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garrett graham ❄︎ first date.

pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – an away-game win turns into their first official date – and a risky solution to the hotel’s sleeping arrangements. warnings – 18+, explicit sexual content, strong language, medical and emergency-care discussion, hockey-related violence, brief family issues, unprotected sex, praise kink, dirty talk, sex in a shared hotel room, risk of getting caught notes from me – AS A THANK YOU FOR 4K!!!!! <3 also based on a combination of these requests!! word count – 16.1k

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The drive to Burlington takes just under three hours, which is long enough for Garrett’s car to begin feeling less like something he has lent her and more like a very expensive hostage situation she’s been entrusted not to ruin.

She spends the first forty minutes sitting too upright, both hands fixed at ten and two despite knowing perfectly well she has driven like that outside her learner’s permit test.

Garrett’s seat has been pushed back so far her toes barely reach the pedals until she drags it forward, muttering about freakish hockey-player proportions while the motor hums beneath her and the navigation directs her north through grey Massachusetts morning.

His car smells like him in all the irritatingly familiar ways she has begun collecting without permission: the clean leather warmed by the heater, peppermint gum tucked into the centre console, faint rink cold caught in the floor mats, deodorant, coffee, and the darker trace of whatever cologne he uses when he claims he has not put cologne on.

There’s a roll of hockey tape in the passenger-side footwell. Two protein bar wrappers in the door. A Briar parking pass hanging crooked beneath the mirror and one of her hair ties around the gearshift, although she has no memory of leaving it there.

By the time she crosses into Vermont, her shoulders have dropped from around her ears. The road narrows and bends through trees stripped mostly bare, the mountains washed blue-grey in the distance beneath a low ceiling of cloud.

She listens to half an episode of a medical podcast about a missed aortic dissection, becomes briefly convinced every vague chest pain she has ever experienced was evidence of imminent vascular catastrophe, then listens to another about prehospital trauma assessment because apparently relaxation means letting two emergency physicians describe internal bleeding while she eats petrol-station pretzels.

Garrett texts twice from the hotel.

Garrett: You alive?

The second arrives four minutes later.

Garrett: Baby?

She waits until she pulls into a service station before replying, because she’s responsible and mature and also because Garrett will somehow know if she texts while driving and appear in the passenger seat through sheer disapproval.

alive. your car is dramatic.

His response comes before she’s even put the phone down.

Garrett: She likes attention. Garrett: Like me.

She smiles at the screen in spite of herself, then spends the last hour wanting him with a low, restless ache that has nothing to do with sex, until it does, and everything to do with the fact that she hasn’t seen him since yesterday morning, which is an embarrassingly short amount of time for her body to begin behaving like they’ve been separated by war.

The team hotel sits a few blocks from the lake, one of those clean brick-and-glass places designed to host business conferences, wedding parties and several dozen college hockey players. Briar’s bus is parked along the side of the building, dark windows reflecting the afternoon sky.

Two boys she recognises from the team are coming through the revolving doors carrying takeaway coffees, both in matching tracksuits, and one of them lifts a hand when he spots Garrett’s car pulling into the loading zone.

She parks out front beneath the awning, puts the car in park, then checks herself in the mirror with the quick, useless instinct of someone who’s spent three hours driving and would now prefer to look like she hasn’t.

She’s in jeans, Garrett’s jersey over a fitted long-sleeved top. Hair loose but flattened slightly where it has rested against the headrest. Lips dry from the heater. Fine. Human. Possibly salvageable. She’s barely unclicked her seatbelt when the hotel doors open.

Garrett steps outside in black Briar track pants and a team quarter-zip, one hand pushing through his curls. He scans the cars with the distracted impatience of someone who has clearly been standing near the lobby windows pretending not to wait, then sees her through the windscreen.

His whole face changes. That bright, stupid grin that still lands in her body before her brain can dress it up as anything reasonable. He comes down the shallow hotel steps quickly, shoulders loose beneath the team jacket, cold air lifting the front of his curls.

She reaches for the door handle, but Garrett gets there first, pulls it open and leans inside before she can put one foot onto the pavement. “Hi, baby.”

He kisses her before she can answer properly. One hand catches her jaw, thumb settling under her chin, the other braced on the top of the door while his body blocks out the cold and half the hotel entrance.

It’s not a long kiss. It’s not remotely appropriate for the loading zone either, especially with a minivan idling behind them and somebody’s father watching through the lobby window with visible disapproval.

She smiles into it anyway. “Hi, baby.”

Garrett kisses her again, quicker this time, then pulls back just enough to look over her face. His gaze drops to the jersey and goes soft around the edges in a way that makes the three-hour drive suddenly seem like a deeply intelligent life choice.

Garrett kisses her forehead, then reaches across her for the keys. “Move.”

She blinks. “Hello to you too.”

“I said hi.” He takes the keys from the ignition, then offers her his hand with the patient expectation of a man who has already decided this part. “C’mon. I’ll park.”

“I drove the entire way here.”

“And you did so good.”

The praise is delivered with enough sincerity to make arguing difficult. She puts her hand in his, Garrett draws her out of the driver’s seat, catches her automatically at the waist when her stiff legs object to immediate pavement, then kisses her once more beneath the awning as though the first three were administrative rather than sufficient.

The horn behind them gives one short, irritated tap. Garrett lifts his head without releasing her and looks toward the minivan. “Relax.”

She presses her face briefly into his chest, laughing. “Oh my God. Move your car.”

Garrett gestures with his hand. “Guy’s got no patience.”

“You’re making out in the loading zone.”

He glances back down at her. “I haven’t seen my girlfriend all day.”

“It’s been twenty-nine hours,” she giggles.

“Exactly.” His hand slides down to squeeze her hip once before he lets her go. “Emergency.”

She circles to the passenger side while Garrett folds himself into the driver’s seat, shoving it backward with one hand until his knees no longer sit somewhere near his ears. The familiarity of watching him take back the car catches her strangely – the quick check of the mirrors, his wrist turning the key, one hand dropping loose over the wheel while the other reaches across the console before they have even pulled away from the curb.

She threads their fingers together. Garrett glances down, then over at her, his mouth curving. “Miss me?”

She grins. “No.”

“Okay.”

“I drove three hours in your car wearing your jersey because I hate you.”

“Yeah, that tracks.”

He follows the signs toward hotel parking, taking them down a concrete ramp beneath the building where the afternoon light falls away and everything turns dim, echoing and faintly blue beneath fluorescent strips. Tyres whisper over painted concrete. The garage smells like cold cement, exhaust and rainwater brought in beneath other cars, little dark tracks shining across the floor.

Garrett finds a spot near the lift, backs in cleanly and cuts the engine. The sudden quiet settles heavily around them, broken only by the ticking of the cooling motor and a distant car door slamming somewhere on the level above.

For half a second, neither of them moves, then Garrett looks over. She knows the look. It’s not especially subtle. His eyes move from hers to her mouth, then down the front of his jersey, lingering where the fabric folds across her chest before coming back up with all the innocence of a man who’s never successfully hidden a thought in his life.

“You look good in that.”

She smooths one hand unnecessarily over the number. “You’ve mentioned.”

“Could mention it again.”

“Wouldn’t want you to strain yourself,” she murmurs.

Garrett unclips his seatbelt. The sound is very small in the car. Her pulse reacts like somebody has fired a starting gun. He leans across the centre console, one hand catching lightly at her jaw. “C’mere.”

“You’re very bossy in Vermont.”

“I’m captain in every state,” he replies, voice low.

She laughs against his mouth when he kisses her, but the laugh doesn’t last. Garrett’s lips settle over hers warm and soft for only a second before his thumb angles her chin higher and the kiss deepens, his mouth opening against hers with the immediate, familiar confidence that makes the enclosed car seem to shrink around the width of his shoulders and the quiet sound she makes in her throat.

His other hand finds her waist over the jersey, palm spreading there like he’s been waiting since the hotel entrance to get a proper hold of her. She turns toward him as far as the seat allows, one knee pressing awkwardly into the console, fingers climbing into the curls at the back of his head. Garrett groans softly when she tugs, the sound caught between their mouths, and pulls her closer despite there being several pieces of car engineering firmly opposed to the idea.

The centre console digs into her hip. The gearshift is somewhere beneath her forearm. Garrett’s elbow bumps the horn lightly enough to produce a short, humiliating chirp that echoes through the garage. They freeze.

She looks at him. Garrett’s mouth twitches. “Car likes attention.”

She breaks into a laugh, forehead dropping briefly to his. “You’re so stupid.”

“Yeah?” He kisses the corner of her mouth, then the other side while she’s still smiling. “Come over here.”

“Where?”

He looks down at his lap.

“Oh.”

Garrett’s grin turns slow. “Yeah. Oh.”

Climbing across the centre console in jeans and a hockey jersey isn’t graceful. It involves one knee nearly catching the cup holder, Garrett moving the steering wheel up with one hand, and her muttering, “Don’t look at me,” while he watches with the deeply pleased concentration of someone receiving a private performance.

“I’m helping.”

She gives him a look. “You’re grabbing my ass.”

“Support.”

Then she’s over him, knees braced badly on either side of his hips, head almost brushing the roof of the car until Garrett catches her waist and drags her down into the space between his body and the steering wheel. The position presses her against him all at once, heat and denim and the hard line of his thighs beneath hers, her hands landing on his shoulders while his spread over her hips.

The first kiss from there is messier. Garrett tilts his face up and she meets him halfway, mouth opening over his, one hand sliding into his hair while the other curls around the back of his neck. He grips her hip hard enough to bunch the jersey, his thumb finding the strip of skin above her jeans where the fabric has ridden up.

Her body shifts closer without consulting anyone. Garrett breathes her name against her lips, then kisses her again, tongue slipping over hers, his hand moving from her waist to her jaw so he can hold her exactly where he wants her. The touch is familiar now, warm fingers along her cheek, thumb near the corner of her mouth, just enough pressure to make her stomach tighten and her knees press harder around him.

She bites lightly at his bottom lip. Garrett’s hips lift under her on reflex. “Fuck,” he mutters.

The word lands hot and low. She kisses him again before either of them can make it funny, and for a while there’s only the muted scrape of denim, the small wet sounds of their mouths, Garrett’s breathing turning rough beneath hers, his fingers flexing at her hip every time she rolls closer.

