHuh. I do?â He let go of your shoulders â noticing, distantly, the exact second his hands came off and suddenly felt too empty â and reached past you to pluck sixâs chart off the tray, more to have something to do with them than needing it. âYouâre right. You should recheck in ten minutes.â
âYouâre mad at me,â you said again, crossing your arms over your chest.Â
He blew out a breath, and suddenly felt just a little silly at getting worked up over a nurse by the doors when there was a large, glowing board behind him full of names that needed his complete, undivided attention.Â
You were a senior resident, after all, four years deep, one of his sharpest â youâd treated the guy in six, hadnât you, youâd flagged it and called for the EKG and made the right call on the recheck before heâd even asked, all while dismantling some manâs hopes. Somehow, your mess and competence ran on the same current. You never let the first touch the second. Heâd have loved, some nights, to have an excuse to be mad â a missed lab, a blown line, anything he could write up and point at â and you kept declining to hand him one. All of this meant he was left with this vague swampy irritation, and Jack wasnât the sort of mentor who liked to hound upon that.Â
âNo, sweetheart, I just love it when you get random men hanging around the department,â he settled on saying, feeling his shoulders visibly loosen a fraction.
You winced, eyes darting over to the emptiness in front of the doors now. âSorry.âÂ
âYouâd say it wonât happen again, but we both know better.â He shrugged. Then, he reached out his hand â he wasnât sure why, except that it just happened naturally â and patted you once on the shoulder, then on the second turned you to face the curtains leading to your patient. âDoctor up.â
And you did, the loose, embarrassed shape of you being replaced in the space of a single breath, being replaced by something Jack had watched grow into you over the years and still hadnât quite gotten used to.Â
Trauma called it in nine minutes later, an MVC, unrestrained driver, GCS dropping in the field. Jack was working on a laceration in four when he heard the crackled warning, and by the time heâd looked up out the curtains, you were already moving, gowned and at the head of the bay calling out assignments like youâd been doing this for a decade.
âI need two units O-neg before he rolls in,â you said, voice pitched high enough to carry without yelling, cutting clean through the perpetual noise of the department. âSomebody get me a second eighteen-gauge ready, and I want an ultrasound in here.â
Donnie and Mateo were already moving, and so were the people around you, falling into your orbit like the room had easily reorganized itself around your voice the second it went up. Jack stood by the curtain, gloves from the lac still on, and found he couldnât make himself move just yet.
The doors banged open. EMS wheeled the stretcher through fast, calling out vitals over each other, and you were already on the patientâs side before the gurney had fully stopped moving, hands moving on his neck, chest, eyes scanning his pupils in a matter of ten seconds. He began walking over, catching your voice as you called out your reads as someone hung the blood and someone else prepped the ultrasound wand. âPage neuro now.â
âOn it,â Mateo said, already moving.
You had both hands on the patient, running the primary survey quickly, confirming, checking, discarding possibilities out in short, clipped sentences Jack recognized as the sound of your brain running six steps ahead of your mouth. Sweat had started on your hairline. You called out for OR to be on standby, eyes flickering around the room and landing on Jack. âOR, please,â you said, aimed at him, brows going up.Â
âOn it,â Jack said, because there was no way he was going to let you be wrong about needing something and didnât make sure you got it.
The next six minutes went by fast and loud, in bursts and then suddenly quiet, the room narrowing down on functionality. You stood at the center of it; you called it and ran it. You got the man upstairs stable enough that Walsh didnât sound worried for one second, and that was a compliment from her.Â
Jack watched the whole thing from four feet back, arms crossed, and chipping in when your brain had snagged. He was feeling a heat in his chest helplessly and entirely unprofessional, it was always present when he was able to see, in real-time, how far youâd come from your first day of residency when your hands were a second too slow on the central line and how your voice would pitch up at the end of every read, asking for permission every time instead of stating it like a fact, eyes finding him across the room each time, checking.
There was none of that left in you now, he realized, had done so a long time ago. He thought, watching you now, that this was the closest thing heâd let himself do to falling in years, standing uselessly riveted as he watched a woman heâd taught outgrow the need for him in real time, and finding that instead of the loss heâd expected to feel when the day finally came, all he felt was warm and terrifying and too much like pride.Â
When the room had started clearing out, he watched your mouth drop open as you let out a heavy breath, eyes going over to him. The second he watched you realize he was still there, your face shifted, the relief turning into something sharper.Â
âWhy didnât you jump in?â You crossed the floor toward him in four hard strides, gloves already peeled off and balled tight in one fist, snapping the second one free with a motion that looked terrifyingly like it wanted to be aimed at him. âHis pressure tanked for thirty seconds and you just watched.â
âYou had it.â
âYou didnât know that,â you said, voice going up an octave, adrenaline still thrumming through you, hands coming up the gesture at the blood-streaked floor. âI couldâve missed something. Youâre the attending, Jack, youâre supposed to catch if I missed something ââ
âI wouldâve,â he interrupted, stepping in close enough that you had to tilt your head back to keep glaring at him properly. âThe second you needed me, I wouldâve stepped in. I wasnât gonna take it from you before you did.âÂ
âYou canât gamble like that with a patient ââ Your chest was rising and falling fast, gloves now crushed in your fist, and he could see the fear catching up now that everything around you had gone quiet enough to let it, something that looked more like fear of yourself than for the patient. âWhat if Iâd frozen â?â
âI knew you wouldnât.â He reached his hand out, thumb catching a smear of the blood at your jaw youâd accidentally smeared on yourself, wiping it off carefully with the pad of his thumb, and felt you go still under it. âYou donât trust my judgement?â
âYou know I do. You just couldâve said something.â
âI couldâve. He dropped his hand from your jaw only to catch your wrist instead. âDidnât wanna interrupt you being brilliant. Kinda liked watching it happen.â
Your mouth opened, surely to let out some unnecessary retort, and died there when he pressed one slow stroke of his thumb against your wrist, raising a brow.Â
âRelax,â he said, voice going rough as he leaned in a little, forcing you to meet his eyes properly. âJust take the win. Thatâs an order.â
âNow you wanna give orders,â you mumbled.
He barked out a short laugh, letting go of your wrist. âOnly when youâre being stubborn for no reason.â  Â
It was sometime during the second year of your residency when heâd started catching your drift. It had started with a random Friday shift. Heâd seen you at the station, elbows on the counter, telling Lena something conspiratorially. Jack was meant to be reading a chart but couldnât help how his ears had perked up. Anything to get through the shift, he supposed.
â â no, but he was perfect on paper,â you were saying, âkept his house clean and everything. He told me he kept his plant alive for six years ââ
âSo, what happened?â Lena said flatly, like she already knew what you were going to say but wanted to hear anyway.Â
âHe wanted to take me bowling on the second date,â you said through a sigh. âI know how it sounds, but youâve gotta hear me out ââ
âIâm genuinely not going anywhere.â
â â for the first date, bowlingâs fun. But he took me to a nice dinner the first time, he set a standard, and then the second date he goes bowling, which means the effortâs already ââ You created a little downward slope with your hand. âAnd if itâs already sliding on date two, whereâs it at on date two hundred? I can already see my marriage with him and itâs bad.â
It seemed you had a criteria, Jack learned then. It was proven even more when heâd heard you talk about your other failed dates, seen them, and learned â without ever wanting to â what they were, to an extent.Â
He knew you couldnât stand a man who ordered for you without asking. He knew youâd written off a fellow for the way he talked about his mother, and another one â an accountant, a rare specimen who had no clue what an EKG was â over a text message youâd read aloud to Ellis in a voice of complete horror, though Jack had never caught what it actually said, only your face while you read it. He knew you gave people precisely three dates, that this was a rule you held if the first and second date went well, three apparently being the magic number at which a person could no longer hide the demon they were going to turn out to be (your words).
He knew, too, that you only allowed one kiss after the first date, if even that. It was never up for negotiation, no matter how beautifully the night had gone, for you never wanted to end up âemotionally overdrawn on an account you hadnât even opened yet.â
He knew you a man lost real points if, over the three dates, if it involved drinks, he ordered the same one. He knew a man gained them, silently and instantly, for being able to sit in a lull without narrating his way out of it, and that you considered this the single rarest trait in modern dating.
He knew you were looking for something you had no name for and would recognize on sight, which struck him as a hell of a way to run a search.
Heâd have told you, if you asked, that he tuned most of the station chatter out as a matter of survival, for while he enjoyed the occasional gossip, he couldnât very well absorb everyoneâs business. And that was true about everyoneâs business but yours, apparently, because yours came in clear.
Your business he retained against his own better judgement, and he realized â once, during a slow shift â that he couldâve drawn you a better map of your taste than you seemed to carry yourself. He couldâve told you, if you asked, exactly the kind of man whoâd finally clear your bar, and exactly why he had yet to show up.Â
It was almost nice, some nights, watching you try anyway. The ER was a place where everyone was kept tethered to the world by a thread, and everyone who worked in it long enough to develop some version of the same calluses. Jack had grown his years ago, and he wore them invisible, occasionally aching, and had come to terms with it being permanent.
Love, for Jack, had stopped being a real noun before youâd shown up, somewhere between things he used to want and things heâd decided werenât for him anymore.
You still believed in it. Youâd watched this place take everything soft out of grown men twice your seniority and somehow walked through the same fire hopeful, still convinced, against every scrap of evidence, that somewhere there was a person worth all that hoping.
For that reason, he had decided to not interrupt your endeavors, not until now, when he noticed you during hand-off before your night shift with him started, in front of Robby, of all people.Â
While Jack loved Robby like a brother, he had a documented, department-wide, actuarially reliable seven-week expiration date on every woman he charmed out of this building. Heâd heard intra-departmental gossip about him. There was, Jack was fairly sure, a running joke about it that predated your residency by years.Â
He knew you definitely were not finding love in his best friend. But Jack felt the buzzing in his mind go quiet and mean watching how you with him.
You laughed at something and Jack lost, for one humiliating second, the thread of what heâd walked over to say. It happened sometimes, more than heâd admit to anyone. Ordinary noises out of you hit him somewhere in his chest before the better part of him flagged it as a problem, and he had to physically clear his throat before finding his footing again.Â
â â Italianâs always good after pulling a double,â Robby was saying. âBut I do love some microwave ramen, too, when Iâm missing my med student days.âÂ
âOh, so your standards have been raised being chief?â you said, and Jack could hear the smile and wariness in it.Â
âFor sure ââ
Jack let out a huff, something resembling a laugh, as his feet planted him between the two of you. He was close enough that his shoulder nudged yours and you had to step back to keep your balance. He felt your weight land for a second against him with a satisfaction he had no, absolutely no business feeling for something so small. So childish.
He turned to Robby, spreading his hands wide, mock outrage. âMy resident.â
Robby looked mildly amused, unbothered, so Jack added, before he could respond, âGo home before I report you to HR.â
âYouâd do that to me?âÂ
âIn a heartbeat. Have some shame.â Jack kept his shoulder where it was still angled half in front of you, an old, unexamined instinct keeping the line drawn even though Robby had already backed off.
He tipped his head toward the doors, toward the gold light coming up in them, the day shift draining out around you both. âThereâs a whole rich life waitinâ for you out there.â
Robby just smiled and pushed off the counter, giving you a small wave before he left.
Jack turned to you then, brows furrowed. âSeriously?â
You let out a short laugh. âWork hard, play hard?âÂ
âSoundinâ a lot like a frat brother right now. Never have those words been said in an ER,â Jack said.Â
âI wasnât actually going to do it,â you said, rushing the words out with something more honest in them. âFor the record. I know what â heâs got a reputation.â You picked at the counter. âI was just talking to him. Heâs funny.â
Jack had to recalibrate for a second. âYou were talkinâ sweet to him.âÂ
âI talk sweet to everyone.â You lifted a shoulder, completely unbothered. âYou should try it sometime.â
He rolled his eyes at that. He reached over for your cup of coffee sitting between you â closer to his elbow than yours â and drank a sip, eyes going up to the ceiling at the sheer volume of syrup youâd decided you needed in your bloodstream today. âThe hell?â he muttered, turning the cup slightly as if that would help. âAre you trying to embalm yourself?â
âGive it back.â
âIn a minute.â He took a second sip, slower this time, and watched you over the rim of the cup. Then, he set it back a few degrees off how youâd had it, just to see your jaw tick.
You pulled the cup back in, thumbed it around until the lid faced you again, and drank from it without breaking your explanation. âIâm offended you think Iâll get wine and dined by the chief attending.â You tilted your head. âGive me some credit here. I wonât be his seven weeks.â
âHuh.â He rubbed the back of his neck, which was warm. âWell, good. Donât think heâll clear your bar anyway.â
âSee, you get it,â you said, pointing a finger at him. âAt least someone around here does.âÂ
âYes, maâam,â he said, tipping his head slightly forward that even he hadnât realized that he had shifted the distance just slightly. âBetter than most.â
Your eyes widened slightly at that, and Jack took that as his cue to step back, clear his throat, as he jerked his chin toward the board.
âAlright, time to work. Stop the play,â he said, trying to get his voice the right level. âGo look at chest pain on three.â
âSo bossy,â you said, but you were already turning around to go to three.
Well, thatâs what he was, wasnât he? For some reason, he had to remind himself that.Â
It was what he had to remind himself as his hands hovered your trembling ones as you tried to pump air into Mrs. Foleyâs lungs, knowing she was already gone â had been for a while now, if he was honest â longer than it took you to admit. He knew it, heâd grown the grim ability to recognize when a body stopped being a patient and being someone you were performing compressions on for the familyâs sake, for your own need to have done everything.Â
Heâd let it run anyway, because you hadnât accepted it yet, and heâd wanted to give you that extra minute to arrive at it on your own.Â
Mateo had come up to Jackâs side, snapping his gloves off, the sound of it overshadowed by your own heaving.Â
âShe has to call it,â he murmured. âYou want me to ââ
âNo.â Jackâs eyes, he felt, could not move away from your distress. âIâve got her.âÂ
Mateo looked at him for a moment longer than the moment warranted, and then he stepped back and let Jack be. You were still going, your compressions had gone harder, faster, less like genuine medicine and more like you were pleading with Mrs. Foley herself now. Sweat had gone to the hair at your temple. Your jaw was set in a clench Jack recognized all too well, and for a moment, Jack wished that he didnât have to be so acutely tuned into watching what the job did to others, the same way it did to him.Â
He stepped in behind your shoulder, close, and brought his hand down over yours where they were locked on the old womanâs chest.
âLook at the clock,â he said quietly into your ear.
âOne more round ââÂ
âYouâve done plenty.â He pressed, gently, until your hands stilled under his, and felt your entire body resist it. âYou know she was gone before we couldâve even done anything ââ
âSheâs been my patient for years ââÂ
Jack knew then that while you may have been an excellent doctor, his senior resident that had bloomed under his mentorship but still couldâve gone without him and done just the same, it wasnât a good feeling to wonder if the job would dim you the way it had him.Â
âI know.â He kept his hands over yours with enough pressure so as to not let you drive them down again. âThatâs why itâs yours to call. But youâve gotta call it, Doctor.â
Your breath hitched as you turned your neck to face him, and there was a pool brimming on your lashline that you kept at bay, nodding. Your hands under his stopped straining upward, and he felt the exact second you accepted it, for it moved through your shoulders and down your spine and left you a little smaller standing there, the fight trickling into the moment after, which Jack always thought was worse.Â
âTime of death,â you said, forcing your voice back into the procedural tone, âoh-three-forty-one.â You peeled your gloves off finger-by-finger.
His hand found the small of your back after taking the minute, leading you to the little family consult room with the boxed tissues and fake ficus with a couch that had absorbed more bad news since longer than you or he had worked there. He shut the door with the flat of his hand and let the floorâs noise cut to a hum through the drywall.Â
You stood in the middle of the room with your arms crossed, holding yourself, and stayed silent.Â
Jack propped himself against the table, arms folded, as he breathed out a small sigh through his nose. He knew you werenât a talker after the bad ones. Some residents came out of a loss with their mouths running, narrating it into something survivable, and some went quiet and small and had to be waited out, and you were the second kind. So he waited.
You broke it eventually, like he always knew you would have. âIâve got a butterscotch she gave me seven months ago in my locker still,â you murmured, craning your neck so you were looking at the ceiling. You wiped under your eyes with the heel of your hand roughly.Â
âThink Iâve got one, too,â he murmured, wincing as he tried to shift his weight.Â
It had been building up for the past few hours, a hot ring of wrong down below the knee where the socket had gone slick and furnace-warm because it was past hour fourteen, when heâd sweated the fit and never changed the liner because thereâd been no window that wasnât already accounted for. He shifted his weight off it, trying again, and reached down to thumb the release, breaking the seal.Â
He let out a short, punched out sigh as he pulled himself down onto the chair behind him, one hand balancing himself on the table. âSorry,â he gruffed out, jaw clenching.Â
Your eyes flickered down to the prosthetic limb he was balancing against the pole of the table and you were already moving before he could finish apologizing. You never asked if he needed a hand. Youâd learned sometime during your second year that asking him gave him a chance to say no, and youâd quit handing him that chance sometime during your second year, so now you just came. You went down on one knee at the pole of the table.
âDonât say sorry,â you mumbled, eyes not meeting him.
His jaw stayed tight and he didnât fight it, fight you. That was a formality and you both knew it, a thing he did with his shoulders and not his hands, but he watched the top of your head and thought â like he always did, each time, and never said out loud â there was no one else on godâs green earth heâd let do this in the way you did. Not the prosthetist, who did it clinically. Not the VA, who did it tired. You did it each time like it was nothing and everything at once, as though this something not worth remarking on.Â
He very badly wanted to thank you, despite how small he always felt when you did this. He wanted to tell you that you were, without question, better at this than anyone who was paid to do it.
Your fingers found the socket and went for the liner because you knew the fit went bad and the sweat before it went bad anywhere a person could see, knew heâd have to run it slick and furnace-hot than spend the fourteen minutes off the floor. You rolled it back with the flat of your thumb, easing the trapped heat out of it, and he felt the pressure of the ring of raw below his knee and had to clench his jaw to not let the relief show on his face. You spared him anyway by keeping your eyes down where theyâd been.
âYouâll strip your skin doing this,â you said conversationally, the roughness still present in your voice from the code. âYou know that. You keep running it past twelve and one of these nights itâs cellulitis and Iâm admitting you.âÂ
âIf only I could be so lucky.â
He ducked his head slightly, a part of him wanting to catch the reaction, and he saw how one corner of your lip was barely turned up.Â
You thumbed a line of red where the socketâs edge had bitten in, checking it, and your touch went careful around there. âThis is new. The edge is catching higher than it was.â
âWent to a new liner last month,â he said, voice low. âNot broke in yet.âÂ
âThen you break it on your days off. Not on a fourteen hour.â You finally looked up at him, shaking your head with this flat, fond expression heâd come to realize was your favorite way to look at him. âYouâd write me up for less.âÂ
âIâd write you up for a lot less,â he agreed, thinking back on the time youâd fought him tooth-and-nail over staying through a migraine, refusing, point-blank, to hand off a soft rule-out chest pain at eleven when the migraine had started very visibly began creeping up on you.Â
Heâd caught you before youâd said a word about it because youâd begun squinting at the numbers and pressed the heel of your hand against one eye for a moment too long between patients, thinking nobody was watching. He was, he realized, always watching you in some way.
âGo home,â heâd said quietly, catching you by the elbow outside the curtain. âThatâs not a request.â
âIâm fine.â
âYouâve got a migraine.â
âIâve got a job.â Your jaw had clenched, stubbornly, and Jack had thought that even if heâd put all his strength into it, he wouldnât have been able to unclench it for you. âIâm not handing off a chest pain because my head hurts. This guy has waited long enough for a bed. Iâm not the priority here.â
Heâd wanted to tell you that you were, actually, that you were exactly the priority, and watching you white-knuckle forms with your pupils blown different sizes from pain scared him more than any board full of critical pains ever had. But heâd just pulled down the light two notches, told the nurses to shadow elevenâs discharge, and put a bottle of water and two Tylenol on your desk without a word. And thank god, youâd taken the Tylenol and finished the shift standing up because sitting made the room tilt worse, and only taken on non-critical cases. Youâd refused until the end that you shouldâve gone home three hours earlier. Â
Now, you huffed something that was nearly a laugh, your first real once since the code, and went back to setting. And Jack sat there with his arms crossed in the dark with your hands on the worst-guarded part of him and the door shut against the whole floor, and thought about how he believed nobody deserved you. People were vile and sucked and cut in line and let doors swing shut behind them, and you handed out three dates to men who wrote sonnets in your voicemail and couldnât clear a bar youâd never once lowered for anyone. Heâd thought, more nights than he liked to admit, that these people had no idea what they were auditioning for.Â
His eyes snagged on you because there was nothing else in this small room worth looking at. There was still salt dried in your lashline from the code. You were a wreck and you were fixing his leg anyway, still half-shaking from a woman you couldnât save, and it hadnât occurred to you to stop and put yourself back together first. It never did. Jack had seen the care run out of you before you ever decided to spend it.Â
âIâm sorry about Mrs. Foley,â he said.
You shook your head, face still angled down, thumb pausing mid-motion. âIâll be okay,â you murmured, lifting up one shoulder. âI just hate that she couldnât get here sooner.â
âYou did nothing wrong,â he said plainly. âFamily said sheâs been feeling off for two days now.â
âI know.â Your voice cracked, betraying the flatness you were trying to present. âDoesnât make it easier.â
You lifted your head for a moment, then, looking at him with a sad smile he knew you were painting on to get him to stop talking.
He nodded stiffly, tipping his chin down. âAlright. Finish my leg and weâll run this floor together.â
Up in radiology a few nights later, Jack had gone himself to sort out a reading that had been sitting long and heâd cornered a tech and got what he needed and was already halfway out the door, jacket sleeves still rolled from the last set of compressions, when he saw the guy standing off by the light boxes.Â
Younger. A resident, he supposed, in scrubs a size too crisp for someone whoâd actually been on the shift long enough to earn wrinkles in them. Heâd been watching Jack the whole time â Jack could feel it, the itch of being observed â shifting his weight heel to toe against the linoleum floor.Â
âSomethinâ on my face?â Jack said flatly because he really did have to get back to the floor.
âYouâre â sorry, youâre Dr. Abbot, right?â
âLast I checked.âÂ
The guyâs hand came out of his jacketâs pocket, and there was a piece of folded paper in it. Jack looked at it like it was a spider, hoping â no, praying â it had something to do with work.
âCould you give this to her?â the guy asked, and Jackâs hope died, as he stepped closer. âThe senior resident on your shift. Sheâll â sheâll know who itâs from.â
âYouâve got to be kidding me,â Jack murmured, brows pulling in together. âYou ever heard of texting, kid?âÂ
âI did,â he said, and Jack could practically feel the heat radiating off of him. âShe stopped answering, so I figured, maybe on paper, sheâd actually ââ
âTake the hint,â Jack grumbled, snatching the paper out of his hand. Then, as he turned to the door, he said, âYou know I work in the ER?â When the guy only nodded quickly, he added, âYou know she works in the ER?âÂ
âI â yeah. Obviously.â
âThen you know she doesnât need this.â He held up the paper between him and the guy. âSheâs got enough on her plate without some guy too chicken to call her handing me a note like Iâm her mailman.â
The guy opened his mouth, nose scrunching at Jackâs words, but nothing came out.Â
âYeah.â Jack was already walking, note tucked in his pocket, done with the conversation. âTry calling next time. Or donât.âÂ
The guy looked at least a little sheepish, a little ashamed, and Jack thought good, he should feel ashamed. He wasnât sure what the protocol in dating was now â heâd been just a little rusty and out of the stretch for a stretch of years he preferred not to count in single digits â but he was fairly certain that whatever the rules had curdled up to, this could not possibly be inside them.
He rode the elevator down with the note in his pockets, and he could feel the small stiff square of another manâs hope pressing over the outside of his thigh.Â
He found you at your desk, hands running restlessly through your hair as you spoke into the microphone, charting. The words were coming out of you bluntly, mechanic and after saying the same variation a thousand times over. There was a pen behind your ear youâd forgotten about and the residue of a lab value gone blue across the back of your hand where youâd scrawled it hours ago and never washed off.
He stood there for a second before you noticed him, and thought â not for the first time and with the same low irritation he always felt about it â that he had no earthly business being the man this got routed to.
Jack leaned down so his head hovered beside yours, scanning your work on the screen, close enough that his shoulder nearly brushed yours, head tilted to read your screen at an angle that had nothing to do with actually needing to see it.Â
âThe man wants an espresso martini?â he asked, furrowing his brows as he read over your notes, right by your ear.Â
You jumped just slightly and swivelled on your stool to face him, then back at the screen. âShit â Jack. Announce yourself.â You scanned the words on your notes, shaking your head and already backspacing. âNo, that was me talking to myself. Stupid mic picked it up.â
âLong as itâs just the one,â he drawled, staying there in your space a little longer, watching the side of your face instead of the screen now. âThose things sneak up on you.â
âSpeaking from experience?â You turned on your stool to face him fully, chin tilting up to meet his eyes, something playful and a little challenging in it.Â
âIâve got a couple decades on you. Everythingâs snuck up on me.âÂ
You held his gaze a little longer, then looked away first, tongue coming out over your lips for a second. He took a small satisfaction in not being the one who blinked first.Â
He blew out a breath through his nose, remembering, with reluctance now, what heâd actually come here to do. âSpeaking of sneaking up.â He pulled out the note from his pocket. âI got something to deliver to you ââ
You furrowed your brows when he handed it to you. âSecret admirer?â you asked jokingly.Â
He barked out a short laugh. âNothinâ secret about it. You ignoring some radiology fellow?â
You grimaced, opening the note and scanning over the words quickly. He couldâve left, but stayed instead and watched you read it. The frown only pulled deeper, and he saw your eye twitch once as you scanned the words.
Against his better judgement, he murmured, âThat bad?âÂ
âUh â no, itâs okay.â You shrugged stiffly.Â
âHuh,â he breathed out, studying you outright now. âWonder what youâre doinâ to these guys to get them so wound up.â
You chuckled, mostly to yourself. âWouldnât you like to know.â Â
His chest tightened at that. It was unfair how you could make anything to him sound like something heâd been waiting to hear. He swallowed. âSuppose I would.â
âThat an offer, Dr. Abbot?âÂ
âMight be,â he said, shrugging one shoulder.Â
You laughed â surprised, the tension in your shoulders breaking slightly â and shook your head, folding the note back up. âYouâre ridiculous. Well, thank you for getting it to me. Iâm sorry he bothered you with this ââ You swivelled, placing the note on your desk before picking up your phone. âThatâs really weird.âÂ
âThatâs one word for it,â Jack said, and left it there, because youâd already turned and had your phone in one hand and the microphone in the other. The small furrow was back between your brows, and heâd learned there was a point past which pushing you got him a brighter, smaller version of whatever you were covering.Â
He drifted toward the far end of the station where Mateo was crouched at the crash cart running his palm along the drawers, checking seals, restocking and checking the fact of it on slower nights like this.Â
âShe okay?â Mateo asked, snapping the drawer, seemingly having caught the interaction.Â
âOh, you know.â Jack leaned a shoulder into the wall, arms crossing. âThe belle of our ball. Canât clock in without collecting a proposal.â
Mateo huffed. âShe loves love.â
âThat she does.â Jack watched you across the station, the phone lit against your ear now. âDonât know why she keeps doing that to herself, though.â
âSheâs an optimist.â Mateo clicked a seal into place, then moved down the cart. âThinks someoneâs gonna turn out different.â
Jack hummed, then, because the question had been sitting low and unlovely for a couple hours, he asked, âYou two give it a run ever?âÂ
Mateo turned his neck to look up at Jack. âMe and ââ He jutted his thumb behind him to vaguely gesture at you. âHer?â
âMhm.â Jack kept his eyes on you. âYouâre close.â
âNah.â Mateo went back to the cart, shaking his head as he chuckled softly. âI donât think Iâd pass a single one of her tests. Besides, I got my eye on someone.â
âApparently I donât make the list either, I guess,â Jack murmured.
Mateo laughed through his nose, eyeing Jack with something new now. âYou want to?âÂ
Jack caught it, reaching his palm and smacking it against Mateoâs curls with no force. âNo. Now, do your job.â
âI am ââ He laughed through the words, eyes scanning over Jackâs stiffened posture now. âItâs good you donât, then. Couldnât handle her anyway.âÂ
âSure, I could,â Jack said immediately.Â
Mateoâs head turned again, lips curving upwards at Jackâs words, and he felt momentarily blindsided by his own mouth, entirely too honest for something that had started as a joke.Â
âSure, you could,â Mateo teased, drawing out the words.
âShut it.â Jack grabbed a box of gloves off the cart and set it down two shelves lower than it needed to go, purely to do something with his hands that didnât involve reaching for Mateoâs collar. âWasnât a real question.â
Couldnât handle you? As if he didnât know, without having to think about it, that you took the stairs two at a time instead of the elevator when you were annoyed and needed somewhere to put your extra energy, or that youâd started drinking your coffee black on nights a patient reminded you of someone, syrup and cream abandoned, like sweetness felt wrong to have that shift. As if he hadnât noticed, months ago, that you hummed the same four off-key notes from a jingle neither you nor Jack could place when a chart was boring you to death, or that you double-checked every single IV line now, ever since one bad mistake in your first year. He could very well handle you, he simply hadnât been given the chance to do so.
Most of the time, Jack was fine with watching your love life play out in 3D. More often than not, he knew theyâd never work out. You were just too good for anyone who came sniffing, and there was a grim comfort in that, in knowing the fellows and the nurses would wash through and out and leave you exactly where he found you, three feet down the counter from him, close enough to keep.
