Neon Moon... Five
✪ Tim Riggins (FNL) x OC ✪
Summary:
For fifteen years, Reagan’s life was a carefully constructed escape. She traded the suffocating heat of Dillon, Texas, for the cool anonymity of Chicago, burying the girl who loved Tim Riggins under layers of ambition and city concrete. She never planned on going back.
But when a call comes that her estranged father is being evicted, she’s dragged back to the town she fled. The air is still thick with unspoken history, and the ghost of her past has a heartbeat. Tim Riggins is still there, his anger a mirror of her own. Their reunion is a collision of resentment and an unquenchable, dangerous desire that quickly pulls them back into each other's beds.
Warning: Story will contain situations involving alcoholism, sexual harassment, sexual content, cursing, etc.
The clock burned 2:47 a.m. into the dark, like it was offended I was still awake.
Sleep wasn’t just avoiding me; it was sitting on the other side of the room, arms crossed, watching me flop like a fish. I flipped over again, sheets winding around my legs, the pillow damp where my cheek had been. The fan ticked every few seconds, dragging hot air over my skin, stirring up the smell of cedar and old sweat and that faint mildew that lived in the walls no matter how many times my dad scrubbed them. The fridge rumbled through the thin hallway, my father snored once—rough, strangled—and then settled back into that uneven rhythm that meant he’d live to disappoint me another day.
My phone glowed on the nightstand. His text stared back at me, harsh and simple.
And you’re still here.
No hey. No question mark. No explanation. Seven words that said everything and nothing at once. It read less like a message and more like a diagnosis. You’re still here—like I was still stuck in this town, still orbiting his gravity, still the idiot who didn’t know how to stay gone.
I’d been staring at it for almost an hour, reading it in different tones. Mocking. Curious. Drunk. Bored. The one I couldn’t shake was the one that sounded like he knew exactly what it would do to me.
“Of course you did,” I muttered into the dark.
The ceiling fan wobbled overhead, shadow blades slicing the light from my phone across the walls. I rolled onto my back and blinked at the text again. Part of me knew what I should do: lock the damn thing, shove it in the drawer, roll over, and suffer through the night like a normal person with self-respect.
Instead, I sat up. The mattress springs whined softly under my weight.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, toes hitting warm wood. The floor creaked in familiar spots—by the dresser, near the door—and I stepped around them without thinking. Old survival skills. Sneaking past my dad’s room wasn’t new; I’d been doing that since I was fourteen and desperate to get anywhere that wasn’t this house.
The picture frames along the hall glinted in the weak bathroom nightlight. School portraits. My dad in his work shirt. A couple church picnic shots where everyone looked sunburned and exhausted. A whole wall of years that all looked the same.
The snore behind his door rasped once, broke, then started again. I froze outside it, breath caught, listening. If he woke up now and saw me slipping out, we’d both say something we couldn’t unsay.
He didn’t stir.
The keys hung on the nail by the back door, paint rubbed away in a neat half-circle from years of being grabbed on our way out to work or town or anywhere that wasn’t here. I lifted them gently, metal cool in my hand. The back door stuck on the first pull, then gave with a soft groan, letting in a lungful of night.
The air outside was thick enough to chew. Humid, heavy, full of wet earth and cut grass and that sour-sweet smell of something rotting under the porch where the rainwater pooled. Crickets screamed from the ditch, frogs chimed from the low spot behind the shed, and somewhere out in the tree line something rustled like it had every right to be there and I was the intruder.
The floodlight flicked on in a slow buzz, washing the yard in yellow-white. The rusted mower crouched under the carport, and my dad’s old silver truck sat by the fence, paint oxidized to chalk, one side caved in like a punched cheek.
The door gave its usual complaint when I yanked it open. The seat was cracked and split, foam showing through like bone. The cab smelled like cigarettes, grease, and the faint ghost of fast food fries from God knew when. I slid in, the vinyl sticking to my thighs, and jammed the key in the ignition.
“Just driving,” I told myself under my breath, fingers tight on the wheel. “Just a drive, clear your head. That’s it.”
The engine coughed twice, shuddered hard enough to rattle the rearview mirror, then finally caught. The dash lights flickered weakly. The radio came alive mid-song, some whiny breakup ballad, and I slapped it off before the chorus.
