kiss your screen every time you see a typo or grammatical error in my fics because it means it's home grown and not some ai bullshit and im dead serious about this
pairing⠀⁎⠀colston loveland x graduate student!reader.
word count⠀⁎⠀11.7k.
summary⠀⁎⠀michigan is as much an academic powerhouse as it is an athletic one, which makes for an interesting campus environment; something she experiences firsthand when the very determined freshman starting tight end strolls into her office hours with a plan.
author's note⠀⁎⠀not proofread tbh. to clarify, the reader is not a graduate student yet, that's just the same of the series lol. if you're a michigan student and see inaccuracies, use your imagination or look away please, i took several creative liberties.
warnings⠀⁎⠀2nd person [you/your], fluff & suggestive, reader is explicitly a black woman who is around a year older than colston.
“No...” Colston muttered to himself, holding down the backspace to delete the message he had been working on for the last five minutes. With a sigh, he let his phone fall to rest on his thigh, running his palms down his face in exasperation. He had showered and changed after practice, and was sitting in the busy locker room waiting for meetings and film sessions to start.
Over the last two weeks, he had gotten really good at talking to you through your DMs. So good that he had no issues falling into that playful bickering you both did when you were in front of him. But now, the locker room was buzzing with the echoes of cleats shuffling across tile and the occasional bark of laughter bouncing off the metal lockers. It was far too much noise for him to think straight.
Before his shower, he managed to find the right words to ask if you were going to the game this weekend. He had thought about it all week, but now, with only a few days until Saturday afternoon, he suddenly couldn’t manage to form a coherent sentence.
Your reply seemed pretty open-ended, a yes with the added:
Only the tailgate though. I usually watch the game at my apartment with my roommates.
Theoretically, this could be an easy layup, a simple, straightforward proposition. He typed, deleted, then retyped the message three times before finally sending:
You should come watch me for real.
His thumb hovered over the screen, heartbeat thudding in his ears louder than the locker room chaos. Before he could overthink it, he tapped send and immediately flipped his phone face-down on the bench, as if the message might bare its teeth and nip him. The buzz of a reply came quicker than expected. He turned it over slowly, like lifting a bandage.
I could. Hypothetically.
That was his go-ahead.
Hypothetically, if I score, you think I could get your number?
Despite having known you for a month and a week, you still hadn’t given Colston your phone number. He stared at his phone, watching as the typing indicator appeared. His gut twisted as he imagined you rolling your eyes at his audacity, lips pursed in that way they did when you were deciding whether he was more amusing or annoying. Finally, your reply popped up:
Hypothetically you could.
Colston’s fingers twitched against his phone screen, the corners of his mouth betraying him as they lifted into a grin he couldn’t suppress. He typed:
Hypothetically, I like those odds. You need tickets?
Depends. My dad’s coming to this one so if my mom stays home this week, I’ll be with him.
Colston froze mid-read. You hadn’t spoken much about your families. At most, he could comfortably say that you had two brothers, an older one who graduated from Michigan the previous Spring, and a younger one who was still in middle school. But beyond that, he really didn’t know anything about your parents. He hadn’t known that your parents seemingly attended games, regularly enough that you could casually mention your mom staying home this week specifically.
Your dad went to Michigan?
The text sat unanswered for a full minute, long enough for Colston’s stomach to knot itself into a knot, worried he was overstepping.
He played outside linebacker for Michigan in the 90s.
You replied, followed by a second message:
So yes, he’ll have tickets.
You think I could meet him?
You could.
Colston’s breath caught in his throat when he read the words—not just the offer, but the casual confidence of it. Like you already knew he’d say yes. Like you wanted him to say yes.
I’m down. Tell me where to meet you.
[ . . . ]
When you told Colston you didn’t usually attend games past the tailgates, you were being truthful. Growing up with a Michigan alum father meant you’d spent your childhood drowning in maize-and-blue Saturdays, sometimes glued to the couch, sometimes tucked into stadium seats, fingers numb from cold soda and colder November winds. By the time you enrolled and attended a few games in the student section, the magic of Saturdays at the Big House had dulled into simply a socially acceptable opportunity to drink before noon.
Your dad did his best to attend most home games in person. He had access to great seats, tailgates with the brothers of Kappa Alpha Psi—both your father and older brother pledged during undergrad—and most importantly, you had spent your entire childhood watching him cheer on the Wolverines with the same fervor he had when he was suited up in the nineties.
“It’s gettin’ close to kickoff,” your father mused, nudging your elbow as you adjusted the navy blue pullover, rolling the sleeves to keep your hands from drowning in them. Your father’s gaze flickered between you and the stadium gates ahead, his mouth quaking at the corners. “We’re about to head in. Are you headin’ back with Dakota? I could get y’all’s Uber—”
“Actually,” you said, hesitating just long enough for your father’s brow to arch, “I was gonna watch with you and Elijah.”
His smile deepened as he adjusted his Michigan cap covering the shine of his bald head. “Elijah’s already inside,” he said, nodding toward the stadium, both of you starting toward the entrance. “But I ain’t heard you volunteer to sit through four quarters since you were sixteen and tryin’ to impress that linebacker’s kid.” He paused, tilting his head. “So who is it this time?”
You rolled your eyes, tugging at the hem of your long-sleeved navy blue baby tee. “I just wanted to keep you company,” you lied. He chuckled low in his throat, the sound rumbling like distant thunder in his chest. It was a sound you knew meant he wasn’t buying it for a second.
“I got your brother to keep me company,” he said, fishing his phone from his pocket as you walked through the gates, flashing his digital pass to the attendant. “Didn’t know I’d need another.” He swiped to a second ticket, thumb hovering.
“Mind you, Elijah left you to ‘go get drinks’ twenty minutes ago,” you pointed out, nudging your father’s shoulder as you navigated the crowded concourse. The scent of salted snacks clung to the air, mingling with the distant roar of the marching band. He hummed, sliding his phone back into his pocket after being waved through the metal detectors.
The stadium seats groaned beneath your father’s weight as he settled in, elbows resting on his knees, eyes already scanning the field as players warmed up. You perched beside him, suddenly hyperaware of every jersey number streaking across the turf below.
“What do you miss most?” you asked, buying yourself some time to locate Colston’s number among the blur of helmets and padded shoulders. Your father exhaled through his nose, eyes tracking the defensive line drills below.
“The hitting,” he said after a beat. “That feeling of nailing the other guy. Not the waking up feelin’ like I got hit by a truck though.”
You laughed softly, scanning the sidelines until finding him. Colston crouched near the bench, adjusting his gloves. Even from this distance, you could see the wired focus emanating from him. He was much more rigid with this anticipation than the playful ease he wore around you, much more serious than the teasing tone that would accompany a raised eyebrow tossed your way.
“You see number 18 down there? By the bench,” he reached out a hand, pointing toward Colston’s crouched frame before glancing sideways at you. His fingers lingered mid-air, then slowly curled back.
“Freshman tight end from the middle of nowhere Idaho,” he murmured, more to himself than to you, eyes narrowing in appraisal. You took the opportunity to stare at him a little while longer. “Good hands. Nice height. Needs to work on his blocking. But he’ll be great. I can see it. He’s gettin’ drafted in a couple years. I’m callin’ it.”
Though Michigan’s passing game had been under question all season—and this game wasn’t too different, as your father loudly pointed out—you found yourself tracking Colston’s every move. It was hard not to. His towering frame cut through defenders like a blade through wheat, his strides long and purposeful.
The first time he was thrown the ball, your father leaned forward, muttering, “Watch him bring it down,” as Colston pivoted mid-air, twisting just enough to keep his toes inbounds before crashing onto the sideline. “Told you. Good hands.”
Walking away with a 34-3 victory, Colston had managed to snag two catches, nothing flashy, but enough to make you reconsider your stance on giving him your number. As the stadium emptied, you lingered near a player exit with your father, the crisp October air biting at your cheeks.
Your father crossed his arms, watching you with that same knowing amusement. “You have someone you want me to meet?” he echoed, sharing a glance with Elijah who shook his head with a deep chuckle.
You didn’t get a chance to respond before the exit doors swung open, releasing a flood of players still buzzing with post-win adrenaline. Colston emerged halfway through the pack, his jersey swapped for a crisp navy blue Michigan zip-up hoodie, hair a bit mussed from the towel he used to dry it after his shower. His eyes locked onto yours instantly, that same electric focus from the field softening into something warmer, more familiar. Then they flicked to your father and brother standing on either side of you.
Colston hesitated for only a heartbeat, enough for you to notice the way his fingers twitched where they held onto the strap of his university-issued backpack, before striding forward with that easy confidence you'd come to expect. Up close, the adrenaline still hummed beneath his skin.
His gaze flicked to your father’s outstretched hand before clasping it firmly. “Sir,” he said, deep voice roughened by the constant need to project his voice during the game. The respectful tilt of his chin made you bite your lip to hide a smile.
Colston’s grip lingered a second longer than necessary when he shook his hand. It wasn’t a challenge, but something deeper. You watched your father’s eyebrows lift in silent recognition, snapping his fingers when they finally released their hold. “Loveland,” he said, pointing at Colston’s chest.
Colston nodded, dapping up Elijah next with an effortless familiarity that you wouldn’t necessarily say you weren’t a fan of.
“Did you play here too?” Colston asked, his voice dipping into that easy curiosity he reserved for moments when he genuinely wanted to listen.
Elijah grinned, clapping him on the shoulder with a laugh. “Nah, man, I didn’t get the athleticism for real.”
Your father snorted, shaking his head. “Don’t let him fool you, he could’ve walked on if he’d bothered to try.”
Colston’s gaze flicked to yours mid-conversation, catching the way you were subtly rubbing your arms against the chill. Without breaking his stride in recounting his 4th and 15 catch to your father, who nodded approvingly at the technical details, Colston shrugged off his zip-up and handed it to you. The fabric was still warm from his body, carrying the faint scent of his cologne mixed with the smell of body wash. You hesitated, fingers brushing against his as you took it, feeling your brother’s eyes dart between you with amused suspicion.
The zip-up swallowed your frame, sleeves pooling past your fingertips as you tugged it closer, selfishly taking a moment to indulge in the scent of him so close to your nose.
Your father’s voice cut through your distraction.
“So... you know my daughter?”
Colston’s chuckle was low, rolling through the space between you like honey over gravel. “Yeah,” he said, hands dipping into his pockets, shoulders loose but not slouched. “She’s been putting up with me for a while now. Been helping me a lot with my psych class.” His gaze slid back to yours long enough for Elijah to elbow their father pointedly.
The corner of your father’s mouth twitched as he studied Colston’s profile. His broad shoulders stayed squared even in ease. His voice was gentle but self-assured. His eyes kept wandering back to you while you pretended not to notice the drifting focus.
“Psych class?” Your father mused, rubbing his chin. “She’s real smart, ain’t she?”
Colston’s grin curled slow and deliberate, his eyes finding your face again, “Smart enough to help me get an ‘A’ on my midterm.” The statement made him chuckle, deep and approving, before he turned to Elijah, muttering something about needing to find a restroom. Elijah smirked, dapping Colston again before following their father, tossing you a wink that made the heat of embarrassment crawl up your neck.
“I think he likes me,” Colston murmured as your family disappeared into the crowd, finally turning to face you head-on. “You know what that means.” He raised both eyebrows this time.
You scoffed, tugging the sleeves of Colston’s hoodie further over your hands as if they could hide the uneasy shift of your weight. “What does that mean, Colston?”
“Means I could get your number now,” Colston said, his voice dropping into that low register that sent an involuntary shiver down your spine. His thumb brushed against the side of his phone where it sat in his pocket. You rolled your eyes but couldn’t stop the smile tugging at your lips.
Quietly you held your hand out to him, palm upturned, fingers flexing impatiently. He handed over his unlocked phone with a smile, watching as your thumbs flew across the screen.
“You didn’t even score tonight,” you teased, pressing his phone back into his palm slowly. The stadium lights flickered overhead, casting shadows across the sharp angles of his face as he pocketed the device, his grin widening.
“Didn’t need to, apparently,” Colston shrugged, releasing a deep laugh. “You should come to more games.”
You tucked your hands deeper into the sleeves of Colston’s hoodie, your fingers brushing against the lining still warm from his body heat. “I’ll think about it,” you said, rocking back on your heels just enough for the platform of your sneakers to lift off the pavement.
An easy silence settled over you with the added background chatter of lingering fans and stadium staff packing up. You curled your fingers into the cuffs of Colston’s hoodie, thumbs brushing the soft fabric absently. You could feel his eyes on you like he had nowhere else to be.
Out of the corner of your eye you spotted your brother emerging from the restroom first, his gait deliberately sneaky as he approached. The way Elijah’s mouth curved into a smirk told you everything you needed to know. Colston cleared his throat beside you, catching the hint and straightening his posture slightly just as your father rounded the corner behind Elijah, arms crossed with a knowing smile on his face.
“I gotta head home. Will’s about to blow my phone up,” Colston announced, nodding to your father as he adjusted his backpack strap higher on his shoulder.
“Oh, your jacket—” you started, fingers already fumbling with the zipper, but Colston waved you off with a dimpled smile.
“Keep it,” he said, his voice softening. “I can get another one if I want.” Your fingers paused on the zipper, your nails catching the metal for a second before you let your hands drop back to your sides. You didn’t argue, mostly because you didn’t want to, but also because Colston was already stepping back, his broad frame casting a shadow over you.
“Text me when you get home,” he added, holding a hand out to your father one last time. “Sir.”
You knew the quiet that settled over your father and brother as they watched Colston saunter off wouldn’t last. Elijah broke first, elbowing your ribs before you could dodge. “Smart enough to help him get an ‘A,’ is crazy work,” he drawled, pitching his voice into a poor imitation of Colston’s distinctive twang. You shoved him hard enough to make him stumble, ignoring your father’s chuckle as he flagged down a rideshare.
“Didn’t I tell you not to get involved with athletes?” He mused as you piled into the Uber, his voice laced with amusement rather than reproach.
You rolled your eyes, shrugging deeper into Colston’s hoodie. Elijah snorted from the seat closest to the left-hand side window, twisting to shoot you a look that got him a middle finger and a guffaw from your father.
“He’s just my friend. Like barely,” you muttered into the collar of Colston’s hoodie, pressing your forehead against the cool glass of the Uber’s window.
[ . . . ]
Calling what you had going on “just being friends” proved to be a convenient excuse. You could feel the lie settle uncomfortably between your ribs every time you repeated it—to Aditi’s raised eyebrows, to Dakota’s knowing smirk, to your father’s hum of disbelief when you told him that Colston did indeed attend your office hours every single week.
Your texting had taken on a rhythm that felt increasingly normal. Both of you were busy so there wasn’t an unnatural pressure to feign waiting or pretend you weren’t checking your phones. You found yourself sending Colston snaps between classes. Sometimes it was a quick glimpse of your face, sometimes of something that reminded you of something you had spoken about days earlier, sometimes just to prove you weren’t dead after a particularly busy day when you couldn’t text him back much. Colston responded in kind. Often photos of himself making dumb faces, videos of his teammates wrestling in the locker room, blurry selfies in the mirror. It was comfortable, easy, and yet you couldn’t shake the feeling that it was teetering dangerously close to something much deeper entirely.
In all honesty, you wouldn’t say that you were entirely opposed to the idea of dating Colston specifically. As he had made sure to point out during your post-game rendezvous: your dad liked him despite his student-athlete status. That wasn’t insignificant either; your dad hated your ex (though he wasn’t an athlete), and you spent much too long attempting to write off your father’s distaste as overprotectiveness.
Beyond your father’s amused approval, you could write a full page’s worth of the Idahoan’s ‘pros’. If you hadn’t been busy with your job, the BSU’s fall events, your classes, and studying for upcoming exams, you probably would’ve taken the time to write such a list. You did, however, find the time to consider some of the most obvious pros in your head.
Number one: He was attractive.
Tall and broad with dark features that contrasted well from his tanned skin that was gradually growing lighter now that Ann Arbor was firmly experiencing the lowering temperatures of autumn. He was cute, with deep dimples in both cheeks that were always accompanied by a boyish grin that made your stomach flip every single time you saw it. He was tall too, tall enough that your head tilted back when you spoke to him, tall enough that you had to crane your neck to meet his chocolate brown eyes, tall enough that you had an excuse to press your palms against his bicep to steady yourself whenever you stumbled in his presence—something which happened frequently for reasons you refused to acknowledge aloud.
Number two: He was kind.
Kindness was a trait that you couldn’t say you paid much attention to in previous romantic experiences. But with Colston it was impossible to ignore exactly how kind he was—how kind he always was. He was the guy who held the door for other girls, even when they batted their eyelashes and made your jaw tighten involuntarily. He was the guy who carried the professor’s heavy briefcase up three flights of stairs when the building’s elevator broke down without complaint. He was the guy who paid attention to the way you shivered in cold lecture halls and always remembered to bring an extra hoodie just for you, slipping it over your shoulders with a quiet, “Here, you look cold,” like it wasn’t the most devastating thing in the world.
Number three: He was good company.
All too often you found yourself dumbing yourself down for the benefit of the men you spoke to. There was always a nagging voice formed of a worrying amalgamation of every draining, toxic, insecure man you had ever spoken to. It was the guys who told you you intimidated them. Or the guys who told you you needed to stop thinking so hard about things that absolutely needed to be considered deeply. It was definitely the guys who seemed to be obsessed with humbling you for the sake of their own egos. Colston wasn’t like that. He listened to you ramble about things you learned in your much more advanced psychology classes. He asked questions—intelligent ones—ones that had you scrunching your nose as you attempted to answer him in a way you knew would best resonate with him.
When Colston wasn’t letting you ramble, and watching you do so with those deep chocolate brown eyes, he was talking to you in a way you couldn’t say didn’t make you completely giddy either. He never hesitated to tell you how smart you were, how capable you were, how funny you were, how much he liked talking to you. You’d never been with a man who spoke to you so earnestly, with such deliberate, warm intention in every word. It was addicting in a way you didn’t think you’d be able to articulate even if you tried.
So, it was really unsurprising to anyone paying attention that you were spending more and more time outside of your office hours with the guy who had the easy kindness and intentional attention.
Colston was starting to know you really well, too. It had become a given that almost any time you found yourself alone with Colston, food was involved. When he came to loiter during your office hours in the psychology building, he brought snacks. When you studied together, he’d eventually ask if you wanted something from the vending machine, make a quick trip downstairs, and bring you something you liked in addition to the request you made.
Though October was second to November in terms of its busyness, you managed to find vignettes of time to slip in opportunities to be around Colston. It was predictable of you to smile softly to yourself when, three hours into studying at the library, a text from Colston popped up asking you:
You down for food?
You barely gave yourself a second to think before your thumbs were typing.
Depends on what you’re getting.
The light push you gave was met with a confident pull from Colston who replied:
Anything you want.
You bit the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling too wide. You glanced at the clock, realizing you had been pretty good on time, working through several assignments over the course of three hours in this spot. You figured you could use a break, and if you were being honest, you felt somewhat giddy at the prospect of seeing Colston.
I’m at Dude. What time are you going?
It was obvious that he was eager at the green light from the heart reaction that materialized next to your report on your location.
I’ll pick you up. Gimme 10.
Always a man of his word, sure enough, 10 minutes later Colston texted you that he had arrived and was parked outside waiting for you. You took your time gathering your things, smoothing your hands over your leggings, and adjusting your cream-colored sweater.
It was an oddly warm week for October in Ann Arbor. Though it wasn’t t-shirt weather, you hadn’t needed your coat since last Thursday. Today it was just the oversized sweater over your tank top.
You stepped out of the library into the fading daylight, scanning the parking lot for Colston’s Silverado. The truck sat idling near the curb, its windows not close to thick enough to mask the bass from his playlist thumping faintly against the pavement. Colston sat in the driver’s seat, his gaze focused on his phone, his left index finger tapping absently against the steering wheel.
You crossed the paved lot, your tote bag swinging gently against your hip, the sound of your sneakers nearly lost beneath the low rumble of Colston’s engine. He glanced up just as you reached the passenger side, his face splitting into that easy grin before he leaned across the console to pop the door open for you.
“Hey,” you murmured as you climbed into the truck.
The cab of the truck smelled faintly of pine air freshener and something warm and earthy, probably Colston’s cologne lingering in the fabric of his sweatshirt. You settled into the seat, your legs stretching long in front of you, knees brushing the underside of the glovebox as you pulled the door shut.
“Where’re we headed?” Colston asked, shifting the truck into reverse to pull out from the curb, his upper body twisted as his right arm reached behind your seat to allow him to look back.
Colston ran hot. That was something you figured out very early on. Anytime he wore a hoodie it was only a matter of time before he was tugging at the neckline, his shoulders shifting under the fabric as if his own body heat was too much to contain. Most of the time he slipped the hoodie off entirely, revealing a snug t-shirt underneath—one that did nothing to hide the way his shoulders filled the space between the fabric.
Today was no different. His hoodie lay in a tiny heap on the backseat, the sleeves of his fitted black tee pulling taut across his biceps as he maneuvered the truck. You watched his forearm flex when he shifted gears, the veins standing stark against his skin.
You were staring.
You were staring hard.
You blinked, tearing your gaze away from Colston’s forearm just as he settled back into his seat, his fingers curling loosely around the steering wheel. The music dipped into something slower, the bass pulsing low and steady around a Miguel song you vaguely recognized.
“Umm…” you cleared your throat. “What about Culver’s?”
Colston nodded, tapping the steering wheel twice before flicking his blinker on. “Culver’s it is.”
There was that country drawl. Sticky sweet like molasses, oozing over your skin with each syllable. You kept your hands folded in your lap, the pads of your thumbs pressing into your knuckles as if you could anchor yourself with the dull pressure.
Colston drove like he spoke, unhurried and deliberate, steering with one hand while the other rested lazily on the gearshift. You caught yourself watching the way his fingers drummed absently against it, the rhythm syncing with the song’s bassline. You swallowed and forced your gaze out the window, where the October dusk painted the campus in gold and violet. The trees lining the road blurred past, their leaves clinging stubbornly to branches despite the season’s insistence on letting go.
“You were studying?” He asked, glancing over at you before returning his gaze to the road.
You nodded, your fingers twisting the hem of your sweater. “Yeah, just psych stuff. Nothing exciting. I have an exam next week. I’m a little behind though.”
He scoffed. “You? Behind? Doubt that.” The corner of his mouth hitched up, revealing one of the dimples you’d caught yourself staring at more than once.
You rolled your lips together, urging yourself to focus on the conversation instead of the way his throat moved when he swallowed, how the muscles flexed beneath his skin, how his Adam’s apple bobbed slightly.
“Yes, I’m behind. I wanted to start studying for this test the other day when you came to my office hours. But you and that big ass head of yours were so distracting that I didn’t get shit done,” you said, grinning as you turned to look at him.
Colston’s laugh burst from him, deep and resonant, filling the cab of the truck with a warmth you felt in your chest. “My bad,” he said, shaking his head. His free hand came up to rub at the back of his neck, the fabric of his shirt straining against his shoulder as he moved. “Didn’t realize my big ass head was such a problem for your education.”
The Culver’s drive-thru line stretched longer than you expected for a Tuesday evening. Colston’s truck idled behind a beat-up sedan. You shifted in your seat, your knee brushing the center console as you pretended to scroll through your phone. You could feel the heat of him beside you, the way his presence seemed to take up more space than physically possible.
“Don’t look at my phone, Loveland,” you scolded, feeling his eyes flick toward your screen before you angled it away.
“What you hidin’ in that phone? Why can’t I look?” he leaned further over the center console, his shoulder pressing into yours. You could see the edge of his grin from your periphery, not wanting to look at him this close, knowing you’d get lost in the flecks of amber in his brown eyes.
Your hand reached to push his face away, laughing. “Personal shit, nosey. Back up. They don’t teach manners in Idaho?”
Colston’s grin only widened as he leaned back into his seat, though his shoulder lingered against yours for a heartbeat longer. “I was taught to share,” he said, his voice a lazy rumble. “You’re real stingy right now.”
“You’ll live,” you shot back.
The line inched forward, and Colston turned his eyes back to the drive-thru line. “What if I don’t?” he asked, the tease in his voice making your stomach tighten.
“You will.”
“I won’t.”
Your lips pursed into a straight line, attempting to tame your expression into something unimpressed. Colston grinned back at you.
“Colston.”
“I like when you say my name like that,” he murmured, licking his lips.
“I can’t stand you…” you muttered, your fingers gripping the phone tighter just as the vibration of an incoming text caught your attention. You angled the screen away again, catching the message from Aditi.
Are you with that freshman again?
You released a short puff of amused air through your nose, thumbing a quick reply while Colston inched the truck forward in line.
“You must be talking about me,” Colston said, his voice low and amused as he leaned over again, trying to catch a glimpse of your phone. “Lemme see.”
You jerked your phone away, pressing it against your chest. “No,” you said, drawing the word out with a whine. The corners of your mouth twitched despite your best efforts to keep a straight face. “Find something else to do.”
The menu board appeared a bit further in front of the hood of Colston’s truck, its bright letters glowing against the darkening sky. You tucked your phone into your lap, pressing your thighs together to keep it hidden as you studied the options. You didn’t need to look, you always got the same thing, but the act gave you an excuse to avoid Colston’s lingering gaze.
“You don’t need to look,” he said as he continued to openly stare at you, his eyes tracing the curve of your jaw before flickering down to where you were pressing your thighs together.
“I do,” you insisted through the clearing of your throat.
Colston’s gaze was almost a physical thing, warm as direct sunlight, heavy as a loaded touch. You could feel it tracing the line of your throat, the dip of your collarbone where your sweater slipped just slightly off one shoulder. The truck was too small suddenly, the A/C blowing the scent of his cologne toward you. You inhaled, then immediately regretted it when the smell lodged itself in your lungs, almost forcing your eyes to flutter with a roll of pleasure before you caught yourself.
“You always get the same thing,” Colston pointed out, the knowing dismissiveness in his voice pulling your attention back to him. His fingers tapped the steering wheel again, that same lazy rhythm. “Butterburger, two patties, with pickles, lettuce, no onions, extra cheese, and bacon. You want a large side of fries and a small vanilla concrete mixer with Snickers pieces.”
Your breath caught. The precision of it, the way he rattled off your order without hesitation, without even glancing at the menu, sent a pulse of heat straight to your core. You blinked at him, your lips parting slightly before you pressed them together, willing your face not to betray the way your stomach had just flipped.
He was rolling forward and easing his window down before you had time to recover. The sharp metallic click of his seatbelt unlatching made you realize you hadn’t even noticed him unbuckling. Colston leaned out slightly, his deep voice effortlessly rattling off both his order and yours, exactly as he’d recited it, without missing a single modification.
You slowly reached for your phone while Colston ordered, texting Aditi.
That freshman just told me my entire order from memory… please come pick me up off the floor.
Is she purring…?
And is.
Real loud.
Colston pulled forward again after hearing his total. His fingers reached for his phone to pay. “Talking about me again?”
“Are you gonna let me pay this time?” you challenged, though you already knew the answer.
“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p’ with a soft smile.
“Then yes. I am talking about you.” Your voice came out lighter than you intended, the tease softening the words as you tucked your phone between your thighs again. Colston’s chuckle was low, reaching through to tap his phone against the card reader held out to him by the cashier.
The truck filled with the scent of salted fries and caramelized meat as the bag of food was handed through the window, Colston’s large hand curling around the bag with an ease that made your throat tighten. It was becoming evident that damn near everything this man did—twisting a cap off a bottle, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel, breathing—had an effect on you.
It wasn’t a secret that these hangouts were thinly veiled excuses to orbit each other. You knew Colston was interested. You knew it from the way he angled his body toward you whenever you spoke, from the way he openly flirted with you, from the way his gaze lingered on your lips when you spoke.
But they hadn’t gotten around to talking about it. And you weren't the type to push. Not when you could savor the delicious tension, the slow burn of anticipation curling low in your stomach every time he looked at you like that.
“This is… yours,” Colston said, handing you the burger and fries after pulling into an empty parking space. But the tease on his tongue couldn’t be held back. “Did I do good?”
You took the warm bag from Colston’s hands, your fingers brushing against his knuckles. “Mhmm…” you hummed quietly, avoiding his gaze. You could feel Colston watching you, his eyes tracing the way your fingers pinched a fry between them before popping it into your mouth.
“I see how it is,” Colston murmured, unwrapping his own burger with a slow, even nod. The crinkle of paper sounded obscenely loud in the confined space of the truck cab. “Took my perfect order and won’t even thank me.” He took a bite, his lips wrapping around the burger, his eyes still focused on your face.
You finally lifted your eyes to meet his gaze, chewing on another fry slowly just to watch his jaw tighten. The dim glow from the parking lot lights cast shadows across his face, deepening the hollows beneath his cheekbones, making the curve of his lips seem fuller.
“You want a thank you?” You arched an eyebrow, plucking a fry from your own bag and holding it out to him.
Colston leaned in, his breath warm against your fingers as he took the fry from you. He chewed slowly, never breaking eye contact. “That wasn’t a thank you,” he said, swallowing. “You can do better than that.”
“I don’t thank men,” you stated simply.
A smile tugged at the corner of your lips as the two of you continued to stare at each other. Colston stopped his chewing, lowering his burger slowly to the wrapper spread across his lap. You broke after a few seconds, giggling quietly when Colston’s fingers brushed against your thigh and snatched another fry from your bag.
“I’m takin’ this one,” he muttered under his breath, snagging the fry and popping it into his mouth.
You narrowed your eyes but didn’t stop him.
“And next time, I’m snatching that phone,” Colston added, taking a large bite of his burger.
You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “I’ll have you arrested for theft.”
You stole a glance at him as you unwrapped your burger, the crinkle of paper mingling with the steady hum of the truck’s engine. Colston grinned, his teeth sinking into another bite, his jaw working with a rhythm that you couldn’t help but track.
“Deadass?” he laughed out loud, receiving a humored glare from you.
“Dead the fuck,” you confirmed with a grumble.
Colston wiped his fingers on a napkin, crumpling it into a tight ball before tossing it into the empty bag at his feet. You watched the movement then forced your gaze away just as he turned his attention back to you.
“Can I have your fries?” Colston’s voice dropped.
Your brows furrowed. Your glossed lips formed a pout, angling your body away from him. “Absolutely not,” you said. “I gave you one and then you stole from me.”
His fingers twitched toward your fries again, and you swatted his hand away with a sharp little smack that did nothing to deter the amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Hands to yourself,” you warned.
The tight end persisted with a repeated, “Lemme get one,” met with your repeated, “No.” Colston leaned across the console, his arm brushing against your sweater as he made a grab for your fries again. You twisted away, pressing your back against the passenger door, your thighs tightening around the bag of food in your lap.
“You’re so greedy,” you accused, your voice lilting with laughter despite your feigned indignation.
“You won’t let me get none,” Colston rumbled, his voice dipping into that honeyed drawl.
Your fingers tightened around the paper bag as Colston made another playful lunge for your fries, his bulk shifting the entire truck with the movement. You shrieked at the feeling, laughing out a comment about his weight making them tip over while your free hand shoved at his chest.
“I’m gonna find your mother on Facebook and tell her about this,” you muttered with narrowed eyes once Colston prevailed, triumphantly plucking a fry from your bag now in his hands.
Colston shrugged. “These’ll be digested by then.”
“Whatever…” you muttered, reaching across to snatch his phone from the center console.
He watched as you skipped through his playlist, eventually landing on a song you recognized. You swiped to his camera without unlocking the phone, flipping it to face him before snapping a series of pictures. First of Colston mid-bite, two fries inches from his mouth. The flash illuminated the cab for a brief second, casting shadows that made his cheekbones look sharper, his jawline more pronounced. Then several of yourself, angling the phone to best capture the golden light of the sun setting hitting your skin. You made sure to snap one last photo of both of you, not before scolding him to smile normally instead of just blinking “like a serial killer.”
“There’s your thank you,” you hummed pleasantly, setting the phone back onto the center console. “My face in your phone.”
“Your face in my phone,” he muttered, rough fingers dragging down his thigh like he needed somewhere to put the restless energy suddenly humming under his skin. “That’s all I get?”
“Don’t be like that. I know you like my face,” you teased, leaning back against the seat with a satisfied smile.
“I’m takin’ you home. Gettin’ out of hand, young lady,” Colston shook his head, chewing the last of your fries before crumbling up the paper and throwing it into the bag with the rest of the discarded wrappers.
[ . . . ]
The warmth from that Culver’s outing, which under slightly different circumstances would’ve qualified as a full-blown date, carried you through a tough midterm exam, two papers, a weekend cold front, and all the way to another Wednesday spent sitting next to Colston during your empty office hours.
He had some work to do for another class so you hadn’t spoken much aside from the occasional glance whenever he paused to think, fingers tapping his pencil against his notebook. You focused most of your attention on notetaking for a paper you would be asked about on your second midterm of the semester.
His sudden question of, “What are you doing for Halloween?” prompted you to lift your head and meet his eye.
“Couple parties with my friends,” you shrugged, leaning your head against your palm. “BSU is hosting a Karaoke Night tomorrow, too. What about you? Isn’t this your Bye Week?”
The smile that appeared on his face grew slowly, spreading Grinch-like and punctuated by the famous twin dimples.
You groaned out loud, letting your head fall.
“You remembered it’s my Bye Week,” Colston murmured, tilting his head to get a good look at your face. You pressed your pen harder against your notebook, leaving a mark you'd get annoyed with later.
“I have a good memory. We know this,” you muttered with a shrug, avoiding his eyes by flipping a page in your notebook. The corner of the paper bent under your fingers. “Don’t let it go to your already massive, square head.”
Colston’s chuckle vibrated through the small office space. “Square head?” He reached up to rub at his buzzed hair, fingers tracing the sharp angle of his fade. “Where did you hear that at? You talk to other guys on the team?”
“Why? I can’t talk to other guys?” You challenged, though you still couldn’t look at him.
Colston’s fingers stilled against his notebook, his teasing grin softening into a more serious tone. “You can,” he said, voice dropping to that low, graveled register that always made your pulse stutter. “That’s just the first thing they say about me when they talk about me. ‘Square head ass.’” His lips quirked again, but his eyes held yours.
“That’s the first thing they say about you because it’s the first thing people notice once they get over the height,” you laughed quietly, matching the intensity of his gaze.
“So you finally got over the height?” Colston leaned back in his chair, the plastic creaking under his weight.
He was teasing you, openly dropping hints that he was aware of your lingering glances and your inability to ignore the sheer size of him.
You fought the urge to flip your hair over your shoulder defensively. “The height was never an issue,” you lied smoothly. “I just felt bad for you. Six-five and constantly hitting that head on doorframes, must get old.”
Colston’s laughter filled the tiny office, deep and rich like slow-poured maple syrup. “Doorframes? Baby, I duck. But since you’re so concerned about my wellbeing—“
“I’m concerned about your Halloween plans,” you interjected, twirling your pen between your fingers. The plastic squeaked under the pressure of your grip. “Since you asked about mine first.”
“I was thinking about hittin’ a party on the 29th. A couple guys on the team know the hosts. But all my people are booked. Mason is rehabbing his shoulder, Will’s at home this whole week, and Alex has some exam he’s been cryin’ about for some days now.” Colston shrugged, the broad line of his shoulders stretching the fabric of his Michigan hoodie. He tapped his pencil against the notebook absently, eyes flickering over your face like he was waiting for something.
You bit the inside of your cheek, the pen still spinning between your fingers as you studied the way Colston stared back at you. There were a lot of ways you could play this. You could be bold, invite yourself along. But you weren’t that girl. You could be coy, make him beg you to come. But you weren’t that girl either.
Instead, you let the pen still and shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t have plans for the 29th,” you said, voice casual, like it didn’t matter either way.
Colston’s pencil stopped mid-tap. The silence between you stretched just long enough for you to regret speaking at all, until his mouth curved into that slow, knowing grin that always made your stomach flip. When the clock ticked by three seconds, you finally broke, dropping your head to laugh aloud at how predictable you were, how predictable you both were.
“We could meet up at the party,” Colston suggested, trying to be nonchalant as he rubbed his palms over his jeans. You recognized it immediately, the same way you recognized the way his eyes flickered to your lips when you giggled again. “If you’re down.”
[ . . . ]
You tried to assure your nervous system over and over that there was absolutely nothing to be nervous about. This was just another Halloween party. This was just another hangout. This was just another time where you would be spending time with Colston in a platonic, casual way. But the way you kept adjusting your green corset in Aditi's full-length mirror suggested otherwise.
Considering this was a house party and you wouldn’t know who you might run into, you decided you needed to come up with another costume specifically for this party. You’d scrolled TikTok for at least 45 minutes before you finally settled on a Tinkerbell-inspired costume that you could throw together with items already in your possession. The green corset was Aditi’s, Dakota gave you a pair of sparkly, flimsy Party City fairy wings, and—conveniently—the shortest skirt you owned was white to match the clear platforms you bought on an impulsive online shopping trip a few months ago.
You smoothed your hands over the snug corset one last time, twisting to check the back in the mirror. The wings fluttered precariously, the cheap glue already peeling at the edges, but the overall effect was whimsical enough.
