(Or: literally just two thousand words of Ryland and Marissa talking, because he needs 1) a friend, and 2) someone to tell him he's being an idiot)
Tags: f!reader (offpage), childhood friends to lovers, college setting, crybaby Ryland, mild hurt/comfort
A/N: 18+ only (no smut, but there's swearing + discussions of sex)! This is a follow-up to this piece. I <3 Marissa so much. Nobody get me in trouble for frantically researching The Canterbury Tales during work hours xoxo
"You know getting laid's supposed to improve your mood, right?" Marissa says from his doorway.
Ryland startles, nearly knocking the back of his head against the headboard. "Jesus. How did you get in? How—"
"In order: first, I still have your extra key." She dangles it from her finger, before putting it down on his rickety standard-issue dorm desk. "Which I didn't actually need, because you never lock the door. You should work on that. And, second, Reg said that he saw you, quote, sucking face with a, quote, smoking adorable chick, and that you left the party together, but that you were also, quote, a total bitch on the drive back. Unquote."
Ryland tries to look very, very interested in the textbook he's reading.
She continues. "So I thought, okay, it's Reggie, he's exaggerating, until right now. You look like someone amydde the ers you smoot with an iren hoot."
Ryland finally squints up at her over his glasses. "Did you just have a stroke?"
"Canterbury Tales. My Chaucer seminar?"
He rolls his eyes. "Sorry I don't speak Olde English." He flips a page of the textbook, having absorbed absolutely none of the last four paragraphs. "How's that going, by the way? You had, uh, you had that project proposal—"
"You're really bad at segues, you know that?"
"And, hey, you were supposed to get laid this weekend, right? How was, how was that?"
"Magical beyond my wildest dreams. Now stop deflecting. Girl. Party. Go."
The page settles. His hand stops. "Yeah, I." He chews on the inside of his cheek. "Yeah," he says, taking off his glasses and using them as a bookmark, which Marissa takes as a invitation to come further into the room. "I know her." Knew her. "From back home."
"Ooh." She makes herself at home in his desk chair, going through several increasingly improbable leg-contortions before settling for a simple backwards straddle. "Ex? High school sweetheart?"
"No." He hopes the vague answer might dissuade her. If anything, the interest in her eyes triples. He sighs. "Not really. Do you remember Josh? He stopped by, like, two months ago—"
"Gap Year Josh," she says immediately. "PCT Josh. I remember. Oh, God, don't tell me she's his ex."
"What? No. His sister."
Her eyes widen. Her mouth does, too, into a sly smile. "Ryland Grace. You dirty, dirty dog. Older or younger?"
"Younger. She's a sophomore."
"Predictable. Okay, so, best friend's little sister, all grown up."
"Again, she's one single year younger—"
"Forbidden—and yet, you can't stay away. Your eyes meet from across the room, you kiss, and…" She looks at him expectantly. "And?"
"We hooked up," he says bluntly, refusing to play in (and earning him an eye roll from Marissa). "And then she got upset."
"What did you do?"
"Why do you assume I did something?"
"Because you've got that stupid kicked-puppy, I hath doon synne horrible look on your face." He looks at her blankly. "Still Chaucer. God, do you ever pick up a book that doesn't have those sad little stick figures in the margins?"
His eyes follow the line of her finger to the flung-open textbook. "Molecular orbital diagrams?"
She shakes her head. "New approach. Let's work backwards. How upset are we talking?"
"A crying amount."
"You made her cry? You slept with your best friend's little sister, and you made her cry. Gap Year Josh is about to hike back here and beat your ass."
"She's not just my best friend's little sister, she's—we were friends, too. And she wouldn't tell him."
"Would you bet the intactness of your ass on it?"
"No, she wouldn't, okay? She didn't last time."
"Last time." She stares. He stares back. "Ryland."
"You said we were working backwards!"
"Yeah, before I knew there would be plot twists. When was the last time? Was there more than one last time?"
"Riss—"
"Were you her first? Was she your first? Oh my god, were you each other's firsts?"
"No," he says emphatically. He considers. "Kind of, but not—"
"Ryland."
He tells her everything.
Most everything. An abridged version. Prom. The summer after. Seeing you at the party, the unexpectedness of it. The unexpectedness of you. All of you. How much you'd changed (how much you hadn't).
He keeps some details for himself. Your voice in his ear. The taste of you, salt and sweat and grenadine. Your face anytime he was inside you, with fingers or more; and your face after, later, wet with tears as you asked if he meant it when he—
"—called her what?" Marissa's face is pressed into her hands. "Ryland."
"I didn't mean it!"
"I've heard you try to dirty talk, you know, I thought the worst would be she'd laugh you out of bed, not. That."
"I thought she'd. I mean, she liked the other stuff. The choking, and the spitting—"
"Choking and spitting. Fucking Christ alive." She sounds a little impressed, in spite of herself. "Honestly, I didn't think you had it in you."
"I know."
"You're lucky you didn't try to pull any of that shit with me. I'd have done worse than cry on you."
"I know."
"Was that your norm, AP?"
"AP?"
"After prom. The before times. Were you doing—all of that, any of that—back then?
"Obviously the fuck not, Riss, she was a virgin."
"And she wasn't this time?"
"Obviously not," he repeats. "She's—yeah. For sure."
"And you know this because, between all of the choking and spitting, she gave you an itemized list of her dating history?"
"She's twenty. And it's not like she was waiting for marriage, or anything. After prom—"
"AP."
"Fine, AP, she wanted to have sex AP. That night. I was the one who said we should wait. Because I'm an idiot. And it's not like she'd have trouble finding someone to." He puts his glasses on. Takes them back off. Starts cleaning the lenses with the edge of his shirt. "I mean, she's. Pretty."
"So I've heard. Smoking adorable, according to Reg."
"Yeah. Right, she's. That. And smart. Like, a smartass, but also just really smart. She's going to be a lawyer, after college, decided when we were in elementary school that she was going to go to Stanford for it. Which makes it sound like she'd be stuck up, or really anal, or something, but she's also really funny, and sweet. Most of the time. And brave, way braver than anyone I've—and she can walk in heels now? Which sounds weird, that sounds like a weird detail, but it's not, because when we were in high school she wore these stupid shoes to prom that she couldn't even walk in, forget about dancing. I had to carry her to the car. But now she can. Walk in them. Really well. And she still drinks Shirley Temples, just with vodka in them now, I guess, because she's even more of a sugar addict than me. I mean, she was wearing Skittles-flavored lipgloss." He puts his glasses back on. They are somehow blurrier than before. "So. Yeah. I'd say she's been doing just fine in college."
When he looks up, Marissa is already looking at him. She looks at him for a long time. Then she turns to look straight ahead, at the wall, for a slightly shorter amount of time.
"Well," she finally says. "Thank god we broke up. Otherwise I'd have been setting myself up for the worst fucking heartbreak of my life."
"That's what you got out of that?"
"Yes. Also? You're screwed."
"I apologized. The next morning. She said it was fine."
Marissa spreads out her hands. "And yet, here we are." He doesn't say anything. Her voice is a little gentler when she asks, "Have you thought about calling her?"
"I don't have her school number. I'd have to call her mom to ask for it, or Josh, and then they might figure out something is going on, and then—ow." This last is in response to Marissa reaching over and flicking his forehead, medium-hard. "What was that for?"
"You're a dumbass," she says. "And a dick. You are in love with this girl, and you can't even work up the courage to ask your longtime family friend to pass along her phone number?"
Ryland stops rubbing at his forehead. "I'm." He opens his mouth. He closes it. "I'm not—"
"I just spent a full seventy Mississippis hearing about how she's a pre-law genius who tastes like candy." She checks her watch. "And it's midnight, which means you just officially hit day three of moping over the fact that you made her cry."
"She said she's seeing someone else," he says. His voice is harder than before. "Back at school, at Berkeley. She said they'd probably be exclusive soon. So even if I was in—which. I'm." He drags a hand down over his face. His glasses make a sound on the floor somewhere. "It doesn't matter. It's too late."
Marissa squints at him. Then she lets out a long, slow exhale. She breathes back in. She shrugs. "Okay."
He looks up. "That's it?"
"Well, I'm not going to call her up for you."
"The whole point of telling you this was to. I don't know. To make it better."
"Oh, we're doing confession now? Do I have to assign you penance or something? Reggie's in tech for The Sound of Music, I bet he could poach a crucifix from the prop department."
"No, you always have a plan!" His voice has a little shake in it that he can't control. The corners of his eyes are starting to sting. "You don't give up, you figure things out. You're a figure-out-er. And you order me around. You're good at that. You're always telling me what to do, and you're always right, so tell me how to fix this."
Marissa chews on her lower lip. "I don't know if you can," she says. "It sounds like you hurt her. Really badly. This time and the time before. And, look, if she's half as great as you say, she at least deserves someone who's brave enough to try and call. But if you already apologized, and she said she didn't want to talk, then maybe the second best thing is to leave her alone."
He looks down at his hands. "And then what?"
"I don't know," she says. "Say ten Hail Marys?" He doesn't laugh. He doesn't look back up, either, until Marissa takes one of his hands in hers. "You hope that the next time you see her, she's single and you're less of an idiot. And, failing that, you move on." She squeezes his hand and lets go, settling back in the chair. "And the next time you really like a girl, maybe don't call her a slut the first time you sleep together."
"Yeah. You're right."
"I usually am," she says.
He appreciates, as always, the way she very politely finds other things in the room to look at while he wipes at his undereyes and cheeks. "So." He fishes for his glasses on the floor, and puts them on properly. "Enough about me. How was your weekend? How's your girl?"
"Oh, we broke up."
"But. I thought you'd just—"
"No, yeah, we had, like, a super intense Friday-into-Saturday-into-Sunday-morning second date, and then we were in the middle of planning a weekend to Joshua Tree—anyways, it went from intense good to intense bad real fast. You are not the only dumbass in the room right now. But it's fine, because I have a brilliant plan to win her back. It's good you're here, actually, because I'm probably going to need your help."
"Sure. Whatever you need. Like I said, you're good at telling me what to do."
"Okay, first thing—hey." She kicks his ankle, lightly. "Cheer up. Maybe this Berkeley guy will turn out to be absolutely terrible. Just total dogshit."
"Maybe." He leans all the way back, neck craning, eyes tracing random patterns, like he might find constellations in the popcorn ceiling if he stares hard enough. "With my luck, they'll probably get married."
"Divorce is legal," she points out. "And, anyway, you said she wants to go to law school. Stanford's close to SF. Engagement rings and babies and stuff are for after the bar. And you have your whole life to homewreck, if it comes to that. I'll aid and abet."
He snorts. "Thanks." He gives her a smile—a little beaten-down, but sincere. Then he returns the ankle kick. "Speaking of aiding and abetting. Your plan?"
"Right." She claps. "So, step one: there's this lecture on Wednesday about Ritsonian spelling reform…"
wrote something for ryland and rain… and i actually finished it for once. should i post it here as a little tester to see who would be interested in the long form im currently working on? can i get a number of hands?
a how do you like your eggs in the morning? spinoff oneshot | ao3 link
Summary: Once upon a time, you asked Ryland Grace to help you not go off to college a virgin. The two of you spent the summer working up to it. You went to college a virgin anyway. A year and a half later, you run into each other in a frat basement at a school neither of you attends. He’s definitely not jealous. He’s definitely not about to make it your problem.
(or: the one where your grown-up childhood crush spits in your mouth.)
Tags: f!reader, childhood friends to lovers, pining, smut, drunk sex, oral sex (f!receiving), fingering, piv sex, dirty talk, praise, degradation, slut shaming, period-typical misogyny (it's the early 2000s), implied loss of virginity, angst, mild hurt/comfort, college setting, jealous!Ry, Coltland twins, Marissa mention, more angst
A/N: 18+ only! This is a standalone piece, but it's also technically an AU of the other fic in this series. That fic is NOT required reading for this—but if you like these two characters together, and want to see more of them, then you might enjoy the main fic. if you have read the main fic, know that this oneshot lives in what I am calling the “Prom Night AU,” where everything in their lives is exactly the same up until the very end of prom (which, of course, means most everything that follows is completely different) (mainly: he's meaner in this). Special s/o to @bringmeabagel for helping me figure out how mean to make the ending (tee hee)
Ryland's first thought, when he sees you, is that he must be hallucinating, because you don't go to school in San Diego.
Neither does he, which is half the reason he's so miserable; standing in a crowded frat basement, surrounded by mostly strangers, nursing a beer he doesn't really want (but definitely needs, if he's going to maintain his current buzz long enough to get him through the rest of the night).
He's only here because his roommate convinced him to go on a road trip to visit a friend. A friend of a friend. One of the two. He (roommate) was going through a breakup, and learned that he (Ryland) was also going through a breakup, and, assuming they were the same amount of broken up over said breakups (they're not), tried to convince Ryland that the best solution was to venture off-campus and find a couple of UC girls to hook up with.
Ryland is still not fully convinced of the virtues of this plan. The only thing that semi-convinced him was Marissa, fed up after hearing him bitch and moan about the whole thing for all of an hour. "Look," she'd said. "You should definitely go. You could use the fresh air."
"There's plenty of fresh air in Pasadena."
“Well, maybe I could use some fresh air. Some Ryland-free air. How about that? I'm sick of seeing your morose little face."
"I'm—I'm not morose." He has been, perhaps, a little bit morose (a word which he had never before heard out loud. That's what you get for befriending humanities majors). His lab advisor is an old-school, closed-minded nightmare. His mom, living alone now that both twins are out of the house, fainted at work, and apparently all their GP did was prescribe her an extra-strength iron supplement and send her on her way. Colt is on location across an ocean somewhere, which is cool in theory, but now means he's unreachable half the time. The breakup, amicable and for reasons entirely out of his control, is far and away the least of his problems.
"You're not happy," she'd pointed out. "Plus, you deserve to make out with someone who isn't, like, allergic to dicks. And I can't in good conscience pawn you off on any of my friends here. They've heard too much." She'd clapped. Once, sharply. A habit of hers, when she's figured something out. He's begun to catch himself doing the same thing. "I've decided for you. You're going."
"If you really wanted to order me around, maybe you shouldn't have dumped me."
"Go on, get packing. I'm serious. I have a girl coming over at six, and I think she's already worried about me being secret straight, so I really don't need an ex hanging around." She'd tilted her head, making a rectangle with forefingers and thumbs and squinting through, as though sizing him up for a picture frame. "Though I guess with the hoodie, and, like—if you shaved, you could probably just pass as butch. Huh. Maybe that's why—"
He'd put his hands up. "I'm leaving."
"Don't get anyone pregnant!" she'd called out, and then the door had shut behind him.
And then he'd gone straight to his room to pack. Because Marissa has never been wrong about anything in her life (except, evidently, for dating him).
And now he's here.
It's only a two hour drive from CalTech to UCSD. Not too bad. But Berkeley is halfway across the state, which just reconfirms that he is imagining you on the other side of the basement. He shakes his head. He forgets about it. Josh would have mentioned, if you'd transferred schools. Ryland isn't as close to your brother as he was in high school, obviously, but they still get together sometimes to smoke over school breaks.
A few times a year. That's the bar for maintaining hometown friendships. At any rate, it's more often than he sees you.
Your doppelgänger is in a short black skirt, and a tight denim top (thin straps, zipper down the front), and heels that you'd never be able to walk in. More proof of his insanity. Someone must have spiked his bottle. Or maybe he's just drinking a bad batch. He abandons his beer on the side of the stairs, and crosses to the drink table for a fresh one. The cooler's empty; he groans, squatting down to check under the table. He sees a promising box, rips it open, pulls out a bottle. And then—a nudge. Someone knocks into him, from the side, and he startles hard enough to bump his head.
"Sorry!" someone says from above.
"Shit," he mutters, rubbing the top of his head as he ducks lower, and frees his head safely from underneath the table. Great. Now he's drunk and/or possibly drugged and/or possibly concussed. "Whoever built these tables—great material work. That's sturdy, that's really fucking—"
"God, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"
Definitely concussed. Definitely. Because that's the only thing that can possibly explain the fact that, when he stands and turns around, he sees that the person who bumped into him is you.
Not a doppelgänger. Not someone who looks kind of you like you from across a dark and crowded room. You, with your hair curled, and your lashes long and dark, and your chest squeezed into a denim top with a zipper down the front. You, three inches taller than he's used to, as you stand in heels that, a year and a half ago, you would have twisted your ankles just looking at. You, with that familiar little line between your brows, staring up at him with all of the same confusion and surprise and (mild) horror that's currently washing through his chest.
"You," he says out loud.
Shit. Maybe he really is concussed.
"Ryland?"
Your voice, wrapped around his name. Proof that you're real—but, then again, he has enough memories of you to be able to recreate that with accuracy even in a hallucination. He's probably heard that sound, his name on your tongue, hundreds of different ways over the years. Laughing while you chased him and Colt and Josh across the yard as kids. Apologetic, that time you'd spilled lemonade over one of his library books. Grateful, whenever he gave you something you'd asked for (candy, or help with homework, or—it didn't matter, really. It never mattered what you'd asked for. He'd always said yes, up until the one time he didn't). Serious. Teasing. Shy. Pleading, breathless, against his mouth with his fingers buried in you. Thick with tears, when he saw you last.
And here, now, a new tone: cautious surprise.
He makes another attempt at speech. "What are you doing here?"
"Mock trial conference." You blink, and you swallow, and he can see you reset to neutral in real time. "The actual thing happened yesterday. This is just the victory lap."
"You won?"
You lift your cup. "Obviously."
"Congrats," he says, tipping his bottle against it. You stay perfectly still.
"Thanks," you say dryly. He can picture the exact smile you would have responded with two years ago. Back when his approval still meant something to you. "You?"
"Visiting a friend," he says, which is technically true, but he hears the pulling-teeth way the words come out, and it makes it sound like he's lying. Badly.
"A friend, huh?"
"Friend of a friend," he says. "Or something." He catches a glimpse of the inside of your cup. It's shockingly red. "What on Earth is that?"
You follow his gaze. Something passes over your face. Quickly. Just a hint, but he knows you well enough to clock it—embarrassment. "Vodka. Sprite. Grenadine."
He feels the corners of his mouth pull up. "No maraschino cherries?" He remembers a wedding, when he was thirteen and you were twelve, where you'd managed to find the bar's stash, and gorged yourself until you were sick. Your mom's third wedding (she's on husband four, now, he thinks. Maybe).
He'd danced with you at that wedding. Half of a slow dance. He'd seen Colt dancing with you, and gotten jealous. In a way, that wedding was the beginning of the end, because that's when he'd promised to take you to prom, and then prom was where he'd kissed you, and then had panicked about kissing you, and maybe he still could have averted the impending disaster if only you hadn't asked him to—
"Do me a favor?" You take a sip of your drink, scrunching your nose. His stomach flips. "Never mention maraschino cherries to me again."
He relaxes, without even realizing he's relaxing, because there's a teasing note in your voice. He hasn't heard you sound amused in years. "Why not? One of your best moments."
"Shut up," you say with a smile. A small smile, but a smile. And it's normal to look at someone's mouth when they smile, he tells himself, so it's normal that he sees your lip gloss and wonders what it would taste like. "Guess I had good taste in some things, back then. Hard to fuck up a Shirley Temple."
"Even with vodka?"
You shrug. "It's not too bad. I like a little kick." You lift your cup again. For one second, he thinks you might be offering a sip—but then someone calls your name from across the room. One of your mock trial friends. You wave at her, then turn back to Ryland. "Good to see you," you say, clinking your cup against his bottle. "I'll, um, I'll tell Josh you said hi."
