Doppel-banger: a double of a living person who you wouldn't hesitate to tap
summary: five times you think you stumbled upon jack abbot vs. the one time it's actually him
tags: shawn hatosy universe, brett richards, sammy bryant, andrew "pope" cody, terry mccandless, titus dandforth, jack abbot, terry is lowkey creepy, titus mentions sacrificing somone, brett sammy and pope are all nice, canon pope staring, second hand embarrassment, younger fem!reader but age is not specified
notes: okay, so I had this idea of making a full oneshot about a reader mistaking pope for a concussed jack for an entire day, but the I thought it'd be really funny to make a collection of all the major shawn characters. i haven't seen any of the tv shows, but i read so much fan fiction, I am sorry if some of them are ooc, if you'd like to join my permanent taglist please comment on this post ! enjoy!
word count: 9.6k
By the time you finally escaped into the ambulance bay, the Pitt had descended into the fog that made everyone vaguely mean and snappy to each other.
A car had decided to plow through the front of a convenience store three blocks away just before noon, which somehow evolved into a gas leak, a grease fire from the kitchen next door, multiple smoke inhalations, and one man who’d managed to impale his own hand on a display rack while trying to “help.” The Pitt had been drowning ever since with no floaties in sight. Stretchers lined the hallways, Robby was barking orders over the chaos, and a med student was getting publicly destroyed for contaminating a sterile field.
Your entire body ached with exhaustion, and it wasn’t even 2:30 yet. Your scrub top clung uncomfortably to your back, your ponytail was halfway falling out, and the iced coffee you’d brought six hours ago had long since melted into a watery disappointment sitting untouched at the nurses’ station under Dana’s watchful eye.
You only stepped outside because you needed thirty seconds where nobody was actively bleeding near you.
The bay smelled faintly like smoke and gasoline, engines rumbling low beneath the distant screams of sirens out in the city. Paramedics moved around in practiced patterns, unloading equipment while firefighters lingered near one of the firetrucks parked crookedly next to an ambulance. You barely paid attention at first, too busy rubbing at the ache gathering behind your eyes.
You had started to walk back toward the Pitt but stopped entirely when you saw him; well—the back of him anyway with his broad shoulders and dark, soaked curls resting against his nape. Even if you couldn’t see his face, he somehow was able to stand out in a crowd even surrounded by firefighters in full turnout gear. One hand braced against the side of the engine while he spoke to someone beside him, his jacket stretched over his shoulders.
No matter what, you’d always be able to spot Jack Abbot in a crowd.
Your eyes dragged slowly over his newfound bright yellow firefighting gear, the reflective stripes glinting. The heavy boots and radio clipped to his chest had you pausing and staring for a solid three seconds, mind trying to process how exactly the man had apparently gone from night shift attending and SWAT medic to volunteer firefighter without mentioning it to anyone.
But more importantly, mentioning it to you.
Actually, when you thought about it, knowing Jack, the change tracked perfectly. The man already had a self-sacrificial streak a mile wide. Of course he’d look at one incredibly dangerous side quest and think You know what would make my life even better? Fire.
A deeply offended laugh escaped your lips, and without thinking too hard about it, you started moving toward him.
“Seriously, Abbot?” you called out over the noise of the bay. “You take one shift off and suddenly you’re fighting convivence store fires now?”
The man beside him glanced over first, obviously confused, but Jack turned more slowly, still halfway shrugging out of his jacket as you continued your approach.
“No, because SWAT clearly wasn’t stressful enough for you,” you continued, tired enough that the words just kept coming. “You looked at armed standoffs and thought, wow, my life is missing a little spontaneous combustion.”
By the time you reached them, the stranger standing beside him was openly staring at you in amusement. Meanwhile, Jack had gone very still.
That should have been your first warning.
But against all self-preservation, you planted your hands on your hips and kept going. “Do you know how insane it is that this is how I’m finding out? I had to see you standing next to a fire engine like some kind of hot, emotionally unstable calendar shoot—”
Jack finally turned fully toward you, and your brain stopped functioning completely.
Because the man in front of you was not Jack Abbot.
In your defense, he was close enough to knock the air from your lungs for a second. He had the same dark, hazel eyes, the same rough kind of handsomeness that looked better the more exhausted and grimed up they got. They even had the same intimidating build that made people move out of their way without a second glance.
But somehow, this man looked older that Jack, more self-assured in a way that only grew as he looked deeply entertained by your humiliation already unfolding in real time. The silence stretched until the firefighter next to him snorted loudly into his fist.
Your stomach dropped straight through the floor.
“I’m flattered you think I’m hot.” The not-Jack’s mouth twitched slightly. “But is it a bad time to mention my name’s not Jack?”
Heat flooded your face so fast it physically hurt. “No,” you breathed, horrified out of your mind. “No, no, no.”
Now the firefighter beside him was fully laughing, turning away entirely as though witnessing your embarrassment firsthand had become too much for him to handle.
You covered your face with both hands. “I need someone to hit me with an ambulance immediately.”
“That feels awfully dramatic,” the man said.
Your eyes found him through the slats of your fingers. “You have my attending’s face.”
“I’m starting to gather that.”
“You even stand like him,” you accused, voice muffled by your palms. “Which is apparently enough for me to lose all critical thinking skills.”
He laughed softly, low and rough enough to make the situation somehow worse. “Well,” he said, “in fairness, you seemed pretty confident.”
You lowered your hands just enough to glare at him. “Because I really thought my friend had secretly joined the fire department.”
The stranger folded his arms across his chest, turnout jacket hanging loosely from one hand while he studied you with open amusement. “So this Jack guy—he always gets yelled at like this by you?”
“Only when he does something stupid.”
“I’m starting to think I should meet him.”
You shook your head, hands finally dropping back to your sides. “You abso-fucking-lutely should not. I think seeing both of you in the same room might kill me instantly.”
He grinned wildly, quick but devastatingly effective enough it sent tingles up your spine.
Great. Fantastic. Love that for you. One Jack Abbot was hard enough to not stare at as is; having them both in the same room would actually cause a spontaneous combustion of your body.
You sighed heavily, dragging a hand down your face. “Okay. Wonderful. I’m gonna go crawl into oncoming traffic now if you don’t mind.”
Before you could make your great escape, he stuck out his hand toward you. “Captain Brett Richards.”
You looked at it suspiciously for a second before taking it. His grip was warm, firm, and rough with callouses in all the right places. You gave over your name reluctantly, still unable to fully look him in the face without feeling embarrassed all over again.
Unfortunately for you, he spoke again, timber all deep and ragged. “For the record, I was gonna let you keep going.”
Your eyes snapped to his hazel ones. “What?”
“I wanted to see how long it took you before you noticed.”
“You are a bad person, Brett Richards.”
“I’m a curious person. There’s a difference.”
“You stood there and listened to me accuse you of having a hero complex.”
“Seemed important to you.”
“I’ve been publicly humiliated!”
“Just humiliated between me and my friend. I don’t think that counts as the public.”
You pointed at him accusingly. “You’re creepy.”
“What?”
“The tone you’re doing right now.”
Brett blinked. “What tone?”
“The exact same tone he uses when he thinks I’m being ridiculous.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You sound exactly like him too.”
Now he looked offended. “I do not.”
“You absolutely do. You’re even doing the whole arms cross and puffing out your chest while simultaneously stretching your neck to look taller.”
The other firefighter chimed in. “Honestly, Brett? She’s kinda right.”
Brett looked over, absolute betrayal on his face. “Whose side are you on?”
“Definitely not yours.”
You laughed loudly, fatigue finally cracking enough to let something lighter through. At the same moment, your phone buzzed in your scrub pocket. You pulled it out, eyes widening at the incoming message.
Jack:
Running late. Scene turned into a disaster. Save me a trauma room before some other resident does something stupid.
“I bet you two text the same,” you grumbled, shoving your phone back into your pocket before looking back up at him.
He laughed outright at that, shoulders shaking slightly. “Sounds like you know this man intimately. Do you possibly have a type? Or do you grumble at every silver fox in your area.”
You glared at him as best you could. “I don’t have a type. Do not make this my problem.”
“Feels like your problem already.”
“Oh, we absolutely aren’t doing this today.” Still, a smile grew on your face before you started backing toward the ambulance bay doors again. “I’m leaving before this gets more psychologically damaging.”
Brett called after you easily, “Tell Jack Abbot I’m apparently his hotter firefighter version!”
You stepped dead in your tracks and slowly turned around. “. . .You know what?” you said thoughtfully. “I actually think saying that out loud near him might start a physical fight.”
Brett’s grin widened. “Now I definitely want to meet him.”
_______________________
The worst shifts always seem to end quietly and not anywhere close to peaceful. The Pitt, you liked to think, was incapable of achieving peace. Even now, close to midnight (almost five hours after your shift “officially ended”), you left behind blaring monitors, patients in needed of doctors, and exhausted coworkers who had just started to trade sarcastic insults at the station just to stay awake. But compared to the disaster the evening had started, the hospital had tasted almost manageable to where you believed they had everything handled.
Your feet dragged as you stepped out through the ambulance bay doors, the night air cool against the lingering heat trapped beneath your scrub jacket. The city smelled faintly damp from rain earlier in the evening, asphalt still dark under the lights.
You leaned against the brick wall beside the entrance for a second, closing your eyes briefly.
Today had been brutal in the particular way only emergency medicine could manage. There had been too many patients, too many families crying in the halls, too many moments where things almost went wrong before somebody caught it at the last second. You’d spent more than twelve hours keeping yourself stitched together with caffeine and momentum, and now that things finally slowed down enough, your brain had apparently decided to stop all regular functions, effective immediately.
Which was probably why, when you spotted a familiar figure standing near one of the patrol cars parked on the other side of the street, the pieces fell into place, your brain beaming Oh, Jack just left too?
Jack stood with his back partially toward you, shoulders slumped slightly beneath a dark jacket while one hand rested against the roof of the cruiser. His head tilted down toward the coffee in his hand, dark curls shadowed in the lack of street lights.
You didn’t even think before walking toward the warm, familiar build that held the same tired posture Jack adopted after a nasty shift, almost preparing his body to show up the next day anyway.
“Please tell me,” you called out tiredly, “that your shift was somehow worse than mine so I can feel better about my life choices.”
Jack glanced over at the sound of your voice, but you kept talking before fully seeing his face.
“Because if I have to hear one more over pompous med student stay the words ‘technically speaking,’ I’m actually going to commit a felony.”
A low huff of amusement answered you. “Long night?”
“Long life is more like it,” you corrected, finally stepping slow enough to see him properly.
You froze when he fully turned, because the universe apparently had a personal vendetta against you for probably your past life’s sins. Because once again, the man standing in front of you was not Jack Abbot. Yes, he was close enough to make your stomach drop for a second. His eyes glinted with the same sadness Jack’s did. He even had the same rough exhaustion written lines around his mouth. However, this man looked like someone who absorbed the weight of things instead of fighting against them.
Also, now that he was turned to you, his officer badge and uniform stuck out like a sore thumb.
And unlike Brett earlier in the week, this stranger didn’t look quite as amused by your mistake. He just looked tired.
You stopped short of the cruiser, horror crawling slowly up your spine. “Oh.”
He blinked once before taking a slow sip of coffee. “Bad start to the conversation?”
“Fuck me; I did it again,” you muttered to yourself.
“Again?”
You covered your face briefly with one hand, humiliation already blatant on your face. “There’s apparently two other guys walking around Pittsburgh with your exact face.”
“Well, that sound concerning.”
“I’m very concerned for my mental status.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, subtle enough you almost missed it.
You let out a defeated sigh, face turned toward the sky, before gesturing vaguely toward him. “You are not Jack Abbot.”
“Nope.”
“Perfect.”
“You wanna try my name instead?” There wasn’t even a hint of annoyance in his voice. If anything, he sounded mildly curious about the situation unfolding in front of him.
You laughed weakly, hands lightly tapping your thighs. “Honestly, I think I should just stop talking to strangers forever.”
“You always this extreme when mistaking people for another?”
“Only when I keep finding multiple emotionally exhausted men who all look exactly like my attending.”
That earned you a slightly more noticeable smile as he pushed away from the patrol car, holding out one hand toward you. “Sammy Bryant.”
You shook it, still staring at him in disbelief. “I’m sorry, Officer Bryant, but this is all still genuinely ridiculous to me.”
Sammy glanced down at your hospital badge as you gave him your name. “You work inside?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Late shift?”
You shook your head. “You could say that. I started at seven this morning.”
His eyebrows lifted. “And you’re still standing?”
“Barely.” You looked down at your body. “I think my soul high tailed it out of there around hour nine and never came back.”
A soft laugh escaped him, quieter than Brett’s hand been, but still holding the same warmth that made you feel comfortable.
You mentally made a decision before leaning back against his patrol car beside him, rubbing at your eyes with one hand. For a moment, neither of you spoke and just listened to the faint noises of the night.
Sammy took another sip of coffee before nodding toward the hospital. “Was it busy today?”
A long, shuddering breath whistled through your lips. “One trauma after another. Half the city apparently decided today was a great day to make terrible healthcare decisions.”
“Sounds about right.”
“And one student almost gave a patient the wrong dosage because he was trying to impress our boss.”
“We caught it before it happened, but still.” Your hair moved slowly across your forehead as you shook your head tiredly. “At some point though you just start wondering if everyone should stop touching things altogether or find some patience before they kill someone.”
He hummed softly in agreement, hazel eyes drifting toward the street. “You probably already know, but that feeling really doesn’t ever go away.”
You glanced over at him, taking in his face properly. Like your Jack, Sammy seemed to carry the same heaviness about him, like emergency services hadn’t been kind to either of them.
“How long have you been on the force?” you asked quietly, taking his uniform details in as your eyes roamed.
“Twelve years.”
“Explains your expression.”
At least he didn’t sound offended when he asked, “What expression?”
“The one that says humanity was a big mistake.”
He chuckled lowly. “Yeah,” he admitted. “You nailed that one perfectly.”
A faint smile hooked onto your lips before your head tipped back against the cruiser window behind you. “Jack has that look too.”
Sammy looked over. “The guy I apparently share a face with?”
“Yep.” You looked down at your hands, fingers picking at the skin around your nails. “Him and this firefighter named Richards.”
“What does Jack do?”
“He’s the night shift attending, and he volunteers as a SWAT medic during his free days.”
Sammy nodded along, understanding settling across his face as he listened. “That tracks.”
“You say that like you know him.”
“Don’t need to.” He shrugged. “You can tell what kind of person someone is by the jobs they stay in too long.”
For a second, you watched him quietly beneath the moonlight, struck again by how strange this whole thing felt. It wasn’t because he looked like Jack—though that continued to be deeply unsettling—but because talking to him felt easy in the same dangerous way talking to Jack always did; honesty dripping from their mouths the more tired they got.
Similarly, Sammy studied you for a moment before speaking again. “Are you okay?”
His question caught you off guard. Again, that genuine earnestness they both seemed to have bled through even if Sammy had only met you moments ago.
Your eyes traveled back down to your hands for a second before a half laugh bubbled softly under your breath. “You ever have one of those days where you think maybe everyone should stop needing things from you for like . . . twenty-four hours?”
“Yeah,” Sammy answered. “More than once. My ex-wife used to call me all the time, and I just begged for break.”
It was now your turn to wince. “Logically, I know it’s a terrible mindset to have as someone working in healthcare, but after the fifth screaming family member and the third guy trying to leave with an IV still in his arm, I’m starting to reconsider my commitment to helping people.”
“You’re tired,” he said simply.
“I think cranky is a better term for what I’m feeling right now.”
“You’re human.”
You glanced back up at him. “You know, you’re both annoyingly and suspiciously good at this whole peptalk thing.”
“Me and Jack?”
“Yeah. You have this calm voice thing. It’s irritating.”
Sammy smirked into his coffee cup. “Maybe you just trust guys who look too tired for life.”
“Maybe I need therapy.”
“That too.”
You laughed a bit harder at that than the joke deserved, but exhaustion always made you a bit slaphappy. Once the sound subsided, the two of you fell back into a comfortable silence. Sammy stayed leaned beside the cruiser, quiet in a way that didn’t feel awkward, and you realized that the comfortableness was probably the strangest part of the whole ordeal.
As a senior resident, most people demanded every ounce of energy from you. Conversation. Reassurance. Attention. They picked it all apart until a hollow shell of yourself went home to recharge for another day. But standing here with him felt easy in the same way standing beside Jack did after a nightmare shift. There wasn’t pressure to perform, zero expectation to be cheerful, just silent understanding between two people trying to survive difficult jobs.
Sammy finally glanced toward you again. “Whoever this Jack guy is,” he said casually, “he must be worth confusing strangers over.”
“That’s still up for debate.”
“But you still like him.”
You opened your mouth to argue before realizing you had no real defense against that, and Sammy absolutely noticed. A knowing sort of amusement flashed briefly across his face before he looked back out toward the street and the Pitt again, giving you an out without pressing further.
You sighed dramatically. “Unfortunately I do. He’s annoyingly competent.”
“Dangerous trait to have.”
And he does this thing where he acts like indifferent while actively solving all the problems.”
“Real terrible guy.”
You rolled your eyes fondly. “He’s just the worst.”
Sammy laughed quietly, and you smiled before finally pushing away from the cruiser.
“I should probably head to my car before somebody sees I’m still here and decides they need me to pull a double.”
His eyebrows rose. “Probably.”
“It was nice to meet you, Sammy.”
“Likewise.”
As you started in the direction of the parking lot, Sammy lifted his coffee slightly in farewell.
“And hey,” he called out after a few steps.
You paused and turned back toward him with a raised eyebrow.
“If you run into another one of us,” he said dryly, “maybe lead with the name first!”
Your laugh echoed across the bay as you flipped him the bird to which his boisterous laughter also joined in with yours all the way to the parking lot.
_______________________
By the fifth twelve-hour shift in a row, the Pitt stopped feeling real.
Time blurred through patient rooms. Daylight disappeared without warning. Meals became whatever you could hork down before another trauma alarm went off. Entire conversations slipped from your memory the second someone started coding. By three in the afternoon, the Pitt finally settled into a lapping wave instead of a tsunami, something easier to wade through instead of drown in.
You’d be done in four hours.
That’s all you could think as you found yourself wandering the full surprisingly empty area near radiology with a vending machine coffee clenched in one hand and your pager clipped crookedly to your scrub pants after catching another consult.
The coffee tasted burnt enough to qualify as chemical warfare.
You drank it down anyway.
Your shoulders ached as you rounded the corner toward the quieter hallway leading to imagine, gravity pulled extra heavily at your limbs. Most of the overhead lights had dimmed this far from the trauma bays, leaving the corridor washed in soft blue-gray shadows only broken by the occasional flicker of a light lucky enough to have had its bulbs changed recently.
That was when you spotted Jack sitting alone against the wall near the windows.
Your steps slowed automatically.
Even half-curled into one of the uncomfortable chairs that had been brought in from check-in, you found the familiar dark curls along his forehead and broad shoulders hunched beneath a black sweatshirt. His long legs stretched out in front of him while his hands rested loosely clasped together between his knees.
Your mind should have caught up by now that there was a 95 percent chance that the Jack in front of you was not actually Jack. The past two times, the odds had been against you. Even as you approached, you honestly weren’t sure if he actually was Jack.
But his Jack-Abbot shape and Jack-Abbot demeanor mixed with your weighted exhaustion overrode every caution light fast enough you continued to walk steadily towards him.
“You know handoff’s not for another four hours, right?” you asked tiredly. “Or are you here early again to save the day?”
Jack’s neck twisted as he looked up at you, and for one brief second, your brain short-circuited again.
Three and oh.
You found yourself truly wondering if you had the most absurd luck in finding the men who shared unsettling similarities (hazel eyes, rugged kind of handsomeness, a stillness that carried respect that could command a room) or if you were just unfortunately a Jack-Abbot-doppelganger magnet.
In this instance, you wished for neither because this one looked sad.
Where Jack’s exhaustion usually kept him sharp and tightly wound, this stranger looked just as weighed down as you felt. His expression stayed completely unreadable as he stared at you, hazel eyes fixed so intently on your face that you had stopped walking altogether.
You paused in front of him. “Oh no,” you whispered. “I did it again.”
The man continued staring at you silently, and you stared back. After a beat, he slowly tilted his head just slightly to one side in a movement so subtle it almost felt animal-like. Your stomach dropped.
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say you’re name isn’t Jack.”
Still, he said nothing; such a stark difference from Brett’s flirty amusement and Sammy’s conversational abilities. He just watched you.
You laughed weakly into the silence. “Okay, statistically this is getting insane.”
He blinked once before his gaze dropped briefly to the coffee in your hand before lifting back to your face. “Is that good?”
His voice was the thing to catch you off guard. Where Jack could bark orders quicker than he could blink, this man spoke slowly, careful with his words like he though each one over before letting it leave his mouth.
A startled exhale flew from your mouth. “No. But, I think I’m legally dead at this point, so what I put in my body really doesn’t matter.”
Another long pause settled in the space between you, and he didn’t seem bothered at all by it. If anything, he seemed pretty comfortable inside it unlike everyone else you knew (including yourself).
You shifted your weight awkwardly. “Sorry. Again. I thought you were someone else.”
He methodically nodded once, already having figured that part out. “The same someone else?”
“Damn, there’s enough resemblance now that people are starting to notice patterns.” You glanced toward an empty chair beside him before looking into his eyes with uncertainty. “Can I sit, or will I disturb the quiet zen you have going on back here?”
Another pause.
“You can sit.”
You lowered yourself carefully into the chair beside him, fatigue instantly sinking deeper into your bones the second you stopped moving. The burnt-gas-tasting coffee warmed your palms while the quiet hallway stretched around you, distant hospital noises muffled enough to sound almost unreal this far away from the Pitt.
