live now for the world to see @buckytakethewheel - Tumblr Blog

puppy love

Summary: The first time you and Leo met was as seven year olds on a playground. His first words to you? “You’re gonna be my wife”. Almost two decades later, you’ve heard that phrase leave his mouth more times than you can count. But is there a chance it will ever mean something real? Pairing: Bestfriend Leo Reilly x Bestfriend Female Reader Warnings/tags: childhood friends to lovers; heavy pining & lots of yearning; slow burn; quite a few childhood flashbacks; unrequited love (but actually not); codependency; drinking & alcohol abuse (heavily depicted); underage drinking; parental neglect (mentioned); emotional hurt/comfort; lots of fluff; simp Leo Reilly; jealousy; smut; loss of virginity; virgin!Leo; involuntary climax (leo cums in his pants); boob praise & a lot of boob play (leo is really into boobs okay); p in v; unprotected sex (discussed before the act); soft sex; creampie; multiple orgasms; aftercare; happy ending Word count: 18.3k Notes: holy fucking shit. truthfully, that's all i have to say. this is without a doubt the longest fic i have ever written, and i poured my whole ass heart into it. worth the headaches, though. i love leo, and i am so glad to have @sheriff-bodecker and @phoenix-in-writing sharing the leo fanclub with me, to the point we decided to dedicate an entire event to him. this is the first fic from the leo season collab and i could not be prouder of this little group <3 long live Leopold Reginald Reilly the Third !

There is a particular kind of feeling when you have someone that has always been a part of your life without ever leaving, one that starts so early you can’t remember its beginning. No single moment you can point to and say there, that’s when it started. It’s just always been there, the way the sky is always there, so constant you forget to look up and really notice it.

You have never known a version of yourself that didn’t have Leo Reilly in it. He’s threaded through every year you can remember, every joke you’ve ever laughed too hard at, every ridiculous, offhanded thing he’s said so many times it stopped sounding like words and it started feeling like weather, just something you live inside of, something you have to adapt to, instead of something you hear. This afternoon, he is sitting cross-legged on your bathroom floor with your left foot in his lap and the concentration of a surgeon, tongue caged between his teeth, holding a little brush of pink nail polish very carefully.

Still in the outfit he wore out earlier, a green button-down with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows, collar undone, looking like he rolled out of bed and into a pile of money. He’s twenty-five now, technically an adult, technically a person with an apartment who should be finding a job and having a life that doesn’t orbit yours; yet here he is, on your bathroom floor on a Tuesday afternoon, painting your toenails like this is the most important task he has been assigned all year. He slept here last night. And the night before. If you think far back enough, maybe the entire past seven nights. Your guest bedroom is apparently one of his favorite places in the entire world.

“Hold still,” he says, never taking his eyes off your nails.

“I am holding still, Leo.”

There’s a soft tap on your foot not two seconds later. “You’re wiggling your toes, stop.”

You don’t think you are wiggling your toes, if you are absolutely honest, but the sight of Leo moderately frustrated is something you’ve seen so rarely that you can count it on one hand, maybe, so you take pity and try to still your foot as much as possible. The polish has already been smudged twice and he had to start over each time, and it turns out that a small part of you likes watching him do this, focused like a man defusing a bomb.

“There, perfect. See, I’m very good at this,” he says, finally, dragging the brush in one clean line.

“You’re okay at this,” you correct quickly.

“I’m excellent at this. Should’ve gone to beauty school instead of business school, real waste of a talent.”

“You didn’t go to business school. You went to like… one semester of business school, and maybe three classes in total. ”

“Details.” He caps the polish, blows gently on your toes like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Leo has been doing exactly this since you were both sixteen and you broke your ankle jumping off the Delacroix’s pool house roof on a dare he issued, and you refused to let anyone but him touch your feet afterward, some weird way in your head to impose him a strange sense of guilt. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Flexing your foot to inspect the work, you realize that it really is good. It always is, annoyingly, even though his hands aren’t all that steady, but he makes up for it with an attention to detail he never seems to apply to anything else that actually matters for his own life. “Thank you,” you say.

“Say it like you mean it,” he asks.

“Thank you, Leo, for the pedicure I didn’t ask for.”

“You didn’t have to ask,” is all he says, like it’s obvious, already reaching for your right foot, uncapping the little bottle again. From the outside, most people will think Leo is a lot. Loud, a little much, always the center of whatever room he’s in with his eccentric clothes and taste, the kind of guy your parents’ friends politely refer to as “a character”. But underneath the noise there’s…. this. Devoted acts of service that he does without being asked and never mentions again. Bags carried during shopping sprees, rides given at two in the morning without complaint, an entire Saturday once spent repainting your childhood bedroom because you mentioned once, offhandedly, that you didn’t like the old color anymore, a muted yellow that soon transformed into a happier pink.

Leo might be loud, and fun, an enjoyer of throwing his fortune out at any opportunity if it meant people would stay with him, around him, never really leaving as long as the fountain of money doesn’t run dry. But nobody else gets to see this part of him, the one that allows himself to be vulnerable without the fireworks and theatrics. The same version of him you saw wandering around in your kitchen earlier today, disheveled hair, grabbing an expensive bottle of liquor your father had offered you as part of your graduation gift (that you never touched because you detested the taste of it) and downing a glass of it in one go.

“I saw you this morning. In the kitchen,” you say, watching his face instead of your foot now.

His hand doesn’t stop moving, but something in his jaw does. “Saw me what?”

A few seconds of silence are an attempt at figuring whether or not you want to go down this path today. “Pouring yourself a drink. At eleven in the morning, Leo.”

“It was noon.”

Sigh. “That doesn’t make it any better.”

“It’s a little better.” Leo still doesn’t look up from your toes, all his attention very carefully placed on the brush, on the line of color, life if he just keeps painting you won’t actually make him have this conversation. “It was one drink.”

“It’s always one drink. And then it’s the drink after that, and the one after that, and by the time I find you by a pool somewhere you can’t remember how many it’s been.”

“Unfair, that was one time.”

“That was last Tuesday.”

That gets him to at least move his eyes up and meet yours, a flash of something almost sheepish behind the blue hues gone as fast as it came, replaced by the grin he uses when he wants a conversation to be lighter than it is. It’s a good grin, one that’s gotten him out of more trouble than anyone should reasonably be allowed except, of course, when it comes to you. “In my defense, Tuesday was a very stressful day.”

That’s a new excuse, you think. You’ve heard him spew a few dozen ones before this. “Every day is a stressful day, but if you start doing this it stops being a reason and it becomes a pattern.”

Leo huffs. “You sound like my mother.”

“God, I wish your mother sounded like this.” His mother, for what it’s worth, adores you, has for eighteen years. What she doesn’t do, not nearly enough, is stay. She and Leo’s father have a habit of disappearing, to some resort, a month later to an island, followed by a trip that lasts a month where they take enough photographs to fill an entire album, and Leo gets left behind with the house and the housekeeper and a fridge stocked with expensive food that might be enough to fill the hole in his stomach, but not the one in his chest. No one calls it what it really is, and you’ve stopped waiting for them to.

Eighteen years is enough time for you to watch what that does to a son. The way Leo collects love wherever he can find it, from whoever’s willing to give him a minute of attention, trying to fill something that never was full. You were seven when he decided you would be the one he would rely on to keep it at least half full at all times, even if you didn’t understand it then, or really had any say in the matter. “Look, against my better judgment I do care about you, Leo. I don’t like what you’re doing to yourself.”

Leo sits back on his heels at that, polish brush stopped mid-air, and looks at you with an expression you don’t love. Not hurt, exactly, but closer to bracing for something he has heard before and can see coming again.

“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“When do you want to talk about it?”

“Never, ideally.” A ghost of a smile there, an attempt to make it a joke, but it doesn’t reach the rest of his face.

“Leo.”

“I’m fine,” he says, and it comes out sharp, sharp enough that he hears it too and softens on purpose right after, reaching for your foot again, returning to the ask to undo the edge in his voice. “I had a drink. I’m not gonna end up giving a slurred toast at somebody’s funeral.”

“That can’t be your bar. Eleven in the morning, Leo, and I’m standing there trying to figure out whether to say something or let it go because you get weird every time I bring it up, and I don’t know which option actually helps you.”

Something in those words lands. You see it, the joke draining out of his face, a more lost, uncertain version of him that doesn’t match the easy confidence he wears like second skin making its way into the light. Over eighteen years, you have seen it maybe a handful of times.

“I don’t know which one helps, either.” Neither of you seem to have an answer for that. Leo goes back to painting, slow drag of the brush over your nails even though there’s not much else to paint.

“You missed a spot. Pinky toe.”

“Sweetheart, your pinky toe barely has a nail, there’s no spot to miss—” but he’s fixing it anyway, tongue back between his teeth and furrowed brows, shoulders a little looser now that you’ve let the subject go slack, even if it’s not resolved.

Finally, he finishes all the nails and puts the cap back on the polish bottle, and admires his work with pride.

“Ten out of ten. Better than the place on Fifth,” he says.

You arch one eyebrow at him. “Ever so humble, Mister Reilly.”

He sets the polish aside but doesn't let go of your foot, thumb tracing absent circles at your ankle, same way it always does when his hands don't have a job to do anymore and default back to touching you instead. “Marry me.”

You don't even look up from checking the polish. “No.”

“Okay, just checking.” And you hate that you can hear the smile on his lips without even looking up to see it.

“You check a lot.”

“Gotta keep my numbers up.” He says it easy, grinning again, all traces of the last five minutes of conversation tucked neatly away behind it.

“One day I’m gonna say yes, and you’re gonna have no idea what to do with yourself,” you tell him, mostly as a joke, but also to watch what he does with it. Leo takes it like a champion and just shrugs.

“Try me, I’ll figure it out.”

Age 7.

Every rich family had their version of the same summer. Country club pools, garden parties with too many caterers, galas that started before you were old enough to understand what was being celebrated, only that there would be a string quartet and a table of tiny sandwiches shaped like triangles which you always prefered to the most expensive stuff.

Your version of summer, at least when you were seven years old, meant moving across the country. For the first few weeks, the neighborhood was new enough that you don’t know which of the big houses belonged to people worth knowing and which just existed there. You did become quickly familiar with the playground, though. It was the one thing that stayed the same in a week of boxes and a new bedroom and kitchen where you kept opening the wrong cabinets to get your favorite pink mug. There, in that fun corner, there were swings, a slide too hot to touch in direct sun, a sandbox only a few kids used because older ones decided that sand was for babies.

