itās adrenaline-pumping, really. the way that his hands littered her body reminded her of how fun it was to make bad decisions, especially one that fucked her into the next year.
she hums against his lips as the duvet of his bed welcomed her. it was warm, but calum was heated up. with him pressed against her chest, the chill that engulfed her a few minutes before disappeared in an instant.
the cold december nights made his body so inviting sometimes.
ācal,ā she gasps once his plump lips moved on to the curve of her neck. it tickles her, and he knows it does, but he peppers wet kisses there anyway. she softly giggles, her heart pounding each waking second that heās so close to her.
even when heās a few feet away, her heart still pounds. perhaps she just likes him like that.
their lower bodies grind together in a desperate call for more, and she canāt get enough of him. sheāll never get enough of him, but she ignores that fact every time the door to his apartment opens and he lets her know that heās been waiting for her.
calum shuffles to take off his underwear, and she doesnāt have to since its been taken off long before they made it to the bed, and he gives her what she wants. he gives her what she wants until sheās left writhing and shaking under him from the pleasure and heās clenching his jaw from how she satisfies him.
he gives her what she wants and she gives him the same. but itās never really enough.
āy/n,ā calum whispers to her sleeping figure. its been two hours since they had their rendezvous and its normal for her (or him, it depends on who calls who first) to be out the door before breakfast time. āy/n, love,ā he nudged her gently, waiting for her to wake up from her rest.
and she does. she softly blinks before realizing what was happening, and she sighs. āhey, cal,ā and he smiles at her groggy voice. heād never tell her, but he likes it when sheās vulnerable and not annoyed at him half the time.
well, he likes it when sheās annoyed at him, too. he thinks its cute.
āitās well past 2 am, love,ā calum informs her, a soft smile across his lips. he doesnāt really like the part when he tells her that she has to go home, neither does he like it when she tells him the same on the occasion that they meet at her apartment, but they do it to each other anyway. they have to.
she wearily nods in acknowledgement, fully opening her eyes to see the maori sitting up against the headboard with a lit cigarette between his fingers. ācal,ā she softly whines, propping herself up against his chest. ālet me have some.ā she sleepily mutters, wanting to get rid of the exhaustion.
heās still so warm and she wishes that she could stay so close to him.
calum takes a drag and blows it away from her as he passes the cigarette to her fingers. āyou know,ā she hums in response as she takes a drag herself. āmads told me to quit smoking.ā
she almost freezes at the mention of his girlfriend, but she stops herself. itās not like her to get bothered about these kinds of stuff. it didnāt, at first. but then she decided to fall in love and now she canāt help but wonder how madeleine gets every part of him and sheās left with nothing but a quick relief.
but theyāre fighting. she knows they are. otherwise calum wouldnāt have called her.
y/n doesnāt respond except for another hum. she gives the half burned cigarette back to him.
calum spaces out for a second, feeling the guilt he always gets when he calls y/n up for another round of their mischief. he doesnāt like himself after, mostly because he now finds himself wanting her to stay, while his real girlfriend is oblivious to the fact that heās getting hung up by a girl heās fucking on the side.
madeleine was amazing. she really was, but she wasnāt the one calum was looking for. madeleine didnāt make his heart skip a beat every time she laughed at his half-assed joke. madeleine didnāt make calum feel like himself since he always changed something in fear of disappointing her.
calumās parents loved her. they told him that she could be such a beautiful bride when they met madeleine. calum nodded along, but he never saw her as his bride.
āthat isnāt love,ā y/n told him once. āyou know thereās a difference between love and security, right?ā
calum didnāt say anything in response, but he knew she was right. that wasnāt love.
he snaps out of it when he hears her belt clanging. calumās head turns to her moving figure, where she was working her way towards fully dressing herself. he opens his mouth to say something. ādo you want me to drive you home?ā
itās the first time he asked her that, and it feels so foreign sitting in the car with him when the end goal wasnāt to have sex in the back seat. she hesitantly nods. itās not what theyāre used to, but sheād do anything to spend more time with him.