Tonight the comfort wasnât coming. Mateoâs accidental interrogation had rubbed Jack wrongly, somewhere he had yet to fully locate yet, and was sitting in his chest like a splinter he kept forgetting was there until he turned the corner over the night, saw you, and noticed it was there. He shouldâve let it stay as nothing, but his brain had apparently decided three hours later was the correct time to relitigate the whole exchange, turning it over at odd intervals between patients like a tongue worrying a chipped tooth.
It was the bad sort of slow in the ER, the sort that let his brain fill up with things heâd have no time for on a real night. Ellis had wandered over to your desk with two energy drinks and placed her arms loosely beside your computer.
Jack was distantly aware he had misplaced labs to hand back to you because theyâd gotten lost in the system, and he told himself that was the whole reason his body had started moving in your direction.Â
âI got a rundown from Marge,â Ellis said, dropping into an empty stool beside you. âApparently he wrote it out of the OR.â
âYouâre joking,â you muttered. âI donât understand it.âÂ
Jack stood there with the labs in his hand, close enough to hear it.Â
âIâm still wondering if I should respond,â you were saying, half into your hands. âIs this romantic? This oneâs never happened before.â
Ellis laughed slightly with you, and the two of you had built one of those small pockets that slow nights sometimes allowed, thirty seconds of being people instead of clinicians.
Jack set the labs down at the edge of your keyboard harder than he meant to, the papers slapping flat against the desk, and both of you looked up at him like heâd grown two heads. Fuck â had he? It sure felt like he was operating off of whatever chemical cocktail his brain had whipped up for nights like this, some ugly little compound of jealousy and exhaustion. He was fairly sure if you pulled his labs right now theyâd look like a man in the middle of a bad reaction to something not yet figured out in the scientific world.Â
âLabs on eight got lost.â His palm stayed on the sheet for a few seconds too long, some instinct telling him to keep his hand on something solid before the rest of him did something stupid. âYouâll want to recheck the trop.âÂ
His eyes cut, against every ounce of better judgement he had left, to the note still folded in your hand, the same one heâd carried down like it was radioactive, the same note that had clearly done something for you that four years of Jack standing next to you clearly hadnât. An unreasonable, low feeling creeped up behind his ribs at the sight of it, hot and out of proportion to a piece of folded-fucking-paper.Â
Ellisâs smile went uncertain as he felt her gaze snag on him.Â
You blinked up at him, and whatever had been sitting easy in your face a second ago curdled itself away, the corners of your mouth retreating. He knew this same retreat, had watched you recalibrate your muscles, swiftly, built to be unreadable against anyone who hadnât spent four years learning your face.Â
His stomach dropped and heat climbed up the back of his neck, jaw tightening on its own. He hated that his body had learned to answer you the way it answered a motor alarm. He hated more that some raw, cornered part in him â still smarting about Mateoâs offhand comment and sore from that folded note â felt it wasnât soothed.
You blinked up at him, and the laugh faded off your face, and you said, easily, warm, âYeah â course. Iâll get right on that.â
He shrugged up one shoulder, lips pressing into a thin line. He turned, already walking away. âWhenever thereâs a gap on your social calendar, I guess.â
He heard the small silence that opened behind him, and he could practically imagine you and Ellis looking at each other. Then, he heard you push back from the desk, the stool wheels catching, and your footsteps coming after him like heâd known they would, because you were the last person to let something like that go.Â
âHey.â You fell into step beside him, voice pitched low, still giving him more benefit than the doubt had earned in the last ten seconds. âWhat was that about?â
âNothing.â He tilted his neck up slightly to do a quick scan of the board, some stubborn muscle in his neck refusing to let him meet your eyes. âGot a department to run.â
âAnd youâve been running it great. You just became weird right now.â He could feel you working it over beside him, shifting on your feet as you toed the line between resident and the hard-won territory neither of you had ever named. âJack.âÂ
âYou want to laugh about your shitty dates, thatâs your business,â he said instead of letting it go, sounding too far from the man whoâd had his hands hovering over yours an hour ago, watching you put in a chest tube, telling you that youâd done well. âDo it a little quieter. This is an ER, not a lunch table.â
His words stopped you for half a step. Jack kept walking, an ugly, cowardly momentum carrying him three more steps before you caught back up.
He heard you recalibrate your voice in real time when you said, âI was charting on a slow shift,â carefully. âYouâve made worse jokes when itâs even more busy. Whatâs this about?â
âItâs about you treating this place like itâs your dating pool and not your place of work.â The words came out much uglier than he meant, and he didnât have it in him to call them back. âItâs not professional. It reflects on the department. Reflects on me. Somebodyâs gotta say it, and apparently thatâs me, since you clearly enjoy it too much to stop.âÂ
You stopped walking altogether this time. He turned to face your stillness whole, then, and found your eyes narrowed at him, looking like youâd been hit from a direction you hadnât been completely guarding against.Â
He let out a breath, fingers going up to his forehead to wipe at sweat that wasnât there. âIâm just saying what ââ
âIâm sorry,â you said, voice going level and courteous, as you nodded quickly. âYouâre right. Youâre my attending, it reflects on you. Iâll keep my personal life out of work.âÂ
âThatâs not ââ he tried, but you were already turning away, shoulders squared and chin level, professional armor snapping into place just like heâd told you to. It should have made him feel better to watch you take it so cleanly, to not make a big deal out of it. All it made him feel was like something had been surgically removed from him.Â
âStop ââ he tried again, to your back now, and the sentence died somewhere between his teeth and the air. That was okay. There was no end to the sentence that didnât sound worse than the beginning anyway.Â
He blew out a sharp breath through his nose, standing in the middle of the floor with his hand still half-raised toward you, fingers curling back into his palm when he realized you werenât there to reach. Jack felt, distantly, uselessly, like the only thing standing still in the entire building.Â
âGreat going,â he heard Lena say, trailing past him, a tray tucked against her hip, not even breaking stride. âYou got rid of the one entertainment weâve got around here.â
His shoulders stiffened, and he caught up with her in three steps, jaw working around words that wanted to spill out defensively and came out simply tired. âItâs not entertainment if she keeps getting hurt,â he grumbled. âSheâs not a show. Stop treating her like one.âÂ
âDidnât look like she was the one getting hurt tonight,â she said, rounding a corner and leaving him standing there.
Jack let out a low groan, running a palm down the lower half of his face, and dropped his hand only when heâd scrubbed enough friction into his jaw to feel it sting a little, which was at least a sensation heâd chosen, at least tonight. He stood there a second longer, staring at nothing in particular. His hands found his hips on reflex.Â
âFuck,â he muttered to himself, and dragged both hands back through his hair, gripping once at the roots before letting go.Â
He rolled his neck, felt it pop unsatisfyingly, and pushed off the wall he hadnât even realized he was leaning against. His leg fucking ached, the burn starting behind his knee. He ignored it like he always did and started walking anyway, jaw still held tight, hands shoved deep into his pockets like he could physically hold himself together with the seams of his own black scrubs.
It was by the lockers after hand-off that Jack saw you next. Both of you had conveniently managed to work over-time; he because there was nothing to get home to, and you â heâd heard through the grapevine â because one of your patientâs little sister was coming in toward close, and you simply wanted to talk with her instead of handing the situation off to one of the day residents.
Usually, nobody had asked you to stay when you did. Most times, there was no version of staying that showed up in your favor; he and Shen were gone, so there was no attending grading you on it; no hours that counted. It was just for a kid who was going to get bad news from a face sheâd seen before, so you cost yourself hours of sleep you most definitely needed to be the soft spot for a strangerâs little sister, and hadnât mentioned it to a soul, and he knew you wouldâve been embarrassed if he brought it up.Â
He found you using the little mirror inside your locker to apply some kind of pink-tubed gloss with one hand while the other ran its fingers through your hair. Jack pursed his lips, eyeing you from the doorway, because he was pretty sure youâd done something different to it in the last ten minutes.Â
âLook nice,â he tried, biting the bullet and walking toward his own locker. âGoinâ somewhere?âÂ
You caught his eyes in the mirror instead of turning around. âJust breakfast,â you said, and there was none of the earlier lilt in it, the warmth that youâd always aimed at him gone functional. You capped the gloss with more force than it needed and dropped it into your bag.Â
Jack stood there a second too long with his hand over his own locker without opening it. Heâd expected â and he knew he was more optimistic than usual for doing so â your easy back-and-forth, his slip-up from earlier forgotten. He wasnât sure what to do with the quiet or you not looking at him properly, hairbrush working through your hair in short strokes.Â
Heâd saved around thirty lives tonight, and that was what he was good at. He was not good, and had never claimed to be good, at the aftermath of hurting a person heâd have put his own body between a stretcher and wall for, without meaning to, over something that had never been about the radiology fellow at all.Â
He opted out of opening his locker and chose instead to lean his bicep against the locker, eyeing you in front of him. âMad at me?â he murmured.Â
You let out a short breath, shaking your head, and he tracked all your micro-expressions through the mirror. âOn the clock?âÂ
âWell, weâve both been off it for a while now,â he said, watching the shape of your mouth in the mirror, waiting for it to give something away. It didnât. âBut no. Asking as your ââ He stopped himself, because âfriendâ seemed not to be the honest word though it was the first one that popped up. âOff the clock. Whatever I am to you right now.â
You set the hairbrush down on the little shelf with more care than the moment needed. âItâs okay, Jack,â you said, shaking your head.
âDonât think it is. Try again.â
You watched him for a second in the mirror, then you turned.Â
âItâs just embarrassing,â you said, and the words came out smaller than anything heâd heard out of you in years. You crossed your arms over your chest. âI respect you and I hate that youâd think for one second I donât take this place seriously.â Your voice cracked on the last word, just barely, and you pressed your lips together. âSo, yeah. Itâs embarrassing to have my attending confirming Iâm exactly what people think I am.â
He was shaking his head before you could even finish the sentence. âNobody thinks ââ
âYou do,â you said, voice rising slightly. âSo, off the clock, Iâm embarrassed, and tonight, Iâm going to be your resident. Because I agree with you. Itâs been unprofessional of me to keep dating within the hospital ââ You threw your arms up halfway by your side, and you let out a short laugh that came out dry and wrong. âAnd I hate that youâve probably been thinking it for four years.â
âI havenât,â he said too fast. God, heâd come here to make tonight better for you, not to make you re-evaluate all your years working with him. âSure, I thought it was none of my business how you spend your good nights off. Didnât stop me from thinking they didnât deserve âem.âÂ
You rolled your eyes. âYouâre just saying that now âcause you feel bad.â
âWish it were that simple,â he said, and chose to leave it unelaborated because it wasnât that simple and he had no intention of explaining exactly why. âHalf the time, you know itâs not gonna work out. Youâre breaking my heart by making me watch you break yours.âÂ
You blinked, and he watched the fight loosen out of you by inches. âItâs just a free breakfast, Jack. Nothing to get your heart broken over.âÂ
Jack let out a huff through his nose, mouth opening to say what, he didnât know. âIs that all? âCause I can get you free breakfast for the rest of your life.âÂ
You laughed, disbelieving, through your nose, some of the nightâs weight finally cracking off of you. âYouâve got a weird way of apologizing.âÂ
âJust to my favorite resident.â He pointed his index finger at you, lazy, and pushed himself off the lockers. His shoulder blades left a faint dust-print on the metal where heâd been leaning. He thumbed in the combination without looking at the dial â muscle memory, years of the same locker â and the door swung open with a rusted squeak. He pulled out his bag. âSo?âÂ
âSo what?âÂ
âYou ditch the fellow.â He slung the bag up over his shoulder, close enough now that he caught the tail-end of the perfume youâd lightly spritzed over yourself. âI buy.â
You looked at him for a second too long, lips pushing to one side, as though you were gauging whether this was a bit or not, another line heâd tossed and wanted to let die on its own. He stood there, jaw set and features relaxing to show you he did mean it, more than he wanted to admit, if he was being honest with himself.Â
âYouâre serious.âÂ
âDo I look like Iâm not?â He nodded once at your locker, your bag sitting on the shelf. âGrab your stuff. Weâre going.âÂ
âFine,â you said finally, reaching over and zipping your backpack all the way before throwing it over one shoulder. âCan you drive? Iâve been taking the subway.â
âWhy?â he asked drily. âYouâve got a car.â
Jack realized, as he watched you slide in across from him and folding both hands around the coffee before it was all the way poured, that heâd never once been on a date where the woman had no idea it was one.Â
It wasnât lost on him what that made him, a man old enough to know better, letting a thing be one thing on his side of the table and another thing entirely on yours, saying nothing to square the difference. But heâd meant what heâd said, and he was going to feed you.Â
You ordered a short stack, eggs, hash brown, decaf on loop. She wrote it down, definitely having heard worse from better.
âThanks for the treat, Jack,â you said when Dina left, bringing the rim of your cup to your lips. âDonât think I couldâve done another breakfast to let him down gently.â
âWe have to make some changes to your lifestyle,â Jack replied, voice rough, as he eyed you.Â
âOh, yeah?â you murmured. âWe?âÂ
âWell, I did have to deliver a note to you today. In all my life working here, thatâs never happened.âÂ
You laughed around the rim of your cup. âIn my defense, I donât think anyoneâs wrote me a note out of an OR either. Thatâs a first for both of us.â
âGlad we share the experience.â
Dina came by with a pot and topped you off without being asked, and placed the food in front of you. Jack watched you reach for the salt before your fork had even touched the eggs, shaking it twice over the plate.
âYouâre gonna give yourself a stroke by forty.â
âYouâre gonna give me a stroke right now if you comment on my food.â But you set the shaker down after the third shake, which he noticed and had to bite back a smile.
Dina dropped his plate in front of him â bacon, eggs, no pancakes â and you were reaching for it with a piece of your fork before sheâd even finished setting his fork down. He gave you a faux-frown, picking up his fork and, without looking, spreading a piece of your hashbrown off the opposite plate in trade. He wasnât sure when the two of you had started stealing bites and sips off of each otherâs stuff, only that itâd started somewhere and calcified into something neither of you mentioned.Â
âRude,â you said, mouth already full.
âLearned it from you,â he muttered, nudging his plate an inch closer to your side of the table, which you took full advantage of.Â
Dinaâs radio crackled through something twangy and close-to-familiar behind the counter, competing with the clatter of a skillet somewhere in the back, the whole place smelling like batter and grease soaked into decades of countertop, syrup that had dried a hundred small amber rings nobody had ever fully scrubbed off.Â
âIâve never been here before.â You absentmindedly cut the hashbrown in half as your eyes raked over the place. âThis a regular spot for you?â
âSince before you joined,â he said easily, but his brows furrowed as he realized heâd been coming here alone for years. He was in the same booth when he could get it, ordered the same order, and it struck to him only now, watching you eat your hashbrowns, how much smaller and less lonely a booth felt with you taking up the other half of it. âUsed to be the only quiet I got on some weeks.âÂ
You hummed. âAnd now?â
âGuess the quietâs pretty negotiable.â He shrugged. âI can go without it.â
You smiled down at your plate, something easy working at the corner of your mouth. A thread of syrup had gathered at the seam of your lips â you hadnât noticed, too busy considering his answer â and before heâd cleared the impulse with the rest of himself, his thumb was already moving, catching it at the corner quickly, no different than when he swiped under your lashline for salt after a bad night.
You stayed still, having gotten used to his hands somewhere during your residency.
âYouâre a mess,â he said, wiping his thumb off on the paper napkin folded under his elbow.Â
âYouâve got coffee on your scrub top,â you said, eyes flicking down to his chest. His brows furrowed and he looked down, and you were right. âPot, kettle.â
Heâd been about to say something else, he couldâve sworn it, but had lost every word of it watching you smile so unguarded, free enough to let him look at you. He had to reach for his coffee just to have something to do with his hands.Â
When the check came, folded in its little plastic tray, you both reached for it at once. Your hand landed flat over his knuckles. Neither of you moved it for a second, for his hand stayed exactly where it was, broad and unmoving under yours, and something unspoken passed through the two inches of fornica between your faces as he raised a brow at you. He slid the tray out from under you slowly.
âSaid Iâm buying,â he said, shaking his head slightly.
The drive back had been quieter than the one there had been. It was nearing ten in the morning, and he knew both of you had stayed up longer than intended, especially for two people who had to clock back in in a shorter amount of time than he deemed plausible to reset completely.
Heâd cracked the window down an inch, and the air coming through carried the smell of wet pavement and the sound of a garbage truck grinding its gears three streets over. Your neighborhood, he was learning, woke up slow; there was a paperboy on a bike, a guy in scrubs different from yours locking up his own car after a shift that wasnât at the PTMC, and Jack drove through it with two fingers loose over the wheel. Neither of you had bothered with the radio.
Youâd gone somewhere billowy around your third cup of decaf, all the sharp edges of the night replaced with something looser and sleepier, and you gave him directions in a voice gone thick from exhaustion as you were likely starting to feel it behind your eyes.Â
He pulled his car along the curb and let it idle, one shoe braced against the floorboard, watching the numbers of your building.
âGonna sleep?â he asked.
âGonna try.â You were already working the bag strap over your shoulder, hair falling loose out of the knot youâd put it up in at some point at the diner, strands of it catching the early light. âIâve got no idea how you do this then take SWAT calls.â
âYouâd be able to do it, too, if I put you on the field.âÂ
You mumbled something, letting your head drop against the window for a second, before picking itself back up. âStop threatening me, Jack.âÂ
He watched you fight your eyelids, his mouth pulling up at the corners at the sight. âCâmon. Get inside before I gotta carry you up.â
You snorted, half-hearted. âYou canât. Youâd throw your hip out.â
âTry me.â He was already rounding the hood before youâd gathered your bearings, boots loud on the quiet street, and you let out another laugh and let him get there first, too tired to argue about who gets to open what.
He walked you up the cracked path, palm settling at the small of your back, and you leaned back into it, half your weight given over without you noticing it.Â
At the door, you fumbled with your keys out from under a granola wrapper and a capless pen, missed the lock twice, and gave up trying on the third. You turned to face him instead with your back against the frame and your bag slowly sliding off one shoulder.
âThank you,â you said, words coming out loose and filtered by the exhaustion even as you tried to meet his eyes head-on. âFor the â everything. The explanation. And the breakfast.âÂ
Jack felt his lips curve up, fingers flexing at his sides. âAnytime.âÂ
âAnd for driving me there â thank you. And for the drive back.âÂ
âUh-huh. You gonna go inside?â he said, voice going quieter as he looked down at the ground, at how the toes of your shoes were almost touching. âOr keep thanking me until you fall asleep standing up?âÂ
You cocked your head to the side, your lips moving upwards into a fuller smile. His own mouth curved as he shifted on his feet slightly, closing the barely-there inch between his shoes and yours.Â
âJack?âÂ
He hummed, and you went up slightly onto your toes before heâd finished deciding what to do with you. Or maybe heâd moved in first, or maybe there was no real order to it at all. His mouth found yours somewhere in that uncertainty, slowly despite it, because heâd already worked out every version of this moment and this one had simply appeared in front of him.
His hand came up to cradle the side of your jaw, thumb settling into the soft hollow just beneath your ears. Your skin was warm despite the cold snap in the air, much softer than heâd let himself imagine, and he felt the exact second your breath caught against his mouth, a small stutter that made his fingers curve around your jaw, index resting against your cheekbone.Â
He kept it slow, it was the only thing he had any real control over right now, the pace of it instead of the fact of it. He used what little he had left, dragging his mouth against yours, like he could somehow make up for four years of nothing by refusing to rush the first thirty seconds of something. His other hand found your waist, and his palm felt how your back curved into him, the hitch of your ribs on an inhale, and he pressed you back the last inch against the doorframe more to ground himself.Â
Your fist found the front of his canvas jacket, dragging him in the last stubborn space heâd been too careful to close himself, and a sound came out of his chest that embarrassed him a little. He felt you smile against his mouth, and his entire body felt warm at having been caught enjoying this entirely as much as he was.Â
He tilted his head so his forehead pressed against yours and pulled his mouth away. His lips jutted out slightly, feeling suddenly empty and unwilling to put the full distance back between the two of you.
Your eyes were still shut, and you were breathing unevenly. âThank you,â you murmured.Â
He huffed a short laugh, and in it, realized how breathless he, too, was.Â
You tipped your chin back up, already chasing him.
Jack felt the want knot up inside him, greedy and unreasonably leaning back in to meet you halfway before the rest of him had caught up and made him stop. He made a small sound in his throat and pinched his eyes shut, letting you get right up to the edge of it, breath already tangling with his, wanting so badly to just let it happen, before his finger came up between you, pressed light against your bottom lip to stop you a hair short. It was more for his own sake than the words he remembered you telling someone years ago ringing in his head.
âAh-ah.â His voice came out rough with want, entirely at odds with his actions. âYour rule. Only one kiss after the first date. Iâm trying ââ he exhaled hard, almost dramatically, ââ trying real hard here to make it to the second.â
âHuh?â Your eyes peeled open. âThis was a date?âÂ
âBest one youâve had Iâm guessing, with the way youâre breaking your rules.â His finger stayed right where it was, and he watched your eyes struggle to focus, still glassy from the kiss. He could feel the warm huff of breath breaking unsteady against his fingertip, could feel your mouth soft and parted underneath it, waiting on him.Â
You pressed a peck against his finger instead, your mouth barely dragging against his skin as a shy smile formed behind it that he felt more than saw. âMaybe.â
âWell, good.â He smiled, despite himself, and pushed himself off your forehead, opting instead to press his lips there. âGet some sleep,â he murmured against your hairline, lips lingering a little longer there. âMight be able to get a full seven hours.âÂ
âWill you?âÂ
âDoubt it.â He pulled back enough to look at you properly, thumb tracing a line along your cheekbone â his touch feather-light, tracking the exact curve of it, memorizing the route â before he made himself drop his hand entirely, fingers curling loosely at his sides because suddenly he had no idea what to do with them without you under them. âKinda got a lot on my mind now.â
âYeah?â You bit back a smile, still not quite steady on your feet. âAnything you wanna share with the class?â
âNot a chance.â He bent a fraction and hooked two fingers under the strap of your bag where itâd slid down to your elbow, dragging it slowly back up to your shoulders, knuckles grazing your arms the whole way. âYouâll find out. Eventually.â
He forced himself to step off the mat â one step back, then the second, putting real distance between you now â forcing ease into his expression that he definitely wasnât feeling. He stopped a few feet away from you anyway, unable to fully commit to walking away, watching you stunned and still in your doorway, mouth a little kiss-soft. He felt so completely helpless and pleased at the sight. âText me when youâre up and Iâll get to planning date two.âÂ
You raised a hand into a wave, fingers curling in the air.
âBye, Jack,â you said, and his name came out of your mouth softer than you probably meant it to, smooth and cushy the way it never sounded on shift.
He lifted his chin up at you once and made himself turn, finally, finding the path back to his car. He made it to the curb before he looked back again, and you were still standing there, one hand braced on the door, watching him go with an expression he was sure he was going to think of the entire drive home.
pairing: jack abbot x plus-size! santos' sister! reader
summary: trinity is in the middle of a double and is desperate enough to have her sister show up at her job to bring her food. (takes place between seasons 1 & 2)
word count: 5.1 k ââĄ
warning: y'all this one got away from me, it was just supposed to be a cute abbot x reader but sibling angst got mixed in and now we have this. reader is 12 years older than trinity so age gap, no smut just fluff and angst but if y'all like it than there may be some more in the future!
You couldnât be prouder of your baby sister. But if you were to ever tell her that to her face, she would probably punch you. The past week has been an inescapable nightmare for her; they were down a few staff members, which had her picking up the slack for the next month while replacements were found. Thatâs how you found yourself at the farthest entry of the ambulance bay, balancing a tray half-filled with two different types of lumpia and okoy, there was some chicken mixed in there as well.
âDude, what the hell are you doing back there?â You looked towards the sliding doors and saw Trinity calling out to you.Â
âIt didnât feel right going all the way down!â It honestly felt wrong to even be this close to the hospital without going through the front entrance.Â
She waved her arms like she was directing air traffic. âHurry up and get down here, Iâm starving!â No way in hell were you running, you were carrying precious cargo, but you did pick up the pace for her sake. âWhat took you so long?â
You held up the tray, âUh, I was finishing up the food.â The aluminum pan was handed over, and she almost dropped it from the unexpected weight.
She looked at you wide-eyed, âJesus, why did you make so much?âÂ
You had gotten into a groove, and it felt nice to make familiar recipes. âFigured Iâd make enough for you and your coworkers since I had access to the big kitchen at work. Thatâs if you choose not to be greedy, of course, if nothing else, leftovers.â
âNone of them deserve your cooking,â she remarked as the sliding doors opened up to the emergency department.Â
âExcept you?â
âExcept me.â
An older blonde woman called from behind the desk. âTrinity, youâre needed in room two now.â
Your sister held up the tray like it would cover for her. âBut Dana foodâŠâ
Dana just shrugged with a small laugh, âSorry kid.â
Trinity was already rushing towards room two. âAlright, fine, can my sister stay with you for a minute?â
âSure, your sister can stay. Nice to meet you sweetie.â
âNice to meetââ the tray of food was dropped back into your arms without warning. âNice to meet you too.âÂ
She grabbed a stack of papers and knocked them against the desk to straighten them out. âHate to say it but itâs the first time Iâm hearing about you.â
You gave her a âwhat can you do about it look.â It was normal at this point. âIf you look up mystery in the dictionary, youâd see a picture of her underneath.â Sometimes it hurt, the fact that your sister never talked about you when you would mention her and her accomplishments to anyone who would listen. But you also couldnât blame her for wanting to keep her private life separate in a workplace like this.Â
There was a huff of laughter behind you, and suddenly, a warm body was leaning against the counter next to you.
âThat has to be the most accurate description Iâve heard of her.â Holy shit, you thought hot doctors only existed in medical dramas, either that or youâve just never had the pleasure of meeting one like this. Silver fox personified, god heâs gorgeous. âSo Santosâ sister, huh?â
You had to shake yourself back to life. âY-yeah, you know I feel like I should be offended, but I would have been more surprised if she had mentioned me before.â You finally introduced yourself, balancing the tray so that one hand was free.
His hand was strong, steady, calloused, gosh, he has really, really nice hands. âDr. Abbot.â
He fits the bill, and right into your fantasies, woah, down girl. âAhhh, the famous Dr. Abbot, donât tell her I said this, but Trinity thinks youâre pretty cool, and that is high praise right there.â
He did a small playful fist pump, âI knew I could still relate to the kids.â
Someone likes to use old-man humour, donât they? âProbably better than I can at this point.â
He looked out towards his younger residents, âcomes with experienceâŠâ his remark trailed off, staring again at you like thereâs a question unanswered.Â
God, I probably look like a mess, you thought. Leggings that had a hole in both knees and an oversized volunteer shirt with about a dozen bleach stains screamed put together. You can hear your mother âyou should always have makeup on, never know who youâre gonna meet.â Damn, maybe she was right about some things. Heâs staring. Why is he still staring? âDo I have something on my face?â
A short cough from him, clearing his throat and breaking his gaze. âUh, n-no, sorry, you just look really familiar. Donât tell me Iâve treated you here before.â Oh, if only you were so lucky.Â
Thankfully, nothing had landed you in the hospital since moving to Pittsburgh with Trinity. Though now you feel like you should probably knock on some wood to keep up that winning streak. âDefinitely not, but now that Iâm thinking about it, so do youâŠoh wait, I know, the uh, the Veterans Center!â
He smiled and snapped his fingers, âThatâs it, youâre with the Meals on Wheels crew, right?â Â
âThatâs me, we try to help get them set up with different plans.â
âItâs good work youâre doing there.â Lord is everything he says laced with such sincerity? He seemed like the type of person to choose every word carefully, to make sure it means something.Â
You threw the compliment back, âItâs good work youâre doing here.â As if what you were doing could compare to his work, to your sister's work.Â
âJust doing the best we can.â Something tells you his best goes above and beyond the normal. Something also tells you that you could become addicted to the small uptick at the corner of his mouth. So subtle, a blink and youâll miss it moment.Â
âThatâs about all you can do some days.â
The silence shared between the two of you was charged, the background noise of the ED fading in and out the more seconds passed. Neither of you was aware of the small crowd that formed behind the desk.Â
Trinity popped up behind Abbot, hand sanitizer being generously applied to her hands, before she scootched between you two. It cut the moment completely, well if there had actually been a moment and you werenât imagining things. The cover of the tray was lifted and nearly smacked you in the face. âGod, that was ridiculous. Iâm starving.â She had already picked up two chicken skewers and an okoy fritter before glaring at the vultures surrounding them.Â
âWhy didnât you tell us you have a sister?â A woman with glasses and a very put-together braid asked. No doubt this was Mel.
âI have a sister, there, now you know.â She responded mid-bite, determined to end the conversation there. Something sheâd once said to you had always stuck. âThe less people know, the better,â itâs a motto she seemed determined to live by.Â
Your arms were starting to get tired from carrying this tray. âShe talks about you all so much, I feel like introductions arenât even needed at this point.â Based off descriptions you were sure you could match up the names to the faces, but one you hoped to run into was the infamous Garcia, but you knew that would be unlikely, life of a surgeon and all that.Â
âShut the fuuuck up.â She said through clenched teeth and a mouthful of chicken.Â
You gently nudged her, and she subtly did it back like it was muscle memory. âAww come on, itâs been forever since Iâve gotten to embarrass you in front of your friends.âÂ
âWere you adopted?â Tired eyes, curls, ahh, Huckleberry.
There was murder in your sister's eyes. âDonât both of you have patients?â
The mythical Dr. Robby seemed to appear out of thin air. âDonât you Santos? And I think foods supposed to be eaten in the lounge.â
She took another bite of chicken, almost mocking, like she was saying, âyouâre just jealous cause I actually have decent food.â âThought you said eat when you can?â
You opened the lid again, the smell hitting every nose in the vicinity, setting off a few stomach growls. âYouâre welcome to have one, please donât let her hog it all.â You felt a short warning smack to your side.
