stumbled across all your tangerine x reader fics and genuinely cannot get enough 😭 I love the way you write him and I love the dynamics as well. genuinely you’ve got a knack for writing mate. just wanted to say that 🩷
— cheeky anon 😋
OOOOH
thank you so muchhhhh
my tangerine fics getting love?? in this economy??
vamp Nate holy shit😭😭 I don't even know how your fics continue to get better, I already thought your older works were peak literature.. are you planning to do any other vampire fics? Like Finnick perchance...?
Desc. : Couples that plot murder together stay together.
You do NOT have permission to repost and/or translate any of my fics.
The package had been tiny, actually, and surprisingly unassuming. Just there. The purple box was a light purple, oddly muted for something that came from the Capitol, with an elegant silver ribbon tied onto it, under which was tucked a note : Finnick Odair. Writing, not print. He undid the ribbon, turning the note over in his hand. Nothing on the back.
Then, he'd uncovered the box.
Three tiny glass boxes, each with a single chocolate in them. Huh. Okay, weird that this came separate from all the other confectionery presents he'd received after his Games, but he'd not thought much of it.
The chocolates had been slightly enormous — at least, bigger than any he'd ever seen before — and each had a label stuck neatly to it. First : District, then Capitol, and finally, Avox.
He'd thought that was a little weird. He'd heard of chocolates being categorised by type — dark, milk, white — and by flavour — nougat, caramel, and his personal favourite, sea-salt — and hell, even District — don't tell his District, but he personally liked District 8's shit. But he'd never before heard of them being categorised by makers.
He'd decided he could get on board with that. Identifying the crafters would also humanize them. He figured that the people who are involved in making half the shit people in Panem eat on a daily basis aren't acknowledged nearly enough as they should be.
So, he decided he'd try these out.
He'd started with the Capitol one, to get that shit over with.
Only thing he remembers is that it had been disgustingly bitter, like someone had ground cigarette ash into hard liquor and then decided to add some juice in, because why the fuck not? He'd spluttered and gagged and spit half of it out. Still, the back of his tongue had tinged a bit, as though reaching desperately for more — for something magnetic within the chocolate that was buried deep under layers and layers of sugar and what he figured was sherry.
Then came the Avox-chocolate.
He'd only ever met an Avox once before this incident, and it had been to escort him onto the train for his Victory Tour. That had been it. He'd never seen another Avox again, and had been... guiltily glad. It made him uncomfortable, the sight of them, tongueless and permanently silenced. Briefly, he wondered if they could taste-test their own chocolates, without tongues. But he threw that thought away quick enough that he didn't need to picture it. The Avox chocolate was better than the Capitol one, that's for sure, but it still contained a sort of lingering note of darkness, some sort of melancholy, though he wasn't sure when he'd become such a chocolate connoisseur.
Finally, best for last? District. High hopes for this one.
And it didn't disappoint. The magnetic twang was there, as with the Capitol and the Avox chocolates, but it was much stronger, sweeter, more decadent, this one. Felt truer. More familiar. Like the classic chocolate he'd grown up with, not the Capitol's bullshit gourmet shit.
He reached his tongue back to his molars to pick at any lingering pieces of chocolate as he looked into the box once more — oh. A little card he'd missed.
He scraped it up, tilting his head to read its tiny script. "To filter out your tastes. Enjoy immortality."
Signed President Snow.
It had taken him a minute, however. This card did have something on the back. "In order to receive your desired type of blood, contact the following. They will arrive in vials, canisters, or bottles, depending on your preferences."
Blood?
Finnick had dropped the card and the box, and the half-eaten "District" chocolate onto the couch before sprinting his way across the house to the bathroom, sticking his fingers down his throat immediately. He'd retched and grunted and groaned, but nothing had come out, and he'd had a nasty feeling that that was also somehow made possible by Snow.
Sobbing on the floor, the fourteen-year old version of him had clung onto the rim of the toilet seat, taking heavy gasps in between his sobs. He'd consumed blood. Human blood. And what's worse? He'd liked it. Even the disgusting Capitol shit, he'd liked it, whatever magnetic allure that was.
Then, he sorrowfully walked back to the living room, shakily scraping the note off the floor so he could read it in its entirety.
And the situation made heaps of sense, now.
Apparently, he'd actually flatlined right after his Games — a little before his Victory Tour, and Snow couldn't have that. So, as a last resort, he was gifted life and homicidal tendencies.
It's been eight years.
He's been a bloodsucker for eight years.
He thought he'd found a way to cope.
Finnick's not proud of it, not by any means, but yes, he's found a way to cope with the bloodlust that his conscience won't make him regurgitate. Planning murders.
He didn't choose to become a bloodsucker, but it's got its pros and cons.
Con : Snow gets to tell him to get on his knees and thank him, instead of just the instruction.
Pro : He's found a new hobby.
It's not ideal, to need to feed off blood when you're the pacifist that Finnick (sort of) is. And when you've just come out of an arena where you'd had to murder — and run away from being murdered by — twenty-three other kids. And your fight-or-flight is already at a dangerous high.
In other words, Snow had planned this. Maybe not his flatline, but he'd definitely wanted to make Finnick remember who he actually fucking was — a Capitol charity case that's only alive because he deemed it alright. And so here he was. A freak who could never age (and wanted to grow old with someone), never die (who fights the urge every day) and had to drink innocents' blood to survive (and had his own innocence stripped from him at fourteen).
But he's found a way to cope. It's a hypothetical right now, more of a theory than anything, but he figures if he's given some time, he can do it.
"What are you thinking about?"
Shit. His head turns to you, at the other end of the same pillow. Your eyes are closed, but your hand's tracing circles on his chest.
"Why are you here?"
You frown, one eye opening as you stretch. "You called."
"No, I mean, are you here voluntarily? Do you wanna be here?"
You stiffen, your fingers stilling on his chest.
"I'm not asking as Finnick Odair, I'm... just asking."
You nod, rolling away from him onto your back. "Initially, no. But now... yeah."
He smiles. That's enough, for now. He sits up, one finger gently manoeuvring your jaw back to face him. Your eyes. Yes. Salvation. "Do you trust me?"
"Uh—"
"Right, right, sorry.", he mutters, quickly, pressing one kiss, and then one more onto your lips. "Less serious. Do you love me?"
"Finnick.", you warn, grinning despite yourself.
"Fine, god forbid a man's lovesick.", he mumbles, his kisses pressing up and down your cheek, now. "Do you at least like me?"
He watches a slow smile spread on your face, and he almost gasps. You pinch two fingers together, save for a little gap. "A bit."
Finnick kisses you properly, then, his fingers behind your head bringing you to sit up, too. When you do, he pretends he isn't distracted by how the sheets fall off you.
But the truth is... he's always been distracted by you.
Finnick had long decided that he didn't want a single District person to die just because he was now stuck with this disgusting proclivity. And he also didn't really want an Avox to be drained as well as already having gone through the trauma of their tongue being cut out.
So, he'd told Snow — and the company that had been written on the back of the card — that he preferred Capitol blood.
Snow's response had been sending him a list of Capitol children in the orphanages that wouldn't be missed.
Finnick explained that he didn't want anyone dead.
So, Snow had sent you.
Finnick hadn't needed a card to detail anything this time. It was clear. Bloodbag. He couldn't recall what you had thought you were supposed to be, so he decides he'll ask you now.
"What did Snow send you to me for?"
"Company."
"Prostitution?"
"No, just company. Said you were lonely and I was to give my blood, sweat and tears to make you happy. Comfort you, because living in the Capitol was new."
Right. Blood, sweat and tears.
"So that's why you don't trust me. You don't know exactly what it is you're supposed to be doing here."
"I mean... I've kinda figured it out."
"You are not a prostitute.", he replies, trying his best to keep the conversation light, but his voice cracks at the last word. He clears his throat.
"Yeah, no, but I mean, I'm doing that part voluntarily.", you assure, thumbing at his jaw. He turns his face over to kiss your palm.
"You like sleeping with me?"
"Yes."
"You don't feel like we did it just because we've been stuck together for 3/4s of this year?"
You shake your head. "I mean, maybe that contributed, but... no coercion."
"So, whenever I sleep with you, you want it? You enjoy it?"
"You're making this sound like you're talking about offering me fresh fruit."
"No, I—", he cuts off, laughing. Leave it to you to unravel him. "I just mean, like, you like it, right?"
"I do." And then you kiss him to prove it, as if you're finally remembering that you're currently naked. He has to muster up all his willpower to pull away from you while you're in his lap.
"Hey, I need to, um, come clean about a couple things."
"Mhm?"
You're so expectant, like you know he's not going to say anything that might ruin the good thing you've got going. Like he's going to admit to shoplifting once at nine years old, not being a murderous, bloodsucking monster.
He thumbs a tuft of your hair from your eyes, gazing at your lips. "Don't freak out."
"Okay...?"
"I've got a plan that hurts some people, but at the end of the day, is best for the greater good."
He supposes he could've worded it better, because you look extremely confused.
"I mean... I've got a plan to get rid of the Games, altogether."
"The Hunger Games? You're going to stop the Hunger Games? How will you manage to do that, may I ask?"
He sits up at that, handing you the blanket for you to cover yourself up, much to his own despair. It's not a pretty conversation to be having, so he doesn't deserve to look at pretty things like you.
"I'm going to kill the Gamemakers."
"They change every year." You don't miss a beat. No "you're going to kill someone?", no "murder is wrong, Finnick!", not even a "what the fuck?". Just a "nah, you're missing an important caveat there, buddy boy".
"Good thing I know on what basis they change."
You raise a brow. "Okay. Fine. Good. So, how will you do that? How will you kill them?"
"I'll drain them."
"Sorry?"
"I'm a vampire."
This is... not how he expected his big reveal to go. He'd expected to be across the room from you, wearing your favourite of his shirts, right after a candlelit dinner where he confessed that he loved you, and then slowly moved to the opposite side of the room so he didn't spook you with his revelation.
"What?"
You're laughing. You think it's a metaphor.
"A vampire."
"Yeah, I heard you the first time."
"I'm a vampire."
"Okay."
"You don't believe me."
"Can you blame me?"
He shakes his head, before moving a safe distance away from you — in case you uppercut him on reflex — and then sprouting his fangs.
Finnick grimaces at your scream, at the way you scramble away from him, nearly falling off the bed. He knows that it's not what you want, but he sprints over to catch you before you do. "What the fuck?! What the fuck?!"
"I'm sorry— I— I'm really sorry—"
"That you hid this, or that you are this?"
Whoa. That question cuts right into his heart that had stopped before being pumped full of reserve vampire blood.
"Both?"
"How long?"
"Eight years."
"Have you ever thought of hurting me?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever killed anyone innocent?"
"No."
"Have you ever wanted to?"
"Yes. But only certain people. Not you."
"How have you been getting your blood?"
"I have a supplier."
"What was my true purpose here?"
"Bloodbag."
"Why didn't you feed off me?"
"I fell in love with you."
You pause the rapid-fire interrogation questions at that, letting him gently and safely deposit you back onto the bed before moving back the respectful distance that he'd been in before.
"Do you fight the urge to feed off me?"
"Yes. When you have strong feelings for someone, their blood becomes more appealing."
"Do you want to?"
"Are you offering?"
A pause. He loves how you take it all in stride. You're gonna murder some Gamemakers? Here's a potential aspect you might've missed. You're a vampire? Okay, but prove it. "I'm curious. Will it hurt?"
"A bit. But I can be gentle."
A silence, that he decides he's not going to fill with words, but rather, by gently moving closer to you and pushing some hair off your neck. "You can always back out."
"I know."
"So, you're not going to?"
"Not unless it hurts like a bitch."
He smiles, with a short, breathy laugh at that. "I'll make sure it doesn't."
Finnick rests his thumb on the artery in your neck — your carotid — to feel the pulse he's spent so many nights trying to drown out. It's faster now. "Last chance."
"Do I need to take a breath?"
"It's probably helpful. I mean, I wouldn't know, I'm not really a live-feeder."
Finnick's never felt as euphoric as when his fangs sink into your neck, clicking into place like a fucking puzzle piece, because he's never actually felt anything this perfect before.
The first drop of your blood hits his tongue — beautiful, delectable, mind-boggling — and he yanks himself back, thumb over his lip in sheer horror. He's still aware of the fact that you might faint if he spits your blood or dribbles it out of his mouth, so he swallows it. Every enchanting drop.
"Whoa, you okay?", you ask, after a slightly pained sharp suck of breath.
"You're not Capitol."
"Yeah, no shit.", you retort, still pressing two fingers at your neck.
"No, I mean you're District."
"Yeah, I'm aware.", you snort. "That's why I was sent to you as company."
"No, no, I specifically asked for a Capitol bloodbag."
"I don't follow."
"I told Snow I prefer Capitol blood so less District people got hurt. Do you— where were you from?"
"District Four? Like you?"
Oh, he's gonna fucking cry. He shoots up, hurriedly shoving his pants on and buttoning them before yanking his drawer open, foraging through it for his vials. "Do you know this person?", he asks, throwing the vial at the bed, before tossing three more. "And them, and them, and them?"
"Viona Welling. Yeah, she's from District 9. We were in the same training program, to be like, service-animal type people to homesick Victors like you.", you mumble, rolling the first vial in your hand before you drop it like it burned you. That's her fucking blood.
Your eyes slowly move to the other three on the bed. "Franz Hortic, District 11.", you say, your nails pushing one vial away. "Uh... Briar Port. District 6." One more vial is gently rolled over to him. "Bronwyn Silk. District 8."
Finnick breathes slow and long through his nose, but he can't stop the eruption. He throws the stand on which each of the vials were placed across the room, causing it to shatter across the wall. You flinch, eyes closed. "I TOLD HIM CAPITOL BLOOD!"
"Can't you tell the difference?"
"I— I thought I could, but... he must've exaggerated the taste the first time, when he put it into chocolate. Maybe he knew Capitol blood would taste like shit and the District blood would taste better, or... or something."
"Chocolate?"
He shakes his head, waving your question away. "Long story. Point is : Snow FUCKING outsmarted me!"
"Okay, hey — he's the President, I wouldn't expect anything less."
"The SHIT I have on him! I could RUIN him!"
"So do it."
He stands there, still gasping, chest rising and falling as he narrows his eyes. "What?"
You shrug, like you don't need to repeat yourself. You were heard loud and clear, and you know it. He swallows for a moment, in sheer mesmerisation, before clearing his throat. "I had a plan — would you want to hear it?"
You nod, earnestly. He bends one knee to sit on the bed as he watches you. Watching you. All he ever wants to do.
