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@cloudsovercoffee
Wild Dogs see a Domesticated Dog
African wild dogs are one of my favorite animals. Those huge round circle ears and tricolored coats. I love you African wild dogs
HEY. HEY. HOW DID YOU GET OUT??? HEY-
dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog? dog?
you ever get surprised by your own recurring issues. like come on man. I thought we were past this.
being sammy bryant’s girlfriend includes hanging around with nate and tagging along for hand-off…
you’d been seeing sammy for awhile, met him at a party in castaic that one of your friends dragged you to. you had whined about it being too far, but her cop boyfriend had been throwing it and she didn’t want to show up alone.
you never considered yourself a badge bunny, not really— until you met sammy. he had been eyeing you from across the room, and eventually, you had come and sat by (on) him. the rest played out with you happily following him home.
it was little lunch dates, walks in your neighbourhood, and usually spending the night at either of your places after work. things didn’t really become official until about a few months ago, when he introduced you to his son. he had nate for the weekend, and you were glued to him ever since.
sammy absolutely adored that you were so taken with nate. he had been afraid that having a kid would scare you off, but to his surprise, you and nate just clicked.
he had still been a baby but you were absolutely enthralled. you gave nate your full 100: attentive when he felt sick, have nonsensical conversation like he was socrates, buying him ice cream, and playing pretend like it was the most important thing in the world.
although you had been in nate’s orbit, you hadn’t known much about or even met tammi. it was your surprise that sammy had so subtly dropped that he had to get nate from tammi, while peppering kisses on your face and waiting for the morning to start.
clinging onto sammy’s bicep, you two had been waiting on a bench in front of the park. he insisted that you didn’t need to come, but you insisted that you’d go to the diner that made nate’s favourite waffles afterward.
tammi’s silver suv had pulled up in front of you, and she was not much of what you expected (not that you really had any expectations). tiredly coming out of the car, her hair was a disheveled bun of blond kinks and her tired eyes were lined haphazardly with black and shimmery purple. she looked absolutely exhausted, then absolutely irritated when her eyes met you.
“you should’ve told me you were bringing your badge bunny.” she spat, shutting the driver door behind her as you two approached the front of the car.
“hey, don’t call her that.” sammy rolled his eyes. “and it was a last minute thing.”
with hesitation, you stuck your hand out and introduced yourself, “hi, tammi, so nice to meet you.”
she scanned you up and down and shook her head with a sarcastic chuckle, “let’s get this over with.”
rounding the car, sammy led you to the passenger side with a reassuring grin and a hand on your lower back. tammi, with a glare at you, swung the door open and reached for the carseat.
she cooed at nate and sammy slipped in a hey, bud. you stood off to the side, unsure where to put yourself. fiddling with your jacket sleeves, you watched the two argue about the carseat as sammy rested nate on his hip.
“are you bringing her around nate?” she scolded, hand on her hip, voice attempting a whisper but failing.
“she is my girlfriend, so of course i am.” sammy said definitively, fixing the tiny collar of nate’s shirt.
“well, i don’t want your little girlfriend around our son.” tammi snapped.
although you were only a few feet away, they acted like you weren’t even there. it felt like when adults would fight in front of you. standing wide-eyed and half-guilty, you thought you should say or do something, even though you weren’t involved.
“you should’ve thought about that before you cheated on me and had that man play nate’s stepdad.” sammy responded before heading to your direction.
tammi scowled as sammy handed nate to you. he trekked back to her to get another word in about you and his home and how it wasn’t tammi’s business anymore.
when rested in your arms, nate’s eyes met yours with a smile and a giggle. your bewildered face switched to bliss as you bounced him on your hip.
“hello, nate, you want some waffles?” you teased, pinching his cheeks lightly. he babbled, hands playing with your hoop earrings— the inexpensive ones you made sure to wear around him. “yeah? we can get you some waffles from tony. you remember tony?”
as sammy and tammi’s argument came to a wavering finish, nate’s eyes stayed on you, arms dancing in the wind. with the crinkle in his eyes, a word that you shouldn’t have been there for slipped through his mouth, “mama.”
your face dropped, eyes darting to tammi, who grew even more furious.
“did he just say his first word?” sammy asked, an amused smile on his face as he looked at tammi’s anger.
just a little blurb i had to get out after seeing evil tammi at hand-off in episode 1 of season 5. i don't want kids but i yearn for playing wife with sammy bryant and domesticity
{Something Good - Andrew Pope Cody x F!Reader}
If you love small-town romance, found family, emotional firefighters, slow-burn love, and characters learning how to heal without having to be perfectly fixed, then I hope you'll give What The Fire Left a read. This story means so much to me, and I can't wait for you to meet Caspian, Corrine, and everyone in Alder Ridge.
The prison smelled like bleach and old metal.
You had been trying not to think about that since you stepped through the first set of doors.
Bleach. Metal. Burnt coffee from a machine somewhere down the hall. The faint, stale smell of too many people breathing the same air under fluorescent lights that never softened anything.
You kept one hand on your bag strap and the other pressed low over your stomach.
Not because there was anything to show yet.
There wasn't.
Not really.
If someone looked at you, they would only see the same woman Andrew Cody had been in love with before everything fell apart. Same coat. Same hair tucked behind your ear. Same wedding band on your finger, though the gold had started to feel heavier lately, like it knew something before you had.
But beneath your palm, hidden under the wool of your coat and the nerves turning your stomach sharp, there was something.
Someone.
Eight weeks, the doctor had said.
Eight weeks and three days, if you wanted to be exact.
You had stared at the little blur on the ultrasound screen until it became less blur and more miracle. Until the nurse said heartbeat and you stopped breathing for a second.
A heartbeat.
A tiny, stubborn, impossible heartbeat.
Andrew's baby.
Your baby.
You had cried in the parking lot after. Not pretty, quiet tears either. The kind that came from somewhere deep and terrified. You cried with the ultrasound photo folded carefully in your bag, because the first person you wanted to tell was the one person you couldn't call whenever you wanted.
The first person you wanted beside you was behind walls and wire and locked doors.
"Cody."
The correction officer's voice snapped you back.
You looked up.
He barely glanced at you as he checked the visitor list. "You're good. Booth five."
You nodded, even though your throat felt too tight for words.
Booth five.
You walked down the row of visiting booths, your shoes sounding too loud against the floor. Families sat separated by glass, speaking into phones, pressing palms against barriers, pretending twenty minutes was enough to hold a life together.
A little boy two booths down was showing his father a drawing through the glass.
You looked away too quickly.
Your hand pressed harder to your stomach.
Booth five was empty.
For a moment, you were grateful.
You sat down slowly, smoothing your coat across your lap. Your fingers trembled when you reached into your bag, touching the edge of the ultrasound photo without pulling it out yet.
Not yet.
You needed to see him first.
You needed to look at Andrew before the words changed everything.
The door on the other side opened.
And then he was there.
Pope.
Andrew.
Your husband.
He looked thinner than he had the last time you saw him. Not weak. Never weak. Andrew had always carried himself like he expected the world to swing first and he was ready for it. But prison had carved sharper lines into him. His cheekbones looked more severe. His shoulders were tight beneath the dull fabric of his prison-issued clothes.
His hair had grown out a little.
His eyes found you immediately.
That was the thing about Andrew. He could make a room disappear when he looked at you. Guards, walls, noise, glass — none of it mattered for that first second.
His face changed.
Only a little.
Anyone else might have missed it.
But you knew him.
You saw the flicker. The breath he didn't quite take. The way his jaw loosened before he remembered where he was and locked himself back up again.
He sat across from you.
For a second, neither of you picked up the phones.
You just looked at each other through the glass.
Then Andrew reached for his.
You reached for yours.
"Hey," you said softly.
His eyes moved over your face like he was checking for damage. "Hey."
His voice was rougher than you remembered.
Or maybe you had just missed it too much.
"You okay?" he asked.
You almost laughed.
It would have been too big a sound for this place.
"I'm supposed to ask you that."
He didn't smile. Not really. One corner of his mouth twitched like the idea had passed through him and died before it made it out.
"I'm fine."
"You always say that."
"Because I'm fine."
"Andrew."
His eyes dropped.
There it was. The name still got him. It always had, when it came from you. Like Pope was something the world called him and Andrew was something only you were allowed to keep.
He swallowed. "I don't want you worrying about me."
"That's unfortunate, considering I love you."
His hand flexed around the phone.
His wedding ring wasn't there. They hadn't let him keep it.
You hated that more than you had expected to.
Your thumb moved over your own ring beneath the counter.
Andrew noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He noticed everything and said almost none of it.
"You look tired," he said.
You looked down, laughing once under your breath. "Thank you. Very romantic."
His eyes sharpened. "You sick?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"You're pale."
"I'm in a prison visiting room, Andrew. Nobody looks glowing in here."
That almost got you a real smile.
Almost.
But then his face went serious again, and the worry in him made your chest ache. It was always there, living beneath the surface. He could hide rage. He could hide fear. He could hide pain until it nearly killed him.
But he had never been able to hide worry when it came to you.
"You eating?" he asked.
You nodded.
"Sleeping?"
"Sometimes."
His brow lowered.
You sighed. "I'm sleeping enough."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
He looked at you for a long moment.
Then quieter, "I hate this."
You blinked.
He didn't say things like that often. Not so plainly. Not without being forced into a corner by grief or fear.
You held the phone tighter. "I know."
"I hate you coming here."
"I don't."
"You should."
"Well, I don't."
His jaw worked.
"You shouldn't have to sit there," he said. "Looking at me through glass."
Your eyes burned suddenly, fast and sharp.
You looked away toward the scratched-up counter, because if you cried too early, you didn't know how you would say what you needed to say.
Andrew leaned closer. "Baby."
That broke you a little.
He did not say it often in public. He barely said it around other people at all. But there, in that awful room, with a guard pretending not to listen ten feet away, he said it like the glass was hurting him too.
You looked back at him.
"I need to tell you something."
Everything in him changed.
It was subtle and immediate. His shoulders went still. His eyes narrowed. His body prepared for impact before he even knew what kind.
"Something happened?"
"No."
"Someone hurt you?"
"No, Andrew."
"Then what?"
You breathed in.
Your hand slipped into your bag.
The ultrasound photo was creased at the corner from how many times you had touched it. You pulled it out carefully, keeping it turned toward you for one last second.
The little grainy image stared back.
Your baby.
Your impossible, terrifying, beautiful little secret.
Andrew watched your hand.
You could see him trying to make sense of it before you said anything. Always trying to read the danger first.
You turned the photo around and held it against the glass.
He went completely still.
Not tense.
Not angry.
Still.
Like something inside him had stopped moving.
His eyes fixed on the picture.
For a second, you thought he didn't understand.
Then his gaze dropped to your stomach.
Back to the photo.
Back to you.
You watched the color drain from his face.
"Andrew," you whispered.
His lips parted.
No sound came out.
You pressed the photo harder to the glass, your fingers trembling around the edges. "I'm pregnant."
The words left your mouth, and there was no taking them back.
You thought maybe saying it would make it feel real in a clean, simple way.
It didn't.
It made it bigger.
It filled the space between you until there was no room for guards or walls or old metal. Just Andrew staring at you like you had placed the whole world in front of him and asked him to hold it with broken hands.
His eyes shone.
He looked down quickly.
"Andrew."
He shook his head once.
Not no.
Just overwhelmed. Just too much. Just him trying to survive feeling something that big in a place that punished softness.
"How long?" he asked.
His voice was so low you almost didn't hear it through the phone.
"Eight weeks."
He shut his eyes.
You watched the calculation happen. Watched him count backward. Watched him remember the last time you had been together before everything went bad. Before the sentencing. Before the morning you had stood outside the courthouse with your hands numb and your heart somewhere on the floor.
When he opened his eyes again, tears were caught in his lashes.
You had seen Andrew bloody. Furious. Silent with grief. Hollowed out by things he refused to name.
You had not seen him look like this.
Terrified.
Awe-struck.
Destroyed.
"I didn't know when I found out what to do," you said quickly, because his silence scared you. "I wanted to tell you in person. I know this isn't— I know it's not how we planned anything. I know it's a lot. I know the timing is—"
"Stop."
You did.
His hand rose slowly toward the glass.
Your breath hitched.
You lifted your own hand and pressed it opposite his.
Palm to palm.
Separated by glass.
His hand was bigger than yours. Always had been. Warm in your memory, rough and careful and so gentle when he touched you that sometimes it made you ache.
Now there was only cold glass.
Andrew stared at your hand like it had wounded him.
"I'm sorry," he said.
You frowned. "What?"
"I'm sorry."
"No."
"I should be there."
Your throat tightened. "Andrew—"
"I should be there with you." His voice cracked on the last word, and his eyes dropped to where your hand still covered your stomach. "I should be taking you to appointments. I should be driving you crazy telling you to sit down. I should—"
He stopped.
His mouth pressed into a hard line.
You could see him fighting it.
The tears. The panic. The belief that every good thing he touched came with a cost.
"I should be out there," he said.
"I know."
"I'm not."
"I know."
His face twisted.
"I can't protect you in here."
You leaned closer, your hand still pressed to his through the glass. "I don't need you to protect me from the baby, Andrew."
His eyes snapped back to yours.
"That's not what I mean."
"I know what you mean."
"You don't."
"I do."
"No, you don't." His voice got rougher. "You don't know what it's like in my head. You don't know what I am."
"I know exactly what you are."
He shook his head.
"You know what I let you see."
"That's not true."
His hand dropped from the glass suddenly, like touching you hurt too much.
Your palm stayed there for a second before you lowered it.
Andrew looked away.
A guard glanced over.
You hated him for it. For standing there. For existing in this moment that should have belonged only to you and Andrew.
"I'm not a father," Andrew said.
You swallowed hard. "You're going to be."
His jaw clenched.
"I don't know how."
"Nobody knows how at first."
"That's not the same."
"It is."
"No." His eyes came back to you, sharp with pain. "Not with me."
You stared at him.
There it was.
The thing underneath it all.
Not prison. Not distance. Not missed appointments or locked doors.
Him.
Andrew Cody believing himself to be the worst part of every story before anyone else got the chance to.
Your voice softened. "You think I came here because I'm scared of you?"
He didn't answer.
"Andrew."
He looked down.
"You think I sat in that doctor's office and heard our baby's heartbeat and thought, oh no, this child has him in it?"
His eyes flickered.
You pressed your lips together, trying not to cry too hard to speak.
"I thought, thank God."
His face broke.
Just for a second.
But you saw it.
You saw the impact land.
"I thought," you continued, voice trembling, "thank God there is still something good. After everything. After all the blood and courtrooms and phone calls and nights alone. I thought, there is still something good that came from us."
Andrew covered his mouth with one hand.
His shoulders shook once.
Barely.
But enough.
Your tears slipped over.
"I'm scared," you admitted. "I'm scared all the time. I'm scared of doing appointments by myself and going home to an empty house. I'm scared of raising a baby while you're in here. I'm scared they'll ask about you one day and I won't know how to explain all of it without breaking my own heart."
Andrew looked at you through wet eyes.
"But I am not scared that they'll be like you," you said. "Do you hear me? I am not scared of that."
He breathed out like the words had hurt.
"You should be."
"No."
"You should want better."
"I do."
His mouth tightened.
"I want better for you," you said. "For me. For this baby. I want a life that doesn't feel like surviving all the time. I want mornings where nobody is running from anything. I want you home. I want boring grocery lists and baby socks in the dryer and you complaining that the crib instructions don't make sense."
A broken sound left him.
Almost a laugh.
Almost a sob.
You smiled through your tears. "I want all of it. And I want it with you."
Andrew shook his head slowly. "I don't deserve that."
"I didn't say you did."
That made him look at you.
You leaned closer.
"I'm not giving you this baby because you earned it like some prize," you said. "That's not how love works. That's not how family works. You don't have to become perfect before you're allowed to be loved."
His eyes searched your face.
"You just have to try," you whispered. "That's all I'm asking. Try. Stay alive in here. Stay out of trouble. Call when you can. Write letters. Let this baby know you before they ever meet you."
His throat moved.
"I can do letters."
"I know."
"I can call."
"I know."
His hand came back up to the glass, slower this time.
You matched him.
Palm to palm again.
"I can be good," he said, and the way he said it nearly undid you. Like he was not making a promise. Like he was asking whether it was possible.
You nodded, crying openly now. "You already are."
He flinched.
"You are," you insisted. "Not always. Not in every way. But with me? Andrew, with me, you have always tried so hard."
"I failed you."
"You hurt me sometimes," you said softly. "You scared me sometimes. You disappeared into your own head and made me fight my way back to you. But you loved me. You still love me. And I know you will love this baby."
His face crumpled again.
He looked down, shoulders hunched, trying to hide it from the room.
"Hey," you whispered.
He didn't look up.
"Andrew."
He wiped roughly at his face, angry at the tears now.
You waited.
Finally, he looked at you.
"Do you want to see?" you asked.
His eyes dropped to the ultrasound photo still pressed between your fingers and the glass.
He nodded once.
You held it up again.
His gaze locked onto it.
For a long time, he didn't say anything.
Then, barely audible, "That's ours?"
Your lips trembled.
"Yeah."
He stared at the image like it was holy.
"That little thing?"
You laughed, watery and soft. "That little thing."
He leaned closer, as close as the booth would allow. His eyes moved across the grainy black-and-white shape, searching for something recognizable. Something he could understand.
"Heartbeat?" he asked.
You nodded quickly. "Strong."
His eyes closed.
A tear slipped down his cheek.
He didn't wipe it away this time.
"Strong," he repeated.
"Stubborn too, probably."
His mouth moved, almost a smile.
"Gets that from you," he said.
You laughed again, and it came out broken.
"Excuse me?"
He looked at you then, and there he was. Just for a second. Your Andrew. Tired and sad and impossible and still somehow able to look at you like you were the only thing in his life he had never wanted to run from.
"You're stubborn," he said.
"You're one to talk."
He nodded faintly. "Yeah."
Silence settled.
Not empty this time.
Full.
Heavy with all the things you couldn't touch yet.
"I don't know how to do this," he said.
"Me neither."
"What if I mess it up?"
"You will."
His brow furrowed.
You gave him a small, sad smile. "So will I. We're people. We're going to mess things up."
"I mean bad."
"I know what you mean."
"I don't want them scared of me."
"They won't be."
"You don't know that."
"I know you."
His eyes held yours.
You lowered your voice.
"You will be gentle with them because you know what it feels like when no one is. You will listen too hard. Worry too much. Probably stare at them while they sleep until I have to tell you to come to bed."
His lips parted, breath catching.
"You'll panic the first time they get a fever," you continued. "You'll pretend you're not panicking. You'll check the locks ten times. You'll buy the wrong nappies because there are too many kinds and you'll get mad at the aisle instead of admitting you're overwhelmed."
That got him.
A real laugh slipped out.
Small and rough, but real.
You smiled.
"And one day," you said, "they're going to reach for you. And you're going to pick them up. And for one second you're going to forget every terrible thing anyone ever told you about yourself."
He looked at you like he couldn't survive wanting it.
"I want that," he admitted.
Your heart squeezed.
"I know."
"I want to come home."
"I know."
His hand curled against the glass.
"I want to be there when they're born."
"I want that too."
His eyes flicked upward.
"But if you can't," you said carefully, hating every word, "then I'll still tell them you loved them from the second you knew."
He looked like that hurt worse than anything else.
"I do," he said quickly.
"I know."
"No, I—" He stopped, pressing his hand harder to the glass. "I do. Already."
You nodded as tears slipped down your cheeks.
"I know, Andrew."
His breathing was uneven.
You wished you could reach across. Touch his face. Put his hand on your stomach even though it was too early for movement, too early for anything except faith.
Instead, you took the ultrasound photo and turned it around, looking at it yourself.
"I brought you a copy," you said. "I don't know if they'll let you keep it, but I asked."
His eyes lifted sharply.
"You did?"
"Yeah."
His face did something small and devastating.
Gratitude, maybe.
Or grief.
Or love.
With Andrew, they often looked the same.
"I can keep it?" he asked.
"I think so. They said they'd check it first."
He nodded slowly, like someone had just handed him something fragile and he was terrified of holding it wrong.
"I'll put it up," he said.
"Yeah?"
"By my bunk."
Your lower lip trembled.
He looked embarrassed suddenly, glancing down.
"If they let me."
"They will."
He nodded again.
"I'll write," he said. "To you. To the baby."
"I'd like that."
"What do I say?"
"Anything."
"I'm not good with words."
"You don't have to be good. Just be you."
He gave you a look.
You smiled through your tears. "Fine. Maybe slightly less terrifying than you."
That tiny almost-smile came back.
The loudspeaker crackled overhead.
"Five minutes."
Your stomach dropped.
Andrew's eyes shifted toward the guard, then back to you.
No.
Not yet.
It was always too soon. Every visit. Every call. Every stolen piece of each other handed back before either of you were ready.
"Five minutes," you whispered, mostly to yourself.
Andrew stared at you with a sudden desperation he couldn't hide.
"Are you safe?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You need money?"
"I'm okay."
"Don't lie."
"I'm okay," you repeated gently. "Craig checks in. Deran too."
His jaw twitched at the mention of his brothers.
You knew that relationship was complicated. Everything with the Codys was complicated. Love and damage tied together so tightly no one knew where one ended and the other began.
Andrew nodded once.
"Don't let them stress you out."
"I won't."
"If they do, tell me."
"What are you going to do from in there?"
His face went flat.
You sighed. "That was a joke."
"Not funny."
"It was a little funny."
"No."
You smiled sadly. "Okay."
He looked at your stomach again.
"Are you sick in the mornings?"
"Sometimes."
"What helps?"
"Crackers. Ginger tea. Not thinking too hard about eggs."
He frowned with serious concentration, like he could solve this if he memorized enough details.
"I'll write it down."
You let out a soft laugh. "You don't need to write down my egg hatred."
"I want to know."
The words landed quietly.
You nodded.
"Okay."
"I want to know everything," he said, voice lower now. "Appointments. What the doctor says. What you need. If you're scared. If you're mad. All of it."
"I can do that."
"Don't keep things from me because I'm in here."
You looked at him.
He looked back, eyes raw.
"Please," he said.
That one word nearly broke you all over again.
"I won't," you promised.
His hand was still on the glass.
You placed yours there again.
The baby was between you and somehow not between you at all. A tiny life neither of you could hold yet. A future pressing itself into existence despite everything that should have stopped it.
"I love you," you said.
Andrew's eyes closed.
For a second, he looked like he was letting the words move through him. Like he needed to feel them fully because he would have to live off them later.
When he opened his eyes, they were wet again.
"I love you," he said.
You smiled.
"And?"
His brow pinched. "And?"
You glanced down at your stomach.
Understanding moved across his face slowly.
Painfully.
He looked at you, then at your stomach, then back again.
His voice broke when he said it.
"And I love them."
Your face crumpled.
The guard called time.
Andrew looked over sharply.
"No," he said under his breath.
You wiped at your cheeks quickly, trying to pull yourself together. "It's okay."
"It's not."
"I know."
He picked up the phone tighter. "Come back next week."
"I will."
"And call."
"I will."
"And if something happens—"
"I'll tell you."
"If you need anything—"
"I'll tell you."
"If you get scared—"
"Andrew."
He stopped.
You leaned close to the glass.
"I am scared," you said softly. "But I'm not alone."
His face changed.
You pressed your palm once more against his.
"Neither are you."
For a moment, he couldn't speak.
Then he nodded.
The phone trembled slightly in his hand.
You stood because the guard was watching, because rules were rules, because this place did not care that you were leaving part of your heart sitting on the other side of glass.
Andrew stood too.
He did not move away.
Neither did you.
You held up the ultrasound photo one more time.
His eyes went to it immediately.
"I'll make sure they give it to you," you promised.
He nodded.
Then, so quietly you almost missed it, he said, "Thank you."
You knew he was not only talking about the photo.
You smiled through the last of your tears.
"Come home to us, Andrew."
His whole face shifted.
Us.
The word hung there.
Not you.
Not me.
Us.
Andrew pressed his hand to the glass one final time.
"I'll try," he said.
And with him, that was not small.
That was everything.
You walked out with your hand over your stomach, through the bleach and metal and locked doors, into sunlight that felt too bright after so much gray.
Behind you, somewhere inside that place, Andrew Cody sat with tear tracks drying on his face and a picture of a heartbeat waiting to be cleared.
In front of you, the world was still terrifying.
Still uncertain.
Still full of things you could not fix by loving him hard enough.
But beneath your palm, small and stubborn and alive, there was something good.
And for the first time in weeks, you let yourself believe it might be enough to begin again.
crush.
warning: mostly pwp, some angst but happy ending for pope, f2l, age gap implied, afab reader, p in v sex, comfort sex (??), havent watched the show but fucking hate baz, unprotected sex, reader is kind of depraved about pope but who isnt, breeding kink kind of, etc etc etc.
summary: the aftermath of overhearing that conversation between pope and baz
word count: 4.1k
note: i have never actually watched animal kingdom other than edits and clips on twitter here and there. aaand i also messed up the timeline of the show (cath's death, etc), but fortunately this is fanfiction and i can do whatever i want yay!!
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you hadn't meant to be there at that moment. it was a chance thing, mostly a mistake. you hadn't even caught most of the conversation, just the brunt of it. but that had been enough to make you see red.
you had been aware of baz and pope's unspoken rivalry ever since you'd known them. it was a badly kept secret, knowing about baz's treatment of andrew, and of andrew's obvious infatuation with cath. the latter used to make you jealous. you had watched andrew from afar, watched him watch someone else. but that wasnt enough to make your interest in him fade away.
it was understandable at first. you were a little younger, just a little nuisance cath brought around sometimes. it made sense to you why he'd focus on someone else.
even when andrew's eyes were on someone else, you remained in his orbit somehow. this, unfortunately, meant remaining in all of the cody's orbits, but it proved worth it if it allowed you to be in his vicinity. you'd seen him be treated as the black sheep, be alienated and rejected in all walks of life. you'd had a front row seat to his infatuation with cath and julia, to his own mother's infatuation with him, to his hardships with his mental health, being seemingly the only person to realize that he'd always been a victim of his environment.
he never really took note of you. being a friend of cath's only really took you so far when it came to the cody's. your presence wasn't appreciated by smurf, nor was it ever really acknowledged by anyone other than baz and the occasional sleazy comment thrown your way after you'd grown past that awkward adolescent age — all comments made while cath wasn't around. the few times your favorite cody paid you any mind, you could never tell what was going through his head. maybe you were just the closest thing he could get to cath. maybe that's why you'd sometimes catch him looking your way, those intense eyes penetrating you without any hint of emotion towards you.
when andrew went to prison, you had been the only one who seemed to be affected by it. cath seemed relieved to have a breather from him — something which made you irrationally frustrated. the rest of his brothers, and even his mom, appeared indifferent to his absence. you stopped showing up as much while he was gone, though you still remained a present figure, wanting a chance to be there for andrew whenever he came back. you'd even resorted to writing letters to him in prison, wanting to provide him with the comfort and care he'd been unfamiliar with back home. despite his lack of responses, you'd made it a point to write him twice a month, a little more disheartened every passing month in which you didn't get a response.
but it all proved worth it when he came back.
it had been unexpected, his return. there was no warning, no announcement, he'd just shown up at your place.
he'd been awkward, that intense eye contact finding a place on your arm, your shoe, anywhere but your eyes as you opened the door for him.
you'd welcomed him with a sigh of relief and a hug, one which was not responded at first. but when you pulled away, a pair of muscular arms had wrapped around your waist, a gruff mumble of 'thank you' breathed against your shoulder. he didn't need to clarify what he meant. you knew.
the two of you stuck by each other a lot more after that. he was still closed off, still unable to stop his eyes from wandering to cath every once in a while. he was still breaking you little by little, but you'd take anything he gave you, even if this was as much as you'd get. at least his eyes were on you more often now.
he'd sleep over at your place any time coming back to smurf's felt like too much. would let you patch up his injuries after any job that left him too rambled up. he'd even leave you flowers by your door every so often, never saying they were from him, — a fact confirmed by cath, another recipient of said flowers — only ever looking away when he'd spot them in a vase inside your living room. he'd be insistent in driving you home, always opening and closing doors for you in a manner that'd have you blushing if you felt he meant it as anything other than platonic civility.
things were the same between the two of you. the same, but you could swear there was a little something more hidden in there.
you hadn't meant to be there when the tensions between andrew and baz came to a crescendo. you were only stopping by to check on andrew, a habit you'd never been able to kill.
what you caught had only been the end of the conversation. it was the usual screaming match that happened more and more every time those two were around each other. baz had always hated andrew's behavior towards his wife and daughter. andrew had always hated baz's treatment of catherine and lena. it was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. it was just too bad you'd caught its peak.