I backed out of the driveway slow, gravel crunching loud in the quiet. The town was mostly asleep: porch lights glowing by habit, curtains drawn, the gas station dark except for the flickering Open sign that never quite turned off. I passed the high school field, bleachers a dark line against the sky, and for one stupid second I saw us there again—me leaning against his truck, him kicking at the gravel, saying he’d get out of here one day. Saying he’d take me with him.
Back then, he didn’t have a plan. He had a six-pack, a busted truck, a good arm, and a promise he couldn’t even say without laughing halfway through. “Gonna build us a place out on some land,” he’d say, motioning toward nothing. “Big porch. Big bed. Bigger fridge.” And I’d smile because the idea was nice, even if I knew it wasn’t real. There was no land. No blueprint. No savings. Just air and his lopsided grin.
He’d stayed. I’d gone. And somehow we’d both ended up here anyway.
The farther I drove, the weaker my lie got. I wasn’t just driving. The truck wasn’t just moving. Every mile I put between me and my father’s house was another mile closer to his.
By the time I turned off onto County Road 6, the air in the cab felt thin, like I’d used up all the oxygen just thinking about what I was doing. The road narrowed, pavement crumbling into packed dirt, trees leaning in close enough that their branches scraped the roof when the wind shifted. Fireflies floated over the ditches in slow, lazy blinks.
And then I saw it: his place, rising out of the dark.
Last time I’d been out here, this had been nothing but scrub and promise. We’d parked right about where the driveway was now, tailgate down, his boots on my bare thighs while he traced shapes in the dust with an empty beer bottle. He’d pointed into the dark and said, “Bedroom over there, kitchen there, shower big enough for two right about here.” I’d laughed because there was no foundation, no lumber, no money. Just a boy talking like everything would always magically work out.
Now there was a house.
The porch stretched wide across the front, boards stained a warm honey color, smooth and even. The roofline was straight, the windows symmetrical, framing soft squares of dark. White trim. Clean lines. A rocking chair sat by the front door, cushion sun-faded. A couple baby shrubs lined the walkway, small and stubborn but planted, roots forcing themselves into the soil.
A sharp, twisting pride cut through my chest, tangled instantly with resentment.
“Of course you did,” I whispered. “Of course you went and did it without me.”
He hadn’t had blueprints when I left. No contractor. No savings. Nothing but a sketch of a life he couldn’t make real back then. I’d told myself leaving wouldn’t change anything—that he’d be the same when I came back, if I ever did. Still talking. Still dreaming. Still stuck.
Instead, while I was gone, he’d put boards where words used to be. Nails where promises were. He’d built the thing he’d dangled in front of me for years—just in time for me not to be here for it.
The truck rolled to a stop halfway up his drive, gravel popping under the tires. My hands stayed locked around the wheel, knuckles pale. I could’ve turned around. I should have. Distance would’ve made everything an almost again.
Instead, I killed the headlights and left the engine idling, its low shake buzzing beneath me. I opened the door and stepped down into the dirt, gravel biting the bottoms of my feet. The cool sting grounded me, held me to this exact moment I already knew I’d regret.
The porch steps radiated the day’s stored heat, wood warm against my bare soles as I climbed. One, two, three. On the last one, I paused, staring at the front door. He’d painted it the same golden color as the rails. It looked solid. Finished. Like something that outlasted storms.
I lifted my hand and knocked once, knuckles barely touching wood.
“Tim.”
Silence. The night hummed around me—the whir of the porch light, crickets, the soft rumble of my truck behind me.
I knocked again, harder. “Tim. It’s Reagan.”
Footsteps shuffled inside. Something metal slid back. Then another. He’d gone overboard on locks, like he knew people could slip in and out of his life too easily if he didn’t bolt them down.
The door swung open halfway.
There he was.
No shirt, jeans hanging low on his hips, belt undone like he’d tugged it loose a few minutes ago and forgotten to finish the job. His hair stood up in messy tufts, face shadowed with thick facial hair and sleep. The light behind him rimmed his shoulders and the side of his neck, catching on the faint old scars I knew by heart even after fifteen years. His eyes were half-lidded at first, heavy with tired, then they snapped sharper when they focused on me.