You were on the swings when he found you. Small for his age, with messy blond hair and wearing a blazer he had already shrugged half off because in his seven-year-old opinion blazers were for the big people. He walked straight up to the swing set, hands in his pockets, and stopped directly in front of you so you had to slow your swing down or risk kicking him.

Didn’t say hi or ask your name. Just looked at you for a second, head tilted, staring openly the way only children are allowed to get away with without feeling embarrassed.

“You’re really pretty,” he said, matter-of-fact, same tone he had used last week to tell his teacher that the sky is blue.

You just blinked. “…Uh.”

“Anyway,” he continued, since you made no further interruption, and he moved to your side before sitting on the swing right next to yours. Then he smiled the biggest smile you had ever seen. “You’re gonna be my wife.”

Tips of your feet dragging against the pebbles under, you stopped swinging entirely. “What?”

“My wife,” he repeated, patient, and on top of your seven years of age you did feel slightly offended that he seemed to handle this like you were the one being slow about the entirely new information. “When we’re grown-ups.”

A frown. “… I don’t even know you.”

“I’m Leo,” he informed, an interesting offer if you believed that a first name was all the information anyone could need before agreeing to marry someone. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Me and my parents just moved.”

“Oh, so we’re gonna see each other a lot!” He said happily, pumping his legs to catch up to a height you were no longer at. “That’s cool. I’m glad I told you that, we can start getting ready.”

Your voice was slightly irritated when you responded the next time, “I’m not marrying you.”

“Okay,” Leo replied, unbothered. You didn’t know this at the time, but he will say it approximately four thousand more times over the next eighteen years, always in the same tone that presents your refusal as a technicality he will get around to solving eventually. “But you will, though.”

Before you can figure out whether that was the strangest thing anyone had ever said to you or just the second strangest, a voice called out from behind him. A man in a linen shirt, sunglasses pushed up into hair that was clearly where Leo got his color from, jogging over.

“Leo. Buddy, you can’t just run off like that—” He stopped short when he saw you, glanced between the two of you like he was trying to work out what he had just walked into. “Sorry, sweetheart, he do something to bother you?”

“He said I’m gonna be his wife.”

Leo’s father laughed right as your own father came around the far side of the play structure, having spotted you from wherever he’d been unloading boxes at the house up the road, calling your name softly.

“There you are. I told you not to wander past the—” He approached and caught sight of Leo’s father, and there was a beat of two grown men sizing each other up before your dad stuck out a hand. “Sorry, we just moved in. Didn’t realize the playground already came with company.”

Leo’s father shook his hand, already smiling the way long time friends did. “Welcome to the neighborhood. Looks like the kids already beat us to the introductions.”

“She’s gonna be my wife,” Leo said again, unprompted, apparently feeling the information bore repeating now that there was a bigger audience.

Both fathers laughed at that, your father ruffled your hair and said something about getting home before dinner, and that was that.

By the time September rolled around, you had mostly forgotten about Leo, even though you occasionally saw him in the playground and he came over every time to say hello and repeat that you were very pretty.

So there was genuine shock in your face when you walked into Miss Green’s second grade classroom on the first day and he was already there, sitting cross-legged on the reading rug like he had been waiting for you specifically, and the second he spotted you across the room his whole face light up like he was opening presents on Christmas morning.

“You go here?” he said, loud enough that half the room turned to look.

“You go here?” You had assumed, somehow, in the innocence of a seven year old that he belonged to the playground and nowhere else. A fixture of that one afternoon, not a person who might show up again with a backpack and a name tag.

“I go here,” he confirmed, delighted, already abandoning whatever he had been doing in favor of crossing the room toward you. “This is so good. This is so good!”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer that directly. Instead he grabbed your hand and towed you toward the teacher’s desk, where a young woman with kind eyes and slightly crooked glasses was holding a pen and writing something down on a notebook.

“Miss Green, this is my wife,” Leo announced.

Miss Green stopped, blinked, looked at you, then at Leo. “That’s… nice, Leo. Why don’t you both find your seats, we’re about to start attendance.”

He didn’t move. “Can I sit next to her?”

With a quiet sigh, Miss Green put down the pen she had been holding. “You already have a seat assigned. And we need to find her a seat since she’s new.”

“Well, she’s my wife. We can’t be apart.”

You wanted to sink through the classroom floor. Instead, you settled for glaring at him with every ounce of seven year old fury you could summon which, you would learn, did not work on him. And Miss Green, against her better judgment, glanced between the two of you, sighed and adapted the seating chart so you two would sit together.

This meant Leo Reilly spent the rest of the year at the desk beside yours.

He passed you notes that were mostly just badly drawn pictures of the two of you. Stick figures, always holding hands, always with a scribbled sun in the corner, sometimes a dog that neither of you owned standing beside them for no reason other than ‘it’s our future dog!’. He informed every substitute teacher of the exact same fact, you’re his wife, even told the volunteer parents running the Halloween party.

For career day, a man came in and talked about being a dentist, and Leo made sure to tell him, too. You’re his wife.

Age 10.

You were at his house that day, which wasn’t unusual anymore, since somewhere in the last three years your two houses pretty much became one continuous property with an inconvenient road in the middle. You slept over, had a toothbrush in the bathroom, and he had a drawer of his favorite snacks stocked at yours, courtesy of your mother.

Some cartoon playing in the background that neither of you were watching with particular attention, a bowl of crackers going stale between you, was a moment interrupted by Leo sitting up so fast he almost knocked the bowl sideways.

“Wait here,” he said, already halfway to the door. “Don’t move, I have something.”

The unique thing about that day was that it was your birthday, and you didn’t want a party that year. Your mother had tried to push for one anyway, even start drafting a guest list, before you wore her down, and it was decided that you would instead spend your day exactly where you ended up spending most afternoons: sprawled on Leo’s bedroom floor.

Leo was gone and came back just as quickly, footsteps thudding down the hall and then back up. One fist closed tight around something, Leo was grinning like he had just pulled off a bank heist, and he approached quickly, kneeling down in front of you on the carpet, suddenly very serious after deciding he was about to say something extremely important. “Happy birthday. Close your eyes.”

Even though you wanted to immediately ask ‘why’, you complied because you’d come to learn that it was easier than arguing. You felt him take your hand, turn it palm-up, place something small but surprisingly heavy into it. When he finally told you to open your eyes, there was a ring sitting in your palm. A real one, one you knew adults use because it’s different from the pink and green ones you get as tiny gifts on your favorite magazines, stone the size of a marble catching the light from the window.

“Leo, what’s this?”

“It’s a ring!,” he replied chirpily, clearly very proud of himself.

You stared at it like it might be dangerous. “Whose ring?”

“Yours,” was his answer before you gave him a look. “Okay. My mom’s.”

“Leo—”

“She has like a hundred of them in her room, I swear!” he said quickly, afraid to be caught doing something he shouldn’t have. “It’s pretty! I wanted to do it like in the cartoons where the guy gets on one knee.”

Leo’s cheeks were slightly pinkish, and he was kneeling in front of you, palms braced on his knees, eyes wide. You weren’t old enough to understand the way your heart was beating inside your chest slightly off beat. “Do what?”

“Marry me.” Not a question, just an affirmation, all too obvious because the ring was the world’s least subtle clue. “Like, for real.”

You looked down at the ring in your hand, then back at him. “Bro, what’s wrong with you?”

“What?”

“You stole this!”

“She won’t notice.” A pause, the smallest flicker of doubt crossing his face, gone as fast as it came. “And I’ll put it back when I’m grown up and get a job and buy you a bigger one.”

“Your mom is gonna kill you, and you’re gonna get grounded until we’re in high school. And you’re gonna get me grounded too.”

Completely unfazed by your description of what was most likely his near future, Leo simply shrugged, used to ignoring consequences of his actions until he was actively getting yelled at. “You didn’t say no.”

“Well, I didn’t say yes! I said your mom’s gonna kill you.” You wanted to yell at him, throw the ring at his stupid head, but he was staring up at you with those huge, blue puppy eyes and again, your chest felt so tight you thought maybe it would be better to call your mom and ask her to come pick you up. With a huff, you crossed your arms. “I’m not marrying you. I’m ten.”

“When we’re big, then,” he conceded.

“You are so annoying.”

“Still not a no!” Leo beamed, the tiny bit of worry totally gone now. One of his small hands reached out to snatch the ring back from your hand, and you almost let him, fingers already opening up. Then, for no good reason at all, you stopped. Before he could grab it, you balled your hand into a tight fist, hiding the sparkly rock away behind your fingers.

Leo blinked at your closed fist, hand frozen mid-air. For two seconds he looked genuinely baffled, brow furrowing as he tried to compute why you were suddenly hoarding the stolen treasure.

“Hey. We gotta hide that before my mom comes up with more juice boxes,” he said, nudging your knee with his.

Stubbornly, you pulled your fist close to your chest. “No.”

“Why?! You just said you’re not marrying me!”

“Because!” Glaring at him, you tried to sound like the voice of reason even though your heart was doing that treacherous flutter against your ribs again. “If you take it back you’ll put it somewhere stupid like under your bed, and your maid is gonna find it, or your mom, or your dad. I’m keeping it so you don’t get us in trouble.”

His eyebrows shot up before a massive, insufferable grin slowly spread across his face, dimples popping into full view. “So you’re keeping my mom’s ring.”

“I’m safekeeping it. There’s a difference, idiot,” you huffed, sitting up straighter and shoving the heavy diamond deep into the pocket of your shorts.

“You’re keeping it, which means we’re gonna get married,” Leo sang out, shoving his shoulders up and down in a taunting little dance.

“Stop saying that!” You shoved his shoulder, which only made him laugh harder, until he lost his balance and flopped backward onto the carpet, kicking his legs in the air in triumph.

“You’re wearing my ring, you’re wearing my ring!”

“I’m not wearing it, it’s in my pocket! And if you don’t shut up, I’m throwing it out the window into the bushes.”

That threat made him stop and sit up, though the sparkle in his eyes didn’t dim for a second. “Okay. But this means it’s official.” He crossed his arms. “We’re basically married now. Which means you gotta share your birthday cupcakes with me.”

“I was already going to share my cupcakes with you.”

“See?” Leo crowed, leaning forward and poking your arm. “Wife stuff!”

As it turned out, after your tenth birthday, you kept the ring. At first, you told yourself you were going to give it back to his mother. You were just waiting for the right moment, a moment that wouldn’t involve explaining exactly how that ring ended up in your possession. But the right moment didn’t come, a week turned into a month, and the ring ended up wrapped in a white sock at the very back of your top dresser drawer, in the one part of your bedroom you knew your parents never looked.