"I'm going to drain more of them. One by one. I have a list. They're gonna die one by fucking one." You pull him to you so he can slot his lips against yours.
"More of them? You already started? Is that where you go every other week?"
He grins, nodding. "I can stomach Capitol blood just fine, you see? Acquired taste."
"What if Snow catches on?"
"He'll assume I really do hate District blood.", he responds, thumb rubbing right under your eye.
"But you don't."
"No. It's fucking delicious."
You frown for a moment, before removing hair from your neck and your fingers from the puncture wound.
He doesn't hesitate anymore.
"I'll heal."
"You're hurt."
"Yeah, like, check back in half an hour, it'll be gone."
"I don't care. A human did that to you?", you ask, yanking him closer to you by tugging at his arm, gesturing for him to unbutton his shirt. He does, begrudgingly, giant laceration sticking out, angry, scarlet and vivid. You suck a breath in sharply and he's not sure if he should cover up and leave, or compel you to leave. He chooses to stay frozen as you dab gingerly around it.
"Yeah, he saw me coming. Apparently I'm some sort of urban legend in the highest circles of the Capitol."
"Only Snow knows about vampires. You're the only one.", you murmur, another dip of the cotton into antiseptic before you sting it onto his wound. He doesn't respond, so you look up at him, immediately. "...Right?"
"Johanna Mason might be one."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"She hinted at it when she was talking about how technically her entire District's profession could kill her. Kinda pieced it together."
"Why's she not in the Capitol?"
"She refused Snow."
"What?"
"In exchange for immortality, he wanted some... favours now and then." He doesn't want to go in detail, so he's mildly glad you're distracted by marvelling at how his wound's like... ten times smaller than thirty seconds ago. "Yeah, cool, huh?"
"Uh huh."
"...So, Johanna. She didn't want to do these favours."
Your eyes glance back up at him, hand still hovering over the heat of his injury.
"So, unlike me, she doesn't get supplied. She has to hunt for herself. In her own District. She has to actively hurt people she loves. Fight the bloodlust."
Your hands fall to the tops of your thighs as you kneel on the floor before him. "Oh."
"Yeah.", he says, sniffing. "But hey. Hey, it's okay."
"You're framing her. They hate her, they love you."
"No, she won't be—"
"Finnick."
Yes, he'd thought of this. How is he supposed to tell you it's kinda a term Johanna herself agreed to? How can he tell you there's a pivotal Gamemaker not on the list — Heavensbee? How can he tell you he's been doing a fuckton more than crossing names off a list? He can't. He's just got you in on the whole vampirism concept, he's just got you okay with accepting that he's in love with you — he knows you won't say it back, but he also knows you feel it — but he knows it'll take a hell of a lot more time for him to get you in on a rebellion. Mainly because he knows you haven't been to the Districts in a long while and blowing them up for the greater good is probably not something you'd be down for.
"I know."
"Even Snow's death won't—"
"Justify that? Yeah, I know.", he sighs, rubbing his eyes. God.
His abdomen no longer hurts, and his skin twitches lightly under your touch when you graze your fingertips across where the gash had been. "How do you deal with it?"
"What?"
"The guilt?"
"I convert it into love and pour it into you."
He's not sure why he said that.
It's bullshit because it's true and severely mistimed.
"Finnick."
"Sorry."
"Are you?"
For basically making you an accomplice? No? Yes?
"No.", he says, leaning down to be nose-to-nose as he reaches into his back pocket. "You scared?"
"Of?"
"The homicidal vampire currently trying to sneak a necklace onto your neck right now.", he murmurs, clasping the shell pendant chain onto you.
"Kinda."
"You trust me?"
"No."
"You love me?"
A pause. "No."
"I'm taking the hesitation as a win."
"I figured you would."
"You still like me?"
You nod. "Why do you suppose Snow hasn't stopped you yet?"
"Probably hasn't put two-and-two together yet. You're still alive, so he probably thinks I'm tame and no longer plagued by bloodlust.", he mutters, shrugging.
"How does one turn into a vampire?"
Finnick shakes his head, standing up immediately, hand dropping from the chain on your clavicle. "No."
"Finnick—"
"Uh-uh, forget it. I love you too much for that shit, alright?", he cries, shouldering past you so aggressively that he needs to battle the compulsion to turn back and apologise for nearly knocking you over.
"Finnick! I love you as well, so please—"
"You can't say that to get what you want, that's cruel!"
"I'm not! I just need you to listen to me!"
"It's not gonna help you! You're not gonna be more powerful, or more in control!"
"Yes, I will! It'll make sure I'm safe!"
He groans, running his hands across his face. "I'm not turning you into a fucking bloodsucker, okay? I didn't struggle desperately to get your blood out of my head for 3/4s of this entire fucking year just to end up killing you and resigning you to the same fate! You're safer as a human!"
"What about in the rebellion? When I fight?"
He pauses in his desperate circling around the room. No fucking way. "The what?"
"The rebellion.", you repeat, now suddenly tense and gently backing up as he stalks closer to you, one click of his heel after the other.
"How do you know about that?"
"I heard whispers of the Katniss girl being the Mockingj—"
"Bullshit. You've been cooped up with me in here for almost ten months."
"I read your journal."
"No, I have no paper trail."
"You're killing specific Gamemakers. Uh, one Mr. Beetee's, then Mags', and then Ms. Wiress. And you've saved yours for last."
"That tells you nothing.", hisses Finnick. He's not sure why he's so angry. Maybe because he's never checked if you've been wired this entire time. Maybe because he may have fucked up the whole plan by falling for a fucking Capitol spy.
"I followed you one of those days you disappeared."
That... makes sense.
"You met up with Plutarch Heavensbee. Then, I read your list and he wasn't on it. He's the next Gamemaker. I kinda... built from there."
Okay, so not a Capitol spy. But dangerous in your own, sexy little right.
He nods, before he grasps your jaw. Not rough or unkind, just... there. Like "hey, it's Finnick, who you just admitted to loving, albeit for a life-altering favour".
"Are you angry?"
Your attempt at looking vulnerable is kinda cute and moot. You don't need to look the part, you are vulnerable. But humans don't acknowledge that shit, ever. He lets out a little snort.
Using his grip on your jaw, he pulls you closer so he can lean down to stay eye-to-eye with you. "How can someone this smart simultaneously want to be a fucking vampire?"
"Duality of man?", you suggest.
He grins, all teeth. "Do you actually love me? 'Cause that was so funny I can't even pretend I don't want that shit to have come out of the mouth of the girl I love — that loves me back."
"I do."
"I'm not turning you."
"I still do."
Finnick smiles. "I can't turn you. But you know what I can do?"
"Introduce me to Plutarch? Make me part of the rebellion?"
He laughs out loud at that, flicking gently at your forehead. "Fat fucking chance. You're gonna be cooped up in this insanely reinforced suite until the last bomb drops. Can't let you die." He's kidding, but he needs you to know that he'd rather get trapped in a loop of a wooden stake up and down his heart but never piercing in some sort of vampire Prometheus situation than let you die in the fucking rebellion he was only participating in to protect you.
"What, then?"
"I'm gonna bring you along to kill Johanna's Gamemaker."
"Yeah? Why him?"
"Her. And I think you'll enjoy this one.", he tells you, pulling the list out from his pocket, smoothing it down flat on the table. He clicks his pen open before scribbling a name on.
"Antia Routhful?"
Finnick watches your face carefully as your eyes move from the letter A to the letter L, and then back across the length of her name, again and again and again. "She took me from my District to be 'company' for rich Capitol patrons. And people like you."
I MISSED YOUR NATE FICS SO MUCH I LITERALLY LOVE IT!! I was thinking that maybe this Nate wont be so bad and it just keeps getting worse and worse until that mofo had a gun to reader's head(whiplash flashbacks) Gods, the way you write him is just something I can't even describe. It's perfect, really. You always manage to capture the fact that he's an asshole but also a hormonal teenage boy who obviously peaked in high school. He's not some aura farming chad(he kinda is) but God you make him pathetic in the best way possible without him being a whiny ass bitch. Seriously, you need to post your character sheet or analysis on him because I need to know how you make him feel so real and accurate!
You, my dear, never miss when it comes to the man that is Nate Jacobs.
DUDE YES I MISSED WRITING FOR THAT LITTLE PUNK
And the entire thing was giving me Whiplash flashbacks, I love that series so much, it was such a treat to write and cringe about later
Aura farming chad is the only description he might allow of himself, I think, so you're totally right
And thank you thank you thank you for talking about his pathetic tendencies.
People don't seem to get it! It's pathetic to pretend to be emotionless and then punch walls! It's not scary, it's more pathetic than anything to be so deeply mistrusting of not only people around you but yourself, and then projecting that shit onto others. No wonder this kid peaked in high school!
But thank you so much! I've never written a vamp!au before and wasn't sure that it would translate well to Nate because he wouldn't like to be dependent on any kind of substance, but then I realised this guy would totally love that he now has a dietary excuse to use every time he performs his fuckassery.
no because I need you to understand that when I finished reading your new fic and I genuinely had to sit there staring at my wall for a second💀😭
YOU GOT THEIR DYNAMIC SO RIGHT. Like the fact that reader isn’t just “mean” or “bad” in a Nate Jacobs way but specifically calculated in the way that completely throws Nate off balance???(as he deserves, that man needs to be humbled) He js keeps spiraling while she stays composed was sooo satisfying to read. Had me giggling and shit🤭
Your characterization of Nate is genuinely one of the best I’ve read because you kept all the ugly parts of him intact. You made those traits bounce off someone whose equally terrifying and it WORKED SO WELL
also the prose was CRAZY good??? plus the humor throughout the fic was so sharp 😭 the hate-jacking off line actually killed me YOU'RE FICS NEVER FAIL TO CRACK ME UP I SWEAR!! YOU NEED TO DROP YOUR CHARACTER SHEET/ANALYSIS ONE OF THESE DAYS!! I’m actually so glad I sent that ask because YOU DELIVEREDDDDD
AHHHH I'M SO GLAD YOU LIKED IT!!
I'm beaming, I'm so happy, I've never received any ask-sender's review, so it's kinda awesome that you took time out of your day to send this !!
I'M SO SO SO HAPPY that it was what you wanted and I'm not sure if I'll ever touch the ground again but yay! This made my day and I'm glad my fic made yours ! Much love and thank you so much, once again
It's every jock ever, you think. No, you're sure of it. It's probably a statistic that hasn't been researched deeply, a demographic that old perverts haven't fully tapped into yet. They're the most hormonal and so they're the most manic, the most desperate, the most sleazy. You've known that since Ruby Bennett had gotten drunk at the freshman formal because of how Nate Jacobs had tried to finger her, like, thirty minutes before she'd told you.
But there's always been something else about him besides sleaze. It's how he portrays this sleaze with class, like it's a conscious decision to intimidate and cause discomfort. And there's this sadism to his subtle, subdued depravity that frustrates you, because it seems that only you can see it. It's calculated, precise, complex, even.
In reality, there's been no memorable interaction with Nate that hasn't simply been one-sided meticulous observation on either of your parts. Hilarious, but there's no animosity, just mutual lack of interest and occasional disrespect, and he thinks he can live with that. He has been, entirety of high school, and senior year doesn't mean he has to magically be amicable towards you.
That is reserved for the country club the two of you frequent.
When someone's father is so rich that he could buy CB Jacobs & Co. seven times and still have a quarter of his net worth left over? You learn to be polite on their own turf.
And on the putting green? It's like the two of you might as well start suddenly singing Kumbaya around a campfire.
But there's also just something Nate's never fucking liked about you. Call it envy, call it disdain, call it hatred, but he just gets this feeling in his chest whenever you're mentioned that's the opposite to when Maddy's mentioned. Which is why it's even more irritating that he can't pinpoint it. See, if it were attraction, like he wants to fuck you, or even something softer, where he wants to kiss you, just to see what you'd taste like, fine, he could deal with that. He's a man, after all, and a man has needs. However, he just thinks you're the herald to a bad storm that'll wipe out everything in his perfect life, by simply lifting one fucking, perfectly manicured finger. He hates that. Because it's entirely true. Money is power.
And so, uncharacteristically, he'd long decided that he'll keep his distance. Leave any and all banter at school. And leave it at banter. He can't afford some sort of harassment suit.
Which is why, when he's slinging his bag over his shoulder after practice one evening and sees you making out with someone under the bleachers of the football ground, he just shuts his mouth and keeps walking to his car. Hell, he's such a good citizen, that he even pretends he doesn't hear the guy say "fuck, do you think he saw us?", like a fucking pussy. See, he never got that. He always thought that if you've got a girl with you, and you've actively chosen to make out with her, own the fucking decision like a man. But he's digressing.
He also hears you say "who cares?", which is an insane role reversal to the first time he'd brought Maddy down here to do the exact same thing. He'd said this to her when she was worried they'd be caught. The guy you're with is a pussy, and sooner or later, you'll pull down his pants and realise that.
Not like he cares. What he does care about is that he doesn't know just how long you've been there. He's been shitty at practice, trying to rack his brain thinking of which method to use to get Maddy the fuck back. He could just show up at her door with flowers, but he's done that so much, the flower-shop-owner may already know his name, which means he's done it too many times. He could also text her a 'wyd' or 'i miss u' but it's a little low effort, even for him.
Anyway. This brain-fog showed in his practice today. He was a spaz, and he'd hate for you to have seen that.
Nate throws his bag into the back of his car, tilting his head at his phone for a moment, seeing if he could text Maddy for the adrenaline of it and then shove his phone into the back, as well, but he's just too tired to do it. On top of the whole Maddy debacle, his father's been pestering him and his brother to look for some more investors in the form of their friends' parents, because he wants to expand the business. That's also running through his head as he tosses his phone down onto the passenger seat.
"What's good, Jacobs?"
Jesus. Give him one break. He turns, with a polite nod at you. "'Sup?"
You jut your chin at the backseat of his car. "Your duffle's strap's hanging out of the door. Just thought I'd tell you.", you call, unlocking your door.
"Thank you.", he calls back, fixing it and biting back a "where's your tonsil tennis partner, Good Samaritan?" He can take the high road.
It takes a little while on the road to realise that you're going the same direction.
As far as he knew, you live on the other side of East Highland, with the gates and guards and shit, not his side. So, watching you pull up to Fezco's convenience store is a suspicious surprise.
The dap between you and Fezco is what prompts his sudden craving for a grilled cheese — aka, a flimsy excuse to go in and buy bread.
"Twice in a night. I'm a lucky guy.", he comments, greeting you as soon as he shuts the convenience store door behind him and pretends like he doesn't see Fezco's head snap to the entrance.