Beside you, the stranger sat perfectly still like he was scared to breach an invisible wall of containment. After a few moments, you began to noticed the differences between him and Jack. He avoided looking directly at the lights. His fingers slowly rubbed against each other every few seconds like he needed the repetitive motion to stay grounded. He kept a careful distance between himself and you.
“Are you waiting on somebody?” you asked gently.
His eyes shifted toward you, intense enough that it almost felt like physical pressure.
“My brother,” he answered after a second. “He got hurt.”
Concern softened through your exhaustion. “Is he okay?”
He gave another small shrug. “He’s alive.”
His words may have been flat, but you could sense the ache badly enough that you heard it anyway.
You nodded. “That’s usually a good start around here. Can’t do much on a dead guy.”
A small almost-smile curled his lip.
You took a small sip of your coffee and grimaced before the liquid even reached your throat. “Holy fuck that’s terrible.”
His eyes looked down at the cup.
“How can anyone call this coffee when it tastes like somebody filtered dirty water through cigarette ash,” you informed him.
He stared at you for a half second longer than most people would have before asking unexpectedly, “Why are you still drinking it?”
You giggled softly. “Because I still have a few patients to get through before handoffs.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I feel the same way.”
A silence settled again, soft and comfortable where you found yourself glancing sideways at him occasionally while you sat there. Up close, the resemblance to Jack somehow became even more unfair. However, you guessed this is how Jack looked around 10 years ago with brownish-red hair and fewer wrinkles. But yet, the same feeling that both men carried too much responsibility around like extra weight strapped to their shoulders pulled at your heartstrings.
Also, where Jack’s emotions tended to sit close to the surface—irritation, protectiveness, frustration—this man kept everything buried so deeply you almost wondered if he realized that his expressions gave him away at all. Because despite how blank his face stayed while he either stared at the floor or stared at you, his eyes were devastatingly easy to read.
Lonely, your brain supplied.
You tore your eyes away. “So,” you said quietly after a while, “do you have a name, or should I keep mentally referring to you as Not Jack the Third?”
He pursed his lips. “Andrew.”
No nickname.
Not even a last name.
Just Andrew.
You smiled faintly. “Well, Andrew, for what it’s worth, you’re significantly less judgmental about mistaken identity than the last two.”
“The last two?”
“Long story.”
He nodded once like that answer satisfied him completely. Another few minutes passed quietly before your pager suddenly buzzed against your hip hard enough to make you jump. Andrew’s eyes tracked the movement carefully.
“Do you need to go help people?”
“Yep. Part of the job’s charm.”
“You’re tired.”
“There’s no rest for the wicked.” Your head tilted. “Or me for that matter.”
He looked at you again with that same strange, steady focus. “You should sleep more.”
“You sound like Jack.”
Andrew tilted his head slightly. “Is that good?”
“Yeah,” you answered softly. “It’s very good.”
His gaze lingered on your face for another long moment before he finally looked away first. You stood slowly from the chair, adjusting your pager against your waistband.
“I should go save the hospital from itself,” you muttered sarcastically.
Andrew nodded once. Then, just before you turned away completely, his voice stopped you again. “You looked happier when you talked about him . . . your Jack.”
You blinked before slowly looking back at him. Andrew sat exactly where you’d left him, hands loosely clasped together, sad eyes fixed on you under the dim hallway lights. He wasn’t flirting or trying to charm you; he was just stating something he’d noticed. His honesty hit harder than it probably should have.
You smiled warmly back at him. “Have a good rest of your day, Andrew.”
His gaze followed you all the way down the hallway until you disappeared around the corner and back into the Pitt.
_______________________
By now, you should have known better.
Key words: should have.
Three separate incidents should have been enough to teach your brain not to immediately trust broad shoulders and tired hazel eyes in low lighting, and yet apparently your never-ending exhaustion had burned away whatever survival instincts you normally possessed. At this point, the universe seemed committed to producing endless variations of the same emotionally damaged man just to see how many times you’d embarrassed yourself before learning.
Unfortunately, tonight really wasn’t helping your judgment.
Rain hammered steadily against your windshield as you pulled into the near-empty parking garage attached to the hospital, the concrete levels echoing faintly with the sound of tires and distant thunder. Your night shift was supposed to start soon, give or take an hour, but a last-minute emergency surgery had called you in early just in case Jack was held up or if the rain got too much for you to drive safely in.
All you wanted was to get inside, get your Dunkin from Shen, and live through this shift so that your following two days off were nothing but pure paradise.
Instead, you killed the engine and sat there for a second staring blankly through the rain-streaked windshield while tiredness settled heavy behind your eyes.
The parking garage was mostly empty this late at night. Lights buzzed overhead, washing the concrete levels in pale gray while rainwater dripped steadily from the ceiling near the ramps. Somewhere farther down the row, a radio played faintly form another parked car.
You grabbed your bag from the passenger seat with a tired sigh before climbing out into the cold damp air. The moment you were at full height, you spotted Jack leaning against one of the concrete support pillars a few rows over. You froze, hand still gripping your car door.
At this point, his face shouldn’t have been as shocking as it was, your stomach dropping every single time you got to lay eyes on him and his salt-and-pepper curls and sexy build partially hidden under a dark jacket while one hand rested causally in his pocket.
The faintest hint of This is probably another horrifyingly convincing copy of him. And honestly, who even knew anymore.
Jack glanced up at you as you started to walk; your footsteps echoed slightly. His face was partially shadowed by the buzzing lights. And before your brain could fully catch up, your own mouth betrayed you first.
Et tu, Brute?
“If you turn out to be another stranger, I’m actually gonna lose my mind.”
Jack’s eyebrows lifted slightly before the corner of his mouth curled into something that looked far too pleased.
“Well now,” he drawled, voice salted with a southern accent that instantly threw you off balance, “that ain’t usually how good-looking women start conversations with me.”
You stopped short, because absolutely nothing about that voice sounded like Jack or confident Brett or sweet Sammy or quiet Andrew. This one was different with something slick underneath his drawl like he found the entire interaction entertaining before it had even properly started.
“Oh no,” you muttered under your breath, arms wrapping around your middle to somehow protect you from his eyes.
The now stranger pushed off the pillar slowly, watching you with open amusement as he stepped fully into the lights. And unfortunately, the resemblance to Jack got worse the closer he got. Same face shape? Check. Same hazel eyes? Check (but his sent the wrong kind of chill up your spine).
However, unlike the others, this man looked at you like he already knew exactly how attractive he was, and that automatically made him the worst one to be around.
You narrowed your eyes suspiciously. “Gotta take a wild guess and say your name isn’t Jack Abbot.”
A wild grin slowly spread across his face. “No, ma’am but sounds like I oughta thank him for the introduction.”
You actually groaned aloud. “I cannot keep doing this.”
“Doin’ what?”
“Finding men who all have the same face.”
“That so?”
“Yes, and frankly it’s getting psychologically damaging.”
The stranger laughed softly, low and self-satisfied enough to make your skin prickle slightly. The same quiet internal warning that told you when patients were about to become aggressive before security even notices was sending a tingle up your arms.
You shifted your bag higher on your shoulder. “Okay. Great. Nice meeting you, mysterious parking garage man, but I’m gonna go before this gets more embarrassing for me.”
“Funny,” he said casually, “seems like you started this conversation pretty confident.”
You paused. “That was before you spoke.”
His grin widened somehow. “Little disappointed?”
“Concerned, actually. Very concerned.”
He laughed again, stepping away from the pillar entirely. “Damn, darlin’. You always this mean to strangers?”
The nickname landed wrong in your chest. Just the way he said it felt off. It wasn’t flirty, it was possessive, almost like he’d skipped straight past normal conversation and decided familiarity for himself. It all felt wrong; he felt wrong. Caution slowly sharpened under your exhaustion.
Still, you forced a polite smile. “Only the ones lurking dramatically in a hospital parking garage.”
He pouted, bottom lip jutted out dramatically. “You hurt my feelings a little.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Oh, I think I will.” His hazel eyes trailed up and down your body while he spoke.
Your stomach tightened faintly. This man felt dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with physical violence and everything to do with manipulation. Every work out of his mouth seemed like he’d already calculated it before he said it. The others had felt human and even awkward at times, but they had been grounded below it all.
This one, you understood a bit too late, was that he’d realized you were uncomfortable almost immediately and was enjoying watching you squirm under eyes that normally made you feel safe.
He tilted his head slightly, eyes moving over your face with unsettling ease. “So this Jack guy,” he said conversationally, “boyfriend?”
You sneered. “That’s none of your business.”
“Mhm.”
“Do you ask invasive questions to every woman you meet in parking garages?”
“Only the pretty little ones.”
You physically recoiled a little. “Ew.”
Somehow that only amused him more. “Do you always look this suspicious, or am I special?”
“You’re definitely something.”
Another slow grin spread across his face, but his eyes stayed sharp and watchful. You took a small step backward instinctively, and his gaze dropped to the movement. The awful feeling that he noticed everything tightened your chest.
“You got a name?” he asked.
Normally, under any other circumstance, you would’ve answered immediately. But something stopped you this time. The hesitation must have shown on your face because sick amusement flashed across his face and morphed into a look of interest.
“Smart girl,” he murmured.
Your spine stiffened.
The man straightened slightly before offering you a lazy, sleazy half-smile. “Terry. Terry McCandless.”
You nodded once carefully. “Okay . . . Terry. I’m gonna leave now.”
“Before tellin’ me yours?”
“Yes.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly at your blunt answer before he laughed under his breath, shaking his head like you’d surprised him. “Well,” he drawled, “now I’m definitely curious.”
You started backing slowly toward the Pitt, grip tightening around your bag’s strap. Terry noticed that too. For one long second, neither of you spoke. Rain echoed heavily through the garage, the entire level suddenly feeling far too empty. Terry tilted his head slightly again, studying you with blatant interest.
“You know,” he said casually, “most women would’ve already left.”
You forced a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “Most women probably have better instincts than I do.”
“Mm.” His gaze lingered on you another second too long, so unlike how Andrew had watched you with a quiet curiosity. Here, Terry looked at you like he was hungry. “I don’t think that’s true.”
Suddenly, you understood with startling clarity exactly how dangerous his personality could become with the wrong person.
You took another step backward. “Goodnight, Terry.”
He smiled again, easy and handsome and entirely untrustworthy. “Night, darlin’.”
You didn’t breathe properly again until you got through the doors leading to the Pitt. And even then, as you walked down the hall and took a glance back toward the concrete pillar where he’d been standing, Terry was watching you the whole time.
_______________________
You hated when Robby voluntold you to attend hospital fundraising events.
The Pitt survived on donations almost as much as caffeine and trauma surgeons with superiority complexes. New equipment, expanded programs, research grants: all of it depended on wealthy people occasionally deciding to feel generous for tax purposes. However, that didn’t mean you wanted to spend your Friday night pretending to enjoy lukewarm champagne while hospital executives paraded donors around like show dogs ranked somewhere below “paperwork” and slightly above “food poisoning” on your list of favorite activities.
The ballroom glittered obnoxiously around you, gold light reflecting off crystal chandeliers while a string quartet played softly near the stage. Doctors mingled through clusters of wealthy sponsors in expensive dresses and tailored tuxedos, all perfectly polished smiles and practiced networking.
Meanwhile, you stood near the bar in horrifically high heel that you knew were actively trying to murder your feet and wondered if you could fake your own death before dessert was served.
“You look positively thrilled to be here,” a familiar, deep voice sounded behind you, causing you to sigh in desperate relief.
Without even turning around, you lifted your champagne flute toward him. “Jack, I swear if you’re actually not you and just another man with your face, I’m walking directly off the roof of this hotel.”
“Well now I’m interested.”
Your stomached dropped as you turned around slowly.
At this point, it honestly felt biblical like a divine comedy staring you as the leading role.
The resemblance hit just as hard as the others had: same hazel eyes, same shoulder width, same cutting-edge jawline, same good looks that apparently existed in endless horrifying variations across Pittsburgh. But where Brett had been charming and Sammy had been grounding and Andrew had carried that quiet sadness around him like a shadow and Terry had been intensely creepy, this man looked completely insane.
Sure, he exuded a I’m probably the wealthiest mother fucker in this room attitude. His black tuxedo was tailored perfectly across his shoulders, curls styled to perfection away from his face, large ring-adorned hands holding a crystal whiskey glass. He was rich, polished, and handsome enough that half the women in the ballroom had probably already given him bedroom eyes twice.
But there was something deeply unwell behind the hazel glint.
He smiled slowly. “How many of us are there?”
You stared at him in exhausted belief. “Enough that I’m considering neurological testing.”
“How funny it is that you’ve met them all.”
“I wouldn’t say funny. One of your little clones in a parking garage looked like he might actually kill me to swing a jury.”
Instead of reacting like a normal human being—wincing or flashing sympathy—the man had the audacity to laugh a rich, warm, delighted sound that absolutely did not match the deeply unsettling energy radiating off of him.
“Oh, I already like you,” he announced.
You took a cautious sip of champagne. “Somehow that made me less comfortable instead of more.”
“I get that a lot.”
You hummed. “Yes, I’m sure you do.”
He stepped closer easily, like your personal space was more of a suggestion than a rule. “And what exactly did this Jackdo to earn so such a reaction?”
“His face apparently exists just to humiliate me in public.”
“Do you seek his face out often?”
“Seems like it’s seeking me out more.”
“Ah. One of those situations.”
Your eyes narrowed questionably. “You say that like you know what I mean.”
“I know what obsession looks like, little dove.” Before you could respond, he extended his whiskey glass slightly toward you in a mock toast. “Titus Danforth.”
Oh.
Oh no.
For the first time, you actually recognized the same; not personally, obviously, but the Danforth family practically owned half the city at this point. Generational wealth that seems sketchy with endless political influence and charities where people pretended billionaires cared about humanity because they funded pediatric wings occasionally.
You straightened your shoulders and mused over his name in your mouth. “You’re that Danforth.”
His grin widened. “Now, don’t sound too accusatory, or I might think you have a deep resentment towards me already.”
“Who’s to say I haven’t always had a deep resentment.”
“Good.” He took another sip from his glass without breaking eye contact. “Most people here are too scared to insult me directly.”
“And that doesn’t concern you?”
“It mostly entertains me.”
You glanced toward the ballroom crowd again, briefly trying to find Robby and considering escape routes. However, Titus seemed to carry Terry’s unnaturally uncanny ability to notice things like that.
“Relax,” he drawled lazily. “You look like I’m planning to sacrifice you to Satan or something.”
A chill ran up your spine. “Are you?”
He looked down at you over his nose. “I’m still deciding on that.”
You blinked at hi, slowly. “I’m sorry. What?”
Titus looked downright delighted by being one the receiving end of your scrunched up face. “Oh, come on. You’re at a billionaire fundraiser. You have to know at least half these people are one blood ritual away from immortality.”
A look of horror washed over your face as your blood ran cold. He stared back, visibly trying not to laugh.
“You’re joking,” you finally decided on with a small, uncomfortable laugh.
“That’s the fun part.” He tilted his head slightly. “You really can never tell.”
Oh, absolutely not.
Every single alarm bell in your body started ringing simultaneously in a way that hadn’t happened yet. See, Terry hadn’t felt as dangerous as he was calculated and manipulative. Titus felt like mad chaos draped in designer fabric, like someone had handed a deeply unstable man unlimited money and simply hoped for the best.
“You have the exact same face as someone I trust,” you informed him cautiously, “and you’re doing irreparable damage the longer this conversation continues.”
“How will you ever recover?”
“Hopefully the moment we go our separate ways.”
Titus laughed softly again before gesturing out toward the ballroom. “So, what’s your role here? Underpaid attending? Morally exhausted nurse? One of those residents constantly on the verge of collapse?”
“You guessed all of those so confidently it’s a bit concerning.”
“I donate to hospitals constantly, and I’ve watched enough caffeine addictions develop in real time to identify the species.”
Despite yourself, a small giggle escaped, to which Titus noticed instantly. And the look on his face afterward morphed into something even more dangerous.
“So you are capable of laughing,” he murmured. “You look less miserable when you do that.”
The words hit unexpectedly hard because Andrew had said almost the exact same thing days earlier. However, when Andrew said it, it sounded like he did out of a deep concern, but when Titus said it, it sounded like you were a small bug under a microscope. Apparently, this entire cursed lineup shared one collective personality trait, and it was psychoanalyzing you against your will.
You pointed at him. “No. You don’t get to do that.”
His eyebrows lifted innocently. “Do what?”
“You are not allowed to suddenly become emotionally observant when you were just talking about devil sacrifice thirty seconds ago.”
“Is it a sin to be attentive?”
“It’s a sin to act like you care when obviously I’m merely just a game to you.”
Titus grinned into his glass. “Oh, I definitely like you.”
Before you could spit back another insult, another man suddenly appeared beside you with the kind of smooth interruption that felt almost rehearsed. You silently thanked everything that could hear you when the familiar height towered over you.
“There’s my favorite resident,” Robby announced as he took your right side.
You glanced over at him and tried not to melt at the sight of his navy suit that looked slightly less expensive than Titus’s but worn with significantly more exhaustion in the way Robby existed in. His expression softened as he looked down at you. You could have hugged him on sight.
Robby’s brown eyes, normally filled with kindness, bore fiery into Titus’s. “You don’t mind if I borrow her for a moment, do you? I think one of our department heads was looking into speaking to us on behalf of our emergency department.”
His lie was painfully obvious but deeply appreciated on your side. You started stepping away before Titus could start another conversation about ritual sacrifice, however, the sound of his voice made you pause and look back just as Titus was pulling out a sleek black checkbook from inside his tuxedo jacket.
Double oh no.
He scribbled something quickly before tearing the check free and holding it out toward you between two fingers. “For your hospital.”
You stared down at the number and tried not to faint on the spot.
“Titus—”
“What?” He looked genuinely amused now. “You people keep fixing rich idiots after yacht accidents. Consider it gratitude.”
“That is way too much money.”
“Probably.”
“You cannot casually hand people checks equivalent to a small lakeside house in Italy.”
“Sure I can.” His lips twitched into a smirk. “Watch me.”
You hesitated before slowly taking in.
Robby clanged at the amount over your shoulder and physically winced. “Holy fuck. Gloria’s going to be floored.”
Titus lifted his glass again with a lazy smile. “See? Devil worship pays well.”
You backed away after that. “Okay. I’m going to leave before you buy me a cursed mansion that makes me blow up or something.”
“How did you know that was next on my list?”
“It seemed very on brand.”
Thankfully, Robby took the break in conversation to steer you safely toward the other side of the ballroom, champagne still in one hand and a horrifyingly large Danforth charity check in the other.
Once the gap was large enough, Robby leaned down enough to whisper, “Tell me I’m not seeing things, and that he didn’t look exactly like Jack.”
You let out a large, exasperated sigh. “Robby, you have no idea.”
_______________________
At this point, you genuinely believed the universe was mocking you. There was no other sane explanation for the past few weeks.
One doppelgänger had been weird coincidence territory. Two had been unsettling. Three had crossed into psychological combat. Four had nearly gotten you murdered in a parking lot. And the fifth had tried to recruit you into what might’ve been a satanic cult before handing you a charity donation large enough to make a hospital board cry (Gloria did indeed faint as well).
You were simply done.
Officially. Completely. Done.
Which was exactly why, when you stepped out of the hospital just after sunrise (the result of a last-minute night-shift swap) and spotted a familiar figure leaning against the hood of a dark truck across the street, your immediate reaction wasn’t relief but unequivocal annoyance.
The city still looked half-asleep around you, pale morning light stretching across damp pavement while your exhausted coworkers shuffled toward their cars clutching coffee cups like lifelines. Your overnight shift had run disastrously long, leaving you tired enough that your thoughts felt wrapped in cotton. The added lack of a Jack Abbot didn’t do well to settle any wants of seeing the man again with your own two eyes.
And standing there beneath the weak gold light of sunrise was yet another salt and pepper-curly-haired man with nice shoulders and light hazel eyes.
Unbelievable.
You didn’t even break stride this time.
“Nope,” you called out while crossing the sidewalk. “Absolutely not. I’m not doing this again. You can’t pay me enough.”
The Jack-a-like straightened at the sound of your voice.
You pointed at him warningly before he could speak. “I don’t care if you’re emotionally repressed, weirdly observant, secretly corrupt, or involved in a ritual sacrifice. I’m done talking to Jack Abbot doppelgangers.”
A long silence followed before he said one word.
“What?”
You frowned at his voice and the way it felt familiar in your ears. None of the others had ever quite managed to get Jack’s timber down correctly. Your steps slowed, and the man pushed away from the truck fully now, confusion pulling at his features while dark circles sat heavily beneath his eyes like he hadn’t slept in days.
Your chest tightened achingly so, because that—that was Jack Abbot, actually Jack Abbot.
Your Jack.
For one horrible second, your brain refused to process it properly. After weeks of running into twisted reflections of him everywhere, seeing the real thing suddenly felt almost unreal itself. It made you suspicious.
You scoffed at him. “Okay. Which one are you?”
Jack stared at you with somehow even more confusion, your name coming out oddly through his lips. “Excuse me?”
“The firefighter was flirty. The cop was emotionally stable. The quiet one stared at me like a sad shelter dog in one of those ASPCA commercials. The southern one was definitely corrupt. And the rich one threatened me with devil worship.” You pointed accusingly at him. “So what’s your thing, and please make it quick because I obviously need more than six hours of sleep.”
Jack stared at you in complete silence.
“. . . You met a rich version of me?”
“You have no idea how bad this has gotten.”
“Sweetheart, what are you talking about?”
The utter bewilderment in his face finally settled something inside you, because none of the others had ever looked at you like that.
Brett had looked entertained.
Sammy had looked understanding.
Adnrew had looked curious and quietly lonely.
Terry had looked scheming.
Titus had looked delighted with a new play thing.