You walk away, which means he gets to watch you walk away. Not that he's staring. But it's hard to look away from, the way you cross the floor in those shoes without so much as a stumble.
His not-staring is broken by an arm, slung quick and heavy around his neck, followed by the full weight of someone against his side. "Gracie!"
Matt. Frat Matt, the friend of a friend of a friend who's hosting them both. Ryland isn't a fan of the guy—even less so now, with beer breath hot in his face—but he upgraded them all from couches to bedrooms when it turned out a few of the other fraternity brothers would be gone for the weekend, so Ryland smooths out his grimace to something more friendly-neutral. "Hey."
"Hey, man." He gestures forward, in the direction you just headed. "I'm gonna level with you. Kind of a dick move, going for the only new girl at the party."
Ryland feels his brows knit together. "I wasn't—"
"I don't blame you," says Frat Pat (Frat Matt's younger frat brother—and yes, they do insist on being called by the rhyming nicknames every time). "Imagine sticking a finger in that slutty little zipper and pulling allll the way down."
Something stiffens in Ryland's chest. "Shut up," he says.
"Five bucks says she's a moaner."
Another guy smacks him on the arm. "Ten says she likes getting choked, you can always tell —"
"Don't fucking talk about her like that," he says. It comes out sharper than he means, which is still calmer than he feels. He brings the beer bottle to his mouth in an attempt to recover. "I know her, all right? We grew up together."
A pause. "Girl next door," Frat Pat says, nodding solemnly. "Hot."
Ryland rolls his eyes. "Very funny."
"I'm serious."
"So am I. She's off limits."
"Does she know that?" Frat Matt slaps him on the back, then points at you, across the room, talking to your friend, tipping your head back to finish the last of your dirty Shirley Temple. One strap is slipping off your shoulder. The bust is tight enough that it doesn't really matter, but his pulse kicks up anyway. "Come on. You don't wear a top like that unless you're looking for someone to take it off. And, by the way, you're a guest here, too, remember? I'm not going around telling the whole fucking house that half the fresh meat in here is off limits just because you called dibs."
"I'm not calling dibs. I'm not going to—it's not about that."
"So you've never?" Frat Matt and Frat Pat's nameless friend, sounding genuinely a bit awed. "You're telling me you live next to that, and you didn't fuck her even once?"
"No," he says, which is true. The beer is sour on his tongue, and he's probably chugged half the bottle trying to tune out the frat-guy sleaze, and he needs this conversation to be over. "No, okay? She's not like that."
"Fucking waste, man," Frat Matt says, with a disappointed shake of his head. Then he slaps Ryland on the back, harder this time. "If you change your mind, better move quick. Looks like Dawson's already got eyes on her."
His eyes flick back over to see yes, you're talking to someone. Another frat bro. Tall. Taller than Ryland, which shouldn't rankle him. He feels distinctly rankled.
Frat Matt continues, oblivious to all of the rankling going on. "And, you know, her, whoever—your room door locks. Condoms and lube in the bottom drawer. Just don't get anything on the sheets that won't come out in a quick cycle, yeah? Stop the drought!" He punctuates this last with a fist in the air, and then he and Pat and No-Name fuck off, presumably to go torment someone else. Ryland watches them go with another sip of his beer. Two sips. Three.
He looks back at you.
Dawson is standing closer to you, definitely closer, crouching down to let you say something into his ear. When he touches your arm, you don't pull back. He picks up a bottle of something from the table next to you, and starts filling two shot glasses.
Ryland tips back the last of his beer, grabs another off the table, and crosses the basement.
"Hey," he says. He can't step between the two of you, because you're standing too close together for that, but he does his best. "What's up?"
You look up. Dawson looks down a medium amount. "Uh," you say. "Ryland. Hi. Again."
"Hey, man." Dawson looks between you and Ryland. "You know this guy?"
"Mm-hm," you say, nodding, slow, your eyes doing something that he assumes is supposed to be a signal for get out of here. He cheerfully ignores it. "Ryland and I went to high school together."
"Freshman when I was a senior," Ryland adds. "You're getting your SAT results back soon, right?"
The little divot between your brows returns, deeper than before, as you do an honest-to-God double take. "What?"
Dawson straightens up to full height. This would be a little intimidating, if his face weren't so perfectly screwed up in confusion and alarm. "Hang on. You're in high school?"
"N—"
"My best tutoring student. Precocious." Ryland ruffles your hair. He looking up at Dawson, now, not at you, but he can practically hear the cartoon steam coming out of your ears. "Skipped two grades. Or was it three?"
Dawson takes a large and decisive step back. "Nah, dude," he says, shaking his head. "Fuck that shit. I'm not messing around with that."
He's gone. Ryland lets out a relieved breath, and takes a sip of his new beer.
You turn on him. "What the fuck was that?" you demand. "I don't look thirteen. I haven't looked thirteen in seven years."
"Five, maybe," he says, which makes you fume even harder. "And, FYI, twenty is still technically under the legal drinking age."
You laugh. It's not a pleasant laugh. "What's next, a lecture on the dangers of premarital sex? Little late for that. FYI." You give that a beat to land. It lands, in some inflamed back corner of his mind, right next to five bucks says she's a moaner and ten says she likes getting choked. "Also, I'm supposed to believe you'd never touched a drop of alcohol in your life until last week? Happy belated, by the way." You pick up one of the shot glasses, full to the brim, and offer it to him. "Here. Celebratory shot."
He shakes his head. "No." No way in hell is he going to drink something some other guy poured for you.
You squint up at him. "Okay, so you came over here to cockblock me and then—what? Just stand here in miserable silence? Don't you have friends somewhere around here? A friend of a friend?"
"I thought we were friends," he says. It comes out all wrong, a miserable combination of too jokey and too serious. "Or. You know. We used to be."
You hesitate. For a moment, he expects—sincerity, maybe. Sincere anger, which he knows is the least he deserves.
Instead, you just sigh. Like he's a nuisance. Something easily swatted away. "Can we not do this right now?" You wiggle the shot glass at him. "Come on. It's a party. Lighten up." He doesn't move. "Or don't. All right. Guess I'll go find someone else to take this, since you're too much of a pussy to—"
He plucks the shot glass out of your hand and empties it into his mouth. Then he pulls you in with one hand on your hip, winds his other arm far enough around your neck that he can get his other hand on your jaw, and lets the vodka pour from his mouth into yours. He closes the distance just in time to feel the end of the surprised little moan you let out.
Your hand is fisted in his shirt when he pulls back. He reaches for the other shot glass. Down in one. You watch him, a little slack-jawed.
"Happy?" he asks.
In lieu of words, you pull him back in for another kiss.
There's none of the hesitancy he remembers. Not that you were ever a bad kisser—awkward at first, like anyone, but a quick study. You were just always a little shy. Nervous, maybe. It was sweet. You're all confidence now: sucking his tongue into your mouth, your hands decisive, your teeth grazing his lower lip. Liquid courage. Or maybe just more experience. Obviously you wouldn't have had any trouble finding people to kiss in college. To kiss, and more; and now his brain is spinning all sorts of images of other hands on you, on you and in you, other mouths, other—
He tries to get his brain to shut up. He can't get his brain to shut up. He kisses you harder instead.
It's loud enough in here, music and talking and bad acoustics, that he feels the sounds you make more than he actually hears them. That's okay. He lets his memory fill in the blanks. A little pleased hum when he does something with his mouth that you like. A whimper when he presses you flush against him with a hand on the small of your back. A gasp when the hand on your waist runs further up your torso and—
"Ryland." You break the kiss. "Ryland. We're, this is, there's people here. We're in public."
"Right," he says, as though he can be expected to focus on anything other than the fact that your lip gloss tastes like Skittles. "Sure."
"And, look, I'm supposed to be crashing on someone's couch tonight, so I don't—"
"I have a room," he says, and for a moment he genuinely considers getting on his knees to say a prayer of gratitude for Frat Matt and Frat Pat and Dawson and everyone else who pays dues so that this house can exist. "I have a room. Here. With a bed. And a lock on the door. And condoms. Apparently."
You've gone very still in his arms. Your eyes dart between his, back and forth, like you're thinking. Like you're deciding something. "Okay," you finally say.
He huffs out a quiet little laugh. "Okay?"
"Okay," you repeat, except you don't even manage to get the full word out before leaning back up to press your mouth back to his. You pull back. “I want another shot first.”
-
He kisses you up two flights of stairs, down a hallway, through a door. The lock clicks. The clothes come off piecemeal. His shirt. Your skirt. He's first on the bed, and you kick off your heels before you follow, climbing into his lap to kiss him deep and hungry. The Skittles flavor is more or less gone, at this point, leaving just you behind. You and vodka and grenadine.
"Lean back," he says, and you do, just enough for him to get a hand between the two of you. "Need to get this stupid fucking top off."
"What's wrong with my top?" you ask. There's a laugh in your voice, and genuine confusion behind it. "It was a birthday gift. It's nice."
"Off," is all he can manage.
He finds the zipper. He pulls it all the way down.
All at once, he is warm all over. There's the heat of anger, to know that this is what Matt and his dickhead friends were imagining; and there's the heat of relief that he's here, not them, like he's protecting you somehow; and, most importantly, there's the heat of you, your chest bare against his chest, your mouth open against his mouth. You, moaning when he drags his thumb across your nipple. You, meeting his hips in a urgent, desperate grind, even as you break the kiss to say, “Just so you know. Sometimes when I'm drunk, it's. Um."
"What?" he says between kisses.
"It's harder for me to finish. Like, I can't focus enough, or it takes too long, so—"
He gets his mouth on one of your tits, and your sentence cuts off into a moan. "You're the one who insisted on doing shots."
"I wanted to piss you off," you say, winding one hand into his hair. The bluntness, the sweet, unfiltered honesty—it's so you, so like the old you, that he can't help but smile against your skin. "I didn't know that you'd—I wasn't expecting—I don't need any more favors from you. For the record." Something in his head flinches. He keeps kissing his way back up to your throat, your jaw. "I was supposed to meet someone, before, so if you're just here because you feel like you have some weird unpaid debt or something you should just go and I can—"
He reaches the corner of your mouth, and then the whole of your mouth, and he kisses you quiet. "Stop that," he says. "Stop threatening to go find someone else. You're here. With me. Be here with me."
Your brows furrow, but you nod. You lean back in.
The kissing is slower. Gentler. He slows his hands accordingly, tracing little paths across your waist, your back. He can feel how it affects you, every little touch. Squirming in his lap. Little breathy moans against his mouth. You were always responsive, but he's never seen you drunk, your inhibitions somewhere on the floor with your top, and it's making him a little dizzy with want. When he runs a hand back down over your hair, over your neck, you shudder.
He laughs. He can't help it. Your lips curve against his. "What?"
"You," he says, pulling back for a second. "You were on my ass about cockblocking you, when you were the one trying so hard to get drunk, even though—"
"It's not funny," you say, even though he can feel you smiling against his shoulder.
"I'm not complaining," he says, pressing a kiss to your temple. "It's cute." You bring your head back up to kiss him again, at the same time he gets one of your nipples between his forefinger and thumb and pinches, and the sound you make into his mouth is pleased and surprised and maybe louder than any he's heard you make before. "Can't come, but you're even more sensitive than usual, huh? Poor baby."
"Shut up," you say, entirely unconvincingly to begin with, and even less convincing when he kisses your neck at the same time he pinches your nipple again and you cry out even louder without anything to muffle the sound. Five bucks says she's a moaner. "I just. I know guys get butthurt sometimes, when they can't get a girl off. And you always. When we." The unsaid words settle warm in his chest. He doesn't even try to hold back a grin. "So I just wanted you to know, if I don't—it's not something wrong with you. It's something wrong with me."
He stops. "Nothing's wrong with you." He leans back to look up at you. "Jesus. Who told you that?"
You hesitate. "No one," you say, in a tone that makes it clear you have a very specific person in mind.
"Okay." Part of him wants to press. He wants to know, wants to find this guy, wants to—no, nope. Even if he was capable of beating someone up (he's not, and Colt is in a different time zone), that wouldn't be useful. That train of thought is just a distraction from the rare and precious reality of you, here, in front of him. "Well, that's normal," he settles for saying, because you're straddling him, and you're looking down at him with a little bit of genuine distress in your eyes, and he wants so badly to make it better. "Alcohol is a, it's a depressant, so it—anyway, you, the whole thing, normal. Super normal. Whiskey dick, for guys, there's a name for it and everything."
You relax a little bit, much to his relief, angling your hips back against his. "You don't seem to be having any problems with that."
"Well, yeah." He kisses your sternum. "There's a hot naked girl in my bed."
"Technically it's not your bed."
He chuckles. "Right."
"And technically I'm not naked."
"We can fix that." He tips you down onto the bed, settling above you, and hooks a thumb into either side of your underwear. Black lace. He thinks about the cotton ones you used to wear, the ones he ran fingers over and reached under and pulled off you so many times, and he wonders who you might have bought this pair for, as he leans down and kisses your stomach just above the scalloped hem.
You giggle.
"What's so funny?" he asks, distracted again. He missed getting to make you laugh. The laugh erases any thought of jealousy and reseats him firmly back in this moment, here, the two of you the only people in the room.
When he looks up, your hands are pressed against your face. "You think I'm hot," you say through your fingers.
"You say that like you're surprised."
"I." Your hands move, but you're still looking up at the ceiling. Away from him. "You called me cute, a lot. That's different than hot."
"Come on," he scoffs. "You know you're hot. Walking around the party with your tits out like that, you don't think every asshole guy in there was looking at you?"
You pause. You finally meet his gaze, with a look in your eyes like you're trying to figure something out. When you speak again, it's quieter. "I didn't think you were."
"You're smarter than that." He works the underwear down over your hips, pressing another kiss to your hipbone as he goes, one side and then the other. "You're pretty, too. I told you that, right? I had to have told you that."
"A few times."
"Yeah." He tugs the underwear free of one ankle, then the other, and drops it on the bed next to him as he looks at you. "Always so fucking pretty."
You shift your legs a little bit, like the looking is making you embarrassed. Like he didn't spend an entire summer seeing you like this.
Then again, maybe that isn't fair, because you hadn't been naked right off the bat. Not for the first few weeks, at least. That had been the deal. You'd kissed at prom, and you'd made your request, and he'd given his caveats; and then there were the last few weeks when he'd gone back to CalTech for finals, and when he went home and saw you again it was back to kissing. Slow, soft kissing. Fully-clothed kissing. A few days of that before he'd gotten you to grind yourself to a quiet, shaky orgasm on his thigh, with your face buried in his neck, and his hands splayed over your hips to steady you.
A couple of days after that, you'd gotten topless for the first time. And he'd made sure to make you finish like that, again, clothed from the waist down, before moving on to the next thing.
And the next thing. And the next.
Days into weeks. Fingers. Tongue. Weeks into months. All of you naked, shy and trusting, and the only reason he'd been able to keep his hands from shaking was because he knew he needed to keep his cool for you.
He doesn't worry so much about keeping his cool now. He's a few beers and two shots too far in to care if his hands are shaking or not. The shaking is irrelevant. The relevant factor is that they're on you, running up from ankle to calf to pull your legs a little further apart as he settles between them.
"So pretty," he says again. "Or, no, hot. You wanted me to call you hot, right?"
"Not if you don't mean it," you say, covering your face again. "You can call me whatever you want."
"I mean all of it. All of them, you're all of the things.” He kisses your thigh, the hollow of it. “God. You know how much I thought about this? Missed seeing you like this.” Another kiss, above your clit. “Tasting you like this.” He licks into you, all of you, messy and complete, and the sound you make is a perfect echo of the one you made when he did that for the first time a year and a half ago. Muffled into your hands and everything. “Missed getting my mouth on this cute, wet little pussy."
"Ryland," you say, still into your hands.
He laughs. “Oh, now you're shy? You had no problem calling me a pussy when you were trying to piss me off."
"I'm just not used to hearing you talk like that."
"Do you like it?”
You nod.
"Okay,” he says, between little licks to your clit. “Good to know.” He drags his thumb down, through your slit, and he groans. “Fuck. Can't believe you're this wet just from me spitting in your mouth."
"Not just from—from that. I didn't know I'd like that, either."
"But you did?”
"I did,” you admit. He licks up against you, letting his tongue dip into your entrance, and your hands fly to his head. “I like that, too. That, what you just did."
"This?" He repeats it, going deeper this time, and then deeper, and maybe dating Marissa was worth it after all, because she was nothing if not thorough with her instructions, and now he gets to use all of that hard-won knowledge on you.
He keeps fucking you on his tongue like that, letting you guide him with your hands on his head; moaning into you when you tug at his hair. He goes until he notices the tell-tale signs that you’re getting close, and then he stops, pulling away with his mouth still wet and your chest still heaving.
"You know, maybe it's better like this,” he says, pressing two fingers into you. You’re relaxed enough from his tongue that they slide in with ease. “You can't get off but you're still so—so—I mean, I can just keep you on the edge for as long as I want. That was always my favorite part, anyway, the sounds you make right before.” He curls his fingers, and you demonstrate on cue. “That's it, that's the one—and your face. Like that. Just like that?” He fucks his fingers into you a little faster. “Right there?” You’re on the edge, he can hear you’re on the edge, and he can hear the frustration in your voice at the fact that it’s not tipping over, and it’s so cute he has to fight back a laugh. “It's not enough, huh? God, it's like you were made for this. Perfect fucking toy. Press a button, make a fun noise, right?"
Your moan breaks off into a laugh. “You're making me sound like—” You laugh again, harder. “Like I'm a Bop It, or something."
He snorts. He can’t help it. A few seconds pass like that—the two of you, giggling, like you hadn’t been squirming on his tongue less than a minute before.
“Sure,” he says, once he recovers. “It's kind of the same. If you tell me what to do. You just have to tell me what feels good, and then I can just do that, right?"
"If you. With your fingers.” It comes out quickly. Like you’re afraid you’ll chicken out and stop if you speak slowly enough to consciously process the words coming out of your mouth. “And then suck on, on my clit, at the same time. That’s. That will.”
He does both of those things, and you almost immediately stop forming coherent sentences.
He does that for a while. Working you up. Stopping. Taking little breaks to suck marks into your thighs, your hipbone (a fun little surprise, for whoever you hook up with next), his fingers still pumping lazily in and out, or else leaving you empty to rub circles into your clit. His other hand on your hip, or your stomach, or your tits, tweaking a nipple for the pleasure of hearing your voice break. And then, when he feels like it, he brings you back to the edge and keeps you there.
And keeps you there.
And keeps you there.
Your breath is catching again, in that specific way—and it keeps going, but there’s a new edge to it. To your voice. To the way you’re clenching down on his fingers. Like you’re closer than before. Closer closer. Close enough that—if he just keeps on like that, but more—and if he doesn’t stop—
Your hand tightens in his hair. The other reaches down, and he takes it in his, and you squeeze his hand as your thighs squeeze around his head and your pussy squeezes around his fingers, long and hard and desperate, your voice cracking in surprise as you come.
He keeps his mouth on you one second longer, two, until the hand in his hair pushes him off.
“Aw.” He doesn’t even try a little bit to hide the smugness in his voice. Your hand twitches in his. He rubs his thumb in little circles over your wrist. “Look at that. So you can come when you're drunk. Guess those other guys weren't trying very hard, were they?”
“Fuck,” is all you manage.