You flipped the light switch on Aditi’s wall as you exited, releasing a small yelp when your heel caught in Aditi’s rug and almost sent you sprawling onto the hardwood. The sound drew Aditi’s attention away from her textbook, her brow quirking as she took in your precarious balancing act.
“Are you trying to snap your ankle before the party even starts?” Aditi asked dryly, tossing a highlighter onto her notes. “That’s not cute.”
You shot her a glare, steadying yourself against the doorframe. “I’m fine. Just breaking in these death traps,” you muttered, bending to adjust the strap on your left heel before straightening.
Aditi’s eyes flicked over your costume, lingering on the way the corset cinched your waist, the way the white skirt barely skimmed the tops of your thighs.
“You look good as fuck, girl,” Aditi conceded, though her approval came with an asterisk. “Too good for a ‘just friends’ hangout. No man deserves all this.”
You rolled your eyes, shoving your phone into the tiny purse hanging from your wrist. “It’s Halloween. Everyone looks good as fuck.”
Aditi hummed, unconvinced, but let it drop as you checked your reflection one last time in the hallway mirror, smoothing a hand over your hair. You had added a glittery body oil to your brown skin on a whim that seemed to have paid off from the way Aditi’s eyes roamed over every inch of your exposed skin.
The corset pushed your breasts up just enough to make the neckline feel daring without crossing into indecent territory—not that you thought you would care much about that line once you were at the party. Not when you daydreamed about Colston’s hands mapping the dip of your waist if the opportunity showed itself.
“Check me?” You prompted your best friend who was already taking in your makeshift costume.
Aditi nodded without saying a word, watching you turn in a slow circle to ensure there were no tags, stains, or wardrobe malfunctions waiting to happen. You caught your own reflection seeing the corset pulling your posture straighter, the glitter on your collarbones catching the overhead light, the way your lashes fluttered when you glanced at your phone to check the time.
“I gotta go,” you murmured, leaning over the back of the couch to offer your best friend a loose hug. “He said he’s there already.”
“How are you coming back?” Aditi questioned, fingers turning the page of her textbook.
“He said he wasn’t planning on drinking much so we’ll Uber back together,” you replied.
“Okay,” Aditi murmured with a nod. “Have fun, stay out of stupid shit, and make good choices.” She reached out to adjust your wings where they were already starting to slip. “Say no to drugs. Nancy Reagan is looking up at us. Make her proud.”
You laughed at that, squeezing her once more before turning over your shoulder to head downstairs where your Uber driver was just a minute out from arriving. The crisp October air bit at your bare legs the moment you stepped outside, sending a shiver up your spine as you opened the front door of your building. Your Uber arrived right on time, the driver eyeing your wings skeptically as you folded yourself into the backseat without snapping them.
The Uber pulled up to a house pulsing with bass, orange string lights zigzagging across the porch where clusters of costumed students spilled onto the lawn. You adjusted your wings one last time before stepping out, the cold air pricking your skin as you navigated through laughing groups holding red cups. You paused to text Colston, fingers hovering over your screen, then jumped when someone shrieked your name.
The shriek belonged to Willow, a Business major from your Business Calculus class you frequently crossed paths with around campus. The girl’s red devil horns wobbled as she lunged forward to squeeze your arm, already slurring compliments about your costume between giggles. You laughed, squeezing her back but scanning the crowd over Willow’s shoulder as the girl rambled about how she’d just been talking about the class you had attended together earlier.
Your fingers tightened around your phone as Willow’s group pulled you into a whirlwind of compliments and blurry selfies. You laughed when someone shouted that Tinkerbell needed a Peter Pan, but your eyes kept flicking past them, searching the crowd. Then you finally caught sight of him. Colston’s broad shoulders cut through the partygoers like a ship through waves, a red plastic firefighter hat slightly askew as he navigated toward you with two drinks clutched in one hand, his phone in another.
You waved, breaking out into a shy smile, waiting for him to make his way over to you.
Somehow, in between the time it took for you to experience that frenzied conversation with Willow and your eyes finding Colston, someone had managed to slink over to you. You felt fingers curl around your forearm, tugging you slightly off balance. The guy, some frat-looking dude in a Superman T-shirt, was already too close, his breath warm and sour against your ear as he slurred something about dancing. You tried to pull your arm away, your laugh tight and polite, but his grip tightened like he didn’t even register the discomfort in your posture.
Your polite laugh turned sharp as Superman’s fingers dug into your forearm. “I’m good,” you said, louder this time, twisting your wrist in his grip.
The guy, reeking of cheap beer and cologne, just grinned wider, his other hand landing on your waist like they were already mid-dance. Your platform heels wobbled dangerously as you tried to step back, the crowd pressing in around them.
Your pulse kicked up as Superman’s fingers tightened on your waist, your platform heel catching on uneven pavement. The world tilted until a large palm slid around your ribcage, steadying you with effortless strength. The scent of cedar enveloped you before you even saw him.
Colston’s grip was firm against your waist, his fingers splaying possessively as he pulled you upright against him. His voice, usually warm with laughter, dropped into something low and edged with warning.
“My man…” his eyes drifted over the state of the guy, disdain crossing his expression. “You good? Can I get you something?”
The guy’s grip slackened instantly, his smirk dissolving into slack-jawed recognition. “Oh shit—my bad, bro, I didn’t—” His words tangled into drunken mumbles as he stumbled back, hands raised like Colston had drawn a weapon instead of just leveling him with a look. You exhaled sharply, your shoulder blades pressing into Colston’s chest as he shifted you behind him without breaking eye contact with the guy, who was already vanishing into the crowd with a muttered apology.
Colston’s fingers stayed pressed against your lower back, warm even through the corset’s stiff fabric as you turned to face him. His thumb brushed your spine, just once to make sure you were set on your feet, before he pulled back slightly, scanning your face.
“You good?” His voice was quieter now, the edge smoothed over like river-weathered stone.
Your hand traveled down the length of his bicep before settling on his forearm where you squeezed, a silent affirmation slipping from your fingers before you could stop yourself.
“Yeah,” you murmured, voice steadier than you felt. “Just caught me off guard.” Your fingers lingered before you forced them back to your side, pretending you didn't notice the way his pulse jumped beneath your touch.
“He’s an asshole. Don’t let him ruin your night.” Colston’s words were quiet, just for you, his palm still warm against the small of your back as he guided you toward the drinks clutched in his other hand. You blinked at the seltzers before glancing up at him.
He shrugged, that slow grin creeping back. “Figured you’d want something when you got here. Didn’t want you to be waiting in line.”
He offered you the drink with a tilt of his head, plastic firefighter hat slipping further askew. You took it. The seltzer was cold, condensation dripping onto your wrist as you popped the tab and lifted it to your lips. Colston watched the movement, throat bobbing when you licked a stray drop from your thumb.
Colston popped the tab on his drink, taking a step back as he downed a slow sip, letting his eyes trace down your body. The corset cinched your waist, the white skirt hid nothing, your thighs subtly flexed from the height of the heels. His eyes crawled back up to meet your gaze.
You felt the heat crawl up your neck as you shifted your weight onto one foot, biting your lip when he finally hummed, “Can I be that guy and ask for a hug?”
You exhaled through your nose, lips quirking as you reached up to adjust his crooked plastic hat. “You already are that guy,” you murmured, fingers brushing the buzzed hair at his temple before you let your arms loop around his neck. Colston’s hands settled at the dip of your waist, thumbs pressing into the corset’s boning as he bent down just enough to compensate for the height difference, just enough to make your brain fill with static.
The hug seemed to last forever, neither one of you quite ready to let go of the feeling of your bodies pressed together. You inhaled deeply, the scent of Colston’s cologne filling your lungs. When you finally pulled apart, Colston’s fingers lingered at your waist, his fingers brushing against the satin edge of your corset absently.
“You look good,” Colston murmured, his voice a rough twang beneath the party’s bassline.
“So do you. I like the hat,” you teased, tapping the cheap plastic brim of his firefighter costume. “And the shirt.” Shamelessly, you let your hand run over his bicep, feeling the muscles flex underneath your palm.
“Are you cold?” he asked, clearing his throat after another long moment of intensely charged eye contact.
You nodded, “A little,” your fingers flexing around the cold seltzer can. Colston’s gaze flickered to the goosebumps rising along your arms before he offered to head inside, where the crush of bodies would at least provide some warmth.
You followed him, or rather, you tried to follow him. Typically you had some issue following behind him when you would walk side-by-side. With your platforms, that small issue was becoming much more pronounced. Colston was three steps into the crowd before he realized you weren’t keeping up, turning back to see you struggling to navigate the uneven ground in your heels. He laughed with that deep, warm chuckle and doubled back, extending his hand toward you.
You hesitated for half a second, just long enough for Colston’s grin to widen, before sliding your fingers between his. His palm engulfed yours completely, threading his fingers through yours as he adjusted his grip. The contact sent an electric current up your arm, settling somewhere between your ribs where your heart hammered against the corset’s stiff boning.
“This okay?”
You nodded, unable to bring about the right words with his thumb tracing circles on the back of your hand. The crowd pressed in around them, forcing Colston to pull you closer as he navigated toward a quieter corner where a few teammates lounged on couches. You recognized an athlete from one of your business classes who wolf-whistled at your intertwined hands before Colston shot him a look that had him practically falling over himself with laughter.
By the time you had a few more drinks in your system, any shyness that had influenced the giggles and shock you experienced when Colston had pulled you into his body was completely gone. The alcohol warmed your cheeks, your thighs pressing against his as you swayed to the music, the bass vibrating through the couch beneath you. You were grinding on him shamelessly, your fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck while his hands stayed planted firmly on your waist keeping it respectful, warming your body, but not venturing lower, no matter how much the corset pushed your body into his line of sight.
Your back pressed to his chest, you could feel the steady flutter of Colston’s breath against your shoulder blade. The music pulsed around you, bassline vibrating through the couch cushions, through the soles of your platforms where they hooked around his ankle. You arched into him just to hear his breath hitch, just to feel the way his hands tightened reflexively before easing again, holding himself back.
You had already danced on him plenty throughout the night, felt his hands gripping your waist tight when the music dropped and you rolled your hips back against him. You knew you were heading toward something irreversible. You had felt it in the way his breath hitched against your neck when you ground against him, in the way his lips just slightly hovered over your neck, in the way he spun you around to dance face to face when a Bad Bunny song came on—his fingers digging into your hips, eyes dropping to your lips—only for him to pull back at the last second.
You pouted, letting your hands shift from where they pressed against his chest to drape over his shoulders. “I really don’t mind,” you spoke over the music, letting one hand drift into the short dark brown hairs at the nape of his neck, tracing patterns there. You didn’t miss how his breath shuddered at the touch before he released a sharp exhale through his nose, forcing his grip to relax.
“I know…” he had murmured then, but didn’t continue any further, just turned you back around with his grip on your waist so you were facing away from him again, pressing your back flush against his chest as you danced. You rolled your eyes, letting your head fall back against his shoulder. Colston grinned against your neck, pressing a fleeting kiss to your pulse point, so quick you wondered if you imagined it.
You raised the issue again when you stood outside, pressed together after you whined about feeling cold, waiting for the Uber he had ordered to pull up. The autumn air bit at your bare skin, raising goosebumps along your collarbones as you leaned into Colston’s warmth, feeling his fingers rub warmth into your bare shoulders.
“So…” you hummed with a start.
You tilted your head back against Colston’s shoulder, the plastic firefighter hat long discarded somewhere in the party’s chaos. “So,” you repeated, softer now, your breath curling in the crisp air between you. “You’re really not gonna kiss me tonight?”
Colston’s hand stilled against your arm, his exhale warm against your temple. “Nah, not tonight,” he murmured. The streetlight caught the lighter areas in his brown eyes when he tipped his head down. “Not like this.”
You turned fully in his arms, your platform heels bringing you just high enough to meet his gaze without straining. The alcohol softened your edges, but the question in your eyes was sharp. “Not like what?”
Colston’s fingers traced idle patterns along your bare shoulder, his thumb catching the strap of your corset. “Not drunk,” he said quietly. The words vibrated through you where your bodies pressed together. “Not when I’ve been waiting to do it right.” His gaze dropped to your mouth, then back up, heavy-lidded. “You deserve a date first. Some flowers. Maybe a sunset.”
You scoffed, breaking into a gentle smile when he drew you back into his arms, pressing your cheek against his chest. You could hear his heartbeat, steady and strong beneath your ear. “Corny…” you drew out the word with playful exasperation, letting your arms wrap around his center, relaxing when you felt him do the same for you.
“I’m deadass,” he murmured into your hair, voice rumbling through you where your bodies pressed together. You felt his fingers flex against the small of your back, pulling you closer as a gust of wind sent autumn leaves skittering across the pavement. “You got a problem with sunsets?”
You laughed into his chest, sniffling against the cold. “I have a problem with you being so sure of yourself,” you muttered, but your fingers curled tighter into the fabric of his shirt.
The Uber’s headlights cut through the darkness then, painting you both in a temporary glow as it pulled to the curb. Colston didn’t let go, not even when his phone buzzed to alert him to the driver’s arrival. He just held you there, his palm warm against the curve of your spine, until you finally tipped your head back to meet his gaze.
“You better kiss me after our date,” you whispered softly.
He nodded. “I will.”
[ . . . ]
One of the pros that stuck with you when you finally sat down with Jeremy and Dakota at a small table in the corner of the Union between classes was that Colston, “Always did his best to keep his word.”
In the two months that you had gotten to know the tight end, it was increasingly harder to ignore how intensely Colston stood behind his word. He meant every word he said. There were no empty promises, no lies of omission. You were growing to know better than anyone how much his word meant to him.
When he texted you with details of a potential first date you could go on, you weren’t surprised.
You drove up a few miles to an apple orchard on the outskirts of town, Colston’s truck windows rolled down to let the crisp November air swirl between you. You picked apples, shared cider and donuts, and you laughed so hard you snorted when Colston tried and failed to befriend a wandering goat. The whole thing felt like something out of a movie with the golden afternoon light painting Colston’s profile in amber, his deep laughter rumbling through the cab of his truck as he stole glances at you between bites of the donut you held out for him between your fingertips.
By the time you made it back to your apartment, your cheeks hurt from smiling and your fingers were sticky with sugar. The sun had dipped low, painting the pavement in streaks of gold as Colston walked you to your door, your fingers loosely tangled between you. You swung your hands slightly, watching the way his thumb absently stroked the back of your knuckles as he talked about an ill-received prank pulled on one of the strength coaches.
Your apartment door loomed ahead, a Thanksgiving-themed doormat set out to match the red, brown, and orange wreath Jeremy chose to hang last week. A comfortable silence settled between you when you finally stopped in front of your door.
Just as Colston didn’t move to wish you a good night, you didn’t move to reach for your keys in your purse. Instead, he quietly murmured, “I really did have a good time today.”
You smiled, lacing the fingers of your free hand through his free hand, completing the circle between you. “Me too,” you admitted, taking in the way his eyes fluttered between yours. The air between you felt charged, heavy with all the things left unsaid, the same things that had been simmering beneath the surface since that first football game, since every lingering touch, every stolen glance.
He took a step closer to you, your feet almost touching on the welcome mat, and you could feel the heat radiating from his body even through your thick sweater. He dropped your hands gently, tugging you closer by your waist instead while his right hand tested a cup of your cheek.
You swallowed hard as his thumb traced the curve of your cheekbone, the calloused pad catching slightly on your skin. His pupils swallowed the warm brown of his irises when his gaze dropped to your mouth. “Can I?” he murmured, already leaning in, already breathing you in like you were oxygen and he’d been drowning.
You didn’t trust your voice when your pulse was hammering loud enough to drown out all coherent thought, so you nodded, pressing up onto your toes as his head dipped down. The first brush of his lips was tentative, almost questioning, as if he was memorizing the feel of your mouth. Then your fingers fisted in the front of his hoodie, tugging him closer, and whatever hesitation existed dissolved into something hotter, hungrier.
Your lips molded together perfectly, moving in perfect harmony with your softness yielding against Colston’s firmness, the faint taste of sweet cider lingering between you. You sighed into the kiss, fingers tightening in the fabric of his hoodie as his hand slid from your waist to the small of your back, pressing you closer until you could feel the hard planes of his body through your layers. His thumb brushed the hinge of your jaw, coaxing your mouth open just enough to deepen the kiss, and you melted against him, your pulse thrumming wildly beneath your skin.
You pulled back first, your breath shaky against Colston’s lips, your laughter bubbling up when you noticed the faint smudge of your berry-colored lip gloss transferred onto his mouth. His lips looked unfairly good stained with your shade. Soft pink turned deeper kiss-swollen, and you reached up instinctively to wipe it away with your thumb. Colston’s cheeks took on a pinkish hue under your touch, but he didn’t flinch, just grinned when your thumb lingered at the corner of his mouth.
“I can’t let you walk around like this,” you murmured, thumb still tracing the bow of Colston’s lip where your gloss shimmered. His breath hitched when your nail grazed the sensitive skin there, his grip tightening reflexively at your waist.
Colston’s lips twitched beneath your thumb, his voice dropping to that deep, honeyed timbre. “You sure?” His fingers flexed against your waist, pressing into the dip of your spine. “I don’t mind wearing your colors.”
“Maybe another time,” you whispered. The hallway lights were harsh, casting shadows that made his eyelashes look impossibly long where they brushed his cheeks. He hummed, leaning into your touch before you finally pulled away.
“I’m lookin’ forward to that.” His drawl seemed even lazier than normal, thick with subtle satisfaction. You could feel the way his breath warmed your face before he finally released your waist, stepping back, but not too far. Just enough to make you realize how much you immediately missed the heat of him.
Your fingers fumbled with your keys, the metal jangling louder than usual in the quiet hallway. Colston’s shadow stretched long across your welcome mat, his hands shoved into his pockets like he was physically restraining himself from reaching for you again. The door finally gave way with a click, and you turned to face him, one hand still gripping the knob as if it could steady you.
“Text me when you get back to yours,” you murmured, leaning against the doorframe to prolong the moment.
He nodded eagerly and promised he would, then took a final step back, turned over his shoulder, and walked down the hall. You watched until the elevator doors swallowed him whole before you finally stepped inside, locking the door behind you.
“What the fuck…” you thought to yourself.
You floated to your room in a daze, the ghost of Colston’s lips still burning against yours. Kissing was an art you considered yourself proficient in. Until him. His hand had cradled your face delicately, his breath hitched deliciously, and when you nipped at his lower lip, he took control so naturally.
None of your past experiences compared and you knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep well until you got to kiss him again. In the back of your mind, you knew you should be more frightened than you were at how easily you were accepting the fact that you were already falling for him. You flopped onto your bed face first and groaned into your pillows, kicking your feet slightly against the mattress. For now, you would ignore the thought passing through your consciousness telling you:
SUMMARY colston shows up uninvited with a busted eyebrow.
pairing michigan!colston x fwb!reader
warnings classic tending to wounds moment #mhm, cocky!colston vibes, fluff, smut, third person pov
word count 4.4k
heartbeat series masterlist | main masterlist
FROM LIA I had an itch so I scratched it 😊 Sorry to all the second person lovers, my brain’s been yearning for third person since day one. This is my first attempt at real motion in the ocean smut #imscared pls be nice to me , enjoy !!
Halfway through getting ready, the music playing from her phone abruptly pauses. Colston’s contact glares at her from the screen, fingers twitching before her brain can process the movement. But she doesn’t answer. Just lets it ring as she digs through her closet for an outfit to wear tonight.
As soon as the call hangs up, her phone starts buzzing again. And like before, she ignores it.
He deserves it, honestly — she asked him twice this week to come over, and both times he told her he was busy. Busy doing what, or who, she can’t possibly imagine. But if he wants to play it like that, then she’s not above dishing it right back.
It doesn’t take long until she finds a black, backless tank top hidden in between shirts she never reaches for. She takes it off the hanger and decides it’s going to go perfectly with her miniskirt.
Walking to the mirror in the corner of her room, her reflection stares back at her. Waves falling down her back, makeup highlighting all the sharp angles of her face while softening her eyes. She turns side to side, pretending to pose for a nonexistent camera, before readjusting her straps.
She’s on a mission tonight — if Colston wants to leave her hanging, she’ll get her fix from someone else.
When she grabs her phone, she sees four more notifications from him, all within the same minute.
Colston: Hello
Colston: What r u doing
Colston: Answer
Colston: Answer
A mixture of irritation at his entitlement and something else she doesn’t want to name stirs inside her. She rereads the texts before exiting the message. The group chat with her friends is filled with them saying they need more time to finish getting ready. She sighs, relieved at not being the one taking forever like usual.
The bed creaks as she plops down on the center of it. Her mind keeps drifting to Colston’s text, partially tempted to ask what he wants. But she refuses to answer. Drowning out the temptations by mindlessly scrolling on her phone.
Five minutes in, however, someone knocks on the front door twice. The sound freezes her mid-swipe. Makes her pause the video and hold her breath. It can’t be her roommates. They’re spending the night with their boyfriends. She didn’t invite anyone either.
Then the person knocks again. It’s casual, measured rapping on the door like they are in no rush for her to get there.
Her phone starts ringing in her hand.
Colston. Again.
This time, she answers.
“What.”
He exhales, something between a laugh and annoyance. “I’m outside.”
Her mouth hangs wide.
“You’re insane, what the fuck.” Despite the harsh words, she’s already smiling ear to ear, adrenaline rushing to her head.
Whatever commitment she made to ignoring him is forgotten in an instant. Tells herself that she can start with that tomorrow. Her footsteps echo through the apartment — an obnoxious reminder of her lack of self-control.
The front door opens to Colston — damp hair clinging to his forehead, jaw grinding so tightly she thinks it might snap. Her eyes immediately land on his eyebrow. The skin around it is angry, split and still slightly raw. All covered in dried up blood that mattes the thin hairs.
“What happened to you?” She says it like she’s affronted by his appearance.
He ignores her, slowly raking his eyes over her body. Lingering at the hem of her skirt, sitting right at the top of her thighs, before dragging them back up.
“Where are you going?”
“What happened to you?”
She’s certain he wants her to slam the door in his face when he says, “Answer me first.”
“No, I asked what happened first.”
He shrugs as his eyes drop down to her skirt once more. Has her breathing harder than what the situation calls for.
“That’s a short skirt.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and looks at him unimpressed. Hoping that it’ll muffle the way her heart’s pounding against her chest cavity. There’s no way she’s losing this conversation at her own house.
And judging by his response, he knows that too.
“Took a bad hit at practice,” he rushes through. “Where are you going?”
“Necto.”
“That’s lame.”
“Good thing you’re not going.”
A puff of air blows out his mouth. “Are you gonna let me in?”
She briefly considers being difficult. Maybe have him ask nicely, maybe have him say please. But her brain fogs up every time he shamelessly drags his eyes over her, derailing her thoughts.
To preserve her dignity, she doesn’t respond. Instead, she steps to the left to make enough room for him to come inside. The corner of his lip twitches upward, and she’s already regretting her decision.
The moment he steps into her space, remnants of soap and his raw skin hit her nose. Registers without permission in the way only something annoyingly familiar can. Then he kicks his shoes off before walking straight to her room like it’s his.
She wants to throw something at his back. Except she’s empty handed, leaving no choice but to follow right after him. Even though no one else is here, she clicks the door shut. The warm lamp is dim enough to provide a safety net over her. Make her feel less exposed in front of him.
He sinks onto the edge of her bed, the pink comforter bunching underneath his palm, while she leans on her dresser.
“What time are you leaving?”
The question reminds her why she’s all ready in the first place. Her phone lights up with her friends saying they’re almost done with their makeup. Some part of her hopes it takes them a little longer.
“Soon.”
“What’s soon?”
“You’re asking a lot of questions.”
He shrugs. “I’m a curious guy.”
“How’d you get hurt at practice?”
“I got tackled.” She opens her mouth to complain, but he speaks again. “Caught a helmet to the face when it happened.”
The image of it makes her wince. “Ouch.”
“Should’ve seen the other guy.” His mouth draws up in amusement at the stupid joke.
Fresh blood starts to dot along his brow bone when he moves to run a hand through his hair. His eyes squeeze shut as his nose scrunches, immediately humbling him. The sight causes a dull throb near her own temple, the phantom pains echoing his. She’s mildly disturbed by how real it feels.
That’s what she blames her next words on.
“I can clean it.”
His eyes shoot open at her offer. Roaming around her face as if he’s trying to find the joke.
“The trainer looked at it already.” The thin split continues to run. “Told me to bandage it after I showered.”
“Clearly you haven’t.”
She watches his tongue roll against his lower lip, bringing his hand close to the cut, and it slightly smears the red. He throws his head back when it comes in direct contact with the gash. Inhales sharply. She has to force herself to look away before she becomes transfixed. Fixating on the swirls in the wooden floor instead.
When she glances back at him, he’s still looking at the ceiling. Chest rhythmically rising and falling. She thinks he might ignore her until he brings his gaze back to her, discomfort still flickering in his eyes even with a faint smirk taking over his face.
“Yeah, I could use a nurse.”
The sheer willpower he has to be annoying through pain amazes her. She’s wishing he did ignore her, narrowing her eyes at him in hopes he picks up on it.
But she still walks out the room to head to the bathroom. Grabs the hydrogen peroxide from the medicine cabinet before running a washcloth under the faucet. Water runs down her wrists as she wrings it out several times. She takes a random bandaid that seems like it’ll suffice with her.
His elbows are digging into his thighs while his head hangs low when she returns. He looks up at her as she sets the peroxide down onto the dresser.
“Have you ever done this before?”
She clicks her tongue. “No faith in me?”
“You’re probably gonna try to split it even more.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
He tilts his head, almost daring her to do so. She decides that she’s going to be mature. Not going to feed into his bait.
Careful not to spill any peroxide on the floor, she pours a small amount onto the wet cloth. She can feel it seeping into her palm as she turns to him. His knees are spread just wide enough for her to fit in between, and she steps right into place.
Her fingers curl under his jaw, drawing his head back sharply. Large hands come up to her back, warmth spreading across her bare skin, and he hisses.
”Don’t manhandle me.”
“I’m not even doing anything.”
“Be gentle.” The pads of his thumb dig into her waist. Calloused palms pressing firmly into her back.
She tries to ignore the way it pulls at her stomach.
Moving his head into the light, she watches the way his eyelashes flutter as she applies more pressure in her grip. There’s a tiny bruise starting to form on his cheekbone, tinged red with splotches of purple. Whoever took him down got him good.
She lightly pats at the tail end of his brow, doing her best to minimize the sting. It’s inevitable, though — he jerks away from the cloth, right hand seizing her wrists like she’s going to strike again. She knows he’s not faking it, but surely he has to be overreacting.
“What happened to Mr. Tough Guy?”
“He’s on vacation right now.” He pushes her wrist upward. “Get that shit away from me.”
“You’re the most dramatic person I’ve ever met.”
Slowly, she peels his fingers off her. He angles his face away from her, eyes drawing into slits, and he looks so suspicious that it’s ridiculous. Still, he lets her hover the cloth over his cut, body stiffening to brace himself. Unlike the first attempt, she’s able to actually make progress on cleaning his brow.
“This outfit,” he mumbles. “It’s nice.”
She tightens her hold on his jaw to scold him. “Stop talking.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Silence ensues, loud and heavy. He’s staring at her — can see it in her periphery — and she’s content with pretending that she can’t feel it. Focusing on the bright red staring at her so her eyes don’t wander. His hands stay glued to her, trailing down her side to rest on the back of her thighs. Squeezes at the flesh when she dabs at the deepest part.
A jolt races down her spine.
Once she’s done, she moves his face side to side, examining her work. It’s not bleeding anymore, which is the only win she needs. The bandaid lies awkwardly over his brow, refusing to stay completely flat.
“See?” Gently squishing at his cheeks, and he scowls. “All better.”
“How are you gonna play doctor without knowing you can’t use a normal bandaid?”
“You sound ungrateful.”
“It still hurts.”
“Well, it looks terrible.”
He smirks, gears grinding in his head so loudly she can hear it.
“You wanna kiss it better?”
A smile flashes across her face, and she has to turn around to hide. Cover it up by tossing the cloth onto her dresser. “I think I’m good.”
“Doctor’s orders. I don’t make the rules.”
“You can't get your Wednesday girl to do it for you?” She says it playfully, but the words leave a bitter aftertaste on her tongue.
He laughs, low and melodic — but most of all, too hard.
“Obviously not.” Hands slide up to her waist, pulling her onto his thigh like it’ll soften the blow. “It’s Friday.”
“My Friday guy is waiting for me, then.”
He shakes his head. “Your Friday guy is already here.”
“Why are you even here?”
“‘Cause you let me in.” The response makes her pull his ear.
“I mean, why’d you show up in the first place?”
“I can’t see my Friday girl?”
She swears she’s a strong woman. Knows she should stand up. The only issue is that the one word she can process in the stupid sentence is ‘my.’ Which makes her wrap her arm around his neck. Then his hand rests on her leg, and she swears she’s going to stand up.
Just not right now.
His gaze falls to her skirt. “Your parents approve of this?”
They wouldn’t approve of any of this, she thinks. “This is the third time you’ve brought it up.”
“Someone has to appreciate it.”
“That’s why I’m wearing it out.”
“Well, I’ve already seen it.” His thumb glides along her inner thigh to slip underneath the hem. Draws it back out before trailing higher, over and over. “That’s all that matters.”
Blood rushes up her neck. She doesn’t have it in her to be annoyed — not when the heat from his fingers freezes just short of where she needs him. Eats at any sense she has left in her.
The usual comeback dies in her stomach before it can even reach her throat. All she can do is create distance by turning her cheek to him. And he’s awful because he won’t give her that either.
“Why don’t you wanna look at me?”
Mustering up all her strength, she slowly looks into his eyes, black ink splattering over the brown iris. “Happy?”
“Very.”
At the same time, her phone gets three messages in a row. They both snap their heads toward the noise. Her gaze darts between him and the phone, and she’s embarrassingly torn over what to do.
He silently waits, and with each second that passes, she can feel him growing more smug. Fingers gripping onto her like she’s a prize he’s just won, refusing to let go.
“Are you gonna answer?”
She hesitates, but they both know she isn’t going to. When she looks back at him, he’s already staring. Eyes drowning in anticipation, and she’s only so strong that she holds off on responding for another second.
The tension in the room fractures as soon as she shakes her head.
Open-mouthed kisses drag down the column of her throat as he maneuvers her onto the bed. Mouth so heavy against her skin that it knocks away any consideration she has for her friends. The only thing in her mind is Colston — how his touch sends currents whispering down her body, taking control over her nerves.
His lips tear apart at her jaw, slow, sloppy movements so carefully placed to turn her molten in his hands. Her fingers move on their own accord, fisting into his hair before bunching at the fabric of his shirt. Fighting to remove any layers that separate them.
Concern floods his face as she pushes his shoulders, but she doesn’t wait for him to process that there’s nothing wrong. All she’s done is wait tonight — can’t do it any longer — and she tugs at the hem of his shirt. He catches on quickly, helping her yank the rest of it off. Their movements are so frantic that it grazes his brow, and he groans sharply.
“Wait, sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry,” spills out of her, cupping his face as she tries to sit upright to check if he’s bleeding again.
But he stops her halfway, resting his hands on top of hers. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
She tries to ask if he’s okay, but he’s already moving past it, fumbling with the thin straps of her tank top before tossing it aside like it offends him. He looks back to see guilt written all over her and sighs. “Stop tripping, it was on me.”
It’s hardly reassuring to her, shoulders remaining rigid. He rolls his eyes, almost inconvenienced when he says, “I’m fine.”
She searches his face for evidence that he’s lying, but she only finds hunger pouring out of his gaze. She nods, and he pins her back into the mattress, muttering, “Thinking too much.”
He kisses down her body, tongue running along her flesh like the taste of it is his personal addiction. Never leaving her until he reaches her skirt — the cause of all her fucking problems tonight — and he drags it down agonizingly slow.
Once she’s left in nothing but her underwear, his stare wanders all over her like it’s the first time he’s taking her in. She throws her forearm across her face to take the weight of it off her.
“Nah, none of that.” She turns her head to the side as he lifts her arm up. “Don’t start acting shy now.”
His hands grasp her jaw, pulling a pathetic whine out of her, and gently draws her eyes back to him. “There we go.”
Softly patting her cheek, he hooks his thumb into her underwear, pulling it down in one, smooth motion. The cool air hitting her nerves forces her legs closed. He catches her thigh before she can fully do so, humming when he spots the sticky mess between them.
“This ‘cause of me?”
She can’t respond, not with his thumb rubbing small, light circles over her clit that draws a strangled moan out of her. He spreads her puffy folds with two fingers, staring at the way she clenches around nothing, chasing relief. She claws at the sheets, too desperate to realize how pathetic this is. She doesn’t want to beg, but it’s starting to feel like her only option the longer he does nothing.
Her muscles tense up when he curls a finger inside of her. Moves in and out, bringing her arousal up to her clit. He coaxes her into relaxing with each stroke, and heat pools inside of her lower stomach. It goes directly to her cunt, tangling with her whimpers.
Sobs heave out of her chest when he removes his hand entirely.
“Need my dick that badly, huh?”
She chews at her bottom lip, tears rimming her eyes. Everything is aching to the point it hurts, and he’s just toying with her feelings. He frees himself of the remainder of his clothes, using her slick on his hand to stroke the length of his cock. Her breathing is shaky as she watches.
He lines himself up with her, bracing himself on his forearms. “Ready?”
“I’ve been ready,” she bites out.
He lets out a low laugh at her impatience, swiping the head of his cock through her folds. She gasps, threading her fingers into his hair as he pushes the tip inside before quickly withdrawing. Then he rocks back in, deeper this time, and their moans reverberate around the room as she squeezes around him.
The burn is replaced by the budding friction as she adjusts to his size. He sets a painfully slow rhythm, keeping her right on the edge. His hands come up to knead at her breast, rolling her nipple with his thumb, and she has to bite his shoulder to muffle her moans.
“Uh-uh, come on,” he mumbles into her ear. “Lemme hear your pretty sounds.”
“Colston, fuck,” he pulls out of her completely before sinking back into the hilt, drawing her leg up to hit a deeper angle, and her brain feels all fuzzy. Compresses the room down to the feeling of his body on top of her.
Her back arches into him. She ghosts her mouth over his collarbone, wandering into the hollow of his neck to find his pulse hammering. Catches it in between her teeth, sucking at the skin before darting her tongue out to soothe the spot. His hips stutter as she nips at it again, and she thinks her phone might be ringing, but she doesn’t care. Can’t be held responsible for the way she acts when he’s drilling into her like this.
“What are your friends gonna think of you?” He rolls into her harder. “Abandoning them all for some dick.”
The words coil inside of her stomach, tightening the tension inside, and it’s so close to snapping in half. She wraps her legs around his waist, fragments spilling out of her, “Fast— faster, please.”
He obliges, picking up his pace, and it’s the strained groans sneaking out of him that sends signals firing down into the bundle of nerves. She tries to rub at her clit, get herself there faster, but he catches her wrist. Unable to stop her pleas. “No, no, no, please.”
“Not yet.”
White spots start to blur her vision as he rocks into her faster — harder — and she’s almost sure her phone’s ringing again, but she can only concentrate on how she’s right there. Only needs a little more to tip over. His movements lose their rhythm, growing more urgent with each stroke.
He toys with her clit, and it’s the sensation of her nerves throbbing with him stuffing her full that wracks through her body. All she can whimper out is his name. Her hands tremble around his neck as he talks her through it. “That’s it. Just give it to me.”
He stills inside of her as her body goes limp, letting her come down from the high. Her hair sticks to her forehead, the other strands fanning across the mattress. She can hear their heartbeats pounding.
The sudden emptiness when he pulls out has her whining, her fluids dripping down her legs. His cock is heavy in his hand, and the tip seethes in red. She watches him pick the black lace underwear off the floor. Bunch it in his hands before spreading the damp fabric against his length.
He slowly jerks himself off with her underwear, eyes boring into hers. It’s absolutely filthy, yet she can’t look away. Stares at the tendons tightening in his neck, the vein running down his temple. His jaw clenches as he tips his head back.
The way his wrist bobs up and down loses control fast, already close from being inside of her, and hot flashes flare throughout her body. She has to clench her thighs together, wincing at how sensitive she still is. Air catches in her lungs the louder he gets. Visibly losing restraint as the fabric brushes his tip.
It’s not long until he loses himself in the feeling, spurts of white coating the lace as a guttural moan escapes him. Fists spasming as he works through it, destroying her underwear. Any part of her that cares is overpowered by the smell of sex lingering in the room.
Before either of them can speak, her phone rings for the third time. Both of them are silent, rapid pants filling the space as they soak in the aftermath. Not ready to be pulled out of their haze.
The call is about to hang up if she doesn’t answer in the next second, and she almost isn’t going to. But her sense drains back into her, legs wobbling when she moves toward the dresser.