Robby picked up one of the lumpia before taking the tray out of your hands. âHmm, you can stay.â He gave Dr. Abbot a look as he passed by, taking a bite out of the roll. Prompting Abbot to take one for himself before the tray was carted off to the lounge for Santos to take care of later. Â
Your sister looked over your shoulder, âshit I gotta go take care of this, find me before you leave.â She was already running down the hall, shovelling down the rest of her food, your soft âokayâ following after.
âIâm still not convinced you two are siblings.â Dr. Abbot said, taking a bite of the food he was able to snag.Â
âWanna see my driver's license?â
He groaned from the taste, eyes closed, head back, and he even did that small bend that people do when something is just that good. âHmm, no, there it is, same snark.â
âNobody ever believes weâre siblings, weâve got different dads, not to mention the twelve years between us.â There are a couple of other reasons that run through your mind, but those are best kept to yourself.
âWell, the more I stand here, the more I start to see it.â Interesting.
âIn a good or a bad way?â
He took the last bite. âAll the good parts, I promise, you both have a very caring heart.â
Very interesting. âHuh, caring heart typically isnât used to describe my sister.â
âI like to think weâve worked together enough that I can see it, even when itâs hidden under all her spikes.â It surprised you to hear this kind of praise from someone above your sister; she had always had issues with authority. Constantly complained about the teachers and professors that sheâd had over the years. Except for Dr. Abbot, he must be one hell of a teacher.Â
âShe really does care about her job. Itâs nice to see that sheâs got a good group of people behind her.â
âThatâs the Pitt crew for you.â There it was again, that small movement, and there goes the silence again. Sometimes itâs better not to scramble to fill it. âHey, I uh, I think we used to work with Meals on Wheels before Covid happened, but I think it would be worth starting up again for the patients. I know it would help out a lot of the people we see.âÂ
Work, thank god, something you can confidently talk about. âYeah, definitely, Iâll talk to my supervisor and see if I could maybe work as a representative for the hospital.â It would be a good chance to see Trinity moreâŠand Dr. AbbotâŠno bad, bad brain.Â
âOh, Iâd hate to add more to your plate.â Where does he hold all that sincerity?
âNah, it wouldnât be a problem at all, most likely theyâd have me swing by a couple of days a week to review forms for anyone who was interested.âÂ
He crossed his arms, fully leaning into you, or is he leaning into the counter? And why is it getting harder to breathe right now? âWell, I know for a fact weâd be lucky to have you.âÂ
Once again, Trinity snuck up on you. âAlright, all done, thanks for bringing dinner by.â She gave you a quick one-armed hug before practically pushing you away like the hug wasnât her idea in the first place.
âOkayyyâŠwell, Iâll get out of your hair, really nice meeting you all, and Iâll see you at home Trinity.â You gave a wave to the few residents and nurses that had stuck around the desk.Â
âBye Sissy,â the term of endearment seemed to slip out of her sleep-deprived mouth before her brain could catch it. You could see the way she braced herself for war as her coworkers slowly turned their heads towards her. Shit-eating grins on all of their faces.Â
âBye Sissy,â you echoed back, adding fuel to the fire.Â
The month passed by, and like clockwork, you would bring Trinity and the Pitt crew whatever you could to help feed them. After the first visit if Jack was available it meant that the tray you were carrying would be out of your hands the moment he saw you. It made your heart flutter, his fingers always brushed against yours. He had to know what he was doing. Â
Honestly, it just felt nice to have other people outside of your work to talk to, and you wondered why you hadnât been doing this before.Â
Until one day, something snapped the fragile routine.
You were speaking with Jack, and he insisted on a first-name basis the next time you stopped by to bring Trinity dinner. The two of you were discussing the positives, among other things, patient satisfaction with the program inclusion, and what you were planning for the rest of the night, while heâs happily trapped here.  Â
Suddenly, your arm was yanked backwards, âDr. Abbot, I need to borrow her for a second.â
Trinity was a lot stronger than she looked, not a lot of people knew that until she decided to reveal it. Like she was now, by dragging you towards the staff lounge. âHey, hey, are you trying to dislocate my arm?â
âOh, trust me, youâd know if I was.â Oh, sheâs pissed, but why, you have no idea.Â
You crossed your arms across your chest once she finally dropped the death grip that she had. âOkay, what the hell is your problem?â
âThis has to stop.âÂ
âYou just gestured to all of me. What does that even mean?â
She poked her finger against your chest, dangerously close to your tit, which she knows is sensitive. âYou, you coming here, bringing food for everybody, and whatever this thing is that you have going on with Abbot, it has to stop.â
That stopped you in your tracks because nothing inappropriate was going on with Abbott, not that you wouldnât mind if something inappropriate were happening. âTrinity, thereâs nothingââ
She poked you again, âDonât bullshit me alright. This is my job, and you cannot come in here and fuck it up.âÂ
You were brought back to a party that you didnât know about and killed when you walked in the door. Back when she was being reckless and angry. âI wasnât trying toââÂ
Trinity was on a rampage right now, and you were the target. âAnd I donât care if youâre desperate, pick someone else besides one of my fucking attendings.â This was humiliation at its finest, she wasnât trying to be quiet or private, she wanted people to hear.
You took a deep breath in, trying to ground yourself. âIâve only ever come here to bring you food Trin, and for work, I see that youâre working doubles on the calendar, and I know you donât eat like you shouldââ
She threw her hands up. âYouâre not fucking mom okay! Iâm not your problem, and you need to leave so I can do my fucking job!â She stormed out of the break room, a âwhatâ thrown out to anyone who was looking her way.
You waited a second before adjusting your bag on your shoulder and walking out as well, head down, the refusal to make eye contact with anyone evident. A tear didnât fall until the sliding doors closed behind you.Â
Trinity never thought that she would feel this hesitancy to enter her home again. But the weight of an apology was on her shoulders. Robby had chewed her out after her spectacle in the break room, told her to keep the family drama out of the ED, or her sister wouldnât be allowed back. She didnât want that, she never wanted that. The place somehow felt lighter when you showed up, helped make everything not feel so suffocating.Â
But the look that Abbot gave her today just pissed her off, fuck that man and his obvious crush on you. If he wasnât going to ask you out then he needed to knock off the goo-goo eyes at work. And they wanted to say that she was being unprofessional.Â
Every movement was slow as she unlocked the door and stepped inside. She didnât expect you to be sitting on the couch, an episode of Rick and Morty playing on the TV. She remembered you letting her watch an episode when she was way too young. âHeyâŠI brought home takeout.âÂ
You didnât say anything as she set the bag down, but you could hear a soft, annoyed sigh behind you. âWhat episode are you watching?â She knew exactly what episode it was. âAre you not gonna say anything?â No, you were not. âAlright, fuck, Iâm sorryâŠI shouldnât have snapped at you today. That was really shitty of me.â Trinity Santos, the master of apologies, ladies and gentlemen.Â
âSo you still meant everything you said?â There was no move to look away from the screen.Â
âI shouldnât have brought mom up, that wasnât fair to youââ
Your head shook in disbelief. âYou have said that to me before so many times Trin, it really doesnât phase me at this point. I know itâs your go-to when Iâm âsmotheringâ you I justâI care. You know I care right? Iâm not trying to beâŠâ
It was obvious that she was reaching for the right words. âI know youâre not, itâs justâitâs hard sometimesâŠyouâve always been more of a mom to me and now that Iâm older. It feels like Iâm having to relarn how to be your sister.â
It made a lot of sense. Part of you hated that you had to be an adult at such a young age, but you wouldnât give up your sister for the world. âI think Iâm having to learn that too. I didnât mean to encroach on your space or your work, I actively tried not to be in your wayââ
She cut you off, âYou were never in the way, itâs actually been nice having you there, and you genuinely seem to enjoy that place, which is crazy to me since Iâm itching to get out of there.â
You nudged her, and thankfully, she nudged back. âYou enjoy it too.â
âYeah, I think, I think I just got so used to it being you and me that I didnât really bother to have friends at work in the beginning. And then you started being all buddy-buddy with everyone, and I thought thatâs it, sheâs gonna be everybodyâs best friend, and Iâm gonna be alone again.â You always thought that was just the way she liked it, on her own. âNobody to disappoint her that way,â she would say.
You paused the TV, sensing the shift. âI didnât know you felt that way.â
She scoffed, âHow could I talk to you about feeling lonely?âÂ
Now you were the one scrambling, âTrinityâŠIâve been alone a really long timeââ
âYeah cause you choose to be.â Maybe your sister does need a psych evaluation.
âChoose to be, Iâm sorry, you think I choose to be alone?â She nodded her head like it was obvious, âNoâŠno, thatâs you, I donât choose this.â
She looked like she was ready to ditch this conversation now. âOkay fuck you. If youâre so alone, go out and find someone.â Itâs almost like you could hear your mom's voice in your ear, âyou have such a pretty face, if you just had form like your sisters, youâd be a knockout.â âOf course youâre gonna be alone if you never put yourself out there.â How were you supposed to put yourself out there when she had been putting you down for so much of your life?Â
Now your words had bite and sharpness to them. âYou say that like itâs so easy. It is for you, itâs not for me, and it never has been.â
âWhat are you talking about? You never had a problem with making friends.â Friends that never stayed in contact, not one from high school or college, and it sure as hell wasnât from a lack of trying on your part.Â
âYeah, and you never had a problem finding someone that wanted to be with you. There are different kinds of loneliness Trin.â
It took a second for her to fully understand what you meant. âOh, oh, I didnât realize youâŠmissed that.â Honestly your last relationship was so long ago that you felt like a born again virgin somedays.
âYeah, Iâm not a nun. I just donât talk to you about it cause youâve never had that problem before.â
Trinity was tired of standing, so she reached into the fridge to grab some beer to go alongside the takeout. She handed one to you before placing the bag on the coffee table and sitting beside you. âYeah, just a problem with people staying.â
You cracked open both bottles while she started to unbox the food. âTo be fair, youâve never asked anyone to stay before.â
Her shoulders shrugged. âTrue, probably something I need to be in therapy for.â
âYou and me both Sissy.â
âI hope you know, I donât actually care about you and Abbot, I mean, I do IâI want you to be happy. You deserve it, youâve taken care of me my whole life and youâyou deserve someone who wants to take care of you too. And if thatâs Abbot then good for you, I guess.â What a world it would be if Jack Abbot wanted to take care of you. Maybe for a brief moment you thought he might have been interested, but after spending some time with him, youâre sure that subtle fliritng is just his default mode. Nothing else has really hinted at interest or even desire, which you wouldnât be able to spot in a person anyway.Â
Even though you wish it wasnât true, âTrinity Jackâs not interested in me like that.â He probably wants someone in the same field anyway, itâs not like youâd understand half of what he talks about at work, you barely understand Trinity some days.
She took off the lid to her curry. âUh, yes, he is.â
Accepting the takeout container from her, you pressed yourself against the back of the couch. âYou sound awfully sure about that.â
She looked at you like she couldnât believe someone could be so oblivious. âOkay, Iâm starting to think that youâve been alone because youâre just blind to when people like you, honestly, I shouldâve caught on to that sooner.â
As sad as it was, it still made you laugh. âWell, can you blame me, I could never tell if it was a joke or not.â Boys had always been unnecessarily cruel to you growing up.Â
âJustâŠtake my word for itâŠhe likes you.â
You wanted to believe her so badly. It would be so easy to. But even if you did believe her, what would you do with the information? Itâs not like youâd make a move, no, youâve done it before, and it never works. Thatâs why you decided that if someone actually liked you, then, it would have to be on them. At least nothing gets lost in translation that way. âI wouldnât want to make things weird at work for you.â
She finished about a third of her beer. âThings are already weird, trust me, youâre fine. Listen, if he asks you out, just promise me youâll say yes, at least give it a shot.âÂ
Who would have thought your baby sister would try to set you up with her attending? Just what was the world coming to? âYeah thatâs if he asks me out, which is a big if.â
A slow, smug smile crept onto her face. âIâll bet you a hundred bucks that he asks you out tomorrow when you bring me lunch.â
âYou and I both know you donât have that money.â One would think being a doctor would pay better, but the worldâs becoming too expensive even for them.Â
âThatâs how confident I am.â
âIâm thinking you just want an excuse for me to bring you lunch tomorrow.â
The next day, you just ended up bringing the damn chicken soup in a crockpot since containers were a hassle. It seemed to be the right call, since the cold had brought in a wave of sickness throughout the ED.Â
Hands came up from your left and took the crockpot from you, both of you on a familiar path to the break room. You sure would know those biceps anywherere. Not that you were objectifying him in that way, of course not, you would never. âShe returnsâŠyou know, we had a bet going on whether youâd be back around.â
You thanked him per usual and asked, âoh yeah? Who won?â
He had a sort of playful scowl on his face. âWhittaker, he bet that Santos would apologize after work and youâd be back the next day. Kinda scary how well that kid knows her.â
âSheâd never admit it, but she has a soft spot for him.â They reached the breakroom and Jack set soup down on the counter close to the outlet. You reached out to plug it in expecting him to take a step back. Only he didnât, he just stood there without a care in the world.
Now the bastard was smirking at you, âwant me to get that for you?â
Come on, pull up your big girl panties and fucking flirt with this man. You have the approval of you sister of all people. A leap of faith had you leaning in âthatâs okay I got it.â Your arm brushed against his chest, and lord that is one sturdy man, of course you could tell that just by looking at him, but to actually feel it. âCan I ask what you ended up betting?âÂ
He leaned in even closer, âI was not a betting man this time around.â
âHow come?â
His hand reached out, and inch away from you hip, a question, âam I allowed toâ and you leaned into the touch. âDidnât want to take the chance that the outcome would be longer than I wanted.â That struck you, the way he said it, so simple, just a fact trapped in the room.
âYou got lucky then, Trinity I didnât speak for three months straight one time.â
The smallest tug had you jolting forward, quickly trying to catch yourself. Jack had you right where he wanted you. âOh now I wouldâve missed you way too much.â
âYou mean my cooking.â
âThat too but mostly you.â
âGood to know,â nowâs when you say âI would have missed you too,â go ahead. âMake sure you get some of the soup then who knows when Trinity might decide to banish me again.â What the fuck is wrong with you?
He gave you a full smile, one of his rare ones as his hand squeezed your side. You used to shrink away from touches like that but from him, every part of you just softly pleaded more, more. âPerish the thought,â he looked over at the pot, âI canât remember the last time I had homemade chicken soup.â
âHope it lives up to the memory if you remember it.â
Jack has a silent intensity about him and it keeps dragging you in. Heâs just staring, a million questions he could be asking and somehow heâs asking each one simultaneously. âHmm,â even his âhmmsâ have a vocabulary of their own. âYou know, if you ever get tired of cooking, Iâd be happy to do it for you.â
Is thisâis this him asking you out? âOh, youâd cook for me, huh?â Friends have dinner together, hell youâve been doing it a lot this past month. But friends donât hold onto someone like this and they definitely donât keep glancing down at your lips like theyâre seconds away from kissing you. Fuck, you wish he would.
The hand on your waist glides to your spine and his hands have a way of making you feel small, and incredibly weak in the knees. âYou sound surprised.â
âJust thought you lived off of adrenaline and protein shakes at this point.â
âIâve been known to make a mean steak.â The mental image of Jack standing over a grill just about does you in. Itâs almost sad. Whenâs the last time someone cooked for you?
âHmm, Iâm very picky about my steak.â
That smirk makes you want to reach up and kiss it away. âAs am I, you have to be. You free tomorrow?â
What the hell is happening right now? âUh, yeah, yeah, I am.â
âGreat, so Iâll pick you up at six.â
âIâll bring dessert.â It was unmistakable, the heat, the way his eyes wandered slowly across you. You hadnât meant it that way, or maybe deep down you did, maybe this is what it was to actually flirt. Maybe you were even good at it.
âCanât wait.â He took a step closer, christ he wanted kiss you. Just a quick one, something to tide him over during his shift, but he knew it wouldnât be quick, it wouldnât be enough and it wouldnât be appropriate for the workplace.Â
Thankfully and annoyingly at the same time one of the nurses came through the door asking for him before he could give in. âSorry sweetheart.â He felt like he had to pry himself away from you and you were just as desperate to hold on but you knew better.Â
âJeez, do your job Dr. Abbot,â you playfully teased, secretly it was a way to also catche your breath. But little did you know what that did to him. Eyes followed his back as he walked towards the door, his hand gripped the frame and he looked so close to turning back around, but he knew better. His head shook with a small laugh and then he was off.Â
It was just you and the soup now, you checked the heat once more and made your way towards the exit. There was an overwhelming need to get some fresh air and run the last ten minutes over and over in your mind.Â
Behind you, the almost evil voice of your sister whispered, âIf you could send me that hundred bucks now, that would be great.â
a/n: hope you liked it, please let me know if you want to see more of this pairning! also i think I might start strictly writing plus-size characters from now on cause why the hell not, there's never enough of them! ââĄ
summary: you hated jack, and you were positive he hated you too. two broken down cars and one blizzard bring the truth to the surface.
warnings: no age gap :(, med student!jack and med student!reader, I'm imagining they're both 26 and in the last year of med school, forced proximity, one sided e2l, there's only one bed! oh no!, cuddle or die, jack is kind of a dick , reader thinks jack is gonna kill her, don't worry he's just hopelessly in love, jack calls reader a bitch, love confessions, getting together, wearing jack's clothes, spooning, grinding, fingering, kissing, hickies, accidental somnophilia, dry humping, unprotected sex, big dick jack, belly bulge, creampie, mating press, sex in a strangers home
author's note: idfk what time period this is set in, im just here to sexualize this man
we're playing fast and loose with how both med school works and jack lore. I'm back to spreading my 'jacks legal first name is John' agenda. also, I barely know how undergrad works, since I am a drop out! suspend your disbelief, my more educated mutuals
Thereâs no way the universe should be this insistent on fucking you over.
Your shitbox of a car died a day before you were set to present your research at a conference in upstate New York in the middle of January. It was the biggest opportunity of your medical school career so far, and was going to secure your residency. But you couldnât afford to fix it or buy plane tickets and there was no bus that could get you from Pittsburgh to Syracuse in time.
So when your program advisor called you into his office to say he found another student driving to the conference that would be willing to carpool, you nearly jumped for joy. Until the next words out of his mouth put a bullet in the brain of your newfound hope.
â-Jack Abbot! Youâve met him, right? Youâre in the same year.â
Yes, you had met Jack Abbot. Several, miserable times.Â
Every interaction youâd had with Jack ended with you seething and him smirking. He seemed to be addicted to pushing your buttons every chance he could.
But you didnât have a choice. And youâd definitely made sure to verify that Jack was your only option. You must have asked every other student you had classes with, but they were either flying or not going at all. So you were stuck with him.
Stuck in the confined space of the cab of his small truck, side by side on the bench seat, for five and a half hours.
Everything about him pissed you off. His perfect curls were irritating, especially since you were sure he used 15-in-1 soap to wash it, the woodsy scent of his aftershave made every breath feel agonizing, and the way his legs were spread wide was obscene. It was his car, you had no right to complain that he was taking up so much space. But god did you wish he was cowering against the door like you were. You wished he put more space between the two of you, but the small cab left about a foot between you, even with you folding your body into the farthest corner your seatbelt allowed. It was entirely too close for comfort.
Youâd made it a point to avoid looking at him as much as possible since this disastrous ride had begun 2 hours ago. So far, youâve managed to mostly succeed, focusing on the falling snow and the freezing scenery outside. But you felt his eyes on you every few miles. His gaze was hot whenever it landed on you. You could feel it, even through your thick sweatshirt and jeans.Â
But Jack didnât say anything. He hadnât said a single word since youâd met him in front of your apartment building at 1 pm and loaded up your bags into the covered bed. It was unusual for him. Normally, he liked to goad you into a reaction, sending barbs your way constantly. So the silence unnerved you. You didnât know how to exist in a space with Jack Abbot when you werenât on the defensive.
And then the universe decided to fuck you even harder.
The snow was falling even harder as Jack pulled off the freeway and onto a smaller back road. You wanted to question him, but you didnât want to be the one to break the silence. Plus, you didnât know where you were. For all you knew, Jack had driven through this area a thousand times before.Â
But the farther you got down the road, the heavier the snow was getting and the slower Jack was driving. You hadnât seen another car or building for the past 30 minutes and the plows clearly werenât running out here.Â
And then - truly the cherry on top- the engine started sputtering.
âFuck, fuck, fuck,â Jack braked hard, the tires slipping slightly as he pulled off the road onto the shoulder.
âWhat the fuck?â You looked over at him for the first time in an hour.
Jack threw the truck in park before he was grabbing his coat. âStay here.â
Where the fuck did he think you were going to go? You were in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a snowstorm. The cab of the truck was pleasantly warm, and the burst of cold air when Jack opened his door convinced you even more that you were not going to get out.
You watched him round the front. He popped the hood of the truck, hiding him from view. What the hood didnât hide, though, was the cloud of smoke that billowed out.
âOh fuck me,â there was no way you were making it to the convention. You checked your phone. No service. Of course.
The hood slammed shut and you jumped, looking up to watch Jack walk back around to the drivers side. He slid back in, shutting the door hard behind him and scrubbing a hand over his face.Â
âWeâre fucked.â
âWhat are we going to do?â You chewed on your bottom lip as you looked at the land around you. âI do not want to die of hypothermia in your shitty truck.â
âMy truck isnât shitty,â he sounded like a petulant child.
âIt just fucking died on us,â you leveled a glare at him. âIâd say that makes it shitty.â
He grumbled something under his breath.
Both of you sat in silence for a moment.
âWe need to find somewhere to shelter,â Jack was looking out the windows.
âThere is nothing out - â
âThere,â he was pointing into the trees at something that you could not see. Everything blended together in the dim lighting and haze of falling snow.
âWhat?â
âThere,â Jack started gathering a few things scattered around. His phone, his water bottle, and the keys made the cut, all being stuffed into the pocket of his heavy duty coat. âThereâs a cabin.â
âBullshit there's a cabin. I donât see anything,â you really didnât. All you could see was a mass of black and gray and green.
âThere is,â he opened his door again. âAre you coming or are you going to freeze to death here?â
There wasnât much of a choice. You could already feel the chill creeping in through the thin glass of the windows now that the engine was dead. You could follow Jack into the woods and either find shelter or freeze to death in the snow, or stay in the truck and freeze to death in the carcass of his shitbox.
No matter what, the threat of hypothermia was real and, even though you werenât officially a doctor yet, you knew the risks. So you gave one last long suffering sigh, and opened your door.Â
You were immediately thankful youâd put leggings on beneath your jeans that morning. The temperature change slapped you in the face as soon as you stepped out into the ankle deep snow.
Jack was rifling through the bed of the truck, pulling out his duffel bag. You watched him hesitate for a minute, before abandoning the garment bag containing the suit heâd packed. You tried not to think about just how good heâd look in a formal get up.
âGrab your shit,â Jack was pulling on a pair of gloves. His cheeks were already rosy from the freezing wind. âWeâve gotta get there fast.â
You gathered your things, yanking your own gloves and coat out of your bag. You left your own garment bag containing the gown youâd thrifted for the final banquet in the bed alongside the covered poster board for your research. It was going to be ruined if you and Jack ever made it back to the truck alive, given that there was not a chance youâd be making it to the conference, you didnât bother trying to save it.
âLead the way,â you slung your bag over your shoulder, pulling the hood up over your head to try and shield you as much as possible from the chill.
Jack led you across the frozen road and down into the treeline. The snow came up to mid calf, soaking your feet through your boots. Very quickly, you started to shiver, trying to curl into yourself as you walked.
You were both grateful and pissed to see the shape of the cabin come into view. You needed to get warm, but you did not want to admit Jack was right.Â
It took about 20 minutes for you to reach the front porch. By now, the snow was falling so hard that you couldnât see the road or the truck through the haze.
âCâmon, câmon,â Jack tried the door handle, sighing with relief when it swung open.Â
The inside of the cabin was simple. About the same size as your studio apartment back in Pittsburgh. It was dark, but you could see a fireplace against one wall, across from a full sized bed. There was a small kitchenette and a small bathroom you could see through a half open door. The whole place was dusty and looked like it hadnât been used since last summer, but it would have to do.
Both you and Jack tumbled in. It was cold, but at least the sturdy wooden walls kept the wind chill out.
âYou got a lighter?â Jack was already moving towards the fireplace, inspecting a few of the logs piled next to it. He seemed to approve of a few of them, piling them up.
âYeah, here,â you fished a lighter out of your jacket pocket, tossing it to him as you set your bag down on the bed.Â
You watched him for a moment. He shed his coat, pushing the sleeves of his sweatshirt up as he set a few scraps of newspaper alight. With a gentle few breaths, he grew the flame before placing it under the pile of logs heâd formed in the fireplace. It took a moment, but gradually the flames grew until there was a bright, flickering fire lighting up the small room.Â
You could feel the warmth it was putting off starting to seep into you, but it wasnât enough. Your coat was still on, but you were shivering beneath it.Â
Jack noticed, doing a double take over his shoulder when he saw you still standing by the bed.
âCome over here.â
âIâm fine,â your voice was unsteady.
âYou need to get warm,â Jack was untying his boots, digging through his bag for a new pair of socks as he discarded the damp pair heâd been wearing. âYouâre gonna get frostbite.â
âNo, Iâm not,â but you were moving towards him, crossing the small room to stand beside him in front of the fireplace.
âTake off your clothes.â
You looked over at Jack like heâd grown a second head, ready to tell him off. But the words died in your throat when you saw he was stripping his shirt and hoodie off, leaving him bare from the waist up. You froze for a moment, eyes wide and brain buffering, until his hands grabbed for the zipper of his jeans.
âWhat the fuck?!â You spun around, trying to will your blush away.
âWe need to get into dry clothes and get warm,â the shuffling sounds of his clothes hitting the floor was tempting you to turn around. You wanted just a little peak.
âIâll be fine.â
âNo, you wonât.â
And then Jackâs hands were at your waist, pulling up your sweatshirt.
âWoah!â You spun away from him, putting distance between you and begging your heart to slow down its rapid beating.
âIâm not letting you blame me when your toes fall off,â Jack crossed his arms over his chest. Heâd changed into a plain black t-shirt, gray sweatpants, and thick wool socks. God damn it, he looked good. âI wonât look, but you need to change.â
âFine,â you walked back towards your bag. âDonât look.â
âWouldnât dream of it,â Jackâs eyes raked over you once before he was turning back to face the fire.
You moved quickly, stripping out of your layers. Youâd been planning on being in a nice, cosy hotel and convention center, tucked safely away from the cold, so youâd only brought jeans, slacks, and your comfortable sleep shorts. Tight, spandex shorts that left very little to the imagination. The leggings you wore under your jeans were soaked up to the thighs with melted snow and unwearable.
So you grabbed your most modest shorts, although âmodestâ was a stretch. They were tight and short, covered completely by the oversized crewneck you pulled on after. You didnât have too many options for socks, stuck with a relatively thin pair of white ankle length ones. Your nice, insulating ones were soaked from your trek through the snow.
âIs it safe yet?â
You glanced over at Jack, silhouetted against the fire. His shoulders looked a hell of a lot broader than youâd realized, the muscles of his arms standing out. God fucking damnit.
âYeah, itâs safe,â you cleared your throat, looking away from him as you moved your bag away from the bed, setting it on the floor by the nightstand.
âThatâs what youâre wearing to not freeze?â
His judgmental tone made you bristle, reminding your traitorous mind that you did, in fact, hate this man.
âI didnât have a lot of options,â you unnecessarily straightened your duffel, looking anywhere but at him. âI didnât plan for you to get us stranded in the fucking woods. I packed for a fancy hotel and a conference, which is where we would be if you didnât try to kill us.â
âI didnât try to kill us,â he scoffed. You risked a glance at him. He was digging through his own bag. âI took a shortcut to go around the traffic on the interstate. Here.âÂ
He wadded up a pair of flannel pants and threw them at you. You caught them, trying not to take a deep breath. They smelled like detergent and that addicting smell of his cologne.
âThese are fucking ugly,â the idea of wearing his clothes and being stuck in such a small space with him triggered your fight or flight instinct. Seeing as flight wasnât a reasonable option with a blizzard outside, you decided to fight.Â
âBy all means,â Jack rolled his eyes. âFreeze to death because my pants are ugly. Iâd finally get some peace and quiet.â
âThe fuck do you mean âpeace and quietâ? I didnât say a fucking thing the whole car ride!â
âYeah, and it was fantastic.â
Grumbling to yourself about what a dick he was, you gave in. You were fully aware he was trying to get you to wear the stupid pants. You could sacrifice your pride to put them on and deny him the satisfaction of you going silent.
âMaybe if Iâd said something, we wouldnât be stuck here,â you tugged the god awful pants up over your shorts, having to double know the waistband to keep them up around your hips.
âOh so you agree, this is your fault,â Jack looked smug. He sat down on the rug in front of the fireplace, his legs spread out before him. His feet were blisteringly close to the flames. You hoped his stupid socks caught on fire.
âHow is this my fault? I didnât tell you to drive off the main road in the middle of a snowstorm. This is your fault,â begrudgingly, you made your way towards him. You sat down 3 feet away from him, relishing the wave of heat that greeted you once you were close to the fire. The rest of the space was slowly warming up, but the cold still seeped in through the fogged over windows and wooden walls.
âWell I wouldnât be stuck out here if I didnât have to drive you to this stupid convention,â Jack leaned back on his palms. He looked calm and relaxed, and that made you even more irritated.
âOh, so you only took this backroad because of me,â you stretched out your hands to warm your frigid fingers. âGlad you admitted this was attempted murder.â
ââAttempted murderâ my ass,â he shook his head, narrowing his eyes. His gaze scanned you from head to toe. You told yourself the shiver that ran through your body was from the cold. âI would be nice and cosy in my apartment if it wasnât for you.â
âWhat is that supposed to mean?â
âI only agreed to go to the conference because you needed a ride.â
âBullshit,â you scoffed. That didnât make any sense. Why the hell would Jack do that? Heâd been a massive dick since you met him. Every group project or hospital rotation you ended up on with him was hell. He pushed your buttons, poking and prodding at you with sharp little quips until you snapped.