"That you are.", you reply, with a look at Fezco.
"What you want, man?", he asks. Not unkindly. Just a slightly unbelievable "we're-closing-so-fuck-off".
"Bread. Cheese."
"Ah, the rat's diet.", you remark, and Nate snorts. Alright, fine. He'll give you that.
"All out, man. Sorry."
He narrows his eyes at Fezco. "Yeah? None in the back? You've checked?"
"I keep inventory."
"Right.", he says, and the silence sprints through the aisles.
"I'm sure we'll have some tomorrow.", you inform, surprisingly helpfully.
"We?", he muses, before his eyes fly back up to you. No fucking way. "You own this joint, too?"
"Pretty much, yeah. I mean, it's Fez's, we just... invest."
"I see. And, uh, what, you own this and that entire string of supermarkets outside of Kemper? Plus the mini-malls across the street from my Dad's apartments?"
"Yes. Why?"
The corners of his lips turn down, and he shrugs, picking out a carton of juice and inspecting it like it could save the world (it seems, suddenly, like it could hypothetically save his). "How much revenue would somethin' like that generate?"
"Why don't you buy somethin' and find out?"
"Hey, I'm not a cop.", he assures, hands up in surrender. "I'll be back around tomorrow for the bread."
He can't help but laugh as he pulls his keys out of his pocket while he jogs back to his car in the parking lot. No fucking way. If this was what he thought it was, he— Jesus, he was looking at a gold-mine of a plotline for his life.
Thanks, universe. Almost doubted you there, for a second.
The cold of the metal locker digs into his back, but he figures it'll just make a cool scar for him. So, he leans further into it with his arms crossed. Badass, he knows. And when Landon Walker comes into the hallways after MUN club, Nate's the only thing he sees.
"Uh, 'sup, Nate?"
"What's good, Walker?"
Landon shrugs. "Nothing. Just need to get my stuff, so if you wouldn't mind moving?"
"Oh, no, for sure, just answer one thing for me, first."
"What?"
"How long you been hooking up with Richie Rich's side bitch?"
Landon rubs the back of his neck, laughing nervously. "What?"
"Did I just tell a knock-knock joke? What's so fuckin' funny, huh?", he asks, sucking on his teeth.
"I... don't know what you're talking about."
Nate smiles sweetly, watching the runt unlock the locker. "So, you were making out with air, last night, under the bleachers with your pussy-ass salmon-coloured, gay t-shirt on?", he questions, shutting the locker just a moment after Landon grabs the last thing he needs out of it.
His eyes widen. "Listen, Nate, I don't k—"
"C'mon man, bro-to-bro. How many times you hit?"
"Listen, Nate, I didn't know that— uh, she just... she asked me, so I—", he stammers.
"So you, what? You just kiss a girl 'cause she asks? What's next? Some chick comes up and asks for the Empire State Building and you put yourself in debt for it?", he scoffs, landing a bruising clap on his shoulder disguised as playful with a not-so-friendly-grin.
"I didn't know you guys were... I... thought she was single."
Okay, so this dumbass thought you and Nate were dating and he'd crossed some boundary or something. Stupid, and untrue, but he should be a helluva lot more terrified and jumpy than he is now, if that were truly the case. Fine. Attitude check later. "What do you know about, uh...", he checks his phone for a moment, "Freestone Enterprises?"
"What?"
"What are you, deaf?", he snaps, turning the phone to him. "This logo? Gay-ass colour combo? You know it?"
"Sure, it's the logo of the mini-malls past Kemper."
"Yeah, and your family's got shares in half of them. Don't bother lying, I checked. What do you know about the enterprise as a whole?"
"Uh... it's... I don't concern myself with that stuff, honestly.", he titters again, flinching as Nate wraps a firm arm around his shoulders.
"Try again. I'll take you out to lunch, yeah? Just us guys."
And, just as expected, fear and fries go crazy good together. He sings like a canary.
That entire night, Nate falls down a fucking rabbit hole, his eyes lit up by the screen as he scrolls further and further down — just how many businesses does your fucking family own? Wait. Whoa. It's common knowledge to East Highland residents that you own the mini-malls and convenience stores, but they're not even listed on the official Freestone Enterprise declarations online. How many more companies didn't you actually own but profit off of, and how many more did you own and also profit off of?
Oh, this is beautiful. He's getting that funding. Any means possible.
He's never doubting the universe again.
The continuous dings on your phone aren't really something out of the ordinary, and actually expected, because you'd just come back from a huge trip and the family group were all sharing their own pictures.
But your Instagram-ding and your Email-ding are different, and your family tends to use the latter for big files. So, you had no idea why you were getting a successive, incessant string of Instagram notifications.
You set your pen down — maybe it is that damn phone — and flop onto your bed so you could open it up. You'd expected something else, honestly. You'd expected maybe a mass following, after the video yearbook, or people tagging you in their reels of said video yearbook.
Not a DM.
The first thing is that he's changed your nickname — you'd never even had a chat, so you're not sure what that's supposed to achieve — to Meyer Lansky. Okay. Weird. Some crime lord from the '50s?
Then come the screenshots.
Fuck.
"Talk about lucky." — is his only text.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
You're not sure what you've done to warrant this intense background check into your family's... let's say checkered finacial life, but it's not only an irritating invasion of privacy, but also an audacious stunt by some meathead jock who thinks that you won't crush him like a fucking cockroach and watch his family scutter under the shelter of 'Bankruptcy' quicker than he could say "Meyer Lansky".
But you are curious, in the same way you might feel curious to see a child's list of "swear words", the worst of which is probably "dumb". It's adorable, honestly. So, you get his number from Lexi, who gets it from Cassie, who gets it from McKay, and then you lie stomach-first onto your bed, the phone on speaker as you unwrap some candy you still have left over from Easter.
The ringing is quickly replaced with a bit of static.
"Was hoping you'd call. Caller ID showed Possible Scam, and I thought that was fair enough."
"Wow, hilarious. What do you want?"
"Simple. I need you to meet me before my game tomorrow, right outside the boys' locker rooms."
"And why would I do that? Because you've got a couple screenshots that I can just say are edited?"
"C'mon. Buy me a Gatorade from the vending machine or something before the game, and I'll tell you. You've got the money."
The line goes dead, and you swirl the candy around your tongue, rolling onto your back. He's... insane. He's either just clinically insane and needs intense help, or he's just plain dumb, and needs intellectual help.
But you're not scared. You're sure there's something on this guy, his mother's a pill popper, his brother got into a couple assault and batteries in college, Nate himself uses steroids? Something. Anything. No suburban family's closet is stacked with just clothes. Gotta be some skeletons in there, somewhere.
You sleuth a little and stumble upon one account that his (clearly) fake account follows in particular that catches your eye. It's someone you don't really know, some new junior called Jules, posting art and shit. It's not good, this art, you wouldn't buy it to save your life, but—oh, her! The one who cut herself at that party in the beginning of the year?
It's easy going from there.
God bless high-strung, angsty teen girls and their penchant for oversharing on the Internet.
Nate has to admit, the gentle glow of the vending machine lights give you a kind of ethereal glow, one that's intensely ironic, considering you're a sleazy crimelord's daughter.
"What do you want?"
"A Gatorade."
You raise a brow, crossing your arms. He grins. "What?"
"You all bark, no bite? Back up your blackmail, Jacobs. Having information without asking for ransom is just a prank. Come on. Make your demands, I'm not new to this."
Nate's not dumb. He knows he can't go around slipping proof of money laundering onto a cop's desk, because the cop's probably on your payroll. No one's ever going to believe him unless it's a fucking commie or something.
He can, however, milk this as much as possible, and you clearly know that, too, seeing as you're all but encouraging him to name his price, like it's second-nature for you. He wonders how many times you've been held for ransom by some greasy faced, dollar-sign-for-eyes balding man. It strangely makes him mad.
But, he pushes through. He's only holding your reputation in his hand. He's better than them, he convinces himself. Dog-eat-dog world, right?
"Well, that, and a loan. A huge one. Not an investment, we don't wanna be wrapped up in your bullshit, but a funding, direct from your enterprise, not one of your shady little subcompanies."
You chortle, the scene oddly cinematic when your heels click as you move closer to him, raising a hand to tell him to pause so you could summarize what you've ascertained from his flimsy blackmail demand.
"You want Freestone Enterprises to fund CB Jacobs & Co.?" Dumbass trying to play prodigal son? You're sure there's a play in there somewhere.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"We need the money. And, frankly, you can't afford to have all your crimes uncovered, because then what'll happen to your precious Louboutins?", he muses, with a little pout.
"What do you need us to fund?"
"We're expanding, into West Highland, and these complexes need to be even bigger, because it's targeted to the middle-class, and WH has more residents, anyway. Lower prices, but good revenue.", he declares, offering you his vape.
Oh, great. Now he's pitching.
You nod, taking a hit, pretending to be earnest in your listening. "Ah. Smart. But, see, there's one thing I feel like I need to mention."
"What?"
If you say you're in debilitating debt, he'll kill you and then himself.
You lean in, conspiratorially. "We're not in the business of funding anything — neither sports drinks, nor real estate — for pedos."
His pulse stills.
He's frozen. A deer in headlights, to be cliché, and you would've felt bad for him had his fist not twitched a little, like he's ready to punch you? What a fucking loser. Nate's eyes are wide, his jaw is clenched, and he looks like you'd just skinned someone alive before him.
Suddenly, you get this warm, fuzzy feeling that there's hope in the world, sunshine, rainbows, unicorns, the whole shebang, because oh, look. He's trembling with unbridled rage and it's cute and it's endearing and it's... kinda turning you on? You don't have time to unpack that.
"Good luck at the game.", you say, shoving the vape back into his hand. Your fingertips brush and you swear he flinches, but you just can't prove it.
He recovers as soon as your skin makes contact with his.
Those are your parting words to him after ripping a gash through his life with one simple word? No. No. He's not letting that shit slide.
"Hey! What the fuck are you talkin' about, huh? What the fuck do you mean by that?!", he yells, slamming his fist onto the vending machine a couple times, like a petulant child throwing a rattle on the floor, before he stalks behind you, ready to turn you around and get some fucking answers out of you — before McKay yanks him back, nails digging into his shoulder.
"Nate, man, c'mon, suit up! What are you tryna do? We got a game."
Right. Five seconds away from an aneurysm and two minutes away from a football game. Hey, universe? Now would be a good time to be nice again.
He gears up loudly. He slams his locker closed, he snaps his helmet on, and he swings the door open like it owes him money. The vast green and the nearly-nauseating noise of the field — students cheering, cheerleaders chanting, commentators announcing, and even the sound of his own heavy breathing inside his fucking helmet —they're all enough to make him throw up. He grinds down on his teeth to prevent that from happening, before jogging with the rest of his team to the line of scrimmage.
It's dizzying, the brightness, the other team, the ref. He squints up at the stands. He doesn't know what he's looking for. Salvation? Money? The President congratulating him on uncovering a national financial fraud?
But seeing you shake hands with his Dad before sitting down on the bleachers next to him is so nauseating that he just chalks it up to a fever dream. This is crazy.
He's done this a hundred thousand times. He's captain. He's QB.
Maybe it's the fact that this is the first time his bargaining chip has been one-upped.
Maybe it's how fucking calm you are.
Maybe it's the fact that he's just ruined the funding he could've gotten his Dad.
Just makes him genuinely want to scream and hurl the old pigskin at you at a 100 miles per hour.
He doesn't feel the adrenaline, the pressure, the testosterone that he usually does — he can only feel you. You're watching, not just watching, observing. Waiting for him to fuck up. Had he revealed his cards too early?
"Set, HUT!"
He's not sure how he got those two words out, but he has, and the game's started.
It ends just as quick, and before he knows it, he's on the receiving end of a stern talking-to by Coach. "What's happening out there, Jacobs? If there's stress or burnout or sum'n getting to you, you'll need to talk to the counsellor."
"I'm fine, Coach! Jesus, it's nothing to do with me, everyone just ignored that clear foul by those private school assholes—"
"Nate, you fumbled."
"No, I fucking didn't!"
"Don't talk to me like that, son!", he warns, fisting his hand into Nate's collar. "You hear me? Or you're benched for the season!"
His jaw ticks, his nostrils flare, and his blood boils. "Yes, Coach. Sorry."
He's let go with a slight stumble backwards, before he swings the locker room door open. What are you, a broken mirror? A black fucking cat? He should've known you were an omen. You fucked up his practice when you were making out with Walker, and he hadn't even seen you! Of course he fucks up a game right after that where he does see you, and next to his Dad, no less!
The locker bears the brunt of his unbridled rage, getting kicked and punched and borderline assaulted so much its creaks and clangs and squeals echo through the locker room like some sort of warning to anyone who wants to come in and be right in the line of fire.
You, however, don't heed those warnings. And why would you? You hold all the cards. "Star QB, huh?", you muse, and he's not sure when the blue of the locker rooms has turned into a wrathful red. He rubs the sweat from his eyes, as well as the stress.
"Fuck off."
"You don't really mean that.", you pout, leaning against a locker on the opposite side of the room. Where the fuck are his teammates when he needs them?
"I want you to tell me what the fuck you just said to my Dad out there.", he snaps, turning to you and crossing the suddenly tiny distance between locker walls to you. He's not fucking around, and if his laboured breathing was any indication, he's two popped blood vessels away from a crash out.
You look up, tapping thoughtfully at your chin. "Who's your Dad again?"
Nate slams his fist onto the locker right by your head, and he's glad you flinch, even if minimally and disappointingly normally. It's how anyone would flinch — it's reflex. But. You flinch. Meaning you're not untouchable. You're just a teenage girl with a shit-ton of Daddy's money and arrogance to go with it. You're human, and humans bleed. "You think this shit is a joke? I could put you in jail like that, for your stupid fucking Ponzi-ass family, alright? Don't fuck with me!", he spits, pointing at you so aggressively, his index finger nearly indents your nose. This time, you don't flinch, just watch his outburst with mild amusement. It makes him feel like a fucking chihuahua, yipping at its owner's face and inducing no actual fear.
"Thing about money, Nate, is that it doesn't matter where you got it. What matters is that you have it. And it can prevent you from almost going to jail. Hell, you can even come back out of jail if you've got it. You know what you can't come back from? A sex offender's list."
He's not sure anyone's looked this stabbable to him before, and he's once had that Tyler punk right below him, so that's saying something. He can't be sure he's above decking you if he looks into your smug little eyes, so instead, he glares at your lips as they proceed to rip into his subconscious a second time in one day. He pictures peeling the skin off them. Maybe scalding them in some boiling water. Is there such a thing as poison-lip-balm?