He drags his mouth from hers eventually, though not far. A kiss at the corner of her lips. Another along her cheek. Then down the line of her jaw, warm and open-mouthed, his hand slipping into her hair to tip her head aside.

Her eyes close. “Garrett.”

He kisses beneath her ear. “So…”

The word moves over her skin. She’s breathing badly enough that it takes a second to understand he’s introduced a subject. “So?”

Garrett presses one more kiss to her throat, then rests his mouth there with the deeply suspicious stillness of a man attempting to use physical affection as diplomatic cover. “Logan’s in my room.”

Her eyes open. She pulls back just enough to look at him. Garrett’s hands remain on her hips, expression careful in a way that immediately makes it worse. “So it’s…” She waits.

“Two double beds,” he says.

She stares.

Garrett’s thumb moves once over her waist as though soothing a potentially dangerous animal. “Us in one.”

“Right.”

He tilts his head. “Logan in the other.”

“What?” Her voice bounces lightly off the windscreen, and Garrett winces.

“Tucker and Dean are together, baby.”

Her eyes widen. “Why is Logan with us?”

“Because that’s the room list.”

“I thought they were reorganising it!”

“They tried.” Garrett’s mouth tightens around a smile he’s smart enough not to show fully. “Coach already had the keys sorted when we got here.”

She looks past him at the concrete wall as if it may contain another room. “Can’t Logan sleep with Dean and Tucker?”

“Three guys in one room?”

She nods eagerly. “Yes.”

“Dean said he’d rather sleep in the hallway than share a double bed with Logan.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“Logan kicks.”

She lets her forehead fall forward against Garrett’s. The steering wheel presses lightly into her back, his hands warm and steady at her hips, the entire hot little reunion collapsing around the image of Logan six feet away eating vending-machine chips while they lie rigidly beneath hotel sheets.

Garrett kisses the tip of her nose. “What was I supposed to say to Coach?”

She makes a dissatisfied sound.

He strokes his thumbs beneath the hem of the jersey. “‘Sorry, Coach, I’m sneaking my girlfriend in, so Logan can’t be there because I want to fuck her’?”

Her mouth twitches despite the tragedy. “You could’ve phrased it professionally.”

Garrett laughs, low and warm, his nose brushing hers. “Yeah? ‘Requesting private facilities for post-game team morale’?”

“But I love post-winning sex.” The complaint comes out against his mouth, quiet and genuinely aggrieved. Garrett closes his eyes for one second like the words have caused him physical pain.

“Trust me,” he says. His hands slide around to her lower back, pulling her closer until the front of the jersey presses fully against his chest. “Me too.”

She huffs and lets her forehead return to his. His breathing is still uneven. So is hers. The glass beside them has begun to fog faintly at the edges, a soft blur spreading near Garrett’s shoulder like the car itself has decided to document their poor choices.

He rubs one hand slowly along her back. “Drive okay?”

His thumb moves beneath her hair, smoothing once along the base of her skull, and she nods. “Fine. Listened to a really cool medical podcast.”

Garrett’s grin returns, smaller now and fond in a way that sits more dangerously under her ribs than the kissing did. He brushes a flattened section of hair away from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear with fingers still warm from her skin. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It was interesting.”

“What was it about?”

“Aortic dissection.”

His brows lift. “Is that bad?”

She stares at him.

“Ooh,” Garrett says. “Medical face. It’s bad.”

She runs her fingers through his curls. “It’s when the inner layer of the aorta tears and blood tracks between the layers of the vessel wall.”

He nods slowly, taking this in with the sincere concentration of someone watching game tape in a language he doesn’t speak. “That sounds bad.”

“It’s extremely bad.”

“Did they fix it?”

Her mouth turns down. “Not the first guy.”

Garrett’s face drops. “Jesus.”

“The second one lived,” she says, voice bright.

“Oh, good.” His thumb strokes once along her cheek. “That’s cool, baby.”

She nods, pleased despite the fact that he’s understood perhaps twelve percent of the episode. “Yeah.”

He looks at her for another second, mouth softened at the edges, then leans up and kisses her. This one is gentler, though not innocent. His lips move over hers slowly, thumb still tucked beneath her jaw, and when he pulls back his eyes drop again to the jersey.

“You ready for the game?”

She glances down at herself, jeans, his number across her chest, sneakers that will become uselessly cold in an arena within twenty minutes. “Mhm.”

Garrett nods. His palms slide down her thighs and give them a light squeeze. “Go to the arena, yeah? I’ll come find you after.”

“After you win.”

His grin flashes. “Obviously.”

She shifts as though she might climb back over the console, then stops with her mouth an inch from his. “One more kiss.”

Garrett looks at her lips. “One.”

“One.”

He kisses her. It begins with the solemnity of an agreement and breaks it almost immediately. Her hand curls behind his neck. Garrett’s catches her hip.

The kiss deepens, warm and slow and familiar, until she smiles against his mouth and pulls back only far enough to whisper, “Just one more.”

“Right.” Garrett kisses her again, quicker this time, his grin pressing briefly into her lips. “Last one.”

She catches his jaw before he can move away. “Boyfriend tax.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Get used to it.”

Garrett laughs and kisses her once more, both hands sliding up her back as she sinks closer, the arena and the game and Logan’s extremely inconvenient presence waiting somewhere beyond the concrete walls.

By the time she finally climbs back into the passenger seat, her hair is worse than it had been after three hours against the headrest, Garrett’s mouth is pink, and the inside of the car has become warm enough that the windscreen has fogged visibly over the lower corners.

Garrett starts the engine and turns the demister on full. She looks at the glass, then at him. “Subtle.”

The problem with watching Garrett play hockey now that he’s officially her boyfriend, is that every emotion arrives without the dignity of moderation. There’s no casual enjoyment left in it. No detached appreciation for skill. No sitting politely beneath the arena lights with her hands folded in her lap, thinking, yes, lovely edge work, good positioning, very athletic of him.

Her entire body has become a deeply embarrassing instrument built for reacting to Garrett Graham doing literally anything on ice.

He wins the opening face-off and something hot and stupid lifts beneath her ribs. He sends a clean pass across the neutral zone to Logan and she claps hard enough that the girl beside her laughs.

He drives a Burlington defenceman into the boards with one shoulder, comes away with the puck and that sharp, vicious little grin visible beneath his cage, and she stands with half the Briar section screaming his name before she’s consciously decided to move.

The boys are destroying them. Garrett is everywhere. He plays like the ice belongs to him and everyone else is just borrowing it, cutting through the defensive line with that frightening smoothness he has when everything inside him is aligned – the speed, the violence, the instinct, the impossible awareness of where every other body will be two seconds before it gets there.

He’s loose in a way she loves seeing, shoulders low, movements clean, never reaching for the game because it keeps arriving exactly where he expects.

Tucker’s having the kind of night that would make a less secure man resent him. He picks off a pass in Briar’s end, protects the puck through two bodies and sends it forward without even seeming to look, the play opening in front of them so quickly the Burlington crowd barely has time to groan before Logan has it.

Logan’s a menace. He slips past one defenceman, draws another toward him and sends the puck sideways to Garrett at the last possible second. Garrett buries it high before the goalie finishes shifting across the crease.

The Briar section explodes. She’s on her feet immediately, both hands in the air, yelling into the noise while the goal horn dies somewhere beneath the sharper sound of visiting students screaming themselves hoarse.

Garrett gets mobbed near the boards, Logan slamming into one shoulder while Tucker catches him from the other side. Dean arrives late and launches himself into the group with enough unnecessary force to nearly knock all four of them over.

“Jesus Christ,” one of the girls beside her says, still clapping. “They came angry.”

“They’ve been unbearable all week,” another answers. “This is what happens when Coach tells them Burlington has a strong home record.”

Dean peels away from the celebration and skates backward toward the bench, lifting both arms toward the crowd like he scored the goal himself. The Burlington student section boos him. Dean cups one glove theatrically to his ear.

“He’s such a dick,” she says, smiling despite herself.

“Oh, Dean?” The blonde on her right waves one hand dismissively. “He gets worse when people boo. It feeds him.”

Dean blows a kiss toward a group of furious Burlington students before hopping over the boards, and the Briar bench erupts into helmet taps and shoves while Coach looks like he’s considering whether a win is worth the administrative burden of keeping Dean alive.

She sits again once the puck drops, breath still caught high in her chest and Garrett’s number warm over her body. The jersey is large enough that she has the sleeves pushed back twice, the cuffs sitting around her wrists in soft folds. Every time she raises her arms, the hem shifts over the waistband of her jeans, and she catches the faint clean smell of Garrett’s detergent from the collar when she breathes.

It should have been the perfect weekend. It was the perfect weekend, technically. She had Garrett’s car, his jersey, a hotel, an away game and their first official date after.

There was something almost offensively romantic about it in the college-hockey way – driving across state lines beneath grey skies, watching her boyfriend win, going to dinner still buzzing from it, then returning to a room where nobody had an eight a.m. lecture or an eleven-hour shift or a house full of men born without the part of the brain responsible for knocking.

She had packed for the version of the weekend where Garrett had his own room. She had packed carefully. There was lingerie folded beneath her spare sweater that had taken twenty minutes to choose and a level of mirror-based analysis she would deny under oath.

There were black stockings rolled inside one boot because she had briefly lost contact with herself in the shop and decided away-game sex required visual planning. All of it was sitting inside her overnight bag at the hotel. Along with Logan.

Stupid Logan.

The object of her private resentment takes another pass from Tucker, fakes a shot and sends it to Dean, who comes flying into the zone with no visible concern for his own skeleton. Dean snaps the puck past the goalie, then crashes into the boards behind the net because stopping appears to be beneath him.

The red light goes on. Briar scores again. She jumps to her feet with everyone else, screaming and clapping as Dean turns from the glass with his mouth open in a yell, one fist pumping before Garrett catches the back of his jersey and drags him into the celebration.

“Okay,” she mutters while sitting back down. “Maybe Logan’s allowed to live.”

The girl beside her glances over. “What did Logan do?”

She realises, belatedly, that she has been speaking aloud. “He’s sleeping in Garrett’s hotel room.”