Leo also never asked for it back. His mother never noticed it missing at all, which tells you a whole lot about the size of her jewelry box. You took it out, sometimes, late at night, when you were supposed to be asleep. You didn’t put it on, it was too big for your hand anyway, would slide right off if you tried, but a part of you thought maybe you would want to try it on in a few years and see how it felt then.

Age 16.

“Leo, I’m gonna jam an ice cub straight down your back if you don’t stop moving.”

“You’re pressing it too hard against my jaw, it hurts!”

“I’m pressing hard because you have a massive lump forming where you got hit, move your head over.”

You and Leo were sixteen now, side-by-side on the hood of Leo’s vintage cream convertible, the expensive car his father splurged hundreds of thousands of dollars in even though Leo is still only allowed a learning permit, parked under the shade of a massive oak tree at the far edge of the country club parking lot. A bag of melting ice wrapped in a plush club towel was balanced in your hands, pressing firmly against his jawline as Leo was sprawled back against the windshield, long legs stretched out and completely resigned to letting you play medic after a disastrously competitive croquet game. He was wearing a pink polo shirt with the collar undone, looking like he had just walked off the set of a high-end luxury ad campaign and something had gone very wrong during it.

“In ancient times, vanquished knights had whole teams of court maidens to tend to their battle wounds,” Leo hummed, wincing slightly as you pressed the ice towel firmer. “Why am I getting handled so aggressively?”

“Because you tried to show off, took a mallet to the face and then refused to let the club medic touch you. So you get me instead,” you replied calmly, gently shifting the ice pack over his swollen jaw, fully convinced you were not handling him nearly as roughly as he claimed. “You’re getting me an iced coffee for my troubles after this.”

“I’ll get you two iced coffees at the clubhouse,” he said, bright blue eyes crinkling as he grinned up at you. “Which makes me a fantastic husband.”

Letting out a sigh, you didn’t even look down. “We’re not married, Leo.”

“Yet.” Word lazily added as he rested his head back against the glass. “Will you marry me today? We can fly to Vegas, my dad’s pilot is bored, I bet he’d take us right now.”

“No, Leo.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No, Leo.”

A dramatic sigh, an exaggerated drop of his head, back of his wrist thrown over his forehead like a tragic theater actor. “You hurt me. You’re breaking my heart into a million tiny pieces. I do everything for you, I carry your bags, I ask my driver to take you for snack runs at two in the morning, I sit here and let you freeze my face off… where is the gratitude?”

“The gratitude is that I didn’t leave you to fend for yourself,”you said, lifting the dripping ice pack for a second to tap his uninjured cheek. “Keep the towel on it for ten more minutes or your jaw is going to look like a plum tomorrow.”

Leo shifted on the warm hood of the convertible, sliding closer to you, close, too close, really, but the concept of personal space had never quite existed between the two of you the same way it existed for everyone else on the planet. But as he leaned in to rest his chin near your shoulder, a sudden shift in the breeze brought a familiar scent over the smell of sun-warmed fabric. Smile faltering, you didn’t move, but your throat felt very tight, sickening knot of dread twisting in the pit of your stomach.

It was happening more and more lately. The faint, whiskey edge underneath his peppermint gum, the subtle tremor in his fingers when he handed you something, glassiness in those bright blue eyes that he tried hard to mask behind rapid-fire jokes. You knew the signs by heart, now. Knew he had probably slipped into the clubhouse locker room before the game, or poured something into a metal flask he kept hidden in his glove box. It broke your heart in a way you couldn’t put into words, navigating the urge to scream at him and beg him to tell you why he was doing this to himself, why top-shelf liquor was apparently the only thing keeping him tethered when he had an entire world standing right in front of him.

Jesus Christ, he had you. Was that not enough?

Instead, you swallowed the lump in your throat, burying the thoughts deep down, so deep you don’t think you’ll be able to find them until another whiff of alcohol reached your nose.

“What?” Leo asked softly, noticing the way you had gone all too quiet. Reached out, long fingers gently hooking into the strap of your wristlet and tugging it lightly. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing. Just wondering how you managed to lose to that guy,” you lied, forcing your voice to stay light even as your chest ached.

Age 19.

The Pier & Anchor wasn’t technically a club; it was rather an upscale, semi-exclusive beachside lounge built over a wooden boardwalk where rich kids with fake IDs went to pretend they were thirty, which is exactly what you and Leo were doing right there and then. Bass from the speakers vibrated straight up through the floorboards, mixing with the rhythmic crashing of the tide beneath the deck. Everything was loud, the room crowded, floor sticky with spilled elder flower gin. You were four cocktails deep, feeling that floating lightness where your feet didn’t quite feel attached to the your legs and everything everyone around you said was automatically the funniest thing you had ever heard.

Standing right beside you at the bar, Leo was looking absurdly attractive in a light blue shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He had spent the last two hours being the undisputed center of gravity for half the room, laughing with the bartenders ordering expensive shots on his running tab, and slinging a casual arm over your shoulders every time someone tried to squeeze past you in the crowd.

You, in your pink dress and sandals, had told yourself halfway through a paloma, that if Leo attempted to flirt with you tonight, you would let him. That if tried to kiss you, or make a move, you would let him. Or better yet, you’d kiss him back. Maybe drag him to the back of the bar, push him against the wall in the hallway by the bathrooms. There was no plan, nothing concrete that meant you would finally break whatever wall you always kept between the two of you, but there was an intuition. An idea to move forward, because you are both nineteen now, and life would never be fun if you didn’t try to kiss your best friend who was helplessly in love with you at least once in your life.

“Two more palomas, please, Marcus,” Leo called out over the blaring track, leaning over the bar with his dimpled smirk and tapping his credit card on the damp wood, looking entirely in his element.

“Leo, if I drink another paloma I’ll end up trying to backflip into the ocean,” you warned, leaning your hip against the bar and fanning yourself with a paper coaster.

His head turned, bright blue eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned at you. “I’ll catch you.”

“Excuse me.”

A voice came from your left, all too smooth, with a gravelly accent that cut through the noise. Standing on the other side of your barstool was a guy who looked like he had stepped off a surfboard and straight into your life. Sandy, sun-bleached curls that fell loosely over his forehead, warm hazel eyes, an easygoing smile that made whatever willingness you’d regularly had to push strangers away immediately fade, and he looked just about your age.

“Seat taken, or is it just serving as emotional support for your bag?” the guy asked, tilting his head with a charming grin.

The alcohol in your system made your cheeks feel extra warm, and a little jolt of excitement ran down your spine.

“Oh,” you said, letting out a tipsy giggle as you reached over to scoop your leather clutch off the stool. “Go ahead, it’s all yours.”

“Thanks,” he replied, taking the stool and turning it slightly toward you, leaning one forearm against the counter. “I’m Julian.”

Before you could reply, Leo’s arm materialized out of nowhere, dropping over your shoulders like a curtain. A silver vintage lighter was balanced between his knuckles as he held an unlit cigarette lazily between his teeth. “She’s with me,” Leo said smoothly around the cigarette, and although the words were delivered lazily, with an easy smile, you could tell the moment the usual golden-retriever charm harden slightly into something protective. You liked it.

Julian didn’t seem to flinch at the words. He looked at Leo’s arm over your shoulder, then at Leo, watching the expensive watch on his wrist, the linen shirt. “Are you two together?”

It was a simple question, which meant there was absolutely no reason for you to royally fuck it up. And yet,

“Oh, no! We’re not! This is Leo. He’s my… well, he’s just Leo. We’ve known each other forever.”

Just Leo.

For a fraction of a second, the entire universe seemed to freeze. Leo’s grip on your shoulder tightened just a fraction, then loosened. He had begun opening his mouth to say yes, or obviously, or she’s my wife, the same line he repeated every single time ever since he met you. Instead, he was a beat too late and had to hear you say those words that completely shattered his heart.

You had just looked at a stranger and said, “we’re not together.”

Julian’s smile widened, a confident flash of teeth. “Ah. Got it. I was gonna say, I’d be pretty devastated if I walked all the way across this room just to find out you were taken.”

Your heart did an unexpected flip. Julian was cute, very cute, and he was flirtatious in a way that felt fresh, and completely different from the predictable orbit of Leo.

Over the past couple of years, since high school ended and college started, you had dated. Kissed guys at house parties, hooked up with a frat guy during freshman year, had a three-month fling with a boy from your art history class, spent your summer nights flirting with cute bartenders and summer visitors. It was normal. It was what nineteen-year-olds did. You were figuring yourself out, having fun. And all the while, you never really thought about what Leo was doing during those times. You just assumed he was doing the same. Rich, handsome, girls hovering around him like moths to a flame at every party you went to.

What you didn’t realize was that while you were moving through the world, kissing other boys and having normal college experiences, Leo was completely stalled.

He didn’t want other girls, never had. When girls slid into his lap at parties, he bought them drinks, cracked jokes and made them laugh until their cheeks hurt before politely slipping away to check where you were. When his friends bragged about their hookups, Leo just swigged his beer, flicked ash off his cigarette and kept his mouth shut. He had built an entire universe inside his head where there was only ever one person at the end of aisle, and the idea of touching anyone else felt like a betrayal of a promise only he was keeping. Worse, he was okay with that. Leo was okay with waiting for you.

“So, can I buy you a drink that isn’t a paloma?" Julian said with zero hesitation.

“I actually love palomas,” you giggled, resting your chin in your hand, leaning into Julian’s space. “But I wouldn’t say no to a gin and tonic.”

The rest of that night blurred into a hazy mix of salty ocean air and loud bass. You let yourself get swept up in Julian’s laughter, let him buy you that gin and tonic and walk you out to the boardwalk, let him hold you against a wall and kiss you senseless and put his hand under your skirt until you were shaking, a normal nineteen year old girl being pursued by a cute guy you most likely would never see again.

All the while, you had told yourself Leo was fine. He was always fine, after all. It wasn’t until hours later, when Julian dropped you off back at the beach house around three in the morning, that you realized how wrong you had been.

The house was dark, save for a single flickering light out on the back deck facing the expanse of the Atlantic. You kicked off your heels, humming softly to yourself and stepped through the sliding glass door only to find Leo sitting on the top stair of the deck, alone, blue shirt unbutonned at the chest, sleeves pushed past his elbows, blond hair messy and damp from the sea mist. On the wooden plank beside his bare feet sat an empty bottle of bourbon. You were sure he had heard you approach, but he didn’t move, instead staring at the dark water.

“Leo? What are you doing out here at this time of night?” you whispered, alcohol draining out of your system in a cold rush.