"pope, no one will ever have a kid with you. ever"
those had been baz's words.
you could see how they stung. from the corner behind which you'd hidden behind upon hearing the screaming match, you could see any remaining hope or felicity leaving andrew's eyes.
andrew had put up with a lot throughout his life, death, pain, betrayal, but you could see that that realization had been the worst of it all — the realization that no one would ever love him in that way, that no one would ever be his, that no one would choose him first.
it was wrong. you knew better than anyone that baz's words had been wrong, and that andrew's belief of those words had been just as incorrect.
you left after that.
it wasn't your place to interrupt. you were too angry to. you knew that any rendition of coming for andrew's rescue at that moment would've just made things worse for him.
so you went home.
you paced around your living room for an hour, angry, chanting every insult you could imagine under your breath. baz had made you angry through the years, but never to this extent.
and predictably enough, your lonesome anger was interrupted by a knock on your door from the one person who had any more right than you to that anger.
you ushered him in, grabbing his hand and taking him to the living room without a word. obediently, he followed.
"why'd you leave?" was the first thing he asked when once you sat him down, interrupting your breathless offer for a drink or some food. hospitality first.
you'd been trying to stall, wanting to talk about it, offer him some comfort, but unknowing of how to breech the subject without cornering him. it seemed like he didn't hold the same reservations. you hadnt even realized he had seen you at his mother's house.
"you, uhm, you saw me?"
"yeah."
"sorry, i- i didn't want to interrupt. i didn't-"
andrew reached over to an open bottle of beer you'd been nursing before his arrival, sipping it without a second thought.
"you heard all of that?"
you took a place next to him on the couch. knelt on top of it as you faced him. he continued to face forward, paying way more attention to your beer than to yourself. he was embarrassed, probably even hurt and mortified. this wasnt a conversation he wanted to have, yet he was having it with you. he wanted to dig the knife deeper, to hear someone else confirm his suspicions — that no one would ever want him, much less a shared lifetime with him.
"andrew..."
"he's right, you know?" another sip. "cath isn't my wife. lena isn't my kid. no one would ever put themselves through that misery." now a full gulp of beer.
"andrew, that isn't true."
"the hell it's not."
he was making you angry, you couldn't pretend otherwise.
it was obvious to you why andrew would have such a low self-esteem. it wasn't a secret that he hated himself, that he was self-destructive due to a variety of reasons, but that the leading one was a complete absence of self-love.
and you? you took that shit personally. specially when other people fed into it, giving him even more reasons to hate himself.
"listen to me, andrew" you took the beer from him, setting it on the coffee table, your knees now pressed against his thigh, "no — look at me, andrew."
that got his attention.
"you're going to listen to baz? deadbeat, cheater, man-whore, baz?" you scoffed. "the guy whose kid you've been taking care of? god, andrew, you've been more of a father to lena these past few months than baz has been her whole life!" you rasped out.
andrew sat still beside you, semi-wide eyes looking up at you with a shocked expression you'd never quite seen on him before. but you kept going.
"he's wrong. you know that he is. he's projecting his stupid insecurities onto you. baz could never be half the man that you are, andrew." you continued. "lena is so lucky to have you in her life, someone who actually cares about her well-being, and looks out for her, and treats her with care and compassion. and even cath! baz has never once cared for her in the way you do. he doesn't deserve either of them."
your eyes were frantic by now, but you couldn't stop yourself from continuing.
"any woman would be lucky to have your kid, andrew. anyone would be lucky to have you in their life, to be your person, to be the one to give you a kid. i- i wish that i could make you understand that."
your big rant ended there. the momentum wore off when you realized you were giving yourself away way too much.
your feelings for andrew had been one of the many badly kept secrets among the cody's. except that andrew was the only one unaware of it, never once picking up on why you always showed extra interest in him.
he sat there, mouth slightly agape as he looked at you, hands fisted on his lap and eyebrows furrowed in either confusion or frustration, you couldn't really tell.
you swallowed, not knowing what to say anymore. it was unlikely that he believed any word you'd said. his self-esteem was broken down enough that any words of compassion would be useless to him. that, and the fact that he probably didn't want to hear those words from anyone other than cath. what worth did they have if they came from you?
"andrew, i-"
"would you?"
"would i what?" your heart was going a mile a minute. his voice was broken, harsh. he was sitting up straight now, body turned towards you and eyes penetrating you with what looked like anger to you.
you weren't scared of him. you had never been. but in this moment, you were terrified you'd given yourself away. that you'd ruined what he believed to be a friendship, something that could provide him with stringless comfort unlike every other relationship in his life.
"would you-" he cleared his throat, "would you feel lucky? to- to have my kid?"
it was blunt, almost cutting, just like everything else with andrew. and it knocked the wind out of you.
instead of stammering a response, of looking away as you always did when you were teens and you happened to catch his attention, you decided to double down. you stared directly at him, resting your full weight on your knees as you lowered yourself to his eye-line before responding.
"yes."
andrew continued to look at you, swallowing before attempting to speak again.
but you didn't let him.
once again, you took initiative, grabbing onto both of his cheeks and pulling his face towards your own, your lips wrapping around his.
there was no hesitation nor shyness in the kiss. any previous hesitation between the two of you was completely forgotten as you lost yourselves in one another.
he returned your kiss, pulling you to straddle him, closing any remaining amount of distance between you. he inhaled deep between kisses, almost as if he were recalibrating, making sure he was real, that this was real.
you sighed his name against his lips, making him groan in return. his hands were shy, parked on your waist and not wandering any further. it had only been a few minutes, but it was already driving you insane.
between you, your hands made their way to his trousers, toying with their hem and sneaking under his shirt, causing a shudder and another groan to leave him.
"kid, are you- are you sure?"
"are you?" you pulled back a bit. "what about-" you couldn't help but hesitate. "what about cath?"
he shook his head, hands tightening on your hips in a possessive manner. "i don't care about her right now. just want you."
"but-"
but his head dipped, lips now on your jaw, on your neck, all the way down to the bare skin exposed by your tank top.
"please." he pleaded at you. "want you. want everything with you. no one cares about me like you do."
and that was enough to break any remaining resolve in you.
you kissed him again, groaning into his mouth when his hands dipped under your shirt, now flat on your back and pulling you as close as humanly possible. the kiss was wet and nasty with zero finesse to be found. there was a chorus of wet sounds and muffled moans in your living room, only interrupted by the ruffling of clothes and the slight squeak of your couch when you couldn't help yourself but grind your hips against his.
"fuck." he breathed out, forehead against yours.
your lips still chased his, tongue finding his open mouth and sneaking its way inside.
"take me to bed, andrew." you mumbled against his lips.
the groan he let out at that was primal, very unlike the usually quiet andrew you knew. next thing you knew, large hands were splayed under your thighs, lifting you up and wrapping your legs around his waist as he got up and headed towards your bedroom. your hands were needy, feeling him up as you continued to kiss at his neck and jaw all the way to your bed.
softly, he laid you down on the bed, waiting for you to scoot to the middle before crawling his way to you. his eyes were an odd mixture of soft and predatory while yours looked up at him with need.
again, he kissed you, one hand behind your head to bring your lips to his as he adjusted himself atop you.
"say it again." he rasped, hands finding your waist again, needy fingers bunching at your tank top in attempts to feel your skin, eyes shyly finding the bare skin there before looking back up to your eyes.
cupping his cheeks, you pulled him close, kissing his lips softly, slowly before looking into his eyes and going an extra mile with your response.
"i want your baby, andrew."
he looked pained at your words. but you were unable to really say anything else before he lunged at you with another kiss, making you fall back against the bed as he licked into your mouth. his hands went crazy, grabbing and pulling at every inch of your skin. the needy desperation in his movements proved obvious by his lack of ability in actually taking off your clothes, pulling at the hem of your shorts to feel up your legs rather than pulling them down altogether, dragging off the straps of your tank top and bra instead of throwing your shirt off, all done just to feel a little bit of extra skin.
meanwhile your hands functioned a bit better than his own. within moments you were able to throw off his shirt and pull down his pants low enough to cup his dick, suddenly stopping his abrasive movements.
"fuck-"
"god, andrew, i want you so bad." you panted into his lips. "get this off, please. i need-"
"anything. i'll do anything for you." he groaned before pulling your top off, lips instantly attaching to the newly freed skin until his lips found the barrier your bra created.
your hands gripped at his hair, pulling when he began sucking at the fat of your breast, close enough to the areola to have your eyes rolling back, "fuck, andrew..."
his own eyes rolled back at the feeling, seemingly in love with the feel of your fingers digging into his scalp.
unwilling to stop there, his hands snuck behind you, undoing your bra with surprising ease and groaning yet again at the sight.
"you're perfect." andrew sighed, not allowing you to react before his lips wrapped around your nipple, moaning against it as if he were the receiver of the pleasure.
"i need more. please, andrew, i need-"
"i know. i'll give you everything, i promise," he mumbled against your other breast, still refusing to stop putting his lips on you.
your hands dragged down his back, legs wrapping around his waist and attempting to pull him down on you, hips raising from the bed to try and roll against his. taking pity on you, andrew ground his hips against yours, earning himself a whine from you at the feel of his hardness digging against your cunt.
desperate, you made work of your shorts on your own accord, awkwardly removing them from underneath him as he continued kissing at you, sucking hickeys into your skin like some horny teenager, hands now reaching down to your hips and digging at the skin there like puddy.
"andrew, god, fuck me. please." you whined once more, slightly embarrassed by the desperation in your voice.
this finally got andrew to respond to you, hands undoing his own pants the rest of the way, freeing himself of his boxers in the process.
you eyed him with absolute depravity in your eyes, biting your lip at the sight in front of you, the thick muscle throughout the entirety of his body, the girth of his dick, the beads of cum squirting at his tip, the flushed hue of his skin and the sweat making him glisten as he hovered over you.
"you're perfect, andrew, fuck."
his hand went to your chin, tilting it and removing your eyes from his body, turning them to face his gaze instead, "look at me."
you hummed, wide eyes staring at his own (fighting an impossible battle to not let them stray down to his lips for the hundreth time).
"i'm going to give you a baby. do you understand that?" his voice was raspy, pained, eyes facing the same battle as yours as they ventured to your lips, to your breasts, to the space between your legs.
nodding numbly, you bit your lip, tilting your head towards his lips, "please."
"tell me you want it."
"i do. i want it. please- want- want your baby, andrew. want everything with you."
with one last groan, he closed the distance again, one hand coming to his cock while the other laid you back down. dragging his dick up and down your slit, he sighed at the feeling.
finally, he pushed in, making your eyes roll back for the millionth time, and sigh out his name.
"fuck." he groaned at the feeling, stilling inside you. "i love you." were his next words, almost missed due to his lips' proximity to your skin.
your hands dug into his hair again, pulling him even closer with a moan, "i love you so much, andrew. a-always have."
"i know." he mumbled, hips beginning to move, "i love you." he repeated. "you're everything to me."
those were his last words before picking up his speed, hammering into you as your legs wrapped around him, pulling him flush against your skin.
"you're mine now. do you understand?" he huffed, lips glued to the skin of your shoulder.
"i'm yours, andrew, i'm- fuck! — i'm yours, baby."
your hands dragged red lines down his toned back, marking him equally yours. his shoulder was your next victim, getting marked by your teeth as you bit into the skin there when he thrust particularly hard.
and he loved it, groaning out a pained moan of your name when you bit at him, hips stuttering and hands gripping your hips in a bruising manner.
"you feel so fucking good." he growled directly into your ear. "you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."
that had you reeling. had you tightening up around him, your body completely in tune with him and his words. he was all you'd ever wanted, all you'd watched and waited to have.
the idea of having a baby with andrew crossed your mind many times in the past. they were mostly teenage daydreams of a ring, a house, a honeymoon somewhere far away from home and a lifetime for the two of you completely separate of the mess that always surrounded andrew. you had dreams of saving him from the misery that his family brought along, to finally have him look your way and give him everything you had to offer.
you never thought things would go so out of order, that you'd so easily open your legs for him, not a single thought of using protection on your mind and allowing him to do with you as he pleased — as you'd repeatedly begged.
and in this moment you wanted that more than anything. you wanted that baby in you. to have andrew cum deep inside you time and time again, to try endlessly until it finally took. you wanted to lock him up in your home, hide him from everyone who'd ever hurt him, who'd ever betrayed him and keep him safe between your legs.
you'd give him a baby, tie yourself to him for the rest of your lives. the thought of swelling up for him had you tightening around his cock, thinking of every night you'd lay in bed buried in his arms, being the one constant in his life and the reason for his peace.
you knew he'd be perfect for you. that he'd protect you and your baby with his life. you knew that he'd be loyal, would become infatuated and obsessive and addicted, and it just made you so dizzy in all the best ways.
andrew seemed equally desperate for that future, for that ownership over the rest of your life. he rammed into you with an animalistic desperation as his peak approached, grunting unintelligible praises hidden among curses at the unimaginable pleasure.
"cum for me. i'll give you everything, just cum for me." it was the closest thing to begging you'd ever heard from him. the sincerity dripped in his words.
and how could you not lose your mind at that? how could you not when he was staring down at you, mouth agape and eyes locked on your lips, perpetually thirsty for more of you.
you pulsed under him, eyes rolled back and back arched with your breasts pressed up against his chest, the hardness of his muscle further stimulating you throughout your high.
by the time you came back to earth, andrew was a man possessed, drilling into you with a desperation you'd never seen. he made sounds you'd dreamed of, gasping and groaning incoherencies. his grip on you would've been painful had you not been addicted to the feeling of him, to the sight above you.
"cum for me, baby." you sighed, one hand coming up to pull softly at his hair while the other turned his face to look straight into your eyes. "look at me when you cum. get me pregnant, baby. wanna see you when it finally takes."
with one final grunt of your name, you finally felt that warmth inside you. he stilled, shoving himself as deep as possible with a broken gasp, hips spasming weakly against yours.
he made sure not to let himself fall on top of you once he'd filled you to the brim, dropping himself next to you instead. but he didnt allow any distance between you, bringing you to his side with one strong arm, humming when you yelped at the sudden movement.
as if by nature, you nuzzled into his chest, kissing the skin there softly while your hands scratched at the skin of his abdomen with affection.
"you're mine, andrew."
his hand went down to your stomach, rubbing at the skin as if his seed was already implanted in there, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
"yeah? well, you're mine too."
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and she did get pregnant with twins and one was a girl and one a boy and they got custody of lena and they got the fuck out of there and andrew finally got his happy ending and everyone cheered yay!!!!!
Tender is the Heart
summary: Jack comforts you after a particularly long day, and you're forced to face your true feelings about your 'casual' fling.
pairing: Jack Abbot x fem!Reader
warnings: +18, MDNI, explicit sexual content, unspecified age gap, reader is a college student & a cashier, dramatic!reader (can u tell this is self-indulgent yet?), jack makes you dinner, cozy night in vibes, established relationship, very light alcohol consumption, written by an acts of service connoisseur, massages, finger sucking, nipple play, vaginal fingering, edging if you squint, clit stimulation, unprotected piv, riding, praise kink, pet names, porn with feelings, light angst with a happy ending, jack 'i'll pay for it' abbot, a bit of pov switching at the very end, reader has hair that can be brushed & styled but has no other physical description
wc: 6.3k
note: this was supposed to be a short smut drabble and then i just didn't stop idk what happened, thank you to @thykingdoncome for taking a peak at this for me and if u like this u should def go check out her stuff it has me on my knees rn
[masterlist] [AO3]
It was one of those days where anything that could go wrong does.
By the time you drag your weary bones to Jack's place, your back aches and your feet hurt and your brain feels like mush.
You're still a few paces from the door when he pulls it open to greet you. Just seeing him makes you deflate, and you do so in typical dramatic fashion. Heavy bag drooping from your hand, head falling back, shoulders slumping.
Jack laughs when it happens, but just the sound of his amusement makes you feel better. "Aw, baby," he says, stepping off the front porch to come to you. He takes your bag and sets it over his shoulder with ease. "C'mere. Long day?"
"The longest." You fall into his embrace, letting him wrap you up in his big arms, resting your head on his chest and sighing deep when you hear the steady rhythm of his heart.
Jack rests his cheek against the top of your head and tightens his arms around you, holding you close. You let out a long-held breath in response when he says, "You hungry?"
"Starving," you answer. He loosens his hold only to lace his hand through yours and tug you forward, up the steps and over the threshold.
He sets your bag down near the sofa and you drape yourself over the back of it, face pressed into the cushions, letting out a groan of frustration.
Jack laughs at your theatrics and smooths a soothing hand over your spine. "Hey," he says, voice soft and comforting. "You're home now, yeah? I've got you. Why don't you go on an' get comfy. Shower if you wanna. An' I'll make you something to eat. How's that sound?"
If his words weren't enough, Jack lifts one of your legs carefully into his hands and pulls off your sneaker. He then follows suit to the next, freeing both of your aching feet, and you get this tickle of adoration in your chest.
He always seems to know just what to do. It's one of the things that drew you to him in the first place. Jack's older and wiser and he seems to like taking care of you even more than you like being taken care of.
Your words are muffled in the fabric of the couch as you say, "I don't deserve you."
Jack just laughs and shakes his head. "Nah. You deserve the world an' I'd give it to you if I could."
He lands a stinging, playful smack to your ass and you squeal and flinch in response.
"Now go on," he says, wrapping a hand around your elbow to pull you back up. "You'll feel better when you get outta these clothes."
You nod and press a kiss to his shoulder before wordlessly obeying. Jack has two drawers cleaned out for you in his bedroom, filled with your favorite pajamas and a few outfits you use on the nights you stay over. Which, lately, has been way more often than not.
But you bypass his dresser entirely, opting instead for one of his old t-shirts in the back of his closet and a clean pair of underwear. They're not a pair you'd bought for yourself, but they're soft and pink and you tell yourself you'll scold him later for buying you things you don't need.
You take your time in the shower. Scrubbing your scalp with your bottle of shampoo that lives in the corner of Jack's tub and massaging the suds from his bar soap into the tight muscles of your arms. The water is hot and falls on your skin like a warm rain, effectively cleansing you of the stress that's clung to you all day.
When you're finished, you lather your skin in your favorite scented lotion and brush the tangles from your hair. And when you finally leave the bathroom, you find Jack plating up pasta in the kitchen.
The air smells like fresh garlic and that tomato-based sauce he hand-makes himself. Your mouth starts to water before he turns around to say, "Sit. Put something on the TV. I'll bring it to you."
It makes your chest pull tight, because you know how much he hates eating in the living room instead of at the table, and you know he prefers dinner with the television off to make room for conversation instead. You'd called him an old man for it, but will fully admit that you enjoy the slow quietness of a meal together.
But he doesn't ask for it tonight, because despite what you know he wants, he does what you need instead.
You don't have to ask for anything with Jack. It's like he always just knows.
There's a YouTube video you've been meaning to get to, so you put that on and settle into the corner of the couch with your legs crossed beneath you. You already feel better, but the moment Jack hands you your pasta and a full wine glass, you could cry from relief.
"It's, uh—that Chianti you were looking at," he says.
"The one from the winery?"
Jack nods as you take both from his hands. He disappears from your sight only long enough to grab his food and a bottle of icy cold water before returning to your side.
He sits beside you, and watches as you take a slow and careful sip of the red wine in your glass. It tastes like sour cherry and plum, sweet and aromatic and somehow everything you'd hoped for and more. A low, satisfied hum leaves your mouth without noticing, and Jack chuckles at the sound.
"Y'like it?"
"It's so good," you answer. "Thank you."
He smiles wide and nods towards your food. "Eat. An' tell me why it was such a bad day."
You start from the very beginning, explaining how you'd set your alarm for the wrong time and showed up to your college campus thirty minutes after your first lecture began. And then you tell him about the pop quiz in your organic chemistry class. "And you know how much I hate Mr. Clark," you add. "He's the actual worst. I'm barely scraping by in that class no matter how much extra credit I do. I swear the man has it out for me."
You then tell him about your shift at the grocery store and how a lady had gotten so upset over an expired coupon that she'd complained to your manager about you and abandoned her entire cart. "And of course Mary had me take care of it, which took almost an hour. And I was nothing but nice to the lady, too. Even after she screamed at me, I still told her that I hoped she had a wonderful day. But really, in the back of my head, I was hoping she stepped in someone's gum on the way out."
That makes Jack laugh. He sits there and listens to you vent about the entire day. He doesn't interrupt or lose interest and he asks questions about your coworkers and if you're enjoying the finance elective you'd just picked up a few weeks ago.
By the time your YouTube video is over, the both of you have finished your food and set the dishes on the coffee table.
Jack spreads his arms open and you crawl into them like it's second nature. Wrapped up in his arms, head against his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart behind his sternum.
He's warm. He always is. It's one of the things you think you love the most about him—even if you haven't exactly said the word aloud yet.
You're not quite sure what you believe in these days, but you find yourself sending a silent prayer of thanks to whatever or whoever might be listening.
Because you think it's rare to find a man like Jack, who's comforting and kind and warm, who makes you feel valued and loved and cared for in a way you've never experienced before.
He's said to you once that he wishes you'd met earlier. Wishes that he could've known you when he was your age, so that the two of you might have more time together.
But you often find yourself thinking the opposite, grateful for the entire life he'd experienced without you. Grateful that when you did finally find each other, he was exactly the kind of man you needed.
Wise and gentle. The safety net you've been blindly reaching for since you were young. And here he was, waiting for you with open arms and pasta cooking on the stove.
You think you should say it now. Tell him you love him, because you do. And you think you have for a lot longer than you've known. Longer than the time it took to put a name to the feeling.
But this was supposed to be casual.
He'd been honest with you from the very first date that he wasn't interested in a serious relationship. He had just been looking for someone to pass the time with.
He'd experienced the love of his life already and had tragically lost her. It wasn't meant to happen for him a second time, he'd insisted.
Jack had been adamant about it in the beginning. He'd even given your relationship its own set of rules; no staying overnight, no meeting the family or friends, no work-place visits, no social media posting or labels or feelings.
But by the third time he'd had you naked in his bed, it was Jack who'd asked you to stay over.
And it was him who'd asked you to stop by PTMC late one night just so he could set his eyes on you and kiss you one good time out in the ambulance bay.
It was Jack who'd eventually introduced you to Dana and Trinity and Parker.
And when you passed your exams last semester, Jack insisted on taking you out to celebrate. He chose some fancy restaurant and the two of you had gotten all dressed up. He'd worn a suit and you'd worn a new dress he bought for you.
You'd asked to take a photo together and he'd been delighted to do so. You pressed a kiss to his cheek and he'd smiled wide while the shutter clicked.
Afterwards, you texted him the photo. You both looked so happy in it, because you were.
And the following day when you posted on social media, his name popped up in your likes and you'd discovered he'd changed his profile photo to the one you'd taken the night before.
And, now? You had shampoo in his shower and drawers of your own in his dresser and a favorite cereal spoon. Your apartment served as a storage unit more than an actual home because you always slept better in his bed.
Every single rule had been broken, and not by your hand.
But this rule, well…
Jack shifts beneath you, his fingers stroking your hair back and moving to find your chin. He turns your face towards his, looking down his nose at you in that assessing way he always does. "What're you thinking about?"
You shake your head, unable to hide the smile that tugs at your mouth. "Nothing," you say. "Just that I'm…happy. Here, with you."
Jack blinks, running his knuckles down the column of your throat. "Yeah?"
You nod and touch your temple to his. "Yeah, I am. You always do that, you know."
He chuckles and smiles and you think he definitely knows exactly what you mean, but he still asks, "Do what?"
"Make a bad day a good one," you answer. "It's like magic or something."
"Magic, huh?" Jack grins. His hands find your shoulders then, thumbs pressing gently against the tender muscles in the back of your neck.
Your head falls forward, giving him more access, and he nudges you to turn so you're facing away from him, sitting right between his spread thighs while he leans against the back of the couch.
"I wouldn't call it magic," he says. "I just…I know my girl. I like to pay attention to you so on days like today, I know exactly what you need."
My girl.
The name makes your brain feel all fuzzy. It always does.
His fingers massage the tension from your shoulder blades, working the stress out of your body in a physical way.
The words almost slip from your mouth unbidden.
You love him. God, you do.
But is it worth the risk just to say it? To possibly push him away, to lean too close and force his distance?
Jack loved his wife. And you know he has no intentions of loving another. But would it really be so bad if you love him?
You tell yourself it wouldn't matter if he returned the sentiment, that you could never ask it of him. Especially not when he's been so clear about his boundaries regarding that particular word.
But you know yourself. And you know, too, that you're only setting yourself up for heartbreak.
He works his way down your spine slowly. And if it's not Jack that's magic, you think his hands certainly must be. He touches a particularly sore spot at the small of your back and he spends extra time there. His thumbs dig into the muscle tissue until the pain subsides and all that's left is an aching pleasure.
When he's satisfied, Jack pulls you back until your spine is pressed flush against his chest. You melt into him, eyes fluttering closed when he lays his cheek against the top of your head.
His hands work themselves down your arms, massaging your biceps and your forearms and taking extra care with the joints in your hand.
"Is this a physical, Doctor Abbot?"
The sound of his laughter reverberates through his chest and you can feel it in the curve of your spine. "Just relax and let me make you feel good, would you?" His voice holds that teasing edge you love, and you can't hold back your grin.
But you do as he bids without further explanation, letting his hands work their magic. Your head falls back against his shoulder when he reaches for your calves next.
Jack massages them one at a time, thumbs pressing hard, calloused hands leaving behind a warmth only he can ever elicit.
He moves higher next, squeezing the pillowy flesh of your thighs, starting at the top of your knee.
Your whole body starts to feel like liquid, held together in the shape of a girl by his arms alone. When he gets to the inside of your thighs, you squirm just a little from the sensation, brain short circuiting, sending signals of desire despite the fact that he's done nothing to make you believe his intent is anything but pure.
But then his hand slips beneath your oversized t-shirt, and suddenly your breath becomes shallow.
If he notices, Jack doesn't say anything. Just keeps on his tension-relieving pursuit, massaging your hips next.
His thumbs trace the shape of each one of your ribs, and you swear you can feel the love in his hands.
Maybe he doesn't say it. But he takes care of you after a long day and buys you the Chianti you mentioned only once that you wanted to try. He holds your face when he kisses you and unlaces your sneakers when you get home and makes you dinner despite having worked a ten hour shift the night before.
He picks up your favorite shampoo when he goes that way in town and throws your laundry in with his. He encourages you and has faith in your dreams even on the days you yourself don't.
So, yeah. Maybe he doesn't say it.
But the love is there anyway.
His hands drift even further up your chest, massaging the space just below your breasts. His voice is low and tickles the shell of your ear as he asks, "Can I take your shirt off, sweetheart?"
You nod without hesitation, leaning forward only long enough for Jack to take the fabric by the seam and tug it up over your head.
He lays it on the back of the couch, and you feel suddenly cold. Goosebumps prickle your arms and across your belly, but the cool sensation only lasts for a moment.
Because when Jack puts his hands back on you, your blood heats beneath your skin. His fingers find your breasts, massaging almost clinically. But you can feel him harden in his black sweatpants, his bulge steadily growing as it rests against the small of your back.
Jack doesn't pay it any mind, though. He palms your breasts, massaging the swell of them, fingertips ghosting over the hardened peaks of your nipples.
Arousal pools low in your belly, and you can feel the heat gathering between your legs even though he hasn't touched you there yet.
"You're so beautiful," he whispers.
It slips your mind that he can see everything from where he sits behind you. Embarrassment threatens, but you push the thought far away. Because he's already seen all of you, and he makes you feel beautiful beneath his reverent touch.
Jack lifts his fingers to your mouth. "Let me in, baby," he says softly.
And you do. Lips parting, tongue immediately finding the pad of his middle finger as he pushes it behind your teeth. You can feel his cock twitch as you swirl your tongue around the digit, drool gathering at the corner of your mouth.
Once he's satisfied, he withdraws his finger and spreads your spit over one of your nipples. The wetness allows for freer movement, but Jack doesn't pick up the pace. He moves leisurely, unhurried, taking far too long to touch you the way you want to be touched.
He moves to your other nipple, spreading your saliva, leaving your pebbled skin all glossy. He circles it slowly, fingers flicking over the peak, his breath hot against the back of your neck.
Your need for him grows teeth, the pinpricks of desire becoming sharper with each moment that passes. By the time his name leaves your mouth, the cotton center of your underwear feels wet and sticky. "Jack."
"Shh," he soothes. "Just relax. Let me take care of you."
You think about begging for more. Crying, maybe. It certainly begins to feel like you could.
But then, blissfully, his hands begin to move again. Sliding down your abdomen, over your curves, settling at the elastic band around your waist. You think—hope, that he'll slide his hands beneath the fabric, but he doesn't.