There’s a beat. Then the blonde winces with genuine sympathy. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Like, sleeping sleeping?”

She nods. “In the other bed.”

“Oh,” the blonde repeats, worse this time.

The girls around her are people she recognises more than knows. Regular fixtures at Briar games and hockey-house parties, always in tiny tops beneath oversized team jackets, glossy hair, immaculate eyeliner and the ability to identify a hooking call from sixty feet away while drunk.

She has privately thought of them as the puck-bunny cluster, which feels less kind now that one of them is offering her a sip from an unopened bottle of water and another has shifted her bag so she has more room for her knees.

They had all said hello when she arrived. One of them – dark hair, sharp eyeliner, little silver hoops – had complimented Garrett’s jersey and then immediately asked whether it was warm because she was considering stealing Tucker’s. They are, irritatingly, not awful.

The blonde turns toward her more fully during a stoppage, crossing one leg over the other. “So…”

The girl on her other side looks over at once. “Kendall.”

“What?” Kendall lifts both brows. “I’m being friendly.”

“You always say that right before you ask something invasive.”

Kendall ignores her. Her gaze flicks down to the jersey, then toward Garrett circling near centre ice. “Someone finally locked down Garrett Graham.”

The other girl closes her eyes. “Kenz, don’t.”

“No, it’s okay,” she says, partly because Kendall’s expression is curious rather than cruel and partly because she’s spent enough time around Dean to know invasive questions become stronger if fear is detected. “Apparently.”

Kendall smiles. “I’m Kendall.”

She introduces herself, and the dark-haired girl beside Kendall leans around with an apologetic look. “Paige. I swear we usually keep her on a shorter leash.”

“I escaped.”

“You chewed through it.”

A third girl farther down lifts her hand. “Sienna.”

“Hi.”

They exchange the peculiar smiles of women who have all, at one point, been in the same kitchen at two in the morning pretending not to hear something happening upstairs.

The puck drops again before the conversation can settle, and for the next minute all four of them turn toward the ice as Garrett steals possession near the boards and sends a pass backward through his own legs.

Paige makes an appreciative noise. “That was disgusting.”

“He’s showing off,” she says.

Kendall glances toward her. “For you?”

“No. He’s naturally unbearable.”

Down on the ice, Garrett’s head turns toward their section for the briefest second before he moves back into position.

Kendall smiles into her drink. “Sure.”

The game keeps moving at a pace that makes conversation happen in broken sections – between whistles, during line changes, while officials argue near the boards and Burlington’s coach looks one bad call away from attempting murder with a clipboard.

The girls know the game properly. They track matchups, complain about the officiating with specific evidence and collectively groan when a Briar defenceman turns over the puck near the blue line.

Sienna has statistics. Paige knows which Burlington winger has a weak backhand. Kendall knows everyone’s romantic history but presents it like battlefield intelligence rather than gossip.

By the middle of the second period, she’s forgotten to be wary of them.

“So where are you staying?” Paige asks, peeling the label away from her water bottle in tiny strips. “Did you get a room here?”

“Oh.” She shifts the jersey sleeve back up her arm. “Uh, Garrett’s kind of sneaking me into the team hotel.”

Three faces change at once, into pure delight.

“No,” Sienna says, pressing a hand to her chest. “That’s so cute.”

“Stop,” Kendall adds. “Away-game girlfriend weekend?”

“Kind of.” She looks toward the ice, where Garrett and Logan are conferring near the bench with their helmets tipped together. “Except Logan’s sleeping in the next bed.”

The sympathy returns immediately.

Paige makes a low noise. “That’s brutal.”

“My lingerie’s essentially on a sightseeing trip.”

Sienna snorts into her bottle. Kendall folds forward laughing, one hand gripping Paige’s knee, and even the girl in the row ahead turns around with a grin despite having no context.

“Just be quiet,” Paige says once she can speak again.

She looks at her. “What?”

Paige shrugs with the composure of someone suggesting a restaurant. “Dean and I did that last year when he was sharing with Tucker.”

There’s half a second of silence.

Kendall turns slowly. “I’m sorry?”

Paige frowns. “You knew that.”

“I knew you hooked up. I didn’t know Tucker was in the room.”

“He was asleep.”

Sienna stares. “The whole time?”

Paige’s mouth curves around the rim of her bottle. “Tuck sleeps really deep. He didn’t wake up.”

Kendall’s eyes narrow. “Would you have stopped if he did?”

Paige gives this serious consideration. “Probably not.”

The three girls burst into laughter, Kendall raising one hand. Paige high-fives her without hesitation. She laughs with them, face warming as she looks back toward the ice and tries not to imagine the logistics.

Logan asleep beneath a hotel duvet. Garrett’s hand over her mouth. The lingerie no longer purely decorative. The difficult but perhaps not impossible task of remaining quiet while Garrett Graham was actively trying to prevent that outcome.

The idea plants itself with alarming efficiency. It doesn’t help that Garrett takes the ice again thirty seconds later.

He catches a pass from Tucker near the blue line, moves through the first defender before the man’s hips finish turning and cuts hard toward the centre. Logan draws the second defenceman away. Dean barrels toward the net, the goalie drops, anticipating the shot low.

Garrett lifts it over his shoulder. Goal.

The arena splits down the middle – Burlington groaning, Briar screaming – and she’s standing before the puck has fully hit the net. Her hands come together hard, a sharp clap lost beneath the horn, then she puts two fingers to her mouth and whistles so loudly Paige jerks beside her.

Garrett circles behind the net, momentum carrying him toward the boards while his teammates close in. He lifts his head, and finds her. Even through the cage, even beneath the helmet, she sees the grin arrive. Garrett points one gloved hand toward the stands, directly up at her, and something inside her opens so quickly it almost feels like missing a step.

The girls around her make a collective sound.

“Oh my God,” Kendall says.

She doesn’t care. Not enough to pretend. Not with Garrett still looking at her from the ice, flushed and bright and pleased, his whole body alive with the game. She blows him a kiss.

It’s corny. Public. Completely unlike the woman who once treated wanting him as a confidential condition and insisted every hookup would be the last. The kiss leaves her fingers anyway, and Garrett catches it against the front of his glove before pressing the glove theatrically to his chest.

Dean slams into him from behind hard enough to ruin the moment and nearly send him into the boards. She laughs, falling back into her seat while her pulse beats warm in her throat.

“Oh,” Paige sighs beside her. “You’re gone.”

She presses both hands briefly over her face. “I know.”

There’s no point arguing. Garrett returns to the bench still grinning, and the sight of it sits beneath her skin for the rest of the game, a warm little current through every shout and whistle and thud against the glass.

Briar finishes five goals ahead.

Dean takes a penalty with four minutes left. Tucker assists twice. Logan scores one and spends the remainder of the third period tormenting Burlington’s defence with the serene expression of someone doing homework he finds easy. Garrett leaves the ice with two goals, two assists and the particular loose swagger of a man who knows he’s been the best person in the building for two straight hours.

She stays until the stands begin emptying, saying goodbye to the girls while people file toward the exits around them. Kendall catches her wrist before leaving. “Dinner tomorrow if the boys aren’t being weird?”

She blinks, then smiles. “Yeah. Okay.”

Paige points at her. “And consider my advice.”

“Your deeply unethical advice?”

“Life-changing advice.”

Sienna shakes her head as they disappear into the crowd. “Do not listen to her.”

Paige calls back over one shoulder, “Coward.”

The corridor outside the rink is warmer than the stands and smells like popcorn, wet coats and the sour edge of old ice. She follows the signs down toward the restricted player area, stopping near the place Garrett had told her to wait.

The door beside it stays shut. Team staff move in and out with equipment bags and clipboards, none of them paying much attention to her beyond a quick glance at the Briar jersey.

She waits. At first she stands near the wall, checking the door every time it opens. Then ten minutes becomes twenty and the heat from the game begins fading out of her body, leaving her feet cold inside her sneakers and her throat dry from yelling.

There’s a vending machine farther down the corridor. She buys a bottle of lemonade for an amount that feels rude, then sits on a narrow bench beneath a framed photograph of a team from the nineties.

She doesn’t mind the wait. The arena quiets around her in layers. Crowds disappear toward the exits. The concession shutters roll down. The overhead announcements stop. Her body settles into the pleasant exhaustion after noise, ears still faintly ringing, Garrett’s jersey warm around her shoulders.

She scrolls through her phone, answers a text from Monique asking whether she’s become an interstate hockey wife yet, and sends Lucy a blurry picture. She’s halfway through reading a post about medication errors when the door opens again.

Garrett comes through carrying his gear bag over one shoulder. His hair is damp from the shower, curls darker and pushed loosely off his forehead. He’s back in his team tracksuit, jacket unzipped at the throat, cheeks still holding a faint post-game flush despite the time he’s spent cooling down.

There’s a small red mark near his jaw she doesn’t remember seeing before and a brightness in his face that makes the whole quiet corridor rearrange itself around him.

She grins before he spots her. “Hi, Captain.”

Garrett’s head turns. The smile that hits him is immediate and wide enough that he looks briefly younger, all the game-day sharpness dropping out of his face at once. He lets the gear bag slide from his shoulder near the wall.

She’s already standing. The lemonade goes onto the bench. Her phone gets shoved badly into the back pocket of her jeans. Then she’s moving toward him, walking quickly for three steps before giving up and half-running the rest.

Garrett opens his arms with a laugh. “Hey–”

She jumps. Her arms hook around his shoulders and her legs barely have time to leave the ground before Garrett catches her under the thighs, lifting her against him with the same easy strength that still gives her stomach a small, delighted drop.

He turns them in a quick circle, her laugh breaking out near his ear while his gear bag sits abandoned on the floor and one arena employee watches with the exhausted neutrality of someone paid too little to acknowledge young love.

Garrett kisses her, smiling too much for it to land properly the first time. She tries again, holding his face between both hands while he steadies her against him, and the second kiss is warm and sure and tastes faintly of mint gum and whatever sports drink he had after the game.

“Nice win, baby,” she murmurs when she pulls back.

“Thanks, baby.” He kisses her once more, quick and pleased, then looks over her face like he needs to verify she witnessed all the relevant parts. “You see the second goal?”

She grins. “You pointed at me.”