But Jack?
Jack looked at you like he’d been waiting long enough out here for you to start getting worried, like seeing you finally emerge from the Pitt had made him relax just enough. Suddenly, it all clicked at once.
“Oh.”
Jack’s brow furrowed deeper. “What?”
“You’re actually him.”
“Yeah?” He sounded almost offended. “Who else would I be?”
A helpless laugh escaped you before you could stop it as you visibly deflated, exhaustion and pure relief tangling together so suddenly it made your eyes sting.
Jack took a step closer, your name falling from his chest. “Hey. You okay?”
His immediate instinct to take care of you was what did it. It wasn’t his face or his voice or his tired eyes or broad shoulders or any of the things that the other had shared. His concern for your wellbeing that had seemingly been stitched directly into his bloodstream no matter how tired he got. Your throat tightened unexpectedly.
Jack’s expression softened as he moved closer. “What happened?”
“You happened,” you informed him weakly.
“That really didn’t explain anything.”
“It does in my head.”
“Which is terrifying.”
You laughed again softly, rubbing tiredly at your face before looking back up at him. Now that the real Jack stood in front of you, the differences felt almost embarrassingly obvious. Brett had been warm but too easygoing; Sammy had been grounding in a way that felt comforting but oddly distant; Andrew had carried gentleness around him so openly it hurt to look at; Terry had weaponized familiarity until it felt dangerous; and Titus had turned charm into performance art.
But above all, Jack felt safe.
Even as he was standing there exhausted and grumpy in front of you sleep-deprived with yesterday’s hoodie thrown over a wrinkled scrub top, something about him always made your world quiet enough to where it felt manageable, like you could get anything done without worrying about the next moment.
You stared at him for a long moment before realizing he was still waiting for an explanation. So, unfortunately, your exhausted brain chose honest-to-God honesty.
“You know what the worst part was?” you asked softly.
Jack crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I’m scared to answer that.”
“They all looked like you.” You voice quieted slightly. “But none of them were you.” You glanced away, trying to organize thoughts that had apparently been building for weeks now. “Brett was nice. Sammy was . . . easy to talk to. Andrew was sweet in this sad kind of way. Even the crazy rich one was weirdly funny.” You huffed out a tired laugh. “And every single time I kept thinking maybe that was why my brain kept confusing them for you.”
He stayed quiet.
“But each time, they failed horribly at being Jack Abbot for longer than a two-sentence introduction.” You looked back up at him with glassy eyes. “Because all they had was just your face. They didn’t have the way you make everything feel less awful when you walk into a room. They didn’t have the way you pay attention to people even when you pretend that you’re annoyed. They didn’t have the way I never have to wonder if I’m safe with you.”
Jack looked caught off guard.
“I kept meeting all these parallel versions of you,” you continued softly, exhaustion making everything spill easier than normal, “and every time something still felt missing.” Your mouth twitched faintly. “Turns out it was just . . . you.”
He kept quiet for a long moment as the morning traffic hummed somewhere down the street while patients and employees alike trickled from the Pitt’s doors. You bit your bottom lip, waiting with anticipation for him to say something.
Finally, very quietly, he spit out, “You compared me to a satanic billionaire before saying all that.”
A tired giggled burst out so suddenly it nearly doubled you over. “You can’t believe how thankful I am that it’s actually you this time.”
Jack shook his head slowly, but you caught the way his mouth softened slightly. “C’mere.”
The words barely left his mouth before he was reaching for you, hand gripping your forearm lightly before pulling you forward against his chest with the kind of familiarity that made your entire body finally relax for the first time in days.
That was another difference too.
None of the others had ever felt like home.
You buried your face against his chest with a tired groan. “If another man with your face talks to me this week, I’m filing a police report.”
Jack’s chest shook slightly beneath your cheek. “Again me?”
“Wouldn’t be entirely you,” you mumbled. “Just your face.”
A quiet laugh rumbled through him before his hand settled against the back of your head.
“C’mon,” he murmured. “I’m taking you home before you start hallucinating more versions of me.”
You tilted your head back just enough to look up at him. “You promise you’re the real one?”
Jack stared down at you for one long second.
“Did any of them kiss you?”
A blooming warmth covered your face. “What?”
“The firefighter,” he said evenly. “The cop. Satan guy.” His jaw tightened. “Did any of them kiss you?”
“No,” you admitted quietly. “Wouldn’t let them either because they weren’t you.”
His hand slid gently against your jaw before he kissed you like he’d been thinking about it the entire conversation. His lips felt warm; the kiss careful and tired in the same way you both were but all the same steady.
When he finally pulled back slightly, your forehead resting against his, nose brushing along the skin right under his eye, you smiled weakly.
“Okay,” you said softly out of breath. “Yeah. Definitely the real one.”
Jack laughed quietly against your mouth. “Are you 100 percent sure?”
You pretended to think for a second before shaking your head. “Nope. Gotta kiss you again just to be sure.”
He smirked before pulling you back into another soft kiss.
summary: art gets benched for three months after he injures his arm. with patrick busy on tour and tashi being a star in campus, he ends up with too much time on his hands and starts wondering, what is he without the sport he has built his life around? then he meets you.
pairing: standford!art x fem!reader
tags: meet-cute, friends to lovers, hurt-comfort ish?, fluff, angst, happy ending, just art being restless and reader being head over heels for him over everything but tennis!!! two idiots in love!!!
"Good news is you don't need surgery. Bad news is you're done playing for a while. No tennis for at least twelve weeks, assuming physical therapy goes well".
Art stared at him for a seconds that felt like hours.
"Three months?"
"Minimum. You shouldn't push it before that, or you'll be risking a temporary injury into a permanent one".
The doctor hands him a brown paper bag with medicine he's supposed to take like clock-work. Naproxen every six to eight hours. He has done much more with much less, he thinks. Back in boarding school he used to feel this type of pain and just sucked it up, put ice on the swelling and it healed up after a week or two. Three months for a labral tear is ridiculous.
"What if I only hit backhands?"
"No".
"What if I don't serve?"
"No".
"What if I-"
"Art, if you'd stopped six weeks ago, we'd be talking about a few weeks of rest. Now we're talking about months. No tennis."
He leaves the office and has to restrain himself from slamming the door on his way out. The instructions to treating his injury keep circling in his mind: ice pack, pills, rest, and therapy every three days. And no tennis. He almost huffs out loud as he walks to his dorm. Maybe if he wasn't such a coward and just sucked it up as he usually did, he wouldn't have gone to the doctor and his coach wouldn't have explicit orders to give him mandatory rest.
Three fucking months.
What was he even supposed to do?
The answer arrived at six thirty the next morning. His clock going off, the incessant beep-beep-beep of his alarm filling the empty room. He opens his eyes slowly, still a little groggy from sleep as he stares at the ceiling. He doesn't reach to turn the thing off. Not yet.
Because for as long as Art Donaldson could remember, waking up and getting the day started had been easy: Practice. Class. Training. Repeat. He didn't have a place to be this morning. Class didn't start until 9am and he usually had a quick breakfast with his teammates once practice was over.
Beep-beep-beep-beep. Regular people didn't wake up this early unless they had class, right? Maybe he should go back to sleep. He doesn't even try after a few seconds of careful consideration — he knows he won't be able to, something about his inner clock. Patrick used to make fun of him for it. Freshman year, Art had shown up at five in the morning ready to practice because he'd woken up and couldn't think of anything else to do. After a month of that, they'd both agreed that mercy was moving their schedule a few hours later.
Beep-beep-beep-beep. Tashi was probably in practice right now, so getting breakfast with her wasn't an option. Patrick is in Japan of all fucking places. His teammates are doing what he should be doing, had he not been so negligent to his shoulder pain a month ago. He checks his phone, only a text from his mom asking how his doctor's appointment went and a text from Patrick.
"don't let them amputate it"
He scoffs. In other circumstances he would answer with something like "already picked out a hook" or something equally stupid. Not today. He throws the phone in the mattress, beside him. Beep-beep-beep-beep. Three months. He's not in the mood to humor Patrick.
Beep-beep- he slams his hand on the off button hard enough to make it squeak and sits on the edge of the bed, staring at his tennis bag that's currently propped up beside the door. For a moment he considered grabbing it. Just grabbing it, walking to the courts and pretend yesterday never happened. The thought lasted all three seconds. His coach had already been informed. So had the athletic department. If Art showed up to practice, he'd be sent right back to his dorm with a lecture he had no interest in hearing.
He was supposed to do nothing.
With a deep sigh he got on his feet and walked to the shower.
Every movement became a test. Reaching for the shampoo. Rolling his shoulder back. Scrubbing at the back of his neck. He paid attention to each one, waiting for that familiar pinch beneath his shoulder blade, the dull ache that had followed him around for weeks. The hot water beat against his skin as he lifted his arm again. Slowly. Carefully.
Did it hurt less today?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
It was impossible to tell.
Art squeezed a handful of chamomile-scented shampoo into his palm and worked it through his hair. The motion felt awkward now that he was thinking about it. Everything felt awkward now that he was thinking about it. He raised his arm again. Still there.
The ache wasn't sharp anymore, just stubborn. He wondered if this was what the next three months would be like: standing in showers, stretching in front of mirrors, taking pills and trying to convince himself he was healing.
None of it felt anything like tennis.
None of it felt anything like cracking a serve down the T or catching the sweet spot of his racket on a clean forehand.
The doctor had said rest.
Art wasn't sure what to do with a body that wasn't allowed to do anything.
When he steps out into campus he notices it's still half asleep. It’s around 7:15 and anyone who isn’t already in class is in bed. He hates it. He hates the morning light reflecting on the dorm building’s windows with that searing light. He hates how people clutch their coffees as if someone would try to steal it from them. He hates feeling cold when outside is also cold; he’s used to be sweating by this hour.
He shoves his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt reading "STANFORD" and keeps walking. The original plan had been to grab breakfast after practice. No practice meant no plan. Art wandered past the athletic center, deliberately and trying really hard to keep his eyes fixed on the sidewalk. He didn't need to see the courts. He definitely didn't need to hear them.
Somewhere ahead, a machine hissed. The smell of coffee hit him just a second later. Coffee. He didn't drink coffee, he wasn't particularly fond of the stuff. Patrick drank coffee. Tashi drank coffee. He didn't drink coffee and even prided himself, secretly, in not doing so. He didn't need caffeine to function so much as Patrick did, he didn't have a single vice.
Still, it was warm.
More importantly, it was somewhere to be.
Immediately, a wave of heat washed over him.
The bell from the store rang overhead when he stepped in. There were only a handful of people scattered around the room: students hunched over laptops, someone asleep on a textbook in the corner, a girl arguing with someone that clearly wasn't listening on the phone. Normal people.
Art had never felt further away from them.
Patrick ordered americano, right? But that had always smelt too strong and he didn't want to waste a whole three bucks on something he wouldn't particularly enjoy. He orders a latte and carries it to the nearest empty table.
The coffee was still too hot to drink. Not that it mattered.
He sat there for a few minutes, staring out the window and pretending not to think about tennis. It wasn't going particularly well since he could still hear the hard thwack of the ball in the courts.
The bell above the door chimed again. Art looked up automatically.
A girl walked in carrying enough books to qualify as a workplace hazard. Three hardcovers pressed against her chest, a canvas tote bag slipping off one shoulder, and a notebook tucked awkwardly beneath her arm. One of the books hit the floor before she even made it to the counter.
"Shit."
Nobody looked up.
She sighed, crouched to retrieve it, and immediately dropped another. She gave up, and walked to the window table, dropping everything then going back to retrieve the book that was still on the floor.
After ordering and within thirty seconds she'd spread out two novels, a yellow legal pad, three highlighters, and enough loose papers to cover half the table. Art watched her underline a sentence, flip a page, underline another sentence, then immediately cross out whatever she'd just written.
She looked deeply unhappy. Which was strange, considering she was voluntarily reading for fun. English major, he guessed.
A minute later she groaned.
Not sighed.
Not huffed.
Groaned.
The sound was loud enough that three people glanced up from their laptops but she didn't mind it, just glared at her blank page as if she could intimidate it into giving her the answers she needed.
Art had looked up too.
The girl crossed out an entire paragraph, stared at it for a moment, then dropped her forehead against the table with a soft thud and a defeated sigh.
Art snorted. Her head immediately lifted.
"Something funny?"
He should've looked away and pretended none of this interaction happened. Let her be miserable with her stack of books and apparent hatred of whatever she was reading.
Instead he said, "You look like you're being tortured."
She stared at him. Then at the stack of books.
Then back at him with a little smirk.
"That's because I am."
"What class?"
"Victorian literature."
Art blinked slowly.
"That sounds made up."
"That's because you're probably an athlete majoring in economics."
"Business, actually."
"See?" she smirks, a little giggle escaping her lips, gesturing vaguely in his direction, as if that proved her point. "Meanwhile, I decided to dedicate four years of my life to decoding what dead people were trying to say."
"Sounds awful."
"It is." But she doesn't seem like she means it. She seems almost fond.
"Then why do it?" God he's already in whatever this is, might as well keep the conversation going.
"Because I'm stupid enough to major in my passion with a field that isn't hiring."
That got an actual laugh out of him. The first one that morning.
"How'd you know I'm an athlete?" He stirred his latte absently, his mind drifting towards backhands and serves and match-points briefly.
"You have shoulders like a fridge."
Art looked down at himself.
He supposed she wasn't wrong.
The gray Stanford sweatpants were enough to give him away on their own, but even without them, there wasn't much mystery to solve. Years of training had settled into him in ways he rarely thought about anymore. Broad shoulders. Strong arms. The kind of posture that came from spending half his life on a court with a racket in his hand.
He used to like that. No- He still liked it.
He liked looking like the result of all those early mornings and aching muscles and hours spent hitting the same shot over and over until it was perfect. He liked that people could look at him and know, immediately, that he was good at something.
But sitting here with a cooling latte and a shoulder that throbbed whenever he forgot not to move it, the certainty felt a little fragile.
Athlete.
Twenty-four hours ago, the word would've felt right. Now it felt like something he was borrowing. Like a shirt he'd forgotten he would eventually have to take off. His gaze lingered on the Stanford logo stitched into the fabric of his sweatpants.
Tennis.
The word followed him everywhere. Across campus. Into classrooms. Into doctor's offices. Into coffee shops where strange English majors compared him to kitchen appliances. For a brief, ridiculous moment, he wondered what she would've guessed if he wasn't wearing the sweatpants.
If she would've looked at him and seen something else.
Then again, Art wasn't entirely sure there was anything else to see.
"A fridge?"
"A very athletic fridge."
"That's not better." He smirks.
They spent the rest of the morning talking. His latte lays forgotten in the table, half drank through. An hour into the conversation, she closed her books with a dramatic sigh and pushed them aside. Because after the fridge comment, tennis or athleticism isn't brought up any more. It felt weird. Not the conversation itself. Art could talk to people. He gave interviews. Talked to sponsors. Made polite conversation at donor dinners and alumni events with people triple his age and quadruple his money.
This felt different.
Easy.
The kind of easy that sneaks up on you. One minute they're arguing about whether books should be allowed to end sadly, and the next he's checking the time and realizing nearly two hours have passed.
Two hours. Time for class now.
And he hadn't thought about tennis once after the fridge comment. The realization hit him so suddenly that he almost looked toward the courts. As if his thoughts might be waiting for him there. They came rushing back a second later, of course.
The injury.
Practice.
Three months.
But for a little while. For an hour and fifty-three minutes, according to the clock above the counter, he'd forgotten.
"Oh fuck" she gasps softly as he glanced at the clock.
8:57.
"Late?"
"Very."
She started shoving papers into folders with all the urgency of someone who'd forgotten time existed in this little bubble of conversation with a pretty blonde and pathetic man.
"That's what happens when you spend two hours insulting my major."
"I think I was defending literature." He smirks, passing her the pens and papers that were still scattered around.
"You called Dickens a loser."
"He had nine hundred pages to prove me wrong and all he did was prove me right."
"Goodbye, Art."
He blinked.
"I never told you my name."
She paused.
Then pointed at his sweatshirt. Right. Stanford Tennis. Art Donaldson.
Embroidered directly over his heart.
"See you tomorrow," she said with a wave.
Then she was gone.
Tomorrow?
Art knows better than to get ideas over that word. It was a simple, absentminded, meaningless word of goodbye people said all the time. Yet, he couldn't help but take it as a promise. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would come here and talk with this girl he just met and spend two hours not thinking about tennis or his shoulder or his shoulder keeping him away from tennis. Hope.
The next morning, Art showed up with a sandwich.
Yesterday's latte had been a terrible breakfast. Somewhere between arguing about useless majors and defending the existence of sad endings, he'd forgotten to eat. By the time he got to class, he'd been hungry enough to consider chewing on his notebook.
He wasn't making that mistake again.
The sandwich sat in a paper bag under his arm as he pushed open the café door. The bell chimed overhead. Art glanced automatically toward the table by the window. The table by the window wasn't empty.
She was already there, now actually getting some work done. A stack of books sat beside her coffee, though there appeared to be fewer of them today. Art hated how relieved he felt. They won't sit at different tables today, he decides and so sits in front of her.
She smiles.
Tomorrow turns into many tomorrows. And in that time, Art learns she takes her coffee with too much sugar. She learns he peels the paper sleeve off his cups when he's thinking. They learn each other's schedules. Somewhere along the way, Art realizes he likes rainy mornings. Not because they cancel practice—he's always hated canceled practice. Just because the coffee shop gets quieter.
He realizes he likes listening to people talk about things they care about, even when he doesn't understand half of what they're saying. He realizes he likes sitting by the window. He realizes he likes sandwiches more than protein bars.
He realizes he likes making her laugh.
That one sneaks up on him.
The first morning she wasn't there, Art assumed she'd overslept.
He arrived at the coffee shop with enough time to spare before class, sandwich tucked under his arm and latte already ordered. The chair across from him remained empty, but that wasn't unusual. Sometimes she arrived first. Sometimes she didn't. Sometimes she spent ten minutes waiting in line because she couldn't decide between coffee and tea.
So he sat down and waited.
The bell above the door chimed.
Not her.
It chimed again.
Still not her.
After twenty minutes he pulled out his phone, texting with Patrick more out of boredom than anything else, and spent the rest of the hour pretending he wasn't checking the entrance every time someone walked in.
The next day she wasn't there either.
That was unusual.
By the third morning, he knew something was wrong.
Not wrong wrong. Not emergency wrong. Just enough wrong to leave a hollow feeling in the center of his routine. A text arrived halfway through breakfast.
dying
have been murdered by a cold
if i don't survive tell mr. wilson i hated him
Art stared at the message for a second before laughing into his coffee. The relief came embarrassingly fast.
Not dead.
Just sick.
He typed back before he could overthink it.
tragic
Three dots appeared immediately.
thank you for your sympathy
it means a lot
The conversation lasted less than a minute. Somehow the coffee shop felt emptier afterwards. It took him another day to understand why. Because the problem wasn't that he was bored, or that he missed tennis. The problem wasn't even that he missed talking.
The problem was that he missed her. The realization arrived quietly.
No dramatic lightning strike. No sudden revelation or epiphany. Just Art sitting beneath a tree near the lake one afternoon, staring at a sandwich he'd bought fifteen minutes ago and still hadn't touched.
A month ago he would've spent this time practicing.
A month ago he would've known exactly what to do with himself.
Now he found himself noticing things, which was something like it. The way sunlight reflected across the water. The old man who fed birds every afternoon at almost exactly three, she had noticed and told him. The freshman who spent entire lectures asleep on the grass. The smell of cut grass after the groundskeepers finished mowing.
Tiny things. Pointless things. Things that didn't improve his backhand or his ranking or his serve percentage. Things he would've dismissed as distractions before.
Sometimes he brought one of the novels she'd abandoned on the coffee shop table and forced him to borrow. The books themselves weren't really the point. Half the time he wasn't even sure what was happening. But every few pages he'd stumble across a sentence she'd underlined, a note she'd scribbled in the margin, a sarcastic comment squeezed between paragraphs.
And suddenly he could hear her voice again. It made the campus feel less empty. That realization bothered him. A lot.
Because recovering from a stupid shoulder injury was one thing. Recovering from missing somebody felt considerably less straightforward.
By the time she came back the following week, pale and armed with enough tissues to survive a natural disaster, Art had accidentally built an entire routine.
Morning coffee. Class. Walks around campus. Reading exactly five pages before giving up and staring out a window. Lunch. Physical therapy. The lake. More coffee.
It wasn't much. It certainly wasn't tennis. But it was something. And for a little while, that was enough. Until one afternoon it wasn't.
They'd taken their drinks outside to escape the noise inside the café.
The weather had finally begun warming up, sunlight stretching across the courtyard and filling the campus with students who had collectively decided studying was much less important than existing outdoors.
She was talking. Something about a movie. Or a professor. Or maybe both. Art wasn't listening. Across the quad, faint but unmistakable, came the sharp crack of a tennis ball.
His head turned automatically.
A serve.
Another.
Then another.
The rhythm lived somewhere deeper than thought. Muscle memory. Instinct. Home. His stomach tightened. The courts sat partially hidden beyond a line of trees, but he could imagine everything perfectly. The smell of hard court paint warming in the sun. The squeak of shoes. The familiar weight of a racket handle against his palm. The feeling of striking the ball perfectly. God he hadn't touched his racket in weeks.
Weeks in which he'd managed to avoid thinking about it. Not because he'd stopped caring but because he'd gotten distracted. Now the reminder stood directly in front of him.
A life continuing without him. Some freshman was probably taking his place in practice right now. Improving. Getting better. Moving faster. While Art sat here drinking coffee and discussing nineteenth-century literature, that freshman was closer to getting an actual career in tennis than him. Something ugly settled in his chest. Jealousy. Frustration.
Grief.