“‘m just thinking. Don’t worry about it.” Which turned out, were the exact right words to get you to worry.

“Leo, how much of that did you drink?” You stepped toward him, reaching out to touch his shoulder, but for what might have been the first time in twelve years of knowing him, he subtly flinched away from your hand. Until that point in time, you could have never predicted how badly that would hurt.

“Just enough,” he murmured, but his eyes remained on the ocean. “Go to sleep, darling. You had a big night.”

Standing there on the deck for a long time, watching the heartbreaking tremor in his fingers as he reached into his pocket for a lighter and a cigarette, the night suddenly shifted and thoughts began to click together like pieces of a puzzle. Earlier that night, you had tossed words off to a handsome stranger, an attempt to sound funny and available, and in that attempt had managed to compromise the one good thing in your life. For twelve years, you treated his devotion like an inevitable constant, something that would always be there no matter how many times you mocked it. Treating his heart like an unbreakable toy and actively teaching him that his love was embarrassing. That all the time and patience he had for you did not even earn him the right to be called something more than ‘just Leo’ in front of a guy you had known for five minutes.

Unbeknownst to you, that night changed something for Leo. Leo, who used to drink because it was fun, because he was rich and he could, because high-society parties were too boring without alcohol in his veins, now became Leo who drank to numb the excruciating reality that he was irrevocably in love with a girl who kept him tucked safely in the background of her life.

Morning sun rises slowly over Leo’s apartment, the distant hum of urban traffic a quiet sound drowned out almost entirely by the whir of the heavy espresso machine heating up against the dark marble of the kitchen counter. Despite the inconvenience of turning that loud sound on early in the morning, you are moving quietly through his kitchen, sock-covered feet making virtually no sound against the smooth floorboards. Drowning (quite comfortably, you might add) in one of Leo’s oversized vintage button-downs, faded indigo fabric with the sleeves rolled up clumsily in uneven folds three times past your wrists so your hands can function properly. The hem falls generously well past your mid-thigh, swishing against your legs as you move.

And on the far side of the massive open living space, sprawled across the sofa, lies Leo.

In the stillness of a Sunday morning, he is curled sideaways against the cushions like a tired puppy, having managed to migrate entirely off his king-sized bed down the hall at some point in the early hours, seeking out the living room couch for reasons known only to his subconscious. One arm is wrapped tightly around a soft throw pillow, holding it against his chest like a child holding its favorite plushie, while the other is hanging lazily off the edge of the leather frame, tips of his fingers brushing lightly against the fluffy white rug beneath.

While the espresso machine finishes its warming cycle, you step away from the counter and wander down the hallway toward his bedroom, aiming to find a scrunchie in that one drawer you’ve come to know too well.

Over the span of the past few years, without a single word of discussion, the top drawer behind the doors of his dresser was meticulously transformed into a dedicated sanctuary for your belongings. Arranged in neat little rows is an entire collection of your life: a stash of your favorite claw clips, a handful of silk scrunchies in muted pastel tones, a fresh set of silk pajamas that smells like your laundry detergent, full-sized bottles of the exact night cream, cleanser and toner you use at home.

Leo never made a grand gesture out of it. He had simply noticed what you used when you were at your apartment, bought every single item himself and tucked them neatly into his own living space so that you would never have to worry about packing an overnight bag or have to feel like a temporary guest. An almost natural progression from having a drawer with his favorite snacks back at your place when you were children.

Grabbing a dark tortoise-shell claw clip, you twist your hair up into a loose knot at the back of your head before walking back out toward the kitchen. The couch cushions shift loudly as you grab yourself a mug, a dramatic groan echoing across the open expanse of the living room. Leo buries his face deeper into a pillow, lets out a muffled sigh and then a groan that sounds like an engine trying to turn over on a cold day before rolling onto his back. He blinks against the bright light, blue eyes bleary with sleep. And the first thing he does is search the room until he finds you.

His sluggish morning brain completes its boot sequence the moment his gaze locks into you standing by the kitchen island, in his shirt, with a steaming mug in your hands.

“Com’ere,” he rasps, voice off center with sleep, stripped of his usual goofiness. You take a few careful steps toward him.

“I’m holding hot liquid, Leo,” you inform gently. “Why did you fall asleep on the couch?”

“Doesn’t matter. Com’ere,” he grunts, not moving an inch of his back though his arms extend toward you in an unashamed invitation.

There is zero actual resistance in your steps as you walk over slowly shaking your head, because you’ve played this exact game too many times to pretend you’re going to win it now. The second you get within arm’s reach, Leo moves with surprising speed for someone who was unconscious thirty seconds ago, arms reaching out and catching you securely around the waist. Doesn’t tug hard enough to make you spill your coffee, but there is a solid momentum to the pull, maneuvering you down onto the edge of the cushions.

“Leo, watch the mug—”

“I’ve got it,” he mumbles, shifting his frame effortlessly to make room.

Before you can settle yourself properly, he moves his body, adjusting until your back is resting comfortably against the armrest of the sofa and his head is planted right in your lap. Buries his face directly into the side of your hip, letting out a long exhale that blows warm air through the thin cotton of your (his) shirt. One of his arms coils firmly around your waist, large palm against your power back, anchoring you down into his space as if he’s afraid you might float away if he lets go.

For a long stretch of time, neither of you says anything. The apartment is completely serene, and you carefully set your coffee mug down on the end table beside the couch, free of the immediate danger of scalding either of you, and rest your right hand on top of his head. Gentle fingers trace mindless paths through his messy hair, smoothing down the stubborn tufts that are sticking up at odd angles. Leo lets out a low hum of approval deep in his chest, vibrating against your thigh, and then you feel him shift barely an inch, head turning slowly and lips pressing the softest kiss to the skin of your knee. Fleeting, the kiss, too light and so entirely natural to him that he doesn’t even pause afterward, and his breathing settles back into a steady rhythm against your hip.

It is infuriating, really, how naturally he occupies your space. How he assumes, without a shred of hesitation, that your lap belongs to his head, that your time belongs to his morning, your presence the default setting of his life. How often he handles you with so much affection, sharing with you the kind of intimacy that would ruin friendships for anyone else. A dangerous line you two have walked for years.

From the outside, to anyone who didn’t know better, this would look like a relationship. Two people who fall asleep together and wake up entangled in the soft morning light. And the truth is, it isn’t just your lap he claims or your knees he kisses. It’s the way his lips will graze your temple when he walks past you in a crowded room, how he’ll press a lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth when saying goodbye, how he’ll pull you flush against his chest on cold nights, resting his chin on top of your head until you both drift off. Touches that no regular friends would share.

And yet for all the blurred edges, something between the two of you never fully cracked. The serious conversations never fully bloomed, nothing was ever labeled properly. Half-joking attempts at proposals that you shoot down always while letting actual feelings unravel slowly between you without being acknowledged. Sharing his bed, wearing his clothes, but keeping your heart firmly behind glass.

Leo turns his head slightly, resting his cheek against your thigh now.

“Have I told you today how much I love my wife?” he murmurs into the soft fabric of the shirt. You roll your eyes even though the comment helplessly turns your lips up into a smile. Reaching over, you pick up the warm ceramic mug from the side table, and gently tap the cool outer base of it against the crown of his head.

“Been telling me since I was seven, Leo. You’ve filled your quota for the first fifty years of our lives, I think,” you say softly, a poor attempt at exasperation in your tone.

“Well, I can’t let you forget it,” he hums lazily, arm tightening around your waist just a fraction. For a second, silence settles again, but only until Leo shifts and taps a slow rhythm against your skin with his fingers. “You’re coming with me on Friday, right?”

Friday night. Ever since you were seven and moved to this town, the Foundation Gala, the Reilly family’s annual charity event, has been the crown jewel of the town’s high-society season. A lavish grand spectacle held at the estate belonging to Leo’s parents, the kind of night where the champagne flows like water, live bands play on perfectly kept lawns, and Leo’s mother and father make their grand reappearance after staying gone to remote islands and business trips for more than half the year. They will pose for photographs and pretend to be the picture of domestic perfection, completely oblivious to the hollow space they leave behind in their son’s life every time they pack a suitcase.

And Leo will move through the crowd of hundreds of wealthy, wine-drunk guests with his dimpled grin that makes everyone feel a bit warmer inside. Will charm the wives of his father’s business partners, crack effortless jokes and, above all, pretend he isn’t secretly drowning. With all the skill of a seasoned actor, you know that is what he does best, because every single time, you are right there by his side to watch him do it.

“Mom’s been on my back about the guest list for three weeks. If I go alone, she’ll spend the entire night trying to introduce me to the daughters of the country club friends.”

You pause, fingers slowing in his hair. “I thought you were taking Penelope,” you say, trying to keep your voice offhanded, and somehow failing marginally, because the thought has been quietly picking at your brain for some time now. Penelope had been the newest addition to your broader social circle. Gorgeous and polished, a woman who looked like she would belong perfectly on the arm of a Reilly heir. You’ve watched Leo charm her at dinner parties and laugh at her jokes with that wide smile of his.

Leo doesn’t seem to immediately make the same connection you’ve made. He slowly uncoils from your lap and sits back against the sofa cushions, leaning close enough that you can see the tiny gold flecks in his blue eyes. “Penelope?” He repeats as if the suggestion sounds absurd in his mouth.

“You’ve been very friendly over the past weeks. She’s sweet, I thought maybe you’d like to take her.”

“You thought wrong,” he interrupts gently. “You know there’s never been anyone but you.”

You know there’s never been anyone but you.

A violent thud stutters against your ribs, spine-chilling realization swelling in your chest. Not for the way he feels; you’ve known about it for years, since you were seven and he decided to tell you in that playground that you would be his wife one day. Rather, you are discovering your own feelings. Admittedly, they haven’t just sprung up out of nowhere. You know they have always been there, deep down, rooted so deeply into the foundation of your life that you can’t separate them from your own pulse. A part of you has loved him through every joke and school note, every act of devotion he never asked credit for. But you spent eighteen long years building a fortress around yourself, almost two decades of deflecting his advances with laughter and steady stream of “No, Leo”s, teaching yourself to treat his advances like fragile jokes you could never take seriously.

And now, feeling the unsettling bloom of love unfolding in your chest, you feel entirely helpless. You wouldn’t even begin to know how to show it to him. How do you rewrite eighteen years of instinct in a moment’s notice? How do you tear down walls you built to keep your own heart safe? After turning him down for what feels like thousands of times, the prospect of reaching across the gap and admitting that you are falling, that you have been falling, hell, that you already have fallen, feels like stepping off a cliff into total darkness. You wouldn’t even know how to hold his hand as a lover without feeling like an imposter in a life you’ve shared forever.