She awkwardly attempts to cover her body, suddenly too naked for her liking, and Colston tosses his shirt. As she puts it on, she answers the call. Praying her voice is steady when she speaks.
“Hey!” It’s so stiff that Colston has to cover his mouth to stifle his laugh.
“We’ve been calling for you for fifteen minutes, what the hell happened to you?”
“It’s ‘cause. You guys were taking too long. And I fell asleep. So I didn’t hear it.”
He’s far too giddy at her struggle. She flips him off as her friends tell her, “We’re outside now, hurry up.”
She chokes on her groan, the consequences of having her priorities all mixed up hitting her.
“Okay, give me a second. I’ll be right there.” She hangs ups, rolling her neck side to side.
“How are you gonna explain this to them?”
“They’re not gonna know about this, stupid.” She throws his sweatpants and boxers at his chest, looking for her discarded clothes.
“So how am I supposed to walk out the door?”
“I don’t wanna think about that right now.”
Colston’s shirt is thrown onto the bed as she tries to untwist the straps of her tank top. She finds her skirt underneath her bed, dragging it up her legs to rest low on her hips. The soiled fabric of her underwear sits a few inches away from him.
“You ruined my underwear.”
“Who says you can’t still wear it?”
She scoffs at him. “You’re fucking gross.”
But it lacks conviction. No way she means it when the thought puts disgusting ideas in her head, sends heat weaving through her spine. She imagines spending the entire night sitting in his cum, all cold and sticky — a constant reminder of him with her. She has to shove it out of her brain before he can see it on her face.
Her legs quiver as she grabs a new pair out of her drawer, quickly slipping it on underneath her skirt before grabbing Colston’s forearm. There isn’t a single clue in her mind as to how she’s going to get him out of here undetected. And he knows it too, she can tell from how he lets her drag him through the apartment with no complaints. Almost too excited to make his presence known.
“Okay. Um,” she thinks out loud as she slips on her kitten heels. “I don’t know.”
“No one’s gonna get you in trouble if they see you with me.”
“My friends are gonna kill me.”
“At least you had a good time before you go,” he jokes.
She glares at him, digging through her purse to find her key. “Just leave once we’re gone and put the key under the doormat.”
“Okay Ms. Sneaky.” He plays with the key in his hands as she tries to flatten her hair. “So can I get the kiss now, or should I wait for another day?”
She bites down on her bottom lip, hard enough that it almost draws blood, to fight back her smile.
“You’re not getting one, ever.”
“No kisses, no aftercare. You’re a terrible nurse.”
“Colston, I swear–”
“–After I put in all that work–”
“–Just shut–”
“–I don’t even get a thank–”
Before he can keep going, she pulls down his neck, ghosting a small kiss over the bruise on his cheek.
“Happy?”
“I already feel better, actually.” His smile is pure ecstasy.
She rolls her eyes lightheartedly. “Don’t forget to lock my door.”
“I know that.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Nodding once at him, she walks right out. Tries to stand up straight and act as normal as possible. Like she was genuinely asleep, and she looks disheveled because she’s tired.
Unfortunately, her friends know her too well. Already knows that she’s a flat-out liar when she opens the backdoor.
“Good sleep?”
“Something like that.”
LIA… AGAIN I love tf out of an author’s note can u tell 🤣 listened to only angel and kiss it better on repeat while writing this it’s just so them. Anyway if u saw my original post about it being a busted lip I realized he was talking too much for it to be scientifically accurate so we had to improvise. And if ur wondering how they had enough time to do all this, the answer is that clocks move differently in the liaverse. Thank u that is all
warnings domestic vibes with some angst. slow-ish start, but stay with me guys pls just trust the process
FROM LIA this took forever cuz I kept changing my mind for an entire week and then spring break hit so I had to put the pen down and put me first #myapologies , but at least it’s done !
Every single window is wide open, bringing in a light breeze that cools your skin for a total of two seconds before the heat creeps in again. A discarded piece of cardboard serves as the only true relief you have. The small gusts carry a faint trace of baby powder that combats the musky afternoon smell.
Sienna rests on your hip with saliva bubbling at the corner of her mouth. Gnawing on the ear of her little blue bunny that she drops onto the wooden floor every few minutes. Sweet giggles escape her throat whenever you squat down to pick it up, as if it isn’t killing your back. The two of you act like site managers, closely watching Colston move your couch for the third time.
Once the scraping stops, he glances over his shoulder like he’s waiting for your approval. But it never comes, because everything about the new configuration looks awful. The couch sits too far to the left and crowds into the kitchen’s space. Leaves a giant void in the middle of the room.
“I don’t like the way it’s blocking the window,” you complain.
He pinches the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath in. Lets the air sit in his lungs, like it’ll transform oxygen into patience, before exhaling. Too loudly, in your opinion.
“I told you that you weren’t gonna like it here. And what’d you tell me?”
“I don’t care what I told–”
“You said this is exactly where you wanted it.”
“So I can’t change my mind now?”
“Change your mind all you want,” he shrugs. “But I’m not gonna move it again.”
The cardboard stills. Your eyebrows draw together as your upper lip curls.
“Don’t make that face at me.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
He towers over the room at his full height. Then his eyes narrow as he looks down at you, like you’re another toddler he has to reprimand.
You’re aware that he’s moved the couch several times now. But every stitch inside of your shirt is scratching against you, and you genuinely consider throwing the cardboard at his head. Imagining the shock on his face that’ll replace whatever authority he thinks he has in your house.
But Sienna fists the ends of your hair, knotting the strands, and the need to be an adult returns.
His voice is clipped when he asks, "Do you want me to move the couch or not?”
“Will you do it properly?”
“Quit blaming me for the way it looks,” he defends. “I’m literally doing what you’re telling me to do.”
“Well, you’re doing a half-assed job at listening.”
His jaw tightens before he releases it. “I think you just want something to complain about.”
“No. I want someone who sees my vision.”
The words feel more loaded than you intend. And for a moment, he’s quiet — lets you think that he’s not going to engage with whatever trap you’ve laid out.
Except he’s Colston. So he responds anyway.
“Why didn’t you call someone else, then?”
“I didn’t call you,” you remind him. “You’re the one who decided that I needed your–”
The bunny falls again with a soft thunk that stops you mid-sentence. Neither of you look away from each other, refusing to fold under petty stares. Driven entirely by the need to argue for the sake of it. Sienna butchers her syllables with a smile, and you conclude that she’s the most mature person in here right now.
Little arms start to flail in your periphery, making Colston’s eye twitch. You're silently thanking Sienna for holding his heart in her tiny hands. He glares at you a second longer, trying to get the last word in, before shutting his eyes. Sharp edges softening when he glances at her in your arms. He doesn’t look at you again. Probably expects the smirk on your face.
He walks over to you, shoulders slumped and jaw tense. Crouches down to pick the bunny up to hand it back to Sienna. Only she doesn’t seem to care for the toy anymore. Instead, she starts wriggling out of your grip, torso leaning forward and reaching for Colston. And he scoops her up into his arms with the smugness of someone who’s just received a gold star.
They stand a foot across from you, pulling the tides of the room into his favor. Somehow, the sight manages to undo your resolve to be stubborn.
Small raspberries blow out of her mouth as she rests her head on his shoulder. He brings his head down to hers, and you can already see the way she’s transforming into his clone. Like someone traced the glint in his eyes and drew them over hers. They wrinkle at the corners whenever she grins, cheek pulling further on the right side. She’s not a carbon copy of you anymore — she’s becoming her own person, woven by the two of you.
The Chicago air’s doing, maybe.
Then Colston interrupts your thoughts, rocking her back and forth as he says, “Even she thinks you’re too bossy.”
“No she doesn’t,” you scoff. “She’s just consoling you.”
“If that makes you feel better.”
“You’re annoying.” There’s hardly any bite in it anymore.
He responds with a strained, tight-lipped smile. The kind he’d give when he was trying to rile you up on purpose. If you were nineteen, you’d probably get all up in his space to dig your fingers into his dimples. But you’re not, so you roll your eyes and toss the cardboard onto the couch. It slices through the air with a small swoosh. The room is quiet after that.
The silence feels oddly safe. Not the unnerving kind — desperate to avoid it with meaningless words — that’s become the new normal with him. Here, it’s the kind that prevents anyone from saying the wrong thing because nothing is being said at all.
He heads toward the couch, cushions dipping under his weight. Short, strangled sounds leave Sienna’s mouth that neither of you understand. Colston raises his brow at you, and you tilt your head in response. Both of your lips curl inward, fighting off a laugh.
You look away first, this time.
Eventually, the couch ends up partially covering the windowsill and sitting slightly to the right of the mantel. Where Colston suggested it in the first place. And he’s not letting you forget that.
“It’s almost like ninety percent of your problems would go away if you just listened to me.”
“I needed to confirm with my own eyes that this was the right spot.”
“And?” He’s staring at you expectantly.
“And… what?”
“You can say that I was right. Or thank you, even.”
You fold your arms over your chest. “Neither of those things are gonna happen.”
“It won’t kill you to say two words, you know. I did this without any help.”
“That’s on you.”
He pauses, probably rifling through his brain for an excuse that seems reasonable. After all, he’s the one who pried the delivery time out of you.
But you don’t wait for whatever he has to say, turning to go to the kitchen. Footsteps follow after you.
The top cabinet squeaks as he reaches over you to grab a glass. He fills it with water before draining it in a few sips. Then he fills it up again. Sticks out the full glass to offer you some like it’s muscle memory.
You stare at it for a second.
It’s almost invasive, a touch too close to intimacy. You decide that you aren’t thirsty anymore, shaking your head.
He shrugs before finishing the glass and setting it down on the counter.
“What’s inside your fridge?” He doesn’t wait for you to answer. The door just swings open.
The view is almost embarrassing. Four cans of Diet Coke, a Tupperware of leftovers, and eggs. All spread out on different shelves to appear more full than it really is.
“What the hell is this?” He’s not upset, he’s laughing.
You try to sound serious when you say, “That’s my meal prep for the week.”
“This has to be neglect or something,” he sputters out between breaths.
“Hello, restaurants exist.”
“Do you even know where anything is?”
It’s borderline patronizing — makes your forehead wrinkle.
“There’s this crazy app called Maps, genius.” Your shoulders brush as you shove him aside to close the fridge door.
“I’ve seen you get lost while having the directions on your phone.”
“That wasn’t even my fault!”
He has to tilt his head down to look at you. Entertainment is written all over it, and you dig your elbow into his ribs. Watching the way he hisses softly, rubbing at his side.
Then he laughs again. And it’s evidently clear that there’s nothing you can do to sour his mood this time around.
You take a step back, leaning against the counter top. He asks, “When’s the last time you went to the grocery store?”
“Like, three days ago.”
“How is it this empty already?”
“I barely moved here. Forgive me for not having it stocked up to your liking.”
He rolls his eyes at the sarcasm. “What’s Sienna think of this?”
Both of you look at Sienna holding onto the cushions to shuffle sideways. Her eyes dart between you and Colston.
A high-pitched “da” echoes around the living room before she returns to ignoring the two of you.
“Do you think she knows she’s in a different city?”
It’s one of the more thought-provoking questions he’s asked. Enough to replace the budding irritation with contemplation.
“I wanna say yes, but honestly, probably not.”
He hums.
“You’re probably right.” Then, after a second, “We should take her somewhere right now.”
Your back stiffens. We.
“Where?”
Colston looks around the room like he’s searching for an idea. He lands on the stupid fridge again, already amused. “To the grocery store, honestly.”
“You’re making it seem so much worse than it actually is.”
He shakes his head. “No, like it’s really that bad.”
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the suggestion. Only that he says it far too casually, like it’s the obvious step in the progression of events. You reason with yourself that he’s already here, and you won’t have anything to do if he leaves.
And simply because doing something is better than sitting in silence, you tell him, “I guess we can go.”
You go to your room to quickly change into shorts and a tank top. You’ve hardly gone out lately — nowhere to go but the office and home — so you decide that you might as well treat a grocery run like some fun outing.
Apparently being twenty-two requires a lot more romanticization than you hoped for.
By the time you’re done, Colston’s already standing by the door with his keys in hand and Sienna in his arms.
He slightly rolls his neck as he looks at you. Holds his chin up like he’s forcing himself to only look you in the eye.
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
You glance down at your clothes to figure out what exactly he’s seeing. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about it. Just something you’d wear on any given day.
But from the way he’s boring into your skull, you want to gouge his eyes out.
Get him to stop looking at you like that.
“Is there something wrong with it?”
“No.” It comes out fast, like he’s rushing to end something he just started.
“Okay…”
He walks out the door before you can fully finish speaking. You stand in the doorway, hot wind rushing at you as you process the interaction. How observant he was of nothing — scrutinizing, almost. The way it made your lungs tighten.
When you catch up with them at his truck, he’s buckling Sienna in. She’s the first to notice you appear through the gap of his arm as he lifts it up. Her face lights up, splitting into a smile, and you wave back at her. Colston steps to the side, leaving just enough room, without looking at you.
Resisting the urge to micro-manage, you watch him fumble with the twisted straps. Sienna’s squirming around, and it makes him look like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. If one thing is certain, she’s clearly absorbed your joy in testing Colston’s patience.
He finally gets her to settle down so he can click the buckle in. You drop your face into something more neutral, but the traces of your smile at his struggle linger. You see him take in the light twitch at the corner of your lip.
He sighs before telling you, “Just get in the car.”
The passenger seat of his truck is in the same position you left it in last week. Leaned back a touch more than necessary and pulled up much closer to the dashboard. You wonder if anyone’s been in here since.
He blasts the air conditioning, blowing your hair all over the place. You immediately turn it down, and you feel him glaring at you. Fortunately, he doesn’t try to adjust it. Just drives off as old Drake plays through the speakers. Sienna shrieks while listening to the music.
No one speaks on the way there. His fingers drum against the steering wheel. You read the street signs as you pass by.
At one point, the two of you happen to make eye contact in the rear view mirror. It seems like the only time you guys are on the same page is when you’re both looking back.
He stays locked onto the road after that.
You stand awkwardly behind Colston while he takes Sienna out of her car seat. She immediately starts reaching for you, little fists opening and closing. Once she’s on your hip, he turns to the car.
Sienna whips her head at you, mirroring the expression on your face — eyebrows lifting slightly and lips parted — and you realize how dumb you look.
“Are we going, or…”
In reality, he stands frozen for roughly five seconds, but you’re already tired of his antics. He loosens his body when he sees the way you’re both staring. Then he nods his head toward the store.
You walk a few feet ahead of him before he falls in step with you. Inside, the drop in temperature raises goosebumps along your forearm. Colston weaves through people as he leads you to the produce aisle. You fall into a steady rhythm — handing him whatever you pick up while he organizes them inside the cart so nothing gets crushed.
“I have no idea what I need,” you admit as you head to the poultry section.
“What you need is everything.”
You ignore his quips, focusing on the different cuts they have out. Running through ideas of what’s easiest to prepare with a limited amount of time before deciding on chicken. The routine continues, fingertips grazing more than necessary, while Sienna points at random objects. Colston explains everything to her like a teacher.
Six aisles in, however, his responses to you are getting shorter and shorter. Attention torn between you and the glances he spares around every once in a while. He keeps drifting into your space, and you don’t know whether you should ask him what’s wrong or gloss over it entirely.
“I’m ready to go,” comes out of you instead.
The self-checkout line is packed, sandwiched between carts and bodies. Lightly rocking left to right, right to left, just to have something to do.
You hardly register the man rushing past you — not paying any attention to where he’s walking — when Colston’s hand grips around your waist. Warmth seeping through the thin fabric of your shirt as he firmly pulls you out of the way. Tugging you right into his side.
The guy looks up from his phone. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” you force out with a smile.
Colston clicks his tongue as he watches him leave. Mutters to no one, “He’s gotta look where he’s going.”
Then he drops his hand. And you take a half-step away from him. Like two magnetic poles of the same charge repelling one another.
The pressure from his fingers never leaves you.
You shuffle through the line, counting the seconds. The eight minute wait is insulting. You quickly move through each item when you reach the scanner, haphazardly tossing them into reusable bags. The only thing you want is to get out of here.
The silence extends on the way to the car. Sienna plays with the strap of your tank top while Colston trails right behind you two before he loads the trunk. Luckily, Sienna’s much more cooperative with you when you buckle her in. You press a small kiss to her forehead, and she giggles in return.
Both of you check on Sienna once more before getting inside the car. The engine hums as you absentmindedly scroll on your phone. You glance at the time. 6:21 p.m.
“She’s gonna have to go to sleep soon,” Colston says.
Except the baby mirror shows her wide awake. You swallow down your groan.
“Play white noise or something to make her tired.”
The speakers make your ears all fuzzy with the low whirring sound. Then he drops his phone into the cup holder and turns to you.
“Are you hungry?”
“Kinda.”
Some sacrifices must be made, and unfortunately that means Sienna falls asleep at a later time. She ate a cut up pizza, getting it all over her face and high chair, before Colston took her to take a bath. You stayed to clean up after her mess.
It’s nearly 8:45 p.m. when he comes back to the kitchen.
“Is she asleep?”
“Out like a light.”
He slumps into the seat across from you, running a hand through his hair. The pizza box hits his elbow when you shove it toward him. He looks up and rips a slice before sliding it back.
Tired chews replace conversation. Cardboard scraping across the counter serves as background noise. He keeps his focus on a spot somewhere over your shoulder.
The warm, white lights shine directly onto his face. Highlights the way his eyelids flutter shut while his mouth is all full, making him look boyish.
“What should we do for her birthday?” he asks.
Sienna turns one in two weeks. You haven’t allowed yourself to accept how old she’s getting. In your head, she’s still the little baby you brought along everywhere in Ann Arbor. Definitely not the one who’s going to be walking on her own soon, trying to add to conversations.
“Throw her her first-ever rager.”
He stretches his back over the chair, yawning. “We can do it at mine.”
“I’m down.” Better him than you dealing with all the dirt that would track through the house.
“Make it her bear-y first birthday.” Following the blank stare you give him, “Okay. I’m just kidding.”
“I don’t want any of those corny themes. Just cute decor and stuff.”
“They can be little farm animals.”
“You sure this isn’t your birthday party?”
“No, she loves animals.”
You raise your brow to tease him before conceding. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Are you gonna invite anyone from work?”
“I barely know those people.”
“Guess that’s fair.” After a small pause, “My family’s gonna fly in.”
“Mine are too.”
“What about Ale and Sofia?”
“Yeah.”
He rubs his jaw, harsher than necessary, and you roll your eyes. “Don’t hate on my friends.”
“I’m not.” He’s defensive in a way that only someone who’s wrong can be.
“Are your friends going?”
“I mean, yeah.”
“People from the team?”
“Yes.”
“I fail to see the problem then.”
His shoulders deflate. He changes subjects.
“It should start after her nap, around two-thirty.”
“That works with me.”
He nods, eyes roaming around the room. Fixes them onto the oven displaying the time. You tap the screen of your phone to see that it’s almost ten o’clock, a half-suppressed groan leaving your lips.
“What time do you go in again?”
“Eight.” You run a hand down the side of your face. “Don’t you have practice at six or something?”
“Yeah.” He yawns for the second time. Overly long and loud.
You uselessly buff out a scuff on the counter with your thumb. Toss the half-eaten slice of pizza and napkin into the trash. Hoping he’ll just slip out while your back is to him.
But it's wishful thinking because he’s still there when your eyes flit to the chair. He cracks his neck before looking at you.
“I’ll check on Sienna before I go.”
Something — perhaps the late hour — compels you to tell him, “I’ll go with you.”
He nods, pushing the chair back to stand up. He lets you lead the way to her room. Almost trips your foot from how closely he’s following.
You flick the hallway light off so it doesn’t wake her when you open the door. His chest is right behind your head, close enough that you can feel him breathing. Hearing her shifting around the bed and her light snores.
His right forearm props up on the doorframe. No one moves for a while after. Just taking her in. The fact that she grew inside of you, yet she’s the one teaching you everything about life.
She sneezes, and you turn your head back to look up at Colston. He’s already looking at you, eyes going wide to tell you that he also thought it was cute.
The door clicks shut softly after that.
“I wanna know what’s going on inside her head,” Colston says softly even though you aren’t in earshot of the room anymore.
“Well everything’s just dada to her, so it’s gonna take a minute for us to find out.”
Puffs of air blow out his nose. “You always sound goofy when you say dada.”
“Well I feel goofy whenever I have to refer to a giant man as dada.”
He laughs again, low and unguarded, and it reverberates around the empty room. Then it’s only the blood pounding in your ear that you can hear. You cross your arms to keep the awkwardness bubbling at bay.
“Lisa’s coming tomorrow?” More questions he doesn’t have to ask, already knowing the answer.
“Same as usual.”
“Okay.”
Rocking back onto your heels, “Okay.”
This feels like an unusually cruel punishment. Sentenced to dull goodbyes that last too long.
He sticks his arm out with a cupped palm, and you already want to whack it down. Dapping you up as if the literal child you have together isn’t a few feet away. But you clap your hand with his anyway, meeting halfway to bump shoulders. He pats your back once.
Whispers like it’s a secret, “I’ll see ya.”
“See you.” It’s more muted than his.
The faint buzzing of your palm is the only evidence he’d just been here. One person down, and it feels like you’ve been sent back to solitary confinement.
Every day leading up to Sienna’s birthday melts into a frenzy of analyzing market trends, confirming party details, and getting your guest room ready for your family.
You only physically see Colston a handful of times throughout the weeks. Too caught up in the grueling hours of training camp to stop by at a respectable time.
The irony isn’t lost on you whenever he calls from random rooms at Halas Hall around six o’clock. Most are quick check-ins, relaying Lisa’s stories about babysitting Sienna before he has to go to his next meeting. You don’t hear from him again until nearly 10:00 p.m. when he texts more birthday suggestions that are, surprisingly, not horrible.
Your parents and your sister fly in two days before the actual party. Saturday is the happiest you've been since moving here, finally surrounded by people who actually know you. Your dad takes over the kitchen while your mom fusses over you and Sienna like you’re her two children. Ale and Sofia arrive the next day, and Sienna’s feet barely touch the floor from everyone taking turns carrying her.
The first thing everyone tells you is that the house is exactly you. Something about the statement makes you feel slightly guilty for the lack of gratitude you’ve shown Colston. That doesn’t change anything, though — your sister Ana sees to that.
It’s almost one in the morning when Ale, Sofia, and Ana huddle around your bed.
“Have you guys even acknowledged that he bought you this house after he gave you the keys?” Ale asks.
You shake your head, and all their jaws drop.
“I mean, what was I supposed to say? It’s not like I was gonna tell him, ‘Hey, thanks for buying me a house when I told you not to.’”
Sofia nods. “Would you say things are getting better or worse between you guys now that you’re here?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s bad. I just — I don’t know how to accept the house, or even just his presence, without feeling like I'm letting him stomp all over my life.”
Ana’s mouth opens and closes several times before she gets the words out.
“Accepting his presence in your life doesn’t mean that you have to be okay with everything he’s done.”
Monday morning storms in with confetti and pink streamers blinding you.
Sienna wakes up without a single ounce of grumpiness, and you hug her with all the life you have inside of you. Kissing all over her soft face as she giggles, wrapping her arms around your neck to hug you back. She claps along as everyone sings her ‘Happy Birthday.’
An hour later, you take her over to Colston’s. He’s already waiting in his front yard when you pull into his driveway. The smile that erupts on her face as soon as the car door opens is enough to almost make you tear up. She extends her arms out to him, calling out, “Da… Da.”
“Happy birthday baby,” Colston practically sings. She fists at the collar of his shirt the second he picks her up.
He turns to you. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
Inside of his house, there’s an array of stuffed farm animals holding balloons on the kitchen counter. Your mouth drops in awe, and he laughs at your reaction.
“Wait, these are so cute.”
“It took me an embarrassing amount of time to tie all of them.”
He takes her over to the counter, pointing out each one and waiting to see if she’ll reach out for it. As soon as Colston mentions the cow, she immediately squirms in his arms to grab it. He brings her closer to the stuffed animal, and you help her hold onto it.
“I knew she’d pick the cow,” he says.
You take a picture of her pressing the cow against her cheek. “She’s the most adorable baby I’ve ever seen.”
The three of you head to the backyard where his mom and brothers are organizing tables. Cash sees you approaching and taps Rachel’s back.
“Oh my goodness, hi sweetie!” She opens her arms out to wrap you in a warm embrace.
You hug her back. “Hi, how are you?”
“I’m doing great! How’s Chicago treating you?” She looks over you as if she’s checking for battle scars.
“I’m still adjusting, but I like it so far.”
“That’s good to hear.” Sienna starts babbling, and Rachel turns her attention to start greeting her.
Cooper and Cash each give you a side hug before going through the same exchange of pleasantries. All of you watch Sienna bury her face into Colston’s chest when Rachel says something to make her giggle.
Cash leans over to tell you, “She used to be so nonchalant when it came to Colston.”
“She finally realized he’s chill enough to show her personality.” Both Cooper and Cash laugh at your comment, making Colston raise his brow at you three.
No one explains what’s funny to him, and it has you stifling your own laugh.
“Wanna see the balloon arch?” Cooper asks, and you nod.
He takes you to the right side of the backyard where the pink backdrop resides. A big ‘1’ is displayed in the middle, blue, pink, and gold balloons decorating the top of the backdrop. There’s a table in front containing pictures of Sienna by herself, with you and Colston individually, and with other family members.
“I don’t think I knew half of these pictures even existed.”
“Colston was on a mission trying to get everyone to send whatever pictures they had,” he tells you.
You grab the one of a tiny Sienna sitting between Cooper and Cash. “Isn’t it crazy that she’s one?”
“She’s gonna have to start paying rent soon.”
“Right,” you laugh.
They all still treat you the same as they used to, like nothing ever happened. Colston is really the only one who doesn’t know how to be normal.
Sienna gets handed off to whoever is free while everyone makes sure everything’s set up neatly. Colston keeps correcting the way Cash holds her despite there not being anything wrong with it.
You realign the same charcuterie board several times, no difference being made with each attempt. Smoothing out wrinkles that aren’t there in the table cloth. After fixing things, Cooper brings you a barely-awake Sienna. You thank him before heading into her room.
While she naps, you do your makeup in her little princess vanity that has the blurriest mirror you’ve ever seen. Quietly digging through your pouch, freezing whenever the products suddenly rattle. She starts shifting more frequently once you get to your blush.
Speeding up your movements to finish before she’s up.
The door handle turning startles you. Colston pokes his head in, spotting you slouching on the floor.
He mouths one word at a time, “What. Are. You. Doing.”
You fix your face into something you hope conveys how stupid the question is. Wave your blush brush like a flag. He takes his phone out, typing quickly, and you feel the notification under your thigh a second later.
Colston: I was just looking for you two
You: She’s about to wake up
He glances at her before entering the room and standing awkwardly in the middle. As if she can sense his presence, Sienna yawns awake.
“Should we change her outfit now or in a little bit?”
Searching for your lash curler, you distractedly tell him, “Do it now. I’m almost done.”
Once you’ve set your makeup, Sienna’s in her pink tracksuit, slightly puffy eyes with remnants of sleep.
You lightly pinch her cheek. “You are so cute!”
Her mouth stretches into a smile, pushing at Colston’s jaw before reaching out for you. He transfers her over to you. Then she also starts putting her hands on your face. You try to dodge it, but she’s adamant, chasing after your chin.
Colston smiles. “You ready?”
“Let’s turn her into a party animal.”
You’ve always known that Colston is a very social person, but you’re still shocked when the entire planet shows up. He’s greatly outnumbered you on the guest list.
Your parents are talking to people you’ve never seen in your life. Ana, Sofia, and Ale keep you company as you meet everyone for the first time. The most nerve wracking introduction is Colston’s teammates. Every step toward them requires heavy mental pep talking, all alone in this.
Colston stands taller than the rest of the group. Makes some of them look small, as if they aren’t bigger than everyone else here. Some of them seem familiar. Most likely seen them somewhere online, but you can’t confidently attach a name.
They all murmur variants of ‘hello’ when you stand next to Colston. Your heart is racing more than the situation calls for. No one’s even doing anything to you, you scold yourself.
Going down the line, you try to remember everyone as fast as he introduces them. Rome. Caleb. Kyle. Cole. Someone. Someone. Once you lose track, you resort to hoping you won’t have a reason to say their name.
For once, Colston pressing against your arm brings more comfort than unease.
Caleb’s the first to bring up the same thing everyone always says. “Sienna looks like someone just plastered your face onto a baby’s body.”
Everyone hums in agreement, Rome adding, “Loveland’s DNA forgot to express itself.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a single person who thinks she looks like him.” You might just be the only person who sees any resemblance between them.
Colston catches your eye, ghosts of a smile on his face. As the conversation flows, the nerves inside you settle.
True to your word, Sienna’s bursting with delight every time you see her.
Some of Colston’s Michigan friends flew in for the day, Will and Mason sitting alongside your friends. Ale’s playing peek-a-boo with Sienna as Sofia holds her. Sienna raises her hands to cover her own eyes, and everyone acts surprised when she drops them again.
The sun beats down your back, humidity frizzing up your hair, while you and Colston make rounds of your own. He starts talking to Ana with hunched shoulders, and you’re strangely satisfied that he’s somewhat reluctant around her.
By the time he finds himself at your side, neither of you have the energy to speak. Just leaning on an empty table, bracing yourselves with your palms. The trees bring a light gust that relieves you from the August weather. Your leg bounces as you look into the sea of people.
Colston knocks his knee against yours, and you stop shaking your leg.
“Should we have her blow her cake?”
You turn to him, nodding. “I think it’s a good time.”
“I’m gonna assume you want me to tell everyone.”
“Yeah,” you exhale.
He rises off the table, scanning the crowds. “Where’s Sienna?”
“How do you not know where your own daughter is?”
“She’s with someone else every five minutes.”
“She’s been with our friends for the last fifteen.” You point to Sienna sitting with Ale now, blankly staring at Will and Mason.
“That’s the most bored I’ve seen her all day, I think.”
Getting onto your feet, you smooth out your skirt. “Let’s go save her with her cake.”
Colston walks ahead of you with a renewed purpose, commanding the area with ease, letting people know to start making their way towards the backdrop. Ale hands Sienna over to you, and her mood instantly perks up once you rub your nose against hers. The little openings in the crowd are taken advantage of by you to sneak through.
You stand in front of the table littered with her pictures, gently bouncing Sienna to keep her entertained while you wait. She randomly waves at people which triggers a chorus of awe. As everyone starts to band in a large circle, Colston balances the tray of her miniature cake as he walks toward the two of you.
He gingerly places the cake onto the table before digging into his back pocket. The black metal lighter hisses out a flame, and his large hand shields the candle from the wind. Picks the cake back up and holds it just out of Sienna’s reach.
His voice silences every side conversation, carrying over the entire backyard. “Alright. On the count of three everyone!” Phones are taken out everywhere. “One. Two. Three.”
You and Colston each take one step toward each other to have Sienna connecting the two of you. Everyone joyously sings ‘Happy Birthday,’ and her face scrunches up as if she’s about to cry. But it settles into a small smile, whipping her head back and forth between the both of you. Tears well inside of your eyes, forcing you to sniffle your way through the rest of the song.
The last year plays in a flashback reel in your head. The feeling of finally seeing her for the first time erasing all the pain. Watching the way she never acted like Colston was a stranger in her life. You’re just grateful that the two of you showed up in all the ways that mattered.
When everyone’s done singing, she stares at everyone for a second. Then she turns her attention back to the cake, unsure of what to do. Colston rests his hand on her back and softly tells her, “Blow it out.”
She doesn’t react, and Colston blows out the candle for her. ‘Yay’ starts pouring out of the crowd, leading to Sienna tilting her head at them. Both you and Colston’s parents wave their hands at you to signal they want to take a picture.
A smile is spread across Colston’s face when he looks at you, small tears spilling from your lashline. You pat the inner corners with the back of your index finger to stop the flow.
“I didn’t think I was gonna cry.”
“It’s okay. I was choking up halfway through.”
Your laugh is shaky as you prop Sienna higher up your hip. The three of you smush together for the picture, telling Sienna to look at her grandparents. His hand falls to the small of your back. You instinctively lean into his side. Too focused on your daughter to think about anything else.
Ana raises a random stuffed animal she found to get Sienna to look at your mom’s phone. Her little teeth start peeking out when you tickle her side to get her to smile. After what feels like minutes of them snapping photos, moving from portrait to landscape, then back again, you’re finally able to rest your cheeks.
“Can’t believe it’s been a year already.” The nostalgia drowns you in waves. “She’s supposed to be our little baby forever.”
He smooths down her hair before glancing back at you. “She’s always gonna be our little baby.”
By five o’clock, all the guests have left except for your families. You leave Cash the responsibility of keeping Sienna entertained and, most importantly, awake.
Everyone’s divided themselves into their own tasks to speed up the cleanup process. Colston holds out the trash bag for you while you toss in empty cans and plates. Debriefing as you go around each table, metal clanging loudly each time he moves.
“Sienna has crazy social skills.”
You shake a can to see if it's empty before throwing it out. “It’s ‘cause she’s a Leo.”
“No clue what that means.”
“I don’t either, but it adds up in my head.”
He breathes out a laugh, starting to help you dump everything faster. “I hope she doesn’t get shy when she’s older.”
“Do you have something against shy people?”
“Clearly not.” You flip him off, and he dramatically gasps. “That’s rude.”
“There’s a difference between being shy and just knowing when to stop talking,” you say matter-of-factly.
“Are you saying I don’t know how to shut up?
“Those are your words, not mine.”
Colston pretends to be offended, clutching at his chest, and you chuck the last can at him. He picks it up off the floor before tying off the bag. You walk back inside to wash your hands while he takes it to the recycling bin.
Plopping down on the couch next to Cash, you throw your forearm over your eyes to decompress. Replaying the day to relive how perfectly everything went. The pure delight on Sienna’s face, engraving it into your brain. She isn’t going to remember this, but it’ll stick with you until your memory gives out.
The heavy stomps from Colston get closer, stopping at the sink momentarily, until the couch dips next to you. You lift your arm just enough to see through your lashes what’s going on. Cash hands Sienna over to Colston, and you mumble, “Thank you.”
At the same time, your parents and Ana come in through the back door to tell you that they’re heading back to yours. Colston walks them out, and you hear him say something along the lines of ‘thank you for helping.’ As soon as he sits down again, brushing your arm, he heaves a long sigh. Both of your energies are depleted from running on host mode the entire day.
Sienna gets clingier the closer it is to her bedtime. Can’t decide if she wants to be held by you or Colston, so she switches who she reaches for every few minutes.
“I’m surprised she hasn’t gotten tired of moving,” Colston says as she starts wiggling out of his arms.
You sit her right between the two of you to make it easier on her. “The one-year-old energy is just coursing through her.”
“New year, new her.”
“You’re stup–” Colston covers Sienna’s ears, almost wrapping around her entire head, cutting you off. She furrows her brows at him.
“You can’t say that in front of her.”
“That’s your fault for making me think it.”
His eyes widen in disbelief. “No way you’re blaming me.”
“Look at her face.” She’s still looking at him mildly confused. “I need a picture of that.”
You pat around the cushions for your phone, swiping to the camera and adjusting the frame to include both Colston and Sienna. He has to awkwardly hunch over to keep his position, and Sienna’s eyebrows draw tighter together.
The two of you laugh as you show him the picture.
“We made a cute baby,” he remarks.
“We really did.”
Sienna leans her head on you as she grips the hem of Colston’s shirt, his knee lightly pressing against yours.
The moment the silence settles, painfully calm and comforting, the voice returns. Not the one that tells you to run from danger — to build up your walls before anyone can climb over them.
This one is loud, convincing.
It tells you that there’s no reason for you to retreat. Recalls every single moment that played out today — how normal it all felt, how the one day you spent without something nagging at your brain is the most relieved you’ve been in a year. This feels like somewhere you can stay.
The thought injects itself into your veins like a sedative, and it’s the rush from possibly not running that tells you exactly why you have to. Every we, we, we rattles inside your head. Unable to take them back.
Your fingers curl into the cushions, unsure whether to keep you in place or help you push away. Your mind wants to stay, so you do the only reasonable thing.
“Sienna and I should go.”
He snaps his head toward you, jolting at the sudden announcement. Launches up like something just tased his system.
“What time is it?”
You’re hoping that your voice doesn’t waver. Try to sound as casual as possible. “It’s late.”
“It’s…” he drifts off as he taps on his phone screen. “6:32 p.m.”
“I still have to drive home and get her ready for bed.”
He rubs the back of his neck, eyes bouncing between you and Sienna. Lips repeatedly parting like he’s trying to find the right words.
You worry that he might offer a compromise. Give a plausible solution.
Instead, he tells you, “Yeah. Okay.”
You run on autopilot all the way to your car. Can’t remember the exact steps it took to get here, just know that somehow you did.
The car door slamming shut anchors you back. You inhale and inhale, but it does nothing to take the heavyweight out of your chest. It’s only when he’s out of sight that you can finally breathe.
But you can’t escape the burning inside of your lungs.