Jack instead runs his hand down your center over your underwear. But the pressure of it and the warmth of his palm pulls a quiet whimper from your mouth anyway. Your hips twist and lift, chasing the friction.
You can feel his smug smile against your ear. "Greedy girl," he teases. "This not enough for you?"
"God, no. Please Jack I want…" Your face heats.
"What do you want? Tell me. Use your words."
"More," you answer, hips bucking up against the palm of his hand. Your clit throbs with need, desperate to be touched.
Jack doesn't make you suffer. "I know you do," he says. "I'm only messing with you, baby. C'mon. Let's take these off, hm?"
You can't move fast enough, lifting your hips while Jack hooks his thumbs into the elastic and tugs it down your legs. He discards them at the other end of the couch and takes hold of your thighs in a firm grip. He spreads you wide, settling your legs on the outside of his own, exposing you completely.
He pulls you back to his chest and presses a chaste kiss into your hair. "M'gonna need you to relax for me," he tells you. "Getting all worked up like I won't take care of you or somethin'."
"I know you will, I—I just—"
"You want it bad, I know," he answers. "An' I'm gonna give it to you, but you gotta trust me. Yeah? Close your eyes, sweetheart."
You do as he says, eyes fluttering closed, lashes resting against your cheeks. You inhale a long breath, willing yourself to sink back into that floaty feeling he'd put you in only moments ago. When you exhale, your mind goes blank, and your limbs start to grow heavy.
"Yeah, there you go," Jack encourages. His hands stroke gently up and down your thighs, leaving a buzzing feeling behind. He traces the same pattern over and over, and it soothes you so much that you think you might even fall asleep, just like this.
But then his hand finds your center, and every nerve ending flares on edge. With his fingers pressed together, he flattens them over your core, spreading the obscene amount of wetness that's gathered there.
Your clit catches on the heel of his palm and you moan. Jack does it again, leaving no part of you untouched. The thick swells of his knuckles press down harder than the rest of his fingers, and each time he passes over your cunt with a tender hand the pleasure ratchets higher and higher.
He moves so slow. God. It's aching and delicious and intentional. His fingers stroke up and down again and again, unhurried as if he's simply enjoying the show and has no intention of anything else.
"How's that feel?"
"So good," you whine, hips canting upwards, chasing the friction of his palm that's now smothered in your arousal. "Can you…want you inside, Jack. Please."
You can feel his answering smile against the crook of your neck. "Yeah, I think I can do that for you. I mean, since you asked so nicely."
Jack strokes your pussy again, but this time on the down motion he slips his middle finger inside your opening. Just one, God—just one, but it's enough to have you writhing. Enough that your breath gets caught in your lungs.
His palm remains flat against your cunt, repeating the same stroking motion. But it's different now, the tendons in his forearm flexing as he pulls his hand upwards. His middle finger pushes against that sweet spot inside you hard, and you gasp in response.
It somehow feels like too much and not enough all at once. "Oh my God."
"I know, I know. You're okay. I've got you."
His voice is like liquid velvet in your ear. Raspy enough to know the sight of you unraveling in his hands—because of his hands—is affecting him, but warm enough to know that he's not worried about the hardness of his cock.
He's only worried about making you feel good.
Jack finds a steady pace. Slow and torturous in the best way, your desire burns hot like embers in your belly. He strokes you with expert precision, and you think this will be enough. It'll be just enough to get you there, to have you stumbling over the edge of release.
But then Jack adds a second finger, and what once felt like embers now feels like a wildfire. "Oh, fuck. That's so—"
"You like that?"
"Oh, God, yes. Yes." The added pressure inside you is nothing short of heavenly. He keeps up his rhythm, clit pulsing beneath his slick palm with each brush of his hand.
When he curls his fingers, narrowing in on the most delicious place inside you, your vision goes all blurry. You squeeze your eyes closed and the heat between your legs intensifies.
"Can feel you squeezin'," Jack says. "Don't chase it. Won't feel as good if you chase it. Let me give this to you. Just let it happen, baby."
You whimper, the obscenities of his words heightening your pleasure. You give in despite the gnawing desire for release that feels tortuous now, instead letting yourself melt back into the intimacy of the moment he's created all for you.
It builds and builds and builds. His hand moves so fucking perfectly, like he knows your body better than his own. He lays wet, open mouthed kisses down the column of your throat, hand moving steadily between your legs.
"Look at me," he orders, nudging the side of your cheek with his nose. When you do, Jack presses his forehead to yours and kisses you deep. His tongue is soft, licking into your mouth, greedily swallowing the desperate moans that spill from your swollen lips.
When he pulls away, he's breathing just as hard as you are. With his eyes locked on yours, he says, "Cum for me, baby."
It's blinding. Your release tears through you without remorse, body trembling, vision blurring with the tears that spring to the corners of your eyes. His name falls from your mouth between a jumble of half-spoken curses, and then—
"I love you," you cry. "God, Jack. I love you. Fuck, fuck. Feels so—hmm."
You don't even notice that you've said it right away.
And Jack doesn't even flinch. He just fucks you through it, thrusting his fingers hard inside you, the pressure of his palm almost too much to bear on your sensitive clit.
The aftershocks of your orgasm have only barely begun to fizzle out before he turns you to face him, pulling you onto his lap.
He tugs his t-shirt off, tugging at the hem at the back of his neck. Jack surges forward to press a searing kiss against your lips, stealing the breath from your lungs.
You reach for the tie at his waist and he's quick to abide this time, tugging his sweatpants low on his hips, pushing them down until his cock springs free. It's heavy and swollen and leaking at the tip, and as much as you'd love to sink to your knees and lick the salty release, you need him inside of you more.
So you lean forward on your knees while you straddle his hips, and Jack helps to hold you up with his hands on the swell of your ass. You line him up at your achy entrance and sink down in one smooth motion.
You're so wet from your first release that he slides in with ease. His head falls back and his lips part as his cock spreads you open real wide.
"Shit," he hisses. "You feel so good, baby."
You anchor yourself with your arms wrapped around his neck and begin to roll your hips, feeling high on the way he groans beneath you.
It doesn't take long, in truth. You ride him with intent, chasing not your release but his, whimpering as the thickness of his cock splits you apart.
You can feel him throb against your hypersensitive walls and you know he's close when he surges forward and kisses you again.
His mouth is greedy and wanting and his hands slide up your back to pull you into an embrace, pulling you into his heart.
You can feel the organ thumping against your own sternum, steady and in sync. And you think to yourself, how could you not fall in love with him?
How could you ever sit here and let him touch you like this, take care of you like this, love you like this—and not feel…something?
Pressure builds behind your eyes, and Jack must sense the change in you. He cradles your face in his hands and says, "Right here, baby, stay right here with me."
You look up at him through bloodshot eyes and thread your fingers through the soft curls at the nape of his neck. The confession almost slips out again, but you swallow it down and bury it deep.
If this is the last time you'll ever get him like this, you want to enjoy it, to commit every second to memory.
Jack's hands twitch against your spine. You roll your hips a little quicker now, taking him deep inside, and then his breath stutters and his cock pulses between your legs.
"Fuck, you're so perfect. I'm gonna cum, baby. Gonna fill you up," he grits out.
Release takes hold of him only a moment later. Jack's grip on your waist becomes bruising, his mouth parting on a low sound of bliss. He kisses you hard, and you think he must be doing this on purpose, right?
How can it feel like that and not be love?
His cock pulses, filling you with the stickiness of his orgasm, claiming you in a way only he ever has. You think it’s only fitting. Everything you are belongs to him, anyway—your womb, your mouth, your heart.
Everything.
You slow your hips only when his muscles go slack, hands loose against your skin now. Exhausted, you fall forward, burying your too-warm face in the crook of his neck, afraid to see the post-coital look on his face.
Jack strokes his fingertips up and down your spine, cheek resting against your head. His breath slows, and you both just sit there.
You think it's to enjoy the last few seconds you have together.
Tears press against the back of your eyelids.
Because you don't want to lose him or the safety net he casts out for you. You don't want to go back to your shitty apartment or your empty bed or your empty heart.
Because that's what it was before Jack, wasn't it? You'd never noticed it before, would never have said it aloud and would've denied it until you were blue in the face.
But that's what it was. Empty.
No real friends, no real prospects, no real warmth between you and your family. It's always just been you and your goals and a straight line from point A to point B.
Jack forces you to slow down. To appreciate small talk and a good meal together and a pit stop at a coffee shop you always wanted to try but drove past every day.
He taught you softness and grace. He taught you how to love, and you’re just supposed to pretend like you don’t?
"Hey," he says, voice tender. "Why're you crying, sweetheart?"
You think you should lie. Say it was just an in-the-moment lapse of judgment. That you'd had such a long day and it just slipped out by accident.
But it hadn't, and the words have been clanging around in your head for almost a month now.
So you lean back up to look at him. And you're sure your face is ruddy with tears and the fear of loss is reflected in your glassy eyes, but you know you need to say it.
You need to tell him.
"Jack, I…" The words get caught in your throat. As if a filter at the back of your mouth tugs them back into the darkest part of your soul. You try again. "I know we weren't supposed to…to do this. And I'm sorry if it ruins everything, but I…"
He waits patiently while you try to soothe yourself. Breathing in deep, exhaling even slower. Jack's thumbs stroke easy patterns into the spot just below the flare of your ribcage and his brow furrows in curiosity.
"I meant it," you finally choke out. "I…I love you. And it's okay if you don't say it back, you know? I could never ask it of you. You—you love your wife, and I understand. I really do, okay? So please don't feel obligated or guilty or…or anything like that. But I know how I feel and I have to be honest with you."
Jack nods, a small smile on his face. He reaches up with one hand and takes your chin between his thumb and forefinger. "Pretty girl," he muses.
It hurts just to hear it, knowing it'll be the last time.
Your bottom lip trembles and when you squeeze your eyes closed, the tears spill down your cheeks unbidden. "Jack," you warn.
He shakes his head. "Hey, no. Look at me."
At first, you hesitate. But you do as he says, even if tears of embarrassment blur at the edges of your vision.
"I'm so proud of you for being brave, okay? It takes guts to do things you're afraid of. And you did such a good job."
His praise only makes that ache in your chest worsen, because you want to keep it. Want to hear it for the rest of your life, tethered to him so you don't feel the loss of warmth so deeply.
"And I know we made all these rules in the beginning but—baby, I've been in love with you for a very long time."
It feels like the world stops for just a single, record-scratch moment. "What?"
"Haven't you noticed? I've broken every single one of those rules and I did it because I love you."
You try to process it, but your brain feels muddy. "Oh—oh my god. Jack, what? Why didn't you say anything?"
He shrugs like it's some easy confession for him, while this whole time it's been eating at you like an awful secret. "This is your first time falling in love," he explains. "I wanted to move at your pace."
And just like that, all your worries fade to nothing. The tension and stress from the day dissipates, your terrifying thoughts of losing him fade to nothing, and what you're left with is this overwhelming sense of relief.
You curl inwards, pressing your forehead to his chest. "Oh my god."
Jack laughs, and the sound is so full of delight and worship you think to yourself, how could I not have known?
"I love you," he whispers, kissing the top of your head. "I love you." Another kiss, to your shoulder this time. "I love you." Your temple.
His cock twitches inside you, and you can't hold back your blithe giggling. "C'mon, old man," you tell him, carefully shifting off of his lap. "Let's get you to bed."
"Old." Jack snorts, laying a playful smack against your ass when you stand onto shaky legs. "Right. Could run circles around you, little girl."
The two of you make your way to his bedroom, and you climb beneath the sheets while he sits at the edge of the mattress to take off his prosthetic.
"I'm on call tonight," he tells you. "So if you wake up and I've disappeared, that's why."
You nod, and Jack slips into bed beside you. He lifts his arm and you slither right up to his side and rest your head on his bare chest. "I have to be at work by seven, so I might not see you before I leave."
He lets out a long breath. "Do you, uh…you like it there? You know—being a cashier?"
The question makes you laugh. "God no," you say. "I hate that place. The people are rude and half the time the work feels so degrading. And you know how I feel about my boss."
Jack's lips quirk up into a smile. "Ugh. Mary," he teases.
You shake your head and close your eyes, weariness beginning to take hold. "Precisely. But it's temporary, so. You know, I'll survive."
He doesn't speak again for some time. So long in fact, you think he might've fallen asleep. But then Jack says, his tone flat and serious, "You should quit."
"God, I wish."
"I mean it."
"If only my student loans would pay themselves. And I've got apartment fees, too. Not exactly light spending since they upped the electricity bill."
"How would you feel about…I dunno. Staying here?"
You lift your head at that. "What, you mean like move in?"
Jack nods. "Yeah, I mean…you could get outta there. Take your time finding a job you actually wanna keep, not just one that pays the bills. And you can focus on school in the meantime." He pokes you in the ribs. "Fill up that pretty head of yours with all that knowledge."
The offer makes your heart race. "Jack, are you…are you sure? What about my loans? And food and textbooks and—?"
"I'll pay for all of it," he says easily. "Just let me take care of you."
It feels almost too good to be true, like you're asking for too much.
But you're not asking, he's offering.
You silently admit to yourself that it would be nice, though. Knowing he waits for you at home with those magic hands and all those sweet words. Knowing that even on your worst days, he'll take you as you are and love you just a little harder.
Still, it's a big decision to make.
Jack says quietly, almost a little bashful, "You don't have to decide right now or anything, I just love coming home after a shitty shift to see you drooling on my pillow."
"I do not drool."
"How would you know? You're sleeping."
You laugh easily and roll your eyes, settling on a temporary answer. "I'll think about it."
And you promise yourself you will.
But the following day, Mary manages to make a snarky comment about the way you styled your hair before you've even clocked in. And you, of course, respond in kind with your two week notice.
Jack comes to your apartment that weekend to help you pack your things. He's going through your cluttered closet, and stashed in the back he finds a loose stack of old photos.
Some of them include your cousins or your grandma or your childhood best friend. But one of them is a small photo of you, no older than ten years old, dressed up in a surgeon Halloween costume that's a size too big for you.
Jack smiles to himself when he sees it and, for the first time in his life, wonders about fate.
He leans over to poke his head around the corner of the closet door. "Hey."
You look up from where you sit in the center of a pile of your belongings on the living room floor.
Jack holds up the photo. "Can I have this?"
"You actually want that?"
"Of course I do," Jack says, smoothing out the photo's frayed edges and reaching into his back pocket. His heart warms as he sticks it in his wallet, where it'll remain for years to come. "It's my girl."
thank you for reading, i love you!!!
experimenting and such
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH
ONE-SHOT
pairing: dr. jack abbot x younger resident!reader summary: You’re used to handling things alone, even if handling them means skipping meals, ignoring problems, and laughing before anyone can see where it stings. Then Jack Abbot starts noticing too much. He pays attention in that quiet, maddening way of his, all dry comments and practical solutions, until calling him your sugar daddy stops feeling like a joke and starts feeling like the only safe name for something you’re too terrified to admit.
Because the problem with Jack Abbot isn’t that he wants to take care of you. It’s that you want to let him.
wc: 12.9k
a/n: and here it is, the accidental sugar daddy abbot fic i started over a month ago!! was initially toying with the idea to turn this into a multi-chaptered story but eventually settled on a one-shot instead because i have way too many ongoing fics i need to finish at some point lmao. i really wanted to take the sugar daddy trope and make it feel more grounded and in-character for jack, less flashy billionaire fantasy, more quiet practical care that gets way too intimate before either of you knows what to do with it. not beta read.
warnings: age gap, workplace power imbalance, attending/resident turned sd/sb dynamic, class/money insecurity, possessive/soft dom!jack, semi-public sex, piv, car sex, unprotected sex, creampie, dirty talk, praise kink, mild degradation, biting/marking, daddy kink adjacent, public humiliation, no use of y/n
MASTERLIST
By the third time your card declined in front of Jack Abbot, you were ready to walk into traffic and let Pittsburgh finish what your bank account started.
Not dramatically. Not even with much feeling.
Just a clean, practical exit from the kind of humiliation that made your skin feel too tight over your bones.
The cafeteria at PTMC was too bright for this hour, all hard fluorescent light and polished floors and the faint, permanent smell of fryer oil losing a war against antiseptic. Behind you, the emergency department pulsed on with its usual awful rhythm—monitors chiming, stretchers squealing past, somebody coughing low and ragged, the sound dragging itself through the corridor, Dana Evans barking for someone to move their ass before she moved it for them. It was a living thing down here. Hungry. Overlit. Never satisfied.
You had a wrapped turkey sandwich in one hand, a bruised banana in the other, and that particular, skin-tight shame of being broke in public.
The cashier, who looked as tired as everyone else in the building, tried not to make a face at the register.
“Sometimes it’s the chip,” she said.
“It’s not the chip,” you said, because apparently your mouth had decided the truth was less embarrassing than optimism.
You could feel the line behind you growing restless. A respiratory therapist with a Diet Coke. A med student in wrinkled scrubs whispering urgently into their phone. Dr. Whitaker, gentle-eyed and awkward, staring at the ceiling like he was trying to give you privacy by force of will. Somewhere near the coffee station, Santos was talking too loudly about a procedure she “absolutely could’ve done faster if anyone had let her finish,” and Dr. Mohan was answering in that careful, measured way that made even a correction sound like she’d considered the whole person first.
You shifted the sandwich lower against your palm.
“It’s fine,” you said, already turning. “I don’t need it.”
A hand reached past your shoulder and tapped a card against the reader.
The machine beeped.
Approved.
You froze.
Jack Abbot stood close enough behind you that you caught the familiar edge of him before you looked up—the clean, medicinal bite of hospital soap, the stale warmth of coffee, the faintest trace of sweat under scrubs after too many hours on his feet. He didn’t look at you right away. He watched the cashier print the receipt with the same expression he wore when waiting for labs, jaw set, eyes tired, patience worn thin but not gone.
“Bag?” the cashier asked.
“No,” Jack said.
You stood there with the sandwich in one hand and the banana in the other, suddenly too aware of the bruised peel, the cold give of the sandwich through the cloudy plastic, the line behind you, and Jack Abbot’s shoulder beside yours.
You stared at him. “Seriously?”
He finally looked at you.
Jack Abbot always looked like he’d been awake since the Clinton administration. It should’ve made him less attractive. It didn't. The exhaustion sat under his eyes and in the lines bracketing his mouth, but there was something about him that made tired look like discipline instead of defeat. His hair was a little mussed, his scrubs were creased at the hips, and his stance had that slight adjustment you’d learned to notice after months of seeing him around PTMC—the subtle distribution of weight that came with his prosthetic leg and the old damage he carried without announcing it.
“What?” he said.
You lowered your voice. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“That’s my lunch.”
“Looked like it.”
“You paid for it.”
“Sharp today.”
You huffed, heat crawling up your neck. “Jack.”
That got you the smallest change in his face. Not a smile. He didn’t hand those out recklessly. More like one corner of his mouth remembered humor existed and gave a half-hearted twitch before giving up.
“Eat the sandwich,” he said.
“I was going to.”
“No, you were going to put it back and pretend you weren’t hungry.”
You opened your mouth.
Jack’s eyebrows lifted.
You closed it again.
Behind him, Whitaker looked down at his shoes like they might offer instructions, visibly desperate not to be part of this. Santos, unfortunately, had no such instinct.
“Damn,” she said, appearing at Jack’s shoulder with a coffee she had definitely not paid for recently enough to still be that hot. “Abbot’s buying lunch now? Is this a resident perk, or do I need to almost faint near the muffins?”
Mohan didn’t look up from stirring sugar into her tea. “You would never almost faint quietly enough to qualify.”
“I don’t faint,” Santos said.
“You got lightheaded during central line training.”
“That was low blood sugar and a hostile learning environment.” Santos pointed two fingers toward Jack. “But I’m serious. I want in on the cafeteria patron program.”
Jack looked at her.
Santos looked back.
The silence lasted exactly long enough for her confidence to thin at the edges.
“Or not,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “Noted. Very selective program.”
Dana passed behind the group with a stack of charts under one arm and a look sharp enough to split sutures. “If any of you are done loitering in my cafeteria like it’s a damn wine bar, I’ve got three beds backing up, a grown adult arguing with registration, a kid melting down in triage, and a Lego stuck in one of their ear canals.”
Whitaker blinked. “Who? Adult guy or kid guy?”
Dana didn’t slow down. “That’s the part that’s gonna disappoint you.”
Santos grinned. Mohan gave a small, resigned sigh. Jack, without looking away from you, said, “Eat.”
Your face was still hot.
The sandwich felt heavier now that it had been purchased by him. Not because it was expensive. It was hospital cafeteria turkey on wheat, overpriced and bland, the cloudy plastic crinkling under your fingers every time your grip tightened. But Jack had noticed. That was the part you didn’t know how to hold. He’d seen the little calculation you’d tried to hide, the quiet defeat of deciding hunger could wait until later, and he’d stepped in with no fanfare. No pity. No soft voice.
Just a card tapped against a reader and a dry order to eat.
“I can pay you back,” you said.
Jack’s eyes dipped briefly to the sandwich and then back to your face.
“Don’t.”
“I don’t like owing people.”
“You don’t owe me.”
“That’s not how money works.”
“It is when I decide I don’t care.”
You gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “That’s very generous of you, Dr. Abbot.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
You should’ve let it go.
You really should’ve.
But the humiliation had already burned off into something else, something warmer and more dangerous, because Jack was standing there with his tired eyes and that blunt, immovable steadiness, and you had never been good at leaving tension alone when you could poke it until it bit.
“Careful,” you said, tucking the sandwich against your chest. “People are gonna think you’re my sugar daddy.”
Whitaker made a strangled sound and turned toward the condiments with the strained focus of a man suddenly invested in ketchup packets, while Santos choked on her coffee hard enough that Mohan closed her eyes like she was choosing patience on purpose. Jack only stared at you, and for one awful second, you thought you’d gone too far.
Then Jack took the receipt from the cashier, crumpled it in one hand, and said, flat as a dead monitor, “People think a lot of stupid shit.”
He walked away before you could answer.
You watched him disappear through the cafeteria doors and into the arterial chaos of the ER, shoulders squared, limp controlled, already swallowed by the work waiting for him.
Santos leaned closer, grin wide enough to be medically concerning.
“Oh, that was not nothing.”
“It was lunch,” you said.
Mohan looked at you over the rim of her cup, thoughtful in a way that made you feel unfortunately examined. “He noticed before anyone else did.”
You pressed the cold sandwich wrapper against your burning face.
Dana shouted from somewhere down the hall, “Santos, if you’re socializing instead of working, I’m assigning you Lego ear.”
Santos snapped upright. “I’m not socializing.”
“Good,” Dana called. “Then you can do it faster.”
You stood there with Jack’s lunch in your hands and tried very hard not to smile.
It would’ve been easier if that had been the end of it.
But Jack Abbot, you learned, was not a man who did anything halfway once he decided it made sense.
He didn’t become flashy. He didn’t start acting like some rich asshole in a bad romance novel, throwing cash around and waiting to be thanked for it. That would’ve been easier to resist, probably. Less intimate, anyway. You could’ve rolled your eyes at that. You could’ve made fun of him. You could’ve called it ridiculous and kept your pride intact.
Jack was worse.
Jack was practical.
He bought your coffee the next morning because, as he put it, “I was already standing there.” He brought you half a container of pasta from the staff fridge because “Robby ordered too much and nobody here understands portions.” He left a protein bar beside your laptop during a night when the waiting room looked like every bad decision in Pittsburgh had agreed to arrive at once. He noticed when your left shoe started peeling at the sole and said nothing, which somehow made you more self-conscious than if he’d pointed at it.
Robby noticed before you did.
Or maybe Robby noticed everything and simply chose when to weaponize it.
It was just after noon on a bad shift, the kind where every hallway seemed to have sprouted a stretcher and every call light sounded like one more thing nobody had enough hands to answer. You were near the nurses’ station, trying to make sense of a scheduling conflict that had three departments blaming each other in increasingly creative language, when Robby came up beside you with a tablet in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
His hair was doing that thing where it looked like he’d run both hands through it enough times to qualify as a cry for help.
“Is Abbot feeding you?” he asked.
You nearly dropped your pen. “What?”
Robby glanced toward trauma two, where Jack was leaning over a chart with Dr. McKay, both of them listening while Javadi spoke quickly and carefully, too eager to be casual. Jack’s attention was fixed, but his expression had that faintly skeptical set that made med students stand up straighter by instinct.
“Food,” Robby said. “Coffee. Whatever else he’s pretending is a coincidence.”
“He bought me lunch once.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And coffee.”
“Sure.”
“And maybe pasta.”
Robby’s eyebrows rose.
You narrowed your eyes. “Do you have a point?”
“Not one worth putting in writing.” He took a sip of coffee, then winced like it tasted exactly as bad as he expected and somehow worse. “Just be careful.”
That killed the humor faster than you wanted it to.
Your eyes shifted back toward Jack before you could stop them.
Robby caught it. Of course he caught it. He was annoying that way, all ragged compassion and clinical perception, the kind of man who could call out a hemorrhage, a lie, and a panic attack in the same breath.
“He’s a good guy,” Robby said, quieter.
“I know.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s uncomplicated.”
You swallowed. “I know that too.”
Robby’s face softened by a fraction. It made him look older, which was unfair, because he already looked like the hospital had been chewing on him for years and kept forgetting to swallow.
“Okay,” he said. Then, because sincerity seemed to physically pain him if left unbalanced, he added, “Also, if this turns into some HR nightmare, I’m denying I noticed.”
“There’s nothing to notice.”
“Great. Love that. Very convincing.”
You looked back down at your schedule so he wouldn’t see your face.
Across the department, Jack glanced up.
For a second, through the moving bodies and swinging privacy curtains and fluorescent glare, his eyes found yours.
He didn’t smile.
He just looked.
That was becoming the problem.
Jack didn’t flirt the way other men flirted. He didn’t crowd you with charm or drown you in compliments or make a show of wanting to be watched. He looked at you like noticing was a form of pressure. Like every detail went somewhere and stayed there. The coffee order. The bad shoe. The way you tucked your hands into your sleeves when you were cold. The way your voice got flatter when you were trying not to admit something hurt.
You wished he’d be less good at it.
You wished you liked it less.
The car thing happened on a Thursday.
You were leaving PTMC after a shift that had somehow lasted ten hours despite only being scheduled for eight, which felt like a violation of both labor law and physics. Your head ached from fluorescent lights. Your feet throbbed. The parking garage smelled like wet concrete, exhaust, and old rain, with the city beyond it slick and dark under a spring storm that had rolled in hard after sunset.
Your car made the noise again when you turned the key.
Not the cute noise. Not the “haha, she’s old but reliable” noise.
The expensive one.
A grinding, metallic cough dragged itself out from under the hood, followed by a rattle that sounded like several important pieces had started a fight and nobody was winning.
You shut the engine off immediately.
“Please,” you whispered, resting your forehead against the steering wheel. “Not tonight.”
The car answered by doing absolutely nothing, which was at least better than exploding.
You tried again.
The sound came back worse.
A knock hit your window.
You screamed.
Jack stood outside in the harsh garage lighting, rain clinging to his shoulders, one hand braced on the roof of your car. He looked unimpressed by your survival instincts.
You rolled the window down halfway. “Jesus Christ.”
“No,” he said. “Just me.”
“Do you always lurk in parking garages?”
“Only when cars sound like they’re about to die.”
“It’s fine.”
Jack looked at the hood. Then at you.
“That’s not a fine sound.”
“It does that sometimes.”
“It shouldn’t do that ever.”
You tightened your grip on the steering wheel. “I’m taking it in next week.”
“You’re not driving it until then.”
A laugh slipped out of you, brittle and defensive. “Okay, Dad.”
His expression didn't change, but something in his eyes sharpened.
Your stomach dipped.
Not fear. Not exactly.
Something else.
Jack leaned slightly closer to the open window. “Pop the hood.”
“I don’t need you to—”
“Pop the hood.”
There was a particular tone he used in the ER when people were bleeding, lying, or being stupid about symptoms that could kill them. Apparently, your car had been triaged into that category.
You popped the hood.
The storm pushed rain sideways into the garage, misting the concrete in silver sheets beyond the open level. Jack moved around to the front of your car and lifted the hood, shoulders hunching slightly as he looked inside. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, just dark scrubs under a gray zip-up that had seen better decades, sleeves pushed to his forearms. The overhead light caught the tendons in his hands, the salt at his temples, the hard concentration in his face.
It was obscene, honestly, watching a man become attractive over engine trouble.
He checked something, frowned, checked something else, then lowered the hood with more control than the situation deserved.
“Do not drive this,” he said.
You were already shaking your head. “I have to get home.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Jack.”
He stared at you over the hood. “You got a better plan?”
You did not.
You had forty-three dollars in your checking account, a rent payment looming like an execution date, and a car making noises you couldn’t afford to identify. But admitting that felt worse than standing barefoot on broken glass.