Jack didnât say anything. He turned his face back towards the fire, focusing on the flickering flames.
âJackâŠ?â
He stayed silent.Â
You didnât know what to say. You were confused. He hates you, so why would he agree to be locked in a car with you for an extended amount of time. Maybe he truly did want to lure you out into the woods and kill you.Â
But why? Sure, you were classmates, both competing for residency spots in a technical sense, but that wasnât strictly true. It pained you to admit it, but Jack was in a league of his own. He was smart. Annoyingly so. He was constantly at the top of your class, leading test scores by a mile. You werenât stupid, not at all, but Jack was something else. You werenât competition for him.
âDid youâŠâ How do you ask a classmate if he planned to kill you? You swallowed hard, suddenly very nervous. âDid you bring me out here to - to get rid - â
âJesus Christ, [name],â he finally looked at you again, sitting up and resting his elbows on his outstretched legs. He looked horrified. âYou think I agreed to drive you, took a shortcut, and sabotaged my truck to - to what? Kill you?â
âThen why did you agree to drive me?â You couldnât wrap your head around it.
âJust drop it, ok?â He scrubbed a hand down his face, rubbing at his jaw and looking away.
âJust doesnât make sense,â you were mumbling. You scanned him, reading the tension in his shoulders.
âDrop. It.â This was the most emotion youâd seen him exhibit in all four years youâd been in school together. His jaw was clenched.
In the flickering light, it was hard to tell if his cheeks were flushed from the rising heat of the fire or if he was actually blushing.
âNo, Iâm not going to drop it,â you finally had a chance to push his buttons, but you also wanted to know why heâd go out of his way to drive 12+ hours round trip if he wasnât presenting or trying to network at the conference. âIt doesnât make sense.â
âI like you, alright?â He buried his face in his hands. âIâve liked you for years. I wanted to do something nice for you. I wanted to spend time with you. I like being near you, I like talking to you when youâre not being a bitch - â
âDonât you fucking dare call me a bitch, Jack Abbot,â you were still trying to process his confession, the wheels in your brain turning at a snails pace.
âFuck, fuck, youâre right. Iâm so sorry, Iâm fucking this up,â Jack took a deep breath, lifting his head to look at you. His expression was pained. âI like talking to you when youâre not trying to piss me off, and even when you are, I still enjoy it. Youâre smart, youâre gorgeous - incredibly gorgeous. And weâre about to graduate soon, weâre both leaving for residency in a few months and I couldnât - I couldnât not say anything.â
You didnât know how to respond. Jack paused for a moment at your silence, but then he carried on like he couldnât stop.
âI practiced this whole little speech for the gala at the end of the weekend,â he laughed sardonically, running a hand through his curls. âI was gonna pull you to the side, somewhere pretty and romantic and tell you how amazing I thought you were, how beautiful you looked in whatever dress you brought. I was gonna ask you out on a date when we got back to Pittsburgh. And then I fucked it up. I swear, I didnât know my truck was going to die.â
He was definitely blushing now. âAnd I didnât take a shortcut. I went the long way around to get more time with you since I knew youâd ignore me as soon as we got to the hotel. But I really was trying to avoid traffic on the interstate! I just didnât expect it to start snowing so hard.â
For a second, you were quiet. You still didnât know how to respond, but words fell from your lips before you could stop them.
âThe car ride back would have been awkward as fuck if I said no.â
Jack laughed, eyes crinkling as he shook his head.Â
âYeah, it would have been,â he sobered up, hope sparking in his eyes. âBut I was willing to risk the humiliation if there was a chance youâd give me a shot.â
Would you have given him a shot? You didnât know. For years youâd been so insistent that you hated him, but you couldnât deny that youâd been attracted to him since day 1. Youâd noticed him immediately at orientation, but you hadnât gotten a chance to speak to him until the first randomly assigned group project in your cadaver lab. Heâd been a know-it-all, correcting your technique with a scalpel, raising one of those condescending eyebrows and judging every move youâd made. It rubbed you the wrong way, and clouded your perception of him.
Youâd written him off after that, but the two of you kept being forced together. Same professor assigned group projects, similar friend circles, same hospital rotations. Every interaction just reinforced your view of him. It pissed you off every time you caught him staring at you, every time he sat next to you in lectures, asked to share your notes, when he poked and prodded and teased you.
But everything looked very different with the knowledge that heâd been into you since the beginning. Now, he looked less like a piece of shit that wanted to torment you and more like a lovesick puppy that wanted your attention. Either way, it wasnât a flattering look for him, but the latter option was much more forgivable than the former.
âSo?â
You jumped, ripped out of your thoughts to find Jack staring at you again.Â
âSoâŠ?â
âDo I get a chance?â He looked terrified of what your response would be.
âI - â you didnât know. Your mind was spinning, trying to parse out your feelings and figure out exactly how you were feeling about the situation.
âItâs ok if you donât feel the same way,â his hand ran through his hair again, tugging at his curls as he went. âI get it, Iâve been a dick - â
âNo - I mean, yes you have been, but,â you took a deep breath. âI - I donât know. I had no clue you felt this way. Iâm just⊠trying to process this.â
âOk, yeah, yeah thatâs ok,â Jack was nodding, his eyes fixed on the floor. âYeah, I mean, you donât owe me an answer. And you can say no.â
He laughed again, but it was gruff and self deprecating.
âI swear Iâm not going to kill you if you say no.â
âGee, that makes me feel so much better.â
Both of you were quiet for a moment, and then you burst out laughing. A real laugh, not the sad imitation Jack had let out previously. You felt hysterical, the situation did not call for the intensity of the laughter spilling from you, but it did help to diffuse the tension that had been rising in the confined space.
When you were able to calm yourself, both of you gasping for breath and staring into the flames, your thoughts turned back to everything. You were hesitant to just accept, still struggling to reframe the last 3 Âœ years now that you had more context. But you were curious.Â
âIf we live,â you broke the silence that had fallen over the room. âIf we make it out of this fucking murder cabin, Iâll give you a chance.â
Jack snorted, a smile tugging at his lips.
âThen we better survive.â
The two of you sat there in front of the fire for a few more hours, passing bags of chips and candies back and forth, trying to make the time go by and conserve the batteries of your phones. You drifted in and out of conversation and silence. Surprisingly, you found yourself enjoying talking to him. For the first time since youâd been introduced, you had a pleasant conversation. Neither of you brought up his confession or your tentative acceptance.
Instead, you asked about him. And you learned a lot, shockingly. You knew the basics; he was a few months older than you, he was too smart for his own good, and heâd sold his soul to the Army and would be doing his residency at a military hospital. You almost envied the fact that he got to skip the stress of match day. Almost. You would absolutely not trade that stress in exchange for the next 10 years of your life.
Jack was from Maryland, and he was getting to go back to do his residency at Walter Reed. You saw his eyes light up with hope when you told him your first choice for residency was John Hopkins, but he didnât say anything. Youâd be pretty damn close to each other if you got lucky, but you didnât dwell on that.
His first name was actually John, and he looked disgusted by it, but his expression softened when you laughed after he revealed he was actually John Andrew Abbot III. You pretended not to notice that, too.
You shared information of your own, also. Jack smiled when you told him about your childhood pets. He laughed when you told him silly stories from undergrad. He stayed quiet, letting you speak when you shared about struggling to make ends meet while still in school.
It endeared you but also pissed you off that he knew just how to react. He was empathetic and sweet when he wasnât pushing your buttons.
You liked talking to Jack, you realized. You liked getting to know him.
The two of you had started yawning about an hour ago, but neither of you were ready to stop talking. It was only when the conversation finally lulled and you found yourself fighting against your increasingly heavy eyelids.
âWe should get some sleep,â Jack was pushing himself up from the floor, dusting off his hands and sweats as he went. He extended a hand to you, and you found yourself not hesitating to take it, allowing him to pull you to your feet. His hand was warm and steady, and you found yourself fighting off a twinge of disappointment when he let go. âYou can take the bed.â
âWhat? No,â there was only one bed in the one room cabin. It was so small, there wasnât even room for a couch. The only other furniture in the space was a small kitchen table and two chairs, and a beaten up armchair covered by a thin white sheet. âWhere are you going to sleep?â
He shrugged, shifting his duffel closer and moving the clothes in it around until he seemed satisfied with the shape. âHere, in front of the fire. I can make sure it keeps going all night.â
âNo,â you grabbed his arm, stopping him from moving towards a small linen closet neither of you had bothered to peek into so far. âNo, youâre not sleeping on the floor. WeâŠâÂ
He raised an eyebrow, gaze flicking between your face and your hand still holding onto his bicep. You let go, taking a step back.
âWe can share the bed,â you glanced over your shoulder. The bed was small, probably full sized. Just barely big enough to fit the two of you, although youâd have to scoot pretty close to the edge to avoid touching.Â
âIâm not complaining about sharing a bed with you,â Jack looked at the bed too. âI think Iâve made myself clear about that - â
You swallowed hard. You hadnât let yourself think about that aspect of his confession. In fact, youâd beaten it back into the shadowy corners of your mind as aggressively as you could. You wouldnât survive however long your confinement was going to be if you let yourself think about the more physical implications of Jack being into you.
 He looked down at you. The light from the fire was dancing across the planes of his face, knocking the breath out of your lungs with how ethereal he looked. He was handsome everyday, but he looked unreal in this lighting.Â
â - but I donât want to make you uncomfortable. You havenât told me how you feel, and you havenât agreed to go out with me - not that that means you have to⊠yâknowâŠâ he seemed to be struggling to find the words. He was blushing again. âBe⊠be that close to me.â
âI - â you paused, searching for the right words. You really were starting to be willing to give him a chance, especially with how well your conversations had gone. And yes, fine, maybe youâd been physically attracted to him from the beginning, but when youâd found yourself in moments of weakness before, youâd imagined any sort of physical or intimate encounter being⊠well, not nearly so emotionally charged. In those late night fantasies, it was rough, aggressive, something born out of hate and frustration. But now, he looked nervous, his eyes soft and apprehensive. You once again didnât know how to handle this type of interaction with him.Â
So, you decided to be an adult about it. For fucks sake, you were 26. You could share a bed with a man who just confessed heâd been in love with you for years and who youâd been fantasizing about for just as long.
You cleared your throat, taking your hand off his arm. âWe can share a bed without⊠without it being anything more.â
âRight, right, of course,â Jack let out a breath. âAs long as youâre ok, then yeah.â
âYeah,â you were a big fat liar. âItâll be fine.â
So the two of you got ready for your doom. You gathered your toiletries as Jack threw a few more logs on the fire to hopefully keep it going all night.
The bathroom thankfully had running water, even if the rest of the cabin had no electricity, so you were able to take turns brushing your teeth. You went first, taking many deep breaths and giving yourself a silent pep talk in the small, dark room.Â
âAll yours!â Your smile and chipper attitude felt forced when you let him have his turn. You sat on the side of the bed with your bag, digging through it, searching for nothing to give your anxious hands something to do.
âYou ready for bed?âÂ
Jack came out of the bathroom, crossing to the other side of the bed and starting to pull back the covers. You stook, giving him a nod and pulling back the ones on your side. Both of you slipped in silently.
âGood night,â Jack rolled over, his back to you, facing the front door.
You followed his lead, turning your back to him and trying to snuggle in underneath the thin blankets. âGood night.â
Jackâs pants and the residual warmth in your clothes from sitting in front of the fire for so long helped lull you to sleep, and quickly, you found yourself falling under.
When you woke, it was to a warm presence at your back and freezing air nipping at the exposed skin of your face. It was completely dark in the room, no light coming in through the windows or from the now extinguished fireplace.
You pushed back, chasing the heat behind you. Thatâs when you became aware of several things at once.Â
That warmth behind you was Jack. The entire length of his body was pressed against yours and his arms were wrapped tightly around your waist, one above and one below, keeping you firmly in place. Those arms were underneath your sweatshirt, one palm resting just below your breasts and the other right above the waistband of your borrowed pants. His face was nuzzled in the crook of your neck, breath hot against the sensitive skin.
You tried to shift, to move out of his hold and restart the fire so that you didnât have to confront exactly how hot the skin on skin contact was making you deep inside.
Jack didnât let you move, though. His arm tightened around you, tugging you back against him even more firmly. That was when you really felt him. The hard length of his cock was pressed against your ass.
He was still asleep, but that didnât stop his hips from grinding forward. You gasped, clenching your thighs together. Involuntarily, you pressed back against him again. His hand shifted up, sliding over your breast and loosely squeezing the flesh.
âJack,â your voice was quiet and broken around another gasp as he pushed his length against your ass again.
He mumbled something incoherent, before squeezing your breast again. The hand on your stomach dipped lower, his fingers just beginning to slide underneath your bottoms.
You were existing between sleep and waking, half convinced this was some sort of extremely vivid dream.Your pulse was racing, hips pushing back to meet his at every sleepy movement. Both of you were breathing harder, the cold seemingly beaten back by the rising heat between you.Â
â[Name],â you could just barely make out the slurred groan of your name breathed against your neck. It sparked even more heat in your core to hear him say your name.
âJack?â
God, you sounded fucked out already. Jackâs hand was pushing even farther into your pants and under the shorts you wore beneath.
The first brush of his fingers over your folds had you whining, and that was when Jack finally woke up.
You felt him freeze behind you, his hands tightening on reflex, dragging his fingers through your folds and against your clit. It ripped an embarrassing moan out of you, your hips pushing back against his cock in response to the jolt of pleasure.
â[Name]?â Jackâs voice was sleepy and confused.Â
âJack,â you whined in response.
âOh fuck,â he pulled back, hands leaving you. âFuck, Iâm so sorry.â
âWait - â but Jack wasnât listening
âFuck, I told you I wouldnât try anything, Iâm so fucking sorry. That - I canât believe I did that. Fuck.â
âJack, stop,â he was sitting up, elbows on his knees and hands in his hair. The heat in you died when you saw him so upset. âJack, look at me.â
âIâm sorry - â
âStop apologizing,â you pushed him flat onto his back, swinging a leg over his hips and leaning over him. Your hair created a curtain, closing the two of you into a little bubble.
âBut I - â
âShut up!â
And then you kissed him. He froze for a moment, but he quickly melted into you, his hands coming up to grab your waist. He let you lead for a moment, his lips following the slow, languid rhythm you set.
Until your tongue swiped over the seam of his lips. Then, his hold on you tightened and with a firm buck of his hips, he was rolling you onto your back. He settled between your legs, grinding his length against you as his tongue stroked against yours, licking into your mouth and swallowing the noises that leaked out of you. Your hands tangled in his hair, holding him to you.
âFuck,â Jack pulled back, gasping for air. His forehead rested against yours. âAre you sure - â
âYes, Iâm fucking sure,â you bucked your hips up against his, tugging on his hair as you did. He groaned, meeting your thrust. âWanted this for a long time.â
âI thought you hated me,â Jackâs hand was slipping back underneath your sweatshirt to push it up. His thumb dragged over your newly exposed pebbled nipple.
âYeah, I did,â your back arched, pushing your chest even further into his hand. âDoesnât mean youâre not hot, though.â
âYeah?â He was smirking, his lips ghosting over yours. âIâm just that irresistible?â
âShut the fuck up,â you pressed your lips against his, drawing him into a filthy kiss. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him back down so you could chase your own pleasure with his body. One of your hands slipped under his shirt, dragging your nails down over his chest and abs.
He moaned, grabbing your hand on his chest and pinning it to the mattress beside your head. He broke the kiss, nipping at your lower lip as he went.
âUnless you want this to end way too soon, you better fucking stop that,â his voice was low and ragged, fingers flexing against your wrist.
âStop what?â You wanted to both know exactly what was driving him crazy, and to play dumb and rile him up.
âTouching me,â he ducked his head, nipping and sucking at the skin of your neck. âLooking so fucking good underneath me, all of it.â
âSee,â you bit back a whimper. âI donât think you really want me to stop.â
Your back arched and your hips bucked up again as he sucked a dark mark into the skin below your jaw.
âI donât, but I donât want to cum in my pants, either,â he moved lower, to a new, unblemished patch of skin. âSo either take your pants off or tell me to go take a cold shower.â
âGotta let go of my hand first,â your teeth dug into your lower lip as he licked a stripe up your neck.
âAre you gonna keep it to yourself?â Jack pulled back to look down at you. You grinned back up at him and he rolled his eyes.
âNo.â
He laughed, releasing you and sitting back on his knees between your spread thighs. His hands came down to the drawstring, undoing the bow at lightning speed, pushing the pants down your hips. Jack groaned as your shorts came back into view.
âThese little fucking shorts,â he stripped the pants off you, lifting your legs into the air as he did. âMade me hard earlier.â
His hand trailed over your hip, brushing across the fabric until he was stroking a finger over your covered slit. Your teeth bit into your lip even harder to smother the whine that he was drawing out of you.
âYouâre fucking soaked,â that little smile tugging at his lips was smug and self satisfied. He pressed into you a little harder, circling your covered clit through the spandex. âIs this all for me?â
âYouâre an ass,â your teeth were gritted. Every circle he made had your hips twitching up, little sparks shooting from the light touch.
âI think you like that about me,â Jackâs hand left you for just a minute, long enough for it to slip beneath the waistband of your shorts. For the second time tonight, the first with both of you fully aware, his fingers dipped below your soaking folds.
Jack leaned forward, his unoccupied hand braced against the bed by your head. His eyes fixed on yours, chest heaving as he watched every shift of your face while his hand moved. He was exploring, teasing, fingers wandering through every soaked inch of you, the tips just barely dipping into your entrance and then moving back up to circle your clit.
âFuck,â you were panting, trying to move your hips against his hand, guiding him to the right spot. But every time his fingers found where you needed him, heâd move them away, smiling as he worked you up.
âJack, I swear to god, Iâll - â
âYouâll what? Hmm?â He slowed to a stop, his index and middle finger sandwiching your clit between them, pressing down to keep you from rocking into them and chasing your pleasure. âCâmon, tell me what youâll do.â
âIf you donât make me cum in the next 2 minutes,â his cocky demeanor made you want to simultaneously punch him and kiss him. You hated it, but it fueled the heat and desire curling low in your stomach. Judging from the hard length of him you can just barely make out through his sweats, he was enjoying it, too. âIâll never let you touch me again.â
His face fell, hardening into determination. âIs that so?â
âYes - â
Jackâs fingers pressed directly against your clit, rapidly drawing tight circles around your clit. It was like an electric shock to your body after so much of his teasing. Your back arched, eyes falling shut as your moans filled the air.
âHowâs that? Is that what you wanted?â
âShut - fuck - shut up!â
You were impossibly close, already wound so tightly that you were dangerously close to snapping beneath him.
âI thought you liked it when I was a dick?â Jack leaned even farther over you, his lips closing around your nipple, flicking the bud with his tongue and scraping over it with his teeth.Â
âStop fucking talking, Jack!â You felt him laugh against your skin, sending vibrations through your breast.Â
Your hand tangled in his hair, yanking at the strands. He groaned, switching to your other breast and sucking hard.
You cracked, thighs trying to snap closed around his hand and hips. He didnât let you, pushing his body even farther into yours to keep them open as he worked you through it. Your legs shook and your hips jerked against his fingers that were still going, drawing even more tremors and cries out of your lips.
You writhed beneath him, forced to let each wave crash over you as Jack held you through it.
âFuck - no more,â it was nearly impossible to get air into your lungs, but as the sensations died down and overstimulation, Jack backed off.
He pushed back up, easing his hand out of your shorts. He let you breath for a moment, his hands rubbing over your thighs until their trembling slowed to a stop.
âYou good?â
âYeah,â your voice was breathy.
âCan I fuck you now?âÂ
You cracked your eyes open to look at Jack. There was a small wet patch on his sweats, right over the head of his cock. Fuck, he looked long and thick.
âYes, please,â your hands found the waistband of your shorts, pushing them down.
Jack laughed, his hands joining yours to help remove the shorts from your legs.Â
âI should have made you cum 3 years ago,â he threw the shorts over his shoulder once he got them free from your ankles. âSo nice and polite.â
âShut up and get naked, asshole,â you sat up, reaching for his sweats, tugging them down his hips.Â
Suddenly, you were face to face with his cock. He was bigger than you though. The flushed length of his cock slapped against his stomach when it was freed, the leaking head smearing clear fluid against his abs.
You couldnât help yourself. You leaned forward, licking a stripe up the length from base to tip. The skin was smooth and soft, his cock twitching beneath your touch.
âFuck!â Jackâs hand grabbed your hair, pulled your head back and away from him as he hissed. âDonât do that. Youâre gonna make me cum.â
âIsnât that the goal of sex?â You smiled up at him, straining against the hold he had on you to try and get your tongue back on him.Â
âYeah, but Iâm trying not to embarrass myself and end this way too soon,â Jack guided you by your hair, easing you down onto your back again. âYou can blow me later, right now, I think I might die if I donât get inside you.â
âThen hurry up,â you lifted your legs, hooking them around his waist and pulling him down onto you.
âAlright, alright,â Jack slipped a hand between your bodies, grabbing himself by the base. You forced yourself to breathe as his tip swiped through your folds, coating his cock in your fluids before he was lining himself up. He pressed in slowly. You felt yourself part around him, your walls stretching around the crown of his head. You were impossibly full, and he was barely in you.
He kept pushing in, both of you panting and looking down, eyes locked on where you were joined. You didnât think you could take anymore, but he kept going, your walls sucking him in and pulling him into your depths.
âFuck,â your head dropped back when he bottomed out. He ground forward, staying fully seated inside you and letting you adjust.
âOh shit,â Jack sat up between your legs, hands gripping your hips, keeping them pressed fully against his. The shift in angle had you keening. âLook at that.â
Your eyes cracked open, trying to figure out what he was talking about.
âCan fucking see myself, holy shit,â one of his hands left your hips, tracing around the very visible sight of his cock outlined in your lower stomach. You were transfixed, watching with bated breath as his fingertips brushed against your skin. Goosebumps broke out across your body at the sensation.
âI wonderâŠâ Jack trailed off, eyes still focused on your stomach. His hand moved, gently laying over the outline of his cock. He let it sit there for just a moment, palming his length through your skin.
And then he pushed down.Â
Both of you cried out at once. Youâd already felt full, but the added pressure of his hand made his length feel even bigger. He was everywhere, completely consuming you from the inside out.
âHoly fuck!â His hips jerked into you, snapping against a spot deep inside you that had you arching in his hold.
âOh fuck, Jack!â
âYeah? You feel that?â Jack started moving, his hips withdrawing and punching back into you, rapidly working his way up to a punishing pace. You couldnât answer with words. He was pushing the breath out of your lungs with every thrust. âGod, youâre so full of me, baby.â
And then Jack hiked your legs up over his shoulders, releasing the pressure on your stomach in exchange for keeping your thighs pressed tight to his chest. It opened you up even more to him.
âOh my god,â Jack bent forward, burying his face back in your neck, pushing your legs into your chest, folding you in half. He was rutting into you, groaning as he chased his pleasure.
You were getting close again, too. Every thrust had the neatly trimmed hairs at the base of his cock grinding over your clit as his tip slammed home against your g-spot. Your eyes were closed, lost in the pleasure. You couldnât move, completely pinned beneath him and forced to take the overwhelming pleasure.
âJack! Please!â Your hand tangled in his hair again, holding the strands tightly. It was your only lifeline and you used it to tether yourself to reality.Â
âOh fuck,â Jack was panting into the skin of your shoulder. âFuck, Iâm close. Câmon, cum for me. Please, need to feel you.â
You were so close, only a hair's breadth from your peak.
When Jack bit down on your shoulder and his hips stuttered, you came again. You clamped around him, walls spasming and squeezing while he rutted even deeper into you. Jack was groaning your name while he spilled deep inside of you. The hot pusles of his release propelled your own, the two of you pushing each other even higher.
He finally let go of your legs, helping to ease them down until they were resting on the mattress on either side of his hips. He didnât move to pull out, though. The two of you stayed wrapped around each other, his softening length buried inside you, until the cold was too much to bear.
âSo,â Jack gingerly climbed off of you, the cold air rushing in. âCan I take you on a real date now?â
âIf you get me a washcloth to clean up with and get the fire started, Iâll marry you as soon as we get out of here,â you were shivering now.
Jack grinned, leaning back down to press a quick kiss to your lips. âPromise?âÂ
another little note: I'm trying out a new reader insert format. usually, I just keep it vague and don't use any form of y/n, but we're gonna do something a little different. my dear friend @fangirl-dot-com asked her followers how they felt about y/n and y/l/n, and someone in the comments said they prefer [name] and [surname] and I like that. its not really used here very much, but I wanted to give it a try. lmk if you hate it but, like, I like it so ill probably keep using it. unless all of you hate it
Summary: Two weeks before your second year of med school, your sublet falls through, your options disappear, and the only affordable room left near campus belongs to the one person you swore you could not stand. Jack Abbot is your academic rival, your personal headache, and the man who has been competing with you by a single miserable point since first year. Unfortunately, he needs someone to split the rent. Unfortunately, you need a place to live. Unfortunately, heâs also very nice to look at.
Warnings: academic rivals, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, roommate situation, med school stress, housing stress, banter, sexual tension, suggestive dialogue, no smut in this chapter, Jack being cocky and irritating, Reader being equally irritating right back
Author's Note: Med school Jack Abbot has been haunting my every waking thought: academic rivals, forced roommates, one bathroom, thin walls, and two people who genuinely cannot stand each other⊠except for the deeply inconvenient fact that they are both very attracted to each other. They do not like each other yet. They respect each other, which is worse. They notice each other, which is dangerous. And now, because rent is expensive and pride does not pay bills, they have to live together. Welcome to The One Point Difference. One apartment. One bathroom. Two academic rivals separated by one miserable point and absolutely no emotional maturity about it.
Xoxo, Del
Two weeks before your second year of med school started, your sublet disappeared with one phone call, one half-hearted apology, and absolutely no useful solution.
âIâm really sorry,â Bethany said through the receiver, her voice tinny and thin beneath the buzz of the fluorescent light above your head. âMy cousin needed the room, and my mom already told her she could have it.â
You stood in the hallway outside the medical school student affairs office with your backpack sliding off one shoulder and your notebook pressed open against the wall.
For a second, you said nothing.
Bethany cleared her throat on the other end of the line. âI know this is last minute.â
You looked down at the date you had written at the top of the page.
August 18th. Two weeks. You had two weeks.
You pressed the pen so hard against the paper that the tip left a dot of ink beside the first crossed-out apartment listing. âYou knew I was moving in at the end of the month.â
âThat does not get me a place to live,â you said.
The hallway door opened beside you, and a group of first-years spilled out, laughing, their new white coats still creased from whatever ceremonial packet they had come in with. One of them nearly bumped your elbow, then murmured an apology before following the others down the hall.
You watched them go with the bitter envy of someone who had once believed the beginning of medical school was the hard part.
Bethany sighed. âI donât know what else to say.â
You looked at the housing board across the hall.
Half the flyers were already stripped clean of phone-number tabs. The remaining ones curled at the corners beneath layers of tape and thumbtacks, sun-faded from weeks of desperate students pretending affordable housing existed.
âYou could have told me before every other room within walking distance got taken,â you said.
Bethany went quiet. That was answer enough.
You closed your eyes, counted to three, and opened them again.
âSend the deposit back by Friday,â you said.
Bethanyâs voice sharpened with defensiveness. âI said I would.â
âBy Friday,â you repeated.
Then you hung up before she could apologize again.
The receiver landed in the cradle with a plastic clack that sounded much too small for the catastrophe it had just delivered.
You stood there for a moment with your hand still on the phone.
Your sublet was gone. Your boxes were half-packed. Your current lease ended in thirteen days.
Second year began in fourteen.
You were, by every practical definition, fucked.
âOkay,â you whispered to yourself.
Your voice sounded steadier than you felt, which was something, at least.
You pulled your notebook closer, flipped past the page where you had neatly written Bethanyâs address, rent amount, move-in date, and phone number, then drew one dark line through all of it.
The ink smeared under your hand.
âGreat,â you muttered.
For the next hour, you stood in the hallway outside student affairs and worked through every phone number you had collected over the past month.
The first landlord told you the room had been rented that morning.
The second said he did not rent to students anymore, as if students were a species of raccoon known for getting into walls.
The third number had been disconnected.
The fourth had a woman on the other end who sighed and said, âOh, honey, that flyer is from June.â
You called three classmates after that.
One had already filled her extra room. One was moving in with her boyfriend. One offered you a couch for âa few nights,â but her apartment was forty minutes away by bus and smelled aggressively like incense even over the phone.
By the time you crossed the hall toward the corkboard, your notebook page had become a graveyard of crossed-out options.
The housing board had always been depressing, but that afternoon it looked personal.
AUGUST SUBLET AVAILABLE had been crossed out in red marker.
FEMALE ROOMMATE WANTED had no phone number tabs left.
CLOSE TO CAMPUS turned out to mean a twenty-seven-minute bus ride if the bus was on time, which it never was.
QUIET HOUSE, SERIOUS STUDENTS ONLY sounded promising until the fine print mentioned three cats, one parrot, and a landlord who lived on the first floor and preferred âno late-night movement.â
You stared at that one for longer than it deserved.
A parrot would probably outlive you.
You moved on.
One flyer advertised a basement room with ânatural light,â which felt medically and legally suspicious. Another listed a studio for an amount of money that made you check the decimal point twice. A third had been written in purple marker by someone named Dawn who wanted a roommate who was âclean, kind, spiritually open, and comfortable with reptiles.â
You were starting to consider whether reptiles were where your pride finally went to die when someone stopped beside you.
âRough day?â someone asked.
You turned your head and found Taylor standing next to you with a stack of photocopied lecture packets hugged to her chest.