LIA… AGAIN one of my headcanons is that Colston religiously plays hotline bling (he unironically feels it in his bones, especially when he says ever since I left the city, you and me we just don’t get along?? Srsly don’t play that shit around him unless u want him to spiral) and now it’s Sienna favorite song. Anyway this is the least climactic chapter sorry if it was boring idk guys im trying I’m open to feedback 😭🙏🏽
LIA. this. was. amazing. I LOVE DAD!COLSTON !!! the subtle chemistry between the two even when they’re trying their hardest to not have any is *chef’s kiss*
he is absolutely massive im crashing out. the way he literally engulfs the arena seat and the fact that his phone looks microscopic in his hands. like i know dada
author's note⠀⁎⠀smut [you/your], oral (fem. receiving) old old draft so don't look too closely at the characterization, someone said luke would eat it from the back and i said well, yes.
read more⠀⁎⠀luke kuechly masterlist.
You could hear the heavy footsteps of your fiancé moving through your bedroom door before you saw him. You didn’t look up from your laptop but you could feel the bed dip under his weight before he pulled his shirt off.
“You’re still working?” he murmured. The scent of his cologne flooded your space. You felt him lean over you, kissing your cheek before nuzzling his face against your neck.
Your fingers paused over the keyboard, the heat of his breath against your skin scattering your concentration. You didn’t need to turn your head to know his expression, that half-lidded, possessive look he got when he decided you spent too much time away from him. The laptop screen blurred as his hand slid up your thigh, his calloused fingertips making their way up your skin to rest on the crease of your hip.
“Luke…” you sighed, giggling when he mimicked the exaggerated way you stretched his name with three syllables where there should’ve been one, his deep voice curling around the vowels. “You’re being bad.”
His chuckle vibrated against your collarbone as he nudged your laptop closed with one effortless action.
“Bad’s subjective, beautiful,” he murmured, dragging his lips along the slope of your shoulder. His hand lifted the laptop from your lap and set it on the nightstand. “I hope that can wait ‘til tomorrow.”
“You know it can’t,” you breathed, though your protest lacked conviction, dissolving into a soft gasp as Luke flipped your bodies with one smooth motion. The sheets twisted beneath your bodies as you found yourself on top of him. His grin was infuriating, his fingers already settling on your thighs.
“What a shame…” he shrugged before placing his hands behind his head, as if to say he was at your mercy.
You rolled your eyes with a feigned annoyance before placing your palms on his abdomen, feeling the ridges of muscle tense beneath your touch. Luke made a quiet sound of satisfaction at the feeling of your warm hands on him.
You knew this game. You knew that he’d let you think you had control before inevitably flipping the script. Still, you played along, dragging your nails lightly up his chest just to watch his pupils dilate and feel his length swell against your warm, covered center directly over his.
His breathing remained shallow as you took your time exploring his torso, your thumbs brushing his nipples just to draw out that low grunt you loved. He didn’t rush you, didn’t push, just let you explore, his patience as deliberate as everything else about him. Unconsciously, your hips rolled against him, earning encouraging hums from him.
“Take your time, hon,” he murmured. His hands stayed behind his head, biceps bulging, veins threading beneath warm skin.
Your hips ground down in a particularly delicious grind, feeling your clit press against the hard ridge of his cock through your clothes. The friction drew a small whimper from your lips, your fingers digging into his obliques as you rolled again, slower this time, savoring the way his abs twitched beneath your touch. Luke’s nostrils flared, but his hands remained locked behind his head. You could feel his restraint in the taut tendons of his neck, the way his jaw clenched ever so slightly when you shifted just right.
Your hand dragged up from his torso to his neck, gently squeezing the tight muscles there, feeling the pulse of his jugular beneath your fingertips. You leaned down, pressing your lips to his throat, tasting the salt on his skin. His Adam’s apple bobbed against your mouth as he swallowed hard, and you couldn’t resist scraping your teeth lightly over it just to hear him groan.
“Mmm,” you moaned sweetly, grinding down onto him once more before connecting your lips with his.
Luke groaned into your mouth, his hands still locked behind his head as you explored him at your own pace, your tongue sweeping over his lower lip before you gently sucked on it.
His restraint was maddening. He let you take what you wanted without giving in to his own desires yet.
You were beginning to enjoy this little power play far too much with the way his chest rose and fell in slow, controlled breaths despite the heat between both of you. His fingers flexed against his own scalp instead of reaching for you. You smirked against his lips and pulled back just enough to see his eyes, dark with arousal but still holding that infuriating patience.
“You’re really not gonna touch me?” you teased, rolling your hips, feeling the thick outline of him press against you through the thin fabric of your panties.
He shook his head, still grinning, now with swelling lips. “Not wet enough for me yet.”
You let out a breathy laugh at his challenge, your fingers trailing down his sternum. “And how will you know when I’m wet enough?” Your voice was honey-thick with amusement, but the way your thighs tightened around his hips betrayed your growing impatience.
Luke’s initial response was a slow blink, those gray-green eyes flickering with something dangerously close to triumph beneath the heavy-lidded arousal. “Do you want the short answer or the long one?”
You arched an eyebrow, your nails scraping lightly down his abdomen just to watch the skin take on a pink flush in your wake.
“Long,” you decided.
“Okay,” he granted, swallowing before he continued. “I’ll know you’re wet enough when you start making a mess of my clothes, pressing so close I can feel you heat through the fabric. When you can’t keep your hips still anymore, when you start grinding down harder without thinking, just chasing it even though you know you won’t be able to reach it unless I let you.”
His voice dropped lower.
“When you start taking your clothes off yourself because you’re too impatient to wait for me to do it. And my favorite—when you get so frustrated that I haven’t done anything, so you turn around, slip out of your panties, and part that pretty pussy to show me how wet you are.”
His grin grew wolfish. “That’s when I know.”
Your breath stalled at his words, your thighs squeezing reflexively around him as if to prove his point. The smugness in his voice should’ve been illegal. You could already feel the slick heat between your legs betraying you, the thin fabric of your panties clinging uncomfortably. Luke’s nostrils flared slightly, catching the scent of your arousal, and you watched his throat work as he swallowed hard, finding the strength to restrain himself.
Your lips curled into a slow, defiant smile. You lifted yourself just enough to peel off your cami in one fluid motion, the fabric catching briefly before you tossed it aside. Luke’s gaze darkened as it traced the swell of your bare chest revealed to him, flowing gorgeously into the dip of your waist, but his hands remained locked behind his head, simply nodding as if to say go on.
Your fingers hooked into the waistband of your panties, pausing just long enough to watch Luke’s chest rise with a sharp inhale. You arched your back slightly, letting the fabric slide down your thighs at an agonizing pace, the damp cotton catching briefly around your knees before you kicked them off entirely. The cool air of the bedroom prickled against your overheated skin, but Luke’s gaze was hotter, tracing the flush spreading from your collarbones to the tops of your thighs.
You stretched your arms above your head, tossing your hair over your shoulders, letting Luke’s gaze linger on the curve of your ribs, the flex of your abdomen, every inch of your body you knew he adored.
But he didn’t move.
So, you bit your lip and shifted your weight onto your knees, rising just enough to hover over him. Then, you turned to face away from him, leaving Luke staring at the curve of your bare back, the dip of your spine, the swell of your ass as you settled back against his lap. The moment your warm, bare skin met the cotton of his shorts, you heard the sharp intake of air then a curse behind your back. You pressed your chest to the bed between his parted calves, leaving yourself exposed, your knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his thighs.
The heat of your own breath bounced back against your lips as you released a soft, “See?”
Luke’s exhale was incredulous as he watched you arch your back just enough to let him see the slickness clinging to your inner thighs.
You sighed out of relief when he finally touched you, his large hands gripping you, fingers digging into the soft flesh with a possessiveness that sent a shudder up your spine. His thumbs stroked slow circles along the slick skin of your inner thighs, spreading you further, the pads of his fingers pressing just enough to tease without giving you what you wanted.
Luke’s fingers finally slid between your thighs, his touch making your toes curl. You keened into his hand instinctively, but he withheld, his fingertips just ghosting over your clit before retreating, drawing a frustrated whimper from you lips. “Luke—” you whined, your hips twitching forward, chasing his touch, but he chuckled darkly, his grip tightening to hold you still.
“Just observing, baby,” Luke murmured, dragging your body closer to his face. His thumbs pressed deeper into the meat of your thighs, spreading you wider as he leaned up, his breath hot against the damp skin he’d just denied. You shuddered when his tongue dragged a slow, wet stripe up your center, the vibration of his groan against your clit making your knees buckle. You pressed your cheek into the cool sheets, twisting them in your fists as he lapped at you like you were something to be savored, his nose nudging against your swollen folds with each unhurried pass.
Luke’s tongue curled against you, each stroke slower than the last, as if he were mapping every fold and every tremor you couldn’t suppress. Your hips jerked when his teeth grazed your clit before he soothed the sting with a broad, flat lick that had you whimpering into the sheets.
“Christ, Luke—” you panted, your thighs shaking where his hands held them apart, your muscles tensing as his tongue circled your entrance without dipping in.
His hot breath puffed against you as he paused to inhale deeply. “Fuck, you smell good,” he growled, the words vibrating against your skin before his mouth sealed over your clit, sucking lightly.
He lifted his hand, using the pad of his thumb to circle your entrance, feeling the muscle there flutter against the pressure, arousal coating his fingerprint. The groan that escaped Luke’s lips was low and rough, tasting you on his tongue as he dragged his mouth upwards, finally dipping the tip of his tongue inside just to feel you clench around nothing.
You whined pathetically when he pulled back from you, your impending protests halting when he shifted beneath you, his strong hands gripping your waist and flipping you onto your back with effortless strength. The sheets tangled around you as he settled between your thighs, his broad frame caging you in, his cock pressing insistently against your soaked center through his shorts. Your breath caught at the sight of him above you with his pupils blown wide, lips glistening with your arousal, the veins in his forearms pronounced where his hands braced on either side of your head.
“So pretty, bear…” you murmured, reaching up to trace the sharp line of his jaw with your fingertips, your thumb brushing over his swollen lower lip. Luke caught your thumb between his teeth, biting down just enough to make you laugh before releasing it with his own dark chuckle.
Your laughter dissolved into a gasp as Luke’s hips rolled against yours. Luke breathed through his nose, his forehead dropping to yours as he moved against you with slow rolls of his hips.
“Fuck,” he growled against your lips. “I gotta get these off before I blow a load in them.”
He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts, pushing them down just enough for his cock to spring free against his abdomen. The sight of him made your stomach flutter. You reached for him, wrapping your fingers around his length, your thumb swiping over the bead of pre-cum already gathering at his tip.
Luke shuddered, his hips jerking into your touch. “Easy, sweetheart,” he gritted out, his fingers closing around your wrist to still your strokes. “You keep that up and this’ll be over before it starts.”
“Unfortunately, I think that’s really hot,” you admitted, your fingers tightening around him just enough to make his breath hitch. Luke groaned, pressing his forehead against yours as his hips twitched forward into your grip. You could feel the way his cock throbbed against your palm and the heat of him seeping into your skin. “Like crazy hot.”
He laughed breathlessly, watching your hand stroke him. “Now you’re being bad,” Luke murmured, kissing you to distract himself from the tug of your hand over his length.
He let go of your wrist reluctantly, shifting just enough to kick his shorts the rest of the way off, his cock bobbing against his abdomen as he settled back between your thighs.
“You said bad was subjective,” you whispered, allowing your hands to drift over his body, feeling the muscles and veins and power just beneath your fingertips. Luke groaned as you squeezed his biceps, your nails leaving crescents in his skin before trailing higher.
You arched beneath him, your thighs bracketing his hips as your dragged your nails down the sculpted planes of his back, leaving faint pink trails to denote what path they had taken. Luke hissed through his teeth but didn’t pull away. Eventually, once he felt you got your fill of him, he used one hand to pin your wrists gently above your head. The shift in dominance was effortless, his body moving over yours with the same practiced precision he’d once used on the field. His lips found the hollow of your throat, teeth grazing the flutter of your pulse as you whimpered.
“It’s getting late…” he whispered the obvious against your lips.
Time dissolved the moment his hands found your skin, leaving only the slow drag of his hips against yours, the heat between the two of you growing where his cock nudged insistently at your entrance. You exhaled sharply when he pulled back, freeing your hands to watch your face as he pressed his hips forward, the blunt head of him parting your folds. Your nails dug into his shoulders, your thighs trembling around his waist as he filled you inch by torturous inch.
“So fuck me to sleep,” you breathed, your voice barely audible over the sound of your mingled panting.
The words sent a shudder through Luke’s body, his cock twitching inside you as if responding directly to the challenge. His lips parted against your temple, his exhale warm and ragged against your skin. You could feel the way his muscles trembled with restraint, the corded strength in his thighs flexing as he held himself still, buried to the hilt inside you.
Once he was all the way in, both of you sighed out of both pleasure and relief, the tension slipping from your bodies like sand through fingers. The room smelled of sweat and salt and the faint floral hint of your body wash. He didn’t move yet, just stayed deep inside you, his forehead pressed to yours, his breathing uneven.
You pushed his black hair back from his forehead, unable to hold back the smile curling your lips when he squeezed his eyes shut, flaring his nostrils. The way his eyelashes fanned against his cheekbones made him look unexpectedly vulnerable; an illusion that was shattered by the possessive grip of his hands sliding beneath your thighs, lifting your hips higher against him.
“Breathe, bear,” you whispered, your hands trailing over his shoulders, then cradling his face, and eventually sliding into his short curls.
“Was I holding my breath?” he chuckled softly, rolling his hips just enough to make you hum, drawing himself almost all the way out before sinking back in with the same unhurried precision.
You nodded, your fingers tightening in his hair as he built up to a rhythm. You arched into him, your skin slick with sweat where your bodies met, the heat between you building with every slow rock of his hips. Luke groaned against your throat, his lips tracing the column of your neck before catching your earlobe between his teeth, tugging lightly.
Being pressed under his body weight left you with very little ability to move—not that you wanted to—but the sheer containment of it made every roll of Luke’s hips feel deeper, every exhale from his lips hotter against your skin. His rhythm was methodical, each withdrawal and thrust calibrated to wring sensation from your nerve endings without mercy.
“Hmmm, fuck, fit so perfectly,” Luke murmured against the shell of your ear.
The stretch bordered on unbearable, but in the way you craved, your muscles fluttering around him as if trying to pull him deeper still. His groan vibrated against your collarbone, his teeth scraping lightly over the sweat-damp skin there before he lifted his head to watch your face.
Now, Luke frequently found himself staring at your face when you were chopping vegetables, or taking care of one of your home improvement projects, or even when you were just reading. He was a man who appreciated details—football had taught him that—but the details of your expression when you came were something else entirely. The way your lips parted just slightly, the flutter of your eyelashes, the furrow between your brows that smoothed out only when pleasure overtook you. He cataloged it all, committing it to memory like he would a playbook.
Luke’s fingers curled around your thighs, the pads of his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh just above your knees as he dragged you closer, the angle shifting until every thrust brushed that sweet, swollen spot inside you with devastating precision.
“Baby, I’m cumming...” you moaned lightly, your back arching off the bed as Luke’s hips snapped forward one last time, burying himself deep inside you. The muscles in his forearms stood taut as his grip tightened around your thighs, holding you open for him as you clenched around his cock in rhythmic pulses.
Your fingers scrabbled, frantically requesting his hand for something to hold onto. Luke entwined his fingers with yours immediately, pressing your joined hands into the mattress beside your head, his thumb stroking soothing circles over your knuckles even as his hips stuttered.
Your thighs trembled against Luke’s hips, your body still pulsing around him as he pressed deeper, grinding his pelvis against yours to draw out every last sensation. Your breath came in ragged gasps, your fingers tightening around his as you rode the wave of your climax, your muscles fluttering around him in an arrhythmia that had him attempting to prolong the feeling of his orgasm washing over him as well.
“Ohhhh, shit, that’s—” Luke’s voice shattered into a groan as his hips jerked forward involuntarily.
The sensation of his release coaxed another soft whimper from your lips, your legs closing around his waist as if to keep him there forever. His forehead dropped heavily against your collarbone, his breath searing your skin as he shuddered through the high, his fingers flexing against yours where they were still tangled in the sheets.
Your hands played with his sweaty, tangled curls as Luke’s breath warmed your collarbone in slow, even puffs. The weight of him was comforting, grounding; the way his hips still pressed yours into the mattress, even as his cock softened inside you. You traced idle patterns along his spine, smiling when he shivered beneath your touch.
“I really like how this new shampoo set is bringing out your curls. Very shiny,” you murmured, your fingers twisting a damp lock absently as Luke exhaled a laugh against your throat. His hips shifted slightly, still buried inside you, and the resulting drag of oversensitive flesh made your lungs yearn for air. Luke immediately stilled, pressing an apologetic kiss to the hollow beneath your jaw.
“Honey…” he began with a murmur against your damp skin. Luke shifted his weight onto one elbow, withdrawing from your warmth, hissing softly at the sensitivity. “Scrutinizing my post-sex curls is new.”
“They look really nice. I had to say something.” Your fingers still combed through his hair even as Luke rolled onto his back beside you, his chest rising and falling with the effort of catching his breath. The sheets clung to your sweat-slicked skin, twisted around your legs. You turned your head to watch the way the dim light from the bedside lamp caught the definition of his abdomen, the rise and fall of his ribs beneath taut skin. His arm draped heavily over his eyes, his lips slightly parted as he exhaled through his nose.
You rolled onto your side, placing your head on Luke’s chest, curling your fingers into the sparse, wiry hair scattered there. His heartbeat thudded steadily beneath your ear, still elevated but slowing now. His arm lifted from his face to wrap around your shoulders, soothing over the goosebumps rising along your skin. The air conditioning had kicked on at some point, chilling the sweat cooling on your bodies.
The pads of his fingers paused over the faint crescent marks your nails had left earlier, evidence of how tightly you clung to him. He made a quiet, contented sound before finally speaking. “You left nail indents on my biceps again.”
“Let’s hope they’re gone before the game tomorrow. Don’t think the parents would appreciate their middle schoolers asking why Coach Kuechly has marks on his arms,” you teased, tracing the faint pink crescents with your fingertip. Luke’s chest rumbled with laughter beneath your cheek, his fingers trailing lazily up your spine before settling at the nape of your neck. You arched into the touch like a cat, your skin still humming with the aftershocks of pleasure.
“I can wear long sleeves. It’s supposed to be chilly tomorrow night anyway,” Luke murmured. You smiled against his chest, your fingertips tracing idle patterns along his ribs, mapping the ridges of muscle you knew by heart.
Luke’s breathing had evened out beneath your head, the steady rise and fall of his chest lulling you into that hazy, post-coital lethargy where time blurred at the edges.
Luke turned his head against the pillow, his lips brushing the crown of your head as he exhaled a low, rasping chuckle. “What are we doing? Shower or rag?”
“I could shower again. Wasn’t expecting you to interrupt my spreadsheet time,” you murmured, stretching your legs against the cool sheets, your calf brushing Luke’s shin.
Luke chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest where your cheek rested. “Spreadsheet time,” he repeated, rolling the words around in his mouth like they were absurdly precious. “You’re lucky I think you’re cute. That might’ve been the nerdiest sentence I’ve ever heard while naked.”
You pressed your lips together to stifle a laugh, feeling the way Luke’s chest shook beneath your head. “You asked me to marry you. Spreadsheet time comes with the territory.”
Luke laughed through his nose. “Spreadsheet time,” he whispered again, the words softer now, laced with something warm. You could feel his smile against your temple. “My fiancée, ladies and gentlemen.”
author's note⠀⁎⠀smut [she/her], rolled a couple of recent asks about them into one blurb. ignore the header, i know it's not great.
read more⠀⁎⠀joe burrow masterlist / series masterlist.
The benefit of having two years of an established patient panel was the ability to carve out weeks of time where the only appointments she took were prescription refills, and lab/imaging reviews. These appointments were easily completed virtually—typically with patients who were relieved at the prospect of being able to complete these routine check-ins from their couch in pajama bottoms—which made traveling with Joe for weeks at a time to sunny southern California during the offseason possible.
She was officially off the clock for the day, rolling her shoulders to relieve the tension in her muscles from hunching over her laptop for hours. She stretched her arms overhead and padded barefoot out of the Airbnb’s office, down the hallway, and toward the living room with her tumbler in hand. There was a brief pause in her step when she caught sight of Joe lounging on the sectional, his legs stretched out, fingers lazily scrolling through Netflix options while a bowl of brightly colored fruits waited for him on the coffee table.
Joe had been out and about for most of the day. He woke up before sunrise to get a workout in with Dak down in Irvine. Then, he spent the afternoon in meetings with Alo, reviewing the details of an upcoming campaign, back up to Beverly Hills for a much needed haircut before ending things off with a deep tissue sports massage with a therapist he was really starting to like. The fatigue was beginning to creep into his posture, the way his shoulders slouched just slightly against the cushions, but he still looked up the second he heard her footsteps approaching.
Neither of them said anything at first. She set her tumbler down on the coaster beside Joe’s fruit bowl, then slid onto the sectional beside him, her knee brushing against his thigh. Her arm reached across his stomach, one leg swinging across both of his. He made space for her, tucking her into his side with an arm around her shoulders.
Immediately, the scent of warm vanilla and spiced brown sugar filled his senses when she leaned in, pressing her lips to the freshly shaved skin of his jaw. Her hand reached up to cup his cheek, turning his face ever so slightly to then deliver the first proper kiss of the evening. It was always so easy to melt into him like this at the end of the day when it felt as if they had all the time in the world.
He hummed against her mouth, fingers curling against the bare skin of her thigh, to bring her leg higher. For the duration of the kiss, their minds blanked; the passing of time and the fruits growing room temperature beside them meant nothing.
When she finally pulled back, she smiled at the sight of his lips parted, slightly swelling from the pressure and colored a glossy, rosy pink from the transfer of her lip gloss.
She traced a thumb over his bottom lip, rubbing away the color. “New haircut,” she murmured, eventually lifting her fingers to brush through the cropped sides where his loose curls had been shaved close to his scalp, leaving the top slightly longer to her touch.
Joe tilted his head into her touch. “You like it?” he asked, voice low, already knowing the answer by the way her fingers lingered.
She rolled her eyes but didn’t stop tracing the sharp line where his barber had carved precision into the liberation of his offseason growth. “I do,” she said, thumb catching on the shell of his ear. “Makes you look all responsible and shit. Like a grown man who pays taxes.”
Joe laughed softly. His palm continued its slow journey up and down her thigh, wishing to himself that it were her bare skin touching his instead of the full-length linen pants she wore to remain presentable. “Guys with long hair pay taxes too,” he muttered, shifting slightly beneath her, the movement causing her fingers to dip into the softness of the hair atop his head.
“Some of them do, yeah…” she nodded, fingers still looped in Joe’s hair, ignoring the unimpressed look he gave her, her voice trailing off as she glanced at the bowl of fruit beside them.
“Made myself a little pre-dinner snack,” Joe said, following her gaze to the bowl of dragonfruit, mango, and pineapple chunks. “Wasn’t sure how long you’d be and I didn’t want to eat without you.”
Her hand fell away from his hair, her forearm finding his shoulder instead as he leaned forward to pull the bowl into his lap. A metal fork speared a cube of mango before offering it to her.
She chewed slowly, watching him chew on a pineapple chunk. “Are these the fruits you had delivered?”
Joe grinned without meeting her eyes. “Maybe,” he said, stabbing another piece of pineapple with the fork. “Got ‘em from that cool family-owned spot in Malibu. They were on Uber Eats.”
She hummed around another bite offered to her in an effort to silence any allegations of overpriced bougie tendencies. “It’s good,” she admitted.
She swallowed the last bite of mango and settled against her fiancé’s chest with a sigh, the warmth of him radiating through his thin t-shirt. The fork clinked against the bowl as Joe set it aside. His hands drifted to her waist, silently inviting her deeper into his lap. It seemed that she wasn’t quite done tousling his hair, letting her fingers glide through the golden brown strands one more time before her fingertips brushed against the nape of his neck.
Joe took a long, deep breath in through his nose, gorgeous blue eyes watching her with patience. He waited on her next move, visually tracing the curve of her nose and the fullness of her lips.
She shifted in his lap, her thighs bracketing his hips as she leaned forward to press another kiss to his mouth, tasting the lingering tart sweetness of pineapple on his lips. Joe exhaled, fingers tightening on her waist as she rocked against him, just enough to feel the heat of him beneath her.
“On the couch?” Joe questioned lightly.
She grinned against his lips, rocking down again just to hear his breath stir. “You started it,” she murmured. “With your Malibu fruit and your haircut.”
“Paid Darnell $2,000 for it,” Joe muttered, tipping his head back as her lips traveled down the column of his throat. His fingers pressed into her waistline at the feeling of her grinding harder against him.
The chuckle that escaped her lips vibrated against his skin. “I saw his post,” she murmured, teeth grazing his Adam’s apple before soothing the spot with her tongue.
Cold air rushed over her skin when she finally stepped out of her clothes, leaving her in a black t-shirt bra and matching underwear bottoms. Her blood rushed under her skin, making it hotter where his fingers pressed into her bare skin before finally pulling her underwear to the side.
“Mmm, fuck…” she sighed, grinding down harder as Joe’s fingers slid beneath the fabric. The very tip of his first finger breached her entrance just enough to drag a sigh from her. The full sinking of his finger into her heated wetness pulled a gasp.
“Baby,” she whimpered, her fingers tightening against his shoulders, her lips wandering back to his mouth in a desperate, open-mouthed kiss. His name tasted like honey on her tongue, like caramelized devotionthat stuck to her mouth and made her teeth ache.
Joe swallowed the sound, his free hand sliding up her spine, holding her close as his finger curled inside her. Her slick trickled down his knuckles, her hips rolling against his palm, chasing the pressure.
“That’s it,” he murmured against her lips that parted around a moan. She could feel him hardening beneath her, the heat of him pressing against her thigh through his sweats. The contrast of his gentle, measured movements against her heated, almost sloppy desperations drove her mad. “Take what you need,” he breathed.
The air between them thickened with each slow roll of her hips. She arched into his touch, her sounds pausing for a brief moment as he added a second finger, stretching her just enough to make her toes curl against the sectional cushions. “God, Joey,” she puffed, her forehead dropping to his shoulder, her lips brushing the cotton of his t-shirt. “Another… please.”
Joe didn’t hesitate, letting his fingers crook inside her just so, pressing against that spot that made her mind blank. He listened to her breathing, the moans coloring her tone, and the soft whimpers that spilled out when she let herself melt against him. Joe found himself pressing his lips to her shoulder, tasting salt and feeling heat as she rocked against him.
“You’re dripping for me. Probably look so pretty soaked in it.”
She bit her lip to stifle a moan, but it escaped anyway with a broken, breathy sound that Joe swallowed with another kiss. She could feel the dampness spreading between her thighs, the glide of his fingers made slick by how thoroughly he unraveled her.
Her mind barely registered his free hand unhooking her bra, the fabric sliding off her shoulders. The cool air ghosted over her bare skin, but Joe’s mouth was hot when he dipped his head to press an open-mouthed kiss just above her collarbone. She shuddered, fingers tugging his hair as his lips trailed lower, teeth scraping lightly over the swell of her breast before his tongue flicked against her nipple. A whimper slipped past her lips, her hips jerking forward against his fingers still working inside her, the rough pads of his fingertips dragging deliciously against her walls.
Between the squelch of his fingers and the wet heat of his mouth, her thoughts frayed at the edges. Joe’s tongue circled her nipple slowly, deliberately, before drawing it into the warmth of his mouth with a soft suck that sent a jolt straight to her core. She gasped, fingers tightening in his hair, her thighs trembling around his hips.
The final straw was the faint ‘pop’ of Joe pulling himself away from her before his tongue dragged a wet stripe back up to her collarbone. Her spine arched sharply, her thighs clamping around his wrist, whispering a “fuck,” that was repeated after his lips connected with the hollow of her throat, teeth pressing just hard enough to leave a mark.
“That’s it,” Joe praised against the damp skin of her throat. “Cummin’ for me? Let me feel it, baby.”
Her breath hitched, her body tightening around Joe’s fingers as the first wave crashed over her. She buried her face against his shoulder, muffling a whimper as her hips jerked forward, riding out the pulses of warm pleasure that left her thighs trembling and her fingertips digging into his biceps. Joe held her through it, his lips brushing her damp temple as his fingers slowed but didn’t stop, drawing out every last shudder until she sagged against him with a ragged exhale.
The aftershocks still hummed in her veins as she slumped bonelessly against Joe’s chest, her heartbeat drumming slowly against her ribs. She had barely caught her breath before his fingers were centimeters away from her lips, glistening with her slick, his blue eyes darkened as she instinctively opened her mouth and let him slide them inside.
Joe watched her tongue swirl around his fingertips with a low chuckle, his other hand squeezed the soft flesh of her thigh. “That’s my girl. So down for me. So sweet.” Her lips curled around his fingers, sucking gently until he pulled them free with a wet sound. The taste of herself lingered and she chased his retreating fingers with a playful whine.
His eyes flickered down to her lips, cursing softly under his breath before reaching up to squish her cheeks between his palms. “You’re gonna kill me,” he muttered, kissing the tip of her nose as she giggled, still breathless against him. She hummed into the long, messy kiss he gave her, letting his tongue chase the remnants of her taste, their breathing both falling shallowly uneven.
“Worked so hard today, all day. I know you’re probably aching for me for some relief,” Joe murmured against her lips, thumb brushing the dampness clinging to her lower lip. “Sound good? A little reward for my wife?”
The word “wife” twirled around her head then settled somewhere warm. She nipped at Joe’s bottom lip before pulling back just enough to see his eyelashes dip low with a faint flush creeping up his neck. “You’re doing it again.”
Her stomach flipped at the grin that spread across his face as he helped her stand. She wobbled for a brief second before he scooped her up effortlessly, her arms looping around his neck instinctively. “Practice makes perfect,” Joe shrugged, carrying them to the master bedroom.
“You’re gonna slip and call me your wife at the worst time,” she countered, nuzzling her nose against Joe’s as he walked them down the hall. The bedroom door was already cracked open, golden evening sunlight painting stripes across the sheets. “Like mid-interview. ‘My wife’ this and that. Then you’ll get all grouchy and annoyed because people didn’t read your mind and realize it was just a slip-up.”
He set her body down onto the sheets gently, crawling over her to allow her the honors of pulling his shirt over his head. “Worse things have happened. Like Bron leaving Cleveland. That was... top 5 worst things that’s ever happened if you think about it.”
She laughed at that, granting him that, yes, indeed, “Worse things have happened.”
pairing⠀⁎⠀colston loveland x graduate student!reader.
word count⠀⁎⠀9.2k.
summary⠀⁎⠀michigan is as much an academic powerhouse as it is an athletic one, which makes for an interesting campus environment; something she experiences firsthand when the very determined freshman starting tight end strolls into her office hours with a plan.
author's note⠀⁎⠀the first fic of the something, somehow, someday series! this will have a second part, maybe within the next two weeks. starts very, very slow, i promise the second part is faster. i owe my entire life to twin who helped me develop this over the last few months. if you're a michigan student and see inaccuracies, use your imagination or look away please, i took several creative liberties.
warnings⠀⁎⠀3rd person [she/her], fluff, reader is explicitly a black woman who is around a year older than colston.
Summer coming to an end brought a chill to the air that whisked tens of thousands of students back to the gorgeous grounds of Ann Arbor. The sidewalks were crowded with students hauling boxes and parents snapping pictures as she made her way through the throngs with practiced ease. She didn’t have much to carry, just her leather bag over her shoulder and her phone in one hand, but she moved with purpose, dodging slow-moving families and weaving between clusters of wide-eyed freshmen.
She, and her roommates, had moved into their apartment building a handful of days prior, eager to beat the crowds. She didn’t have to deal with the horrors of dorm life anymore, which was a relief. There were no more communal bathrooms, no RA breathing down her neck, and definitely no awkwardly small twin-sized beds.
Her freshman year at Michigan passed with a slow dip of her toe in the Fall that ended with a full dive into the deep end by the Spring. When she turned down the long list of colleges that accepted her in favor of Michigan, she didn’t think twice. Michigan felt like home immediately. It was easy to build community. It made her proud to carve out pockets of belonging in a place where everyone was searching for their own.
The lecture hall smelled of industrial cleaning products. She took a seat next to a dark-haired girl she vaguely recognized from a study group she floated in and out of last Spring. The pink-colored scheduling block on her calendar told her this pre-semester meeting was due to last 30 minutes at most before she had to attend another meeting with the Black Student Union’s executive board.
The overhead fluorescents buzzed faintly as she tapped her pen against her notebook, half-listening to the psychology department coordinator drone on about undergraduate assistant protocols.
“In the Psychology Department, it is our policy that LAs are required to attend all lectures. No exceptions,” the coordinator continued, bringing her attention back to the front of the room. She glanced at the clock to see there were eight minutes left. The dark-haired girl beside her stifled a yawn, and she offered a sympathetic smile before flipping her notebook shut.
The coordinator dismissed them with a final reminder about the meeting days and times for each class the assistants were assigned to. She gathered her things quickly, eager to escape the stale air of the lecture hall. As she stood, the dark-haired girl—Nina, she recalled now—caught her eye again.
“Psych 112, right?” Nina asked, falling into step beside her as they exited.
She nodded, adjusting the strap of her backpack. “Yeah. You too?”
Nina grinned. “I was hoping I would end up with someone I knew. Maybe we can grab lunch before the first lecture?”
The lecture hall doors swung shut behind them with a soft thud, and she inhaled the last August air like it was her first real breath in hours. Nina chatted animatedly about her summer internship and they agreed to meet for lunch at noon before lecture.
[ . . . ]
The first week of classes blurred past her in a haze of syllabus reviews and caffeine-fueled adjustments to her new schedule. On Tuesday afternoon, she nursed a fountain drink, taking a seat next to Nina in the back of Psych 112’s cavernous lecture hall.
The agenda for the first class didn’t deviate from those of her other courses, introductions, expectations, and an overview of the syllabus, but she still took diligent notes, knowing that they would be useful when the students taking the class needed clarifications. Halfway through the professor’s introduction of himself, the lecture hall doors groaned open. Heads turned toward the interruption, and she glanced up just as a tall, broad-framed figure slipped inside with an apologetic grimace.
The latecomer moved with the easy confidence of someone accustomed to taking up space, his shoulders nearly brushing the sides as he ducked inside. She noticed the way sunlight from the high windows caught the buzzed-dark strands of his hair before the door swung shut behind him. He scanned the room with a quick tilt of his head, bending his body slightly to avoid obscuring the view of the students he passed, ironically worsening the issue due to his size. His gaze snagged on the empty seat directly in front of her, and she watched—oddly transfixed—as he folded himself into the chair with a soft grunt.
His shoulders were wide enough that she had to angle her head to see the professor. The scent of fresh-cut grass and the combination of something woodsy yet clean like fresh laundry drifted over her. She inhaled without meaning to, then spent the next few seconds trying to put her finger on what it was.
The professor continued his introduction, but her attention kept drifting to the back of the guy’s head in front of her. There was the sharp taper of his fade, his neck curving into his shoulders, the faint sheen of sweat at his hairline from whatever he’d been doing before rushing here. When he shifted, pulling a laptop from his backpack, he turned slightly, murmuring a quiet, “Sorry,” when the zipper grew louder than he anticipated. His voice was low, her ears picked up an accent she couldn’t quite place but noted its warm unhurriedness.
“We have a group of undergrads who took this class recently who will be assisting with the class; answering questions and helping out here and there,” the professor announced, gesturing toward the side of the lecture hall where she and the other LAs sat. “Feel free to approach them after class if you need help navigating Canvas or have any initial questions. If you all could come up and introduce yourselves?”
She stood with the other LAs, smoothing her palms against her thighs as they filed toward the front of the lecture hall. The latecomer, now she could see his full profile, tilted his head back slightly to watch them approach, his brown eyes tracking her as the group of six LAs stood in front of the class. They each introduced themselves to the class; name, year, major, their career interest, and a fun fact.
Her turn came third. She stepped forward, acutely aware of the way the latecomer’s attention seemed to be absorbed by her. She began her introduction with her first name, her voice steady despite the sudden dryness in her throat. “I’m a sophomore, double majoring in business and psychology. I’m interested in doing a PHD in organizational psychology, and...” She hesitated, then smiled. “Fun fact, I’ve never lost a game of Battleship.”
The latecomer laughed at her fun fact, a slow, crooked grin crossing his face that made the dimple in his left cheek appear, an unexpected detail she catalogued subconsciously. His hands, large enough to palm a basketball without effort, clapped together in quiet applause as she stepped back into line. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling too much.
She tried to look elsewhere, intentionally avoiding the intense gaze of the latecomer as she returned to her seat once the introductions ended and the lecture resumed. But the weight of his attention lingered like sunlight warming her skin, as if undeniable but yet also shared by everyone else in a way that provided a paradoxical personal deniability.