“I can call someone,” you said.
“Who?”
The question was simple. Too simple.
That was the problem with Jack. He had no patience for the decorative lies people used to get through conversations. He stripped things down until you either told the truth or stood there bleeding around it.
You looked away first.
Rain ticked against the garage opening. Somewhere below, an ambulance siren rose and fell, dopplering into the wet city.
Jack’s voice dropped. “Get your bag.”
“I don’t want to be a problem.”
“You’re not.”
“I don’t want you fixing everything.”
“I’m not fixing everything.” He came around to your side of the car, opened the door, and stood back enough to give you room. “I’m stopping you from driving a death trap.”
You didn’t move.
Jack exhaled through his nose, not quite a sigh.
“You can be mad in my car,” he said. “It has heat.”
That was how he won.
Not with softness. Not with a speech.
Heat.
You grabbed your bag and got out.
Jack’s car was clean in the way a person’s car got when they didn’t spend enough time in it to make a mess. There was an old coffee cup in the holder, a folded jacket in the back, a snow scraper on the floor, and a faint smell of leather, rain, and whatever soap he used that always made you think of hospital sinks and his hands.
He turned the heat on without asking. Then, after a second, he aimed one of the vents toward you.
You noticed.
You hated that you noticed.
Neither of you said anything as he pulled out of the garage. The rain blurred the windshield, smearing Pittsburgh into traffic lights and dark brick, ambulance bays and slick streets, the city looking bruised and alive under the storm. Jack drove with one hand low on the wheel, the other resting near the gear shift, fingers flexing once when his leg seemed to bother him.
“You okay?” you asked before you could stop yourself.
His eyes stayed on the road. “Yeah.”
“Your leg?”
“I said yeah.”
“Right. Sorry.”
His jaw worked.
Then, quieter, “Long day.”
That was as much as he usually gave. A door opened an inch, then locked again.
You nodded. “Yeah.”
The wipers dragged water from the glass in steady, tired arcs.
At a red light, Jack said, “Where do you take the car?”
You laughed weakly. “To a mechanic who knows me by name and already looks tired when I walk in.”
“I’ll call someone.”
“No.”
“You don’t know who yet.”
“I know it’s going to involve you paying for something.”
The light turned green.
Jack drove.
You looked at him, incredulous. “You’re not even denying it.”
“Seemed like a waste of both our time.”
“Jack.”
“I know a guy.”
“Of course you know a guy.”
“I’m old.”
“You’re not that old.”
That got you a glance. Brief, sharp, almost amused.
“No?”
“No,” you said, and then because you had apparently decided self-preservation was for other people, you added, “Just old enough to have a guy.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
You felt victorious and doomed at the same time.
“I can handle it,” you said, softer. “The car. I’ll figure it out.”
“I know you can.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
Jack was quiet long enough that you thought he might not answer.
Then he said, “Because figuring it out shouldn’t mean hoping your brakes make it another week.”
Your throat tightened unexpectedly.
You looked out the window so he wouldn’t see it.
The thing about being broke—really, really, broke—wasn’t just the lack of money. It was the math. The constant, grinding math of survival. A sandwich became a calculation. A repair became a catastrophe. A strange noise under the hood became a negotiation with God or luck or whatever indifferent force kept old cars alive for one more day. You got used to making everything stretch until stretching felt like living, and then someone like Jack came along and called it unsafe in that blunt, infuriating voice, and suddenly the whole thing looked different.
Not brave.
Not independent.
Just exhausting.
He pulled up outside your building and put the car in park. Rain ran down the windshield in crooked streams.
You didn’t reach for the door handle.
“Thank you,” you said.
Jack nodded once.
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“I’ll pay you back if your guy does anything.”
“No.”
You shut your eyes. “Please don’t make me fight you in your car. I’m tired.”
“I noticed.”
“Stop noticing.”
“No.”
Your eyes opened.
Jack was looking at you now, body angled slightly in the driver’s seat, face cut by passing headlights and dashboard glow. Up close, in the dim, the lines around his eyes looked deeper. So did the restraint. He wore it like part of the uniform, like scrubs and a stethoscope and whatever pain he kept filed away under function.
Your voice came out smaller than you wanted. “Why?”
He didn’t pretend not to understand.
“I don’t know,” he said.
It was the first answer he’d given you that didn’t sound like a diagnosis.
That made it worse.
You tried to smile, tried to make the air lighter before it crushed you. “This is getting very sugar daddy of you.”
The joke landed differently in the dark.
You felt it. So did he.
Jack’s eyes dropped to your mouth for half a second. Maybe less. Long enough for your pulse to trip, not long enough to accuse him of anything. Either way, when he looked back up, his face had gone still in a way that made the warm air from the vents feel suddenly too hot.
“You should go inside,” he said.
You nodded.
Neither of you moved.
Then his phone buzzed in the cup holder, snapping the moment clean down the middle. Jack glanced at the screen, saw Robby’s name, and declined the call before typing something one-handed with the resignation of a man who knew better than to leave him unanswered too long.
You opened the door before you could do something stupid, like ask him to come upstairs.
“Night, Jack.”
His hand tightened once around the phone.
“Lock your door.”
You smiled despite yourself. “Yes, Doctor.”
His eyes lifted.
There it was again, that almost-smile. Faint. Dangerous.
“Don’t start,” he said.
You got out before your face could betray you.
The car repair cost eight hundred and sixty dollars.
Jack didn't tell you this.
The mechanic did, because you called behind Jack’s back after getting one text that said, Car’s handled. Pick it up Friday.
Handled.
Like it was a chart. Like it was a consult. Like it was one of the million things at PTMC that needed to be assessed, fixed, signed off, and moved along.
You stood in a supply hallway with your phone pressed to your ear, your grip tightening around the case while the mechanic cheerfully explained that Dr. Abbot had already squared it away.
Squared it away.
You were going to kill him.
Unfortunately, when you found him, he was in the middle of resetting a dislocated shoulder with Robby at the bedside and King handing over medication with careful, focused precision. There was a teenage patient crying, his mother pacing, Dana telling everyone who wasn’t useful to back up, and Jack looking exactly like a man who could not be murdered until after he finished being competent.
You had to wait.
That made you angrier.
By the time he stepped out, stripping off gloves and tossing them into the trash, you had worked yourself into something sharp enough to throw.
“Eight hundred and sixty dollars?” you said.
Jack stopped.
Robby, behind him, stopped too.
Dana looked up from the desk.
Santos, who had the survival instincts of someone convinced she could talk her way out of anything, immediately leaned over the counter.
Jack’s eyes flicked over your face. “Not here.”
“Oh, no, definitely here.”
Robby pressed his lips together and took one very deliberate step backward.
“Coward,” Dana muttered.
“Experienced,” Robby corrected.
Jack lowered his voice. “You called the mechanic.”
“You paid the mechanic.”
“Yeah.”
“Eight hundred and sixty dollars, Jack.”
“Would’ve been more if you kept driving it.”
You stared at him. “That is not the point.”
“That is exactly the point.”
“I told you I didn’t want you fixing everything.”
“And I told you I wasn’t letting you drive a death trap.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
For the first time, something like frustration cracked through his calm.
“No,” he said. “I don’t get to decide everything for you. But I do get to decide what I do with my money.”
Dana made a low sound. “Jesus.”
Santos whispered, “This is better than whatever I was supposed to be doing.”
Mohan, passing with a chart, said, “You're supposed to be working.”
You barely heard them.
Your whole focus had narrowed to Jack’s face, the stubborn set of his mouth, the tension in his shoulders. He looked tired. He always looked tired. But underneath it was something else now, something protective enough to be annoying and personal enough to hurt.
“I can’t pay that back right now,” you said.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“It makes it done.”
You laughed once, without humor. “You’re impossible.”
“Usually.”
“You can’t just—” You stopped, aware suddenly of how many people were pretending not to listen. Your voice dropped. “You can’t just keep doing this.”
Jack’s gaze held yours.
“Doing what?”
The question should’ve been innocent, but it wasn’t. Not after the lunches, the coffee, the rides, the mechanic, or the way Jack looked at you like you were a problem he wanted to solve with his bare hands. You stepped closer before you thought better of it.
“You know what,” you said.
For a second, the department moved around you, loud and bright and indifferent, but you and Jack were still.
Then Dana slapped a chart down on the counter hard enough to startle everyone within ten feet.
“Okay,” she said. “As much as I’d love to watch whatever this is turn into a workplace training module, Abbot, bed nine needs you. You—” She pointed at you. “Take a breath before you rupture something expensive.”
Jack’s mouth tightened, but he listened.
Of course he listened to Dana. Everyone did, eventually.
He stepped past you, close enough that his sleeve brushed your arm.
“Friday,” he said under his breath.
You turned your head. “What?”
“Pick up your car Friday.”
Then he was gone.
Santos waited exactly three seconds.
“So,” she said, bright-eyed. “How does one apply for the Abbot scholarship fund?”
Dana pointed at her without looking. “Bedpan in curtain three.”
Santos deflated. “Damn it.”
You hated how badly you wanted to laugh.
By Friday, when you picked up your car, there was a new pair of black nonslip clogs sitting in the passenger seat.
Not fancy. Not wrapped. Just sensible, comfortable work shoes in your size, made for twelve-hour shifts and the brutal, steady wear of the ER. A sticky note was pressed to the box in Jack’s blunt handwriting.
Your old ones were unsafe.
That was it. No apology, no explanation. Just another problem he’d noticed and solved before you could decide whether to be grateful or furious.
You sat in the driver’s seat for a long time, staring at the note, then laughed until your eyes burned.
The fundraiser was Robby’s fault.
At least, that was what you told yourself, because blaming Robby was easier than admitting you had agreed to attend a hospital donor event while quietly hoping Jack would look at you in something other than scrubs.
PTMC held one every year, apparently. A grim little ritual where administrators, donors, board members, and exhausted medical staff gathered in a hotel ballroom to pretend the emergency department wasn’t being kept alive by overworked staff, aging equipment, and the quiet fact that everyone had learned to make do with less. There would be speeches. There would be bad chicken. There would be wealthy people using phrases like “frontline heroes” while nurses calculated how many working monitors the cost of the floral arrangements could’ve bought.
You hadn’t planned to go.
Then Gloria Underwood’s office had needed extra administrative support for check-in, and Robby had said, “It’s easy money. Wear something nice. Try not to let the donors explain healthcare to you.”
You’d said yes before checking your closet.
That was how you ended up in your apartment three nights before the event, sitting on the floor in a towel, surrounded by every dress you owned and the creeping realization that none of them worked. Too casual. Too tight in the wrong way. Too old. Too funeral. Too “college career fair,” stiff in all the wrong places and not nice enough to pass under ballroom lighting. One had a broken zipper. One still had a stain from a margarita incident you refused to revisit.
Your phone buzzed.
Jack:
Car still running?
You stared at the message, then at the graveyard of dresses around you.
You:
yes, dad
Jack:
Don’t.
You smiled despite yourself.
You:
thank you, by the way for the shoes too even though you’re insane
Jack:
You going tomorrow?
You stared at the message for a second too long, then looked down at the heap of rejected clothes around your legs.
You:
maybe
Jack:
That means yes.
You should’ve stopped there.
Instead, with the fatal confidence of a woman sitting half-naked on her bedroom floor and losing an argument with formalwear, you typed:
You:
it means maybe now i just need a dress that doesn’t make me look like i wandered into the fundraiser by accident
The reply took longer than usual.
Jack:
Show me.
You stared at the message, suddenly aware of every inch of bare skin the pile of rejected clothes wasn’t covering.
You:
the dress?
Jack:
What else would I mean?
Your face went hot.
You:
don’t ask me that when i’m half naked on my bedroom floor
The typing bubble appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Jack:
You have tomorrow off?
You stared.
Then stared harder.
You:
why
Jack:
Answer the question.
There were several smart things you could’ve said.
You said none of them.
You:
yes
Jack:
I’ll pick you up at 10.
Your stomach flipped.
You:
jack
Jack:
10:30 if you’re going to argue.
You:
you don’t even know what i was going to say
Jack:
I’m learning patterns.
You pressed your phone facedown against your thigh and sat there half-dressed and mortified, thighs pressed together, waiting for your body to stop reacting like he’d put his hands on you.
The next morning, Jack arrived at 10:28.
Of course he did.
He drove you to a small boutique outside downtown, the kind of place you would’ve walked past without entering because the window displays didn’t include prices, which meant the prices were rude. Jack parked, got out, and came around to your side before you had fully finished spiraling.
“I don’t like this,” you said as he opened the door.
“You haven’t gone in yet.”
“That’s why I still have hope.”
He gave you a look.
You stepped out, hugging your coat tighter around yourself. “Jack, I’m serious. I’m not letting you buy me some expensive dress.”
“Okay.”
You blinked. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“That was too easy.”
“You said some expensive dress.” He closed the car door. “Find a cheap one.”
You stared at him.
He headed for the shop.
“That is not a loophole,” you called after him.
“It’s exactly a loophole.”
Inside, the boutique was too quiet, too soft, too expensive in ways it didn’t need to announce. Pale wood floors, warm lighting, racks arranged with almost insulting confidence, the dresses hanging with more breathing room than your apartment closet could spare. The air smelled faintly of steamed fabric and perfume, and the woman behind the counter looked up with the calm precision of someone trained to know who was buying before anyone spoke.
You hated that. You hated more that Jack didn’t seem to notice.
Or he did notice and simply didn’t care.
He told her what you needed in a few clipped sentences: hospital fundraiser, semi-formal, comfortable enough to work check-in, not black unless you wanted black, shoes optional because you had shoes. He didn't mention size like a man trying to guess or gesture vaguely at your body like an idiot. He looked at you when that part came up and let you answer for yourself.
That tiny bit of respect did something inconvenient to your chest.
The saleswoman brought options.
You rejected the first three.
Jack rejected the fourth before you could come out of the dressing room.
“No,” he said through the door.
You looked at yourself in the mirror, startled. “You haven’t even seen it.”
“I saw the sleeve.”
“You can diagnose a bad dress by sleeve?”
“I’ve diagnosed worse with less.”
You pulled the curtain back just enough to glare at him.
Jack sat in a low chair outside the dressing rooms, one ankle braced carefully, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. He looked absurd there, too solid and worn-in for the soft gold mirrors and velvet hangers, like someone had dropped a combat medic into a room built for silk and champagne.
His eyes flicked to the sliver of dress visible through the curtain.
“No,” he repeated.
The saleswoman, traitor that she was, nodded. “He’s right.”
You shut the curtain. “I hate both of you.”
The fifth dress was the problem.
You knew it before you opened the curtain.
The fabric skimmed instead of clung, soft where it needed to be, structured where it counted. It made you look like you’d meant to be invited. Like you hadn’t spent the week calculating grocery money in your head and pretending exhaustion didn’t count if you kept moving. The neckline was tasteful, but not innocent. The color warmed your skin without washing you out. You turned once in the mirror and felt something low in your stomach shift.
Confidence, maybe.
Or danger.
“Let me see,” Jack said from outside.
“You’re bossy.”
“Yes.”
“You admit that way too easily.”
“I’m old.”
You smiled, then caught your own face in the mirror and watched the smile fade.
This was a bad idea. Not the dress—the dress was perfect.
That was the bad idea.
You opened the curtain, and Jack looked up.
For a moment, he said nothing.
The shop noise seemed to thin around you—the music, the soft movement of hangers, the saleswoman tactfully vanishing somewhere behind a rack. Jack’s gaze moved over you once, controlled enough to be deniable and slow enough to ruin you anyway. He didn’t leer. He didn’t smirk. He just looked, jaw set, eyes catching for half a second too long at your waist, your hips, the neckline of the dress, like the only thing keeping his hands to himself was the fact that you were standing under boutique lights instead of somewhere with a locked door.
His jaw shifted.
Your fingers tightened around the curtain.
“Well?” you asked, because silence was going to kill you.
Jack leaned back slightly, but it didn’t make him look relaxed. It made him look like restraint had become physical.
“No,” he said.
Your face fell before you could stop it.
Then he added, lower, “That’s the problem.”
The words landed low enough to make your stomach tighten. You looked down at yourself, then back at him. “Too much?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
His eyes returned to your face like it cost him effort.
“It fits.”
It was such a stupid answer. Controlled, careful, almost useless—and somehow hotter than a compliment, because you could hear everything he wasn’t saying in the rough edge of his voice.
You stepped fully out, smoothing your palms down the front of the dress because you needed something to do.
“It’s probably expensive.”
“Probably.”
“Jack.”
“You like it?”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s my point.”
You exhaled, trying to laugh, but it came out thin. “You can’t keep buying me things.”
He stood. Not quickly, not dramatically. Just unfolded himself from the chair and came closer, stopping at a respectful distance that still felt indecent because his eyes hadn’t left the dress, or you inside it.
“I can do what I want.”
“You sound like a nightmare.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
You glanced toward the mirror, unable to hold his eyes. In the reflection, he stood behind you, hands at his sides, older and tired and steady, and you looked like something neither of you could keep pretending was professional.
The thought went through you too sharply.
You swallowed. “People are going to think I’m exactly what I joked about.”
Jack’s reflection didn’t move. “What’s that?”
You met his eyes in the mirror. “Your sugar baby.”
There. Said out loud in the warm boutique light, with the dress between you as evidence.
Jack’s gaze held yours. Then he stepped closer, just enough that his voice didn’t have to carry. “That what you want this to be?”
Your mouth went dry. The smart answer was no. The honest answer was more complicated, and the answer your body wanted to give had no business being spoken in public before noon.
So you made it worse on purpose.
“I don’t know,” you said, tilting your head. “Depends on the benefits package.”
Jack looked at you for a long second. Then the almost-smile appeared, brief and devastating.
“Change,” he said. “Before I regret asking.”
You spent the rest of the day pretending your hands weren’t shaking.
Saturday night came wrapped in rain and reflected light.
The hotel ballroom looked too clean, too bright, and too expensive for a fundraiser built around people who spent most days trying to keep the whole place upright. White tablecloths. Gold fixtures. Centerpieces too tall for conversation. A stage at the far end with the PTMC logo projected behind the podium, clean and official and nothing like the controlled disaster of the emergency department. Nurses and doctors looked strangely exposed out of scrubs, like actors at the wrong rehearsal. Dana wore navy and carried herself with the same brisk authority she had at the nurses’ station, like the ballroom was just another crowded hallway she intended to get under control. Robby had put on a suit, but he wore it with visible reluctance, one hand already tugging at his tie before the first speech had started.
Dr. McKay arrived with her hair pinned back, already checking her phone for updates about her son. King stood beside her, fidgeting lightly with her bracelet while listening to Whitaker ramble about how strange it was to see everyone with “normal arms,” which he then tried to explain and somehow made worse. Javadi looked polished and nervous, her mother somewhere in the room like a pressure system. Mohan was composed, elegant, and already listening to the opening remarks with the patient focus of someone rationing her tolerance carefully.
Santos wore a sharp dress and confidence like body armor.
“Okay,” she said when she saw you. “I’m going to say something, and I need you not to make it weird.”
“That’s never a good opener.”
“You look hot.”
“Santos.”
“What? I said don’t make it weird.”
Mohan, passing behind her, said, “You made it weird by announcing you weren’t going to.”
Santos ignored her. “Abbot seen you yet?”
You busied yourself with the check-in list. “Why?”
“Because I’m invested.”
“You need a hobby.”
“I have one. It’s being right.”
You were saved from answering by Dana appearing at your side with two badges and a look that missed nothing.
“You doing okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Dana’s eyes swept over your face, then the room, then the entrance where Jack had not yet appeared. “Uh-huh.”
“You too?”
“Me too what?”
“Nothing.”
Dana handed you the badges. “Honey, I’ve worked ER longer than some of these donors have been pretending to care about ER. I know when there’s a thing.”
“There’s not a thing.”
“Then stop looking at the door like you’re planning an escape route.”
You opened your mouth, found nothing useful, and looked back down at the check-in list.
Dana smirked and walked away.
Jack arrived ten minutes late in a dark suit, and something behind your ribs fluttered hard enough that you had to look away.
It wasn’t fancy. That was the worst part. No special tailoring, no flashy tie, no clean magazine version of him. Just a dark suit on a man who looked like he’d rather be elbows-deep in a trauma bay than standing under chandelier light, his hair slightly unruly, his face tired, his posture adjusted in that familiar way. The jacket sat broad across his shoulders. The shirt opened at the collar because of course he looked better slightly undone. There was a roughness to him the room couldn’t soften, something lived-in and disciplined and worn close to the bone.
Robby said something to him at the entrance.
Jack answered without smiling.
Then his eyes found you.
Everything else blurred.
Not fully. You were still aware of the check-in table under your hands, the murmur of donors, Santos whispering “oh my god” somewhere behind you with absolutely no attempt to hide it. But Jack looked at you in that dress, and the rest of the room slipped out of reach for one dangerous second.
He walked over slowly.
“Hi,” you said, which was embarrassing because you knew more words than that.
Jack’s gaze moved over your face first, then the dress, then back up slowly enough that your skin warmed beneath the fabric he’d bought.
“Hi.”
You tried for a smile. “You clean up okay.”
“I was going to say that.”
“You can still say it.”
“No.”
“Too generous?”
“Too easy.”
His eyes dipped again, just once, and something in your stomach tightened before he seemed to remember the room around you. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
You stared. “What is that?”
“Receipt.”
“For the dress?”
“For the car.”
Your stomach dropped. “Jack.”
“Relax.” He slid it across the check-in table with two fingers. “It says paid. That’s all.”
You looked down.
Paid.
Your throat tightened.
“You said you didn’t like owing people,” he said.
“I still owe you.”
“No.” His voice stayed quiet, but something in it made the word feel less like comfort and more like a line drawn in permanent ink. “You don’t.”
You looked up at him, and for a second the ballroom felt too bright, too crowded, too public for the thing trying to break open in your chest.
Before you could answer, Robby appeared beside Jack with the timing of a man either doing you a favor or robbing you of a bad decision.
“Abbot,” he said, “Underwood wants us near the front for the photo.”
Jack’s voice came out clipped. “No.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. She used the phrase ‘visible leadership.’”
“That makes it worse.”
“I agree.”
Robby looked at you then, eyes flicking once between your dress and Jack’s face. His mouth twitched.
“You look nice,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“Abbot looks like he’s about to be taken out behind the building and shot, but that’s formal for him.”
Jack gave him a look.
Robby clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Come on, visible leadership.”
Jack didn’t move immediately.
His hand came to rest at the edge of the check-in table, close enough to yours that your fingers could’ve brushed if you shifted an inch.
“Don’t disappear,” he said.
Your pulse kicked.
“I’m working.”
“After.”
Then Robby dragged him away with a level of cheer that was clearly retaliatory.
You watched Jack go and tried to remember how to do your job.
For a while, the event was exactly as awful as promised.
Speeches about resilience. Applause that sounded expensive. Donors talking about “the Pitt” like it was a concept instead of a place where every decision had a body attached to it. Gloria Underwood spoke with smooth authority while Robby stared at the middle distance like a man practicing astral projection. Langdon appeared late and left early, moving through the edge of the room with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Collins was mentioned by someone near the bar, her name landing with that particular hospital weight of people who had been part of the machinery and then weren’t there in the same way anymore.
You checked people in. You directed donors toward their tables. You smiled until your cheeks ached.
And Jack kept finding you.
Not obviously. Not enough for anyone to call it hovering. But he passed behind your chair and set a glass of water near your hand. He appeared during a lull with a plate from the buffet because “you weren’t going to get one.” He stood beside you while an orthopedic surgeon whose name you immediately forgot talked at you for seven minutes about golf, his presence quiet and solid and just intimidating enough to make the man eventually wander away.
At one point, you leaned toward him and murmured, “This is very attentive of you.”
He didn’t look down. “You looked like you were going to stab him with a pen.”
“I was.”
“Bad idea.”
“Because violence is wrong?”
“Because you’d still have to finish check-in.”
You laughed into your glass.
Jack looked at you then, and the humor in his face faded into something warmer before he caught it.
You saw him catch it.
That was the dangerous part.
Near the end of dinner, a donor with silver hair and a smile like a polished blade cornered Jack near the bar. You recognized him vaguely from the check-in list, one of those names with a foundation attached, the kind of man who spoke slowly because he expected people to wait for the privilege of his point. His wife stood beside him in pearls, looking around the ballroom with faint disappointment.
You were close enough to hear because you’d gone to retrieve extra place cards from the side table.
“Dr. Abbot,” the man said, clapping Jack on the shoulder like they were old friends and not strangers separated by several tax brackets and a moral canyon. “Hell of a turnout. You ER people clean up better than expected.”
Jack’s smile was minimal and false. “We try.”
The man’s eyes shifted to you.
You felt it like cold water.
“Well,” he said. “Some of you more than others.”
Jack’s face changed by degrees. Anyone else might’ve missed it. You didn’t.
“This is—” Jack began.
The man cut in with a laugh. “No, no, let me guess. You’re the resident I’ve been hearing about.”
His wife made a soft sound. Not quite a laugh. Not quite disapproval.
Your fingers tightened around the place cards.
Jack went still.
The man looked pleased with himself, encouraged by his own cruelty. “Abbot and one of his young residents,” he said, eyes moving over you slow enough to make the dress feel suddenly too visible. “People do talk.”
Jack’s voice came out clipped. “Don’t.”
“Relax, Jack. I’m joking.” He lifted his glass slightly, like that made it harmless. “I just didn’t think you were going to start making public appearances with your little girlfriend now.”
The words entered you cleanly: little girlfriend. Not girlfriend—that would’ve been embarrassing enough. Little, like you were an accessory, a midlife crisis in a nice dress, something young and decorative Jack had brought out because he could. Something people could reduce in one glance and one ugly little adjective.
Heat rushed to your face so fast it felt like pain, and still you smiled automatically, hating yourself for it.
“It’s not—” you started, because apparently your first instinct was to make yourself smaller for the comfort of a man who had just insulted you.
Jack’s voice cut through yours. “Don’t call her that.”
The donor blinked. So did you. The room didn’t stop, not exactly—the music kept playing, silverware still clinked, someone laughed too loudly near the stage—but the air around the four of you tightened.
The donor’s smile twitched. “Easy, Doctor. No harm meant.”
“I’m not interested in what you meant.”
Jack didn’t raise his voice or step forward. He simply stood there in his dark suit, tired eyes gone cold, body held in a kind of controlled restraint that made the donor’s hand fall from his shoulder.
“If you’ve got something to say about me,” Jack continued, “say it to me. Leave her out of it.”
The wife looked away first. The donor’s face colored.
“No offense intended.”
Jack’s gaze didn’t move. “You don’t get to decide that.”
Your breath caught.
People were starting to notice. Not enough to make a scene, not enough for anyone to step in, but enough that the space around you felt suddenly brighter. Dana had turned slightly from the bar, her attention fixed and assessing. Robby watched from near the stage, glass lowered now. Even Santos had gone still, the eager curiosity wiped off her face by the look on yours.
You couldn’t stand any of it. Not the attention. Not the humiliation. Not the awful, sharp thrill of Jack defending you like he had any right to. Like he wanted the right.
You set the place cards down.
“I need some air,” you said.
Jack’s head turned toward you immediately. “Wait.”
But you were already moving.
You slipped out of the ballroom and into the corridor, then through a side door onto a covered terrace overlooking the wet street below. The rain had softened to a mist, silvering the railings and turning the city lights hazy. Cold air hit your skin, raising goosebumps along your arms where the dress left them bare.
You gripped the railing and forced one breath in, then out. In, then out. In. Out. It didn’t help. The door opened behind you, because of course it did.
You laughed under your breath because the tears were already gathering hot behind your eyes, making the terrace lights blur at the edges, and you refused to let them fall here—not in the dress Jack bought, not with your hands locked around rain-cold steel, not because some rich asshole had found the ugliest name for what you were already afraid this looked like.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” you said.
Jack let the door close behind him. “Done what?”
You turned on him. “Made it worse.”
“They made it worse.”
“Now everyone thinks I’m exactly what he said.”
His face changed at that, anger tightening somewhere beneath the surface, but not at you. Never quite at you.
“They don’t know what you are.”
Your chest pulled tight.
“And what am I?”
The question came out too vulnerable to take back.
Jack didn’t answer right away.
Mist clung to his suit jacket, darkening the shoulders. Behind him, warm light spilled through the glass door, all gold and soft edges, turning the ballroom into something distant and unreal. Out here, the air smelled like rain on stone, cold metal, wet city streets below. Everything was sharper than it had been inside. The railing under your hands. The damp hem of your dress against your legs. The silence between his breath and yours.
He looked so out of place and exactly right, a man built for crisis standing in the aftermath of one he couldn’t stitch closed.
You hated that you wanted him to say it.