Whatever it was, it made him feel restless beneath his own skin.
"Art?"
"What?" The word came out sharper than intended. She blinked and frowned softly.
Immediately he regretted it. But not enough to apologize. Not yet.
"Nothing." She said and sounded a little hurt. The conversation stalled.
Students passed around them and she fell quiet, fidgeting with a loose string on her sweater, suddenly very interested in it. Laughter drifted through the courtyard. Somewhere in the distance another tennis ball cracked against strings.
Art clenched his jaw.
"I said nothing."
"Yeah, I heard you." she said softly, a little defensive but more hurt.
After a beat, she studied him for a moment. Not offended. Not angry. Just patient. Which somehow made everything worse. Because patience implied understanding. And understanding implied she could see straight through him. Finally she glanced toward the courts.
Then back at him.
"Oh." Just that. Oh. No lecture. No questions. No attempt to fix it.
She simply understood.
Art looked away first, clenching his jaw at the realization of how pretty her eyes looked in the sunlight at this particular time of day and someone cheered in the courts and his eyes sharpened. The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable. It settled between them softly.
Like shade.
Like forgiveness. A few minutes later she nudged her untouched cookie toward him. He stared at it like it called him a failure. Then at her like she called him sane.
"You know that's not going to solve anything." he scoffs, a slight roll of his eyes not at her but at the whole situation.
"No." She took a sip of coffee. "But you're less annoying when you're eating, and it's easier to pretend we're silent because you have a cookie mouthful instead of the actual reason, which is your toxic wife, tennis, making you grumpy".
Against his will, he laughed and she smiled.
The sound surprised both of them. And just like that, some of the tightness in his chest loosened.
Not gone.
Never gone.
Just lighter.
Manageable.
For the first time since the doctor's office, Art realized he didn't always need someone to fix things. Sometimes he just needed someone willing to sit beside him while they hurt.
Patrick comes back on a Thursday afternoon with two suitcases, three new stories, and exactly the same amount of self-preservation he left with.
Art almost doesn't go pick him up.
Not because he doesn't want to see him. Because physical therapy had run late and traffic was awful and he had spent half the morning trying not to think about the fact that he was still weeks away from touching a racket again.
Still, he goes.
Friendship, apparently, required effort.
The drive back is easy. Familiar. Patrick talks enough for both of them, filling every silence with stories from Japan, complaints about airports, and increasingly ridiculous claims about things that definitely did not happen but are somehow still entertaining. Art laughs more than he means to. The shoulder injury has made everyone around him unbearably careful. Coaches. Trainers. Teammates. Even his mother, somehow, has developed a talent for sounding worried through text messages.
Patrick remains blessedly immune to concern.
By the time they reach campus, Art almost feels normal again. Almost.
The next morning, Patrick wakes up just after seven and finds Art already dressed. He slept in his room because Tashi hates his kicking in sleep. Art has never minded.
Art's already dressed. That part isn't unusual.
Art has always been awake before everybody else. Patrick once described him as a retired sixty-year-old trapped inside the body of a college athlete. Art had considered that rude. Patrick had considered it accurate.
What is unusual is the fact that Art is putting on shoes instead of grabbing his tennis bag, he usually doesn't give a fuck about injuries and just sucks it up... but this time he's actually resting? Patrick watches from his bed as Art checks the time. Then checks it again. Then picks up his phone. Then puts it down. Then checks the time one more time.
A slow smile spreads across Patrick's face.
"Where are you going?"
Art glances up. "The coffee shop."
Patrick frowns. Not because he's confused. Because he's trying very hard not to laugh.
"The coffee shop?"
"Yes?" Art frowns, almost annoyed, what's so weird about a coffee shop? "Does Japan not have coffee shops?"
"The coffee shop where?"
"The one by the humanities buildings."
Patrick props himself up on one elbow. "You don't even like coffee."
Art shrugs.
"I like the sandwiches."
Patrick has known Art Donaldson for years. He knows when Art is nervous before a match. He knows when Art is lying. He knows when Art is pretending not to care.
Most importantly, he knows Art has never once in his life voluntarily traveled across campus for a sandwich.
The realization lands all at once.
Oh.
Oh, this is going to be fun.
The walk across campus confirms every suspicion. Art walks faster than necessary. Not enough for anybody else to notice, but enough for his best friend to notice. Every few minutes his gaze flicks toward the clock tower. Toward his phone. Toward the path ahead. He's excited.
The idiot is excited.
By the time they reach the coffee shop, he has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling. The bell above the door chimes. The smell of espresso and baked bread fills the room. And then Patrick sees her.
She's sitting by the window exactly where Art said she'd be. Books scattered across the table. Pen between her fingers. Hair falling into her face as she reads. The fascinating part isn't her.
The fascinating part is Art.
Because the second she looks up, something changes.
It's tiny. Almost invisible. His shoulders loosen. The tension leaves his face. Something warm settles into his expression so naturally that Patrick would have missed it if he didn't know him so well. Like somebody opening a window in a stuffy room. Like relief.
She smiles. Art smiles back. Neither of them seem particularly aware they're doing it.
Patrick nearly loses his mind.
Because suddenly every weird thing from the past month makes sense.
The coffee shop.
The sandwiches.
The mysterious improvement in Art's mood.
The fact that he'd stopped talking about tennis every five minutes.
The way he'd seemed less angry. Less restless.
The answer had apparently been sitting in a coffee shop reading Victorian literature. "You're late," she says. Patrick watches Art pull out a chair. "I had to pick Patrick up." Her eyes shift toward him for the first time. Recognition flickers almost immediately. Which he finds offensive. Patrick extends a hand.
"Patrick."
"You're Patrick."
The wording makes him pause.
Not nice to meet you.
Not I've heard about you.
Just: You're Patrick. As if she's been hearing about him for weeks. Patrick turns toward Art slowly. Art suddenly finds the table incredibly interesting. The little traitor. Something starts to bloom inside Patrick's chest. Not jealousy. Not annoyance. Something far more dangerous. Affection. Because for the first time since the injury, Art looks happy.
Not distracted.
Not coping.
Happy.
The realization hits Patrick with surprising force.
For years, Art's entire world has been built around tennis. Around practice schedules and rankings and tournaments and expectations. Every decision leading toward the next match. The next win. The next goal. Then his shoulder gives out. Everything stops. And somehow, in the empty space left behind, somebody wandered in carrying too many books and started teaching him how to live when he wasn't playing.
Patrick watches them fall into conversation without effort.
Watches Art laugh.
Watches him listen.
Really listen. Like there isn't somewhere else he'd rather be. And for one brief, horrifying moment, Patrick realizes something before Art does: Art Donaldson is absolutely screwed.
The conversation starts because Tashi notices.
Of course she does.
Patrick notices because Patrick notices everything. He collects information the way some people collect souvenirs, storing away every embarrassing detail he can weaponize later. Tashi notices because she pays attention to things that matter.
Which means Art should have known he was doomed the second both of them ended up at the same lunch table.
The dining hall is loud around them. Trays scraping against tables, conversations overlapping into an indistinct hum, somebody dropping a fork somewhere across the room. Normally Art likes the noise. It reminds him of tournaments. Of airports. Of movement.
Today it feels like background music to his own execution.
Patrick has spent the last ten minutes watching him with the barely-contained excitement of somebody waiting for a surprise party to start. Tashi has spent the last ten minutes watching him the way a coach watches an athlete making a preventable mistake.
Neither expression bodes well.
Art stabs his fork into a piece of chicken. Immediately regrets sitting down.
"So," Tashi says eventually. The word is perfectly innocent. Art still feels his stomach drop. "No."
Tashi blinks. "I haven't asked anything."
"You were about to."
A smile flickers across Patrick's face. The bastard actually looks proud.
Tashi leans back in her chair, folding her arms. Sunlight from the tall cafeteria windows catches in her hair and turns the edges gold. She studies him for a moment.
Not unkindly. Just thoughtfully. Like she's trying to solve a problem.
"How's physical therapy?"
Art exhales slowly. A trap. Definitely a trap.
"Fine."
"And your shoulder?"
"Fine."
"Recovery?"
"Fine."
"Tennis?"
The word lands differently than the others. It always does. For a second Art's attention drifts. Past the cafeteria windows. Past the crowds of students moving across campus. Toward courts he can't see from here but can still imagine perfectly.
Tashi notices immediately. Of course she notices.
"You've been watching your old matches, right?"
Art takes a drink before answering. Not because he's thirsty. Because it buys him time.
"Sometimes." The lie hangs between them.
Not a huge lie. Not an unforgivable one. Just enough of one that Tashi recognizes it immediately. Her expression changes. The slightest narrowing of her eyes. Disappointment.
Not in him, he hopes. In the answer. Art knows that look. She's already imagining all the things he could be doing.
Breaking down old footage. Studying technique. Analyzing weaknesses. Improving strategy.
Even injured, Tashi believes improvement should never stop. The difference between them has always been that Art wants to win. Tashi wants to understand why people win and replicate it.
"Art." His name leaves her mouth with the same exhausted patience she'd use on a child refusing medicine.
"You have months of recovery. You could be studying every match you've ever played."
Patrick makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. Tashi ignores him.
"You could be analyzing technique. Looking for patterns. Identifying weaknesses. You could come back better than before."
Art rubs a hand over his face. The speech feels familiar. Not because she's wrong. Because she isn't. That's the problem.
Somewhere beneath all the frustration and resentment and self-pity, he knows she has a point. A few months ago he would've been doing exactly that. A few months ago the thought of wasting time would've made his skin crawl. Now, somehow, entire afternoons disappear.
Coffee turns into conversations. Conversations turn into walks.
Walks turn into evenings spent sitting on campus lawns discussing books he has no intention of reading. The realization feels oddly embarrassing. Patrick finally stops pretending to stay out of it.
The grin spreading across his face is positively demonic. "Tell her."
Art closes his eyes. "No."
"Tell her why."
"No."
"Tell her why you've stopped watching tennis." His fucking tone is like a kid pressing another into doing something reckless that'll get them into trouble.
"I haven't stopped."
"You absolutely have." Patrick has the audacity to laugh, mockingly.
"I watched a match last week."
Patrick looks delighted.
"Oh, good! One match"
"It was a long match."
"It was one set."
Art hates him. Truly. Deeply. With his entire soul.
Across the table, Tashi is beginning to understand. Art can actually see it happening. The pieces clicking together. The sudden shift in her expression as she reaches the correct conclusion.
"A girl? Are you serious, Art?"
Patrick lights up immediately. "Oh, she got there."
Art considers throwing his drink at both of them.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"You like her?" The words are spoken so casually that for a second they don't even register.
Then they do. Art immediately scoffs. Not because he's offended. Because the alternative is acknowledging the heat suddenly creeping up the back of his neck.
"She's my friend." Patrick actually laughs. Not a polite laugh. A genuine one. The kind that makes him lean back in his chair.
"Oh my God."
"Shut up."
"You've been spending every morning with her for weeks!"
"We drink coffee, we're not holding hands or- or fucking or-"
"You've read books." That laugh again.
"Parts of books." Art scoffs, rolling his eyes and dropping his fork to stare daggers at Patrick.
"You voluntarily attended a poetry reading, Art-"
Art points a finger at him.
"That was an accident."
"It lasted three hours."
"I didn't know it was a poetry reading."
"What a bullshit excuse! You didn't notice it was a fucking poetry reading when they snapped instead of clapping-"
Tashi watches the exchange unfold in silence. Then something catches her attention. Her gaze shifts beyond Art's shoulder. Toward the entrance. Immediately Patrick follows. Then both of them stop talking. The silence is so abrupt that Art notices. He turns.
And sees her.
She's standing near the cafeteria doors, pushing hair behind her ear as she looks around the room. For a moment she doesn't seem to find whoever she's looking for.
Then her eyes land on him.
The change is immediate. A wide smile spreads across her face.
Huge. Soft. Effortless.
The kind of smile that exists before somebody even realizes they're smiling. Art feels something warm unfold inside his chest.
Relief. Recognition. Happiness.
Whatever it is, it arrives so naturally he doesn't think about it. He simply smiles and waves back. Nothing else happens. No dramatic moment. No conversation. No grand gesture.
Just two people spotting each other across a crowded room. A second later she's being pulled toward another table by her friends. The moment passes. Art turns back around.
Patrick is staring at him.
Tashi is staring at him.
Neither says a word. Neither has to.
Because for the first time, Art understands exactly what they saw. The way his entire mood shifted. The way the tension disappeared from his injured shoulder. The way seeing her felt like finally exhaling after holding his breath all day.
His stomach drops.
Oh.
Across the room she's laughing at something her friend said. Completely unaware that his life has just become significantly more complicated. Patrick's grin grows impossibly wider. Tashi pinches the bridge of her nose.
And Art, for perhaps the first time since his injury, finds himself facing a problem he has absolutely no idea how to solve because suddenly it occurs to him that they've never actually gone anywhere. Not really.
Coffee shops. The quad. Campus benches. Library steps. Always Stanford. Always between classes. Always tomorrow. The thought settles heavily in his chest.
Because wanting to see her tomorrow feels very different from wanting to see her on purpose. And for the first time, those two things no longer feel the same.
The next morning, Art arrived before she did. He tried not to think too much about what that meant. The coffee shop had become familiar enough now that he barely noticed it anymore—the hiss of the espresso machine, the warm smell of coffee and baked bread, the students half-asleep over textbooks. A month ago he felt trapped here. Restless. Like every minute spent sitting still was a minute stolen from something more important.
Now he found himself checking the door every few seconds. The realization should have embarrassed him more than it did. He wrapped both hands around his drink and stared out the window, pretending to watch people crossing the quad. In reality, he was counting. Three minutes. Five. He'd cry if she had a cold again. Eight minutes.
Then the bell above the door chimed. The shift inside him was immediate. Embarrassingly immediate. Before he even fully registered it was her, some part of him already knew.
She was carrying too many books again. Not enough to drop this time, but enough to make him wonder if she experienced the world under a permanent avalanche of paper and ink. The oversized sweater she wore today swallowed her whole. One sleeve hung slightly over her hand as she adjusted the strap of her bag. Her hair looked messier than usual, as if she'd left in a hurry. There was a faint crease pressed into one cheek from a pillow.
Art stared. Not because she was doing anything remarkable. Because she existed. Which somehow felt remarkable. The problem wasn't that she was pretty. He'd known she was pretty for weeks. The problem was that once he'd admitted to himself he liked her, he suddenly became aware of how much attention he'd been paying all along.
He knew which rings she wore most often. Three silver bands. One plain, one slightly twisted, and one with a tiny stone set into it. He knew she preferred sweaters to jackets even when the weather clearly called for a jacket. He knew she tucked loose strands of hair behind her left ear but never her right. He knew she always ordered before sitting down, even when the line stretched halfway through the shop. He knew her laugh changed depending on what she found funny. There was a polite laugh, a sarcastic laugh, and a genuine one that arrived so suddenly it seemed to catch her by surprise.
The terrifying thing wasn't noticing.
The terrifying thing was realizing he'd already memorized all of it.
Without trying. Without meaning to. Like his brain had quietly decided she was important weeks before he'd caught up.
She looked up from the line and spotted him. Immediately she smiled. And just like that, his entire morning improved. The simplicity of it almost made him angry. Months of discipline. Years of training. Endless hours spent learning how to control his body under pressure.
Yet apparently all it took to completely derail him was his girl smiling from across a coffee shop. His girl? Jesus fucking Christ.
She sat down a few minutes later and launched into a story about a professor who had somehow managed to spend forty minutes discussing symbolism without ever explaining what the symbol meant. Art listened. Or at least he tried to.
The problem was that Patrick had ruined him.
Ever since lunch, ever since the cafeteria, ever since watching her walk through those doors and feeling something in his chest rearrange itself, Art couldn't stop seeing her differently.
Not differently. More honestly. He noticed the movement of her hands when she spoke. The way she grew animated when she was passionate about something. The way her eyes widened before she made a point she was particularly proud of. The way her mouth curved when she knew she was right.
And Christ that wasn't helping either. Because she'd always been beautiful. He knew that. What he hadn't allowed himself to acknowledge was that she was hot.
Not in the distant, objective way people described celebrities. Not in the casual way college students pointed out attractive strangers.
Hot in the deeply inconvenient way that made him suddenly aware of the shape of her mouth while she was talking. Hot in the way that made his gaze linger too long before he forced himself to look away. Hot in the way that made him think things he absolutely should not be thinking at seven-thirty in the morning.
The realization nearly made him choke on his coffee.
Which was unfortunate because she immediately noticed.
"Are you okay?"
He coughed into his fist. "Fine." Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She narrowed her eyes. "You don't look fine."
"I'm fine."
She kept staring. Art looked away first. A tactical retreat. The only one available. Unfortunately, retreating didn't solve the problem. Because now he was painfully aware of the fact that he wanted more.
Not more coffee shop mornings. Not more accidental meetings. More her.
The whole thing. The afternoons. The evenings. The parts of her life that existed outside the two-hour window they'd carved out for themselves. The thought settled into his chest with surprising weight.
Because suddenly it occurred to him that despite everything they knew about one another, they had never actually spent time together on purpose. Not really. The coffee shop had happened by accident.
Every morning after had happened because of habit. Because routine. Because convenience.
Yet somehow he knew what she ordered for breakfast and what kind of books she liked and how she laughed when she forgot to be self-conscious. He knew all that.
And still had no idea what a day with her looked like. The realization lingered. Growing heavier. More persistent. Until eventually he stopped hearing whatever story she was telling and simply found himself looking at her.
Really looking.
Trying to imagine her outside this place. Trying to imagine what she'd be like when there wasn't a class waiting afterwards. When there wasn't somewhere else she needed to be. When there wasn't an excuse.
She paused mid-sentence. The expression on her face shifted. Slowly. Suspiciously.
"What?"
Art blinked.
"What?"
"You keep staring at me."
Heat immediately climbed up his neck. Not ideal. Especially because she was right, he had lost track of time thinking.
"I wasn't staring."
"You absolutely were."
She leaned back slightly. Studying him now. The irony wasn't lost on him. For a second neither of them spoke. The coffee shop hummed quietly around them. Students coming and going. Espresso machines hissing. Morning sunlight spilling across the table between them.
Then, before he could lose his nerve, before he could overthink himself into silence, Art heard himself ask:
"Are you busy today?"
And the second the words left his mouth, he knew.
This wasn't coffee anymore.
This wasn't habit.
This wasn't routine.
This was on purpose.
The thing was, Art didn't have a plan.
People always assumed he did. Coaches, reporters, teammates. Even Patrick liked to joke that Art approached life the same way he approached a tennis match: calculate, prepare, execute.
Usually that was true.
Not today.
Today he'd asked her if she was busy and somehow found himself walking off campus with no destination in mind and no desire to find one.
The morning was cool enough to justify a sweater but warm enough that the sun lingered pleasantly on their skin. Students hurried around them carrying backpacks and coffees and obligations. Art should have felt guilty about skipping class.
Instead, he felt strangely light. Like he'd forgotten something important and couldn't quite bring himself to care. They wandered into a bookstore first. Not because either of them had planned to. Because they passed it and she stopped mid-sentence to stare through the window.
"Oh."
Art followed her gaze. Books. Thousands of them. He looked back at her. The excitement on her face made him laugh. "You already own books." he smiles
"I know." she replies looking at him sheepishly
"You have too many books."
"I know."
"You complain about carrying books." he giggles
"I know." she giggles
Yet five minutes later she was standing between shelves holding three more. Art spent most of that time following her around and pretending he wasn't enjoying himself. The place smelled like paper and dust and old wood. She drifted through the aisles as if she belonged there, running her fingertips lightly along spines and occasionally pulling one free just to show him a passage she liked.
Not the whole passage. Not enough to bore him. Just a sentence. A paragraph. A line she'd underlined years ago in another copy that she had back at home with her parents. Every single time she handed him a book she looked hopeful.
Like she genuinely wanted to know what he thought. As though his opinion mattered. That alone was enough to undo him. The first time he realized the coffee shop version of her wasn't the whole story happened outside.
A little boy stood on the sidewalk beside his mother crying with the kind of complete devastation only children seemed capable of achieving because his ice cream had fallen. One scoop sat upside down on the pavement. The tragedy was apparently immeasurable.
Art barely registered him. Kids cried. Ice cream melted. Life went on.
She stopped walking immediately. Her expression softened. Then she crouched down beside him. Art stayed where he was, watching. The conversation was too quiet for him to hear. Whatever she said made the boy pause.
A few moments later he laughed. Actually laughed. Still sniffling and sticky-faced but laughing.
When she stood up again, she looked pleased with herself. Not proud. Not self-congratulatory. Just happy he'd stopped crying. As though that alone had made the interruption worthwhile. Art found himself staring. She noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
The answer came too quickly. She narrowed her eyes. Clearly unconvinced and curious as to why he was acting so strange today. Then moved on.
The moment lingered on Art as everything with her apparently did. Not because it was extraordinary but because it wasn't. That was the problem. She hadn't helped because anybody was watching. Hadn't helped because it benefited her. She'd helped because somebody was upset. And apparently that was enough.
The rest of the afternoon unfolded the same way. A hundred tiny discoveries. A hundred tiny surprises. At one point she stopped to pet a golden retriever tied outside a café.
Not a quick pat. Not a polite hello.
An entire conversation while she looked into its eyes and made exaggerated expressions when talking to it. The dog seemed delighted. So did she.
Twenty minutes later she was talking to a cashier she'd never met before as though they'd been friends for years. Then she spent ten minutes pointing out architectural details on buildings Art had walked past hundreds of times without noticing.
The shape of windows. The carvings around doorways. The strange little gargoyles perched above rooftops.
"How do you even see these things?" he asked with a laugh. She looked genuinely confused.
"How do you not?"