She managed to shake off the fluster through the rest of the lecture, quickly shuffling to the front for the sake of troubleshooting Canvas questions, keeping herself busy to avoid acknowledging the way he lingered at the back of the line. Out of the corner of her eye she just barely registered him checking his phone, shifting his weight in thought, then turning over his shoulder to leave, seemingly deciding he didn’t have time to wait. Her shoulders relaxed, unsure if she was relieved or disappointed.
The last thing she needed for herself was to get distracted in the middle of her first week of classes, she reasoned. She didn’t even know his name. Not that it mattered. Football season hadn’t even started yet, but she could already spot an athlete from a mile away. They had a way of moving, of dressing, of carrying themselves, like they knew exactly how much space they were entitled to take up in the world.
Situationships and toxic men weren’t on her agenda this semester, so she tucked the memory of that crooked grin into the mental drawer that she hid her distractions and clicked it shut.
Or at least she would try to.
[ . . . ]
If there was one thing Colston Loveland was more grateful for than he anticipated, it was being able to enroll at Michigan a semester early. At the time, he had taken that chance for granted. He was just happy to escape the oppressive small-town Idaho monotony, but now having to juggle the first week of classes with the lead-up to their first game, he was glad he had gotten the opportunity to learn the ins-and-outs of Ann Arbor’s sprawling campus before navigating it while exhausted from practice.
He figured he would be running late everywhere, constantly but the exhaustion from practice didn’t stop him from noticing the undergraduate assistant the second he walked into Psych 112. Her name stuck in his head like an earworm he couldn’t shake. She had this effortless presence, like she didn’t realize how brightly she burned in a room full of people trying to dim themselves to fit in. Colston wasn’t usually one to get distracted, but the way she’d smiled softly at her own Battleship fact, made his head spin almost as if he’d taken a hit during practice.
There was no shame in his decision to pull up the psych class’ Canvas page the second he got back to his dorm. Colston’s thumbs moved before his brain could catch up, scrolling past syllabus links and lecture slides straight to the ‘Meet Your LAs’ section. He lingered on her bio longer than necessary, committing her major (business and psych, like she’d said), her hometown, and most importantly, her office hours (Wednesday, 3-5pm in East Hall).
There was no shame in his decision to use the one sure gap in his Wednesday schedule between meetings, practice, and classes to loiter inside East Hall for an hour and a half. Colston found a quiet place to sit inside, pretending to scroll through his phone while he counted down the minutes until her office hours began. The plan was simple: walk in casually, ask something vaguely syllabus-related, and make her laugh at least once. He wasn’t sure that he would call it shooting his shot quite yet, but he certainly wasn’t here just for academic clarification either.
Colston checked his reflection in his phone screen one last time before pushing himself off the bench with a quiet exhale. He adjusted the strap of his backpack, rolling his shoulders back as he approached the open door where he knew she would be waiting. The moment he stepped inside, her head lifted from the notebook she’d been scribbling in, her dark eyes flickering with surprise before settling into something warmer, amused.
Her pen hovered mid-sentence as Colston filled the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly brushing the frame, his head ducking as he entered. She hadn’t expected anyone to show up this early, let alone him, but there he was, all six-foot-something of him, smelling faintly of detergent and that warm woodsy scent she remembered noticing in lecture.
“Oh, hey,” she said, her voice dipping into something softer than she intended. She cleared her throat, sitting up straighter as she gestured to the chair across from her. “You can—uh—have a seat if you want.”
Colston grinned at her hesitation, his dimples appearing like a punctuation mark on his confidence. He slid into the chair across from her with the kind of ease that suggested he’d spent his whole life folding his large frame into spaces never meant to contain him. His knee bumped the underside of the table, jostling her water bottle. He caught it before it tipped, steadying it with an apology leaving his lips before she could even react.
She cleared her throat, bringing her eyes to the laptop screen in front of her to avoid having to look at him. “You’re early. We haven’t even covered any material yet.”
Colston shrugged, leaning back in the chair, making her acutely aware of how small the space between them was. His fingers drummed lightly against the tabletop; long, calloused fingers that flexed absently as if he were thinking about reaching for something. “Figured I’d get a head start,” he said, his deep voice curling around the words with that slow, country cadence. “You never lose at Battleship, but I bet you’re even better at explaining syllabus policies.”
Her eyes narrowed at that comment, slowly licking her lips as she tried to read the tiny smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You came all the way here,” she said slowly, tapping her pen against the desk, “to ask about policies you can read in the syllabus?”
Colston’s smirk deepened into a full grin, the dimple in his left cheek carving itself deeper as he leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. “Isn’t that what the professor said you were here for?” he countered, voice dipping into playful mock-seriousness. “Helping us navigate Canvas and answer initial questions?”
She exhaled through her nose, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes as she reached for her printed syllabus. “Fine,” she relented, sliding the paper toward him with another pointed clearing of her throat. “Which policies did you need clarified, Mr...?” Her voice trailed off expectantly, finally lifting her eyes to meet his.
“Loveland,” he supplied easily, fingers brushing against hers as he took the syllabus. “Colston Loveland.” His grin widened, like he knew exactly how much his presence disrupted the quiet of the empty office hours space. “But you can call me whatever you want.”
She pulled her hand back, trying to ignore the way her fingertips tingled where his calloused fingers had brushed against them. She leaned her head onto one hand, watching as Colston pretended to study the syllabus with an exaggerated furrow of his brow. His dark lashes cast shadows against his cheekbones, and she noticed how long they appeared, thanks to the contrast from his skin.
“Right... Colston...” she echoed, dragging the syllables out like she was testing the weight of his name on her tongue. The corner of his mouth twitched at the sound, and she caught the way his eyebrows raised for just a moment before falling back into place. “So, clarifications? Questions? Or did you just want me to say your name?”
Colston’s laugh was deep and unhurried, the sound filling the small room the way morning sunlight spilled through a window. He leaned back in his chair, the plastic groaning under his weight, and tossed the syllabus onto the table between them with deliberate nonchalance.
“You caught me,” he admitted, the dimple reappearing as his thumb brushed absently over the edge of the paper. “But I do have a question about the grading scale.”
His tone was teasing, but there was something earnest beneath it. Like he wanted her to know he wasn’t entirely full of it.
She exhaled sharply through her nose, her fingers reaching for her pen, looking for something fidget while she fought the upward tug at the corners of her lips.
“The grading scale,” she repeated, leaning forward slightly to tap the relevant section with the tip of her pen. “Letter grades are assigned in increments of 10%, with the first three percentages being minus grades and the last three being plus grades. So, for example, 90 to 93 is an A-, 97 to 100 is an A+, anything in between is an A.”
She glanced up to find Colston watching her with the quiet intensity of someone who was absorbing more than just mere percentages. His gaze flickered down to her lips when she paused to wet them, and she quickly pressed on. “Any other burning syllabus questions?”
Colston tilted his head slightly, lips pouting in thought. “Yeah,” he murmured, voice dipping lower. “What’s your policy on students who show up to office hours just to bother you?”
Her pen stilled mid-air. She could feel the heat creeping up her neck, betraying the composure she was clinging to. Colston’s eyes held hers with an ease that made her want to both squirm and lean in closer. She exhaled, slow and measured, before twirling the pen between her fingers.
“Policy’s simple,” she started, tapping the pen against her palm. “First offense, you get a polite but firm reminder that office hours are for academic purposes.” She leaned back slightly, the chair creaking under her shift. “Second offense, I start assigning pop quizzes.”
Colston’s laugh rumbled through his chest. He rested his chin in his palm, fingers drumming lightly against his cheekbone. “And what’s the penalty for flirting?” he asked, the words rolling off his tongue like he’d been waiting all afternoon to say them.
Her eyes narrowed again, her tongue poking the inside of her cheek as she fought the traitorous twitch at the corner of her lips.
“Flirting?” She repeated, dragging the word out like she was testing its weight.
She leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on the table, and tilted her head in mock consideration. “You play football, don’t you?”
Colston’s eyebrows shot up, his lips parting slightly in surprise before curling into another grin. “What gave it away?” he drawled, stretching his arms behind his head in a way that made his t-shirt pull taut across his chest.
She kept her eyes fixed on his face, but the flicker of controlled panic in them betrayed her. “Be serious,” she said dryly.
She could hear the grin in his voice before she even saw it.
“Oh, I’m dead serious,” Colston said, lowering his arms and leaning forward again. “I’m just trying to figure out how many penalties I can rack up before you throw a flag on me.”
There was that lift of his eyebrows accompanied by the quick tilt of his head. She was beginning to see that it was a tell-tale sign that he was flirting; saying something dumb enough to make her roll her eyes but charming enough to make her want to bite back.
She managed to keep her tone measured as she responded. “The football metaphors are not cute.”
Colston’s grin didn’t falter. “Noted,” he said, tapping his temple like he was committing her words to memory. His fingers moved again, this time playing with the edge of the syllabus still lying between them. “Can I ask you something?”
Her fingers curled around her pen a little tighter. The air between them felt charged suddenly, like the moment before a summer storm breaks when all the humidity in the air is just minutes from breaking into physical, liquid rain. She lifted one shoulder in a shrug that she hoped looked more nonchalant than she felt. “You’ve been asking me questions this entire time,” she pointed out, tilting her head. “What’s one more?”
Colston’s fingers stilled on the syllabus edge, his thumb pressing into the paper with hesitation. The silence stretched just long enough for her to notice the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed.
“Professionally speaking...”
“Of course.”
Colston exhaled sharply through his nose, his thumb still pressing into the syllabus edge. “Professionally speaking,” he repeated. “If someone were to... try to...” he took in an audible breath through his teeth, “sit in on your office hours for reasons that aren’t strictly academic, would there be some guy... or girl, you never know, who might feel some type—”
Her shoulders shook with laughter as she leaned back in her chair, covering her mouth with one hand to stifle the sound. Colston’s lips pursed in mock offense, but the crinkles at the corners of his eyes betrayed his amusement. “That’s not an answer,” he protested.
“Professionally speaking,” she echoed, mimicking his deep drawl, “if someone were to waste my office hours trying to... flirt, I’d tell them that as long as they’re enrolled in the course, they’re entitled to my time.” She twirled her pen between her fingers, watching his reaction closely. “But unofficially? I’d tell them to at least pretend to care about the course content.”
He hummed, nodding slowly as if processing her words. “So if I care about the course content...” His fingers drummed against the table again. “Hypothetically, of course.”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress the upward tug of her lips. “Hypothetically,” she echoed. “Then I’d say you’re entitled to my time.”
The silence between them stretched with so much left unspoken until he inhaled and exhaled through his nose and leaned back with a grin that felt suspiciously satisfied. “Good to know, good to know,” he murmured, his voice dipping into that low, unhurried drawl that she was beginning to really enjoy hearing. “Because I do care. About the course content.”
The way his gaze lingered on her face suggested he cared about more than just psych theories, but she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. She nodded, looking away from him to check the time on her laptop screen. Office hours were nearly over, and yet no other students had wandered in. It was just Colston, taking up space in the quietest, most inconveniently charming way possible.
“Well,” she said, tapping her pen against her notebook as she glanced back at him, “since you care so much about the course content, I’ll expect to see you at the next lecture. Taking notes.” The challenge in her voice was light but a challenge nonetheless. “On time.”
Colston grinned, stretching his arms behind his head again. “Wouldn’t miss it,” he promised. His eyes flicked to the clock on the wall before returning to her face. “Guess I should let you pack up.”
He didn’t move.
She arched her brow, waiting for him to stand, but Colston remained seated. The late afternoon sunlight caught the gold flecks in his brown eyes, and she found herself distracted by the way his lashes fanned against his cheekbones when he blinked slowly, like he was savoring the last few moments.
She decided to turn to her belongings, reaching for her bag, deliberately avoiding eye contact. She could feel Colston’s gaze lingering on her fingers as she tucked her notebook inside. She hesitated for a breath before zipping it shut and standing up, bracing herself for the football player to mirror her action.
Colston unfolded himself from the chair with the unhurried grace of someone who had all the time in the world, his broad shoulders rolling back as he stood. She knew he was large. She had clocked his height the moment he walked into lecture, but up close, the sheer magnitude of him was almost comical. She had to tilt her head back slightly to meet his eyes, and for a fleeting second, she caught the flicker of amusement in them as he registered the movement and the look she was trying, and failing, to hide.
She averted her eyes, shifting her bag strap higher onto her shoulder as she stepped around the table. Colston didn’t move, forcing her to brush past him, close enough that he caught a whiff of her floral, summery, fruit-scented perfume following her wake.
“So,” he said, falling into step beside her as she headed toward the door, his stride effortlessly slowed to match hers despite their height difference. “Next lecture. Taking notes. On time.” He ticked the items off on his fingers. “Anything else, Miss?”
She could feel Colston’s amused gaze burning into the side of her face as she locked the office door behind them, her fingers fumbling slightly with the keys. “Don’t call me Miss,” she muttered, finally slotting the key into place with a satisfying twist. “I’m nineteen.”
The hallway stretched long and empty before them, the late afternoon sun casting honeyed stripes across the linoleum from the tall windows. She adjusted her bag strap again, hyper-aware of Colston’s presence beside her.
“Nineteen,” Colston repeated, drawing the word out as if savoring it. He tilted his head down toward her, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “When do you turn twenty?”
She scoffed, shaking her head. “Do you get tired? Asking so many questions?” She pivoted to face him, the golden light from the hallway windows catching the warmth in her eyes.
Colston’s lips curved into that slow grin. “Why? You tired of answering?”
“I’m tired of you,” she shot back, the lie obvious in the upward tilt of her voice.
Colston’s laughter filled the empty hallway, bouncing off the lockers lining the walls as they walked side by side. He nudged her elbow lightly with his own, a touch so casual it shouldn’t have sent her pulse skittering, but did anyway. “You’re not tired of me,” he said, voice dipping into that low, teasing register she was learning to recognize. “You like the company.”
“I like peace and quiet,” she countered, silently relieved at the sight of the doors at the end of the hallway. He was too at ease here, too comfortable walking beside her like this wasn’t his first time trailing her out of a building.
Colston hummed, glancing down at her. “I can be quiet. Whatever you need.” The words lingered between them, weighted with promise. His grin widened as he reached past her to push open the exit door, holding it with a theatrical flourish. “After you.”
She rolled her eyes but stepped through, the crisp air immediately kissing her cheeks. “So, lecture, tomorrow,” she said, pivoting to face him as he followed her out. “Notes, on time. And don’t think I won’t check.”
Colston’s grin widened as he rocked back on his heels, hands tucked into his pockets in a way that made his shoulders look even broader. “Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, dragging out the syllables just to watch her hide another scoff, turning her head to the side to cast her eyes downward at the sneakers on her feet.
She would be lying if she tried to say she disliked that. Just like she would be lying if she said she didn’t find him unfairly attractive and annoyingly charming.
She felt the weight of his gaze before she even lifted her eyes, the warmth of it prickling along her skin. Colston hadn’t moved, he hadn’t even blinked. He just stood there with that infuriating grin, hands still in his pockets, like he could read her thoughts. Like he knew exactly how much she was starting to like the way he looked at her.
“Bye, Colston,” she said, stepping back with a finality, and beginning to turn over her heel toward the parking garage.
“See you tomorrow,” he said, the words slow and syrup-thick with intention. His eyes drifted over her body, taking in her patterned maxi skirt, the solid colored boat neck sleeveless top, and the jewelry layered at her wrists, neck, and fingers, all of it deliberate choices she’d made that morning without knowing she’d be caught in the crosshairs of his attention. She felt the heat crawl up her neck as she turned away, her low-profile sneakers scuffing against the pavement.
She didn’t look back. But halfway to her apartment, she still felt giddy.
[ . . . ]
One thing she was learning about Colston Loveland was that he meant the things he said, especially when he said them in that slow, syrup-thick voice that she grew to learn was a small-town accent from southern Idaho, just an hour and a half outside of Boise. True to his word, he showed up to the next lecture exactly on time, sliding into the seat directly in front of her but not before catching her eye with the raise of his brows and a small grin.
He took notes. Actual, meticulous notes. She peeked over his shoulder once, only to find his handwriting surprisingly neat for someone who spent most of their time at the football facility, the margins dotted with little stars next to concepts he’d circled as if marking them for later. For her she realized, when he strolled into her office hours that next Wednesday asking for some clarification on the different neurotransmitters.
He was just as smart as he was charming, though she could acknowledge how abundantly clear it was that football was the priority. Through their conversations she gathered a few key facts about him.
One, he was the middle child. The second of three boys, all of whom played football. His oldest brother also played college football his freshman year, but he was now a senior at the University of Idaho majoring in Business Administration. His younger brother was in middle school and already had dreams of playing college football.
Two, he was classified as a freshman but was in his second semester at Michigan. He managed to meet all of his graduation requirements early back in Idaho, skipping his senior year of high school and enrolling in Michigan at seventeen.
Three, he was very persistent. Sure, maybe she should have recognized his persistence from the mere fact that he was fighting to step up, hoping to secure the starting tight end position by the end of the season as a true freshman, but it became abundantly clear when he started showing up to her office hours religiously.
Every Wednesday at 3:15 PM, without fail, Colston Loveland would stroll in. Sometimes with his backpack slung over one shoulder, sometimes with a customized fruit bowl he snagged from the team’s dining facility just for her loaded with her favorites after he managed to pull her preferences out of her, and twice with a slight limp that he waved off as nothing.
“He is your type, I’ll give you that...” Jeremy muttered from where he squinted at the laptop screen, elbow propped on the couch armrest.
She felt her entire apartment vibrating with the collective energy of her friends, all crowded around the athletic profile displaying some of the most important information about Colston Loveland, freshman tight end for the University of Michigan football team.
Her head turned at that comment, “What does that mean?”
Jeremy grinned, shrugging with a nod toward where Colston’s stats glowed—6’5”, 245 lbs, 4 receptions for 33 yards over the last three games. “Don’t do that. You know what I mean.”
She moved the laptop from Jeremy’s grasp, glaring as Fareed chuckled into his burrito. “He’s not all that,” she lied, clicking through Colston’s high school highlight reel. The screen filled with footage of him effortlessly snagging passes over defenders half his size, his massive frame cutting through defenders like they weren’t even there.
Aditi nudged her knee with a socked foot. “Girl, you are so full of shit.”
The video rolled on. Colston stiff-arming a linebacker, spinning free with a grin before launching himself into the endzone. “He comes in every week?” Fareed asked through a mouthful of tortilla, eyes flicking between her face and the screen. “Just to ask you about psych stuff?”
“He’s enrolled in the class,” she said evenly. “It’s literally my job. I can’t tell him no.” The excuse sounded half-assed even to her own ears, and Fareed and Aditi’s perfectly mirrored raised eyebrows confirmed it. She clicked away from the highlight reel, trying to shake off the fact that she was affected by this football player loitering around her at every opportunity.
“This man has never needed academic help in his life,” Aditi scoffed, her eyes darting between the laptop screen and her phone, where she’d pulled up Colston’s Instagram.
She watched her best friend’s thumb pause on a photo from last season’s spring game, Colston mid-catch, muscles taut under his jersey, his grin electric even through the pixelated screen. She swallowed, turning away just as Fareed leaned over to tap the photo with a knowing smile.
“Kid’s got hands,” he mused. “But I don’t think he needs your notes.”
“No? Really?” Aditi gasped, shoving at her cousin’s head. “Why are you here?”
Fareed grumbled, taking a swipe at Aditi’s hand. “I live here,” he shot back, rubbing his temple. “Lived here before any of you.”
She rolled her eyes, shutting the laptop with a decisive click. “He can flirt all he wants,” she said, tossing a throw pillow at Fareed’s head. “It’s not going anywhere.”
Aditi snorted, continuing to scroll through Colston’s Instagram. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m being for real.” She tucked her legs beneath her on the couch, biting the inside of her cheek.
“He’s 6’5”, you don’t have to lie to us,” Jeremy expressed through a yawn, stretching his arms behind his head. She glared at him, taking a pillow to his arm with a muffled smack.
[ . . . ]
It wasn’t like she didn’t know Colston was flirting. He made sure she knew that much. The little voice in his head reasoned that if she really didn’t want him around, she’d say so. But she never did. In his head, she even flirted back sometimes, even if she didn’t realize it herself.
Colston was used to being one of, if not the tallest, guy in the room, used to the way people looked up at him, both literally and figuratively. But she never seemed intimidated by his height, by the breadth of his shoulders, or the way his voice carried when he spoke. She just met his gaze, chin tilted up, eyes bright with amusement, or irritation, depending on the day.
He liked that. Liked it a little too much.
He wasn’t quite sure what the policy was on learning assistants dating students, though he figured there probably wasn’t one. He hoped there wasn’t.
“When’s the midterm for this class?” he asked. His eyes watched as she took a sip of the crisp soda through a white straw, her throat moving as she swallowed before answering. The question was innocuous. But the way he stared at her, waiting for the answer told her it was anything but.
“Week seven,” she answered eventually. “Why?”
“Week seven,” he repeated, like the date held some cosmic significance. His straw scraped the bottom of his cup, and he shook the ice absentmindedly. “Do you ever study on your own? Outside office hours?”
She swirled her drink, listening to the ice cubes clink. “Sometimes at Dude,” she replied.
“By yourself?”
She nodded, wary.
“If I stopped by, would you kick me out?” Colston asked, tilting his head slightly, a habit she noticed he had when he wanted to seem more approachable.
She studied him for a beat. “Depends,” she said slowly, “on whether you’re actually studying.”
“Oh, I study for sure,” Colston said, nodding as if this were a serious academic discussion and not thinly veiled scheming. His knee nudged hers under the small table. “Just might need a little...motivation for midterms.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t scoot away. “Motivation,” she repeated flatly. “You mean like how these snacks you bring are supposed to be motivation.”
He didn’t reply beyond a low chuckle to himself. Her eyes tracked the movement of his hands as he reached for his phone lying face down on the table. Silently, he unlocked his phone, then swiped a few times before landing on something that made his smirk deepen. She watched him, eyebrows raised, until he turned the screen toward her, setting the phone on the table between them. The search function on Instagram stared back at her, the blinking cursor awaiting her username.
“What am I looking at, Colston?” she deadpanned, making no effort to move closer despite the way he looked at her expectantly.
His grin didn’t falter. “Your user,” he said, as if this were a perfectly reasonable request and not outright outrageousness. “Unless you wanna give me your Snap instead.”
She exhaled sharply through her nose, the ghost of a laugh escaping despite her best efforts to keep her expression neutral. She pushed the phone back toward Colston with one fingertip, her nails painted a soft, dusty rose tapping against the screen. “You’re really, really brave, Loveland.”
“Brave enough to ask twice,” he murmured, spinning the phone back toward her with a fingertip.
She sucked in a breath through her teeth, lifting her eyes to make contact with his. They remained frozen there, locked in a silent standoff, his fingers still pressed to the phone’s edge, hers still hovering above it.
She exhaled first. “Fine,” she muttered, taking the phone with a pout. Her thumbs moved quickly over the screen, her lips pressed tight as she typed. Colston leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, watching her with a smugness that made her want to toss the phone into the trash to avoid having to admit this plan he seemed to have was actually working on her.
The notification popped up on her phone after she handed his phone back to him. He eagerly pressed the button requesting to follow her, those dark eyebrows inching up again the way she saw him do at least twice every time they found themselves alone in this room, eyes watching her accept the request and follow him back. She rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress the twitch at the corner of her mouth, noticing the time ticking down until she could be set free from this room.
“What are you planning to do with my Instagram?” She asked, flipping her phone facedown as Colston smiled softly triumphant at his screen.
“Plan?” He asked, feigning innocence with a poke of his bottom lip. “Who said anything about plans?” His thumb pressed her profile picture before drifting over to her highlights. “Just wanna see what kinda stuff you post.”
“Oh, we’re playing dumb?” She arched a brow, watching as Colston hesitated long enough to let her know he was formulating an excuse.
Colston’s grin softened into something quieter. “No... nah, I ain’t playin’ dumb.” He tapped her most recent highlight, a compilation of campus sunsets, before locking his phone with a decisive click. “Just wanna know you.” The honesty in his voice shook any edge she thought she had over him.
The silence stretched, thick with something neither dared name, until Colston cleared his throat. “So.” He leaned forward. “You got plans after this?”
The question hung between them casually, but she caught the undercurrent in the way he checked the time on the clock behind her head.
She blinked at him, her straw hovering halfway to her lips. The ice in her cup had melted into a watered down substance. “I’m making dinner tonight. Then I’ll try to finish some stuff that’s due on Friday so I can go out tomorrow.”
He nodded slowly, stubbornly refusing to shift his gaze away from her despite noticing her sudden avoidance of eye contact. “Where you goin’ tomorrow?”
“A Sigma party.” She could see his eyebrows furrow, so she clarified. “Phi Beta Sigma, one of the Divine Nine frats.”
“You got a date or somethin’?”
“Or something,” she echoed, tilting her head just enough to watch his reaction from the corner of her eye. His jaw ticked ever so slightly, his tongue breached his parted lips to lick moisture into them before just barely biting down. His Adam’s apple bobbed once, then twice, then his chest rose with a slow, deep breath.
Colston laughed lowly, finally tearing his eyes away from hers. “Hope you have fun,” he murmured. “I should head out. Got things to take care of.” He stood, towering effortlessly above her even as she straightened her posture, still having to crane her neck just to meet his eyes. “See you in class.”
She hummed, watching him retreat through half-lidded eyes. Only when he disappeared around the corner did she exhale sharply, pressing the back of her hands to her suddenly warm cheeks. “God,” she muttered to herself, gathering her trash with more force than necessary. The crumpled napkin in her fist bore the brunt of her frustration, not at him, but at the way her pulse still hadn’t settled even after weeks of him managing to fluster her.
Her brain was screaming the alarm of jealousy, that he was jealous, but she shoved the thought down with brutal efficiency. It was dumb to assume he was. She barely knew him after all. As much as she told herself that nothing would happen, that nothing could happen between them, it was hard not to imagine that he wanted something to.
[ . . . ]
“That’s her?” Alex Orji all but shrieked when Colston handed over his phone, the screen glowing with her Instagram profile. “That’s the girl?”
“Had to ask twice,” he admitted, rubbing his jaw.
The cereal in front of him had gone soggy, but Colston wasn’t paying attention to anything except Alex’s widening eyes as he scrolled through her feed, past the tailgates and the tropical vacations and the monthly dumps. “Damn. I ain’t know you had that in you, C. Love.”
“Lemme see?” Will Johnson asked through a mouthful of pancake, already reaching for Colston’s phone before Alex handed it over. The dining facility was loud, just as it always was after the early morning lifts were. He had a recovery session in an hour with a series of offensive meetings after, meaning it would be a miracle if he were able to see the sun before it set for the evening.
Will hummed lowly, nodding in approval, scrolling with his thumb. “Lowkey... I think I might know her.”
Colston perked up at that, looking to Alex who cocked his head as he leaned over Will’s shoulder to further scrutinize her face. “From where?” the quarterback asked, swiping through her highlights with exaggerated interest.
“Think she’s one of the BSU chairs...” he murmured, reaching for his own phone to cross reference. Colston stiffened, watching Will scroll through the Black Student Union’s Instagram page, finding their post announcing the executive board and her in the midst of it: Events and Social Engagement Chair, grinning from the center of the fourth picture within the carousel.
“Yeah, that’s her.” Colston’s fingers drummed against the table, watching Will’s reaction with narrowed eyes. “Why?”
Will grinned, locking his phone with a shrug that was far too casual. “No reason.” He popped a grape into his mouth before continuing, “Just funny how small campus is. She bad as hell though, good luck with that.”
Colston retrieved his phone with a grumble. “Luck ain’t got nothing to do with it.”
Alex and Will exchanged a look, resulting in Alex laughing out loud as Will shook his head. “He don’t got a clue in the world,” Will said to Alex, slinging an arm around Colston’s shoulder. “She’s one of those—you know—got her whole life planned, tryna stack her degrees, knows exactly who she is, what she wants, what she doesn’t want.”
Colston shrugged, unfazed. “I know who I am.”
“That’s why he told you ‘good luck with that’, goofy,” Alex snorted.
Will clarified. “Look, I ain’t sayin’ don’t shoot. Just know she’s not some freshman... sorority girl that’s looking for a ring before senior year. She got plans. Don’t take it personally if she ain’t trying to derail them for WAG dreams.”
Colston went quiet, turning his phone over in his hands. The chatter of the dining hall faded into white noise as he tapped the edge of his case against the table before taking in a breath through his nose. “Plans change,” he muttered, more to himself than to them.
Will and Alex exchanged another look, this one loaded with something between amusement and concern. “Just don’t get caught up,” Will said with a shrug. “You been plotting?”
The freshman nodded, biting his bottom lip tentatively before responding. “Kinda... brought her food a couple times. Got her IG. She just told me she’s going to a party today.”
“Where at?” Alex asked.
Colston answered softly. “Sigmas.”
“The black ones?” Alex blurted out loudly, gaining a sharp elbow from Will.
“Yeah,” he muttered, pushing his soggy cereal around the bowl. “Tonight.”
“You don’t need to be plotting shit until you figure out if she likes white boys,” Will muttered, shaking his head at Colston’s stiffened shoulders. The dining hall chatter blurred around them as Colston’s fingers tightened around his spoon. Alex snorted into his orange juice, shaking his head as Will held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m just saying—”
“She likes me,” Colston interrupted, voice low with a certainty that surprised even himself.
The words hung between them, weighted by the unspoken truth that she had never actually confirmed it. But Colston wasn’t blind. He noticed the way she bit her lower lip whenever he leaned into her space and the way her laughter softened whenever he caught her off guard and actually made her laugh.
Will raised an eyebrow, exchanging another glance with Alex before shrugging. “A’ight then, Idaho potatoes. What’s next?”
[ . . . ]
Running his plan by Alex and Will gave Colston the confidence to finally pull the trigger on phase two of his grand scheme. Phase one, getting her to tolerate him enough to exchange social media and eat together, had worked flawlessly. Phase two was trickier, which was why the input of the two upperclassmen he spent nearly every waking moment with was so important.
They confirmed what Colston already knew. She wasn’t just some girl. She wasn’t someone he could just casually wink at, walk up to, and charm into going home with him. She was someone who had to be pursued, someone who wouldn’t give in easily. And, if he was honest with himself, that was what made her all the more enticing.
Phase two started with an observation: she always complained that her Wednesday schedule was too awkward to allow her a genuine chance to stop for a proper meal before her office hours began. He knew she wasn’t opposed to grabbing food with him, the past two weeks had proven that if he paid for it she had no qualms.
So he waited until Tuesday night, right when he knew she’d be scrolling through her phone before bed, and sent her a DM with a proposition.
You mind if I bring you something to eat tomorrow?
Colston’s thumbs hovered over the screen before tapping send, then immediately tossing his phone onto his bed like it had burned him. He paced the length of his dorm room, running a hand over his freshly trimmed hair, cut tight on the sides with just enough length on top to twist between his fingers when he was nervous.
The three dots appeared, disappeared, then reappeared. Her reply came through just as he was debating tossing his phone out the window.
Won’t have time to eat before my office hours to be honest.
Colston’s pulse kicked up a notch, but he forced his fingers steady as he typed back.
We could grab something after, if you don’t have anywhere to be.
He held his breath, watching those damn three dots flicker like a faulty neon sign.
The silence stretched long enough that he nearly caved and sent a follow-up insisting that it was purely platonic, just something two friends would do when they have nothing better to do, but then her reply popped up.
Are you paying?
Is that a yes?
Answer the question.
Yes.
Then yeah. Chipotle?
He grinned at his phone like an idiot.
The next afternoon, her office hours passed in a blur, her gaze flicking to the clock every few minutes as if time had slowed just to torment her. When Colston finally appeared in the doorway, all six-feet-and-change of him ducking slightly beneath the frame, her heart quite literally skipped a beat in her chest.
No one else showed up for help, of course. So for the two hours, it was just the two of them, bickering, laughing, she was working on upcoming assignments while Colston reviewed his notes before taking two quizzes due on Friday. The silence that eventually settled between them wasn’t uncomfortable, it never was, but she found herself glancing up far too often, catching him already looking at her with soft, amused eyes, lips curved into the slightest smirk.
“What?” she finally asked, arching a brow, tossing her pencil onto her notebook with a soft clatter.
Colston leaned back in his chair, the plastic groaning under his weight, arms folded behind his head like he had all the time in the world. She hated when he did that, hated when his shirt strained around his biceps and chest, hated when the azure cotton lifted just enough to reveal a sliver of toned stomach.
He smirked, noticing her eyes drift over his torso and dart back up to his face when she caught herself. “Nothin’. Just thinkin’.”
“You need to stare at me to think?” She teased, shifting in her chair as she stretched her legs beneath the table.
“Maybe,” he murmured, shifting forward again, the chair creaking as he rested his elbows on the table, crowding her space without touching her. “You can stare at me too if you want. I don’t mind.”
Then there was that eyebrow raise again.
She rolled her eyes, but the warmth creeping up her neck betrayed her. The way his voice dipped into that slow, honeyed drawl never failed to unravel her composure stitch by stitch. “Finish your quiz,” she muttered, nudging his calf with her foot beneath the table. His chuckle rumbled low as he complied, fingers tapping lazily at the keys on his laptop while she pretended not to trace the flex of his forearms with her gaze.
When the clock finally signaled the end of her office hours, she packed her bag slowly, acutely aware of Colston lingering by the door, his shoulder propped against the frame. He closed the door behind her, falling in step with her as they exited the building. She probably should not have been as surprised as she was when he plainly directed her toward his truck, opening the passenger side door and helping her up with a large, warm hand hovering just over her lower back without touching her like it was entirely subconscious; a given, entirely natural, an inevitable gentlemanliness that he refused to turn off.
By the time she actually made it back to her apartment after saying goodnight to Colston about three times, retrieving her car from the empty garage, and making the 5 minute drive, she was in a euphoric mood. She’d been distracted by his eye contact, and his arms, and his voice, but really, mostly, his arms. She felt dazed when she locked the front door behind her, something evident to Aditi who stared at her with crossed arms.
“What is that?”
She blinked, tossing her keys into the bowl by the door. “What is what?”
Aditi’s gaze narrowed. “That,” she said, gesturing vaguely at her face.
She shrugged, choosing that moment to refill her water bottle. The faucet’s rush drowned out Aditi’s exasperated sigh, but not the way her best friend leaned against the counter, arms folded, hip cocked.
“You smell like food,” Aditi said, nose scrunched. She took a slow sip, the cool water doing nothing to douse the heat prickling up her neck.
Her best friend’s eyes widened when she caught the faint glimmer of mischief in her expression, like she knew exactly what she was doing when she let the silence stretch just a beat too long.
“You went out with him?” Aditi hissed, abandoning her spot by the fridge to follow her into her bedroom, passing where Fareed and Jeremy were sprawled across the couch, controllers in hand. “Tell me you did go out with him.”
She set her bag on the floor, leaning it up against the leg of her desk, the corner of her lip twitching as Aditi practically vibrated with impatient energy behind her. “Define ‘went out with him’,” she said, shedding her knit cardigan
Aditi groaned, flopping onto the bed. “Don’t play dumb. You know what I mean. Did you...” she lowered her voice, glancing toward the cracked door where the faint sounds of Fareed and Jeremy’s video game echoed. “Did you go on a date with that child?”
She turned her back to Aditi, pretending to organize her desk just to hide the way her cheeks rounded around her smile. “It wasn’t a date,” she murmured, tracing her finger along the edge of her planner. “Just... Chipotle after my office hours.”
Aditi laughed, rolling onto her stomach and propping her chin on her hands. “Uh-huh. And did he pay?”
Her fingers stilled on the edge of her planner. She could feel Aditi’s smirk without turning around. “He offered,” she muttered, shrugging one shoulder with feigned nonchalance.
“Oh my god,” Aditi whispered, dragging out each syllable. “You like him.”
She turned sharply, her braids whipping against her shoulders. “You can’t say anything. I don’t know if there’s some girl secretly obsessed with him. I’ve seen how these girls act around athletes.”
Aditi rolled her eyes, kicking her feet behind her. “Oh, please. You’re the one he’s been stalking for like a month now. Did anything happen?”
Aditi’s question hung in the air, sudden and curious. She busied herself with unclipping her earrings, the hoops clinking against her palm, before answering. “Nothing happened,” she said, voice soft. “We just talked. He made me laugh.” She hesitated, then added, “A lot.”
Aditi’s smirk deepened. “And here I was, thinking you would stand on business.”
She finally fell onto the bed next to her best friend with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling fan above them. “I tried so hard not to laugh at his dumb jokes,” she muttered, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes. “But the way he says everything—like he’s not even trying to be funny—it just—” She groaned, rolling onto her stomach and burying her face in the sheets pulled taut over her bed. “He’s so annoying.”
Aditi rubbed her back, grinning at the way her best friend refused to lift her head. “Oh, please. You’re literally glowing.” She paused, then added, “If you like him... and he likes you... what’s the worst that could happen?”
She groaned into the sheets. “He plays football.”
“Okay, true,” Aditi conceded.
She groaned louder, peeling one eye open to peek at her best friend. “I thought you were gonna make me feel better.”