So you swallow the confessions before they can reach your tongue, burying them under familiar safety.

“You flirted with her all night last Saturday. Even bought her drinks,” you remind him, objection coming out far weaker than you intended.

“I bought everyone drinks. That’s what you do when you’re rich,” Leo replies, a ghost of his usual self-deprecating smile touching the corner of his lips before fading into something more serious. “And I didn’t flirt with her. Well… okay. I kind of flirted. Sometimes I do that to see if you get jealous. Haven’t been lucky so far.”

His hands shift, and long fingers slide over your shoulder, into the nape of your neck, palm warm against your skin, tilting your head up just a fraction. “I’ve only ever wanted you. You’ve known that since we were seven years old.”

You know he’s telling the truth. That is the most agonizing part of it all, that Leo has never lied to you about how he feels, that he has spent his entire life wearing his devotion on his sleeve, making a joke of it only because you wouldn’t let him hold it out in the open.

“If I go with you,” you start, “you are not allowed to hide in the study with a bottle of scotch after an hour.”

A familiar, golden-retriever enthusiasm flickers back into his eyes. “Negotiating conditions already?”

“I’m serious, Leo. No disappearing and no drinking until you can’t remember who you’re talking to. You stay with me.”

His expressions softens naturally, and he leans in, nose brushing against your cheek, warm breath that makes your skin tremble, and his lips move slowly as he presses a soft kiss to the corner of your mouth, close enough to make your heart skip a beat, but hovering tantalizingly over that invisible line you haven’t crossed yet. It would be easy to turn your face just an inch and taste those pink lips on yours. So easy. “I’ll be on my best behavior,” Leo murmurs against your cheek, voice so teasing that it rivals directly the words coming out of his mouth. “Wear something pretty for me?”

Despite the knot of anxiety twisting in your stomach about Friday night, you let your head rest against his shoulder. “Yeah, fine.”

Friday afternoon sure comes fast enough to find yourself with your black dress zipped up, fabric clinging smoothly to your frame, eyes falling to the heels resting by the door, waiting for you. Yet, as ready as you might be, you find yourself standing frozen in front of your vanity mirror, gaze flickering between different points of the room as if waiting for an answer to every question you have ever had to materialize magically. Even the ticking of the clock on the wall sounds unnervingly loud for a moment.

A glance in the mirror reveals the exact silhouette you had expected for tonight. Careful makeup, a dress that makes you look every bit as expensive as your family is, a polished exterior meant for a room full of people who have more money than they know what to do with. Except, in the midst of all that, the only thing you are thinking about is Leo.

For eighteen years, deflecting Leo Reilly was practically a survival instinct. Counteracting every dramatic proposal with a no, thanking every act of devotion with just laughter or a sarcastic reply to keep feelings at bay instead of reeling them in. The fear had always been the same: if you ever let yourself fall, if you surrendered to the magnetic pull, the only constant in your life might shatter. What started as a joke had become the one thing in your life you could not afford to let go of. And what of his reckless habits? The faint smell of scotch hidden beneath gum? Loving him meant opening up to a heartbreak you weren’t sure you could survive, even if you knew, deep down, that a part of his own self-destructive tendencies came as the only way he could think of to lessen the pain of not having you.

Lately, though, the air has shifted. Calculated distance has become suffocating weight. Pretending your heart doesn’t stutter every time his breath brushes your neck, or that his read resting in your lap on Sunday mornings isn’t the anchor of your entire week is an unsustainable lie. Every time a hand is put up to push him back, another one is longing to pull him closer instead.

With a certain kind of self awareness you are thankful for, you understand that things changed mostly when Penelope came along.

Watching Leo charm her at dinner parties over the past few weeks hit like a icy bucket of water over a lingering dream. It feels deeply unfair, shameful, really, that it took the quiet threat of another woman stepping into his life to finally shatter your defenses. You hate that jealousy was the spark that ignited your resolve, that after nearly twenty years of Leo’s unyielding love, it took only a rival to make you face the truth.

It makes you feel flawed and selfish, and you sit with that discomfort instead of looking away from it. Because for the longest time, you believed love announced itself cleanly. That it would arrive like a single lightning strike, and then all you had to do was act on it. It’s the version of yourself you’d like to be, someone brave enough to have looked at Leo across a hundred ordinary mornings and just know, without needing anything to threaten it first.

There’s no dignified way to spin that. You didn’t wake up one day newly capable of loving him; you woke up afraid, and fear turned out to be a sharper motivator than devotion ever was. That’s the part that sits heaviest in your chest as you stand in front of the mirror. Not that you love him, because you have always loved him, in whatever buried way you allowed yourself, but that your heart reacts better to scarcity than certainty, the one thing Leo has given you unconditionally since you were seven. He made loving you effortless and low-stakes for you, safe, and maybe that’s why you never had to reckon with it, because there was no cost to deflecting a love that never wavered. It’s an ugly thing to realize about yourself. You wonder, standing here in your black dress with hands not quite steady, whether that makes what you feel for him less real. Whether wanting him now, finally, honestly, is somehow cheapened by the fact that you didn’t get here on your own.

But maybe love shouldn’t be measured by how it arrives, only that it’s there now. The most human part of it all, that people rarely find their courage in the calm, that it so often takes almost losing something before you can see it clearly enough to hold onto it.

You exhale slowly, pressing your palms flat against the cool surface of the vanity, and let your eyes drift toward the top drawer of your dresser. Almost on instinct, you walk over and your hand reaches out to slide it open, wood creaking softly in the quiet. Right at the very back, tucked beneath a stack of ordinary, forgotten things, rests a ball of faded cotton that used to be a plain white sock. Your fingers work slowly to untangle it until the item inside spills onto your open palm. Heavy, and cold, the dwindling sunlight from the window catches the stone, fracturing into dazzling shards of white and blue light across your ceiling.

The ring glitters just as fiercely as it did fifteen years ago on the carpet of Leo’s bedroom floor, when an ten-year-old boy with pinkish cheeks and innocent blue eyes stole it straight out of his mother’s jewelry box. You remember the utter panic that seized you back then, convinced his mother was going to notice and he would get grounded and he was going to drag you down with him. You had told him you’d safekeep it and find a way to put it back, afraid he never would.

Now, you look down at the sparkling rock sitting in your palm. It was never an accident that you kept it.

You didn’t forget to give it back to his mother, and you certainly didn’t lose it in the clutter of growing up. Had kept it wrapped away in that soft cotton sock through grade school, middle school, high school, straight through college, always in the back of your drawer but never lost. You kept it because deep down, you always knew.

Knew that if anyone was ever going to hold your heart, it was going to be the boy who painted your toenails with the concentration of a surgeon in your bedroom and the boy who repainted your bedroom just because you no longer liked the old color. The boy who had built an entire universe inside his head where there was only ever one person waiting for him at the end of the aisle.

Slowly, you raise your left hand and you bring the heavy band to your ring finger, sliding it over until it settles. It doesn’t slide off or wobble like it did when you were ten. Instead, it glides on smoothly and rests comfortably at the base of your finger.

Like maybe it’s finally exactly where it should be.

The Reilly estate comes into view slowly, headlights sweeping over the long gravel drive lined with valet attendants in crisp black vests. You have made this drive more times than you can count over the years, birthdays and holidays and every Gala since you were a teenager and Leo started inviting you as his plus one, but tonight your palms feel a bit damp as you shift in the back seat of the limo, your parents’ chauffer driving you to the meeting point.

You spot Leo before you’re even fully parked, standing at the base of the wide stone staircase that leads up to the estate’s grand entrance, exactly where he told you he’d be. He’s swapped his usual colorful clothing for a white dinner jacket tonight, with a deep burgundy vest peeking out beneath it, fabric embroidered faintly enough to catch light without looking gaudy. His black bow tie hangs loose and undone around his collar, because apparently some things never change no matter how old the two of you get, and his hair has been combed very carefully.

There’s something restless in the way he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot at the bottom of the stairs, hands stuffed into his pockets, eyes fixed unblinkingly on the driveway like he’s been counting the seconds since you told him you’d meet him instead of letting him pick you up. You had insisted. He argued, of course, some long-winded speech about how a gentleman should always pick up his date and you simply rolled your eyes and reminded him he had actual party-hosting duties to attend to. He’d relented eventually, though not without extracting a promise that you’d text him the second you left your apartment, which you had, and clearly he’s been standing at that staircase ever since.

When you step out of the car, Leo’s shoulders pull back, his posture straightens and he starts moving toward you before you’ve even fully shut the car door behind you.

“You didn’t have to make me stand out here like an idiot. Should’ve let me pick you up,” he says, with no real bite, just relief to finally see you. His eyes drag over you, cataloguing every detail and committing it to memory. “I know I asked you to wear something pretty but this is is… a whole new level. You might leave me out of breath. I might need mouth-to-mouth. Will you save me?”

That makes you giggle. “You’ll survive, Leo.” Your hands reach for him, tugging gently on his sleeve. “Your bowtie’s a mess, let me fix it.” Before he can spiral into whatever half-formed sentimental thing was clearly building behind his eyes, you pull him by the loose ends of the black silk and your fingers work quickly, tightening the fabric properly around his throat, a task you’ve performed more times than you can count, muscle memory taking over. Leo stands very still and lets you, hands falling loose at his sides.

“There. Presentable,” you murmur once it’s done, smoothing your palm flat against his chest, right over the burgundy vest.

“Barely,” he replies. You’re about to pull your hands back down when his gaze drops and lands on your fingers still resting against his lapel, and you watch the exact moment it happens.

How his entire face goes still, some automatic teasing comment dying somewhere behind his teeth before it can even fully form. Blue eyes fix on your left hand, on the ring catching the night lights. His mouth opens, closes, opens again, but nothing comes out. For the first time since you’ve met him, Leo Reilly has absolutely nothing to say.

His own hand comes up slow, fingers hovering just beneath yours like he needs to confirm what he’s seeing is real before he actually dares to touch it. Doesn’t quite manage to make contact, hand suspended in the space between you, and when his eyes finally lift to your face, they’re glassy in a way you’ve genuinely never seen on him before. A boy who spent eighteen years waiting, now staring directly at proof that the waiting might be over.

“That’s— Is that—” he starts, voice cracking clean in half.

You only smile, and thread your fingers loosely through his, the hand with the ring on it, resting easily inside his palm like it belongs there, which you suppose it always has.

“Come on, your parents are probably already looking for you,” you say, giving his hand the smallest tug toward the staircase.