That answer stayed with him. Because she seemed to notice everything. Not in a critical way. Not in a judgmental way like Tashi did. In a curious way. Like the world was constantly offering her things to discover. And she accepted every single one with open arms and a gentle disposition.
By the time they ended up in a movie theater, Art already felt slightly overwhelmed. Not by the day. By her.
The movie itself was good, or at least he assumed it was. He spent most of the first half distracted. The second half held his attention better.
Until he heard a sniffle followed by another.
Art glanced sideways. She immediately pointed at the screen.
"Don't, s-shut up."
"I didn't say anything." he snickered, a mix of worry and amusement in his tone.
"You were going to." she whispered yelled, cleaning her face.
"I wasn't."
"You absolutely were."
Her eyes were suspiciously shiny. A tear escaped. She looked betrayed as she pouted and tried holding them in as she stared in wonder at the screen. Betrayed as though her own face had turned against her.
Art laughed. She glared. Which only made him laugh harder.
By the time the credits rolled she was openly wiping her eyes.
"I just think people should communicate." she offered in a tiny hiccup
"They did communicate."
"They communicated too late." she groaned, and Art wondered if she actually understood people on screen were actors and not real people.
"That's the entire plot."
"I know."
The earnest frustration in her voice nearly killed him. Outside, they spent another ten minutes discussing alternate endings. As though fictional people had personally wronged her. Art listened and contributed to her little fantasy. Smiling like an idiot.
At some point they stopped for dinner. The restaurant wasn't fancy. Neither of them cared, they were used to sandwiches and lattes that weren't even that good.
Halfway through the meal she interrupted herself. Mid-sentence. Mid-thought. Mid-breath. Everything stopped.
"Oh my God."
Art blinked. "What?" A hair in her food? After everything today he swore he'd personally annihilate whoever was at fault if she was displeased with her food-
"This." She pushed her plate toward him. "You have to try this."
No hesitation. No self-consciousness. Just immediate certainty. Ah.
As though sharing was the most natural thing in the world, Art took a bite.
Immediately understood. The food was good and yet that wasn't the point. The point was the way she watched him while he tasted it.
Waiting.
Hopeful.
Wanting him to enjoy something simply because she enjoyed it. The gesture lodged itself somewhere deep inside his chest. The deeper they got into the day, the more it happened.
Tiny moments.
Tiny kindnesses.
Tiny pieces of her.
By sunset, Art felt as though he'd spent the entire day discovering rooms inside a house he'd mistaken for a single door. The coffee shop version of her had always felt complete. Funny. Smart. Beautiful. He'd thought that was the whole picture.
Instead it turned out she'd barely fit inside the frame he'd built for her.
There was so much more. Kindness that seemed instinctive. Curiosity that touched everything. A way of moving through the world that made ordinary things feel worth noticing. And perhaps worst of all, every new thing he learned only made him like her more.
By the time they were walking back toward campus beneath a sky streaked pink and gold, Art felt strangely overwhelmed. Not because he'd spent the entire day with her. Because it still didn't feel like enough. Because tomorrow suddenly seemed too far away. Because he could already feel himself wanting another day.
And another.
And another after that.
The realization settled quietly into his chest. Heavy. Certain. Terrifying.
He was in love with her.
Completely.
Hopelessly.
And judging by the way she was laughing beside him, completely unaware of the crisis unfolding in his head.
By the time they reached her dorm, the campus had quieted considerably.
The rush of students heading to classes and dining halls had long since faded into the background. Most windows glowed warmly against the darkening evening, scattered rectangles of yellow light tucked between old brick and ivy. Somewhere in the distance, somebody was playing music badly enough that Art couldn't identify the song. The air had cooled just enough to justify the sweater she'd tied around her waist hours ago and forgotten to put back on.
Neither of them seemed particularly eager to acknowledge they had arrived. The conversation had slowed naturally during the walk back. Not because they'd run out of things to say. Quite the opposite; Art felt as though they could have continued talking until sunrise.
She stopped at the foot of the steps leading toward her dorm entrance and shifted her bag higher onto her shoulder. For a moment neither moved. Neither spoke. The day settled softly between them.
The bookstore.
The movie.
The dinner.
The countless tiny moments Art knew he would replay later. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I had a really good time today."
The words shouldn't have made his heart pound that harshly. They did anyway.
Art looked at her. Really looked at her.
At the way the fading light softened the edges of her face. At the faint flush still lingering in her cheeks from laughing. At the familiar rings glinting beneath the campus lights. He thought about the last few months.
About the injury.
About the coffee shop.
About every morning that had followed.
About all the ways she had quietly become the best part of his day. Then he thought about how unbearable it suddenly seemed to leave.
"Oh." The sound escaped before he could stop it.
She laughed softly. "What?"
Art rubbed the back of his neck. Immediately regretted it. Because now he had to say the thing. The realization was terrifying.
He'd played championship matches with less anxiety for Christ's sake.
"Okay."
Her smile widened. "Okay what?"
Art exhaled slowly. "I'm going to do something."
She blinked with a laugh. "What kind of introduction is that?"
"A necessary one!" He groaned, nerves on edge
"That doesn't answer my question."
"It will in a second just- listen!"
The amusement in her expression deepened. God. He was gone. Completely gone.
"If you hate it," he continued, "you have full permission to punch me into next year and never talk to me again, I-I'm serious."
She stared at him. Then laughed. "Art—"
He kissed her.
Not because he was brave.
Not because he was confident.
Mostly because if he waited another five seconds, he thought he might pass out. For one terrible, horrifying fraction of a second, his brain supplied every possible worst-case scenario. Then she kissed him back.
The relief nearly knocked the air from his lungs. Her hand found his sleeve first. Then his shoulder. Carefully. Always careful with that shoulder. The realization hit him with almost painful tenderness.
Even now.
Even here.
She remembered.
The kiss deepened naturally, neither of them particularly interested in being the first to pull away. When they finally did, Art found himself staring. Again.
Apparently that was simply going to be a permanent condition now. Her cheeks were pink. Her smile was impossible.
"You know," she said quietly, "that would've been significantly more romantic without the threat of physical violence."
Art laughed. The sound surprised both of them. Then she kissed him again. And somehow that felt even better.
Exactly one week later, Art found himself standing outside her lecture hall trying not to bounce on his heels.
The three months were over. Officially. Completely. Finally.
The physical therapist had cleared him that morning. Limited training. Careful progression.
No heroics.
But cleared.
The words still felt unreal. She emerged from the building bidding goodbye to one of her friends. Art smiled immediately.
She smiled back. Immediately, every time. Without fail.
The consistency of it still made him ridiculously happy.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"That's a lie."
"Probably."
She narrowed her eyes. "What are you plotting, Art?"
Art considered his answer. Then decided honesty was easier. "Would you come to practice with me?"
She blinked. "Practice?"
The confusion was genuine. Completely genuine. Not polite. Not pretend.
Actual confusion.
Art opened his mouth. Then paused. Because for a second he'd forgotten. Forgotten that there had been a time before the coffee shop.
Before them.
Forgotten that the person standing in front of him wasn't part of the Stanford tennis ecosystem. "Tennis," he said. "Practice. The doctor cleared me this morning."
Her entire face brightened. "Oh!" Not because of tennis. Because he was happy. The distinction struck him immediately. "Oh my God, Art." She threw her arms around him. Nearly knocking some papers out of her own hands. "That's amazing!"
"I know." He answered with a grin, blushing.
"I knew you'd be okay."
"I wasn't exactly dying." He giggles as she kisses his forehead.
"You were very dramatic about it." She smirks, ruffling his hair softly
"I was injured." Art laughs trying his best shot at mock offense.
"You were dramatic."
Art rolled his eyes. She grinned. Then, after a moment:
"Of course I'll come." The answer arrived so quickly it caught him off guard.
"Really?"
"Obviously!"
The word settled somewhere warm inside his chest. Obviously. As though there had never been another possible answer. As they started walking, another realization slowly followed. One he couldn't quite ignore.
"You know," he said, "it's weird."
"What is?"
"You forgot."
She looked up. "What?"
"Tennis."
She frowned. "I didn't forget tennis."
"You forgot I played."
Art stared. She laughed harder. "I'm sorry."
"No, seriously."
"I am being serious!"
"You forgot."
"I didn't forget."
"You looked genuinely confused."
"Because when you said practice, I thought you meant physical therapy." Art stopped walking. She stopped too. The campus moved around them. Students hurrying to classes. Bikes passing. Leaves rustling overhead. None of it mattered. Because suddenly he understood something.
All those mornings.
All those conversations.
All those weeks.
She'd never cared about Stanford Tennis.
Never cared about rankings. Or scholarships. Or campus fame. Or any of the things people usually attached to him before learning his name.
To her, tennis had simply been... a thing. Something he did. Not who he was. The realization felt strangely emotional.
"Then why do you like me?"
She stared at him. As though he'd asked why the sky was blue. "Art."
"No, seriously."
A smile slowly appeared. Soft. Affectionate. Dangerously fond.
"You really don't know?"
He didn't.
Or maybe he did and just wanted to hear it. The books shifted slightly in her arms. She adjusted them before answering. "Because you're kind." Art immediately scoffed. She ignored him. "You're kind," she repeated. "You pretend you're not because you think kindness has to be loud to count."
"That's not true."
"You spent twenty minutes helping me carry books after we met and acted like it was an inconvenience the entire time."
"I was being polite."
"You remembered my coffee order before I remembered yours."
Art opened his mouth. Closed it.
She continued.
"You're patient. You listen. You care about people even when you pretend not to."
"I do not pretend not to."
"You absolutely do."
The certainty in her voice made him laugh. She smiled. Then softened.
"You work harder than anyone I've ever met." His chest tightened. "And you're brave." Art immediately looked away.
"No."
"Yes."
"Definitely not."
"Art."
The way she said his name stopped him cold. Simple. Certain. Like fact. Like truth. "You spent your whole life building something," she said quietly. "Then you lost it for three months and still figured out how to be yourself without it." The words landed harder than anything else. Because she didn't understand. Or maybe she understood perfectly. The injury had felt like losing himself. And somehow, without meaning to, she'd helped him find himself again.
She smiled.
Small.
Warm.
The same smile from the coffee shop.
The same smile from the first day.
The same smile that had ruined his life in the best way possible.
"And," she added, "I think you're funny."
Art stared. "That's your final argument?"
"It's a very strong argument."
"I hate you."
She laughed. "I know."
Then she slipped her hand into his. As naturally as breathing. As though she'd been doing it forever. And for the first time since the doctor had told him three months, Art realized he no longer measured his life in tennis seasons or tournaments or rankings.
Not first. Now he measured it in mornings. In conversations. In tomorrows. And in the girl who had accidentally taught him there was more to him than the game he'd built his entire life around. ♡
⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔
author's note: this is my first fic after a while, I'm surprised it ended up being this long lol I hadn't written any fanfiction since 2023 so excuse this if it's a little rusty. thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed. -L.
★ summary: you and samira mohan were ‘fire and ice’ long before jack abbot came into the picture. but when ambition, obsession, and desire blur together one thing becomes painfully clear: tennis always wins
★ pairing: challengers!au! jack abbot x reader x samira mohan
★ warnings: 18+ mdni, smut, internalized homophobia, situationship but make it a throuple, toxic relationships, manipulation, threesomes, p in v, oral, fingering, public sex, cream pie, dirty talk, tennis inaccuracies
★ word count: 13k words
★ notes: rewatched challengers & something crazy came over me. this feels out of my comfort zone for writing so i hope u all like it??? part two maybe??? ;) <3
In August, the Stanford courts smelled like sunscreen, wet concrete, and too much ambition. While the California sun beamed down on your skin, your eyes were locked onto the match happening a few feet away from you. Even as your own partner’s ball whizzed right past your head.
Everybody arrived here with rankings and reputations and old trophies clinging to them like bad perfume. Former junior champions. Olympic hopefuls. Rich girls with private coaches and devastating backhands.
Most of the team grew up inside tennis academies with recovery trainers, nutritionists, and parents' trust funds. You grew up learning how to rewrap your own blistered hands with pharmacy tape because proper grip supplies cost too much that month.
You spent high school waking up at four-thirty in the morning to practice before classes, then racing across town afterward to whatever job was currently paying you enough to keep competing. Waitressing at a sleazy diner in town. Cleaning locker rooms at a fitness center where rich women complained about Pilates while your knees throbbed beneath you. During summers, you coached little kids at the YMCA under brutal heat until your voice went raw from yelling instructions all day, only to stay afterward and practice serves alone until dark.
There were nights you fell asleep still smelling like tennis court asphalt and fryer grease. Nights you bled through your socks because your shoes were too worn down to support your feet anymore but you kept playing anyway because you didn’t know what else you were supposed to do. College scouts didn’t care if your body hurt.
Nobody cared how badly you wanted it until you started winning enough to force them to pay attention. And God, you wanted it.
You wanted it with a desperation ugly enough to scare you sometimes.
You clawed your way into national rankings one ugly match at a time until colleges started calling. Not because you were polished or even marketable. But because you won. Relentlessly. Meanly sometimes. You turned yourself into the kind of player people dreaded drawing in brackets. You were willing to destroy anyone and anything that got in between you and your dreams.
Then Stanford offered you a scholarship and suddenly you were here surrounded by girls who looked born for this life.
Girls like Samira Mohan.
She was a freshman, just like you. Her reputation preceded her, a full-ride scholarship with sponsorships already circling like sharks in the water. She could have gone pro almost immediately, but insisted on going to college. You thought this was to lessen the hype surrounding her, but instead, they treated her like the future of American tennis had descended graciously onto collegiate courts for fun.
On paper, you wanted so desperately to hate her.
But from the moment you first caught a glimpse of her, you knew that was easier said than done.
You expected someone with that much attention around her to be unbearable in an obvious way. Some polished media-trained nightmare with a smile that belonged on sponsorship campaigns and magazine covers. Instead, she barely seemed aware of herself at all. She was kind, genuinely kind in a way that was hard to be in competitive sports.
And the worst part? She was the most beautiful woman you had ever laid your eyes on.
She was a vision on the court, all elegant moves and precise shots. An absolute firecracker, who was currently screaming in Hindu under her breath at her partner. Her white tennis dress contrasting against her sweatlined skin, her curly hair in a messy braid down her back. She was golden, practically glistening against the court. The sight of her in person had the habit of taking your breath away, right before another ball was struck directly at your head.
You just barely ducked, nearly falling flat on your ass.
“What the fuck Trinity?” You barked, looking back at your partner who was already in position to serve another one directly at your head.
“Stop staring, you pathetic gay.” She yelled back, making your face blanch.
This was the other worst part, you may have, just maybe, had the tiniest of a schoolgirl crush on her. Your roommate and best friend Trinity would disagree with the tiny part, but that didn’t matter.
“Half gay,” You grumbled, in a weak attempt at a comeback.
“And fully pathetic, get in position! We only have the court for another hour.”
”Fuck you.” You cried out, hitting the ball back at her with expert precision.
“Yeah, she’s back.” She cheered playfully, the two of you continuing with your head-to-head match. It was endless practice and drills to start the year. Your head was not in the game, it was on the pretty girl a few feet away who hadn’t even glanced your way once.
By the second week of preseason, the Stanford courts had already become something ugly and sacred. Blister tape littered the benches. Empty electrolyte packets rolled across the concrete in the wind. Everyone walked around with ice-wrapped shoulders and knee braces were the new chic accessories. Nobody spoke much between drills anymore. Competition had worn through the friendliness fast. Every girl here wanted the same thing.
You especially.
Which was why Coach Al-Hashimi eventually made the mistake of putting you and Samira Mohan on opposite sides of the net.
Trinity physically recoiled when she saw the matchup sheet.
“Oh man, you're gonna stumble over your shoes if she stares at you too long?” She asked, walking alongside you as you grabbed your gear.
“Come on,” You whistled, adjusting the tape on your wrist, “When have you known me to stumble on the court?”
“That’s fair, but come on. Don’t make Stanford’s golden child cry, it’ll be bad publicity.” She laughed, plopping down on the bleachers.
You scoffed, “Please, if she cries then she shouldn’t be in this sport.”
Across the court, Samira laughed softly to herself as she’d overheard it. Which she probably had. Her racket rested against her shoulder while she tied her curls back into a cleaner ponytail, sunlight catching against the gold chain at her throat.
You took a few steps forward, spinning your racket around loosely in your hand.
Samira adjusted the brim of her visor and tucked a loose curl behind her ear with absent elegance, as she existed in an entirely different environment than the rest of you despite standing under the same brutal sun.
That was the thing people noticed first about her. Not even the beauty, though there was certainly enough of that to make half the men’s team act brain-damaged whenever she walked through the athletic center. It was the composure, it never slipped.
You had spent the last few weeks trying very hard not to care about her. Which mostly translates to thinking about her constantly.
Not in the pathetic way Trinity kept accusing you of, though she certainly enjoyed making your life miserable over it. It was more that Samira unsettled you. Players like her were not supposed to exist naturally. Nobody should have been that technically gifted while remaining genuinely kind at the same time. Every talented player you had ever met carried sharp edges somewhere underneath the surface.
But Samira smiled at everybody. Remembered names. Helped freshmen pick up tennis balls after practice without being asked. She thanked trainers. She apologized when serves clipped the net during warmups. She played with ruthless precision while somehow never seeming cruel about it.
She was the complete opposite of you, all sharp edges and bite. You’d made a girl cry during a junior's tournament in Texas after targeting her backhand for two straight sets until she unraveled publicly. You argued with judges and snapped more rackets than you could afford. It only got worse when you met Trinity, judges called the two of you the angriest doubles teams in the history of tennis.
At least they were talking about you.
Samira glanced toward you while bouncing a ball lightly against the concrete, her expression relaxed. Not a hint of tension to be seen on her shoulders. “You ready?”
You rolled your shoulder once before settling into position at the baseline. “Depends, you gonna uphold the title of Stanford’s golden child?”
She just laughed softly under her breath at that, not embarrassed or thrown off in the slightest. “I’ll try not to disappoint you.”
You refused to let it show that her words made your shoulders tighten. The game began, slowly at first. A warm-up between two peers clearly on the same level of technicality. But that didn’t last long, neither of you seemed particularly interested in easing into anything gently, and within minutes the pace escalated into something far more competitive than a preseason practice match.
You started pushing first, mostly out of instinct. Harder pace off the forehand swing. Sharper angles designed to test her movement, to coax a response out of her.
Samira redirected pace with surgical precision, using your own power against you instead of fighting it head-on. Watching her move across the court felt strangely hypnotic because there was absolutely no wasted motion anywhere in her game. Every recovery step landed perfectly balanced. Every swing flowed seamlessly into the next movement. Even the sound of her ball striking strings felt cleaner somehow, less violent than yours despite carrying just as much danger behind it.
The first real rally of the match came, and the bystanders grew and grew. Bleachers were full watching the match unfold in all of its glory.
The secret truth about tennis was that at a certain level, it stopped being a game built purely around mechanics and became something far more intimate than people realized. You learned another player’s habits through repetition. Their breathing patterns under pressure. The exact shape of their frustration. The milliseconds of hesitation before riskier shots. Great rallies felt less like combat and more like conversation conducted entirely through movement and anticipation.
And Samira spoke your language immediately. In a way that had your palms sweaty.
You slammed a forehand down the line hard enough to nearly strip paint from the baseline, the impact cracking sharply across the courts and drawing several startled reactions from nearby teammates. It was an objectively ridiculous shot, the kind designed specifically to end points outright. Samira somehow reached it anyway, sliding into a desperate recovery before redirecting the ball crosscourt with absurd control that landed inches inside the sideline.
“Oh, fuck off,” you snapped automatically before you could stop yourself.
Instead of looking offended, Samira burst into startled laughter, bright and genuine enough that it briefly threw off your concentration entirely.
“What?” you demanded, already resetting your stance.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re intense?,” she asked, still smiling as she moved back toward center court.
“Just about everyone I’ve ever met.” You smiled viciously.
The next rally lasted even longer. Twenty shots at least, maybe more, both of you pushing each other deeper into increasingly impossible angles until your lungs started burning beneath the heat and sweat dripped steadily down the side of your face. You could feel your pulse everywhere by that point, wrists and throat and chest all hammering violently beneath exertion.
All it took was one shot, a millisecond too late of a reaction for the ball to go whizzing past you. A chorus of boos and cheers erupted from behind you, your heart nearly stuttering out of your chest.
You bent slightly at the waist catching your breath, chest heaving hard while sweat rolled slowly down your spine beneath your shirt. Across the net Samira rested her hands against her knees for a moment before glancing back up at you, loose curls escaping and sticking damply against her golden skin beneath the sunlight.
When you caught her eyes, something dangerous split between your ribs. There was admiration sparkling there, a beaming smile that contrasted your furrowed brows and scowl.
“Wow,” she said honestly between breaths. “You’re the first actual opponent I’ve had since I got here.”
From that moment, a friendship was born.
At first, it was a practical matchup approved by your coaches. Nobody else on the team could push either of you properly anymore. Samira needed someone aggressive enough to force her out of her comfort zone, somebody willing to turn every practice set into controlled warfare. You needed somebody steady enough to withstand your worst moods, to turn you into a ‘civilized player’ they said.
It was five-thirty runs through campus while fog still hung low over Palo Alto and the world smelled faintly like wet grass. It was weight room sessions spent shoulder to shoulder beneath fluorescent lights, Trinity half-asleep beside you both while Samira quietly corrected your form with gentle hands against your spine. It was the endless hours on court until your bodies moved around each other instinctively, your games sharpening together like knives dragged repeatedly across the same stone. The first time you two played together officially, one commentator called you two ‘Fire and Ice’ after the two of you bulldozed through doubles nationals together.
For the next two years, the two of you were inseparable. A match made in tennis heaven, that’s what ESPN called the two of you after Stanford won nationals your sophomore year, the article accompanied by grainy action shots of you snarling at the net beside Samira looking composed enough to belong in an entirely different photograph. Beauty and brutality.