“I was...” Aditi started, shifting onto her side to get a better look at her best friend. “Then you reminded me he plays football.” She sighed. “But—” She nudged the other woman’s shoulder. “He’s actually kinda cute. For a freshman.”
She scoffed, pressing her forehead against the sheets again. “He’s really hot,” she muttered with a self-deprecating smile that slowly overtook her face when Aditi burst into loud, amused laughter.
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𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 frat!president!colston x gf!reader
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 arguments, temper mention/descriptions, disrespectful dialogue (?), colston being an asshole, still some fluffy content.
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ᝰ 𝒆𝒗'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔 | send me some frat!president colsotn thoughts bc i am OBSESSED with this concept<333
YOU MET HIM ON A TUESDAY that had no business changing your life.
It was late September and you were sitting on the stone wall outside the student union pretending to read while actually watching people. You remember the exact moment he noticed you. Not because he said anything dramatic, but because he stopped mid-laugh with two of his fraternity brothers and looked at you like he’d just remembered something important.
You would learn later that when Colston Loveland decides he wants something, he does not hesitate.
At the time, he wasn’t president of Alpha Phi Alpha just yet. Nineteen, broad-shouldered, deceptively calm. At nineteen, he had that kind of quiet authority that didn’t need volume to be felt.
He crossed the lawn with that unhurried stride, sunlight catching in his brown hair, and stopped in front of you.
“Hi,” he said simply. “I’m Colston.”
You told him you knew.
He smiled at that - slow and amused, and asked if you had plans Friday night.
He did not mention that he’d noticed you weeks ago, that he’d asked around about your major, that he’d rerouted his walk to class twice hoping to “accidentally” run into you. He did not tell you that he’d decided, in the uncomplicated way men like him decide things, that you were going to be his.
He just asked you to dinner like it was the most natural thing in the world.
You said yes because he was handsome, yes, but mostly because there was something steady about him. Not flashy or loud, just certain.
Two years later, you’re still saying yes.
Dating the president of Alpha Phi Alpha is not as chaotic as people assume.
It’s structured. It’s knowing that Wednesday nights are chapter meetings and that he will call you at exactly 9:45pm when they wrap. It’s game days and philanthropy events and charity galas where you stand at his side in dresses you pretend you don’t spend too long picking out.
The boys call you Madam First Lady.
The first time it happened, you thought it was a joke.
You walked into the fraternity house - white columns, polished floors, composite photos lining the walls like a gallery of legacy and the living room went quiet in a way that was almost theatrical.
One of the younger members nudged another. “First Lady’s here.”
They stood up. Actually stood up.
You blinked. “Please sit down.”
They didn’t move until Colston came down the stairs, sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie loose around his neck, looking at you like you were the only thing in the room that mattered. When he reached you, he pressed a hand to your waist and kissed your temple.
“You good?” he asked softly.
And that was when you understood. It wasn’t that they were scared of you. They were scared of him.
They had seen what happens when someone disrespects you, had seen the way his jaw tightens, how the warmth drains from his eyes, how he goes frighteningly quiet instead of loud. They had watched him bench a senior member from a major committee because he’d made a joke about you that landed wrong.
By sophomore spring, you had your own mug in the fraternity kitchen. By junior fall, the alumni board knew your name. By winter formal, you were standing beside him in photos that would be framed and hung long after you both graduated.
He introduces you not as “my girlfriend,” but as “this is her,” like there is no other version of the story. Like you are an extension of the title he carries.
And the boys - grown men who haze pledges and argue about bylaws and pretend to be fearless - clear pathways for you in crowded rooms. They hand you water before you ask, text Colston if you leave early.
Not because you demand it, but because he would burn the whole house down if they didn’t.
You don’t wield the power, he just makes sure everyone knows you have it.
Colston has always believed he is the most important person in any room he walks into.
The frustrating part is that he usually is.
It’s not just ego for the sake of ego. It’s performance backed by proof. He runs Alpha Phi Alpha like a CEO runs a startup - budgets balanced, alumni pleased, pledges in line. He remembers everyone’s name, everyone’s weakness, everyone’s ambition. He is strategic about it. He doesn’t just want power, he wants control and then he wants to execute it flawlessly.
But ego like that doesn’t switch off when the gavel comes down. It follows him home, follows him into arguments. It follows him into you.
Colston is not insecure, has never once worried you would leave him for someone better, has never once questioned whether he is enough.
What he struggles with is not feeling. He feels everything immediately and intensely, then he reacts before the emotion settles into something manageable.
His temper is not explosive in public - he’s too controlled for that. But in private, with you, when he feels challenged or criticized, it flickers. A man used to being obeyed who does not always know how to be disagreed with.
Friday morning starts small.
You’re in his apartment kitchen, hair still damp from your shower, wearing one of his old Alpha Phi hoodies and leggings. He’s at the counter scrolling through his phone, jaw tight. The executive board group chat has been active since 7AM, something about venue payments for the spring formal.
You’re talking about next weekend.
“My sister’s thing is Saturday at four,” you remind him gently, pouring coffee into two mugs. “You said you’d come.”
He doesn’t look up. “I know.”
“You didn’t put it in your calendar.”
He exhales sharply. “I said I know.”
You set his mug down a little harder than intended. “I’m just saying, every time something comes up with the house, you act like my stuff is optional.”
That gets his attention.
His head lifts slowly. “It’s not optional.”
“It feels optional.”
There’s a beat as something hard flickers behind his eyes.
“You know what I deal with,” he says. Calm on the surface but edged underneath. “You see it. I’m not skipping your sister’s thing. I just have bigger responsibilities than you do.”
The words hang as you blink. “Bigger...responsibilities?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It is what you meant.”
He runs a hand through his hair, already irritated. “You’re twisting it.”
“I’m not twisting anything. I just want to feel like I matter as much as your chapter meetings.”
He laughs darkly. “That’s dramatic.”
You stare at him. “See? That. That’s what I mean.”
“What?”
“You always make it sound like I’m overreacting.”
“Because you are,” he snaps, and there it is - the temper slipping through. “You’re always on me about something. The calendar, the events, who I’m texting, what time I’ll be home. It’s constant.”
You go still. “I’m not on you. I’m asking for basic consideration.”
“You nag.”
It’s quiet after that.
You’ve heard him irritated before, seen him frustrated but something about the word lands differently. It makes you feel smaller than you want to feel in your own relationship.
“I nag,” you repeat softly.
He immediately knows he’s stepped wrong, see it in his face but pride is a powerful thing.
“I’m just saying it’s a lot sometimes,” he says instead of apologizing.
You nod slowly, picking up your bag.
“Fine.”
“Don’t be like that.”
You laugh once, short. “You called me a nag.”
He opens his mouth, closes it again. The right thing to say hovers somewhere between his brain and his ego, and his ego wins.
“Whatever,” he mutters.
And you leave.
Friday nights are yours, everyone in the house knows that.
Friday nights are dinner, or a movie, or sitting on his couch with your legs over his lap while he pretends to watch something and actually just watches you. Friday nights are sacred in the same way chapter meetings are sacred.
So when Colston walks into the fraternity house at 8PM instead of heading to your place, it’s noticed.
The living room smells like beer and pizza grease. A few of the guys are crowded around the TV, controllers in hand, Madden loading on the screen. Others are at the dining table arguing over Super Bowl odds like they’re Wall Street analysts instead of twenty one year olds.
Colston drops onto the couch without greeting anyone and that’s how they know something’s wrong. Normally, he commands the room. Claps shoulders, asks about classes, delegates tasks mid-conversation. Tonight, he just stares at the screen.
One of the seniors, Marcus, glances at him carefully. “Your girl busy tonight?”
Colston doesn’t look away from the TV. “No.”
They don’t press because he looks pissed. Not loud pissed, quiet pissed.
After a few minutes, one of the freshmen fumbles a play and the room erupts in mock outrage. Colston watches, jaw tight, then suddenly laughs but it’s humorless.
“Must be nice,” he mutters.
Marcus raises a brow. “What?”
“Not having someone constantly on your ass about everything.”
Ah. There it is.
The older guys exchange glances.
One of the younger members snorts. “Trouble in paradise?”
Colston leans back, spreading his arms along the back of the couch like he owns the furniture. “She’s just a lot sometimes.”
Marcus keeps his tone neutral. “Y/N?”
“Yes, Y/N,” Colston says, rolling his eyes. “She’s too clingy lately. Every little thing turns into a discussion. I miss one event and suddenly I don’t care about her family. I don’t text back in five minutes and it’s a problem.”
The younger guys laugh lightly, relieved it’s normal relationship stuff.
“Girls are just like that,” one of them says.
Colston nods, feeding into it. “It’s exhausting. I have actual responsibilities. Real things. I can’t babysit emotions all day.”
There’s something defensive under the words, something trying to justify himself. Marcus studies him. He’s seen this before. Colston gets overwhelmed, feels criticized, and instead of admitting it hurts, he reframes it as inconvenience.
“You two will be fine,” Marcus says casually. “You always are.”
Colston scoffs. “I’m not saying we won’t be. I just-” He gestures vaguely. “She nags. It’s constant.”
The word hangs. A couple of the guys laugh harder this time.
“First Lady keeping the president in check,” someone jokes.
Colston smirks faintly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, something like that.”
He doesn’t realize how closely they’re listening. How jokes become memory.
By the end of the night, the tension has thinned. He’s shouting at the TV with the rest of them, placing mock bets, shoving shoulders. But the older guys notice it - the way his phone lights up once with your name and he stares at it for a full ten seconds before turning it face down.
He doesn’t text you.
Pride again.
You make up Saturday afternoon.
It’s anticlimactic. He shows up at your apartment without texting first. Knocks twice and waits.
When you open the door, he looks tired. Not angry, just tired.
“I shouldn’t have called you that,” he says immediately.
You blink. “Called me what?”
“A nag.”
The word sounds smaller now, less powerful.
You sigh, stepping aside to let him in. “You hurt my feelings.”
“I know.” He runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I just felt like you were saying I don’t show up for you.”
“I felt like you don’t sometimes,” you admit quietly.
That lands. He exhales. “That’s not true.”
You study him. He looks sincere, stripped of the audience, of the presidency. Just a man who doesn’t like disappointing you.
“I don’t need you to be perfect,” you say. “I just need you to care.”
He steps closer, hands finding your waist automatically. “I care.”
“I know.”
It’s simple after that. Apologies traded, pride softened. He kisses you like he’s missed you even though it’s only been twenty-four hours.
By evening, you’re dressed up for the bar downtown where half the chapter is celebrating someone’s internship offer.
You’re laughing when you walk in together. His hand rests at the small of your back, yours hooks into the crook of his arm. The fight feels distant now, dissolved.
The bar is loud, neon lights reflecting off polished wood as the music pulses through the floor. His brothers are already clustered near the back, pitchers on the table.
They cheer when you arrive.
“First Lady!” someone calls.
You grin, rolling your eyes as Colston smirks, clearly pleased with himself and with you.
The night starts easy. Drinks clink, stories overlap as you lean against him while he talks football with Marcus. Every so often, he presses a kiss to your temple absentmindedly, grounding you there.
You’re teasing him about how he takes forever to order at restaurants because he interrogates the waiter like it’s a deposition.
“I don’t interrogate,” he protests.
“You absolutely do,” you laugh. “You need to know the farm the chicken came from.”
The table erupts.
One of the mid-level brothers - Evan, a little too eager, a little too comfortable, grins and says, “Don’t start nagging him again, Y/N.”
The word hits the air like a dropped glass.
You freeze for half a second, confused but not hurt. You assume it’s a random joke. Something generic.
Colston does not freeze, he goes rigid. The table doesn’t notice at first.
Evan chuckles, taking another sip of his drink. “Let the man live.”
Colston sets his glass down with deliberate precision.
“Say that again,” he says, voice calm. Too calm.
Evan blinks. “What?”
“What you just said.”
The table quiets now.
“I was joking,” Evan says lightly. “Don’t let her nag-”
Colston stands. Not abruptly or chaotically, but with a finality that shifts the entire energy of the table.
“Don’t talk to her like that.”
Evan’s smile falters. “Bro, I didn’t mean-”
“I don’t care what you meant.”
You glance between them, heart ticking faster. “Colston-”
He doesn’t look at you, eyes are locked on Evan.
“You don’t get to call her that,” he continues evenly. “You don’t get to joke about her like that. Ever.”
“It was just a joke-”
“No,” Colston cuts in, jaw tight. “I don’t care.”
The bar noise hums around the tension at your table.
Marcus is watching carefully now.
Evan shifts in his seat. “I heard you say it yesterday.”
Silence.
You don’t catch the implication, too busy registering the protectiveness, the intensity.
Colston does catch it. His eyes flash.
“That doesn’t matter,” he says. “You don’t repeat it.”
There it is - the temper, controlled but burning.
“She’s not some girl you get to clown on. She’s mine, show some respect.”
The possessiveness is palpable. Not romantic now, its territorial.
Evan lifts his hands defensively. “Alright, man. My bad.”
The message is clear, the table is dead silent.
You touch his arm gently. “It’s fine.”
He finally looks at you and the expression shifts instantly. The hard edge softens, the anger redirects inward.
“It’s not fine,” he says more quietly. “No one talks to you like that.”
Your chest warms as you smile faintly. “Okay.”
Marcus clears his throat, breaking the tension. “We good?”
Colston straightens, smoothing his hoodie like nothing happened. “We’re good.”
But he doesn’t sit back down, looks at you instead. “You ready to go?”
You blink. “Already?”
“Yeah.”
You nod, grabbing your purse. As you leave, the guys part slightly, the same way they do when you walk into a room at the house.
Outside, the air is cool.
You loop your arm through his again, tilting your head up at him. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You’re dramatic.”
He huffs faintly. “No one calls you that.”
You smile, leaning into him. “You’re protective.”
He doesn’t answer.
Because somewhere under the ego, under the temper, under the pride that made him rant about you twenty-four hours ago, there’s something else.
He hates the idea of you being disrespected, even if the disrespect started with him.
You don’t think about where Evan heard it, don’t think about Friday night.
You just see the way Colston’s hand tightens around yours as you walk, like he’s anchoring you there.
And in his mind, he’s already rewriting the narrative.
He’ll never say it again. Not to you or anyone.
Because whatever flaws he has - ego, temper, pride - one thing is consistent: you’re his.
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𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 joe insists he will be able to manage your three boys -- hayes, sawyer and tate (AKA tater tot) while you go have a girls day with your mom and best friend. joe handles it like a true MVP.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 domestic, dad!joe <3 joe being a true boy dad, football talk, one little injury description, a lot of arguing. SUPER fluffy!
𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 6.4k
ᝰ 𝒆𝒗'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔 | okay i AM reusing the name sawyer from my luke kuechly fic so please dont mind. i picked the boys' names, i hope you like them BUTTT you guys will get to pick our girls' name <3 anyways, enjoy the first fic of a rebranded sweet on you LMAO.
SUMMER IN CINCINNATI always feels thicker than it should. The air hangs heavy over the trees in your backyard, cicadas screaming like they have something to prove, the sun bleaching everything two shades lighter. The boys track grass through the kitchen before 9am and the house smells permanently like sunscreen and Gatorade.
You used to think summers would slow down once Joe was out of college, once life settled into something steadier than Friday night lights and cheap gas station coffee but the truth is, summer just changed shape. It’s no longer high school bleachers and borrowed pickup trucks. It’s three boys with too much energy and a husband who is both an NFL quarterback and, somehow, still the same boy who sat behind you in sophomore English and flicked paper footballs at your braid.
Joe insists he has this.
He says it casually, leaning against the kitchen counter in gray athletic shorts and a worn tee from LSU that’s so soft it’s nearly translucent. The boys orbit him like over excited puppies - Hayes explaining a new route concept he “invented,” Sawyer correcting him loudly, and Tate - your Tater Tot - has one small hand hooked into Joe’s pinky like an anchor.
“You can go,” Joe tells you, bumping his hip against yours. “You handle three grown women. I can handle three boys.”
You arch an eyebrow. “They are grown.”
“Have you met your mother?” he shoots back, and you laugh because you have.
The truth is, you do worry. Not because Joe can’t do it - he can read a defense in seconds, can throw a spiral fifty yards without thinking, can stand in front of a stadium packed with screaming fans at Paycor Stadium and look unbothered. But home is louder in a different way - it’s overlapping questions and snack negotiations and someone crying because someone else looked at them wrong. It’s Hayes and Sawyer wanting to run routes in the backyard until the sun sets, and Tate blinking against the noise, asking if he can go inside and color dinosaurs instead.
Tate is the youngest and the most sensitive. Not in a fragile way - just in a thoughtful one. He feels things longer. When his brothers crash into him mid-play, they bounce off and keep running. He lingers, rubbing his shoulder, eyes shiny.
Hayes, at eight, already studies Joe like he’s preparing for a job interview. He mirrors his stance when they throw. He squints at the field (your yard, but they insist on calling it the field) like he’s calculating coverage.
Sawyer, six and a half and pure chaos, wants to win everything. If Hayes catches three passes, Sawyer needs four. If Hayes says he’s faster, Sawyer will run laps until someone confirms it.
And Tate would rather sit at the kitchen table with a box of crayons, tongue peeking out in concentration, drawing a family of stick figures where everyone is smiling and holding hands.
Joe sees all of it. That’s the thing. He acts relaxed but you know him. You’ve known him since he was seventeen and trying too hard not to look at you in the hallway. You know the slight tightening around his eyes when the noise stacks too high, the way he runs a hand through his hair when he’s overstimulated but pretending he’s not. The deep breath before he steps in to referee.
He catches you watching him now.
“I’ve got it,” he says again, softer this time.
You walk through the house one more time before leaving - checking that Tate’s favorite coloring book is on the table, that the freezer has the popsicles Hayes likes, that Sawyer’s cleats are by the back door so he doesn’t tear the grass up in sneakers and then cry about slipping.
Your mom and Maisie are already texting you about brunch reservations. You should be excited. You are excited. But as you grab your bag, Tate’s voice drifts in from the living room.
“Daddy, can we not go outside yet?”
Hayes groans dramatically. “Tate, it’s summer.”
Joe’s voice follows, calm but firm. “Hey. We’re not groaning at each other. We’ll figure it out.”
That’s when you pause in the doorway.
Joe is crouched down, eye-level with all three of them. One hand on Hayes’ shoulder, the other tugging Sawyer closer so he stops pacing. Tate is pressed into his side, small fingers curling into Joe’s shirt.
They look like a team already.
You married him young - you remember people telling you that was reckless. High school sweethearts don’t always last, especially ones in the NFL. But you’ve built this life brick by brick - through college apartments and draft night nerves, through your first tiny rental house and then the one with the yard big enough for backyard scrimmages.
Three boys, endless noise, grass stains that never fully come out.
Joe glances toward the door, catches your eye.
“Go,” he mouths.
And for a second, you see it - QB1, dad, the boy you fell in love with - all braided together into one steady presence.
You step out into the thick Cincinnati heat, knowing full well that by mid-afternoon, someone will be crying, someone will be hungry again, and Joe will be standing in the kitchen, overwhelmed but pretending he’s not.
But he meant what he said.
He’s got it. Or at least, he’s going to try.
The door clicks shut behind you, and Joe stands there for half a second longer than he needs to. He listens and waits until your car starts. The boys already talking over one another.
Then-
“Dad,” Hayes says immediately like he’s been waiting for this exact moment. “Can we do pancakes?”
“No, waffles,” Sawyer cuts in. “You always say pancakes.”
“I do not always say pancakes.”
“You literally always say pancakes.”
Joe exhales through his nose slowly. It’s only 8AM.
Tate is still by the front window. He hasn’t moved.
Joe notices it before he even answers the breakfast debate. Tate’s small hands are pressed to the glass, watching your car roll down the street like it might change its mind and reverse.
“Hey, Tater Tot,” Joe says gently.
No response.
Hayes and Sawyer are now debating syrup ratios.
“She uses more syrup when we do pancakes,” Hayes argues. “It’s, like, proven.”
“Because they need more syrup,” Sawyer fires back. “Waffles have pockets, that’s kinda the whole point.”
Joe rubs a hand down his face.
“Okay,” he says, raising his voice just enough. “Time out.”
They both stop mid-sentence. He’s learned that tone. Not mad, just firm.
“We’re going to make breakfast,” he says. “And nobody is yelling about breakfast.”
Sawyer opens his mouth.
Joe lifts a finger. “Nope. Not yet.”
He walks over to Tate first, crouches down beside him. Tate’s lip is wobbling in that quiet way. No dramatic crying, just the slow build of it. His eyes are glossy, doesn’t look at Joe, still staring out the window.
“Hey,” Joe says softly. “Mom’s not moving back in, you know.”
Tate sniffles. “I know.”
“You know?”
He nods, but he doesn’t turn around.
Joe rests a hand gently on the back of his head. Soft brown hair, warm from the sun through the window.
“She’s just at brunch,” Joe says. “You remember brunch?”
“With Grandma and Aunt Maisie,” Tate whispers.
“Yeah.”
Another sniffle.
Joe glances over his shoulder. Hayes is now dramatically leaning against the counter like he’s been deeply wronged by the waffle lobby. Sawyer is digging in the pantry like he’s going to find a solution in there.
Joe turns back to Tate.
“Want to help me make breakfast?” he asks.
A small shake of the head.
“Do you want to stand by me while I make breakfast?”
Pause.
“Can I call her?”
Joe’s chest tightens in that subtle way it does when one of them looks too small for the world.
“We’re not calling her five minutes after she left,” he says gently. “She deserves a little break.”
Tate’s fingers curl into the hem of Joe’s shirt now.
“I don’t like when she leaves.”
Joe shifts so he’s sitting on the floor fully now, back against the wall, Tate tucked into his side.
“I know.”
And he does know.
Tate has always been this way. As a baby, he’d cry if you left the room for too long. As a toddler, he’d toddle after you like a shadow. He doesn’t like sudden quiet, doesn’t like big changes. He thrives on predictability.
Which is ironic considering his brothers are basically human fireworks.
Joe presses a kiss to the top of Tate’s head.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “You know what’s cool?”
Tate doesn’t answer.
“You get me all morning.”
That gets a small look.
Joe makes a dramatic face. “No practice or meetings, or film. Just me. And you.”
Hayes cuts in from the kitchen. “Dad, he always gets you.”
Tate immediately looks like he might cry again.
Joe points without looking. “Hayes. Not helping.”
Hayes freezes.
Joe softens his voice again. “It’s just us today, bud. And when Mom gets back, you can tell her all about how awesome this morning was.”
“Can it be waffles?” Sawyer shouts.
“Can it be quiet?” Joe shoots back.
Silence.
For three seconds until Sawyer mutters, “Waffles are quieter than pancakes.”
Joe stands up slowly, lifting Tate with him automatically. Tate wraps around him like a koala.
“All right,” Joe says, walking toward the kitchen with Tate attached to his hip. “We are making-”
“Waffles!” Sawyer cheers.
“Pancakes and waffles.”
Both boys blink. He sets Tate on the counter beside the stove, one protective arm loosely around him. Tate leans into his side immediately.
“Okay,” Joe says, grabbing a mixing bowl. “We’re doing one batch pancake style, one batch waffle style. Everybody wins.”
Sawyer squints suspiciously. “But which one do you like better?”
Joe doesn’t hesitate. “Whichever one doesn’t involve yelling.”
Hayes snorts.
Joe hands Hayes the measuring cup. “You’re in charge of flour. Two cups. Level it off.”
Hayes straightens immediately, taking the job seriously.
“Sawyer,” Joe continues, “crack the eggs.”
Sawyer’s eyes light up. “Can I do it one-handed?”
“No.”
Sawyer deflates.
“And crack them over the bowl,” Joe adds. “Not the counter.”
Tate’s fingers are still curled in Joe’s shirt.
Joe starts whisking.
The noise level rises again within seconds.
“That’s not two cups,” Sawyer says.
“It is two cups.”
“You didn’t level it.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You didn’t!”
Tate’s shoulders inch upward.
Joe notices.
“Hey,” Joe says, not looking up from the batter. “Volume.”
They quiet a notch.
Sawyer cracks an egg too hard. Shell fragments plop into the bowl.
“Shoot,” he mutters.
Joe fishes them out calmly. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Sawyer insists. “Now it’s ruined.”
“It’s eggs and flour,” Joe says. “We are not performing surgery.”
Tate presses his hands over his ears.
Hayes groans. “Sawyer, you’re so loud.”
“You’re loud!”
“I’m not loud!”
“You are loud!”
Tate squeezes his eyes shut. Joe puts the whisk down.
“Okay.”
That tone again.
All three boys freeze as Joe turns fully toward them.
“First of all,” he says evenly, “nobody is calling anybody loud like it’s an insult.”
Hayes looks down as Sawyer shifts.
Joe steps closer, one hand resting on Tate’s back.
“Second,” he continues, “if we can’t make breakfast without arguing about flour and eggs, we are not making breakfast.”
Silence.
Sawyer fidgets.
Hayes mutters, “Sorry.”
“Sorry,” Sawyer echoes.
Joe nods once.
Then he crouches so he’s eye-level with them, Tate still leaning against him.
“You two are big enough to handle disagreements without yelling,” he says. “And your brother doesn’t like when it gets loud.”
They both glance at Tate.
Tate keeps his hands over his ears.
Hayes’ face softens. “Sorry, Tate.”
Sawyer walks closer. “We weren’t yelling at you.”
Tate shrugs as Joe rubs his back gently.
“All right,” Joe says. “Reset. We’re starting over.”
He stands, turns back to the counter.
“Hayes,” he says, calm again. “Show me the flour.”
Hayes carefully levels it this time.
“Sawyer,” Joe says, “crack the last egg.”
This time it’s cleaner.
Tate slowly lowers one hand from his ear.
Joe hands him the whisk.
“Want to stir?”
Tate hesitates, then nods. Joe keeps his hand over Tate’s smaller one as they whisk together. The batter sloshes slightly over the edge.
“Oops,” Tate whispers.
Joe grins. “That’s how you know it’s real.”
Sawyer leans against the counter. “Can I pour it?”
“You can pour when I say you can pour,” Joe replies.
Hayes rolls his eyes. “Control freak.”
Joe points the whisk at him. “Inherited.”
Hayes grins despite himself.
The waffle iron heats with a click as the skillet warms on the stove.
Joe moves like he does in the pocket - aware of everything at once. Sawyer inching too close to the heat, Hayes trying to peek under the waffle lid, Tate shifting when the sizzle gets too loud.
“Back up,” Joe says gently, nudging Sawyer with his hip. “Hot.”
Sawyer backs up.
Tate flinches when the first pancake hits the pan.
Joe lowers the heat slightly.
“Too loud?” he murmurs.
Tate nods.
Joe bends so they’re eye-level again. “You want to sit at the table while I finish?”
Another small nod.
Joe sets him down at the table, but Tate immediately looks uncertain again. Joe then, grabs the coloring book from the counter and slides it in front of him.
“Front-row seat,” he says. “You can supervise.”
Tate cracks the smallest smile.
Hayes watches Joe flip the pancake. “That was clean.”
“Of course it was clean,” Sawyer says. “He’s a quarterback.”
Joe snorts. “That has nothing to do with pancakes.”
“It kind of does,” Hayes argues. “Hand-eye coordination.”
Sawyer nods seriously. “Yeah.”
Joe shakes his head, but he’s smiling. He plates the first pancake and cuts it in half automatically.
“Who’s first?” he asks.
“Me,” Sawyer says.
“No, me!” Hayes counters.
Joe doesn’t even look at them.
“Tater Tot,” he says.
Both older boys groan.
“That’s not fair.”
“He didn’t even ask for it.”
Joe slides the plate in front of Tate.
“Exactly,” he says.
Tate beams. It’s small, but it’s there.
Hayes and Sawyer exchange a look.
Joe starts the next pancake.
“We’re rotating,” he says. “Relax.”
The kitchen settles into a rhythm. Pour, sizzle, flip.
Sawyer sets the table dramatically, narrating his own movements like it’s a cooking show.
“And now,” he announces, placing a fork down, “the contestants wait.”
Hayes rolls his eyes but helps.
Tate colors quietly, glancing up every few seconds to make sure Joe is still there.
Joe feels the pull of everything at once - the noise, the heat, the constant questions but he breathes through it.
“Dad,” Hayes says, “after breakfast can we run routes?”
“Outside?” Sawyer adds eagerly.
Tate stiffens at the word outside.
Joe notices.
“Maybe,” Joe says carefully.
Hayes lights up. “Yes.”
“That’s not a yes,” Joe corrects. “That’s a maybe.”
Sawyer groans. “You always say maybe.”
Joe raises an eyebrow. “I wonder where you got that from.”
They eat in waves.
Hayes inhales his portion like he’s fueling for a combine. Sawyer talks the entire time, syrup on his chin. Tate eats slowly, still watching Joe like he might disappear if he blinks too long.
Joe finally sits down with his own plate when they’re halfway through.
For three minutes, it’s peaceful.
Then-
“Hayes took more syrup.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t!”
Tate’s hands creep back toward his ears.
Joe closes his eyes briefly.
Deep breath.
He opens them.
“All right,” he says evenly. “We are not fighting over syrup.”
“But-”
“Nope.”
Silence again.
Joe reaches for the syrup bottle and places it dead center on the table.
“Shared resource,” he says. “Figure it out.”
They stare at it like it’s a negotiation table.
Tate slowly reaches first, Hayes and Sawyer both pause as Joe watches carefully.
Tate pours a tiny amount. Very precise and careful, then sets it back.
Hayes glances at Sawyer.
Sawyer sighs dramatically but nods.
They manage it without yelling.
Joe leans back slightly.
Small win.
Tate looks up at him. “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“When is Mom coming home?”
Joe checks the clock. “Couple hours.”
Tate frowns.
Joe leans forward, resting his elbows on the table.
“Hey,” he says softly. “You know what we’re going to do?”
Tate shakes his head.
“We’re going to have the best morning ever. So when she gets home, you can tell her she missed it.”
Tate considers that.
Hayes grins. “Yeah. We’ll be like, sorry Mom, you should’ve been here.”
Sawyer nods enthusiastically. “Awesome.”
Tate’s mouth twitches.
Joe sees it - the shift, the tiny easing.
He ruffles Tate’s hair gently.
“See?” he murmurs. “We’ve got it.”
As Hayes immediately starts explaining a backyard play concept and Sawyer argues about formation spacing, the volume rising again, Joe braces himself.
Joe stands in the middle of the kitchen after breakfast like he’s in the huddle as wipes his hands on a dish towel, glances at the clock again, and nods to himself.
“Okay,” he says.
Hayes looks up from licking syrup off his fork. “Okay... what?”
“We need a plan.”
Sawyer groans instantly. “Why?”
“Because,” Joe replies calmly, “when we don’t have a plan, we yell about waffles.”
“That was one time,” Sawyer mutters.
Joe ignores him. He walks to the fridge, grabs the magnetic notepad and clicks a pen.
Hayes’ eyes narrow. “Are you seriously making a schedule?”
Joe writes at the top in neat block letters -- BURROW BOYS SUMMER AGENDA
“Yes,” he says simply.
Sawyer collapses dramatically against the chair. “Dad.”
Joe doesn’t even look at him. “9AM to 10AM: Coloring and quiet time. We’ll watch Shrek 4.”
Tate perks up immediately. “The dragon part?”
“Yes,” Joe says. “The dragon part.”
Hayes squints. “Again?”
“Yes,” Joe says. “Again.”
Sawyer sighs. “We watched that yesterday.”
“And you’ll survive watching it today,” Joe says, still writing. “11AM to 12AM: Backyard football.”
That gets their attention.
“12AM to 1PM: Pool.”
Hayes straightens. “Like actually swim, not just sit?”
“Actually swim.”
Sawyer fist pumps.
Joe caps the pen and turns around.
“Everyone gets something,” he says evenly. “Tate gets quiet time. You two get football. We all get swimming. No arguing about what’s next because it’s written down.”
Hayes studies the list like it’s a game plan. “Can we adjust based on performance?”
Joe fights a smile. “No.”
Sawyer crosses his arms. “What if we finish coloring early?”
“Then you color better,” Joe says.
Tate is already climbing off his chair.
“Can we start now?”
Joe nods once. “Living room. Get the blankets from the closet, I’ll get the crayons from upstairs.”
The living room becomes headquarters within five minutes.
Joe drags out the big gray throw blanket and spreads it across the floor. Hayes and Sawyer fight lightly over who gets which couch pillow until Joe silently removes both pillows and tosses them to the opposite side of the room.
“You get the floor,” he says.
They grumble but comply.
Tate settles right beside Joe, thigh pressed firmly against his. His coloring book is open to a dragon page. He arranges his crayons in a neat line before touching any of them.
Joe notices.
The TV glows as Shrek Forever After starts up again. Sawyer groans at the opening credits but doesn’t actually look away.
Joe picks up a random superhero coloring book Sawyer abandoned weeks ago and flips to a page.
“You’re coloring?” Hayes asks skeptically.
“Yes,” Joe replies.
“That’s so unnecessary.”
Joe shrugs. “I commit.”
Tate leans against his arm, already carefully filling in a wing.
For a little while, it works exactly how Joe hoped.
The movie hums in the background. Tate is quiet, fully absorbed. Joe colors in long, steady strokes. Hayes and Sawyer bicker softly about which crayon shade is more “realistic” for ogre skin but it’s light not too loud.
“That’s not forest green,” Sawyer says.
“It literally says forest green.”
“It looks like grass.”
“Grass is in a forest.”
“That’s not the point.”
Joe doesn’t intervene because this is manageable. Tate doesn’t even glance at them. His tongue peeks out slightly in concentration as he outlines a dragon’s tail.
On screen, Donkey starts yelling.
Sawyer laughs. Hayes mutters a line along with the movie.
Joe catches Tate smiling.
“You’ve memorized it, huh?” Joe murmurs.
Tate nods without looking up. “He says it wrong on purpose.”
Joe hums.
Behind them, Hayes flicks a crayon at Sawyer.
“Stop,” Sawyer says automatically.
“You stop.”
“You’re in my bubble.”
“There is no bubble, it’s a blanket.”
Joe exhales but doesn’t look up.
“Keep it at banter level,” he says.
“What’s banter?” Sawyer asks.
“Not yelling,” Hayes answers.
Joe smiles faintly.
Tate finishes his page and holds it up silently.
Joe looks over. “That’s good, Tater.”
Tate beams.
“Can you hang it?” he asks.
“On the fridge?” Hayes interjects. “There’s no room.”
“There’s always room,” Joe says.
He takes the page, smooths it out carefully, and sets it aside.
The hour moves slower in a good way. The noise never spikes too high. Tate stays anchored to Joe’s side. Joe finds himself half-watching the movie with him, half-listening to the rhythm of Hayes and Sawyer’s ongoing, harmless debate about whether Shrek could play tight end.
“He’s too slow,” Sawyer insists.
“He’s strong though,” Hayes counters. “He could block.”
“He’d get called for holding every play.”
Joe snorts under his breath. Tate leans into him further when a louder action scene starts and Joe lowers the volume slightly without being asked.
When the credits roll, Joe checks the time.
10AM.
He stands, claps once. “All right.”
Sawyer jumps up instantly. “Outside!”
Tate’s shoulders tense.
Joe kneels in front of him.
“Football first,” Joe says gently. “Then pool.”
Tate hesitates.
“You’re on my team,” Joe adds quietly.
That helps, Tate nods.
The backyard is bright and hot, the grass slightly damp from early morning sprinklers.
Hayes grabs the football immediately as Sawyer starts pacing off imaginary yard lines.
Joe hands Tate a smaller ball at first.
“Warm up,” he says.
Tate tosses it back carefully.
Hayes rolls his shoulders. “We’re offense.”
“No,” Sawyer says. “We’re defense.”
Joe steps in. “Teams are set. Me and Tate, you two together.”
Sawyer grins. “We’re going to win.”
Hayes nods confidently. “By a lot.”
Joe arches a brow. “We’ll see.”
They line up loosely. Hayes starts calling out dramatic, unnecessary audibles.
“Blue 42! Blue 42!”
“You don’t even know what that means,” Sawyer says.
“Yes I do.”
Joe bends down next to Tate.
“Okay,” he murmurs quietly. “You run straight to the tree, turn around. I’ll throw it to you, just focus on the ball.”
Tate nods seriously as Joe hikes the ball to himself dramatically.
Sawyer rushes him immediately.
“Hey!” Joe laughs. “No blitzing on the first play.”
“There’s always blitzing,” Sawyer argues.
Hayes circles wide.
Joe steps back, scanning theatrically. Tate runs - small but still determined.
Joe throws.
It’s a clean spiral, soft enough. Tate catches it against his chest.
Hayes groans loudly. “No way.”
Sawyer throws his hands up. “He traveled!”
“That’s basketball,” Joe says.
Tate smiles shyly as they reset.
The game builds slowly, energy rising but still playful. Hayes makes a diving catch in the grass and rolls dramatically like he’s in the Super Bowl. Sawyer trash talks relentlessly but never cruelly.
Joe keeps glancing at Tate, checking in.