“You serious right now?” His voice came rough, sleep-thick, like gravel dragged over asphalt. “You showin’ up knockin’ on my door at damn near three in the mornin’?”
“You texted me,” I said, surprised by how even I sounded. My chest felt like it was vibrating. “We’re talking about it.”
He leaned his shoulder into the frame, crossing his arms like he was settling in for a show. “That what got you all spun out?” he asked. “That little message?”
“I’m not spun out.”
His mouth tugged, almost a smirk. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Don’t,” I warned. “Not tonight.”
“Don’t what?” he asked. “Don’t answer? Don’t point out you came runnin’ ‘cause I snapped my fingers? I just said you’re still here. Didn’t tell you to show up bare feet on my porch like some ghost.”
“I came for clarity,” I said, fingers digging into the porch rail. “That’s all.”
“Clarity,” he repeated, slow. “You drove out here for clarity. You know you got a whole internet for that now, right? Self-help podcasts, meditation apps, all that city crap.”
“You know damn well what I mean,” I shot back. “Don’t play stupid.”
We stared at each other for a long beat, the silence between us stretched tight as a live wire.
“You didn’t answer me,” I said. “Why’d you send it?”
He hesitated, jaw flexing, eyes tracking somewhere over my shoulder like maybe the answer was out in the field. Then he shrugged, like none of it mattered. “I don’t know. Guess I wanted to see if you’d still come runnin’.”
The punch landed exactly where he aimed it.
“Well,” I said, voice thin. “Congratulations. Now you know.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Now I know.”
I exhaled hard through my nose, trying to push down the ache rising too fast. “You are such a goddamn—”
“Tim?”
The voice drifted from deeper inside the house, soft and blurred by sleep. Feminine. Barely loud enough to carry, but it landed like a hammer. “Come back to bed, baby.”
Everything in me went still.
His posture changed instant. His shoulders snapped tense, his jaw clenched, and his eyes darted over his shoulder before he grudgingly turned back to me. For the first time since he’d opened the door, he looked something like unsure.
“That better not be what I think it is,” I said. The words came out flat, low, almost deadly calm.
“Reagan—” he started.
But then she appeared, and he didn’t get to finish.
She padded into view barefoot, toes curling on the hardwood, wearing one of his flannels, the hem kissing mid-thigh. The buttons were off by one, askew, collar loose around her neck. Her hair was sleep-mussed, lip bitten, eyes narrowing against the porch light. She stopped when she saw me, confusion washing over her face.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Hi.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. I just looked at her, at the way that shirt hung on her body in a way I knew too well, at the imprint of his life that she’d obviously been wrapped in all night.
“Go on, darlin’,” Tim said to her, half-turned away from me now, voice suddenly soft, almost apologetic. “Head on back. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She stared for half a second longer, looked down at herself like she was seeing the situation from above, then nodded awkwardly. “Okay,” she murmured, cheeks pinking. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, turned, and walked back down the hall, the flannel swaying behind her.
The hall light went dark again.
I stood there on the porch, every nerve in my body buzzing, feeling like I’d been dropped inside someone else’s life. Or maybe inside the exact one I’d always been trying to outrun.
He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, eyes skittering everywhere except my face. “Reagan—”
“How long?” I asked.
He swallowed. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” I said. “It matters. How long?”
The silence stretched. The cicadas sang louder. My truck hummed behind me, engine still idling, stuck in this ridiculous limbo like I was.
“You didn’t even wait twenty-four hours,” I said, an ugly little laugh breaking free. “That’s impressive. Even for you.”
“Watch your tone,” he snapped.
“My tone?” I repeated. “You are lucky I am not waking up your entire brand-new house right now.”
“She don’t mean nothin’,” he said. “It’s not—this ain’t what you’re makin’ it.”
“Oh, right. Just some nice girl who happened to fall into your bed and land in your favorite shirt,” I said. “Just background noise. Just a way to kill an evening. Good for you.”
“It’s not like that,” he shot back.
“Then what’s it like?” I demanded. “Explain it to me. Explain how you can go from me to her in under a day. Because from where I’m standing, it looks a hell of a lot like it is ‘like that.’”
He let out a harsh breath, stepping closer. “You’re real good at this,” he said. “At turnin’ everything into me bein’ the monster while you stand there all wounded and wide-eyed. You left, Reagan.”