The analysts loved turning the two of you into mythology because it made good television, because people were fascinated by the impossible chemistry of watching someone as elegant as Samira Mohan somehow fitting together seamlessly with somebody as sharp-edged and openly vicious as you.
Behind the cameras and headlines, Samira knew you better than anybody alive.
She knew when your shoulder started bothering you again because your serve motion tightened slightly afterward. She knew the specific silence that meant you were angry versus the quieter one that meant you were hurt. She knew how to talk you down after losses without making you feel pitied, knew exactly when to push and when to leave you alone entirely.
Nobody had ever handled you gently before. Your whole life, people either tried to control your intensity or feared it outright. Coaches called you difficult. Opponents called you cruel. Even people who loved you sometimes treated your emotions like natural disasters to survive instead of something worthy of understanding.
Samira never asked you to become softer. She just learned how to hold the sharp edges without cutting herself open on them.
Falling in love with her was never part of the plan, but it came easier than winning a match.
You never told anyone, besides Trinity who called it that day on the court during Freshman year. You planned to die with the secret. As far as you knew, Samira didn’t even like women so it never crossed your mind as being an option, until the end of your Junior year.
The season had just ended badly. Samira lost a semifinal she should’ve won and spent the entire night furious and vibrating with restless energy. The two of you snuck your way onto the courts half-drunk from some terrible fraternity party neither of you even wanted to attend. The two of you were barely able to play an actual game, your vision too blurry your balance too off. Rackets and balls were neglected on the court, for some poor lackey to clean up tomorrow.
In a fit of giggles, and sweaty from the night air you two found yourselves in the locker rooms. She was still ranting about missed shots while peeling off sweaty party clothes in the showers afterward because neither of you were thinking clearly. The next thing the two of you knew, you were both naked in front of each other. Steam fills every inch of the tiny stalls, making the distance between you two feel even smaller.
Her mascara was smudged beneath her eyes, and her cheeks flushed from the drinks. You remembered the exact moment she stopped talking. The way her teeth bit down on her bottom lip. The exact moment she looked at you differently.
Her gaze traveled down your body when you stepped beneath the spray with your eyes closed, letting the hot water hit aching muscles. You could feel her looking before you opened your eyes again.
”I don’t even know why I’m so angry,” she’d laughed softly, water dripping down her shoulders. “It’s stupid.”
“Because you care too much.” You said, focusing on rinsing the rest of the shampoo out of your hair.
“Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time with you.” She joked, but her laugh came out flat and unfocused. You could see the faraway look in her eyes, the way her fingers twitched at her sides.
“You okay Mira?” You asked softly, taking a tentative step closer.
She stared at you for a long second after that. Then the distance was closed, and her lips were on yours. It was startling and desperate.
You fell into her immediately, your hands finding her hips in the steamy room and pulling her body against yours. Her hands were cold against your jaw, while your mouths explored each other’s messily. You pressed her against the damp tile, kissing down her jaw and her neck while her hands tangled in your hair.
Her skin was soft and wet as your hands traveled down, gripping the supple flesh of her chest. She responded to you almost immediately, her legs parting for you as your hand slipped in between. Between the water gliding down her body and the arousal pooling, it was easy for your fingers to slip through her folds. You remember her lips parting, as she begged you for more. You remember the feeling of her warm cunt spasming around you with each expert thrust of your fingers.
A lot of it was a blur looking back, but you remember with startling clarity your heart beating so hard you thought you might throw up from it. You’d never forget the sound of your name on her lips as she came, how her skin tasted, and then the horrible realization of what happened after the water ran cold.
You couldn’t look her in the eyes afterward, not when your mouth tasted like her. Shame was deep in your stomach as you watched her towel dry her hair in the mirror, your eyes pleading for her to let you out of your misery.
You stood there pleading silently for her to say something different. Instead, Samira laughed once under her breath, thin and uncertain.
“It was just a mistake.” The words hit like physical pain.
“We’re a little drunk,” she added quickly. “That’s all.”
You weren’t sure who she was trying to convince. Maybe herself, but it didn’t work on you.
All you could do was nod because losing her entirely felt more terrifying than swallowing the heartbreak whole. Your friendship survived on unspoken things already. One more secret buried between the two of you hardly seemed impossible at the time. Nothing really changed in your friendship after that, but Samira never really touched you casually again, not outside the court anyways.
Everywhere else, she hesitated. Pulled herself back at the last second. Wrapped every dangerous feeling in sarcasm or competition before either of you could examine it too closely. But on the court, instinct took over. She reached for you constantly there.
Your wrist between points. The small of your back switching sides. Your hand crushed in hers after impossible rallies. Your bodies thrown into each other in celebration.
It became easy to pretend none of it meant anything because technically it belonged to the game.
During the NCAA quarterfinals, the two of you came back from a nearly impossible deficit after Samira saved a match point with a return so vicious the crowd audibly gasped. The stadium erupted in an ear-bursting cheer.
Before you even processed winning, Samira had already collided into you full force, laughing breathlessly while her arms wrapped around your shoulders hard enough to nearly knock you backward.
“Oh my god,” she shouted against your neck, adrenaline making her voice wild and bright. “Did you see that?”
You barely heard the crowd. Not with her legs tangled around your waist. Not with her heartbeat pounding against your chest. Not when she looked at you afterward glowing with triumph so beautiful it physically hurt to witness.
Somewhere between junior and senior year, the shape of your life stopped orbiting tennis and started orbiting Samira. It felt like trading one obsession for another.
It didn’t happen all at once. It wasn’t a decision you made. It was slower than that, subtle reallocations of attention that felt reasonable in the moment. You missed a training session because she needed a ride to a sponsor event. You stayed after practice longer than you should have because she was frustrated and you knew just how to make her laugh. You started saying no to things that would have advanced your own ranking if they meant less time in her orbit.
You didn’t even realize until rankings came out, and Coach Al Hashimi sat you down. Her perfectly styled eyebrows furrowed in frustration.
”Don’t let love dim your potential, Y/n.” She had said, Samira’s picture looming behind her on the banner hanging against the fences. It felt like a punch to the gut, but still, you kept trailing behind her.
-
”You know,” Samira started, staring down at the US Open pamphlet in her hand. Her other hand occupied by her blackberry and lip gloss, “I used to have a poster of him in my room.”
JACK ABBOT FINAL US OPEN
The words were in a bold white font, underneath a photo of the rugged man. He was handsome, there was no doubt about that. You’d never had the privilege of seeing him play, but everyone who knew anything about Tennis knew about Jack Abbot. He was a legend. A legend who suffered a horrible knee injury last year, a legend who had already defied odds by being the oldest professional player to win a US Open. He was determined to finish his career on a high note.
“Really?” You laughed, sipping your overpriced drink. “That’s so embarrassing."
She knocked her shoulder with yours at the tease, “Oh please, you had a Katy Perry poster on your wall until last year.”
“Okay, it was a really good album-“ Your banter is cut off by the crowd erupting as Jack Abbot himself steps onto the court.
Jack rolled his shoulder once before stepping up to the baseline, testing the stiffness in his knee with the smallest shift of weight. The stadium lights bleached everything silver-white around him, sweat already glinting along the sharp line of his jaw despite the match barely beginning.
His entire body snapped through the shot with that old predatory force people wrote articles about in the early years of his career, the kind that made tennis commentators sound religious trying to describe it. The ball cracked into the service box so fast it almost looked unreal, skidding low and hard enough that his opponent barely got a racket on it.
Beside you, Samira made a small involuntary sound.
You wanted to tease her, make fun of her for fawning over a retiree, but you found yourself just as mesmerized. It was like watching a future version of yourself down there. He was ruthless and aggressive in each swing and pump of his arms. The vein in his neck protruded with each yell, spit flying from his mouth.
Every rally carried that same furious edge to it. Every point felt personal, when his opponent tried to pull him wide across the baseline, Jack chased the ball down with a grim sort of joy, shoes screeching across the hard court while the crowd gasped around him. His knee visibly buckled once during a slide, just for a heartbeat, and somehow he still turned the return into a winner down the line.
The stadium erupted and Samira grabbed your thigh so suddenly it made your breath catch.
Her fingers dug into the bare skin just above your knee without thought, gripping hard as the replay flashed across the giant screen overhead. Heat flooded through you instantly, not just from the contact, but from the fact she clearly hadn’t realized she’d done it. Her attention remained glued entirely to the court, body pitched forward in disbelief while her nails pressed crescents into your skin.
“Did you see that?” she demanded, half turning toward you now, eyes bright with adrenaline.
“Yes,” you laughed breathlessly, though it came out weaker than you intended because her hand was still there. “Jesus Christ.”
Every time he won a point, the two of you reacted before thinking. Leaning into each other, grabbing each other, knees knocking together in the cramped seats while adrenaline crackled so violently through your veins it almost stopped feeling separate from attraction.
You glanced down pointedly at her hand still gripping your thigh when her thumb began stroking small circles on the inside.
Her eyes widened slightly before she snatched it back almost violently, as the skin contact itself had burned her. A flush climbed immediately into her cheeks, though whether from embarrassment or adrenaline, you couldn’t tell.
“Sorry,” she muttered quickly.
Before you could answer, Jack fired a forehand winner so vicious the entire stadium seemed to inhale at once.
You and Samira reacted at the same time.
“Oh, fuck off,” you gasped.
“No way,” she breathed.
Then both of you dissolved into disbelieving laughter together, shoulders knocking hard enough to nearly spill your drinks while the crowd around you stood roaring to their feet.
Down on the court, Jack finally allowed himself the smallest flicker of satisfaction. He stood at the baseline breathing hard, chest rising beneath sweat-dark fabric while the stadium screamed around him. His curls clung damp against his forehead, racket hanging loose at his side as he stared across the net with an expression that bordered on feral.
You hadn’t felt that alive watching tennis in weeks, now it was as if something had been ignited deep in your chest. A desire to blow this afterparty and head straight to the court. But, Samira’s hand was gripping your forearm tightly, dragging you into the Jack Abbot retiree celebration party.
Everyone wanted a piece of him. And Samira looked absolutely gone.
“He’s shorter than I thought,” she murmured for probably the fourth time that night, staring openly across the terrace where Jack stood with a drink in hand speaking to two ESPN commentators.
You took another sip of your cocktail. “You said that twenty minutes ago.”
“You should just go talk to him,” you said finally, the words sour in your mouth.
Her head whipped toward you immediately. “You think?”
“I think if you stare any harder, security's gonna intervene.”
“Oh shut up.” But she laughed, biting briefly at her bottom lip before glancing back toward him again, “Do I look okay?”
You smile sadly at her, bringing your hand up to smooth down her stray hair that the wind blew out of place. “Beautiful.” You choked out, like the word didn’t hurt.
She just watched you for a moment, wringing her hands together.
“You gonna go now?” You laugh, chewing on the cocktail straw, aching to sneak off for a cigarette that Samira would smell and yell at you for later.
“I’m working myself up,” She was practically bouncing on her heels, “You know I can’t believe he’s not married,” she said, almost absently, eyes following Jack as someone from Adidas laughed too loudly at something he’d barely said.
You smirked without looking at her. “He is.”
She glanced at you. “What?”
“To tennis that is.”
That made her laugh under her breath, but it didn’t last long. Her expression shifted as she watched him again. “Well,” she said finally, quieter, “that’s just sad. I hope you don't end up like that.”
That made you look at her.
She was still watching the room, not you. Still following Jack with her eyes like he was the most interesting thing in it. A weird feeling in your gut simmered at this. Has she ever looked for you in a room like that? Or were you simply furniture? Her peer turned partner turned cheerleader.
And suddenly you were aware of it again, the slow erosion of yourself over the last year. Practices that became about her timing. Matches that became about her schedule. Decisions that always curved back toward Samira Mohan’s trajectory like gravity.
“Maybe tennis is my only true love,” you said, your eyes still hopelessly on her.
Samira finally looked at you, but it felt like she was looking through you, “You used to be mean on the court, you know? Like breaking rackets spitting in people's faces means. There used to be a fire there.”
You let out a quiet breath through your nose. “I’m still mean.”
She cocked her head, “Y/n, you haven’t played a solo in weeks. The papers are saying the fire in ‘Fire and Ice’ is dwindling. Your ranking is lower than it should be.”
You frowned, letting your shoulders fall. You saw the papers, it was impossible not to. Trinity had taped them to your door, alongside a note that said ‘get your shit together.’ There was no time for you to play, not while Samira had your calendar booked up.
In the silence, Samira speaks up again. “Have you ever considered coaching? I think it’s time to focus on the next step of your career, and I think that would be the best thing for you.”
”What?-“ Before you can answer, or even formulate a thought a hearty laugh breaks through the crowd.
Across the venue, Jack laughed at something someone said, the sound low and unbothered even surrounded by people trying too hard to matter to him. Camera flashes from somewhere caught him mid-turn, that familiar rough-edged charm slipping into place without effort.
Samira’s attention snapped back to him like a reflex. You noticed the exact moment she stopped thinking about you.
“I might go get some fresh air.” You said, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.
“Go on,” she said suddenly, nudging your arm lightly. “I think I worked up the courage.”
You nodded once and slipped away to the edge of the crowd.
The air outside the main cluster was cooler, quieter, carrying the distant sound of the city below like something alive and indifferent. You found a corner near the cliffside, the sounds of the river lulling your beating heart as you pulled a cigarette from your bag, and lit it with hands that only shook a little.
The first inhale grounded you in a way nothing else had all night. You exhaled toward the skyline, watching smoke disappear into neon.
“So this is where the real party is.” A timber voice spoke up from behind you, making your shoulders tense.
Looking back, maybe this was the first crack in the glass. When Samira spent all night trying to get him to look at her, and he saw you first.
“Jack Abbot,” You breathed out, thumb still flicking the cigarette filter.
“Y/n Y/l/n.” He said, with a smug smile on his lips.
His name coming from your mouth made your stomach fall, brows furrowing at the man. He seemed to have noticed the confusion, taking a few steps closer to you.
“What?” The jilted teasing in his tone made your knees weak, “You don’t think I’d keep up with the up-and-coming tennis stars from my alumni?”
“Didn’t think my name would be on that list,” You scoffed, still wallowing in your own self-pity.
“Highest ranking score. What was it, top junior results? Higher than Mohan’s early numbers,” he said, like he was reading something off memory. “And now you’re what? Holding her water bottle at courtside and running drills like a shadow?” The cigarette paused halfway to your lips.
“That’s not true-“
“Come on,” he cut in, not unkindly. “You know what I’m saying.”
Silence stretched. Behind you, laughter erupted from the party again. Music pulsed faintly through the wind. You knew what he was saying, it was the same thing everyone close to you had been drilling into your head the past few weeks. Jack didn’t look away from you, his gaze heavy and startling.
“She’s my best friend,” you said finally, quieter.
A hum from him. “But?” he prompted.
Your eyes drifted back to the party. Samira was on the dance floor now. Laughing loudly. Surrounded by attention without ever seeming to need it. She looked like she belonged in the center of everything. Like she always had. Beautiful in motion. Confident in a way that made people forget how sharp she actually was.
”She’s just really good.”
Jack followed your gaze. “Yeah,” he said softly. “She is.”
There was a beat of silence before he spoke, quieter, almost like he wasn’t speaking to you anymore:
“But you could be better.”
He scoffs, “How many games do you let her win in practice? I bet she doesn't even realize you’re pulling your hits anymore, huh?”
“Don’t act as if you know me,” You snapped, “What you watch our film? See a game? Read our stats? Just because you’re famous doesn’t mean you know anything about us.”
There was that stupid infuriating smirk still on his face, like he was looking into a mirror, “Okay, okay.” he says, his hands up in surrender. “Apologies for offending the lady, but you can’t deny that you’re selling yourself short.”
You rolled your eyes, going to flick the cigarette out before a hand captured your wrist.
“You mind?” He asked gently, to which you took too long to shake your head.
Jack’s fingers loosened only slightly around your wrist, rough warmth settling against your pulse as he guided your hand back toward him instead of away.
His gaze never left yours as he leaned down, his mouth wrapping around the cigarette between your fingers.
Heat flooded through your entire body so fast it almost made you dizzy.
The scrape of stubble against the inside of your wrist. The slow inhale hollowing his cheeks slightly. The deliberate eye contact while smoke curled between both of you in the humid night air.
It was obscene, and erotic. Jack pulled back after a second, exhaling smoke toward the river before finally releasing your wrist. His thumb brushed once against the inside, before dropping it as if it had never happened.
“C’mon,” he said easily. “Let’s go meet your best friend.”
Jack walked ahead of you through the crowd with effortless confidence, occasionally nodding at people who tried to stop him but never slowing down long enough to get trapped. You followed behind him in a daze, knees weak as a newborn fawn on ice.
It was as if the party bent to his will. Not because he was handsome, though he absolutely was. Not because he was famous or that this whole party was for him anyways. It was something stranger than that. Jack carried himself like a man completely at ease with being desired. Comfortable under attention, thriving even. The kind of confidence people spent their entire lives trying to fake.
”Samira Mohan,” Jack said as he approached the bar beside you, his voice smooth and warm with amusement. “This lovely lady was outside singing your praises.”
Your stomach twisted as Samira’s brows flew up her forehead. What kind of game was he playing?
“Was she?”
”All of them,” he said easily. “Most of which I already knew were true.” Then he reached for her hand.
You’ve known him for all of ten minutes and you already knew flirting was simply another language he spoke fluently. His fingers curled around hers with surprising gentleness before he dipped his head just enough to brush a kiss against her knuckles.
A blush bloomed immediately across her cheeks and down the elegant line of her throat, visible even beneath the warm amber lighting of the tiki torches. Through all the years you’ve known her, never once have you seen her so flustered, yet here she was tripping over her words.
“Your backhand tonight was insane,” she said quickly, words tumbling over each other now that she finally had his full attention. “That second set crosscourt return in the fifth game? Nobody hits that angle anymore because everybody’s obsessed with baseline power but your timing was-“
“Old school?” Jack offered.
“Surgical,” Samira corrected instantly.
Then, they were off. She and Jack fell easily into a discussion about court surfaces and younger players and racket tension like they’d known each other for years.
You stood beside them sipping melting ice from your drink feeling more and more like a third wheel in your own life.
Your jealousy curdled slowly. Not even entirely toward Jack, mostly toward the sport itself.
Because tennis always won in the end. It always got the deepest parts of Samira before anybody else could. You’d spent years quietly accepting second place to it, even making it second place in your own life to carve out space for the love you had for her.
Then, Jack’s eyes met yours. Samira was still deep into conversation about his pacing, and his footwork, before he cut her off.
“Fire and ice,” he mused, glancing between the two of you. His finger lifted from his whisky glass, twirling around. “That’s what they used to call you, right?”
Samira laughed softly under her breath. “God, that was stupid.”
“It wasn’t stupid,” Jack said. “People loved watching you two.”
His gaze settled on you again. Heavy enough to make your skin feel hot beneath your dress. “I related to the fire part personally. Hell, you know they called me a tennis cowboy for years. Never following the rules.”
You looked away first, unable to keep his gaze. Not while Samira looked like a kicked puppy the moment his gaze was no longer on her.
“Well,” Samira said brightly, trying to shake herself out of whatever strange current had settled between the three of you, “she’d make an incredible coach.”
“She sees the game differently than anybody I know,” Samira said immediately. Proud. Certain. “She notices momentum before it shifts. Patterns before they happen. Half the reason my game improved at all was that she could always tell what I was doing wrong before my coaches could.”
”So, you giving up all of this,” he moved his hands around to gesture to the party raging on without him, “to be a coach?”
It occurred to you that Jack Abbot had seen in half an hour what you’ve spent the past few years blind to. Samira had decided your future for you, on her side of the court rather than the opposite. Just the person standing behind somebody else’s success rather than making your own.
You shrugged lightly, trying for indifference. “Maybe.”
Jack’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly at that.
Samira laughed awkwardly beside you, immediately jumping back in before the silence could settle too deeply. “She’s being dramatic. She still plays recreationally and honestly if she wanted to start competing again she probably could, she just would be much better at-“
”Do you want to coach?” Jack interrupted her gently.
You looked at him, caught briefly off guard by the intensity of his attention again. Around you, the party blurred warm and loud, people brushing past in expensive fabrics and perfume, but suddenly it felt strangely isolated there at the bar with him watching you like your answer actually mattered.
“I don’t know,” you finally admitted. “Maybe I am better suited for coaching than competing.”
Jack stared at you for a second like you’d said something genuinely absurd.
“No.” The certainty in his voice made your stomach flip. “You’re the most competitive player I’ve ever seen.”
You blinked. “That’s definitely not true.”
“It is.” His gaze dragged over your face slowly before settling heavily on your eyes again. “Players like you don’t just wake up one day and stop wanting it. Where did that fire go?”
Something hot curled low in your stomach.
Samira shifted beside you, suddenly very interested in finishing her drink.
”You just need that…” Jack tilted his head slightly, mouth curving into a knowing half-smile. “Fire back.”
Samira downs her drink in one swallow, the air suddenly much hotter than it was before.
“Doesn’t she?” Jack elbowed Samira lightly, brushing his body against the side of hers.
She set the empty glass down harder than necessary before forcing a quick smile back onto her face. “Okay,” she laughed thinly, “now you’re just feeding her ego.”
”Aww,” Jack pouted playfully, looking down at her. “Are you jealous?”
The question landed with a sharp little crack between all three of you. Samira froze for half a second, then laughed too quickly. “Please. She’s had an ego since she was sixteen.”
“S’ a part of the game,” you muttered, trying desperately to diffuse the strange electric tension coiling tighter and tighter around the conversation.
But Jack only grinned wider, like this dynamic was the most interesting match he had ever seen.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “most players would kill for somebody who believes in them the way Y/n believes in you.”