He’s keeping up, laughing more now. At one point, Hayes accidentally bumps him but immediately steadies him.
“Sorry,” Hayes says quickly.
“It’s okay,” Tate replies.
Joe scrambles to the side, Sawyer chasing him hard. Hayes cuts across the middle, Tate is near Joe, ready for a short pass.
Joe pivots to avoid Sawyer, doesn’t see Tate step forward at the same time.
His elbow clips Tate’s forehead. It’s not hard, but it’s enough.
Tate stumbles backward and falls onto the grass.
Everything stops.
For half a second, it’s silent, then Tate’s face crumples.
Joe’s stomach drops.
“Hey - hey,” Joe says instantly, dropping to his knees.
But Hayes and Sawyer get there first.
“Dad!” Sawyer yells.
“What did you do?” Hayes demands, voice loud.
Joe blinks, stunned.
“I- he stepped-”
Tate starts crying fully now, hands over his forehead.
Hayes kneels beside him, glaring up at Joe like he just committed a crime.
“You hit him!”
“It was an accident,” Joe says quickly, reaching out.
Sawyer pushes Joe’s arm away. “Don’t touch him!”
Joe freezes.
There it is, that big-brother instinct.
Hayes cups Tate’s face gently. “Where does it hurt?”
“My head,” Tate sobs.
Joe swallows.
“I didn’t... mean to,” he says softly.
Sawyer shoots him a look. “You’re supposed to watch.”
Joe almost laughs at the absurdity of being scolded by his six year old, but Tate’s crying stops him.
“I know,” Joe says. “You’re right.”
That disarms them. Hayes hesitates as Joe moves slower now.
“Can I check?” he asks Tate.
Tate nods weakly. Joe carefully moves his hands away and examines the spot.
It’s already reddening.
“Okay,” Joe says softly. “That’s going to bruise a little.”
Sawyer looks furious. “Mom is going to freak out.”
Joe exhales slowly. “Let’s not escalate.”
Hayes looks between Joe and Tate. “You didn’t even see him.”
“I know,” Joe says again. “That’s on me.”
Tate sniffles.
Joe scoops him up carefully.
“I’m sorry, Tater Tot,” he murmurs into his hair.
Hayes stands, still hovering. “Is he okay?”
“He’s okay,” Joe says gently. “Just surprised.”
Sawyer crosses his arms, eyes still narrowed at Joe.
“He need ice,” Hayes says decisively.
“Yes,” Joe agrees. “Ice.”
They all march inside together like a tiny protective unit as Joe grabs a cold pack from the freezer and wraps it in a towel.
Hayes holds Tate’s hand while Joe presses it gently to his forehead as Sawyer stands close, watching like a security guard.
“You can’t hit him,” Sawyer mutters.
Joe huffs a quiet laugh despite himself. “I’m aware.”
Tate’s crying fades to sniffles.
Hayes leans closer. “You’re tough,” he tells him.
Sawyer nods firmly. “Yeah, you barely cried.”
Joe raises an eyebrow but says nothing.
Tate gives them a small, wobbly smile, and Joe feels something warm in his chest.
They love him. Even if it means yelling at their own dad.
After fifteen minutes and a popsicle bribe, Tate’s eyelids start drooping.
Joe notices immediately.
“Nap,” he decides.
“I’m not tired,” Tate mumbles.
“You are,” Joe says gently.
He carries him upstairs, the house quieter now. In Tate’s room, Joe dims the lights and sets him down carefully.
“Will you stay?” Tate asks.
“For a minute.”
Joe sits on the edge of the bed, brushing his fingers through Tate’s hair.
“You did good out there,” Joe murmurs.
Tate’s eyes flutter. “Hayes was mad at you.”
Joe smiles faintly. “I noticed.”
Tate falls asleep mid-sentence.
Joe stays an extra minute anyway, then he slips out quietly.
Downstairs, Hayes and Sawyer are already in swim trunks.
“Pool?” Sawyer asks immediately.
Joe nods. “Pool.”
They head out back again.
Without Tate, the energy spikes. They cannonball into the water within seconds, as Joe slides in slower.
“Okay,” Hayes says, treading water. “Hypothetically.”
Joe groans.
“If you had Ja’Marr and Justin on the same team in backyard rules-”
“Unfair,” Sawyer cuts in.
“I’m not done.”
Joe leans back against the pool wall.
Hayes continues, “Would you run slants first or go deep?”
Joe smirks. “Depends on coverage.”
“There is no coverage,” Sawyer argues. “It’s backyard.”
“There’s always coverage,” Hayes insists.
Joe watches them argue about imaginary defensive schemes in waist-deep water.
They debate zone versus man like it’s life or death. Sawyer insists blitzing every down is smart, Hayes calls him reckless.
Joe lets them go at it for a while before he interjecting calmly, “You can’t blitz every down. You’ll get burned.”
Sawyer looks betrayed. “You always say take risks.”
“Calculated risks,” Joe corrects.
Hayes grins smugly as Sawyer splashes him.
They wrestle in the water, laughing. Joe feels the noise climbing again, but it’s different without Tate’s sensitivity in the mix. Still, after forty-five minutes, he’s tired.
“Out,” he calls.
They groan but obey.
By the time they’re towel-drying and arguing about sandwiches versus grilled cheese, Joe glances at the clock.
Time to wake Tate.
“He’s going to have a mark,” Hayes says casually.
Joe’s stomach flips. “Don’t say that.”
Sawyer grins. “Mom’s going to kill you.”
Joe stares at them.
“She... is not going to kill me.”
Hayes shrugs. “She might.”
Joe runs a hand through his hair.
Upstairs, Tate wakes slowly, blinking. Joe lifts him carefully.
“How’s the head?”
Tate touches it. “It’s fine.”
Downstairs, Hayes gasps dramatically.
“Oh my gosh!”
Joe’s heart drops.
The bruise is faint but visible now.
Sawyer winces. “You’re so done.”
Joe exhales slowly.
“Okay,” he mutters. “We’re just not going to make a big deal.”
Hayes grins. “She’s going to notice immediately.”
Joe points at him. “You are not helping.”
Tate looks between them. “Am I in trouble?”
All three of them answer at once. “No.”
Joe crouches down, smoothing Tate’s hair gently over the bruise.
“You’re good,” he says softly.
But internally he is absolutely preparing a defense speech for when you walk through that door.
Joe has officially decided he is done pretending he has the energy to cook again.
The boys are sprawled across the living room floor, damp hair from the pool still curling at the edges. Tate is sitting upright now, a little quieter than usual, bruise on his forehead has bloomed into a faint purplish mark, not dramatic but noticeable if you’re looking.
Joe is definitely looking. He stands in the kitchen with his phone in hand, staring at the fridge like it might volunteer to make lunch.
“Grilled cheese?” Hayes suggests halfheartedly.
“You burned it last time,” Sawyer says.
“I did not burn it.”
“It was black.”
“It was... crispy.”
Joe rubs his temples.
“Okay,” he says finally. “New plan.”
They all look up.
“We’re ordering.”
Sawyer shoots up like he just won the lottery. “From the sandwich shop?”
“Yes.”
Hayes nods approvingly. “Smart.”
Joe arches a brow. “Thank you.”
Tate perks up slightly. “Can I get the turkey one?”
“The one with the cheese melted?” Joe asks.
Tate nods.
“Yeah,” Joe says. “You can.”
He places the order from the little sandwich shop five minutes away - the one you both love because they know your family by name at this point. It’s quick, no additional fires to put out.
While they wait, Hayes flips on the TV.
“Highlights,” he announces.
Joe doesn’t argue.
Within minutes, the living room is filled with the sound of a broadcast recap. Big hits, touchdowns, commentators’ voices layered over stadium noise.
Tate sits between Joe’s knees on the floor, leaning back into him. Hayes and Sawyer are on either side, arguing quietly about which throw was better.
“That one,” Sawyer insists, pointing at the screen. “That’s perfect.”
“He underthrew him,” Hayes counters.
“It still worked.”
“That’s not the point.”
Joe rests his chin lightly on the top of Tate’s head.
“You guys realize,” he says calmly, “half of those plays only work because of protection.”
Hayes glances back at him. “So you’re saying offensive line is more important?”
“I’m saying,” Joe replies, “it’s not just about the throw.”
Sawyer squints suspiciously. “You’re biased.”
Joe laughs softly. “Probably.”
The doorbell rings.
All three boys scramble up at once.
“I’ll get it,” Hayes says.
“No, I will,” Sawyer counters.
Joe stands, tired. “We’re all getting it.”
They crowd the front door like it’s Christmas morning as Joe grabs the bags, thanks the delivery guy, and ushers them back inside before they rip into everything in the doorway.
“Plates,” Joe orders automatically.
They actually listen.
Within minutes, they’re back on the floor, unwrapping sandwiches, paper crinkling, the room filled with the warm smell of toasted bread and melted cheese.
Tate eats slowly again, careful bites.
Joe watches him without meaning to.
“I’m okay,” Tate says quietly, not looking up.
Joe’s mouth curves faintly. “I know.”
Hayes bites into his sandwich and talks through it. “When Mom gets home, we should just act normal.”
Joe freezes.
Sawyer looks up. “We are normal.”
Hayes gestures vaguely toward Tate’s forehead. “I mean about that.”
Joe glares at him lightly. “It was an accident.”
Sawyer smirks. “You’re scared.”
“I am not scared.”
Hayes leans back dramatically. “You are so scared.”
Joe points at him. “Eat your sandwich.”
They do and it’s oddly peaceful. The highlights roll, they argue in lower volumes. Tate leans into Joe again, drowsy from his nap and the full morning.
Joe glances at the clock - you should be home soon.
He inhales slowly.
He has run two-minute drills in louder stadiums, has stood in front of reporters dissecting every mistake.
And yet- there’s something about you walking into the house and spotting a bruise on your four year old’s face that makes his pulse spike.
You expect chaos, already bracing for it as you pull into the driveway.
Your girls’ day ran long in the best way. Brunch turned into coffee, coffee turned into walking around shops and at some point you let yourself fully relax because Joe had insisted. He had that look in his eye when he told you he could handle it.
Still.
Three boys, all day, in the summer.
You unlock the door slowly, half-expecting to hear yelling before you even step inside.
But it’s… quiet. Not silent - there’s the hum of the TV and the low murmur of voices but no crying or shrieking, or thundering footsteps.
You step into the living room.
All four of them are on the floor - eating and watching football highlights.
Joe glances up first.
Relief flashes across his face so quickly you almost miss it.
“You’re back,” he says.
Hayes looks over his shoulder. “Hi, Mom.”
Sawyer waves his sandwich. “We didn’t burn anything.”
You blink. “That’s… promising.”
Before you can say anything else, Tate spots you.
He drops the last piece of his sandwich and bolts across the room.
“Mama!”
You laugh as he collides into you, arms wrapping tight around your waist.
“I missed you,” he mumbles into your shirt.
“I was gone for five minutes,” you tease softly, bending to scoop him up.
And then, you see it - the bruise. Your heart jumps into your throat instantly.
“Tate,” you say, pulling back to look at him. “What happened?”
Joe closes his eyes.
Hayes and Sawyer both point at the same time.
“Him.”
Joe opens one eye. “You two are unbelievable.”
You stare at Joe, alarm flashing.
“What happened?” you repeat, more urgent now.
“It was an accident,” Joe says quickly, already standing. “We were playing outside and he, uh, stepped forward when I pivoted. My elbow clipped him.”
“You elbowed him?” you demand.
“I didn’t... mean to.”
Hayes crosses his arms. “He didn’t look.”
Sawyer nods firmly. “He should’ve looked.”
Joe glares at them. “I said it was on me.”
You examine Tate’s forehead carefully, fingers gentle around the bruise.
“Does it hurt?” you ask softly.
Tate shrugs. “A little.”
You look up at Joe again.
He looks genuinely stressed. Not defensive or annoyed - stressed.
You exhale slowly.
“You know what I expected?” you say.
Joe braces.
“Broken bones, stitches. At least one ER trip.”
Joe blinks.
“What?”
You laugh suddenly. “It’s a bruise, Joe.”
He stares at you like you just handed him a lifeline.
“That’s it?” he asks cautiously.
“That’s it.”
Hayes frowns. “You’re not mad?”
You glance at them. “Were you playing?”
“Yes.”
“Was it an accident?”
They hesitate.
“Yes,” Sawyer admits.
“Then no, I’m not mad.”
Joe visibly deflates.
You shake your head, smiling now. “You should see the way they were looking at him.”
“They yelled at me,” Joe mutters.
“Good,” you reply easily. “That means they love him.”
Tate rests his head on your shoulder.
Joe steps closer, softer now.
“I iced it,” he says. “He napped. He’s okay.”
“I know,” you say.
There’s a small beat of quiet between you.
You catch his eye.
He really did try. You shift Tate to your hip and hold out your hands suddenly.
“Okay,” you say brightly. “More important things.”
Hayes squints. “What?”
You wiggle your fingers. “I got my nails done.”
All three boys immediately crowd you.
“What color?” Sawyer demands.
You hold them up dramatically.
Blue with tiny sparkles.
Hayes gasps. “No way.”
Sawyer grabs your wrist carefully, examining them like it’s a serious inspection.
“That’s the exact blue we said,” he says.
“With sparkles,” Hayes adds approvingly.
Tate touches one gently. “They’re shiny.”
You grin. “You guys asked for blue with sparkles. So I did blue with sparkles.”
Sawyer beams like he personally commissioned them.
“They’re cool,” Hayes says, nodding firmly.
Joe watches the whole thing, leaning against the couch.
You glance at him.
“What?” you ask.
He shakes his head slightly, smiling. “Nothing.”
The boys are still holding your hands, turning them in the light, debating which finger looks best.
“Ring finger,” Sawyer declares.
“Pinky,” Hayes counters.
Tate just keeps staring at the glitter.
You feel warm in that deep, steady way.
You were gone for a few hours and somehow, they’re all intact.
Eventually, you settle down on the floor with them while they finish eating. Joe hands you the last half of a sandwich without asking.
“You didn’t eat?” you ask.
“I did,” he says. “I just saved you some.”
You take a bite.
He watches you chew like he hasn’t seen you in days instead of hours.
You notice and raise an eyebrow slightly.
He leans closer, pressing one small kiss on your lips, soft and quick.
And then, almost immediately-
“Ew!”
“Gross!”
Hayes throws a pillow at Joe’s shoulder.
Sawyer covers Tate’s eyes dramatically.
“Stop,” Sawyer groans. “Why do you do that?”
Joe pulls back slowly, unfazed.
“How do you guys think you were made?” he asks casually.
There’s a pause.
All three boys stare at him, processing. Not fully understanding.
You burst out laughing and smack Joe’s chest lightly.
“Joseph.”
He grins.
“What?” he says innocently.
Hayes narrows his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” you say quickly, still laughing. “It means eat your sandwich.”
Sawyer looks deeply suspicious as Joe just leans back, finally relaxed.
You shake your head at him, smiling.
For someone who was terrified ten minutes ago, he looks pretty proud now. And despite the faint bruise, the grass stains, the crumpled sandwich wrappers, and the lingering smell of chlorine-
It doesn’t look like a war zone, it looks like summer. And your boys are alright.
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↳ thank you for reading all the way through, as always ♡
after some consideration, i realized i would absolutely not be able to get back into my sweet on you AU without a little rebuilding since i havent posted a fic since LAST YEAR, maybe a few blurbs here and there but its definitely been a while.
im a timeline girly, so i just wanna redo some things so its not as confusing as before (at least for me LOL). i wanna try and rebuild some things together, but build a nice foundation we can fall back on<3
so, per popular request, SWEET ON YOU IS BACK!
TIMELINE
2014 - BEGINNING OF THEM
friday night lights become your shared language. you in the stands wrapped in his hoodie. him scanning the bleachers before every snap just to find you. it’s never dramatic. it’s steady. it’s easy. it’s small town and forever-coded.
he tells you he wants more than this town. not in a leaving-you-behind way, in a i-want-the-world-but-i-want-you-in-it way. you believe him before he believes himself.
prom. graduation. graduation parties that blur into late-night drives down empty ohio roads. you promise each other nothing will change.
it does. but not in the way people expect.
2015–2018 - GROWING UP WITHOUT GROWING APART
college years, long drives, longer phone calls, facetime falling asleep together. when he transfers and bets on himself, you’re the only one who sees the fear underneath the confidence. you remind him who he is when doubt creeps in. he keeps a photo of you tucked in his locker. not because he’s sentimental (he is), but because you’re home.
people start whispering about his potential. nfl potential. he shrugs it off. you don’t. you see it forming.
you’re still a team. always a team.
2020 - ENGAGEMENT
the national championship is surreal. confetti falling. cameras flashing. him on top of the world but when he finds you in the chaos, it’s quiet.
championship ring in one hand, velvet ring box in the other. he says he built this life with you. that none of it makes sense without you. that he doesn’t want to win anything ever again if you’re not there to see it.
you say yes before he finishes the question.
MAY 2021 - WEDDING
you spend months planning something simple and meaningful. he doesn’t want spectacle. he wants vows that feel like the both of you. he starts calling you “my wife” long before you are. there’s something grounding about it like he’s choosing permanence in a career built on uncertainty.
you move into your first place together that actually feels like yours. not temporary. not borrowed. yours.
JUNE 2021 - HONEYMOON BABY
when you tell him, he goes quiet. just… overwhelmed in the best way. like something sacred just settled into his chest.
he kneels in front of you without even thinking about it. hands on your stomach like he can already feel a heartbeat. “we made this,” he whispers. like he’s in awe of you.
suddenly the future isn’t abstract. it’s tiny socks. nursery paint. him googling “how to be a good dad” in the middle of the afternoon. he’s softer than anyone expected.
EARLY APRIL 2022 - HAYES BURROW IS BORN
late spring again. full circle.
when hayes finally cries, joe does too. he holds him like he’s holding something breakable and eternal at the same time. like this is the real championship. like this is the ring that matters.
hayes burrow. tiny fingers curling around his dad’s.
suddenly joe burrow isn’t just the quarterback, not just the hometown kid who made it out, not just the champion.
he’s dad.
and when he looks at you across that hospital room, exhausted and glowing, it’s the same look from 2014 in the hallway.
still a team, just bigger now.
WHERE WE'RE AT NOW
MY THOUGHTS: i’m thinking long-term legacy. like this isn’t just a “joe with a baby on his hip” au. this is generational burrow lore. this is christmas cards with too many matching pajamas. this is cleats by the door and juice boxes in the fridge next to protein shakes.
i don’t want it to stop at hayes. hayes is the beginning not the whole story. i keep picturing joe as a real dad dad. carpool line, backyard football with uneven teams, three boys tackling him at once while he pretends he’s losing. i think at least three kids, maybe four. a big, slightly chaotic house that somehow still feels grounded because that’s just who he is.
i’m almost positive the first two are boys. i don’t even know why, it just feels right. hayes as the sensitive oldest who takes being “big brother” very seriously. then another little boy who’s a little wilder, a little more fearless, the one who climbs before he walks and gives joe heart attacks by age two. i love the idea of joe thriving in full boy dad mode. grass stains, wrestling in the living room, post-game press conferences where he’s got yogurt on his hoodie because someone hugged him five minutes before.
but the little girl. oh they both want her. i feel like they won’t even admit how badly at first. they’ll say “whatever we get, we’re happy” but deep down??? joe is absolutely imagining a tiny version of you with bows and big eyes who has him wrapped around her finger before she can even talk. i can’t decide if i want the girl to be baby number three (like third time’s the charm energy) or if i want to make them wait and lean into the “three boys first” chaos and then the final baby being their long-awaited daughter. there’s something kind of poetic about both, lmk ur thoughts pls.
if she’s third, it feels like that immediate softness. the house shifts a little. joe crying in the hospital because he finally has his girl. if she’s fourth, it’s almost sweeter in a different way like this tiny princess arriving after years of noise and cleats and brotherly chaos. the boys being insanely protective, joe acting like she personally hung the moon.
this au is less “football fairytale” and more “we built something bigger than football” like yeah, he wins games. yeah, he’s qb1 but the real arc is him coming home and immediately dropping to the floor because three kids are sprinting at him.
i want the house loud, i want family dinners that feel messy and sacred, i want joe being the steady center of it all.
okay that’s where my head’s at. send me baby name, tell me if we’re stopping at three or going full four-kid suburban chaos. i’m committing to sweet on you as a lifestyle not just a phase LMAO. send in your thoughts!!!
crashin' into him tonight, he's a paradox / i'm seeing visions / am i bad / or mad / or wise? ꩜ 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃⁸⁴ PART THREE
free palestine carrd 🇵🇸 decolonize palestine site 🇵🇸 how you can help palestine | FREE PALESTINE!
PLAYLIST (WILL BE UPDATED AS THE SERIES GOES ON) | PART ONE | PART TWO
𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 older brother’s best friend trope! you’ve known colston forever, or at least long enough to know he’s off-limits: your brother’s teammate, his roommate, the guy who shows up early and leaves last, who watches too closely and says too little. what starts as irritation turns into something unspoken, all sharp glances and loaded silences. boundaries blur, loyalties strain and once you notice the way he looks at you, there’s no pretending you don’t feel it too.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 angst, miscommunication, colston being detached, gaslighting (?), a LOT of internal monologue heavy, just overall a very heavy chapter!!
𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 10.5k
Morning arrives without its usual softness, the almost clinical gray of a day that refuses to acknowledge what happened the night before. The kind of morning that feels like it was designed specifically to expose bad decisions under sunlight.
Your head is pounding before your eyes even open.
There is a dryness in your mouth that tastes faintly of cheap liquor and sleep you didn’t really get and for a few blissful seconds you exist in that drifting state between dreaming and remembering. Your body is heavy, limbs sunk into the mattress, the world reduced to the dull throb behind your temples.
Then memory returns.
It crashes back in flashes, the unmistakable feeling of being pulled into something you absolutely should not have wanted but did.
The kiss replays not as a single image but as sensation: the firmness of his hand, the way your breath had caught in your throat, the dizzying realization of how easily the space between you had disappeared.
Your stomach flips.
You press your face deeper into the pillow as if that might physically muffle the recollection but it only sharpens everything. The details refuse to blur. The weight of it, the urgency, the lack of hesitation.
For a split second, you wonder if you dreamed it.
Hungover brains are unreliable narrators except your body remembers too clearly - there is still that ghostly awareness of his mouth, a phantom imprint that makes your chest tighten in a way entirely unrelated to dehydration. You squeeze your eyes shut, groaning softly into the sheets.
Somewhere beyond your door, the house is already awake.
You can hear movement: the distant clatter of dishes, the murmur of voices, a cabinet closing with more force than necessary. The sounds feel impossibly loud, the world is operating at full volume while your nervous system is stuck on fragile.
For a moment, you lie perfectly still, listening because another memory intrudes. Not of the kiss itself but of the aftermath - the way he’d pulled away, the way he’d left. The way neither of you had quite known how to act.
Maybe that was just you.
Your throat tightens and you push yourself upright, immediately regretting the decision as your head protests violently. The room tilts for half a second before stabilizing. Hungover gravity feels different, meaner somehow.
The digital clock beside your bed glows an accusatory late-morning time. 11:32AM.
You drag yourself toward the bathroom, moving with the slow precision of someone whose skull feels loosely attached. The mirror offers no mercy: smudged mascara faintly shadowed beneath your eyes, hair in disarray, the unmistakable look of someone who absolutely did not make good choices.
You stare at your reflection.
There is an odd, disorienting duality inside you. Embarrassment, yes. Confusion, definitely. But not regret.
That realization unsettles you more than anything else because regret would be easier. Cleaner and morally satisfying.
Instead, there is that humiliating truth pulsing beneath everything that you liked it. More than liked it, you had wanted it with a clarity that now feels almost incriminating. You look away from the mirror.
A shower helps only marginally. The water is hot, almost punishing, but your thoughts remain stubbornly intact, circling the same forbidden territory. By the time you pull on clothes and step into the hallway, your nerves feel stretched thin.
The kitchen is bright in the unforgiving way, sunlight slicing cleanly through the blinds. The smell of toasted bread and something vaguely greasy hangs in the air.
Tatum is seated at the table, entirely at ease, a plate of eggs and toast in front of him. Colston sits across from him. Your steps falter.
It’s not just surprise but the immediate, involuntary awareness that floods your system. Every memory from the night before condenses into a single, electric pulse the second you see him.
He looks maddeningly normal - hair slightly damp like he showered recently, posture relaxed, one forearm resting on the table.
Your stomach tightens.
Tatum looks up first, grinning. “Well, look who’s alive.” His voice is teasing, blissfully unaware of the psychological warfare occurring six feet away.
He gestures vaguely with his fork. “You look like death.”
“Good morning to you too,” you mutter, voice rougher than usual.
You move toward the table, acutely conscious of Colston without actually looking at him. Awareness hums in your peripheral vision, unavoidable.
“Rough night?” Tatum asks.
“Something like that.”
You finally risk a glance.
Colston is not looking at you, Not even close, attention is fixed somewhere over your shoulder, gaze deliberately neutral, jaw set in a way that reads not tense but closed.
Something hot and uncomfortable curls low in your chest - frustration.
You sit anyway and the chair feels colder than expected.
Tatum launches effortlessly into conversation, entirely unbothered by the strange density in the air.
“Dude, I swear, the bulk is finally working,” he says, leaning back slightly with visible satisfaction. “Tried on my jersey yesterday? Thing barely fits anymore.”
You nod vaguely, reaching for toast you don’t particularly want.
Colston continues not looking at you.
“I’m at like 230 now,” Tatum continues proudly. “Coach wants me at 240 before playoffs. Ten more pounds. That’s nothing.”
“Nothing,” Colston echoes.
His voice is even, normal which somehow makes everything worse.
Tatum keeps talking about conditioning, about lifting, about some minor locker room drama involving protein powder theft, words filling the kitchen with ease, the kind of morning conversation that usually fades into background noise.
Today, every second feels hyper-defined. You become painfully aware of Colston’s gaze patterns.
Everywhere but you. Counter. Window. Plate. Tatum, never you. It’s almost impressive in its precision.
You chew mechanically, irritation simmering beneath your hangover haze not because he owes you anything (you’re not delusional) but because the sheer artificiality of his detachment feels insulting.
Like he’s overcorrecting, pretending something didn’t fundamentally shift.
Tatum abruptly frowns, peering into the fridge.
“Are we seriously out of Red Bulls?”
Your head lifts. “What?”
“There were like six yesterday.”
Colston shrugs. “Not anymore.”
“Insane,” Tatum mutters, already walking toward the door. “I’m going to the store.”
“You don’t have to-”
“I absolutely do.”
He grabs his keys with urgency, still talking. “If I die at conditioning because of caffeine deprivation, it’s on both of you.”
The door slams behind him.
Silence descends instantly. Not peaceful silence, the charged kind.
You look at Colston.
He is already pushing his plate away, still not looking at you.
For a moment, you simply sit there, suspended between hesitation and compulsion. The memory of the night before presses insistently at the edges of your thoughts, demanding acknowledgment.
Finally, you speak. “Are we just not going to talk about it?”
Colston’s shoulders barely move.“There’s nothing to talk about.”
The response lands with a dull weight. You blink. “Nothing to talk about?”
He stands, collecting his plate. “You’re hungover. Eat your breakfast.”
Your irritation spikes. “That’s not what I meant.”
He moves toward the sink, still refuses eye contact. The deliberate nature of it begins to feel almost absurd.
“Colston.”
“What?” The word is clipped.
You push back your chair. “Can you at least... look at me?”
A beat of silence. Then, finally, his gaze lifts. And for half a second, everything inside you short-circuits.
Because the detachment isn’t indifference, it’s restraint. Something tight, unreadable flickers behind his eyes before vanishing just as quickly.
“You’re going to be late for work,” he says.
“That’s not the point.”
“It should be.”
You stare at him. “Why are you acting like this?”
He turns away first, which tells you everything and nothing simultaneously.
“I’m not acting like anything.”
“You’re barely acknowledging me!”
He exhales, like you’re exhausting. “Eat. Go to work. This doesn’t need to be a thing.”
A thing.
“This doesn’t need to be... a thing?”
“It was a mistake.”
The words hit harder than expected.
You swallow. “A mistake.”
“Yes.”
The answer comes too quickly.
You study him carefully now, hangover momentarily forgotten. There’s a rigidity to him that doesn’t align with his tone, a faint tension coiled beneath the surface.
“You don’t even sound like you believe that.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s because you’re overthinking.”
“Or because you’re lying.”
His gaze snaps back to you, irritation flashing. “Drop it.”
“No.”
The refusal surprises even you. Something stubborn and wounded has taken hold.
He steps closer. Lower voice, controlled. “Eat your breakfast. Get to work.”
“Why are you so desperate to shut this down?”
“Because it’s stupid.”
The word is harsh, disproportionately so.
Your chest tightens.
“You didn’t think it was stupid last night.”
Silence. For a moment, something raw and unguarded crosses his face then it’s gone.
“I’ll grab a Red Bull on the way to practice.”
The shift is abrupt, defensive. He reaches for his keys.
You stare at him in disbelief. “That’s seriously it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
He avoids your gaze again. “Yes.”
Anger flares now, hot. “Unbelievable.”
He pauses at the doorway. For a split second, you think he might turn back, might say something real.
He doesn’t.
“Get some water,” he says instead. “You look terrible.”
Then he leaves and the kitchen feels impossibly empty.
Sunday mornings at the coffee shop have a peculiar stillness to them. Not quite peaceful, not quite empty, just hovering in that quiet middle ground where time stretches thin and every small sound seems exaggerated.
The bell above the door barely rings.
You stand behind the counter, wiping down a surface that is already clean. There is nothing else to do which is dangerous because idle hands aren’t the problem, idle thoughts are.
The espresso machine hums softly, a low mechanical sound that usually fades into background noise. Today it feels like a metronome for your brain, each quiet vibration marking the passage of seconds you’d rather not be aware of.
You should be grateful for slow shifts. No rush or impatient customers. No frantic juggling of orders. Instead, the emptiness becomes a vacuum your mind rushes to fill.
You’ve already replayed the morning at least a dozen times. Not intentionally, it simply... happens.
The memory intrudes the way all unwanted memories do: casually, without warning, inserting itself between otherwise mundane tasks. One moment you’re aligning pastry labels, the next you’re back in the kitchen, staring at Colston as he refuses to look at you like you’re suddenly radioactive.
“It was a mistake.”
The words echo again. You press your lips together, dragging the rag across the counter with unnecessary force.
A mistake.
Such a small phrase for something that didn’t feel small at all.
That’s the part your brain keeps circling, unable to settle - the mismatch between experience and interpretation. Between what it felt like and how he framed it.
Because you remember it.
God, you remember it.
The intensity, urgency. The way the air had seemed to collapse between you. The way your entire nervous system had ignited in response to something that absolutely should not have felt that inevitable.
There had been nothing accidental about it. People don’t kiss like that by mistake.
Do they?
Your stomach tightens.
You move toward the register, then immediately away from it, restless energy buzzing beneath your skin. The shop is nearly empty, just one older man tucked into a corner with a newspaper and a drip coffee he’s been nursing for forty minutes.
No distractions, just you and your increasingly uncooperative thoughts.
The rational part of your brain attempts to intervene.
It was late. You were drunk. Emotions were heightened. Heat of the moment.
That’s a thing. That’s real, a perfectly logical explanation.
Except he wasn’t drunk. And the memory doesn’t feel blurred at the edges the way drunken mistakes usually do. It feels precise, deliberate in a way that refuses to comfortably slot into the “whoops, bad decision” category.
You lean back against the counter, arms folding loosely. If it truly meant nothing, why did it feel like everything shifted? Why did it feel like a line had been crossed with such terrifying ease?
And more importantly, people don’t get that defensive about things that genuinely don’t matter.
Right?
Or maybe they do. Maybe this is exactly how someone behaves when something actually is meaningless and the other party is just… overinvested. Reading into nothing, assigning depth where none exists.
The thought lands like a stone in your chest because there is a far more humiliating possibility lurking beneath all your defensive logic.
Maybe it was nothing.
Maybe you’re the one inflating it into significance because your brain latched onto a moment of heightened chemistry and decided it must be important.
Maybe Colston isn’t repressing anything, maybe he genuinely thinks it was a mistake.
And maybe the only person treating it like some seismic emotional event is... you.
Heat crawls up your neck.
You straighten abruptly, moving toward the espresso machine simply to have something to do with your hands. You adjust a portafilter that doesn’t need adjusting, hyper-aware of the ridiculousness of your own mental spiral.
This is insane. It was one kiss. One moment. People kiss all the time without it meaning anything monumental but your brain refuses to cooperate with that framing, stubbornly clinging to sensory memory like evidence in a trial.
The weight of his hand, the way your breath had vanished. The startling intensity of it.
Nothing about that had felt casual. Nothing about that had felt disposable.
The bell above the door rings softly.
You nearly jump.
“Afternoon,” Evan says.
His voice is grounding in its normalcy.
You turn, forcing something resembling a functional expression.
“Hey.”
He looks exactly as he always does. Tall, slightly lanky, blond hair hovering between styled and accidental. There is an easy warmth to him, an unthreatening presence that has never required emotional analysis.
Lucky him.
“Its empty,” he asks, glancing around.
“It’s Sunday.”
He slips behind the counter with practiced ease, already reaching for an apron. The simple ordinariness of the interaction feels almost surreal against the chaos in your brain.
You envy his mental peace.
For a few minutes, there is blessed distraction. Minor tasks, quiet banter, the familiar choreography of workplace routine. It helps, marginally. Your thoughts recede just enough to allow functional behavior.
Because even as you move through motions - grinding beans, restocking lids, half-listening to Evan ramble about some customer from yesterday, your brain continues its relentless background processing.
The memory doesn’t loosen its grip. Instead, it evolves.
What unsettles you most isn’t just the kiss itself anymore, it’s the aftermath. The whiplash-inducing contrast between that moment and Colston’s behavior this morning.
The coldness. The almost irritatingly clinical detachment.
As if he’d slammed a door not just on the conversation but on the entire reality of what happened. It makes you feel unmoored in a way you struggle to articulate because if he’d acted awkward, that would have been understandable. Human, symmetrical to your own confusion.
Instead, he’d acted like it was trivial. Like it barely registered, you were the one trying to turn nothing into something and that implication gnaws at you with increasing intensity.
By midday, the shop grows even quieter, the lull deepens. Your thoughts grow louder.
You start noticing ridiculous details. How many times you’ve checked your phone without reason, how often your brain drifts back to the same mental images, how your chest tightens every time you remember the exact cadence of his voice.
You hate this - the uncertainty, the ambiguity, the creeping sense of vulnerability that comes from not knowing which version of reality you’re actually operating inside.
Because if you’re wrong, if you’ve completely imagined the significance, the humiliation would be unbearable.
It would mean you projected an entire emotional framework onto something that never carried that weight for him at all. It would mean you built meaning out of thin air, the intensity you remember so vividly was one-sided.
Your stomach churns at the thought.
Work finally ends in the muted way Sunday shifts always do. No dramatic rush, no satisfying sense of completion, just the slow winding down of an already quiet day.
The walk home is cold.
Winter air bites at your cheeks, clarifying. Normally, the cool weather would feel invigorating. Today it only amplifies the hollow restlessness lodged beneath your ribs.
By the time you reach the house, your expectations have unconsciously solidified.
Colston will be there, he is always there. On the couch. In the kitchen. Somewhere. It’s practically a law of physics at this point: Colston orbiting Tatum’s space with the inevitability of gravity itself.
You open the door. Step inside and immediately feel something inside you drop.
Colston isn’t there.
The absence registers not as simple observation but as sensation. A strange disappointment that unfurls through your chest with unsettling speed.
The living room is occupied, just not by him.
Tatum sprawls across the couch, controller in hand, entirely absorbed. His new girlfriend, Becaa, sits beside him, legs tucked under herself, watching the TV with mild amusement.
The scene is aggressively normal, which somehow makes the missing element feel even more glaring.
“Hey,” Tatum says, not looking away from the screen.
“Hi.”
Your voice sounds oddly thin to your own ears.
Becca smiles politely. “Long shift?”
“Yeah.”
You hover awkwardly for half a second, eyes flicking instinctively around the room despite already knowing the answer.
Still, no Colston. Just empty space where he almost always is.
“Where’s Colston?” you ask, attempting casual.
Tatum shrugs. “His place, I think.”
The response lands with force.
His place.
You’ve always known that. It’s just never felt particularly relevant before, given how rarely he actually uses it.
A strange tightness grips your chest.
“Oh.”
Tatum continues talking, something about this weekends game, about practice, about absolutely nothing connected to the inexplicable heaviness settling inside you.
You nod vaguely.
Respond automatically. Then retreat to your room.
Door closed, silence intact.
And suddenly, without distraction or performance or the thin buffer of social interaction, the thought you’ve been avoiding all day finally lands with full, brutal clarity.
Maybe you imagined it.
Not the physical event itself, that undeniably happened but the significance. The meaning - the depth your brain insists on assigning.