“Did I?”

“Oh, don’t do that.”

“What?” His mouth twitches. “I point at lots of people.”

Her eyes narrow. “Name one.”

“Coach.”

“Romantically?”

Garrett laughs and lowers her carefully until her feet return to the floor. His hands stay at her waist after, thumbs brushing over his own jersey. “You blew me a kiss.”

She tilts her head. “I don’t remember that.”

“Yeah?” He leans down, mouth hovering close to hers. “I caught it. It was hot.”

“It wasn’t hot.”

“Baby, you’re wearing my jersey, screaming my name from the stands and blowing me kisses after goals.” His grin goes slow and devastating. “It’s pretty fucking hot.”

Her face warms. She catches the open edge of his jacket and gives it a sharp little tug. “You’re insufferable after a win.”

“You love me after a win.”

The words are careless. Easy. Garrett smiling down at her with his hands around her waist and his body still carrying the game, saying something so close to the truth that her breath catches for half a beat before she can smooth it over.

“I tolerate you very enthusiastically.”

“Right.” He kisses her forehead, lingering there for a second, then reaches down for his bag. “Hey. You wanna go eat?”

She looks up. “Now?”

“Still early.” Garrett slings the strap back over his shoulder and glances toward the emptying corridor. There’s a slight change in him, so subtle she might not have caught it a few months ago – the quick drag of his tongue over his bottom lip, his eyes moving away from hers for half a second before coming back. “Thought we could go somewhere nice.”

Her mouth softens before she can stop it. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, baby.”

Garrett nods once, then adjusts the gear bag higher despite it already sitting perfectly well. “First proper date.”

Garrett Graham, who can walk onto hostile ice and take control of an entire game in front of thousands of people, suddenly looking faintly uncertain because he has to choose a restaurant and sit across from his girlfriend while they both know it counts.

She steps closer. “Are you nervous?”

Garrett looks offended. “I just scored twice.”

“Congratulations. You’re still nervous.”

He bends and kisses her before the smile can fully escape. “Let’s go back to the hotel,” he says against her mouth. “Shower and stuff.”

Her brows furrow. “You already showered.”

“Yeah, but I smell like the locker room again.”

She breathes lightly near the collar of his jacket, mostly to be annoying. “A little.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, baby.”

Garrett’s expression eases. He picks up her half-finished lemonade with his free hand, takes a drink without asking and makes a face at the sweetness. “Jesus.”

She points at it. “That cost four dollars.”

“Robbery.”

“You still drank it.”

“Relationship property,” he argues.

“That’s not the law.”

He grins, hooks his arm around her shoulders and draws her into his side as they start toward the exit. The gear bag hangs from his other shoulder, heavy enough that it should affect the way he walks and somehow doesn’t. She reaches up and threads their fingers together near her collarbone, holding his hand where it rests over her, then wraps her other arm around his waist beneath the open jacket.

They fit like that too easily now. Her hip against his. His warmth along her side. Their joined hands tucked near her shoulder while the quiet arena corridor stretches ahead of them beneath fluorescent lights.

She looks up at him. “So proud of you.”

Garrett’s head turns. For a second the grin fades into something smaller and more private, the words landing somewhere he doesn’t immediately cover with a joke. His thumb moves once over the back of her hand.

“Thanks,” he says, then the grin comes back. “Good-luck charm.”

She leans her head briefly against his shoulder. “You played well because I packed expensive underwear.”

His stride catches. Only slightly. Barely enough to notice if she were not pressed directly against him. Garrett looks down. “You what?”

She keeps her face forward with heroic composure. “Nothing.”

“No, no.” His arm tightens around her shoulders. “Go back.”

“First proper date,” she reminds him brightly. “We should focus on, like, emotional intimacy.”

“Baby.”

“And food,” she adds.

“What underwear?”

She smiles as the exit doors open ahead of them, cold Burlington air pressing through the gap. “Guess we’ll never know, with Logan being our roomie and all.”

Garrett stops walking altogether. She gets two steps ahead before his joined hand catches hers and pulls her gently backward into him. His mouth drops near her ear, voice low enough that it moves warm over the side of her neck.

“Logan sleeps pretty hard.”

The idea Paige planted earlier lifts its head with renewed interest. She turns slowly inside the circle of his arm. Garrett is looking at her with his brows slightly raised, dark eyes bright beneath damp curls, the edge of a challenge already settling into his mouth.

“Does he?” she asks.

Garrett’s hand slides to her waist. “Guess we’ll find out.”

The bathroom door sticks slightly against the carpet when she opens it, catching for half a second before giving way with a soft scrape, and Garrett looks up from the edge of the bed.

He’s been sitting there with his elbows resting loosely over his knees, phone balanced in one hand and one Timberland planted farther out than the other. His jacket is open over a fitted black knit that pulls cleanly across his shoulders and chest, dark jeans falling loose over his boots, curls pushed into some deliberate version of their usual disorder that makes him look unfairly put together for someone who had been knocking men into reinforced glass two hours ago.

His eyes find her face first. Then move down. The phone lowers slowly toward his thigh. “Shiiit.”

She stops just outside the bathroom, one hand still resting on the door handle, and smiles because there’s no possible dignified response to Garrett Graham looking at her like that. “Hi.”

Garrett’s gaze makes the trip again, slower this time. Over the pale knit sitting soft against her skin, the belt pulled through the waist of the dark denim skirt, the strip of bare thigh above her boots. His mouth parts slightly before the grin finds it, a little stunned around the edges despite all the confidence he’s spent several months weaponising against her.

“Fuck,” he says, setting his phone aside without looking. “You look so good, baby.”

Something warm spreads beneath the neat waistband of her skirt. She smooths one hand over the knit, suddenly aware of every decision she made beneath the yellow bathroom lighting. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His knees widen in an invitation so obvious it barely qualifies as one. “C’mere.”

She crosses the room, boots muffled against the carpet, and stops between his legs. Garrett’s hands settle immediately on the backs of her thighs, warm palms against skin, fingers spreading just beneath the hem of the skirt as his head tips back to look at her.

The contact is simple enough. Barely anything, really. He’s touched much more of her in much less fabric. Still, his thumbs move slowly along the backs of her legs and her pulse begins doing something unnecessarily visible near the base of her throat.

“You won’t be cold?” he asks.

She glances toward the long dark coat draped over the chair beside her bag. “Got a coat.”

Garrett follows her gaze, nods once as if the existence of appropriate outerwear has resolved a legitimate concern. “Good.”

Then his hands slide higher, Garrett’s fingertips catch the edge of the skirt and make her stomach tighten. He draws her closer until her knees touch the mattress between his thighs.

“You look…” He pauses, eyes moving over her again like the sentence has become difficult. “Really fucking good.”

She threads her fingers into the curls near his temple, brushing one piece back into place. “You’ve said.”

“Gonna keep saying it.”

That makes her laugh, and Garrett uses the small drop of her shoulders to pull her down. His mouth finds hers before she has properly balanced, one hand shifting from her thigh to her waist while the other stays wrapped behind her leg, keeping her steady between his knees.

The kiss starts warm and almost sweet, his lips still faintly minty, the knit of his jumper soft beneath her palm when she braces it against his chest. Then Garrett tilts his head, thumb pressing into the curve of her waist, and it deepens with the speed of something that’s been waiting impatiently beneath the surface since the parking garage.

Her mouth opens under his. Garrett makes a low sound and draws her closer, knees pressing into the outsides of her legs until she’s nearly sitting in his lap. His hand leaves her waist to cup her jaw, fingers slipping beneath her hair, thumb resting near the corner of her mouth while his tongue drags over hers.

A small sound escapes her. Soft and involuntary and immediately absorbed by Garrett’s mouth. His hand tightens at the back of her thigh, and he stands.

It happens without breaking the kiss, which is annoying only because he does it with enough ease to remind her that she could probably climb him like public infrastructure and he would remain structurally sound. One second he’s sitting beneath her, the next she’s being crowded backward by the warm, solid length of him, his jacket brushing her arms and his mouth still moving over hers while one hand catches her waist.

Her fingers close around the front of his jumper. Garrett kisses her harder, breathing rougher now, and his free hand wanders down over the denim at her hip to the curve of her ass. His palm spreads there, and she makes another little noise into his mouth.

Garrett smiles against her lips, dark and pleased, then squeezes once through the skirt in a way that sends her body into his before pride can intervene. His mouth leaves hers only to drag over her cheek, warm kisses pressed toward the line of her jaw while his hand stays firm behind her.

She tips her head aside. “Baby.”

Someone clears his throat. Logan doesn’t need volume. The sound arrives from the other bed with the calm, pointed precision of a man reminding two people that although they may have temporarily lost awareness of him, he has unfortunately continued to exist.

Garrett stops with his mouth against her jaw. For a second, his eyes stay closed. Then he lifts his head and looks directly at the ceiling, jaw working slowly, like he’s calculating the personal, athletic and legal cost of killing his best friend in a Burlington hotel room.

Logan flicks through the channels. “Don’t mind me.”

“I’m trying not to,” Garrett says.

“It doesn’t seem like you’re trying very hard.”

She presses her lips together, but the smile still pulls at them. Garrett feels it and looks down at her with narrowed eyes, as if her amusement constitutes betrayal. “Don’t,” he murmurs.

“You had your hand on my ass in front of him.”

“Yeah, and he was supposed to look away.”

Logan glances toward them. “I did. The kissing had surround sound.”

Garrett’s face goes blank with suffering. She takes pity on him before he begins rearranging the hotel’s occupancy through violence, slipping out of his arms and reaching for her coat. The dark fabric falls almost to her calves when she shrugs into it. Garrett steps behind her automatically, lifting her hair free of the collar and smoothing it down her back with both hands.

She looks over at Logan while fastening the front. “Don’t wait up.”

Logan settles deeper against his pillows. “Have fun, lovebirds.”

“We will,” Garrett says with enough pointed confidence that Logan snorts.

She catches Garrett by the hand before he can make the conversation worse and guides him toward the door. He grabs his room key from the dresser, checks the hallway through the peephole with a seriousness better suited to hostage extraction, then cracks the door and looks both ways.

She leans against his shoulder. “Are we escaping Coach or robbing the hotel?”