Taylor was in your year, friendly in the way some people managed without ever becoming close. She knew everyone, knew everything, and had a terrifying ability to hear gossip before the person involved knew they had become gossip.
You tried to smile. âMy sublet fell through.â
Taylorâs face shifted with immediate sympathy. âOh, shit.â
You nodded toward the board. âThatâs one word for it.â
Taylor glanced at your notebook. âHave you called any of these yet?â
You lifted the notebook slightly. âSix landlords, three classmates, two disconnected numbers, and one woman with an iguana.â
Taylor winced. âIâm assuming that was the spiritually open reptile situation.â
You looked back at the purple flyer. âUnfortunately.â
Taylor shifted the lecture packets against her hip and scanned the flyers with you. âOkay. What do you need?â
You rubbed the heel of your hand against your forehead. âA room. Four walls. A door. Ideally, no reptiles, birds, cult activity, or hourly lectures from a landlord about my moral character.â
Taylor studied your face. âBudget?â
You told her.
Her face did something terrible.
You groaned. âDonât make that face.â
Taylor tried to smooth her expression. âIâm not making a face.â
You pointed at her. âYou are absolutely making a face.â
Taylor reached past you and lifted the corner of a flyer pinned beneath three others. âOkay. Donât kill me.â
You narrowed your eyes. âThat is never a good start.â
Taylor pulled the flyer free and held it between you. âThere is one room I know is still open.â
You looked at her carefully. âWhy do you sound like youâre about to suggest organ donation?â
Taylor handed you the flyer.
The paper was plain white and typed. No cute border. No exclamation points. No desperate attempt at warmth. Just black ink, even spacing, and the unmistakable efficiency of a person who could make a roommate search feel like a military briefing.
ROOMMATE WANTED.
Two-bedroom apartment near medical campus. One bathroom. Available immediately. Rent due first of the month. Utilities split evenly. No smoking. No pets. No parties. Must be clean, quiet, and able to pay on time.
Medical students preferred.
Call after 6 p.m.
Serious inquiries only.
Your eyes moved to the bottom of the page.
Jack Abbot.
âNo,â you said.
Taylor pressed her lips together.
You looked at her. âAbsolutely not.â
Taylor lifted both hands, lecture packets and all. âI know.â
âYou do not know,â you said.
Taylorâs mouth twitched. âI know enough.â
âNo,â you said again, because one refusal did not feel strong enough for the cosmic insult currently printed in black ink before you. âThere is no universe where I live with Jack Abbot.â
The name itself felt like a provocation.
Jack Abbot was not just some classmate you disliked on principle. He was a year-long headache with good grades and reddish-brown curls. He was the man who had sat three rows ahead of you during first-year anatomy and corrected your answer on the brachial plexus before the professor could. He was the man who had beaten you on the first histology practical by half a point, then had the audacity to say, âClose one,â as if you were supposed to thank him for noticing.
You had hated him immediately.
That had been inconvenient, because hating Jack Abbot required attention, and attention was exactly the problem.
By October, the two of you had somehow become a thing.
Not friends.
A rivalry.
Your classmates noticed before either of you admitted it. If you answered a question in physiology, someone looked at Abbot to see if he would add anything. If Abbot dismantled a case presentation in small group, someone glanced at you to see whether you would challenge him. When exam scores went up, people checked your names first, like the entire class had placed bets on which one of you would come out ahead by a single miserable point.
Sometimes it was him. Sometimes it was you. Never by much.
That was the most infuriating part.
If he had been wildly better than you, you could have dismissed him as unreachable. If he had been worse, you could have dismissed him as arrogant.
But Jack Abbot was good.
Annoyingly, consistently, almost beautifully good.
And he knew it.
Worse, he knew you were good too.
He never underestimated you. He did something far more irritating.
He expected you to keep up.
In anatomy lab, he had corrected your dissection angle with a quiet, âYouâre too medial.â
You had not looked up from your scalpel as you said, âTouch my hand again and lose yours.â
Jack had moved his hand away, but his mouth had done that almost-smile that made you want to commit an academic integrity violation just to frame him for it.
In biochemistry, you caught a mistake in his explanation of an enzyme pathway during small group.
Jack had looked at you across the table and said, âThatâs not what I said.â
You had smiled sweetly and said, âNo, but it is what you meant.â
The professor had coughed into his fist and moved on.
By spring, you had learned the particular shape of his arrogance.
He was not loud about it. He did not brag. He did not need to. Jack Abbotâs confidence was quieter and much worse. It was in the way he leaned back when other people were still panicking. The way he waited before answering, as if he were giving the room a final chance to disappoint him. The way his eyes moved to yours after a difficult question, not asking whether you knew the answer.
Checking.
You hated that too. You hated the checking. You hated the almost-smile. You hated that he drank black coffee like it was a personality flaw, wore old sweatshirts, pushed his curls back when he was tired, and had the nerve to look almost sweet when he was reading.
Almost.
Then he would open his mouth.
And you would remember.
Taylor tapped the flyer. âItâs close.â
You stared at her. âItâs Abbot.â
Taylor tapped the rent amount next. âItâs affordable.â
You shook the flyer once. âItâs Abbot.â
Taylor gave you a painfully reasonable look. âIt has two bedrooms.â
You leaned closer. âIt has Jack Abbot.â
Taylor tipped her head. âYou asked for no reptiles.â
You looked back at the Dawn flyer. âI would rather negotiate with the iguana.â
Taylor almost smiled. âI believe you.â
You shoved the flyer back toward her. âWhy do you even know this is still open?â
Taylor took the flyer but did not put it back. âBecause his old roommate is in my anatomy group.â
You frowned. âDaniel?â
Taylor nodded. âDaniel. He moved in with his girlfriend last week and left Abbot with the lease.â
âGood for Daniel,â you said. âTerrible for me.â
Taylor shrugged. âDaniel said Abbot was pissed, but not surprised.â
You looked at the flyer again despite yourself.
Taylor added, âDaniel also said the apartment is tiny, but clean, and Abbot is barely home unless heâs sleeping or studying.â
You crossed your arms. âThat is not a selling point.â
Taylor raised her brows. âFor you? It might be.â
You gave her a flat look. âTaylor.â
Taylor held up one hand. âIâm just saying, heâs reliable. Daniel said he paid everything on time, never had people over, and owned exactly four plates.â
You stared at her. âFour plates?â
Taylor nodded gravely. âHarsh, but financially stable.â
You looked back at the flyer.
Near campus. Two bedrooms. Available immediately.
Rent you could actually pay without selling plasma or living exclusively on vending machine pretzels.
You hated that the numbers made sense. You hated that the location made sense. You hated that Jack Abbot, of all people, had managed to become the practical option.
Taylor must have seen something on your face, because her voice softened. âYou donât have to marry him. You just have to split rent.â
You looked at her. âI would rather not do either.â
Taylor nodded. âFair.â
You stared at the phone number printed in neat little tear-off strips along the bottom.
Only three had been taken. Of course. Even the housing board had survival instincts.
Taylor leaned closer and lowered her voice. âAt least heâs nice to look at.â
Your eyes snapped to hers. âTaylor.â
Taylor widened her eyes with fake innocence. âWhat? He is.â
You folded your arms tighter. âHe is also arrogant, rigid, condescending, and allergic to joy.â
Taylor nodded slowly. âSure.â
You glared at her. âDo not say it like that.â
Taylor tilted her head. âLike what?â
You gestured vaguely with the flyer. âLike you think those things cancel out because he has a stupidly charming smile.â
Taylorâs mouth twitched. âI wasnât going to say stupidly.â
You narrowed your eyes. âYou were thinking charming.â
Taylor shrugged. âMaybe the curls.â
You looked back at the flyer with immediate resentment because the curls were unfortunately part of the problem.
Jack Abbot had reddish-brown curls that should have belonged to someone less irritating, and a smile that looked almost harmless until you realized he usually used it right before saying something unforgivable. They softened him in a way his personality did not deserve. They made him look almost boyish when he was bent over a textbook, pen tucked behind his ear, mouth set in concentration like the entire world had disappointed him.
Then he would open that mouth and say something so insufferable you remembered God was testing you.
âAttraction is not a housing plan,â you said.
Taylor smiled brightly. âNo, but it might make sharing a bathroom more interesting.â
You ripped one of the number tabs from the bottom of the flyer.
Taylorâs eyebrows rose.
You folded the tab into your palm. âThis means nothing.â
Taylor nodded with exaggerated seriousness. âObviously.â
You tucked the number into your notebook. âIâm gathering information.â
Taylor hugged her lecture packets to her chest. âVery responsible.â
You closed the notebook a little too hard. âI have not agreed to anything.â
Taylor stepped back to let someone pass between you and the corkboard. âOf course not.â
You started down the hall. âYou know heâs going to say no.â
Taylor fell into step beside you. âProbably.â
You looked down at the notebook in your hand. Somewhere inside, between renal physiology notes and a crossed-out disaster of a sublet plan, was the only affordable room left within walking distance of campus.
You exhaled through your nose.
âGood,â you said. âThen at least one of us will get what we want.â
Taylor laughed.
You did not.
Because the worst part was not that Jack Abbot might say no.
The worst part was that you were no longer sure you could afford for him to.
At 5:58, you stood in your half-packed kitchen with the torn phone-number tab flattened beneath your thumb and told yourself that two minutes were not a moral failing.
The flyer had said Call after 6 p.m.
You had never liked being told what to do.
Especially not by Jack Abbot.
Your apartment was too quiet around you. Half your books were boxed. Your current lease ended in thirteen days. Your future had been reduced to cardboard, crossed-out phone numbers, and one terrible practical option with reddish-brown curls and a superiority complex.
You stared at the phone.
âNo,â you told yourself.
Then you picked up the receiver and dialed before common sense could recover.
The line rang once.
Twice.
On the third ring, someone picked up.
âAbbot,â Jack said.
Not hello. Not hi. Just his last name, low and clipped through the receiver, as if he were answering from the middle of something more important.
Your spine straightened on instinct. Of course that was how he answered the phone.
âCharming,â you said.
There was a pause.
Not long.
Long enough.
Then Jack said, âItâs not six.â
You looked at the kitchen clock. 5:59.
You hated him.
âYou answered,â you said.
âI thought it might be important,â Jack said.
âIt is,â you replied.
âItâs you,â Jack said.
You gripped the receiver harder. âThose things are not mutually exclusive.â
Jack was quiet for half a second. Then he said, âNo.â
You closed your eyes. âYou donât even know why Iâm calling.â
âI know that tone,â Jack said.
Something in your stomach tightened, which was inconvenient and medically unhelpful.
You opened your eyes and stared at the cabinet above the sink. âThen you know Iâm calling about the room.â
âNo,â Jack said.
You inhaled through your nose. âIs that the full sentence?â
âYes,â Jack said.
You counted to three. It did not help.
âYouâre looking for a roommate,â you said.
âIâm looking for a quiet roommate,â Jack said.
âI can be quiet,â you said.
Jack said nothing.
You narrowed your eyes at the wall. âI can.â
âYou challenged Dr. Laramie on a clotting cascade before eight in the morning,â Jack said.
âThat was academically relevant,â you said.
âYou called his diagram âemotionally misleading,ââ Jack said.
âIt was,â you said.
Jack exhaled once, barely audible through the phone.
You hated that you could picture his face. The flat look. The almost-smile he would refuse to admit was a smile. The curls probably messy because he had been studying, because he was always studying, because apparently the man did not believe in rest unless it could be scheduled in fifteen-minute increments.
You forced your voice even. âLook, Abbot. I donât want this any more than you do.â
âThat makes a compelling argument,â Jack said.
You ignored him. âMy sublet fell through. I need a room. You need rent. Weâre both adults.â
âThat remains under review,â Jack said.
You stared at the phone.
Then you said, âI am going to pretend you did not say that because I need housing more than I need dignity.â
Another pause. This one felt different.
When Jack spoke again, his voice had lost a little of its edge. âYour sublet fell through?â
You looked down at the crossed-out page in your notebook. âYes.â
âWhen?â he asked.
You tried to contain your sigh. âToday.â
Jack was quiet for a beat.
You hated the quiet more than the sarcasm.
You lifted your chin even though he could not see you. âI can pay first monthâs rent and the deposit by Friday. I have references if you need them, though asking for references would make you unbearable in a new and creative way.â
âI wasnât going to ask for references,â Jack said.
You blinked. âYou werenât?â
âNo,â Jack said. âI already know youâre responsible.â
Your grip loosened on the receiver. That was almost a compliment. That was suspicious.
âAre you ill?â you asked.
Jackâs voice flattened again. âDo you want to see the room or not?â
There he was. Relief, irritatingly, moved through you.
âYes,â you said. âI want to see the room.â
âTomorrow,â Jack said. âSix-thirty.â
âI have lab review until six,â you said.
âThen seven,â Jack said.
You glanced at the number tab, then at your notebook, then at the half-packed box of books sitting by the wall. âFine.â
âDonât be late,â Jack said.
Your mouth fell open. âI called two minutes early and youâre already mad about it. I think punctuality is the least of our problems.â
âYou called early on purpose,â Jack said.
âYou canât prove that,â you said.
âI donât have to prove it,â Jack said. âI know you.â
The words landed too cleanly. For a second, neither of you said anything.
You looked down at the phone cord twisted around your finger and slowly unwound it.
âYou donât know me,â you said.
Jackâs voice was quieter when he answered. âI know enough.â
That was worse. That was much worse.
You cleared your throat. âSeven, then.â
âSeven,â Jack said.
Then he hung up first.
You lowered the receiver slowly and stared at it like it had personally betrayed you.
Then you looked around your apartment. The boxes. The bare wall where your calendar used to hang. The textbooks stacked in careful piles because your life might have been collapsing, but at least renal physiology had a place to go.
You rubbed both hands over your face.
You were seeing Jack Abbotâs apartment tomorrow.
You were considering living with Jack Abbot.
You were apparently the kind of person life could corner hard enough to make that sound practical.
After a long moment, you picked up your pen and wrote the address beneath his number. Then, because you still had some pride left, you added two words beside it.
Temporary. Obviously.
The building was three blocks from campus and exactly as depressing as the rent suggested.
Red brick. Narrow steps. A front door that stuck when you pulled it. Mailboxes with crooked labels. A hallway that smelled faintly of old carpet, radiator dust, and someoneâs dinner.
You checked the address in your notebook. Second floor.
Apartment 2B.
Of course Jack Abbot lived in apartment 2B. Even his address sounded like a multiple-choice answer.
You climbed the stairs with your bag bumping against your hip and your pulse doing something irritating beneath your ribs.
This was practical. That was all. You were looking at a room. Four walls. A door. A place to sleep that did not involve Dawnâs iguana or a forty-minute bus ride.
You were not thinking about Taylorâs stupid comment.
At least heâs nice to look at.
You reached the landing and stopped outside his door.
Apartment 2B had a plain brass number, a scuffed threshold, and a doormat that said nothing at all.
Not welcome. Not hello. Not even one of those ugly floral mats people bought when they felt guilty about beige.
Just a rectangle of coarse brown fiber.
You knocked before you could decide to hate the doormat.
For two seconds, nothing happened.
Then you heard movement inside. A chair scraping. Footsteps. A lock turning.
The door opened.
Jack Abbot looked at you from the other side.
For one horrible second, you forgot every reasonable objection you had ever had to him.
He was in an old gray T-shirt, soft from too many washes and fitted just enough across his shoulders to be personally insulting. His jeans were faded. His reddish-brown curls were mussed in the way they got when he had been pushing his hand through them for hours. There was a pen tucked behind one ear like he had been interrupted in the middle of being unbearable.
He looked younger like this. Not softer. Just less armored.
Then his eyes dropped to your watch.
âYouâre early,â Jack said.
And there he was.
You blinked once, and the attraction evaporated so quickly it should have made a sound.
âItâs 6:57,â you said.
Jack leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. âWe said seven.â
âYou complained when I called two minutes early,â you said.
âYou did that on purpose,â Jack said.
You lifted your chin. âYou canât prove that.â
Jackâs mouth moved. Not quite a smile.
âYouâre here three minutes early,â Jack said.
You stared at him. âMaybe Iâm punctual.â
âYouâre antagonistic,â Jack said.
You looked him up and down before you could stop yourself. âAnd yet charming.â
Jackâs eyes stayed on your face. Something shifted there, quick and irritatingly observant.
âIs that what weâre calling it?â Jack asked.
You smiled tightly. âAre you letting me in, Abbot, or are we conducting the tour from the hallway?â
Jack stepped back. âCome in.â
You walked past him into the apartment and immediately understood the flyer.
The place was small.
Not unlivable. Not ugly, exactly. Just small in a way that made privacy feel theoretical.
The living room sat directly inside the door, barely large enough for a worn couch, a low coffee table, and a narrow bookshelf packed with medical texts. A floor lamp stood in the corner beside a stack of note cards tied with a rubber band. Two windows faced the street, their blinds half-open, letting in late August light that turned the dust in the air gold.
The kitchen was to the left, separated from the living room by an archway so narrow two people would have to negotiate passage like a diplomatic crisis.
A short hallway led away from the living room. Three doors.
Jack nodded to the closed one on the right. âMine.â
You did not look at his bedroom door for longer than necessary.
The middle door was the bathroom.
The door on the left sat open.
Jack gestured toward it. âRoom on the left.â
Yours, if you were desperate.
Which you were.
Unfortunately.
You turned back to him. âThatâs the tour?â
Jack crossed his arms. âItâs an apartment.â
âYou could try selling it,â you said.
âIâm not selling it,â Jack said. âIâm showing it.â
You looked around again.
No posters. No plants. No throw pillows. No framed photos in the living room. Nothing that gave away much of anything except that Jack owned too many textbooks, drank too much coffee, and apparently considered decoration a moral weakness.
âYou live like a witness in protective custody,â you said.
Jackâs eyebrows lifted. âYouâve been here thirty seconds.â
âAnd Iâve learned a lot,â you said.
Jack glanced toward the hallway. âRoomâs on the left.â
You followed him because you needed the room and because standing in his living room felt too much like standing inside a part of him you were not supposed to see.
The hallway was narrow enough that when Jack stopped in front of the first door, you nearly walked into his back. You caught yourself with one hand against the wall.
Jack turned his head slightly. âCareful.â
âYou stopped,â you said.
âItâs a hallway,â Jack said.
âItâs a crawlspace with ambition,â you said.
That almost-smile touched his mouth. There and gone. Annoying.
He opened the door on the left. âRoom.â
You stepped past him, careful not to brush against him, and looked inside.
The room was small, but clean. One window faced the side of the neighboring building. The hardwood floor was scuffed in a few places. A narrow rug had been rolled against the wall. The closet had one sliding door that stuck halfway when you tried it.
There was enough space for a bed, a desk, and maybe a dresser if you were optimistic or bad at measuring.
It was not much. It was also not Dawnâs iguana.
You walked to the window and tried to open it. It stuck, then gave with a squeal.
âWindow sticks,â Jack said from the doorway.
You glanced over your shoulder. âI noticed.â
âI was informing you,â Jack said.
âYou were narrating,â you said.
Jack leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. âHeatâs unreliable in January. Radiator knocks. Outlet by the desk is temperamental.â
âTemperamental how?â you asked.
âIt works when it feels respected,â Jack said.
You looked at him. Jackâs expression stayed flat. You hated that the joke almost surprised you.
âYou have jokes,â you said.
âOccasionally,â Jack said.
âTragic that theyâre like that,â you said.
His mouth threatened another smile. Your stomach did something stupid.
You turned back to the room before your face could betray you.
The desk would go under the window. Bed against the opposite wall. Bookshelf near the door, if you could find one cheap. Maybe a lamp in the corner. Maybe your notes taped over the patch of wall where the paint had faded.
You could make it work.
You hated that you could make it work.
Jack watched you from the doorway. You felt it between your shoulder blades.
You turned back. âWhat?â
Jackâs gaze flicked once around the room. âYouâre measuring.â
âIâm looking,â you said.
âYouâre measuring,â Jack said. âDesk under the window. Bed there. Shelf by the door.â
You stared at him. He stared back.
âDo you always narrate peopleâs thoughts,â you asked, âor am I special?â
Jackâs eyes moved over your face. âYouâre not subtle.â
âYouâre not charming,â you said.
âThat wasnât in the flyer,â Jack said.
You walked past him into the hall. âClearly.â
The bathroom door was half-open beside you.
You pushed it the rest of the way with two fingers and stopped.
Small. Very small.
Pedestal sink. Narrow tub. One medicine cabinet. One towel rack. One mirror with harsh lighting that would make anyone look like they had recently failed a liver function test.
You stood there for a second too long, already imagining two toothbrushes by the sink, two towels fighting for space, two sleep-deprived medical students trying to get ready at the same time without committing a felony.
Jack stood just behind your shoulder in the narrow hall. âThe roomâs yours if you want it.â
You looked back at him.
The words were so plain that it took you a second to understand them as an offer. Not a challenge. Not an insult. Not a correction.
An offer.
âJust like that?â you asked.
Jackâs gaze stayed on yours. âYou can pay rent.â
âI said I could,â you said.
âI believe you,â Jack said.
That was almost worse than suspicion.
You shifted your weight. âAnd what, youâve decided Iâm clean and quiet enough?â
âNo,â Jack said.
You stared at him.
Jackâs mouth twitched. âBut I decided those were unrealistic expectations.â
You let out a short, humorless laugh. âLovely.â
Jack nodded once toward the bedroom. âYou need the space. I need the rent. Youâre responsible. Youâre not a stranger.â
You crossed your arms. âThat sounded dangerously close to a compliment.â
âIt wasnât,â Jack said.
âThank God,â you said. âI was worried.â
His eyes held yours for half a beat too long.
The hallway felt too narrow suddenly. Too quiet.
You looked away first, back into the bathroom, because that was easier than looking at him while he was being almost decent.
âThank you,â you said.
The words came out smaller than you meant them to. Jack did not answer right away.
When you glanced back, something on his face had shifted. Not much. Barely enough to count. But his eyes were softer than they had been a second ago.
âYouâre welcome,â Jack said.
For one strange, dangerous moment, neither of you moved. No correction. No jab. No competition. Just the two of you standing in a narrow hallway, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him beside you, with the room on the left waiting like an answer neither of you had wanted.
Then your brain caught up.
You looked back into the bathroom. âThis will require rules.â
Jackâs mouth moved. Not quite a smile.
âAlready thought of that,â Jack said.
You stared at him. âOf course you did.â
Jack started back toward the living room. âOne bathroom. Two med students. Itâs not complicated.â
âItâs horrifying,â you replied.
âThat too,â Jack said.
You followed him into the kitchen. âYou sound very calm about this.â
Jack reached for the legal pad beside his coffee. âI like preparation.â
You exhaled loudly. âYou like control.â
Jack glanced back at you. âThat too.â
At the top of the page, in his neat, disciplined handwriting, were two words.
ROOMMATE AGREEMENT.
You looked at the words. Then at him.
âAbbot,â you said, âthis is the least surprising thing you have ever done.â
Jack held out the pen. âSit.â
You looked at the chair across from him. âTry that again.â
Jack stared at you. You stared back.
After a beat, Jack said, âWould you like to sit down?â
âNot really,â you said.
His mouth twitched. âBut?â
You took the pen from his hand.
Your fingers brushed his.
Barely.
Not enough to matter.
Enough that his gaze dropped to the contact.
Yours did too.
For one stupid second, the apartment went quiet around the place where your skin had touched his.
Then you pulled out the chair. âBut I need housing.â
Jack sat across from you and tapped the legal pad once with his knuckle.
âRule one,â Jack said. âRent due on the first.â
You looked at him over the top of the page.
âWow,â you said. âI never would have survived without that one.â
Jack picked up his coffee mug. âThatâs why I wrote it down.â
You stared at him.
He took a sip like he had not just said the most irritating thing possible.
You exhaled through your nose. âFine. Rule two?â
Jack set the mug down and wrote beneath the first line. âUtilities split evenly.â
You leaned back in the chair. âFine.â
Jack glanced up. âThat was suspiciously easy.â
You smiled. âEnjoy it while it lasts.â
His mouth almost moved. Not quite.
He wrote again. âFood separate unless otherwise discussed.â
You looked toward the kitchen cabinets. âDo coffee and canned soup count as food?â
Jack did not look up. âYes.â
You stared at him. âThat explains a lot.â
Jackâs pen paused. âAbout my grocery budget?â
You said, âAbout your personality.â
Jack resumed writing. âDishes washed within twenty-four hours.â
You narrowed your eyes. âAre you timing them?â
Jack looked up. âDo you plan to test me?â
You held his stare. âConstantly.â
Something quick crossed his face. Amusement, maybe. You hated that you noticed.
Jack wrote the next line. âBathroom schedule on clinical mornings.â
You blinked. âBathroom schedule?â
Jackâs pen paused. âOne bathroom. Two med students.â
You looked toward the hall. âYou say that like itâs a math problem.â
âIt is if one of us is late,â Jack said.
You looked back at him. âYou mean if Iâm late.â
Jackâs eyes flicked to yours. âI didnât say that.â
âYou thought it loudly,â you said.
Jack wrote anyway. âNo touching my textbooks or notes without asking.â
You scoffed. âI donât want your notes.â
Jack looked up. âGood. I donât want yours.â
You stared at him. âRude.â
âEfficient,â Jack said.
You took the pen. âMutual, then.â
He let you write it, watching your hand move across the page.
Somehow, that annoyed you too.
Jack took the pen back when you were done. âQuiet after midnight during exam weeks.â
You looked at him. âDo you turn into a landlord after midnight?â
Jack wrote without looking up. âI turn into someone who wants to pass pathology.â
You said, âTragic. I was hoping for a bat.â
This time, his mouth did move.
Jack added another line. âNo parties.â
You gave him a flat look. âDo I look like I throw parties?â
Jackâs gaze moved over your face.
Not down.
Not obviously.
Just enough to make your skin remember that you were sitting in his kitchen, in August heat, across from a man Taylor had very unhelpfully described as nice to look at.
âYou look like you cause problems,â Jack said.
Your face warmed before you could stop it. âThat is not the same thing.â
âOften overlaps,â Jack said.
You pointed at the legal pad. âKeep writing.â
He did.
âGuests require notice,â Jack said.
You crossed your arms. âDefine guests.â
Jack looked up. âPeople who do not live here.â
You smiled tightly. âBrilliant. You should teach.â
Jack ignored that and wrote again. âNo overnight strangers.â
You tilted your head. âStrangers?â
âPeople I donât know,â Jack said.
You leaned back. âYou want to approve my social life?â
Jackâs jaw shifted. âI want to know whoâs in my apartment while Iâm sleeping.â
You studied him for a second. That answer was too practical to mock easily.
âFine,â you said. âNo strangers overnight.â
Jack nodded once and wrote it down. Then his pen hovered over the next line for half a second. You noticed.
âWhat?â you asked.
Jack lowered the pen to the legal pad. âNo loud, obnoxious sex.â
You blinked. âLoud?â
Jackâs expression did not move. âYes.â
You leaned back. âObnoxious?â
Jack tapped the pen once against the paper. âThatâs what I said.â
You stared at him. âDo I look like someone who has loud, obnoxious sex?â
Jackâs gaze dropped. Not far. Not long. Just enough. Then his eyes came back to yours.
âYou look like youâd be vocal,â Jack said.
The words landed between you like a lit match.
You sat up straighter. âThat is an insane thing to say to a person youâre trying to convince to sign a lease.â
Jack leaned back in his chair. âIâm not trying to convince you.â
You narrowed your eyes. âNo?â
Jack glanced toward the hallway. âYou need the room.â
You took the pen from him. âNew rule. No making assumptions about my sex life.â
Jackâs mouth almost smiled. âNoted.â
You wrote the rule down harder than necessary. Then, because he had apparently decided to open that particular door, you kept writing.
âNo random women hogging the bathroom,â you said.
Jackâs brows lifted. âRandom women.â
You ignored his tone and continued writing. âOr using my shampoo. Or my towels. Or my face wash. Or my razor. Or my hairbrush.â
Jack watched the list grow. âHow many products do you own?â
You looked up. âEnough that your random women would be moisturized.â
His mouth twitched. âYou think Iâm going to have a parade of women through here?â
You looked him up and down because fair was fair.
âI donât know your life, Abbot,â you said.
Jackâs eyes stayed on yours for a beat too long.
âNo,â Jack said. âYou donât.â
Something in his voice made your stomach pull tight.
You looked back at the page and slid the pen toward him. âYour turn.â
Jack took it. His fingers did not brush yours this time. You had no reason to notice that.
âThen no random men using my things,â Jack said.
You leaned back. âYour things?â
Jack wrote without looking up. âMy razor. My towels. My coffee.â
You laughed once. âYour coffee?â
Jack looked up. âEspecially my coffee.â
You studied him. âIâm starting to think youâre more worried about the coffee than the hypothetical men.â
Jackâs gaze held yours. âDepends on the man.â
You hated the small, stupid twist that put in your stomach.
You pointed at the legal pad. âWrite your little coffee rule, Abbot.â
Jack looked back down, mouth almost curved. âAlready did.â
You took the pen again. âNo touching my laundry.â
Jack said, âGladly.â
You looked up. âThat was too fast.â
âIt was an easy rule,â Jack said.
âGood,â you said. âKeep that energy.â
Jackâs gaze flicked once to your face, then back to the page. âPlanning to.â
You ignored the heat that crawled up your neck and wrote another rule before you could think better of it.
âIf one person makes coffee, they make enough for both,â you said.
Jack stared at the page. âThat contradicts rule three.â
You looked at him like he was embarrassing himself. âCoffee is different.â
âHow?â Jack asked.
âCoffee is survival,â you said.
Jack paused. Then he took the pen from you and wrote it down.
You pointed at the page. âWas that agreement?â
Jack looked up. âThat was triage.â
For one second, you almost smiled. Not politely. Not tightly. Actually. You caught yourself before it got dangerous and looked down at the legal pad instead.