“Or maybe they just didn't know you.” He kisses your stomach. You’re still going, throbbing around his fingers as he works you through the aftershocks. “Maybe I just have a leg up. Maybe I shouldn't be jealous of, of whoever—it doesn't matter, because I'll always be the first person who saw you like this, right? I'm always going to be the first person who got to taste you. The first person who made you come. God. I want another one.” He gets his thumb back on your clit, and your hips buck. “I want another one out of you. You can do that for me, right?” You shake your head. “Come on, you can, I know you can."
"Not right away,” you say, and your hand comes to his wrist, and he relents.
“Okay,” he says, making his way back up the bed. “I can wait. I waited a year and a half already, I can wait. Just—here.” He kisses you. “See how good you taste?"
You nod, making an mmhm sound against him. You kiss him, and kiss him, and then break the kiss to sit up.
He pulls you back with a sound of protest. "Where are you going?"
"To return the favor,” you say against his mouth.
He shakes his head. “Stay here. Just a little longer." He needs a second. He needs more than a second, actually, because he just made you come, and his fingers are still wet with you, and his ego is like a balloon about to pop, and any blowjob you try to give him now would last a humiliatingly short amount of time.
"You don't want—you don't want my mouth on your cock?" you ask. He blinks up at you. You keep going. “You don't want to fuck my mouth?"
You trip over the words a little bit, like they're unfamiliar, which he knows is just the alcohol, but it's still adorable. He'd tell you as much, but apparently you don't want him to call you cute. So he keeps it to himself.
"I mean, I'd rather actually fuck you," he says instead, because it's true, and also to tune out the little voice that’s wondering where you learned to talk like that.
"Now?" you ask. Your leg is still hooked over his hip. He pulls you in closer with a hand on your ass, the whole length of him up against the whole length of you, and you melt into the next kiss. "Okay. Yes. Yes, I would like that, very much."
"One sec." He rolls over. As promised, there's a box of condoms in the nightstand drawer.
As he tears one off the strip, he hears you, behind him. "We can go slow, though, right?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Okay." You exhale, shaky. “Good."
He turns to you. "Hey," he says, abandoning the condom for a second to reach up to cup your face. "We don't have to, if you don't want to. We can keep doing other stuff."
"No, I want to. I just haven't." Your eyes leave his. He watches them travel to to the condom, on the bed, and then lower, to his hips, and then back up—not to meet his eyes, again. Somewhere lower. His chin. His chest. "You're bigger than I remember," you admit. "Than, um, than I'm. Used to." He gets his fingers back into your hair, tipping your head up, and now you do look at him again, directly. “I still want to, though.” He tightens his fingers a little, and he sees your eyes go a little hazy. "Please."
He kisses you—deeply, then just a peck. "Okay," he says, reaching back for the condom. "Nice and slow. Works for me. Do you want to be on top? On your back? We can change later, I just. I want to see you." There's a warmth in his chest, a flush going upward. He hopes you can't see it painted across his cheeks. "Want to see your face."
You lie back as he rolls on the condom. "Is there lube?"
"Yeah, somewhere in here, I think. You want?"
"Just in case."
You're wet enough, he doubts you'll need it, but he puts some on the condom. Just in case. He squirts a little more out onto his fingers, and presses them into you, over your clit, dipping inside you. "Good?"
"Yeah. Yeah. Do we need—is there anything else? Like, a pillow, under the hips—I know that's supposed to be good—"
"I think that's supposed to help get deeper, so. Maybe not the move here."
"Okay. That makes sense," you say, as he settles between your hips. He doesn't line himself up yet, just leans down, pressing his whole body against the soft heat of yours. Your hands find his arms, running up and down. "Hi," you say.
"Hi." He kisses you, and moves his hips a little. You meet the movement. For a few moments he lets it be this, just this—your mouth under his, and your hands on his shoulders, and the length of him rubbing back and forth against you. Teasing. He lets it go on long enough that your little whimpers turn to whines, and the tilting up of your hips becomes impatient. He presses his forehead to yours. "Ready?"
Your hands tighten on his arms. You nod. "Ready."
He reaches down. He lines himself up.
He presses in.
He goes slow. Torturously slow. Slower than he thought himself capable of, especially here, right now, with you. But it's worth it to feel every tight, wet inch of you opening up around him. It's worth it to pull back, slightly, just enough that he can see your face, the flutter of your lashes, the slight parting of your lips
He goes as far as he can, and stops. Your hands are a little looser on his arms. Your chest is rising and falling against his, heavier than before.
"There," he says, pressing his lips briefly to yours. "That's it." This is sort of a lie, because the whole length of him isn't inside you, but he's bottomed out, so he's as far inside you as he's going to be able to get. "Not so scary, right?"
"Right. Right. Can you—" You reach up with one hand, fingers in his hair as you pull him back down to kiss you, and as he kisses you he moves a little, out and in, and you flutter around him, and you're making little rhythmic sounds against his mouth, and he's fucking you. Properly. For the first time.
It shuts off his brain a little bit. For the first time all night, he's at a loss for words. He's inside you. Not that he hasn't been inside you before, with his fingers, or his tongue, but this—now—and you're hot and you're wet and you're squeezing down on his cock, and he lets out a moan that would probably embarrass him if he were sober. But also it's hard to be embarrassed, because he's inside you. If there's anything to be embarrassed about, it's the fact that he had the chance to do this with you a year and a half ago, he had the chance to be the first person you ever did this with, and he threw that chance away with both hands.
That thought brings his speech system back online. "Who were you meeting? Before."
"What?"
"You said you were supposed to meet someone, before. Who?"
Your words are a little messy, a little unsteady as you try to speak between moans. "Not anyone in particular, just—like, generally—it's a party—"
"Whoever gave you the time of day, huh?" He picks up the pace a little. "You just like the attention? Is that what you thought about, when you picked out that slutty little outfit—all of those eyes on you, wanting you, thinking about. God. You should have heard what they were saying about you, fucking killed me."
Your arms are wrapped more completely around him, now, one around his back and the other around his neck. He keeps himself braced above you on one forearm, hand up around your head to keep you from bumping against the headboard; and with the other, he catches one of your hands, pressing it into the mattress beside your head.
“One guy bet me five bucks that you're loud in bed, and I thought he was wrong, because you were always so shy with me, but I guess he was right, huh? Should I go back and tell him he was right?" You make a muffled noise, shaking your head into his shoulders, tightening around him with your arms and your legs both. "No. No, okay. I'm not going anywhere. Don't worry, I'm staying right here."
You've relaxed enough that he can get into you a little deeper than before, hitching one of your legs up over his arm, and you bury your face in his neck with a surprised little cry. “There,” you say. “There, there, right there.”
“God,” he mutters, mouth on your temple. “I should have fucked you like this the first night you asked. All that time we wasted because I didn't want to, I don't know. I wanted to make it nice for you."
"You did.” You say it into his pulse, against his throat. "You did, you were—it was good, Ryland, it was so fucking good."
"Yeah. It was a good summer." He thinks about something you said before, something someone said, about choking, and he separates his fingers from yours in order to get his hand around your throat. Light. Barely a squeeze. You reach down between you, and the thought of you touching yourself while he fucks you—it does something unfair to his head. "Kind of a wasted effort, though, huh?"
More moans. Different, somehow. “What do you mean?” It comes out more or less as one continuous word.
“Never thought you’d be like this. Rubbing yourself off while I’m inside you. Getting yourself off with my cock inside you and my hand around your throat. All those months I spent being soft with you, so worried I wasn’t being gentle enough—maybe I wouldn't have been so careful if I'd known you'd turn out to be such a slut.”
“Wait.” Your hand presses against his chest. “Wait.”
He slows down. When he pulls back to look at you, the little crease in your forehead is back. "What? Should we stop?"
You hesitate, then shake your head. “Just. Just, can you kiss me again? Please.” Even with your hand on your clit, and his hand wrapped around your neck, you are still so polite in this request, so polite and so desperate all at once, that he can't say no to you. He never could.
He crushes his mouth against yours. He tightens the hand on your throat, and finds the angle again, the spot you’d liked, and you're making that sound again. His favorite one. The one that means you're close.
“Are you going to come for me again?” You’re having trouble kissing him back. He takes that as a sign to keep going. “Come on. I told you I wanted another one out of you, right? Thought about it so much—want to know what you feel like—like this—come on—”
Your lips are parted. He can see your tongue behind them, pink and wet, and you’re looking at him like you want something.
He brings the hand on your neck up to your jaw. He presses gently, and your lips part further. He spits in your mouth, and kisses you again, just before you clench down hard around him.
He follows immediately after, letting a low moan in perfect time with yours.
-
The condom’s been disposed of. His glasses are on the nightstand. The house is as quiet as any frat house on a Saturday is capable of. You’re in the bed next to him, still naked, on your side, facing away, his arm loosely slung across your waist.
If this was two years ago, he would have held you. Properly held you. Kissed your forehead, your eyelids, your nose. Told you how good you were, what a good job you’d done. You probably don’t need that now, he figures, turning over to lie on his back. Even if part of him wishes you did.
And besides, all of that only ever led to you getting more hurt in the long run.
He got hurt, too, if he lets himself think too much about it (which he never does, except maybe for when he is drunk). He shouldn’t have gotten hurt. The facts of the situation: you, asking him sleep with you. So that you wouldn’t go off to college a virgin. So that your first time wouldn’t have to be with a stranger.
He should have said no.
Technically, he did say no. As in: no, not tonight. As in: not all at once. As in: if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right.
Days spent getting snow cones along the boardwalk, watching movies in the basement. Holding hands whenever there was nobody around to see. And then nights spent—the way nights get spent, sometimes. Kissing. More than kissing. Sneaking in and out of each other’s houses. Slow. A little bit at a time.
It had been a really good summer.
More facts of the situation: you, his best friend’s little sister. Him, liking you more than he should have. Thinking about you in the middle of lab. Thinking about you on dates with CalTech girls. Calling your landline number with some bullshit reason or another, on the hopes that you’d pick up. Coming back from college for the weekend just to keep a promise he’d made to you at thirteen. And then, of course, all of the evidence in his head as to why he shouldn’t, why he couldn’t like you that way. Statistics and anecdotes alike. All of the guys you’d meet in college. All of his friends who’d broken up with their hometown girlfriends. All of the misery he’d seen from long-distance couples.
The conclusion: as long as you didn’t date date, you’d be safe. Both of you would be safe.
It had made sense in his head at the time.
He was doing you a favor. You’d asked him to do you a favor. Feelings were outside the boundaries of the favor. So when you were lying in your childhood bed, one night, the two of you giggling over the fact that he’d bought condoms and forgotten to bring them; when you’d looked up at him, and opened your mouth, and said—
“Ryland?”
His name, on your tongue, here. In the present. You’re still turned away from him. “Yeah?” he says.
“I’m not. I mean.” He can’t quite read your tone. “You don't really think I'm."
"What?"
You pause. You’re breathing oddly. Unevenly. “It doesn't matter,” you say. Your voice is quiet. Too quiet. The last time he heard that tone from you, he didn’t talk to you for a year and a half.
He reaches out to touch you. “It sounds like it matters a lot." Your shoulder starts shaking a little beneath his hand, and his stomach flips. "Hey," he says. "Hey, what's wrong?"
Your face is already shiny when he turns you to face him. "I'm not a slut," you say.
“Oh,” he says. He pulls you in closer, pressing your face into his neck, because you're crying and it's making his chest hurt to look at you and it's all he can think to do. “Okay.”
"I don't know if—if it was just dirty talk, or if you really meant it. And I know I said you could call me whatever you wanted, I just didn't think. I didn't think that would be. And I know it shouldn't matter, I just. Fuck.” You hiccup. “Sorry."
"It's all right. You're all right. I'm sorry, okay? I was just being stupid. Drunk and stupid. I don't think that about you. I wasn't thinking about anything, it was just, like, the heat of the moment."
"I feel like you wouldn't have said it in the heat of the moment if it weren't a little bit true," you say into his neck. "Like, if it wasn't something you believed at least a little bit."
“No, I don't. Even if I did, a lot of time has passed since we. Since everything. And, you know, things change in college, it's normal to sleep around in college—"
"I don't." You let out another sob, heavier, distraught. "I didn't."
“Okay,” he says. “I know, okay? I believe you. I promise.”
You don't stop crying. You don't stop talking, either, but it's all coming out as rambles, fragments of thoughts, and he wishes you were sober and he really wishes he were sober. "I mean, I've done other. I wanted to, you know, with someone who, or in, like—and then you were here, and I didn't think, but then you—and I just figured. Because it was you, and I—Please don't be mad."
He almost laughs at that last part. "Why would I be mad?" He tugs you a little closer, fumbling to get the blanket up over you, and runs a hand back over your head. "I'm not mad, and I don't think you're a slut, and it's fine, all right? Everything's going to be fine. I'm sorry." He kisses the top of your head, and repeats, "I'm sorry."
Your breathing is still hitched, unsteady—but slower, now. Softer than before. Your voice is softer, too, when you say, “Okay."
There's a pause. "Are you mad?"
"A little."
“Hm,” he says, with a joking calm he does not feel. “What would make you feel better? Do you want to slap me? I can put my glasses back on, for maximum impact." You shake a little against him, which he thinks might be a laugh—but then he hears another sob. "Or I can go downstairs and get you a drink to throw in my face. That could be fun, yeah?"
You let out a little sniffle. "I want a redo."
"A redo? Of what?"
"Everything."
“Okay. I get that." There's a moment of silence. His hand stroking your hair. Your face, wet against his throat. "Maybe some sleep? Sleep is like a redo. Kinda."
Your breathing does something funny. Like you're trying harder to get it under control. "Right," you say. Your voice still isn't steady, exactly, but he can hear the effort as you continue, "Yeah, just. Give me a second." You shift a little. He keeps his arms tight around you. "Ryland."
"Yeah?"
"You need to let go. I can't get up, I can't get my clothes if you don't let go."
"Okay." He lets you go, just so that he can find his shirt. You're already off the bed, standing, looking around the room on shaky legs, as he holds it out in your direction. "Hang on, just—you can just have this. More comfortable, probably."
You pick something up off the floor. Your shirt. You pull it on, look at the zipper, and immediately give up, letting it hang open as you look for the rest of your clothes. "No, it's okay, you're going to need that, and I don't know if I'll see you in the morning to give it back."
He blinks. "What's happening?"
"Sleep," you say, picking up something else. A shoe. You don't look at him. "You wanted to sleep."
"Yeah. What." You don't stop looking for your clothes. "Hey. It's, like, four in the morning. You're not walking across campus wearing that."
You laugh. You don’t sound amused. "My slutty little outfit. Right."
"Come on. That's not. Come back to bed? Please?"
You hesitate. For a long moment, he wonders if he's going to have to stand up and somehow physically convince you not to leave. But then you sigh, and you drop the shoe, and you do come back to bed. You tug on his shirt, and you curl up with your back to him, a little bit of space between you. “I just feel so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid.” He's more tentative, this time, in reaching out, but you don’t resist at all when he presses up against you, getting the blanket back up over you both. He gets his arms around your waist. His chin atop your head. Your body perfectly nestled into his. “You won that fancy mock trial and everything.”
“I mean, when we were kids, I—you were so nice, you know? So was Colt, he still is, but you. And you were smart, and funny, and I just. I thought you were really cool. But everything’s so different now.” A pause. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”
“Like what?” He forces a laugh. “What, I’m not cool or funny or smart anymore?”
“You are,” you say. “You’re just also kind of mean.”
“Oh.”
You sit for a while in the frat house silence. The distant thrum of basement music. Creaking floors. The buzz of an AC unit down the hall.
“I wasn’t trying to be mean,” he finally says.
“Okay,” you say. “I believe you.”
Enough time passes that he assumes you’ve fallen asleep, when you turn, getting your leg back over his, your face against his chest, into which you say, quiet, groggy: “I just miss when you were nice to me."
He presses another kiss into your hair. “I can be nice to you,” he murmurs. Your hair smells like your lip gloss, like candy. Like cherries. Like you. “I’ll be so nice, okay?"
You don’t answer. Your breathing is steady. Your head is heavy on his chest.
He tightens his arms around you. He kisses the top of your head again. He can fix this, somehow. He has to. He doesn’t know how, yet, he’s too drunk and too tired and still trying to piece together half of what you were saying, but—he will. He’s smart. He’s stubborn. He’ll find a way to make it up to you in the morning.
-
You’re gone in the morning.
You’re gone, along with your clothes, and your shoes. His shirt is crumpled on the edge of the bed. His borrowed pillow still smells like you.
He pulls his pants on inside-out twice, and talks to three frat bros, and stumbles in and out of four separate dining halls before he finds the one where the mock trial stragglers have set up for Sunday brunch. You’re at the end of a long table, laughing blearily at a comment from the girl sitting opposite you, when you look up to see him.
“Hey,” he says.
You put down the pancake-laden fork you were holding, back into a plate swimming with syrup. You always did have a sweet tooth. “Hey."
"Can we talk?"
"Sure,” you say. You push out your chair to stand, gesturing one minute to your friends, and he follows you over to a corner of the dining hall. You lean against the wall, arms crossed. Your hair is in a bun. Your face is bare, save for a few specks of mascara under the eyes, and the lip gloss that he now knows the taste of. “What's up?"
"Last night,” he begins. He didn’t have a lot of time to work on this particular monologue, what with all of the tugging his clothes on and running across campus, but he was able to plan a little something. “I said a lot of things—"
You cut him off immediately. “People say things in bed. You were drunk. It happens."
Okay. Scratch the monologue. He cuts to the important bit. “I just wanted to say I'm sorry."
“Great, I forgive you." You don’t give him anything else.
“You sure? You seemed pretty upset."
"Yeah. I was drunk. It's fine."
"I made you cry, I don't know that I'd call that fine—"
"Wouldn't be the first time, right?” You give him the unhappiest smile he’s ever seen. “Look, I have a flight to catch, and I'd really love to get some non-airport food before I go—" You push off the wall, and he stops you with a hand on your arm.
"Well, I mean, can we talk about it later? I can call you, when you get back to school."
You gently pull your arm away from his hand. “I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why not?"
"It's not like we talked a lot before, Ryland,” you say, and whatever patience you had at the start of this conversation is gone. “And maybe I don't feel like sitting on the phone waiting for you to make me cry again.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t say anything at all.
You sigh. “You apologized for whatever you wanted to apologize for, right? So you don't owe me anything. Last night was just, like, closing a loop. Fun. Casual. Favor complete.” Before he can protest, you continue, “And, you know, if it helps, I'm seeing someone. Back at Berkeley. We're not exclusive, or anything, so, like, you don't have to worry about—it wasn't cheating. But probably soon. So whatever you said, whatever I said, don't worry about it, okay? It's fine."
It’s not fine. It’s not fine, and there’s nothing in the monologue that will make it fine, and you’re already five steps in the direction of your table. “Okay."
“Get home safe,” you call back over your shoulder.
“Right,” he says to nobody in particular. “You too.”
-
His first thought, looking across a frat basement at CalTech (which, if he’s being honest, is identical to the frat basements of UCSD, and every other frat basement in California), is that lightning has struck twice.
The top. The shoes. The skirt. The cup in your hand. He walks before he thinks, before his brain has a chance to do anything but stall, which means he is two feet away from you before he realizes that it isn’t you at all. Your doppelgänger turns. Not a doppelgänger at all, actually. Different hair color, different eyes, different everything. He knows that top, though. The straps. The zipper.