“Coach sees you, he asks why you’re here. Then I have to lie.”

She considers this. “You could tell him I’m here for the rich cultural history of Burlington.”

His eyes drop again before he can stop them. “Yeah, okay. Come on.”

They slip into the hall, Garrett pulling the door shut carefully behind them. The hotel has gone quieter since they returned from the arena, most of the team either downstairs eating or spread across rooms under curfew-adjacent supervision.

A television plays behind one door. Someone laughs behind another, followed by the hollow bounce of what sounds suspiciously like a ball against a wall. Garrett keeps one hand at the small of her back as they move toward the lift, then thinks better of it at the last second and steers her toward the stairs instead.

“Less cameras?” she asks.

“Less chance of Coach.”

She raises her eyebrow at him. “You do this often?”

“Sneak girlfriends out of team hotels?”

“Mhm.”

Garrett opens the stairwell door for her. “First time.”

The answer drops somewhere warm and inconvenient inside her. She steps through before he can watch it happen on her face, boots tapping lightly over the concrete stairs while Garrett follows close enough that his hand finds her waist again at the landing.

They make it through the lobby without seeing Coach, though Garrett makes her pause behind a decorative partition while one of the assistant coaches crosses toward reception carrying a coffee. She has to press her face into Garrett’s shoulder to keep from laughing when he places one finger over his lips with the grave focus of someone hiding state secrets.

Once they reach the garage, he unlocks the car and opens her door first. The small courtesy catches her more than it should. Garrett has carried her, fed her, held ice against her face and once memorised the intervals on her medication reminders while she was too feverish to understand clocks. A car door shouldn’t matter.

Still, she looks at him over its top, and something about the way he stands there in his dark coat with his curls done and the post-game tiredness softened out of his face makes the whole evening feel newly, sweetly official.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

His mouth curves. “Good nothing?”

“Get in the car, Graham.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The restaurant is fifteen minutes from the hotel, tucked along a street strung with low golden lights and shopfront windows beginning to fog against the cold. Garrett drives with one hand on the wheel and the other resting between them over the console, palm up. She puts her hand into it before he asks.

He looks calmer behind the wheel than he had standing in the room, but not entirely. His thumb keeps moving over her knuckles. He checks the navigation twice despite the directions being simple, changes lanes earlier than necessary and reaches to adjust the heat before glancing at her boots.

She watches him for another block. “You’re nervous.”

Garrett’s eyes stay on the road. “No, I’m not.”

“You checked the reservation email three times before we left.”

“I checked the address.”

“You asked me whether I was warm four times,” she smiles.

“It’s cold.”

“You nearly took a wrong turn because you were looking at whether my side of the car had enough heat.”

“I had it,” he mutters.

She turns in her seat as much as the seatbelt allows, studying the line of his jaw beneath the streetlights. “Baby.”

Garrett exhales through his nose, the sound caught somewhere between embarrassment and irritation at being understood too easily. His thumb pauses against hers.

“It’s…” He shifts his grip on the wheel. “I mean, it’s a big deal.” Garrett glances at her, then back at the road. “I want this to be, like, perfect.”

Her chest pulls tight in the gentlest way. She brings their joined hands closer and presses her lips briefly to the side of his thumb. “We’ve eaten together before, Garrett.”

“Yeah, but not like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” He huffs, visibly frustrated by the need to translate whatever is happening beneath his ribs into normal speech. “Officially.”

They have eaten together dozens of times. Fries in his car. Pizza on her dorm floor. Tucker’s eggs at the hockey-house counter. Takeaway in bed with her assignment open and Garrett complaining that medical textbooks should contain more colour.

He’s bought her food, stolen hers, remembered her orders, filled shelves in his kitchen with things she likes and learned which kind of hunger she means when she says she’s fine.

But this is different to him. There’s a reservation. A coat. A restaurant he looked up in advance. A version of Garrett who scored twice in front of hundreds of people without blinking and is now worried dinner might somehow fail an invisible test because it belongs to his girlfriend.

She squeezes his hand. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

“I know.”

“It can be a little shit.”

Garrett looks over, offended. “I don’t want it to be shit.”

She laughs. “I’m saying it’s already good because I’m with you.”

His eyes flick toward her again. Something in his face loosens. “That was smooth,” he says.

“It was honest.”

“Even smoother.”

She rolls her eyes, but Garrett lifts her hand and kisses her knuckles at the next red light, keeping his mouth there for a second longer than the joke requires.

The restaurant sits behind a narrow brick frontage with small lights glowing above the windows and a chalkboard menu propped near the entrance. Inside, it’s warm, the air carrying butter, toasted bread, wine and something sweet from the open kitchen at the back. The walls are painted a deep green, crowded with mismatched framed prints, little brass lamps throwing soft pools of light across dark wooden tables. Small vases sit at the centre of each one with clipped branches and tiny white flowers that look almost too neat to be real.

It’s cute. It’s simply warm and lovely and busy enough that they can disappear into it, everyone bent over food and conversation while snow-soft cold presses against the windows outside. Garrett gives his name to the server, trying to sound casual and failing only because she can feel how much he cares from the hand sitting warm at her back.

Their table is tucked near the window in a little corner partly screened by a shelf of plants. Garrett pulls out her chair. She looks at him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she replies, shaking her head.

“You keep doing that. Looking at me like I’ve grown another head.”

She sits, smoothing the skirt beneath her. “You pulled out my chair.”

“Yeah.” Garrett pushes it in carefully, then moves around to his own. “My mom taught me manners.”

The words are easy, but they leave the faintest change behind them, like the soft impression of a thumb pressed into fabric after it lifts. She smiles up at him. “She did a good job.”

Garrett’s gaze holds hers for a second before he sits. “Sometimes.”

A candle in a little glass holder flickers between them. Outside, headlights pass over the wet pavement. Garrett shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it over the back of his chair, the black knit beneath it making his shoulders look even broader in the small space.

She picks up the menu. “This is very cute.”

His brows lift. “Cute good?”

“Cute good,” she nods.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Garrett.” She looks at him over the top edge. “You may relax.”

Garrett huffs a laugh and finally leans back, one ankle brushing hers beneath the table. “You’re mean on dates.”

“You knew that.”

“Thought girlfriend status might soften you.”

“That was your first mistake.”

The server returns with water and gives them time to choose. Garrett asks what she’s considering, then reads the description of the dish himself like he doesn’t trust the menu to communicate directly with her. She makes fun of him for saying confit with too much confidence. He accuses her of pronouncing gnocchi incorrectly on purpose.

They negotiate starters as though division of resources has become a diplomatic crisis, eventually settling on bread with whipped butter and little fried dumplings because she cannot decide and Garrett says, “We’ll get both,” with the uncomplicated certainty of someone who has never respected the artificial boundary between wanting things and ordering them.

The nerves leave him in pieces. First through the food, because Garrett understands food. Then through teasing the bread apart with his fingers and putting the larger half onto her plate without comment. Then when she takes her first bite of the dumplings, makes a tiny sound of approval and immediately moves the plate closer to her side.

“Those are shared,” he says.

“I’m aware.”

“You’ve created a border.”

She smiles sweetly and eats another. Garrett watches her for a beat, then uses his fork to steal one directly from her plate. She gasps with enough volume that the couple beside them glance over.

“You’re sick,” she says.

“You stole the plate,” he argues.

“It was in neutral territory.”

He grins around the bite, and whatever tightness had been sitting behind his eyes when they walked in disappears properly.

Dinner unfolds without needing to become an Event. That’s the best part. They talk about the game, Garrett replaying Logan’s assist with his fork held like a stick until she points out the older woman at the next table is watching him demonstrate defensive positioning beside the salt cellar. He drops the fork immediately and becomes interested in his drink.

He asks about her podcast, and this time he lets her explain the whole case without making a joke about arteries until she reaches the part about a tearing chest sensation and he says, “That’s a horrific phrase,” with such genuine offence that she laughs into her water.

She tells him Maria once described a doctor as allergic to admitting he was wrong. Garrett says Coach has the same condition but is too frightened of nurses to seek treatment. He tells her Dean spent the entire second intermission trying to convince a freshman that Burlington has an underground tunnel system built specifically for transporting maple syrup. She believes him immediately.

Their mains arrive. Garrett ordered steak and potatoes; she ordered pasta with a sauce rich enough that the first bite makes her close her eyes for half a second.

Garrett notices. “Good?”

She nods, already winding more around her fork. “So good.”

“Try this.” He cuts a piece of steak and holds the fork across the table.

She leans forward and takes it, lips closing around the fork while Garrett watches with an attention disproportionate to cooked meat. His eyes dip to her mouth, and she bites down slowly just to be difficult. His jaw flexes.

She chews, pleased. “Good.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” She reaches over with her own fork and takes a piece of potato from his plate without asking.

Garrett looks down. “You have food.”

“I wanted yours.”

“You could ask.”

She takes another bite. “You could stop me.”

He considers that, then turns his plate slightly toward her so the potatoes are easier to reach. “Nah.”

She smiles into her pasta.

They share everything by the end. Her fork travels to his plate often enough that Garrett stops pretending surprise. He takes a bite of her pasta and claims it is too rich, then takes another to make sure. She drinks from his glass because hers is marginally farther away. He slides the bread toward her every time she finishes a piece and pretends not to notice when she tucks the last one onto his plate because he has eaten most of his dinner and she hasn’t.

The restaurant gets dimmer around them as the evening moves on. Tables empty and refill. Coats brush past. The candle burns low enough that wax gathers clear around the base of the wick.

She realises somewhere between Garrett telling her about Tucker quietly losing his mind over a missed assignment deadline and him asking whether her next placement roster has come out that she’s stopped thinking about what a first official date is meant to feel like.

It feels like this.

Garrett’s ankle hooked loosely around hers under the table. His mouth curving before she reaches the end of a story because he already knows where the joke is going. Her reaching across to brush a crumb from the knit at his chest. His hand turning palm-up beside the candle until she puts hers into it.

Something they’ve been doing for months with the lights finally turned on.

They order dessert despite both claiming they’re too full. Garrett says they should share one, which is how a chocolate tart arrives with a scoop of vanilla ice cream already softening beside it and one spoon placed between them. She takes the first bite.

Garrett watches her. “Well?”