“And you jumped into bed with someone else fifteen minutes after you realized you still had me on the hook,” I said. “We both know what this is.”
He pointed toward the driveway like my truck was Exhibit A. “You didn’t come out here for clarity. You came lookin’ for somethin’ to be mad about. Somethin’ to justify the fact that you ran all those years ago and never came back till it suited you.”
My laugh burned. “I left because there was nothing here for me,” I said. “You had nothing. No plan. No house. No job that wasn’t half drunk. Every time we talked about the future, you talked in circles and jokes. You think I was supposed to stay and bet my life on that?”
His eyes flashed. “You think I didn’t feel that?” he asked, voice rising. “You think wakin’ up one morning and realizin’ you were just gone didn’t gut me? One day you were here, cussin’ this town out with me, tellin’ me you loved me, and the next you were a rumor about a bus ticket.”
“You could’ve come with me,” I shot back. “I asked you.”
“You didn’t ask,” he said, stepping closer, heat rolling off him. “You told me your plan and waited to see if I’d beg. When I didn’t throw everything I had in the back of my truck that second, you put me in the same damn box as this town and left anyway.”
“I had to go,” I said. “If I stayed, I was gonna get stuck. Same barstool. Same paycheck. Same fights. And you know it.”
He barked a short, bitter laugh. “Yeah? You think I wasn’t scared of that too?” he asked. “You think I wanted to rot here? You were my out, Reagan. You were the only thing I ever wanted that wasn’t beer or a football. And you still chose leavin’ over givin’ me half a second to figure how to go with you.”
My throat tightened. “You had chances, Tim,” I said. “Every night in that truck, every time I asked what ‘one day’ looked like, and you never had an answer. Just another ‘we’ll see.’ I couldn’t build a life on ‘we’ll see.’”
His jaw flexed, something raw flickering across his face. “You think I wasn’t furious?” he said. “When I drove past this land after you left? When Coach or Billy or anybody said your name? You got on that bus and took every version of my future I’d ever pictured with you.”
“So you built one without me,” I said, nodding toward the porch around us. “Congratulations. You finally did the thing you always joked about. Just in time to screw me up twice.”
He looked around like he was seeing his house from my angle for the first time, then back at me. “Yeah,” he said. “I did. Took me years. Took me bustin’ my ass on job sites, gettin’ laughed at in banks, bein’ told no forty times. Took me learnin’ how to show up for somethin’ even when it didn’t pay off that day. You weren’t here for any of that. You just see the finished porch and think you got the whole story.”
I stepped in closer, anger and hurt laced so tight I couldn’t see where one stopped and the other started. “You know what I see?” I asked. “I see you doing the exact thing I begged you to do when I was still here. I see you proving me right—that you could’ve done it then. You just didn’t. Not for me.”
His voice dropped. “You left before I knew how.”
We were close enough now that I could feel his breath on my face, hear the small hitch when he sucked in air like he was trying to pull his anger back in.
His eyes flicked over my face, searching. “Tell me somethin’,” he said, quieter. “Last night. When you were in that bed, in my arms, in that motel room…did any of that feel real to you?”
The question stole whatever comeback I’d been reaching for.
“What?” I breathed.
“Did it feel real?” he repeated, eyes locked on mine. “Or was it just some nostalgia trip for you? Somethin’ to check off your ‘visit home’ list before you ran off again?”
The porch swayed under me. The night pressed in, too tight. “Of course it felt—” I stopped myself, swallowing hard. “What are you doing, Tim?”
His mouth curved bitter. “You show up here like I’m the only one playin’ games,” he said. “Like you didn’t climb into bed with me last night and act like you’d never left, like your hands didn’t remember every inch of me. You lookin’ me in the eye right now tellin’ me that was nothin’?”
My heartbeat hammered so hard I could taste it. “Don’t put this on me,” I said. “Don’t you dare twist this like I’m the one who’s made of smoke.”
“Answer the question,” he said. “Did it feel real?”
I tried to look away. He stepped closer, blocking the shift of my eyes.
“Say it,” he pushed. “Say whatever we did last night didn’t mean nothin’ to you. I wanna hear you lie the way you keep accusing me of lyin’.”