You hated more that he looked like he wanted to.
Instead, he said, “Not that.”
A hard little laugh left you before you could stop it. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one I’ve got.”
“Great.”
Jack came closer, stopping beside you but not touching. The restraint was worse than touch. You could feel him there anyway, the heat of his body cutting through the cold night, the careful space he left like distance could still save either of you.
You stared out at the rain-blurred city. Headlights smeared over the street below. Somewhere, a siren rose and faded, thin and familiar enough to make your stomach twist.
“You bought the dress,” you said.
“Yes.”
“You fixed my car.”
“Yes.”
“You buy my food. You show up. You pay for things before I can even figure out how to say no.”
Something moved in his jaw, but he didn’t interrupt.
“What do you think people are going to call that?”
“I don’t give a shit what people call it.”
“I do.”
“Then tell me what you call it.”
The words took the air out of the terrace.
You looked at him.
Jack’s eyes held yours, tired and dark and unflinching. He wasn’t letting you hide in the joke this time. He wasn’t letting himself hide either. That was the terrifying part. The thing between you had been allowed to live as banter because neither of you had forced it to stand under direct light.
Sugar daddy. Old man. Doctor. Daddy.
All those little names you used to turn intimacy into comedy before it could ask something of you.
Now Jack was standing there asking.
Tell me what you call it.
Your mouth felt dry.
“I call it confusing,” you said.
His expression shifted.
You kept going because stopping felt worse. “I call it you being too good at noticing things I wish you wouldn’t. I call it you making it really fucking hard to feel normal around you. I call it embarrassing when someone says the quiet part out loud and I realize I don’t even know how to defend myself because I don’t know what we’re doing.”
Jack’s hands were still at his sides, but nothing about him looked relaxed.
You swallowed. “And I call it unfair that you get to act like this is all practical when you look at me like that.”
His voice dropped. “Like what?”
You shook your head. “Don’t.”
“Like what?”
“Like you already know what I look like under the dress.”
The words left you too soft, too honest, and Jack inhaled slowly. Neither of you moved while rain whispered beyond the overhang and the ballroom noise pressed faintly through the door, muffled and useless, like it belonged to a different night.
Then he said, rougher than before, “I don’t.”
The words went through you slowly, leaving heat in places they had no right to reach.
His eyes lowered, not all the way down your body this time. Just to your mouth.
“But I’ve thought about it.”
The terrace went silent.
Or maybe your body stopped receiving sound from anything that wasn’t him.
You stared at him, suddenly aware of everything at once: the dress clinging where the mist had touched it, the cold air slipping beneath the hem, the damp railing at your back, the small, charged space between your body and his. Jack hadn’t touched you, but the way he looked at you made it feel like he’d already imagined where his hands would go first. The want in his face wasn’t polished or easy. It looked dragged out of him, unwilling and hungry, like every careful thing in him had finally started losing.
“Jack,” you whispered.
“I know.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
You stepped closer, just enough to watch his control take the hit.
“What was I going to say?”
His eyes lifted.
“That we shouldn’t.”
The truth of it sat there between you, almost laughable.
You shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. The age gap was there, humming under the surface. The hospital. The money. The care. The fact that everyone seemed to have noticed before either of you had admitted it out loud. The fact that Jack carried enough damage to make most people step carefully, and you were standing there in a dress he bought, wanting him to ruin every careful thing about you.
“You’re right,” you said.
Jack nodded once, like the verdict had been delivered.
Then you added, “That's what I was going to say.”
His eyes sharpened.
You took one more step.
“But it’s not what I want.”
For the first time all night, Jack looked shaken.
Not much. He’d never give that much away in public. But you saw it in the slight part of his mouth, the break in his breathing, the flicker of something raw beneath the restraint.
“Say that again,” he said.
The words nearly undid you.
You lifted your chin because if you were going to tell the truth, you were going to do it with your head held high.
“I don’t want you to stop.”
Jack looked at you for one long, unbearable second, then lifted his hand slowly enough to give you every chance to step back.
You didn’t.
His knuckles brushed your jaw first, careful in a way that made your whole body ache. Not rough. Not yet. Worse than rough, maybe, because he was still holding himself back and you could feel the effort in every inch he didn’t take.
“You’re not my little girlfriend,” he said.
Your chest tightened. “No?”
“No.” His thumb shifted under your chin, tipping your face up by degrees, not forcing you, just making it impossible to look anywhere else. “You’re not little. You’re not a joke. And you’re sure as hell not something I’m ashamed of wanting.”
The words sank through you, hot and low, settling in every place he still hadn’t touched. Jack’s eyes dropped to your mouth and stayed there long enough to make the choice for both of you.
Then he kissed you.
It wasn’t frantic at first.
That would’ve been easier.
It was deliberate, a firm press of his mouth to yours, steady and devastating, like he had finally decided to stop lying but still hadn’t given himself permission to forget where you were. His hand held your jaw; the other stayed at his side, fingers curled tight like touching you anywhere else might finish what the kiss had started.
You made a small sound against his mouth.
That was what broke it.
Jack stepped into you, guiding you back until the rail met your spine, and the kiss turned filthy in one sharp, breath-stealing shift. His mouth opened wider, tongue pushing past your lips to lick deep and slow against yours, wet enough to make your knees weaken, sure enough to make heat pool low in your gut. His breath came rough through his nose, his hand sliding from your jaw to the side of your neck, thumb tucked beneath your chin like he wanted to feel the exact second you stopped fighting him and melted under his palm.
You grabbed his jacket.
He made a low sound, almost a warning.
You pulled him closer anyway.
The rail pressed against your back. Damp air cooled your bare arms. Inside, beyond the glass, the fundraiser glowed on with its speeches and donors and useless flowers, but out here Jack’s body cut off the light, his mouth hot and sure, his hand at your neck keeping you exactly where he wanted you.
When he dragged himself back, he didn’t go far.
His forehead hovered near yours. His breathing was harsher now. So was yours.
“This is a bad idea,” he said.
You laughed, breathless enough that it came out softer than you meant. “You kissed me.”
“I know.”
“So your professional opinion is hypocritical.”
His mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed dark, fixed on yours with a heat that made it impossible not to remember his tongue in your mouth. He looked like he was still tasting you, like he was one wrong word away from dragging you back against the railing and making a mess of that pretty, expensive dress.
“You keep talking,” he said, voice low enough to feel like it belonged between your legs instead of in the open air, “and I’m going to forget we’re still at a hospital fundraiser.”
Liquid heat shot through you, sharp and shameless. You curled your fingers higher into his lapels. “Is that supposed to scare me?”
“It should.”
“It doesn’t.”
Jack searched your face for one last sign that you wanted him to be better than this.
You didn’t.
His thumb dragged once along the side of your neck, slow enough to make your thighs press together under the dress, then he stepped back and opened the door.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
His eyes held yours.
“My car.”
The walk through the ballroom should’ve been humiliating. Maybe it was. You couldn’t tell. Jack stayed close without touching you, which somehow looked worse after what had just happened, like distance had become another form of confession. Your mouth still felt swollen from his, your skin too awake beneath the dress, your whole body lit with the kind of want that made every normal step feel rehearsed.
Robby saw you first, because of course he did. His eyes moved from Jack’s face to yours, then back again, and he lifted his glass slightly—not smiling, just acknowledging the inevitable.
Dana caught your eye from near the bar with one eyebrow raised. Santos looked ready to say something disastrous until Mohan turned her gently but firmly toward the dessert table. McKay glanced over, clocked enough to know better, and immediately pulled Whitaker into a conversation he looked relieved to have guidance for. Javadi watched for half a second too long, then looked away like she’d remembered curiosity had consequences.
Jack ignored all of them.
You loved and hated him for it.
The elevator ride down was worse.
Mirrored walls. Soft music. Your reflection beside his. His shoulder inches from yours. The phantom feel of his hand still on your neck. Neither of you speaking because speech had become a loaded weapon and you were both already wounded.
In the parking garage, the air smelled like rain and concrete again.
Jack unlocked the car.
You stopped by the passenger door, suddenly aware of the line you were crossing. Not the moral one. That had been smudged for weeks. This was more physical. More real. A door. A backseat. His face in the dim garage light, turned toward you with all that want and all that control and all the consequences waiting behind both.
He saw the hesitation immediately.
Of course he did.
“You can change your mind,” he said.
The words loosened something in you.
Not because you wanted to.
Because he meant it.
You stepped closer. “I’m not changing my mind.”
Jack’s eyes searched yours.
“Tell me if I do something you don’t want.”
“I will.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He nodded once.
Then you said, quieter, “Do you?”
His face shifted.
“Do I what?”
“Know what I want.”
The garage seemed to hold its breath.
Jack opened the back door.
“Get in,” he said.
Not loud. Not cruel.
Just low enough to go through you like a match.
You got in.
The door shut behind you, and for one suspended second you were alone in the dark leather backseat with your heartbeat, the rain ticking somewhere beyond the garage, and the reflection of Jack moving around the car in the tinted window.
Then the opposite door opened.
He slid in beside you, too big for the space, too warm, too close. The dome light cut over his face for a second before it faded, leaving him in shadow and stray fluorescent spill. His knee brushed yours. His hand came up, not touching yet, braced against the seat near your hip.
“You still think this is about money?” he asked.
Your breath caught.
You shook your head.
“Words.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No, I don’t think it’s about money.”
His gaze dropped to your mouth.
“What’s it about?”
You could’ve said care.
You could’ve said want.
You could’ve said every soft, terrifying thing his hands had been saying for weeks with coffee cups and repair bills and the new shoes you wore until they stopped hurting.
Instead, because you were trembling and stubborn and still you, you whispered, “Your sugar daddy complex.”
Jack’s eyes flashed.
Then he kissed you hard enough to knock your head back against the seat and it was nothing like the terrace—careful and slow and weighted with confession. This was hungry. His teeth caught your bottom lip, tugged, and the sound you made was swallowed by his mouth as his tongue slid against yours, wet and deep and tasting like the whiskey he'd barely touched all night. His other hand found your waist, gripping the silk of the dress, bunching it, pulling you across the seat until your hip hit his and you gasped into his mouth.
"Jack—"
"Don't talk." His lips dragged to your jaw, your throat, the spot behind your ear that made you arch. "Just—let me —"
His hand slid up your thigh, pushing the dress higher, and the leather was cool against the backs of your legs but his palm was hot, rough, callused from years of work and combat and things he never talked about. You spread for him without thinking. He made a sound against your neck—approval, hunger, relief—and his fingers pressed higher, found the wet heat through your underwear, and stopped.
"Fuck," he breathed. "You're already—"
You bit his earlobe. "Your mouth on the terrace did that."
He laughed—a low, broken thing—and his fingers hooked the edge of your panties, dragged them down your thighs. You lifted your hips to help, and he dropped them somewhere on the floor mat, already forgotten, already gone. His hand came back wet.
"Look at me."
You did. His eyes were dark, half-lidded, his breathing ragged. The garage light caught the silver in his beard, the flush rising up his neck, the way his thumb was already circling your clit like he'd done it a thousand times before. He hadn't. But he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I tried to be careful with you,” he said, voice rough, his fingers sliding through your slick folds, gathering, teasing, “I tried so fucking hard. Then I walked in and saw you at that table in the dress I bought you, and I knew I was done.”
Your breath hitched as his middle finger pressed inside you, just the tip, just enough to make your hips buck.
"—and you knew, didn't you?" He pushed deeper, slow, watching your face. "Knew what it was doing to me."
You couldn't answer. His finger was inside you, thick and deliberate, curling, finding the spot that made your vision blur. Then a second finger joined it, stretching, and you heard yourself whimper—high and desperate and not caring who heard.
"That's it," he murmured. "Let me hear you."
He worked you open like he had all night, like the parking garage was empty, like the world had shrunk to the space between his fingers and your cunt. His thumb pressed your clit in slow circles while his fingers pumped—not hard, not fast, just deep and aching, stretching you until you were dripping down his hand, until your nails dug into his shoulder through his jacket.
"Jack—I need—"
"I know what you need."
He pulled his fingers out slowly, deliberately, and you watched him bring them to his mouth. Watched his tongue slide across his knuckles, tasting you, his eyes never leaving yours. The sight of it—this tired, controlled man in his undone suit, licking your wetness off his fingers like it was the best thing he'd tasted all night—made your hole clench around nothing.
"Get on top of me."
It wasn't a question. He was already reaching for his belt, the buckle rasping open, the sound sharp and final in the close air of the car. You climbed over him, the dress bunching around your waist, your knees finding the leather on either side of his hips. His cock was hard beneath his briefs, straining against the fabric, and you reached down and wrapped your hand around it.
He hissed through his teeth. "Fuck —"
He was thick. Hot. The head slick with something that might have been precum, might have been your imagination, but when you stroked him once, slow, his hips bucked into your palm.
"If you keep doing that," he said, his voice strained, "this is going to be very embarrassing for me."
You laughed—breathless, wild—and leaned down to kiss him. "Then stop me."
He didn't.
His hand found your hip, guided you forward, and the head of his cock nudged against your entrance. Wet. Ready. The two of you hovered there, breathing each other's air, and his forehead pressed against yours.
"Tell me you want this."
"I want this." Your voice was barely a whisper. "I want you. Please, Jack—"
He pushed inside you.
The stretch was a shock—full and deep and so much more than his fingers had promised. You gasped, your nails digging into his shoulders, your head falling back as he filled you inch by inch, until you were seated in his lap, his hips flush against yours, his cock buried to the hilt inside your tight, wet heat.
"Fuck," he breathed. "Fuck, you feel—"
He couldn't finish. His hands found your hips, held you there, and for a moment neither of you moved. Just the feeling of him inside you, the throb of his pulse through his cock, the way your body adjusted, accepted, wanted.
Then you moved.
Slow at first—a roll of your hips that made his eyes roll back, a tilt of your pelvis that drove him deeper. His grip tightened on your waist, guiding, and you found the rhythm together: him thrusting up as you sank down, the slap of skin loud in the enclosed space, the wet sound of your bodies meeting.
"Look at you," he said, his voice rough, his eyes fixed on where you were joined. "Taking all of me. Fucking yourself on my cock in a parking garage."
You moaned, riding him harder, the dress bunched around your waist, the silk skin-warm and bunched up. His thumb found your clit again, pressing, circling, and the pleasure coiled tight in your belly, hot and sharp and building.
"The dress," you gasped. "You bought me this dress—"
"I bought it so I could take it off you." He tugged at the strap with his teeth, the fabric slipping down your shoulder, exposing your breast to the dim light. His mouth was on it instantly—hot, wet, his tongue circling your nipple before he sucked, hard, and you cried out, your rhythm faltering.
"Say it again." His mouth against your skin. "Say sugar daddy again and see what happens."
You laughed, breathless, your hips grinding against him. "Sugar daddy."
He bit your shoulder—not hard, but enough to make you gasp—and then his hand was in your hair, pulling your head back, forcing you to meet his eyes.
"Then take what I give you." His voice was low and rough and it made your pussy squeeze around him. "Take this cock like you've been wanting to since I fixed your goddamn car."
You did. You rode him harder, faster, the leather squeaking beneath your knees, the car rocking with the motion, your breath coming in short, desperate gasps. His hand stayed in your hair, his other gripping your hip hard enough to bruise, and he thrust up into you with a rhythm that was pure instinct—hungry, claiming, the restraint he'd held for weeks finally snapping.
"That's it," he growled. "That's my girl. Taking what she needs."
"Jack—I'm close—"
"I know. I can feel you. You're squeezing me so fucking tight—"
His thumb pressed harder on your clit, circling faster, and the orgasm hit you like a wave—sudden and overwhelming, your vision white, your back arching as your cunt clamped down on his cock, pulsing, milking, the pleasure so sharp it was almost pain. You heard yourself cry out—his name, a curse, something that might have been a sob—and he kept thrusting through it, drawing it out, letting you ride him through the aftershocks.
"Fuck—" His voice broke. "I'm going to—"
"Inside me." You grabbed his face, forced him to look at you. "I want it. Please."
He came with a groan that was almost a prayer, his hips driving up one last time, his hand gripping your hip so hard it would leave marks. You felt it—hot and thick, pumping into you, filling you, his cock twitching with each pulse, his breath ragged against your lips. The sensation pushed you into a second, smaller climax, your body clenching around him, drawing out every drop.
For a long moment, neither of you moved. His forehead rested against yours. His breathing was harsh, uneven, mingling with yours in the close air. The car smelled like sex and sweat and the faint, stubborn trace of hospital soap beneath his cologne, and your thighs were slick and trembling, and his cock was still half-hard inside you, and it was the most real you'd felt all night.
Then he laughed.
A low, disbelieving sound, his shoulders shaking against yours. You started laughing too, breathless and giddy, and you kissed him—messy, open-mouthed, tasting salt and spit and the whiskey he'd barely touched.
"Well," he said, pulling back just enough to look at you. "That was—"
"Stupid," you supplied.
"Reckless."
"A really bad idea."
His hand came up to cup your face again, his thumb tracing your cheekbone. "Worth it."
You kissed him again, slower this time, and you felt him smile against your mouth. When you pulled back, you were still straddling him, his cock still softening inside you, and the reality of it settled into your bones like warmth.
"We should probably—" you started.
"Yeah." He didn't move. "In a minute."
His hand found yours on his chest, lacing your fingers together, and the garage light caught the gray in his hair and the tired lines around his eyes and the way he was looking at you like you were the first real thing he'd seen in years.
"I'm not going to pretend this was casual," he said.
"Good," you said. "Because it wasn't."
He helped you clean up with the wet wipes he found in the glove compartment—absurd, practical, so perfectly him—and then he helped you rearrange the dress, his hands careful now, almost reverent, smoothing the silk over your hips like he was putting something precious back together. The fabric was wrinkled now, carrying the memory of his hands, and when you looked at yourself in the window reflection, you saw the flush on your chest, the bite mark on your shoulder, the way your hair had come loose from the careful updo.
You looked like someone who had been thoroughly, completely, indisputably wanted.
He watched you adjust the strap, his eyes following the small, careful movement like it mattered. You sat half-turned against him in the backseat, put back together enough to face the world again, though both of you knew exactly what had happened here. Jack’s hand rested at the back of your neck, thumb moving slowly against your skin, and in the dim garage light he looked less like the man everyone trusted in a crisis and more like someone who’d finally let himself want something he couldn’t triage.
“What?” you asked.
He shook his head.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Look like you’re about to disappear into your own head.”
That almost-smile moved over his mouth, faint and tired. “You diagnosing me now?”
“I learned from a very bossy doctor.”
“He sounds unbearable.”
“He is.”
The quiet settled, full of everything waiting outside the car: the fundraiser, the rumor, the receipt, the repaired car, the shoes, the dress, every careful thing Jack had done before either of you had dared to call it care. You looked down. “I don’t know how to let someone take care of me without feeling like a burden.”
Jack didn’t answer quickly. That made it worse. Better. Finally, he said, “Needing help isn’t the same thing as being helpless.”
Your throat tightened. You hated him a little for knowing exactly where to put the words. You loved him a little for it too.
“Jack,” you said softly.
He waited.
You smiled, small and shaky. “Do I get an allowance now?”
For half a second, he stared at you. Then his eyes closed, and the laugh that left him was quiet, rough, almost unwilling. It felt like winning something no one else got to see. When he opened his eyes, they were warm.
“You get breakfast.”
“That’s it?”
“And your car.”
“Already got that.”
“And the shoes.”
“Also already got those.”
“And whatever else you need,” he said, thumb brushing once at your neck, “if you stop acting like needing it makes you less.”
Your smile faded into something softer. “That sounds an awful lot like a boyfriend.”
Jack looked at you for a long moment, tired and undone and still there. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m working up to that.”
The fundraiser was still waiting upstairs, all polished glassware and polite cruelty, the kind of room where people could turn want into rumor before the night was over. You would have to go back to PTMC after this. You would pass Jack in hallways. You would hear his voice over trauma bays, see his name on charts, feel the weight of every title that should have made this impossible.
But in the backseat, with his thumb moving slowly against your skin, Jack wasn’t looking at you like a mistake, or a risk, or something he’d have to explain away in daylight.
He was looking at you like something worth keeping.
And for what it was worth, you finally believed you were.
The Ache of Obsession
pairing: voyeur!stalker!Pope Cody x fem!Reader
summary: All it takes is one glance at the pretty girl who lives in the apartment across from his for Andrew Cody to become obsessed. But what begins as innocent observation from his window turns into something far more intense.
warnings: +18 MDNI. obsessive behavior, stalking, multiple scenes of male masturbation, themes of shame, reader has type b youngho vibes and andrew is stupidly into it, feminine reader who has hair and wears press on nails, unspecified but implied age gap, reader shares one kiss with a female friend (not super detailed), J pulls your cell phone records as a favor, andrew breaks into your apartment and raids your panty drawer, male masturbation with a vibrator, nipple play, alcohol consumption and mentioned drunkenness, lingerie, exhibitionism on readers part, mutual masturbation, jealousy, bratting/a touch of brat taming, reader tries to make pope jealous with another man, death threats (not to reader or pope), dirty talk, sloppy makeouts, spit swapping, over the clothes nipple sucking, finger sucking, f!use of a vibrator, clit play, rough fingering, unprotected piv, dacryphilia, light angst, insecure pope, reader matches his freak, stalker!reader, forced love confessions, begging, creampie
note: wow ok i think that might be the longest warning i've ever written whoops!! thank u sm to my angel @thykingdoncome for reassuring me through this whole process and taking a lil looksie at this for me love u 4ever
wc: 10.4k
[masterlist] [AO3]
Andrew knows it's weird.
He knows that.
But as long as you don't know he's doing it, what does it hurt?
It's not like he's doing anything weird. He's just…watching you. It almost feels like fate, the way your apartment is positioned directly across from his. There's the courtyard and a pool lying between you, but the windows of his apartment mirror yours so perfectly.
And…you don't have blinds.
No curtains, no shades. There's not even a half-effort of an old sheet hung up over the glass pane. And at night? When he can't sleep, and the moths circle the flickering porch lights, and you've got those blue or red or purple LED lights on…well.
Pope can see right into your apartment.
Can see you, watching TV on the couch or cooking boxed macaroni in nothing but a loose tank top and a pair of lace underwear.
He thinks you might be the only good thing about the apartment that Smurf forced him into only three days after he was released from prison.
It's been a long time since he's looked at a woman, you know. Longer since he's seen one as pretty as you.
He's not lacking self awareness or anything. Pope knows your open windows and ever changing LEDs aren't an invitation to stare, but…sometimes it feels like one.
You fall asleep on the couch most nights. Which is good for him, because Pope can't see into your bedroom.
Some things, he begins to realize, are a sort of chaotic routine.
You tend to fall asleep with your phone in your hand and scramble to find it each morning (it's always under the couch, beneath the hot pink throw pillow you kick off in your sleep).
You don't eat breakfast because you don't wake up early enough to (don't you know it's the most important meal of the day?). Most mornings, you wake up with just enough time to doll yourself up in the bathroom, prioritizing glittery eyeshadow and shimmering lip gloss rather than the sustenance of a bowl of cereal.
He doesn't know what you do for work, but it's something with an inconsistent schedule. You sleep until noon on your days off, which could be any day of the week, Pope learns.
Work doesn't stop you from going out, though. Saturday nights are reserved for those miniskirts and stiletto heels and all your giggling girlfriends who get ready on your living room floor with a hand mirror. You share perfume and makeup and clothes with them before you all climb into a shared uber.
A few times, Andrew finds himself tempted to follow you. He tells himself it's not like he'd be doing it for his own satisfaction. He'd just be doing it to keep an eye on you, that's all. You're a young girl (too young for someone his age). Don't you know there are predators out there?
But he never does. Because that would be weird, right? You don't even know him. But…he certainly starts to feel like he knows you.
You and your friends always stumble back to your apartment, sometimes falling up the concrete steps to the second floor. One of them will make pizza rolls or messy peanut butter sandwiches and you'll pass around cold bottles of water and spill electrolyte drink mixes on the kitchen counter.
You'll share your things with them even after the club, selfless girl. Passing out hair ties and makeup removing wipes and big t-shirts for them to sleep in. On on particular night, when most of them are passed out on the couch, legs and arms tangled together, Pope even watches you you share a kiss with one of them under pink LEDs.
That night, Andrew has to force his attention away. It feels way too close to the beginning of that porno Craig left open on the family computer years ago.
But this doesn't feel erotic. Watching your mouth move against someone else's doesn't elicit any warmth beneath the fabric of his jeans.
No, it makes Andrew...upset. Angry, even.
It makes him jealous.
He tries not to think about it again. Tries even harder (and fails, repeatedly) to give you some privacy on Saturday nights.
But Sundays…Sundays are sacred.
Both for you and for him.
So much so that he pulls out on a job when his brothers plan it for a Sunday. Tells them he has to check in with his parole officer that day. Lies to their faces, because he doesn't want to miss out on you.
Because every Sunday, without fail, Andrew gets to see you naked.
You start by cleaning your apartment. Wiping down the counters and vacuuming the carpet and dusting the top of the cabinets. Then you light the candle on the coffee table (pink champagne, he's pretty sure, after looking endlessly online to match up the glass container. Twenty six dollars. Four day shipping. Currently sitting unlit on his nightstand).
And when you're ready, you strip off all your clothes and discard them in the bathroom.
You put oil in your hair and nineties R&B on your bluetooth speaker. You paint your toes (usually white or black, occasionally an electric blue) and glue artificial nails with sparkling gems onto your fingers.
Sunday showers are the longest, Pope knows. Sometimes thirty minutes. And when you emerge from the bathroom, steam rolls out from the open door and you've got your hair wrapped up in a towel. You balance yourself with a foot on the edge of the couch and massage lotion into your skin first.
From top to bottom, moisturizing your entire body. And then you repeat the motion with an oil, and it's during this particular step that Andrew starts feeling a little lightheaded.
He'd bet you feel all smooth and soft and smell so fucking good. Maybe like vanilla or cherry or coconut. And, god. He wants to touch you. He wants to touch himself.
But he resists.
The first three times, anyway.
By the fourth Sunday, though…well. His cock gets so fucking hard in his jeans that it's leaking. Making a big fucking mess in his boxers. It hurts, you know?
And it's not like you'll know he's doing it. He's had a little over a month to perfect his setup—lights off, chair angled perfectly so if anyone glanced into his apartment they'd have to really look to see him.
So, he takes his cock in his hand and imagines it's your delicate fingers wrapped around him instead. Imagine it's his hands rubbing oil into your shoulders, over the swell of your breasts, pressing into your hips, squeezing at the supple flesh of your thighs.
He'd make sure to do it just how you like. And Pope wouldn't need to be told how to, either. Because he's spent so much time watching you now that he would just know.
He wonders if your head would fall back, wet hair clinging to your slick skin. He wonders if he pressed just right into that spot at the small of your back that you're always so gentle with if you'd moan or whine or whimper. Maybe even say his name.
Andrew cums at the thought alone, grunting low, lips parted, his release spilling over his hand and down the hard length of his cock.
The shame doesn't take hold of him for a while.
Not until later that night, when your hair is blow dried and you're dressed in a pretty silk pajama set. You've got some trashy reality show on the TV, and you're eating the pizza you had delivered right out of the box.
Andrew takes the moment to clean himself up. To change out of his clothes and into something more comfortable. He brushes his teeth and climbs in bed, but lays with his head propped up by an extra pillow so he can still see clearly out of his window.
He knows it's weird. He knows he shouldn't be staring at a naked girl who's probably half his age and doesn't know there's some fucking creep across the courtyard who watches her every fucking day. He knows he shouldn't be fucking his fist watching you put lotion on your skin. He knows he shouldn't be changing his plans with family or friends around your schedule, just so he can watch you a little longer.
He knows he should stop.
The problem, however, lies in the wanting.
Andrew's never had much. Not when it comes to women. But you…god. You're so beautiful, and so pure and so different from anything he's ever seen. You don't belong to anyone but yourself, and once he sees you, he finds it impossible to look away.
Things change late one Friday night.
Andrew gets sloppy. He gets comfortable, here in this routine he's created around you.
There's music coming from your apartment, some electronic pop ballad that's at a volume so loud he can hear it from across the courtyard (there will be complaints to the office manager tomorrow morning, he knows. But you don't have to worry. Pope will take care of it for you, baby. He'll make sure you can keep having your fun).
You're wearing just a lacy bra and a pair of linen sleep shorts. There's a seltzer in your hand, and you're singing and dancing like you've somehow summoned all the energy from the club right there in your apartment.
It's a beautiful sight, truly. You're so happy and carefree. The warmest ray of sunshine that he wants to find himself basking under.
Andrew gets comfortable, posture relaxing in the chair that now lives permanently in front of his window. He watches you dance around your apartment, the easy smile on your face reflected back on his own.