"My family's been doing this for close to a century, you think we haven't dealt with new-money punks like you getting too big for their britches?",
"I wasn't going to actually say anything.", he exhales, his eyes fixed on the teeth you fucking lie through every day to save your skin. He's still not sure whether he'll get out of this without a murder case if he looks at your little punk eyes.
You smile, looking up at him with the same stupid bravery of a honey badger going head-to-head with a lion. "Yes, you were, Nate."
Okay, fair. The next word is physically agonising for him to get out. "Truce?"
You snort, raising a brow at him. "Yeah, if you know what's good for you."
The handshake's cold and firm and Nate feels it in phantom flashes for the entire ride back, even with his Dad grinding him about how it was probably the whole thing with Maddy that's got his head out of whack. Like he wasn't out here busting his ass keeping his sex life away from people's eyes and his business in front of their eyes. So much for the prodigal son.
At home, he's fucking on one. Pens fly across the room, headphones, hell, even his childhood trophy's not safe. He's going to fucking kill you. He's going to ruin you. You're not just fucking with his mental health, you're fucking with his career, his education, his future! Most people would've just funded CB Jacobs & Co., I mean, it's the nice thing to do, they're doing a lot of good work. Even sans the blackmail.
His furniture bears the biggest brunt of it. His knuckles are raw and kissed by blood, with how hard he's been punching the now-dented wall, and shards of broken glass from the aforementioned childhood trophy lay underneath his dresser. He considers sprinkling them into your food tomorrow.
Okay. He's going to need to breathe. What does he usually do after a game, shitty or not? His usual post-game routine. He goes through it like it's a pre-written fucking manual. He peels off his shirt and throws it in the laundry, along with his tracks and his socks. Good. He gingerly moves past the glass and into his bathroom, flicking the shower on, before stalking back out to throw some pants out onto the bed for him to sleep in. He yanks a towel out of the neat pile of clothes his Mom's folded for him on top of his pillow.
Once he actually hops in to the shower, sweat-soaked, seething and ready to go on some kind of rampage, maybe get Maddy back or go beat someone up — that Tyler punk comes to mind — he blanks.
He's not sure what's happened this whole night.
It's a blur. A delectable, dizzying blur. He splays his palm flat against his shower screen, then pulls it back. A dripping, melting handprint lingers. It reminds him of you, in some strangely cathartic way. Lingering.
Nate's not really proud of what happens next.
Because that's when shit goes south. Namely... his hand.
LISTEN! Okay, listen! If hate-sex is a thing, so is hate-jacking-off, okay?
And it's not like he's saying your name or anything, or picturing you. These two phenomena could be (and, for his sanity's sake, are) entirely unrelated.
He's pent up and pissed off.
What fucking else is he supposed to do?
Halloween is the one saving grace in this epically morose month he's been having. The strangling thing that he just about got out of. His Dad getting on his back about finding funding as if he wasn't out here running around, blackmailing and saving his ass from getting on a fucking list. You.
He'd absolutely mark this October as one of the shittiest in his life. That first thing, though, he got out of, so the universe seems to not have abandoned him entirely.
He's in a pretty okay mood, considering all that's happened lately, so he decides that yes, he's not only going to go to Daniel Dimarco's Halloween party with Maddy, he's going to fuck shit up. He's going to make a fucking statement. Hence, his costume.
However, after Maddy bites his bottom lip during the makeout for the, what, seventh time, and it does nothing for him (who knew the terrifying ordeal of almost being arrested brings libido down?), he decides he needs another drink, and she says she agrees. He safely deposits her with Cassie and then shoves through the crowd to the drinks table, which is right next to the speaker that the makeshift DJ — heavy on the makeshift — is standing at.
"You gonna do some DJ shit or are you just a glorified Spotify Shuffle button?", he questions, chuckling to make sure the poor kid knows he's just joshing around. He's in too good a mood to actually vie for a fight out of anyone right now.
"I'm just doing what they told me to, man.", screams the kid over the music, watching Nate tip the Hennessy bottle into two cups, then filling them with Coke.
He tips one solo cup in the kid's direction before downing it, grimacing before he actually focuses his eyes on the kid. "How old are you?"
"Fourteen.", replies the kid, before looking down at the cup. "Can I have some?"
He whistles, lowly. "Jesus, that's child labour.", he rasps, clearing his throat. "And that's illegal. Can't do that."
"You're not twenty-one, yet."
"Yeah, but you wanna come closer and I'll count the individual hairs on your fuckin' chin, tough guy?", snorts Nate, filling the same cup up a second time, proffering it. "Here. Don't go apeshit."
"Good call, Jacobs, supplying a minor with alcohol, knowingly.", someone — the only one he doesn't want here — calls from behind him.
He's not sure why he'd thought you'd have skipped this party. As he said, you're everywhere. "Family tradition, I see.", you comment.
Nate takes a deep breath before turning to you, eyes leaping from your face to your tits to the solo cup in your hand... to your face again. "For the record, he's not even supposed to be here.", he mutters, thumbing at the kid. "I didn't invite him, I'm not responsible."
"It's my house.", the kid pipes up, stupidly. "I'm Daniel's brother."
"Get the fuck outta here, what are you doing, trying to make it worse?", he scoffs, with a mock charge at him to get him to scram. "Jesus, were we that scrawny in freshman year?"
"I don't remember.", you say, before giving him and his prison-inmate costume a once-over, corners of your mouth turning down in... approval? Respect? He couldn't figure it out. "Statement costume about being acquitted from your case. Smart. Apt, too."
"What are you supposed to be, anyway?", he questions.
"A black cat."
He raises a brow. Talk about apt. "Original.", he comments.
You shrug. "Classic.", you retort, glitter-lips glistening in the fairy lights draped across Daniel's staircase railing. Credit where it's due, you look good. Nate hums, almost under his breath, moving one step closer, placing a palm on your shoulder and allowing his thumb the liberty of stroking it. He'll take full advantage of his tipsiness and the fact that he's pretty sure you're at least 60% attracted to him. Plus, if he can't piss you off, at least he'll throw you off. "You look beautiful tonight.", he states, the corner of his lip turning up.
Nate revels in the slight quirk to your brow that betrays that he's successfully perplexed you. Nevertheless, the recovery comes quick. "Thank you. So does Jules Vaughn."
You can't even take a compliment without fucking checkmating him.
Nate reckons he's getting pretty good at dealing with you. He's a quick learner. He doesn't move back. Doesn't instinctively look over at Jules like he wants to. Doesn't press his palm to your throat in the middle of the party until your neck's got a perfect imprint of his fingers like he yearns to. He's going to play the long game. So, instead, he reaches into his pocket, whipping out his vape. "So. Where's the pussy tonight? He flake?", he asks, taking a hit.
"Why do you care? You threatened him."
"Threatened him? I took him to lunch. What, are you, hurt I fucked with your boyfriend?"
"Nothing you can do can ever hurt me, Jacobs. Sooner you learn that? The better.", you reply, with a pat to his cheek and a raise of your glass to him before forcing him to watch you disappear into the crowd. Okay, so the boyfriend thing was a bust, but you had reacted different to the compliment right before that. He makes a mental note.
There's a moment that he considers following after you, just to see what you'd do, but he comes to the conclusion that it's a toss-up between slapping him or humouring him, both of which are dangerous for extremely different reasons.
He decides not to test his luck (or willpower) and instead, navigates his way back to Maddy, drinks in hand. "Sorry, I was talking to the DJ."
He figures that you've done all this research without even knowing about the disc — hell, even Jules doesn't know about it — so far, so him being in possession of it isn't going to deter you. The only way to keep you from going on your smug little rampage is to clip your wings, to get you locked up, either literally or metaphorically. And money laundering isn't strong enough.
So, he decides, he'll make charges. Can't be hard to frame someone, especially since he's got prior experience — thank you, Tyler — and since you're everywhere, it'll probably be hard to prove you weren't somewhere. There'll always be someone who says they saw you.
God, he loves going on sidequests.
Problem is that Nate's not exactly considered a reliable source in East Highland, not anymore. Not after the whole strangling case.
You, in infuriating contrast, are considered somewhat the only reliable source. Somehow, your doe-eyed, innocent, humble rich girl act sells like hot cakes in this town, because, as he said, you're everywhere. You're the face of the Student Council. Your Dad's on the town council, so you're volunteering there, sometimes, too. You've curated all of this perfectly. You always raise your hand up first for questions, but never remind the teacher about homework. You're so borderline unlikeable that you're likeable, and he doesn't know how you do it. Did you take a seminar?
Anyway, first logical step is to see what you do on a daily basis, which is infuriatingly dismal. You come to school, go to Fez's here and there — you don't even check the back, so he's not sure you even know he's dealing, so that charge is out — and then go to some of your family's other stores, keep 'em scared of the boss or whatever, and then you're back home. That's it. A week of sleuthing, and that's all he's found.
It's definitely staged.
It's like you've been ten steps ahead of him since birth.
It's kinda hot.
So, he decides to do something he never thought he'd ever do. He calls Landon.
"Were you guys a one-night thing or have you been fuckin' her for a while?"
"We've known each other for a while because of the company, but we only kissed that one time." Jesus, his previous assessment of him as a pussy is right. Running around with someone like you all the time, and the thought never even crossed his mind to fuck you?
"And how close would you say you guys are?", he muses, taking a puff of his vape as he keeps his eyes fixed on your back through the window of the cafe you've spontaneously decided to grace.
"Uh... well, close enough that she's texting me that you're stalking her."
He smiles. He knew better than to think you're oblivious to him following you through town the entire day. "Tell her to come and ask me about it herself."
There's a bit of a sigh from the other end, and then Landon clears his throat. "She says the seat next to her's free."
He doesn't count it as cheating to be stupidly attracted to intellect and tact and strategy. He's basically a Game Of Thrones character, he'd wager.
Nate ends the call, tossing his vape back into his backpack before pushing into the door of the cafe, ignoring everyone else turning to him and making a beeline for you.
"Nate.", you greet, taking a sip of your coffee. "What are you stalking me for? What do you think you'll find that I don't have airtight alibis for?", you ask with mock intrigue, resting your chin against your palm in fond disappointment.
He sits with a little grunt. "I'm not here to do anything of the sort."
You raise a brow. He's piqued your interest. He takes that as a win. He scoots closer after flagging the waitress down and ordering the same thing as you, no sugar. "Just between us, how'd you figure it out? Huh? What rabbit holes did you have to go through?", he asks, stretching and draping his elbow behind your chair.
Truth was, you'd found Jules' Blogger account, or, in her words, her "digital diary!" and were immediately bombarded with a smorgasbord of unnecessarily explicit encounters with men in motels. And one caught your eye. So fucking familiar, the description of the dude, it was almost like — you knew the guy. Of course, no picture was attached, so you scrolled back to her Instagram and coincidentally found her outfit for the town carnival, realising that you'd seen this exact bitch talk to Cal motherfucking Jacobs. The guy from the motel. Didn't take a genius to piece it together.
But giving Nate Jacobs the satisfaction of knowing your methods? That's like an orgasm denial.
You draw an imaginary zipper over your mouth.
Okay, fair enough. "You're real chatty when you wanna be.", he remarks, soft enough to sound genuine, like he's not picturing five different ways to shoot you right about now. "Anyone ever tell you that?"
A thumb reaches up, but doesn't touch you. It just hovers, blocking some sunlight from reaching one tip of one bit of your hair.
You shake your head. "You're the first."
"Lucky me."
"Why? I could be a weirdo who gets you assassinated for looking at my family wrong.", you say, tapping your fingernails along the side of your coffee mug.
"You're a weirdo who's so used to only either being called 'sexy' or 'cute', that when someone calls you 'beautiful' — something on the actual compliment spectrum — you freeze.", he observes, rather wryly, focusing more on the 4 O'clock Sun reflecting in your eye than your reaction to that sentence.
"Wow. Notice one thing, and you're suddenly cocky enough to stop pretending you don't wanna do something about it.", you snort, nodding in what could be taken as amusement, but he's not sure. "You've come a long way."
"Fuck's that mean?" He doesn't like where this is going.
"A little bird told me I'm your bad luck charm.", you muse, with a small, unnecessarily enchanting smile as you lean back and shut your textbook closed to make space for his coffee, steaming, fresh, and with impeccable timing.
"Who told you that?"
"You. Seeing my costume for Halloween. Pro tip : get a better poker face."
"What are you, tutoring me in criminal activity?", he snorts, offering you his coffee, which you decline.
"Just saying. Your tells are obvious."
"What other tells do you think I have?"
"Well, for one, you seem intensely turned on whenever I retaliate."
He's lucky he didn't have any coffee in his mouth, or he'd have choked on it like a fucking cartoon character. Instead, he tilts his head, weighing up his options. He could, potentially, spill the coffee on your pretty little face and watch that smug grin scald off. But even he's not that evil. He could stand up and walk out, but that'd just be damning evidence to your point.
So, he does the next best thing. He grabs your shoulder and makes sure that every single fucking word from his mouth reaches your ears. "You'd fucking love that, wouldn't you? Yeah, I know about girls like you."
"Girls like me?"
"That fake humility bullshit doesn't work with me. You're an attention whore, and you'd probably flatline if people didn't worship you, huh? That's why you string Landon along, squeezing whatever you want out of him financially and attentionally, too, huh?", he sneers, trying to match the rhythm of your breathing that's increased just enough to know that what he's saying isn't going in one ear and out the other. "Yeah, I know all about bitches like you. Whores, to be more precise."
He's not sure when his hand moved from your shoulder to your jaw, but he's pressing into them so hard, he might as well be giving you deep dimples in the process.
"Don't have to be a whore to enjoy this little tidbit of information, do I?"
"No, but you seem to enjoy a shit-ton more, huh? Huh?"
He shakes your jaw in his hands, as if that will pull an answer out of you.
God, he can't stand the smirk that follows. It's like he's about to get annihilated or beamed up and only you know about it.
"What? What are you smirkin' at?"
"Seems to me like you're begging for scraps of my attention, not the other way around."
He follows your line of sight around to the cafe, where people are beginning to watch this nightmare unfold. Fuck.
God, just his luck.
He hates you, he decides. He genuinely hates you. Fuck nonchalant. Fuck cordiality. He tried that, it didn't work out. He's just going to have to hate you harder. And hope you notice.
No, you know what? He's not stooping down to your sexy little level.
It's fine. It's whatever. He just has to avoid you, skirt around you in crowded hallways, and avert his gaze like you're dirt during boring classes. Come on. Cakewalk.
This, however, proves difficult with the way the two of you leave this conversation.