Leo doesn’t move right away, just stands there for one more beat, dumbfounded, staring down at your joined hands like he’s terrified that if he blinks it’ll turn out to have been a very elaborate hallucination brought on by too many stressful hours, or maybe all the alcohol he’s had in his entire life is finally catching up to his brain functions.

“You’re wearing it,” a mumble as he wobbles slightly to follow you up the stairs, his face doing something you’ve never seen it do. “You’re… wearing it.”

“I am wearing it,” you confirm.

“You kept it. This whole time, you— fifteen years. You’ve had it for fifteen years, and you never—”

“Leo.” You squeeze his hand, cutting him off before he can talk himself into a full spiral right there on the front steps in front of the valet attendants. “You can crash out on me later, promise. But can we not do this here right now? Your mother is going to come looking for you any minute and I’d rather not have this conversation in front of her.”

A shaky chuckle leaves him, rough around the edges but genuine, and he lets you pull him up the remaining steps toward the towering front doors, golden light and champagne-glass chatter spilling out to meet you. On the way, Leo doesn’t let go of your hand, thumb rubbing absent circles over your knuckles needing the physical confirmation every few seconds that you’re actually still there, still wearing his ring.

The two of you make it maybe ten feet past the entrance before his mother descends on him in a flurry of perfume and pearls, sweeping him into an obligatory embrace for the benefit of a hovering photographer, and Leo throws you a helpless look over her shoulder, right before his father claps him on the back and steers him toward a cluster of business associates who all want a photo with the Reilly heir. You watch him go, slip effortlessly into the performance he’s given a thousand times, dimpled smile in place, easy laugh on cue, and you find a quiet corner near the terrace doors to wait it out.

It’s while you’re standing there that you spot Penelope near the champagne fountain, in a deep emerald gown that fits her like it was poured onto her, dark hair swept up in loose curls, laughing at something one of the Whitfield sons is saying. She looks infuriatingly lovely, the way she always does, and something unwelcome twists in your stomach.

It’s ridiculous, you know. You’re wearing his ring, and even then some old reflex in your chest wants to bristle at the sight of her, to catalogue exactly how many times Leo’s eyes might drift her way tonight. It doesn’t matter that she’s never done a single unkind thing to you, that she’s always been warm and easy and has no idea of the quiet role she played in shoving you toward tonight.

Penelope catches your eye across the room and lifts a hand in a friendly wave, and you make yourself smile back, wave in return, because none of this insecurity is her fault, and then exhale slowly, trying to talk yourself down.

“There you are.” Leo’s voice comes right against your ear, and then his hand is at the small of your back, having extracted himself from his parents’ orbit faster than you expected. His gaze follows yours before you can redirect it, lands on Penelope across the room, and he smiles. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” you tell him way too quickly.

Leo doesn’t look convinced, but instead of pushing, his fingers find yours, tugging gently. “Dance with me.”

You groan in complaint. “Leo, I hate dancing.”

“You hate dancing with anyone who isn’t me.” Already pulling you toward the small cleared space near the quartet, where a handful of couples are swaying beneath strings of light, Leo is quick to guide you through the crowd. “I just want an excuse to have my hands on you. Will you give me that?”

His hand settles at your waist, yours finds his shoulder out of pure muscle memory, and the two of you fall into step like you’ve done this a thousand times, which you have, at every one of these galas, except tonight there’s an extra weight between your joined hands.

“So, you saw Penelope,” Leo says quietly after a few slow turns, forehead nearly resting against yours.

“I don’t want to talk about Penelope.”

“I do, actually. Just for one second.” His hand at your waist tightens slightly, thumb pressing warm through the fabric of your dress. “I need you to know there’s nothing there. I flirted with her just enough to see if it’d get a reaction out of you which, for the record, is very pathetic behavior on my part and I regret every second of it now that I know it actually worked.”

Those words land like a personal offense, even if you know they are absolutely true. “It didn’t work,” you mutter, even as your face heats.

“You’re wearing my mom’s stolen ring on your left hand right now. It worked.”

You huff, biting back a smile you don’t quite manage to hide, and he laughs, spinning you slowly beneath the string lights. For a moment you stay quiet, just moving together in that easy rhythm, and the ridiculous knot of jealousy finally starts to loosen, dissolving beneath the weight of his hand at your waist. There’s never been anything between him and Penelope. You believe him.

His hand slides slightly higher on your waist, pulling you infinitesimally closer, and the space between you shrinks until there’s barely a breath of it left. Warmth radiates off him, and you smell the scent of his cologne mixed with the expensive champagne, and his eyes drop to your mouth for half a second too long before flicking back up, restrained ache living behind them.

“I’ve spent eighteen years imagining a hundred different versions of this moment. None come close.” His head tilts, just slightly, nose brushing along your cheekbone, lips a fraction of an inch from finally closing that distance you’ve spent too long carefully maintaining. Pulse hammering somewhere in your throat, you can feel his breath warm against your mouth, lips parting, his, yours, and in a spark of bravery, you close the gap just enough so that your mouths press for only a second, not a fully kiss but rather a brush of lips, a peck, if anything, but enough that you feel him trembling against you. “You— that’s— fuck, come on. That’s unfair.”

He’s still got that look on his face, blinking at you like the floor just tilted under him, when you laugh a little breathless, and definitely all too pleased with yourself for throwing him off balance properly.

“Unfair how?” All faux-innocence, even though your heart is thundering so hard you’re convinced he can feel it through the fabric of your dress.

“Eighteen years of waiting and you give me that? A whole two seconds of contact? And you expect me now to just keep dancing and being normal?” He complains with a frustrated sigh.

“That was the deal, no disappearing tonight. Which means no dragging me off into some closet, Leo,” you remind him, even as your fingers curl a little tighter into the lapel of his jacket, unwilling to actually put any real distance between you.

“I wasn’t going to suggest a closet.” A beat, then his blue eyes flick, very obviously, toward the dim hallway leading down. “But the wine cellar has excellent acoustics. For discussion purposes.”

“Leo.”

“Okay, fine,” he relents, laughing under his breath, though the look he gives the hallway one more time makes it clear the wine cellar suggestion isn’t fully off the table for some future night. “I’ll behave, mostly.”

True to his word, he keeps you close for the rest of the evening instead of vanishing the way he used to. Every time his parents try to peel him off toward some cluster of donors, his hand finds yours again within minutes, tugging you back into the fold of the conversation like it’s the most natural thing in the world for his fiancée to be standing right there beside him. By one in the morning, the crowd has thinned considerably, older guests retreating to their cars, waitstaff quietly clearly champagne flutes off the lawn. Leo finds you by the terrace doors again, bowtie completely undone now, jacket slung over one shoulder.

Proud to have fulfilled every single condition of your agreement, no disappearing, no alcohol, he parades his impeccable behavior knowing it’ll earn him what he’s wanted most his entire life: you.

He tucks you into his side, and you let him. “Can I take you home?”

You don’t hesitate to say yes.

The drive back is quiet in the best way, comfortable silence settling as city lights slide past the windows, Leo’s hand resting over yours on the console the entire way and thumb moving over the ring, against your knuckles. Leo has driven you home a thousand times, sometimes to your apartment, sometimes to his, but never has the moment felt like it does now, and never have you seen him quiet for such a long period of time. Your Leo is a chatterbox; and you realize during this drive that you quite like it when he runs his mouth, but still a part of you is strangely proud that you’ve made him a bit more introverted tonight.

His apartment looks the same as it always does when you walk inside, couch slightly rumpled from where he most likely passed out on it the previous nights, but at least there are no immediate signs of bottles anywhere that could ruin the butterflies in your stomach. The door clicks shut behind you, and you both toe off your shoes in the entryway at the same time, a wordless habit, oxford shoes landing haphazardly beside your heels.

You’ve barely straightened back up before his hands find your waist.

“Let me kiss you,” he says, desperation clear in his tone, nothing playful left in it this time. His forehead drops to rest against yours, both arms coming to surround you and pull you against him, and he sighs, a little shaky, tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip. “Please, please, please, let me kiss you. Don’t make me wait again.”

Your breath catches somewhere in your throat, and you think, for a half a second, about being a tease and make him wait again, but the way his blue eyes are staring straight into yours like he’s about to run out of air to breathe and you are his salvation does very little to your composure. Without anything left to deflect with, your hands pull on his vest and you push your lips against his. Leo exhales into your mouth, the relief of a man who can breathe again, one hand coming up from your back and tangling in your hair, tilting your head exactly where he wants it, and the other splays wide on the small of your back, keeping you flush against him until there’s no space left at all. Your fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt and you feel his heartbeat hammering beneath your fingertips, his usual easy version completely gone and replaced with a desperate man.

When his lips part yours, gentle, you answer without hesitation, tongue sliding into his mouth and meeting his halfway. Leo shifts his hips closer and makes a pained sound into your lips, nose wrinkling against yours, and you feel it, a shift, something, an unexpected reaction that tells you maybe he had been meaning to slow the kiss down and you had just done quite the opposite. And then, just as obvious as everything else about tonight, a sudden hardness presses firm against your hips through the dark fabric of your dress, directly under his pants.

Intoxicatingly hot is the thought of absolute lack of control from Leo. Still, a breathless chuckle bubbles up in your throat, and you start to pull your head back, intent on teasing him, even if briefly, just to watch his cheeks flush red under the dim entry hall lights.

“Leo—”

“No, don’t. Don’t stop—don’t stop kissing me.” His hands tighten instantly, one on your hair, the other on your back, and his eyes are blown wide, chest heaving like he just ran a mile. “Please. Mock me mercilessly later, but don’t stop kissing me now.”

You don’t stop. Lips mold together perfectly, tasting him, him tasting you, a string of saliva connecting you whenever you part for half a second to get hair and dive back in. It’s slow but no less messy, tongues moving together and curling into each other, and Leo shifts his hips once, experimentally, you think, the friction making him whine in pleasure, easily the most satisfying sound you have ever heard him make.

You answer by tilting your head and catching his lower lip between your teeth, tugging gently, and he surges forward again, like he’s trying to close a gap that is no longer there, trying to keep himself grounded and the only way is through your mouth. His hips twitch again, a little less controlled, small involuntary rolls that grind him against you in time with the way his tongue strokes yours. The pressure grows insistent with every second and a small part of you brain is saying that maybe you should slow down, because Leo is very clearly on the edge of something he can’t control, but you, now hopelessly addicted to the way he seems to lose it just by touching you, cannot stop. You can’t pry yourself away from him, your own kind of ecstasy, getting high on his reactions to you.