“Stop,” I whispered.
He swallowed, throat working. For a moment, neither of us said anything. The sound of the cicadas screamed in the space where my answer should have been.
Then his jaw locked like he’d made some internal choice. “Fine,” he said, voice going rough. “I’ll say it.”
He stared straight at me, eyes hard, and forced the words out. “Didn’t mean nothin’.”
The words themselves were sharp enough. The way his voice cracked right in the middle cut deeper, like his throat refused to carry the lie all the way through.
That was all it took.
I shoved him, hard, hands flat against his chest.
He stumbled back, shoulder hitting the edge of the door, frame rattling. Anger flared across his face like a match striking dry wood.
“Goddamn it, Reagan,” he snapped. “You don’t get to hit me every time something don’t go your way.”
“You lied!” I yelled. “You lie and then you stand there and act like I’m crazy for reacting.”
“You left!” he shot back, finger jabbing toward the driveway like the ghost of that bus was still idling out there. “You walked away from everything we had with no warning, no discussion, no nothin’ except some half-assed ‘you’ll be fine’.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to treat me like some toy you get to break and toss aside when something easier wanders through your door,” I said, voice shaking.
“Like what?” he bit out. “Like somebody who still makes your knees weak? ‘Cause from where I’m standin’, you drove all this way in the middle of the damn night just to prove I still could.”
A broken sound tore out of me, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “You are disgusting.”
“Yeah,” he said, the word raw. “But you still let me in.”
The way he said it—soft, vicious—cut clean.
“Go to hell,” I whispered, because there was nothing left in my chest that didn’t sound like begging.
“You already took me there,” he replied. “You just don’t like the view now that you came back for a visit.”
I pressed my fingers to my temple, like I could keep my skull from splitting open with all the things I wouldn’t say. My hand shook. “You make me sick.”
“Good,” he said. “At least I still make you feel somethin’.”
That did it. Whatever thin thread I’d been holding onto snapped.
I turned, steps blurring under me, but my feet knew them anyway. The boards were hot through the thin skin of my soles, the edge of each one sharp as I went down. Gravel stabbed at my feet, sharp and mean, and for once I was grateful for the pain. It felt honest.
He didn’t follow at first. I could feel his gaze on my back, heavy as a hand between my shoulder blades. I wrapped my fingers around the truck’s door handle and yanked.
“Drive careful, Reagan,” he called out finally, voice softer than anything he’d said since I got there. “Truck’s older’n you.”
I whipped around, heat boiling over in my chest. “Worry about your friend inside,” I snapped. “Wouldn’t want her catchin’ feelings when she finds out what you were doin’ last night.”
His mouth curled, but the smile was wrong—half apology, half wound. “I’m pretty sure she’s already got an idea.”
I didn’t ask what he meant. I didn’t want to know.
The door slammed with a bang that echoed across the yard. The engine roared when I turned the key, louder than before. I dropped the truck into reverse, gravel exploding under the tires, then threw it into drive and shot down the lane, dust rising up behind me in thick clouds.
In the rearview mirror, I saw him one last time.
He stood on the edge of the porch, arms folded over his bare chest, the porch light haloing him in gold and leaving his face in shadow. He didn’t move. Didn’t call out. Just watched me go like he wasn’t sure if he wanted me to keep driving or slam on the brakes.
For one wild heartbeat, every part of me screamed to turn around. To spin the wheel, skid back into his driveway, march up those steps, and demand we start the fight over and keep going until we finally got to something like the truth.
I didn’t.
The house shrank in the mirror, then vanished entirely as the road swallowed it up. The truck rattled over every rut, every washboard groove, the night stretching wide and empty in front of me.
No matter how far I drove, my chest stayed packed tight with him—his voice, his house, his stupid, cracked “didn’t mean nothin’” still echoing in my bones.
And I knew, as the town lights reappeared in the distance and the first hint of dawn brushed the sky, that whatever this was between us, it wasn’t finished.
Chicago, 2018
It starts with the train. Always something ordinary. The kind of moment that doesn’t mean anything until later, when you find yourself replaying it like a scene you missed the meaning of.
It’s February in Chicago, the kind of cold that pricks at your eyes and makes everyone look angry. I’m wedged between a woman scrolling aggressively through her phone and a man in a navy coat who smells faintly of metal and soap. The car jolts, everyone sways together, a tide of strangers in heavy clothes moving as one.