Of course it isn’t you. You don’t go to school in Pasadena. And if you were ever in Pasadena, it wouldn’t be to visit him.
She smiles, as though he isn’t a complete stranger. “Ryland, right? We were in orgo together. Freshman year.”
“I remember,” he lies.
“Great! That’s great.” She holds up two little glasses in one hand, and a bottle in the other. “What do you think? Happy end-of-midterms?”
He accepts the shot. He swallows it all the way down.
Later, when they’re lying in his bed, with his arm over her waist and her top somewhere on the floor, he thinks about how her mouth tasted: vodka, and nothing else.
CHAIIIIII HOW did you make this hurt more than I was already expecting???? /pos
Yapping below the cut
This version of them makes me feel Physically Unwell because GOD. Are you kidding me? Ryland’s whole little internal monologue about how great the summer was, but they still shouldn’t be together to avoid getting hurt but then they both get so hurt anyway I am going to drive into a river what the fuck
This:
The conclusion: as long as you didn’t date date, you’d be safe. Both of you would be safe.
Yeah. I get it, Ryland. How did that work out for you?
UGH
The whole first part is hilarious and wonderful to me tho. I remember reading that, back when I had a sense of joy and whimsy before this fic crushed my soul. Having him date Marissa? Him picking up on her clap thing? Having her call him morose?
a word which he had never before heard out loud. That's what you get for befriending humanities majors
Brilliant all around, I was thoroughly amused. When it’s not soul-crushingly painful, it’s so witty and funny and amazing!!!
Colt was also mentioned several times and that’s the love of my life so I am happy <3 I expect at least a mention of him in part 3 btw it’s like soul-cleansing for me just to see his name on the page (I’m normal I swear)
Quick side tangent on the frat guys: Ryland calling them Frat Matt and Frat Pat is so fucking funny to me. He’s such a little shit (they both are, they’re perfect for each other). Also:
"Gracie!"
I could hear this. In my head. I heard it so so clearly in my head oh my god get me OUT OF HERE
Also I want to stay in happy funny territory as long as I can so
"Freshman when I was a senior," Ryland adds. "You're getting your SAT results back soon, right?"
"What's next, a lecture on the dangers of premarital sex? Little late for that. FYI."
Ryland getting jealous and starting shit to scare the frat guy off + Her getting upset and starting shit to piss Ryland off. They’re made for each other your honor.
And the thing you do when you write younger Ryland that I find so brilliant and so frustrating (positive) is that I get whiplash from him being so sweet and hot and so fucking terrible and annoying.
Like he’s jealous and being kinda shitty but then he comes out with something like
You're here. With me. Be here with me.
I get upset with Ryland and then he says something like this and I, the real life person reading it, swoon a little bit. And I understand why she would go back to him. Like what the hell Ry you can’t just say things like that
And in that vein:
“Can't come, but you're even more sensitive than usual, huh? Poor baby.”
He stops. "Nothing's wrong with you." He leans back to look up at you. "Jesus. Who told you that?"
These lines are like two paragraphs away from each other btw. I am going to have a fucking stroke ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Get a man who can do both holy shit, please just one chance Ryland just one
And every time he’s responding to her instead of his own jealousy, he’s sweet. He’s so sweet. Or he’s funny. Or whatever. And I see glimpses of the Ryland I know and love from the canon(?) au storyline. And I want to throw myself off a cliff.
you're looking down at him with a little bit of genuine distress in your eyes, and he wants so badly to make it better
The other reaches down, and he takes it in his, and you squeeze his hand as your thighs squeeze around his head
“No. No, okay. I'm not going anywhere. Don't worry, I'm staying right here.”
He’s such an asshole and such a sweetheart. And if he could pull his head out of his ass for more than three minutes at a time then he could really be so great. But he keeps hurting her unintentionally and I want to scream.
Was also heartbreaking bc I knew what was gonna happen and how this was gonna end so I was seeing all the buildup to where I knew it was gonna go. All the little comments he made that she was fine with (or didn’t say anything about), that probably made him start running his mouth more in that direction.
"Need to get this stupid fucking top off."
“Perfect fucking toy. Press a button, make a fun noise, right?”
“You just like the attention? Is that what you thought about, when you picked out that slutty little outfit”
I’m sick I’m sick I’m sick I’m sick I cannot do this. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion. And I know, I can feel it, she may not have cared much about those comments at the time but afterward she’s going to be thinking back on those little moments and she’s going to hear her comparing her to a toy and it doesn’t matter if he says it was the heat of the moment. Because it wasn’t really just the heat of the moment, right? It wasn’t just one thing. It was sprinkled throughout the entire interaction.
Goddd I’m gonna cry.
The other thing she’s gonna keep hearing in her head until the end of time?
"Kind of a wasted effort, though, huh?"
All her firsts are with him. Or at least the vast majority are. And he calls it a WASTE???? To be gentle with her? To be sweet with her? Because, god, look at how much of a slut she is now, right? Looking for attention, letting him do whatever he wants? God forbid she trust him. Gun. Gun, now. Bullets. IM GONNA SCREAM.
And I keep thinking about Ryland’s jealousy and her lying about not being a virgin. He keeps making all these dumb little comments and if he just knew.
He would’ve been gentle. He would’ve been sweet. Instead he keeps wondering who she bought these for, where she learned to talk like that, getting in his own head. And not that it’s her fault by any means bc that would’ve been shitty to hear whether she was a virgin or not, but if she had been upfront instead of trying to save face then it would’ve been so different :(
Because Ryland is kind of an asshole who needs to learn how to handle his emotions, but he loves her. And there are still reminders of who they are, normally, before everything got fucked up:
It didn't matter, really. It never mattered what you'd asked for. He'd always said yes, up until the one time he didn't
“You just have to tell me what feels good, and then I can just do that, right?”
It doesn’t matter how many times I read about it, their dynamic of “just tell me what you want and I will give it to you” will ALWAYS hit for me. It’s so good. In this particular instance, it’s also so tragic and heartbreaking.
And don’t even get me started on the whole devastating ending.
You probably don’t need that now, he figures, turning over to lie on his back. Even if part of him wishes you did.
HE DIDNT EVEN HOLD HER PROPERLY UNTIL SHE STARTWD CRYING AKJAHSVBDHSJHSGSHJDDHH im losing my mind. Are you kidding me. Are you kidding me??????? GUN. AGAIN. A HUNDRED GUNS, ALL POINTED AT HIM. WHAT THE FUCK
“Even if part of him wishes you did” shut the fuck up Ryland no more internal monologue for you
I am going to CRY (I actually started tearing up a little at this part ngl). My poor girl. My poor sweetheart. Oh she deserves so much better than this dumb guy and his assumptions oh my god. How she must be feeling so used and unloved.
And then she confronts him and she seems so small and sad and I can’t. I can’t. Bring back the little shit starter from before please please please.
"I feel like you wouldn't have said it in the heat of the moment if it weren't a little bit true,"
This line will break my heart until the end of time my poor sweetheart I need her to be okay. I need her to be okay. I need Future Ryland to step in and punch his younger self in the face. I need her to know that he’s a jealous idiot and he gets better. I need it.
And then:
“I didn’t think it would be like this.”
“I just miss when you were nice to me."
Did I do this to myself. Did I put the bullet in your gun and aim it at my own head.
OW OW OW OW OW OW OW
And god the rest of it. The whole rest of it. He feels so bad, but he’s such an asshole. That I can’t actually fully feel bad for him. But I also know he didn’t mean to do it.
It’s not fine, and there’s nothing in the monologue that will make it fine, and you’re already five steps in the direction of your table.
Like I feel bad as in I’m hurting for him and I know that He Didn’t Know. And if he did know it would’ve been so so different. But I also can’t feel that bad because you Fucked Up twice now, dude. The tragedy of Ryland specifically trying not to hurt her and then still always hurting her sighhhhh I will never be able to look at him the same way
I know that in his heart he’s good. But he needs to learn how to process his emotions without shame or fear. He is so scared of hurting her or getting hurt that he keeps making the same mistakes over and over again in different ways. I love him so so much and I hate him in this moment.
It’s so deliciously painful. Let me delude myself into thinking these two get the same happy ending as the canon au, please 😭
you know a joke that never EVER gets old is when a character says smth like “I will NOT go to [place] and that is FINAL” and then it cuts to them in that place I eat that shit up every single time
Imagine Ryland having to explain to Rocky that human women bleed every month and its a sign of health as you’re actively going through it
me rn actively going through it
rocky would be pissed about how poorly humans are designed, bc what do you mean the blood that's meant to keep your heart pumping also just leaks out for a week every month? where is the spare blood? why haven't humans evolved past this?
and it hurts too? this is bad engineering. why can't humans just open their carapace like eridians and remove the waste material? oh because they'd die? great. incredible work, god.
and grace doesn't have to deal with it? well now rocky's mad at grace. human male design seems to have a lot of advantages, why doesn't he have to suffer like you? rocky is that meme of the guy crying and punching the wall bc cramps exist
When the days become repetitive and the nights become suffocating, Ryland Grace decides to hop online to let out some steam. What starts as a fleeting late night distraction, becomes far more complicated when the person behind the screen feels strangely familiar
Wc: 6.4k || part one | next part |
Tags: Age gap (Grace is in his mid thirties, reader is in their mid twenties) sex work, reader likes it, sad pathetic Grace, masturbation, fuck machine, Grace and reader met as adults, brief mention of Coltland twins, eventual angst.
a/n: University name is completely made up btw, it does exist actually but disregard that. This started as a thought, I may or may not have lost control while writing, as always English is not my first language so please excuse any mistakes! Not proofread
Requests open!
“Hey” Grace followed the small footsteps of an ant crawling across the concrete railings. He doesn't know why his feet decided to bring him here out of all places, but since he's here anyways, might as well enjoy the view and relax for a moment.
He needs it really, especially after a terrible breakup with his girlfriend just moments prior, he can't blame her for saying what she said and deciding to end things.
“You're selfish! You care about no one but yourself!”
With no heads up though? That's just cruel, well- since when did people ever give a heads up before breaking up. “Hey I'm breaking up with you tomorrow night, 7 pm sharp, see you!”
Nevertheless he's also at fault here, at least that's what he thinks. With his head all up in clouds just as she said, he might’ve not given her enough attention. He knows the feeling of being abandoned all too well, he never expected himself to do it to other people though, his girlfriend much less. Even if it was unintentional, it doesn't remove the guilt that's currently pulling him down.
she must've felt unloved and not seen. But what's done is done, he can't really bring back time and magically make things better can he? At least she's with Mark, it hurts but it's better knowing she has someone she can go to after all this.
Unlike him, maybe that's why he ended up here by the bridge, looking out at the sunset with his newly found friend crawling ever so slowly on the concrete.
“Make sure to find the right girl and treat her right, you know you'll fall and die after sex right?” nothing came back.
The tiny insect stood motionless on the pavement while he waited as if a thoughtful reply was still making its way through a committee.
Seconds drifted by.
He blinked.
The ant did not.
Grace blinked again staring at the ant with the growing realization that the conversation might be a little one sided.
“Well!” Grace huffed while his hands collided with the railings pushing himself upright. “That was a nice conversation Mister, really eye opening unfortunately though! I really need to go home since it's dark and I'm hungry.”
Grace tilted his head and lowered it in the process towards the ant mimicking a bow “Goodbye sir” he turned around and worked his feet towards his apartment, making sure to stop by a grocery store on the way if he did not want to die of starvation.
.✦ ݁˖
Nobody really prepares you for the real world, more so when your parents are absolute good-for-nothings that never bothered to teach how to cook, clean, or basic hygiene.
Grace had to find out the hard way when his mouth started hurting one day during 4th grade. When he looked in the mirror, his teeth were decaying and his gums had these bumps that hurt like crap, he thought people avoided him because he was weird, turns out it was probably because of his bad breath– key word probably, he'd never know for sure, but he chose to believe that the reason is solely because he's weird. It's better to hear that you got ignored for being different than by having a bad breath, Grace stands by that, he does not want to be known as a stinky bad breath kid.
That also means that Grace, someone with a doctorate in molecular biology, teaches middle schoolers and undergraduates, is very much wack at cooking.
Which is why he's standing by the stove, contemplating what can only generously be described as chicken, poor thing died for nothing.
“....takeout it is then!”
Grace decided that the only way to give the burnt chicken justice is by buying an actual edible chicken cooked by someone else so it does not have to go through the tragedy that the poor things go through when he touches a pan.
After placing the order, Grace carefully put the unmistakably burnt chicken into the trash, what a waste, that could've been a tasty orange chicken.
“Didn't even get a chance the second time.” he let out a quiet chuckle, it was small– forced. He couldn't tell if he was trying to make light of it for his own sake, maybe this is just how he coped, with jokes that aren't funny just to fill the silence.
Just as the laugh came, it disappeared just as quickly, the reality of his situation weighing heavily on his back once again after a day of trying to forget everything.
The silence covered the apartment, to the point that he swore his ears started ringing by how quiet it was.
The apartment felt larger too, now that its frequent visitors most likely will not be coming back anytime soon. There was no voice of the girl in his life asking what he had burnt this time, no voice from his twin brother joking about his dreadful cooking, nothing.
The faint hum of the refrigerator is starting to get on his nerves, his smile faded.
It was deafening.
Sadness is a weird thing, when you think you finally got over something, suddenly it comes crashing down tenfold than it was earlier.
Grace did not cry when he got fired.
Grace did not cry when his parents died.
Grace did not cry when his twin brother cut contact with him and chose to leave him all alone with no one to go to.
Grace did not cry when his only girlfriend broke up with him and left him for another guy.
So he will not cry.
Still it doesn't remove the tightness in his chest, the heavy feeling at the back of his throat, that churning and turning of his stomach that he can't control, the wetness of his eyes increasing at every lousy attempt of swallowing, (and failing.)
It's not easy, but he will go through it because what choice does he have? Nothing. He can't do anything but to accept it and move on.
The silence stretched on, Grace sat with it for another minute before releasing a tired breath while his eyes were squeezed shut. He had so many what ifs, and questions that he desperately needed an answer to, the breakup was his last straw, now he's not just thinking about things he possibly had done wrong during his relationship but also his mistakes from way back, all the things he wanted to fix that he wasn't able to.
It came crawling back, Grace doesn't know just how much more he can take for the night.
His shoulders slumped as the tension bled out of him, whatever answers he was hoping to find aren't going to appear no matter how long he tears himself down.
Grace stood up straight, lifted his chin and left the kitchen to walk towards his room, the knot in his chest still refusing to leave. Busying himself in his work or just doing anything will be better than him being all alone with his thoughts that will for sure make him spiral once again.
His fingers glided through the keyboard flawlessly as he typed in his password, out of habit he opened Microsoft Word, the half finished report flashed his screen.
Grace read the same sentence three times and retained none of it.
With a sigh, he rubbed his eyes and leaned back on his chair.
The apartment was still too quiet.
Every attempt at getting any work done seems to lead to Grace doing something completely unrelated, being easily influenced by his own mind, the report on his screen didn't seem to be getting finished any time soon.
"Enough." Grace muttered under his breath.
He pushed the report aside and directed his mouse to open a new tab, at first it was the usual stuff, random videos on YouTube, news articles and checked his social media, despite all of that he wouldn't be able to tell you the contents of all the things he'd watched and seen in the past hour because his mind wasn't even paying attention, just doing something to fill the space in his thoughts.
But the distraction never lasted, The moment one page loaded, his mind started wandering somewhere who knows what again.
Grace drummed his fingers against the desk.
He didn't want to think anymore, he didn't want to sit alone with his pretentiously loud thoughts for another hour.
So when the thought crossed his mind, he didn't spend much time arguing with it.
Anything to feel something else for a while.
The cursor hovered over the search bar.
‘pornhub’
He doesn't feel shame because why would he? Everybody does it, additionally it's been a long time since he had a release. Because of his hectic schedule of teaching middle schoolers then going to college to teach undergraduates, then the gradings, and lesson plans if he hadn't prepared one already, it was a lot. His girlfriend– well ex girlfriend was usually the one who initiates sex and because of the misunderstandings that led her to break up with him eventually, she stopped asking, and Grace feels like such a dick why he never once asked why, or even check up on her if she's okay or if she wants something or–
Stop, it's done, more thinking won't bring back the past.
Grace navigated the videos that popped up, it all looks so fake that he can't even get his dick to harden, is it bad that he's actually a bit disgusted by all those fake cum coming out of that girl's pussy? But hey he's not yucking someone else's yum.
Eventually he settled on a random video that he found after his endless clicking, it has a more natural vibe, (he prefers it that way.)
Grace unzipped his pants and pushed it down just a bit, enough to let his dick spring out.
A soft groan rumbled his throat as his hand warmed up his dick, tension from his muscles melted away, his eyes closed shut.
He didn't even bother looking at the random woman masturbating on his screen, he focused on the sounds that's coming out of her mouth, his hand pumping his dick at her every moan.
His thumb circled around his tip and pressed hard, Grace played around at the slit that's leaking with pre cum and smeared it all over. The dry friction of him jerking off got on his nerves quickly, at times where he's in a hurry and just needs a quick release, he just goes straight at it, no lube just jerking off raw.
But he's not in a hurry is he? He has all the time in the world so might as well make the most of it. He reached for his drawer and pulled out a bottle of lube and poured a generous amount on his palm, rubbing it together for a few seconds before reaching down and giving his dick its well deserved attention.
Small moans managed to escape from his throat as his hand was pumping his own cock, Grace knew he was close when he felt his dick twitch. His hand squeezed tightly before speeding up chasing his release.
“fuck…yeah..just like that..” Grace muttered under his own breath, deep and gentle, the same tone he used when complimenting his girlfriend for taking his dick to her mouth– which to his dismay only happened once in their years of relationship, why? Because she labeled herself as a pillow princess that expected all her needs to be taken care of and no consideration for Grace's own pleasure. Back then he didn't have any issues with it since he'd much rather pleasure her instead but now that he thinks about it. Yeah..having someones mouth on your dick– kneeling before you is incredibly hot and turns him on more than he expected.
“I'm coming!.. I'm comminggg!” the voice from his laptop echoed through the room, the obnoxious fake moan was heard loud and clear– still at the same time he grunted while a thick white fluid squirted out of his dick.
His hand didn't stop.
It kept pumping up and down while his breath started to shake, sweat was trickling down his forehead, his chest rising and going down quicker than normal.
The overstimulation kicked in no doubt but that didn't stop Grace, the feeling was addictive, every single fiber in his body was telling him to remove his hand or to simply stop but he didn't, his dick was already starting to limp and yet he didn't shred it any mercy.
“fuck..” his voice cracked when a moan slipped out of his mouth, his body was twitching and getting that sudden pops when your body is overstimulated.
His hand went faster, and faster, harder, quicker and–
Ding Dong!
Grace jumped in his seat, his hand pulled away from his dick out of habit as he tried and collect himself together after that intense session.
“uhh..” yeah that was the doorbell, Grace's body immediately entered what could only be described as processing mode.
He blinked once.
Twice.
Then he continued staring at his laptop screen like it had personally offended his family, God forbid a guy watch porn and masturbate.
The person outside must be getting impatient when a ring of a doorbell comes one after another, the sound overlapping, this guy is abusing the hell out of his doorbell.
It's 11 pm.
Who the hell needs him at this hour?
With great reluctance and a huge amount of annoyance, Grace pulled his pants back up, tucking away his cock for a while, he made sure to wash his hands because whoever the person outside of his house, does not deserve (probably) to get touched by cum covered hands.