Maybe Colston’s detachment isn’t repression or guilt or internal conflict. Maybe it’s honesty, it truly was just heat of the moment.
Or worse, maybe your brain is romanticizing the heat of it, inflating a single impulsive mistake into something narratively grand because you can’t emotionally tolerate the alternative.
The possibility hollows you out.
Because if that’s true, then the entire emotional storm raging inside you today has been built on a fundamentally flawed premise. It would mean the thing that has felt so destabilizing, so undeniably charged, so impossible to dismiss... was never actually real in the way that matters.
You sink onto the bed, staring blankly at nothing.
And for the first time all day, the doubt doesn’t feel abstract or hypothetical.
It feels terrifyingly real.
You arrive at the tailgate already tired in a way sleep cannot fix, the kind of exhaustion that lives behind your eyes and hums quietly beneath your skin. Days had passed in second-guessing and circular thoughts, of replaying a single night until its edges soften and its certainty begins to rot. By now you are functioning on habit alone - muscle memory guiding you through mornings, through work shifts, through classes.
Even getting ready today felt theatrical, like dressing a mannequin instead of yourself. You stood in front of your mirror longer than necessary, not out of vanity but indecision, fingers hovering over sweaters and jackets as if fabric alone might dictate how this day unfolds.
It is cold enough that your breath ghosts faintly in the air when you step out of your friend’s car. The parking lot or what used to be a parking lot has transformed into tents pitched in uneven rows.
Everything smells like charcoal and cheap beer and something fried. The noise hits first, a layered roar of voices and bass and distant chanting that vibrates through your ribs. Under any other circumstances you might have found it energizing, infectious even. Today it only magnifies the restless unease already coiled inside you.
You tell yourself, firmly, that you will not look for him.
The resolution lasts maybe three seconds.
Your eyes betray you instantly, scanning without permission, darting across clusters of people as if guided by some humiliating instinct you cannot override. It’s automatic now, this searching.
Not even hopeful, not even deliberate, just reflexive. You hate that about yourself, the quiet desperation of wondering whether he is already here, whether he might appear suddenly at your periphery like he always does.
Your friends are talking, their voices bright with the easy excitement of game day. One of them presses a drink into your hand, condensation already slick against your fingers. You nod at the appropriate moments, laugh when it seems expected but your awareness is fragmented. You exist only partially in the conversation, your attention continually slipping outward, drifting over shoulders and between bodies.
You tell yourself you’re just taking everything in.
You know you’re lying.
Because beneath the noise and movement and color, there is a single, persistent thought threading through you: Is he here?
And then - there he is.
You don’t notice him gradually. There is no slow recognition, no gentle dawning. One moment your gaze is unfocused, skimming aimlessly, the next it collides with something solid and the world narrows with precision. It is as if every surrounding sound collapses inward, as if the crowd itself dissolves, leaving only a single frame burned into your vision.
Colston.
Standing near one of the larger tents, posture relaxed, shoulders loose in that effortless way that has always irritated you for reasons you never fully articulated but it is not merely his presence that detonates something inside you.
It is the girl beside him.
She is tucked neatly against his side, close enough to erase any ambiguity. Not clinging or exaggerated which somehow makes it worse. His arm rests around her shoulders with an ease that speaks of comfort. He leans down slightly as she says something, head tilted to catch her words over the noise, and then he smiles.
That smile. The soft, unguarded, real one.
The reaction is immediate.
It is not a clean emotion. Not simple jealousy, not straightforward hurt. It is something far more destabilizing - a sickening cocktail of humiliation and disbelief and a sudden, blistering anger directed entirely inward.
Your stomach drops with such force it feels physical, a nauseating lurch that steals the air from your lungs. Heat floods your face despite the cold, as if your body has chosen this exact moment to betray you publicly.
For a few stunned seconds, your brain refuses to process what your eyes are plainly showing you.
Because this makes no sense. How dare he look so normal, so unaffected?
You stare, transfixed, every microscopic detail etching itself into your awareness with cruel clarity. The way his fingers curl loosely around her upper arm. The way she angles toward him, laughing at something you cant hear. The casual intimacy of it all, so natural, so unforced, so devastatingly ordinary.
Ordinary.
That is what destroys you.
If he were behaving theatrically, you might have dismissed it as performance, as some deliberate attempt to provoke. But there is no spectacle here, no bravado. Only quiet ease, the unmistakable language of two people who are... comfortable together.
Your grip tightens around the drink in your hand. You aren’t even aware you’re doing it until the plastic bends slightly beneath your fingers. Thoughts begin to crash into one another, jagged and incoherent.
Of course he’s with someone.
Why wouldn’t he be? What did you actually expect?
The memory of Tatum’s voice surfaces with brutal timing, echoing through your skull as if summoned specifically to deepen the wound. Tatum, half-teasing and half-serious, issuing warnings you brushed aside with performative indifference.
He was right. God, he was right.
An embarrassment floods your chest because layered atop the hurt is something even more unbearable: the dawning realization of how foolish you must look, how naive, how catastrophically misread everything.
Across the crowd, Colston shifts slightly, and for a single moment his eyes lift.
They meet yours.
The contact is instantaneous and devastating.
Distance evaporates, noise vanishes, you see the precise second recognition flickers across his face, a subtle but unmistakable change. His smile falters, posture stiffens, something unsettled, almost stricken, flashes through his expression.
But you are in no state to interpret nuance.
All you see is him. With her. Looking at you. And whatever fragile composure you were clinging to fractures completely.
A violent surge of emotion rips through you with dizzying force. It is anger and grief and wounded pride tangled into something unmanageable. Your heart begins to pound, an erratic rhythm that drowns out coherent thought.
You look away first.
Suddenly the space feels hostile, the air too thin, the crowd oppressive. Laughter becomes grating. Music becomes noise. The whole scene, which moments ago was just merely overwhelming, now feels intolerable. Your skin prickles with the irrational certainty that everyone can see inside your head, that your humiliation is somehow visible, radiating outward like heat.
You murmur something to your friends and begin to move.
Walking quickly, guided only by the desperate need for enclosure, for somewhere with walls and a door and no witnesses. The image refuses to loosen its grip on your mind - his arm around her, his easy smile, the devastating normalcy of it all.
By the time you reach the bathroom, your vision is already blurring.
The door swings shut behind you with an echoing thud, and the relative quiet is almost disorienting. For a suspended moment you simply stand there, breathing unevenly, hands trembling faintly at your sides.
Then the first sob tears free, violent and humiliating in its intensity.
Your composure collapses as if a structural beam has been ripped from beneath it. Emotion surges upward with force, weeks of confusion and insecurity and suppressed panic detonating all at once. You double over slightly, a strangled sound clawing its way from your throat, your body reacting before your mind can intervene.
Tears spill hot and relentless, blurring the world into a smeared wash of light and color.
You barely recognize yourself in this state. This unraveling thing gasping for breath in a public bathroom. The grief feels grotesquely disproportionate, embarrassingly adolescent. A mortifying thought cuts through the haze - this is ridiculous.
You are not fifteen, not some teenager crying over an unrequited crush.
And yet the pain is ferocious, impossible to intellectualize away.
Because it is not merely about him standing with another girl. It is about what that image seems to confirm.
That you imagined everything, that you inflated a fleeting moment into something meaningful.
The idea lands with annihilating force.
A fresh wave of sobs racks through you, your shoulders shaking, your hands bracing helplessly against the cold porcelain of the sink. Mascara that was applied carefully this morning with precision now begins to streak, black sliding down your cheeks in ugly, uneven lines. You watch it happen dimly, detached and horrified, as though observing someone else’s breakdown.
He made you feel insane. That thought pulses through you.
Not deliberately, perhaps. Not maliciously. Days of distance, of cool detachment, of that infuriatingly calm dismissal - Eat your breakfast. Get to work - have eroded your certainty until even your own memories feel suspect.
Maybe it was nothing, it meant nothing. Maybe you are the only one who assigned it weight.
The possibility is unbearable.
You press your palm against your lips, as if trying to physically ground yourself, to tether your spiraling thoughts to something tangible.
But the image persists.
His arm. Her smile. That devastating, effortless ease.
Somewhere beyond the bathroom walls, the tailgate continues in oblivious celebration. The world is indifferent, barrels forward and beneath the sobbing, beneath the humiliation, beneath the spiraling doubt, one terrible conviction settles with suffocating certainty:
You were stupid to think it was ever anything else.
Colston hadn’t wanted to come to the tailgate.
That was the part no one would have believed, because this was supposed to be his natural habitat. He moved through environments like this with practiced ease, accustomed to it.
Today the energy only scraped against something already frayed inside him. The morning had begun with tension that clung to him through workouts, through meetings, through every idle moment his mind was allowed to wander.
Which, lately, was dangerous.
The girl beside him is exactly the kind of girl who should make this easier.
That’s what he keeps telling himself, anyway.
She is warm, easy to talk to, her laugh quick and unselfconscious. Pretty in a way that draws attention, the sort of presence Colston has always gravitated toward because it requires so little effort, because it slots neatly into the life he understands - frictionless and safe.
Tatum had been the one to orchestrate it, half-grinning, half-insistent, clapping a heavy hand against Colston’s shoulder earlier in the week.
“She’s your type, man. Trust me.”
Trust me.
The irony of it sits like a stone in Colston’s chest.
Tatum has always been the one person Colston trusts without reservation. From the first brutal days of freshman camp, they had locked into one another’s lives with startling speed. A friendship forged through repetition and proximity and the strange intimacy of football itself. Tatum, loud and unfiltered and relentlessly loyal. Tatum, who had become less like a teammate and more like a constant, a fixed point Colston’s world seemed to orbit.
Tatum, whose sister is standing somewhere in this crowd.
Off limits.
And yet, the memory arrives unbidden, vivid and destabilizing.
The party. The argument. The reckless collision of impulse and restraint snapping like a wire pulled too tight. Your face inches from his, eyes flashing with something furious and alive. The sharp cadence of your voice. The heat of it, the way every thought in Colston’s head had dissolved into something singular.
Then your mouth on his.
It hadn’t felt casual.
That is the part he cannot outrun, no matter how aggressively he tries to rationalize it. He has replayed the moment with forensic precision, searching for some evidence that it was nothing more than circumstance, nothing more than adrenaline and proximity. But the truth remains stubborn.
He likes you.
Not in the shallow, passing way attraction usually operates in his life, where interest flares briefly before settling into indifference. This feels different, unnervingly so. It isn’t merely about the way you look, though he would be lying to himself if he pretended that isn’t part of it. It’s the way you occupy space. The way you talk, never intimidated by him. The way your presence seems to rearrange his attention without effort. A pull that feels embarrassingly adolescent, wildly inconvenient, and unwelcome.
Because of all the people, of all the possible girls... God made it Tatum’s sister.
The girl beside him is saying something now, her voice nearly swallowed by the layered noise of the tailgate. Colston nods automatically, his arm resting across her shoulders with mechanical familiarity. The gesture is easy, habitual. From the outside, they must look comfortable, natural even.
Inside Colston’s head, however, there is only static.
Ignore, ignore, ignore.
That has been the strategy. The only one he knows. Distance as damage control, coldness as self-preservation. If he starves the thing of attention, it will die. If he refuses to feed the impulse, it will dissolve. He has clung to the logic with determination, convinced that detachment is not only necessary but righteous.
It was reckless, it would destroy Tatum.
You would move on. He would move on.
Simple.
Except reality has proven far less cooperative.
Ignoring you has not quieted anything.
If anything, it has intensified the awareness, sharpening every accidental glimpse into something destabilizing. Breakfast tables where he can feel your presence without looking. Rooms that seem to tighten when you enter.
He hasn’t allowed himself to consider how any of this might feel from your side.
Colston shifts slightly, scanning the crowd with distraction and then it happens.
Eye contact.
Across the sea of bodies and tents and movement, his gaze collides with yours with such force it feels like a physical impact. Recognition detonates instantly. Time compresses.
Your face.
That is what seizes him.
There is no mistaking the sequence of emotions that flicker across your expression. Surprise, then something else - something that lands with sickening clarity.
The effect on Colston is immediate.
His stomach drops, a wave of nausea surges upward with dizzying speed, his body reacting before thought can intervene. The arm around the girl beside him suddenly feels misplaced. Heat floods his chest, a suffocating pressure that steals the air from his lungs.
Because that look, that is not annoyance or indifference.
That is hurt. The realization slices through him with brutally.
The kiss mattered to you, not as some meaningless collision. Not as a moment easily filed away and forgotten.
It mattered.
And he - in his frantic, self justifying attempt to contain the situation - has managed to wound you without ever fully acknowledging the possibility.
Across the crowd, you look away. Then you’re moving. Not dramatically, theatrically storming off.
Just leaving, which somehow feels worse.
Colston’s entire body tenses, a panicked alertness snapping into place. His eyes track you automatically, fixation overriding everything else.
All focus locks onto the shrinking figure cutting through the crowd.
You disappear with speed, swallowed by movement and bodies and color. One moment visible, the next simply gone. The absence hits Colston like a sudden vacuum, disorienting and deeply unsettling.
Gone.
His pulse begins to accelerate, an erratic, intrusive rhythm thundering in his ears.
Space, he tells himself.
Maybe you just need space. The last thing you need is him chasing after you.
The logic is thin, immediately undermined by something far more primal. Because intertwined with the guilt is a spreading, irrational dread.
What if you’re not okay? The thought lodges instantly.
Colston’s gaze snaps across the tailgate with frantic urgency. He scans faces, bodies, movement, as though you might reappear if he simply looks hard enough. The crowd, moments ago merely background noise, now feels hostile in its density, its refusal to yield what he is searching for.
He checks the drinks table.
Nothing.
The nearby tents.
Nothing.
The edges of the lot, where people drift in loose clusters.
Nothing.
The girl beside him shifts, sensing his sudden distraction. “Everything okay?”
Colston startles slightly, as if pulled abruptly from underwater. For a fraction of a second he simply stares at her, her presence registering with a strange dissonance. She looks concerned, her hand still resting lightly against his side.
Irrelevant. The thought is immediate and jarring in its cruelty.
Not because she has done anything wrong, but because his entire internal landscape has narrowed violently to a single absence.
“I... yeah,” he says, the word emerging strained, unconvincing. “I’ve got to go dress out. Coach… you know.”
It is a flimsy excuse, transparently procedural. She nods, accepting it without suspicion, offering a small smile that only deepens Colston’s discomfort.
He is already moving before the interaction fully concludes.
Locker room time is approaching, he should be heading inside. Instead, he veers back into the crowd.
The decision is not rational. It is impulse, anxiety overriding structure. A restless urgency that vibrates through his limbs, propelling him forward with distracted intensity.
You cannot have vanished, not in a space this contained.
Colston weaves through bodies with growing agitation, his eyes darting restlessly. Every glimpse of a similar jacket, a similar silhouette, triggers a spike of hope that collapses just as quickly.
He checks the perimeter again.
The parking lot. Nothing.
A knot of unease tightens viciously in his chest. This is ridiculous, a distant part of his mind insists. You’re fine, you just walked away.
But the memory of your expression refuses to loosen its grip. The image replays with brutal persistence, each iteration intensifying the sickening churn in his stomach.
He did this.
Not deliberately or maliciously. But the outcome feels inescapably his.
Colston glances toward the stadium entrance. Players are beginning to funnel inward, the slow gravitational pull of pregame routine asserting itself. He knows that he is running out of time. That deviation now carries consequences beyond his own spiraling thoughts.
And yet, he cannot redirect himself.
Because beneath the guilt, beneath the anxiety, something else is swelling rapidly.
Panic. Find her, explain.
Fix, though he has no idea what that would even mean.
All he knows is the unbearable wrongness of leaving things suspended like this, of allowing that look on your face to be the last point of contact.
Behind him, the tailgate continues in oblivious celebration. Ahead of him, the stadium looms, indifferent. Distance was supposed to make this easier. Instead, it has detonated something he no longer understands how to contain.
He finds you just as the bathroom door swings shut behind you.
For a second, the hallway barely exists. The noise from outside, all of it fades into something distant and shapeless. The only thing that feels painfully clear, is the look on Colston’s face when he sees you and the way his expression immediately changes.
You hadn’t planned on running into him here. Hadn’t planned on anything, really. The bathroom trip had been an act of desperation, a frantic attempt to pull yourself together after realizing you were very publicly coming apart. You’d stood in front of the mirror for several minutes too long, trying to salvage your reflection with trembling hands and cheap paper towels, trying to undo evidence that refused to be undone.
Your makeup is still smudged.
You know it is without needing another mirror. You can feel it, the faint stiffness beneath your eyes, the tightness of skin that’s been rubbed at too harshly. Your eyes burn, swollen, your head aching faintly from the effort of crying as quietly as possible in a public bathroom stall like someone half your age.
Humiliation still clings to you like static.
And now he’s standing directly in front of you.
Colston’s movement stops so abruptly it’s almost jarring. His entire body stills, like something has physically arrested him mid-step, his eyes locking onto your face with an intensity that makes your stomach twist.
His gaze flicks once. Twice, taking you in.
The guilt that flashes across his features is unmistakable, so naked it almost makes your chest tighten. His jaw shifts, shoulders tense. Something dark and sickeningly familiar flickers behind his eyes.
You don’t give him the opportunity to say anything, just try to walk past him.
The instinct is automatic, fueled by a volatile mixture of pride and self-preservation. If you stop, if you acknowledge him, if you allow even a single second of whatever conversation he’s about to attempt, you’re not entirely sure you won’t either start screaming or burst into fresh, mortifying tears right here in the middle of a stadium hallway.
You refuse to give him that.
He steps into your path.
“Hey-”
“Move.”
Your voice comes out sharper than you expect, scraped raw from crying, stripped of anything resembling patience.
Colston blinks, visibly thrown by the coldness of it. “Can we just-”
“No.”
You don’t slow down.
You angle around him, shoulders tight, gaze fixed straight ahead. The air feels too thin, your pulse still erratic, fury simmering dangerously close to the surface. You can feel him pivot behind you, hear the quick shift of his footsteps as he falls into step beside you.
“Wait,” he says quickly. “Just, can you slow down for a second?”
“Leave me alone.”
The words land flat but your chest is heaving, tension vibrating through every syllable.
“I’m sorry.”
That makes you laugh.
It’s a humorless sound, torn straight from the wreckage of your composure. “Oh my God.”
“I’m serious,” he insists, his voice already threaded with something strained, something bordering on frantic. “I didn’t mean for-”
“For what?” you snap, finally turning your head just enough to glare at him. Your vision blurs slightly from the force of it, anger flaring hot and vicious in your chest. “For me to see you draped all over some girl like nothing happened?”
He visibly flinches.
Good.
“That’s not-”
“Save it.”
You pick up speed.
The hallway stretches endlessly ahead, concrete and passing strangers who thankfully pay you no attention. Your thoughts are loud and chaotic, humiliation looping relentlessly in your mind. The image of him at the tailgate flashes behind your eyes like something burned into your retinas.
You feel sick all over again.
“You don’t understand,” he says, desperation creeping into his tone. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you!”
“I don’t care what you were trying to do!”
“I thought distance was the right move.”
That stops you.
Your body halts so abruptly the motion almost jars your spine, sneakers squeaking faintly against the concrete floor. Colston nearly collides with you, catching himself at the last second.
You turn slowly.
“Distance,” you repeat, staring at him in open disbelief.
He looks wrecked. Hair slightly disheveled from repeatedly dragging his hands through it, chest rising and falling just a little too fast but none of that softens the violent spike of anger ripping through you.
“You call this distance?”
Colston runs a hand through his hair again, frustration flickering across his face. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” you shoot back. “Maybe not act like I’m insane for thinking that meant something?”
The words land like a slap.
Because there it is. The thing that’s been festering beneath your humiliation, beneath the jealousy, beneath the days of spiraling confusion and self-doubt.
He opens his mouth. “I never said you were insane.”
“You didn’t have to.”
You turn again, walking.
Your movements feel jagged, fueled by adrenaline and hurt and something dangerously close to heartbreak. Your arm still aches faintly from where you’d hugged yourself in the bathroom stall, trying to physically contain the violent emotional implosion that had overtaken you like a wave.
“I was trying to do the right thing,” he says, voice tight. “For Tatum. For you.”
“Don’t you dare,” you snap, spinning toward him again, eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare pretend this was about me.”
His jaw tightens. “How is it not?”
“You don’t get to freeze me out and then play the martyr when I react like a human being.”
You start walking again.
“Can you just stop for two seconds?” he demands, frustration finally bleeding through.
“No.”
“Jesus Christ.”
His hand closes around your arm.
The grip is sudden and firm, fingers wrapping tightly around your sleeve as he pulls you backward. The force of it catches you off guard, your balance faltering slightly as you stumble half a step.
“Let go of me,” your voice is sharp, dangerous.
Colston barely seems to hear you.
His expression is wild with conflicting emotion - guilt, panic, something hot and unstable flickering beneath the surface. His grip tightens as he speaks, words tumbling out in a rush.
“I didn’t bring her to hurt you.”
You stare at him.
Fury and disbelief detonate simultaneously in your chest. “You think that makes this better?”
“I was trying to move on.”
The words feel like a punch to the sternum.
Your expression cracks, not softening but fracturing with rage. “Move on? From what?”
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he leans in to kiss you.
The movement is abrupt, reckless, driven by impulse rather than anything remotely gentle or romantic. His free hand comes up toward your face, his body angling forward with unmistakable intent.
You shove him hard.
Your palm slams flat against his chest, the force sending him half a step backward. His grip breaks instantly, your arm snapping free as you glare at him, breath ragged, eyes burning.
“You don’t get to do that,” you snap, emotion finally spilling through the cracks. “You don’t get to jerk me around like this.”
“I’m not!”
“Yes, you are!” Your voice ricochets through the hallway.
“You don’t get to kiss me like that, then act like it meant nothing, then grab me like I’m just supposed to melt every time you decide you want me again.”
Colston’s chest heaves.
“I never said it meant nothing.”
Tears sting your eyes again, rage and humiliation bleeding together into something unbearable.
“You can’t keep doing this,” you say, voice shaking.
Silence.
Footsteps echo, neither of you notices at first.
“You’re making me feel insane,” you whisper, devastation threading through the anger. “I hate you for it.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he says hoarsely.
“Well, congratulations, you did.”
“Colston!”
The voice slices through everything.
You both freeze.
Tatum is striding down the hallway, irritation written plainly across his face, movements brisk with pregame urgency. He slows as he approaches, eyes flicking between the two of you.
Something shifts in his expression because even without hearing a single word, the tension is impossible to miss.
“Dude,” he says, tone casual but edged with urgency. “What the hell are you doing? Coach is going to lose his mind.”
“I was just-”
“Locker room. Now.”
Then his gaze shifts to you.
Concern flickers instantly. “You okay?”
You don’t hesitate. “Yeah. I think that corndog wrecked me.”
Tatum’s face scrunches. “Seriously?”
“I threw up.”
He grimaces sympathetically. “Jesus. That’s brutal. You look like you were crying.”
“I was throwing up,” you reply flatly. “Not exactly glamorous.”
Tatum snorts softly. “Fair enough.”
He claps a hand onto Colston’s shoulder. “Move. If you’re not dressed out, he’s going to bench you out of spite.”
Then back to you. “You good to head home?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“I’m fine, Tatum.”
Tatum doesn’t hear the words but he isn’t completely oblivious.
For half a second, a strange, unfamiliar thought flickers through his mind. Not suspicion exactly, nothing that fully forms into something he can name, just an uneasy sense that something feels… off.
His sister’s posture rigid, Colston’s expression uncharacteristically disordered. But the moment passes almost as quickly as it arrives, overridden by the far more immediate concern of pregame logistics, of coaches and schedules and the comfortable assumption that whatever this is, it can’t possibly be anything worth interrogating.
Tatum turns, already herding Colston toward the stadium.
“Seriously, man,” he mutters. “What were you even doing out here?”
Colston doesn’t answer.
Behind them, you walk in the opposite direction, shoulders tight, face carefully composed, disappearing into the crowd.
And for the first time all day, Colston feels something far worse than guilt. He feels the unmistakable, creeping dread that something fundamental has begun to crack.
The stadium is deafening once the game actually starts, a living, breathing thing made of noise and light and movement. The kind of environment Colston usually thrives in.
Tonight, it does the opposite. From the very first snap, something feels wrong.
It isn’t obvious to the crowd. Not at first. To everyone else, it’s just another Saturday night game, another blur of pads colliding and whistles shrieking and commentators filling the air with polished excitement. But inside Colston’s helmet, inside the tight, suffocating cage of his own thoughts, nothing is landing the way it should.
The play call comes in.
He hears it, processes it and then, somehow it just doesn’t stick.
He lines up slightly off. Not egregiously, not enough to draw a flag, but wrong in that maddening way that throws off spacing. His stance feels unnatural, weight distributed poorly, muscles tight for reasons that have nothing to do with the defense in front of him.
The ball is snapped.
He hesitates, barely a beat but a beat is everything.
The defensive end shoots inside faster than expected, disrupting the edge. The run play collapses almost immediately, the running back forced to cut into traffic, swallowed by bodies for a minimal gain.
Colston jogs back to the huddle, jaw tight, disoriented.
That never happens.
Across the line, Tatum is already looking at him. Not angry, just confused.
“You good?” Tatum mutters as they reset, voice low beneath the roar of the stadium.
Colston nods automatically. “Yeah.”
Even as he answers, even as he tries to shake it off, there’s a persistent awareness gnawing at the back of his mind.
You’re not here.
He doesn’t know where you’re sitting, if you’re sitting, if you even stayed. The thought keeps forcing itself into his head between plays, unwanted. He tries to focus on the next call, the next assignment, but his brain keeps stuttering back to the hallway, to your face, to the way your eyes had looked swollen and furious and-
Whistle, snap, motion.
He misses the timing on his release.
Instead of exploding cleanly off the line, he’s half a step late, allowing the linebacker to jam him harder than he should. The contact throws him off balance, route depth compromised, quarterback forced to look elsewhere.
Incomplete pass.
Colston slaps his gloves together as he jogs back, frustration already simmering.
Lock in.
It’s a command he’s lived by for years. A switch he’s always been able to flip without effort. No matter the circumstances. No matter the distractions. He’s played through brutal breakups, through nights with barely any sleep, through family stress and physical pain that would’ve sidelined most people.
Nothing ever bleeds into the game.
Nothing.
Until now.
Next drive, next opportunity.
The play is simple, something Colston could execute half-asleep. The snap comes, and for a split second his mind flickers again, unhelpfully, violently.
Did you go home?
Are you still upset?
Why did you look at him like-
Impact. He’s driven backward.
Not pancaked, not embarrassed, but beaten enough that the defender sheds him quicker than expected, collapsing the lane. The quarterback barely escapes a sack, forced to scramble for a negligible gain.
Tatum’s head snaps toward him immediately.
“What the fuck was that?” Tatum barks as they regroup, irritation now unmistakable.
Colston rips his helmet off briefly on the sideline, running a hand through damp hair. “He got inside.”
“No shit he got inside,” Tatum snaps. “You let him.”
Colston doesn’t respond because Tatum isn’t wrong, and that’s the most infuriating part.
On the bench, the coach crouches in front of him, eyes narrowed. “Eyes up, Loveland. Your leverage is garbage right now.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Colston clenches his jaw.
Out on the field, the commentators’ voices float through the broadcast, smooth and detached.
“…Loveland usually so reliable in the blocking game…”
Back in the game, tries to reset.
Forces himself through the mental checklist, the familiar scaffolding of discipline he’s always relied on. For a few plays, it almost works. A clean route. A decent block. Nothing spectacular, nothing disastrous.
But the instability never fully leaves, just lurks.
A constant hum beneath everything then comes the drop.
The ball spirals toward him on a crossing route, perfectly catchable, the kind of pass he’s secured thousands of times. His hands come up, body positioned correctly, eyes tracking-
And at the last possible second, his concentration fractures.
The ball clangs off his gloves and tumbles helplessly to the turf.
A collective groan ripples through the stadium.
Colston freezes for half a heartbeat, staring at the ground in disbelief before jogging back, heat flooding his face beneath the helmet.
That never, ever happens.
On defense, Tatum is visibly losing patience.
Between series, he stomps toward Colston, still breathing hard, eyes blazing with irritation.
“Lock the fuck in.”
Colston bristles instantly. “I am locked in.”
“Bullshit,” Tatum fires back. “You’re playing like you’re half asleep.”
Colston’s temper flickers, sharp and defensive. “I said I’m fine.”
“Then play like it.”
Tatum doesn’t wait for a response, already turning back toward his unit as coaches shout adjustments and the crowd roars.
But the words stick because Colston knows. He’s not fine.
And worse, he doesn’t understand why.
The game speeds up.
Momentum shifts, mistakes compound.
A missed block here. A slightly wrong depth there. Nothing catastrophic in isolation, but together they paint an unmistakable picture of a player operating far below his usual standard.
Coach finally explodes.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he screams after another sloppy rep, headset askew, face red with fury. “That is basic shit, Loveland!”
Colston stares back, chest heaving.
“I know the play.”
“Then execute it!”
“I am!”
“You’re absolutely not!”
Helmet back on, back into the noise.
But now the frustration is layered with something uglier - a gnawing, unfamiliar panic, thoughts spiraling violently between snaps.
You leaving.
Your voice in the hallway.
You’re making me feel insane.
The words echo mercilessly, shredding whatever focus he tries to rebuild.
The whistle shrieks.
Colston barely makes it to the sideline before the head coach is in his face, fury barely contained.
“Sit down.”
The word lands like a physical blow.
Colston blinks. “Coach-”
“Now.”
“I can fix it.”
“You’ve had three quarters to fix it.”
Coach’s voice is razor sharp, eyes blazing.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on with you tonight, but you are a liability right now.”
The word rings in Colston’s ears.
Liability.
“You’re done for this series.”
Colston’s stomach drops violently.
“That’s bullshit,” he mutters under his breath, adrenaline and humiliation surging.
The coach wheels on him instantly.
“Excuse me?”
Colston clamps his mouth shut.
Arguing never helps, because this never happens.
He collapses onto the bench, ripping his helmet off, chest tight with disbelief and rage. The stadium continues roaring, utterly indifferent to his internal implosion.
Nothing ever affects his game.
Nothing.
Yet here he is.
Benched, mind racing. Pulse erratic.
Unable to escape the brutal, suffocating awareness that none of this is about football.
Across the field, Tatum watches everything and unease begins creeping in, slow and insistent.
Because Colston doesn’t play like this.
Doesn’t lose composure, doesn’t get rattled.
Something is wrong, deeply wrong.
Between defensive snaps, Tatum keeps glancing toward the bench, irritation gradually morphing into something more unsettled. By the time he jogs off after a long drive, sweat-soaked and breathing hard, he heads straight for Colston instead of the usual cluster of teammates.
“What is going on with you?”
Colston barely looks up. “Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Tatum stares at him. “This isn’t like you.”
Colston’s jaw tightens. “I know.”
And that is what disturbs Tatum.
Colston sounds just as confused as he looks. And as the game roars on around them, tension unresolved and questions unasked, the unease only deepens.
The locker room is dead silent when Colston walks in.
Not the normal kind of quiet either. Not the exhausted hum that usually follows a hard-fought game. This is heavy. Cleats scraping against tile, lockers slamming shut a little too hard, the air thick with sweat and disappointment and something close to dread.
Michigan lost by one touchdown.
One.
Which means every mistake feels magnified, every blown rep suddenly unforgivable.
Colston barely makes it three steps past the doorway before-
“Loveland!”
Coach’s voice detonates across the room.
Every conversation dies instantly. Heads turn. A few guys wince under their breath because they already know how this is about to go.
Colston stops, slowly turns.
Coach is already storming toward him, face flushed, jaw tight with barely contained rage.
“What the hell was that out there?”
Colston’s shoulders stiffen. “Coach-”
“No. Don’t ‘coach’ me right now.” The words are clipped, vicious. “You were a disaster tonight.”
The entire room feels like it’s holding its breath.
Colston’s pulse spikes immediately, humiliation and frustration colliding violently in his chest. He’s still buzzing from the game, adrenaline refusing to settle, nerves scraped raw.
“I know I didn’t play well.”
“Didn’t play well?” Coach barks out a humorless laugh. “We lost by one touchdown, and you’re over here missing blocks, dropping balls, blowing assignments like you’ve never seen a playbook before.”
Colston’s jaw tightens.
He can’t even argue. Coach steps closer, voice rising, echoing off the cinderblock walls.
“You’re supposed to be a leader on this offense.”
“I am.”
“Not tonight you weren’t.”
The words land hard. Public, deliberately so.
Colston feels heat crawling up his neck, that familiar defensive instinct kicking in, pride bristling under the weight of being called out in front of everyone.
“I said I know.”
“Well it didn’t look like you knew shit out there!”
Something snaps. Colston yanks his helmet off and hurls it at the floor.
The crack of plastic against tile explodes through the room, loud enough that a few guys physically flinch.
“Jesus Christ,” someone mutters under their breath.
Coach’s face darkens instantly. “Oh, you’re frustrated?” he shouts. “You think you’re the only one frustrated?”
Colston’s chest is heaving now, hands flexing uselessly at his sides, anger simmering dangerously close to the surface.
“I’m not saying that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Coach is fully yelling now, voice raw, the kind of volume that rattles through bone. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you checked out of this game!”
“I did not check out!”
“Then explain it!”
“I don’t have an explanation!”
The admission rips out of him, honest and edged with something close to desperation.
Coach stares at him.
“You don’t have an explanation for playing the worst game of your season, maybe your whole career?”
Colston doesn’t answer. Because he can’t exactly say: my head was wrecked over something that shouldn’t matter on the field.
The silence only fuels the fire.
Coach steps forward again, finger stabbing toward Colston’s chest. “That kind of performance costs teams games.”
Colston’s temper flares. “I know that!”
“Clearly you don’t!”
The tension is suffocating now, players frozen in place, eyes flicking nervously between them. Nobody wants to get involved in a head coach blowup.
Nobody except-
“Coach.” Tatum’s voice cuts in, firmly. He’s already moving, stepping between them without hesitation, broad frame inserting itself directly into the line of fire.
Coach barely acknowledges him, still locked onto Colston.
“Move, Tatum.”
“With all due respect, coach, everyone’s heated right now.”
“I have every right to be heated.”
“No one’s saying you don’t.”
Tatum’s tone is calm but solid, the careful diplomacy of someone who knows exactly how volatile this situation is.
“But screaming at him like this isn’t going to change what happened.”
For a split second, it looks like Coach might explode again.
Colston, still vibrating with adrenaline and anger, just stares. Underneath the chaos, underneath the lingering sting of the loss, something twists uncomfortably in his chest.
Because Tatum didn’t hesitate, didn’t even think.
Just stepped in front of the blast radius like it was instinct. Which makes the irritation creep in almost immediately after.
Because Tatum doesn’t know the full picture. Doesn’t know what Colston did. Doesn’t know that his unwavering, ride-or-die loyalty is pointed at someone who absolutely does not deserve it.
Coach exhales sharply, running a hand over his face, rage slowly cooling into something bitter and exhausted.
Finally.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters.
Then louder, to the room: “We beat ourselves tonight.”
No one argues because he’s right.
Coach shoots Colston one last hard look before turning away. “We’ll address this in film.”
Just like that, the storm moves on, coaches dispersing, conversations slowly creeping back in low murmurs.
The locker room breathes again.
Tatum turns to Colston immediately. “You good?”
Colston scoffs, still tense, still wired. “Yeah. Fantastic night.”
Tatum ignores the sarcasm, dropping onto the bench beside him.
Colston huffs out a dry laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.” Tatum nudges his shoulder lightly. “One rough night doesn’t erase who you are.”
Colston stares at the floor, jaw tight.
“You didn’t suddenly forget how to play football.”
“Tell that to coach.”
“Coach is pissed because we lost not because you’re trash.”
Colston snorts faintly.
Tatum continues, voice quieter now, grounded. “This isn’t going to affect your stock.”
Colston’s head snaps slightly. “That’s not the point.”
“I know it’s not.”
A beat.
“But you need to hear it anyway.”
Colston doesn’t speak.
Tatum leans back, stretching his sore legs, completely at ease in that way only he can be.
“You’re still you.”
Still you. Still a first-round talent. Still a problem for defenses.
Still-
Tatum glances at him again, softer this time. “I still love you, man.”
Colston blinks, caught off guard.
Tatum shrugs like it’s obvious. “You’re my brother.”
The words land with unexpected force.
And for the first time all night, something inside Colston loosens. Just slightly. The relentless pressure in his chest easing under the weight of that easy, unquestioning loyalty.
Brother.
He exhales slowly, tension bleeding from his shoulders.
“…yeah.”
The relief is brief.
Because almost immediately, like a cruel reflex, the memory slams back into him.
The secret, betrayal. The thing Tatum doesn’t know.
The warmth of that loyalty suddenly curdles into something unbearable.
Colston looks away, throat tight, guilt creeping in like poison.
Because Tatum is sitting here, offering reassurance, offering love, offering brotherhood without hesitation.
And Colston knows, with sickening clarity-
He doesn’t deserve a single ounce of it.
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