You almost taste in his saliva the moment he begins to lose himself, when his body starts to tense, shoulders locking, hand in your hair clenching hard enough to sting in the best way, and Leo is now the one who tries to pull back just a fraction, maybe to warn you, but you chase his mouth and refuse to let him go, moaning his name into the depths of him.

That’s all it takes to make him break instead of bend. A broken sound spills from him when he comes, hips jerking against yours and you feel the wet heat bloom between you almost immediately, soaking through the front of his trousers and leaving its mark. He keeps kissing you through it, messy and open-mouthed, and trembling so hard you have to wrap both arms around him and hold him upright, afraid his knees are about to give out.

Leo doesn’t move for a long moment, forehead pressed against yours, breathing uneven, both of you swaying slightly in the entryway like the floor’s trying to right itself under your feet. When he finally pulls back to look at you, his face is a mess of things; underneath all of them, particularly, he is mortified.

“Oh my god. Hey, so… I’m so sorry. What the fuck, that’s— that was so embarrassing, that has never happened to me.” He drags a hand down his face, refusing to meet your eyes now, ears burning red.

One of your hands comes up to cup his cheek. “Leo, please, it’s okay.”

“Well, I mean, it’s not okay, we could technically forget it ever happened, but it’s just, you know, I don’t—” He cuts himself off, shoulders curling in slightly.

“No, I mean, it is okay. I kinda liked it.”

That earns you the smallest flicker of a smile, quickly buried again under another wave of embarrassment. “You’re just saying that to be nice.”

“I’m not, I found it hot, if I’m being honest.” You watch the blush deepen impossibly further at that, and then he’s quiet for a moment, jaw working as he decides whether to actually say what’s sitting right behind his teeth. finally he exhales, chews on his bottom lip before he clears his throat.

“I, uh… might be slightly inexperienced.” A pause, like he’s bracing for your reaction. Or worse, rejection. “Or, like, fully inexperienced. Hum. I’m still… you know.”

You blink. “Leo.”

“I know how that sounds! I swear I’m not making this up. I’ve hard plenty of opportunities, I’ve brought girls home before, a handful of times, but every single time I just— couldn’t. No matter who it was, all I could think about was you. Felt like I was cheating on you even though we never dated at all. Is that pathetic? It feels a little pathetic.”

“No, that’s not pathetic,” you say softly, thumb brushing along his cheekbone and then you press a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth and feel him loosen up, like he’s been holding that confession in for ears, which, he has been. “Is it okay if we… I mean, do you want to? Tonight?”

“Yes,” he says immediately, then catches himself, slightly flustered at how quickly he gave you that answer, but it dissipates promptly when you smile at him, bright and wide. “I mean… yes, I really want to. But only if you really want to, too, I’m not trying to rush you just because I’m a twenty five year old virgin.”

The answer to his words come in the form of your fingers sliding down his chest, finding the buttons of his burgundy vest and undoing them one by one, slow enough that he has to watch every moment and try to keep himself in check. You push it off his shoulders when its open, and he helps, shrugging out of it and letting it drop somewhere behind him without looking. Next comes the white shirt, and you work the buttons free while he stands there trembling under your touch.

“Relax. It’s just me,” you whisper, fingers teasingly moving down the expanse of his chest as it slowly is revealed under the shirt. You and Leo have spent enough time together that seeing his chest isn’t a surprise. You’ve been at the beach together, you have even helped him undress when drunk. Still, your eyes look at him differently tonight, taking in small details like you hadn’t before. How his skin prickles when your fingertips dip down, the hair peppered across his chest, the soft definition of his stomach.

“Kinda hard to relax because it’s you,” he whispers back. When the last button slips free you spread the fabric apart and finally lay your palms flat against bare skin, warm under your touch. Leo makes a helpless sound and leans into the contact like he’s starved for it. “Are you teasing me? Feels like you’re teasing me.”

You lean in and kiss him again, smiling against his lips and he melts into it, one hand resting at the side of your neck, holding you close.

“Would you like to take off my dress?” You ask when the kiss breaks. Leo’s eyes go comically large at that.

“Yes. Jesus, yes, okay—” His hands shakily move to your back, finding the zipper of your dress and drawing it open with care, cool air kissing the newly exposed skin of your spine. When the zipper reaches the bottom he peels the fabric with both hands, sliding the dress of your shoulders until it slips down your arms and pools at your feet in a soft rustle of silk.

In front of Leo, barefoot and a little breathless, you’re left standing in nothing but your panties. He takes a half-step back just to look at you, admiring how the light catches on bare skin and the simple lace of your underwear. His eyes trail down shamelessly, fixating on your breasts for a moment before diving down to the soft curve of your waist, the plumpness of your thighs.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, almost to himself, stepping into your space again and letting his hands drop to your waist, thumbs brushing the soft skin just above the waistband of your panties. You notice, with special interest, how despite 67~ vulnerable you are right now, almost fully naked right in front of him, he doesn’t immediately reach to touch places he wasn’t allowed to touch before, instead deciding to keep his hands somewhere safe and familiar. With soft pressure applied to your body, he walks you backward toward the bedroom, leaning forward to catch your lips in a kiss as he guides you through the familiar layout of his apartment. You’ve been here hundreds of times before, have slept here, on his couch, on his bed, with him, too many times to count. Yet when the backs of your knees hit the edge of the mattress, your heart skips a beat, eyes looking up to meet his.

Slowly, he guides you down onto the bed, helping you lay against the expensive sheets which you’ve helped pick, smelling exactly like the floral laundry detergent that you love. Leo grabs one of the pillows from the headboard and places it under your head, and you know it’s yours, too, by the way it feels under you. Your body sinks comfortably against the mattress and Leo follows, careful not to put his full weight on you, settling between your thighs, and the still-damp front of his trousers brushes against the thin lace of your panties.

You watch him swallow down before he kisses your cheek and begins trailing down, from your cheek to your jaw, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the column of your throat, inhaling your scent. Eyes closed, he simply stays there for a few seconds, nose grazing the dip of your neck, the faintest brush of teeth. One hand is braced beside your head, and the other moves over your side before it reaches your breasts, thumb stroking the soft underside and then cupping one of them fully. Your back arches off the bed, a soft moan leaving your lips and he immediately looks up to see your expression, lips parted, cheeks flushed, fingers massaging the flesh before he rubs the nipple under his fingers.

“Leo…” A whisper of his name is enough to drag another noises out of him, disbelieving, and he stays locked in on your face for a heartbeat longer, watching the way your lips part around his name, the flush climbing your cheeks. Then, with careful movements, he kneels between your legs and moves both hands to cradle the weight of your breasts, thumbs brushing over your nipples until they tighten under his touch.

An open-mouthed kiss to the upper curve of one breast, then the other, lingering there like he’s trying to map the texture of your skin, his tongue traces a slow path downward, circling closer and closer to the peak without quite touching it yet. when he finally takes your nipple into his mouth, the heat of him makes you whimper, and he sucks gently first, then a little more intense, tongue flicking across the sensitive tip while his other hand kneads the opposite breast, thumb rolling the neglected nipple in circles. There’s a bit of an uncertainty to the way he moves, every action just right but also always a little bit unsure, which, granted, you imagine has much to do with his inexperience. But he makes up for innocence with enthusiasm, licking and suckling the way a starving man would.

Leo switches sides without hurry, giving the second breast the same devoted attention, kissing and sucking until the nipple is wet and flushed and your eyes are rolling into the back of your head, a sight he catches quickly when he looks up from your breasts without letting go of your nipple. He nuzzles into the soft valley of your breasts, inhaling deeply, then returns to lavishing them with his warm mouth.

“Wanna stay here forever,” a whisper between kisses. “ ‘m gonna stay here forever. Will you let me?”

Your fingers slide into his hair, and you watch him behind heavy eyes, how he looks completely lost in the simple act of tasting you, and he keeps going until both of your breasts are glistening from his mouth, until every brush of his tongue and roll of his thumb pull weak sounds from your throat. Only then does he rest his forehead against your sternum, breathing hard, still cradling you in both hands like something precious he never wants to let go of, and he only moves when you give his blond hair a soft tug.

“Get up here,” you tell him, and you sit up just enough to reach for him, hands finding the front of his trousers. Fingers work the button open, then pull the zipper down, Leo’s breath hitching hard as he watches every movements of your fingers. Pushing the trousers and briefs down together, your eyes watch curiously as his cock springs free, the one part of him you have never seen until tonight. Thick, head flushed a deep pink, still glistening with his come and already leaking again and definitely still half-hard; you wrap your hand around him, spreading the slickness over the length of him, and that’s enough to make him thicken the rest of the way almost instantly. Leo’s hips jerk once, a little thrust into your fist and a broken sound escapes him.

“Fuck, okay, I—” He braces himself on either side of your head, forehead dropping to yours again as you stroke him slowly. “Oh, darling, please, I—can I be inside of you? Please. Please, let me be inside of you. I need to know what you feel like.”

You keep the rhythm easy, thumb sweeping over the sensitive head on every upstroke as he trembles above you, eyes squeezing shut for a second before he forces them open again. When he does, you are already guiding him closer with your hand still wrapped around him, and Leo shifts, settling more fully between your thighs, shaky hands reaching for your panties and pulling them down your legs before brushing the blunt head of his cock against your entrance.

“Wait, I don’t… I don’t have any condoms. I never… well, I never really bought them, you know, because I didn’t—” He starts, but you shake your head, fingers still loosely wrapped around him, thumb stroking once more along the underside.

“I’m clean, and on the pill,” you tell him quietly. “We can go without… if you want.”

Leo’s throat works, and he stares at your for a long second, processing. “Yeah, yes, yes, I want you. Anyway I can have you.”

There’s another beat of silence, of quiet understanding and agreement, and then he’s finally pushing in. The first inch draws moans out from both of you, the stretch of his cock too perfect, but he freezes halfway in, his face twisting as if he is in actual pain.

“Oh my god,” he chokes out. “I’m inside you. I’m actually inside you, you’re—you’re so tight, I need a second—”

“Leo, slow down, we’ve got time.”

He nods once, then starts to move, too careful, sinking deeper inch by inch until his hips finally meet yours and he is fully buried to the hilt. The full stretch of him makes your breath catch and eyes widen, and Leo makes a wounded noise, breathing you in as he stays still for a few seconds, the fine tremor in his arms the only sign of how hard he’s holding himself back.

Then he begins to move in a slow rhythm. Pulls out halfway and slides back in with a controlled roll of his hips that makes you gasp, and the next thrust is the same, measured, even though he is still learning the right angle, figuring out how to keep from going too fast, or too slow, and every time he bottoms out he makes a punched-out sound that shoots right through your spine.