Ding ding ding ding ding
The person growing more impatient than ever, Grace finally made his way to the front door, his hand twisted the doorknob to see the glorious face of the person begging for his companionship at this hour.
“Delivery for Ryland, chicken wings, it's not paid.” the teenage guy blurted out with a monotone voice, seemingly done with the whole situation. It is late, must be annoying in his end especially since they're probably closing soon– if they aren't already. Grace knows all too well since he himself had worked in fast food during his teenage years.
“oh! Uh..right sorry– give me a minute, I completely forgot.” Grace said frantically, his hand was raised signaling the guy to wait for a moment while he hurried inside to fetch money from his wallet.
He made sure to tip the guy generously for the inconvenience, (even though it's his job, and he's simply doing what he needs to do but it's the thought that counts.)
Grace huffed while the table let out a loud ‘thunk’ when he basically threw it on there.
He dragged his hands slowly down his face, fingers pressing into his eyes, before tracing down to his jaw, as though he could rub away his frustration.
Just great, not that it's the guys fault, but now he's dealing with his cum stained underwear, hopefully the guy didn't notice the wet patch on his pants– he might as well kill himself at this point.
Grace turned his head to stare at the takeout bag that he's no longer interested in eating. The app had literally given him a countdown, updates, there were notifications as well, a map, and an estimated time of arrival, somehow, he'd ignored all of it.
He headed back to his room after putting the takeout in the fridge. He intends to eat it in the morning, since his appetite currently is basically non existent.
After closing the door behind him, the chair squeaked as Grace sat down, he checked the time earlier, it was 11:07 pm. His body is tired and aching, yelling at him to rest, enough masturbation from the night.
He turned his attention to his laptop to close it but the contents on his screen stopped him briefly.
He was sure he was on pornhub, watching some girl masturbating with that awful acting, now he's on a website. He must've clicked on an ad somewhere accidentally when he got up earlier.
‘NotaCamsite.com’ pulled a few chuckles out of him, it's a bad name, terrible even, but he can't deny– it is a bit funny.
Abandoning the plan of getting some sleep early– at least for Grace 11 pm can still be considered as early, his messed up schedule fucked his perception on time.
Scrolling for a bit, he concluded that it's basically your usual cam site, he never actually visited one before but he doesn't live under a rock to not know what and how cam sites work.
Cam models promoting their streams, and the site asking him to buy tokens and quote on quote. ‘Running low on tokens? Recharge now! So you can show your favorite models some love.’
His eyes trailed down towards the small text under the big ‘PURCHASE NOW!’
‘Sign up and get a free 500 tokens to make a model happy!’
Fuck it right? Grace thought.
It's free and it doesn't ask for any banking information when he tries to sign up, the tokens will hypothetically just appear on his account if he did hypothetically sign up and hypothetically watch a few streams and hypothetically give it to a cam model.
Yes yes right hypothetically.
No way he'll actually do it.
No….
Grace clicked his tongue while staring at his laptop screen.
…..
Ah his hand slipped.
Well he can't let that 500 tokens go to waste now can he.
Sleep now saying it's goodbye after Grace began scrolling through the streams available.
Apparently 500 tokens costs $50 so basically 10 tokens for a dollar, not too shabby, he swears he'll finally have his sweet date with his bed once he gives away his precious free 500 tokens.
Upon endless scrolling, Grace often lingers from certain streams that caught his attention, all of it was enough to get his dick to rise up again.
Months of no sexual activity really does affect a person.
He palmed his erection and squeezed it tightly, not enough to hurt. Pre cum was already leaking from his tip, the clear fluid glistening.
He smeared the pre cum all over his tip, a ritual at this point every time he masturbates, he let go for a moment to grab the lube sitting on his table. Grace poured a generous amount all over his hand once again.
After putting it back, he gently ran his hand into his dick, the cold base making him hiss. He looked back at the screen, his free hand scrolling once again, looking at all the cam models presenting their pussy for the camera and doing wonders with it.
His eyebrows raised for a moment when he saw a woman taking a foot tall tentacle deep into her vagina- impressive really but it isn't what he's looking for.
His hand kept pumping his dick while woman after woman came on screen– quite literally.
He kept scrolling and–
Grace didn't mean to stop, his fingers just froze, his body moving before his mind could even think.
Mid scroll, as if the moment had snagged him by the wrist, a quiet hitch broke his breathing.
He wouldn't call it love at first sight, no he doesn't believe in those kind of things, what he can say though is the woman looks absolutely breathtaking.
He never means to judge somebody just by their appearance–
The woman he's looking at through his laptop screen is simply just that beautiful. Your legs were spread open with a fuck machine pounding your pussy, you were screaming– in a good way, at least Grace hopes so, you look like you're enjoying it so that's good.
Just as the silicone dick was thrusting into you at a monstrous speed, the hand on his dick sped up just the same.
“ah..fuck..so pretty....”
His eyes never once looked at anywhere else other than you, unfortunately for him, the silicone dick seems to be slowing down, real slow.
His hand never stopped pumping his dick but the lack of movement on your end was a bit disappointing, when he realized that you're not gonna start moving anytime soon, he threw his head back and worked on his dick, his thumb playing with his tip, gliding it around and eventually pressing down hard on his slit.
Just as he was about to be lost in the pleasure a voice snapped him out of it.
“everyone..” a tired voice was heard “is that all you wanted to see, are you sure? Keep the donations coming and the fuck machine will continue destroying my pussy, won't you like that?” he watched as you turned to the camera, a mask adorned your face with intricate designs only covering your eyes.
Grace's eyes flickered open when he heard your voice, it sounded nice too…in the back of his mind, that voice sounds vaguely familiar but he chose to ignore it for now.
More importantly, you're threatening to end the stream if no more donations came in, he's not even close to cumming yet, this won't do.
A quiet hum vibrated on his throat when he remembered the free 500 tokens sitting in his account right now– Grace hadn't noticed earlier but there were texts on the top left of the screen.
100 tokens = 1 minute
500 tokens = 7 minutes
1k tokens = 15 minutes
And so on, there were a lot more options, such as 15k tokens to choose what kind of toy you'll use, 10k to focus on a specific fetish–
Grace shook his head snapping himself back to reality– the point is, he has 500 free ones and he can– no, he will use it for an extra 7 minutes, until he came at least.
He wasted no time and dragged his mouse to click on the donate button, he typed in 500 and quickly pressed send, he's pent up and his dick is standing tall and hard, his tip leaking angrily, hungry for any kind of stimulation, and Grace stopping waiting for the Camgirl to get pounded did not help at all.
Eventually his donation was delivered and shown on the screen.
‘rylace139 has donated 500 tokens’
His user was horrid, very clear that he didn't spend any time thinking about it, before he could even talk shit about his user on his mind, your voice grabbed his attention.
“ah! Looks like one of you guys wanted to see this pussy for longer.”
Yeah, he does.
“500 tokens? That's very generous of you Ry.”
Keep calling him that.
“Ry you're real naughty tonight huh, you don't want me to rest? You want me to get ruined instead?”
Well no– he wants you to rest but fuck, he's had a long day and he wants nothing more than to see what your beautiful face would look like once you cum hard.
“Well since you asked nicely…I'll make sure to put on a good show for you, watch me okay?”
You say with that flirty voice, Grace's strokes sped up matching the frequency of your fuck machine, God he doesn't know why he's so turned on, it feels so wrong but he can't stop.
He's so sure that whatever tone you're using is only for show, but fuck you know how to use the hell out of it, because he just felt himself twitch when you said your last message before getting fucked again.
It puts him on edge, with the way his dick kept twitching and the amount of pre cum leaking, he knew he's close, he hopes you are too.
“please..” he whined before pressing hard on his dick as the cum shoots out, it covered his hand and made a mess on his stomach too.
Just a moment later, you're screaming again as your climax hit you hard– your legs were shaking as the fuck machine showed no mercy and kept pounding in and out of your cunt.
Grace watched while his dick was limping from the aftermath, he could feel himself getting turned on again but after all of his orgasms, he's not sure if his cock down there can take more.
You still had a few minutes left and Grace sat through the entirety of it, the way you pleaded for the machine to go faster and harder, although surely it won't respond– gIves it a nice touch though, makes it feel real.
He was leaning back in his chair as he watched you get unraveled, eventually the timer did reach its end and the machine slowed down to a stop.
You were panting, face down ass up, with your pussy dripping with juices. “I think..”
You look beautiful, Grace thought.
“That's enough for tonight.” you sat up and looked at the camera, the ruined bed sheets in view with all the wet patches in it makes it all the more erotic.
“bye my lovelies, thank you all for your donations, make sure to come back tomorrow and spend more money on me okay? Love you all~”
And then screen froze, Grace stared at it for a good minute or two before dragging his mouse to click on your account, you really are beautiful– well you aren't exactly showing your face, with that mask always present to cover your eyes, still he knows you're beautiful, he just knows.
The gnawing feeling of familiarity is eating Grace away but he just can't put his finger on it, you probably just sound like somebody he had met before, he left it at that before closing his laptop shut and finally thought about cleaning himself up.
The weird feeling of sticky underwear pressed against him is not very ideal, the cum on his stomach that's very much drying quickly doesn't feel too good either.
Shower it is.
.✦ ݁˖
After ending the stream you sat on your bed and simply laid still while staring in the distance, sex work has never been easy, it's tiring, but for the most part atleast you don't hate it too much, it's daunting work but it pays the bills.
Even if you had to put up that kind of act that your viewers liked, desperate slut wants to get ravished or something. You let out a shaky breath before standing to clean yourself up, the sharp pain on your abdomen hits you instantly, it's not too painful thankfully, just very uncomfortable.
Cleaning yourself up and the bed was exhausting, it's a task that normally wouldn't take too much energy out of you but after hours of streaming, you want nothing more than to lay down and melt.
You were actually glad that the donations had slowed down and eventually stopped, you were ready to finally pack things up but you just had to say that– out of habit really. You sighed frustrated while looking back at what you'd done.
You forgot just how much the viewers liked it when you talked like that– you mentally punched yourself when you had heard the notification that someone had donated 500 tokens, seven more minutes, well you had no one to blame but yourself, it felt good though so that was helpful. A soft sigh came out from your lips as you laid there dazed.
All in all tonight had been good, it's not life changing, sure, but you earned enough to cover a few months of rent. Not too bad.
A few regulars came to watch you, nothing significant happened but now with the money you earned you can justify spending hours online looking through different kinds of things that you want to buy– maybe you'd go out as well, you won't have to just window shop because now you have the money.
You grabbed your phone to look at your account, the other things were irrelevant, you just wanted to know the total of all the donations sent to you– you already know it's high, the donations decorated your screen whenever people send you one, and some high numbers popped up today.
Still you were curious though
Scrolling down all the donations that you received, you recognize all the users, they're regulars that often donate enough so they can command you to do stuff, a few users you're familiar with that donated small amounts but no biggie, you remember them giving you thousands, you pin the thought of teasing them next stream.
Your scrolling halted when you saw a user you don't recognize
“Oh, new guy.”
You weren't small but not big enough that new people often came to donate that much for their first time. You had a dedicated fan base that you were thankful for, making it easier to communicate with the viewers.
You clicked on the users account.
Created today, no profile picture, no bio, just a username. ‘rylace139’
You don't remember him commenting during your stream earlier, only the fact that he was the last one that donated to your stream, a quiet viewer.
You seem to have piqued his interest, you smile to yourself, making sure that you'll make that person talk if he comes and watch your stream again– you hope so, you just love playing with your fans, makes the job more interesting.
It was late at night and your eyelids are starting to grow heavy, it's time to sleep you figured.
You plugged in your phone and turned off the lamp, and settled inside your blanket making it into your self owned cocoon.
.✦ ݁˖
Grace woke up a mess, he had forgotten to take off his glasses and now it's sitting on his chin lopsided, he remembered last night, he went to shower but decided to get just a little bit of work done before going to bed.
30 minutes turned into an hour, he got into his bed at 2 in the morning, thankfully his schedule for today is late in the afternoon, he checked the time and it's only 11 am.
Good. If he hurries to make food he can still consider it breakfast.
Probably.
Mostly.
Oh who cares, he's a grown man he's gonna eat whenever and wherever he wants, he can call his breakfast dinner for all he cares, he's the one in charge of this apartment.
With a big yawn, Grace stood up and headed towards the kitchen, didn't bother to fix his glasses, it's still dangling on his face, how it's not falling? He's not sure himself.
He shuffled around the kitchen and was about to make something simple, like a grilled cheese, however, the paper bag sitting nicely inside his fridge that hasn't even been opened caught his eye.
Right, he ordered takeout last night and didn't even eat it. The consequences of his terrible decisions now coming back to bite his ass, his stomach is growling and aching painfully from hunger. From lunch time yesterday to now, he hadn't eaten a single thing.
He grabbed it out of the fridge. Grace had come to a conclusion that transferring the cold, hard, and stale chicken onto a plate and heating it up is too much work. Which is why he opted to eat it straight out of its packaging.
He picked a chicken wing up and ate it cold without a second thought, leaning against the counter top as he scrolled through his phone with his free hand, looking through the things he needed to do for the day.
It wasn't exactly a balanced breakfast, (yes, he insists it's still breakfast despite the time being 11:12 am.) but food is food and he isn't about to waste perfectly edible chicken over arbitrary meal rules.
Upon scrolling through his phone– 5th wing down, he learned that there's a few new faculty members and they're hosting some kind of welcoming party. Now it makes sense why his schedule for today is so late. A lot happened yesterday that Grace hadn't even thought to question why his time for today starts at 1 pm.
After finishing the whole box of wings, he started to get ready, following his routine to a tea. A quick shower, brushed his teeth, fresh shirt, neatly pressed slacks, a tie that took two tries to get right, and finally his glasses, now sitting where it's actually supposed to be.
One final glance at the clock, he thought he might be late. He wasn't, thankfully.
Years of sprinting across university campuses had taught him exactly how long he could procrastinate before it genuinely became a problem.
Summer break had bought everyone a few weeks of silence before the next academic year comes and discombobulate their respective sleep schedules once again. Well, a few weeks is a stretch. It's only the students that's really getting a break here, the teachers still have to prepare everything, pretty evident on Grace's very much tired figure that's currently locking his bicycle on one of the railings.
He never intended to come here today in the first place. On an ordinary occasion, yes, he would welcome the new faces but he's tired. A different kind of tired, not like the ones where he stayed up all night grading papers or preparing for a particularly eventful day, no. The kind of tired where the only thing he wants to do is lay down and rot.
Unfortunately for him, after the welcoming party there's a faculty meeting. Something he really doesn't want to miss, which is why he's headed towards the administrative building. Begrudgingly so, he can't wait for the day to be over.
The moment Grace stepped into the lobby, he was greeted by colorful streamers, a long table line of food, and a banner stretched across the wall.
‘WELCOME TO OUR NEW FACULTY MEMBERS’
“Huh..”
“Look at you, coming here to greet our new family.”
“Co-workers.”
“Eh, same thing.”
Grace turned towards the familiar voice, finding one of his fellow science teachers already balancing a paper plate filled with meat and carbs. “I was told there'd be a faculty meeting.”
“There is, eventually.” He gestured towards the decorations. “Principal thought it'd be nice to welcome the new hires first.”
“How fun.” Grace let out a breath.
“You don't look like you're having fun.”
“I skipped a perfectly good nap for this.”
He snorted. “You'll survive.”
Grace watched him walk off to get even more ribs onto his plate..that was still very much full of food.
A few people greeted him upon his arrival, someone had even silently handed him a coffee, perhaps sensing his exhaustion– if it's not obvious by the way he moves. The coffee there sucks but he appreciates it nonetheless.
The air was filled with teachers socializing and catching up with everything they've done during the break, a few also approached him and engaged in small talk. Grace isn't that cruel to shrug them off just because he's a bit under the weather, he tried to befriend everybody when he first started teaching here, not really a smart move for him to suddenly act like a snob.
A soft clink against a glass caught everyone's attention. The Principal stepped to the front of the room, smiling warmly.
“Good afternoon everyone, Thank you all for coming before the school year officially begins. As always, I'd like to welcome the newest members of our faculty. I hope everyone makes them feel at home.” A small round of applause echoed across the room. “Why don't we start with introductions?”
One by one, the new teachers stepped forward, giving brief summaries about themselves. Grace paid attention to every single one while sipping his coffee, he didn't want to give off the wrong vibes towards the new hires.
His ears twitched when he heard a familiar voice, there at the front he saw you, adjusting a folder tucked between your arm before offering the room an easy smile.
“Good afternoon everyone, I'll be joining the science department this year.” You say followed by your name. “Before this, I worked as an office assistant at Westbridge University while finishing my degree. I mostly handled graduate student records, thesis paperwork, and scheduling, and whatever administrative emergencies happened to come through the office.”
His brows knitted together.
“I've been looking forward to teaching here, and I hope we all get along.” Polite applause followed as you stepped back into the crowd.
Grace joined and clapped but his mind was elsewhere, it was rummaging through his old memories trying to find where he had seen and heard you.
Westbridge University..
Office assistant..
Then it clicked, it's you.
He knew that face, not intimately but well enough. Back when he was working his ass off for his PhD, there had been one student assistant sitting behind the front desk whenever he dragged himself into the office.
The one who never forgot to remind him to eat lunch.
The one who noticed whenever the dark circles under his eyes became a little deeper.
The one who'd sigh whenever he'd submit his paperwork minutes before the deadline.
“Sir Grace, you arranged this out of order.”
“You can't survive on coffee alone.”
“Did you even sleep today?”
Nothing drastic happened, you were simply someone he befriended back then that he slowly lost contact with, it's a pleasant surprise that he was able to see you again. He hopes you aren't too mad.
As you sat down, Grace was still replaying your introduction in his head when he heard you answer a question.
“I've always wanted to teach.”
Huh.. It's oddly familiar, he just can't seem to put his finger on it.
For the briefest second, his mind wandered back to the previous night– to the anonymous masked Camgirl he jerked his cock off to when he stumbled upon her stream.
The resemblance was eerily close, not that he has evidence, he doesn't know what the Camgirl looks like. It's very common for people to have similar voices as well.
His thoughts screeched to a halt almost as quickly as they'd begun when it started going somewhere inappropriate.
Not to mention it's incredibly rude– and more than a little insane, to look at a Co worker (that you were also acquainted with back in the past) and think,
‘you sound like the Camgirl I watched last night’
He quietly pushed the thought aside as he sipped his coffee.
Sure. Anything can be for science. This is … different. Using the term “it’s for science” is a bit difficult when you’re actively trying to squash down the ever-growing, overwhelming realization that you are in love with your best friend.
“For science,” you repeated, staring at him from across the lab bench.
You wait.
Ryland, completely oblivious, is twirling a pencil between his pointer and middle fingers as he looks down at his computer screen.
“Correct.”
You feel your brows furrow in thought, trying to wheel logic around what he just proposed.
“Just making sure I am understanding,” you start, laying your hands flat on the cool marble table. “You want to map out certain points of each other's bodies for science?”
“It’s information!”
“For?”
He looks at you then, glasses resting on the middle of his nose as he sighs.
“The science community.”
“That’s not a good answer.”
“How is it not?”
“You’re not giving me a persuasive argument to believe.”
He huffs again, fingers stopping mid-twirl as he thinks.
“At least give me something, so I don’t feel as bad telling you no.”
He has a hint of a smile on his lips as he speaks again.