"We're supposed to avoid each other. You know that, right? You could at least choose not to come to my games."
"I come for Maddy. And now because I know you don't want me there."
Jesus— fuck.
The rest of the season sucks, because somehow, you're always front row, cheering the quietest, smirking the loudest.
And though there are winning games, they don't win because of him, and it's clear.
You love it, actually. You love that instead of thinking about the plays that Coach refreshed them on three minutes ago, he's thinking about what other things you've uncovered about his family — his parents' we-should-be-divorced limbo? His brother being 26 and a fucking deadbeat living in his parent's house because he did some shady shit in college (that he's sure you might have dug up)? Him and Maddy? It's not even about bargaining chips anymore, because there's no leverage. It's just humiliation. Aka : he's thinking about you. And if that doesn't get you going.
His Dad left early because he was playing so terrible. I mean, it's an assumption, of course, his Dad did probably get that call about investors in different timezones that he'd been telling him about, but it just fits better with Nate's narrative if he sucked that bad so he can hate you more.
So right after he leaves, well, let's just say he's not exactly jumping up and down trying to get back home immediately, and hence, he's driving his ass down to Mel's — the closest bar that won't kick his underage ass out.
For some reason, you call him. He has to question his alcohol tolerance, because he blinks, squints, and even asks the bartender to read out the name on the screen, because maybe he's just tipsy. But no. It's you.
He considers declining. No, really, he does. But then, there's only so much curiosity that one can avoid, isn't there?
He picks up. "Richie Rich's side bitch. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Look up, asshole."
His eyes snap up and race across the bar. There's no way. No fucking w— and there you are. The opposite side of the bar, away from the dancing, severely drunk, teen girls that probably got in with lousy fake I.Ds. Your fingers wiggle in some kind of nonchalant wave and he's almost endeared. "What are you doing here?", he asks into the phone, maintaining eye contact with you across the bar.
"Drinking."
"You're not at the school, helping to decorate for the Winter Formal?"
"I was. Then I realised I'd rather get drunk, drive around the town and then go crash on my bed."
"Your parents know you do all that? I thought you were the golden kid."
"What they don't know won't hurt them. What about you? You okay?"
"What do you care?"
"I have a knack for picking up on pathetic guys' tells."
He snorts, his fingers running across the rim of his glass as he watches you politely shake your head as a guy asks you to dance. "Yeah, I figure Landon gave you tons of practice."
"And I guess you have a thing for girls who are way too good for you."
"Excuse me?"
"Maddy Perez? Leagues above you."
There's no way you can know this, but too soon. "Fuck you."
"You wish."
It's not even twenty minutes later and you're pressed up against a bathroom stall, and doing... absolutely nothing. You're just staring at each other, letting him hold your face in his hands like he gets to, like he deserves it, after "all you've put him through". He's breathing heavy, like there's a gun pointed to his head if he doesn't kiss you, and one pointed to his dick if he does.
"It's not gonna be hot if we fuck, Nate."
"Beg to differ.", he exhales, like it's taking lots of effort for him to articulate thoughts right now.
"It'll be hot during. Maybe a couple seconds after. But if we fuck, after all the tension and passion and anger, we're— we'll just be two people with a lot of hatred for — and dirt on— each other."
"So?"
"So, I'll probably hire a hitman after we're done. This is me saving your life."
He laughs, frustrated and exhausted, his forehead trailing down to between your breasts as he rests there. You're clearly killing him here, and not even literally, yet. "You're gonna have me assassinated? Should I be flattered you're spending money on me?"
"Well, the guy would be someone who owes us money, but —"
"Dude, just let me have this."
You chuckle, hands up in surrender. His forehead trails back up to join with yours. "Do you think I should turn my Dad in?"
"Nate, I'm gonna be honest with you — I don't care."
"Would you? If it were you?"
"I wouldn't sell out my family, but... the fucking-a-minor charge is, uh... kinda serious. We don't need that kinda heat."
"Right. So I should."
"I don't care, Jacobs."
"You know, you keep saying that, but you asked me twenty minutes ago if I was okay.", he mumbles, his knuckles dragging across your jawline like he's mesmerized. "Doubt Landon got any check-ups after his B-ball failure."
"Leave him out of this, Jacobs."
He pouts, mockingly. "Don't tell me you're in love with him. I'll crash out. That's humiliating enough that I don't even need to continue getting revenge on you."
He's honestly not sure why he's so bothered by this. It's not a choice between Landon and him. It's Landon or not. He doesn't factor anywhere into this, but it's a crime against humanity that someone like you was worried about someone like Landon.
So, his finger curves into a belt loop to pull you closer. "You're not in love with him, or your comeback about his basketball game would've been stabbing."
"You really risking this?"
"What? Getting snipered on your orders so I can fuck you? Uh-huh. I'm riskin' it."
"No, I meant riling me up. It's presumptuous to assume that everyone responds to this kinda stuff with becoming horny. Maybe I just become homicidal."
Nate licks his lips, raising his brows before he flicks at your nose. "Hotter."
"You don't think I'll do it, do you?"
He breathes out heavily against your cheek, grip strong enough on your jaw that you know to listen when he's talking to you. "Maybe you will."
Then, he kisses you.
There's a particular rage woven into the intricacies of this kiss that may bother you if you cared enough. But when you feel your shirt rucking up and Nate gripping your hair to make sure you're glued to his lips, you realise there's not that much you care about. Rage just makes his testosterone go up, and makes him hotter. It's science. It's biology. You're not one to fuck with the natural order of things, so when he unbuckles his belt and yanks your hand into his pants, you just go with it. Hey, he's returning the favour by sticking his hand in yours, too, so it's only fair.
Fair. What an ironic thought.
A couple days later.
"One thing I want the world to know about me?", asks Nate, leaning to the side past the camera, to look at Lexi Howard, who gives him a tiny, slightly curt nod.
He's going to let that slide, for now, he decides with narrow eyes. His last name starts with a "J", so he assumes she's had to go through nine other last names, and he knows for a fact that there's at least five "Andersons" in the entire senior year, so he'll chalk that rude little gesture up to fatigue.
"God, there's so much. Of course, the first is don't fuck with me. Then, I've got a big dick. That one's special for the ladies.", he adds, with a wink at the camera as he chews his gum to hide his smirk.
"Can you be serious?"
"I thought this was informal. For the video yearbook, right?"
"Well, yeah, but we can't pan to your... penis or something after you say that. We could pan to the football ground if you say something about you as quarterback?"
God, she's not blonde like her sister, but she's still really fucking dumb. Still, she's so square he wants to fuck with her. "You can. Come on, Alexis, you can do it, I know you can.", he urges.
"Doubt we can zoom that far in, Jacobs. Budget cuts."
Fuck it all to purgatory. He knows that voice. He loathes that voice. He's jacked off to that voice.
His smirk fades as you shut the door behind you, patting Lexi on the shoulder, effectively relieving her from her duties before taking her place, dropping your phone onto the table. "You wanna try again, or do we pan to a baby carrot after that statement?"
His jaw clenches. Something it seems to have to do every time you're in his general vicinity. His molars are freakishly durable, he's thankful for that. "One thing I want the world to know about me is that I'm determined. If I want something, I go after it and I get it."
"Like your diploma?"
"Like justice. But sure. That, too." What was he, trying to garner sympathy for the case about choking his own girlfriend? Or was this — dare you say it? — about you?
You raise a brow, before shutting the camera off. "There. Was that so hard? We'll pan to some football trophy or something. You do have one of those, don't you? Or were all those only before you became captain?"
He's not going to give you the satisfaction of telling you to fuck off, especially because it'll be really pathetic with Lexi still in the room, hovering behind you somewhere, so he just grunts and stands a little too swiftly from his chair. "I can provide footage of my dick, if you want to test my first claim.", he murmurs, his palm on your shoulder similar to yours on Lexi's, before lightly tapping the side of your neck with a curled finger.
"Send Peter Jacobson in, please."
"After him, can I have a turn in?"
Your mouth curls up in disgust, but you don't give him the satisfaction of a glare, instead focus on saving the footage under a filename that isn't "Nate_Asshole_QB" or something. You settle on "PeakedInHighSchool.mp4". More grace than he deserves, but it's mild enough not to warrant more than a warning from Hayes if found.
Lexi leans over your shoulder to read the name on the screen. "Acute."
You nod. "Can you handle the civilians? Shoot me a text when the next footballer comes up, and I'll save you."
She nods, saluting before settling down and waving at Peter as he walks in past you.
Another day, another asshole footballer trying to foreshadow his future on the sex offenders list or something. It's morbidly hilarious, now that you think about it. But you don't get much time to do that. You're already being yanked into the parking lot by your wrist like you weighed nothing. It's scary, because you have a higher chance of it being a kidnapper who needs a cool 50K as ransom than a pissed-off QB who's graduating alongside you in a couple months, but somehow, against all odds, it's the latter.
"You fuckin' kidding me?"
"What? We won't pan to a baby carrot. It's just comedic timing."
"I'm talking about the new mall that's being constructed right next to where my Dad wanted to expand to a condo!"
"What? It's not illegal, we bought that land fair-and-square."
"You think because you're a chick, I won't hit you? Huh? Is that why you're so fucking cocky all the time?"
"No, I'm just saying. How about you do yourself a favour and focus on not fumbling the simplest passes, yeah, tough guy?", you ask, nodding as if you're telling a six year old kid to stop hitting their little sibling through gentle parenting. It's condescending and it's pissing him off, but then again, the same can be said for your existence.
He's sure this doesn't do any favours to the case he's just been let off of, but all of a sudden, he's pinning your shoulders to the wall by clamping the heels of his hands down onto them, fingers brushing up and down your carotid.
"What, I wonder, will you do if I turn my own Dad in?", he whispers in your ear, smooth and sultry like he'd just woken up and drank a straight gallon of honey. Ironic, considering it's midday, and he's leaning you against the back wall of the school, a very small distance away from the cameras. "What ammunition will you have on me then? Hm?", he questions, biting his tongue till he tastes blood, right before he inhales you in deeply. He's convinced he can smell your hatred like Chanel No. 5, marinating through his senses. "A framed-case of strangling I was acquitted from? Underage drinking? What, supplying alcohol to that punk Dave Dimarco?"
You tilt your head at him, eyelash-to-eyelash, glare-to-glare, audacity-to-audacity. "Try aiding and abetting — your Daddy dearest. Assault and battery — poor Tyler. And... lying to an agent of the law — I doubt you'll ever tell all of them down at the police station the entire story behind those sex tapes."
He's so unnecessarily pumped up full of adrenaline right now, he's got nothing left to lose, caution-to-the-wind and all that crap, so he's in fight-or-flight mode, meaning that he doesn't know what to do with this giddy energy thing he's got going on. He settles on creeping his fingers up your waist as he moves even closer, like he's about to fuck the shit out of you against the wall. He can't say he hasn't thought about it, and he's starting to think you can't, either. "Anything else? Or you savin' the best for last?", he exhales out, like he's been holding it in until he can merge your foreheads together.
You grin, subtly. He catches it like he's been searching for it for centuries. "You buy drugs."
Nate almost pulls back at that, a frown forming on his face. He's not sure whether to be amused, aroused, or terrified, but it's no surprise that it's an unhealthy combination of all three, with you."You'd rat out Fez?"
"I'm not a junkie, I have nothing to gain from him. And I'll rat out anyone that's not family. It's called survival."
"Moral compass who, am I right?", he remarks, pulling back entirely, at this point. He's so fucking confused right now. Either you've got friends everywhere , or you'd sell everyone out to save your skin.
You're... you're him.
"My internal compass aligns with my family.", you inform, and it seems oddly earnest. It throws him off. You're... you're actually just him. It's almost cathartic enough to make him let it all go.
But the next week, Landon's in the ER. Hours after that, you're telling your family to buy the land on the other side of the CB. Jacobs property. His response is to spread some rumour about the two of you fucking throughout school. Your counter-rumour has something to do with a baby carrot.
heyy soooooo can I ask for a nate jacobs x reader who's a huge red flag as him? what I mean is she's like Nate if he was a woman and more calculating I rlly like the idea of nate first blackmailing reader because her family does money laundering(?) and she retaliates back with digging whatever she can on Nate(like idk his daddy's sex tapes) and they just go back and forth pissing each other off and reader lowkey gets off at Nate getting so worked up about her that seeing her in one of his games has him doing really badly(whiplash if reader wasn't his lucky charm) I js love an awful man meeting someone who can actually get back at him, a woman at that! I think it would also be cool that reader comes from like old money or has a goody two shoes rep so she has everything to back her up
YES. Dude, when this hit my inbox I was so excited, I genuinely dropped my Uni work (and I'm swotty, btw) to begin. Dude. DUDE.
It's so specific and I fucking love that because then we're in the same storyline together, more or less, y'know what I mean? I know, it's parasocial, but still.
I'm a tiny bit proud of this one because of the sheer length and maybe the plot's also nice? Idk, as always : if it sucks, or isn't what you expected, lmk, so I can change it
It's every jock ever, you think. No, you're sure of it. It's probably a statistic that hasn't been researched deeply, a demographic that old perverts haven't fully tapped into yet. They're the most hormonal and so they're the most manic, the most desperate, the most sleazy. You've known that since Ruby Bennett had gotten drunk at the freshman formal because of how Nate Jacobs had tried to finger her, like, thirty minutes before she'd told you.
But there's always been something else about him besides sleaze. It's how he portrays this sleaze with class, like it's a conscious decision to intimidate and cause discomfort. And there's this sadism to his subtle, subdued depravity that frustrates you, because it seems that only you can see it. It's calculated, precise, complex, even.
In reality, there's been no memorable interaction with Nate that hasn't simply been one-sided meticulous observation on either of your parts. Hilarious, but there's no animosity, just mutual lack of interest and occasional disrespect, and he thinks he can live with that. He has been, entirety of high school, and senior year doesn't mean he has to magically be amicable towards you.
That is reserved for the country club the two of you frequent.
When someone's father is so rich that he could buy CB Jacobs & Co. seven times and still have a quarter of his net worth left over? You learn to be polite on their own turf.
And on the putting green? It's like the two of you might as well start suddenly singing Kumbaya around a campfire.
But there's also just something Nate's never fucking liked about you. Call it envy, call it disdain, call it hatred, but he just gets this feeling in his chest whenever you're mentioned that's the opposite to when Maddy's mentioned. Which is why it's even more irritating that he can't pinpoint it. See, if it were attraction, like he wants to fuck you, or even something softer, where he wants to kiss you, just to see what you'd taste like, fine, he could deal with that. He's a man, after all, and a man has needs. However, he just thinks you're the herald to a bad storm that'll wipe out everything in his perfect life, by simply lifting one fucking, perfectly manicured finger. He hates that. Because it's entirely true. Money is power.