āokay,ā and he gets dressed alongside her, picking up the sweatpants that was scattered in his room.
when the car is moving across the silent town, they share another cigarette. his hand that carried the roll of tobacco was laying on the open window of his car seat, with his eyes trained on the road.
sheās looking at him once more. she doesnāt think sheāll get sick of looking at him anytime soon.
āshould i quit?ā calum asks out of the blue, breaking the minutes-long silence that theyāve been sharing. āyou know, quit smoking.ā
she stops looking at him once sheās reminded of what his girlfriend said. āi donāt know. itās up to you, i guess.ā she quietly mutters but she knows he hears her. he always seems to know what she was saying.
ābut do you want me to?ā
the question catches her off guard. its mundane, really, but she loves the fact that he asks her what she thinks he should do. she represses a smile, turning her head away from his flickering gaze. āmaybe you should.ā
the next time they meet, which isnāt too far from the last time, she doesnāt see a cigarette between his fingers, but she sees the sullen look on his face and the constant clenches in his jaws. she doesnāt prod on whatās bothering him. she knows heāll tell her anyway. he always does.
it was in her apartment this time, later than usual. it was almost 4 a.m. since he had to stay longer at his girlfriendās.
she had admitted to herself that this was a horrible thing to do when it first started. it was despicable, especially when she met calum through mads. but she couldnāt really get away from him. they always seemed to find their way back to each other.
sometimes, she wished they didnāt.
madeleine doesnāt hold back when she talks to her about how calum had been distant and how he always seemed attached and protective of his phone. y/n just nods and talks to her like a friend should, and it makes her hate herself even more.
a thousand times they tried to stop it, and a thousand times they couldnāt. it was a disaster, but she likes him too much that she doesnāt mind the destruction.
āy/n,ā calum mutters under his breath, almost like a whisper. even though sheās so close to sleep, she replies.
ācal?ā she sees him moving closer to her. it gets warmer than usual, but she doesnāt really mind. āyou okay?ā
he doesnāt really answer for a few seconds, and thatās how she knows heās not. he says āi donāt know.ā and that confirms her thought.
āwe donāt have to talk about it if you donāt want to.ā sheās not prodding him and he likes that about her.
āits just,ā calum sighs and y/n sits up against the headboard with the duvet covering her naked chest. her eyes are theatening to close, but she fights off the tiredness. āiām trying to quit smoking,ā he starts. ābut iām having a really hard time.ā
she doesnāt catch on to what heās saying at first, he notices that and it frustrates him. he never really was good with confrontation.
āi,ā he pauses to look at her. he thinks she looks beautiful even with messy hair and sleepy eyes. āi know that itās bad for me, but i canāt get enough of it.ā he stutters over some words, and thatās when she starts to realize that he wasnāt really talking about nicotine. ābut iā¦ i have to quit. you know, for good.ā
she hopes that she was wrong about what he was saying, but she rarely is. most people could read calum so wrong, but not her. not y/n. āoh.ā was all that left her lips before calum started talking again.
āwhat do you think?ā he cautiously asks, eyeing her yet continuously averting his gaze to anything but her figure.
theyāve been through this āwe canāt do this anymoreā talk a hundred times over and theyāve disregarded it all the same. but tonight, she has a feeling that they wonāt disregard it this time.
she fists the duvet thats been covering both their naked bodies and tries to ignore the rocks forming in her throat. she hates this feeling so much.
āum,ā her voice feels like it might fail her any second. she just coughs it off and hope for the best. āitās good that youāreā¦ uhā¦ā her voice is shaking now. āyouāre looking out for yourself. itāsā¦ nice. itās good.ā sheās being repetitive and she knows it, but she just wants to get through this without breaking.