“Hypothetically speaking-”
You nod, encouraging him to go on, despite already knowing where this was going. You’ve known him long enough to catch his tells. He’s already getting defensive, so you know something’s up.
“I need a body to map for my physiology course, or I’m failing this semester.”
“Ryland!” you scold, leaning back and folding your arms across your chest.
“Deadline’s Friday night.”
“That’s in two days!” you exclaim. “There’s no way you can map the whole body in that amount of time.”
“Wanna put that to the test?” he grins.
Smug bastard.
Which is how you find yourself lying on the floor of his apartment on a Wednesday night. You have a final draft for your Sociology class that needs another once-over before you submit, but it’s long forgotten. Ryland’s apartment is what you call messy. He prefers to call it lived in. His notes are scattered across his worn coffee table, textbook open and balancing on his knee as he shuffles through the pages to find the right section. There’s a cup of coffee that was half drunk before set, halfway on a coaster and the table itself. The rings on the surface tell you he forgoes one more often than not.
It’s surprisingly comfortable here on his floor. Late November has it dark before six, and the radiator is lazily humming as it warms the living room. He’d told you to dress comfortably, so you did. Deciding a threadbare sweater, campus sweats, and wool socks would suffice. There’s a moment of silence; the only noises are the radiator, pages turning, and the two of you breathing. He’d showered before you showed up, hair still a little damp and curling over his forehead when he’d opened the door.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” you mimic.
“Shouldn’t be too hard, right? It’s a body. We use them every day.”
You fight the urge to roll your eyes.
“Better make sure you took good notes.”
Ryland leans up on one knee, placing the textbook down and spreading his fingers across the page. A shift in the air has you taking another deep breath, fluttering your eyes closed.
“Where to start?” he murmurs aloud, glancing over the page again.
“If you start at my feet, I’ll kick you,” you warn.
“Oh yeah. I forgot you’re extremely ticklish,” he laughs warmly. “There was that time when-“
You cut him off, telling yourself the racing of your heart was something else entirely.
“Ryland. Focus.”
“Right,” he says, clearing his throat.
A warm press of fingers to your clothed shoulder has you opening your eyes. Ryland’s not quite over you, but in your peripheral. His eyebrows are furrowed in concentration as he looks between your body and the book.
“Biceps brachii. Agonist.”
“What does that mean?”
“You have prime movers and synergists. Your prime movers are specific, while the synergist is assistive.”
“Okay,” you breathe, not even processing what he just said.
He slides his fingers down your arm, squeezing just above your elbow.
“Biceps help this guy flex.”
You nod again, trying hard not to focus too hard on the warmth from his fingers.
“Brachialis. Beneath biceps. Primary flexor.”
He bites his lip in concentration, making sure what he’s naming off is correct. The pads of his fingers are warm against your thin sweater.
“Flexor carpi radialis. Radially twists your wrist.”
Ryland slides his fingers down, lightly resting his thumb and pointer finger on the thin skin. Your sweater has raised a bit, allowing the press of his skin against your own. He demonstrates, gently rotating your wrist back and forth.
“Neat, huh?”
“Very,” you breathe out.
“I can feel your pulse,” he murmurs, going silent for a moment.
The air is thick, neither of you breathing for a moment. It’s over before you realize, and Ryland’s moving again, flipping the page of his book and releasing your wrist gently. He leans back on his knees, a sigh falling from his lips.
“I didn’t think this through.”
“What do you mean?”
You sit up on your elbows, waiting for an answer. There’s a small flush to his cheeks, and he won’t meet your eyes.
“Do I need to take my sweater off?” you ask, throat clicking with how dry it’s suddenly gotten.
“I wouldn’t. I mean. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“You’re going to fail your class.”
“Yes. I mean. I could take it again.”
“Ryland.”
He looks at you then, glasses askew, hair finally drying in the warm heat, stuck up messily on his head. He looks pretty.
“You’re not failing the class,” you say, sitting up to pull your shirt over your head before he can object.
A quick glance at the clock shows you that only twenty minutes have passed, and you already have your shirt off. Personal record on your end. The bra you have is simple. Black with a small bow in the middle. Something you got on sale too long ago. Worn, but comfortable. You ball your sweater up into a ball and rest your head back, looking everywhere in the apartment except for the man next to you.
“You’re shirtless on my floor,” he blurts out.
“I am shirtless on your floor,” you state, cheeks heating.
“I’ll go quickly.”
“Okay.”
His hand rests just below your collarbone, palm flat against your skin. Warmth radiates between the two of you.
“Deltoid. Three parts. Anterior, Lateral, Posterior.”
He looks at the textbook again.
“Anterior - up and forwards, Lateral - sides, Posterior - backwards.”
He slowly moves your arm in the mentioned positions, watching the muscles dip and flex under your skin. In a moment's time, it comes to rest by your side, pulse in your ears as you wait for him to move again. The crack in the ceiling next to his doorframe suddenly becomes very interesting.
“Rectus abdominis”, Ryland murmurs, fingers splayed across your ribcage, feeling the slight quiver of muscle underneath. “Stabilizes your core.”
His hands slide to your sides and down to your hips, thumbs brushing over the jut of bone. You desperately try to keep them still, not wanting to arch into his touch. This is strictly educational.
“Obliques,” he breathes, and you notice the slight rasp in his voice. “Another stabilizer.”
There’s a slight pressure as he squeezes your sides before releasing again. His gaze bounces around your face for a moment before he inhales and rests back on his heels again.
“Good?” he questions, hands resting on the flat of his thighs.
You nod, unable to trust yourself to form a coherent sentence. A chill runs down your spine, the loss of heat erupting goosebumps across your skin.
“S’cold,” you mumble, teeth threatening to chatter.
Ryland leans over you again, arms bracketing on either side of your head.
“We can stop.”
“You're already behind; I’m okay.”
“It's my fault really.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Wow, no sympathy at all?” he cringes slightly, eyes crinkling as he smiles.
“No. You do this every semester. Procrastinator.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
You feel your lips pull into a smile.
“Will you now?”
He leans closer; you can smell the lingering soap he used from the shower. It mixes with the underlying scent of him - undeniably Ryland. The proximity makes your stomach flip, your gaze flitting to his partially open mouth and then back up to his own. His eyes are dark, the ring of blue barely visible in the low light.
No overhead lighting in his apartment, all warm secondary lighting. He spent enough time under fluorescents in the lab. You suppose it is rather homey, warm, and filled with the scent of him. His muscles flex as he shifts his weight over you, wrists no doubt cramping from holding the position for a set amount of time.
“Where’d you go?” he asks, ever-observant.
Too observant. Especially when it came to you.
“I'm right here.”
“No, you went somewhere. You do that sometimes.”
You hum, somewhat agreeing.
“I was thinking about your apartment.”
“What about it?”
“It’s cozy.”
He laughs then, a melodic sound. You smile. The lighting casts a warm glow around his body, framing him like a Botticelli painting. Oh, he's beautiful. God, you're so fucked.
“Yeah, I suppose it is. Especially when you're here.”
“Me?” you ask, brows furrowing.
“Well. Yeah.”
“Ryland.”
“Yeah?”
You take a moment, on the precipice of pushing things past the point of no return. A sudden rush of courage has the words spilling from your lips in a hushed whisper.
“Does this change things?”
“What do you mean?” he questions, brows furrowing slightly.
“This moment. We’re friends, right?”
“Well, I sure hope so. I wouldn't want anyone else shirtless on my floor on a Wednesday night helping me with an assignment I procrastinated on.”
You see the moment he says it, that he starts to backpedal. Mouth pinching in distress before he starts scrambling over his chosen words.
“Wait. I didn’t mean. Wait a second.”
His hands fly out, trying to console the perceived notion of what he said.
“Ryland.”
“It’s not a bad thing. I mean. I just didn’t think-.”
“Ryland.”
You place a hand on his wrist, fingers encircling while you tug to get his attention.
“You know I willingly came over, right? Even though you put yourself in these situations.”
You laugh a bit, trying to diffuse the situation. He laughs too, albeit at the slight misunderstanding of words. The tension in the air fizzles a bit, replaced by a comfortable silence. The radiator is humming again, another wave of warmth filling the small room.
He breaks the silence first. Unable to endure a moment of quiet.
“Y’know. I couldn’t make it without you.”
By the expression on his face, you know he’s serious. It’s a matter of fact. It makes your stomach pull in a way that lets you know that yes, you are having this conversation now.
There have been times when you’ve wanted to bring it up. But the second-guessing and the inner turmoil of possibly ruining a good thing for both of you took priority. Yes, you’ve grown close as the years have passed. From Freshman Seminar to now, whatever this is. Half naked in his living room, hands on your body and scared to label it as anything other than educational.
There was never a label for Ryland. He was just - your Ryland. Someone who sat with you on the front steps of your dorms until your roommate was able to drop a spare key by. Someone who stayed up late studying for your Research Methods class and helped you solve the Statistics part of the exam because you were terrible at math. Someone who didn't mention when you cried at something in the movies you watched, only made room for you to move closer, shuffling the blanket to accommodate you both. Someone who remembered something from one mention. The comfort food you had as a child. Your sixth birthday party theme. The things that mattered. Someone who made room for you. Always. No question of the time. No matter the day. He was a constant that you had grown to look forward to.
He was someone you could see yourself spending the rest of your life with.
“Can I do something?”
You look back at him now, returning to the present. Too long in your own thoughts. You breathe deeply, the warmth of the apartment returning to your body. His eyes are wide, honest. You nod. You’d let him do anything to you right now. He lowers himself down, close enough that you can feel his breath fan across your cheek.
“Want to test something,” he whispers, before pressing his lips to your own.
A sound of surprise leaves your mouth, body freezing for a moment before arching up into him. You wrap your fingers around his bicep, squeezing at the muscle (biceps brachii, ha, you are learning). His lips are soft against your own, slowly parting as you find a rhythm. He tastes like black tea and mint toothpaste.
“Ryland,” you murmur against his mouth.
“I love you,” he confesses, shaky and pushed out in one breath.
His hands find your jaw, fingers sliding through your hair and angling your face to meet his more comfortably. There's desperation there; you can feel the way his fingers shake. His mouth is parted, and his breath is warm, and he whines. He whines when your lips part for air. A soft thing, unprecedented as it crawls up his throat.
Ryland pulls away, just barely. Foreheads touching as you catch your breath.
“I am in love with you,” he repeats, voice certain.
“How long?” you whisper.
“Day one.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t either.”
“I didn't want to lose you,” you whisper back, eyes searching his face.
His eyes are wet, tears clinging to his lashes, clumping them together.
“You have me. You've always had me.”
You choke out a laugh, pressing your lips to his again. They're soft, stationary for only a moment before he kisses you back. His tongue slides over your lip, and you open, tilting your head back and letting him explore. He hums appreciatively, fingers pressing gently into the back of your skull.
Your legs part on either side of his hips, making room for him to rest right in between. There’s a slight twinge in your hips because of the stretch, but you don't mind. You feel the hard press of him against your hip, mind short-circuiting at the revelation. He wants you. Just like you want him. As if the confession wasn't enough.
He pulls away again, tilting your head to the side to press kisses into your skin and trails them down the side of your neck. His nose bumps your jaw, glasses pressing into your skin as his thumb presses into your sweet spot. Ryland shifts, length pressing into your folds momentarily, causing a moan to slip through your teeth.
“Sorry! Just trying to get comfortable,” he breathes into your skin.
Your hips shift up to meet his again, making the action deliberate.
“Oh,” he realizes.
Ryland grinds his hips down at the same time he licks a hot stripe up the column of your neck, causing goosebumps to erupt across your skin. You gasp, fingers curling around his arms for purchase.
“Yes, Ryland,” you whine, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling.
You feel your panties clinging to your folds, arousal soaking through the thin cotton. Ryland’s hands slide down your sides, thumbs rubbing at the soft skin at your ribs. Feels your breath rise and fall, fingers still at your sides. His mouth latches on your collarbone, teeth scraping deliciously in the divot there.
Fire licks down your spine, body shuddering at his touch. There's a surge of confidence in his body language, the tips of his fingers dipping underneath the band of your bra and pushing up. Your breasts spill out of the material, resting gently against your chest.
You feel his fingers splay widely against your skin, mouth quickly enveloping one of your nipples, tongue swirling to create a soft peak. Your hands slide down to rest around his forearms, squeezing gently. Your throat forms around a soft sound, involuntary as Ryland switches to your other nipple, giving it the same attention as the other. His thumb brushes over the bud, and your nerves sing, pleasure building in your core.
“Been thinking about this,” he murmurs into your skin. “Always thinking of you.”
His mouth is warm and wet, leaving shining trails of moisture along your chest as he presses open-mouthed kisses to your skin. His fingers are still shaking as he slides them up and down your sides, gaining courage as he lowers his path. He’s at your stomach now, kisses pressed to the soft concave between your ribs. You feel the pace of your breathing picking up, no longer in even, regulated patterns.
You’re damn near hyperventilating. He’s everywhere you’ve always wanted him, and still not enough. You can still feel where his touch has been even after he’s moved on, skin still warm from the heat transfer. The pads of his fingers are smooth, soothing as he pets your sides. His thumb has found the notch of your hip again, pressing against the bone and watching the skin give and bounce back gently.
Ryland’s chin comes to rest on the soft plane of your pubic bone. His eyes are dark, irises twinkling in the low light as he looks at you. He’s utterly smitten; it’s written across his face. There’s a small tic of his mouth, something you notice often - especially when he’s content. He’s doing it now, a lazy grin spreading across his face - utterly gorgeous.
“You. You are-,” he breathes. “Riveting.”
He's drunk off the taste of you, despite the minuscule amount he’s been able to explore. Mind slowing and only able to form a few words, because of you. Ryland’s always got something to say. Will make an argument out of anything. You once fought over the way you had your coasters arranged on your coffee table. This - this was something you wanted to see more of. Him at a complete loss of words. Because of you.
Your hand slides down and up the side of his neck, making its way slowly to the back of his head, fingers running through his already messy hair. His eyelids flutter, closing for a moment before lazily resting at half-mast.
“Feels. Good.”
His voice is a low rumble, almost a purr in his chest as he leans into your touch. You watch his throat bob as he swallows, his fingers squeezing your hips once as he relaxes. Your fingers slide through the short strands, nails scratching his scalp slowly. A soft whine catches in his throat, and you notice the tips of his ears go pink.
You decide to test something. In that moment, you feel the overwhelming desire to pull, so you do. You gather what hair you can in your fingers, and you pull. Not rough, just enough to have the strands of his hair curl around your fingers and stretch away from his scalp. It’s effective. Immediately effective. You feel his hips buck involuntarily against the floor, a low growl forming in his throat.
It makes your stomach flip, so you do it again. Curious to file the results. Gotta have evidence to back up a hypothesis, right? His ears burn, and he pushes his face into your stomach, trying hard to hide just how turned on he really is.
“You like that?” you murmur, voice sultrier than you intended for it to be.
He nods, the tips of his fingers turning white with how hard he’s gripping your hips right now. There’s most likely going to be bruising, but you can’t find it in yourself to care. You want to watch their life cycle. Deep purples, fading to greens and yellows, and eventually back to the resting place beneath your skin. Your pussy clenches around nothing, reveling in the thought of proof that he was here, on the most delicate parts of your body, hidden away for only you to see.
Ryland’s breath spirals out from where he’s pressed into your skin, warm and wanting. He inhales deeply a few times, and you watch the rise and fall of his chest. You watch the muscles twitch and shift in his back, feel his fingers tic against your hips. He groans softly, obviously fighting with himself as he tends to do often.
He finally looks up, glasses crooked on his nose again as he makes eye contact with you. There’s nothing but pure, blown lust in his eyes, irises swallowed up by the dark space of his pupil.
“I want to taste you.”
You inhale sharply, fingers tightening in his hair.
“Please. Please let me.”
You feel yourself nod, gaze following the roll of his eyes into the back of his head.
“Okay. Okay, let’s-“ he cuts himself off, pushing himself back up on his knees.
He needs the leverage, hands finding your hips and letting his fingers curl around the waistband of your sweats. They’re warm against your skin, but you shiver anyway.
“Up,” he murmurs, and you lift your hips up.
He could tell you to put your palm down on a hot stove right now, and you would do it. There’s something in the way that his voice has slipped. Something soft, reserved only for moments like this. The careful lilt around the vowels and consonants that make up his next words has you nearly choking.
He’s quiet for a moment, your sweats pulled down and off of your legs, folded carefully and placed on his coffee table. You watch his eyes lazily focus on your spread legs. Specifically what’s resting between.
“You’re soaked,” he states, voice low.
You can hear the hitch in his breath, see the tremble in his shoulders. He’s barely holding it together. It makes your eyelids flutter. Pleasure pulsing between your legs in slow, languid bursts. You go to squeeze your thighs together to relieve the ache, and he stops you.
“Tsk.”
A sharp click of his tongue, large hands pressing into the soft side of your knees and positioning them back into the wide vee they were originally in. You don’t expect him reprimanding you to affect you as much as it does. The wetness grows, soaking your panties even further. He catches it. Of course he does.
“You-“
“Don’t.”
“How-“ he huffs incredulously, brows nearly raising up to his hairline.
“You liked it. Me reprimanding you.”
He’s filing it. You watch him do it. Watch the smug smile grow on his face as he pieces more information together to utterly humiliate you.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That. That look.”
“What look?” he questions, knowing exactly what you were asking.
You huff in frustration, hip twitching in irritation.
“You’re putting that somewhere.”
“Mhm.”
“For later.”
“Maybe,” he grins.
His fingers ghost over the edge of your panties, thumb pressing the cotton into your already soaked folds. Makes a soft sound when they grow even darker.
“Christ.”
“Ryland,” you whine.
You don’t even care. The warm press of his thumb has your hips twitching. He keeps it there for a moment, chest rising and falling as he commits this moment to memory. You take a moment too. The press of the floor against your spine, the warmth of the radiator, the smell of his soap, the rise and fall of your synched breathing.
He moves. He finally moves and pulls your panties to the side, revealing your glistening folds. You hear another soft noise from him, like it’s punched right from his lungs. Ryland moves before his mind catches up, tucks his head down, and flattens his tongue against you.
Your brain short-circuits, honing in on just the feel of him. Tongue flat and wide, just pressing. Not moving yet. Filing your taste away for later. His eyes flutter shut, and he moves again. Pulling his tongue back only to do it again, pressing right into you, mapping you out. He’s sloooooow. Tongue parting and tracing your folds, not leaving any part of you undiscovered.
There’s no rhythm yet, him getting a feel for you. Your fingers fly to his hair, spreading wide against his scalp, needing something to hold on to. He hums in encouragement, vibrations rumbling against your core. Your hips twitch up, and he does it again. Filing away something else your body does for him. He’s a quick learner. Listen to the hitch in your breathing to let him know if he’s doing something good.
Tilts his head and lets his nose bump against your clit, the hard line of it delicious as he moves. Your legs are trembling, pleasure building in your spine as he devours you whole. He’s developing a rhythm now, firm slides of his tongue through your folds with the occasional caress of his nose. His fingers are on either side of you, holding you open, forearms pressing your thighs up and back.
Ryland’s fucking exceptional because of course he is. He’s attentive. He listens and adjusts and tests to see what works and what doesn’t. You’re falling apart, and he’s putting you right back together again. The noises you are making are completely involuntary, high whines and gasps slipping out before you even have a chance to stop them.
“God, you-,” he moans against your core.