“Does that feel good?” he asks, voice rough against your mouth. “Tell me if I’m doing it right. Tell me what to do, Jesus, I’ll do anything to make you feel good. I just wanna make it good for you.”

You answer by tilting your hips up to meet him, taking him deeper on the next stroke, and his rhythm stutters for a second, taken aback by the bluntness, but then settles again, a little more confident. Starts kissing you between thrusts, too, open-mouthed, a little messy, tongue sliding against yours every time he sinks back in. His right hand fingers your left one and threads your fingers together against the mattress, diamond ring on your finger cool between your joined palms. Leo sneaks a glance at it, bites his own bottom lip as he watches the shine of the ring on your hand, and you swear you almost see a tear in his eye at a point.

Leo is clumsy in places. Sometimes he thrusts a little too hard and has to pull back with a whispered apology, sometimes loses the rhythm and has to start over, cheeks flushing dark. But the intensity never fades, every movement focused entirely on you, on the way your body opens for him, the soft sounds you make when he hits the right spot, the way your free hand digs into his shoulder as the pleasure builds. He shifts his weight, changes the angle, and the next thrust drags the head of his cock right over the spot inside you that makes your toes curl, a soft cry flying out of your mouth. Leo freezes, then does it again, slower this time, watching your face the entire time.

“Fuck, is that—is that the spot?”

The wet sound of him moving inside you fills the room as he keeps working that angle, even though you are barely able to form a thought and agree that it is, in fact, the spot, that you can see stars behind your eyelids, a supernova building. You cup his face and kiss him before gently pushing at his shoulder.

“Let me ride you,” you whisper against his mouth, only to see Leo’s eyes go wide.

“You— yeah. Yes, please.”

He rolls the both of you carefully, staying inside you the entire time until you’re straddling his hips. The new position seats him even deeper, and his hands fly to your waist, gripping tight, a broken moan spills from him as he looks up at you, flushed, panting. Leo’s head tips back against the pillows, eyes half-lidded as he watches you take him, take the reigns and control the moment, hips rocking back and forth and then up and down, letting him feel every inch of the slide. His hands don’t guide as much as they hold, thumbs stroking the soft skin just above your hips, a touch of a devoted zealot.

Hips meet yours in small, instinctive thrusts as you set a steady rhythm, rising and sinking, feeling him stretch you on every downward stroke. One hand comes up to cup one of your breasts, thumb brushing over the still-sensitive nipple.

“I’m not gonna last,” he warns you, voice strained. “You’re so tight, darling, and I’ve waited so long, and now you’re on top of me, and I can’t—”

Leaning down to kiss him, you swallow the rest of his words and roll your hips a little harder, circling them in a grind that presses your clit firmly against the hard plane of his pelvis. The friction is perfect, your folds parting around the base of his cock as you grind down, chasing the extra pressure. You sit up a little straighter then, still seated deep on his cock, and give him a smile that spells trouble.

“Watch and learn, Mister Reilly,” you tell him.

Your left hand slides down your stomach, and Leo tracks the movement promptly, wholly hypnotized. You spread your fingers, find your clit and start rubbing slowly while you continue to move on his lap, the dual sensation of his thick cock stretching you from the inside and your own fingers working the sensitive bud making your thighs quake around his hips. Leo stares, mesmerized, half-convinced he might still be dreaming, because in what universe would he be lucky enough to lose his virginity to the girl he has been in love with for eighteen years?

“That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispers in awe. “God, don’t stop. Show me how you like it.”

The wet sounds grow louder as you continue rubbing yourself in tight circles, hips still rolling, head tilting back as pleasure beings to pool low in your gut, a spring ready to snap from too much tension. Wet, your arousal coats his cock as you work yourself on it, slowly toward your own edge, and Leo only lets you, coming into his role of only an observer but carefully memorizing every twist of your wrist, every change in pace of your fingers. He will replicated it perfectly the next time you let him touch you like this. Slap of skin on skin fills the room, and you feel him swelling inside of you, cock twitching every time you sink all the way down and roll forward, begging for release.

But yours comes first. A broken moan muffled against his mouth, your muscles locking as you let your weight fall against his chest, and he holds you through it, through every tremor and tremble of your hips as your orgasm snaps and spreads, spilling into your bloodstream, connecting to your bones like ligaments and tendons being born from pleasure. Leo tries to wait until your own high has passed, really, he tries, but it’s over for him before he can manage it, hips jerking up into you as he empties himself deep inside, pulsing hot and thick and painting your walls in white.

You stay collapsed against Leo’s chest, having no intentions of moving unless he makes you, which you are sure, he won’t. Both his arms wrap around you after a few seconds, one hand stroking a path up and down your back while the other rests warm against the nape of your back, letting the tremors in your bodies gradually ease. Neither of you move, exactly, but both of you eventually end up laying side to side, your legs still wrapped around his waist, one arm around his shoulders, intimacy that doesn’t feel awkward, or forced, because this is just your regular relationship wrapped in an extra layer of meaning.

“I love you,” he says first. “I’ve loved you since I was a kid and I’m still going to love you when we’re old and gray and I’ve come in my pants a hundred more times because I can’t help myself around you. You’re it for me, always have been.”

You smile, your last of your old walls crumbling completely. “Very romantic,” you giggle, before going a little more serious. “… I do love you, too, Leo.”

Relief and joy turn into a bright grin spread across his lips. “Say it again.”

“I love you, Leo.”

“One more time, for the record?”

You smile, sleepy and warm, and tuck yourself closer against his chest. “I love you, Leo.”

Leo pulls the soft throw from the foot of the bed over both of you, then settles his chin on top of your head. Under the blanket, his hand finds yours once more and he never lets go of it again.

Slumber dissipates leaving behind heavy and warm limbs, tangled in sheets that smell like both of you now instead of just the floral laundry detergent. Leo’s arm is slung over your waist, unmoving, and when you shift you feel him stir behind you, a low hum vibrating against the back of your neck. Your eyes stir open, and you find that morning light is coming in through the gap in Leo’s curtains.

“Don’t move,” he mumbles into your hair a second later. “I’m doing something important.”

You don’t move. “Doing what?”

“Rewinding last night in my head. That you wore my ring, and we made love, and you told me you loved me, and now I’m awake and you’re… here. Nothing’s changed. Last night was real. It’s a very busy morning for my brain.”

You laugh, quiet, and turn over to face him. Hair a disaster, pillow crease pressed into one cheek, eyes still soft with sleep looking up at you in awe, fascinated, fingers curling into the small of your back and pulling you closer.

“Marry me,” he says, a repetition of the two words he has spent eighteen years telling you at every opportunity he had, and yet now they feel different, as if Leo’s testing whether the words feel different now than they did before. You think they do, because when he asks it, you don’t immediately say ‘no, Leo’, you don’t immediately laugh and deflect, and instead suck your bottom lip into your mouth, exhaling a shaky breath. “I’m serious. I mean, I was serious the other four thousand times I asked you, but I’m very serious now. With you here, in my bed, naked, and this ring, and you look so fucking beautiful right now, and I already want to kiss you again, so bad, and maybe do some more of what we did last night but… marry me. Please.”

There’s no ring box, no knee on the floor, just his hand finding yours under the sheets, thumb brushing over the stone that is already there. For the first time in your life, the question doesn’t feel like something to swat away.

“I want to marry you,” you say, and watch something in his face crack open with hope before you finish. “On one condition.”

He blinks, and the hope doesn’t vanish, but it stalls, caught somewhere between his eyes and his mouth.

“No more drinking,” you affirm, sitting up a little, because this isn’t a soft and easy conversation that you can have lying down, letting him charm his way past it with soft kisses to your neck and wandering hands. “I mean it, Leo. For real. Not just ‘cutting back’ or ‘just this one because I had a stressful week’. I mean getting actual help. A program, a therapist, whatever it takes, whatever you need. I’ve spent years finding you drunk out of your mind by pools and on decks and every time I had to pretend not to notice that it was getting worse. I know what it looks like when you’re fine, and exactly what it looks like when you’re not, and I’ve never said anything because I didn’t think I had the right to ask you to change for me. But if we do this, then I do.”

Reaching for his hand again, you bring it to your chest, press it right over your beating heart. “I’ve never been angry at you for drinking. But I just told you I love you for the first time ever, and I don’t think you get to have all of me until you’re willing to fight for this.”

Leo doesn’t say anything right away. Just looks down at your joined hands and the ring, and it feels like watching a whole different man in front of you, because he doesn’t try to deflect it the way you’d expect him to. He takes it seriously, as serious as you had asked of him.

“Okay,” he says, and his voice isn’t steady but the grip of his hand is strong enough to make for it. When your lips part, he shakes his head and sits up properly now, bringing you with him to his lap. “No, I mean it. Okay. I’ve had you dangled in front of me my whole life like some finish line I was never actually running toward fast enough. And I let the drinking happen because some dark part of me thought I didn’t deserve to get there anyway. All the shit from my parents, and thinking you’d never actually say yes, so what did it matter? But… you’re here, and you just said yes, which means you’ve decided I’m worth waiting for on the other side of this. Nobody’s ever done that. Nobody… has ever looked at me and said ‘I’ll stay if you do the work’. So I’ll do it. Not just because I’m scared of losing you, which I am, okay, but because I want to be the version of me that deserves to wake up next to you like this.”

You bring one of his hands up and press a kiss to his knuckles, feeling the tremor in his fingers, same one you’ve catalogued for years for a different reason.

“I’ll stay if you do the work,” you tell him, and he nods quickly. “But you gotta do it for you, Leo. Not just for me.”

“For me, too,” he agrees. “I want to stick around long enough to actually marry you. Sober toast and everything.”

The lump in your throat becomes a little smaller. “Sober toast is a low bar, Leo.”

“I’ve set a lot of low bars. Not this one though. Nothing low about wanting to get better to be the perfect husband for you. To be a good father to our future children. I want to be good for us, darling.”

You lean your forehead against his, and finally the world seems a little less bleak, because you know there is a real future waiting for the two of you together.

All fics taglist

@apenny4thots @avgdestitute @barnes-babydoll @blue-eyes-in-august @buckybarnes82 @buckyb-stan @gremlin-girly @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger @luuwrii @kanejfrvrrrr @metal-armed-muse @miraclediviner @moosetrackss @nigelology @overwintering-soldier @phoenix-in-writing @ronanpakes0 @sheriff-bodecker @stanmarvelous @sunday-bug @wherewinterblooms @wint3rbarnes @zhaixiaowen

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

live now for the world to see