And so, uncharacteristically, he'd long decided that he'll keep his distance. Leave any and all banter at school. And leave it at banter. He can't afford some sort of harassment suit.
Which is why, when he's slinging his bag over his shoulder after practice one evening and sees you making out with someone under the bleachers of the football ground, he just shuts his mouth and keeps walking to his car. Hell, he's such a good citizen, that he even pretends he doesn't hear the guy say "fuck, do you think he saw us?", like a fucking pussy. See, he never got that. He always thought that if you've got a girl with you, and you've actively chosen to make out with her, own the fucking decision like a man. But he's digressing.
He also hears you say "who cares?", which is an insane role reversal to the first time he'd brought Maddy down here to do the exact same thing. He'd said this to her when she was worried they'd be caught. The guy you're with is a pussy, and sooner or later, you'll pull down his pants and realise that.
Not like he cares. What he does care about is that he doesn't know just how long you've been there. He's been shitty at practice, trying to rack his brain thinking of which method to use to get Maddy the fuck back. He could just show up at her door with flowers, but he's done that so much, the flower-shop-owner may already know his name, which means he's done it too many times. He could also text her a 'wyd' or 'i miss u' but it's a little low effort, even for him.
Anyway. This brain-fog showed in his practice today. He was a spaz, and he'd hate for you to have seen that.
Nate throws his bag into the back of his car, tilting his head at his phone for a moment, seeing if he could text Maddy for the adrenaline of it and then shove his phone into the back, as well, but he's just too tired to do it. On top of the whole Maddy debacle, his father's been pestering him and his brother to look for some more investors in the form of their friends' parents, because he wants to expand the business. That's also running through his head as he tosses his phone down onto the passenger seat.
"What's good, Jacobs?"
Jesus. Give him one break. He turns, with a polite nod at you. "'Sup?"
You jut your chin at the backseat of his car. "Your duffle's strap's hanging out of the door. Just thought I'd tell you.", you call, unlocking your door.
"Thank you.", he calls back, fixing it and biting back a "where's your tonsil tennis partner, Good Samaritan?" He can take the high road.
It takes a little while on the road to realise that you're going the same direction.
As far as he knew, you live on the other side of East Highland, with the gates and guards and shit, not his side. So, watching you pull up to Fezco's convenience store is a suspicious surprise.
The dap between you and Fezco is what prompts his sudden craving for a grilled cheese — aka, a flimsy excuse to go in and buy bread.
"Twice in a night. I'm a lucky guy.", he comments, greeting you as soon as he shuts the convenience store door behind him and pretends like he doesn't see Fezco's head snap to the entrance.
"That you are.", you reply, with a look at Fezco.
"What you want, man?", he asks. Not unkindly. Just a slightly unbelievable "we're-closing-so-fuck-off".
"Bread. Cheese."
"Ah, the rat's diet.", you remark, and Nate snorts. Alright, fine. He'll give you that.
"All out, man. Sorry."
He narrows his eyes at Fezco. "Yeah? None in the back? You've checked?"
"I keep inventory."
"Right.", he says, and the silence sprints through the aisles.
"I'm sure we'll have some tomorrow.", you inform, surprisingly helpfully.
"We?", he muses, before his eyes fly back up to you. No fucking way. "You own this joint, too?"
"Pretty much, yeah. I mean, it's Fez's, we just... invest."
"I see. And, uh, what, you own this and that entire string of supermarkets outside of Kemper? Plus the mini-malls across the street from my Dad's apartments?"
"Yes. Why?"
The corners of his lips turn down, and he shrugs, picking out a carton of juice and inspecting it like it could save the world (it seems, suddenly, like it could hypothetically save his). "How much revenue would somethin' like that generate?"
"Why don't you buy somethin' and find out?"
"Hey, I'm not a cop.", he assures, hands up in surrender. "I'll be back around tomorrow for the bread."
He can't help but laugh as he pulls his keys out of his pocket while he jogs back to his car in the parking lot. No fucking way. If this was what he thought it was, he— Jesus, he was looking at a gold-mine of a plotline for his life.
Thanks, universe. Almost doubted you there, for a second.
The cold of the metal locker digs into his back, but he figures it'll just make a cool scar for him. So, he leans further into it with his arms crossed. Badass, he knows. And when Landon Walker comes into the hallways after MUN club, Nate's the only thing he sees.
"Uh, 'sup, Nate?"
"What's good, Walker?"
Landon shrugs. "Nothing. Just need to get my stuff, so if you wouldn't mind moving?"
"Oh, no, for sure, just answer one thing for me, first."
"What?"
"How long you been hooking up with Richie Rich's side bitch?"
Landon rubs the back of his neck, laughing nervously. "What?"
"Did I just tell a knock-knock joke? What's so fuckin' funny, huh?", he asks, sucking on his teeth.
"I... don't know what you're talking about."
Nate smiles sweetly, watching the runt unlock the locker. "So, you were making out with air, last night, under the bleachers with your pussy-ass salmon-coloured, gay t-shirt on?", he questions, shutting the locker just a moment after Landon grabs the last thing he needs out of it.
His eyes widen. "Listen, Nate, I don't k—"
"C'mon man, bro-to-bro. How many times you hit?"
"Listen, Nate, I didn't know that— uh, she just... she asked me, so I—", he stammers.
"So you, what? You just kiss a girl 'cause she asks? What's next? Some chick comes up and asks for the Empire State Building and you put yourself in debt for it?", he scoffs, landing a bruising clap on his shoulder disguised as playful with a not-so-friendly-grin.
"I didn't know you guys were... I... thought she was single."
Okay, so this dumbass thought you and Nate were dating and he'd crossed some boundary or something. Stupid, and untrue, but he should be a helluva lot more terrified and jumpy than he is now, if that were truly the case. Fine. Attitude check later. "What do you know about, uh...", he checks his phone for a moment, "Freestone Enterprises?"
"What?"
"What are you, deaf?", he snaps, turning the phone to him. "This logo? Gay-ass colour combo? You know it?"
"Sure, it's the logo of the mini-malls past Kemper."
"Yeah, and your family's got shares in half of them. Don't bother lying, I checked. What do you know about the enterprise as a whole?"
"Uh... it's... I don't concern myself with that stuff, honestly.", he titters again, flinching as Nate wraps a firm arm around his shoulders.
"Try again. I'll take you out to lunch, yeah? Just us guys."
And, just as expected, fear and fries go crazy good together. He sings like a canary.
That entire night, Nate falls down a fucking rabbit hole, his eyes lit up by the screen as he scrolls further and further down — just how many businesses does your fucking family own? Wait. Whoa. It's common knowledge to East Highland residents that you own the mini-malls and convenience stores, but they're not even listed on the official Freestone Enterprise declarations online. How many more companies didn't you actually own but profit off of, and how many more did you own and also profit off of?
Oh, this is beautiful. He's getting that funding. Any means possible.
He's never doubting the universe again.
The continuous dings on your phone aren't really something out of the ordinary, and actually expected, because you'd just come back from a huge trip and the family group were all sharing their own pictures.
But your Instagram-ding and your Email-ding are different, and your family tends to use the latter for big files. So, you had no idea why you were getting a successive, incessant string of Instagram notifications.
You set your pen down — maybe it is that damn phone — and flop onto your bed so you could open it up. You'd expected something else, honestly. You'd expected maybe a mass following, after the video yearbook, or people tagging you in their reels of said video yearbook.
Not a DM.
The first thing is that he's changed your nickname — you'd never even had a chat, so you're not sure what that's supposed to achieve — to Meyer Lansky. Okay. Weird. Some crime lord from the '50s?
Then come the screenshots.
Fuck.
"Talk about lucky." — is his only text.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
You're not sure what you've done to warrant this intense background check into your family's... let's say checkered finacial life, but it's not only an irritating invasion of privacy, but also an audacious stunt by some meathead jock who thinks that you won't crush him like a fucking cockroach and watch his family scutter under the shelter of 'Bankruptcy' quicker than he could say "Meyer Lansky".
But you are curious, in the same way you might feel curious to see a child's list of "swear words", the worst of which is probably "dumb". It's adorable, honestly. So, you get his number from Lexi, who gets it from Cassie, who gets it from McKay, and then you lie stomach-first onto your bed, the phone on speaker as you unwrap some candy you still have left over from Easter.
The ringing is quickly replaced with a bit of static.
"Was hoping you'd call. Caller ID showed Possible Scam, and I thought that was fair enough."
"Wow, hilarious. What do you want?"
"Simple. I need you to meet me before my game tomorrow, right outside the boys' locker rooms."
"And why would I do that? Because you've got a couple screenshots that I can just say are edited?"
"C'mon. Buy me a Gatorade from the vending machine or something before the game, and I'll tell you. You've got the money."
The line goes dead, and you swirl the candy around your tongue, rolling onto your back. He's... insane. He's either just clinically insane and needs intense help, or he's just plain dumb, and needs intellectual help.
But you're not scared. You're sure there's something on this guy, his mother's a pill popper, his brother got into a couple assault and batteries in college, Nate himself uses steroids? Something. Anything. No suburban family's closet is stacked with just clothes. Gotta be some skeletons in there, somewhere.
You sleuth a little and stumble upon one account that his (clearly) fake account follows in particular that catches your eye. It's someone you don't really know, some new junior called Jules, posting art and shit. It's not good, this art, you wouldn't buy it to save your life, but—oh, her! The one who cut herself at that party in the beginning of the year?
It's easy going from there.
God bless high-strung, angsty teen girls and their penchant for oversharing on the Internet.
Nate has to admit, the gentle glow of the vending machine lights give you a kind of ethereal glow, one that's intensely ironic, considering you're a sleazy crimelord's daughter.
"What do you want?"
"A Gatorade."
You raise a brow, crossing your arms. He grins. "What?"
"You all bark, no bite? Back up your blackmail, Jacobs. Having information without asking for ransom is just a prank. Come on. Make your demands, I'm not new to this."
Nate's not dumb. He knows he can't go around slipping proof of money laundering onto a cop's desk, because the cop's probably on your payroll. No one's ever going to believe him unless it's a fucking commie or something.
He can, however, milk this as much as possible, and you clearly know that, too, seeing as you're all but encouraging him to name his price, like it's second-nature for you. He wonders how many times you've been held for ransom by some greasy faced, dollar-sign-for-eyes balding man. It strangely makes him mad.
But, he pushes through. He's only holding your reputation in his hand. He's better than them, he convinces himself. Dog-eat-dog world, right?
"Well, that, and a loan. A huge one. Not an investment, we don't wanna be wrapped up in your bullshit, but a funding, direct from your enterprise, not one of your shady little subcompanies."
You chortle, the scene oddly cinematic when your heels click as you move closer to him, raising a hand to tell him to pause so you could summarize what you've ascertained from his flimsy blackmail demand.
"You want Freestone Enterprises to fund CB Jacobs & Co.?" Dumbass trying to play prodigal son? You're sure there's a play in there somewhere.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"We need the money. And, frankly, you can't afford to have all your crimes uncovered, because then what'll happen to your precious Louboutins?", he muses, with a little pout.
"What do you need us to fund?"
"We're expanding, into West Highland, and these complexes need to be even bigger, because it's targeted to the middle-class, and WH has more residents, anyway. Lower prices, but good revenue.", he declares, offering you his vape.
Oh, great. Now he's pitching.
You nod, taking a hit, pretending to be earnest in your listening. "Ah. Smart. But, see, there's one thing I feel like I need to mention."
"What?"
If you say you're in debilitating debt, he'll kill you and then himself.
You lean in, conspiratorially. "We're not in the business of funding anything — neither sports drinks, nor real estate — for pedos."
His pulse stills.
He's frozen. A deer in headlights, to be cliché, and you would've felt bad for him had his fist not twitched a little, like he's ready to punch you? What a fucking loser. Nate's eyes are wide, his jaw is clenched, and he looks like you'd just skinned someone alive before him.
Suddenly, you get this warm, fuzzy feeling that there's hope in the world, sunshine, rainbows, unicorns, the whole shebang, because oh, look. He's trembling with unbridled rage and it's cute and it's endearing and it's... kinda turning you on? You don't have time to unpack that.
"Good luck at the game.", you say, shoving the vape back into his hand. Your fingertips brush and you swear he flinches, but you just can't prove it.
He recovers as soon as your skin makes contact with his.
Those are your parting words to him after ripping a gash through his life with one simple word? No. No. He's not letting that shit slide.
"Hey! What the fuck are you talkin' about, huh? What the fuck do you mean by that?!", he yells, slamming his fist onto the vending machine a couple times, like a petulant child throwing a rattle on the floor, before he stalks behind you, ready to turn you around and get some fucking answers out of you — before McKay yanks him back, nails digging into his shoulder.
"Nate, man, c'mon, suit up! What are you tryna do? We got a game."
Right. Five seconds away from an aneurysm and two minutes away from a football game. Hey, universe? Now would be a good time to be nice again.
He gears up loudly. He slams his locker closed, he snaps his helmet on, and he swings the door open like it owes him money. The vast green and the nearly-nauseating noise of the field — students cheering, cheerleaders chanting, commentators announcing, and even the sound of his own heavy breathing inside his fucking helmet —they're all enough to make him throw up. He grinds down on his teeth to prevent that from happening, before jogging with the rest of his team to the line of scrimmage.
It's dizzying, the brightness, the other team, the ref. He squints up at the stands. He doesn't know what he's looking for. Salvation? Money? The President congratulating him on uncovering a national financial fraud?
But seeing you shake hands with his Dad before sitting down on the bleachers next to him is so nauseating that he just chalks it up to a fever dream. This is crazy.
He's done this a hundred thousand times. He's captain. He's QB.
Maybe it's the fact that this is the first time his bargaining chip has been one-upped.
Maybe it's how fucking calm you are.
Maybe it's the fact that he's just ruined the funding he could've gotten his Dad.
Just makes him genuinely want to scream and hurl the old pigskin at you at a 100 miles per hour.
He doesn't feel the adrenaline, the pressure, the testosterone that he usually does — he can only feel you. You're watching, not just watching, observing. Waiting for him to fuck up. Had he revealed his cards too early?
"Set, HUT!"
He's not sure how he got those two words out, but he has, and the game's started.
It ends just as quick, and before he knows it, he's on the receiving end of a stern talking-to by Coach. "What's happening out there, Jacobs? If there's stress or burnout or sum'n getting to you, you'll need to talk to the counsellor."