She gives a thoughtful hum, swallowing slowly. “Bad.”

His brows pull together. “Really?”

“Terrible. You shouldn’t have any.”

He reaches for the spoon. She moves it out of reach. “Baby.”

“I’m protecting you,” she grins.

Garrett catches her wrist lightly, pulls the spoon back toward the centre and takes a bite while she tries not to laugh. His eyes close for barely a second.

“Yeah,” he says. “Awful.”

“Right?”

“Probably need to finish it so nobody else gets hurt.”

They demolish most of it under the pretence of public safety. Near the end, Garrett gathers a small piece of tart and some melting ice cream onto the spoon and holds it toward her again.

She opens her mouth without making him ask. His eyes warm. “Good girl.”

The words are quiet enough not to travel beyond the table and still send a quick line of heat down her spine. She closes her lips around the spoon, gaze fixed on his while she draws the chocolate off it. Garrett swallows.

“Date going okay?” she asks innocently.

His mouth twitches. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

She laughs, and the chocolate at the edge of her mouth pulls slightly when she smiles. Garrett reaches across before she can wipe it away, thumb brushing the corner of her lips.

“There.”

She catches his hand before he can take it back and presses a small kiss to the pad of his thumb.

Garrett goes still. A tiny disruption beneath the warm light, his eyes dropping to where her mouth touched him before returning to her face. His fingers curl lightly around hers.

“Thank you for tonight,” she says.

His expression softens. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s really nice.”

Garrett’s thumb moves over her knuckles. “Sorry Logan gate-crashed.”

She glances down at the remains of dessert. “He’s in a mood.”

“Yeah.” Garrett leans back slightly, looking toward the window for half a second. “Wouldn’t just go sleep in another room.”

There’s no real irritation, something more tired sits beneath the words.

She watches him. “He okay?”

Garrett nods, but it takes a second. “Family stuff, I think.”

“He tell you?”

“Not really.” He traces one finger around the condensation at the base of his glass. “He just gets pissy and stops caring what anyone else thinks. Says he’s fine, acts like an asshole, keeps himself around people without actually talking to anyone.”

The description is specific enough to have history in it. She thinks of Logan stretched across the hotel bed, remote against his stomach, joking like he had not deliberately refused the easiest room solution available.

She nods. “Okay.”

Garrett looks back at her, brows pulling faintly together. “You’re not mad?”

“I’m still mad about the lingerie.”

His mouth changes immediately. “Yeah, me too.”

“But no.” She squeezes his hand. “Not actually.”

“He’ll probably be asleep before we get back.”

She hesitates for a moment, drawing a small shape on the table with her finger. “Paige said Tucker sleeps through anything.”

Garrett’s eyes narrow. “Why the fuck were you talking to Paige about Tucker sleeping?”

She presses her lips together.

“Baby.”

“Apparently she and Dean had sex while Tucker was in the other bed last year,” she blurts out.

Garrett stares at her. The restaurant continues politely around them while he processes this information. A server clears glasses from the next table. Someone laughs near the bar. The candle flickers.

“Tucker was in the room?”

“Asleep.”

“And Dean…”

“Mhm.”

Garrett sits back, genuinely shaken. “Dean never told me that.”

“I don’t think it was his story to share,” she mumbles.

“It’s absolutely his story to share. Tucker was there.”

“She said he never woke up.”

Garrett looks somewhere over her shoulder as if trying to re-evaluate every night Tucker has ever slept near them. “That man misses everything.”

She laughs. “The point is, maybe… maybe Logan won’t be a problem.”

His gaze snaps back to hers. The shift is immediate and recognisable, amusement sharpening at the edges as his eyes move slowly over her face. “Yeah?”

“Maybe.”

“Thought you wanted another weekend.”

“I do.” She leans closer over the table, lowering her voice. “One where we don’t need to practice stealth.”

Garrett sighs, but he’s smiling when he lifts her hand and kisses the inside of her wrist. “We’ll just have to do another weekend away.”

“Just you and me.”

“Yeah.” His thumb settles over her pulse. “Somewhere warm.”

She pictures it immediately without meaning to. Garrett brown from sun instead of red from rink cold, curls damp with sea water, shirt abandoned somewhere unnecessary. A hotel room without Logan six feet away or Dean yelling through the vents.

“Mmm.” She tips her head, considering. “Or New York.”

Garrett looks surprised. “New York?”

“I’ve never been.”

His brows lift. “You’ve never been?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Not even for, like, a school trip?”

“Not everyone had a glamorous East Coast childhood, Graham.”

He laughs, thumb still moving over her wrist. “I’ll take you.”

Her smile appears before she can contain it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He says it with the same certainty he uses when telling her he’ll pick her up after placement or bring food or stay awake. Not a vague someday tossed into the air because it sounds nice. Something already halfway to becoming logistics in his head. “Wherever you wanna go.”

She imagines Manhattan lights and Garrett’s hand in hers, hotel sheets, streets neither of them has a routine inside yet. The image sits warm behind her ribs.

“Somewhere private,” she says.

Garrett’s mouth curves slowly. “Took the words right outta my mouth, baby.”

The bill arrives not long after. She reaches for it because she has principles, and Garrett removes it from the table before her fingers touch the edge.

“No.”

“Garrett.”

“I asked you out.”

“So?”

“So I’m paying.”

“You always pay,” she sighs.

Garrett laughs and passes his card to the server. “You can pay in New York.”

She narrows her eyes. “That’s much more expensive.”

“I’m taking you on vacation.”

“You have not booked anything.”

“Details.”

He signs the receipt, then stands and comes around the table before she’s fully gathered her coat. Garrett holds it open for her, helping guide her arms through the sleeves, hands smoothing once over her shoulders after the fabric settles.

She turns within the loose circle of his arms. “Still nervous?”

His eyes move over her face. “Little bit.”

“Why?”

“Date’s not over.”

There’s heat in the answer, but something sweeter beneath it too. The night waiting outside. The hotel room. Logan, unfortunately. The fact that Garrett still seems to believe there’s a way to do this correctly and has quietly assigned himself responsibility for finding it.

She reaches up and adjusts the collar of his coat. “It’s going well.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

Garrett bends and kisses her softly, thumb and pointer finger holding her chin, right there beside the table with the last trace of chocolate still sweet on both their mouths.

“Good,” he murmurs.

Outside, the cold catches instantly at the bare strip above her boots. Garrett notices before she’s taken two steps, pulling her against his side and tightening one arm around her shoulders as they head toward the car.

The street shines dark from old rain, shop lights reflecting gold across the pavement. She threads their fingers together where his hand hangs over her shoulder and slips her other arm around his waist beneath the coat, fitting herself into the heat of him.

Garrett looks down. “You good?”

“Yeah.”

“Cold?”

“A little,” she nods.

She leans into him as they cross toward the car, still full from dinner and chocolate and the easy warmth of being listened to for hours. Garrett’s hand squeezes hers near her shoulder.

“Hey,” he says.

She glances up. “Hm?”

“First date.”

Her mouth curves. “First date.”

“Went pretty well.”

“It’s not over.”

Garrett’s grin flashes beneath the streetlights. “Exactly.”

By the time Logan starts snoring, the movie has been playing for forty-three minutes and she could not tell anyone a single useful thing about it.

There’s a woman on the laptop screen standing in a dark kitchen, speaking urgently into a phone while rain moves silver against the windows behind her. The volume is low enough that most of the dialogue dissolves beneath the hotel heater and the occasional rush of tyres on the wet road outside.

Garrett had picked the film because it had been sitting near the top of the streaming page and neither of them cared enough to argue, which is how they have ended up watching what appears to be either a murder mystery or an extremely stressful advertisement for home security.

The laptop rests half-open near the edge of Garrett’s bed, angled toward them but mostly illuminating the twisted hotel sheets in pale blue. The rest of the room has gone dark except for the narrow line of bathroom light Logan insisted on leaving beneath the door because he claimed unfamiliar hotel rooms were full of furniture placed specifically to break his toes.

Logan occupies the other double bed beneath a heap of white duvet, one arm thrown above his head and his phone still loose in his hand near the pillow.

He had spent twenty minutes complaining that Garrett and his girlfriend were breathing romantically, another ten announcing that he wasn’t tired, then fallen asleep halfway through a story about Dean attempting to convince the hotel bartender he was part of a wedding party.

Now he snores. It starts with a faint rough pull of breath, then stops long enough for both of them to wonder whether they imagined it. A louder one follows. Then a soft snuffle against his pillow, his body turning half an inch beneath the duvet before settling again.

Garrett’s arm tightens around her middle. She’s curled on her side with her back fitted to his chest, bare legs tucked beneath the hem of his hoodie and the little cotton shorts she changed into after dinner.

The hoodie falls nearly to the tops of her thighs, thick and soft from enough washes that it barely feels like clothing anymore. It smells like his detergent and the faint remaining trace of his skin, and every time she shifts the fabric drags against places that have been waiting several days for him with an amount of patience she would describe as medically poor.

Garrett’s shirtless behind her, one arm tucked beneath the pillow and the other looped low across her stomach. His sweatpants are warm against the backs of her legs.

His chest rises slowly against her spine, steady enough that she might think he was drifting off too if his thumb had not been moving beneath the hoodie for the last five minutes, tracing absent little lines over the skin above her waistband.

She keeps her eyes on the laptop.

Garrett kisses the back of her shoulder. It’s barely anything. A soft press of his mouth through the displaced collar of the hoodie, warm enough that her skin tightens beneath it before he moves higher. Another kiss lands near the base of her neck.

Her breathing changes.

Garrett’s mouth curves against her skin. She feels it rather than sees it, the smug little pull of his lips, and keeps her gaze fixed on the woman in the dark kitchen as if the plot has suddenly become essential to her future.

His lips move along the side of her throat. Slowly. The tip of his nose brushes beneath her ear, curls tickling her cheek as he presses another open-mouthed kiss to the sensitive place there.

She exhales. The sound is soft, hardly more than breath, but Garrett’s hand stills over her stomach. His mouth stays against her throat while he whispers, “Shh.”

Heat runs through her with such humiliating speed that her thighs press together beneath the blankets. She nods.

Garrett kisses the same place again. Then lower. Then back up along her jaw, each touch light enough to make her wait for the next one and warm enough that waiting becomes its own problem.