The agreement was ridiculous. Neat lines of rules, half practical and half deranged, written in both your handwriting and his. Rent, utilities, dishes, bathrooms, textbooks, guests, sex, shampoo, coffee.
Your life, apparently.
Or the next few months of it.
Jack turned the legal pad around and slid it toward you.
You looked at him. âYou want me to sign this?â
Jack held out the pen. âYou want the room?â
You stared at the pen. Then at him. Then at the hallway, where the room on the left waited, small and plain and possible.
You took the pen.
âFine,â you said.
Jack watched you sign your name beneath the last rule. His expression gave away almost nothing. Almost.
When you slid the legal pad back to him, he signed beneath you with that same irritating precision.
Then he tore the page carefully from the pad and stood.
You watched him cross to the small counter by the phone, open a drawer, and take out a key on a plain metal ring.
He returned to the table and held it out.
You stared at it for a beat longer than necessary.
A key.
To Jack Abbotâs apartment.
To your apartment.
No.
Not your apartment.
A room.
Temporary.
Necessary.
You took the key from his hand.
This time, your fingers brushed. Barely. Again.
Jackâs gaze dropped to the contact. Yours did too.
The room seemed too quiet around you. Then he let go.
âRoom on the left,â Jack said.
You closed your fist around the key. âI remember.â
Jack nodded once. âMove in whenever.â
You stood, pushing the chair back beneath the table. âIâll bring boxes tomorrow.â
Jackâs eyes flicked toward the hallway. âWhat time?â
You adjusted your bag on your shoulder. âAround four.â
âAround four,â Jack repeated.
You gave him a look. âIs that a problem?â
âNo,â Jack said. âItâs just not a time.â
You stared at him. âFine. Four-thirty.â
Jackâs eyes flicked toward the hallway. âNeed help?â
The offer caught you wrong. Too direct. Too useful. Too close to kind.
You adjusted your bag on your shoulder. âI can carry boxes, Abbot.â
âI didnât say you couldnât,â Jack said.
You looked at him. He looked back. For once, he did not add anything sharp.
That was worse. You looked away first.
âFour-thirty,â you said.
Jack nodded. âFour-thirty.â
You walked to the door with the key warm in your palm. Behind you, Jack did not move until your hand closed around the doorknob.
Then his voice followed you, low and dry. âAnd donât be late.â
You looked back over your shoulder.
There he was, standing in his small kitchen with messy curls, crossed arms, and the faintest trace of a smile he had no right to have.
You smiled back just enough to be a warning.
âI live here now,â you said. âLower your expectations.â
Jackâs mouth twitched.
You hated that you liked it.
Then you opened the door and stepped into the hallway before either of you could say anything else.
series masterlist: i see the signs of a life time (you âtil i die)
pairing: dr. jack abbot x f!plus size dating influencer reader
status: on going (first chapter out in 07.02.2026)
rating: e (explicit)
summary: forty and recently divorced, you come across the world of tiktok dating influencers. in need of pick me up, you decide to make a profile for yourself and see how it is with your own eyes. you have your own rules; no picking you up, never bringing a man home even if sex is on the table, never repeating a date and no strings attatched. but what happens when you meet a certain silver fox doctor at a bar that comes to your rescue after an awful date?
warnings: angst, fluff and smut. reader has a personality. descriptions of drinking, smoking weed and being high, fatphobia and shitty ex-husband. kinda of a SMAU?
each chapter is labelled with their own warnings. the chapters will be posted thursdays @ 08p.m. EST.
she/her pronouns and afab!reader. the girls used in the series moodboard are not face claims for reader, they are how i imagine her while i write, but thereâs no specific descriptions of body type, race or ethnicity. all lowercase for styling purposes.
i've deactivated my taglist. follow @dblibrary and turn the notifications on if you want to be notified when the chapters are posted.
main story
âïž chapter one*: iâd like to get to you you, iâd like to take you out (07.02.2026)
âïž chapter two*: what if itâs not meant for me? (love) (07.09.2026)
âïž chapter three*: me and you were meant to be (in love) (07.16.2026)
*smut found in chapter
domesticblisss 2026. comments and reblogs are appreciated. dividers by uzmacchiato and bronzewasp
Summary: After a night out with the PTMC crew, a few drinks turn into a confession Jack was not ready to hear but already wanted to believe. By morning, he needs one thing from you: say it sober.
Warnings: age gap, alcohol/drinking, drunk confession, hangover, emotional vulnerability, discussions of marriage and pregnancy/babies, Jackâs grief/past loss mentioned, Jackâs prosthetic leg mentioned, soft angst, hurt/comfort, lots of feelings, no smut but sexual references/innuendo, established relationship
Authorâs Note: Requested by the lovely @overcaffeinated-underwhelmedÂ
This one is for the Jack girlies who love him, careful, terrified, devoted, and trying so hard not to want too much. It started as a drunk confession idea and turned into Jack facing the fact that maybe the future he thought he had lost is not as impossible as he believed.
Xoxo, Del
You met Jack Abbot on a hot evening in July.
Not unbearable, not anymore. The worst of the heat had loosened its grip by then, leaving the pavement warm beneath your sandals and the air thick with the smell of asphalt, exhaust, and the faint antiseptic chill that slipped out every time PTMCâs sliding doors opened.
The sun had started to dip behind the parking garage, throwing long gold lines across the curb where you stood beside your car with an iced coffee in one hand and your phone in the other.
Mel had texted you three minutes ago.
Mel: Leaving at 6:50. If anyone asks, I died heroically.
You smiled down at your screen and typed back.
You: Iâll tell them you perished charting.
Her reply came almost instantly.
Mel: Thank you. Make it sound noble.
You were still smiling when you looked up.
That was when you saw him.
He came in from the parking garage alone, moving toward the hospital entrance with a coffee in one hand and a camo backpack slung over one shoulder. He wore black scrubs, the collar of a white T-shirt visible beneath them. Salt threaded through his hair. The setting sun caught along the tired, handsome line of his face, rough around the jaw and calm around the eyes in a way that made him look like he knew exactly how bad a night could get and had decided to walk into it anyway.
You looked away before staring got embarrassing.
Then, because you had apparently learned nothing, you looked back.
He was looking at you. Only for a second.
Then he kept walking.
You dropped your eyes to your phone and pretended to read Melâs message again, your mouth still curved like you could hide it from a stranger fifteen feet away.
The sound of his footsteps shifted. Not toward the doors anymore.
Toward you.
Your thumb stilled against your phone screen.
When you glanced up, he had changed direction and was crossing the curb with the kind of easy confidence that made it very clear he had decided to come over before he had fully decided what to say.
He stopped a few feet away from you, close enough to talk, not close enough to crowd.
His eyes moved over your face once, quick and steady, then settled on yours.
âYou waiting for someone?â he asked, his voice low and even.
You tilted your head, letting your gaze flick briefly toward the hospital doors before returning to him. âThat depends.â
One corner of his mouth moved. âOn?â
You shifted back against your car, your phone loose in your hand. âWhether that was a normal question or the beginning of a kidnapping.â
A quiet huff left him, more breath than laugh. âFair.â
You studied him for a beat, openly enough that he noticed. âYou ask a lot of strangers that?â
His answer came without hesitation. âNo.â
You lifted your eyebrows. âNo?â
His gaze dropped briefly to the iced coffee in your hand before returning to your face. âYou looked like you were waiting.â
You glanced down at the coffee, then back up at him. âImpressive detective work.â
His mouth twitched. âI have my moments.â
You looked at his scrubs, his jacket, the hospital badge clipped near his pocket. âYou a cop?â
He took a slow sip of coffee, his eyes still on yours over the lid. âWorse.â
Your smile widened before you could stop it. âDoctor?â
His hand lowered the coffee from his mouth. âE.D. night shift attending.â
You nodded toward the cup in his hand. âThat explains the coffee.â
His gaze sharpened with amusement. âThe coffee explains me still standing.â
You laughed softly, surprised by him.
His eyes flicked to your mouth. Only once.
Not enough to be obvious to anyone else. Plenty enough for you.
You shifted your weight against the car door. âSo. Emergency doctor. Mystery man. Parking lot conversationalist.â
He held your gaze for a second, then offered his free hand. âJack Abbot.â
You looked at his hand before taking it. âThat was smoother than the kidnapping opener.â
His fingers closed around yours, warm and firm, his palm rougher than you expected. âI recovered.â
You gave him your name.
Jack repeated it once, low and careful, like he wanted to know how it felt to say.
Your stomach did something deeply inconvenient.
You let go of his hand before your dignity could fully abandon you. âWell, Jack Abbot, that makes you slightly less mysterious.â
His eyes stayed on you. âOnly slightly?â
You gave him a small shrug. âYou did walk up to me outside a hospital and ask who I was waiting for.â
His mouth curved a little more. âI didnât ask who.â
You narrowed your eyes, amused. âYou were getting there.â
Jackâs shoulder lifted in a faint shrug. âMaybe.â
You took a sip of your iced coffee mostly because you needed something to do with your hands. âAnd if I said no one?â
His eyes moved across your face with quiet interest. âThen Iâd ask if you always hang around emergency departments at shift change.â
You smiled over the rim of your cup. âMaybe I like the ambiance.â
Jack glanced toward the ambulance bay before looking back at you. âThe sirens?â
You lowered the cup from your mouth. âThe fluorescent lighting. Very romantic.â
His face stayed mostly serious, but his eyes gave him away. âYou have strange taste.â
You looked pointedly at his black scrubs, his work bag, his coffee, then back at his face. âYouâre the one flirting in front of a trauma center.â
His smile deepened by a fraction. âAm I?â
You held his gaze, refusing to look away first. âAre you asking me or yourself?â
Jackâs voice lowered slightly. âI know what Iâm doing.â
The air between you changed. Nothing dramatic happened. The automatic doors still opened and closed behind him. Cars still passed along the curb. Somewhere nearby, a siren cried once and faded into traffic. But the space in front of your car suddenly felt smaller.
Warmer. More dangerous.
You looked down at his coffee again, because looking at his face was starting to feel like a dare. âArenât you going in?â
Jackâs eyes stayed on you. âIâm early.â
You nodded once. âResponsible.â
His gaze dipped briefly over you, appreciative without being careless. âUsually.â
You felt heat climb your neck. âUsually?â
Jackâs mouth softened into something almost like a smile. âIâm standing out here talking to you.â
You crossed one ankle over the other, trying and failing not to look pleased. âSo this is irresponsible Dr. Abbot?â
His eyes narrowed slightly at the title. âJack.â
You let the correction sit between you for a second before you answered. âJack.â
Something shifted in his expression when you said his name.
Small. Private.
Before either of you could decide what to do with it, the sliding doors behind him opened.
Mel stepped out with her bag over one shoulder, moving quickly until she spotted you by the curb. Then she saw him. Her entire body stopped.
âOh,â Mel said, one hand tightening around the strap of her bag.
Jack did not turn around immediately. His eyes stayed on you for one more beat, like he already knew exactly who had walked out and was deciding how annoyed he felt about being interrupted.
Then Jack glanced over his shoulder. âDr. King.â
Melâs eyes widened. âDr. Abbot.â
You looked between them, your smile already starting. âYou two know each other?â
Mel adjusted her bag higher on her shoulder. âYes. Professionally. At work. Where I work. Until seven.â
You pressed your lips together to keep from laughing.
Mel pointed vaguely back toward the doors. âAnd Robby knew I was leaving. Sort of. I mean, he didnât explicitly say, âMel, you can leave ten minutes early,â but he did say, âGet out of here before I find something else for you to do,â which I interpreted as permission.â
Jack stared at her.
Mel inhaled, her shoulders lifting. âPlease donât tell Robby.â
Jack looked at Mel for half a second.
Then his gaze slid back to you.
You saw the secret amusement in his eyes before he said anything. The almost-smile he did not quite let happen. The way he could not have cared less that Mel had escaped ten minutes early, because whatever had been happening between the two of you mattered far more than hospital technicalities.
Jack kept his voice even. âI wonât tell if you donât.â
Melâs shoulders dropped with immediate relief. âDeal.â
Jackâs eyes stayed on yours for another second. You smiled slowly because the line was not really about Mel leaving early. Not entirely.
Mel looked between you and Jack, the relief on her face softening into something more curious. âOh.â
Jack glanced at her. âYou said that already.â
Mel wrapped both hands around the iced coffee you offered her. âIâm processing.â
Jackâs eyes narrowed. âDo it quietly.â
Mel nodded too fast. âRight. Quiet processing.â
You laughed, and Jack looked back at you like the sound had pulled him there.
Melâs expression warmed, delighted but not sharp. âI should probably introduce you, except I think Dr. Abbot may have already handled that himself.â
Jack said your name before Mel could.
Melâs eyebrows lifted.
Your breath caught a little because he remembered it. Because he said it as if it belonged in his mouth.
Jack looked at Mel then. âWe met.â
Melâs smile grew. âI noticed.â
You looked back at Jack. âDid we?â
His gaze returned to yours, steady and smooth. âI was getting there.â
Mel made a tiny sound beside you. Jackâs eyes cut to her.
Jack shifted his backpack higher on his shoulder, the movement reminding all three of you that he was still technically on his way into the hospital.
Jack looked toward the entrance, then back to you. âI have a shift.â
You nodded. âNight shift.â
Jackâs mouth twitched. âThatâs the rumor.â
Mel looked toward the doors, then back at Jack. âYou are still early.â
Jack gave Mel a dry look. âYou are still supposed to be working.â
Mel pressed her lips together. âFair.â
You smiled at him. âSounds like both of you are keeping secrets tonight.â
Jackâs gaze sharpened with interest.
Mel looked mildly alarmed. âI feel like mine is more chart-related.â
Jack did not look away from you. âMine isnât.â
The air between you changed again. Mel went very still beside you.
You felt your smile soften before you could stop it. âNo?â
Jackâs voice dropped slightly. âNo.â
Mel looked down at the ground like she was trying very hard to give you privacy while standing three feet away from both of you.
Jack finally stepped back toward the entrance, but his attention stayed on your face.
Jackâs hand tightened once around the strap of his work bag. âYou two have plans.â
You leaned back lightly against your car. âWe do.â
Jack nodded once. âI have a shift.â
You smiled. âYou mentioned.â
Jackâs eyes held yours. âAnother time, then.â
You tilted your head. âThat sounds like youâre assuming thereâll be another time.â
His mouth curved, small and dangerous. âIâm hoping.â
Melâs eyes snapped up.
You smiled before you could make yourself play it cooler. âThat was smooth, Dr. Abbot.â
Jack paused. His expression shifted at the title again, subtle but unmistakable.
Jack corrected you quietly. âJack.â
You held his gaze. âJack.â
Mel looked like she might actually vibrate out of her skin. Jack nodded once, like hearing his name from you had settled something.
Then he looked at Mel. âDr. King.â
Mel straightened automatically. âDr. Abbot.â
Jackâs eyes flicked back to you. âEnjoy your night.â
You smiled. âHave a good shift.â
Jack looked toward the hospital doors, then back at you one last time. âIâll try.â
He turned and walked inside. You watched him until the doors slid shut behind him. Mel waited exactly two seconds. Then she turned to you, eyes wide and bright.
Melâs voice softened with certainty. âHe never does that.â
You kept looking at the doors. âDoes what?â
Mel squeezed her iced coffee like she needed something to do with her hands. âStops.â
A year and one month later, summer had come back around.
Jack Abbot was no longer the handsome ER doctor who had flirted with you outside PTMC before night shift.
He was your boyfriend.
Which was how you ended up at a bar two blocks from the hospital on one of Jackâs rare nights off, wearing a sundress you had absolutely chosen because you knew he liked it. It was soft and simple, with thin straps and a skirt that moved around your thighs when you walked. Easy enough for a hot July night. Pretty enough that Jackâs gaze had swept down it when you stepped out of the front door earlier, his hand still on the doorframe and his expression giving away almost nothing except the brief, dark flicker in his eyes.
You had looked down at yourself, smiling because you had caught him. âWhat?â
Jack had dragged his gaze back to your face. âNothing.â
You had lifted your eyebrows.
Jack had held the door open wider. âYou ready?â
You had stepped closer instead of leaving. âYouâre avoiding the question.â
Jackâs mouth had barely moved. âIâm trying to get you out of the house.â
You had smiled up at him. âWhy?â
Jackâs eyes had dropped to the sundress again, more slowly this time. âBecause I said weâd go.â
You had felt warmth climb your neck. âAnd?â
Jack had looked back at your face. âAnd you know what youâre doing.â
You had smiled all the way to the bar.
So now you were here.
The bar was crowded in the way hospital bars always seemed to be after shift change, full of badge clips, tired laughter, and people trying to remember how to be human somewhere that did not smell like antiseptic.
There was karaoke on the tiny stage near the back wall, though calling it a stage felt generous. It was more of a raised platform beside a speaker system and a screen that glowed blue between songs. Someone from radiology had just finished a passionate rendition of a song that involved more pointing than pitch, and the whole bar had cheered anyway.
Mel sat tight against your left side, her shoulder bumping yours every time she got excited. Jack sat on your right, one arm stretched along the back of the booth behind you, not quite touching your shoulders until he wanted to. Robby sat across from you with a beer in hand and the expression of a man who had seen too much and still had opinions. Dana sat beside him, straight-backed and sharp-eyed even off shift, cutting through the tableâs nonsense with the occasional dry comment.
Santos had claimed the end of the booth. Javadi sat beside her, listening hard and laughing half a beat late whenever she realized something was a joke. Whitaker was on the outside chair, quiet but smiling, his fries slowly disappearing because Santos kept stealing them.
Mel leaned close to your ear and whispered, âIâm really glad you came.â
You smiled at her. âYou saw me last week.â
Mel nodded, completely sincere. âI know. I still missed you.â
Your heart warmed. You bumped your shoulder against hers. âI missed you too.â
Jackâs thumb brushed once against the back of your shoulder. You looked over at him. Jack kept his eyes on Robby, but his mouth softened like he knew you had noticed.
Robby pointed at Jack with his beer. âYou look miserable.â
Jack looked back at him. âIâm having a wonderful time.â
Robby narrowed his eyes. âYou said that like a threat.â
Jack lifted his glass. âYou invited me.â
Dana looked at Robby. âHe has a point.â
Robby turned toward Dana. âYouâre supposed to be on my side.â
Dana took a calm sip of her drink. âIâm off duty.â
Santos leaned back with one of Whitakerâs fries between her fingers. âIâm on whoeverâs side gets me another round.â
Whitaker looked at her hand. âThat was my fry.â
Santos glanced at the fry as if she were seeing it for the first time. âWas it?â
Whitaker gave her a patient look. âIt was on my plate.â
Santos ate the fry. âYou should guard your plate better.â
Javadi looked between them, then quietly slid her own fries closer to herself.
Mel noticed and whispered to you, âThat was smart.â
You whispered back, âSurvival instinct.â
Jack leaned slightly closer, his voice low near your ear. âYou two whispering about fries?â
You turned your head enough to see him. âMaybe.â
Jackâs eyes dropped briefly to your mouth. âImportant topic.â
You smiled. âVery.â
His arm settled more firmly along the back of the booth behind you. Not possessive enough for anyone else to notice, maybe. Enough for you.
Santos tapped her fingers on the table and looked toward the karaoke screen. âWe should do karaoke.â
Melâs eyes widened. âReally?â
Santos gave Mel a look. âDonât sound so shocked, King.â
Melâs hands wrapped around her glass. âIâm not shocked. Iâm excited.â
Santos pointed at you. âYouâre coming too.â
You blinked. âI am?â
Santos nodded like the decision had already been filed in a chart. âYou are. I need people who wonât embarrass me.â
Robby looked at Santos over his beer. âThatâs a high-risk strategy.â
Santos narrowed her eyes at him. âI didnât invite you, did I?â
Robby smiled. âNo.â
Santos looked pleased. âExactly.â
Mel turned to you with bright, hopeful eyes. âWill you do it with us?â
You looked at Jack. Jackâs eyebrows lifted. âWhy are you looking at me?â
You smiled. âBecause youâre about to make a face.â
Jackâs face stayed flat on purpose. âThis is my face.â
You leaned closer to him. âThatâs the face.â
Jackâs mouth twitched. âGo sing.â
You studied him. âYouâll watch?â
Jackâs eyes held yours. âIâm sitting right here.â
âThat wasnât what I asked,â you said, your smile growing.
Jack looked you over for one slow second, then settled back against the booth. âYeah, baby. Iâll watch.â
Your stomach warmed. Mel made a tiny pleased sound beside you. Jack looked at her. âQuiet processing.â
Mel stood from the booth, already smiling. âI was being quiet.â
Santos slid out after her. âYou were squeaking.â
Mel looked genuinely concerned. âWas I?â
You stood and touched Melâs arm. âA little.â
Mel nodded once. âOkay. Iâll regulate.â
Santos pointed toward the karaoke sign-up binder. âRegulate while walking.â
You laughed and followed them toward the stage. Jack watched you go. You could feel it between your shoulder blades. When you glanced back, Jack was still in the booth, beer in one hand, eyes on you like the rest of the bar had blurred just enough to become irrelevant.
You smiled at him.
Jack lifted his beer slightly. Robby leaned back across from him, his gaze moving from Jack to you and back again. âYou look calm.â
Jack did not look away from you. âI am calm.â
Robbyâs mouth curved. âSure.â
Jack glanced at him. âDonât start.â
Robby lifted both hands. âI didnât do anything.â
Jack looked back toward the stage. âYou were thinking loudly.â
Robby took a drink of his beer. âThatâs probably a symptom.â
At the karaoke machine, Santos flipped through the binder with clinical focus. Santos frowned down at the page. âNo ballads.â
Santos looked at her. âWe are not making this bar cry.â
You leaned over Melâs shoulder. âWhat if we do something fun?â
Santos pointed at you without looking up. âThatâs why youâre here.â
Mel brightened and tapped a title on the page. âOh. This one.â
Santos looked down. âThat is aggressively girl sleepover.â
You smiled. âExactly.â
Santos thought about it for one second too long. Then Santos closed the binder. âFine. But we commit.â
Mel nodded seriously. âI can commit.â
You glanced toward Jack again and caught him watching. Your smile softened.
Santos took the microphone with a sharp smile. Mel accepted the second microphone with both hands. You took the third microphone and tried not to laugh when Santos immediately squared her shoulders like she was about to intubate the first verse.
The song started. The opening beat filled the bar. Melâs eyes went wide with instant delight.
Santos pointed toward the screen. âDo not miss your cue.â
You laughed into the microphone. âYes, doctor.â
From the booth, Jackâs mouth curved. He heard you. You knew he did. Then you sang. Not perfectly. Not even close. But loudly enough to make Mel laugh, warmly enough to make Santos stop pretending she was above it, and with just enough drama that Dana actually smiled into her drink. Mel got braver by the chorus. Santos got competitive by the second verse. You got caught somewhere between them, laughing so hard you almost missed your line.
By the time the chorus came around again, all three of you were singing together, shoulders bumping, hips swaying, one of Melâs hands flying up in delighted emphasis while Santos pointed at the screen like it had personally challenged her.
Jack watched from the booth. He had seen you in plenty of ways by then. Sleepy in his shirt. Barefoot in the kitchen. Serious over breakfast. Soft in bed. Annoyed when he used his doctor voice outside of work.
But there was something about you like this, laughing under bar lights with Mel and Santos, hair loose around your face, cheeks warming from your drink and the heat of the room, that caught him low in the chest. You looked happy. Not because of him. Not only because of him.
You had your own people here. Your own friendships. Your own way of moving through his world without needing him to explain you to it.
Then you looked over at him mid-chorus. You pointed the microphone at him for one beat, smiling like you were singing directly to him even though the words belonged to the screen.
Jackâs expression did not change much. His eyes did. You saw it from the stage. That was enough. You turned back to Mel, laughing when she bumped your shoulder again. From across the booth, Robby watched Jack watch you.
Robby took a slow sip of beer. âYou know youâre allowed to blink, right?â
Jack kept his eyes on you. âI blink.â
âNot when sheâs up there,â Robby said.
Jack looked at him. âYou keeping track?â
Robbyâs mouth curved. âHard not to.â
Jack looked back toward the stage. âFind a hobby.â
Robby lifted his beer. On stage, Santos finished the song with an unnecessary amount of confidence, Mel dissolved into laughter, and you gave a tiny bow mostly to make Jack roll his eyes. Jack did roll his eyes. Then he clapped. Once. Dryly.
You pointed at him from the stage. âI saw that.â
Jack lifted his voice just enough to reach you. âSaw what?â
You stepped down from the platform, still smiling. âThat enthusiastic display of support.â
Jack set his beer down as you came back to the booth. âYou got one clap.â
You slid into the seat beside him, warm from laughing. âOne?â
Jackâs arm settled behind you again. âIâm pacing myself.â
Mel dropped into the booth on your other side, flushed and pleased. âThat was really fun.â
You leaned into Jackâs side, still smiling, and let your hand settle on his thigh beneath the table. Jack went still for half a second. Then his hand covered yours. The table kept talking around you, the noise folding back into itself: Mel trying to recruit Dana for another song, Santos stealing fries, Robby saying something dry enough to make Dana look over her glass at him.
But Jackâs hand stayed over yours. Warm. Heavy. Sure.
You turned your face toward him. âFor the record, you were not very supportive.â
Jack looked down at you. âI clapped.â
You smiled. âOnce.â
Jackâs mouth softened. âDidnât want to embarrass you.â
You leaned closer, your shoulder brushing his chest. âYou could never.â
Jack held your gaze for a beat. Then his voice dropped so only you could hear. âThat right?â
Your pulse skipped. You nodded slowly. âMm-hmm.â
Jackâs thumb moved once over your knuckles. Mel made another tiny sound beside you.
Jack did not look away from you when he said, âDr. King.â
Mel took a sip of her drink, smiling around the straw. âQuiet processing.â
Jackâs mouth twitched. âSure.â
Before Mel could confess what she was processing, the bar door opened, and Donnie walked in.
The table reacted all at once, not dramatically, but with that immediate shift ER people had when someone familiar entered a room. Heads turned. Conversations paused. Robby lifted his glass.
Donnie looked exhausted. Not shift-exhausted. Not even double-shift exhausted. Newborn exhausted.
Robby lifted his beer higher. âHe lives.â
Donnie stopped at the edge of the booth and pointed at Robby. âBarely.â
Danaâs eyes moved over his face with practical concern. âSit down before you fall down.â
Donnie dropped into the open chair near Whitaker. âI am allowed to have one drink.â
Mel leaned forward, immediately bright. âHowâs the baby?â
Donnieâs whole face changed. The exhaustion stayed, but pride came through it so fast it softened him. Donnie reached for his phone. âDo not ask unless you mean it.â
You leaned around Mel instantly. âI mean it.â
Jack looked down into his beer. There it was. Immediate. Mel shifted her shoulder to give you room. âShe really does.â
You touched Jackâs arm without looking away from Donnie. âThereâs a baby.â
Jackâs mouth twitched. âI heard.â
You glanced up at him. âYou have to look too.â
Jackâs eyes came to yours. âI will.â
Donnie turned his phone toward you. The first picture showed his newborn daughter asleep in a striped onesie, one tiny fist tucked under her cheek, her whole face scrunched into a furious little pout. Your breath caught.
âOh my God,â you whispered, one hand pressing to your chest. âLook at her.â
Donnie smiled, tired and stupidly proud. âYeah.â
You leaned closer. âSheâs perfect.â
Donnie looked at the photo as if he still could not believe it. âSheâs very loud.â
You looked at him. âSheâs allowed.â
Mel nodded beside you. âSheâs new.â
Donnie pointed at Mel. âExactly.â
Jack looked at the picture. Then he looked at you. That was worse. Your whole expression had changed. Warm. Open. Completely defenseless. Donnie swiped to the next photo, and the baby appeared wrapped in a blanket with a tiny hat pulled over her head.
You made a soft, wounded sound. âHer hat.â
Jackâs hand tightened around his glass. Robbyâs eyes flicked from you to Jack. Jack ignored him.
Donnie swiped again. âThis was after she screamed because her sock came off.â
You looked genuinely offended on her behalf. âWell, thatâs upsetting.â
Jackâs mouth twitched. âIs it?â
You turned toward him. âImagine having a foot and then suddenly no sock.â
Jack looked at you for a long second. âDevastating.â
You pointed back at the phone. âExactly.â
Donnie nodded gravely. âFinally, someone understands her position.â
The table laughed, but you were already looking at the next photo. This one showed the baby asleep on Donnieâs wifeâs chest, both of them tucked under a blanket on the couch. The room in the picture was dim. Peaceful. Messy in the way new-parent spaces got messy, burp cloths and water bottles and half-folded laundry at the edge of the frame. Your smile gentled.
âOh,â you said quietly. âThatâs really sweet.â
Donnie looked at the picture for a beat longer than the others. âYeah.â
You glanced up at him. âHowâs your wife doing?â
Donnie blinked once, like he had expected another question about the baby and gotten something softer instead. Donnie set his phone lower. âSheâs good.â
Your eyes stayed on him. Donnie exhaled. âTired. Sore. Handling it better than I am.â
Danaâs face softened. âThat sounds right.â
Donnie nodded toward her. âFair.â
You rested your elbow on the table. âDoes she have help?â
Donnie rubbed one hand over his jaw. âHer momâs with her tonight. Thatâs the only reason Iâm here.â
You nodded. âGood.â
Donnie glanced at his phone again. âDana brought lasagna.â
Mel smiled. âOf course she did.â
Donnieâs mouth curved faintly. âTwo pans.â
Dana nodded. âAnd Iâd do it again.â
You smiled, but your voice stayed sincere. âTell your wife sheâs doing amazing.â
Donnieâs expression softened. âYeah?â
You nodded. âYeah. And tell her the baby is perfect.â
Donnieâs throat moved. âI will.â
You looked back down at the picture. âAnd if she ever needs someone to hold the baby while she showers or eats or just sits there with both hands free, I volunteer.â
Jack went still beside you. Not enough for the table to notice. Enough for Robby to notice. Robbyâs eyes flicked from you to Jack and then, wisely, back to his drink.