"I'm fine, Coach! Jesus, it's nothing to do with me, everyone just ignored that clear foul by those private school assholes—"
"Nate, you fumbled."
"No, I fucking didn't!"
"Don't talk to me like that, son!", he warns, fisting his hand into Nate's collar. "You hear me? Or you're benched for the season!"
His jaw ticks, his nostrils flare, and his blood boils. "Yes, Coach. Sorry."
He's let go with a slight stumble backwards, before he swings the locker room door open. What are you, a broken mirror? A black fucking cat? He should've known you were an omen. You fucked up his practice when you were making out with Walker, and he hadn't even seen you! Of course he fucks up a game right after that where he does see you, and next to his Dad, no less!
The locker bears the brunt of his unbridled rage, getting kicked and punched and borderline assaulted so much its creaks and clangs and squeals echo through the locker room like some sort of warning to anyone who wants to come in and be right in the line of fire.
You, however, don't heed those warnings. And why would you? You hold all the cards. "Star QB, huh?", you muse, and he's not sure when the blue of the locker rooms has turned into a wrathful red. He rubs the sweat from his eyes, as well as the stress.
"Fuck off."
"You don't really mean that.", you pout, leaning against a locker on the opposite side of the room. Where the fuck are his teammates when he needs them?
"I want you to tell me what the fuck you just said to my Dad out there.", he snaps, turning to you and crossing the suddenly tiny distance between locker walls to you. He's not fucking around, and if his laboured breathing was any indication, he's two popped blood vessels away from a crash out.
You look up, tapping thoughtfully at your chin. "Who's your Dad again?"
Nate slams his fist onto the locker right by your head, and he's glad you flinch, even if minimally and disappointingly normally. It's how anyone would flinch — it's reflex. But. You flinch. Meaning you're not untouchable. You're just a teenage girl with a shit-ton of Daddy's money and arrogance to go with it. You're human, and humans bleed. "You think this shit is a joke? I could put you in jail like that, for your stupid fucking Ponzi-ass family, alright? Don't fuck with me!", he spits, pointing at you so aggressively, his index finger nearly indents your nose. This time, you don't flinch, just watch his outburst with mild amusement. It makes him feel like a fucking chihuahua, yipping at its owner's face and inducing no actual fear.
"Thing about money, Nate, is that it doesn't matter where you got it. What matters is that you have it. And it can prevent you from almost going to jail. Hell, you can even come back out of jail if you've got it. You know what you can't come back from? A sex offender's list."
He's not sure anyone's looked this stabbable to him before, and he's once had that Tyler punk right below him, so that's saying something. He can't be sure he's above decking you if he looks into your smug little eyes, so instead, he glares at your lips as they proceed to rip into his subconscious a second time in one day. He pictures peeling the skin off them. Maybe scalding them in some boiling water. Is there such a thing as poison-lip-balm?
"My family's been doing this for close to a century, you think we haven't dealt with new-money punks like you getting too big for their britches?",
"I wasn't going to actually say anything.", he exhales, his eyes fixed on the teeth you fucking lie through every day to save your skin. He's still not sure whether he'll get out of this without a murder case if he looks at your little punk eyes.
You smile, looking up at him with the same stupid bravery of a honey badger going head-to-head with a lion. "Yes, you were, Nate."
Okay, fair. The next word is physically agonising for him to get out. "Truce?"
You snort, raising a brow at him. "Yeah, if you know what's good for you."
The handshake's cold and firm and Nate feels it in phantom flashes for the entire ride back, even with his Dad grinding him about how it was probably the whole thing with Maddy that's got his head out of whack. Like he wasn't out here busting his ass keeping his sex life away from people's eyes and his business in front of their eyes. So much for the prodigal son.
At home, he's fucking on one. Pens fly across the room, headphones, hell, even his childhood trophy's not safe. He's going to fucking kill you. He's going to ruin you. You're not just fucking with his mental health, you're fucking with his career, his education, his future! Most people would've just funded CB Jacobs & Co., I mean, it's the nice thing to do, they're doing a lot of good work. Even sans the blackmail.
His furniture bears the biggest brunt of it. His knuckles are raw and kissed by blood, with how hard he's been punching the now-dented wall, and shards of broken glass from the aforementioned childhood trophy lay underneath his dresser. He considers sprinkling them into your food tomorrow.
Okay. He's going to need to breathe. What does he usually do after a game, shitty or not? His usual post-game routine. He goes through it like it's a pre-written fucking manual. He peels off his shirt and throws it in the laundry, along with his tracks and his socks. Good. He gingerly moves past the glass and into his bathroom, flicking the shower on, before stalking back out to throw some pants out onto the bed for him to sleep in. He yanks a towel out of the neat pile of clothes his Mom's folded for him on top of his pillow.
Once he actually hops in to the shower, sweat-soaked, seething and ready to go on some kind of rampage, maybe get Maddy back or go beat someone up — that Tyler punk comes to mind — he blanks.
He's not sure what's happened this whole night.
It's a blur. A delectable, dizzying blur. He splays his palm flat against his shower screen, then pulls it back. A dripping, melting handprint lingers. It reminds him of you, in some strangely cathartic way. Lingering.
Nate's not really proud of what happens next.
Because that's when shit goes south. Namely... his hand.
LISTEN! Okay, listen! If hate-sex is a thing, so is hate-jacking-off, okay?
And it's not like he's saying your name or anything, or picturing you. These two phenomena could be (and, for his sanity's sake, are) entirely unrelated.
He's pent up and pissed off.
What fucking else is he supposed to do?
Halloween is the one saving grace in this epically morose month he's been having. The strangling thing that he just about got out of. His Dad getting on his back about finding funding as if he wasn't out here running around, blackmailing and saving his ass from getting on a fucking list. You.
He'd absolutely mark this October as one of the shittiest in his life. That first thing, though, he got out of, so the universe seems to not have abandoned him entirely.
He's in a pretty okay mood, considering all that's happened lately, so he decides that yes, he's not only going to go to Daniel Dimarco's Halloween party with Maddy, he's going to fuck shit up. He's going to make a fucking statement. Hence, his costume.
However, after Maddy bites his bottom lip during the makeout for the, what, seventh time, and it does nothing for him (who knew the terrifying ordeal of almost being arrested brings libido down?), he decides he needs another drink, and she says she agrees. He safely deposits her with Cassie and then shoves through the crowd to the drinks table, which is right next to the speaker that the makeshift DJ — heavy on the makeshift — is standing at.
"You gonna do some DJ shit or are you just a glorified Spotify Shuffle button?", he questions, chuckling to make sure the poor kid knows he's just joshing around. He's in too good a mood to actually vie for a fight out of anyone right now.
"I'm just doing what they told me to, man.", screams the kid over the music, watching Nate tip the Hennessy bottle into two cups, then filling them with Coke.
He tips one solo cup in the kid's direction before downing it, grimacing before he actually focuses his eyes on the kid. "How old are you?"
"Fourteen.", replies the kid, before looking down at the cup. "Can I have some?"
He whistles, lowly. "Jesus, that's child labour.", he rasps, clearing his throat. "And that's illegal. Can't do that."
"You're not twenty-one, yet."
"Yeah, but you wanna come closer and I'll count the individual hairs on your fuckin' chin, tough guy?", snorts Nate, filling the same cup up a second time, proffering it. "Here. Don't go apeshit."
"Good call, Jacobs, supplying a minor with alcohol, knowingly.", someone — the only one he doesn't want here — calls from behind him.
He's not sure why he'd thought you'd have skipped this party. As he said, you're everywhere. "Family tradition, I see.", you comment.
Nate takes a deep breath before turning to you, eyes leaping from your face to your tits to the solo cup in your hand... to your face again. "For the record, he's not even supposed to be here.", he mutters, thumbing at the kid. "I didn't invite him, I'm not responsible."
"It's my house.", the kid pipes up, stupidly. "I'm Daniel's brother."
"Get the fuck outta here, what are you doing, trying to make it worse?", he scoffs, with a mock charge at him to get him to scram. "Jesus, were we that scrawny in freshman year?"
"I don't remember.", you say, before giving him and his prison-inmate costume a once-over, corners of your mouth turning down in... approval? Respect? He couldn't figure it out. "Statement costume about being acquitted from your case. Smart. Apt, too."
"What are you supposed to be, anyway?", he questions.
"A black cat."
He raises a brow. Talk about apt. "Original.", he comments.
You shrug. "Classic.", you retort, glitter-lips glistening in the fairy lights draped across Daniel's staircase railing. Credit where it's due, you look good. Nate hums, almost under his breath, moving one step closer, placing a palm on your shoulder and allowing his thumb the liberty of stroking it. He'll take full advantage of his tipsiness and the fact that he's pretty sure you're at least 60% attracted to him. Plus, if he can't piss you off, at least he'll throw you off. "You look beautiful tonight.", he states, the corner of his lip turning up.
Nate revels in the slight quirk to your brow that betrays that he's successfully perplexed you. Nevertheless, the recovery comes quick. "Thank you. So does Jules Vaughn."
You can't even take a compliment without fucking checkmating him.
Nate reckons he's getting pretty good at dealing with you. He's a quick learner. He doesn't move back. Doesn't instinctively look over at Jules like he wants to. Doesn't press his palm to your throat in the middle of the party until your neck's got a perfect imprint of his fingers like he yearns to. He's going to play the long game. So, instead, he reaches into his pocket, whipping out his vape. "So. Where's the pussy tonight? He flake?", he asks, taking a hit.
"Why do you care? You threatened him."
"Threatened him? I took him to lunch. What, are you, hurt I fucked with your boyfriend?"
"Nothing you can do can ever hurt me, Jacobs. Sooner you learn that? The better.", you reply, with a pat to his cheek and a raise of your glass to him before forcing him to watch you disappear into the crowd. Okay, so the boyfriend thing was a bust, but you had reacted different to the compliment right before that. He makes a mental note.
There's a moment that he considers following after you, just to see what you'd do, but he comes to the conclusion that it's a toss-up between slapping him or humouring him, both of which are dangerous for extremely different reasons.
He decides not to test his luck (or willpower) and instead, navigates his way back to Maddy, drinks in hand. "Sorry, I was talking to the DJ."
He figures that you've done all this research without even knowing about the disc — hell, even Jules doesn't know about it — so far, so him being in possession of it isn't going to deter you. The only way to keep you from going on your smug little rampage is to clip your wings, to get you locked up, either literally or metaphorically. And money laundering isn't strong enough.
So, he decides, he'll make charges. Can't be hard to frame someone, especially since he's got prior experience — thank you, Tyler — and since you're everywhere, it'll probably be hard to prove you weren't somewhere. There'll always be someone who says they saw you.
God, he loves going on sidequests.
Problem is that Nate's not exactly considered a reliable source in East Highland, not anymore. Not after the whole strangling case.
You, in infuriating contrast, are considered somewhat the only reliable source. Somehow, your doe-eyed, innocent, humble rich girl act sells like hot cakes in this town, because, as he said, you're everywhere. You're the face of the Student Council. Your Dad's on the town council, so you're volunteering there, sometimes, too. You've curated all of this perfectly. You always raise your hand up first for questions, but never remind the teacher about homework. You're so borderline unlikeable that you're likeable, and he doesn't know how you do it. Did you take a seminar?
Anyway, first logical step is to see what you do on a daily basis, which is infuriatingly dismal. You come to school, go to Fez's here and there — you don't even check the back, so he's not sure you even know he's dealing, so that charge is out — and then go to some of your family's other stores, keep 'em scared of the boss or whatever, and then you're back home. That's it. A week of sleuthing, and that's all he's found.
It's definitely staged.
It's like you've been ten steps ahead of him since birth.
It's kinda hot.
So, he decides to do something he never thought he'd ever do. He calls Landon.
"Were you guys a one-night thing or have you been fuckin' her for a while?"
"We've known each other for a while because of the company, but we only kissed that one time." Jesus, his previous assessment of him as a pussy is right. Running around with someone like you all the time, and the thought never even crossed his mind to fuck you?
"And how close would you say you guys are?", he muses, taking a puff of his vape as he keeps his eyes fixed on your back through the window of the cafe you've spontaneously decided to grace.
"Uh... well, close enough that she's texting me that you're stalking her."
He smiles. He knew better than to think you're oblivious to him following you through town the entire day. "Tell her to come and ask me about it herself."
There's a bit of a sigh from the other end, and then Landon clears his throat. "She says the seat next to her's free."
He doesn't count it as cheating to be stupidly attracted to intellect and tact and strategy. He's basically a Game Of Thrones character, he'd wager.
Nate ends the call, tossing his vape back into his backpack before pushing into the door of the cafe, ignoring everyone else turning to him and making a beeline for you.
"Nate.", you greet, taking a sip of your coffee. "What are you stalking me for? What do you think you'll find that I don't have airtight alibis for?", you ask with mock intrigue, resting your chin against your palm in fond disappointment.
He sits with a little grunt. "I'm not here to do anything of the sort."
You raise a brow. He's piqued your interest. He takes that as a win. He scoots closer after flagging the waitress down and ordering the same thing as you, no sugar. "Just between us, how'd you figure it out? Huh? What rabbit holes did you have to go through?", he asks, stretching and draping his elbow behind your chair.
Truth was, you'd found Jules' Blogger account, or, in her words, her "digital diary!" and were immediately bombarded with a smorgasbord of unnecessarily explicit encounters with men in motels. And one caught your eye. So fucking familiar, the description of the dude, it was almost like — you knew the guy. Of course, no picture was attached, so you scrolled back to her Instagram and coincidentally found her outfit for the town carnival, realising that you'd seen this exact bitch talk to Cal motherfucking Jacobs. The guy from the motel. Didn't take a genius to piece it together.
But giving Nate Jacobs the satisfaction of knowing your methods? That's like an orgasm denial.
You draw an imaginary zipper over your mouth.
Okay, fair enough. "You're real chatty when you wanna be.", he remarks, soft enough to sound genuine, like he's not picturing five different ways to shoot you right about now. "Anyone ever tell you that?"
A thumb reaches up, but doesn't touch you. It just hovers, blocking some sunlight from reaching one tip of one bit of your hair.
You shake your head. "You're the first."
"Lucky me."
"Why? I could be a weirdo who gets you assassinated for looking at my family wrong.", you say, tapping your fingernails along the side of your coffee mug.
"You're a weirdo who's so used to only either being called 'sexy' or 'cute', that when someone calls you 'beautiful' — something on the actual compliment spectrum — you freeze.", he observes, rather wryly, focusing more on the 4 O'clock Sun reflecting in your eye than your reaction to that sentence.