”Well,” Samira said suddenly, buoyed again by alcohol and adrenaline and the fact that Jack Abbot was still standing here talking to her like she mattered, “if you’re not sick of us yet, we could do a nightcap somewhere quieter?”
You nearly choked on your own spit. Samira looked equally surprised at herself for approximately half a second before stubbornness took over. Her chin lifted slightly. “What? We’re fun.”
Jack barked out a laugh. “Jesus,” he said, rubbing one hand over his jaw dramatically. “You girls even old enough to drink?”
Samira rolled her eyes instantly. “We’re twenty-three.”
“Mm.” His gaze slid toward you lazily. “What do two young tennis players want with this broken old man?”
“To seduce you, obviously.” Samira teased, letting her perfectly manicured nails hover above his forearm. It didn’t feel like a joke the way his eyes glittered. He pulled his hotel keycard out of his pocket within seconds, guiding both of you away from the lights and noise.
Her fingers curled around his bicep while she talked animatedly about some disastrous junior tournament in Florida, head tipping toward him every time he laughed. Jack listened with easy patience, occasionally teasing her just enough to keep her flushed and smiling.
Meanwhile, you walked half a step behind them feeling strangely untethered.
The jealousy inside you has become complicated now. Twisted together with attraction and longing and something lonelier. Because Samira looked so happy beside him. Glowing from his attention. And Jack, infuriatingly, seemed equally comfortable with her hanging off his arm while still somehow tracking your every movement at the same time. His gaze had a way of making you feel seen in a way you weren’t sure if you had been before.
The US Open spared no cent when it came to his accommodations. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the entire glittering city. Low modern furniture. Expensive dark wood. A terrace stretching out beyond the glass with the skyline spilling endlessly behind it. Somewhere inside the suite jazz played softly through hidden speakers.
Jack loosened the collar of his shirt as he stepped inside, immediately more relaxed here than he’d been all night.
“One drink,” He mused, grabbing a bottle of champagne that had been sitting on ice, “Then it’s off to bed for you two.”
The bottle was popped with a loud cheer, bubbles were poured into overpriced glasses.
“Cheers, to the legend Jack Abbot himself.” Samira cheers, clanking all of your glasses together.
Conversation stretched deep into the night after that, sprawling loose and intimate in the strange way conversations only become after midnight. Shoes abandoned by the couch. The city glittered outside the windows. Samira was twirling her now frizzy curls between her fingers while you were arguing with Jack about whether modern players lacked aggression.
”They’re too fucking soft nowadays.”
“You think everybody’s soft,” she accused.
“Everybody is soft.” You argued back, your bare feet pressing against her thighs from where you two were lounging on the couch.
“You cried during your Australian Open press conference in 2006.” She pointed, making you groan. Your empty glass being filled up again by Jack who sat perched on the velvet armchair, right across from you two.
“It was an angry cry though, those judges didn’t know their heads from their mouths.” You gulped down another drink, the bubbles going straight to your head.
“If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen, that’s what I said after my opponent in 2008 said I was, ‘A disgrace to the sport of tennis itself’ for forcing his hand for five rallies.” Jack chimed in, his hands lazily on his knees while he leaned back.
“What an old saying.” Samira snorted, her hand falling on your bare ankle absentmindedly.
“Can I ask a question?” He asked suddenly, “It might be personal but..”
You both just hummed, nodding for him to ask.
“Are you two together?”
Samira’s hand is gone from your ankle like it was never there at all, pulled back so fast it’s almost violent in its restraint. The absence of it is louder than the touch was. She shifts in her seat, reaches for her drink too quickly, and you can see it in the small, betraying details of her body that she’s recalibrating in real time, trying to put herself back into something legible.
“No,” she says immediately, too quickly.
You feel the gap she leaves beside you widen, even though she hasn’t physically moved away. It’s just suddenly obvious that whatever space she occupied a second ago was more intimate than she’s willing to admit in front of him.
You smile anyway, because that’s what you do. It’s what you’ve been doing for so long it comes out easy, practiced. “Just best friends,” you add lightly, tilting your glass slightly in your hand as if the question barely touched you. “The best of friends.”
There’s a faint curl at the edge of his mouth, not quite amusement but not far from it either. “Right,” he says slowly, like he’s accepting the answer without believing it.
Samira adjusts her hair behind her ear, her nervous tick. “Why?” she asks, but her tone is careful now, guarded in a way it wasn’t a minute ago.
Jack’s attention shifts to her briefly, then back to you, like he’s refusing to let either of you escape the frame of his observation. “Just curious,” he says, “It changes how people move around each other on the court. That’s all.”
He doesn’t let the silence last for long, “Tennis is probably the most erotic sport there is,” he says. “You spend hours watching someone’s body under pressure. You learn their timing. Their breathing. The exact moment they break rhythm.”
He tilts his glass slightly, watching the liquid shift. “There’s no distance in it. Not really. Not when you’re paying attention. It’s intimate.”
The tension in the room is so thick it makes it hard to breathe, so you swing your legs to the side of the couch, sitting upright.
“We’re out of champagne.” You smiled, shifting the topic almost as soon as it came.
It took a while, but the conversation drifted after that into softer territory, though the tension never loosened. If anything, it deepened with the hour, settling low and heavy into the suite like another entity in the room.
Jack had migrated from the armchair to between you two on the couch at some point, abandoning the performative distance between all of you. The cushions dipped beneath his weight as he stretched one leg out carefully, wincing faintly at the stiffness in his knee before hiding it behind another sip of whiskey.
The city glowed silver through the windows behind him. The suite lighting turned everything honey-soft. Samira’s bare knees brushing his every few seconds unconsciously, and every time it happened Jack’s eyes flicked downward briefly before returning to your faces.
”So, you’re telling me after all these years nothing has happened between you two?” He asked, Samira practically shoved against his side while his arm was slung across the couch, directly behind your head.
“This again?” Samira groans, shoving him gently.
You shift on the couch, drawing your legs in slightly, suddenly hyperaware of how close all of you have ended up without anyone actively deciding it. “It was one time,” you say, more casually than you feel, like you’re tossing it into the air just to make it lighter than it is. “Sophomore year. We were drunk. It didn’t… it wasn’t anything.”
You have Jack’s full attention again, his eyes sparkling at getting confirmation of something he could have easily guessed.
Samira’s head snaps toward you immediately. “Can you not,” she mutters, half-laughing, half-warning, but there’s no real heat in it. Only panic trying to disguise itself as annoyance.
”No, can we, please?” Jack pleads, looking like the cat that caught the canary.
“We don’t talk about it,” You shrugged, ignoring her pointed glares. “Didn’t mean anything.”
Jack dragged his thumb slowly along the rim of his whiskey glass. “So what’s the angle here?”
Samira blinked. “Angle?”
“Mhm.” He gestured lazily between the two of you. “Two gorgeous Stanford tennis players get a newly retired athlete alone in his hotel suite after midnight. They clearly have some unresolved sexual tension.”
”I think we just, admire you.” She whispered, his face gradually inching closer and closer to hers.
Your eyes are glued on them, watching their bodies gravitate towards each other.
His hand lifted absently, fingers brushing along the back of the pillows behind Samira’s shoulders. Not touching her exactly. Hovering close enough to make her breath hitch anyway.
“You two act like you’re in the middle of a match neither of you wants to win.” He said, “You two just bounce off of each other, when it would be so much easier to just let someone win.”
Samira laughed softly under her breath, though it sounded nervous now. “You think everything’s tennis.”
“Everything is tennis.”
He leans forward slowly giving Samira all the time in the world to pull away.
“So what is it, Samira?” He asks, his breath hot against her lips, “Who wins?”
She wastes no time in pulling him closer, their lips slotting together messily. Time moves slowly, watching as his large hand cradles her face in his hands. The sound of their tongues pressing against each others makes your legs squeeze together, the temperature in the room rising.
He suddenly pulls away from her, both of them immediately meeting your gaze. He says nothing, simply turns his head and presses his lips to yours with the same urgency.
You can taste her lip gloss on his lips, and it makes your head spin. The rough stubble of his cheeks brushing against your palms makes you groan into the kiss. As soon as your mouth parts he takes that as an opportunity to glide his tongue into your mouth, caressing against yours. It’s hot and desperate, and it’s over way too fast.
When he pulls back your lips are swollen, and your heart is nearly beating out of your chest. The first thing you see when you open your eyes are Samira’s on yours. Her own lips red, her hands perched on Jack’s legs to pull her closer to you.
Jack leans back slowly, looking down at the two of you like he was watching a ball bounce across the court.
“Come on,” He whispered, nudging his head to the empty space across his lap. The only space separating the two of you. “I know you both want it.”
Her pupils are blown, lust written all over her face as she looks at you. It’s unspoken as the two of you are pulled together. You don’t know who leans in first, you just know your lips are on hers.
You’ve kissed Samira Mohan before, but it didn’t matter because each time it felt like getting your first breath of fresh air in weeks.
Her hands grab your face, while yours steady themselves on Jack’s legs. He’s just watching, both of his hands cradling your heads as you kissed each other like you were starved. It was years of tension, of longing all rolled into this one kiss and he was getting to spectate it.
When you pulled away, her spit was still attached to your lip. Jack groaned softly at this, the tent in his pants evident as he shifted.
“Should we take this to the bed ladies?”
It’s a messy tangle of limbs, and clothes being shed as the three of you stumble over to the bed. Samira falls into it first, her dress still dangling off her ankles. Jack’s lips are still on your neck, his hands unzipping your own dress to let it fall in the pile of clothing. When he pulls away to unbutton his shirt you take the chance to grab Samira’s legs helping her pull the dress off of her slowly.
She looks ethereal like this, laying back with her eyes wide. Her nipples erect, and poking out high just waiting for you to put your mouth on them again. You crawl over her, settling your legs on either side of her hips.
“This okay?” You ask, your voice hoarse. Thick with anticipation.
She nods so fast you’re surprised it doesn’t give her whiplash.
You lean down, dragging your lips down from her neck to her chest. Pulling each of her nipples into your mouth, tongue flicking the small buds before you pulled off of them with a wet pop. You traced a line down her stomach with your tongue, stopping right above her underwear.
You press a kiss over the warmth of the fabric. “Can I taste you?” You practically begged.
She lifted her hips up, urging you to pull the fabric down. There’s no time wasted in you doing this. As soon as she’s bare in front of you, you almost feel like you’re dreaming.
”Fucking gorgeous.” You whispered, running your fingers through the dark hair perched on her mound. With one swipe of your tongue against her glistening cunt, you were gone, pressing your face even further into her.
“Holy fuck,” She cried out, her hips bucking against you.
Neither of you even noticed that Jack had crawled back on the bed, watching the two of you patiently while you were lost in your own world. Samira tilts her head back, a smirk on her lips.
“Aren’t you gonna join us?”
He whistles, “Well baby, I was just enjoying the show.” He leans up off the bed, walking behind where you were still on top of her.
You lean your head up to speak, but you’re pushed back down by Jack’s hand wrapping itself in your hair.
“I didn’t say you could stop,” He ordered, pressing his boxer-clad cock against the curve of your ass, “You keep making our girl feel good, and I’ll make you feel good.”
Your underwear are discarded, with Jack’s fingers finding your clit with expert precision. His callused fingers slip inside of you with little resistance, as he works you open for him. It didn’t take long for your arousal to drip down his hands, between the taste of Samira on your tongue and her breathy moans you were aching for it.
“Think you’re ready for me?” He asks, and you’re nodding into Samira’s cunt, your moans only causing vibrations to run through her. With her legs shaking around your head, Jack’s cock slips against your entrance.
The stretch of him takes your breath away, your hands gripping Samira’s legs tighter as he slowly inched himself inside of you. He was huge, that was no surprise you’ve seen the pictures of him in his tight shorts, but now you could feel him in your stomach.
“Fuckkkk.” He grunted out behind you, his hips meeting yours with a soft pop. “So tight f’me.”
“Right there,” Samira cried, when your fingers slipped inside of her, your tongue still sloppily licking her cunt, “Fuck, Jack make her feel good.”
“Yeah?” He asked, amused at watching the two girls so focused on each other’s pleasure. He bucked his hips up into you once, then once more until he slowly found his rhythm.
The moans bouncing off of the walls were enough to make a porn star blush, between Jack’s grunts and Samira’s wailing moans you wouldn’t have been surprised if you got a noise complaint.
She came into your mouth with a cry of your name, pushing your head away gently. She crawled over to you, pulling your lips onto hers to taste her own release.
All while Jack was holding your hips with an iron grip, fucking into you so deep you could hardly feel your toes.
“Oh, my god.” You cried into Samira’s mouth, “I’m gonna come.”
Her eyes flickered up to Jack’s, while she still lazily kissed your open mouth, “Mhm, come on Jack’s cock baby.”
“God, yes.”
Samira drank up your moans, swallowing them down as Jack slowed down his thrusts, watching your cunt cream around him. He slipped out of you with caution, making you cry out at the emptiness.
Your arms were shaking when you pushed Samira back down on her side, watching Jack stalk behind her like prey. His cock is slick with your release and hanging heavy between his legs.
“Your turn, baby.” Jack hummed, crawling behind her and lining himself up with her entrance. You lie next to her, letting her body rest on top of yours.
”Holy-“ She cut herself off by biting down on your shoulder, muffling her screams. You watched Jack’s cock stutter as he pushed further and further inside of her. ”S’big.”
“Both of you taking m’cock so fucking good,” Jack moaned, his hand heavy on her hip as he began to fuck into her from behind, “M’ so lucky.”
Samira’s jaw was lax, Jack kissing into her mouth messily as you watched him fuck your juices into her.
“He feels good doesn’t he?” You moan, reaching forward to start biting and sucking whatever flesh of hers you could grab while Jack fucked her brains out the same way he just did you. Your hands are pulling at her tits, circling her clit in a frantic motion.
She lets out a gargled moan as response, kissing you back lazily.
“Yeahhh, he does.” You cooed, “That big cock splitting you apart, baby?”
”It’s so good, gonna make me cum, gonna make me cum, oh yes.” She sobbed, falling apart sandwiched between the two of you.
“M’ right behind you.” Jack warned, his thrusts only getting faster as his balls tightened. You pressed your mouth against Samira’s and that’s all it took for him to still, cumming deep inside of her with a desperate shout.
The silence that followed was soft, not harsh or uncomfortable. It was heavy breathing and the post-orgasm daze of realizing what had just happened.
Samira broke the silence with an uncontrollable giggle, her head lolling against your bare chest.
“You didn’t cum twice.” She pouts, suddenly staring at your body like her hunger had yet to be satisfied.
“I’m not sure what to do.” She breathed out, suddenly nervous despite the events that had unfolded over the past hour.
“I‘ll walk you through it,” Jack whispered, his head nuzzling into the crook of her neck. Guiding Samira’s hand between your still open legs. You were still sensitive when her fingertips found your clit, flinching at the sensation. She kept making sure you were okay between each stroke.
“Now you can slip your fingers inside…” Jack guided, to which Samira nodded.
“Just one or…”
“She can take two, can’t she?”
“Yes,” You cried, feeling her second finger slide inside next to her other. Her fingers weren’t as big as Jack’s, but the softness in which she moved had you wanting to cry out in pleasure.
With instruction, she learned how to thrust her fingers just right. Her thumb hits your clit with each roll of her hand. The sound was absurd as she pulled you closer and closer to your last orgasm of the night.
“You hear that, just how wet you make her?” He whispered to her, making her eyes nearly roll to the back of her head. His softening cock was still deep inside of her, plugging her with his cum that threatened to leak out the sides. Meanwhile her fingers were making a mess of your cunt, the lewd wet sounds making both of them mewl into each other as they watched you writhe and come apart on her fingers.
“See that?” he asked, watching your hips grind into her hand. “She’s gonna cum.”
“Mira,” You cried out, trying to pull her as close as possible, your lips brushing as you came around her with a shout.
Her eyes stayed locked on you while you came, drinking in each twitch of your body.
When she slipped her fingers out of you, she stared at the slick digits like Eve staring at the apple in the garden.
“Taste her.” He whispered, but it sounded more like an order.
She slid her fingers into her mouth, sucking around the digits moaning at the taste of your release against your fingers.
“Fuck.” You breathed out, watching her cheeks hollow.
“Fuck is right.” Jack said, in awe at the two of you.
All of your bones were heavy with exhaustion, bodies still floating in bliss. You remember cleaning up, and Samira pulling you into her chest. The next thing you remember was waking up to the bright light peering through the curtains.
The bright intrusion made you groan, trying to roll over only to be blocked by a hard block of muscle. That’s when the memories of last night rushed through you. It wasn’t a dream, it was real and the ache between your legs and the two warm bodies lying next to you were proof of that.
New York was still dark beyond the massive hotel windows, the city painted in soft blue-gray light while rain tapped quietly against the glass high above Manhattan. The suite smelled faintly like champagne and expensive linen and something warmer underneath it all musk, sweat, and sleep.
For a long moment, you didn’t move too busy watching her.
Samira slept on her side facing you, curls spilled messily across silk pillowcases, mouth slightly parted beneath the dim morning light. Without all her sharpness awake inside her, she looked younger somehow. Softer. Like the version of her all those years ago you first fell in love with.
You reached out carefully, brushing a loose curl back from her face with your fingertips. Her eyes fluttered open almost immediately.
For one disorienting second she just stared at you sleepily, lashes heavy and lips still swollen from sleep and kissing and all the champagne from the night before
“Hi,” she whispered, voice rough.
“Hi.”
Behind her, Jack groaned softly into the pillows before tightening his arm instinctively around Samira’s waist. His eyes blinked open slower than hers had, still foggy with sleep while he looked between both of you lazily.
”Oh, so it wasn’t a wet dream.” He mumbled, breaking a bit of the awkward tension.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” Samira asks, grabbing your wrist from underneath the blanket, holding it gently in her hand.
“I’m good,” You smiled, and maybe for the first time in a while you really meant it.
“Good,” She beamed, “Then I have a question.”
“Oh, god.” You started to sigh, then squealed when she wrapped her still bare legs around yours pulling herself on top of you to straddle your hips. The blanket sat low on her waist, her curves on display while her tits bounced in your face,
“Will you coach for me?” She asks, her hair falling around her head like a halo.
How could you say no? When she looked like that, and the taste of her was still faint on your mouth. Her bare skin pressed against yours felt like heaven, and in that moment you would have done anything for her.
“Yes, god yeah.” You laughed at her immediate squeal, leaning up to press your lips to hers gently.
Jack just laid there, his arms behind his back staring over at you two. “Ready to play some tennis, girls?”
Your relationship was never defined, everyone knew you and Samira came as a pair. It had been unspoken since your undergrad days, but now Jack Abbot was also there.
Jack accepted Stanford’s offer not long after that night. Officially, it was temporary. Guest coaching. Mentorship. Media appearances as an alumni. The university parading around the fact that they had Jack Abbot wandering their courts now, older and limping slightly but still magnetic enough to draw attention.
Unofficially, he was there for Samira. Everyone knew it. The rumor mill started almost immediately.
It became one of those things nobody directly addressed but everyone understood instinctively. Samira Mohan arrived with you attached at her side like gravity itself demanded it, and somewhere along the way Jack had slipped seamlessly into the orbit too.
It was late-night practices under empty stadium lights. Jack fed impossible balls across the court while Samira laughed breathlessly after missing them by inches. You correcting her aggression while he corrected her footwork. The three of you collapsing onto benches afterward sweaty and exhausted, sharing water bottles and protein bars and tension so thick it practically sat beside you. It was stolen kisses and the nights the three of you never talked about during the day.
It wasn’t what any of you had planned, but it was something sacred between the three of you. At least you thought it was.
At first, it was small things. She’d look to him first after matches now, searching his face for approval before yours. During practices, she listened more sharply when he spoke, more immediate in her adjustments, more eager to impress him in ways she never tried with you anymore because your approval had become assumed.
He challenged her constantly, pushed her harder than anyone else ever had. He understood the uglier side of her ambition. Where you soothed her spirals, Jack sharpened them into fuel. Where you protected her confidence, he provoked it deliberately just to watch her fight her way back.
Jack would pull her aside afterward for “extra work,” and suddenly two hours had passed without either of them answering texts. You’d find them still on court long after dark, standing too close near the baseline while discussing strategy, Samira flushed with her hair a little out of place. Sometimes she’d forget you were supposed to be there at all.
Suddenly you weren’t the only one who understood her game, and it made you green with envy. How were you on the outside of something that you all had started together?
“Late for your own practice.” You said, your voice short and clipped. Nothing but the harsh sound of your racket slamming the ball into the wall echoes from the training room you booked weeks ago. You had spent the last hour and a half, stewing in your own anger.
Her hair is a mess, eyeliner still smudged underneath her eyes. She looks the least put together you’ve ever seen her at practice, but she’s still vibrating with energy.
“I’m sorry,” Her voice was dry, water bottle swinging in her hand, “It was a long night. Jack and I were watching some of his old games.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” You whistled, another ball cracking against the wall with so much force it made her flinch at the sound.
“Okay,” She breathes out, crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you upset with me?”
“Why would I be upset Samira?” You laugh cruelly, “Is it the part where you decided my future for me, or the part where you know how I feel about you but you continue to exploit it?”
“I’m not exploiting you,” She gawked, “Where is this coming from?”
The bitterness that rose in your throat tasted humiliating. “You asked me to coach you,” you said. “You asked me to put my career on hold because you said nobody understood your game the way I do. You said you needed me.”
“I do need you-“
“But not the way I needed you to.” The words exploded out of your chest, making your hands shake. “Not the way you need, him.”
Her eyes widened, nearly stumbling over her own feet as if the words you said made the ground shake beneath her feet.
“You know what the worst part is?” you laughed bitterly. “I would’ve done it anyway. That’s what’s so pathetic.”