He thinks he could really take care of you. Keep you safe. Protect all that girlish whimsy that lives in your heart. He'd make you real happy, Andrew thinks. Would watch you dance with your friends at the club, leaning against the bar. He'd take you shopping and add more of those short dresses into your closet. He'd make you breakfast in the mornings before work and Christ—he'd buy you a set of fucking curtains.
Pope is so lost in the fantasy of it that he doesn't register in time that your dancing has slowed. And you've put your seltzer down on the coffee table.
And you're staring right back at him.
His heart kicks up, pounding against his chest. He knows he should move out of sight, shut his blinds, pass this off as a mistake, maybe even pretend he hadn't seen you.
But he doesn't do any of that.
He's frozen in time, terrified and exhilarated all at once by simply being perceived by you.
Pope just…stares.
It seems to be the only fucking thing he's capable of these days.
He expects you to flip him off or maybe come barreling out of the door and across the courtyard to confront him. Or maybe you'll scurry away into your room. Maybe you'll order a set of curtains online.
But you don't do any of that.
You just stare right back.
Andrew tilts his head curiously. It's an involuntary movement.
In the end, you're the first to look away. You pick up your seltzer, dump it down the drain in the kitchen, and then disappear into the bathroom to brush your teeth.
Your routine remains the exact same. You find your phone beneath the throw blanket on the couch and turn off the TV. You turn the kitchen light off and turn on the light above the stove instead. You grab a water bottle from the fridge, and then go to bed in your room.
It's not rushed, and you don't seem nervous or fearful that there's someone watching you.
And Andrew thinks to himself, see. This is why you need him. This is why you need someone looking out for you. Don't you know how dangerous he could be?
He would never hurt you, Andrew knows. But you don't know that.
He doesn't sleep that night. He doesn't sleep often as it is, but his mind is running too fast. Cataloguing all the potential scenarios in which you cut off all access he has to you, severing the comfort he finds in his new favorite, voyeuristic hobby.
And Andrew wouldn't—couldn't—blame you for it. He thinks that's what you should do.
You don't.
The following morning, your routine changes.
On the nights you fall asleep in your bed, you're usually dressed in a pair of jeans with gems decorating the pockets and a low-cut top by the time you emerge from your room.
But not this time.
No, this time you're still wearing the same clothes you'd fallen asleep in. A lacy bra and cotton shorts.
Andrew watches, freshly emerged from the quickest shower of his life, hair still wet, as you stand in front of the fridge to find the fizzy energy drink you'd brought home with you last night.
He watches you struggle for a moment to crack the seal open (Those pretty nails of yours. He could help you with that, you know). You take a slow slip, put the aluminum can down on the counter, and turn your head just enough to let Pope know you see him.
You know he's there, in the window. You know he's watching.
And then, painfully slow, you drag your shorts down your thighs. The fabric pools at your feet, and Pope loses all train of thought.
Because this is no accident. You want this. You want him to watch you.
Your bra is next. You reach around to unclasp it and soon after the lace joins the linen fabric on the linoleum floor.
Warmth blooms beneath his skin as he watches you press your hands to your abdomen, feeling your skin, running your hands up your chest and over the swell of your breasts.
You try and play it off like a stretch, lifting your arms above your head and arching your back.
Andrew knows it's not.
You get ready the rest of the morning like normal. And Andrew…God. He doesn't know what to think.
He knows he should stop this before it goes too far. He thinks it already has.
It's…it's weird, right?
Everything about it is wrong.
He doesn't want to stop, but he knows he should.
He tries, though. For what little it's worth.
Tries to busy himself building a fountain at Smurf's. Tries to find small jobs he can do himself to pass the time. He still thinks about you all hours of the day, though. Like a thorn stuck beneath his skin, aching when he moves just the wrong way.
He overhears Nicky explaining to Deran what an 'everything shower' is and thinks about your Sunday ritual. He walks into a hungover Craig making boxed macaroni in his boxers and thinks of you. Smurf lights a candle called pink cashmere and even though it's not pink champagne, it still makes him think of you.
The pretty little girl in the apartment across from his, who he finds himself certifiably, insanely, obsessed with.
One Thursday afternoon, Andrew returns home earlier than he'd planned. He tells himself he just wants to get a little glance.
Just one look. You know, to soothe the ache the thought of you brings. To see if maybe he imagined the weight of your stare.
What he finds, though, is somehow more concerning.
You're pacing your living room, cell phone pressed to your ear, still wearing jeans and your sneakers. There's tension in your shoulders and even though he can't hear the conversation you're having with the person on the other end of the phone, he can see that you're shouting.
It drags on for the better half of an hour. The pacing, the frustrated hand waving, the pinching of the bridge of your nose. Whatever it is, Andrew bets he could help with it.
He hates seeing you stressed. Thinks you should be living your fun, carefree life like normal. You shouldn't be burdened with…whatever it is that's got you so upset.
But it's not like he can go over and just ask.
So, he chooses a different path instead.
Gets the key to the office of the apartment complex from Smurf. Rummages through the paper files until he finds the lease contract linked to your apartment number.
Andrew thinks he should've done this weeks ago. He learns an awful lot about you this way. Like your name, which he begins to recite like a mantra in his head. He learns your birthday and, regretfully, your age.
But, most importantly, he discovers (and memorizes) your phone number.
And that same day, he returns to Smurf's with a torn piece of paper with the digits scribbled on it. He hands it to his nephew and says, "Need you to get a few phone call records. Can you do that for me?"
J furrows his brows in confusion. "Who's number?"
Pope shrugs. "No one," he lies. "Can you get the records or not?"
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, probably. Anything specific you're looking for?"
"I wanna know about a call that happened today. Around two or so. Lasted almost an hour. Just get me the number of whoever was on the other line."
J hesitates for a single moment, and then nods slowly. "Alright. I'll get back to you on it."
In the meantime, Andrew spirals.
The thought of you having a boyfriend never really crossed his mind until now. You don't really have men over. Just your girl friends.
But there are some Saturday nights you don't come home, stumbling in early Sunday morning instead with sunglasses on and your hair a mess. So, Pope thinks you very well could have a boyfriend and he'd never would've known it.
Pope tells himself if it is a boyfriend, he won't…he won't do anything. It's not his place to make decisions for you, right?
Still. You shouldn't let a man stress you out so much. Whoever it is, they're not worth it. You deserve better. You deserve more.
You deserve someone who knows you.
Less than two hours later, Pope gets a phone call from J, who explains that the person on the other end of that phone call wasn't a person at all.
It was your phone company.
You're stupid fucking service provider who just so happened to put an extra two hundred dollar fee on your bill this month, claiming data overages.
All that stress wasn't over a boyfriend. It was over money.
And money is something Andrew can provide.
He waits until you leave for work, locking up tight behind you. But that doesn't matter, not now. Andrew has a key to the office, which means he has access to the spare key to your apartment.
He is fully aware that he shouldn't be doing this, but ten minutes after you leave he unlocks the door and steps inside anyway.
Your apartment smells sweet. Like sugar and citrus. He wonders if you smell the same way, and the thought alone makes Andrew's mouth water.
He moves slowly into your space, fingers tracing over the TV stand, feeling the wood beneath his calloused fingertips. He straightens the crooked throw pillow on the couch and puts the lighter for your candle back into the tray on the coffee table.
Andrew knows he should just…leave the cash and go. He shouldn't be snooping around, invading your privacy.
But you left a knife point-side up in the strainer in the sink. And you could get hurt doing something like that.
And once he's already in the kitchen, turning the knife over so the sharp edge is down, well…what does it hurt if he just opens a couple of drawers?
None of your silverware matches. Andrew finds this little fact sort of endearing. Messy and chaotic in the same way you are, but that's okay. Maybe he can fix that for you one day, too.
Your bathroom is cluttered. There's makeup products littering the porcelain sink and the cabinet mirror is left wide open. Andrew picks up a few different products to read the labels and finds lip liners and leave-in conditioners and powdered blush that's spilled magenta pigment on the counter.
He finds that lotion you're always using on Sundays and opens the lid. Andrew brings the container to his nose, inhales deeply, and feels suddenly too hot.
The scent of it is sweet, like you. There's notes of syrupy amber and warm florals and it has the muscles in his abdomen squeezing tight as he thinks about how potent the scent would be if he were between your legs, freshly oiled, calves resting on his shoulders as he licks and sucks at your clit.
His cock has been half hard since the moment he stepped foot in your apartment, but by the time he makes it to your bedroom?
Pope is aching.
Your clothes are strewn all over. There's t-shirts on the floor and jeans inside out near the hamper and a dress you'd worn two weekends ago lying on the edge of your unmade bed.
It smells like you in here, too. Even more so. There's less perfume, but Andrew swears he can smell the scent of your skin. Sweet and intoxicating, sending sparks of arousal straight to his groin.
Your bedside table has a lamp on it and three half-empty bottles of water. There's one drawer, and he pries it open and gives a slow exhale to see all the silk and lace inside.
Going through your underwear drawer is, quite literally, the very last thing someone like Andrew Cody should be doing.
He does it anyway.
Rummages around until he finds that little black pair you like to sleep in. He runs his fingers over the lace band, feeling the softness beneath the rough pad of his thumb. His cock is throbbing, even before he brings the fabric to his nose and inhales the scent of laundry detergent and faint mahogany from the nightstand and—there. The scent of you.
As close as he can get.
As close as he'll probably ever get.
He needs to leave. Andrew is painfully aware that this is crossing a line of a whole new degree. Levels above simply watching.
This is obsession. This is addiction. Sick and twisted and perverted.
Andrew does not leave.
He climbs into your bed instead. Kicks off his boots and discards his hoodie until he's in nothing but his jeans. He slips beneath your sheets—satin, and pink, and filled with the scent of your shampoo and your skin and—fuck.
His cock is leaking by the time he undoes his belt. Andrew reaches beneath your sheets and shoves his jeans down just enough to free himself.
And it's almost enough to blow his load right fucking there, when the underside of his heavy length brushes against the fabric of your sheets. It's almost too much, being in your room, in your bed, breathing in your scent.
But he resists. Grits his teeth and takes his cock in one hand and uses the other to wrap the soft fabric of your underwear around his aching length.
This time, there's nothing slow about the way he strokes himself to the thought of you. He's desperate for it. Release already clouds the edges of his mind and he needs the relief it'll provide.
His brain feels hazy and his vision blurs, just thinking about you, lying here, hand between your legs. He wonders how you touch yourself, if you just play with your clit or if you fuck yourself on your fingers.
The thought crosses his mind that you might be using more than just your hand, and Pope finds himself sitting up. He leans over the edge of your bed and sticks his hand back into your panty drawer, reaching to the very bottom, feeling around until the tips of his fingers brush over silicone.
His heart is beating fast.
It's a small thing. Pink, of course. With only a small, almost hidden power button.
Pope leans back in your pillows and turns the little vibrator on. It buzzes to life in his hand, and when he pushes the button again, the intensity ratchets even higher.
There's only three settings. He turns it to the highest one and imagines holding it against your swollen clit. He imagines you lying under him, thighs around his waist, hips bucking wildly, chasing the vibration that he gives and gives and then takes away.
He turns so he's lying face down in your sheets now, nose pressed into your pillow. Pope puts the vibrator between his cock and the soft expanse of his abdomen, and he feels the sensation everywhere.
He's still got your underwear wrapped around his cock, and he gives a tentative roll of his hips against the mattress.
The groan he lets out is guttural. With his eyes closed, he can imagine its not your panties he's fucking but you. The tight, wet cunt between your legs. He can imagine it's the curve of your throat he's got his nose buried in and not your pillow. He can imagine that sweet, intense vibration is reverberated through your pelvic bone, little toy pressed hard against your clit.
Pope tells himself he'd make it so fucking good for you. He'd bury his cock so deep you'd never forget the weight of it inside you. He'd whisper how beautiful you are in your ear and make you look him in the eyes while he watches you cum over and over and over.
His release is…embarrassingly fast.
A few rolls of his hips against your mattress and he's cumming into the lace fabric of your panties, the vibration of the toy milking him until he's so overstimulated it almost hurts.
Pope rolls over, turns the toy off, buries it back in the bottom of your drawer. He gives himself a few more moments to gather himself. To catch his breath, to wipe himself clean (never mind the couple of drops that now stain your satin sheets. That could be from anything, right?).
He tucks himself back into his jeans, pulls on his boots and his hoodie, and tosses your underwear in the pile of clothes next to the laundry bin.
There's a pair of your jeans in the middle of the floor, away from the rest. One leg of the denim is inside out. Pope takes the cash from his wallet and tucks it into the pocket of your jeans, leaving out just enough that he knows you'll notice it.
He leaves.
Locks the door behind him with the spare key.
Makes it halfway across the courtyard before he doubles back, lets himself back into your apartment and into the bathroom where he pockets one of the many different chapsticks on the sink.
It isn't until he's home, tucked safe back in his own apartment, that he realizes it's strawberries and cream flavored.
Andrew puts it on, swiping the transparent petroleum over his lips. He tells himself it's almost like kissing.
Later that day, Craig calls a family meeting. But you've just gotten home, and he knows you'll find the cash within a few minutes when you go to change out of your clothes.
So Andrew waits at the bottom of the stairs on his side of the courtyard. He can't see into your apartment from here, though. And he decides he'll only wait for thirty minutes.
He responds to text messages and opens his blank, photo-less Instagram (that he definitely didn't make only to look at your profile. The one filled with selfies under neon lights and bikini photos on the beach and mirror pictures in the dressing room at that one boutique in the mall).
Twenty nine minutes later, he hears an apartment door slam shut and looks up to see you.
You've got your bag over one shoulder and a grin on your face and the cash in your hand. Enough to cover the additional charges and a little extra, too.
You notice him at the bottom of the cement stairs and freeze, but you don't look…scared, like he expects. Maybe a little startled at first, but the tension bleeds from your face the moment you recognize him.
He should say something. Talk to you. Apologize, maybe, for staring at you.
But Andrew isn't sorry.
And he's never really been good at talking, anyway.
You tilt your head and give him the sweetest fucking smile he's ever seen. It's somehow innocent and knowing at the same time, and Andrew feels the corners of his mouth lifting in response.
Something passes silently between you. An…understanding, maybe. You know he watches you, and he knows you know, but…you don't stop him. You just let it happen.
You smile at him from fifteen feet away.
And then you turn to leave, no doubt making your way to pay off that stupid bill that caused you so much unrest.
Pope watches you go, like always.
But this time, you glance back at him over your shoulder with…something lingering in your pretty eyes. Excitement, maybe. He can't be sure.
He needs to get closer.
During the family meeting, he isn't very present. His mind is so far away, stuck on you, that he just blindly agrees to whatever job they're doing next and trusts that it'll all work out.
When he returns to his apartment, there's a note stuck to his door.
A pink sticky note with nothing but a phone number and a heart with an arrow through it scribbled on the paper.
Your phone number, Pope knows.
He knows he shouldn't text you.
It's stupid and dangerous and god, you really shouldn't be giving your number to random men. He could be a creep. He could be a stalker or something.
His message just says,
Hello.
Your response is immediate, with no capitalization which seems quite…fitting for you. He finds it strangely endearing.
hey
are u the guy from apt 212 ???
Pope can feel that this is a bad idea already. But he's already here, and there's no going back now, is there? He doesn't want to hurt your feelings. He doesn't want to leave you on read and make you think he's not interested when the problem is the exact opposite.
Yes.
The typing bubble pops up, disappears, and appears again three different times before you send another message.
im gonna be home in like an hr
will u be watching ???
Always, he wants to say. Fucking always. He can't take his eyes off you, no matter how hard he tries. No matter how shameful it feels.
Andrew's hands shake as he types out a response.
Do you want me to be?
No hesitation this time. Your message comes through a second later.
uhmmm tbh yeah <3
He exhales a long breath. It doesn't feel real. Like he's imagining the entire thing. How could he not be? Why on earth would the sweetest, prettiest little thing want someone to watch her?
But the weight of his cell phone in his hand is real.
And the text message is real.
And this…this is real.
Then yes. I will be.
You don't reply, and Andrew's heart flutters in his chest as he takes his practiced position in the chair in front of his window and waits.
True to your word, you're skipping up the steps fifty three minutes after the last message is sent. You turn on those LEDs and and move about your apartment like normal, kicking off your sneakers and dropping your bag by the door. You change out of your clothes and put on a worn in t-shirt that's two sizes too big for you, but underneath…
Pope can see the sheer thigh highs you wear and the black, lace edge of them. He can see those strappy garters attached to them, but nothing else. The straps disappear beneath your shirt, leaving him wanting for more.
You're teasing him, Pope realizes.
He watches with bated breath as you lay on the couch, getting comfortable with the throw pillow against the arm.
And then, for the first time, Andrew watches you touch yourself.
You start slowly, hands roaming over your body, on top of the fabric, massaging gently at the inside of your thighs.
His cock's always hard watching you, truth be told. But this…
His skin feels hot. His lungs feel tight.
Your fingers curl around the edge of your t-shirt, and you pull it over your head to discard it on the floor.
Andrew hasn't seen you wear this set before, not even on those sacred Sundays.
It's pretty. Matching black lace. The bra is low cut and pushes your breasts up your chest, the soft flesh swelling over the top. The waistband of the matching panties is decorated in shining silver gems, laying so perfectly against your hips that he feels dizzy just looking at it.
The prettiest package, just begging to be unraveled by his big, mean hands.
You dressed up for him.
You dressed up for him.
Your hands start to move again, palming your breasts, pulling the lace down until they spill out of the top. Your nipples are so pretty that his mouth waters. He wants to kiss them, to feel the shape of them under his tongue. He wants to kneel over top of you and jerk himself off until they're covered in his sticky white release.
You squeeze your breasts until your nipples form pretty little peaks, and then your hands slide lower. Over your abdomen, and your hips, and then your thighs. You bring them slowly back up, only to slide them over the lace fabric of your panties, right down the center of your cunt.
Andrew thinks he could die.
He could fucking die, just looking at you.
Carefully, you unbuckle the chrome latch of your garter. The left side first, and then the right quickly follows. You leave the lace belt on, but hook your thumbs around the bedazzled lace of your panties and pull them down your thighs painfully slowly.
Your knees fall apart.
Pope swallows hard.
He can see everything from here. The seam of your thighs that he's dreamt about. The pretty shape of your pussy. The wetness that's gathered between your folds, slick and shiny with arousal. With want.
For him. It's for him.
His cock throbs so hard it hurts.
Pope doesn't touch himself. He can't. Can he? All you asked of him was that he watched.
That's what you wanted.
But wouldn't it be better if he was there? Wouldn't it be better if he could touch you, if he could taste you, if he could fuck you?
All you'd have to do is let him in.
Your fingers stroke gently over your clit in small circles, and he watches in awe as your lips part and your spine bends.
He can't hear your moans but god does he wish he could. Thinks about putting a little microphone in your lampshade the next time he sneaks into your apartment.
Your fingers drift lower, over your center, and slowly press inside.
Pope wants it to be him so fucking bad.
If not his cock inside you then his fingers. They're bigger. Longer. Thicker. They'd please you more. Reach places your fingers can't.
Maybe his tongue. He'd drink you right from the fucking source and cum in his jeans, probably. But he'd make sure to find that sweet, velvety spot inside you first and he'd spell his full fucking name over it with a pointed tongue.
Silly girl. Don't you know what he could do for you? Don't you know what he could do to you?
Pope squeezes the bulge in his jeans to try and alleviate the pain of his lust.
You fuck yourself with your fingers, stuffing in one and then two and then three, stretching yourself on them, slick dripping down the seam of your cunt. Your back arches when your free hand finds your clit, and he knows you're close.
He knows he shouldn't, but he searches frantically for his phone anyway and sends another text message.
I want to hear you.
You pause only long enough to grab your phone off the coffee table, read the text, and lay your phone on the arm of the couch behind you.
Pope's phone buzzes in his hand.
You're calling him.
He answers on the first ring, and the sounds that greet him are so erotic it steals the breath from his lungs.
You sound so pretty. So sweet and feminine, everything he's imagined yet somehow so, so much more. He's sure you can hear his heavy breaths on the other end of the phone, but Pope can't find it in himself to care. Can't think of much else besides the way you whimper and the sight of your fingers stuffed inside you.
"Oh, god—"
His inhale is shaky.
"I'm gonna cum," you choke out, words hazy with your moans. "I'm so close, I'm so fucking—hmm. Yes. What's your name?"
He almost doesn't hear you, so lost in the sight before him. Immersed in the euphoria of it. But then he says, voice a low, uncertain whisper, "Andrew."
Your spine bends and the fingers on your clit slow. "Oh my god. Fuck, Andrew—I'm cumming, I'm—yes, yes—god."
His cock twitches and when he tries to soothe it with another tight squeeze, he sends himself careening off the precipice of release instead. His head falls back and his once heavy breaths get stuck in his lungs. Pope rubs himself over his jeans, making a sticky, hot mess in his boxers, generating what little friction he can.
He watches you come down in real time. Not his dreams, not his imagination. He watches it happen. Watches that fucked-out, hazy look cross your face. Watches the tension in your muscles melt away, wishing he could kiss the junction of your throat.
Pope wishes he could worship you. Wishes he could clean you up and put on that trashy reality show you like and hold you against his chest, comforting you while your brain comes back to earth.
Instead, you lean up. Grab your phone and press it to your ear, staring right at him through his wide open window.
He doesn't know what he expects you to say, but it's certainly not, "Have you been inside my apartment, Andrew?"
For a second, he thinks about lying. Because there's no way you know, right? Not for sure. It's not like you have cameras or anything (he knows, because he checked).
But he doesn't want to lie. Not to you.
"I…might have been. Once, yes."
"Did you steal my chapstick?"
"You have ten of them."
He hears your laugh for the first time, and the sound is like sunlight in his chest. "You took the best flavor."
"I'm…I'm sorry. I'll return it."
"Keep it. I already got a new one," you say. "Cost me five hundred dollars, though."
So, you know it was him who left the cash, too.
Smart, pretty girl.
He doesn't say anything, too afraid he'll say something stupid or awkward the way he usually does. He doesn't want to ruin this moment. This absolutely perfect moment.
You smile at him, kiss your palm, and blow it towards your window. "Goodnight, Andrew."
He feels his face heat. "Goodnight."
Pope rides the high of it for days.
Can't shake the sight of you open and bare for him. Can't stop thinking about the sound of your moans or the way you'd said his name in the peak of euphoria. He fucks his first to the thought of it more times than he can count.
And Andrew's never been a really sexual person. Not unless it's with someone he loves.
But is that what this is? Love?
You've never met. Not really, not properly. How could it be something so intense? You don't know him. You don't know who he is or what he does. You don't know how he's hurt and maimed and killed.
Would you be afraid, finding out? Would you run to the police if you knew? Would you recoil away from him with terror in your eyes?
All things left unsaid. All things that may, very well, never be said.
Pope feels so uncertain with all of this that he finds himself resorting to fucking google, even. Search history littered with questions and Reddit threads that never provide any real clarity.
Define love.
Define obsession.
How to know if you're in love?
How to ask a girl out?
How to get over a girl.
Define voyeur.
Define fetish.
How big of an age gap is too big?
Apartments for sale on the east coast.
Pink champagne candle.
Strawberries and cream chapstick bulk pack.
You text him the following weekend.
do u wanna like…go out sometime?? been thinking about u a lot
He's at Smurf's when he reads the message.
Pope doesn't even realize he's smiling until Deran slides a beer across the counter at him and asks, "What's got you all happy today?"
And Pope just shakes his head. Schools his features back into neutrality and says, "Nothing. Just won a bet."
He can tell his brother doesn't believe him, not even for a second. But thankfully, Deran doesn't push any further. He lets the subject go, but the question stays stuck in Andrew's head for hours.
It takes him a while to decide on a response. It's honest, and…mostly true.
We shouldn't. I'm a lot older than you.
Your response is one single, painful letter.
k
He doesn't respond to try his hand at damage control, even though he wants to. It's probably better this way, he thinks. Better that there's some distance between you. Better than you hate him and see him as the creepy neighbor he is.
But that Saturday night, when you return home, it's not with your friends.
Pope watches from his window as you guide a man up the stairs and into your apartment.
He's tall. Dark haired, with bright eyes and white teeth and a good smile. Closer to your age. Handsome like a man allowed into your space should be.
You're fumbling a little with your apartment key and Pope watches as the man stands behind you and slides his hands down the back of your thighs.
Thighs he should be touching. Thighs he's watched for months. Thighs that spread for him, long before this fucking loser ever laid his eyes on you.
He tells himself he won't interfere.
You're your own woman. You deserve to feel good, even if it's with…someone else.
And Pope knows he's just going to have to get the fuck over it.
He did it to himself, really.
He should look away.
But he watches instead.
Watches the two of you fall onto the couch. Watches another man kiss down the column of your throat and squeeze the supple curve of your ass over your sequined dress.
Your eyes find his from across the courtyard, and Pope's jaw clenches.
Putting on another show for him. Filthy, filthy girl.
And you're just going to give it to some random man? Someone who doesn't know you like Pope does? Someone who doesn't know how you like to be touched?
He needs to look away. Close his own fucking blinds for once.
But he feels frozen. Knowing this time, you're watching him. Looking for him. Goading for a reaction.
Pope watches the slow ascent of the man's hand. Promises himself he won't interfere. He'll just watch to make sure you're safe, that's all.
But the moment that greedy hand disappears beneath your dress, Andrew's moving. Throwing open his door and slamming it closed behind him. He crosses the courtyard and takes the steps two at a time.
His fist against your apartment door is incessant. He doesn't stop, even when he hears the uttered, male voice ask, "Who is that?"
When the door opens, it's you who stands in front of him, chin tilted up as you stare at him, pupils flared wide.
The man you'd brought home with you hovers over your shoulder.
Pope doesn't even look at him. He stares only at you as he says, a little snarl in his voice, "Tell him to leave."
"Dude, what the fuck? Who is this guy?"
Your lips curl at the corners. A devilish little smile. "Okay," you say, nodding, your voice soft and pliant. You turn your head to look at the man who stands behind you. "Sorry, but you've gotta go."
"You're joking," he responds flatly. "You said I could—!"
Andrew reaches past you and takes him by the collar, pulling him out of your apartment and slamming him up against the paneled siding. "I ever see you in this apartment again, I'll fucking kill you. You understand me?"
"Jesus fucking—yeah, okay. Alright. Sorry."
Pope isn't joking. Doesn't say it to scare him off but rather as a warning.
He lets him go and watches him scramble down the stairs. He doesn't turn back to face you until the little tool you used for attention gets in his car and drives away.
And when he does finally turn back to you…Christ. Your eyes are half lidded and full of lust. Pope's close enough this time that there's no mistaking it.
He should be a gentleman. Should take you out first. Bring you home and kiss you on your doorstep and leave you untouched.
He knows he should.
What he does instead is curl his hand around the back of your neck and pull you to him. He leans down, mouth hovering over yours, breathing in your panicky exhales. "This what you want?"
Your grin is immediate and undeniable. You nod and breathe out the word, "Please."
Andrew kisses you hard, crowding you back into your apartment. He kicks the door closed behind him and slides his tongue into your mouth, tasting you and groaning at the sweetness. There's mint and strawberry and you, his favorite flavor.
He feels drunk on it. On the taste of your tongue, the glide of your wet lips over his, the way your hands scramble and tug desperately at his belt.
"Fuck," he sighs, pulling back just enough to see you. "Open your mouth, baby. Wide. And stick out your tongue."
The way you immediately obey has his cock twitching. Good girl. So fucking good for him when he gives you exactly what you need.
Andrew licks the flat of your tongue once, delighting in the way you whimper in response, before bringing his hand to your mouth. He slides two fingers behind your teeth and orders, "Suck."
You do, lips closing tight around the digits, wet tongue swirling over his thick knuckles. He pushes them further down your throat, your eyes locked on his as he makes you choke on them.
"So fucking pretty," he tells you. "You always look so pretty."
Andrew pulls the straps of your mini dress over your shoulders, roughly tugging the fabric over your chest down to expose your breasts.
You're wearing the same lace bra you'd worn when you dressed up for him, he realizes. He can see the peaks of your nipples through the semi-sheer fabric, and leans down to lock his lips around the left one over the lace.
The fabric is rough beneath his tongue, a stark contrast to the softness of your skin. He sucks hard, spreading the wetness of his saliva over the lace. You push your dress further down your waist and over your hips.
Andrew slides his fingers out of your mouth, sticky and dripping with your spit. He brings them to his own lips instead and sucks them clean, watching your breath hitch and your eyes grow impossibly more hazy.
He lowers himself to his knees before you and his slick fingers work quickly at the straps of your heels, unbuckling them to free your pretty, white-painted toes.