Donnie gave a tired little laugh. âCareful. She might take you up on that.â
You smiled up at him. âI hope she does.â
Jack heard it. He heard that you meant it. That was the problem. Donnieâs phone buzzed in his hand before anyone could say anything else. He looked down at the screen, and his face changed again. Soft. Immediate. Pulled home.
Donnie stood up. âThatâs my cue.â
Dana straightened slightly. âEverything okay?â
Donnie looked at Robby, and for one second, the whole table seemed to feel the weight of that. Then Donnie smiled. âYeah.â
You looked up at him. âTell them we said hi.â
Donnie nodded. âI will.â
He paused near you before he left. Donnieâs voice went quieter. âAnd seriously, thanks for asking about them.â
You smiled. âOf course.â
Donnie tucked his phone into his pocket and left after a round of quick goodbyes, moving through the bar with the tired purpose of someone walking toward the thing that mattered most.
You watched him go. Jack watched you. For a moment, your drink sat forgotten in front of you.
Then you leaned back into Jackâs side with a soft sigh.
Jackâs arm settled around you. âYou good?â
You looked up at him. âHis baby is so cute.â
Jack huffed softly. âI noticed.â
You smiled, still soft from the pictures. âSheâs perfect.â
Jack looked at you for a beat too long.
His voice went low. âYouâre buzzed.â
You smiled. âA little.â
His hand tightened slightly at your waist. âA little?â
You nodded. âBuzzed and honest.â
Then you leaned in, your mouth near his ear.
Your voice turned soft enough that only he could hear you. âDo you know I wore this for you?â
Jackâs fingers flexed against your waist. His gaze dropped to your sundress again, slower this time, controlled enough that no one else at the table had any reason to notice.
Jackâs voice went low. âDid you?â
You leaned back just enough to see his face. âMm-hmm.â
Jackâs gaze moved over you. Slow. Controlled. Not enough to make anyone else at the table comment. Enough to make your face warm.
Jackâs eyes returned to yours. âI know.â
You blinked. âYou knew?â
His mouth curved. âBaby, I noticed you before I knew your name.â
Your breath caught. Mel made another tiny sound across from you.
Jack looked at her without lifting his head. âDr. King.â
Mel wrapped both hands around her glass. âQuiet processing.â
You laughed, delighted, and tucked your face against Jackâs shoulder. Jackâs mouth brushed the top of your head for one brief second. Then his lips were gone. But his arm stayed around you. Your drink waited on the table. The night opened up warm and loose around you. And somewhere beneath Jackâs steady hand, beneath your laughter, beneath the soft buzz beginning to bloom in your chest, the picture of Donnieâs tiny daughter stayed with him longer than he wanted it to.
You, meanwhile, were thinking about Jackâs hands.
Not exclusively. Mostly. The drinks had loosened something in you, not enough to make the room tilt, not enough to make you careless, but enough that every warm, private thought you had about Jack seemed to drift closer to your mouth than usual. His hand was still over yours beneath the table. Big. Warm. Steady. You looked down at it, then back up at his face.
Jack caught you looking. âWhat?â
You looked up at him with open affection. âYouâre so handsome.â
Jack went still for half a second. Across the table, Robbyâs eyes lifted. Melâs mouth softened immediately, like she knew exactly what phase of the evening you had entered.
Jackâs voice stayed low. âYou doing all right?â
You nodded, still gazing up at him. âMm-hmm.â
Jack studied your face. âHow many drinks have you had?â
You held up two fingers, then frowned at them. âTwo and a little bit.â
Santos leaned back in her seat. âThat is medically imprecise.â
You turned your head toward her. âIâm not a doctor.â
Santos pointed at Jack. âHe is.â
You looked back at Jack and smiled. âHe is.â
Jackâs eyes narrowed slightly. âDonât say it like that.â
You blinked. âLike what?â
Jack leaned closer, his voice dropping near your ear. âLike youâre about to start something.â
Warmth climbed up your neck. You smiled anyway. âMaybe I am.â
Mel made a quiet, pleased sound into her straw. Jack looked past you. âDr. King.â
Mel lowered her glass with wide eyes. âIâm being very normal.â
You laughed and tucked yourself closer into Jackâs side. His arm came around you more fully then, his hand settling at your waist. The simple weight of it nearly undid you.
You turned your face toward him again. âYouâre very boyfriend.â
Jack looked down at you. âVery boyfriend?â
You nodded solemnly. âExtremely.â
Danaâs mouth curved behind her glass.
Jackâs expression stayed careful. âThat mean something?â
You pressed your palm flat against his chest, right over the steady beat beneath his shirt. âIt means youâre good at it.â
Jackâs face changed. Only a little. Only in the eyes. But you saw it because you were always looking at him.
Jack covered your hand with his. âAt what?â
You smiled softly. âBeing mine.â
The table quieted for half a second. Not fully. Not enough to make it weird. Just enough. Robby looked down at his beer with sudden interest. Mel looked at you like her heart had grown three sizes, and she did not know where to put it. Santos, to her credit, reached for another fry and said nothing.
Jackâs jaw shifted once under his skin. âBaby.â
You hummed. âThatâs me.â
His thumb pressed lightly over your fingers. âYouâre getting sentimental.â
You looked at him. âIâm allowed.â
Jackâs voice softened. âYou are.â
You turned toward Mel, because the thought was too important not to share, and pointed gently at Jack. âThatâs my boyfriend.â
Mel nodded with deep sincerity. âI know.â
You leaned closer to her. âHeâs really hot.â
Jack looked across the table before Robby could say anything. âDonât.â
Robby lifted one hand, already smiling. âI didnât say a word.â
Dana took a calm sip of her drink. âLet the man survive one compliment.â
You turned back to Jack, still offended on his behalf. âYou should get lots of compliments.â
Jack looked at you. âShould I?â
You touched his jaw, your fingers gentle against the rough scrape of stubble there. âBecause look at you.â
Santos muttered into her drink. âCompelling argument.â
You smiled without looking away from Jack. âThank you.â
Then you said it. âHusband material.â
The words came out warm and easy. Too easy. Jackâs whole body went still beneath your hand. The table did not miss that one. Melâs eyes widened. Danaâs eyebrows lifted. Robby looked down into his beer again, but the corner of his mouth had gone very carefully neutral.
You did not notice any of it.
You were too busy looking at Jack like you had just discovered a universal truth and needed him to understand it.
Jackâs voice was lower when he spoke. âWhat did you say?â
You smiled up at him, soft and certain. âI said youâre husband material.â
His throat moved.
You leaned in closer, the strap of your sundress slipping slightly on your shoulder. âYou are.â
Jackâs eyes dropped briefly to the bare line of your shoulder, but even that did not distract him the way it usually did.
His gaze came back to your face. âYou think so?â
You gave him a look as if he had asked whether the sky was blue. âObviously.â
You laughed, the sound warm and loose, and Jackâs eyes stayed fixed on you. You leaned toward him again, your mouth near his ear.
Your voice turned fond and conspiratorial. âYouâre also very hot husband material.â
Jack exhaled through his nose. The sound was almost a laugh. Almost.
His hand slid a little more firmly around your waist. âYou need water.â
You pulled back, scandalized. âI need to appreciate my boyfriend.â
Jackâs mouth twitched despite the tension still caught in his face. âYou can appreciate me with water.â
You considered that. âThatâs reasonable.â
Jack reached for the water glass near his beer and set it in front of you. You looked at it, then at him. âYouâre taking care of me.â
Jackâs expression softened. âThatâs the idea.â
Your heart did something painfully tender. You picked up the water and took a dutiful sip. Jack watched until you swallowed.
You lowered the glass. âSee?â
Jackâs thumb brushed your waist. âGood girl.â
The words were quiet. Private. Not for the table. Heat swept through you so fast that you had to look down at the water.
Jack noticed, and his mouth curved faintly.
You pointed the glass at him. âYou did that on purpose.â
Jack leaned back slightly. âIâm making sure you hydrate.â
You stared at him. âYouâre dangerous.â
Jackâs eyes held yours. âYou started it.â
You opened your mouth to argue. Then you seemed to forget the argument halfway through, because your gaze drifted over his face again. His hair. His eyes. The tired lines at the corners of them. The mouth that always looked severe until he softened it for you.
You set the water down carefully. Then you touched his cheek again.
Jack went quiet.
You smiled at him, smaller this time. âI love you.â
The words were not new. You said them all the time now. In the kitchen. On the couch. Half-asleep against his chest. Into his shoulder when he held you after a hard day. But here, warm and buzzed in the middle of a crowded bar, with karaoke blaring too loudly behind you and your friends pretending not to listen, the words came out especially soft.
Especially sure.
Jackâs face changed. His hand covered yours against his cheek.
âI love you too,â Jack said, his voice quiet and rough around the edges.
You beamed at him. Absolutely beamed. Then you turned toward Mel again, unable to keep the joy inside your own body.
His eyes opened, warm despite himself. âEverybody knows.â
You looked around the table. Robby lifted his beer in confirmation. Dana smiled faintly. Santos shrugged one shoulder. Whitaker gave you a small, kind nod. Javadi smiled like she was trying not to intrude. Mel looked like she was seconds away from making a scrapbook.
You turned back to Jack, delighted. âEverybody knows?â
Jackâs thumb swept over the back of your hand. âYes.â
You leaned into him with a satisfied sigh. âGood.â
Jack looked down at you. âGood?â
You nodded against his shoulder. âI want everybody to know.â
His hand stilled at your waist. The words landed somewhere deep. Somewhere too close to the thing Donnieâs baby pictures had already stirred up. Jack stared at the side of your face while you settled against him, warm and happy and entirely unaware that every honest little thing you said was finding a place inside him he had kept locked for years.
Robby watched him from across the table. This time, Robby did not tease.
Mel did not make a sound.
The karaoke machine changed songs behind you, and Santos immediately complained about the selection, and the bar kept moving around them as if nothing important had happened.
But Jack felt it. Your hand over his heart. Your voice saying husband material. Your smile when you said you wanted everyone to know.
And, beneath all of it, the picture of Donnieâs newborn daughter. Tiny fist. Serious face.
A future Jack had taught himself not to look at for too long.
You tipped your chin up from his shoulder a minute later. âJack?â
He looked down at you immediately. âYeah?â
You smiled at him with all the soft, unguarded affection alcohol had pulled to the surface. âYouâre my favorite.â
His throat moved again. Then his mouth softened. âYeah?â
You nodded. âMy favorite person.â
Jackâs hand slid up and down your side once, slow and grounding. âYouâre mine too.â
Your eyes went shiny for half a second. Then your smile came back, bright and pleased. âI know.â
Jack huffed softly. âDo you?â
You nodded again. âYou look at me like I am.â
Jack did not have an answer for that. Not one he could say in a bar. Not one he could say with Robby across the table and Mel glowing beside you and a ring hidden in the back of his dresser drawer at home.
So he leaned down and kissed your forehead instead.
You closed your eyes like that was enough. For now, it was.
By the time Jack got you home, you had told him he was handsome in the parking lot, devastating against the driverâs side door while he helped you into the car, and unfairly hot while unlocking the front door.
Jack pushed the door open with one shoulder. âUnfairly hot?â
You stepped inside ahead of him, smiling over your shoulder. âYes.â
Jack shut the door behind you and locked it. âThat sounds like a complaint.â
You turned around, walking backward into the house. âIt is.â
His eyes narrowed as he dropped his keys into the bowl by the door, right beside yours. âYouâre complaining that Iâm attractive?â
You nodded, solemn and warm and a little unsteady. âItâs distracting.â
Jackâs mouth twitched as he set his wallet beside the keys. âYouâve mentioned that.â
You pointed at him. âBecause you donât seem sorry.â
Jack stepped closer, one hand finding your waist before you could sway too far backward. âIâm not.â
Your smile went soft and delighted. âSee?â
Jackâs gaze moved over your face, careful and fond and assessing all at once. âYou need water.â
You looped your fingers into the front of his shirt. âI need you.â
His hand tightened at your waist. For one second, something darker passed through his eyes. Then Jack covered your hand with his and gently peeled your fingers loose. âWater first.â
You frowned up at him. âYouâre being responsible.â
Jack guided you toward the kitchen with steady pressure at your waist. âSomeone has to.â
He opened one of the cabinets, reached for your usual glass, filled it at the sink, and set it in front of you. âDrink.â
You looked at the water, then at him. âYouâre bossy.â
His eyes stayed on yours. âDrink.â
Your stomach warmed. You picked up the glass with both hands and took a sip.
Jack watched until you swallowed. âMore.â
You lowered the glass. âYou like taking care of me.â
Jackâs expression did not change, but his voice softened. âI do.â
The easy admission made your face go tender. You took another sip without being told.
Jackâs mouth curved faintly. âGood.â
You set the glass down and smiled at him. âYouâre husband material.â
Jack went still. Not much. Not enough that you would have caught it sober, maybe. But enough. His hand rested on the edge of the counter, fingers flexing once against the stone.
You looked at him with open admiration. âYou are.â
Jackâs gaze held yours. âYou said that already.â
You nodded, pleased that he remembered. âBecause itâs true.â
His throat moved. Then he stepped away from the counter before whatever had flashed across his face could become too visible. âBedroom.â
You lifted your eyebrows. âOh?â
Jack gave you a dry look over his shoulder. âFor pajamas.â
You pushed away from the counter and followed him. âThatâs not as fun.â
Jackâs mouth twitched. âYouâll survive.â
You caught up to him in the hallway and slid your arms around his waist from behind.
Jack stopped walking, his hand settling over yours where they were clasped against his stomach. âYouâre dramatic.â
You smiled into his shirt. âYou love me.â
His thumb brushed over your knuckles. âI do.â
You turned him enough to kiss him.
Jack caught you automatically, one hand sliding to the small of your back when your balance tipped forward. He kissed you back once, warm and careful, then forced himself to ease away.
You blinked up at him. âWhy are you stopping?â
Jackâs hand stayed at the small of your back, steadying you. âBecause youâre drunk.â
You smiled, warm and pleased. âRomantically drunk.â
His mouth twitched. âThatâs not a legal category.â
You curled your fingers into the front of his shirt. âIt should be.â
Jack looked down at your hands, then back at your face. âProbably not.â
You leaned in and brushed your mouth along the corner of his jaw. âYouâre very responsible.â
His jaw tightened beneath your lips. âTrying to be.â
You smiled against his skin. âYou want me.â
Jackâs hand flexed once at your waist before he answered. âYeah.â
You pulled back enough to look at him, delighted by the honesty. âYeah?â
His eyes dropped to your mouth and came back up slowly. âVery much.â
Your smile went soft and smug. âThen donât be responsible.â
Jack exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh and almost not. âNot how this works, baby.â
Jackâs hand tightened at your waist. âBedroom. Pajamas.â
You sighed. âFine.â
He guided you into the bedroom before you could negotiate.
The room was dim except for the lamp on the nightstand, washed in low amber light and scattered with the quiet evidence of both of you. His watch sat on the dresser beside your earrings. Your book was facedown on your side of the bed, spine cracked open to the place you had left it that morning. His old PTMC sweatshirt was folded over the chair, though you both knew you were the only one who wore it anymore. You looked around the room and smiled.
Jack followed your gaze. âWhat?â
You pointed vaguely at all of it. âWe live here.â
Jack looked at the dresser, the nightstand, the sweatshirt, then back at you. âThat just occurred to you?â
You smiled up at him, warm and drunk and pleased by the obvious. âNo.â
His mouth twitched. âNo?â
You shook your head. âI just like it.â
Jackâs expression softened before he could stop it. You caught that too. You reached for him with both hands. âCome here.â
Jack took your hands, but instead of stepping closer the way you wanted, he guided you backward until the backs of your legs touched the mattress. âSit.â
You blinked at him. âBossy.â
Jack kept hold of your hands while you sank onto the edge of the bed. âPractical.â
You looked up at him from the mattress. âHot.â
His mouth twitched. âAlso practical.â
You smiled, pleased with him. âYou admit it.â
Jack released one of your hands and tapped the outside of your ankle. âShoes first.â
You looked down at your sandals like you had forgotten your feet existed. âOh.â
He crouched in front of you, one knee bent, his hand gentle around your calf. âFoot.â
You lifted one foot obediently. âYouâre taking my shoes off?â
Jackâs fingers moved to the thin strap of your sandal. âThatâs the plan.â
You watched him with increasing tenderness. âThatâs very husband of you.â
His hand paused. Only for a second. Then Jack unfastened the strap and slid the sandal off your foot. âYouâre drunk.â
You smiled down at him. âAnd observant.â
Jack set the first sandal beside the bed. âOther foot.â
You gave him the other foot, your sundress slipping higher on your thigh as you moved. âYouâre always taking care of me.â
Jack kept his eyes on the buckle. âSomebody has to.â
You frowned at him. âI take care of me.â
His gaze lifted briefly. âI know you do.â
Your expression softened. Jack looked back down and loosened the second strap. âDoesnât mean I donât get to help.â
Something in your chest went warm and achy. You reached down before thinking and brushed your fingers through the salt-and-pepper hair above his temple. Jack went still beneath your touch.
You smiled at him, soft and completely unguarded. âYouâre going to be such a good dad.â
The room changed. Jackâs fingers stopped on the strap of your sandal. His shoulders went very still.
For one long second, he did not look up.
You did not notice the way the words had landed. Not really. You were too warm, too open, too full of the certainty of him kneeling there in front of you, careful with your ankle, patient with your balance, kind with your body, in the bedroom you shared, in the house you came home to together. You kept touching his hair.
Jackâs voice came out lower than before. âWhat?â
You smiled down at him. âA dad.â
His hand stayed wrapped around your ankle. You tilted your head, like you were explaining something obvious. âYouâd be good at it.â
Jack looked up at you then. His face was unreadable in the soft bedroom light, but his eyes were not. His eyes looked wrecked.
You smiled wider, encouraged by the attention. âLike, really good.â
Jack swallowed. âBaby.â
You nodded, still gentle, still certain. âYes. A baby. I want your babies.â
The words landed between you with devastating ease. Jack stopped breathing.
You leaned forward slightly, your hand slipping from his hair to his cheek. âI want babies that look like you.â
His jaw flexed beneath your palm. You looked at him like this was a beautiful thing you had been carrying around all night and had finally remembered to hand him.
Your thumb brushed the edge of his cheekbone. âI want you forever.â
Jackâs hand tightened around your ankle.
You smiled at him, drunk and honest and glowing. âI want us forever.â
He stared up at you. For once, Jack Abbot had no dry answer ready. No deflection. No careful little almost-smile.
You sighed happily, as if the most important part had just occurred to you. âAnd I want the mind-blowing, amazing, life-changing sex forever.â
A sound left him. It might have been a laugh if it had not been so rough. Jack lowered his head for one second, his forehead nearly touching your knee. âJesus Christ.â
You looked pleased with yourself. âI know.â
Jack looked up slowly. âYou know?â
You nodded. âItâs very good sex.â His eyes closed. You touched his hair again. âLike, very good.â
Jack caught your wrist gently before your hand could slip farther into his hair. âBaby.â
You blinked at him. âWhat?â
His thumb moved once over your pulse. âYouâre drunk.â
You gave him a patient look. âIâm also right.â
Jack stared at you. The second sandal was still half-unbuckled. His hand was still wrapped around your ankle. The room was still warm and quiet and full of everything he had spent years teaching himself not to want too loudly.
You smiled at him and whispered, âI love you.â
That was the part that broke something in his face. Not badly. Not all the way. Just enough. Jack exhaled slowly, then finished unfastening your sandal with hands that were almost steady.
Jackâs voice stayed careful. âI love you too.â
You watched him set the shoe beside the first one. âThen why do you look sad?â
Jackâs head lifted. You were looking at him with such open concern that it nearly ruined him.
He rested one hand on your knee, grounding himself there. âIâm not sad.â
You frowned. âYou look sad.â
His thumb moved once over your skin. âIâm thinking.â
You leaned closer. âAbout babies?â
Jackâs chest tightened. âAbout getting you water.â
You slid your foot against his thigh. âWe could do romantic things.â
Jackâs eyes sharpened. You smiled, encouraged. âNaked romantic things.â
Jack closed his eyes again. âOf course.â
You leaned forward, your voice turning soft and persuasive. âI wore the sundress.â
Jack opened his eyes. âI noticed.â
You smiled. âYou did?â
His gaze dropped briefly to the dress, to where the fabric had shifted around your thighs, then came back to your face with visible effort. âI did.â
You touched the front of his shirt. âYou can take it off.â
His hand covered yours before you could slide your fingers lower. âNo.â
Your face fell before you could hide it. âNo?â
Jackâs expression softened immediately. âNot like that.â
You blinked, suddenly less playful. âYou donât want to?â
Jack moved closer on his knees, both hands now gentle on your thighs. âThat is not the problem.â
Your mouth turned down. âThen what is?â
Jack leaned up and kissed your forehead. âYouâre drunk.â
You sighed against him. âIâm romantic.â
Jack huffed softly. âYouâre both.â
You looked at him through your lashes. âI consent.â
His jaw tightened, but his voice stayed gentle. âI know.â
You frowned. âThen?â
Jackâs hands squeezed your thighs once, steady and warm. âThen I want you sober when you ask me.â
Your expression softened in a way that made his chest ache. You asked softly, âFor sex?â
Jack looked at you for a long beat. âFor all of it.â
You did not understand. Not fully. Not tonight. He could see that.
Your brows drew together. âAll of it?â
Jack brushed your hair back from your face. âYeah.â
You leaned into his hand. âI want all of it.â
His throat moved. Jackâs voice went quiet. âI know.â
You brightened. âGood.â
Jack stood before he could answer that the way he wanted to. Before he could ask you to say it again. Before he could be selfish with your drunk honesty just because it sounded like every impossible thing he had wanted and denied himself.
He held out both hands. âCome on.â
You looked up at him. âWhere are we going?â
Jackâs hands closed around yours and eased you carefully to your feet. âBathroom. Makeup off. Teeth brushed. Pajamas.â
You leaned into him as soon as you stood. âYouâre bossy again.â
Jack wrapped an arm around your waist when you swayed. âIâm consistent.â
You smiled against his chest. âHusband material.â
His eyes closed above your head. Jackâs voice came out low, because it was the only word he trusted himself with. âBathroom.â
Jack got you through the bathroom by sheer force of patience.
He wiped the smudged mascara from beneath your eyes while you told him his hands were âunfairly gentle.â He made you brush your teeth while you leaned your hip into the counter and tried to convince him that minty breath made you âbasically sober.â He got you into one of his old T-shirts and your sleep shorts while you informed him, very seriously, that helping someone change clothes was âdeeply husband behavior.â
Jack survived all of it with his jaw tight and his hands careful. Barely. When he finally pulled the blanket over you, you caught his wrist before he could step away.
Jack looked down immediately. âWhat?â
Your fingers curled loosely around him. âAre you mad?â
His chest tightened. âNo.â
Your eyes searched his, sleepy and worried. âBecause I said the baby thing?â
Jack sat on the edge of the bed. âNo, baby.â
You blinked slowly. âYou got quiet.â
His hand covered yours. âI know.â
âYou got sad,â you whispered.
Jackâs throat moved. âNot sad.â
Your brows drew together. âThen what?â
Jack brushed his thumb over your knuckles. âCareful.â
You looked at him for a moment, trying to understand. âWith me?â
His voice softened. âAlways.â
Your lashes dipped. âI meant it.â Jack stopped breathing. Your eyes were already closing. âI love you.â
Jackâs hand tightened around yours. âI love you too.â
Your mouth softened against the pillow. âForever.â
Then you were gone.
Jack stayed beside the bed for longer than he needed to. The lamp was still on, throwing low amber light across the room. Your dress was folded over the chair because he had put it there. Your sandals sat near the foot of the bed because he had lined them up without thinking. Your lip gloss was on his nightstand beside the water glass he had made you drink from twice.
All these little pieces of you in the room. His shirt on your body. Your hand curled against the pillow. Jack stood there and looked at you, and the full weight of the night came down so hard he nearly had to sit. *Youâre going to be such a good dad.*
His hand flexed at his side. He could still feel the place your fingers had moved through his hair when you said it. Casual. Certain. Like you had not been cracking open a part of him he had buried with both hands years ago. *I want your babies.*
Jack closed his eyes. He should not let himself keep those words. Not tonight. Not when your voice had been soft from alcohol and your cheeks had been warm from the bar and your balance had leaned trustingly into his hands.
He knew better.
He knew better than to take drunk honesty and build a life on it before morning. But Christ, he wanted to. That was the problem. He wanted to so badly that it scared him.
Jack opened his eyes and looked at you again.
You were asleep, face soft, mouth parted slightly, entirely unaware of the damage you had done. Entirely unaware that he was standing there trying to talk himself out of hope like it was a bad habit. He had already bought the ring. It was in the back of his dresser drawer, tucked beneath old Army shirts he never wore and could not quite make himself throw away. He had put it there three weeks ago and then pretended he was waiting for the right time.
That was bullshit.
He knew it now. He had not been waiting for the right time. He had been waiting to become brave enough to ask for what he already wanted. Marriage, he could admit. Quietly. Privately. In the dark. He could imagine your hand in his. Your ring against his finger when he brought your knuckles to his mouth. Your name tangled with his on forms and reservations and stupid pieces of mail. Your toothbrush in the bathroom. Your books on the coffee table. Your laugh in the kitchen before sunrise. He could imagine calling you his wife. That alone had almost been too much.
But this?
This was something else.
This was a door opening into a room he had not let himself look inside for years. Jackâs gaze lowered to where the blanket rose and fell with your breathing. A baby. His baby. Yours. The thought hit him with such force that his chest tightened around it.
He saw it before he could stop himself.
You sitting on the edge of an exam table, nervous and bright-eyed, one hand wrapped around his while the other rested low on your stomach. Him standing beside you, useless in the face of it, pretending to understand the ultrasound screen before the sound filled the room. A heartbeat. Fast. Tiny. Impossible. He saw your face turning toward him the second you heard it. He saw himself trying not to fall apart.
Jack pressed his hand over his mouth and looked away. But the images kept coming. You in the kitchen wearing one of his shirts, one hand braced against the counter, your body changing because his child was growing inside it. His child.
 The words nearly undid him. He imagined coming up behind you carefully, because he would be careful with you, because he would be terrified of not being careful enough. He imagined his palm spread over the curve of your stomach, your hand covering his, your laugh catching when the baby moved. He imagined your feet in his lap because they hurt. He imagined leaving work and wanting to come home so badly it physically pulled at him. He imagined a bassinet beside the bed. Tiny socks in the laundry. A bottle drying near the sink.
 You asleep against his shoulder with a baby tucked between you, exhausted and beautiful and trusting him with the two most fragile things he had ever touched.
He imagined dark hair. Your smile. His eyes. Your stubborn mouth on a tiny face that would ruin him completely.
Jackâs throat worked. He should not do this. He should not stand there in the dark and give himself all of it. You were drunk. You were drunk, and he was fifty, and his body had been through too much, and his past was not clean, and his nights were not always quiet. He had a prosthetic leg leaning against the side of the bed. He had old nightmares. He had a job that brought death home under his skin no matter how well he scrubbed his hands. He had already had a life once. He had already lost one.
For years, he had believed that was the shape of things.
A man got one real chance at a family if he was lucky. Jack had been lucky. Then he had survived the losing of it. Surviving had felt like the end of the story for a long time. Then you had shown up outside PTMC in July, smiling at your phone with an iced coffee in your hand, and Jack had stopped walking. And somehow, a year later, you were asleep in your bed telling him forever like it was the simplest thing in the world.
Jack sat carefully on the edge of the mattress. You stirred but did not wake. His hand hovered near your hair for a second before he let himself touch you, brushing one loose strand back from your cheek. You sighed into the pillow. Jackâs face broke in the quiet where no one could see it. Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just a crack through the center of him.
Hope hurt.
He had forgotten that. Fear was cleaner. Loneliness was familiar. Wanting nothing was easier than wanting too much and having to survive the answer. But hope? Hope had teeth. Jack looked at you and let himself ask the question he had been avoiding since the moment you touched his hair and told him he would be a good dad. *Could I have this again?* His thumb brushed your cheek once. *Could I have it with her?* You slept on. The room stayed quiet. The ring stayed hidden in the dresser. Jack bent forward slowly and kissed your temple.
âIâm not asking you tonight,â Jack whispered against your skin. You did not wake. His voice went rougher. âBut Jesus, baby.â
He closed his eyes, his mouth still close to your temple. For one weak, dangerous second, he let himself hold the whole impossible picture. You as his wife. You pregnant with his child. Your hand in his during the first heartbeat. Your body changing. His hands learning every new shape of you. A baby with your smile and his eyes. A house full of noise. A life after the life he thought he had already used up. Jack breathed out slowly and sat back. Morning. He would wait until morning. He would make coffee. He would make you drink water. He would let you wake up embarrassed, because you always got embarrassed when you were honest, and then he would ask.
He would ask whether you remembered. He would ask whether you meant it. And if you said yes sober, if you looked at him in daylight and still wanted the future you had handed him drunk, Jack had no idea how he was supposed to survive that kind of happiness. You shifted in your sleep, your hand searching blindly over the blanket. Jack caught it without thinking. Your fingers curled around his. Even asleep, you found him. Jack stared down at your joined hands. Then he held on.
You woke up to sunlight, a dry mouth, and the dull ache of a mild hangover.
For a few seconds, you did not move.
Then the night came back. Karaoke. Donnieâs baby. Jack kneeling in front of you. Your fingers in his hair.
*Youâre going to be such a good dad.*
You squeezed your eyes shut. Oh, God.
Then the rest of it followed.