“Y/n-”
“No, seriously.” You turned toward her sharply. “You asked me right after that night in New York. That was fucked.”
Neither of you ever talked about it directly anymore. Not Jack’s hands on both of you. Not the unbearable intimacy of waking up tangled together afterward and pretending it hadn’t changed everything. It just lived underneath every conversation, every fleeting glance. You let it happen, again.
“You asked me after we slept together because you knew I was too in love with you to say no,” you said quietly. “And I said yes so fast I didn’t even stop to think what it would cost me. Because I love you, Samira.”
She looked like you had slapped her, “You think I planned that?” she asked, voice cracking now. “You think I manipulated you into all of this?”
”I think you always knew you’d never choose tennis over me, but I think you loved that I’d choose you over tennis. Fuck, I would have chosen you over everything.” Your voice cracked, tears welling in your lash line.
Samira wiped angrily at her eyes before looking back at you. “That’s not true, Y/n. I need you on my team, so I’m confused. I’m confused and scared, but what I do know is that I need you. I need us, together.”
“There’s no us Samira,” You scoff, feeling your knuckles ache from just how hard you were gripping your racket. “There never has been, not really.”
“Y/n..”
“No,” You threw your hands up, stopping her from walking closer, “I need some space, okay?”
She sniffles, but spins on her feet anyway leaving you alone.
The moment the door closes behind her, you let out a blood-curdling yell. The racket slams on the ground with such force that you can feel the ache in your shoulder before you see the plastic splinter across the concrete. You lose track of how long you’re slamming it into the ground, but when you hear the door open the racket is nothing but the handle.
Like a bad omen, Jack Abbot is walking into the room.
“Oh fucking great,” You scoff, trying to blink away the angry tears from your eyes, “Just the fucking person I wanted to see.”
“You done?” he asked quietly.
“Fuck you.”
He shut the door behind him anyway, walking into the now plastic mess scattered on the court.
Your shoulder was throbbing now, the familiar burn shooting down your arm from overtraining and rage and three straight days of sleeping badly. You wiped angrily at your face before bending to grab your bag, already wanting him gone.
”Your shoulder’s swelling again,” he said.
“I don’t care.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, walking closer. “That’s kinda the problem.”
You should’ve told him to leave, should’ve beaten him over the head with your spare racket. Instead, you sat heavily on the bench while he crouched in front of you, pulling athletic tape and scissors from your bag with ease.
The room felt unbearably quiet now. Just the soft tear of tape and your heavy, labored breath.
Jack’s fingers brushed carefully against your skin while he rolled your shoulder experimentally, making you flinch.
“Tight,” he murmured.
“No shit.”
His hands steadied your arm anyway, surprisingly gentle despite everything else about him. The touch should’ve annoyed you more than it did. Instead, it made something inside your chest ache.
“When’s the last time you did something for yourself?” He asks, setting down the scissors and tape with a clank.
You let out a shaky breath, shrugging, “My whole fucking college life has just been her.”
“Maybe,” He whispered, his hand grabbing your thigh gently. “You need to start being selfish again.”
You looked down at his hand on your bare thigh, your stomach twisting in knots. It was this again, the weird tension between the three of you. The wanting each of them in different ways that made it all so complicated.
“She loves you.” The words escaped before you could stop them.
Jack’s expression barely changed. But his hand tightened slightly against your leg.
“She loves you,” you repeated more quietly. “And you love her.”
He nods, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “I do.”
Something bitter twisted through your chest. “She’ll always love tennis more,” You pinch the bridge of your nose harshly, trying to warn him against the heartbreak that’s settling deep within your ribs.
“So will I, which is why I think it’ll work.” His confession leaves you stunned, your fingernails still digging harshly into your palms.
A harsh cry escapes your throat, amusement laced with sadness at the absurdity that is your life.
“She loves you, you know? But you’re competition. You always have been. It’s probably why she loved you in the first place,” He hums, like it’s a fact that was glaringly obvious. “She’s not like you, she’s not insults and penalties on the court. She’s keeping you close, she wants you in her corner because if you're not? You’re her biggest competition and she fucking knows it.”
”You’ve been stroking my ego since we met,” You mumbled, “Doesn’t make any sense. I’m always second to her. In every fucking aspect.”
His thumb rubs a soft circle against your leg, goosebumps rising on your skin.
“What’s your angle?” You asked finally, looking up at the man. “New York, your hand on my leg, what the fuck is all of this?”
“My angle?” He laughs, and it’s different from how you’ve heard him laugh before. It was deeper, more real. ”I just wanna watch some good fucking tennis.”
You ripped your leg out of his grasp, grabbing your bag so harshly you couldn’t even think about the pain that was still radiating down your shoulder.
“I’ll show you good fucking tennis.”
“I know you will!” His voice echoed through the hallway.
-
In hindsight, you shouldn’t have called your friends and drank half a bottle of vodka to dull the pain that was pressing against your ribcage. It just felt like the only logical thing to do. You were a month away from graduation, your future suddenly blurry around the edges after years of precision. Tennis had always been the one thing in your life that made sense. Work hard enough and you get results. Fight hard enough and eventually somebody would recognize it. You earned your spot here, and you let love ruin all of that.
Samira had never played by those rules inside your heart and now Jack had walked into both of your lives like a lit match tossed into dry grass.
By the end of the night, Trinity had taken your phone away twice to stop you from texting them things you’d regret. You vaguely remembered crying in the bathroom while one of the girls from track held your hair back even though you hadn’t actually thrown up.
When you woke up your mouth tasted like vodka and regret. You groaned quietly and rolled over, fumbling blindly for your phone on the nightstand.
Three missed calls from Samira <3
You stared at her name for a long moment before finally pressing call back.
It rang twice before voicemail picked up. The sound of her recorded greeting nearly shattered whatever fragile resolve you’d managed to piece together overnight.
Hey,” You breathed out, the sound of your own voice making you cringe, “I’m sorry about last night. I just, Samira, I really love you. Jack coming into our lives has just made everything so fucking complicated. I’ll support you every step of the way, you know that. If you love him, go for it. I’ll step aside. I’ll be okay, you know? But you’re right, we n-need each other. We’re a team. Just, listen, I'm sorry again. I’ll bring you your favorite coffee before practice, okay?”
As soon as you hang up the phone, a loud banging against your door makes you jump.
“Y/n!” You hear Trinity’s voice on the other side, banging even harder than before.
“Jesus, who’s on fire?” You yelped, rushing to swing the door open. She doesn’t even greet you, simply pushes her way into your room shoving her phone in your face.
“Did you fucking see?” She’s furious, her face is red and her chest is rising meaning she probably ran all the way here.
“What-“
You finally read the words on the news article, your breath catching in your throat.
“RETIRED TENNIS LEGEND JACK ABBOT TO COACH RISING STAR SAMIRA MOHAN THROUGH HER PROFESSIONAL DEBUT”
Below is a picture of a press conference, no doubt happening this morning. He’s standing next to her holding a contract, both of their smiles wide. You read it again, and again, snatching the phone from her hand in disbelief. You read it so many times that the words blur together and stop making sense in your brain.
“Are you fucking serious?” Your voice doesn’t waver; instead, it's a loud bark.
“It came out just a few minutes ago,” She whispered, “It seems like this has been in the works for a while.”
One argument, one disagreement and she throws away years of hard work, years of love between the two of you.
You look at Trinity with a hardened look of absolute, feeling the fire rise up in your chest, “I’m gonna beat Samira Mohan, even if it fucking kills me.”
ignoring all of the ethical concerns, lazy writing, and patterns of behaviour it spotlights, writing samira off the pitt is still the worst they could have possibly fumbled because they had a better option right there. samira should have been made an attending.
this is something i've been thinking about since before season two even came out, truly i am so set that this is the correct option that i genuinely did not even consider the writers going in a different direction from samira being made an attending. i believed all the way up until her exit was announced that season two was going to be the beginning of this arc.
langdon has always been the heir apparent golden boy of the er (i believe they might have actually called him the heir apparent in the 7am script? i could be wrong). robby wrote him a letter of recommendation for an emergency education fellowship without langdon even asking him - presumably so langdon could take over the teaching hospital's ER. obviously by season two this idea has been shattered, now robby has no one to pass onto.
he's projecting all of his mentorship and advice and attention towards whitaker, and is now floating the idea that he will take over the ER. meanwhile, gloria has offered samira a position once her residency is over, as per a recommendation from jack. this would be something samira is hiding from robby, but he would find out mid-season and be furious that decisions like this are being made without his input. this time, samira puts her foot down and asserts herself, she tells robby she was planning on telling him when he returned from his sabbatical but obviously didn't get the chance to. they end the season at odds still.
season three takes place after robby returns. he has found that samira is thriving under baran's mentorship, and when she eventually replaces baran as the er attending for season four (i love baran and hope she stays forever, but i never believed she would be a permanent character because i genuinely assumed that samira would replace her as attending) for the first time her and robby are on even playing field. he no longer has the power over her he always has, she doesn't need his respect anymore and frankly she doesn't care to have it. she's confident in her abilities as a doctor and as a teacher. eventually they do find common ground, robby learns from her, maybe she learns some stuff from him as well.
this concludes her "slow" arc from season one, it fulfils all the character growth that season one started. she is no longer insecure about her abilities as a doctor, she has managed to find her special sauce and has managed to prove to everybody else that it works. but it also provides so much enrichment for all the other characters as well!!
it provides meaningful growth and change in her relationship with robby. robby would finally be able to leave the er in good hands, it would be an excellent conclusion to the mental heatlh storyline they showed in season two. everybody spent all of season two saying "mental health isn't always pretty, sometimes you lash out and hurt people" and this provides a conclusion that actually creates mutual respect and understanding rather than just "sure i've been yelling at you all day but im mentally ill and your boss so i'm right" like the show ended up doing.
it provides tension in langdon's story - what will he do now? he's always assumed he'd take over the er. he needs some pushback, too, all of his pushback has been related to santos or robby's own personal conflicts. it would be nice to see him being challenged externally by something he can't just write off as being caused by someone who hates him.
it provides an excellent outlet for whitaker - if robby is trying to force him into this er role at the ptmc, this leaves room for him to discover on screen that he might like to go into rural medicine instead. samira is also the only person (on the day shift) that we have ever seen get through to trinity. samira becoming an attending gives trinity a woman in a position of authority who is on her side, it could help her relinquish her control issues and finally show her what a healthy relationship with authority figures looks like. also, if samira is an attending and langdon feels like samira "stole the job" from him, and she's shown to work closely with trinity that's another reason for tension between the two of them!! or a million other things they could have played with.
season three could have been samira realising that she's put off living until she finished her residency and now it's done and she still doesn't feel ready. you know who else put her life on hold for something else that now doesn't need her to wait anymore?? mel. something for them to bond over. literally every single character benefits from samira entering a teaching role. (also, and this doesn't really matter to me personally, but i am aware mohabbot was intended to be a canon slowburn, jack getting her a job at ptmc behind robby's back??? i know you guys would've eaten that up).
they had an arc that quite literally wrote itself, and somehow they chose to get rid of a fan favourite character - the show's beating heart - instead.
- the kids know what love is because they've seen it through you and steve. based of this request
- cw: family trauma, minimum mentiones of fights and the hargrove men and papa (yuck.) found family vibes
2k+ words
For a group of six kids, they really had terrible odds when it came to love. Almost unfair odds, really.
Only Lucas had grown up watching a love story survive.
Not perfect, but real. His parents still danced together in the kitchen sometimes. Still looked at each other like partners instead of burdens. Still chose each other every day in a way the others had never really seen before.
The rest of them learned early that love left. That it screamed and hurt, or disappeares.
Max Mayfield still missed California sometimes.
Not because Hawkins was awful, at least not anymore. Hawkins had become home in its own strange, haunted way.
But California had been before.
Before Neil Hargrove. Before fear becoming something that lived permanently in her chest. Before she learned to listen for footsteps and slamming doors and changing tones.
There had been a time where her mom laughed more. Where dinner didn’t feel tense. Where love hadn’t looked dangerous.
The Hargrove men ruined that.
Billy inherited Neil’s rage like it was something carved into his bones, and Max grew up watching what happened when love became ownership instead of care. It permanently altered the way she viewed family. Because in Max’s experience, love was something that eventually turned mean.
Will Byers lost two fathers.
The first one emotionally long before he physically disappeared.
Lonnie Byers had never understood him. Never protected him. Will spent most of his childhood trying to take up as little space as possible around his own dad.
Then came Bob.
Sweet, gentle Bob Newby who made their house feel warm again for a little while.
Bob who smiled easily, listened, tried. Bob who made Joyce laugh in a way Will hadn’t heard in years.
And then Bob died too.
So eventually Will stopped believing father figures stayed.
Now the closest thing he had to one was Jonathan. His exhausted older brother trying to become a man too quickly because life demanded it from him.
Dustin Henderson remembered his dad more than people expected him to.
People assumed he was too young, but Dustin remembered everything.
He remembered sitting on his father’s shoulders at the fair when he was five. Remembered family movie nights. And worst of all he remembered the leaving.
The suitcase by the door and his mother crying quietly in the kitchen for weeks afterward. The way the house suddenly became smaller and emptier all at once.
Dustin learned young that people could promise forever and still walk away.
Mike Wheeler grew up in a house filled with passive silence. His parents weren’t explosive.
Sometimes he thought that was worse. Every conversation between them sounding tired.
Karen Wheeler fought out of frustration, desperate for someone to actually see her, while Ted Wheeler responded like a man waiting for the argument to end so he could go back to his recliner and television.
There was no cruelty loud enough to point at. Just indifference.
And Mike learned that marriage could become two people surviving beside each other instead of loving each other.
And then there was Eleven.
El had been raised by a man who called himself Papa while treating children like experiments.
Love, to her, had always come with conditions.
Obedience.
Isolation.
Pain.
Performance.
Dr. Brenner taught her that affection was something earned through usefulness. That protection meant control. That caring for someone meant owning them.
Even after finding Hopper, even after finally having a home, pieces of that fear stayed lodged inside her. And Hopper loved hard—sometimes too hard.
His protectiveness wrapped around El so tightly it sometimes felt difficult to breathe inside it.
She understood why. But understanding didn’t stop the suffocation.
Given everything they’d lived through, you would think the kids would grow up cynical. That they’d decide marriage was pointless. Because what was the point? You either lost the people you loved or they abandoned you. Or they hurt you until loving them felt unbearable.
So why bother?
Why give someone the power to destroy you?
Except… love did have a point.
And somehow, impossibly, the thing that taught them that was you and Steve.
Not because your relationship was perfect. But because it was healthy. And none of them had ever truly seen that before.
Lucas realized it first.
Or at least he realized it the clearest.
It happened after a fight with Max. A bad one.
Not screaming—Max rarely screamed when she was genuinely hurt. That was the problem. She just shut down. Went cold. Looked at him like she was already preparing herself to leave before he could leave first.
Lucas hated that look.
So he showed up at Steve’s house one evening while Steve was outside cleaning pool leaves.
Steve glanced up. “You look miserable.”
“I need girl advice.”
Steve dropped the skimmer immediately. “Oh, this is serious.”
Lucas rolled his eyes but sat on the edge of the pool anyway.
“I messed up.”
“What’d you do?”
“I forgot something important.”
Steve winced. “Anniversary?”
“Worse.”
Steve looked horrified. “How is there worse than anniversary?”
“Something about her mom.”
“Oh,” Steve said immediately, expression softening. “Yeah. That’ll do it.”
Lucas sighed heavily. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
Steve sat beside him quietly for a second. “You don’t fix it by defending yourself.”
Lucas frowned. “What?”
“You listen first. Like really listen. Don’t argue about intention when she’s trying to explain impact, you know,” Steve mentioned with shrug, like it was common sense to him.
Lucas stared at him.
Because no adult man had ever said something like that to him before.
Steve let out a sigh seeing as he wasn't following. “Sometimes people don’t need you to be right. They need you to care that they’re hurting.”
“And Y/N taught you that?”
Steve snorted. “Repeatedly.”
Lucas laughed despite himself.
Then Steve nudged his shoulder.
“If you love her, act like it when things are hard too. Anybody can love someone when it’s easy.”
Lucas carried that sentence with him for years.
Max had realized accidentally.
One evening she’d gone downstairs looking for water while staying over at your place.
Then she heard your voices in the kitchen.
Immediately she froze.
Instinct.
Years of listening carefully for danger.
You and Steve were arguing quietly about bills.
Max’s stomach tightened automatically, already bracing herself for sharp words and blame and the kind of tension that made your chest feel too tight. Something she understood too well.
Instead she heard you say softly, “you don’t have to carry everything by yourself, Steve.”
Steve exhaled shakily. “I know, I just— I like taking care of you.”
“And who takes care of you?”
Silence.
Then quieter, “you do.”
Max stood there in the hallway for a long time afterward. Because nobody had ever spoken like that in her house.
Not gently.
Not during a fight.
Not with concern instead of cruelty.
It genuinely unsettled her at first—the realization that conflict didn’t have to become violence.
That loving someone could mean trying to understand them instead of win against them.
Will noticed it in the smallest ways. Of course he did. Will noticed everything.
One rainy afternoon, the kids were all crowded inside Steve’s house after plans got ruined by a storm. Thunder rattled the windows while Dustin complained dramatically about boredom.
You weren’t there yet. Still at work. But Steve glanced outside once and immediately stood up.
Will watched him quietly.
Steve grabbed blankets from the hallway closet, tossed popcorn in the microwave, then started setting up the VCR in the living room.
Dustin blinked. “What’re you doing?”
“Movie night.”
“You hate rainy movie nights.”
“I do not.”
“You literally said they make you sleepy and depressed.”
Steve ignored him.
Then Will understood.
You loved rain.
Loved movies during storms specifically. Said rain made everything feel softer somehow.
Steve remembered without you even being there.
Will watched him dim the lights before casually saying you had rough shift today. And something in Will’s chest ached unexpectedly. Because Steve paid attention.
Not performatively, but naturally.
Like caring about you had become instinct.
Will had spent most of his life watching people miss each other completely. But you and Steve saw each other constantly.
Mike realized it late at night.
The Wheeler basement was loud that evening, everyone spread around after another near-disaster.
Eventually exhaustion took over.
At some point during the movie, you fell asleep curled against Steve on the couch.
Mike barely noticed until the credits rolled and Steve carefully shifted underneath you.
Not annoyed.
Just gentle.
He slid one arm beneath your knees and the other around your back, lifting you like it was the most natural thing in the world.
You stirred slightly.
Steve immediately whispered in your ear. “Go back to sleep, baby. I got you.”
And you did.
Trusted him enough to instantly relax again.
Mike watched Steve carry you upstairs slowly so he wouldn’t wake you.
And suddenly he thought about his own parents. About how his mom would’ve loudly shaken Ted awake instead. About how Ted would complain. About how affection in his house always seemed inconvenient.
But Steve looked at caring for you like it was an honor.
That realization stayed with Mike long after everyone else fell asleep.
El always knew. She was observant like that.
Always watching.
Always learning.
And there was no way she couldn’t notice the calmness surrounding you and Steve when the rest of the world constantly felt like it was moving too fast.
One afternoon she and Max had wanted to go to the arcade alone.
Steve immediately said no.
“Absolutely not.”
El crossed her arms instantly. “Why?”
“Because last time you two disappeared for six hours and nearly got arrested.”
“That was one time.”
“Yeah, it was one very long two month ago.”
You tried not to laugh while making coffee.
El expected the conversation to become a fight.
That’s what she knew. That's what Hopper would do.
Instead Steve crouched slightly to meet her eye level.
“I know you’re smart,” he said gently. “That’s not the issue.”
“Then why no?”
“Because something bad happens to you guys constantly and I can’t stop thinking about it.”
El frowned slightly.
Steve sighed. “I’m not trying to control you, El. I just… worry.”
You stepped beside him carefully.
“He wants you safe,” you explained softly. “He's not trying to limit you”
El looked between you both.
No anger or manipulation behind your words.
Just pure honesty.
Finally Steve added “if I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight at all.”
That made El smile a little. And for maybe the first time in her life, protectiveness didn’t feel suffocating.
It felt like love.
Without realizing it, you and Steve became something sacred to the kids.
A safe place.
The place they escaped to after bad nights at home. The people they called when things hurt too much. The proof that love could survive softness.
That it could be patient and kind.
The kids even started measuring relationships by you two without even meaning to.
One afternoon at lunch Lucas said casually that “if my future relationship isn’t like Steve and Y/N’s, I don’t want it.”
Max immediately threw a tater tot at his forehead.
But she didn’t disagree.
None of them did.
By summer, the Harrington pool unofficially became theirs again.
One Saturday afternoon the kids invited themselves over without warning. Not that you minded. Or weren't used to it.
You stepped outside carrying lemonade only to find complete chaos.
Dustin doing cannonballs (after being banned from backflips). Lucas and Max arguing over the singular pool floatie they had yet to pop. Mike was pretending not to splash El while very obviously splashing El. Will floating peacefully near the deep end with his eyes closed.
And Steve.
Steve standing in the middle of it all laughing so hard he could barely breathe after Dustin slid off the floatie Lucas finally managed steal from Max.
You leaned against the patio doorway watching them.
Your people.
Your strange little family stitched together through trauma and monsters and survival.
Steve looked over eventually, smiling immediately when he saw you.
That smile never changed after all these years. Still soft and certain.
“Babe,” he called. “Tell Dustin he’s banned from doing backflips.”
“I landed it!”
“You landed near it,” Steve argued.
It seemed as the world had finally decided to be gentle with all of you for once. As the sun dipped lower the kids laughed louder.
Somewhere between the pool water, the fading sunlight, and the warmth of everyone gathered together, the kids finally understood something they’d spent years trying to learn:
Love was never the thing that ruined people.
The absence of it was.
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