Your hands find his shoulders for balance. "I like that you watch me," you tell him. "I think about it sometimes and it makes me so…god, Andrew. It gets me so wet."
He looks up at you from his knees, big brown eyes glassy and full of adoration. "Good," he says. "'Cause I'm gonna watch you a little closer tonight."
That pretty smile finds its way to your face again.
Andrew presses a sweet, chaste kiss to the apex of your thighs. Over your panties, right where he knows your clit lies beneath. He then stands to his feet, towering over you now without the added height of your heels, and presses you forward.
You take a careful step back, nearly losing your balance.
Andrew grins, taking another step, crowding you back towards your bedroom. He doesn't stop until the back of your knees hit the edge of your mattress.
You stumble backwards, falling into the plush sheets that he's all too familiar with. Lying on your back, propped up by your elbows, you stare up at him with wide eyes and he's reminded of a timid little animal caught in the trap of a predator.
Don't you know how dangerous he could be?
You don't look afraid. You actually look…eager.
Pope stands tall at the edge of your mattress. "Take off your clothes."
You do. Unclasping your bra first, tossing the fabric into the already existing mess on the floor. And then your panties follow, thumbs hooking around the fabric to drag it down your legs.
Andrew reaches around and fists the collar of his shirt, tugging it over his head. He feels warm all over, watching you greedily drink up the sight of him. He thinks he'd feel a little nervous, in any other setting. If it were anyone but you.
His sweet, filthy girl.
Andrew reaches into the half-open drawer of your nightstand, searching until he finds your vibrator again.
Your brows furrow as you watch him find it with practiced ease. "You went through my underwear drawer, too?"
"Did more than that," he admits.
You inhale like you're going to speak again, but the words melt to nothing when he tosses the small toy onto the bed beside you.
"Use it," Pope orders.
"What?"
He crawls onto the mattress between your legs, spreading them wide, laying your calves on either side of his hips. "Let me watch you."
There's a moment of hesitation, but you don't look nervous. Only…curious.
You pick up the vibrator and slide the pink silicone through your folds, spreading your arousal before you press the power button. You circle your clit with the tip of it a few times, teasing yourself.
When you turn the toy on, he can feel the vibration against his hands that grip your thighs. You let out a syrupy moan and turn the intensity higher, drawing tight circles around your pretty clit.
He watches you, eyes locked on the pink silicone between your legs. He watches your entrance flutter, tightening around nothing, begging to be filled. "Your pussy is so pretty," he mutters. "Do you know that?"
Your only response is a breathy whimper. You click the intensity up again, putting it on the highest setting, and Pope sighs when your legs begin to shake around him.
He wants to watch you make yourself cum. Wants another scene to fuck his fist to in the shower or in his bed or in his truck.
But he's here. Finally, finally here, in your bed, with you, and he can't help himself.
Pope grips your hips hard and pulls you closer, tilting your hips up into his lap. The vibrator falls from your hand at the sudden movement, but he's quick to return it to you. "Keep going."
You press the silicone back to your clit, and Andrew spreads you open with gentle thumbs. He gathers the spit in his mouth and lets it drip from his lips and onto the seam of your cunt.
And then he's sliding his middle finger inside of your entrance, curling it upwards, searching for that sweet spot that makes you writhe.
It doesn't take long. He's watched you. He knows just what you like and what angle to hit. And the second the tip of his finger presses hard against it, you fist your free hand in the sheets and curses fall from your sweet mouth.
Pope slides another thick finger inside, watching the way you squirm, feeling the walls of your cunt flutter around the swell of his knuckles.
"I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna—oh, fuck. Feels so good, feels so fucking—"
A long, throaty moan leaves your mouth, and he feels the warmth of your release pool in his palm. You're so slick that each wet thrust of his fingers echoes against the walls of your room.
He doesn't stop until you're twitching. Until you click the vibrator off and shove it away from you. And even then, he still gives a few, slow curls of his fingers inside of you. Not touching with intent, just…feeling. Memorizing.
Once you catch your breath, you lean up enough to find his eyes again. You say timidly, shyly, "I want…I want to feel you, Andrew. I want you inside me. Do you…do you want to fuck me?"
It's the most asinine question he's ever been asked in his fucking life. Does he want to fuck you?
He's thought of nothing else for months. Every night when he fights for sleep, it's the thought of you under him that puts him to bed.
It's such an impractical concern from his point of view that he laughs. Actually laughs, for the first time in years. "Oh, baby."
Pope takes your hands in his. He presses one to his chest, right over his heart, and the other against the hardness in his jeans.
"I have never wanted another woman as bad as I want you," he says truthfully. "But I…you…you deserve better than this. Better than me. You understand that, don't you?"
You shake your head. "You don't know me, Andrew. Not really. You don't know if—"
"No, no. I do. I know you're the kind of friend who would give the shirt off their back. The kind of girl who'd let her phone get cut off before asking for help. The kind of girl who gets up every morning and just…tries. Every day. And you fucking…you smile about it. You're good. You're so fucking good and I…"
He stops.
Remembers the last time he'd loved someone like this and how he'd made a stupid confession he should've taken to his grave and how it'd fucked him completely.
"You're what, Andrew?"
Pope swallows. "I'm...I'm a bad man. I've hurt people. I will…hurt people, I—" His voice cracks. He lowers his eyes, trying to turn away, unable to find the strength to face you.
But you take his jaw in your gentle hands and force him to look at you. Sweet, angel of a girl that you are. And then you say without a waver to be found in your voice, "I like who you are. Do you think I gave the man who watches me through my window my phone number because I want some guy I could match with on Tinder?"
He tries to slow the rapid pounding of his heart. He wonders if love is supposed to be like this. To feel like this. All consuming and terrifying and devastatingly hopeful above all.
You shake your head and tuck your legs beneath you, sitting up on your knees. He sits stone still as you lean forward and kiss his cheek, whispering against his ear, "I've been watching you, too, Andrew Cody."
Something shifts inside of him as you say it. Uttering his last name that he'd never given you, that isn't even on his lease because this is a fake apartment under a fake name to launder the money they steal.
Oh—sweet, smart girl. Smarter than he thought.
How silly of him to ever doubt you.
There's a newfound wildness in your eyes when they meet his again. An unveiling. Like he's seeing you for who you truly are for the first time.
And you're…god. So fucking beautiful.
And, yeah. Pope thinks he's been right this whole fucking time.
He's weird and wrong and sickly obsessed.
But you are, too.
Andrew takes you by the back of the neck and kisses you hard, desperate to taste you, to close what little physical space remains between your body and his. He pushes you back against the mattress and follows you down.
Your hands find his belt buckle before he does, and he stares down at you as your deft fingers pry the leather open and unbutton his jeans. He helps you push the denim down his legs until his cock springs free, heavy and leaking. Wanting for you, twitching as you take it carefully in your hand.
A groan reverberates at the back of his mouth. Your hands are so soft. Perfect and pliant. One day, he swears he'll show you how he likes to be touched. He'll let you sit in his lap and watch him stroke his cock for you.
But for now, he lets you touch him slowly. Experimental. Feeling the heavy weight of him in your palm. You spit on your fingertips and spread your saliva over his sensitive tip, flushed red and pulsing beneath your touch.
You lean back and guide him between your thighs, sliding the head of his cock through your syrupy folds and over your clit.
The moment you line him up at your entrance, Pope eases inside and you let out the sweetest fucking sigh he's ever heard in his entire life. Sweet and soft and so, so satisfied.
It's so beautiful. You're so beautiful. And you feel warm and heavenly and wet around him. He pulls out slowly, almost all the way, and then drives his cock back into your cunt.
You squeal and those sharp, acrylic nails dig into his spine. But your legs circle his hips, and so Pope does it again.
He fucks you hard. Claiming that spot at the back of your cunt, pressed right up against your cervix. He rolls his hips and presses his mouth to yours, swallowing up those desperate, carnal sounds he pulls out of our chest.
Sweet girl. Sweet fucking girl. He reaches between you and circles your clit. "My girl now," he says, words spoken against your lips. "You'll never need anyone else, baby. No one but me."
You nod, the velvety walls of your pussy squeezing around the hard length of his cock.
Andrew puts his whole weight on top of you, grinding himself between your thighs, giving you everything he has. Everything he is.
"I'm yours," you choke out. "I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm—"
It becomes a mantra. One that feeds his desire, in perfect sync with the rhythm of his thrusts. He watches your arousal begin to crest, nearing the summit, the muscles in your thighs twitching. "Look at me, baby," he says. "Tell me you love me when I make you cum."
You're so lost in it, head all spacey, that your eyes remain closed until he takes your jaw in a firm grip.
There are pretty tears in your eyes when you open them, but that smile on your face is present, too. He feels you pulse around him and your breath gets all shallow and then—
"I love you, Andrew, I fucking—oh my god please, please—I love you."
The words are music to his ears, tingling down his spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He thought the sound of his name in your mouth was beautiful but this…fuck. He could die.
Pope thinks he would. For you, he would.
He fucks you through it. Tastes your moans and says, "Yeah, that's it. Give it to me. Look so pretty when you cum for me."
He doesn't let his pace falter until your muscles loosen, until your nails stroke gently over his spin instead of leaving marks.
You pepper sweet kisses over his jaw, tongue sliding up the shell of his ear. "I want you to cum inside me," you tell him.
He's been fighting it the whole time, trying desperately not to blow his load before he'd at least gotten you there first.
But when you say that?
When you say, "Please, Andrew. Want you to give it to me. Want you to fill me up with your cum. Please. I need it."
He thinks about telling you that you don't have to beg. Not him, not for anything (especially this). But you just sound so pretty, begging for his cum, that he can't bring himself to do it.
So, he gives you what you want instead. Fucks his cum into you, groaning low in your ear, cock pulsing inside you. You feel so good wrapped around him it's euphoric. Otherworldly.
Your pussy grips tight, milking him dry, taking every last drop (he knows you're on birth control. Don't you know the women's clinic downtown keeps a spare key beneath the plant in front of their door?).
Andrew is careful when he slides out of you. And he wastes no time before kicking his jeans the rest of the way off and pulling you against his chest.
He pulls the blanket up around your shoulders and presses a kiss to your hairline. His voice wavers a little as he says, "Sorry if I…if I was a little rough."
You shake your head, pressing your nose to the divot between his pectorals. "It was perfect," you murmur against his skin.
Silence settles between you. Comfortable and easy, the sound of your breathing in perfect synchronization.
After some time you say, "I meant it, you know. Wouldn't have said it if I didn't. I really think I might be in love with you, Andrew. Is that…crazy?"
Yes, he wants to say.
But he feels it, too.
So instead he says, "You know, I don't…I don't have much experience with that sorta thing. Don't really know how to…to navigate it, I guess. But, uhm…yeah. Me, too."
He feels that smile of yours against his chest.
Andrew knows that this dynamic the two of you have created is weird.
He knows that.
But at least, now, he's not alone in it.
thank you for reading, i love you!
sammy's hosting some barbecue for the squad. he's elated. went all nine yards. sausage link, ribs, spare steaks. the man stuffed your fridge full with meat, and made it near impossible to get to your oat milk. you grit through your agitation, cause sammy is excited. he can't wait to show you off to his colleagues. gonna show off my pretty girl tonight. that's all he kept saying.
over the course of the afternoon, people are trickling in. sweat is warm on your brow. you've been a good host all day. you've socialized and smiled. you've shown off sweet baby nate. he can sing his abc's and one, two, threes, now. he's more than happy to show off all his newfound motor skills.
sammy's been on the grill all day. he looked so sexy. hawaiian shirt, sunglasses perched, and tongs in hand. jesus. you’re getting old. you’re into a home maker now. sammy bryant has ruined your youth, very cruel of him.
the night is slowly coming to a close. sammy's in the corner of your yard, with some of the other members of the squad. they're all getting ready to light up some cigars.
you've already put nate up to bed, given him his bath, made him brush his teeth. he hated toothbrush time, until you introduced baby nate, to an electric one that plays music. who would've guessed? row row row your boat, gets the boy eager to scrub his little teeth.
sammy's lucky to have you. him and his boy. you're coming back to the yard, from the house. your is hair tossed up, shoes long gone, toes extended into the grass. the yard cleanup is going to be a bitch tomorrow, you can see empty cans for miles. sammy calls you over.
"c'mere baby," he looks over to his boys. he's showing off his zippo lighter that you got him. it's gold, got your anniversary date scribed in it. your initials underneath the date.
you pad on over. "what's up? i put nate up for bed. he's wearing those dino jammies you got him." you got close to him. you wrap an arm around his neck, and you're inhaling the heavy smell of his cigar.
"that's real cute, hon." he smiles. he kisses your cheek. "was showing the boys the lighter you got me." you smile. "you want a hit baby?" he sucks in the tabacco. your hand strokes his chest.
you shake your head no. warm summer breeze, shifting your dress. "don't wanna get nic sick," you bat up at him. sammy reaches behind you, pinches your ass, and your body tenses up. "not nice," you whisper to him.
"i'm nice" he tells you. he blows some smoke in your face. there's chatter in the background you're not taking in. your brain is going fuzzy from the lust you have for him.
"you're kinda mean," you pout up at him teasing.
he scoffs, looking down at you, "i'm not." he presses another kiss to your cheek. you inhale his scent of burnt charcoal and macallan somewhere on his skin. you could take a bite out of him if he'd let you.
“you are too.” you smile up at him. he places a hand on your lower back. he shakes his head.
"you get all my sweetness, promise." his thumb runs upon your spine. you lean into his body, an arm wrapped around his waist. you're ready for the night to end. you want to lay next to your man and talk about all that you observed today. your ears were perked. completely. you soaked in a lot of hot gossip in-between your socializing.
murphy's wife is cheating on him. she told you this, three seltzers in. practically pulled you into her lap, to tell you all about her hushed affair. mind you, she lacked all volume control, inebriated.
murphy,himself, is actually fucking a badge bunny. but, you're pretty sure sammy told you about that before. however, you sneaked a peek at the girl. it was your fault. you were listening in on a conversation you weren't invited to. no one paid you any mind. murphy was showing off some young chick on his phone. big blue eyes, long blonde extensions. you had to walk away before your face opened a can of worms before your tipsy mouth did.
then, sherman. sherman, sherman, sherman. you were actually elated he left early. the guy gave you total skivs.
you poke sammy's stomach lightly, grabbing his attention. he's wrapped up in some conversation. cop talk. gun mags. all sounds the same to your tired brain. his eyes quickly snap to yours. "i have newsss for you tonight." you usher into his chest.
he smiles down at you, eyebrows raised. "good or bad?" he whispers into your ear.
your face wrinkles, "good for our nosy asses, so bad for everyone else." trouble is splayed all over your face.
his face lights up. your man, the gossip, he is. "alright, go inside, come back. come tell me nate's crying. i'll kick 'em out."
you chuckle, padding away. sammy slaps your ass, winking as you walk through the back door. "gonna go check on nate baby," you announce walking into the house.
it wouldn't be long before he'd be upstairs in your spilling his share of news. sammy's trained ears and eyes caught everything. he can already imagine the mess you're waiting to spill for him.
genuinely want to play wifey rn idk what's going on w me
The House by the Water
Chapter 1: Moats and Other Safe Places
Pope Cody x fem!Reader
Reader is a grad student studying child/adolescent development + counseling. Set after Baz’s death, while Pope is caring for Lena.
Summary: Pope keeps Lena at Baz’s beach house because it is quieter than Smurf’s. Quieter did not mean safe. But then you found Lena on the beach with a purple bucket, dry sand, and a castle that kept falling apart. You did not ask too many questions. You did not make grief into a spectacle. You only showed her that wet sand holds better, scallop shells make castles fancy, and sometimes things that fall can be built again. Pope does not trust you. Not yet. But Lena smiles. And Pope notices.
Warnings: grief, references to parental death, absent parent, complicated family dynamics, Smurf mention, Pope’s trauma/mental health implied, child grief, emotional hurt/comfort, slow burn
Author’s Note: This is the first chapter of a new multi-part Pope Cody x reader series, and I’m already so attached to the softness of it. This one is very much about grief, routine, and the tiny ways safety starts to form before anyone is brave enough to name it. reader is gentle, but not fragile, and Pope is… Pope. Quiet, tense, protective, emotionally overwhelmed, and absolutely not prepared for someone who keeps showing up without asking for anything in return. This will be a slow burn with angst, softness, domestic moments, Lena as the heart of everything, and, eventually, spice once the emotional tension has earned it.
Xoxo, Del
Baz’s house had too many windows. Pope noticed that first. Windows facing the water. Windows facing the sand. Windows catching every shift of light and every passing shadow, throwing movement across the floor when nothing was there. It made the place feel open in a way Pope did not like. Too exposed. Too easy to watch. Too easy to be watched.
It was supposed to be better than Smurf’s. Quieter. Safer.
That was what he had told himself when he brought Lena here with two bags of clothes, a pink backpack, and a stuffed rabbit with one cloudy plastic eye.
Safer did not mean safe. Pope was learning that.
The house still smelled like Baz in places. Not everywhere. Not enough to make sense. Just in pieces. A jacket left in the closet. A drawer in the kitchen. The couch if Pope stood too close to it for too long. He avoided the couch. Lena did not. She had sat there the first night, knees tucked under her, rabbit pressed to her chest, staring at the blank television like someone might tell her what happened next if she waited long enough.
Pope had not known what to say. He had stood in the kitchen with a glass of water in one hand and watched her small body sink into the cushions, swallowed by a house too big for both of them. “You want something to eat?” he had asked.
Lena had not looked at him. “No.”
He had made toast anyway. She had eaten half of it, dry and cold, at the counter twenty minutes later. That was three days ago. Now she was outside, close enough that Pope could see her through the sliding glass door, far enough that she might feel like he was not hovering. He was hovering. He knew that. He stood at the kitchen sink with one hand braced against the counter, eyes fixed on the strip of beach below the back deck.
Lena sat in the sand with a purple bucket between her knees and a yellow shovel clenched in one hand. At seven, she was old enough to know how to keep trying and too young to know what to do with the wanting when something fell apart. Her hair kept blowing into her face. She did not push it back. She just bent over the sand again, serious and small and quiet. Too quiet. Kids were supposed to make noise when things fell apart. Lena did not. She packed dry sand into the bucket, turned it upside down, patted the bottom with her shovel, and lifted it carefully.
The tower collapsed before the bucket was all the way off. Lena stared at the pile.
Pope’s fingers tightened against the edge of the sink. He did not move.
Lena scraped the fallen sand back toward herself and tried again. The second tower fell faster. This time, she jammed the shovel into the sand so hard the handle tilted.
Pope pushed away from the counter. Then he stopped.
A woman was walking along the beach. She was coming from the direction of the public access path, sandals dangling from one hand, a canvas tote bag hooked over her shoulder. Her hair moved in the wind around her face. She was not looking at the houses. Not at first. Her gaze was on the water, then the sand in front of her feet, then Lena. Pope went still.
The woman slowed. Not enough that most people would notice. Pope noticed. She looked at Lena, then at the house, then back to Lena again. Her eyes flicked briefly toward the deck, toward the glass doors, toward the place where Pope stood half-hidden by the reflection on the window. She knew someone was there. Good. Keep walking.
The woman did not keep walking. She stopped a few feet away from Lena, far enough that she was not crowding her, close enough that Lena could hear when she spoke. Pope could not hear her through the glass. He saw Lena’s head lift. The woman said something else. Her mouth curved, small and careful. Lena looked back at the pile of sand.
Pope was already moving. By the time he reached the back door, Lena was pointing toward the darker strip of beach near the water. The woman nodded, set her tote bag down in the dry sand, and lifted both hands slightly, as if to show Lena they were empty.
Pope slid the door open. The sound cracked across the deck. Lena looked back. The woman did too. For half a second, Pope saw her face clearly.
Pretty.
The thought came fast and unwanted, cutting through the rest of his inventory. Hands visible. Bag on the sand. No sudden movements. Soft eyes. Pretty. Pope shoved the thought down. She was a stranger near Lena. That was what mattered.
“Lena,” he called.
Lena did not look scared. That mattered too. “She’s getting wet sand,” Lena said.
Pope came down the steps from the deck, his bare feet hitting the sun-warmed wood harder than they needed to. The woman stayed where she was. Not frozen. Not nervous. Just still, like she understood that moving too quickly would not help anyone.
“Hi,” you said. Your voice was gentle.
Pope did not answer.
You glanced at Lena, then back at him. “I’m sorry,” you said. “I didn’t mean to overstep.”
“Then don’t.” The words came out flat.
Lena’s shoulders hunched. You noticed. Pope saw you notice. You did not look wounded by his tone. You did not make it about yourself. You only took half a step back from the bucket. Pope did not like that either.
“My castle keeps falling,” Lena said.
Her voice was small, but it was a voice. Pope looked at her. Lena pointed at the collapsed sand with her shovel. “She said wet sand works better.”
Pope’s gaze moved back to you.
You nodded once. “Usually,” you said. “Dry sand doesn’t stick very well.”
Pope stared at you. You did not fill the silence. Most people did. Most people got nervous around silence and started giving pieces of themselves away just to make it stop. You did not.
Lena picked up the purple bucket and held it out. “You said you could get it.”
You looked at Pope before you took the bucket. Not around him. Not through him.
At him.
As if you understood he was the door. “Only if that’s okay,” you said.
Pope should have said no. No was simple. No put the beach back the way it had been ten minutes ago. No kept strangers away from Lena, away from the house, away from everything Pope did not know how to hold. Lena stood barefoot in the sand, waiting. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Her shirt was twisted at the hem. The yellow shovel hung from her hand like it had gotten too heavy.
Pope looked at you again. You were not smiling now. You were waiting too.
“Fine,” he said.
Lena pushed the bucket into your hands. You smiled at Lena, not big. Not like you had won something. “Okay,” you said. “I’ll be right back.”
Lena watched as you walked down toward the water. Pope watched Lena. Then, because he could not help it, he watched you too. You crouched near the darker sand, scooping it into the bucket with your hand instead of taking Lena’s shovel with you. The hem of your loose white shirt lifted slightly in the wind. Your knees were sandy. You did not seem to care. Pope looked away.
When you came back, you set the bucket in front of Lena. “There,” you said. “Better sand.”
Lena peered inside. “It’s heavy.”
You nodded. “Yeah. That means it’ll hold.”
Lena looked skeptical.
You sat back on your heels. “Want me to show you one?”
Lena nodded. You reached for the bucket, then paused. “Can I?”
Lena pushed it closer. Pope’s chest tightened. He did not know why. You packed the damp sand into the bucket. Not too hard. Not too soft. You pressed around the edges with both hands, then flipped it carefully onto a flat patch of beach.
“Okay,” you said. “Moment of truth.”
Lena leaned forward. You lifted the bucket. The tower stayed. Lena’s mouth opened a little. Pope felt something sharp move under his ribs.
“There,” you said.
Lena touched the side of the tower with one finger. “It didn’t fall.”
“Not yet.”
Lena frowned.
You smiled. “Castles are bossy. You have to keep helping them.”
Lena considered that. You reached for a small shell half-buried near your knee and brushed sand from its ridges with your thumb. “Oh, this one’s good.”
Lena leaned closer. “Why?”
“It’s a scallop shell,” you said. “I like these best.”
Lena studied it. “Why?”
“They come in lots of different colors.” You held it out on your palm. “White, pink, orange, yellow, purple sometimes. And they look fancy.”
Lena’s face changed immediately. “Fancy?”
“Very fancy.”
Lena took the shell from you as if it were a treasure. “Like a princess castle?”
“Exactly like a princess castle.”
Lena pressed it carefully into the sand beside the tower. It slid a little, but stayed.
“We need more,” Lena said.
“Definitely,” you said. “A castle can’t be a little fancy. That’s not how fancy works.”
Lena looked around the beach with sudden purpose, her yellow shovel forgotten beside her knee.
Pope looked at the shell pressed into the damp sand. Scallop. Lots of colors. Fancy. He did not mean to keep the information. He did anyway.
Lena found another shell, smaller and white, and held it up. “This one?”
You tilted your head as if considering something important. “Very fancy.”
Lena placed it on the other side of the tower. Pope stayed where he was, halfway between the deck and the water, arms loose at his sides, his body still tuned for threat even though none had come.
You did not ask Lena questions. You did not ask where her mom was, or why she was out here, or if she was okay. You did not glance at Pope as if you expected him to explain the grief that sat heavy around the house.
You just helped Lena build. That should not have mattered. It did.
“My mom made castles,” Lena said suddenly.
Your hands slowed for only a second. “Yeah?”
Lena nodded, eyes on the tower. “She made them big.”
The wind moved over the beach. Pope stopped breathing.
You pressed damp sand gently along the wall. “Big castles are good.”
Lena frowned. “They fall.”
“Sometimes,” you answered.
Lena dug the shovel into the sand. “She’s gone.” Pope’s jaw locked. There it was. Gone. The word everyone kept using because the real ones were too big, too final, and too much for a seven-year-old who still asked when people were coming back.
You did not make a sad face. You did not reach for Lena. You did not tell her it was okay. You only said, softly, “I’m sorry.”
Lena pushed sand toward the base of the tower. “My dad’s gone too. He died.”
Pope’s hands curled. Your face changed then. Barely. Only enough that Pope knew you understood something painful had moved through the air. You did not ask where. You did not ask what Lena knew. You did not ask anything. “That’s a lot,” you said.
Lena shrugged with one shoulder. Then she pointed at the bucket. “Can we make another one?”
You nodded. “Yeah. We can make another one.”
Pope looked down at the sand. He did not know what to do with that. With the way Lena had dropped two missing parents into the space between them and the way you had not tried to pick the pieces up wrong. With the way you had let it be simple. Bad, but simple. Sad, but not a show. You filled the bucket again. Lena patted the bottom this time, copying the way you had. Pope noticed that you noticed. You did not praise too much. You did not make Lena perform happiness for you. You just said, “Good. Like that.”
Lena’s shoulders loosened. Pope hated that he saw it. He hated more that he was grateful for it. The second tower held.
Lena looked up at him. “Uncle Pope, look.”
He looked. “I see.”
“It worked.”
He nodded once. “Yeah.”
Lena smiled. Not a big one. Not the kind of smile kids gave when they forgot to be sad. Just a small one, quick as a match strike. Pope felt it burn anyway. You looked over at him. Pope looked back. For one strange second, neither of you said anything. Up close, you looked younger than he had first thought. There was sand on one of your knees and a thin silver ring on your thumb. Your tote bag had a book sticking out of the top, thick and marked with colored tabs.
You looked away first. Good. Pope looked toward the house. Better.
Lena was already filling the bucket again. “What’s your name?” Lena asked.
You smiled and gave it. Pope heard it and immediately told himself he did not need to remember. He remembered anyway.
Lena repeated it, testing the shape. “That’s pretty.”
“Thank you.”
“My name’s Lena.”
“I know,” you said, then quickly added, “He said it.”
You nodded toward Pope. Pope watched you carefully. You had corrected yourself before Lena could wonder how you knew. Before the moment could feel strange.
Good instincts. Too good.
“What were you reading?” Lena asked, pointing her shovel toward the tote.
You glanced at your bag. “Something for school.”
Lena tilted her head. “You go to school?”
You nodded. “I do.”
“But you’re big,” Lena replied.
You laughed softly. “Big people still have homework.”
Lena made a face. “That’s bad.”
“It’s very rude,” you agreed.
Lena seemed to like that.
Pope did not. Or he did. He could not tell, and that irritated him.
“School?” he asked.
You looked at him again. “Grad school.”
“For what?” The question came out more like an interrogation than a conversation.
You did not flinch. “To be a therapist,” you said. “Mostly with kids and teenagers. Child and adolescent development.”
Pope felt his body harden around the words. Therapist. Kids. People with soft voices and bright offices and questions that sounded harmless until they opened something.
“She doesn’t need that,” he said.
Your expression did not change much. “Okay.”
That was all. Pope waited for more. There was no more. No argument. No pity. No professional concern dressed up as casual interest. You just turned back to Lena, who was trying to press another shell into the side of the tower.
“That might make it fall,” you said.
Lena froze. You tapped the sand beside the tower. “Maybe here instead?”
Lena moved the shell. The tower stayed. Pope looked at your hands in the sand. Then at Lena’s face. Then at the house behind them. Baz’s house. Too many windows. Too much light. Too much gone. After a while, you brushed sand from your palms and shifted back on your heels.
“I should keep walking,” you said.
Lena’s head came up fast. “Why?”
“Because I have homework.”
Lena frowned. “You said it was rude.”
You nodded. “It is. But I still have to do it.”
Lena looked at Pope, then back at you. “Are you coming back tomorrow?”
You did not answer right away. You looked at Pope. Again. Like it mattered what he said. Like Lena’s wanting did not erase his yes or no. Pope hated how much he noticed that.