"Wow. Notice one thing, and you're suddenly cocky enough to stop pretending you don't wanna do something about it.", you snort, nodding in what could be taken as amusement, but he's not sure. "You've come a long way."
"Fuck's that mean?" He doesn't like where this is going.
"A little bird told me I'm your bad luck charm.", you muse, with a small, unnecessarily enchanting smile as you lean back and shut your textbook closed to make space for his coffee, steaming, fresh, and with impeccable timing.
"Who told you that?"
"You. Seeing my costume for Halloween. Pro tip : get a better poker face."
"What are you, tutoring me in criminal activity?", he snorts, offering you his coffee, which you decline.
"Just saying. Your tells are obvious."
"What other tells do you think I have?"
"Well, for one, you seem intensely turned on whenever I retaliate."
He's lucky he didn't have any coffee in his mouth, or he'd have choked on it like a fucking cartoon character. Instead, he tilts his head, weighing up his options. He could, potentially, spill the coffee on your pretty little face and watch that smug grin scald off. But even he's not that evil. He could stand up and walk out, but that'd just be damning evidence to your point.
So, he does the next best thing. He grabs your shoulder and makes sure that every single fucking word from his mouth reaches your ears. "You'd fucking love that, wouldn't you? Yeah, I know about girls like you."
"Girls like me?"
"That fake humility bullshit doesn't work with me. You're an attention whore, and you'd probably flatline if people didn't worship you, huh? That's why you string Landon along, squeezing whatever you want out of him financially and attentionally, too, huh?", he sneers, trying to match the rhythm of your breathing that's increased just enough to know that what he's saying isn't going in one ear and out the other. "Yeah, I know all about bitches like you. Whores, to be more precise."
He's not sure when his hand moved from your shoulder to your jaw, but he's pressing into them so hard, he might as well be giving you deep dimples in the process.
"Don't have to be a whore to enjoy this little tidbit of information, do I?"
"No, but you seem to enjoy a shit-ton more, huh? Huh?"
He shakes your jaw in his hands, as if that will pull an answer out of you.
God, he can't stand the smirk that follows. It's like he's about to get annihilated or beamed up and only you know about it.
"What? What are you smirkin' at?"
"Seems to me like you're begging for scraps of my attention, not the other way around."
He follows your line of sight around to the cafe, where people are beginning to watch this nightmare unfold. Fuck.
God, just his luck.
He hates you, he decides. He genuinely hates you. Fuck nonchalant. Fuck cordiality. He tried that, it didn't work out. He's just going to have to hate you harder. And hope you notice.
No, you know what? He's not stooping down to your sexy little level.
It's fine. It's whatever. He just has to avoid you, skirt around you in crowded hallways, and avert his gaze like you're dirt during boring classes. Come on. Cakewalk.
This, however, proves difficult with the way the two of you leave this conversation.
"We're supposed to avoid each other. You know that, right? You could at least choose not to come to my games."
"I come for Maddy. And now because I know you don't want me there."
Jesus— fuck.
The rest of the season sucks, because somehow, you're always front row, cheering the quietest, smirking the loudest.
And though there are winning games, they don't win because of him, and it's clear.
You love it, actually. You love that instead of thinking about the plays that Coach refreshed them on three minutes ago, he's thinking about what other things you've uncovered about his family — his parents' we-should-be-divorced limbo? His brother being 26 and a fucking deadbeat living in his parent's house because he did some shady shit in college (that he's sure you might have dug up)? Him and Maddy? It's not even about bargaining chips anymore, because there's no leverage. It's just humiliation. Aka : he's thinking about you. And if that doesn't get you going.
His Dad left early because he was playing so terrible. I mean, it's an assumption, of course, his Dad did probably get that call about investors in different timezones that he'd been telling him about, but it just fits better with Nate's narrative if he sucked that bad so he can hate you more.
So right after he leaves, well, let's just say he's not exactly jumping up and down trying to get back home immediately, and hence, he's driving his ass down to Mel's — the closest bar that won't kick his underage ass out.
For some reason, you call him. He has to question his alcohol tolerance, because he blinks, squints, and even asks the bartender to read out the name on the screen, because maybe he's just tipsy. But no. It's you.
He considers declining. No, really, he does. But then, there's only so much curiosity that one can avoid, isn't there?
He picks up. "Richie Rich's side bitch. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Look up, asshole."
His eyes snap up and race across the bar. There's no way. No fucking w— and there you are. The opposite side of the bar, away from the dancing, severely drunk, teen girls that probably got in with lousy fake I.Ds. Your fingers wiggle in some kind of nonchalant wave and he's almost endeared. "What are you doing here?", he asks into the phone, maintaining eye contact with you across the bar.
"Drinking."
"You're not at the school, helping to decorate for the Winter Formal?"
"I was. Then I realised I'd rather get drunk, drive around the town and then go crash on my bed."
"Your parents know you do all that? I thought you were the golden kid."
"What they don't know won't hurt them. What about you? You okay?"
"What do you care?"
"I have a knack for picking up on pathetic guys' tells."
He snorts, his fingers running across the rim of his glass as he watches you politely shake your head as a guy asks you to dance. "Yeah, I figure Landon gave you tons of practice."
"And I guess you have a thing for girls who are way too good for you."
"Excuse me?"
"Maddy Perez? Leagues above you."
There's no way you can know this, but too soon. "Fuck you."
"You wish."
It's not even twenty minutes later and you're pressed up against a bathroom stall, and doing... absolutely nothing. You're just staring at each other, letting him hold your face in his hands like he gets to, like he deserves it, after "all you've put him through". He's breathing heavy, like there's a gun pointed to his head if he doesn't kiss you, and one pointed to his dick if he does.
"It's not gonna be hot if we fuck, Nate."
"Beg to differ.", he exhales, like it's taking lots of effort for him to articulate thoughts right now.
"It'll be hot during. Maybe a couple seconds after. But if we fuck, after all the tension and passion and anger, we're— we'll just be two people with a lot of hatred for — and dirt on— each other."
"So?"
"So, I'll probably hire a hitman after we're done. This is me saving your life."
He laughs, frustrated and exhausted, his forehead trailing down to between your breasts as he rests there. You're clearly killing him here, and not even literally, yet. "You're gonna have me assassinated? Should I be flattered you're spending money on me?"
"Well, the guy would be someone who owes us money, but —"
"Dude, just let me have this."
You chuckle, hands up in surrender. His forehead trails back up to join with yours. "Do you think I should turn my Dad in?"
"Nate, I'm gonna be honest with you — I don't care."
"Would you? If it were you?"
"I wouldn't sell out my family, but... the fucking-a-minor charge is, uh... kinda serious. We don't need that kinda heat."
"Right. So I should."
"I don't care, Jacobs."
"You know, you keep saying that, but you asked me twenty minutes ago if I was okay.", he mumbles, his knuckles dragging across your jawline like he's mesmerized. "Doubt Landon got any check-ups after his B-ball failure."
"Leave him out of this, Jacobs."
He pouts, mockingly. "Don't tell me you're in love with him. I'll crash out. That's humiliating enough that I don't even need to continue getting revenge on you."
He's honestly not sure why he's so bothered by this. It's not a choice between Landon and him. It's Landon or not. He doesn't factor anywhere into this, but it's a crime against humanity that someone like you was worried about someone like Landon.
So, his finger curves into a belt loop to pull you closer. "You're not in love with him, or your comeback about his basketball game would've been stabbing."
"You really risking this?"
"What? Getting snipered on your orders so I can fuck you? Uh-huh. I'm riskin' it."
"No, I meant riling me up. It's presumptuous to assume that everyone responds to this kinda stuff with becoming horny. Maybe I just become homicidal."
Nate licks his lips, raising his brows before he flicks at your nose. "Hotter."
"You don't think I'll do it, do you?"
He breathes out heavily against your cheek, grip strong enough on your jaw that you know to listen when he's talking to you. "Maybe you will."
Then, he kisses you.
There's a particular rage woven into the intricacies of this kiss that may bother you if you cared enough. But when you feel your shirt rucking up and Nate gripping your hair to make sure you're glued to his lips, you realise there's not that much you care about. Rage just makes his testosterone go up, and makes him hotter. It's science. It's biology. You're not one to fuck with the natural order of things, so when he unbuckles his belt and yanks your hand into his pants, you just go with it. Hey, he's returning the favour by sticking his hand in yours, too, so it's only fair.
Fair. What an ironic thought.
A couple days later.
"One thing I want the world to know about me?", asks Nate, leaning to the side past the camera, to look at Lexi Howard, who gives him a tiny, slightly curt nod.
He's going to let that slide, for now, he decides with narrow eyes. His last name starts with a "J", so he assumes she's had to go through nine other last names, and he knows for a fact that there's at least five "Andersons" in the entire senior year, so he'll chalk that rude little gesture up to fatigue.
"God, there's so much. Of course, the first is don't fuck with me. Then, I've got a big dick. That one's special for the ladies.", he adds, with a wink at the camera as he chews his gum to hide his smirk.
"Can you be serious?"
"I thought this was informal. For the video yearbook, right?"
"Well, yeah, but we can't pan to your... penis or something after you say that. We could pan to the football ground if you say something about you as quarterback?"
God, she's not blonde like her sister, but she's still really fucking dumb. Still, she's so square he wants to fuck with her. "You can. Come on, Alexis, you can do it, I know you can.", he urges.
"Doubt we can zoom that far in, Jacobs. Budget cuts."
Fuck it all to purgatory. He knows that voice. He loathes that voice. He's jacked off to that voice.
His smirk fades as you shut the door behind you, patting Lexi on the shoulder, effectively relieving her from her duties before taking her place, dropping your phone onto the table. "You wanna try again, or do we pan to a baby carrot after that statement?"
His jaw clenches. Something it seems to have to do every time you're in his general vicinity. His molars are freakishly durable, he's thankful for that. "One thing I want the world to know about me is that I'm determined. If I want something, I go after it and I get it."
"Like your diploma?"
"Like justice. But sure. That, too." What was he, trying to garner sympathy for the case about choking his own girlfriend? Or was this — dare you say it? — about you?
You raise a brow, before shutting the camera off. "There. Was that so hard? We'll pan to some football trophy or something. You do have one of those, don't you? Or were all those only before you became captain?"
He's not going to give you the satisfaction of telling you to fuck off, especially because it'll be really pathetic with Lexi still in the room, hovering behind you somewhere, so he just grunts and stands a little too swiftly from his chair. "I can provide footage of my dick, if you want to test my first claim.", he murmurs, his palm on your shoulder similar to yours on Lexi's, before lightly tapping the side of your neck with a curled finger.
"Send Peter Jacobson in, please."
"After him, can I have a turn in?"
Your mouth curls up in disgust, but you don't give him the satisfaction of a glare, instead focus on saving the footage under a filename that isn't "Nate_Asshole_QB" or something. You settle on "PeakedInHighSchool.mp4". More grace than he deserves, but it's mild enough not to warrant more than a warning from Hayes if found.
Lexi leans over your shoulder to read the name on the screen. "Acute."
You nod. "Can you handle the civilians? Shoot me a text when the next footballer comes up, and I'll save you."
She nods, saluting before settling down and waving at Peter as he walks in past you.
Another day, another asshole footballer trying to foreshadow his future on the sex offenders list or something. It's morbidly hilarious, now that you think about it. But you don't get much time to do that. You're already being yanked into the parking lot by your wrist like you weighed nothing. It's scary, because you have a higher chance of it being a kidnapper who needs a cool 50K as ransom than a pissed-off QB who's graduating alongside you in a couple months, but somehow, against all odds, it's the latter.
"You fuckin' kidding me?"
"What? We won't pan to a baby carrot. It's just comedic timing."
"I'm talking about the new mall that's being constructed right next to where my Dad wanted to expand to a condo!"
"What? It's not illegal, we bought that land fair-and-square."
"You think because you're a chick, I won't hit you? Huh? Is that why you're so fucking cocky all the time?"
"No, I'm just saying. How about you do yourself a favour and focus on not fumbling the simplest passes, yeah, tough guy?", you ask, nodding as if you're telling a six year old kid to stop hitting their little sibling through gentle parenting. It's condescending and it's pissing him off, but then again, the same can be said for your existence.
He's sure this doesn't do any favours to the case he's just been let off of, but all of a sudden, he's pinning your shoulders to the wall by clamping the heels of his hands down onto them, fingers brushing up and down your carotid.
"What, I wonder, will you do if I turn my own Dad in?", he whispers in your ear, smooth and sultry like he'd just woken up and drank a straight gallon of honey. Ironic, considering it's midday, and he's leaning you against the back wall of the school, a very small distance away from the cameras. "What ammunition will you have on me then? Hm?", he questions, biting his tongue till he tastes blood, right before he inhales you in deeply. He's convinced he can smell your hatred like Chanel No. 5, marinating through his senses. "A framed-case of strangling I was acquitted from? Underage drinking? What, supplying alcohol to that punk Dave Dimarco?"
You tilt your head at him, eyelash-to-eyelash, glare-to-glare, audacity-to-audacity. "Try aiding and abetting — your Daddy dearest. Assault and battery — poor Tyler. And... lying to an agent of the law — I doubt you'll ever tell all of them down at the police station the entire story behind those sex tapes."
He's so unnecessarily pumped up full of adrenaline right now, he's got nothing left to lose, caution-to-the-wind and all that crap, so he's in fight-or-flight mode, meaning that he doesn't know what to do with this giddy energy thing he's got going on. He settles on creeping his fingers up your waist as he moves even closer, like he's about to fuck the shit out of you against the wall. He can't say he hasn't thought about it, and he's starting to think you can't, either. "Anything else? Or you savin' the best for last?", he exhales out, like he's been holding it in until he can merge your foreheads together.
You grin, subtly. He catches it like he's been searching for it for centuries. "You buy drugs."
Nate almost pulls back at that, a frown forming on his face. He's not sure whether to be amused, aroused, or terrified, but it's no surprise that it's an unhealthy combination of all three, with you."You'd rat out Fez?"
"I'm not a junkie, I have nothing to gain from him. And I'll rat out anyone that's not family. It's called survival."
"Moral compass who, am I right?", he remarks, pulling back entirely, at this point. He's so fucking confused right now. Either you've got friends everywhere , or you'd sell everyone out to save your skin.
You're... you're him.
"My internal compass aligns with my family.", you inform, and it seems oddly earnest. It throws him off. You're... you're actually just him. It's almost cathartic enough to make him let it all go.
But the next week, Landon's in the ER. Hours after that, you're telling your family to buy the land on the other side of the CB. Jacobs property. His response is to spread some rumour about the two of you fucking throughout school. Your counter-rumour has something to do with a baby carrot.