It should be like any other commute, except it isn’t.
Because a few feet down, holding one of the overhead straps, there’s a man I can’t stop looking at.
I shouldn’t be staring—he’s just standing there, shoulders bent forward like he doesn’t want to take up space. His head’s buzzed close, the back of his neck pink from the wind, and there’s a line of stubble tracing the edge of his jaw. His hands are big, rough. I can tell even from here. Some habits die hard; I still look for calluses before rings.
He shifts slightly, and for a second I see the side of his face—sharp nose, deep brow, that quiet sadness some men wear like they were born with it. I feel something in my chest stumble, just once.
It’s gone in a blink, but the echo of it stays.
I swallow, taste rust. He has Tim’s shoulders. That’s the first thing that hooks me. Wide, solid, but never rigid—like he could take a hit and just…keep standing.
I blink again, force my eyes away. I tell myself lots of men have that build, that stillness, that quiet weight. Chicago’s full of old souls and tired eyes.
Still, I can’t help it. I keep glancing back until the train jerks, the lights flicker, and when they come back—he’s turned slightly toward the door. I can’t see his whole face, just the corner of his mouth, the shadow under his eyes.
And then something hits me sideways: that strange, sweet ache that feels like remembering a dream the second you wake up.
When the train stops at Clark, he doesn’t move. I do.
I step out into the bitter wind, heart hammering embarrassingly hard for no reason I can name. There’s that buzzing in my ears that comes when memory tries to surface and fails.
For a second, I almost turn back. I want to.
But I don’t. Because I’m not twenty anymore, chasing ghosts around Texas highways. I’m thirty-three, with a lease, a career, a man waiting in a condo with good wine and better lighting.
Still, I keep glancing over my shoulder as I climb the stairs. The cold burns like guilt as it crawls under my scarf.
Bradley’s already home when I get in. He’s on a work call, pacing near the window with his voice low and smooth—the tone he saves for people who matter. He’s in uniform even when he’s not: crisp shirt, tailored gray pants, the kind that say, I belong here.
He catches my eye mid-sentence, presses a finger in the air that means give me a second.
I drop my bag, kick off my boots, shake the feeling out of my fingers.
The condo hums with warmth and money. Whatever that subway air was—it doesn’t belong here.
Bradley ends the call, flashes that smile of his: all confidence, no cracks. “You’re late,” he says easily, stepping forward to kiss me on the cheek. “Long day?”
“The longest,” I lie.
He turns back toward the kitchen, grabbing a decanter off the counter. “Cabernet or Malbec?”
“Whatever’s open.”
He pours, gestures toward me with one glass. “Bad day?”
I hesitate. “Just weird.”
“How so?”
I should tell him. I should say, I saw someone on the train who looked like the past I thought I buried, but it sounds insane even in my head. So I shake my head and say, “Nothing important.”
Bradley studies me for a second, like he’s deciding whether to push. He doesn’t. He never does. That’s one of the things I used to love about him. Lately, it feels like a silence that fills too much space.
He puts on music—the background kind—and starts talking about a new project. I nod in rhythm, sip wine that tastes like oak and distraction, and pretend I’m present.
But under it all, something won’t quiet down.
That man’s face, his stillness. The way the world seemed to pause for half a heartbeat around him. I keep telling myself it wasn’t Tim, that it couldn’t be. But the truth is, I don’t even know what Tim looks like anymore.
I mean, I do—in flashes.
Sunlight on his neck. The shadow of his jaw after days of silence. The way his hands carried both tenderness and fury.
Sometimes I think I built him from memory wrong, like one of those snapshots that fades till only the outline remains.
But tonight, that outline has a pulse.
When Bradley moves closer, brushing his thumb along my wrist, I flinch before I can stop myself. He doesn’t notice—he’s too busy talking about flights, schedules, numbers.
I nod when I’m supposed to, smile when he looks up.
But all I can see, behind him, reflected in the window’s glass, are the ghost-lights of the subway.
A man standing alone. Buzzed hair. Hands scarred by work.
And though I left Tim Riggins a lifetime ago, I can’t shake the feeling the past just took the same train I did.