*I want your babies. I want babies that look like you. I want you forever. I want us forever.*
And, because apparently your drunk self had wanted to leave no dignity behindâ
*I want the mind-blowing, amazing, life-changing sex forever.*
You made a small, miserable sound into the pillow. You remembered Jack going quiet. Not angry. Not cold. Careful. That was worse.
Downstairs, the coffeemaker clicked softly. Jack. You sat up slowly, one hand pressed to your forehead, and looked at the empty side of the bed. Jack had taken care of you. And you had rewarded him by dropping an entire future in his lap while he was trying to take off your shoes.
âGreat,â you whispered to yourself. âPerfect.â
You got up before you could talk yourself into hiding under the blanket for the rest of your life.
The house was too bright, too still, too full of everything you had said and everything Jack had not. Halfway down the stairs, you saw him.
Jack was on the couch, coffee on the side table, book open in one hand. He looked like he was reading. He was not reading. You knew because he did not turn the page. Jack looked up immediately.
âMorning,â Jack said, his voice low.
You held the railing. âMorning.â
His gaze moved over your face, checking. âCoffee?â
You nodded. âYeah.â
Jack set the book facedown on the couch and stood.
You stepped off the last stair. âI can get it.â
Jack shook his head once. Then he jerked his chin toward the couch. âSit.â
You sat. Jack moved into the kitchen without another word. He took your usual mug from the cabinet. The coffeemaker was still on, the pot warm because he had left it that way for you. He poured the coffee, added cream, stirred once, and did not have to ask how much. He knew. That made your throat tighten. He came back and held the mug out to you.
You took it carefully. âThanks.â
Jack nodded once and sat on the other end of the couch. Not far. Not close. Just enough distance for all the things neither of you had said yet. You drank the first few sips in silence. The coffee was warm, familiar, exactly right. The morning was not.
Jack set his mug down first.
The soft sound of ceramic against wood made your stomach tighten.
Jack looked toward you. âAbout last night.â
Your fingers tightened around the mug. There it was.
You set the coffee on the table before you could spill it. âIâm sorry.â
Jackâs brows drew together. âFor what?â
You let out a thin, embarrassed breath. âWhere should I start?â
Jack turned more fully toward you. âBaby.â
You shook your head quickly. âI know I said too much.â
His face went very still.
You looked down at your hands. âI remember the baby thing. And the forever thing. And the sex thing, which was mortifying, so Iâm sorry about that too.â
Jack did not interrupt. That made you panic faster.
You rubbed your palms over your thighs. âI was drunk, and Donnie had the baby pictures, and you were being you, and I justââ
Your voice caught.
Jack leaned forward slightly. âYou just what?â
You looked at him then. âI made you uncomfortable.â
His expression changed immediately. âNo.â
You nodded like you had already decided it for him. âJack, you went quiet.â
âI know,â Jack said.
Your eyes stung. âYou went quiet in the way you go quiet when youâre trying really hard not to react.â
His throat moved.
You tried to smile, and it felt awful. âAnd I get it. Hearing your drunk girlfriend announce that she wants babies with you while youâre taking her shoes off is probably not the gentle domestic evening you were aiming for.â
Jack stared at you.
You kept going because stopping meant letting him answer. âAnd I know we live together, and weâre serious, and I love you, but I shouldnât have said something that big without talking to you first. Sober. Like an adult. Iâm sorry if it felt like pressure. I would never try to pressure you into something like that.â
âStop,â Jack said softly. You went quiet at once. Jackâs eyes held yours. âTake a breath.â
You pulled one in, shaky and shallow.
His gaze dropped to your chest, then came back to your face. âAnother one.â
You obeyed.
Jack waited until you breathed again.
Then he said, âIâm going to ask you something.â
Your fingers twisted in the hem of his T-shirt. âOkay.â
His voice was low. âAnd I need you to answer me sober.â
Your heart started pounding. You nodded once. âOkay.â
Jackâs eyes did not leave yours. âDid you mean it?â
The question landed quietly. Too quietly. For a second, you could only stare at him. You had expected him to soften the blow. To tell you it was okay. To say you had been drunk and embarrassed and that the two of you could forget it if you wanted to. You had not expected him to ask.
Your fingers curled into the hem of his T-shirt. âWhich part?â
Jackâs jaw flexed once. âAll of it.â
Your breath caught. He sat very still, like even shifting his weight might make the answer change before you gave it.
âThe babies,â Jack said, his voice roughening around the word. âForever. Me.â
Your eyes burned. Jack saw it immediately. His hand twitched against his knee, like he wanted to reach for you and was forcing himself not to. He was giving you room.
You looked down at your hands because looking at his face made it too hard to think. âI wish I had said it better.â
Jack did not answer.
You swallowed and made yourself keep going. âI wish I had not said it drunk. I wish I had not dropped it on you while you were trying to take my shoes off.â
His mouth moved faintly.
You looked back up at him. âI wish I had not added the sex part like a complete menace.â
Something almost like a laugh moved through him, but it did not quite make it out. Jackâs eyes stayed fixed on your face.
You pressed your palms flat against your thighs. âBut yes.â
The room went still. Jack stopped breathing.
You nodded once, smaller this time. âYes, Jack. I meant it.â
His face changed. Not all at once. It never did with Jack. It happened in pieces. A faint tightening around his mouth. A slow, unsteady movement in his throat. The smallest break in the guarded set of his eyes. You saw hope before he could hide it. It made your chest ache.
You leaned toward him. âI meant the babies.â
Jack looked down.
You kept your voice gentle. âI meant forever.â
His hand closed into a loose fist against his knee. You reached for him slowly, giving him the same room he had given you. Jack looked at your hand before you touched him.
You stopped an inch away. âAnd I meant you.â
His eyes lifted to yours. For one suspended second, neither of you moved. Then Jack let out a breath that sounded like it had been hurting him all night. You slipped your fingers into his. His hand closed around yours immediately. Careful. Hard. Like he had been waiting for permission to hold on.
You squeezed his fingers. âIâm sorry it came out like that.â
Jack shook his head once. âDonât.â
You blinked. âDonât apologize?â
His thumb moved over the side of your hand. âNot for meaning it.â
Your throat tightened.
Jack looked down at your joined hands. âYou can apologize for the timing.â
You gave a wet, startled laugh. âThe timing was bad.â
His mouth twitched faintly. âThe timing was terrible.â
You wiped quickly beneath one eye with your free hand. âAnd the delivery.â
Jack looked back at you. âCouldâve been better.â
You let out another shaky laugh. âOkay, brutal.â
His eyes softened. âBut not the meaning.â
Your smile faded.
He held your gaze. âNot that,â Jack said.
Your chest hurt with it. You nodded. âOkay.â
The silence that followed was different from the one before. Still nervous. Still fragile.
But warmer now.
Like the door was open. Like both of you were standing on either side of it, terrified to step through first.
Jack looked down again, and when he spoke, his voice was lower. âI didnât answer you last night because I didnât want it.â
You froze. Jackâs eyes closed briefly, frustration cutting across his face before he corrected himself.
âNo,â Jack said, shaking his head once. âThatâs not what I mean.â
You held very still. He opened his eyes and looked at you.
âI didnât answer because I wanted it too much,â Jack said.
Your breath left you. Jack watched your face as the words landed.
You whispered, âWhat?â
His grip tightened around yours.
âI wanted to believe you,â Jack said. âI wanted to believe you so badly that I had to shut it down.â
Your eyes filled again. Jack dragged his free hand over his jaw, rough and tired and more exposed than you had ever seen him in daylight.
âBecause if I let myself answer you last night,â Jack said, âI donât know what the hell I wouldâve said.â
You swallowed. âWhat did you want to say?â
His eyes held yours. For a second, he did not answer. Then Jack said, âI wanted to say yes.â
Your heart kicked hard.
Jackâs voice went quieter. âTo all of it.â
The room blurred.
You stared at him through it. âJack.â
He looked at you like your voice had done damage.
You moved closer on the couch, not all the way into his lap, not yet, but close enough that your knees nearly touched. âYou want that?â
Jackâs face tightened. He looked away. That was answer enough to scare you. Not because it was no. Because it was too much yes.
You squeezed his hand. âJack.â
His eyes stayed on the coffee table. âI want forever with you.â
Your throat closed. He looked back at you then, rough and honest in the morning light.
âI want marriage,â Jack said. âI want your name with mine if you want that. I want you in this house until every room has more of you in it than me.â
A broken little laugh slipped out of you. âThatâs already happening.â
Jackâs mouth twitched. âI know.â
Then he went serious again.
âI want you first,â Jack said.
Your smile faded.
His thumb moved over your hand. âBefore anything else.â
You nodded, tears slipping down your cheeks. âOkay.â
Jackâs eyes searched yours. âMarriage first. Us first.â
Your chest ached.
âYes,â you whispered.
His throat moved.
âAnd after that,â Jack said, quieter now, âif we both still want it after we talk about it like adults and figure out what it means and when and howâŠâ
You held your breath. Jack looked at you.
âI want the rest,â he said.
Your face crumpled.
Jackâs grip tightened around yours. âBaby.â
You laughed wetly, wiping under your eyes. âThis is just a lot for before breakfast.â
His mouth softened.
You drew a shaky breath. âI want marriage first too.â
Jack went still.
You looked at him through tears. âI want us first.â
His face changed.
You leaned closer. âBut yes. Someday. If we both still want it and everything makes sense and we talk about all of it, I want babies with you.â
Jackâs eyes shone. You kept going because he needed to hear it. Not drunk. Not half-asleep. Not whispered into a pillow. Here. In daylight. Sober.
âI know what youâre thinking,â you said softly.
His jaw tightened.
You kept your hand on his cheek. âYour age. Your leg. The nightmares. The job. The things you carry home and donât always say out loud.â
Jack swallowed.
âI know you loved someone before me,â you said.
His eyes closed for half a second. You stayed with him.
âIâm not asking you to erase her,â you whispered. âIâm not asking you to pretend you didnât have a life before me. Iâm not asking you to become some untouched version of yourself so I can feel like I got there first.â
Jackâs hand tightened around yours. Your thumb brushed over his cheekbone.
âI love you,â you said. âAll of you. Not the easier version. Not the cleaned-up version. You.â
His breath shook.
Your voice softened even more. âAnd Iâm sorry you thought you didnât get to want this again.â
Jack opened his eyes. That one hit. You saw it. His face went still in the dangerous way it did when something went too deep.
You leaned closer. âBut you do.â
Jack stared at you.
âYou get to want it,â you said. âYou get to want me. Marriage. A baby someday. A noisy house and tiny socks and all the things you thought belonged to somebody elseâs life.â
His eyes shone.
âYou get to want it with me,â you whispered.
Jackâs hand came up then. Finally. His palm cupped the side of your face, warm and careful and shaking just enough for you to feel it.
âSay it again,â Jack said, rough and wrecked.
Your chest trembled.
His gaze held yours, bare now. âSober.â
You nodded. âI want you forever,â you said.
His face broke.
You kept your hand against his cheek. âI want us forever.â
Jackâs eyes moved over your face like he was trying to memorize the exact shape of you saying it in daylight.
You swallowed. âAnd someday, if we both still want it after we talk about it like adults and figure out what it means and when and how, I want babies with you.â
A breath left him, broken and relieved.
You squeezed his hand. âNot today.â
His mouth curved faintly.
You gave him a watery look. âNot while Iâm hungover and wearing your T-shirt.â
Jackâs thumb brushed beneath your eye. âGood.â
You huffed a tiny laugh. âGood?â
His hand stayed on your face. âIâm not doing anything that important while youâre hungover.â
You looked at him. The words landed strangely. Not because of what he said. Because of how he said it. Careful. Measured. Like there was another thought somewhere behind his eyes.
Your fingers stilled against his cheek. âJack.â
He looked at you for a long second. Then he leaned forward and touched his forehead to yours. You closed your eyes. His hand stayed warm against your face. For a while, neither of you moved. The coffeemaker hummed quietly in the kitchen. Your coffee sat cooling on the table. Jackâs thumb moved slowly beneath your eye, then over your cheek, then down to your jaw, like he was making sure you were still there. You were. So was he.
You whispered, âSo we talk?â
Jack nodded against you. âWe talk.â
âAbout all of it?â you asked.
His voice stayed low. âAll of it.â
Your throat tightened. âMarriage first.â
Jackâs hand slid to the back of your neck. âUs first.â
You breathed out, shaky but relieved. âUs first.â
Something settled in him at that. Not all the way. Maybe nothing that big ever settled all the way. But enough that you felt the tension change beneath your hands. Enough that you knew he was letting himself believe you. You leaned into him, and Jackâs arm came around your waist, drawing you close until your face tucked into the warm place beneath his jaw.
You breathed him in. Coffee. Soap. Jack.
His mouth pressed to your hair.
âI really did mean it,â you whispered against his shirt.
Jackâs hand spread across your back. âI know.â
You held onto him tighter. âSober.â
His chest moved beneath your cheek. âI know.â
The words were quiet, but they mattered. They mattered because he believed you now. They mattered because you had said them in daylight. They mattered because the future did not feel like something you had thrown at him anymore. It felt like something he had caught. Something both of you were holding.
Jack did not tell you about the ring.
Not then. Not while your eyes were still red from crying and your coffee had gone cold on the table. Not while you were hungover and wearing his T-shirt in the middle of a morning that had already asked too much from both of you.
He wanted to. Christ, he wanted to.
The ring was upstairs, hidden in the back of his dresser.
For the first time since he had put it there, thinking about it did not feel like staring at a locked door. It felt like reaching for the handle.
Soon, Jack thought. Not someday. Soon.
He was afraid now. He would probably be afraid when he asked. That did not matter as much as it had yesterday.
You shifted against him, your cheek still pressed to his chest. âYouâre thinking.â
Jack looked down at the top of your head. âUsually am.â
You huffed softly into his shirt. âDangerous.â
His mouth curved against your hair. âYouâre one to talk.â
You lifted your head enough to look at him. Your eyes were tired, still a little glassy, but warmer now. Less scared.
Jack brushed his thumb beneath one of them, catching the last trace of tears. âHeadache?â
You blinked at him. âYouâre checking my symptoms now?â
His expression stayed serious, but his eyes softened. âSomebody has to.â
A small smile pulled at your mouth. âMild headache. Emotional damage. Coffee helped.â
Jack nodded once. âFood next.â
You let out a quiet laugh. âYou emotionally devastate me before 10 a.m. and now youâre making breakfast?â
Jack stood and held out his hand. âThatâs the plan.â
You looked at his hand, then up at him. âVery husband material.â
The words landed. Not like last night. Not like a shock through his whole body.
This time, they settled somewhere deep.
Jack looked down at your hand in his. At the empty place on your left ring finger. Then back at your face.
By the end of the week, he thought. His hand closed more firmly around yours.
âCareful,â Jack said.
You smiled faintly. âWith what?â
He pulled you gently to your feet, close enough that your chest brushed his. Then his voice dropped, rough and quiet. âWith that husband material shit.â
Your smile grew, soft and unsuspecting. âWhy?â
Jack looked at you for a long second. Because the ring was upstairs. Because he had spent three weeks pretending fear was timing. Because you had said forever sober.
Because he believed you.
Because soon, if he had anything to say about it, you were going to have his ring on your hand.
Jack leaned down and kissed your forehead.
âBecause Iâm starting to take you seriously,â Jack said.
Your eyes softened. âGood.â
Jack held your hand and led you toward the kitchen. The ring stayed upstairs.
Fortuna Favet Fortibus (Fortune Favors the Strong): Chapter 9 Part 1
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Summary: You as a Forensic Psychiatrist have spent your life running into chaos, from Helmand Province to the dark corners of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. You know how to manage traumaâeveryone else's, that is. But after a bullet leaves her hospitalized after the death of a child. The question echoes louder than any gunshot: How much is too much?
The worst part of your job wasnât the violenceâit's the waiting. As a profiler, you see the patterns forming, you see the signs, and you see the impending threat, but the BAU always arrives after the bodies begin to fall. In war, seeing death is not a chance but a guarantee. You had the names of those lost forever etched into your flesh. Leaving the FBI seemed the only option. Pittsburgh was a safe place to land.
Dr. Jack Abbot knew a thing or two about war, trauma.The former Army Combat Medic carried his own ghostsâmemories of tourniquets applied under fire, the smell of cordite and blood, and the awful, haunting silence when you failed. Heâd learned to live in the aftermath.
You didnât expect your new beginning to be an unsolicited offer from PTMC. You didnât think you would accept. But you had and now youâd be working alongside the man who saw you at your worst: Jack Abbot.
Content/Warnings: graphic depictions of violence. Child death, murder, psychological drama, trauma, found family, fluff& romance, humor.
The Pitt/ Criminal Minds Crossover:
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five
Chapter six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight
CHP 9
The central hub of the Emergency Department was a symphony of controlled chaos, but for Dr. Jack Abbott, it was just the background noise of another Tuesday evening. Shift change had come and gone, the handoff was complete, and Jack was currently buried in a mountain of digital charts. He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes, the sterile glow of the tablet reflecting off the lenses of the reading glasses he begrudgingly wore when his eyes started to cross.
"I'm just saying, Whitaker, if Rogers passes out during a minor laceration repair one more time, I'm going to start making him wear a helmet," Dr. Trinity Santos's sharp voice cut through the hum of the ED.
Jack didn't look up, but the corner of his mouth twitched. Santos was clocking out, her backpack slung over one shoulder, looking infuriatingly energized for someone who had just finished a twelve-hour shift. Dennis Whitaker trailed behind her, looking like a wrung-out sponge, his scrubs rumpled and his expression exhausted.
"It was a scalp lac, Santos," Whitaker defended the new intern weakly, leaning heavily against the edge of the hub. "Scalp wounds bleed entirely out of proportion to their size. It looked like a murder scene."
"It was a half-inch cut from a cabinet door, Dennis," Santos shot back, rolling her dark eyes. "If she can't handle a cabinet door, how is she going to handle a GSW to the chest?"
Mel King chose that exact moment to hustle out of the locker room, adjusting her black scrub top over a long-sleeved purple shirt. She had an overnight shift ahead of her and was already clutching a massive thermos of what smelled like highly caffeinated tea. No doubt courtesy of Penelope Garcia. The thermos was large, pink, and glittery with a large yellow smiley face. Mel looked as if she was not sure how it had ended up in her possession. But Mel was too nice to refuse the Oracle of Cyberspaceâs kindness.
"Hey, King," Santos called out, abandoning her torment of the med student. She leaned over the counter, eyes gleaming with that familiar, ravenous curiosity. "How's your badass cousin doing? The one with the tactical knives and the lethal glare?"
Jack's finger paused on his tablet screen. He didn't look up, but his posture went utterly still, every ounce of his attention suddenly zeroed in on the conversation. It had been nearly a week since Dr. Y/N Y/L/N had been discharged from PTMC. A week since Penelope Garcia had packed up her glittery laptops, her knitted menagerie, and her heavily medicated federal agent, spiriting them away from the hospital's sterile walls.
Mel sighed, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Y/N is... well, she's Y/N. She was discharged a week ago. Penelope refused to let her go back to Virginia, so she rented out this massive, gorgeous Airbnb over in Squirrel Hill. Itâs practically a fortress of throw pillows and organic teas. And misery.â
"But how is she?" Santos pressed, practically vibrating. "Is she healing? Is she planning her next takedown?"
"She's in pain," Mel admitted quietly, her gaze dropping to the floor. "She hides it poorly. You know how she isâstubborn to a fault. She'll grit her teeth until her jaw pops before she asks for another Gabapentin, let alone an opioid. But mostly... she's bored."
Jack finally looked up, pulling his glasses off and letting them hang from his scrub top. "Boredom and a former Marine with an immobilized dominant arm. That sounds like a dangerous combination."
Mel let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-groan. "Dangerous is a word for it.â She gave a slow nod and pushed her black-framed glasses up her nose, with a grimace. âShe tried to reorganize the Airbnb's kitchen left-handed yesterday and nearly took out Penelope with a flying colander. She has been banned from places with sharp edges.â
Jack gave a deep chuckle and leaned back, planting his butt on the edge of the desk and crossing his arms over his chest.Â
âShe's going stir-crazy. Without cases to consult on or suspects to profile, her brain is basically eating itself."
Santos grinned, leaning closer. "So what is she doing to pass the time? Interrogating the mailman? Profiling the Uber Eats drivers?"
"Worse," Mel deadpanned. "She's lecturing."
Jack's brow furrowed. "Lecturing? Where?"
"Carnegie Mellon," Mel sighed, shifting her heavy thermos. "Agent Rossi called in a favor. They needed a guest lecturer for a joint session of their upper-level Pre-Med and Forensic Psychology courses. Daisy jumped at it. Said if she couldn't hunt psychopaths, she might as well teach the next generation of doctors how to spot them. She's starting next week."
Santos let out a low whistle, her eyes wide. "Damn. I'd pay good money to see that. She gave me a masterclass on how to sever the subclavian with a knifeââ
âKa-bar.â Jack and Mel instinctively corrected.Â
Santos waved a hand. âYeah right, the weird knife with the fishing hook, while hopped up on painkillers. I think Crash nearly pissed herself. I can only imagine what sheâs like with a PowerPoint and a captive audience."
"Terrifying," Jack murmured under his breath, a slow, wry smile touching his lips. "She's absolutely terrifying."
âShe told me that standard textbook profiles are useless if you don't know how to apply them under pressure. She's going to take them through a few carefully curated, heavily redacted cases to teach them exactly what profilers look for when they step onto a crime scene." Mel set her thermos on the counter and wrung her hands and admitted. âSo she is building case files.â
Denis blinked, tilting his head to the side in question. âCase files? Like real files? On real dead people?â
Santos scoffed, and Jack fought a smirk. Mel frantically shook her head while waving her hands. âOh! No, no. Only the killers she is lecturing about will be.â
Santos leaned over the desk. âWhat is she covering?â Her eyes were gleaming with the need to know.Â
Mel paused as she began to fiddle with the thermos. Jack knew it to be a self-soothing ritual. Over her night shift block, he had noticed she did it often when she did not know what to do with her hands.Â
âWell, it's kind of like a compilation.â Melâs eyes gleamed as she remembered what Y/N had told her about her lecture plan. âShe always breaks down the big two:.â
Mel held up her free hand, ticking the criteria off her fingers with the clinical precision of a resident detailing a patient's chart:
âVictimology:Â how to determine why the specific victims were chosen, moving beyond surface-level connections to understand the UnSub's internal logic. Why was the tall red head chosen over the easier-to-control petite blonde?â
Dennis scrunched his brow. âI never want to know how your cousinâs mind works.â He gave a slow shake of his head, rubbing the back of his neck. âI prefer the inner workings of the minds of serial killers to remain a mystery.â
Santos rolled her eyes and waved a hand at him. âHush, Huckleberry. The grown-ups are talking.â
Dennis scoffed but did not seem to take offense. He pulled a protein from his pocket, opened it, and automatically split the chocolate-flavored bar in half, handing it to Trinity. She took it and took a bite.
âWhatâs next, Mel-inoma?âÂ
Mel held up another finger. âSignature versus Modus Operandi: how to differentiate between what the killer had to do to commit the crime (MO) and what they needed to do to fulfill their psychological compulsion (Signature).â
Jack reached for his coffee and sipped. His mind created a mental picture of the lecture. Y/N at the front of a room of bored college students there for credits. By the end, you were either going to traumatize them or spark a curiosity.Â
Finally, Mel uncurled a third finger. âThen after going through what the BTK had in common with the Boston Strangler. Which will no doubt lead to the discussion of the true definition of insanity. Y/N is very passionate about that.â
Jack gave an understanding hum.
Mel grinned and continued. âThen she's basically turning her Carnegie Mellon appearance into part lecture, part live-action Clue." Â
Jack raised an eyebrow, his hazel eyes gleaming with a mixture of amusement and profound respect. He remained leaning against the edge of the hub, his arms crossed over the chest of his black scrubs.Â
"Live-action Clue? With college students?" He asked, not one bit surprised that the mind that, while drug-addled, had complimented his bicep and grip strength, could, while sober, come up with her own take on a classic board game by turning it into âHow to Catch a Serial Killerâ.Â
Mel continued to explain about how Penelope had been printing out cases that came from the BAU archive and smooshing them together to make things more difficult. When she was not building the new systems for the hospital from scratch. There would be no files on Bundy or BTK. Nothing that had been broken down adanauseiam by documentaries and profilers.Â
âI want to live inside your cousin's brain,â Santos said seriously. Jack winced, and Mel pulled a face.
âTrust me, kid,â he said, voice low and carrying a note of understanding of the darkness that had consumed Y/N adult life. âYou donât. Right now it is late case files and endless shifts that are keeping you up at night. Be grateful for that.â
Trinity paused, pulling the worn journal from her bag, and tapping a nail against the cover. âOkay, fair.â
But then a fierce, admiring grin broke across the intern's face, completely overriding her momentary concession. "But still. You have to admit, your cousin is a total badass."
Mel sighed, though a fond, distinctly proud smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She clutched Penelope Garcia's glittering thermos a little tighter to her chest. "I usually prefer âstupidly stubborn', but... yeah. She is."
"No, badass is the correct clinical terminology here," Santos insisted, slapping her hand flat over the leather cover of the green notebook Y/N had lent her. "I was reading her notes on that string of homicides in Ohio. She actually calls a murderer a murderer. Do you know how rare that is in academic psychiatry? Thereâs no hand-wringing. No endless pages of poetic, bleeding-heart excuses about their childhoods or how society failed them."
Trinity leaned forward over the charting desk, her dark eyes flashing with absolute conviction. "Don't get me wrong, she acknowledges the data. Sure, trauma and abuse contribute for some of them. It's a factor. But she actually put it in ink that some people are just *born wrong*. There is no magic answer as to 'why'. They crave power, they like playing God, and that's it. She gets that. She doesn't sugarcoat the monster just because it wears a human suit."
Jack took a slow sip of his coffee, his hazel eyes watching the young doctor over the rim of his cup. He had to admit, Santos was incredibly perceptive when she wasn't being utterly exhausting. That was exactly what made Y/N so devastatingly effectiveâand what made her so difficult to argue with. She saw the world with a terrifying, unfiltered clarity.
Dennis Whitaker, who had been staring blankly at a blinking cursor on his tablet, suddenly shivered. He looked distinctly traumatized as he scrubbed a hand over his pale face.
"You guys can obsess over her brain all you want," Dennis piped up, his voice cracking slightly, "but I'm still stuck on her pain tolerance. Forget the psychology for a second. Did you see her in Trauma Two?"
Dennis looked between the three doctors, his eyes wide and pleading for someone to validate his horror. "She was sitting there with a pulverized shoulder, complaining about a rainbow menace of love and snuggles, and she was barely even flinching. She was completely unmedicated at that point! Who does that? It was terrifying."
From her spot at the edge of the hub, Mel snorted at the same time as Jack.
"A Marine," Mel and Jack offered in unison, their voices completely deadpan and perfectly synced.
Dennis blinked, looking back and forth between the resident and the attending. "What?"
"A Marine," Jack repeated, setting his coffee cup down on the desk with a definitive thud. He leaned back, his broad shoulders settling against the counter, a nostalgic, slightly weary smirk curling his lips.
"I served with a lot of tough sons of bitches when I was a combat medic," Jack explained. His gaze dropped to the floor for a fraction of a second, the memories of sand, blood, and the deafening roar of medevac choppers flickering through his mind before he looked back up, his eyes locking onto the med student. "Guys who would take shrapnel to the thigh and ask for a piece of duct tape so they could get back to the line. And I will always maintain, to my dying breath, that the Army is vastly superior in every conceivable way."
Mel rolled her eyes behind her black-framed glasses but didn't interrupt, well used to the inter-branch rivalry that Jack and Y/N seemed to naturally exude whenever they were within a ten-mile radius of each other.
"But," Jack continued smoothly, holding up a finger to emphasize his point to the wide-eyed med student, "I will freely admit that Marines are an entirely different kind of stubborn. Those people treat the word 'quit' like it's a personal insult to their bloodline."
Jack shook his head, a fond, exasperated smile touching his lips as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I patched up a Marine once who had a dislocated shoulder and a cracked orbital bone. He refused the morphine because he said it would make his aim sloppy. Sat there grinding his teeth down to dust while I popped his joint back into place. That's what your cousin is," Jack said, looking over at Mel. "Sheâs a breed of human that weaponizes their own misery to get the job done. Pain isn't a deterrent to them, Dennis; it's just another variable to calculate."
"Exactly," Mel agreed, taking a sip from the aggressively pink thermos. "When she was shot in Helmand, she practically crawled a mile to the medevac point because they were taking heavy fire and she refused to be carried. She is practically made of stubbornness and spite."
Dennis let out a long, shaky breath and slumped further against the hub. "Remind me to never, ever get on her bad side."
"A wise life choice, Huckleberry," Santos smirked, patting the med student condescendingly on the shoulder before hefting her backpack higher. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go home, sleep for fourteen hours, and dream about being half as cool as Dr. Y/L/N. See you on the dark side, Dr. Abbott."
"Get out of here, Santos," Jack muttered, waving her off, though his smile lingered long after she and Dennis disappeared down the hallway.
The ED hub quieted slightly, leaving just Jack and Mel amidst the glow of the monitors. Mel adjusted her grip on the thermos, her expression softening.
"She really is doing okay, though," Mel said quietly, ensuring her words were just for Jack. "The boredom is driving her crazy, and she complains about the sling every five minutes, but... resigning from the BAU. It was the right call. The ghosts are getting a little quieter."
Jack nodded slowly, a profound sense of relief washing over him. He picked his tablet back up, the sterile light reflecting off his glasses.Â
"Good. Let's hope those Carnegie Mellon students know what they're in for. My money says she makes at least one pre-med student cry by Friday."
Mel laughed, a bright, genuine sound that echoed over the hum of the monitors. "I give it until Wednesday."
***
Part 2 of Chapter 9 coming by end of the week then TMGI