“You’re better than I imagined. I don’t know how that’s possible.”
Your eyes flutter open, and you take a moment to look at him. Hair wild, glasses crooked, hips-
His hips are rutting against the floor as he eats you out, and it’s honestly the hottest fucking thing you’ve ever seen. You choke out a sound, lungs stuttering as you come. It’s so fast - so sudden that it’s nearly painful. Pleasure blinding hot as it burns and fizzles into something syrupy in your bloodstream.
“Oh, you’re- you’re coming, aren’t you?”
“F-Fuck,” you gasp, hips rutting against his eager mouth.
The aftershocks have you trembling, fingers gripping hard against his forearms as he guides you through it. He’s relentless, sloppy licks and sucks to your clit as you writhe. He doesn’t stop until you manage to push against his shoulder. Begging for relief.
When you finally regain feeling in your body, you turn your head to look at him. He’s devastatingly beautiful. Eyes bright and chin absolutely soaked with your arousal. He’s grinning, teeth white and mouth wide in excitement.
“That was-“ he starts.
“Some test,” you breathe.
He laughs, a bright, beautiful sound. You feel giddiness rise up into your chest, a laugh spilling from your lips before you can stop it. He presses a kiss to your thigh, inhaling the scent of you before begrudgingly moving up into a semi-tolerant position. Ryland rolls his neck, resting on an elbow before lying flat on his back. You two breathe, a moment of silence before he’s speaking again.
“Was that alright?”
“Ryland.”
“I mean, I think it was I just.”
“You’re exceptional.”
He huffs a laugh, reaching out to brush a thumb over your ankle.
“It’s not fair really.”
“How so?”
“You’re exceptional at everything.”
“I don’t know about-“
“Shut up and take the compliment.”
“Okay.”
You sit up on your elbows after a moment, taking note of your bare body compared to his clothed one. His shirt is rumpled, one leg of his pyjamas is up higher than the other, sock slouched against his ankle. You smile, a warmth fluttering in your chest at the sight of him. So so human. So Ryland. His gaze is resting on the ceiling above, eyes on the same splinter you were looking at earlier.
They shift to you when you lean over him.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Can I kiss you?”
He nods, and so you do. You lean down and press your lips to his, feeling the warmth and tasting yourself lingering there. You moan softly, tongue darting out to taste more. He shifts up onto his elbow, tilting his head and opening his mouth wider to accommodate you. Your tongues explore each other's mouths. The soft divot on your lower lip, the hard press of your teeth.
He groans against your lips, hand coming up to rest on the divot of your throat. Fingers splayed wide along the column. He presses gently, fingertips warm against your skin.
“Ryland,” you moan into his mouth.
“Yeah,” he breathes.
“I can’t stop thinking about you.”
He hums, and you feel him smile against you.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He deepens the kiss, tongue licking into your mouth. You shift as he does, moving with him as he backs himself up against the couch. Barely pulling away, not wanting to miss any part of him. You do take a moment to shimmy out of your soaked panties, dropping them to the side. Your bra is next, one swift pinch of your fingers and it’s finally off, on the floor in an accumulating pile. One leg swings over his hips, resting just above his lap. You don’t sit down yet, hovering as you press your hands to each side of his face. Your thumbs brush against his stubble.
“This okay?” you murmur.
“More than okay.”
You press a kiss to the corner of his lips.
“Sit,” he tells you.
You sit. You feel the hard press of his cock against your core. He’s hot, hips twitching as you settle your weight against him. A sound leaves him then, swallowed up by your open mouth against his own. His hand find your hips, fingers splaying against the fat there. He squeezes once, holding you firm as he rolls his upwards. Once. A test.
You both shudder, gasping into shared space.
“Again,” you plead.
He does it again. You press your forehead to his, moaning softly.
“Yeah,” he breathes, rolling his hips slowly against you.
Your hips dip down to meet his, the friction between your legs divine.
“There you go,” he coos, voice going into that soft lilt again.
You think you might die.
He’s pressing kisses into your skin, wet, open-mouthed kisses as he grinds upwards. The front of his pyjamas is soaked, cool when the air rushes between you. His hand reaches in between the two of you, pushing his pants down around his thighs. His boxers are next, and his cock rests against his stomach, flushed and weeping from how hard he is.
“Need to feel you,” he confesses.
Ryland’s fingers wrap around the base of his cock, guiding the spongy head to slide through your slick folds. Your fingers grip his shoulder, body arching into his beneath you.
“Oh god,” you whine.
Honest to god whine. It’s pitiful. Something that you didn’t even think you could make. But here you are, in your friend’s living room, desperate for his touch. He’s not much better. Body trembling as he guides himself up up up until he bumps your clit. He repeats the motion, reveling in the way your body responds to his own.
The tip of his head catches against your hole, and you both freeze.
“Ryland-“
He says your name. Warm and lax in his throat, breathy. You like the way it sounds when it hits the air. You pull back a bit to look at him. He looks completely fucked out. Eyes blown wide and mouth slack. Lips shiny from your spit.
“Can I?” he asks, unashamedly, pure want fogging the rational part of his brain.
“Yes, God. Ryland, yes, please,” you moan, burying your face against his throat.
You feel him swallow, throat clicking before he shifts and then-
He’s pressing inside. Slow. Slow. Slow. Slow. It’s agonizing. Both of your torsos are trembling, a slight sheen of sweat on the two of you. You see a droplet rest just above the divot of his collarbone. Your tongue darts out to collect it before it falls. He groans against your sweaty hair, hips twitching.
Ryland’s big. He’s overwhelming. Stretching your walls and your hips wide. You feel yourself flutter around him, body inching open to let him sit flush against you. You’re both panting, chests rising and falling in tandem as you take a moment. His grip on your hips is like iron, the hard press of his fingers grounding in a moment like this.
“You’re…big,” you breathe.
He’s quiet. A moment. Two.
You lean up, the shift of your weight pushing him deeper. A gasp leaves your lips as you look at him. He’s trembling, eyes wide as he meets your own.
Ryland’s at a loss for words.
His lips are red, indentations of his teeth an indicator he’s been biting them.
“Ry?”
The nickname slips out with your concern; you feel your eyebrows furrow up.
“Give me a minute,” he grinds out, teeth clenched tightly.
You give him a minute. Rest a hand against his chest, fingers brushing over the text on his shirt. You just notice it now, one of the many science puns he wears. It reads: THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH REALLY MAKES MY DAY and has a graphic of the Earth spinning.
A smile forms on your lips, and you shake your head slightly. His breath matches your own, you come to realize. Your eyes lazily slide up to look at him again, and he’s smiling. Completely, blissed out, watching you with dark eyes. Drunk.
“You good?”
He nods.
“Ryland?”
“Yes?”
“Move.”
He moves. Just like he did earlier. He’s slow. Slow, slow, slow as he tilts his hips back, before pushing back up into you. You hum, knees shifting to rest on the floor on either side of his hips. You tilt yours back to meet his, hands resting on his broad shoulders. One of his hands comes up to grab your chin, pulling you down for a sloppy kiss.
Ryland pants into your mouth, thumb and forefinger holding you in place as his hips move. You breathe him in, thighs shuddering as pleasure curls in your gut. He licks into your mouth again, soft hums of pleasure leaving him.
You clench around his length, laughing softly as his hips stutter.
“Not fair,” he whines.
You do it again just to hear him again. He makes the noise again, the disapproving one he filed for later.
“Tsk.”
Your cheeks grow hot, a flush running down to your chest.
“Be good and sit still,” he huffs, nipping at your bottom lip.
Good lord.
He picks up the pace, the motion of his thrusts making your hips ache. His cock feels like velvet, splitting you open in such a soft way that it makes your chest ache. You can hear how wet you are, feel it dripping down your thighs as he thrusts up into you. His hands are everywhere, touching any point of you that he can - your hips, your ribs, your breasts, your thighs. Ryland squeezes them once, left hand sliding up to rest on your throat.
Not squeezing, resting.
Your pulse flutters against his hand, wild and untamed as he fucks you. He's picked up the pace again, spearing you open on his cock over and over again. Pulling you up and down, guiding your hips to meet his. The meeting and separation of skin is loud in his apartment. That and your breathing, both of you panting and moaning wantonly.
“God- you're so tight,” he praises, patting the side of your face.
He’s babbling, pressing kisses to your skin. His hair is plastered to his forehead, sweat slick on his skin. You’re not much better, body hot and nerves on fire. Ryland’s thrusts are getting sloppy, hips stuttering, a sign that he’s getting close.
“Not gonna last-“ he sighs, eyes screwing shut for a moment.
“That’s okay,” you coo, voice worn from all the noises it’s been making.
“No, wanna-“ he groans, rolling his hips languidly. “Wanna stay here forever.”
You huff a laugh, a wide smile on your features as you kiss him again.
“You can stay forever, Ryland.”
His breath hitches, head lolling back against the couch cushion.
“Can’t say stuff like that.”
“Like what?” you tease, payback from earlier.
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
He tilts your hips, angling just right so his thrusts have you seeing stars.
“Oh f-fuck-,” you gasp, pleasure having your body tremble against him.
He huffs a laugh, smirking for a moment before his face falls into one of concentration.
“Don’t. Stop,” you beg.
He doesn’t. He keeps the angle, hitting your spongy spot over and over until you’re nearly sobbing. Your thighs clench, blinding white-hot pleasure contracting your muscles, causing your breath to stutter to a halt.
Ryland’s hand slides to the back of your neck, holding you up as he fucks you through it. Aftershocks having your walls trembling around him.
“That’s my girl,” he coos.
You think a whine leaves your throat, spit clicking in the back as you gasp for air. Your core throbs, pleasure burning hot down your spine.
“Fuck, Ryland.”
His thrusts pick up, a rapid succession of the tip of his cock pressing just right as he chases his own release.
“Yeah. Yeah. There, right there,” he rambles, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, before biting down as he comes.
It’s warm, the sensation oddly pleasant as he fills you full. You hear the way his lungs stutter, a low growl forming in his throat as he ruts into you. Your body trembles, slumping against his chest as he comes down. You wait for him.
You listen to his breathing. Matching your own with his. He takes a moment. Two. Ryland inhales deeply, his brain coming back online as he shifts slightly. The motion pushes his come further into you, and you whine, feeling so so full.
He presses a kiss to your temple, lingering for a moment.
“Okay?” he murmurs against your skin.
“I love you,” you breathe.
At last, your chest heaves, you sob, tears hot as you finally - finally let him know how you feel. His arms wrap around your midsection, pulling you tight against his body. Grounding.
“I am so in love with you,” he repeats. “You have no idea.”
A watery laugh escapes you. You press a kiss to his lips again, soft and pliant against your own. The radiator hums, kicking to life again. Ryland shifts, slowly pulling out of you. You whine softly, shifting and sitting back on the tops of his thighs.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“That was-“
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he laughs.
He traces the shape of your lips with his thumb, dipping into your cupid's bow.
“Can you say it again?”
“I love you.”
The smile on his face makes your chest ache.
“Ryland.”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve still got a lot to map.”
He groans, letting his head fall back against the cushion for a moment.
“Please don’t let me procrastinate two days before an assignment is due again.”
“You’re behind, c’mon,” you groan, grabbing his hand and tugging.
“Two minutes. Give me two minutes.”
Got lost in the sauce with this one. Please enjoy.
A blurb in which Grace and Rocky fall into the innate masculine desire of digging a gigantic hole in the sand while you and Adrian watch.
“Is digging large hole in ground part of human mating ritual?” Adrian asks as you both sit on the artificial beach watching Grace and Rocky hard at work on said giant hole in the sand. You think about that question for a bit before answering “I don’t know.”.
Adrian turns towards you, “So what is the purpose of Grace informing (name) on progress of hole if it is not some sort of display of worth?” they ask. “Your guess is as good as mine.” you shrug, “It’s just an innate desire that all human men have in them for some reason.” you remark as you watch said man and his rock companion continue with their meaningless task.
“Is digging a hole a mating thing on Erid?” you ask.
“Creating gifts and simulated nest making to show that eridian can provide for mate, yes. Creating large hole in ground, no.” Adrian answers as they turn back to look at Rocky coming up from the hole and using his two front legs to dig and his back leg to push the sand out of the way at the new spot. “Do not know why Rocky is doing this and also updating Adrian on progress.” they claim.
As if on cue, Grace looks up to both of you a little ways away and calls out “We’re making it wider!” with a big smile on his face. “Cool!” you call back in approval and watch them go back to their labor.
“Men are such fascinating creatures. You can spend years with them and never know what’s going on inside their brains and why they do half the things they do.” you remark, focusing on the way his muscles move and flex as he does his work. You stare for a while, admiring the show for a while only to hear Adrian letting out a long rumbling hum. A sound that you have learned is the hum of an Eridian basically checking someone out.
“Grace and Rocky look good digging hole.” their translator relays.
Ship: Holland March x female reader
Tags: Minimal Use of Y/N, Slow(ish) Burn, Idiots in Love, Yearning, Angst, Fluff, Eventual Smut, Mentions of Smoking/Drinking, Not Beta-Read
Description: You moved to LA in 1979 as a interior designer where you run into a private investigator in need of your services, apparently he's rebuilding his house. He's kind of a loser, but maybe there's more than meets the eye.
Chapter one, 2.2k words
It was Spring of 1979, well whatever Spring looked like in Los Angeles anyway, it was pretty warm and balmy despite it being rather late in the afternoon, almost sunset. You had moved to the fervent city and found the amount of hustle and bustle already a little overwhelming considering the small town you had just come from.
Currently you were struggling to lug out an oversized box out of your rear seat. With some great manoeuvring you managed to finally get it out of the door. It was heavy and awkwardly shaped so you let it fall to the ground, nothing precious in it, just some heavy textile samples you had. It was one of two boxes left, thankfully, but you were tired and jet lagged (can you be jet lagged after driving for hours?). Unloading any more boxes was the last thing you wanted to do. Especially when you had to haul them up two flights of stairs into your new – and admittedly dingy – apartment. You have to remind yourself that this was only temporary, just whilst you settled into your new city.
Hands on hips you stared at the offending oversized box, as if some miracle would present itself into getting it upstairs.
“Need some help?” Came a voice from behind you.
You whipped around to see a man, probably mid-thirties, tall, with tousled hair and of course sideburns with a goatee to match. He was rather stylish, donning on classic flared pants with a patterned shirt with the top buttons undone – he was wearing some kind of necklace – and a dark jacket. The aviation sunglasses really sold the outfit. “I'm not sure inviting some strange man to help move my boxes into my new apartment is a good idea,” you replied somewhat sarcastically. Yeah, it would be a stupid move, but you also needed to get this over and done with.
He scoffed as he put a cigarette in his mouth, pausing for a second to light it. “Ma’am, I'm a private investigator. It'd be rather foolish for me to enact any foul play.”
“If anything that worries me more – you'd be excellent at covering the scene of the crime!” You said with a stupid grin on your face.
The man across from you seemed to find this rather entertaining, “You assume I'm good at my job.” His reply was impassive but not entirely serious.
Sighing you threw all caution to the wind, “Well if the offer still stands, yes I do need some help. I've been unloading boxes all day.”
He took a long puff of his cigarette before stamping it out on the concrete. “Your wish is my command, though if I throw my back out I'm suing you,” he joked. Although, it wouldn't surprise you if he did sue you, he was a stranger.
You stepped around to the other side of the car to grab the smaller box, the last one before leading the way to your apartment. “Thanks for your help,” you said over your shoulder as you could hear him following you.
“Jesus! I can see why you didn't want to lift this, the hell is in here?” His voice sounded a little gruff.
You waited until the two of you got up the stairs, not wanting to make him lose his footing. “It's textiles – I'm an interior designer, so I need samples,” you replied as you got closer to your apartment door.
Looking over your shoulder you saw the man only struggled with the awkward sized box somewhat. “Interior designer, huh?” He paused for a moment before continuing, “You know I might be in need of one of those.”
Your apartment door was now in front of you, so you dropped the box to the ground as you fished out your keys. Without looking at him you responded, “You need an interior designer?” It took a little finessing, but you got the door unlocked. You looked up at him then, he'd somehow managed to put the box over one of his shoulders. Impressive. He also managed to procure another lit cigarette. Even more impressive. Having opened the door you grabbed your box and walked inside, setting the box on the kitchen benchtop.
He followed in after you, doing the same with the box on his shoulders. With a huff he let the box thunk loudly as he set it down, “Uh, yeah. I'm rebuilding my house.” Despite now being inside he was still wearing his aviators.
You fished inside your handbag for your wallet. “Well, if you need some inspiration give me a call,” you said earnestly as you handed him a business card. Remembering the stack of boxes surrounding you, you absentmindedly said, “Oh, uh, I need to unpack my phone first, sure it's in here somewhere.”
With two fingers he plucked the card from your hard, momentarily looking it over before he pocketed it. “Let's do a card exchange,” he said as he pulled his wallet out from his pocket. He procured his own business card – it had a crude drawing of what appeared to be himself and some other man. He really was a private investigator.
“No offence but I hope I'll never have a need for a PI,” you said as you accepted his card.
Cigarette still in his mouth he gave you a half smile, “I hope not either Miss L/N. But you can't be too careful, lots of looneys in this city.”
You gave him a half smile in return, “Thank you Mr. March for your assistance. I've yet to go grocery shopping, otherwise I'd offer you a beer for your troubles.”
He waved a hand dismissively, “Don't mention it.” Giving you a wink he then turned sharply on one heel to make his way back out the door, hovering outside for a moment. “Next time don't let any random man into your apartment, they're not all as well-intentioned as me,” he said sarcastically before he headed down the hall. Did he just give you the finger guns?
Los Angeles was weird. Hopefully you didn't just invite a serial killer into your house. Deciding not to dwell on it any further you closed the front door and began opening your boxes. The last thing you wanted to do was actually unpack and organise the contents of the boxes, but you quite literally had no clothes or furniture. It had to be done, which meant you had a long night ahead of yourself. Where was that damn lava lamp? This living room needed some ambience!
You unpacked about four boxes before giving up and ordering Chinese takeout using your neighbour's phone.
✿✿✿✿
It was four days since you saw a one Holland March, you'd managed to unpack the majority of your belongings. Though you really hoped you found a condo or something in a nicer part of town, like the suburb you were currently in. Mr. March had called you (you found your phone on the second day of unpacking) and given you this address. It was an empty lot, not an ounce of construction anywhere to be seen. Odd that he'd ask for your help so soon, you kind of need, oh you know, walls and floors to work with.
He also said he would meet you at 1pm, looking at your watch you saw that it was now 2:07pm. Luckily you managed to get a park under a nicely shaded tree so the dry Californian air wasn't as oppressive as it could have been. Not long after, and right before you were contemplating whether or not you should leave, a car pulled up. Convertible with the roof down, looked like March was in the passenger seat with a teenage girl driving. Upon getting out of your car with your portfolio you guessed the teenager must have been around the age of fifteen or so, almost driving age. Maybe she was just one of those kids who looked younger than they were.
March quickly got out of the car, cigarette in his mouth. He was looking stylish again in light-coloured flared trousers, a colourful top which was unbuttoned showing a white singlet underneath and over course the same necklace and aviators as before. As he approached you his smile grew wider, you couldn't help but notice how handsome he was.
The teenager, who you assumed must be his daughter, was trailing behind him, she had blonde hair and wore a stripey shirt with a knee length denim skirt and boots.
As he got within talking distance to you he extended a hand out, “Apologies Miss L/N, the last job ran over time.”