His hand spreads over her stomach beneath the hoodie, thumb sliding near the dip of her navel while his body remains fitted lazily behind hers, as if he’s not doing anything deliberate. As if he hasn’t begun breathing through his nose because her ass is pressed into him and every little restless shift drags over the front of his sweatpants.

She tries to stay still. Garrett nips gently beneath her ear. Her hips jerk. A small whimper catches in her throat before she can contain it. Garrett’s hand comes up immediately, covering her mouth with his palm, warm and broad across her lips while his chest presses more firmly against her back.

“Shh,” he murmurs again, mouth brushing the shell of her ear.

Her eyes close. She nods quickly beneath his hand. “Sorry,” she whispers into his palm, the word muffled and damp against his skin.

“I know.” Garrett kisses her temple, then lets his hand slide away just enough that his thumb can stroke beneath her bottom lip. His voice drops lower, all the teasing stripped out of it. “Can you be quiet?”

Her stomach pulls tight. Garrett waits, lips hovering near her ear while Logan releases another rough, oblivious snore from the opposite bed.

“Promise me,” he whispers.

She turns her face slightly into his hand, lips brushing his thumb. “I promise, baby.”

His fingers flex along her jaw.

“I promise,” she says again, quieter.

“Good girl.”

The praise lands low and immediate. Her knees draw closer together, and Garrett feels it. His hand moves back down her body, slipping beneath the hem of the hoodie to settle over her hip, while his thigh nudges between hers from behind.

She opens for him without being told. His knee slides higher until the hard muscle of his thigh presses against her through the shorts.

The first small rock of her hips is instinctive, a cautious drag that creates enough pressure to make her breath hitch. Garrett holds her waist steady and kisses the side of her neck while she does it again.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “There you go.”

She presses her lips together, trying to keep the sound trapped behind them as she grinds down against his thigh. The cotton of her shorts shifts, rubbing her underwear against her in a way that’s nowhere near enough and somehow already too much because Logan is six feet away, snoring into government-standard hotel linen while Garrett’s mouth works slowly over her pulse.

Garrett bites lightly at her ear. Her head tips back against his shoulder. “Fuck.”

The word comes out almost soundless. He kisses her jaw, pleased. His knee presses higher, giving her something firmer to move against, and she rocks back into him at the same time, feeling the shape of his cock beginning to thicken against her ass through the sweats.

The movie changes scenes. Something crashes loudly through the laptop speakers, and both of them freeze. Logan shifts beneath his duvet, nose wrinkling against the pillow. His breathing pauses.

She goes perfectly still, pulse beating hard under Garrett’s mouth. A second passes. Then Logan snorts, rolls farther onto his stomach and resumes snoring with renewed commitment.

Garrett exhales silently into her hair. Her shoulders start shaking with suppressed laughter. He catches her jaw and turns her face toward him, his own mouth twitching.

“Not funny,” he whispers.

“It’s a little funny.”

“He’s ruining my life.”

She smiles, and Garrett kisses it away. The angle is awkward from behind, her neck turned and his body still curved around hers, but the inconvenience only makes the kiss hotter.

His mouth opens over hers, tongue moving slow and deep while his hand slides across her stomach. She reaches behind herself, fingers finding the curls at the back of his head, pulling him closer until the kiss turns messy and hungry and the movie becomes only shifting light across their closed eyes.

Garrett reaches around her and taps the volume button on the laptop. The voices on-screen rise by several careful increments. Rain grows louder. Music swells beneath a woman whispering about a locked door. He settles his hand back beneath the hoodie.

“You planned that,” she breathes against his mouth.

“Thinking ahead.”

“Captain.”

Garrett groans softly and kisses her harder. It’s been days. Enough for her body to have begun collecting the absence in small, irritated places. Enough that every press of his mouth feels sharper, every drag of his thigh between hers more necessary. Enough that she’s not ashamed of the way she turns within the circle of his arms as far as the mattress allows, chasing his mouth while her ass grinds backward against him.

Garrett’s hips move with hers. He’s fully hard now, thick beneath the sweatpants, the length of him pressing along the curve of her ass every time she shifts. His breathing breaks against her lips. One hand grips her hip while the other cups her jaw, keeping her mouth where he wants it.

She reaches behind herself, fumbling briefly with the waistband of his sweats. Garrett catches her wrist. “Baby.”

“What?”

His eyes flick over her face in the dim light. “Sure?”

She stares at him, then deliberately rolls her hips back against his cock. Garrett’s jaw tightens.

“Very,” she whispers.

He releases her wrist. Her fingers hook into the waistband and drag it down as far as she can reach from this angle. Garrett helps, lifting his hips from the mattress just enough to shove the sweatpants and boxers beneath him, exposing himself against the warm skin at the back of her thighs.

She reaches back. The first wrap of her fingers around him pulls a rough breath from his chest. Garrett drops his forehead to the side of her head, curls brushing her cheek while she strokes him slowly, learning the familiar weight and heat of him again as though several days have made the knowledge fragile.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

Her thumb passes over the head. Garrett’s hips twitch into her hand.

“Quiet,” she breathes, unable to resist.

His teeth graze her shoulder. “Cute.”

Then his hand slips down the front of her shorts. She goes still. Garrett’s fingers press over her underwear, finding the heat already gathered there with the easy accuracy of someone who knows exactly what her body has been doing while she pretends to watch a film. He circles lightly through the fabric, once, then again, and her hand tightens around him.

His breath catches. She bites down on the inside of her cheek as the pressure increases, Garrett’s fingertips moving in slow, controlled circles while his mouth returns to her neck. The effort of not making a sound turns every sensation brighter. There’s nowhere for it to go. No moan to release the pressure, no sharp breath allowed to become volume. It gathers beneath her skin until her toes curl against the sheet.

“You’re soaked,” Garrett whispers.

She turns her face into the pillow. “Shut up.”

“Can feel it.”

Her hand moves faster around him in retaliation.

Garrett’s hips jerk forward, cock sliding through her fist. His mouth drops open against her throat, the sound he makes buried quickly into her skin.

She smiles.

He catches the edge of her shorts and tugs. “Up.”

She lifts her hips as much as she can while lying on her side. Garrett drags the shorts down over her thighs, the movement clumsy beneath the duvet until she kicks them off near the foot of the bed. Her underwear follows, pushed down with impatient fingers and hooked away by one foot until it disappears somewhere near the hotel carpet.

Cool air touches her for half a second, then Garrett’s hand is back on her.

His palm slides over her bare hip, up beneath the hoodie, spanning her ribs before closing around one breast. She arches into the touch, head tipping back to his shoulder, and Garrett squeezes slowly, thumb passing over her nipple until it tightens beneath his hand.

Her lips part. A thin, broken sound almost escapes.

Garrett kisses the corner of her jaw. “Quiet, baby.”

She nods, swallowing hard. “I know.”

He rolls her nipple between his fingers. Her eyes squeeze shut. She presses back into him, reaching behind to grip his curls while his cock rests hot and heavy against the curve of her ass.

Garrett’s mouth moves over her jaw, little nips and kisses that make her skin feel raw and oversensitive. “You good?”

“Yes.”

“Want me?”

She nods.

“Words.”

The command is barely louder than the movie, but her body responds to it anyway, hips shifting restlessly against him. “Please.”

Garrett kisses beneath her ear. “Please what?”

She nearly laughs, except his hand squeezes her breast again and the breath turns into a shaky little exhale. “Please fuck me.”

His eyes close briefly against her skin.

“Quietly,” she adds.

Garrett’s mouth curves. “That part’s on you.”

She pinches his arm. He kisses her cheek in apology, then reaches down between their bodies. The movement becomes careful. Focused. His hand guides himself along her, the head of his cock dragging once through the wet heat between her thighs, and she bites down hard on her bottom lip as her body tries to follow.

Garrett pushes in. Slowly at first, the thick stretch of him opening her one measured inch at a time while they lie curled together beneath the hotel duvet. Her mouth falls open around a silent breath. She lets her head drop back against his shoulder, neck exposed beneath his lips, fingers tightening in his curls while her body adjusts around him.

Garrett stops halfway. His hand comes up to her waist, holding her still. “Baby?”

She’s already nodding. “Keep going.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Please.”

His hips press forward again. The rest of him slides inside her with one slow, deep movement that leaves her full and shaking, the angle different from the way he usually takes her, somehow closer despite him being behind her.

His chest fits to her back. His thighs bracket hers. His arm wraps over her waist while his cock sits buried inside her, every part of him curved around every part of her as if spooning had simply become filthy through administrative error.

“Oh,” she breathes.

Garrett’s lips press to her throat. “I know.”

He stays still for several seconds, letting her settle, his hand stroking softly over her stomach beneath the hoodie. The tenderness makes everything worse. The hot stretch inside her, the hard line of him behind her, his mouth moving carefully over the same place beneath her ear while Logan sleeps close enough that she can hear each uneven pull of his breath.

She clenches around Garrett experimentally. His forehead drops to her shoulder. “Fuck,” he whispers.

Her smile turns helpless. Then he moves. The first thrust is slow, his hips drawing back only a few inches before pressing forward again, cock sliding deep along an angle that makes her thighs tense around nothing.

Her breath catches. Garrett’s hand moves from her waist to her breast, squeezing as he establishes a rhythm – small, controlled strokes designed less for distance than pressure, every one of them keeping him buried almost fully inside her.

The mattress barely moves beneath them. The effort is all inside her body. Garrett kisses her neck while he fucks her, lips dragging over her pulse, his breath warm and increasingly uneven against her skin. His hand kneads her breast beneath the hoodie, thumb brushing over her nipple in time with the slow drive of his hips.

She normally talks. She normally moans. She normally gives Garrett every sound he’s worked hard enough to earn and several he hasn’t. He knows exactly how loud she can be because the hockey house has conducted a full breakfast inquiry into the subject.

Keeping it in feels impossible. Every thrust pushes a sound up her throat. She traps each one behind closed lips, breath shivering out through her nose while her fingers knot tighter in his hair.

The quiet makes her hyperaware of everything else: the slick drag of him inside her, the soft shift of sheets, the faint wet sound each time his hips meet the backs of her thighs, the effort in Garrett’s breathing as he controls his pace.