“I walk most afternoons,” you said carefully. “If it’s okay, I can stop again tomorrow.”
Lena turned toward him. Pope felt the trap of it. Not one you had set. Not one Lena meant to make. Just the impossible weight of being the person who had to decide whether good things were allowed near them. No was safer. No was smarter. No kept the line clean. Lena held the yellow shovel against her chest and waited. Pope’s eyes moved to the two small towers standing in the sand. Then to your face. You looked calm. Not hopeful in a way that asked something from him. Just willing.
“Fine,” he said.
Lena brightened. “Tomorrow we can make a big one.”
You smiled at her. “Then we’ll need a lot of wet sand.”
Lena held up her bucket. “I have a bucket.”
“That’s a good start,” you said with an approving nod.
You stood, picking up your tote bag and sandals. Sand clung to the side of your calf. The wind pushed your hair across your mouth, and you tucked it back without thinking.
Pope noticed. Then he looked away.
“Bye, Lena,” you said softly.
She waved her shovel. “Bye.”
You glanced at Pope. “Bye.”
He nodded once.
That was all he gave you. You started down the beach, back toward the public path, your feet leaving soft marks in the damp sand. Lena watched you go. Pope watched Lena. Then, after a second, he watched you again.
You did not look back.
Good.
He stayed where he was until you reached the bend. Lena crouched beside the castle again, pressing both hands carefully around the base of the first tower.
“She’s nice,” she said.
Pope looked down at her. “You don’t know her.”
Lena shrugged. “I know.” She kept building. A minute later, she picked up another shell and pushed it into the sand beside the tower. “It needs more fancy,” she said.
Pope looked at the two crooked towers, one scallop shell pressed into the side like a crooked jewel. “Yeah?”
Lena nodded seriously. “She said.”
Pope looked down the beach, where you had already disappeared around the bend. “Then find more shells.”
Lena did. Pope looked at the house. For once, the windows were only windows. Behind him, Lena hummed under her breath as she worked, a quiet tuneless sound that had not been in the house all week. Pope told himself he should have said no. He stayed outside until the castle had five shells anyway.
Lena started watching the beach as soon as she got home from school the next day.
She came through the front door with her backpack still hanging from one shoulder and her purple bucket already in her hand.
Pope looked at the bucket. “No,” he said.
Lena stopped halfway between the door and the hallway. “I didn’t ask yet,” she said.
Pope held out his hand. “You were going to.”
Lena’s mouth tightened, but she did not move closer. “She said she would stop again,” Lena said.
Pope looked toward the sliding glass door before he could stop himself. The beach was empty.
He looked back at her. “Maybe today.”
Lena shifted the bucket against her hip. “She said she would,” she said.
Pope nodded once. “She did.”
Lena glanced toward the beach again. “So she’ll come today.”
Pope let the silence sit for a second.
Then he nodded toward the hallway. “Backpack first.”
Lena sighed like he had asked for something deeply unreasonable. “Uncle Pope.”
Pope did not move. “Backpack,” he said again.
Lena stared at him. He stared back. Finally, she turned and dragged herself down the hall like the backpack had doubled in weight. Pope watched until she disappeared into her bedroom. Then he looked down at the sneaker Lena had kicked off. It was crooked. He moved it half an inch with his foot until it sat straight beside the other one.
Then he wiped his hand over the kitchen counter even though it was already clean. Once. Twice. On the third pass, he stopped himself.
Lena came back with the bucket still in her hand.
Pope glanced at it, then at her. “Snack first.”
Lena’s face fell. “I’m not hungry,” she said.
Pope reached for the lunchbox she had left on the counter. “You ate half your lunch.”
Lena frowned as he opened it. “How do you know?”
Pope held up the wrapped half of her sandwich. “You brought half of it home.”
Lena crossed her arms. “That’s private.”
Pope looked at the sandwich, then back at her. “It’s a sandwich.”
Lena’s eyes narrowed. “It’s my sandwich.”
Pope set the lunchbox down. “You didn’t eat it.”
Lena wrinkled her nose. “It got soggy.”
Pope opened the pantry and took out the crackers. “Crackers, then.”
Lena looked past him toward the sliding glass doors. Pope saw it. The quick flick of her eyes to the sand. To the shoreline. To the stretch of beach that led to the public access path.
He did not call her on it.
He put crackers and a sliced apple on a plate and set it at the counter. “Eat.”
Lena climbed onto the stool and picked up a cracker. She took one bite. Then she looked at the beach. Pope stayed by the counter. Lena took another bite. Then she looked at the beach again.
Pope crossed his arms. “Watching doesn’t make her get here faster.”
Lena looked at him over her shoulder. “I know.”
She turned back to the glass. “I’m just seeing.”
Pope looked at the back of her head. Lena sat very still on the stool, one cracker held between both hands, her eyes fixed on the strip of beach beyond the glass.
“She might not come today,” Pope said.
Lena’s shoulders dropped a little. “I know,” she said.
Pope did not think she did. Not really. He wiped his thumb along the edge of the counter, catching a crumb that was not there.
“Stopping yesterday doesn’t mean she has to stop every day,” he said.
Lena looked down at her cracker.
“I know,” she said.
Pope kept his voice low. “She might have other stuff.”
Lena nodded without looking up. “Like homework,” she said.
Pope nodded. “Yeah.”
Lena set the broken cracker on the plate. “Or class.”
Pope looked out at the empty beach. “Yeah.”
Lena’s voice got smaller. “Or maybe she walks somewhere else.”
Pope’s jaw tightened. He hated that she had thought of that. He hated more that he was relieved she had. “Maybe,” he said.
Lena looked up again. “But maybe she’ll be here.” Pope looked through the glass. The beach was still empty. “Maybe,” he said.
Lena finished enough of the snack that Pope let her call it done. He checked the latch on the sliding door before he opened it, then checked the beach before he let her step outside. Lena carried her bucket down the steps and crossed the dry sand to the remains of yesterday’s castle. It was mostly gone. The towers had softened into lumps. The moat had filled in. Three shells remained where she had pressed them, half-buried and crooked. The scallop shell was still there, pale against the darker, damp sand, tilted on its side like it had tried to stay.
Lena stopped in front of it. Pope stopped behind her.
“It fell,” she said.
Pope looked down at the collapsed sand. “Yeah.”
Lena crouched and touched the edge of the old moat. “We worked hard on it.”
“I know.”
Lena nudged the fallen wall with one finger. “That’s annoying.”
Pope looked at the back of her head. “Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
Lena glanced up at him like she had not expected him to agree.
Then she picked up the scallop shell and brushed sand from its ridges. “It needs better walls today.”
Pope crossed his arms. “Then build better walls.”
Lena looked toward the public access path. Pope did not. Not right away. He told himself he was watching the water. The line of houses. The beach behind them. The places threats could come from.
Then Lena went still. “She came back,” Lena said.
Pope’s body knew before he let himself look. You were walking along the waterline with your sandals in one hand and your tote bag against your side. The wind pushed your hair across your cheek. Your jeans were cuffed at the ankle, your feet bare in the damp sand.
You lifted your free hand when you saw Lena. Lena stood quickly. Pope’s arm moved out before he thought about it, not stopping her, just reminding.
Lena glanced at him. “I know,” she said. “I won’t run.”
Pope lowered his arm. Lena walked fast anyway, bucket bumping against her leg. You slowed when she came toward you. Pope noticed that too. You did not hurry to close the distance. You did not make her excitement bigger than it was. You stopped in the sand and let her come the rest of the way.
“Hi, Lena,” you said.
Lena stopped in front of you. “You came back.”
You smiled at her. “I did.”
Lena shifted her bucket against her leg. “You said you would.”
“I did say that.”
Lena nodded once, like you had passed a test she had not told you about. Pope stopped a few feet behind her.
Your eyes flicked to him. “Hi,” you said.
Pope nodded once.
You looked back at Lena. “I found something while I was walking.”
Pope’s shoulders tightened. You noticed. You did not step closer. You only opened your palm. “Just a shell.”
Lena leaned in. In your hand was a small, ridged shell, darker than the ones Lena had found yesterday. Blue-gray, almost purple near the edge, with sand caught in the grooves.
“I thought it might look cool on the castle,” you said.
Lena’s eyes widened. “It’s blue.”
You looked down at the shell. “Kind of blue,” you said. “Maybe storm-cloud blue.”
Lena reached for it, then stopped. She looked back at Pope. “Can I?”
Pope stared at the shell in your palm. A shell. That was all. Small. Blue-gray. Harmless. Still, something in him tightened at the fact that you had seen it and thought of Lena after you left.
“Yeah,” he said.
Lena took the shell carefully. “This one goes in front.”
You nodded. “Good spot.”
Lena held the shell with both hands. “It’s the important shell.”
Your smile softened. “Then definitely the front.”
Pope looked away. Lena hurried back to the fallen castle, and you followed at an easy pace. You set your tote bag in the dry sand near the edge of the deck steps and knelt beside her.
The castle had fallen.
You looked at it, then at Lena. “Well,” you said.
Lena frowned at the sand. “Well, what?”
You tilted your head. “It looks like the beach had opinions overnight.”
Lena stared at the collapsed towers. “Mean opinions.”
You nodded. “Very mean opinions.”
Pope looked at you. You did not rush to make it better. That was the thing. You did not tell Lena it was okay. You did not tell her it did not matter. You did not say, We can build another one, like that erased the fact that the first one was gone. You just sat in the sand beside her and let it be annoying.
Lena dug her shovel into the wreckage. “We need better walls.”
You reached for the bucket. “Definitely.”
Lena pointed at the old moat. “And a bigger moat.”
“Smart,” you said.
Lena held up the blue-gray shell. “And this in front.”
“Obviously,” you said.
Lena looked pleased by that. Pope should have gone back inside. He did not.
You reached for the purple bucket, then paused. “Wet sand?”
Lena nodded. “I can’t go by the water.”
You looked at her. “I remember.”
Then you looked at Pope. Not asking Lena to convince him. Not making him the bad guy. Just looking.
Pope exhaled through his nose. “Fine.”
You took the bucket from Lena. “I’ll be right back.”
Lena watched you walk down toward the water. Pope watched Lena. Then he watched you. The wind moved your hair away from your neck when you crouched by the wet sand. Your sleeves were pushed up. There was a loose thread hanging from the hem of your shirt. The sun caught the side of your face when you turned slightly, and the same unwanted thought from yesterday came back.
Pretty.
Still inconvenient.
Still not the point.
He looked toward the public access path instead.
When you returned, you set the bucket between you and Lena. “There,” you said. “Better wall sand.”
Lena peered into the bucket. “It looks the same.”
You sat back on your heels. “It’s sneakier.”
Lena looked at you, suspicious and interested. “Sneaky sand?”
You nodded seriously. “Very sneaky. Holds better than it looks.”
Lena considered that. Then she started packing the bucket. You watched without taking over. Pope watched you watch. Lena pressed too hard, and some of the sand squeezed over the edge.
You did not correct her right away. You waited until she frowned at it herself.
Lena scraped some of the sand off the top. “Too much?” she asked.
You leaned in a little. “Maybe a little.”
Lena scraped off more. “Like that?”
“Yeah,” you said. “Like that.”
Lena flipped the bucket onto the flattest part of the sand and lifted it carefully. The tower held. The blue-gray shell went in front. Pope looked at it. The important shell. Storm-cloud blue.
Lena reached for another shell from her bucket and pressed it beside the tower.
You picked up a stick and started drawing the moat line around the castle. “How big?” you asked.
Lena pointed around the tower. “Big.”
You made the circle wider. “Like this?”
Lena shook her head. “Bigger.”
You widened it again. “This?”
Lena’s mouth twitched. “Bigger.”
You looked at her. Lena looked back at you, trying not to smile. “That big,” she decided.
You nodded as if this were a serious architectural decision. “Excellent moat planning.”
Lena looked down the beach. “Why do you walk here every day?”
You kept dragging the stick through the sand. “I like to walk after class.”
Lena rested her shovel across her knees. “Why?”
You glanced at the water. “It helps my brain slow down.”
Lena considered that. “My brain is fast after school.”
You smiled at her. “Mine too.”
Pope looked at you before he could stop himself. “What classes?”
The question was out before he decided to ask it.
You glanced up. “What?”
Pope’s jaw tightened. “You said after class.”
“Oh.” You brushed sand from your palm, leaving a streak across your jeans. “Child and Adolescent Development,” you said. “Counseling Skills. And Play Therapy.”
Lena looked up immediately. “Playing has homework?”
Your face changed. Not dramatically. Not enough that most people would have noticed. Pope noticed. Your eyes lit up, bright and warm, like Lena had asked exactly the right question.
“Kind of,” you said. “It’s about how kids use play to figure things out when words are hard.”
Lena looked at the castle. “Like building?”
You smiled. “Sometimes, yeah.”
Lena pressed the blue-gray shell deeper into the sand. “Then I’m good at your homework.”
Your smile got bigger. “You’re excellent at my homework.”
Pope looked away too late. He hated that he had asked. He hated that you had answered. He hated that it did something to him, seeing the way you talked about it, as if it were not something you had chosen because it sounded nice or made you look good. Like you actually cared about the work of it. The sand. The questions. The bridge of shells Lena was lining up with complete concentration.
Pretty had been easier to shove down.
This was worse.
This had roots.
Lena picked up a broken white shell and handed it to you. “Is this one good?”
You studied it seriously. “For the bridge or the wall?”
Lena pointed to the moat. “Bridge.”
You nodded. “Then yes.”
Lena placed it in the moat. Pope stood with his arms crossed, watching the beach behind you more than the castle.
Lena glanced up at him. “He always does that.”
You looked over at Lena. “Does what?”
Lena nodded toward Pope. “Looks like that.”
Pope’s jaw tightened. “Lena.”
Lena shrugged, completely unbothered. “What? You do.”
You glanced at him then. Not for too long. Not like you were trying to figure him out. Just enough to see him.
“He’s watching,” you said.
Lena dug her shovel into the sand. “Some people think Uncle Pope is scary when he watches.”
Pope’s stomach went tight. You did not look away from him quickly. You did not look too long either.
“Maybe they don’t know him very well,” you said.
Lena considered that. “Maybe.”
Pope looked toward the water. He hated that you had said it like it was simple. He hated that you had not sounded like you were trying to be brave.
He hated that you were wrong.
Or that you might not be.
The castle grew slowly. Three towers. One wide moat. A shell bridge. The storm-cloud shell in the front, important because Lena said it was important. The wind kept catching your hair. You kept pushing it back with the back of your wrist because your fingers were sandy. Once, Lena leaned over and dropped a shell into your palm without looking. You took it like you knew exactly what she meant. Pope watched the two of you build something that would not last and tried not to think about why that bothered him.
After a while, the sun started to lower.
You noticed before Lena did. Your hand paused in the sand, and you glanced at the water, then toward the path.
Lena caught it immediately. “You have to go?”
You looked back at her. “Soon.”
Lena frowned. “Because of your rude homework?”
Your mouth curved. “Because of my very rude homework.”
Lena looked down at the castle. The blue-gray shell sat at the front, tucked carefully into the damp sand. “Uncle Pope?”
Pope looked at her. “What?”
Lena did not look away from the castle. “Can she stop tomorrow, too?”
Pope’s eyes moved to you before he could stop them. You had gone still. Not tense. Not expectant.
Just careful.
Like you knew the question belonged to him before it belonged to you. Pope hated that he noticed.
He looked back at Lena. “If she wants.”
Lena turned to you immediately. “Do you want?”
Your face softened. “Yeah,” you said. “I can stop tomorrow.”
Lena nodded, satisfied. “Good. We need a yellow shell.”
You took the statement seriously. “Yellow shells are tricky.”
Lena picked up her shovel. “You can look.”
You nodded. “I can look.”
Lena pointed at the castle. “And if this falls, we make it stronger.”
You smiled. “Deal.”
You stood and brushed sand from your knees. Your tote bag slid onto your shoulder, the book inside heavy enough to pull the strap down. Lena stayed kneeling beside the castle, pressing one more shell into the bridge. “Bye,” you said.
Lena waved without looking up. “Bye.”
You glanced at Pope. “Bye.”
He nodded. Again, that was all.
You turned toward the public access path and started walking, sandals dangling from one hand, your feet leaving marks in the damp sand. Pope watched Lena watch you go. Then, because he was getting worse at lying to himself, he watched you, too. You did not look back. He told himself that was good.
Lena pressed more sand around the base of the blue shell.
“She’ll look,” Lena said.
Pope looked down at her. “What?”
“For a yellow one,” Lena replied.
“She said she would.”
Lena nodded. “Yeah.” She sounded satisfied by that. Like saying it made it almost solid. Pope looked out at the water. He did not trust promises. But this had not sounded like one. It had sounded smaller than that. A shell, if you found one. A walk after class. A maybe.
Somehow, that felt worse.
Lena stood and picked up her bucket, leaving the blue shell in place. “That one stays,” she said.
Pope looked at it. “Okay.”
Lena pointed at the shell. “It’s important.”
“I heard.”
Lena looked toward the water. “If the water takes it, we can find another one.”
Pope did not answer. Lena started back toward the house, bucket swinging lightly from one hand. Pope followed behind her, scanning the beach once before he went up the deck steps.
You were already gone.
Still, the house felt different when he opened the door. Not safe. Not warm. Not yet. Just less empty.
Pope did not like that he knew you were the reason.
By the third afternoon, Lena had a plan.
She told Pope before her backpack was all the way off. “We need a yellow shell,” Lena said.
Pope stood by the front door and held out his hand. “Backpack first.”
Lena paused with one arm halfway out of the strap. “I know.”
She said it as if she did know. Like the rule had become part of the order of things now. Backpack first. Snack. Beach. Maybe you.
Pope did not like that last part. He watched Lena carry her backpack down the hall. She moved faster than she had the day before, but she still put it in her room without being told twice. Pope looked toward the sliding glass door. The beach was empty. He checked the lock, even though he had checked it ten minutes ago. Then he checked the window beside it. Then the stretch of beach below the deck. Public path. Waterline. Neighbor’s deck. No one close. No you.
Pope’s jaw tightened.
He did not like that your absence came to him separately.
Lena came back with her purple bucket.
Pope stepped back from the door. “Snack,” he said.
Lena stopped in front of him. “I ate my lunch today.”
Pope looked at her. “All of it?”
Lena lifted her chin. “Almost all.”
Pope waited.
Lena’s mouth twisted. “Most.”
He held out his hand. “Lunchbox.”
Lena huffed, but she handed it over. Pope opened it. One crust sat in the corner. Two carrot sticks. Nothing else.
He looked back at her. “That’s better.”
Lena’s face brightened. “So beach?”
“Apple first.”
Her face fell again. “Uncle Pope.”
“Apple.”
Lena dragged herself to the counter and climbed onto the stool. Pope cut the apple into slices. He put them on a plate and pushed it toward her. Lena took one slice. She looked through the glass.
Pope stayed at the counter. “She might not come today,” he said.
Lena took a bite. “I know.”
Pope watched her chew. “She might have class.”
Lena nodded. “Or homework.”
“Yeah.”
Lena looked at the beach again. “Or maybe she didn’t find a yellow shell.”
Pope wiped the knife clean and set it in the drying rack. “Maybe.”
Lena looked back at him. “But she said she would look.”
Pope did not answer right away. You had said that. “She said she would look,” Pope said.
Lena seemed satisfied by that. She ate three apple slices, then pushed the plate toward him. “Done.”
Pope looked at the plate. “Two more.”
Lena stared at him. He stared back. She ate two more. Then Pope let her go outside. The castle from yesterday was gone differently this time. Not flattened. Changed. The blue-gray shell was still there, half-buried near the front. The moat had softened into a shallow curve. One wall stood in a lopsided clump, held together by nothing Pope could see.
Lena crouched in front of it. “The important shell stayed,” she said.
Pope stopped behind her. “Yeah.”
Lena brushed sand away from it with two careful fingers. “That means it’s strong.”
Pope looked at the shell. “It’s a shell.”
Lena glanced up at him. “It stayed.”
Pope did not argue with that.
Lena set her bucket down and started collecting what was left. She put the blue-gray shell inside first, then the scallop shell from the first day, then a white one with a chipped edge.
Pope scanned the beach. Public path. Waterline. Neighbor’s deck. No one close.
Still no you.
Lena started digging near the old moat. “We can start before she gets here,” she said.
Pope looked down at her. “If she gets here.”
Lena paused. Then she nodded. “If.” She went back to digging.
Pope stood beside her, arms crossed, and watched the public path. For safety. That was true.
It was not the whole truth.
A few minutes later, Lena’s head lifted.
Pope heard your footsteps in the damp sand before Lena spoke.
“She came,” Lena said.
He looked.
You were walking along the waterline with your sandals in one hand and your tote bag against your hip. The wind was stronger today. It pulled at your shirt and pushed your hair across your face. You lifted one hand when you saw Lena.
Lena stood.
You slowed as Lena came closer. “Hi, Lena,” you said.
Lena stopped in front of you. “Did you find one?”
You opened your palm. Pope saw the shell before Lena did.
It was small and pale, with one thin stripe near the edge. Not yellow exactly. Almost.
“I looked,” you said.
Lena leaned closer. “That’s not yellow.”
“No,” you said. “It’s not.”
Lena’s face fell a little. You tipped your palm so she could see the stripe. “But this one tried.”
Lena frowned at it. “It’s barely yellow.”
“I know.” You looked down at the shell, serious. “It’s doing its best.”
Lena considered that. Then she took the shell from your palm. “It can go by the door.”
You nodded. “Good spot.”
Pope watched Lena hold the almost-yellow shell with both hands. You had not lied. You had not made it better than it was. You had looked, not found the thing she wanted, and come back anyway. Pope did not know why that mattered. It did.
Your eyes moved to him. “Hi,” you said.
Pope nodded once. “Hey.”
The word felt rough. Too much. Not enough.
You did not seem bothered by either.
Lena hurried back to the castle ruins, and you followed her. Pope stayed where he was for half a second too long before he followed. The castle started with the important shell. Lena placed the blue-gray one at the front of the flat patch of sand and set the almost-yellow shell beside it.
“This is the door,” Lena said.
You knelt beside her. “Then it needs strong walls.”
Lena nodded. “Really strong.”
You reached for the bucket. “Wet sand?”
Lena glanced toward the water. “I can’t.”
“I know,” you said.
You stood and carried the bucket down to the waterline. Pope watched you go. You crouched, filled the bucket, and carried it back with both hands. The sand was heavy enough that your arms shifted around the weight.
You set it beside Lena. “There.”
Lena started packing the first tower. It held. Then the second. Then Lena decided the wall needed to be thicker. You picked up the bucket again. Pope watched you walk back to the water. You filled it. Carried it back. Set it down. Lena used half of it in less than three minutes.
“The wall needs more,” Lena said.
You reached for the bucket again.
Pope moved before you stood. “I’ll do it,” he said.
You paused with one hand on the handle. “Oh,” you said. “That’s okay.”
Pope held out his hand. “You keep going back.”
You looked at him for a second. Then you gave him the bucket. “Thank you.”
Pope took it. “Yeah.”
He walked toward the water before you could say anything else. Pope crouched near the waterline and packed it with dark, wet sand. More than you had been bringing. Enough that the handle dug into his palm when he stood.
He carried it back and set it beside Lena. “There.”
Lena peered inside. “That’s a lot.”
Pope glanced at the bucket. “You need walls.”
Lena nodded as if that made perfect sense. “Strong walls.”
“Then use that.”
You looked up at him. Not amused. Not teasing. Just warm around the edges.
“Thank you,” you said.
Pope’s fingers flexed once at his side. “It’s sand.”
You nodded. “Still.”
Pope looked away. Lena packed the heavier sand into the bucket and pressed both palms around the edges. Pope watched her hands. She was careful. More careful than yesterday.
You noticed too, but you did not say much.
“Like that?” Lena asked.
You leaned a little closer. “Yeah,” you said. “That looks good.”
Lena flipped the bucket. The tower held. Pope looked at it. Better wall sand. That was all.
You had needed sand. He had gotten it. That was the task.
The castle grew wider. Not prettier, exactly. Stronger. Lena built low walls and pressed shells along the top. You dug the moat with a stick. Pope stood closer than he had the day before because the extra bucket was near his foot, and moving away would mean stepping around it.
That was the reason. He kept it.
Lena looked up after a while. “How do you know so much about castles?”
You sat back on your heels. “I used to make them when I was little.”
Lena studied your face. “Were yours good?”
You smiled a little. “Sometimes.”
Lena looked suspicious. “That means no.”
You laughed softly.
Pope looked at you before he could stop himself. The sound was quiet. Easy. It did not ask anything from him.
You reached for another shell and handed it to Lena. “I was better at finding shells,” you said.
Lena accepted the shell. “Because you like scallop shells.”
“I do.”
“Because they’re colorful,” Lena added.
You nodded once. “Exactly.”
Lena placed the shell carefully along the wall. For a while, there was only the sound of water moving in and out, Lena’s shovel scraping through sand, and your voice when you answered whatever question Lena gave you. Then Lena pressed the almost-yellow shell beside the door again.
“A girl at school asked why my dad doesn’t pick me up anymore,” Lena said.
Pope’s body went hard.
You kept your hand in the sand. “What did you say?”
Lena shrugged. “I said he died.”
You nodded once. “That’s okay to say.”
Lena picked up a white shell, then set it down again. “She got weird.”
“Sometimes people don’t know what to say,” you said.
Lena frowned at the castle. “I don’t either.”
You smoothed sand along the wall.
“You can say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’”
Lena looked up. “To kids?”
“To kids,” you said.
Lena looked back down at the shell in her hand. “Oh.”
You kept your voice simple. “And grown-ups too.”
Pope’s jaw tightened.
Lena looked at you again. “Even teachers?”
You nodded. “Even teachers.”
Lena thought about that for a second. Then she pressed the white shell into the wall. “Okay.”
Pope stared at the water until the tightness in his chest moved somewhere else. Not gone.
Just somewhere he could stand.
Your hand moved in the sand again. Lena followed. The castle kept becoming a castle.
Pope’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He knew who it was before he looked. His body knew.
His hand went to the phone anyway. Smurf. The name sat on the screen, bright and clean and ugly.
Pope did not answer.
The phone buzzed again.
Lena looked up. “Is that Grandma Smurf?”
Pope locked the screen. “Build the wall.”
Lena looked at the phone, then at him. “Do you have to go?”
“No.” His answer came too fast.
You noticed. Pope saw you notice. You did not ask. You looked back at the castle and handed Lena another shell.
“This one could go on the corner,” you said.
Lena took it. “Corners are important.”
“They are.”
Pope stood with the phone heavy in his pocket and the beach open on all sides. The phone buzzed again. He ignored it again.
For now.
The sun had started to lower by the time you brushed sand from your hands.
Lena noticed immediately. “You have rude homework?”
You looked at her. “Very rude homework.”
Lena sighed. “Tomorrow we still need a real yellow shell.”
You smiled. “I’ll keep looking.”
Lena looked at Pope. He knew the shape of the question before she asked it.
“Uncle Pope?”
Pope looked down at her. “What?”
Lena’s hand rested on the wall they had built. “Can she stop tomorrow?”
Pope’s eyes moved to you.
You had gone careful again. Not pushing. Not assuming. Waiting for his answer because it was his answer to give.
He looked back at Lena. “If she wants.”
Lena turned to you.
Your face softened. “I can stop tomorrow,” you said.
Lena nodded like the schedule had been settled. “Good.”
You stood and picked up your tote bag. Pope watched the strap slide onto your shoulder.
You looked at Lena. “Bye, Lena.”
Lena lifted one sandy hand. “Bye.”
You looked at Pope next. “Bye.”
Pope nodded once. “Bye.”
You turned and started down the beach toward the public access path.
Pope watched Lena watch you go.
Then he looked at the phone in his pocket.
It buzzed again. Smurf.
Pope looked at Lena. She was crouched in front of the castle with sand on her knees, the almost-yellow shell pressed beside the door, her shoulders looser than they had been when she came home from school.
Then he looked down the beach, where you were walking away.
For the first time, the thought came clear enough to scare him.
If he had to go, Lena would want you to stay.
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this specific frame of pope …. he’s so big, so fucking big. my scary boyfriend. my guard dog. woof !!!!
before we have sex can you reassure me i’m the most precious thing you’ve ever seen and repeat it a thousand times please
Does anyone know what to do
sunshine glittering on the ocean
Andrew 'Pope' Cody || Stages of Grief (Playlist)
This is very loosely based on the 5 stages of grief.
📺 • Animal Kingdom [2016-2022] 🎵 • The Maine - I Only Wanna Talk to You | You Me At Six - Bite My Tongue ft. Oli Sykes | Linkin Park - Leave Out All the Rest | Bring Me The Horizon - Hospital for Souls | twenty one pilots - Neon Gravestones
john price