You readily shook his hand, about to answer.
The teenager interjected, “He actually didn't mess up the crime scene this time!” Her sarcasm was all but apparent.
“Thank you Holly,” he said gruffly as he put his hands on his hips. “Teenagers,” he remarked sardonically. You raised an eyebrow at that, which made him look frantically from you back to his daughter and back to you again. “Oh, she's my daughter by the way.” He took a drag of his cigarette, waving his hand dismissively as he had the cigarette between two fingers.
“Nice to meet you Holly,” you said as you faced her. “I was almost about to leave, so that was good timing from you both.”
“You too. Well, I'm not sure why dad wants to hire an interior designer, we're just going to rebuild the house just the same as it was,” she replied, only with a hint of acerbic tone as she crossed her arms.
“Alright, knock it off sweetheart, besides a lot of the original materials may not be available – we'll need help to get a close match.” March said quietly – his answer seemed placate his daughter – before turning to you. “And yeah well, as you can see... Well, there's nothing there right now.” He gestured behind you to the empty lot with his cigarette still pinched between two fingers.
You turned around to look at it, “I can see that.” The lot must give out to a nice view being on an incline like this. You turned back to look at March, “Well, Mr. March do you have the building plans or did you want to wait until construction began?”
He flicked his ashes to the ground after taking a short drag. “Call me Holland, please. And I'm not sure, I don't even have a builder or architect lined up.”
That made you raise an eyebrow, “Okay Holland - doesn't it seem like we're jumping the gun?”
“I need to get the ball rolling, maybe if you inspire me I'll finally have motivation to get this place built,” he shrugged. You noticed he gestured with his hands quite a lot, wonder if it was a nervous tic.
Holly didn't say anything but she was chewing her bottom lip.
With that you stepped closer to Holland and opened your portfolio showcasing some of your favourite homes you had worked on. “Unfortunately since I'm new to the area I haven't established any relationships with the local architects like I had back home, so I can't make any recommendations in that regard. But, I'm sure something in here will pique your interest,” you said as you flicked through the pages – now standing side by side to Holland.
“Not unless it looks like our old house,” Holly mumbled.
In the corner of your eye you noticed Holland frowning at his daughter as he stamped out his spent cigarette. “Can I?” He asked as he gestured his hands out to hold the folio.
“Certainly, you can actually borrow it to mull it over, I've got more,” you replied, not mentioning all the others were at the bottom of a box somewhere in your new home office. The sooner you could get your own commercial space the better.
One of his eyebrows quicky shot up over his aviators before he gave you a sly smile. “Alright thanks–”
“–You can just call me by my first name,” you interjected as you reiterated what your name was in case he couldn't recall off of your business card.
He repeated your name back to you and you had to supress your blush – the guy was very handsome, all right?! “C'mon Holly we'll have to take a proper look through this,” he said to his daughter who quite frankly didn't look impressed. “Thanks for meeting us out here, sorry again for being tardy.”
“I hope to do business with you Holland,” you said earnestly before making it over towards your car. The father daughter duo made their way to cross the road and it looked as if Holly was going to drive again. “Is she old enough to drive?” You called across the street loudly, unable to help yourself.
Holly was already getting into the driver's seat as Holland called over his shoulder to answer you, “She's fifteen and a half – she's got her learners permit, no fret!” The bastard winked at you again as he opened his door.
“Huh...” you muttered to yourself as you got into your own car, the two of them quickly drove passed as you turned the ignition, Holland of course waving at you. You raised up two fingers from your steering wheel in response, hoping he saw it.
You hoped to see him again. For strictly business reasons of course. It's not like he was some smoking hot dad or anything.
part two point five of how do you like your eggs in the morning? | part one | part two | ao3
Summary: An invitation. A garden. A dozen things he could have done differently.
Tags: childhood friends to lovers, pining, fingering, f!reader, flashbacks, angst
A/N: 18+ only! this is part 2.5 of a 3 part series. happy ending guaranteed, but you'll have to wait for part 3. content warnings for mentions of terminal illness and infidelity.
The letter arrives like flowers through frost: cardstock, robin's egg blue, poking out from the mailbox amidst a bouquet of medical bills and junk. Nobody has been to the house in several days. Colt is reluctantly on location, breaking his back rehearsing a car roll. Ryland reckons he is just as sore from sleeping in a hospital chair for a week straight.
He opens it without thinking.
You're cordially invited,
He sees your face before he sees your name.
You look a little sharper than when he saw you last. Maybe from changes in makeup, maybe from the subtle knife of mid-twenties aging; you are still young, but more sophisticated than you were at twenty three. Elegant. Your hair is different. You're in a pale yellow dress, foot popped, grinning at the camera, one hand flexed to show off the ring, and the other one up around the neck of your fiancé (Ryland knows his name—and even if he didn't, it's right there, on the paper, expensively inked and intertwined with yours—but he refuses to acknowledge it on principle).
Three names, on an attached slip, to RSVP. His name is last: his mom's, then Colt's, then his. He hadn't expected an invite. If he thinks about it long enough, he can still feel your hand against his cheek. He'd earned that. He hasn't earned this. But most likely isn't a matter of earned; you had to invite his mom, and you had to invite Colt, which means you had to invite him.
He recognizes the curve of your Ys, the loop you took on sometime around the sixth grade. His name, in your hand. He brushes a thumb across the ink.
He has a suit.
He has a ticket to New York, for an academic conference he anticipates being disinvited from any day now.
He shouldn't go. To be respectful of you. To stay home with his mom. To spare himself.
He shouldn't go.
-
He skips the ceremony, abandoning any fantasy of speak now or forever hold your peace, and walks straight into the reception.
It's a beautiful venue. No real surprise there—you've always had good taste in everything but men. And lord knows you've been to more than your fair share of weddings over the years. Everywhere he looks are little familiar details (lavender centerpieces, white roses, candles on the wall), like you used all of your mom's receptions to curate exactly what you might want for yourself one day.
He's timed his entrance carefully. Late. The first dance, the garter, the toasts are all finished; the dance floor has attracted a healthy crowd; caterers buzz around the half-empty tables, clearing away glasses, swapping out dinner plates for cake. The room is a sea of people he doesn't know, friends of yours from law school and from work and from your new life. Presumably your mother and Josh are around here somewhere.
And there, across the room. Surrounded by bridesmaids. Hair pinned up. Empty seat to your left.
You.
Your dress is white, of course, white and satin and thin-strapped, and he watches one of those straps slip precipitously close to the edge of your shoulder as you laugh at something a bridesmaid said, and watches the delicate motion of your throat as you sip champagne, and watches the drag of your thumb across your lower lip as you check that your lipstick is intact, and then you look up and he's in front of you and you are here.
"Hey," he says.
You don't quite gape, but you get close. "You," you say, standing. "Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi. I wasn't." You shake your head as you come around the table. "You RSVP'd no."
"Did I?"
"I'm very familiar with the guest list, at this point. The only one who said yes was—"
"Colt, yeah. I'm Colt tonight."
"Right." You stop in front of him, and then—clasp your hands together. Like you were about to hug him, but thought better of it. "Well. Thanks for coming."
Before you can sit back down, he rushes to say, "Can we talk?"
You arch a brow, glancing back at the table. Your bridesmaids are all distracted. Talking amongst themselves. He can't really make out their individual faces. He thinks he recognizes one girl from high school, from your grade, Cathy or Kristen or something. "Uh oh."
"No, it's nothing bad. I'm just, I'm flying back tomorrow." He shrugs. "Thought it could be nice to catch up."
"Depends. Are you going to make me cry this time?" You wind an arm through his elbow, which he didn't know he had extended, and he realizes with a bone-deep relief that this is you saying yes.
"I'll try my best not to."
"You'd better," you say. He lets you lead. He's a little fuzzy on where the exits are. "I spent, like, two hours getting my makeup done. But sure. I could use the fresh air."
In the entryway, you pull your arm from his, getting ahead of him by a few steps. There is a moment where you are shadowed by the light from inside, a dark golden glow cast over your dress. Salt in the air. Waves onto sand.
He blinks, and it's gone.
The exit opens up to a garden, empty of people, filled to bursting with white roses. It must be somewhere around midnight, but the night above looks later, somehow, the hazy purple-grey of a two a.m. sky.
"So, is actual Colt okay," you say, breaking the silence, "or…"
"Away on set."
"That's going well, then. The whole Hollywood thing."
"Yeah. He's, he's really doing it. He sends his best." He adjusts his glasses. "Mom, too, they both—they both send their best."
"She's—"
"She's been better. But she's in good spirits, all things considered. Chemo's going well. Another month until they can check if it worked. Again. And then if it works they're going to. There's this surgery. Anyway. She still has that quilt, um, the one you and your mom, from last time—"
You nod. "Yeah, I'm glad she. Not glad that she has another use for it, but, glad she has it." He feels his hand on your arm. He looks down at it. Your right hand; no ring. "It's good she has you, too."
"Yeah." He chuckles, low. Bitter. His glasses slide down his nose. "That's the one upside to a forced sabbatical. Plenty of free time."
Your hand pulls away. "I saw. UNESCO." If you still keep up with him, his work, that would mean you maybe went into medical malpractice law after all—but he doesn't know—and before he can ask, you continue, "So you're—"
"Still on staff, officially. By the time I get home, probably not."
"You never were afraid of pissing people off."
"Guess I should have been."
"Mm. You'll figure it out."
"Yeah. Maybe. I could use some advice."
"Really? From the child bride?" There's no bitterness in your voice, just a smile. Light. Teasing. The way it used to be.
"You seem to have it all figured out," he says with a shrug. "The job. The ring. Life."
You laugh. "Nobody has it all figured out. There could always be something…" The smile fades, not into a frown. Something in between.
"Better?"
You don't look at him. He watches as you play with your ring. "Different."
He stops walking. You make it a few steps ahead of him. "Are you happy?"
You turn.
He can't read your face. He isn't sure what he wants it to say. Of course he hopes he was wrong about your fiancé; he's never wanted more to be wrong about anything in his entire life. Of course he hopes he's changed. Of course he doesn't want you to be stuck with—it's just that there is a small, selfish corner of his brain, closer to the surface than he wants to admit, that almost—that almost wishes—not that—but if there was any chance at all—
"I should get back," you say. You lean up to kiss him on the cheek, once, quick. "It was good to see you, Colt."
You walk away. Two steps. Ten steps.
"Wait," he says.
You turn.
"I never actually got to see the ring. The new one."
You narrow your eyes at him. "Not much to see." But you do walk back, heels clicking, hand outstretched. "They all look the same, more or less."
He takes your hand, and looks at it.
You're right. It's nothing out of the ordinary. The simple band. The diamond above. But your hand is warm in his. Your wrist is soft where he brushes his thumb across it, your pulse delicate beneath his fingers, and, on a whim, he steps in, and tugs you closer, and brings his other hand around your waist.
Your eyes are wide as you look up at him. He swears he feels your pulse pick up, feather-light. "What are you doing?"
He takes a step back. You follow. Then to the side, then back, vaguely in rhythm with the distant sounds of music from inside, and the ocean in his ears.
"Feels like I owe you at least one dance in your life that I don't completely fuck up by the end. Think of it as a wedding gift."
Your smile is small, but warm. Relaxed. "So I shouldn't be expecting anything off the registry, then."
"I don't know. Anything on there in the soon-to-be-fired adjunct's salary range?"
You scrunch up your nose, like you're genuinely thinking about it; the corner of your mouth lets him know you're not. "Luggage tags?"
He laughs. "Okay. Luggage tags." He dips you. He feels, through the hand on your back, the way your breath catches. "I'll see what I can do."
He brings you up from the dip slow, close. He lets his eyes linger. Your mouth is an inch away from his, less, even, and he watches your lips part and then feels as you press them to his, and
-
No. You wouldn't do that.
-
He brings you up from the dip slow, close, and it's nothing, nothing at all, to lean in and kiss you.
He presses his hand into your back, and cradles your face with the other. He walks you backwards until you are pressed against a wall, and moves his mouth over yours, deep and unhurried, like he can kiss away your husband. Like he can erase the reception, and the altar, and everything that came before.
You seem surprised at first, suspended for a moment, only a moment, before you thaw to his touch. Your hands rise to his chest; his face; they wind up around his neck, your head tipping back against the brick behind you. You open your mouth first. When he mirrors the movement, when his tongue finds to yours, you make a sound, into his mouth. A soft one. A small one.
He pulls you closer.
Your hands are in his hair. He can feel the heat of your body through your dress, the whole length of it, and the dress goes down to your ankles but that doesn't stop him from reaching down, reaching under, those expensive shoes of yours giving you enough height that he is able to run a hand up between your knees and your thighs and. And.
"Fuck." He breaks away to say it. You're wet already, enough that it's soaked through your underwear, which is so delicate to the touch it might as well not be there at all. White lace, he assumes. He wants to pull it off you with his teeth. "Is this for him or for me?"
Instead of answering, you close the distance, letting him taste the champagne on your tongue again.
He thinks about that, that non-answer, thinks about it over and over as he pulls your underwear to the side and presses his fingers into you, or
-
"Is this for him or for me?"
Instead of answering, you lean in—but he pulls back, keeping the distance between his lips and yours. "Come on," he says, his voice low. "Use your words."
"I." He pulls those stupid lacy panties to the side, teasing his fingers at your entrance, and you make the softest sound, less whimper than sob. "Please don't make me answer that."
And then you kiss him, and he's so stunned he lets you, or
-
"For him or for me?"
You lean in, he pulls back—but not so far. Not even enough to see you, really, just far away enough that he can talk without you swallowing the sound.
"Please," he says, letting his forehead rest against yours. "Please just say it."
You hesitate, or
-
"Please," he says, "I know I don't deserve it, but—I need to hear it. Even if it's not true. Please."
You press back. He lets himself meet your gaze. There is a light shimmer across your eyelids, or else nothing at all; your lipstick is a mess, or perfectly intact; your eyes are a little glossy. A little red.
"You," you finally say. "You. Always you."
He kisses you again at the same time he slides a finger into you, so that he can taste the gasp you let out. You are hot around him, hot and soft and wet, and he drags his thumb up, looking for your clit, and he knows he's found it because he can feel the exact moment you start to have trouble kissing him back.
"You're so beautiful," he says, and he feels the way you throb around him at the words.
"Ryland—"
"You are," he says, and you just said his name with his fingers inside you and he is going to be cool about it, he is not going to get distracted, he is going to be so focused and so normal. "You are, you always are, I should have told you—I've thought about this for so long—"
He gets his other hand up to your torso, letting one strap slip off your shoulder so that he can cup your chest, dragging a thumb over a nipple and smiling against your mouth when you arch into the touch.
"Me too," you say. The words slip out of you, ragged, like they're something you weren't expecting, or weren't supposed to say aloud. You're clinging to his shoulders, nails digging into his back as your fingers twitch, as you try to keep upright, try to keep from falling apart—but he can feel the way your breath catches. He can feel the flutter of your walls around him, and he knows, he knows he can get you there, knows moments before it happens that he is going to make you fall apart here, now, against a garden wall, thirty feet away from your own wedding reception.
He breaks away to kiss up your neck, below your ear. "Come on," he says, and the sound you make is so devastating that he has no choice but to return his mouth to yours. "Come for me. Come for me, please—it's you, it's you, too, it's always been you—"
He wants to watch your face, but you kiss him desperately, one hand pulling him closer by the hair like you're trying to muffle yourself, and so he settles for the feel of you, your mouth and your moans and the way they vibrate through you both as you finish around his fingers.
He keeps kissing you through the whole thing.
Softer, when the aftershocks begin. Gentle against your lips; then, when the hand on the back of his head loosens, he moves to your cheek, your eyelids, your temple. Your forehead.
When he pulls his fingers out of you, you let out one last sound—more sigh than anything else. Leg returning to the ground. He narrowly resists the urge to take his own fingers, the fingers still wet with you, into his mouth. Instead, with his other hand, he helps fix your strap, and takes a step back to look at you as you lean against the wall.
You press a thumb beneath each eye, wiping gently. "You promised you wouldn't ruin my makeup."
"I said I wouldn't make you cry," he says. You reward him with a laugh that is tiny and gorgeous and a knife to his heart. "Come back with me."
You pause. "What?"
"Don't go back in there. I have a hotel room, Colt's hotel room. We can—"
"No." You step away from him. "I can't. This was." Your hands run over your dress, trying to smooth new wrinkles out of the fabric. "Shit. We shouldn't have. I shouldn't have. I just stood up in front of everyone and said—I promised—"
"Seems like an empty fucking promise, at this point."
"It's not. It's not." You shake your head frantically. "This was just a mistake. I'm married."
"Sure." He feels like he's about to throw up. "You've got husband number one under your belt. Family tradition, right?"
You go still. Your eyes flick up to meet his, and he feels it in his throat. "Glad to see you haven't changed," you say. Then it's back to business—tucking up a strand of hair, checking your lipstick, not even looking at him as you walk away.
He watches you go, or
-
"Come back with me," he says. "I'm sure there are tickets left, on the same flight. Or we can wait for the next one. Come home."
"This is home, for me." There's a tiny divot between your brows, the one you always get when you are confused, or irritated, or infuriated, and it's there now and he wants to press his lips to it but you are out of reach. "My whole life is here. My apartment, my friends, my marriage."
"What about me? I'm here. I'm here now."
"Yeah." You press two careful hands to your face. There are tears there. He wants to wipe them away, but when he steps forward, you counter with a step back. "I think I was a little better off when you weren't."
You turn, or
-
"Come back with me. Or, or, or I can miss my flight. I can stay."
"I'm married. I have a husband."
"He doesn't have to know. We don't have to tell anyone, we can. Just tonight, or—"
You shake your head, or
-
"Come back with me. Please." You are starting to blur before him, and he doesn't know if it's tears or memory or three years of distance, and he does not care. "Everything is a mess. All of it. I have no idea what I'm doing. Most days I don't—I can't—I don't know anything, but I know that I have been in love with you for ten years, and you have to. You have to at least let me tell you that. You have to know."
You are farther away than before. You are very still.
"You haven't been in love with me for ten years," you say quietly. "You haven't even seen me since—" Your face is calm. The dampness on your cheeks, the red-rimmed eyes, all gone. "You don't know me anymore."
"I do know you." He steps forward. It doesn't bring him any closer. "I do."
"No, Ryland." The kindness in your voice is the cruelest thing he's ever heard. "You don't."
"No?"
"No."
-
No.
-
It's no use.
He doesn't know how long he's been sitting here, looking at the blue envelope. The yellow dress. The loop-tailed y.
It doesn't matter. None of it matters. His career is over and his mother is dying and all he can do is sit here, in an empty house, staring and staring and staring, and no matter how many times he runs the simulation, adjusts the variables, charts and recharts the data, the verdict is the same: there is no sensible world in which you would choose him over a man who was smart enough to kiss you and brave enough to be honest about the reason why.
He looks at the photo again.
You look happy.
He marks three Not Attendings, putting the card aside to bring to the hospital. The registry site remains open on his laptop. He'll pick something off of it, labeled with his mom's name. His mom's, and Colt's. The best thing he can do for you, he understands now, is leave you alone.
-
Months later, in a classroom, scrolling over a break, he sees a post from your brother. A photo album. Green centerpieces on the tables; sunflowers; your hair hanging loose and your smile radiant as your new husband dips you.
Your reception dress was short, not floor-length. Fringed, not satin.
He adds it to the list of things he was wrong about, and goes back to work.
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