“So good,” he whispers against her neck. “Doing so good, baby.”

She nods, eyes shut.

“Nice and quiet for me.”

A small smile pulls at her mouth despite the heat climbing through her. “Yes, Captain.”

Garrett groans directly into her skin. His thrusts lose their rhythm for one glorious second, hips driving deeper, and she bites the inside of her wrist to stop the sound that rises with it.

“You can’t say that right now,” he whispers, voice wrecked.

She turns her face enough to find his mouth. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“Captain,” she breathes again.

His hand tightens around her breast. “Mean.”

She grinds backward onto him, taking him deeper while her fingers pull sharply at his curls. Garrett kisses her hard from behind, mouth catching hers at the wrong angle, all tongue and rough breath. His hips begin moving faster – each thrust landing with a sharp little pulse that makes her stomach tighten.

Her hand leaves his hair and reaches down between her thighs. Garrett catches it. “I’ve got it.”

His fingers replace hers, sliding over her clit with slick, sure pressure. The first circle pulls a gasp from her. Too loud. Garrett’s hand leaves her immediately and clamps over her mouth.

“Shh. Shh.”

Her brows pinch together, eyes squeezed shut as the interrupted pleasure burns beneath her skin. She nods frantically into his palm, both hands clutching his wrist.

“I know,” he whispers. “I know, baby.”

She breathes hard through her nose, body still rocking helplessly with each slow thrust. Garrett waits until she has control, his palm warm and firm across her lips. Then he eases it away.

“Good?” he asks.

She swallows, mouth dry. “Yes.”

“You need me to stop?”

“No.” Her answer is immediate enough to make his eyes darken. “Please keep moving.”

Garrett kisses her jaw. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Okay.”

His hips start again, building gradually into the same deep, controlled rhythm. His fingers return between her thighs, circling her clit more gently at first, watching the side of her face for the moment it becomes too much.

She presses her own hand over her mouth before the sound can escape. Garrett’s lips move over her cheek. “That’s it.”

Her breathing turns hot and damp against her palm. The pleasure gathers low, winding tighter each time his cock drives into her and his fingers circle, every sensation made sharper by the tension of staying silent. She rocks back to meet him, desperate now, hips chasing both the friction inside her and the pressure of his hand.

Garrett follows. His movements become more urgent, chest pressed to her back, breath breaking near her ear. “Fuck, baby. Feel so good.”

She whimpers into her hand. Logan snores loudly behind them. The noise snaps through the room. Garrett pauses for half a beat, eyes cutting toward the other bed.

Logan doesn’t move. She begins to laugh soundlessly into her palm, shoulders shaking.

Garrett bites her neck. “Focus.”

The laugh collapses into a moan she barely contains, body clenching hard around him. Garrett’s fingers move faster, tight circles that send white-hot pressure spreading through her pelvis.

She cannot keep still anymore. Her leg kicks slightly beneath the duvet. Her hips grind backward. The mattress gives one small, dangerous squeak. Garrett stops. Both of them stare toward Logan.

His face is turned into the pillow, mouth slightly open. A soft snuffling breath leaves him. Nothing. Garrett exhales and looks back at her. His eyes are bright with disbelief and heat.

“This is insane,” she whispers.

“You’re into it.”

She presses her lips together.

Garrett’s mouth curves. “You’re really into it.”

“Shut up.”

“You are.”

She clenches around him again. His grin disappears. “Yeah,” she whispers. “So?”

Garrett kisses her, slow and filthy, his fingers still working between her thighs. “Me too.”

The admission sends another wave of heat through her. She had expected the need, the frustration, maybe the humour of doing something reckless while Logan slept nearby.

She hadn’t expected this strange, dizzying intensity. The discipline of it. Garrett’s hand over her mouth. The constant awareness that she’s being watched for every reaction while not being allowed to release any of them. The way each whispered praise feels louder than a shout because it exists only in the narrow space between his mouth and her skin. Her body tightens.

Garrett feels it immediately. “Close?”

She nods into her palm.

“Yeah?”

Another frantic nod. He pushes her hand away from her mouth, then catches her hip and tilts her forward. She goes easily, rolling farther onto her stomach while remaining partly on her side, face pressing into the pillow.

Garrett shifts behind her, rising enough to align his body more fully with hers without pulling out. His hand grips her hip beneath the hoodie, and the next thrust lands deeper.

Her mouth opens against the pillow. The sound comes muffled into cotton.

“Better?” Garrett whispers.

She nods helplessly.

His hand slides beneath her stomach, fingers finding her again. “Good.”

Then he fucks her properly. Still controlled. Still careful of the bed and the room around them, but harder now, hips moving with enough force that the pillow absorbs each little cry torn from her throat.

He stays curved over her back, mouth at her shoulder, one hand holding her hip steady while the other circles her clit in fast, precise movements.

She grips the pillow with both hands. The movie plays loudly near the edge of the bed. Someone on-screen screams. A door slams. Music swells at exactly the right moment, and she would laugh if Garrett were not driving into her from behind with his teeth set against her shoulder to keep his own breathing under control.

“Come on, baby,” he whispers. “You’re doing so good.” Her toes curl tight against the sheet. “Nice and quiet.” She moans into the pillow. “Good girl.”

The orgasm hits before she can brace for it. Her whole body locks around him, thighs tightening and toes clenching until her foot gives one helpless little kick beneath the duvet.

She presses her face harder into the pillow, moaning as softly as she can while pleasure breaks hot and deep through her, pulsing around Garrett’s cock in waves strong enough to make his rhythm falter.

Garrett swears against her shoulder. His hand stays between her thighs, working her through it until the intensity turns bright and oversensitive. She twists weakly beneath him, one hand leaving the pillow to catch his wrist.

He understands immediately, fingers easing away. “That’s it,” he murmurs, kissing the back of her shoulder. “I’ve got you.”

She goes soft beneath him all at once, limbs heavy and useless, body still fluttering around him while he takes several rough, controlled breaths against her skin.

Garrett thrusts twice more. Then pulls out. The sudden emptiness makes her whine into the pillow. Garrett’s hand grips her hip, his cock sliding once against the curve of her ass before warmth spills across her lower back.

His face drops between her shoulder blades, breath ragged and muffled against the hoodie while his body goes tense behind hers.

“Shit,” he whispers. “Shit.”

She lies there panting, cheek warm against the pillow, everything in her body loose except the small residual tremors still moving through her thighs.

Garrett kisses her shoulder. Then seems to remember several practical realities at once. “Hold on.”

She makes a soft, questioning sound.

“Don’t move.” He pulls his boxers and sweats back up with one hand, the movement awkward and hurried beneath the duvet. “Shit, shit. Hold on.”

She hears him lean over the side of the bed. Fabric rustles against the carpet. His abandoned t-shirt appears in his hand, grabbed from where he dropped it before climbing into bed. Garrett wipes her back clean with quick, careful strokes. She starts laughing into the pillow.

“What?”

“Romantic.”

“It’s a clean shirt.”

She turns her head enough to look at him over her shoulder. His curls are a complete mess, lips swollen, chest still moving hard with each breath. The sight of him makes her stomach give a soft, satisfied pull.

“Worth it,” she whispers.

Garrett’s expression warms. He tosses the shirt toward the floor and rolls her gently onto her back. She goes bonelessly, hoodie twisted around her waist, hair spread over the pillow, eyes heavy and body still carrying a pleasant hum beneath the skin.

Garrett looks down at her. His mouth curves. “Hi.”

She loops both arms around his shoulders and pulls him over her. “Again.”

He shakes his head immediately. “No way.”

“Baby,” she whines, tugging at his curls.

“No.” He kisses her once, quick and firm, then pulls back before she can trap him. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because Logan almost woke up three times.”

As if summoned by the accusation, Logan produces one loud, wet snore from the opposite bed, followed by a sharp sniff and a tiny grunt. Both of them freeze. Their heads turn in perfect synchronisation. Logan shifts under the duvet, scratches once at his nose and goes still again.

“Oh, shit,” Garrett whispers.

She clamps a hand over her mouth, but the giggle escapes anyway, soft and breathless.

Garrett looks horrified. “Don’t laugh.”

That makes it worse. Her shoulders shake beneath him. Garrett presses his palm over her mouth, eyes wide and furious while he tries not to smile himself.

“Stop.”

She kisses the centre of his palm. His expression breaks.

“Pull your–” She catches his mouth in a kiss. Garrett makes a muffled sound, pulls back and tries again. “Panties on–” She kisses him again. “Baby, go–”

Another kiss, slower this time.

“Pee.” He finally gets the word out while holding her jaw far enough away to prevent further interference. “Quick.”

She hums, blissed out and shameless beneath him. “Yes, Captain.”

Garrett laughs before he can stop himself, the sound quickly buried in the side of her neck. “Shhh.”

“You’re loud.”

“Go.”

He rolls off her and begins searching beneath the duvet for her underwear with the grim focus of someone conducting a rescue operation. She sits up slowly, hoodie falling back over her hips, and watches him retrieve one tiny scrap of cotton from near the foot of the bed.

Garrett holds it out. She reaches for it, but he catches her wrist and pulls her in for one last kiss, mouth soft now, lingering despite all his insistence that she hurry. When he lets her go, his forehead rests briefly against hers.

“You good?” he whispers.

Her body feels loose and warm, her thighs pleasantly shaky beneath the sheets, her mouth sore from biting back everything he pulled out of her.

She smiles. “So good.”

Garrett’s thumb brushes her cheek. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.” She takes the underwear from his hand and slips carefully out of bed. “Paige was right.”

His eyes narrow. “Do not tell Paige.”

“I’m going to thank her,” she nods once, grinning.

“Absolutely not.”

She steps into her panties and pulls them up beneath the hoodie, then glances toward Logan, who remains entirely unconscious and deeply unworthy of the amount of effort they have just invested in protecting his sleep. “He really does sleep through anything.”

Garrett points toward the bathroom. “Go.”

She bites back another laugh and slips across the room on quiet feet. Behind her, Garrett settles into the pillows, one arm thrown over his face while his chest continues rising too quickly.

Just before she closes the bathroom door, she hears him mutter softly to the ceiling. “Best fucking date ever.”

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