āy/nā¦ā he doesnāt want to do this. āyou know this isnāt what weāre supposed to be.ā
āthen what are supposed to be?ā she doesnāt want to do this either. she really, really doesnāt.
heās out the door in ten minutes when she calmly tells him to go home. sheās stoic, still in the same place even when heās already left.
she wants to want to cuss him out, wants to want to punch and kick him, but all she really wants is for him to come back, to say that it was all a mistake.
but maybe sheās really just a cigarette to him. to toss away when used up, to leave when sheās turned into ashes and heās done filling his lungs with her. she wants to hate him for that, but she canāt.
the third time they see each other was at lunch. it wasnāt at any of their apartments and it wasnāt just the two of them. michael, ashton, luke, and madeleine was there at the restaurant, but y/n hardly paid any attention to any of them. she made herself transfixed on her phone and avoided talking too much.
calum takes notice. he notices everything about her, to be honest. but he doesnāt say anything, not even when y/n quietly excuses herself from the group and cautiously leaves. instead, he turns to madeleine and smiles softly at her. ābaby, iām just gonna go to the restroom.ā his girlfriend nods in acknowledgement, but he doesnāt go there. he goes to her instead.
sheās smoking in the empty parking lot of the restaurant with shakey exhales coupled with glossy eyes. he doesnāt like to see her like this.
āwhatās on your mind?ā he speaks, catching her off guard. her heart almost skips a beat. its been weeks since they last saw each other.
āyouāre not supposed to be here.ā she takes a drag and the smoke that she blows out gets dragged away by the wind. she tries to blink away the tears. āyouāre detoxing, remember? itās tempting to see someone smoke.ā she doesnāt succeed. her hand goes up to her cheeks to flick away the stray tears.
he answers, āi know.ā and he canāt think of anything else to say to her.
āumā¦ā she clears her throat. itās filled with rocks again. ācan i just ask one thing?ā y/n looks over at calum and it feels as if her chest is on fire.
he feels her gaze on the side of his head. he clenches his jaw. heās really angry at himself for making her feel this way. āyeah?ā he canāt bear to look back at her.
āyou never call her 'loveā like you do with me.ā the cigarette between her fingers gets tossed in the floor with its tip barely lit. she steps on it as she moves closer to calum. āwhy do you call me that when you picked her?ā
āyou already know the answer to that, love.ā he says.
y/n scoffs at his half-assed answer. āenlighten me, calum.ā she sarcastically says, her cheeks heating up with growing anger. āiām really fucking clueless right now.ā
āyouāre really going to make me say it?ā calumās eyebrows knot in confusion and irritation.
an urge to push him comes to her mind, so she does, but he doesnāt budge. āyou couldnāt say it for the last eight months. what makes today so different?ā y/nās voice grows louder by each word. āfucking say it, calum.ā she pushes him again. he still doesnāt move, not even by half an inch. āsay it!ā
his jaw clenches at her actions. her pushes quickly turn into weak punches in a matter of seconds, but it doesnāt hurt him. the words that heād been thinking got stuck in his throat when he notices her tears that had been freefalling on her cheeks. āy/nā¦ā
āsay it, calum.ā she stops the hitting, her voice slightly raw. āsay it and iām yours. just say it.ā
at this point, she was tired.
itās almost like sheās pleading. her anger subsides in a matter of miliseconds when she finally looks at him dead in the eyes after weeks of ignoring each other. it feels like the first time she knew she was in love with him, back when all it took was a stolen kiss on her couch.
then she realizes. this isnāt love. youāre not supposed to beg for love.
āyou canāt say it.ā she laughs at herself for thinking that he would actually fall in love with her. āi shouldāve known that this would end terribly.ā she says that with a cold tone, staring blankly into his glistening eyes. ābut, god, i fucking love you.ā
he breaks the eye contact once he hears her say that. his head drops and heās so suddenly fascinated by his boots as he runs a hand through his messy hair. āyou make me so crazy, y/n.ā he doesnāt even realizes that he said that, but heās barely surprised. the frustration is building up inside him and it makes his breath ragged. why canāt he just say it?
sheās still crying. he knows because he can hear her sniffles through the wind that was growing stronger by the minute.
she says, āyouā¦ you should get back inside.ā and starts walking away from him.
it took eight steps before he could snap out of it and immedately follow her. ālove,ā he mutters under his breath, gently grabbing her arm and stopping her from walking away from him. ālove, please.ā
she yanks out of his grip. āno more, cal.ā and sheās about to leave when five words makes her halt.
āi fucking love you, too.ā
and just like that, sheās back to hoping that theyāll be just fine. and maybe, just maybe, he wonāt quit smoking just yet.
one of my inspirations for this one shot - and yes we can keep living like this
romaincrisis
ellievsbear
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines
stormborns
